第59章

His triumph over financial demagogy in his vetoes of the Inflation Bill, and his triumph over political demagogy in securing the treaty of Washington and the Alabama indemnity, prove him a statesman worthy to rank with the best of his predecessors. In view of these evidences of complete integrity and high capacity, and bearing in mind various conversations which I had with him during his public life down to a period just before his death, I feel sure that history will pronounce him not only a general but a statesman in the best sense of the word.

The renomination of General Grant at the Philadelphia convention was the result of gratitude, respect, and conviction of his fitness. Although Mr. Greeley had the support of the most influential presses of the United States, and was widely beloved and respected as one who had borne the burden and heat of the day, he was defeated in obedience to a healthy national instinct.

Years afterward I was asked in London by one of the most eminent of English journalists how such a thing could have taken place. Said he, ``The leading papers of the United States, almost without exception, were in favor of Mr. Greeley; how, then, did it happen that he was in such a hopeless minority?'' I explained the matter as best I could, whereupon he said, ``Whatever the explanation may be, it proves that the American press, by its wild statements in political campaigns, and especially by its reckless attacks upon individuals, has lost that hold upon American opinion which it ought to have; and, depend upon it, this is a great misfortune for your country.'' Idid not attempt to disprove this statement, for I knew but too well that there was great truth in it.

Of my political experiences at that period I recall two:

the first of these was making the acquaintance at Saratoga of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. His political fortunes were then at their lowest point. With Mr. Dean Richmond of Buffalo, he had been one of the managers of the Democratic party in the State, but, Mr. Richmond having died, the Tweed wing of the party, supported by the canal contractors, had declared war against Mr. Tilden, treated him with contempt, showed their aversion to him in every way, and, it was fully understood, had made up their minds to depose him. I remember walking and talking again and again with him under the colonnade at Congress Hall, and, without referring to any person by name, he dwelt upon the necessity of more earnest work in redeeming American politics from the management of men utterly unfit for leadership. Little did he or I foresee that soon afterward his arch-enemy, Tweed, then in the same hotel and apparently all-powerful, was to be a fugitive from justice, and finally to die in prison, and that he, Mr.

Tilden himself, was to be elected governor of the State of New York, and to come within a hair's-breadth of the presidential chair at Washington.

The other circumstance of a political character was my attendance as an elector at the meeting of the Electoral College at Albany, which cast the vote of New York for General Grant. I had never before sat in such a body, and its proceedings interested me. As president we elected General Stewart L. Woodford, and as the body, after the formal election of General Grant to the Presidency, was obliged to send certificates to the governor of the State, properly signed and sealed, and as it had no seal of its own, General Woodford asked if any member had a seal which he would lend to the secretary for that purpose.

Thereupon a seal-ring which Goldwin Smith had brought from Rome and given me was used for that purpose. It was an ancient intaglio. Very suitably, it bore the figure of a ``Winged Victory,'' and it was again publicly used, many years later, when it was affixed to the American signature of the international agreement made at the Peace Conference of The Hague.

The following winter I had my first experience of ``Reconstruction'' in the South. Being somewhat worn with work, I made a visit to Florida, passing leisurely through the southern seaboard States, and finding at Columbia an old Yale friend, Governor Chamberlain, from whom Ilearned much. But the simple use of my eyes and ears during the journey gave me more than all else. A visit to the State legislature of South Carolina revealed vividly the new order of things. The State Capitol was a beautiful marble building, but unfinished without and dirty within. Approaching the hall of the House of Representatives, I found the door guarded by a negro, squalid and filthy. He evidently reveled in his new citizenship; his chair was tilted back against the wall, his feet were high in the air, and he was making everything nauseous about him with tobacco; but he soon became obsequious and admitted us to one of the most singular deliberative bodies ever known--a body composed of former landed proprietors and slave-owners mixed up pell-mell with their former slaves and with Northern adventurers then known as ``carpet-baggers.'' The Southern gentlemen of the Assembly were gentlemen still, and one of them, Mr.

Memminger, formerly Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States, was especially courteous to us. But soon all other things were lost in contemplation of ``Mr.

Speaker.'' He was a bright, nimble, voluble mulatto who, as one of the Southern gentlemen informed me, was ``the smartest nigger God ever made.'' Having been elevated to the speakership, he magnified his office. While we were observing him, a gentleman of one of the most historic families of South Carolina, a family which had given to the State a long line of military commanders, governors, senators, and ambassadors, rose to make a motion. The speaker, a former slave, at once declared him out of order.

On the member persisting in his effort, the speaker called out, ``De genlemun frum Bufert has no right to de floh;de genlemun from Bufert will take his seat,'' and the former aristocrat obeyed. To this it had come at last.