NEW PARTY ALIGNMENTS
1861
The battle of Bull Run fomented mutterings, freighted with antagonism
to the war. Certain journals violently resented the suspension of the
writ of _habeas corpus_, while the Act of Congress, approved August 3,
providing for the freedom of slaves employed in any military or naval
service, called forth such extreme denunciations that the United
States grand jury for the Southern District of New York asked the
Court if the authors were subject to indictment. "These
newspapers,"[788] said the foreman, "are in the frequent practice of
encouraging the rebels now in arms against the Federal Government by
expressing sympathy and agreement with them, the duty of acceding to
their demands, and dissatisfaction with the employment of force to
overcome them. Their conduct is, of course, condemned and abhorred by
all loyal men, but the grand jury will be glad to learn from the Court
that they are also subject to indictment and condign punishment." The
Postmaster-General's order excluding such journals from the mails
intensified the bitterness. The arrests of persons charged with giving
aid and comfort to the enemy also furnished partisans an opportunity
to make people distrustful of such summary methods by magnifying the
danger to personal liberty. In a word, the Bull Run disaster had
become a peg upon which to hang sympathy for the South.[789]
[Footnote 788: New York _Journal of Commerce_, _News_, _Day-Book_,
_Freeman's Journal_, Brooklyn _Eagle_.--Appleton's _Cyclopædia_, 1861,
p. 329.]
[Footnote 789: "I have had a conversation this morning with a prominent
Democrat, who is entirely devoted to sustaining the government in the
present struggle. He informs me that the leaders of that party are
opposed to the war and sympathise with the South; that they keep quiet
because it will not advance their views to move just now." Letter of
William Gray, dated September 4, to Secretary Chase.--Chase Papers,
MS.]
Differences likewise appeared among Republicans. The Weed and
anti-Weed factions still existed, but these divisions now grew out of
differences far deeper than patronage. After the bombardment of Fort
Sumter, Thurlow Weed desired the conflict conducted on lines that
would unite the North into one party responding to the cry of "Union,
now and forever." He believed this might be done and that rebellion
could thus be confined to the extreme cotton region, if the loyal
element in the Border States was cherished and representatives of all
parties were permitted to participate in civil as well as military
affairs. To this end he sought to avoid the question of emancipation,
cordially approving the President's course in modifying Fremont's
proclamation of the preceding August, which liberated the slaves of
traitorous owners in Missouri. Weed pushed his contention to the
extreme. Following the spirit of his rejected compromise he insisted
that every act of the Government should strengthen and encourage the
Union men of the Border States, among which he included North Carolina
and Tennessee, and he bitterly resented the policy of urging the army,
hastily and without due preparation, to fight "political battles" like
that of Bull Run. On the other hand, the radical anti-slavery element
of the country, led by Secretary Chase in the Cabinet, by Senator
Sumner in Congress, and backed by Horace Greeley in the _Tribune_,
disliked the President's policy of trying to conciliate Kentucky and
other Border States by listening to the demands of slavery. This
factional difference became doubly pronounced after Lincoln's
modification of the Fremont proclamation.
Notwithstanding Democratic criticisms and Republican differences,
however, the supporters of Lincoln, anxious to teach the seceding
States an object lesson in patriotism, desired to unite both parties
into one Union organisation, pledged to the vigorous prosecution of
the war and the execution of the laws in all parts of the country. To
Republicans this plan looked easy. Most people professed to favour the
preservation of the Union, and thousands of young men irrespective of
party had enlisted for the suppression of armed rebellion. Moreover, a
union of parties at such a critical moment, it was argued, would be
more helpful in discouraging the South than victory on the
battlefield. Accordingly the Republican State Committee proposed to
the Democrats early in August that in the election to occur on
November 4 a single ticket be nominated, fairly representative of all
parties upon a simple war platform.
About Dean Richmond, chairman of the Democratic State Committee, still
clustered Peter Cagger, William B. Ludlow, Sanford E. Church, and
other Soft leaders, with Horatio Seymour substantially in control.
These men had not participated in the Union Square meeting on April
20, nor had their sentiments been voiced since the fall of Fort
Sumter; but it was well known that their views did not coincide with
those of Daniel S. Dickinson, John A. Dix, James T. Brady, Greene C.
Bronson, and other leaders of the Hards. Richmond's reply, therefore,
was not disappointing. He admitted the wisdom of filling public
offices with pure and able men who commanded the confidence of the
people, and suggested, with a play of sarcasm, that if such an example
were set in filling Federal offices, it would probably be followed in
the selection of State officers. But the politics of men in office, he
continued, was of little importance compared to sound principles.
Democrats would unite with all citizens opposed to any war and equally
to any peace which is based upon the idea of the separation of these
States, and who regard it the duty of the Federal government at all
times to hold out terms of peace and accommodation to the dissevered
States.
"Our political system," he continued, "was founded in compromise, and
it can never be dishonourable in any Administration to seek to restore
it by the same means. Above all, they repel the idea that there exists
between the two sections of the Union such an incompatibility of
institutions as to give rise to an irrepressible conflict between
them, which can only terminate in the subjugation of one or the other.
Repelling the doctrine that any State can rightfully secede from the
Union, they hold next in abhorrence that aggressive and fanatical
sectional policy which has so largely contributed to the present
danger of the country. They propose, therefore, to invite to union
with them all citizens of whatever party, who, believing in these
views, will act with them to secure honest administration in Federal
and State affairs, a rigid maintenance of the Constitution, economy in
public expenditures, honesty in the award of contracts, justice to the
soldier in the field and the taxpayer at home, and the expulsion of
corrupt men from office."[790]
[Footnote 790: New York _Herald_, August 9, 1861.]
It was hardly to be expected, perhaps, that Dean Richmond and other
representatives of a great party would be willing, even if moved by no
other motive than a love of country, to abandon a political
organisation that had existed for years, and that had already shown
its patriotism by the generous enlistment of its members; but it is
doubtful if they would have proclaimed, without the guidance of a
State convention, such an elaborate and positive platform of
principles, had not the serious defeat at Bull Run and the action of
the President in suspending the writ of _habeas corpus_, subjected the
national Administration to severe criticism. This, at least, was the
view taken by the radical Republican press, which viciously attacked
the patriotism of Richmond and his associates, charging them with
using the livery of Democracy to serve the cause of treason.[791]
[Footnote 791: New York _Tribune_, August 10.]
In the midst of these developments the Democratic State convention,
made up of a larger number of old men than usual, assembled at
Syracuse on September 4. It was not an enthusiastic body. The division
upon national affairs plainly had a depressing influence. Francis
Kernan became temporary chairman. At the Oneida bar, Kernan, then
forty-five years old, had been for nearly two decades the peer of
Hiram Denio, Samuel Beardsley, Ward Hunt, and Joshua Spencer. He was a
forceful speaker, cool and self-possessed, with a pleasing voice and
good manner. He could not be called an orator, but he was a master of
the art of making a perfectly clear statement, and in defending his
position, point by point, with never failing readiness and skill, he
had few if any superiors. He belonged, also, to that class of able
lawyers who are never too busy to take an active interest in public
affairs.
In his brief address Kernan clearly outlined the position which the
Democracy of the whole country was to occupy. "It is our duty," he
said, "to oppose abolitionism at the North and secession at the South,
which are equally making war upon our Government. Let us consign them
both to a common grave. Never will our country see peace unless we
do.... We care not what men are in charge of the Government, it is our
duty as patriots and as Democrats to protect and preserve that
Government, and resist with arms, and, if need be, with our lives, the
men who seek to overthrow it; but this must be no war for the
emancipation of slaves."[792]
[Footnote 792: New York _Tribune_, September 5, 1861.]
The vigor of Kernan as a speaker and presiding officer exaggerated by
contrast the feebleness of Herman J. Redfield, the permanent president
of the convention. Redfield was an old man, a mere reminiscence of the
days of DeWitt Clinton, whose speech, read in a low, weak voice, was
directed mainly to a defence of the sub-treasury plan of 1840 and the
tariff act of 1846.[793] He professed to favour a vigorous prosecution
of the war, but there were no words of reprobation for its authors,
while he expressed the belief that "civil war will never preserve, but
forever destroy the union of States." This was the prophecy of Reuben
H. Walworth, the ex-chancellor, made at the Albany peace convention in
the preceding January, and the applause that greeted the statement
then, as it did at Syracuse, indicated a disposition on the part of
many to favour concessions that would excuse if it did not absolutely
justify secession.
[Footnote 793: "From what lodge in some vast wilderness, from what lone
mountain in the desert, the convention obtained its Rip Van Winkle
president, we are at a loss to conceive. He evidently has never heard
of the Wilmot Proviso struggle of 1848, the compromise contest of
1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Lecompton constitution of
1858, nor the presidential election of 1860. It is plain that he has
never even dreamed of the secession ordinances and of the fall of
Sumter."--New York _Tribune_, September 6, 1861.
"The speech of Mr. Redfield is universally laughed at. He has
completely proven that he does not belong to the present century, or,
at least, that he has been asleep for the last twenty years. Barnum
should deposit it among the curiosities of his shop."--New York
_Herald_, September 5, 1861.]
The party platform, however, took little notice of the Redfield speech
and the Redfield cheers. It declared that the right of secession did
not anywhere or at any time exist; that the seizure of United States
property and the sending out of privateers to prey on American
commerce had precipitated the war; and that it was the duty of the
government to put down rebellion with all the means in its power, and
the duty of the people to rally about the government; but it also
demanded that Congress call a convention of all the States to revise
the Constitution, and that the Administration abandon the narrow
platform of the Chicago convention, expel corrupt men from office, and
exclude advocates of abolition from the Cabinet, declaring that it
would "regard any attempt to pervert the conflict into a war for the
emancipation of slaves as fatal to the hope of restoring the Union."
The debate upon the platform was destined to bring into prominence a
broader loyalty than even Francis Kernan had exhibited. Arphaxed
Loomis moved to restore the resolution, expunged in the committee's
report, protesting against the passport system, the State police
system, the suppression of free discussion in the press, and the
suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_. It is doubtful if the
freedom of the press had been materially abridged, since restrictions
upon a few newspapers, charged with giving aid and comfort to the
enemy, scarcely exceeded the proscription of anti-slavery papers
before the war. The suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_,
however, furnished better grounds for complaint. Men were apprehended,
often on the telegram of Secretary Seward, and committed to prison,
without any offence being charged or an examination being made. Among
others arrested were two men at Malone, besides an editor of the New
York _News_, and a crippled newsboy who sold the _News_. Public
sentiment generally sustained the Administration in such action, but
many persons, including conservative Republicans, frequently
questioned the right or justice of such procedure. "What are we coming
to," asked Senator Trumbull of Illinois, "if arrests may be made at
the whim or the caprice of a cabinet minister?"[794] Loomis, in
insisting upon his resolution, had these arbitrary arrests in mind,
maintaining that it embodied the true principles of Democracy, which
he was unwilling to see violated without recording a protest.
[Footnote 794: "Lieber says that _habeas corpus_, free meetings like
this, and a free press, are the three elements which distinguish
liberty from despotism. All that Saxon blood has gained in the battles
and toils of two hundred years are these three things. But to-day, Mr.
Chairman, every one of them is annihilated in every square mile of the
republic. We live to-day, every one of us, under martial law. The
Secretary of State puts into his bastille, with a warrant as
irresponsible as that of Louis, any man whom he pleases. And you know
that neither press nor lips may venture to arraign the government
without being silenced. At this moment at least one thousand men are
'bastilled' by an authority as despotic as that of Louis, three times
as many as Eldon and George III seized when they trembled for his
throne. For the first time on this continent we have passports, which
even Louis Napoleon pronounces useless and odious. For the first time
in our history government spies frequent our cities."--Lecture of
Wendell Phillips, delivered in New York, December, 1861.]
This brought to his feet Albert P. Laning of Buffalo. He was younger
by a score of years than Loomis, and although never as prominent,
perhaps, as the great advocate of legal reformative measures, his
remarkable memory and thorough grasp of legal principles had listed
him among the strong lawyers of Western New York. To the convention he
was well known as a clear, forceful speaker, who had been a student of
political history as well as of law, and who, in spite of his ardent
devotion to his profession, had revealed, when shaping the policy of
his party, the personal gifts and remarkable power of sustained
argument that win admiration.
At Syracuse, in 1861, Laning, just then in his early forties, was in
the fulness of his intellectual power. He had followed Douglas and
favored the Crittenden Compromise, but the fall of Sumter crippled his
sympathy for the South and stiffened his support of the Federal
administration. Moreover, he understood the difficulty, during a
period of war, of conducting an impartial, constitutional opposition
to the policy of the Administration, without its degeneration into a
faction, which at any moment might be shaken by interest, prejudice,
or passion. The motion of Loomis, therefore, seemed to him too narrow,
and he opposed it with eloquence, maintaining that it was the duty of
all good men not to embarrass the Government in such a crisis. Rather
than that bold rebellion should destroy the government, he said, he
preferred to allow the President to take his own course. The
responsibility was upon him, and the people, irrespective of party,
should strengthen his hands until danger had disappeared and the
government was re-established in all its strength.
Kernan did not take kindly to these sentiments. Like Loomis he
resented arbitrary arrests in States removed from actual hostilities,
where the courts were open for the regular administration of justice,
and with a few ringing sentences he threw the delegates into wild
cheering. Though brief, this speech resulted in restoring the Loomis
resolution to its place in the platform, and in increasing the
clamour that Kernan lead the party as a candidate for attorney-general.
Kernan was not averse to taking office. For three years, from 1856 to
1859, he had been official reporter for the Court of Appeals, and in
1860 served in the Assembly. Later, he entered Congress, finally
reaching the United States Senate. But in 1861 prudence prompted him
to decline the tempting offer of a nomination for attorney-general,
and although entreated to reconsider his determination, he stubbornly
resisted, and at last forced the nomination of Lyman Tremaine of
Albany, who had previously held the office.[795]
[Footnote 795: The State ticket was made up as follows: Secretary of
State, David R. Floyd Jones of Queens; Judge of the Court of Appeals,
George F. Comstock of Onondaga; Comptroller, George F. Scott of
Saratoga; Attorney-General, Lyman Tremaine of Albany; Treasurer of
State, Francis C. Brouck of Erie; Canal Commissioners, Jarvis B. Lord
of Monroe, William W. Wright of Ontario; State Prison Director,
William C. Rhodes of New York.]
The work of the convention did not please all members of the party. To
some the drift of the speeches and resolutions seemed an encouragement
to armed rebellion; to others, although jealous of individual rights,
it appeared to confuse the liberty of the press with license. One
paper, an able representative of the party, disclaiming any desire "to
rekindle animosities by discussing its various objectionable points,"
felt "bound to express its heartfelt repugnance of the malignant and
traitorous spirit which animates the Loomis resolution."[796] These
were severe words, showing that others than Laning opposed such
criticism of the President.
[Footnote 796: New York _Leader_, September 9, 1861.]
Dean Richmond's refusal to unite in a Union convention did not stifle
the hope that many Democrats might participate in such a meeting, and
to afford them an opportunity a People's convention met at Wieting
Hall in Syracuse, on September 11, contemporaneously with the
Republican State convention. It became evident that the purpose was
attained when the Democrats present declared that the banner of their
former party no longer marked a place for them to muster. In character
the members resembled determined Abolitionists in the forties. Its
president, Thomas G. Alvord of Onondaga, had been speaker of the
Assembly, a competitor of Gordon Granger for Congress, and a
pronounced Hard Shell until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
drove him into the camp of the Softs. One of the delegates, James B.
McKean, was soon to lead the Sixty-seventh Regiment to the field;
another, Alexander S. Diven of Chemung was to enter Congress, and
subsequently to distinguish himself at Antietam and Chancellorsville
at the head of the One Hundred and Seventh; other participants,
conspicuous in their respective localities, were to suffer bitterly
and struggle bravely to maintain the Union. One delegate sung the
"Star Spangled Banner," while the others, with radiant faces, broke
into cheers. This was followed by several brief and vigorous speeches
approving the war and the methods by which it was conducted. "There is
no medium, no half way now," said one delegate, "between patriots and
traitors."[797] This was the sentiment of the platform, which waived
all political divisions and party traditions, declaring that the
convention sought only, in this hour of national peril, to proclaim
devotion to the Constitution and Union, and to defend and sustain the
chosen authorities of the government at whatever cost of blood and
treasure.
[Footnote 797: New York _Tribune_, September 10, 1861.]
Rumours of Daniel S. Dickinson's nomination had been in the air from
the outset. He had been much in the public eye since the 20th of
April. In his zeal for the Union, said the _Tribune_, "his pointed
utterances have everywhere fired the hearts of patriots." Freedom from
the blighting influence of slavery seemed to give him easier flight,
and his criticism of the Democratic convention was so felicitous, so
full of story and wit and ridicule and the fire of genuine patriotism,
that his name was quickly upon every lip, and his happy, homely hits
the common property of half the people of the State.[798] The mention
of his name for attorney-general, therefore, evoked the most
enthusiastic applause. Since the constitutional convention of 1846 it
had been the custom, in the absence of a candidate for governor, to
write the name of the nominee for secretary of state at the head of
the ticket; but in this instance the committee deemed it wise to
nominate for attorney-general first and give it to the man of first
importance. The nomination proved a popular hit. Instantly Syracuse
and the State were ablaze, and Republican as well as many Democratic
papers prophesied that it settled the result in November. The
convention professed to discard party lines and traditions, and its
sincerity, thus put early to the test, did much to magnify its work,
since with marked impartiality it placed upon its ticket two Hards,
two Softs, one American, and four Republicans.[799]
[Footnote 798: Dickinson's Ithaca speech, delivered the day after the
Democratic convention adjourned, is printed in full in the New York
_Tribune_ of September 10, 1861.]
[Footnote 799: The ticket was as follows: Attorney-general, Daniel S.
Dickinson of Broome; Secretary of State, Horatio Ballard of Cortland;
Comptroller, Lucius Robinson of Chemung; Treasurer, William B. Lewis
of Kings; Court of Appeals, William B. Wright, Sullivan; Canal
Commissioners, Franklin A. Alberger of Erie and Benjamin F. Bruce of
New York; State Engineer, William B. Taylor of Oneida; State Prison
Inspector, Abram B. Tappan of Westchester.]
Whenever the People's convention recessed delegates to the Republican
convention immediately took control. Indeed, so closely related were
the two assemblies that spectators at one became delegates to the
other. Weed did not attend the convention, but it adopted his
conciliatory policy. "The popular fiat has gone forth in opposition,
on the one hand, to secession and disunion, whether in the shape of
active rebellion, or its more insidious ally, advocacy of an
inglorious and dishonourable peace; and, on the other, to everything
that savors of abolition, or tends towards a violation of the
guarantees of slave property provided by the Constitution."[800]
[Footnote 800: New York _Herald_ (editorial), September 13, 1861.]
It cannot be said that the Democratic campaign opened under flattering
conditions. Loomis' resolution, known as the ninth or "secession"
plank, had led to serious difficulty. Men recognised that in time of
war more reserve was necessary in dealing with an Administration than
during a period of peace, for if the government's arm was paralysed it
could not stay the arm of the public enemy. This had been the position
of Laning, and it appealed strongly to Lyman Tremaine, who believed
the machinations of treason had forced the Government to suspend the
writ of _habeas corpus_, and to organise systems of passports and
State police. He boldly declined, therefore, to accept a nomination as
attorney-general on a platform that emphatically condemned such
measures, when deemed essential to the government's safety.
Tremaine, tall, portly, and commanding, belonged to the more
independent members of the party. He was not a stranger to public
life. Although but forty-two years old he had been an active party
worker for a quarter of a century and an office-holder since his
majority. Greene County made him supervisor, district attorney, and
county judge, and soon after his removal to Albany in 1854 he became
attorney-general. But these honours did not break his independence. He
inherited a genius for the forum, and although his gifts did not put
him into the first class, his name was familiar throughout the State.
Francis C. Brouck's withdrawal soon followed Tremaine's.[801] Then
Tammany repudiated the Loomis resolutions,[802] and the Albany _Argus_
shouted lustily for war.[803] But the blow that staggered Richmond came
from the candidates who caught the drift of public sentiment, and in a
proclamation of few words declared "in favour of vigorously sustaining
the Government in its present struggle to maintain the Constitution
and the Union, at all hazards, and at any cost of blood and
treasure."[804] This was the act of despair. For days they had waited,
and now, alarmed by the evident change, they jumped from the plank
that was sinking under them. "It is the first instance on record,"
said the _Herald_, "where the nominees of a convention openly and
defiantly spit upon the platform, and repudiated party leaders and
their secession heresies."[805]
[Footnote 801: Marshal M. Champlain of Allegany and William Williams of
Erie were substituted for Tremaine and Brouck.]
[Footnote 802: New York _Tribune_, October 4, 1861.]
[Footnote 803: November 6, 1861.]
[Footnote 804: New York _Herald_, October 23, 1861.]
[Footnote 805: _Ibid._, October 23, 1861.]
Nevertheless, the difference between the great mass of Democrats and
the supporters of the People's party was more apparent than real.[806]
Each professed undying devotion to the Union. Each, also, favoured a
vigorous prosecution of the war. As the campaign advanced the activity
of the army strengthened this loyalty and minimised the criticism of
harsh methods. Moreover, the impression obtained that the war would
soon be over.[807] McClellan was in command, and the people had not yet
learned that "our chicken was no eagle, after all," as Lowell
expressed it.[808] Controversy over the interference with slavery also
became less acute. John Cochrane, now commanding a regiment at the
front, declared, in a speech to his soldiers, that slaves of the
enemy, being elements of strength, ought to be captured as much as
muskets or cannon, and that whenever he could seize a slave, and even
arm him to fight for the government, he would do so.
[Footnote 806: "There are sympathisers with the secessionists still
remaining in the Democratic ranks, but they compose a small portion of
the party. Nine-tenths of it is probably strenuous in the
determination that the constitutional authority of the government
shall be maintained and enforced without compromise. This sentiment is
far more prevalent and decided than it was two months ago."--New York
_Tribune_, November 19, 1861.]
[Footnote 807: "I have now no doubt this causeless and most flagitious
rebellion is to be put down much sooner than many, myself included,
thought practicable."--Edwin Croswell, letter in New York _Tribune_,
November 25, 1861.]
[Footnote 808: Political Essays, p. 94.--_North American Review_,
April, 1864.]
In conducting the campaign the People's leaders discountenanced any
criticism of the Government's efforts to restore the Union. "It is not
Lincoln and the Republicans we are sustaining," wrote Daniel S.
Dickinson. "They have nothing to do with it. It is the government of
our fathers, worth just as much as if it was administered by Andrew
Jackson. There is but one side to it."[809] As a rule the Hards
accepted this view, and at the ratification of the ticket in New York,
on September 20, Lyman Tremaine swelled the long list of speakers. A
letter was also read from Greene C. Bronson. To those who heard James
T. Brady at Cooper Institute on the evening of October 28 he seemed
inspired. His piercing eyes burned in their sockets, and his animated
face, now pale with emotion, expressed more than his emphatic words
the loathing felt for men who had plunged their country into bloody
strife.
[Footnote 809: Daniel S. Dickinson's _Life, Letters, and Speeches_,
Vol. 2, pp. 550-551.]
Nevertheless, it remained for Daniel S. Dickinson to stigmatise the
Democratic party. At the Union Square meeting he had burned his
bridges. It was said he had nowhere else to go; that the Hards went
out of business when the South went out of the Union; and that to the
Softs he was _non persona grata_. There was much truth in this
statement. But having once become a Radical his past affiliations gave
him some advantages. For more than twenty years he had been known
throughout the State as a Southern sympathiser. In the United States
Senate he stood with the South for slavery, and in the election of
1860 he voted for Breckinridge. He was the most conspicuous doughface
in New York. Now, he was an advocate of vigorous war and a pronounced
supporter of President Lincoln. This gave him the importance of a new
convert at a camp meeting. The people believed he knew what he was
talking about, and while his stories and apt illustrations, enriched
by a quick change in voice and manner, convulsed his audiences,
imbedded in his wit and rollicking fun were most convincing arguments
which appealed to the best sentiments of his hearers.[810] Indeed, it
is not too much to say that Daniel S. Dickinson, as an entertaining
and forceful platform speaker, filled the place in 1861 which John Van
Buren occupied in the Free-soil campaign in 1848.
[Footnote 810: "I have just finished a second reading of your speech in
Wyoming County, and with so much pleasure and admiration that I cannot
refrain from thanking you. It is a speech worthy of an American
statesman, and will command the attention of the country by its high
and generous patriotism, no less than by its eloquence and
power."--Letter of John K. Porter of Albany to D.S. Dickinson, August
23, 1861. _Dickinson's Life, Letters, and Speeches_, Vol. 2, p. 553.
Similar letters were written by Henry W. Rogers of Buffalo, William H.
Seward, Dr. N. Niles, and others.--_Ibid._, pp. 555, 559, 561.]
A single address by Horatio Seymour, delivered at Utica on October 28,
proved his right to speak for the Democratic party. He had a difficult
task to perform. Men had changed front in a day, and to one of his
views, holding rebellion as a thing to be crushed without impairing
existing conditions, it seemed imperative to divorce "revolutionary
emancipators" from the conservative patriots who loved their country
as it was. He manifested a desire to appear scrupulously loyal to the
Government, counseling obedience to constituted authorities, respect
for constitutional obligations, and a just and liberal support of the
President, in whose favour every presumption should be given. The
suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_ and the long list of
arbitrary arrests had provoked Seymour as it did many conservative
Republicans, but however much individual rights may be violated, he
said, so long as the country is engaged in a struggle for its
existence, confidence, based upon the assumption that imperative
reasons exist for these unusual measures, must be reposed in the
Administration. This was the incarnation of loyalty.
But Seymour closed his address with an ugly crack of the whip.
Dropping his well-selected words with the skill of a practised
debater, he blended the history of past wrongs with those of the
present, thus harrowing his auditors into a frame of mind as
resentful and passionate as his own. When the public safety permits,
he said threateningly, there will be abundant time to condemn and
punish the authors of injustice and wrong, whether they occupy the
presidential chair or seats in the cabinet. "Let them remember the
teachings of history. Despotic governments do not love the agitators
that call them into existence. When Cromwell drove from Parliament the
latter-day saints and higher-law men of his day, and 'bade them cease
their babblings;' and when Napoleon scattered at the point of the
bayonet the Council of Five Hundred and crushed revolution beneath his
iron heel, they taught a lesson which should be heeded this day by men
who are animated by a vindictive piety or a malignant philanthropy....
It is the boast of the Briton that his house is his castle. However
humble it may be, the King cannot enter. Let it not be said that the
liberties of American citizens are less perfectly protected, or held
less sacred than are those of the subjects of a Crown."
The slavery question was less easily and logically handled. He denied
that it caused the war, but admitted that the agitators did, putting
into the same class "the ambitious man at the South, who desired a
separate confederacy," and "the ambitious men of the North, who reaped
a political profit from agitation." In deprecating emancipation he
carefully avoided the argument of military necessity, so forcibly put
by John Cochrane, and strangely overlooked the fact that the South, by
the act of rebellion, put itself outside the protection guaranteed
under the Constitution to loyal and law-abiding citizens. "If it be
true," he said, "that slavery must be abolished to save this Union,
then the people of the South should be allowed to withdraw themselves
from the Government which cannot give them the protection guaranteed
by its terms." Immediate emancipation, he continued, would not end the
contest. "It would be only the commencement of a lasting, destructive,
terrible domestic conflict. The North would not consent that four
millions of free negroes should live in their midst.... With what
justice do we demand that the South should be subjected to the evils,
the insecurity, and the loss of constitutional rights, involved in
immediate abolition?" Then, dropping into prophecy, the broad,
optimistic statesmanship of the forties passed into eclipse as he
declared that "we are either to be restored to our former position,
with the Constitution unweakened, the powers of the State unimpaired,
and the fireside rights of our citizens duly protected, or our whole
system of government is to fall!"
Seymour, in closing, very clearly outlined his future platform. "We
are willing to support this war as a means of restoring our Union, but
we will not carry it on in a spirit of hatred, malice, or revenge. We
cannot, therefore, make it a war for the abolition of slavery. We will
not permit it to be made a war upon the rights of the States. We shall
see that it does not crush out the liberties of the citizen, or the
reserved powers of the States. We shall hold that man to be as much a
traitor who urges our government to overstep its constitutional
powers, as he who resists the exercise of its rightful authority. We
shall contend that the rights of the States and the General Government
are equally sacred."[811]
[Footnote 811: _Public Record of Horatio Seymour_, pp. 32-43.]
If the campaign contributed to the South a certain degree of comfort,
reviving the hope that it would yet have a divided North to contend
against, the election, giving Dickinson over 100,000 majority,
furnished little encouragement. The People's party also carried both
branches of the Legislature, securing twenty out of thirty-two
senators, and seventy out of the one hundred and twenty-eight
assemblymen. Among the latter, Henry J. Raymond and Thomas G. Alvord,
former speakers, represented the undaunted mettle needed at Albany.
To add to the result so gratifying to the fusionists, George Opdyke
defeated Fernando Wood by a small plurality for mayor of New York.
Wood had long been known as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He talked
reform and grew degenerate; he proclaimed patriotic views and held
disloyal sentiments; he listened respectfully to public opinion, and
defied it openly in his acts. He did not become a boss. It was ten
years later before William M. Tweed centralised Tammany's power in one
man. But Wood developed the system that made a boss possible. He
dominated the police, he organised the lawless, he allied himself with
the saloon, and he used the judiciary. In 1858, being forced out of
Tammany, he retreated like a wounded tiger to Mozart Hall, organised
an opposition society that took its name from the assembly room in
which it met, and declared with emphasis and expletives that he would
fight Tammany as long as he lived. From that moment his shadow had
kept sachems alarmed, and his presence had thrown conventions into
turmoil.
The arts of the card-sharper and thimble-rigger had been prodigally
employed to save the candidate of Mozart Hall. Even the sachems of
Tammany, to avert disaster, nominated James T. Brady, whose great
popularity it was believed would draw strength from both Opdyke and
Wood; but Brady refused to be used. Opdyke had been a liberal,
progressive Democrat of the Free-Soil type and a pioneer Republican.
He associated with Chase in the Buffalo convention of 1848 and
coöperated with Greeley in defeating Seward in 1860. He had also
enjoyed the career of a busy and successful merchant, and, although
fifty years old, was destined to take a prominent part in municipal
politics for the next two decades. One term in the Assembly summed up
his office-holding experience; yet in that brief and uneventful period
jobbers learned to shun him and rogues to fear him. This was one
reason why the brilliant and audacious leader of Mozart Hall, in his
death struggle with an honest man, suddenly assumed to be the champion
of public purity.