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 Democratic National Convention of 1868 was invested with remarkable interest, less from any expectation that it would seriously contest and jeopard Republican ascendency, than from the several personal issues which entered into it, and the audacious public policies which would be urged upon it. The general drift of the party was clear and unmistakable, but its personal choice and the tone of its declarations would determine how bold a stand it would take before the country. Would it openly proclaim the doctrine of paying the public debt in depreciated paper money, and emphasize its action by nominating Mr. George H. Pendleton, the most distinct and conspicuous champion of the financial heresy? Would it attempt a discussion and review of its tendency and designs, and make what would approach a new departure, in appearance if not in fact, by going outside of its own ranks and nominating Chief Justice Chase? Would the recreancy of President Johnson to his own party and his hope of Democratic support find any considerable response? And aside from the issue of virtually repudiating the public debt, would the party now re-assert its hostile and revolutionary attitude towards the well-nigh completed work of Reconstruction? These various possibilities left a degree of uncertainty which surrounded the Convention with an atmosphere of curious expectation.

The movement most deliberately planned and most persistently pressed was that on behalf of Mr. Pendleton. The Greenback heresy had sprung up with rapid growth. The same influence which had resisted the issue of legal-tender notes during the war, when they were deemed vital to the National success, now demanded that they be used to pay the public debt, though depreciated far below the standard of coin. "The same currency for the bond-holder and the plough-holder" was a favorite cry in the mouths of many. This plausible and poisonous fallacy quickly took root in Ohio, whose political soil has often nourished rank and luxuriant outgrowth of Democratic heresies, and it came to be known distinctively as "The Ohio Idea." The apt response of the Republicans was, the best currency for both plough-holder and bond-holder! Mr. Pendleton was peculiarly identified with the Ohio Idea. If not its author he had been its zealous advocate, and had become widely known as its representative. The policy which typified the easy way of paying debts spread through the West and South, and brought to Mr. Pendleton a wide support. His popular address and attractive style of speech increased his strength as a candidate, and his partisans came to the Convention under the lead of able politicians, with the only movement which was well organized and which had positive and concentrated force behind it.

While the Pendleton canvass was earnestly, openly, and skilfully promoted it was also adroitly opposed. The keen and crafty politicians of New York were neither demonstrative nor frank in indicating their course, but they were watchful, sinuous, and efficient. Their plot was carefully concealed. They were ready to have a New-York candidate thrust upon them by other sections. If called upon to look outside of their own State and select from the list of avowed aspirants, they modestly suggested Mr. Hendricks of Indiana, a friend and co-laborer of Mr. Pendleton. But the favorite scheme in the inner councils of the New-York Regency, was to strike beyond the Democratic lines and nominate Chief Justice Chase. This proposition was little discussed in public, but was deeply pondered in private by influential members of the Democratic party. Mr. Chase himself presented no obstacle and no objection. He cherished an eager ambition to be President. He had desired and sought the Republican nomination in 1864, and though the overwhelming sentiment for Mr. Lincoln had soon driven him from the field, the differences he had encouraged led to his retirement from the Cabinet. His elevation to the highest judicial office in the land did not subdue or even check his political aspirations. For a time he looked forward with hope to the Republican nomination in 1868; but when it became evident that none but General Grant could be the chosen leader, his thoughts evidently turned towards the Democratic Convention.

Certain circumstances made the possible selection of the Chief Justice as the Democratic candidate a less inconsistent procedure than his long antagonism to the party might at first suggest. In the beginning of his political career Judge Chase had leaned towards the Democratic party, and at a more recent period had been promoted to the Senate by the aid of Democrats. He had consistently advocated the fundamental principles which originally distinguished the party. Recent circumstances had separated him from active sympathy with the Republicans and placed him in opposition to the policy of some of its leading members. He had taken occasion to criticise what he called the military governments in the Southern States. Other causes had tended to separate him from the Republican party and to commend him to the Democracy. When he took his seat on the bench of the Supreme Court a majority of the judges belonged to the Democratic party, and with them he soon acquired personal intimacy and confidential relations. He had secured many friends in the South by joining in the opinions pronounced by Mr. Justice Field for the court in 1867, in regard to the test-oaths prescribed in the Missouri constitution, and also in regard to the test-oath of lawyers known as the case ex parte Garland. All the impressions touching his Democratic tendencies had been deepened and increased during the Impeachment trial. It was evident that he was not in harmony with the Republican senators, and he took no pains to conceal his willingness to thwart them, so far as was consistent with his duty, in the position of Presiding officer.

This demonstration of political sympathy, made manifest through judicial channels, had brought Judge Chase and the Democratic managers nearer together. Both realized however that a complete change of position would defeat its own purpose. On one important point indeed Judge Chase never wavered and was unwilling to compromise. In all utterances and all communications he firmly maintained the principle of universal suffrage as the primary article of his political creed. If the Democrats should accept him they must accept this doctrine with him. Six weeks prior to the Convention Mr. August Belmont in a private letter advised him that the leading Democrats of New York were favorable to his nomination, and urged upon him that with the settlement of the slavery question, the issue which separated him from the Democratic party had disappeared. Judge Chase replied that the slavery question had indeed been settled, but that in the question of Reconstruction it had a successor which partook largely of the same nature. He had been a party to the pledge of freedom for the enfranchised race, and the fulfillment of that pledge required, in his judgment, "the assurance of the right of suffrage to those whom the Constitution has made freemen and citizens."

Not long after this correspondence the Chief Justice caused a formal summary of his political views to be published, with the evident purpose of gaining the good will of the "American Democracy." The summary touched lightly on most of the controversial political questions, and contained nothing to which the Democrats would not have readily assented except the declaration for universal suffrage. To this policy all Democratic acts and expressions had been uncompromisingly hostile, and the sentiment of the party might not easily be brought to accept a change which was at once so radical and so repugnant to its temper and its training. Judge Chase hoped to induce its acquiescence and believed that such an advance might open the way to success. But his tenacity on this point was undoubtedly an obstacle to his nomination. Another difficulty was the strenuous opposition of the Ohio delegates and the zealous preference for Mr. Pendleton. Superadded to all these objections was a popular aversion to any thing which looked like a subordination of judicial trust to political aims. Incurring this reproach through what seemed to be inordinate ambition, Judge Chase had forfeited something of the strength to secure which could be the only motive for his nomination by his old political opponents.

Notwithstanding all these apparent obstacles, there was among the most considerate men of the Convention a settled purpose to secure the nomination of the Chief Justice. They intended to place him before the people upon the issues in regard to which he was in harmony with the Democratic party, and omit all mention of issues in regard to which there was a difference of view. This was a species of tactics not unknown to political parties, and might be used with great effect if Mr. Chase should be the nominee. The astute men who advocated his selection saw that the great need of the Democracy was to secure a candidate who had been unquestionably loyal during the war, and who at the same time was not offensive to Southern feeling. The prime necessity of the party was to regain strength in the North—to recover power in that great cordon of Western States which had for so many years prior to the rebellion followed the Democratic flag. The States that had attempted secession were assured to the Democracy as soon as the party could be placed in National power, and to secure that end the South would be wise to follow the lead of New York as obediently as in former years New York had followed the lead of the South. It was a contest which involved the necessity of stooping to conquer.

The Chief Justice was, so far as his position would permit, active in his own behalf. He was in correspondence with influential Democrats before the Convention, and in a still more intimate degree after the Convention was in session. On the 4th of July he wrote a significant letter to a friend who was in close communication with the leading delegates in New York. His object was to soften the hostility of the partisan Democrats, especially of the Southern school. Referring to the policy of Reconstruction, he said, "I have always favored the submission of the questions of re-organization after disorganization by war to the entire people of the whole State." This was intended to assure Southern men that if he believed in the justice of giving suffrage to the negro, he did not believe in the justice of denying it to the white man.

The strangest feature in Judge Chase's strange canvass was the apparent friendship of Vallandingham, and the apparent reliance of the distinguished candidate upon the strength which the notorious anti-war Democrat could bring to him. Vallandingham had evidently been sending some kind messages to the Chief Justice, who responded while the Democratic Convention was in session, in these warm words: "The assurance you give me of the friendship of Mr. V., affords me real satisfaction. He is a man of whose friendship one may well be proud. Even when we have differed and separated most widely, I have always admired his pluck and consistency, and have done full justice to his abilities and energies." The plain indication was that Vallandingham, who had come to the Convention as an earnest friend of Pendleton, was already casting about for an alternative candidate in the event of Pendleton's failure, and was considering the practicability of nominating the Chief Justice.

President Johnson had also aspired to the Democratic candidacy. Ambitious, untiring, and sanguine, this hope of reward had served him in the bitter quarrel with his own party. The fate of Tyler and Fillmore had no terrors and no lessons for one who eagerly and blindly sought a position which would at once gratify his ambition and minister to his revenge. He was using all the powers of the Executive in a vain fight to obstruct and baffle the steadily advancing Republican policy. The Democrats, instead of following a settled chart of principles, were making the cardinal mistake of supporting him in all his tortuous course of assumptions and usurpations, and it was not strange that he should expect them to turn towards him in choosing a leader to continue the contest. But it is an old maxim, repeatedly illustrated, that while men are ready to profit by the treason, they instinctively detest the traitor. Mr. Johnson had embittered the party he had sought to serve. By his attempt to re-establish the political power of the elements which had carried the South into rebellion he had acquired some friends in that section, but his intemperate zeal had so greatly exasperated public feeling in the North that even those who applauded his conduct were unwilling to take the hazard of his candidacy.