A Political History of the State of New York Volume II Part 31

[Footnote 745: "Executive skill and vigour are rare qualities. The President is the best of us." Seward's letter to his wife.--F.W.

Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 590.]

To the outsider, the appointment of Barney looked, for the moment, like a substantial defeat for Seward. "The mighty struggle," said the _Herald_, "is for the possession of the New York appointments, and the strife is deadly and bitter."[746] The anti-Weed forces, reinforced by the arrival of Greeley,[747] the coming of Barney,[748] and the persistence of Harris,[749] were elated over reported changes in the Weed slate, believing the fruit of their long labours was about to come at last, but from the sum-total of the nominations, made day by day, it appeared that while several attaches of the _Tribune's_ staff had been recognised,[750] Seward had secured all the important offices save collector of the port.[751] During this turmoil the Secretary's unfailing calmness was not disturbed, nor his uniform courtesy ruffled.

[Footnote 746: New York _Herald_, March 30, 1861.]

[Footnote 747: "Thurlow Weed patched up the New York appointments and left this morning. Greeley arrived about the same time and has been sponging Weed's slate at an awful rate."--_Ibid._, March 26.]

[Footnote 748: "Barney arrived this morning in response to a summons from the President and the secretary of the treasury."--_Ibid._, April 1.]

[Footnote 749: "Senator Harris has proved himself more than a match for Weed."--_Ibid._, April 4.]

[Footnote 750: "Thus far four attaches of the _Tribune_ have been appointed.... These appointments except the last were Mr. Lincoln's regardless of Mr. Seward, who bears the _Tribune_ no love."--_Ibid._, March 29.]

[Footnote 751: "Seward secures all the important offices save the collectorship, which was given to Greeley."--New York _Herald_, March 30, 1861.]

Seward never forgot a real friend. Out of thirty-five diplomatic posts carrying a salary of five thousand dollars and upward, the Empire State was credited with nine; and, of these, one, a minister plenipotentiary, received twelve thousand dollars, and seven ministers resident, seventy-five hundred each. Seward, with the advice of Thurlow Weed, filled them all with tried and true supporters. Greeley, who, for some time, had been murmuring about the Secretary's appointments, let fly, at last, a sarcastic paragraph or two about the appointment of Andrew B. d.i.c.kinson, the farmer statesman of Steuben, which betrayed something of the bitterness existing between the Secretary of State and the editor of the _Tribune_. For more than a year no such thing had existed as personal relations. Before the spring of 1860 they met frequently with a show of cordiality, and, although the former understood that the latter boasted an independence of control whenever they differed in opinion, the _Tribune_ co-operated and its editor freely conferred with the New York senator during the long struggle in Congress for Kansas and free labour; but after Seward's defeat at Chicago they never met,[752] dislike displaced regard, and the _Tribune_, with eye and ear open to catch whatever would make its adversary wince, indulged in bitter sarcasm.

William B. Taylor's reappointment as postmaster at New York City gave it opportunity to praise Taylor and criticise Seward, claiming that the former, who had held office under Buchanan, though an excellent official, was not a Republican. This proved so deep a thrust, arraying office-seekers and their friends against the Secretary and Thurlow Weed, that Greeley kept it up, finding some appointees inefficient, and the Republicanism of others insufficient.

[Footnote 752: "In the spring of 1859, Governor Seward crossed the Atlantic, visiting Egypt, traversing Syria, and other portions of Asia Minor as well as much of Europe. Soon after his return he came one evening to my seat in Dr. Chapin's church,--as he had repeatedly done during former visits to our city,--and I now recall this as the last occasion on which we ever met."--Horace Greeley, _Recollections of a Busy Life_, p. 321.]

To the former cla.s.s belonged the minister resident to Nicaragua.

d.i.c.kinson had wearied of a farmer's life,[753] and Seward, who often benefited by his ardent and influential friendship, bade him make his own selection from the good things he had to offer. More than ordinary reasons existed why the Secretary desired to a.s.sist the Steuben farmer. d.i.c.kinson served in the State Senate throughout Seward's two terms as governor, and during these four years he had fearlessly and faithfully explained and defended Seward's recommendation of a division of the school fund, which proved so offensive to many thousand voters in New York. Indeed, it may be said with truth, that Seward's record on that one question did more to defeat him at Chicago than all his "irrepressible conflict" and "higher-law" declarations.

It became the fulcrum of Curtin's and Lane's aggressive resistance, who claimed that, in the event of his nomination, the American or Know-Nothing element in Pennsylvania and Indiana would not only maintain its organisation, but largely increase its strength, because of its strong prejudices against a division of the school fund.

[Footnote 753: "'Bray d.i.c.kinson,' as he was generally and familiarly called, whose early education was entirely neglected but whose perceptions and intuitions were clear and ready, was an enterprising farmer,--too enterprising, indeed, for he undertook more than he could accomplish. His ambition was to be the largest cattle and produce grower in his county (Steuben). If his whole time and thoughts had been given to farming, his antic.i.p.ations might have been realised, but, as it was, he experienced the fate of those who keep too many irons in the fire. In 1839 he was elected to the State Senate, where for four years he was able, fearless, and inflexibly honest. On one occasion a senator from Westchester County criticised and ridiculed d.i.c.kinson's language. d.i.c.kinson immediately rejoined, saying that while his difficulty consisted in a want of suitable language with which to express his ideas, his colleague was troubled with a flood of words without any ideas to express."--Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 1, pp. 441, 442.]

d.i.c.kinson met this issue squarely. He followed the powerful Pennsylvanian and Indianian from delegation to delegation, explaining that Seward had sought simply to turn the children of poor foreigners into the path of moral and intellectual cultivation pursued by the American born,--a policy, he declared, in which all Republicans and Christian citizens should concur. He pictured school conditions in New York City in 1840, the date of Seward's historic message; he showed how prejudices arising from differences of language and religion kept schoolhouses empty and slum children ignorant, while reform schools and prisons were full. Under these circ.u.mstances, thundered the Steuben farmer, Seward did right in recommending the establishment of schools in which such children might be instructed by teachers speaking the same language with themselves, and professing the same faith.

This was the sort of defence Seward appreciated. His recommendation had not been the result of carelessness or inadvertence, and, although well-meaning friends sought to excuse it as such, he resented the insinuation. "I am only determined the more," he wrote, "to do what may be in my power to render our system of education as comprehensive as the interests involved, and to provide for the support of the glorious superstructure of universal suffrage,--the basis of universal education."[754] In his defence, d.i.c.kinson maintained the excellence of Seward's suggestion, and it deeply angered the Steuben farmer that the _Tribune's_ editor, who knew the facts as well as he, did not also attempt to silence the arguments of the two most influential Lincoln delegates, who boldly based their opposition, not upon personal hostility or his advanced position in Republican faith, but upon what Greeley had known for twenty years to be a perversion of Seward's language and Seward's motives.

[Footnote 754: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 503.]

In the Secretary's opinion d.i.c.kinson's bold defiance of the rules of grammar and spelling did not weaken his natural intellectual strength; but Greeley, whom the would-be diplomat, with profane vituperation, had charged at Chicago with the basest ingrat.i.tude,[755] protested against such an appointment to such an important post. "We have long known him," said the _Tribune_, "as a skilful farmer, a cunning politician, and a hearty admirer of Mr. Seward, but never suspected him of that intimate knowledge of the Spanish language which is almost indispensable to that country, which, just at this moment, from the peculiar designs of the Southern rebels, is one of the most important that the secretary of state has to fill."[756] d.i.c.kinson recognised the odium that would attach to Seward because of the appointment, and in a characteristic letter he a.s.sured the Secretary of State that, whatever Greeley might say, he need have no fear of his ability to represent the government efficiently at the court of Nicaragua.[757]

[Footnote 755: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.

273.]

[Footnote 756: New York _Tribune_, March 29, 1861.]

[Footnote 757: "Hornby, April 3, 1861. Dear Seward: I shall have to take a Gentleman with me that can speak the Spanish language and correct bad English. That being well done I can take care of the ballance [Transcriber's Note: so in original] Greeley to the contrary notwithstanding.... You have much at stake in my appointment as it is charged (and I know how justly) to your account."--Unpublished letter in files of State Department.]

James S. Pike's selection for minister resident to The Hague seemed to contradict Greeley's declaration that he neither asked nor desired the appointment of any one. For years Pike, "a skilful maligner of Mr.

Seward,"[758] had been the Washington representative of the _Tribune_, and the belief generally obtained that, although Pike belonged to Maine and was supported by its delegation in Congress, the real power behind the throne lived in New York. Nevertheless, the _Tribune's_ editor, drifting in thought and speech in the inevitable direction of his genius, soon indicated that he had had no personal favours to ask.

[Footnote 758: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.

326.]

Seward's appointment as secretary of state chilled Greeley's love for the new Administration.[759] The _Tribune's_ editor seems never to have shown an exalted appreciation of Abraham Lincoln. Although they served together in Congress, and, for twenty years, had held to the same political faith, Greeley, apparently indifferent to his colleague's success, advocated, in 1858, the return of Stephen A.

Douglas to the United States Senate, because of his hostility to the Lecompton policy of the Buchanan administration, and it was intimated that this support, backed by his powerful journal, may have resulted in Douglas' carrying the Legislature against Lincoln. In 1860, Greeley favoured Bates for President. He was not displeased to have Lincoln nominated, but his battle had been to defeat Seward, and when Lincoln turned to Seward for secretary of state, which meant, as Greeley believed, the domination of the Weed machine to punish his revolt against Seward, Greeley became irretrievably embittered against the President.

[Footnote 759: "I am charged with having opposed the selection of Governor Seward for a place in President Lincoln's Cabinet. That is utterly, absolutely false, the President himself being my witness. I might call many others, but one such is sufficient."--New York _Tribune_, signed editorial, July 25, 1861.]

It is doubtful if Lincoln and Greeley, under any circ.u.mstances, could have had close personal relations. Lack of sympathy because they did not see things alike must have kept them apart; but Seward's presence in the Cabinet undoubtedly limited Greeley's intercourse with the President at a time when frequent conferences might have avoided grave embarra.s.sments. His virile and brilliant talents, which turned him into an independent and acute thinker on a wide range of subjects, always interested his readers, giving expression to the thoughts of many earnest men who aided in forming public opinion in their neighbourhoods, so that it may be said with truth, that, in 1860 and 1861, everything he wrote was eagerly read and discussed in the North.

"Notwithstanding the loyal support given Lincoln throughout the country," says McClure, "Greeley was in closer touch with the active, loyal sentiment of the people than even the President himself."[760]

His art of saying things on paper seemed to thrill people as much as the nervous, spirited rhetoric of an intense talker. With the air of lofty detachment from sordid interests, his sentences, clear and rapid, read like the clarion notes of a peroration, and impressed his great audiences with an earnestness that often carried conviction even to unwilling listeners.

[Footnote 760: Alex. K. McClure, _Lincoln and Men of War Times_, p.

295.]

Nevertheless, the _Tribune's_ columns did not manifest toward the Administration a fine exhibition of the love of fair play. In the hottest moment of excitement growing out of hostilities, it patriotically supported the most vigorous prosecution of the war, and mercilessly criticised its opponents; but Greeley would neither conform to nor silently endure Lincoln's judgment, and, as every step in the war created new issues, his constant criticism, made through the columns of a great newspaper, kept the party more or less seriously divided, until, by untimely forcing emanc.i.p.ation, he inspired, despite the patient and conciliatory methods of Lincoln, a factious hostility to the President which embarra.s.sed his efforts to marshal a solid North in support of his war policy. Greeley was a man of clean hands and pure heart, and, at the outset, it is probable that his attempted direction of Lincoln's policy existed without ill-feeling; yet he was a good hater, and, as the contest went on, he drifted into an opposition which gradually increased in bitterness, and, finally, led to a temporary and foolish rebellion against the President's renomination. Meantime, the great-hearted Lincoln, conning the lesson taught by the voice of history, continued to practise the precept,

"Saying, What is excellent, As G.o.d lives, is permanent."