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His innate decency and fairness, however, could not protect him from insults, and because in the assignment of committee chairmanships he gave proportionate representation to the South, he was attacked with positive indecency. Morton fairly frothed with simulated fury, and the cultured Curtis, of 'Harper's Weekly,' was shocked almost to tears. Nast in cartoons played meanly on the name Kerr, picturing the House presided over by ‘a mongrel.' 1 Thus the bloody shirt was dragged out early to divert attention from the stealing by 'good men and true,' and never greater need for such diversion. For the House was shaking the tree, and rotten fruit was falling.

II

The amnesty bill of Randall, removing disabilities from all under the Fourteenth Amendment, furnished the opportunity. Blaine, a candidate, embarrassed by the popularity of Morton and Grant, and conscious of the sagging prospects of his party, offered an amendment, excepting Jefferson Davis. This was intended to draw a defense from Southerners, since any other course would have been craven. Blaine prepared himself carefully to revive all the hatreds of the war. The galleries filled for the spectacle. With fine dramatic effect he stepped into the aisle, and set off his pyrotechnics one of the most powerful appeals to passion and prejudice ever heard, with malicious bitterness in every word. The Republicans were delighted, and Blaine sat down triumphant. Perhaps the stealing could be covered, after all.2

From the point of view of party strategy it would have been as well for the Democrats to have treated the attack with silent contempt; but from the point of view of a Southerner, it would have been worse than base. As Blaine resumed his seat, Ben Hill of Georgia rose, but an adjournment shut him off for the day.

The Georgia orator had opposed secession, but had stood by his own blood and people, and silent he would not be. Returning home that evening saddened but determined, he was beset by Democrats urging caution or silence. He retired early to escape their importunities, and when morning found them on his step, 1 Harper's Weekly, January 8 and February 5, 1876.

2 New York World, January 11, 1876.

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he refused to see them. The honor of his people was involved and party considerations were subordinate. When he rose in the House, it was with a sense, and the appearance, of deep solemnity. The Senate was deserted, the House galleries were dense, and he launched into a speech which drew from Proctor Knott the exclamation, "The man is a giant!' So excellent a judge of oratory as Henry Grady later was to pronounce the speech the best heard in twenty years and 'as sublime as the inspired words that fell from the lips of Paul at Mars Hill.' Meeting Blaine at every point, countering charge with charge, he closed with a peroration of moving eloquence:

'Go on and pass your qualifying acts, trample upon the Constitution you have sworn to support; abnegate the pledges of your fathers; incite raids upon our people; and multiply your infidelities until they shall be like the stars of heaven and the sands of the seashore, without number; but know this: for all your iniquities the South will never again seek a remedy in the madness of another secession. We are here; we are in the house of our fathers; our brothers are our companions, and we are home to stay, thank God.'

In eloquence the honors were even; read after the interval of years, the reply of Hill is more impressive than the attack of Blaine. But Democrats, suffering from an inferiority complex, were afraid to meet blow with blow, and were frightened. The 'New York World,' shocked at Hill's reply, recorded the majority of Southern members as hostile to the tenor of the speech,2 but in a few days it did tardy justice to the orator who refused to take blows lying down.3

But Blaine's speech, as an attempt to divert attention from scandals that struck the Cabinet and crept to the White House, met with the approval of his partisans. It was the one hope. The night of the day he spoke he was literally mobbed with praise at a reception at the home of Mrs. Fish. Mrs. Blaine was hugged. ‘Oh, your glorious old Jim!' exclaimed the ladies. Wendell Phillips, referring to the trend toward reconciliation eleven years after Appomattox, wrote hearty thanks for 'the check you have given to 1 Life of Hill, 71.

2 Ibid., January 15, 1876.

2 Ibid., January 13, 1876.

4 Gail Hamilton, 378–79.

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this ridiculous gush which threatens to wash away half the hallmarks of the war.'1 Charles Emory Smith sent assurances that 'Republicans are stirred and enkindled.' 2 Others were not so sure.

But the momentary reaction among Republicans was maddening to Morton, also a candidate, who thought Blaine had invaded his own special territory, and, seizing on the Mississippi election, he rushed to the center aisle, crippled though he was, with the bloody shirt and waved it more aggressively if not so artistically. He made no such virile and handsome figure as Blaine when he grasped the banner. Standing with difficulty, leaning on his crutch, he read his speech, replete with bitter phrases, and there was just a touch of pathos in the picture. Disease was making inroads, and he seemed but a feeble echo of his former self. A cor respondent thought it a mistake to attempt the speech standing, since 'there was more grace in his action swaying from side to side in a movable chair.' But the presidential convention was not remote and he stood to create a false impression of physical fitness.3 The spirit within 'his enfeebled body seemed like a caged lion and visible always through the bars.' He knew the futility of his effort the House was Democratic. But Mississippi was a staff on which the bloody shirt could flutter in the campaign.

A few evenings later, the Pinchback clan gathered in Morton's rooms and plans were made to reopen the fight for the admission of the Kellogg 'Senator.' It would furnish a pretext for reviving the war hates again; and so a few days later, Morton again held forth on Louisiana with tales of bloody outrages on 'loyal men.' But, alas, Pinchback had become a bore even to the patient correspondents, and that of the 'New York Tribune' was offering a marching air:

'Pinch, brothers, pinch with care,

Pinch in the presence of the Senataire.'

III

But all the gasconading of Blaine and Morton could not distract attention from a scandal that was shaking the Nation. The induction of Benjamin H. Bristow into the office of Secretary of

1 Gail Hamilton, 381.

3 New York World, January 24, 1876.

2 Ibid., 381.

4 Ibid., January 25, 1876.

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