Volume II Part 14 (1/2)

The Whig convention followed on September 20. A divided Democracy again made candidates confident, and eight or ten names were presented for governor. Horace Greeley thought it time his turn should come. He had been p.r.o.nounced in his advocacy of the Maine liquor law and active in his hostility to the Nebraska Act. As these were to be the issues of the campaign, he applied with confidence to Weed for help. The Albany editor frankly admitted that his friends had lost control of the convention, and that Myron H. Clark would probably get the nomination. Then Greeley asked to be made lieutenant-governor. Weed reminded him of the outcry in the Whig national convention of 1848 against having ”cotton at both ends of the ticket.” ”I suppose you mean,” replied Greeley, laughing, ”that it won't do to have prohibition at both ends of our state ticket.”[445] But, though he laughed, the editor of the _Tribune_ went away nettled and humiliated.

In the contest, which became exciting, Greeley's friends urged his selection for governor without formally presenting his name to the convention; but on the third ballot Clark received the nomination, obtaining 82 out of the 132 votes cast.

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

226.

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

226.]

Myron H. Clark, now in his forty-ninth year, belonged to the cla.s.s of men generally known as fanatics. He was a plain man of humble pretensions and slender attainments. He was originally a cabinet-maker and afterward a merchant. Then he became a reformer. He sympathised with the Native Americans; he approved Seward's views upon slavery; and he interested himself in the workingmen. But his hobby was temperance. Its advocates made his home in Canandaigua their headquarters, and during the temperance revival which swept over the State in the early fifties, he aided in directing the movement. This experience opened his way, in 1851, to the State Senate. Here he displayed some of the legislative gifts that distinguished John Young.

He had patience and persistence; he could talk easily and well; and, underneath his enthusiasm, lingered the shrewdness of a skilled diplomat. When, at last, the Maine liquor bill, which he had introduced and engineered, pa.s.sed the Legislature, his name was a household word throughout the State. Seymour's veto of the measure strengthened Clark. People realised that a governor no less than a legislature was needed to make laws, and, with the spirit of reformers, the delegates demanded his nomination. To Weed it seemed hazardous; but a majority of the convention, believing that Clark's public career had been sagacious and upright, refused to take another.

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

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

227.]

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

[Footnote 448: In a letter to Charles A. Dana, dated March 2, 1856, Greeley indicates his feeling toward Raymond. ”Have we got to surrender a page of the next _Weekly_ to Raymond's bore of an address?” he says, referring to the Pittsburgh convention's appeal.

”The man who could inflict six columns on a long-suffering public, on such an occasion, cannot possibly know enough to write an address.”]

Early in the campaign, Greeley favoured dropping the name of Whig and organising an anti-Nebraska or Republican party, with a ticket of Whigs and Democrats, as had been done in some of the Western States.

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

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

Early in October the Native Americans went into council. This organisation, which had elected a mayor of New York in 1844, suddenly revived in 1854; and, in spite of its intolerant and prescriptive spirit, the movement spread rapidly. Mystery surrounded its methods.

It held meetings in unknown places; its influence could not be measured; and its members professed to know nothing. Thus it became known as the ”Know-Nothing” party. Members recognised each other by the casual inquiry, ”Have you seen Sam?” and when one of the old parties collapsed at a local election the reply came, ”We have seen Sam.” Its secrecy fascinated young men, and its dominant principle, ”America for Americans,” stirred them into unusual activity. The skilful use of patriotic phrases also had its influence. The ”Star Spangled Banner” was its emblem, Was.h.i.+ngton its patron saint, and his thrilling command, ”Put none but Americans on guard to-night,” its favourite pa.s.sword. Henry Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts joined it as an instrument for destroying the old parties, which he regarded an obstacle to freedom; but Seward thought this was doing evil that good might come. Everything is un-American, he argued, which makes a distinction between the native-born American and the one who renounces his allegiance to a foreign land and swears fealty to the country that adopts him. ”Why,” he asked, ”should I exclude the foreigner to-day?

He is only what every American citizen or his ancestor was at some time or other.”[450]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 452: H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 164. John W.

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

CHAPTER XVI