Volume III Part 5 (1/2)

This gave rise to an opinion that he intended to ”suppress free discussion of political subjects,”[849] and every orator warned the people that Wadsworth's election meant the arrest and imprisonment of his political opponents. ”If chosen governor,” said the _Herald_, ”he will have his adversaries consigned to dungeons and their property seized and confiscated under the act of Congress.”[850] In accepting an invitation to speak at Rome, John Van Buren, quick to see the humour of the situation as well as the vulnerable point of the Radicals, telegraphed that he would ”arrive at two o'clock--if not in Fort Lafayette.”[851]

[Footnote 848: _Lincoln's Works_, Vol. 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 849: Benjamin E. Curtis, _Pamphlet on Executive Power_.]

[Footnote 850: New York _Herald_, October 4, 1862.]

[Footnote 851: _Ibid._, October 24.]

To the delight of audiences John Van Buren, after two years of political inactivity, broke his silence. He had earnestly and perhaps sincerely advocated the nomination of John A. Dix, but after Seymour's selection he again joined the ranks of the Softs and took the stump.

Among other appointments he spoke with Seymour at the New York ratification meeting, and again at the Brooklyn rally on October 22.

Something remained of the old-time vigour of the professional gladiator, but compared with his Barnburner work he seemed what Byron called ”an extinct volcano.” He ran too heedlessly into a bitter criticism of Wadsworth, based upon an alleged conversation he could not substantiate, and into an acrimonious attack upon Lincoln's conduct of the war, predicated upon a private letter of General Scott, the possession of which he did not satisfactorily account for. The _Tribune_, referring to his campaign as ”a rhetorical spree,” called him a ”buffoon,” a ”political harlequin,” a ”repeater of mouldy jokes,”[852] and in bitter terms denounced his ”low comedy performance at Tammany,” his ”double-shuffle dancing at Mozart Hall,” his possession of a letter ”by dishonourable means for a dishonourable purpose,” and his wide-sweeping statements ”which gentlemen over their own signatures p.r.o.nounced lies.”[853] It was not a performance to be proud of, and although Van Buren succeeded in stirring up the advertising sensations which he craved, he did not escape without wounds that left deep scars. ”Prince John makes a statement,” says the _Herald_, ”accusing Charles King of slandering the wife of Andrew Jackson; King retorts by calling the Prince a liar; the poets of the _Post_ take up the case and broadly hint that the Prince's private history shows that he has not lived the life of a saint; the Prince replies that he has half a mind to walk into the private antecedents of Wadsworth, which, it is said, would disclose some scenes exceedingly rich; while certain other Democrats, indignant at Raymond's accusations of treason against Seymour, threaten to reveal his individual history, hinting, by the way, that it would show him to have been heretofore a follower of that fussy philosopher of the twelfth century, Abelard--not in philosophy, however, but in sentiment, romance, and some other things.”[854]

[Footnote 852: New York _Tribune_, October 28, 1862.]

[Footnote 853: _Ibid._, October 30.]

[Footnote 854: New York _Herald_, October 29, 1862.]

Wherever Van Buren spoke Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson followed. His admirers, the most extreme Radicals, cheered his speeches wildly, their fun relieving the prosaic rigour of an issue that to one side seemed forced by Northern treachery, to the other to threaten the gravest peril to the country. It is difficult to exaggerate the tension. Party violence ran high and the result seemed in doubt. Finally, conservatives appealed to both candidates to retire in favour of John A. Dix,[855] and on October 20 an organisation, styling itself the Federal Union, notified the General that its central committee had nominated him for governor, and that a State Convention, called to meet at Cooper Inst.i.tute on the 28th, would ratify the nomination. To this summons, Dix, without declining a nomination, replied from Maryland that he could not leave his duties ”to be drawn into any party strife.”[856] This settled the question of a compromise candidate.

[Footnote 855: _Ibid._, October 15 and 17.]

[Footnote 856: Morgan Dix, _Memoirs of John A. Dix_, Vol. 2, pp.

51-52.]

Elections in the October States did not encourage the Radicals.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana voiced the sentiments of the opposition, defeating Galusha A. Grow, speaker of the House, and seriously threatening the Radical majority in Congress. This retrogression, accounted for by the absence of soldiers who could not vote,[857] suggested trouble in New York, and to offset the influence of the Seymour rally in Brooklyn a great audience at Cooper Inst.i.tute listened to a brief letter from the Secretary of State, and to a speech from Wadsworth. Seward did not encourage the soldier candidate.

The rankling recollection of Wadsworth's opposition at Chicago in 1860 stifled party pride as well as patriotism, and although the _Herald_ thought it ”brilliant and sarcastic,” it emphasised Wadsworth's subsequent statement that ”Seward was dead against me throughout the campaign.”[858]

[Footnote 857: New York _Tribune_, October 17, 1862. See other views: New York _Herald_, October 17, 18, 19.]

[Footnote 858: Henry B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 216.]

Wadsworth's canva.s.s was confined to a single speech. He had been absent from the State fifteen months, and although not continuously at the front there was something inexcusably ungenerous in the taunts of his opponents that he had served ”behind fortifications.” His superb conduct at Bull Run ent.i.tled him to better treatment. But his party was wholly devoted to him, and ”amid a hurricane of approbation”[859]

he mingled censure of Seymour with praise of Lincoln, and the experience of a brave soldier with bitter criticism of an unpatriotic press. It was not the work of a trained public speaker. It lacked poise, phrase, and deliberation. But what it wanted in manner it made up in fire and directness, giving an emotional and loyal audience abundant opportunity to explode into long-continued cheering.

Thoughtful men who were not in any sense political partisans gave careful heed to his words. He stood for achievement. He brought the great struggle nearer home, and men listened as to one with a message from the field of patriotic sacrifices. The radical newspapers broke into a chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were delighted. The air rung with praises of the courage and spirit of their candidate, and if here and there the faint voice of a Conservative suggested that emanc.i.p.ation was premature and arbitrary arrests were unnecessary, a shout of offended patriotism drowned the ign.o.ble utterance.

[Footnote 859: New York _Tribune_, October 31, 1862.]

Wadsworth and his party were too much absorbed in the zeal of their cause not to run counter to the prejudices of men less earnest and less self-forgetting. In a contest of such bitterness they were certain to make enemies, whose hostilities would be subtle and enduring, and the October elections showed that the inevitable reaction was setting in. Military failure and increasing debt made the avowed policy of emanc.i.p.ation more offensive. People were getting tired of bold action without achievement in the field, and every opponent of the Administration became a threnodist. However, independent papers which strongly favoured Seymour believed in Wadsworth's success. ”Seymour's antecedents are against him,” said the _Herald_. ”Wadsworth, radical as he is, will be preferred by the people to a Democrat who is believed to be in favour of stopping the war; because, whatever Wadsworth's ideas about the negro may be, they are only as dust in the balance compared with his hearty and earnest support of the war and the Administration.”[860] This was the belief of the Radicals,[861] and upon them the news of Seymour's election by over 10,000 majority fell with a sickening thud.[862] Raymond declared it ”a vote of want of confidence in the President;”[863] Wadsworth thought Seward did it;[864] Weed suggested that Wadsworth held ”too extreme party views;”[865] and Greeley insisted that it was ”a gang of corrupt Republican politicians, who, failing to rule the nominating convention, took revenge on its patriotic candidate by secretly supporting the Democratic nominee.”[866] But the dominant reason was what George William Curtis called ”the mad desperation of reaction,”[867] which showed its influence in other States as well as in New York. That Wadsworth's personality had little, if anything, to do with his overthrow was further evidenced by results in congressional districts, the Democrats carrying seventeen out of thirty-one. Even Francis Kernan carried the Oneida district against Conkling. The latter was undoubtedly embarra.s.sed by personal enemies who controlled the Welsh vote, but the real cause of his defeat was military disasters, financial embarra.s.sments, and the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation. ”All our reverses, our despondence, our despairs,” said Curtis, ”bring us to the inevitable issue, shall not the blacks strike for their freedom?”[868]

[Footnote 860: New York _Herald_, October 17, 1862.]

[Footnote 861: New York _Tribune_, Nov. 6.]

[Footnote 862: ”Seymour, 307,063; Wadsworth, 296,492.”--_Ibid._, November 24.]