My Memories of Eighty Years Part 7

On the train to the convention John Russell Young, then managing editor of the New York Tribune under Mr. Greeley, came to me and said: "Mr. Greeley has decided to be a candidate at the convention for the nomination for governor. You are his friend, he lives in your a.s.sembly district in Westchester County, and wishes you to make the nomination speech."

I tried to argue the question with Young by portraying to him the situation and the utter hopelessness of any attempt to break the slate. He, however, insisted upon it, saying that all pledges and preferences would disappear because of Greeley's services to the party for so many years.

When we arrived at Syracuse and stated our determination to present Mr. Greeley's name, it was hilariously received as a joke. Efforts were made by friends of Greeley to persuade him not to undertake such an impossible task, but they could produce no effect.

Mr. Griswold was put in nomination by Mr. Demers, one of the most eloquent young men in the ministry of the State, and afterwards an editor of power, and his speech filled every requirement.

Then I presented Mr. Greeley. At first the audience was hostile, but as the recital of the great editor's achievements grew in intensity and heat, the convention began to applaud and then to cheer. A delegate hurled at me the question: "How about Greeley signing the bail of Jefferson Davis?" The sentiment seemed to change at once and cheers were followed by hisses.

Then there was supreme silence, and I immediately shouted: "There are spots on the sun."

The effect was electrical. Delegates were on their feet, standing on chairs, the air was full of hats, and the cheers deafening for Greeley for some minutes. Mr. Demers, the preacher delegate, lost his equilibrium, rushed up to me, shaking his fist excitedly, and shouted: "d.a.m.n you! you have nominated him and beaten Griswold."

A recess was taken, and when the convention reconvened the ballot demonstrated that if the organization is given time it can always reform its shattered lines and show the efficiency of discipline.

When I met Mr. Greeley soon after, he said: "I cannot understand why I desired the nomination for governor, nor why anybody should want the office. There is nothing in it. No man now can name the ten last governors of the State of New York."

Having tried that proposition many times since on the average citizen, I have found that Mr. Greeley was absolutely right.

Any one who does not think so can try to solve that problem himself.

The meeting of the Electoral College at the Capitol at Albany in 1864 was one of the most picturesque and interesting gatherings ever held in the State. People came from all parts of the country to witness the formality of the casting of the vote of New York for Abraham Lincoln. The members of the college were, most of them, men of great distinction in our public and civic life.

Horace Greeley was elected president of the college. The meeting was held in the Senate chamber. When Mr. Greeley took the chair, the desk in front of him made only his bust visible and with his wonderfully intellectual face, his long gray hair brushed back, and his solemn and earnest expression, he was one of the most impressive figures I ever saw occupying the chair as a presiding officer.

One of the electors had failed to appear. Most of us knew that under pressure of great excitement he was unable to resist his convivial tendencies, but no one supposed that Mr. Greeley could by any possibility know of his weakness. After waiting some time one of the electors moved that the college take a recess for half a day. Mr. Greeley turned very pale and, before putting the question, made a little speech, something like this, in a voice full of emotion, I might almost say tears: "My brethren, we are met here upon the most solemn occasion of our lives in this crisis of the republic. Upon the regularity of what we do here this day may depend whether the republic lives or dies. I would, therefore, suggest that we sit here in silence until our absent brother, who is doubtless kept from us by some good reason, shall appear and take his seat."

The effect of this address upon the Electoral College and the surrounding audience was great. Many were in tears, and the women spectators, most of whom were in mourning for those lost during the war, were all crying.

As secretary of state it was my duty to have the papers all prepared for execution as soon as the college had voted, and to attach to them the great seal of the State, and then they were sent by special messenger to Washington to be delivered to the House of Representatives. Mr. Greeley, at the opening of the session, said to me: "Chauncey, as I am not very familiar with parliamentary law, I wish you would take a seat on the steps beside me here, so that I can consult you if necessary." After this effective and affecting speech he leaned down until he was close to my ear, and said: "Chauncey, how long do you think it will be before that d---- drunken fool will be able to return and take his seat?"

General Grant's administration soon aroused great opposition.

Carl Schurz, Charles Francis Adams, and other leaders became very hostile to the administration and to a second term. The country was longing for peace. The "carpet-bag" governments of the South were full of corruption and incompetence and imposed upon the Southern States intolerable burdens of debt. The feeling was becoming general that there should be universal amnesty in order that the best and most capable people of the South could return to the management of their own affairs.

This led to the calling of a convention of the Republicans, which nominated Horace Greeley for president. I had no desire nor the slightest intention of being involved in this controversy, but was happily pursuing my profession, with increasing fondness for private life.

One day Commodore Vanderbilt, who had a strong friendship for Mr. Greeley, but took no interest in politics, said to me: "Mr. Greeley has been to see me and is very anxious for you to a.s.sist him. If you can aid him in any way I wish you would."

Afterwards Mr. Greeley called at my house. "Chauncey," he said (he always called me Chauncey), "as you know, I have been nominated by the Liberal Republican convention for President of the United States. If I can get the indors.e.m.e.nt of the Democratic party my election is a.s.sured. My Democratic friends tell me that in order to accomplish that I must demonstrate that I have a substantial Republican following. So we have called a meeting at Rochester, which is the capital of the strongest Republican counties of the State. It is necessary to have for the princ.i.p.al speaker some Republican of State and national reputation. I have selected you for that purpose."

To my protest that I did not wish to enter into the contest nor to take any part in active politics, he said, very indignantly: "I have supported you in my paper and personally during the whole of your career. I thought that if anybody was capable of grat.i.tude it is you, and I have had unfortunate experiences with many."

I never was able to resist an appeal of this kind, so I said impulsively: "Mr. Greeley, I will go."

The meeting was a marvellous success for the purpose for which it was called. It was purely a Republican gathering. The crowd was several times larger than the hall could accommodate.

Henry R. Selden, one of the judges of the Court of Appeals and one of the most eminent and respected Republicans of the State, presided. The two hundred vice-presidents and secretaries upon the platform I had known intimately for years as Republican leaders of their counties and districts. The demonstration so impressed the Democratic State leaders that at the national Democratic convention Mr. Greeley was indorsed.

There were two State conventions held simultaneously that year, one Democratic and one Liberal Republican. In the division of offices the Democratic party, being the larger, was given the governorship and the Liberal Republicans had the lieutenant-governorship.

I was elected as the presiding officer of the Liberal Republican convention and also was made unanimously its nominee for lieutenant-governor. The Democratic convention nominated Francis Kernan, one of the most distinguished lawyers of the State, and afterwards United States senator.

If the election had been held early in the canva.s.s there is little doubt but that Mr. Greeley would have carried the State by an overwhelming majority. His difficulty was that for a quarter of a century, as editor of the New York Tribune, he had been the most merciless, bitter, and formidable critic and opponent of the Democratic party. The deep-seated animosity against him was fully aroused as the campaign proceeded by a propaganda which placed in the hands of every Democrat these former slashing editorials of the New York Tribune. Their effect upon the Democratic voters was evident after a while, and when in the September election North Carolina went Republican, a great ma.s.s of Republicans, who had made up their minds to support Mr. Greeley, went back to their party, and he was overwhelmingly defeated.

In the early part of his canva.s.s Mr. Greeley made a tour of the country. There have been many such travels by presidential candidates, but none like this. His march was a triumphal procession, and his audiences enormous and most enthusiastic.

The whole country marvelled at his intellectual versatility. He spoke every day, and often several times a day, and each speech was absolutely new. There seemed to be no limit to his originality, his freshness, or the new angles from which to present the issues of the canva.s.s. No candidate was ever so bitterly abused and so slandered.

A veteran speaker has in the course of his career original experiences. The cordiality and responsiveness of his audience is not always an index of their agreement with his argument.

During the campaign Mr. Greeley came to me and said: "I have received encouraging accounts from the State of Maine. I have a letter from such a place"--naming it--"from the princ.i.p.al of the academy there. He writes me that the Congregational minister, who has the largest church in town, the bank president, the manufacturer, the princ.i.p.al lawyer, and himself are lifelong readers of the Tribune, and those steadfast Republicans intend to support me. He thinks if they can have a public meeting with a speaker of national reputation, the result might be an overturn in my favor in this community, which is almost unanimously Republican, that it may influence the whole State, and," continued Mr. Greeley, "he suggests you as the speaker, and I earnestly ask you to go."

When I arrived at the place I was entertained by the manufacturer.

The audience crowded the largest hall in the town. The princ.i.p.al of the academy presided, the Congregational minister opened the exercises with a prayer, and I was introduced and received with great cordiality.

For such an audience my line of talk was praising General Grant as the greatest general of modern times, and how largely the preservation of the Union depended upon his military genius.

Then to picture the tremendous responsibilities of the presidency and the impossibility of a man, however great as a soldier, with a lifetime of military education, environment, and experiences, succeeding in civil office, especially as great a one as the presidency of the United States. Then came, naturally, a eulogium of Horace Greeley, the maker of public opinion, the moulder of national policies, the most eloquent and resourceful leader of the Republican party since its formation. The audience cheered with great enthusiasm all these allusions to General Grant, and responded with equal fervor to my praise of Horace Greeley.

When I concluded they stood up and gave me cordial cheers, and the presiding officer came forward and said: "I now suggest that we close this meeting with three rousing cheers for Horace Greeley."

The princ.i.p.al of the academy, the manufacturer, the minister, the lawyer, a very few of the audience, and several women responded.

After this frost a farmer rose gradually, and as he began to let out link after link of his body, which seemed about seven feet tall, he reached his full height, and then in a voice which could be heard a mile shouted: "Three cheers for General Grant!" The response nearly took the roof off the house. I left the State the next morning and told Mr. Greeley that he could not carry Maine.

Among the amusing episodes of the campaign was one which occurred at an open-door ma.s.s meeting at Watertown, N. Y. John A. Dix had been nominated for governor on the Republican ticket, and I was speaking of him and his career. He had changed from one party to the other five or six times in the course of his long career, and each time received an office. There was great doubt as to his age, because in the American Encyclopaedia the date of his birth was given as of a certain year, and in the French Encyclopaedia, which published his biography when he was minister to France, a widely different date was given. In the full tide of partisan oratory I went over these changes of political activity, and how each one had been rewarded, also the doubt as to his age, and then I shouted: "I have discovered among the records of the Pilgrim Fathers that when they landed on Plymouth Rock they found John A. Dix standing on the rock and announcing that unless they made him justice of the peace he would join the Indians." An indignant farmer, who could not hold his wrath any longer, shouted: "That's a lie! The Pilgrims landed more than two hundred and fifty years ago." I saw that my interrupter had swallowed my bait, hook, and line, bob and sinker, pole and all, and shouted with great indignation: "Sir, I have narrated that historical incident throughout the State, from Montauk Point to Niagara Falls, and you are the first man who has had the audacity to question it."

Another farmer stepped up to the heckler and said: "Here is my hat, neighbor. You can keep it. I am going bareheaded for the rest of my life." In his uproarious laughter the crowd all joined.

It was years before the questioning farmer could visit Watertown without encountering innumerable questions as to when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.

The last meeting of the campaign was held at Mr. Greeley's home at Chappaqua in Westchester County. We all knew that the contest was hopeless and defeat sure. I was one of the speakers, both as his neighbor and friend, and accompanied him to New York.

A rough crowd on the train jeered him as we rode along. We went to his office, and there he spoke of the lies that had been told about him, and which had been believed by the public; of the cartoons which had misrepresented him, especially those of Tom Nast, and of which there were many lying about. Leaning upon his desk, a discouraged and hopeless man, he said: "I have given my life to the freeing of the slaves, and yet they have been made to believe that I was a slave driver. It has been made to appear, and people have been made to believe, that I was wrong or faithless, or on the other side of the reforms which I have advocated all my life. I will be beaten in the campaign and I am ruined for life."

He was overcome with emotion, and it was the saddest interview I ever had with any one. It was really the breaking of a great heart. He died before the votes were counted.

There was instantly a tremendous revulsion of popular feeling in the country. He had lost his wife during the campaign, and the people woke up suddenly to the sorrows under which he had labored, to his genius as a journalist, to his activity as a reformer, and to a usefulness that had no parallel among his contemporaries. The president-elect, General Grant, and the vice-president-elect, Schuyler Colfax, attended the funeral, and without distinction of party his death was universally mourned.

After the election, in consultation on railroad affairs, Commodore Vanderbilt said to me, "I was very glad you were defeated," which was his way of saying that he did not want me either to leave the railroad or to have other duties which would impair my efficiency.

With the tragic death of Mr. Greeley the Liberal Republican movement ended. Most of us who had followed him resumed at once our Republican party relations and entered actively into its work in the next campaign. The revolt was forgiven, except in very few instances, and the Greeley men went back to their old positions in their various localities and became prominent in the official life of the State. I, as usual, in the fall took my vacation on the platform for the party.

VII. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES AND WILLIAM M. EVARTS

It is one of the tragedies of history that in the procession of events, the acc.u.mulation of incidents, year by year and generation by generation, famous men of any period so rapidly disappear.

At the close of the Civil War there were at least a score of generals in the North, and as many in the South, whose names were household words. About fifty-five years have pa.s.sed since the war closed, and the average citizen knows only two of them--Grant and Lee.

One of the last acts of General Grant was to tender to Senator Conkling the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Conkling had gained from the senatorship and the leadership of his party a great reputation, to which subsequent service in the Senate could add little or nothing.

He was in his early forties, in the prime of his powers, and he would have had before him, as chief justice of this great court, a long life of usefulness and distinction.

Conkling was essentially an advocate, and as an advocate not possessing the judicial temperament. While there was a great surprise that he declined this wonderful opportunity, we can see now that the environment and restrictions of the position would have made it impossible for this fiery and ambitious spirit. It was well known that General Grant, so far as he could influence the actions of the national Republican convention, was in favor of Senator Conkling as his successor. The senator's friends believed, and they made him believe, that the presidency was within his grasp.

When the national convention met it was discovered that the bitterness between the two leaders, Blaine and Conkling, made harmony impossible. The bitterness by that time was on Conkling's side against Blaine. With the latter's make-up, resentment could not last very long. It is an interesting speculation what might have happened if these two leaders had become friends. It is among the possibilities that both might have achieved the great object of their ambitions and been presidents of the United States.

The outstanding feature of that convention in the history of those interesting gatherings was the speech of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, nominating Mr. Blaine. In its effect upon the audience, in its reception by the country, and by itself as an effort of that kind, it stands unprecedented and unequalled.

As usual in popular conventions, where the antagonism of the leaders and the bitterness of their partisanship threatens the unity of the party, the result was the nomination of a "dark horse,"

and the convention closed its labors by presenting to the country General Rutherford B. Hayes.