Historically, it is very unfortunate that Mr. Watterson did not include in his enlivening article copies of his telegraphic and other correspondence with Mr. Tilden from New Orleans, and elsewhere, for it would certainly and truly, so far as it went, throw much light on the existing drama being displayed, as well as the plans and work behind the curtain whereby (we may believe) it was hoped to produce the election of Mr. Tilden. We Republicans at Washington were forced to believe that an effort was being made, by every means that could be employed, to overcome the Hayes majority of one. During that whole period, so far as I personally knew or was informed, there never was any scheme or act of the Republicans to bribe any state canvassing board or elector by money or promise in support of Mr. Hayes’s election. We did (if I may borrow an ancient classic simile) fear “the Greeks bearing gifts.” We were morally certain that a large majority of the legal voters in the States of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were earnestly in favor of the election of Mr. Hayes, and we believed that if violence or some other kind of unlawful influence were not brought to bear the electoral votes of those States would be cast for him; but when the secret though bold operations of Colonel Pelton became partly known we were astonished and alarmed, though not disheartened, and we went forward in our efforts to provide by law for the final act in the great drama.
The scene of action was now transferred to Washington. Mr. Watterson in his usual charming style gives a clear description of the next steps taken by the Democratic managers to achieve the wished-for triumph of Mr. Tilden. He was advised by Mr. McLane--referring to the contest over the English Reform Bill of 1832, when he had seen the powerful impression produced by “the direct force of public opinion upon law-making and law-makers”--that an analogous situation now existed in America; that the Republican Senate was like the Tory House of Lords, and that the Democrats must organize a movement such as had been so effectual in England. But there was neither precedent nor analogy except violence and riots, for Parliament was engaged in considering discretionary _legislation_ enlarging and purifying the franchise, in which peaceful persuasion and petition were right, as they would have been for or against the passage of the Electoral Commission Bill. Mr. Watterson tells us it was agreed that he return to Washington and make a speech “with the suggestion that in the National Capital there should assemble” a mass convention of at least one hundred thousand peaceful citizens exercising the freemen’s right of petition. Mr. Watterson tells us that it was a venture in which he had no great faith; but that he prepared the speech, and that, after much reading and revising of it by Mr. Tilden and Mr. McLane, to cover the case and meet the purpose, Mr. Tilden wrote Mr. Randall, Speaker of the House, a letter which was carried by Mr. McLane to Mr. Randall “instructing him what to do in the event that the popular response [which did not come] should prove favorable.” It is a great pity that this letter is lost to the historian, for it would doubtless illuminate the real meaning of the speech of Mr. Watterson prepared in New York and there ratified by Mr. Tilden; for the speech that was delivered at Washington soon after Christmas, 1876, was of such a character that “the Democrats at once set about denying the sinister and violent purpose ascribed to it by Republicans.” Mr. Watterson says,--I have no doubt with absolute frankness,--that no thought of _violence_ had entered _his_ mind. But Mr. Pulitzer, who immediately followed him in the speech-making, said without rebuke that he wanted the one hundred thousand to come “fully armed and ready for business.”