John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

“ [462] since that time,” and that for several years he had “felt profoundly grateful to General Butler” for the course he had taken in regard to the Electoral Commission, and particularly for the desire he had manifested to have Tilden installed in the place which had been unjustly given to Hayes. In further support of his candidate, Dana contended that all Democrats who could not for any reason vote for Cleveland, and all Republicans who would not on account of his unfortunate record vote for Blaine, could with entire propriety vote for Butler,

... both as a man to be immensely preferred to either of the others, and as a protest against such nominations.

Having already declared in the columns of his newspaper that sooner than join in making James G. Blaine President of the United States, he would quit work, burn his pen, and leave to other and perhaps rasher heads the noble controversies of politics and the defence of popular self-government, and having opposed the nomination of Cleveland on the ground of inexperience and obscurity, there can be no doubt that his best excuse for supporting Butler is to be found in his desire to enter an effective protest against the other nominations. That he made a serious mistake in this, and thereby threw away both prestige and income, must be conceded by all who regard policy as better than independence. And this is the more noticeable because, in looking back upon the personality of the candidates and the issues of the campaign, it is now evident that Dana underestimated Cleveland and did not fully appreciate Butler's defects of character or the fatal influence of his instability of conviction upon the public mind. First a pro-slavery, if not a secession Democrat, next a radical Republican, then a Greenbacker, and finally an independent, he had established a reputation for neither