[Footnote 500: Lincoln-Douglas Debates, p. 48.]

[Footnote 501: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 352.]

The effect was instantaneous. Democratic press and orators became hysterical, denouncing him as "vile," "wicked," "malicious," and "vicious." The Herald called him an "arch-agitator," more dangerous than Beecher, Garrison, or Theodore Parker. It was denied that any conflict existed except such as he was trying to foment. Even the New York Times, his own organ, thought the idea of abolishing slavery in the slave States rather fanciful, while the Springfield Republican pronounced his declaration impolitic and likely to do him and his party harm. On the other hand, the radical anti-slavery papers thought it bold and commendable. "With the instinct of a statesman," the Tribune said, "Seward discards all minor, temporary, and delusive issues, and treats only of what is final and essential. Clear, calm, sagacious, profound, and impregnable, showing a masterly comprehension of the present aspect and future prospects of the great question which now engrosses our politics, this speech will be pondered by every thoughtful man in the land and confirm the eminence so long maintained by its author."[502] James Watson Webb, in the Courier and Enquirer, declared that it made Seward and Republicanism one and inseparable, and settled the question in New York as to who should be the standard-bearer in 1860.

[Footnote 502: New York Daily Tribune, October 27, 1858.

"Few speeches from the stump have attracted so great attention or exerted so great an influence. The eminence of the man combined with the startling character of the doctrine to make it engross the public mind. Republicans looked upon the doctrine announced as the well-weighed conclusion of a profound thinker and of a man of wide experience, who united the political philosopher with the practical politician. It is not probable that Lincoln's 'house divided against itself' speech had any influence in bringing Seward to this position. He would at this time have scorned the notion of borrowing ideas from Lincoln; and had he studied the progress of the Illinois canvass, he must have seen that the declaration did not meet with general favour. In February of this year there had been bodied forth in Seward the politician. Now, a far-seeing statesman spoke. One was compared to Webster's 7th-of-March speech,—the other was commended by the Abolitionists."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, pp. 344-5.]

The result of the election was favourable to the Republicans, Morgan's majority over Parker being 17,440.[503] Ninety-nine members of the Legislature and twenty-nine congressmen were either Republicans or anti-Lecompton men. But, compared with the victory of 1856, it was a disappointment. John A. King had received a majority of 65,000 over Parker. The Tribune was quick to charge some of this loss to Seward. "The clamour against Sewardism lost us many votes," it declared the morning after the election. Two or three days later, as the reduced majority became more apparent, it explained that "A knavish clamour was raised on the eve of election by a Swiss press against Governor Seward's late speech at Rochester as revolutionary and disunionist. Our loss from this source is considerable." The returns, however, showed plainly that one-half of the Americans, following the precedent set in 1857, had voted for Parker, while the other half, irritated by the failure of the union movement at Syracuse, had supported Burrows. Had the coalition succeeded, Morgan's majority must have been larger than King's. But, small as it was, there was abundant cause for Republican rejoicing, since it kept the Empire State in line with the Republican States of New England, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin, which were now joined for the first time by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Indeed, of the free States, only California and Oregon had indorsed Buchanan's administration.

[Footnote 503: Edwin D. Morgan, 247,953; Amasa J. Parker, 230,513; Lorenzo Burrows, 60,880; Gerrit Smith, 5470.—Civil List, State of New York (1887), p. 166.]



CHAPTER XIX

SEWARD'S BID FOR THE PRESIDENCY

1859-1860

The elections in 1858 simplified the political situation. With the exception of Pennsylvania, where the tariff question played a conspicuous part, all the Northern States had disapproved President Buchanan's Lecompton policy, and the people, save the old-line Whigs, the Abolitionists, and the Americans, had placed themselves under the leadership of Seward, Lincoln, and Douglas, who now clearly represented the political sentiments of the North. If any hope still lingered among the Democrats of New York, that the sectional division of their party might be healed, it must have been quickly shattered by the fierce debates over popular sovereignty and the African slave-trade which occurred in the United States Senate in February, 1859, between Jefferson Davis, representing the slave power of the South, and Stephen A. Douglas, the recognised champion of his party in the free States.

Under these circumstances, the Democratic national convention, called to meet in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23, 1860, became the centre of interest in the state convention, which met at Syracuse on the 14th of September, 1859. Each faction desired to control the national delegation. As usual, Daniel S. Dickinson was a candidate for the Presidency. He believed his friends in the South would prefer him to Douglas if he could command an unbroken New York delegation, and, with the hope of having the delegates selected by districts as the surer road to success, he flirted with Fernando Wood until the latter's perfidy turned his ear to the siren song of the Softs, who promised him a solid delegation whenever it could secure his nomination. Dickinson listened with distrust. He was the last of the old leaders of the Hards. Seymour and Marcy had left them; but "Scripture Dick," as he was called, because of his many Bible quotations, stood resolutely and arrogantly at his post, defying the machinations of his opponents with merciless criticism. The Binghamton Stalwart did not belong in the first rank of statesmen. He was neither an orator nor a tactful party leader. It cannot be said of him that he was a quick-witted, incisive, and successful debater;[504] but, on critical days, when the fate of his faction hung in the balance, he was a valiant fighter, absolutely without fear, who took blows as bravely as he gave them, and was loyal to all the interests which he espoused. He now dreaded the Softs bearing gifts. But their evident frankness and his supreme need melted the estrangement that had long existed between them.

[Footnote 504: "'Scripture Dick,' whom we used to consider the sorriest of slow jokers, has really brightened up."—New York Tribune, March 17, 1859.]

In the selection of delegates to the state convention Fernando Wood and Tammany had a severe struggle. Tammany won, but Wood appeared at Syracuse with a full delegation, and for half an hour before the convention convened Wood endeavoured to do by force what he knew could not be accomplished by votes. He had brought with him a company of roughs, headed by John C. Heenan, "the Benicia Boy," and fifteen minutes before the appointed hour, in the absence of a majority of the delegates, he organised the convention, electing his own chairman and appointing his own committees. When the bulk of the Softs arrived they proceeded to elect their chairman. This was the signal for a riot, in the course of which the chairman of the regulars was knocked down and an intimidating display of pistols exhibited. Finally the regulars adjourned, leaving the hall to the Wood contestants, who completed their organisation, and, after renominating the Democratic state officers elected in 1857, adjourned without day.

Immediately, the regulars reappeared; and as the Hards from the up-state counties answered to the roll call, the Softs vociferously applauded. Then Dickinson made a characteristic speech. He did not fully decide to join the Softs until Fernando Wood had sacrificed the only chance of overthrowing them; but when he did go over, he burned the bridges behind him. The Softs were delighted with Dickinson's bearing and Dickinson's speech. It united the party throughout the State and put Tammany in easy control of New York City.

With harmony restored there was little for the convention to do except to renominate the state officers, appoint delegates to the Charleston convention who were instructed to vote as a unit, and adopt the platform. These resolutions indorsed the administration of President Buchanan; approved popular sovereignty; condemned the "irrepressible conflict" speech of Seward as a "revolutionary threat" aimed at republican institutions; and opposed the enlargement of the Erie canal to a depth of seven feet.

The Republican state convention had previously assembled on September 7 and selected a ticket, equally divided between men of Democratic and Whig antecedents, headed by Elias W. Leavenworth for secretary of state. Great confidence was felt in its election until the Americans met in convention on September 22 and indorsed five of its candidates and four Democrats. This, however, did not abate Republican activity, and, in the end, six of the nine Republican nominees were elected. The weight of the combined opposition, directed against Leavenworth, caused his defeat by less than fifteen hundred, showing that Republicans were gradually absorbing all the anti-slavery elements.

Upon what theory the American party nominated an eclectic ticket did not appear, although the belief obtained that it hoped to cloud Seward's presidential prospects by creating the impression that the Senator was unable, without assistance, to carry his own State on the eve of a great national contest. But whatever the reason, the result deeply humiliated the party, since its voting strength, reduced to less than 21,000, proved insufficient to do more than expose the weakness. This was the last appearance of the American party. It had endeavoured to extend its life and increase its influence; but after its refusal to interdict slavery in the territories it rapidly melted away. Henry Wilson, senator and Vice President, declared that he would give ten years of his life if he could blot out his membership in the Know-Nothing party, since it associated him throughout his long and attractive public career with proscriptive principles of which he was ashamed.

In the midst of the campaign the country was startled by John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. For two years Brown had lived an uneventful life in New York on land in the Adirondack region given him by Gerrit Smith. In 1851, he moved to Ohio, and from thence to Kansas, where he became known as John Brown of Osawatomie. He had been a consistent enemy of slavery, working the underground railroad and sympathising with every scheme for the rescue of slaves; but once in Kansas, he readily learned the use of a Sharpe's rifle. In revenge for the destruction of Lawrence, he deliberately massacred the pro-slavery settlers living along Pottawatomie creek. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins," was a favourite text. His activity made him a national character. The President offered $250 for his arrest and the governor of Missouri added $3000 more. In 1858, he returned East, collected money to aid an insurrection among the slaves of Virginia, and on October 17, 1859, with eighteen men, began his quixotic campaign by cutting telegraph wires, stopping trains, and seizing the national armory at Harper's Ferry. At one time he had taken sixty prisoners.

The affair was soon over, but not until the entire band was killed or captured. Brown, severely hurt, stood between two of his sons, one dead and the other mortally wounded, refusing to surrender so long as he could fight. After his capture, he said, coolly, in reply to a question: "We are Abolitionists from the North, come to release and take your slaves."

The trial, conviction, and execution of Brown and his captured companions ended the episode, but its influence was destined to be far-reaching. John Brown became idealised. His bearing as he stood between his dead and dying sons, his truth-telling answers, and the evidence of his absolute unselfishness filled many people in the North with a profound respect for the passion that had driven him on, while his bold invasion of a slave State and his reckless disregard of life and property alarmed the South into the sincere belief that his methods differed only in degree from the teachings of those who talked of an irrepressible conflict and a higher law. To aid him in regaining his lost position in the South, Stephen A. Douglas proclaimed it as his "firm and deliberate belief that the Harper Ferry crime was the natural, logical, and inevitable result of the doctrine and teachings of the Republican party."[505]

[Footnote 505: Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 553-4 (January 23, 1860).]

The sentimentalists of the North generally sympathised with Brown. Emerson spoke of him as "that new saint awaiting his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the cross."[506] In the same spirit Thoreau called him "an angel of light," and Longfellow wrote in his diary on the day of the execution: "The date of a new revolution, quite as much needed as the old one."[507] But the Republican leaders deprecated the affair, characterising it as "among the gravest of crimes," and denying that it had any relation to their party except as it influenced the minds of all men for or against slavery.

[Footnote 506: James E. Cabot, Life of Emerson, p. 597.]

[Footnote 507: Samuel Longfellow, Life of Longfellow, Vol. 2, p. 347.]

William H. Seward was in Europe at the time of the raid. Early in May, 1859, his friends had celebrated his departure from New York, escorting him to Sandy Hook, and leaving him finally amidst shouts and music, bells and whistles, and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. Such a scene is common enough nowadays, but then it was unique. His return at the close of December, after an absence of eight months, was the occasion of great rejoicing. A salute of a hundred guns was fired in City Hall Park, the mayor and common council tendered him a public reception, and after hours of speech-making and hand-shaking he proceeded slowly homeward amidst waiting crowds at every station. At Auburn the streets were decorated, and the people, regardless of creed or party, escorted him in procession to his home. Few Republicans in New York had any doubt at that moment of his nomination and election to the Presidency.

On going to Washington Seward found the United States Senate investigating the Harper's Ferry affair and the House of Representatives deadlocked over the election of a speaker. Bitterness and threats of disunion characterised the proceeding at both ends of the Capitol. "This Union," said one congressman, "great and powerful as it is, can be tumbled down by the act of any one Southern State. If Florida withdraws, the federal government would not dare attack her. If it did, the bands would dissolve as if melted by lightning."[508] Referring to the possibility of the election of a Republican President, another declared that "We will never submit to the inauguration of a Black Republican President. You may elect Seward to be President of the North; but of the South, never! Whenever a President is elected by a fanatical majority of the North, those whom I represent are ready, let the consequences be what they may, to fall back on their reserved rights, and say, 'As to this Union we have no longer any lot or part in it.'"[509]

[Footnote 508: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 441.]

[Footnote 509: Ibid., p. 442.]

In the midst of these fiery, disunion utterances, on the 21st of February, 1860, Seward introduced a bill for the admission of Kansas into the Union. After the overwhelming defeat of the Lecompton Constitution, the free-state men had controlled the territorial legislature, repealed the slave code of 1855, and, in the summer of 1859, convened a constitutional convention at Wyandotte. A few weeks later the people ratified the result of its work by a large majority. It was this Wyandotte Constitution under which Seward proposed to admit Kansas, and he fixed the consideration of his measure for the 29th of February. This would be two days after Abraham Lincoln had spoken in New York City.

Lincoln, whose fame had made rapid strides in the West since his debate with Douglas in 1858, had been anxious to visit New York. It was the home of Seward, the centre of Republican strength, and to him practically an unknown land. Through the invitation of the Young Men's Central Republican Union he was now to lecture at Cooper Institute on the 27th of February. It was arranged at first that he speak in Henry Ward Beecher's church, but the change, relieving him from too close association with the great apostle of abolition, opened a wider door for his reception. Personally he was known to very few people in the city or State. In 1848, on his way to New England to take the stump, he had called upon Thurlow Weed at Albany, and together they visited Millard Fillmore, then candidate for Vice President; but the meeting made such a slight impression upon the editor of the Evening Journal that he had entirely forgotten it. Thirty years before, in one of his journeys to Illinois, William Cullen Bryant had met him. Lincoln was then a tall, awkward lad, the captain of a militia company in the Black Hawk War, whose racy and original conversation attracted the young poet; but Bryant, too, had forgotten him, and it was long after the famous debate that he identified his prairie acquaintance as the opponent of Douglas. Lincoln, however, did not come as a stranger. His encounter with the great Illinoisan had marked him as a powerful and logical reasoner whose speeches embraced every political issue of the day and cleared up every doubtful point. Well-informed people everywhere knew of him. He was not yet a national character, but he had a national reputation.

Though Lincoln's lecture was one of a course, the admission fee did not restrain an eager audience from filling the commodious hall. "Since the day of Clay and Webster," said the Tribune, "no man has spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental culture of our city."[510] Bryant acted as chairman of the meeting, and other well-known men of the city occupied the stage. In his Life of Lincoln, Herndon suggests that the new suit of clothes which seemed so fine in his Springfield home was in such awkward contrast with the neatly fitting dress of the New Yorkers that it disconcerted him, and the brilliant audience dazzled and embarrassed him; but his hearers thought only of the pregnant matter of the discourse, so calmly and logically discussed that Horace Greeley, years afterward, pronounced it "the very best political address to which I ever listened, and I have heard some of Webster's grandest."[511]

[Footnote 510: New York Tribune, February 28, 1860.]

[Footnote 511: Century Magazine, July, 1891, p. 373. An address of Greeley written in 1868.]

Lincoln had carefully prepared for the occasion. He came East to show what manner of man he was, and while he evidenced deep moral feeling which kept his audience in a glow, he combined with it rare political sagacity, notably in omitting the "house divided against itself" declaration. He argued that the Republican party was not revolutionary, but conservative, since it maintained the doctrine of the fathers who held and acted upon the opinion that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in the territories. "Some of you," he said, addressing himself to the Southern people, "are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for Congress forbidding the territories to prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in the territories through the judiciary; some for the 'great principle' that if one man would enslave another, no third man should object, fantastically called popular sovereignty; but never a man among you is in favour of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of our fathers who formed the government under which we live. You say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you who discarded the old policy of the fathers." Of Southern threats of disunion, he said: "Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the government unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." Referring to the Harper's Ferry episode, he said: "That affair in its philosophy corresponds with the many attempts related in history at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people, until he fancies himself commissioned by heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt which ends in little else than his own execution."

Lincoln's lecture did not disappoint. He had entertained and interested the vast assemblage, which frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause as the gestures and the mirth-provoking look emphasised the racy hits that punctuated the address. "No man," said the Tribune, "ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience. He is one of Nature's orators."[512]

[Footnote 512: New York Tribune, March 1, 1860.]

Two days later, Seward addressed the United States Senate. There is no evidence that he fixed this date because of the Cooper Institute lecture. The gravity of the political situation demanded some expression from him; but the knowledge of the time of Lincoln's speech gave him ample opportunity to arrange to follow it with one of his own, if he wished to have the last word, or to institute a comparison of their respective views on the eve of the national convention. However this may be, Seward regarded his utterances on this occasion of the utmost importance. He was the special object of Southern vituperation. A "Fire-Eater" of the South publicly advertised that he would be one of one hundred "gentlemen" to give twenty-five dollars each for the heads of Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and forty other prominent Northern leaders in and out of Congress, but for the head of Seward his proposed subscription was multiplied twenty fold. It is noticeable that in this long list of "traitors" the name of Abraham Lincoln does not appear. It was Seward whom the South expected the Republican party would nominate for President, and in him it saw the narrow-minded, selfish, obstinate Abolitionist who hated them as intensely as they despised him. To dispossess the Southern mind of this feeling the Auburn statesman now endeavoured to show that if elected President he would not treat the South unfriendly.

Seward's speech bears evidence of careful preparation. It was not only read to friends for criticism, but Henry B. Stanton, in his Random Recollections, says that Seward, before the day of its delivery, assisted him in describing such a scene in the Senate as he desired laid before the public. On his return to Washington, Seward had not been received with a show of friendship by his associates from the South. It was remarked that while Republican senators greeted him warmly, "his Southern friends were afraid to be seen talking to him." On the occasion of his speech, however, he wished the record to show every senator in his place and deeply interested.

Visitors to the Senate on the 29th of February crowded every available spot in the galleries. "But it was on the floor itself," wrote Stanton to the Tribune, "that the most interesting spectacle presented itself. Every senator seemed to be in his seat. Hunter, Davis, Toombs, Mason, Slidell, Hammond, Clingman, Brown, and Benjamin paid closest attention to the speaker. Crittenden listened to every word. Douglas affected to be self-possessed; but his nervousness of mien gave token that the truths now uttered awakened memories of the Lecompton contest, when he, Seward, and Crittenden, the famous triumvirate, led the allies in their attack upon the Administration. The members of the House streamed over to the north wing of the Capitol almost in a body, leaving Reagan of Texas to discourse to empty benches, while Seward held his levee in the Senate."[513]

[Footnote 513: New York Tribune, March 1, 1860.]

Seward lacked the tones, the kindly eye, and the mirth-provoking look of Lincoln. His voice was husky, his manner didactic, and his physique unimposing, but he had the gift of expression, and the ability to formulate his opinions and marshal his facts in lucid sentences that harmonised with Northern sentiments and became at once the creed and rallying cry of his party; and, on this occasion, he held the Senate spellbound for two hours, the applause at one time becoming so long continued that the presiding officer threatened to clear the galleries. He was always calm and temperate. But it seemed now to be his desire, in language more subdued, perhaps, than he had ever used before, to allay the fears of what would happen should the Republican party succeed in electing a President; and, without the sacrifice of any principle, he endeavoured to outline the views of Republicans and the spirit that animated himself. There was nothing new in his speech. He avoided the higher law and irrepressible conflict doctrines, and omitted his former declarations that slavery "can and must be abolished, and you and I can and must do it." In like manner he failed to demand, as formerly, that the Supreme Court "recede from its spurious judgment" in the Dred Scott case. But he reviewed with the same logic that had characterised his utterances for twenty years, the relation of the Constitution to slavery; the influence of slavery upon both parties; the history of the Kansas controversy; and the manifest advantages of the Union, dwelling at length and with much originality upon the firm hold it had upon the people, and the certainty that it would survive the rudest shocks of faction. Of the Harper's Ferry affair, Seward spoke with more sympathy than Lincoln. "While generous and charitable natures will probably concede that John Brown acted on earnest, though fatally erroneous convictions," he said, "yet all good citizens will nevertheless agree that this attempt to execute an unlawful purpose in Virginia by invasion, involving servile war, was an act of sedition and treason, and criminal in just the extent that it affected the public peace and was destructive of human happiness and life."

It has been noted with increasing admiration that Lincoln and Seward, without consultation and in the presence of a great impending crisis, paralleled one another's views so closely. Each embodied the convictions and aspirations of his party. The spirit of an unsectarian patriotism that characterised Seward's speech proved highly satisfactory to the great mass of Republicans. The New York Times rejoiced that its tone indicated "a desire to allay and remove unfounded prejudice from the public mind," and pronounced "the whole tenor of it in direct contradiction to the sentiments which have been imputed to him on the strength of declarations which he has hitherto made."[514] Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican wrote Thurlow Weed that the state delegation—so "very marked" is the reaction in Seward's favour—would "be so strong for him as to be against anybody else," and that "I hear of ultra old Whigs in Boston who say they are ready to take him up on his recent speech."[515] Charles A. Dana, then managing editor of the Tribune, declared that "Seward stock is rising," and Salmon P. Chase admitted that "there seems to be at present a considerable set toward Seward." Nathaniel P. Banks, who was himself spoken of as a candidate, thought Seward's prospects greatly enhanced.

[Footnote 514: New York Times, March 2, 1860.]

[Footnote 515: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 260.]

But a growing and influential body of men in the Republican party severely criticised the speech because it lacked the moral earnestness of the "higher law" spirit. To them it seemed as if Seward had made a bid for the Presidency, and that the irrepressible conflict of 1858 was suddenly transformed into the condition of a mild and patient lover who is determined not to quarrel. "Differences of opinion, even on the subject of slavery," he said, "are with us political, not social or personal differences. There is not one disunionist or disloyalist among us all. We are altogether unconscious of any process of dissolution going on among us or around us. We have never been more patient, and never loved the representatives of other sections more than now. We bear the same testimony for the people around us here. We bear the same testimony for all the districts and States we represent."

This did not sound like the terrible "irrepressible conflict" pictured at Rochester. Wendell Phillips' famous epigram that "Seward makes a speech in Washington on the tactics of the Republican party, but phrases it to suit Wall street,"[516] voiced the sentiment of his critics. Garrison was not less severe. "The temptation which proved too powerful for Webster," he wrote, "is seducing Seward to take the same downward course."[517] Greeley did not vigorously combat this idea. "Governor Seward," he said, "has so long been stigmatised as a radical that those who now first study his inculcations carefully will be astonished to find him so eminently pacific and conservative. Future generations will be puzzled to comprehend how such sentiments as his, couched in the language of courtesy and suavity which no provocation can induce him to discard, should ever have been denounced as incendiary."[518]

[Footnote 516: New York Tribune, March 22, 1860.]

[Footnote 517: The Liberator, March 9, 1860.]

[Footnote 518: New York Tribune, March 2, 1860.]

No doubt much of this criticism was due to personal jealousy, or to the old prejudice against him as a Whig leader who had kept himself in accord with the changing tendencies of a progressive people, alternately exciting them with irrepressible conflicts and soothing them with sentences of conservative wisdom; but Bowles, in approving the speech because it had brought ultra old Whigs of Boston to Seward's support, exposed the real reason for the adverse criticism, since an address that would capture an old-line Whig, who indorsed Fillmore in 1856, could scarcely satisfy the type of Republicans who believed, with John A. Andrew, that whether the Harper's Ferry enterprise was wise or foolish, "John Brown himself is right." It is little wonder, perhaps, that these people began to doubt whether Seward had strong convictions.



CHAPTER XX

DEAN RICHMOND'S LEADERSHIP AT CHARLESTON

1860

When the Democratic national convention opened at Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23, 1860, Fernando Wood insisted upon the admission of his delegation on equal terms with Tammany. The supreme question was the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas, and the closeness of the contest between the Douglas and anti-Douglas forces made New York's thirty-five votes most important. Wood promised his support, if admitted, to the anti-Douglas faction; the Softs, led by Dean Richmond, encouraged Douglas and whispered kindly words to the supporters of James Guthrie of Kentucky. It was apparent that Wood's delegation had no standing. It had been appointed before the legal hour for the convention's assembling in the absence of a majority of the delegates, and upon no theory could its regularity be accepted; but Wood, mild and bland in manner, made a favourable impression in Charleston. No one would have pointed him out in a group of gentlemen as the redoubtable mayor of New York City, who invented surprises, and, with a retinue of roughs, precipitated trouble in conventions. His adroit speeches, too, had won him advantage, and when he pledged himself to the ultra men of the South his admission became a necessary factor to their success. This, naturally, threw the Softs into the camp of Douglas, whose support made their admission possible.[519]

[Footnote 519: "The Fernando Wood movement was utterly overthrown in the preliminary stages. Several scenes in the fight were highly entertaining. Mr. Fisher of Virginia was picked out to make the onslaught, when John Cochrane of New York, who is the brains of the Cagger-Cassidy delegation, shut him off with a point of order."—M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 20.]

The New York delegation, composed of distinguished business men and adroit politicians, was divided into two factions, each one fancying itself the more truly patriotic, public-spirited, and independent.[520] The Softs had trapped the Hards into allegiance with the promise of a solid support for Dickinson whenever the convention manifested a disposition to rally around him—and then gagged them by a rigid unit rule. This made Dickinson declamatory and bitter, while the Softs themselves, professing devotion to Douglas, exhibited an unrest which indicated that changed conditions would easily change their devotion. Altogether, it was a disappointing delegation, distrusted by the Douglas men, feared by the South, and at odds with itself; yet, it is doubtful if the Empire State ever sent an abler body of men to a national convention. Its chairman, Dean Richmond, now at the height of his power, was a man of large and comprehensive vision, and, although sometimes charged with insincerity, his rise in politics had not been more rapid than his success in business. Before his majority he had become the director of a bank, and at the age of thirty-eight he had established himself in Buffalo as a prosperous dealer and shipper. Then, he aided in consolidating seven corporations into the New York Central Railroad—securing the necessary legislation for the purpose—and in 1853 had become its vice president. Eleven years later, and two years before his death, he became its president. In 1860, Dean Richmond was in his forty-seventh year, incapable of any meanness, yet adroit, shrewd, and skilful, stating very perfectly the judgment of a clear-headed and sound business man. As chairman of the Democratic state committee, he was a somewhat rugged but an intensely interesting personality, who had won deservedly by his work a foremost place among the most influential national leaders of the party. His opinion carried great weight, and, though he spoke seldom, his mind moved rapidly by a very simple and direct path to correct conclusions.[521]

[Footnote 520: "Many of New York's delegates were eminent men of business, anxious for peace; others were adroit politicians, adept at a trade and eager to hold the party together by any means."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 474.]

[Footnote 521: "Though destitute of all literary furnishment, Richmond carried on his broad shoulders one of the clearest heads in the ranks of the Barnburners."—H.B. Stanton, Random Recollections, p. 183.]

Around Richmond were clustered August Belmont and Augustus Schell of New York City, Peter Cagger and Erastus Corning of Albany, David L. Seymour of Troy, Sanford E. Church of Albion, and a dozen others quite as well known. Perhaps none of them equalled the powerful Richardson of Illinois, who led the Douglas forces, or his brilliant lieutenant, Charles E. Stuart of Michigan, whose directions and suggestions on the floor of the convention, guided by an unerring knowledge of parliamentary law, were regarded with something of dread even by Caleb Cushing, the gifted president of the convention; but John Cochrane of New York City, who had attended Democratic state and national conventions for a quarter of a century, was quite able to represent the Empire State to its advantage on the floor or elsewhere. He was a man of a high order of ability, and an accomplished and forceful public speaker, whose sonorous voice, imposing manner, and skilful tactics made him at home in a parliamentary fight. "Cochrane is a large but not a big man," said a correspondent of the day, "full in the region of the vest, and wears his beard, which is coarse and sandy, trimmed short. His head is bald, and his countenance bold, and there are assurances in his complexion that he is a generous liver. He is a fair type of the fast man of intellect and culture, whose ambition is to figure in politics. He is in Congress and can command the ear of the House at any time. His great trouble is his Free-soil record. He took Free-soilism like a distemper and mounted the Buffalo platform. He is well over it now, however, with the exception of a single heresy—the homestead law. He is for giving homesteads to the actual settlers upon the public land."[522]

[Footnote 522: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 20.]

Douglas had a majority of the delegates in the Charleston convention. But, with the aid of California and Oregon, the South had seventeen of the thirty-three States. This gave it a majority of the committee on resolutions, and, after five anxious days of protracted and earnest debate, that committee reported a platform declaring it the duty of the federal government to protect slavery in the territories, and denying the power of a territory either to abolish slavery or to destroy the rights of property in slaves by any legislation whatever. The minority reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform of 1856, with the following preamble and resolution: "Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress over the institution of slavery within the territories; Resolved, that the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court on the questions of constitutional law."

It was quickly evident that the disagreement which had plunged the committee into trouble extended to the convention. The debate became hot and bitter. In a speech of remarkable power, William L. Yancey of Alabama upbraided the Northern delegates for truckling to the Free-soil spirit. "You acknowledged," he said, "that slavery did not exist by the law of nature or by the law of God—that it only existed by state law; that it was wrong, but that you were not to blame. That was your position, and it was wrong. If you had taken the position directly that slavery was right ... you would have triumphed. But you have gone down before the enemy so that they have put their foot upon your neck; you will go lower and lower still, unless you change front and change your tactics. When I was a schoolboy in the Northern States, abolitionists were pelted with rotten eggs. But now this band of abolitionists has spread and grown into three bands—the black Republican, the Free-soilers, and squatter sovereignty men—all representing the common sentiment that slavery is wrong."[523] Against this extreme Southern demand that Northern Democrats declare slavery right and its extension legitimate, Senator Pugh of Ohio vigorously protested. "Gentlemen of the South," he thundered, "you mistake us—you mistake us! we will not do it."[524]

[Footnote 523: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 48.]

[Footnote 524: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 50.]

The admission of the Softs and the adoption of a rule allowing individual delegates from uninstructed States to vote as they pleased had given the Douglas men an assured majority, and on the seventh day, when the substitution of the minority for the majority report by a vote of 165 to 138 threatened to culminate in the South's withdrawal, the Douglas leaders permitted a division of their report into its substantive propositions. Under this arrangement, the Cincinnati platform was reaffirmed by a vote of 237-1/2 to 65. The danger point had now been reached, and Edward Driggs of Brooklyn, scenting the brewing mischief, moved to table the balance of the report. Driggs favoured Douglas, but, in common with his delegation, he favoured a united party more, and could his motion have been carried at that moment with a show of unanimity, the subsequent secession might have been checked if not wholly avoided. The Douglas leaders, however, not yet sufficiently alarmed, thought the withdrawal of two or three Southern States might aid rather than hinder the nomination of their chief, and on this theory Driggs' motion was tabled. But, when Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi withdrew their votes, and nearly the entire South refused to express an opinion on the popular sovereignty plank, the extent of the secession suddenly flashed upon Richardson, who endeavoured to speak in the din of the wildest excitement. Richardson had withdrawn Douglas' name at the Cincinnati convention in 1856; and, thinking some way out of their present trouble might now be suggested by him, John Cochrane, in a voice as musical as it was far-reaching, urged the convention to hear one whom he believed brought another "peace offering;" but objection was made, and the roll call continued. Richardson's purpose, however, had not escaped the vigilant New Yorkers, who now retired for consultation. The question was, should they strike out the only resolution having the slightest significance in the minority report? By the time they had decided in the affirmative, and returned to the hall, the whole Douglas army was in full retreat, willing, finally, to stand solely upon the reaffirmation of the Cincinnati platform, where the Driggs motion would have landed them two hours earlier.

But the Douglas leaders were not yet satisfied. Writhing under their forced surrender, Stuart of Michigan took the floor, and by an inflammatory speech of the most offensive type started the stampede which the surrender of the Douglas platform was intended to avoid. Alabama led off, followed by Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas. Glenn of Mississippi, pale with emotion, spoke the sentiments of the seceders. "Our going," he said, "is not conceived in passion or carried out from mere caprice or disappointment. It is the firm resolve of the great body we represent. The people of Mississippi ask, what is the construction of the platform of 1856? You of the North say it means one thing; we of the South another. They ask which is right and which is wrong? The North have maintained their position, but, while doing so, they have not acknowledged the rights of the South. We say, go your way and we will go ours. But the South leaves not like Hagar, driven into the wilderness, friendless and alone, for in sixty days you will find a united South standing shoulder to shoulder."[525]

[Footnote 525: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 66.]

This declaration, spoken with piercing emphasis, was received with the most enthusiastic applause that had thus far marked the proceedings of the convention. "The South Carolinians cheered long and loud," says an eye-witness, "and the tempest of shouts made the circuit of the galleries and the floor several times before it subsided. A large number of ladies favoured the secessionists with their sweetest smiles and with an occasional clapping of hands."[526]

[Footnote 526: Ibid., p. 68.]

All this was telling hard upon the New York delegation.[527] It wanted harmony more than Douglas. Dickinson aspired to bring Southern friends to his support,[528] while Dean Richmond was believed secretly to indulge the hope that ultimately Horatio Seymour might be nominated; and, under the plausible and patriotic guise of harmonising the party, the delegation had laboured hard to secure a compromise. It was shown that Douglas need not be nominated; that with the South present he could not receive a two-thirds majority; that with another candidate the Southern States would continue in control. It was known that a majority of the delegation stood ready even to vote for a conciliatory resolution, a mild slave code plank, declaring that all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle, with their property, in the territories, and that under the Supreme Court's decisions neither rights of person nor property could be destroyed or impaired by congressional or territorial legislation. This was Richmond's last card. In playing it he took desperate chances, but he was tired of the strain of maintaining the leadership of one faction, and of avoiding a total disruption with the other.

[Footnote 527: "There was a Fourth of July feeling in Charleston that night—a jubilee. The public sentiment was overwhelmingly and enthusiastically in favour of the seceders. The Douglas men looked badly, as though they had been troubled with bad dreams. The disruption is too serious for them. They find themselves in the position of a semi-Free Soil sectional party, and the poor fellows take it hard. The ultra South sectionalists accuse them of cleaving unto heresies as bad as Sewardism."—M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 76.]

[Footnote 528: "Dickinson has ten votes in the New York delegation and no more."—New York Tribune's report from Charleston, April 24, 1860.]

To the Southern extremists, marshalled by Mason and Slidell, the platform was of secondary importance. They wanted to destroy Guthrie, a personal enemy of Slidell, as well as to defeat Douglas, and, although it was apparent that the latter could not secure a two-thirds majority, it was no less evident that the Douglas vote could nominate Guthrie. To break up this combination, therefore, the ultras saw no way open except to break up the convention on the question of a platform. This phase of the case left Richmond absolutely helpless. The secession of the cotton States might weaken Douglas, but it could in nowise aid the chances of a compromise candidate, since the latter, if nominated, must rely upon a large portion of the Douglas vote.

But Dean Richmond did not lose sight of his ultimate purpose. The secession left the convention with 253 out of 304 votes; and a motion requiring a candidate to obtain two-thirds of the original number became a test of devotion to Douglas, who hoped to get two-thirds of the remaining votes, but who could not, under any circumstances, receive two-thirds of the original number. As New York's vote was now decisive, it put the responsibility directly upon Richmond. It was his opportunity to help or to break Douglas. The claim that precedent required two-thirds of the electoral vote to nominate was rejected by Stuart as not having the sanction of logic. "Two-thirds of the vote given in this convention" was the language of the rule, he argued, and it could not mean two-thirds of all the votes originally in the convention. Cushing admitted that a rigid construction of the rule seemed to refer to the votes cast on the ballot in this convention, but "the chair is not of the opinion," he said, "that the words of the rule apply to the votes cast for the candidate, but to two-thirds of all the votes to be cast by the convention." This ruling in nowise influenced the solid delegations of Douglas' devoted followers from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota; and if Richmond had been as loyal in his support, it was reasoned, New York would have followed the Northwestern States. But Cushing's ruling afforded Richmond a technical peg upon which to hang a reason for not deliberately and decisively cutting off the Empire State from the possibilities of a presidential nomination, and, apparently without any scruples whatever, he decided that the nominee must receive the equivalent of two-thirds of the electoral college.[529] After that vote one can no more think of Richmond or the majority of his delegation as inspired with devoted loyalty to Douglas. One delegate declared that it sounded like clods falling upon the Little Giant's coffin.[530]

[Footnote 529: "The drill of the New York delegation and its united vote created a murmur of applause at its steady and commanding front."—New York Tribune, June 19, 1860.]

[Footnote 530: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 85.]

Little enthusiasm developed over the naming of candidates. Six were placed in nomination—Douglas of Illinois, Guthrie of Kentucky, Hunter of Virginia, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Lane of Oregon, and Dickinson of New York. George W. Patrick of California named Dickinson, and on the first ballot he received two votes from Pennsylvania, one from Virginia, and four from California, while New York cast its thirty-five votes for Douglas with as much eclat as if it had not just made his nomination absolutely impossible.[531] The result gave Douglas 145-1/2 to 107-1/2 for all others, with 202 necessary to a choice. On the thirty-third ballot, Douglas, amidst some enthusiasm, reached 152-1/2 votes, equivalent to a majority of the electoral college; but, as the balloting proceeded, it became manifest that this was his limit, and on the ninth day motions to adjourn to New York or Baltimore in June became frequent. The fifty-seventh ballot, the last of the session, gave Douglas 151-1/2, Guthrie 65-1/2, Dickinson 4, and all others 31. Dickinson had flickered between half a vote and sixteen, with an average of five. Never perhaps in the history of political conventions did an ambitious candidate keep so far from the goal of success.

[Footnote 531: "After the vote of New York had decided that it was impossible to nominate Douglas, it proceeded, the roll of States being called, to vote for him as demurely as if it meant it."—M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 84.]

It was now apparent that the convention could not longer survive. The listless delegates, the absence of enthusiasm, and the uncrowded galleries, showed that all hope of a nomination was abandoned, especially since the friends of Douglas, who could prevent the selection of another, declared that the Illinoisan would not withdraw under any contingency. It is dreary reading, the record of the last three days. If any further evidence were needed to show the utter collapse of the dwindling, discouraged convention, the dejected, despairing appearance of Richardson, until now supported by a bright heroism and cheery good humour, would have furnished it. Accordingly, on the tenth day of the session, it was agreed to reassemble at Baltimore on Monday, June 18. Meantime the seceders had formed themselves into a convention, adopted the platform recently reported by the majority, and adjourned to meet at Richmond on the same day.

Bitter thoughts filled the home-going delegates. Douglas' Northwestern friends talked rancorously of the South; while, in their bitterness, Yancey and his followers exulted in the defeat of the Illinois Senator. "Men will be cutting one another's throats in a little while," said Alexander H. Stephens. "In less than twelve months we shall be in war, and that the bloodiest in history. Men seem to be utterly blinded to the future."[532]

[Footnote 532: James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 453.]

"Do you not think matters may be adjusted at Baltimore?" asked R.M. Johnston. "Not the slightest chance of it," was the reply. "The party is split forever. Douglas will not retire from the stand he has taken. The only hope was at Charleston. If the party would be satisfied with the Cincinnati platform and would cordially nominate Douglas, we should carry the election; but I repeat to you that is impossible."[533]

[Footnote 533: Ibid., p. 455.]

Between the conventions the controversy moved to the floor of the United States Senate. "We claim protection for slavery in the territories," said Jefferson Davis, "first, because it is our right; secondly, because it is the duty of the general government."[534] In replying to Davis several days later, Douglas said: "My name never would have been presented at Charleston except for the attempt to proscribe me as a heretic, too unsound to be the chairman of a committee in this body, where I have held a seat for so many years without a suspicion resting on my political fidelity. I was forced to allow my name to go there in self-defence; and I will now say that had any gentleman, friend or foe, received a majority of that convention over me the lightning would have carried a message withdrawing my name."[535]

[Footnote 534: Ibid., p. 453.]

[Footnote 535: James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 455.]

A few days afterward Davis referred to the matter again. "I have a declining respect for platforms," he said. "I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made." This stung Douglas. "If the platform is not a matter of much consequence," he demanded, "why press that question to the disruption of the party? Why did you not tell us in the beginning of this debate that the whole fight was against the man and not upon the platform?"[536]

[Footnote 536: Ibid., p. 456.]

These personalities served to deepen the exasperation of the sections. The real strain was to come, and there was great need that cool heads and impersonal argument should prevail over misrepresentation and passion. But the coming event threw its shadow before it.



CHAPTER XXI

SEWARD DEFEATED AT CHICAGO

1860

The Republican national convention met at Chicago on May 16. It was the prototype of the modern convention. In 1856, an ordinary hall in Philadelphia, with a seating capacity of two thousand, sufficed to accommodate delegates and spectators, but in 1860 the large building, called a "wigwam," specially erected for the occasion and capable of holding ten thousand, could not receive one-half the people seeking admission, while marching clubs, bands of music, and spacious headquarters for state delegations, marked the new order of things. As usual in later years, New York made an imposing demonstration. The friends of Seward took an entire hotel, and an organised, well-drilled body of men from New York City, under the lead of Tom Hyer, a noted pugilist, headed by a gaily uniformed band, paraded the streets amidst admiring crowds. For the first time, too, office-seekers were present in force at a Republican convention; and, to show their devotion, they packed hotel corridors and the convention hall itself with bodies of men who vociferously cheered every mention of their candidate's name. Such tactics are well understood and expected nowadays, but in 1860 they were unique.

The convention, consisting of 466 delegates, represented one southern, five border, and eighteen free States. "As long as conventions shall be held," wrote Horace Greeley, "I believe no abler, wiser, more unselfish body of delegates will ever be assembled than that which met at Chicago."[537] Governor Morgan, as chairman of the Republican national committee, called the convention to order, presenting David Wilmot, author of the famous proviso, for temporary chairman. George Ashmun of Massachusetts, the favourite friend of Webster, became permanent president. The platform, adopted by a unanimous vote on the second day, denounced the Harper's Ferry invasion "as among the gravest of crimes;" declared the doctrine of popular sovereignty "a deception and fraud;" condemned the attempt of President Buchanan to force the Lecompton Constitution upon Kansas; denied "the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of an individual to give legal existence to slavery in any territory;" demanded a liberal homestead law; and favoured a tariff "to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country." The significant silence as to personal liberty bills, the Dred Scott decision, the fugitive slave law, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, evidenced the handiwork of practical men.

[Footnote 537: New York Tribune, June 2, 1860.]

Only one incident disclosed the enthusiasm of delegates for the doctrine which affirms the equality and defines the rights of man. Joshua E. Giddings sought to incorporate the sentiment that "all men are created free and equal," but the convention declined to accept it until the eloquence of George William Curtis carried it amidst deafening applause. It was not an easy triumph. Party leaders had preserved the platform from radical utterances; and, with one disapproving yell, the convention tabled the Giddings amendment. Instantly Curtis renewed the motion; and when it drowned his voice, he stood with folded arms and waited. At last, the chairman's gavel gave him another chance. In the calm, his musical voice, in tones that penetrated and thrilled, begged the representatives of the party of freedom "to think well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the summer of 1860, you dare to shrink from repeating the words of the great men of 1776."[538] The audience, stirred by an unwonted emotion, applauded the sentiment, and then adopted the amendment with a shout more unanimous than had been the vote of disapproval.

[Footnote 538: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 137.]

The selection of a candidate for President occupied the third day. Friends of Seward who thronged the city exhibited absolute confidence.[539] They represented not only the discipline of the machine, with its well-drilled cohorts, called the "irrepressibles," and its impressive marching clubs, gay with banners and badges, but the ablest leaders on the floor of the convention. And back of all, stood Thurlow Weed, the matchless manager, whose adroitness and wisdom had been crowned with success for a whole generation. "He is one of the most remarkable men of our time," wrote Samuel Bowles, in the preceding February. "He is cool, calculating, a man of expedients, who boasts that for thirty years he had not in political affairs let his heart outweigh his judgment." Governor Edwin D. Morgan and Henry J. Raymond were his lieutenants, William M. Evarts, his floor manager, and a score of men whose names were soon to become famous acted as his assistants. The brilliant rhetoric of George William Curtis, when insisting upon an indorsement of the Declaration of Independence, gave the opposition a taste of their mettle.

[Footnote 539: "Mr. Seward seemed to be certain of receiving the nomination at Chicago. He felt that it belonged to him. His flatterers had encouraged him in the error that he was the sole creator of the Republican party."—H.B. Stanton, Random Recollections, p. 214. "I hear of so many fickle and timid friends as almost to make me sorry that I have ever attempted to organise a party to save my country." Letter of W.H. Seward to his wife, May 2, 1860.—F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 448.]

Seward, confident of the nomination, had sailed for Europe in May, 1859, in a happy frame of mind. The only serious opposition had come from the Tribune and from the Keystone State; but on the eve of his departure Simon Cameron assured him of Pennsylvania, and Greeley, apparently reconciled, had dined with him at the Astor House. "The sky is bright, and the waters are calm," was the farewell to his wife.[540] After his return there came an occasional shadow. "I hear of so many fickle and timid friends," he wrote;[541] yet he had confidence in Greeley, who, while calling with Weed, exhibited such friendly interest that Seward afterward resented the suggestion of his disloyalty.[542] On reaching Auburn to await the action of the convention, his confidence of success found expression in the belief that he would not again return to Congress during that session. As the work of the convention progressed his friends became more sanguine. The solid delegations of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Kansas, supplemented by the expected votes of New England and other States on a second roll call, made the nomination certain. Edward Bates had Missouri, Delaware, and Oregon, but their votes barely equalled one-half of New York's; Lincoln was positively sure of only Illinois, and several of its delegates preferred Seward; Chase had failed to secure the united support of Ohio, and Dayton in New Jersey was without hope. Cameron held Pennsylvania in reversion for the New York Senator. So hopeless did the success of the opposition appear at midnight of the second day, that Greeley telegraphed the Tribune predicting Seward's nomination, and the "irrepressibles" anticipated victory in three hundred bottles of champagne. As late as the morning of the third day, the confidence of the Seward managers impelled them to ask whom the opposition preferred for Vice President.

[Footnote 540: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 360.]

[Footnote 541: Ibid., p. 448.]

[Footnote 542: "Mr. Julius Wood of Columbus, O., an old and true friend of Mr. Weed, met Mr. Seward in Washington, and reiterated his fears in connection with the accumulation of candidates. 'Mr. Lincoln was brought to New York to divide your strength,' he said. But Mr. Seward was not disconcerted by these warnings. Less than a fortnight afterwards Mr. Wood was at the Astor House, where he again met Mr. Weed and Mr. Seward. Sunday afternoon Mr. Greeley visited the hotel and passing through one of the corridors met Mr. Wood, with whom he began conversation. 'We shan't nominate Seward,' said Mr. Greeley, 'we'll take some more conservative man, like Pitt Fessenden or Bates.' Immediately afterwards Mr. Wood went to Mr. Seward's room. 'Greeley has just been here with Weed,' said Mr. Seward. 'Weed brought him up here. You were wrong in what you said to me at Washington about Greeley; he is all right.' 'No, I was not wrong,' insisted Mr. Wood. 'Greeley is cheating you. He will go to Chicago and work against you.' At this Mr. Seward smiled. 'My dear Wood,' said he, 'your zeal sometimes gets a little the better of your judgment.'"—Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 269.]

But opponents had been industriously at work. They found that Republicans of Know-Nothing antecedents, especially in Pennsylvania, still disliked Seward's opposition to their Order, and that conservative Republicans recoiled from his doctrine of the higher law and the irrepressible conflict. Upon this broad foundation of unrest, the opposition adroitly builded, poisoning the minds of unsettled delegates with stories of his political methods and too close association with Thurlow Weed. No one questioned Seward's personal integrity; but the distrust of the political boss existed then as much as now, and his methods were no less objectionable. "The misconstruction put on his phrase 'the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery' has, I think, damaged him a good deal," wrote William Cullen Bryant, "and in this city there is one thing which has damaged him still more. I mean the project of Thurlow Weed to give charters for a set of city railways, for which those who receive them are to furnish a fund of from four to six hundred thousand dollars, to be expended for the Republican cause in the next presidential election."[543] Such a scheme would be rebuked even in this day of trust and corporation giving. People resented the transfer to Washington of the peculiar state of things at Albany, and when James S. Pike wrote of Seward's close connection with men who schemed for public grants, it recalled his belief in the adage that "Money makes the mare go." Allusion to Seward's "bad associates," as Bryant called them, and to the connection between "Seward stock" and "New York street railroads" had become frequent in the correspondence of leading men, and now, when delegates could talk face to face in the confidence of the party council chamber, these accusations made a profound impression. The presence of Tom Hyer and his rough marchers did not tend to eliminate these moral objections. "If you do not nominate Seward, where will you get your money?" was their stock argument.[544]

[Footnote 543: Parke Godwin, Life of William Cullen Bryant, Vol. 2, p. 127.]

[Footnote 544: Horace Greeley, New York Tribune, May 22, 1860.]

Horace Greeley, sitting as a delegate from Oregon, stayed with the friends of Bates and Lincoln at the Tremont Hotel. The announcement startled the New Yorkers. He had visited Weed at Albany on his way to Chicago, leaving the impression that he would support Seward,[545] but once in the convention city his disaffection became quickly known. Of all the members of the convention none attracted more attention, or had greater influence with the New England and Western delegates. His peculiar head and dress quickly identified him as he passed through the hotel corridors from delegation to delegation, and whenever he stopped to speak, an eager crowd of listeners heard his reasons why Seward could not carry the doubtful States. He marshalled all the facts and forgot no accusing rumour. His remarkable letter of 1854, dissolving the firm of Weed, Seward, and Greeley, had not then been published, leaving him in the position of a patriot and prophet who opposed the Senator because he sincerely believed him a weak candidate. "If we have ever demurred to his nomination," he said in the Tribune of April 23, in reply to the Times' charge of hostility, "it has been on the ground of his too near approximation in principle and sentiment to our standard to be a safe candidate just yet. We joyfully believe that the country is acquiring a just and adequate conception of the malign influence exerted by the slave power upon its character, its reputation, its treatment of its neighbour, and all its great moral and material interests. In a few years more we believe it will be ready to elect as its President a man who not only sees but proclaims the whole truth in this respect—in short, such a man as Governor Seward. We have certainly doubted its being yet so far advanced in its political education as to be ready to choose for President one who looks the slave oligarchy square in the eye and says, 'Know me as your enemy.'"

[Footnote 545: "At this time there was friendly intercourse between Mr. Greeley and Mr. Weed, nor did anybody suppose that Mr. Greeley was not on good terms with Governor Seward. He had, indeed, in 1854, written to Mr. Seward a remarkable letter, 'dissolving the firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley,' but Mr. Weed had never seen such a letter, nor did Mr. Greeley appear to remember its existence. Mr. Weed and Mr. Greeley met frequently in New York, not with all of the old cordiality, perhaps, but still they had by no means quarrelled. Mr. Greeley wrote often to Mr. Weed, in the old way, and he and his family were visitors at Mr. Weed's house. Indeed—though that seems impossible—Mr. Greeley stopped at Mr. Weed's house, in Albany, on his way West, before the Chicago convention, and made a friendly visit of a day or so, leaving the impression that he was going to support Mr. Seward when he reached Chicago."—Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 268.]

Greeley favoured Bates of Missouri, but was ready to support anybody to beat Seward. Bryant, disliking what he called the "pliant politics" of the New York Senator, had been disposed to favour Chase until the Cooper Institute speech. Lincoln left a similar trail of friends through New England. The Illinoisan's title of "Honest Old Abe," given, him by his neighbours, contrasted favourably with the whispered reports of "bad associates" and the "New York City railroad scheme." Gradually, even the radical element in the unpledged delegations began questioning the advisability of the New Yorker's selection, and when, on the night preceding the nomination, Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania and Henry S. Lane[546] of Indiana, candidates for governor in their respective States, whose defeat in October would probably bring defeat in November, declared that Seward's selection would cost them their election, the opposition occupied good vantage ground. David Davis, the Illinois manager for Lincoln, against the positive instructions of his principal, strengthened these declarations by promising to locate Simon Cameron and Caleb B. Smith in the Cabinet. The next morning, however, the anti-Seward forces entered the convention without having concentrated upon a candidate. Lincoln had won Indiana, but Pennsylvania and Ohio were divided; New Jersey stood for Dayton; Bates still controlled Missouri, Delaware, and Oregon.

[Footnote 546: "I was with my husband in Chicago, and may tell you now, as most of the actors have joined the 'silent majority,' what no living person knows, that Thurlow Weed, in his anxiety for the success of Seward, took Mr. Lane out one evening and pleaded with him to lead the Indiana delegation over to Seward, saying they would send enough money from New York to insure his election for governor, and carry the State later for the New York candidate." Letter of Mrs. Henry S. Lane, September 16, 1891.—Alex. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 25, note.]

William M. Evarts presented Seward's name amidst loud applause. But at the mention of Lincoln's the vigour of the cheers surprised the delegates. The Illinois managers had cunningly filled the desirable seats with their shouters, excluding Tom Hyer and his marchers, who arrived too late, so that, although the applause for Seward was "frantic, shrill, and wild," says one correspondent, the cheers for Lincoln were "louder and more terrible."[547] Whether this had the influence ascribed to it at the time by Henry J. Raymond and others has been seriously questioned, but it undoubtedly aided in fixing the wavering delegates, and in encouraging the friends of other candidates to rally about the Lincoln standard.

[Footnote 547: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 145.]

The first roll call proved a disappointment to Seward. Though the pledged States were in line, New England fell short, Pennsylvania showed indifference, and Virginia created a profound surprise. Nevertheless, the confidence of the Seward forces remained unshaken. Of the 465 votes, Seward had 173-1/2, Lincoln 102, Cameron 50-1/2, Chase 49, and Bates 48, with 42 for seven others; necessary to a choice, 233. On the second ballot Seward gained four votes from New Jersey, two each from Texas and Kentucky, and one each from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska—making a total of 184-1/2. Lincoln moved up to 133. The action of Ohio in giving fourteen votes to Lincoln had been no less disappointing to the Seward managers than the transfer of Vermont's vote to the same column; but, before they could recover from this shock, Cameron was withdrawn and 48 votes from Pennsylvania carried Lincoln's total to 181.

The announcement of this change brought the convention to its feet amid scenes of wild excitement. Seward's forces endeavoured to avert the danger, but the arguments of a week were bearing fruit. As the third roll call proceeded, the scattering votes turned to Lincoln. Seward lost four from Rhode Island and half a vote from Pennsylvania, giving him 180, Lincoln 231-1/2, Chase 24-1/2, Bates 22, and 7 for three others. At this moment, an Ohio delegate authorised a change of four votes from Chase to Lincoln, and instantly one hundred guns, fired from the top of an adjoining building, announced the nomination of "Honest Old Abe." In a short speech of rare felicity and great strength, William M. Evarts moved to make the nomination unanimous.

The New York delegation, stunned by the result, declined the honour of naming a candidate for Vice President; and, on reassembling in the afternoon, the convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. As Evarts was leaving the wigwam he remarked, with characteristic humour: "Well, Curtis, at least we have saved the Declaration of Independence!"

Three days after the nomination Greeley wrote James S. Pike: "Massachusetts was right in Weed's hands, contrary to all reasonable expectation. It was all we could do to hold Vermont by the most desperate exertions; and I at some times despaired of it. The rest of New England was pretty sound, but part of New Jersey was somehow inclined to sin against the light and knowledge. If you had seen the Pennsylvania delegation, and known how much money Weed had in hand, you would not have believed we could do so well as we did. Give Curtin thanks for that. Ohio looked very bad, yet turned out well, and Virginia had been regularly sold out; but the seller could not deliver. We had to rain red-hot bolts on them, however, to keep the majority from going for Seward, who got eight votes here as it was. Indiana was our right bower, and Missouri above praise. It was a fearful week, such as I hope and trust I shall never see repeated."[548] That Greeley received credit for all he did is evidenced by a letter from John D. Defrees, then a leading politician of Indiana, addressed to Schuyler Colfax. "Greeley slaughtered Seward and saved the party," he wrote. "He deserves the praises of all men and gets them now. Wherever he goes he is greeted with cheers."[549]

[Footnote 548: James S. Pike, First Blows of the Civil War, p. 519.]

[Footnote 549: Hollister, Life of Colfax, p. 148.]

The profound sorrow of Seward's friends resembled the distress of Henry Clay's supporters in 1840. It was not chagrin; it was not the selfish fear that considers the loss of office or spoils; it was not discouragement or despair. Apprehensions for the future of the party and the country there may have been, but their grief found its fountain-head in the feeling that "his fidelity to the country, the Constitution and the laws," as Evarts put it; "his fidelity to the party, and the principle that the majority govern; his interest in the advancement of our party to victory, that our country may rise to its true glory,"[550] had led to his sacrifice solely for assumed availability. The belief obtained that a large majority of the delegates preferred him, and that had the convention met elsewhere he would probably have been successful. In his Life of Lincoln, Alex. K. McClure of Pennsylvania, an anti-Seward delegate, says that "of the two hundred and thirty-one men who voted for Lincoln on the third and last ballot, not less than one hundred of them voted reluctantly against the candidate of their choice."[551]

[Footnote 550: William M. Evarts' speech making Lincoln's nomination unanimous. F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 451.]

[Footnote 551: Alex. K. McClure, Life of Lincoln, p. 171.]

At Auburn a funeral gloom settled upon the town.[552] Admiration for Seward's great ability, and a just pride in the exalted position he occupied in his party and before the country, had long ago displaced the local spirit that refused him a seat in the constitutional convention of 1846; and after the defeat his fellow townsmen could not be comforted. Sincere sorrow filled their hearts. But Seward's bearing was heroic. When told that no Republican could be found to write a paragraph for the evening paper announcing and approving the nominations, he quickly penned a dozen lines eulogistic of the convention and its work. To Weed, who shed bitter tears, he wrote consolingly. "I wish I were sure that your sense of disappointment is as light as my own," he said. "It ought to be equally so, if we have been equally thoughtful and zealous for friends, party, and country. I know not what has been left undone that could have been done, or done that ought to be regretted."[553] During the week many friends from distant parts of the State called upon him, "not to console," as they expressed it, "but to be consoled." His cheerful demeanour under a disappointment so overwhelming to everybody else excited the inquiry how he could exhibit such control. His reply was characteristic. "For twenty years," he said, "I have been breasting a daily storm of censure. Now, all the world seems disposed to speak kindly of me. In that pile of papers, Republican and Democratic, you will find hardly one unkind word. When I went to market this morning I confess I was unprepared for so much real grief as I heard expressed at every corner."[554]

[Footnote 552: "On the day the convention was to ballot for a candidate, Cayuga County poured itself into Auburn. The streets were full, and Mr. Seward's house and grounds overflowed with his admirers. Flags were ready to be raised and a loaded cannon was placed at the gate whose pillars bore up two guardian lions. Arrangements had been perfected for the receipt of intelligence. At Mr. Seward's right hand, just within the porch, stood his trusty henchman, Christopher Morgan. The rider of a galloping steed dashed through the crowd with a telegram and handed it to Seward, who passed it to Morgan. For Seward, it read, 173-1/2; for Lincoln, 102. Morgan repeated it to the multitude, who cheered vehemently. Then came the tidings of the second ballot: For Seward, 184-1/2—for Lincoln, 181. 'I shall be nominated on the next ballot,' said Seward, and the throng in the house applauded, and those on the lawn and in the street echoed the cheers. The next messenger lashed his horse into a run. The telegram read, 'Lincoln nominated. T.W.' Seward turned as pale as ashes. The sad tidings crept through the vast concourse. The flags were furled, the cannon was rolled away, and Cayuga County went home with a clouded brow. Mr. Seward retired to rest at a late hour, and the night breeze in the tall trees sighed a requiem over the blighted hopes of New York's eminent son."—H.B. Stanton, Random Recollections, pp. 215-16.]

[Footnote 553: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 453.]

[Footnote 554: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 453.]

But deep in his heart despondency reigned supreme. "The reappearance at Washington in the character of a leader deposed by his own party, in the hour of organisation for decisive battle, thank God is past—and so the last of the humiliations has been endured," he wrote his wife. "Preston King met me at the depot and conveyed me to my home. It seemed sad and mournful. Dr. Nott's benevolent face, Lord Napier's complacent one, Jefferson's benignant one, and Lady Napier's loving one, seemed all like pictures of the dead. Even 'Napoleon at Fontainebleau' seemed more frightfully desolate than ever. At the Capitol the scene was entirely changed from my entrance into the chamber last winter. Cameron greeted me kindly; Wilkinson of Minnesota, and Sumner cordially and manfully. Other Republican senators came to me, but in a manner that showed a consciousness of embarrassment, which made the courtesy a conventional one; only Wilson came half a dozen times, and sat down by me. Mason, Gwin, Davis, and most of the Democrats, came to me with frank, open, sympathising words, thus showing that their past prejudices had been buried in the victory they had achieved over me. Good men came through the day to see me, and also this morning. Their eyes fill with tears, and they become speechless as they speak of what they call 'ingratitude.' They console themselves with the vain hope of a day of 'vindication,' and my letters all talk of the same thing. But they awaken no response in my heart. I have not shrunk from any fiery trial prepared for me by the enemies of my cause. But I shall not hold myself bound to try, a second time, the magnanimity of its friends."[555] To Weed he wrote: "Private life, as soon as I can reach it without grieving or embarrassing my friends, will be welcome to me. It will come the 4th of next March in my case, and I am not unprepared."[556]

[Footnote 555: Ibid., p. 454.]

[Footnote 556: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 270.]

Defeat was a severe blow to Seward. For the moment he seemed well-nigh friendless. The letter to his wife after he reached Washington was a threnody. He was firmly convinced that he was a much injured man, and his attitude was that of the martyr supported by the serenity of the saint. But to the world he bore himself with the courage and the dignity that belong to one whose supremacy is due to superiority of talents. The country could not know that he was to become a secretary of state of whom the civilised world would take notice; but one of Seward's prescience must have felt well satisfied in his own mind, even when telling Weed how "welcome" private life would be, that, although he was not to become President, he was at the opening of a greater political career.



CHAPTER XXII

NEW YORK'S CONTROL AT BALTIMORE

1860

The recess between the Charleston and Baltimore conventions did not allay hostilities. Jefferson Davis' criticism and Douglas' tart retorts transferred the quarrel to the floor of the United States Senate, and by the time the delegates had reassembled at Baltimore on June 18, 1860, the factions exhibited greater exasperation than had been shown at Charleston. Yet the Douglas men seemed certain of success. Dean Richmond, it was said, had been engaged in private consultation with Douglas and his friends, pledging himself to stand by them to the last. On the other hand, rumours of a negotiation in which the Southerners and the Administration at Washington had offered the New Yorkers their whole strength for any man the Empire State might name other than Douglas and Guthrie, found ready belief among the Northwestern delegates. It was surmised, too, that the defeat of Seward at Chicago had strengthened the chances of Horatio Seymour, on the ground that the disappointed and discontented Seward Republicans would allow him to carry the State. Whatever truth there may have been in these reports, all admitted that the New York delegation had in its hands the destiny of the convention, if not that of the party itself.[557]

[Footnote 557: "There was no question that the New York delegation had the fate of the convention in its keeping; and while it was understood that the strength of Douglas in the delegation had been increased during the recess by the Fowler defalcation (Fowler's substitute being reported a Douglas man) and by the appearance of regular delegates whose alternates had been against Douglas at Charleston, it was obvious that the action of the politicians of New York could not be counted upon in any direction with confidence. Rumours circulated that a negotiation had been carried on in Washington by the New Yorkers with the South, to sell out Douglas, the Southerners and the Administration offering their whole strength to any man New York might name, provided that State would slaughter Douglas. On the other hand, it appeared that Dean Richmond, the principal manager of the New Yorkers, had pledged himself, as solemnly as a politician could do, to stand by the cause of Douglas to the last."—M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 159.]

The apparent breaking point at Charleston was the adoption of a platform; at Baltimore it was the readmission of seceding delegates. Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas presented their original delegations, who sought immediate admission; but a resolution, introduced by Sanford E. Church of New York, referred them to the committee on credentials, with the understanding that persons accepting seats were bound in honour to abide the action of the convention. The Douglas men, greeting this resolution with tremendous applause, proposed driving it through without debate; but New York hesitated to order the previous question. Then it asked permission to withdraw for consultation, and when it finally voted in the negative, deeming it unwise to stifle debate, it revealed the fact that its action was decisive on all questions.

An amendment to the Church resolution proposed sending only contested seats to the credentials committee, without conditions as to loyalty, and over this joinder of issues some very remarkable speeches disclosed malignant bitterness rather than choice rhetoric. Richardson, still the recognised spokesman of Douglas, received marked attention as he argued boldly that the amendment admitted delegates not sent there, and decided a controversy without a hearing. "I do not propose," he said, "to sit side by side with delegates who do not represent the people; who are not bound by anything, when I am bound by everything. We are not so hard driven yet as to be compelled to elect delegates from States that do not choose to send any here."[558]

[Footnote 558: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 167.]

Russell of Virginia responded, declaring that his State intended, in the interest of fair play, to cling to the Democracy of the South. "If we are to be constrained to silence," he vociferated, "I beg gentlemen to consider the silence of Virginia ominous. If we are not gentlemen—if we are such knaves that we cannot trust one another—we had better scatter at once, and cease to make any effort to bind each other."[559] Speaking on similar lines, Ewing of Tennessee asked what was meant. "Have you no enemy in front? Have you any States to spare? We are pursued by a remorseless enemy, and yet from all quarters of this convention come exclamations of bitterness and words that burn, with a view to open the breach in our ranks wider and wider, until at last, Curtius-like, we will be compelled to leap into it to close it up."

[Footnote 559: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 168.]

But it remained for Montgomery of Pennsylvania, in spite of Cochrane's conciliatory words, to raise the political atmosphere to the temperature at Charleston just before the secession. "For the first time in the history of the Democratic party," he said, "a number of delegations of sovereign States, by a solemn instrument in writing, resigned their places upon the floor of the convention. They went out with a protest, not against a candidate, but against the principles of a party, declaring they did not hold and would not support them. And not only that, but they called a hostile convention, and sat side by side with us, deliberating upon a candidate and the adoption of a platform. Principles hostile to ours were asserted and a nomination hostile to ours was threatened. Our convention was compelled to adjourn in order to have these sovereign States represented. What became of the gentlemen who seceded? They adjourned to meet at Richmond. Now they seek to come back and sit upon this floor with us, and to-day they threaten us if we do not come to their terms. God knows I love the star spangled banner of my country, and it is because I love the Union that I am determined that any man who arrays himself in hostility to it shall not, with my consent, take a seat in this convention. I am opposed to secession either from this Union or from the Democratic convention, and when men declare the principles of the party are not their principles, and that they will neither support them nor stay in a convention that promulgates them, then I say it is high time, if they ask to come back, that they shall declare they have changed their minds."[560]

[Footnote 560: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, pp. 168-171.]

This swung the door of vituperative debate wide open, and after an adjournment had closed it in the hall, the crowds continued it in the street. At midnight, while Yancey made one of his silver-toned speeches, which appears, by all accounts, to have been a piece of genuine eloquence, the friends of Douglas, on the opposite side of Monument Square, kept the bands playing and crowds cheering.

When the convention assembled on the second day, Church, in the interest of harmony, withdrew the last clause of his resolution, and, without a dissenting voice, all contested seats went to the committee on credentials. Then the convention impatiently waited three days for a report, while the night meetings, growing noisier and more arrogant, served to increase the bitterness. The Douglasites denounced their opponents as "disorganisers and disunionists;" the Southerners retorted by calling them "a species of sneaking abolitionists." Yancey spoke of them as small men, with selfish aims. "They are ostrich-like—their head is in the sand of squatter sovereignty, and they do not know their great, ugly, ragged abolition body is exposed."

On the fourth day, the committee presented two reports, the majority, without argument, admitting the contestants—the minority, in a remarkably strong document of singular skill and great clearness, seating the seceders on the ground that their withdrawal was not a resignation and was not so considered by the convention. A resignation, it argued, must be made to the appointing power. The withdrawing delegates desired the instruction of their constituencies, who authorised them in every case except South Carolina to repair to Baltimore and endeavour once more to unite their party and promote harmony and peace in the great cause of their country.

This report made a profound impression upon the convention, and the motion to substitute it for the majority report at once threw New York into confusion. That delegation had already decided to sustain the majority, but the views of the seceders, so ably and logically presented, had reopened the door of debate, and a resolute minority, combining more than a proportionate share of the talent and worth of the delegation, insisted upon further time. After the convention had grudgingly taken a recess to accommodate the New Yorkers, William H. Ludlow reappeared and apologised for asking more time. This created the impression that Richmond's delegation, at the last moment, proposed to slaughter Douglas[561] as it did at Charleston, and the latter's friends, maddened and disheartened over what they called "New York's dishonest and cowardly procrastination," would gladly have prevented an adjournment. But the Empire State held the key to the situation. Without it Douglas could get nothing and in a hopeless sort of way his backers granted Ludlow's request.[562]

[Footnote 561: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 185.]

[Footnote 562: "The real business transacting behind the scenes has been the squelching of Douglas, which is understood to be as good as bargained for. The South is in due time to concentrate on a candidate—probably Horatio Seymour of our own State—and then New York is to desert Douglas for her own favourite son. Such is the programme as it stood up to last evening."—New York Tribune (editorial), June 20, 1860. "There are plenty of rumours, but nothing has really form and body unless it be a plan to have Virginia bring forward Horatio Seymour, whom New York will then diffidently accept in place of Douglas."—Ibid. (telegraphic report).]

The situation of the New York delegation was undoubtedly most embarrassing. Their admission to the Charleston convention had depended upon the Douglas vote, but their hope of success hinged upon harmony with the cotton States. A formidable minority favoured the readmission of the seceders and the abandonment of Douglas regardless of their obligation. This was not the policy of Dean Richmond, who was the pivotal personage. His plan included the union of the party by admitting the seceders, and the nomination of Horatio Seymour with the consent of the Northwest, after rendering the selection of Douglas impossible. It was a brilliant programme, but the inexorable demand of the Douglas men presented a fatal drawback. Richmond implored and pleaded. He knew the hostility of the Douglasites could make Seymour's nomination impossible, and he knew, also, that a refusal to admit the seceders would lead to a second secession, a second ticket, and a hopelessly divided party. Nevertheless, the Douglas men were remorseless.[563] Even Douglas' letter, sent Richardson on the third day, and his dispatch to Dean Richmond,[564] received on the fifth day, authorising the withdrawal of his name if it could be done without sacrificing the principle of non-intervention, did not relieve the situation. Rule or ruin was now their motto, as much as it was the South's, and between them Richmond's diplomatic resistance,[565] which once seemed of iron, became as clay. Nevertheless, Richmond's control of the New York delegation remained unbroken. The minority tried new arguments, planned new combinations, and racked their brains for new devices, but when Richmond finally gave up the hopeless and thankless task of harmonising the Douglasites and seceders, a vote of 27 to 43 forced the minority of the delegation into submission by the screw of the Syracuse unit rule, and New York finally sustained the majority report.