V. GOVERNOR SEYMOUR AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN…

V. GOVERNOR SEYMOUR AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN

1863

Horatio Seymour did not become a member of the Union League, and his inaugural message of January 7 gave no indication of a change of heart. He spoke of his predecessor as having "shown high capacity" in the performance of his duties; he insisted that "we must emulate the conduct of our fathers, and show obedience to constituted authorities, and respect for legal and constitutional obligations;" he demanded economy and integrity; and he affirmed that "under no circumstances can the division of the Union be conceded. We will put forth every exertion of power; we will use every policy of conciliation; we will hold out every inducement to the people of the South, consistent with honour, to return to their allegiance; we will guarantee them every right, every consideration demanded by the Constitution, and by that fraternal regard which must prevail in a common country; but we can never voluntarily consent to the breaking up of the Union of these States, or the destruction of the Constitution." With his usual severity he opposed arbitrary arrests, deemed martial law destructive of the rights of States, and declared that the abolition of slavery for the purpose of restoring the Union would convert the government into a military despotism.

"It has been assumed," he said, "that this war will end in the ascendency of the views of one or the other of the extremes in our country. Neither will prevail. This is the significance of the late elections. The determination of the great Central and Western States is to defend the rights of the States, the rights of individuals, and to restore our Union as it was. We must not wear out the lives of our soldiers by a war to carry out vague theories. The policy of subjugation and extermination means not only the destruction of the lives and property of the South, but also the waste of the blood and treasure of the North. There is but one way to save us from demoralisation, discord, and repudiation. No section must be disorganised. All must be made to feel that the mighty efforts we are making to save our Union are stimulated by a purpose to restore peace and prosperity in every section. If it is true that slavery must be abolished by force; that the South must be held in military subjection; that four millions of negroes must be under the management of authorities at Washington at the public expense; then, indeed, we must endure the waste of our armies, further drains upon our population, and still greater burdens of debt. We must convert our government into a military despotism. The mischievous opinion that in this contest the North must subjugate and destroy the South to save our Union has weakened the hopes of our citizens at home, and destroyed confidence in our success abroad."[887]

[Footnote 887: Horatio Seymour, Public Record, pp. 85-105.]

Although this message failed to recognise the difference between a peaceable South in the Union and a rebellious South attempting to destroy the Union, it is not easy, perhaps, to comprehend how the acknowledged leader of the opposition, holding such views and relying for support upon the peace sentiment of the country, could have said much less. Yet the feeling must possess the student of history that a consummate politician, possessing Seymour's ability and popularity, might easily have divided with Lincoln the honor of crushing the rebellion and thus have become his successor. The President recognized this opportunity, saying to Weed that the "Governor has greater power just now for good than any other man in the country. He can wheel the Democratic party into line, put down rebellion, and preserve the government. Tell him for me that if he will render this service for his country, I shall cheerfully make way for him as my successor."[888] Seymour's reply, if he made one, is not of record, but Lincoln's message would scarcely appeal to one who disbelieved in the North's ability to subjugate the South. Later in the spring the President, unwilling to give the Governor up, wrote him a characteristic note. "You and I," said he, "are, substantially, strangers, and I write this chiefly that we may become better acquainted. As to maintaining the nation's life and integrity, I assume and believe there cannot be a difference of purpose between you and me. If we should differ as to the means it is important that such difference should be as small as possible; that it should not be enhanced by unjust suspicions on one side or the other. In the performance of my duty the coöperation of your State, as that of others, is needed,--in fact, is indispensable. This alone is a sufficient reason why I should wish to be at a good understanding with you. Please write me at least as long a letter as this, of course saying in it just what you think fit."[889]

[Footnote 888: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 428.]

[Footnote 889: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7, pp. 10, 11.]

It is difficult to fathom the impression made upon Seymour by this letter. The more cultivated Democrats about him entertained the belief that Lincoln, somewhat uncouth and grotesque, was a weak though well-meaning man, and the Governor doubtless held a similar opinion. Moreover, he believed that the President, alarmed by the existence of a conspiracy of prominent Republicans to force him from the White House, sought to establish friendly relations that he might have an anchor to windward.[890] One can imagine the Governor, as the letter lingered in his hand, smiling superciliously and wondering what manner of man this Illinoisan is, who could say to a stranger what a little boy frequently puts in his missive, "Please write me at least as long a letter as this." At all events, he treated the President very cavalierly.[891] On April 14, after delaying three weeks, he wrote a cold and guarded reply, promising to address him again after the Legislature adjourned. "In the meanwhile," he concluded, "I assure you that no political resentments, or no personal objects, will turn me aside from the pathway I have marked out for myself. I intend to show to those charged with the administration of public affairs a due deference and respect, and to yield to them a just and generous support in all measures they may adopt within the scope of their constitutional powers. For the preservation of this Union I am ready to make any sacrifice of interest, passion, or prejudice."[892]

[Footnote 890: New York Times, August 18, 1879.]

[Footnote 891: "Governor Seymour was a patriotic man, after his fashion, but his hatred of the Lincoln Administration was evidently deep; and it was also clear that he did not believe that the war for the Union could be brought to a successful termination."--Andrew D. White, Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 105.]

[Footnote 892: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7, p. 11.]

Seymour never wrote the promised letter. His inaugural expressed his honest convictions. He wanted no relations with a President who seemed to prefer the abolition of slavery and the use of arbitrary methods. A few days later, in vetoing a measure authorising soldiers to vote while absent in the army, he again showed his personal antipathy, charging the President with rewarding officers of high rank for improperly interfering in State elections, while subordinate officers were degraded "for the fair exercise of their political rights at their own homes."[893] John Hay did not err in saying "there could be no intimate understanding between two such men."[894]

[Footnote 893: Horatio Seymour, Public Record, p. 109.]

[Footnote 894: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7, p. 12.]

General Burnside's arrest of Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio (May, 1863) increased Seymour's aversion to the President. Burnside's act lacked authority of law as well as the excuse of good judgment, and although the President's change of sentence from imprisonment in Fort Warren to banishment to the Southern Confederacy gave the proceeding a humorous turn, the ugly fact remained that a citizen, in the dead of night, with haste, and upon the evidence of disguised and partisan informers, had been rudely deprived of liberty without due process of law. Thoughtful men who reverenced the safeguard known to civil judicial proceedings were appalled. The Republican press of New York thought it indefensible, while the opposition, with unprecedented bitterness, again assailed the Administration. In a moment the whole North was in a turmoil. Everywhere mass meetings, intemperate speeches, and threats of violence inflamed the people. The basest elements in New York City, controlling a public meeting called to condemn the "outrage," indicated how easily a reign of riot and bloodshed might be provoked. To an assembly held in Albany on May 16, at which Erastus Corning presided, Seymour addressed a letter deploring the unfortunate event as a dishonour brought upon the country by an utter disregard of the principles of civil liberty. "It is a fearful thing," he said, "to increase the danger which now overhangs us, by treating the law, the judiciary, and the authorities of States with contempt. If this proceeding is approved by the government and sanctioned by the people, it is not merely a step toward revolution, it is revolution; it will not only lead to military despotism, it establishes military despotism. In this respect it must be accepted, or in this respect it must be rejected. If it is upheld our liberties are overthrown." Then he grew bolder. "The people of this country now wait with the deepest anxiety the decision of the Administration upon these acts. Having given it a generous support in the conduct of the war, we now pause to see what kind of government it is for which we are asked to pour out our blood and our treasure. The action of the Administration will determine, in the minds of more than one-half the people of the loyal States, whether this war is waged to put down rebellion in the South or to destroy free institutions at the North."[895]

[Footnote 895: Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1863, p. 689.]

At great length Lincoln replied to the resolutions forwarded by Corning. "In my own discretion," wrote the President, "I do not know whether I would have ordered the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham.... I was slow to adopt the strong measures which by degrees I have been forced to regard as being within the exceptions of the Constitution and as indispensable to the public safety.... I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many.... Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, a brother, or friend into a public meeting and then working upon his feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause for a wicked administration and contemptible government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert."[896] This argument, undoubtedly the strongest that could be made in justification, found great favour with his party, but the danger Seymour apprehended lay in the precedent. "Wicked men ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law," said Justice Davis of the United States Supreme Court, in deciding a case of similar character, "may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln, and if this right [of military arrest] is conceded, and the calamities of war again befall us, the dangers to human liberty are frightful to contemplate."[897]

[Footnote 896: Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1863, pp. 800-802. Lincoln, Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 347.]

[Footnote 897: 4 Wallace, p. 125.]

Much as Seymour resented the arrest of Vallandigham, he did not allow the incident to interfere with his official action, and to the Secretary of War's call for aid when General Lee began his midsummer invasion of Pennsylvania, he responded promptly: "I will spare no effort to send you troops at once," and true to his message he forwarded nineteen regiments, armed and equipped for field service, whose arrival brought confidence.[898] But governed by the sinister reason that influenced him earlier in the year, he refused to acknowledge the President's letter of thanks, preferring to express his opinion of Administration methods unhindered by the exchange of courtesies. This he did in a Fourth of July address, delivered at the Academy of Music in New York City, in which he pleaded, not passionately, not with the acrimony that ordinarily characterised his speeches, but humbly, as if asking a despotic conqueror to return the rights and liberty of which the people had been robbed. "We only ask freedom of speech,--the right to exercise all the franchises conferred by the Constitution upon an American. Can you safely deny us these things?" Mingled also with pathetic appeals were joyless pictures of the ravages of war, and cheerless glimpses into the future of a Republic with its bulwarks of liberty torn away. "We stand to-day," he continued, "amid new made graves; we stand to-day in a land filled with mourning, and our soil is saturated with the blood of the fiercest conflict of which history gives us an account. We can, if we will, avert all these disasters and evoke a blessing. If we will do what? Hold that Constitution, and liberties, and laws are suspended? Will that restore them? Or shall we do as our fathers did under circumstances of like trial, when they battled against the powers of a crown? Did they say that liberty was suspended? Did they say that men might be deprived of the right of trial by jury? Did they say that men might be torn from their homes by midnight intruders?... If you would save your country and your liberties, begin at the hearthstone; begin in your family circle; declare that their rights shall be held sacred; and having once proclaimed your own rights, claim for your own State that jurisdiction and that government which we, better than all others, can exercise for ourselves, for we best know our own interests."[899]

[Footnote 898: Couch's report, Official Records, Vol. 27, Part 2, 214.]

[Footnote 899: Horatio Seymour, Public Record, pp. 118-124.

Ten days later, in the midst of riot and bloodshed, the World said: "Will the insensate men at Washington now give ear to our warnings? Will they now believe that defiance of law in the rulers breeds defiance of law in the people? Does the doctrine that in war laws are silent, please them when put in practice in the streets of New York?"--New York World, July 14, 1863.]

One week later, on Saturday, July 11, the draft began in the Ninth Congressional District of New York, a portion of the city settled by labourers, largely of foreign birth. These people, repeating the information gained in neighbourhood discussions, violently denounced the Conscription Act as illegal, claiming that the privilege of buying an exemption on payment of $300 put "the rich man's money against the poor man's blood." City authorities apprehended trouble and State officials were notified of the threatened danger, but only the police held themselves in readiness. The Federal Government, in the absence of a request from the Governor, very properly declined to make an exception in the application of the law in New York on the mere assumption that violence would occur. Besides, all available troops, including most of the militia regiments, had been sent to Pennsylvania, and to withdraw them would weaken the Federal lines about Gettysburg.

The disturbance began at the corner of Forty-sixth Street and Third Avenue, the rioters destroying the building in which the provost-marshal was conducting the draft. By this time the mob, having grown into an army, began to sack and murder. Prejudice against negroes sent the rioters into hotels and restaurants after the waiters, some of whom were beaten to death, while others, hanged on trees and lamp-posts, were burned while dying. The coloured orphan asylum, fortunately after its inmates had escaped, likewise became fuel for the flames. The police were practically powerless. Street cars and omnibuses ceased to run, shopkeepers barred their doors, workmen dropped their tools, teamsters put up their horses, and for three days all business was stopped. In the meantime Federal and State authorities coöperated to restore order. Governor Seymour, having hastened from Long Branch, addressed a throng of men and boys from the steps of the City Hall, calling them "friends," and pleading with them to desist. He also issued two proclamations, declaring the city in a state of insurrection, and commanding all people to obey the laws and the legal authorities. Finally, the militia regiments from Pennsylvania began to arrive, and cannon and howitzers raked the streets. These quieting influences, coupled with the publication of an official notice that the draft had been suspended, put an end to the most exciting experience of any Northern community during the war.

After the excitement the Tribune asserted that the riot resulted from a widespread treasonable conspiracy,[900] and a letter, addressed to the President, related the alleged confession of a well-known politician, who, overcome with remorse, had revealed to the editors of the Tribune the complicity of Seymour. Lincoln placed no reliance in the story, "for which," says Hay, "there was no foundation in fact;"[901] but Seymour's speech "intimated," says the Lincoln historian, "that the draft justified the riot, and that if the rioters would cease their violence the draft should be stopped."[902] James B. Fry, provost-marshal general, substantially endorsed this view. "While the riot was going on," he says, "Governor Seymour insisted on Colonel Nugent announcing a suspension of the draft. The draft had already been stopped by violence. The announcement was urged by the Governor, no doubt, because he thought it would allay the excitement; but it was, under the circumstances, making a concession to the mob, and endangering the successful enforcement of the law of the land."[903]

[Footnote 900: New York Tribune, July 15, 1863.]

[Footnote 901: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7, p. 26.]

[Footnote 902: Ibid., p. 23.]

[Footnote 903: James B. Fry, New York and the Conscription, p. 33.]

Of the four reports of Seymour's speech, published the morning after its delivery, no two are alike.[904] Three, however, concur in his use of the word "friends,"[905] and all agree that he spoke of trying to secure a postponement of the draft that justice might be done. It was a delicate position in which he placed himself, and one that ever after gave him and his supporters much embarrassment and cause for many apologies. Nevertheless, his action in nowise impugned his patriotism. Assuming the riot had its inception in the belief which he himself entertained, that the draft was illegal and unjust, he sought by personal appeal to stay the destruction of life and property, and if anyone in authority at that time had influence with the rioters and their sympathisers it was Horatio Seymour, who probably accomplished less than he hoped to.

[Footnote 904: New York Tribune, Herald, Times, and World, July 15; also, Public Record of Horatio Seymour, pp. 127-128.]

[Footnote 905: New York Tribune, Herald, and Times.]

Seymour's views in relation to the draft first appeared in August. While the Federal authorities prepared the enrolment in June, the Governor, although his coöperation was sought, "gave no assistance," says Fry. "In fact, so far as the government officers engaged in the enrolment could learn, he gave the subject no attention."[906] On the day the drawing began, however, he became apprehensive of trouble and sent his adjutant to Washington to secure a suspension of the draft, but the records do not reveal the reasons presented by that officer. Certainly no complaint was made as to the correctness of the enrolment or the assignment of quotas.[907] Nevertheless, his delay taught him a lesson, and when the Federal authorities notified him later that the drawing would be resumed in August, he lost no time in beginning the now historic correspondence with the President. His letter of August 3 asked that the suspension of the draft be continued to enable the State officials to correct the enrolment, and to give the United States Supreme Court opportunity to pass upon the constitutionality of the Conscription Act, suggesting the hope that in the meantime New York's quota might be filled by volunteers. "It is believed by at least one-half of the people of the loyal States," he wrote, "that the Conscription Act, which they are called upon to obey, is in itself a violation of the supreme constitutional law.... In the minds of the American people the duty of obedience and the rights to protection are inseparable. If it is, therefore, proposed on the one hand to exact obedience at the point of the bayonet, and, upon the other hand, to shut off, by military power, all approach to our judicial tribunals, we have reason to fear the most ruinous results."[908]

[Footnote 906: James B. Fry, New York and the Conscription, p. 14. "Seymour showed his lack of executive ability by not filling up the quota of New York by volunteers in less than a month after the Conscription Act was passed. This a clever executive could easily have done and so avoided all trouble."--New York Herald, September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 907: James B. Fry, New York and the Conscription, p. 32.]

[Footnote 908: The Public Record of Horatio Seymour, p. 153.]

This letter was neither gracious nor candid. While dealing in columns of figures to prove the inaccuracy of the enrolment, it concealed the fact that, although urged to coöperate with the enrolling officers, he had ignored their invitation to verify the enrolment. In menacing tones, too, he intimated "the consequences of a violent, harsh policy, before the constitutionality of the Act is tested." It was evident he had given much thought to the question, but his prolixity betrayed the feeling of an official who, conscious of having erred in doing nothing in anticipation of riot and bloodshed, wished now to make a big showing of duty performed.

Lincoln's reply not only emphasised the difference between the political aptitude of himself and Seymour, but marked him as the more magnanimous and far the greater man. The President raised no issue as to enrolments, wasted no arguments over columns of figures, and referred in nowise to the past. He briefly outlined a method of verification which quickly established,--what might have been shown in June had the Governor given the matter attention,--an excess of 13,000 men enrolled in the Brooklyn and New York districts. Although he would be glad, said Lincoln, to facilitate a decision of the Court and abide by it,[909] he declined longer to delay the draft "because time is too important.... We are contending with an enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an army which will soon turn upon our now victorious soldiers already in the field, if they are not sustained by recruits as they should be."[910]

[Footnote 909: The constitutionality of the Conscription Act of March 3, 1863, was affirmed by the United States Circuit Courts of Pennsylvania and Illinois.]

[Footnote 910: The Public Record of Horatio Seymour, p. 156.]

When the drawing was resumed on August 19, 10,000 infantry and three batteries of artillery, picked troops from the Army of the Potomac, beside a division of the State National Guard, backed the Governor's proclamation counselling submission to the execution of the law. In this presence the draft proceeded peacefully.

Meanwhile, the loyal millions of the North, longing for victory in the field, found their prayers answered. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had pierced the spirit of the South, Cumberland Gap had liberated East Tennessee, Fort Smith and Little Rock supplied a firm footing for the army beyond the Mississippi, and the surrender of Port Hudson permitted Federal gunboats to pass unvexed to the sea. The rift in the war cloud had, indeed, let in a flood of sunlight, and, while it lasted, gave fresh courage and larger faith.

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VI. SEYMOUR REBUKED

1863

The victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg turned the Republican Union convention, held at Syracuse on September 2, into a meeting of rejoicing. Weed did not attend, but the Conservatives, led by Henry J. Raymond and Edwin D. Morgan, boldly talked of its control. Ward Hunt became temporary chairman. Hunt was a lawyer whom politics did not attract. Since his unsuccessful effort to become a United States senator in 1857 he had turned aside from his profession only when necessary to strengthen the cause of the Union. At such times he shone as the representative of a wise patriotism. He did not belong in the class of attractive platform speakers, nor possess the weaknesses of blind followers of party chieftains. His power rested upon the strength of his character as a well-poised student of affairs. What he believed came forcefully from a mind that formed its own judgments, and whether his words gave discomfort to the little souls that governed caucuses, or to the great journalists that sought to force their own policies, he was in no wise disturbed.

Upon taking the chair Hunt began his remarks in the tone of one who felt more than he desired to express, but as the mention of Gettysburg and Vicksburg revealed the unbounded enthusiasm of the men before him, the optimism that characterised the people's belief in the summer of 1863 quickly took possession of him, and he coupled with the declaration that the rebel armies were nearly destroyed, the opinion that peace was near at hand. For the moment the party seemed solidly united. But when the echoes of long continued cheering had subsided the bitterness of faction flashed out with increased intensity. To the Radicals, Raymond's suggestion of Edwin D. Morgan for permanent chairman was as gall and wormwood, and his talk of an entire new ticket most alarming. However, George Opdyke and Horace Greeley, the Radical leaders, chastened by the defeat of Wadsworth and the election of Morgan to the Senate, did not now forget the value of discretion. Hunt's selection as temporary chairman had been a concession, and in the choice of a permanent presiding officer, although absolutely unyielding in their hostility to Morgan, they graciously accepted Abraham Wakeman, an apostle of the conservative school.[911] Their attitude toward Morgan, however, cost Opdyke a place on the State Committee, and for a time threatened to exclude the Radicals from recognition upon the ticket.

[Footnote 911: Wakeman was postmaster at New York City.]

The refusal of men to accept nominations greatly embarrassed Conservatives in harvesting their victory. Thomas W. Olcott of Albany was nominated for comptroller in place of Lucius Robinson. Of all the distinguished men who had filled that office none exhibited a more inflexible firmness than Robinson in holding the public purse strings. He was honest by nature and by practice. Neither threats nor ingenious devices disturbed him, but with a fidelity as remarkable as it was rare he pushed aside the emissaries of extravagance and corruption as readily as a plow turns under the sod. After two years of such methods, however, the representatives of a wide-open treasury noisily demanded a change. But Olcott, a financier of wide repute, wisely declined to be used for such a purpose, and Robinson was accepted.

Daniel S. Dickinson, after the inconsequential treatment accorded him in the recent contest for United States senator, suddenly discovered that domestic reasons disabled him from serving longer as attorney-general. Then James T. Brady declined, although tendered the nomination without a dissenting voice. This reduced the convention, in its search for a conspicuous War Democrat, to the choice of John Cochrane, the well-known orator who had left the army in the preceding February. In choosing a Secretary of State the embarrassment continued. Greeley encouraged the candidacy of Chauncey M. Depew, but concluded, at the last moment, that Peter A. Porter, the colonel of a regiment and a son of the gallant general of the war of 1812, must head the ticket.[912] Porter, however, refused to exchange a military for a civil office, and Depew was substituted.

[Footnote 912: "Porter received 213 votes to 140 for Depew, who made a remarkable run under the circumstances."--New York Herald, September 3, 1863.

"Greeley sent for me some weeks before the convention and pressed me with such vigour to take a position upon the State ticket that I finally consented. He then secured from practically the whole State an endorsement of the suggestion on my behalf. On the morning of the convention he suddenly decided that some one connected with the army must be chosen and sent around an order for a change of programme just before the roll was called. It was the most fortunate thing that could have happened to me, but created widespread distrust of his qualities as a leader."--Speech of Chauncey M. Depew, April 4, 1902. Addresses of, November, 1896, to April, 1902, pp. 238-239.]

Depew, then a young man of twenty-nine, gave promise of his subsequent brilliant career. He lived a neighbour to Horace Greeley, whom he greatly admired, and to whom he tactfully spoke the honeyed words, always so agreeable to the Tribune's editor.[913] Perhaps no one in the State possessed a more pleasing personality. He made other people as happy as he was himself. To this charm of manner were added a singularly attractive presence, a pleasing voice, and the oratorical gifts that won him recognition even before he left Yale College. From the first he exhibited a marked capacity for public life. He had an unfailing readiness, a wide knowledge of affairs, a keen sense of the ridiculous, and a flow of clear and easy language which never failed to give full and precise expression to all that was in his mind. He rarely provoked enmities, preferring light banter to severe invective or unsparing ridicule. Among his associates he was the prince of raconteurs. In conventions few men were heard with keener interest, and every Republican recognised the fact that a new force had come into the councils of the party. There never was a time when people regarded him as "a coming man," for he took a leading place at once. In 1861, three years after his admission to the bar, the Peekskill voters sent him to the Assembly, and the next year his colleagues selected him for speaker, an honour which he generously relinquished that his party might elect a United States senator. Now, within the same year, he found a place at the head of the ticket, which he led during the campaign with marked ability.[914]

[Footnote 913: "So far as politics were concerned, Greeley's affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking example."--Andrew D. White, Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 160.]

[Footnote 914: The State ticket was as follows: Secretary of state, Chauncey M. Depew of Westchester; Comptroller, Lucius Robinson of Chemung; Canal Commissioner, Benjamin F. Bruce of Madison; Treasurer, George W. Schuyler of Tompkins; State Engineer, William B. Taylor of Oneida; Prison Inspector, James K. Bates of Jefferson; Judge of Appeals, Henry S. Selden of Monroe; Attorney-General, John Cochrane of New York.]

The platform endorsed the Administration, praised the soldiers, opposed a peace that changed the Constitution except in the form prescribed by it, deplored the creation of a spirit of partisan hostility against the Government, and promised that New York would do its full share in maintaining the Union; but it skilfully avoided mentioning the conscription act and the emancipation proclamation, which Seymour charged had changed the war for the Union into a war for abolition. When a delegate, resenting the omission, moved a resolution commending emancipation, Raymond reminded him that he was in a Union, not a Republican convention, and that many loyal men doubted the propriety of such an endorsement. This position proved too conservative for the ordinary up-State delegate, and a motion to table the resolution quickly failed. Thereupon Charles A. Folger of Geneva moved to amend by adding the words, "and as a war measure is thoroughly legal and justifiable." Probably no man in the convention, by reason of his learning and solidity of character, had greater influence. In 1854 he left the Democratic party with Ward Hunt, whom he resembled as a lawyer, and whom he was to follow to the Court of Appeals and like him attain the highest eminence. Just then he was forty-five years old, a State senator of gentle bearing and stout heart, who dared to express his positive convictions, and whose suggested amendment, offered with the firmness of a man conscious of being in the right, encountered slight opposition.

The President's letter, addressed to the Union convention of New York, gave the Radicals great comfort. With direct and forceful language Lincoln took the people into his confidence. There are but three ways, he said, to stop the war; first, by suppressing rebellion, which he was trying to do; second, by giving up the Union, which he was trying to prevent; and third, by some imaginable compromise, which was impossible if it embraced the maintenance of the Union. The strength of the rebellion is in its army, which dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise if one were made with them. Suppose refugees from the South and peace men from the North hold a convention of the States, how can their action keep Lee out of Pennsylvania? To be effective a compromise must come from those in control of the rebel army, or from the people after our army has suppressed that army. As no suggestion of peace has yet come from that source, all thought of peace for the present was out of the question. If any proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you.

To be plain, he continued, you are dissatisfied about the negro. You opposed compensated emancipation and you dislike proclaimed emancipation. If slaves are property, is there any question that by the law of war such property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed when its taking helps us and hurts our enemy? But you say the proclamation is unconstitutional. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. You profess to think its retraction would help the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? Those in revolt had one hundred days to consider it, and the war, since its issuance, has progressed as favourably for us as before. Some of the commanders who have won our most important victories believe the emancipation policy the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebels, and that in one instance, at least, victory came with the aid of black soldiers. You say you will not fight to free negroes. Whenever you are urged, after resistance to the Union is conquered, to continue to fight, it will be time enough to refuse. Do you not think, in the struggle for the Union, that the withdrawal of negro help from the enemy weakens his resistance to you? That what negroes can do as soldiers leaves so much less for white soldiers to do? But why should negroes do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? and if they, on the promise of freedom, stake their lives to save the Union, shall the promise not be kept?

The signs look better, he concluded. Peace does not appear so distant as it did. When it comes, it will prove that no appeal lies from the ballot to the bullet, and that those who take it are sure to lose their case and pay the costs. "And then there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it."[915]

[Footnote 915: New York Herald, September 3, 1863.]

The influence of this letter, increased by the dignity and power of the President's office, proved a sharp thorn to the Democrats. Recent military successes had made it appear for the time, at least, that rebellion was about to collapse, and the Democratic State Union convention, which convened at Albany on September 9, shifted its policy from a protest against war measures to an appeal for conciliation. In other words, it was against subjugation, which would not leave "the Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is." In its effort to emphasise this plea it refused to recognise or affiliate with the Constitutional Union party, controlled by James Brooks and other extreme peace advocates,[916] and although its platform still condemned emancipation, conscription, and arbitrary arrests, the pivotal declaration, based on "manifestations of a returning allegiance on the part of North Carolina and other seceded States," favoured a wise statesmanship "which shall encourage the Union sentiment of the South and unite more thoroughly the people of the North." Amasa J. Parker, chairman of the convention, who still talked of a "yawning gulf of ruin," admitted that such a policy brought a gleam of hope to the country, and Governor Seymour, at the end of a dreary speech explanatory of his part in the draft-riot,[917] expressed a willingness to "bury violations of law and the rights of States and individuals if such a magnanimous course shall be pursued."[918] Lincoln's letter, however, unexpectedly spoiled such an appeal, compelling the convention to "regret" that the President contemplates no measure for the restoration of the Union, "but looking to an indefinite protraction of the war for abolition purposes points to no future save national bankruptcy and the subversion of our institutions."[919]

[Footnote 916: The Constitutional Union convention, meeting at Albany on September 8, named candidates for attorney-general and prison inspector, with the request that the Democratic convention endorse them; otherwise it would put a full ticket into the field. Among its State Committee appeared the names of former governor Washington Hunt and Lorenzo Burrows. It resolved to resist all departures from the strict letter of the Constitution, whether based upon military necessity or a usurpation of doubtful powers.

"We tender the Democratic State convention our hearty thanks for their contemptuous treatment of Jim Brooks & Co.'s one-horse concern, consisting of fifteen or twenty officers and three or four privates. That concern is thoroughly bogus--a barefaced imposture which should be squelched and its annual nuisance abated."--New York Tribune, September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 917: "Governor Seymour can talk more without saying anything, and write more without meaning anything, than any other man we know.... We consider Seymour not much of a man, and no Governor at all."--New York Herald (editorial), September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 918: Ibid., September 10.]

[Footnote 919: The ticket was made up as follows: Secretary of state, David B. St. John of Otsego; Comptroller, Sanford E. Church of Orleans; Attorney-General, Marshall B. Champlain of Allegany; State Engineer, Van R. Richmond of Wayne; Treasurer, William B. Lewis of Kings; Canal Commissioner, William W. Wright, of Ontario; Inspector of Prisons, David B. McNeil of Clinton; Judge of Appeals, William F. Allen, of Oswego.--Ibid.]

The Republicans, backed by success in the field, started with an advantage which the cheering news from Maine strengthened. It soon become manifest, too, that the Gibraltar of Democracy resented the destructive work of mobs and rioters. Criticism of Seymour also became drastic. "He hobnobbed with the copperhead party in Connecticut," said the Herald, "and lost that election; he endorsed Vallandigham, and did nothing during the riot but talk. He has let every opportunity pass and rejected all offers that would prove him the man for the place. The sooner he is dropped as incompetent, the better it will be for the ticket."[920] The Tribune imputed nepotism. "His brother," it said, "gets $200 per month as agent, a nephew $150 as an officer, and two nephews and a cousin $1,000 a year each as clerks in the executive departments."[921] But Martin I. Townsend, at a great mass meeting in New York City, presented the crushing indictment against him. Although the clock had tolled the midnight hour, the large audience remained to hear Townsend for the same reason, suggested Edwin D. Morgan, the chairman, that the disciples sat up all night whenever the great apostle was with them. Townsend was then fifty-three years old. For more than a decade his rare ability as a speaker had kept him a favorite, and for a quarter of a century longer he was destined to delight the people. On this occasion, however, his arraignment left a deeper and more lasting impression than his words ordinarily did. "Seymour," he said, "undertook to increase enlistments by refusing the soldier his political franchise. On the supposition that Meade would be defeated, he delivered a Fourth of July address that indicted the free people of the North and placed him in the front rank of men whom rebels delight to honour. If there was a traitor in New York City on that day he was in the company of Horatio Seymour. Finally, he pronounced as 'friends' the men, who, stirred to action by his incendiary words, applied the torch and the bludgeon in the draft riot of July 13, 14, and 15."[922]

[Footnote 920: Ibid., September 26.]

[Footnote 921: New York Tribune, October 9.]

[Footnote 922: New York Tribune, October 1, 1863.]

In the four speeches delivered in the campaign, Seymour was never cleverer or more defiant.[923] He exhibited great skill in criticising the Administration, charging that disasters had brought bankruptcy, that ill-advised acts of subordinates had sapped the liberties of the people, and that base motives inspired the policy of the Government. He denounced the Radicals as craven Americans, devoid of patriotic feeling, who were trying to make the humiliation and degradation of their country a stepping-stone to continued power. "They say we must fight until slavery is extinguished. We are to upturn the foundations of our Constitution. At this very moment, when the fate of the nation and of individuals trembles in the balance, these madmen ask us to plunge into a bottomless pit of controversy upon indefinite purposes. Does not every man know that we must have a united North to triumph? Can we get a united North upon a theory that the Constitution can be set aside at the will of one man, because, forsooth, he judges it to be a military necessity? I never yet heard that Abraham Lincoln was a military necessity.... The Vice-President says, 'There are men in your midst who want the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is,' and he adds, sneeringly, 'They can't have it.' We will tell him there are many such men, and we say to him we will have it. There has never been a sentiment in the North or South put forth more treasonable, cowardly, and base than this." Referring to the President's call, on October 17, for 300,000 volunteers, to be followed by a draft if not promptly filled, he exclaimed: "Again, 600,000 men are called for--600,000 homes to be entered. The young man will be compelled to give up the cornerstone of his fortune, which he has laid away with toil and care, to begin the race of life. The old man will pay that which he has saved, as the support of his declining years, to rescue his son. In God's name, let these operations be fair if they must be cruel." In conclusion he professed undying loyalty. "We love that flag [pointing to the Stars and Stripes] with the whole love of our life, and every star that glitters on its blue field is sacred. And we will preserve the Constitution, we will preserve the Union, we will preserve our flag with every star upon it, and we will see to it that there is a State for every star."[924]

[Footnote 923: Seymour spoke at Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and New York City, on October 26, 28, 29, and 31 respectively.]

[Footnote 924: Record of Horatio Seymour, pp. 168-176.]

In their extremity Dean Richmond and Peter Cagger, taking advantage of the President's call for more troops, issued a circular on the eve of election, alleging that the State would receive no credit for drafted men commuted; that towns which had furnished their quotas would be subject to a new conscription; and that men having commuted were liable to be immediately drafted again.[925] This was the prototype of Burchard's "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" in 1884, and might have become no less disastrous had not the Provost-marshal General quickly contradicted it. As a parting shot, Seward, speaking at Auburn on the night before election, declared that if the ballot box could be passed through the camps of the Confederate soldiers, every man would vote for the administration of our government by Horatio Seymour and against the administration of Abraham Lincoln.[926]

[Footnote 925: New York Tribune, November 2, 1863.]

[Footnote 926: New York Herald, November 6, 1863.]

The October elections foreshadowed the result in November. Although the Democrats had derived great advantage in 1862 because of their bold stand for civil liberty and freedom of speech, a year later such arguments proved of little avail. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had turned the tide, and Seymour and the draft riot carried it to the flood. Depew's majority, mounting higher and higher as the returns came slowly from the interior, turned the Governor's surprise into shame. In his career of a quarter of a century Seymour had learned to accept disappointment as well as success, but his failure in 1863 to forecast the trend of changing public sentiment cost him the opportunity of ever again leading his party to victory.[927]

[Footnote 927: "Depew received 29,405 votes more than St. John for secretary of state." Ibid., December 5, 1863.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VII. STRIFE OF RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE

1864

In his Auburn speech Seward had declared for Lincoln's renomination.[928] Proof of the intimate personal relations existing between the President and his Secretary came into national notice in 1862 when a committee of nine Radical senators, charging to Seward's conservatism the failure of a vigorous and successful prosecution of the war, formally demanded his dismissal from the Cabinet. On learning of their action the Secretary had immediately resigned. "Do you still think Seward ought to be excused?" asked Lincoln at the end of a long and stormy interview. Four answered "Yes," three declined to vote, and Harris of New York said "No."[929] The result of this conference led Secretary Chase, the chief of the Radicals, to tender his resignation also. But the President, "after most anxious consideration," requested each to resume the duties of his department. Speaking of the matter afterward to Senator Harris, Lincoln declared with his usual mirth-provoking illustration: "If I had yielded to that storm and dismissed Seward, the thing would all have slumped one way. Now I can ride; I have got a pumpkin in each end of my bag."[930]

[Footnote 928: Delivered November 3, 1863. New York Herald, November 6.]

[Footnote 929: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 266. Senators Sumner of Massachusetts, Trumbull of Illinois, Grimes of Iowa, and Pomeroy of Kansas, voted Yes; Collamer of Vermont, Fessenden of Maine, and Howard of Michigan declined to vote. Wade of Ohio was absent.]

[Footnote 930: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 268.]

Other causes than loyalty contributed to the President's regard for Seward. In their daily companionship the latter took a genial, philosophical view of the national struggle, not shared by all his Cabinet associates, while Lincoln dissipated the gloom with quaint illustrations of Western life.[931] At one of these familiar fireside talks the President expressed the hope that Seward might be his successor, adding that the friends so grievously disappointed at Chicago would thus find all made right at last. To this Seward, in his clear-headed and kind-hearted way, replied: "No, that is all past and ended. The logic of events requires you to be your own successor. You were elected in 1860, but the Southern States refused to submit. They thought the decision made at the polls could be reversed in the field. They are still in arms, and their hope now is that you and your party will be voted down at the next election. When that election is held and they find the people reaffirming their decision to have you President, I think the rebellion will collapse."[932]

[Footnote 931: Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 3, p. 197.]

[Footnote 932: Ibid., p. 196.]

Unlike Seward, Thurlow Weed wabbled in his loyalty to the President. Chafing under the retention of Hiram C. Barney as collector of customs, Weed thought Lincoln too tolerant of Radicals whose opposition was ill concealed. "They will all be against him in '64," he wrote David Davis, then an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. "Why does he persist in giving them weapons with which they may defeat his renomination?"[933] Barney had become a burden to Lincoln, who really desired to be rid of him. Many complaints of irregularity disclosed corrupt practices which warranted a change for the public good. Besides, said the President, "the establishment was being run almost exclusively in the interest of the Radicals. I felt great delicacy in doing anything that might be offensive to my friend. And yet something had to be done. I told Seward he must find him a diplomatic position. Just then Chase became aware of my little conspiracy. He was very angry and told me the day Barney left the custom house, with or without his own consent, he would withdraw from the Treasury. So I backed down."[934]

[Footnote 933: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 434.]

[Footnote 934: Maunsell B. Field, Memories of Many Men, p. 304.]

Lincoln's tolerance did not please Weed, whose infrequent calls at the White House had not escaped notice. "I have been brought to fear recently," the President wrote with characteristic tenderness, "that somehow, by commission or omission, I have caused you some degree of pain. I have never entertained an unkind feeling or a disparaging thought towards you; and if I have said or done anything which has been construed into such unkindness or disparagement it has been misconstrued. I am sure if we could meet we would not part with any unpleasant impression on either side."[935] Such a letter from such a man stirred the heart of the iron-willed boss, who hastened to Washington. He had much to say. Among other things he unfolded a plan for peace. It proposed full amnesty to all persons engaged in the war and an armistice for ninety days, during which time such citizens of the Confederate States as embrace the offered pardon "shall, as a State or States, or as citizens thereof, be restored in all respects to the rights, privileges, and prerogatives which they enjoyed before their secession from the Union." If, however, such offer is rejected, the authority of the United States denied, and the war against the Union continued, the President should partition all territory, whether farms, villages, or cities, among the officers and soldiers conquering the same.[936]

[Footnote 935: Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 440.]

[Footnote 936: Ibid., p. 437.]

In presenting this plan Weed argued that if the offer was rejected it would secure "a united North in favour of war to the knife." Besides, the armistice, occurring when the season interrupts active army movements, would cause little delay and give ample time for widespread circulation of the proclamation. Respecting the division of lands among soldiers, he said it would stop desertion, avoid the payment of bounties, and quickly fill the army with enterprising yeomen who would want homes after the termination of hostilities. It had long been practised in maritime wars by all civilized nations, he said, and being a part of international law it could not in reason be objected to, especially as the sufferers would have rejected most liberal offers of peace and prosperity. Weed frankly admitted that Seward did not like the scheme, and that Senator Wilson of Massachusetts eyed it askance; but Stanton approved it, he said, and Dean Richmond authorised him to say that if fairly carried out the North would be a unit in support of the war and the rebellion would be crushed within six months after the expiration of the armistice.[937]

[Footnote 937: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, pp. 437-439.]

In conversation Weed was the most persuasive of men. To a quiet, gentle, deferential manner, he added a giant's grasp of the subject, presenting its strong points and marshalling with extraordinary skill all the details. Nevertheless, the proposition now laid before the President, leaving slavery as it was, could not be accepted. "The emancipation proclamation could not be retracted," he had said in his famous letter to the New York convention, "any more than the dead could be brought to life." However, Lincoln did not let the famous editor depart empty-handed. Barney should be removed, and Weed, satisfied with such a scalp, returned home to enter the campaign for the President's renomination.[938]

[Footnote 938: New York Herald, May 24, 1864.]

Something seemed to be wrong in New York. Other States through conventions and legislatures had early favored the President's renomination, while the Empire State moved slowly. Party machinery worked well. The Union Central Committee, holding a special meeting on January 4, 1864 at the residence of Edwin D. Morgan, recommended Lincoln's nomination. "It is going to be difficult to restrain the boys," said Morgan in a letter to the President, "and there is not much use in trying to do so."[939] On February 23 the Republican State Committee also endorsed him, and several Union League clubs spoke earnestly of his "prudence, sagacity, comprehension, and perseverance." But the absence of an early State convention, the tardy selection of delegates to Baltimore, and the failure of the Legislature to act, did not reveal the enthusiasm evinced in other Commonwealths. Following the rule adopted elsewhere, resolutions favourable to the President's renomination were duly presented to the Assembly, where they remained unacted upon. Suddenly on January 25 a circular, signed by Simeon Draper and issued by the Conference Committee of the Union Lincoln Association of New York, proposed that all citizens of every town and county who favoured Lincoln's nomination meet in some appropriate place on February 22 and make public expression to that fact. Among the twenty-five names attached appeared those of Moses Taylor and Moses H. Grinnell. This was a new system of tactics. But the legislative resolutions did not advance because of it.

[Footnote 939: Ibid., February 7.]

A month later a letter addressed by several New Yorkers to the National Republican Executive Committee requested the postponement of the Baltimore convention.[940] "The country is not now in a position to enter into a presidential contest," it said. "All parties friendly to the Government should be united in support of a single candidate. Such unanimity cannot at present be obtained. Upon the result of measures adopted to finish the war during the present spring and summer will depend the wish of the people to continue their present leaders, or to exchange them for others. Besides, whatever will tend to lessen the duration of an acrimonious Presidential campaign will be an advantage to the country."[941] If the sentiment of this letter was not new, the number and character of its signers produced a profound sensation. William Cullen Bryant headed the list, and of the twenty-three names, seventeen were leading State senators, among them Charles J. Folger and James M. Cook. "This list," said the Tribune, "contains the names of two-thirds of the Unionists chosen to our present State Senate, the absence of others preventing their signing. We understand that but two senators declined to affix their name."[942] Greeley did not sign this letter, but in an earlier communication to the Independent he had urged a postponement of the convention.[943] Moreover, he had indicated in the Tribune that Chase, Fremont, Butler, or Grant would make as good a President as Lincoln, while the nomination of either would preserve "the salutary one-term principle."[944]

[Footnote 940: It was called to meet on June 7.]

[Footnote 941: Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, p. 785.]

[Footnote 942: New York Tribune, April 25, 1864.]

[Footnote 943: New York Independent, February 25, 1864.]

[Footnote 944: New York Tribune, February 23, 1864.]

It is not easy to determine the cause or the full extent of the dissatisfaction with Lincoln among New York Republicans. Seward's influence and Weed's relations seriously weakened him. After the election of 1862 Radicals openly charged them with Wadsworth's defeat. For the same reason the feeling against Edwin D. Morgan had become intensely bitter. Seeing a newspaper paragraph that these men had been in consultation with the President about his message, Senator Chandler of Michigan, the prince of Radicals, wrote a vehement letter to Lincoln, telling him of a "patriotic organisation in all the free and border States, containing to-day over one million of voters, every man of whom is your friend upon radical measures of your administration; but there is not a Seward or a Weed man among them all. These men are a millstone about your neck. You drop them and they are politically ended forever.... Conservatives and traitors are buried together. For God's sake don't exhume their remains in your message. They will smell worse than Lazarus did after he had been buried three days."[945]

[Footnote 945: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7, p. 389.]

Although Weed had left the President with the promise of aiding him, he could accomplish nothing. The Legislature refused to act, demands for the postponement of the national convention continued to appear, and men everywhere resented conservative leadership. This was especially true of Greeley and the Tribune, Bryant and the Evening Post, and Beecher and the Independent, not to mention other Radicals and radical papers throughout the State, whose opposition represented a formidable combination. Except for this discontent the Cleveland convention would scarcely have been summoned into existence. Of the three calls issued for its assembling two had their birth in New York, one headed by George B. Cheever, the eminent divine, who had recently toured England in behalf of the Union,--the other by Lucius Robinson, State comptroller, and John Cochrane, attorney-general. Cheever's call denounced "the imbecile and vacillating policy of the present Administration in the conduct of the war,"[946] while Robinson and Cochrane emphasised the need of a President who "can suppress rebellion without infringing the rights of individual or State."[947]

[Footnote 946: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 20.]

[Footnote 947: Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, p. 786.]

That Weed no longer possessed the wand of a Warwick was clearly demonstrated at the Republican State convention, held at Syracuse on May 26, to select delegates to Baltimore. Each faction, led in person by Greeley and Weed, professed to favour the President's renomination, but the fierce and bitter contest over the admission of delegates from New York City widened the breach. The Weed machine, following the custom of previous years, selected an equal number of delegates from each ward. The Radicals, who denounced this system as an arbitrary expression of bossism, chose a delegation representing each ward in proportion to the number of its Republican voters. The delegation accepted would control the convention, and although the Radicals consented to the admission of both on equal terms, the Weed forces, confident of their strength, refused the compromise. This set the Radicals to work, and at the morning session, amidst the wildest confusion and disorder, they elected Lyman Tremaine temporary chairman by a majority of six over Chauncey M. Depew, the young secretary of state, whose popularity had given the Conservatives an abnormal strength.

In his speech the Chairman commented upon the death of James S. Wadsworth, killed in the battle of the Wilderness on May 6, from whose obsequies, held at Geneseo on the 21st, many delegates had just returned. Tremaine believed that the soldier's blood would "lie heavy on the souls of those pretended supporters of the government in its hour of trial, whose cowardice and treachery contributed to his defeat for governor."[948] In such a spirit he eulogised Wadsworth's character and patriotism, declaring that if justice had been done him by the Conservatives, he would now, instead of sleeping in his grave, be governor of New York. Although spoken gently and with emotions of sadness, these intolerably aggressive sentences, loudly applauded by the Radicals, stirred the Weed delegates into whispered threats.[949] But Tremaine did not rely upon words alone. He packed the committee on contested seats, whose report, admitting both city delegations on equal terms, was accepted by the enormous majority of 192 to 98, revealing the fact that the great body of up-State Republicans distrusted Thurlow Weed, whose proposition for peace did not include the abolition of slavery. Other reasons, however, accounted for the large majority. Tremaine, no longer trusting to the leadership of Greeley,[950] marshalled the Radical forces with a skill learned in the school of Seymour and Dean Richmond, and when his drilled cohorts went into action the tumultuous and belligerent character of the scene resembled the uproar familiar to one who had trained with Tammany and fought with Mozart Hall. In concluding its work the convention endorsed the President and selected sixty-six delegates, headed by Raymond, Dickinson, Tremaine, and Preston King as delegates-at-large.

[Footnote 948: New York Tribune, May 10, 1864.]

[Footnote 949: New York Herald, May 29.]

[Footnote 950: "Greeley received an almost unanimous call to lead the party in the State and the first convention which he attended (1862) bowed absolutely to his will. He thought he was a great political leader, and he might have been if he had ever been sure of himself; but he was one of the poorest judges of men, and in that way was often deceived, often misled, and often led to change his opinions.... In less than two years his power was gone."--From speech of Chauncey M. Depew, April 4, 1902. Addresses of, November, 1896, to April, 1902, pp. 238-239.]

The echo of the Syracuse contest reached the Cleveland convention, which assembled on May 31. Of all the distinguished New Yorkers whose names had advertised and given character to this movement John Cochrane alone attended. Indeed, the picturesque speech of Cochrane, as chairman, and the vehement letter of Lucius Robinson, advocating the nomination of Grant, constituted the only attractive feature of the proceedings. Cochrane and Robinson wanted a party in which they could feel at home. To Cochrane the Republican party was "a medley of trading, scurvy politicians, which never represented War Democrats,"[951] while Robinson thought the country "had survived, through three years of war, many bad mistakes of a weak Executive and Cabinet, simply because the popular mind had been intensely fixed upon the single purpose of suppressing rebellion."[952] Both resented the Administration's infringement of individual rights. "Whoever attacks them," said Cochrane, "wounds the vital parts of the Republic. Not even the plea of necessity allows any one to trample upon them."[953] The Cleveland convention, however, did not help these statesmen any more than the nomination of John C. Fremont and John Cochrane, "the two Johns from New York" as they were called, injured the President.[954] When Lincoln heard that instead of the many thousands expected only three or four hundred attended, he opened his Bible and read: "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred."[955]

[Footnote 951: Cochrane's speech at Cleveland. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 411.]

[Footnote 952: Ibid., p. 413.]

[Footnote 953: Ibid., p. 412.]

[Footnote 954: A singular mistake of the convention was its nomination, contrary to the requirement of the Constitution, of both candidates from the same State.]

[Footnote 955: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 40.]

Lucius Robinson's suggestion that Grant be nominated for President represented the thought of many New Yorkers prominent in political circles. "All eyes and hopes now centre on Grant," wrote Thurlow Weed on April 17. "If he wins in Virginia it will brighten the horizon and make him President."[956] The Herald sounded the praises of the Lieutenant-General in nearly every issue. The Tribune and Times were equally flattering. Even the World admitted that a skilful general handled the army.[957] Other papers throughout the State expressed similar confidence in his victorious leadership, and with the hope of changing the sentiment from Lincoln to Grant a great mass meeting, called ostensibly to express the country's gratitude to the latter, was held in New York City two days before the meeting of the National Republican convention. Neither at this time, however, nor at any other did the movement receive the slightest encouragement from the hero of Vicksburg, or shake the loyalty of the delegates who assembled at Baltimore on June 7.

[Footnote 956: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 443.]

[Footnote 957: See New York Herald, April 25, 27, May 7, 9, 14, 16, 18, 23, 26, 28, 29, 31, June 1, 4; New York Tribune, May 10, 12, 13, 14; New York Times, May 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19; New York World, May 2, 11, 12, 13, 14.]

Henry J. Raymond, evidencing the same wise spirit of compromise exhibited at Syracuse in 1863, reported the platform. It declared the maintenance of the Union and the suppression of rebellion by force of arms to be the highest duty of every citizen; it approved the determination of the government to enter into no compromise with rebels; favoured the abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment; applauded the wisdom, patriotism, and fidelity of the President; thanked the soldiers, and claimed the full protection of the laws of war for coloured troops; encouraged immigration and the early construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast; pledged the national faith to keep inviolate the redemption of the public debt; and opposed the establishment, by foreign military forces, of monarchical governments in the near vicinity of the United States.[958] On the second day every State voted for Lincoln for President.[959]

[Footnote 958: Edward McPherson, History of the Rebellion, pp. 406-407.]

[Footnote 959: Ibid., p. 407.]

The contest for Vice-President renewed the fight of the New York factions. An impression had early taken root in the country that a War Democrat should be selected, and the Radicals of New York, under the leadership of Lyman Tremaine, quickly designated Daniel S. Dickinson as the man. Dickinson's acceptability in New England and New Jersey strengthened his candidacy, while its approval by three or four border and western States seriously weakened Hamlin. Nevertheless, the New York Conservatives vigorously opposed him. Their antagonism did not at first concentrate upon any one candidate. Weed talked of Hamlin and later of Joseph Holt of Kentucky; Raymond thought Andrew Johnson of Tennessee the stronger; and Preston King, to the great surprise of the Radicals, agreed with him. This brought from George William Curtis the sarcastic remark that a Vice-President from the Empire State would prevent its having a Cabinet officer. Tremaine declared that a change in the Cabinet would not be a serious calamity to the country, and Preston King, who attributed his displacement from the United States Senate to the Seward influence, did not object to the Secretary's removal. Thus Raymond's influence gave the doughty War Governor 32 of New York's 66 votes to 28 for Dickinson and 6 for Hamlin. This materially aided Johnson's nomination on the first ballot.[960]

[Footnote 960: Johnson received 200 votes to 108 for Dickinson. After recording all changes, the ballot stood: Johnson, 494; Dickinson, 17; Hamlin, 9. McPherson, Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 407.]

Raymond's power and influence may be said to have climaxed in 1864 at the Baltimore convention. He became chairman of the New York delegation, chairman of the committee on resolutions, chairman of the National Executive Committee, and the principal debater upon the floor, manifesting a tact in the performance of his manifold duties that surprised as much as it charmed. But the reason for his ardent support of Johnson will probably never be certainly known. McClure declared that he acted in accord with the wishes of Lincoln, who discreetly favoured and earnestly desired Johnson's nomination. This view was approved by George Jones, the proprietor of the Times and Raymond's most intimate friend.[961] On the other hand, Nicolay declared that "it was with minds absolutely untrammelled by even any knowledge of the President's wishes that the convention went about its work of selecting his associate on the ticket."[962] In his long and bitter controversy with Nicolay, however, McClure furnished testimony indicating that Lincoln whispered his choice and that Raymond understood it.[963]

[Footnote 961: Alex. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 444.]

[Footnote 962: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, pp. 72-73.]

[Footnote 963: Alex. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, pp. 425-449.]

While Raymond antagonised the radical supporters of Dickinson, patronage questions were again threatening trouble for the President. Serious friction had followed the appointment of a General Appraiser at New York, and when John J. Cisco, the assistant United States treasurer, tendered his resignation to take effect June 30 (1864), the President desired to appoint one unobjectionable to Senator Morgan; but Secretary Chase, regardless of the preferences of others, insisted upon Maunsell B. Field, then an assistant secretary of the treasury. Morgan vigorously protested, regarding him incompetent to fill such a place. Besides, the designation of Field, who had no political backing in New York, would, he said, offend the conservative wing of the party, which had been entirely ignored in the past. As a compromise the Senator begged the President to select Richard M. Blatchford, Dudley S. Gregory, or Thomas Hillhouse, whom he regarded as three of the most eminent citizens of New York.

Lincoln, in a note to the Secretary, submitted these names. "It will really oblige me," he wrote, "if you will make choice among these three, or any other men that Senators Morgan and Harris will be satisfied with."[964] This brief letter was followed on the same day by one presenting the annoyance to which patronage subjects a President. Happily civil service reform has removed much of this evil, but enough remains to keep an Executive, if not members of Congress, in hot water. "As the proverb goes," wrote Lincoln, "no man knows so well where the shoe pinches as he who wears it. I do not think Mr. Field a very proper man for the place, but I would trust your judgment and forego this were the greater difficulty out of the way. Much as I personally like Mr. Barney it has been a great burden to me to retain him in his place when nearly all our friends in New York were directly or indirectly urging his removal. Then the appointment of Judge Hogeboom to be general appraiser brought me to the verge of open revolt. Now the appointment of Mr. Field would precipitate me in it, unless Senator Morgan and those feeling as he does could be brought to concur in it. Strained as I already am at this point, I do not think I can make this appointment in the direction of still greater strain."[965]

[Footnote 964: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 93.]

[Footnote 965: Ibid., pp. 93-94.]

Chase had relieved the tension temporarily by inducing Cisco to withdraw his resignation, but after getting the President's second letter, cleverly intimating that Field's appointment might necessitate the removal of Barney, the Secretary promptly tendered his resignation. If the President was surprised, the Secretary, after reading Lincoln's reply, was not less so. "Your resignation of the office of secretary of the treasury, sent me yesterday, is accepted," said the brief note. "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity I have nothing to unsay, and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service."[966] Secretary Blaine's hasty resignation in 1892, and President Harrison's quick acceptance of it, were not more dramatic, except that Blaine's was tendered on the eve of a national nominating convention. It is more than doubtful if Chase intended to resign. He meant it to be as in previous years the beginning of a correspondence, expecting to receive from the President a soothing letter with concessions. But Lincoln's stock of patience, if not of sedatives, was exhausted.

[Footnote 966: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 95.]

A few weeks later, after William Pitt Fessenden's appointment to succeed Chase, Simeon Draper became collector of customs. He was one of Weed's oldest friends and in 1858 had been his first choice for governor.[967] But just now Abraham Wakeman was his first choice for collector. Possibly in selecting Draper instead of Wakeman, Lincoln remembered Weed's failure to secure a legislative endorsement of his renomination, a work specially assigned to him. At all events the anti-Weed faction accepted Draper as a decided triumph.

[Footnote 967: "Simeon Draper was impulsive and demonstrative. With the advantages of a fine person, good conversational powers, and ready wit, his genial presence and cheerful voice imparted life and spirit to the numerous social circles in which he was ever a welcome guest." Weed's Reminiscences, T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 483.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VIII. SEYMOUR'S PRESIDENTIAL FEVER

1864

"I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation," said the President at the opening of Congress in December, 1863; "nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress." But in submitting a plan for the restoration of the Confederate States he offered amnesty, with rights of property except as to slaves, to all persons[968] who agreed to obey the Constitution, the laws, and the Executive proclamations, and proposed that whenever such persons numbered one-tenth of the qualified voters of a State they "shall be recognized as the true government of such State."[969] A week later the Thirteenth Amendment, forever abolishing slavery, was introduced into Congress. Thus the purpose of the radical Republicans became plain.

[Footnote 968: Except certain ones specifically exempted.]

[Footnote 969: Lincoln, Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 443.]

In January, 1864, Governor Seymour, then the acknowledged head of his party, made his message to the Legislature a manifesto to the Democrats of the country. With measured rhetoric he traced the usurpations of the President and the acknowledged policy that was in future to guide the Administration. He courageously admitted that a majority of the people and both branches of Congress sustained the policy of the President, but such a policy, he declared, subordinating the laws, the courts, and the people themselves to military power, destroyed the rights of States and abrogated cherished principles of government. The past, however, with its enormous debt, its depreciated currency, its suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and its abolition of free speech and a free press, did not mean such irretrievable ruin as the national bankruptcy which now threatened to overwhelm the nation. "The problem with which we have to grapple is," he said, "how can we bring this war to a conclusion before such disasters overwhelm us." Two antagonistic theories, he continued, are now before us--one, consecrating the energies of war and the policy of government to the restoration of the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is; the other, preventing by the creation of a new political system the return of the revolted States, though willing to lay down their arms. This alternative will enable an administration to perpetuate its power. It is a doctrine of national bankruptcy and national ruin; it is a measure for continued military despotism over one-third of our country, which will be the basis for military despotism over the whole land.

Every measure to convert the war against armed rebellion into one against private property and personal rights at the South, he continued, has been accompanied by claims to exercise military power in the North. The proclamation of emancipation at the South, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus at the North; the confiscation of private property in the seceding States, and the arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, and banishment of the citizens of loyal States; the claim to destroy political organization at the South, and the armed interference by Government in local elections at the North, have been contemporaneous events. We now find that as the strength of rebellion is broken, new claims to arbitrary power are put forth. More prerogatives are asserted in the hour of triumph than were claimed in days of disaster. The war is not to be brought to an end by the submission of States to the Constitution and their return to the Union, but to be prolonged until the South is subjugated and accepts such terms as may be dictated. This theory designs a sweeping revolution and the creation of a new political system. There is but one course, he concluded, which will now save us from such national ruin--we must use every influence of wise statesmanship to bring back the States which now reject their constitutional obligations. The triumphs won by the soldiers in the field should be followed up by the peacemaking policy of the statesmen in the Cabinet. In no other way can we save our Union.[970]

[Footnote 970: Public Record of Horatio Seymour, pp. 198-212.]

Seymour's claims and portents were in amazing contrast to his proposed measures of safety. Nevertheless he did his work well. It was his intention clearly to develop the ultimate tendencies of the war, and, in a paper of great power and interest, without invective or acerbity, he did not hesitate to alarm the people respecting the jeopardy of their own liberties. Indeed, his message had the twofold purpose of drawing the line distinctly between Administration and anti-Administration forces, and of concentrating public attention upon himself as a suitable candidate for President.[971] Seymour was never without ambition, for he loved politics and public affairs, and the Presidency captivated him. With deepest interest he watched the play at Charleston and at Baltimore in 1860, and had the nomination come to him, Lincoln's election, depending as it did upon New York, must have given Republicans increased solicitude. Developments during the war had stimulated this ambition. The cost of blood and treasure, blended with arbitrary measures deemed necessary by the Government, pained and finally exasperated him until he longed to possess the power of an Executive to make peace. He believed that a compromise, presented in a spirit of patriotic clemency, with slavery undisturbed, would quickly terminate hostilities, and although he made the mistake of surrounding himself with men whose influence sometimes betrayed him into weak and extreme positions, his ability to present his views in a scholarly and patriotic manner, backed by a graceful and gracious bearing, kept him in close touch with a party that resented methods which made peace dependent upon the abolition of slavery. He never provoked the criticism of those whom he led, nor indulged in levity and flippancy. But he was unsparing in his lectures to the Administration, admonishing it to adopt the principles of government which prevailed when happiness and peace characterised the country's condition, and prophesying the ruin of the Union unless it took his advice. While, therefore, his eulogy of the flag, the soldiers, the Union, and the sacrifices of the people won him reputation for patriotic conservatism, his condemnation of the Government brought him credit for supporting and promoting all manner of disturbing factions and revolutionary movements.

[Footnote 971: Horace Greeley, History of the Rebellion, Vol. 2, p. 667.]

The Regency understood the Governor's ambition, and the Democratic State convention, assembling at Albany on February 24 to designate delegates to Chicago, opened the way for him as widely as possible. It promulgated no issues; it mentioned no candidate; it refused to accept Fernando Wood and his brother as delegates because of their pronounced advocacy of a dishonourable peace; and it placed Seymour at the head of a strong delegation, backed by Dean Richmond and August Belmont, and controlled by the unit rule. It was a remarkable coincidence, too, that the New York Herald, which had pursued the Governor for more than a year with bitter criticism, suddenly lapsed into silence. Indeed, the only shadow falling upon his pathway in the Empire State reflected the temporary anger of Tammany, which seceded from the convention because the McKeon delegation, an insignificant coterie of advocates of peace-on-any-conditions, had been admitted on terms of equality.

As the summer advanced political conditions seemed to favour Seymour. During the gloomy days of July and August the people prayed for a cessation of hostilities. "The mercantile classes are longing for peace," wrote James Russell Lowell,[972] and Horace Greeley, in a letter of perfervid vehemence, pictured to the President the unhappy condition. "Our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country," he said, "longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, or further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood."[973] The President, also yearning for peace and willing to accept almost any proposition if it included the abolition of slavery, waited for a communication from some agent of the Confederacy authorised to treat with him; but such an one had not appeared, although several persons, safely sheltered in Canada, claimed authority. One of these, calling himself William C. Jewett of Colorado, finally convinced Horace Greeley that Clement C. Clay of Alabama and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, two ambassadors of Jefferson Davis, were ready at Niagara Falls to meet the President whenever protection was afforded them. Upon being informed by Greeley of their presence, Lincoln replied (July 9): "If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you."[974]

[Footnote 972: Motley's Letters, Vol. 2, p. 168.]

[Footnote 973: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 186.]

[Footnote 974: Ibid., pp. 187-188.]

While Greeley, hesitating to undertake the mission himself, indulged in further correspondence with the President, James P. Jaquess, a Methodist clergyman and colonel of an Illinois regiment, with the knowledge of Lincoln, but without official authority except to pass the Union lines, obtained (July 17) an audience with Jefferson Davis, to whom he made overtures of peace. In the interview Davis declared that "we are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence, and that or extermination we will have. We will be free. We will govern ourselves. We will do it if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked and every Southern city in flames.... Say to Mr. Lincoln from me that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other."[975] It is known now that Jaquess' report was substantially correct, but at the time the peace advocate defiantly challenged its truth and the conservative was incredulous.

[Footnote 975: J.R. Gilmore (Kirke), Down in Tennessee, pp. 272-280.]

Meantime Greeley (July 16) proceeded to Niagara Falls. Thompson was not there and Clay had no authority to act. When the famous editor asked fresh instructions Lincoln sent John Hay, his private secretary, with the historic paper of July 18, which stopped further negotiations.[976] In this well-meant effort the President desired to convince his own party of the hopelessness of any satisfactory peace until the surrender of Lee's and Johnston's armies; but to the people, grieved by the death of loved ones, or oppressed by constant anxiety, his brief ultimatum seemed maladroit, while the men who favoured peace simply on condition of the restoration of the Union, without the abolition of slavery, resented his course as arbitrary and needlessly cruel.

[Footnote 976: "To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways. Abraham Lincoln."--Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol. 2, p. 665; Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, p. 780; Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 192.]

Lincoln's unpopularity touched bottom at this moment. The dissatisfaction found expression in a secret call for a second national convention, to be held at Cincinnati on September 28, to nominate, if necessary, a new candidate for President.[977] This movement, vigorously promoted in Ohio by Salmon P. Chase, received cordial support in New York City. George Opdyke directed it, Horace Greeley heartily endorsed it, Daniel S. Dickinson favoured it, and Lucius Robinson and David Dudley Field sympathised with it.[978] Parke Godwin and William Curtis Noyes, if unwilling to go as far as Opdyke and Greeley, would have welcomed Lincoln's withdrawal.[979] Roscoe Conkling, being advised of the scheme, promptly rejected it. "I do not approve of the call or of the movement," he wrote, "and cannot sign it. For that reason it would not be proper or agreeable that I should be present at the conference you speak of."[980]

[Footnote 977: "The undersigned, citizens of the State of New York and unconditional supporters of the national government, convinced that a union of all loyal citizens of the United States upon the basis of a common patriotism is essential to the safety and honour of the country in this crisis of its affairs; that the present distraction and apathy which depress the friends of the Union threaten to throw the Government into the hands of its enemies; and that a convention of the people should be assembled to consider the state of the nation and to concentrate the union strength on some one candidate, who commands the confidence of the country, even by a new nomination if necessary; do therefore invite their fellow citizens ... to send delegates ... to a convention at Cincinnati on Wednesday, September 28, for friendly consultation, with the purpose above stated."--New York Sun, June 30, 1889.]

[Footnote 978: Under date of Aug. 18, 1864, Greeley wrote Opdyke: "I must go out of town to-morrow and cannot attend the meeting at your house. Allow me to say a word. Mr. Lincoln is already beaten. He cannot be elected. We must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow. And such a ticket we ought to have anyhow, with or without a convention."--Ibid.

On August 26, Dickinson declared that "the cry for a change, whether wise or ill founded, should be both heard and heeded."--Ibid.

On August 29, Lucius Robinson regretted "that it will be impossible for me to be present at the meeting at Mr. Field's to-morrow evening.... McClellan will be the next President unless Lincoln is at once withdrawn."--Ibid.]

[Footnote 979: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 366.]

[Footnote 980: New York Sun, June 30, 1889.]

It is doubtful if Lincoln knew of this conspiracy, but his friends informed him of the critical condition of affairs. "When, ten days ago, I told Mr. Lincoln that his re-election was an impossibility," Weed wrote Seward on August 22, "I told him the information would also come through other channels. It has doubtless reached him ere this. At any rate nobody here doubts it, nor do I see anybody from other States who authorises the slightest hope of success. The people are wild for peace. They are told the President will only listen to terms of peace on condition that slavery be abandoned."[981] Weed's "other channels" meant a report from the Republican National Executive Committee, which Raymond, then its chairman, submitted to Lincoln on August 22. "The tide is setting strongly against us," he wrote. "Hon. E.B. Washburn writes that 'were an election to be held now in Illinois we should be beaten.' Mr. Cameron says that Pennsylvania is against us. Governor Morton writes that nothing but the most strenuous efforts can carry Indiana. This State, according to the best information I can get, would go 50,000 against us to-morrow. And so of the rest. Two special causes are assigned for this great reaction in public sentiment--the want of military successes, and the impression in some minds, the fear and suspicion in others, that we are not to have peace in any event under this Administration until slavery is abandoned. In some way or other the suspicion is widely diffused that we can have peace with Union if we would. It is idle to reason with this belief--still more idle to denounce it. It can only be expelled by some authoritative act at once bold enough to fix attention, and distinct enough to defy incredulity and challenge respect."[982]

[Footnote 981: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 250.]

[Footnote 982: Ibid., p. 218.]

In December, 1860, in the presence of threatened war Lincoln refused to yield to a compromise that would extend slavery into free territory; now, in the presence of failure at the polls, he insisted upon a peace that would abolish slavery. In 1860 he was flushed with victory; in 1864 he was depressed by the absence of military achievement. But he did not weaken. He telegraphed Grant to "hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible,"[983] and then, in the silence of early morning, with Raymond's starless letter on the table before him, he showed how coolly and magnanimously a determined patriot could face political overthrow. "This morning, as for some days past," he wrote, "it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so coöperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."[984]

[Footnote 983: Lincoln's Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 563.]

[Footnote 984: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 251.]

The influence of this popular discouragement exhibited itself in a mass peace convention, called by Fernando Wood and held at Syracuse on August 18. Its great attraction was Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, its platform favoured an armistice and a convention of States, and its purpose was the selection of a delegation to Chicago, which should adequately represent the peace faction of the State. The absence of military achievement and the loud cries for peace, it was claimed, had changed the conditions since the adjournment of the Democratic State convention in February, and the necessity for a third party was conceded should the existing peace sentiment be ignored in the formulation of a platform and the selection of candidates at Chicago. Although the assembly indicated no preference for President, its known partiality for Seymour added to its strength. Through the manipulation of Richmond and the Regency, Wood failed to secure the appointment of delegates, but he claimed, with much show of truth, that the meeting represented the sentiment of a great majority of the party. Wood had become intolerable to Dean Richmond and the conservative Democracy, whose withering opposition to his candidacy for the United States Senate in the preceding February had made him ridiculous; but he could not be muzzled, and although his influence rarely disturbed the party in the up-State counties, he was destined to continue in Congress the rest of his life, which ended in 1881.

The Democratic national convention had been called for July 4, but the popular depression, promising greater advantage later in the summer, led to its postponement until August 29. Thus it convened when gloom and despondency filled the land, making Horatio Seymour's journey to Chicago an ovation. At every stop, especially at Detroit, crowds, cheers, speeches, and salvos of firearms greeted him. The convention city recognised him as its most distinguished visitor, and the opponents of a war policy, voicing the party's sentiment for peace, publicly proclaimed him their favourite.

Before Seymour left Albany the Argus announced that he would not be a candidate;[985] but now, flattered by attention, and encouraged by the peace-faction's strategic movement, he declined to indicate his position. Political conditions had made a profound impression upon him. Moreover, deep in his heart Seymour did not fancy McClellan. His public life had been brief, and his accomplishment little either as a soldier or civilian. Besides, his arrest of the Maryland Legislature, and his indifference to the sacredness of the writ of habeas corpus, classing him among those whom the Governor had bitterly denounced, tended to destroy the latter's strongest argument against the Lincoln administration.

[Footnote 985: "The announcement in the Albany Argus that Governor Seymour was not a candidate was written by Seymour himself, and taken to the Argus by his private secretary. It is now announced that it was intended as a feeler. The whole force of the opposition to McClellan is centred in this move for Seymour."--New York Herald (Chicago despatch), August 28, 1864.]

Dean Richmond, now a vigorous supporter of McClellan, could not be confused as to the General's strength or the Governor's weakness, and he attempted at an early hour to silence the appeal for Seymour by solidifying the New York delegation for McClellan; but in these efforts he found it difficult to subdue the personal independence and outspoken ways of the Governor, whose opposition to McClellan was more than a passing cloud-shadow.[986] This delayed matters. So long as a ray of hope existed for the favourite son, the New York delegation declined to be forced into an attitude of opposition. Indeed, the day before the convention opened, it refused, by a vote of 38 to 23, to ascertain its choice for President. When, at last, it became definitely known that McClellan had a majority of each State delegation, practically assuring his nomination under the two-thirds rule on the first ballot, Seymour put an end to the talk of his candidacy. Nevertheless, his vote, dividing the New York delegation, was cast for Samuel Nelson, the distinguished jurist who had succeeded Smith Thompson as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Other anti-McClellan New York delegates preferred Charles O'Conor and James Guthrie of Kentucky. Subsequently, in explaining his action, Seymour disclaimed any doubt of the ability or patriotism of the late commander of the Army of the Potomac.[987]

[Footnote 986: "Dean Richmond remains firm for McClellan, and has cut loose from the Regency. He is at the present moment closeted with Seymour, trying to convince him of the fallacy of the move."--New York Herald (Chicago despatch), August 28, 1864.]

[Footnote 987: Ibid., September 1, 1864.]

The New York delegation had as usual a strong if not a controlling influence in the convention. Dean Richmond who led it at Charleston and Baltimore again guided its counsels, while the presence of John Ganson and Albert P. Laning of Buffalo, and Francis Kernan of Utica, added to its forcefulness upon the floor. Next to Seymour, however, its most potent member for intellectual combat was Samuel J. Tilden, who served upon the committee on resolutions. Tilden, then fifty years old, was without any special charm of person or grace of manner. He looked like an invalid. His voice was feeble, his speech neither fluent nor eloquent, and sometimes he gave the impression of indecision. But his logic was irresistible, his statements exhaustive, and his ability as a negotiator marvellous and unequalled. He was the strong man of the committee, and his presence came very near making New York the dominant factor in the convention.

Tilden's sympathies leaned toward the South. He resented the formation of the Republican party,[988] maintained that a State could repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion,[989] declared at the Tweddle Hall meeting in January, 1861, that he "would resist the use of force to coerce the South into the Union,"[990] and declined to sign the call for the patriotic uprising of the people in Union Square on April 20.[991] On the other hand, he addressed departing regiments, gave money, and in 1862 wrote: "Within the Union we will give you [the South] the Constitution you profess to revere, renewed with fresh guarantees of equal rights and equal safety. We will give you everything that local self-government demands; everything that a common ancestory of glory--everything that national fraternity or Christian fellowship requires; but to dissolve the federal bond between these States, to dismember our country, whoever else consents, we will not. No; never, never never!"[992] Yet in February, 1863, in opposition to the Loyal Publication Society, he assisted in organising a local society which published and distributed "Copperhead" literature.[993] He had not, however, been active in politics since his defeat for attorney-general in 1855. It was during these years that he began the accumulation of his large fortune. He acquired easily. He seemed to know intuitively when to buy and when to sell, and he profited by the rare opportunities offered during the great depreciation in government bonds. Later, he dealt in railroads, his private gains being so enormous that men thought his ambition for wealth unscrupulously selfish.

[Footnote 988: Statement to Preston King in 1854. Harper's Weekly, September 16, 1876.]

[Footnote 989: Letter to William Kent in October, 1860.]

[Footnote 990: Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol. 1, pp. 388-394. William H. Russell's Diary, entry March 17, 1861, p. 20.]

[Footnote 991: Harper's Weekly, September 9, 1876.]

[Footnote 992: John Bigelow, Life of Tilden, Vol. 1, pp. 173-174.]

[Footnote 993: Harper's Weekly, September 9 and 27, 1876.]

But whatever may have been his sentiments respecting the war, Tilden had little liking for Vallandigham in 1864, and after a bitter contest finally defeated him for chairman of the committee on resolutions by a vote of thirteen to eleven in favour of James Guthrie of Kentucky. He also defeated a measure introduced by Washington Hunt suggesting an armistice and a convention of States, and supported a positive declaration that he thought sufficient to hold the war vote. However, the dread of a split, such as had occurred at Charleston and Baltimore in 1860, possessed the committee, and in the confusion of the last moment, by a slight majority, the pivotal declaration pronouncing the war a failure was accepted.[994]

[Footnote 994: "Never did men work harder than Messrs. Guthrie of Kentucky and Tilden of New York. All they asked finally was that the platform should not be so strong for peace that it would drive the war vote from them."--New York Herald, September 5, 1864.

"Vallandigham wrote the second, the material resolution, of the Chicago platform, and carried it through the sub-committee and the general committee, in spite of the most desperate and persistent opposition on the part of Tilden and his friends, Mr. Cassidy himself in an adjoining room labouring to defeat it."--New York News, October 22, 1864.

"The platform which declared the war a failure was jointly concocted by Seymour and Vallandigham."--New York Tribune, November 5, 1868.]

Seymour's election as permanent chairman of the convention gave him abundant opportunity to proclaim his abhorrence of the Administration. His speech, prepared with unusual care, showed the measured dignity and restraint of a trained orator, who knew how to please a popular audience with a glowing denunciation of principles it detested. Every appeal was vivid and dramatic; every allusion told. Throughout the whole ran the thread of one distinct proposition,--that the Republican party had sinned away its day of grace, and that the patriotic work of the Democratic party must begin at once if the Union was to be saved. To Seymour it was not a new proposition. He had stated it in the last campaign and reiterated it in his latest message; but never before did he impress it by such striking sentences as now fell upon the ears of a delighted convention. "Even now, when war has desolated our land," he said, "has laid its heavy burdens upon labor, when bankruptcy and ruin overhang us, this Administration will not have Union except upon conditions unknown to our Constitution; it will not allow the shedding of blood to cease, even for a little time, to see if Christian charity or the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a method to save our country. Nay, more than this, it will not listen to a proposal for peace which does not offer that which this government has no right to ask. This Administration cannot now save this Union, if it would. It has, by its proclamations, by vindictive legislation, by displays of hate and passion, placed obstacles in its own pathway which it cannot overcome, and has hampered its own freedom of action by unconstitutional acts. The bigotry of fanatics and the intrigues of placemen have made the bloody pages of the history of the past three years."

It was impossible not to be impressed by such an impassioned lament. There was also much in Seymour himself as well as in his words to attract the attention of the convention.[995] Added years gave him a more stately, almost a picturesque bearing, while a strikingly intelligent face changed its expression with the ease and swiftness of an actor's. This was never more apparent than now, when he turned, abruptly, from the alleged sins of Republicans to the alleged virtues of Democrats. Relaxing its severity, his countenance wore a triumphant smile as he declared in a higher and more resonant key, that "if this Administration cannot save the Union, we can! Mr. Lincoln values many things above the Union; we put it first of all. He thinks a proclamation worth more than peace; we think the blood of our people more precious than the edicts of the President. There are no hindrances in our pathway to Union and to peace. We demand no conditions for the restoration of our Union; we are shackled with no hates, no prejudices, no passions. We wish for fraternal relationships with the people of the South. We demand for them what we demand for ourselves--the full recognition of the rights of States. We mean that every star on our Nation's banner shall shine with an equal lustre."[996] As the speaker concluded, the audience, with deafening applause, testified its approval of these sentiments. Yet one wonders that he could end without saying a word, at least, in condemnation of the Secessionists, whose appeal from the ballot to the bullet had inaugurated "the bloody pages of the history of the past three years."

[Footnote 995: "Governor Seymour was an elegant and accomplished gentleman with a high-bred manner which never unbent, and he was always faultlessly dressed. He looked the ideal of an aristocrat, and yet he was and continued to be until his death the idol of the Democracy."--Speeches of Chauncey M. Depew, November, 1896, to April, 1902, p. 105.]

[Footnote 996: Horatio Seymour's Public Record, pp. 230-232.]

The platform, adopted without debate, reaffirmed devotion to the Union, expressed sympathy with soldiers and prisoners of war, denounced interference in military elections, and stigmatised alleged illegal and arbitrary acts of the government. The second resolution, prepared by Vallandigham, declared that "this convention does explicitly resolve as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States."[997]

[Footnote 997: Edward McPherson, History of the Rebellion, p. 419; Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, p. 793.]

It is difficult to excuse Tilden's silence when this fatal resolution was adopted. In the final haste to report the platform, the deep significance of Vallandigham's words may not have been fully appreciated by the Committee;[998] but Tilden understood their meaning, and vigorous opposition might have avoided them.[999] He seems, however, to have shared the fear of McClellan's friends that the defeat of the resolution would endanger the integrity of the convention, and to have indulged the hope that McClellan's letter of acceptance would prove an antidote to the Ohioan's peace-poison. But his inaction did little credit either to his discernment or judgment, for the first ballot for President disclosed the groundlessness of his timidity,[1000] and the first work of the campaign revealed the inefficiency of the candidate's statements.[1001] Indeed, so grievous was Tilden's mistake that his distinguished biographer (Bigelow) avoided his responsibility for declaring the war a failure by ignoring his presence at Chicago.

[Footnote 998: "McClellan's supporters are not scared by any paper pellets of the brain, wise or otherwise, which ever came from the midnight sessions of a resolution committee in the hurly-burly of a national convention."--Speech of Robert C. Winthrop in New York City, September 17, 1864.--Addresses and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 598.]

[Footnote 999: "When the resolution, as reported, had been debated in the committee, Mr. Tilden, far from protesting, stated in the convention that there was no dissent among the members. His remarks were confirmed by Mr. Brown of Delaware, who said there was not the slightest dissension, and by Mr. Weller of California, who said that all were in favour of peace."--Harper's Weekly, September 9, 1876.]

[Footnote 1000: The first ballot resulted as follows: Seymour of New York, 12; Seymour of Connecticut, 38; McClellan, 181. In the adjustment, after the conclusion of the roll-call, McClellan had 202-1/2 and Seymour of Connecticut, 28-1/2. Vallandigham moved to make the nomination unanimous. George H. Pendleton of Ohio was named for Vice-President.]

[Footnote 1001: "McClellan's name, associated with a noble struggle for the national cause, has elicited and will elicit the wildest enthusiasm; but leagued with propositions for national humiliation, it is not a name the people will honor. McClellan is not large enough to cover out of sight the bad points in the Chicago platform."--New York Herald, September 6, 1864.]

Meanwhile the cheers for McClellan that greeted the returning delegates were mingled with those of the country over Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Farragut's destruction of the Mobile forts.

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IX. FENTON DEFEATS SEYMOUR

1864

The brilliant victories of Sherman and Farragut had an appreciable effect upon Republicans. It brought strong hope of political success, and made delegates to the Syracuse convention (September 7) very plucky. Weed sought to control, but the Radicals, in the words of Burke's famous sentence, were lords of the ascendant. They proposed to nominate Reuben E. Fenton, and although the Chautauquan's popularity and freedom from the prejudices of Albany politics commended him to the better judgment of all Republicans, the followers of Greeley refused to consult the Conservatives respecting him or any part of the ticket. Resenting such treatment Weed indicated an inclination to secede, and except that his regard for Fenton steadied him the historic bolt of the Silver Grays might have been repeated.[1002]

[Footnote 1002: New York Herald, September 8.]

Fenton was a well-to-do business man, without oratorical gifts or statesmanlike qualities, but with a surpassing genius for public life. He quickly discerned the drift of public sentiment and had seldom made a glaring mistake. He knew, also, how to enlist other men in his service and attach them to his fortunes. During his ten years in Congress he developed a faculty for organisation, being able to coördinate all his resources and to bring them into their place in the accomplishment of his purposes. This was conspicuously illustrated in the Thirty-seventh Congress when he formed a combination that made Galusha A. Grow speaker of the House. Besides, by careful attention to the wants of constituents and to the work of the House, backed by the shrewdness of a typical politician who rarely makes an enemy, he was recognised as a sagacious counsellor and safe leader. He had previously been mentioned for governor, and in the preceding winter Theodore M. Pomeroy, then representing the Auburn district in Congress, presented him for speaker.[1003] Schuyler Colfax controlled the caucus, but the compliment expressed the esteem of Fenton's colleagues.

[Footnote 1003: New York Tribune, December 7, 1863.]

He was singularly striking and attractive in person, tall, erect, and graceful in figure, with regular features and wavy hair slightly tinged with gray. His sloping forehead, full at the eyebrows, indicated keen perceptive powers. He was suave in address, so suave, indeed, that his enemies often charged him with insincerity and even duplicity, but his gracious manner, exhibited to the plainest woman and most trifling man, won the hearts of the people as quickly as his political favours recruited the large and devoted following that remained steadfast to the end. Perhaps no one in his party presented a stronger running record. He belonged to the Barnburners, he presided at the birth of the Republican party, he stood for a vigorous prosecution of the war regardless of the fate of slavery, and he had avoided the Weed-Greeley quarrels. If he was not a statesman, he at least possessed the needed qualities to head the State ticket.

As usual John A. Dix's name came before the convention. It was well known that party nomenclature did not represent his views, but his admirers, profoundly impressed with his sterling integrity and weight of character, insisted, amidst the loudest cheering of the day, that his name be presented. Nevertheless, an informal ballot quickly disclosed that Fenton was the choice, and on motion of Elbridge G. Lapham the nomination became unanimous.[1004] Other nominations fell to the Radicals.[1005] Not until Greeley was about to capture first place as a presidential elector-at-large, however, did the Conservatives fully realise how badly they were being punished. Then every expedient known to diplomacy was exhausted. Afternoon shaded into evening and evening into night. Still the contest continued. It seems never to have occurred to the Weed faction that Horace Greeley, whom it had so often defeated, could be given an office, even though its duties covered but a single day, and in its desperation it discovered a willingness to compromise on any other name. But Greeley's friends forced the fight, and to their great joy won a most decisive victory.[1006]

[Footnote 1004: "The informal vote was as follows: Fenton, 247-1/2; Tremaine, 69; Dix, 35-1/2."--New York Herald, September 8, 1864.]

[Footnote 1005: "The ticket is as follows: Governor, Reuben E. Fenton of Chautauqua; Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas G. Alvord of Onondaga; Canal Commissioner, Franklin A. Alberger of Erie; Inspector of Prisons, David P. Forrest of Schenectady."--New York Tribune, September 14, 1864.]

[Footnote 1006: "The following is the vote for presidential elector-at-large: Horace Greeley, 215; Preston King, 191-1/2; Daniel S. Dickinson, 143; Richard M. Blatchford, 86; John A. King, 10; Lyman Tremaine, 13; J.S.T. Stranahan, 27; Thurlow Weed, 1."--Ibid., September 8.]

While the Weed men were nursing their resentment because of the honour thus suddenly thrust upon the most famous American editor,[1007] a great surprise convulsed the Democratic State convention.[1008] The report that Horatio Seymour sought release from official labours because of ill health and the demands of private business, created the belief that he would decline a renomination even if tendered by acclamation. Indeed, the Governor himself, in conversation with Dean Richmond, reiterated his oft-expressed determination not to accept. The Regency, believing him sincere, agreed upon William F. Allen of Oswego, although other candidates, notably William Kelly of Dutchess, the nominee of the Softs in 1860, and Amasa J. Parker of Albany, were mentioned. Lucius Robinson, declining to be considered for second place, urged the nomination of Dix for governor. Of these candidates Seymour was quoted as favourable to Parker. Still a feeling of unrest disturbed the hotel lobbies. "There is some talk," said the Herald, "of giving Seymour a complimentary vote, with the understanding that he will then decline, but this is opposed as a trick to place him in the field again, although those who pretend to speak for him positively declare that he will not accept the nomination upon any contingency."[1009] When told on convention morning that Seymour would accept if nominated by acclamation, Richmond ridiculed the idea. His incredulity was strengthened by the statement of two Oneida delegates, whom the Governor, only a few moments before, had instructed to withdraw his name if presented. Thus matters stood until the convention, having enthusiastically applauded an indorsement of Seymour's administration, quickly and by acclamation carried a motion for his renomination, the delegates jumping to their feet and giving cheer after cheer. Immediately a delegate, rising to a question of privilege, stated that the Governor, in the hearing of gentlemen from his own county, had positively declined to accept a nomination because his health and the state of his private affairs forbade it. As this did not satisfy the delegates, a committee, appointed to notify Seymour of his selection, reported that the Governor whose temporary illness prevented his attendance upon the convention, had had much to say about private affairs, ill health, and excessive labour, but that since the delegates insisted upon his renomination, he acquiesced in their choice.[1010]

[Footnote 1007: "The nomination of Horace Greeley for elector-at-large is a bitter pill. The Weed men make no secret that Fenton's name is the only thing that will save the ticket."--New York Herald, September 8.]

[Footnote 1008: Held at Albany on September 14.]

[Footnote 1009: New York Herald, September 14, 1864.]

[Footnote 1010: Ibid., September 16.]

Seymour's action was variously interpreted. Some pronounced it tricky; others, that he declined because he feared defeat.[1011] But there was no evidence of insincerity. He wanted the office less in 1864 than he did in 1862. It had brought labour and anxiety, and no relief from increasing solicitude was in sight if re-elected. But his friends, resenting the New York delegation's action in withholding from him its support for President, determined to be avenged by renominating him for governor. They knew that Dean Richmond, whose admiration for the Governor had not been increased by the latter's performance at Chicago, wanted a candidate of more pronounced views respecting a vigorous prosecution of the war, and that in his support of Allen he had the convention well in hand. Wisely distrusting the Regency, therefore, they worked in secret, talking of the honour and prestige of a complimentary vote, but always declaring, what Seymour himself emphasised, that the Governor would not again accept the office. Not a misstep left its print in the proceedings. Before the chairman put the motion for his renomination, a delegate from Oneida, rising to withdraw the name, was quieted by the assurance that it was only complimentary. An Albany lieutenant of Dean Richmond, obtaining the floor with the help of a stentorian voice, began to block the movement, but quickly subsided after hearing the explanation from a delegate at his side that it was only complimentary. When the motion had carried, however, and the Oneida gentleman began fulfilling the Governor's directions, came the cry, "Too late, too late. We have nominated the candidate!" So perfectly was the coup d'état arranged that the prime mover of the scheme was appointed chairman of the committee to wait upon the Governor. Afterwards people recalled, with a disposition to connect Seymour with this master-stroke in politics, that he had never declined by letter, and that the reasons given, like the illness that kept him from facing the convention, were largely imaginary. "That crowd saw how beautifully they were done," said Depew, then secretary of state at Albany, "while Dean Richmond's language was never printed."[1012]

[Footnote 1011: "Seymour tried to get the nomination at Chicago by the same tricky means he has secured it at Albany,--by declaring beforehand that he would not be a candidate. He failed at Chicago because of the overwhelming popularity of McClellan; he succeeded at Albany by his friends seizing a moment to nominate him when the convention was in a delirium of enthusiasm at his apparent self-sacrifice in persisting to decline."--New York Herald (editorial), September 17, 1864.]

[Footnote 1012: From Chauncey M. Depew's speech, March 23, 1901.--Addresses of, p. 105.

"The ticket nominated is as follows: Governor, Horatio Seymour of Oneida; Lieutenant-Governor, David R. Floyd Jones of Queens; Canal Commissioner, Jarvis Lord of Monroe; Prison Inspector, David B. McNeil of Clinton; electors-at-large, William E. Kelley of Dutchess and Washington Hunt of Niagara."--New York Herald, September 16, 1864.]

Scarcely had the convention adjourned before the brilliant achievements in the Shenandoah valley thrilled the North from Maine to California. On September 19, at the battle of Winchester, General Sheridan defeated General Early, and on the 22d, at Fisher's Hill, put him to flight. "Only darkness," Sheridan telegraphed Grant, "has saved the whole of Early's army from total destruction. I do not think there ever was an army so badly routed."[1013] These victories, recalling those of Stonewall Jackson in 1862, appealed to the popular imagination and quickly reassured the country. Besides, on September 21, the withdrawal of Fremont and Cochrane, the Cleveland candidates, united Radical and Conservative in a vigorous campaign for Lincoln. A private letter from Grant, who participated in the glory accorded Sherman and Sheridan, told the true condition of the Confederacy. "The rebels," he said, "have now in their ranks their last man. They have robbed the cradle and the grave equally to get their present force. Besides what they lose in frequent skirmishes and battles, they are now losing, from desertions and other causes, at least one regiment per day. With this drain upon them the end is not far distant, if we only be true to ourselves."[1014]

[Footnote 1013: Official Records, Vol. 43, Part 1, p. 26.]

[Footnote 1014: New York Times, September 9, 1864; Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, p. 134.]

This story, coupled with recent victories, turned the Democratic platform into a lie. Instead of being a failure, the war was now recognised as a grand success, and radical speakers, replying to the clamour for a cessation of hostilities, maintained that the abolition of slavery was the only condition that promised a permanent peace. Brilliant descriptions of Grant's work, aided by his distinguished lieutenants, were supplemented later in the campaign by the recital of "Sheridan's Ride," which produced the wildest enthusiasm. Indeed, the influence of the army's achievements, dissipating the despondency of the summer months, lifted the campaign into an atmosphere of patriotism not before experienced since the spring of 1861, and established the belief that Lincoln's re-election meant the end of secession and slavery. "There will be peace," said John Cochrane, "but it will be the peace which the musket gives to a conquered host."[1015]

[Footnote 1015: New York Tribune, October 11, 1864.]

Referring to the farewell speech of Alexander H. Stephens upon his retirement from public life in 1859, George William Curtis, with the eloquence that adorned his addresses at that period, thrilled his audience with an exciting war picture: "Listen to Mr. Stephens in the summer sunshine six years ago. 'There is not now a spot of the public territory of the United States over which the national flag floats where slavery is excluded by the law of Congress, and the highest tribunal of the land has decided that Congress has no power to make such a law. At this time there is not a ripple upon the surface. The country was never in a profounder quiet.' Do you comprehend the terrible significance of those words? He stops; he sits down. The summer sun sets over the fields of Georgia. Good-night, Mr. Stephens--a long good-night. Look out from your window--how calm it is! Upon Missionary Ridge, upon Lookout Mountain, upon the heights of Dalton, upon the spires of Atlanta, silence and solitude; the peace of the Southern policy of slavery and death. But look! Hark! Through the great five years before you a light is shining--a sound is ringing. It is the gleam of Sherman's bayonets, it is the roar of Grant's guns, it is the red daybreak and wild morning music of peace indeed, the peace of national life and liberty."[1016]

[Footnote 1016: Edward Cary, Life of G.W. Curtis, pp. 186-187.]

The sulkers now came out of their tents. Daniel S. Dickinson, no longer peddling his griefs in private ears, declared "there was no doubt of the President's triumphant election;"[1017] the tone of Bryant and the Evening Post changed; Beecher renewed hope through the Independent and preached a political sermon every Sunday evening; Weed and Raymond discontinued their starless letters to Lincoln; George Opdyke cancelled the call for a second national convention and another candidate for President; and Horace Greeley, silent as to his part in the recent conspiracy, joined the army of Union orators. Catching again the spirit of the great moral impulse and that lofty enthusiasm which had aroused the people of the North to the decisive struggle against slavery, these leaders sprang to the work of advancing the cause of liberty and human rights.

[Footnote 1017: New York Sun, June 30, 1889.]

The Democrats sought to evade Vallandigham's words of despair, written into the Chicago platform, by eulogising McClellan, but as the glory of Antietam paled in the presence of Sherman's and Sheridan's victories, they declared that success in the field did not mean peace. "Armed opposition is driven from the fields of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and parts of Louisiana," said Horatio Seymour, "and yet this portion of country, already conquered, requires more troops to hold it under military rule than are demanded for our armies to fight the embattled forces of the Confederacy. You will find that more men will be needed to keep the South in subjection to the arbitrary projects of the Administration than are required to drive the armies of rebellion from the field. The peace you are promised is no peace, but is a condition which will perpetuate and make enduring all the worst features of this war."[1018]

[Footnote 1018: Public Record of Horatio Seymour, p. 254.]

In their eagerness Democratic speakers, encouraged by the New York World, then the ablest and most influential journal of its party, turned with bitterness, first upon Lincoln's administration, and finally upon Lincoln himself. "Is Mr. Lincoln honest?" asked the World. "That he has succumbed to the opportunities and temptations of his present place is capable of the easiest proof."[1019] This was sufficient for the stump orator and less influential journal to base angry and extravagant charges of wrong-doing, which became frequent and noisy.[1020] John Van Buren called Lincoln a "twenty-second-rate man," and declared the country "irretrievably gone" if McClellan was defeated.[1021] Seymour did not charge Lincoln with personal dishonesty, but he thought his administration had rendered itself a partner in fraud and corruption. "I do not mean to say," he declared, "that the Administration is to be condemned because, under circumstances so unusual as those which have existed during this war, bad men have taken advantage of the confusion in affairs to do wrong. But I do complain that when these wrongs are done, the Government deliberately passes laws that protect the doer, and thus make wrong-doing its own act. Moreover, in an election like this, when the Government is spending such an enormous amount of money, and the liability to peculation is so great, the Administration that will say to contractors, as has been openly said in circulars, 'You have had a good contract, out of which you have made money, and we expect you to use a part of that money to assist to replace us in power,' renders itself a partner in fraud and corruption."[1022]

[Footnote 1019: New York World, September 22, 23, 1864.]

[Footnote 1020: "The Journal of Commerce of yesterday indulges in a general fling against the personal habits of the President and other members of his family."--New York Herald, October 11, 1864.]

[Footnote 1021: Ibid., November 5.]

[Footnote 1022: Public Record of Horatio Seymour, p. 257.]

After Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana swung into line on October 10 no doubt remained as to the general result. But Republican confidence in New York was greatly shaken by the disclosure of a conspiracy to use the soldier vote for fraudulent purposes. Under an amendment to the Constitution, ratified in March, 1864, soldiers in the field were allowed to vote, provided properly executed proxies were delivered to election inspectors in their home districts within sixty days next previous to the election, and to facilitate the transmission of such proxies agents for the State were appointed at Baltimore, Washington, and other points. Several of these agents, charged with forgery, were arrested by the military authorities, one of whom confessed that enough forged proxies had been forwarded from Washington "to fill a dry-goods box." Of these spurious ballots several hundred were seized, and two of the forgers committed to the penitentiary.[1023] "We are informed," said the Tribune, "that Oswego county is flooded with spurious McClellan votes of every description. There are forged votes from living as well as from dead soldiers; fictitious votes from soldiers whose genuine votes and powers of attorney are in the hands of their friends. These packages correspond with the work described in the recent Baltimore investigation."[1024] Meantime Governor Seymour, uneasy lest the liberties of his agents be limited, directed Amasa J. Parker, William F. Allen, and William Kelly to proceed to Washington and "vindicate the laws of the State" and "expose all attempts to prevent soldiers from voting, or to detain or alter the votes already cast." These commissioners, after a hurried investigation, reported that "although there may have been irregularities, they have found no evidence that any frauds have been committed by any person connected with the New York agency."[1025] Nevertheless, the sequel showed that this plot, if not discovered, would probably have changed the result in the State.

[Footnote 1023: Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, pp. 584-8; New York Herald, November 4 and 5; New York Tribune, October 27, 28, 29, November 2, 4. 5.]

[Footnote 1024: Ibid., November 5, 1864.]

[Footnote 1025: Appleton's Cyclopædia, 1864, pp. 584-588.]

During the last month of the campaign the interest of the whole country centred in New York. Next to the election of Lincoln, Republicans everywhere desired the defeat of Seymour. To them his speech at Chicago had been a malignant indictment of the Government, and his one address in the campaign, while it did not impute personal dishonesty to the President, had branded his administration as a party to fraud. Lincoln regarded the contest in New York as somewhat personal to himself, and from day to day sought information with the anxious persistency that characterised his inquiries during the canvass in 1860. Fenton fully appreciated the importance of vindicating the President, and for the admirable thoroughness of the campaign he received great credit.

After the polls had closed on November 8 it soon became known that although the President had 179 electoral votes to 21 for McClellan, New York was in grave doubt. On Wednesday approximated returns put Republicans 1,400 ahead. Finally it developed that in a total vote of 730,821, Lincoln had 6,749 more than McClellan, and Fenton 8,293 more than Seymour. Fenton's vote exceeded Lincoln's by 1,544. "We believe this the only instance," said the Tribune, "in which a Republican candidate for governor polled a heavier vote than that cast for our candidate for President at the same election."[1026] The Legislature was largely Republican, and the twenty congressmen, a gain of five, included Roscoe Conkling and John A. Griswold, an intrepid, energetic spirit--the very incarnation of keen good sense. Like Erastus Corning, whom he succeeded in Congress, Griswold was a business man, whose intelligent interest in public affairs made him mayor of Troy at the age of twenty-eight. In 1862 he carried his district as a Democrat by over 2,000 majority, but developing more political independence than friend or foe had anticipated, he refused to follow his party in war legislation, and with Moses F. Odell, a Democratic colleague from Brooklyn, boldly supported the Thirteenth Amendment. This made him a Republican.

[Footnote 1026: New York Tribune, January 18, 1869.]

To this galaxy also belonged Henry J. Raymond. He had come into possession of great fame. His graceful and vigorous work on the Times, supplemented by his incisive speeches and rare intelligence in conventions, had won many evidences of his party's esteem, but with a desire for office not less pronounced than Greeley's[1027] he coveted a seat in Congress from a district which gave a Tammany majority of 2,000 in 1862. To the surprise of his friends he won by a plurality of 386. It was the greatest victory of the year, and, in the end, led to the saddest event of his life.

[Footnote 1027: Apropos of Greeley's desire for office, Waldo M. Hutchins when in Congress in 1879 told Joseph G. Cannon, now the distinguished speaker of the House of Representatives, that in September, 1864, during a call upon Greeley, the latter exhibited a letter from Lincoln two days old, inviting him to the White House. Greeley, mindful of his efforts to substitute another candidate for Lincoln, said he would not reply and should not go, but Hutchins finally gained consent to represent him. Hutchins reached Washington very early the next morning, and the President, although clad only in undershirt and trousers, received him and began enlarging upon the importance of a re-election, suggesting that in such event Seward would enjoy being minister to England, and that Greeley would make an admirable successor to Benjamin Franklin, the first postmaster-general. Hutchins reported this to Greeley, who immediately turned the Tribune into a Lincoln organ. In the following April Greeley recalled Lincoln's statement to Hutchins, who at once left for the capital. He reached Washington the morning after the President's assassination.]

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X. A COMPLETE CHANGE OF POLICY

1865

For the moment the surrender of Lee and the collapse of the Confederacy left the Democrats without an issue. The war had not been a failure, peace had come without the intervention of a convention of the States, the South was "subjugated," the abolition of slavery accomplished, arbitrary arrests were forgotten, the professed fear of national bankruptcy had disappeared, and Seymour's prophetic gift was in eclipse. Nothing had happened which he predicted--everything had transpired which he opposed. Meanwhile, under the administration of Andrew Johnson, the country was gradually recovering from the awful shock of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

Substantially following Lincoln's policy, the President had issued, on May 29, 1865, a proclamation of amnesty pardoning such as had participated in rebellion,[1028] with restoration of all rights of property except as to slaves, on condition that each take an oath to support the Constitution and to obey the laws respecting emancipation. He also prescribed a mode for the reconstruction of States lately in rebellion. This included the appointment of provisional governors authorised to devise the proper machinery for choosing legislatures, which should determine the qualification of electors and office-holders. In this preliminary scheme Johnson limited the voters to white men. Personally he declared himself in favour of a qualified suffrage for negroes, but he thought this a matter to be determined by the States themselves.

[Footnote 1028: Except certain specified classes, the most important of which were civil or diplomatic officers of the Confederacy, military officers above the rank of colonel, governors of States, former members of Congress who had left their seats to aid the rebellion, and all who owned property to exceed $20,000 in value. But these excepted persons might make special application to the President for pardon and to them clemency would be "liberally extended."]

A policy that excluded the negro from all participation in public affairs did not commend itself to the leaders of the Radicals. It was believed that Mississippi's denial of even a limited suffrage to the negro, such as obtained in New York, indicated the feeling of the Southern people, and the Union conventions of Pennsylvania, dominated by Thaddeus Stevens, and of Massachusetts, controlled by Charles Sumner, refused to endorse the President's scheme. During the summer Horace Greeley, in several earnest and able editorials, advocated negro suffrage as a just and politic measure, but he carefully avoided any reflection upon the President, and disclaimed the purpose of making such suffrage an inexorable condition in reconstruction.[1029] Nevertheless, the Radicals of the State hesitated to leave the civil status of coloured men to their former masters.

[Footnote 1029: New York Tribune, June 14, 15, 20, 26, 28, July 8, 10, 31, August 26, September 20, October 7, 19, 1864.]

Johnson's policy especially appealed to the Democrats, and at their State convention, held at Albany on September 9 (1865), they promised the President their cordial support, commended his reconstruction policy, pledged the payment of the war debt, thanked the army and navy, and denounced the denial "of representation to States in order to compel them to adopt negro equality or negro suffrage as an element of their Constitutions."[1030] Indeed, with one stroke of the pen the convention erased all issues of the war, and with one stroke of the axe rid itself of the men whom it held responsible for defeat. It avoided Seymour for president of the convention; it nominated for secretary of state Henry W. Slocum of Onondaga, formerly a Republican office-holder, whose superb leadership as a corps commander placed him among New York's most famous soldiers; it preferred John Van Buren to Samuel J. Tilden for attorney-general; and it refused Manton Marble's platform, although the able editor of the World enjoyed the hospitality of the committee room. Further to popularise its action, it welcomed back to its fold Lucius Robinson, whom it nominated for comptroller, an office he was then holding by Republican suffrage.

[Footnote 1030: New York Herald, September 9.]

Robinson's political somersault caused no surprise. His dislike of the Lincoln administration, expressed in his letter to the Cleveland convention, influenced him to support McClellan, while the Radicals' tendency to accept negro suffrage weakened his liking for the Republican party. However, no unkind words followed his action. "Robinson is to-day," said the Tribune, "what he has always been, a genuine Democrat, a true Republican, a hearty Unionist, and an inflexibly honest and faithful guardian of the treasury. He has proved a most valuable officer, whom every would-be plunderer of the State regards with unfeigned detestation, and, if his old associates like him well enough to support his re-election, it is a proof that some of the false gods they have for years been following have fallen from their pedestals and been crumbled into dust."[1031]

[Footnote 1031: New York Tribune, September 9, 1864.

"The ticket nominated was as follows: Secretary of State, Henry W. Slocum, Onondaga; Comptroller, Lucius Robinson, Chemung; Attorney-General, John Van Buren, New York; Treasurer, Marsena R. Patrick, Ontario; State Engineer, Sylvanus H. Sweet, Oneida; Canal Commissioner, Cornelius W. Armstrong, Albany; Prison Inspector, Andrew J. McNutt, Allegany; Judges of Appeals, John W. Brown, Orange; Martin Grover, Allegany; Clerk of Appeals, Edward O. Perkins, Kings."--New York Herald, September 9, 1864.]

The Union Republican convention, held at Syracuse on September 20, followed the policy of the Democrats in the nomination of Slocum. Officers of distinguished service abounded. Daniel E. Sickles, a hero of Gettysburg; Francis G. Barlow, the intrepid general of Hancock's famous corps; Henry W. Barnum, a soldier of decided valour and energy; Charles H. Van Wyck, who left Congress to lead a regiment to the field; John H. Martindale, a West Point graduate of conspicuous service in the Peninsular campaign, and Joseph Howland, whose large means had benefited the soldiers, were especially mentioned. Of this galaxy all received recognition save Sickles and Van Wyck, Chauncey M. Depew being dropped for Barlow, Cochrane for Martindale, Bates for Barnum, and Schuyler for Howland. In other words, the officials elected in 1863, entitled by custom to a second term, yielded to the sentiment that soldiers deserved recognition in preference to civilians.[1032]

[Footnote 1032: The ticket nominated was as follows: Secretary of State, Francis G. Barlow of New York; Comptroller, Thomas Hillhouse of Ontario; Attorney-General, John H. Martindale of Monroe; Treasurer, Joseph Howland of Dutchess; State Engineer, J. Platt Goodsell of Oneida; Canal Commissioner, Robert C. Dorn of Schenectady; Inspector of Prisons, Henry W. Barnum of Onondaga; Judges of Court of Appeals, Ward Hunt of Oneida; John K. Porter of Albany; Clerk of Appeals, Henry Jones of Cattaraugus.]

The question of negro suffrage troubled the convention. The Radicals had a decided majority--"not less than fifty," Greeley said; but Weed and Raymond, now the acknowledged friends of the President, had the power. Shortly after Johnson took the oath of office, Preston King presented Weed to the new Executive and the three breakfasted together. King's relations with the President bore the stamp of intimacy. They had served together in Congress, and on March 4, 1865, that ill-fated inauguration day when Johnson's intoxication humiliated the Republic, King concealed him in the home of Francis P. Blair at Silver Springs, near Washington.[1033] After Lincoln's death King became for a time the President's constant adviser, and through his influence, it was believed, Johnson foreshadowed in one of his early speeches a purpose to pursue a more unfriendly policy towards the South than his predecessor had intended. For a time it was thought King would displace Seward in the Cabinet if for no other reason than because of the latter's part in defeating the former's re-election to the Senate in 1863. However, differences between them were finally adjusted by King's acceptance of the collectorship of the port of New York in place of Draper. This, it was understood, meant a complete reconciliation of all the factions in the State. Within sixty days thereafter, King, in a moment of mental aberration, took his life by jumping from a Jersey City ferry-boat.

[Footnote 1033: Edward L. Pierce, Life of Sumner, Vol. 4, pp. 230, 250.]

There was something peculiarly pathetic in the passing of King. In accepting the collectorship he yielded to the solicitation of friends who urged him to retain it after his health, due to worry and overwork, was seriously impaired. "He thought it incumbent upon him," says Weed, "to sign nothing he did not personally examine, becoming nervously apprehensive that his bondsmen might suffer."[1034] It was surmised, also, that the President's change of policy occasioned him extreme solicitude as well as much embarrassment, since the threatened breach between President and Radicals made him sensitive as to his future course. He was a Radical, and, deeply as he regarded the President, he hesitated to hold an office, which, by associating him with the Administration, would discredit his sincerity and deprive him of the right to aid in overthrowing an obnoxious policy. Premeditated suicide was shown by the purchase, while on his way to the ferry, of a bag of shot which sank the body quickly and beyond immediate recovery.

[Footnote 1034: Autobiography of Thurlow Weed, p. 475.]

Every delegate in the Syracuse convention knew that Weed's cordial relations with Johnson, established through Preston King, made him the undisputed dispenser of patronage. Nevertheless, the failure of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to endorse the President's policy, supplemented by Mississippi's action, made a deep impression upon radical delegates. Besides, it had already been noised abroad that Johnson could not be influenced. Senator Wade of Ohio discovered it early in July, and in August, after two attempts, Stevens gave him up as inexorable.[1035] "If something is not done," wrote the Pennsylvanian, "the President will be crowned King before Congress meets."[1036] Under these circumstances the leading Radicals desired to vote for a resolution affirming the right of all loyal people of the South to a voice in reorganising and controlling their respective State governments, and Greeley believed it would have secured a large majority on a yea and nay vote.[1037] But Raymond resisted. His friendship for Johnson exhibited at the Baltimore convention had suddenly made him an acknowledged power with the new Administration which he was soon to represent in Congress, and he did not propose allowing the Tribune's editor to force New York into the list of States that refused to endorse the President.

[Footnote 1035: Sumner's Works, Vol. 9, p. 480.]

[Footnote 1036: Edward L. Pierce, Life of Sumner, Vol. 4, p. 480.]

[Footnote 1037: New York Tribune, September 21, 1865.]

Such a course, he believed, would give the State to the Democrats, whose prompt and intrepid confidence in the President had plainly disconcerted the Republicans. Besides, Raymond disbelieved in the views of the extreme Radicals, who held that States lately in rebellion must be treated as conquered provinces and brought back into the Union as new States, subject to conditions prescribed by their conquerors. As chairman of the committee on resolutions, therefore, the editor of the Times bore down heavily on the Radical dissenters, and in the absence of a decided leader they allowed their devotion to men to overbear attachment to principles. As finally adopted the platform recognised Johnson's ability, patriotism, and integrity, declared the war debt sacred, thanked the soldiers and sailors, commended the President's policy of reconstruction, and expressed the hope that when the States lately in rebellion are restored to the exercise of their constitutional rights, "it will be done in the faith and on the basis that they will be exercised in the spirit of equal and impartial justice, and with a view to the elevation and perpetuation of the full rights of citizenship of all their people, inasmuch as these are principles which constitute the basis of our republican institutions."[1038] Greeley pronounced this language "timid and windy."[1039]

[Footnote 1038: New York Herald, September 21, 1865.]

[Footnote 1039: New York Tribune, September 21, 1865.]

In the campaign that followed the Democrats flattered the President, very cleverly insisting that the Radicals' devotion to negro suffrage made them his only real opponents. On the other hand, conservative Republicans, maintaining that the convention did not commit itself to an enfranchisement of the negro, insisted that it was a unit in its support of the President's policy, and that the Democrats, acting insincerely, sought to destroy the Union party and secure exclusive control of the Executive. "They propose," said the Times, "to repeat upon him precisely the trick which they practised with such brilliant success upon John Tyler and Millard Fillmore, both of whom were taken up by the Democracy, their policy endorsed, and their supporters denounced. Both were flattered with the promise of a Democratic nomination and both were weak enough to listen and yield to the temptation. Both were used unscrupulously to betray their principles and their friends, and when the time came both were remorselessly thrown, like squeezed oranges, into the gutter. The game they are playing upon President Johnson is precisely the same. They want the offices he has in his gift, and when his friends are scattered and overthrown they will have him at their mercy. Then, the power he gives them will be used for his destruction."[1040]

[Footnote 1040: New York Times, October 17, 1865.]

Horatio Seymour made two speeches. With charming candor he admitted that "signal victories have been won by generals who have made the history of our country glorious." But to him the great debt, the untaxed bonds, the inflation of the currency, the increased prices, and the absence of congressmen from the States lately in rebellion, seemed as full of peril as war itself. In his address at Seneca Falls his field of view, confined to war-burdens and rights withheld from "subjugated" States, did not include the vision that thrilled others, who saw the flag floating over every inch of American territory, now forever freed from slavery. "When we were free from debt," he said, "a man could support himself with six hours of daily toil. To-day he must work two hours longer to pay his share of the national debt.... This question of debt means less to give your families.... It reaches every boy and girl, every wife and mother.... It affects the character of our people." Prosperity also troubled him. "We see upon every hand its embarrassing effect. The merchant does not know whether he will be a loser or gainer. We see men who have been ruined without fault, and men who have made great fortunes without industry. Inquire of the person engaged in mechanical operations and he will say that labour has lost its former certain reward." He disapproved the national banking act because the new banks "have converted the debt of the country into currency and inflated prices;" he disputed the correctness of the Treasury debt statement because "it is the experience of all wars that long after their close new claims spring up, which render the expense at least fifty per cent. more than appeared by the figures;" and he condemned the national system of taxation because it "disables us to produce as cheaply at home as we can buy in the markets of the world."[1041]

[Footnote 1041: New York World, November 2, 1865.]

The brief campaign promised to be spiritless and without incident until John Van Buren, in his extended canvass for attorney-general, freely expressed his opinion of Horatio Seymour. Van Buren was not an admirer of that statesman. He had supported him with warmth in 1862, but after the development of the Governor's "passion for peace" he had little sympathy with and less respect for his administration. In the campaign of 1864 he practically ignored him, and the subsequent announcement of his defeat liberated Van Buren's tongue. "Seymour is a damned fool," he said. "He spoiled everything at Chicago, and has been the cause of most of the disasters of the Democratic party."[1042] At Troy he declared that "the Democracy were suffering now from the infernal blunder at Chicago last year," and that "if Seymour and Vallandigham had been kicked out of the national convention it would have been a good thing for the party."[1043]

[Footnote 1042: From letter of Chauncey M. Depew.--Albany Evening Journal, October 23, 1864.]

[Footnote 1043: New York Tribune, November 3, 1865.]

This opinion scarcely expressed the sentiment of a majority of Democrats, but those who had preferred John A. Dix as the man of destiny held Seymour and his school of statesmen responsible for the party's deplorable condition. It had emerged from the war defeated in every distinctive principle it had promulgated, and in the absence of an available issue it now sought to atone for the past and to gain the confidence of the people by nominating candidates who were either active in the field or recognised as sincerely devoted to a vigorous prosecution of the war. To aid in this new departure Van Buren threw his old-time fire into the campaign, speaking daily and to the delight of his audiences; but he soon discovered that things were looking serious, and when the Union Republican ticket was elected by majorities ranging from 28,000 to 31,000, with two-thirds of the Assembly and all the senators save one, he recognised that the glory of Lee's surrender and the collapse of the Confederacy did not strengthen the Democratic party, although one of its candidates had led an army corps, and another, with eloquence and irresistible argument, had stirred the hearts of patriotic Americans in the darkest hours of the rebellion.[1044]

[Footnote 1044: For more than a year Van Buren's health had been impaired, and in the spring of 1866 he went to Europe. But a change of climate brought no relief, and he died, on the return voyage, at the age of fifty-six. That the people deeply mourned his loss is the evidence of those, still living, to whom there was something dashing and captivating even in his errors.]

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XI. RAYMOND CHAMPIONS THE PRESIDENT

1866

When Congress convened in December, 1865, President Johnson, in a calm and carefully prepared message, advocated the admission of Southern congressmen whenever their States ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. He also recommended that negro suffrage be left to the States. On the other hand, extreme Radicals, relying upon the report of Carl Schurz, whom the President had sent South on a tour of observation, demanded suffrage and civil rights for the negro, and that congressional representation be based upon actual voters instead of population. Schurz had remained three months in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and to him "treason, under existing circumstances, does not appear odious in the South. The people are not impressed with any sense of its criminality. And there is yet among the Southern people an utter absence of national feeling.... While accepting the abolition of slavery, they think that some species of serfdom, peonage, or other form of compulsory labour is not slavery, and may be introduced without a violation of their pledge." Schurz, therefore, recommended negro suffrage as "a condition precedent to readmission."[1045]

[Footnote 1045: Senate Ex. Doc. No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Session.]

On the contrary, General Grant, who had spent a couple of weeks in the South upon the invitation of the President, reported that the mass of thinking men accepted conditions in good faith; that they regarded slavery and the right to secede as settled forever, and were anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible; that "while reconstructing they want and require protection from the government. They are in earnest in wishing to do what is required by the government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and if such a course was pointed out they would pursue it in good faith."[1046]

[Footnote 1046: McPherson, History of Reconstruction, pp. 67-68.]

The North had been too happy over the close of the war and the return of its soldiers to anticipate the next step, but when Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, the leader of the Radicals, opened the discussion in Congress on December 10 (1865), the people quickly saw the drift of things. Stevens contended that hostilities had severed the original contract between the Southern States and the Union, and that the former, in order to return to the Union, must come in as new States upon terms made by Congress and approved by the President. In like manner he argued that negroes, if denied suffrage, should be excluded from the basis of representation, thus giving the South 46 representatives instead of 83. "But why should slaves be excluded?" demanded Stevens. "This doctrine of a white man's government is as atrocious as the infamous sentiment that damned the late Chief Justice to everlasting fame, and, I fear, to everlasting fire."[1047]

[Footnote 1047: Congressional Globe, Vol. 37, Part 1, pp. 73-74.]

Stevens' speech, putting Johnson's policy squarely in issue, was answered by Henry J. Raymond, now the selected and acknowledged leader of the Administration in the House. Raymond had entered Congress with a prestige rarely if ever equalled by a new member. There had been greater orators, abler debaters, and more profound statesmen, but no one had ever preceded him with an environment more influential. He was the favourite of the President; he had been brought into more or less intimate association with all the men of his party worth knowing; he was the close friend of Weed and the recognized ally of Seward; his good will could make postmasters and collectors, and his displeasure, like that of a frigid and bloodless leader, could carry swift penalty. Indeed, there was nothing in the armory of the best equipped politician, including able speaking and forceful writing, that he did not possess, and out of New York as well as within it he had been regarded the earnest friend and faithful champion of Republican doctrines. On the surface, too, it is doubtful if a member of Congress, whether new or old, ever seemed to have a better chance of winning in a debate. Only three months before the people of the North, with great unanimity, had endorsed the President and approved his policy. Besides, the great body of Republicans in Congress preferred to work with the President. He held the patronage, he had succeeded by the assassin's work to the leadership of the party, and thus far had evinced no more dogmatism than Stevens or Sumner. Moreover, the sentiment of the North at that time was clearly against negro suffrage. All the States save six[1048] denied the vote to the negro, and in the recent elections three States had specifically declared against extending it to him.

[Footnote 1048: New York and the New England States except Connecticut, although New York required a property qualification, but none for the white.]

Thus fortified Raymond did not object to speaking for the Administration. To him Stevens' idea of subjecting the South to the discipline and tutelage of Congress was repulsive, and his ringing voice filled the spacious hall of the House with clear-cut sentences. He denied that the Southern States had ever been out of the Union. "If they were," he asked, "how and when did they become so? By what specific act, at what precise time, did any one of those States take itself out of the American Union? Was it by the ordinance of secession? An ordinance of secession is simply a nullity, because it encounters the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land. Did the resolutions of those States, the declaration of their officials, the speeches of the members of their Legislatures, or the utterances of their press, accomplish the result desired? Certainly not. All these were declarations of a purpose to secede. Their secession, if it ever took place, certainly could not date from the time when their intention to secede was first announced. They proceeded to sustain their purpose of secession by arms against the force which the United States brought to bear against them. Were their arms victorious? If they were, then their secession was an accomplished fact. If not, it was nothing more than an abortive attempt--a purpose unfulfilled. They failed to maintain their ground by force of arms. In other words, they failed to secede. But if," he concluded, "the Southern States did go out of the Union, it would make those in the South who resisted the Confederacy guilty of treason to an independent government. Do you want to make traitors out of loyal men?"[1049]

[Footnote 1049: Congressional Globe, Vol. 37, Part 1, pp. 120-123.]

Raymond received close attention. Several leaders acknowledged their interest by asking questions, and the congratulations that followed evidenced the good will of his colleagues. His speech had shown none of the usual characteristics of a maiden effort. Without advertising his intention to speak, he obtained the floor late in the afternoon, referred with spirit to the sentiments of the preceding speaker, and moved along with the air of an old member, careless of making a rhetorical impression but intensely in earnest in what he had to present. As an argument in favor of the adoption of a liberal policy toward the South, regardless of its strict legal rights, the speech commended itself to his colleagues as an admirable one, but it entirely failed to meet Stevens' logic that the States lately in rebellion could not set up any rights against the conqueror except such as were granted by the laws of war. In his reply the Pennsylvanian taunted Raymond with failing to quote a single authority in support of his contention. "I admit the gravity of the gentleman's opinion," he said, "and with the slightest corroborating authority should yield the case. But without some such aid I am not willing that the sages of the law--Grotius, Vattel, and a long line of compeers--should be overthrown and demolished by the single arm of the gentleman from New York. I pray the gentleman to quote authority; not to put too heavy a load upon his own judgment; he might sink under the weight. Give us your author."[1050]

[Footnote 1050: Congressional Globe, Vol. 37, Part 2, pp. 1307-1308.]

As the debate continued it became evident the President's friends were losing ground. Aside from the withering blows of Stevens, unseen occurrences which Raymond, in his eagerness to champion Johnson's policy, did not appreciate or willingly ignored, had a most disturbing influence. The Northern people welcomed peace and approved the generosity of the government, but they wanted the South to exhibit its appreciation by corresponding generosity to the government's friends. Its acts did not show this. Enactments in respect to freedmen, passed by the President's reconstructed legislatures, grudgingly bestowed civil rights. A different punishment for the same offence was prescribed for the negroes; apprentice, vagrant, and contract labour laws tended to a system of peonage; and the prohibition of public assemblies, the restriction of freedom of movement, and the deprivation of means of defence illustrated the inequality of their rights. Such laws, for whatever purpose passed, had a powerful effect on Northern sentiment already influenced by reported cruelties, while the Southern people's aversion to Union soldiers settling in their midst intensified the feeling. Moreover, Southern and Democratic support of the President made Republicans distrust his policy. If States can be reconstructed in a summer and congressmen admitted in a winter, it was said, the South, helped by the Democracy of the North, might again be in control of the Government within two years. These considerations were bound to affect the judgment of Republicans, and when Stevens began to talk and the real conditions in the South came to be known, it aroused party indignation to a high pitch in the House.

Raymond, in his brilliant rejoinders, endeavoured to recover lost ground. He had created no enemies. On the contrary his courtesy and tact smoothed the way and made him friends. But after weeks of discussion an effort to adopt a resolution of confidence in the President met with overwhelming defeat. Stevens asked that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Reconstruction--Raymond demanded its adoption at once. On a roll-call the vote stood 32 to 107 in favour of reference, Raymond and William A. Darling of New York City being the only Republicans to vote against it. It was a heavy blow to the leader of the Conservatives. It proved the unpopularity of Johnson's policy and indicated increasing estrangement between the President and his party. Moreover, it was personally humiliating. On a test question, with the whole power of the Administration behind him, Raymond had been able, after weeks of work, to secure the support of only one man and that a colleague bound to him by the ties of personal friendship.

The division in the party spread with the rapidity of a rising thunder cloud. On February 6 Congress passed the Freedman's Bureau Bill, designed to aid helpless negroes, which the President vetoed. A month later his treatment of the Civil Rights Bill, which set in motion the necessary machinery to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment, shattered the confidence of the party. "Surely," declared Senator Trumbull of Illinois, "we have authority to enact a law as efficient in the interest of freedom as we had in the interest of slavery."[1051] But the President promptly vetoed it, because, he said, it conferred citizenship on the negro, invaded the rights of the States, had no warrant in the Constitution, and was contrary to all precedent.

[Footnote 1051: Congressional Globe, p. 474.]

The President had developed several undesirable characteristics, being essentially obstinate and conceited, the possessor of a bad temper, and of a coarse and vulgar personality. His speech on February 22, in which he had invoked the wild passions of a mob, modified the opinions even of conservative men. "It is impossible to conceive of a more humiliating spectacle," said Sherman.[1052] "During the progress of events," wrote Weed, "the President was bereft of judgment and reason, and became the victim of passion and unreason."[1053] But up to this time the party had hoped to avoid a complete break with the Executive. Now, however, the question of passing the Civil Rights Bill over his veto presented itself. Not since the beginning of the government had Congress carried an important measure over a veto. Besides, it meant a complete and final separation between the President and his party. Edwin D. Morgan so understood it, and although he had heretofore sustained the President, he now stood with the Radicals. Raymond also knew the gravity of the situation. But Raymond, who often wavered and sometimes exhibited an astonishing fickleness,[1054] saw only one side to the question, and on April 9 when the House, by a vote of 122 to 41, overrode the veto, he was one of only seven Unionists to support the President.[1055]

[Footnote 1052: Congressional Globe, Appendix, p. 124.]

[Footnote 1053: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 1, p. 630.]

[Footnote 1054: Augustus Maverick, Life of Henry J. Raymond, p. 225.

Apropos of Raymond's fickleness Stevens remarked, when the former appealed to his friends on the floor to furnish him a pair, that he saw no reason for it, since he had observed that the gentleman from New York found no difficulty in pairing with himself.--William M. Stewart, Reminiscences, pp. 205-206.

At another time when an excited member declared that Stevens commands us to "go it blind," Hale of New York, with an innocent expression, asked the meaning of the phrase. Instantly Stevens retorted: "It means following Raymond." The hit was doubly happy since Hale had followed Raymond in his support of Johnson.--Boutwell, Reminiscences, Vol. 2, p. 11.]

[Footnote 1055: Edward McPherson, History of the Reconstruction, p. 81.]

After the passage of the Civil Rights Bill the President's friends proposed to invoke, through a National Union convention to be held at Philadelphia on August 14, the support of conservative Republicans and Democrats. Weed told Raymond of the project and Seward urged it upon him. Raymond expressed a disinclination to go to the convention because it seemed likely to fall into the hands of former Confederates and their Northern associates, and to be used for purposes hostile to the Union party, of which, he said, he was not only a member, but the chairman of its national committee. Seward did not concur in this view. He said it was not a party convention and need not affect the party standing of those who attended it. He was a Union man, he declared, and he did not admit the right of anybody to turn him out of the Union party. Moreover, he wanted Raymond to attend the convention to prevent its control by the enemies of the Union party.

Raymond, still undecided, called with Seward upon the President, who favoured neither a new party nor the restoration to power of the Democratic party, although the movement, he said, ought not to repel Democrats willing to act with it. He wanted the matter settled within the Union party, and thought the proposed convention, in which delegates from all the States could again meet in harmony, would exert a wholesome influence on local conventions and nominations to Congress.[1056] Raymond, however, was still apprehensive. He deemed the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments "reasonable, wise, and popular;" thought the President had "made a great mistake in taking grounds against them;" and declared that notwithstanding the peppery method of their passage "the people will not be stopped by trifles." The outcome of the convention also worried him. "If it should happen to lay down a platform," he continued, "which shall command the respect of the country, it would be such a miracle as we have no right to expect in these days. However," he concluded, "I shall be governed in my course toward it by developments. I do not see the necessity of denouncing it from the start, nor until more is known of its composition, purposes, and actions."[1057]

[Footnote 1056: The above statement is based upon the diary of Raymond, published by his son.]

[Footnote 1057: Letter of July 17.--Augustus Maverick, Life of Raymond, pp. 173-174.]

Raymond did not attend the preliminary State convention held at Saratoga on August 9. He left this work to Weed, who, with the help of Dean Richmond, made an excellent showing in numbers and enthusiasm. The support of the Democrats was assured because they would benefit, and the presence of Tilden, Kernan, William H. Ludlow, and Sanford E. Church created no surprise; but the interest manifested by John A. Dix, Hamilton Fish, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, Francis B. Cutting, and Richard M. Blatchford amazed the Republicans. Henry J. Raymond was made a delegate-at-large, with Samuel J. Tilden, John A. Dix, and Sanford E. Church.

At Philadelphia the convention derived a manifest advantage from having all the States, South as well as North, fully represented, making it the first real "National" convention to assemble, it was said, since 1860. Besides, it was a picturesque convention, full of striking contrasts and unique spectacles. In the hotel lobbies Weed and Richmond, walking together, seemed ubiquitous as they dominated the management and arranged the details. Raymond and Church sat side by side in the committee on resolutions, while the delegates from Massachusetts and South Carolina, for spectacular effect, entered the great wigwam arm in arm. This picture of apparent reconciliation evoked the most enthusiastic cheers, and became the boast of the Johnsonians until the wits likened the wigwam to Noah's Ark, into which there went, "two and two, of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth."

John A. Dix became temporary chairman, and the resolutions, reciting the issue between the President and the Republicans, laid great emphasis upon the right of every State, without condition, to representation in Congress as soon as the war had ended. But Raymond, presumably to please Southern delegates,[1058] pressed the argument far beyond the scope of the resolutions, maintaining that even if the condition of the Southern States rendered their admission unsafe because still disloyal in sentiment and purpose, Congress had no power to deny them rights conferred by the Constitution. This reckless claim amazed his friends as much as it aroused his enemies, and he at once became the object of most cutting reproaches. "Had he been elected as a Copperhead," said the Tribune, "no one could have complained that he acted as a Copperhead, and had Judas been one of the Pharisees instead of one of the Disciples, he would not be the worst example that Presidents and Congressmen can follow."[1059] Ten days later the Republican National committee removed him from the chairmanship, a punishment promptly followed by his removal from the committee.[1060] Raymond, in his talk with Seward, had anticipated trouble of this character, but the humiliation was now doubly deep because it separated him from friends whose staunch support had contributed to his strength. Moreover, in a few weeks he was compelled to abandon the President for reasons that had long existed. "We have tried hard," he wrote, "to hold our original faith in his personal honesty, and to attribute his disastrous action to errors of judgment and infirmities of temper. The struggle has often been difficult, and we can maintain it no longer."[1061] But the change came too late. He had followed too far. It added to the sadness, also, because his popularity was never to return to any considerable extent during the remaining three years of his brilliant life.

[Footnote 1058: New York Tribune, August 22, 1866.]

[Footnote 1059: Ibid., September 28.]

[Footnote 1060: Ibid., September 4 and 6.]

[Footnote 1061: Augustus Maverick, Life of Raymond, p. 174.]

Raymond's congressional experience, confined to a single term, added nothing to his fame. He delivered clever speeches, his wide intelligence and courteous manner won him popularity, and to some extent he probably influenced public opinion; but his brief career left no opportunity to live down his fatal alliance with Johnson. Indeed, it may well be doubted if longer service or more favourable conditions would have given him high standing as a legislator. Prominence gained in one vocation is rarely transferred to another. Legislation is a profession as much as medicine or law or journalism, the practice of which, to gain leadership, must be long and continuous, until proposed public measures and their treatment worked out in the drudgery of the committee room, become as familiar as the variety of questions submitted to lawyers and physicians. The prolonged and exacting labour as a journalist which had given Raymond his great reputation, must, in a measure, have been repeated as a legislator to give him similar leadership in Congress. At forty-five he was not too old to accomplish it. Samuel Shellabarger of Ohio, who made his greatest speech in reply to Raymond, began his congressional life at forty-nine, and Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of the House, at fifty-seven. But the mental weariness, already apparent in Raymond's face, indicated that the enthusiasm necessary for such preparation had departed. Besides, he lacked the most important qualification for a legislative leader--the rare political sagacity to know the thoughts of people and to catch the tiniest shadow of a coming event.

Seward shared Raymond's unpopularity. Soon after assuming office President Johnson outlined a severe policy toward the South, violently denouncing traitors, who, he declared, must be punished and impoverished. "The time has arrived," he said, "when the American people should be educated that treason is the highest crime and those engaged in it should suffer all its penalties."[1062] These sentiments, reiterated again and again, extorted from Benjamin F. Wade, the chief of Radicals, an entreaty that he would limit the number to be hung to a good round dozen and no more.[1063] Suddenly the President changed his tone to one of amnesty and reconciliation, and in answering the question, "who has influenced him?" Sumner declared that "Seward is the marplot. He openly confesses that he counselled the present fatal policy."[1064] Blaine also expressed the belief that the Secretary of State changed the President's policy,[1065] a suggestion that Seward himself corroborated in an after-dinner speech at New York in September, 1866. "When Mr. Johnson came into the Presidency," said the Secretary, "he did nothing until I got well, and then he sent for me and we fixed things."[1066]

[Footnote 1062: McPherson's Reconstruction, p. 45.]

[Footnote 1063: Blaine's Twenty Tears of Congress, Vol. 2, p. 14.]

[Footnote 1064: Edward L. Pierce, Life of Sumner, Vol. 4, p. 376; Sumner's Works, Vol. 11, p. 19.]

[Footnote 1065: James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 2, p. 63.]

[Footnote 1066: New York Tribune, September 4, 1866.]

But Seward did more to exasperate Republicans than change a harsh policy to one of reconciliation. He believed in the soundness of the President's constitutional views and the correctness of his vetoes, deeming the course of Congress unwise.[1067] It is difficult, therefore, to credit Blaine's unsupported statement that Seward "worked most earnestly to bring about an accommodation between the Administration and Congress."[1068] The split grew out of the President's veto messages which Seward approved and probably wrote.

[Footnote 1067: Thornton K. Lothrop, Life of Seward, p. 424.]

[Footnote 1068: James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 2, p. 115.]

Until the spring of 1866 Seward's old friends believed he had remained in the Cabinet to dispose of diplomatic questions which the war left unsettled, but after his speech at Auburn on May 22 the men who once regarded him as a champion of liberty and equality dropped him from their list of saints. He argued that the country wanted reconciliation instead of reconstruction, and denied that the President was unfaithful to the party and its cardinal principles of public policy, since his disagreements with Congress on the Freedman's Bureau and Civil Rights Bills "have no real bearing upon the question of reconciliation." Nor was there any "soundness in our political system, if the personal or civil rights of white or black, free born or emancipated, are not more secure under the administration of a State government than they could be under the administration of the National government."[1069] This sentiment brought severe criticism. "Mr. Seward once earned honour by remembering the negro at a time when others forgot him," said the Independent; "he now earns dishonour by forgetting the negro when the nation demands that the negro should be remembered."[1070]

[Footnote 1069: This speech does not appear in his Works, but was published at the time of its delivery in pamphlet form.]

[Footnote 1070: New York Independent, May 31, 1866.]

Seward's participation in the President's tour of the country contributed to destroy his popularity. This Quixotic junketing journey quickly passed into history as the "swinging-around-the-circle" trip, which Lowell described as an "advertising tour of a policy in want of a party."[1071] Seward had many misgivings. The memory of the President's condition on inauguration day and of his unfortunate speech on February 22 did not augur well for its success. "But it is a duty to the President and to the country," he wrote, "and I shall go on with right good heart."[1072] In the East the party got on very well, but at Cleveland and other Western cities the President acted like a man both mad and drunk, while people railed at him as if he were the clown of a circus. "He sunk the Presidential office to the level of a grog-house," wrote John Sherman.[1073]

[Footnote 1071: James Russell Lowell, Political Essays, p. 296.]

[Footnote 1072: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 3, p. 339.]

[Footnote 1073: Sherman's Letters, p. 278.]

Seward's position throughout was pathetic. His apologies and commonplace appeals for his Chief contrasted strangely with the courageous, powerful, and steady fight against the domination of slavery which characterised his former visits to Cleveland, and the men who had accepted him as their ardent champion deprecated both his acts and his words. It called to mind Fillmore's desertion of his anti-slavery professions, and Van Buren's revengeful action in 1848. "Distrusted by his old friends," said the Nation, "he will never be taken to the bosom of his old enemies. His trouble is not that the party to which he once belonged is without a leader, but that he wanders about like a ghost--a leader without a party."[1074]

[Footnote 1074: New York Nation, Vol. 3, p. 234.]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XII. HOFFMAN DEFEATED, CONKLING PROMOTED

1866

The knowledge that Republicans, to overcome the President's vetoes, must have a two-thirds majority in Congress, precipitated a State campaign of unusual energy. The contest which began on April 9, when Johnson disapproved the Civil Rights Bill, was intensified by the Philadelphia convention and the President's "swing-around-the-circle;" but the events that made men bitter and deeply in earnest were the Memphis and New Orleans riots, in which one hundred and eighty negroes were killed and only eleven of their assailants injured. To the North this became an object-lesson, illustrating the insincerity of the South's desire, expressed at Philadelphia, for reconciliation and peace.

The Republican State convention, meeting at Syracuse on September 5, echoed this sentiment. In the centre of the stage the Stars and Stripes, gracefully festooned, formed a halo over the portrait of Abraham Lincoln, while a Nast caricature of President Johnson betrayed the contempt of the enthusiastic gathering. Weed and Raymond were conspicuous by their absence. The Radicals made Charles H. Van Wyck chairman, Lyman Tremaine president, George William Curtis chairman of the committee on resolutions, and Horace Greeley the lion of the convention. At the latter's appearance delegates leaped to their feet and gave three rounds of vociferous cheers. The day's greatest demonstration, however, occurred when the chairman, in his opening speech, stigmatised the New York friends of the President.[1075] Van Wyck prudently censored his bitterness from the press copy, but the episode reflected the intense unpopularity of Seward, Weed, and Raymond.

[Footnote 1075: New York Tribune, September 6, 1866.]

In the privacy of the club Seward's old-time champions had spoken of "the decline of his abilities," "the loss of his wits," and "that dry-rot of the mind's noble temper;" but now, in a crowded public hall, they cheered any sentiment that charged a betrayal of trust and the loss of principles. Of course Seward had not lost his principles, nor betrayed his trust. He held the opinions then that he entertained before the removal of the splints and bandages from the wounds inflicted by the bowie-knife of the would-be assassin. He had been in thorough accord with Lincoln's amnesty proclamation, issued in December, 1863, as well as with his "Louisiana plan" of reconstruction, and Johnson's proclamation and plan of reconstruction, written under Seward's influence, did not differ materially. But Seward's principles which rarely harmonised with those of the Radicals, now became more conspicuous and sharply defined because of the tactlessness and uncompromising spirit of Lincoln's successor. Besides, he was held responsible for the President's follies. To a convention filled with crutches, scarred faces, armless sleeves, and representatives of Andersonville and Libby Prisons, such an attitude seemed like a betrayal of his trust, and the resentment of the delegates, perhaps, was not unnatural.

If Seward was discredited, Reuben E. Fenton was conspicuously trusted. According to Andrew D. White, a prominent State senator of that day, the Governor was not a star of the magnitude of his Republican predecessors.[1076] Others probably held the same opinion. Fenton's party, however, renominated him by acclamation, and then showed its inconsistency by refusing a like honour to Thomas G. Alvord, the lieutenant-governor. The service of the Onondaga Chief, as his friends delighted to call him, had been as creditable if not as important as the Governor's, but the brilliant gifts of Stewart L. Woodford, a young soldier of patriotic impulses, attracted a large majority of the convention.[1077] Up to that time, Woodford, then thirty years of age, was the youngest man nominated for lieutenant-governor. He had made a conspicuous sacrifice to become a soldier. In 1861 Lincoln appointed him an assistant United States attorney, but the silenced guns of Sumter inspired him to raise a company, and he marched away at its head, leaving the civil office to another. Later he became commandant of the city that sheltered the guns first trained upon the American flag, and after his return, disciplined and saddened by scenes of courage and sacrifice, the clarion notes of the young orator easily commanded the emotions of his hearers. No one ever wearied when he spoke. His lightest word, sent thrilling to the rim of a vast audience, swayed it with the magic of control. He was not then at the fulness of his power or reputation, but delegates had heard enough to desire his presence in the important campaign of 1866, and to stimulate his activity they made him a candidate.

[Footnote 1076: "There stood Fenton, marking the lowest point in the choice of a State executive ever reached in our Commonwealth by the Republican party."--Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 131.]

[Footnote 1077: "The Republican ticket was as follows: Governor, Reuben E. Fenton, Chautauqua; Lieutenant-Governor, Stewart L. Woodford, Kings; Canal Commissioner, Stephen T. Hoyt, Steuben; Prison Inspector, John Hammond, Essex."--New York Tribune, September 7, 1866.]

The platform declared that while the constitutional authority of the Federal government cannot be impaired by the act of a State or its people, a State may, by rebellion, so far rupture its relations to the Union as to suspend its power to exercise the rights which it possessed under the Constitution; that it belonged to the legislative power of the government to determine at what time a State may safely resume the exercise of its rights; and that the doctrine that such State is itself to judge when it is in proper condition to resume its place in the Union is false, as well as the other doctrine that the President was alone sole judge of the period when such suspension shall be at an end.

If these propositions created no surprise, the refusal squarely to meet the suffrage issue created much adverse comment. One resolution expressed a hope that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment would tend to the equalisation of all political rights among citizens of the Union, but although Greeley submitted a suffrage plank, as he did in the preceding year, Curtis carefully avoided an expression favourable even to the colored troops.

"Extreme opinions usually derive a certain amount of strength from logical consistency," wrote Raymond. "Between the antecedent proposition of an argument and its practical conclusion there is ordinarily a connection which commends itself to the advocates of principle. But the radicalism which proposes to reconstruct the Union has not this recommendation. Its principles and its policy are not more alike than fire and water. What it contends for theoretically it surrenders practically."[1078] Although this was clearly a just criticism, the radicalism of Congress showed more leniency in practice than in theory. The Northern people themselves were not yet ready for negro suffrage, and had the South promptly accepted the Fourteenth Amendment and the congressional plan of reconstruction, it is doubtful if the Fifteenth Amendment would have been heard of.

[Footnote 1078: New York Times (editorial), September 7, 1866.]

Conservative Republicans, however, were too well satisfied with their work at Philadelphia to appreciate this tendency of Congress. The evidence of reconciliation had been spectacular, if not sincere, and they believed public opinion was with them. The country, it was argued, required peace; the people have made up their minds to have peace; and to insure peace the Southern States must enjoy their constitutional right to seats in Congress. "This is the one question now before the country," said the Post; "and all men of every party who desire the good of the country and can see what is immediately necessary to produce this good, will unite to send to Congress only men who will vote for the immediate admission of Southern representatives."[1079] In the opinion of such journals the situation presented a rare opportunity to the Democratic party. By becoming the vehicle to bring real peace and good will to the country, it would not only efface its questionable war record, but it could "spike the guns" of the Radicals, control Congress, sustain the President, and carry the Empire State. This was the hope of Raymond and of Weed, back of whom, it was said, stood tens of thousands of Republicans.

[Footnote 1079: New York Evening Post, August 27, 1866.]

To aid in the accomplishment of this work, great reliance had been placed upon the tour of the President. Raymond reluctantly admitted that these anticipations were far from realised,[1080] although the managers thought the tour through New York, where the President had been fairly discreet, was of value in marshalling the sentiment of Republicans. Besides, it seemed to them to show, in rural districts and towns as well as in the commercial centres, a decided preference for a policy aimed to effect the union of all the States according to the Constitution.

[Footnote 1080: New York Times, September 7.]

To encourage the coöperation of Republicans, the Democrats, led by Dean Richmond, agreed, temporarily at least, to merge their name and organisation in that of the National Union party. This arrangement was not easily accomplished. The World hesitated and the Leader ridiculed, but when the Democracy of the State approved, these journals acquiesced.[1081] In obedience to this understanding the Democratic State committee called a National Union State convention, and invited all to participate who favoured the principles enunciated by the Philadelphia convention. The obscuration of State policies and partisan prejudices made this broad and patriotic overture, devoted exclusively to a more perfect peace, sound as soft and winning as the spider's invitation to the fly. "If the action of the convention is in harmony with the spirit of the call," wrote Raymond, "it cannot fail to command a large degree of popular support."[1082] As county delegations equally divided between Republicans and Democrats arrived at Albany on September 11, it was apparent that the invitation had been accepted at its face value. Although no Republican of prominence appeared save Thurlow Weed, many Republicans of repute in their respective localities answered to the roll call. These men favoured John A. Dix for governor. To them he stood distinctly for the specific policy announced at Philadelphia. In his opening address at that convention he had sounded the keynote, declaring a speedy restoration of the Union by the admission of Southern representatives to Congress a necessary condition of safe political and party action. Besides, Dix had been a Democrat all his life, a devoted supporter of the government during the war, and it was believed his career would command the largest measure of public confidence in the present emergency.

[Footnote 1081: Letter of Thurlow Weed, New York Times, October 9, 1866.]

[Footnote 1082: New York Times, September 10, 1866.]

This had been the opinion of Dean Richmond, whose death on August 27 deprived the convention of his distinguished leadership. This was also the view of Edwards Pierrepont, then as afterward a powerful factor in whatever circle he entered. Although a staunch Democrat, Pierrepont had announced, at the historic meeting in Union Square on April 20, 1861, an unqualified devotion to the government, and had accepted, with James T. Brady and Hamilton Fish, a place on the union defence committee. Later, he served on a commission with Dix to try prisoners of state, and in 1864 advocated the election of Lincoln. There was no dough about Pierrepont. He had shown himself an embodied influence, speaking with force, and usually with success. He possessed the grit and the breadth of his ancestors, one of whom was a chief founder of Yale College, and his presence in the State convention, although he had not been at Philadelphia, encouraged the hope that it would concentrate the conservative sentiment and strength of New York, and restore Democracy to popular confidence. Stimulated by his earnestness, the up-State delegates, when the convention opened, had practically settled Dix's nomination.

There were other candidates. A few preferred Robert H. Pruyn of Albany, a Republican of practical energy and large political experience, and until lately minister to Italy, while others thought well of Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, a Democrat and State senator of recognised ability. But next to Dix the favourite was John T. Hoffman, then mayor of New York. It had been many years since the Democrats of the metropolis had had a State executive. Edwards Pierrepont said that "no man in the convention was born when the last Democratic governor was elected from New York or Brooklyn."[1083] This, of course, was hyperbole, since Pierrepont himself could remember when, at the opening of the Erie Canal, Governor DeWitt Clinton, amidst the roar of artillery and the eloquence of many orators, passed through the locks at Albany, uniting the waters of Lake Erie with those of the Hudson. Perhaps the thought of Clinton, climbing from the mayoralty to the more distinguished office of governor, added to the desire of Hoffman, for although the latter's capacity was limited in comparison with the astonishing versatility and mental activity of Clinton, he was not without marked ability.

[Footnote 1083: New York Times, September 13, 1866.]

Hoffman's life had been full of sunshine and success. He was a distinguished student at Union College, an excellent lawyer, an effective speaker, and a superb gentleman. Slenderly but strongly built, his square, firm chin and prominent features, relieved by large brown eyes, quickly attracted attention as he appeared in public. "In the winter of 1866," wrote Rhodes, "I used frequently to see him at an early morning hour walking down Broadway on his way to the City Hall. Tall and erect, under forty and in full mental and physical vigor, he presented a distinguished appearance and was looked at with interest as he passed with long elastic strides. He was regarded as one of the coming men of the nation. He had the air of a very successful man who is well satisfied with himself and confident that affairs in general are working for his advantage."[1084]

[Footnote 1084: James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 6, p. 401, note.]

Not always overstocked with eligibles whom it could admire and trust, Tammany, proud of the young man's accomplishments, elected him in 1860, at the age of thirty-two, recorder of the city, the presiding officer of what was then the principal criminal court. Here he acquitted himself, especially in the draft riot of 1863, with such credit that Republicans and Democrats united in re-electing him, and in 1865, before the expiration of his second term as recorder, Tammany made him mayor. It was a hard, close contest. Indeed, success could not have come to Tammany without the aid of Hoffman's increasing popularity. This office, however, plunged him at once into partisan politics, and gave to his career an uncertain character, as if a turn of chance would decide what path of political life he was next to follow. Now, at the age of thirty-eight, Tammany proposed making him governor.

But Hoffman represented neither the principles nor the purposes of the Philadelphia convention. The success of that movement depended largely upon the pre-eminent fitness of the men who led it. The question was, would the State be safer in the hands of a well-known Democratic statesman like Dix than in the control of Fenton and the Radicals? Dix stood for everything honest and conservative. For more than three decades his prudence had been indissolubly associated with the wise discretion of William L. Marcy and Silas Wright, while Hoffman, the exponent of unpurged Democracy, charged with promoting its welfare and success, was the one man whom conservative Republicans wished to avoid, and whom, in their forcible presentation of Dix, they were driving out of the race.

Democratic leaders saw the situation with alarm. They had endorsed the Philadelphia movement to get into power,--not to give it to Dix and the Conservatives. The President's reconstruction policy, benefiting their party in the South and thus strengthening it in national elections, had been adopted with sincerity, but they did not seriously propose to merge their organisation in the State with another, giving it the reins and the whip. "The New York delegation to Philadelphia," said the World, "was appointed by a gathering of politicians at Saratoga, who neither represented, had any authority to bind, nor made any pretence of binding the Democratic organisation of the State."[1085] Indeed, it was treated as a surprising revelation that conservative Republicans and Dix Democrats should come to Albany with such a notion. However, the Dix appeal, developing wonderful strength, could not be reasoned with, and in their desperation the Democrats sought an adjournment until the morrow. This the convention refused, granting only a recess until four o'clock. In the meantime Dix's chances strengthened. It was plain that his nomination, on lines approved by Seward, meant a split in Republican ranks, and the up-State delegates, fearing delay, stood for early action. Then came the inevitable trick. On reassembling a motion to adjourn was voted down three to one, but Sanford E. Church, the chairman, declaring it carried, put on his hat and quickly left the hall. It was an audacious proceeding. Two-thirds of the convention stood aghast, and Church, the next morning, found it necessary to make an abject apology. Nevertheless, his purpose had been accomplished. Adjournment gave Tammany the time fiercely to assail Dix, who was now charged with consigning Democrats to Fort Lafayette, suppressing Democratic legislatures, and opposing Seymour in 1864. John Morrissey, the pugilist and congressman, declared that Dix could not poll twenty thousand votes in New York City. Meanwhile Democratic leaders, closing the door against Weed and the Conservatives, quietly agreed upon Hoffman. Had Dean Richmond lived a month longer this coup d'état would probably not have occurred. In vigour of intellect, in terseness of expression, and in grasp of questions presented for consideration, Richmond was recognised as the first unofficial man in America, and he had long thought it time for the Democratic party to get into step with the progress of events.

[Footnote 1085: New York World, October 5, 1866.]

The next morning, as pre-arranged, Edwards Pierrepont took the floor, and after characterising the assembly as a Democratic convention whose programme had been settled in advance by Democrats, he formally and apparently with the assent of Dix coolly withdrew the latter's name, moving that the nomination of John T. Hoffman be made by acclamation.[1086] This was carried with shouts of wild exultation. Many Dix supporters, anticipating the outcome, had silently left the hall, but enough remained to hear, with profound astonishment, the confession of Pierrepont that he had united with Tammany for the nomination of Hoffman before the meeting of the Philadelphia convention. Why, then, it was asked, did he advocate Dix the day before? and upon whose authority did he withdraw Dix's name? After such an exposure it could not be said of Pierrepont that he was without guile. "It was the occasion of especial surprise and regret," wrote Weed, "that even before the National Union State convention had concluded its labours, Judge Pierrepont should have assumed that it was a Democratic convention, and that its programme had been settled in advance by Democrats. This was not less a surprise when I remembered that on the day previous to that announcement, Judge Pierrepont concurred fully with me in the opinion that the nomination of General Dix for governor was expedient and desirable."[1087]

[Footnote 1086: The ticket was as follows: Governor, John T. Hoffman, New York; Lieutenant-Governor, Robert H. Pruyn, Albany; Canal Commissioner, William W. Wright; Prison Inspector, Frank B. Gallagher, Erie.]

[Footnote 1087: New York Times, October 9, 1866.]

But the worst blow to a union of political interests was yet to come. To afford the people safety in their persons, security in their property, and honesty in the administration of their government, a Republican Legislature had placed the affairs of New York City largely in control of Boards and Commissions. Tammany naturally resented this invasion of home rule, and after reaffirming the principles of the Philadelphia movement, the convention declared that "recent legislation at Albany has usurped a supreme yet fitful control of the local affairs which counties and municipalities are entitled to regulate."[1088] To Conservatives nothing could have been more offensive than such a declaration. "There are thousands of Republicans," said Raymond, "who long for a restoration of the Union by the admission to their seats in Congress of loyal men from loyal States, but who will be quite likely to prefer taking their chances of securing this result from the action of the Republican party, modified as it may be by reflection and moderate counsels, rather than seek it in the way marked out for them by the Albany Democratic convention."[1089]

[Footnote 1088: New York Times, September 13, 1866.]

[Footnote 1089: Ibid., September 17.]

Thus the clash began. Conservatives resented the evident intention of the Democrats to strengthen their party at the expense of the Philadelphia movement. "We desire to call special attention," said a Buffalo paper, "to the necessity of carrying out in good faith the understanding which was entered into at the Philadelphia convention that all old party antecedents and future action should be merged in the National Union organisation. It was not contemplated then, or since, to strengthen the Democratic party by that movement, and any effort in that direction now cannot fail to be mischievous."[1090] Before the month of September expired Raymond warned the World that he was not pledged to the action of the Albany convention. "No Republican went into it for any such purpose," he said. "No hint of putting it to any such use was given in the call or in any of its preliminary proceedings. The convention was called to give effect to the principles and policy of the Philadelphia convention, and Republicans who approved those principles concurred in the call. But how did this give that convention the right to commit them in favour of measures alien from its ostensible purpose, and at war with their entire political action? It is utterly preposterous to suppose that they can coöperate with the Democratic party in the accomplishment of any such design."[1091]

[Footnote 1090: Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, September 14, 1866.]

[Footnote 1091: New York Times, September 27, 1866.]

Five days later Raymond announced his support of the Republican ticket.[1092] It was significant of his sincerity that he declined to run again for Congress. Thomas E. Stewart, a conservative Republican, was easily elected in the Sixth District, and Raymond could have had the same vote, but without "the approval of those who originally gave me their suffrage," he said, "a seat in Congress ceases to have any attraction. With the Democratic party, as it has been organised and directed since the rebellion broke out, I have nothing in common."[1093] It is impossible not to feel a high respect for the manner in which Raymond, having come to this determination, at once acted upon it. He resented no criticism; he allowed no gleam of feeling to creep into his editorials. Few men could have avoided the temptation to assume the tone of the wronged one who endures much and will not complain. Instinctively, however, Raymond felt the bad taste and unwisdom of such a style, and he joined heartily and good-naturedly in the effort to elect Reuben E. Fenton.

[Footnote 1092: Ibid., October 2, 5.]

[Footnote 1093: Ibid., September 27.]

Thurlow Weed, on the other hand, remained a Conservative. Indeed, he went a step farther in the way of irreconciliation, preferring Hoffman and Tammany, he said, to "the reckless, red-radicalism which rules the present Congress.... The men who now lead the radical crusade against the President," he continued, explanatory of his course, "attempted during the war to divide the North. That calamity was averted by the firmness and patriotism of conservative Republicans. In 1864 the same leaders, as hostile to Mr. Lincoln as they are to President Johnson, attempted to defeat his election by a flank movement at Cleveland. Mr. Greeley wrote private letters to prominent Republicans inviting their coöperation in a scheme to defeat Mr. Lincoln's election. The same leaders went to Washington last December with the deliberate intention to quarrel with the President, who up to that day and hour had followed in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor. Their denunciations have been systematic and fiendish. If, under a keen sense of injustice, he has since erred in judgment or temper, none will deny the sufficiency of the provocation. That it would have been wiser, though less manly, to forbear, I admit. But no nature, merely human, excepting, perhaps, that of Abraham Lincoln, can patiently endure wanton public indignities and contumely."[1094]

[Footnote 1094: New York Times, October 9, 1866.]

After the October elections it became apparent that the North would support Congress rather than the President. One cause of distrust was the latter's replacement of Republican office-holders with men noted for disloyalty during the war. Weed complained that the appointment of an obnoxious postmaster in Brooklyn "has cost us thousands of votes in that city."[1095] During the campaign Johnson removed twelve hundred and eighty-three postmasters, and relatively as many custom-house employés and internal revenue officers.[1096] Among the latter was Philip Dorsheimer of Buffalo. Indeed, the sweep equalled the violent action of the Council of Appointment in the days when DeWitt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, resenting opposition to Morgan Lewis, sent Peter B. Porter to the political guillotine for supporting Aaron Burr. Such wholesale removals, however, did not arrest the progress of the Republican party. After Johnson's "swing around the circle," Conservatives were reduced to a few prominent men who could not consistently retrace their steps, and to hungry office-holders who were known as "the bread and butter brigade."[1097] The Post, a loyal advocate of the President's policy, thought it a melancholy reflection "That its most damaging opponent is the President, who makes a judicious course so hateful to the people that no argument is listened to, and no appeals to reason, to the Constitution, to common sense, can gain a hearing."[1098] Henry Ward Beecher voiced a similar lament. The great divine had suffered severe criticism for casting his large influence on the side of Johnson, and he now saw success melting away because of the President's vicious course. "Mr. Johnson just now and for some time past," he wrote, "has been the greatest obstacle in the way of his own views. The mere fact that he holds them is their condemnation with a public utterly exasperated with his rudeness and violence."[1099] A few weeks later the Brooklyn minister, tired of the insincerity of the President and of his Philadelphia movement, opened the campaign with a characteristic speech in support of the Republican candidates.[1100]

[Footnote 1095: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1096: The Nation, September 6, p. 191; September 27, p. 241.]

[Footnote 1097: New York Tribune, October 1, 1866.]

[Footnote 1098: New York Evening Post, September 11, 1866.]

[Footnote 1099: Extract from private letter, September 6, 1866.]

[Footnote 1100: New York Tribune, October 16, 1866.]

In animation, frequent meetings, and depth of interest, the campaign resembled a Presidential contest. The issues were largely national. As one of the disastrous results of Johnson's reconstruction policy, Republicans pointed to the New Orleans and Memphis massacres, intensified by the charge of the Southern loyalists that "more than a thousand devoted Union citizens have been murdered in cold blood since the surrender of Lee."[1101] The horrors of Andersonville, illuminated by eye witnesses, and the delay to try Jefferson Davis, added to the exasperation. On the other hand, Democrats traced Southern conditions to opposition to the President's policy, charging Congress with a base betrayal of the Constitution in requiring the late Confederate States to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition precedent to the admission of their representatives. The great debate attracted to the rostrum the ablest and best known speakers. For the Republicans, Roscoe Conkling, sounding the accepted keynote, now for the first time made an extended tour of the State, speaking in fourteen towns and cities. On the other hand, true to the traditions of his life, John A. Dix threw his influence on the side of the President.

[Footnote 1101: Ibid., September 7.]

Hoffman, also, patiently traversed the State, discussing constitutional and legal principles with the care of an able lawyer. There was much in Hoffman himself to attract the enthusiasm of popular assemblages. Kind and sympathetic, with a firm dignity that avoided undue familiarity, he was irresistibly fascinating to men as he moved among them. He had an attractive presence, a genial manner, and a good name. He had, too, a peculiar capacity for understanding and pleasing people, being liberal and spontaneous in his expressions of sympathy, and apparently earnest in his attachment to principle. He was not an orator. He lacked dash, brilliant rhetoric, and attractive figures of speech. He rarely stirred the emotions. But he pleased people. They felt themselves in the presence of one whom they could trust as well as admire. The Democratic party wanted a new hero, and the favourite young mayor seemed cut out to supply the want.

However, Hoffman did not escape the barbed criticism of the Republican press. Raymond had spoken of his ability and purity, and of his course during the war as patriotic.[1102] Weed, also, had said that "during the rebellion he was loyal to the government and Union."[1103] To overcome these certificates of character, the Tribune declared that "Saturn is not more hopelessly bound with rings than he. Rings of councilmen, rings of aldermen, rings of railroad corporations, hold him in their charmed circles, and would, if he were elected, use his influence to plunder the treasury and the people."[1104] It also charged him with being disloyal. In 1866 and for several years later the standing of pronounced Copperheads was similar to that of Tories after the Revolution, and it seriously crippled a candidate for office to be classed among them. Moreover, it was easy to discredit a Democrat's loyalty. To most members of the Union party the name itself clothed a man with suspicion, and the slightest specification, like the outcropping of a ledge of rocks, indicated that much more was concealed than had been shown. On this theory, the Republican press, deeming it desirable, if not absolutely essential, to put Hoffman into the disloyal class, accepted the memory of men who heard him speak at Sing Sing, his native town, in 1864. As they remembered, he had declared that "Democrats only had gone to war;" that "volunteering stopped when Lincoln declared for an abolition policy;" and that he "would advise revolution and resistance to the government" if Lincoln was elected without Tennessee being represented in the electoral college.[1105] Other men told how "at one of the darkest periods of the war, Hoffman urged an immediate sale of United States securities, then under his control and held by the sinking fund of the city."[1106] In the Tribune's opinion such convenient recollections of unnamed and unknown men made him a "Copperhead."[1107]

[Footnote 1102: New York Times, September 13, 1866.]

[Footnote 1103: Ibid., September 9.]

[Footnote 1104: New York Tribune, November 1, 1866.]

[Footnote 1105: New York Tribune, Oct. 5, 1866.]

[Footnote 1106: Ibid., Oct. 10.]

[Footnote 1107: Ibid.]

Although New York indicated the same direction of the popular will that had manifested itself in Pennsylvania and other October States, the heavy and fraudulent registration in New York City encouraged the belief that Tammany would overcome the up-State vote.[1108] However, the pronounced antagonism to the President proved too serious a handicap, and the Radicals, electing Fenton by 13,000 majority,[1109] carried both branches of the Legislature, and twenty out of thirty-one congressmen. It was regarded a great victory for Fenton, who was really opposed by one of the most formidable combinations known to the politics of the State. Besides the full strength of the Democratic party, the combined liquor interest antagonised him, while the Weed forces, backed by the Johnsonised federal officials, were not less potent. Indeed, Seward publicly predicted Republican defeat by 40,000 majority.[1110]

[Footnote 1108: Gustavus Myers, History of Tammany Hall, p. 250.]

[Footnote 1109: Fenton, 366,315; Hoffman, 352,526.--Civil List, State of New York, 1887, p. 166.]

[Footnote 1110: New York Tribune, January 18, 1869.]

The result also insured the election of a Republican to the United States Senate to succeed Ira Harris on March 4, 1867. Candidates for the high honour were numerous. Before the end of November Horace Greeley, having suffered defeat for Congress in the Fourth District, served notice of his desire.[1111] George William Curtis had a like ambition. Lyman Tremaine, too, was willing. Charles J. Folger, the strong man of the State Senate, belonged in the same class, and Ransom Balcom of Binghamton, who had achieved an enviable reputation as a Supreme Court judge, also had his friends. But the three men seriously talked of were Ira Harris, Noah Davis, and Roscoe Conkling.

[Footnote 1111: Ibid., November 9, 1866.]

Harris had been something of a disappointment. He had performed the duties of judge and legislator with marked ability, but in Washington, instead of exercising an adequate influence on the floor of the Senate, he contented himself with voting, performing committee work, and attending to the personal wants of soldiers and other constituents. President Lincoln, referring to the Senator's persistency in pressing candidates for office, once said: "I never think of going to sleep now without first looking under my bed to see if Judge Harris is not there wanting something for somebody."[1112]

[Footnote 1112: Andrew D. White, Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 134.]

Davis had been on the Supreme bench since 1857, and although he had had little opportunity to develop statesmanship, his enthusiastic devotion to the Union had discovered resources of argument and a fearless independence which were destined to win him great fame in the trial of William M. Tweed. People liked his nerve, believed in his honesty, confided in his judgment, and revelled in the retorts that leaped to his lips. There was no question, either, how he would stand if called to vote upon the impeachment of the President, a proceeding already outlined and practically determined upon by the majority in Congress. This could not be said with confidence of Ira Harris. Although his radicalism had stiffened as the time for a re-election approached, he had not always been terribly in earnest. It was not his nature to jump to the support of a measure that happened to please the fancy of the moment. Yet his votes followed those of Senator Fessenden, and his voice, if not strong in debate, expressed the wisdom and judgment of a safe counsellor.

In the House of Representatives Conkling had displayed real ability. Time had vindicated his reasons for demanding a bankrupt law, and his voice, raised for economy in the public expense, had made him of special service during the war. He voted to reduce the mileage of congressmen, he opposed the creation of wide-open commissions, and he aided in uncovering frauds in the recruiting service. In the darkest hour of rebellion he approved Vallandigham's arrest and refused to join a movement to displace Lincoln for another candidate. On his return to Congress, after his defeat in 1862, he had passed to the Committee on Ways and Means, and to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Of the Radicals no one surpassed him in diligence and energy. He voted to confiscate the property of rebels, he stood with Stevens for disfranchising all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection until July 4, 1870, and he would agree to no plan that operated to disfranchise the coloured population. Indeed, to the system of constructive legislation which represented the plan of reconstruction devised by Congress, he practically devoted his time.

Of the New York delegation Conkling was admittedly the ablest speaker, although in a House which numbered among its members James A. Garfield, Thaddeus Stevens, and James G. Blaine, he was not an admitted star of the first magnitude. Blaine's serious oratorical castigation, administered after a display of offensive manners, had disarmed him except in resentment.[1113] The Times spoke of him as of "secondary rank,"[1114] and the Tribune, the great organ of the party, had declined to put upon him the seal of its approval. Besides, his vanity and arrogance, although not yet a fruitful subject of the comic literature of the day, disparaged almost as much as his brilliant rhetoric exalted him. Careful observers, however, had not failed to measure Conkling's ability. From Paris, William Cullen Bryant wrote his friends to make every effort to nominate him, and Parke Godwin extended the same quality of support.[1115] His recent campaign, too, had made men proud of him. Although disaffected Republicans sought to drive him from public life, and the Tribune had withheld its encouragement, he gained a great triumph.

[Footnote 1113: "As to the gentleman's cruel sarcasm," said Blaine, "I hope he will not be too severe. The contempt of that large-minded gentleman is so wilting, his haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut has been so crushing to myself and all the members of this House, that I know it was an act of the greatest temerity for me to venture upon a controversy with him." Referring to a comparison which had been made of Conkling to Henry Winter Davis, Blaine continued: "The gentleman took it seriously, and it has given his strut additional pomposity. The resemblance is great; it is striking. Hyperion to a Satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dunghill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to a roaring lion."--Congressional Globe, April 20, 1866, Vol. 37, Part 3, p. 2298.

"I do not think Conkling was the equal in debate with Blaine."--George F. Hoar, Autobiography, Vol. 2, p. 55. "Conkling was the more dignified and commanding, but Blaine more aggravating and personal. When Blaine likened Conkling to a strutting turkey-gobbler, the House slightly hissed. But on the whole that debate was regarded as a draw."--William M. Stewart, Reminiscences, p. 206.]

[Footnote 1114: New York Times, January 3, 1867.]

[Footnote 1115: A.R. Conkling, Life of Conkling, pp. 286-7.]

But men talked geography. Seward and Preston King had represented western New York, and since Morgan had succeeded King, a western man, it was argued, should succeed Harris. This strengthened Noah Davis. Never in the history of the State, declared his friends, had a United States senator been taken from territory west of Cayuga Bridge, a section having over one million people, and giving in the recent election 27,000 Republican majority. On this and the strength of their candidate the western counties relied, with the further hope of inheriting Harris' strength whenever it left him. On the other hand, Harris sought support as the second choice of the Davis men. Greeley never really got into the race. Organisation would probably not have availed him, but after serving notice upon his friends that their ardent and button-holing support would not be sanctioned by him, the impression obtained that Greeley was as ridiculous as his letter.[1116] When Lyman Tremaine withdrew from the contest he threw his influence to Conkling. This jolted Harris. Then Andrew D. White changed from Curtis to the Oneidan. Curtis understood the situation too well to become active. "The only chance," he wrote, "is a bitter deadlock between the three, or two, chiefs. The friends of Davis proposed to me to make a combination against Conkling, the terms being the election of whichever was stronger now,--Davis or me,--and the pledges of the successful man to support the other two years hence. I declined absolutely."[1117] As Harris weakened, Reuben E. Fenton, hopeful of becoming Edwin D. Morgan's successor in 1869, restrained any rush to Davis.

[Footnote 1116: New York Tribune, November 9, 1866.]

[Footnote 1117: Edward Cary, Life of Curtis, p. 193.]

The potential influence of Ellis H. Roberts, editor of the Utica Herald, a paper of large circulation in northern and central New York, proved of great assistance to Conkling. Roberts was of Welsh origin, a scholar in politics, strong with the pen, and conspicuously prominent in the discussion of economic issues. When in Congress (1871-75) he served upon the Ways and Means Committee. In 1867 his friends sent him to the Assembly especially to promote the election of Utica's favourite son, and in his sincere, earnest efforts he very nearly consolidated the Republican press of the State in Conkling's behalf. During the week's fierce contest at Albany he marshalled his forces with rare skill, not forgetting that vigilance brings victory.[1118]

[Footnote 1118: Conkling and Roberts quarrelled in the early seventies--the former, perhaps, unwilling to have two great men in Oneida County--and Roberts was defeated for Congress in 1874. After that the Utica Herald became Conkling's bitterest enemy. See interviews, New York Herald, November 9, 1877, and New York Tribune, November 10, 1877.]

Thus the strife, without bitterness because free from factional strife, remained for several days at white-heat. "On reaching here Tuesday night," Conkling wrote his wife, "the crowd took and held possession of me till about three o'clock the next morning. Hundreds came and went, and until Thursday night this continued from early morning to early morning again. The contest is a very curious and complex one. Great sums of money are among the influences here. I have resolutely put down my foot that no friend of mine, even without my knowledge, shall pay a cent, upon any pretext nor in any strait, come what will. If chosen, it will be by the men of character, and if beaten this will be my consolation. The gamblers say that I can have $200,000 here from New York in a moment if I choose, and that the members are fools to elect me without it."[1119] As evidence of the want of faith in legislative virtue, the Times gave the answer of a veteran lobbyist, who was asked respecting the chances of Freeman Clarke. "Who's Clark?" he inquired. "Formerly the comptroller of the currency," was the reply. "Oh, yes," said the lobbyist; "and if he controlled the currency now, he would have a sure thing of it."[1120]

[Footnote 1119: A.R. Conkling, Life of Roscoe Conkling, pp. 286-287.]

[Footnote 1120: New York Times, January 4, 1867.]

Conkling's winning card was his forensic ability. In the United State Senate, since the days of Seward, New York had been weak in debating power, and the party's desire to be represented by one who could place the Empire State in the front rank of influence appealed strongly to many of the legislators. Andrew D. White, therefore, raised a whirlwind of applause at the caucus when he declared, in seconding Conkling's nomination, that what the Empire State wanted was not judicial talent "but a voice."[1121]

[Footnote 1121: New York Times, January 10.]

Nevertheless, so evenly did the members divide that it took five ballots to make a nomination. Conkling led on the first ballot and Davis on the second. On the third, Conkling stood one ahead, and three on the fourth, with Harris clinging to six votes. The disposition of these six would make a senator, and by gaining them Conkling became the nominee on the fifth ballot.[1122] Had they gone to Noah Davis, Fenton's way to the Senate in 1869 must have been blocked. But the Governor was watchful. At the critical moment on the last ballot, one vote which had been twice thrown for Davis went back to Folger. The Chautauquan did not propose to take any chances.

[Footnote 1122: The vote by ballots stood as follows:

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Conkling 33 39 45 53 59 Davis 30 41 44 50 49 Harris 32 24 18 6 -- Balcom 7 4 2 -- -- Greeley 6 -- -- -- -- Folger 1 1 -- -- 1

The Democratic caucus, held the same evening, nominated Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, who received 25 votes to 21 for A. Oakey Hall of New York.]

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