THE RISE OF TWEEDISM
1867
The election of Roscoe Conkling to the United States Senate made him
the most prominent, if not the most influential politician in New
York. "No new senator," said a Washington paper, "has ever made in so
short a time such rapid strides to a commanding position in that
body."[1123]
[Footnote 1123: Washington _Chronicle_, March 28, 1867.]
Conkling was not yet established, however. His friends who wished to
make him chairman of the Republican State convention which assembled
at Syracuse on September 24, 1867, discovered that he was not beloved
by the Radical leaders. He had a habit of speaking his own mind, and
instead of confining his thoughts to the committee room, or whispering
them in the ears of a few alleged leaders, it was his custom to take
the public into his confidence. Horace Greeley, jealous of his
prerogative, disapproved such independence, and Governor Fenton, the
_Tribune's_ protégé, had apprehensions for his own leadership.
Besides, it was becoming more apparent each day that the men who did
not like Greeley and preferred other leadership to Fenton's, thought
well of Conkling. He was not a wild partisan. Although a stiff Radical
he had no reason to feel bitter toward men who happened to differ with
him on governmental policies. His life did not run back into the
quarrels between Greeley and Thurlow Weed, and he had no disposition
to be tangled up with them; but when he discovered that Greeley had
little use for him, he easily formed friendships among men who had
little use for Greeley. It was noticeable that Conkling did not
criticise Raymond's erratic run after Andrew Johnson. He heard
Shellabarger's stinging reply, he listened to the editor's hopeless
appeal for support, and he voted against the resolution of confidence
in the President, but he added nothing to Raymond's humiliation.
Perhaps this accounted for the latter's appreciation of the young
Senator. At all events, the _Times_ complimented while the _Tribune_
remained silent. It was evident the great Republican organ did not
intend advertising the ability of the strenuous, self-asserting
Senator, who was rapidly becoming a leader.
The existence of this jealousy quickly betrayed itself to Conkling's
admirers at the State convention. On the surface men were calm and
responsive. But in forming the committee on permanent organisation
Fenton's supporters, who easily controlled the convention, secretly
arranged to make Lyman Tremaine chairman. When this plan came to the
ears of the Conkling men, one of them, with the shrewdness of a
genuine politician, surprised the schemers by moving to instruct the
committee to report the Senator for permanent president. This made it
necessary to accept or squarely to reject him, and wishing to avoid
open opposition, the Governor's managers allowed the convention to
acquiesce in the motion amid the vociferous cheers of the Senator's
friends.
Conkling's speech on this occasion was one of interest. He outlined a
policy for which, he contended, his party in the Empire State ought to
stand. This was a new departure in New York. Heretofore, its chosen
representatives, keeping silent until a way had been mapped out in
Washington or elsewhere, preferred to follow. Conkling preferred to
lead. There was probably not a Republican in the State capable of
forming an opinion who did not know that from the moment Conkling
became a senator the division of the party into two stout factions was
merely a question of time. That time had not yet come, but even then
it was evident to the eye of a close observer that the action of the
Radicals, led by Fenton, turned in a measure upon their distrust of
Conkling and his supporters.
This was manifest in the cool treatment accorded the New York City
delegates who represented the bolting Republicans of the year before.
Conkling's friends, disposed to be liberal, argued that the vote of a
"returning sinner" counted as much on election day as that of a saint.
On the other hand, the Fenton forces, while willing to benefit by the
suffrage of Conservatives, were disinclined to admit to the convention
men tainted with the sin of party treason, who would naturally
strengthen their adversaries. In the end, after a fierce struggle
which absorbed an entire session, the Conservatives were left out.
Opposition to the State officials who had shown a disposition to
favour the Senator was less open but no less effective. The exposure
of canal frauds in the preceding winter, showing that for a period of
six years trifling causes had been deemed sufficient to displace low
bids for high ones, thus greatly enriching a canal ring at the expense
of the State, involved only the Canal Commissioner. Indeed, every
reason existed why Barlow and his soldier associates whose army
records had strengthened their party in 1865 should receive the usual
endorsement of a renomination; but to avoid what, it was claimed,
might otherwise be regarded an invidious distinction, the Greeley
Radicals cleverly secured a new ticket.[1124] "In their zeal to become
honest," said Horatio Seymour, "the Republicans have pitched overboard
all the officials who have not robbed the treasury."[1125]
[Footnote 1124: The following were nominated: Secretary of State, James
B. McKean, Saratoga; Comptroller, Calvin T. Hulburd, St. Lawrence;
Treasurer, Theodore B. Gates, Ulster; Attorney-General, Joshua M. Van
Cott, Kings; State Engineer, Archibald C. Powell, Onondaga; Canal
Commissioner, John M. Hammond, Allegany; Prison Inspector, Gilbert De
Lamatyr, Wyoming; Court of Appeals, Charles Mason, Madison. Of those
selected, McKean and Hulburd had served two terms each in Congress.]
[Footnote 1125: New York _World_, October 4, 1867.]
The platform no longer revealed differences in the party. It affirmed
impartial suffrage, protested against maladministration and corruption
in State affairs, supported Congress in its policy of reconstruction,
and rebuked all tampering with the financial obligations of the Union.
Upon these plain, simple issues Conservatives and Radicals stood
united. Those who, in 1865, thought the restoration of the Union on
the President's plan would have been wise, conceded that under the
changed conditions in 1867 it would be impracticable as well as unsafe
and impolitic. Indeed, in his conduct of the _Times_, Raymond was
again in accord with the Republicans, but he did not seek to renew his
former relations with the party. Being complimented for "keeping in
the background,"[1126] he replied that "when, a year ago, he declined a
re-election to Congress, it was for the purpose of devoting himself
wholly to the editorship of the _Times_, a position more to his taste
than any other, and which carries with it as much of influence,
honour, and substantial reward as any office in the gift of Presidents
or political parties."[1127] Had he appreciated the truth of this wise
statement in 1864 his sun might not have set in a cloud. "His
parliamentary failure," says Blaine, "was a keen disappointment to
him, and was not improbably one among many causes which cut short a
brilliant and useful life."[1128]
[Footnote 1126: Buffalo _Commercial Advertiser_, September 25, 1867.]
[Footnote 1127: New York _Times_, September 27, 1867.]
[Footnote 1128: James G. Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, Vol. 2, p.
140.]
The passing of Raymond and the advent of John T. Hoffman as a factor
in the State illustrate the curious work often wrought by political
changes. Raymond's efforts in behalf of reconciliation and peace
happened to concur in point of time with the demands of Tammany for
Hoffman and home-rule, and the latter proved the more potent.
Hoffman's appearance in State politics marked the beginning of a new
era. The increased majority in New York City in 1866, so
disproportionate to other years, and the naturalisation of immigrants
at the rate of one thousand a day, regardless of the period of their
residence in the country,[1129] indicated that a new leader of the
first magnitude had appeared, and that methods which differentiated
all moral principles had been introduced. For ten years William Marcy
Tweed had been sachem or grand sachem of Tammany and chairman of its
general committee. In climbing the ladder of power he had had his ups
and downs. He endured several defeats, notably for assistant alderman,
for re-election to Congress after a service of one term, and for
sheriff of New York County. But his popularity suffered no eclipse.
Ever since he led the ropes as a volunteer fireman, carrying a
silver-mounted trumpet, a white fire coat, and a stiff hat, the young
men of his class had made a hero of the tall, graceful, athletic
chief. His smiles were winning and his manners magnetic. From leading
a fire company he quickly led the politics of his district and then of
his ward, utilising his popularity by becoming in 1859 a member of the
Board of Supervisors, and in 1863 deputy street commissioner. As
supervisor he influenced expenditures and the making of contracts,
while the street deputy-ship gave him control of thousands of
labourers and sent aldermen after him for jobs for their ward
supporters. Thus intrenched he dropped chair-making, a business
inherited from his father, put up the sign of lawyer, and became known
to friends and foes as Boss Tweed, a title to which he did not object.
[Footnote 1129: Gustavus Myers, _History of Tammany Hall_, p. 250.]
Like Hoffman, Tweed had a most agreeable personality. Always
scrupulously neat in his dress and suave in manner, he possessed the
outward characteristics of a gentleman, being neither boastful nor
noisy, and never addicted to the drink or tobacco habit. To his
friends the warmth of his greeting and the heartiness of his
hand-shake evidenced the active sympathies expressed in numberless
deeds of kindness and charity. Yet he could be despotic. If he desired
a motion carried in his favour he neglected to call for negative
votes, warning opponents with significant glances of the danger of
incurring his displeasure. Once, when his ruling as chairman of a
Tammany nominating convention raised a storm of protests, he blocked
the plans of his adversaries by adjourning the meeting and turning off
the gas.
Although Tweed, perhaps, was often at fault in his estimate of men who
frequently deceived him, he selected his immediate lieutenants with
intelligent care. In 1857 he had George G. Barnard elected recorder
and Peter B. Sweeny district attorney. About the same time Richard B.
Connolly became county clerk. When Barnard's term expired in 1860 he
advanced him to the Supreme Court and took up Hoffman for recorder.
Later Hoffman became mayor and Connolly city comptroller. After
Hoffman's second promotion A. Oakey Hall was made mayor. In his way
each of these men contributed strength to the political junta which
was destined to grow in influence and power until it seemed
invincible. Hall had been a versifier, a writer of tales in prose, a
Know-nothing, a friend of Seward, and an anti-Tammany Democrat. As a
clubman, ambitious for social distinction, he was known as "elegant
Oakey." Although "without ballast," as Tweed admitted, he was
indispensable as an interesting speaker of considerable force, who
yielded readily to the demands of a boss. Connolly, suave and courtly,
was at heart so mean and crafty that Tweed himself held him in the
utmost contempt as a "Slippery Dick." But he was a good bookkeeper.
Besides, however many leeches he harboured about him, his intimate
knowledge of Tweed's doings kept him in power. Perhaps Barnard, more
in the public eye than any other, had less legal learning than wit,
yet in spite of his foppish dress he never lacked sufficient dignity
to float the appearance of a learned judge. He was a handsome man,
tall and well proportioned, with peculiarly brilliant eyes, a jet
black moustache, light olive complexion, and a graceful carriage.
Whenever in trouble Tweed could safely turn to him without
disappointment. But the man upon whom the Boss most relied was Sweeny.
He was a great manipulator of men, acquiring the cognomen of Peter
Brains Sweeny in recognition of his admitted ability. He had little
taste for public life. Nevertheless, hidden from sight, without
conscience and without fear, his sly, patient intrigues surpassed
those of his great master. The _Tribune_ called him "the
Mephistopheles of Tammany."[1130]
[Footnote 1130: New York _Tribune_, March 5, 1868.]
The questionable doings of some of these men had already attracted the
attention of the press. It was not then known that a thirty-five per
cent. rake-off on all bills paid by the city was divided between Tweed
and Connolly, or that Sweeny had stolen enough to pay $60,000 for his
confirmation as city chamberlain by the Board of Aldermen;[1131] but
the prompt subscription of $175,000 by a few members of Tammany for
the erection of a new hall on Fourteenth Street, the cornerstone of
which was laid on July 4, 1867, showed that some folks were rapidly
getting rich.[1132] In the year after Hoffman's defeat for governor the
aim of Tweed and his lieutenants was to carry city elections and
control State conventions, with dreams of making Hoffman governor and
then President, and of electing Tweed to the United States Senate.
[Footnote 1131: Tweed's testimony, Document No. 8, p. 105.]
[Footnote 1132: Gustavus Myers, _History of Tammany Hall_, p. 257.]
With this ambitious scheme in view the Tammany braves, reaching Albany
on October 3, 1867, demanded that Hoffman be made president of the
Democratic State convention. It was a bold claim for a defeated
candidate. After Fenton's election in 1864 Seymour had deemed it
proper to remain in the background, and for two years did not attend a
State convention. He had now reappeared, and the up-State delegates,
delighted at his return, insisted upon his election as president.
Instantly this became the issue. The friends of the Governor pointed
to his achievements and to his distinguished position as the great
apostle of Democracy. On the other hand, Tammany, with its usual
assurance, talked of its 50,000 majority given the Democratic ticket
in 1866, declared that Seymour had had enough, and that Hoffman needed
the endorsement to secure his re-election as mayor in the following
December. Thus the contest raged. Tammany was imperious and the
country delegates stubborn. One year before these men had allowed
their better judgment to be coerced into a condemnation of John A. Dix
because of his alleged ill treatment of Democrats; but now, standing
like a stone wall for Seymour, they followed their convictions as to
the best interests of the party. In the end Hoffman became temporary
chairman and Seymour president. The generous applause that greeted
Hoffman's appearance must have satisfied his most ardent friend until
he witnessed the spontaneous and effusive welcome accorded Seymour. If
it was noisy, it was also hearty. It had the ring of real joy, mingled
with an admiration that is bestowed only upon a leader who captivates
the imagination by recalling glorious victory and exciting high hopes
of future success.[1133]
[Footnote 1133: New York _World_, October 4, 1867.]
The selection of candidates provoked no real contests,[1134] but the
platform presented serious difficulties. The Democratic party
throughout the country found it hard to digest the war debt. Men who
believed it had been multiplied by extravagance and corruption in the
prosecution of an unholy war, thought it should be repudiated
outright, while many others, especially in the Western States, would
pay it in the debased currency of the realm. To people whose
circulating medium before the war was mainly the bills of wild-cat
banks, greenbacks seemed like actual money and the best money they had
ever known. It was attractive and everywhere of uniform value.
Moreover, as the Government was behind it the necessity for gold and
silver no longer appealed to them. The popular policy, therefore,
made the 5-20 bonds payable in greenbacks instead of coin. Of the
whole interest-bearing debt of $2,200,000,000, there were outstanding
about $1,600,000,000 of 5-20's, or securities convertible into them,
and of these $500,000,000 became redeemable in 1867. Their redemption
in gold, worth from 132 to 150, it was argued, would not only be a
discrimination in favour of the rich, but a foolish act of generosity,
since the law authorising the bonds stipulated that the interest
should be paid in "coin" and the principal in "dollars." As greenbacks
were lawful money they were also "dollars" within the meaning of the
legal tender act, and although an inflation of the currency, made
necessary by the redemption of bonds, might increase the price of gold
and thus amount to practical repudiation, it would in nowise modify
the law making the bonds payable in paper "dollars." This was known as
the "Ohio idea." It was a popular scheme with debtors, real estate
owners, shopkeepers, and business men generally, who welcomed
inflation as an antidote for the Secretary of the Treasury's
contraction of the currency. Democratic politicians accepted this
policy the more readily, too, because of the attractive cry--"the same
currency for the bondholder and the ploughboy."
[Footnote 1134: The following persons were nominated: Secretary of
State, Homer A. Nelson, Dutchess; Comptroller, William F. Allen,
Oswego; Treasurer, Wheeler H. Bristol, Tioga; Attorney-General,
Marshal B. Champlain, Allegany; State Engineer, Van R. Richmond,
Wayne; Canal Commissioner, John F. Fay, Monroe; Prison Inspector,
Nicholas B. Scheu, Erie; Court of Appeals, Martin Grover, Allegany.]
There was much of this sentiment in New York. Extreme Democrats,
taught that the debt was corruptly incurred, resented the suggestion
of its payment in gold. "Bloated bondholders" became a famous
expression with them, to whom it seemed likely that the $700,000,000
of United States notes, if inflated to an amount sufficient to pay the
bonds, would ultimately force absolute repudiation. These views found
ready acceptance among delegates to the State convention, and to put
himself straight upon the record, John T. Hoffman, in his speech as
temporary chairman, boldly declared "the honour of the country pledged
to the payment of every dollar of the national debt, honestly and
fully, in the spirit as well as in the letter of the bond."[1135]
[Footnote 1135: New York _World_, October 4, 1867.]
Seymour, with his usual dexterity, declined to commit himself or his
party to any decided policy. Although he would "keep the public
faith," and "not add repudiation to the list of crimes which destroy
confidence in republican governments," his arguments shed no light on
the meaning of those words. He declared that "waste and corruption had
piled up the national debt," and that it was "criminal folly to exempt
bonds from taxation." Then, entering into a general discussion of
finance, he arraigned the war party for its extravagance, infidelity,
and plundering policy. "Those who hold the power," he said, "have not
only hewed up to the line of repudiation, but they have not tried to
give value to the public credit. It is not the bondholder, it is the
office holder who sucks the blood of the people. If the money
collected by the government was paid to lessen our debt we could
command the specie of the world. We could gain it in exchange for our
securities as the governments of Europe do. Now, they are peddled out
at half price in exchange for dry-goods and groceries. The reports of
the Secretary of the Treasury show that we could swiftly wipe out our
debt if our income was not diverted to partisan purposes. Do not the
columns of the press teem with statements of official plunder and
frauds in every quarter of our land, while public virtue rots under
this wasteful expenditure of the public fund? It is said it is
repudiation to force our legal tenders upon the bondholders. What
makes it so? The low credit of the country. Build that up; make your
paper as good as gold, and this question cannot come up. The
controversy grows out of the fact that men do not believe our legal
tenders ever will be as good as gold. If it is repudiation to pay such
money, it is repudiation to make it, and it is repudiation to keep it
debased by waste and by partisan plans to keep our country in disorder
and danger."[1136]
[Footnote 1136: New York _World_, October 4, 1867.]
Perhaps no American ever possessed a more irritating way of presenting
the frailties of an opposite party. The unwholesome sentiment of his
Tweddle Hall and draft-riot speeches, so shockingly out of key with
the music of the Union, provoked the charge of sinning against clear
light; but ordinarily he had such a faculty for skilfully blending
truth with hyperbole in a daring and spirited argument that Greeley,
who could usually expose the errors of an opponent's argument in a
dozen sentences, found it woven too closely for hasty answer. On this
occasion his speech compelled the committee on resolutions, after an
all day and night session, to refer the matter to Samuel J. Tilden and
two associates, who finally evaded the whole issue by declaring for
"equal taxation." This meant taxation of government bonds without
specification as to their payment. John McKeon of New York City
attacked the words as "equivocal" and "without moral effect," but the
influence of Seymour and Tilden carried it with practical unanimity.
The power of Seymour, however, best exhibited itself in the treatment
accorded Andrew Johnson. The conventions of 1865 and 1866 had
sustained the President with energy and earnestness, endorsing his
policy, commending his integrity, and encouraging him to believe in
the sincerity of their support. In recognition Johnson had displaced
Republicans for Democrats until the men in office resembled the
appointees of Buchanan's administration. The proceedings of the
convention of 1867, however, contained no evidence that the United
States had a Chief Executive. Nothing could have been more
remorseless. The plan, silently matured, was suddenly and without
scruple flashed upon the country that Andrew Johnson, divested of
respect, stripped of support, and plucked of offices, had been coolly
dropped by the Democracy of the Empire State.
The campaign opened badly for the Republicans. Weighted with canal
frauds the party, with all its courage and genius, seemed unequal to
the odds against which it was forced to contend. The odious
disclosures showed that the most trifling technicalities, often only a
misspelled or an interlined word, and in one instance, at least,
simply an ink blot, had been held sufficient to vacate the lowest
bids, the contracts afterward being assigned to other bidders at
largely increased amounts. So insignificant were these informalities
that in many cases the official who declared the bids irregular could
not tell upon the witness stand wherein they were so, although he
admitted that in no instance did the State benefit by the change.
Indeed, without cunning or reason, the plunderers, embracing all who
made or paid canal accounts, declared bids informal that contracts at
increased prices might be given to members of a ring who divided their
ill-gotten gains. These increases ranged from $1,000 to $100,000 each,
aggregating a loss to the State of many hundreds of thousands of
dollars. "The corruption is so enormous," said the _World_, "as to
render absurd any attempt at concealment."[1137]
[Footnote 1137: New York _World_, September 27, 1867.
The story of these frauds is found in two volumes of testimony
submitted by the Canal Investigation Committee to the Constitutional
Convention of 1867.]
Republicans offered no defence except that their party, having had the
courage to investigate and expose the frauds and the methods of the
peculators, could be trusted to continue the reform. To this the
_World_ replied that "a convention of shoddyites might, with as good a
face, have lamented the rags hanging about the limbs of our shivering
soldiers, or a convention of whisky thieves affect to deplore the
falling off of the internal revenue."[1138] Moreover, Democrats claimed
that the worst offender was still in office as an appointee of
Governor Fenton,[1139] and that the Republican nominee for canal
commissioner had been guilty of similar transactions when
superintendent of one of the waterways.[1140] These charges became the
more glaring because Republicans refused to renominate senators who
had been chiefly instrumental in exposing the frauds. "They take great
credit to themselves for having found out this corruption in the
management of the canals," said Seymour. "But how did they exhibit
their hatred of corruption? Were the men who made these exposures
renominated? Not by the Republicans. One of them is running upon our
ticket."[1141] On another occasion he declared that "not one of the
public officers who are charged and convicted by their own friends of
fraud and robbery have ever been brought to the bar of justice."[1142]
The severity of such statements lost none of its sting by the
declaration of Horace Greeley, made over his own signature, that
Republican candidates were "conspicuous for integrity and for
resistance to official corruption."[1143]
[Footnote 1138: New York _World_, September 27, 1867.]
[Footnote 1139: _Ibid._, October 16, 22.]
[Footnote 1140: _Ibid._, October 22.]
[Footnote 1141: _New York World_, October 25.]
[Footnote 1142: _Ibid._, October 4.]
[Footnote 1143: New York _Tribune_, September 26, 1867.]
The practical failure of the constitutional convention to accomplish
the purpose for which it assembled also embarrassed Republicans. By
the terms of the Constitution of 1846 the Legislature was required, in
each twentieth year thereafter, to submit to the people the question
of convening a convention for its revision, and in 1866, an
affirmative answer being given, such a convention began its work at
Albany on June 4, 1867. Of the one hundred and sixty delegates,
ninety-seven were Republicans. Its membership included many men of the
highest capacity, whose debates, characterised by good temper and
forensic ability, showed an intelligent knowledge of the needs of the
State. Their work included the payment of the canal and other State
debts, extended the term of senators from two to four years, increased
the members of the Assembly, conferred the right of suffrage without
distinction of colour, reorganised the Court of Appeals with a chief
justice and six associate justices, and increased the tenure of
supreme and appellate judges to fourteen years, with an age limit of
seventy.
Very early in the life of the convention, however, the press, largely
influenced by the New York _Tribune_, began to discredit its work.
Horace Greeley, who was a member, talked often and always well, but
the more he talked the more he revealed his incapacity for safe
leadership. He seemed to grow restive as he did in Congress over
immaterial matters. Long speeches annoyed him, and adjournments from
Friday to the following Tuesday sorely vexed him, although this
arrangement convenienced men of large business interests. Besides,
committees not being ready to report, there was little to occupy the
time of delegates. Nevertheless, Greeley, accustomed to work without
limit as to hours or thought of rest, insisted that the convention
ought to keep busy six days in the week and finish the revision for
which it assembled. When his power to influence colleagues had
entirely disappeared, he began using the _Tribune_, whose acrid
arguments, accepted by the lesser newspapers, completely undermined
all achievement. Finally, on September 24, the convention recessed
until November 12.
Democrats charged at once that the adjournment was a skulking
subterfuge not only to avoid an open confession of failure, but to
evade submitting negro suffrage to a vote in November. The truth of
the assertion seemed manifest. At all events, it proved a most serious
handicap to Republicans, who, by an act of Congress, passed on March
2, 1867, had forced negro suffrage upon the Southern States. Their
platform, adopted at Syracuse, also affirmed it. Moreover, their
absolute control of the constitutional convention enabled them, if
they had so desired, to finish and submit their work in the early
autumn. This action subjected their convention resolve for "impartial
suffrage" to ridicule as well as to the charge of cowardice. If you
shrink from giving the ballot to a few thousand negroes at home, it
was asked, why do you insist that it should be conferred on millions
in the South? If, as you pretend, you wish the blacks of this State to
have the ballot, why do you not give it to them? How can you blame the
South for hesitating when you hesitate? "It is manifest," said the
_World_, "that the Republicans do not desire the negroes of this State
to vote. Their refusal to present the question in this election is a
confession that the party is forcing on the South a measure too
odious to be tolerated at home."[1144]
[Footnote 1144: New York _World_, September 27, 1867.]
This charge, perhaps, was the most disturbing influence Republicans
had to meet in the campaign. Responsibility for canal frauds made them
wince, since it appealed strongly and naturally to whatever there was
of discontent among the people, but their apparent readiness to force
upon the South what they withheld in New York seemed so unreasonable
and unjust that it aided materially in swelling the strength of the
Democrats.
James T. Brady, Henry C. Murphy, John T. Hoffman, and Samuel J. Tilden
made the campaign attractive, speaking with unsparing severity to the
great audiences gathered in New York City. Although somewhat
capricious in his sympathies, Brady seemed never to care who knew what
he thought on any subject, while the people, captivated by his
marvellously easy mode of speech, listened with rapture as he
exercised his splendid powers. It remained for Seymour, however, to
give character to the discussion in one of his most forcible
philippics. He endeavoured to show that the ballot, given to a few
negroes in New York, could do little harm compared to the
enfranchisement of millions of them in the Southern States. The
Radicals, he said, not only propose to put the white men of the South
under the blacks, but the white men of the North as well. To allow
three millions of negroes, representing ten Southern States, to send
twenty senators to Washington, while more than half the white
population of the country, living in nine Northern States, have but
eighteen senators, is a home question. "Will you sanction it?" he
asked. "Twenty senators, recollect, who are to act in relation to
interests deeply affecting you. Can you afford to erect such a
government of blacks over the white men of this continent? Will you
give them control in the United States Senate and thus in fact
disfranchise the North? This to you is a local question. It will
search you out just as surely as the tax-gatherer searches you
out."[1145]
[Footnote 1145: New York _World_, October 25, 1867.]
Republicans acknowledged their weakness. An opposition that invited
attention to disclosures as sensational and corrupt as they were
indefensible had deeper roots than ordinary political rivalry, while
the question of manhood suffrage, like a legacy of reciprocal hate,
aroused the smouldering prejudices that had found bitter expression
during the discussion of emancipation. Moreover, the feeling developed
that the narrow and unpatriotic policy which ruled the Syracuse
convention had displaced good men for unsatisfactory candidates. This
led to the substitution of Thomas H. Hillhouse for comptroller, whose
incorruptibility made him a candidate of unusual strength. But the
sacrifice did not change the political situation, aggravated among
other things by hard times. The wave of commercial depression which
spread over Europe after the London financial panic of May, 1866,
extended to this country during the last half of 1867. A reaction from
the inflated war prices took place, quick sales and large profits
ceased, and a return to the old methods of frugality and good
management became necessary. In less than two years the currency had
been contracted $140,000,000, decreasing the price of property and
enhancing the face value of debts, and although Congress, in the
preceding February, had suspended further contraction, business men
charged financial conditions to contraction and the people held the
party in power responsible.
Indeed, the people had become tired of Republican rule, and their
verdict changed a plurality of 13,000, given Fenton in 1866, to a
Democratic majority of nearly 48,000, with twenty-two majority on
joint ballot in the Legislature. New York City gave the Democrats
60,000 majority. Thousands of immigrants had been illegally
naturalised, and a fraudulent registration of 1,500 in one ward
indicated the extent of the enormous frauds that had been practised by
Boss Tweed and his gang;[1146] but the presence of large Democratic
gains in the up-State counties showed that Republican defeat was due
to other causes than fraudulent registration and illegal voting.
"Outside the incapables and their miserable subalterns who managed the
Syracuse convention," said one Republican paper, "a pervading
sentiment existed among us, not only that we should be beaten, but
that we needed chastisement."[1147] Another placed the responsibility
upon "a host of political adventurers, attracted to the party by
selfish aggrandisements."[1148] The _Tribune_ accepted it as a
punishment for cowardice on the negro suffrage question. "To say that
we are for manhood suffrage in the South and not in the North is to
earn the loathing, contempt, and derision alike of friends and
foes."[1149] Thus had Republican power disappeared like Aladdin's
palace, which was ablaze with splendour at night, and could not be
seen in the morning.
[Footnote 1146: Gustavus Myers, _History of Tammany Hall_, p. 250.]
[Footnote 1147: Buffalo _Commercial Advertiser_, November 6, 1867.]
[Footnote 1148: Albany _Evening Journal_, November 6.]
[Footnote 1149: New York _Tribune_, November 6.]