A Political History of the State of New York Volume II Part 23

Its publication did not accomplish all that Raymond expected. People were amazed, and deep in their hearts many persons felt that Greeley had been treated unfairly. The inquiry as to a vacancy in the Board of Regents showed that Seward himself shared this opinion at the time.

But the question that most interested the public in 1860 was, why, if Greeley had declared war upon Seward in 1854, did not Weed make it known in time to destroy the influence of the man who had "deliberately wreaked the long-h.o.a.rded revenge of a disappointed office-seeker?" This question reflected upon Weed's management of Seward's campaign, and to avoid the criticism he claimed to have been "in blissful ignorance of its contents." This seems almost impossible.

But in explaining the groundlessness of Greeley's complaints, Weed wrote an editorial, the dignity and patriotism of which contrasted favourably with Greeley's self-seeking.

"There are some things in this letter," wrote the editor of the _Evening Journal_, "requiring explanation--all things in it, indeed, are susceptible of explanations consistent with Governor Seward's full appreciation of Mr. Greeley's friends.h.i.+p and services. The letter was evidently written under a morbid state of feeling, and it is less a matter of surprise that such a letter was thus written, than that its writer should not only cherish the ill-will that prompted it for six years, but allow it to influence his action upon a question which concerns his party and his country.

"Mr. Greeley's first complaint is that this journal, in an 'editorial rescript formally read him out of the Whig party.' Now, here is the 'editorial rescript formally reading' Mr. Greeley out of the Whig party, taken from the _Evening Journal_ of September 6, 1853:

"'The _Tribune_ defines its position in reference to the approaching election. Regarding the "Maine law" as a question of paramount importance, it will support members of the legislature friendly to its pa.s.sage, irrespective of party. For state officers it will support such men as it deems competent and trustworthy, irrespective also of party, and without regard to the "Maine law." In a word, it avows itself, for the present, if not forever, an independent journal (it was pretty much so always), discarding party usages, mandates, and platforms.

"'We regret to lose, in the _Tribune_, an old, able, and efficient co-labourer in the Whig vineyard. But when carried away by its convictions of duty to other, and, in its judgment, higher and more beneficent objects, we have as little right as inclination to complain. The _Tribune_ takes with it, wherever it goes, an indomitable and powerful pen, a devoted, a n.o.ble, and an unselfish zeal. Its senior editor evidently supposes himself permanently divorced from the Whig party, but we shall be disappointed if, after a year or two's st.u.r.dy pulling at the oar of reform, he does not return to his long-cherished belief that great and beneficent aims must continue, as they commenced, to be wrought out through Whig instrumentalities.

"'But we only intended to say that the _Tribune_ openly and frankly avows its intention and policy; and that in things about which we cannot agree, we can and will disagree as friends.'

"Pray read this article again, if its purpose and import be not clearly understood! At the time it appeared, the _Tribune_ was under high pressure 'Maine law' speed. That question, in Mr. Greeley's view, was paramount to all others. It was the _Tribune's_ 'higher law.' Mr.

Greeley had given warning in his paper that he should support 'Maine law' candidates for the legislature, and for state offices, regardless of their political or party principles and character. And this, too, when senators to be elected had to choose a senator in Congress. But instead of 'reading' Mr. Greeley 'out of the Whig party,' it will be seen that after Mr. Greeley had read himself out of the party by discarding 'party usages, mandates, and platforms,' the _Evening Journal_, in the language and spirit of friends.h.i.+p, predicted just what happened, namely, that, in due time, Mr. Greeley would 'return to his long-cherished belief that great and beneficent aims must continue, as they commenced, to be wrought out through Whig instrumentalities.'

"We submit, even to Mr. Greeley himself, whether there is one word or thought in the article to which he referred justifying his accusation that he had been 'read out of the Whig party' by the _Evening Journal_.

"In December, 1837, when we sought the acquaintance and co-operation of Mr. Greeley, we were, like him, a 'poor printer,' working as hard as he worked. We had then been sole editor, reporter, news collector, 'remarkable accident,' 'horrid murder,' 'items' man, etc., etc., for seven years, at a salary of $750, $1000, $1250, and $1500. We had also been working hard, for poor pay, as an editor and politician, for the twelve years preceding 1830. We stood, therefore, on the same footing with Mr. Greeley when the partners.h.i.+p was formed. We knew that Mr.

Greeley was much abler, more indomitably industrious, and, as we believed, a better man in all respects. We foresaw for him a brilliant future; and, if we had not started with utterly erroneous views of his objects, we do not believe that our relations would have jarred. We believed him indifferent alike to the temptations of money and office, desiring only to become both 'useful' and 'ornamental,' as the editor of a patriotic, enlightened, leading, and influential public journal.

For years, therefore, we placed Horace Greeley far above the 'swell mob' of office-seekers, for whom, in his letter, he expresses so much contempt. Had Governor Seward known, in 1838, that Mr. Greeley coveted an inspectors.h.i.+p, he certainly would have received it. Indeed, if our memory be not at fault, Mr. Greeley was offered the clerks.h.i.+p of the a.s.sembly in 1838. It was certainly pressed upon us, and, though at that time, like Mr. Greeley, desperately poor, it was declined.

"We cannot think that Mr. Greeley's political friends, after the _Tribune_ was under way, knew that he needed the 'pecuniary aid' which had been promised. When, about that period, we suggested to him (after consulting some of the board) that the printing of the common council, might be obtained, he refused to have anything to do with it.

"In relation to the state printing, Mr. Greeley knows that there never was a day when, if he had chosen to come to Albany, he might not have taken whatever interest he pleased in the _Journal_ and its state printing. But he wisely regarded his position in New York, and the future of the _Tribune_, as far more desirable.

"For the 'creation of the new office for the _Times_,' Mr. Greeley knows perfectly well that Governor Seward was in no manner responsible.

"That Mr. Greeley should make the adjustment of the libel suit of Messrs. Redfield and Pringle against the _Tribune_ a ground of accusation against Governor Seward is a matter of astonishment.

Governor Seward undertook the settlement of that suit as the friend of Mr. Greeley, at a time when a systematic effort was being made to destroy both the _Tribune_ and _Journal_ by prosecutions for libel. We were literally plastered over with writs, declarations, etc. There were at least two judges of the Supreme Court in the State, on whom plaintiffs were at liberty to count for verdicts. Governor Seward tendered his professional services to Mr. Greeley, and in the case referred to, as in others, foiled the adversary. For such service this seems a strange requital. Less fortunate than the _Tribune_, it cost the _Journal_ over $8000 to reach a point in legal proceedings that enabled a defendant in a libel suit to give the truth in evidence.

"It was by no fault or neglect or wish of Governor Seward that Mr.

Greeley served but 'ninety days in Congress.' Nor will we say what others have said, that his congressional _debut_ was a failure. There were no other reasons, and this seems a fitting occasion to state them. Mr. Greeley's 'isms' were in his way at conventions. The sharp points and rough edges of the _Tribune_ rendered him unacceptable to those who nominate candidates. This was more so formerly than at present, for most of the rampant reforms to which the _Tribune_ was devoted have subsided. We had no sympathy with, and little respect for, a const.i.tuency that preferred 'Jim' Brooks to Horace Greeley.

"Nearly forty years of experience leaves us in some doubt whether, with political friends, an open, frank, and truthful, or a cautious, calculating, non-committal course is not the right, but the easiest and most politic. The former, which we have chosen, has made us much trouble and many enemies. Few candidates are able to bear the truth, or to believe that the friend who utters it is truly one.

"In 1854, the _Tribune_, through years of earnest effort, had educated the people up to the point of demanding a 'Maine law' candidate for governor. But its followers would not accept their chief reformer! It was evident that the state convention was to be largely influenced by 'Maine law' and 'Choctaw' Know-Nothing delegates. It was equally evident that Mr. Greeley could neither be nominated nor elected. Hence the conference to which he refers. We found, as on two other occasions during thirty years, our state convention impracticable. We submitted the names of Lieutenant-Governor Patterson and Judge Harris (both temperance men in faith and practice) as candidates for governor, coupled with that of Mr. Greeley for lieutenant-governor. But the 'Maine law' men would have none of these, preferring Myron H. Clark (who used up the raw material of temperance), qualified by H.J.

Raymond for lieutenant-governor.

"What Mr. Greeley says of the relative zeal and efficiency of the _Tribune_ and _Times_, and of our own feelings in that contest, is true. We did our duty, but with less of enthusiasm than when we were supporting either Granger, Seward, Bradish, Hunt, Fish, King, or Morgan for governor.

"One word in relation to the supposed 'political firm.' Mr. Greeley brought into it his full quota of capital. But were there no beneficial results, no accruing advantages, to himself? Did he not attain, in the sixteen years, a high position, world-wide reputation, and an ample fortune? Admit, as we do, that he is not as wealthy as we wish he was, it is not because the _Tribune_ has not made his fortune, but because he did not keep it--because it went, as other people's money goes, to friends, to pay indors.e.m.e.nts, and in bad investments.

"We had both been liberally, nay, generously, sustained by our party.

Mr. Greeley differs with us in regarding patrons of newspapers as conferring favours. In giving them the worth of their money, he holds that the account is balanced. We, on the other hand, have ever held the relation of newspaper editor and subscriber as one of fraternity.

Viewed in this aspect, the editors of the _Tribune_ and _Evening Journal_ have manifold reasons for cheris.h.i.+ng grateful recollections of the liberal and abiding confidence and patronage of their party and friends.

"In conclusion, we cannot withhold an expression of sincere regret that this letter has been called out. After remaining six years in 'blissful ignorance' of its contents, we should have preferred to have ever remained so. It jars harshly upon cherished memories. It destroys ideals of disinterestedness and generosity which relieved political life from so much that is selfish, sordid, and rapacious."

Henry B. Stanton once asked Seward, directly, if he did not think it would have been better to let Greeley have office. "Mr. Seward looked at me intently, rolled out a cloud of tobacco smoke, and then slowly responded: 'I don't know but it would.'"[578] It is doubtful, however, if Seward ever forgave a New Yorker who contributed to his defeat.

Lincoln spoke of him as "without gall," but Stanton declared him a good hater who lay in wait to punish his foes. Greeley, James S.

Wadsworth, William Cullen Bryant, and David Dudley Field, conspicuously led the opposition, and if he failed to annihilate them all it is because some of them did not give him a chance to strike back. Greeley caught the first knockout blow in February, 1861; and in 1862, says Stanton, "he doubtless defeated James S. Wadsworth for governor of New York. Wadsworth, who was then military commander of Was.h.i.+ngton, told me that Seward was 'dead against him' all through the campaign."[579]

[Footnote 578: H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, pp. 199, 200.]

[Footnote 579: _Ibid._, p. 216.]

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FIGHT OF THE FUSIONISTS

1860

After the return of the Softs from Baltimore the condition of the Democratic party became a subject of much anxiety. Dean Richmond's persistent use of the unit rule had driven the Hards into open rebellion, and at a great ma.s.s-meeting, held at Cooper Inst.i.tute and addressed by Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson, it was agreed to hold a Breckenridge and Lane state convention at Syracuse on August 8. At the appointed time three hundred delegates appeared, representing every county, but with the notable exception of the chairman, Henry S. Randall, the biographer of Thomas Jefferson, who had advocated the Wilmot Proviso in 1847, written the Buffalo platform in 1848, and opposed the fugitive slave law in 1850, practically all of them had steadily opposed the Free-soil influences of their party. To many it seemed strange, if not absolutely ludicrous, to hoist a pro-slavery flag in the Empire State. But Republicans welcomed the division of their opponents, and the Hards were terribly in earnest. They organised with due formality; spent two days in conference; adopted the pro-slavery platform of the seceders' convention amidst loud cheering; selected candidates for a state and electoral ticket with the care that precedes certain election; angrily denounced the leaders.h.i.+p of Dean Richmond at Charleston and Baltimore; appointed a new state committee, and, with the usual a.s.surance of determined men, claimed a large following.

The indomitable d.i.c.kinson, in a speech not unlike his Cooper Inst.i.tute address, declared that Breckenridge, the regularly nominated candidate of seventeen States and portions of other States, would secure one hundred and twenty-seven electoral votes in the South and on the Pacific coast. This made the election, he argued, depend upon New York, and since Douglas would start without the hope of getting a single vote, it became the duty of every national Democrat to insist that the Illinoisan be withdrawn. People might scoff at this movement as "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand," he said, but it would grow in size and send forth a deluge that would refresh and purify the arid soil of politics. The applause that greeted this prophecy indicated faith in a principle that most people knew had outlived its day in the State; and, although d.i.c.kinson was always altogether on one side, it is scarcely credible that he could sincerely believe that New York would support Breckenridge, even if Douglas withdrew.

The Hards conjured with a few distinguished names which still gave them prestige. Charles O'Conor, Greene C. Bronson, and John A. Dix, as conservative, moderate leaders, undoubtedly had the confidence of many people, and their ticket, headed by James T. Brady, the brilliant lawyer, looked formidable. Personally, Brady was perhaps the most popular man in New York City; and had he stood upon other than a pro-slavery platform his support must have been generous. But the fact that he advocated the protection of slave property in the territories, although opposed to Buchanan's Lecompton policy, was destined to subject him to humiliating defeat.

The Softs met in convention on August 15. In numbers and noisy enthusiasm they did not seem to represent a larger following than the Hards, but their principles expressed the real sentiment of whatever was left of the rank and file of the Democratic party of the State.

Horatio Seymour was the pivotal personage. Around him they rallied.

The resolution indorsing Stephen A. Douglas and his doctrine of non-intervention very adroitly avoided quarrels. It accepted Fernando Wood's delegation on equal terms with Tammany; refused to notice the Hards' attack upon Dean Richmond and the majority of the Charleston delegation; and nominated William Kelley of Hudson for governor by acclamation. Kelley was a large farmer of respectable character and talents, who had served with credit in the State Senate and supported Van Buren in 1848 with the warmth of a sincere Free-soiler. He was evidently a man without guile, and, although modest and plain-spoken, he knew what the farmer and workingman most wanted, and addressed himself to their best thought. It was generally conceded that he would poll the full strength of his party.

But the cleverest act of the convention was its fusion with the Const.i.tutional Union party. In the preceding May, the old-line Whigs and Know-Nothings had met at Baltimore and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Ma.s.sachusetts for Vice President, on the simple platform: "The Const.i.tution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." Was.h.i.+ngton Hunt, the former governor of New York, had become the convention's president, and, in company with James Brooks and William Duer, he had arranged with the Softs to place on the Douglas electoral ticket ten representatives of the Union party, with William Kent, the popular son of the distinguished Chancellor, at their head.

Hunt had become a thorn in the side of his old friends, now the leading Republican managers. He had joined them as a Whig in the thirties. After sending him to Congress for three terms and making him comptroller of state in 1848, they had elected him governor in 1850; but, in the division of the party, he joined the Silver-Grays, failed of re-election in 1852, dropped into the American party in 1854, and supported Fillmore in 1856. Thurlow Weed thought he ought to have aided them in the formation of the Republican party, and Horace Greeley occasionally reminded him that a decent regard for consistency should impel him to act in accordance with his anti-slavery record; but when, in 1860, Hunt began the crusade that successfully fused the Douglas and Bell tickets in New York, thus seriously endangering the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican editors opened their batteries upon him with well-directed aim. In his one attempt to face these attacks, Hunt taunted Greeley with being "more dangerous to friend than to foe." To this the editor of the _Tribune_ retorted: "When I was your friend, you were six times before the people as a candidate for most desirable offices, and in five of those six were successful, while you were repeatedly a candidate before and have been since, and always defeated. Possibly some have found me a dangerous friend, but you never did."[580]

[Footnote 580: New York _Tribune_, July 23, 1860.]

Hunt's coalition movement, called the "Syracuse juggle" and the "confusion ticket," did not work as smoothly as he expected. It gave rise to a bitter controversy which at once impaired its value. The Bell negotiators declared that the ten electors, if chosen, would be free to vote for their own candidate, while the Douglas mediators stated with emphasis that each elector was not only pledged by the resolution of the convention to support Douglas, but was required to give his consent to do so or allow another to fill his place. "We cannot tell which answer is right," said the New York _Sun_, "but it looks as if there were deception practised." The _Tribune_ presented the ridiculous phase of it when it declared that the Bell electors were put up to catch the Know-Nothings, while the others would trap the Irish and Germans. "Is this the way," it asked, referring to William Kent and his a.s.sociates, "in which honourable men who have characters to support, conduct political contests?"[581] To dissipate the confusion, Hunt explained that the defeat of Lincoln would probably throw the election into Congress, in which event Bell would become President. "But we declare, with the same frankness, that if Douglas, and not Bell, shall become President, we will welcome that result as greatly preferable to the success of sectional candidates."[582]

[Footnote 581: _Ibid._, July 14, 1860.]

[Footnote 582: _Ibid._, July 24, 1860.]

The Republican state convention which met at Syracuse on August 22, did not m.u.f.fle its enthusiasm over the schism in the Democratic party. Seward and his friends had regained their composure. A midsummer trip to New England, chiefly for recreation, had brought great crowds about the Auburn statesmen wherever he appeared, and, encouraged by their enthusiastic devotion, he returned satisfied with the place he held in the hearts of Republicans. His followers, too, indicated their disappointment by no public word or sign. To the end of the convention its proceedings were marked by harmony and unanimity. Edwin D. Morgan was renominated for governor by acclamation; the platform of Chicago principles was adopted amidst prolonged cheers, and the selection of electors approved without dissent. The happy combination of the two electors-at-large, William Cullen Bryant and James O. Putnam, evidenced the spirit of loyalty to Abraham Lincoln that inspired all partic.i.p.ants. Bryant had been an oracle of the radical democracy for more than twenty years, and had stubbornly opposed Seward; Putnam, a Whig of the school of Clay and Webster, had, until recently, zealously supported Millard Fillmore and the American party. In its eagerness to unite every phase of anti-slavery sentiment the convention buried the past in its desire to know, in the words of Seward, "whether this is a const.i.tutional government under which we live."

During the campaign, Republican demonstrations glorified Lincoln's early occupation of rail-splitting, while the Wide-awakes, composed largely of young men who had studied the slavery question since 1852 solely as a moral issue, illuminated the night and aroused enthusiasm with their torches and expert marching. As early as in September, the New York _Herald_ estimated that over four hundred thousand were already uniformed and drilled. In every town and village these organisations, unique then, although common enough nowadays, were conscious appeals for sympathy and favour, and undoubtedly contributed much to the result by enlisting the hearty support of first voters.

Indeed, on the Republican side, it was largely a campaign of young men. "The Republican party," said Seward at Cleveland, "is a party chiefly of young men. Each successive year brings into its ranks an increasing proportion of the young men of this country."[583]

[Footnote 583: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 462.

_Seward's Works_, Vol. 4, p. 384.]

Aside from the torch-light processions of the Wide-awakes, the almost numberless speeches were the feature of the canva.s.s of 1860. There had, perhaps, been more exciting and enthusiastic campaigns, but the number of meetings was without precedent. The _Tribune_ estimated that ten thousand set addresses were made in New York alone, and that the number in the country equalled all that had been made in previous presidential canva.s.ses since 1789. It is likewise true that at no time in the history of the State did so many distinguished men take part in a campaign. Though the clergy were not so obtrusive as in 1856, Henry Ward Beecher and Edwin H. Chapin, the eminent Universalist, did not hesitate to deliver political sermons from their pulpits, closing their campaign on the Sunday evening before election.