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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��and judge-advocate-general of that de- partment. On June 17, 1865, he was appointed first assistant secretary of the treasury, with Secretary Hugh Mc- Culloch, and held the office over two years, resigning November 30, 1867. After his resignation, he practiced law in New Hampshire and Washington, and was solicitor of the National Life Insurance Company, and counsel and one of the proprietors of the Washing- ton-Market Company, and engaged in
some mining and railroad enterprises.
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Mr. Chandler was elected as a dele- gate-at-large from New Hampshire to the national convention of 1868. and subsequently was chosen secretary of the national committee. He held this position during President Grant's ad- ministrations, and devoted himself to the successful conduct of the cam- paigns of 1868 and 1872. In 1876 he declined to occupy the position longer, but still contributed much of his time to assist in the conduct of the canvass. He had, during this time, become the owner of the largest inter- est in the New Hampshire Statesman and the Monitor, the leading weekly and daily Republican papers in the state, at Concord, and he was elected, in November, a member from Concord to the constitutional convention which amended the constitution of the state.
After voting in Concord at the pres- idential election in 1876, Mr. Chandler left for Washington, reaching the Fifth- Avenue Hotel, New York, in the early hours of the morning. The other managers of the national campaign had retired for the night, believing they were defeated ; but, coincident with Mr. Chandler's arrival, news reached the committee-rooms that Oregon had been carried by the Re- publicans, which would elect Hayes and Wheeler by one vote. Mr. Chandler at once comprehended the situation and the points of danger, and, without waiting for consultation, sent dispatches warning against defeat by fraud, to Oregon, Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana. At the ur-
��gent solicitation of prominent mem- bers of the party, he was prevailed upon to start immediately for Florida, to protect the interests of the Repub- lican party. He there became coun- sel for the Hayes electors before the canvassing board of the state, and it is universally admitted, by Republi- cans and Democrats alike, that to him more than to any other man is due the preservation to the Republicans of the fruits of their victory in that state. When the contest was trans- ferred from the states to Congress, and, finally, before the electoral commission chosen to arbitrate and decide who had been elected president, Mr. Chandler acted as counsel, and assist- ed in preparing the case as presented to the commission.
In the report of the special com- mittee sent by the Senate to investi- gate the election in Florida, made January 29, 1S77, by Senator Sargent, of California, it contained a full state- ment of what the committee consid- ered to be the law with reference to the conclusiveness of the declaration by a state canvassing board of the vote of the state for presidential electors, which was the earliest formal exposi- tion of the principles of law which were finally adopted by the commis- sion. The authorship of this state- ment is freely attributed by Mr. Sargent to Mr. Chandler.
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After Mr. Hayes had been by the commission declared elected presi- dent, when his administration surren- dered the state governments of South Carolina and Louisiana into the hands of the Democratic claimants, Mr. Chandler vigorously opposed it, and criticised the surrender and the men connected with it in most scathing terms, in letters published in the win- ter of 1S77-78. His fidelity to his convictions of duty was conspicuous ; and his courage and boldness in at- tacking the Hayes administration gave him a lasting hold upon the confidence of the country.
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