[Footnote 1621: The following table gave great offense:

- - Democratic Districts. Counties. Population. - - 3d Kings 292,258 8th New York 235,482 7th New York 173,225 2d Kings 172,725 9th New York 167,530 - -

- Republican Districts. Counties. Population. - 20th Herkimer, Otsego 89,338 18th Jefferson, Lewis 90,596 26th Ontario, Yates, Seneca 91,064 16th Clinton, Essex, Warren 101,327 27th Cayuga, Wayne 106,120 -]

[Footnote 1622: Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1879, p. 672.]



CHAPTER XXXI

REMOVAL OF ARTHUR AND CORNELL

1878-9

One week before the election of 1877 President Hayes nominated Theodore Roosevelt for collector of customs, L. Bradford Prince for naval officer, and Edwin A. Merritt for surveyor, in place of Chester A. Arthur, Alonzo B. Cornell, and George H. Sharpe.[1623] The terms of Arthur and Cornell had not expired, and although their removal had been canvassed and expected for several months, its coming shocked the party and increased the disgust of the organisation. George William Curtis, with the approval of Evarts, urged the promotion of James L. Benedict for collector, a suggestion which the Secretary of the Treasury stoutly opposed. If Arthur, the latter argued, was to be removed because of his identification with a system of administration which the President desired to abolish, no reason existed for promoting one who had made no effort to reform that system. No one questioned Roosevelt's ability, high character, and fitness for the place, but to those who resented the removal of Arthur his nomination was an offence.

[Footnote 1623: Sharpe's term having expired he had withdrawn his application for reappointment.]

Chester A. Arthur had succeeded Thomas Murphy as collector of the port in November, 1871. He was then forty-seven years old, a lawyer of fair standing and a citizen of good repute. He had studied under the tuition of his clergyman father, graduated at Union College, taught school in his native Vermont, cast a first vote for Winfield Scott, and joined the Republican party at its organisation. At the outbreak of the rebellion Governor Morgan appointed him quartermaster-general, his important duties, limited to the preparation and forwarding of troops to the seat of war, being performed with great credit. When Seymour succeeded Morgan in 1863 Arthur resumed his law practice, securing some years later profitable employment as counsel for the department of city assessments and taxes.

From the first Arthur showed a liking for public life. He was the gentleman in politics. The skill of an artist tailor exhibited his tall, graceful figure at its best, and his shapely hands were immaculately gloved. His hat advertised the latest fashion just as his exquisite necktie indicated the proper colour.[1624] He was equally particular about his conduct. Whatever his environment he observed the details of court etiquette. His stately elegance of manner easily unbent without loss of dignity, and although his volatile spirits and manner of living gave him the appearance of a bon vivant, lively and jocose, with less devotion to work than to society, it was noticeable that he attracted men of severer mould as easily as those vivacious and light-hearted associates who called him "Chet." While Fenton, after Greeley's failure as a leader, was gathering the broken threads of party management into a compact and aggressive organisation, Arthur enjoyed the respect and confidence of every local leader, who appreciated his wise reticence and perennial courtesy, blended with an ability to control restless and suspicious politicians by timely hints and judicious suggestions. Indeed, people generally, irrespective of party, esteemed him highly because of his kindness of heart, his conciliatory disposition, his lively sense of humour, and his sympathetic attention to the interests of those about him. He was neither self-opinionated, argumentative, nor domineering, but tactful, considerate, and persuasive. There was also freedom from prejudice, quickness of decision, a precise knowledge of details, and a flexibility of mind that enabled him to adapt himself easily to changing conditions.

[Footnote 1624: "You remember, don't you, what Orville Baker told us about Arthur's two passions, as he heard them discussed at Sam Ward's dinner in New York? New coats being one, he then having ordered twenty-five from his tailor since the New Year came in."—Mrs. James G. Blaine, Letters (January 28, 1882), Vol. 1, p. 294.]

When Conkling finally wrested the Federal patronage from Fenton and secured to himself the favour and confidence of the Grant administration, Arthur bivouacked with the senior Senator so quietly and discreetly that Greeley accepted his appointment as collector without criticism. "He is a young man of fair abilities," said the editor, "and of unimpeached private character. He has filled no such role in public affairs as should entitle him to so important and responsible a part, but as things go, his is an appointment of fully average fitness and acceptability. With the man we have no difference; with the system that made him collector we have a deadly quarrel. He was Mr. Murphy's personal choice, and he was chosen because it is believed he can run the machine of party politics better than any of our great merchants."[1625]

[Footnote 1625: New York Tribune, November 22, 1871. See also, Ibid., November 21.]

In party initiative Arthur's judgment and modesty aided him in avoiding the repellent methods of Murphy. He did not wait for emergencies to arise, but considering them in advance as possible contingencies, he exercised an unobtrusive but masterful authority when the necessity for action came. He played an honest game of diplomacy. What others did with Machiavellian intrigue or a cynical indifference to ways and means, he accomplished with the cards on the table in plain view, and with motives and objects frankly disclosed. No one ever thought his straightforward methods clumsy, or unbusinesslike, or deficient in cleverness. In like manner he studied the business needs of the customs service, indicating to the Secretary of the Treasury the flagrant use of backstair wiles, and pointing out to him ways of reform.[1626] He sought in good faith to secure efficiency and honesty, and if he had not been pinioned as with ball and chain to a system as old as the custom-house itself, and upon which every political boss from DeWitt Clinton to Roscoe Conkling had relied for advantage, he would doubtless have reformed existing peculation and irregularities among inspectors, weighers, gaugers, examiners, samplers, and appraisers.[1627] Until this army of placemen could be taken out of politics Secretary Sherman refused to believe it possible to make the custom-house "the best managed business agency of the government," and as Arthur seemed an inherent part of the system itself, the President wished to try Theodore Roosevelt.[1628] It is safe to conclude, judging the father's work by the later achievements of his illustrious son, that the Chief Executive's choice would have accomplished the result had Conkling allowed him to undertake it.

[Footnote 1626: See his letters to the Secretary of the Treasury, New York Tribune, January 28, 1879.]

[Footnote 1627: In his testimony before the Jay Commission, Arthur spoke of "10,000 applicants," backed and pressed upon him with unabated energy by the most prominent men "all over the country."—New York Tribune, July 28, 1877.]

[Footnote 1628: Arthur was offered an appointment as consul-general to Paris.—See Theodore E. Burton, Life of John Sherman, p. 294.]

When Conkling felt himself at ease, in congenial society, he displayed his mastery of irony and banter, neither hesitating to air his opinion of persons nor shrinking from admissions which were candid to the verge of cynicism. At such times he had not veiled his intense dislike of the Administration. After Hayes's election his conversation discovered as aggressive a spirit as he had exhibited at Rochester, speaking of the Secretary of State as "little Evarts," and charging the President with appointing "a Democratic cabinet," whose principal labour had been "to withdraw Republican support from me." Apropos of Schurz, he told a story of the man who disbelieved the Bible because he didn't write it. He criticised the Republican press for praising Tilden as governor and "lampooning" him as a candidate for the presidency, pronounced Packard's title as good as Hayes's, and declared the President's "objectionable and dishonourable" record consisted not in the withdrawal of the troops but in bargaining with Southerners. "Every man knows," he said, "that on the face of the returns Packard was more elected than Hayes. You cannot present those returns in any form that will not give more legality to Packard as Governor than to Hayes as President. People say this man assumes all the virtues of reform in an office which he has gained by the simple repudiation of the ladder that lifted him. It is the general record of usurpers that though sustained they do their favours to the other side.... I have no faith in a President whose only distinct act is ingratitude to the men who voted for him and to the party which gave him its fealty. In the domain and forum of honour that sense of Mr. Hayes's infidelity stands forward and challenges him. It is felt by honest men all over the country. He smiles and showers on the opposition the proofs of a disturbed mind."

Speaking of the civil service order the Senator was no less severe. "That celebrated reformatory order was factional in its intent, made in the interests of envious and presuming little men. Sherman (secretary of the treasury) goes out to Ohio and makes speeches in defiance of it; McCrary (secretary of war) goes to Iowa and manages a convention in spite of it; and Devens (attorney-general) says the order meant itself to be disobeyed, and that the way to obey it was to violate it."[1629]

[Footnote 1629: New York Herald, November 9, 1877. Respecting this interview Conkling made a personal explanation in the Senate, in which he said: "Though some of the remarks in question may at some time have been made in private casual conversations, others of them never proceeded from me at any time."—New York Tribune, November 13. It is assumed that the portions quoted above, taken from a three-column interview, are substantially correct, since they are corroborated by several persons now living (1908) who heard the Senator's expressions. See, also, Alfred R. Conkling, Life of Conkling, pp. 552-554.

"Mr. Conkling, in all his conversations, seemed to consider men who differed from him as enemies of the human race."—White, Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 188.

"Conkling spoke with great severity of President Hayes, and said he hoped it would be the last time that any man would attempt to steal the presidency."—Hoar, Autobiography, Vol. 2, p. 44.]

Conkling's criticism of the fitful execution of the civil service order was not too severe. Instead of justifying the expectations he had aroused by vigorously enforcing the principles of his letter of acceptance and inaugural address, the President, as if inthralled by some mysterious spell, had discredited his professions by his performances. The establishment of a real change in the system of appointments and of office-holding control invited a severe contest, and success depended upon the courage and conviction of the Administration itself. For firmness, however, Hayes substituted hesitation, compromise, and in some instances surrender. Numerous cases were cited in proof of this criticism, notably the reappointment of Chauncey I. Filley, postmaster at St. Louis, whom George William Curtis pronounced the most conspicuous office-holder in the country for his active manipulation of politics. "He is a shining example of 'the thing to be reformed.'"[1630]

[Footnote 1630: Harper's Weekly, December 8, 1877.]

The President's removal of Arthur and Cornell, it was argued, was no less irrational. In failing to charge them with inefficiency he subjected himself to the graver charge of inconsistency, since his letter of acceptance and inaugural address declared in substance that efficient officers would be retained. The President meant, his friends assumed, that political activity nullified efficiency, to which opponents replied that the President, after inviting Arthur to carry out the recommendations of the Jay Commission, had condoned the collector's wrong-doing if any existed, making him an agent for reform, and that his subsequent removal was simply in the interest of faction. Cornell's case likewise presented a peg upon which to hang severe criticism, since the Administration, when asked for the reason of his removal, dodged the decisive one. Such inconsistency showed timidity and confusion instead of courage and conviction, disappointing to friends and ridiculous to opponents.

Conkling made use of these and other points. Indeed, for more than six weeks after Congress convened he bent all his energies and diplomacy to defeat the confirmation of Roosevelt and Prince. That a Republican senator might be substituted for a Democrat on the commerce committee, of which he was chairman and to which the nominations were referred, he delayed action until a reorganisation of the Senate. Finally, in a forceful and pathetic speech, regarded by colleagues as his most impressive address,[1631] he illuminated what he deemed an act of injustice to Arthur and Cornell. It was less bitter perhaps than that in the contest with Fenton over the confirmation of Thomas Murphy, but no less carefully worked up and quite as successful. To the consternation of the Administration, which relied upon a solid Democratic party, the Senator won by a decisive vote, having the support of several Democrats and of all the Republicans except five.

[Footnote 1631: Conkling, Life of Conkling, p. 373.]

It was an important victory for Conkling, who must soon begin another canvass for members of the Legislature. It sent a thrill of joy through the ranks of his friends, renewed the courage of office-holding lieutenants, and compelled the Administration's supporters to admit that the President was "chiefly to blame."[1632] Moreover, the cordial support given Conkling by Blaine created the impression that it had led to their complete reconciliation, a belief strengthened by a conversation that subsequently occurred between them on the floor of the Senate Chamber in full view of crowded galleries. David Davis had added to the tableau by putting an arm around each, thus giving the meeting the appearance of an unusually friendly one.[1633]

[Footnote 1632: Harper's Weekly, December 22, 1877.]

[Footnote 1633: New York Tribune, December 17, 1878.]

But the President, if he had previously omitted to say what he meant, determined not to surrender, and on July 11 (1878), after the adjournment of Congress, he suspended Arthur and Cornell and appointed Edwin A. Merritt and Silas W. Burt. Arthur's suspension did not involve his integrity. Nor was any distinct charge lodged against Cornell. Their removal rested simply upon the plea that the interests of the public service demanded it, and the death of Roosevelt very naturally opened the way for Merritt.[1634]

[Footnote 1634: Theodore Roosevelt died on February 9.]

All his life Merritt had been serviceable and handy in politics. After holding successively several local offices in St. Lawrence, the people sent him to the Assembly in 1859 and in 1860. When the rebellion began he entered the quartermaster's and commissary departments, and at its close served as quartermaster-general of the State until appointed naval officer in 1869, an office which he lost in 1870 when Conkling got control of the patronage. Then he followed Fenton and Greeley into the Liberal party, but returning with other leaders in 1874, he accepted the nomination for State treasurer in 1875, the year when administrative reform accelerated Tilden's run for the White House. This made him eligible for surveyor, an office to which he had been confirmed in December, 1877. His unsought promotion to the collectorship, however, was a testimonial to his ability. Whatever Merritt touched he improved. Whether quartermaster, naval officer, or surveyor, he attended rigorously to duty, enforcing the law fairly and without favour, and disciplining his force into a high state of efficiency, so that revenues increased, expenses diminished, and corruption talk ceased. In selecting him for collector, therefore, the President had secured the right type of man.

Nevertheless, Hayes's action roiled the political waters. Conkling's friends accused the President of violating his own principles, of endeavouring to set up a new machine, and of grossly insulting the Senator. On the other hand, Administration supporters maintained that the law authorising removals was as obligatory as that empowering a senator to advise and consent to appointments, and that in removing Arthur the President did not insult Conkling any more than Conkling insulted the President by rejecting the nomination of Roosevelt. This renewal of an ugly quarrel was auguring ill for the Republicans, when the organisation of the National Greenback-Labour-Reform party, suddenly presenting a question which involved the integrity and welfare of the country, put factional quarrels and personal politics into eclipse.

Conkling had exhibited both tact and skill in that campaign. He did not lead the gold column. In fact, it was not until the last moment that the Saratoga committee on resolutions which he dominated, substituted "the fixed monetary standard of the commercial world" for the word "coin." But after the guide-boards pointed the way he became a powerful champion of hard money. Besides, the moderation and good temper with which he discussed the doctrine of the inflationists did much to hold dissenters within the party and justly entitled him to high praise. His unanimous re-election to the Senate followed as a matter of course. Not that unanimity of action implied unanimity of feeling. It was rather, perhaps, a yielding to the necessity of the situation.[1635]

[Footnote 1635: The strength of the anti-Conkling sentiment was clearly shown in the contest for speaker of the Assembly. Thomas G. Alvord received 52 votes to 43 for George B. Sloan of Oswego. Although Sloan and his supporters declared for Conkling, Alvord was confessedly the Conkling candidate.]

Nevertheless, to all appearances Conkling had recovered the prestige lost at Rochester. His conduct at the convention and in the campaign excited the hope, also, that he would drop his opposition to Merritt and Burt. Such a course commended itself to the judgment of a large majority of the New York delegation in Congress as well as to many stout legislative friends; but re-election seemed to have hardened his heart, and when, ten days after that event, he rose in the Senate to defeat confirmation he exhibited the confidence of the man of Gath.[1636]

[Footnote 1636: New York Tribune (correspondence), February 1, 1879.]

Prior to his re-election Conkling had not voluntarily moved in the matter. To him the settlement of one thing at a time sufficed. Early in January, however, the Secretary of the Treasury, on his own initiative and with the skill of a veteran legislator, had addressed the President of the Senate, setting forth that Arthur's conduct of the custom-house was neither efficient nor economical. To this Arthur answered, denying inattention to business or loss of revenue, and affirming that he had recommended a system of reform upon which the Secretary had not acted.[1637] After the reception of this letter Conkling demanded immediate action. But the Senate, by two majority, preferred to wait for Sherman's replication, and when that statement came the Senate again, by a vote of 35 to 26, put off action until the document, with its many exhibits, could be carefully examined.[1638] These delays augured ill for the Senator. It appeared that a Democratic member of his own committee had left him, and on the day fixed for consideration other Democrats, while calmly discussing the matter, disclosed a disposition to desert. Alarmed at their loss Conkling suddenly moved to recommit, which was carried by a viva voce vote amidst shouts of approval and whispered assurances that further action should be deferred until a Democratic Senate convened on March 4. Then some one demanded the yeas and nays.

[Footnote 1637: Ibid., January 28.]

[Footnote 1638: These exhibits made a document of 423 pages, of which 308 were extracts from the testimony taken by the Jay Commission, then published for the first time.]

Believing the matter practically settled, Conkling, to improve the last chance "of freeing his mind," he said, unexpectedly took the floor, and for more than an hour, with a bitterness and eloquence not excelled at Rochester, assailed the President and those associated with him. To illustrate the insincerity of the Administration's desire to reform the civil service he read several place-seeking letters addressed to Arthur while collector and written by the President's private secretary, by a member of the Cabinet, and other reformers. One letter sought a position for the son of Justice Bradley, who had figured conspicuously on the Electoral Commission. Such a scene had never before been witnessed in the Senate. Exclamations of mock surprise followed by fun-making questions and loud laughter added to the grotesque exhibition. It was so ludicrous as to become pitiful and painful. Although no particular harm was done to anybody, the Government for the moment was made ridiculous.

At times Conkling was blessed with the gift of offence, and on this occasion he seems to have exercised it to its full capacity. Before he began speaking the Senate exhibited a readiness to recommit the nominations, but as he proceeded he lost ground, and when he finished several Republican senators, unwilling to afford another opportunity for such a scene, demanded that the matter be disposed of at once and forever. Each succeeding name, as the roll-call proceeded on the motion to recommit, showed more and more the change that had taken place in senators' feelings. Failure to recommit turned defeat into confusion, and confusion into disaster. When the three roll-calls were over it was found that Merritt had been confirmed by 33 to 24 and Burt by 31 to 19. An analysis of the "pairs" increased the rout, since it disclosed that twenty-five Democrats and fifteen Republicans favoured confirmation, while only seven Democrats and twenty-three Republicans opposed it. In other words, the Administration required only five Democratic votes to match the strength of the dissatisfied Republicans. Kernan, although he had spoken slightingly of Merritt, refused to vote, but Blaine, who had joined heartily in the laughter provoked by Conkling's thrusts as he read the letters, antagonised the President. This noticeable desire of the Maine statesman to attach his fortunes to those of the New York Senator neither escaped the attention nor faded from the memory of Secretary Sherman.

The next morning everybody knew what had happened. Although secrecy was removed only from the vote, nothing of the seven hours' conflict remained untold, the result of which to all New Yorkers proved a great surprise. They had supposed Conkling invincible in the Senate. Nevertheless, to most Republicans, whether friends or foes, his defeat on February 3 was a great relief. Merritt had made an excellent collector, and a feeling existed, which had crystallised into a strong public sentiment, that it was unwise to force into his place an official unsatisfactory to the Secretary of the Treasury.



CHAPTER XXXII

JOHN KELLY ELECTS CORNELL

1879

If threatened danger had bred an artificial harmony among the Republican factions of the State in 1878, the presence of a real peril, growing out of the control of both branches of Congress by the Democrats, tended to bring them closer together in 1879. During a special session of the Forty-sixth Congress the Democratic majority had sought, by a political rider attached to the army appropriation bill, to repeal objectionable election laws, which provided among other things for the appointment of supervisors and deputy marshals at congressional elections. This law had materially lessened cheating in New York City, and no one doubted that its repeal would be followed in 1880 by scenes similar to those which had disgraced the metropolis prior to its enactment in 1870.

But the attempt to get rid of the objectionable Act by a rider on a supply bill meant more than repeal. It implied a threat. In effect the Democrats declared that if the Executive did not yield his veto power to a bare majority, the needed appropriations for carrying on the government would be stopped. This practically amounted to revolution, and the debate that followed reawakened bitter partisan and sectional animosities. "Suppose in a separate bill," said Conkling, "the majority had, in advance of appropriations, repealed the national bank act and the resumption act, and had declared that unless the Executive surrendered his convictions and yielded up his approval of the repealing act, no appropriations should be made; would the separation of the bills have palliated or condoned the revolutionary purpose? When it is intended that, unless another species of legislation is agreed to, the money of the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used to maintain their government, the threat is revolution and its execution is treasonable." Then he gave the mortal stab. Of the ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these "revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. It is a contrivance to clutch the national government. That we believe; that I believe."[1639] The President, by advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the desperate tactics invoked by the majority, added to Northern indignation.

[Footnote 1639: Cooper, American Politics, Book 3, pp. 176-186.]

It was a losing battle to the Democrats. The longer they insisted the more the Southern brigadiers were held up to public scorn as if they had again betrayed their country, and when, finally, the appropriation bills were passed without riders, it left Republicans more firmly united than at the beginning of the Hayes administration.[1640]

[Footnote 1640: The extra session of Congress adjourned July 1, 1879.]

Two months later the Republican State convention, held at Saratoga (September 3), evidenced this union.[1641] Every distinguished Republican of the State was present save Thurlow Weed, whose feebleness kept him at home. Conkling presided. With fine humour, George William Curtis, the sound of whose flute-like voice brought a burst of applause, asked that the crowded aisles be cleared that he might see the chairman. Conkling's speech excited close attention. It was freer and more vivid because of more human interest than his address of the year before, and his appeal for harmony, his denunciation of revolutionary methods in Congress, and his demand that freedmen be protected in their rights, brought strenuous, purposeful applause from determined men. The principles thus felicitously and rhetorically stated formed the basis of the platform, which pledged the party anew to national supremacy, equal rights, free elections, and honest money. It also thanked the President for his recent attitude.

[Footnote 1641: On August 29, the State convention of Nationals assembled at Utica, and nominated Harris Lewis of Herkimer, for governor. The platform opposed National banks and demanded an issue of greenbacks at the rate of $50 per capita, at least. Lewis, who had been a member of the Assembly twenty years before, was president of the Farmers' Alliance.

The State Prohibition convention met at Syracuse, September 3, and nominated a full State ticket, with John W. Mears of Oneida, for governor. The platform declared the license system the cornerstone of the liquor traffic and favoured woman suffrage.]

Nevertheless, a disposition to contest the strength of the organisation and its methods boldly asserted itself. For months Cornell had been Conkling's candidate for governor. A searching canvass, extended into all sections of the State and penetrating the secrets of men, had been noiselessly and ceaselessly carried on. Indeed, a more inquisitorial pursuit had never before been attempted, since the slightest chance, the merest accident, might result, as it did in 1876, in defeating Cornell.

So much depended upon the control of the temporary organisation that the anti-Conkling forces begged the Vice-President to stand for temporary chairman. They could easily unite upon him, and the belief obtained that he could defeat the Senator. But Wheeler, a mild and amiable gentleman, whose honours had come without personal contests, was timid and unyielding.[1642] What the opposition needed was a real State leader. It had within its ranks brilliant editors,[1643] excellent lawyers, and with few exceptions the best speakers in the party, but since Fenton lost control of the organisation no man had arisen capable of crossing swords with its great chieftain.

[Footnote 1642: "The only complaint that his friends have ever made of Mr. Wheeler is that his generous nature forbids him, politically, to fight. Had he been willing to lead in the State convention in 1879, it would have had a different result."—Harper's Weekly, March 26, 1881.]

[Footnote 1643: Among the more influential Republican editors, who wrote with rare intelligence, representing both factions of the party, may be mentioned Charles E. Smith, Albany Journal; Carroll E. Smith, Syracuse Journal; Ellis H. Roberts, Utica Herald; James N. Matthews, Buffalo Express; S. Newton Dexter North, Albany Express; Whitelaw Reid, New York Tribune; John H. Selkreg, Ithaca Journal; John M. Francis, Troy Times; Beman Brockway, Watertown Times; Charles E. Fitch, Rochester Democrat-Chronicle; George William Curtis, Harper's Weekly; Charles G. Fairman, Elmira Advertiser; William Edward Foster, Buffalo Commercial; George Dawson, Albany Journal; Lewis J. Jennings, New York Times.]

Of the four pronounced candidates for governor Frank Hiscock of Syracuse divided the support of the central counties with Theodore M. Pomeroy of Cayuga, while William H. Robertson of Westchester and John H. Starin of New York claimed whatever delegates Cornell did not control in the metropolis and its vicinity. Among them and their lieutenants, however, none could dispute leadership with Conkling and his corps of able managers. Starin had pluck and energy, but two terms in Congress and popularity with the labouring classes, to whom he paid large wages and generously contributed fresh-air enjoyments, summed up his strength.[1644] Pomeroy was better known. His public record, dating from the famous speech made in the Whig convention of 1855, had kept him prominently before the people, and had he continued in Congress he must have made an exalted national reputation. But the day of younger men had come. Besides, his recent vote for John F. Smyth, the head of the Insurance Department, injured him.[1645] Robertson, as usual, had strong support. His long public career left a clear imprint of his high character, and his attractive personality, with its restrained force, made him a central figure in the politics of the State.

[Footnote 1644: The sale of a condition powder for cattle started Starin on the road to wealth, which soon discovered itself in the ownership of canal, river, and harbour boats, until he became known as High Admiral of the Commerce of New York. Like success attended his railroad operations.]

[Footnote 1645: Pomeroy was district-attorney of his County, 1851-56; in the Assembly, 1857; in Congress, 1861-69, being elected speaker in place of Colfax on the day the latter retired to be sworn in as Vice-President; mayor of Auburn, 1875-76; State Senate, 1878-79.]

Hiscock was then on the threshold of his public career. He began life as the law partner and political lieutenant of his brother, Harris, an adroit politician, whose violent death in 1867, while a member of the constitutional convention, left to the former the Republican leadership of Onondaga County. If his diversion as a Liberal temporarily crippled him, it did not prevent his going to Congress in 1876, where he was destined to remain for sixteen years and to achieve high rank as a debater on financial questions. He was without a sense of humour and possessed rather an austere manner, but as a highly successful lawyer he exhibited traits of character that strengthened him with the people. He was also an eminently wary and cautious man, alive to the necessity of watching the changeful phases of public opinion, and slow to propound a plan until he had satisfied himself that it could be carried out in practice. It increased his influence, too, that he was content with a stroke of practical business here and there in the interest of party peace without claiming credit for any brilliant or deep diplomacy.

It is doubtful, however, if the genius of a Weed could have induced the disorganised forces, representing the four candidates, to put up a single opponent to Cornell. Such a course, in the opinion of the leaders, would release delegates to the latter without compensating advantage. It was decided, therefore, to hold the field intact with the hope of preventing a nomination on the first ballot, and to let the result determine the next step. In their endeavour to accomplish this they stoutly maintained that Cornell, inheriting the unpopularity of the machine, could not carry the State. To win New York and thus have its position defined for 1880 was the one great desire of Republicans, and the visible effect of the fusionists' attack, concededly made with great tact and cleverness, if without much effort at organisation, turned Conkling's confidence into doubt. Then he put on more pressure. In the preceding winter Pomeroy's vote and speech in the State Senate had saved John F. Smyth from deserved impeachment, and he now counted confidently upon the Commissioner's promised support of his candidacy. But Conkling demanded it for Cornell, and Smyth left Pomeroy to care for himself.

It is seldom that a roll-call ever proceeded under such tension. Nominating speeches were abandoned, cheers for the platform faded into an ominous silence, and every response sounded like the night-step of a watchful sentinel. Only when some conspicuous leader voted was the stillness broken. A score of men were keeping count, and halfway down the roll the fusionists tied their opponents. When, at last, the call closed with nine majority for Cornell, the result, save a spasm of throat-splitting yells, was received with little enthusiasm.[1646] On the motion to make the nomination unanimous George William Curtis voted "No" distinctly.[1647]

[Footnote 1646: Whole number of votes cast, 450. Necessary to a choice, 226. Cornell received 234; Robertson, 106; Starin, 40; Pomeroy, 35; Hiscock, 34; Sloan, 1.]

[Footnote 1647: Harper's Weekly, October 25, 1879.]

It was a Conkling victory. For three days delegates had crowded the Senator's headquarters, while in an inner room he strengthened the weak, won the doubtful, and directed his forces with remarkable skill. He asked no quarter, and after his triumph every candidate selected for a State office was an avowed friend of Cornell. "It would have been poor policy," said one of the Senator's lieutenants, "to apologise for what he had done by seeming to strengthen the ticket with open enemies of the chief candidate."[1648]

[Footnote 1648: New York Sun, September 8.

The following candidates were nominated: Governor, Alonzo B. Cornell, New York; Lieutenant-Governor, George G. Hoskins, Wyoming; Secretary of State, Joseph B. Carr, Rensselaer; Comptroller, James W. Wadsworth, Livingston; Attorney-General, Hamilton Ward, Allegany; Treasurer, Nathan D. Wendell, Albany; Engineer, Howard Soule, Onondaga.]

The aftermath multiplied reasons for the coalition's downfall. Some thought the defeat of Cornell in 1876 deceived the opposition as to his strength; others, that a single candidate should have opposed him; others, again, that the work of securing delegates did not begin early enough. But all agreed that the action of George B. Sloan of Oswego seriously weakened them. Since 1874 Sloan had been prominently identified with the unfettered wing of the party. Indeed, his activity along lines of reform had placed him at the head and front of everything that made for civic betterment. In character he resembled Robertson. His high qualities and flexibility of mind gave him unrivalled distinction. He possessed a charm which suffused his personality as a smile softens and irradiates a face, and although it was a winsome rather than a commanding personality, it lacked neither firmness nor power. Moreover, he was a resourceful business man, keen, active, and honest—characteristics which he carried with him into public life. His great popularity made him speaker of the Assembly in the third year of his service (1877), and his ability to work tactfully and effectively had suggested his name to the coalition as a compromise candidate for governor. He had never leaned to the side of the machine. In fact, his failure to win the speakership in the preceding January was due to the opposition of Cornell backed by John F. Smyth, and his hopes of future State preferment centred in the defeat of these aggressive men. Yet at the critical moment, when success seemed within the grasp of his old-time friends, he voted for Cornell. For this his former associates never wholly forgave him. Nor was his motive ever fully understood. Various reasons found currency—admiration of Conkling, a desire to harmonise his party at home by the nomination of John C. Churchill for State comptroller, and weariness of opposing an apparently invincible organisation. But whatever the motive the coalition hissed when he declared his choice, and then turned upon Churchill like a pack of sleuth-hounds, defeating him upon the first ballot in spite of Conkling's assistance.

Tammany's threat to bolt Robinson's renomination may have encouraged Cornell's nomination, since such truancy would aid his election. John Kelly was in extremis. Tammany desertions and the election of Mayor Cooper had shattered his control of the city. To add to his discomfiture the Governor had removed Henry A. Gumbleton, charged with taking monstrous fees as clerk of New York County, and appointed Hubert O. Thompson in his place. Gumbleton was Kelly's pet; Thompson was Cooper's lieutenant. Although the Governor sufficiently justified his action, the exercise of this high executive function was generally supposed to be only a move in the great Presidential game of 1880. His failure to remove the Register, charged with similar misdoings, strengthened the supposition that the Tilden camp fires were burning brightly. But whatever the Governor's motive, Kelly accepted Gumbleton's removal as an open declaration of war, and on September 6 (1879), five days before the Democratic State convention, Tammany's committee on organisation secretly declared "that in case the convention insists upon the renomination of Lucius Robinson for governor, the Tammany delegation will leave in a body."[1649] In preparation for this event an agent of Tammany hired Shakespeare Hall, the only room left in Syracuse of sufficient size to accommodate a bolting convention.[1650]

[Footnote 1649: New York Star, Sept. 17, 1879.]

[Footnote 1650: New York Sun, Sept. 12.]

The changes visible in the alignment of factions since the Democrats had selected a candidate for governor in Syracuse reflected the fierce struggle waged in the intervening five years. In 1874 Tweed was in jail; Kelly, standing for Tilden, assailed Sanford E. Church as a friend of the canal ring; Dorsheimer, thrust into the Democratic party through the Greeley revolt, was harvesting honour in high office; Bigelow, dominated by his admiration of a public servant who concealed an unbridled ambition, gave character to the so-called reform; and Charles S. Fairchild, soon to appreciate the ingratitude of party, was building a reputation as the undismayed prosecutor of a predatory ring. Now, Tweed was in his grave; Kelly had joined the canal ring in sounding the praises of Church; Dorsheimer, having drifted into Tammany and the editorship of the Star, disparaged the man whom he adored as governor and sought to make President; and Bigelow and Fairchild, their eyes opened, perhaps, by cipher telegrams, found satisfaction in the practice of their professions.

But Tilden was not without friends. If some had left him, others had grown more potent. For several years Daniel E. Manning, known to his Albany neighbours as a youth of promise and a young man of ripening wisdom, had attracted attention by his genius for political leadership.[1651] He seems never to have been rash or misled. Even an exuberance of animal vitality that eagerly sought new outlets for its energy did not waste itself in aimless experiments. Although possessing the generosity of a rich nature, he preferred to work within lines of purpose without heady enthusiasms or reckless extremes, and his remarkable gifts as an executive, coupled with the study of politics as a fine art, soon made him a manager of men. This was demonstrated in his aggressive fight against Tweedism. Manning was now (1879) forty-eight years old. It cannot be said that he had then reached the place filled by Dean Richmond, or that the Argus wielded the power exerted in the days of Edwin Croswell; but the anti-ring forces in the interior of the State cheerfully mustered under his leadership, while the Argus, made forceful and attractive by the singularly brilliant and facile pen of St. Clair McKelway, swayed the minds of its readers to a degree almost unequalled among its party contemporaries.[1652]

[Footnote 1651: In the early forties Manning began as an office-boy on the Albany Atlas, and in 1865, as associate editor of the Argus, he dominated its policy. Upon the death of James Cassidy, in 1873, he succeeded to the presidency of the company with which he continued throughout his life.]

[Footnote 1652: After service on the New York World, and the Brooklyn Eagle, McKelway became chief editor of the Argus in 1878. He rejoined the Eagle in 1885. Among other accomplished editors who made their journals conspicuous in party (Democratic) and State from 1865 to 1880, may be mentioned William Cassidy, Albany Argus; Thomas Kinsella, Brooklyn Eagle; Joseph Warren and David Gray, Buffalo Courier; Samuel M. Shaw, Cooperstown Freeman's Journal; James and Erastus Brooks, New York Express; Benjamin Wood, New York News; Manton Marble and Joseph Pulitzer, New York World; William Purcell, Rochester Union-Advertiser; Henry A. Reeves, Greenport Republican Watchman; E. Prentiss Bailey, Utica Observer. Although previously of Democratic tendencies, the New York Herald, by 1865, had become wholly independent.]

Manning took charge of the interests of Robinson, who did not attend the convention, receiving Kelly's tactful and spirited assault with fine courage. The Governor's enemies were more specific than Cornell's. They predicted that Robinson's renomination would lose twenty thousand votes in New York City alone, and an ingenious and extensively circulated table showed that the counties represented by his delegates had recently exhibited a Democratic loss of thirty thousand and an increased Republican vote of forty thousand, while localities opposed to him revealed encouraging gains. Mindful of the havoc wrought in 1874 by connecting Church with the canal ring, Kelly also sought to crush Robinson by charging that corporate rings, notably the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company, had controlled his administration, and that although he had resigned from the Erie directorate at the time of his election, he still received large fees through his son who acted as attorney for the road. Moreover, Kelly intimated, with a dark frown, that he had another stone in his sling. This onslaught, made upon every country delegate in town, seemed to confuse if not to shake the Tilden men, whose interest centred in success as well as in Robinson. The hesitation of the Kings County delegation, under the leadership of Hugh McLaughlin, to declare promptly for the Governor, and the toying of Senator Kernan with the name of Church while talking in the interest of harmony, indicated irresolution. Even David B. Hill and Edward K. Apgar, who desired to shape affairs for a pledged delegation to the next national convention, evidenced weariness.

Manning steadied the line. In proclaiming Robinson's nomination on the first ballot he anticipated every movement of the enemy. He knew that Henry W. Slocum's candidacy did not appeal to McLaughlin; that Chief Justice Church's consent rested upon an impossible condition; and that Kelly's threatened bolt, however disastrously it might end in November, would strengthen Robinson in the convention. Nevertheless, unusual concessions showed a desire to proceed on lines of harmony. Tammany's delegation was seated with the consent of Irving Hall; John C. Jacobs, a senator from Brooklyn, was made chairman; the fairness of committee appointments allayed suspicion; a platform accepted by if not inoffensive to all Democrats set forth the principles of the party,[1653] and an avoidance of irritating statements characterised the speeches placing Robinson's name in nomination.

[Footnote 1653: The platform, which dealt mainly with State issues, repeated the fraud-cry of 1876, advocated hard money, and upheld the Democratic programme in Congress.—See Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1879, p. 680.]

Tammany's part was less cleverly played. Its effort centred in breaking the solid Brooklyn delegation, and although with much tact it presented Slocum as its candidate for governor, and cunningly expressed confidence in Jacobs by proposing that he select the Committee on Credentials, two Bowery orators, with a fierceness born of hate, abused Robinson and pronounced Tilden "the biggest fraud of the age."[1654] Then Dorsheimer took the floor. His purpose was to capture the Kings and Albany delegations, and walking down the aisles with stage strides he begged them, in a most impassioned manner, to put themselves in Tammany's place, and to say whether, under like circumstances, they would not adopt the same course. He did it very adroitly. His eyes blazed, his choice words blended entreaty with reasoning, and his manner indicated an earnestness that captivated if it did not convert. His declaration, however, that Tammany would bolt Robinson's renomination withered the effect of his rhetoric. Kelly had insinuated as much, and Tammany had flouted it for two days; but Dorsheimer's announcement was the first authoritative declaration, and it hardened the hearts of men who repudiated such methods.

[Footnote 1654: See New York papers of September 12, 1879.]

Then the tricksters had their inning. Pending a motion that a committee of one from each county be appointed to secure harmony, a Saratoga delegate moved that John C. Jacobs be nominated for governor by acclamation. This turned the convention into a pandemonium. In the midst of the whirlwind of noise a Tammany reading clerk, putting the motion, declared it carried. Similar tactics had won Horatio Seymour the nomination for President in 1868, and for a time it looked as if the Chair might profit by their repetition. Jacobs was a young man. Ambition possessed and high office attracted him. But if a vision of the governorship momentarily unsettled his mind, one glance at McLaughlin and the Brooklyn delegation, sitting like icebergs in the midst of the heated uproar, restored his reason. When a motion to recess increased the tumult, Rufus H. Peckham, a cool Tilden man, called for the ayes and noes. This brought the convention to earth again, and as the noise subsided Jacobs reproved the clerk for his unauthorised assumption of the Chair's duties, adding, with a slight show of resentment, that had he been consulted respecting the nomination he should have respectfully declined.

At the conclusion of the roll-call the Tammany tellers, adding the aggregate vote to suit the needs of the occasion, pronounced the motion carried, while others declared it lost. A second call defeated a recess by 166 to 217. On a motion to table the appointment of a harmony committee the vote stood 226 to 155. A motion to adjourn also failed by 166 to 210. These results indicated that neither tricks nor disorder could shake the Robinson phalanx, and after the call to select a nominee for governor had begun, Augustus Schell, John Kelly, William Dorsheimer, and other Tammany leaders rose in their places. "Under no circumstances will the Democracy of New York support the nomination of Lucius Robinson," said Schell; "but the rest of the ticket will receive its warm and hearty support." Then he paused. Kelly, standing in the background of the little group, seemed to shrink from the next step. Regularity was the touchstone of Tammany's creed. Indifference to ways and means gave no offence, but disobedience to the will of a caucus or convention admitted of no forgiveness. Would Kelly himself be the first to commit this unpardonable sin? He could invoke no precedent to shield him. In 1847 the Wilmot Proviso struck the keynote of popular sentiment, and the Barnburners, leaving the convention the instant the friends of the South repudiated the principle, sought to stay the aggressiveness of slavery. Nor could he appeal to party action in 1853, for the Hunkers refused to enter the convention after the Barnburners had organised it. Moreover, he was wholly without excuse. He had accepted the platform, participated in all proceedings, and exhausted argument, diplomacy, trickery, and deception. Not until certain defeat faced him did he rise to go, and even then he tarried with the hope that Schell's words would bring the olive-branch. It was a moment of intense suspense. The convention, sitting in silence, realised that the loss meant probable defeat, and anxious men, unwilling to take chances, looked longingly from one leader to another. But the symbol of peace did not appear, and Schell announced, as he led the way to the door: "The delegation from New York will now retire from the hall." Then cheers and hisses deadened the tramp of retreating footsteps.

After the bolters' departure Irving Hall took the seats of Tammany, and the convention quickly closed its work. The roll-call showed 301 votes cast, of which Robinson received 243 and Slocum 56. Little conflict occurred in the selection of other names on the ticket, all the candidates save the lieutenant-governor being renominated.[1655]

[Footnote 1655: The ticket presented was as follows: Governor, Lucius Robinson, Chemung; Lieutenant-Governor, Clarkson N. Potter, New York; Secretary of State, Allen C. Beach, Jefferson; Comptroller, Frederick P. Olcott, New York; Treasurer, James Mackin, Dutchess; Attorney-General, Augustus Schoonmaker, Ulster; State Engineer, Horatio Seymour, Jr., Oneida.]

In the evening Tammany occupied Shakespeare Hall. David Dudley Field, formerly a zealous anti-slavery Republican, and more recently Tilden's counsel before the Electoral Commission, presided; Dorsheimer, whose grotesque position must have appealed to his own keen sense of the humorous, moved the nomination of John Kelly for governor; and Kelly, in his speech of acceptance, prophesied the defeat of Governor Robinson. This done they went out into darkness.

Throughout the campaign the staple of Republican exhortations was the Southern question and the need of a "strong man." Even Conkling in his one speech made no reference to State politics or State affairs. When Cornell's election, midway in the canvass, seemed assured, Curtis argued that his success would defeat the party in 1880, and to avoid such a calamity he advocated "scratching the ticket."[1656] Several well-known Republicans, adopting the suggestion, published an address, giving reasons for their refusal to support the head and the tail of the ticket. They cited the cause of Cornell's dismissal from the custom-house; compared the cost of custom-house administration before and after his separation from the service; and made unpleasant reference to the complicity of Soule in the canal frauds, as revealed in the eleventh report of the Canal Investigating Committee.[1657] Immediately the signers were dubbed "Scratchers." The party press stigmatised them as traitors, and several journals refused to publish their address even as an advertisement. So bitterly was Curtis assailed that he thought it necessary to resign the chairmanship of the Richmond County convention. Party wits also ridiculed him. Henry Ward Beecher said, with irresistible humour, that scratching is good for cutaneous affections. Martin I. Townsend declared that no Republican lived in Troy who had any disease that required scratching. Evarts called it "voting in the air." To all this Curtis replied that the incessant fusillade proved his suggestion not so utterly contemptible as it was alleged to be. "If the thing be a mosquito, there is too much powder and ball wasted upon it."[1658]

[Footnote 1656: Harper's Weekly, October 4, 1879.]

[Footnote 1657: New York papers, October 10, 1879.]

[Footnote 1658: Harper's Weekly, November 8, 1879.]

Nevertheless, the speech of the Secretary of State cut deeply. Evarts represented an Administration which had removed Cornell that "the office may be properly and efficiently administered." Now, he endorsed him for governor, ridiculed Republicans that opposed him, and pointed unmistakably to Grant as the "strong man" who could best maintain the power of the people.[1659] The Nation spoke of Evarts' appearance as "indecent."[1660] Curtis was not less severe. "Both his appearance and his speech are excellent illustrations of the reason why the political influence of so able and excellent a man is so slight. Mr. Evarts, musing on the folly of voting in the air, may remember the arrow of which the poet sings, which was shot into the air and found in the heart of an oak. It is hearts of oak, not of bending reeds, that make and save parties."[1661]

[Footnote 1659: Cooper Union speech, October 21.]

[Footnote 1660: October 23.]

[Footnote 1661: Harper's Weekly, November 8.]

Talk of a secret alliance between Tammany and the Cornell managers began very early in the campaign. Perhaps the fulsome praise of John Kelly in Republican journals, the constant support of John F. Smyth by Tammany senators, and Kelly's avowed intention to defeat Robinson, were sufficient to arouse suspicion. Conkling's sudden silence as to the danger threatening free elections, of which he declaimed so warmly in April, seemed to indicate undue satisfaction with existing conditions. To several newspapers the action of two Republican police commissioners, who championed Tammany's right to its share of poll inspectors, pointed unmistakably to a bargain, since it gave Tammany and the Republicans power to select a chairman at each poll.[1662] Evidence of a real alliance, however, was nebulous. The defeat of Robinson meant the election of Cornell, and Republicans naturally welcomed any effort to accomplish it. They greeted Kelly, during his tour of the State, with noise and music, crowded his meetings, and otherwise sought to dishearten Robinson's friends. Although Kelly's speeches did not compare in piquancy with his printed words, his references to Tilden as the "old humbug of Cipher Alley" and to Robinson as having "sore eyes" when signing bills, kept his hearers expectant and his enemies disturbed. The World followed him, reporting his speeches as "failures" and his audiences as "rushing pell-mell from the building."[1663]

[Footnote 1662: The Nation, September 25 and October 23, 1879; New York Times, September 19, 20, 24, 25.]

[Footnote 1663: New York World, October 11, 14, 16, 17.

"John Kelly. Oh! John Kelly! We read you like a book; We've got plain country common-sense, Though homely we may look; And we know each vote you beg, John, Is only begged to sell; You are but the tool of Conkling, And bargained to Cornell." —New York World, October 17.]

Kelly did not mean to dish the whole Democratic ticket. He expected to elect the minor State officers. But he learned on the morning after election that he had entirely miscalculated the effect of his scheme, since every Democrat except the nephew of Horatio Seymour rested in the party morgue by the side of Lucius Robinson.[1664] In the city Kelly also disappointed his followers. His own vote ran behind Robinson's, and all his friends were slaughtered. Indeed, when Tammany surrendered its regularity at Syracuse it lost its voting strength. Even Cornell whom it saved ran 20,000 behind his ticket. The election was, in fact, a triumph for nobody except Conkling. He had put into the highest State office a personal adherent, whom the Administration had stigmatised by dismissal; he had brought to New York his principal opponents in the Cabinet (Evarts and Sherman) to speak for his nominee and their dismissed servant; and he had induced the Administration to call for a "strong man" for the Presidency.[1665]

[Footnote 1664: The election held on November 4, resulted as follows: Governor, Cornell, 418,567; Robinson, 375,790; Kelly, 77,566; Lewis (National), 20,286; Mears (Prohibition), 4,437. Lieutenant-Governor, Hoskins, 435,304; Potter, 435,014. Secretary of State, Carr (Republican), 436,013; Beach (Democrat), 434,138. Comptroller, Wadsworth, 438,253; Olcott, 432,325. Treasurer, Wendell, 436,300; Mackin, 433,485. Attorney-General, Ward, 437,382; Schoonmaker, 433,238. Engineer and Surveyor, Soule, 427,240; Seymour, 439,681. Legislature: Assembly, Republicans, 92; Democrats, 35; National, 1; Senate (elected the previous year), Republicans, 25; Democrats, 8.]

[Footnote 1665: To criticisms of his course in taking part in the campaign, Sherman replied; "We must carry New York next year or see all the result of the war overthrown and the constitutional amendments absolutely nullified. We cannot do this if our friends defeat a Republican candidate for governor, fairly nominated, and against whom there are no substantial charges affecting his integrity."—Burton, Life of Sherman, p. 296.]



CHAPTER XXXIII

STALWART AND HALF-BREED

1880

While General Grant made his tour around the world there was much speculation respecting his renomination for the Presidency. Very cautiously started on the ground of necessity because of the attitude of the Southerners in Congress, the third-term idea continued to strengthen until the widespread and deep interest in the great soldier's home-coming was used to create the belief that he was unmistakably the popular choice. Grant himself had said nothing publicly upon the subject except in China, and his proper and modest allusions to it then added to the people's respect. But during the welcome extended him at Philadelphia, the Mayor of that city disclosed a well-laid plan to make him a candidate. This frank declaration indicated also that Grant expected the nomination, if, indeed, he was not a party to the scheme for securing it.

The question of discrediting the traditions quickly became a serious one, and its discussion, stimulated by other aspirants for the Presidency, took a wide range. The opponents of a third term did not yield to any in their grateful remembrance and recognition of what Grant had done for the country, but they deemed it impolitic upon both public and party grounds. If the tradition of two terms be overthrown because of his distinguished service, they argued, his election for a fourth term, to which the Constitution offered no bar, could be urged for the same reason with still more cogency. Such apparently logical action would not only necessarily familiarise the public mind, already disturbed by the increasing depression to business caused by the turmoil incident to quadrennial elections, with the idea of a perpetual Presidency, but it would foster confidence in personal government, and encourage the feeling that approved experience, as in the case of trusted legislators, is necessary to the continuance of wise administration.

Party reasons also furnished effective opposition. German voters, especially in New York and Wisconsin, early disclosed an indisposition to accept Grant even if nominated, while the Independent or Scratcher voiced a greater hostility than the Cornell nomination had excited. Never before had so much attention been given to a political question by persons ordinarily indifferent to such speculation. Anti-Grant clubs, springing up in a night, joined the press in ridiculing the persistent talk about the need of "a strong man," and charged that the scheme was conceived by a coterie of United States senators, managed by former office-holders under President Grant, and supported by men who regarded the Hayes administration as an impertinence. Matthew Hale, in accepting the presidency of the Albany Club, declared the movement to be at war with American traditions and with the spirit of American institutions.[1666]

[Footnote 1666: The Albany Club was organised early in January, 1880.]

Such acrimonious antagonism quickly uncovered the purpose of the Stalwarts, who now sought to control the nomination regardless of opposition. For this purpose unusually early conventions for the selection of delegates to the National Convention, to be held at Chicago on June 2, were called in Pennsylvania, New York, and other States. Pennsylvania's was fixed for February 4 at Harrisburg, and New York's for the 25th at Utica. Like methods obtained in the selection of delegates. At Albany John F. Smyth issued a call in the evening for primaries to be held the next day at noon, and furnished his followers with pink coloured tickets, headed "Grant." Smyth was already in bad odour. Governor Robinson had accused him of compelling illegal payments by insurance companies of a large sum of money, to which he replied that the act making it illegal was unconstitutional, although no court had so pronounced. His misdemeanour was confirmed in the public mind by the fact, elicited on the impeachment trial, that the money so obtained had been divided among agents of the Republican organisation. Indeed, the Times charged, without reservation, that in one case the place of division was in none other than the house of Cornell himself.[1667] Although the Senate of 1878 and of 1879 failed to remove Smyth, the Senate of 1880, notwithstanding his reappointment by Governor Cornell, refused to confirm him.[1668] In the presence of such a sorry record the ostracised Albany Republicans were not surprised at his attempt to cheat them at the primaries, and their indignation at the shameless procedure resounded through the State. At the end of a week Charles Emory Smith, the gifted editor of the Albany Journal, who headed the delegation thus selected, deemed it expedient to withdraw. Five associates did likewise. Nevertheless, the opponents of a third term refused to participate in a second election, called to fill the vacancies, since it did not remove the taint from the majority who refused to resign.

[Footnote 1667: New York Times (editorial), February 18, 1880.]

[Footnote 1668: "The Governor showed his contempt for public opinion by nominating John F. Smyth, while the Senate had self-respect enough to refrain from confirming him."—Ibid., May 28, 1880.]

In reward for his defence of Smyth, if not to express contempt for the Albany malcontents, Charles Emory Smith was made chairman of the Utica convention. This evidenced Conkling's complete control. Smith had lived in Albany since early boyhood. He passed from its Academy to Union College, thence back to the Academy as a teacher, and from that position to the editorship of the Express. In a few years his clear, incisive English, always forcible, often eloquent, had advanced him to the editorship of the Evening Journal. Singularly attractive in person, with slender, agile form, sparkling eyes, and ruddy cheeks, he adorned whatever place he held. Indeed, the beauty and strength of his character, coupled with the esteem in which Republican leaders held him as a counsellor, gave him in the seventies a position in the politics of the State somewhat akin to that held by Henry J. Raymond in the sixties. He did not then, if ever, belong in Raymond's class as a journalist or as an orator. Nor did he possess the vehement desire for office that distinguished the brilliant editor of the Times. But Smith's admirable temper, his sweet disposition, and his rare faculty for saying things without offence, kept him, like Raymond, on friendly terms with all. His part was not always an easy one. Leaders changed and new issues appeared, yet his pen, though sometimes crafty, was never dipped in gall. While acting as secretary for Governor Fenton he enjoyed the esteem of Edwin D. Morgan, and if his change from the Albany Express to the Albany Journal in 1870, and from the Journal to the Philadelphia Press in 1880, carried him from Fenton's confidence into Conkling's embrace and converted him from an ardent third-termer to a champion of Blaine, the bad impression of this prestidigitation was relieved, if not excused or forgotten, because of his journalistic promotion.

In State conventions, too, Smith played the part formerly assigned to Raymond, becoming by common consent chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. His ear went instinctively to the ground, and, aided by Carroll E. Smith of the Syracuse Journal, he wrote civil service reform into the platform of 1877, the principle of sound money into that of 1878, and carefully shaded important parts of other platforms in that eventful decade.[1669] In like manner, although a pronounced champion of Conkling and the politics he represented, Smith encouraged moderate policies, urged frank recognition of the just claims of the minority, and sought to prevent the stalwart managers from too widely breaching the proprieties that should govern political organisations. If his efforts proved unavailing, it seemed that he had at least mastered the art of being regular without being bigoted, and of living on good terms with a machine whose methods he could not wholly approve. Nevertheless, there came a time when his associations, as in the career of Raymond, seriously injured him, since his toleration and ardent defence of John F. Smyth, besides grieving sincere friends and temporarily clouding his young life,[1670] dissolved his relations with a journal that he loved, and which, under his direction, had reminded its readers of the forceful days of Thurlow Weed. Fortunately, the offer of the editorship of the Philadelphia Press, coming contemporaneously with his separation from the Albany Journal, gave him an honourable exit from New York, and opened not only a larger sphere of action but a more distinguished career.[1671]

[Footnote 1669: "Mr. Smith is one of the happily diminishing class of amphibious editors, one-third journalist, two-thirds 'worker,' who consult with the Bosses in hotels all over the State about 'fixing things,' draw fustian platforms for State conventions, embody the Boss view of the nation and the world in 'editorials,' and supply the pure milk of the word to local committees and henchmen, and 'make it hot' for the Democrats during the canvass."—The Nation, March 4, 1880.]

[Footnote 1670: Smith was then thirty-eight years of age.]

[Footnote 1671: "Mr. Smith's partners in the Journal had become enraged in the course of a factional controversy over public appointments, in particular that of Smyth to be the Insurance Commissioner. At a conference Mr. Smith's partners desired to get editorial control at once and to terminate his connection with the Journal."—Philadelphia Press, January 20, 1908.

"The first response of the conscience and courage of the party was the prompt change of the Albany Evening Journal, probably the most influential party paper in the State, from the position of a thick-and-thin machine organ to that of an advocate of sound and independent Republicanism."—Harper's Weekly, March 13, 1880.]

Having control of the convention Conkling boldly demanded the adoption of a resolution instructing "the delegates to use their most earnest and united efforts to secure the nomination of Ulysses S. Grant." The admirers of Blaine seemed unprepared for such a contest. The meagre majority given Grant at the Pennsylvania convention had greatly encouraged them, but the intervening three weeks afforded insufficient time to gather their strength. Besides, no one then suspected the overwhelming public sentiment against a third term which was soon to sweep the country. As it was no one seemed to have definite plans or a precise knowledge of how to proceed or what to do, while local leaders frittered away their strength in petty quarrels which had little bearing upon the question of Presidential candidates. Finally, an amendment simply endorsing the nominee of the Chicago convention was offered as a substitute for the Grant resolution.

The Stalwarts, with the steadiness of veterans conscious of their strength, deftly, almost delicately, in fact, silenced the minority. Only once, when the reader of the resolutions hesitated over an illegible word, did the dramatic happen. At that moment a thin voice in the gallery exclaimed, "Hurrah for Blaine!" Instantly the audience was on fire. The burst of applause brought out by Smith's opening reference to the "never vanquished hero of Appomattox" had been disappointing because it lacked spontaneity and enthusiasm, but the sound of the magic word "Blaine," like a spark flying to powder, threw the galleries into a flame of cheering which was obstinate in dying out. Conkling, in closing the debate on the resolution, showed his customary audacity by hurling bitter sarcasm at the people who had presumed to applaud. It was in this address that he recited Raleigh's famous line from The Silent Lover: "The shallows murmur but the deeps are dumb."[1672]

[Footnote 1672:

"Passions are likened best to flowers and streams; The shallows murmur but the deeps are dumb." —Works of Sir Walter Raleigh, Vol. 8, p. 716 (Oxford, 1829).]

Conkling's purpose was to put district delegates upon their honour to obey the convention's instructions regardless of the preference of their districts. He did it very adroitly, arguing that a delegate is an agent with a principal behind him, whom he represents if he is faithful. "For what is this convention held?" he asked. "Is it merely to listen while the delegates from the several congressional districts inform the convention who the districts are going to send to the national convention? Is it for that five hundred men, the selected pride of the Republican party of this State, have come here to meet together? I think not. Common sense and the immemorial usages of both parties answer the question. What is the use of a delegate? Is it a man to go to a convention representing others, and then determine as he individually prefers what he will do? Let me say frankly that if any man, however much I respect him, were presented to this convention who would prove recreant to its judgment, I would never vote for him as a delegate to any convention."[1673]

[Footnote 1673: New York Tribune, February 26, 1880.]

Earlier in the day Newton M. Curtis of St. Lawrence, the one-eyed hero of Fort Fisher, had insisted with much vehemence that district delegates represented the views of their immediate constituents and not those of the State convention. Others as stoutly maintained the same doctrine. But after Conkling had concluded no one ventured to repeat the claim.[1674] Indeed, when the several districts reported their delegates, the Stalwarts openly called upon the suspected ones to say whether they submitted to the instructions. Woodin and Curtis voluntarily surrendered. Thus the Grant forces accomplished by indirection what prudence deterred them from doing boldly and with a strong hand.[1675]

[Footnote 1674: The vote on the resolution endorsing Grant, stood 216 to 183.]

[Footnote 1675: Roscoe Conkling, Alonzo B. Cornell, Chester A. Arthur, and James D. Warren, were selected as delegates-at-large.]

What the managers gained by indirection, however, they lost in prestige. If the Harrisburg convention punctured the assumption that the people demanded Grant's nomination, the Utica assembly destroyed it, since the majority of thirty-three indicated an entire absence of spontaneity. Moreover, the convention had scarcely adjourned before its work became a target. George William Curtis declared the assertion "audacious" and "ridiculous" that a district delegate was an agent of the State convention, claiming that when the latter relinquished the right to select it abandoned the right to instruct. Furthermore, the National Convention, the highest tribunal of the party, had decided, he said, that State instructions did not bind district delegates.[1676] The Tribune, voicing the sentiment of the major part of the Republican press, thought the convention had clearly exceeded its power. "It was the right of the majority to instruct the delegates-at-large," it said, "but it had no right to compel district delegates to vote against their consciences and the known wishes of their constituents." This led to the more important question whether delegates, pledged without authority, ought to observe such instructions. "No man chosen to represent a Blaine district can vote for Grant and plead the convention's resolution in justification of his course," continued the Tribune, which closed with serving notice upon delegates to correct their error as speedily as possible, "since a delegate who disobeys the instructions of his constituents will find himself instantly retired from public life."[1677]

[Footnote 1676: Harper's Weekly, March 13, 20, April 3, 1880.]

[Footnote 1677: New York Tribune, February 26.]

As the campaign waxed warmer and the success of Grant seemed more certain if Pennsylvania and New York voted under the unit rule, the pressure to create a break in those States steadily increased. The Stalwarts rested their case upon the regularity of the procedure and the delegates' acceptance of the instructions after their election. "They accepted both commissions and instructions," said the Times, "with every protestation that they were bound by their sacred honour to obey the voice of the people as expressed by the traditional and accepted methods."[1678] On the other hand, the Blaine delegates relied upon the decision of the last National Convention, which held that where a State convention had instructed its delegation to vote as a unit, each delegate had the right to vote for his individual preference. "My selection as a delegate," said Woodin, "was the act of the delegates representing my congressional district, and the State convention has ratified and certified that act to the National Convention. Our commissions secure the right to act, and our conventions guarantee freedom of choice without restraint or fetters."[1679]

[Footnote 1678: New York Times, May 8.]

[Footnote 1679: From speech made in the Senate on May 7.—New York Tribune, May 8.]

Woodin was the most courageous if not the ablest opponent of Conkling in the convention. He may not have been an organiser of the machine type, but he was a born ruler of men. Robust, alert, florid, with square forehead, heavy brows, and keen blue eyes, he looked determined and fearless. His courage, however, was not the rashness of an impetuous nature. It was rather the proud self-confidence of a rugged character which obstacles roused to a higher combative energy. He was not eloquent; not even ornate in diction. But his voice, his words, and his delivery were all adequate. Besides, he possessed the incomparable gift of reserved power. During his career of ten years in the State Senate he was unquestionably the strongest man in the Legislature and the designated as well as the real leader for more than half a decade. He was not intolerant, seldom disclosing his powers of sarcasm, or being betrayed, even when excited, into angry or bitter words. Yet he was extremely resolute and tenacious, and must have been the undisputed leader of the anti-Conkling forces save for the pitch that many said defiled him. If he yielded it was not proven. Nevertheless, it tended to mildew his influence.

It was evident from the speech of Woodin that the anti-Grant forces had the reasonableness of the argument, but the acceptance of the Utica instructions put delegates in a delicate position. To say that Conkling had "tricked" them into a pledge which the convention had no authority to exact,[1680] did not explain how a personal pledge could be avoided. Finally, William H. Robertson, a delegate from the Twelfth District, who had not appeared at Utica, published a letter that he should vote for Blaine "because he is the choice of the Republicans of the district which I represent."[1681] Two days afterwards John Birdsall of the First District and Loren B. Sessions of the Thirty-third announced on the floor of the Senate that they should do likewise. Woodin said that as he could not reconcile a vote for some candidate other than Grant with his attitude voluntarily taken at Utica he should let his alternate go to Chicago.[1682] From time to time other delegates followed with declarations similar to Robertson's.

[Footnote 1680: Harper's Weekly, May 29.]

[Footnote 1681: Letter dated May 6.—See Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1880, p. 575.]

[Footnote 1682: New York Tribune, May 8.]

As expected, this disobedience drew a volley of anathemas upon the offending delegates, who became known as "Half-breeds."[1683] The Times thought Robertson's "tardy revolt" dictated by "self-interest," because "the pliant politician from Westchester had chafed under a sense of disappointed ambition ever since the defeat of his nomination for governor in 1872."[1684]

[Footnote 1683: Everit Brown, A Dictionary of American Politics, p. 372; Harper's Weekly, February 5, 1881.]

[Footnote 1684: New York Times, May 16.]

Upon Sessions and Woodin it was more severe. "We have never regarded State Senator Sessions as a type of all that is corrupt in politics at Albany," it said, "and we have steadily defended Mr. Woodin against the attacks made upon him on the testimony of Tweed. But if these recent accessions to the Blaine camp are half as bad as the Tribune has painted them in the past, that journal and its candidate must have two as disreputable allies as could be found outside of state prison."[1685] Woodin's manner of avoiding his Utica pledge seemed to arouse more indignation than the mere breaking of it. The Times called it "a sneaking fashion,"[1686] and charged lack of courage. "He does not believe that he who performs an act through another is himself responsible for the act."[1687]

[Footnote 1685: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1686: Ibid., June 2.]

[Footnote 1687: Ibid., May 8.]

At Chicago the principle of district representation became the important question. It involved the admission of many delegates, and after two days of debate the convention sustained it by a vote of 449 to 306.[1688] To complete the overthrow of the unit-rule a resolution was also adopted providing that when any delegate excepted to the correctness of a vote as cast by the chairman of a delegation, the president of the convention should direct a roll-call of the delegation. This practically settled the result. Nevertheless, the belief obtained, so strong was the Stalwarts' faith in their success, that when the Blaine and Sherman forces broke to a compromise candidate, Grant would gain the needed additional seventy-four votes.

[Footnote 1688: The minority, representing fourteen States and ably led by Benjamin F. Tracy, sustained the authority of State conventions to overrule the choice of the districts.]

Conkling had never before attended a national convention. Indeed, he had never been seen at a great political gathering west of the Alleghanies. But he now became the central figure of the convention, with two-fifths of the delegates rallying under his leadership. His reception whenever he entered the hall was the remarkable feature of the great gathering. Nothing like it had occurred in previous national conventions. Distinguished men representing favourite candidates had been highly honoured, but never before did the people continue, day after day, to welcome one with such vociferous acclaim. It was not all for Grant. The quick spontaneous outburst of applause that shook the banners hanging from the girders far above, had in it much of admiration for the stalwart form, the dominant spirit, the iron-nerved boss, who led his forces with the arrogance of a gifted, courageous chieftain. His coming seemed planned for dramatic effect. He rarely appeared until the audience, settled into order by the opening prayer or by the transaction of business, might easily catch sight of him, and as he passed down the long aisle, moving steadily on with graceful stride and immobile face, a flush of pride tinged his cheeks as cheer after cheer, rolling from one end of the amphitheatre to the other, rent the air. He sat in the front row on the centre aisle, and about him clustered Chester A. Arthur, Levi P. Morton, Benjamin F. Tracy, Edwards Pierrepont, George H. Sharpe, and the boyish figure of Charles E. Cornell, a pale, sandy, undersized youth, the son of the Governor, who was represented by an alternate.[1689]

[Footnote 1689: "Suggestions were made that the substitution of Mr. Conkling for General Grant would give him the nomination, and there was a moment when General Garfield apprehended such a result. There was, however, never a time when it was possible. The 306 would never have consented unless Grant's name were first withdrawn by his authority. A firmer obstacle would have been Conkling's sturdy refusal to allow the use of his name under any circumstances."—Boutwell, Reminiscences, Vol. 2, p. 269.]

Conkling's presentation of Grant was largely relied upon to gain the needed votes. Prior to 1876 little importance attached to such speeches, but after the famous oration of Robert G. Ingersoll at Cincinnati, which became influential almost to the point of success, the solicitude exhibited in the selection of dominating speakers constituted a new phase in convention politics and added immeasurably to the popular interest. By common consent Conkling was named to present the Stalwarts' choice, and in most of the qualities desirable in such an address his was regarded the best of the day.

The lines of Private Miles O'Reilly,[1690] suggested to the Senator on the evening before he spoke, caught the convention as quickly as did Ingersoll's opening sentences in 1876, and all that followed, save his sarcasm and flashes of scorn, held the closest attention. "His unmatched eloquence," said Brandegee of Connecticut.[1691] This was the judgment of an opponent. "It had the warmth of eulogy, the finish of a poem, the force and fire of a philippic," said the Inter-Ocean.[1692] This was the judgment of a friend. All the art of which he was master found expression in every sentence, polished and balanced with rhetorical skill, and delivered with the emphasis and inflection of a great orator. One critic thought it a revelation to find a man who could be eloquent with studied composure, who could be fervid without wildness, and who could hold imagery and metaphor to the steady place of relentless logic without detracting from their special and peculiar character.

[Footnote 1690:

"When asked what State he hails from, Our sole reply shall be, He comes from Appomattox And its famous apple-tree."]

[Footnote 1691: From his speech nominating Elihu B. Washburne.—Chicago Tribune, June 7, 1880.]

[Footnote 1692: Chicago Inter-Ocean, June 7, 1880.]

Not content with reciting the achievements of his own candidate, Conkling seriously weakened his oration as a vote-making speech by launching shafts of irony first into Sherman and then into Blaine. "Nobody is really worried about a third term," he said in conclusion, "except those hopelessly longing for a first term. Without patronage, without telegraph wires running from his house to this convention, without election contrivances, his name is on the country's lips. Without bureaus, committees, officers, or emissaries to manufacture sentiment in his favour, without intrigue or effort, Grant is the candidate whose supporters stand by the creed of the party, holding the right of the majority as the very essence of their faith, and meaning to uphold that faith against the charlatans and guerillas, who, from time to time, deploy and forage between the lines."[1693] As these sabre-cuts, dealt with the emphasis of gesture and inflection, flashed upon the galleries, already charmed with the accomplishment of his speech and the grace of his sentiment, loud hisses, mingled with distracting exclamations of banter and dissent, proclaimed that the spell of his magic was broken.

[Footnote 1693: New York Times, June 7.]

Balloting for a candidate began on the fifth day. Many rumours preceded Conkling's method of announcing New York's vote, but when his turn came, he explained that although he possessed full instructions concerning the true condition of the vote, he thought it better to call the roll, since several of the delegates preferred to speak for themselves. This plan, so adroitly submitted, made it impossible to conceal one's vote behind an anonymous total, and compelled John Birdsall, the Queens County senator, to lead in the disagreeable duty of disobeying the instructions of the State convention. Birdsall rose with hesitation, and, after voting for Blaine in a subdued voice, dropped quickly into his seat as if anxious to avoid publicity. Then the convention, having listened in perfect silence, ratified his work with a chorus of hisses and applause. Gradually the anti-third termers exhibited more courage, and after Robertson and Husted had called out their candidate with an emphasis that indicated pride and defiance, the applause drowned the hisses. Woodin's conduct contrasted sharply with his usual courage. He was an aggressive member of the opposition, but at this moment, when brave hearts, unflinching resolve, and unruffled temper were needed, he stood at the rear of the hall, while Leander Fitts, his alternate, upon whom he cast the responsibility of violating a solemnly uttered pledge, feebly pronounced the name "Blaine." The result of the roll-call gave Grant 51, Blaine 17, and Sherman 2.[1694] On the seventeenth ballot Dennis McCarthy, a State senator from Onondaga, changed his vote from Grant to Blaine. Thus modified the New York vote continued until the thirty-sixth ballot, when the Blaine and Sherman delegates united, recording twenty votes for Garfield to fifty for Grant. On this roll-call Grant received 306 votes to 399 for Garfield.[1695] Thus by a strange coincidence the Stalwarts registered the fateful number that marked their strength when the unit rule was defeated. During the thirty-six roll-calls Grant's vote varied from 302 to 313, but in the stampede, when two hundred and fifteen Blaine men and ninety-six supporters of Sherman rushed into line for Garfield, the faithful 306 went down in defeat together. These figures justly became an insignia for the heroic.[1696]