CHAPTER XXX.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE UTICA (DIX’S) CONVENTION.

A CHAPTER OF SECRET HISTORY.—CONKLING GETS THE CREDIT FOR DIX’S

NOMINATION AND HIS “SILENCE GIVES CONSENT” TO THE HONOR.—ROBERTSON

REGARDS HIM AS A MARPLOT.—THE SENATOR INNOCENTLY CONDEMNED.—THE

MISUNDERSTANDING WHICH DEFEATED GRANT FOR THE THIRD TERM, AND

ELECTED GARFIELD.—HOW THE NOBLE “306” WERE DISCOMFITED.-“ANYTHING TO

BEAT GRANT.”—THE STALWARTS AND THE HALF BREEDS.-“ME TOO.”—THE

EXCITEMENT WHICH AROUSED GUITEAU’S MURDEROUS SPIRIT TO KILL

GARFIELD.

The political events succeeding the Utica Convention and the nomination

of General Dix for Governor contain some inside history of more than

ordinary importance.

Had I not sprung General Dix on that Convention at the peculiar moment,

as described in the last chapter, Judge Robertson would have carried the

day with flying colors. It was a sudden and crushing blow to the

prospects of himself and his political friends, and it dissipated some

of the brightest hopes and brilliant schemes that had ever originated in

the fertile brain of Senator Conkling. As a consequence of the unique

turn that affairs took on that day, the Senator was placed in a false

position in relation to some of his best friends. Several of the latter

were put in an attitude whereby they misinterpreted the actions of

Senator Conkling at that Convention, and unjustly accused him of

betraying friends that he had promised to support. This was the result

of a misconception on their part, that the Senator was the prime mover

of the _coup d’etat_ that surprised the Convention in the nomination of

General Dix.

The credit was awarded to Conkling, without any hesitation or inquiry,

and he was either too proud, or too indifferent to public opinion to

explain. If he had explained his position candidly the chances are that

his explanation would have been taken in a Pickwickian or political

sense. In fact, he was in a position where he could hardly escape the

responsibility of Dix’s nomination, and everybody was ready to believe

that the movement in favor of Dix was too good a thing to be engineered

by a man of less calibre.

It would have been useless, therefore, for anybody else to explain, as

the person attempting to do so would only have been laughed to scorn.

Judge Robertson, himself the greatest sufferer by the curious turn

affairs had taken, was the first to believe that the nomination of Dix

was one of Conkling’s masterstrokes of political policy. He never

thought of looking to any other source for its emanation. He believed in

his soul it was the work of Conkling, and he thinks so to this day.

I happened to have been better informed, however; but my explanation

would have hardly passed muster at that time, and I would have been

charged with egotism if I had attempted to explain. I think an

explanation is now in order, however, and may point a moral as well as

help to adorn a tale.

History is said to be philosophy teaching by example, and one great

historian has said that no one event in itself is any more important

than another, except from what it teaches posterity by its example. So,

for the benefit of posterity, I now state the facts on this historical

principle.

I am willing to make affidavit on the revised edition of the good book

that prior to the Utica Convention the name of General Dix was not even

lisped by Senator Conkling within my hearing, nor was Dix ever thought

of even remotely by the Senator as a possible candidate.

I am almost certain that the Senator had taken no action that could

possibly conflict with the interests of Judge Robertson prior to the

mention of the name of Dix at the Convention. In fact, with the

exceptions previously stated, I am quite certain that the name of Dix

was a genuine surprise to the entire Convention, managers and all.

Judge Robertson thought differently, however. He believed that Conkling

was the cause of his defeat, and to this misapprehension is due the

enmity that sprang up between these two men, and worked with various

results to the defeat of the political aims of both ever since.

As I was Senator Conkling’s guest, this seemed to create a conviction in

the mind of Judge Robertson, without any inquiry into the matter, that I

had acted at the instigation of Conkling in bringing Dix to the front;

whereas the conception of Dix as the best candidate originated solely

with myself, nor did I ever suggest the idea to Conkling until I

addressed the Convention, in favor of General Dix.

Believing as he did, that the Senator had played the marplot to such

perfection at Utica, Robertson was naturally on the watch for the first

opportunity that would enable him to get even with the friend whom he

suspected of having so basely betrayed him, and with having blocked his

way to political preferment.

This opportunity came at the Chicago Convention, when the Utica

statesman was managing matters very successfully to nominate General

Grant for a third term.

It is curious that the very circumstance which was most conducive to

Grant’s success for the second term was the remote cause of his defeat

for the third. Senator Conkling had no idea of the deep-seated enmity

that lodged in the breast of Robertson. He had done nothing, knowingly,

to merit it, and had been calculating on the co-operation of Robertson,

as usual. He was not aware of the smouldering fire of vengeance that lay

latent in the bosom of his friend. He supposed that Robertson and his

co-mates in politics were with him as in days of yore in the support of

General Grant. He imagined that he had gone to Chicago with a full hand,

but instead of that he was short of some of his best cards, and his

enemies had them stocked in a way that finally brought him to grief.

Conkling only discovered his dilemma after the Convention met, when he

found to his dismay that Robertson had bolted the Grant ticket.

Robertson had first made an alliance with the Blaine party, but finding

an insufficiency of power among that party to carry his point against

the solid phalanx of the Grant movement, he joined forces with John

Sherman’s supporters, who were under the management of James A.

Garfield.

The able strategist from Utica, at the head of his 306 chosen followers,

so disconcerted the Sherman contingent that it also failed to carry the

necessary number of guns.

As day after day passed without any change, it seemed as if the Conkling

forces had adopted the motto of Napoleon’s old guard, “The Guard dies,

but does not surrender.”

At length Robertson and his lieutenants collected the shattered ranks of

Blaine and Sherman, and with Garfield at their head, like Ney attacking

the English centre at Waterloo, hurled them with desperation on the

solid square of Conkling, which still remained unbroken.

The united forces, however, with the war cry, “Anything to beat Grant!”

carried the day, Garfield was nominated and Conkling retired in good

order, but greatly discomfited.

Robertson had taken up this cry at the Convention in the same spirit

that was displayed by another man about whom a good story was told

during that campaign. He had got that shibboleth on the brain, “Anything

to beat Grant!” As the story goes, a prediction had been made by some

religious enthusiast that the world was coming to an end early in

November of that year. A preacher was reminding his congregation, one

Sunday, of the prediction, and the possibility of its fulfilment—at

least that it was well to be prepared for such an event. At the

conclusion of his exhortation, a man in the congregation arose to his

feet, and in a solemnly pathetic voice said, “Thank God.” At the end of

the service the minister’s curiosity was excited to converse with the

man who had so fervently thanked heaven for what most people regarded as

a universal calamity. He saw the man, and asked why he had made such a

remarkable ejaculation at the prospect of such a terrible consummation.

“Anything to beat Grant,” was the reckless and self-sacrificing

response.

It was in this spirit that the Robertson party made the fight at

Chicago, and in this spirit that they triumphed. It was anything to beat

Senator Conkling, however, so far as Judge Robertson was concerned, who

on other grounds would probably have preferred Grant. Thus he avenged

upon the wrong man his defeat at the Utica Convention, and I was

permitted to escape scathless, though innocently responsible for

blasting his Gubernatorial aspirations.

This was not the end of Judge Robertson’s enmity to Senator Conkling,

however. When the new Government came into power, Garfield, in making up

his cabinet, selected Blaine as a member of that special body. This

created a bad feeling between Blaine and Conkling, as it seemed to the

latter like a continuation of the conspiracy between Robertson and

Blaine, hatched at the Chicago Convention. Thus the seeds of a strong

and bitter antagonism were sown between these two leading spirits in the

Republican party, each aspiring to be at least the power behind the

throne.

After Garfield’s inauguration Blaine was made Secretary of State. Great

credit for the Presidential success was not only due to Mr. Blaine, but

in a large degree to Judge Robertson also, as without his assistance

Garfield could not have been nominated. So it was necessary to take care

of Judge Robertson too. This was done by making him Collector of the

Port of New York. These appointments were severe political blows, which,

in the nature of circumstances, fell with full force upon the devoted

head of Senator Conkling.

These events led to the sudden resignation of Senator Conkling and

Senator Platt, “Me Too,” and a very serious division in the ranks of the

party, under the respective names and banners of the Stalwarts and the

Half-Breeds.

The excitement growing out of the political battle between these

factions aroused the intemperate zeal and insane delusions of Guiteau to

kill the President. Thus the thread of cause and effect, when followed

up in this way, is entangled in the deepest mystery.

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