Chapter 41

DEMOCRATS DIVIDE INTO FACTIONS

1842-1844

From the moment of William C. Bouck's inauguration as governor, in January, 1843, Democratic harmony disappeared. It was supposed the question of canal improvement had been settled by the "stop and tax law" of 1842, and by the subsequent agreement of the Conservatives, at the Syracuse convention, in the following October. No one believed that any serious disposition existed on the part of the Governor to open the wound, since he knew a large majority of his party opposed the resumption of the work, and that the state officers, who had viewed his nomination with coldness, were watching his acts and critically weighing his words.

But he also knew that his most zealous and devoted friends, living along the line of the Erie, Black River, and Genesee Valley canals, earnestly desired the speedy completion of certain parts of these waterways. In order to please them, his message suggested the propriety of taking advantage of the low prices of labour and provisions to finish some of the work. He did it timidly. There was no positive recommendation. He touched the subject as one handles a live electric wire, trembling lest he rouse the sleeping opposition of the Radicals, or fail to meet the expectation of friends. But the recommendation, too expressionless to cheer his friends and too energetic to suit his opponents, foreshadowed the pitfalls into which he was to tumble. He had been the first to suggest the Erie enlargement, and he knew better than any other man in the State how important was its completion; yet he said as little in its favour as could be said, if he said anything at all, and that little seemed to be prompted, not so much for the good of the State, as to satisfy the demands of ardent friends, who had contributed to his nomination and election.

Severe criticism of the message, by the radical press, quickly showed that not even a temporary reconciliation had been effected by the act of 1842. Had the Governor now been sufficiently endowed with a faculty for good management, he must have strengthened himself and weakened his enemies with the vast amount of patronage at his command. Not since the days of Governor Lewis, had the making of so many appointments been committed to an executive. The Whigs, under Seward, had taken every office in the State. But Bouck, practising the nepotism that characterised Lewis' administration forty years before, took good care of his own family, and then, in the interest of harmony, turned whatever was left over to the members of the Legislature, who selected their own friends regardless of their relations to the Governor. There is something grim and pathetic in the picture of the rude awakening of this farmer governor, who, while working in his own weak way for harmony and conciliation, discovered, too late, that partisan rivalries and personal ambition had surrounded him with a cordon of enemies that could not be broken. To add to his humiliation, it frequently happened that the nominations of those whom he greatly desired confirmed, were rejected in the Senate by the united votes of Radicals and Whigs.

The controversy growing out of the election of a state printer to succeed Thurlow Weed increased the bitterness between the factions. Edwin Croswell had been removed from this office in 1840, and the Conservatives now proposed to reinstate him. Croswell had carefully avoided taking part in the factional contests then beginning to rend the party. He had supported, apparently in good faith, the "stop and tax law" of 1842, and, in the campaigns of 1841 and 1842, had been associated with Azariah C. Flagg in the publication of the _Rough Hewer_, a weekly paper of radical views, issued from the press of the _Argus_; but his sympathies were with the Conservatives, and when they sought to re-elect him public printer, the Radicals, led by Flagg, announced as their candidate Henry H. Van Dyck, the owner, since 1840, of a one-third interest in the _Argus_. For seventeen years, from 1823 to 1840, Croswell had held the office of state printer, accumulating wealth and enjoying the regard of the party; and Flagg and his colleagues contended that he should now give way to another equally deserving. This was a strong reason in a party that believed in rotation in office, especially when coupled with a desire on the part of the Radicals to control the _Argus_; and, to avoid an open rupture, Croswell proposed that a law be passed making the _Argus_ the state paper, without naming a public printer. Van Dyck objected to this, as it would leave Croswell in control of the establishment. Besides, Van Dyck claimed that, at the time he purchased an interest in the _Argus_, Croswell promised to support him for state printer. This Croswell denied.

Instantly, the air was alive with the thrill of battle. Croswell faced difficulties such as no other office-seeker had thus far encountered, difficulties of faction, difficulties of public sentiment, and difficulties of personnel. Flagg's conceded fidelity and honesty as a public officer, supplemented by his shrewdness and sagacity, made him the unquestioned leader of the Radicals; and, in this initial and crucial test of strength, he was indisposed to compromise or conciliate; but in Edwin Croswell he met the most impressive figure among the gladiators of the party. Croswell was the veteran editor whose judgment had guided its tactics, and whose words were instinct with life, with prophecy, and with fate. When he entered the pilot-house of his party, men knew something was going to happen. A perceptible hush seemed to announce his presence. At such times, his caustic sentences, clear and compact, were rarely conciliatory; but when he turned away from the wheel, achievement had proven his right to leadership.

In his contest with Flagg, however, Croswell encountered angry criticism from the Radicals and frigid approval from some Conservatives. His candidacy plainly impaired the high respect which his conduct and abilities had brought him. It was a mistake from every point of view; but, once committed to such a course his Conservative friends persevered, giving him finally sixty-six out of one hundred and six votes cast. A speech made by Assemblyman Leland of Steuben affords an interesting glimpse of the many influences summoned from every quarter, until men found themselves in the centre of a political cauldron from which there seemed no escape. "All who have come up here for office," said Leland, "have been compelled to take one side or the other, and as neither side knows what will be the result, some have been disposed to cry 'good Lord, if a Lord, or good devil, if not a Lord.'" The newspapers added to the perils of the quarrel. In the discussion preceding the election, the Albany _Atlas_, a daily paper recently established, but until now without political prominence, became the organ of the Radicals; and between it and the _Argus_ a fierce editorial battle, which extended to other Democratic papers throughout the State, made the factional division broader and more bitter.

Despite their quarrels, which continued throughout the legislative session, the Democrats, in the state election of November, 1843, carried two-thirds of the Assembly and five-sixths of the Senate. Nevertheless, the strength of the Conservatives was greatly increased. The utter and sudden abandonment of the canals, marked by a long line of tools left where the workmen dropped them, had played an important part in the campaign, and when the Democratic legislative caucus convened, in January, 1844, the friends of canal improvement easily defeated Michael Hoffman for speaker by a vote of fifty-six to thirty-five, in favour of Elisha Litchfield of Onondaga. Henry A. Foster, also an uncompromising champion of the Conservatives, was elected president _pro tem._ of the Senate. Litchfield had been in Congress. He was a strong man of acknowledged influence in the central counties of the State. Besides, he had been a faithful follower and an ardent admirer of Croswell. There were those who thought Horatio Seymour ought to be speaker; and, for a time, it looked as if he might secure the office. He was the real leader of the Conservatives, and he had more friends than Litchfield. But Litchfield had Croswell.

Backed by such a re-enforcement of Conservatives, Governor Bouck spoke of canal improvement with less timidity. He admitted the necessity of the tax law of 1842, but suggested the completion of "such new works as can be done with better economy than to sustain those designed to be superseded" and "are exposed to great and permanent injury." There was nothing forceful in this recommendation. He still kept the middle of the road, but his request practically amounted to the completion of some of the new work. It meant the finishing of the Schoharie aqueduct, improving the Jordan level, enlarging the locks of the Erie canal, and going on with the construction of the Black River and Genesee Valley canals.

The Radicals, realising the seriousness of the situation, now rested their hopes upon an elaborate report by Robert Dennison, chairman of the Senate canal committee. It was a telling blow. It attacked the estimated, as compared to the actual, cost of the canals, charging engineers with culpable ignorance or corrupt intention. The Chenango canal, it said, was estimated to cost $1,000,000; it actually cost $2,417,000. The first estimate of the Black River canal called for an expenditure of $437,000; after work was commenced, a recalculation made it $2,431,000. It cost, finally, over $2,800,000. The Genesee Valley canal presented even greater disparity, and more glaring ignorance. The original estimate fixed the cost at $1,774,000. Afterward, the same engineer computed it at $4,900,000; and it cost over $5,500,000. The State would have made money, the report said, had it built macadamised roads, instead of canals, at a cost of $4,000 a mile, and paid teamsters two dollars a day for hauling all the produce that the canals would transport when finished. In conclusion, Dennison declared that work on the canals could not be resumed without laying an additional direct tax. This statement touched the pocket-books of the people; and, in the opinion of the Radicals, closed the discussion, for no Democrat, confronting a presidential and gubernatorial election, would dare burden his party with another direct canal tax.

Horatio Seymour, chairman of the canal committee of the Assembly, now appeared with a report, covering seventy-one octavo pages, which illuminated the question even to the enlightenment of Michael Hoffman. It was the first display of that mastery of legislative skill and power, which Seymour's shrewd discerning mind was so well calculated to acquire. The young Oneida statesman had been a favourite since his advent in the Assembly in 1842. His handsome face, made more attractive by large, luminous eyes, and a kind, social nature, peculiarly fitted him for public life; and, back of his fascinating manners, lay sound judgment and great familiarity with state affairs. Like Seward, he possessed, in this respect, an advantage over older members, and he was now to show something of the moral power which the Auburn Senator displayed when he displeased the short-sighted partisans who seemed to exist and to act only for the present.

In presenting his report Seymour was careful to sustain the pledges of the act of 1842, and to condemn the pre-existing policy of creating additional debts for the purpose of constructing new canals or enlarging the Erie. With gentle and cunning skill he commended Azariah C. Flagg's policy, adopted in 1835, of using only the surplus revenue of the canals for such purposes. "The errors we have committed," said his report, "are not without their utility or profitable teaching. The corruptions of extravagance and the bitter consequences of indebtedness, have produced their own correctives, and public opinion, admonished by the past, has returned to its accustomed and healthful channels, from which it will not be readily diverted. There is no portion of our citizens who desire to increase our state indebtedness, or to do aught to the detriment of our common interests, when they are shown the evils that inevitably follow in the train of borrowing large sums of money, to be repaid, perhaps, in periods of pecuniary distress and embarrassment. Neither is it true, on the other hand, that any considerable number of our citizens are opposed to the extension of our canals when it can be effected by the aid of surplus revenues."[324]

[Footnote 324: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol. 3, p. 412.]

This last sentence was the keynote. Bouck had suggested the principle, and other Conservatives had vainly tried to enforce it, but it remained for Seymour to obtain for it a fair and candid hearing. With great clearness, he unfolded the condition of the public works and of the public finances, and, with able reasoning, he showed that, out of the canal revenues, all the pledges of the act of 1842 could be met, and out of the surplus revenues, all the pledges of the act of 1836 could be completed. At the conclusion, he introduced a bill providing for the resumption of work along the lines set forth in the report.

The reports of Dennison and Seymour reduced the issue to its lowest terms. Dennison wanted the surplus revenues, if any, applied to the payment of the state debt; Seymour insisted upon their use for the enlargement of the Erie and the completion of the Black River and Genesee Valley canals. Both favoured a sinking fund, with which to extinguish the state debt, and both opposed the construction of any new work which should add to that debt. But Dennison, with pessimistic doggedness, denied that there would be sufficient surplus to produce the desired result. Seymour, with much of the optimism of Seward, cherished the hope that rich tolls, growing larger as navigation grew better, would flow into the treasury, until all the canals would be completed and all the debts wiped out. The Radical was more than a pessimist--he was a strict constructionist of the act of 1842. He held that the Seymour bill was a palpable departure from the policy of that act, and that other measures, soon to follow, would eventually overthrow such a policy. To all this Seymour replied in his report, that "just views of political economy are not to be disseminated by harsh denunciations, which create the suspicion that there is more of hostility to the interests of those assailed than an honest desire to protect the treasury of the State."[325]

[Footnote 325: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol. 3, p. 412.]

Hoffman and Seymour set the tone to the debate in the Assembly. They were, admittedly, the leaders of the two factions, and, although Hoffman possessed remarkable powers of denunciation, which he used freely against measures, his courtesy toward opponents was no less marked than Seymour's.[326] Other Conservatives supported the measure with ability. But it was Seymour's firmness of mind, suavity of manner, unwearied patience, and incomparable temper, under a thousand provocations, that made it possible to pass the bill, substantially as he wrote it, by a vote of sixty-seven to thirty-eight. Even Michael Hoffman refused to vote against it, although he did not vote for it.

[Footnote 326: "One morning Hoffman rose to reply to Seymour, but on learning that he was ill he refused to deliver his speech for two or three days, till Seymour was able to be in his seat."--H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 175.]

The measure met fiercer opposition in the Senate. It had more acrid and irritable members than the Assembly, and its talkers had sharper tongues. In debate, Foster was the most formidable, but Albert Lester's acerbity of temper fixed the tone of the discussion. Finally, when the vote was taken the Democrats broke evenly for and against the measure; but, as five Whigs supported it, the bill finally passed, seventeen to thirteen.

It was a great victory for Seymour, then only thirty-four years old. Indeed, the history of the session may be described as the passage of a single measure by a single man whose success was based on supreme faith in the Erie canal. Seymour flowingly portrayed its benefits, and, with prophetic eye, saw the deeply ladened boats transporting the produce of prosperous farmers who had chosen homes in the West when access was rendered so easy. What seemed to others to threaten disaster to the State, appealed to him as a great highway of commerce that would yield large revenues to the Commonwealth and abundantly bless its people. He predicted the building of villages and the development of diversified industries along its banks, and, in one of his captivating sentences, he described the pleasure of travelling quickly by packets, viewing the scenery of the Mohawk Valley by day and sleeping comfortably in a cabin-berth at night. But he did not favour building so rapidly as to burden the State with debt. This was the mistake of the Seward administration, and the inevitable reaction gave the Radicals an argument for delay, and Dennison an opportunity for a telling report. Seymour put his faith in the earning capacity of the Erie canal. Forty years later, when he advocated the abolition of tolls, he found all his predictions more than verified.