Chapter 51

A BREAKING-UP OF PARTY TIES

1854

While the Hards and Softs quarrelled, and the Whigs showed weakness because of a want of harmony and the lack of principles, a great contest was being waged at Washington. In December, 1853, Stephen A. Douglas, from his place in the United States Senate, introduced the famous Nebraska bill affirming that the Clay compromise of 1850 had repealed the Missouri compromise of 1820. This sounded the trumpet of battle. The struggle of slavery and freedom was now to be fought to a finish. The discussion in Congress began in January, 1854, and ended on May 30. When it commenced the slavery question seemed settled; when it closed the country was in a ferment. Anti-slavery Whigs found companionship with Free-soil Democrats; the titles of "Nebraska" and "Anti-Nebraska" distinguished men's politics; conventions of Democrats, Whigs, and Free-soilers met to resist "the iniquity;" and on July 6 the Republican party, under whose banner the great fight was to be finished, found a birthplace at Jackson, Michigan.

Rufus King's part in the historic struggle of the Missouri Compromise was played by William H. Seward in the great contest over its repeal. He was the leader of the anti-slavery Whigs of the country, just as his distinguished predecessor had been the leader of the anti-slavery forces in 1820. He marshalled the opposition, and, when he finally took the floor on the 17th of February, he made a legal argument as close, logical, and carefully considered as if addressed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He developed the history of slavery and its successive compromises; he answered every argument in favour of the bill; he appealed to its supporters to admit that they never dreamed of its abrogating the compromise of 1820; he ridiculed the idea that it was in the interest of peace; and he again referred to the "higher law" that had characterised his speech in 1850. "The slavery agitation you deprecate so much," he said in concluding, "is an eternal struggle between conservatism and progress; between truth and error; between right and wrong. You may sooner, by act of Congress, compel the sea to suppress its upheavings, and the round earth to extinguish its internal fires. You may legislate, and abrogate, and abnegate, as you will, but there is a Superior Power that overrules all; that overrules not only all your actions and all your refusals to act, but all human events, to the distant but inevitable result of the equal and universal liberty of all men."[436]

[Footnote 436: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 221.]

Seward was not an orator. He could hardly be called an effective speaker. He was neither impassioned nor always impressive; but when he spoke he seemed to strike a blow that had in it the whole vigour and strength of the public sentiment which he represented. So far as one can judge from contemporary accounts he never spoke better than on this occasion; or when it was more evident that he spoke with all the sincere emotion of one whose mind and heart alike were filled with the cause for which he pleaded. "Some happy spell," he wrote his wife, "seemed to have come over me and to have enabled me to speak with more freedom and ease than on any former occasion here."[437] Rhodes suggests that Seward "could not conceal his exultation that the Democrats had forsaken their high vantage ground and played into the hands of their opponents."[438] He became almost dramatic when he threw down his gauntlet at the feet of every member of the Senate in 1850 and challenged him to say that he knew, or thought, or dreamed, that by enacting the compromise of 1850 he was directly or indirectly abrogating, or in any degree impairing the Missouri Compromise. "If it were not irreverent," he continued, "I would dare call up the author of both the compromises in question, from his honoured, though yet scarcely grass-covered grave, and challenge any advocate of this measure to confront that imperious shade, and say that, in making the compromise of 1850, Henry Clay intended or dreamed that he was subverting or preparing the way for a subversion of his greater work of 1820. Sir, if that spirit is yet lingering here over the scene of its mortal labours, it is now moved with more than human indignation against those who are perverting its last great public act."[439]

[Footnote 437: _Ibid._, p. 222.]

[Footnote 438: James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p. 453.]

[Footnote 439: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 220.]

Seward's speech created a profound impression throughout New York and the North. "It probably affected the minds of more men," says Rhodes, "than any speech delivered on that side of this question in Congress."[440] Senator Houston had it translated into German and extensively circulated among the Germans of western Texas. Even Edwin Croswell congratulated him upon its excellence. It again directed the attention of the country to his becoming a presidential candidate, about which newspapers and politicians had already spoken. Montgomery Blair's letter of May 17, 1873, to Gideon Welles, charges Seward with boasting that he had "put Senator Dixon up to moving the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as an amendment to Douglas' first Kansas bill, and had himself forced the repeal by that movement, and had thus brought life to the Republican party."[441] Undoubtedly Seward read the signs of the times, and saw clearly and quickly that repeal would probably result in a political revolution, bringing into life an anti-slavery party that would sweep the country. But the charge that he claimed to have suggested the repeal, smells too strongly of Welles' dislike of Seward, and needs other evidence than Blair's telltale letter to support it. It is on a par with Senator Atchinson's assertion, made under the influence of wine, that he forced Douglas to bring in the Nebraska bill--a statement that the Illinois Senator promptly stamped as false.

[Footnote 440: James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 1, p. 453.]

[Footnote 441: Gideon Welles, _Lincoln and Seward_, p. 68.]

The temper of the people of the State began to change very soon after the introduction of Douglas' proposal. Remonstrances, letters, and resolutions poured in from Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and other cities. Senator Fish presented a petition headed by the Bishop of the Episcopal Church and signed by a majority of the clergymen of New York City. Merchants, lawyers, and business men generally, who had actively favoured the compromise of 1850, now spoke in earnest protest against the repeal of the compromise of 1820. From the first, the Germans opposed it. Of their newspapers only eight out of eighty-eight were favourable. Public meetings, full of enthusiasm and noble sentiment, resembled religious gatherings enlisted in a holy war against a great social evil. The first assembled in New York City as early as January 30, six days after the repeal was agreed upon. Another larger meeting occurred on the 18th of February. It was here that Henry Ward Beecher's great genius asserted the fulness of its intellectual power. He had been in Brooklyn five years. The series of forensic achievements which began at the Kossuth banquet in 1851 had already made him the favourite speaker of the city, but, on the 18th of February, he became the idol of the anti-slavery host. Wit, wisdom, patriotism, and pathos, mingled with the loftiest strains of eloquence, compelled the attention and the admiration of every listener. When he concluded the whole assembly rose to do him honour; tears rolled down the cheeks of men and women. Everything was forgotten, save the great preacher and the cause for which he stood. "The storm that is rising," wrote Seward, "is such an one as this country has never yet seen. The struggle will go on, but it will be a struggle for the whole American people."[442] In the _Tribune_ of May 17, Greeley said that Pierce and Douglas had made more Abolitionists in three months than Garrison and Phillips could have made in half a century.

[Footnote 442: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 222.]

The agitation resulted in an anti-Nebraska state convention, held at Saratoga on the 16th of August. It was important in the men who composed it. John A. King called it to order; Horace Greeley reported the resolutions; Henry J. Raymond represented the district that had twice sent him to the Assembly; and Moses H. Grinnell became chairman of its executive committee. In the political struggles of two decades most of its delegates had filled prominent and influential positions. These men were now brought together by an absorbing sense of duty and a common impulse of resistance to the encroachments of slavery. People supposed a new party would be formed and a ticket nominated as in Michigan; but after an animated and at times stormy discussion, the delegates concluded that in principle too little difference existed to warrant the present disturbance of existing organisations. So, after declaring sentiments which were to become stronger than party ties or party discipline, it agreed to reassemble at Auburn on September 26.[443]

[Footnote 443: "After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, it would seem as if the course of the opposition were plain. That the different elements of opposition should be fused into one complete whole seemed political wisdom. That course involved the formation of a new party and was urged warmly and persistently by many newspapers, but by none with such telling influence as by the New York _Tribune_. It had likewise the countenance of Chase, Sumner, and Wade. There were three elements that must be united--the Whigs, the Free-soilers, and the Anti-Nebraska Democrats. The Whigs were the most numerous body and as those at the North, to a man, had opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise they thought, with some quality of reason, that the fight might well be made under their banner and with their name. For the organisation of a party was not the work of a day. Why, then, go to all this trouble, when a complete organisation is at hand ready for use? This view of the situation was ably argued by the New York _Times_, and was supported by Senator Seward. As the New York Senator had a position of influence superior to any one who had opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill, strenuous efforts were made to get his adhesion to a new party movement, but they were without avail. 'Seward hangs fire,' wrote Dr. Bailey. 'He agrees with Thurlow Weed.'--(Bailey to J.S. Pike, May 30, 1854, _First Blows of the Civil War_, p. 237.) 'We are not yet ready for a great national convention at Buffalo or elsewhere,' wrote Seward to Theodore Parker; 'it would bring together only the old veterans. The States are the places for activity just now.'--(_Life of Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 232.) Yet many Whigs who were not devoted to machine politics saw clearly that a new party must be formed under a new name. They differed, however, in regard to their bond of union. Some wished to go to the country with simply _Repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska act_ inscribed on their banner. Others wished to plant themselves squarely on prohibition of slavery in all the territories. Still others preferred the resolve that not another slave State should be admitted into the Union. Yet after all, the time seemed ripe for the formation of a party whose cardinal principle might be summed up as opposition to the extension of slavery."--James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 2, p. 45-7.]

The Nebraska Act also became a new source of division to Democrats. Marcy's opposition, based upon apprehensions of its disastrous effect in New York, was so pronounced that he contemplated resigning as secretary of state--a step that his friends persuaded him to abandon. John Van Buren was equally agitated. "Could anything but a desire to buy the South at the presidential shambles dictate such an outrage?"[444] he asked Senator Clemens of Alabama. But nothing could stop the progress of the Illinois statesman; and, while the Whigs of New York ably and uniformly opposed repeal, Democrats broke along the lines dividing the Hards and the Softs. Of twenty-one Democratic congressmen, nine favoured and twelve opposed it. Among the former was William M. Tweed, the unsavoury boss of later years; among the latter, Reuben E. Fenton, Rufus W. Peckham, and Russell Sage. The Democratic press separated along similar lines. Thirty-seven Hards supported the measure; thirty-eight Softs opposed it.

[Footnote 444: New York _Evening Post_, February 11, 1854.]

The Hards held their state convention on the 12th of July. Their late trial of strength with the Softs had resulted in a drawn battle, and it was now their purpose to force the Pierce-Seymour Softs out of the party. The proceedings began with a challenge. Lyman Tremaine spoke of the convention as one in which the President had no minions; Samuel Beardsley, the chairman, after charging Pierce with talking one way and acting another, declared that the next Chief Executive would both talk and act like a national Democrat. Further, to emphasise its independence and dislike of the President, the convention nominated Greene C. Bronson for governor as the representative of Pierce's proscriptive policy for opinion's sake. But there was no disposition to criticise Pierce's pro-slavery policy. It favoured the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, proclaiming the doctrine of non-intervention by Congress and the right of the territories to make their own local laws, including regulations relating to domestic servitude. It also approved the recently ratified canal amendment and strongly favoured the prohibitive liquor law vetoed by Governor Seymour.

Greene C. Bronson's career had been distinguished. He had served as assemblyman, as attorney-general for seven years, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, and as an original member of the Court of Appeals. Although now well advanced in years, age had not cowed his spirit or lessened the purity of a character which shone in the gentleness of amiable manners; but his pro-slavery platform hit his consistency a hard blow. In 1819, as secretary of a mass-meeting called to oppose the Missouri Compromise, he had declared that Congress possessed the clear and indisputable power to prohibit the admission of slavery in any State or territory thereafter to be formed. If this was good law in 1819 it was good law in 1854, and the acceptance of a contrary theory put him at a serious disadvantage. His attitude on the liquor question also proved a handicap. He showed that the position of judge in interpreting the law was a very different thing from that of making the law by steering a party into power in a crucial campaign.

The convention of the Softs followed on September 6. Two preliminary caucuses indicated a strong anti-Nebraska sentiment. But a bold and resolute opposition, led by federal officials and John Cochrane, the Barnburners' platform-maker, portended trouble. There was no disagreement on state issues. The approval of Seymour's administration settled the policy of canal improvement and anti-prohibition, but the delegates balked on the cunningly worded resolution declaring the repeal of the Missouri Compromise inexpedient and unnecessary, yet rejoicing that it would benefit the territories and forbidding any attempt to undo it. It put the stamp of Nebraska upon the proceedings, and the deathlike stillness which greeted its reading shook the nerves of the superstitious as an unfavourable omen. Immediately, a short substitute was offered, unqualifiedly disapproving the repeal as a violation of legislative good faith and of the spirit of Christian civilisation; and when Preston King took the floor in its favour the deafening applause disclosed the fact that the anti-Nebraskans had the enthusiasm if not the numbers. As the champion of the Wilmot Proviso concluded, the assembly resembled the Buffalo convention of 1848 at the moment of its declaration for free soil, free speech, free labour, and free men. But the roll call changed the scene. Of the 394 delegates, 245 voted to lay the substitute on the table.

This result was a profound surprise. The public expected different action and the preliminary caucuses showed an anti-Nebraska majority; but the Custom-House had done its work well. The promise of a nomination for lieutenant-governor had changed the mind of William H. Ludlow, chairman of the convention, who packed the committee on resolutions. Similar methods won fifty other delegates. But despite the shock, Preston King did not hesitate. He might be broken, but he could not be bent. Rising with dignity he withdrew from the convention, followed by a hundred others who ceased to act further with it. Subsequent proceedings reflected the gloom of a body out of which the spirit had departed. Delegates kept dropping out until only one hundred and ninety-nine remained to cheer the nomination of Horatio Seymour. On a roll call for lieutenant-governor, Philip Dorsheimer declared it a disgrace to have his name called in a convention that had adopted such a platform.

The Whig convention followed on September 20. A divided Democracy again made candidates confident, and eight or ten names were presented for governor. Horace Greeley thought it time his turn should come. He had been pronounced in his advocacy of the Maine liquor law and active in his hostility to the Nebraska Act. As these were to be the issues of the campaign, he applied with confidence to Weed for help. The Albany editor frankly admitted that his friends had lost control of the convention, and that Myron H. Clark would probably get the nomination. Then Greeley asked to be made lieutenant-governor. Weed reminded him of the outcry in the Whig national convention of 1848 against having "cotton at both ends of the ticket." "I suppose you mean," replied Greeley, laughing, "that it won't do to have prohibition at both ends of our state ticket."[445] But, though he laughed, the editor of the _Tribune_ went away nettled and humiliated. In the contest, which became exciting, Greeley's friends urged his selection for governor without formally presenting his name to the convention; but on the third ballot Clark received the nomination, obtaining 82 out of the 132 votes cast.

[Footnote 445: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 226.

"Mr. Greeley called upon me at the Astor House and asked if I did not think that the time and circumstances were favourable to his nomination. I replied that I did not think the time and circumstances favourable to his election, if nominated, but that my friends had lost control of the state convention. This answer perplexed him, but a few words of explanation made it quite clear. Admitting that he had brought the people up to the point of accepting a temperance candidate for governor, I remarked that another aspirant had 'stolen his thunder.' In other words, while he had shaken the temperance bush, Myron H. Clark would catch the bird. I informed Mr. Greeley that Know-Nothing or 'Choctaw' lodges had been secretly organised throughout the State, by means of which many delegates for Mr. Clark had been secured. Mr. Greeley saw that the 'slate' had been broken, and cheerfully relinquished the idea of being nominated. But a few days afterwards Mr. Greeley came to Albany, and said in an abrupt but not unfriendly way, 'Is there any objection to my running for lieutenant-governor?'... After a little more conversation, Mr. Greeley became entirely satisfied that a nomination for lieutenant-governor was not desirable, and left me in good spirits."--_Ibid._, Vol. 2, p. 226.]

Myron H. Clark, now in his forty-ninth year, belonged to the class of men generally known as fanatics. He was a plain man of humble pretensions and slender attainments. He was originally a cabinet-maker and afterward a merchant. Then he became a reformer. He sympathised with the Native Americans; he approved Seward's views upon slavery; and he interested himself in the workingmen. But his hobby was temperance. Its advocates made his home in Canandaigua their headquarters, and during the temperance revival which swept over the State in the early fifties, he aided in directing the movement. This experience opened his way, in 1851, to the State Senate. Here he displayed some of the legislative gifts that distinguished John Young. He had patience and persistence; he could talk easily and well; and, underneath his enthusiasm, lingered the shrewdness of a skilled diplomat. When, at last, the Maine liquor bill, which he had introduced and engineered, passed the Legislature, his name was a household word throughout the State. Seymour's veto of the measure strengthened Clark. People realised that a governor no less than a legislature was needed to make laws, and, with the spirit of reformers, the delegates demanded his nomination. To Weed it seemed hazardous; but a majority of the convention, believing that Clark's public career had been sagacious and upright, refused to take another.

Clark's nomination made the selection of a candidate for lieutenant-governor more difficult. The prohibitionists were satisfied; Greeley was not. In their anxiety, the delegates canvassed several names without result. Finally, with great suddenness and amidst much enthusiasm, Henry J. Raymond was nominated. This deeply wounded Greeley. "He had cheerfully withdrawn his own name," wrote Weed, "but he could not submit patiently to the nomination of his personal, professional, and political rival."[446] Greeley believed it was not the convention, but Weed himself, who brought it about. On the contrary, Weed declared that he had no thought of Raymond in that connection until his name was suggested by others. Nevertheless, the _Tribune's_ editor held to his own opinion. "No other name could have been put upon the ticket so bitterly humbling to me,"[447] he afterward wrote Seward. To Greeley, Raymond was "The little Villain of the _Times_;" to Raymond, Greeley was "The big Villain of the _Tribune_."[448] In any aspect, Raymond was an unfortunate nomination for Weed, since it began the quarrel that culminated in the defeat of Seward at Chicago in 1860.

[Footnote 446: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 227.]

[Footnote 447: _Ibid._, p. 280.]

[Footnote 448: In a letter to Charles A. Dana, dated March 2, 1856, Greeley indicates his feeling toward Raymond. "Have we got to surrender a page of the next _Weekly_ to Raymond's bore of an address?" he says, referring to the Pittsburgh convention's appeal. "The man who could inflict six columns on a long-suffering public, on such an occasion, cannot possibly know enough to write an address."]

Early in the campaign, Greeley favoured dropping the name of Whig and organising an anti-Nebraska or Republican party, with a ticket of Whigs and Democrats, as had been done in some of the Western States. But Seward and Weed, with a majority of the Whig leaders, thought that while fusion might be advisable wherever the party was essentially weak, as in Ohio and Indiana, it was wiser, in States like New York and Massachusetts where Whigs were in power, to retain the party name and organisation.[449] In so deciding, however, they agreed with Greeley that the platform should be thoroughly anti-Nebraska, and they gave it a touch that kindled the old fire in the hearts of the anti-slavery veterans. It condemned the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, approved the course of the New York senators and representatives who resisted it, declared that it discharged the party from further obligation to support any compromise with slavery, and denounced "popular sovereignty" as a false and deceptive cry, "too flimsy to mislead any but those anxious to be deluded and eager to be led astray." This declaration of principles was summarised as "Justice, Temperance, and Freedom." One delegate, amidst great applause, said he felt glorified that the party was disenthralled and redeemed. Roscoe Conkling, a vice president, spoke of the convention as belonging to "the Republican party." Greeley declared the platform "as noble as any friend of freedom could have expected." Other state organisations also approved it. The anti-Nebraska convention, upon reassembling in Auburn on September 26, adopted the Whig ticket. The state temperance convention indorsed the nomination of Clark and Raymond, and the Free Democrats accepted Clark. This practically made a fusion ticket.

[Footnote 449: "I was a member of the first anti-Nebraska or Republican State Convention, which met at Saratoga Springs in September; but Messrs. Weed and Seward for a while stood aloof from the movement, preferring to be still regarded as Whigs."--Horace Greeley, _Recollections of a Busy Life_, p. 314.]

Early in October the Native Americans went into council. This organisation, which had elected a mayor of New York in 1844, suddenly revived in 1854; and, in spite of its intolerant and prescriptive spirit, the movement spread rapidly. Mystery surrounded its methods. It held meetings in unknown places; its influence could not be measured; and its members professed to know nothing. Thus it became known as the "Know-Nothing" party. Members recognised each other by the casual inquiry, "Have you seen Sam?" and when one of the old parties collapsed at a local election the reply came, "We have seen Sam." Its secrecy fascinated young men, and its dominant principle, "America for Americans," stirred them into unusual activity. The skilful use of patriotic phrases also had its influence. The "Star Spangled Banner" was its emblem, Washington its patron saint, and his thrilling command, "Put none but Americans on guard to-night," its favourite password. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts joined it as an instrument for destroying the old parties, which he regarded an obstacle to freedom; but Seward thought this was doing evil that good might come. Everything is un-American, he argued, which makes a distinction between the native-born American and the one who renounces his allegiance to a foreign land and swears fealty to the country that adopts him. "Why," he asked, "should I exclude the foreigner to-day? He is only what every American citizen or his ancestor was at some time or other."[450]

[Footnote 450: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 234.]

The voting strength of this party in New York was estimated at 65,000, divided between Hards, Softs, and Whigs, with one-fifth each, and the Silver-Grays with two-fifths. On the question of putting up a state ticket, its council divided. The Silver-Grays, it was said, favoured candidates in order to defeat Clark; while the Whigs and Softs preferred making no nominations. In the end, Daniel Ullman, a reputable New York lawyer of mediocre ability, received the nomination for governor. The great overmastering passion of Ullman was a desire for office. For many years he had been a persistent and unsuccessful knocker at the door of city, county and state Whig conventions, and when the Know-Nothings appeared he turned to them to back his ambition. Possibly they knew that his parents were foreign-born, but the mystery surrounding his own birthplace became a comical feature of the canvass. It was claimed, upon what seemed proper evidence at the time, that Ullman was born in India and had not become a naturalised citizen of the United States. This made him ineligible as the candidate of his party, and disqualified him from serving as governor if elected.

The campaign opened with two clearly defined issues--limitation of the liquor traffic and condemnation of the Nebraska Act. Clark stood for both, Ullman stood for neither; Bronson and Seymour opposed prohibition and approved the Nebraska Act. Greeley declared that the two Democratic candidates differed only "as to whether the contempt universally felt for President Pierce should be openly expressed, or more decorously cherished in silence." As the canvass advanced, the real contest became prohibition, with Bronson and Seymour apparently running a race for the liquor vote, while Ullman was silently securing the votes of men who thought the proscription of foreign-born citizens more important than either freedom or temperance. To the most adroit political prognosticators the situation was confused. Greeley estimated Clark's strength at 200,000, and that of the next highest, either Seymour or Bronson, at 150,000; but so little was known of the Know-Nothings that he omitted Ullman from the calculation. Another prophet fixed Ullman's strength at 65,000. The surprise was great, therefore, when the returns disclosed a Know-Nothing vote of 122,000, with Clark and Seymour running close to 156,000 each, and Bronson with less than 35,000. The people did not seem to have been thinking about Bronson at all. Seymour's veto commended the Governor to the larger cities, and it swept him on like a whirlwind. New York gave him 26,000. His election was conceded by the Whigs and claimed by the Democrats; but, after several weeks of anxious waiting, the official count made Clark the governor by a plurality of 309.[451] Including defective votes plainly intended for Seymour, Clark's plurality was only 153. Raymond ran 600 ahead of Clark, but his plurality over Ludlow was 20,000, since the latter's vote was 20,000 less than Seymour's. These twenty thousand preferred to vote for Elijah Ford of Buffalo, who ran for lieutenant-governor on the ticket with Bronson, possibly because of Ludlow's alleged perfidy at the Syracuse convention. Of the congressmen elected, twenty-five were Whigs, three Softs, two Anti-Nebraskans, and three Know-Nothings; in the Assembly there were eighty-one Whigs, twenty-six Softs, and seventeen Hards.

[Footnote 451: Myron H. Clark, 156,804; Horatio Seymour, 156,495; Daniel Ullman, 122,282; Green C. Bronson, 33,850.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

The result of the election could scarcely be called a Whig victory; but it was a popular rebuke to the Nebraska bill. Clark's majority, slender as it finally appeared by the official count, was due to the Whigs occupying common ground with Free-soilers who discarded party attachments in behalf of their cherished convictions. The Silver-Grays found a home with the Hards and the Know-Nothings, and many Democrats, unwilling to go to the Whigs, voted for Ullman.

It was the breaking-up of old parties. The great political crisis which had been threatening the country for many years was about to burst, and, like the first big raindrops that precede a downpour, the changes in 1854 announced its presence. It had been so long in coming that John W. Taylor of Saratoga, the champion opponent of the Missouri Compromise, was dying when Horace Greeley, at the anti-Nebraska convention held in Taylor's home in August, 1854, was writing into the platform of the new Republican party the principles that Taylor tried to write into the old Republican party in 1820. "Whoever reads Taylor's speeches in that troubled period," says Stanton, "will find them as sound in doctrine, as strong in argument, as splendid in diction, as any of the utterances of the following forty-five years, when the thirteenth amendment closed the controversy for all time."[452]

[Footnote 452: H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 164. John W. Taylor served twenty consecutive years in Congress--a longer continuous service than any New York successor. Taylor also bears the proud distinction of being the only speaker from New York. Twice he was honoured as the successor of Henry Clay. He died at the home of his daughter in Cleveland, Ohio, in September, 1854, at the age of seventy, leaving a place in history strongly marked.]