The Democrats

The gloomy island and its happy inhabitant. – The Democratic convention. – The Democrats and their political program. – Candidates and Tilden’s cunning. – The Democratic chosen one and his state formula. – The dark horse and the gray soldier.

The large island on which the capital of the New World with its one-and-a-half million population is located is washed by two broad currents formed by the Hudson and the East River, which separate New York from a whole constellation of other cities. Encircling the city, both rivers before they empty into the ocean converge into one magnificent circular expanse of water—more than ten square versts—bearing the name of New York Bay. It is hard to imagine anything more picturesque than this bay. Its granite embankment, with the adjoining park, in summer heat serves as one of the favorite places for walks. Here you can rest in the shade of chestnuts and in the cool healthy breath of the bay from the suffocating heat of the city atmosphere. The panorama of the bay is enchanting. Its mirror-like surface is traversed in all directions by countless ships and steamers, forming as it were a living bridge between cities, and in the distance one sees the narrow gates leading to the ocean, through which ocean giants—steamships—enter and exit. In the middle of the bay’s expanse, but closer to the ocean outlet than to the city, is located a small island. It is covered with dense foliage, through which barely pierce into the light gloomy buildings of heavy construction. But bolder than the houses, the steel muzzles of guns peer out from the green foliage. This is the chief New York fort and at the same time the chief headquarters of the commander of local troops, Major General Hancock. In a happy country enjoying actual, not armed, peace, the seat of the god of war does not serve as a place of worship, and therefore the island, amid the life boiling around it, looks as if abandoned like an orphan. Its inhabitants are as dull as their guns, and carry out their official duties with the same mechanicalness as the guns when, on major historical holidays, they belch hundreds of evenly calculated shots at the bay. On Thursday, June 24, 1880, something extraordinary suddenly happened. The previously abandoned orphan island suddenly became a magnet, drawing countless steamships that usually passed by it with cold indifference. On the island everything came to life. The gloomy buildings adorned themselves with multicolored flags, the shores were besieged by masses of visitors, the groves rang with triumphant cries, and the steel guns seemed to intensify their firing even without charges. The reason for such magical change in the life of the gloomy island was that its chief inhabitant, General Hancock, was on this day appointed by the Democratic convention as a candidate for the presidency. Here, in this seat of the god of war, the Democratic party found itself a leader who was to lead it against the hated Republicans with their General Garfield, and—to be victorious at the November elections.

The Democratic convention, at which the honorable ticket to the presidency fell to the happy inhabitant of the gloomy island, took place on the twenty-second to twenty-fourth days of June in the city of Cincinnati, or the so-called American Paris, though by its dusty suffocating atmosphere it would be more appropriately called the American Saratov. The Democratic party had not had such an important convention for a long time. The convention had to decide an almost Shakespearean question: to be or not to be? Since the Civil War the Democratic party had not had a single president. The White House was constantly occupied by Republicans with their chosen ones. At the elections two years before, specifically in 1876, fortune smiled on the Democrats, and their chosen one Tilden was already about to set foot across the sacred threshold of the White House, when suddenly the Republicans, through cunning political manipulation, took several votes away from him and by a majority of one vote pulled the presidency to their side and installed their candidate Hayes in the White House. The blow was heavy for the Democrats who had already thought they had won, and Tilden himself took to his bed. Time, however, healed both the party and its candidate, and now they came forth on the political arena with new strength and new determination. Now they had at all costs to defeat their opponents, to avenge their past defeats, and to uphold the honor of their banner. Otherwise the party faced political death.

To win, one must be strong and have at the head a leader who, embodying the principles of the party, could unite in one harmonious force all the diverse factions of the party and, before the mighty influence of his banner, force the opponent’s banner to bow. In the elections two years before, the party, among other things, lost because its leader could not attract to himself certain factions that did not see in him a full expression of democratic principles. What are these principles? – To answer this question, one must look back a bit. Before the war for the abolition of slavery there were two parties—the Democrats and the Whigs, the former being adherents of decentralization and expansion of the rights of local states, and the latter supporters of the principle of centralization and zealous guardians of the unity of the union. Just before the war, when agitation began for the abolition of slavery, a new party was formed, which, supporting the principles of the Whigs, took upon itself mainly the task of liberating the slaves. It began to be called the Republican party and soon merged with the Whigs, absorbing their very name. The South was completely Democratic, the North Republican. When the Republican North began insistently demanding the abolition of slavery and was ready to rely on state law in its demands, the Democratic South, which was affected by this demand and did not wish to part with the profitable slavery, put forward against the Northerners its principle of local independence and was ready to completely separate from the union. The collision of these opposing principles led to civil war, which ended in the defeat of the Democrats and the liberation of the slaves. Thus, during the war the Democrats showed themselves to be slaveholders, and the Republicans as liberators of the slaves. When, after the abolition of slavery, the Democrats could no longer rely on the slaveholding principle, they remained with their political principle of local independence, and it is usually written in the largest letters on their banner. At the same time, in social respects the Democrats made a sharp turn in their direction. Despising and oppressing their former slaves—the Negroes, at the same time they begin to play demagogic roles with respect to the white lower population; from ardent slaveholders they changed into no less ardent demagogues, just as some of our serf-owners rushed into something akin to nihilism when they saw that the good old times had passed into oblivion. In particular, the principles of the Democratic party, as determined at the convention, consist in the following: “Opposition to centralization and that dangerous spirit which is increasing in siting governmental power in one department and thus creating actual despotism, under any form of government; separation of church and state; local self-government; subordination of military power to civil power and the right of free voting.” Further the Democratic party declares that it is “the friend of labor and the working class and considers it its duty to protect and defend them against the claims of capitalists and the wealthy.” It demands the repeal of the Burlingame Treaty with China, by which the American government gave full freedom to the Chinese to immigrate to America with the obligation to protect them. The Democratic party demands “a complete prohibition of Chinese immigration to America, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce—with careful oversight of them.” Thus do the Democrats themselves define their principles. The Republicans do not see them this way. According to their opinion, the principal principles of the party should not be read in the lines but between them; and there between the lines they read such horrors that hair stands on end. If the Democratic party actually adhered to the principles attributed to it, then the first year of the transition of rule into Democratic hands would be the last year of the existence of the entire state. In reality the Democrats do not go beyond their declared principles, and even in the listed points there is much that is simply said for a fine phrase. At least in local rule, the Democrats in reality show themselves far from being as “friendly to labor and the working class” as is said in their political program. Not to speak of the southern states, where the black working population is simply oppressed by them no worse than in the times of slavery, so that last year tens of thousands of Negro families fled these persecutions to the North; in the middle and northern states their protection of the working class declares itself only in demagogic flattery during elections, and the elections usually turn to such persons who have nothing to do with labor, for example, their favorite Tilden—a railroad lawyer, an obscure capitalist, and an ambitious politician. In the composition of the party, besides southern former slaveholders, there is little of purely American population; on the other hand, the emigrant population—especially the Irish—are almost exclusively Democrats. Being politically underdeveloped, this population serves as an obedient instrument in the hands of demagogue politicians. In numerical terms the parties are almost equal, and the advantage in elections is given to them only by that class of so-called “independent” population which, not belonging to any party, at elections casts its vote for one side or the other, depending on the candidate put forward by that side.

The convention in Cincinnati had to elect a candidate who would be the most capable bearer of the banner of the Democratic party. The Democrats set off for the convention in triumph. When the Republican convention in Chicago proclaimed their standard-bearer to be the “dark horse”—General Garfield, the jubilation in the Democratic camp had no end. They openly proclaimed this Republican choice to be a synonym for the party’s defeat. You need only choose one of the numerous political leaders of the party and its name is—certain victory, as the most ardent Democrats expressed it. And they were right in some respect. At a time when the Republican party, spoiled by long and almost unrestrained rule in the country, allowed office-seeking and intrigue to develop in its midst, making it almost impossible for truly popular party leaders to attain the presidency, the Democrats, taught by the experience of constant defeats, on the contrary, developed a more healthy political sense and began to rely on their best and most popular leaders. In their camp this time there appeared a whole good dozen of statesmen, each of whom could with dignity assume the presidential candidacy. Each of them, of course, was supported by his own special faction, but it is remarkable that among these factions there was none of the bitter struggle for which the Republican convention was famous. Each of these factions was willingly ready to sacrifice its votes in favor of any candidate toward whom the majority leaned. The strongest candidate, of course, was the Democratic veteran Tilden, who in 1876 was so unexpectedly thrust away from the threshold of the White House by an unknown upstart Hayes. His “boom” was almost as grandiose as Grant’s boom in the Republican party. Before the convention, the Democrats talked of nothing but Tilden, and he indeed emerged as a giant in comparison with the Republican “dark horse.” The first-ranking New York state at its local Democratic convention unanimously voted for Tilden, and his appointment seemed certain to everyone. But just before the convention, when the pastor was about to read the prayer at the opening of the session, a strange unexpectedness suddenly occurred: Tilden sent a letter to the convention in which he declined the presidency. This letter came like a bolt from the blue for the zealous Tildenites, their ranks became confused, and they did not know what to do. But what are tears for some are laughter for others. While the Tildenites were seriously confused and did not know what to do, Tilden’s opponents only smirked at the “clever sage” and saw in the letter only a political trick—to gain greater popularity for himself. The letter was indeed composed in such a clever manner that the refusal was connected by a solid bridge with consent and resembled that formal refusal with which our Moscow tsars and patriarchs paved their way to the throne. The trick, however, failed and, on the contrary, spoiled everything. The ardent supporters of Tilden remained in confusion and indecision, while the less ardent calmly transferred to the side of other candidates. Therefore, when voting began, Tilden suddenly found himself almost at the tail of the table. At the first ballot of 738 delegates, only 38 voted for Tilden. The lion’s share went to General Hancock; he immediately received 171 votes, the largest number of votes among all nineteen candidates who appeared in the first table. The first ballot was so significant that it immediately decided everything. Everyone saw where the center of gravity lay, and the second ballot almost unanimously proclaimed Hancock the Democratic candidate for the presidency. The second ballot gave Hancock 705 votes and Tilden only 1 vote… Does fortune often laugh so sarcastically? The chosen one proved to be very popular. When his name was announced, the entire ten-thousand-person assembly present at the voting seemed seized by the mania of shouting, and the entire enormous hall seemed as if one monstrous mouth, from which a deafening hurrah thundered and shook the walls. The orchestra struck up the national anthem, but not a single note could be heard from it, no more than the squeaking of a mosquito in the roar of a hurricane. Only by the frantic movement of the bows could one judge the joyous rapture of the performers. News of the convention’s result spread throughout the state with lightning speed, and everywhere where there is Democratic blood, it produced rapture and jubilation.

The happy general, who had thus stirred the entire Democratic world, is indeed a very likable and worthy man. He is one of the first-class American generals and occupies almost the immediately following position after Grant. By his origin he belongs to an ancient honorable family that acquired itself a name during the struggle for liberation. The general’s great-grandfather was one of the active collaborators of the great Washington. The general himself rendered very important services to the state by his military abilities during the civil war, when he together with Grant fought for the unity of the Union against the Southerners. In all his life he appears to be one of the most honest patriots of the country and justly deserves the designation given him—“knight without fear and without reproach.” His reputation is so pure and irreproachable that the Republicans could put forward against his person nothing more reproachful than that he commanded a detachment at the execution of a woman condemned by court to be shot.

But for all his honesty and likability, General Hancock is nothing more nor less than a “son of the god of war”; he was never a statesman, and his “formula” in this respect cannot compare with the formula of General Garfield, who showed himself precisely in important state activity, which is what the country, not condemned by fate to the horrors of war, most needs. The Democrats made a curious turn of face here. Against Grant’s candidacy they had, among other things, put forward as a chief argument that the country did not need a “gray soldier,” that it needed only a statesman; now they themselves elected as their candidate precisely a “gray soldier of the grays,” without a shred of state experience. Thus the country faced a choice between the “gray soldier” of the Democrats and the “dark horse” of the Republicans. The first had in his favor personal irreproachability and honesty, the second state experience and a sympathetic fate. The choice was evidently not easy.