CHAPTER XLIV

THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF 1876

As the time drew near for choosing a new President, parties began to take account of stock. Grant, though the target for sustained abuse by the Democratic and the independent press, still stood high in the estimation of the people, and there was talk about another term. The faults of his Administration had been overemphasized, but the public was not fooled, though in the way of politics men looked for change. They had not been enamored of the Democratic House with which they had been saddled as the price of discontent. Its muck-raking propensities, its petty scramble for cheap spoils, its parade of party spawn like Doorkeeper Fitzhugh, boasting that he was "biger than old Grant," had made it something of a stench and failed to whet the country's appetite for more. But industry was paralyzed and times were out of joint.

Stalwart Republicans like Conkling, Cameron, and Logan felt that, while the party had lost ground, talk of a third term for Grant would keep the ranks intact. But Grant was tired of controversy and wanted to retire. Early in 1875 the Pennsylvania

Republicans were ready to endorse him for another term, and the President of their convention wrote him so. He made up his mind at once, called a meeting of the Cabinet to tell them what he was going to do, and mailed personally a letter in reply declaring:

"The idea that any man could elect himself President, or even renominate himself, is preposterous. Any man can destroy his chances for an office, but none can force an election or even a nomination. I am not nor have I ever been a candidate for renomination. I would not accept a nomination if it were tendered, unless it should come under such circumstances as to make it an imperative duty -- circumstances not likely to arise."

The censorious said there was a string to this refusal, but it did the work. Before the meeting of the National Republican Convention in June, 1876, the third-term talk had died away.

Blaine, the most fascinating figure of the day, out of touch with the Administration group, was mar

1 So persistent did the pressure become as time went on that, when Congress came together in December, a resolution in the House, presented by the Democrats and supported by 77 out of 88 Republicans, was passed as follows: "That, in the opinion of this House, the precedent established by Washington and other Presidents of the United States, in retiring from the presidential office after their second term, has become, by universal occurrence, a part of our republican system of government, and that any departure from this time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions."

velously popular, but there were whispers that as Speaker he had been involved in questionable deals, and in spite of all he and his friends could say this led to his undoing. Conkling and Morton had their followers and each hoped for Grant's support, but he kept his hands off the convention. He had a secret notion that in case of a close struggle Fish was a likely compromise, and he wrote a letter to be used if Fish should have a chance.1 Bristow was a strong favorite with the reformers. They could not stand with any one who stood with Grant, but they were equally at odds with Blaine. Hayes was the Ohio candidate — a man of unassuming merit with a record in the Civil

1 "I took no part in the discussions antecedent to the Cincinnati Convention, because the candidates were friends, and any one, except Mr. Bristow, would have been satisfactory to me, would have had my heartiest support. Bristow I never would have supported for reasons that I may give at some other time in a more formal manner than mere conversation. Mr. Blaine would have made a good President.... I did not see any nomination for Blaine, Morton, or Conkling. Bristow was never a serious candidate, never even a probability. Looking around for a dark horse, in my own mind I fixed on Fish. Bayard Taylor said to me in Berlin that the three greatest statesmen of this age were Cavour, Gortchakoff, and Bismarck. I told him I thought there were four, that the fourth was Fish, and that he was worthy to rank with the others. This was the estimate I formed of Fish after eight years of Cabinet service, in which every year increased him in my esteem. So I wrote a letter to be used at the proper time after the chances of Blaine, Morton, and Conkling were exhausted — expressing my belief that the nomination of Governor Fish would be a wise thing for the party. The time never came to use it. Fish never knew anything about this letter until after the whole convention was over." (Young, vol. 11, pp. 273–75.)

War, who in 1874 had led the fight against inflation in his State, defeating "Fog Horn" Allen, Democratic candidate for Governor, thus for the time eliminating that financial heresy from the Democratic creed. There were other "favorite sons."

There is little doubt that Blaine would have been chosen but for a chain of circumstances which need not be detailed. The deadly enmity of Conkling and the dramatic series of disclosures skillfully staged to catch the public notice as the convention was about to meet make a rare chapter in the history of the time. Not even Conkling's hatred or the work of the machine could have defeated him had it not been for the pervasive dread that he might prove a vulnerable candidate. The elements opposed to Blaine at last combined on Hayes, and on the seventh ballot Hayes was nominated. No other name could have been found to cause so little disappointment among the friends of rival candidates, and when the Democrats a few days later named Tilden, who had been elected Governor of New York in 1874, there was a feeling that the lines were drawn for a respectable campaign. "There is very little to choose between the candidates," wrote Lowell, and many Liberal Republicans came back into the fold.1

1 Henry Watterson has given us a charming picture of the Democratic candidate, who was his personal friend:

"To his familiars, Mr. Tilden was a dear old bachelor, who lived

But the contest developed virulence. The Democrats were voluble against Republican misrule. “Reform is necessary!" was their cry, and "Turn the Rascals out!" Their platform called for the repeal of the Resumption Act, but Tilden was regarded as a friend of sound finance. The Republicans, deprived of the inflation issue on which they counted, began to "wave the bloody shirt" and to point the finger at the "Rebel Brigadiers" who, through “bull-dozing" and intimidation, they said, were conspiring to return to national control by joining to a "Solid South" the slums of the great cities of the North. Tilden had made false income tax returns during the Civil War; he was the first of presidential candidates to "tap a bar'l" or employ a "literary bureau." Zachariah in a fine old mansion in Gramercy Park. Though sixty years of age he seemed in the prime of his manhood; a genial and overflowing scholar; a trained and earnest doctrinaire; a public-spirited, patriotic citizen, well known and highly esteemed, who had made fame and fortune at the bar, and had always been interested in public affairs.

"He was a dreamer with a genius for business, a philosopher yet an organizer. He pursued the tenor of his life with measured tread. ... His home life was a model of order and decorum, his house as unchallenged as a bishopric, its hospitality, though select, profuse and untiring. . . . He was a lover of books rather than music and art, but also of horses and dogs and out-of-door activity. His tastes were frugal, and their indulgence was sparing. He took his wine not plenteously, though he enjoyed it . . . and sipped his whiskey and water on occasion with a pleased composure, redolent of discursive talk.... His judgment was believed to be infallible." (Century, May, 1913.)