Since the Civil War

Preface

To write an account of the history of the United States since the Civil War without bias, without misstatements of fact and without the omission of matters that ought to be included, would be to perform a miracle. I have felt no wonder-working near me. I can claim only to have attempted to overcome the natural limitations of having been brought up in a particular region and with a traditional political, economic and social philosophy. I have tried to present as many sides of every question as the limitations of space permitted and to look sympathetically upon every section, every party and every individual, because the sympathetic critic seems to me most likely to discover the truth.

It used to be believed that history could not be written until at least half a century had elapsed ^fter the events which were to be chronicled. It is of course true that only after the lapse of time can students gain access to ample documentary material, rid themselves of partisan prejudice and attain the necessary perspective. Unhappily, however, the citizen who takes part in public affairs or who votes in a political campaign cannot wait for the labors of half a century. lie must judge on the basis of whatever facts he can find near at hand. Next to a balanced intelligence, the greatest need of the citizen in the performance of his political duties is a substantial knowledge of the recent past of public problems. It is impossible to give a sensible

vii viii

PREFACE opinion upon the transportation problem, the relation between government and industry, international relations, current politics, the leaders in public affairs, and other peculiarly American interests without some understanding of the United States since the Civil War. I have tried in a small way to make some of this information conveniently available without attempting to beguile myself or others into the belief that I have written with the accuracy that will characterize later work.

Some day somebody will delineate the spiritual history of America since the Civil War— the compound of tradition, discontent, aspiration^ idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the floundering progress of these United States through the last half century. He will read widely, ponder deeply, and tune his spirit with care to the task which he undertakes. I have not attempted this phase of our history, yet I believe that no account is complete without it.

I have drawn heavily on others who have written in this field — Andrews, Beard, Baxson and Peck, and especially on the volumes written for the Am.erican Nation series by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, Latane and Ogg. Haworth's United States in Our Own Time, 1865-1920, was unfortunately printed too late to give me the benefit of the author's well-known scholarship. Many friends have generously assisted me. My colleagues. Professors F. A. Updyke, C. A. Phillips, G. R. Wicker, H. D. Dozier, and Malcolm Keir have read the manuscript of individual chapters. Professor E. E. Day of Harvard University gave me his counsel on several.economic topics. Professor George H. Haynes of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Professor B. B. Kendrick of Columbia University, Professor W. T. Root of the University of Wisconsin, and Professors

PREFACE ix

L. B. Richardson and F. M. Anderson of Dartmouth College have read the entire manuscript. Officials at the Dartmouth College Library, the Columbia University Library, and the Library of Congress gave me especial f acihties for work. Two college generations of students at Dartmouth have suffered me to try out on them the arrangement of the chapters as well as the contents of the text. Harper and Bros, allowed me to use a map appearing in Ogg, National Progress ^ and D. Appleton and Co. have permitted the use of maps appearing in Johnson and Van Metre, Principles of Railroad Transportation; A. J. Nystrom and Co. and the McKinley Publishing Co. have allowed me to draw new maps on outlines copyrighted by them. At all points I have had the counsel of my wife and of Professor Max Farrand of Yale University.

Charles R. LmoLEY.

Dartmouth College, June 14, 1920.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Reconstruction and Its Aftermath ... 3

II In President Grant's Time 3i

Chapter II

ASIDE from President Lincoln, the most prominent personality on the northern side during the latter part of the Civil War was General Ulysses Sj Grant. His successes in the Mississippi Valley in the early days of the war, when success was none too common, his capture of Vicksburg at the turning point of the conflict, and his dogged drive toward Richmond had established his military reputation. When the drive toward Richmond resulted at last in the capture of Lee's army and its surrender at Appomattox, the victorious North turned with gratitude to Grant and made him a popular idol, while the politicians began to question whether his popularity might not be put to account in the field of politics.

Grant himself had never paid any attention to matters of government. In only one presidential election had he so much as voted for a candidate, and then it was for a Democrat, James Buchanan. In 1860 he was prevented from voting for Senator Stephen A. Douglas and against Abraham Lincoln only by the fact that he had not fulfilled the residence requirement for sutfrage in the town where he was living. Nevertheless in his capacity as general of the army his headquarters after the war were in Washington and his duties brought him into contact with the politicians and eventually entangled him in the controversy between the President and Congress. Circumstances at i' first threw him into close association with Johnson, but at the time of the Stanton episode late in 1867 a misunderstanding arose between them which developed into a question of veracity, and then into open hostility. The opponents of the President took up the General's case with alacrity and from then on the popular hero was looked upon as the inevitable choice for the next Republican nomination.

Ii. The convention of the National Union Republican ^ Party, as it was called at that time, w^as held in Chili cago. May 20, 1868, during the interval between the ' votes on the eleventh and second charges of the imi peachment of President Johnson. General Grant was I unanimously nominated for the presidency and Schuyjler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, ifor the second place on the ticket. The platform porj trayed the benefits of radical reconstruction and defended negro suffrage in the South. In the North at !^ that time the black was commonly denied the vote — the }l Fifteenth Amendment having not yet been ratified — and the convention accordingly declared that the question of suffrage in all the ^4oyal" states properly belonged in the states themselves. Other planks asserted that the public debt ought to be paid in full, that ' pensions for the veterans w^ere an obligation and that I immigration ought to be encouraged. The adminis- ; tration of President Johnson was denounced and the thirty-five senators who voted for his conviction in the impeachment trial were commended. • The Democrats met at Tammany Hall in New York on July 4. Their platform approved the pension laws, advocated the sale of public land to actual occupants, I praised the administration of President Johnson, arraigned the radicals and declared the reconstruction 'acts ^^unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void." If i the radical party should win in the election, the Democrats asserted, the result would be ^^a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution.'' The regulation of the suffrage, one plank declared, had always been in the hands of the individual states. The most prominent place in the platform, however, was given to the question of the public debt. Part of the bonds issued during the war had, by acts of Congress, been made payable in dollars," a word which might mean either paper dollars or gold dollars. Paper, however, was much less valuable than gold, times were hard, and many people held the opinion that the debt could properly be paid in paper. Such was the ^^Ohio idea," which was made part of the Democratic platform.

The choice of a candidate required twenty-two ballots. Early trials indicated the strength of George H. Pendleton, popularly known as Gentleman George" and the chief exponent of the ^^Ohio idea." Johnson also had support. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, having failed to obtain the Republican nomination, allowed it to be known that he was willing to become the Democratic candidate. At length, on the twenty-second ballot, a few votes were cast for Governor Horatio Seymour of New York, the chairman of the convention. The move met with enthusiastic approval, despite Seymour's insistence that he would not be a candidate, and he was unanimously chosen.

The developments of the campaign depended largely upon occurrences in the South. Military reconstruction had not been wholly completed in Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia. The last of these states had once been readmitted to the Union, but had immediately expelled the negro members of its legislature, and was thereupon placed again under military rule. The Ku Klux Klan was meanwhile in general op- ^eration throughout the South and its activities, both

real and imaginary, received wide advertisement in .;the North. Public interest, therefore, in the underlyi ing issues of the campaign centered upon the attitude

* of the candidates toward the southern question. General Grant was understood to be with the radicals and Seymour with the conservatives. The result of the election was the choice of the Republican leader by an apparently large majority. He carried tw^enty-six out of thirty-four states, with 214 out of 294 electoral votes, i but he received a popular majority of only 300,000. Examination of the returns indicated a strong conservative minority in many of the solid Republican states. The strength of the radicals in the South, moreover, was due, in the main, to negro-carpetbag domination, and when these states should become conservative, as they w^ere sure to do, the political parties would be almost evenly divided.^

The man who was now entering upon his first experience as the holder of an elective office had risen from obscurity to public favor in the space of a few years. Although a graduate of West Point, with eleven years of military experience afterward, his career before 1861 had been hardly more than a failure. He had left the army in 1854 rather than stand trial on a charge of drunkenness ; had grubbed a scanty living out of ^^Hard Scrabble,'^ a farm in Missouri; had tried his hand at real estate, acted as clerk in a custom-house and worked in a leather store at $800 a year. Then came the war, and in less than three years Grant had received the title of Lieutenant-General, which only Washington had borne before him, and had become General-in-Chief of all the armies of the United States. Always an uncommunicative man, he kept his own counsel during the interval between his election and his inauguration. He saw few politicians, asked no advice about his cabinet, sought no assistance in preparing his inaugural address and made no suggestions to the leaders of his party concerning legislation that he would like to see passed. His first act, the appoint-

1 The closing months of Johnson's administration found him almost in a state of isolation. The incoming President refused to have any social relations with him, or even to ride with him from the White House to the Capitol on inauguration day. After the installation of his successor, Johnson returned to Tennessee but was later chosen to the Senate, where he served but a short time before his death.

- ment of his cabinet, caused a gasp of surprise and dis-

I may. Most of the men named were but little known

I and some of them were not aware that they were being

I chosen until the list was made public. The Secretary

I of State, Elihu Wasliburne, was a close personal friend,

i and was appointed merely that he might hold the posi-

l tion long enough to enjoy the title and then retire. He

I was succeeded by Hamilton Fish, of New York, who

I proved to be a wise choice. The Secretary of the

] Treasury Avas A. T. Stewart, a rich merchant of New

I York, but he had to withdraw on account of a law for-

^ bidding any person ^ interested in carrying on the

J business of trade or commerce" to hold the office. The

I Secretary of the Navy, A. E. Borie, was a rich invalid

rj of Philadelphia, who had almost no qualifications for his office and resigned at once. Better appointments were former Governor J. D. Cox, of Ohio, as Secretary

i of the Interior, and Judge E. R. Hoar, of Massachusetts, as Attorney-General,

j When the Congress elected with Grant assembled in

r 1869 its first act was a measure providing for the pay-

) ment of the public debt in coin. Part of the Tenure of

? Office Act was repealed, the President having indicated

I his opposition to it. On the southern question General

i Grant had earlier inclined toward moderation, but radi-

)! cal counsels and the logic of events led him to join

e Congress in the passage of the enforcement act and the Ku Klux Act, both of which have already been

^ mentioned.

: It was during this, the first year of Grant's admin-

. istration, that there occurred the famous gold con-

f spiracy of 1869. Jay Gould and James Pisk, Jr., two

I of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers of the time,

. determined to corner the supply of gold and then run its market price up to a high level, in order to further certain interests which they had recently purchased. The likehhood that the conspirators could carry out the plan depended largely on the Secretary of the Treasury, George S. Boutwell, who was accustomed to sell several millions of dollars' worth of gold each month. If the sales could be stopped Gould and Fisk might be successful. Accordingly, they got on friendly terms with the President through cultivating the acquaintance of his brother-in-law, were seen publicly with him at the theatre and other places, and subsequently he wrote to the Secretary expressing his opinion that the sales had better stop. Gould apparently was informed of this decision by the brother-in-law, even before the message reached the Secretary, and immediately bought up so much gold as to run the price to an unparalleled figure. This was on Black Friday," September 24. The Secretary became alarmed, rumors were abroad that the administration was implicated in the conspiracy, and at noon, after consultation with the President, he decided to place four millions in gold on the market. At once the price dropped, brokers went bankrupt, and Gould and Fisk had to take refuge behind armed guards to save their lives. The President had not been a party to the plans of the speculators, but his blindness to their real purposes and his association with them during the period when their scheme was being perfected made him a target for ^11 manner of accusations.

Further astonishment was caused by the attitude of the President toward two of the three really able men in his cabinet. In June, 1870, he suddenly called for the resignation of Judge Hoar. It appeared that he was seeking votes in the Senate for a treaty in which he was interested and that certain southern members demanded Mie post of attorney-general for a southern man in return for their support. Secretary Cox's resignation came soon afterward. He had taken his department out of politics, had furthered the cause of civil service reform and had protected his employees from political party assessments. These acts brought him into collision with the politicians, who had the ear of the President, and Cox had to retire. Both Hoar and Cox w^ere succeeded by mediocre men.

The treaty Avhich caused the removal of Secretary Hoar was one that the President had arranged providing for the annexation of San Domingo. The Senate was opposed to ratification, but General Grant w^as accustomed to overcoming difficulties and he urged his case with all the power at his command. One result was an unseemly wrangle between the President and Senator Charles Sumner over the latter 's refusal to support ratification. General Grant, in resentment, procured the withdrawal of the Senator's friend, John Lothrop Motley from England, whither he had been sent as minister, and later the exclusion of Sumner from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a post in which he had displayed great ability for ten years. Eventually the President had to give way on San Domingo, as the Senate did not agree with him in his estimate of its probable value.

In its conduct of our relations with England, on the other hand, the administration met with success and received popular approval. Ever since the war the people of the North had desired an opportunity to make Great Britain suffer for her attitude during that struggle. Senator Sumner struck a popular chord when he suggested that England should pay heavy damages on the ground that her encouragement of the South had prolonged the war. Specifically, however, the United States demanded reparation for destruction committed by the Alabama and other vessels that had been built in English ports. In 1870 Europe was in a state of apprehension on account of the Franco-Prussian War, and Secretary Fish seized the opportunity to press our claims upon England. The latter, meanwhile, had abated somewhat her earlier attitude of unwillingness to arbitrate, and Fish placed little emphasis on Senator Sumner's suggestions of a claim for indirect damages. The Treaty of Washington, signed and ratified in May, 1871, provided for the arbitration of the Alabama claims under such rules that a decision favorable to the American side of the case was made exceedingly probable. Each of five governments appointed a representative — the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Brazil. The meeting took place in Geneva and resulted favorably to the American demands. England was declared to have failed to preserve the proper attitude for a neutral during the war and was ordered in 1872 to make compensation in the amount of $15,500,000.

The United States had need of any feeling of national pride that might come as the result of the Geneva award, to offset the shame of domestic revelations, for one of the characteristics of the decade after the war was the w^ide-spread corruption in political and commercial life. One of the most flagrant examples was the Tweed Ring in New York. The government of that citjT- w^as in the hands of a band of higlwaymen, of whom William M. Tweed, the leader of Tammany Hall, was chief. Through the purchase of votes and the skilful distribution of the proceeds of their control, they managed to keep in power despite a growing suspicion that something was wrong. A favorite method of defrauding the city was to raise an account. One who had a bill against the city for $5,000 would be asked

(to present one for $55,000. When he did so, he would receive his $5,000 and the remainder would be divided ;among the members of the Ring. The plasterer, for example, who worked on the County Court House pre- Isented bills for nearly $3,000,000 in nine months. The iNew York Times and the cartoons of Thomas Nast in iflarper's Weekly were the chief agents in arousing the jpeople of the city to their situation. The former objtained and published proofs of the rascality of the iRing, mass meetings were held and an election in November, 1871, overturned Tweed and his associates. Some of them fled from the country, while Tweed himself died in jail.

j More important both because of its etfect on national ^politics and because of its influence on railway legisilation for many years afterward was the Credit Mo- ■bilier scandal. The Credit Mobilier was a construction company composed of a selected group of stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad, the transcontinental line I which was being built between 1865 and 1869. In their ! capacity of railroad stockholders they awarded themselves as stockholders of the construction company the I contract to build and equip a large part of the railway. I The terms which they gave themselves were so generous as to insure a handsome profit. Chief among the members of the Credit Mobilier was Oakes Ames, a member of Congress from Massachusetts. Late in 1867 Ames became fearful of railroad legislation that was being introduced in Washington and he therefore (decided to take steps to protect the enterprise. He was given 343 shares of Credit Mobilier stock, which he placed among members of Congress where, as he said, they would ^ ' do most good. ' ' Rumors concerning Itlie nature of the transaction resulted finally in accusa- •tions in the' New York Sun during 1872, which involved i the names of many prominent politicians. Congressional committees were at once appointed to investigate the charges, and their reports caused genuine sensations. Ames was found guilty of selling stock at lower than face value in order to influence votes in Congress and was censured by the House of Representatives. The Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, and several others were so entangled in the affair as to lose their reputations and retire from public life for good. Still others such as James A. Garfield were suspected of complicity and were placed for many years on the defensive.

Fear was wide-spread that political life in Washington was riddled with corruption. Corporations which were large and wealthy for that day were already getting a controlling grip on the legislatures of the states, and if the Credit Mobilier scandal were typical, had begun to reach out to Congress. Had the charges been made a little earlier they might have influenced the election of 1872, which turned largely on certain omissions and failings of the administration, and especially of General Grant himself.

There is something intensely pathetic in General Grant as President of the United States — this short, slouchy, taciturn, unostentatious man who w^as more at ease with men who talked horses than with men who talked government or literature.; this President who was unacquainted with either the theory or the practice of politics, who consulted nobody in choosing his cabinet or writing his inaugural address, who had scarcely visited a state capital except to capture it and had been elected to the executive chair in times that were to try men's souls. An indolent man, he called himself, but the world knew that he was tireless and irresistible on the field when necessity demanded, persistent, imperturbable, simple and direct in his language, and upright in his character. The tragedy of President Grant's career was his choice of friends and advisors. In Congress he followed the counsels of second-rate men who gave him second-rate advice; outside he associated too frequently with questionable characters who cleverly used him as a mask for schemes that were an insult to his integrity, but w^hich his lack of experience and his utter inability to judge character kept hidden from his view. Honorable himself and loyal to a fault to his friends, he believed in the honesty of men who betrayed him, long after the rest of the world had discovered what they were. He could accept costly gifts from admirers and appoint these same men to offices, without dreaming that their generosity had sprung from any motive except gratitude for his services during the war.^

It was inevitable, in view of these facts, that the presidential campaign of 1872 should be essentially an anti-Grant movement, but its particular characteristics had their origin before the General's first election. In 1865 a constitutional convention in Missouri had deprived southern sympathizers of the right to veto and hold office. A wing of the Republican party, led by Colonel B. Gratz Brown, had begun a countermovement, intended to remove the restrictions on the southerners, and also to reform other abuses in the state. Colonel Brown had early received the assistance of General Carl Schurz, a man of ability with the temperament of a reformer. The Brown-Schurz fac-

1 In 1884, a year before his death, the dishonesty of a trusted friend left him bankrupt, while a painful and malignant disease began slowly to eat away his life. Nevertheless, with characteristic courage he set himself to the task of dictating his Memoirs, or more often penciling sentences when he was unable to speak, ir, order that he might repay his debts with the proceeds.

tion had quickly increased in numbers, had become known as the Liberal Republican party and had attracted such interest throughout the country that a national conference was called for May, 1872, at Cincinnati. In adopting a conciliatory southern policy, the Liberal Republicans became opposed to the President, who had by this time become thoroughly committed to the radical program. Other critics of the administration, mainly Republicans, became interested in the Liberal revolt — those who deprecated the President's choice of associates and advisors, the civil service reformers who were aroused by the dismissal of Secretaries Hoar and Cox, and the tariff reformers who had vainly attempted to arouse enthusiasm for tbeir plans.

On account of the varied character of the elements which composed it and the independent spirit of its members, the Cincinnati assembly resembled a mass meeting rather than a well-organized political conference. It numbered among its members, nevertheless, many men of influence and repute. Some of the most powerful newspaper editors of the country, also, were friendly to its purpose, so that it seemed likely to be a decisive factor in the coming campaign. In most respects the platform reflected the anti-Grant character of the convention. It condemned the administration for keeping unworthy men in power, favored the removal of all disabilities imposed on southerners because of the rebellion, objected to interference by the federal government in local affairs — a reference to the use of troops to enforce the radical reconstruction policy — and advocated civil service reform. The convention found difficulty in stating its attitude toward the tariff question. It was deemed necessary to get the support of Horace Greglfy, the editor of the New llYork Tribune, the most powerful northern newspaper of Civil War times, but Greeley was an avowed protectionist. The platform, therefore, evaded the issue by referring it to the people in their congressional districts, and to Congress. But the rock on which the movement met shipwreck was the nomination of a candidate. Many able men were available — Charles Francis Adams, who had been minister to England, Senator Lyman Trumbull, B. Gratz Brown and Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court. Any one of them would have made a strong candidate. The convention, however, passed over all of them and nominated Greeley, long known as being against tariff reform, against civil service reform and hostile to the Democrats, whose support must be obtained in order to achieve success. Although a journalist of great influence and capacity, Greeley was an erratic individual, whose appearance and manner were the joy of the

'A cartoonist.

i! The Republican convention met on June 5, and unanimously re-nominated Grant. The platform recited the achievements of the party since 1861, urged the reform of the civil service, advocated import duties and approved of the enforcement acts and amnesty.

1 To the Democrats the greatest likelihood of success seemed to lie in the adoption of the Liberal Republican nominee and platform. Such a course, to be sure, would commit them to a candidate who had excoriated their party for years in his newspaper, and to the three war amendments to the Constitution, which the Liberal Republicans had accepted. Yet it promised the South relief from military enforcement of obnoxious laws, and that was worth much. Both Greeley and his platform were accordingly accepted.

^ The enthusiasm for the Liberal movement which was observable at the opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in Harper's Weekly, especially, held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by 750,000 votes in a total of six and a half million, a disaster which, together with the death of his wife and the overwork of the campaign resulted in his death shortly after the election. As for the Republicans they elected not only their candidate but also a sufficient majority in Congress to carry out any program that the party might desire.

On March 3, 1873, as Grant's first term was drawing to a close. Congress passed a measure increasing the salary of public officials from the President to the members of the House of Representatives. The increase for Congressmen was made retroactive, so that each of them would receive $5,000 for the two years just past. To a country whose fears and suspicions had been aroused by the Credit Mobilier scandal, the salary grab" and the ^^back pay steal" were fresh indications that corruption was entrenched in Washington. Senators and Representatives began at once to hear from their constituencies. Many of them returned the increase to the treasury and when the next session opened, the law was repealed except so far as it applied to the president and the justices of the Supreme Court.

The congressional elections of 1874 indicated the extent of the popular distrust of the administration. In New York, where Samuel J. Tilden was chosen governor, and in such Republican strongholds as Massachusetts and Pennsylvania the Democrats were successful. In the House of Representatives the Republican two-thirds majority was wiped out and the Demoi crats given complete control. Even the redoubtable