Chapter 60

THE FIGHT OF THE FUSIONISTS

1860

After the return of the Softs from Baltimore the condition of the Democratic party became a subject of much anxiety. Dean Richmond's persistent use of the unit rule had driven the Hards into open rebellion, and at a great mass-meeting, held at Cooper Institute and addressed by Daniel S. Dickinson, it was agreed to hold a Breckenridge and Lane state convention at Syracuse on August 8. At the appointed time three hundred delegates appeared, representing every county, but with the notable exception of the chairman, Henry S. Randall, the biographer of Thomas Jefferson, who had advocated the Wilmot Proviso in 1847, written the Buffalo platform in 1848, and opposed the fugitive slave law in 1850, practically all of them had steadily opposed the Free-soil influences of their party. To many it seemed strange, if not absolutely ludicrous, to hoist a pro-slavery flag in the Empire State. But Republicans welcomed the division of their opponents, and the Hards were terribly in earnest. They organised with due formality; spent two days in conference; adopted the pro-slavery platform of the seceders' convention amidst loud cheering; selected candidates for a state and electoral ticket with the care that precedes certain election; angrily denounced the leadership of Dean Richmond at Charleston and Baltimore; appointed a new state committee, and, with the usual assurance of determined men, claimed a large following.

The indomitable Dickinson, in a speech not unlike his Cooper Institute address, declared that Breckenridge, the regularly nominated candidate of seventeen States and portions of other States, would secure one hundred and twenty-seven electoral votes in the South and on the Pacific coast. This made the election, he argued, depend upon New York, and since Douglas would start without the hope of getting a single vote, it became the duty of every national Democrat to insist that the Illinoisan be withdrawn. People might scoff at this movement as "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand," he said, but it would grow in size and send forth a deluge that would refresh and purify the arid soil of politics. The applause that greeted this prophecy indicated faith in a principle that most people knew had outlived its day in the State; and, although Dickinson was always altogether on one side, it is scarcely credible that he could sincerely believe that New York would support Breckenridge, even if Douglas withdrew.

The Hards conjured with a few distinguished names which still gave them prestige. Charles O'Conor, Greene C. Bronson, and John A. Dix, as conservative, moderate leaders, undoubtedly had the confidence of many people, and their ticket, headed by James T. Brady, the brilliant lawyer, looked formidable. Personally, Brady was perhaps the most popular man in New York City; and had he stood upon other than a pro-slavery platform his support must have been generous. But the fact that he advocated the protection of slave property in the territories, although opposed to Buchanan's Lecompton policy, was destined to subject him to humiliating defeat.

The Softs met in convention on August 15. In numbers and noisy enthusiasm they did not seem to represent a larger following than the Hards, but their principles expressed the real sentiment of whatever was left of the rank and file of the Democratic party of the State. Horatio Seymour was the pivotal personage. Around him they rallied. The resolution indorsing Stephen A. Douglas and his doctrine of non-intervention very adroitly avoided quarrels. It accepted Fernando Wood's delegation on equal terms with Tammany; refused to notice the Hards' attack upon Dean Richmond and the majority of the Charleston delegation; and nominated William Kelley of Hudson for governor by acclamation. Kelley was a large farmer of respectable character and talents, who had served with credit in the State Senate and supported Van Buren in 1848 with the warmth of a sincere Free-soiler. He was evidently a man without guile, and, although modest and plain-spoken, he knew what the farmer and workingman most wanted, and addressed himself to their best thought. It was generally conceded that he would poll the full strength of his party.

But the cleverest act of the convention was its fusion with the Constitutional Union party. In the preceding May, the old-line Whigs and Know-Nothings had met at Baltimore and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice President, on the simple platform: "The Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." Washington Hunt, the former governor of New York, had become the convention's president, and, in company with James Brooks and William Duer, he had arranged with the Softs to place on the Douglas electoral ticket ten representatives of the Union party, with William Kent, the popular son of the distinguished Chancellor, at their head.

Hunt had become a thorn in the side of his old friends, now the leading Republican managers. He had joined them as a Whig in the thirties. After sending him to Congress for three terms and making him comptroller of state in 1848, they had elected him governor in 1850; but, in the division of the party, he joined the Silver-Grays, failed of re-election in 1852, dropped into the American party in 1854, and supported Fillmore in 1856. Thurlow Weed thought he ought to have aided them in the formation of the Republican party, and Horace Greeley occasionally reminded him that a decent regard for consistency should impel him to act in accordance with his anti-slavery record; but when, in 1860, Hunt began the crusade that successfully fused the Douglas and Bell tickets in New York, thus seriously endangering the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican editors opened their batteries upon him with well-directed aim. In his one attempt to face these attacks, Hunt taunted Greeley with being "more dangerous to friend than to foe." To this the editor of the _Tribune_ retorted: "When I was your friend, you were six times before the people as a candidate for most desirable offices, and in five of those six were successful, while you were repeatedly a candidate before and have been since, and always defeated. Possibly some have found me a dangerous friend, but you never did."[580]

[Footnote 580: New York _Tribune_, July 23, 1860.]

Hunt's coalition movement, called the "Syracuse juggle" and the "confusion ticket," did not work as smoothly as he expected. It gave rise to a bitter controversy which at once impaired its value. The Bell negotiators declared that the ten electors, if chosen, would be free to vote for their own candidate, while the Douglas mediators stated with emphasis that each elector was not only pledged by the resolution of the convention to support Douglas, but was required to give his consent to do so or allow another to fill his place. "We cannot tell which answer is right," said the New York _Sun_, "but it looks as if there were deception practised." The _Tribune_ presented the ridiculous phase of it when it declared that the Bell electors were put up to catch the Know-Nothings, while the others would trap the Irish and Germans. "Is this the way," it asked, referring to William Kent and his associates, "in which honourable men who have characters to support, conduct political contests?"[581] To dissipate the confusion, Hunt explained that the defeat of Lincoln would probably throw the election into Congress, in which event Bell would become President. "But we declare, with the same frankness, that if Douglas, and not Bell, shall become President, we will welcome that result as greatly preferable to the success of sectional candidates."[582]

[Footnote 581: _Ibid._, July 14, 1860.]

[Footnote 582: _Ibid._, July 24, 1860.]

The Republican state convention which met at Syracuse on August 22, did not muffle its enthusiasm over the schism in the Democratic party. Seward and his friends had regained their composure. A midsummer trip to New England, chiefly for recreation, had brought great crowds about the Auburn statesmen wherever he appeared, and, encouraged by their enthusiastic devotion, he returned satisfied with the place he held in the hearts of Republicans. His followers, too, indicated their disappointment by no public word or sign. To the end of the convention its proceedings were marked by harmony and unanimity. Edwin D. Morgan was renominated for governor by acclamation; the platform of Chicago principles was adopted amidst prolonged cheers, and the selection of electors approved without dissent. The happy combination of the two electors-at-large, William Cullen Bryant and James O. Putnam, evidenced the spirit of loyalty to Abraham Lincoln that inspired all participants. Bryant had been an oracle of the radical democracy for more than twenty years, and had stubbornly opposed Seward; Putnam, a Whig of the school of Clay and Webster, had, until recently, zealously supported Millard Fillmore and the American party. In its eagerness to unite every phase of anti-slavery sentiment the convention buried the past in its desire to know, in the words of Seward, "whether this is a constitutional government under which we live."

During the campaign, Republican demonstrations glorified Lincoln's early occupation of rail-splitting, while the Wide-awakes, composed largely of young men who had studied the slavery question since 1852 solely as a moral issue, illuminated the night and aroused enthusiasm with their torches and expert marching. As early as in September, the New York _Herald_ estimated that over four hundred thousand were already uniformed and drilled. In every town and village these organisations, unique then, although common enough nowadays, were conscious appeals for sympathy and favour, and undoubtedly contributed much to the result by enlisting the hearty support of first voters. Indeed, on the Republican side, it was largely a campaign of young men. "The Republican party," said Seward at Cleveland, "is a party chiefly of young men. Each successive year brings into its ranks an increasing proportion of the young men of this country."[583]

[Footnote 583: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 462. _Seward's Works_, Vol. 4, p. 384.]

Aside from the torch-light processions of the Wide-awakes, the almost numberless speeches were the feature of the canvass of 1860. There had, perhaps, been more exciting and enthusiastic campaigns, but the number of meetings was without precedent. The _Tribune_ estimated that ten thousand set addresses were made in New York alone, and that the number in the country equalled all that had been made in previous presidential canvasses since 1789. It is likewise true that at no time in the history of the State did so many distinguished men take part in a campaign. Though the clergy were not so obtrusive as in 1856, Henry Ward Beecher and Edwin H. Chapin, the eminent Universalist, did not hesitate to deliver political sermons from their pulpits, closing their campaign on the Sunday evening before election.

But the New Yorker whom the Republican masses most desired to hear and see was William H. Seward. Accordingly, in the latter part of August he started on a five weeks' tour through the Western States, beginning at Detroit and closing at Cleveland. At every point where train or steamboat stopped, if only for fifteen minutes, thousands of people awaited his coming. The day he spoke in Chicago, it was estimated that two hundred thousand visitors came to that city. Rhodes suggests that "it was then he reached the climax of his career."[584]

[Footnote 584: "Seward filled the minds of Republicans, attracting such attention and honour, and arousing such enthusiasm, that the closing months of the campaign were the most brilliant epoch of his life. It was then he reached the climax of his career."--James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 2, p. 493.]

Seward's speeches contained nothing new, and in substance they resembled one another. But in freshness of thought and kaleidoscopic phraseology, they were attractive, full of eloquence, and of statesmanlike comment, lifting the campaign, then just opening, upon a high plane of political and moral patriotism. He avoided all personalities; he indicated no disappointment;[585] his praise of Lincoln was in excellent taste; and without evasion or concealment, but with a ripeness of experience that had mellowed and enlightened him, he talked of "higher law" and the "irrepressible conflict" in terms that made men welcome rather than fear their discussion. "Let this battle be decided in favour of freedom in the territories," he declared, "and not one slave will ever be carried into the territories of the United States, and that will end the irrepressible conflict."[586]

[Footnote 585: "Seward charged his defeat chiefly to Greeley. He felt toward that influential editor as much vindictiveness as was possible in a man of so amiable a nature. But he did not retire to his tent."--James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol. 2, p. 494.

"The magnanimity of Mr. Seward, since the result of the convention was known," wrote James Russell Lowell, "has been a greater ornament to him and a greater honour to his party than his election to the Presidency would have been."--_Atlantic Monthly_, October, 1860; _Lowell's Political Essays_, p. 34.]

[Footnote 586: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, pp. 462-66.]

The growth and resources of the great Northwest, whose development he attributed to the exclusion of slave labour, seemed to inspire him with the hope and faith of youth, and he spoke of its reservation for freedom and its settlement and upbuilding in the critical moment of the country's history as providential, since it must rally the free States of the Atlantic coast to call back the ancient principles which had been abandoned by the government to slavery. "We resign to you," he said, "the banner of human rights and human liberty on this continent, and we bid you be firm, bold, and onward, and then you may hope that we will be able to follow you." It was in one of these moments of exaltation when he seemed to be lifted into the higher domain of prophecy that he made the prediction afterward realised by the Alaska treaty. "Standing here and looking far off into the Northwest," he said, "I see the Russian as he busily occupies himself in establishing seaports and towns and fortifications on the verge of this continent as the outposts of St. Petersburg, and I can say, 'Go on, and build up your outposts all along the coast, up even to the Arctic Ocean, for they will yet become the outposts of my own country--monuments of the civilisation of the United States in the Northwest."[587]

[Footnote 587: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 464.]

At the beginning of the canvass, Republican confidence and enthusiasm contrasted strangely with the apathy of the Democratic party, caused by its two tickets, two organisations, and two incompatible platforms. It was recognised early in the campaign that Douglas could carry no slave State unless it be Missouri; and, although the Douglas and Bell fusion awaked some hope, it was not until the fusion electoral ticket included supporters of Breckenridge that the struggle became vehement and energetic. New York's thirty-five votes were essential to the election of Lincoln, and early in September a determined effort began to unite the three parties against him. The Hards resisted the movement, but many merchants and capitalists of New York City, apprehensive of the dissolution of the Union if Lincoln were elected, and promising large sums of money to the campaign, forced the substitution of seven Breckenridge electors in place of as many Douglas supporters, giving Bell ten, Breckenridge seven, and Douglas eighteen. "It is understood," said the _Tribune_, "that four nabobs have already subscribed twenty-five thousand dollars each, and that one million is to be raised."[588]

[Footnote 588: New York _Tribune_, October 19, 1860.]

All this disturbed Lincoln. "I think there will be the most extraordinary effort ever made to carry New York for Douglas," he wrote Weed on August 17. "You and all others who write me from your State think the effort cannot succeed, and I hope you are right. Still, it will require close watching and great efforts on the other side."[589] After fusion did succeed, the Republican managers found encouragement in the fact that a majority of the Americans in the western part of the State,[590] following the lead of Putnam, belonged to the party of Lincoln, while the Germans gave comforting evidence of their support. On his return from the West Seward assured Lincoln "that this State will redeem all the pledges we have made."[591] Then came the October verdict from Pennsylvania and Indiana. "Emancipation or revolution is now upon us," said the Charleston _Mercury_.[592] Yet the hope of the New York fusionists, encouraged by a stock panic in Wall Street and by the unconcealed statement of Howell Cobb of Georgia, then secretary of the treasury, that Lincoln's election would be followed by disunion and a serious derangement of the financial interests of the country, kept the Empire State violently excited. It was reported in Southern newspapers that William B. Astor had contributed one million of dollars in aid of the fusion ticket.[593] It was a formidable combination of elements. Heretofore the Republican party had defeated them separately--now it met them as a united whole, when antagonisms, ceasing to be those of rational debate, had become those of fierce and furious passion. Greeley pronounced it "a struggle as intense, as vehement, and as energetic, as had ever been known," in New York.[594] Yet Thurlow Weed's confidence never wavered. "The fusion leaders have largely increased their fund," he wrote Lincoln, three days before the election, "and they are now using money lavishly. This stimulates and to some extent inspires confidence, and all the confederates are at work. Some of our friends are nervous. But I have no fear of the result in this State."[595]

[Footnote 589: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 297.]

[Footnote 590: "The names of eighty-one thousand New York men who voted for Fillmore in 1856 are inscribed on Republican poll-lists."--New York _Tribune_, September 11, 1860.]

[Footnote 591: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 471.]

[Footnote 592: October 18, 1860.]

[Footnote 593: Charleston _Mercury_, cited by _National Intelligencer_, November 1, 1860; Richmond _Enquirer_, November 2.]

[Footnote 594: Horace Greeley, _American Conflict_, Vol. 1, p. 300.]

[Footnote 595: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 300.]

After the election, returns came in rapidly. Before midnight they foreshadowed Lincoln's success, and the next morning's _Tribune_ estimated that the Republicans had carried the electoral and state tickets by 30,000 to 50,000, with both branches of the Legislature and twenty-three out of thirty-three congressmen. The official figures did not change this prophecy, except to fix Lincoln's majority at 50,136 and Morgan's plurality at 63,460. Lincoln received 4374 votes more than Morgan, but Kelley ran 27,698 behind the fusion electoral ticket, showing that the Bell and Everett men declined to vote for the Softs' candidate for governor. Brady's total vote, 19,841, marked the pro-slavery candidate's small support, leaving Morgan a clear majority of 43,619.[596] "Mr. Dickinson and myself," said James T. Brady, six years later, in his tribute to the former's memory, "belonged to the small, despairing band in this State who carried into the political contest of the North, for the last time, the flag of the South, contending that the South should enjoy to the utmost, and with liberal recognition, all the rights she could fairly claim under the Constitution of the United States. How small that band was all familiar with the political history of this State can tell."[597]

[Footnote 596: Edwin D. Morgan, 358,272; William Kelley, 294,812; James T. Brady, 19,841.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]

[Footnote 597: Address at Bar meeting in New York City upon death of Daniel S. Dickinson.]