A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 16

[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 employes 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 b.u.t.ter 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 Const.i.tution, 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 ma.s.sacres, 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 Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional and legal principles with the care of an able lawyer.

There was much in Hoffman himself to attract the enthusiasm of popular a.s.semblages. 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 p.r.o.nounced Copperheads was similar to that of Tories after the Revolution, and it seriously crippled a candidate for office to be cla.s.sed 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 cla.s.s, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 cla.s.s, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 const.i.tuents. 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 statesmans.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sed to the Committee on Ways and Means, and to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Of the Radicals no one surpa.s.sed 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 G.o.dwin 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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. h.o.a.r, _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 b.u.t.ton-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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sembly 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.