A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 18

The story of these frauds is found in two volumes of testimony submitted by the Ca.n.a.l Investigation Committee to the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1867.]

Republicans offered no defence except that their party, having had the courage to investigate and expose the frauds and the methods of the peculators, could be trusted to continue the reform. To this the _World_ replied that "a convention of shoddyites might, with as good a face, have lamented the rags hanging about the limbs of our shivering soldiers, or a convention of whisky thieves affect to deplore the falling off of the internal revenue."[1138] Moreover, Democrats claimed that the worst offender was still in office as an appointee of Governor Fenton,[1139] and that the Republican nominee for ca.n.a.l commissioner had been guilty of similar transactions when superintendent of one of the waterways.[1140] These charges became the more glaring because Republicans refused to renominate senators who had been chiefly instrumental in exposing the frauds. "They take great credit to themselves for having found out this corruption in the management of the ca.n.a.ls," said Seymour. "But how did they exhibit their hatred of corruption? Were the men who made these exposures renominated? Not by the Republicans. One of them is running upon our ticket."[1141] On another occasion he declared that "not one of the public officers who are charged and convicted by their own friends of fraud and robbery have ever been brought to the bar of justice."[1142]

The severity of such statements lost none of its sting by the declaration of Horace Greeley, made over his own signature, that Republican candidates were "conspicuous for integrity and for resistance to official corruption."[1143]

[Footnote 1138: New York _World_, September 27, 1867.]

[Footnote 1139: _Ibid._, October 16, 22.]

[Footnote 1140: _Ibid._, October 22.]

[Footnote 1141: _New York World_, October 25.]

[Footnote 1142: _Ibid._, October 4.]

[Footnote 1143: New York _Tribune_, September 26, 1867.]

The practical failure of the const.i.tutional convention to accomplish the purpose for which it a.s.sembled also embarra.s.sed Republicans. By the terms of the Const.i.tution of 1846 the Legislature was required, in each twentieth year thereafter, to submit to the people the question of convening a convention for its revision, and in 1866, an affirmative answer being given, such a convention began its work at Albany on June 4, 1867. Of the one hundred and sixty delegates, ninety-seven were Republicans. Its membership included many men of the highest capacity, whose debates, characterised by good temper and forensic ability, showed an intelligent knowledge of the needs of the State. Their work included the payment of the ca.n.a.l and other State debts, extended the term of senators from two to four years, increased the members of the a.s.sembly, conferred the right of suffrage without distinction of colour, reorganised the Court of Appeals with a chief justice and six a.s.sociate justices, and increased the tenure of supreme and appellate judges to fourteen years, with an age limit of seventy.

Very early in the life of the convention, however, the press, largely influenced by the New York _Tribune_, began to discredit its work.

Horace Greeley, who was a member, talked often and always well, but the more he talked the more he revealed his incapacity for safe leadership. He seemed to grow restive as he did in Congress over immaterial matters. Long speeches annoyed him, and adjournments from Friday to the following Tuesday sorely vexed him, although this arrangement convenienced men of large business interests. Besides, committees not being ready to report, there was little to occupy the time of delegates. Nevertheless, Greeley, accustomed to work without limit as to hours or thought of rest, insisted that the convention ought to keep busy six days in the week and finish the revision for which it a.s.sembled. When his power to influence colleagues had entirely disappeared, he began using the _Tribune_, whose acrid arguments, accepted by the lesser newspapers, completely undermined all achievement. Finally, on September 24, the convention recessed until November 12.

Democrats charged at once that the adjournment was a skulking subterfuge not only to avoid an open confession of failure, but to evade submitting negro suffrage to a vote in November. The truth of the a.s.sertion seemed manifest. At all events, it proved a most serious handicap to Republicans, who, by an act of Congress, pa.s.sed on March 2, 1867, had forced negro suffrage upon the Southern States. Their platform, adopted at Syracuse, also affirmed it. Moreover, their absolute control of the const.i.tutional convention enabled them, if they had so desired, to finish and submit their work in the early autumn. This action subjected their convention resolve for "impartial suffrage" to ridicule as well as to the charge of cowardice. If you shrink from giving the ballot to a few thousand negroes at home, it was asked, why do you insist that it should be conferred on millions in the South? If, as you pretend, you wish the blacks of this State to have the ballot, why do you not give it to them? How can you blame the South for hesitating when you hesitate? "It is manifest," said the _World_, "that the Republicans do not desire the negroes of this State to vote. Their refusal to present the question in this election is a confession that the party is forcing on the South a measure too odious to be tolerated at home."[1144]

[Footnote 1144: New York _World_, September 27, 1867.]

This charge, perhaps, was the most disturbing influence Republicans had to meet in the campaign. Responsibility for ca.n.a.l frauds made them wince, since it appealed strongly and naturally to whatever there was of discontent among the people, but their apparent readiness to force upon the South what they withheld in New York seemed so unreasonable and unjust that it aided materially in swelling the strength of the Democrats.

James T. Brady, Henry C. Murphy, John T. Hoffman, and Samuel J. Tilden made the campaign attractive, speaking with unsparing severity to the great audiences gathered in New York City. Although somewhat capricious in his sympathies, Brady seemed never to care who knew what he thought on any subject, while the people, captivated by his marvellously easy mode of speech, listened with rapture as he exercised his splendid powers. It remained for Seymour, however, to give character to the discussion in one of his most forcible philippics. He endeavoured to show that the ballot, given to a few negroes in New York, could do little harm compared to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of millions of them in the Southern States. The Radicals, he said, not only propose to put the white men of the South under the blacks, but the white men of the North as well. To allow three millions of negroes, representing ten Southern States, to send twenty senators to Washington, while more than half the white population of the country, living in nine Northern States, have but eighteen senators, is a home question. "Will you sanction it?" he asked. "Twenty senators, recollect, who are to act in relation to interests deeply affecting you. Can you afford to erect such a government of blacks over the white men of this continent? Will you give them control in the United States Senate and thus in fact disfranchise the North? This to you is a local question. It will search you out just as surely as the tax-gatherer searches you out."[1145]

[Footnote 1145: New York _World_, October 25, 1867.]

Republicans acknowledged their weakness. An opposition that invited attention to disclosures as sensational and corrupt as they were indefensible had deeper roots than ordinary political rivalry, while the question of manhood suffrage, like a legacy of reciprocal hate, aroused the smouldering prejudices that had found bitter expression during the discussion of emanc.i.p.ation. Moreover, the feeling developed that the narrow and unpatriotic policy which ruled the Syracuse convention had displaced good men for unsatisfactory candidates. This led to the subst.i.tution of Thomas H. Hillhouse for comptroller, whose incorruptibility made him a candidate of unusual strength. But the sacrifice did not change the political situation, aggravated among other things by hard times. The wave of commercial depression which spread over Europe after the London financial panic of May, 1866, extended to this country during the last half of 1867. A reaction from the inflated war prices took place, quick sales and large profits ceased, and a return to the old methods of frugality and good management became necessary. In less than two years the currency had been contracted $140,000,000, decreasing the price of property and enhancing the face value of debts, and although Congress, in the preceding February, had suspended further contraction, business men charged financial conditions to contraction and the people held the party in power responsible.

Indeed, the people had become tired of Republican rule, and their verdict changed a plurality of 13,000, given Fenton in 1866, to a Democratic majority of nearly 48,000, with twenty-two majority on joint ballot in the Legislature. New York City gave the Democrats 60,000 majority. Thousands of immigrants had been illegally naturalised, and a fraudulent registration of 1,500 in one ward indicated the extent of the enormous frauds that had been practised by Boss Tweed and his gang;[1146] but the presence of large Democratic gains in the up-State counties showed that Republican defeat was due to other causes than fraudulent registration and illegal voting.

"Outside the incapables and their miserable subalterns who managed the Syracuse convention," said one Republican paper, "a pervading sentiment existed among us, not only that we should be beaten, but that we needed chastis.e.m.e.nt."[1147] Another placed the responsibility upon "a host of political adventurers, attracted to the party by selfish aggrandis.e.m.e.nts."[1148] The _Tribune_ accepted it as a punishment for cowardice on the negro suffrage question. "To say that we are for manhood suffrage in the South and not in the North is to earn the loathing, contempt, and derision alike of friends and foes."[1149] Thus had Republican power disappeared like Aladdin's palace, which was ablaze with splendour at night, and could not be seen in the morning.

[Footnote 1146: Gustavus Myers, _History of Tammany Hall_, p. 250.]

[Footnote 1147: Buffalo _Commercial Advertiser_, November 6, 1867.]

[Footnote 1148: Albany _Evening Journal_, November 6.]

[Footnote 1149: New York _Tribune_, November 6.]

CHAPTER XIV

SEYMOUR AND HOFFMAN

1868

The fall elections of 1867 made a profound impression in the Empire State. Pennsylvania gave a small Democratic majority, Ohio defeated a negro suffrage amendment by 50,000, besides electing a Democratic legislature, and New York, leading the Democratic column, surprised the nation with a majority of nearly 48,000. In every county the Republican vote had fallen off. It was plain that reconstruction and negro suffrage had seriously disgruntled the country. The policy of the Republicans, therefore, which had hitherto been one of delay in admitting Southern States to representation in Congress, now changed to one of haste to get them in, the party believing that with negro enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and white disfranchis.e.m.e.nt it could control the South.

This sudden change had alarmed conservatives of all parties, and the Democratic strength shown at the preceding election encouraged the belief that the radical work of Congress might be overthrown. "The danger now is," wrote John Sherman, "that the mistakes of the Republicans may drift the Democratic party into power."[1150]

[Footnote 1150: Sherman's Letters, p. 299.]

The action of Congress after the removal of Edwin M. Stanton, then secretary of war, did not weaken this prediction. The Senate had already refused its a.s.sent to the Secretary's suspension, and when the President, exercising what he believed to be his const.i.tutional power, appointed Adjutant-General Thomas in his place, it brought the contest to a crisis. Stanton, barricaded in the War Office, refused to leave, while Thomas, bolder in talk than in deeds, threatened to kick him out.[1151] In support of Stanton a company of one hundred men, mustered by John A. Logan, a member of Congress, occupied the bas.e.m.e.nt of the War Department. Not since the a.s.sa.s.sination of Lincoln had the country been in such a state of excitement. Meanwhile former propositions of impeachment were revived, and although without evidence of guilty intent, the House, on February 14, resolved that Andrew Johnson be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours. This trial, which continued for nearly three months, kept the country flushed with pa.s.sion.

[Footnote 1151: _Impeachment Trial_, Vol. 1, p. 223.]

New York Democrats greatly enjoyed the situation. To them it meant a division of the Republican party vastly more damaging than the one in 1866. Opposition to Grant's candidacy also threatened to widen the breach. The Conservatives, led by Thurlow Weed, wishing to break the intolerant control of the Radicals by securing a candidate free from factional bias, had p.r.o.nounced for the Soldier's nomination for President as early as July, 1867,[1152] and although the current of Republican journalism as well as the drift of party sentiment tended to encourage the movement, the Radicals opposed it. Grant's report on the condition of the South in 1865, and his attendance upon the President in 1866 during the famous swing-around-the-circle, had provoked much criticism. Besides, his acceptance of the War Office after Stanton's suspension indicated marked confidence in the Chief Executive. Indeed, so displeasing had been his record since the close of the war that the _Tribune_ ridiculed his pretensions, predicting that if any man of his type of politics was elected it would be by the Democrats.[1153] Even after the loss of the elections the _Tribune_ continued its opposition. "We object to the Grant movement," it said.

"It is of the ostrich's simple strategy that deceives only himself.

There are times in which personal preference and personal popularity go far; but they are not these times. Does any one imagine that General Grant, supported by the Republicans, would carry Maryland or Kentucky, under her present Const.i.tution, against Seymour or Pendleton?"[1154] Many agreed with Greeley. Indeed, a majority of the Radicals, deeming Grant unsound on reconstruction and the negro, preferred Chief Justice Chase.

[Footnote 1152: New York _World_, July 25, 1867.]

[Footnote 1153: New York _Tribune_, October 15, 1867.]

[Footnote 1154: New York _Tribune_, November 7, 1867.]

Very unexpectedly, however, conditions changed. Stanton's suspension in August, 1867, led to Grant's appointment as secretary of war, but when the Senate, early in the following January, refused to concur in Johnson's action, Grant locked the door of the War Office and resumed his post at army headquarters. The President expressed surprise that he did not hold the office until the question of Stanton's const.i.tutional right to resume it could be judicially determined. This criticism, delivered in Johnson's positive style, provoked a long and heated controversy, involving the veracity of each and leaving them enemies for life. The quarrel delighted the Radicals. It put Grant into sympathy with Congress, and Republicans into sympathy with Grant.

Until then it was not clear to what party he belonged. Before the war he acted with the Democrats, and very recently the successors of the old Albany Regency had been quietly preparing for his nomination.[1155]

Now, however, he was in cordial relation with Republicans, whose convention, held at Syracuse on February 5, 1868, to select delegates to the National convention, indorsed his candidacy by acclamation. The Conservatives welcomed this action as their victory. Moreover, it was the first formal expression of a State convention. Republicans of other Commonwealths had indicated their readiness to accept Grant as a candidate, but New York, endorsing him before the termination of his controversy with the President, antic.i.p.ated their action and set the party aflame. Indeed, it looked to Republicans as if this nomination a.s.sured success at a moment when their chances had seemed hopeless.

[Footnote 1155: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 458.]

In like manner the convention recommended Reuben E. Fenton for Vice-President. Fenton had made an acceptable governor. Under his administration projects for lengthening the locks on the Erie Ca.n.a.l and other plans for extending the facilities of transportation were presented. Another memorable work was the establishment of Cornell University, which has aptly been called "the youngest, the largest, and the richest" of the nearly thirty colleges in the State. Even the _Times_, the great organ of the Conservatives, admitted that the Governor's "executive control, in the main, has been a success."[1156]

Opposition to his promotion, however, presented well-defined lines. To Thurlow Weed he represented the mismanagement which defeated the party,[1157] and to Conkling he appealed only as one on whom to employ with effect, when occasion offered, his remarkable resources of sarcasm and rhetoric. The Governor understood this feeling, and to avoid its influence delegates were instructed to vote for him as a unit, while three hundred devoted friends went to Chicago. Daniel E.

Sickles became chairman of the delegation.

[Footnote 1156: New York _Times_, February 4, 1868.]

[Footnote 1157: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 459.]

The Republican convention convened at Chicago on May 20, and amidst throat-bursting cheers and salvos of artillery Ulysses S. Grant was nominated for President by acclamation. For Vice-President a dozen candidates were presented, including Henry Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts, Reuben E. Fenton of New York, Benjamin Wade of Ohio, and Schuyler Colfax of Indiana. Fenton's friends, finding the Northern States pre-empted by other candidates, turned to the South, hoping to benefit as Wade's strength receded. Here, however, it was manifest that Wilson would become the Buckeye's residuary legatee. Fenton also suffered from the over-zeal of friends. In seconding his nomination an Illinois delegate encountered John A. Logan, who coolly remarked that Fenton would get three votes and no more from his State. To recover prestige after this blow Daniel E. Sickles, in a brief speech, deftly included him with Morton of Indiana, Curtin of Pennsylvania, Andrew of Ma.s.sachusetts, and other great war governors. In this company Fenton, who had served less than four months at the close of the war, seemed out of place, and Sickles resumed his seat undisturbed by any demonstration except by the faithful three hundred.[1158] Fenton's vote, however, was more p.r.o.nounced than the applause, although his strength outside of New York came largely from the South, showing that his popularity centred in a section whose representatives in National Republican conventions have too often succ.u.mbed to influences other than arguments.[1159]

[Footnote 1158: _Official Proceedings of the Convention_, p. 96.]

[Footnote 1159: BALLOTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 Wade 147 170 178 206 207 38 Colfax 115 145 165 186 226 541 Fenton 126 144 139 144 139 69 Wilson 119 114 101 87 56 Hamlin 28 30 25 25 20 Curtin 51 45 40

Outside of New York Fenton's vote was as follows:

Northern States 23 33 32 32 31 2 Southern States 44 45 42 48 61 1]