Volume III Part 2 (1/2)
CHAPTER II
NEW PARTY ALIGNMENTS
1861
The battle of Bull Run fomented mutterings, freighted with antagonism to the war. Certain journals violently resented the suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_, while the Act of Congress, approved August 3, providing for the freedom of slaves employed in any military or naval service, called forth such extreme denunciations that the United States grand jury for the Southern District of New York asked the Court if the authors were subject to indictment. ”These newspapers,”[788] said the foreman, ”are in the frequent practice of encouraging the rebels now in arms against the Federal Government by expressing sympathy and agreement with them, the duty of acceding to their demands, and dissatisfaction with the employment of force to overcome them. Their conduct is, of course, condemned and abhorred by all loyal men, but the grand jury will be glad to learn from the Court that they are also subject to indictment and condign punishment.” The Postmaster-General's order excluding such journals from the mails intensified the bitterness. The arrests of persons charged with giving aid and comfort to the enemy also furnished partisans an opportunity to make people distrustful of such summary methods by magnifying the danger to personal liberty. In a word, the Bull Run disaster had become a peg upon which to hang sympathy for the South.[789]
[Footnote 788: New York _Journal of Commerce_, _News_, _Day-Book_, _Freeman's Journal_, Brooklyn _Eagle_.--Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1861, p. 329.]
[Footnote 789: ”I have had a conversation this morning with a prominent Democrat, who is entirely devoted to sustaining the government in the present struggle. He informs me that the leaders of that party are opposed to the war and sympathise with the South; that they keep quiet because it will not advance their views to move just now.” Letter of William Gray, dated September 4, to Secretary Chase.--Chase Papers, MS.]
Differences likewise appeared among Republicans. The Weed and anti-Weed factions still existed, but these divisions now grew out of differences far deeper than patronage. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Thurlow Weed desired the conflict conducted on lines that would unite the North into one party responding to the cry of ”Union, now and forever.” He believed this might be done and that rebellion could thus be confined to the extreme cotton region, if the loyal element in the Border States was cherished and representatives of all parties were permitted to partic.i.p.ate in civil as well as military affairs. To this end he sought to avoid the question of emanc.i.p.ation, cordially approving the President's course in modifying Fremont's proclamation of the preceding August, which liberated the slaves of traitorous owners in Missouri. Weed pushed his contention to the extreme. Following the spirit of his rejected compromise he insisted that every act of the Government should strengthen and encourage the Union men of the Border States, among which he included North Carolina and Tennessee, and he bitterly resented the policy of urging the army, hastily and without due preparation, to fight ”political battles” like that of Bull Run. On the other hand, the radical anti-slavery element of the country, led by Secretary Chase in the Cabinet, by Senator Sumner in Congress, and backed by Horace Greeley in the _Tribune_, disliked the President's policy of trying to conciliate Kentucky and other Border States by listening to the demands of slavery. This factional difference became doubly p.r.o.nounced after Lincoln's modification of the Fremont proclamation.
Notwithstanding Democratic criticisms and Republican differences, however, the supporters of Lincoln, anxious to teach the seceding States an object lesson in patriotism, desired to unite both parties into one Union organisation, pledged to the vigorous prosecution of the war and the execution of the laws in all parts of the country. To Republicans this plan looked easy. Most people professed to favour the preservation of the Union, and thousands of young men irrespective of party had enlisted for the suppression of armed rebellion. Moreover, a union of parties at such a critical moment, it was argued, would be more helpful in discouraging the South than victory on the battlefield. Accordingly the Republican State Committee proposed to the Democrats early in August that in the election to occur on November 4 a single ticket be nominated, fairly representative of all parties upon a simple war platform.
About Dean Richmond, chairman of the Democratic State Committee, still cl.u.s.tered Peter Cagger, William B. Ludlow, Sanford E. Church, and other Soft leaders, with Horatio Seymour substantially in control.
These men had not partic.i.p.ated in the Union Square meeting on April 20, nor had their sentiments been voiced since the fall of Fort Sumter; but it was well known that their views did not coincide with those of Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson, John A. Dix, James T. Brady, Greene C.
Bronson, and other leaders of the Hards. Richmond's reply, therefore, was not disappointing. He admitted the wisdom of filling public offices with pure and able men who commanded the confidence of the people, and suggested, with a play of sarcasm, that if such an example were set in filling Federal offices, it would probably be followed in the selection of State officers. But the politics of men in office, he continued, was of little importance compared to sound principles.
Democrats would unite with all citizens opposed to any war and equally to any peace which is based upon the idea of the separation of these States, and who regard it the duty of the Federal government at all times to hold out terms of peace and accommodation to the dissevered States.
”Our political system,” he continued, ”was founded in compromise, and it can never be dishonourable in any Administration to seek to restore it by the same means. Above all, they repel the idea that there exists between the two sections of the Union such an incompatibility of inst.i.tutions as to give rise to an irrepressible conflict between them, which can only terminate in the subjugation of one or the other.
Repelling the doctrine that any State can rightfully secede from the Union, they hold next in abhorrence that aggressive and fanatical sectional policy which has so largely contributed to the present danger of the country. They propose, therefore, to invite to union with them all citizens of whatever party, who, believing in these views, will act with them to secure honest administration in Federal and State affairs, a rigid maintenance of the Const.i.tution, economy in public expenditures, honesty in the award of contracts, justice to the soldier in the field and the taxpayer at home, and the expulsion of corrupt men from office.”[790]
[Footnote 790: New York _Herald_, August 9, 1861.]
It was hardly to be expected, perhaps, that Dean Richmond and other representatives of a great party would be willing, even if moved by no other motive than a love of country, to abandon a political organisation that had existed for years, and that had already shown its patriotism by the generous enlistment of its members; but it is doubtful if they would have proclaimed, without the guidance of a State convention, such an elaborate and positive platform of principles, had not the serious defeat at Bull Run and the action of the President in suspending the writ of _habeas corpus_, subjected the national Administration to severe criticism. This, at least, was the view taken by the radical Republican press, which viciously attacked the patriotism of Richmond and his a.s.sociates, charging them with using the livery of Democracy to serve the cause of treason.[791]
[Footnote 791: New York _Tribune_, August 10.]
In the midst of these developments the Democratic State convention, made up of a larger number of old men than usual, a.s.sembled at Syracuse on September 4. It was not an enthusiastic body. The division upon national affairs plainly had a depressing influence. Francis Kernan became temporary chairman. At the Oneida bar, Kernan, then forty-five years old, had been for nearly two decades the peer of Hiram Denio, Samuel Beardsley, Ward Hunt, and Joshua Spencer. He was a forceful speaker, cool and self-possessed, with a pleasing voice and good manner. He could not be called an orator, but he was a master of the art of making a perfectly clear statement, and in defending his position, point by point, with never failing readiness and skill, he had few if any superiors. He belonged, also, to that cla.s.s of able lawyers who are never too busy to take an active interest in public affairs.
In his brief address Kernan clearly outlined the position which the Democracy of the whole country was to occupy. ”It is our duty,” he said, ”to oppose abolitionism at the North and secession at the South, which are equally making war upon our Government. Let us consign them both to a common grave. Never will our country see peace unless we do.... We care not what men are in charge of the Government, it is our duty as patriots and as Democrats to protect and preserve that Government, and resist with arms, and, if need be, with our lives, the men who seek to overthrow it; but this must be no war for the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves.”[792]
[Footnote 792: New York _Tribune_, September 5, 1861.]
The vigor of Kernan as a speaker and presiding officer exaggerated by contrast the feebleness of Herman J. Redfield, the permanent president of the convention. Redfield was an old man, a mere reminiscence of the days of DeWitt Clinton, whose speech, read in a low, weak voice, was directed mainly to a defence of the sub-treasury plan of 1840 and the tariff act of 1846.[793] He professed to favour a vigorous prosecution of the war, but there were no words of reprobation for its authors, while he expressed the belief that ”civil war will never preserve, but forever destroy the union of States.” This was the prophecy of Reuben H. Walworth, the ex-chancellor, made at the Albany peace convention in the preceding January, and the applause that greeted the statement then, as it did at Syracuse, indicated a disposition on the part of many to favour concessions that would excuse if it did not absolutely justify secession.
[Footnote 793: ”From what lodge in some vast wilderness, from what lone mountain in the desert, the convention obtained its Rip Van Winkle president, we are at a loss to conceive. He evidently has never heard of the Wilmot Proviso struggle of 1848, the compromise contest of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Lecompton const.i.tution of 1858, nor the presidential election of 1860. It is plain that he has never even dreamed of the secession ordinances and of the fall of Sumter.”--New York _Tribune_, September 6, 1861.
”The speech of Mr. Redfield is universally laughed at. He has completely proven that he does not belong to the present century, or, at least, that he has been asleep for the last twenty years. Barnum should deposit it among the curiosities of his shop.”--New York _Herald_, September 5, 1861.]
The party platform, however, took little notice of the Redfield speech and the Redfield cheers. It declared that the right of secession did not anywhere or at any time exist; that the seizure of United States property and the sending out of privateers to prey on American commerce had precipitated the war; and that it was the duty of the government to put down rebellion with all the means in its power, and the duty of the people to rally about the government; but it also demanded that Congress call a convention of all the States to revise the Const.i.tution, and that the Administration abandon the narrow platform of the Chicago convention, expel corrupt men from office, and exclude advocates of abolition from the Cabinet, declaring that it would ”regard any attempt to pervert the conflict into a war for the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves as fatal to the hope of restoring the Union.”
The debate upon the platform was destined to bring into prominence a broader loyalty than even Francis Kernan had exhibited. Arphaxed Loomis moved to restore the resolution, expunged in the committee's report, protesting against the pa.s.sport system, the State police system, the suppression of free discussion in the press, and the suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_. It is doubtful if the freedom of the press had been materially abridged, since restrictions upon a few newspapers, charged with giving aid and comfort to the enemy, scarcely exceeded the proscription of anti-slavery papers before the war. The suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_, however, furnished better grounds for complaint. Men were apprehended, often on the telegram of Secretary Seward, and committed to prison, without any offence being charged or an examination being made. Among others arrested were two men at Malone, besides an editor of the New York _News_, and a crippled newsboy who sold the _News_. Public sentiment generally sustained the Administration in such action, but many persons, including conservative Republicans, frequently questioned the right or justice of such procedure. ”What are we coming to,” asked Senator Trumbull of Illinois, ”if arrests may be made at the whim or the caprice of a cabinet minister?”[794] Loomis, in insisting upon his resolution, had these arbitrary arrests in mind, maintaining that it embodied the true principles of Democracy, which he was unwilling to see violated without recording a protest.
[Footnote 794: ”Lieber says that _habeas corpus_, free meetings like this, and a free press, are the three elements which distinguish liberty from despotism. All that Saxon blood has gained in the battles and toils of two hundred years are these three things. But to-day, Mr.
Chairman, every one of them is annihilated in every square mile of the republic. We live to-day, every one of us, under martial law. The Secretary of State puts into his bastille, with a warrant as irresponsible as that of Louis, any man whom he pleases. And you know that neither press nor lips may venture to arraign the government without being silenced. At this moment at least one thousand men are 'bastilled' by an authority as despotic as that of Louis, three times as many as Eldon and George III seized when they trembled for his throne. For the first time on this continent we have pa.s.sports, which even Louis Napoleon p.r.o.nounces useless and odious. For the first time in our history government spies frequent our cities.”--Lecture of Wendell Phillips, delivered in New York, December, 1861.]
This brought to his feet Albert P. Laning of Buffalo. He was younger by a score of years than Loomis, and although never as prominent, perhaps, as the great advocate of legal reformative measures, his remarkable memory and thorough grasp of legal principles had listed him among the strong lawyers of Western New York. To the convention he was well known as a clear, forceful speaker, who had been a student of political history as well as of law, and who, in spite of his ardent devotion to his profession, had revealed, when shaping the policy of his party, the personal gifts and remarkable power of sustained argument that win admiration.