Grant Succumbs to Temptation, Hayes Gets the Nod (1876)

William Archibald Dunning recounts how President Grant refuses a third term in language so equivocal that it amounts to encouragement for his partisans. The result is a Congressional warning and the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes.


Not long after Grant's second inauguration in 1873, the New York Herald, in the mere exuberance of a notorious sensationalism, broached the idea that the president was scheming to secure a third term for himself. The idea was taken up with joy by hostile journalists and politicians, and was nursed and developed into a portentous bogey duly dubbed "Caesarism." No thinking person, save Democratic politicians seeking political capital, attached any importance to the agitation, which was kept up, with obviously hard labor, throughout the elections of 1874. In the spring of 1875, however, the president played into the hand of his enemies by writing for publication a letter in which his declaration that he was not a candidate for another nomination was so carefully qualified as irresistibly to suggest that he would willingly accept it. The letter gave a new aspect to the maneuvers of the administration wing of the Republican organization. At the same time it stimulated conclusive demonstrations that the party as a whole could never be brought to acquiesce in the perpetuation of Grantism. At the opening of the session of Congress in December, 1875, a resolution passed the House, by a vote of 234 to 18, declaring that a third term would be "unwise, unpatriotic and fraught with peril to our free institutions," and the majority included two-thirds of the Republican members of the House. In such an expression of feeling there was no encouragement for those who had been watching for a chance to press Grant to the front, and the administration politicians passed definitively to the work of nominating either [Roscoe] Conkling or [Oliver] Morton.

The Republican convention met a Cincinnati, June 14, 1876. Its outcome was a radical platform and a reform nomination. With [Orville E.] Babcock, [William W.] Belknap, and the whole unsavory record of the administration fresh in their minds, the committee on resolutions could hardly frame an inspiriting appeal for support on the basis of the party's recent achievements. Hence the only clauses that embodied anything of the positive and aggressive tone familiar in platforms were those reciting the party's achievements in dealing with slavery and rebellion, and those denouncing the Democracy, and specifically the majority in the House of Representatives as supporters of treason and as foes of the nation. This species of "bloody-shirt" waving was obviously the species that Mr. [James G.] Blaine had designed, and his choice as nominee would have been the appropriate accompaniment of the platform. But though he was far in the lead of every other candidate in number of delegates, the extreme radicals and the extreme reformers alike opposed him. The result was an eventual recourse to a "dark horse" — Governor Hayes, of Ohio — whose availability was of just that nebulous type which bulks largest to a tired delegate in despair of getting the man of his deliberate choice.

Hayes was nominated on the seventh ballot, and Congressman [William A.] Wheeler, of New York, was speedily named for vice-president. Not till his letter of acceptance appeared was the precise quality of Hayes's Republicanism generally known. In that document he proclaimed with the utmost distinctness his abhorrence of the spoils system and his purpose to extirpate it, pledged himself not to accept a renomination, and announced in respect to southern affairs a desire to "wipe out forever the distinction between North and South in our common country." These sentiments left no room to doubt that the Republican nominee belonged to the reforming wing of the party.



The American Nation: a History. Volume 22: Reconstruction Political and Economic 1865-1877 by William Archibald Dunning. Series Editor: Albert Bushnell Hart. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, no date. (Copyright 1933 by Edward S. Cole.) 298-301.



Also See:

• Adams's Education is Advanced by President Grant. Young Henry Adams, already an eye-witness to the Italian struggle for independence and Secretary to the United States' Ambassador to Great Britain (his father), votes for Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 presidential election and looks on with interest to see how matters will unfold.
• Grant Tries for a Third Term (1880). Edwin Erle Sparks describes how, the 1880 Republican convention began with Ulysses S. Grant well in the lead and ended with James A. Garfield -- the darkest of dark-horses -- walking away with the nomination.
• Bartram Seeks News of the Creeks and Seminoles. About to ascend the St. John's River, in April of 1774, Wiliam Bartram seeks information about a recent incident between the local settlers and Indians.
• Audubon Observes Florida Sea-Turtles. During an 1832 trip to Florida and the Tortugas, the naturalist James Audubon had the opportunity to study the region's large Turtles...
• Be sure to check out the Browser's Guide to the Library of Babel.

Adams's Education is Advanced by President Grant

Young Henry Adams, already an eye-witness to the Italian struggle for independence and Secretary to the United States' Ambassador to Great Britain (his father), decided next to try his hand at political journalism in Washington, D.C. He, like most Americans, would vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 presidential election and looked on with interest to see how matters would unfold.



Adams was young and easily deceived, in spite of his diplomatic adventures, but even at twice his age he could not see that this reliance on Grant was unreasonable. Had Grant been a Congressman one would have been on one's guard, for one knew the type. One never expected from a Congressman more than good intentions and public spirit. Newspaper-men as a rule had no great respect for the lower House; Senators had less; and Cabinet officers had none at all. Indeed, one day when Adams was pleading with a Cabinet officer for patience and tact in dealing with Representatives, the Secretary impatiently broke out: "You can’t use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!" Adams knew far too little, compared with the Secretary, to contradict him, though he thought the phrase somewhat harsh even as applied to the average Congressman of 1869 -- he saw little or nothing of later ones -- but he knew a shorter way of silencing criticism. He had but to ask: "If a Congressman is a hog, what is a Senator?" This innocent question, put in a candid spirit, petrified any executive officer that ever sat a week in his office. Even Adams admitted that Senators passed belief. The comic side of their egotism partly disguised its extravagance, but faction had gone so far under Andrew Johnson that at times the whole Senate seemed to catch hysterics of nervous bucking without apparent reason. Great leaders, like Sumner and Conkling, could not be burlesqued; they were more grotesque than ridicule could make them; even Grant, who rarely sparkled in epigram, became witty on their account; but their egotism and factiousness were no laughing matter. They did permanent and terrible mischief, as Garfield and Blaine, and even McKinley and John Hay, were to feel. The most troublesome task of a reform President was that of bringing the Senate back to decency.

Therefore no one, and Henry Adams less than most, felt hope that any President chosen from the ranks of politics or politicians would raise the character of the government; and by instinct if not by reason, all the world united on Grant. The Senate understood what the world expected, and waited in silence for a struggle with Grant more serious than that with Andrew Johnson. Newspaper-men were alive with eagerness to support the President against the Senate. The newspaper-man is, more than most men, a double personality; and his person feels best satisfied in its double instincts when writing in one sense and thinking in another. All newspaper-men, whatever they wrote, felt alike about the Senate. Adams floated with the stream. He was eager to join in the fight which he foresaw as sooner or later inevitable. He meant to support the Executive in attacking the Senate and taking away its two-thirds vote and power of confirmation, nor did he much care how it should be done, for he thought it safer to effect the revolution in 1870 than to wait till 1920.

With this thought in his mind, he went to the Capitol to hear the names announced which should reveal the carefully guarded secret of Grant's Cabinet. To the end of his life, he wondered at the suddenness of the revolution which actually, within five minutes, changed his intended future into an absurdity so laughable as to make him ashamed of it. He was to hear a long list of Cabinet announcements not much weaker or more futile than that of Grant, and none of them made him blush, while Grant's nominations had the singular effect of making the hearer ashamed, not so much of Grant, as of himself. He had made another total misconception of life — another inconceivable false start. Yet, unlikely as it seemed, he had missed his motive narrowly, and his intention had been more than sound, for the Senators made no secret of saying with senatorial frankness that Grant's nominations betrayed his intent as plainly as they betrayed his incompetence. A great soldier might be a baby politician.

...Subsequently Grant made changes in the list which were mostly welcome to a Bostonian -- or should have been -- although fatal to Adams. The name of Hamilton Fish, as Secretary of State, suggested extreme conservatism and probable deference to Sumner. The name of George S. Boutwell, as Secretary of the Treasury, suggested only a somewhat lugubrious joke; Mr. Boutwell could be described only as the opposite of Mr. McCulloch, and meant inertia; or, in plain words, total extinction for any one resembling Henry Adams. On the other hand, the name of Jacob D. Cox, as Secretary of the Interior, suggested help and comfort; while that of Judge Hoar, as Attorney-General, promised friendship. On the whole, the personal outlook, merely for literary purposes, seemed fairly cheerful, and the political outlook, though hazy, still depended on Grant himself. No one doubted that Grant's intention had been one of reform; that his aim had been to place his administration above politics; and until he should actually drive his supporters away, one might hope to support him. One's little lantern must therefore be turned on Grant. One seemed to know him so well, and really knew so little.

By chance it happened that Adam Badeau took the lower suite of rooms at Dohna's, and, as it was convenient to have one table, the two men dined together and became intimate. Badeau was exceedingly social, though not in appearance imposing. He was stout; his face was red, and his habits were regularly irregular; but he was very intelligent, a good newspaper-man, and an excellent military historian. His life of Grant was no ordinary book. Unlike most newspaper-men, he was a friendly critic of Grant, as suited an officer who had been on the General's staff. As a rule, the newspaper correspondents in Washington were unfriendly, and the lobby sceptical. From that side one heard tales that made one's hair stand on end, and the old West Point army officers were no more flattering. All described him as vicious, narrow, dull, and vindictive. Badeau, who had come to Washington for a consulate which was slow to reach him, resorted more or less to whiskey for encouragement, and became irritable, besides being loquacious. He talked much about Grant, and showed a certain artistic feeling for analysis, as a true literary critic would naturally do. Loyal to Grant, and still more so to Mrs. Grant, who acted as his patroness, he said nothing, even when far gone, that was offensive about either, but he held that no one except himself and Rawlins understood the General. To him, Grant appeared as an intermittent energy, immensely powerful when awake, but passive and plastic in repose. He said that neither he nor the rest of the staff knew why Grant succeeded; they believed in him because of his success. For stretches of time, his mind seemed torpid. Rawlins and the others would systematically talk their ideas into it, for weeks, not directly, but by discussion among themselves, in his presence. In the end, he would announce the idea as his own, without seeming conscious of the discussion; and would give the orders to carry it out with all the energy that belonged to his nature. They could never measure his character or be sure when he would act. They could never follow a mental process in his thought. They were not sure that he did think....

Badeau took Adams to the White House one evening and introduced him to the President and Mrs. Grant. First and last, he saw a dozen Presidents at the White house, and the most famous were by no means the most agreeable, but he found Grant the most curious object of study among them all. About no one did opinions differ so widely. Adams had no opinion, or occasion to make one. A single word with Grant satisfied him that, for his own good, the fewer words he risked, the better. Thus far in life he had met with but one man of the same intellectual or unintellectual type -- Garibaldi. Of the two, Garibaldi seemed to him a trifle more intellectual, but, in both, the intellect counted for nothing; only the energy counted. The type was pre-intellectual, archaic, and would have seemed so even to the cave-dwellers


The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. "President Grant (1869)", 260-65.


Also See:

• Grant Succumbs to Temptation, Hayes Gets the Nod (1876). William Archibald Dunning recounts how President Grant refuses a third term in language so equivocal that it amounts to encouragement for his partisans.
• Grant Tries for a Third Term (1880). Edwin Erle Sparks describes how, the 1880 Republican convention began with Ulysses S. Grant well in the lead and ended with James A. Garfield -- the darkest of dark-horses -- walking away with the nomination.
• Bartram Seeks News of the Creeks and Seminoles. About to ascend the St. John's River, in April of 1774, Wiliam Bartram seeks information about a recent incident between the local settlers and Indians.
• Audubon Observes Florida Sea-Turtles. During an 1832 trip to Florida and the Tortugas, the naturalist James Audubon had the opportunity to study the region's large Turtles...
• Be sure to check out the Browser's Guide to the Library of Babel.

Grant Tries for a Third Term (1880)

Edwin Erle Sparks describes how, in the wake of Rutherford B. Hayes's pledge to serve only one term, the 1880 Republican convention began with Ulysses S. Grant well in the lead and ended with James A. Garfield -- the darkest of dark-horses -- walking away with the nomination.


In May, 1877, ex-President Grant sailed from New York on a tour of the world, and returned three years later to be greeted with an outburst of popular enthusiasm which certain of his former leaders took to be a desire to have him return to the presidential chair, to resume the era of "strong" government. The growing Democratic home rule in the southern states, the narrow escape from a Democratic president in 1876, the loss of both houses of Congress -- all these apparently could be traced to the pacific policy of a "weak president." To save the day, [Roscoe] Conkling brought New York into line for another term for Grant, [John A.] Logan did the same for Illinois, [Simon] Cameron attended to Pennsylvania, and several minor states followed these leaders. Other names likely to come prominently before the Republican convention of 1880 were those of Senator [James] Blaine, of Maine; John Sherman, of Ohio, secretary of the treasury; and Senator [Geroge F.] Edmunds, of Vermont.

Many persons who had in 1876 opposed giving Grant a third term, in 1880 supported him on the ground that the precedent was against a third consecutive term, and that the four years which had elapsed since Grant left office removed his disability. The argument was plausible, but was declared by others to be against the spirit, if not the principle, of the "national habit." Grant's nomination, it was said, would revive the scandals of his administration, would therefore be detrimental to the party interests, and was likely to cost the Republicans the election. The alarming cries of four years before were revived; Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon were instanced as examples of civic menace in a military hero. The self-denial of Washington it was said, followed by that of Grant, would free America forever from the spectre of militarism. "No Third Term" leagues were formed, and "Young Scratchers" clubs were urged. An "Anti-Third Term" convention was held in St. Louis in May, 1880, at which fourteen states were represented. A majority of the Republican newspapers, judging from their editorials, were opposed to the experiment of a third term.

Grant's consent to be a candidate was afterwards explained in several ways by his friends. They pictured him chafing under the restraint of retirement after an active military life; and described his eagerness to return to America and get into military action, when he heard in England of the disorders growing out of the railway strike of 1877. Others suggested that Grant, in addition to his experience as a soldier, thought himself better prepared for national administration after the civic studies he had made during his extensive travels. The charitably inclined placed the responsibility on his friends and on the constant pressure from his family, eager to regain the social position they once enjoyed in the White House.

The Republican convention assembled at Chicago, June 2, 1880. Conkling, lord of the day and chief promoter for Grant, lost his first battle when the convention agreed that after roll-call by states any member could demand an individual poll of delegates of his state, and that a divided delegation should be so recorded. This broke the attempt to introduce the Democratic custom of a "unit rule," under which the largest states would be held to Grant, according to their instructions. On the first ballot, Grant secured only 304 votes, and never rose above 312 on subsequent ballots. Since 379 were required for a choice, there was evidently to be no third term for a president, even if it was not sequential.

In all the proceedings thus far General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, had been conspicuous. Rising from a birth sufficiently humble to earn for him the fetching sobriquet of "canal-boat boy," resigning from the military service with the rank of major-general at thirty-two years of age to enter a congressional career, serving the famous "Western Reserve" of Ohio for many consecutive terms, candidate of the Republican minority for speaker, member of the electoral commission, senator-elect from Ohio, Garfield became by common consent the leader of those who opposed Grant and a third term. As chairman of the committee on rules in the Chicago convention, he reported the anti-unit rule, intended to destroy that throttling-machine which had been rejected by the Republican convention four years before and which now reappeared as the agency of Conkling and his associates. In a speech, which was the feature of the first few days of the convetion, Garfield begged Conkling to withdraw a resolution that delegates who refused to be bound by the majority vote thereby forfeited their seats in the convention. Conkling somehow realized that the day for this high-handed manner of enforcing party discipline was past, and withdrew his motion.

Although Garfield supported Sherman, of his own state, and refused to listen to Conkling's suggestion that he might be a "dark horse," he considered the candidate as a secondary matter compared with defeating Grant and a third-term movement. For more than thirty ballots the convention sat in dead-lock, 306 of Grant's delegates holding steadily together, and the other delegates scattering their votes. Conkling supposed that he could deliver the entire New York delegation to Grant; but nineteen of the delegates, headed by William H. Robertson, went over to Blaine. This gave to the man from Maine 284 votes on the first ballot, a number he could not increase on any subsequent ballot. Sherman reached his greatest strength, 119 votes, on the thirty-third ballot, being betrayed, as he believed, by Governor [Charles] Foster's leaning toward Blaine. On the thirty-fourth ballot, Wisconsin brought out the proverbial "dark horse" by going over bodily from [Elihu] Washburne to Garfield, who had received an occasional vote during the two days of balloting. Two ballots later the Blaine and Sherman delegations shifted to Garfield and secured his nomination.



The American Nation: a History. Volume 23: National Development 1877-1885 by Edwin Erle Sparks. Series Editor: Albert Bushnell Hart. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, no date. (Copyright 1935 by Katherine C. Sparks.) 167-71.



Also See:

• Adams's Education is Advanced by President Grant. Young Henry Adams, already an eye-witness to the Italian struggle for independence and Secretary to the United States' Ambassador to Great Britain (his father), votes for Ulysses S. Grant in the 1868 presidential election and looks on with interest to see how matters will unfold.
• Grant Succumbs to Temptation, Hayes Gets the Nod (1876). William Archibald Dunning recounts how President Grant refuses a third term in language so equivocal that it amounts to encouragement for his partisans.