Volume III Part 4 (1/2)

The fight of these able and conspicuous journals represented the fierceness with which emanc.i.p.ation was pushed and opposed throughout the State. Conservative men, therefore, realising the danger to which a bitter campaign along strict party lines would subject the Union cause, demanded that all parties rally to the support of the Government with a candidate for governor devoted to conservative principles and a vigorous prosecution of the war. Sentiment seemed to point to John A. Dix as such a man. Though not distinguished as a strategist or effective field officer, he possessed courage, caution, and a desire to crush the rebellion. The policy of this movement, embracing conservative Republicans and war Democrats, was urged by Thurlow Weed, sanctioned by Seward, and heartily approved by John Van Buren, who, since the beginning of hostilities, had avoided party councils. The Const.i.tutional Union party, composed of old line Whigs who opposed emanc.i.p.ation,[824] proposed to lead this movement at its convention, to be held at Troy on September 9, but at the appointed time James Brooks, by prearrangement, appeared with a file of instructed followers, captured the meeting, and gave Horatio Seymour 32 votes to 20 for Dix and 6 for Millard Fillmore. This unexpected result made Seymour the candidate of the Democratic State convention which met at Albany on the following day.

[Footnote 824: New York _Herald_, October 15, 1862.]

Seymour sincerely preferred another. Early in August he travelled from Utica to Buffalo to resist the friends.h.i.+p and the arguments of Dean Richmond. It cannot be said that he had outlived ambition. He possessed wealth, he was advancing in his political career, and he aspired to higher honours, but he did not desire to become governor again, even though the party indicated a willingness to follow his leaders.h.i.+p and give him free rein to inaugurate such a policy as his wisdom and conservatism might dictate. He clearly recognised the difficulties in the way. He had taken ultra ground against the Federal Administration, opposing emanc.i.p.ation, denouncing arbitrary arrests, and expressing the belief that the North could not subjugate the South; yet he would be powerless to give life to his own views, or to modify Lincoln's proposed conduct of the war. The President, having been elected to serve until March, 1865, would not tolerate interference with his plans and purposes, so that an opposition Governor, regardless of grievances or their cause, would be compelled to furnish troops and to keep the peace. Hatred of conscription would be no excuse for non-action in case of a draft riot, and indignation over summary arrests could in nowise limit the exercise of such arbitrary methods. To be governor under such conditions, therefore, meant constant embarra.s.sment, if not unceasing humiliation. These reasons were carefully presented to Richmond. Moreover, Seymour was conscious of inherent defects of temperament. He did not belong to the cla.s.s of politicians, described by Victor Hugo, who mistake a weather-c.o.c.k for a flag. He was a gentleman of culture, of public experience, and of moral purpose, representing the best quality of his party; but possessed of a sensitive and eager temper, he was too often influenced by the men immediately about him, and too often inclined to have about him men whose influence did not strengthen his own better judgment.

Richmond knew of this weakness and regretted it, but the man of iron, grasping the political situation with the shrewdness of a phenomenally successful business man, wanted a candidate who could win. It was plain to him that the Republican party, divided on the question of emanc.i.p.ation and weakened by arbitrary arrests, a policy that many people bitterly resented, could be beaten by a candidate who added exceptional popularity to a promised support of the war and a vigorous protest against government methods. Dix, he knew, would stand with the President; Seymour would criticise, and with sureness of aim arouse opposition. While Richmond, therefore, listened respectfully to Seymour's reasons for declining the nomination, he was deaf to all entreaty, insisting that as the party had honoured him when he wanted office, he must now honour the party when it needed him. Besides, he declared that Sanford E. Church, whom Seymour favoured, could not be elected.[825] Having gained the Oneidan's consent, Richmond exercised his adroit methods of packing conventions, and thus opened the way for Seymour's unanimous nomination by making the Const.i.tutional Union convention the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

[Footnote 825: The author is indebted to Henry A. Richmond, son of Dean Richmond, for this outline of Seymour's interview.]

To a majority of the Democratic party Seymour's selection appealed with something of historic pride. It recalled other days in the beginning of his career, and inspired the hope that the peace which reigned in the fifties, and the power that the Democracy then wielded, might, under his leaders.h.i.+p, again return to bless their party by checking a policy that was rapidly introducing a new order of things.

After his nomination, therefore, voices became hoa.r.s.e with long continued cheering. For a few minutes the a.s.sembly surrendered to the noise and confusion which characterise a more modern convention, and only the presence of the nominee and the announcement that he would speak brought men to order.

Seymour, as was his custom, came carefully prepared. In his party he now had no rival. Not since DeWitt Clinton crushed the Livingstons in 1807, and Martin Van Buren swept the State in 1828, did one man so completely dominate a political organisation, and in his arraignment of the Radicals he emulated the partisan rather than the patriot. He spoke respectfully of the President, insisting that he should ”be treated with the respect due to his position as the representative of the dignity and honor of the American people,” and declaring that ”with all our powers of mind and person, we mean to support the Const.i.tution and uphold the Union;” but in his bitter denunciation of the Administration he confused the general policy of conducting a war with mistakes in awarding government contracts. To him an honest difference of opinion upon const.i.tutional questions was as corrupt and reprehensible as dishonest practices in the departments at Was.h.i.+ngton.

He condemned emanc.i.p.ation as ”a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of l.u.s.t and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilised Europe.”[826]

[Footnote 826: Cook and Knox, _Public Record of Horatio Seymour_, pp.

45-58.]

The convention thought seriously of making this speech the party platform. But A.P. Laning, declining to surrender the prerogative of the resolutions committee, presented a brief statement of principles, ”pledging the Democracy to continue united in its support of the Government, and to use all legitimate means to suppress rebellion, restore the Union as it was, and maintain the Const.i.tution as it is.”

It also denounced ”the illegal, unconst.i.tutional, and arbitrary arrests of citizens of the State as unjustifiable,” declaring such arrests a usurpation and a crime, and insisting upon the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press.[827]

[Footnote 827: The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, Horatio Seymour of Oneida; Lieutenant-Governor, David E. Floyd Jones of Queens; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, William I. Skinner of Herkimer; Prison Inspector, g.a.y.l.o.r.d J. Clark of Niagara; Clerk of Appeals, Fred A.

Tallmadge of New York.]

The speech of Seymour, as displeasing to many War Democrats as it was satisfactory to the Peace faction, at once aroused conservative Republicans, and Weed and Raymond, backed by Seward, favored the policy of nominating John A. Dix. Seward had distinguished himself as one of the more conservative members of the Cabinet. After settling into the belief that Lincoln ”is the best of us”[828] his ambition centered in the support of the President, and whatever aid he could render in helping the country to a better understanding of the Administration's aims and wishes was generously if not always adroitly performed. He did not oppose the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, his clear discernment exhibited its certain destruction if the rebellion continued; but he opposed blending emanc.i.p.ation with a prosecution of the war, preferring to meet the former as the necessity for it arose rather than precipitate an academic discussion which would divide Republicans and give the Democrats an issue.

[Footnote 828: Seward to his wife.--F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 590.]

When Lincoln, on July 22, 1862, announced to his Cabinet a determination to issue an emanc.i.p.ation proclamation, the Secretary questioned its expediency only as to the time of its publication. ”The depression of the public mind consequent upon our repeated reverses,”

he said, ”is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step.... I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war.”[829] Seward's view was adopted, and in place of the proclamation appeared the Executive Order of July 22, the unenforcement of which Greeley had so fiercely criticised in his ”Prayer of Twenty Millions.” Thurlow Weed, who, in June, had returned from London heavily freighted with good results for the Union accomplished by his influence with leading Englishmen, held the opinion of Seward. Raymond had also made the _Times_ an able defender of the President's policy, and although not violent in its opposition to the att.i.tude of the Radicals, it never ceased its efforts to suppress agitation of the slavery question.

[Footnote 829: Frank B. Carpenter, _Six Months at the White House_, pp.

22, 23.]

In its purpose to nominate Dix the New York _Herald_ likewise bore a conspicuous part. It had urged his selection upon the Democrats, declaring him stronger than Seymour. It now urged him upon the Republicans, insisting that he was stronger than Wadsworth.[830] This was also the belief of Weed, whose sagacity as to the strength of political leaders was rarely at fault.[831] On the contrary, Governor Morgan expressed the opinion that ”Wadsworth will be far more available than any one yet mentioned as my successor.”[832] Wadsworth's service at the battle of Bull Run had been distinguished. ”Gen.

McDowell told us on Monday,” wrote Thurlow Weed, ”that Major Wadsworth rendered him the most important service before, during, and after battle. From others we have learned that after resisting the stampede, earnestly but ineffectually, he remained to the last moment aiding the wounded and encouraging surgeons to remain on the field as many of them did.”[833] Wadsworth's subsequent insistence that the Army of the Potomac, then commanded by McClellan, could easily crush the Confederates, who, in his opinion, did not number over 50,000[834], had again brought his name conspicuously before the country. Moreover, since the 8th of March he had commanded the forces in and about Was.h.i.+ngton, and had acted as Stanton's adviser in the conduct of the war.

[Footnote 830: New York _Herald_, September 19 and October 15, 1862.]

[Footnote 831: Albany _Evening Journal_, November 6, 1862.]

[Footnote 832: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 413.]

[Footnote 833: Albany _Evening Journal_, July 31, 1861.]

[Footnote 834: ”This estimate was afterward verified as correct.”--New York _Tribune_, September 22, 1862.]

For twenty years Wadsworth had not been a stranger to the people of New York. His vigorous defence of Silas Wright gave him a warm place in the hearts of Barnburners, and his name, after the formation of the Republican party, became a household word among members of that young organisation. Besides, his neighbours had exploited his character for generosity. The story of the tenant who got a receipt for rent and one hundred dollars in money because the accidental killing of his oxen in the midst of harvest had diminished his earning capacity, seemed to be only one of many similar acts. In 1847 his farm had furnished a thousand bushels of corn to starving Ireland. Moreover, he had endowed inst.i.tutions of learning, founded school libraries, and turned the houses of tenants into homes of college students. But the Radicals'

real reason for making him their candidate was his ”recognition of the truth that slavery is the implacable enemy of our National life, and that the Union can only be saved by grappling directly and boldly with its deadly foe.”[835]