CHAPTER XXXV. POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS AND ISSUES UP TO 1876. MILITARY AND CIVIC VIR THE CONTEST OF 1864 - MCCLELLAN AND LINCOLN I ADMINISTRATION THE NUMBER OF DEMOCRATIC VOTERS AND SOLDIERS - SEYMOUR DEFEATED-JUDGE BLACK ON THE CARPET-BAGGER HORACE GREELEY TRIED, AS A BRIDGE FOR HONESTY AND AMNESTY - GREELEY'S DEFEAT ON AN INCREASED VOTE-OTHER QUESTIONS OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION CIVIL ECONOMIES CURRENCY BAYONETS AT THE POLLS-ABRAM S. HEWITT'S SPLENDID CHAMPIONSHIP OF FREEDOM VERSUS FORCE-ENGLISH STATUTES AND LAW ON THE SUFFRAGE-ABOLITION OF MILITARY INTERFERENCE WITH ELECTIONS. RIGHTS N November, 1864, the Republican party was called before the people, in the election of a President. Its choice was Abraham Lincoln. General McClellan represented the Democracy. The campaign was that of a soldier with civic graces against a civilian with a military policy. The Democrats discussed General McClellan's treatment by the Administration. Had he not been the saviour of the capital—a second Sobieski, and treated with the same indignity? Were not other Democratic generals ignored? Were not the confiscation policies cruel? Was not the destruction of the Union sure, if the Republican plans of reconstruction should be carried out? These were the primates in the procession of ideas in 1864. But the main points for McClellan, whose nomination at Chicago was seconded by the author, were these: Ist. That his policy was the only correct and constitutional one for the conduct of the war. 2d. That had it been adhered to, the war would have been closed and the Union restored. 3d. That owing to the President and his advisers, the fruits of his victories were resultless, and the victories themselves were snatched from him by their intermeddling. Amidst the feebleness and fickleness of the Administration, the wavering support of the President, and the persistent opposition of the Republicans, the fear, vanity, and trifling of those in power, the daring interference and secret persecutions of those who could not understand his plans or were determined to foil them McClellan came before the convention refined from the fire. Calm, vigilant, without rest, yet without haste; clear in conception, vigorous in action, with a grasp of mind and comprehension of intellect possessed by few; with a power to organize confessed by all, and a power to execute rarely equaled, he presented the type of a conservative soldier whose views of political necessity far outshone the disjointed ideas of the fanaticism of the day. Such a man was this hero of the people. He had no interest to subserve but that of his country. He was selected by the Democrats because it was their impression that, if unhindered, he would have ended the war in 1862. A record of that wonderful year, with his general plan to strike all around at once; his movement in February, forced by the President, when it was impossible at that season; his protests; his salvation of Washington; the battles of the Seven Days and his campaign in Maryland; his cruel and shameless recall on the 10th of November, 1862, while moving after the defeated enemy;-all these vindicated him as the then best known soldier of the Republic. These were evidence to the country that the radicals had determined to prolong the war until the last measure of their policy should be carried out. What, then, was the remedy? If the American people desired peace with union; a Union strong in its members - -a permanent Union of states assured of their dignity and equality, they must defeat the Republican party, and elect McClellan; they must prefer Democracy and its principles. To this end the Democracy, in their platform of 1864, proposed by all peaceable means to negotiate for reunion. An armistice was not necessary to open negotiations. "Let commissioners be appointed," said the Democracy; "let a Democratic President proclaim the illegal proclamations of his predecessor null and void; let the sovereign people of each sovereign state send their wisest men to a grand national council, and there take steps toward the rebuilding of the shattered system." "Let this be done," said the Democracy, "and three months will not elapse before the hosannas of a generous and Union-loving people will hail the advent of peace as if it were the coming of a new salvation to our world!" Well, did Southern papers, in anticipation of such a time, prophesy that the accession of a conservative Democrat like McClellan, who would repeal the obnoxious proclamations, and make overtures to the South to return, with a guarantee of constitutional rights, be the paralysis of secession, and the elevation of a party to power invincible for the Union! The Democracy could then alone have established peace with Union. That they would never consent to a peace based on separation, is as true as that they never SLAVERY MUST PERISH. 619 "Peace, would have used their power for a war of subjugation. Anxious for peace, and ready to hail it as a permanent condition, their legend was: Union, and Fraternity." On these issues, and in that campaign, the Democratic party was defeated and the Republican party was sustained. Passion was rife; more blood must flow. The slavery extremists brought on the war-what matter how? "Slavery must die the death of violence. Peace with slavery can never be in the American Union. Perish the Union rather than that," is the verdict, North. "Peace and Union without slavery can never be," is the cry of the extremist, South. Democracy submits, and says to its sons: "The Union shall not perish from the Earth." "We love not slavery - let it die the death"-"Save the Union!" "Save it - but bind in with your laurels of victory the olives of peace and reconciliation." Since the war, there have been five Presidential elections. In four of them the Democracy were worsted. In the fifth and last one they came out the victors. It does not matter to the present generation, nor to posterity, what persons succeeded to the Presidency. The main consideration is that the government should be honestly administered; and that there should be no impediment to the people in their grand march for progress, prosperity, and happiness. Many efforts, such as that of the "Arm-in-Arm Convention" at Philadelphia on the 14th of August, 1866, were made to reconcile by sentiment, what reconstruction was destroying. The political elements were not then ready for consolidation against the iconoclastic majority of Congress. The activity of pulling down had not then ceased. The wellintended attempts of President Johnson and his Cabinet for reconciliation of the sections, in their tour over the Northern states - ostensibly made to be present at the laying of the corner-stone of a monument to Stephen A. Douglas, at Chicago - did little more than fret the body politic. Indeed, they tended to increase the Republican majorities. The radical legislation took a harsher form. The demand to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and spread universal suffrage came in collision and rode down ruthlessly the impotent vetoes of the President. On the question of military or civil reconstruction, the result is known. It appeared in the act of March 2, 1867. The work for state rehabilitation was retarded. The executive and legislative departments did not harmonize. Supplemental acts came along, producing chaos. Reconstruction, with its temperless mortar, had already begun its incongruous work. Impeachment was threatened and it came. At length the year 1868 rolls round. It is the year for the choice of a new President. Horatio Seymour is nominated on the 4th of July, at New-York City. The canvass creates great excitement. The strife of the war resounds again. It is the old clangor of "closing rivets up" for a desperate encounter. The questions at issue are still those growing out of the war. The platforms are pro and con, as to the principles and conduct of the Republican party; pro and con, as to the conduct of the Democracy on the war measures. The action of the Democracy is roundly challenged. The action of the Northern Democrats in the states which were under the control of Democratic executives is fiercely arraigned; and that, too, in the light of such stirring speeches as Gov. Horatio Seymour made during the war. Did any honest man ever doubt his sincerity and patriotism? Where in all the argumentative urgency of the war period, was a more faithful effort made for the Union and Constitution than is embodied in his Brooklyn speech? It breathed the spirit of patriotism in every line. When Governor Seymour sent his message to the New-York Legislature during the war, he illustrated by his acts as well as his words, the sentiments of his party. He then said: "We must accept the condition of affairs as they stand. At this moment the fortunes of our country are influenced by the result of battles. Our armies in the field must be supported—all constitutional demands of our general government must be promptly responded to. Under no circumstances can a division of the Union be conceded!" When peace came he had a policy of peace. Would it not have been wisdom then, had we accepted him with his policy? Courteous, modest, scholarly, without stain upon his private life, and without taint in his public record, he, better than any one within the confines of the Republic, would have administered its affairs with an eye single to all its interests; and with the sentiment of a patriot who recognizes no flag which has not all our stars upon its field! He lives to a good age, as clear in intellect as when, in 1868, he met the legions of the mercenary party. But it was not possible then for men like Governor Seymour-men who were devoted to liberty—to make good their protest against the excesses of the party in power, and against the crushing of liberty by the iron hand of Congress, which had not even a velvet glove to hide its despotic grasp. The Democratic party has often been indicted for its lack of patriotism and for its lack of martial vigor during the Civil War. How false the indictment! It came from a packed jury of public spoilers. When the history of this country's developments is considered, how easy it is to refute such a charge! The expanse of the Republic alone refutes it. of the Republic alone refutes it. Was it not the very first Democratic Administration that purchased from France for fifteen millions of dollars the vast territory of Louisiana? The Federal party opposed that purchase, on the ground that our territory was sufficiently extended, and the cost too great. But out of the vast territory then acquired under Jefferson, what accrued to the Union? Answer-The great states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon, the Indian Territory, and the territories of Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington. What party was it that in 1819, in the administration of Monroe, purchased Florida from Spain for five millions of dollars? DEMOCRATIC EXTENSIONS OF THE UNION. 621 Answer, again-The Democratic party. Was not this extension of the Union also bitterly opposed by the unpatriotic Federalists? Again, what party was it that in 1845 not only annexed Texas,- an empire itself,- but, after the war with Mexico, gave the great states of California, Nevada, and Colorado, and the territories of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona to the Union? Answer, again - The Democratic party, in the administration of Polk. Was not the annexation of Texas, and the war with Mexico opposed by the Whig successors of the Federalists? Who defeated the bill for the purchase of Cuba during President Buchanan's administration? Answer -The Republican Senators who were the successors of both Federalists and Whigs. When prejudices are sought to be aroused against the Democratic party because of its desire for peace in our civil conflict, let it be remembered that, during nearly fifty years of administration, it acquired two million two hundred thousand square miles of valuable arable territory, and that its acquisitions cover two-thirds of our present national area. Compare to these Democratic additions to the Union, Alaska with its higher and uncultivable regions, purchased from Russia for seven millions; a price not too great, let it be remembered to Mr. Seward's credit. What have these vast Democratic acquisitions done for the national industries in agriculture, stock-raising, lumbering, mining, manufacturing, and the extension of our commerce? Have they not given fields for these pursuits which would never have been opened if opposition to Democratic policy had succeeded? Have not our industries reaped billions of wealth in these fields, yet to be multiplied from billions into hundreds of billions? It is not possible to estimate the grandeur of that development which has come from the large-minded statesmanship of the Democratic party. It does not come well from Republicans to say that the Northern Democrats would for one moment consent to a severance from the Union of any one of these magnificent acquisitions. When statesmen like James G. Blaine devote their gifted pens and their fluent rhetoric to enhance the advantages to the Nation of these territorial acquisitions, when with pictorial and geographical illustration of artistic. shadings he would portray them, let that candor which is so conspicuous throughout his volume take notice that all the credit and glory belong to Democratic administrations. Then, perhaps, he will agree that the map here presented will prove, in some future contest, quite as potential for the historic party as for its opponent, in political philosophy, economy, thrift, and honesty. When it is charged that the Democratic party was derelict in the war between sections of our common country, let it be answered, that it furnished fully two-thirds of the officers and soldiers of the Union armies. As in the War of 1812, and in the Mexican War, so it sent its legions in that war of the sections. But there was this difference between it and the Republican |