Chapter 68

"THE MAD DESPERATION OF REACTION"

1862

Notwithstanding its confidence in General McClellan, whose success in West Virginia had made him the successor of General Scott, giving him command of all the United States forces, the North, by midsummer, became profoundly discouraged. Many events contributed to it. The defeat at Ball's Bluff on the Potomac, which Roscoe Conkling likened to the battle of Cannæ, because "the very pride and flower of our young men were among its victims,"[812] had been followed by conspicuous incompetence at Manassas and humiliating failure on the Peninsula. Moreover, financial difficulties increased the despondency. At the outbreak of hostilities practical repudiation of Southern debts had brought widespread disaster. "The fabric of New York's mercantile prosperity," said the _Tribune_, "lies in ruins, beneath which ten thousand fortunes are buried. Last fall the merchant was a capitalist; to-day he is a bankrupt."[813] In September, 1861, these losses aggregated $200,000,000.[814] Besides, the strain of raising sufficient funds to meet government expenses had forced a suspension of specie payment and driven people to refuse United States notes payable on demand without interest. Meantime, the nation's expenses aggregated $2,000,000 a day and the Treasury was empty. "I have been obliged," wrote the Secretary of the Treasury, "to draw for the last installment of the November loan."[815]

[Footnote 812: _Congressional Globe_, January 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 813: New York _Tribune_, May 27, 1861.]

[Footnote 814: _Ibid._, September 18.]

[Footnote 815: Letter of Secretary Chase, dated February 3, 1862.--E.G. Spaulding, _History of the Legal Tender_, p. 59.]

To meet this serious financial condition, Elbridge G. Spaulding of Buffalo, then a member of Congress, had been designated to prepare an emergency measure to avoid national bankruptcy. "We must have at least $100,000,000 during the next three months," he wrote, on January 8, 1862, "or the government must stop payment."[816] Spaulding, then fifty-two years of age, was president of a bank, a trained financier, and already the possessor of a large fortune. Having served in the Thirty-first Congress, he had returned in 1859, after an absence of eight years, to remain four years longer. Strong, alert, and sufficiently positive to be stubborn, he possessed the confidence of Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who approved his plan of issuing $100,000,000 legal-tender, non-interest bearing treasury notes, exchangeable at par for six-twenty bonds. Spaulding fully appreciated the objections to his policy, but the only other course, he argued, was to sell bonds as in the war of 1812, which, if placed at six percent interest, would not, in his opinion, bring more than sixty cents--a ruinous method of conducting hostilities. However, his plea of necessity found a divided committee and in Roscoe Conkling a most formidable opponent, who attacked the measure as unnecessary, extravagant, unsound, without precedent, of doubtful constitutionality, and morally imperfect.[817]

[Footnote 816: Spaulding, _History of the Legal Tender_, p. 18.]

[Footnote 817: The bill escaped from the committee by one majority.]

It was in this debate that Conkling, adroitly choosing the right time and the proper subject, impressed the country with his power as an orator and his ability as a brilliant, resourceful debater, although, perhaps, a destructive rather than constructive legislator. Nature had lavished upon him superb gifts of mind and person. He was of commanding, even magnificent presence, six feet three inches tall, with regular features, lofty forehead, and piercing eyes,--blond and gigantic as a viking. It was difficult, indeed, for a man so superlatively handsome not to be vain, and the endeavour upon his part to conceal the defect was not in evidence. Although an unpopular and unruly schoolboy, who refused to go to college, he had received a good education, learning much from a scholarly father, a college-bred man, and an ornament to the United States District Court for more than a quarter of a century. Moreover, from early youth Conkling had studied elocution, training a strong, slightly musical voice, and learning the use of secondary accents, the choice of words, the value of deliberate speech, and the assumption of an impressive earnestness. In this debate, too, he discovered the talent for ridicule and sarcasm that distinguished him in later life, when he had grown less considerate of the feelings of opponents, and indicated something of the imperiousness and vanity which clouded an otherwise attractive manner.

As he stubbornly and eloquently contested the progress of the legal-tender measure with forceful argument and a wealth of information, Conkling seemed likely to deprive Spaulding of the title of "father of the greenback" until the Secretary of the Treasury, driven to desperation for want of money, reluctantly came to the Congressman's rescue and forced the bill through Congress.[818] By midsummer, however, gold had jumped to seventeen per cent., while the cost of the war, augmented by a call for 300,000 three years' men and by a draft of 300,000 nine months' militia, rested more heavily than ever upon the country. Moreover, by September 1 McClellan had been deprived of his command, the Army of the Potomac had suffered defeat at the second battle of Bull Run, and Lee and Longstreet, with a victorious army, were on their way to Maryland. The North stood aghast!

[Footnote 818: On Spaulding's motion to close debate, Conkling demanded tellers, and the motion was lost,--yeas, 52; nays, 62.--_Congressional Globe_, February 5, 1862; _Ibid._, p. 618.]

Much more ominous than military disaster and financial embarrassment, however, was the divisive sentiment over emancipation. Northern armies, moving about in slave communities, necessarily acted as a constant disintegrating force. Slaves gave soldiers aid and information, and soldiers, stimulated by their natural hostility to slave-owners, gave slaves protection and sympathy. Thus, very early in the war, many men believed that rebellion and slavery were so intertwined that both must be simultaneously overthrown. This sentiment found expression in the Fremont proclamation, issued on August 30, 1861, setting free all slaves owned by persons who aided secession in the military department of Missouri. On the other hand, the Government, seeking to avoid the slavery question, encouraged military commanders to refuse refuge to the negroes within their lines, and in modifying Fremont's order to conform to the Confiscation Act of August 6, the President aroused a discussion characterised by increasing acerbity, which divided the Republican party into Radicals and Conservatives. The former, led by the _Tribune_, resented the attitude of army officers, who, it charged, being notoriously in more or less thorough sympathy with the inciting cause of rebellion, failed to seize opportunities to strike at slavery. Among Radicals the belief obtained that one half of the commanding generals desired to prosecute the war so delicately that slavery should receive the least possible harm, and in their comments in Congress and in the press they made no concealment of their opinion, that such officers were much more anxious to restore fugitive slaves to rebel owners than to make their owners prisoners of war.[819] They were correspondingly flattering to those generals who proclaimed abolition as an adjunct of the war. Greeley's taunts had barbed points. "He is no extemporised soldier, looking for a presidential nomination or seat in Congress," he said of General Hunter, whose order had freed the slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. "He is neither a political or civil engineer, but simply a patriot whose profession is war, and who does not understand making war so as not to hurt your enemy."[820]

[Footnote 819: New York _Tribune_, July 30, 1862.]

[Footnote 820: _Ibid._, August 4.]

When the _Times_, an exponent of the Conservatives, defended the Administration's policy with the declaration that slaves were used as fast as obtained,[821] the _Tribune_ minimized the intelligence of its editor. "Consider," it said, "the still unmodified order of McDowell, issued a full year ago, forbidding the harbouring of negroes within our lines. Consider Halleck's order, now nine months old and still operative, forbidding negroes to come within our lines at all. McClellan has issued a goodly number of orders and proclamations, but not one of them offers protection and freedom to such slaves of rebels as might see fit to claim them at his hands. His only order bearing upon their condition and prospects is that which expelled the Hutchinsons from his camp for the crime of singing anti-slavery songs."[822]

[Footnote 821: New York _Times_, July 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 822: New York _Tribune_, July 19, 1862.]

The dominant sentiment in Congress reflected the feeling of the Radicals, and under the pressure of McClellan's reverses before Richmond, the House, on July 11, and the Senate on the following day, passed the Confiscation Act, freeing forever the slaves of rebel owners whenever within control of the Government. The Administration's failure to enforce this act in the spirit and to the extent that Congress intended, finally brought out the now historic "Prayer of Twenty Millions"--an editorial signed by Horace Greeley and addressed to Abraham Lincoln. It charged the President with being disastrously remiss in the discharge of his official duty and unduly influenced by the menaces of border slave State politicians. It declared that the Union was suffering from timid counsels and mistaken deference to rebel slavery; that all attempts to put down rebellion and save slavery are preposterous and futile; and that every hour of obeisance to slavery is an added hour of deepened peril to the Union. In conclusion, he entreated the Chief Executive to render hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.[823]

[Footnote 823: _Ibid._, August 20.

Lincoln's reply appeared in the _National Intelligencer_ of Washington. He said in part: "I would save the Union. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when I shall believe doing more will help the cause."--_Lincoln's Works_, Vol. 2, p. 227.]

Thus did Greeley devote his great powers to force Lincoln into emancipation. It is impossible, even at this distance of time, to turn the pages of his ponderous volumes without feeling the matchless force of his energy, the strength of his masterly array of facts, his biting sarcasm, his bold assumptions, and his clear, unadorned style. There is about it all an impassioned conviction, as if he spoke because he could not keep silent, making it impossible to avoid the belief that the whole soul and conscience of the writer were in his work. Day after day, with kaleidoscopic change, he marshalled arguments, facts, and historical parallels, bearing down the reader's judgment as he swept away like a great torrent the criticisms of himself and the arguments of his opponents. Nothing apparently could withstand his onslaught on slavery. With one dash of his pen he forged sentences that, lance-like, found their way into every joint of the monster's armour.

Greeley's criticism of the President and the army, however, gave his enemies vantage ground for renewed attacks. Ever since he suggested, at the beginning of hostilities, that the _Herald_ did not care which flag floated over its office, James Gordon Bennett, possessing the genuine newspaper genius, had daily evinced a deep, personal dislike of the _Tribune's_ editor, and throughout the discussion of emancipation, the _Herald_, in bitter editorials, kept its columns in a glow, tantalising the _Tribune_ with a persistency that recalls Cheetham's attacks upon Aaron Burr. The strategical advantage lay with the _Herald_, since the initiative belonged to the _Tribune_, but the latter had with it the preponderating sentiment of its party and the growing influence of a war necessity. Greeley fought with a broad-sword, swinging it with a vigorous and well-aimed effect, while Bennett, with lighter weapon, pricked, stabbed, and cut. Never inactive, the latter sought to aggravate and embitter. Greeley, on the contrary, intent upon forcing the Administration to change its policy, ignored his tormentor, until exasperation, like the gathering steam in a geyser, drove him into further action. In this prolonged controversy the _Tribune_ invariably referred to its adversary as "the _Herald_," but in the _Herald_, "Greeley," "old Greeley," "poor Greeley," "Mars Greeley," "poor crazy Greeley," became synonyms for the editor of the _Tribune_.

The fight of these able and conspicuous journals represented the fierceness with which emancipation was pushed and opposed throughout the State. Conservative men, therefore, realising the danger to which a bitter campaign along strict party lines would subject the Union cause, demanded that all parties rally to the support of the Government with a candidate for governor devoted to conservative principles and a vigorous prosecution of the war. Sentiment seemed to point to John A. Dix as such a man. Though not distinguished as a strategist or effective field officer, he possessed courage, caution, and a desire to crush the rebellion. The policy of this movement, embracing conservative Republicans and war Democrats, was urged by Thurlow Weed, sanctioned by Seward, and heartily approved by John Van Buren, who, since the beginning of hostilities, had avoided party councils. The Constitutional Union party, composed of old line Whigs who opposed emancipation,[824] proposed to lead this movement at its convention, to be held at Troy on September 9, but at the appointed time James Brooks, by prearrangement, appeared with a file of instructed followers, captured the meeting, and gave Horatio Seymour 32 votes to 20 for Dix and 6 for Millard Fillmore. This unexpected result made Seymour the candidate of the Democratic State convention which met at Albany on the following day.

[Footnote 824: New York _Herald_, October 15, 1862.]

Seymour sincerely preferred another. Early in August he travelled from Utica to Buffalo to resist the friendship and the arguments of Dean Richmond. It cannot be said that he had outlived ambition. He possessed wealth, he was advancing in his political career, and he aspired to higher honours, but he did not desire to become governor again, even though the party indicated a willingness to follow his leadership and give him free rein to inaugurate such a policy as his wisdom and conservatism might dictate. He clearly recognised the difficulties in the way. He had taken ultra ground against the Federal Administration, opposing emancipation, denouncing arbitrary arrests, and expressing the belief that the North could not subjugate the South; yet he would be powerless to give life to his own views, or to modify Lincoln's proposed conduct of the war. The President, having been elected to serve until March, 1865, would not tolerate interference with his plans and purposes, so that an opposition Governor, regardless of grievances or their cause, would be compelled to furnish troops and to keep the peace. Hatred of conscription would be no excuse for non-action in case of a draft riot, and indignation over summary arrests could in nowise limit the exercise of such arbitrary methods. To be governor under such conditions, therefore, meant constant embarrassment, if not unceasing humiliation. These reasons were carefully presented to Richmond. Moreover, Seymour was conscious of inherent defects of temperament. He did not belong to the class of politicians, described by Victor Hugo, who mistake a weather-cock for a flag. He was a gentleman of culture, of public experience, and of moral purpose, representing the best quality of his party; but possessed of a sensitive and eager temper, he was too often influenced by the men immediately about him, and too often inclined to have about him men whose influence did not strengthen his own better judgment.

Richmond knew of this weakness and regretted it, but the man of iron, grasping the political situation with the shrewdness of a phenomenally successful business man, wanted a candidate who could win. It was plain to him that the Republican party, divided on the question of emancipation and weakened by arbitrary arrests, a policy that many people bitterly resented, could be beaten by a candidate who added exceptional popularity to a promised support of the war and a vigorous protest against government methods. Dix, he knew, would stand with the President; Seymour would criticise, and with sureness of aim arouse opposition. While Richmond, therefore, listened respectfully to Seymour's reasons for declining the nomination, he was deaf to all entreaty, insisting that as the party had honoured him when he wanted office, he must now honour the party when it needed him. Besides, he declared that Sanford E. Church, whom Seymour favoured, could not be elected.[825] Having gained the Oneidan's consent, Richmond exercised his adroit methods of packing conventions, and thus opened the way for Seymour's unanimous nomination by making the Constitutional Union convention the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

[Footnote 825: The author is indebted to Henry A. Richmond, son of Dean Richmond, for this outline of Seymour's interview.]

To a majority of the Democratic party Seymour's selection appealed with something of historic pride. It recalled other days in the beginning of his career, and inspired the hope that the peace which reigned in the fifties, and the power that the Democracy then wielded, might, under his leadership, again return to bless their party by checking a policy that was rapidly introducing a new order of things. After his nomination, therefore, voices became hoarse with long continued cheering. For a few minutes the assembly surrendered to the noise and confusion which characterise a more modern convention, and only the presence of the nominee and the announcement that he would speak brought men to order.

Seymour, as was his custom, came carefully prepared. In his party he now had no rival. Not since DeWitt Clinton crushed the Livingstons in 1807, and Martin Van Buren swept the State in 1828, did one man so completely dominate a political organisation, and in his arraignment of the Radicals he emulated the partisan rather than the patriot. He spoke respectfully of the President, insisting that he should "be treated with the respect due to his position as the representative of the dignity and honor of the American people," and declaring that "with all our powers of mind and person, we mean to support the Constitution and uphold the Union;" but in his bitter denunciation of the Administration he confused the general policy of conducting a war with mistakes in awarding government contracts. To him an honest difference of opinion upon constitutional questions was as corrupt and reprehensible as dishonest practices in the departments at Washington. He condemned emancipation as "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilised Europe."[826]

[Footnote 826: Cook and Knox, _Public Record of Horatio Seymour_, pp. 45-58.]

The convention thought seriously of making this speech the party platform. But A.P. Laning, declining to surrender the prerogative of the resolutions committee, presented a brief statement of principles, "pledging the Democracy to continue united in its support of the Government, and to use all legitimate means to suppress rebellion, restore the Union as it was, and maintain the Constitution as it is." It also denounced "the illegal, unconstitutional, and arbitrary arrests of citizens of the State as unjustifiable," declaring such arrests a usurpation and a crime, and insisting upon the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press.[827]

[Footnote 827: The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, Horatio Seymour of Oneida; Lieutenant-Governor, David E. Floyd Jones of Queens; Canal Commissioner, William I. Skinner of Herkimer; Prison Inspector, Gaylord J. Clark of Niagara; Clerk of Appeals, Fred A. Tallmadge of New York.]

The speech of Seymour, as displeasing to many War Democrats as it was satisfactory to the Peace faction, at once aroused conservative Republicans, and Weed and Raymond, backed by Seward, favored the policy of nominating John A. Dix. Seward had distinguished himself as one of the more conservative members of the Cabinet. After settling into the belief that Lincoln "is the best of us"[828] his ambition centered in the support of the President, and whatever aid he could render in helping the country to a better understanding of the Administration's aims and wishes was generously if not always adroitly performed. He did not oppose the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, his clear discernment exhibited its certain destruction if the rebellion continued; but he opposed blending emancipation with a prosecution of the war, preferring to meet the former as the necessity for it arose rather than precipitate an academic discussion which would divide Republicans and give the Democrats an issue.

[Footnote 828: Seward to his wife.--F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 590.]

When Lincoln, on July 22, 1862, announced to his Cabinet a determination to issue an emancipation proclamation, the Secretary questioned its expediency only as to the time of its publication. "The depression of the public mind consequent upon our repeated reverses," he said, "is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step.... I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war."[829] Seward's view was adopted, and in place of the proclamation appeared the Executive Order of July 22, the unenforcement of which Greeley had so fiercely criticised in his "Prayer of Twenty Millions." Thurlow Weed, who, in June, had returned from London heavily freighted with good results for the Union accomplished by his influence with leading Englishmen, held the opinion of Seward. Raymond had also made the _Times_ an able defender of the President's policy, and although not violent in its opposition to the attitude of the Radicals, it never ceased its efforts to suppress agitation of the slavery question.

[Footnote 829: Frank B. Carpenter, _Six Months at the White House_, pp. 22, 23.]

In its purpose to nominate Dix the New York _Herald_ likewise bore a conspicuous part. It had urged his selection upon the Democrats, declaring him stronger than Seymour. It now urged him upon the Republicans, insisting that he was stronger than Wadsworth.[830] This was also the belief of Weed, whose sagacity as to the strength of political leaders was rarely at fault.[831] On the contrary, Governor Morgan expressed the opinion that "Wadsworth will be far more available than any one yet mentioned as my successor."[832] Wadsworth's service at the battle of Bull Run had been distinguished. "Gen. McDowell told us on Monday," wrote Thurlow Weed, "that Major Wadsworth rendered him the most important service before, during, and after battle. From others we have learned that after resisting the stampede, earnestly but ineffectually, he remained to the last moment aiding the wounded and encouraging surgeons to remain on the field as many of them did."[833] Wadsworth's subsequent insistence that the Army of the Potomac, then commanded by McClellan, could easily crush the Confederates, who, in his opinion, did not number over 50,000[834], had again brought his name conspicuously before the country. Moreover, since the 8th of March he had commanded the forces in and about Washington, and had acted as Stanton's adviser in the conduct of the war.

[Footnote 830: New York _Herald_, September 19 and October 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 831: Albany _Evening Journal_, November 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 832: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 413.]

[Footnote 833: Albany _Evening Journal_, July 31, 1861.]

[Footnote 834: "This estimate was afterward verified as correct."--New York _Tribune_, September 22, 1862.]

For twenty years Wadsworth had not been a stranger to the people of New York. His vigorous defence of Silas Wright gave him a warm place in the hearts of Barnburners, and his name, after the formation of the Republican party, became a household word among members of that young organisation. Besides, his neighbours had exploited his character for generosity. The story of the tenant who got a receipt for rent and one hundred dollars in money because the accidental killing of his oxen in the midst of harvest had diminished his earning capacity, seemed to be only one of many similar acts. In 1847 his farm had furnished a thousand bushels of corn to starving Ireland. Moreover, he had endowed institutions of learning, founded school libraries, and turned the houses of tenants into homes of college students. But the Radicals' real reason for making him their candidate was his "recognition of the truth that slavery is the implacable enemy of our National life, and that the Union can only be saved by grappling directly and boldly with its deadly foe."[835]

[Footnote 835: New York _Tribune_, September 22, 1862.]

Prompted by this motive his supporters used all the methods known to managing politicians to secure a majority of the delegates. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, published on September 23, five days after the battle of Antietam, greatly strengthened them. They hailed the event as their victory. It gave substance, too, to the Wadsworth platform that "the Union must crush out slavery, or slavery will destroy the Union." Reinforced by such an unexpected ally, it was well understood before the day of the convention that in spite of the appeals of Weed and Raymond, and of the wishes of Seward and the President, the choice of the Radicals would be nominated. Wadsworth was not averse. He had an itching for public life. In 1856 his stubborn play for governor and his later contest for a seat in the United States Senate had characterised him as an office-seeker. But whether running for office himself, or helping some one else, he was a fighter whom an opponent had reason to fear.

The Republican Union convention, as it was called, assembled at Syracuse on September 25. Henry J. Raymond became its president, and with characteristic directness made a vigorous reply to Seymour, declaring that "Jefferson Davis himself could not have planned a speech better calculated, under all the circumstances of the case, to promote his end to embarrass the Government of the United States and strengthen the hands of those who are striving for its overthrow."[836] Then William Curtis Noyes read a letter from Governor Morgan declining renomination.[837] The Governor had made a creditable executive, winning the respect of conservatives in both parties, and although the rule against a third term had become firmly established in a State that had tolerated it but once since the days of Tompkins and DeWitt Clinton, the propriety of making a further exception appealed to the public with manifest approval. "But this," Weed said, "did not suit the _Tribune_ and a class of politicians with whom it sympathised. They demanded a candidate with whom abolition is the paramount consideration."[838] Morgan's letter created a ripple of applause, after which the presentation of Wadsworth's name aroused an enthusiasm of longer duration than had existed at Albany. Nevertheless, Charles G. Myers of St. Lawrence did not hesitate to speak for "a more available candidate at the present time." Then, raising his voice above the whisperings of dissent, he named John A. Dix, "who, while Seymour was howling for peace and compromise," said the speaker, "ordered the first man shot that hauled down the American flag." Raymond, in his speech earlier in the afternoon, had quoted the historic despatch in a well-balanced sentence, with the accent and inflection of a trained orator; but in giving it an idiomatic, thrilling ring in contrast with Seymour's record, Myers suddenly threw the convention into wild, continued cheering, until it seemed as if the noise of a moment before would be exceeded by the genuine and involuntary outburst of patriotic emotion. A single ballot, however, giving Wadsworth an overwhelming majority, showed that the Radicals owned the convention.[839]

[Footnote 836: New York _Times_, September 25, 1862.]

[Footnote 837: "Though we met Governor Morgan repeatedly during the summer, he never hinted that he expected or desired to be again a candidate."--New York _Tribune_, December 12, 1862.]

[Footnote 838: Albany _Evening Journal_, December 10, 1862.]

[Footnote 839: The vote resulted as follows: Wadsworth, 234; Dix, 110; Lyman Tremaine, 33; Dickinson, 2.

The ticket was as follows: Governor, James S. Wadsworth of Genesee; Lieutenant-Governor, Lyman Tremaine of Albany; Canal Commissioner, Oliver Ladue of Herkimer; Prison Inspector, Andreas Willman of New York; Clerk of Appeals, Charles Hughes of Washington.]

Parke Godwin of Queens, from the committee on resolutions, presented the platform. Among other issues it urged the most vigorous prosecution of the war; hailed, with the profoundest satisfaction, the emancipation proclamation; and expressed pride in the knowledge that the Republic's only enemies "are the savages of the West, the rebels of the South, their sympathisers and supporters of the North, and the despots of Europe."

The campaign opened with unexampled bitterness. Seymour's convention speech inflamed the Republican party, and its press, recalling his address at the Peace convention in January, 1861, seemed to uncork its pent-up indignation. The _Tribune_ pronounced him a "consummate demagogue," "radically dishonest," and the author of sentiments that "will be read throughout the rebel States with unalloyed delight," since "their whole drift tends to encourage treason and paralyse the arm of those who strike for the Union."[840] It disclosed Seymour's intimate relations with "Vallandigham and the school of Democrats who do not disguise their sympathy with traitors nor their hostility to war," and predicted "that, if elected, Jeff Davis will regard his success as a triumph."[841] Odious comparisons also became frequent. Wadsworth at Bull Run was contrasted with Seymour's prediction that the Union's foes could not be subdued.[842] Seymour's supporters, it was said, believed in recognising the independence of the South, or in a restored Union with slavery conserved, while Wadsworth's champions thought rebellion a wicked and wanton conspiracy against human liberty, to be crushed by the most effective measures.[843] Raymond declared that "every vote given for Wadsworth is a vote for loyalty, and every vote given for Seymour is a vote for treason."[844]

[Footnote 840: New York _Tribune_, September 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 841: New York _Tribune_, Oct. 8, 1862.]

[Footnote 842: _Ibid._, Oct. 9.]

[Footnote 843: _Ibid._, Oct. 24.]

[Footnote 844: New York _Herald_, Oct. 9, 1862.]

To these thrusts the Democratic press replied with no less acrimony, speaking of Wadsworth as "a malignant, abolition disorganiser," whose service in the field was "very brief," whose command in Washington was "behind fortifications," and whose capacity was "limited to attacks upon his superior officers."[845] The _Herald_ declared him "as arrant an aristocrat as any Southern rebel. The slave-holder," it said, "lives upon his plantation, which his ancestors begged, cheated, or stole from the Indians. Wadsworth lives upon his immense Genesee farms, which his ancestors obtained from the Indians in precisely the same way. The slave-holder has a number of negroes who raise crops for him, and whom he clothes, feeds, and lodges. Wadsworth has a number of labourers on his farms, who support him by raising his crops or paying him rent. The slave-holder, having an independent fortune and nothing to do, joins the army, or runs for office. Wadsworth, in exactly the same circumstances, does exactly the same thing. Wadsworth, therefore, is quite as much an aristocrat as the slave-holder, and cares quite as much for himself and quite as little for the people."[846] Democrats everywhere endeavoured to limit the issue to the two opposing candidates, claiming that Seymour, in conjunction with all conservative men, stood for a vigorous prosecution of the war to save the Union, while Wadsworth, desiring its prosecution for the destruction of slavery, believed the Union of secondary consideration.

[Footnote 845: _Ibid._, Sept. 26.]

[Footnote 846: _Ibid._, Oct. 1.]

Campaign oratory, no longer softened by the absence of strict party lines, throbbed feverishly with passion and ugly epithet. The strategical advantage lay with Seymour, who made two speeches. Dean Richmond, alarmed at the growing strength of the war spirit, urged him to put more "powder" into his Brooklyn address than he used at the ratification meeting, held in New York City on October 13; but he declined to cater "to war Democrats," contenting himself with an amplification of his convention speech. "God knows I love my country," he said; "I would count my life as nothing, if I could but save the nation's life." He resented with much feeling Raymond's electioneering statement that a vote for him was one for treason.[847] "Recognising at this moment as we do," he continued, "that the destinies, the honour, and the glory of our country hang poised upon the conflict in the battlefield, we tender to the Government no conditional support" to put down "this wicked and mighty rebellion." Once, briefly, and without bitterness, he referred to the emancipation proclamation, but he again bitterly arraigned the Administration for its infractions of the Constitution, its deception as to the strength of the South, and the corruption in its departments.

[Footnote 847: New York _Herald_, October 8 and 9, 1862.]

Seymour's admirers manifested his tendencies more emphatically than he did himself, until denunciation of treason and insistence upon a vigorous prosecution of the war yielded to an indictment of the Radicals. The shibboleth of these declaimers was arbitrary arrests. Two days after the edict of emancipation (September 24) the President issued a proclamation ordering the arrest, without benefit of _habeas corpus_, of all who "discouraged enlistments," or were guilty of "any disloyal practice" which afforded "aid and comfort to the rebels."[848] This gave rise to an opinion that he intended to "suppress free discussion of political subjects,"[849] and every orator warned the people that Wadsworth's election meant the arrest and imprisonment of his political opponents. "If chosen governor," said the _Herald_, "he will have his adversaries consigned to dungeons and their property seized and confiscated under the act of Congress."[850] In accepting an invitation to speak at Rome, John Van Buren, quick to see the humour of the situation as well as the vulnerable point of the Radicals, telegraphed that he would "arrive at two o'clock--if not in Fort Lafayette."[851]

[Footnote 848: _Lincoln's Works_, Vol. 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 849: Benjamin E. Curtis, _Pamphlet on Executive Power_.]

[Footnote 850: New York _Herald_, October 4, 1862.]

[Footnote 851: _Ibid._, October 24.]

To the delight of audiences John Van Buren, after two years of political inactivity, broke his silence. He had earnestly and perhaps sincerely advocated the nomination of John A. Dix, but after Seymour's selection he again joined the ranks of the Softs and took the stump. Among other appointments he spoke with Seymour at the New York ratification meeting, and again at the Brooklyn rally on October 22. Something remained of the old-time vigour of the professional gladiator, but compared with his Barnburner work he seemed what Byron called "an extinct volcano." He ran too heedlessly into a bitter criticism of Wadsworth, based upon an alleged conversation he could not substantiate, and into an acrimonious attack upon Lincoln's conduct of the war, predicated upon a private letter of General Scott, the possession of which he did not satisfactorily account for. The _Tribune_, referring to his campaign as "a rhetorical spree," called him a "buffoon," a "political harlequin," a "repeater of mouldy jokes,"[852] and in bitter terms denounced his "low comedy performance at Tammany," his "double-shuffle dancing at Mozart Hall," his possession of a letter "by dishonourable means for a dishonourable purpose," and his wide-sweeping statements "which gentlemen over their own signatures pronounced lies."[853] It was not a performance to be proud of, and although Van Buren succeeded in stirring up the advertising sensations which he craved, he did not escape without wounds that left deep scars. "Prince John makes a statement," says the _Herald_, "accusing Charles King of slandering the wife of Andrew Jackson; King retorts by calling the Prince a liar; the poets of the _Post_ take up the case and broadly hint that the Prince's private history shows that he has not lived the life of a saint; the Prince replies that he has half a mind to walk into the private antecedents of Wadsworth, which, it is said, would disclose some scenes exceedingly rich; while certain other Democrats, indignant at Raymond's accusations of treason against Seymour, threaten to reveal his individual history, hinting, by the way, that it would show him to have been heretofore a follower of that fussy philosopher of the twelfth century, Abelard--not in philosophy, however, but in sentiment, romance, and some other things."[854]

[Footnote 852: New York _Tribune_, October 28, 1862.]

[Footnote 853: _Ibid._, October 30.]

[Footnote 854: New York _Herald_, October 29, 1862.]

Wherever Van Buren spoke Daniel S. Dickinson followed. His admirers, the most extreme Radicals, cheered his speeches wildly, their fun relieving the prosaic rigour of an issue that to one side seemed forced by Northern treachery, to the other to threaten the gravest peril to the country. It is difficult to exaggerate the tension. Party violence ran high and the result seemed in doubt. Finally, conservatives appealed to both candidates to retire in favour of John A. Dix,[855] and on October 20 an organisation, styling itself the Federal Union, notified the General that its central committee had nominated him for governor, and that a State Convention, called to meet at Cooper Institute on the 28th, would ratify the nomination. To this summons, Dix, without declining a nomination, replied from Maryland that he could not leave his duties "to be drawn into any party strife."[856] This settled the question of a compromise candidate.

[Footnote 855: _Ibid._, October 15 and 17.]

[Footnote 856: Morgan Dix, _Memoirs of John A. Dix_, Vol. 2, pp. 51-52.]

Elections in the October States did not encourage the Radicals. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana voiced the sentiments of the opposition, defeating Galusha A. Grow, speaker of the House, and seriously threatening the Radical majority in Congress. This retrogression, accounted for by the absence of soldiers who could not vote,[857] suggested trouble in New York, and to offset the influence of the Seymour rally in Brooklyn a great audience at Cooper Institute listened to a brief letter from the Secretary of State, and to a speech from Wadsworth. Seward did not encourage the soldier candidate. The rankling recollection of Wadsworth's opposition at Chicago in 1860 stifled party pride as well as patriotism, and although the _Herald_ thought it "brilliant and sarcastic," it emphasised Wadsworth's subsequent statement that "Seward was dead against me throughout the campaign."[858]

[Footnote 857: New York _Tribune_, October 17, 1862. See other views: New York _Herald_, October 17, 18, 19.]

[Footnote 858: Henry B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 216.]

Wadsworth's canvass was confined to a single speech. He had been absent from the State fifteen months, and although not continuously at the front there was something inexcusably ungenerous in the taunts of his opponents that he had served "behind fortifications." His superb conduct at Bull Run entitled him to better treatment. But his party was wholly devoted to him, and "amid a hurricane of approbation"[859] he mingled censure of Seymour with praise of Lincoln, and the experience of a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker. It lacked poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it wanted in manner it made up in fire and directness, giving an emotional and loyal audience abundant opportunity to explode into long-continued cheering. Thoughtful men who were not in any sense political partisans gave careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement. He brought the great struggle nearer home, and men listened as to one with a message from the field of patriotic sacrifices. The radical newspapers broke into a chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were delighted. The air rung with praises of the courage and spirit of their candidate, and if here and there the faint voice of a Conservative suggested that emancipation was premature and arbitrary arrests were unnecessary, a shout of offended patriotism drowned the ignoble utterance.

[Footnote 859: New York _Tribune_, October 31, 1862.]

Wadsworth and his party were too much absorbed in the zeal of their cause not to run counter to the prejudices of men less earnest and less self-forgetting. In a contest of such bitterness they were certain to make enemies, whose hostilities would be subtle and enduring, and the October elections showed that the inevitable reaction was setting in. Military failure and increasing debt made the avowed policy of emancipation more offensive. People were getting tired of bold action without achievement in the field, and every opponent of the Administration became a threnodist. However, independent papers which strongly favoured Seymour believed in Wadsworth's success. "Seymour's antecedents are against him," said the _Herald_. "Wadsworth, radical as he is, will be preferred by the people to a Democrat who is believed to be in favour of stopping the war; because, whatever Wadsworth's ideas about the negro may be, they are only as dust in the balance compared with his hearty and earnest support of the war and the Administration."[860] This was the belief of the Radicals,[861] and upon them the news of Seymour's election by over 10,000 majority fell with a sickening thud.[862] Raymond declared it "a vote of want of confidence in the President;"[863] Wadsworth thought Seward did it;[864] Weed suggested that Wadsworth held "too extreme party views;"[865] and Greeley insisted that it was "a gang of corrupt Republican politicians, who, failing to rule the nominating convention, took revenge on its patriotic candidate by secretly supporting the Democratic nominee."[866] But the dominant reason was what George William Curtis called "the mad desperation of reaction,"[867] which showed its influence in other States as well as in New York. That Wadsworth's personality had little, if anything, to do with his overthrow was further evidenced by results in congressional districts, the Democrats carrying seventeen out of thirty-one. Even Francis Kernan carried the Oneida district against Conkling. The latter was undoubtedly embarrassed by personal enemies who controlled the Welsh vote, but the real cause of his defeat was military disasters, financial embarrassments, and the emancipation proclamation. "All our reverses, our despondence, our despairs," said Curtis, "bring us to the inevitable issue, shall not the blacks strike for their freedom?"[868]

[Footnote 860: New York _Herald_, October 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 861: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 6.]

[Footnote 862: "Seymour, 307,063; Wadsworth, 296,492."--_Ibid._, November 24.]

[Footnote 863: New York _Times_, November 7.]

[Footnote 864: Henry B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 216.]

[Footnote 865: Albany _Evening Journal_, Nov. 6.]

[Footnote 866: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 5.]

[Footnote 867: Cary, _Life of Curtis_, p. 161.]

[Footnote 868: _Ibid._, p. 161.]