Part 25

I opposed his renomination, participated in the Liberal Republican Convention that nominated Greeley, had charge of the Greeley campaign in Pennsylvania, and labored very earnestly for Grant’s defeat in 1872. On the day that he retired from the Presidency I had an editorial in the Philadelphia _Times_, speaking of General Grant as history would record his achievements, and of necessity highly complimentary to him. A few days thereafter I met him with Mr. Childs at the Continental Hotel, and he came forward in a manner that was unusually demonstrative for Grant, and was profuse in his thanks for the editorial referred to. He said that he specially valued it because it came from one who had been among his severest critics during his Presidential term, and he ended by inviting me to lunch with him at Mr. Drexel’s office that afternoon.

I willingly accepted the invitation and spent two hours with Grant, most of the time alone after Mr. Drexel and Mr. Childs had left us. I was surprised to find him one of the most agreeable of conversationalists, and he discussed politics generally and the Hayes-Tilden contest with a degree of frankness and intelligence that surprised me. He said that he confidently expected the Electoral Commission to give the vote of Louisiana to Mr. Tilden, but that as Chief Magistrate it was his duty only to maintain the law, and that when the law of the nation made the Electoral Commission a final tribunal for the settlement of the dispute, he would have maintained that judgment with all the power of the Government.

I was specially gratified at this interview to have a particular prejudice that I had cherished against Grant since 1864 entirely dissipated by a conversation into which I cautiously led him on the Lincoln-McClellan campaign of 1864. I have stated in another chapter that Mr. Lincoln hesitated in October, 1864, to send an order to General Grant to furlough five thousand of his Pennsylvania soldiers home to vote for President, and sent it to Meade. I had known how Lincoln had sustained Grant after the battle of Shiloh, when Grant had few friends and none outside of Lincoln able to sustain him. When Lincoln hesitated to send the order to Grant, I spoke very freely and reminded Lincoln how he had saved Grant, and wanted to know why he could not now trust the man who would have been overwhelmed but for the generous and heroic offices of Lincoln. Lincoln finally answered that he had never received or heard of any expression from General Grant expressing a preference for his election over General McClellan. Lincoln certainly at that time doubted Grant’s attitude in that contest, and having been one of the many who had urged Lincoln to remove Grant from his command after Shiloh, I could not fail to cherish some prejudice against Grant as wanting in fidelity to Lincoln.

In our general discussion of politics I remarked that he had very studiously avoided all political expression during the war, and that I had specially noted his silence during the campaign of 1864 between Lincoln and McClellan. His answer was prompt and given evidently in the frankest manner, as he said substantially: “Of course, I could not with propriety give any public expression in a political contest where one candidate had given me the highest commission in the army and the other candidate had been my predecessor in command of the army.” The answer was given in such simple earnestness that I never thereafter doubted Grant’s fidelity to Lincoln, although Lincoln certainly was disappointed that Grant gave no expression during the campaign. On the night of Lincoln’s election Grant sent him a very hearty telegram of congratulation.

President Grant drifted into a political control that ultimately made his administration intensely sectional and factional, and during his first administration he was intolerant of criticism, and often openly disregarded Republican sentiment in sustaining many of his favorites, who brought scandals upon his rule. On great questions, however, Grant certainly was great. He conceived the idea of territorial expansion that has been so successfully carried out by the present administration with the hearty approval of an overwhelming majority of the people. He made an earnest movement for the annexation of San Domingo, and he gave exhaustive public and private efforts to attain it. This policy was severely criticised by some of the leading members of the party, prominent among whom were Sumner and Greeley, and the San Domingo scheme was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other as a wild, visionary, political enterprise, designed to give place and fortune to administration favorites.

So bitter did the Republican national feud become that the anti-administration leaders decided to take the initiative in opposing Grant’s re-election. At no time in the history of any administration was the political machinery of the Government so complete and despotic as it was under Grant, although not in any degree personally directed by himself, and it was well known that the opposition would have little voice in the regular Republican convention, and that it was entirely powerless to prevent Grant being presented as the Republican nominee.

The first national conventions of the year were held at Columbus, O., in February. The Labor Reformers were first in the field, as their convention was held at Columbus on the 21st of February, with Edward M. Chamberlain, of Massachusetts, as President. This convention was made up largely or wholly of men who believed in the greenback policy, as it demanded an indefinite issue of greenbacks, which would be a legal tender for the payment of all public and private debts. The following is the full text of its platform:

We hold that all political power is inherent in the people, and free government is founded on their authority and established for their benefit; that all citizens are equal in political rights, entitled to the largest religious and political liberty compatible with the good order of society, as also to the use and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor and talents; and no man or set of men is entitled to exclusive separable endowments and privileges, or immunities from the Government, but in consideration of public services; and any laws destructive of these fundamental principles are without moral binding force, and should be repealed. And believing that all the evils resulting from unjust legislation now affecting the industrial classes can be removed by the adoption of the principles contained in the following declaration, therefore,

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Government to establish a just standard of distribution of capital and labor by providing a purely national circulating medium, based on the faith and resources of the nation, issued directly to the people without the intervention of any system of banking corporations; which money shall be legal tender in the payment of all debts, public and private, and interchangeable at the option of the holder for Government bonds bearing a rate of interest not to exceed 3.65 per cent., subject to future legislation by Congress.

2. That the national debt should be paid in good faith, according to the original contract, at the earliest option of the Government, without mortgaging the property of the people or the future earnings of labor, to enrich a few capitalists at home and abroad.

3. That justice demands that the burdens of Government should be so adjusted as to bear equally on all classes, and that the exemption from taxation of Government bonds bearing extortionate rates of interest is a violation of all just principles of revenue laws.

4. That the public lands of the United States belong to the people and should not be sold to individuals nor granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and should be granted to landless settlers only, in amounts not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres of land.

5. That Congress should modify the tariff so as to admit free such articles of common use as we can neither produce nor grow, and lay duties for revenue mainly upon articles of luxury and upon such articles of manufacture as will, we having the raw materials in abundance, assist in further developing the resources of the country.

6. That the presence in our country of Chinese laborers, imported by capitalists in large numbers for servile use, is an evil, entailing want and its attendant train of misery and crime on all classes of the American people, and should be prohibited by legislation.

7. That we ask for the enactment of a law by which all mechanics and day-laborers employed by or on behalf of the Government, whether directly or indirectly, through persons, firms, or corporations, contracting with the State, shall conform to the reduced standard of eight hours a day, recently adopted by Congress for national employés, and also for an amendment to the acts of incorporation for cities and towns, by which all laborers and mechanics employed at their expense shall conform to the same number of hours.

8. That the enlightened spirit of the age demands the abolition of the system of contract labor in our prisons and other reformatory institutions.

9. That the protection of life, liberty, and property are the three cardinal principles of government, and the first two are more sacred than the latter; therefore money needed for prosecuting wars should, as it is required, be assessed and collected from the wealth of the country, and not entailed as a burden upon posterity.

10. That it is the duty of the Government to exercise its power over railroads and telegraph corporations, that they shall not in any case be privileged to exact such rates of freight, transportation, or charges, by whatever name, as may bear unduly or unequally upon the producer or consumer.

11. That there should be such a reform in the civil service of the national Government as will remove it beyond all partisan influence, and place it in the charge and under the direction of intelligent and competent business men.

12. That as both history and experience teach us that power ever seeks to perpetuate itself by every and all means, and that its prolonged possession in the hands of one person is always dangerous to the interests of a free people, and believing that the spirit of our organic laws and the stability and safety of our free institutions are best obeyed on the one hand and secured on the other by a regular constitutional change in the chief of the country at each election; therefore, we are in favor of limiting the occupancy of the Presidential chair to one term.

13. That we are in favor of granting general amnesty and restoring the Union at once on the basis of equality of rights and privileges to all, the impartial administration of justice being the only true bond of union to bind the States together and restore the government of the people.

14. That we demand the subjection of the military to the civil authorities, and the confinement of its operations to national purposes alone.

15. That we deem it expedient for Congress to supervise the patent laws, so as to give labor more fully the benefit of its own ideas and inventions.

16. That fitness, and not political or personal considerations, should be the only recommendation to public office, either appointive or elective, and any and all laws looking to the establishment of this principle are heartily approved.

Four ballots were had to nominate a candidate for President, resulting in the choice of David Davis, of Illinois. The following table exhibits the ballots in detail:

═══════════════════════════════════╤════════╤════════╤════════╤═══════ │ First. │ Second.│ Third. │Fourth. ───────────────────────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼─────── John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania │ 60 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Horace H. Day, of New York │ 59 │ 21 │ 59 │ 3 David Davis, of Illinois │ 47 │ 88 │ 93 │ 201 Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts │ 13 │ 76 │ 12 │ ―― J. M. Palmer, of Illinois │ 8 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Joel Parker, of New Jersey │ 7 │ 7 │ 7 │ 7 George W. Julian, of Indiana │ 6 │ 1 │ 5 │ ―― B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri │ ―― │ ―― │ 14 │ ―― Horace Greeley, of New York │ ―― │ ―― │ 11 │ ―― ═══════════════════════════════════╧════════╧════════╧════════╧═══════

Two ballots were had for Vice-President, as follows:

═════════════════════════════════╤════════╤════════ │ First. │ Second. ─────────────────────────────────┼────────┼──────── E. M. Chamberlain, Massachusetts │ 72 │ 57 Joel Parker, New Jersey │ 70 │ 112 Allanson M. West, Mississippi │ 18 │ ―― Thomas Ewing, Ohio │ 31 │ 22 W. G. Bryan, Tennessee │ 10 │ ―― ═════════════════════════════════╧════════╧════════

Davis and Parker were unanimously declared the candidates of the party for President and Vice-President.

Although Judge Davis had responded by telegraph to the notification of his nomination from the convention, expressing his gratitude for the honor conferred, he did not definitely accept. Had Judge Davis been nominated by the Liberal Republicans at Cincinnati in May, he would doubtless have remained as the candidate of the Labor Reformers, but in June, when there was no possibility of him being a candidate of any other organization, Davis and Parker both declined and retired from the contest. A small portion of the delegates were reconvened, and Charles O’Conor, of New York, was nominated for President, without naming any candidate for Vice-President. Thus, the Labor Reform organization was practically out of the battle of 1872.

A Prohibition National Convention was also held at Columbus on the 22d of February, with representatives from nine States, and Samuel Chase, of Ohio, was made permanent president. An elaborate platform was adopted, but the party does not seem to have been of sufficient importance to command the publication of its platform in full in the newspapers, and it is lost to history, as I have not been able to find it. James Black, of Pennsylvania, was nominated for President, and John Russell, of Michigan, for Vice-President by a unanimous vote, after having been presented by a committee on nominations.

The Liberal Republican National Convention met at Cincinnati on the 1st of May. The organized Republican opposition to Grant had its origin in the State contest in Missouri, where the Democrats and the Liberals united to efface a most proscriptive Constitution and laws, denying all rights of citizenship to those who had been engaged in rebellion. A number of meetings were held in the Western cities to organize the Liberal Republican party, and it was a mass-meeting of the Liberals of Missouri in Jefferson City, in January, 1872, that first decided to call a national convention of Liberal Republicans, and fixed Cincinnati and the 1st of May as the place and time for it to assemble.

It seemed evident to all who had intelligently and dispassionately observed the political situation that the majority of the people of the country would vote against the re-election of Grant if they could be heartily united, but the elements were strangely incongruous, as Greeley, Sumner, Trumbull, and many others of the Liberal leaders had been among the most earnest champions of radical Republicanism, and had antagonized the Democratic party so fiercely and persistently as to make unity between them apparently impossible. It was only the utterly helpless condition of the Democrats that made them entertain the question of fusing with the Liberals by taking their ticket and platform.

Strange as it may seem, Mr. Vallandigham, one of the most aggressive of all the Northern “Copperheads” during the war, and who had been arrested by Burnside and banished into the Southern lines, was one of the first of the leading Democrats to propose a union of all the elements opposed to Grant and unite in fully accepting the results of the war, the reconstruction policy, and the amendments to the Constitution. I attended this convention as a delegate and acted as chairman of the delegation. Of the prominent men named for the nomination, I greatly preferred David Davis, the executor of Abraham Lincoln, and a man so conservative and liberal in his political views and so thoroughly identified with the substantial interests of the country that he would have provoked no antagonism whatever from the financial and business interests of the nation, but Horace Greeley was his competitor for the place, and there was no man in the country for whom I cherished stronger affection. I had known Greeley for many years.

When the Liberal agitation began, the prominent candidates discussed were Horace Greeley, Charles Francis Adams, David Davis, and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri. Greeley became intensely interested in his own nomination. He felt that he had devoted his life to the best efforts for his country, and especially for the lowly. He was the foremost of all in the great battle for the overthrow of slavery, and he craved the recognition of his work by an election to the Presidency. Before the convention met he made an appointment to meet me at the Colonnade Hotel in Philadelphia. He felt that he could speak with entire freedom to me, and he opened his heart to the full extent of saying how much he desired the nomination and what it meant to him.

Could I have made him President, I would gladly have done so, but I knew that he could not be elected, and told him so with frankness that he appreciated. He yielded to my judgment as to his availability, and accepted the suggestion that had then been made generally by the more conservative of the Liberal Republicans that David Davis would be the only candidate who could certainly defeat Grant. He was conservative, able, and clear-headed, and the business interests of the country would have had entire confidence in him. In answer to my statement that the Democrats certainly could not be united in Greeley’s favor, and without which an election could not be accomplished, he said: “Well, if they won’t take me head foremost, they might take me boots foremost,” meaning for Vice-President. I said I did not doubt that his nomination for the second place could be accomplished with every prospect of success at the election. We parted with the distinct understanding that his friends should move unitedly to nominate David Davis for President and Greeley for Vice-President.

When we reached Cincinnati a conference of the leading friends of Davis and Greeley was held the night before the convention met, Senator Fenton being present as the leader of the Greeley forces. Leonard Swett, the immediate representative of Davis, was present, along with John D. Defrees, of Indiana, and a number of others. The plan of operation was agreed upon, and when we adjourned to enjoy a late supper we regarded it as settled that Davis and Greeley would be nominated on the next day.

About midnight it was whispered that General Frank P. Blair, as the representative of B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, and others had held a secret conference to unite the Greeley and Brown forces to make Greeley the candidate for President and Brown second on the ticket. We soon discovered that the movement had been thoroughly organized, and many Greeley men who were much more zealous than discreet at once accepted the new situation, and forced even Fenton to fall back to the support of Greeley. Fenton was one of Greeley’s most sincere and devoted friends, and it was with great reluctance that he joined in the effort to nominate Greeley when he felt that it could result only in crucifying him. The withdrawal of the Greeley men from the Davis-Greeley combination left Davis a hopeless candidate, as the convention was largely radical and little inclined to consider questions of expediency.

The Liberal Republican National Convention was simply a huge mass-meeting, with nearly all of the States of the Union represented, and it was boiling over with go-as-you-please independence in politics. Stanley Matthews, afterward made Supreme Judge, was temporary president, and although he denounced the Grant administration in his opening speech as a monument of corruption, he soon thereafter bolted Greeley and supported Grant. Carl Schurz was made permanent president. The contest for President was evidently narrowed down to Adams and Greeley. I voted on every ballot for Adams, with whom I had little sympathy, and three-fourths of the Pennsylvania delegation voted with me. On the 6th ballot Greeley was nominated by changes of votes after the ballot had been announced, but I did not change the vote of Pennsylvania until he had received a majority of the votes of the convention. The following are the ballots for President:

══════════════════════════════╤═══════╤═══════╤══════╤═══════╤══════╤══════ │First. │Second.│Third.│Fourth.│Fifth.│Sixth. ──────────────────────────────┼───────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼──────┼────── Charles Francis Adams, Mass. │203 │ 243 │ 264 │ 279 │ 258 │ 324 Horace Greeley, New York │147 │ 245 │ 258 │ 251 │ 309 │ 332 Lyman Trumbull, Illinois │110 │ 148 │ 156 │ 141 │ 81 │ 19 B. Gratz Brown, Missouri │ 95 │ 2 │ 2 │ 2 │ 2 │ ―― David Davis, Illinois │ 92-1/2│ 75 │ 41 │ 51 │ 30 │ 6 Andrew G. Curtin, Pennsylvania│ 62 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Salmon P. Chase, Ohio │ 2-1/2│ 1 │ ―― │ ―― │ 24 │ 32 ══════════════════════════════╧═══════╧═══════╧══════╧═══════╧══════╧══════

Mr. Greeley’s nomination was made unanimous, and the convention proceeded to ballot for Vice-President as follows:

═════════════════════════════╤═════════╤═════════ │ First. │ Second. ─────────────────────────────┼─────────┼───────── B. Gratz Brown, Missouri │ 237 │ 435 Lyman Trumbull, Illinois │ 158 │ 175 George W. Julian, Indiana │ 134-1/2│ ―― Gilbert C. Walker, Virginia │ 84-1/2│ 75 Cassius M. Clay, Kentucky │ 34 │ ―― Jacob D. Cox, Ohio │ 25 │ ―― John M. Scoville, New Jersey │ 12 │ ―― Thomas W. Tipton, Nebraska │ 8 │ 3 John M. Palmer, Illinois │ ―― │ 8 ─────────────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────

The following platform was unanimously adopted:

The administration now in power has rendered itself guilty of wanton disregard of the laws of the land, and of usurping powers not granted by the Constitution; it has acted as if the laws had binding force only for those who were governed, and not for those who govern. It has thus struck a blow at the fundamental principles of constitutional government and the liberties of the citizen.

The President of the United States has openly used the powers and opportunities of his high office for the promotion of personal ends.

He has kept notoriously corrupt and unworthy men in places of power and responsibility, to the detriment of the public interest.

He has used the public service of the Government as a machinery of corruption and personal influence, and has interfered with tyrannical arrogance in the political affairs of States and municipalities.

He has rewarded with influential and lucrative offices men who had acquired his favor by valuable presents, thus stimulating the demoralization of our political life by his conspicuous example.

He has shown himself deplorably unequal to the task imposed upon him by the necessities of the country, and culpably careless of the responsibilities of his high office.

The partisans of the administration, assuming to be the Republican party and controlling its organization, have attempted to justify such wrongs and palliate such abuses to the end of maintaining partisan ascendancy.

They have stood in the way of necessary investigations and indispensable reforms, pretending that no serious fault could be found with the present administration of public affairs, thus seeking to blind the eyes of the people.