Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

The Convention was promptly organized with Judge Hoadly of Ohio as temporary chairman, and Senator Stevenson of Kentucky as permanent President. A ballot was reached on the second day. The South was almost evenly divided between Bayard and Hancock. New England preferred Hancock to Bayard. The West showed no preponderance for either, and was broken among many candidates. New York was solidly for Payne, but made little impression because Payne's own State of Ohio stood for Senator Thurman. Judge Field of California and William R. Morrison of Illinois had the support of their own States, with a few scattering votes. The multiplicity of candidates indicated the lack of a definite sentiment and a clear policy. The first ballot gave Hancock 171, Bayard 153½, Payne 81, Thurman 68½, Field 65, Morrison 62, Hendricks 49½, Tilden 38, with a few votes to minor candidates. On this test the Convention adjourned for the day, and during the night combinations already inaugurated were fully completed, by which Hancock's nomination was made certain. The next day opened with the announcement that New York had withdrawn Payne and fixed upon Randall as its choice, but it was too late. The second roll-call ended without a decision, but before the result was declared Wisconsin changed to Hancock. This was followed by a similar move from New Jersey, and immediately State after State joined in his support until he had 705 votes,—leaving of the whole Convention but 30 for Hendricks and 2 for Bayard. William H. English of Indiana, who had served in Congress during Mr. Buchanan's administration, was nominated for Vice-President. The platform, in marked contrast with the elaborate document of the preceding campaign, was a compact and energetic statement of the Democratic creed. It embodied a fatal declaration in favor of a tariff for revenue only, made vehement utterance on the alleged election fraud of 1876, demanded honest money of coin or paper convertible into coin, and gave a strong pledge against permitting Chinese immigration.

General Hancock's nomination was greeted with heartiness amounting to enthusiasm. He had received a military education at West Point; he had been brevetted in the Mexican war for gallant conduct at Contreras and Cherubusco. In the war for the Union he had acquired high rank as a commander. He distinguished himself throughout the Peninsular campaign and at Antietam. He added to his fame on the decisive field of Gettysburg. He was with Grant during most of the campaign which was crowned with final triumph at Appomattox, and bore a conspicuous part on its bloody fields. Brave, gallant, and patriotic, a true soldier and a chivalrous gentleman, he was a worthy representative of that faithful and honorable class of "War Democrats," who in the time of the Nation's peril stood for the flag and for the integrity of their country. There were many of that type, who allowed no political differences to restrain them from doing their full share towards the preservation of the Union; and no duty is more grateful than that of recognizing their loyal services. General Hancock was at their head, and no partisan distinctions or subsequent political differences can diminish the respect in which he is deservedly held by every loyal lover of the Union of the States.

The campaign did not open altogether auspiciously for the Republicans. The September election for Governor and members of the Legislature in Maine had resulted adversely. The Republican party in that State, owing to a large defection on the greenback issue and a coalition of all its opponents, had been defeated in 1878 by more than 13,000 majority. In 1879 the lost ground was in large part regained, but the party, while electing the Legislature, was again outnumbered on the popular vote. In 1880 the re-action in favor of the Republicans had not begun in any State as early as September. The issue on the Protective tariff had not yet been debated, and Maine, though giving a majority of 6,000 in the Presidential election, lost the Governorship in September by 164 votes. As a victory had been confidently expected by the country at large, the failure to secure it had a depressing effect upon the Republican party.

The discouragement however was but for a day. Re-action speedily came, and the party was spurred to greater efforts. There was also a change in the issues presented, and from that time the industrial question monopolized public attention. The necessity of special exertion in the October States led to a very earnest and spirited canvass in Ohio and Indiana. The Democratic declaration in favor of a tariff for revenue only was turned with tremendous force against that party. A marked feature of what may be termed the October campaign was the visit of General Grant to Ohio and Indiana, accompanied by Senator Conkling. The speeches of the two undoubtedly exerted a strong influence, and aided in large part to carry those States for the Republicans.

From this day forward the contest was regarded as very close, but with the chances inclining in favor of the Republicans. In the hope of counteracting the effect of the argument for a Protective Tariff in winning the industrial element of the country to Republican support, the Democratic managers concocted one of the most detestable and wicked devices ever conceived in political warfare. A letter, purporting to have been written by General Garfield, and designed to represent him as approving Chinese immigration to compete with home labor, was cunningly forged. This so-called "Morey letter," in which the handwriting and signature of the Republican candidate were imitated with some skill, was lithographed and spread broadcast about two weeks before the election.

General Garfield promptly branded the letter as a forgery and the evidences of its character were speedily made clear. Nevertheless active Democratic leaders continued to assert its genuineness, and Mr. Abram S. Hewitt was conspicuous in giving the weight of his name to this calumny, until the force of the accumulating proof constrained him to admit in a public speech, that the text of the letter was spurious, while still maintaining, against General Garfield's solemn denial, that the signature was genuine. The prompt action of General Garfield and his friends did much to render this crafty and dangerous trick abortive, but there was not sufficient time to destroy altogether the effect of its instant and wide dissemination. The forgery cost General Garfield the electoral votes of New Jersey and Nevada and five of the six votes of California. He carried every other Northern State, while General Hancock carried every Southern State. The final result gave to Garfield 214 electoral votes against 155 for Hancock.

The salient and most serious fact of the Presidential election was the absolute consolidation of the Electoral vote of the South; not merely of the eleven States that composed the Confederacy, but of the five others in which slaves were held at the beginning of the civil struggle. The leading Democrats of the South had been steadily aiming at this result from the moment that they found themselves compelled by the fortunes of war to remain citizens of the United States. The Reconstruction laws had held them in check in 1868; the re-action against Mr. Greeley had destroyed Southern unity in 1872; it had been assumed with boastful confidence, but at the last miscarried, in 1876; and now, in 1880, it was finally and fully accomplished. The result betokened thenceforth a struggle within the Union far more radical than that which had been carried on from the formation of the Constitution until the secession of the South.

During the first half of this century Southern statesmen had demanded and secured equality of representation in the Senate. Its loss in 1850 was among the causes which led them to revolt against National authority. But even the equality of representation was for a section and not for a party, and its existence did not prevent the free play of contests on other issues. Partisan divisions in the South upon tariff, upon bank, upon internal improvement, between Whig on the one side and Democrat on the other, were as marked as in the North. Southern men of all parties would unite against the admission of a Northern State until a Southern State was ready to offset its vote in the Senate, but they never sought to compel unity of opinion throughout all Southern States upon partisan candidates or upon public measures. The evident policy in the South since the close of the civil war has been, therefore, of a more engrossing and more serious character. It comprehends nothing less than the absolute consolidation of sixteen States,—not by liberty of speech, or public discussion, or freedom of suffrage, but by a tyranny of opinion which threatens timid dissentients with social ostracism and suppresses the bolder form of opposition by force.

The struggle which this policy invites, nay which it enforces, is as much a moral as a political struggle. It is not a contention over measures. It is a contest for equal rights under the Constitution, for simple justice between citizens of the same Republic. Nor is the struggle hopeless. Re-action will come in the South itself. The passion and prejudice which influence men who were defeated in the war cannot be transmitted to succeeding generations. Principle will re-assert itself; local and state interest will command a change. The signs even now are hopeful. The personal relations between men of the South and men of the North are more amicable than they have been for sixty years. Diversity of employment, the spirit of industrial enterprise, the unification of financial interests, will tend more and more to assimilate the populations, more and more to enforce an agreement, if not as to measures, yet assuredly as to methods. No man in the North, valuing the freedom for which a great war was waged, desires to control the vote of a single individual in the South. He only desires that every individual in the South, as in the North, shall control his own vote, and when that is done the result, whatever it may be, will always be cheerfully accepted. Contention between sections, divided by a fixed line, is the most undesirable form of political controversy. It is also the most illogical. But consolidation on one side leads naturally and always to consolidation on the other side. The growth of the country will ultimately effect an adjustment, but the reason of men should not wait for the mere power of numbers to settle questions which properly belong in the domain of reason alone.

Nor do the Southern leaders seem ever to have correctly estimated the political force that is to come from the predestined increase of numbers. Aside from the vast growth of population in the new States and Territories of the North-West, the increase of the colored race in the South must arrest attention. In the lifetime of those now living, that class of the population will reach the enormous aggregate of five and twenty millions. As this increase continues, no policy could possibly be devised so fatal to Southern prosperity as that which Southern leaders have pursued since the close of the war. Ceasing to be a slave the colored man must be a citizen. He cannot be permanently held in a condition between the two. He cannot be remanded to slavery. His numbers will ultimately command what should now be yielded on the ground of simple justice and wise policy.