VII General Sherman, observing events from the vantage-point of Paris, wrote his brother in laughing mood, ‘Grant, who never was a Republican, is your candidate, and Greeley, who never was a Democrat, but quite the reverse, is the Democratic candidate.' 1 Others, observing the same thing, were less amused. Schurz was talking madly of calling another convention to nominate Adams and ask a Democratic endorsement, even writing Greeley of his plans. But the latter blithesomely replied with the assurance that he would sweep New York, New England, and the South and have a fighting chance in Pennsylvania. And so the die-hards among the Liberals met in conference in New York to smooth the wrinkles of disaffection, Bryant sleeping in the chair, Schurz and Trumbull sourly accepting Greeley as a choice of evils, but leaving no doubt of their opinion of him as a reformer.' Watterson wrote the candidate a sweet and clever letter to soothe the smart of Schurz's criticism.1 3 Among the Democrats there was a brave show of fidelity, though it limped on parade. Voorhees, who had burned his bridges, hastily built a pontoon and retreated, though it required all his eloquence to satisfy his constituents," and "The Nation' belabored him pitilessly for his reversal." "We have been singing Democratic hymns for forty years down here,' explained the brother of Zeb Vance, of North Carolina, 'and since the Baltimore Convention puts Greeley in our hymn book we'll sing it through if it kills us.'' After all, thought Governor Randolph, of New Jersey, Democrats supporting Greeley would 'be guilty of nothing more serious than "eccentricity." Democratic papers that had reared and snorted like war horses at first settled down as burdenbearers of 'The Tribune' as gracefully as possible. Lamar could find no enthusiasm in Mississippi over the man who had been 'the embodiment and concentration of all... Democrats are accustomed to regard as unsound.' Charles O'Conor of New York wrote Tilden that 'the tender-hearted Moloch whose lifelong mission of hate has filled the land with fratricidal slaughter of the white race,' could never have his vote; 1 and, late in the campaign, Horatio Seymour found it impossible to 'work [himself] into a heat' about the election because Greeley's abuse 'has been so gross.' 2 1 Even so, the plan of the regular Democrats to unfurl their own flag in the Louisville Convention was sternly frowned upon, and denounced by Voorhees as 'countenanced by Morton and upheld by the money of the Administration Ring.' In truth, Morton was jubilantly predicting to a correspondent that the Greeley movement would 'demoralize the Democracy much more than the Republicans.' Thurman was appealing to Tilden to dissuade O'Conor from accepting the Louisville nomination, 'which is wholly in the interest of Grant.' The 'regulars' met and nominated O'Conor with John Quincy Adams II, but it was an idle gesture. Meanwhile, in the realignments, the Republicans were struggling with their problems, and Greeley had some accessions. Charles Sumner urged the negroes to support Greeley. He was an abolitionist, Grant voted for Buchanan; Greeley had long manifested friendship for the negroes, Grant never; Greeley wanted negro suffrage, Grant was opposed. Thus ran the letter. Instantly Sumner's old abolition comrades were deep in their ink-horns, and Garrison in a bitter reply was excoriating Greeley, shaming Sumner, and praising the 'illustrious administration of Grant.' Wendell Phillips conceded that Grant had made blunders, but he had 'a Christian attitude toward the Indians,' and had done much for business and against the Ku-Klux Klan." Blaine, evoking sectional hates, charged Sumner with making an 'alliance with Southern secessionists in their effort to destroy the Republican Party,' and asked if he had forgotten Preston Brooks. 'And what has Preston Brooks to do with the presidential election?' 1 Life of Tilden, 1, 218. 2 Tilden, Letters, 1, 311. New York World, September 2, 1872. 'Morton MSS., To Powell, May 10, 1872. Tilden, Letters, 1, 311. 'Ibid., August 17, 1872. "New York Herald, August 6, 1872. retorted Sumner, in a scornful reply. He had not missed Blaine among the Republicans joining in the support of Greeley until he 'reported absence.' 1 Thus the bewildered negro, finding Greeley, Chase, and Sumner on one side, and Garrison and Phillips on the other, appealed to the gentle poet Whittier, who replied in a letter that could be read either way. It was not without agony of spirit that the partisans accommodated themselves to the abnormal conditions of the campaign. VIII The effect upon the negro vote in the South was interesting alike to psychologists, sociologists, and politicians. The reaction in North Carolina, which voted in August, was soon felt. The Grant forces put the negro forward as never before, and James H. Harris, a negro demagogue, presided at the State Convention and demanded complete social equality 'on your cars, on your steamboats, and at the tables and in the parlors of your hotels.' This became the keynote, and the orator was sent on an inflammatory speaking tour, inciting hatred of negroes who aligned themselves with Greeley, the Abolitionist.2 These were ostracized, deserted by their wives, hooted and assaulted when marching in Greeley processions, and driven from their homes at the instigation of carpetbaggers. The Loyal Leagues were too powerful, as an organization of intimidation, to combat. In South Carolina, the alliance of the Grant forces with negroes and carpetbaggers was complete and invincible. The negroes had dominated the State Convention, the correspondent of the 'New York Herald' finding but a sprinkling of white faces, and these bearing the imprint of depravity. The heat and odors of the room drove some of the more sensitive to the open air. Negro delegates were gorged on the choicest luxuries, washed down with the finest wines, and the debauchery continued through the night preceding the convention, corruptionists plying delegates with bribery money. Wanton women were to be had for the asking, and without cost. The unhappy Orr denounced the proceedings at the peril 1 New York Herald, August 6, 1872. New York Herald, July 18, 1872. 2 Hamilton, 583. of his life, and when the negro leader Elliott, in the chair, drew his pistol, it was Whittemore, the purveyor of cadetships, who bade him return the pistol to the pocket. Frank Moses, the degenerate, bought the gubernatorial nomination, the victory acclaimed in a ten-minute demonstration, while a negro band played 'Hail to the Chief.' The disillusioned Orr passed from the hall, followed by jeers and hisses.1 Clearly, the Greeley reformers had no chance here. In Louisiana, Warmoth, who led for Greeley, had lost his grip, Longstreet was ostracized, the Custom-House gangsters under Casey were in the saddle, and Pinchback, the Lieutenant-Governor, a cunning negro, with some money and no character, who had begun life as a waiter on a Mississippi River boat, and was dreaming of the Senate and the Vice-Presidency, had been lured from Greeley by a trade.2 In Mississippi, an epochal candidacy - Lucius Q. C. Lamar had been enticed from his retirement, and was in the field as a candidate for Congress. Here and there, some ray of hope; and Texas was in the sunshine, having wrought her complete redemption the year before. In Tennessee, Andrew Johnson was attacking Grant with fierce invectives on the corruption and centralization of his régime, and for the acceptance of specified gifts. His candidacy for Congressman-at-large was overshadowing the national contest as he traversed the State with his two opponents, entering the rooms of 'miserable little taverns' with as much dignity as in the White House.* politicians But North Carolina with her August election looked to her for the trend. Both parties hurried their heavy artillery to the battle - Boutwell, Senator Wilson, Secretary Delano, and Fred Douglass, for Grant; Carl Schurz and Colonel A. K. McClure, for Greeley. But the Democrats were cold to their nominee. Senator Pool had collected a big slush fund; the Administration was hectically busy with Ku-Klux indictments, and there were three thousand arrests just before the election. The Republican gubernatorial nominee, driven from the stump, was 1 New York Herald, August 25, August 31, September 16, 1872. 2 New York World, April 8, 1872. 3 Ibid., August 18, 1872. 4 ♦ New York Herald, September 27, 1872. relying on the negro vote, and blacks were imported to swell the number, nine hundred being sent from the capital of the Republic.1 An amazing campaign - meetings extending from morning till darkness; mails burdened with campaign literature from the North and transported in wagons from post-offices to headquarters.2 And then, the election and the news flashed that the Republicans had lost. After days of jubilation in the Greeley camp, the last 'returns' turned the tide. 'Radical frauds!' cried the friends of Greeley. But no matter the election was lost. This had a depressing effect in the North - Greeley had not drawn the blacks. IX The campaign continued with unabated fury in the North, the Greeleyites suffering nothing in comparison with their foe in the mastery of men at the guns. Schurz was firing with deadly precision in the West, Trumbull opened and maintained a raking bombardment on corruption and privilege, the brilliant O'Connor, of South Carolina, captivated Boston in a plea for sectional reconciliation that anticipated by many years that of Henry Grady, and in New York a rising young orator, Chauncey M. Depew, was impassionedly denouncing Grantism with the assertion that 'the scum of society has been brought to the surface in the Government in the three years of Grant's Administration.' ' With Hendricks and Julian leading the fighting in Indiana, Morton, in dire distress, was sending forth the Macedonian cry to Blaine.5 But Grant's Three Musketeers were at their best, according to their natures. Morton, evoking war hates, was solemnly charging that Greeley's election would mean the reënslavement of the blacks and the assumption of the Confederate debts. Conkling, with less temerity, was pouring forth sonorous phrases in faultless elocution about Grant the soldier, not the statesman. 'While Senators that now hawk at him,' he said, 'were lolling on cushions, and eviscerating encyclopedias, books of quotations, and the 1 Hamilton, 587-90. 'O'Connor, 380-46. 2 New York World, July 27, 1872. |