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

Immediately, the tide began setting strongly in favour of Clinton for governor. Clintonian papers urged it, and personal friends wrote and rode over the State in his interest. Clinton himself became sanguine of success. "Tallmadge can scarcely get a vote in his own county," he wrote Post on the 21st of April. "He is the prince of rascals--if Wheaton does not exceed him."[232]

[Footnote 232: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 569. Clinton seems to have taken a particular dislike to Henry Wheaton. Elsewhere, he writes to Post: "There is but one opinion about Wheaton, and that is that he is a pitiful scoundrel."--_Ibid._, p. 417.]

Meanwhile, a sensation long foreseen by those in the Governor's inner circle, was about to be sprung. Yates was not a man to be rudely thrust out of office. He knew he had blundered in opposing an electoral law, and he now proposed giving the Legislature another opportunity to enact one. The Regency did not believe there would be an extra session, because, as Attorney-General Talcott suggested, the power to convene the Legislature was a high prerogative, the exercise of which required more decision and nerve than Yates possessed; but, on the 2nd of June, to the surprise and consternation of the Van Buren leaders, Yates issued a proclamation reconvening the Legislature on August 2. It was predicated upon the failure of Congress to amend the Const.i.tution, upon the recent defeat of the electoral bill in the Senate, and upon the just alarm of the people, that "their undoubted right" of choosing presidential electors would be withheld from them.

Very likely, it afforded the Governor much satisfaction to make this open and damaging attack upon the Regency. He had surrendered independence if not self-respect, and, in return for his fidelity, had been ruthlessly cast aside for his less faithful rival. Yet his purpose was more than revenge. Between the Clintonian prejudice against Tallmadge, and the People's party's hatred of Clinton, the Governor hoped he might become a compromise candidate at the Utica convention. The future, however, had no place for him. He was ridiculed the more by his enemies and dropped into the pit of oblivion by his former friends. Nothing in his public life, perhaps, became him so well as his dignified retirement at Schenectady, amid the scenes of his youth, where he died at the age of sixty-nine, leaving a place in history not strongly marked.

Yates' extra session lasted four days and did nothing except to snub the Governor and give the eloquent Tallmadge, amidst tumultuous applause from the galleries, an opportunity of annoying the Regency by keeping up the popular excitement over a change in the choice of electors until the a.s.sembling of the Utica convention. As the days pa.s.sed, the sentiment for Clinton became stronger and more apparent.

Thurlow Weed, travelling over the State in the interest of Tallmadge, found Clinton's nomination almost universally demanded, with Tallmadge a favourite for second place. This, the eloquent gentleman peremptorily refused, until an appeal for harmony, and the suggestion that Adams' election might open to him a broader field for usefulness than that of being governor, produced the desired change. Probably Tallmadge felt within himself that he was not destined to a great political career. In any case, he finally accepted the offer with perfect good humour, giving Weed a brief letter consenting to the use of his name as lieutenant-governor. With this the young journalist arrived at Utica on the morning of convention day.

There were one hundred and twenty-two delegates in the convention, of whom one-fourth belonged to the People's party. These supported Tallmadge for governor. When they discovered that Tallmadge's vote to remove Clinton had put him out of the race, they suggested John W.

Taylor; but a delegate from Saratoga produced a letter in which the distinguished opponent of the Missouri Compromise declined to become a candidate. This left the way open to DeWitt Clinton, and, as he carried off the nomination by a large majority, with Tallmadge for lieutenant-governor by acclamation, many representatives of the People's party walked out of the hall and reorganised another convention, resolving to support Tallmadge, but protesting against the nomination of Clinton--"a diversion," says Weed, "which was soon forgotten amid the general and pervading enthusiasm."[233]

[Footnote 233: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 120.]

The election of governor in 1824 pa.s.sed into history as one of the most stirring ever witnessed in the State. In a fight, Samuel Young and DeWitt Clinton were at home. They neither asked nor gave quarter.

There is no record that their fluency or invective did more than add to the excitement of the campaign; but each was well supplied with ready venom. Young was rhetorical and dramatic--Clinton energetic and forceful. People, listening to Young, rocked with laughter and revelled in applause as he pilloried his opponents, the ferocity of his attacks being surpa.s.sed only by the eloquence of his periods. With Clinton, speaking was serious business. He lacked the oratorical gift and the art of concealing the labour of his overwrought and too elaborate sentences; but his addresses afforded ample evidence of the capacity and richness of his mind. In spite of great faults, both candidates commanded the loyalty of followers who swelled with pride because of their courage and splendid ability. The confidence of the Regency and the usual success of Tammany at first made the friends of Clinton unhappy; but as the campaign advanced, Young discovered that the Regency, in insisting on the choice of electors by the Legislature, had given the opposition the most telling cry it could possibly have found against him; that the popular tumult over Clinton's removal was growing from day to day; and that his opponents were banded together against him on many grounds and with many different purposes. Two weeks before the election, it was evident to every one that the Regency was doomed, that Van Buren was disconcerted, and that Young was beaten; but no one expected that Clinton's majority would reach sixteen thousand,[234] or that Tallmadge would run thirty-two thousand ahead of Erastus Root. The announcement came like a thunderbolt, bringing with it the intelligence that out of eight senators only two Regency men had been spared, while, in the a.s.sembly, the opposition had three to one. In other words, the election of 1822 had been completely reversed.

Clinton was again in the saddle.

[Footnote 234: DeWitt Clinton, 103,452; Samuel Young, 87,093.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

Samuel Young's political fortunes never recovered from this encounter with the ill.u.s.trious champion of the ca.n.a.ls. He was much in office afterward. For eight years he served in the State Senate, and once as lieutenant-governor; for a quarter of a century he lived on, a marvellous orator, whom the people never tired of hearing, and whom opponents never ceased to fear; but the glow that lingers about a public man who had never been overwhelmed by the suffrage of his fellow-citizens was gone forever.

CHAPTER x.x.x

VAN BUREN ENCOUNTERS WEED

1824

Political interest, in 1824, centred in the election of a President as well as a Governor. Three candidates,--William H. Crawford of Georgia, John Quincy Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts, and Henry Clay of Kentucky,--divided the parties in New York. No one thought of DeWitt Clinton. Very likely, after his overwhelming election, Clinton, in his joy, felt his ambition again aroused. He had been inoculated with presidential rabies in 1812, and his letters to Henry Post showed signs of continued madness. "I think Crawford is _hors de combat_," he wrote in March, 1824. "Calhoun never had force, and Clay is equally out of the question. As for Adams, he can only succeed by the imbecility of his opponents, not by his own strength. In this crisis may not some other person bear away the palm?"[235] Then follows the historic ill.u.s.tration, indicating that the ca.n.a.l champion thought he might become a compromise candidate: "Do you recollect the story of Themistocles the Athenian? After the naval victory of Salamis a council of generals was held to determine on the most worthy. Each man was to write down two names, the first and the next best. Each general wrote his own name for the first, and that of Themistocles for the second. May not this contest have a similar result? I am persuaded that with common prudence we will stand better than ever."[236]

[Footnote 235: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 568.]

[Footnote 236: _Ibid._, Vol. 50, p. 586.]

But the field was preoccupied and the compet.i.tors too numerous. So, getting no encouragement, Clinton turned to the hero of New Orleans.

"In Jackson," he wrote Post, "we must look for a sincere and honest friend. Whatever demonstrations are made from other quarters are dictated by policy and public sentiment."[237] He grows impatient with Clay, indignant at the apparent success of Adams, and vituperative over the tactics of Calhoun. "Clay ought to resign forthwith," he writes on the 17th of April, 1824; "his chance is worse than nothing.

Jackson would then prevail with all the Western States, if we can get New Jersey."[238] Four days later he was sure of New Jersey. "We can get her," he a.s.sures Post, on April 21. "I see no terrors in Adams'

papers; his influence has gone with his morals."[239]

[Footnote 237: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 568.]

[Footnote 238: _Ibid._, p. 568.]

[Footnote 239: _Ibid._, p. 569.]

But by midsummer Clinton had become alarmed at the action of the candidate from South Carolina. "Calhoun is acting a treacherous part to Jackson," he says, under date of July 23, "and is doing all he can for Adams. Perhaps there is not a man in the United States more hollow-headed and base. I have long observed his manoeuvres."[240] A week later Clinton speaks of Calhoun as "a thorough-paced political blackleg."[241] In August he gives Adams another slap. "The great danger is that there will be a quarrel between the friends of Jackson and Adams, and that in the war between the lion and the unicorn the cur may slip in and carry off the prize."[242]

[Footnote 240: _Ibid._, p. 569.]

[Footnote 241: _Ibid._, p. 569.]

[Footnote 242: _Ibid._, p. 569.

"Clinton's presidential aspirations made him a very censorious judge of all who did not sympathise with them. The four competing candidates, Crawford, Clay, Calhoun, and Adams, could hardly be paralleled, Clinton being judge, by an equal number of the twelve Caesars of Suetonius. Crawford is 'as hardened a ruffian as Burr'; Calhoun is 'treacherous', and 'a thorough-paced political blackleg.'

Adams 'in politics was an apostate, and in private life a pedagogue, and everything but amiable and honest', while his father, the ex-President, was 'a scamp.' Governor Yates is 'perfidious and weak.'

Henry Wheaton's 'conduct is shamefully disgraceful, and he might be lashed naked round the world.' Chief Justice Ambrose Spencer is cla.s.sed as a minus quant.i.ty, and his son John C., 'the political millstone of the West.' Peter B. Porter 'wears a mask.' Woodworth 'is a weak man, with sinister purposes.' Root is 'a bad man.' Samuel Young 'is unpopular and suspicions are entertained of his integrity.' Van Buren 'is the prince of villains.' The first impression produced is one of astonishment that a man capable of such great things could ever have taken such a lively interest, as he seemed to, in the mere scullionery of politics."--John Bigelow, in _Harper's Magazine_, March, 1875.]

Though Clinton and Jackson had long been admirers, there is no evidence that, at this time, so much as a letter had pa.s.sed between them. One can easily understand, however, that a man of the iron will and great achievement of the Tennesseean would profoundly interest DeWitt Clinton. On the other hand, the proud, aspiring, unpliant man whose ca.n.a.l policy brought national renown, had won the admiration of Andrew Jackson. In 1818, at a Nashville banquet, he had toasted Clinton, declaring him "the promoter of his country's best interests;"

and one year later, at a dinner given in his honour by the mayor of New York, Jackson confounded most of the Bucktail banqueters and surprised them all by proposing "DeWitt Clinton, the enlightened statesman and governor of the great and patriotic State of New York."

The two men had many characteristics in common. Neither would stoop to conquer. But the dramatic thing about Clinton's interest just now, was his proclamation for Jackson, when everybody else in New York was for some other candidate. The bitterness of that hour was very earnest.

Whatever chance existed for Jackson outside of the State, there was not the slightest hope for him within it. Nevertheless, Clinton seemed indifferent. He was a statesman without being a politician. He believed in Jackson's star, and it was this prescience, as the sequel showed, that was to give him, in spite of opponents, a sixth term as governor.

Clinton's resume of the political situation, written to Post, also showed his unfailing knowledge of the conditions about to be enacted at Albany. The Legislature which a.s.sembled in extra session, in November, 1824, for the appointment of presidential electors, was the same a.s.sembly that had favoured the choice of electors by the people, and the same Senate which had indefinitely postponed that measure by a vote of seventeen to fourteen. The former struggle, therefore, was immediately renewed in the legislative halls, with Martin Van Buren confident of seventeen Crawford votes in the Senate, and enough more in the a.s.sembly, with the help of the Clay men, to give the Georgian a majority on joint ballot.

The Adams men had less confidence, but no less shrewdness and skill. A new Richmond had arrived on the field. Since his visitation through the State two years before, in behalf of Solomon Southwick's candidacy for governor, Thurlow Weed had been growing rapidly in political experience. He left Manlius without a penny in the autumn of 1822 to find work on the Rochester _Telegraph_, a Clintonian paper of small pretensions and smaller circulation. Under its new manager, and with the name of John Quincy Adams for President at the head of the editorial page, it soon became so popular and belligerent that the business men of Rochester sent Weed to Albany as their agent to secure from the Legislature a charter for a bank. Upon his arrival at the capital, the friends of the New England candidate welcomed him to the great political arena in which he was to fight so long, so brilliantly, and with such success.

It was at this period in his history, that Thurlow Weed's connection with public life began, developing into that wonderful career which made him one of the most influential writers and strongest personalities of his day. He was not an orator; he was not even a public talker. One attempt to speak met with failure so embarra.s.sing that he never tried a second time; but he was a companionable being.

He loved the company of men. He had suffered so much, and yet retained so much of the serenity of a child, that he was ever ready to share his purse and his mantle of pity with the unfortunate, brightening their lives with a tender sympathy that endeared him to all. It was so natural for him to guide wisely and noiselessly that he seemed unconscious of his great gifts. Men in high places, often opulent and happy in their ease, deferred to him with the confidence of pupils to a beloved teacher. But he possessed more than philosophic wisdom. He was sleepless and tireless. It was his custom to attend political gatherings in all parts of the State, and to make the acquaintance of men in that "inner circle," who controlled the affairs of party and the destiny of aspiring statesmen. In 1822 he had toured the State in the interest of Solomon Southwick. From April to December, in 1824, he attended two extra sessions of the Legislature and a meeting of the Electoral College, besides travelling twice throughout the State in behalf of the candidacy of John Quincy Adams. Traversing New York, over rough roads, before the days of ca.n.a.ls and railroads, in the heavy, lumbering stage coach that took five or six days and nights, and, in muddy seasons, six days and seven nights of continuous travel, to go from Albany to Buffalo, made a strenuous life, but Weed's devotion to party, and fidelity to men and principles, sent him on his way with something of the freshness of boyhood still shining on his face. He had his faults, but they were not of a kind to prevent men from finding him lovable.

When Weed came to Albany, in November, 1824, as the advocate of John Quincy Adams, the only hope of success was the union of the friends of Clay and Adams, since only two electoral tickets, under the Const.i.tution, could be voted for. In the Senate, Crawford had seventeen votes, and Adams and Clay seven each; in the a.s.sembly, the first ballot gave Crawford forty-three, Adams fifty, and Clay thirty-two. Until some combination was made, therefore, a majority could not be obtained for any candidate. To make such an union required fine diplomacy between the Adams and Clay men; for it appeared that Clay must have at least seven electoral votes from New York in order to become one of the three candidates to be voted for in the House of Representatives, should the election of President be thrown into Congress. Fortunately for the Adams men, the Crawford people also had their troubles, and to hold two senators in line they placed the names of six moderate Clay men on their ticket. Thereupon, at a secret meeting, the Adams and Clay leaders agreed to support thirty Adams men and the six Clay men upon the Crawford ticket, the friends of Adams promising, if Clay carried Louisiana, to furnish him the needed seven votes. Naturally enough, the success of this programme depended upon the utmost secrecy, since their ticket, with the help of all the Clay votes that could be mustered, would not exceed two majority. The better to secure such secrecy Weed personally printed the ballots on the Sunday before the final vote on Tuesday.

There was another well-kept secret. Thurlow Weed had had his suspicions turned into absolute evidence that Henry Eckford of New York City, a wealthy supporter of Crawford, had furnished money to influence three Adams men to vote for the Georgian. He had followed their go-between from Syracuse to Albany, from Albany to New York, and from New York back to Albany; he had heard their renunciation of Adams and their changed sentiments toward Crawford; and he knew also that the Adams ticket was lost if these three votes, or even two of them, were cast for the Crawford ticket. Weed straightway proposed that the dishonourable purposes of these men should be antic.i.p.ated by an immediate declaration of war; and, upon their appearance in Albany, Henry Wheaton faced them with the story of their dishonour, threatening an exposure unless they voted a ballot bearing the initials of himself and Tallmadge. Conscious of their guilty purposes, the timid souls consented to Wheaton's proposition and then kept their pledges.

In the meantime, Van Buren's confidence in the weakness of the Adams-Clay men was never for a moment shaken. Of the thirty-nine Clay supporters in the Legislature, Crawford only needed sixteen; and these, Samuel Young and his Clay friends, had promised to deliver.

There is no evidence that Van Buren had any knowledge of Weed's management at this time; it so happened, by design or by accident, that in their long careers they never met but once, and then, not until after Van Buren had retired from the White House. But the Senator knew that some hand had struck him, and struck him hard, when Lieutenant-Governor Root drew from the box the first union ballot.

Instead of reading it, Root involuntarily exclaimed, "A printed split ticket." Thereupon Senator Keyes of Jefferson County, sprang to his feet, and, in a loud voice, shouted, "Treason, by G.o.d!" In the confusion, Root was about to vacate the speaker's chair and return with the senators to their chamber, when James Tallmadge, in a stentorian voice, called for order. "I demand, under the authority of the Const.i.tution of the United States," he said, "under the Const.i.tution of the State of New York, in the name of the whole American people, that this joint meeting of the two houses of the Legislature shall not be interrupted in the discharge of a high duty and a sacred trust."[243] This settled it. The count went on, but, so nearly were the parties divided that only thirty-two electors, and these on the union ticket, received votes enough to elect them. On the second ballot, four Crawford electors were chosen. "Had our secret transpired before the first ballot," says Weed, "such was the power of the Regency over two or three timid men, that the whole Crawford ticket would have been elected."[244]

[Footnote 243: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 127.]

[Footnote 244: _Ibid._, p. 127.]

Writing without full information of the agreement made in the secret caucus, Hammond[245] intimates that the Adams men did not keep faith with the Clay men, since the four votes taken from Clay and given to Crawford on the second ballot made Crawford, instead of Clay, a candidate in the national House of Representatives. Other writers have followed this opinion, charging the Adams managers with having played foul with the Kentucky statesman. But Weed and his a.s.sociates did nothing of the kind. The agreement was that Clay should have seven electoral votes from New York, provided he carried Louisiana, but as Jackson carried that State, it left the Adams men free to give all their votes to the New Englander. What would have happened had Clay carried Louisiana is not so clear, for Weed admits that up to the time news came that Louisiana had gone for Jackson, he was unable to find a single Adams elector who would consent to vote for Clay, even to save his friends and his party from dishonour.

[Footnote 245: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, p.

177.]

The failure of the people to elect a President in 1824, and the choice of John Quincy Adams by the House of Representatives, are among the most widely known events in our political history. New York remained, throughout, the storm-centre of excitement. After a large majority of its presidential electors had declared for Adams, thus throwing the election into Congress, the result still depended upon the vote of its closely divided delegation in the House. Of the thirty-four congressmen, seventeen favoured Adams, sixteen opposed him, and Stephen Van Rensselaer was doubtful. The latter's action, therefore, became of the utmost importance, since, if he voted against Adams, it would tie the New York delegation and exclude it from the count, thus giving Adams twelve States instead of the necessary thirteen, and making his election on a second ballot even more doubtful. This condition revived the hopes of Van Buren and gave Clinton a chance to work for Jackson.

Stephen Van Rensselaer,[246] born in 1764, had had a conspicuous and in some respects a distinguished career. He was the fifth in lineal descent from Killian van Rensselaer, the wealthy pearl merchant of Amsterdam, known as the first Patroon, whose great manor, purchased in the early part of the seventeenth century, originally included the present counties of Albany, Rensselaer, and Columbia. Stephen inherited the larger part of this territory, and, with it, the old manor house at Albany. His mother was a daughter of Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his wife a daughter of Philip Schuyler. This made him the brother-in-law of Alexander Hamilton.

[Footnote 246: Thurlow Weed, in his _Autobiography_, says (p. 461): "Of his estimable private character, and of the bounties and blessings he scattered in all directions, or of the pervading atmosphere of happiness and grat.i.tude that his lifelong goodness created, I need not speak, for they are widely known and well remembered."]

Stephen began filling offices as soon as he was old enough. For several years he served in the a.s.sembly and in the Senate. In 1795, he became lieutenant-governor for two terms. George Clinton defeated him for governor in 1801; but before Jay's term expired, he made him commander of the State's cavalry. In 1812, at the outbreak of hostilities with England, Governor Tompkins promoted him to be chief of the state militia--an office which he resigned in disgust after the disgraceful defeat at Queenstown Heights on the Niagara frontier, because his troops refused to follow him. In 1810, he became a member of the first ca.n.a.l commission, of which he was president for fifteen years. Later, he served as a regent and chancellor of the State University, and, in 1824, established the Troy Polytechnical Inst.i.tute. It was at this time he went to Congress, and while serving his first term, held the casting vote that would elect a President of the United States.

Rensselaer had been a Federalist of the Hamilton school, and, although the Federal party had practically ceased to exist, he owed his election to its former members. This was sufficient reason to believe that he would not support Van Buren's candidate, and that his predilections would incline him to take a President from the North, provided Adams was _persona grata_ to the old Federalists. The latter had never quite forgiven Adams for deserting them; and, having been long excluded from power, they were anxious to know whether, if elected, he would continue to proscribe them. Finally, when Daniel Webster removed their doubts on this subject, Van Rensselaer still hesitated on account of Clinton. He had a strong liking for the Governor. They had served as ca.n.a.l commissioners, and their a.s.sociation in the great work, then nearing completion, filled him with admiration for the indomitable spirit exhibited by the distinguished ca.n.a.l builder. His probable action, therefore, kept men busy guessing. The suspense resembled that of the Tilden Hayes controversy of 1877, for the result meant much to the several factions in the State. Crawford's election would continue Van Buren and the Regency in power; the choice of Jackson must make Clinton the supreme dispenser of federal patronage; and Adams' success meant a better opportunity for Thurlow Weed to form a new party.