Part 17

══════════════════╤═════════════════════════════╦═════════════════════════════ │ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL VOTE. ├─────────┬─────────┬─────────╫─────────┬────────┬────────── STATES. │James │ John C. │Millard ║ │ │ │Buchanan,│ Fremont,│Fillmore,║Buchanan.│Fremont.│Fillmore. │Penn. │ Cal. │N. Y. ║ │ │ ──────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────╫─────────┼────────┼────────── Maine │ 39,080│ 67,379│ 3,325 ║ ―― │ 8 │ ―― New Hampshire │ 32,789│ 38,345│ 422 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ―― Vermont │ 10,569│ 39,561│ 545 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ―― Massachusetts │ 39,240│ 108,190│ 19,626 ║ ―― │ 13 │ ―― Rhode Island │ 6,680│ 11,467│ 1,675 ║ ―― │ 4 │ ―― Connecticut │ 34,995│ 42,715│ 2,615 ║ ―― │ 6 │ ―― New York │ 195,878│ 276,007│ 124,604 ║ ―― │ 35 │ ―― New Jersey │ 46,943│ 28,338│ 24,115 ║ 7 │ ―― │ ―― Pennsylvania │ 230,710│ 147,510│ 82,175 ║ 27 │ ―― │ ―― Delaware │ 8,004│ 308│ 6,175 ║ 3 │ ―― │ ―― Maryland │ 39,115│ 281│ 47,460 ║ ―― │ ―― │ 8 Virginia │ 89,706│ 291│ 60,310 ║ 15 │ ―― │ ―― North Carolina │ 48,246│ ――――――│ 36,886 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― South Carolina[15]│ ――――――│ ――――――│ ―――――― ║ 8 │ ―― │ ―― Georgia │ 56,578│ ――――――│ 42,228 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― Alabama │ 46,739│ ――――――│ 28,552 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ―― Florida │ 6,358│ ――――――│ 24,195 ║ 7 │ ―― │ ―― Louisiana │ 22,164│ ――――――│ 20,709 ║ 6 │ ―― │ ―― Texas │ 31,169│ ――――――│ 15,639 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ―― Arkansas │ 21,910│ ――――――│ 10,787 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ―― Missouri │ 58,164│ ――――――│ 48,524 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ―― Tennessee │ 73,638│ ――――――│ 66,178 ║ 12 │ ―― │ ―― Kentucky │ 74,642│ 314│ 67,416 ║ 12 │ ―― │ ―― Ohio │ 170,874│ 187,497│ 28,126 ║ ―― │ 23 │ ―― Michigan │ 52,136│ 71,762│ 1,660 ║ ―― │ 6 │ ―― Indiana │ 118,670│ 94,375│ 22,386 ║ 13 │ ―― │ ―― Illinois │ 105,348│ 96,189│ 37,444 ║ 11 │ ―― │ ―― Wisconsin │ 52,843│ 66,090│ 579 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ―― Iowa │ 36,170│ 43,954│ 9,180 ║ ―― │ 4 │ ―― California │ 53,365│ 20,691│ 36,165 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ―― ├─────────┼─────────┼─────────╫─────────┼────────┼────────── Totals │1,838,169│1,341,264│ 874,534 ║ 174 │ 114 │ 8 ══════════════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╩═════════╧════════╧══════════

[15] Chosen by Legislature.

A quarrel between Buchanan and Forney was more far-reaching in its results than can well be estimated by those not entirely familiar with the beginning and the end of the dispute. During the campaign, Buchanan, greatly pressed with the increased correspondence that came to him, asked Forney to send him a competent and trustworthy secretary, and Buchanan, for the first time, abandoned his uniform policy of writing all his own letters in clear, beautiful copper-plate style. Forney sent one of his own assistants to aid Buchanan, and having charge of Buchanan’s correspondence he became cognizant of the fact that the Southern leaders were very generally and earnestly demanding of Buchanan the pledge that Forney should not be made editor of the administration organ.

Buchanan parried the appeals of the Southern friends for some time, but finally, knowing that his election depended upon a united South, they became mandatory, and Buchanan, without advising Forney of the fact, finally gave his pledge that Forney should not be chosen. The secretary was indignant at this betrayal of his friend, and quietly sought Forney, advised him of the fact and expressed his purpose not to return. Forney required the secretary to go back and perform his duties and take no note of what had happened. He was greatly disappointed, as it denied him what was the great ambition of his life, involving editorial distinction and fortune, but he believed that Buchanan had yielded to imperious necessity and that he would not be allowed to suffer from the change.

It was not until after the election that Buchanan informed Forney of the necessity of making a change in his reward, and Forney proposed to accept a position in the Cabinet, to which Buchanan would have willingly consented, but the same intense opposition to Forney as a Cabinet officer surged against him from the South. It was next proposed by Buchanan that Forney should take the Berlin mission with a liberal commercial salary added, but Mrs. Forney peremptorily refused to entertain it. It was finally agreed that Forney should be elected to the Senate. The Democrats had a majority of three on joint ballot, and it was not doubted that any Democrat nominated by the caucus would be chosen. Henry D. Foster, a very prominent Democrat, who had been in Congress and who was the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1860, was a member of the House. He was a candidate for Senator, and doubtless would have been chosen had Forney not been suddenly injected into the field. It was not until the Legislature was about to meet that Forney’s candidacy was decided upon. It required very prompt and positive action to secure the nomination of Forney, and Buchanan, with all his extreme caution under ordinary circumstances, wrote a letter to Senator Mott urging the election of Forney. That letter became public and greatly exasperated the friends of the other candidates, but a new Democratic administration with the President from the State and just on the threshold of great political power was able to command the nomination for Forney, and it was accomplished, but leaving many open sores.

The Republicans and Americans of the Legislature were smarting under what they regarded as the fraud that Forney engineered to give the State to Buchanan, and they were quite willing to join any movement to defeat him. General Cameron had come into the Republican party in 1856, and was at the head of the electoral ticket, and he had a very strong hold upon some old Democratic friends. He proposed to the Republicans and Americans of the Legislature that if they would give him a united vote he could command three Democratic votes and be elected. The Union caucus, as it was called, appointed a committee to whom three Democrats must be shown and give their pledges to vote for Cameron, and if such report was made back to the caucus by the committee, without giving the names of the Democrats who were to vote for Cameron, the Republicans were pledged to vote unitedly for Cameron on the 1st ballot. The committee saw Representatives Lebo, Maneer, and Wagonseller, Democrats, who pledged themselves to vote for Cameron if they could elect him, and to the surprise of all parties except the very few who understood the arrangement, Cameron was elected Senator and Forney suffered a most humiliating defeat.

After Forney’s defeat for Senator, it became much more difficult than even before for Buchanan to reward him, as he doubtless felt should be done. Efforts were made to give him a liberal share of the post-office printing, but Forney and Buchanan were gradually becoming estranged, and finally Forney decided that he could not harmonize with Buchanan and his friends, and that he would renew his journalistic career on independent lines. The result was the establishment of the Philadelphia _Press_.

The slavery issue speedily divided Douglas and Buchanan, and Forney had his opportunity. He had suffered much from the proscriptive hatred of the South, and he became Douglas’s ablest and most enthusiastic supporter in the North, which brought him into direct antagonism with Buchanan. From the time that battle began, Forney and Buchanan were strangers during the remainder of their lives, and no one man did more to educate the North up to the election of Abraham Lincoln than John W. Forney.

We are told that the political methods of the present age are greatly degenerate as compared with the political methods of the old-school leaders, of which Buchanan was about the last representative in the White House. It will surprise many of the present day to be told that Buchanan gave personal attention not only to organize county leaders in his support for the Presidency, but wrote elaborate letters even to township leaders. I have in my possession a number of Mr. Buchanan’s anti-Presidential letters, and I think it due to the truth of history to give one of them as a foot-note to illustrate the politics of half a century ago.[16] Perry County, to which the letter refers, is a small county adjoining Franklin, the birthplace of Buchanan. It had only a single delegate to the Democratic State Convention, and, considering Buchanan’s location, he should have been able to command its support without special effort. The friend to whom he wrote was an Associate Judge of the county and active in politics, and when it is remembered that this letter is only one of very many written to a single small county to gain a single delegate for Buchanan against General Cass, who lived in a distant State, the political methods employed to reach the Presidency in that day will be generally accepted as no improvement on the methods now employed to gain the highest honors of the Republic.

[16] _Private and Confidential._

WHEATLAND, NEAR LANCASTER, 12 DEC., 1851.

MY DEAR SIR: A friend from Cumberland County, who has recently been in Perry, expresses much doubt about your county and says that unless strong efforts shall be made, it will go for Cass. I understand you elect by county meeting; and this mode is not a fair method of ascertaining public opinion throughout a large county. What can be done? My enemies perceiving that my prospects are daily becoming brighter and brighter throughout the Union are now intent upon producing such an appearance of division at home as they imagine may deter other States from voting for my nomination. In this point of view it is important I should carry Perry, if this can be done by fair and honorable means. Cass, their apparent but not their real candidate, can now make no show; but they will go for any candidate against myself. Pennsylvania has now for the first time in her history an opportunity of furnishing the candidate, should she think proper to exert her power with a reasonable degree of unanimity. I intend to write to my friends Black and Steward; but my main reliance is on yourself. General Fetter and Judge Junkin were formerly my warm friends—whether they are so now or not I do not know. Are A. B. Anderson and young McIntire my friends? I think you once told me they were. I am informed that young Miller is my bitter foe.

Could you make a trip over the county and ascertain the state of public opinion? I should esteem it a very great favor if you would; and in that event, I should insist that you shall not spend your own money in supporting me. This would be both unreasonable and unjust. If you could pass a few days in this manner, you would confer a favor upon me which I trust I may some day be able to repay. But you must not go at all unless at my expense. Your services will place me under obligations which I shall never forget without expending your own money for my benefit.

If you should ascertain that the county is against me and cannot be carried, as the Perry _Democrat_ indicates, then it would be useless to make the effort. If it can be carried, then we must go to work and have the proper concert of action to bring my friends to the county meeting.

Will you let me hear from you soon on this subject, and believe me ever to be sincerely and gratefully your friend,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

HON. GEORGE BLATTENBERGER.

P.S.—Jos. Bailey, who is a strange, capricious man, is now against me, though in 1843 he was one of my warmest friends and supporters, as you will perceive by the address which I send you. What have I done since?

Buchanan entered the Presidency earnestly determined to end the slavery agitation, but unfortunately he hoped to end it by the unqualified success of slavery in all of the new Territories and the right of transit through the free States of slaves as servants. The Dred Scott decision was foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and he and the pro-slavery statesmen of that time were confident that the Republican ebullition of 1856 was a mere tidal wave that would speedily perish, and that the South would be so strongly entrenched for the defence of slavery that it could not be successfully assailed. He was elected by the South; he was the strictest of strict constructionists on all Constitutional questions, and he naturally sustained the South in going far beyond what his judgment approved in the efforts to force slavery into Kansas and Nebraska.

The strength of the slavery sentiment steadily grew under the aggravations of the pro-slavery men who sought to force slavery into the new Territories of the West, and it was this continued discussion and the outrages perpetrated on the people of Kansas and Nebraska that made the election of a Republican President possible in 1860, and that finally precipitated the Civil War. Buchanan adhered to the South until open rebellion was organized by the capture of forts and arsenals and the organization of a Confederate government, but when he found himself powerless to restrain the South from armed rebellion, he reorganized his Cabinet and exhausted his then wasted powers to bring the South into submission to the Government. He had an aggressively loyal Cabinet during the last few months of his administration, and when he retired, generally denounced by the loyal sentiment of the country as a faithless Executive, he earnestly supported the Government in every measure necessary to suppress the rebellion and prevent the dismemberment of the Republic. He died soon after the close of the war, a thoroughly honest and patriotic public servant, but widely misunderstood. His revolutionary Kansas-Nebraska policy made the Republican revolution of 1860 inevitable, and made Abraham Lincoln President.

THE LINCOLN-BRECKENRIDGE-DOUGLAS-BELL CONTEST

1860

In 1860 the nation proclaimed the third great political epoch of its history by an aggressive departure from Democracy to the Republicanism that has since ruled without material interruption. There have been two Democratic administrations since the Republican epoch of 1860, but though they, for the time, halted and modified the Republican policy, they never had the power to make a decisive reversal of Republican mastery. Thus an epoch of twelve years of Federalism, another of sixty years of Democracy, and another of forty years of Republicanism tell the story of the political revolutions of the Republic during a period of one hundred and twelve years.

When Fremont made his brilliant campaign of 1856 and narrowly escaped election to the Presidency, it was generally accepted by all the varied phases of politics opposed to radical Republicanism that the Republican movement was like a bee—biggest at its birth—and that it never could win a national victory; but all the chief events affecting the political sentiment of the country from 1856 until 1860 tended to strengthen Republican sentiment and to alienate a large portion of the intelligent elements of Democracy. The significant elections of 1858 and 1859, with the Kansas-Nebraska war convulsing the country from centre to circumference, steadily strengthened Republican lines, and when the leaders of the party came to face the great battle of 1860 they well understood that success was within their reach, and never did a party exhibit greater sagacity in leadership than was displayed in the convention that nominated Lincoln.

William H. Seward was the confessed Republican leader of the nation. He was admittedly its ablest champion and was among its earliest supporters. He had been long in the Senate, and was the peer of any in the discussion of all the grave questions which then agitated our national Legislature. He was not only the ablest of his party, but he was one of the most exemplary and courteous of men. Two-thirds of all the delegates elected to that convention were friends of Seward and expected to vote for him, and his nomination would have been inevitable on the 1st ballot had not the convention been restrained by considerations of expediency which were most reluctantly accepted. Lincoln’s own delegation from Illinois embraced one-third of positive Seward men. They were instructed for Lincoln without hope of his nomination at the time, and most of them expected to perform a mere perfunctory duty by voting for him on one or more ballots.

Horace Greeley had sounded the first note of warning against the nomination of Seward, and his paper, the New York _Tribune_, was then the most influential journal ever published in this country. It was the Republican Bible, and its weekly edition was more read in the West than all other Eastern papers combined. He startled the party by a series of dignified and masterly articles in favor of Edward Bates, of Missouri, for President, on the ground that Seward was not available, and that a man of the great ability and conservative attitude of Bates alone could win in that contest. But though the conservative element of the opposition to the Democracy was not enthusiastic for Seward and his “irrepressible conflict,” the true reason of Seward’s defeat was not presented either by Mr. Greeley or by any public discussion before the meeting of the convention.

I have read many romances about how, why and by whom Abraham Lincoln was nominated for President at Chicago, but the explanation is very simple, and when presented must be accepted by all as conclusive. Henry S. Lane had been nominated as the Republican candidate for Governor of Indiana, and Andrew G. Curtin had been nominated by the Republicans for Governor of Pennsylvania. These States voted for Governor and other State officers on the second Tuesday of October, and they were the pivotal States of the national contest. It was an absolute necessity to carry them in October to assure the election of a Republican President, and the first inquiry of the Republican leaders at Chicago, outside of those who were blindly devoted to Seward, was “Who can carry Indiana and Pennsylvania?”

Lane and Curtin were there solely for the purpose of getting the strongest possible national ticket nominated to aid them in their State contests. With Lane was John D. Defrees, as Chairman of the Republican State Committee of Indiana, and I was with Curtin, as he had charged me with the same responsible duty in Pennsylvania. Curtin and Lane decided that they could not be elected if Seward were nominated for President. They were not personally or politically hostile to him; they had but one thing in view, and that was their own election, which was essential to elect a Republican President.

Prior to 1860 the Republican party had never carried either Pennsylvania or Indiana. Opposition to the pro-slavery policy of the Buchanan administration had crystallized antislavery Democrats, Whigs, and Americans into the support of Union State tickets, and had elected them; but in Pennsylvania the Republican name was omitted from necessity, and the organization was entitled the People’s party. In both of these States there was an organized and powerful American party yet in existence, without which the Republicans could not succeed. It was the remnant of the American or Know-Nothing revolution of 1854, and they cherished their own faith with great fidelity and would not support any candidate who was friendly to the Catholics.

When Seward was elected Governor of New York in 1838 it was largely by the influence of Archbishop Hughes, one of the ablest Catholic prelates this country has ever had; and Seward, not only because of his gratitude to his Catholic friends, but because of his broad and liberal views generally, in a message to the Legislature urged a division of the school fund between the Catholics and Protestants. That was the rock on which Seward was wrecked. Had he been nominated, the entire American element of the opposition would have been aggressively against him, and Pennsylvania and Indiana would have been lost not only by the defeat of Curtin and Lane in October, but by the defeat of Seward in November.

The situation was earnestly presented by Curtin and Lane, and Mr. Defrees and I accompanied them in their conferences with various delegations which were devoted to Seward, but were willing to abandon him—not because they loved Seward less, but because they loved Republican success more. I saw several rural delegates from New England States shed tears as they confessed that they must abandon Seward because he could not carry Pennsylvania and Indiana, and certainly more than one-third of all the delegates who voted for Lincoln in that convention did it in sincerest sorrow because compelled to abandon their great leader for the sake of victory.

Under such conditions the Seward lines were steadily weakening, but never was a movement so ably led as was the Seward movement at Chicago. It was literally a battle of giants. Thurlow Weed, the master of masters in politics, led the fight for Seward, and he had around him Governor Morgan, Chairman of the National Committee; Raymond, of the _Times_, and many others of distinguished ability in such struggles. Weed invited Lane to drive with him, and, in the course of their conversation, assured him that if his delegation would support Seward all the money needed to carry his election in Indiana would be generously furnished; but Lane knew that no amount of money could give him victory in October with Seward as the national candidate.

The convention met on Wednesday, May 16, and George Ashman, of Massachusetts, was made permanent president. The first day was devoted to routine duties, and the second to the adoption of a platform and rules to govern the convention. The convention adjourned on Thursday evening profoundly impressed with the great battle that was to be fought on the following day, and both sides exhausted political strategy to gain the advantage. Weed organized a most imposing street parade of the Seward people. They had thousands of Seward spectators outside of the delegates, and it was one of the most impressive public displays I have ever witnessed. They paraded the streets for an hour or more before the meeting of the convention.