Volume III Part 44 (1/2)
[Footnote 1711: New York _Tribune_, April 21.]
Nor did the convention adjourn until its Committee on Resolutions sprung a further surprise. The delegates antic.i.p.ated and applauded an elaborate statement of the fraud issue, but the presentation of Tilden as a candidate for President came with the suddenness of his unexpected majority. Manning did not intend to go so far. His courage came with his strength. Proof of this, if any were needed, existed in the fact that the endors.e.m.e.nt was in ma.n.u.script, while the rest of the platform was read from a printed slip. To define the situation more clearly the committee submitted a unit rule, declaring ”that in case any attempt is made to dismember or divide the delegation by contesting the seats of a portion of the delegates, or if delegates countenance such an attempt by a.s.suming to act separately from the majority, or fail to cooperate with such majority, the seats of such delegates shall be deemed to be vacated.”[1712] Never did convention adopt a more drastic rule. The reading of these ball and chain provisions provoked hisses and widened the chasm between Tilden's convention and John Kelly's side-show.
[Footnote 1712: New York _Sun_, April 21.]
Kelly's bolt in 1879 had proved his power to destroy; yet to his friends, if not to himself, it must have been deeply humiliating to see the fierce light of public interest turned entirely on Tilden.
Kelly also realised the more poignant fact that jealousy, distrust, and acc.u.mulated resentment lined the way he had marked out for himself. Nevertheless, he walked on apparently heedless of the signs of conflict. Since the regular Democratic convention would not admit him, he threateningly a.s.sembled one of his own in Shakespeare Hall, to be used, if the party did not yield, in knocking at the door of the Cincinnati convention. William Dorsheimer acted as its temporary chairman. Dorsheimer had become a political changeling. Within a decade he had been a Republican, a Liberal, and a Democrat, and it was whispered that he was already tired of being a Kellyite. His appeal for Horatio Seymour indicated his restlessness. The feuds of Tilden and Church and Kernan and Kelly and Robinson had left Seymour the one Democrat who received universal homage from his party, and it became the fas.h.i.+on of Tilden's enemies to refer to the Oneidan as the only one who could unite the party and carry the State. It did not matter to Dorsheimer that Seymour, having retired from active politics in 1868, was placidly meditating at Deerfield, devoted to agricultural and historical interests. Nor did his clamour cease after the bucolic statesman had declared that if he must choose between a funeral and a nomination he would take the first,[1713] since the mention of Seymour's name always waked an audience into cheers. Later in the day Amasa J. Parker, on taking the chair as president, artfully made use of the same ruse to arouse interest.
[Footnote 1713: Letter to Dr. George L. Miller, New York _Tribune_, June 21, 1880.]
It was not an enthusiastic convention. Many delegates had lost heart.
Kelly himself left the train unnoticed, and to some the blue badges, exploiting the purpose of their presence, indicated a fool's errand.
In the previous September they had refused to support Robinson, and having defeated him they now returned to the same hall to threaten Tilden with similar treatment. This was their only mission.
Humiliation did not possess them, however, until John B. Haskin reported that the regulars refused to recognise their existence. Then John Kelly threw off his muzzle, and with the Celtic-English of a Tammany brave exhibited a violent and revolutionary spirit. ”Tilden was elected by the votes of the people,” said Kelly, ”and he had not sufficient courage after he was elected to go forward, as a brave man should have gone forward, and said to the people of the country, 'I have been elected by the votes of the people, and you see to it that I am inaugurated.' Nothing of the like did Mr. Tilden.”[1714]
[Footnote 1714: New York _Sun_, April 21, 1880.]
In other words, Kelly thought Tilden an unfit candidate because he did not decide for himself that he had been elected and proceed to take his seat at the cost of a tremendous civil convulsion. Perhaps it was this policy more than Kelly's personality which had begun to alienate Dorsheimer. One who had been brought up in the bosom of culture and conservatism could have little confidence in such a man. The platform, though bitter, avoided this revolutionary sentiment. It protested against the total surrender of the party to one man, who has ”cunning”
and ”unknown resources of wealth,” and who ”attempts to forestall public opinion, to preoccupy the situation, to overrule the majority, and to force himself upon the party to its ruin.” It declared that ”Tildenism is personalism, which is false to Democracy and dangerous to the Republic,” and it p.r.o.nounced ”Tilden unfit for President”
because ”his political career has been marked with selfishness, treachery, and dishonour, and his name irretrievably connected with the scandals brought to light by the cipher despatches.”[1715] Haskin proposed a more compact statement, declaring that ”the Democratic party does not want any such money-grabber, railroad wrecker, and paralytic hypocrite at the helm of State.”[1716]
[Footnote 1715: New York _Times_, April 21.]
[Footnote 1716: New York _Times_, April 21.
For delegate-at-large to Cincinnati the convention selected the following: Amasa J. Parker of Albany, William Dorsheimer of New York, Jeremiah McGuire of Chemung, George C. Green of Niagara.]
After the two conventions adjourned the question of chiefest interest was, would Tilden seek the nomination at Cincinnati? The action of the convention demonstrated that the regular party organisation was unaffected by the Kelly bolt, that Tilden controlled the party in the State, and that his nomination was a part of the programme. Moreover, it showed that the New York Democracy did not intend asking support upon any principle other than the issue of fraud. But intimations of Tilden's purpose to decline a nomination found expression in the speech and acts of men presumedly informed. Lester B. Faulkner's statement, in calling the convention to order, that he did not know whether the Governor would accept a renomination, coupled with the convention's reply to Haskin, expressing confidence that the action at Cincinnati would result in the Democracy's carrying New York, had made a deep impression. To many these insinuations indicated that because of his health or for some unknown cause he was not seriously a candidate. Others found reason for similar belief in the indisposition of prominent delegates to resent such a suggestion. One veteran journalist, skilled in reading the words and actions of political leaders, a.s.serted with confidence that he would not be a candidate. To him Tilden's name concealed a strategic movement, which, in the end, would enable his friends to control the nomination for another.[1717]
[Footnote 1717: New York _Tribune_ (correspondence), April 21.]
Such interpretation found hosts of doubters. Without Tilden, it was said, the fraud issue would lose its influence. Besides, if he intended to withdraw, why did Kelly a.s.semble his convention? Surely some one, said they, would have given him an inkling in time to save him from the contempt and humiliation to which he had subjected himself. There was much force in this reasoning, and as the date of the national convention approached the mystery deepened.
Tilden was not a paralytic, as Haskin proclaimed. He could not even be called an invalid. His attention to vexatious litigation evidenced unimpaired mental power, and his open life at Greystone proved that his physical condition did not hide him from men. He undoubtedly required regular rest and sleep. His nervous system did not resist excitement as readily as in the days of his battle with Tweed and the Ca.n.a.l ring. It is possible, too, that early symptoms of a confirmed disease had then appeared, and that prudence dictated hygienic precautions. Once, in December, 1879, when contemplating the strain of the campaign of 1876, he questioned his ability to go through another.
Again, in the early spring of 1880, after prolonged intellectual effort, he remarked in rather a querulous tone, ”If I am no longer fit to prepare a case for trial, I am not fit to be President of the United States.” Such casual remarks, usually made to a confidential friend, seemed to limit his references to his health.[1718] He doubtless felt disinclined, as have many stronger men, to meet the strain that comes when in pursuit of high public office, but there is no evidence that ill-health, if it really entered into his calculations, was the determining factor of his action. Conditions in the Republican party had changed in the Empire State since the nomination of Garfield. Besides, the cipher disclosures had lost him the independent vote which he received in 1876. This left only the regulation party strength, minus the Kelly vote. In 1876 Tilden's majority was 26,568, and in 1879 Kelly polled 77,566. If Kelly's bolt in 1880, therefore, should carry one-half or only one-quarter of the votes it did in 1879, Tilden must necessarily lose New York which meant the loss of the election. These were conditions, not theories, that confronted this hard-headed man of affairs, who, without sentiment, never failed to understand the inexorable logic of facts.
Nevertheless, Tilden wanted the endors.e.m.e.nt of a renomination. This would open the way for a graceful retreat. Yet, to s.h.i.+eld him from possible defeat, he secretly gave Manning a letter, apparently declining to run again, which could be used if needed.
[Footnote 1718: John Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 2, pp. 265, 271.]
On reaching Cincinnati Manning found that a multiplicity of candidates made it difficult to determine Tilden's strength. The ranks of the opposition, based on cipher disclosures and Kelly's threats, rapidly strengthened, and although many friends of other candidates thought it less hazardous to nominate him than to repudiate him, ominous warnings piled up like thunder clouds on a summer day. Meantime New York's active canva.s.s for Henry B. Payne of Ohio seemed to conflict with Tilden's candidacy, while Tilden's remarks, spoken in moments of physical discouragement, added to the impression that he did not seek the nomination. But why did he not say so? Manning, supposing he was the sole possessor of the letter and believing the time not yet ripe for producing it, kept his own counsels. Tilden, however, had given a duplicate to his brother Henry, who now announced through the press that Tilden had forwarded a communication. This reached Cincinnati on the eve of the convention.
It was long and characteristic. He recalled his services as a private citizen in overthrowing the Tweed ring and purifying the judiciary, and as governor of the State in breaking up the Ca.n.a.l ring, reducing the taxes, and reforming the administration. He told the familiar story of the ”count out”; maintained that he could, if he pleased, have bought ”proof of the fraud” from the Southern returning boards; and accused Congress of ”abdicating its duty” in referring the count to the Electoral Commission. Since 1876, he said, he had been ”denied the immunities of private life without the powers conferred by public station,” but he had done all in his power to keep before the people ”the supreme issue” raised by the events of that year. Now, however, he felt unequal to ”a new engagement which involves four years of ceaseless toil. Such a work of renovation after many years of misrule, such a reform of systems and policies, to which I would cheerfully have sacrificed all that remained to me of health and life, is now, I fear, beyond my strength.”[1719]
[Footnote 1719: Tilden's _Public Writings and Speeches_, Vol. 2, pp.
502-506.]
Tilden did not intend this to be a letter of withdrawal. With the hope of stimulating loyalty he sought to impress upon the delegates his vicarious sacrifice and the need of holding to the fraud issue. This was the interpretation quickly given it by his enemies. Kelly declared it a direct bid for the nomination. But a majority of the New York delegation regretfully accepted it as final. Nevertheless, many ardent Tilden men, believing the letter had strengthened him, insisted upon his nomination. The meeting of the delegation proved a stormy one.
Bold charges of infidelity to Tilden reacted against Payne, and to escape controversy Manning indiscreetly asked if he might yield to the pressure which his letter had stimulated. To this Tilden could make but one reply: ”My action is irrevocable. No friend must cast a doubt on my sincerity.”[1720]