CHAPTER XXXII
JOHN KELLY ELECTS CORNELL
1879
If threatened danger had bred an artificial harmony among the Republican factions of the State in 1878, the presence of a real peril, growing out of the control of both branches of Congress by the Democrats, tended to bring them closer together in 1879. During a special session of the Forty-sixth Congress the Democratic majority had sought, by a political rider attached to the army appropriation bill, to repeal objectionable election laws, which provided among other things for the appointment of supervisors and deputy marshals at congressional elections. This law had materially lessened cheating in New York City, and no one doubted that its repeal would be followed in 1880 by scenes similar to those which had disgraced the metropolis prior to its enactment in 1870.
But the attempt to get rid of the objectionable Act by a rider on a supply bill meant more than repeal. It implied a threat. In effect the Democrats declared that if the Executive did not yield his veto power to a bare majority, the needed appropriations for carrying on the government would be stopped. This practically amounted to revolution, and the debate that followed reawakened bitter partisan and sectional animosities. "Suppose in a separate bill," said Conkling, "the majority had, in advance of appropriations, repealed the national bank act and the resumption act, and had declared that unless the Executive surrendered his convictions and yielded up his approval of the repealing act, no appropriations should be made; would the separation of the bills have palliated or condoned the revolutionary purpose? When it is intended that, unless another species of legislation is agreed to, the money of the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used to maintain their government, the threat is revolution and its execution is treasonable." Then he gave the mortal stab. Of the ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these "revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. It is a contrivance to clutch the national government. That we believe; that I believe."[879] The President, by advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the desperate tactics invoked by the majority, added to Northern indignation.
It was a losing battle to the Democrats. The longer they insisted the more the Southern brigadiers were held up to public scorn as if they had again betrayed their country, and when, finally, the appropriation bills were passed without riders, it left Republicans more firmly united than at the beginning of the Hayes administration.[880]
Two months later the Republican State convention, held at Saratoga (September 3), evidenced this union.[881] Every distinguished Republican of the State was present save Thurlow Weed, whose feebleness kept him at home. Conkling presided. With fine humour, George William Curtis, the sound of whose flute-like voice brought a burst of applause, asked that the crowded aisles be cleared that he might see the chairman. Conkling's speech excited close attention. It was freer and more vivid because of more human interest than his address of the year before, and his appeal for harmony, his denunciation of revolutionary methods in Congress, and his demand that freedmen be protected in their rights, brought strenuous, purposeful applause from determined men. The principles thus felicitously and rhetorically stated formed the basis of the platform, which pledged the party anew to national supremacy, equal rights, free elections, and honest money. It also thanked the President for his recent attitude.
Nevertheless, a disposition to contest the strength of the organisation and its methods boldly asserted itself. For months Cornell had been Conkling's candidate for governor. A searching canvass, extended into all sections of the State and penetrating the secrets of men, had been noiselessly and ceaselessly carried on. Indeed, a more inquisitorial pursuit had never before been attempted, since the slightest chance, the merest accident, might result, as it did in 1876, in defeating Cornell.
So much depended upon the control of the temporary organisation that the anti-Conkling forces begged the Vice-President to stand for temporary chairman. They could easily unite upon him, and the belief obtained that he could defeat the Senator. But Wheeler, a mild and amiable gentleman, whose honours had come without personal contests, was timid and unyielding.[882] What the opposition needed was a real State leader. It had within its ranks brilliant editors,[883] excellent lawyers, and with few exceptions the best speakers in the party, but since Fenton lost control of the organisation no man had arisen capable of crossing swords with its great chieftain.