CHAPTER XLVIII GRANT AND POLITICS, 1868-1877 For a full decade after the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 political compaigns and the national government were inevitably bound up with the Congressional policy in the South. The Republican Party had staked its very existance on the successful application of that policy, and Republican leaders used it as the main basis of their appeal to the voters. Whether they wanted to do this or not mattered little, because they were driven to it by the force of circumstances. In putting an end to slavery, the war and the Thirteenth Amendment had deprived the Republicans of their original reason for existence. Their reform had been accomplished. But the Republicans were more than reformers, they were a political party, and as a party they could not continue to live without an issue. An older organization might have kept itself alive with nothing but its past record to sustain it. Both the great parties have done that in more recent years. But at the close of the Civil War the Republican Party had no roots, no traditions, and no momentum acquired from age. Its only hope of success lay in the kind of appeal it was prepared to make right then. THE ELECTION OF 1868 As the campaign of 1868 approached, the prospect was none too bright. The fundamental principle of Congressional Reconstruction was the proscription of the southern white people, and the enfranchisement of the blacks. Negro suffrage was generally looked upon with disapproval in the northern states, and no one could tell whether the country was prepared to indorse the Stevens-Sumner Carpet-bag régime or not. The Republicans would doubtless have preferred to fight out the election of 1868 on the single issue of reconstruction, but they could not do it. A new currency issue had arisen, one which appealed strongly to many Democrats, probably because they saw in it a chance to embarrass the party in power. During the war the federal government had issued "greenbacks" to the extent of $433,000,000. They had been put out as an emergency measure, and the government planned to retire them as soon as possible. By 1868 McCulloch, the Secretary of the Treasury, had succeeded in reducing the total in circulation to about $356,000,000. But this gradual retirement decreased the volume of money in circulation, and consequently sent prices down. Eastern business men generally approved the policy of retirement because they could appreciate the advantages of a speedy return to a hard money basis. But the debtor classes and farmers protested against the retirement, and in 1868 Congress put a stop to further withdrawals of these treasury notes. The debtor classes, and certain other interests, advocated retention of the paper money, and they even approved payment of the principal of war bonds in greenbacks instead of gold. The rise of this issue placed the Republicans in a delicate position. They could not champion the cause of the debtors without alienating the support of business interests, and yet the debtor classes had votes which they wanted to keep. Being out of power, the Democrats were free to advocate anything, so they took the popular side. Embarrassed by this currency issue, the Republicans had to select as their candidate a man who could draw votes regardless of the party's stand on the greenback question. The one man who best answered their purposes was Ulysses S. Grant, the hero of the war. To be sure he was not much of a Republican; the only presidential vote he had ever cast was for Buchanan, in 1856. But he was at least opposed to Johnson, and after considerable urging he consented to run. The Republicans were sure of the electoral vote in the six Carpet-bag states, North and South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and there was a fair prospect of adding Georgia to the list. With those certain votes as a nucleus, they could depend upon Grant's great personal popularity to carry them through. The Democrats were free to criticise the tragedies of reconstruction in the South, and to make any statement regarding the greenbacks which seemed most likely to win votes, but they were not so fortunate as to candidates. There were numerous aspirants for the honor, but not one could compare with Grant in a vote-drawing contest. There was Salmon P. Chase, former Secretary of the Treas ury, then chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was very eager for the presidency, so keenly desirous that with a brazenness rare even PRESIDENT GRANT 555 in politicians, he offered his name to both parties. Then there was Andrew Johnson, back in his original and rightful place in the Democratic party, anxious to succeed himself. There was also Francis P. Blair of Missouri, an intolerant opponent of radical reconstruction. And there was Pendleton of Ohio, popularly known as "Gentleman George," ready to run on the greenback issue. But the convention could agree on none of these, and on the twenty-second ballot, it selected Horatio Seymour of New York, governor of his state during the war, with a record which almost placed him among the "copperheads." The Republican platform expressed approval of the reconstruction policy, and scathingly denounced President Johnson. The document condemned all schemes of monetary repudiation, but it was a trifle hazy on the greenback issue, hedging in order to appeal to both East and West. The Democrats strongly favored the Greenback policy. In the actual campaign the Democrats labored under a heavy disadvantage in the person of the candidate. His war record had been almost disloyal, so that he antagonized numerous Democrats who might have voted for another candidate on the ticket. Grant won, with a popular majority of over three hundred thousand, and by an electoral vote of two hundred fourteen to eighty, carrying twenty-six out of the thirty-four states. Charges of fraud were circulated, with reference to the work of Democratic operations in Georgia and Louisiana, and especially in New York. Seymour carried his own state by a majority of exactly ten thousand, a figure carefully fixed by the managers, according to rumor, in the interest of certain heavy wagers. The returns showed close votes in a number of states, so close that the Democrats found hope for the future. Once white control could be reestablished in the South, the older party was almost certain to be restored to power. On the basis of the same evidence the Republicans saw that they must if possible perpetuate the Carpet-bag régime in the South, and to that end they pushed through the. Fifteenth Amendment. PRESIDENT GRANT Grant entered office in 1869 with evidence of widespread popular confidence, and with the prospect of a comfortable term. His record during the war had completely obliterated all traces of his unfor tunate career before 1861. But probably at no other time in the history of the country had conditions been more unfavorable. It seemed that the war had resulted in a general letting down of the accepted standards of honesty and decency, especially in politics. Disreputable schemers and unscrupulous rascals found their way into public office, in the North as well as in the South, and no matter how honest the President might be, he was almost certain to be affected by the action of subordinates or associates whose morals he could not regulate. Almost any man would have encountered trouble, and Grant was so constituted that he fell in with considerably more than his share. The new President soon found that his situation as President was very different from his position as Lieutenant General during the war. Then he had been free to work out his plans, regardless of political considerations. But as President he was also the head of a political party, and its demands upon him were unlike those of the army. At first he tried to pursue an independent course, especially in his Cabinet appointments, but independence for a president is an impossibility. Grant soon found that he must have the support of Congress, and in seeking that he plunged headlong into trouble. Like some other military leaders he was a poor judge of human nature in general. He was thoroughly honest himself, so honest, so innocent of the ways of the political world, that he could never even suspect dishonesty in others. It is always pathetic to see a man with absolute confidence in human nature, and very little capacity for recognizing evil when he sees it, thrust into anything as thoroughly rotten as the politics of the late 1860's. Grant had to turn for help to the leaders of his party in Congress, and an unfortunate combination of events sent him to the very men with whom he could not afford to associate. He joined forces with the machine element, with the notorious Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, with the unscrupulous Cameron of Pennsylvania, and with the wily, hardheaded Conkling of New York. Submitting to their leadership, he became a sort of screen to protect them from the consequences of their work. Then too the new President had unfortunate associations with James Fisk and Jay Gould, two of the most successful stock market plungers of their day. The Grant administration generally partook of the flavor of Butler and Fisk. Everywhere, in government circles and out, a spirit of PRESIDENT GRANT 557 unscrupulous wealth-getting prevailed. During the latter part of Grant's first term ugly stories concerning the "Credit Mobilier" scandal were circulating widely. This "Credit Mobilier" was a construction company, composed of some of the leading stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad. The type of organization made it possible for these stockholders to let the contracts for building the road to themselves. Their hope of profit lay in the extensive grants of public land which Congress had made to the Union Pacific. In 1868 these grants had been increased. An investigation showed that Oakes Ames, a member of Congress, had distributed blocks of Credit Mobilier stock among his associates in Congress, placing it where it would influence votes. Some of the most prominent men in Washington accepted these favors, which were sheer bribes. After its investigation Congress censured Ames, but exonerated all the others, a judgment which enabled them to retain their reputation for honesty, perhaps, while it held them up to the world as men so dense as not to recognize a bribe when they saw one. In February, 1873, just before the expiration of Grant's first term, Congress passed a measure popularly known as the "Salary Grab." This provided for an increase of pay for all federal executive officers, judges, and Congressmen. The salaries of Congressmen were raised from five thousand dollars per year to seven thousand five hundred, and the advance was made retroactive. This notable specimen of public service, whereby each Representative would collect five thousand dollars extra at the end of the session, was guided through Congress under the direction of Benjamin F. Butler. Some of the Congressmen were honest enough to refuse the gift. Other evidence of official corruption came to light during Grant's second term. In 1875, Bristow, the Secretary of the Treasury, finally secured evidence against the so-called "Whiskey Ring" in the Middle West, a combination of distillers and revenue officials whose purpose was to defraud the government. Inside of ten months the ring had taken over a million and a half dollars that rightfully belonged to the Federal Treasury. General Babcock, the President's private secretary, was accused of complicity in the thefts, and Grant himself, in absolute innocence, accepted valuable presents from one of the leading distillers. The disclosure of the fraud was bad enough, while the connection with the President's official family was worse, but the most disheartening feature of the whole episode was the |