1876 (48 page)

“It does not seem to me possible that the Louisiana vote can be reversed—even by ‘uneducated docile Negroes and transplanted Northerners,’ ” observed Tilden. “But we are getting disquieting news from those states. Bribery, intimidation ...” He paused, and took yet another pill, drank mineral water. Unmedicated, Hewitt held back a rising belch with a strangling sound.

Tilden continued: “Gentlemen, a trap was prepared for us a year ago by the Republicans in the Senate. I was aware of what was happening at the time but since I was at Albany I was not in a position to—affect events. And our party in the Senate allowed themselves to be outmanoeuvred.” For an instant Tilden’s cold eye rested on Congressman Hewitt, who looked uncomfortable.

“Our success last year in the various state elections was a clear warning to the Republicans that this year we would carry New York and the other major states, which we have done. They also knew that the South was ours, which it is. How, then, could they prevent us from winning? Of course they had—they
have
—their troops in three of the Southern states with”—Tilden turned to the Southerner, and smiled—“carpetbag regimes. So they figured that if worse came to worse those illegal state governments could simply throw out our votes and add as many fraudulent votes as would be needed to make for a Republican victory.”

“But this
can’t
be done after the popular vote is already known!” Bigelow is innocent in ways that surprise me. Even I could see the events that are now in train.

“But it can. Our majorities will be—are being—challenged. There will be ‘re-counts.’ There will be bribes given, and taken, and we shall certainly lose our majority of ninety-two in Florida.”

“But you won’t lose Louisiana, Governor, if you fight, and fight now!” This from the Southern politician.

“Fight, yes. And also pay?” Tilden was delicate, ironic.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to pay, Governor. Everybody back home is for sale, no matter what party they belong to.”

“You see my problem?” Tilden was suddenly hard; also, sad. “I have done what I set out to do. I have been elected president by a clear majority of the people who are as revolted as I am by the state of affairs in this country. Now, if I want the office to which I have been elected, I must outspend General Grant and his friends.”

We were all of us silent. Bigelow looked uncommonly wretched, but then he is an idealist. Tilden did not speak for some minutes; instead, he stared at the clock over the mantel. With each movement of the second hand, we are propelled nearer and nearer to December 6, when the Electoral College will be convened in order to decide the fate not only of us in that room but of the United States as well.

From outside we could hear several male voices shouting, “Hurray for Uncle Sam,” as the people have taken to calling Tilden. The Governor bit his underlip. Some sudden emotion stirred beneath that cool exterior.

“Yes, the trap,” Tilden remembered. “Let me explain it. In 1865 a Republican-dominated Congress passed something called the Twenty-second Joint Rule. It was intended to clarify the Constitution, which says that the final vote of the Electoral College shall be delivered to the president of the Senate. Then with both houses of the Congress as witnesses, he will declare the vote of each state and have the total counted. The Constitution is silent on the question of what happens if a state’s vote is disputed.”

Suddenly, plunged into a matter of law, Tilden became almost cheerful. The voice strengthened. “The Twenty-second Joint Rule declared that should there be disagreement as to any state’s returns, the matter would then be resolved in a joint session of the Congress. A most statesmanlike solution to an ancient ambiguity.” The clock over the mantel struck five o’clock, and Tilden stopped speaking. I suspect that each of us counted to himself, foolishly, the five strokes.

“Now a joint rule of Congress is an absolute law, which cannot be rescinded save by both houses. But last January our sly Republican friends in the Senate, anticipating defeat in this election, and wanting to carry those Southern states, unilaterally abolished the ten-year-old Joint Rule and—”

“Unilaterally and illegally?” Bigelow was looking more cheerful.

Tilden nodded. “It was all done swiftly, without debate. Our party never knew what was happening until too late.”

“But there must be some means of arbitration, even without the Joint Rule.” Hewitt was doing his best to appear knowledgeable in the one field that is the most remote from metallurgy.

“That is my hope. There is bound to be new machinery. We must find some way to see that it is honestly established.”

“Well, I say go and tell those who elected you to take to the streets of New Orleans and Baton Rouge! And then you go there yourself, as the president-elect, which you are, and with some fifty thousand Louisiana Democrats in the streets, armed to the teeth, the carpetbaggers won’t dare steal your vote from you.”

“There will also be fifty thousand Federal troops, ready to re-commence the late war.” Tilden was outwardly serene.

“But what am I to tell our people, who are even now waitin’ to hear from me at the telegraph office in New Orleans?”

To this challenge Tilden merely responded with his famed mumble, “I’ll see you later.” If there is to be civil war, Tilden does not want the credit for firing the first gun. I find his attitude entirely admirable, and perfectly maddening.

“Well, sir, I’ll tell you what will happen if you
don’t
take a firm stand this very minute.” The Louisianan (must get his name) was harsh. “There are a number-maybe as high as forty—Southern Democratic members of the Congress who will desert you and support Hayes if he promises to take the troops out of those states where they now are and give us back our liberties.”

“But, sir, you have overwhelmingly elected me to do this very thing, and I will do it.” Tilden was equally hard. “I cannot believe that any Southerner will ever put his trust in the party of General Grant.”

At this point, Tilden was called downstairs to meet with a number of constitutional lawyers. Disconsolately, we stayed on in the study. The Louisianan proceeded to get drunk. Hewitt examined charts.

In a low voice Bigelow told me some of the latest developments, which I am
not
to write just yet for the
Herald
.
“We can have South Carolina’s electoral vote for eighty thousand dollars.”

“That’s not unreasonable.”

“Pelton’s dealing with the members of the Returning Board right now. They want the money in Baltimore by Sunday night. In cash. In one-thousand- and five-thousand-dollar bills.”

“Will the Governor pay?”

“No. At the moment the Governor is sending every honest and distinguished man he can think of to the South to counteract the Republicans, who’ve already sent half their leadership down there, including your friend Garfield, who is in Louisiana right now, wooing a Mr. J.M. Wells, the head of the Returning Board for Louisiana.”

“Is Mr. Wells expensive?”

Bigelow shuddered: not just a figurative shudder but an entire true convulsion of the body. “I am told Mr. Wells will give us Louisiana for one million dollars. Cash.”

“The Governor ...?”

“... does not wish to pay for what he has already won.”

“And Florida?”

“W.E. Chandler arrived there on the ninth. To date he has been sent seven thousand dollars in cash from New York. Meanwhile, just in case, the Republican governor of Florida has asked General Grant for troops. We’ve sent some good men there, too ...”

“Armed with cash?”

Bigelow looked ill. “I pray not. But Hewitt
has
told me that the price for Florida is two hundred thousand dollars. To be paid directly to the Board of State Canvassers.”

“That seems to me to be modest.”

“That seems to me to be of a horror beyond belief!”

“John, you have spent most of your life in this city. Why are you surprised that the politicians elsewhere come as high?”

“I have always thought of our native city as unique, due to the Catholic influx.” Bigelow’s hobby-horse briefly pranced. “Still I cannot see how the Republicans can steal Louisiana or Florida.”

“If they pay the money that Tilden refuses to pay, they will have both states, regardless of the popular vote.” This struck me as bleakly reasonable.

“Well, Pelton has gone underground.” Bigelow was cryptic and sad.

I was heartened; and hope that while Tilden continues to speak of legitimacy and honesty in government, his brother-in-law will be busy buying the votes already won.

At the moment, Bigelow is assisting Tilden in the writing of a definitive study of
The Presidential Counts
since the
time of George Washington. They believe that this scholarly work will absolutely prove to the Congress that Tilden has won the election.

If Governor Tilden has a fatal flaw, it is his curious notion that men can be compelled by good argument to be honest, to show disinterest where there is only interest and greed.

DECEMBER 13: Congress is now in session. The Senate has a Republican majority of 17. The House of Representatives has a Democratic majority of 74.

After a month of confusion, of money given and of money taken, of Federal troops on the alert, and of fierce Southern whites arming themselves to those famous proverbial teeth, there is still no resolution.

On December 6, the electors in the various states of the Union met. There were no surprises. As we have known all along, the Republican masters of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina have obliged their states to send two sets of returns to Congress; as has Oregon. One set favours Tilden, and reflects the actual vote; the other favours Hayes, and reflects fraud. Tilden still has 184 undisputed votes; Hayes, 165 (he has lost one vote); in dispute, 20.

This morning Hewitt declared Tilden to be the president. Although many Democrats want the Governor to take the oath of office immediately, there has been no response at all from Gramercy Park. Tilden is busy preparing his legal case. Pelton is underground, spending money, I pray. Out in Ohio, Hayes is now silent while at Washington City President Grant is more than ever mysterious. On instructions from Tilden, Hewitt went to see the President last week. Like all of us, Tilden is alarmed at the way people speak so casually and so openly of coups d’
é
tat.

Hewitt found General Grant surprisingly straightforward. In Grant’s view, Hayes has carried South Carolina (which may be true) and Florida (which is not true), but he agrees that Hayes has plainly lost Louisiana to Tilden.

The President then went on to observe that since Louisiana is such a peculiarly corrupt state and that since both sides have made complaints of irregularities, all sets of returns from Louisiana should be thrown out and the election decided in the House of Representatives, as prescribed by the Constitution. Since the House is Democratic, Grant tacitly accepts the fact that Tilden is his successor. We are much encouraged.

Yet in every corner of the land storm warnings sound. “Tilden or Blood!” is a cry more and more heard not only at the South but here in the city.

Although my last piece for the
Herald
examined our electoral process in order to make the case that “due process of law” is all that keeps us from becoming another Mexico, I am by no means certain that this terrible business is going to have a peaceful resolution.

Item: this morning Company D, 35th Battalion, of the New York National Guard declared themselves ready to march on Washington. And the South is arming.

“Tilden or Blood!”

I think of Paris—of the Communards—of the slaughter.

THIS EVENING at Chickering Hall I addressed a large audience of Europeans come to observe the election. Apparently I was the choice of both Democrats and Republicans to address those foreign personalities (to a man, lovers of liberty) who have converged on New York to observe the way our republic manages elections in its hundredth year.

Since the opening of the Centennial Exhibition, the foreign press have been writing paeans to the United States. Now—for more than a month—they have been astonished witnesses to the complete breakdown of our electoral system. There were elements of high comedy, I fear, in my glum performance.

I was introduced by August Belmont, whose Eighteenth Street mansion is just across Fifth Avenue from the Hall. Although, like me, Belmont is a Tilden supporter, it was agreed that tonight neither of us would be partisan as we did our best to explain the constitutional crisis to our country’s well-wishers.

Belmont was brief, gracious; he spoke in both French and German. I spoke only in French.

As I crossed the stage, the calcium or limelights full upon me, my heart’s pounding was far louder in my ears than the polite applause that greeted me.

I had a written French text. Unfortunately, the lights had been so cunningly arranged that I was quite dazzled and could not read. So I improvised, not too badly, using my very special, very resonant sententious manner, reminiscent of Flaubert’s
idiot
and thus entirely suitable for this peculiar occasion.

When I came to the matter of corruption, I was delicate. The audience, however, knew perfectly well what I was talking about.

“It
is
mysterious,” I said, “how many flaws can be found in the actual process of voting. It should be a simple matter for a voter to mark his ballot Democratic or Republican. But ever since the election last November, the good people of Florida—or at least their Republican guardians—have discovered that Tilden did not win that languorous, tropical state by ninety-two votes, but lost it to Hayes by nine hundred and ninety-two. Since these margins are small, it is possible that the first count
was
incorrect. But now we are told that Louisiana—also languorous, tropical—after giving Tilden a majority of six thousand five hundred and forty-nine votes in November, has now, on second thought, elected Hayes with a majority of four thousand eight hundred and seven votes ...”

By this time there was some laughter and a good deal of murmuring in the audience. Squinting hard, I was just able to see Emma, sitting with Mrs. Belmont in the central box.