The Life of Lyman Trumbull Part 35

That Greeley had been eager for public office from an early period was shown by his famous letter withdrawing himself as junior partner from the firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley. When the Cincinnati nomination came to him his fondest dreams seemed to be on the eve of fulfillment.

Now all such dreams had vanished, a political party of n.o.ble aspirations had foundered on him as the hidden rock, his self-esteem had received an annihilating blow, and his beloved _Tribune_, the labor of his lifetime, was supposed to be ruined pecuniarily. Whatever his faults may have been, he received his punishment for them in this world. He was only sixty-two years of age, of sound const.i.tution and good habits, and had never used liquor or tobacco. He ought to, and probably would, have lived twenty years longer if he had put away ambition and contented himself with the repute and influence he had fairly earned. He was the most influential editor of his time and country, but as a political writer E. L. G.o.dkin was his superior, and in fact G.o.dkin, in the columns of the _Nation_, contributed more than any other writer, perhaps more than any other person, to his overthrow.

The state election of Louisiana in 1872 had resulted in a disputed return for governor and legislature. One set of returns showed a majority for John McEnery, the conservative candidate. Another set showed a majority for William P. Kellogg, Republican. The sitting governor, Warmoth, controlled the returning board and he favored McEnery. A former returning board headed by one Lynch had been dissolved by an act of the legislature. To this defunct board the supporters of Kellogg appealed. The Lynch Board, without any actual returns before them, declared Kellogg elected. They then procured an order from Judge Durell, of the United States Circuit Court at New Orleans, to the United States Marshal, Packard, who had a small military force at his command, to seize the State House. This was done and the act was approved by President Grant. An appeal to him from the better cla.s.s of citizens of New Orleans was rejected. The excitement in Congress growing out of this usurpation was intense, even among Republicans. The Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections was ordered to make an investigation, which it did, and it reported, through Senator Carpenter on the 20th of February, that the action of Judge Durell was illegal and that all steps taken in pursuance of it were void. It recommended a new election and reported a bill for holding it; but Senator Morton, who made a minority report, prevented it from coming to a vote. Trumbull, who was also a member of the committee, made a report more drastic than that of Carpenter and supported his own view by a speech delivered on the 15th of February.

Here you have [he said] an order sent from the city of Was.h.i.+ngton on the 3d day of December, which was before Judge Durell issued his order to seize the State House and organize a legislature, and directing that n.o.body should take part in the organization except such persons as were returned as members by what was known as the Lynch Board, a board which the committee, in their report drawn by the Senator from Wisconsin, say had been abolished by an act of the legislature, and had not a single official return before it. It undertook to canva.s.s returns without having any returns to canva.s.s. On forged affidavits, hearsay, and newspaper reports and verbal statements, the Lynch Returning Board, consisting of four men, without legal existence as a returning board, got together and without one official return, or other legitimate evidence before them, undertook to say who should const.i.tute the Legislature of Louisiana.[130]

This was Trumbull's last speech in the Senate and was one of his best, but other influences prevailed with Grant.[131]

Thus Kellogg and his crew became the masters of Louisiana, and four years later became the deciding factor in the Hayes-Tilden presidential contest.

FOOTNOTES:

[128] This fact was given to me by General Dodge, in writing.

[129] John Bigelow's Diary, under date Nov. 28, 1872, contains the following entry:

"Greeley is now in a madhouse, and before morning will probably be dead--so Swinton tells me to-day; and Reid, whom I saw to-day, confirms these apprehensions." _Retrospections of an Active Life_, v, 91.

[130] _Cong. Globe_, 1873, p. 1744.

[131] Rhodes thinks that the influence which prevailed with Grant in this instance was that of Morton. (_History of the United States_, VII, 111.)

CHAPTER XXVII

LATER YEARS

The defeat of the Liberal Republicans terminated Trumbull's official career. His senatorial term expired on the 3d of March, 1873. The regular Republicans carried the legislature of Illinois, and Richard J.

Oglesby was elected Senator in his stead. He was now sixty years of age and he resumed the practice of his profession in the city of Chicago, which had been his place of residence during the greater part of his senatorial service. His law firm at the beginning was Trumbull, Church & Trumbull, the second member being Mr. Firman Church and the third Mr.

Perry Trumbull, a son of the ex-Senator. Mr. William J. Bryan soon afterward became a student in the office. Various changes took place in the Trumbull law firm. Mr. Church removed to California, and his place was taken by Mr. Henry S. Robbins, and the firm became Trumbull, Robbins, Willetts & Trumbull. Mr. Hempstead Washburne, son of Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, became a member of the firm later. Trumbull's reputation, talents, and experience soon gave him a place in the front rank of his profession, which he maintained till the end of his long life. I shall not attempt to follow the details of his career at the bar except as they touch upon public questions. The first affair of this kind was the Hayes-Tilden disputed election of 1876.

The second Grant Administration was more lamentable than the first in respect of military rule, turbulence, and bloodshed in the South and corruption in the civil service in the North. These evils became so glaring and intolerable that the Republican party suffered a disastrous defeat in the congressional elections of 1874, and failed to secure a majority of the popular vote in the presidential election of 1876. The opposing candidates in this contest were Hayes (Republican) and Tilden (Democrat). One hundred and eighty-five electoral votes were necessary to a choice. The undisputed returns gave Tilden 184 and Hayes 166. Those of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were in dispute. It was necessary that Hayes should have all of them in order to be the next President. All of these states were under military control, and the returning boards who had the power of canva.s.sing the votes, and the governors who had the power of certifying the result to Congress, were Republicans.

The excitement in the country when this condition became known was extreme. No confidence was placed in the character of the Southern returning boards. That of Louisiana consisted of three knaves and one fool,[132] and the governor of the state was W. P. Kellogg, who had acquired the office by the acts of usurpation described in the preceding chapter. It was seen at once that unless some respectable tribunal could be devised to decide between the conflicting claims the country might drift into a new civil war. The first thing to be done was to endeavor to secure a fair count of the ballots cast in the disputed states. To this end a certain number of "visiting statesmen" were chosen by the heads of their respective political parties to go to the scene of the contest and watch all the steps taken by the canva.s.sers of the votes.

President Grant appointed those of the Republican party and Abram S.

Hewitt, chairman of the National Democratic Committee, appointed the others. Trumbull had voted for Tilden in the election, and he was chosen by Hewitt as one of ten visiting statesmen for Louisiana. Senator Sherman, of Ohio, was one of the Republican visitors. Congress pa.s.sed a law on the 29th of January, 1877, to create an Electoral Commission, consisting of five Senators, five Representatives, and five judges of the Supreme Court, to take all the evidence in regard to the disputed elections and to render a decision thereon by a majority vote of the fifteen members. Four of the five judges of the Supreme Court were named in the act of Congress. They were Miller and Swayne, Republicans, and Clifford and Field, Democrats, and the act provided that these four should choose the fifth. It was the general expectation that they would choose David Davis as the fifth member, as he was commonly cla.s.sed as an Independent, since he had been a candidate in the Cincinnati Convention, which nominated Greeley. But, on the very day when the Electoral Commission Bill pa.s.sed, Davis was elected by the legislature of Illinois as Senator of the United States, to succeed Logan whose term was expiring. Davis accepted the senators.h.i.+p and declined to serve as the fifth judge. Thereupon Bradley was chosen in his stead.

Trumbull was chosen as one of the counsel on the Tilden side to argue the Louisiana case. On the 14th of February he appeared before the Commission and offered to show that the votes certified by the commissioners of election in the voting precincts of Louisiana to the supervisors of registration, who were the officers legally appointed to receive the same, showed a majority varying from six to nine thousand for the Tilden electors; that the returning board did not receive from any poll, voting place, or parish, and did not have before them, any statement, as required by law, of any riot, tumult, act of violence, intimidation, armed disturbance, bribery, or corrupt influence tending to prevent a free, fair, peaceable vote; that the supervisors of registration, without any such statements of violence or intimidation, omitted to include in the returns of election, or to make any mention of the same, votes amounting to a majority of 2267 against W. P. Kellogg, one of the Hayes electors; that the votes cast on the 7th of November, 1876, had never been compiled or canva.s.sed; that the votes had never been opened by the governor in the presence of the other state officers required by law to be present, nor in the presence of any of them; that the law of Louisiana required that both political parties should be represented on the returning board, but that all the members, four in number, were Republicans, and that although there was one vacancy on the board they refused to fill it by choosing anybody; that the returning board employed as clerks and a.s.sistants four persons, whose names were given, all of whom were then under indictment for crime, to whom was committed the task of compiling and canva.s.sing the returns, and that none but Republicans were to be present; and that all the decisions of the returning board were made in secret session.

Not to detain you [said Trumbull] as to this Government in Louisiana, I will only say that it is not a republican government, for it is a matter that I think this Commission should take official knowledge of, that the pretended officers in the state of Louisiana are upheld by military power alone.

They could not maintain themselves an hour but for military support. Is that government republican which rests upon military power for support? A republican government is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people: but the Government in Louisiana has been nothing but a military despotism for the last four years, and it could not stand a day if the people were not overborne by military power.

His speech was about two hours long, and he was followed by Carpenter and Campbell on the same side. The leading argument on the Hayes side was made by Mr. E. W. Stoughton, of New York, who contended that neither the Commission nor Congress itself could go behind the official returns certified by the governor of the state of Louisiana, and that the recognition of Kellogg as governor by the President of the United States was conclusive evidence of the fact that he was the person empowered to act in that capacity.

By a vote of eight to seven the Commission decided in favor of Stoughton's contention, and the same rule was applied to all the other disputed returns, and by this ruling the presidential office was awarded to Rutherford B. Hayes.

Under the circ.u.mstances then existing, and with the characters then holding office in Louisiana, it is obvious that the latter had power to throw out an unlimited number of Tilden votes if necessary to make a majority for Hayes. It is not obvious that the supporters of Tilden had power to intimidate an unlimited number of negroes; the number of the latter was slightly less than the number of whites in the State, and it was known that some of the negroes had joined the conservative party.

Moreover, the Kellogg government was shamefully illegal, even as measured by the standards then enforced upon the South. It is fair to presume, therefore, that Tilden was justly ent.i.tled to the electoral votes of Louisiana. That is my belief although I voted for Hayes.

It does not follow, however, that the decision of the Electoral Commission was wrong. That body was bound to consider the remote as well as the immediate consequences of its acts. It was engaged in making a precedent to be followed in similar disputes thereafter, if such should arise. If Congress, or any commission acting by its authority, should a.s.sume the functions of a returning board for all the states in future presidential elections, what limit could be set to their investigations, or to the pa.s.sions agitating the country while the same were in progress? In short, the Electoral Commission was sitting not to do justice between man and man, but to save the Republic. Even if it made a mistake in the exercise of its discretion, the mistake was pardonable.

On the 3d of November, 1877, the subject of this memoir was married to Miss Mary Ingraham, of Saybrook Point, Connecticut. The lady's mother was his first cousin. Two daughters were born of this union, both of whom died in infancy.

In 1880, when the next presidential campaign, that of Garfield and Hanc.o.c.k, opened, the Democrats of Illinois nominated Trumbull for governor of the State, without his own solicitation or desire. He was now sixty-seven years of age, with powers of body and mind unimpaired.

In accepting the nomination he gave a brief account of his political life extending over a period of nearly forty years. He acknowledged that he had made mistakes, but said he had never given a vote or performed an act in his official capacity which he did not at the time believe was for his country's good. He made a vigorous campaign, but the traces left of it in the newspapers contain nothing that need be recalled now. The Republican majority in the state was between thirty and forty thousand.

The Republicans nominated Shelby M. Cullom for Governor and he was elected.

The World's Columbian Exposition took place at Chicago in the year 1893.

During one of my visits to it I had the pleasure of dining with Mr.

and Mrs. Trumbull at their home on Lake Avenue. The only other guest was William J. Bryan, whom I had not met before. The leading issue in politics then was the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Mr. Bryan was an enthusiastic free-silver man and a firm believer in the early triumph of that doctrine. Trumbull was inclined to the same belief, although less confident of its success. We had an animated but friendly discussion of that question. President Cleveland had just called a special session of Congress to repeal the Silver Purchasing Act then in force, which was not a free-coinage law. I ventured to predict to my table companions that the purchasing law would be repealed and that no free-coinage law would be enacted in place of it, either then or later. None of us imagined that three years from that time Mr. Bryan himself would be the nominee of the Democratic party for President of the United States, on that issue. Trumbull's geniality and cordiality at this meeting were a joy to his guests. Our conversation, ranging over a period of nearly forty years, filled two delightful hours. He was then eighty years of age, but in vigor of mind and body I did not notice any change in him. We parted, not knowing that we should not meet again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _AET. 80_]

Trumbull's next appearance on the public stage was in the case of Eugene V. Debs, who is still with us as a perpetual candidate of the Socialistic party for President. In 1894 he was president of an organization of railway employees known as the American Railway Union.

In the month of May a dispute arose between the Pullman Palace Car Company and its employees in reference to the rate of wages, which resulted in a strike. Debs and his fellow officers of the Railway Union, for the purpose of compelling the Pullman Company to yield to the demands of their employees, issued an order to the railway companies that they should cease hauling Pullman cars, and, if they should not so cease, that the trainmen, switchmen, and others working on the railways aforesaid should strike also. As a consequence of this order twenty-two railroads were "tied up." All pa.s.sengers trains composed in part of Pullman cars were brought to a standstill. Riots broke out in the streets of Chicago. An injunction was issued against Debs by Judge Woods, of the United States Circuit Court. Governor Altgelt, of Illinois, was called upon to restore order in the city, but before he did so President Cleveland, having been officially informed that the movement of the mails was obstructed by violence in the streets of Chicago, ordered a small body of troops to that city to break the blockade. This they accomplished without delay and without bloodshed. In the mean time Debs and his a.s.sociates were put under arrest for violating the injunction of the court. Debs employed Mr. Clarence Darrow as his attorney, and Darrow applied for a writ of _habeas corpus_, which was refused. Darrow appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States and engaged Lyman Trumbull and S. S. Gregory as a.s.sociate counsel. The appeal was argued by Trumbull at the October Term in Was.h.i.+ngton City.

Trumbull had volunteered his service and refused a fee, accepting only his traveling expenses. The court rejected the pet.i.tion for a writ of _habeas corpus_ and affirmed the jurisdiction of the circuit court.

Both President Cleveland and the court were sustained by public opinion in this disposition of Debs. On the 6th of October, a large meeting was held at Central Music Hall in Chicago to consider the recent exciting events. It was addressed by Trumbull and Henry D. Lloyd. Trumbull's speech was published in the newspapers and in pamphlet form as a Populist campaign doc.u.ment. It was extremely effective from the Populist point of view, and was not, on the whole, more radical than the so-called Progressive platform of the present day. While expressing decided opinions on the subject of "judicial usurpation" (referring to the Debs case without mentioning it), he exhorted his hearers to seek a remedy by the action of Congress. "It is to be hoped," he said, "that Congress when it meets will put some check upon federal judges in a.s.suming control of railroads and issuing blanket injunctions and punis.h.i.+ng people for contempt of their a.s.sumed authority. If Congress does not do it, I trust the people will see to it that representatives are chosen hereafter who will." The recall of judges, as a remedy for unpopular decisions, had not yet been discovered.

The testimony of persons who were present at this meeting is that Trumbull showed no abatement of his powers as a speaker, and that the audience "went wild with enthusiasm."

In the month of December following, the leaders of the People's party in Chicago, ten in number, requested Trumbull to prepare a declaration of principles to be presented by them for consideration at a national conference of their party to meet at St. Louis on the 28th. This paper was drawn up and delivered to them in his own handwriting a few days before the meeting and was published in the _Chicago Times_ of December 27, in the following words:

1. Resolved, That human brotherhood and equality of rights are cardinal principles of true democracy.

2. Resolved, That, forgetting all past political differences, we unite in the common purpose to rescue the Government from the control of monopolists and concentrated wealth, to limit their powers of perpetuation by curtailing their privileges, and to secure the rights of free speech, a free press, free labor, and trial by jury--all rules, regulations, and judicial dicta in derogation of either of which are arbitrary, unconst.i.tutional, and not to be tolerated by a free people.

3. We endorse the resolution adopted by the National Republican Convention of 1860, which was incorporated by President Lincoln in his inaugural address, as follows: "That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially of the right of each state to order and control its own domestic inst.i.tutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the endurance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

4. Resolved, That the power given Congress by the Const.i.tution to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, to suppress insurrections, to repel invasions, does not warrant the Government in making use of a standing army in aiding monopolies in the oppression of their employees. When freemen unsheathe the sword it should be to strike for liberty, not for despotism, or to uphold privileged monopolies in the oppression of the poor.

5. Resolved, That to check the rapid absorption of the wealth of the country and its perpetuation in a few hands we demand the enactment of laws limiting the amount of property to be acquired by devise or inheritance.

6. Resolved, That we denounce the issue of interest-bearing bonds by the Government in times of peace, to be paid for, in part at least, by gold drawn from the Treasury, which results in the Government's paying interest on its own money.

7. Resolved, That we demand that Congress perform the const.i.tutional duty to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin by the enactment of laws for the free coinage of silver with that of gold at the ratio of 16 to 1.

8. Resolved, That monopolies affecting the public interest should be owned and operated by the Government in the interest of the people; all employees of the same to be governed by civil service rules, and no one to be employed or displaced on account of politics.