Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 24

One of the most alarming features connected with this series of outrages was the promptness with which Louisiana resorted to violence after her re-admission to the right of representation in Congress. Her senators and representatives had taken their seats in their respective Houses only the preceding summer, and her right to partic.i.p.ate in the Presidential election was established at the same time. Within less than five months after her formal reconstruction, outrages which would be exceptional in the governments of Algiers or Egypt were committed in utter defiance of law, and without any attempt at punishment by the authorities of the State. Not to punish was in effect to approve.

As a mere question of figures, it is impossible that Mr. Seymour could have received the 80,225 votes with which he was credited. Indeed, his alleged majority of 47,000 over General Grant was greater than the total vote which the Democratic party could honestly cast in Louisiana.

In the Presidential election of 1860, when circ.u.mstances tended to call every Democrat in the South to the polls, the united vote of Breckinridge and Douglas in Louisiana was but 30,306, while the total vote, including that given for John Bell, was but 50,510. In 1867 the entire registered white vote of Louisiana was but 45,199. The white voting population of the State, therefore, was certainly no larger in 1868 than in 1860--if as large. It was not denied that since the close of the war a considerable number of white men had joined the Republican party; white it was not even claimed that a single negro voted the Democratic ticket in 1868, except as he was led to the polls under the cover of Ku-Klux weapons, terrorized by the violence of that a.s.sociation of lawless men.

It amounts therefore to a mathematical demonstration, that nearly one-half of Mr. Seymour's vote was fraudulent; and of that fact concealment is no longer attempted from any respectable source. It has been matter of surprise to the cotemporaries of Mr. Seymour, that sensitive as he has shown himself on many occasions in regard to the record of his political life, he would consent, after investigation and exposure of the atrocities had been made, to remain in history without protest as the beneficiary of a vote that was demonstrably fraudulent in its character,--a vote that was tainted with crime and stained with the blood of innocent men. It is a.s.suredly not to be presumed that violent acts and murderous deeds are less repulsive to Mr. Seymour than to any other refined Christian gentleman. But his silence in respect to the wicked transactions of his supporters in Louisiana, when he was a candidate for the Presidency, has persuaded many honest-minded Democrats that the whole narrative of crime was a slander, concocted in the interest of the Republican party. It has served also a far more deplorable purpose, for it has in large measure aided in screening from public reprobation, and possibly from exemplary punishment, the guilty princ.i.p.als and the scarcely less guilty accomplices in the maiming and murder of American citizens, who were only seeking to exercise their Const.i.tutional right of suffrage.

The Republican victory of 1866 led to the incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Reconstruction laws. The Republican victory of 1868, it was now resolved in the councils of the party, should lead to the incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Const.i.tution of the United States. The evasive and discreditable position in regard to suffrage, taken by the National Republican Convention that nominated General Grant in 1868, was keenly felt and appreciated by the members of the party when subjected to popular discussion. There was something so obviously unfair and unmanly in the proposition to impose negro suffrage on the Southern States by National power, and at the same time to leave the Northern States free to decide the question for themselves, that the Republicans became heartily ashamed of it long before the political canva.s.s had closed. When Congress a.s.sembled, immediately after the election of General Grant, there was found to be a common desire and a common purpose among Republicans to correct the unfortunate position in which the party had been placed by the National Convention; and to that end it was resolved that suffrage, as between the races, should by organic law be made impartial in all the States of the Union--North as well as South.

Various propositions were at once offered, both in the Senate and House, to amend the Const.i.tution of the United States in order to attain impartial suffrage. It was both significant and appropriate that the draught proposed by Mr. Henderson of Missouri was taken as the basis of the Amendment first reported to the Senate. In the preceding Congress, when the Fourteenth Amendment was under consideration (in the spring of 1866), Mr. Henderson had proposed substantially the same provision, and had solemnly warned his Republican a.s.sociates that though they might reject it then, it would be demanded of them in less than five years. This declaration was all the more suggestive and creditable, coming from a senator who represented a former slave-holding State. And it was not forgotten that Mr. Henderson had with equal zeal and equal foresight been among the earliest to propose the Thirteenth Amendment. Mr. Henderson's proposition, now submitted and referred to the Judiciary Committee, was in these words: "No State shall deny or abridge the right of its citizens to vote or hold office, on account of race, color, or previous condition." It was reported from the Judiciary Committee by Mr.

Stewart of Nevada, with an amendment proposing another form of statement; namely, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

During the debate on the question Mr. Hendricks of Indiana reproached the Republican party for forcing this question now upon Congress, when in the platform of principles upon which they appealed for popular support they had distinctly waived it, and when the Legislatures to which it must go for ratification had been elected without the slightest reference to it in the popular mind. In order to prevent what might seem to be an unfair submission of the Amendment, Mr. Dixon of Connecticut proposed that it should be referred to conventions in the respective States instead of to the Legislatures, and thus give the people, in the election of members of the conventions, a full opportunity to pa.s.s upon the merits of the question. It was contended on the other hand by Republican senators, that no subject had been more fully matured in the popular mind than this had been by the discussion which had taken place since the beginning, and especially since the close, of the war. But this was not a candid or truthful statement of the case, as had been abundantly shown by the action of the National Republican Convention. Only a few of the leaders of the party had openly announced themselves in favor of negro suffrage in the Nation; a few were openly hostile, while the great majority of the prominent members feared it and refrained from open expression in regard to it. The ma.s.s of the party, as is usual on questions of this character, had made their own conclusions, and their earnestness of convictions finally forced, if it did not persuade, the reluctant chiefs to adopt it. When they at last came to it, there was a natural disposition to represent it as one of the cardinal principles of the party. The Democratic criticisms, as to the time and method of presenting the Amendment, were well aimed and practically remained unanswered for the simple reason that no adequate or logical response could be made to them.

Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky charged that the Republican party, in proposing this Amendment, was simply seeking to perpetuate its power in the country; but on this point he was effectively answered by Mr.

Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts. "The senator from Kentucky knows, and I know," said Mr. Wilson, "that this whole struggle to give equal rights and equal privileges to all citizens of the United States has been an unpopular one; that we have been forced to struggle against pa.s.sion and prejudice engendered by generations of wrong and oppression; that we have been compelled to struggle against great interests and powerful political organizations. I say to the senator from Kentucky that the struggle of the last eight years to give freedom to four and a half millions of men who were held in slavery, to make them citizens of the United States, to clothe them with the right of suffrage, to give them the privilege of being voted for, to make them in all respects equal to the white citizens of the United States, has cost the Republican party a quarter of a million votes."

The House of Representatives had been considering the question of the suffrage amendment at equal step with the Senate. On the 11th of January Mr. Boutwell of Ma.s.sachusetts, from the Committee on the Judiciary, proposed an Amendment to the Const.i.tution in these words: "The right of any citizen of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, by reason of the race, color, or previous condition of slavery of any citizen or cla.s.s of citizens of the United States.--The Congress shall have power to enforce by proper legislation the provisions of this Article."

Mr. Boutwell made one of the strongest and most pointed arguments delivered in Congress for the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment.

He showed that by the Fourteenth Amendment we had declared that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." "There are," said he, "citizens in Kentucky and Maryland eligible to-day to the office of President or Vice-President of the United States, yet who cannot vote for representatives in Congress, or even for a State, county or town officer. What is the qualification for the office of President? He must be a native-born citizen of the United States and thirty-five years of age. Nothing more! These are the only qualifications for the office of President. By the Fourteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, we have declared that all the black men in Maryland and other States shall be citizens of the United States. Certain State governments have for the present denied those people the right to vote, and yet one of them is eligible to the Presidency of the United States and another to the Vice-Presidency. Is there such an anomaly in our Government? Are we prepared to admit its existence unless the Const.i.tution imperatively requires it?"

The speech of Mr. Boutwell was answered by Mr. Beck of Kentucky and Mr.

Eldridge of Wisconsin, their respective arguments resting mainly upon the propriety of leaving the regulation of suffrage within the power of the States, where it was originally left by the Const.i.tution. After several ineffectual attempts to amend the Const.i.tutional Amendment as reported from the Judiciary Committee, the House, on the 30th of January (1869), pa.s.sed it by _ayes_ 150, _noes_ 42, not voting 31.

When the House Amendment reached the Senate it was at once taken up for consideration, and the Amendment which that body had been considering was laid aside. This was done for the purpose of expediting an agreement between the two branches. Numerous modifications and additions were then proposed, including the one originally reported by the Judiciary Committee. Every modification or subst.i.tute failed, until Senator Wilson offered the following: "No discrimination shall be made in any State among the citizens of the United States in the exercise of the elective franchise, or in the right to hold office in any State, on account of race, color, nativity, property, education, or religious creed." Mr. Trumbull declared that the adoption of this Amendment would abolish the const.i.tutions of perhaps all, certainly of half, the States of the Union. He then pointed out that the const.i.tution of almost every State prescribed a qualification of age for the governor of the State, and of a certain length of residence, many of them requiring a natural-born citizen; and that the effect of Mr. Wilson's Amendment would be to level all the const.i.tutions, and radically reverse the deliberate judgment of the people of the States who had ordained them. Serious objections were also made against prohibiting an educational test, as would be the effect of Mr.

Wilson's Amendment. Mr. Wilson frankly avowed his hostility to an educational test, and declared that the one existing in Ma.s.sachusetts had never proved valuable in any sense. Against all objections and arguments Mr. Wilson's Amendment was adopted by the Senate.

A proposition was now introduced and supported with equal zeal by Mr.

Morton of Indiana and Mr. Buckalew of Pennsylvania, proposing an amendment to the pending resolution, which should in effect be a sixteenth amendment to the Const.i.tution. Its aim was to take from the States the power now confided in them by the Const.i.tution, to direct the manner in which electors of President and Vice-President shall be chosen. The declared motive for the change was to prevent the possibility of the electors being chosen by the State Legislatures, as had been done in some cases, and to guarantee the certainty of a popular vote in their selection in every State of the Union. To insure this result it was proposed in the amendment that the entire power over the choice of electors should be transferred to Congress.

After a brief debate the amendment was agreed to,(1) and the two proposed articles, included under one resolution, were adopted by _ayes_ 39, _noes_ 16, and sent to the House for concurrence.

The House not being willing to accept the Senate's Amendments, refused by formal vote to concur, and asked for a conference. The Senate took the unusual step of declining a conference, promptly receded from its own Amendments, and sent to the House the original proposition of that body. The House, not to be outdone by the Senate in capricious change of opinion, now refused to agree to the form of amendment it had before adopted, and returned it to the Senate with the added requirement of nativity, property, and creed, which the Senate had originally proposed. The rule indeed seemed to be for each branch to desert its own proposition as soon as there was a prospect that the other branch would agree to it. The strange controversy was finally ended and the subject brought into intelligible shape by a conference committee, which reported the Fifteenth Amendment in the precise form in which it became incorporated in the Const.i.tution. It received the sanction of the house by a vote far beyond the two-thirds required to adopt it, the _ayes_ being 145, the _noes_ 44. In the Senate the _ayes_ were 39, the _noes_ were 13. The action of Congress on the Amendment was completed on the 26th of February, six days before General Grant was installed in the Presidency.

The gradual progress of public opinion in the United States on questions relating to slavery and to the personal and political rights of the negro race, may be clearly traced in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Const.i.tution.

--The Thirteenth Amendment, proposed by Congress while the war was yet flagrant, simply declared that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States or in any place subject to National jurisdiction.

--The Fourteenth Amendment advanced the negro to the status of a citizen, but did nothing affirmatively to confer the right of suffrage upon him. Negatively it aided him thereto, by laying the penalty of a decreased representation upon any State that should deny or in any way abridge his right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof.

--The Fifteenth Amendment, now proposed, did not attempt to declare affirmatively that the negro should be endowed with the elective franchise, but it did what was tantamount, in forbidding to the United States or to any State the power to deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. States that should adopt an educational test or a property qualification might still exclude a vast majority of negroes from the polls, but they would at the same time exclude all white men who could not comply with the tests that excluded the negro. In short, suffrage by the Fifteenth Amendment was made impartial, but not necessarily universal, to male citizens above the age of twenty-one years.

The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment seriously modified the effect and potency of the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment. Under that section a State could exclude the negro from the right of suffrage, if willing to accept the penalty of the proportional loss of representation in Congress, which the exclusion of the colored population from the basis of apportionment would entail. But the Fifteenth Amendment took away absolutely from the State the power to exclude the negro from suffrage, and therefore the second section to the Fourteenth Amendment can refer only to those other disqualifications never likely to be applied, by which a state might lessen her voting population by basing the right of suffrage on the owners.h.i.+p of real estate, or on the possession of a fixed income, or upon a certain degree of education, or upon nativity, or religious creed. It is still in the power of the States to apply any one of these tests or all of them, if willing to hazard the penalty prescribed in the Fourteenth Amendment. But it is not probably that any one of these tests will ever be applied. Nor were they seriously taken into consideration when the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress.

Its prime object was to correct the wrongs which might be enacted in the South, and the correction proposed was direct and unmistakable; viz., that the Nation would exclude the negro from the basis of apportionment wherever the State should exclude him from the right of suffrage.

When therefore the nation by subsequent change in its Const.i.tution declared that the State shall not exclude the negro from the right of suffrage, it neutralized and surrendered the contingent right before held, to exclude him from the basis of apportionment. Congress is thus plainly deprived by the Fifteenth Amendment of certain powers over the representation in the South, which it previously possessed under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, if a State should exclude the negro from suffrage, the next step would be for Congress to exclude the negro from the basis of apportionment. After the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, if a State should exclude the negro from suffrage, the next step would be for the Supreme Court to declare that the act was unconst.i.tutional, and therefore null and void. The essential and inestimable value of the Fourteenth Amendment still remains in the three other sections, and pre-eminently in the first section.

The contentions which have arisen between political parties as to the rights of negro suffrage in the Southern States, would scarcely be cognizable judicially under either the Fourteenth or the Fifteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution. Both of those Amendments operate as inhibitions upon the power of the State, and do not have reference to those irregular acts of the people which find no authorization in the public statutes. The defect in both Amendments, in so far as their main object of securing rights to the colored race is involved, lies in the fact that they do not operate directly upon the people, and therefore Congress is not endowed with the pertinent and applicable power to give redress. By decisions of the Supreme Court, the Fourteenth Amendment has been deprived in part of the power which Congress no doubt intended to impart to it. Under its provisions, as construed by the Court, little, if any thing, can be done by Congress to correct the evils or avert the injurious consequences arising from such abuses of the suffrage as distinguished the vote of Louisiana in the Presidential election of 1868, and in the numerous and flagrant cases which followed that baleful precedent of unrestrained violence and unlimited wrong. Those outrages are the deeds of individual citizens or of a.s.sociated ma.s.ses, acting without authority of law and in defiance of law. Yet when a vitiated public opinion justifies their course, and when indictment and conviction are impossible, the injured citizen loses his rights as conclusively as if the law had denied them, and indeed far more cruelly.

Undoubtedly a large proportion of the members of Congress, while following the lead of those who constructed the Fourteenth Amendment, sincerely believed that it possessed a far greater scope than judicial inquiry and decision have left it. It is hazarding little to say that if the same political bodies which submitted the Amendment to the people could have measured both the need of its application and the insufficiency of its power, it would have been seriously changed, and would have conferred upon the National Government the unquestioned authority to protect individual citizens in the right of suffrage, so far as that suffrage is used in the choice of officers of the United States. The opportunity was neglected and may never return. It is not at all probable that any political party will succeed in time of peace, upon financial and industrial issues, in electing two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House of Representatives. No further change in the Const.i.tution of the Republic is probable therefore, within any period whose line of thought or action may now be antic.i.p.ated with reasonable certainty; and if a sudden political convulsion should possibly give two-thirds of each branch of Congress to one political party, it would be found impracticable to propose any change in the Const.i.tution, in the direction of enlarging the scope of liberty, that would be likely to secure the support of three-fourths of the States of the Union.

The Const.i.tutional Amendments were proposed and adopted under the belief that they would be honorably observed and enforced in all the States alike. The presumption was certainly in favor of that loyal obedience to the organic law of the Republic without which Anarchy has already begun its evil work. If however, by reason of infidelity to the Const.i.tutional provisions in some sections, if by violence in resisting them in others, it be suggested that they should have been drawn with greater circ.u.mspection, with a broader comprehension of all the contingencies of the future, the fact yet remains that they are of priceless value to the Government and the people. They have added largely to the muniments of personal liberty; they have immeasurably increased the just power of the National Government; they have exerted a constantly growing force against the spirit that organized the Rebellion; they have strengthened the bonds of the Union against every form of danger which it has. .h.i.therto encountered.

Without the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments the Thirteenth would have proved of little value to the oppressed race which it declared to be free. In every step taken after the simple article of emanc.i.p.ation was decreed, the Republicans who controlled the Government met with obstacles from without and from within. There were thousands in their own ranks who did not wish the negro advanced to citizens.h.i.+p; there were tens of thousands who were unwilling to see him advanced to the elective franchise. But happily there were hundreds of thousands who plainly saw that without the rights of citizens.h.i.+p his freedom could be maintained only in name, and that without the elective franchise his citizens.h.i.+p would have no legitimate and (if the phrase be allowed) no automatic protection.

To the brave men who led the Republican party to its duty and its mission, who overcame the numbers of the opposition, who lifted their a.s.sociates from the slough of prejudice and led them out of the darkness of tradition, let there be all honor and praise. They gave hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless, liberty to the downtrodden.

They did more: they elevated the character and enlightened the conscience of the oppressing race. The struggle is not yet ended, the final battle is not yet fought; but complete victory sooner or later is a.s.sured. The three great Amendments to the Const.i.tution were bought with a great price--even the blood of the slain--and they will a.s.suredly, in their letter and in their spirit, be vindicated and enforced. Mr. Lincoln taught his countrymen the lesson that he who would be no slave must be content to have no slave. It is yet to be learned with equal emphasis that he who would preserve his own right to suffrage must never aid in depriving another citizen of the same great boon. In moral as in physical conflicts it may be easy to determine who strikes the first blow, but it is difficult to foresee who may strike the last.

[(1) The proposition of Messrs. Morton and Buckalew for a Sixteenth Article of Amendment was as follows:--

"The second clause, first section, second article of the Const.i.tution of the United States shall be amended to read as follows: 'Each State shall appoint by vote of the people thereof qualified to vote for representatives in Congress, a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be ent.i.tled in the Congress; but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector; and the Congress shall have power to prescribe the manner in which such electors shall be chosen by the people.'"]

CHAPTER XVII.

General Grant was inaugurated on Thursday, the 4th of March, 1869, amid a great display of popular enthusiasm. All parties joined in it. The Republicans, who had been embarra.s.sed by President Johnson's conduct for the preceding four years, felt that they had overcome a political enemy rather than a man whom they had themselves placed in power; and the Democrats, who had supported Johnson so far as was necessary to embarra.s.s and distract the Republicans, were glad to be released from an entangling alliance which had brought them neither profit or honor.

Contrary to the etiquette of the occasion, the incoming President was not escorted to the Capitol by his predecessor. The exceptions to this usage have been few. John Adams was so chagrined by the circ.u.mstances attending his defeat that he would not remain in Was.h.i.+ngton to see Mr.

Jefferson installed in power; and the long-established hatred which General Jackson and John Quincy Adams so heartily sustained for each other forbade any personal intercourse between them. General Grant had conceived so intense a dislike of Johnson, by reason of the effort to place him in a false position in connection with the removal of Stanton, that he would not officially recognize his predecessor, even so far as to drive from the White House to the Capitol in the same carriage.

The Inaugural Address of the President was brief and characteristic.

"I have," said he, "taken the oath of office without mental reservation, and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that it requires of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought. I commence its duties untrammeled. I bring to it a conscientious desire and determination to fill it to the best of my ability, and to the satisfaction of the people." He declared that on all subjects he should have "a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people. Laws are to govern all alike, --those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." He was very emphatic upon the duty and necessity of upholding the public credit and paying the public debt. "Let it be understood," said he, "that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place, and it will go far to strengthen our public credit, which ought to be the best in the world." "The question of suffrage," he said, "is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the Nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now; and I entertain the hope and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution."

General Grant had never been in any way connected with the civil administration of Nation or State. The charge of being a mere military chieftain had been in vain preferred against some of his most ill.u.s.trious predecessors; but with the possible exception of General Taylor, no President ever came to the office with so little previous experience in civil affairs. Was.h.i.+ngton's fame, prior to his accession to the Presidency, rested mainly on his victorious leaders.h.i.+p of the Revolutionary army; but he had, as a young man, served in the Provincial a.s.sembly of Virginia, had been a member of the Continental Congress, and had, after the close of his miliary career, presided over the convention that framed the Const.i.tution. Jackson was chosen President on account of his campaign in the South-West, ending in his brilliant triumph at New Orleans; but his experience in civil life had already been long and varied. He entered Congress as a representative from Tennessee when Was.h.i.+ngton was President, took his seat in the Senate of the United States the day John Adams was inaugurated, and afterwards served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee. All these civil duties had been performed before he received a military commission. After his stormy career in the army had ended, he was again sent to the Senate during the second term of President Monroe.

President Taylor, like General Grant, had been simply a soldier; but the people remembered that his service in the Executive Chair was faithful, resolute, and intelligent; and they remembered also that some of the greatest military heroes of the world had been equally distinguished as civil rulers. Cromwell, William III., Frederick the Great, the First Napoleon, left behind them records of civil administration which for executive force and personal energy established a fame as great as they had acquired on the field of battle. The inexperience of General Grant had not therefore hindered his election, and left no ground for apprehension as to the successful conduct of his administration.

The President had so well kept his own counsels in regard to the members of his Cabinet that not a single name was antic.i.p.ated with certainty. Five of the appointments were genuine surprises.

--Elihu B. Washburne, long the faithful friend of General Grant, was nominated for Secretary of State. He had just entered upon his ninth term as representative in Congress from Illinois, and resigned immediately after swearing in Mr. Blaine as Speaker,--a duty a.s.signed to him as the oldest member of the House in consecutive service. He was elected to Congress in 1852, from the Galena district, and his first term began on the day Franklin Pierce was inaugurated President.

His period of service was crowded with events of great magnitude, commencing with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and ending with the elevation to the Presidency of the chief hero in the great civil war, to which that repeal proximately led. During all these years Mr.

Washburne was an aggressive, courageous, faithful representative, intelligent in all his actions, loyal to the Nation, devoted to the interests of his State.

--Jacob D. c.o.x, of Ohio, who had acquired credit in the war, and added to it by his service as Governor of his State, was nominated for Secretary of the Interior, and was universally considered to be an admirable selection. His thorough training and his intellectual strength fitted him for any station.

--E. Rockwood h.o.a.r of Ma.s.sachusetts was named for Attorney-General.

His learning as a lawyer had been previously recognized by his appointment to the Supreme Bench of his State,--a bench always eminent for the legal ability and personal character of its members, and for the value of its decisions. Outside of his mere professional sphere, Judge h.o.a.r was known as a man of generous culture, varied knowledge, and the keenest wit. In party relations he had originally been an anti-slavery Whig, and was prominent and influential in organizing the Republican party.

--John A. J. Creswell of Maryland was nominated for Postmaster-General.

He was the best living representative of those loyal men of the Border States who had proved a tower of strength to the Union cause. He was the confidential friend, the eloquent eulogist, of Henry Winter Davis, and had by service in both House and Senate won general recognition as a man of ability and great moral courage.

These four appointments met with general approbation. If their names had not all been antic.i.p.ated, they were nevertheless welcome to the great ma.s.s of the Republican party. Two other nominations created general astonishment. Alexander T. Stewart, the well-known merchant of New York, was named for Secretary of the Treasury; and Adolph E.

Borie of Philadelphia, long known in that city as a man of probity and wealth, was named for Secretary of the Navy. No new nomination was made for Secretary of War, and the hope with many was that General Schofield might be continued in a place whose duties he had so faithfully and so successfully discharged.

The President was very anxious to have Mr. Stewart in his Cabinet, and was therefore surprised and chagrined to find, after he had been nominated, that under the law he was not eligible to the office of Secretary of the Treasury. In the Act establis.h.i.+ng the Treasury department, pa.s.sed at the first session of the First Congress under the Federal Government, it was provided that no person could be appointed secretary, a.s.sistant secretary, comptroller, auditor, treasurer, or registrar, who was "directly or indirectly concerned or interested in carrying on the business of trade or commerce." It was further provided that any person violating this Act should be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and upon conviction, fined three thousand dollars, removed from office, and forever thereafter rendered incapable of holding any position under the Government of the United States.

General Grant frankly informed the Senate that he had ascertained Mr.

Stewart's disability after the nomination, and suggested that "in view of these provisions of law and the fact that Mr. Stewart has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate, he be exempted, by joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress, from the operation of this law."

As soon as the President's message was read, Mr. Sherman of Ohio asked "unanimous consent to introduce a bill repealing as much of the Act of September 2, 1789, as prohibits the Secretary of the Treasury from being concerned in carrying on the business of trade or commerce; and providing instead that in no case shall he act on any matter, claim, or account in which he is personally interested." Mr. Sumner objected to the introduction of the bill, suggesting that it ought to be "most profoundly considered before it is acted upon by the Senate." These proceedings were on Sat.u.r.day, March 6th. On Monday Mr. Sherman did not call up the bill, it having been ascertained in private conferences that the Senate was unwilling to pa.s.s it. On Tuesday General Grant withdrew the request, Mr. Stewart resigned, and Hon. George S. Boutwell was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. Boutwell was at that time fifty-one years of age. He had enjoyed a large experience in public affairs. He had served seven years in the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, had been Bank Commissioner, Secretary of the Board of Education, a member of the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1853, and Governor of the Commonwealth. Under the National Government he had been Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and six years a representative in Congress. He was an industrious student, a strong debater, possessed of great capacity for work, and had always maintained a spotless reputation.