1868-1869 Thereupon the Senate as a court of impeachment adjourned sine die and gave up the attempt to convict the President. As soon as this happened Stanton sent in his resignation, and the President appointed General Schofield as his successor, and the Senate confirmed the nomination. Stanton, as Secretary of War during the great civil strife, had rendered the government valuable service; he was a man of great force, of vast administrative ability and of official honesty; and he clung to his office, as his friends have always claimed, only because he believed that the welfare of the country required that he should not relinquish it, though there are many to assert that his motives were not so exalted.18 Upon the accession of President Grant he was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court, but weighed down by disappointment and with health broken by his labors, he died before taking his seat.19 On account of the strong passions and prejudices of the time, the Republicans who voted for the acquittal of the President were severely denounced by members of their own party, and most of them were forced into retirement; but looking at the situation from the calm viewpoint of to-day, we are bound to admit that they rendered both their party and the country a great service.20 Had the President been removed, Senator Benjamin Wade, a radical of Ohio, and President pro tem. of the Senate, would have succeeded to the Presidency. Wade was admired by his party for his rugged honesty, good sense and physical courage, and the Republicans felt confident that he would make a successful President; but he was, says Dunning, "notoriously free from any taint of reform principles," 21 and it is a matter of regret that his sense of official propriety did not lead him to abstain from voting in the impeachment case when he was so directly interested. His popularity thereafter waned, and he was not returned to the Senate by the legislature of his State. Johnson served out the remainder of his term without further strife with Congress, and in 1875 was returned to the Senate by the legislature of Tennessee, but died the same year. No President has been the victim of so much abuse and villification founded on preju 18 Dewitt, "Impeachment of Andrew Johnson," pp. 232-237, 248–265, 272–75. 19 Gorham, "Life of Stanton,” vol. ii. p. 474. 20 Blaine, "Twenty Years of Congress," vol. ii. p. 376; see also Chadsey, "The Struggle Between Congress and President Johnson,” p. 141. 21" Essays on Civil War and Reconstruction,” p. 255. 1869 dice and passions as Andrew Johnson. He was unfitted by nature and training to be the President during the critical period following the Civil War. In quiet times he might have been successful, at least as much so as others who have been called to the Presidency under similar circumstances. Of humble origin and breeding, uneducated, unrefined, obstinate in disposition, and intemperate, he was wholly out of place in the White House; yet he was none the less a man of unflinching courage and patriotism, and his intentions were generally good. His stand for the Union under circumstances when his character was put to the most rigid test, his unfaltering allegiance to the Republic when his Southern brethren were dropping away, his encouragement to the Union men of east Tennessee, entitle him, in the opinion of one of them, to be numbered among the heroes of the Civil War.22 22 Burgess, "Civil War and Reconstruction," p. 221. Chapter XXXVI THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GRANT AND THE RESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION O 1869-1873 I ELECTION AND INAUGURATION N May 20, 1868, four days after the adjournment of the Senate as a court of impeachment in the case of Andrew Johnson, the national convention of the Republican party assembled at Chicago to nominate candidates for President and Vice President of the United States. Although sorely disappointed at the failure of the Senate to convict Mr. Johnson, the delegates were filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of a harmonious convention and the certainty of success at the elections. The chief work of the convention had already been determined, so that little was left but to ratify the popular choice. On the first ballot General Grant was nominated for President. Like that other great military hero who twenty years before had been elevated to the Presidency, General Grant was not a politician; in fact his political views were hardly known to the public at large. Before the war he had voted with the Democrats, but since then had given indications that his sympathies were with the Republicans, and after his break with Johnson there was no doubt as to where he stood. For Vice President the convention nominated Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, a man of great popularity, who was then serving his third term as Speaker of the House of Representatives. The platform adopted by the convention contained two important and conspicuous declarations, one relating to negro suffrage and the other to the manner of the payment of the public debt. The first declared (the fifteenth amendment, it will be remembered, had not yet been proposed) that it was the duty of Congress to guarantee the suffrage to the negroes of the South, but that the States of the North should be left free to determine 1869 for themselves1 whether they should have negro suffrage or not. In other words, the Republicans proposed to force negro suffrage, with all its consequences, upon the States of the South, while those of the North, where the black population was inconsiderable, were to decide the question for themselves. That they did not want negro suffrage for themselves at this time was clearly shown by the fact that several of the Northern States, notably Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Kansas, in the previous year had voted down negro suffrage amendments to their constitutions by large majorities, in Ohio the majority aggregating over 50,000 votes.2 Mr. Blaine, one of the Republican leaders of Congress at the time pronounces this declaration an evasion of duty quite unworthy of the Republican party, and asserts that it carried with it an element of deception. Mr. Blaine further characterizes it as a "stroke of expediency" intended to overcome the prejudices against negro suffrage in some of the Northern States, particularly Indiana and California, where a close vote was anticipated. Looked at from whatever point of view, it was discreditable to the party, and its leaders have never ceased to apologize for it. The provision in the platform with regard to the payment of the public debt, on the other hand, was highly commendable. It declared that the debt should be paid, dollar for dollar, in coin instead of legal tender currency, which would mean partial repudiation. A few days after the adjournment of the convention General Grant accepted the nomination in a brief letter, which is chiefly memorable for the sentiment of the old soldier, "Let us have peace." It expressed the feeling of many good men in both parties, and it proved to be a popular cry. The Democratic national convention met in the city of New York on July 4. Great interest, not to say anxiety, was felt as to who would be the nominee and what attitude the convention would take on the question of reconstruction and the payment of the public debt. No one doubted what its position toward negro suffrage would be it could only be one of hostility. The two most conspicuous candidates were George H. Pendleton and Chief Justice Chase, both of Ohio. Pendleton was the leading advocate of the greenback policy and favored the payment of the national debt in 1" Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia," 1868, p. 744. 2 Dunning, "Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction,” p. 227. 1869 legal tender notes, though depreciated at the time far below the standard of coin. This meant outright repudiation, and the Eastern Democrats rejected Pendleton, although they were obliged to accept his platform. Chief Justice Chase, who, as has been stated, had resigned from the Cabinet in 1864 to seek the Republican nomination against Mr. Lincoln, was now an anxious aspirant for the Democratic nomination. Few men have had more ardent ambitions for the Presidency than had Chase. For a time he looked forward with hope to the Republican nomination in 1868, but when it became evident that General Grant undoubtedly would be the nominee, he turned to the Democratic party and eagerly sought its support. He had started upon his political career as a Free Soil Democrat; recently he had taken occasion to criticise the reconstruction policy; he had presided over Johnson's impeachment trial to the satisfaction of the Democrats, and had, as Chief Justice, concurred in several important opinions which upheld Democratic theories of government. "I do not believe," he wrote in September, 1868, "in military government for American States, nor in military commissions for the trial of American citizens; nor in the supervision of the executive and judicial departments of the general government by Congress, no matter how patriotic the motive may be." 6 These Democratic virtues were highly extolled, but unfortunately for the political ambition of the Chief Justice he was a believer in negro suffrage, his platform being "universal amnesty and universal suffrage." At this time the Democrats were ready to take a candidate with almost any views, provided he possessed availability; but a negro suffragist was too much for them, and so Mr. Chase was set aside. After taking twenty-one ballots, in the course of which various candidates were voted for, Horatio Seymour of New York was nominated for President by a unanimous vote. He was the presiding officer of the convention, and doubtless would have been nominated earlier had he not persistently refused to allow the use of his name. Even when he saw the drift toward himself he endeavored, as chairman, to prevent his own nomination, but without avail. Seymour was a man of large ability, a persuasive 4 Shuckers, "Life of Chase," ch. i. 5 Notably the cases of ex parte Garland and ex parte Cummings. "Life of Chase," pp. 362-368. • Hart, |