1876

by Gore Vidal

  “I’m afraid I’ve not come to dinner but…”

  “But surely you were invited. If not, you are now.” Just behind Tilden, I saw several would-be Cabinet ministers moving purposefully towards us; my audience would be short.

  “No. Thank you. I am with my daughter tonight. But there is something you should know.” Rapidly, I told him everything that I had learned in Jamie’s office. Tilden listened most intently. In fact, when Mrs. Pelton tried to draw him away to greet the other guests, he motioned for her to leave us alone.

  “I knew about Mr. Reid of the Times,” he said, when I had finished. “He is a man of absolute zeal, and of a perfect dishonesty.” This is the harshest reference I have heard Tilden make to any opponent. “But I don’t think there is any chance of the majorities we have gained at the South being reversed. “But”—the deep lines between his brows were now like trenches—“I did not know that Grant had despatched the troops.”

  “Surely it is too late to change the vote. Everyone knows you have carried Louisiana by twenty thousand votes.”

  “Less, I fear. But our majority is a large one. Unfortunately, there is still the Board of Registration and there is still the Returning Board that has the power to decide just what the vote is. And both boards are controlled by Republicans. Add Federal troops to this equation…” Tilden did not finish the sentence.

  As I said good night, Tilden shook my hand warmly. “You have been a good friend, Mr. Schuyler.” That cheered me, I must say. In fact, I am generally in a good mood, and convinced that there is now no way to keep Tilden from the presidency, short of a military coup d’état on the part of Grant.

  Although the Sanford house is not yet finished, they are “camping out” in some splendour, if not total comfort.

  Twenty guests were assembled in a drawing room where that which is not tapestried is gilded.

  Although Denise must be in her sixth month, her condition was disguised by a beautiful rose-velvet creation that flared almost as much in the front as fashion requires the bustle to flare at the back. “Tell us everything! Emma says you’ve been with Mr. Tilden all day.”

  “I’ve just come from Gramercy Park.” I fear that I allowed everyone to think that I had indeed been at the hero’s side not only all day today but every day since the campaign began.

  “What does he say? Has he gone and bought his ticket on the cars for Washington?” Sanford loomed before me. The other guests were, as usual, possessed of familiar faces and of familiar names, but I am now reconciled to the fact that I shall never sort out the New York gentry, and so go to my grave believing that what looked to be the true Beekman was instead mere Fish.

  “He’s noncommittal. Of course he’s won.”

  “Noncommittal?” Emma joined the group that had attached itself to me as I stood in front of a Gobelin depicting Charlemagne. “I have just read the World. Mr. Tilden says that he has won because he was able to attract so many Republican votes.”

  “In the name of reform,” added Sanford. “Well, I could’ve sworn we had him beat all hollow. Fact, I told General Hayes on my way back from California, ‘The West is yours, General, particularly Oregon, where I’ve made a special effort.’ Lord knows, we did spend a lot of money up there. Anyway, I’m still hoping that Tilden’s measly five-hundred-vote majority will just go away.”

  “Happily, it won’t.” I was firm, knowledgeable.

  “Well, sir, soon you’ll be in France.” I turned on this, and there was John Apgar. With my permission, Emma had confided to him my dream.

  “Don’t tempt fate!”

  “Oh, Mr. Tilden has won. The Family all agree. They’re very sad of course.”

  “And you?”

  “Well, that depends on Emma, doesn’t it?” John was suddenly, unexpectedly wistful.

  “I think that now that all this is over…” I stopped, not wanting to commit Emma, who was watching us from across the room; there was a warning look in her eyes. “Life will resume a more normal course.”

  “I’m very happy for you, sir, anyway.”

  I have no idea what Emma intends to do, nor can I get her to give me a straight answer. She will neither set a date for the wedding nor break off the engagement. “I’m paralyzed,” is the very last word she has had to say on the subject.

  I suspect that if Emma is truly out of the idea of becoming Mrs. Apgar, she will keep putting off John until we know whether or not I am made minister to France. Should I get the post, she will then go back with me to Paris as my official hostess. I cannot say that I find this arrangement anything but paradisal. Yet I do feel sorry for John, for the limbo that she has put him in.

  Denise looks forward with much excitement to motherhood. “In February. What is it they say of February babies?”

  “Nothing good. But then I feel toward babies much the way good King Herod did.”

  “Not this one. You will be his godfather. And Emma his godmother.”

  “It is a he?”

  “Oh, yes. One can tell.”

  “What does Madame Restell have to say?”

  “I’ve not seen her. But Emma’s talked to her. And Madame’s sent one of her best women over to look at me and the verdict is that all’s well. Touch wood.” We touched wood together.

  “Certainly you’ve never looked more beautiful.” This was true.

  “Then you must like the Rubens style. I am very fat, and never look at myself in the bath. I can hear him, you know. Right now, inside me. Rapping to be let out. He’s very impatient.”

  “Poor boy! What a world to come into!”

  “What a marvellous world! And the things that he will see that we won’t. I do envy him.”

  “Unless it’s a daughter.”

  “Impossible. But if it is, I shall call her Emma.”

  In my hotel room, I found a note from Jamie: “You must start writing again. The Republicans are sending their leaders—and their money—South. They’re going to steal the election if they can. Popular vote: Tilden’s beaten Hayes by more than 250,000 votes. This used to be enough to make anybody president.”

  I feel very secure tonight. There is no way of denying the presidency to a man who has won by such a popular majority no matter what tricks are played, bribes given, troops mustered.

  Admittedly, the Electoral College—that ridiculous invention of the founders—can be manipulated to some degree but not sufficiently at this late hour to cheat the people of what they have so overwhelmingly voted for: the Tilden Administration.

  On the floor beside the table I saw a newspaper slip which must have fallen out of Jamie’s letter. With difficulty, I picked it up. A statement from Governor Hayes in Ohio to the New York Sun. “I am of the opinion that the Democrats have carried the country and elected Tilden…” My eyes blur. We have indeed won.

  Eleven

  1

  THE UNITED STATES is now on the verge of civil war.

  During the week since the Governor was elected president, the Republican press and the Republican party and Federal troops commanded by the Republican President have been openly at work trying to reverse the popular vote. It is a truly marvellous scandal, and deeply alarming.

  As of this morning, Tilden is certain of 184 electoral votes, while Hayes is certain of only 166. Nineteen electoral votes are “in doubt,” despite Tilden’s plain and overwhelming victory at the polls.

  Every day, new reports from all over the country excite the people dangerously. There is talk of a march on Washington. The South is reported to be arming. The better sort of Republicans are appalled at what’s happening, and the Democratic majority in the country has suddenly acquired some very odd allies, amongst them Senator Conkling, who has declared Tilden the duly elected president but warns that desperate Republicans may yet steal what is not theirs. Conkling says that if Tilden will put himself for
ward promptly to claim what is his by right, then Conkling and a number of other influential Republicans will support him.

  But will Tilden put himself forward—promptly?

  This afternoon I made my way through the watchful crowd in Gramercy Park. After showing my special badge to the police who stand guard permanently at the house of the president-elect, I was allowed to enter. I found the downstairs rooms crowded with political leaders from every part of the country. I was pushed this way and that by strangers until, luckily, I saw Bigelow on the stairs. He motioned for me to follow him up to Tilden’s study. To my question “What is happening?” he replied, “Nothing. Everything.”

  With Tilden were Hewitt, Dorsheimer (the lieutenant governor of New York State), and a Southern politician from Louisiana. Tilden rose from his desk, and greeted me formally. I noted that the left eyelid is drooping more than usual, which gives one the disquieting sense that Tilden is winking at those who would defraud him. Then the Governor sat down and said, “Mr. Hewitt has some figures for us.”

  I should note here that thus far Hewitt has proved to be a disaster as party chairman. Tilden selected Hewitt because he himself intended to administer the campaign, which he did with perfect success. But no one foresaw that in the aftermath Tilden would be forced to rely upon a party chairman who was elected to the House of Representatives less than two years ago, after a career in metallurgy. I suspect that the only true bond between him and Tilden is dyspepsia: he, too, belches, breaks wind, suffers.

  But Hewitt reads figures impressively. “Gentlemen, the national popular vote is as follows: Tilden has received 4,300,590 votes. General Hayes has received 4,036,298 votes. That gives Mr. Tilden a popular majority of 264,292 votes. We have overwhelming—and uncontested—majorities in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. We also unexpectedly—but happily—carried Indiana. As a result, the true vote in the Electoral College is Tilden, 196 and Hayes, 173. It is not, as the Republicans claim, Tilden, 184; Hayes, 166, with 19 in doubt…”

  “But while we’re sittin’ here, they are out there in the hen house stealin’ our chickens from us—” began the Southerner.

  “So it would appear.” Tilden cut him short. “Go on, Mr. Hewitt.”

  “The Republicans hope to reverse our victories in Florida and Louisiana. In Florida we won by the narrow margin of 92 votes out of 48,774 cast. But in Louisiana we swept the state, enjoying a majority of 6,549 votes. Now the Returning Boards that will decide the elections in these two states are Republican. They are made up of uneducated, docile Negroes and of transplanted Northerners as well as—”

  “You describe ’em in what I call a real polite way.” The Southerner was grim. “What you mean are damned carpetbaggers with their burr-headed nigger friends.”

  “Sir, we allow the other side the passion.” Tilden was delicately droll. “We can afford to, since we have the votes.”

  “For the present.” The Southerner was drinking whisky from a beer mug.

  “For the present.” Hewitt echoed, and again referred to his memorandum (from which I have copied these statistics). “The combined electoral vote of Louisiana and Florida is twelve. Should those two states go to Hayes, he would be elected president by one vote in the Electoral College. Or 185 votes for Hayes and 184 votes for Governor Tilden.”

  “It does not seem to me possible that the Louisiana vote can be reversed—even by ‘uneducated docile Negroes and transplanted Northerners,’ ” observed Tilden. “But we are getting disquieting news from those states. Bribery, intimidation…” He paused, and took yet another pill, drank mineral water. Unmedicated, Hewitt held back a rising belch with a strangling sound.

  Tilden continued: “Gentlemen, a trap was prepared for us a year ago by the Republicans in the Senate. I was aware of what was happening at the time but since I was at Albany I was not in a position to—affect events. And our party in the Senate allowed themselves to be outmanoeuvred.” For an instant Tilden’s cold eye rested on Congressman Hewitt, who looked uncomfortable.

  “Our success last year in the various state elections was a clear warning to the Republicans that this year we would carry New York and the other major states, which we have done. They also knew that the South was ours, which it is. How, then, could they prevent us from winning? Of course they had—they have—their troops in three of the Southern states with”—Tilden turned to the Southerner, and smiled—“carpetbag regimes. So they figured that if worse came to worse those illegal state governments could simply throw out our votes and add as many fraudulent votes as would be needed to make for a Republican victory.”

  “But this can’t be done after the popular vote is already known!” Bigelow is innocent in ways that surprise me. Even I could see the events that are now in train.

  “But it can. Our majorities will be—are being—challenged. There will be ‘re-counts.’ There will be bribes given, and taken, and we shall certainly lose our majority of ninety-two in Florida.”

  “But you won’t lose Louisiana, Governor, if you fight, and fight now!” This from the Southern politician.

  “Fight, yes. And also pay?” Tilden was delicate, ironic.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to pay, Governor. Everybody back home is for sale, no matter what party they belong to.”

  “You see my problem?” Tilden was suddenly hard; also, sad. “I have done what I set out to do. I have been elected president by a clear majority of the people who are as revolted as I am by the state of affairs in this country. Now, if I want the office to which I have been elected, I must outspend General Grant and his friends.”

  We were all of us silent. Bigelow looked uncommonly wretched, but then he is an idealist. Tilden did not speak for some minutes; instead, he stared at the clock over the mantel. With each movement of the second hand, we are propelled nearer and nearer to December 6, when the Electoral College will be convened in order to decide the fate not only of us in that room but of the United States as well.

  From outside we could heard several male voices shouting, “Hurray for Uncle Sam,” as the people have taken to calling Tilden. The Governor bit his underlip. Some sudden emotion stirred beneath that cool exterior.

  “Yes, the trap,” Tilden remembered. “Let me explain it. In 1865 a Republican-dominated Congress passed something called the Twenty-second Joint Rule. It was intended to clarify the Constitution, which says that the final vote of the Electoral College shall be delivered to the president of the Senate. Then with both houses of the Congress as witnesses, he will declare the vote of each state and have the total counted. The Constitution is silent on the question of what happens if a state’s vote is disputed.”

  Suddenly, plunged into a matter of law, Tilden became almost cheerful. The voice strengthened. “The Twenty-second Joint Rule declared that should there be disagreement as to any state’s returns, the matter would then be resolved in a joint session of the Congress. A most statesmanlike solution to an ancient ambiguity.” The clock over the mantel struck five o’clock, and Tilden stopped speaking. I suspect that each of us counted to himself, foolishly, the five strokes.

  “Now a joint rule of Congress is an absolute law, which cannot be rescinded save by both houses. But last January our sly Republican friends in the Senate, anticipating defeat in this election, and wanting to carry those Southern states, unilaterally abolished the ten-year old Joint Rule and—”

  “Unilaterally and illegally?” Bigelow was looking more cheerful.

  Tilden nodded. “It was all done swiftly, without debate. Our party never knew what was happening until too late.”

  “But there must be some means of arbitration, even without the Joint Rule.” Hewitt was doing his best to appear knowledgeable in the one field that is the most remote from metallurgy.

  “That is my hope. There is bound to be new machinery. We must find some way to see that it is honestly established.”

 
“Well, I say go and tell those who elected you to take to the streets of New Orleans and Baton Rouge! And then you go there yourself, as the president-elect, which you are, and with some fifty thousand Louisiana Democrats in the streets, armed to the teeth, the carpetbaggers won’t dare steal your vote from you.”

  “There will also be fifty thousand Federal troops, ready to re-commence the late war.” Tilden was outwardly serene.

  “But what am I to tell our people, who are even now waitin’ to hear from me at the telegraph office in New Orleans?”

  To this challenge Tilden merely responded with his famed mumble, “I’ll see you later.” If there is to be civil war, Tilden does not want the credit for firing the first gun. I find his attitude entirely admirable, and perfectly maddening.

  “Well, sir, I’ll tell you what will happen if you don’t take a firm stand this very minute.” The Louisianian (must get his name) was harsh. “There are a number—maybe as high as forty—Southern Democratic members of the Congress who will desert you and support Hayes if he promises to take the troops out of those states where they now are and give us back our liberties.”

  “But, sir, you have overwhelmingly elected me to do this very thing, and I will do it.” Tilden was equally hard. “I cannot believe that any Southerner will ever put his trust in the party of General Grant.”

  At this point, Tilden was called downstairs to meet with a number of constitutional lawyers. Disconsolately, we stayed on in the study. The Louisianian proceeded to get drunk. Hewitt examined charts.

  In a low voice Bigelow told me some of the latest developments, which I am not to write just yet for the Herald. “We can have South Carolina’s electoral vote for eighty thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not unreasonable.”

  “Pelton’s dealing with the members of the Returning Board right now. They want the money in Baltimore by Sunday night. In cash. In one-thousand- and five-thousand-dollar bills.”