The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Rutherford B. Hayes, February 17th, 1877
TO RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
I intended to reply immediately to your kind note of the 4th inst., but the illness of my mother, who lived with me and died on Tuesday last, rendered me almost unable to think of anything else. This was the third time that the hand of death knocked at my door within the last twelve months, first calling away my father, then my wife, and then my mother. These have been staggering blows from which it was not the easiest thing to rally. But however dreary and lonesome life may become, its duties remain as imperative as ever and thus they afford relief.
The feelings you express in your last letter with regard to the South I appreciate all the more as I share them fully—having long and to the best of my ability struggled against that short-sighted partisan policy which threw away the first great opportunities to put the Southern question in the course of satisfactory solution. But I think you will have a splendid chance to retrieve the mistakes made by others. What is needed above all is the establishment of good understanding, confidence and active coöperation between the intelligence and virtue represented in the Republican party at the North and the corresponding elements of Southern society. Only thus can we break the color line on the white side, secure a just respect for the rights of the negro, and measurably deliver Southern society of the control of its lawless tendencies and an unreasoning party spirit. The importance of some demonstration of the sincerity of your good-will toward all classes of the Southern people is evident, and since this cannot, consistently with the public interest, be effected by the offer of some specific material benefit, would it not seem worthy of consideration whether the appointment to a place in your Cabinet of some man of Confederate antecedents and enjoying the confidence of that class, would not secure to your Southern policies great facilities? I see the difficulties of such a step at once, but the more I think of it, the more I am also impressed with its advantages. As a positive proof of the sincerity of the intentions you mean to express in your inaugural, it would at once give you the confidence of the best class of those people. And if the right man can be found, he would be a living link between them and your Administration. He might be able to point out to you, better probably than anybody else could, the exact things to be done in the South, and also the persons to be employed for the furtherance of your policy. To find a man of that class who has the right kind of standing in the South, who possesses the necessary capacity, and who may be depended upon as entirely faithful and sincerely devoted to the other aims you have in view, appears indeed difficult—perhaps so much so that you may not be inclined to take so unusual a stroke of policy into consideration. At any rate, I felt encouraged by the tone of your last letter to submit my general impressions about this matter to your judgment.
As I speak to you of everything that goes through my mind concerning your prospective Administration, there is another thing I must mention. Some time ago a rumor was communicated to me by a friend in Chicago, “based upon pretty good authority,” as the letter states, that, “if Governor Hayes becomes President, Don Cameron is likely to be retained in the Cabinet as Secretary of War, in deference to Pennsylvania; that Bristow is not likely to be Secretary of the Treasury, in deference to Grant; that as a compromise between Bristow and his enemies, General Harlan of Kentucky is to be offered the Attorney-Generalship, and that Governor Morgan of New York is to have the Treasury. One of the reasons assigned for paying deference to Grant is that if he had supposed at any time before or since the election that Bristow was a possibility in the new Administration, he would have thrown the Presidency over to Tilden.” This rumor came in the way of private correspondence from Cincinnati to Chicago and is troubling the minds of some warm friends of yours at both places. The first part I am not able to look upon as a serious thing since you are undoubtedly as well aware as I am that Don Cameron's only political significance consists in being the son of his father; that among the political sets in Pennsylvania the Cameron set is one of the most unsavory, and that an official recognition of it by the selection from all the old Cabinet officers of just this one to pass into the new arrangement would at once seriously discredit the character of a reform Administration.
This recalls to my mind a reminiscence of one of Mr. Lincoln's great troubles. He had been made to believe that, owing to some things that had happened in connection with his Administration, a duty of gratitude obliged him to give Cabinet appointments to Mr. Caleb Smith of Indiana and to Mr. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania. He did so and after some very mortifying experiences he found himself obliged to get rid again of Cameron, the best way he could. He once told me himself in speaking of this and other similar things, that a President must sometimes understand the duty to appear ungrateful and the wisdom of rejecting smart combinations with uncongenial elements.
As to Mr. Bristow you will pardon me for saying another word about him which is inspired not by any personal feeling, but entirely by considerations of public interest. It might, perhaps, at first sight appear good policy to omit from your Cabinet all those who were candidates for the nomination at Cincinnati; so as not to slight one by preferring another. Under ordinary circumstances there would be much in favor of this idea. But it so happens in this case that all the candidates, except one, are in the Senate and may reasonably be presumed to prefer their present places to any others that might be offered. Only one is in private life; and if all the others, as Senators, remain official persons in the Government, while only this one is left without official position, might it not be said that the latter received the slight?
This, however, would, as it seems to me, be either way a matter of secondary importance, not large enough to govern so weighty a business. Neither can I imagine that you would permit General Grant's personal likes or dislikes, from which the country has certainly suffered enough, to stand in the way of the public good, especially as General Grant will entirely cease to be a political entity on the 5th of March, and as his views and influence will no longer be of the least possible moment. But just now the country witnesses the very singular spectacle of a general pardon to the whisky thieves and an equally general removal from office of those who prosecuted them. Bristow and those who acted under him have literally been punished for the best service they rendered the country. I shall certainly not argue that this would entitle him to a place in your Cabinet. But he has become in a certain sense the practical exponent of a reform at present so essentially needed and his appointment would, therefore, in higher degree than that of any man mentioned in connection with the Treasury secure to your Administration that kind of popular confidence which will be most useful to you. He possesses also in a great measure the qualifications demanded by the problems before us, and his appointment will furnish you a most faithful and serviceable instrument for the execution of your good purposes. This object is, after all, the main thing to be kept in view, and it cannot, as it seems to me, be reached by appointing one of Bristow's personal friends to some other place, for the question is not how Bristow can be personally satisfied, which is an unimportant matter compared with the other question, how the success of your Administration can be best secured and the public interest best served.
You might, indeed, attain the same end if you could put a man into the Treasury, who has the cause of honest government and reform just as sincerely and strongly at heart, who represents the same principles of official conduct, enjoys the same popular confidence and possesses the same qualifications as Bristow. Then nothing would be lost. But is it an easy thing to find an adequate substitute? I take the liberty of guessing that you do not seriously think of Governor Morgan, who, however honest and deserving, is now an old man with a remnant of vigor too small for the arduous duties of the Treasury Department, the management of which requires a high degree of working capacity. I have seen several other names mentioned in the papers as being “on the slate,” and of course I do not know what your intentions may be. But with real anxiety I beg you to consider that, as your reform program is to be carried out, the most important and difficult task will fall upon the Treasury and Post-Office Departments with their immense machinery and responsibilities; that just there you will want to have men whose hearts are faithfully in that cause; who truly believe in it; upon whom you can absolutely depend that they have the necessary spirit and perseverance to effect that deliverance of the civil service from Congressional control which you so justly regard as the essential point of reform; and that no consideration will induce them to dally with men or practices of doubtful honesty. If, on the other hand, those Departments are under the management of Secretaries who only acquiesce in the reform policy because you favor it, but, being themselves half-hearted in it, carry it on only as far as they are watched or as may be necessary to save appearances, men whose political views and habits would rather incline them to continue in the old beaten track, or who have not the necessary power of resistance against the pressure of politicians, or are naturally disposed to yield and temporize and study the art “how not to do it,”—if, in other words, the struggle for that reform is not only to be carried on by the Administration against the opposition outside, but inside of the Administration against half-heartedness or doubtful purpose—then embarrassments and failures would be likely to ensue which it is not necessary to describe. If you think it best not to appoint Bristow but can find a man of the necessary capacity answering to the first description, nothing will be lost. But the men I have seen mentioned, let me confess, answer more to the second than to the first. The Treasury Department has become particularly conspicuous in connection with the question of reform, and any appointment to that Secretaryship which appears as a “backing down” from what might be called the Bristow standard would, as I think, not only produce a bad effect upon public opinion just at the start when, after all that has happened, favor of public opinion is of particular importance to you, but may bring on further perplexities of a grave nature. I am frank to say that it appears to me difficult to find a fit substitute for Bristow to fill his place in public estimation as well as for the work to be done for the realization of your objects. I have considered it my duty as your friend to submit these views to you on a point which impresses me as one of great moment.
Do not understand me as desiring to say anything to the prejudice of General Harlan. I know him enough to like him personally and to esteem him highly. I should think he would make a creditable Secretary of War or of the Interior. You probably know better than I do whether in a professional point of view he would come up to the standard which with regard to the Attorney-Generalship should be adhered to. That place has within the last eight years suffered some degradation, and it would, as I venture to suggest, be well to fill the position of the first law officer of the Government once more with the first order of legal ability, so as to lift it up again to its true level of dignity and usefulness. His recognized standing as a jurist should give to the opinions of the Attorney-General the weight of high authority. This office may become of particular importance in your Administration, since, as I learn from good sources, Tilden has become a sort of monomaniac on the Presidency and seriously thinks of resorting to quo warranto proceedings after the verdict of the Electoral Commission has gone against him. Considering all this, it might appear advisable to have somebody in the Attorney-General's office coming as near as possible to Mr. Evarts in standing and ability, and perhaps Mr. Evarts himself might render there more useful and important service even than in the State Department.
The more I consider the circumstances surrounding you and the task before you, the necessity of getting at once a strong hold upon the confidence of the best elements of the people, and the adverse influences you will have to encounter, the more desirable does it seem to me that your Cabinet should contain the greatest possible amount of positive strength of character, reputation, ability and purpose, in the direction of those aims the attainment of which will be the real success and merit of your Administration. The Republican party is to-day in the minority. It has lost the House of Representatives, and in two years it may not only fail to regain the House but also lose its slight majority in the Senate unless much of the ground now lost be meanwhile recovered. Your Administration, with both Houses of Congress against it, would be in a very precarious situation. The Administration party must therefore recruit its strength somewhere. In what quarter should that be? If with the “machine politicians,” the loss would be far greater than the gain, just as it was before. That tendency was the cause of the decline of the Republican party. You can gain very largely in the South, but you will be strong in the South only if you are strong in the North. Strength in the North will be a condition of Southern support. But new strength here can and will most certainly be found, if you boldly appeal, by word and act, to the noblest and most patriotic aspirations of the American people; and in this respect your inaugural will be the last act of promise, the appointment of your Cabinet the first act of performance. The good effect of the former will be seriously damaged if the latter falls short of it. If both agree you will easily win back those elements which, by despair of the Republican party and hope of reform on the other side, were led over to Tilden. Indeed, you must win them back, or your Administration may be helplessly at the mercy of the opposition in both houses of Congress two years hence, which means failure. As things now stand, it is my sober conviction that nothing would be more dangerous to your success than a policy of uncertain, hesitating appearance, and that, on the other hand, the most courageous and straightforward policy of reform will be for you the safest. The Republican party in Congress will be obliged to follow you—at any rate, it will not be able to resist you; for it cannot afford to give the Democrats a chance to appear as the principal supporters of your reform measures and appointments. Thus with all the difficulties of your position you may be congratulated on your great opportunities to make your Administration one of the most beneficent in the history of the Republic.
Probably I have done something entirely superfluous in writing you all this. At any rate, I feel that, whether you agree with me or not, I have taken a great liberty in speaking so freely. But in view of the great results that may be won or lost, I should have blamed myself for having left a duty unperformed, had I not done so, even at the risk of appearing intrusive. I am conscious of no more ardent wish than that your Administration should reflect the greatest possible honor upon yourself and do the greatest possible good to the country, and if this expression of my views seems impertinent, let me hope that the sincerity of that desire will be accepted as my excuse.