HISTORY OF

THE UNITED STATES

FROM

HAYES TO MCKINLEY

CHAPTER I

MANY of our Presidents have been inaugurated under curious and trying circumstances but no one of them except Hayes has taken the oath of office when there was a cloud on his title. Every man who had voted for Tilden - whose popular vote exceeded that of Hayes by 264,000 — believed that Hayes had reached his high place by means of fraud. Indeed some of his supporters shared this belief and regarded as monstrous the action of the Louisiana Returning Board in awarding him the electoral vote of Louisiana. Hayes's title came from the decision of the Electoral Commission as to the disputed States, Florida, Louisiana, Oregon and South Carolina, which was ratified by Congress and gave him a majority of one in the electoral college. When the count was completed and the usual declaration made Hayes had no choice but to abide by the decision. Duty to his country and to his party, the Republican, required his acceptance of the office. And there is good reason for thinking that he had no doubts whatever regarding his

proper course. For he believed that he was fairly elected. "I am overwhelmed with callers congratulating me on the results declared in Louisiana," he wrote to Carl Schurz on December 6, 1876. "I have no doubt that we are justly and legally entitled to the Presidency; my conversation with Sherman, Garfield, Stoughton and others settles the question in my mind as to Louisiana." 1 Nevertheless in spite of his perfect legal title, his moral title was unsound and it added to the difficulty of the situation that the opposition, the Democrats, had a majority in the House of Representatives. None but a determined optimist could have predicted anything but failure for an administration beginning under such conditions.2

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Hayes took the oath of office on Sunday, March 4, but did not deliver his inaugural address until the following day. He spoke with dignity and sympathy of the disputed presidency, promised a liberal policy toward the Southern States and declared that "a thorough, radical and complete" reform in our civil service was a mount necessity." Our need was "a return to the principles and practices of the founders of the government." Appointment to office should not be made merely as a reward for partisan service. Public officers should have a tenure during good behavior and, disregarding their party, should owe their whole service to the Government

1 Schurz's Political Career, Bancroft and Dunning, 373; Life of Hayes, C. R. Williams, i. chap. xxvi., ii. 152.

2 This account is from my article in the Century Magazine for October 1909, reprinted in my "Historical Essays." For an account of the disputed presidency and the Electoral Commission see my History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877, vii. chap. xliv.

and to the people. And "the President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best." 1

Hayes chose for his cabinet men in sympathy with his high ideals. William M. Evarts, the Secretary of State, a graduate of Yale College and a student at the Harvard Law School under Judge Story, was a lawyer who could fight for his client with knowledge of the law and human nature, with skill in the examination of witnesses and readiness to expose the weak points of his adversary. Some men would have been content with his high position and large fees at the New York bar but he was eager for a broader field which he found in three important State trials. He was one of the leading counsel for the defence of Andrew Johnson in the Impeachment trial, showing skill in the management of the case and effectiveness in his exhaustive plea. He appeared for the United States at the Geneva arbitration and had charge of the Republican cause before the Electoral Commission of 1877 when his industry, adroitness and zeal won a signal triumph in a difficult case. In certain negotiations he had shown that he was a statesman as well as one of the ablest lawyers in the country and his activity in politics was in association with the best men of his State and nation.

John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury, was the most capable financier in public life. He had been in Congress first as representative and then as senator from 1855 to 1877 and stands out prominently in the history of those 22 years, bringing his clear and vigorous intellect

1 Richardson, vii. 444.

to bear on the most important political questions. His remarkable industry enabled him to get at the facts in a case where others failed and his power of clear statement made him a convincing advocate. Though intensely partisan he was of an amiable temper and always endeavored to be fair in debate. He loved his party and his country and in exciting times of political strife was apt to think the two were one and the same thing. Withal, on important questions when party lines were not distinctly drawn he was a trimmer but his trimming was never for personal advantage but for what he conceived to be his country's good. He seemed to think that as the people had pronounced opinions on subjects which in Europe were left to experts, they must be humored while they were being educated with the result that in the end their judgment would be sound. His public and private character was above reproach.1

Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior, who had come to this country in 1852, was an active political force in the campaign of 1860, urging his German countrymen in the most persuasive manner to vote for Lincoln. He served with credit in the army and afterwards gave his country six years of almost ideal service in the Senate where he developed into a political orator of the highest rank. His speeches appealed to the educated and uneducated alike; they delighted the mass of his hearers and were afterwards read with close attention. He spoke English and German equally well. Together with John Sherman, he had breasted the tide of inflation in Ohio (when

I have been helped in this characterization by Edward L. Pierce's review of John Sherman's Recollections in the Amer. Hist. Rev., i. 553.