CHAPTER III

"THE MAD DESPERATION OF REACTION"

1862

Notwithstanding its confidence in General McClellan, whose success in West Virginia had made him the successor of General Scott, giving him command of all the United States forces, the North, by midsummer, became profoundly discouraged. Many events contributed to it. The defeat at Ball's Bluff on the Potomac, which Roscoe Conkling likened to the battle of Cannae, because "the very pride and flower of our young men were among its victims,"[812] had been followed by conspicuous incompetence at Manassas and humiliating failure on the Peninsula. Moreover, financial difficulties increased the despondency. At the outbreak of hostilities practical repudiation of Southern debts had brought widespread disaster. "The fabric of New York's mercantile prosperity," said the Tribune, "lies in ruins, beneath which ten thousand fortunes are buried. Last fall the merchant was a capitalist; to-day he is a bankrupt."[813] In September, 1861, these losses aggregated $200,000,000.[814] Besides, the strain of raising sufficient funds to meet government expenses had forced a suspension of specie payment and driven people to refuse United States notes payable on demand without interest. Meantime, the nation's expenses aggregated $2,000,000 a day and the Treasury was empty. "I have been obliged," wrote the Secretary of the Treasury, "to draw for the last installment of the November loan."[815]

[Footnote 812: Congressional Globe, January 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 813: New York Tribune, May 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 814: Ibid., September 18.]

[Footnote 815: Letter of Secretary Chase, dated February 3, 1862.—E.G. Spaulding, History of the Legal Tender, p. 59.]

To meet this serious financial condition, Elbridge G. Spaulding of Buffalo, then a member of Congress, had been designated to prepare an emergency measure to avoid national bankruptcy. "We must have at least $100,000,000 during the next three months," he wrote, on January 8, 1862, "or the government must stop payment."[816] Spaulding, then fifty-two years of age, was president of a bank, a trained financier, and already the possessor of a large fortune. Having served in the Thirty-first Congress, he had returned in 1859, after an absence of eight years, to remain four years longer. Strong, alert, and sufficiently positive to be stubborn, he possessed the confidence of Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who approved his plan of issuing $100,000,000 legal-tender, non-interest bearing treasury notes, exchangeable at par for six-twenty bonds. Spaulding fully appreciated the objections to his policy, but the only other course, he argued, was to sell bonds as in the war of 1812, which, if placed at six percent interest, would not, in his opinion, bring more than sixty cents—a ruinous method of conducting hostilities. However, his plea of necessity found a divided committee and in Roscoe Conkling a most formidable opponent, who attacked the measure as unnecessary, extravagant, unsound, without precedent, of doubtful constitutionality, and morally imperfect.[817]

[Footnote 816: Spaulding, History of the Legal Tender, p. 18.]

[Footnote 817: The bill escaped from the committee by one majority.]

It was in this debate that Conkling, adroitly choosing the right time and the proper subject, impressed the country with his power as an orator and his ability as a brilliant, resourceful debater, although, perhaps, a destructive rather than constructive legislator. Nature had lavished upon him superb gifts of mind and person. He was of commanding, even magnificent presence, six feet three inches tall, with regular features, lofty forehead, and piercing eyes,—blond and gigantic as a viking. It was difficult, indeed, for a man so superlatively handsome not to be vain, and the endeavour upon his part to conceal the defect was not in evidence. Although an unpopular and unruly schoolboy, who refused to go to college, he had received a good education, learning much from a scholarly father, a college-bred man, and an ornament to the United States District Court for more than a quarter of a century. Moreover, from early youth Conkling had studied elocution, training a strong, slightly musical voice, and learning the use of secondary accents, the choice of words, the value of deliberate speech, and the assumption of an impressive earnestness. In this debate, too, he discovered the talent for ridicule and sarcasm that distinguished him in later life, when he had grown less considerate of the feelings of opponents, and indicated something of the imperiousness and vanity which clouded an otherwise attractive manner.

As he stubbornly and eloquently contested the progress of the legal-tender measure with forceful argument and a wealth of information, Conkling seemed likely to deprive Spaulding of the title of "father of the greenback" until the Secretary of the Treasury, driven to desperation for want of money, reluctantly came to the Congressman's rescue and forced the bill through Congress.[818] By midsummer, however, gold had jumped to seventeen per cent., while the cost of the war, augmented by a call for 300,000 three years' men and by a draft of 300,000 nine months' militia, rested more heavily than ever upon the country. Moreover, by September 1 McClellan had been deprived of his command, the Army of the Potomac had suffered defeat at the second battle of Bull Run, and Lee and Longstreet, with a victorious army, were on their way to Maryland. The North stood aghast!

[Footnote 818: On Spaulding's motion to close debate, Conkling demanded tellers, and the motion was lost,—yeas, 52; nays, 62.—Congressional Globe, February 5, 1862; Ibid., p. 618.]

Much more ominous than military disaster and financial embarrassment, however, was the divisive sentiment over emancipation. Northern armies, moving about in slave communities, necessarily acted as a constant disintegrating force. Slaves gave soldiers aid and information, and soldiers, stimulated by their natural hostility to slave-owners, gave slaves protection and sympathy. Thus, very early in the war, many men believed that rebellion and slavery were so intertwined that both must be simultaneously overthrown. This sentiment found expression in the Fremont proclamation, issued on August 30, 1861, setting free all slaves owned by persons who aided secession in the military department of Missouri. On the other hand, the Government, seeking to avoid the slavery question, encouraged military commanders to refuse refuge to the negroes within their lines, and in modifying Fremont's order to conform to the Confiscation Act of August 6, the President aroused a discussion characterised by increasing acerbity, which divided the Republican party into Radicals and Conservatives. The former, led by the Tribune, resented the attitude of army officers, who, it charged, being notoriously in more or less thorough sympathy with the inciting cause of rebellion, failed to seize opportunities to strike at slavery. Among Radicals the belief obtained that one half of the commanding generals desired to prosecute the war so delicately that slavery should receive the least possible harm, and in their comments in Congress and in the press they made no concealment of their opinion, that such officers were much more anxious to restore fugitive slaves to rebel owners than to make their owners prisoners of war.[819] They were correspondingly flattering to those generals who proclaimed abolition as an adjunct of the war. Greeley's taunts had barbed points. "He is no extemporised soldier, looking for a presidential nomination or seat in Congress," he said of General Hunter, whose order had freed the slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. "He is neither a political or civil engineer, but simply a patriot whose profession is war, and who does not understand making war so as not to hurt your enemy."[820]

[Footnote 819: New York Tribune, July 30, 1862.]

[Footnote 820: Ibid., August 4.]

When the Times, an exponent of the Conservatives, defended the Administration's policy with the declaration that slaves were used as fast as obtained,[821] the Tribune minimized the intelligence of its editor. "Consider," it said, "the still unmodified order of McDowell, issued a full year ago, forbidding the harbouring of negroes within our lines. Consider Halleck's order, now nine months old and still operative, forbidding negroes to come within our lines at all. McClellan has issued a goodly number of orders and proclamations, but not one of them offers protection and freedom to such slaves of rebels as might see fit to claim them at his hands. His only order bearing upon their condition and prospects is that which expelled the Hutchinsons from his camp for the crime of singing anti-slavery songs."[822]

[Footnote 821: New York Times, July 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 822: New York Tribune, July 19, 1862.]

The dominant sentiment in Congress reflected the feeling of the Radicals, and under the pressure of McClellan's reverses before Richmond, the House, on July 11, and the Senate on the following day, passed the Confiscation Act, freeing forever the slaves of rebel owners whenever within control of the Government. The Administration's failure to enforce this act in the spirit and to the extent that Congress intended, finally brought out the now historic "Prayer of Twenty Millions"—an editorial signed by Horace Greeley and addressed to Abraham Lincoln. It charged the President with being disastrously remiss in the discharge of his official duty and unduly influenced by the menaces of border slave State politicians. It declared that the Union was suffering from timid counsels and mistaken deference to rebel slavery; that all attempts to put down rebellion and save slavery are preposterous and futile; and that every hour of obeisance to slavery is an added hour of deepened peril to the Union. In conclusion, he entreated the Chief Executive to render hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.[823]

[Footnote 823: Ibid., August 20.

Lincoln's reply appeared in the National Intelligencer of Washington. He said in part: "I would save the Union. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when I shall believe doing more will help the cause."—Lincoln's Works, Vol. 2, p. 227.]

Thus did Greeley devote his great powers to force Lincoln into emancipation. It is impossible, even at this distance of time, to turn the pages of his ponderous volumes without feeling the matchless force of his energy, the strength of his masterly array of facts, his biting sarcasm, his bold assumptions, and his clear, unadorned style. There is about it all an impassioned conviction, as if he spoke because he could not keep silent, making it impossible to avoid the belief that the whole soul and conscience of the writer were in his work. Day after day, with kaleidoscopic change, he marshalled arguments, facts, and historical parallels, bearing down the reader's judgment as he swept away like a great torrent the criticisms of himself and the arguments of his opponents. Nothing apparently could withstand his onslaught on slavery. With one dash of his pen he forged sentences that, lance-like, found their way into every joint of the monster's armour.

Greeley's criticism of the President and the army, however, gave his enemies vantage ground for renewed attacks. Ever since he suggested, at the beginning of hostilities, that the Herald did not care which flag floated over its office, James Gordon Bennett, possessing the genuine newspaper genius, had daily evinced a deep, personal dislike of the Tribune's editor, and throughout the discussion of emancipation, the Herald, in bitter editorials, kept its columns in a glow, tantalising the Tribune with a persistency that recalls Cheetham's attacks upon Aaron Burr. The strategical advantage lay with the Herald, since the initiative belonged to the Tribune, but the latter had with it the preponderating sentiment of its party and the growing influence of a war necessity. Greeley fought with a broad-sword, swinging it with a vigorous and well-aimed effect, while Bennett, with lighter weapon, pricked, stabbed, and cut. Never inactive, the latter sought to aggravate and embitter. Greeley, on the contrary, intent upon forcing the Administration to change its policy, ignored his tormentor, until exasperation, like the gathering steam in a geyser, drove him into further action. In this prolonged controversy the Tribune invariably referred to its adversary as "the Herald," but in the Herald, "Greeley," "old Greeley," "poor Greeley," "Mars Greeley," "poor crazy Greeley," became synonyms for the editor of the Tribune.

The fight of these able and conspicuous journals represented the fierceness with which emancipation was pushed and opposed throughout the State. Conservative men, therefore, realising the danger to which a bitter campaign along strict party lines would subject the Union cause, demanded that all parties rally to the support of the Government with a candidate for governor devoted to conservative principles and a vigorous prosecution of the war. Sentiment seemed to point to John A. Dix as such a man. Though not distinguished as a strategist or effective field officer, he possessed courage, caution, and a desire to crush the rebellion. The policy of this movement, embracing conservative Republicans and war Democrats, was urged by Thurlow Weed, sanctioned by Seward, and heartily approved by John Van Buren, who, since the beginning of hostilities, had avoided party councils. The Constitutional Union party, composed of old line Whigs who opposed emancipation,[824] proposed to lead this movement at its convention, to be held at Troy on September 9, but at the appointed time James Brooks, by prearrangement, appeared with a file of instructed followers, captured the meeting, and gave Horatio Seymour 32 votes to 20 for Dix and 6 for Millard Fillmore. This unexpected result made Seymour the candidate of the Democratic State convention which met at Albany on the following day.

[Footnote 824: New York Herald, October 15, 1862.]

Seymour sincerely preferred another. Early in August he travelled from Utica to Buffalo to resist the friendship and the arguments of Dean Richmond. It cannot be said that he had outlived ambition. He possessed wealth, he was advancing in his political career, and he aspired to higher honours, but he did not desire to become governor again, even though the party indicated a willingness to follow his leadership and give him free rein to inaugurate such a policy as his wisdom and conservatism might dictate. He clearly recognised the difficulties in the way. He had taken ultra ground against the Federal Administration, opposing emancipation, denouncing arbitrary arrests, and expressing the belief that the North could not subjugate the South; yet he would be powerless to give life to his own views, or to modify Lincoln's proposed conduct of the war. The President, having been elected to serve until March, 1865, would not tolerate interference with his plans and purposes, so that an opposition Governor, regardless of grievances or their cause, would be compelled to furnish troops and to keep the peace. Hatred of conscription would be no excuse for non-action in case of a draft riot, and indignation over summary arrests could in nowise limit the exercise of such arbitrary methods. To be governor under such conditions, therefore, meant constant embarrassment, if not unceasing humiliation. These reasons were carefully presented to Richmond. Moreover, Seymour was conscious of inherent defects of temperament. He did not belong to the class of politicians, described by Victor Hugo, who mistake a weather-cock for a flag. He was a gentleman of culture, of public experience, and of moral purpose, representing the best quality of his party; but possessed of a sensitive and eager temper, he was too often influenced by the men immediately about him, and too often inclined to have about him men whose influence did not strengthen his own better judgment.

Richmond knew of this weakness and regretted it, but the man of iron, grasping the political situation with the shrewdness of a phenomenally successful business man, wanted a candidate who could win. It was plain to him that the Republican party, divided on the question of emancipation and weakened by arbitrary arrests, a policy that many people bitterly resented, could be beaten by a candidate who added exceptional popularity to a promised support of the war and a vigorous protest against government methods. Dix, he knew, would stand with the President; Seymour would criticise, and with sureness of aim arouse opposition. While Richmond, therefore, listened respectfully to Seymour's reasons for declining the nomination, he was deaf to all entreaty, insisting that as the party had honoured him when he wanted office, he must now honour the party when it needed him. Besides, he declared that Sanford E. Church, whom Seymour favoured, could not be elected.[825] Having gained the Oneidan's consent, Richmond exercised his adroit methods of packing conventions, and thus opened the way for Seymour's unanimous nomination by making the Constitutional Union convention the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

[Footnote 825: The author is indebted to Henry A. Richmond, son of Dean Richmond, for this outline of Seymour's interview.]

To a majority of the Democratic party Seymour's selection appealed with something of historic pride. It recalled other days in the beginning of his career, and inspired the hope that the peace which reigned in the fifties, and the power that the Democracy then wielded, might, under his leadership, again return to bless their party by checking a policy that was rapidly introducing a new order of things. After his nomination, therefore, voices became hoarse with long continued cheering. For a few minutes the assembly surrendered to the noise and confusion which characterise a more modern convention, and only the presence of the nominee and the announcement that he would speak brought men to order.

Seymour, as was his custom, came carefully prepared. In his party he now had no rival. Not since DeWitt Clinton crushed the Livingstons in 1807, and Martin Van Buren swept the State in 1828, did one man so completely dominate a political organisation, and in his arraignment of the Radicals he emulated the partisan rather than the patriot. He spoke respectfully of the President, insisting that he should "be treated with the respect due to his position as the representative of the dignity and honor of the American people," and declaring that "with all our powers of mind and person, we mean to support the Constitution and uphold the Union;" but in his bitter denunciation of the Administration he confused the general policy of conducting a war with mistakes in awarding government contracts. To him an honest difference of opinion upon constitutional questions was as corrupt and reprehensible as dishonest practices in the departments at Washington. He condemned emancipation as "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilised Europe."[826]

[Footnote 826: Cook and Knox, Public Record of Horatio Seymour, pp. 45-58.]

The convention thought seriously of making this speech the party platform. But A.P. Laning, declining to surrender the prerogative of the resolutions committee, presented a brief statement of principles, "pledging the Democracy to continue united in its support of the Government, and to use all legitimate means to suppress rebellion, restore the Union as it was, and maintain the Constitution as it is." It also denounced "the illegal, unconstitutional, and arbitrary arrests of citizens of the State as unjustifiable," declaring such arrests a usurpation and a crime, and insisting upon the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press.[827]

[Footnote 827: The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, Horatio Seymour of Oneida; Lieutenant-Governor, David E. Floyd Jones of Queens; Canal Commissioner, William I. Skinner of Herkimer; Prison Inspector, Gaylord J. Clark of Niagara; Clerk of Appeals, Fred A. Tallmadge of New York.]

The speech of Seymour, as displeasing to many War Democrats as it was satisfactory to the Peace faction, at once aroused conservative Republicans, and Weed and Raymond, backed by Seward, favored the policy of nominating John A. Dix. Seward had distinguished himself as one of the more conservative members of the Cabinet. After settling into the belief that Lincoln "is the best of us"[828] his ambition centered in the support of the President, and whatever aid he could render in helping the country to a better understanding of the Administration's aims and wishes was generously if not always adroitly performed. He did not oppose the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, his clear discernment exhibited its certain destruction if the rebellion continued; but he opposed blending emancipation with a prosecution of the war, preferring to meet the former as the necessity for it arose rather than precipitate an academic discussion which would divide Republicans and give the Democrats an issue.

[Footnote 828: Seward to his wife.—F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 2, p. 590.]

When Lincoln, on July 22, 1862, announced to his Cabinet a determination to issue an emancipation proclamation, the Secretary questioned its expediency only as to the time of its publication. "The depression of the public mind consequent upon our repeated reverses," he said, "is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step.... I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war."[829] Seward's view was adopted, and in place of the proclamation appeared the Executive Order of July 22, the unenforcement of which Greeley had so fiercely criticised in his "Prayer of Twenty Millions." Thurlow Weed, who, in June, had returned from London heavily freighted with good results for the Union accomplished by his influence with leading Englishmen, held the opinion of Seward. Raymond had also made the Times an able defender of the President's policy, and although not violent in its opposition to the attitude of the Radicals, it never ceased its efforts to suppress agitation of the slavery question.

[Footnote 829: Frank B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, pp. 22, 23.]

In its purpose to nominate Dix the New York Herald likewise bore a conspicuous part. It had urged his selection upon the Democrats, declaring him stronger than Seymour. It now urged him upon the Republicans, insisting that he was stronger than Wadsworth.[830] This was also the belief of Weed, whose sagacity as to the strength of political leaders was rarely at fault.[831] On the contrary, Governor Morgan expressed the opinion that "Wadsworth will be far more available than any one yet mentioned as my successor."[832] Wadsworth's service at the battle of Bull Run had been distinguished. "Gen. McDowell told us on Monday," wrote Thurlow Weed, "that Major Wadsworth rendered him the most important service before, during, and after battle. From others we have learned that after resisting the stampede, earnestly but ineffectually, he remained to the last moment aiding the wounded and encouraging surgeons to remain on the field as many of them did."[833] Wadsworth's subsequent insistence that the Army of the Potomac, then commanded by McClellan, could easily crush the Confederates, who, in his opinion, did not number over 50,000[834], had again brought his name conspicuously before the country. Moreover, since the 8th of March he had commanded the forces in and about Washington, and had acted as Stanton's adviser in the conduct of the war.

[Footnote 830: New York Herald, September 19 and October 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 831: Albany Evening Journal, November 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 832: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 413.]

[Footnote 833: Albany Evening Journal, July 31, 1861.]

[Footnote 834: "This estimate was afterward verified as correct."—New York Tribune, September 22, 1862.]

For twenty years Wadsworth had not been a stranger to the people of New York. His vigorous defence of Silas Wright gave him a warm place in the hearts of Barnburners, and his name, after the formation of the Republican party, became a household word among members of that young organisation. Besides, his neighbours had exploited his character for generosity. The story of the tenant who got a receipt for rent and one hundred dollars in money because the accidental killing of his oxen in the midst of harvest had diminished his earning capacity, seemed to be only one of many similar acts. In 1847 his farm had furnished a thousand bushels of corn to starving Ireland. Moreover, he had endowed institutions of learning, founded school libraries, and turned the houses of tenants into homes of college students. But the Radicals' real reason for making him their candidate was his "recognition of the truth that slavery is the implacable enemy of our National life, and that the Union can only be saved by grappling directly and boldly with its deadly foe."[835]

[Footnote 835: New York Tribune, September 22, 1862.]

Prompted by this motive his supporters used all the methods known to managing politicians to secure a majority of the delegates. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, published on September 23, five days after the battle of Antietam, greatly strengthened them. They hailed the event as their victory. It gave substance, too, to the Wadsworth platform that "the Union must crush out slavery, or slavery will destroy the Union." Reinforced by such an unexpected ally, it was well understood before the day of the convention that in spite of the appeals of Weed and Raymond, and of the wishes of Seward and the President, the choice of the Radicals would be nominated. Wadsworth was not averse. He had an itching for public life. In 1856 his stubborn play for governor and his later contest for a seat in the United States Senate had characterised him as an office-seeker. But whether running for office himself, or helping some one else, he was a fighter whom an opponent had reason to fear.

The Republican Union convention, as it was called, assembled at Syracuse on September 25. Henry J. Raymond became its president, and with characteristic directness made a vigorous reply to Seymour, declaring that "Jefferson Davis himself could not have planned a speech better calculated, under all the circumstances of the case, to promote his end to embarrass the Government of the United States and strengthen the hands of those who are striving for its overthrow."[836] Then William Curtis Noyes read a letter from Governor Morgan declining renomination.[837] The Governor had made a creditable executive, winning the respect of conservatives in both parties, and although the rule against a third term had become firmly established in a State that had tolerated it but once since the days of Tompkins and DeWitt Clinton, the propriety of making a further exception appealed to the public with manifest approval. "But this," Weed said, "did not suit the Tribune and a class of politicians with whom it sympathised. They demanded a candidate with whom abolition is the paramount consideration."[838] Morgan's letter created a ripple of applause, after which the presentation of Wadsworth's name aroused an enthusiasm of longer duration than had existed at Albany. Nevertheless, Charles G. Myers of St. Lawrence did not hesitate to speak for "a more available candidate at the present time." Then, raising his voice above the whisperings of dissent, he named John A. Dix, "who, while Seymour was howling for peace and compromise," said the speaker, "ordered the first man shot that hauled down the American flag." Raymond, in his speech earlier in the afternoon, had quoted the historic despatch in a well-balanced sentence, with the accent and inflection of a trained orator; but in giving it an idiomatic, thrilling ring in contrast with Seymour's record, Myers suddenly threw the convention into wild, continued cheering, until it seemed as if the noise of a moment before would be exceeded by the genuine and involuntary outburst of patriotic emotion. A single ballot, however, giving Wadsworth an overwhelming majority, showed that the Radicals owned the convention.[839]

[Footnote 836: New York Times, September 25, 1862.]

[Footnote 837: "Though we met Governor Morgan repeatedly during the summer, he never hinted that he expected or desired to be again a candidate."—New York Tribune, December 12, 1862.]

[Footnote 838: Albany Evening Journal, December 10, 1862.]

[Footnote 839: The vote resulted as follows: Wadsworth, 234; Dix, 110; Lyman Tremaine, 33; Dickinson, 2.

The ticket was as follows: Governor, James S. Wadsworth of Genesee; Lieutenant-Governor, Lyman Tremaine of Albany; Canal Commissioner, Oliver Ladue of Herkimer; Prison Inspector, Andreas Willman of New York; Clerk of Appeals, Charles Hughes of Washington.]

Parke Godwin of Queens, from the committee on resolutions, presented the platform. Among other issues it urged the most vigorous prosecution of the war; hailed, with the profoundest satisfaction, the emancipation proclamation; and expressed pride in the knowledge that the Republic's only enemies "are the savages of the West, the rebels of the South, their sympathisers and supporters of the North, and the despots of Europe."

The campaign opened with unexampled bitterness. Seymour's convention speech inflamed the Republican party, and its press, recalling his address at the Peace convention in January, 1861, seemed to uncork its pent-up indignation. The Tribune pronounced him a "consummate demagogue," "radically dishonest," and the author of sentiments that "will be read throughout the rebel States with unalloyed delight," since "their whole drift tends to encourage treason and paralyse the arm of those who strike for the Union."[840] It disclosed Seymour's intimate relations with "Vallandigham and the school of Democrats who do not disguise their sympathy with traitors nor their hostility to war," and predicted "that, if elected, Jeff Davis will regard his success as a triumph."[841] Odious comparisons also became frequent. Wadsworth at Bull Run was contrasted with Seymour's prediction that the Union's foes could not be subdued.[842] Seymour's supporters, it was said, believed in recognising the independence of the South, or in a restored Union with slavery conserved, while Wadsworth's champions thought rebellion a wicked and wanton conspiracy against human liberty, to be crushed by the most effective measures.[843] Raymond declared that "every vote given for Wadsworth is a vote for loyalty, and every vote given for Seymour is a vote for treason."[844]

[Footnote 840: New York Tribune, September 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 841: New York Tribune, Oct. 8, 1862.]

[Footnote 842: Ibid., Oct. 9.]

[Footnote 843: Ibid., Oct. 24.]

[Footnote 844: New York Herald, Oct. 9, 1862.]

To these thrusts the Democratic press replied with no less acrimony, speaking of Wadsworth as "a malignant, abolition disorganiser," whose service in the field was "very brief," whose command in Washington was "behind fortifications," and whose capacity was "limited to attacks upon his superior officers."[845] The Herald declared him "as arrant an aristocrat as any Southern rebel. The slave-holder," it said, "lives upon his plantation, which his ancestors begged, cheated, or stole from the Indians. Wadsworth lives upon his immense Genesee farms, which his ancestors obtained from the Indians in precisely the same way. The slave-holder has a number of negroes who raise crops for him, and whom he clothes, feeds, and lodges. Wadsworth has a number of labourers on his farms, who support him by raising his crops or paying him rent. The slave-holder, having an independent fortune and nothing to do, joins the army, or runs for office. Wadsworth, in exactly the same circumstances, does exactly the same thing. Wadsworth, therefore, is quite as much an aristocrat as the slave-holder, and cares quite as much for himself and quite as little for the people."[846] Democrats everywhere endeavoured to limit the issue to the two opposing candidates, claiming that Seymour, in conjunction with all conservative men, stood for a vigorous prosecution of the war to save the Union, while Wadsworth, desiring its prosecution for the destruction of slavery, believed the Union of secondary consideration.

[Footnote 845: Ibid., Sept. 26.]

[Footnote 846: Ibid., Oct. 1.]

Campaign oratory, no longer softened by the absence of strict party lines, throbbed feverishly with passion and ugly epithet. The strategical advantage lay with Seymour, who made two speeches. Dean Richmond, alarmed at the growing strength of the war spirit, urged him to put more "powder" into his Brooklyn address than he used at the ratification meeting, held in New York City on October 13; but he declined to cater "to war Democrats," contenting himself with an amplification of his convention speech. "God knows I love my country," he said; "I would count my life as nothing, if I could but save the nation's life." He resented with much feeling Raymond's electioneering statement that a vote for him was one for treason.[847] "Recognising at this moment as we do," he continued, "that the destinies, the honour, and the glory of our country hang poised upon the conflict in the battlefield, we tender to the Government no conditional support" to put down "this wicked and mighty rebellion." Once, briefly, and without bitterness, he referred to the emancipation proclamation, but he again bitterly arraigned the Administration for its infractions of the Constitution, its deception as to the strength of the South, and the corruption in its departments.

[Footnote 847: New York Herald, October 8 and 9, 1862.]

Seymour's admirers manifested his tendencies more emphatically than he did himself, until denunciation of treason and insistence upon a vigorous prosecution of the war yielded to an indictment of the Radicals. The shibboleth of these declaimers was arbitrary arrests. Two days after the edict of emancipation (September 24) the President issued a proclamation ordering the arrest, without benefit of habeas corpus, of all who "discouraged enlistments," or were guilty of "any disloyal practice" which afforded "aid and comfort to the rebels."[848] This gave rise to an opinion that he intended to "suppress free discussion of political subjects,"[849] and every orator warned the people that Wadsworth's election meant the arrest and imprisonment of his political opponents. "If chosen governor," said the Herald, "he will have his adversaries consigned to dungeons and their property seized and confiscated under the act of Congress."[850] In accepting an invitation to speak at Rome, John Van Buren, quick to see the humour of the situation as well as the vulnerable point of the Radicals, telegraphed that he would "arrive at two o'clock—if not in Fort Lafayette."[851]

[Footnote 848: Lincoln's Works, Vol. 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 849: Benjamin E. Curtis, Pamphlet on Executive Power.]

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

[Footnote 851: Ibid., October 24.]

To the delight of audiences John Van Buren, after two years of political inactivity, broke his silence. He had earnestly and perhaps sincerely advocated the nomination of John A. Dix, but after Seymour's selection he again joined the ranks of the Softs and took the stump. Among other appointments he spoke with Seymour at the New York ratification meeting, and again at the Brooklyn rally on October 22. Something remained of the old-time vigour of the professional gladiator, but compared with his Barnburner work he seemed what Byron called "an extinct volcano." He ran too heedlessly into a bitter criticism of Wadsworth, based upon an alleged conversation he could not substantiate, and into an acrimonious attack upon Lincoln's conduct of the war, predicated upon a private letter of General Scott, the possession of which he did not satisfactorily account for. The Tribune, referring to his campaign as "a rhetorical spree," called him a "buffoon," a "political harlequin," a "repeater of mouldy jokes,"[852] and in bitter terms denounced his "low comedy performance at Tammany," his "double-shuffle dancing at Mozart Hall," his possession of a letter "by dishonourable means for a dishonourable purpose," and his wide-sweeping statements "which gentlemen over their own signatures pronounced lies."[853] It was not a performance to be proud of, and although Van Buren succeeded in stirring up the advertising sensations which he craved, he did not escape without wounds that left deep scars. "Prince John makes a statement," says the Herald, "accusing Charles King of slandering the wife of Andrew Jackson; King retorts by calling the Prince a liar; the poets of the Post take up the case and broadly hint that the Prince's private history shows that he has not lived the life of a saint; the Prince replies that he has half a mind to walk into the private antecedents of Wadsworth, which, it is said, would disclose some scenes exceedingly rich; while certain other Democrats, indignant at Raymond's accusations of treason against Seymour, threaten to reveal his individual history, hinting, by the way, that it would show him to have been heretofore a follower of that fussy philosopher of the twelfth century, Abelard—not in philosophy, however, but in sentiment, romance, and some other things."[854]

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

[Footnote 853: Ibid., October 30.]

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

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

[Footnote 855: Ibid., October 15 and 17.]

[Footnote 856: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John A. Dix, Vol. 2, pp. 51-52.]

Elections in the October States did not encourage the Radicals. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana voiced the sentiments of the opposition, defeating Galusha A. Grow, speaker of the House, and seriously threatening the Radical majority in Congress. This retrogression, accounted for by the absence of soldiers who could not vote,[857] suggested trouble in New York, and to offset the influence of the Seymour rally in Brooklyn a great audience at Cooper Institute listened to a brief letter from the Secretary of State, and to a speech from Wadsworth. Seward did not encourage the soldier candidate. The rankling recollection of Wadsworth's opposition at Chicago in 1860 stifled party pride as well as patriotism, and although the Herald thought it "brilliant and sarcastic," it emphasised Wadsworth's subsequent statement that "Seward was dead against me throughout the campaign."[858]

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

[Footnote 858: Henry B. Stanton, Random Recollections, p. 216.]

Wadsworth's canvass was confined to a single speech. He had been absent from the State fifteen months, and although not continuously at the front there was something inexcusably ungenerous in the taunts of his opponents that he had served "behind fortifications." His superb conduct at Bull Run entitled him to better treatment. But his party was wholly devoted to him, and "amid a hurricane of approbation"[859] he mingled censure of Seymour with praise of Lincoln, and the experience of a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker. It lacked poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it wanted in manner it made up in fire and directness, giving an emotional and loyal audience abundant opportunity to explode into long-continued cheering. Thoughtful men who were not in any sense political partisans gave careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement. He brought the great struggle nearer home, and men listened as to one with a message from the field of patriotic sacrifices. The radical newspapers broke into a chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were delighted. The air rung with praises of the courage and spirit of their candidate, and if here and there the faint voice of a Conservative suggested that emancipation was premature and arbitrary arrests were unnecessary, a shout of offended patriotism drowned the ignoble utterance.

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 862: "Seymour, 307,063; Wadsworth, 296,492."—Ibid., November 24.]

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

[Footnote 864: Henry B. Stanton, Random Recollections, p. 216.]

[Footnote 865: Albany Evening Journal, Nov. 6.]

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

[Footnote 867: Cary, Life of Curtis, p. 161.]

[Footnote 868: Ibid., p. 161.]



CHAPTER IV

THURLOW WEED TRIMS HIS SAILS

1863

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

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

Chauncey M. Depew was the choice of the Republicans for speaker. But the caucus, upon the threat of a single Republican to bolt,[870] selected Henry Sherwood of Steuben. After seventy-seven ballots Depew was substituted for Sherwood. By this time Timothy C. Callicot, a Brooklyn Democrat, refused longer to vote for Gilbert Dean, the Democratic nominee. Deeply angered by such apostasy John D. Van Buren and Saxton Smith, the Democratic leaders, offered Depew eight votes. Later in the evening Depew was visited by Callicot, who promised, if the Republicans would support him for speaker, to vote for John A. Dix for senator and thus break the senatorial deadlock. It was a trying position for Depew. The speakership was regarded as even a greater honor then than it is now, and to a gifted young man of twenty-nine its power and prestige appealed with tremendous force. Van Buren's proposition would elect him; Callicot's would put him in eclipse. Nevertheless, Depew unselfishly submitted the two proposals to his Republican associates, who decided to lose the speakership and elect a United States senator.[871]

[Footnote 870: Horace Bemis of Steuben.]

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

The Democrats, alarmed at this sudden and successful flank movement, determined to defeat by disorderly proceedings what their leaders could not prevent by strategy, and with the help of thugs who filled the floor and galleries of the Assembly Chamber, they instigated a riot scarcely equalled in the legislative history of modern times. Boisterous threats, display of pistols, savage abuse of Callicot, and refusals to allow the balloting to proceed continued for six days, subsiding at last after the Governor, called upon to protect a law-making body, promised to use force. Finally, on January 26, nineteen days after the session opened, Callicot, on the ninety-third ballot, received two majority. This opened the way for the election of a Republican United States senator.

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

[Footnote 872: Albany Evening Journal, December 10, 1862.]

Morgan had a decided taste for political life. When a grocer, living in Connecticut, he had served in the city council of Hartford, and soon after gaining a residence in New York, he entered its Board of Aldermen. Then he became State senator, commissioner of immigration, chairman of the National Republican Committee, and finally governor. Besides wielding an influence acquired in two gubernatorial terms, he combined the qualities of a shrewd politician with those of a merchant prince willing to spend money.

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

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

[Footnote 874: New York Journal of Commerce, February 3, 1863.

"Informal ballot: Morgan, 25; King, 16; Dickinson, 15; Sedgwick, 11; Field, 7; Raymond, 6; Hunt, 4; Selden, 1; blank, 1. Whole number, 86. Necessary to a choice, 44.

"First formal ballot: Morgan, 39; King, 16; Dickinson, 11; Raymond, 8; Sedgwick, 7; Field, 5.

"Second formal ballot: Morgan, 50; Dickinson, 13; King, 11; Raymond, 9; Field, 2; Sedgwick, 1."—Ibid., February 3.]

The Democrats presented Erastus Corning of Albany, then a member of Congress. Like Morgan, Corning was wealthy. Like Morgan, too, he had a predilection for politics, having served as alderman, state senator, mayor, and congressman. He belonged to a class of business men whose experience and ability, when turned to public affairs, prove of decided value to their State and country. "We should be glad," said the Tribune, "to see more men of Mr. Corning's social and business position brought forward for Congress and the Legislature."[875] The first ballot, in joint convention, gave Morgan 86 to 70 for Corning, Speaker Callicot voting for John A. Dix, and one fiery Radical for Daniel S. Dickinson. Thus did Thurlow Weed score another victory. Greeley was willing to make any combination. Raymond, Sedgwick, Ward Hunt, and even David Dudley Field would quickly have appealed to him. The deft hand of Weed, however, if not the money of Morgan, prevented combinations until the Governor, as a second choice, controlled the election.[876] This success resulted in a combination of Democrats and conservative Republicans, giving Weed the vast patronage of the New York canals.

[Footnote 875: New York Tribune, October 7, 1863.

The Democratic caucus stood 28 for Erastus Corning, 25 for Fernando Wood, and scattering 18.

The vote of the Senate stood: Morgan, 23; Erastus Corning, 7; 2 absent or silent. On the first ballot the Assembly gave Morgan 64, Corning 62, Fernando Wood 1, John A. Dix 1 (cast by Speaker Callicot). On a second ballot all the Unionists voted with Callicot for Dix, giving him 65 to 63 for Corning and placing him in nomination. In joint convention Morgan was elected by 86 votes to 70 for Corning, one (Callicot's) for Dix, and 1 for Dickinson.—Ibid., February 4.]

[Footnote 876: "My dear Weed: It is difficult for me to express my personal obligations to you for this renewed evidence of your friendship, as manifested by the result of yesterday's proceedings at Albany."—Letter of Edwin D. Morgan, February 3, 1863. Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 430.]

Perhaps it was only coincidental that Weed's withdrawal from the Evening Journal concurred with Morgan's election, but his farewell editorial, written while gloom and despondency filled the land, indicated that he unerringly read the signs of the times. "I differ widely with my party about the best means of crushing the rebellion," he said. "I can neither impress others with my views nor surrender my own solemn convictions. The alternative of living in strife with those whom I have esteemed, or withdrawing, is presented. I have not hesitated in choosing the path of peace as the path of duty. If those who differ with me are right, and the country is carried safely through its present struggle, all will be well and 'nobody hurt.'"[877] This did not mean that Weed "has ceased to be a Republican," as Greeley put it,[878] but that, while refusing to become an Abolitionist of the Chase and Sumner and Greeley type, he declined longer to urge his conservative views upon readers who possessed the spirit of Radicals. Years afterward he wrote that "from the outbreak of the rebellion, I knew no party, nor did I care for any except the party of the Union."[879]

[Footnote 877: Albany Evening Journal, January 28, 1863.]

[Footnote 878: New York Tribune, January 30, 1863.]

[Footnote 879: Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 485.]

At the time of his retirement from the Journal, Weed was sixty-six years of age, able-bodied, rich, independent, and satisfied if not surfeited. "So far as all things personal are concerned," he said, "my work is done."[880] Yet a trace of unhappiness revealed itself. Perfect peace did not come with the possession of wealth.[881] Moreover, his political course had grieved and separated friends. For thirty years he looked forward with pleasurable emotions to the time when, released from the cares of journalism, he might return to Rochester, spending his remaining days on a farm, in the suburbs of that city, near the banks of the Genesee River; but in 1863 he found his old friends so hostile, charging him with the defeat of Wadsworth, that he abandoned the project and sought a home in New York.[882]

[Footnote 880: Albany Evening Journal, January 28, 1863.]

[Footnote 881: "Let it pass whether or not the editor of the Tribune has been intensely ambitious for office. It would have been a blessed thing for the country if the editor of the Journal had been impelled by the same passion. For avarice is more ignoble than ambition, and the craving for jobs has a more corrupting influence, alike on the individual and the public, than aspiration to office."—New York Tribune, December 12, 1862.]

[Footnote 882: Thurlow Weed, Autobiography, pp. 360-361.]

For several years Weed had made his political headquarters in that city. Indeed, No. 12 Astor House was as famous in its day as 49 Broadway became during the subsequent leadership of Thomas C. Platt. It was the cradle of the "Amens" forty years before the Fifth Avenue Hotel became the abode of that remarkable organization. From 1861 to 1865, owing to the enormous political patronage growing out of the war, the lobbies of the Astor House were crowded with politicians from all parts of New York, making ingress and egress almost impossible. In the midst of this throng sat Thurlow Weed, cool and patient, possessing the keen judgment of men so essential to leadership. "When I was organizing the Internal Revenue Office in 1862-3," wrote George S. Boutwell, "Mr. Weed gave me information in regard to candidates for office in the State of New York, including their relations to the factions that existed, with as much fairness as he could have commanded if he had had no relation to either one."[883]

[Footnote 883: George S. Boutwell, Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2, p. 207.]

Although opposed to the course of the Radicals, Weed sternly rebuked those, now called Copperheads,[884] who endeavored to force peace by paralysing the arm of the government. Their denunciation of arrests and of the suspension of habeas corpus gradually included the discouragement of enlistments, the encouragement of desertion, and resistance to the draft, until, at last, the spirit of opposition invaded halls of legislation as well as public meetings and the press.

[Footnote 884: This opprobrious epithet first appeared in the New York Tribune of January 12, 1863, and in the Times of February 13.]

To check this display of disloyalty the Union people, regardless of party, formed loyal or Union League clubs in the larger cities, whose densely packed meetings commanded the ablest speakers of the country. John Van Buren, fully aroused to the seditious trend of peace advocates, evidenced again the power that made him famous in 1848. In his inimitable style, with admirable temper and freshness, he poured his scathing sarcasm upon the authors of disloyal sentiments, until listeners shouted with delight. The Tribune, forgetful of his flippant work in the preceding year, accorded him the highest praise, while strong men, with faces wet with tears, thanked God that this Achilles of the Democrats spoke for the Republic with the trumpet tones and torrent-like fluency that had formerly made the name of Barnburner a terror to the South. Van Buren was not inconsistent. While favouring a vigorous prosecution of the war he had severely criticised arbitrary arrests and other undemocratic methods, but when "little men of little souls," as he called them, attempted to control the great party for illegal purposes, his patriotism flashed out in the darkness like a revolving light on a rocky coast.

The call of the Loyal League also brought James T. Brady from his law office. Unlike Dickinson, Brady did not approve the teachings or the methods of the Radicals, neither had he like Van Buren supported Seymour. Moreover, he had refused to take office from Tammany, or to accept nomination from a Democratic State convention. However, when the enemies of the Government seemed likely to carry all before them, he spoke for the Union like one divinely inspired. Indeed, it may be said with truth that the only ray of hope piercing the gloom and suspense in the early months of 1863 came from the brilliant outbursts of patriotism heard at the meetings of the Union League clubs.[885] "I pray that my name may be enrolled in that league," wrote Seward. "I would prefer that distinction to any honour my fellow-citizens could bestow upon me. If the country lives, as I trust it will, let me be remembered among those who laboured to save it. The diploma will grow in value as years roll away."[886]

[Footnote 885: The Union League Club of New York was organized February 6, 1863; its club house, No. 26 E. 17th St., was opened May 12.]

[Footnote 886: F.W. Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 3, p. 159.]



CHAPTER V

GOVERNOR SEYMOUR AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN

1863

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VI

SEYMOUR REBUKED

1863

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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