A Political History of the State of New York Volume II Part 17

"Twenty millions of a moral people, politically dedicated to Liberty, are asking themselves whether their government shall be administered solely in the interest of three hundred and fifty thousand slave-holders." He did not believe that these millions would dissolve the Union in the interest of these thousands. "I see a rising enthusiasm," he said, in closing; "but enthusiasm is not an election; and I hear cheers from the heart, but cheers are not voters. Every man must labour with his neighbour--in the street, at the plough, at the bench, early and late, at home and abroad. Generally we are concerned in elections with the measures of government. This time it is with the essential principle of government itself."[493]

[Footnote 493: _Ibid._, August 16, 1856.]

The result of the election was not a surprise. Fremont's loss of Pennsylvania and Indiana had been foreshadowed in October, making his defeat inevitable, but the Republican victory in New York was more sweeping than the leaders had antic.i.p.ated, Fremont securing a majority of 80,000 over Buchanan, and John A. King 65,000 over Amasa J.

Parker.[494] The average vote was as follows: Republican, 266,328; Democrat, 197,172; Know-Nothing, 129,750. West and north of Albany, every congressman and nearly every a.s.semblyman was a Republican.

Reuben E. Fenton, who had been beaten for Congress in 1854 by 1676 votes, was now elected by 8000 over the same opponent. The a.s.sembly stood 82 Republicans, 37 Democrats, and 8 Know-Nothings. In the country at large, Buchanan obtained 174 electoral votes out of 296, but he failed to receive a majority of the popular vote, leaving the vanquished more hopeful and not less cheerful than the victors.

Fillmore received the electoral vote of Maryland and a popular vote of 874,534, nearly one-half as many as Buchanan and two-thirds as many as Fremont. In other words, he had divided the vote of the North, making it possible for Buchanan to carry Pennsylvania and Indiana.

[Footnote 494: John A. King, 264,400; Amasa J. Parker, 198,616; Erastus Brooks, 130,870.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p.

166.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT

1857-1858

It was the duty of the Legislature of 1857 to elect a successor to Hamilton Fish, whose term as United States senator expired on the 4th of March. Fish had not been a conspicuous member of the Senate; but his great wisdom brought him large influence at a time when slavery strained the courtesy of that body. He was of a most gracious and sweet nature, and, although he never flinched from uttering or maintaining his opinions, he was a lover and maker of peace. In his _Autobiography of Seventy Years_, Senator h.o.a.r speaks of him as the only man of high character and great ability among the leaders of the Republican party, except President Grant, who retained the friendship of Roscoe Conkling.

The contest over the senatorship brought into notice a disposition among Republicans of Democratic antecedents not to act in perfect accord with Thurlow Weed, a danger that leading Whigs had antic.i.p.ated at the formation of the party. Weed's management had been disliked by anti-slavery Democrats as much as it had been distrusted by a portion of the Whig party, and, although political a.s.sociations now brought them under one roof, they did not accept him as a guiding or controlling spirit. This disposition manifested itself at the state convention in the preceding September; and to allay any bitterness of feeling which the nomination of John A. King might occasion, it was provided that, in the event of success, the senator should be of Democratic antecedents. The finger of fate then pointed to Preston King. He had resisted the aggressions of the slave power, and in the formation of the Republican party his fearless fidelity to its cornerstone principle made him doubly welcome in council; but when the Legislature met, other aspirants appeared, prominent among whom were Ward Hunt, James S. Wadsworth, and David Dudley Field.

Hunt, who was destined to occupy a place on the Court of Appeals, and, subsequently, on the Supreme Court of the United States, had taken little interest in politics. He belonged to the Democratic party, and, in 1839, had served one term in the a.s.sembly; but his consistent devotion to Free-soilism, and his just and almost prescient appreciation of the true principles of the Republican party, gave him great prominence in the ranks of the young organisation and created a strong desire to send him to the United States Senate. Hunt was anxious and Wadsworth active. The latter's supporters, standing for him as their candidate for governor, had forced the agreement of the year before, and they now demanded that he become senator; but in the interest of harmony, both finally withdrew in favour of David Dudley Field.

The inspiration of an historic name did not yet belong to the Field family. The projector of the Atlantic cable, the future justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the eminent New York editor, had not taken their places among the most gifted of the land, but David Dudley's activity in the Free-soil contests had made him as conspicuous a member of the new party as his celebrated Code of Civil Procedure, pa.s.sed by the Legislature of 1848, had distinguished him in his profession. Promotion did not move his way, however. Thurlow Weed insisted upon Preston King. It is likely the Albany editor had not forgotten that Field, acting for George Opd.y.k.e, a millionaire client, had sued him for libel, and that, although the jury disagreed, the exciting trial had crowded the courtroom for nineteen days and cost seventeen thousand dollars; but Weed did not appeal to Field's record, since he claimed the agreement at the state convention included John A. King for governor and Preston King for senator, and to avoid controversy he adroitly consented to leave the matter to Republican legislators of Democratic antecedents, who decided in favour of King.

This ended the contest, the caucus giving King 65 votes and Hunt 17.

In 1857, events gave the Republican party little encouragement in New York. Public interest in Kansas had largely died out, and, although the Dred Scott decision, holding inferentially that the Const.i.tution carried with it the right and power to hold slaves everywhere, had startled the nation, leading press, pulpit, and public meetings to denounce it as a blow at the rights of States and to the rights of man, yet the Democrats carried the State in November, electing Gideon J. Tucker secretary of state, Sanford E. Church comptroller, Lyman Tremaine attorney-general, and Hiram Denio to the Court of Appeals. It was not a decisive victory. The Know-Nothings, who held the balance of power, involuntarily contributed a large portion of their strength to the Democratic party, giving it an aggregate vote of 194,000 to 175,000 for the Republicans, and reducing the vote of James O. Putnam, of Buffalo, the popular American candidate for secretary of state, to less than 67,000, or one-half the number polled in the preceding year.

Other causes contributed to the apparent decrease of Republican strength. The financial disturbance of 1857 appeared with great suddenness in August. There had been fluctuations in prices, with a general downward tendency, but when the crisis came it was a surprise to many of the most watchful financiers. Industry and commerce were less affected than in 1837, but the failures, representing a larger amount of capital than those of any other year in the history of the country up to 1893, astonished the people, a.s.sociating in the public mind the Democratic charge of Republican extravagance with the general cry of hard times.

But whatever the cause of defeat, the outlook for the Republicans again brightened when Stephen A. Douglas opposed President Buchanan's Lecompton policy. The Kansas Lecompton Const.i.tution was the work of a rump convention controlled by pro-slavery delegates who declared that "the right of property is before and higher than any const.i.tutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever." To secure its approval by the people it was ingeniously arranged that the vote taken in December, 1857, should be "for the const.i.tution with slavery" or "for the const.i.tution without slavery,"

so that in any event the const.i.tution, with its objectionable section, would become the organic law. This shallow scheme, hatched in the South to fix slavery upon a territory that had already declared for freedom by several thousand majority, obtained the support of the President. Douglas immediately p.r.o.nounced it "a trick" and "a fraud upon the rights of the people."[495] The breach between the Illinois Senator and the Administration thus became complete.

[Footnote 495: This debate occurred December 22, 1857.]

Meantime, the governor of Kansas convened the territorial legislature in an extra session, which provided for a second election in January, 1858. The December election had stood: for the const.i.tution with slavery, 6226; for the const.i.tution without slavery, 569. Of these 2720 were subsequently shown to be fraudulent. The January election stood: for the const.i.tution with slavery, 138; for the const.i.tution without slavery, 24; against the const.i.tution, 10,226. The President, accepting the "trick election," as Douglas called it, in which the free-state men declined to partic.i.p.ate, forwarded a copy of the const.i.tution to Congress, and, in spite of Douglas, it pa.s.sed the Senate. An amendment in the House returned it to the people with the promise, if accepted, of a large grant of government land; but the electors spurned the bribe--the free-state men, at a third election held on August 2, 1858, rejecting the const.i.tution by 11,000 out of 13,000 votes.

This ended the Lecompton episode, but it was destined to leave a breach in the ranks of the Democrats big with consequences. Stephen A. Douglas was now the best known and most popular man in the North, and his popular sovereignty doctrine, as applied to the Lecompton Const.i.tution, seemed so certain of settling the slavery question in the interest of freedom that leading Republicans of New York, notably Henry J. Raymond and Horace Greeley, not only favoured the return of Douglas to the Senate unopposed by their own party, but seriously considered the union of Douglas Democrats and Republicans. It was even suggested that Douglas become the Republican candidate for President.

This would head off Seward and please Greeley, whose predilection for an "available" candidate was only equalled by his growing distrust of the New York Senator. The unanimous nomination of Abraham Lincoln for United States senator and his great debate with Douglas, disclosing the incompatibility between Douglasism and Republicanism, abruptly ended this plan; but the plausible a.s.sumption that the inhabitants of a territory had a natural right to establish, as well as prohibit, slavery had made such a profound impression upon Northern Democrats that they did not hesitate to approve the Douglas doctrine regardless of its unpopularity in the South.

In the summer of 1858, candidates for governor were nominated in New York. The Republican convention, convened at Syracuse on the 8th of September, like its predecessor in 1856, was divided into Weed and anti-Weed delegates. The latter, composed of Know-Nothings, Radicals of Democratic antecedents, and remnants of the prohibition party, wanted Timothy Jenkins for governor. Jenkins was a very skilful political organiser. He had served Oneida County as district attorney and for six years in Congress, and he now had the united support of many men who, although without special influence, made a very formidable showing. But Weed was not looking in that direction. His earliest choice was Simeon Draper of New York City, whom he had thrust aside two years before, and when sudden financial embarra.s.sment rendered Draper unavailable, he encouraged the candidacy of James H.

Cook of Saratoga until Jenkins' strength alarmed him. Then he took up Edwin D. Morgan, and for the first time became a delegate to a state convention.

Weed found a noisy company at Syracuse. Horace Greeley as usual was in a receptive mood. The friends of George Patterson thought it time for his promotion. Alexander S. Diven of Elmira, a state senator and forceful speaker, who subsequently served one term in Congress, had several active, influential backers, while John A. King's friends feebly resisted his retirement. The bulk of the Americans opposed Edwin D. Morgan because of his broad sympathies with foreign-born citizens; but Weed clung to him, and on the first ballot he received 116 of the 254 votes. Jenkins got 51 and Greeley 3. On the next ballot one of Greeley's votes went to Jenkins, who received 52 to 165 for Morgan. Robert Campbell of Steuben was then nominated for lieutenant-governor by acclamation and Seward's senatorial course unqualifiedly indorsed.

Edwin D. Morgan was in his forty-eighth year. He had been alderman, merchant, and railroad president; for four years in the early fifties he served as a state senator; more recently, he had acted as chairman of the Republican state committee and of the Republican national convention. Weed did not have Morgan's wise, courageous course as war governor, Union general, and United States senator to guide him, but he knew that his personal character was of the highest, his public life without stain, and that he had wielded the power of absolute disinterestedness. Morgan was a fine specimen of manhood. He stood perfectly erect, with well poised head, his large, l.u.s.trous eyes inviting confidence; and the urbanity of his manner softening the answers that showed he possessed a mind of his own. No man among his contemporaries had a larger number of devoted friends. He was a New Englander by birth. More than one person of his name and blood in Connecticut was noted for public spirit, but none developed greater courage, or evidenced equal sagacity and efficiency.

For several weeks before the convention, the Americans talked of a fusion ticket with the Republicans, and to encourage the plan both state conventions met at the same time and place. In sentiment they were in substantial accord, and men like Washington Hunt, the former governor, and James O. Putnam, hoped for union. Hunt had declined to join the Republican party at its formation, and, in 1856, had followed Fillmore into the ranks of the Americans; but their division in 1857 disgusted him, and, with Putnam and many others, he was now favourable to a fusion of the two parties. After conferring for two days, however, the Republicans made the mistake of nominating candidates for governor and lieutenant-governor before agreeing upon a division of the offices, at which the Americans took offence and put up a separate ticket, with Lorenzo Burrows for governor. Burrows was a man of considerable force of character, a native of Connecticut, and a resident of Albion. He had served four years in Congress as a Whig, and in 1855 was elected state comptroller as a Know-Nothing.

The failure of the fusionists greatly pleased the Democrats, who, in spite of the bitter contest for seats in the New York City delegation, exhibited confidence and some enthusiasm at their state convention on September 15. The Softs, led by Daniel E. Sickles, represented Tammany; the Hards, marshalled by Fernando Wood, were known as the custom-house delegation. In 1857, the city delegates had been evenly divided between the two factions; but this year the Softs, confident of their strength, insisted upon having their entire delegation seated, and, on a motion to make Horatio Seymour temporary chairman, they proved their control by a vote of 54 to 35. The admission of Tammany drew a violent protest from Fernando Wood and his delegates, who then left the convention in a body amidst a storm of hisses and cheers.

A strong disposition existed to nominate Seymour for governor. Having been thrice a candidate and once elected, however, he peremptorily declined to stand. This left the way open to Amasa J. Parker, an exceptionally strong candidate, but one who had led the ticket to defeat in 1856. John J. Taylor of Oswego, whose congressional career had been limited to a single term because of his vote for the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854, became the nominee for lieutenant-governor by acclamation. In its platform, the convention very cunningly resolved that it was "content" to have the American people judge President Buchanan's administration by its acts, and that it "hailed with satisfaction" the fact that the people of Kansas had settled the Lecompton question by practically making the territory a free State.

Thus Parker stood for Buchanan and popular sovereignty, while the Republicans denounced the Lecompton trick as a wicked scheme to subvert popular sovereignty. It was a sharp issue. The whole power of the Administration had been invoked to carry out the Lecompton plan, and New York congressmen were compelled to support it or be cast aside. But in their speeches, Parker and his supporters sought to minimise the President's part and to magnify the Douglas doctrine. It was an easy and plausible way of settling the slavery question, and one which commended itself to those who wished it settled by the Democratic party. John Van Buren's use of it recalled something of the influence and power that attended his speeches in the Free-soil campaign of 1848. Since that day he had been on too many sides, perhaps, to command the hearty respect of any, but he loved fair play, which the Lecompton scheme had outraged, and the application of the doctrine that seemed to have brought peace and a free State to the people appealed to him as a correct principle of government that must make for good. He presented it in the clear, impa.s.sioned style for which he was so justly noted. His speeches contained much that did not belong in the remarks of a statesman; but, upon the question of popular sovereignty, as ill.u.s.trated in Kansas, John Van Buren prepared the way in New York for the candidacy and coming of Douglas in 1860.

Roscoe Conkling, now for the first time a candidate for Congress, exhibited something of the dexterity and ability that characterised his subsequent career. The public, friends and foes, did not yet judge him by a few striking and picturesque qualities, for his vanity, imperiousness, and power to hate had not yet matured, but already he was a close student of political history, and of great capacity as an orator. The intense earnestness of purpose, the marvellous power of rapidly absorbing knowledge, the quickness of wit, and the firmness which Cato never surpa.s.sed, marked him then, as afterward upon the floor of Congress, a mighty power amidst great antagonists. Perhaps his anger was not so quickly excited, nor the shafts of his sarcasm so barbed and cruel, but his speeches--dramatic, rhetorical, with the ever-present, withering sneer--were rapidly advancing him to leadership in central New York. A quick glance at his tall, graceful form, capacious chest, and ma.s.sive head, removed him from the cla.s.s of ordinary persons. Towering above his fellows, he looked the patrician.

It was known, too, that he had muscle as well as brains. Indeed, his nomination to Congress had been influenced somewhat by the recent a.s.sault on Charles Sumner. "Preston Brooks won't hurt him," said the leader of the Fifth Ward, in Utica.[496]

[Footnote 496: Alfred R. Conkling, _Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling_, p. 77.]

The keynote of the campaign, however, was not spoken until Seward made his historic speech at Rochester on October 25. The October success in Pennsylvania had thrilled the Republicans; and the New York election promised a victory like that of 1856. Whatever advantage could be gained by past events and future expectations was now Seward's.

Lincoln's famous declaration, "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," had been uttered in June, and his joint debate with Douglas, concluded on October 15, had cleared the political atmosphere, making it plain that popular sovereignty was not the pathway for Republicans to follow. Seward's utterance, therefore, was to be the last word in the campaign.

It was not entirely clear just what this utterance would be. Seward had shown much independence of late. In the preceding February his course on the army bill caused severe comment. Because of difficulties with the Mormons in Utah it was proposed to increase the army; but Republicans objected, believing the additional force would be improperly used in Kansas. Seward, however, spoke and voted for the bill. "He is perfectly bedevilled," wrote Senator Fessenden; "he thinks himself wiser than all of us."[497] Later, in March, he caught something of the popular-sovereignty idea--enough, at least, to draw a mild protest from Salmon P. Chase. "I regretted," he wrote, "the apparent countenance you gave to the idea that the Douglas doctrine of popular sovereignty will do for us to stand upon for the present."[498] Seward did not go so far as Greeley and Raymond, but his expressions indicated that States were to be admitted with or without slavery as the people themselves decided. Before, he had insisted that Congress had the right to make conditions; now, his willingness cheerfully to co-operate with Douglas and other "new defenders of the sacred cause in Kansas" seemed to favour a new combination, if not a new party. In other words, Seward had been feeling his way until it aroused a faint suspicion that he was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g to catch the moderate element of his party. If he had had any thought of harmony of feeling between Douglas and the Republicans, however, the Lincoln debate compelled him to abandon it, and in his speech of October 25 he confined himself to the discussion of the two radically different political systems that divided the North and the South.

[Footnote 497: James S. Pike, _First Blows of the Civil War_, p. 379.]

[Footnote 498: Warden, _Life of Chase_, p. 343.]

The increase in population and in better facilities for internal communication, he declared, had rapidly brought these two systems into close contact, and collision was the result. "Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labour nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labour, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Ma.s.sachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men."[499]

[Footnote 499: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 351.]

It was one of the most impressive and commanding speeches that had ever come from his eloquent lips, but there was nothing new in it. As early as 1848 he had made the antagonism between freedom and slavery the leading feature of a speech that attracted much attention at the time, and in 1856 he spoke of "an ancient and eternal conflict between two entirely antagonistic systems of human labour." Indeed, for ten years, in company with other distinguished speakers, he had been ringing the changes on this same idea. Only four months before, Lincoln had proclaimed that "A house divided against itself cannot stand."[500] Yet no one had given special attention to it. But now the two words, "irrepressible conflict," seemed to sum up the antipathy between the two systems, and to alarm men into a realisation of the real and perhaps the immediate danger that confronted them.

"Hitherto," says Frederick W. Seward in the biography of his father, "while it was accepted and believed by those who followed his political teachings, among his opponents it had fallen upon unheeding ears and incredulous minds. But now, at last, the country was beginning to wake up to the gravity of the crisis, and when he pointed to the 'irrepressible conflict' he was formulating, in clear words, a vague and unwilling belief that was creeping over every intelligent Northern man."[501]

[Footnote 500: _Lincoln-Douglas Debates_, p. 48.]

[Footnote 501: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 352.]

The effect was instantaneous. Democratic press and orators became hysterical, denouncing him as "vile," "wicked," "malicious," and "vicious." The _Herald_ called him an "arch-agitator," more dangerous than Beecher, Garrison, or Theodore Parker. It was denied that any conflict existed except such as he was trying to foment. Even the New York _Times_, his own organ, thought the idea of abolishing slavery in the slave States rather fanciful, while the Springfield _Republican_ p.r.o.nounced his declaration impolitic and likely to do him and his party harm. On the other hand, the radical anti-slavery papers thought it bold and commendable. "With the instinct of a statesman," the _Tribune_ said, "Seward discards all minor, temporary, and delusive issues, and treats only of what is final and essential. Clear, calm, sagacious, profound, and impregnable, showing a masterly comprehension of the present aspect and future prospects of the great question which now engrosses our politics, this speech will be pondered by every thoughtful man in the land and confirm the eminence so long maintained by its author."[502] James Watson Webb, in the _Courier and Enquirer_, declared that it made Seward and Republicanism one and inseparable, and settled the question in New York as to who should be the standard-bearer in 1860.

[Footnote 502: New York _Daily Tribune_, October 27, 1858.

"Few speeches from the stump have attracted so great attention or exerted so great an influence. The eminence of the man combined with the startling character of the doctrine to make it engross the public mind. Republicans looked upon the doctrine announced as the well-weighed conclusion of a profound thinker and of a man of wide experience, who united the political philosopher with the practical politician. It is not probable that Lincoln's 'house divided against itself' speech had any influence in bringing Seward to this position.

He would at this time have scorned the notion of borrowing ideas from Lincoln; and had he studied the progress of the Illinois canva.s.s, he must have seen that the declaration did not meet with general favour.

In February of this year there had been bodied forth in Seward the politician. Now, a far-seeing statesman spoke. One was compared to Webster's 7th-of-March speech,--the other was commended by the Abolitionists."--James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol.

2, pp. 344-5.]

The result of the election was favourable to the Republicans, Morgan's majority over Parker being 17,440.[503] Ninety-nine members of the Legislature and twenty-nine congressmen were either Republicans or anti-Lecompton men. But, compared with the victory of 1856, it was a disappointment. John A. King had received a majority of 65,000 over Parker. The _Tribune_ was quick to charge some of this loss to Seward.

"The clamour against Sewardism lost us many votes," it declared the morning after the election. Two or three days later, as the reduced majority became more apparent, it explained that "A knavish clamour was raised on the eve of election by a Swiss press against Governor Seward's late speech at Rochester as revolutionary and disunionist.

Our loss from this source is considerable." The returns, however, showed plainly that one-half of the Americans, following the precedent set in 1857, had voted for Parker, while the other half, irritated by the failure of the union movement at Syracuse, had supported Burrows.

Had the coalition succeeded, Morgan's majority must have been larger than King's. But, small as it was, there was abundant cause for Republican rejoicing, since it kept the Empire State in line with the Republican States of New England, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin, which were now joined for the first time by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Indeed, of the free States, only California and Oregon had indorsed Buchanan's administration.

[Footnote 503: Edwin D. Morgan, 247,953; Amasa J. Parker, 230,513; Lorenzo Burrows, 60,880; Gerrit Smith, 5470.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]