THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION

The Liberal Republicans of Missouri held a state convention at Jefferson City, January 24, 1872. They adopted a platform which affirmed the sovereignty of the Union, emancipation, equality of rights, enfranchisement, complete amnesty, tariff reform, civil service reform, local self-government, and impartial suffrage. They also called a national mass convention to meet at Cincinnati on the first Monday in May.

This call was at once endorsed by General J. D. Cox, George Hoadley, Stanley Matthews, and J. B. Stallo, four of the most eminent citizens of Ohio, the first of whom had been a member of President Grant's Cabinet. Mr. Matthews, in an interview, expressed the hope that the Democrats would join in nominating a candidate for the presidency of the type of Charles Francis Adams, William S. Groesbeck, Lyman Trumbull, or Salmon P. Chase.

The movement spread like wildfire. Groups of Republicans, eminent in character and in public service in all the states, proclaimed their adhesion to it and declared their intention to participate in the convention. It had also the active support of the Springfield Republican, the Cincinnati Commercial, and the Chicago Tribune, and the sympathy of the New York Evening Post, the Nation, and the New York Tribune. Democratic sympathy was manifested early and found expression in the columns of the Louisville Courier-Journal, whose editor, Henry Watterson, took a keen interest in the preliminaries of the Cincinnati meeting and whose coÖperation was gladly welcomed. The New York World, edited by Manton Marble, gave passive support to the movement by advising Democrats to conform to present facts and not seek to revive or sustain the dead issues of the war and Reconstruction.

Under date, New Orleans, April 23, Marble wrote to Schurz:

It is due to you that I should say, before you go to Cincinnati, that in my clear judgment the nomination of Charles Francis Adams would defeat the reËlection of Grant. It has always been obvious that Mr. Adams would be among the best of Presidents. He has been growing, during the last few months, to be the best of candidates. I could not name another so safe to win. Adams and Palmer would be a quite perfect ticket.—This is founded on careful consideration.

August Belmont, of New York, the most influential Democrat in that state not holding any public office, took an active part, both by correspondence and by personal solicitation, in the endeavor to secure the nomination by the Cincinnati Convention of a candidate whom the Democrats could support, and to induce the latter to abstain from making a separate nomination. From Vincennes, Indiana, April 23, he wrote to Schurz that, after having seen many prominent men of both parties, he had found the Cincinnati movement even stronger with them, and the people, than he had anticipated. He added:

Everybody looks for the action of your convention, and if you make a good national platform denouncing the abuses and corruption of the Executive, the military despotism of the South, the centralization of power and the subordination of the civil power to the military rule, and declare boldly for general amnesty and a revenue tariff, you will find every Democrat throughout the land ready to vote for your candidate, provided you name one whom our convention can endorse.... I found in the West and in New York an overwhelming desire for Charles F. Adams. Adams is the strongest and least vulnerable man; he will draw more votes from Grant than will any other candidate. The whole Democratic party will follow him.

There was a full delegation from Pennsylvania, composed of honorable men, who were not office-seekers. The meeting which appointed them was presided over by Colonel A. K. McClure, who announced, when taking the chair, that inasmuch as the Cincinnati Convention was a mass meeting, the persons attending it would not be entangled in the usual political machinery. The movement was on the lines of the Republican party; it was a movement of Republicans by necessity, who did not mean to be bound by the Government party as it then stood. General William B. Thomas said that he and other gentlemen had issued the call for this meeting to send a delegation to Cincinnati. He was engaged in work looking to the annihilation of the Republican party. He had helped to build up that party, but now he was free to say that it was the most corrupt party on the face of the earth. He was opposed to any candidate to be nominated by the coming Philadelphia Convention; Grant, or any other man. Colonel McClure said that the plain English of the whole thing was rebellion against the party and the bringing of it to the dignity of a revolution. Five years ago there might have been a necessity for the exercise of military power in the South, but not now. The South, to his mind, had been more desolated since the close of the war than before.

The Pennsylvanians had fifty-six votes in the convention. On the first roll-call they cast all of them for Governor A. G. Curtin. On all subsequent ones they gave a plurality for Adams.[126]

Numerous letters reached Trumbull before the call for the Cincinnati Convention was issued suggesting that he be a candidate for the presidency in opposition to Grant. One of these, dated Roslyn, Long Island, November 30, 1871, was from John H. Bryant, brother of William Cullen Bryant, who said that both himself and his brother desired to see him elected President and that if he should be a candidate he could count on the support of the Evening Post.

Silas L. Bryan, of Salem, Illinois, the father of William Jennings Bryan, wrote under date, December 19, 1871, that he considered Trumbull the Providential man for the present crisis and that if he would consent to be a candidate for the highest office he (Bryan) would take steps to promote that desirable end. To this letter Trumbull replied that to be talked about for the presidency impaired the influence he might otherwise have to promote the reforms which he labored to bring about. He did not, however, refuse Judge Bryan's offer of assistance.

Joseph Brown, Mayor of St. Louis, wrote that he would rather see Trumbull nominated for the presidency than any other man of either party. To this letter Trumbull made a reply similar to that given to Judge Bryan.

Walter B. Scates, ex-judge of the supreme court of Illinois, wrote: "You saved the Republican party in the impeachment trial and I now hope you may save the country from corruption, pillage, high tax, class legislation, and central despotism."

Jesse K. Dubois, auditor of Illinois, perhaps the most sagacious and experienced politician in the state, wrote, after signing the call for the Cincinnati Convention: "With you as our candidate I would wager we carry this state anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 majority as against Grant."

On February 23, Trumbull made a speech in the Senate defending the Missouri Convention's platform against the objections of Senator Morton, who had stigmatized it as a Democratic movement, because that party in Connecticut had endorsed it in their state convention. In this speech Trumbull took up each resolution in the platform and showed that it was either in accord with Republican doctrine as affirmed in the national platforms of the party, or had been commended by President Grant in official messages to Congress. On the subject of civil service reform, to promote which Grant had appointed the George William Curtis Commission, he said:

The great evil of our civil service system grows out of the manner of making appointments and renewals and the use which is made of the patronage, treating it as mere party spoils. Often the patronage is used for purposes not rising to the dignity of even party purposes, but by certain individuals for individual and personal ends. It would be bad enough if the patronage were used as mere spoils for party, but it is infinitely worse than that under our present system.

The Senator from Indiana, in his speech the other day, undertook to create the impression that I was opposed to civil service reform. Why, sir, I offered the very bill in this body which became a law under which the Civil Service Commission was organized. I introduced bills here years ago in favor of a reform in the civil service and especially to break up the running of members of Congress to the departments begging for offices. In my judgment there is nothing more disreputable, or which interferes more with the proper discharge of public duty, than this hanging around the skirts of power begging for offices for friends.

The growth of the Cincinnati movement was signalized by a meeting at the Cooper Union in New York City on the evening of April 12, of which the Nation said: "We believe that it was the most densely packed meeting which ever met there. All approach within fifty yards of the entrance was next to impossible in the early part of the evening, so great was the crowd in the street." Both Trumbull and Schurz spoke here to enthusiastic hearers.

Among the letters received by Trumbull prior to the convention the most thoughtful and weighty was the following written by Governor John M. Palmer, of Illinois:

Springfield, April 13, 1872.

I have felt considerable apprehension in regard to the Cincinnati movement for the reason that I have doubted the ability of men of the right stamp to control the action of the proposed convention, and I have believed that it would be better to endure the abuses and weaknesses and follies of Grant's Administration for another four years than to crystallize them by the mistake of making a bad nomination of his successor. Grant is an evil that we can endure if we retain the right to point out his faults in principle and practice, but if some ancient Federalist should be elected to succeed him what is now usurpation would be accepted by the people as the proper theory of the government. But if the Cincinnati Convention nominates a statesman I will support him, and you if you are selected as the candidate.

John M. Palmer.

Among the names mentioned as desirable candidates that of Charles Francis Adams was the most prominent. After him came Lyman Trumbull, Horace Greeley, David Davis, B. Gratz Brown, and Andrew G. Curtin. Adams had been Minister to Great Britain during the war, and was now one of the arbitrators of the Geneva Tribunal under the Alabama Claims Treaty. He had written a letter to David A. Wells which showed that he did not desire the nomination, was perfectly indifferent to it, but that if it were given to him without pledges of any kind he would not refuse. He said among other things:

If the call upon me were an unequivocal one based upon confidence in my character earned in public life, and a belief that I would carry out in practice the principles I professed, then indeed would come a test of my courage in an emergency; but if I am to be negotiated for, and have assurances given that I am honest, you will be so kind as to draw me out of that crowd.

This phrase was interpreted erroneously by some as an expression of contempt for "that crowd," but, of course, it was not so intended. The letter was not written for publication. Not only did Mr. Adams not seek the nomination, but his son, Charles Francis, Jr., refused to go to the convention, or to invite any of his Boston friends to go.

Greeley was an anti-slavery leader, founder of the New York Tribune, book-writer, lecturer, foremost journalist in the country, distinguished both for intellectual power and personal eccentricity. Davis was a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, by Lincoln's appointment. Brown was governor of Missouri, and next to Schurz the most prominent leader of the Liberal movement. Curtin had been the war governor of Pennsylvania and was a man of high ability and unblemished character. The name of Sumner had been frequently mentioned as one suitable for the presidency, but he had not yet given his adhesion to the Liberal movement.

The New York Herald of May 1 tells what I thought of the outlook when I first arrived in Cincinnati, thus:

Cincinnati, April 27, 1872.—Mr. Horace White, who arrived this morning, says that the Liberal movement has as yet only penetrated the crust of public sentiment and that the masses of the people are waiting in a half-curious way to see what will be done here before they will make up their minds.

Trumbull did not authorize the presentation of his name to the convention until one week before its meeting. Then a qualified acquiescence came in a letter to myself, dated Washington, April 24, saying:

I do not think I ought to be nominated unless there is a decided feeling among those who assemble, and are outside of rings and bargains, that I would be stronger than any one else. Unless this is the feeling, I think it would not be wise to present my name at all.... D. A. Wells has enclosed me a letter written on the 20th by John Van Buren, Governor Hoffman's secretary, which he thinks undoubtedly represents the feelings of the Hoffman wing of the New York Democracy. In this letter Van Buren says the convention must not touch the question of free trade, that the persons pushing this question are not unanimous on the question, and that a non-committal resolution would do harm in both directions. Grosvenor is very strenuous about having such a resolution as will commit the convention distinctly to revenue reform, and I fear will be a little unreasonable about it. I had thought that a resolution might be adopted which would assert the principle without being offensive to anybody; perhaps something like the resolution adopted by the last Illinois State Convention. Free-traders and protectionists differ more about the application of principles than the principles themselves in their efforts. Wells and other reformers of the East will be reasonable on this question. Van Buren further says in his letter: "One thing rely upon—you need do nothing at Cincinnati except with reference to drawing Republicans into the movement. Disregard the Democrats. The movement of that side will take care of itself. There will be no cheating nor holding back on their side. They will go over in bulk and with a will."

My reply to this letter, written immediately after the adjournment of the convention, was the following:

My judgment was from the beginning of our arrival here that you could not be nominated, but I did not tell anybody so. Dr. Jayne and Governor Koerner thought you could be; and their judgment, I thought, should be set before mine. So I held my tongue and did what I could. If I had taken the responsibility of withdrawing your name as suggested by your letter, I should never have had any standing in Illinois again—certainly not among your friends.

As this convention did not consist of delegates chosen by primary meetings, any person of Republican antecedents or attachments was permitted to attend and take part in it. To bring order out of chaos it was necessary for the men of each state to come together and choose a number corresponding to its population to cast its votes on all questions arising, including the nomination of candidates. In states which presented more than one candidate, as in Illinois, there was some difficulty in making the proper division as between Davis and Trumbull; but all such troubles were adjusted before the hour for assembling arrived. The streets of Cincinnati had never beheld a more orderly, single-minded, public-spirited crowd. At least four fifths had come together at their own expense for no other purpose than the general good. There was, however, a small minority of office-seekers among them. The movement in its inception was altogether free from that class, but when it began to assume formidable proportions and seemed not unlikely to sweep the country, it attracted a certain number of professional politicians, including a few estrays from the South.

The office-seeking fraternity were mostly supporters of Davis, whose appearance as a candidate for the presidency was extremely offensive to the original promoters of the movement. As a judge of the Supreme Court his incursion into the field of politics, unheralded, but not unprecedented, was an indecorum. Moreover, his supporters had not been early movers in the ranks of reform, and their sincerity was doubted. They were extremely active, however, after the movement had gained headway, and they were able to divide the vote of Illinois into two equal parts (21 to 21), so that Trumbull's strength in the convention was seriously impaired. Davis's chances were early demolished by the editorial fraternity, who, at a dinner at Murat Halstead's house, resolved that they would not support him if nominated, and caused that fact to be made known.

Greeley's candidacy had not been taken seriously by the editors at Halstead's dinner-party. As an individual he was generally liked by them and his ability and honesty were held in the highest esteem; but he was looked upon as too eccentric and picturesque to find much support in such a sober-minded convention as ours. Adams and Trumbull were the only men supposed by us to be within the sphere of nomination, and the chances of Adams were deemed the better of the two. We had yet to learn that there are occasions and crowds where personal oddity and a flash of genius under an old white hat are more potent than high ancestry or approved statesmanship, or both those qualifications joined together.

Before nominations were made, a platform was to be framed and adopted. There were three main issues to be considered: Universal amnesty, civil service reform, and tariff reform. On the first and second there was no difference of opinion. Without them the Cincinnati movement would never have taken place; the convention would never have been called. As to the third, there was a difference of opinion which divided the convention and the Committee on Resolutions in the middle, and it soon became known that "there was no common ground on which the protectionists and revenue reformers could stand." So wrote E. L. Godkin from the convention hall to the Nation. He continued:

The Committee on Resolutions, after sitting up a whole night, were compelled to accept the compromise which he [Greeley] proposed—the reference of the whole matter to the people in the congressional districts. It is right to add that the sentiment of the convention was overwhelmingly in favor of this course. There is a touch of absurdity about it, it is true, but it is at least frank and honest, and at all events nothing else was possible. Even such outspoken free-traders as Judge Hoadley, of this city, were compelled to concur in this disposition of the question.

As chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, and a free-trader, I can confirm all that Godkin wrote, and add that the committee considered the expediency of reporting to the convention their inability to agree and asking to be discharged. This plan was rejected lest it should cause a bolting movement, on an issue which was rated only third in importance among those which had brought us together. It was decided that tariff reform could wait, while the pacification of the South and the reform of the civil service could not.

Thursday night, May 2, I had gone to bed at the Burnet House when I was aroused by a loud knock on my door and a voice outside which I recognized as that of Grosvenor exclaiming: "Get up! Blair and Brown are here from St. Louis." Without waiting for an answer he went on knocking at other doors in the corridor and giving the same warning, but no other explanation. I arose, dressed myself, and went down to the rotunda of the hotel, where I found some of the supporters of Trumbull and of Adams who were trying to discover why the arrival of Frank Blair and Gratz Brown should produce a commotion in a convention of more than seven hundred, of which Blair and Brown were not members. Blair was then the Democratic Senator from Missouri. The two newcomers were not visible. They had obtained a room and had called into it some of the Missouri delegation and would not admit any uninvited persons. Presently Grosvenor returned and told us that Brown intended to withdraw as a candidate for the presidency and turn his forces over to Greeley, and himself take the Vice-Presidency. Grosvenor considered this a dangerous combination and said that steps should be taken to checkmate it at once.

The Adams and Trumbull men here collected remained till about two o'clock trying to learn more about the expected coup, but as nothing further could be obtained they retired one by one to uneasy slumber. Grosvenor maintained to the last that great mischief was impending, but could not suggest any way to meet it.

On the following day voting began, and the first roll-call showed Adams in the lead with 205 votes; Greeley had 147, Trumbull 110, Brown 95, Davis 92-1/2, Curtin 62, Chase 2-1/2. Carl Schurz, who was permanent chairman of the convention and a supporter of Adams, then rose and with some signs of embarrassment said that a gentleman who had received a large number of votes desired to make a statement, whereupon he invited the Hon. B. Gratz Brown to come to the platform. Brown advanced to the front, and after thanking his friends for their support said that he had decided to withdraw his name and that he desired the nomination of Horace Greeley as the man most likely to win in the coming election. There was great applause among the supporters of Greeley, but the immediate result did not answer their expectations. Brown could not control even the Missouri delegation. The first vote of the Missouri men had been 30 for Brown. The second was, Trumbull 16, Greeley 10, Adams 4.

All the votes are shown in the following table:

Although Greeley's plurality on the sixth roll-call was small, his gain over the fifth was large, being 74 votes, that of Adams being only 15. This was a signal to all who wished to be on the winning side to take shelter under the old white hat. Changes were made before the result was announced which gave Greeley 482 to 187 for Adams. Then Greeley was declared nominated. The nomination of Gratz Brown for Vice-President followed without much opposition.

The supporters of Adams and of Trumbull were stunned. The first impulse of their leaders, and especially of Schurz, was to put on sackcloth, and go into retirement. Prompt decision, however, was necessary to the editors of daily newspapers. Other persons could go home and take days or weeks to think the matter over, but those who, at Halstead's table, had decided against David Davis, must needs make another prompt decision before the next paper went to press. They decided to support Greeley, because they had honestly led their readers to an honest belief that the Cincinnati movement was for the best interests of the Republic; and they deemed it unfair to turn against it on account of personal vexation against a man whose candidacy had been tolerated through the whole proceedings. That Greeley was an unbalanced man we all knew. That he was liable to go off at a tangent and that his self-esteem and self-confidence might put him beyond the reach of good counsel in affairs of great pith and moment, was the unexpressed thought of most of us. But we knew that his aims were patriotic, and we reflected that some risks are taken at every presidential election. Greeley had not yet been proved an unsafe President, and that was more than could be said for Grant. In fact, Grant's second term proved to be worse than his first.

Schurz was more distressed by the "Gratz Brown trick," as it was commonly called, than by anything else. This had the appearance of a brazen political swap executed in the light of day, by which the presidency and the vice-presidency were disposed of as so much merchandise. He did not, however, in his thoughts connect Greeley with the trade. It was physically impossible that the latter could have been a party to it, if there was a trade. Nevertheless he considered the German vote lost beyond recall by the bad look of it.[127] My own belief is that Blair and Brown were jealous of Schurz's power in Missouri; that they feared he would become omnipotent there, dominating both parties, if Adams should be elected President; and that the only way to head him off was to beat Adams. They chose Greeley for this purpose, not because they had any bargain with, or fondness for, him, but because he was the next strongest man in the convention.

The engineers of the Liberal Republican movement went their several ways. Those who held tariff reform of more importance than all other issues abjured Greeley at once. E. L. Godkin and William Cullen Bryant declared war against him because they considered him dangerous and unfit. The following correspondence which took place between Bryant and Trumbull was illustrative of the feelings of many others:

The Evening Post,
41 Nassau Street, Cor. Liberty,
New York, May 8th, 1872.
My dear Sir,

It has been said that you will support the nomination of Mr. Greeley for President. I have no right to speak of any course which you may take in politics in any but respectful terms, but I may perhaps take the liberty of saying that if you give that man your countenance, some of your best friends here will deeply regret it. We who know Mr. Greeley know that his administration, should he be elected, cannot be otherwise than shamefully corrupt. His associates are of the worst sort and the worst abuses of the present Administration are likely to be even caricatured under his. His election would be a severe blow to the cause of revenue reform. The cause of civil service reform would be hopeless with him for President, for Reuben E. Fenton, his guide and counselor, and the other wretches by whom Greeley is surrounded, will never give up the patronage by which they expect to hold their power. As to other public measures there is no abuse or extravagance into which that man, through the infirmity of his judgment, may not be betrayed. It is wonderful how little, in some of his vagaries, the scruples which would influence other men of no exemplary integrity, restrain him. But I need not dwell upon these matters—they are all set forth in the Evening Post which you sometimes see. What I have written, is written in the most profound respect for your public character, and because of that respect. If you conclude to support Mr. Greeley, I shall, of course, infer that you do so because you do not know him.

Yours truly,
Hon. L. Trumbull.
W. C. Bryant.

United States Senate Chamber,
Washington, May 10, 1872.
Wm. C. Bryant, Esq.,

My dear Sir,—Your kind and frank letter is before me. I wish I could see something better than to support Mr. Greeley, but I do not. Personally, I know but little of him, but in common with most people supposed he was an honest but confiding man, who was often imposed upon by those about him. This would be a great fault in a President, I admit, but with proper surroundings could be guarded against, and almost anything would be an improvement on what we have. One of the greatest evils of our time is party despotism and intolerance. Greeley's nomination is a bomb-shell which seems likely to blow up both parties. This will be an immense gain. Most of the corruptions in government are made possible through party tyranny. Members of the Senate are daily coerced into voting contrary to their convictions through party pressure. A notable instance of this was the vote on the impeachment of Johnson, and matters in this respect have not improved since. If by Greeley's election we could break up the present corrupt organizations, it would enable the people at the end of four years to elect a President with a view to his fitness instead of having one put upon them by a vote of political bummers acting in the name of party.

Having favored the Cincinnati movement and Greeley having received the nomination, I see no course left but to try to elect him, and endeavor to surround him, as far as possible, with honest men. Greeley had a good deal of strength among the people and was strong in the convention outside of bargain or arrangement. Many voted for him as their first choice, and in Illinois I feel confident he is a stronger candidate than Adams would have been.

Lyman Trumbull.

Sumner, although urged by many of his warmest friends both before and after the convention, including Frank Bird, Samuel Bowles, and Greeley himself (through Whitelaw Reid), to declare his position, did not break silence until May 31, when he made his great speech against Grant. The speech remains a true catalogue of the shortcomings of Grant as a civil administrator up to that time. All his sins of omission and of commission were there set forth in orderly array, together with the proofs. Sumner thus spared future historians a deal of trouble in searching the records, but the speech was not very effective in the way of changing votes. Sumner sometimes mistook himself for a modern Cicero impeaching Verres. He piled up the agony in the fashion customary in the pleadings of the ancient forum. He overlooked the signal services rendered by Grant before he held any civil office. He did not make allowance for the transition of a tanner's clerk, earning fifty dollars a month and having a family to support, first to the command of half a million soldiers in war time, and then to the presidency of the United States in time of peace, all within the period of eight years. The mistakes naturally arising from such crude beginnings, when meeting gigantic responsibilities in quick succession, ought to have excited pathos as well as censure. By giving due consideration to Grant's whole career, he would have secured a better hearing for the part of it which he wished to impress upon the public mind.

Even now Sumner did not advise anybody to vote for Greeley. His omission to do so was at once construed as an argument favorable to Grant. It was said that the dangers involved in Greeley's eccentricities were so much greater than anything that Grant had done, or could do, that Grant's worst enemy (Sumner) would not advise people to vote for him. Not until the 29th of July did the Massachusetts Senator publicly speak for Greeley, and then only in a letter to some colored voters who had asked his advice. It was then too late to exert much influence. It is doubtful if even the colored men who had sought his advice gave any heed to it. Probably the reason why Sumner did not speak earlier was that he hesitated to break from his abolitionist friends, Garrison, Phillips, and others, who had besought him not to join the Democrats. When he did finally join the forces supporting Greeley, his old friend Garrison turned upon him and chastised him severely in a series of open letters, which Sumner declined to read.

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