Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XXXIX.

POLITICAL AND BUSINESS LIFE.

It was the evening of the 19th of November when General Grant and his wife reached their home in Galena, and were escorted by old friends to the family residence, which had been donated to the general immediately after the war. It is an unpretentious brick house, one of the best in the somewhat deserted village, situated upon a bluff overlooking the town, "beautiful for situation," if not "altogether lovely."

The great tour was now over, the most memorable in many respects ever known in human history. No man had ever traveled so far and been received with such distinguished consideration wherever he went. He had circumnavigated the globe without getting beyond the reach of his fame. That in itself was something which no other man could do, not even excepting Gladstone or Bismarck. The modest gentleman who had said a few years ago, half seriously, half jestingly that he had no other ambition than to return to Galena and be the alderman of his ward, was home again, having been greeted in even the "uttermost parts of the earth," with salvos of honor, content to spend the rest of his days in dignified retirement, "far from the madding crowd." But such was not to be his fate; unfortunately two distinct lines of activity at once began to juggle with his name— the politicians who sought restoration to or perpetuation in power through his leadership and the money makers who saw a commercial value in his name. Without be.

[graphic][merged small]

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND
T ON FOUNDATIONS,

ing ambitious or avaricious, he fell a prey to both classes of schemers. Hardly had he settled himself to rest at his own fireside when the press began to teem with the great enterprises with which his name was to be connected, and with the "uprising of the people" in favor of his election to a third term of the presidency. First came the Nicaraugua canal scheme, more fully noted in chapter XIX, for which not less than $100,000,ooo were to be raised, General Grant to be at the head of it. Mexico was to be gridironed with railroads converging toward the United States, and other projects hardly less gigantic and visionary were broached. But business was soon oversloughed by politics and culminated before he turned his attention to money making.

There is no reason to question the sincerity of General Grant's remarks previously quoted (chapter XIX), to the Chinese statesman, in which he disclaimed any and all third term aspirations. But importunate friends, some of them in his own household, insisted that he should let events take their course, and neither solicit nor discour age support for the presidential nomination, and to that policy he yielded himself, never in any way departing from it.

It was aiready evident that if General Grant did not enter the field in 1880, the Republican nomination would go to James G. Blaine, incomparably the most popular civilian in the United States. His great rival, Roscoe Conkling, had no hope of stemming the tide of that popularity by pushing his own candidacy. The same was true of General John A. Logan. The only available name for that purpose was Ulysses S. Grant. The National Republican Convention was called to meet at Chicago, Wednesday, June 2d, and the location selected was deemed favorable to the hero of Appomattox, although Mr. Blaine was not without strong backing in

that city. A third candidate entered the field in the hope of being a compromise candidate. John Sherman, the great financier, then at the head of the Treasury Department. The convention was composed of eminent statesmen, and, in the high character of its members, was the most illustrious political gathering ever witnessed on this continent. Mr. Conkling led the New York delegation, and was the recognized captain of the Grant forces. Mr. Blaine had several trusty lieutenants in the field, while he was the real general. The first point of advantage was won by the Blaine men in securing the permanent chairmanship of the convention for Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts. A long wrangle occurred over district representation. It was found that if the delegates, which had been instructed by State Conventions, were obedient to those instructions, General Grant would doubtless be nominated; while if the delegates from congressional districts were allowed freedom of action, it would add somewhat to Mr. Blaine's strength. Several contested seats turned upon the right of district or congressional conventions to name their own representatives as against their selection by state conventions. This was especially true in Illinois. In this stage of the contest, the Sherman men made common cause with the Blaine men against the Grant men, and General Garfield, the leader of the former, came to the front during the debate on district representation, advocating the cause which he espoused with such consummate ability that he not only won a brilliant victory over Conklingbut won the hearts of the convention, as it finally proved. It was not until the fourth day of the session that the names of the candidates were formally presented. Mr. Blaine was placed in nomination first, then Mr. Windom, of Minnesota, who had simply been set up for the purpose of weakening Blaine in a state

« PreviousContinue »