Читать книгу A Republic No More - Jay Cost - Страница 15

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FOR GENERATIONS, historians have accepted a straightforward periodization of American political history: the Federalist era gave way to Jeffersonian Democracy, then Jacksonian Democracy, the antebellum struggle, the Civil War, and later Reconstruction and the Gilded Age.¹ The common consensus on the Gilded Age is that it was lost to corruption, as professional politicians degraded public morals and ransacked the common weal for their own benefit. Henry Adams’s contemporary assessment still holds, more or less:

One might search the whole list of Congress, Judiciary, and Executive during the twenty-five years 1870–1895, and find little but damaged reputation. The period was poor in purpose and barren in results.²

It is not our purpose here to push back on conventional wisdom in this chapter and the next, but rather to modify it: the period after the Civil War was more corrupt than those eras that preceded it, but it did not spring forth de novo. As we shall see, there is a continuity between the corrupt practices of the first half of the nineteenth century and the perfidy of the second half. The difference is that corruption was perfected, in terms of both economic development and patronage.

The next chapter will examine the growing links between business and government in the era, as Hamiltonian notions of governmental support for the economy became increasingly corrupt. This chapter showcases the increasingly sophisticated patronage regime. Here, we will not really find politicians doing much new with the spoils system, but rather adapting and improving the practices of previous generations. There is little, for instance, that Roscoe Conkling did in New York State that Martin Van Buren did not do fifty years prior. It is just that Conkling did it better, having learned from his predecessors.³

Moreover, the nature of civil service became more complex, and thus more susceptible to corrupting influences. The president had historically dominated the appointment process, but as the size of the civilian government grew because of the Civil War, the expansion westward, and the expanding economy, it became more difficult for him to manage the public offices personally. This ultimately favored local politicians, and their patrons in the Senate, many of whom became dominant political bosses.⁴

In the subtext here is the idea that corruption is similar to gangrene or dry rot: if left unchecked, it inevitably spreads. What we shall see essentially demonstrates that point. Politicians initiated corrupt practices regarding the civil service in the 1830s, suffered no rebuke for their efforts, and slowly but surely expanded upon and perfected their operations.

The spoils system was firmly entrenched by the time Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, and for all of the ways that Lincoln revolutionized American politics and society, he did nothing to alter this status quo. In fact, he reinforced existing norms by dispensing more patronage than any predecessor, which is really saying something. Of the approximately 1,500 offices at Lincoln’s disposal, he removed about 1,200 Democrats from these offices.⁵ Moreover, this statistic does not take into account the thousands of subpresidential offices, like local postmasters and workers at the New York Customs House, who were likewise removed. Lincoln also used the extraordinary expansion in the size of the civilian government as a form of payoff; nonmilitary posts increased from about 41,000 jobs in 1861 to 195,000 in 1865, and the Republican Party had total discretion over who would get those jobs. As Carl Russell Fish notes, “The sweep made by the Republicans . . . was the cleanest in our history. Never before did so small a proportion of officers remain to carry on the traditions of the civil service.”⁶

It is hard to fault Lincoln for this extensive use of patronage, even if his actions did contribute to the corruption of the civil service (which they most certainly did). The Republican Party of which he was now the leader was a hodgepodge of diverse interests: former antislavery or protariff Democrats, Free-Soilers, members of the nativist “Know-Nothing” Party, most northern Whigs, German immigrants who feared competition with slave labor, and border state Constitutional Unionists. In general, they shared a commitment to economic expansion and the containment of slavery, but there was a vast degree of diversity within these broad boundaries.⁷ Patronage was essential to holding this unwieldy coalition together.

With the exception of Andrew Jackson, Lincoln probably made the most successful use of the resources at his disposal. He was always ready to satisfy an important person by pulling some strings to get his son or nephew into West Point. He regularly consulted senators, governors, and House members on sensitive appointments. He vigorously courted newspapermen with patronage, displaying a keen understanding of their capacity to mold public opinion.⁸ One time, he even appointed a man named “Schimmelpfening” because he thought it would be “unquestionably in the interest of the Dutch.”⁹

In many respects, the homespun Lincoln was the embodiment of the natural aristocrat whom Alexander Hamilton might have envisioned using corruption to advance the national interest. In some instances, that meant buying off members of Congress. Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Tribune and strong supporter of Lincoln, once recalled the challenges he faced in getting Nevada admitted to the Union as well as pushing the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, through Congress. The votes of two congressmen were purchased with internal tax collectorships while another was offered a $20,000 office in the New York Customs House.¹⁰

Of course, the weakness in the theory is the assumption that a natural aristocracy would be available to steer the ship of state. With Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, there began a generations-long drought in presidential leadership. Lincoln’s successors lacked either the skills or the political capital to manage the factions that he had corralled, and the predictable result was rampant corruption.

Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency upon Lincoln’s death. Johnson, first a congressmen from east Tennessee, then a senator, and later the military governor of the state during the Civil War, was a Democrat and throwback to the Jacksonian era. He despised the slaveocracy of the South, but for fundamentally different reasons than those of staunch abolitionists like Charles Sumner of Massachusetts or Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. In his infamous inaugural speech before the Senate as vice president, a seemingly drunk Johnson shouted again and again that he was a “plebian.” That speech gravely damaged his reputation, but it was a fair statement of his political philosophy. He came from humble roots, resented those born of privilege, and saw himself as a defender of the average man. Initially, Johnson impressed the Radical Republicans who wanted to guarantee voting rights for the newly freed slaves and to disqualify scores of secessionists; it seemed as though both sides, while coming from opposite directions, had the same enemies.¹¹

But Johnson quickly changed course as his tenure unfolded. He sought a term in his own right, and to do that he hoped to rebuild the old Jacksonian coalition of the urban ethnics, the hardscrabble farmers of the North, and the southern Democrats. He soon began promoting extremely lenient terms for the southern rebels, and moreover used his patronage power to install agents in government sympathetic to his ambitions. He removed nearly half of all the officeholders whose positions he controlled and saw to it that thousands of subpresidential positions were staffed with his sympathizers.¹² When the Radical Republicans brought impeachment charges to the Senate, Johnson at first angrily rebuked aides who suggested he use his patronage powers to secure his acquittal, but as time wore on he changed his mind. His supporters offered patronage, and at times even cash bribes, to prevent his removal from office. Meanwhile, his opponents busily promised jobs in a new, Radical Republican administration.¹³

Johnson’s leniency toward the South, his general refusal to make compromises with his Republican rivals, and the obstinacy of the old Confederates generated widespread anger in the North, resulting in a Republican triumph in the 1866 midterm elections. The public gave the Republicans veto-proof majorities in both chambers, and the Radicals used this to good effect. They took control over Reconstruction policy and essentially stripped Johnson of his appointment powers via the Tenure of Office Act of 1867. Passed over Johnson’s veto, it provided that presidential appointees subject to senatorial consent were to hold their positions until a successor had been appointed. The president could suspend such officers temporarily, but he had to seek approval from the Senate within twenty days of the suspension.¹⁴

The Tenure of Office Act represented a profound change in the way the removal power functioned. Granted, the text of the Constitution is silent on the question of removals. It declares, “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America” and, “he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.” Nevertheless, those who were at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and also in the First Congress strongly supported an absolute presidential removal power.¹⁵

And there the matter stood for over seventy years, until the clash between Johnson and the Radicals. The battle over Reconstruction is an important drama in American history, and the Tenure of Office Act a key moment in that story. But it also had consequences for the body politic that extended far beyond Reconstruction. James K. Polk was the first president to worry that patronage actually undermined the position of the president, for it made him too dependent on the office-seekers who had patrons in the Congress. The Tenure of Office Act would legalize this imbalance, ensuring that Polk’s worst fears would be realized for another generation.

There were reasons to be hopeful when Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1869. As the victorious warrior in the Civil War, Grant reassured the North that he would not let the hard won victory be lost during the peace. Meanwhile, the South was encouraged by his declaration after his nomination, “Let us have peace!”¹⁶ No president except George Washington entered the White House with so much goodwill. As Adams observes,

Grant represented order. He was a great soldier, and the soldier always represented order. He might be as partisan as he pleased, but a general who had organized and commanded half 1 million or million men in the field, must know how to minister. . . . The task of bringing the government back to regular practice, and of restoring moral and mechanical order to administration, was not very difficult; it was ready to do itself, with a little encouragement.¹⁷

The earliest signs were encouraging, as Grant drew a line in the sand regarding the Tenure of Office Act, declaring that he would only fill offices that were already vacant until Congress revised the law.

Ultimately, the high hopes were dashed as Grant signed off on a compromise that preserved the essence of the original law.¹⁸ Worse, his cabinet appointments indicated that, despite his wartime acumen, he was ill-prepared for the ebb and flow of politics. His nominee for the State Department, Elihu Washburn of Illinois, was thoroughly unqualified for the job; his only real recommendation was that he had been an early sponsor of Grant during the Civil War. Worse, Grant named Alexander Stewart as secretary of the treasury; his appointment was technically illegal because he was actively engaged in trade at the time of his nomination. The Republican-dominated Senate had to put Grant through the embarrassment of disapproving the appointment.¹⁹

These were harbingers of troubles to come. As Adams laments, “Grant avowed from the start a policy of drift; and a policy of drift attaches only barnacles.”²⁰ The trends that had been developing since Jackson’s day—spoils, graft, the frauds of professional politicians—all seemed to grow at a substantially quickened pace under Grant, so much so that by the time of his reelection in 1872, corruption was an issue in national politics. According to Republican Congresman George F. Hoar, “Selfish men and ambitious men got the ear of that simple and confiding president. They studied Grant, some of them, as the Shoemaker measures the foot of his customer.”²¹

Two men who made a keen study of Grant were Jay Gould and Jim Fisk. In an effort to corner the gold market, they lured Grant’s brother-in-law Abel Corbin and Assistant Treasurer Daniel Butterfield with lucrative gold offerings in the hopes that they could extract insider information. They also paraded the unsuspecting president about New York City, so their fellow traders would get the impression that they knew something nobody else did. Ultimately, their plan failed as Grant finally caught wind, but their scheme sparked the Black Friday panic of 1869 that damaged the U.S. economy for months thereafter.²²

There was also the Belknap scandal. The wife of William Belknap, Grant’s secretary of war, learned that military trading posts were leased through private contractors, all going through her husband’s office. She won a bid for a trading post at Fort Still for a friend, who in turn agreed to share the profits with her. Though Belknap’s wife died, the secretary continued to enjoy this tidy little kickback, having collected some $20,000 by 1876. When the scandal broke, Grant allowed Belknap to resign rather than face rebuke from the Congress.²³

There was also the Whiskey Ring, a conspiracy all through the Midwest between thousands of Treasury Department officials and whiskey distillers to avoid tax payments. At the head of the ring was General John Macdonald, collector of internal revenue in St. Louis and a wartime buddy of Grant’s. So fearful of the reaches of the scandal was Attorney General Benjamin Bristow—one of the few honest men still in government—that he barely spoke of it to anybody. When Grant learned of the crime, he demanded that the criminals be brought to justice, but he clammed up when his personal secretary, Orville Babock, another Grant associate from the war, was implicated. Grant submitted a sworn deposition on behalf of Babock, and later saw to it that Bristow was removed from his position.²⁴

There were also the Sanborn contracts. Since Hamilton’s time at the treasury, the government gave incentive payments to people who informed about delinquent customs duties or other revenues owed to the government. This moiety system was finally eliminated, but a provision in an appropriations bill allowed the secretary of the treasury to appoint no more than three people to help the Treasury Department collect delinquent revenue. A protégé of the notoriously corrupt Representative Benjamin Butler (a Grant loyalist), John D. Sanborn, won that contract and even induced Secretary of the Treasury William Richardson to give him oversight of all railroads. Sanborn went on to collect $427,000 worth of outstanding taxes, for a moiety of over $200,000. Amazingly, the government would have collected almost all of this money anyway, so this was little more than a kickback to the crony of a well-placed House member. Even more amazing is the contrast between Bristow and Richardson. The former did his job diligently and was dismissed; the latter was, at best, lax in his duties and was eventually appointed to the Court of Claims.²⁵

There was also the Star Route fraud. The Constitution gives Congress the power to establish and maintain a post office; however, because the government could not always maintain certain routes, they contracted private firms to service them. Thomas Brady, the second assistant postmaster general, working in conjunction with Stephen W. Dorsey, a former carpetbagger senator from Arkansas and a protégé of Grant, presented sham petitions to service these routes at cut-rate prices; later on, they offered enhanced service for an extra fee, which Congress obligingly supplied. Only a fraction of the total money appropriated went to servicing these routes; the rest was distributed among the cronies. Some of it ended up in Indiana in the closely contested presidential election of 1880, as Dorsey, then an official at the Republican National Committee, used Star Route money to buy voters. In the end, Brady and Dorsey escaped prosecution.²⁶

There was also the administration’s lax implementation of Reconstruction, which bred corruption. Republican officeholders in the South were incorrigible spoilsmen, arguably more so than their northern counterparts. These carpetbagger and scalawag Republicans were shunned from mainstream southern society, making public jobs their only opportunities for gainful employment, and making civil servants even more avaricious.²⁷ Moreover, rings of businessmen and officeholders who conspired to bilk the government regularly captured Republican-led governments in the South. For instance, a ring headed by Milton Littlefield, a former union general, and businessman George Swepson, an advisor to the governor of North Carolina, distributed about $200,000 in bribes to Tar Heel State legislators to obtain millions of dollars for new railroad lines. But instead of spending the money to do what they promised, they used it to buy stock in other railroads, speculate in state bonds, further their political connections, and even take a lavish tour of Europe. In the end, of course, the railroad was never built.²⁸

The corrupted South was also the site for the greatest electoral fraud in the country in 1876. While Democrat Samuel Tilden won a comfortable majority in the nationwide presidential vote (thanks to suppression of the black vote in the South by Democrats), the vote in three southern states—South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana—was close enough for Republicans to contest. The GOP probably won South Carolina, and Florida was genuinely too close to call, but Republican-run voting boards in Louisiana wiped out a six thousand–vote advantage for Tilden and ended up reporting a Rutherford Hayes victory of several thousand votes.²⁹

Grant was not directly implicated in any of these scandals, but there is a pattern of presidential diffidence that is undeniable and damning. Too loyal to his friends, too sympathetic to old wartime buddies, too much in awe of men of wealth, too lax in the day-to-day business of governance, Grant was not so much guilty of sins of commission, but sins of omission. His overawing public stature would have given him political cover to reshape and reform the body politic, but Grant refused to do it. The result was that the sorts of frauds that had periodically marred the body politic from the Founding until the Civil War all seemed to happen at once, and in a much more dreadful way. If Lincoln’s tenure represented the potential good that a natural aristocrat could do with the tools of corruption, Grant’s demonstrated what happens if a man of immense natural talents instead chose not to do anything.

Grant’s laxity in the executive branch had a profound effect on the body politic. In 1872, it sparked a division within the Republican ranks, as a faction of Liberal Republicans separated from the rest of the party to back the candidacy of publisher Horace Greeley, who also received the endorsement of the Democrats. While this challenge went nowhere—Grant slightly improved on his margin of 1868, despite the suppression of pro-Grant African Americans in the South—it presaged a split that would develop within the Republican Party. In time, a large number of Republicans would reject Grantism. These “Half-Breeds,” as they would be known, would clash with Grant’s Stalwart faction in the nomination battles of 1876, 1880, and 1884. Meanwhile, the corruption issue contributed to the Democratic rebound of 1874, when the party regained control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1858. For the next twenty years, the Democrats would control at least one branch of Congress or the presidency for every cycle except for a brief Republican resurgence in 1888.

Grant’s Stalwart faction did not merely represent a diehard clique of supporters, although they most certainly were that. At the 1880 convention, for instance, there was an effort to renominate Grant for an unprecedented third term. The effort lost steam as the anti-Grant forces coalesced around James Garfield of Ohio. Even so, 306 delegates—“the Immortal 306” as they were known—backed Grant on every ballot, an unusual twist, as historically a successful dark horse like Garfield usually enjoys a stampede in his direction at the end. The Stalwarts, embodied by the Immortal 306, were also the political beneficiaries of Grant’s patronage policies. A look at the final roll call in the 1880 nomination is illustrative. Nearly 40 percent of these delegates came from the eleven states of the former Confederacy; the Republican Party in these states benefited enormously from Grant’s military Reconstruction and his distribution of patronage. Roughly the same number came from just three states: Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania. Not coincidentally, all three developed robust statewide machines, akin to Van Buren’s Albany Regency, thanks to Grant’s patronage policies.³⁰

Actually, to say that Grant had a patronage policy is somewhat of a misnomer. Whereas other presidents had used patronage to manage their coalitions in pursuit of reelection or favored policies, Grant essentially ceded control of patronage to the dominant personalities of the Senate. The Tenure of Office Act bound the president to listen to the Senate, but as Johnson (and, for that matter, Grant’s successors) demonstrated, the president could at least put up a robust fight for the sake of the appointment power. But not Grant. After his initial skirmish over the Tenure of Office Act, he backed down and effectively handed over much of the patronage power to a new class of senatorial satraps. The Senate, in turn, was transformed from the world’s greatest deliberative body—as it was when Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster debated the great issues of their day—into the meeting place of state party bosses.³¹

Adams best captures the unmatched power of the Senate bosses in The Education of Henry Adams:

[O]ne 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!” . . . He had 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. . . . Great leaders, like Sumner and Conkling, could not be burlesqued; they were more grotesque than ridicule could make them. . . . They did permanent and terrible mischief. . . . The most troublesome task of a reform President was that of bringing the Senate back to decency.³²

Grant was not such a reform President, as Adams well knew. Little wonder that the machines these senators controlled stayed with Grant until the final ballot in 1880.

Who were these bosses? There was Oliver Morton of Indiana, an initial organizer of the Republican Party. A paralytic who had to be carried into the Senate chamber, he nevertheless was a shrewd political operative who used patronage, contracts, and licenses—all the tools of mid-nineteenth–century corruption—to build a machine in what was at the time the most uncertain of northern swing states. According to one local newspaper, “Morton ran the party . . . as a school master ran his school. He cared little whether his orders were liked or not, so long as they were obeyed. He controlled the politicians as a showman controlled his puppets.”³³

There was Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, of whom one early twentieth-century historian writes:

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