Volume II Part 30 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WEED MACHINE CRIPPLED
1861
The story of the first forty days of Lincoln's administration is one of indecent zeal to obtain office. A new party had come into power, and, in the absence of any suggestion of civil service, patronage was conceded to the political victors. Office-seekers in large numbers had visited Was.h.i.+ngton in 1841 after the election of President Harrison, and, in the change that followed the triumph of Taylor in 1848, Seward, then a new senator, complained of their pernicious activity.
Marcy as secretary of state found them no less numerous and insistent in 1853 when the Whigs again gave way to the Democrats. But never in the history of the country had such a cloud of applicants settled down upon the capital of the nation as appeared in 1861. McClure, an eye-witness of the scene, speaks of the ”mobs of office-seekers,”[721]
and Edwin M. Stanton, who still remained in Was.h.i.+ngton, wrote Buchanan that ”the scramble for office is terrific. Every department is overrun, and by the time all the patronage is distributed the Republican party will be dissolved.”[722] Schuyler Colfax declared to his mother that ”it makes me heart-sick. All over the country our party is by the ears, fighting for offices.”[723] Seward, writing to his wife on March 16, speaks of the affliction. ”My duties call me to the White House one, two, or three times a day. The grounds, halls, stairways, closets, are filled with applicants, who render ingress and egress difficult.”[724] Lincoln himself said: ”I seem like one sitting in a palace, a.s.signing apartments to importunate applicants, while the structure is on fire and likely soon to perish in ashes.”[725] Stanton is authority for the statement ”that Lincoln takes the precaution of seeing no stranger alone.”[726]
[Footnote 721: Alex. K. McClure, _Recollections of Half a Century_, p.
204.]
[Footnote 722: George T. Curtis, _Life of James Buchanan_, Vol. 2, p.
530.]
[Footnote 723: O.B. Hallister, _Life of Colfax_, p. 173.]
[Footnote 724: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 530.]
[Footnote 725: Alex. K. McClure, _Life of Lincoln_, p. 56.]
[Footnote 726: George T. Curtis, _Life of James Buchanan_, Vol. 2, p.
530.
A writer in the _North American Review_ says, ”the clamour for offices is already quite extraordinary, and these poor people undoubtedly belong to the horde which has pressed in here seeking places under the new Administration, which neither has nor can hope to have places enough to satisfy one-twentieth the number.” November, 1879, p. 488.]
In this bewildering ma.s.s of humanity New York had its share. Seward sought protection behind his son, Frederick W. Seward, whom the President had appointed a.s.sistant secretary of state. ”I have placed him where he must meet the whole army of friends seeking office,” he wrote his wife on March 8--”an hundred taking tickets when only one can draw a prize.”[727] Roscoe Conkling, then beginning his second term in Congress, needed no barrier of this kind. ”Early in the year 1861,” says his biographer, ”a triumvirate of Republicans a.s.sumed to designate candidates for the offices which President Lincoln was about to fill in the Oneida district. To accomplish this end they went to Was.h.i.+ngton and called upon their representative, handing him a list of candidates to endorse for appointment. Mr. Conkling read it carefully, and, seeing that it contained undesirable names, he replied: 'Gentlemen, when I need your a.s.sistance in making the appointments in our district, I shall let you know.' This retort, regarded by some of his friends as indiscreet, was the seed that years afterward ripened into an unfortunate division of the Republican party.”[728]
[Footnote 727: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 518.]
[Footnote 728: A.R. Conkling, _Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling_, pp. 119, 120.]
If Seward was more tactful than Conkling in the dispensation of patronage, he was not less vigilant and tenacious. Almost immediately after inauguration it became apparent that differences relative to local appointments existed between him and Ira Harris, the newly elected New York senator. Harris' tall and powerful form, distinguished by a broad and benevolent face, was not more marked than the reputation that preceded him as a profound and fearless judge. At the Albany bar he had been the a.s.sociate of Marcus T. Reynolds, Samuel Stevens, Nicholas Hill, and the venerable Daniel Cady, and if he did not possess the wit of Reynolds or the eloquence of Cady, the indomitable energy of Stevens and the mental vigour of Nicholas Hill were his, making conspicuous his achievements in the pursuit of truth and justice. His transfer to the Senate at the age of fifty-eight and his appointment upon the judiciary and foreign relations committees, presented a new opportunity to exhibit his deep and fruitful interest in public affairs, and, as the friend of Senators Collamer of Vermont and Sumner of Ma.s.sachusetts, he was destined to have an influential share in the vital legislation of the war period.
Harris took little interest in the distribution of patronage, or in questions of party politics that quicken local strife, but he insisted upon a fair recognition of his friends, and to adjust their differences Seward arranged an evening conference to which the President was invited. At this meeting the discussion took a broad range. The secretary of state had prepared a list covering the important offices in New York, but before he could present it, Lincoln, with the ready intuitions of a shrewd politician, remarked that he reserved to himself the privilege of appointing Hiram Barney collector of the port of New York. This announcement did not surprise Seward, for, at the conclusion of Weed's visit to Springfield in the preceding December, Lincoln reminded the journalist that he had said nothing about appointments. ”Some gentlemen who have been quite nervous about the object of your visit here,” said the President-elect, ”would be surprised, if not incredulous, were I to tell them that during the two days we have pa.s.sed together you have made no application, suggestion, or allusion to political appointments.”
To this the shrewd manager, willing to wait until Seward's appointment and confirmation as secretary of state had placed him in a position to direct rather than to beg patronage, replied that nothing of that nature had been upon his mind, since he was much more concerned about the welfare of the country. ”This,” said Lincoln, ”is undoubtedly a proper view of the question, and yet so much were you misunderstood that I have received telegrams from prominent Republicans warning me against your efforts to forestall important appointments in your State. Other gentlemen who have visited me since the election have expressed similar apprehensions.” The President, thus cunningly leading up to what was on his mind, said further that it was particularly pleasant to him to reflect that he was coming into office unembarra.s.sed by promises. ”I have not,” said he, ”promised an office to any man, nor have I, but in a single instance, mentally committed myself to an appointment; and as that relates to an important office in your State, I have concluded to mention it to you--under strict injunctions of secrecy, however. If I am not induced by public considerations to change my purpose, Hiram Barney will be collector of the port of New York.”[729]
[Footnote 729: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
612.]
To Weed, Barney's name aroused no agreeable memories. At the formation of the Republican party he had found it easier to affiliate with Lucius Robinson and David Dudley Field than to act in accord with the Whig leader, and the result at Chicago had emphasised this independence. Too politic, however, to antagonise the appointment, and too wary to indorse it, Weed replied that prior to the Chicago convention he had known Barney very slightly, but that, if what he had learned of him since was true, Barney was ent.i.tled to any office he asked for. ”He has not asked for this or any other office,” said Lincoln, quickly; ”nor does he know of my intention.”[730]
[Footnote 730: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, pp. 612, 613.]
If the President-elect failed to draw out the adroit New Yorker, he had tactfully given notice of his intention not to be controlled by him. A political boss, outside his own State, usually bears the reputation that home opponents give him, and, although Weed was never so bad as painted by his adversaries, he had long been a chief with an odious notoriety. Apparently disinterested, and always refusing to seek or to accept office himself, he loved power, and for years, whenever Whig or Republican party was ascendant in New York, his ambition to prescribe its policy, direct its movements, and dictate the men who might hold office, had been discreetly but imperiously exercised, until his influence was viewed with abhorrence by many and with distrust by the country.[731] It is doubtful if Lincoln's opinion corresponded with the accepted one,[732] but his desire to have some avenue of information respecting New York affairs opened to him other than through the Weed machine, made the President bold to declare his independence at the outset.
[Footnote 731: Gideon Welles, _Lincoln and Seward_, p. 22.