The Agrarian Crusade | Page 7

blinded by
sectional prejudice and passion. The keener-sighted of the Northerners
began to suspect that Reconstruction in the South often amounted to
little more than the looting of the governments of the Southern States
by the greedy freedmen and the unscrupulous carpetbaggers, with the
troops of the United States standing by to protect the looters. In 1871,
under color of necessity arising from the intimidation of voters in a few
sections of the South, Congress passed a stringent act, empowering the
President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and to use the military at
any time to suppress disturbances or attempts to intimidate voters. This
act, in the hands of radicals, gave the carpetbag governments of the
Southern States practically unlimited powers. Any citizens who worked
against the existing administrations, however peacefully, might be
charged with intimidation of voters and prosecuted under the new act.
Thus these radical governments were made practically self-perpetuating.
When their corruption, wastefulness, and inefficiency became evident,
many people in the North frankly condemned them and the Federal
Government which continued to support them.
This dissatisfaction with the Administration on the part of Republicans
and independents came to a head in 1872 in the Liberal-Republican
movement. As early as 1870 a group of Republicans in Missouri,
disgusted by the excesses of the radicals in that State in the proscription
of former Confederate sympathizers, had led a bolt from the party, had
nominated B. Gratz Brown for governor, and, with the assistance of the
Democrats, had won the election. The real leader of this movement was

Senator Carl Schurz, under whose influence the new party in Missouri
declared not only for the removal of political disabilities but also for
tariff revision and civil service reform and manifested opposition to the
alienation of the public domain to private corporations and to all
schemes for the repudiation of any part of the national debt. Similar
splits in the Republican party took place soon afterwards in other States,
and in 1872 the Missouri Liberals called a convention to meet at
Cincinnati for the purpose of nominating a candidate for the
presidency.
The new party was a coalition of rather diverse elements. Prominent
tariff reformers, members of the Free Trade League, such as David A.
Wells and Edward L. Godkin of the Nation, advocates of civil service
reform, of whom Carl Schurz was a leading representative, and
especially opponents of the reconstruction measures of the
Administration, such as Judge David Davis and Horace Greeley, saw
an opportunity to promote their favorite policies through this new party
organization. To these sincere reformers were soon added such
disgruntled politicians as A. G. Curtin of Pennsylvania and R. E.
Fenton of New York, who sought revenge for the support which the
Administration had given to their personal rivals. The principal bond of
union was the common desire to prevent the reelection of Grant. The
platform adopted by the Cincinnati convention reflected the
composition of the party. Opening with a bitter denunciation of the
President, it declared in no uncertain terms for civil service reform and
the immediate and complete removal of political disabilities. On the
tariff, however, the party could come to no agreement; the free traders
were unable to overcome the opposition of Horace Greeley and his
protectionist followers; and the outcome was the reference of the
question "to the people in their congressional districts and the decision
of Congress."
The leading candidates for nomination for the presidency were Charles
Francis Adams, David Davis, Horace Greeley, Lyman Trumbull, and B.
Gratz Brown. From these men, as a result of manipulation, the
convention unhappily selected the one least suited to lead the party to
victory Horace Greeley. The only hope of success for the movement
was in cooperation with that very Democratic party whose principles,
policies, and leaders, Greeley in his editorials had unsparingly

condemned for years. His extreme protectionism repelled not only the
Democrats but the tariff reformers who had played an important part in
the organization of the Liberal Republican party. Conservatives of both
parties distrusted him as a man with a dangerous propensity to advocate
"isms," a theoretical politician more objectionable than the practical
man of machine politics, and far more likely to disturb the existing
state of affairs and to overturn the business of the country in his efforts
at reform. As the Nation expressed it, "Greeley appears to be 'boiled
crow' to more of his fellow citizens than any other candidate for office
in this or any other age of which we have record."
The regular Republican convention renominated Grant, and the
Democrats, as the only chance of victory, swallowed the candidate and
the platform of the Liberals. Doubtless Greeley's opposition to the
radical reconstruction measures and the fact that he had signed
Jefferson Davis's bail-bond made the "crow" more