A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 19

The echo of Fenton's defeat seriously disturbed the Syracuse State convention (July 8). The Conservatives of New York City, many of whom had now become the followers of Conkling, objected to the Fenton method of selecting delegates, and after a bitter discussion between Matthew Hale of Albany and Charles S. Spencer, the Governor's ardent friend, the convention limited the number of delegates from a city district to the Republican vote actually cast, and appointed a committee to investigate the quarrel, with instructions to report at the next State convention.

The selection of a candidate for governor also unsettled the Republican mind. Friends of Lyman Tremaine, Charles H. Van Wyck, Frederick A. Conkling (a brother of the Senator), Stewart L. Woodford, and John A. Griswold had not neglected to put their favourites into the field at an early day, but to all appearances Horace Greeley was the popular man among the delegates. Although Conkling had snuffed out his senatorial ambition, he had been the directing power of the February convention, and was still the recognised guide-post of the party. Besides, the withdrawal of Tremaine, Van Wyck, and Conkling practically narrowed the rivalry to Greeley and Griswold. Indeed, it seemed as if the ambition of the editor's life was at last to be satisfied. Weed was in Europe, Raymond still rested "outside the breastworks," and the Twenty-third Street organisation, as the Conservatives were called, sat on back seats without votes and without influence.

Greeley did not go to Syracuse. But his personal friends appeared in force, led by Reuben E. Fenton, who controlled the State convention.

Greeley believed the Governor sincerely desired his nomination.

Perhaps he was also deceived in the strength of John A. Griswold. The people, regarding Griswold's change from McClellan to Lincoln as a political emanc.i.p.ation, had doubled his majority for Congress in 1864 and again in 1866. The poor loved him, the workmen admired him, and business men backed him. Though but forty-six years old he had already made his existence memorable. In their emphasis orators expressed no fear that the fierce white light which beats upon an aspirant for high office would disclose in him poor judgment, or any weakness of character. To these optimistic speeches delegates evinced a responsiveness that cheered his friends.

But the real noise of the day did not commence until Chauncey M. Depew began his eulogy of the great editor. The applause then came in drifts of cheers as appreciative expressions fell from the lips of his champion. It was admitted that Depew's speech adorned the day's work.[1160] He referred to Greeley as "the embodiment of the principles of his party," "the one man towering above all others in intellect,"

who "has contributed more than any other man toward the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves," and "with his pen and his tongue has done more for the advancement of the industrial cla.s.ses." In conclusion, said the speaker, "he belongs to no county, to no locality; he belongs to the State and to the whole country, because of the superiority of his intellect and the purity of his patriotism."[1161]

As the speaker finished, the applause, lasting "many minutes,"[1162]

finally broke into several rounds of cheers, while friends of Griswold as well as those of Greeley, standing on chairs, swung hats and umbrellas after the fashion of a modern convention. Surely, Horace Greeley was the favourite.

[Footnote 1160: New York _Tribune_, July 9, 1868.]

[Footnote 1161: New York _Tribune_, July 9, 1868.]

[Footnote 1162: _Ibid._]

The roll-call, however, gave Griswold 247, Greeley 95, Woodford 36.

For the moment Greeley's friends seemed stunned. It was worse than a defeat--it was utter rout and confusion. He had been led into an ambuscade and slaughtered. The _Tribune_, in explaining the affair, said "it was evident in the morning that Griswold would get the nomination. His friends had been working so long and there were so many outstanding pledges." Besides, it continued, "when the fact developed that he had a majority, it added to his strength afterward."[1163] Why, then, it was asked, did Greeley's friends put him into a contest already settled? Did they wish to humiliate him?

"Had Greeley been here in person," said the _Times_, with apparent sympathy, "the result might have been different."[1164] The _Nation_ thought otherwise. "In public," it said, "few members of conventions have the courage to deny his fitness for any office, such are the terrors inspired by his editorial cowskin; but the minute the voting by ballots begins, the cowardly fellows repudiate him under the veil of secrecy."[1165] The great disparity between the applause and the vote for the editor became the subject of much suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt.

"The highly wrought eulogium p.r.o.nounced by Depew was applauded to the echo," wrote a correspondent of the _Times_, "but the enthusiasm subsided wonderfully when it came to putting him at the head of the ticket."[1166] Depew himself appreciated the humour of the situation.

"Everybody wondered," said the eulogist, speaking of it in later years, "how there could be so much smoke and so little fire."[1167] To those conversant with the situation, however, it was not a mystery.

Among conservative men Greeley suffered discredit because of his ill-tempered criticisms, while his action in signing Jefferson Davis's bail-bond was not the least powerful of the many influences that combined to weaken his authority. It seemed to shatter confidence in his strength of mind. After that episode the sale of his _American Conflict_ which had reached the rate of five hundred copies a day, fell off so rapidly that his publishers lost $50,000.[1168]

[Footnote 1163: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1164: New York _Times_, July 9.]

[Footnote 1165: The _Nation_, July 16.]

[Footnote 1166: New York _Times_, July 9, 1868.]

[Footnote 1167: Conversation with the author.

The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, John A. Griswold, Rensselaer; Lieutenant-Governor, Alonzo B. Cornell, Wyoming; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Alexander Barkley, Washington; Prison Inspector, Henry A. Barnum, Onondaga.]

[Footnote 1168: _The Nation_, November 11, 1869.]

The platform approved the nomination of Grant and Colfax, held inviolate the payment of the public debt in the spirit as well as the letter of the law, commended the administration of Fenton, and demanded absolute honesty in the management and improvement of the ca.n.a.ls; but adopting "the simple tactics of the ostrich" it maintained the most profound silence in regard to suffrage of any kind--manhood, universal, impartial, or negro.[1169]

[Footnote 1169: New York _Tribune_, July 9, 1868.]

The day the Syracuse convention avoided Greeley, the National Democratic convention which had a.s.sembled in Tammany's new building on July 4, accepted a leader under whom victory was impossible. It was an historic gathering. The West sent able leaders to support its favourite greenback theory, the South's delegation of Confederate officers recalled the picturesque scenes at Philadelphia in 1866, and New England and the Middle States furnished a strong array of their well-known men. Samuel J. Tilden headed the New York delegation, Horatio Seymour became permanent president, and in one of the chairs set apart for vice presidents, William M. Tweed, "fat, oily, and dripping with the public wealth,"[1170] represented the Empire State.

[Footnote 1170: New York _Tribune_, March 5, 1868.]

The chairmanship of the committee on resolutions fell to Henry C.

Murphy of Brooklyn. Murphy was a brave fighter. In 1832, when barely in his twenties, he had denounced the policy of chartering banks in the interest of political favourites and monopolists, and the reform, soon after established, made him bold to attack other obnoxious fiscal systems. As mayor of Brooklyn he kept the city's expenditures within its income, and in the const.i.tutional convention of 1846 he stood with Michael Hoffman in preserving the public credit and the public faith.

To him who understood the spirit of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, it seemed rank dishonesty to pay bonds in a depreciated currency, and he said so in language that did not die in the committee room. But opposed to him were the extremists who controlled the convention.

These Greenbackers demanded "that all obligations of the government, not payable by their express terms in coin, ought to be paid in lawful money," and through them the Ohio heresy became the ruling thought of the Democratic creed.

Although New York consented to the Pendleton platform, it determined not to sacrifice everything to the one question of finance by permitting the nomination of the Ohio statesman. There were other candidates. Andrew Johnson was deluded into the belief that he had a chance; Winfield S. Hanc.o.c.k, the hero of the famous Second Army Corps, who had put himself in training while department commander at New Orleans, believed in his star; Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, having failed to capture the nomination at Chicago, was willing to lead whenever and by whomsoever called; while Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, then a United States senator and supporter of the "Ohio idea," hoped to succeed if Pendleton failed. Of these candidates Seymour favoured Chase. If nominated, he said, the Chief Justice would disintegrate the Republican party, carry Congress, and by uniting conservative Republicans and Democrats secure a majority of the Senate. It was known that the sentiments of Chase harmonised with those of Eastern Democrats except as to negro suffrage, and although on this issue the Chief Justice declined to yield, Seymour did not regard it of sufficient importance to quarrel about. Indeed, it was said that Seymour had approved a platform, submitted to Chase by Democratic progressionists, which accepted negro suffrage.[1171]

[Footnote 1171: New York _Times_, September 4, 1868.]

Samuel J. Tilden, appreciating the importance of defeating Pendleton, at once directed all the resources of a cold, calculating nature to a solution of the difficult problem. To mask his real purpose he pressed the name of Sanford E. Church until the eighth ballot, when he adroitly dropped it for Hendricks. It was a bold move. The Hoosier was not less offensive than the Buckeye, but it served Tilden's purpose to dissemble, and, as he apprehended, Hendricks immediately took the votes of his own and other States from the Ohioan. This proved the end of Pendleton, whose vote thenceforth steadily declined. On the thirteenth ballot California cast half a vote for Chase, throwing the convention into wild applause. For the moment it looked as if the Chief Justice, still in intimate correspondence with influential delegates, might capture the nomination. Vallandigham, who preferred Chase to Hendricks, begged Tilden to cast New York's vote for him, but the man of sheer intellect was not yet ready to show his hand.

Meanwhile Hanc.o.c.k divided with Hendricks the lost strength of Pendleton. Amidst applause from Tammany, Nebraska, on the seventeenth and eighteenth ballots, cast three votes for John T. Hoffman. This closed the fourth day of the convention, the eighteenth ballot registering 144-1/2 votes for Hanc.o.c.k, 87 for Hendricks, 56-1/2 for Pendleton, and 28 scattering.

On the morning of the fifth and last day, the New York delegation, before entering the convention, decided by a vote of 37 to 24 to support Chase provided Hendricks could not be nominated. Seymour favoured the Chief Justice in an elaborate speech, which he intended delivering on the floor of the convention, and for this purpose had arranged with a delegate from Missouri to occupy the chair. It was known, too, that Chase's strength had increased in other delegations.

Eleven Ohio delegates favoured him as their second choice, while Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Georgia, and Wisconsin could be depended upon. Indeed, it was in the air that the Chief Justice would be nominated. When the convention opened, however, a letter several days old was read from Pendleton withdrawing from the contest. This quickly pushed Hendricks to 107. On the twenty-first ballot he rose to 132 and Hanc.o.c.k fell off to 135-1/2, while four votes for Chase, given by Ma.s.sachusetts, called out hisses[1172] as well as applause, indicating that the ambitious Justice was not entirely _persona grata_ to all of the Westerners. To the confused delegates, worn out with loss of sleep and the intense heat, the situation did not excite hopes of an early settlement. New York could not name Chase since Pendleton's withdrawal had strengthened Hendricks, while the nomination of a conservative Union soldier like Hanc.o.c.k, so soon after the close of the war, would inevitably exasperate the more radical element of the party. Thus it looked as if the motion to adjourn to meet at St. Louis in September presented the only escape. Pending a roll-call, however, this motion was declared out of order, and the voting continued until the Ohio delegation, having returned from a conference, boldly proposed the name of Horatio Seymour. The delegates, hushed into silence by the dominating desire to verify rumours of an impending change, now gave vent to long, excited cheering. "The folks were frantic," said an eye-witness; "the delegates daft. All other enthusiasms were as babbling brooks to the eternal thunder of Niagara. The whole ma.s.s was given over to acclaims that cannot even be suggested in print."[1173]

[Footnote 1172: New York _World_, July 10, 1868.]

[Footnote 1173: New York _World_, July 10, 1868.]

Seymour had positively declined a score of times. As early as November, 1867, after the Democratic victories of that month, he had addressed a letter to the _Union_, a Democratic paper of Oneida, stating that for personal reasons which he need not give, he was not and could not be a candidate. Other letters of similar purport had frequently appeared in the press. To an intimate friend he spoke of family griefs, domestic troubles, impaired health, and the impossibility of an election. Besides, if chosen, he said, he would be as powerless as Johnson, a situation that "would put him in his grave in less than a year."[1174] In the whole convention there was not a man who could truthfully say that the Governor, by look, or gesture, or inflection of voice, had encouraged the hope of a change of mind.

Within forty-eight hours every Democrat of influence had sounded him and gone away sorrowful. Now, when order was restored, he declined again. His expressions of grat.i.tude seemed only to make the declaration stronger. "I do not stand here," he said, "as a man proud of his opinion or obstinate in his purposes, but upon a question of duty and of honour I must stand upon my own convictions against the world. When I said here, at an early day, that honour forbade my accepting a nomination, I meant it. When I said to my friends I could not be a candidate, I meant it. And now, after all that has taken place here, I could not receive the nomination without placing myself in a false position. Gentlemen, I thank you for your kindness, but your candidate I cannot be."[1175]

[Footnote 1174: New York _Times_, Sept. 4.]

[Footnote 1175: New York _World_, July 10.]

Vallandigham replied that in times of great public exigency personal consideration should yield to the public good, and Francis Kernan, disclaiming any lot or part in Ohio's motion, declared that others than the New York delegation must overcome the sensitiveness of the chairman. Still, he said, Horatio Seymour ought to abide the action of the convention. These speeches over, the roll-call monotonously continued, each State voting as before until Wisconsin changed from Doolittle to Seymour. In an instant the chairman of each State delegation, jumping to his feet, changed its vote to the New Yorker.

The pandemonium was greater than before, in the midst of which Seymour, apparently overwhelmed by the outcome, retired to a committee room, where Church, Joseph Warren of the Buffalo _Courier_, and other friends urged him to yield to the demands of the Democracy of the country. He was deeply affected. Tears filled his eyes, and he piteously sought the sympathy of friends.[1176] Soon after he left the building. Meanwhile Tilden rose to change the vote of the Empire State from Hendricks to Seymour. "It is fit on this occasion," he said, "that New York should wait for the voice of all her sister States.

Last evening I did not believe this event possible. There was one obstacle--Horatio Seymour's earnest, sincere, deep-felt repugnance to accept this nomination. I did not believe any circ.u.mstance would make it possible except that Ohio, with whom we have been unfortunately dividing our votes, demanded it. I was anxious that whenever we should leave this convention there should be no heart-burnings, no jealousy, no bitter disappointment; and I believe that in this result we have lifted the convention far above every such consideration. And I believe further that we have made the nomination most calculated to give us success."[1177]

[Footnote 1176: New York _Times_, Sept. 4, 1868.]

[Footnote 1177: New York _World_, July 10.]

This did not then seem to be the opinion of many men outside the convention. The nomination did not arouse even a simulated enthusiasm upon the streets of the metropolis.[1178] In Washington Democratic congressmen declared that but one weaker candidate was before the convention,[1179] while dispatches from Philadelphia and Boston represented "prominent Democrats disgusted at Seymour and the artifices of his friends."[1180] Even Tammany, said the _Times_, "quailed at the prospect of entering upon a canva.s.s with a leader covered with personal dishonour, as Seymour had said himself he would be, if he should accept. Men everywhere admit that such a nomination, conferred under such circ.u.mstances, was not only pregnant with disaster, but if accepted stained the recipient with personal infamy."[1181]

[Footnote 1178: New York _Times_, July 10.]

[Footnote 1179: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1180: New York _Times_, July 10, 1868.]

[Footnote 1181: _Ibid._]

Not since the Democratic party began holding national conventions had the tactics practised at New York been equaled. The convention of 1844 must always be ranked as a masterpiece of manipulation, but its diplomacy was played to defeat Van Buren rather than nominate a candidate. In 1852 circ.u.mstances combined to prevent the nomination of the convention's first or second choice, and in the end, as a ball-player at the bat earns first base through the errors of a pitcher, Franklin Pierce benefited. But in 1868 nothing was gained by errors. Although there was a chief candidate to defeat, it was not done with a bludgeon as in 1844. Nor were delegates allowed to stampede to a "dark horse" as in 1852. On the contrary, while the leading candidate suffered slow strangulation, the most conspicuous man in the party was pushed to the front with a sagacity and firmness that made men obey the dictates of a superior intelligence, and to people who studied the ballots it plainly appeared that Samuel J.

Tilden had played the game.

Tilden had not sought prominence in the convention. He seldom spoke, rarely figured in the meeting of delegates, and except to cast the vote of the New York delegation did nothing to attract attention. But the foresight exhibited in changing from Church to Hendricks on the eighth ballot discovered a mind singularly skilled in controlling the actions of men. The play appeared the more remarkable after the revelation of its influence. New York did not want Hendricks. Besides, up to that time, the Hoosier had received less than forty votes, his own State refusing to unite in his support. Moreover, since adjoining States save Michigan warmly advocated Pendleton, all sources of growth seemed closed to him. Yet Tilden's guiding hand, with infallible sagacity, placed New York's thirty-three votes on Indiana and absolutely refused to move them. To dispose of Hendricks, Vallandigham and other Ohio delegates offered to support Chase, and if the chairman of the New York delegation had led the way, a formidable coalition must have carried the convention for the Chief Justice. But the man whose subtile, mysterious influence was already beginning to be recognised as a controlling factor in the party desired Seymour, and to force his nomination he met at Delmonico's, on the evening of the fourth day, Allen G. Thurman, George E. Pugh, Washington McLean, George W. McCook, and George W. Morgan, Ohio's most influential delegates, and there arranged the _coup d'etat_ that succeeded so admirably. This scheme remained a profound secret until the Ohio delegation retired for consultation after the twenty-first ballot, so that when Seymour was addressing the New York delegation in behalf of Chase, Tilden knew of the pending master-stroke. "The artful Tilden,"

said Alexander Long, a well-known politician of the day, "is a candidate for the United States Senate, and he thinks that with Seymour the Democrats can carry both branches of the New York Legislature."[1182]

[Footnote 1182: New York _Times_, September 4, 1868.]