CHAPTER XXXIII. the administrations of grant, 1869 - 1877. GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION, 1869 - 1873.

581. Pacific Railroads.—The policy of helping railroad building by Federal land grants began as early as 1850, when an important grant was given to aid the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad. In the course of the next six years several other grants were made for similar purposes. The construction of a railroad to the Pacific was recommended by the Republican platform of 1856; but the project was delayed by differences between the North and the South in regard to the location of the road. In 1862 the Union Pacific was projected to extend from Omaha to Ogden, where it was to connect with the Central Pacific for San Francisco. Though these roads were built by private corporations, the latter were largely aided by Congress.^[268] Besides granting every other section of land along the routes for a space twenty miles in width, the government guaranteed the bonds of the corporations to the extent of over thirty thousand dollars a mile. The roads were completed in 1869, the first year of Grant’s administration.^[269] Though the transcontinental lines have not generally proved profitable to stockholders, they have been of immense advantage to the country as a whole. Formerly from three to six weeks were required for the senators and representatives to reach Washington from California and Oregon; but the railroads reduced the time to a single week. Another advantage of far greater importance was the encouragement offered by the roads to the rapid settlement of the regions through which they passed. The new Western states increased in population with amazing rapidity, partly from foreign immigration, and partly from the migration of people from the Eastern states. By the census of 1870 it was found that more than a million inhabitants had already settled along the transcontinental lines. The Pacific states now for the first time seemed to be an integral part of the Union.

582. San Domingo Question.—In 1869 the people of the Republic of San Domingo expressed a desire to be annexed to the United States. Grant favored annexation, and a treaty was drawn up, but the project met with much popular opposition. A commission, consisting of Senator B. F. Wade of Ohio, Dr. Samuel G. Howe of Massachusetts, and President Andrew D. White of Cornell University, was sent to inspect the island and report upon its condition. The opposition to the treaty was based principally upon the fact that the people of San Domingo were chiefly ignorant negroes. Public opinion seemed not to favor an addition to the number of negroes giving trouble to the government, and the Senate rejected the treaty.

583. Fifteenth Amendment.—In order to improve the status of the negroes in the South the congressional plan of reconstruction was supplemented by the adoption, in 1870, of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This provided that no person should thereafter be deprived of the privilege of voting “because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” During the same year, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia were admitted to representation in Congress; and in 1871, for the first time in ten years, every state in the Union was duly represented.

584. Negro Legislation.—The negroes, although the most ignorant part of the population, were in control of the Southern legislatures, and their legislation was, as a rule, very crude and unwise. The white people of the South owned most of the property, but the blacks, through their control of the legislatures, to which they often elected unscrupulous white men, had the power to levy taxes. This fact kept up the violent opposition on the part of the white population which had begun under President Johnson. The negroes were sometimes bribed to keep away from the polls; sometimes threatened with discharge from employment if they voted; and sometimes were kept from voting by force. Congress retaliated by penal legislation against such interference with the negro’s right to suffrage. So-called “Force Bills” were passed in 1870 and 1871, which increased the bitter feeling in the South. To preserve order, the provisional governors were obliged to call on the President for Federal troops. This augmented the strife, and the Ku-Klux-Klan (§ 576) was increasingly active. Within a year, however, affairs quieted down, a general Amnesty Act and other milder legislation helped to placate the whites, and soon the Supreme Court, by important decisions, made it plain that the individual states, in spite of the new Constitutional Amendments, could control their own citizens in many important ways. Thus the fears of the whites that the blacks would secure permanent control of affairs were allayed.

585. The Treaty of Washington.—In 1871 a treaty between the United States and Great Britain was signed at Washington, by which both nations agreed to submit to arbitration what were known as the “Alabama Claims,” made by the United States against Great Britain on account of losses to American shipping, caused by Confederate privateers fitted out in British ports (§ 502). By the terms of the treaty, the questions involved were to be settled by a court of five arbitrators, one to be appointed by each of the governments of the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil. The Court sat at Geneva in 1872. Elaborate testimony was offered on both sides. The United States government was able to show that the British government had been repeatedly warned of the fitting out of the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers. The Court, after hearing the evidence and arguments, held that Great Britain had not been duly watchful, as required by international law, to prevent the use of her ports by the agents of the Confederacy, and accordingly decided that the British government should pay to the United States damages to the amount of fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars in gold.

586. Northwest Boundary: Canadian Fisheries.—The Treaty of Washington also provided for the settlement by arbitration of two other important questions that had been in dispute for a considerable time. These were the boundary between the Oregon region and Canada, not clearly defined by the Treaty of 1846, and the fishery claims on the northeastern Canadian coast. By the terms of the Treaty of Washington the boundary question was submitted to the German Emperor, who gave his decision, in 1872, in favor of the American claim. The arbitrators to whom the fisheries question was referred decided against the United States and that the government should pay five million five hundred thousand dollars for the use of the Canadian shores for drying and curing fish.

587. Chicago and Boston Fires.—The autumn of 1871 will long be memorable for one of the most disastrous conflagrations ever known. In the evening of October 8, a fire broke out in a stable in West Chicago, and soon spread so that it was beyond control. Every structure within a space of more than three square miles in the heart of the city was reduced to ruins. More than a hundred thousand people were deprived of their homes, and the loss of property was estimated at more than two hundred million dollars. In November of the following year, about seventy-five acres in the richest part of Boston were burned over, at a loss of about seventy-five million dollars.

588. Presidential Nominations.—As the end of Grant’s first term approached it became evident that he would be renominated, although there were many disaffected Republicans. The prevalence of political scandals and the continued unsatisfactory condition of the South were the most serious causes of complaint. The discontented Republicans clustered about Horace Greeley^[270] of New York, and at a convention held at Cincinnati, in May, 1872, he was nominated for President, with B. Gratz Brown of Missouri for Vice President. The platform adopted charged the administration with unscrupulous and selfish use of power in the South, and demanded the immediate substitution of civil for military power in the Southern states. As the views promulgated by this platform were substantially those of the Democratic party, the Greeley platform and candidates were accepted as their own by the Democratic Convention. The union, however, was not an auspicious one. Greeley had been active and influential as a Whig and Republican and a lifelong opponent of the Democrats, and was therefore distrusted. Many Democrats regarded the nomination as a cowardly surrender. The opposition found expression in a call for a strictly Democratic convention to be held, September 3, at Louisville, Kentucky. The result was the nomination of Charles O’Connor of New York for President, and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for Vice President. As Greeley died a few days after the electors were chosen and before their vote was cast, the Democratic vote was scattering, and Grant received two hundred and eighty-six of the three hundred and forty-nine electoral votes.

GRANT’S SECOND ADMINISTRATION, 1873–1877.

589. Commercial Activity and the Crisis of 1873.—During Grant’s first administration there was remarkable commercial activity throughout the country. Money was very abundant, and prices were high; and, now that the war was over, capital was everywhere seeking investment in new enterprises. The war between France and Germany in 1870 and 1871, and the bad harvests of Europe generally, made a great market for all American products. An era of railroad construction and speculation naturally ensued. Everybody seemed to wish to invest in the new roads, many of which could not pay the expenses of operation. In the four years of Grant’s first administration, the mileage of railroads in the country was increased about fifty per cent; but it soon became apparent that the work had been enormously overdone. All at once, when nearly everybody wished to sell, nobody wished to buy. On September 19, 1873, Jay Cooke & Company, leading bankers in Philadelphia, failed, and Wall Street in New York was thrown into such a panic that the day has ever since been known as “Black Friday.” A financial stringency ensued which resulted in a universal fall of prices, many failures, and much distress. It was not until 1879 that prosperity was restored.

590. Political Scandals.—Grant’s second term was marked by still greater political scandals than his first. These were largely due to the spirit of speculation just described. Several of the new railroad projects were founded on land grants from Congress, and railroad projectors seemed everywhere desirous of securing aid from the government. A company, known as the “CrÉdit Mobilier,” had been formed to finance the Union Pacific, and this company distributed stock among men of influence in a scandalous manner. A Congressional Committee of Investigation, appointed in December, 1872, reported in February, 1873, and showed that some of the stock was given to congressmen, apparently for the purpose of securing their votes. Two members of the House of Representatives were formally censured. The spirit of corruption was thought to have entered the Cabinet, and one Cabinet officer, W. W. Belknap, Secretary of War, was impeached for receiving bribes, but escaped dismissal by resignation a few hours before the House passed the impeaching resolution. Enough senators held that he was not then impeachable to prevent conviction. A Whisky Ring was discovered in 1875, that had been organized by Federal officials and distillers for the purpose of defrauding the government of the taxes due on the manufacture of whisky. Numerous Indian uprisings were found to be largely the result of dishonest methods practiced by Indian commissioners and contractors in cheating Indians out of their just dues. While no scandal of any kind ever attached to Grant himself, it was widely felt that he was overindulgent to officials of questionable honesty. Mainly in consequence of these scandals, there was a general outcry from the public, and a demand for a different system of appointment to all the minor civil offices.

591. Extravagance of Congress.—The spirit of dissatisfaction that prevailed among the people at large was much intensified in 1873 by the action of Congress in raising the salaries of a large number of Federal officers. The salary of the President was advanced from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand dollars a year; and the salary of congressmen was increased from five thousand dollars to seven thousand. In the case of congressmen, the increase was made to apply to the Congress then in session. The act raised a storm of indignation throughout the country. It was the back-pay clause, known as the “salary grab,” that was particularly obnoxious. Nearly all those members who voted for the increase were defeated at the next election; and so much of the measure as related to congressmen was repealed at the next session.

592. Civil Service Reform.—To give voice to the demands for improvement in the public service, a National Civil Service Reform Association was organized, which devoted itself to agitation favoring new methods of appointment. From the time of Jackson, the custom had been growing for a new President to turn out of office those who had actively opposed him, and to appoint those who had actively supported him. The numerous scandals in Grant’s administration were thought to result largely from this system, and a demand for reform became general. The first Civil Service Reform Law was passed March 3, 1871. This law authorized the President to frame and administer such rules as he deemed best for the regulation of appointments in the Civil Service. The measure received Grant’s approval, and he appointed the distinguished author and orator George William Curtis, an earnest advocate of reform, as the head of a Board of Commissioners, who were to examine candidates for the minor positions and report the results to the President. From those who passed the examinations most successfully, the President was to make the appointments. For three years this system of competitive examinations was followed; but, as congressmen were thus deprived of the privilege of recommending constituents for appointment, Congress in 1874 refused to vote money to maintain the commission, and the work was thus temporarily frustrated. This was also a period of local political corruption. The Tammany Society, under its “Boss,” William Marcy Tweed, governed New York City in a most scandalous and extravagant fashion. Finally, owing to exposures made in 1871, chiefly through the agency of the New York Times, Tweed was brought to trial and convicted.^[271]

593. Indian Troubles.—During both of Grant’s administrations Indian troubles were serious, partly in consequence of the political corruption of the period (§ 590). In the course of the Civil War, the Sioux in Minnesota, taking advantage of the absence of the United States troops, had risen in rebellion and massacred a considerable number of the inhabitants. With some difficulty the agitators were captured, and thirty-four of them were simultaneously hanged on a single gallows at Mankato. This striking exhibition of energy on the part of the government put an end to revolts for a time, but relief was only temporary. The Modocs, in southern Oregon, when ordered to another reservation in 1873, refused to go, and even put to death the peace commissioner sent to deal with them. They were finally subdued, after nearly a year of fighting. In 1875 the Sioux again arose, under the leadership of Sitting Bull; but they were gradually driven west as far as the Little Big Horn River in southern Montana. Here they were imprudently attacked by General George A. Custer,^[272] who, with his regiment, was surrounded and every member of the force with one exception was killed (June 25, 1876). Fresh troops finally repulsed the Indians and they withdrew into British America.

594. The Virginius Affair.—Good sense on both sides averted hostilities in another quarter. In October, 1873, an American merchant vessel, the Virginius, was captured on the high seas, near Jamaica, by a Spanish man-of-war, on the ground that it intended to land men to assist in the Cuban insurrection then in progress. Several Cubans, with Captain Fry and a number of other persons found among the passengers, were seized and executed. The event caused not a little excitement in the United States. Spain made immediate and ample reparation; but the incident served to increase the filibustering spirit toward Cuba that had long been prevalent, especially in the South.

595. The Centennial. Exposition.—In the last year of Grant’s second administration,^[273] the fact that “peace hath her victories no less renowned than war” was strikingly proved. The centennial of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was celebrated by a great International Industrial Exposition at Philadelphia. It was also, as an undertaking of all the states, a sign of real national unity after years of strife. The exposition was opened in May, 1876, and was visited by millions of people, drawn from all parts of the country and from Europe. The superiority of the United States in various kinds of labor-saving machines and inventions, among them telephones and appliances for electric lighting, was a source of national pride; and the cause of popular education was served by the exhibition of the mechanical and artistic achievements of foreign nations.

PARTY POLITICS.

596. The Greenback Party.—As early as 1863 the principal and interest of the national bonds had been made payable in coin. But as the price of gold rose,—or, more properly speaking, the price of paper notes fell,—it was possible to sell bonds and with the gold and silver thus received to purchase greenbacks, and thus apparently to double the rate of interest. As the bonds were largely held by rich men, an outcry rose that the law should be changed, and that all bonds should be made payable, principal and interest, in greenbacks. Public feeling culminated in a political convention at Indianapolis, November 25, 1874, in which a demand was made for a general substitution of a paper currency in place of coin. The Greenback Party, as it was called, nominated Peter Cooper of New York for President in 1876, and he received eighty-one thousand seven hundred and forty votes, mostly in the Central and Western states. During the same period organizations of farmers, known as Granges, demanded, and in some states secured, the moderation of railroad rates.

597. The Campaign of 1876.—As the election of 1876 approached, it became evident that the people were growing more and more to distrust the policy of keeping the reconstructed governments in place by military force, and that the question of interfering in local affairs in the South would play a large part in the campaign. The Democrats were growing in strength, while the Republicans were weakening. At their party convention, the Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden of New York for President, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana for V%ice President; while the Republicans placed in the field Rutherford B. Hayes^[274] of Ohio, and William A. Wheeler of New York. It was evident from the first that the contest would be a very close one. The election revealed that the decision of the Electoral College, as the Presidential electors in their collective capacity are called, would turn upon the manner in which certain disputed returns in Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina were decided. If these states should all be represented in the College by Republican electors, Hayes would have a majority of one. If from a single one of those states a Democratic elector should obtain a vote, the election would go to Tilden.

598. The Question in Dispute.—From each of the states in dispute, two sets of returns were presented to Congress, one certifying that Republican, the other that Democratic, electors had been chosen. In each of the Southern states there was a returning board that was recognized by the government at Washington, to which the results of the elections from various precincts were to be reported, and whose duty it was to declare the result, which was to be certified, by the governor, to Congress. These boards, therefore, had almost unlimited authority. In making up the returns in Florida and Louisiana, they cast out the vote of certain precincts, declaring that the election had been tainted with fraud and violence. This the Democrats denied, and made out returns of their own, certifying that the Democratic electors had been chosen. In South Carolina there were two sets of returns emanating from two contending state governments. The Democrats claimed that Federal troops had interfered with the results of the election. In Oregon the question as to whether there should be three Republican electors or two Republican and one Democratic, hinged on the validity of a protest that a postmaster could not under the Constitution be an elector. As the Republicans had a majority in the Senate and the Democrats in the House, it was evident there could be no agreement on a count of the votes.

599. Electoral Commission.—The importance of the question caused great anxiety from November until March. The result involved not only an entire change of national policy with regard to the South, but also the tenure of nearly one hundred thousand officials. There was talk of another civil war. For weeks the matter was debated in Congress, with no result. As the time for inauguration approached, the most temperate men on both sides agreed upon an Electoral Commission, to whom the whole matter should be submitted for decision. Such decision was to be final, unless both Senate and House agreed in rejecting it. The commission was to consist of five members of the House (three of them Democrats), five Senators (three of them Republicans), and five members of the Supreme Court (two Democrats, two Republicans, and one Independent). It turned out that the only Independent member of the Supreme Court, David Davis, resigned in order to accept a seat in the Senate. He therefore could not serve, and after some delay a Republican was put in his place. All the points in dispute were ably presented and argued. A bare majority of the Commission decided that they could not accept returns that were not regularly certified to and that they must accept those of the duly authorized returning boards. Accordingly, the questions in regard to each of the states involved were decided in favor of the Republicans, by a vote of eight to seven, all the Republicans voting one way and all the Democrats the other. As the Republican Senate would not vote to reject this result, it was conclusive, and Hayes was declared elected. The question was not settled, however, till March 2, two days before the inauguration. The feeling on the part of the Democrats throughout the country was naturally intense; but the decision was legal, and no formal objection to it could be made. Thus Hayes and Wheeler were chosen by an electoral vote of one hundred and eighty-five, while Tilden and Hendricks received one hundred and eighty-four. Nothing has ever occurred in the history of our government to subject the Constitution to so violent a strain; and nothing could be more creditable to the sense of loyalty on the part of the aggrieved portion of the people than their peaceful submission to the results of the legal decision. Recent opinion seems to be favorable to the technical merits of Tilden’s claims, yet it is generally conceded that the country, on the whole, profited from the actual course of events.

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Born in New York, 1814; died, 1886. Graduated at University of New York; became a prominent politician and corporation lawyer in New York City; leader of New York Democrats, 1868; successfully opposed the Tweed “ring”; elected governor, 1874; unsuccessful candidate for Presidency, 1876; left large sum to endow public library of New York City.