Volume III Part 4 (2/2)
[Footnote 835: New York _Tribune_, September 22, 1862.]
Prompted by this motive his supporters used all the methods known to managing politicians to secure a majority of the delegates. Lincoln's emanc.i.p.ation proclamation, published on September 23, five days after the battle of Antietam, greatly strengthened them. They hailed the event as their victory. It gave substance, too, to the Wadsworth platform that ”the Union must crush out slavery, or slavery will destroy the Union.” Reinforced by such an unexpected ally, it was well understood before the day of the convention that in spite of the appeals of Weed and Raymond, and of the wishes of Seward and the President, the choice of the Radicals would be nominated. Wadsworth was not averse. He had an itching for public life. In 1856 his stubborn play for governor and his later contest for a seat in the United States Senate had characterised him as an office-seeker. But whether running for office himself, or helping some one else, he was a fighter whom an opponent had reason to fear.
The Republican Union convention, as it was called, a.s.sembled at Syracuse on September 25. Henry J. Raymond became its president, and with characteristic directness made a vigorous reply to Seymour, declaring that ”Jefferson Davis himself could not have planned a speech better calculated, under all the circ.u.mstances of the case, to promote his end to embarra.s.s the Government of the United States and strengthen the hands of those who are striving for its overthrow.”[836]
Then William Curtis Noyes read a letter from Governor Morgan declining renomination.[837] The Governor had made a creditable executive, winning the respect of conservatives in both parties, and although the rule against a third term had become firmly established in a State that had tolerated it but once since the days of Tompkins and DeWitt Clinton, the propriety of making a further exception appealed to the public with manifest approval. ”But this,” Weed said, ”did not suit the _Tribune_ and a cla.s.s of politicians with whom it sympathised.
They demanded a candidate with whom abolition is the paramount consideration.”[838] Morgan's letter created a ripple of applause, after which the presentation of Wadsworth's name aroused an enthusiasm of longer duration than had existed at Albany. Nevertheless, Charles G. Myers of St. Lawrence did not hesitate to speak for ”a more available candidate at the present time.” Then, raising his voice above the whisperings of dissent, he named John A. Dix, ”who, while Seymour was howling for peace and compromise,” said the speaker, ”ordered the first man shot that hauled down the American flag.”
Raymond, in his speech earlier in the afternoon, had quoted the historic despatch in a well-balanced sentence, with the accent and inflection of a trained orator; but in giving it an idiomatic, thrilling ring in contrast with Seymour's record, Myers suddenly threw the convention into wild, continued cheering, until it seemed as if the noise of a moment before would be exceeded by the genuine and involuntary outburst of patriotic emotion. A single ballot, however, giving Wadsworth an overwhelming majority, showed that the Radicals owned the convention.[839]
[Footnote 836: New York _Times_, September 25, 1862.]
[Footnote 837: ”Though we met Governor Morgan repeatedly during the summer, he never hinted that he expected or desired to be again a candidate.”--New York _Tribune_, December 12, 1862.]
[Footnote 838: Albany _Evening Journal_, December 10, 1862.]
[Footnote 839: The vote resulted as follows: Wadsworth, 234; Dix, 110; Lyman Tremaine, 33; d.i.c.kinson, 2.
The ticket was as follows: Governor, James S. Wadsworth of Genesee; Lieutenant-Governor, Lyman Tremaine of Albany; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Oliver Ladue of Herkimer; Prison Inspector, Andreas Willman of New York; Clerk of Appeals, Charles Hughes of Was.h.i.+ngton.]
Parke G.o.dwin of Queens, from the committee on resolutions, presented the platform. Among other issues it urged the most vigorous prosecution of the war; hailed, with the profoundest satisfaction, the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation; and expressed pride in the knowledge that the Republic's only enemies ”are the savages of the West, the rebels of the South, their sympathisers and supporters of the North, and the despots of Europe.”
The campaign opened with unexampled bitterness. Seymour's convention speech inflamed the Republican party, and its press, recalling his address at the Peace convention in January, 1861, seemed to uncork its pent-up indignation. The _Tribune_ p.r.o.nounced him a ”consummate demagogue,” ”radically dishonest,” and the author of sentiments that ”will be read throughout the rebel States with unalloyed delight,”
since ”their whole drift tends to encourage treason and paralyse the arm of those who strike for the Union.”[840] It disclosed Seymour's intimate relations with ”Vallandigham and the school of Democrats who do not disguise their sympathy with traitors nor their hostility to war,” and predicted ”that, if elected, Jeff Davis will regard his success as a triumph.”[841] Odious comparisons also became frequent.
Wadsworth at Bull Run was contrasted with Seymour's prediction that the Union's foes could not be subdued.[842] Seymour's supporters, it was said, believed in recognising the independence of the South, or in a restored Union with slavery conserved, while Wadsworth's champions thought rebellion a wicked and wanton conspiracy against human liberty, to be crushed by the most effective measures.[843] Raymond declared that ”every vote given for Wadsworth is a vote for loyalty, and every vote given for Seymour is a vote for treason.”[844]
[Footnote 840: New York _Tribune_, September 17, 1862.]
[Footnote 841: New York _Tribune_, Oct. 8, 1862.]
[Footnote 842: _Ibid._, Oct. 9.]
[Footnote 843: _Ibid._, Oct. 24.]
[Footnote 844: New York _Herald_, Oct. 9, 1862.]
To these thrusts the Democratic press replied with no less acrimony, speaking of Wadsworth as ”a malignant, abolition disorganiser,” whose service in the field was ”very brief,” whose command in Was.h.i.+ngton was ”behind fortifications,” and whose capacity was ”limited to attacks upon his superior officers.”[845] The _Herald_ declared him ”as arrant an aristocrat as any Southern rebel. The slave-holder,” it said, ”lives upon his plantation, which his ancestors begged, cheated, or stole from the Indians. Wadsworth lives upon his immense Genesee farms, which his ancestors obtained from the Indians in precisely the same way. The slave-holder has a number of negroes who raise crops for him, and whom he clothes, feeds, and lodges. Wadsworth has a number of labourers on his farms, who support him by raising his crops or paying him rent. The slave-holder, having an independent fortune and nothing to do, joins the army, or runs for office. Wadsworth, in exactly the same circ.u.mstances, does exactly the same thing. Wadsworth, therefore, is quite as much an aristocrat as the slave-holder, and cares quite as much for himself and quite as little for the people.”[846] Democrats everywhere endeavoured to limit the issue to the two opposing candidates, claiming that Seymour, in conjunction with all conservative men, stood for a vigorous prosecution of the war to save the Union, while Wadsworth, desiring its prosecution for the destruction of slavery, believed the Union of secondary consideration.
[Footnote 845: _Ibid._, Sept. 26.]
[Footnote 846: _Ibid._, Oct. 1.]
Campaign oratory, no longer softened by the absence of strict party lines, throbbed feverishly with pa.s.sion and ugly epithet. The strategical advantage lay with Seymour, who made two speeches. Dean Richmond, alarmed at the growing strength of the war spirit, urged him to put more ”powder” into his Brooklyn address than he used at the ratification meeting, held in New York City on October 13; but he declined to cater ”to war Democrats,” contenting himself with an amplification of his convention speech. ”G.o.d knows I love my country,”
he said; ”I would count my life as nothing, if I could but save the nation's life.” He resented with much feeling Raymond's electioneering statement that a vote for him was one for treason.[847] ”Recognising at this moment as we do,” he continued, ”that the destinies, the honour, and the glory of our country hang poised upon the conflict in the battlefield, we tender to the Government no conditional support” to put down ”this wicked and mighty rebellion.” Once, briefly, and without bitterness, he referred to the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation, but he again bitterly arraigned the Administration for its infractions of the Const.i.tution, its deception as to the strength of the South, and the corruption in its departments.
[Footnote 847: New York _Herald_, October 8 and 9, 1862.]
Seymour's admirers manifested his tendencies more emphatically than he did himself, until denunciation of treason and insistence upon a vigorous prosecution of the war yielded to an indictment of the Radicals. The s.h.i.+bboleth of these declaimers was arbitrary arrests.
Two days after the edict of emanc.i.p.ation (September 24) the President issued a proclamation ordering the arrest, without benefit of _habeas corpus_, of all who ”discouraged enlistments,” or were guilty of ”any disloyal practice” which afforded ”aid and comfort to the rebels.”[848]
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