University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER IX
GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO—1868-1871

DURING the two or three years following my senatorial term, work in the founding and building of Cornell University was so engrossing that there was little time for any effort which could be called political. In the early spring of 1868 I went to Europe to examine institutions for scientific and technological instruction, and to secure professors and equipment, and during about six months I visited a great number of such schools, especially those in agriculture, mechanical, civil, and mining engineering and the like in England, France, Germany, and Italy; bought largely of books and apparatus, discussed the problems at issue with Europeans who seemed likely to know most about them, secured sundry professors, and returned in September just in time to take part in the opening of Cornell University and be inaugurated as its first president. Of all this I shall speak more in detail hereafter.

There was no especial temptation to activity in the political campaign of that year; for the election of General Grant was sure, and my main memory of the period is a visit to Auburn to hear Mr. Seward.

It had been his wont for many years, when he came home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of the election and give his views of the situation and of its resultant duties. These occasions had come to be anticipated with the deepest interest by the whole region round about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighbors

had now become such an assembly that the largest hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties.

But this year came a disappointment. Although the contest was between General Grant,—who on various decisive battle-fields had done everything to save the administration of which Mr. Seward had been a leading member, —and on the other side, Governor Horatio Seymour, who had done all in his power to wreck it, Mr. Seward devoted his speech to optimistic generalities, hardly alluding to the candidates, and leaving the general impression that one side was just as worthy of support as the other.

The speech was an unfortunate ending of Mr. Seward's career. It was not surprising that some of his old admirers bitterly resented it, and a remark by Mr. Cornell some time afterward indicated much. We were arranging together a program for the approaching annual commencement when I suggested for the main address Mr. Seward. Mr. Cornell had been one of Mr. Seward's lifelong supporters, but he received this proposal coldly, pondered it for a few moments silently, and then said dryly, "Perhaps you are right, but if you call him you will show to our students the deadest man that ain't buried in the State of New York.'' So, to my regret, was lost the last chance to bring the old statesman to Cornell. I have always regretted this loss; his presence would have given a true consecration to the new institution. A career like his should not be judged by its little defects and lapses, and this I felt even more deeply on receiving, some time after his death, the fifth volume of his published works, which was largely made up of his despatches and other papers written during the war. When they were first published in the newspapers, I often thought them long and was impatient at their optimism, but now, when I read them all together, saw in them the efforts made by the heroic old man to keep the hands of European powers off us while we were restoring the Union, and noted the desperation with which he fought, the encouragement which he infused into our diplomatic representatives

abroad, and his struggle, almost against fate, in the time of our reverses, I was fascinated. The book had arrived early in the evening, and next morning found me still seated in my library chair completely absorbed in it.

In the spring of the year 1870, while as usual in the thick of university work, I was again drawn for a moment into the current of New York politics. The long wished for amendment of the State constitution, putting our highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals, on a better footing than it had ever been before, making it more adequate, the term longer, and the salaries higher, had been passed, and judges were to be chosen at the next election. Each of the two great parties was entitled to an equal number of judges, and I was requested to go to the approaching nominating convention at Rochester in order to present the name of my old friend and neighbor, Charles Andrews.

It was a most honorable duty, no man could have desired a better candidate, and I gladly accepted the mandate. Although it was one of the most staid and dignified bodies of the sort which has ever met in the State, it had as a preface a pleasant farce.

As usual, the seething cauldron of New York City politics had thrown to the surface some troublesome delegates, and among them was one long famed as a "Tammany Republican.''

Our first business was the choice of a president for the convention, and, as it had been decided by the State committee to present for that office the name of one of the most respected judges in the State, the Honorable Platt Potter, of Schenectady, it was naturally expected that some member of the regular organization would present his name in a dignified speech. But hardly had the chairman of the State committee called the convention to order when the aforesaid Tammany Republican, having heard that Judge Potter was to be elected, thought evidently that he could gain recognition and applause by being the first to present his name. He therefore rushed forward,

and almost before the chairman had declared the convention opened, cried out: "Mr. Chairman, I move you, sir, that the Honorable `Pot Platter' be made president of this convention.'' A scream of laughter went up from all parts of the house, and in an instant a gentleman rose and moved to amend by making the name "Platt Potter.'' This was carried, and the proposer of the original motion retired crestfallen to his seat.

I had the honor of presenting Mr. Andrews's name. He was nominated and elected triumphantly, and so began the career of one of the best judges that New York has ever had on its highest court, who has also for many years occupied, with the respect and esteem of the State, the position of chief justice.

The convention then went on to nominate other judges, —nomination being equivalent to election,—but when the last name was reached there came a close contest. An old friend informed me that Judge Folger, my former colleague in the Senate and since that assistant treasurer of the United States in the city of New York, was exceedingly anxious to escape from this latter position, and desired greatly the nomination to a judgeship on the Court of Appeals.

I decided at once to do what was possible to secure Judge Folger's nomination, though our personal relations were very unsatisfactory. Owing to our two conflicts at the close of our senatorial term above referred to, and to another case where I thought he had treated me unjustly, we had never exchanged a word since I had left the State Senate; and though we met each other from time to time on the board of Cornell University trustees, we passed each other in silence. Our old friendship, which had been very dear to me, seemed forever broken, but I felt deeply that the fault was not mine. At the same time I recognized the fact that Judge Folger was not especially adapted to the position of assistant treasurer of the United States, and was admirably fitted for the position of judge in the Court of Appeals. I therefore did everything possible

to induce one or two of the delegations with which I had some influence to vote for him, dwelling especially upon his former judgeship, his long acquaintance with the legislation of the State, and his high character, and at last he was elected by a slight majority.

The convention having adjourned, I was on my way to the train when I was met by Judge Folger, who had just arrived. He put out his hand and greeted me most heartily, showing very deep feeling as he expressed his regret over our estrangement. Of course I was glad that bygones were to be bygones, and that our old relations were restored. He became a most excellent judge, and finally chief justice of the State, which position he left to become Secretary of the Treasury.

To the political cataclysm which ended his public activity and doubtless hastened his death, I refer elsewhere. As long as he lived our friendly relations continued, and this has been to me ever since a great satisfaction.

In this same year, 1870, occurred my first extended conversation with General Grant. At my earlier meeting with him when he was with President Johnson in Albany, I had merely been stiffly presented to him, and we had exchanged a few commonplaces; but I was now invited to his cottage at Long Branch and enjoyed a long and pleasant talk with him. Its main subject was the Franco-German War then going on, and his sympathies were evidently with Germany. His comments on the war were prophetic. There was nothing dogmatic in them; nothing could be more simple and modest than his manner and utterance, but there was a clearness and quiet force in them which impressed me greatly. He was the first great general I had ever seen, and I was strongly reminded of his mingled diffidence and mastery when, some years afterward, I talked with Moltke in Berlin.

Another experience of that summer dwells in my memory. I was staying, during the first week of September, with my dear old friend, Dr. Henry M. Field, at Stockbridge, in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and

had the good fortune, at the house of his brother, the eminent jurist, David Dudley Field, to pass a rainy evening in company with Mr. Burton Harrison, who, after a distinguished career at Yale, had been the private secretary of Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy. On that evening a storm had kept away all but a few of us, and Mr. Harrison yielded to our entreaties to give us an account of Mr. Davis's flight at the surrender of Richmond, from the time when he quietly left his pew in St. Paul's Church to that of his arrest by United States soldiers. The story was most vivid, and Mr. Harrison, as an eye witness, told it simply and admirably. There had already grown out of this flight of Mr. Davis a most luxuriant tangle of myth and legend, and it had come to be generally believed that the Confederate president had at last endeavored to shield himself behind the women of his household; that when arrested he was trying to escape in the attire of his wife, including a hooped skirt and a bonnet, and that he was betrayed by an incautious display of his military boots beneath his wife's flounces. The simple fact was that, having separated from his family party, and seeking escape to the coast or mountains, he was again and again led by his affection for his family to return to them, his fears for them overcoming all care for himself; and that, as he was suffering from neuralgia, he wore over his clothing, to guard him from the incessant rain, Mrs. Davis' waterproof cloak. Out of this grew the legend which found expression in jubilant newspaper articles, songs, and caricatures.

This reminds me that some years later, my old college friend, Colonel William Preston Johnston, president of Tulane University, told me a story which throws light upon that collapse of the Confederacy. Colonel Johnston was at that period the military secretary of President Davis, and, as the catastrophe approached, was much vexed at the interminable debates in the Confederate Congress. Among the subjects of these discussions was the great seal of the Confederacy. It had been decided to

adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the central position, there were many differences of opinion as to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero from one State and to replace him by another from another State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines at the time when the Turks were forcing their way through the walls of Constantinople. One day, just before the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly United States senator, but at that time the Confederate secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's office, and the following dialogue took place.

Colonel Johnston: "What are they doing in the Senate and House, Mr. Secretary?''

Mr. Benjamin: "Oh, simply debating the Confederate seal, moving to strike out this man and to insert that.''

Colonel Johnston: "Do you know what motion I would make if I were a member?''

Mr. Benjamin: "No, what would you move?''

Colonel Johnston: "I would move to strike out from the seal everything except the cocked hat.''

Colonel Johnston was right; the Confederacy was "knocked into a cocked hat'' a few days afterward.

In the autumn of that year, September, 1870, I was sent as a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and presented as a candidate for the lieutenant-governorship a man who had served the State admirably in the National Congress and in the State legislature as well as in great business operations, Mr. DeWitt Littlejohn of Oswego. I did this on the part of sundry gentlemen who were anxious to save the Republican ticket, which had at its head my old friend General Woodford, but though I was successful

in securing Mr. Littlejohn's nomination, he soon afterward declined, and defeat followed in November.

The only part which I continued to take in State politics was in writing letters and in speaking, on sundry social occasions of a political character, in behalf of harmony between the two factions which were now becoming more and more bitter. At first I seemed to have some success, but before long it became clear that the current was too strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail. I am so constituted that factious thought and effort dishearten and disgust me. At many periods of my life I have acted as a "buffer'' between conflicting cliques and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was otherwise. But, as Kipling says, "that is another story.''

The hard work and serious responsibilities brought upon me by the new university had greatly increased. They had worn deeply upon me when, in the winter of 1870-71, came an event which drew me out of my university life for a time and gave me a much needed change: —I was sent by the President as one of the three commissioners to Santo Domingo to study questions relating to the annexation of the Spanish part of that island which was then proposed, and to report thereupon to Congress.

While in Washington at this time I saw much of President Grant, Mr. Sumner, and various other men who were then leading in public affairs, but some account of them will be given in my reminiscences of the Santo Domingo expedition.

I trust that it may be allowed me here to recall an incident which ought to have been given in a preceding chapter. During one of my earlier visits to the National Capital, I made the acquaintance of Senator McDougal. His distorted genius had evidently so dazzled his fellow-citizens of California that, in spite of his defects, they had sent him to the highest council of the Nation. He was a martyr to conviviality, and when more or less under the sway of it, had strange ideas and quaint ways of expressing them. His talk recalled to me a time in my childhood

when, having found a knob of glass, twisted, striated with different colors, and filled with air bubbles, I enjoyed looking at the landscape through it. Everything became grotesquely transfigured. A cabbage in the foreground became opalescent, and an ear of corn a mass of jewels, but the whole atmosphere above and beyond was lurid, and the chimneys and church spires were topsy-turvy.

The only other person whose talk ever produced an impression of this sort on me was Tolstoy, and he will be discussed in another chapter.

McDougal's peculiarity made him at last unbearable; so much so that the Senate was obliged to take measures against him. His speech in his own defense showed the working of his mind, and one passage most of all. It remains probably the best defense of drunkenness ever made, and it ran as follows:

"Mr. President,—I pity the man who has never viewed the affairs of this world, save from the poor, low, miserable plane of ordinary sobriety.''

My absence in the West Indies covered the first three months of the year 1871, and then the commission returned to Washington and made its report; but regarding this I shall speak at length in the chapter of my diplomatic experiences, devoted to the Santo Domingo question.