Sharpe did more than settle into a comfortable life as the local squire. He jumped into politics and became one of the most influential and personally popular Republican Party figures in the Hudson Valley. With his hero Grant running for president, Sharpe rushed to his support and became a delegate to the 1868 convention. Grant’s landslide victory would have a decisive effect on Sharpe’s life.
By September 1869 Sharpe was appointed to the Central Committee of the Republican Party of New York at the state convention in Syracuse. In 1873 he was admitted to the party executive committee. Republicanism fit him like a glove. The head of the state party organization was the autocratic and imperious Senator Roscoe Conkling. Republican to the bone, Sharpe became an ally of Conkling and was joined by former state quartermaster general, Chester A. Arthur, and Alonzo B. Cornell. These four men were the Republican Party in New York.1 His quick mind, likeability, powerful personality, and distaste of politically driven animosities paved his way. He seems to have successfully followed the advice given by the Greek Polybius to Scipio Africanus: “Never leave the forum without making a new friend.” He would have his inevitable enemies, but the circle of his friends constantly widened. Even his Democrat opponents would come to speak of his fairness, gentlemanly conduct, good nature, and probity. It was the vindictiveness of his own Republican opponents that would prove more dangerous.2
Despite that statewide prominence, he had to struggle to maintain his influence and power base in Ulster County for decades against the animosity of a rival, Thomas Cornell (no relation to Alonzo B. Cornell). That animosity was said to be born in the Sharpe family’s prewar purchase of outstanding debts against Cornell when he was in straightened circumstances. While Sharpe was away in the war, Cornell stayed home, amassed a fortune, and “became a power” in Ulster County Republican politics. Sharpe’s ambition to play a leading role in Ulster politics ran straight into both Cornell’s grudge and his entrenched base. As the founder and owner of The Kingston Daily Freeman, Cornell would frequently use it to attack Sharpe.3
Another cause of enmity was their mutual involvement in the Rondout and Oswego Railroad, which was expanding through the Catskills. Cornell had been its first president but resigned in 1870 because of other interests competing for his time and an animosity to its president. He continued to attack the president in the pages of the Freeman. The next year Sharpe joined the board of directors. The president’s mismanagement forced the board to lease the railroad to William B. Litchfield in February 1872. In April Sharpe was elected president of the company and promptly moved to reorganize the railroad and initiated a bill in the state legislature to authorize it as well as change its name to the New York, Kingston & Syracuse Railroad (NYK&S). He first fired the treasurer, Anthony Benson, a Cornell man. In July Sharpe and Litchfield sued Cornell for the “grossest malfeasance” as an officer of the railroad “such as misappropriation of bonds, theft of money from the treasury, etc.” Cornell threatened a libel suit. Both sides then backed off. By the next year Sharpe and the board had become alarmed at the plundering of the railroad by Litchfield and put it into receivership to drive him out. An actual gun battle ensued in dispossessing Litchfield.4
Following on Litchfield’s mismanagement, the depression of 1873 doomed the railroad and brought on a major lawsuit against Sharpe and the board the next year. In June 1875 at the request of the bondholders, the NYK&S Railroad was sold. Immediately thereafter Cornell assumed the presidency and the railroad was renamed the Ulster & Delaware Railroad. The stockholders, many of whom were ordinary working people, lost everything.5
Cornell’s son-in-law, S. D. Coykendall, who had also been named in Sharpe’s suit against Cornell, continued the feud that roiled Ulster Republican politics for decades. The Times reported:
The two made it so lively for Gen. Sharpe that he has had hard work to convince politicians outside that he has much influence in the Republican Party in Ulster Country. The general, however, has not given up without a sturdy fight each year at the nominating convention. This has caused factional fights in the party, but few political plums have come from Ulster on account of the lack of harmony.
On being asked the other day whey Coykendall and Sharpe did not pull together politically, an old Republican said: “They have been opposed to each other so long they would not feel natural if they did.”6
Sharpe remained a strong admirer and supporter of Grant, and neither ever forgot the bond that had been formed as a member of that exclusive group, Grant’s family of generals. He was an active proponent of the move to put Grant in the White House after the disastrous Johnson administration. As a member of the influential New York delegation to the 1868 Republican convention, he did much to insure Grant’s nomination. As Grant’s biographer, Jean Edward Smith, said of him, which could also be said of Sharpe, “loyalty to friends and benefactors was the pole around which his universe revolved…”7
Sharpe added his impressive oratorical skills to Grant’s election. On September 17 the largest political demonstration in New York City’s history was held on the anniversary of the battle of Antietam in support of the Grant ticket. Sharpe’s rising political star put him on the podium as second speaker at this rally. He did not hesitate to wave the bloody shirt. To him, voting Republican and especially voting for Grant was a continuation of the struggle of the Civil War. Those who had either betrayed or failed the Union had reassembled under the candidacy of Horace Greeley, whose New York Tribune had been the country’s most influential newspaper for 20 years. Greeley ran on the Liberal Republican ticket, splinter of the Republican Party, and was nominated by the Democrats as well.
Greeley came with enormous political baggage. He had attempted his own peace negotiations with the South in 1864, finding himself badly manipulated by the Confederate agents with whom he had been dealing. He had also refused to support Lincoln in that year’s election. In 1866 he stood Jefferson Davis’s bail and lost half his subscribers overnight. He was also a hopelessly inept campaigner. Much of his platform was seen as rewarding the South for secession. What particularly incensed Sharpe was Greeley’s call for the end of Reconstruction, which he saw as a thinly disguised attempt to undo the decision of the sword. It would also be an assault on the 14th Amendment, which was vital to the protection of the liberties of all Americans, and throw the black population of the South to the tender mercies of their former masters, undisturbed by the interest or power of the Federal Government.
Sharpe’s stay in London had helped crystalize his belief that the victory of the Union was a clear demonstration of American exceptionalism and the inherent strength of republican government. It was a belief that stayed with him for the rest of his life and was expressed in a speech he gave to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) 23 years later. The press reported that Sharpe said:
Gladstone and Lord John Russell … were against the Union and they said that the end of the war would leave us with a military government, but they were wrong, as the farmer, the lawyer and the minister went back to their original occupations, thus showing that no government on the face of the earth was as strong as a republican form of government.8
In a speech to a veterans club on September 5, Sharpe also reminded his audience that a Greeley victory would result in the payment of Confederate debts and pensions to Confederate veterans by the Federal Government to be made on the backs of the loyal men of the North. Sharpe was fully in favor of reconciliation and honored the valor of the Confederate soldier, but he was damned if he was going to compensate them for the cost of the Rebellion.
We intend to see to it that the men who were maimed at Spottsylvania Court-House and at Gettysburg shall not be pushed aside by the men who maimed them; and we don’t intend to have a statue raised to Robert E. Lee in the capitol until the last of those hobbling me has joined the ranks of those who are gone before.9
His powers of oratory were impressive in an age when the standards were far higher than today. As would be said in another context, “by those unfamiliar with his stentorian voice, it might have been mistaken for the Angel Gabriel.”10 On September 17 he delivered another powerful speech. The crowds of veterans howled in approval at what was a brilliant political stem winder of a speech. He was throwing them the red meat that their memories of the war made so appealing. But he was also laying out what had become central to his political philosophy—the primacy of the victory of the Union in the life of the nation, the importance of the 14th Amendment to guarantee the result of that victory, and the necessity of protecting the rights of the black minority. The New York Times ended its report of his speech with the following words:
Referring to the Democratic hatred of the poor, downtrodden African, he spoke of the assistance rendered by those humble patriots to our soldiers during the war, of the many marches and hardships in which they had borne our boys company; of the patriotic songs in which their voices had mingled with those of the “Boys in Blue,” while on the march or in the tented field. He would never forget the inspiring song which he once heard those negroes singing on the march:
“In the beauty of the lily Christ was borne across the sea.
In the beauty of the lily he transfigured you and me.
As he died to make us holy, let us die to make men free.”
Applause thundered from the vast crowd as he ended.11 It was the roll tide of victory. The Republicans crushed Greeley, who received only 40 percent of the vote.
Grant did not fail to remember Sharpe’s political assistance or his abilities. He had something more arduous in mind than minister to Paris. In March 1870 Grant appointed Sharpe U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of New York as an important part of his plan to break the grip of the notoriously corrupt William Tweed and his ring of Tammany Hall politicians that were plundering the city of New York.12 Tammany Hall had evolved from a fraternal organization to an arm of the Democratic Party and controlled the city through the patronage of the large immigrant population, especially the Irish. By easing their path to citizenship and providing food and jobs, Tammany had secured the loyalty of a large and decisive part of the electorate. William M. Tweed had risen to power as the Grand Sachem of the Tammany organization and gained control of the party apparatus from 1860 to 1870; he had great influence in the state legislature, and control of state judges, often by illegal means. Tweed had important allies in two financial buccaneers, Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., who had secured control of the Eire Railroad and plundered it into near ruin. Fisk had secured his position so well as to obtain the colonelcy of the 9th Regiment New York State National Guard. The state militia had been reorganized after the war into the new structure of the National Guard. Fisk and Gould’s attempts at stock market speculation had led to the national financial panic of Black Friday in 1869.
In 1870 New York City had the most important governmental organization in the United States other than the Federal Government itself. The port of New York alone was the largest single source of revenue for the Treasury. For the city to remain in the hands of the Tweed Ring was a national scandal of the first order. It set the standard and precedence for other city machines and posed a direct threat to the concept and practice of representative government. The financial shock of Black Friday only served to emphasize the national threat the Tweed Ring posed. If Grant was to bring it down, he had to attack it at its foundation.
The Tweed Ring had stayed in office in good part by manipulating elections through a form of ballot box stuffing in which thousands of so-called “repeaters” voted again and again. Crowds of these ruffians would move arrogantly from one polling place to another, casting their ballots under different names. It was bad enough that city and state elections were corrupt. What roused Grant’s ire was that Federal elections to the House of Representatives were also corrupted. This was a direct threat to the integrity of representative government.
Surprisingly, Sharpe received a handsome write up in the New York Herald which had so detested in the war. “General Sharpe … is regarded by all who have had intercourse with him as a man of high attainments, unspotted personal integrity and the most genial address.” The Herald was a Tammany Hall supporter and would have cause to regret its positive review.13
Sharpe quickly settled into the job and on the 15th appointed someone he had worked with in the war and trusted as his deputy marshal—General H. E. Tremain, former chief of staff of the Third Army Corps.14 Sharpe’s first task was to supervise the conduct of the 1870 census. He started by hiring 200 honest enumerators to spread out through the huge city to conduct the census. The actual enumeration was conducted “against violent opposition,” some of it directed at Sharpe’s own person. It was only Sharpe’s unflinching use of U.S. marshals to protect the enumerators that the census was successfully completed. Its results clearly proved that the 1868 Democrat electoral victories had been based on brazen fraud. One electoral district counted 870 residents in the 1870 Census and 707 voters in the previous 1868 election.15
But the census was only the opening of the campaign against the Tweed Ring. The November 1870 elections for city, state, and Congressional offices was to be the showdown. Despite his federal office, Sharpe remained a Republican politician, and in that day and age, this was the norm. He saw no conflict between his advocacy of the Republican Party and his non-partisan role as a federal officer. A modern audience might be skeptical of the dichotomy, but Sharpe appears to have carried it off honestly.
An insight into his motivations appeared at the mass meeting of black voters at the Cooper Union Hall on October 12 at which Sharpe was a speaker. The black community had been consistently abused by the Democratic machine and was a natural Republican constituency. Sharpe was there as U.S. Marshal to defend their rights and as Republican politician to ensure that their votes reinforced the defense of those rights. He was preceded by the Rev. Butler who proceeded to tell his audience that any black man who was beguiled to vote the Democratic ticket was out of his mind and had forgotten it was that party that “had sustained slavery; which assisted in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law; which had systematically opposed everything for the benefit of the black man, and hunted the colored people for three days in July [draft riots of 1863], burned their orphan asylum, and hung some of our fathers and brothers to lamp-posts.” Sharpe spoke next as reported by The New York Times:
He considered it a proud privilege to be present with them tonight, and welcome to the rights of citizenship the members of a race who have so long been deprived of their rights. As the representative of the executive authority of the United States he welcomed his audience on this auspicious occasion. After alluding to the heroism of the colored troops during the war, he referred to the duty of his hearers in this canvas and urged them for the sake of their brethren at the South and for themselves to vote rightly on this occasion, and adhere inflexibly to the principles of the Republican Party.16
Sharpe was being practical as well to seek allies to break the hold of corrupt machine politics on New York City. That had not been lost on the Democratic machine which rallied to oppose the next step in Grant’s plan, now that a clean census had been taken—a strict registration of voters to be supervised by U.S. supervisors of elections under Judge Woodruff of the U.S. circuit court and protected by Sharpe’s U.S. marshals. By September Sharpe was fending off clumsy and fraudulent complaints against the accuracy of the census by Tammany Hall cronies. On the 24th of the next month, Sharpe announced in a letter to The New York Times that all complaints against the census had been addressed and provided the census returns to the press which duly printed them. By making the returns public ahead of the elections, he challenged Tammany openly. Sharpe found time at least once in early October to confer with Grant in the White House on the developing situation.17
On October 18 the registration began. The Times observed that “It was generally characterized by quiet and orderly conduct unlike the acts of lawlessness perpetrated in former political campaigns.” Sharpe’s marshals were out in force which had a demoralizing effect on the Tammany toughs. The Times went on, “Very few of the gangs of repeaters who have been the chief features on election days during the last ten years, were observed in the streets; those who were seen did not conduct themselves in their usual arrogant manner, but were extremely cautious about the way in which they acted.” Sharpe had made it more than clear that the U.S. marshals would extend the fullest protection of the law to the supervisors of elections. As the registration went on, the supervisors directed the arrest of a number of repeaters bold enough to try, including a member of the Tammany Hall General Committee, for having registered in three districts.18
The Tweed Ring was temporarily trumped but would come back with a snarl to defend its hold on the pocketbook of New York. As the registration continued over several weeks, their toughs grew bolder, attempting to intimidate federal officials. Those officials did not back down, and arrests mounted. On occasion gangs of repeaters would rescue one of their number who had just been arrested. Sharpe’s marshal’s office was becoming more and more to resemble a command headquarters girding for battle. Tammany was prepared to attack from more than one direction and pressed suit in federal court, challenging the government’s authority to supervise a local election. Judge Woodruff rebuffed that attempt by a ruling on November 2, stating that the House of Representatives’ constitutional authority to judge the qualifications of its members included the authority to “crush any systematic effort to control those elections by fraud or violence.”19
Not surprisingly, Sharpe’s intelligence of Tammany’s next step was crucial. The same day that Judge Woodruff ruled against Tammany, Sharpe’s sources told him of the plan to call out the state National Guard to bully federal officials from properly supervising the election. It was a blatant threat of rebellion against the United States Government, something of which Sharpe had already had too much experience to tolerate in his own backyard. On November 2 he informed the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, who was in the city at the time, and named the three regiments to be called out—the 9th, 22nd, and 69th. NYSNG (New York State National Guard). Fish promptly telegraphed Grant. The 9th Regiment was commanded by Fisk, who had recruited Tammany Hall toughs to fill its ranks. On the 5th of the month Fisk issued a secret special order to his regiment to assemble at their armory on the morning of election day –November 8. It was an order which quickly found its way into Federal hands, probably through Sharpe’s sources.20
In the meantime, Sharpe had been working the issue politically with both the Tammy-controlled governor and mayor. He appeared to have reached an agreement with the governor “looking to the non employment of any State Troops, & an agreement as to the mode of exercising their authority by the United States Marshals & Supervisors…” Sharpe was a man with a noted ability to negotiate in personal sessions. He was also a man who would not flinch at political hardball. Shortly thereafter, on November 7 Sharpe and U.S. Attorney Noah Davis, now armed with this agreement, had a hard-nosed meeting with the mayor A. Oakley Hall, and his superintendent of police in which the full force of the United States Government was thrown into the scales to, as it was diplomatically reported, “guard against any collision between the United States and City authorities to prevent fraudulent voting and false counting of votes…” Tammany flinched. A joint statement was issued in which both sides agreed to cooperate to ensure a fair election.21
Sharpe had driven Tammany into a corner, depriving it of its gangs of repeaters, corrupt officials, and friendly police. It had only one desperate ploy left, the very one that Sharpe had identified and warned against five days earlier—the use of the Tammany controlled National Guard. Despite his agreements with state and city officials, he was not convinced that he had fully forced Tammany’s hand. Secretary Fish reported to Grant that “Genl Sharpe insists on having the U.S. troops in the City, and distributed in small detachments,” a measure with which he disagreed to the President. Sharpe’s fears were well-founded. The same day Sharpe was meeting with the city’s officials, the commander of the National Guard’s First Division in the City, Maj. Gen. Alexander Shaler, issued a general order that stated that although city and federal officials had come to an agreement on the peaceful conduct of the election, “yet, as a measure of extreme precaution, it is ordered that should the services of this division be required to aid the civil authorities in the preservation of peace and order on election day,” the Guardsmen would hold themselves in readiness to report to their armories in fatigue dress.22
Sharpe’s intelligence sources picked this order up as soon as it was issued; he informed Grant immediately. The President, having crushed the rebellion of the valiant southern Confederacy, was not about to see the authority of the U.S. Government challenged by municipal thugs. He responded the same day with an order to Shaler:
By virtue of the authority conferred upon the President of the United States to use the land, naval, and militia forces of the United States in maintaining the laws, you are hereby notified that the Division under your command is called into the service of the United States, and you are directed to hold it, or so much of it as you may deem necessary, in readiness to cooperate with the United States Marshal, and Brigadier General commanding the Military Department of the East, “to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United States,” during the election to be held in the City of New York to-morrow the 8th instant.
You will please acknowledge the receipt of this, and report your action.23
Grant wired the letter to Sharpe who passed it on to Shaler. Secretary of War Belknapp informed Brigadier General McDowell in New York City at the same time:
An order from the President Calling out Genl. Shaler’s Division or so much of as may be necessary goes to Marshal Sharpe for delivery to Genl. Shaler to-day by telegraph and Mail. Gen. Sharpe may consult with District Attorney as to the propriety of calling out Militia and if not recommended by them inform me by telegraph for further instructions. See Sharpe at once.
The last two sentences were in Grant’s hand. Grant was making it clear to Federal authorities in New York, including the senior army officer, that Sharpe was his representative in the city in this crisis. His support was as full and confident as it had been for Sherman in his independent campaign that fought its way to the gates of Atlanta and then scorched its way to the sea. Tammany’s last effort folded as Shaler, a political general, hurriedly withdrew his order, probably in sheer terror at the threat from the man who had broken Robert E. Lee.24
On election day, Sharpe in effect commanded a large Federal force of 5,000 deputy marshals and supervisors, all of them specially commissioned to make arrests for voting fraud. Sharpe had thoroughly organized this force. Each voting district had 10 men under the command of a sergeant, with a large number held in reserve at important points. The districts were subordinated to assembly districts under the control of a chief deputy marshal and chief supervisor, operating out of a central headquarters, who were prepared to give instructions on the disposition of prisoners. Sharpe chose for these offices “worthy ex-army officers, who have adopted excellent measures of discipline for the body men place at their disposal.” Badges and batons were distributed the night before the election. Five thousand warrants were prepared for known repeaters, and long lines of carriages were parked outside polling places to be ready to transport them once arrested. It was a formidable organizational effort and a daunting show of force.25
Sharpe was determined to have a reliable military back stop to his marshals. The New York Times reported that General McDowell, commanding the Department of the East, had been ordered to place his troops under “Marshal Sharpe’s directions,” an order that could only have come from Grant himself. On election day, New Yorkers along Broadway were surprised to see five companies of the U.S. Army’s First Artillery Regiment in campaign dress, normally stationed at Fort Trimble in New Haven, Connecticut, now marching through the streets to disappear into a building on Reade Street where they remained quietly all day. The press reported that they were under the overall command of Brig. Gen. Henry Hunt—the great artillerist of the Army of the Potomac whose guns had savaged the men in gray who charged with Pickett and others on the last day of Gettysburg. Three more companies from the First Artillery stayed quietly on the steamboat that brought them quickly down from Fort Adams at Newport, Rhode Island. Other bodies of troops also quietly entered the city. Sharpe had at his disposal about 3,000 regular army troops. “The frigate Narraganset was stationed in the East River near the foot of Wall-street, and it was understood that she would be used to sweep the street to protect the United States Treasury.” The ironclad Guerriere was similarly placed in the North River. Marines from the frigate reinforced those normally stationed at the Navy Yard, and the other U.S. Army garrisons in the city held in readiness “for instant service.” All Federal troops had strict orders to keep out of sight.26
The threat of the use of federal troops was already hanging in the air. The Herald was hyperventilating on October 26 when it wrote, “only the verbal request of Marshal Sharpe … will be enough to precipitate upon the freemen of New York an army of paid mercenaries to occupy, sack, and slaughter in the holy name of the law.”27
In the end, the repeaters stayed away and the troops out of sight, and the election went off quietly. Sharpe had accomplished the epitome of generalship according to the Chinese genius of the art of war—Sun Tzu. He had brought off a victory without fighting. His preparations covered every front—political, civic, organizational, military, and especially the psychological. At every step he outmaneuvered Tammany into impotence. Sharpe had fully justified Grant’s faith in him for this delicate and vital mission. Great military partnerships are rarely able to reconvene in great crises after their time in history has passed. Not so with Grant and Sharpe. If anything, Sharpe exceeded in this crisis his performance during the war. In this case he had vastly more executive and command authority than he did as director of the BMI. In effect, he was his own commanding general, and he pulled off a flawless campaign. One can only speculate how he would have performed as a senior combat commander. Sharpe would be the first to give Grant the supreme credit for backing him up with judgment and resolve. It was proof that the greatest military collaborations are based not only on ability but on mutual trust and respect.
The election has a final irony—Tweed’s Tammany ticket won after all. But it was a pyrrhic victory. Its margin had been much reduced as a result of a clean election. The Tweed Ring’s grip on the electoral process had been broken. That was the beginning of the end for it as a threat to Federal authority in New York, although the Tammany machine would survive well into the 20th century when its patronage was dealt major blows by President Franklin Roosevelt.
Bill Tweed’s control was about to run out much faster as reform candidates organized for the municipal elections of 1871. Sharpe actively campaigned for them. At a speech on October 26 at the Cooper Institute, he described in stark terms exactly what was at stake in the struggle against the Tweed Ring. After alluding to the threat to the cause of liberty posed by the Civil War, he spoke these challenging words:
Is this not the same contest in a more insidious form? Is this not the same blow at the right of popular expression of the people’s will? If this be so, then let me ask you to recollect how criminal you have been in time gone past in paying no attention to the first duty of citizens of a republican form of government.
He went on to call for Democrats and Republicans to unite in opposing corruption. His speech was enthusiastically received and described by the Times as a “brilliant address.” The reform movement’s moment had arrived. Sharpe’s successful assault on Tweed’s control of elections had given new strength to reformers. The Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast was savaging Tweed with his cartoons that were especially effective among Tweed’s immigrant base. Democrat reformer Samuel Tilden had been patiently gathering evidence against Tweed. Now events moved with a rush. That same October Tweed was arrested for corruption. Seventy reform candidates were swept into office on election day. Gould stood Tweed’s bond of $1,000,000, and charges were dropped but were later reinstated largely through Tilden’s efforts. He was finally convicted in 1873 of plundering the city and sentenced to 12 years in prison. That was reduced, and he served one year, only to be charged by New York in civil court and held in a debtors’ prison. He escaped and fled to Cuba and from there to Spain. He was arrested by Spanish authorities at the request of the United States and returned to American custody. The Spanish authorities identified him by the use of Nast’s cartoons as informal wanted posters. He died in prison in 1878.
Tweed’s crony, James Fisk, was already dead, shot by a business partner in 1872. That same year Gould’s hold on the Erie Railroad was finally broken. Sharpe’s old commander and friend, Maj. Gen. “Immortal Dan” Sickles, had been appointed by Grant as ambassador to Spain and at the same time been retained by the outraged stockholders of the Erie Railroad to include Attorney General Barlow to find a way to wrest control of the company from Gould. In early 1872 Sickles had returned to New York on a leave of absence from his post in Madrid and called upon Sharpe for help. Barlow wanted help in preparing the vast amount of evidence necessary to prove a case against Gould. Sharpe agreed; he was only too glad to help out an old friend, drive out the notoriously corrupt Gould, and strike at one of Tweed’s more important allies. He added the proviso that he would do it only if it did not take him from his duties as marshal. This proved to be no problem, and he accepted no remuneration, only a modest amount to cover his own expenses. At the same time, Sickles told Sharpe that he had a shorter way to his goal and asked if Sharpe could provide him with a number of men who were accustomed to serving papers. Sharpe would later testify, “I told him I knew of the right kind of men and suggested my deputies” in an off-duty capacity. Sharpe was, indeed, the man to ask. He had had the knack of finding the “right kind of men” for the most dangerous and rough work as scouts in the war.
In March Sickles had persuaded several of the trustees to trick Gould into calling a board meeting. Sickles marched into the company’s headquarters in the white marble Grand Opera House in New York City. He was escorted by a half-dozen of Sharpe’s deputies, led by one John E. Kennedy, and with most of the board of trustees in tow. The board officially met, declared all offices vacant, and elected a new and honest slate. Gould heard the cheer, immediately suspected what had happened, and locked his office door. Dan directed Sharpe’s deputies to smash down the ornate door and swung through the debris on his crutches to corner Gould in his bathroom to “encourage” him to leave quietly.28
By the time of the 1872 national elections, Sharpe found that a much lighter hand was necessary to ensure a clean election. He instructed his marshals to “exercise a liberal discretion in all cases where a reasonable explanation is offered by a person arrested.” The battle had been largely won. If the remnants of the Tweed Ring in Tammany Hall were still engaged in corruption, it was no longer through the ballot box.29
Shortly before he resigned as marshal, Sharpe was sued for wrongful arrest. Though the jury found against him, it signaled its overall approval of Sharpe’s conduct by awarding the plaintiff six cents in damages.30
Leading Grant’s assault on the Tweed Ring did not constitute all of Sharpe’s duties as marshal. Sharpe was also acting as Grant’s agent in Republican politics. An example was the letter he wrote on Grant’s behalf in his mid-October 1870 visit to the White House to Utah Congressman James B. McKean. “Being in Washington to-day, I am asked in an important quarter if you cannot immediately retire your brother from the Congressional Canvass in our state, where his running as a third candidate is endangering a district. It is suggested that you must be deeply interested in the matter. Please answer me in New York.” It did not take a mind reader for McKean to figure out who Sharpe meant by “an important quarter.”31
New York remained the focus of a large part of the Federal Government’s business on a number of levels that required Sharpe’s attention. One of those who employed Sharpe’s talents of investigation and delicacy was Grant’s distinguished Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish. On one occasion he asked Sharpe if he could clear up the nationality of Siam’s commissioner to the U.S. Centennial who had been arrested in that country shortly before departing for the United States. Fish was especially concerned that the U.S. Government be able to offer the protection “of our citizens.”32
In the summer of 1871, Fish had cause to ask Sharpe to investigate the purchase of property for a “Greek Church,” meaning the Russian Orthodox Church, on behalf of the Emperor of Russia the previous year. The case had the interest of “high official circles”—an oblique reference to Grant himself—that the conveyance of the property to a Russian priest involved significant fraud. That high official had been piqued by the fact that the Russian ambassador himself, Constantine de Catacazy, had made the purchase and that the purchase price stated in the deed significantly exceeded the amount actually paid to the vendor. Furthermore the difference in the two figures had been made up with U.S. Revenue Stamps. Catacazy, a vulgar intriguer, had been an appalling choice as ambassador, but he was the protégée of the Russian foreign minister, Prince Gortchakoff, whose support for the Union in the Civil War had been diplomatically vital. To counter American claims for arms sold to Russia in the Crimean war, the ambassador made thinly veiled attacks in the press against the U.S. Government, Grant, and even the Grant family. He had thoroughly alienated the President and Fish, who refused to receive him. Their interest, then, in a matter of corruption involving the Russian ambassador was natural. Fish wanted Sharpe “to ascertain the accuracy” of this information “which will require skill and delicacy.” Skill and delicacy were the very qualities which had become Sharpe’s hallmark.33
Secretary of State Fish directed the American Ambassador in St. Petersburg to request the recall of the ambassador, but Gortchakoff declined, itself a diplomatic discourtesy. Yet, Grant was unwilling to dismiss the ambassador outright because the Civil War debt to Russia for its diplomatic assistance and advice was still strongly felt by the President. The arrival of Grand Duke Alexis, the Russian heir, at this time on a visit to the United States brought the matter to a head. Catacazy was unavoidably admitted to the White House for the last time to present the visiting Grand Duke. The government’s distaste for Catacazy was laid out in detail to the Grand Duke’s suite, including Sharpe’s evidence of the ambassador’s fraud. Catacazy was recalled almost immediately.34
In 1872 Conkling asked Grant to fill the most important posts in the New York Custom House with his principal allies in the party. This was no small patronage request. The New York Custom House brought in $100,000,000 a year, making it the largest single source of Federal revenue and the most important office of the executive branch outside Washington. Grant acceded to the request and appointed Chester A. Arthur to be the collector of customs of the Port of New York and Alonzo B. Cornell as the chief naval officer of the port. The power patronage came from the ability to appoint the over one thousand employees of the Custom House and to expect them to make contributions to the Republican Party of New York, which Conkling, in turn, controlled. This “spoils” system had been the way official business had been done traditionally. It is difficult today to understand that at this time there was less a clear-cut divide between one’s official position and political and personal interests. However, the growing sophistication and industrialization of the country were creating pressures for efficient change not only from reformers but from industry, commerce, and the general public. There was a growing demand for fundamental reform in the creation of a non-political Civil Service with appointment by merit. Conkling, however, had no intention of surrendering this patronage cornucopia of the Custom House as the price of change. Crucially, that meant he was not going to disturb the cozy level of corruption within the system.
The blurred line between public and political office, however, was about to begin to unravel. Some 10 years later, The New York Times would retrospectively review the situation at the time:
The truth is that under the Presidents we have named [Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur] the leading Federal officers owed their appoints to their prominence in politics and after receiving them they continued without reproach save from a few reformers to whom in those days nobody paid much attention, to give a large part of their time and energy to their respective political machines. During President Grant’s second term CHESTER A. ARTHUR, ALONZO B. CORNELL, and GEORGE H. SHARPE were three of the most active and influential Republican politicians in the State of New York. Mr. ARTHUR held the Republican machine in this city in the hollow of his hand. Mr. CORNELL was during a part of this time Chairman of the Republican State Committee, and Gen. SHARPE, then as now, was indefatigable in political activity.35
The third most important position was the surveyor of customs for which Conkling wanted Sharpe. This came open in 1873, and he took office on April 1 working for Arthur. Grant was all too glad to appoint Sharpe as a reward to his friend for breaking the Tweed Ring. Sharpe described himself in his new position as “the executive officer for all that part of the business of the Collector done outside of the general office. His office attended to the discharge of passengers and merchandize from vessels and the supervision of all goods which pass through the Custom-house in transit to Canada, South America, and Europe.”36
The system was as large as it was antiquated. Sharpe’s department was responsible for 24 miles of waterfront, divided into 40 districts. He had 282 inspectors as well as hundreds more of weighers, gaugers, clerks, watchmen, and laborers working for him in a system that had not been modernized in decades. The work of the Custom House was complicated by having to administer 17 different laws. These were the days of patronage and spoils writ large. At times there was no clear line between party and government office, but that was accepted practice in this period. In the Custom House as elsewhere, most appointees were faithful party men and politically organized. That organization assessed a percentage of their pay for the party. Sharpe did state emphatically that no one had been punished for refusing to pay what he considered a voluntary assessment. This was true, he maintained, not only of the surveyor’s subordinates but of the entire Custom House as well. Both Sharpe and Arthur had the reputation of gentlemen who did not stoop to such methods. As a biographer of Arthur noted, “Under Collector Arthur, no employee was dismissed for failure to contribute, and compulsion to pay was felt principally by those who realized that other reasons might be discovered for removing them.”37 Nevertheless, the prudent employee paid up. Political connections were crucial. One man would testify that Arthur and Sharpe made it clear that his employment would depend on his naming “a political ally of their chairman of the inspectors of primary elections in his district.”38
The surveyor was besieged with requests from powerful political figures to appoint friends, relatives, and cronies. And the surveyor had no standard of impartiality established by the law to shelter himself from this horde of office-seekers. Sharpe stated, “A member of Congress, or even a person higher in office, insists on having his friend appointed from Iowa or Pennsylvania, or the western portion of the State, and the Collector is compelled to comply. It is impossible to tell the man’s qualifications before his appointment.” It was not a system that he preferred; if the decision had been his he would have appointed “a very different class of men.” He recounted how he had received a letter from a high official who had visited him a number of times for the same reason—the reappointment of a man who had been dismissed three times already, the last time for openly admitting that he had defrauded the government. Sharpe, however, did not comment on the requests from the White House such as the one in which President Grant’s secretary, O. E. Babcock (with whom Sharpe had served on Grant’s staff and on the Harris court-martial), wrote on October 27, 1875: “The President directs me to say that if you can give Genl Parker (E. S.) a position without injury to the service he would be pleased to have it done.” Parker had been Grant’s military secretary in the war and one of his family of generals, like Sharpe. Ultimately Grant found a job for him as a commissioner of the Police Department of New York City. Sharpe was not above using the spoils system himself by appointing his cousin Jansen Hasbrouck, Jr., to a clerkship at the Custom House.39
Despite these problems, the efficiency of the Surveyor’s Department increased remarkably under Sharpe’s direction. He appointed his cousin, a man he trusted, former Brig. Gen. Jacob Sharpe, to supervise the 115 inspectors in his department. That increase in efficiency was reflected in the sharp rise in the collection of duties of 40 percent on passenger baggage alone in 1875 over 1874. That was no small achievement when total imports in 1875 amounted to $368 million, with gold duties paid of $107 million or 34 percent. This was the single largest source of revenue for the federal government, and one of the choicest political plums in Grant’s basket. That he would entrust it to Sharpe is indicative of his trust in his former intelligence chief.40
Despite Sharpe’s improvements, the appointments of Arthur, Sharpe, and Cornell were only the beginning of trouble for Grant. He had supported efforts at Civil Service reform and had appointed a Civil Service Commission (CSC) headed by the militant reformer, George Curtis, who achieved almost complete control of the Civil Service and opposed Sharpe for the office. Grant was still supportive of reform, but he wanted flexibility in the appointment of senior officials. Although the office was technically within Civil Service control, it had always been filled by a prominent New York politician. After some hesitation, Grant was determined to have his way and appointed Sharpe on March 14, 1873 without notifying Curtis, who resigned in a huff.41
The issue of Civil Service reform raised its head again in the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–81) who determined to establish a professional Civil Service and eliminate patronage. Hayes had created numerous commissions to investigate the conditions in a number of custom houses. Where better to start than Conkling’s patronage prize of the New York Custom House, no doubt reinforced by the senator’s ill-graced failure to support him in the election? The commission for New York, which met in early May 1877, “found all sorts of petty inefficiency, petty bribe-taking (though it made no specific charge against anybody), playing of politics, carelessness, etc., etc., and calculated that one-fourth of the revenue was lost to the Government because of these conditions. It recommended a twenty percent reduction of the force.”42
Sharpe had testified at length at the hearings and pointed out many inefficiencies, such as the patronage system, and out-of-date procedures and organization that was not within his competence to revise. He made a point of informing the commission that the Custom House had 17 laws to administer. He made a number of cogent recommendations for change. He testified that “The mode of appointing inspectors could be improved; politicians can be got rid of by indicating to them that there are no vacancies, but the Surveyor has no chance against the persistent pleadings of friends on personal grounds.” He also pointed out that the system was so primitive that inspectors had no dockside facilities to competently organize their inspections of persons and goods. “Duties are assessed and receipts made out on the tops of whisky-barrels, and the passenger who put $200 to $300 in gold to a stranger, who slaps it into his pocket, believes half the time that he is being swindled.”43
Throughout the commission hearings, Sharpe’s defense of customs organization of the Port of New York was detailed and aggressive. In one hearing before the first witness could be called, Sharpe entered the room and boldly demanded to be able to cross-examine the witnesses. He refuted the claims of one surveyor who said the work force could be sharply reduced by citing the fact that large numbers of ships were waiting to land passengers because of a lack of inspectors. When the head of the commission declined to allow him to cross-examine, he stormed out. It was a typical Sharpe tactic to boldly try to seize the initiative in any matter. On this day, it did not work.44 In the end, Arthur and Sharpe had to acquiesce to the findings of the commission and agree to a 20 percent reduction in the work force.
Sharpe’s earlier comment that he would have preferred “a different class of men” in the Custom House was subsequently brought home on July 20. Sharpe had just left the Historical Society and called in at the Times. He was loaded down with books and papers and carrying an umbrella when he passed William A. Grace, an inspector he had dismissed two years ago due to formal complaints of bribery and drunkenness, which Sharpe had documented. Grace was a large, powerful man, and without warning struck Sharpe a stunning blow that sent him into the street. Grace leaped on him, landing several more blows until citizens dragged him off and the police arrived to arrest him. Grace had worked Sharpe over badly, inflicting a badly cut right cheek, a black eye, a severe abrasion on the left check, bruised left arm, and damaged thumb.45
The reaction in the Customs House was almost universal outrage at Sharpe’s treatment, and many threats of bodily violence were made by Grace’s former co-workers. It was evident that the overwhelming majority of the Custom House employees had a healthy respect if not liking for the surveyor. It was believed that Sharpe’s strong hand on his office brought on the animosity of a small clique, used to laxer conditions, who had egged Grace on.46
The subsequent trial attracted the cream of New York City’s politicians, prosecutors, and senior police officers. The testimony of the witnesses of the assault was damning as was that of a witness who stated that a disgruntled Grace had planned to do violence to Sharpe, whom he blamed for his dismissal which the prosecution attributed to drunkenness and blackmail. Grace himself would claim that he had been dismissed because Sharpe had “connived at the use of fraudulent scales for weighing sugar imported by a certain firm.” He also said that Sharpe had provoked him by spitting at him, an act a gentleman such as Sharpe could not conceivably have committed. The jury convicted Grace after barely 35 minutes’ deliberation, and the judge gave him four months in jail.47
Although he was not allowed to bring his charges up in court, Grace maintained that he had repeatedly brought to Sharpe’s notice the wrongdoings of Donner & De Castro, a sugar importer, but that Sharpe took no action. Donner & De Castro had withdrawn the complaints after threats from Grace but maintained their charges were still valid. Sharpe was also convinced by his investigation that the charges were valid and his dismissal of Grace fully warranted. Two years later, the file of Sharpe’s documentation would be reviewed by The New York Times and found credible. Grace accused the company and Sharpe of collusion in the bringing of these charges and that Sharpe used that complaint to dismiss him.48
To President Hayes there was a clear conflict of interest in the holding of federal office and office in political parties. The report of the Jay Commission prompted him to issue an executive order on June 22 forbidding office holders from taking an active role in politics, stating that “no officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions or election campaigns,” and wrote to Secretary Sherman that “no assessments for political purposes on officers and subordinates should be allowed.” He made it clear to Cornell that he was either to give up his position as chief naval officer of the port or his position as Republican state chairman. Cornell refused.49
The commission report also convinced him to replace the rest of the leadership of the Custom House. One critical recommendation read, “the success of every effort though the customs service to relive the national commerce and industry from the evils wrought by mismanagement and corruption, can be accomplished only by the emancipation of the service from partisan control.” The report had painted a bull’s-eye on Conkling’s men in the Custom House. It was the weapon Hayes needed to move against Senator Conkling’s patronage control of the Port of New York. On September 6 Hayes demanded the resignations of Arthur, Sharpe, and Cornell. Hayes named their replacements—which included Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. as collector of customs and Edwin A. Merritt as surveyor—in October. However, Arthur, Sharpe, and Cornell refused to resign. Arthur stated that he would not run “under fire” and that the abuses were inherent in the system and not due to any wrongdoing on his part.50
Sharpe had been so sure of his conduct that he had submitted his application for the surveyorship position. Interestingly, The Sun reported that Sharpe’s term actually had expired in spring 1876, but with the failure of the confirmation of a replacement, he continued in office. Pointedly, The Chicago Daily Tribune observed that “the President has decided to select SOME OTHER GENTLEMAN.”51
It appears at this point that the administration was willing to resort to extraordinary measures to drive Sharpe from office as a wedge to pry Conkling’s hand off the Custom House. Governor Robertson pardoned William Grace on November 28 with only half his sentence served, giving his reason “that the sentence was excessive—that the requirements of justice have been fully satisfied,” and that his family was suffering. Astoundingly, President Hayes and Secretary of the Treasury Sherman then had a “very pleasant interview with him” in Washington. It was reported that the Treasury had examined the issue and found Grace’s accusations correct. His back pay was paid him. Conkling did not come to Sharpe’s defense. Sharpe recognized the inevitable and withdrew his application for the surveyorship.52
Senator Roscoe Conkling was able to delay confirmation of Hayes’s replacements by evoking “Senatorial Privilege,” for Arthur but allowed the nomination of Merritt to go forward early in 1878. Conkling found he could not support Sharpe because of the Grace accusations and the fact that his term had actually expired. At that time the leading citizens of Kingston, to show their support in this crisis, made Sharpe the tender of a public dinner in his honor. He politely declined, saying that the calls upon public charity were especially severe at this time and that “I hesitate to be the means of diverting by a costly entertainment, any surplus expenditures which would otherwise relieve the necessities of the suffering.”53 Three months after Sharpe left office and during the summer Senate recess on July 11, Hayes removed Arthur and Cornell. Arthur, Cornell, and Sharpe had already been close, and this experience certainly deepened their friendship.
There was more than just being on the losing end of a policy battle; they felt they had been the targets of the presidential ambitions of Secretary of State Evarts and Secretary of the Treasury Sherman.
There were some things that seemed to justify this view. General Arthur, shortly after he was removed, said to this friends that he could have been spared the humiliation of removal had he been willing to accept a bribe, and when asked what the bribe was replied that he had been offered a foreign mission if he would resign as Collector of the Port. To intimate friends he showed the letter in which that offer had been made.
So too, Mr. Cornell and General Sharpe were confidentially informed that if they would resign their offices in the Custom House they would speedily be appointed to other posts.54
The mud flung by the Grace issue did not stick among those in Kingston who thought well of Sharpe as the offered testimonial showed. After seven years of federal service, Sharpe leaped into the politics of Ulster County and Kingston and would demonstrate the old adage that the best revenge is living well. That city had been run by a corrupt Democrat ring for the last five years and was considered a stronghold of that party. The leaders of the ring found their muscle among the large Irish community that worked the local quarries. The ring had plundered the city shamelessly. Sharpe appeared like the white knight of the Republicans and other reformists in Kingston. Through their support and his powerful ability to speak and organize, he pulled off an upset in the 1878 election for his district in the state assembly. His demolition of the Democrat stronghold caused heads to turn in both Albany and New York City. Here was a man with an impressive future.
Sharpe was given the chairmanship of the insurance committee of the Assembly. Although an initial motion was defeated, The New York Times was impressed that it represented the first occurrence of “independent action” in the defense of the interests of policy holders against a committee stacked with those supportive of the interests of the insurance companies. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, no friend of Sharpe’s, crowed that after this defeat, “The Assembly has no further use for him, and he may be said to be upon the shelf.” Sharpe was ultimately successful in preventing insurance company interests from abolishing the State Insurance Department which protected the interests of the stockholders.55
One of Sharpe’s first acts was to help local reformers limit the ability of the ring to take control of polling places and deny the right to vote to their enemies, essentially the tax-paying citizens of Kingston of both parties whose rates had been sent through the roof in order to support the ring’s largely indigent following. At Sharpe’s behest the Assembly passed a bill to reduce the number of polling places to one instead of five in the expectation that the reformists could better ensure it was not taken over by the ring. Unfortunately, the law of unintended consequences trumped Sharpe’s bill. The ring designated the single polling place in their own stronghold and at a local election on March 4 instigated a riot to prevent anyone they disliked form voting. One man was severely beaten and injured. The Assembly promptly sent an investigative committee, which reported back the outrages in detail. The Assembly passed a resolution encouraging the Grand Jury and the next circuit court to be held at Kingston to see that justice was done. That is exactly what happened next. The head of the ring was arrested and another man arrested and convicted for assault. This result had the effect of discouraging such election fraud throughout New York. Sharpe had set this process in motion with the introduction of his initial bill.56
In his first term in the Assembly Sharpe had made a most positive impression. His ability to make friends, his eloquence, and hard work on various reform measures had earned him the respect of the Republican majority as well as his own constituents. The New York Times judged that “His Legislative record was thoroughly honorable to himself and creditable to his constituents.”57
That was confirmed by his victory in the November election for the Assembly where he increased his majority, being supported by a number of Democrats based on his record. After that it was quickly made known that both Conkling and The New York Times supported him for the speakership. In early January General Arthur arrived in Albany to also throw his weight behind Sharpe for speaker. His choice by the Republican caucus seemed assured.58
With the Republicans in a majority in the Assembly, his election followed on as a matter of course. The whole process had been so harmonious and inevitable that it prompted The New York Times to say, “There had not been so peaceful a struggle for the position for many years, and never before did a contest terminate with less disappointment apparent among the defeated candidates.”59
Sharpe’s performance as speaker was much praised. Sharpe did not let his party politics prevent fruitful cooperation with the Democrats who were then in the minority, and he remained personally popular across party lines. The normally hostile Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote of Sharpe’s conduct as he opened the Assembly: “General Sharpe made AN EXCELLENT IMPRESSION in the chair today and his speech, upon assuming the Speakership, was a model. If the execution be equal to the promise, if the policy laid down to be followed, all will be well.” Then grudgingly it went on, “But will it? General Sharpe, in every respect socially a fine fellow, but always been known as a machine man, believing in Obedience to authority.” As speaker, no man would prove to be his own man better than Sharpe.60
One of his first acts was to end the chaos on the Assembly floor. It had become a habit to allow a horde of lobbyists, office-seekers, visitors, and outright pests to wander the Assembly floor and even stroll into the speaker’s own office, constantly interfering with official business. Sharpe immediately ordered a mahogany rail built to separate the seating and working floor of the Assembly from visitors. Only 23 reporters with special passes were allowed access and all other visitors had to request a pass from the speaker’s office. The crowds shrank dramatically, with the business of the Assembly now much expedited.61 His immediate embrace of farming interests earned him a resolution of appreciation from the farmers in the Assembly, thanking him for the “fair and satisfactory representations he has given to the agricultural interests of the States upon the committees of the House.” He was making friends constantly as he strolled through this forum.62 He did not neglect his own constituents. He worked to pass a bill that would allow Kingston to refinance its large debt incurred by the corrupt Democrat ring, and he had done so at the request of the Democrat senator representing Ulster.63
He also did not make an enemy of the press but won from them as much affection and respect as the breed is capable of. A correspondent reporting on the Assembly captured a glimpse of Sharpe at work as speaker.
Sharpe was one of the queerest and most original speakers that the Assembly ever had. He did not seem to realize that there were other ears close at hand besides those of the clerk; and he kept up a constant fire of words not only as to the disposition, but even as to the merits of bills, as they came in. It was a very entertaining thing to the men in the newspaper row to listen to his comments, such as “What in the mischief does that man want to introduce that bill for now? Doesn’t he know that we are not in that order of business?” “Here is that old bill again that we have seen so many years. Why doesn’t Mr. ______ take some better time for introducing it than this, when we are so busy about other things?” “What does ______mean by bringing in that bill at this time? I supposed that we had fixed him so that he wouldn’t bring it here at all.” In spite of these odd tricks Speaker Sharpe was rather popular among the members, even with those who did not agree with him in politics.64
The legislative year ended with a sense of accomplishment under Sharpe’s influence. In a highly unusual act, the Democrats were even moved to praise him:
Mr. Rhodes spoke very heartily of the respect and esteem in which, every member, held the speaker, who had fulfilled all his promise of the fair treatment of the minority, and had only erred on the side of good nature. Mr. McCarthy … spoke of the Speaker as being “brave, just, and king,” and assured Gen. Sharpe that the best wishes of the minority would go with him.” Speaking for the majority, Mr. Husted referred to Sharpe as “cordial, warm, and earnest.”
Sharpe was clearly moved by the sentiment of the Assembly.65 The New York Times editorialized:
The tributes which have been paid to the ability and fairness with which Gen. Sharpe has discharged the duties of Speaker have been well deserved. The credible record of the Assembly is largely due to his judicious selection of committees, while the objectionable elements that entered into the composition of the Committee of Ways and Means were owing to causes which time honored precedent rendered it difficult, if not impossible, to neutralize. The exceptions which were taken by Gen. SHARPE’s opponents at the beginning of the session to his ability as a presiding officer have been shown by actual to be baseless, and no Speaker of late years has been able to secure and retain so much of the respect and confidence of his fellow members, as well as of the approval of the people generally. Gen. SHARPE has conclusively disposed of the tradition that no member could make a satisfactory Speaker who did not bring to the office, years of familiarity with parliamentary forms, and how much of a benefit that service is likely to be to succeeding Legislatures.66
By any standard Sharpe’s performance as speaker had been stellar and added luster to his reputation as well as to the number of his friends.