A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3

by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

The platform neither approved nor criticised the President's Southern policy, but expressed the hope that the exercise of his constitutional discretion to protect a State government against domestic violence would result in peace, tranquillity, and justice. Civil service reform was more artfully presented. It favoured fit men, fixed tenure, fair compensation, faithful performance of duty, frugality in the number of employés, freedom of political action, and no political assessments. Moreover, it commended Hayes's declaration in his letter of acceptance that "the officer should be secure in his tenure so long as his personal character remained untarnished and the performance of his duty satisfactory," and recommended "as worthy of consideration, legislation making officers secure in a limited fixed tenure and subject to removal only as officers under State laws are removed in this State on charges to be openly preferred and adjudged."[812] This paralleled the President's reform except as to freedom of political action, and in support of that provision it arrayed a profoundly impressive statement, showing by statistics that Hayes's order, if applied to all State, county, and town officials in New York, would exclude from political action one voter out of every eight and one-half. If this practical illustration exhibited the weakness of the President's order it also anticipated what the country afterwards recognised, that true reform must rest upon competitive examination for which the Act of March 3, 1871 opened the way, and which President Hayes had directed for certain positions.

But despite the platform's good points, George William Curtis, construing its failure to endorse the Administration into censure of the President, quickly offered a resolution declaring Hayes's title to the presidency as clear and perfect as that of George Washington, and commending his efforts in the permanent pacification of the South and for the correction of abuses in the civil service.[813] Curtis had never sought political advantage for personal purposes. The day he drifted away from a clerkship in a business firm and landed among the philosophers of Brook Farm he became an idealist, whom a German university and years of leisure travel easily strengthened. So fixed was his belief of moral responsibility that he preferred, after his unfortunate connection with Putnam's Magazine, to lose his whole fortune and drudge patiently for sixteen years to pay a debt of $60,000 rather than invoke the law and escape legal liability. He was an Abolitionist when abolitionism meant martyrdom; he became a Republican when others continued Whigs; and he stood for Lincoln and emancipation in the months of dreadful discouragement preceding Sheridan's victories in the Shenandoah. He was likewise a civil service reformer long in advance of a public belief, or any belief at all, that the custom of changing non-political officers on merely political grounds impaired the efficiency of the public service, lowered the standard of political contests, and brought reproach upon the government and the people. It is not surprising, therefore, that he stood for a President who sought to re-establish a reform that had broken down under Grant, and although the effort rested upon an Executive order, without the permanency of law, he believed that any attempt to inaugurate a new system should have the undivided support of the party which had demanded it in convention and had elected a President pledged to establish it. Moreover, the President had offered Curtis his choice of the chief missions, expecting him to choose the English. Remembering Irving in Spain, Bancroft in Germany, Motley in England, and Marsh in Italy, it was a great temptation. But Curtis, appreciating his "civic duty," remained at home, and now took this occasion to voice his support of the Executive who had honoured him.[814]

His speech, pitched in an exalted key, sparkled with patriotic utterances and eloquent periods, with an occasional keen allusion to Conkling. He skilfully contrasted the majority's demand for harmony with Platt's reference to Evarts as a "demagogue" and to civil service reform as a "nauseating shibboleth." He declared it would shake the confidence of the country in the party if, after announcing its principles, it failed to commend the agent who was carrying them out. Approval of details was unnecessary. Republicans did not endorse Lincoln's methods, but they upheld him until the great work of the martyr was done. In the same spirit they ought to support President Hayes, who, in obedience to many State and two or three National conventions, had taken up the war against abuses of the civil service. If the convention did not concur in all his acts, it should show the Democratic party that Republicans know what they want and the man by whom to secure such results.

In speaking of abuses in the civil service he told the story of Lincoln looking under the bed before retiring to see if a distinguished senator was waiting to get an office,[815] referred to the efforts of Federal officials to defeat his own election to the convention, and declared that the President, by his order, intended that a delegate like himself, having only one vote, should not meet another with one hundred votes in his pocket obtained by means of political patronage. Instead of the order invading one's rights it was intended to restore them to the great body of the Republicans of New York, who now "refuse to enter a convention to be met—not by brains, not always by mere intelligence, not always by convictions, or by representative men, but by the forms of power which federal patriots assume." He did "not believe any eminent Republican, however high his ambition, however sore his discontent, hoped to carry the Republican party of the United States against Rutherford B. Hayes. Aye, sir, no such Republican, unless intoxicated with the flattery of parasites, or blinded by his own ambition." He spoke of Conkling's interest in public affairs as beginning contemporaneously with his own, of their work side by side in 1867, and of their sustaining a Republican President without agreement in the details of his policy, and he closed with the prayer that they might yet see the Republican party fulfilling the hope of true men everywhere, who look to it for honesty, for reform, and for pacification.[816]

Conkling had been waiting for Curtis as the American fleet waited for the Spanish at Santiago. Curtis had adorned the centre of opposition until he seemed most to desire what would most disappoint Conkling. For months prior to the Cincinnati convention Harper's Weekly bristled with reasons that in its opinion unfitted the Senator for President, and advertised to the country the desire at least of a large minority of the party in New York to be rid of him. With consummate skill he unfolded Conkling's record, and emphasised his defence of the questionable acts that led to a deep distrust of Republican tendencies. To him the question was not whether a National convention could be persuaded to adopt the Senator as its candidate, but whether, "being one of the leaders that had imperilled the party, it was the true policy for those who patriotically desired Republican success." Furthermore, Curtis had a habit of asking questions. "With what great measure of statesmanship is his name conspicuously identified?"[817] and, as if this admitted of no reply, he followed it with more specific inquiries demanding to know "why the Senator had led a successful opposition to Judge Hoar for the Supreme Bench," and become "the ardent supporter of Caleb Cushing for chief justice, and of Alexander Shepherd for commissioner of the District of Columbia?" These interrogatories seemed to separate him from statesmen of high degree and to place him among associates for whom upright citizens should have little respect.

Nor was this all. The part Greeley took at Chicago to defeat Seward, Curtis played at Cincinnati to defeat Conkling. He declared him the especial representative of methods which the best sentiment of the party repudiated, and asserted that his nomination would chill enthusiasm, convince men of the hopelessness of reform within the party, and lose the vote indispensable for the election of the Republican candidate. If his words were parliamentary, they were not less offensive. Once only did he strike below the belt. In the event of the Senator's nomination he said "a searching light would be turned upon Mr. Conkling's professional relations to causes in which he was opposed to attorneys virtually named by himself, before judges whose selection was due to his favour."[818]

This thrust penetrated the realm of personal integrity, a characteristic in which Conkling took great pride. Perhaps the hostile insinuation attracted more attention because it prompted the public, already familiar with the occult influences that persuaded Tweed's judges, to ask why men who become United States judges upon the request of a political boss should not be tempted into favourable decisions for the benefactor who practises in their courts? Curtis implied that something of the kind had happened in Conkling's professional career. Disappointment at Cincinnati may have made the presidential candidate sore, but this innuendo rankled, and when he rose to oppose Curtis's resolution his powerful frame seemed in a thrill of delight as he began the speech which had been laboriously wrought out in the stillness of his study.

The contrast in the appearance of the two speakers was most striking. Curtis, short, compact, punctilious in attire, and exquisitely cultured, with a soft, musical voice, was capable of the noblest tenderness. Conkling, tall, erect, muscular, was the very embodiment of physical vigour, while his large, well-poised head, his strong nose, handsome eyes, well-cut mouth, and prominent chin, were expressive of the utmost resolution. The two men also differed as much in mind as in appearance. Curtis stood for all the force and feeling that make for liberal progressive principles; Conkling, the product of a war age, of masterly audacity and inflexible determination, represented the conservative impulse, with a cynical indifference to criticism and opposition.