Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

General Butler was disappointed in his expectation of Democratic support in the country at large. He had thereafter no rest in politics for the sole of his foot. The remainder of his life was spent in speculation and manufacturing enterprises.

I repeat what I said of General Butler in his lifetime, when he was at the height of his power, with a full knowledge of his vindictive character, that the success of his attempt to use and consolidate the political forces of Massachusetts would have been the corruption of her youth, the destruction of everything valuable in her character, and the establishment at the mouth of the Charles River of another New York with its frauds, Tweed rings and scandals.

General Butler made an earnest effort to get the Republican nomination for Governor in 1871. He had built up what was called a Butler party, in which he had had the aid of the National Administration, and of all persons whom he could either seduce by hope of reward or terrify by fear of his vengeance. It was not a question in considering candidacy for office with him whether the man had rendered honest service in civil or in military life, whether he was a man of honor or of good or bad character, but only whether he was a Butler man. He conducted his own campaign for Governor in 1871 and again in 1873. In the former he summoned his adherents to the State Convention, issuing a circular in which he advised them to bring three days' rations in the expectation of a long and angry struggle.

I was invited by the State Central Committee to preside at the Convention of 1871. It was quite likely that the Convention might break up in disorder and the result would be two factions, each claiming to be the regular Republican organization. I told the gentlemen of the State Central Committee, who communicated to me their desire, that I would do it on condition that there should be provided one hundred skilled and trustworthy police officers who would obey my orders, and, if it became necessary, would remove from the hall General Butler or any other person who should defy the authority of the Convention. This the committee promised to do. This promise was in substance kept. The gentleman who made it as the organ of the State Central Committee had himself been for many years a sheriff of the County of Worcester, and had been a General in the Civil War, and was a man of large capacity for handling disorderly assemblies. He came to me afterward and said that in a hall like Mechanics Hall a well-disciplined force of not more than fifty men would be better for the purpose of keeping order than a more numerous one, and he had taken the liberty of departing from our agreement to that extent. To this I assented.

When I went to the Hall that morning in taking leave of my wife I told her that the chances were that I should come home the most disgraced man in Massachusetts. If General Butler succeeded in breaking up the Convention in disorder the blame would be laid upon the presiding officer.

But we got through safely. General Butler had calculated that his opponents, who were divided among several candidates, could not agree upon any one. But such an agreement was effected upon William B. Washburn. His plan then, I supposed, was to find some excuse for breaking up the Convention under circumstances which would enable him to claim to President Grant that he represented the regular Republican organization and that his opponents were the bolters. My duty on the other hand was so to conduct the Convention that there should be no pretext on his part for such a course. The Convention was in continuous session from 11 o'clock in the forenoon until half-past one next morning. There were several contests in which Butler conducted the case on his own side. But his opponents held together and nominated William B. Washburn. With the exception of the National Convention of 1880, at which I also presided, this was the most difficult duty in the way of presiding over a deliberative assembly which ever fell upon any person in this country so far as I know.

In the year 1873 General Butler made another attempt to get the Republican nomination for Governor. A meeting was called at Hamilton Hall, in Boston, of a few persons opposed to his candidacy, which resulted in an address to the people recommending the reelection of Mr. Washburn. I signed the address of which I wrote a few sentences. Judge Hoar made a bright and characteristic speech in which he said that "the people of Massachusetts would not yield the office of Governor to a Tichborne claimant, whether with or without a bond." This name, "the Claimant," stuck to Butler for the rest of his life.

In 1871 my opposition to General Butler and support of Governor Washburn was well known. I announced my preference for the latter in a letter to the Springfield Republican. This did not occasion any personal quarrel with Butler, although our relations were never cordial. But in 1873 he was very angry with the persons who signed the address in favor of the renomination of Governor Washburn. He wrote a letter to the people of Massachusetts in which he angrily attacked many persons in the Republican party whom he believed to be his opponents. Among them he bitterly attacked me. He sent a copy of this letter in the form of a broadside to every newspaper in Massachusetts, I believe, and had it folded into every copy of the paper. I instantly replied, setting forth as well as I could the character and quality of General Butler and the nature of his influence upon the youth of the Commonwealth. The letter contained the following sentences:

"When General Butler proposed to pay off our national debt in irredeemable paper, General Grant silenced him with the ringing sentence in his inaugural, 'Let it be understood that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place,' because he knew that he was trying to tempt this people to escape from a burden by a mean and base act.

"He has quarrelled with Grant and Wilson, and Colfax and Blaine, and Andrew, and Sumner, and the Washburnes, and Bingham, and Schenck, and Dawes, because he is quarrelsome. They have been compelled, each in his own way, to chastise and punish him because he deserved to be whipped.