THURLOW WEED TRIMS HIS SAILS
1863
The political reaction in 1862 tied the two parties in the
Legislature. In the Senate, elected in 1861, the Republicans had
twelve majority, but in the Assembly each party controlled sixty-four
members. This deadlocked the election of a speaker, and seriously
jeopardized the selection of a United States senator in place of
Preston King, since a joint-convention of the two houses, under the
law as it then existed, could not convene until some candidate
controlled a majority in each branch.[869] It increased the
embarrassment that either a Republican or Democrat must betray his
party to break the deadlock.
[Footnote 869: Laws of 1842. Ch. 130, title 6, article 4, sec. 32.]
Chauncey M. Depew was the choice of the Republicans for speaker. But
the caucus, upon the threat of a single Republican to bolt,[870]
selected Henry Sherwood of Steuben. After seventy-seven ballots Depew
was substituted for Sherwood. By this time Timothy C. Callicot, a
Brooklyn Democrat, refused longer to vote for Gilbert Dean, the
Democratic nominee. Deeply angered by such apostasy John D. Van Buren
and Saxton Smith, the Democratic leaders, offered Depew eight votes.
Later in the evening Depew was visited by Callicot, who promised, if
the Republicans would support him for speaker, to vote for John A. Dix
for senator and thus break the senatorial deadlock. It was a trying
position for Depew. The speakership was regarded as even a greater
honor then than it is now, and to a gifted young man of twenty-nine
its power and prestige appealed with tremendous force. Van Buren's
proposition would elect him; Callicot's would put him in eclipse.
Nevertheless, Depew unselfishly submitted the two proposals to his
Republican associates, who decided to lose the speakership and elect a
United States senator.[871]
[Footnote 870: Horace Bemis of Steuben.]
[Footnote 871: The writer is indebted to Mr. Depew for the interviews
between himself, Van Buren, and Callicot.]
The Democrats, alarmed at this sudden and successful flank movement,
determined to defeat by disorderly proceedings what their leaders
could not prevent by strategy, and with the help of thugs who filled
the floor and galleries of the Assembly Chamber, they instigated a
riot scarcely equalled in the legislative history of modern times.
Boisterous threats, display of pistols, savage abuse of Callicot, and
refusals to allow the balloting to proceed continued for six days,
subsiding at last after the Governor, called upon to protect a
law-making body, promised to use force. Finally, on January 26,
nineteen days after the session opened, Callicot, on the ninety-third
ballot, received two majority. This opened the way for the election of
a Republican United States senator.
Horace Greeley had hoped, in the event of Wadsworth's success, to ride
into the Senate upon "an abolition whirlwind."[872] He now wished to
elect Preston King or Daniel S. Dickinson. King had made a creditable
record in the Senate. Although taking little part in debate, his
judgment upon questions of governmental policy, indicating an accurate
knowledge of men and remarkable familiarity with details, commended
him as a safe adviser, especially in political emergencies. But Weed,
abandoning his old St. Lawrence friend, joined Seward in the support
of Edwin D. Morgan.
[Footnote 872: Albany _Evening Journal_, December 10, 1862.]
Morgan had a decided taste for political life. When a grocer, living
in Connecticut, he had served in the city council of Hartford, and
soon after gaining a residence in New York, he entered its Board of
Aldermen. Then he became State senator, commissioner of immigration,
chairman of the National Republican Committee, and finally governor.
Besides wielding an influence acquired in two gubernatorial terms, he
combined the qualities of a shrewd politician with those of a merchant
prince willing to spend money.
The stoutest opposition to Morgan came from extreme Radicals who
distrusted him, and in trying to compass his defeat half a dozen
candidates played prominent parts. Charles B. Sedgwick of Syracuse, an
all-around lawyer of rare ability, whose prominence as a persuasive
speaker began in the Free-Soil campaign of 1848, and who had served
with distinction for four years in Congress, proved acceptable to a
few Radicals and several Conservatives.[873] Henry J. Raymond, also
pressed by the opponents of Morgan, attracted a substantial following,
while David Dudley Field, Ward Hunt, and Henry R. Selden controlled
two or three votes each. Nevertheless, a successful combination could
not be established, and on the second formal ballot Morgan received a
large majority. The remark of Assemblyman Truman, on a motion to make
the nomination unanimous, evidenced the bitterness of the contest. "I
believe we are rewarding a man," he said, "who placed the knife at the
throat of the Union ticket last fall and slaughtered it."[874]
[Footnote 873: Sedgwick, assailed by damaging charges growing out of
his chairmanship of the Naval Committee, failed to be renominated for
Congress in 1864 after a most bitter contest in which 130 ballots were
taken.]
[Footnote 874: New York _Journal of Commerce_, February 3, 1863.
"Informal ballot: Morgan, 25; King, 16; Dickinson, 15; Sedgwick, 11;
Field, 7; Raymond, 6; Hunt, 4; Selden, 1; blank, 1. Whole number, 86.
Necessary to a choice, 44.
"First formal ballot: Morgan, 39; King, 16; Dickinson, 11; Raymond, 8;
Sedgwick, 7; Field, 5.
"Second formal ballot: Morgan, 50; Dickinson, 13; King, 11; Raymond,
9; Field, 2; Sedgwick, 1."--_Ibid._, February 3.]
The Democrats presented Erastus Corning of Albany, then a member of
Congress. Like Morgan, Corning was wealthy. Like Morgan, too, he had a
predilection for politics, having served as alderman, state senator,
mayor, and congressman. He belonged to a class of business men whose
experience and ability, when turned to public affairs, prove of
decided value to their State and country. "We should be glad," said
the _Tribune_, "to see more men of Mr. Corning's social and business
position brought forward for Congress and the Legislature."[875] The
first ballot, in joint convention, gave Morgan 86 to 70 for Corning,
Speaker Callicot voting for John A. Dix, and one fiery Radical for
Daniel S. Dickinson. Thus did Thurlow Weed score another victory.
Greeley was willing to make any combination. Raymond, Sedgwick, Ward
Hunt, and even David Dudley Field would quickly have appealed to him.
The deft hand of Weed, however, if not the money of Morgan, prevented
combinations until the Governor, as a second choice, controlled the
election.[876] This success resulted in a combination of Democrats and
conservative Republicans, giving Weed the vast patronage of the New
York canals.
[Footnote 875: New York _Tribune_, October 7, 1863.
The Democratic caucus stood 28 for Erastus Corning, 25 for Fernando
Wood, and scattering 18.
The vote of the Senate stood: Morgan, 23; Erastus Corning, 7; 2 absent
or silent. On the first ballot the Assembly gave Morgan 64, Corning
62, Fernando Wood 1, John A. Dix 1 (cast by Speaker Callicot). On a
second ballot all the Unionists voted with Callicot for Dix, giving
him 65 to 63 for Corning and placing him in nomination. In joint
convention Morgan was elected by 86 votes to 70 for Corning, one
(Callicot's) for Dix, and 1 for Dickinson.--_Ibid._, February 4.]
[Footnote 876: "My dear Weed: It is difficult for me to express my
personal obligations to you for this renewed evidence of your
friendship, as manifested by the result of yesterday's proceedings at
Albany."--Letter of Edwin D. Morgan, February 3, 1863. Thurlow Weed
Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 430.]
Perhaps it was only coincidental that Weed's withdrawal from the
_Evening Journal_ concurred with Morgan's election, but his farewell
editorial, written while gloom and despondency filled the land,
indicated that he unerringly read the signs of the times. "I differ
widely with my party about the best means of crushing the rebellion,"
he said. "I can neither impress others with my views nor surrender my
own solemn convictions. The alternative of living in strife with those
whom I have esteemed, or withdrawing, is presented. I have not
hesitated in choosing the path of peace as the path of duty. If those
who differ with me are right, and the country is carried safely
through its present struggle, all will be well and 'nobody
hurt.'"[877] This did not mean that Weed "has ceased to be a
Republican," as Greeley put it,[878] but that, while refusing to
become an Abolitionist of the Chase and Sumner and Greeley type, he
declined longer to urge his conservative views upon readers who
possessed the spirit of Radicals. Years afterward he wrote that "from
the outbreak of the rebellion, I knew no party, nor did I care for any
except the party of the Union."[879]
[Footnote 877: Albany _Evening Journal_, January 28, 1863.]
[Footnote 878: New York _Tribune_, January 30, 1863.]
[Footnote 879: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
485.]
At the time of his retirement from the _Journal_, Weed was sixty-six
years of age, able-bodied, rich, independent, and satisfied if not
surfeited. "So far as all things personal are concerned," he said, "my
work is done."[880] Yet a trace of unhappiness revealed itself.
Perfect peace did not come with the possession of wealth.[881]
Moreover, his political course had grieved and separated friends. For
thirty years he looked forward with pleasurable emotions to the time
when, released from the cares of journalism, he might return to
Rochester, spending his remaining days on a farm, in the suburbs of
that city, near the banks of the Genesee River; but in 1863 he found
his old friends so hostile, charging him with the defeat of Wadsworth,
that he abandoned the project and sought a home in New York.[882]
[Footnote 880: Albany _Evening Journal_, January 28, 1863.]
[Footnote 881: "Let it pass whether or not the editor of the _Tribune_
has been intensely ambitious for office. It would have been a blessed
thing for the country if the editor of the _Journal_ had been impelled
by the same passion. For avarice is more ignoble than ambition, and
the craving for jobs has a more corrupting influence, alike on the
individual and the public, than aspiration to office."--New York
_Tribune_, December 12, 1862.]
[Footnote 882: Thurlow Weed, _Autobiography_, pp. 360-361.]
For several years Weed had made his political headquarters in that
city. Indeed, No. 12 Astor House was as famous in its day as 49
Broadway became during the subsequent leadership of Thomas C. Platt.
It was the cradle of the "Amens" forty years before the Fifth Avenue
Hotel became the abode of that remarkable organization. From 1861 to
1865, owing to the enormous political patronage growing out of the
war, the lobbies of the Astor House were crowded with politicians from
all parts of New York, making ingress and egress almost impossible. In
the midst of this throng sat Thurlow Weed, cool and patient,
possessing the keen judgment of men so essential to leadership. "When
I was organizing the Internal Revenue Office in 1862-3," wrote George
S. Boutwell, "Mr. Weed gave me information in regard to candidates for
office in the State of New York, including their relations to the
factions that existed, with as much fairness as he could have
commanded if he had had no relation to either one."[883]
[Footnote 883: George S. Boutwell, _Sixty Years in Public Affairs_,
Vol. 2, p. 207.]
Although opposed to the course of the Radicals, Weed sternly rebuked
those, now called Copperheads,[884] who endeavored to force peace by
paralysing the arm of the government. Their denunciation of arrests
and of the suspension of _habeas corpus_ gradually included the
discouragement of enlistments, the encouragement of desertion, and
resistance to the draft, until, at last, the spirit of opposition
invaded halls of legislation as well as public meetings and the press.
[Footnote 884: This opprobrious epithet first appeared in the New York
_Tribune_ of January 12, 1863, and in the _Times_ of February 13.]
To check this display of disloyalty the Union people, regardless of
party, formed loyal or Union League clubs in the larger cities, whose
densely packed meetings commanded the ablest speakers of the country.
John Van Buren, fully aroused to the seditious trend of peace
advocates, evidenced again the power that made him famous in 1848. In
his inimitable style, with admirable temper and freshness, he poured
his scathing sarcasm upon the authors of disloyal sentiments, until
listeners shouted with delight. The _Tribune_, forgetful of his
flippant work in the preceding year, accorded him the highest praise,
while strong men, with faces wet with tears, thanked God that this
Achilles of the Democrats spoke for the Republic with the trumpet
tones and torrent-like fluency that had formerly made the name of
Barnburner a terror to the South. Van Buren was not inconsistent.
While favouring a vigorous prosecution of the war he had severely
criticised arbitrary arrests and other undemocratic methods, but when
"little men of little souls," as he called them, attempted to control
the great party for illegal purposes, his patriotism flashed out in
the darkness like a revolving light on a rocky coast.
The call of the Loyal League also brought James T. Brady from his law
office. Unlike Dickinson, Brady did not approve the teachings or the
methods of the Radicals, neither had he like Van Buren supported
Seymour. Moreover, he had refused to take office from Tammany, or to
accept nomination from a Democratic State convention. However, when
the enemies of the Government seemed likely to carry all before them,
he spoke for the Union like one divinely inspired. Indeed, it may be
said with truth that the only ray of hope piercing the gloom and
suspense in the early months of 1863 came from the brilliant outbursts
of patriotism heard at the meetings of the Union League clubs.[885] "I
pray that my name may be enrolled in that league," wrote Seward. "I
would prefer that distinction to any honour my fellow-citizens could
bestow upon me. If the country lives, as I trust it will, let me be
remembered among those who laboured to save it. The diploma will grow
in value as years roll away."[886]
[Footnote 885: The Union League Club of New York was organized
February 6, 1863; its club house, No. 26 E. 17th St., was opened May
12.]
[Footnote 886: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 3, p. 159.]