A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 35

Personal criticism of Tilden exploited his war record, his reputation as a railroad wrecker, and his evasion of the income tax.[1525] The accusation of "railroad wrecking" was scarcely sustained, but his income tax was destined to bring him trouble. Nast kept his pencil busy. One cartoon, displaying Tilden emptying a large barrel of greenbacks into the ballot box, summed up the issues as follows: "The shot-gun policy South, the barrel policy North;" "The solid South and the solid Tammany;" "Tilden's war record--defeating the tax collector." George William Curtis a.s.serted that the Democrats of South Carolina meant to carry the State for Tilden by means of "the shot gun," declaring that "Jefferson Davis and the secessionists merely endeavoured to enforce with bayonets the doctrines of Mr.

Tilden."[1526]

[Footnote 1525: It was claimed that in 1862 Tilden had a net income of $89,000. He made oath to $7,118, and afterward acknowledged receiving $20,000 in the Terre Haute Railroad case. He alleged that this covered the work of several years. Moreover, that his income-producing property was largely in railroad stocks, bonds, and other securities on which the tax was deducted by the companies before the interest and dividends were paid.--Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 232; see also, _Nation_, September 22, 1876.]

[Footnote 1526: _Harper's Weekly_, 1876, pp. 828, 885, 906, 907.]

Tilden displayed a stoical indifference to these personal attacks. He made no speeches, he rarely exhibited himself to the public, and he kept his own counsels. His adroit, mysterious movements recalled the methods but not the conceit of Aaron Burr. Although Abram S. Hewitt, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, managed the campaign with skill, Tilden relied largely upon his own shrewdness, displacing old leaders for new ones, and making it clear to the country that he ranked with Martin Van Buren as a great political manager. As he swept onward like a conquering Marlborough, inspiring his party with confidence and his opponents with fear, events favoured his designs.

The Belknap exposures, the Whiskey ring suits, the Babc.o.c.k trial, alarming and disgusting the country, inclined public opinion toward a change which was expressed in the word "reform." A combination of propitious circ.u.mstances within the State, in nowise indebted to his sagacity or a.s.sistance, also increased his strength. The collapse of the Tweed and Ca.n.a.l rings justly gave him great prestige, but no reason existed why the extinguishment of the State war debt and the limitations of ca.n.a.l expenditures to ca.n.a.l revenues should add to his laurels, for the ca.n.a.l amendment to the Const.i.tution was pa.s.sed and the payment of the war debt practically accomplished before he took office. Nevertheless, the resulting decrease of the State budget by nearly one-half, being coincident with his term of office, added prodigiously to his fame.[1527] Indeed, he seemed to be the darling of Fortune, and on November 7, exactly according to his calculation, he carried New York,[1528] New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But Republicans claimed South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.

[Footnote 1527: "The amount of the State tax for 1876 was $8,529,174.32, against $14,206,680.61 in 1875, and $15,727,482.08 in 1874." Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1876, p. 598.]

[Footnote 1528: Tilden, plurality, 32,742; Robinson, 30,460. Groo, total vote, 3,412 (Prohibitionist); Griffin, 1,436 (Greenback).

Congress, 17 Republicans, 16 Democrats. a.s.sembly, 71 Republicans, 57 Democrats. Ely's majority for mayor of New York City, 53,517. Tilden's majority in New York City, 53,682.

Republican losses occurred chiefly in the Hudson River and western counties. Elbridge G. Spaulding of Buffalo, and Levi P. Morton of New York, were defeated for Congress.]

In the historic dispute which led to a division of the solid South, partisan papers revelled in threats, and rumours indicated danger of mob violence. To prevent fraud prominent citizens in the North, appointed to represent each political party, watched the canva.s.sing boards in the three disputed States, and although it subsequently developed that distinguished New Yorkers resorted to bribery,[1529] the legal canva.s.sing boards finally certified the electoral votes to Hayes and Wheeler. On December 6 the official count in all the States gave Hayes 185 votes and Tilden 184. The Democrats, deeply disturbed by the action of the Returning Boards, now displayed a temper that resembled the spirit preceding the civil war. Threats were openly made that Hayes should never be inaugurated. The Louisville _Courier Journal_ announced that "if they (our people) will rise in their might, and will send 100,000 pet.i.tioners to Washington to present their memorial in person, there will be no usurpation and no civil war."[1530] A prominent ex-Confederate in Congress talked of 145,000 well disciplined Southern troops who were ready to fight.[1531] Because the President prudently strengthened the military forces about Washington he was charged with the design of installing Hayes with the aid of the army.

[Footnote 1529: Manton Marble visited Florida. On November 22, under the _sobriquet_ "Moses," he telegraphed in cipher to William T.

Pelton, Tilden's nephew, then domiciled in Tilden's home at 15 Gramercy Park: "Have just received proposition to hand over a Tilden decision of Board and certificate of Governor for $200,000." Pelton thought it too much, and Marble again telegraphed that one Elector could be secured for $50,000. Pelton replied that he "could not draw until the vote of the Elector was received." On December 5, Marble wired: "Proposition failed.... Tell Tilden to saddle Blackstone."

Smith M. Weed visited South Carolina. On November 16, without the use of cipher or _sobriquet_, he telegraphed Henry Havermeyer: "Board demand $75,000 for two or three electors." Later in the day he added: "Looks now as though $75,000 would secure all seven votes." The next day he wired: "Press everywhere. No certainty here. Simply a hope." On November 18, he announced: "Majority of Board secured. Cost $80,000.

Send one parcel of $65,000; one of $10,000; one of $5,000. All to be in $1000 or $500 bills. Have cash ready to reach Baltimore Sunday night." Pelton met Weed at Baltimore without the money and both went to New York to secure it. Meantime, the canva.s.sing board reported in favour of Hayes.

Pelton also corresponded with one J.N.H. Patrick, who telegraphed from Oregon: "Must purchase Republican elector to recognise and act with the Democrat, and secure vote to prevent trouble. Deposit $10,000 to my credit." Pelton replied: "If you will make obligation contingent on result in March it will be done." Patrick said fee could not be made contingent, whereupon $8,000 was deposited on January 1, 1877, to his credit, but too late to complete the transaction.

When these telegrams, translated by the New York _Tribune_, were investigated by the Potter Congressional committee in January, 1879, Marble testified that he transmitted them simply "as danger signals"; Weed admitted and attempted to justify; Pelton accepted the full responsibility, intending, he said, to get the money of Edward Cooper; Cooper testified that the telegram requesting $80,000 sent to Baltimore was his first knowledge of Pelton's activity; that he immediately informed Tilden, who recalled his nephew and put a stop to negotiations. Tilden swore that "no offer, no negotiation in behalf of any member of any Returning Board was ever entertained by me, or by my authority, or with my sanction.... There never was a moment in which I ever entertained any idea of seeking to obtain those certificates by any venal inducement, any promise of money or office, to the men who had them to grant or dispose of. My purpose on that subject was perfectly distinct, invariable, and it was generally a.s.sumed by all my friends without discussion. It may have sometimes been expressed and whenever the slightest occasion arose for it to be discussed, it was expressed. It was never deviated from in word or act."--Testimony in relation to Cipher Telegraphic Dispatches, pp. 200-274; see also, Bigelow's _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, pp. 180-223.]

[Footnote 1530: From an editorial signed by Henry Watterson, January 8, 1877.]

[Footnote 1531: Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 7, p.

243.]

On the other hand, Republicans believed Tilden endeavoured to buy the presidency. Although nothing was then known of Marble's and Weed's efforts to tamper with the canva.s.sing boards of South Carolina and Florida, the disposition to "steal" a vote in Oregon, which clearly belonged to Hayes, deprived Tilden's cause of its moral weight.

Indeed, so strongly did sentiment run against him that the _Nation_ "lost nearly three thousand subscribers for refusing to believe that Mr. Hayes could honourably accept the presidency."[1532]

[Footnote 1532: The _Nation_, June 25, 1885.]

When Congress opened the Democrats, being in control of the House, desired to continue the joint rule of February, 1865, directing that "no electoral vote objected to shall be counted except by the concurrent votes of the two Houses." This would elect Tilden. On the other hand, the Republicans, holding that the joint rule expired with the Congress adopting it, insisted that, inasmuch as the canva.s.s by Congress at all previous elections had been confined exclusively to opening the certificates of each State, sent to Washington under the official seal of the respective governors, the Vice-President should open and count the electoral votes and declare the result, the members of the two Houses acting simply as witnesses. This would elect Hayes.

To many and especially to President Grant this controversy seemed full of danger, to avert which if possible Congress adopted a resolution providing for a committee of fourteen, equally divided between the Senate and House, "to report without delay such a measure as may in their judgment be best calculated to accomplish the desired end."[1533] On January 18 (1877) this committee reported a bill providing that where two or more returns had been received from a State such returns should be referred to an Electoral Commission composed of five senators, five members of the House, and five justices of the Supreme Court, who should decide any question submitted to it touching the return from any State, and that such decision should stand unless rejected by the concurrent votes of the two Houses. By tacit agreement the Senate was to name three Republicans and two Democrats, and the House three Democrats and two Republicans, while the Bill itself appointed Justices Clifford, Miller, Field, and Strong, a majority of whom were authorised to select a fifth justice.[1534]

[Footnote 1533: Upon this committee Conkling was subst.i.tuted in place of Logan, detained at home. Abram S. Hewitt was one of the House appointees.]

[Footnote 1534: Clifford and Field were accounted Democrats, and Miller and Strong, Republicans.]

When doubt as to the three Southern States precipitated itself into the result of the election, Tilden exhibited characteristic diligence and secrecy. He avoided public statements, but he scrutinised the returns with the ac.u.men exhibited in securing the Tweed evidence, and left no flaw unchallenged in the t.i.tle of his opponent. After the action of the canva.s.sing boards he contended that the joint rule of 1865 must govern, and in the study of the subject he devoted more than a month to the preparation of a complete history of electoral counts, showing it to have been the unbroken usage for Congress and not the President of the Senate to count the vote.[1535] Moreover, early in the session of Congress he prepared two resolutions which raised the issue, and urged his friends in the leadership of the House to take no further step until the great const.i.tutional battle had been fought along that line, a.s.suring them of his readiness to accept all the responsibility of the outcome. To appraise the country of the strength of this position he also prepared an extended brief which Governor Robinson incorporated as a part of his inaugural message on January 1, 1877.[1536]

[Footnote 1535: Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 60.]

[Footnote 1536: Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, pp. 67-74.]

Tilden first learned of the proposed Electoral Commission Bill on January 14. Abram S. Hewitt brought the information, saying that Bayard and Thurman of the Senate, being absolutely committed to it, would concur in reporting it whatever Tilden's action.[1537] Tilden, resenting the secrecy of its preparation as unwise and essentially undemocratic, declined to give it his approval.[1538] In his later telegrams to Hewitt he expressed the belief that "We should stand on the Const.i.tution and the settled practice;" that "the other side, having no way but by usurpation, will have greater troubles than we, unless relieved by some agreement;" that "the only way of getting accessions in the Senate is by the House standing firm;" that "we are over-pressed by exaggerated fears;" and that "no information is here which could justify an abandonment of the Const.i.tution and practice of the government, and of the rights of the two Houses and of the people." To his friends who urged that time pressed, he exclaimed: "There is time enough. It is a month before the count."

Representations of the danger of a collision with the Executive met his scorn. "It is a panic of pacificators," he said. "Why surrender before the battle for fear of having to surrender after the battle?"[1539]

[Footnote 1537: Manton Marble to the New York _Sun_, August 5, 1878.]

[Footnote 1538: Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 76.]

[Footnote 1539: _Ibid._, pp. 76, 79, 80.]

In view of his resentment of the secrecy which characterised the preparation of the Electoral Commission Bill, one wonders that Tilden made no appeal directly to the people, demanding that his party stand firm to "the settled practice" and allow Republicans peaceably to inaugurate Hayes "by usurpation" rather than "relieve them by some agreement." His telegrams to congressmen could not be published, and few if any one knew him as the author of the discussion in Robinson's inaugural. The _Times_ thought "the old Governor's hand is to be seen in the new Governor's message,"[1540] but the _Nation_ expressed doubt about it.[1541] A ringing proclamation over his own signature, however, would have been known before sunset to every Democratic voter in the land. Blaine told Bigelow a year or two later that if the Democrats had been firm, the Republicans would have backed down.[1542] Tilden's silence certainly dampened his party's enthusiasm. It recalled, too, his failure to a.s.sail the Tweed ring until the _Times'_ disclosure made its destruction inevitable.

[Footnote 1540: New York _Times_, January 2, 1877.]

[Footnote 1541: January 4.]

[Footnote 1542: Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 74, note.]

Bigelow, reflecting Tilden's thought, charged that in accepting the plan of an Electoral Commission Thurman and Bayard were influenced by presidential ambition, and that prominent congressmen could not regard with satisfaction the triumph of a candidate who had been in nowise indebted to them for his nomination or success at the polls.[1543] On the other hand, Blaine says the Democrats favoured the Commission because Davis, who affiliated with the Democratic party and had preferred Tilden to Hayes, was to be chosen for the fifth justice. The Maine statesman adds, without giving his authority, that Hewitt advanced this as one of the arguments to induce Tilden to approve the bill.[1544] In his history of the Hewitt-Tilden interview Marble makes no mention of Davis' selection, nor does Bigelow refer to Tilden's knowledge of it. Nevertheless, the strength disclosed for the bill sustains Blaine's suggestion, since every Democrat of national reputation in both Houses supported it. The measure pa.s.sed the Senate on January 24 and the House on the 26th,[1545] but an unlooked-for event quickly destroyed Democratic calculations and expectations, for on January 25, too late for the party to recede with dignity or with honour, the Democrats of the Illinois Legislature elected Davis by two majority to the United States Senate in place of John A. Logan.

Probably a greater surprise never occurred in American political history. It gave Davis an opportunity, on the ground of obvious impropriety, to avoid what he neither sought nor desired, and narrowed the choice of a fifth justice to out-and-out Republicans, thus settling the election of Hayes. "The drop in the countenance of Abram S. Hewitt," said a writer who informed Tilden's representative of Davis' transfer from the Supreme Court to the Senate, "made it plain that he appreciated its full significance."[1546] Bigelow could not understand why Davis did not serve on the Commission unless his "declination was one of the conditions of his election," adding that "it was supposed by many that Morton and others engineered the agreement of Davis' appointment with full knowledge that he would not serve."[1547] This cynical comment betrayed Tilden's knowledge of "things hoped for," and accounts for his final acquiescence in the Commission, since Davis and a certainty were far better than a fight and possible failure.

[Footnote 1543: _Ibid._, p. 63.]

[Footnote 1544: Blaine, _Twenty Tears of Congress_, Vol. 2, p. 584.

Morrison of Illinois declared that Davis' "most intimate friends, among whom I may count myself, don't know to-day whether he favored Tilden or Hayes. He didn't vote at all."--_Century Magazine_, October, 1901, p. 928.]

[Footnote 1545: Senate: For, 26 Democrats, 21 Republicans; against, 16 Republicans, 1 Democrat. House: For, 160 Democrats, 31 Republicans; against, 69 Republicans, 17 Democrats.]

[Footnote 1546: _Century Magazine_, October, 1901, p. 933.]

[Footnote 1547: Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 64, note.]

Another dagger-thrust that penetrated the home in Gramercy Park was Conkling's exclusion from the Electoral Commission. Of all the members of the famous committee the Senator had borne the most useful part in framing the measure, and his appointment to the Commission was naturally expected to follow.[1548] His biographer states that he declined to serve.[1549] "If this be correct," says Rhodes, "he shirked a grave duty."[1550] Bigelow charges the omission to the Senator's belief "that the vote of Louisiana rightfully belonged to Mr. Tilden,"

and volunteers the information "that Conkling had agreed to address the Commission in opposition to its counting Louisiana for Hayes."[1551] Conkling's absence from the Senate when the Louisiana vote was taken corroborates Bigelow,[1552] and supports the general opinion which obtained at the time, that the Republicans, suspecting Conkling of believing Tilden ent.i.tled to the presidency, intentionally ignored him in the make-up of the Commission.[1553] The reason for Conkling's failure subsequently to address the Commission in opposition to counting Louisiana for Hayes nowhere explicitly appears.

"Various explanations are in circulation," writes Bigelow, "but I have not been able to determine which of them all had the demerit of securing his silence."[1554]

[Footnote 1548: "General Grant sent for Senator Conkling, and said with deep earnestness: 'This matter is a serious one, and the people feel it very deeply. I think this Electoral Commission ought to be appointed.' Conkling answered: 'Mr. President, Senator Morton' (who was then the acknowledged leader of the Senate), 'is opposed to it and opposed to your efforts; but if you wish the Commission carried, I can help do it.' Grant said: 'I wish it done.'"--George W. Childs, _Recollections_, pp. 79, 80.]

[Footnote 1549: Conkling, _Life of Conkling_, p. 521.]

[Footnote 1550: Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 7, p.

263.]

[Footnote 1551: Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, p. 84.]

[Footnote 1552: "In all his political official life the most important vote which he [Conkling] has been or can be called upon to give--that upon the Louisiana electoral question--he evaded."--_Harper's Weekly_, February 8, 1879.]

[Footnote 1553: "He [Conkling] was at the time most suspected by the Republicans, who feared that his admitted dislike to Hayes would cause him to favour a bill which would secure the return of Tilden."--Thomas V. Cooper and Hector T. Fenton, _American Politics_, p. 230; see also, Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 7, p. 263.]