Chapter 71

SEYMOUR REBUKED

1863

The victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg turned the Republican Union convention, held at Syracuse on September 2, into a meeting of rejoicing. Weed did not attend, but the Conservatives, led by Henry J. Raymond and Edwin D. Morgan, boldly talked of its control. Ward Hunt became temporary chairman. Hunt was a lawyer whom politics did not attract. Since his unsuccessful effort to become a United States senator in 1857 he had turned aside from his profession only when necessary to strengthen the cause of the Union. At such times he shone as the representative of a wise patriotism. He did not belong in the class of attractive platform speakers, nor possess the weaknesses of blind followers of party chieftains. His power rested upon the strength of his character as a well-poised student of affairs. What he believed came forcefully from a mind that formed its own judgments, and whether his words gave discomfort to the little souls that governed caucuses, or to the great journalists that sought to force their own policies, he was in no wise disturbed.

Upon taking the chair Hunt began his remarks in the tone of one who felt more than he desired to express, but as the mention of Gettysburg and Vicksburg revealed the unbounded enthusiasm of the men before him, the optimism that characterised the people's belief in the summer of 1863 quickly took possession of him, and he coupled with the declaration that the rebel armies were nearly destroyed, the opinion that peace was near at hand. For the moment the party seemed solidly united. But when the echoes of long continued cheering had subsided the bitterness of faction flashed out with increased intensity. To the Radicals, Raymond's suggestion of Edwin D. Morgan for permanent chairman was as gall and wormwood, and his talk of an entire new ticket most alarming. However, George Opdyke and Horace Greeley, the Radical leaders, chastened by the defeat of Wadsworth and the election of Morgan to the Senate, did not now forget the value of discretion. Hunt's selection as temporary chairman had been a concession, and in the choice of a permanent presiding officer, although absolutely unyielding in their hostility to Morgan, they graciously accepted Abraham Wakeman, an apostle of the conservative school.[911] Their attitude toward Morgan, however, cost Opdyke a place on the State Committee, and for a time threatened to exclude the Radicals from recognition upon the ticket.

[Footnote 911: Wakeman was postmaster at New York City.]

The refusal of men to accept nominations greatly embarrassed Conservatives in harvesting their victory. Thomas W. Olcott of Albany was nominated for comptroller in place of Lucius Robinson. Of all the distinguished men who had filled that office none exhibited a more inflexible firmness than Robinson in holding the public purse strings. He was honest by nature and by practice. Neither threats nor ingenious devices disturbed him, but with a fidelity as remarkable as it was rare he pushed aside the emissaries of extravagance and corruption as readily as a plow turns under the sod. After two years of such methods, however, the representatives of a wide-open treasury noisily demanded a change. But Olcott, a financier of wide repute, wisely declined to be used for such a purpose, and Robinson was accepted.

Daniel S. Dickinson, after the inconsequential treatment accorded him in the recent contest for United States senator, suddenly discovered that domestic reasons disabled him from serving longer as attorney-general. Then James T. Brady declined, although tendered the nomination without a dissenting voice. This reduced the convention, in its search for a conspicuous War Democrat, to the choice of John Cochrane, the well-known orator who had left the army in the preceding February. In choosing a Secretary of State the embarrassment continued. Greeley encouraged the candidacy of Chauncey M. Depew, but concluded, at the last moment, that Peter A. Porter, the colonel of a regiment and a son of the gallant general of the war of 1812, must head the ticket.[912] Porter, however, refused to exchange a military for a civil office, and Depew was substituted.

[Footnote 912: "Porter received 213 votes to 140 for Depew, who made a remarkable run under the circumstances."--New York _Herald_, September 3, 1863.

"Greeley sent for me some weeks before the convention and pressed me with such vigour to take a position upon the State ticket that I finally consented. He then secured from practically the whole State an endorsement of the suggestion on my behalf. On the morning of the convention he suddenly decided that some one connected with the army must be chosen and sent around an order for a change of programme just before the roll was called. It was the most fortunate thing that could have happened to me, but created widespread distrust of his qualities as a leader."--Speech of Chauncey M. Depew, April 4, 1902. _Addresses of_, November, 1896, to April, 1902, pp. 238-239.]

Depew, then a young man of twenty-nine, gave promise of his subsequent brilliant career. He lived a neighbour to Horace Greeley, whom he greatly admired, and to whom he tactfully spoke the honeyed words, always so agreeable to the _Tribune's_ editor.[913] Perhaps no one in the State possessed a more pleasing personality. He made other people as happy as he was himself. To this charm of manner were added a singularly attractive presence, a pleasing voice, and the oratorical gifts that won him recognition even before he left Yale College. From the first he exhibited a marked capacity for public life. He had an unfailing readiness, a wide knowledge of affairs, a keen sense of the ridiculous, and a flow of clear and easy language which never failed to give full and precise expression to all that was in his mind. He rarely provoked enmities, preferring light banter to severe invective or unsparing ridicule. Among his associates he was the prince of raconteurs. In conventions few men were heard with keener interest, and every Republican recognised the fact that a new force had come into the councils of the party. There never was a time when people regarded him as "a coming man," for he took a leading place at once. In 1861, three years after his admission to the bar, the Peekskill voters sent him to the Assembly, and the next year his colleagues selected him for speaker, an honour which he generously relinquished that his party might elect a United States senator. Now, within the same year, he found a place at the head of the ticket, which he led during the campaign with marked ability.[914]

[Footnote 913: "So far as politics were concerned, Greeley's affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor Fenton was a striking example."--Andrew D. White, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 160.]

[Footnote 914: The State ticket was as follows: Secretary of state, Chauncey M. Depew of Westchester; Comptroller, Lucius Robinson of Chemung; Canal Commissioner, Benjamin F. Bruce of Madison; Treasurer, George W. Schuyler of Tompkins; State Engineer, William B. Taylor of Oneida; Prison Inspector, James K. Bates of Jefferson; Judge of Appeals, Henry S. Selden of Monroe; Attorney-General, John Cochrane of New York.]

The platform endorsed the Administration, praised the soldiers, opposed a peace that changed the Constitution except in the form prescribed by it, deplored the creation of a spirit of partisan hostility against the Government, and promised that New York would do its full share in maintaining the Union; but it skilfully avoided mentioning the conscription act and the emancipation proclamation, which Seymour charged had changed the war for the Union into a war for abolition. When a delegate, resenting the omission, moved a resolution commending emancipation, Raymond reminded him that he was in a Union, not a Republican convention, and that many loyal men doubted the propriety of such an endorsement. This position proved too conservative for the ordinary up-State delegate, and a motion to table the resolution quickly failed. Thereupon Charles A. Folger of Geneva moved to amend by adding the words, "and as a war measure is thoroughly legal and justifiable." Probably no man in the convention, by reason of his learning and solidity of character, had greater influence. In 1854 he left the Democratic party with Ward Hunt, whom he resembled as a lawyer, and whom he was to follow to the Court of Appeals and like him attain the highest eminence. Just then he was forty-five years old, a State senator of gentle bearing and stout heart, who dared to express his positive convictions, and whose suggested amendment, offered with the firmness of a man conscious of being in the right, encountered slight opposition.

The President's letter, addressed to the Union convention of New York, gave the Radicals great comfort. With direct and forceful language Lincoln took the people into his confidence. There are but three ways, he said, to stop the war; first, by suppressing rebellion, which he was trying to do; second, by giving up the Union, which he was trying to prevent; and third, by some imaginable compromise, which was impossible if it embraced the maintenance of the Union. The strength of the rebellion is in its army, which dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise if one were made with them. Suppose refugees from the South and peace men from the North hold a convention of the States, how can their action keep Lee out of Pennsylvania? To be effective a compromise must come from those in control of the rebel army, or from the people after our army has suppressed that army. As no suggestion of peace has yet come from that source, all thought of peace for the present was out of the question. If any proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you.

To be plain, he continued, you are dissatisfied about the negro. You opposed compensated emancipation and you dislike proclaimed emancipation. If slaves are property, is there any question that by the law of war such property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed when its taking helps us and hurts our enemy? But you say the proclamation is unconstitutional. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. You profess to think its retraction would help the Union. Why better _after_ the retraction than _before_ the issue? Those in revolt had one hundred days to consider it, and the war, since its issuance, has progressed as favourably for us as before. Some of the commanders who have won our most important victories believe the emancipation policy the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebels, and that in one instance, at least, victory came with the aid of black soldiers. You say you will not fight to free negroes. Whenever you are urged, after resistance to the Union is conquered, to continue to fight, it will be time enough to refuse. Do you not think, in the struggle for the Union, that the withdrawal of negro help from the enemy weakens his resistance to you? That what negroes can do as soldiers leaves so much less for white soldiers to do? But why should negroes do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? and if they, on the promise of freedom, stake their lives to save the Union, shall the promise not be kept?

The signs look better, he concluded. Peace does not appear so distant as it did. When it comes, it will prove that no appeal lies from the ballot to the bullet, and that those who take it are sure to lose their case and pay the costs. "And then there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it."[915]

[Footnote 915: New York _Herald_, September 3, 1863.]

The influence of this letter, increased by the dignity and power of the President's office, proved a sharp thorn to the Democrats. Recent military successes had made it appear for the time, at least, that rebellion was about to collapse, and the Democratic State Union convention, which convened at Albany on September 9, shifted its policy from a protest against war measures to an appeal for conciliation. In other words, it was against subjugation, which would not leave "the Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is." In its effort to emphasise this plea it refused to recognise or affiliate with the Constitutional Union party, controlled by James Brooks and other extreme peace advocates,[916] and although its platform still condemned emancipation, conscription, and arbitrary arrests, the pivotal declaration, based on "manifestations of a returning allegiance on the part of North Carolina and other seceded States," favoured a wise statesmanship "which shall encourage the Union sentiment of the South and unite more thoroughly the people of the North." Amasa J. Parker, chairman of the convention, who still talked of a "yawning gulf of ruin," admitted that such a policy brought a gleam of hope to the country, and Governor Seymour, at the end of a dreary speech explanatory of his part in the draft-riot,[917] expressed a willingness to "bury violations of law and the rights of States and individuals if such a magnanimous course shall be pursued."[918] Lincoln's letter, however, unexpectedly spoiled such an appeal, compelling the convention to "regret" that the President contemplates no measure for the restoration of the Union, "but looking to an indefinite protraction of the war for abolition purposes points to no future save national bankruptcy and the subversion of our institutions."[919]

[Footnote 916: The Constitutional Union convention, meeting at Albany on September 8, named candidates for attorney-general and prison inspector, with the request that the Democratic convention endorse them; otherwise it would put a full ticket into the field. Among its State Committee appeared the names of former governor Washington Hunt and Lorenzo Burrows. It resolved to resist all departures from the strict letter of the Constitution, whether based upon military necessity or a usurpation of doubtful powers.

"We tender the Democratic State convention our hearty thanks for their contemptuous treatment of Jim Brooks & Co.'s one-horse concern, consisting of fifteen or twenty officers and three or four privates. That concern is thoroughly bogus--a barefaced imposture which should be squelched and its annual nuisance abated."--New York _Tribune_, September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 917: "Governor Seymour can talk more without saying anything, and write more without meaning anything, than any other man we know.... We consider Seymour not much of a man, and no Governor at all."--New York _Herald_ (editorial), September 11, 1863.]

[Footnote 918: _Ibid._, September 10.]

[Footnote 919: The ticket was made up as follows: Secretary of state, David B. St. John of Otsego; Comptroller, Sanford E. Church of Orleans; Attorney-General, Marshall B. Champlain of Allegany; State Engineer, Van R. Richmond of Wayne; Treasurer, William B. Lewis of Kings; Canal Commissioner, William W. Wright, of Ontario; Inspector of Prisons, David B. McNeil of Clinton; Judge of Appeals, William F. Allen, of Oswego.--_Ibid._]

The Republicans, backed by success in the field, started with an advantage which the cheering news from Maine strengthened. It soon become manifest, too, that the Gibraltar of Democracy resented the destructive work of mobs and rioters. Criticism of Seymour also became drastic. "He hobnobbed with the copperhead party in Connecticut," said the _Herald_, "and lost that election; he endorsed Vallandigham, and did nothing during the riot but talk. He has let every opportunity pass and rejected all offers that would prove him the man for the place. The sooner he is dropped as incompetent, the better it will be for the ticket."[920] The _Tribune_ imputed nepotism. "His brother," it said, "gets $200 per month as agent, a nephew $150 as an officer, and two nephews and a cousin $1,000 a year each as clerks in the executive departments."[921] But Martin I. Townsend, at a great mass meeting in New York City, presented the crushing indictment against him. Although the clock had tolled the midnight hour, the large audience remained to hear Townsend for the same reason, suggested Edwin D. Morgan, the chairman, that the disciples sat up all night whenever the great apostle was with them. Townsend was then fifty-three years old. For more than a decade his rare ability as a speaker had kept him a favorite, and for a quarter of a century longer he was destined to delight the people. On this occasion, however, his arraignment left a deeper and more lasting impression than his words ordinarily did. "Seymour," he said, "undertook to increase enlistments by refusing the soldier his political franchise. On the supposition that Meade would be defeated, he delivered a Fourth of July address that indicted the free people of the North and placed him in the front rank of men whom rebels delight to honour. If there was a traitor in New York City on that day he was in the company of Horatio Seymour. Finally, he pronounced as 'friends' the men, who, stirred to action by his incendiary words, applied the torch and the bludgeon in the draft riot of July 13, 14, and 15."[922]

[Footnote 920: _Ibid._, September 26.]

[Footnote 921: New York _Tribune_, October 9.]

[Footnote 922: New York _Tribune_, October 1, 1863.]

In the four speeches delivered in the campaign, Seymour was never cleverer or more defiant.[923] He exhibited great skill in criticising the Administration, charging that disasters had brought bankruptcy, that ill-advised acts of subordinates had sapped the liberties of the people, and that base motives inspired the policy of the Government. He denounced the Radicals as craven Americans, devoid of patriotic feeling, who were trying to make the humiliation and degradation of their country a stepping-stone to continued power. "They say we must fight until slavery is extinguished. We are to upturn the foundations of our Constitution. At this very moment, when the fate of the nation and of individuals trembles in the balance, these madmen ask us to plunge into a bottomless pit of controversy upon indefinite purposes. Does not every man know that we must have a united North to triumph? Can we get a united North upon a theory that the Constitution can be set aside at the will of one man, because, forsooth, he judges it to be a military necessity? I never yet heard that Abraham Lincoln was a military necessity.... The Vice-President says, 'There are men in your midst who want the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is,' and he adds, sneeringly, 'They can't have it.' We will tell him there are many such men, and we say to him we will have it. There has never been a sentiment in the North or South put forth more treasonable, cowardly, and base than this." Referring to the President's call, on October 17, for 300,000 volunteers, to be followed by a draft if not promptly filled, he exclaimed: "Again, 600,000 men are called for--600,000 homes to be entered. The young man will be compelled to give up the cornerstone of his fortune, which he has laid away with toil and care, to begin the race of life. The old man will pay that which he has saved, as the support of his declining years, to rescue his son. In God's name, let these operations be fair if they must be cruel." In conclusion he professed undying loyalty. "We love that flag [pointing to the Stars and Stripes] with the whole love of our life, and every star that glitters on its blue field is sacred. And we will preserve the Constitution, we will preserve the Union, we will preserve our flag with every star upon it, and we will see to it that there is a State for every star."[924]

[Footnote 923: Seymour spoke at Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and New York City, on October 26, 28, 29, and 31 respectively.]

[Footnote 924: _Record of Horatio Seymour_, pp. 168-176.]

In their extremity Dean Richmond and Peter Cagger, taking advantage of the President's call for more troops, issued a circular on the eve of election, alleging that the State would receive no credit for drafted men commuted; that towns which had furnished their quotas would be subject to a new conscription; and that men having commuted were liable to be immediately drafted again.[925] This was the prototype of Burchard's "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" in 1884, and might have become no less disastrous had not the Provost-marshal General quickly contradicted it. As a parting shot, Seward, speaking at Auburn on the night before election, declared that if the ballot box could be passed through the camps of the Confederate soldiers, every man would vote for the administration of our government by Horatio Seymour and against the administration of Abraham Lincoln.[926]

[Footnote 925: New York _Tribune_, November 2, 1863.]

[Footnote 926: New York _Herald_, November 6, 1863.]

The October elections foreshadowed the result in November. Although the Democrats had derived great advantage in 1862 because of their bold stand for civil liberty and freedom of speech, a year later such arguments proved of little avail. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had turned the tide, and Seymour and the draft riot carried it to the flood. Depew's majority, mounting higher and higher as the returns came slowly from the interior, turned the Governor's surprise into shame. In his career of a quarter of a century Seymour had learned to accept disappointment as well as success, but his failure in 1863 to forecast the trend of changing public sentiment cost him the opportunity of ever again leading his party to victory.[927]

[Footnote 927: "Depew received 29,405 votes more than St. John for secretary of state." _Ibid._, December 5, 1863.]