Ohio History Journal

NOTES                                                                        197

 

52. Garfield Diary, February 28, 1878, ibid.

53. Ibid., September 17, 1878.

54. Ibid., February 23, 1879.

55. See, for example, Garfield Diary, March 6, May 10, and June 29, 1879, ibid.

56. Garfield to wife, May 10, 1879, Garfield Family Papers.

57. Garfield Diary, November 4, 1880, Garfield Papers.

58. Hayes, Diary and Letters, June 5, 1880, III, 600.

59. Hayes to Garfield, June 8, 1880, Garfield Papers.

60. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 600-601.

61. Ibid.

62. Hayes to Garfield, August 22, 1880, Garfield Papers.

63. Hayes to Garfield, July 26, 1880, ibid.

64. Garfield to Hayes, March 11, 1881, ibid.

65. Joseph Bushman to A. F. Rockwell, April 8, 1881, ibid.

66. Hayes to Garfield, March 6, 1881, ibid.

67. Lucretia Garfield Diary, March 4, 1881; typed copy given to author by Garfield

family.

68. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 638-640.

69. J. G. Blaine to Garfield, December 15, 1880, Garfield Papers.

70. Washington Star, n.d., in scrapbook, ibid.

71. Hayes to Miss Augustine Snead, April 25, 1881, in Hayes, Diary and Letters,

IV, 10.

72. Ibid., February 21, 1883, p. 110.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES and JOHN SHERMAN

1. Congressional Record, 52 cong., 2 sess., 661.

2. Hayes was born October 4, 1822; Sherman, May 10, 1823.

3. The contrast between them in this respect is evidenced repeatedly in the corre-

spondence of prominent associates of their period.

4. So far as this writer knows there was but one juncture at which Hayes could

have blocked Sherman's advance, and Hayes flatly refused to seize that opportunity, as

will be related below.

5. Sherman's pre-Civil War experiences seem to have been recalled accurately, in

the main, when he at age 71 narrated them in his Recollections of Forty Years in the

House, Senate and Cabinet: An Autobiography (Chicago, 1894), 28-230, hereinafter cited

as Recollections.

6. Except for his renomination for the Senate in 1866 (when he won on the second

ballot) his senatorial candidacies were much more hardfought than his Recollections

indicate. The 1861 contest was won on the 78th ballot but is described in his Recollec-

tions (p. 233) as merely one in which "several ballots were taken on a number of days

without result," whereupon he answered a summons to Columbus "and was nominated

on the first vote after my arrival." Although nominated on the first ballot in 1892, he re-

called the contest as "the most formidable that I have ever encountered in Ohio."

Ibid., 1142.

7. Sherman was chairman of the ways and means committee of the House (which

then handled appropriations as well as taxation) during the bitter, strife-torn sessions

between February of 1860 and March of 1861.

8. A "constant sense of elation" during service in the war is the impression culled by

Harry Barnard from Hayes's wartime letters to his wife; see Rutherford B. Hayes and

his America (Indianapolis, 1954) , 229.

9. The aura of war service and the warmth of wartime personal recollections per-

meate the references to them in Hayes's Diary and correspondence.

10. E. H. Roseboom, The Civil War Era: 1850-1873 (Carl Wittke, ed., History of the

State of Ohio, IV, Columbus, 1944), 445.

11. In 1880, 1884, and 1888. Other deficiencies which Sherman underestimated prob-

ably were more disadvantageous to him, as will be indicated below. For convenient

summaries of Ohio's turnabouts in the Hayes-Sherman era see Roseboom, Civil War Era,

340-485 and Volume V in the Wittke series, Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age:

1873-1900 (Columbus, 1943), 15-59, 144-219, 293-327.

12. Charles R. Williams, ed., Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes Nine-

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198                                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

teenth President of the United States, (Columbus, 1924), III, 2; hereinafter cited as

Hayes, Diary and Letters.

13. The danger in the suffrage issue was pinpointed when the Unionist candidate

for governor, General Jacob D. Cox, would go no further than a "separation plan"

while General Garfield, Representative from  the Western Reserve, pressed for Negro

suffrage. Roseboom, Civil War Era, 449-452.

14. It is noteworthy that this early the Cleveland Leader was bitterly opposed to

Sherman; a regional unpopularity which followed him thereafter was not unconnected

with the Garfield-Sherman antagonisms. Sherman's distaste for recording intraparty

antagonisms is reflected in his usually casual reference to them. He quoted an early

Greeley letter of 1865 assuring him "that the combination to supplant you in the Senate

is quite strong and confident of success," but he described the contest as merely

"friendly" with but little opposition. Recollections, 358-359.

15. In the same 1867 canvass which won Hayes his first governorship the Democrats

won the legislature and thus were able to displace Sherman's Republican colleague,

Wade, with the Democrat Thurman. Democrats Pendleton, Payne, and Brice followed

before 1897, when Sherman left to become Secretary of State, and the two Republicans,

Foraker and Hanna, became colleagues.

16. Sherman was elected to the Senate six times; but only three other Ohioans,

Benjamin Ruggles, Thomas Ewing and Benjamin Wade, won in the 19th century as

many as three senatorships. Theodore Burton of Cleveland broke all Ohio reelection

records with thirteen to the House and two to the Senate, 1888-1928.

17. In 1867 Ohio's Secretary of State, William  Henry Smith, wrote Hayes "it was

the opinion of all the best men that you were the only one who could carry us safely

and triumphantly through the campaign."   Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 43. Roseboom,

Civil War Era, 447, gives this popularity a ten-year duration; i.e., it ended when he be-

came President.

18. Hayes to S. Birchard, August 6; Hayes to Mrs. Hayes, September 9; Hayes to

Guy M. Bryan, October 1, 1866; Hayes to S. Birchard, February 2, June 20, 1867.

Hayes Papers, The Rutherford B. Hayes Library.

19. Judge Thurman kept the place two terms. Hayes had just defeated him for the

governorship in a race so courteous that he wrote Hayes "you and I have behaved like

gentlemen and friends." Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 48.

20. Hayes to David A. Wells, April 6, 1870. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 95.

21. The following account is based chiefly upon letters in Hayes. Diary and Letters,

III, 173-175, 184-188, 191-194; Sherman to Hayes, November 22, 1871, Haves Papers;

Sherman, Recollections, 474-480; Roseboom, Civil War Era, 475-480; H. J. Brown and

F. D. Williams, Diary of James A. Garfield (Lansing, 1967), II, 4.

22. State Senator J. S. Casement statement to Governor Hayes, January 9, 1872.

Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 192. Hayes thought Sherman "much aided" by savage at-

tacks against him. Ibid., 188.

23. Hayes's diary entry of January 10, 1872. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 191.

24. Ibid., 188.

25. Hayes put it succinctly: "I am a party man and until the party decides to act

without a  caucus. I must abide by the caucus." ibid., 187. Garfield, more equivocal,

wired the dissidents "I believe the law of 1866 was designed to remove the choice of

senators from  the caucus to the legislature, but of that you must judge. Do as you

think about presenting my name." Brown and Williams, Diary of Garfield, II, 4.

26. Sherman includes with Hayes. Garfield, ex-Governor Dennison, and Representa-

tive Schenck as those approached by the dissidents, Recolletions, 478-480; but here, as

in all other of his senatorial reelections except that of 1891 (p. 1108-1143), he gives

them scant space and seeks to create the impression that they were "friendly" contests

in the main.

27. Sherman to Hayes, March 26, 1873, Hayes Papers. Possibly Sherman inadvertently

had early assured Robertson that Hayes would accept: J. H. Saville to Hayes, June 6,

1873, Hayes Papers. See also Haves to B. R. Cowen, March 29, 1873, Hayes, Diary and

Letters, III, 234-235; Cowen to Hayes, April 10, 1873, Hayes Papers.

28. Hayes to Sherman, April 2, 1873. Sherman Papers, Library of Congress.

29. Hayes to son Webb, October 11, 1874; Hayes to Sherman, June 29, July 5, 1875,

Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 259, 282-283. The importance of such collaboration is

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NOTES                                                                        199

 

grasped from a comparison of Hayes's speeches, quoted liberally in Charles R. Wil-

liams, The Life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (Boston, 1914), I, 387-408, with the

newspaper citations in Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 36-48.

30. Sherman, Recollections, 522-523; New York Tribune, January 25, 1876; Hayes,

Diary and Letters, III, 300-301. This letter was widely printed and much commented

upon. Hayes apparently furnished his advocates with a summation to indicate that he

was, indeed, "distinguished." Ibid., 302-303.

31. The Cincinnati locale was of great importance to a Hayes nomination, accord-

ing to H. J. Eckenrode, who treats of Hayes's candidacy as a reform movement in

Rutherford B. Hayes (New York, 1930), 119-138.

32. Sherman, Recollections, 551; Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 326.

33. Sherman to Hayes, June 20, 1876, Hayes Papers. Sherman's correspondence on

the patronage often indicated that where reason and duty conflicted with personal

kindness he failed to realize that disappointed office seekers could not easily appreciate

his standards of selection.

34. These quotations appear in Eckenrode, Rutherford B. Hayes, 182, 184 and Allan

Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt with some account of Peter Cooper (New York, 1935), 322.

35. Sherman to Warner Bateman, December 11, 1876. Bateman Papers, Western Re-

serve Historical Society.

36. Sherman to his wife Cecilia, November 20, 24, 25, 1876, Sherman Papers.

37. Hayes to Sherman, November 27, 1876. Sherman, Recollections, 559.

38. Sherman to "My dear Sir," November 12, 1876, Sherman Papers. The promise,

dated November 20, 1876 and addressed to "Messers D. & J." is in copy form in the

Sherman Papers. It states, "from a long and intimate acquaintance with Gov. Hayes I

am justified in assuming responsibility for promises made--and will guarantee that you

shall be provided for."

39. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 384-385. Ten years later Hayes was still sensitive

on the issue, noting in his Diary December 10, 1886, that Sherman and Evarts "closely

connected with the declaration of the result in 1876-7 retain the confidence of the

people," as shown by their current status as Senators. Ibid., IV, 298-299.

40. Among extensive biographical accounts of the disputed election are Eckenrode,

Rutherford B. Hayes, 174-238, Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt, 318-399, and Williams, Life

of Hayes, I, 491-540. For briefer reference see Alexander C. Flick, Samuel J. Tilden

(New York, 1939), 415-416 and Leon B. Richardson, William E. Chandler (New York,

1940), 193.

41. This is the so-called "bargain" long a part of historical lore but never put in its

full perspective until C. Vann Woodward produced an acute analysis of all the com-

plexities of the 1876 election aftermath in his Reunion and Reaction: The Compro-

mise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (Boston, 1951).

42. The various negotiators were bedeviled by the indefatigable filibustering mostly

by northern and southern members of the Democratic majority in the House.

43. The filibusterers made a last-ditch effort to prevent the necessary announcement,

in joint session, of the decision for Hayes already reached in the Commission and

agreed to by the Senate.

44. Sherman's protective care of Hayes continued until he entered the White House

door, a door destined to be slammed in the Senator's face three times at later conven-

tions. The Senator advised Hayes to delay appearing in Washington until the Electoral

Commission decision was safe. When finally Hayes reached the Capital March 2, he

resided beneath Sherman's protective roof until the public inauguraiton March 5. Sher-

man, Recollections, 563; Hayes to Sherman, February 18, 1877. Sherman Papers, Library

of Congress.

45. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 402; Hayes to Sherman, February 19, 1877, Sher-

man Papers.

46. Their reactions were alike in one very important respect--neither realized the

degree of disfavor which each accumulated in those four frustrating years. Hayes was

fortified by a sense of moral stature, Sherman by knowledge of difficult tasks achieved.

47. Hayes to Sherman, November 27, 1876, Sherman Papers.

48. The unsolvable dilemma of the administration remained how to fend off attacks

from Radical Republicans, disaffected Democrats, and personal enemies while getting

and holding support from southern Conservatives. Sherman sought to reassure southern-

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200                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

ers as to Hayes's friendliness, and was worried over the extremists in both his own and

the opposite party.

49. Hayes interpreted the attendant furor enjoyed by enemies of both men in both

parties as designed to "throw dirt" or "lay a foundation for a revolution" (his ousting);

but made a note to look up his correspondence. He added, "The letter does not sus-

tain the charge even if genuine." Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 482.

50. For a succinct explanation of why the administration failed on two other parts

of the conciliation "bargain"--internal improvements for the South and organization

of the House by the Republicans--see Woodward, on "The Politics of Reconciliation,"

Reunion and Reaction, 216-246.

51. Edwin E. Sparks, National Development (New York, 1907), 119-136; Nevins,

Abram S. Hewitt, 403-406; Ellis P. Oberholtzer, History of the United States Since the

Civil War (New York, 1931), IV, 47-52.

52. Since early December of 1876 Sherman had sought to spare the party a Hayes-

Conkling feud, holding conferences and writing letters. On this effort see Sherman to

Hayes, December 12 and Hayes to Sherman, December 16, 1876; on later aspects see

Sherman to Hayes July 5, 1877 and March 8, 1881; all from Hayes Papers.

53. The Secretary was not a personal enemy of either Arthur or Cornell, but this

prolonged insubordination by Treasury employees flouted his authority and he deter-

mined to resign if unfriendly subordinates were continued at the custom house. Finally,

in January of 1879, he spelled out to Senator Morrill (chairman of the finance com-

mittee) specific charges against Arthur and Cornell and appealed to midwestern Sena-

tors to support confirmation of their successors, lest the Republican party alienate the

liberals. Sherman, Recollections, 683-685.

54. For a revisionist analysis stressing limitations in the administration's civil service

reform policy, see "Battle for the New York Customhouse," Chapter IX of Ari Hoogen-

boom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement 1865-1883

(Urbana, 1961), 155-178.

55. The fight to provide a wartime paper currency is most clearly spelled out in

Bray Hammond "The North's Empty Purse, 1861-1862," American Historical Review,

LXVII (October 1961), 1-18. For a general summary of Senator Sherman's various

wartime contributions see Jeannette P. Nichols, "John Sherman: Statesman and Politi-

cian," For the Union: Ohio leaders in the Civil War, Kenneth W. Wheeler, ed., (Co-

lumbus, 1968), 377-438.

56. The true proportions of his achievement are well explained by Irwin Unger in

The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance 1865-1879

(Princeton, 1964). As Unger states, "John Sherman, the supple master of accommoda-

tion . . . subordinated the ideal to the workable and succeeded where men more right-

eous, perhaps, had failed" (p. 403). Hayes recorded that Sherman opposed the Bland-

Allison compromise but disapproved vetoing of a measure certain to be passed over the

veto, Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 461, IV, 256-257. The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 1,

1878, claimed that Sherman demanded the veto. Compare his Recollections, 623-624.

It appears that Sherman was at least a half-century ahead of his time in his concept of

the punitive international aspects of the gold standard; he had to try to protect the

nation's credit without such helpful machinery as the Federal Reserve Bank or a "Group

of Ten" cooperating nations such as exist in 1968.

57. General recognition of Sherman's ability was so difficult to deny that it fed

the fear of him among those who could see no merit in his policies. Monetary expan-

sionists, reformers, and extremists of both right and left could find in him a prime

target. Knowing that they had preserved in abundance the record of their charges and

of his mistakes, he hoped to set the record straight by producing his own Recollections

and by leaving a bequest to finance a fair and impartial record of his life. Unfortunately

the Recollections were produced under the handicap of an uncertain memory in ad-

vancing years with an inexpert secretary, and the subsidized biography did not have the

skilled and dispassionate authorship for which he had hoped.

58. Sherman's varying policies toward the inflationists and silverites are included in

"John Sherman: A Study in Inflation," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXI

(September 1934), 181-194; "The Politics and Personalities of Silver Repeal in the

United States Senate," American Historical Review, XLI (October 1935), 26-53; "John

Sherman and the Silver Drive of 1877-78: The Origins of the Gigantic Subsidy," Ohio

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NOTES                                                                        201

 

State Archeological and Historical Quarterly, XLVI (April 1937), 148-165; "The Mone-

tary Problems of William McKinley," Ohio History, LXXII (October 1963), 263-292,

341-343. Articles are by Jeannette P. Nichols.

59. Hayes, Diary and Letters, III, 582, 600. In 1884 and 1888 Hayes again listed

Sherman among possible candidates, expressing particular regret that he was not nom-

inated in 1888. Ibid., IV, 146, 175, 256-257, 392, 393, 395.

60. Brown and Williams in Diary of Garfield, quote these words in describing what

they call "an adequate nominating speech" (p. lvi), Sherman omitted the words in

question from the excerpt from the speech in his Recollections, (p. 774). If Sherman

calculated to kill Garfield's boom by using Garfield as his nominating agent, the Secre-

tary underestimated the resourcefulness of Garfield's claque and ignored appraisals by

Hayes and himself that Garfield was "not firm-not a moral force. He leaned on others"

and that "his will power was not equal to his personal magnetism." Hayes, Diary and

Letters, IV, 110 and Sherman, Recollections, 807.

61. During a Garfield visit to Washington in November, Sherman agreed that he

should not be reappointed to the Treasury but told Garfield that he wanted the

senatorship. Garfield had been supposed to favor Governor Foster, but subsequently

Foster withdrew on request that he thereby restore harmony to the legislature. Sherman,

Recollections, 802-804; Sherman to Dalzell, November 5, 1880, Sherman Papers; Hayes,

Diary and Letters, III, 625.

62. This speech, of some length, was quoted extensively and commented upon in

the Ohio press of January 20-21, 1881. The Columbus Dispatch of January 20 observed

that at "The Reception in the Senate Chamber . . . the melting mood manifested by

all, including Mr. Sherman's political adversaries indicated anything but coolness." The

Democratic Cleveland Plain Dealer of January 20 noted that friends and opponents

"likewise did homage to his talents and abilities, rejoicing at least that the state if it

must be represented by a Republican would be represented by one of whom the state

need not feel ashamed."

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE CHINESE QUESTION, 1876-1879

1. Charles R. Williams, The Life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (Boston, 1914), II,

208.

2. Chester L. Barrows, William M. Evarts (Chapel Hill, 1941). Brainerd Dyer, The

Public Career of William M. Evarts (Berkeley, 1933).

3. Alexander DeConde, The American Secretary of State: An Interpretation (New

York, 1962), 115-116.

4. Harry Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes and His America (New York, 1954), 442-444,

447-449.

5. Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration

(New York, 1937), 864.

6. David M. Pletcher, The Awkward Years: American Foreign Relations Under Gar-

field and Arthur (Columbia, Mo., 1962).

7. Daniel Cosio Villegas, The United States Versus Porfirio Diaz (Lincoln, Neb.,

1963). Gerstle Mack, The Land Divided: A History of the Panama Canal and Other

Isthmian Projects (New York, 1944), 281-316. Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History

of the American People (New York, 1964), 392-396, summarizes existing literature on

the Chinese immigration question.

8. Elmer Clarence Sandemeyer, The Anti-Chinese Movement in California (Urbana,

Ill., 1939), chapters 1-3. Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, A History of the United States Since

the Civil War (New York, 1917-1937), IV, 213-238, Gunther Barth, Bitter Strength: A

History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850 - 1870 (Cambridge, 1965).

9. William M. Malloy, ed., Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and

Agreements Between the United States and Other Powers, 1776 - 1909 (Washington,

1910), I, 234-236. Tyler Dennett, Americans in Eastern Asia (New York, 1922), 535-544.

10. Proceedings of the Republican National Convention held at Cincinnati, Ohio

(Concord, 1876), 57-63. Not all eastern delegates opposed the Chinese plank. Some of

them joined delegates from California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, Utah,

Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and New Mexico to vote down a resolution introduced by

Edward L. Pierce of Massachusetts for striking out the Chinese plank.

11. Democratic Party National Committee, The Campaign Text Book (New York,

1876), 5. Philip Roach, editor of the San Francisco Daily Examiner, claimed that he

• 5