The great anti-Know-Nothing speech of Alexander H. Stephens at Augusta, largely quoted from in a former chapter of this book, was now being used by the Republicans to increase Know-Nothing enmity to the Democrats. On his part Mr. Stephens was a tower of strength to the Administration men in the House. He appreciated the magnitude of the struggle, and was indefatigable in his attempts to defeat the Republican and Know-Nothing alliance. He rejoiced at the prominence which the Republican leaders were giving to the victory over Know-Nothingism in his own State. “I think,” he said in a letter to his brother, “the Georgia election is more talked of than that of any other State in the Union.”[27]
Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, C. C. Clay, R. M. T. Hunter, Judah P. Benjamin, and other Democratic Senators, were in frequent consultation with Alexander H. Stephens, John Kelly, Howell Cobb, James L. Orr, William A. Richardson, and other Democratic members of the House. The relative strength of the two leading parties in the House, seventy-four Democrats and one hundred and four Republicans, was the subject of anxious thought, and all at length saw that Mr. Richardson, the caucus nominee of the Democrats, could not be elected. He was, therefore, dropped, and James L. Orr substituted as the Democratic candidate. As week after week elapsed, it became evident that the dead-lock could only be broken by the abandonment of a straight party man by the Democrats. Even then no election was likely to take place unless the plurality rule should be adopted. About ten days before the end of the contest, as alluded to already, a private consultation took place between Mr. Stephens, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Orr, and Mr. Cobb, at which the nomination of William Aiken of South Carolina was decided upon as that of the only available candidate against Banks. But in order to render this movement effective, the utmost secrecy was necessary until the time should have come to bring out the new candidate. This plan originated with Mr. Stephens. Mr. Kelly entered heartily into it. To him was assigned the important duty as a Northern Democrat of putting Mr. Aiken in nomination. He was only to do this, when Banks’s election should appear imminent, or after the plurality rule had been adopted, with Orr still running against Banks. The nomination was not to be enforced by any set speech on the part of the mover, which might show design and premeditation, but was to be made as if on the impulse of the moment, and as the sudden act of an individual who had given up all hope for Orr, and now named Aiken as a sort of dernier resort to beat Banks.
It showed that the Democratic leaders reposed extraordinary confidence in Kelly’s coolness, tact and good judgment, that he should have been selected to initiate this most delicate parliamentary move. Mr. Orr had agreed to withdraw at the proper moment in Aiken’s favor. In the meantime Mr. Stephens was to manage the preliminary strategy necessary to put the train of affairs in motion. He sounded various members in casual conversation, and found men of the most opposite views quite favorable to Aiken, as a compromise candidate against Banks. At length, February first, when it seemed probable that Banks would be elected, and at the right moment, with admirable brevity and effect, John Kelly rose and nominated Aiken. But before Orr could get the floor to withdraw in favor of Mr. Kelly’s nominee, Williamson R. W. Cobb, of Alabama, who had found members who were in the secret predicting that Aiken would win, now sprang up and in a cut-and-dried-speech, and with a great parade of theatrical language, declared that the time had arrived to name the winning man, that he had the pleasure of offering an olive-branch to all those who opposed the Republicans, and after giving everybody to know that he was about to announce a grand parliamentary stroke on the part of the Democrats, he nominated William Aiken of South Carolina. The effect of that supremely ill-timed speech was to drive off votes which Mr. Aiken would have otherwise won, for as soon as it dawned upon the Whigs and Know-Nothings, who had not gone over to Banks, that the latest move was a Democratic “olive-branch,” a sufficient number of them reconsidered their intention to vote for Aiken, and Banks was elected Speaker the next day, under the operation of that extra-constitutional device—the plurality rule.
The votes of John Hickman and David Barclay, two Democrats from Pennsylvania, were not given on the final ballot to the candidate supported by the Democratic side of the House. They were much censured for their course.
The Congressional Globe contains the following:
“House of Representatives, Friday, February 1, 1856.
Mr. Ball. I offer the following resolutions, and upon it I demand the previous question:
Resolved, That Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, be, and he is hereby declared Speaker of this House for the Thirty-fourth Congress.
Mr. Kelly. I desire to offer a substitute for that resolution.
The Clerk. It is not in order to do so now, as the previous question has been demanded.