Volume III Part 27 (1/2)
[Footnote 1339: _Harper's Weekly_, November 4, 1871.]
[Footnote 1340: Paine, _Life of Nast_, p. 179.]
On October 26 all doubt as to the result of the election was dissipated. Until then belief in Tweed's direct profit in the Ring's overcharges was based upon presumption. No intelligent man having an accurate knowledge of the facts could doubt his guilt, since every circ.u.mstance plainly pointed to it, but judicial proof did not exist until furnished by the investigation of the Broadway Bank, which Tilden personally conducted. His a.n.a.lysis of this information disclosed the fact that two-thirds of the money paid under the sanction of the Board of Audit had pa.s.sed into the possession of public officials and their accomplices, some of it being actually traced into Tweed's pocket, and upon this evidence, verified by Tilden's affidavit, the Attorney-General based an action on which a warrant issued for Tweed's arrest. This announcement flashed over the State eleven days before the election. It was a powerful campaign doc.u.ment. People had not realised what an avenging hand pursued Tammany, but they now understood that Tweed was a common thief, and that Tilden, by reducing strong suspicion to a mathematical certainty, had closed the mouths of eulogists and apologists.
The result of the election carried dismay and confusion to Tammany.
Its register, its judges, its aldermen, a majority of its a.s.sistant aldermen, fourteen of its twenty-one a.s.semblymen, and four of its five senators were defeated, while Tweed's majority fell from 22,000 in 1869 to 10,000. As expected the Republicans reaped the benefit of the anti-Tammany vote, carrying the State by 18,000 majority and the Legislature by 79 on joint ballot.[1341] To obliterate Tweedism, Tilden had overthrown his party, but he had not fallen, Samson-like, under the ruin.
[Footnote 1341: Scribner, 387,107; Willers, 368,204. Legislature: Senate, 24 Republicans, 8 Democrats. a.s.sembly, 97 Republicans, 31 Democrats.--New York _Tribune_, November 27, 1871.
Compared with the returns for 1870, the Democratic vote, outside of New York and the six counties in its immediate vicinity, fell off 24,167, while the Republican vote fell off 9,235. In New York and adjoining counties the Republican vote increased 30,338.--_Ibid._
In New York City the majority for the Democratic candidate for secretary of state was 29,189, while the majority for the Republican or Union Reform candidate for register was 28,117.--_Ibid._]
CHAPTER XXII
GREELEY NOMINATED FOR PRESIDENT
1872
Although the Tammany exposure had absorbed public attention, the Republican party did not escape serious criticism. Reconstruction had disappointed many of its friends. By controlling the negro vote Republican administrations in several Southern States had wrought incalculable harm to the cause of free-government and equal suffrage.
The State debt of Alabama had increased from six millions in 1860 to forty millions, that of Florida from two hundred thousand to fifteen millions, and that of Georgia from three millions to forty-four millions. ”I say to-day, in the face of heaven and before all mankind,” declared Tilden, ”that the carpet-bag governments are infinitely worse than Tweed's government of the city of New York.”[1342]
[Footnote 1342: New York _Tribune_, September 5, 1872.]
Following such gross misgovernment the reactionary outbreaks influenced Congress to pa.s.s the so-called Ku-Klux Act of April 20, 1871, designed to suppress these outrages. This measure, although not dissimilar to others which protected the negro in his right of suffrage, met with stout Republican opposition, the spirited debate suddenly heralding a serious party division. Trumbull held it unconst.i.tutional, while Schurz, reviewing the wretched State governments of the South, the venal officials who misled the negro, and the riotous corruption of men in possession of great authority, attacked the policy of the law as unwise and unsound.
Not less disturbing was the failure of Congress to grant universal amnesty. To this more than to all other causes did the critics of the Republican party ascribe the continuance of the animosities of the war, since it deprived the South of the a.s.sistance of its former leading men, and turned it over to inexperienced, and, in some instances, to corrupt men who used political disabilities as so much capital upon which to trade. The shocking brazenness of these methods had been disclosed in Georgia under the administration of Governor Bullock, who secured from Congress amnesty for his legislative friends while others were excluded. Schurz declared ”When universal suffrage was granted to secure the equal rights of all, universal amnesty ought to have been granted to make all the resources of political intelligence and experience available for the promotion of the welfare of all.”[1343]
[Footnote 1343: _Congressional Globe_, January 30, 1872, p. 699.]
The South had expected the President to develop a liberal policy. The spirit displayed at Appomattox, his ”Let us have peace” letter of acceptance, and his intervention in Virginia and Mississippi soon after his inauguration, encouraged the belief that he would conciliate rather than hara.s.s it. His approval of the Ku-Klux law, therefore, intensified a feeling already strained to bitterness, and although he administered the law with prudence, a physical contest occurred in the South and a political rupture in the North. The hostility of the American people to the use of troops at elections had once before proved a source of angry contention, and the criticism which now rained upon the Republican party afforded new evidence of the public's animosity.
These strictures would have awakened no unusual solicitude in the minds of Republicans had their inspiration been confined to political opponents, but suddenly there came to the aid of the Democrats a formidable array of Republicans. Although the entering wedge was a difference of policy growing out of conditions in the Southern States, other reasons contributed to the rupture. The removal of Motley as minister to England, coming so soon after Sumner's successful resistance to the San Domingo scheme, was treated as an attempt to punish a senator for the just exercise of his right and the honest performance of his duty. Nine months later Sumner was discontinued as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. If doubt existed as to the ground of Motley's removal, not a shadow clouded the reason for Sumner's deposition. The cause a.s.signed was that he no longer maintained personal and social relations with the President and Secretary of State, but when Schurz stigmatised it as ”a flimsy pretext” he voiced the opinion of a part of the press which accepted it as a display of pure vindictiveness. ”The indignation over your removal,” telegraphed John W. Forney, ”extends to men of all parties.
I have not heard one Republican approve it.”[1344] Among Sumner's correspondents Ira Harris noted the popular disapproval and indignation in New York. ”Another term of such arrogant a.s.sumption of power and wanton acquiescence,” said Schurz, ”may furnish the flunkies with a store of precedents until people cease to look for ordinary means of relief.”[1345]
[Footnote 1344: Pierce, _Life of Sumner_, Vol. 4, p. 477.]
[Footnote 1345: New York _Tribune_, April 13, 1872.]
More disturbing because more irritating in its effects was the Administration's disposition to permit the control of its patronage by a coterie of senators, who preferred to strengthen faction regardless of its influence. Under this policy something had occurred in nearly every Northern State to make leading men and newspapers bitter, and as the years of the Administration multiplied censure became more drastic. Perhaps the influence of Conkling presented a normal phase of this practice. The Senator stood for much that had brought criticism upon the party. He approved the Southern policy and the acquisition of San Domingo. He indulged in a personal attack on Sumner, advised his deposition from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, commended the removal of Motley, and voted against the confirmation of E. Rockwood h.o.a.r for a.s.sociate justice of the Supreme Court.[1346] He also opposed civil service reform.
[Footnote 1346: George F. h.o.a.r, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 306; Vol.
2, p. 77.]
A statesman so p.r.o.nounced in his views and in control of abundant patronage was not likely to change a contest for personal advantage into a choice of public policies. Such an one appointed men because of their influence in controlling political caucuses and conventions.
”The last two State conventions were mockeries,” declared Greeley, ”some of the delegates having been bought out of our hands and others driven out of the convention.... I saw numbers, under threats of losing federal office, dragooned into doing the bidding of one man.”[1347] The removal of officials whose names stood high in the roll of those who had greatly honoured their State deeply wounded many ardent Republicans, but not until the appointment and retention of Thomas Murphy did criticism scorn the veil of hint and innuendo. This act created a corps of journalistic critics whose unflagging satire and unswerving severity entertained the President's opponents and amazed his friends. They spoke for the popular side at the moment of a great crisis. Almost daily during the eighteen months of Murphy's administration the press of the whole country, under the lead of the _Tribune_, pictured the collector as a crafty army contractor and the partner of Tweed. ”I think the warmest friends of Grant,” wrote Curtis, ”feel that he has failed terribly as President, not from want of honesty but from want of tact and great ignorance. It is a political position and he knew nothing of politics.”[1348] The sacrifice of the best men among his cabinet advisers added greatly to this unrest. In one of his letters, Lowell, unintentionally overlooking Hamilton Fish, declared that E. Rockwood h.o.a.r and Jacob D.