Autobiography of Andrew Dickson WhitePart 4 out of 13
the matter with you in the governor's room?'' I answered: ``Nothing was the matter with me; what do you mean?'' He said: ``The moment Seward began to speak you fastened your eyes intently upon him, you turned so pale that I thought you were about to drop, and I made ready to seize you and prevent your falling.'' I then confessed to him the feeling which was doubtless the cause of this change of countenance. As one who cherishes a deep affection for my native State and for men who have made it great, I may be allowed here to express the hope that the day will come when it will redeem itself from the just charge of ingratitude, and do itself honor by honoring its two greatest governors, De Witt Clinton and William H. Seward. No statue of either of them stands at Albany, the place of all others where such memorials should be erected, not merely as an honor to the two statesmen concerned, but as a lesson to the citizens of the State;--pointing out the qualities which ought to ensure public gratitude, but which, thus far, democracies have least admired. CHAPTER VIII ROSCOE CONKLING AND JUDGE FOLGER--1867-1868 At the beginning of my fourth year at Albany, in 1867, came an election to the Senate of the United States. Of the two senators then representing the State, one, Edwin D. Morgan, had been governor, and combined the qualities of a merchant prince and of a shrewd politician; the other, Ira Harris, had been a highly respected judge, and was, from every point of view, a most worthy man: but unfortunately neither of these gentlemen seemed to exercise any adequate influence in solving the main questions then before Congress. No more important subjects have ever come before that body than those which arose during the early years of the Civil War, and it was deeply felt throughout the State that neither of the senators fitly uttered its voice or exercised its influence. Mr. Cornell, with whom I had then become intimate, was never censorious; rarely did he say anything in disapproval of any man; he was charitable in his judgments, and generally preferred to be silent rather than severe; but I remember that on his return from a stay in Washington, he said to me indignantly: ``While at the Capitol I was ashamed of the State of New York: one great question after another came up; bills of the highest importance were presented and discussed by senators from Ohio, Vermont, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and the rest; but from New York never a word!'' The question now was, who should succeed Senator Harris? He naturally desired a second term, and it would have given me pleasure to support him, for he was an old and honored friend of my father and mother, they having been, in their early life, his neighbors and schoolmates, and their friendship having descended to me; but like others I was disappointed that Senator Harris had not taken a position more fitting. His main efforts seemed to be in the line of friendly acts for his constituents. In so far as these were done for soldiers in the army they were praiseworthy; though it was generally felt that while arising primarily from a natural feeling of benevolence, they were mainly devoted to securing a body of friends throughout the State, who would support him when the time should come for his re same object, he was a most devoted supporter of New York office-seekers of all sorts. He had pleasing personal characteristics, but it was reported that Mr. Lincoln, referring to the senator's persistency in pressing candidates for office, once said: ``I never think of going to sleep now without first looking under my bed to see if Judge Harris is not there wanting something for somebody.'' Another candidate was Judge Noah Davis, then of Lockport, also a man of high character, of excellent legal abilities, a good speaker, and one who, had he been elected, would have done honor to the State. But on looking about I discovered, as I thought, a better candidate. Judge Bailey, of Oneida County, had called my attention to the claims of Mr. Roscoe Conkling, then a member of Congress from the Oneida district, who had distinguished himself as an effective speaker, a successful lawyer, and an honest public servant. He had, to be sure, run foul of Mr. Blaine of Maine, and had received, in return for what Mr. Blaine considered a display of offensive manners, a very serious oratorical castigation; but he had just fought a good fight which had drawn the attention of the whole State to him. A coalition having been formed between the anti-war Democrats and a number of disaffected Republicans in his district to defeat his re had seemed likely to overwhelm him and drive him out of public life, and one thing seemed for a time likely to prove fatal to him:--the ``New York Tribune,'' the great organ of the party, edited by Horace Greeley, gave him no effective support. But the reason was apparent later when it became known that Mr. Greeley was to be a candidate for the senatorship, and it was evidently felt that should Mr. Conkling triumph in such a struggle, he would be a very serious competitor. The young statesman had shown himself equal to the emergency. He had fought his battle without the aid of Mr. Greeley and the ``Tribune,'' and won it, and, as a result, had begun to be thought of as a promising candidate for the United States senatorship. I had never spoken with him; had hardly seen him; but I had watched his course closely, and one thing especially wrought powerfully with me in his favor. The men who had opposed him were of the same sort with those who had opposed me, and as I was proud of their opposition, I felt that he had a right to be so. The whole force of Tammany henchmen and canal contractors throughout the State honored us both with their enmity. It was arranged among Mr. Conkling's supporters that, at the great caucus which was to decide the matter, Mr. Conkling's name should be presented by the member of the assembly representing his district, Ellis Roberts, a man of eminent character and ability, who, having begun by taking high rank as a scholar at Yale, had become one of the foremost editors of the State, and had afterward distinguished himself not only in the State legislature, but in Congress, and as the head of the independent treasury in the city of New York. The next question was as to the speech seconding the nomination. It was proposed that Judge Folger should make it, but as he showed a curious diffidence in the matter, and preferred to preside over the caucus, the duty was tendered to me. At the hour appointed the assembly hall of the old Capitol was full; floor and galleries were crowded to suffocation. The candidates were duly presented, and, among them, Mr. Conkling by Mr. Roberts. I delayed my speech somewhat. The general course of it had been thought out beforehand, but the phraseology and sequence of argument were left to the occasion. I felt deeply the importance of nominating Mr. Conkling, and when the moment came threw my heart into it. I was in full health and vigor, and soon felt that a very large part of the audience was with me. Presently I used the argument that the great State of New York, which had been so long silent in the highest councils of the Nation, demanded A VOICE. Instantly the vast majority of all present, in the galleries, in the lobbies, and on the floor, rose in quick response to the sentiment and cheered with all their might. There had been no such outburst in the whole course of the evening. Evidently this was the responsive chord, and having gone on with the main line of my argument, I at last closed with the same declaration in different form;--that our great Commonwealth,--the most important in the whole sisterhood of States,--which had been so long silent in the Senate, WISHED TO BE HEARD, and that, therefore, I seconded the nomination of Mr. Conkling. Immediately the whole house rose to this sentiment again and again, with even greater evidence of approval than before; the voting began and Mr. Conkling was finally nominated, if my memory is correct, by a majority of three. The moment the vote was declared the whole assembly broke loose; the pressure being removed, there came a general effervescence of good feeling, and I suddenly found myself raised on the shoulders of stalwart men who stood near, and rapidly carried over the heads of the crowd, through many passages and corridors, my main anxiety being to protect my head so that my brains might not be knocked out against stairways and doorways; but presently, when fairly dazed and bewildered, I was borne into a room in the old Congress Hall Hotel, and deposited safely in the presence of a gentleman standing with his back to the fire, who at once extended his hand to me most cordially, and to whom I said, ``God bless you, Senator Conkling. ``A most hearty response followed, and so began my closer acquaintance with the new senator. Mr. Conkling's election followed as a thing of course, and throughout the State there was general approval. During this session of 1867 I found myself involved in two rather curious struggles, and with no less a personage than my colleague, Judge Folger. As to the first of these I had long felt, and still feel, that of all the weaknesses in our institutions, one of the most serious is our laxity in the administration of the criminal law. No other civilized country, save possibly the lower parts of Italy and Sicily, shows anything to approach the number of unpunished homicides, in proportion to the population, which are committed in sundry parts of our own country, and indeed in our country taken as a whole. In no country is the deterrent effect of punishment so vitiated by delay; in no country is so much facility given to chicanery, to futile appeals, and to every possible means of clearing men from the due penalty of high crime, and especially the crime of murder. It was in view of this fact that, acting on the advice of an old and able judge whose experience in criminal practice had been very large, I introduced into the Senate a bill to improve the procedure in criminal cases. The judge just referred to had shown me the absurdities arising from the fact that testimony in regard to character, even in the case of professional criminals, was not allowed save in rebuttal. It was notorious that professional criminals charged with high crimes, especially in our large cities, frequently went free because, while the testimony to the particular crime was not absolutely overwhelming, testimony to their character as professional criminals, which, in connection with the facts established, would have been absolutely conclusive, could not be admitted. I therefore proposed that testimony as to character in any criminal case might be introduced by the prosecution if, after having been privately submitted to the judge, he should decide that the ends of justice would be furthered thereby. The bill was referred to the Senate judiciary committee, of which Judge Folger was chairman. After it had lain there some weeks and the judge had rather curtly answered my questions as to when it would be reported, it became clear to me that the committee had no intention of reporting it at all, whereupon I introduced a resolution requesting them to report it, at the earliest day possible, for the consideration of the Senate, and this was passed in spite of the opposition of the committee. Many days then passed; no report was made, and I therefore introduced a resolution taking the bill out of the hands of the committee and bringing it directly before the committee of the whole. This was most earnestly resisted by Judge Folger and by his main associate on the committee, Henry Murphy of Brooklyn. On the other hand I had, to aid me, Judge Lowe, also a lawyer of high standing, and indeed all the lawyers in the body who were not upon the judiciary committee. The result was that my motion was successful; the bill was taken from the committee and immediately brought under discussion. In reply to the adverse arguments of Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy, which were to the effect that my bill was an innovation upon the criminal law of the State, I pointed out the fact that evidence as to the character of the person charged with crime is often all-important; that in our daily life we act upon that fact as the simplest dictate of common sense; that if any senator present had his watch stolen from his room he would be very slow to charge the crime against the servant who was last seen in the room, even under very suspicious circumstances; but if he found that the servant had been discharged for theft from various places previously, this would be more important than any other circumstance. I showed how safeguards which had been devised in the middle ages to protect citizens from the feudal lord were now used to aid criminals in evading the law, and I ended by rather unjustly compar- ing Judge Folger to the great Lord Chancellor Eldon, of whom it was said that, despite his profound knowledge of the law, ``no man ever did so much good as he prevented.'' The result was that the bill was passed by the Senate in spite of the judiciary committee. During the continuance of the discussion Judge Folger had remained in his usual seat, but immediately after the passage of the bill he resumed his place as president of the Senate. He was evidently vexed, and in declaring the Senate adjourned he brought the gavel down with a sort of fling which caused it to fly out of his hand and fall in front of his desk on the floor. Fortunately it was after midnight and few saw it; but there was a general feeling of regret among us all that a man so highly respected should have so lost his temper. By common consent the whole matter was hushed; no mention of it, so far as I could learn, was made in the public press, and soon all seemed forgotten. Unfortunately it was remembered, and in a quarter which brought upon Judge Folger one of the worst disappointments of his life. For, in the course of the following summer, the Constitutional Convention of the State was to hold its session and its presidency was justly considered a great honor. Two candidates were named, one being Judge Folger and the other Mr. William A. Wheeler, then a member of Congress and afterward Vice-President of the United States. The result of the canvas by the friends of both these gentlemen seemed doubtful, when one morning there appeared in the ``New York Tribune,'' the most powerful organ of the Republican party, one of Horace Greeley's most trenchant articles. It dwelt on the importance of the convention in the history of the State, on the responsibility of its members, on the characteristics which should mark its presiding officer, and, as to this latter point, wound up pungently by saying that it would be best to have a president who, when he disagreed with members, did not throw his gavel at them. This shot took effect; it ran through the State; people asked the meaning of it; various exaggerated legends became current, one of them being that he had thrown the gavel at me personally;--and Mr. Wheeler became president of the convention. But before the close of the session another matter had come up which cooled still more the relations between Judge Folger and myself. For many sessions, year after year, there had been before the legislature a bill for establishing a canal connecting the interior lake system of the State with Lake Ontario. This was known as the Sodus Canal Bill, and its main champion was a public-spirited man from Judge Folger's own district. In favor of the canal various arguments were urged, one of them being that it would enable the United States, while keeping within its treaty obligations with Great Britain, to build ships on these smaller lakes, which, in case of need, could be passed through the canal into the great chain of lakes extending from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior. To this it was replied that such an evasion of the treaty was not especially creditable to those suggesting it, and that the main purpose of the bill really was to create a vast water power which should enure to the benefit of sundry gentlemen in Judge Folger's district. Up to this time Judge Folger seemed never to care much for the bill, and I had never made any especial effort against it; but when, just at the close of the session, certain constituents of mine upon the Oswego River had shown me that there was great danger in the proposed canal to the water supply through the counties of Onondaga and Oswego, I opposed the measure. Thereupon Judge Folger became more and more earnest in its favor, and it soon became evident that all his power would be used to pass it during the few remaining days of the session. By his influence it was pushed rapidly through all its earlier stages, and at last came up before the Senate. It seemed sure to pass within ten minutes, when I moved that the whole matter be referred to the approaching Constitutional Convention, which was to begin its sessions immediately after the adjournment of the legislature, and Judge Folger having spoken against this motion, I spoke in its favor and did what I have never done before in my life and probably shall never do again--spoke against time. There was no ``previous question'' in the Senate, no limitation as to the period during which a member could discuss any measure, and, as the youngest member in the body, I was in the full flush of youthful strength. I therefore announced my intention to present some three hundred arguments in favor of referring the whole matter to the State Constitutional Convention, those arguments being based upon the especial fitness of its three hundred members to decide the question, as shown by the personal character and life history of each and every one of them. I then went on with this series of biographies, beginning with that of Judge Folger himself, and paying him most heartily and cordially every tribute possible, including some of a humorous nature. Having given about half an hour to the judge, I then took up sundry other members and kept on through the entire morning. I had the floor and no one could dispossess me. The lieutenant-governor, in the chair, General Stewart Woodford, was perfectly just and fair, and although Judge Folger and Mr. Murphy used all their legal acuteness in devising some means of evading the rules, they were in every case declared by the lieutenant-governor to be out of order, and the floor was in every case reassigned to me. Meantime, the whole Senate, though anxious to adjourn, entered into the spirit of the matter, various members passing me up biographical notes on the members of the convention, some of them very comical, and presently the hall was crowded with members of the assembly as well as senators, all cheering me on. The reason for this was very simple. There had come to be a general understanding of the case, namely, that Judge Folger, by virtue of his great power and influence, was trying in the last hours of the session to force through a bill for the benefit of his district, and that I was simply doing my best to prevent an injustice. The result was that I went on hour after hour with my series of biographies, until at last Judge Folger himself sent me word that if I would desist and allow the legislature to adjourn he would make no further effort to carry the bill at that session. To this I instantly agreed; the bill was dropped for that session and for all sessions: so far as I can learn it has never reappeared. Shortly after our final adjournment the Constitutional Convention came together. It was one of the best bodies of the kind ever assembled in any State, as a list of its members abundantly shows. There was much work for it, and most important of all was the reorganization of the highest judicial body in the State--the Court of Appeals--which had become hopelessly inadequate. The two principal members of the convention from the city of New York were Horace Greeley, editor of the ``Tribune,'' and William M. Evarts, afterward Attorney- General, United States senator, and Secretary of State of the United States. Mr. Greeley was at first all-powerful. As has already been seen, he had been able to prevent Judge Folger taking the presidency of the convention, and for a few days he had everything his own way. But he soon proved so erratic a leader that his influence was completely lost, and after a few sessions there was hardly any member with less real power to influence the judgments of his colleagues. This was not for want of real ability in his speeches, for at various times I heard him make, for and against measures, arguments admirably pungent, forcible, and far-reaching, but there seemed to be a universal feeling that he was an unsafe guide. Soon came a feature in his course which made matters worse. The members of the convention, many of them, were men in large business and very anxious to have a day or two each week for their own affairs. Moreover, during the first weeks of the session, while the main matters coming before the convention were still in the hands of committees, there was really not enough business ready for the convention to occupy it through all the days of the week, and consequently it adopted the plan, for the first weeks at least, of adjourning from Friday night till Tuesday morning. This vexed Mr. Greeley sorely. He insisted that the convention ought to keep at its business and finish it without any such weekly adjournments, and, as his arguments to this effect did not prevail in the convention, he began making them through the ``Tribune'' before the people of the State. Soon his arguments became acrid, and began undermining the convention at every point. As to Mr. Greeley's feeling regarding the weekly adjournment, one curious thing was reported: There was a member from New York of a literary turn for whom the great editor had done much in bringing his verses and other productions before the public--a certain Mr. Duganne; but it happened that, on one of the weekly motions to adjourn, Mr. Duganne had voted in the affirmative, and, as a result, Mr. Greeley, meeting him just afterward, upbraided him in a manner which filled the rural bystanders with consternation. It was well known to those best acquainted with the editor of the ``Tribune'' that, when excited, he at times indulged in the most ingenious and picturesque expletives, and some of Mr. Chauncey Depew's best stories of that period pointed to this fact. On this occasion Mr. Greeley really outdid himself, and the result was that the country members, who up to that time had regarded him with awe as the representative of the highest possible morality in public and private life, were greatly dismayed, and in various parts of the room they were heard expressing their amazement, and saying to each other in awe-stricken tones: ``Why! Greeley swears!'' Ere long Mr. Greeley was taking, almost daily in the ``Tribune,'' steady ground against the doings of his colleagues. Lesser newspapers followed with no end of cheap and easy denunciation, and the result was that the convention became thoroughly, though unjustly, discredited throughout the State, and indeed throughout the country. A curious proof of this met me. Being at Cambridge, Massachusetts, I passed an evening with Governor Washburn, one of the most thoughtful and valuable public men of that period. In the course of our conversation he said: ``Mr. White, it is really sad to hear of the doings at your Albany convention. I can remember your constitutional convention of 1846, and when I compare this convention with that, it grieves me.'' My answer was: ``Governor Washburn, you are utterly mistaken: there has never been a constitutional convention in the State of New York, not even that you name, which has contained so many men of the highest ability and character as the one now in session, and none which has really done better work. I am not a member of the body and can say this in its behalf.'' At this he expressed his amazement, and pointed to the ``Tribune'' in confirmation of his own position. I then stated the case to him, and, I think, alleviated his distress. But as the sessions of the convention drew to a close and the value of its work began to be clearly understood, Greeley's nobler qualities, his real truthfulness and public spirit began to assert themselves, and more than once he showed practical shrewdness and insight. Going into convention one morning, I found the question under discussion to be the election of the secretary of state, attorney-general, and others of the governor's cabinet, whose appointment under the older constitutions was wisely left to the governor, but who, for twenty years, had been elected by the people. There was a wide-spread feeling that the old system was wiser, and that the new had by no means justified itself; in fact, that by fastening on the governor the responsibility for his cabinet, the State is likely to secure better men than when their choice is left to the hurly-burly of intrigue and prejudice in a nominating convention. The main argument made by those who opposed such a return to the old, better order of things was that the people would not like it and would be inclined to vote down the new constitution on account of it. In reply to this, Mr. Greeley arose and made a most admirable short speech ending with these words, given in his rapid falsetto, with a sort of snap that made the whole seem like one word: ``When-the-people-take-up-their- ballots-they-want-to-see-who-is-to-be-governor: that's-all- they-care-about: they-don't-want-to-read-a-whole-chapter- of-the-Bible-on-their-ballots.'' Unfortunately, the majority dared not risk the popular ratification of the new constitution, and so this amendment was lost. No doubt Mr. Greeley was mainly responsible for this condition of things; his impatience with the convention, as shown by his articles in the ``Tribune,'' had been caught by the people of the State. The long discussions were very irksome to him, and one day I mildly expostulated with him on account of some of his utterances against the much speaking of his colleagues, and said: ``After all, Mr. Greeley, is n't it a pretty good thing to have a lot of the best men in the State come together every twenty years and thoroughly discuss the whole constitution, to see what improvements can be made; and is not the familiarity with the constitution and interest in it thus aroused among the people at large worth all the fatigue arising from long speeches?'' ``Well, perhaps so,'' he said, but he immediately began to grumble and finally to storm in a comical way against some of his colleagues who, it must be confessed, were tiresome. Still he became interested more and more in the work, and as the new constitution emerged from the committees and public debates, he evidently saw that it was a great gain to the State, and now did his best through the ``Tribune'' to undo what he had been doing. He wrote editorials praising the work of the convention and urging that it be adopted. But all in vain: the unfavorable impression had been too widely and deeply made, and the result was that the new constitution, when submitted to the people, was ignominiously voted down, and the whole summer's work of the convention went for nothing. Later, however, a portion of it was rescued and put into force through the agency of a ``Constitutional Commission,'' a small body of first-rate men who sat at Albany, and whose main conclusions were finally adopted in the shape of amendments to the old constitution. There was, none the less, a wretched loss to the State. During the summer of 1867 I was completely immersed in the duties of my new position at Cornell University; going through various institutions in New England and the Western States to note the workings of their technical departments; visiting Ithaca to consult with Mr. Cornell and to look over plans for buildings, and credentials for professorships, or, shut up in my own study at Syracuse, or in the cabins of Cayuga Lake steamers, drawing up schemes of university organization, so that my political life soon seemed ages behind me. While on a visit to Harvard, I was invited by Agassiz to pass a day with him at Nahant in order to discuss methods and men. He entered into the matter very earnestly, agreed to give us an extended course of lectures, which he afterward did, and aided us in many ways. One remark of his surprised me. I had asked him to name men, and he had taken much pains to do so, when suddenly he turned to me abruptly and said: ``Who is to be your professor of moral philosophy? That is by far the most important matter in your whole organization.'' It seemed strange that one who had been honored by the whole world as probably the foremost man in natural science then living, and who had been denounced by many exceedingly orthodox people as an enemy of religion, should take this view of the new faculty, but it showed how deeply and sincerely religious he was. I soon reassured him on the point he had raised, and then went on with the discussion of scientific men, methods, and equipments. I was also asked by the poet Longfellow to pass a day with him at his beautiful Nahant cottage in order to discuss certain candidates and methods in literature. Nothing could be more delightful than his talk as we sat together on the veranda looking out over the sea, with the gilded dome of the State House, which he pointed out to me as ``The Hub,'' in the dim distance. One question of his amused me much. We were discussing certain recent events in which Mr. Horace Greeley had played an important part, and after alluding to Mr. Greeley's course during the War, he turned his eyes fully but mildly upon me and said slowly and solemnly: ``Mr. White, don't you think Mr. Greeley a very useless sort of man?'' The question struck me at first as exceedingly comical; for, I thought, ``Imagine Mr. Greeley, who thinks himself, and with reason, a useful man if there ever was one, and whose whole life has been devoted to what he has thought of the highest and most direct use to his fellow-men, hearing this question put in a dreamy way by a poet,--a writer of verse,--probably the last man in America whom Mr. Greeley would consider `useful.' '' But my old admiration for the great editor came back in a strong tide, and if I was ever eloquent it was in showing Mr. Longfellow how great, how real, how sincere, and in the highest degree how useful Mr. Greeley had been. Another man of note whom I met in those days was Judge Rockwood Hoar, afterward named by General Grant Attorney-General of the United States, noted as a profound lawyer of pungent wit and charming humor, the delight of his friends and the terror of his enemies. I saw him first at Harvard during a competition for the Boylston prize at which we were fellow-judges. All the speaking was good, some of it admirable; but the especially remarkable pieces were two. First of these was a recital of Washington Irving's ``Broken Heart,'' by an undergraduate from the British provinces, Robert Alder McLeod. Nothing could be more simple and perfect in its way; nothing more free from any effort at orating; all was in the most quiet and natural manner possible. The second piece was a rendering of Poe's ``Bells,'' and was a most amazing declamation, the different sorts of bells being indicated by changes of voice ranging from basso profondo to the highest falsetto, and the feelings aroused in the orator being indicated by modulations which must have cost him months of practice. The contest being ended, and the committee having retired to make their award, various members expressed an opinion in favor of Mr. McLeod's quiet recital, when Judge Hoar, who had seemed up to that moment immersed in thought, seemed suddenly to awake, and said: ``If I had a son who spoke that bell piece in that style I believe I'd choke him.'' The vote was unanimously in favor of Mr. McLeod, and then came out a curious fact. Having noticed that he bore an empty sleeve, I learned from Professor Peabody that he had lost his arm while fighting on the Confederate side in our Civil War, and that he was a man of remarkably fine scholarship and noble character. He afterward became an instructor at Harvard, but died early. During the following autumn, in spite of my absorption in university interests, I was elected a delegate to the State Convention, and in October made a few political speeches, the most important being at Clinton, the site of Hamilton College. This was done at the special request of Senator Conkling, and on my way I passed a day with him at Utica, taking a long drive through the adjacent country. Never was he more charming. The bitter and sarcastic mood seemed to have dropped off him; the overbearing manner had left no traces; he was full of delightful reminiscences and it was a day to be remembered. I also spoke at various other places and, last of all, at Clifton Springs, but received there a rebuff which was not without its uses. I had thought my speeches successful; but at the latter place, taking the cars next morning, I heard a dialogue between two railway employees, as follows: ``Bill, did you go to the meetin' last night?'' ``Yes.'' ``How was it?'' ``It wa'n't no meetin', leastwise no P'LITICAL meetin'; there wa'n't nothin' in it fur the boys; it was only one of them scientific college purfessors lecturin'.'' And so I sped homeward, pondering on many things, but strengthened, by this homely criticism, in my determination to give my efforts henceforth to the new university. CHAPTER IX GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO--1868-1871 During the two or three years following my senatorial term, work in the founding and building of Cornell University was so engrossing that there was little time for any effort which could be called political. In the early spring of 1868 I went to Europe to examine institutions for scientific and technological instruction, and to secure professors and equipment, and during about six months I visited a great number of such schools, especially those in agriculture, mechanical, civil, and mining engineering and the like in England, France, Germany, and Italy; bought largely of books and apparatus, discussed the problems at issue with Europeans who seemed likely to know most about them, secured sundry professors, and returned in September just in time to take part in the opening of Cornell University and be inaugurated as its first president. Of all this I shall speak more in detail hereafter. There was no especial temptation to activity in the political campaign of that year; for the election of General Grant was sure, and my main memory of the period is a visit to Auburn to hear Mr. Seward. It had been his wont for many years, when he came home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of the election and give his views of the situation and of its resultant duties. These occasions had come to be anticipated with the deepest interest by the whole region round about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighors had now become such an assembly that the largest hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties. But this year came a disappointment. Although the contest was between General Grant,--who on various decisive battle-fields had done everything to save the administration of which Mr. Seward had been a leading member, --and on the other side, Governor Horatio Seymour, who had done all in his power to wreck it, Mr. Seward devoted his speech to optimistic generalities, hardly alluding to the candidates, and leaving the general impression that one side was just as worthy of support as the other. The speech was an unfortunate ending of Mr. Seward's career. It was not surprising that some of his old admirers bitterly resented it, and a remark by Mr. Cornell some time afterward indicated much. We were arranging together a program for the approaching annual commencement when I suggested for the main address Mr. Seward. Mr. Cornell had been one of Mr. Seward's lifelong supporters, but he received this proposal coldly, pondered it for a few moments silently, and then said dryly, ``Perhaps you are right, but if you call him you will show to our students the deadest man that ain't buried in the State of New York.'' So, to my regret, was lost the last chance to bring the old statesman to Cornell. I have always regretted this loss; his presence would have given a true consecration to the new institution. A career like his should not be judged by its little defects and lapses, and this I felt even more deeply on receiving, some time after his death, the fifth volume of his published works, which was largely made up of his despatches and other papers written during the war. When they were first published in the newspapers, I often thought them long and was impatient at their optimism, but now, when I read them all together, saw in them the efforts made by the heroic old man to keep the hands of European powers off us while we were restoring the Union, and noted the desperation with which he fought, the encouragement which he infused into our diplomatic representatives abroad, and his struggle, almost against fate, in the time of our reverses, I was fascinated. The book had arrived early in the evening, and next morning found me still seated in my library chair completely absorbed in it. In the spring of the year 1870, while as usual in the thick of university work, I was again drawn for a moment into the current of New York politics. The long wished for amendment of the State constitution, putting our highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals, on a better footing than it had ever been before, making it more adequate, the term longer, and the salaries higher, had been passed, and judges were to be chosen at the next election. Each of the two great parties was entitled to an equal number of judges, and I was requested to go to the approaching nominating convention at Rochester in order to present the name of my old friend and neighbor, Charles Andrews. It was a most honorable duty, no man could have desired a better candidate, and I gladly accepted the mandate. Although it was one of the most staid and dignified bodies of the sort which has ever met in the State, it had as a preface a pleasant farce. As usual, the seething cauldron of New York City politics had thrown to the surface some troublesome delegates, and among them was one long famed as a ``Tammany Republican.'' Our first business was the choice of a president for the convention, and, as it had been decided by the State committee to present for that office the name of one of the most respected judges in the State, the Honorable Platt Potter, of Schenectady, it was naturally expected that some member of the regular organization would present his name in a dignified speech. But hardly had the chairman of the State committee called the convention to order when the aforesaid Tammany Republican, having heard that Judge Potter was to be elected, thought evidently that he could gain recognition and applause by being the first to present his name. He therefore rushed for- ward, and almost before the chairman had declared the convention opened, cried out: ``Mr. Chairman, I move you, sir, that the Honorable `Pot Platter' be made president of this convention.'' A scream of laughter went up from all parts of the house, and in an instant a gentleman rose and moved to amend by making the name ``Platt Potter.'' This was carried, and the proposer of the original motion retired crestfallen to his seat. I had the honor of presenting Mr. Andrews's name. He was nominated and elected triumphantly, and so began the career of one of the best judges that New York has ever had on its highest court, who has also for many years occupied, with the respect and esteem of the State, the position of chief justice. The convention then went on to nominate other judges, --nomination being equivalent to election,--but when the last name was reached there came a close contest. An old friend informed me that Judge Folger, my former colleague in the Senate and since that assistant treasurer of the United States in the city of New York, was exceedingly anxious to escape from this latter position, and desired greatly the nomination to a judgeship on the Court of Appeals. I decided at once to do what was possible to secure Judge Folger's nomination, though our personal relations were very unsatisfactory. Owing to our two conflicts at the close of our senatorial term above referred to, and to another case where I thought he had treated me unjustly, we had never exchanged a word since I had left the State Senate; and though we met each other from time to time on the board of Cornell University trustees, we passed each other in silence. Our old friendship, which had been very dear to me, seemed forever broken, but I felt deeply that the fault was not mine. At the same time I recognized the fact that Judge Folger was not especially adapted to the position of assistant treasurer of the United States, and was admirably fitted for the position of judge in the Court of Appeals. I therefore did everything possible to induce one or two of the delegations with which I had some influence to vote for him, dwelling especially upon his former judgeship, his long acquaintance with the legislation of the State, and his high character, and at last he was elected by a slight majority. The convention having adjourned, I was on my way to the train when I was met by Judge Folger, who had just arrived. He put out his hand and greeted me most heartily, showing very deep feeling as he expressed his regret over our estrangement. Of course I was glad that bygones were to be bygones, and that our old relations were restored. He became a most excellent judge, and finally chief justice of the State, which position he left to become Secretary of the Treasury. To the political cataclysm which ended his public activity and doubtless hastened his death, I refer elsewhere. As long as he lived our friendly relations continued, and this has been to me ever since a great satisfaction. In this same year, 1870, occurred my first extended conversation with General Grant. At my earlier meeting with him when he was with President Johnson in Albany, I had merely been stiffly presented to him, and we had exchanged a few commonplaces; but I was now invited to his cottage at Long Branch and enjoyed a long and pleasant talk with him. Its main subject was the Franco-German War then going on, and his sympathies were evidently with Germany. His comments on the war were prophetic. There was nothing dogmatic in them; nothing could be more simple and modest than his manner and utterance, but there was a clearness and quiet force in them which impressed me greatly. He was the first great general I had ever seen, and I was strongly reminded of his mingled diffidence and mastery when, some years afterward, I talked with Moltke in Berlin. Another experience of that summer dwells in my memory. I was staying, during the first week of September, with my dear old friend, Dr. Henry M. Field, at Stockbridge, in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and had the good fortune, at the house of his brother, the eminent jurist, David Dudley Field, to pass a rainy evening in company with Mr. Burton Harrison, who, after a distinguished career at Yale, had been the private secretary of Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy. On that evening a storm had kept away all but a few of us, and Mr. Harrison yielded to our entreaties to give us an account of Mr. Davis's flight at the surrender of Richmond, from the time when he quietly left his pew in St. Paul's Church to that of his arrest by United States soldiers. The story was most vivid, and Mr. Harrison, as an eye witness, told it simply and admirably. There had already grown out of this flight of Mr. Davis a most luxuriant tangle of myth and legend, and it had come to be generally believed that the Confederate president had at last endeavored to shield himself behind the women of his household; that when arrested he was trying to escape in the attire of his wife, including a hooped skirt and a bonnet, and that he was betrayed by an incautious display of his military boots beneath his wife's flounces. The simple fact was that, having separated from his family party, and seeking escape to the coast or mountains, he was again and again led by his affection for his family to return to them, his fears for them overcoming all care for himself; and that, as he was suffering from neuralgia, he wore over his clothing, to guard him from the incessant rain, Mrs. Davis' waterproof cloak. Out of this grew the legend which found expression in jubilant newspaper articles, songs, and caricatures. This reminds me that some years later, my old college friend, Colonel William Preston Johnston, president of Tulane University, told me a story which throws light upon that collapse of the Confederacy. Colonel Johnston was at that period the military secretary of President Davis, and, as the catastrophe approached, was much vexed at the interminable debates in the Confederate Congress. Among the subjects of these discussions was the great seal of the Confederacy. It had been decided to adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the central position, there were many differences of opinion as to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero from one State and to replace him by another from another State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines at the time when the Turks were forcing their way through the walls of Constantinople. One day, just before the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly United States senator, but at that time the Confederate secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's office, and the following dialogue took place. Colonel Johnston: ``What are they doing in the Senate and House, Mr. Secretary?'' Mr. Benjamin: ``Oh, simply debating the Confederate seal, moving to strike out this man and to insert that.'' Colonel Johnston: ``Do you know what motion I would make if I were a member?'' Mr. Benjamin: ``No, what would you move?'' Colonel Johnston: ``I would move to strike out from the seal everything except the cocked hat.'' Colonel Johnston was right; the Confederacy was ``knocked into a cocked hat'' a few days afterward. In the autumn of that year, September, 1870, I was sent as a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and presented as a candidate for the lieutenant-governorship a man who had served the State admirably in the National Congress and in the State legislature as well as in great business operations, Mr. DeWitt Littlejohn of Oswego. I did this on the part of sundry gentlemen who were anxious to save the Republican ticket, which had at its head my old friend General Woodford, but though I was successful in securing Mr. Littlejohn's nomination, he soon afterward declined, and defeat followed in November. The only part which I continued to take in State politics was in writing letters and in speaking, on sundry social occasions of a political character, in behalf of harmony between the two factions which were now becoming more and more bitter. At first I seemed to have some success, but before long it became clear that the current was too strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail. I am so constituted that factious thought and effort dishearten and disgust me. At many periods of my life I have acted as a ``buffer'' between conflicting cliques and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was otherwise. But, as Kipling says, ``that is another story.'' The hard work and serious responsibilities brought upon me by the new university had greatly increased. They had worn deeply upon me when, in the winter of 1870-71, came an event which drew me out of my university life for a time and gave me a much needed change: --I was sent by the President as one of the three commissioners to Santo Domingo to study questions relating to the annexation of the Spanish part of that island which was then proposed, and to report thereupon to Congress. While in Washington at this time I saw much of President Grant, Mr. Sumner, and various other men who were then leading in public affairs, but some account of them will be given in my reminiscences of the Santo Domingo expedition. I trust that it may be allowed me here to recall an incident which ought to have been given in a preceding chapter. During one of my earlier visits to the National Capital, I made the acquaintance of Senator McDougal. His distorted genius had evidently so dazzled his fellow- citizens of California that, in spite of his defects, they had sent him to the highest council of the Nation. He was a martyr to conviviality, and when more or less under the sway of it, had strange ideas and quaint ways of expressing them. His talk recalled to me a time in my child- hood when, having found a knob of glass, twisted, striated with different colors, and filled with air bubbles, I enjoyed looking at the landscape through it. Everything became grotesquely transfigured. A cabbage in the foreground became opalescent, and an ear of corn a mass of jewels, but the whole atmosphere above and beyond was lurid, and the chimneys and church spires were topsy-turvy. The only other person whose talk ever produced an impression of this sort on me was Tolstoy, and he will be discussed in another chapter. McDougal's peculiarity made him at last unbearable; so much so that the Senate was obliged to take measures against him. His speech in his own defense showed the working of his mind, and one passage most of all. It remains probably the best defense of drunkenness ever made, and it ran as follows: ``Mr. President,--I pity the man who has never viewed the affairs of this world, save from the poor, low, miserable plane of ordinary sobriety.'' My absence in the West Indies covered the first three months of the year 1871, and then the commission returned to Washington and made its report; but regarding this I shall speak at length in the chapter of my diplomatic experiences, devoted to the Santo Domingo question. CHAPTER X THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN--1872 Having finished my duties on the Santo Domingo Commission, I returned to the University in May of 1871, devoted myself again to my duties as president and professor, and, in the mass of arrears which had accumulated, found ample occupation. I also delivered various addresses at universities, colleges, and elsewhere, keeping as remote from politics as possible. In June, visiting New York in order to take part in a dinner given by various journalists and others to my classmate and old friend, George Washburne Smalley, at that time the London correspondent of the ``New York Tribune,'' I met, for the first time, Colonel John Hay, who was in the full tide of his brilliant literary career and who is, as I write this, Secretary of State of the United States. His clear, thoughtful talk strongly impressed me, but the most curious circumstance connected with the affair was that several of us on the way to Delmonico's stopped for a time to observe the public reception given to Mr. Horace Greeley on his return from a tour through the Southern States. Mr. Greeley, undoubtedly from the purest personal and patriotic motives, had, with other men of high standing, including Gerrit Smith, attached his name to the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which released the ex-president of the Confederacy from prison, and, in fact, freed him entirely from anything like punishment for treason. I have always admired Mr. Greeley's honesty and courage in doing this. Doubtless, too, an equally patriotic and honest desire to aid in bringing North and South together after the war led him to take an extensive tour through sundry Southern States. He had just returned from this tour and this reception was given him in consequence. It had already been noised abroad that there was a movement on foot to make him a candidate for the Presidency, and many who knew the characteristics of the man, even those who, like myself, had been greatly influenced by him and regarded him as by far the foremost editorial writer that our country had ever produced, looked upon this idea with incredulity. For of all patriotic men in the entire country who had touched public affairs Horace Greeley seemed the most eminently unfit for executive duties. He was notoriously, in business matters, the easy prey of many who happened to get access to him;-- the ``long-haired men and short-haired women'' of the country seemed at times to have him entirely under their sway; his hard-earned money, greatly needed by himself and his family, was lavished upon ne'er-do-weels and cast into all sorts of impracticable schemes. He made loans to the discarded son of the richest man whom the United States had at that time produced, and in every way showed himself an utterly incompetent judge of men. It was a curious fact that lofty as were his purposes, and noble as were his main characteristics, the best men of the State--men like Seward, Weed, Judge Folger, Senator Andrews, General Leavenworth, Elbridge Spaulding, and other really thoughtful, solid, substantial advisers of the Republican party--were disliked by him, and yet no other reason could be assigned than this:--that while they all admired him as a writer, they could not be induced to pretend that they considered him fit for high executive office, either in the State or Nation. On the other hand, so far as politics were concerned, his affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking example. Doubtless there were exceptions to this rule, but it was the rule nevertheless. This was clearly and indeed comically shown at the reception given him in Union Square on the evening referred to. Mr. Greeley appeared at a front window of a house on the Broadway side and came out upon a temporary platform. His appearance is deeply stamped upon my memory. He was in a rather slouchy evening dress, his white hair thrown back off his splendid forehead, and his broad, smooth, kindly features as serene as the face of a big, well-washed baby. There was in his appearance something at the same time na increased by a bouquet, huge and gorgeous, which some admirer had attached to his coat, and which forced upon the mind of a reflective observer the idea of a victim adorned for sacrifice. He gave scant attention to his audience in the way of ceremonial greeting, and plunged at once into his subject; --beginning in a high, piping, falsetto voice which, for a few moments, was almost painful. But the value of his matter soon overcame the defects of his manner; the speech was in his best vein; it struck me as the best, on the whole, I had ever heard him make, and that is saying much. Holding in his hands a little package of cards on which notes were jotted down, he occasionally cast his eyes upon them, but he evidently trusted to the inspiration of the hour for his phrasing, and his trust was not misplaced. I never heard a more simple, strong, lucid use of the English language than was his on that occasion. The speech was a very noble plea for the restoration of good feeling between North and South, with an effort to show that the distrust felt by the South toward the North was natural. In the course of it he said in substance: ``Fellow Citizens: The people of the South have much reason to distrust us. We have sent among them during the war and since the war, to govern them, to hold office among them, and to eat out their substance, a number of worthless adventurers whom they call ``carpet-baggers.'' These emissaries of ours pretend to be patriotic and pious; they pull long faces and say `Let us pray'; but they spell it p-r-E-y. The people of the South hate them, and they ought to hate them.'' At this we in the audience looked at each other in amazement; for, standing close beside Mr. Greeley, at that very moment, most obsequiously, was perhaps the worst ``carpet-bagger'' ever sent into the South; a man who had literally been sloughed off by both parties;-- who, having been become an unbearable nuisance in New York politics, had been ``unloaded'' by Mr. Lincoln, in an ill-inspired moment, upon the hapless South, and who was now trying to find new pasture. But this was not the most comical thing; for Mr. Greeley in substance continued as follows: ``Fellow Citizens: You know how it is yourselves. There are men who go to your own State Capitol, nominally as legislators or advisers, but really to plunder and steal. These men in the Northern States correspond to the `carpet-baggers' in the Southern States, and you hate them and you ought to hate them.'' Thus speaking, Mr. Greeley poured out the vials of his wrath against all this class of people; blissfully unconscious of the fact that on the other side of him stood the most notorious and corrupt lobbyist who had been known in Albany for years;-- a man who had been chased out of that city by the sheriff for attempted bribery, had been obliged to remain for a considerable time in hiding to avoid criminal charges of exerting corrupt influence on legislation, and whom both political parties naturally disowned. Comical as all this was, it was pathetic to see a man like Greeley in such a cave of Adullam. During this summer of 1871 occurred the death of one of my dearest friends, a man who had exercised a most happy influence over my opinions and who had contributed much to the progress of anti-slavery ideas in New England and New York. This was the Rev. Samuel Joseph May, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Syracuse, a friend and associate of Emerson, Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and one of the noblest, truest, and most beautiful characters I have ever known. Having seen the end of slavery, and being about eighty years of age, he felt deeply that his work was done, and thenceforward declared that he was happy in the idea that his life on this planet was soon to end. I have never seen, save in the case of the Hicksite Quaker at Ann Arbor, referred to elsewhere, such a living faith in the reality of another world. Again and again Mr. May said to me in the most cheerful way imaginable, ``I am as much convinced of the existence of a future state as of these scenes about me, and, to tell you the truth, now that my work here is ended, I am becoming very curious to know what the next stage of existence is like.'' On the afternoon of the 1st of July I paid him a visit, found him much wearied by a troublesome chronic complaint, but contented, cheerful, peaceful as ever. Above him as he lay in his bed was a portrait which I had formerly seen in his parlor. Thereby hung a curious tale. Years before, at the very beginning of Mr. May's career, he had been a teacher in the town of Canterbury, Connecticut, when Miss Prudence Crandall was persecuted, arrested, and imprisoned for teaching colored children. Mr. May had taken up her case earnestly, and, with the aid of Mr. Lafayette Foster, afterward president of the United States Senate, had fought it out until the enemies of Miss Crandall were beaten. As a memorial of this activity of his, Mr. May received this large, well painted portrait of Miss Crandall, and it was one of his most valued possessions. On the afternoon referred to, after talking about various other matters most cheerfully, and after I had told him that we could not spare him yet, that we needed him at least ten years longer, he laughingly said, ``Can't you compromise on one year?'' ``No,'' I said, ``nothing less than ten years. ``Thereupon he laughed pleasantly, called his daughter, Mrs. Wilkinson, and said, ``Remember; when I am gone this portrait of Prudence Crandall is to go to Andrew White for Cornell University, where my anti-slavery books already are.'' As I left him, both of us were in the most cheerful mood, he appearing better than during some weeks previous. Next morning I learned that he had died during the night. The portrait of Miss Crandall now hangs in the Cornell University Library. My summer was given up partly to recreation mingled with duties of various sorts, including an address in honor of President Woolsey at the Alumni dinner at Yale and another at the laying of the corner stone of Syracuse University. Noteworthy at this period was a dinner with Longfellow at Cambridge, and I recall vividly his showing me various places in the Craigie house connected with interesting passages in the life of Washington when he occupied it. Early in the autumn, while thus engrossed in everything but political matters, I received a letter from my friend Mr. A. B. Cornell, a most energetic and efficient man in State and national politics, a devoted supporter of General Grant and Senator Conkling, and afterward governor of the State of New York, asking me if I would go to the approaching State convention and accept its presidency. I wrote him in return expressing my reluctance, dwelling upon the duties pressing upon me in connection with the university, and asking to be excused. In return came a very earnest letter insisting on the importance of the convention in keeping the Republican party together, and in preventing its being split into factions before the approaching presidential election. I had, on all occasions, and especially at various social gatherings at which political leaders were present, in New York and elsewhere, urged the importance of throwing aside all factious spirit and harmonizing the party in view of the coming election, and to this Mr. Cornell referred very earnestly. As a consequence I wrote him that if the delegates from New York opposed to General Grant could be admitted to the convention on equal terms with those who favored him, and if he, Mr. Cornell, and the other managers of the Grant wing of the party would agree that the anti-Grant forces should receive full and fair representation on the various committees, I would accept the presidency of the convention in the interest of peace between the factions, and would do my best to harmonize the differing interests in the party, but that otherwise I would not consent to be a member of the convention. In his answer Mr. Cornell fully agreed to this, and I have every reason to believe, indeed to know, that his agreement was kept. The day of the convention having arrived (September 27, 1871), Mr. Cornell, as chairman of the Republican State committee, called the assemblage to order, and after a somewhat angry clash with the opponents of the administration, nominated me to the chairmanship of the convention. By a freak of political fortune I was separated in this contest from my old friend Chauncey M. Depew; but though on different sides of the question at issue, we sat together chatting pleasantly as the vote went on, neither of us, I think, very anxious regarding it, and when the election was decided in my favor he was one of those who, under instructions from the temporary chairman, very courteously conducted me to the chair. It was an immense assemblage, and from the first it was evident that there were very turbulent elements in it. Hardly, indeed, had I taken my seat, when the chief of the Syracuse police informed me that there were gathered near the platform a large body of Tammany roughs who had come from New York expressly to interfere with the convention, just as a few years before they had interfered in the same place with the convention of their own party, seriously wounding its regular chairman; but that I need have no alarm at any demonstration they might make; that the police were fully warned and able to meet the adversary. In my opening speech I made an earnest plea for peace among the various factions of the party, and especially between those who favored and those who opposed the administration; this plea was received with kindness, and shortly afterward came the appointment of committees. Of course, like every other president of such a body, I had to rely on the standing State committee. Hardly one man in a thousand coming to the presidency of a State convention knows enough of the individual leaders of politics in all the various localities to distinguish between their shades of opinion. It was certainly impossible for me to know all those who, in the various counties of the State, favored General Grant and those who disliked him. Like every other president of a convention, probably without an exception, from the beginning to the present hour, I received the list of the convention committees from the State committee which represented the party, and I received this list, not only with implied, but express assurances that the agreement under which I had taken the chairmanship had been complied with;--namely, that the list represented fairly the two wings of the party in convention, and that both the Grant and the anti-Grant delegations from New York city were to be admitted on equal terms. I had no reason then, and have no reason now, to believe that the State committee abused my confidence. I feel sure now, as I felt sure then, that the committee named by me fairly represented the two wings of the party; but after their appointment it was perfectly evident that this did not propitiate the anti-administration wing. They were deeply angered against the administration by the fact that General Grant had taken as his adviser in regard to New York patronage and politics Senator Conkling rather than Senator Fenton. Doubtless Senator Conkling's manner in dealing with those opposed to him had made many enemies who, by milder methods, might have been brought to the support of the administration. At any rate, it was soon clear that the anti-administration forces, recognizing their inferiority in point of numbers, were determined to secede. This, indeed, was soon formally announced by one of their leaders; but as they still continued after this declaration to take part in the discussions, the point of order was raised that, having formally declared their intention of leaving the convention, they were no longer entitled to take part in its deliberations. This point I ruled out, declaring that I could not consider the anti-administration wing as outside the convention until they had left it. The debates grew more and more bitter, Mr. Conkling making, late at night, a powerful speech which rallied the forces of the administration and brought them victory. The anti- administration delegates now left the convention, but before they did so one of them rose and eloquently tendered to me as president the thanks of his associates for my impartiality, saying that it contrasted most honorably with the treatment they had received from certain other members of the convention. But shortly after leaving they held a meeting in another place, and, having evidently made up their minds that they must declare war against everybody who remained in the convention, they denounced us all alike, and the same gentleman who had made the speech thanking me for my fairness, and who was very eminent among those who were known as ``Tammany Republicans,'' now made a most violent harangue in which he declared that a man who conducted himself as I had done, and who remained in such an infamous convention, or had anything to do with it, was ``utterly unfit to be an instructor of youth.'' Similar attacks continued to appear in the anti- administration papers for a considerable time afterward, and at first they were rather trying to me. I felt that nothing could be more unjust, for I had strained to the last degree my influence with my associates who supported General Grant in securing concessions to those who differed from us. Had these attacks been made by organs of the opposite political party, I would not have minded them; but being made in sundry journals which had represented the Republican party and were constantly read by my old friends, neighbors, and students, they naturally, for a time, disquieted me. One of the charges then made has often amused me as I have looked back upon it since, and is worth referring to as an example of the looseness of statement common among the best of American political journals during exciting political contests. This charge was that I had ``sought to bribe people to support the administration by offering them consulates.'' This was echoed in various parts of the State. The facts were as follows: An individual who had made some money as a sutler in connection with the army had obtained control of a local paper at Syracuse, and, through the influence thus gained, an election to the lower house of the State legislature. During the winter which he passed at Albany he was one of three or four Republicans who voted with the Democrats in behalf of the measures proposed by Tweed, the municipal arch-robber afterward convicted and punished for his crimes against the city of New York. Just at this particular time Tweed was at the height of his power, and at a previous session of the legislature he had carried his measures through the Assembly by the votes of three or four Republicans who were needed in addition to the Democratic votes in order to give him the required majority. Many leading Republican journals had published the names of these three or four men with black lines around them, charging them, apparently justly, with having sold themselves to Tweed for money, and among them the person above referred to. Though he controlled a newspaper in Syracuse, he had been unable to secure renomination to the legislature, and, shortly afterward, in order to secure rehabilitation as well as pelf, sought an appointment to the Syracuse postmastership. Senator Conkling, mindful of the man's record, having opposed the appointment, and the President having declined to make it, the local paper under control of this person turned most bitterly against the administration, and day after day poured forth diatribes against the policy and the persons of all connected with the actual government at Washington, and especially against President Grant and Senator Conkling. The editor of the paper at that time was a very gifted young writer, an old schoolmate and friend of mine, who, acting under instructions from the managers of the paper, took a very bitter line against the administration and its supporters. About the time of the meeting of the convention this old friend came to me, expressed his regret at the line he was obliged to take, said that both he and his wife were sick of the whole thing and anxious to get out of it, and added: ``The only way out, that I can see, is some appointment that will at once relieve me of all these duties, and in fact take me out of the country. Cannot you aid me by application to the senator or the President in obtaining a consulate?'' I answered him laughingly, ``My dear ----, I will gladly do all I can for you, not only for friendship's sake, but because I think you admirably fitted for the place you name; but don't you think that, for a few days at least, while you are applying for such a position, you might as well stop your outrageous attacks against the very men from whom you hope to receive the appointment?'' Having said this, half in jest and half in earnest, I thought no more on the subject, save as to the best way of aiding my friend to secure the relief he desired. So rose the charge that I was ``bribing persons to support the administration by offering them consulates.'' But strong friends rallied to my support. Mr. George William Curtis in ``Harper's Weekly,'' Mr. Godkin in ``The Nation,'' Mr. Charles Dudley Warner and others in various other journals took up the cudgels in my behalf, and I soon discovered that the attacks rather helped than hurt me. They did much, indeed, to disgust me for a time with political life; but I soon found that my friends, my students, and the country at large understood the charges, and that they seemed to think more rather than less of me on account of them. In those days the air was full of that sort of onslaught upon every one supposed to be friendly to General Grant, and the effect in one case was revealed to me rather curiously. Matthew Carpenter, of Wisconsin, was then one of the most brilliant members of the United States Senate, a public servant of whom his State was proud; but he had cordially supported the administration and was consequently made the mark for bitter attack, day after day and week after week, by the opposing journals, and these attacks finally culminated in an attempt to base a very ugly scandal against him upon what was known among his friends to be a simple courtesy publicly rendered to a very worthy lady. The attacks and the scandal resounded throughout the anti-administration papers, their evident purpose being to defeat his re United States Senate. But just before the time for the senatorial election in Wisconsin, meeting a very bright and active-minded student of my senior class who came from that State, I asked him, ``What is the feeling among your people regarding the re immediately burst into a torrent of wrath and answered: ``The people of Wisconsin will send Mr. Carpenter back to the Senate by an enormous majority. We will see if a gang of newspaper blackguards can slander one of our senators out of public life.'' The result was as my young friend had foretold: Mr. Carpenter was triumphantly re While I am on this subject I may refer, as a comfort to those who have found themselves unjustly attacked in political matters, to two other notable cases within my remembrance. Probably no such virulence has ever been known day after day, year after year, as was shown by sundry presses of large circulation in their attacks on William H. Seward. They represented him as shady and tricky; as the lowest of demagogues; as utterly without conscience or ability; as pretending a hostility to slavery which was simply a craving for popularity; they refused to report his speeches, or, if they did report them, distorted them. He had also incurred the displeasure of very many leaders of his own party, and of some of its most powerful presses, yet he advanced steadily from high position to high position, and won a lasting and most honorable place in the history of his country. The same may be said of Senator Conkling. The attacks on him in the press were bitter and almost universal; yet the only visible result was that he was re national Senate by an increased majority. To the catastrophe which some years later ended his political career, the onslaught by the newspapers contributed nothing; it resulted directly from the defects of his own great qualities and not at all from attacks made upon him from outside. Almost from the first moment of my acquaintance with Mr. Conkling, I had endeavored to interest him in the reform of the civil service, and at least, if this was not possible, to prevent his actively opposing it. In this sense I wrote him various letters. For a time they seemed successful; but at last, under these attacks, he broke all bounds and became the bitter opponent of the movement. In his powerful manner and sonorous voice he from time to time expressed his contempt for it. The most striking of his utterances on the subject was in one of the State conventions, which, being given in his deep, sonorous tones, ran much as follows: ``When Doctor-r-r Ja-a-awnson said that patr-r-riotism-m was the l-a-w-s-t r-r-refuge of a scoundr-r-rel, he ignor-r-red the enor-r-rmous possibilities of the word r-refa-awr-r-rm!'' The following spring (June 5, 1872) I attended the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia as a substitute delegate. It was very interesting and, unlike the enormous assemblages since of twelve or fifteen thousand people at Chicago and elsewhere, was a really deliberative body. As it was held in the Academy of Music, there was room for a sufficient audience, while there was not room for a vast mob overpowering completely the members of the convention and preventing any real discussion at some most important junctures, as has been the case in so many conventions of both parties in these latter years. The most noteworthy features of this convention were the speeches of sundry colored delegates from the South. Very remarkable they were, and a great revelation as to the ability of some, at least, of their race in the former slave States. General Grant was renominated for the Presidency, and for the Vice-Presidency Mr. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts in place of Schuyler Colfax, who had held the position during General Grant's first term. The only speeches I made during the campaign were one from the balcony of the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia and one from the steps of the Delavan House at Albany, but they were perfunctory and formal. There was really no need of speeches, and I was longing to go at my proper university work. Mr. James Anthony Froude, the historian, had arrived from England to deliver his lectures before our students; and, besides this, the university had encountered various difficulties which engrossed all my thoughts. General Grant's re Greeley had not one Northern electoral vote; worst of all, he had, during the contest, become utterly broken in body and mind, and shortly after the election he died. His death was a sad ending of a career which, as a whole, had been so beneficent. As to General Grant, I believe now, as I believed then, that his election was a great blessing, and that he was one of the noblest, purest, and most capable men who have ever sat in the Presidency. The cheap, clap-trap antithesis which has at times been made between Grant the soldier and Grant the statesman is, I am convinced, utterly without foundation. The qualities which made him a great soldier made him an effective statesman. This fact was clearly recognized by the American people at various times during the war, and especially when, at the surrender of Appomattox, he declined to deprive General Lee of his sword, and quietly took the responsibility of allowing the soldiers of the Southern army to return with their horses to their fields to resume peaceful industry. These statesmanlike qualities were developed more and more by the great duties and responsibilities of the Presidency. His triumph over financial demagogy in his vetoes of the Inflation Bill, and his triumph over political demagogy in securing the treaty of Washington and the Alabama indemnity, prove him a statesman worthy to rank with the best of his predecessors. In view of these evidences of complete integrity and high capacity, and bearing in mind various conversations which I had with him during his public life down to a period just before his death, I feel sure that history will pronounce him not only a general but a statesman in the best sense of the word. The renomination of General Grant at the Philadelphia convention was the result of gratitude, respect, and conviction of his fitness. Although Mr. Greeley had the support of the most influential presses of the United States, and was widely beloved and respected as one who had borne the burden and heat of the day, he was defeated in obedience to a healthy national instinct. Years afterward I was asked in London by one of the most eminent of English journalists how such a thing could have taken place. Said he, ``The leading papers of the United States, almost without exception, were in favor of Mr. Greeley; how, then, did it happen that he was in such a hopeless minority?'' I explained the matter as best I could, whereupon he said, ``Whatever the explanation may be, it proves that the American press, by its wild statements in political campaigns, and especially by its reckless attacks upon individuals, has lost that hold upon American opinion which it ought to have; and, depend upon it, this is a great misfortune for your country.'' I did not attempt to disprove this statement, for I knew but too well that there was great truth in it. Of my political experiences at that period I recall two: the first of these was making the acquaintance at Saratoga of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. His political fortunes were then at their lowest point. With Mr. Dean Richmond of Buffalo, he had been one of the managers of the Democratic party in the State, but, Mr. Richmond having died, the Tweed wing of the party, supported by the canal contractors, had declared war against Mr. Tilden, treated him with contempt, showed their aversion to him in every way, and, it was fully understood, had made up their minds to depose him. I remember walking and talking again and again with him under the colonnade at Congress Hall, and, without referring to any person by name, he dwelt upon the necessity of more earnest work in redeeming American politics from the management of men utterly unfit for leadership. Little did he or I foresee that soon afterward his arch-enemy, Tweed, then in the same hotel and apparently all-powerful, was to be a fugitive from justice, and finally to die in prison, and that he, Mr. Tilden himself, was to be elected governor of the State of New York, and to come within a hair's-breadth of the presidential chair at Washington. The other circumstance of a political character was my attendance as an elector at the meeting of the Electoral College at Albany, which cast the vote of New York for General Grant. I had never before sat in such a body, and its proceedings interested me. As president we elected General Stewart L. Woodford, and as the body, after the formal election of General Grant to the Presidency, was obliged to send certificates to the governor of the State, properly signed and sealed, and as it had no seal of its own, General Woodford asked if any member had a seal which he would lend to the secretary for that purpose. Thereupon a seal-ring which Goldwin Smith had brought from Rome and given me was used for that purpose. It was an ancient intaglio. Very suitably, it bore the figure of a ``Winged Victory,'' and it was again publicly used, many years later, when it was affixed to the American signature of the international agreement made at the Peace Conference of The Hague. The following winter I had my first experience of ``Reconstruction'' in the South. Being somewhat worn with work, I made a visit to Florida, passing leisurely through the southern seaboard States, and finding at Columbia an old Yale friend, Governor Chamberlain, from whom I learned much. But the simple use of my eyes and ears during the journey gave me more than all else. A visit to the State legislature of South Carolina revealed vividly the new order of things. The State Capitol was a beautiful marble building, but unfinished without and dirty within. Approaching the hall of the House of Representatives, I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and filthy. He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about him with tobacco; but he soon became obsequious and admitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies ever known--a body composed of former landed proprietors and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known as ``carpet-baggers.'' The Southern gentlemen of the Assembly were gentlemen still, and one of them, Mr. Memminger, formerly Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States, was especially courteous to us. But soon all other things were lost in contemplation of ``Mr. Speaker.'' He was a bright, nimble, voluble mulatto who, as one of the Southern gentlemen informed me, was ``the smartest nigger God ever made.'' Having been elevated to the speakership, he magnified his office. While we were observing him, a gentleman of one of the most historic families of South Carolina, a family which had given to the State a long line of military commanders, governors, senators, and ambassadors, rose to make a motion. The speaker, a former slave, at once declared him out of order. On the member persisting in his effort, the speaker called out, ``De genlemun frum Bufert has no right to de floh; de genlemun from Bufert will take his seat,'' and the former aristocrat obeyed. To this it had come at last. In the presence of this assembly, in this hall where dis- union really had its birth, where secession first shone out in all its glory, a former slave ordered a former master to sit down, and was obeyed. In Charleston the same state of things was to be seen, and for the first time I began to feel sympathy for the South. This feeling was deepened by what I saw in Georgia and Florida; and yet, below it all I seemed to see the hand of God in history, and in the midst of it all I seemed to hear a deep voice from the dead. To me, seeing these things, there came, reverberating out of the last century, that prediction of Thomas Jefferson,--himself a slaveholder,--who, after depicting the offenses of slavery, ended with these words, worthy of Isaiah,--divinely inspired if any ever were:--``I tremble when I remember that God is just.'' CHAPTER XI GRANT, HAYES, AND GARFIELD--1871-1881 At various times after the death of Mr. Lincoln I visited Washington, meeting many men especially influential, and, first of all, President Grant. Of all personages whom I then met he impressed me most strongly. At various times I talked with him at the White House, dining with him and seeing him occasionally in his lighter mood, but at no time was there the slightest diminution of his unaffected dignity. Now and then he would make some dry remark which showed a strong sense of humor, but in everything there was the same quiet, simple strength. On one occasion, when going to the White House, I met Professor Agassiz of Cambridge, and took him with me: we were received cordially, General Grant offering us cigars, as was his wont with visitors, and Agassiz genially smoking with him: when we had come away the great naturalist spoke with honest admiration of the President, evidently impressed by the same qualities which had always impressed me--his modesty, simplicity, and quiet force. I also visited him at various times in his summer cottage at Long Branch, and on one of these occasions he gave a bit of history which specially interested me. As we were taking coffee after dinner, a card was brought in, and the President, having glanced at it, said, ``Tell him that I cannot see him.'' The servant departed with the message, but soon returned and said, ``The gentleman wishes to know when he can see the President.'' ``Tell him NEVER,'' said Grant. It turned out that the person whose name the card bore was the correspondent of a newspaper especially noted for sensation-mongering, and the conversation drifted to the subject of newspapers and newspaper correspondents, when the President told the following story, which I give as nearly as possible in his own words: ``During the hottest period of the final struggle in Virginia, we suffered very much from the reports of newspaper correspondents who prowled about our camps and then put on the wires the information they had gained, which of course went South as rapidly as it went North. It became really serious and embarrassed us greatly. On this account, one night, when I had decided to make an important movement with a portion of the army early next day, I gave orders that a tent should be pitched in an out-of-the-way place, at the earliest possible moment in the morning, and notified the generals who were to take part in the movement to meet me there. ``It happened that on the previous day there had come to the camp a newspaper correspondent named ----, and, as he bore a letter from Mr. Washburne, I treated him as civilly as possible. ``At daylight next morning, while we were assembled in the tent making final arrangements, one of my aides, Colonel ----, heard a noise just outside, and, going out, saw this correspondent lying down at full length, his ear under the edge of the tent, and a note-book in his hand. Thereupon Colonel took the correspondent by his other ear, lifted him to his feet, and swore to him a solemn oath that if he was visible in any part of the camp more than five minutes longer, a detachment of troops would be ordered out to shoot him and bury him there in the swamp, so that no one would ever know his name or burial-place. ``The correspondent left at once,'' said the President, ``and he took his revenge by writing a history of the war from which he left me out.'' The same characteristic which I had found at other meetings with Grant came out even more strongly when, just before the close of his term, he made me a visit at Cornell, where one of his sons was a student. To meet him I invited several of our professors and others who were especially prejudiced against him, and, without exception, they afterward expressed the very feeling which had come over me after my first conversation with him-- surprise at the revelation of his quiet strength and his knowledge of public questions then before the country. During a walk on the university grounds he spoke to me of the Santo Domingo matter.[3] He said: ``The annexation question is doubtless laid aside for the present, but the time will come when the country will have occasion to regret that it was disposed of without adequate discussion. As I am so soon to leave the presidency, I may say to you now that one of my main thoughts in regard to the annexation of the island has been that it might afford a refuge for the negroes of the South in case anything like a war of races should ever arise in the old slave States.'' He then alluded to the bitter feeling between the two races which was then shown in the South, and which was leading many of the blacks to take refuge in Kansas and other northwestern States, and said, ``If such a refuge as Santo Domingo were open to them, their former masters would soon find that they have not the colored population entirely at their mercy, and would be obliged to compromise with them on far more just terms than would otherwise be likely.'' [3] See my chapter on Santo Domingo experiences. The President said this with evidently deep conviction, and it seemed to me a very thoughtful and far-sighted view of the possibilities and even probabilities involved. During another walk, in speaking of the approaching close of his second presidential term, he said that he found himself looking forward to it with the same longing which he had formerly had as a cadet at West Point when looking forward to a furlough. I have never believed that the earnest effort made by his friends at Chicago to nominate him for a third term was really prompted by him, or that he originally desired it. It always seemed to me due to the devotion of friends who admired his noble qualities, and thought that the United States ought not to be deprived of them in obedience to a tradition, in this case, more honored in the breach than in the observance. I may add here that, having seen him on several convivial occasions, and under circumstances when, if ever, he would be likely to indulge in what was understood to have been, in his early life, an unfortunate habit, I never saw him betray the influence of alcohol in the slightest degree. Shortly after General Grant laid down his high office, he made his well-known journey to Europe and the East, and I had the pleasure of meeting him at Cologne and traveling up the Rhine with him. We discussed American affairs all day long. He had during the previous week been welcomed most cordially to the hospitalities of two leading sovereigns of Europe, and had received endless attentions from the most distinguished men of England and Belgium, but in conversation he never, in the slightest degree, referred to any of these experiences. He seemed not to think of them; his heart was in matters pertaining to his own country. He told me much regarding his administration, and especially spoke with the greatest respect and affection of his Secretary of State, Mr. Hamilton Fish. Somewhat later I again met him in Paris, had several walks and talks with him in which he discussed American affairs, and I remember that he dwelt with especial admiration, and even affection, upon his colleagues Sherman and Sheridan. I trust that it may not be considered out of place if, in this retrospect, which is intended, first of all, for my children and grandchildren, I state that a personal fact, which was known to many from other sources, was confirmed to me in one of these conversations: General Grant informing me, as he had previously informed my wife, that he had fully purposed to name me as Secretary of State had Mr. Fish carried out his intention of resigning. When he told me this, my answer was that I considered it a very fortunate escape for us both; that my training had not fitted me for such duties; that my experience in the diplomatic service had then been slight; that I had no proper training as a lawyer; that my knowledge of international law was derived far more from the reading of books than from its application; and that I doubted my physical ability to bear the pressure for patronage which converged upon the head of the President's cabinet. In the Washington of those days my memory also recalls vividly a dinner with Senator Conkling at which I met a number of interesting men, and among them Governor Seymour, who had been the candidate opposed to Grant during his first presidential campaign; Senator Anthony, Senator Edmunds, the former Vice-President Mr. Hamlin, Senator Carpenter, and others. Many good stories were told, and one amused me especially, as it was given with admirable mimicry by Senator Carpenter. He described an old friend of his, a lawyer, who, coming before one of the higher courts with a very doubtful case, began his plea as follows: ``May it please the court, there is only one point in this case favorable to my client, but that, may it please the court, is a chink in the common law which has been worn smooth by the multitude of scoundrels who have escaped through it.'' During the year 1878 I was sent as an honorary commissioner from the State of New York to the Paris Exposition, and shall give a more full account of this period in another chapter. Suffice it that, having on my return prepared my official report on the provision for political education made by the different governments of Europe, I became more absorbed than ever in university affairs, keeping aloof as much as possible from politics. But in the political campaign of 1878 I could not but be interested. It was different from any other that I had known, for the ``Greenback Craze'' bloomed out as never before and seemed likely to poison the whole country. Great hardships had arisen from the fact that debts which had been made under a depreciated currency had to be paid in money of greater value. Men who, in what were known as ``flush times,'' had bought farms, paid down half the price, and mortgaged them for the other half, found now, when their mortgages became due, that they could not sell the property for enough to cover the lien upon it. Besides this, the great army of speculators throughout the country found the constant depreciation of prices bringing them to bankruptcy. In the cry for more greenbacks,-- that is, for continued issues of paper money,-- demagogism undoubtedly had a large part; but there were many excellent men who were influenced by it, and among them Peter Cooper of New York, founder of the great institution which bears his name, one of the purest and best men I have ever known. This cry for more currency was echoed from one end of the country to the other. In various States, and especially in Ohio, it seemed to carry everything before it, nearly all the public men of note, including nearly all the leading Democrats and very many of the foremost Republicans, bowing down to it, the main exceptions being John Sherman and Garfield. In central New York the mania seemed, early in the summer, to take strong hold. In Syracuse John Wieting, an amazingly fluent speaker with much popular humor, who had never before shown any interest in politics, took the stump for an unlimited issue of government paper currency, received the nomination to Congress from the Democrats and sundry independent organizations, and for a time seemed to carry everything before him. A similar state of things prevailed at Ithaca and the region round about Cayuga Lake. Two or three people much respected in the community came out for this doctrine, and, having a press under their control, their influence seemed likely to be serious. Managers of the Republican organization in the State seemed at first apathetic; but at last they became alarmed and sent two speakers through these disaffected districts--only two, but each, in his way, a master. The first of them, in order of time, was Senator Roscoe Conkling, and he took as his subject the National Banking System. This had been for a considerable time one of the objects of special attack by uneasy and unsuccessful people throughout the entire country. As a matter of fact, the national banking system, created during the Civil War by Secretary Chase and his advisers, was one of the most admirable expedients ever devised in any country. Up to the time of its establishment the whole country had suffered enormously from the wretched currency supplied from the State banks. Even in those States where the greatest precaution was taken to insure its redemption all of it was, in time of crisis or panic, fluctuating and much of it worthless. But in other States the case was even worse. I can recall perfectly that through my boyhood and young manhood every merchant and shopkeeper kept on his table what was called a ``bank-note detector,'' which, when any money was tendered him, he was obliged to consult in order to know, first, whether the bill was a counterfeit, as it frequently was; secondly, whether it was on a solvent bank; and thirdly, if good, what discount should be deducted from the face of it. Under this system bank-notes varied in value from week to week, and even from day to day, with the result that all buying and selling became a sort of gambling. When, then, Mr. Chase established the new system of national banks so based that every bill-holder had security for the entire amount which his note represented, so controlled that a bill issued from any little bank in the
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