SEYMOUR REBUKED
1863
The victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg turned the Republican Union
convention, held at Syracuse on September 2, into a meeting of
rejoicing. Weed did not attend, but the Conservatives, led by Henry J.
Raymond and Edwin D. Morgan, boldly talked of its control. Ward Hunt
became temporary chairman. Hunt was a lawyer whom politics did not
attract. Since his unsuccessful effort to become a United States
senator in 1857 he had turned aside from his profession only when
necessary to strengthen the cause of the Union. At such times he shone
as the representative of a wise patriotism. He did not belong in the
class of attractive platform speakers, nor possess the weaknesses of
blind followers of party chieftains. His power rested upon the
strength of his character as a well-poised student of affairs. What he
believed came forcefully from a mind that formed its own judgments,
and whether his words gave discomfort to the little souls that
governed caucuses, or to the great journalists that sought to force
their own policies, he was in no wise disturbed.
Upon taking the chair Hunt began his remarks in the tone of one who
felt more than he desired to express, but as the mention of Gettysburg
and Vicksburg revealed the unbounded enthusiasm of the men before him,
the optimism that characterised the people's belief in the summer of
1863 quickly took possession of him, and he coupled with the
declaration that the rebel armies were nearly destroyed, the opinion
that peace was near at hand. For the moment the party seemed solidly
united. But when the echoes of long continued cheering had subsided
the bitterness of faction flashed out with increased intensity. To the
Radicals, Raymond's suggestion of Edwin D. Morgan for permanent
chairman was as gall and wormwood, and his talk of an entire new
ticket most alarming. However, George Opdyke and Horace Greeley, the
Radical leaders, chastened by the defeat of Wadsworth and the election
of Morgan to the Senate, did not now forget the value of discretion.
Hunt's selection as temporary chairman had been a concession, and in
the choice of a permanent presiding officer, although absolutely
unyielding in their hostility to Morgan, they graciously accepted
Abraham Wakeman, an apostle of the conservative school.[911] Their
attitude toward Morgan, however, cost Opdyke a place on the State
Committee, and for a time threatened to exclude the Radicals from
recognition upon the ticket.
[Footnote 911: Wakeman was postmaster at New York City.]
The refusal of men to accept nominations greatly embarrassed
Conservatives in harvesting their victory. Thomas W. Olcott of Albany
was nominated for comptroller in place of Lucius Robinson. Of all the
distinguished men who had filled that office none exhibited a more
inflexible firmness than Robinson in holding the public purse strings.
He was honest by nature and by practice. Neither threats nor ingenious
devices disturbed him, but with a fidelity as remarkable as it was
rare he pushed aside the emissaries of extravagance and corruption as
readily as a plow turns under the sod. After two years of such
methods, however, the representatives of a wide-open treasury noisily
demanded a change. But Olcott, a financier of wide repute, wisely
declined to be used for such a purpose, and Robinson was accepted.
Daniel S. Dickinson, after the inconsequential treatment accorded him
in the recent contest for United States senator, suddenly discovered
that domestic reasons disabled him from serving longer as
attorney-general. Then James T. Brady declined, although tendered the
nomination without a dissenting voice. This reduced the convention,
in its search for a conspicuous War Democrat, to the choice of John
Cochrane, the well-known orator who had left the army in the preceding
February. In choosing a Secretary of State the embarrassment
continued. Greeley encouraged the candidacy of Chauncey M. Depew, but
concluded, at the last moment, that Peter A. Porter, the colonel of a
regiment and a son of the gallant general of the war of 1812, must
head the ticket.[912] Porter, however, refused to exchange a military
for a civil office, and Depew was substituted.
[Footnote 912: "Porter received 213 votes to 140 for Depew, who made a
remarkable run under the circumstances."--New York _Herald_, September
3, 1863.
"Greeley sent for me some weeks before the convention and pressed me
with such vigour to take a position upon the State ticket that I
finally consented. He then secured from practically the whole State an
endorsement of the suggestion on my behalf. On the morning of the
convention he suddenly decided that some one connected with the army
must be chosen and sent around an order for a change of programme just
before the roll was called. It was the most fortunate thing that could
have happened to me, but created widespread distrust of his qualities
as a leader."--Speech of Chauncey M. Depew, April 4, 1902. _Addresses
of_, November, 1896, to April, 1902, pp. 238-239.]
Depew, then a young man of twenty-nine, gave promise of his subsequent
brilliant career. He lived a neighbour to Horace Greeley, whom he
greatly admired, and to whom he tactfully spoke the honeyed words,
always so agreeable to the _Tribune's_ editor.[913] Perhaps no one in
the State possessed a more pleasing personality. He made other people
as happy as he was himself. To this charm of manner were added a
singularly attractive presence, a pleasing voice, and the oratorical
gifts that won him recognition even before he left Yale College. From
the first he exhibited a marked capacity for public life. He had an
unfailing readiness, a wide knowledge of affairs, a keen sense of the
ridiculous, and a flow of clear and easy language which never failed
to give full and precise expression to all that was in his mind. He
rarely provoked enmities, preferring light banter to severe invective
or unsparing ridicule. Among his associates he was the prince of
raconteurs. In conventions few men were heard with keener interest,
and every Republican recognised the fact that a new force had come
into the councils of the party. There never was a time when people
regarded him as "a coming man," for he took a leading place at once.
In 1861, three years after his admission to the bar, the Peekskill
voters sent him to the Assembly, and the next year his colleagues
selected him for speaker, an honour which he generously relinquished
that his party might elect a United States senator. Now, within the
same year, he found a place at the head of the ticket, which he led
during the campaign with marked ability.[914]
[Footnote 913: "So far as politics were concerned, Greeley's
affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and
coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking
example."--Andrew D. White, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 160.]
[Footnote 914: The State ticket was as follows: Secretary of state,
Chauncey M. Depew of Westchester; Comptroller, Lucius Robinson of
Chemung; Canal Commissioner, Benjamin F. Bruce of Madison; Treasurer,
George W. Schuyler of Tompkins; State Engineer, William B. Taylor of
Oneida; Prison Inspector, James K. Bates of Jefferson; Judge of
Appeals, Henry S. Selden of Monroe; Attorney-General, John Cochrane of
New York.]
The platform endorsed the Administration, praised the soldiers,
opposed a peace that changed the Constitution except in the form
prescribed by it, deplored the creation of a spirit of partisan
hostility against the Government, and promised that New York would do
its full share in maintaining the Union; but it skilfully avoided
mentioning the conscription act and the emancipation proclamation,
which Seymour charged had changed the war for the Union into a war for
abolition. When a delegate, resenting the omission, moved a resolution
commending emancipation, Raymond reminded him that he was in a Union,
not a Republican convention, and that many loyal men doubted the
propriety of such an endorsement. This position proved too
conservative for the ordinary up-State delegate, and a motion to table
the resolution quickly failed. Thereupon Charles A. Folger of Geneva
moved to amend by adding the words, "and as a war measure is
thoroughly legal and justifiable." Probably no man in the convention,
by reason of his learning and solidity of character, had greater
influence. In 1854 he left the Democratic party with Ward Hunt, whom
he resembled as a lawyer, and whom he was to follow to the Court of
Appeals and like him attain the highest eminence. Just then he was
forty-five years old, a State senator of gentle bearing and stout
heart, who dared to express his positive convictions, and whose
suggested amendment, offered with the firmness of a man conscious of
being in the right, encountered slight opposition.
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.]