Perley's Reminiscences Part 38

I want to see the President and Congress in harmony and the Republican party united and victorious. To accomplish this, we must all be just, charitable, and forgiving."

[Facsimile]

SchuylerColfax SCHUYLER COLFAX was born at New York City March 23d, 1823; was a Representative from Indiana, 1855-1869, serving as Speaker of the House of Representatives six years; was elected Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with General Grant, serving 1869- 1873, and died at Mankato, Minnesota, January 13th, 1885.

CHAPTER XXV.

INTRIGUES AND INTRIGUERS.

General Grant, when elected President of the United States, had endeavored to elevate his views beyond the narrow sphere of party influences, and had consolidated in his own mind a scheme of policy which he had before shadowed out for the complete reconstruction of the Union, and for the reform of abuses which had crept into the Federal Government during the war. The qualities which insured his success as a soldier had not enabled him to succeed as a statesman, but he displayed the same fort.i.tude under apparent disaster and courage at unexpected crises when he found himself again pa.s.sing "the wilderness," darkened, not with the smoke of battle, but with detraction and denunciation. Again, in the old spirit he exclaimed, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

The opposition to General Grant's re-election was hydra-headed, and no less than seven candidates were in the field against him.

The contest of 1824 had been called "the scrub-race for the Presidency," and to that of 1872 was given the name of "Go as you please." The watchword of the factions was "Anything to beat Grant;" their points of union were the greed of office and the thirst for revenge.

The only serious opposition to General Grant was that of the combined Liberal Republican and Democratic parties, which nominated as their candidate Horace Greeley. It was deeply to be regretted that political ambition tempted the only equal of "Benjamin Franklin, journeyman printer," to become a politician. Better informed than any other man on American politics, courageous, free from small vices, and the embodiment of common sense and justice, with a kind and charitable heart, he was a man of the people and for the people.

He was made supremely ridiculous by Nast's caricatures, and by his own record as collated from the files of the great newspaper which he had founded and continued to edit.

Mr. Greeley, after his double nomination at Cincinnati and at Baltimore, showed that he was not content with being a "good printer, a respectable publisher, and an honest editor," which he had previously avowed was the height of his ambition. The unnatural political alliance with those whom he had denounced for a quarter of a century led him into all sorts of inconsistencies and contradictions, and displayed his insatiable thirst for public office. All the sympathies of the Democratic party had been his antipathies, all their hates his loves, and many of their leaders spoke of him publicly with contempt. Indeed, his campaign would have been a farce had not his untimely death made it a tragedy.

Ridicule killed him politically, and his political failure was the immediate cause of his sad physical death.

Senator Sumner, endeavoring with the aid of Senator Schurz to connect General Grant or some of the officers near him with the French "arms scandal," prepared with great care, and read in the Senate on the 31st of May, 1872, a fierce philippic against the President. Ancient and modern history had been ransacked for precedents, which were quoted and then applied to General Grant, to show his unworthiness, his incompetency, his nepotism, and his ambition. The long tirade was an erudite exhibition of most intense partisanship, having as a motto from Shakespeare, "We will have rings and things and fine array." A few weeks later Mr. Sumner sailed for Europe, and did not return until after the election.

At the Republican National Convention, which was held at Philadelphia, on Wednesday, the 5th of June, 1872, General Grant was renominated by acclamation as President and Henry Wilson as Vice-President.

The defeat of Mr. Colfax for renomination was attributable to the bitter hostility of some of the Washington newspaper correspondents, and to the free use of money among the delegates from the Southern States, under the pretense that it was to be used for the establishment of newspapers and for campaign expenses. Mr. Wilson had sent from Washington all the money that he could raise, and he had been liberally aided by Mr. Buffington, of Ma.s.sachusetts.

Mr. Colfax was badly served by his own immediate friends and advocates. The Indiana delegation were at first quite immoderate in their mode of demanding their favorite statesman's renomination.

One gentleman, himself an editor, was especially bitter at the activity of Mr. Wilson's newspaper friends, and declared he would mark them all in his paper. Such declarations made what begun in good feeling toward Mr. Wilson, and a considerable share of a fun- loving spirit, a strong and determined contest. Then in the New York and other delegations there were gentlemen who represented large employing and moneyed interests, as Mr. Orton, of the Western Union Telegraph Company, Mr. Shoemaker, of Adams Express, and Mr.

Franchot, familiarly known as "Goat Island d.i.c.k," the princ.i.p.al attorney of the California Central Pacific for legislative favors from Congress. These and other gentlemen identified with great corporate interests were at first even bitterly hostile to Mr.

Wilson's candidacy, and to the last urged that of Mr. Colfax.

There was considerable fun in the conflict, which was, in the main, conducted with good-nature on both sides. Mr. Colfax was by no means without newspaper friends. Mr. Bowles, though a Greeley man, did him quiet but continuous service. Messrs. Jones and Jennings, of the New York _Times_, were present, and were understood to have exerted themselves for the Vice-President's renomination. Mr.

Holloway, of the Indianapolis _Journal_, was very active. Colonel Forney p.r.o.nounced for Mr. Colfax through the _Press_, though his son, the managing editor, shared in the good feeling of the Washington correspondents toward the Senator.

The campaign was a very earnest one, and every citizen had to listen to campaign speeches, attend ward meetings and conventions, subscribe for the expenses of torchlight processions, if he did not march therein, and thus fortify his intellect and strengthen his conscience for the quadrennial tilt with his friends over the relative merits of candidates and the proper elucidation of issues involved. For the first time civil-service reform was advocated by the Republicans, in accordance with the recommendations of General Grant in his message, and was opposed by those who (to paraphrase Brinsley Sheridan) believed that "there is no more conscience in politics than in gallantry."

When Congress met in December, 1872, General Grant made the gratifying announcement that the differences between the United States and Great Britain had been settled by the tribunal of arbitration, which had met at Geneva, in a manner entirely satisfactory to the Government of the United States. He also congratulated the country on the coming Centennial celebration at Philadelphia, the completion of the ninth census, the successful working of the Bureau of Education, the operations of the Department of Agriculture, and the civil-service reform which Congress had been so reluctant to consider.

The New Year's reception at the commencement of 1873 was a crowded affair. Mrs. Grant wore a dress of pearl-gray silk, flounced and trimmed with silk of a darker hue and with point lace. Mrs. Fish wore an elaborately trimmed dress of Nile-green silk, and was accompanied by her young daughter, in blue silk. Mrs. Boutwell wore a black velvet dress trimmed with white lace, and her daughter a pale-blue silk dress trimmed with black lace, and Mrs. Attorney- General Williams wore a dress of Nile-green silk, trimmed with Valenciennes lace. Lady Thornton wore a dress of royal purple velvet, elegantly trimmed, and the bride of the Minister from Ecuador wore a dress of sage-green silk, with a sleeveless velvet jacket, and a velvet hat of the same shade.

The army, the navy, the Diplomatic Corps, and the judiciary were out in full force. There were nice people, questionable people, and people who were not nice at all in the crowd. Every state, every age, every social cla.s.s, both s.e.xes, and all human colors were represented. There were wealthy bankers, and a poor, blind, black beggar led by a boy; men in broadcloth and men in homespun; men with beards and men without beards; members of the press and of the lobby; contractors and claim agents; office-holders and office-seekers; there were ladies from Paris in elegant attire, and ladies from the interior in calico; ladies whose cheeks were tinged with rouge, and others whose faces were weather-bronzed by out-door work; ladies as lovely as Eve, and others as naughty as Mary Magdalene; ladies in diamonds, and others in dollar jewelry; chambermaids elbowed countesses, and all enjoyed themselves. After the official reception at the White House the Secretaries and other dignitaries hurried to their respective homes, there in their turn to receive visits. The foreign diplomats did not receive, but with the army and navy men and the citizens "generally" went "the grand rounds." The older citizens had hospitable spreads, including hot canvas-back ducks, terrapin, and well-filled punch-bowls, and veteran callers got in the work as ususal, but at most houses intoxicating drinks were dispensed with, and there were no such exhibitions of drunkenness as had disgraced former years.

Senator Sumner, who had left the Presidential contest and gone to Europe returned to his Senatorial duties and "accepted the situation."

Early in the session he introduced a bill prohibiting the future publication of names of Union victories in the Army Register or their inscription on the regimental colors of the army. This step toward an oblivion of past difficulties was highly acceptable to General Grant, who conveyed to Mr. Sumner his appreciation of the olive branch thus extended. Others were not disposed to regard his movement with a friendly eye, and the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts pa.s.sed a resolution censuring him.

Mr. Sumner survived a few months only, when, after a very brief illness, he died at his house in Washington. When he was gone, men of all political parties joined heartily in eulogizing the deceased statesman. A mourning nation paid homage to his pure heart, to his sense of duty and right, to his courageous willingness to bear obloquy, to his unwearied industry--in short, to that rare union of qualities which impart such grandeur to his memory. Even the jealousies and schemes of the living were restrained, as the second-rate heroes of ancient days postponed their contest for the armor of Achilles until last honors had been paid to the memory of the ill.u.s.trious departed. In Doric Hall in the State House at Boston his remains finally lay in state amid a lavish display of floral tokens, which were sent from all cla.s.ses and localities, Ma.s.sachusetts thus emphatically indorsing her son, whom she had so lately censured.

Senator Sumner left behind him a few printed copies of a speech which he had prepared for delivery in the Senate before the then recent Presidential election, each copy inscribed in his own handwriting, "private and confidential." He had written it when inspired with the belief that with the Administration he was a proscribed man; but his friends convinced him that it would not be best for him to throw down this gauntlet of defiance. He had, therefore, decided not to make public the indictment which he had prepared, and the few copies of it which had been given to friends was not, as was a.s.serted, the report of a "posthumous speech."

Its publication after his death by those to whom copies had been intrusted in confidence was an unpardonable breach of trust.

The great Ma.s.sachusetts Senator had for years stood before the country with a strong individuality which had separated him from the machine politicians, and placed him among the statesmen of the Republic. Before the roll of the Northern drums was heard in the South, he had defiantly denounced the slave-holders in the Capitol, and when the thunder of artillery drowned the voice of oratory, he earnestly labored to have the war overthrow and eradicate slavery.

Just as his hopes were realized, and as he was battling for civil rights for the enfranchised race, his life, for which his friends antic.i.p.ated a long twilight, was unexpectedly brought to a close.

Yet there is something so melancholy in the slow decline of great mental powers, that those who loved him the best felt a sort of relief that he had suddenly thrown off his load of domestic sorrow and pa.s.sed across the dark stream into the unknown land while still in the possession of his energies.

[Facsimile]

Yours truly H. Wilson HENRY WILSON, born at Framington, N. H., February 16th, 1812; member Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives, 1840, and served four years in the State Senate, being twice its presiding officer; United States Senator, 1855-1871; Vice-President, March 4th, 1873 - November 22d, 1875, when he died.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A NEW TERM BEGUN.

General Grant's second inauguration on Tuesday, March 4th, 1873, was shorn of its splendor by the intense cold weather. The wind blew in a perfect gale from the southwest, sweeping away the flags and other decorations from private houses and making it very disagreeable for the, nevertheless, large crowds of spectators.

When the procession started from the White House, so intense was the cold that the breath of the musicians condensed in the valves of their instruments, rendering it impossible for them to play, and many of the cadets and soldiers had to leave the ranks half frozen, while the customary crowds of civilians were completely routed by the cutting blasts. The procession was headed by the regulars, followed by a battalion of half frozen West Point cadets in their light gray parade uniforms, and another of midshipmen from the Annapolis Naval School in dark blue. A division of gayly uniformed citizen-soldiers followed, including the Boston Lancers in their scarlet coats, with pennons fluttering from their lances, and the First Troop of the Philadelphia City Cavalry, which had escorted almost every preceding President, and which carried its historic flag, which was the first bearing thirteen stripes, and which was presented to the Troop in 1775.

General Grant, with a member of the Congressional Committee, rode in his own open barouche, drawn by four bay horses. In the next carriage was Henry Wilson, Vice-President, escorted by another member of the Committee, and the President's family followed.

After the military came political clubs in citizens' attire, with bands and banners, the Washington Fire Department bringing up the rear.

Meanwhile the Senate had closed the labors of the Forty-second Congress, and chairs were placed in the chamber for the dignitaries, who soon began to arrive. The members of the Diplomatic Corps wore their court dresses and were resplendent with gold lace and embroidery. Chief Justice Chase, who came in at the head of the Supreme Court, looked well, although strangely changed by his full gray beard, which concealed all the lines of his face. General Sherman had been persuaded by his staff to appear in the new uniform of his rank, but, to their disgust, he wore with it a pair of bright yellow kid gloves. There were other high officers of the army and navy, with the heads of the executive departments, on the floor of the Senate, and the members of the defunct House of Representatives, who came trooping in after their adjournment, formed a background for the scene.

At twelve o'clock, Vice-President Colfax delivered a brief valedictory address, and then Henry Wilson, Vice-President-elect, delivered his salutatory, took the prescribed oath, and swore in the Senators- elect. A procession was then formed, which slowly wended its way through the rotunda to the customary platform over the steps of the eastern portico. When General Grant appeared hearty cheers were given by the vast crowd, estimated at not less then twenty thousand in number, packed behind the military escort on the plaza before the Capitol. Chief Justice Chase again administered the oath of office, and the President advanced, uncovered, to the front of the platform, and read his re-inaugural address. The wind blew a tempest at times, nearly wrenching the ma.n.u.script from his hands.

No sooner had he finished reading than the salute from a neighboring light battery was echoed by the guns in the Navy Yard, the a.r.s.enal, and at two or three forts on the Virginia side of the Potomac, which had not yet been dismantled. Before the echoes of the salutes had fairly died away, the procession started to escort President Grant back to the White House, the bleak wind making nearly every one tremble and shiver.

The city was illuminated in the early evening, and the new wooden pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue, cleared of all vehicles by the police, was covered by the throng of shivering men, women, and children. The light in the tholus over the great dome of the Capitol shone like a beacon far above the rows of colored lanterns which were hung in festoons from the trees among the sidewalks.

Calcium lights added to the brilliancy of the scene, and many private houses and stores were illuminated with gas or candles.

At nine o'clock there was a display of fireworks on the park south of the White House, the rockets shooting comet-like across the clear, star-dotted sky, dropping showers of colored fire in their flight. All the while the wind blew fiercely, and the cold was intensified, but the crowd seemed oblivious to the wintry blast.

At the inauguration ball, held in an immense temporary building, which had no heating apparatus, the ladies were compelled to wear their wrappings, and the gentlemen kept on their overcoats and hats as they endeavored to keep warm by vigorous dancing. Mrs. Grant, who wore a white silk dress trimmed with black Chantilly lace, shivered as she stood by the side of her husband on the dais, and the members and the ladies of the Diplomatic Corps remained but a few moments. The supper, which had been prepared at a large expense, was emphatically a cold repast. The ornamental devices in ice- cream were frozen into solid chunks, and the champagne and punch were forsaken for hot coffee and chocolate, the only things warm in the building. The guests, each one of whom had paid twenty dollars for a ticket, were frozen out before midnight.

Chief Justice Chase never appeared in public after this inauguration, but died on the 7th of May following. An effort was made to have Justice Miller promoted, but President Grant positively declined doing so, on the ground that to raise any a.s.sociate Justice over his brothers would be to deepen jealousies not wholly invisible there, so he tendered the important position to Roscoe Conkling, then a United States Senator from New York, whose great intellectual powers especially qualified him to be the successor of Marshall and of Taney. Some of Mr. Conkling's friends urged him to accept the place, while others, who desired to see him President of the United States, prevailed on him to remain in political life and to decline the President's offer. General Grant then nominated as Chief Justice his Attorney-General, George H. Williams, of Oregon, but this awakened the jealousies of Justice Miller, whose son-in- law, Colonel Corkhill, commenced a vigorous attack upon the nomination in the Washington _Chronicle_, which he then edited. There were also some grave scandals in Washington society about a number of anonymous letters which had been written, it was intimated, by Mrs.

Williams. When the Senate met it soon became apparent that the nomination of Mr. Williams could not be confirmed, and it was withdrawn at his own request. Having come to him without his own agency, he lost nothing in letting it go except some unpleasant experiences.

The President then nominated Caleb Cushing, who was more objectionable to the Court than Mr. Williams had been. The _Chronicle_ boiled with rage, and other journals admitted that even if Mr. Cushing had caught the spirit of the age and taken a long stride out of his old errors of opinion, he was not a man to be placed on the bench of the Supreme Court, when full civil rights had not been accorded to the negro and many important questions connected with the war had not been settled. On the other hand, Senators Sumner and Boutwell, of Ma.s.sachusetts, vouched for Mr. Cushing's Republican record, and his loyalty and soundness on the measures of the war and reconstruction. He would have been confirmed beyond doubt had it not been for a letter written by him at the breaking out of the Rebellion, to Jefferson Davis, commending a clerk in the Attorney- General's office, who considered it his duty to join his relatives at the South, for a position in the Confederate civil service.

The publication of this letter, which really contained nothing objectionable beyond the fact that Mr. Cushing had recommended a faithful clerk to an old personal friend as an honest and industrious man, was made the most of. It was published by Colonel Corkhill in large type with flaming headlines, as evidence of a secret understanding between Mr. Cushing and the leader of the Rebellion.

Senator Sargent, who was hostile to Mr. Cushing, his townsman, read this letter in a Republican caucus, and it fell upon the Senators a.s.sembled like a heavy clap of thunder, while Senator Brownlow (more extensively known as Parson Brownlow) keenly said that he thought the caucus had better adjourn, convene the Senate in open session, and remove Mr. Cushing's political disabilities. Mr.

Cushing, learning what had transpired, immediately wrote a letter to the President requesting him to withdraw his nomination. In this letter he reviewed his acts since the commencement of the war and declared, in conclusion, that whatever might have been said, either honestly or maliciously, to his prejudice, it was his right to reaffirm that he had "never done an act, uttered a word, or conceived a thought of disloyalty to the Const.i.tution or the Union."

The President next nominated Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio, who had been connected with the Alabama Claims Conference at Geneva, and who was a men of eminent legal abilities, conscientious, and of great purity of character. No objection could be offered to the confirmation of his nomination, and it was unanimously made.

Mr. Edwin M. Stanton had previously been appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court through the exertions of Senator Wade, of Ohio.

"The War Secretary" had left the department over which he had energetically presided, and was suffering from heart disease. He deemed himself a neglected man and rapidly sunk into a listless condition, with no action in it, but with occasional spells of energetic sickness. Mr. Wade came on from Ohio about this time, and went to see his friend. Just then there was considerable talk that a.s.sociate Justice Grier was about to retire from the Supreme Court. Mr. Wade deemed his friend neglected, and also thought it unintentional on the part of the President. It conversation he drew from Mr. Stanton the admission that he would like to be appointed to the Supreme Bench. Just before leaving Wade said he meant to ask Grant for the position, in the event of Grier's retirement. Mr. Stanton forbade the action, but Wade declined to be as modest as was the organizer of victorious armies and their administration. He went direct to the White House, and at the door found the President going for a drive in his phaeton. He was invited to go along, and at once availed himself of the opportunity.

During the ride he spoke about Mr. Stanton. The President listened carefully and said he had promised to consider Mr. Strong's name, and had supposed Mr. Stanton would not take the position even if offered to him. Mr. Wade gave the conversation he had had with Mr. Stanton. There the matter ended. Mr. Wade went home. Mr.

Stanton remained quietly at his home.

Finally Judge Grier resigned, and, to the surprise of most persons, Edwin M. Stanton was tendered and accepted the position. He qualified by taking the oath of office, but never sat in that high tribunal to try a case. One cannot help wondering what might have resulted from his presence there. But he never had the opportunity of proving that the man who was so fierce and implacable as a War Minister could have been as calm and judicially impartial on the bench as Story himself. There are many at Washington who believe that Mr. Stanton committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. Caleb Cushing was positive that he did, and investigated the matter so far as he could, but Hon. E. D. McPherson, of Pennsylvania, for years the efficient clerk of the House of Representatives, procured from the attendant physician a statement that it was not so, but that Mr. Stanton died a natural death.

The marriage of General Grant's only and much-loved daughter, Ellen Wrenshall Grant, to Algernon Charles Frederic Sartoris, at the White House, on the 21st of May, 1874, was a social event in Washington. It was no secret that General Grant had not approved of the engagement between his daughter, not then nineteen years of age, and the young Englishman who had enlisted her affection on the steamer while she was returning from abroad. But when the fond father found that her heart was set on the match he yielded, although it was a hard struggle to have her leave home and go abroad among strangers. The ceremony was performed in the East Room by the Rev.

Dr. O. H. Tiffany. There were eight bridesmaids, and Colonel Fred Grant was the bridegroom's best man.

The bride wore a white satin dress, trimmed with point lace, a bridal veil which completely enveloped her, with a wreath of white flowers and green leaves interspersed with orange blossoms. The eight bridesmaids wore dresses of white corded silk, alike in every particular, with overdresses of white illusion, sashes of white silk arranged in a succession of loops from the waist downward, forming graceful drapery. Mrs. Grant, who was in mourning, wore a mauve-colored silk dress, trimmed with a deeper shade of the same, with ruffles and puffs of black illusion, lavender-colored ribbon, and bunches of pansies. The banquet was served in the state dining-room, with the bride's cake in the centre of the elaborately decorated table.

[Facsimile]

M. R. Waite Chief Justice MORRISON REMICH WAITE was born at Lynn, Connecticut, December 29th, 1816; was graduated at Yale College when twenty-two years of age; studied law; went to Ohio in 1838, and was there admitted to the bar in 1839; settled at Toledo; was a member of the State Legislature in 1843; was defeated as a Republican candidate for Congress in 1862; was counsel for the United States before the Geneva Award Commission in 1871, and was presiding over the State Const.i.tutional Convention of Ohio when he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States, in January, 1874.