CHAPTER XXXII RECUPERATING YEARS . PEACE, the long-desired, can hardly be said to have spread her white wings over the land until reconstruction had been practically accomplished and the trial of Johnson was over. Now at last the great strife was ended, and though the bitterness engendered by it could only wear away with the passing of the generation, every one felt that, as the one and only cause of internecine war had been removed, never again would America witness the scenes of the past eight years. Before reconstruction had been fully accomplished the country turned to its quadrennial duty of electing a President. THE ELECTION OF 1868 Four days after the deciding vote in the trial of Johnson had been cast, the national Republican convention met in Chicago. For the first place on the ticket there was no contest, as the whole party was agreed in its choice of the valiant commander who had won first honors on the battle field. Not only had General Grant distinguished himself in war, but during the Johnson administration, though his position was a trying one, he had borne himself with great discretion and dignity. So reticent had Grant been in regard to politics that for some time after the close of hostilities his political bias was unknown. He had voted for James Buchanan in 1856, and the rumor gained currency that the Democrats hoped to make him their candidate in 1868. But Grant indicated that his sympathies were with the Republicans. On the first ballot Grant was named by a unanimous vote. For Vice President the convention named Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, speaker of the House of Representatives. The platform adopted by the convention made two points con1 Colonel A. K. McClure declares (see "Our Presidents," p. 202) that Grant before the war was a radical proslavery Democrat, not even so liberal as Douglas, and that he never voted the Republican ticket before he became President. It was Colonel Forney of the Philadelphia Press who persuaded Grant to permit the Republicans, rather than the Democrats, to make him their candidate. spicuous, a pledge in substance, though not in so many words, to pay the public debt in coin, and a demand for equal suffrage for white and black men in the South. The first of these, concerning the finances, was highly commendable, and the pledge was carried out to the letter in the following years. But the other plank was highly discreditable to the party. It imposed negro suffrage on the South (the Fifteenth Amendment being not yet adopted) and left the matter to be decided by the various states in the North. "This was an evasion of duty quite unworthy the Republican party," says Mr. Blaine, and "carried with it an element of deception." It was a PENN. MD.N.J. VA. N. CAR. MASS. R.I. CONN. DAK. WIS. (WYO. TY MICH. TY. NEB. IOWA OHIO UTAH, TY COLO. ILL. AND. KAN. KY. CAR TY. GA. MISS TEXAS ELECTION CHART, 1868 REPUBLICAN DEMOCRATIC ELECTORS CHOSEN BY THE LEGISLATURE GULF OF MEXICO Bormay & Co., N.I. strange proceeding to attempt to force the South to stand upon a higher plane of political virtue than the North itself was willing to adopt. The object in exempting the Northern states from this condition was to avoid giving offense to a few doubtful states, notably Indiana and California. The Republican keynote of the campaign, however, was not found in the platform, but in the laconic phrase, "Let us have peace," from General Grant's letter of acceptance. The Democratic convention, which met on the 4th of July in New York City, was looked forward to with great interest because of 1 "Twenty Years of Congress," Vol. II, p. 388. 2 Other Republican states, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and Kansas, had recently rejected negro suffrage. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1868 Democratic 815 the uncertainty as to what it would do. Two great questions must be pronounced on Republican reconstruction, and the payment of the public debt in specie; and it decided adversely on both. The platform adopted declared that the portion of the public debt not payable by express terms in coin "ought to be paid in lawful money," that is, legal tender notes, which were far below the gold standard in value; and it pronounced the reconstruction acts "usurpations, unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." The plank on the money question appealed to many who did not hold government convention. bonds; but that on reconstruction was not popular at the North, as the people were weary of the long-drawn-out subject and were unwilling to undo the great work now so nearly completed. The most widely discussed candidates for the nomination were George H. Pendleton, who represented the greenback craze, and Salmon P. Chase, both of Ohio. Chase had first been elected to the Senate by the Democrats, but for many years he had acted with the Republicans. He had resigned from Lincoln's Cabinet in 1864, and was now chief justice of the Federal Supreme Court. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana and General W. S. Hancock were also voted for; but after the convention had cast twenty-one ballots without result, there was a sudden stampede for Horatio Seymour of New York who at that moment sat before the delegates as chairman of the convention. Repeatedly had Mr. Seymour declined to permit his name to be considered, and he now reiterated this decision from the chair. But his words were unheeded. On the twenty-second ballot the convention cast a unanimous vote for Seymour. Frank P. Blair of Missouri was then nominated for the vice presidency. Mr. Seymour was a man of great ability and political sagacity, and was doubtless the most popular man the party could have named. During the war he had vigorously criticised the administration, but he was never violent nor disloyal. Moreover, he was a "hard money" man, and on this point opposed to his party platform. Blair had acted with Lincoln during the war, but now he was a radical Democrat on reconstruction. So extreme were his views that he became a heavy burden for the party to carry. The party was further handicapped by the prominent part taken in the convention by former leaders of the Rebellion, notably Wade Hampton, who had written the plank on reconstruction. General Grant was elected by 214 votes to 80 for Mr. Seymour. These figures would indicate an overwhelming victory for The election. Grant; but an analysis of the vote was by no means reassuring to the Republicans. Of the eight seceded states which voted, six cast their ballots for Grant. This was due chiefly to the fact that many of the whites were disfranchised, and that these states were under carpetbag governments. Seymour carried New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and Delaware, and also Maryland, Georgia, and Louisiana. Had all the Southern states voted, and had the South been solidly Democratic, as it came to be a few years later, Seymour would have been elected President over Grant. But this was not all. Seymour came within less than a thousand votes of winning in Indiana and was but 514 below Grant in California, while the Republican majorities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other Northern states were very small. These facts were startling to the Republicans, and convinced them that henceforth, as in ante-bellum days, they would have to reckon with a powerful rival in the Democratic party. The two chief causes of this unexpected showing of the Democrats were, that thousands of their number who had acted with the "Union" party during the war had now returned to their old allegiance, and that a considerable number of Republicans, who had followed President Johnson and had opposed congressional reconstruction, now found a permanent home in the Democratic fold. OPENING OF A NEW ERA Many of our Presidents have been men with military records; but only once before the election of Grant-just twenty years before -had the people chosen a chief magistrate on account of a purely military record. General Grant's inaugural address, in which he said that he accepted the responsibilities of the great office without fear, and his subsequent choosing of a cabinet, revealed his profound ignorance of the great work that lay before him. The surprise to his party was complete when he named Mr. A. T. Stewart, the wellknown New York merchant, as secretary of the treasury. Mr. Stewart was ineligible, as a law passed in 1789 forbade the employment in the revenue service of any one engaged in foreign comWhen the President ascertained this fact he chose George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts to fill the office.2 merce. 1 As stated in the preceding chapter, Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas did not vote in this election. 2 First, however, he requested Congress to remove the disability of Mr. Stewart, but this request was not granted. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS 817 Other appointments were quite satisfactory: E. B. Washburne became secretary of state, Jacob D. Cox, secretary of the interior, E. R. Hoar, attorney-general, and J. A. J. Cresswell, postThe Cabinet. master-general. Mr. Washburne, however, after a week's service, resigned and became minister to France, and was succeeded in the Cabinet by Hamilton Fish of New York. The House was organized on March 4, 1869, according to the law passed two years before, and James G. Blaine was elected speaker. The Senate easily maintained its standard of ability. Among its leading members were Carl Schurz, newly elected from Missouri; Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, former Vice President; Henry Wilson, a future Vice President; George F. Edmunds of Vermont, Allan G. Thurman, the sturdy Ohio Democrat who came to be called the "Old Roman," John Sherman, Charles Sumner, Jonathan Trumbull, W. P. Fessenden, and William G. Brownlow, the erratic fighting parson of Tennessee. One of the first acts of this Congress was to modify the Tenure of Office Act to an extent amounting almost to its repeal. This was an acknowledgment that the law was a purely partisan one. Affairs at the South were still in an unsettled condition, and, as briefly stated on a preceding page, Congress passed laws known as "force bills," aimed chiefly at Ku Klux interference with elections in the South. The first of these, passed in May, 1870, provided that in cities of more than twenty thousand inhabitants the elections be controlled by Federal supervisors. The second, passed in April, 1871, was far more sweeping. It resembled the famous Sedition Law of 1798.1 It made the depriving of any one of the rights of citizenship, as defined in the Fourteenth Amendment, a penal offense, held the state responsible for the enforcement of that Amendment, bill. authorized the President, for a specified time, to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus, and to suppress any insurrection by the army and navy of the United States. But for some years longer election troubles at the South continued to disturb the whole country, and President Grant was frequently called on to quell the riots and to decide the contests. In some states "Returning Boards "had been created by law, and these boards were empowered to sit in judgment on all election returns. They were destined to attract great attention a few years later, at the disputed presidential election of 1876. The force Meantime the Federal Supreme Court was again making itself felt in the land. Three decisions of great national importance were 1 Alexander Johnson's "American Politics," p. 214. |