1876

by Gore Vidal

  In any case, whether or not Nordhoff’s information is correct, it is a fact that Bradley today voted against going behind the returns.

  The seven partisan Republicans are now eight partisan Republicans versus seven partisan Democrats.

  Hewitt is stunned. “Something—or someone—changed Bradley’s mind,” he said to me, “between midnight and sunrise.”

  3

  FEBRUARY 10. The electoral commission met in camera for most of the day. They have just now announced that they have accepted the Hayes electors from Florida. The vote was eight to seven. Bradley has sold out.

  Nordhoff is curious what form the thirty pieces of silver took. “I hear he was paid two hundred thousand dollars to change his vote. But that,” Nordhoff admitted, “is unsubstantiated gossip.”

  Each newspaper responds to the scandal in its own characteristic way. The Times lauds the noble Bradley. The Sun hints ominously at money changing hands and reminds the nation of Bradley’s corruption: when he was a West Texas circuit judge, he was bought by the railroad interests. The fifth judge is not Bradley, according to the Sun, but the Texas Pacific railroad who will award the presidency to Hayes. The Sun says that seventeen carriages containing Republican leaders and Texas Pacific railway men converged on Bradley’s house after Stevens’s departure.

  * * *

  —

  February 16. The electoral commission has accepted the Hayes electors for Louisiana. The vote: eight to seven.

  A few days ago Bradley admitted to Hewitt that he had indeed written an opinion favouring Florida’s Tilden electors, but that this was no more than his usual practise as a judge. Apparently Bradley often writes two opinions, one for and one against. How he arrives at his ultimate opinion he regards as no one’s business.

  One of Bradley’s fellow Supreme Court Justices on the commission told Nordhoff, privately: “What Bradley says is nonsense. You don’t need to write two opinions as to whether or not to go behind the returns. The arguments were all set before us. So either you behave morally, or you don’t.”

  “Tilden or Blood!” Someone is shouting below my window. But there is only silence from Gramercy Park.

  Meanwhile Grant has called out the troops (to defend the Capitol?), and soldiers are constantly, pointedly on display. Recently an overwrought local journalist wrote that if Hayes were to go in safety from White House to Capitol for his inauguration, then the people of this country are indeed fit for slavery. This morning the journalist was arrested. The government has indicted him for sedition.

  “Tilden or Blood!” I now favour the second if we are to be, by conspiracy, denied the first.

  * * *

  —

  February 19. The commission’s recommendation that the Hayes electors for Louisiana be accepted was passed in a stormy session of the Congress.

  Two Republican members of the House voted against their own party, maintaining fraud.

  The roll of the states continued after Louisiana until Oregon…

  Fourteen

  1

  I HAVE NOT HAD THE HEART to write in this book since I received, on the evening of February 19, the following telegram: “Denise died this morning we are all devastated her son survives the funeral is tomorrow here on the plantation my love and shared anguish Emma.”

  I suppose it is in the nature of things that, as one ages, one is obliged to witness the gradual loss of all that one has ever cared for until the laggard self slips into what is, at the end, an altogether commonplace and so common darkness.

  I have telegraphed condolences to Sanford, to Emma.

  I feel as if it were Emma who had died.

  I persevere for the Herald, for Tilden, for my own…but it is absurd to write the word “future” now. Nothing will be ever again; and what has been is all that’s left.

  To date, March 2, I have still received no letter from Emma—only a second telegram to say that she will be at the Fifth Avenue Hotel March 5.

  I do my best not to think of Denise. Fortunately, there is a good deal to distract one here as, one by one, the pretensions of this ludicrous republic collapse into ruins.

  Tilden was originally thought to have won Oregon. But, perhaps legitimately, his 500-vote majority vanished and the state’s three electoral votes went to Hayes. But the law says that no state elector can be an officeholder. Since one of Oregon’s three electors for Hayes is a postmaster, he has been forced to withdraw. The Democratic governor of the state then appointed a new elector who is pledged to Tilden, proving that the Democrats are as devoted to fraud as the Republicans.

  During this squalid contest the Southern Democrats in Congress are daily wooed by the Republican leadership in tandem with the railroad interests, and a number of those wooed have been won.

  Two conditions exacted by the Southern Democrats. One, Hayes has agreed to appoint two Southerners to his Cabinet. (Nordhoff thinks this an excellent idea; he has also confessed to me that he has been in correspondence with Hayes since last summer. “A weak but honest man. I voted against him of course, but even so…”) Two, the Republicans agree to remove all Federal troops from those Southern states that are still “unreconstructed.”

  Even more compelling than the Republican politicians are the railroad lobbyists; they swarm through the Capitol like maggots through a cheese, openly buying Southern votes for Hayes (they fear reform; they fear Tilden). They are even trying to push their own special legislation through a Congress supposedly dedicated to the sublime task of electing a president.

  From about February 19 on, the tide has been turning in favour of Hayes. Tilden may have won the election, but the party that has been in power for sixteen years has no intention of surrendering the presidency. Aside from the buying of Bradley (and God—or the Texas Pacific railroad—alone knows how many members of Congress), the Republicans constantly wave the bloody shirt of rebellion. Daily the nation is reminded that the Democratic party having once gone into rebellion might do so again.

  Simultaneously, the rulers praise those “good” Southern statesmen who do not want to see the precious Union, for whom so many died, torn once again asunder by civil war. Even Jamie has been taken in by the atrocious rhetoric. A few days ago he praised the Southern members of Congress for their “patriotic submission.”

  On February 24 the Speaker of the House, Mr. Randall, joined the Southern Democrats for Hayes. Hewitt then rose and denounced the electoral commission as a fraud; nevertheless, he was forced to admit that this prolonged political crisis is having a bad effect on every aspect of American life, particularly on the nation’s business. In other words, four years of Hayes is better than four years of civil war.

  On February 27 a number of Southern Democrats met with the Republican leadership in a suite at Wormley’s Hotel. The next day the Associated Press gave the official version of the meeting which, amongst other things, emphasized that Hayes would support the claims of the Democratic candidate for governor of Louisiana!

  Nordhoff tells me that Garfield was present at the meeting, and that he had the grace to be appalled. In fact, he left early. Yet he is to be well rewarded. He is to be made Speaker of the House, with the support of the Southern Democrats.

  “Even so,” said Nordhoff, “there he is, one of the electoral commissioners who is on record as saying that the Republicans won Louisiana. Now, to get Hayes elected, he’s forced to say that the Democrats really did carry the state after all. Oh, it was a precious bargain!”

  On February 28, as the votes of Vermont were being recorded for Hayes, someone asked (out of curiosity?) if there had been any other returns from that state.

  Hewitt sprang to his feet, waving a thick envelope in the best Blaine tradition. “I hold in my hand a package which purports to contain electoral votes from the State of Vermont. This package was delivered to me by express about the middle of December
last.” Apparently a similar package had been sent the President of the Senate, who denied to Hewitt he had received it. “I then tendered him this package, the seals of which are unbroken. He declined to receive it!” Much shouting and confusion at this point.

  Nordhoff explained. “One of the three Hayes electors is—what else?—a postmaster. So he has to be disqualified. Those returns that came to Hewitt were sent by the Democratic elector who lost the election but now claims he won it because his rival was ineligible.”

  “Nonsense, then?”

  “Not if there was more time. Tilden needs only one out of the twenty disputed votes. This could be it.”

  The joint session divided to consider the matter of the Vermont returns.

  2

  MARCH 1. The joint session has now sat continuously for eighteen hours. Without a doubt, it has been the stormiest and most confusing session in the country’s history. The galleries are packed with noisy partisans. The floor is so crowded with lobbyists that at times the members of the Congress are outnumbered by their masters. Around midnight whisky bottles appeared openly. Around one in the morning, a revolver or two was noted.

  The mood of the joint session was not improved when it was discovered that Hewitt’s Vermont returns had been mislaid. For some weeks now, a continuing filibuster has stopped dead the work of the election.

  Finally a Louisiana congressman named Levy took the floor and asked his fellow Southerners to continue with the count of the states because, “I have solemn, earnest and, I believe, truthful assurances…of a policy of conciliation toward the Southern states…in the event of Hayes’s election to the presidency.” A removal of all Federal troops from the South has been guaranteed not only by Hayes but, yesterday, by Grant himself. The deal has been made.

  I sat with Nordhoff until the joint session of Congress ended at 4:10 A.M., this morning, Friday, March 2, 1877.

  A number of times during the eighteen hours of the joint session, the two houses separated in order to vote amongst themselves.

  At the last session of the House, Speaker Randall read a telegram from Tilden, saying that he would like the roll of the states to be continued—that is, to its foregone conclusion. Thus Tilden surrendered to force majeure. The House then declared Wisconsin for Hayes, and that was that.

  At four o’clock, the Senate straggled into the House chamber to renew the joint session. For the last time Senator Ferry sat in the Speaker’s chair.

  Nordhoff and I rested side by side, arms on the railing of the press gallery. We were all of us half asleep as the tragedy came to its end.

  Senator Ferry got to his feet. He looked up at the sleepy and somewhat drunken people in the public galleries. He spoke firmly. “In announcing the final result of the electoral vote, the chair trusts that all present, whether on the floor or in the galleries, will refrain from all demonstration whatever…” When he spoke of the necessity for dignity, there was a soft bark from Nordhoff at my side.

  In silence the votes of each state were read and tallied. Hayes was elected president by a single vote. Nor was the silence broken as Ferry intoned, “Wherefore, I do declare: that Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is duly elected president of the United States for four years, commencing on the fourth day of March, 1877…”

  There was no applause. Only a long weary sigh from the embattled Congress. Then a sudden thick sound.

  Just beneath us, Abram S. Hewitt had collapsed. Like Hamlet in the last act of Shakespeare’s play he was carried out of the chamber. All in all, Hewitt has about as much understanding of politics as Shakespeare’s prince, and far fewer good speeches.

  3

  MARCH 3. By a vote of 137 to 88, a still-rebellious House of Representatives today adopted a resolution declaring Samuel J. Tilden, the duly elected president of the United States, and giving him 196 electoral votes. But no one pays the slightest attention to the House, which, in any case, belongs to the railroads, who never intended for Tilden to be elected. I daresay this meaningless resolution relieved the consciences of these grubby Fausts.

  Today, for the first time since Lincoln’s murder, the front page of the New York Sun appeared with a band of mourning. There are rumours that General McClellan is raising an army in order to ensure that Tilden will be inaugurated day after tomorrow. If McClellan moves with the same despatch that he did during the Civil War, we can expect to see him arrive in time for the inaugural of 1881.

  4

  MARCH 5. This is my last night in Washington City. Travelling cases are packed. Tomorrow morning I take the cars to New York.

  Earlier today, Rutherford (now popularly known as “Ruther-fraud”) B. Hayes was duly inaugurated at the Capitol before a crowd of what looked to be some thirty thousand potential Republican officeholders. But then who am I to complain of those who seek office? I tried, and my candidate failed. Two members of the Supreme Court refused to attend the ceremony.

  Fierce-looking troops lined every approach to the Capitol. There is rebellion in the air, but nowhere else. Here on the ground all is peaceful.

  The new President looks like a back-country preacher, and sounds rather like one. He was plainly nervous, and when a shot or firecracker went off nearby, he winced noticeably—no doubt aware of all those heavily armed whisky-filled Southern congressmen on the warpath.

  Hayes’s speech was conciliatory and designed to appeal to both Southerners and reformers. It would appear that he intends to continue the Administration of Grant with the rhetoric of Tilden.

  The outgoing President looked more than ever puzzled, and hurt. Mrs. Grant looked as if she had just peered into a coffin and seen her own remains. Sic transit gloria Grantium.

  Nordhoff and I dined at Welcher’s. Sentimentally, we sat at the same table where we had first made each other’s acquaintance one year ago. One year! It seems a century.

  The dining room was crowded as a result of that quadrennial Washington phenomenon, the convergence on the city of would-be officeholders which resembles nothing so much as a blight of locusts. The wealthy locusts come to the tables at Welcher’s.

  Despite the company, we dined well, drank far too much, and were in the best of spirits. I cannot think why. I suppose the more harrowing the experience the more delighted one is that it is over. I remember how Emma and I could not stop laughing when we finally realized that we had survived the bloodletting of the Communards.

  With the first course (a complicated dish of Maryland crab garnished with creamed mussels), Nordhoff and I toasted one another in hock, which I had ordered in honour of Tilden.

  “To the President across the Mason-Dixon line.” I said.

  “To good government!” Nordhoff’s bark became a roar. For some reason the phrase “good government” struck us both as so hilarious that we laughed until we wept.

  After that we drank “To His Fraudulency,” as Nordhoff calls Mr. Hayes. Nordhoff told me that the new President has been in Washington since March 2, hidden away in Senator Sherman’s house, wondering whether or not he was going to be inaugurated.

  “Not that there was ever any real doubt. Over a week ago Grant invited Hayes for dinner on the night of March third. So when Hayes came skulking into the White House, he found that the Chief Justice had also been asked to dinner. Then Grant and his son and the Chief Justice led Hayes into an empty parlour where the Chief Justice administered the oath of office, just in case.”

  “So today was simply…”

  “The religious ceremony. The real, the civil wedding was last Saturday night when, with ravishing stride, the republic was bedded. Let’s drink to the future children of that wedding bed. To the dwarf Reform—”

  “To the hunchback States’ Rights…”

  “To the idiot Hard Money…”

  “To the twins Texas and Union Pacific…”
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  “What a lovely family!”

  Whilst we were enjoying ourselves with gallows humour, a familiar figure suddenly appeared at the door to the dining room. For a moment Garfield looked uncertain. But then, when he saw me looking at him, he decided to brazen it out. Smiling, he came to our table and sat down. “I was on my way upstairs…”

  “To a private dining room. To celebrate with the Republican leadership the great victory. And divide the spoils.” Nordhoff was beginning to show the wine he had drunk.

  “Nothing so exciting.” Garfield was warm, even affectionate—at least with me. But then I cannot keep myself from beaming fatuously at him, like a senile father with a lovely, lovely son. “Actually, I’m entertaining constituents. Just about everyone I know from Ohio is in town.”

  “Looking for jobs?” Nordhoff remembered to smile.

  “Only pro bono publico.” Garfield’s mock-gravity was almost worthy of Blaine himself. “One or two have confided to me that they are at liberty to take on, at great personal sacrifice, government labour.”

  Nordhoff relaxed somewhat. I preened myself in the light of so splendid a son.

  “A terrible time,” Garfield observed. “I know you’re not happy with the result.”

  “Are you?” Nordhoff was quick.

  “Yes. I also think that the disputed states would have been ours if the Negroes had been allowed to vote…”

  This familiar speech was cut short by Nordhoff. “But surely you’re not happy about a Democrat being elected governor of Louisiana.”

  Garfield was all blue-eyed innocence. “But we were assured that he was indeed the winner.”