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. . The presence of troops . . . while it encouraged the negroes, served greatly to intensify the zeal of Democrats. Thousands of whites. were inspired during that campaign with the feeling that their future homes depended upon the result of the election. The aliens among the Republican leaders also felt that their future habitations depended on the election, for they had no business in Alabama, except office-holding.

The Democrats were successful. They carried by over ten thousand majority all the state offices and they elected large majorities in both branches of the Legislature.

The clutch of the carpet-bagger was broken; most of them left the State; and there was at once peace between whites and blacks. A new Constitution was adopted. Superfluous offices were abolished. Salaries were cut down and fixed by the Constitution, some of them, perhaps, at too low a figure; and it is believed that, in many respects, the limitations upon the power of the Legislature were made too stringent. It was the necessary reaction, the swing of the pendulum from corruption and extravagance to the severest simplicity and economy in government. The consequences have been most happy. . . .

The facts of history are that the people of Alabama, prostrated by an unsuccessful war, and divided by the bitter memories of the past, were very loth to oppose what seemed to be the behests of the strongest government man had ever seen. They were utterly unable to unite and agree on any policy whatever. For six long years they suffered degradation, poverty and detraction, before they made up their minds to come together to assert, as they finally did, their supremacy in numbers, wealth, education and moral power. They have now in successful operation a government that, for the protection it affords to the lives, liberties and property of all its people, white and black, may safely challenge comparison with that of any state in the Union. Education and the liberalizing influences of the age . . . will gradually . . . solve every problem that can arise within her borders if she herself is left to deal with them. . . . Hilary A. Herbert and others, Why the Solid South? or Reconstruction and its Results (Baltimore, R. H. Woodward Co., 1890), 61–69 passim.

159. Electoral Crisis of 1877

BY MAJOR-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK

Hancock was the most prominent of the Federal officers during the Civil War who exercised no independent command. He was a Democrat by birth and breeding, and

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was opposed to the congressional policy of reconstruction. His name was before the Democratic national convention in 1868, and in 1880 he was the candidate of that party for president. During the excitement over the contested election of 1876-77, when he was in command of the Division of the Atlantic, the false report was circulated that he had been selected to lead an armed force to Washington to compel the inauguration of Tilden, and that to prevent this the government had ordered him to the Pacific coast, but that he had refused to go. During the prevalence of that rumor the letter from which this extract is taken was written to General Sherman, then commanding the army; it shows the perplexities of the situation and the attitude of a prominent Union general. For Hancock, see [Almira R. Hancock], Reminiscences of Winfield Scott Hancock. Bibliography: W. E. Foster, Presidential Administra

tions, 51.

7HEN I heard the rumor that I was ordered to the Pacific coast,

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I thought it probably true, considering the past discussion on the subject. . . . I was not exactly prepared to go to the Pacific, however, and I therefore felt relieved when I received your note informing me that there was no truth in the rumors. Then I did not wish to appear to be escaping from responsibilities and possible danger which may cluster around military commanders in the East, especially in the critical period fast approaching.

"All's well that ends well." The whole matter of the Presidency seems to me to be simple and to admit of a peaceful solution. The machinery for such a contingency as threatens to present itself has been all carefully prepared. It only requires lubricating, owing to disuse. The army should have nothing to do with the selection or inauguration of Presidents. The people elect the Presidents. Congress declares, in a joint session, who he is. We of the Army have only to obey his mandates, and are protected in so doing only so far as they may be lawful. Our commissions express that.

I like Jefferson's way of inauguration; it suits our system. He inaugurated himself simply by taking the oath of office. There is no other legal inauguration in our system. . . . Our system does not provide that one President should inaugurate another. There might be danger in that, and it was studiously left out of the Charter. But you are placed in an exceptionally important position in connection with coming events. The Capitol is in my jurisdiction, also, but I am a subordinate, and not on the spot, and if I were, so also would my superior in authority, for there is the station of the General-in-Chief. On the principle that a regularly elected President's term of office expires with the 3d of March (of which I have not the slightest doubt, and which the laws bearing on the subject uniformly recognize), and in consideration of the possibility that the lawfully elected President may not appear until

the 5th of March, a great deal of responsibility may necessarily fall upon you. You hold over. You will have power and prestige to support you. The Secretary of War, too, probably holds over; but, if no President appears, he may not be able to exercise functions in the name of a President, for his proper acts are of a known superior, a lawful Presi dent. You act on your own responsibility, and by virtue of a Commission only restricted by the law. The Secretary of War is only the mouth-piece of a President. You are not. If neither candidate has a Constitutional majority of the Electoral College, or the Senate and House on the occasion of the count do not unite in declaring some person legally elected by the people, there is a lawful machinery already provided to meet that contingency, and to decide the question peacefully. It has not been recently used, no occasion presenting itself; but our forefathers provided it. It has been exercised, and has been recognized and submitted to as lawful on every hand. That machinery would probably elect Mr. Tilden President and Mr. Wheeler Vice-President. That would be right enough, for the law provides that in failure to elect duly by the people, the House shall immediately elect the President, and the Senate the Vice-President. Some tribunal must decide whether the people have duly elected a President.

I presume, of course, that it is in the joint affirmative action of the Senate and House; why are they present to witness the count, if not to see that it is fair and just? If a failure to agree arises between the two bodies, there can be no lawful affirmative decision that the people have elected a President, and the House must then proceed to act, not the Senate. The Senate elects Vice-Presidents, not Presidents. Doubtless, in case of a failure by the House to elect a President by the 4th of March, the President of the Senate (if there be one) would be the legitimate person to exercise Presidential authority for the time being, or until the appearance of a lawful President, or for the time laid down in the Constitution. Such a course would be a peaceful and, I have a firm belief, a lawful one.

I have no doubt Governor Hayes would make an excellent President. I have met him, and know of him. For a brief period he served under my command; but as the matter stands I can't see any likelihood of his being duly declared elected by the people, unless the Senate and House come to be in accord as to that fact, and the House would of course, not otherwise elect him.

What the people want is a peaceful determination of this matter, as

fair a determination as possible, and a lawful one. No other determination could stand the test.

The country, if not plunged into revolution, would become poorer day by day, business would languish, and our bonds would come home to find a depreciated market. . . .

As I have been writing thus freely to you, I may still further unbosom myself by stating that I have not thought it lawful or wise to use Federal troops in such matters as have transpired east of the Mississippi, within the last few months, save as far as they may be brought into action under the Constitution, which contemplates meeting armed resistance and invasion of a State, more powerful than the State authorities can subdue by the ordinary processes, and then only when requested by the Legislature, or, if that body could not be convened in season, by the Governor; and if the President of the United States intervenes in the matter it is a state of war, not peace. The Army is laboring under disadvantages, and has been used unlawfully at times, in the judgment of the people (in mine certainly), and we have lost a great deal of the kindly feeling which the community at large once felt for us. It is time to stop and unload. Officers in command of troops often find it difficult to act wisely and safely, when superiors in authority have different views of the laws from them, and when legislation has sanctioned action seemingly in conflict with the fundamental law, and they generally defer to the known judgment of their superiors. Yet the superior officers of the Army are so regarded in such great crises, and are held to such responsibility, especially those at or near the head of it, that it is necessary on such momentous occasions to determine for themselves what is lawful and what is not lawful under our system, if the military authorities should be invoked, as might possibly be the case in such exceptional times when there existed such divergent views as to the correct result. The Army will suffer from its past action if it has acted wrongfully. Our regular Army has little hold upon the affections of the people of to-day, and its superior officers should certainly, as far as lies in their power, legally, and with righteous intent, aim to defend the right, which to us is the law, and the institution which they represent. It is a well-meaning institution, and it would be well if it should have an opportunity to be recognized as a bulwark in support of the right of the people and of the law.

[Mrs. Almira Russell Hancock], Reminiscences of Winfield Scott Hancock (New York, 1887), 152-157 passim.

160. Appeal to the Voters (1880)

BY SENATOR JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE

Blaine was a prominent figure in national politics from 1861 to 1892: his name was before the Republican national convention five times as a candidate for the presidential nomination, and in 1884 he was the nominee, but was defeated at the election. He was noted as a parliamentarian and as a political orator of great power. He possessed a personal magnetism that won for him an enthusiastic following, while at the same time he incurred an enmity such as has developed against few public characters of such prominence. In 1880 he was deprived of the nomination for president by the attempt to nominate Grant. The campaign that followed, during which this speech was delivered, was a bitter one, and on the Republican side there were many invocations to the spirit that had prevailed during the Civil War.For Blaine, see Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge), Biography of James G. - Bibliography: Brookings and Ringwalt, Briefs for Debate, No. vi; Edward Stanwood, History of the Presidency, ch. xxvi.

Blaine.

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BELIEVE... that the Republican party in 1876 presented the solitary exception of a political organization strong enough and deeply-grounded enough in the affections and confidence of the people to survive the financial disaster and win a signal victory in the face of the business depression then existing. . . . And when the trust reposed in the Republican party has been so amply justified; when everything they predicted and promised in regard to the finances of the country has been more than justified; when prosperity is general, industry revived, and every man willing to work is able to get work at good wages, and when capital has found remunerative employment in conjunction with labor, it seems to me what the boys would call the height of impudence for the Democratic party to ask to be allowed to take control at such a time.

Well, says some very sensible man, pray tell me why this prosperity may not continue, and what check can possibly come of it if Hancock be chosen President rather than Garfield? . . .

. . . If you elect General Hancock you inevitably, within the space of a twelvemonth - I am not sure that it would not be within the space of ninety days-hand over to the Democratic party, led by Southern men, the control of the Supreme Court of the United States absolutely. Five of those Judges are to-day beyond seventy, or in that neighborhood. They may accept retirement at full pay. If they are reluctant to do so, a Democratic President backed by a Democratic Senate and House would swamp that Court by superior numbers; and by way of advice to the North let me say that a bill is pending on the calendar of the Senate to make that Court consist of twenty members.

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