A Political History of the State of New York Volume III Part 20

Tilden disclaimed all instrumentality in bringing about the nomination. "I had no agency," he wrote, "in getting Governor Seymour into his present sc.r.a.pe."[1183] He likewise professed ignorance as to what the convention would do. "I did not believe the event possible,"

he said, "unless Ohio demanded it."[1184] This admission, frankly conceding the necessity of Ohio's action which he had himself forced, shattered the sincerity of Tilden's disclaimer.

[Footnote 1183: John Bigelow, _Life of Samuel J. Tilden_, Vol. 1, p.

211.]

[Footnote 1184: New York _World_, July 10, 1868.]

Seymour also had difficulty in preserving the appearance of sincerity.

The press claimed that when he saw the nomination coming to him with the approval of Pendleton's supporters he quickly retired instead of further insisting upon his declination. This insinuation allied his dramatic performance with Tilden's tactics, and he hesitated to expose himself to such a compromising taunt. In this emergency Tilden endeavoured very adroitly to ease his mind. "My judgment is," he wrote a mutual friend, "that acceptance under present circ.u.mstances would not compromise his repute for sincerity or be really misunderstood by the people; that the case is not a.n.a.logous to the former instances which have made criticism possible; that the true nature of the sacrifice should be appreciated, while on the other hand the opposite course would be more likely to incite animadversion; that, on the whole, acceptance is the best thing. I think a decision is necessary, for it is not possible to go through a canva.s.s with a candidate declining. I am sincerely willing to accept such action as will be most for the honour of our friend; at the same time my personal wish is acceptance. You may express for me so much on the subject as you find necessary and think proper."[1185]

[Footnote 1185: John Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 1, p. 212.]

On August 4, when Seymour finally accepted, he neither apologised nor explained. "The nomination," he wrote, "was unsought and unexpected. I have been caught up by the overwhelming tide which is bearing us on to a great political change, and I find myself unable to resist its pressure."[1186] Those who recalled the Governor's alleged tortuous course at Chicago and again at Albany in 1864 did not credit him with the candour that excites admiration. "Such men did not believe in the sincerity of Seymour's repeated declinations," said Henry J. Raymond, "and therefore accepted the final result with the significant remark, 'I told you so.'"[1187] Horace Greeley was more severe. "The means by which Horatio Seymour obtained his nomination," he wrote, "are characteristic of that political cunning which has marked his career.

The whole affair was an adroit specimen of political hypocrisy, by which the actual favourite of the majority was not only sold, but was induced to nominate the trickster who had defeated him."[1188]

[Footnote 1186: _Public Record of Horatio Seymour_, p. 343.]

[Footnote 1187: New York _Times_, August 10.]

[Footnote 1188: New York _Tribune_, November 5, 1868.]

After Seymour's nomination the first expression of the campaign occurred in Vermont. Although largely Republican the Democrats made an unusually animated contest, sending their best speakers and furnishing the needed funds. Nevertheless, the Republicans added 7,000 to their majority of the preceding year. This decisive victory, celebrated in Albany on September 2, had a depressing influence upon the Democratic State convention then in session, ending among other things the candidacy of Henry C. Murphy for governor. The up-State opponents of the Tweed ring, joined by the Kings County delegation, hoped to make a winning combination against John T. Hoffman, and for several days Murphy stood up against the attacks of Tammany, defying its threats and refusing to withdraw. But he wilted under the news from Vermont.

If not beaten in convention, he argued, defeat is likely to come in the election, and so, amidst the noise of booming cannon and parading Republicans, he allowed Hoffman to be nominated by acclamation.[1189]

[Footnote 1189: "Then we have John T. Hoffman, who is kept by Tammany Hall as a kind of respectable attache. His humble work is to wear good clothes and be always gloved, to be decorous and polite; to be as much a model of deportment as Mr. Turvydrop; to repeat as often as need be, in a loud voice, sentences about 'honesty' and 'public welfare,' but to appoint to rich places such men as Mr. Sweeny. Hoffman is kept for the edification of the country Democrats, but all he has or ever can have comes from Tammany Hall."--_Ibid._, March 5, 1868.]

In the selection of a lieutenant-governor Tammany did not fare so well. Boss Tweed, in return for Western support of Hoffman, had declared for Albert P. Laning of Buffalo, and until District Attorney Morris of Brooklyn seconded the nomination of another, Laning's friends had boasted a large majority. Morris said he had no objection to Laning personally. He simply opposed him as a conspirator who had combined with Tammany to carry out the programme of a grasping clique.

He wished the country delegates who had unconsciously aided its wire-pulling schemes to understand that it sought only its own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. It cared nothing for the Democratic party except as it contributed to its selfish ends. This corrupt oligarchy, continued the orator, his face flushed and his eyes flashing with anger, intends through Hoffman to control the entire patronage of the State, and if Seymour is elected it will grasp that of the whole country. Suppose this offensive ring, with its unfinished courthouse and its thousand other schemes of robbery and plunder, controls the political power of the State and nation as it now dominates the metropolis, what honest Democrat can charge corruption to the opposite party? Did men from the interior of the State understand that Hoffman for governor means a ring magnate for United Sates senator? That is the game, and if it cannot be played by fair means, trickery and corruption will accomplish it. Kings County, which understands the methods of this clique, has not now and he hoped never would have anything in common with it, and he warned the country members not to extend its wicked sway.[1190]

[Footnote 1190: New York _Times_, _World_, and _Tribune_, September 3, 1868.]

Morris' speech antic.i.p.ated the startling disclosures of 1871, and as the orator raised his voice to a pitch that could easily be heard throughout the hall, the up-State delegates became deeply interested in his words. He did not deal in glittering generalities. He was a prosecuting officer in a county adjoining Tammany, and when he referred to the courthouse robbery he touched the spot that reeked with corruption. The Ring winced, but remained speechless. Tweed and his a.s.sociate plunderers, who had spent three millions on the courthouse and charged on their books an expenditure of eleven, had no desire to stir up discussion on such a topic and be pilloried by a cross-examination on the floor of the convention. A majority of the delegates, however, convinced that Tammany must not control the lieutenant-governor, nominated Allen C. Beach of Jefferson, giving him 77 votes to 47 for Laning.[1191]

[Footnote 1191: New York _World_, July 10, 1868.]

In the light of this result Murphy's friends seriously regretted his hasty withdrawal from the contest. Morris intended arraigning Tammany in his speech, nominating the Brooklyn Senator for governor, and the latter's supporters believed that Hoffman, whom they recognised as the personal representative of the Tweed ring, must have gone down under the disclosures of the District Attorney quite as easily as did Laning. This hasty opinion, however, did not have the support of truth. Hoffman's campaign in 1866 strengthened him with the people of the up-counties. To them he had a value of his own. In his speeches he had denounced wrongs and rebuked corruption, and his record as mayor displayed no disposition to enrich himself at the expense of his reputation. He was careful at least to observe surface proprieties.

Besides, at this time, Tammany had not been convicted of crime.

Vitriolic attacks upon the Tweed Ring were frequent, but they came from men whom it had hurt. Even Greeley's historic philippic, as famous for its style as for its deadly venom, came in revenge for Tweed's supposed part in defeating him for Congress in 1866.[1192]

[Footnote 1192: New York _Tribune_, March 5.

The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, John T. Hoffman, New York; Lieutenant-Governor, Allen C. Beach, Jefferson; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Oliver Bascom, Washington; Inspector of Prisons, David B. McNeil, Cayuga; Clerk of Court of Appeals, Edward O. Perrin, Queens.]

CHAPTER XV

THE STATE CARRIED BY FRAUD

1868

Horatio Seymour's nomination for President worried his Republican opponents in New York. It was admitted that he would adorn the great office, and that if elected he could act with more authority and independence than Chief Justice Chase, since the latter must have been regarded by Congress as a renegade and distrusted by Democrats as a radical. It was agreed, also, that the purity of Seymour's life, his character for honesty in financial matters, and the high social position which he held, made him an especially dangerous adversary in a State that usually dominated a national election. On the other hand, his opponents recalled that whenever a candidate for governor he had not only run behind his ticket, but had suffered defeat three out of five times. It was suggested, too, that although his whole public life had been identified with the politics of the Commonwealth, his name, unlike that of Daniel D. Tompkins, DeWitt Clinton, or Silas Wright, was a.s.sociated with no important measure of State policy. To this criticism Seymour's supporters justly replied that as governor, in 1853, he had boldly championed the great loan of ten and one-half millions for the Erie Ca.n.a.l enlargement.

As usual national issues controlled the campaign in New York. Although both parties denounced corruption in the repair of the Erie Ca.n.a.l, the people seemed more concerned in a return of good times and in a better understanding between the North and South. The financial depression of the year before had not disappeared, and an issue of greenbacks in payment of the 5-20 bonds, it was argued, would overcome the policy of contraction which had enhanced the face value of debts and decreased the price of property. Pendleton's tour through Maine emphasised this phase of the financial question, and while Democrats talked of "The same currency for ploughboy and bondholder,"

Republicans insisted upon "The best currency for both ploughboy and bondholder."

The campaign in Maine, however, satisfied Republicans that the Southern question, forced into greater prominence by recent acts of violence, had become a more important issue than the financial problem. In Saint Mary's parish, Louisiana, a Republican sheriff and judge were shot, editors and printers run out of the county, and their newspaper offices destroyed. But no arrests followed. In Arkansas a Republican deputy sheriff was tied to a negro and both killed with one shot. In South Carolina a colored State senator, standing on the platform of a street car, suffered the death penalty, his executioners publicly boasting of their act. In Georgia negro members of the Legislature were expelled. Indeed, from every Southern State came reports of violence and murder. These stories were accentuated by the Camilla riot in Georgia, which occurred on September 19. With banners and music three hundred Republicans, mostly negroes, were marching to Camilla to hold a ma.s.s meeting. Two-thirds of them carried arms.

Before reaching the town the sheriff endeavoured to persuade them to lay aside their guns and revolvers, and upon their refusal a riot ensued, in which eight or nine negroes were killed and twenty or thirty wounded. As usual their a.s.sailants escaped arrest and injury.

General Meade, commander of the department, reported that "the authors of this outrage were civil officers who, under the guise of enforcing the law and suppressing disorder, had permitted a wanton sacrifice of life and blood."[1193]

[Footnote 1193: Report of the Secretary of War, 1868, p. 81.]

The mere recital of these incidents aroused Northern feeling. It was the old story--murder without arrests or investigation. The knowledge, too, that it was in part the work of the Ku-Klux-Klan, a secret organisation pledged to disfranchise the negro by intimidation, intensified the bitterness. It is probably true that many reported atrocities were merely campaign stories. It is likely, too, that horse thieves and illicit distillers screened their misdeeds behind the Ku-Klux. It is well understood, also, that ambitious carpet-bag agitators, proving bad instructors for negroes just emerging from slavery, added largely to the list of casualties, making crime appear general throughout the South. But whether violence was universal or sporadic Republicans believed it a dangerous experiment to commit the government to the hands of "rebels and copperheads," and in their contest to avoid such an alleged calamity they emphasised Southern outrages and resurrected Seymour's speech to the draft rioters in July, 1863. To give the latter fresh interest Nast published a cartoon ent.i.tled "Matched,"[1194] which represented Grant demanding the unconditional surrender of Vicksburg, while Seymour, addressing a mob of foreigners wet with the blood of their victims, called them "my friends." Nast presented another cartoon which disturbed the Democracy. It represented John T. Hoffman standing before a screen behind which a gang of thieves was busily rifling the city treasury.

The face of Hoffman only was depicted, but the picture's serious note of warning pa.s.sed for more than a bit of campaign pleasantry. Frank P.

Blair, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, also furnished a text for bitter invective because of his declaration that "there is but one way to restore the government and the Const.i.tution and that is for the President-elect to declare the Reconstruction Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganise their own governments and elect senators and representatives."[1195]

Republicans charged that this represented the Democratic policy. On the other hand, the closing sentence of Grant's brief letter of acceptance, "Let us have peace," became the shibboleth of his followers, who claimed that the courteous and deferential spirit shown at Appomattox would characterise his administration. Indeed, the issue finally resolved itself to "Blair and Revolution" or "Grant and Peace," and after a contest of unusual bitterness Republicans carried the October States, although with greatly reduced majorities.

Pennsylvania gave only 10,000, Ohio 17,000, and Indiana less than 1,000.

[Footnote 1194: Albert B. Paine, _Life of Thomas Nast_, p. 130.]

[Footnote 1195: McPherson, _History of Reconstruction_, p. 381.]

Though these elections presaged a Republican victory in November, Democrats, still hopeful of success, renewed their efforts with great energy. Blair went to the rear and Seymour took the stump. With studied moderation Seymour had written his letter of acceptance to catch the wavering Republican voter. He made it appear that the South was saved from anarchy by the military, and that the North, to the sincere regret of many Republicans and their ablest journals, was no longer controlled by the sober judgment of the dominant party's safest leaders. "There is hardly an able man who helped to build up the Republican organisation," he said, "who has not within the past three years warned it against its excesses." These men he pictured as forced to give up their sentiments or to abandon their party, arguing that the latter's policy must be more violent in future unless checked by a division of political power. "Such a division," he said, adroitly seeking to establish confidence in himself, "tends to a.s.sure the peace and good order of society. The election of a Democratic Executive and a majority of Democratic members to the House of Representatives would not give to that party organisation the power to make sudden or violent changes, but it would serve to check those extreme measures which have been deplored by the best men of both political organisations."[1196]

[Footnote 1196: Horatio Seymour, _Public Record_, p. 345.]

Preaching this gospel of peace Seymour pa.s.sed through Western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, attempting to overcome the prestige of Grant's great fame, and to stem the tide of Northern prejudice against Southern outrages. Meanwhile Roscoe Conkling, having returned from a pleasure trip to Denver, entered the campaign with earnestness against his brother-in-law. He desired especially to carry Oneida County, to which he devoted his energies in the closing days of the contest, making a schoolhouse canva.s.s that lifted the issue above local pride in its distinguished citizen who headed the Democratic ticket. In going the rounds he met "Black Paddy," a swarthy Irishman and local celebrity, who announced that he had "turned Democrat."

"How so?" asked the Senator.

"Shure, sir," replied the quick-witted Celt, "O'im payin' ye a compliment in votin' for your brother-in-law."[1197]

[Footnote 1197: A.R. Conkling, _Life of Roscoe Conkling_, p. 313.]

Near the close of the campaign, in accordance with the habit of many years, William H. Seward returned to Auburn to speak to his neighbors and townsmen. No one then realised that this was to be his last political meeting, or that before another presidential election occurred he would have entered upon his long sleep on Fort Hill. But the hall was as full as if it had been so advertised. He was neither an old man, being sixty-seven, nor materially changed in appearance.

Perhaps his face was a trifle thinner, his hair lighter, and his jaw more prominent, but his mental equipment survived as in the olden days when the splendid diction hit the tone and temper of the anti-slavery hosts. His speech, however, showed neither the spirit that nerved him in the earlier time, nor the resources that formerly sustained him in vigorous and persuasive argument. He spoke rather in a vein of extenuation and reminiscence, as one whose work, judged by its beginnings, had perhaps ended unsatisfactorily as well as illogically, and for which there was no sufficient reason.[1198]

[Footnote 1198: _Seward's Works_, Vol. 5, pp. 550-556.]

This speech had the effect of widening the breach between him and his old a.s.sociates, who bitterly resented his apparent indifference in the great contest, while men of a younger generation, looking at him with wonder and interest, found it hard to realise that he had been one of the most conspicuous and energetic figures in political life. How complete was the loss of his political influence is navely ill.u.s.trated by Andrew D. White. "Mr. Cornell and I were arranging a programme for the approaching annual commencement when I suggested Mr.

Seward for the main address. Mr. Cornell had been one of Mr. Seward's lifelong supporters, but he received this proposal coldly, pondered it for a few moments silently, and then said dryly: 'Perhaps you are right, but if you call him you will show to our students the deadest man that ain't buried in the State of New York.'"[1199]

[Footnote 1199: _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 151.]

Samuel J. Tilden voiced the supreme ante-election confidence of the Democrats. "Speaking from an experience of more than thirty years in political observation and political action," he said, "I do not hesitate to say that in no presidential conflict since the days of Andrew Jackson have omens of victory to any party or any cause been so clear, so numerous, and so inspiring as those which now cheer the party of the national Democracy to battle in the cause of American liberty."[1200] The victory of 1867, in the opinion of leading Democrats, had removed the Empire State from the doubtful list, but while proclaiming their confidence of success many of them knew that a confidential circular, issued from the rooms of the Democratic State Committee and bearing the signature of Samuel J. Tilden, instructed certain persons in each of the up-State counties to telegraph William M. Tweed, "the minute the polls close and at his expense," the probable Republican majority.[1201] Its purpose was plain. The conspirators desired to know how many fraudulent votes would be needed to overcome the Republican superiority, and their method, then novel and ingenious, avoided all chance of failure to carry the State.

Tilden denied knowledge of this circular. He also disclaimed its evil purpose, but preferred to remain silent rather than denounce the forgers.[1202]