INFLUENCE OF MONEY IN SENATORIAL ELECTIONS
1869
The election of a legislative majority in 1868 plunged the Republicans
into a fierce contest over the choice of a successor to Edwin D.
Morgan, whose term in the United States Senate ended on March 4. In
bitterness it resembled the historic battle between Weed and Greeley
in 1861. Morgan had made several mistakes. His support of Johnson
during the first year of the latter's Administration discredited him,
and although he diligently laboured to avoid all remembrance of it,
the patronage which the President freely gave had continued to
identify him with the Johnsonised federal officials. To overcome this
distrust he presented letters from Sumner and Wade, testifying to his
loyalty to the more radical element of the party.[1211] A revival of
the story of his opposition to Wadsworth in 1862 also embarrassed him.
He had overcome it when first elected to the Senate by the sustaining
hand of Thurlow Weed, whose position in the management of the party
was strengthened by Wadsworth's defeat; but now Weed was absent, and
to aid in meeting the ugly charges which rendered his way devious and
difficult, Morgan had recourse to Edwin M. Stanton, who wrote that
Wadsworth, distinguishing the Senator from his betrayers, repeatedly
spoke of him as a true friend and faithful supporter.[1212]
[Footnote 1211: New York _Tribune_, January 13 and 18, 1869.]
[Footnote 1212: New York _Times_, January 12, 1869.]
Morgan's strength, though of a negative kind, had its head concealed
under the coils of Conkling's position. It was manifest that the
latter's admirers were combining to depose Reuben E. Fenton, Morgan's
chief competitor for the senatorial toga. Chester A. Arthur, looking
into the future, had already recognised the need of a new alignment,
and the young Senator evidenced the qualities that appealed to him.
There was a common impression that if Morgan were re-elected, he would
yield to the greater gifts of Conkling and the purpose, now so
apparent, was to crush Fenton and make Conkling the head of an
organisation which should include both Senators. John A. Griswold
understood this and declined to embarrass Morgan by entering the race.
Fenton at this time was at the height of his power. His lieutenants,
headed by Waldo M. Hutchins, the distributor of his patronage,
excelled in the gifts of strategy, which had been illustrated in the
election of Truman G. Younglove for speaker. They were dominated,
also, by the favourite doctrine of political leaders that organisation
must be maintained and victory won at any cost save by a revolution in
party policy, and they entered the senatorial contest with a courage
as sublime as it was relentless. Their chief, too, possessed the
confidence of the party. His radicalism needed no sponsors. Besides,
his four years' service as governor, strengthened by the veto of
several bills calculated to increase the public burdens, had received
the unmistakable approval of the people.
Nevertheless he was heavily handicapped. Greeley, still smarting under
Fenton's failure to support him for governor in 1868, declared for
Marshall O. Roberts, while Noah Davis, surprised at his insincerity,
aided Morgan. If Greeley's grievance had merit, Davis' resentment was
certainly justified. The latter claimed that after Conkling's election
in 1867, Fenton promised to support him in 1869, and that upon the
Governor's advice, to avoid the prejudice against a judge who engaged
in politics, he had resigned from the Supreme Court and made a winning
race for Congress.[1213]
[Footnote 1213: New York _World_, January 6, 1869.]
But the _Commercial Advertiser_, a journal then conducted by
Conservatives, placed the most serious obstacle in Fenton's pathway,
charging that an intimate friend of the Governor had received $10,000
on two occasions after the latter had approved bills for the New York
Dry Dock and the Erie Railroad Companies.[1214] Although the _Sun_
promptly pronounced it "a remarkable piece of vituperation,"[1215] and
the _Tribune_, declaring "its source of no account," called it "a most
scurrilous diatribe,"[1216] the leading Democratic journal of the State
accepted it as "true."[1217] The story was not new. In the preceding
summer, during an investigation into the alleged bribery of members of
the Legislature of 1868, Henry Thompson, an Erie director, was asked
if his company paid Governor Fenton any money for approving the bill
legalising the acts of its directors in the famous "Erie war."
Thompson refused to answer as the question fell without the scope of
the committee's jurisdiction. Thereupon Thomas Murphy testified that
Thompson told him that he saw two checks of $10,000 each paid to
Hamilton Harris, the Governor's legal adviser, under an agreement that
Fenton should sign the bill. Murphy added that afterwards, as chairman
of a Republican political committee, he asked Jay Gould, president of
the Erie company, for a campaign contribution, and was refused for the
reason that he had already given $20,000 for Fenton. Harris and Gould
knew nothing of the transaction.[1218]
[Footnote 1214: New York _Commercial Advertiser_, January 2, 1869.]
[Footnote 1215: New York _Sun_, January 4.]
[Footnote 1216: New York _Tribune_, January 9.]
[Footnote 1217: New York _World_, January 6.]
[Footnote 1218: The _Nation_, March 18.]
Matthew Hale, chairman of the Senate investigating committee, did not
include this testimony in his report, and the startling and improbable
publication in the _Commercial Advertiser_ must have withered as the
sensation of a day, had not the belief obtained that the use of money
in senatorial contests played a prominent and important part. This
scandalous practice was modern. Until 1863 nothing had been heard of
the use of money in such contests. But what was then whispered, and
openly talked about in 1867 as Conkling testified, now became a common
topic of conversation. "It is conceded on all hands," said the
_Times_, editorially, "that money will decide the contest."[1219]
[Footnote 1219: New York _Times_, January 9, 1869.]
Talk of this kind appealed to the pessimist who believes a legislator
is always for sale, but Speaker Younglove, an assemblyman of long
experience, knowing that good committee appointments were more potent
than other influences, tactfully withheld the announcement of his
committees. Such a proceeding had never before occurred in the history
of the State, and twelve years later, when George H. Sharpe resorted
to the same tactics, William B. Woodin declared that it made Younglove
"a political corpse."[1220] Nevertheless, Morgan soon understood that
chairmanships and assignments on great committees were vastly more
attractive than anything he had to offer, and on January 16 (1869) the
first ballot of the caucus gave Fenton 52 votes to 40 for Morgan. A
month later, Richard M. Blatchford, then a justice of the United
States Supreme Court, wrote Thurlow Weed: "Morgan loses his election
because, you being sick, his backbone was missing."[1221]
[Footnote 1220: New York _Tribune_, January 13, 1881.]
[Footnote 1221: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 462.]