It has been my fortune to be a delegate from Massachusetts in four National Conventions for the nomination of President and Vice-President—those of 1876, 1880, 1884 and 1888. In the first I was a delegate from the Worcester district, which I then represented in Congress. In the other three I was at the head of the delegation at large. I presided over that of 1880.
The history of these conventions is of great interest. It shows the rudeness of the mechanism by which the Chief Executive of this country is selected, and what apparently slight and trivial matters frequently determine the choice. As is well known, the framers of the Constitution, after considering very seriously the question of entrusting the power of choosing the President to the Senate, determined to commit that function to electoral colleges, chosen in the several States in such manner as their legislatures should determine, all the electors to give their votes on the same day. It is generally stated that the President and Vice-President cannot be from the same State. That is not true. The Constitutional provision is that electors in their respective States shall vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves.
It was intended that the choice of the President should not be a direct act of the people. It was to be committed to the discretion of men selected for patriotism, wisdom and sobriety, and removed as far as might be from all the excitements of popular passion.
The Constitution further provides that no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. It was undoubtedly the chief object of this last provision to prevent the perpetuation of power in the same hands, or under the same influences, by removing the choice of President wholly from the control of persons wielding National authority. In a considerable measure this purpose has been defeated. The elector, in practice, is a mere agent or scribe. He records and executes the will of the nominating convention of the party to which he belongs, in which the real power of selection is in fact lodged. In these conventions members of Congress, and holders of National office, take frequently an active and influential share. It is remarkable, however, how often the nominating conventions have discarded the candidates who were favored by the holders of executive office or the two Houses of Congress. And where such candidates have been nominated by the convention of either party, they have often been defeated at the polls. General Harrison, in 1840, was nominated instead of Webster or Clay, who were the leaders of the Whig Party, and doubtless the favorites at Washington. In 1844, when Mr. Clay received the Whig nomination, he was defeated by Mr. Polk, who had, I suppose, hardly been heard of as a candidate in political circles at the Capital. In 1848 the popular feeling again compelled the nomination of a candidate, General Taylor, over the favorite leaders at the Capital. In 1852 Fillmore and Webster were both rejected by the Whigs for General Scott, and General Pierce was summoned from private life for the Democratic nomination. In 1860 Seward was rejected for Lincoln. And in 1876 Hayes, whose National service had consisted of but one term in the House of Representatives, was chosen as the result of a contest in which Blaine, Conkling, Morton and Bristow, distinguished National statesmen, were the defeated competitors. So, in 1880, Garfield, who had not been much thought of in official circles, was selected as the result of a mighty struggle in which Grant and Blaine were the principal champions, and in which Edmunds and Sherman, who had long been prominent in the Senate, were also candidates.
Republican National Conventions since the War of the Rebellion have been embarrassed by another influence, which I hope will disappear. In many of the Southern States the Democratic Party consists almost entirely of whites who have possessed themselves of the forces of government by criminal processes, which have been a reproach not only to this country, but to civilization itself. The Republicans, however numerous, and although having a majority of lawful voters in most of these States, have been excluded from political power. They have however, of course, had their full proportionate representation in the National Convention of the Republican Party. Their delegates have too often been persons who had no hope for political advancement in their own States, and without the ambition to commend themselves to public favor by honorable public service, of which that hope is the parent. They have been, therefore, frequently either National office-holders who may reasonably be supposed to be under the influence of the existing Administration, or likely to be governed by a hope of receiving a National office as a reward for their action in the convention; or persons who can be influenced in their actions by money. This Southern contingent has been in several of our National Conventions an uncertain and an untrustworthy force.
The Republican nominating convention of 1876 was held at Cincinnati on June 14. The delegates from Massachusetts were:
At Large.—E. R. Hoar, Richard H. Dana, Jr., Paul A. Chadbourne, John M. Forbes.
From Districts.—William T. Davis, Robert T. Davis, John
E. Sandford, Edward L. Pierce, Henry D. Hyde, J. Felt Osgood,
Alpheus Hardy, C. R. McLean, James M. Shute, James F. Dwinal,
George B. Loring, Henry Carter, William A. Russell, C. H.
Waters, James Freeman Clarke, James Russell Lowell, A. J.
Bartholomew, George F. Hoar, James F. Moore, William Whiting,
Edward Learned, S. R. Phillips.
The struggle for the nomination equalled in bitterness and in importance many of the contests between different political parties that had preceded it. While the great majority of the Republicans retained confidence in the personal integrity and patriotism of President Grant, it had become painfully manifest that he was often an easy victim to the influence of unscrupulous and designing men. Grant never lost his hold upon the hearts of the Northern people. Wherever there was a contest in any State for political supremacy the least worthy faction frequently got his ear and his confidence. He never wavered in his attachment to the doctrines of his party— protection, sound principles of finance and currency, honesty in elections. But the old political leaders, whom the people most trusted, were more and more strangers to his presence, and ambitious and designing men, adventurers who had gone South to make fortunes by holding office, men interested in jobs and contracts, thronged the ante-chambers of the White House. The political scandals, always likely to follow a great war, seemed to be increasing rather than diminishing during his second term of office.
I never though that the proper way to put an end to this state of things was to abandon what I deem sound political principles, or to abandon the party that was formed to establish them. I should as soon have thought of turning Tory because of like complaints in the Revolutionary War, or of asking George III. to take us into favor again because of like scandals which existed during the Administrations of Washington and John Adams. But I thought, in common with many others, that a party of sound principles could be made and should be made a party of pure politics.