[Footnote 563: "The Soft leaders still shiver on the brink of a decision. But a new light broke on them yesterday, when they discovered that, if they killed Douglas, his friends were able and resolved to kill Seymour in turn."—New York Tribune (editorial), June 21. "The action of New York is still a subject of great doubt and anxiety. As it goes so goes the party and the Union of course."—Ibid. (telegraphic report).]

[Footnote 564: "A dispatch from Douglas to Richmond was sent because a letter containing similar suggestions to Richardson had been kept in the latter's pocket. But Richmond suppressed the dispatch as Richardson had suppressed the letter."—M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 195. "Richardson afterward explained that the action of the Southerners had put it out of his power to use Douglas' letter."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 415.]

[Footnote 565: "It was asserted in Baltimore and believed in political circles that New York offered to reconsider her vote on the Louisiana case, and make up the convention out of the original materials, with the exception of the Alabama delegation. It could not agree to admit Yancey & Co. But the seceders and their friends would not hear to any such proposition. They scorned all compromise."—M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 195. "Many were the expedients devised to bring about harmony; but it was to attempt the impossible. The Southerners were exacting, the delegates from the Northwest bold and defiant."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 474.]

After this, the convention became the theatre of a dramatic event which made it, for the moment, the centre of interest to the political world. The majority report seated the Douglas faction from Alabama and Louisiana, and then excluded William L. Yancey, a representative seceder, and let in Pierre Soule, a representative Douglasite. It is sufficient proof of the sensitiveness of the relations between the two factions that an expressed preference for one of these men should again disrupt the convention, but the moving cause was far deeper than the majority's action. Yancey belonged to the daring, resolute, and unscrupulous band of men who, under the unhappy conditions that threatened their defeat, had already decided upon disunion; and, when the convention repudiated him, the lesser lights played their part. Virginia led a new secession, followed by most of the delegates from North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Maryland, and finally by Caleb Cushing himself, the astute presiding officer, whose action anticipated the withdrawal of Massachusetts.

When they were gone, Pierre Soule took the floor and made the speech of the convention, fascinating all who saw and heard. An eye-witness speaks of his rolling, glittering, eagle eye, Napoleonic head and face, sharp voice with a margin of French accent, and piercing, intense earnestness of manner. "I have not been at all discouraged," he said, "by the emotion which has been attempted to be created in this body by those who have seceded from it. We from the furthest South were prepared; we had heard the rumours which were to be initiatory of the exit which you have witnessed on this day, and we knew that conspiracy, which had been brooding for months past, would break out on this occasion, and for the purposes which are obvious to every member. Sirs, there are in political life men who were once honoured by popular favour, who consider that the favour has become to them an inalienable property, and who cling to it as to something that can no longer be wrested from their hands—political fossils so much incrusted in office that there is hardly any power that can extract them. They saw that the popular voice was already manifesting to this glorious nation who was to be her next ruler. Instead of bringing a candidate to oppose him; instead of creating issues upon which the choice of the nation could be enlightened; instead of principles discussed, what have we seen? An unrelenting war against the individual presumed to be the favourite of the nation! a war waged by an army of unprincipled and unscrupulous politicians, leagued with a power which could not be exerted on their side without disgracing itself and disgracing the nation." Secession, he declared, meant disunion, "but the people of the South will not respond to the call of the secessionists."[566]

[Footnote 566: M. Halstead, National Political Conventions of 1860, p. 207.]

The effect of Soule's speech greatly animated and reassured the friends of Douglas, who now received 173-1/2 of the 190-1/2 votes cast. Dickinson got half a vote from Virginia, and Horatio Seymour one vote from Pennsylvania. At the mention of the latter's name, David P. Bissell of Utica promptly withdrew it upon the authority of a letter, in which Seymour briefly but positively declared that under no circumstances could he be a candidate for President or Vice President. On the second ballot, Douglas received all the votes but thirteen. This was not two-thirds of the original vote, but, in spite of the resolution which Dean Richmond passed at Charleston, Douglas was declared, amidst great enthusiasm, the nominee of the convention, since two-thirds of the delegates present had voted for him. Benjamin Fitzpatrick, United States senator from Alabama, was then nominated for Vice President. When he afterwards declined, the national committee appointed Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia in his place.

Meantime the Baltimore seceders, joined by their seceding colleagues from Charleston, met elsewhere in the city, adopted the Richmond platform, and nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky for President, and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice President. A few days later the Richmond convention indorsed these nominations.

After the return of the New York delegation, the gagged minority, through the lips of Daniel S. Dickinson, told the story of the majority's purpose at Charleston and Baltimore. Dickinson was not depressed or abashed by his failure; neither was he a man to be rudely snuffed out or bottled up; and, although his speech at the Cooper Institute mass-meeting, called to ratify the Breckenridge and Lane ticket, revealed a vision clouded with passion and prejudice, it clearly disclosed the minority's estimate of the cardinal object of Dean Richmond's majority. "Waiving all questions of the merits or demerits of Mr. Douglas as a candidate," he said, his silken white hair bringing into greater prominence the lines of a handsome face, "his pretensions were pressed upon the convention in a tone and temper, and with a dogged and obstinate persistence, which was well calculated, if it was not intended, to break up the convention, or force it into obedience to the behests of a combination. The authors of this outrage, who are justly and directly chargeable with it, were the ruling majority of the New York delegation. They held the balance of power, and madly and selfishly and corruptly used it for the disruption of the Democratic party in endeavouring to force it to subserve their infamous schemes. They were charged with high responsibilities in a crisis of unusual interest in our history, and in an evil moment their leprous hands held the destinies of a noble party. They proclaimed personally and through their accredited organs that the Southern States were entitled to name a candidate, but from the moment they entered the convention at Charleston until it was finally broken up at Baltimore by their base conduct and worse faith, their every act was to oppose any candidate who would be acceptable to those States.

"Those who controlled the New York delegation through the fraudulent process of a unit vote—a rule forced upon a large minority to stifle their sentiments—will hereafter be known as political gamblers. The Democratic party of New York, founded in the spirit of Jefferson, has, in the hands of these gamblers, been disgraced by practices which would dishonour a Peter Funk cast-off clothing resort; cheating the people of the State, cheating a great and confiding party, cheating the convention which admitted them to seats, cheating delegations who trusted them, cheating everybody with whom they came in contact, and then lamenting from day to day, through their accredited organ, that the convention had not remained together so that they might finally have cheated Douglas. Political gamblers! You have perpetrated your last cheat—consummated your last fraud upon the Democratic party. Henceforth you will be held and treated as political outlaws. There is no fox so crafty but his hide finally goes to the hatter."[567]

[Footnote 567: New York Tribune, July 19, 1860.]

In his political controversies, Dickinson acted on the principle that an opponent is necessarily a blockhead or a scoundrel. But there was little or no truth in his severe arraignment. Richmond's purpose was plainly to nominate Horatio Seymour if it could be done with the consent of the Northwestern States, and his sudden affection for a two-thirds rule came from a determination to prolong the convention until it yielded consent. At no time did he intend leaving Douglas for any one other than Seymour. On the other hand, Dickinson had always favoured slavery.[568] Neither the Wilmot Proviso nor the repeal of the Missouri Compromise disturbed him. What slavery demanded he granted; what freedom sought he denounced. His belief that the South would support him for a compromise candidate in return for his fidelity became an hallucination. It showed itself at Cincinnati in 1852 when he antagonised Marcy; and his position in 1860 was even less advantageous. Nevertheless, Dickinson nursed his delusion until the guns at Fort Sumter disclosed the real design of Yancey and the men in whom he had confided.

[Footnote 568: "The obduracy, the consistency of Mr. Dickinson's Democracy are of the most marked type. Ever since he changed his vote from Van Buren to Polk, with such hearty alacrity in the Baltimore convention of 1844, he has promptly yielded to every requisition which the Southern Democracy has made upon their Northern allies. All along through the stormy years when the star of the Wilmot Proviso was in the ascendant, and when Wright and Dix bowed to the gale, and even Marcy and Bronson bent before it, Dickinson, on the floor of the Senate, stood erect and immovable."—New York Tribune, July 4, 1860.]



CHAPTER XXIII

RAYMOND, GREELEY, AND WEED

1860

It was impossible that the defeat of Seward at Chicago, so unexpected, and so far-reaching in its effect, should be encountered without some attempt to fix the responsibility. To Thurlow Weed's sorrow[569] was added the mortification of defeat. He had staked everything upon success, and, although he doubtless wished to avoid any unseemly demonstration of disappointment, the rankling wound goaded him into a desire to relieve himself of any lack of precaution. Henry J. Raymond scarcely divided the responsibility of management; but his newspaper, which had spoken for Seward, shared in the loss of prestige, while the Tribune, his great rival in metropolitan journalism, disclosed between the lines of assumed modesty an exultant attitude.

[Footnote 569: "Mr. Weed was for a time completely unnerved by the result. He even shed tears over the defeat of his old friend."—Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 271.

"After the joy of Lincoln's nomination had subsided," wrote Leonard Swett of Chicago, "Judge Davis and I called upon Mr. Weed. This was the first time either of us had met him. He did not talk angrily as to the result, nor did he complain of any one. Confessing with much feeling to the great disappointment of his life, he said, 'I hoped to make my friend, Mr. Seward, President, and I thought I could serve my country in so doing.' He was a larger man intellectually than I anticipated, and of finer fibre. There was in him an element of gentleness and a large humanity which won me, and I was pleased no less than surprised."—Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 292.]

Greeley had played a very important part in the historic convention. The press gave him full credit for his activity, and he admitted it in his jubilant letter to Pike; but after returning to New York he seemed to think it wise to minimise his influence, claiming that the result would have been the same had he remained at home. "The fact that the four conspicuous doubtful States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois," he wrote, "unanimously testified that they could not be carried for Seward was decisive. Against this Malakoff the most brilliant evolutions of political strategy could not avail."[570] This two-column article, modestly concealing his own work, might not have led to an editorial war between the three great Republican editors of the State, had not Greeley, in the exordium of a speech, published in the Tribune of May 23, exceeded the limits of human endurance. "The past is dead," he said. "Let the dead past bury it, and let the mourners, if they will, go about the streets."

[Footnote 570: New York Tribune, May 22, 1860.]

The exultant sentences exasperated Raymond, who held the opinion which generally obtained among New York Republican leaders, that Greeley's persistent hostility was not only responsible for Seward's defeat, but that under the guise of loyalty to the party's highest interests he had been insidious and revengeful, and Raymond believed it needed only a bold and loud-spoken accusation against him to fill the mind of the public with his guilt. In this spirit he wrote a stinging reply. "With the generosity which belongs to his nature, and which a feeling not unlike remorse may have stimulated into unwonted activity," said this American Junius, "Mr. Greeley awards to others the credit which belongs transcendently to himself. The main work of the Chicago convention was the defeat of Governor Seward, and in that endeavour Mr. Greeley laboured harder, and did tenfold more, than the whole family of Blairs, together with all the gubernatorial candidates, to whom he modestly hands over the honours of the effective campaign. Mr. Greeley had special qualifications, as well as a special love, for this task. For twenty years he had been sustaining the political principles and vindicating the political conduct of Mr. Seward through the columns of the most influential political newspaper in the country. His voice was potential precisely where Governor Seward was strongest, because it was supposed to be that of a friend, strong in his personal attachment and devotion, and driven into opposition on this occasion solely by the despairing conviction that the welfare of the country and the triumph of the Republican cause demanded the sacrifice. For more than six months Mr. Greeley had been preparing the way for this consummation. He was in Chicago several days before the meeting of the convention and he devoted every hour of the interval to the most steady and relentless prosecution of the main business which took him thither.

"While it was known to some that nearly six years ago he had privately, but distinctly, repudiated all further political friendship for and alliance with Governor Seward, for the avowed reason that Governor Seward had never aided or advised his elevation to office, no use was made of this knowledge in quarters where it would have disarmed the deadly effect of his pretended friendship for the man upon whom he was thus deliberately wreaking the long hoarded revenge of a disappointed office-seeker.... Being thus stimulated by a hatred he had secretly cherished for years, protected by the forbearance of those whom he assailed, and strong in the confidence of those upon whom he sought to operate, it is not strange that Mr. Greeley's efforts should have been crowned with success. But it is perfectly safe to say that no other man—certainly no one occupying a position less favourable for such an assault—could possibly have accomplished that result."[571]

[Footnote 571: New York Times, May 25, 1860.]

Raymond's letter produced a profound impression. It excited the astonishment and incredulity of every one. He had made a distinct charge that Greeley's opposition was the revenge of a disappointed office-seeker, and the public, resenting the imputation, demanded the evidence. Greeley himself echoed the prayer by a blast from his silver trumpet which added to the interest as well as to the excitement. "This carefully drawn indictment," he said, "contains a very artful mixture of truth and misrepresentation. No intelligent reader of the Tribune has for months been left in doubt of the fact that I deemed the nomination of Governor Seward for President at this time unwise and unsafe; and none can fail to understand that I did my best at Chicago to prevent that nomination. My account of 'Last Week at Chicago' is explicit on that point. True, I do not believe my influence was so controlling as the defeated are disposed to represent it, but this is not material to the issue. It is agreed that I did what I could.

"It is not true—it is grossly untrue—that at Chicago I commended myself to the confidence of delegates 'by professions of regard and the most zealous friendship for Governor Seward, but presented defeat, even in New York, as the inevitable result of his nomination.' The very reverse of this is the truth. I made no professions before the nomination, as I have uttered no lamentations since. It was the simple duty of each delegate to do just whatever was best for the Republican cause, regardless of personal considerations. And this is exactly what I did.... As to New York, I think I was at least a hundred times asked whether Governor Seward could carry this State;[572] and I am sure I uniformly responded affirmatively, urging delegates to consider the New York delegation the highest authority on that point as I was strenuously urging that the delegations from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois must be regarded as authority as to who could and who could not carry their respective States.

[Footnote 572: "At Chicago, Seward encountered the opposition from his own State of such powerful leaders as Greeley, Dudley Field, Bryant, and Wadsworth. The first two were on the ground and very busy. The two latter sent pungent letters that were circulated among the delegates from the various States. The main point of the attack was that Seward could not carry New York. Soon after the adjournment of the convention, William Curtis Noyes, a delegate, told me that a careful canvass of the New York delegation showed that nearly one-fourth of its members believed it was extremely doubtful if Seward could obtain a majority at the polls in that State."—H.B. Stanton, Random Recollections, pp. 214-15. "Perhaps the main stumbling block over which he fell in the convention was Thurlow Weed."—Ibid., p. 215.]

"Mr. Raymond proceeds to state that I had, 'in November, 1854, privately but distinctly repudiated all further political friendship for and alliance with Governor Seward, and menaced him with hostility wherever it could be made most effective; for the avowed reason that Governor Seward had never advised my elevation to office,' &c. This is a very grave charge, and, being dated 'Auburn, Tuesday, May 22, 1860,' and written by one who was there expressly and avowedly to console with Governor Seward on his defeat and denounce me as its author, it is impossible not to see that Governor Seward is its responsible source. I, therefore, call on him for the private letter which I did write him in November, 1854, that I may print it verbatim in the Tribune, and let every reader judge how far it sustains the charges which his mouthpiece bases thereon. I maintain that it does not sustain them; but I have no copy of the letter, and I cannot discuss its contents while it remains in the hands of my adversaries, to be used at their discretion. I leave to others all judgment as to the unauthorised use which has already been made of this private and confidential letter, only remarking that this is by no means the first time it has been employed to like purpose. I have heard of its contents being dispensed to members of Congress from Governor Seward's dinner-table; I have seen articles based on it paraded in the columns of such devoted champions of Governor Seward's principles and aims as the Boston Courier. It is fit that the New York Times should follow in their footsteps; but I, who am thus fired on from an ambush, demand that the letter shall no longer be thus employed. Let me have the letter and it shall appear verbatim in every edition of the Tribune. Meantime, I only say that, when I fully decided that I would no longer be devoted to Governor Seward's personal fortunes, it seemed due to candour and fair dealing that I should privately but in all frankness apprise him of the fact. It was not possible that I could in any way be profited by writing that letter; I well understood that it involved an abdication of all hopes of political advancement; yet it seemed due to my own character that the letter should be written. Of course I never dreamed that it could be published, or used as it already has been; but no matter—let us have the letter in print, and let the public judge between its writer and his open and covert assailants. At all events I ask no favour and fear no open hostility.

"There are those who will at all events believe that my opposition to Governor Seward's nomination was impelled by personal considerations; and among these I should expect to find the Hon. Henry J. Raymond. With these I have no time for controversy; in their eyes I desire no vindication. But there is another and far larger class who will realise that the obstacles to Governor Seward's election were in no degree of my creation, and that their removal was utterly beyond my powers. The whole course of the Tribune has tended to facilitate the elevation to the Presidency of a statesman cherishing the pronounced anti-slavery views of Governor Seward; it is only on questions of finance and public economy that there has been any perceptible divergence between us. Those anti-democratic voters of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, who could not be induced to vote for Governor Seward, have derived their notions of him in some measure from the Times, but in no measure from the Tribune. The delegations from those States, with the candidates for governor in Pennsylvania and Indiana, whose representations and remonstrances rendered the nomination of Governor Seward, in the eyes of all intelligent, impartial observers, a clear act of political suicide, were nowise instructed or impelled by me. They acted on views deliberately formed long before they came to Chicago. It is not my part to vindicate them; but whoever says they were influenced by me, other than I was by them, does them the grossest injustice.

"I wished first of all to succeed; next, to strengthen and establish our struggling brethren in the border slave States. If it had seemed to me possible to obtain one more vote in the doubtful States for Governor Seward than for any one else, I should have struggled for him as ardently as I did against him, even though I had known that the Raymonds who hang about our party were to be his trusted counsellors and I inflexibly shut out from his confidence and favour. If there be any who do not believe this, I neither desire their friendship nor deprecate their hostility."[573]

[Footnote 573: New York Tribune, June 2, 1860.]

Greeley's demand for his letter did not meet with swift response. It was made on June 2. When Seward passed through New York on his way to Washington on the 8th, a friend of Greeley waited upon him, but he had nothing for the Tribune. Days multiplied into a week, and still nothing came. Finally, on June 13, Greeley received it through the hands of Thurlow Weed and published it on the 14th. It bore date "New York, Saturday evening, November 11, 1854," and was addressed simply to "Governor Seward." Its great length consigned it to nonpareil in strange contrast to the long primer type of the editorial page, but its publication became the sensation of the hour. To this day its fine thought-shading is regarded the best illustration of Greeley's matchless prose.

"The election is over," he says, "and its results sufficiently ascertained. It seems to me a fitting time to announce to you the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner—said withdrawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tuesday in February next. And, as it may seem a great presumption in me to assume that any such firm exists, especially since the public was advised, rather more than a year ago, by an editorial rescript in the Evening Journal, formally reading me out of the Whig party, that I was esteemed no longer either useful or ornamental in the concern, you will, I am sure, indulge me in some reminiscences which seem to befit the occasion.

"I was a poor young printer and editor of a literary journal—a very active and bitter Whig in a small way, but not seeking to be known out of my own ward committee—when, after the great political revulsion of 1837, I was one day called to the City Hotel, where two strangers introduced themselves as Thurlow Weed and Lewis Benedict, of Albany. They told me that a cheap campaign paper of a peculiar stamp at Albany had been resolved on, and that I had been selected to edit it. The announcement might well be deemed flattering by one who had never even sought the notice of the great, and who was not known as a partisan writer, and I eagerly embraced their proposals. They asked me to fix my salary for the year; I named $1,000, which they agreed to; and I did the work required to the best of my ability. It was work that made no figure and created no sensation; but I loved it and did it well. When it was done you were Governor, dispensing offices worth $3000 to $20,000 per year to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations heaped upon me by bad partners in business and the disastrous events of 1837. I believe it did not then occur to me that some of these abundant places might have been offered to me without injustice; I now think it should have occurred to you. If it did occur to me, I was not the man to ask you for it; I think that should not have been necessary. I only remember that no friend at Albany inquired as to my pecuniary circumstances; that your friend (but not mine), Robert C. Wetmore, was one of the chief dispensers of your patronage here; and that such devoted compatriots as A.H. Wells and John Hooks were lifted by you out of pauperism into independence, as I am glad I was not; and yet an inquiry from you as to my needs and means at that time would have been timely, and held ever in grateful remembrance.

"In the Harrison campaign of 1840 I was again designated to edit a campaign paper. I published it as well, and ought to have made something by it, in spite of its extremely low price; my extreme poverty was the main reason why I did not. It compelled me to hire presswork, mailing, etc., done by the job, and high charges for extra work nearly ate me up. At the close I was still without property and in debt, but this paper had rather improved my position.

"Now came the great scramble of the swell mob of coon minstrels and cider suckers at Washington—I not being counted in. Several regiments of them went on from this city; but no one of the whole crowd—though I say it who should not—had done so much toward General Harrison's nomination and election as yours respectfully. I asked nothing, expected nothing; but you, Governor Seward, ought to have asked that I be postmaster of New York. Your asking would have been in vain; but it would have been an act of grace neither wasted nor undeserved.

"I soon after started the Tribune, because I was urged to do so by certain of your friends, and because such a paper was needed here. I was promised certain pecuniary aid in so doing; it might have been given me without cost or risk to any one. All I ever had was a loan by piecemeal of $1000, from James Coggeshall. God bless his honoured memory! I did not ask for this, and I think it is the one sole case in which I ever received a pecuniary favour from a political associate. I am very thankful that he did not die till it was fully repaid.

"And let me here honour one grateful recollection. When the Whig party under your rule had offices to give, my name was never thought of; but when in '42-'43, we were hopelessly out of power, I was honoured with the nomination for state printer. When we came again to have a state printer to elect, as well as nominate, the place went to Weed, as it ought. Yet it was worth something to know that there was once a time when it was not deemed too great a sacrifice to recognise me as belonging to your household. If a new office had not since been created on purpose to give its valuable patronage to H.J. Raymond and enable St. John to show forth his Times as the organ of the Whig state administration, I should have been still more grateful.

"In 1848 your star again rose, and my warmest hopes were realised in your election to the Senate. I was no longer needy, and had no more claim than desire to be recognised by General Taylor. I think I had some claim to forbearance from you. What I received thereupon was a most humiliating lecture in the shape of a decision in the libel case of Redfield and Pringle, and an obligation to publish it in my own and the other journal of our supposed firm. I thought and still think this lecture needlessly cruel and mortifying. The plaintiffs, after using my columns to the extent of their needs or desires, stopped writing and called on me for the name of their assailant. I proffered it to them—a thoroughly responsible man. They refused to accept it unless it should prove to be one of the four or five first men in Batavia!—when they had known from the first who it was, and that it was neither of them. They would not accept that which they had demanded; they sued me instead for money, and money you were at liberty to give them to their heart's content. I do not think you were at liberty to humiliate me in the eyes of my own and your public as you did. I think you exalted your own judicial sternness and fearlessness unduly at my expense. I think you had a better occasion for the display of these qualities when Webb threw himself entirely upon you for a pardon which he had done all a man could do to demerit. His paper is paying you for it now.

"I have publicly set forth my view of your and our duty with respect to fusion, Nebraska, and party designations. I will not repeat any of that. I have referred also to Weed's reading me out of the Whig party—my crime being, in this as in some other things, that of doing to-day what more politic persons will not be ready to do till to-morrow.

"Let me speak of the late canvass. I was once sent to Congress for ninety days merely to enable Jim Brooks to secure a seat therein for four years. I think I never hinted to any human being that I would have liked to be put forward for any place. But James W. White (you hardly know how good and true a man he is) started my name for Congress, and Brooks' packed delegation thought I could help him through; so I was put on behind him. But this last spring, after the Nebraska question had created a new state of things at the North, one or two personal friends, of no political consideration, suggested my name as a candidate for governor, and I did not discourage them. Soon, the persons who were afterward mainly instrumental in nominating Clark came about me, and asked if I could secure the Know-Nothing vote. I told them I neither could nor would touch it; on the contrary, I loathed and repelled it. Thereupon they turned upon Clark.

"I said nothing, did nothing. A hundred people asked me who should be run for governor. I sometimes indicated Patterson; I never hinted at my own name. But by and by Weed came down, and called me to him, to tell me why he could not support me for governor. I had never asked nor counted on his support.

"I am sure Weed did not mean to humiliate me; but he did it. The upshot of his discourse (very cautiously stated) was this: If I were a candidate for governor, I should beat not myself only, but you. Perhaps that was true. But as I had in no manner solicited his or your support, I thought this might have been said to my friends rather than to me. I suspect it is true that I could not have been elected governor as a Whig. But had he and you been favourable, there would have been a party in the State ere this which could and would have elected me to any post, without injuring itself or endangering your re-election.

"It was in vain that I urged that I had in no manner asked a nomination. At length I was nettled by his language—well intended, but very cutting as addressed by him to me—to say, in substance, 'Well, then, make Patterson governor, and try my name for lieutenant. To lose this place is a matter of no importance; and we can see whether I am really so odious.'

"I should have hated to serve as lieutenant-governor, but I should have gloried in running for the post. I want to have my enemies all upon me at once; am tired of fighting them piecemeal. And, though I should have been beaten in the canvass, I know that my running would have helped the ticket, and helped my paper.

"It was thought best to let the matter take another course. No other name could have been put on the ticket so bitterly humbling to me as that which was selected. The nomination was given to Raymond; the fight left to me. And, Governor Seward, I have made it, though it be conceited in me to say so. Even Weed has not been (I speak of his paper) hearty in this contest, while the journal of the Whig lieutenant-governor has taken care of its own interests and let the canvass take care of itself, as it early declared it would do. That journal has (because of its milk-and-water course) some twenty thousand subscribers in this city and its suburbs, and of these twenty thousand, I venture to say more voted for Ullman and Scroggs than for Clark and Raymond; the Tribune (also because of its character) has but eight thousand subscribers within the same radius, and I venture to say that of its habitual readers, nine-tenths voted for Clark and Raymond—very few for Ullman and Scroggs. I had to bear the brunt of the contest....

"Governor Seward, I know that some of your most cherished friends think me a great obstacle to your advancement; that John Schoolcraft, for one, insists that you and Weed should not be identified with me. I trust, after a time, you will not be. I trust I shall never be found in opposition to you; I have no further wish than to glide out of the newspaper world as quietly and as speedily as possible, join my family in Europe, and, if possible, stay there quite a time—long enough to cool my fevered brain and renovate my over-tasked energies. All I ask is that we shall be counted even on the morning after the first Tuesday in February, as aforesaid, and that I may thereafter take such course as seems best without reference to the past.

"You have done me acts of valued kindness in the line of your profession; let me close with the assurance that these will ever be gratefully remembered by Yours, Horace Greeley."[574]

[Footnote 574: New York Tribune, June 14, 1860.]

At the time Seward received this letter he regarded it as only a passing cloud-shadow. "To-day I have a long letter from Greeley, full of sharp, pricking thorns," he wrote Weed. "I judge, as we might indeed well know from his nobleness of disposition, that he has no idea of saying or doing anything wrong or unkind; but it is sad to see him so unhappy. Will there be a vacancy in the Board of Regents this winter? Could one be made at the close of the session? Could he have it? Raymond's nomination and election is hard for him to bear."[575] Two or three weeks later, after a call at the Tribune office, Seward again wrote Weed, suggesting that "Greeley's despondency is overwhelming, and seems to be aggravated by the loss of subscribers. But below this is chagrin at the failure to obtain official position."[576] With such inquiries and comments Seward put the famous letter away.[577]

[Footnote 575: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 576: Ibid., p. 240.]

[Footnote 577: "My personal relations with Governor Seward were wholly unchanged by this letter. We met frequently and cordially after it was written, and we very freely conferred and co-operated during the long struggle in Congress for Kansas and Free Labour. He understood as well as I did that my position with regard to him, though more independent than it had been, was nowise hostile, and that I was as ready to support his advancement as that of any other statesman, whenever my judgment should tell me that the public good required it. I was not his adversary, but my own and my country's freeman."—Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 321.]

Its publication did not accomplish all that Raymond expected. People were amazed, and deep in their hearts many persons felt that Greeley had been treated unfairly. The inquiry as to a vacancy in the Board of Regents showed that Seward himself shared this opinion at the time. But the question that most interested the public in 1860 was, why, if Greeley had declared war upon Seward in 1854, did not Weed make it known in time to destroy the influence of the man who had "deliberately wreaked the long-hoarded revenge of a disappointed office-seeker?" This question reflected upon Weed's management of Seward's campaign, and to avoid the criticism he claimed to have been "in blissful ignorance of its contents." This seems almost impossible. But in explaining the groundlessness of Greeley's complaints, Weed wrote an editorial, the dignity and patriotism of which contrasted favourably with Greeley's self-seeking.

"There are some things in this letter," wrote the editor of the Evening Journal, "requiring explanation—all things in it, indeed, are susceptible of explanations consistent with Governor Seward's full appreciation of Mr. Greeley's friendship and services. The letter was evidently written under a morbid state of feeling, and it is less a matter of surprise that such a letter was thus written, than that its writer should not only cherish the ill-will that prompted it for six years, but allow it to influence his action upon a question which concerns his party and his country.

"Mr. Greeley's first complaint is that this journal, in an 'editorial rescript formally read him out of the Whig party.' Now, here is the 'editorial rescript formally reading' Mr. Greeley out of the Whig party, taken from the Evening Journal of September 6, 1853:

"'The Tribune defines its position in reference to the approaching election. Regarding the "Maine law" as a question of paramount importance, it will support members of the legislature friendly to its passage, irrespective of party. For state officers it will support such men as it deems competent and trustworthy, irrespective also of party, and without regard to the "Maine law." In a word, it avows itself, for the present, if not forever, an independent journal (it was pretty much so always), discarding party usages, mandates, and platforms.

"'We regret to lose, in the Tribune, an old, able, and efficient co-labourer in the Whig vineyard. But when carried away by its convictions of duty to other, and, in its judgment, higher and more beneficent objects, we have as little right as inclination to complain. The Tribune takes with it, wherever it goes, an indomitable and powerful pen, a devoted, a noble, and an unselfish zeal. Its senior editor evidently supposes himself permanently divorced from the Whig party, but we shall be disappointed if, after a year or two's sturdy pulling at the oar of reform, he does not return to his long-cherished belief that great and beneficent aims must continue, as they commenced, to be wrought out through Whig instrumentalities.

"'But we only intended to say that the Tribune openly and frankly avows its intention and policy; and that in things about which we cannot agree, we can and will disagree as friends.'

"Pray read this article again, if its purpose and import be not clearly understood! At the time it appeared, the Tribune was under high pressure 'Maine law' speed. That question, in Mr. Greeley's view, was paramount to all others. It was the Tribune's 'higher law.' Mr. Greeley had given warning in his paper that he should support 'Maine law' candidates for the legislature, and for state offices, regardless of their political or party principles and character. And this, too, when senators to be elected had to choose a senator in Congress. But instead of 'reading' Mr. Greeley 'out of the Whig party,' it will be seen that after Mr. Greeley had read himself out of the party by discarding 'party usages, mandates, and platforms,' the Evening Journal, in the language and spirit of friendship, predicted just what happened, namely, that, in due time, Mr. Greeley would 'return to his long-cherished belief that great and beneficent aims must continue, as they commenced, to be wrought out through Whig instrumentalities.'

"We submit, even to Mr. Greeley himself, whether there is one word or thought in the article to which he referred justifying his accusation that he had been 'read out of the Whig party' by the Evening Journal.

"In December, 1837, when we sought the acquaintance and co-operation of Mr. Greeley, we were, like him, a 'poor printer,' working as hard as he worked. We had then been sole editor, reporter, news collector, 'remarkable accident,' 'horrid murder,' 'items' man, etc., etc., for seven years, at a salary of $750, $1000, $1250, and $1500. We had also been working hard, for poor pay, as an editor and politician, for the twelve years preceding 1830. We stood, therefore, on the same footing with Mr. Greeley when the partnership was formed. We knew that Mr. Greeley was much abler, more indomitably industrious, and, as we believed, a better man in all respects. We foresaw for him a brilliant future; and, if we had not started with utterly erroneous views of his objects, we do not believe that our relations would have jarred. We believed him indifferent alike to the temptations of money and office, desiring only to become both 'useful' and 'ornamental,' as the editor of a patriotic, enlightened, leading, and influential public journal. For years, therefore, we placed Horace Greeley far above the 'swell mob' of office-seekers, for whom, in his letter, he expresses so much contempt. Had Governor Seward known, in 1838, that Mr. Greeley coveted an inspectorship, he certainly would have received it. Indeed, if our memory be not at fault, Mr. Greeley was offered the clerkship of the Assembly in 1838. It was certainly pressed upon us, and, though at that time, like Mr. Greeley, desperately poor, it was declined.

"We cannot think that Mr. Greeley's political friends, after the Tribune was under way, knew that he needed the 'pecuniary aid' which had been promised. When, about that period, we suggested to him (after consulting some of the board) that the printing of the common council, might be obtained, he refused to have anything to do with it.

"In relation to the state printing, Mr. Greeley knows that there never was a day when, if he had chosen to come to Albany, he might not have taken whatever interest he pleased in the Journal and its state printing. But he wisely regarded his position in New York, and the future of the Tribune, as far more desirable.

"For the 'creation of the new office for the Times,' Mr. Greeley knows perfectly well that Governor Seward was in no manner responsible.

"That Mr. Greeley should make the adjustment of the libel suit of Messrs. Redfield and Pringle against the Tribune a ground of accusation against Governor Seward is a matter of astonishment. Governor Seward undertook the settlement of that suit as the friend of Mr. Greeley, at a time when a systematic effort was being made to destroy both the Tribune and Journal by prosecutions for libel. We were literally plastered over with writs, declarations, etc. There were at least two judges of the Supreme Court in the State, on whom plaintiffs were at liberty to count for verdicts. Governor Seward tendered his professional services to Mr. Greeley, and in the case referred to, as in others, foiled the adversary. For such service this seems a strange requital. Less fortunate than the Tribune, it cost the Journal over $8000 to reach a point in legal proceedings that enabled a defendant in a libel suit to give the truth in evidence.

"It was by no fault or neglect or wish of Governor Seward that Mr. Greeley served but 'ninety days in Congress.' Nor will we say what others have said, that his congressional debut was a failure. There were no other reasons, and this seems a fitting occasion to state them. Mr. Greeley's 'isms' were in his way at conventions. The sharp points and rough edges of the Tribune rendered him unacceptable to those who nominate candidates. This was more so formerly than at present, for most of the rampant reforms to which the Tribune was devoted have subsided. We had no sympathy with, and little respect for, a constituency that preferred 'Jim' Brooks to Horace Greeley.

"Nearly forty years of experience leaves us in some doubt whether, with political friends, an open, frank, and truthful, or a cautious, calculating, non-committal course is not the right, but the easiest and most politic. The former, which we have chosen, has made us much trouble and many enemies. Few candidates are able to bear the truth, or to believe that the friend who utters it is truly one.

"In 1854, the Tribune, through years of earnest effort, had educated the people up to the point of demanding a 'Maine law' candidate for governor. But its followers would not accept their chief reformer! It was evident that the state convention was to be largely influenced by 'Maine law' and 'Choctaw' Know-Nothing delegates. It was equally evident that Mr. Greeley could neither be nominated nor elected. Hence the conference to which he refers. We found, as on two other occasions during thirty years, our state convention impracticable. We submitted the names of Lieutenant-Governor Patterson and Judge Harris (both temperance men in faith and practice) as candidates for governor, coupled with that of Mr. Greeley for lieutenant-governor. But the 'Maine law' men would have none of these, preferring Myron H. Clark (who used up the raw material of temperance), qualified by H.J. Raymond for lieutenant-governor.

"What Mr. Greeley says of the relative zeal and efficiency of the Tribune and Times, and of our own feelings in that contest, is true. We did our duty, but with less of enthusiasm than when we were supporting either Granger, Seward, Bradish, Hunt, Fish, King, or Morgan for governor.

"One word in relation to the supposed 'political firm.' Mr. Greeley brought into it his full quota of capital. But were there no beneficial results, no accruing advantages, to himself? Did he not attain, in the sixteen years, a high position, world-wide reputation, and an ample fortune? Admit, as we do, that he is not as wealthy as we wish he was, it is not because the Tribune has not made his fortune, but because he did not keep it—because it went, as other people's money goes, to friends, to pay indorsements, and in bad investments.

"We had both been liberally, nay, generously, sustained by our party. Mr. Greeley differs with us in regarding patrons of newspapers as conferring favours. In giving them the worth of their money, he holds that the account is balanced. We, on the other hand, have ever held the relation of newspaper editor and subscriber as one of fraternity. Viewed in this aspect, the editors of the Tribune and Evening Journal have manifold reasons for cherishing grateful recollections of the liberal and abiding confidence and patronage of their party and friends.

"In conclusion, we cannot withhold an expression of sincere regret that this letter has been called out. After remaining six years in 'blissful ignorance' of its contents, we should have preferred to have ever remained so. It jars harshly upon cherished memories. It destroys ideals of disinterestedness and generosity which relieved political life from so much that is selfish, sordid, and rapacious."

Henry B. Stanton once asked Seward, directly, if he did not think it would have been better to let Greeley have office. "Mr. Seward looked at me intently, rolled out a cloud of tobacco smoke, and then slowly responded: 'I don't know but it would.'"[578] It is doubtful, however, if Seward ever forgave a New Yorker who contributed to his defeat. Lincoln spoke of him as "without gall," but Stanton declared him a good hater who lay in wait to punish his foes. Greeley, James S. Wadsworth, William Cullen Bryant, and David Dudley Field, conspicuously led the opposition, and if he failed to annihilate them all it is because some of them did not give him a chance to strike back. Greeley caught the first knockout blow in February, 1861; and in 1862, says Stanton, "he doubtless defeated James S. Wadsworth for governor of New York. Wadsworth, who was then military commander of Washington, told me that Seward was 'dead against him' all through the campaign."[579]

[Footnote 578: H.B. Stanton, Random Recollections, pp. 199, 200.]

[Footnote 579: Ibid., p. 216.]



CHAPTER XXIV

THE FIGHT OF THE FUSIONISTS

1860

After the return of the Softs from Baltimore the condition of the Democratic party became a subject of much anxiety. Dean Richmond's persistent use of the unit rule had driven the Hards into open rebellion, and at a great mass-meeting, held at Cooper Institute and addressed by Daniel S. Dickinson, it was agreed to hold a Breckenridge and Lane state convention at Syracuse on August 8. At the appointed time three hundred delegates appeared, representing every county, but with the notable exception of the chairman, Henry S. Randall, the biographer of Thomas Jefferson, who had advocated the Wilmot Proviso in 1847, written the Buffalo platform in 1848, and opposed the fugitive slave law in 1850, practically all of them had steadily opposed the Free-soil influences of their party. To many it seemed strange, if not absolutely ludicrous, to hoist a pro-slavery flag in the Empire State. But Republicans welcomed the division of their opponents, and the Hards were terribly in earnest. They organised with due formality; spent two days in conference; adopted the pro-slavery platform of the seceders' convention amidst loud cheering; selected candidates for a state and electoral ticket with the care that precedes certain election; angrily denounced the leadership of Dean Richmond at Charleston and Baltimore; appointed a new state committee, and, with the usual assurance of determined men, claimed a large following.

The indomitable Dickinson, in a speech not unlike his Cooper Institute address, declared that Breckenridge, the regularly nominated candidate of seventeen States and portions of other States, would secure one hundred and twenty-seven electoral votes in the South and on the Pacific coast. This made the election, he argued, depend upon New York, and since Douglas would start without the hope of getting a single vote, it became the duty of every national Democrat to insist that the Illinoisan be withdrawn. People might scoff at this movement as "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand," he said, but it would grow in size and send forth a deluge that would refresh and purify the arid soil of politics. The applause that greeted this prophecy indicated faith in a principle that most people knew had outlived its day in the State; and, although Dickinson was always altogether on one side, it is scarcely credible that he could sincerely believe that New York would support Breckenridge, even if Douglas withdrew.

The Hards conjured with a few distinguished names which still gave them prestige. Charles O'Conor, Greene C. Bronson, and John A. Dix, as conservative, moderate leaders, undoubtedly had the confidence of many people, and their ticket, headed by James T. Brady, the brilliant lawyer, looked formidable. Personally, Brady was perhaps the most popular man in New York City; and had he stood upon other than a pro-slavery platform his support must have been generous. But the fact that he advocated the protection of slave property in the territories, although opposed to Buchanan's Lecompton policy, was destined to subject him to humiliating defeat.

The Softs met in convention on August 15. In numbers and noisy enthusiasm they did not seem to represent a larger following than the Hards, but their principles expressed the real sentiment of whatever was left of the rank and file of the Democratic party of the State. Horatio Seymour was the pivotal personage. Around him they rallied. The resolution indorsing Stephen A. Douglas and his doctrine of non-intervention very adroitly avoided quarrels. It accepted Fernando Wood's delegation on equal terms with Tammany; refused to notice the Hards' attack upon Dean Richmond and the majority of the Charleston delegation; and nominated William Kelley of Hudson for governor by acclamation. Kelley was a large farmer of respectable character and talents, who had served with credit in the State Senate and supported Van Buren in 1848 with the warmth of a sincere Free-soiler. He was evidently a man without guile, and, although modest and plain-spoken, he knew what the farmer and workingman most wanted, and addressed himself to their best thought. It was generally conceded that he would poll the full strength of his party.

But the cleverest act of the convention was its fusion with the Constitutional Union party. In the preceding May, the old-line Whigs and Know-Nothings had met at Baltimore and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President, on the simple platform: "The Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." Washington Hunt, the former governor of New York, had become the convention's president, and, in company with James Brooks and William Duer, he had arranged with the Softs to place on the Douglas electoral ticket ten representatives of the Union party, with William Kent, the popular son of the distinguished Chancellor, at their head.

Hunt had become a thorn in the side of his old friends, now the leading Republican managers. He had joined them as a Whig in the thirties. After sending him to Congress for three terms and making him comptroller of state in 1848, they had elected him governor in 1850; but, in the division of the party, he joined the Silver-Grays, failed of re-election in 1852, dropped into the American party in 1854, and supported Fillmore in 1856. Thurlow Weed thought he ought to have aided them in the formation of the Republican party, and Horace Greeley occasionally reminded him that a decent regard for consistency should impel him to act in accordance with his anti-slavery record; but when, in 1860, Hunt began the crusade that successfully fused the Douglas and Bell tickets in New York, thus seriously endangering the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican editors opened their batteries upon him with well-directed aim. In his one attempt to face these attacks, Hunt taunted Greeley with being "more dangerous to friend than to foe." To this the editor of the Tribune retorted: "When I was your friend, you were six times before the people as a candidate for most desirable offices, and in five of those six were successful, while you were repeatedly a candidate before and have been since, and always defeated. Possibly some have found me a dangerous friend, but you never did."[580]

[Footnote 580: New York Tribune, July 23, 1860.]

Hunt's coalition movement, called the "Syracuse juggle" and the "confusion ticket," did not work as smoothly as he expected. It gave rise to a bitter controversy which at once impaired its value. The Bell negotiators declared that the ten electors, if chosen, would be free to vote for their own candidate, while the Douglas mediators stated with emphasis that each elector was not only pledged by the resolution of the convention to support Douglas, but was required to give his consent to do so or allow another to fill his place. "We cannot tell which answer is right," said the New York Sun, "but it looks as if there were deception practised." The Tribune presented the ridiculous phase of it when it declared that the Bell electors were put up to catch the Know-Nothings, while the others would trap the Irish and Germans. "Is this the way," it asked, referring to William Kent and his associates, "in which honourable men who have characters to support, conduct political contests?"[581] To dissipate the confusion, Hunt explained that the defeat of Lincoln would probably throw the election into Congress, in which event Bell would become President. "But we declare, with the same frankness, that if Douglas, and not Bell, shall become President, we will welcome that result as greatly preferable to the success of sectional candidates."[582]

[Footnote 581: Ibid., July 14, 1860.]

[Footnote 582: Ibid., July 24, 1860.]

The Republican state convention which met at Syracuse on August 22, did not muffle its enthusiasm over the schism in the Democratic party. Seward and his friends had regained their composure. A midsummer trip to New England, chiefly for recreation, had brought great crowds about the Auburn statesmen wherever he appeared, and, encouraged by their enthusiastic devotion, he returned satisfied with the place he held in the hearts of Republicans. His followers, too, indicated their disappointment by no public word or sign. To the end of the convention its proceedings were marked by harmony and unanimity. Edwin D. Morgan was renominated for governor by acclamation; the platform of Chicago principles was adopted amidst prolonged cheers, and the selection of electors approved without dissent. The happy combination of the two electors-at-large, William Cullen Bryant and James O. Putnam, evidenced the spirit of loyalty to Abraham Lincoln that inspired all participants. Bryant had been an oracle of the radical democracy for more than twenty years, and had stubbornly opposed Seward; Putnam, a Whig of the school of Clay and Webster, had, until recently, zealously supported Millard Fillmore and the American party. In its eagerness to unite every phase of anti-slavery sentiment the convention buried the past in its desire to know, in the words of Seward, "whether this is a constitutional government under which we live."

During the campaign, Republican demonstrations glorified Lincoln's early occupation of rail-splitting, while the Wide-awakes, composed largely of young men who had studied the slavery question since 1852 solely as a moral issue, illuminated the night and aroused enthusiasm with their torches and expert marching. As early as in September, the New York Herald estimated that over four hundred thousand were already uniformed and drilled. In every town and village these organisations, unique then, although common enough nowadays, were conscious appeals for sympathy and favour, and undoubtedly contributed much to the result by enlisting the hearty support of first voters. Indeed, on the Republican side, it was largely a campaign of young men. "The Republican party," said Seward at Cleveland, "is a party chiefly of young men. Each successive year brings into its ranks an increasing proportion of the young men of this country."[583]

[Footnote 583: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 462. Seward's Works, Vol. 4, p. 384.]

Aside from the torch-light processions of the Wide-awakes, the almost numberless speeches were the feature of the canvass of 1860. There had, perhaps, been more exciting and enthusiastic campaigns, but the number of meetings was without precedent. The Tribune estimated that ten thousand set addresses were made in New York alone, and that the number in the country equalled all that had been made in previous presidential canvasses since 1789. It is likewise true that at no time in the history of the State did so many distinguished men take part in a campaign. Though the clergy were not so obtrusive as in 1856, Henry Ward Beecher and Edwin H. Chapin, the eminent Universalist, did not hesitate to deliver political sermons from their pulpits, closing their campaign on the Sunday evening before election.

But the New Yorker whom the Republican masses most desired to hear and see was William H. Seward. Accordingly, in the latter part of August he started on a five weeks' tour through the Western States, beginning at Detroit and closing at Cleveland. At every point where train or steamboat stopped, if only for fifteen minutes, thousands of people awaited his coming. The day he spoke in Chicago, it was estimated that two hundred thousand visitors came to that city. Rhodes suggests that "it was then he reached the climax of his career."[584]

[Footnote 584: "Seward filled the minds of Republicans, attracting such attention and honour, and arousing such enthusiasm, that the closing months of the campaign were the most brilliant epoch of his life. It was then he reached the climax of his career."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 493.]

Seward's speeches contained nothing new, and in substance they resembled one another. But in freshness of thought and kaleidoscopic phraseology, they were attractive, full of eloquence, and of statesmanlike comment, lifting the campaign, then just opening, upon a high plane of political and moral patriotism. He avoided all personalities; he indicated no disappointment;[585] his praise of Lincoln was in excellent taste; and without evasion or concealment, but with a ripeness of experience that had mellowed and enlightened him, he talked of "higher law" and the "irrepressible conflict" in terms that made men welcome rather than fear their discussion. "Let this battle be decided in favour of freedom in the territories," he declared, "and not one slave will ever be carried into the territories of the United States, and that will end the irrepressible conflict."[586]

[Footnote 585: "Seward charged his defeat chiefly to Greeley. He felt toward that influential editor as much vindictiveness as was possible in a man of so amiable a nature. But he did not retire to his tent."—James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 494.

"The magnanimity of Mr. Seward, since the result of the convention was known," wrote James Russell Lowell, "has been a greater ornament to him and a greater honour to his party than his election to the Presidency would have been."—Atlantic Monthly, October, 1860; Lowell's Political Essays, p. 34.]

[Footnote 586: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, pp. 462-66.]

The growth and resources of the great Northwest, whose development he attributed to the exclusion of slave labour, seemed to inspire him with the hope and faith of youth, and he spoke of its reservation for freedom and its settlement and upbuilding in the critical moment of the country's history as providential, since it must rally the free States of the Atlantic coast to call back the ancient principles which had been abandoned by the government to slavery. "We resign to you," he said, "the banner of human rights and human liberty on this continent, and we bid you be firm, bold, and onward, and then you may hope that we will be able to follow you." It was in one of these moments of exaltation when he seemed to be lifted into the higher domain of prophecy that he made the prediction afterward realised by the Alaska treaty. "Standing here and looking far off into the Northwest," he said, "I see the Russian as he busily occupies himself in establishing seaports and towns and fortifications on the verge of this continent as the outposts of St. Petersburg, and I can say, 'Go on, and build up your outposts all along the coast, up even to the Arctic Ocean, for they will yet become the outposts of my own country—monuments of the civilisation of the United States in the Northwest."[587]

[Footnote 587: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 464.]

At the beginning of the canvass, Republican confidence and enthusiasm contrasted strangely with the apathy of the Democratic party, caused by its two tickets, two organisations, and two incompatible platforms. It was recognised early in the campaign that Douglas could carry no slave State unless it be Missouri; and, although the Douglas and Bell fusion awaked some hope, it was not until the fusion electoral ticket included supporters of Breckenridge that the struggle became vehement and energetic. New York's thirty-five votes were essential to the election of Lincoln, and early in September a determined effort began to unite the three parties against him. The Hards resisted the movement, but many merchants and capitalists of New York City, apprehensive of the dissolution of the Union if Lincoln were elected, and promising large sums of money to the campaign, forced the substitution of seven Breckenridge electors in place of as many Douglas supporters, giving Bell ten, Breckenridge seven, and Douglas eighteen. "It is understood," said the Tribune, "that four nabobs have already subscribed twenty-five thousand dollars each, and that one million is to be raised."[588]

[Footnote 588: New York Tribune, October 19, 1860.]

All this disturbed Lincoln. "I think there will be the most extraordinary effort ever made to carry New York for Douglas," he wrote Weed on August 17. "You and all others who write me from your State think the effort cannot succeed, and I hope you are right. Still, it will require close watching and great efforts on the other side."[589] After fusion did succeed, the Republican managers found encouragement in the fact that a majority of the Americans in the western part of the State,[590] following the lead of Putnam, belonged to the party of Lincoln, while the Germans gave comforting evidence of their support. On his return from the West Seward assured Lincoln "that this State will redeem all the pledges we have made."[591] Then came the October verdict from Pennsylvania and Indiana. "Emancipation or revolution is now upon us," said the Charleston Mercury.[592] Yet the hope of the New York fusionists, encouraged by a stock panic in Wall Street and by the unconcealed statement of Howell Cobb of Georgia, then secretary of the treasury, that Lincoln's election would be followed by disunion and a serious derangement of the financial interests of the country, kept the Empire State violently excited. It was reported in Southern newspapers that William B. Astor had contributed one million of dollars in aid of the fusion ticket.[593] It was a formidable combination of elements. Heretofore the Republican party had defeated them separately—now it met them as a united whole, when antagonisms, ceasing to be those of rational debate, had become those of fierce and furious passion. Greeley pronounced it "a struggle as intense, as vehement, and as energetic, as had ever been known," in New York.[594] Yet Thurlow Weed's confidence never wavered. "The fusion leaders have largely increased their fund," he wrote Lincoln, three days before the election, "and they are now using money lavishly. This stimulates and to some extent inspires confidence, and all the confederates are at work. Some of our friends are nervous. But I have no fear of the result in this State."[595]

[Footnote 589: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 297.]

[Footnote 590: "The names of eighty-one thousand New York men who voted for Fillmore in 1856 are inscribed on Republican poll-lists."—New York Tribune, September 11, 1860.]

[Footnote 591: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 471.]

[Footnote 592: October 18, 1860.]

[Footnote 593: Charleston Mercury, cited by National Intelligencer, November 1, 1860; Richmond Enquirer, November 2.]

[Footnote 594: Horace Greeley, American Conflict, Vol. 1, p. 300.]

[Footnote 595: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 300.]

After the election, returns came in rapidly. Before midnight they foreshadowed Lincoln's success, and the next morning's Tribune estimated that the Republicans had carried the electoral and state tickets by 30,000 to 50,000, with both branches of the Legislature and twenty-three out of thirty-three congressmen. The official figures did not change this prophecy, except to fix Lincoln's majority at 50,136 and Morgan's plurality at 63,460. Lincoln received 4374 votes more than Morgan, but Kelley ran 27,698 behind the fusion electoral ticket, showing that the Bell and Everett men declined to vote for the Softs' candidate for governor. Brady's total vote, 19,841, marked the pro-slavery candidate's small support, leaving Morgan a clear majority of 43,619.[596] "Mr. Dickinson and myself," said James T. Brady, six years later, in his tribute to the former's memory, "belonged to the small, despairing band in this State who carried into the political contest of the North, for the last time, the flag of the South, contending that the South should enjoy to the utmost, and with liberal recognition, all the rights she could fairly claim under the Constitution of the United States. How small that band was all familiar with the political history of this State can tell."[597]

[Footnote 596: Edwin D. Morgan, 358,272; William Kelley, 294,812; James T. Brady, 19,841.—Civil List, State of New York (1887), p. 166.]

[Footnote 597: Address at Bar meeting in New York City upon death of Daniel S. Dickinson.]



CHAPTER XXV

GREELEY, WEED, AND SECESSION

1860-1861

Upon the election of Lincoln in November, 1860, South Carolina almost immediately gave evidence of its purpose to secede from the Union. Democrats generally, and many supporters of Bell and Everett, had deemed secession probable in the event of Republican success—a belief so fully shared by the authorities at Washington, who understood the Southern people, that General Scott, then at the head of the army, wrote to President Buchanan before the end of October, advising that forts in all important Southern seaports be strengthened to avoid capture by surprise. On the other hand, the Republicans had regarded Southern threats as largely buncombe. They had been heard in 1820, in 1850, and so frequently in debate leading up to the contest in 1860, that William H. Seward, the most powerful leader of opinion in his party, had declared: "These hasty threats of disunion are so unnatural that they will find no hand to execute them."[598]

[Footnote 598: Speech of February 29, 1860: Seward's Works, Vol. 4, p. 619.]

Nevertheless, when, on November 16, the South Carolina Legislature passed an act calling a convention to meet on December 17, the Republicans, still enthusiastic over their success, began seriously to consider the question of disunion. "Do you think the South will secede?" became as common a salutation as "Good-morning;" and, although a few New Yorkers, perhaps, gave the indifferent reply of Henry Ward Beecher—"I don't believe they will; and I don't care if they do"[599]—the gloom and uncertainty which hung over business circles made all anxious to hear from the leaders of their party. Heretofore, Horace Greeley, Thurlow Weed, and William H. Seward, backed by Henry J. Raymond of the New York Times and James Watson Webb of the Courier, had been quick to meet any emergency, and their followers now looked to them for direction.

[Footnote 599: New York Tribune, November 30, 1860. The quotation is from an address delivered in Boston.]

Horace Greeley was admittedly the most influential Republican journalist. He had not always agreed with the leaders, and just now an open break existed in the relations of himself and the powerful triumvirate headed by Thurlow Weed; but Greeley had voiced the sentiment of the rank and file of his party more often than he had misstated it, and the Tribune readers naturally turned to their prophet for a solution of the pending trouble. As usual, he had an opinion. The election occurred on November 6, and on the 9th he declared that "if the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless.... Whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic, whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets."[600] Two weeks later, on November 26, he practically repeated these views. "If the cotton States unitedly and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully from the Union, we think they should and would be allowed to go. Any attempt to compel them by force to remain would be contrary to the principles enunciated in the immortal Declaration of Independence, contrary to the fundamental ideas on which human liberty is based."[601] As late as December 17, when South Carolina and other Southern States were on the threshold of secession, Greeley declared that "if the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it should not justify the secession of five millions of Southrons from the Union in 1861."[602] In January, he recanted in a measure. Yet, on February 23, he announced that "Whenever it shall be clear that the great body of the Southern people have become conclusively alienated from the Union, and anxious to escape from it, we will do our best to forward their views."[603]

[Footnote 600: New York Tribune, November 9, 1860.]

[Footnote 601: Ibid., November 26.]

[Footnote 602: New York Tribune, December 17.]

[Footnote 603: Ibid., February 23.]

Henry Ward Beecher[604] and the Garrison Abolitionists[605] also inclined to this view; and, in November and December, a few Republicans, because of a general repugnance to the coercion of a State, did not despise it. Naturally, however, the Greeley policy did not please the great bulk of Lincoln's intelligent supporters. The belief obtained that, the election having been fair and constitutional, the South ought to submit to the decision as readily as Northern Democrats acquiesced in it. Besides, a spontaneous feeling existed that the United States was a nation, that secession was treason, and seceders were traitors. Such people sighed for "an hour of Andrew Jackson;" and, to supply the popular demand, Jackson's proclamation against the nullifiers, written by Edward Livingston, a native of New York, then secretary of state, was published in a cheap and convenient edition. To the readers of such literature Greeley's peaceable secession seemed like the erratic policy of an eccentric thinker, and its promulgation, especially when it began giving comfort and encouragement to the South, contributed not a little to the defeat of its author for the United States Senate in the following February.

[Footnote 604: Ibid., November 30. "In so far as the Free States are concerned," he said, "I hold that it will be an advantage for the South to go off."]

[Footnote 605: The Liberator, November and December.]

Thurlow Weed also had a plan, which quickly attracted the attention of people in the South as well as in the North. He held that suggestions of compromise which the South could accept might be proposed without dishonour to the victors in the last election, and, in several carefully written editorials in the Evening Journal, he argued in favour of restoring the old line of the Missouri Compromise, and of substituting for the fugitive slave act, payment for rescued slaves by the counties in which the violation of law occurred. "When we refer, as we often do, triumphantly to the example of England," he said, "we are prone to forget that emancipation and compensation were provisions of the same act of Parliament."[606]

[Footnote 606: Albany Evening Journal, November 26, 1860.]

Weed was now sixty-three years of age—not an old man, and of little less energy than in 1824, when he drove about the State in his first encounter with Martin Van Buren. The success of the views he had fearlessly maintained, in defiance of menacing opponents, had been achieved in full measure, and he had reason to be proud of his conspicuous part in the result; but now, in the presence of secession which threatened the country because of that success, he seemed suddenly to revolt against the policy he himself had fostered. As his biographer expressed it, "he cast aside the weapons which none could wield so well,"[607] and, betraying the influences of his early training under the great Whig leaders, began to show his love for the Union after the manner of Clay and Webster.

[Footnote 607: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 306.]

Weed outlined his policy with rare skill, hoping that the discussion provoked by it might result in working out some plan to avoid disunion.[608] Raymond, in the Times, and Webb in the Courier, gave it cordial support; the leading New York business men of all parties expressed themselves favourable to conciliation and compromise. "I can assure you," wrote August Belmont to Governor Sprague of Rhode Island, on December 13, "that all the leaders of the Republican party in our State and city, with a few exceptions of the ultra radicals, are in favour of concessions, and that the popular mind of the North is ripe for them." On December 19 he wrote again: "Last evening I was present at an informal meeting of about thirty gentlemen, comprising our leading men, Republicans, Union men, and Democrats, composed of such names as Astor, Aspinwall, Moses H. Grinnell, Hamilton Fish, R.M. Blatchford, &c. They were unanimous in their voice for reconciliation, and that the first steps have to be taken by the North."[609]

[Footnote 608: Albany Evening Journal, December 1, 1860.]

[Footnote 609: Letters of August Belmont, privately printed, pp. 15, 16.]

Belmont undoubtedly voiced the New York supporters of Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell, and many conservative Republicans, representing the business interests of the great metropolis; but the bulk of the Republicans did not like a plan that overthrew the cornerstone of their party, which had won on its opposition to the extension of slavery into free territory. To go back to the line of 36 deg. 30', permitting slavery to the south of it, meant the loss of all that had been gained, and a renewal of old issues and hostilities in the near future. Republican congressmen from the State, almost without exception, yielded to this view, voicing the sentiment that it was vain to temporise longer with compromises. With fluent invective, James B. McKean of Saratoga assailed the South in a speech that recalled the eloquence of John W. Taylor, his distinguished predecessor, who, in 1820, led the forces of freedom against the Missouri Compromise. "The slave-holders," he said, "have been fairly defeated in a presidential election. They now demand that the victors shall concede to the vanquished all that the latter have ever claimed, and vastly more than they could secure when they themselves were victors. They take their principles in one hand, and the sword in the other, and reaching out the former they say to us, 'Take these for your own, or we will strike.'"[610]

[Footnote 610: Congressional Globe, 1860-61, Appendix, p. 221. "Never, with my consent, shall the Constitution ordain or protect human slavery in any territory. Where it exists by law I will recognise it, but never shall it be extended over one acre of free territory." Speech of James Humphrey of Brooklyn.—Ibid., p. 158. "Why should we now make any concessions to them? With our experience of the little importance attached to former compromises by the South, it is ridiculous to talk about entering into another. The restoration of the Missouri line, with the protection of slavery south of it, will not save the Union." Speech of John B. Haskin of Fordham.—Ibid., p. 264. "The people of the North regard the election of Mr. Lincoln as the assurance that the day of compromise has ended; that henceforth slavery shall have all the consideration which is constitutionally due it and no more; that freedom shall have all its rights recognised and respected." Speech of Charles L. Beale of Kinderhook.—Ibid., p. 974. "We of the North are called upon to save the Union by making concessions and giving new guarantees to the South.... But I am opposed to tinkering with the Constitution, especially in these exciting times. I am satisfied with it as it is." Speech of Alfred Ely of Rochester.—Ibid., Appendix, p. 243. "I should be opposed to any alteration of the Constitution which would extend the area of slavery." Speech of Luther C. Carter of Flushing.—Ibid., p. 278. "I am opposed to all changes in the Constitution whatever." Edwin R. Reynolds of Albion.—Ibid., p. 1008.]

Nevertheless, Weed kept at work. In an elaborate article, he suggested a "Convention of the people consisting of delegates appointed by the States, to which North and South might bring their respective griefs, claims, and reforms to a common arbitrament, to meet, discuss, and determine upon a future. It will be said that we have done nothing wrong, and have nothing to offer. This is precisely why we should both purpose and offer whatever may, by possibility, avert the evils of civil war and prevent the destruction of our hitherto unexampled blessings of Union."[611]

[Footnote 611: Albany Evening Journal, November 30, 1860.]

Preston King, the junior United States senator from New York, clearly voicing the sentiment of the majority of his party in Congress and out of it, bitterly opposed such a policy. "It cannot be done," he wrote Weed, on December 7. "You must abandon your position. It will prove distasteful to the majority of those whom you have hitherto led. You and Seward should be among the foremost to brandish the lance and shout for joy."[612] To this the famous editor, giving a succinct view of his policy, replied with his usual directness. "I have not dreamed of anything inconsistent with Republican duty. We owe our existence as a party to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But for the ever blind spirit of slavery, Buchanan would have taken away our ammunition and spiked our guns. The continued blindness of Democracy and the continued madness of slavery enabled us to elect Lincoln. That success ends our mission so far as Kansas and the encroachments of slavery into free territory are concerned. We have no territory that invites slavery for any other than political objects, and with the power of territorial organisation in the hands of Lincoln, there is no political temptation in all the territory belonging to us. The fight is over. Practically, the issues of the late campaign are obsolete. If the Republican members of Congress stand still, we shall have a divided North and a united South. If they move promptly, there will be a divided South and a united North."[613]

[Footnote 612: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 309.]

[Footnote 613: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 309.]

It is not, perhaps, surprising that Weed found so much to say in favour of his proposition, since the same compromise and the same arguments were made use of a few weeks later by no less a person than the venerable John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, the Nestor of the United States Senate. Crittenden was ten years older than Weed, and, like him, was actuated by sincere patriotism. Although his compromise contained six proposed amendments to the Constitution, it was believed that all differences between the sections could easily be adjusted after the acceptance of the first article, which recognised slavery as existing south of latitude 36 deg. 30', and pledged it protection "as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance." The article also provided that States should be admitted from territory either north or south of that line, with or without slavery, as their constitutions might declare.[614] This part of the compromise was not new to Congress or to the country. It had been made, on behalf of the South, in 1847, and defeated by a vote of 114 to 82, only four Northern Democrats sustaining it. It was again defeated more decisively in 1848, when proposed by Douglas. "Thus the North," wrote Greeley, "under the lead of the Republicans, was required, in 1860, to make, on pain of civil war, concessions to slavery which it had utterly refused when divided only between the conservative parties of a few years before."[615]

[Footnote 614: The full text of the Crittenden compromise is given in the Congressional Globe, 1861, p. 114; also in Horace Greeley's American Conflict, Vol. 1, p. 376.]

[Footnote 615: Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol. 1, pp. 378, 379.]

Nevertheless, the Crittenden proposition invoked the same influences that supported the Weed plan. "I would most cheerfully accept it," wrote John A. Dix. "I feel a strong confidence that we could carry three-fourths of the States in favour of it as an amendment to the Constitution."[616] August Belmont said he had "yet to meet the first conservative Union-loving man, in or out of politics, who does not approve of your compromise propositions.... In our own city and State some of the most prominent men are ready to follow the lead of Weed. Restoration of the Missouri line finds favour with most of the conservative Republicans, and their number is increasing daily."[617] Belmont, now more than earlier in the month, undoubtedly expressed a ripening sentiment that was fostered by the gloomy state of trade, creating feverish conditions in the stock market, forcing New York banks to issue clearing-house certificates, and causing a marked decline in the Republican vote at the municipal election in Hudson.[618] Indeed, there is abundant evidence that the Crittenden proposition, if promptly carried out in December, might have resulted in peace. The Senate committee of thirteen to whom it was referred—consisting of two senators from the cotton States, three from the border States, three Northern Democrats, and five Republicans—decided that no report should be adopted unless it had the assent of a majority of the Republicans, and also a majority of the eight other members. Six of the eight voted for it. All the Republicans, and Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs, representing the cotton States, voted against it. The evidence however, is almost convincing that Davis and Toombs would have supported it in December if the Republicans had voted for it. In speeches in the open Senate, Douglas declared it,[619] Toombs admitted it,[620] and Davis implied it.[621] Seward sounds the only note of their insincerity. "I think," he said, in a letter to the President-elect, "that Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana could not be arrested, even if we should offer all you suggest, and with it the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line. But persons acting for those States intimate that they might be so arrested, because they think that the Republicans are not going to concede the restoration of that line."[622] It is likely Seward hesitated to believe that his vote against the compromise, for whatever reason it was given, helped to inaugurate hostilities; and yet nothing is clearer, in spite of his letter to Lincoln, than that in December the Republicans defeated the Crittenden compromise, the adoption of which would have prevented civil war.[623]

[Footnote 616: Coleman, Life of John J. Crittenden, Vol. 2, p. 237.]

[Footnote 617: Letters of August Belmont, privately printed, p. 24.]

[Footnote 618: Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol. 1, p. 362.]

[Footnote 619: "In the committee of thirteen, a few days ago, every member from the South, including those from the cotton States, expressed their readiness to accept the proposition of my venerable friend from Kentucky as a final settlement of the controversy, if tendered and sustained by the Republican members." Douglas in the Senate, January 3, 1861.—Congressional Globe, Appendix, p. 41.]

[Footnote 620: "I said to the committee of thirteen, and I say here, that, with other satisfactory provisions, I would accept it." Toombs in the Senate, January 7, 1861.—Globe, p. 270. "I can confirm the Senator's declaration that Senator Davis himself, when on the committee of thirteen, was ready, at all times, to compromise on the Crittenden proposition. I will go further and say that Mr. Toombs was also." Douglas in the Senate, March 2, 1861.—Globe, p. 1391.]

[Footnote 621: See Davis's speech of January 10, 1861. Congressional Globe, p. 310.]

[Footnote 622: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 3, p. 263. Letter to Lincoln, December 26, 1860.]

[Footnote 623: James F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. 3, p. 155.]

In deference to the wishes of Lincoln and of his friends, who were grooming him for United States senator, Greeley, before the end of December, had, in a measure, given up his damaging doctrine of peaceable secession, and accepted the "no compromise" policy, laid down by Benjamin F. Wade, as "the only true, the only honest, the only safe doctrine."[624] It was necessary to Greeley's position just then, and to the stage of development which his candidacy had reached, that he should oppose Weed's compromise. On the 22d of December, therefore, he wrote the President-elect: "I fear nothing, care for nothing, but another disgraceful backdown of the free States. That is the only real danger. Let the Union slide—it may be reconstructed; let Presidents be assassinated—we can elect more; let the Republicans be defeated and crushed—we shall rise again. But another nasty compromise, whereby everything is conceded and nothing secured, will so thoroughly disgrace and humiliate us that we can never raise our heads, and this country becomes a second edition of the Barbary States, as they were sixty years ago. 'Take any form but that.'"[625] On the same day the Tribune announced that "Mr. Lincoln is utterly opposed to any concession or compromise that shall yield one iota of the position occupied by the Republican party on the subject of slavery in the territories, and that he stands now, as he stood in May last, when he accepted the nomination for the Presidency, square upon the Chicago platform."[626] Thus Lincoln had reassured Greeley's shrinking faith, and thenceforward his powerful journal took a more healthy and hopeful tone.[627]

[Footnote 624: New York Tribune, December 19, 1860.]

[Footnote 625: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 3, p. 258.]

[Footnote 626: New York Tribune, December 22, 1860.]

[Footnote 627: Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 3, p. 258.]

Meantime, Weed laboured for the Crittenden compromise. He went to Washington, interviewed Republican members of Congress, and finally visited Lincoln at Springfield. Tickling the ear with a pleasing sentiment and alliteration, he wanted Republicans, he said, "to meet secession as patriots and not as partisans."[628] He especially urged forbearance and concession out of consideration for Union men in Southern States. "Apprehending that we should be called upon to test the strength of the Government," he wrote, on January 9, 1861, "we saw, what is even more apparent now, that the effort would tax all its faculties and strain all its energies. Hence our desire before the trial came to make up a record that would challenge the approval of the world. This was due not less to ourselves than to the Union men of Southern States, who, with equal patriotism and more of sacrifice, amidst the pitiless peltings of the disunion storm, sought, like the dove sent out from the ark, a dry spot on which to set their feet."[629]