The Life of Lyman Trumbull

by Horace White

In the state constitution, adopted in 1865, disfranchisement and test oaths abounded. In the succeeding four years there had been a gradual slackening of recrimination and intestine strife; and a line of cleavage broke in the Republican ranks in 1869 which resulted in the election of General Carl Schurz as United States Senator, on the issue of reënfranchisement of the ex-rebels. The leader of the "party of eternal hate," as it was styled by its opponents, was Charles D. Drake, his colleague in the Senate. The seat taken by Schurz was that formerly held by John B. Henderson, who had lost it by his vote against impeachment.

Schurz was a torch-bearer wherever he went, and his entry into the Senate gave a new impetus to the party of peace and amnesty not only in his own state, but throughout the country. In the autumn of 1870 a battle royal was fought in Missouri, beginning in the Republican state convention, which was split on the issue of reënfranchisement. The Liberals, under the lead of Schurz, nominated a full state ticket with B. Gratz Brown for governor. The radicals nominated Joseph McClurg for governor and a full ticket. The Democrats made no nominations, but supported the Liberal nominees. The election resulted in a sweeping victory for the Liberals. The platform on which Brown was chosen declared that the time had come "for removing all disqualifications from the disfranchised people of Missouri and conferring equal political rights and privileges on all classes." The other platform favored reënfranchisement "as soon as it could be done with safety to the state."

Both sections adopted a resolution saying: "We are opposed to any system of taxation which will tend to the creation of monopolies and benefit one industry at the expense of another." This was interpreted by the Missouri Democrat, the leading Republican newspaper of the state, as an anti-tariff deliverance. Its editor, Colonel William M. Grosvenor, was a party organizer of keen intelligence and tireless activity, as effective in his own field as Schurz was in his. He was a free-trader, and he gave the first impulse which brought the revenue reformers of that period as a distinctive element into the Liberal movement. The only organization then existing which offered any resistance to the demands of the protected classes was the New York Free-Trade League, of which Mahlon Sands was secretary. On the 10th of November, Sands sent out an invitation to persons whom he took to be like-minded with himself, including Carl Schurz, David A. Wells, Jacob D. Cox, William Cullen Bryant, E. L. Godkin, Charles F. Adams, Jr., General Brinkerhoff, Edward Atkinson, and others to a conference to be held in New York on the 22d of that month. The declared object of this meeting was "to determine whether an effort may not, with advantage, be made to control the new House of Representatives by a union of Western Revenue Reform Republicans with Democrats." The meeting took place at the date mentioned and received the following notice in the Nation of December 1:

There has been a good deal of activity among the Revenue reformers during the week. On the 23d ult. they held a private meeting in this city, which was attended by Mr. D. A. Wells, Mr. George Walker, Mr. Horace White, of the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Bowles, of the Springfield Republican, and others, and at which, after a good deal of talk, the conclusion was reached that things were looking very well; that the legislative debates of the coming winter would, under the influence of the late elections, probably do a great deal to educate the public and prepare the monopolists and jobbers for what is certainly coming; and that the question of civil service reform was closely connected with that of the reform of the revenue, and ought to be discussed and pushed with it; and it was resolved finally to charge a committee with the work of looking after the interest of both in a general way during the winter, with power to make arrangements for the calling of a national convention in the spring, in case the course of Congress proved unsatisfactory. The usual distribution of "British gold" did not take place, it must be confessed to the regret of all present. Indeed, the desire for it, and as much of it as possible, was avowed with the greatest effrontery. The open display of such feelings at a reform meeting was a curious sign of the times. Why the British should have cut off the supply was not explained, but we presume they were unable to withstand the repeated exposures in the Tribune, which have doubtless made Minister Thornton wince a little.

The Speaker of the House, James G. Blaine, got wind of the Sands circular and sought an interview with myself, coming to Chicago for that purpose. He said that he recognized the drift of public sentiment on the tariff question, that he desired to avert anything like a split in the Republican ranks, and that he intended to give the tariff reformers a majority of the Committee on Ways and Means in the new Congress. He submitted that they could not gain more than that by a fight, and that it was the part of wisdom to be satisfied with that. He said that he would allow us to name two Republican members who, in conjunction with the Democrats, would constitute a majority. I reported this fact to the members of the New York Conference and it was agreed that no other steps should be taken in reference to the organization of the House. G. A. Finkelnburg, of Missouri, and H. C. Burchard, of Illinois, were selected as our preference for membership of the committee. The names were communicated to Blaine and they were appointed by him. He even went beyond his promise by prompting his friends on the floor to favor tariff reform. Eugene Hale, of Maine, was especially zealous in this behalf. He introduced a bill to make salt free of duty, and accepted an amendment putting coal in the same category and advocated it with earnestness and ability and carried it through the House, but it was strangled in the Senate. Dawes, of Massachusetts, a protectionist, was made chairman, but the majority of the committee was against him. Protection, at that time, meant the highest rate of duty on imports that anybody desired, and free trade meant any opposition to protection as thus interpreted. These definitions are not wholly obsolete at the present day.

In the eyes of President Grant the Liberal movement in Missouri was something in the nature of a new rebellion, and most of the Republican politicians shared his views. The necessity of keeping the party in power by fair means or foul had become a kind of religious tenet. The spectre of a solid South and a divided North had been terrifying from the start. What would happen if the example of Missouri should overspread all of the reconstructed states? Seymour had carried New York and New Jersey in the last election. The solid South added to these would have made him President of the United States. No wonder that such Senators as Morton, Chandler, Conkling, and the Southern carpet-baggers, at the opening of Congress in December, 1870, gave a chilling reception to all who had taken part in the Liberal campaign of Missouri, or who sympathized with it. Anything in the nature of investigation of frauds, or of reform in the civil service, was frowned upon by them. All who favored such steps were accused of seeking to split the party and build a new one upon its ruins. This was a false accusation. The Administration could have averted the coming revolt by removing its causes. The Nation of December 8, 1870, said with truth:

What has been taken for a desire or design to found a new party has been simply a design to make the old party attend to the proper business of the party in power, by legislating for the necessities of the time. There is a strong disposition on the part of the old hacks not to do this, but to go on infusing "economy and efficiency in the collection of the revenue," and nothing would please them better than that those who are not satisfied with this should take themselves off and try to establish a little concern of their own, and give no further trouble. We believe the intention of the malcontents, however, is, and always has been, to stay where they are and give all the trouble they can. Whenever the time comes to establish a new party, it will make its appearance, whether anybody charges himself with the special work of getting it up or not.

Among the sources of discontent disfranchisement was the most pressing, since it was believed to be the chief cause of the shocking conditions in the South. Other things could wait. This was the "house-on-fire"; it must be put out at once. The Liberals said that universal amnesty with impartial suffrage was the true cure. The ruling powers at Washington maintained that the Southern whites were still rebellious and that a new law, backed by adequate military power, was needed to deal with the Ku-Klux Klans, which were terrorizing the blacks in order to prevent them from voting. The President sent a special message of twenty lines to Congress on March 23, calling attention to this condition of affairs and recommending some action, he did not say what. The brevity and indecision of it betokened reluctance on his part to send any message at all. Congress, however, took the subject in earnest and passed the Ku-Klux Bill of 1871, which authorized suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the employment of military force in dealing with the Ku-Klux outrages. Trumbull and Schurz opposed the bill by speech and by vote, the former on the ground of unconstitutionality, the latter chiefly on the ground of impolicy, although he also considered it unconstitutional. Trumbull contended that the Constitution never contemplated that the ordinary administration of criminal law in the states should be in the hands of the Federal Government and that the Fourteenth Amendment did not change the lodgment of that power from the state to the federal authorities. He did not make a set speech on the bill, but in an impromptu debate he said:

Show me that it is necessary to exercise any power belonging to the Government of the United States in order to maintain its authority and I am ready to put it forth. But, sir, I am not willing to undertake to enter the states for the purpose of punishing individual offences against their authority committed by one citizen against another. We, in my judgment, have no constitutional authority to do that. When this Government was formed, the general rights of person and property were left to be protected by the states and there they are left to-day. Whenever the rights that are conferred by the Constitution of the United States on the Federal Government are infringed upon by the states, we should afford a remedy.... If the Federal Government takes to itself the entire protection of the individual in his rights of person and property what is the need of the State Governments? It would be a change in our form of Government and an unwise one, in my judgment, because I believe that the rights of the people, the liberties of the people, the rights of the individual, are safest among the people themselves, and not in a central government extending over a vast region of country. I think that the nearer you can bring the administration of justice between man and man to the people themselves, the safer the people will be in their rights of person and property.[119]

He objected also to the clause of the bill authorizing the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, as in conflict with the clause of the Constitution which limits suspension to cases of invasion or rebellion where the public safety requires it. There was no present invasion to justify it and no rebellion in the proper definition of that term. He quoted authorities showing that rebellion meant an armed uprising against the Government, such as existed in 1861 and continued till the end of the war. No such condition existed now.