A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 5

This gave rise to an opinion that he intended to "suppress free discussion of political subjects,"[849] and every orator warned the people that Wadsworth's election meant the arrest and imprisonment of his political opponents. "If chosen governor," said the _Herald_, "he will have his adversaries consigned to dungeons and their property seized and confiscated under the act of Congress."[850] In accepting an invitation to speak at Rome, John Van Buren, quick to see the humour of the situation as well as the vulnerable point of the Radicals, telegraphed that he would "arrive at two o'clock--if not in Fort Lafayette."[851]

[Footnote 848: _Lincoln's Works_, Vol. 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 849: Benjamin E. Curtis, _Pamphlet on Executive Power_.]

[Footnote 850: New York _Herald_, October 4, 1862.]

[Footnote 851: _Ibid._, October 24.]

To the delight of audiences John Van Buren, after two years of political inactivity, broke his silence. He had earnestly and perhaps sincerely advocated the nomination of John A. Dix, but after Seymour's selection he again joined the ranks of the Softs and took the stump.

Among other appointments he spoke with Seymour at the New York ratification meeting, and again at the Brooklyn rally on October 22.

Something remained of the old-time vigour of the professional gladiator, but compared with his Barnburner work he seemed what Byron called "an extinct volcano." He ran too heedlessly into a bitter criticism of Wadsworth, based upon an alleged conversation he could not substantiate, and into an acrimonious attack upon Lincoln's conduct of the war, predicated upon a private letter of General Scott, the possession of which he did not satisfactorily account for. The _Tribune_, referring to his campaign as "a rhetorical spree," called him a "buffoon," a "political harlequin," a "repeater of mouldy jokes,"[852] and in bitter terms denounced his "low comedy performance at Tammany," his "double-shuffle dancing at Mozart Hall," his possession of a letter "by dishonourable means for a dishonourable purpose," and his wide-sweeping statements "which gentlemen over their own signatures p.r.o.nounced lies."[853] It was not a performance to be proud of, and although Van Buren succeeded in stirring up the advertising sensations which he craved, he did not escape without wounds that left deep scars. "Prince John makes a statement," says the _Herald_, "accusing Charles King of slandering the wife of Andrew Jackson; King retorts by calling the Prince a liar; the poets of the _Post_ take up the case and broadly hint that the Prince's private history shows that he has not lived the life of a saint; the Prince replies that he has half a mind to walk into the private antecedents of Wadsworth, which, it is said, would disclose some scenes exceedingly rich; while certain other Democrats, indignant at Raymond's accusations of treason against Seymour, threaten to reveal his individual history, hinting, by the way, that it would show him to have been heretofore a follower of that fussy philosopher of the twelfth century, Abelard--not in philosophy, however, but in sentiment, romance, and some other things."[854]

[Footnote 852: New York _Tribune_, October 28, 1862.]

[Footnote 853: _Ibid._, October 30.]

[Footnote 854: New York _Herald_, October 29, 1862.]

Wherever Van Buren spoke Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson followed. His admirers, the most extreme Radicals, cheered his speeches wildly, their fun relieving the prosaic rigour of an issue that to one side seemed forced by Northern treachery, to the other to threaten the gravest peril to the country. It is difficult to exaggerate the tension. Party violence ran high and the result seemed in doubt. Finally, conservatives appealed to both candidates to retire in favour of John A. Dix,[855] and on October 20 an organisation, styling itself the Federal Union, notified the General that its central committee had nominated him for governor, and that a State Convention, called to meet at Cooper Inst.i.tute on the 28th, would ratify the nomination. To this summons, Dix, without declining a nomination, replied from Maryland that he could not leave his duties "to be drawn into any party strife."[856] This settled the question of a compromise candidate.

[Footnote 855: _Ibid._, October 15 and 17.]

[Footnote 856: Morgan Dix, _Memoirs of John A. Dix_, Vol. 2, pp.

51-52.]

Elections in the October States did not encourage the Radicals.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana voiced the sentiments of the opposition, defeating Galusha A. Grow, speaker of the House, and seriously threatening the Radical majority in Congress. This retrogression, accounted for by the absence of soldiers who could not vote,[857] suggested trouble in New York, and to offset the influence of the Seymour rally in Brooklyn a great audience at Cooper Inst.i.tute listened to a brief letter from the Secretary of State, and to a speech from Wadsworth. Seward did not encourage the soldier candidate.

The rankling recollection of Wadsworth's opposition at Chicago in 1860 stifled party pride as well as patriotism, and although the _Herald_ thought it "brilliant and sarcastic," it emphasised Wadsworth's subsequent statement that "Seward was dead against me throughout the campaign."[858]

[Footnote 857: New York _Tribune_, October 17, 1862. See other views: New York _Herald_, October 17, 18, 19.]

[Footnote 858: Henry B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 216.]

Wadsworth's canva.s.s was confined to a single speech. He had been absent from the State fifteen months, and although not continuously at the front there was something inexcusably ungenerous in the taunts of his opponents that he had served "behind fortifications." His superb conduct at Bull Run ent.i.tled him to better treatment. But his party was wholly devoted to him, and "amid a hurricane of approbation"[859]

he mingled censure of Seymour with praise of Lincoln, and the experience of a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker. It lacked poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it wanted in manner it made up in fire and directness, giving an emotional and loyal audience abundant opportunity to explode into long-continued cheering.

Thoughtful men who were not in any sense political partisans gave careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement. He brought the great struggle nearer home, and men listened as to one with a message from the field of patriotic sacrifices. The radical newspapers broke into a chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were delighted. The air rung with praises of the courage and spirit of their candidate, and if here and there the faint voice of a Conservative suggested that emanc.i.p.ation was premature and arbitrary arrests were unnecessary, a shout of offended patriotism drowned the ign.o.ble utterance.

[Footnote 859: New York _Tribune_, October 31, 1862.]

Wadsworth and his party were too much absorbed in the zeal of their cause not to run counter to the prejudices of men less earnest and less self-forgetting. In a contest of such bitterness they were certain to make enemies, whose hostilities would be subtle and enduring, and the October elections showed that the inevitable reaction was setting in. Military failure and increasing debt made the avowed policy of emanc.i.p.ation more offensive. People were getting tired of bold action without achievement in the field, and every opponent of the Administration became a threnodist. However, independent papers which strongly favoured Seymour believed in Wadsworth's success. "Seymour's antecedents are against him," said the _Herald_. "Wadsworth, radical as he is, will be preferred by the people to a Democrat who is believed to be in favour of stopping the war; because, whatever Wadsworth's ideas about the negro may be, they are only as dust in the balance compared with his hearty and earnest support of the war and the Administration."[860] This was the belief of the Radicals,[861] and upon them the news of Seymour's election by over 10,000 majority fell with a sickening thud.[862] Raymond declared it "a vote of want of confidence in the President;"[863] Wadsworth thought Seward did it;[864] Weed suggested that Wadsworth held "too extreme party views;"[865] and Greeley insisted that it was "a gang of corrupt Republican politicians, who, failing to rule the nominating convention, took revenge on its patriotic candidate by secretly supporting the Democratic nominee."[866] But the dominant reason was what George William Curtis called "the mad desperation of reaction,"[867] which showed its influence in other States as well as in New York. That Wadsworth's personality had little, if anything, to do with his overthrow was further evidenced by results in congressional districts, the Democrats carrying seventeen out of thirty-one. Even Francis Kernan carried the Oneida district against Conkling. The latter was undoubtedly embarra.s.sed by personal enemies who controlled the Welsh vote, but the real cause of his defeat was military disasters, financial embarra.s.sments, and the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation. "All our reverses, our despondence, our despairs," said Curtis, "bring us to the inevitable issue, shall not the blacks strike for their freedom?"[868]

[Footnote 860: New York _Herald_, October 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 861: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 6.]

[Footnote 862: "Seymour, 307,063; Wadsworth, 296,492."--_Ibid._, November 24.]

[Footnote 863: New York _Times_, November 7.]

[Footnote 864: Henry B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 216.]

[Footnote 865: Albany _Evening Journal_, Nov. 6.]

[Footnote 866: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 5.]

[Footnote 867: Cary, _Life of Curtis_, p. 161.]

[Footnote 868: _Ibid._, p. 161.]

CHAPTER IV

THURLOW WEED TRIMS HIS SAILS

1863

The political reaction in 1862 tied the two parties in the Legislature. In the Senate, elected in 1861, the Republicans had twelve majority, but in the a.s.sembly each party controlled sixty-four members. This deadlocked the election of a speaker, and seriously jeopardized the selection of a United States senator in place of Preston King, since a joint-convention of the two houses, under the law as it then existed, could not convene until some candidate controlled a majority in each branch.[869] It increased the embarra.s.sment that either a Republican or Democrat must betray his party to break the deadlock.

[Footnote 869: Laws of 1842. Ch. 130, t.i.tle 6, article 4, sec. 32.]

Chauncey M. Depew was the choice of the Republicans for speaker. But the caucus, upon the threat of a single Republican to bolt,[870]

selected Henry Sherwood of Steuben. After seventy-seven ballots Depew was subst.i.tuted for Sherwood. By this time Timothy C. Callicot, a Brooklyn Democrat, refused longer to vote for Gilbert Dean, the Democratic nominee. Deeply angered by such apostasy John D. Van Buren and Saxton Smith, the Democratic leaders, offered Depew eight votes.

Later in the evening Depew was visited by Callicot, who promised, if the Republicans would support him for speaker, to vote for John A. Dix for senator and thus break the senatorial deadlock. It was a trying position for Depew. The speakers.h.i.+p was regarded as even a greater honor then than it is now, and to a gifted young man of twenty-nine its power and prestige appealed with tremendous force. Van Buren's proposition would elect him; Callicot's would put him in eclipse.

Nevertheless, Depew unselfishly submitted the two proposals to his Republican a.s.sociates, who decided to lose the speakers.h.i.+p and elect a United States senator.[871]

[Footnote 870: Horace Bemis of Steuben.]

[Footnote 871: The writer is indebted to Mr. Depew for the interviews between himself, Van Buren, and Callicot.]

The Democrats, alarmed at this sudden and successful flank movement, determined to defeat by disorderly proceedings what their leaders could not prevent by strategy, and with the help of thugs who filled the floor and galleries of the a.s.sembly Chamber, they instigated a riot scarcely equalled in the legislative history of modern times.

Boisterous threats, display of pistols, savage abuse of Callicot, and refusals to allow the balloting to proceed continued for six days, subsiding at last after the Governor, called upon to protect a law-making body, promised to use force. Finally, on January 26, nineteen days after the session opened, Callicot, on the ninety-third ballot, received two majority. This opened the way for the election of a Republican United States senator.

Horace Greeley had hoped, in the event of Wadsworth's success, to ride into the Senate upon "an abolition whirlwind."[872] He now wished to elect Preston King or Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson. King had made a creditable record in the Senate. Although taking little part in debate, his judgment upon questions of governmental policy, indicating an accurate knowledge of men and remarkable familiarity with details, commended him as a safe adviser, especially in political emergencies. But Weed, abandoning his old St. Lawrence friend, joined Seward in the support of Edwin D. Morgan.

[Footnote 872: Albany _Evening Journal_, December 10, 1862.]

Morgan had a decided taste for political life. When a grocer, living in Connecticut, he had served in the city council of Hartford, and soon after gaining a residence in New York, he entered its Board of Aldermen. Then he became State senator, commissioner of immigration, chairman of the National Republican Committee, and finally governor.

Besides wielding an influence acquired in two gubernatorial terms, he combined the qualities of a shrewd politician with those of a merchant prince willing to spend money.

The stoutest opposition to Morgan came from extreme Radicals who distrusted him, and in trying to compa.s.s his defeat half a dozen candidates played prominent parts. Charles B. Sedgwick of Syracuse, an all-around lawyer of rare ability, whose prominence as a persuasive speaker began in the Free-Soil campaign of 1848, and who had served with distinction for four years in Congress, proved acceptable to a few Radicals and several Conservatives.[873] Henry J. Raymond, also pressed by the opponents of Morgan, attracted a substantial following, while David Dudley Field, Ward Hunt, and Henry R. Selden controlled two or three votes each. Nevertheless, a successful combination could not be established, and on the second formal ballot Morgan received a large majority. The remark of a.s.semblyman Truman, on a motion to make the nomination unanimous, evidenced the bitterness of the contest. "I believe we are rewarding a man," he said, "who placed the knife at the throat of the Union ticket last fall and slaughtered it."[874]

[Footnote 873: Sedgwick, a.s.sailed by damaging charges growing out of his chairmans.h.i.+p of the Naval Committee, failed to be renominated for Congress in 1864 after a most bitter contest in which 130 ballots were taken.]

[Footnote 874: New York _Journal of Commerce_, February 3, 1863.