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Marse Henry (Vol. 1)

H >> Henry Watterson >> Marse Henry (Vol. 1)




"Now, gentlemen," said I, half in jest, "I am here to represent South
Carolina; and if the terms given to Louisiana are not equally applied to
South Carolina I become a filibuster myself to-morrow morning."

There was some chaffing as to what right I had there and how I got in, when
with great earnestness Governor Dennison, who had been the bearer of a
letter from Mr. Hayes, which he had read to us, put his hand on my shoulder
and said: "As a matter of course the Southern policy to which Mr. Hayes has
here pledged himself embraces South Carolina as well as Louisiana."

Mr. Sherman, Mr. Garfield and Mr. Evarts concurred warmly in this, and
immediately after we separated I communicated the fact to General Butler.

In the acrimonious discussion which subsequently sought to make "bargain,
intrigue and corruption" of this Wormley Conference, and to involve certain
Democratic members of the House who were nowise party to it but had
sympathized with the purpose of Louisiana and South Carolina to obtain some
measure of relief from intolerable local conditions, I never was questioned
or assailed. No one doubted my fidelity to Mr. Tilden, who had been
promptly advised of all that passed and who approved what I had done.

Though "conscripted," as it were, and rather a passive agent, I could
see no wrong in the proceeding. I had spoken and voted in favor of the
Electoral Tribunal Bill, and losing, had no thought of repudiating its
conclusions. Hayes was already as good as seated. If the States of
Louisiana and South Carolina could save their local autonomy out of the
general wreck there seemed no good reason to forbid.

On the other hand, the Republican leaders were glad of an opportunity to
make an end of the corrupt and tragic farce of Reconstruction; to unload
their party of a dead weight which had been burdensome and was growing
dangerous; mayhap to punish their Southern agents, who had demanded so much
for doctoring the returns and making an exhibit in favor of Hayes.



X


Mr. Tilden accepted the result with equanimity.

"I was at his house," says John Bigelow, "when his exclusion was announced
to him, and also on the fourth of March when Mr. Hayes was inaugurated, and
it was impossible to remark any change in his manner, except perhaps that
he was less absorbed than usual and more interested in current affairs."

His was an intensely serious mind; and he had come to regard the
presidency as rather a burden to be borne--an opportunity for public
usefulness--involving a life of constant toil and care, than as an occasion
for personal exploitation and rejoicing.

How much of captivation the idea of the presidency may have had for
him when he was first named for the office I cannot say, for he was as
unexultant in the moment of victory as he was unsubdued in the hour of
defeat; but it is certainly true that he gave no sign of disappointment to
any of his friends.

He lived nearly ten years longer, at Greystone, in a noble homestead he had
purchased for himself overlooking the Hudson River, the same ideal life of
the scholar and gentleman that he had passed in Gramercy Park.

Looking back over these untoward and sometimes mystifying events, I have
often asked myself: Was it possible, with the elements what they were, and
he himself what he was, to seat Mr. Tilden in the office to which he had
been elected? The missing ingredient in a character intellectually and
morally great and a personality far from unimpressive, was the touch of the
dramatic discoverable in most of the leaders of men; even in such leaders
as William of Orange and Louis XI; as Cromwell and Washington.

There was nothing spectacular about Mr. Tilden. Not wanting the sense of
humor, he seldom indulged it. In spite of his positiveness of opinion and
amplitude of knowledge he was always courteous and deferential in debate.
He had none of the audacious daring, let us say, of Mr. Elaine, the
energetic self-assertion of Mr. Roosevelt. Either in his place would have
carried all before him.

I repeat that he was never a subtle schemer--sitting behind the screen and
pulling his wires--which his political and party enemies discovered him to
be as soon as he began to get in the way of the machine and obstruct the
march of the self-elect. His confidences were not effusive, nor their
subjects numerous. His deliberation was unfailing and sometimes it carried
the idea of indecision, not to say actual love of procrastination. But in
my experience with him I found that he usually ended where he began, and it
was nowise difficult for those whom he trusted to divine the bias of his
mind where he thought it best to reserve its conclusions.

I do not think in any great affair he ever hesitated longer than the
gravity of the case required of a prudent man or that he had a preference
for delays or that he clung tenaciously to both horns of the dilemma, as
his training and instinct might lead him to do, and did certainly expose
him to the accusation of doing.

He was a philosopher and took the world as he found it. He rarely
complained and never inveighed. He had a discriminating way of balancing
men's good and bad qualities and of giving each the benefit of a generous
accounting, and a just way of expecting no more of a man than it was in him
to yield. As he got into deeper water his stature rose to its level, and
from his exclusion from the presidency in 1877 to his renunciation of
public affairs in 1884 and his death in 1886 his walks and ways might have
been a study for all who would learn life's truest lessons and know the
real sources of honor, happiness and fame.

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