The President's letter, addressed to the Union convention of New York, gave the Radicals great comfort. With direct and forceful language Lincoln took the people into his confidence. There are but three ways, he said, to stop the war; first, by suppressing rebellion, which he was trying to do; second, by giving up the Union, which he was trying to prevent; and third, by some imaginable compromise, which was impossible if it embraced the maintenance of the Union. The strength of the rebellion is in its army, which dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise if one were made with them. Suppose refugees from the South and peace men from the North hold a convention of the States, how can their action keep Lee out of Pennsylvania? To be effective a compromise must come from those in control of the rebel army, or from the people after our army has suppressed that army. As no suggestion of peace has yet come from that source, all thought of peace for the present was out of the question. If any proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you.

To be plain, he continued, you are dissatisfied about the negro. You opposed compensated emancipation and you dislike proclaimed emancipation. If slaves are property, is there any question that by the law of war such property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed when its taking helps us and hurts our enemy? But you say the proclamation is unconstitutional. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. You profess to think its retraction would help the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? Those in revolt had one hundred days to consider it, and the war, since its issuance, has progressed as favourably for us as before. Some of the commanders who have won our most important victories believe the emancipation policy the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebels, and that in one instance, at least, victory came with the aid of black soldiers. You say you will not fight to free negroes. Whenever you are urged, after resistance to the Union is conquered, to continue to fight, it will be time enough to refuse. Do you not think, in the struggle for the Union, that the withdrawal of negro help from the enemy weakens his resistance to you? That what negroes can do as soldiers leaves so much less for white soldiers to do? But why should negroes do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? and if they, on the promise of freedom, stake their lives to save the Union, shall the promise not be kept?

The signs look better, he concluded. Peace does not appear so distant as it did. When it comes, it will prove that no appeal lies from the ballot to the bullet, and that those who take it are sure to lose their case and pay the costs. "And then there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it."[915]

[Footnote 915: New York Herald, September 3, 1863.]

The influence of this letter, increased by the dignity and power of the President's office, proved a sharp thorn to the Democrats. Recent military successes had made it appear for the time, at least, that rebellion was about to collapse, and the Democratic State Union convention, which convened at Albany on September 9, shifted its policy from a protest against war measures to an appeal for conciliation. In other words, it was against subjugation, which would not leave "the Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is." In its effort to emphasise this plea it refused to recognise or affiliate with the Constitutional Union party, controlled by James Brooks and other extreme peace advocates,[916] and although its platform still condemned emancipation, conscription, and arbitrary arrests, the pivotal declaration, based on "manifestations of a returning allegiance on the part of North Carolina and other seceded States," favoured a wise statesmanship "which shall encourage the Union sentiment of the South and unite more thoroughly the people of the North." Amasa J. Parker, chairman of the convention, who still talked of a "yawning gulf of ruin," admitted that such a policy brought a gleam of hope to the country, and Governor Seymour, at the end of a dreary speech explanatory of his part in the draft-riot,[917] expressed a willingness to "bury violations of law and the rights of States and individuals if such a magnanimous course shall be pursued."[918] Lincoln's letter, however, unexpectedly spoiled such an appeal, compelling the convention to "regret" that the President contemplates no measure for the restoration of the Union, "but looking to an indefinite protraction of the war for abolition purposes points to no future save national bankruptcy and the subversion of our institutions."[919]

[Footnote 916: The Constitutional Union convention, meeting at Albany on September 8, named candidates for attorney-general and prison inspector, with the request that the Democratic convention endorse them; otherwise it would put a full ticket into the field. Among its State Committee appeared the names of former governor Washington Hunt and Lorenzo Burrows. It resolved to resist all departures from the strict letter of the Constitution, whether based upon military necessity or a usurpation of doubtful powers.

"We tender the Democratic State convention our hearty thanks for their contemptuous treatment of Jim Brooks & Co.'s one-horse concern, consisting of fifteen or twenty officers and three or four privates. That concern is thoroughly bogus—a barefaced imposture which should be squelched and its annual nuisance abated."—New York Tribune, September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 917: "Governor Seymour can talk more without saying anything, and write more without meaning anything, than any other man we know.... We consider Seymour not much of a man, and no Governor at all."—New York Herald (editorial), September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 918: Ibid., September 10.]

[Footnote 919: The ticket was made up as follows: Secretary of state, David B. St. John of Otsego; Comptroller, Sanford E. Church of Orleans; Attorney-General, Marshall B. Champlain of Allegany; State Engineer, Van R. Richmond of Wayne; Treasurer, William B. Lewis of Kings; Canal Commissioner, William W. Wright, of Ontario; Inspector of Prisons, David B. McNeil of Clinton; Judge of Appeals, William F. Allen, of Oswego.—Ibid.]

The Republicans, backed by success in the field, started with an advantage which the cheering news from Maine strengthened. It soon become manifest, too, that the Gibraltar of Democracy resented the destructive work of mobs and rioters. Criticism of Seymour also became drastic. "He hobnobbed with the copperhead party in Connecticut," said the Herald, "and lost that election; he endorsed Vallandigham, and did nothing during the riot but talk. He has let every opportunity pass and rejected all offers that would prove him the man for the place. The sooner he is dropped as incompetent, the better it will be for the ticket."[920] The Tribune imputed nepotism. "His brother," it said, "gets $200 per month as agent, a nephew $150 as an officer, and two nephews and a cousin $1,000 a year each as clerks in the executive departments."[921] But Martin I. Townsend, at a great mass meeting in New York City, presented the crushing indictment against him. Although the clock had tolled the midnight hour, the large audience remained to hear Townsend for the same reason, suggested Edwin D. Morgan, the chairman, that the disciples sat up all night whenever the great apostle was with them. Townsend was then fifty-three years old. For more than a decade his rare ability as a speaker had kept him a favorite, and for a quarter of a century longer he was destined to delight the people. On this occasion, however, his arraignment left a deeper and more lasting impression than his words ordinarily did. "Seymour," he said, "undertook to increase enlistments by refusing the soldier his political franchise. On the supposition that Meade would be defeated, he delivered a Fourth of July address that indicted the free people of the North and placed him in the front rank of men whom rebels delight to honour. If there was a traitor in New York City on that day he was in the company of Horatio Seymour. Finally, he pronounced as 'friends' the men, who, stirred to action by his incendiary words, applied the torch and the bludgeon in the draft riot of July 13, 14, and 15."[922]

[Footnote 920: Ibid., September 26.]

[Footnote 921: New York Tribune, October 9.]

[Footnote 922: New York Tribune, October 1, 1863.]

In the four speeches delivered in the campaign, Seymour was never cleverer or more defiant.[923] He exhibited great skill in criticising the Administration, charging that disasters had brought bankruptcy, that ill-advised acts of subordinates had sapped the liberties of the people, and that base motives inspired the policy of the Government. He denounced the Radicals as craven Americans, devoid of patriotic feeling, who were trying to make the humiliation and degradation of their country a stepping-stone to continued power. "They say we must fight until slavery is extinguished. We are to upturn the foundations of our Constitution. At this very moment, when the fate of the nation and of individuals trembles in the balance, these madmen ask us to plunge into a bottomless pit of controversy upon indefinite purposes. Does not every man know that we must have a united North to triumph? Can we get a united North upon a theory that the Constitution can be set aside at the will of one man, because, forsooth, he judges it to be a military necessity? I never yet heard that Abraham Lincoln was a military necessity.... The Vice-President says, 'There are men in your midst who want the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is,' and he adds, sneeringly, 'They can't have it.' We will tell him there are many such men, and we say to him we will have it. There has never been a sentiment in the North or South put forth more treasonable, cowardly, and base than this." Referring to the President's call, on October 17, for 300,000 volunteers, to be followed by a draft if not promptly filled, he exclaimed: "Again, 600,000 men are called for—600,000 homes to be entered. The young man will be compelled to give up the cornerstone of his fortune, which he has laid away with toil and care, to begin the race of life. The old man will pay that which he has saved, as the support of his declining years, to rescue his son. In God's name, let these operations be fair if they must be cruel." In conclusion he professed undying loyalty. "We love that flag [pointing to the Stars and Stripes] with the whole love of our life, and every star that glitters on its blue field is sacred. And we will preserve the Constitution, we will preserve the Union, we will preserve our flag with every star upon it, and we will see to it that there is a State for every star."[924]

[Footnote 923: Seymour spoke at Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and New York City, on October 26, 28, 29, and 31 respectively.]

[Footnote 924: Record of Horatio Seymour, pp. 168-176.]

In their extremity Dean Richmond and Peter Cagger, taking advantage of the President's call for more troops, issued a circular on the eve of election, alleging that the State would receive no credit for drafted men commuted; that towns which had furnished their quotas would be subject to a new conscription; and that men having commuted were liable to be immediately drafted again.[925] This was the prototype of Burchard's "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" in 1884, and might have become no less disastrous had not the Provost-marshal General quickly contradicted it. As a parting shot, Seward, speaking at Auburn on the night before election, declared that if the ballot box could be passed through the camps of the Confederate soldiers, every man would vote for the administration of our government by Horatio Seymour and against the administration of Abraham Lincoln.[926]

[Footnote 925: New York Tribune, November 2, 1863.]

[Footnote 926: New York Herald, November 6, 1863.]

The October elections foreshadowed the result in November. Although the Democrats had derived great advantage in 1862 because of their bold stand for civil liberty and freedom of speech, a year later such arguments proved of little avail. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had turned the tide, and Seymour and the draft riot carried it to the flood. Depew's majority, mounting higher and higher as the returns came slowly from the interior, turned the Governor's surprise into shame. In his career of a quarter of a century Seymour had learned to accept disappointment as well as success, but his failure in 1863 to forecast the trend of changing public sentiment cost him the opportunity of ever again leading his party to victory.[927]

[Footnote 927: "Depew received 29,405 votes more than St. John for secretary of state." Ibid., December 5, 1863.]



CHAPTER VII

STRIFE OF RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE

1864

In his Auburn speech Seward had declared for Lincoln's renomination.[928] Proof of the intimate personal relations existing between the President and his Secretary came into national notice in 1862 when a committee of nine Radical senators, charging to Seward's conservatism the failure of a vigorous and successful prosecution of the war, formally demanded his dismissal from the Cabinet. On learning of their action the Secretary had immediately resigned. "Do you still think Seward ought to be excused?" asked Lincoln at the end of a long and stormy interview. Four answered "Yes," three declined to vote, and Harris of New York said "No."[929] The result of this conference led Secretary Chase, the chief of the Radicals, to tender his resignation also. But the President, "after most anxious consideration," requested each to resume the duties of his department. Speaking of the matter afterward to Senator Harris, Lincoln declared with his usual mirth-provoking illustration: "If I had yielded to that storm and dismissed Seward, the thing would all have slumped one way. Now I can ride; I have got a pumpkin in each end of my bag."[930]

[Footnote 928: Delivered November 3, 1863. New York Herald, November 6.]

[Footnote 929: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 266. Senators Sumner of Massachusetts, Trumbull of Illinois, Grimes of Iowa, and Pomeroy of Kansas, voted Yes; Collamer of Vermont, Fessenden of Maine, and Howard of Michigan declined to vote. Wade of Ohio was absent.]

[Footnote 930: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 268.]

Other causes than loyalty contributed to the President's regard for Seward. In their daily companionship the latter took a genial, philosophical view of the national struggle, not shared by all his Cabinet associates, while Lincoln dissipated the gloom with quaint illustrations of Western life.[931] At one of these familiar fireside talks the President expressed the hope that Seward might be his successor, adding that the friends so grievously disappointed at Chicago would thus find all made right at last. To this Seward, in his clear-headed and kind-hearted way, replied: "No, that is all past and ended. The logic of events requires you to be your own successor. You were elected in 1860, but the Southern States refused to submit. They thought the decision made at the polls could be reversed in the field. They are still in arms, and their hope now is that you and your party will be voted down at the next election. When that election is held and they find the people reaffirming their decision to have you President, I think the rebellion will collapse."[932]

[Footnote 931: Seward, Life of W.H. Seward, Vol. 3, p. 197.]

[Footnote 932: Ibid., p. 196.]

Unlike Seward, Thurlow Weed wabbled in his loyalty to the President. Chafing under the retention of Hiram C. Barney as collector of customs, Weed thought Lincoln too tolerant of Radicals whose opposition was ill concealed. "They will all be against him in '64," he wrote David Davis, then an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. "Why does he persist in giving them weapons with which they may defeat his renomination?"[933] Barney had become a burden to Lincoln, who really desired to be rid of him. Many complaints of irregularity disclosed corrupt practices which warranted a change for the public good. Besides, said the President, "the establishment was being run almost exclusively in the interest of the Radicals. I felt great delicacy in doing anything that might be offensive to my friend. And yet something had to be done. I told Seward he must find him a diplomatic position. Just then Chase became aware of my little conspiracy. He was very angry and told me the day Barney left the custom house, with or without his own consent, he would withdraw from the Treasury. So I backed down."[934]

[Footnote 933: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 434.]

[Footnote 934: Maunsell B. Field, Memories of Many Men, p. 304.]

Lincoln's tolerance did not please Weed, whose infrequent calls at the White House had not escaped notice. "I have been brought to fear recently," the President wrote with characteristic tenderness, "that somehow, by commission or omission, I have caused you some degree of pain. I have never entertained an unkind feeling or a disparaging thought towards you; and if I have said or done anything which has been construed into such unkindness or disparagement it has been misconstrued. I am sure if we could meet we would not part with any unpleasant impression on either side."[935] Such a letter from such a man stirred the heart of the iron-willed boss, who hastened to Washington. He had much to say. Among other things he unfolded a plan for peace. It proposed full amnesty to all persons engaged in the war and an armistice for ninety days, during which time such citizens of the Confederate States as embrace the offered pardon "shall, as a State or States, or as citizens thereof, be restored in all respects to the rights, privileges, and prerogatives which they enjoyed before their secession from the Union." If, however, such offer is rejected, the authority of the United States denied, and the war against the Union continued, the President should partition all territory, whether farms, villages, or cities, among the officers and soldiers conquering the same.[936]

[Footnote 935: Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 440.]

[Footnote 936: Ibid., p. 437.]

In presenting this plan Weed argued that if the offer was rejected it would secure "a united North in favour of war to the knife." Besides, the armistice, occurring when the season interrupts active army movements, would cause little delay and give ample time for widespread circulation of the proclamation. Respecting the division of lands among soldiers, he said it would stop desertion, avoid the payment of bounties, and quickly fill the army with enterprising yeomen who would want homes after the termination of hostilities. It had long been practised in maritime wars by all civilized nations, he said, and being a part of international law it could not in reason be objected to, especially as the sufferers would have rejected most liberal offers of peace and prosperity. Weed frankly admitted that Seward did not like the scheme, and that Senator Wilson of Massachusetts eyed it askance; but Stanton approved it, he said, and Dean Richmond authorised him to say that if fairly carried out the North would be a unit in support of the war and the rebellion would be crushed within six months after the expiration of the armistice.[937]

[Footnote 937: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, pp. 437-439.]

In conversation Weed was the most persuasive of men. To a quiet, gentle, deferential manner, he added a giant's grasp of the subject, presenting its strong points and marshalling with extraordinary skill all the details. Nevertheless, the proposition now laid before the President, leaving slavery as it was, could not be accepted. "The emancipation proclamation could not be retracted," he had said in his famous letter to the New York convention, "any more than the dead could be brought to life." However, Lincoln did not let the famous editor depart empty-handed. Barney should be removed, and Weed, satisfied with such a scalp, returned home to enter the campaign for the President's renomination.[938]

[Footnote 938: New York Herald, May 24, 1864.]

Something seemed to be wrong in New York. Other States through conventions and legislatures had early favored the President's renomination, while the Empire State moved slowly. Party machinery worked well. The Union Central Committee, holding a special meeting on January 4, 1864 at the residence of Edwin D. Morgan, recommended Lincoln's nomination. "It is going to be difficult to restrain the boys," said Morgan in a letter to the President, "and there is not much use in trying to do so."[939] On February 23 the Republican State Committee also endorsed him, and several Union League clubs spoke earnestly of his "prudence, sagacity, comprehension, and perseverance." But the absence of an early State convention, the tardy selection of delegates to Baltimore, and the failure of the Legislature to act, did not reveal the enthusiasm evinced in other Commonwealths. Following the rule adopted elsewhere, resolutions favourable to the President's renomination were duly presented to the Assembly, where they remained unacted upon. Suddenly on January 25 a circular, signed by Simeon Draper and issued by the Conference Committee of the Union Lincoln Association of New York, proposed that all citizens of every town and county who favoured Lincoln's nomination meet in some appropriate place on February 22 and make public expression to that fact. Among the twenty-five names attached appeared those of Moses Taylor and Moses H. Grinnell. This was a new system of tactics. But the legislative resolutions did not advance because of it.

[Footnote 939: Ibid., February 7.]

A month later a letter addressed by several New Yorkers to the National Republican Executive Committee requested the postponement of the Baltimore convention.[940] "The country is not now in a position to enter into a presidential contest," it said. "All parties friendly to the Government should be united in support of a single candidate. Such unanimity cannot at present be obtained. Upon the result of measures adopted to finish the war during the present spring and summer will depend the wish of the people to continue their present leaders, or to exchange them for others. Besides, whatever will tend to lessen the duration of an acrimonious Presidential campaign will be an advantage to the country."[941] If the sentiment of this letter was not new, the number and character of its signers produced a profound sensation. William Cullen Bryant headed the list, and of the twenty-three names, seventeen were leading State senators, among them Charles J. Folger and James M. Cook. "This list," said the Tribune, "contains the names of two-thirds of the Unionists chosen to our present State Senate, the absence of others preventing their signing. We understand that but two senators declined to affix their name."[942] Greeley did not sign this letter, but in an earlier communication to the Independent he had urged a postponement of the convention.[943] Moreover, he had indicated in the Tribune that Chase, Fremont, Butler, or Grant would make as good a President as Lincoln, while the nomination of either would preserve "the salutary one-term principle."[944]

[Footnote 940: It was called to meet on June 7.]

[Footnote 941: Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 785.]

[Footnote 942: New York Tribune, April 25, 1864.]

[Footnote 943: New York Independent, February 25, 1864.]

[Footnote 944: New York Tribune, February 23, 1864.]

It is not easy to determine the cause or the full extent of the dissatisfaction with Lincoln among New York Republicans. Seward's influence and Weed's relations seriously weakened him. After the election of 1862 Radicals openly charged them with Wadsworth's defeat. For the same reason the feeling against Edwin D. Morgan had become intensely bitter. Seeing a newspaper paragraph that these men had been in consultation with the President about his message, Senator Chandler of Michigan, the prince of Radicals, wrote a vehement letter to Lincoln, telling him of a "patriotic organisation in all the free and border States, containing to-day over one million of voters, every man of whom is your friend upon radical measures of your administration; but there is not a Seward or a Weed man among them all. These men are a millstone about your neck. You drop them and they are politically ended forever.... Conservatives and traitors are buried together. For God's sake don't exhume their remains in your message. They will smell worse than Lazarus did after he had been buried three days."[945]

[Footnote 945: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 7, p. 389.]

Although Weed had left the President with the promise of aiding him, he could accomplish nothing. The Legislature refused to act, demands for the postponement of the national convention continued to appear, and men everywhere resented conservative leadership. This was especially true of Greeley and the Tribune, Bryant and the Evening Post, and Beecher and the Independent, not to mention other Radicals and radical papers throughout the State, whose opposition represented a formidable combination. Except for this discontent the Cleveland convention would scarcely have been summoned into existence. Of the three calls issued for its assembling two had their birth in New York, one headed by George B. Cheever, the eminent divine, who had recently toured England in behalf of the Union,—the other by Lucius Robinson, State comptroller, and John Cochrane, attorney-general. Cheever's call denounced "the imbecile and vacillating policy of the present Administration in the conduct of the war,"[946] while Robinson and Cochrane emphasised the need of a President who "can suppress rebellion without infringing the rights of individual or State."[947]

[Footnote 946: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 20.]

[Footnote 947: Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 786.]

That Weed no longer possessed the wand of a Warwick was clearly demonstrated at the Republican State convention, held at Syracuse on May 26, to select delegates to Baltimore. Each faction, led in person by Greeley and Weed, professed to favour the President's renomination, but the fierce and bitter contest over the admission of delegates from New York City widened the breach. The Weed machine, following the custom of previous years, selected an equal number of delegates from each ward. The Radicals, who denounced this system as an arbitrary expression of bossism, chose a delegation representing each ward in proportion to the number of its Republican voters. The delegation accepted would control the convention, and although the Radicals consented to the admission of both on equal terms, the Weed forces, confident of their strength, refused the compromise. This set the Radicals to work, and at the morning session, amidst the wildest confusion and disorder, they elected Lyman Tremaine temporary chairman by a majority of six over Chauncey M. Depew, the young secretary of state, whose popularity had given the Conservatives an abnormal strength.

In his speech the Chairman commented upon the death of James S. Wadsworth, killed in the battle of the Wilderness on May 6, from whose obsequies, held at Geneseo on the 21st, many delegates had just returned. Tremaine believed that the soldier's blood would "lie heavy on the souls of those pretended supporters of the government in its hour of trial, whose cowardice and treachery contributed to his defeat for governor."[948] In such a spirit he eulogised Wadsworth's character and patriotism, declaring that if justice had been done him by the Conservatives, he would now, instead of sleeping in his grave, be governor of New York. Although spoken gently and with emotions of sadness, these intolerably aggressive sentences, loudly applauded by the Radicals, stirred the Weed delegates into whispered threats.[949] But Tremaine did not rely upon words alone. He packed the committee on contested seats, whose report, admitting both city delegations on equal terms, was accepted by the enormous majority of 192 to 98, revealing the fact that the great body of up-State Republicans distrusted Thurlow Weed, whose proposition for peace did not include the abolition of slavery. Other reasons, however, accounted for the large majority. Tremaine, no longer trusting to the leadership of Greeley,[950] marshalled the Radical forces with a skill learned in the school of Seymour and Dean Richmond, and when his drilled cohorts went into action the tumultuous and belligerent character of the scene resembled the uproar familiar to one who had trained with Tammany and fought with Mozart Hall. In concluding its work the convention endorsed the President and selected sixty-six delegates, headed by Raymond, Dickinson, Tremaine, and Preston King as delegates-at-large.

[Footnote 948: New York Tribune, May 10, 1864.]

[Footnote 949: New York Herald, May 29.]

[Footnote 950: "Greeley received an almost unanimous call to lead the party in the State and the first convention which he attended (1862) bowed absolutely to his will. He thought he was a great political leader, and he might have been if he had ever been sure of himself; but he was one of the poorest judges of men, and in that way was often deceived, often misled, and often led to change his opinions.... In less than two years his power was gone."—From speech of Chauncey M. Depew, April 4, 1902. Addresses of, November, 1896, to April, 1902, pp. 238-239.]

The echo of the Syracuse contest reached the Cleveland convention, which assembled on May 31. Of all the distinguished New Yorkers whose names had advertised and given character to this movement John Cochrane alone attended. Indeed, the picturesque speech of Cochrane, as chairman, and the vehement letter of Lucius Robinson, advocating the nomination of Grant, constituted the only attractive feature of the proceedings. Cochrane and Robinson wanted a party in which they could feel at home. To Cochrane the Republican party was "a medley of trading, scurvy politicians, which never represented War Democrats,"[951] while Robinson thought the country "had survived, through three years of war, many bad mistakes of a weak Executive and Cabinet, simply because the popular mind had been intensely fixed upon the single purpose of suppressing rebellion."[952] Both resented the Administration's infringement of individual rights. "Whoever attacks them," said Cochrane, "wounds the vital parts of the Republic. Not even the plea of necessity allows any one to trample upon them."[953] The Cleveland convention, however, did not help these statesmen any more than the nomination of John C. Fremont and John Cochrane, "the two Johns from New York" as they were called, injured the President.[954] When Lincoln heard that instead of the many thousands expected only three or four hundred attended, he opened his Bible and read: "And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred."[955]

[Footnote 951: Cochrane's speech at Cleveland. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 411.]

[Footnote 952: Ibid., p. 413.]

[Footnote 953: Ibid., p. 412.]

[Footnote 954: A singular mistake of the convention was its nomination, contrary to the requirement of the Constitution, of both candidates from the same State.]

[Footnote 955: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 40.]

Lucius Robinson's suggestion that Grant be nominated for President represented the thought of many New Yorkers prominent in political circles. "All eyes and hopes now centre on Grant," wrote Thurlow Weed on April 17. "If he wins in Virginia it will brighten the horizon and make him President."[956] The Herald sounded the praises of the Lieutenant-General in nearly every issue. The Tribune and Times were equally flattering. Even the World admitted that a skilful general handled the army.[957] Other papers throughout the State expressed similar confidence in his victorious leadership, and with the hope of changing the sentiment from Lincoln to Grant a great mass meeting, called ostensibly to express the country's gratitude to the latter, was held in New York City two days before the meeting of the National Republican convention. Neither at this time, however, nor at any other did the movement receive the slightest encouragement from the hero of Vicksburg, or shake the loyalty of the delegates who assembled at Baltimore on June 7.

[Footnote 956: T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 443.]

[Footnote 957: See New York Herald, April 25, 27, May 7, 9, 14, 16, 18, 23, 26, 28, 29, 31, June 1, 4; New York Tribune, May 10, 12, 13, 14; New York Times, May 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19; New York World, May 2, 11, 12, 13, 14.]

Henry J. Raymond, evidencing the same wise spirit of compromise exhibited at Syracuse in 1863, reported the platform. It declared the maintenance of the Union and the suppression of rebellion by force of arms to be the highest duty of every citizen; it approved the determination of the government to enter into no compromise with rebels; favoured the abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment; applauded the wisdom, patriotism, and fidelity of the President; thanked the soldiers, and claimed the full protection of the laws of war for coloured troops; encouraged immigration and the early construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast; pledged the national faith to keep inviolate the redemption of the public debt; and opposed the establishment, by foreign military forces, of monarchical governments in the near vicinity of the United States.[958] On the second day every State voted for Lincoln for President.[959]

[Footnote 958: Edward McPherson, History of the Rebellion, pp. 406-407.]

[Footnote 959: Ibid., p. 407.]

The contest for Vice-President renewed the fight of the New York factions. An impression had early taken root in the country that a War Democrat should be selected, and the Radicals of New York, under the leadership of Lyman Tremaine, quickly designated Daniel S. Dickinson as the man. Dickinson's acceptability in New England and New Jersey strengthened his candidacy, while its approval by three or four border and western States seriously weakened Hamlin. Nevertheless, the New York Conservatives vigorously opposed him. Their antagonism did not at first concentrate upon any one candidate. Weed talked of Hamlin and later of Joseph Holt of Kentucky; Raymond thought Andrew Johnson of Tennessee the stronger; and Preston King, to the great surprise of the Radicals, agreed with him. This brought from George William Curtis the sarcastic remark that a Vice-President from the Empire State would prevent its having a Cabinet officer. Tremaine declared that a change in the Cabinet would not be a serious calamity to the country, and Preston King, who attributed his displacement from the United States Senate to the Seward influence, did not object to the Secretary's removal. Thus Raymond's influence gave the doughty War Governor 32 of New York's 66 votes to 28 for Dickinson and 6 for Hamlin. This materially aided Johnson's nomination on the first ballot.[960]

[Footnote 960: Johnson received 200 votes to 108 for Dickinson. After recording all changes, the ballot stood: Johnson, 494; Dickinson, 17; Hamlin, 9. McPherson, Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 407.]

Raymond's power and influence may be said to have climaxed in 1864 at the Baltimore convention. He became chairman of the New York delegation, chairman of the committee on resolutions, chairman of the National Executive Committee, and the principal debater upon the floor, manifesting a tact in the performance of his manifold duties that surprised as much as it charmed. But the reason for his ardent support of Johnson will probably never be certainly known. McClure declared that he acted in accord with the wishes of Lincoln, who discreetly favoured and earnestly desired Johnson's nomination. This view was approved by George Jones, the proprietor of the Times and Raymond's most intimate friend.[961] On the other hand, Nicolay declared that "it was with minds absolutely untrammelled by even any knowledge of the President's wishes that the convention went about its work of selecting his associate on the ticket."[962] In his long and bitter controversy with Nicolay, however, McClure furnished testimony indicating that Lincoln whispered his choice and that Raymond understood it.[963]

[Footnote 961: Alex. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 444.]

[Footnote 962: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, pp. 72-73.]

[Footnote 963: Alex. K. McClure, Lincoln and Men of War Times, pp. 425-449.]

While Raymond antagonised the radical supporters of Dickinson, patronage questions were again threatening trouble for the President. Serious friction had followed the appointment of a General Appraiser at New York, and when John J. Cisco, the assistant United States treasurer, tendered his resignation to take effect June 30 (1864), the President desired to appoint one unobjectionable to Senator Morgan; but Secretary Chase, regardless of the preferences of others, insisted upon Maunsell B. Field, then an assistant secretary of the treasury. Morgan vigorously protested, regarding him incompetent to fill such a place. Besides, the designation of Field, who had no political backing in New York, would, he said, offend the conservative wing of the party, which had been entirely ignored in the past. As a compromise the Senator begged the President to select Richard M. Blatchford, Dudley S. Gregory, or Thomas Hillhouse, whom he regarded as three of the most eminent citizens of New York.

Lincoln, in a note to the Secretary, submitted these names. "It will really oblige me," he wrote, "if you will make choice among these three, or any other men that Senators Morgan and Harris will be satisfied with."[964] This brief letter was followed on the same day by one presenting the annoyance to which patronage subjects a President. Happily civil service reform has removed much of this evil, but enough remains to keep an Executive, if not members of Congress, in hot water. "As the proverb goes," wrote Lincoln, "no man knows so well where the shoe pinches as he who wears it. I do not think Mr. Field a very proper man for the place, but I would trust your judgment and forego this were the greater difficulty out of the way. Much as I personally like Mr. Barney it has been a great burden to me to retain him in his place when nearly all our friends in New York were directly or indirectly urging his removal. Then the appointment of Judge Hogeboom to be general appraiser brought me to the verge of open revolt. Now the appointment of Mr. Field would precipitate me in it, unless Senator Morgan and those feeling as he does could be brought to concur in it. Strained as I already am at this point, I do not think I can make this appointment in the direction of still greater strain."[965]

[Footnote 964: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 93.]

[Footnote 965: Ibid., pp. 93-94.]

Chase had relieved the tension temporarily by inducing Cisco to withdraw his resignation, but after getting the President's second letter, cleverly intimating that Field's appointment might necessitate the removal of Barney, the Secretary promptly tendered his resignation. If the President was surprised, the Secretary, after reading Lincoln's reply, was not less so. "Your resignation of the office of secretary of the treasury, sent me yesterday, is accepted," said the brief note. "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity I have nothing to unsay, and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relation which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service."[966] Secretary Blaine's hasty resignation in 1892, and President Harrison's quick acceptance of it, were not more dramatic, except that Blaine's was tendered on the eve of a national nominating convention. It is more than doubtful if Chase intended to resign. He meant it to be as in previous years the beginning of a correspondence, expecting to receive from the President a soothing letter with concessions. But Lincoln's stock of patience, if not of sedatives, was exhausted.

[Footnote 966: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 95.]

A few weeks later, after William Pitt Fessenden's appointment to succeed Chase, Simeon Draper became collector of customs. He was one of Weed's oldest friends and in 1858 had been his first choice for governor.[967] But just now Abraham Wakeman was his first choice for collector. Possibly in selecting Draper instead of Wakeman, Lincoln remembered Weed's failure to secure a legislative endorsement of his renomination, a work specially assigned to him. At all events the anti-Weed faction accepted Draper as a decided triumph.

[Footnote 967: "Simeon Draper was impulsive and demonstrative. With the advantages of a fine person, good conversational powers, and ready wit, his genial presence and cheerful voice imparted life and spirit to the numerous social circles in which he was ever a welcome guest." Weed's Reminiscences, T.W. Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Vol. 2, p. 483.]



CHAPTER VIII

SEYMOUR'S PRESIDENTIAL FEVER

1864

"I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation," said the President at the opening of Congress in December, 1863; "nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress." But in submitting a plan for the restoration of the Confederate States he offered amnesty, with rights of property except as to slaves, to all persons[968] who agreed to obey the Constitution, the laws, and the Executive proclamations, and proposed that whenever such persons numbered one-tenth of the qualified voters of a State they "shall be recognized as the true government of such State."[969] A week later the Thirteenth Amendment, forever abolishing slavery, was introduced into Congress. Thus the purpose of the radical Republicans became plain.

[Footnote 968: Except certain ones specifically exempted.]

[Footnote 969: Lincoln, Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 443.]

In January, 1864, Governor Seymour, then the acknowledged head of his party, made his message to the Legislature a manifesto to the Democrats of the country. With measured rhetoric he traced the usurpations of the President and the acknowledged policy that was in future to guide the Administration. He courageously admitted that a majority of the people and both branches of Congress sustained the policy of the President, but such a policy, he declared, subordinating the laws, the courts, and the people themselves to military power, destroyed the rights of States and abrogated cherished principles of government. The past, however, with its enormous debt, its depreciated currency, its suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and its abolition of free speech and a free press, did not mean such irretrievable ruin as the national bankruptcy which now threatened to overwhelm the nation. "The problem with which we have to grapple is," he said, "how can we bring this war to a conclusion before such disasters overwhelm us." Two antagonistic theories, he continued, are now before us—one, consecrating the energies of war and the policy of government to the restoration of the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is; the other, preventing by the creation of a new political system the return of the revolted States, though willing to lay down their arms. This alternative will enable an administration to perpetuate its power. It is a doctrine of national bankruptcy and national ruin; it is a measure for continued military despotism over one-third of our country, which will be the basis for military despotism over the whole land.

Every measure to convert the war against armed rebellion into one against private property and personal rights at the South, he continued, has been accompanied by claims to exercise military power in the North. The proclamation of emancipation at the South, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus at the North; the confiscation of private property in the seceding States, and the arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, and banishment of the citizens of loyal States; the claim to destroy political organization at the South, and the armed interference by Government in local elections at the North, have been contemporaneous events. We now find that as the strength of rebellion is broken, new claims to arbitrary power are put forth. More prerogatives are asserted in the hour of triumph than were claimed in days of disaster. The war is not to be brought to an end by the submission of States to the Constitution and their return to the Union, but to be prolonged until the South is subjugated and accepts such terms as may be dictated. This theory designs a sweeping revolution and the creation of a new political system. There is but one course, he concluded, which will now save us from such national ruin—we must use every influence of wise statesmanship to bring back the States which now reject their constitutional obligations. The triumphs won by the soldiers in the field should be followed up by the peacemaking policy of the statesmen in the Cabinet. In no other way can we save our Union.[970]

[Footnote 970: Public Record of Horatio Seymour, pp. 198-212.]

Seymour's claims and portents were in amazing contrast to his proposed measures of safety. Nevertheless he did his work well. It was his intention clearly to develop the ultimate tendencies of the war, and, in a paper of great power and interest, without invective or acerbity, he did not hesitate to alarm the people respecting the jeopardy of their own liberties. Indeed, his message had the twofold purpose of drawing the line distinctly between Administration and anti-Administration forces, and of concentrating public attention upon himself as a suitable candidate for President.[971] Seymour was never without ambition, for he loved politics and public affairs, and the Presidency captivated him. With deepest interest he watched the play at Charleston and at Baltimore in 1860, and had the nomination come to him, Lincoln's election, depending as it did upon New York, must have given Republicans increased solicitude. Developments during the war had stimulated this ambition. The cost of blood and treasure, blended with arbitrary measures deemed necessary by the Government, pained and finally exasperated him until he longed to possess the power of an Executive to make peace. He believed that a compromise, presented in a spirit of patriotic clemency, with slavery undisturbed, would quickly terminate hostilities, and although he made the mistake of surrounding himself with men whose influence sometimes betrayed him into weak and extreme positions, his ability to present his views in a scholarly and patriotic manner, backed by a graceful and gracious bearing, kept him in close touch with a party that resented methods which made peace dependent upon the abolition of slavery. He never provoked the criticism of those whom he led, nor indulged in levity and flippancy. But he was unsparing in his lectures to the Administration, admonishing it to adopt the principles of government which prevailed when happiness and peace characterised the country's condition, and prophesying the ruin of the Union unless it took his advice. While, therefore, his eulogy of the flag, the soldiers, the Union, and the sacrifices of the people won him reputation for patriotic conservatism, his condemnation of the Government brought him credit for supporting and promoting all manner of disturbing factions and revolutionary movements.

[Footnote 971: Horace Greeley, History of the Rebellion, Vol. 2, p. 667.]

The Regency understood the Governor's ambition, and the Democratic State convention, assembling at Albany on February 24 to designate delegates to Chicago, opened the way for him as widely as possible. It promulgated no issues; it mentioned no candidate; it refused to accept Fernando Wood and his brother as delegates because of their pronounced advocacy of a dishonourable peace; and it placed Seymour at the head of a strong delegation, backed by Dean Richmond and August Belmont, and controlled by the unit rule. It was a remarkable coincidence, too, that the New York Herald, which had pursued the Governor for more than a year with bitter criticism, suddenly lapsed into silence. Indeed, the only shadow falling upon his pathway in the Empire State reflected the temporary anger of Tammany, which seceded from the convention because the McKeon delegation, an insignificant coterie of advocates of peace-on-any-conditions, had been admitted on terms of equality.

As the summer advanced political conditions seemed to favour Seymour. During the gloomy days of July and August the people prayed for a cessation of hostilities. "The mercantile classes are longing for peace," wrote James Russell Lowell,[972] and Horace Greeley, in a letter of perfervid vehemence, pictured to the President the unhappy condition. "Our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country," he said, "longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, or further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood."[973] The President, also yearning for peace and willing to accept almost any proposition if it included the abolition of slavery, waited for a communication from some agent of the Confederacy authorised to treat with him; but such an one had not appeared, although several persons, safely sheltered in Canada, claimed authority. One of these, calling himself William C. Jewett of Colorado, finally convinced Horace Greeley that Clement C. Clay of Alabama and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, two ambassadors of Jefferson Davis, were ready at Niagara Falls to meet the President whenever protection was afforded them. Upon being informed by Greeley of their presence, Lincoln replied (July 9): "If you can find any person, anywhere, professing to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis in writing for peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandonment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he may come to me with you."[974]

[Footnote 972: Motley's Letters, Vol. 2, p. 168.]

[Footnote 973: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 186.]

[Footnote 974: Ibid., pp. 187-188.]

While Greeley, hesitating to undertake the mission himself, indulged in further correspondence with the President, James P. Jaquess, a Methodist clergyman and colonel of an Illinois regiment, with the knowledge of Lincoln, but without official authority except to pass the Union lines, obtained (July 17) an audience with Jefferson Davis, to whom he made overtures of peace. In the interview Davis declared that "we are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence, and that or extermination we will have. We will be free. We will govern ourselves. We will do it if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked and every Southern city in flames.... Say to Mr. Lincoln from me that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other."[975] It is known now that Jaquess' report was substantially correct, but at the time the peace advocate defiantly challenged its truth and the conservative was incredulous.

[Footnote 975: J.R. Gilmore (Kirke), Down in Tennessee, pp. 272-280.]

Meantime Greeley (July 16) proceeded to Niagara Falls. Thompson was not there and Clay had no authority to act. When the famous editor asked fresh instructions Lincoln sent John Hay, his private secretary, with the historic paper of July 18, which stopped further negotiations.[976] In this well-meant effort the President desired to convince his own party of the hopelessness of any satisfactory peace until the surrender of Lee's and Johnston's armies; but to the people, grieved by the death of loved ones, or oppressed by constant anxiety, his brief ultimatum seemed maladroit, while the men who favoured peace simply on condition of the restoration of the Union, without the abolition of slavery, resented his course as arbitrary and needlessly cruel.

[Footnote 976: "To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways. Abraham Lincoln."—Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol. 2, p. 665; Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 780; Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 192.]

Lincoln's unpopularity touched bottom at this moment. The dissatisfaction found expression in a secret call for a second national convention, to be held at Cincinnati on September 28, to nominate, if necessary, a new candidate for President.[977] This movement, vigorously promoted in Ohio by Salmon P. Chase, received cordial support in New York City. George Opdyke directed it, Horace Greeley heartily endorsed it, Daniel S. Dickinson favoured it, and Lucius Robinson and David Dudley Field sympathised with it.[978] Parke Godwin and William Curtis Noyes, if unwilling to go as far as Opdyke and Greeley, would have welcomed Lincoln's withdrawal.[979] Roscoe Conkling, being advised of the scheme, promptly rejected it. "I do not approve of the call or of the movement," he wrote, "and cannot sign it. For that reason it would not be proper or agreeable that I should be present at the conference you speak of."[980]

[Footnote 977: "The undersigned, citizens of the State of New York and unconditional supporters of the national government, convinced that a union of all loyal citizens of the United States upon the basis of a common patriotism is essential to the safety and honour of the country in this crisis of its affairs; that the present distraction and apathy which depress the friends of the Union threaten to throw the Government into the hands of its enemies; and that a convention of the people should be assembled to consider the state of the nation and to concentrate the union strength on some one candidate, who commands the confidence of the country, even by a new nomination if necessary; do therefore invite their fellow citizens ... to send delegates ... to a convention at Cincinnati on Wednesday, September 28, for friendly consultation, with the purpose above stated."—New York Sun, June 30, 1889.]

[Footnote 978: Under date of Aug. 18, 1864, Greeley wrote Opdyke: "I must go out of town to-morrow and cannot attend the meeting at your house. Allow me to say a word. Mr. Lincoln is already beaten. He cannot be elected. We must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow. And such a ticket we ought to have anyhow, with or without a convention."—Ibid.

On August 26, Dickinson declared that "the cry for a change, whether wise or ill founded, should be both heard and heeded."—Ibid.

On August 29, Lucius Robinson regretted "that it will be impossible for me to be present at the meeting at Mr. Field's to-morrow evening.... McClellan will be the next President unless Lincoln is at once withdrawn."—Ibid.]

[Footnote 979: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 366.]

[Footnote 980: New York Sun, June 30, 1889.]

It is doubtful if Lincoln knew of this conspiracy, but his friends informed him of the critical condition of affairs. "When, ten days ago, I told Mr. Lincoln that his re-election was an impossibility," Weed wrote Seward on August 22, "I told him the information would also come through other channels. It has doubtless reached him ere this. At any rate nobody here doubts it, nor do I see anybody from other States who authorises the slightest hope of success. The people are wild for peace. They are told the President will only listen to terms of peace on condition that slavery be abandoned."[981] Weed's "other channels" meant a report from the Republican National Executive Committee, which Raymond, then its chairman, submitted to Lincoln on August 22. "The tide is setting strongly against us," he wrote. "Hon. E.B. Washburn writes that 'were an election to be held now in Illinois we should be beaten.' Mr. Cameron says that Pennsylvania is against us. Governor Morton writes that nothing but the most strenuous efforts can carry Indiana. This State, according to the best information I can get, would go 50,000 against us to-morrow. And so of the rest. Two special causes are assigned for this great reaction in public sentiment—the want of military successes, and the impression in some minds, the fear and suspicion in others, that we are not to have peace in any event under this Administration until slavery is abandoned. In some way or other the suspicion is widely diffused that we can have peace with Union if we would. It is idle to reason with this belief—still more idle to denounce it. It can only be expelled by some authoritative act at once bold enough to fix attention, and distinct enough to defy incredulity and challenge respect."[982]

[Footnote 981: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 250.]

[Footnote 982: Ibid., p. 218.]

In December, 1860, in the presence of threatened war Lincoln refused to yield to a compromise that would extend slavery into free territory; now, in the presence of failure at the polls, he insisted upon a peace that would abolish slavery. In 1860 he was flushed with victory; in 1864 he was depressed by the absence of military achievement. But he did not weaken. He telegraphed Grant to "hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible,"[983] and then, in the silence of early morning, with Raymond's starless letter on the table before him, he showed how coolly and magnanimously a determined patriot could face political overthrow. "This morning, as for some days past," he wrote, "it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooeperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."[984]

[Footnote 983: Lincoln's Complete Works, Vol. 2, p. 563.]

[Footnote 984: Nicolay-Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 9, p. 251.]

The influence of this popular discouragement exhibited itself in a mass peace convention, called by Fernando Wood and held at Syracuse on August 18. Its great attraction was Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, its platform favoured an armistice and a convention of States, and its purpose was the selection of a delegation to Chicago, which should adequately represent the peace faction of the State. The absence of military achievement and the loud cries for peace, it was claimed, had changed the conditions since the adjournment of the Democratic State convention in February, and the necessity for a third party was conceded should the existing peace sentiment be ignored in the formulation of a platform and the selection of candidates at Chicago. Although the assembly indicated no preference for President, its known partiality for Seymour added to its strength. Through the manipulation of Richmond and the Regency, Wood failed to secure the appointment of delegates, but he claimed, with much show of truth, that the meeting represented the sentiment of a great majority of the party. Wood had become intolerable to Dean Richmond and the conservative Democracy, whose withering opposition to his candidacy for the United States Senate in the preceding February had made him ridiculous; but he could not be muzzled, and although his influence rarely disturbed the party in the up-State counties, he was destined to continue in Congress the rest of his life, which ended in 1881.

The Democratic national convention had been called for July 4, but the popular depression, promising greater advantage later in the summer, led to its postponement until August 29. Thus it convened when gloom and despondency filled the land, making Horatio Seymour's journey to Chicago an ovation. At every stop, especially at Detroit, crowds, cheers, speeches, and salvos of firearms greeted him. The convention city recognised him as its most distinguished visitor, and the opponents of a war policy, voicing the party's sentiment for peace, publicly proclaimed him their favourite.

Before Seymour left Albany the Argus announced that he would not be a candidate;[985] but now, flattered by attention, and encouraged by the peace-faction's strategic movement, he declined to indicate his position. Political conditions had made a profound impression upon him. Moreover, deep in his heart Seymour did not fancy McClellan. His public life had been brief, and his accomplishment little either as a soldier or civilian. Besides, his arrest of the Maryland Legislature, and his indifference to the sacredness of the writ of habeas corpus, classing him among those whom the Governor had bitterly denounced, tended to destroy the latter's strongest argument against the Lincoln administration.

[Footnote 985: "The announcement in the Albany Argus that Governor Seymour was not a candidate was written by Seymour himself, and taken to the Argus by his private secretary. It is now announced that it was intended as a feeler. The whole force of the opposition to McClellan is centred in this move for Seymour."—New York Herald (Chicago despatch), August 28, 1864.]

Dean Richmond, now a vigorous supporter of McClellan, could not be confused as to the General's strength or the Governor's weakness, and he attempted at an early hour to silence the appeal for Seymour by solidifying the New York delegation for McClellan; but in these efforts he found it difficult to subdue the personal independence and outspoken ways of the Governor, whose opposition to McClellan was more than a passing cloud-shadow.[986] This delayed matters. So long as a ray of hope existed for the favourite son, the New York delegation declined to be forced into an attitude of opposition. Indeed, the day before the convention opened, it refused, by a vote of 38 to 23, to ascertain its choice for President. When, at last, it became definitely known that McClellan had a majority of each State delegation, practically assuring his nomination under the two-thirds rule on the first ballot, Seymour put an end to the talk of his candidacy. Nevertheless, his vote, dividing the New York delegation, was cast for Samuel Nelson, the distinguished jurist who had succeeded Smith Thompson as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Other anti-McClellan New York delegates preferred Charles O'Conor and James Guthrie of Kentucky. Subsequently, in explaining his action, Seymour disclaimed any doubt of the ability or patriotism of the late commander of the Army of the Potomac.[987]

[Footnote 986: "Dean Richmond remains firm for McClellan, and has cut loose from the Regency. He is at the present moment closeted with Seymour, trying to convince him of the fallacy of the move."—New York Herald (Chicago despatch), August 28, 1864.]

[Footnote 987: Ibid., September 1, 1864.]

The New York delegation had as usual a strong if not a controlling influence in the convention. Dean Richmond who led it at Charleston and Baltimore again guided its counsels, while the presence of John Ganson and Albert P. Laning of Buffalo, and Francis Kernan of Utica, added to its forcefulness upon the floor. Next to Seymour, however, its most potent member for intellectual combat was Samuel J. Tilden, who served upon the committee on resolutions. Tilden, then fifty years old, was without any special charm of person or grace of manner. He looked like an invalid. His voice was feeble, his speech neither fluent nor eloquent, and sometimes he gave the impression of indecision. But his logic was irresistible, his statements exhaustive, and his ability as a negotiator marvellous and unequalled. He was the strong man of the committee, and his presence came very near making New York the dominant factor in the convention.

Tilden's sympathies leaned toward the South. He resented the formation of the Republican party,[988] maintained that a State could repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion,[989] declared at the Tweddle Hall meeting in January, 1861, that he "would resist the use of force to coerce the South into the Union,"[990] and declined to sign the call for the patriotic uprising of the people in Union Square on April 20.[991] On the other hand, he addressed departing regiments, gave money, and in 1862 wrote: "Within the Union we will give you [the South] the Constitution you profess to revere, renewed with fresh guarantees of equal rights and equal safety. We will give you everything that local self-government demands; everything that a common ancestory of glory—everything that national fraternity or Christian fellowship requires; but to dissolve the federal bond between these States, to dismember our country, whoever else consents, we will not. No; never, never never!"[992] Yet in February, 1863, in opposition to the Loyal Publication Society, he assisted in organising a local society which published and distributed "Copperhead" literature.[993] He had not, however, been active in politics since his defeat for attorney-general in 1855. It was during these years that he began the accumulation of his large fortune. He acquired easily. He seemed to know intuitively when to buy and when to sell, and he profited by the rare opportunities offered during the great depreciation in government bonds. Later, he dealt in railroads, his private gains being so enormous that men thought his ambition for wealth unscrupulously selfish.

[Footnote 988: Statement to Preston King in 1854. Harper's Weekly, September 16, 1876.]

[Footnote 989: Letter to William Kent in October, 1860.]

[Footnote 990: Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, Vol. 1, pp. 388-394. William H. Russell's Diary, entry March 17, 1861, p. 20.]

[Footnote 991: Harper's Weekly, September 9, 1876.]

[Footnote 992: John Bigelow, Life of Tilden, Vol. 1, pp. 173-174.]

[Footnote 993: Harper's Weekly, September 9 and 27, 1876.]

But whatever may have been his sentiments respecting the war, Tilden had little liking for Vallandigham in 1864, and after a bitter contest finally defeated him for chairman of the committee on resolutions by a vote of thirteen to eleven in favour of James Guthrie of Kentucky. He also defeated a measure introduced by Washington Hunt suggesting an armistice and a convention of States, and supported a positive declaration that he thought sufficient to hold the war vote. However, the dread of a split, such as had occurred at Charleston and Baltimore in 1860, possessed the committee, and in the confusion of the last moment, by a slight majority, the pivotal declaration pronouncing the war a failure was accepted.[994]

[Footnote 994: "Never did men work harder than Messrs. Guthrie of Kentucky and Tilden of New York. All they asked finally was that the platform should not be so strong for peace that it would drive the war vote from them."—New York Herald, September 5, 1864.

"Vallandigham wrote the second, the material resolution, of the Chicago platform, and carried it through the sub-committee and the general committee, in spite of the most desperate and persistent opposition on the part of Tilden and his friends, Mr. Cassidy himself in an adjoining room labouring to defeat it."—New York News, October 22, 1864.

"The platform which declared the war a failure was jointly concocted by Seymour and Vallandigham."—New York Tribune, November 5, 1868.]

Seymour's election as permanent chairman of the convention gave him abundant opportunity to proclaim his abhorrence of the Administration. His speech, prepared with unusual care, showed the measured dignity and restraint of a trained orator, who knew how to please a popular audience with a glowing denunciation of principles it detested. Every appeal was vivid and dramatic; every allusion told. Throughout the whole ran the thread of one distinct proposition,—that the Republican party had sinned away its day of grace, and that the patriotic work of the Democratic party must begin at once if the Union was to be saved. To Seymour it was not a new proposition. He had stated it in the last campaign and reiterated it in his latest message; but never before did he impress it by such striking sentences as now fell upon the ears of a delighted convention. "Even now, when war has desolated our land," he said, "has laid its heavy burdens upon labor, when bankruptcy and ruin overhang us, this Administration will not have Union except upon conditions unknown to our Constitution; it will not allow the shedding of blood to cease, even for a little time, to see if Christian charity or the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a method to save our country. Nay, more than this, it will not listen to a proposal for peace which does not offer that which this government has no right to ask. This Administration cannot now save this Union, if it would. It has, by its proclamations, by vindictive legislation, by displays of hate and passion, placed obstacles in its own pathway which it cannot overcome, and has hampered its own freedom of action by unconstitutional acts. The bigotry of fanatics and the intrigues of placemen have made the bloody pages of the history of the past three years."

It was impossible not to be impressed by such an impassioned lament. There was also much in Seymour himself as well as in his words to attract the attention of the convention.[995] Added years gave him a more stately, almost a picturesque bearing, while a strikingly intelligent face changed its expression with the ease and swiftness of an actor's. This was never more apparent than now, when he turned, abruptly, from the alleged sins of Republicans to the alleged virtues of Democrats. Relaxing its severity, his countenance wore a triumphant smile as he declared in a higher and more resonant key, that "if this Administration cannot save the Union, we can! Mr. Lincoln values many things above the Union; we put it first of all. He thinks a proclamation worth more than peace; we think the blood of our people more precious than the edicts of the President. There are no hindrances in our pathway to Union and to peace. We demand no conditions for the restoration of our Union; we are shackled with no hates, no prejudices, no passions. We wish for fraternal relationships with the people of the South. We demand for them what we demand for ourselves—the full recognition of the rights of States. We mean that every star on our Nation's banner shall shine with an equal lustre."[996] As the speaker concluded, the audience, with deafening applause, testified its approval of these sentiments. Yet one wonders that he could end without saying a word, at least, in condemnation of the Secessionists, whose appeal from the ballot to the bullet had inaugurated "the bloody pages of the history of the past three years."

[Footnote 995: "Governor Seymour was an elegant and accomplished gentleman with a high-bred manner which never unbent, and he was always faultlessly dressed. He looked the ideal of an aristocrat, and yet he was and continued to be until his death the idol of the Democracy."—Speeches of Chauncey M. Depew, November, 1896, to April, 1902, p. 105.]

[Footnote 996: Horatio Seymour's Public Record, pp. 230-232.]

The platform, adopted without debate, reaffirmed devotion to the Union, expressed sympathy with soldiers and prisoners of war, denounced interference in military elections, and stigmatised alleged illegal and arbitrary acts of the government. The second resolution, prepared by Vallandigham, declared that "this convention does explicitly resolve as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States."[997]

[Footnote 997: Edward McPherson, History of the Rebellion, p. 419; Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 1864, p. 793.]

It is difficult to excuse Tilden's silence when this fatal resolution was adopted. In the final haste to report the platform, the deep significance of Vallandigham's words may not have been fully appreciated by the Committee;[998] but Tilden understood their meaning, and vigorous opposition might have avoided them.[999] He seems, however, to have shared the fear of McClellan's friends that the defeat of the resolution would endanger the integrity of the convention, and to have indulged the hope that McClellan's letter of acceptance would prove an antidote to the Ohioan's peace-poison. But his inaction did little credit either to his discernment or judgment, for the first ballot for President disclosed the groundlessness of his timidity,[1000] and the first work of the campaign revealed the inefficiency of the candidate's statements.[1001] Indeed, so grievous was Tilden's mistake that his distinguished biographer (Bigelow) avoided his responsibility for declaring the war a failure by ignoring his presence at Chicago.

[Footnote 998: "McClellan's supporters are not scared by any paper pellets of the brain, wise or otherwise, which ever came from the midnight sessions of a resolution committee in the hurly-burly of a national convention."—Speech of Robert C. Winthrop in New York City, September 17, 1864.—Addresses and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 598.]

[Footnote 999: "When the resolution, as reported, had been debated in the committee, Mr. Tilden, far from protesting, stated in the convention that there was no dissent among the members. His remarks were confirmed by Mr. Brown of Delaware, who said there was not the slightest dissension, and by Mr. Weller of California, who said that all were in favour of peace."—Harper's Weekly, September 9, 1876.]

[Footnote 1000: The first ballot resulted as follows: Seymour of New York, 12; Seymour of Connecticut, 38; McClellan, 181. In the adjustment, after the conclusion of the roll-call, McClellan had 202-1/2 and Seymour of Connecticut, 28-1/2. Vallandigham moved to make the nomination unanimous. George H. Pendleton of Ohio was named for Vice-President.]

[Footnote 1001: "McClellan's name, associated with a noble struggle for the national cause, has elicited and will elicit the wildest enthusiasm; but leagued with propositions for national humiliation, it is not a name the people will honor. McClellan is not large enough to cover out of sight the bad points in the Chicago platform."—New York Herald, September 6, 1864.]

Meanwhile the cheers for McClellan that greeted the returning delegates were mingled with those of the country over Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Farragut's destruction of the Mobile forts.



CHAPTER IX

FENTON DEFEATS SEYMOUR

1864

The brilliant victories of Sherman and Farragut had an appreciable effect upon Republicans. It brought strong hope of political success, and made delegates to the Syracuse convention (September 7) very plucky. Weed sought to control, but the Radicals, in the words of Burke's famous sentence, were lords of the ascendant. They proposed to nominate Reuben E. Fenton, and although the Chautauquan's popularity and freedom from the prejudices of Albany politics commended him to the better judgment of all Republicans, the followers of Greeley refused to consult the Conservatives respecting him or any part of the ticket. Resenting such treatment Weed indicated an inclination to secede, and except that his regard for Fenton steadied him the historic bolt of the Silver Grays might have been repeated.[1002]

[Footnote 1002: New York Herald, September 8.]

Fenton was a well-to-do business man, without oratorical gifts or statesmanlike qualities, but with a surpassing genius for public life. He quickly discerned the drift of public sentiment and had seldom made a glaring mistake. He knew, also, how to enlist other men in his service and attach them to his fortunes. During his ten years in Congress he developed a faculty for organisation, being able to cooerdinate all his resources and to bring them into their place in the accomplishment of his purposes. This was conspicuously illustrated in the Thirty-seventh Congress when he formed a combination that made Galusha A. Grow speaker of the House. Besides, by careful attention to the wants of constituents and to the work of the House, backed by the shrewdness of a typical politician who rarely makes an enemy, he was recognised as a sagacious counsellor and safe leader. He had previously been mentioned for governor, and in the preceding winter Theodore M. Pomeroy, then representing the Auburn district in Congress, presented him for speaker.[1003] Schuyler Colfax controlled the caucus, but the compliment expressed the esteem of Fenton's colleagues.

[Footnote 1003: New York Tribune, December 7, 1863.]

He was singularly striking and attractive in person, tall, erect, and graceful in figure, with regular features and wavy hair slightly tinged with gray. His sloping forehead, full at the eyebrows, indicated keen perceptive powers. He was suave in address, so suave, indeed, that his enemies often charged him with insincerity and even duplicity, but his gracious manner, exhibited to the plainest woman and most trifling man, won the hearts of the people as quickly as his political favours recruited the large and devoted following that remained steadfast to the end. Perhaps no one in his party presented a stronger running record. He belonged to the Barnburners, he presided at the birth of the Republican party, he stood for a vigorous prosecution of the war regardless of the fate of slavery, and he had avoided the Weed-Greeley quarrels. If he was not a statesman, he at least possessed the needed qualities to head the State ticket.

As usual John A. Dix's name came before the convention. It was well known that party nomenclature did not represent his views, but his admirers, profoundly impressed with his sterling integrity and weight of character, insisted, amidst the loudest cheering of the day, that his name be presented. Nevertheless, an informal ballot quickly disclosed that Fenton was the choice, and on motion of Elbridge G. Lapham the nomination became unanimous.[1004] Other nominations fell to the Radicals.[1005] Not until Greeley was about to capture first place as a presidential elector-at-large, however, did the Conservatives fully realise how badly they were being punished. Then every expedient known to diplomacy was exhausted. Afternoon shaded into evening and evening into night. Still the contest continued. It seems never to have occurred to the Weed faction that Horace Greeley, whom it had so often defeated, could be given an office, even though its duties covered but a single day, and in its desperation it discovered a willingness to compromise on any other name. But Greeley's friends forced the fight, and to their great joy won a most decisive victory.[1006]

[Footnote 1004: "The informal vote was as follows: Fenton, 247-1/2; Tremaine, 69; Dix, 35-1/2."—New York Herald, September 8, 1864.]

[Footnote 1005: "The ticket is as follows: Governor, Reuben E. Fenton of Chautauqua; Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas G. Alvord of Onondaga; Canal Commissioner, Franklin A. Alberger of Erie; Inspector of Prisons, David P. Forrest of Schenectady."—New York Tribune, September 14, 1864.]

[Footnote 1006: "The following is the vote for presidential elector-at-large: Horace Greeley, 215; Preston King, 191-1/2; Daniel S. Dickinson, 143; Richard M. Blatchford, 86; John A. King, 10; Lyman Tremaine, 13; J.S.T. Stranahan, 27; Thurlow Weed, 1."—Ibid., September 8.]

While the Weed men were nursing their resentment because of the honour thus suddenly thrust upon the most famous American editor,[1007] a great surprise convulsed the Democratic State convention.[1008] The report that Horatio Seymour sought release from official labours because of ill health and the demands of private business, created the belief that he would decline a renomination even if tendered by acclamation. Indeed, the Governor himself, in conversation with Dean Richmond, reiterated his oft-expressed determination not to accept. The Regency, believing him sincere, agreed upon William F. Allen of Oswego, although other candidates, notably William Kelly of Dutchess, the nominee of the Softs in 1860, and Amasa J. Parker of Albany, were mentioned. Lucius Robinson, declining to be considered for second place, urged the nomination of Dix for governor. Of these candidates Seymour was quoted as favourable to Parker. Still a feeling of unrest disturbed the hotel lobbies. "There is some talk," said the Herald, "of giving Seymour a complimentary vote, with the understanding that he will then decline, but this is opposed as a trick to place him in the field again, although those who pretend to speak for him positively declare that he will not accept the nomination upon any contingency."[1009] When told on convention morning that Seymour would accept if nominated by acclamation, Richmond ridiculed the idea. His incredulity was strengthened by the statement of two Oneida delegates, whom the Governor, only a few moments before, had instructed to withdraw his name if presented. Thus matters stood until the convention, having enthusiastically applauded an indorsement of Seymour's administration, quickly and by acclamation carried a motion for his renomination, the delegates jumping to their feet and giving cheer after cheer. Immediately a delegate, rising to a question of privilege, stated that the Governor, in the hearing of gentlemen from his own county, had positively declined to accept a nomination because his health and the state of his private affairs forbade it. As this did not satisfy the delegates, a committee, appointed to notify Seymour of his selection, reported that the Governor whose temporary illness prevented his attendance upon the convention, had had much to say about private affairs, ill health, and excessive labour, but that since the delegates insisted upon his renomination, he acquiesced in their choice.[1010]