Part 28

At nearly midnight, before the second day of the convention, Cameron had decided that he must give up the battle against Blaine and assent to his nomination, as his delegation had become very refractory, and all knew that Blaine could be nominated whenever all who desired his nomination were free to vote for him. His defeat was planned in and executed from Cameron’s room, who had his trusted lieutenants about him, including the late Robert W. Mackey, who was the most accomplished and practical politician of his day in Pennsylvania, and the late William H. Kemble. It was decided to propose to the Pennsylvania delegation that as they were instructed for Hartranft, and to vote as a unit, they should do so only while Hartranft’s vote increased, and that whenever he dropped in the race the delegation should then vote as a unit as the majority directed. This was enthusiastically accepted by the friends of Blaine, as they believed that Hartranft’s strength would soon be exhausted, and that then they would get a solid vote for Blaine; but Mackey and Kemble, who understood how to manage politicians of every grade, including the carpet-baggers and colored political speculators from the South, arranged with a number of delegations, chiefly in the Southern States, to have Hartranft’s vote increased slightly on every ballot.

Instead of starting Hartranft with an exhibition of his full strength, part of it was held back, and, to the consternation of the Blaine men from this State, Hartranft’s vote was maintained until the climax came in the landslide to Governor Hayes, of Ohio, as a compromise candidate. But for Secretary Cameron and State Treasurer Mackey and ex-State Treasurer Kemble, Blaine’s nomination would have been absolutely certain at the Cincinnati convention in 1876.

The convention had as permanent president Edward McPherson, of Pennsylvania, who was a devoted friend of Blaine, but whose delegation, under the manipulation of Chairman Cameron, was held from Blaine until it was too late to be of service to him. Conkling, of New York, who had the unanimous support of his State, was the favorite candidate of the administration, but from Blaine’s opponents was heard on every side the slogan “anybody to beat Blaine.” It was not until the third day that a ballot was reached, and on the 7th a stampede was made to Governor Hayes, of Ohio, and he was unanimously declared the nominee of the party. The following table exhibits the ballots in detail:

═══════════╤══════╤═══════╤══════╤═══════╤══════╤══════╤════════ │First.│Second.│Third.│Fourth.│Fifth.│Sixth.│Seventh. ───────────┼──────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼──────┼──────┼──────── Blaine │ 285 │ 296 │ 293 │ 292 │ 286 │ 308 │ 351 Morton │ 125 │ 120 │ 113 │ 108 │ 95 │ 85 │ ―― Bristow │ 113 │ 114 │ 121 │ 126 │ 114 │ 111 │ 21 Conkling │ 99 │ 93 │ 90 │ 84 │ 82 │ 81 │ ―― Hayes │ 61 │ 64 │ 67 │ 68 │ 104 │ 113 │ 384 Hartranft │ 58 │ 63 │ 68 │ 71 │ 69 │ 50 │ ―― Jewell │ 11 │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― │ ―― Scattering │ 3 │ 4 │ 3 │ 5 │ 5 │ 5 │ ―― ═══════════╧══════╧═══════╧══════╧═══════╧══════╧══════╧════════

William A. Wheeler, of New York, was nominated for Vice-President without a formal ballot, as soon after the balloting began the several other candidates were withdrawn, and he was nominated by acclamation. The following platform was unanimously adopted:

When, in the economy of Providence, this land was to be purged of human slavery, and when the strength of government of the people, by the people, and for the people, was to be demonstrated, the Republican party came into power. Its deeds have passed into history, and we look back to them with pride. Incited by their memories to high aims for the good of our country and mankind, and looking to the future with unfaltering courage, hope, and purpose, we, the representatives of the party in national convention assembled, make the following declaration of principles:

1. The United States of America is a nation, not a league. By the combined workings of the national and State governments, under their respective Constitutions, the rights of every citizen are secured, at home and abroad, and the common welfare promoted.

2. The Republican party has preserved these governments to the hundredth anniversary of the nation’s birth, and they are now embodiments of the great truths spoken at its cradle, “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that for the attainment of these ends governments have been instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Until these truths are cheerfully obeyed, or, if need be, vigorously enforced, the work of the Republican party is unfinished.

3. The permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union, and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, is a duty to which the Republican party stands sacredly pledged. The power to provide for the enforcement of the principles embodied by the recent constitutional amendments is vested by those amendments in the Congress of the United States, and we declare it to be the solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of the Government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their constitutional powers for removing any just causes of discontent on the part of any class, and for securing to every American citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and a Chief Executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall.

4. In the first act of Congress signed by President Grant, the National Government assumed to remove any doubts of its purpose to discharge all just obligations to the public creditors, and “solemnly pledged its faith to make provision, at the earliest practicable period, for the redemption of the United States notes in coin.” Commercial prosperity, public morals, and national credit demand that this promise be fulfilled by a continuous and steady progress to specie payment.

5. Under the Constitution the President and heads of departments are to make nominations for office; the Senate is to advise and consent to appointments, and the House of Representatives is to accuse and prosecute faithless officers. The best interest of the public service demands that these distinctions be respected; that Senators and Representatives, who may be judges and accusers, should not dictate appointments to office. The invariable rule in appointments should have reference to the honesty, fidelity, and capacity of the appointees, giving to the party in power those places where harmony and vigor of administration require its policy to be represented, but permitting all others to be filled by persons selected with sole reference to the efficiency of the public service, and the right of all citizens to share in the honor of rendering faithful service to the country.

6. We rejoice in the quickened conscience of the people concerning political affairs, and will hold all public officers to a rigid responsibility, and engage that the prosecution and punishment of all who betray official trusts shall be swift, thorough, and unsparing.

7. The public-school system of the several States is a bulwark of the American Republic, and, with a view to its security and permanence, we recommend an amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbidding the application of any public funds or property for the benefit of any schools or institutions under sectarian control.

8. The revenue necessary for current expenditures and the obligations of the public debt must be largely derived from duties upon importations, which, so far as possible, should be adjusted to promote the interests of American labor and advance the prosperity of the whole country.

9. We reaffirm our opposition to further grants of the public land to corporations and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be devoted to free homes for the people.

10. It is the imperative duty of the Government so to modify existing treaties with European governments, that the same protection shall be afforded to the adopted American citizen that is given to the native-born; and that all necessary laws should be passed to protect emigrants, in the absence of power in the States for that purpose.

11. It is the immediate duty of Congress fully to investigate the effect of immigration and importation of Mongolians upon the moral and material interests of the country.

12. The Republican party recognizes with its approval the substantial advances recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women by the many important amendments effected by Republican Legislatures in the laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives, mothers, and widows, and by the appointment and election of women to the superintendence of education, charities, and other public trusts. The honest demands of this class of citizens for additional rights, privileges, and immunities should be treated with respectful consideration.

13. The Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and in the exercise of this power it is the right and duty of Congress to prohibit and extirpate, in the Territories, that relic of barbarism—polygamy; and we demand such legislation as shall secure this end and the supremacy of American institutions in all the Territories.

14. The pledges which the nation has given to her soldiers and sailors must be fulfilled, and a grateful people will always hold those who imperilled their lives for the country’s preservation in the kindest remembrance.

15. We sincerely deprecate all sectional feeling and tendencies. We therefore note with deep solicitude that the Democratic party counts, as its chief hope of success, upon the electoral vote of a united South, secured through the efforts of those who were recently arrayed against the nation; and we invoke the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth that a success thus achieved would reopen sectional strife and imperil national honor and human rights.

16. We charge the Democratic party with being the same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason; with making its control of the House of Representatives the triumph and opportunity of the nation’s recent foes; with reasserting and applauding in the national Capitol the sentiments of unrepentant rebellion; with sending Union soldiers to the rear, and promoting Confederate soldiers to the front; with deliberately proposing to repudiate the plighted faith of the Government; with being equally false and imbecile upon the overshadowing financial questions; with thwarting the ends of justice by its partisan mismanagement and obstruction of investigation; with proving itself, through the period of its ascendancy in the lower house of Congress, utterly incompetent to administer the Government; and we warn the country against trusting a party thus alike unworthy, recreant, and incapable.

17. The national administration merits commendation for its honorable work in the management of domestic and foreign affairs, and President Grant deserves the continued hearty gratitude of the American people for his patriotism and his eminent services, in war and in peace.

18. We present as our candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States two distinguished statesmen, of eminent ability and character, and conspicuously fitted for those high offices, and we confidently appeal to the American people to intrust the administration of their public affairs to Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler.

The friends of Blaine were grievously disappointed at the action of the Cincinnati convention, but Blaine promptly came to the front in his heroic way, and made a tireless battle for the success of the ticket.

The Democratic convention met at St. Louis on the 28th of June. Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, was temporary chairman, and was succeeded by General John A. McClernand, of Illinois, as permanent presiding officer. This was the first convention to cross the Father of Waters, and it was a thoroughly organized Tilden convention before it met. Tilden was the ablest political manager in the Democratic party of that day. He was tireless, methodical, and sagacious, and he made his nomination over Hancock and Hendricks by early and complete organization of his friends in all the debatable States. He had won national reputation by his courage in bringing Tweed to justice, and he was regarded by the country generally as well equipped for the high duties of Chief Magistrate. The friends of Hendricks made a desperate battle for him, but they were outclassed in leadership, and it was a Tilden convention when the body convened, with very able men to hold it in subjection.

The Tilden forces required little leadership at St. Louis, as his nomination had been thoroughly accomplished before the convention met. Tilden exhausted his wonderful powers of organization in getting control of the delegations of doubtful States, and looked minutely to the men who should be chosen as delegates, and when the convention met there was no boisterous jostling between the opposing forces, as the majority was complete in its organization and moved with directness to the accomplishment of its purpose. William L. Scott, of Erie, Penn., who was twice elected to Congress in an overwhelmingly Republican district, was the accepted leader of the Tilden people. He was personally popular, self-poised, sagacious, and discreet, and all he had to do was to keep his solid lines unbroken.

The minority was dumbfounded at the development of the Tilden strength, but the Hendricks people, led by McDonald, of Indiana—afterward United States Senator—and most zealously and aggressively aided by the helpless Tammany minority in the New York delegation, fought heroically at every step; but with Scott to manage and Harry Watterson to inspire the Tilden people, they maintained their mastery from start to finish, and Tilden was declared the nominee. When the nomination was announced the convention presented a singular spectacle. The Tilden delegates were at once upon their feet cheering lustily and waving their handkerchiefs, and one after another of the minority delegations rose and joined in the huzzas for the declared candidate, but the Indiana delegates sat stubbornly in their seats, presenting the appearance of a small cleared patch in a forest. The convention waited some minutes for the Indiana men to rise, but they kept their seats. The next day Hendricks was made the candidate for Vice-President in spite of the protests of his delegation and his friends, and finally the convention joined in united cheers for the ticket.

Much bitterness was developed during the struggle between the opposing clans, and a duel between General Morgan, a fighting Democratic soldier of Ohio, and Colonel Breckenridge, of Kentucky, was only averted, when the convention adjourned, by Colonel Watterson hurrying Breckenridge off to dinner, and compelling him to make concessions which properly satisfied the Ohio warrior.

It required only two ballots to give Tilden the nomination, as follows:

═══════════════════════════╤════════╤════════ │ First. │Second. ───────────────────────────┼────────┼──────── Samuel J. Tilden, N. Y. │ 417 │ 535 Thomas A. Hendricks, Ind. │ 140 │ 60 Winfield S. Hancock, Penn. │ 75 │ 59 William Allen, Ohio │ 56 │ 54 Thomas F. Bayard, Del. │ 33 │ 11 Joel Parker, N. J. │ 18 │ 18 Allen G. Thurman, Ohio │ ―― │ 7 ═══════════════════════════╧════════╧════════

The platform was prepared under Tilden’s own direction, and it was unanimously adopted as follows:

We, the delegates of the Democratic party of the United States, in national convention assembled, do hereby declare the administration of the Federal Government to be in urgent need of immediate reform; do hereby enjoin upon the nominees of this convention, and of the Democratic party in each State, a zealous effort and co-operation to this end; and do hereby appeal to our fellow-citizens of every former political connection to undertake with us this first and most pressing patriotic duty.

For the Democracy of the whole country, we do here reaffirm our faith in the permanence of the Federal Union, our devotion to the Constitution of the United States, with its amendments universally accepted as a final settlement of the controversies that engendered civil war, and do here record our steadfast confidence in the perpetuity of Republican self-government.

In absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority—the vital principle of republics; in the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; in the total separation of Church and State, for the sake alike of civil and religious freedom; in the equality of all citizens before just laws of their own enactment; in the liberty of individual conduct, unvexed by sumptuary laws; in the faithful education of the rising generation, that they may preserve, enjoy, and transmit these best conditions of human happiness and hope—we behold the noblest products of a hundred years of changeful history; but, while upholding the bond of our Union and great charter of these our rights, it behooves a free people to practise also that eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty.

Reform is necessary to rebuild and establish in the hearts of the whole people the Union, eleven years ago happily rescued from the danger of a secession of States, but now to be saved from a corrupt centralism which, after inflicting upon ten States the rapacity of carpet-bag tyrannies, has honeycombed the offices of the Federal Government itself with incapacity, waste, and fraud; infected States and municipalities with the contagion of misrule, and locked fast the prosperity of an industrious people in the paralysis of hard times.

Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit, and maintain the national honor.

We denounce the failure, for all these eleven years of peace, to make good the promise of the legal tender notes, which are a changing standard of value in the hands of the people, and the non-payment of which is a disregard of the plighted faith of the nation.

We denounce the improvidence which, in eleven years of peace, has taken from the people in Federal taxes thirteen times the whole amount of the legal tender notes, and squandered four times their sum in useless expense without accumulating any reserve for their redemption.

We denounce the financial imbecility and immorality of that party which, during eleven years of peace, has made no advance toward resumption, no preparation for resumption, but instead has obstructed resumption, by wasting our resources and exhausting all our surplus income; and, while annually professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has annually enacted fresh hindrances thereto. As such hindrance, we denounce the resumption clause of the act of 1875, and we here demand its repeal.

We demand a judicious system of preparation by public economy, by official retrenchment, and by wise finance, which shall enable the nation soon to assure the whole world of its perfect ability and its perfect readiness to meet any of its promises at the call of the creditor entitled to payment.

We believe such a system, well devised, and, above all, intrusted to competent hands for its execution, creating at no time an artificial scarcity of currency, and at no time alarming the public mind into a withdrawal of that vaster machinery of credit by which ninety-five per cent. of all business transactions are performed—a system open, public, and inspiring general confidence—would, from the day of its adoption, bring healing on its wings to all our harassed industries, set in motion the wheels of commerce, manufactures, and the mechanic arts, restore employment to labor, and renew in all its natural resources the prosperity of the people.

Reform is necessary in the sum and modes of Federal taxation, to the end that capital may be set free from distrust, and labor lightly burdened.

We denounce the present tariff, levied upon nearly four thousand articles, as a masterpiece of injustice, inequality, and false pretence. It yields a dwindling, not a yearly rising revenue. It has impoverished many industries to subsidize a few. It prohibits imports that might purchase the products of American labor. It has degraded American commerce from the first to an inferior rank on the high seas. It has cut down the sales of American manufactures at home and abroad and depleted the returns of American agriculture—an industry followed by half our people. It costs the people five times more than it produces to the treasury, obstructs the processes of production, and wastes the fruits of labor. It promotes fraud, fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest officials, and bankrupts honest merchants. We demand that all custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue.

Reform is necessary in the scale of public expense—Federal, State, and municipal. Our Federal taxation has swollen from sixty millions gold, in 1860, to four hundred and fifty millions currency, in 1870; our aggregate taxation from one hundred and fifty-four millions gold, in 1860, to seven hundred and thirty millions currency, in 1870; or in one decade from less than five dollars per head to more than eighteen dollars per head. Since the peace, the people have paid to their tax gatherers more than thrice the sum of the national debt, and more than twice that sum for the Federal Government alone. We demand a rigorous frugality in every department, and from every officer of the Government.

Reform is necessary to put a stop to the profligate waste of the public lands and their diversion from actual settlers by the party in power, which has squandered two hundred million acres upon railroads alone, and out of more than thrice that aggregate has disposed of less than a sixth directly to tillers of the soil.

Reform is necessary to correct the omissions of a Republican Congress, and the errors of our treaties and diplomacy, which have stripped our fellow-citizens of foreign birth and kindred race recrossing the Atlantic, of the shield of American citizenship, and have exposed our brethren of the Pacific coast to the incursions of a race not sprung from the same great parent stock, and, in fact, now by law denied citizenship through naturalization as being neither accustomed to the traditions of a progressive civilization nor exercised in liberty under equal laws. We denounce the policy which thus discards the liberty-loving German and tolerates a revival of the Cooly trade in Mongolian women imported for immoral purposes, and Mongolian men held to perform servile labor-contracts, and demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese empire or such legislation within constitutional limitations as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race.

Reform is necessary, and can never be effected but by making it the controlling issue of the elections, and lifting it above the two false issues with which the office-holding class and the party in power seek to smother it:

1. The false issue with which they would enkindle sectarian strife in respect to the public schools, of which the establishment and support belong exclusively to the several States, and which the Democratic party has cherished from their foundation, and is resolved to maintain without prejudice or preference for any class, sect, or creed, and without largesses from the treasury to any.

2. The false issue by which they seek to light anew the dying embers of sectional hate between kindred peoples once estranged, but now reunited in one indivisible republic and a common destiny.