Volume III Part 27 (2/2)

c.o.x were ”the only really strong men in the Cabinet.”[1349] After the latter's forced resignation and the former's sudden exit to make room for a Southern Republican in order to placate carpet-bag senators for the removal of Sumner, the great critics of the Administration again cut loose. ”How long,” asked Bowles, ”does the President suppose the people will patiently endure this dealing with high office as if it were a presidential perquisite, to be given away upon his mere whim, without regard to the claims of the office? It was bad enough when he only dealt so with consulates and small post-offices; but now that he has come to foreign ministers and cabinet officers it is intolerable.”[1350]

[Footnote 1347: New York _Tribune_, April 13, 1872.]

[Footnote 1348: Cary, _Life of Curtis_, p. 213.]

[Footnote 1349: _Letters of_, Vol. 2, p. 57.

”There was undoubtedly great corruption and maladministration in the country in the time of President Grant. Selfish men and ambitious men got the ear of that simple man and confiding President. They studied Grant, some of them, as the shoemaker measures the foot of his customer.”--h.o.a.r, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 197.]

[Footnote 1350: Springfield (Ma.s.s.) _Republican_, November 12, 1870.]

Under these conditions Republicans had been losing strength. In the election of 1870 their numbers, for the first time since 1864, had fallen below a two-thirds majority in the national House, while the Democrats gained four United States senators. In the same year Carl Schurz, with the a.s.sistance of the Democrats, had carried Missouri on the issue of universal amnesty. As the disaffection with the Administration became more p.r.o.nounced, this faction, a.s.suming the name of Liberal Republicans, met in convention at Jefferson City on January 24, 1872, and invited all Republicans who favoured reform to meet in national ma.s.s convention at Cincinnati on May 1. This call acted like a lighted match in a pile of shavings, prominent Republicans in every State, including many leading newspapers, giving it instant and hearty response. Among other journals in New York the _Nation_ and the _Evening Post_ guardedly approved the movement, and the _World_, although a Democratic organ, offered conditional support. The _Tribune_ also encouraged the hope that it would eventually swing into line.

Horace Greeley's principles were in substantial accord with those of his party. He had little liking for civil service reform; the integrity of the national debt invoked his unflagging support; and the suppression of the Ku-Klux, although favouring a liberal Southern policy, had received his encouragement.[1351] Nor had he said anything in speech or writing disrespectful of the President. He did not favour his renomination, but he had faith in the essential honesty and soundness of Republican voters. Moreover, the demand for ”a genuine reform of the tariff” made it impossible to reconcile his policy with that of the Liberal Republicans of Missouri.

[Footnote 1351: New York _Tribune_, May 31, 1870; February 27, 1871; May 1, 1872.]

Nevertheless, Greeley's position in the Republican party had become intolerable. Conkling controlled the city and State machines, Fenton belonged in a hopeless minority, and Grant resented the _Tribune's_ opposition to his succession. Besides, the editor's friends had been deeply humiliated. The appointment of Murphy was accepted as ”a plain declaration of war.”[1352] The treatment of the Greeley committee, overthrown by the power of patronage, also festered in his heart. ”For more than a year,” he said, ”to be an avowed friend of Governor Fenton was to be marked for proscription at the White House.”[1353] Thus, with the past unforgiven and the future without hope, the great journalist declared that ”We propose to endure this for one term only.”[1354]

[Footnote 1352: _Ibid._, April 25, 1872.]

[Footnote 1353: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1354: _Ibid._]

From the first it was apparent that the Republican schism, to be successful, needed the support of the _Tribune_. Although its influence had materially suffered during and since the war, it still controlled a great const.i.tuency throughout the North, and the longer its chief hesitated to join the new party the more earnest and eloquent did the appeals of the Liberals become. At last, relying upon a compromise of their economic differences, Greeley accepted the invitation to meet the Missouri reformers in convention.[1355] His action was the occasion for much rejoicing, and on April 13 the Liberals of New York City began their campaign amidst the cheers of an enthusiastic mult.i.tude a.s.sembled at Cooper Inst.i.tute.[1356] The Fenton leaders, conspicuously posted on the platform, indicated neither a real love of reform nor an absence of office-seekers, but the presence among the vice-presidents of E.L. G.o.dkin of the _Nation_ and Parke G.o.dwin of the _Post_ removed all doubt as to the sincere desire of some of those present to replace Grant with a President who would discourage the use of patronage by enforcing civil service reform, and encourage good government in the South by enacting universal amnesty.

To Schurz's charge that the national Republican convention would be made up of office-holders, Oliver P. Morton declared, three days later in the same hall, that there would be more office-seekers at Cincinnati than office-holders at Philadelphia.[1357]

[Footnote 1355: _Ibid._, March 30, 1872.]

[Footnote 1356: New York _Tribune_, April 14, 1872.]

[Footnote 1357: Dudley Foulke, _Life of Morton_, Vol. 2, p. 255.]

The managers of the Liberal Republican movement preferred Charles Francis Adams for President. Adams' public life encouraged the belief that he would practise his professed principles, and although isolated from all political a.s.sociations it was thought his brilliant champions.h.i.+p of the North during the temporising of the English government would make his nomination welcome. David Davis and Lyman Trumbull of Illinois were likewise acceptable, and Salmon P. Chase had his admirers. Greeley's availability was also talked of. His signature to the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis, releasing the ex-president of the Confederacy from prison, attracted attention to his presidential ambition, while his loud declaration for universal amnesty opened the way for a tour of the South. At a brilliant reception in Union Square, given after his return, he described the carpet-bagger as ”a worthless adventurer whom the Southern States hate and ought to hate,” likening him to the New York legislator ”who goes to Albany nominally to legislate, but really to plunder and steal.”[1358] His excessive zeal for Democratic support led to the intimation that he had economised his epithets in criticising the Tweed ring.[1359] As early as February, Nast, with his usual foresight, pictured ”H.G., the editor” offering the nomination to ”H.G., the farmer,” who, rejoicing in the name of Cincinnatus, had turned from the plough toward the dome of the Capitol in the distance.[1360] To the charge that he was a candidate for President, Greeley frankly admitted that while he was not an aspirant for office, he should never decline any duty which his political friends saw fit to devolve upon him.[1361]

[Footnote 1358: New York _Tribune_, June 13, 1871.]

[Footnote 1359: Paine, _Life of Nast_, p. 162.]

[Footnote 1360: _Ibid._, p. 223.]

[Footnote 1361: New York _Tribune_, May 30, 1871.]

Nevertheless, the men whose earnest efforts had prepared the way for the Liberal movement did not encourage Greeley's ambition. Especially were his great newspaper a.s.sociates dumb. A week before the convention Bowles of the Springfield _Republican_ mentioned him with Sumner and Trumbull as a proper person for the nomination, but G.o.dkin of the _Nation_, Halstead of the Cincinnati _Commercial_, and Horace White of the Chicago _Tribune_ remained silent. The _Evening Post_ spoke of him as ”the simple-minded philanthropist, with his various sc.r.a.ps of so-called principles.”[1362] Jacob D. c.o.x, Stanley Matthews, and George Hoadley, the conspicuous Liberal triumvirate of Ohio, repudiated his candidacy, and Schurz, in his opening speech as president of the convention, without mentioning names, plainly designated Adams as the most suitable candidate and Greeley as the weakest.[1363]

[Footnote 1362: New York _Post_, May 2, 1872.]

<script>