Volume III Part 12 (2/2)

After Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana swung into line on October 10 no doubt remained as to the general result. But Republican confidence in New York was greatly shaken by the disclosure of a conspiracy to use the soldier vote for fraudulent purposes. Under an amendment to the Const.i.tution, ratified in March, 1864, soldiers in the field were allowed to vote, provided properly executed proxies were delivered to election inspectors in their home districts within sixty days next previous to the election, and to facilitate the transmission of such proxies agents for the State were appointed at Baltimore, Was.h.i.+ngton, and other points. Several of these agents, charged with forgery, were arrested by the military authorities, one of whom confessed that enough forged proxies had been forwarded from Was.h.i.+ngton ”to fill a dry-goods box.” Of these spurious ballots several hundred were seized, and two of the forgers committed to the penitentiary.[1023] ”We are informed,” said the _Tribune_, ”that Oswego county is flooded with spurious McClellan votes of every description. There are forged votes from living as well as from dead soldiers; fict.i.tious votes from soldiers whose genuine votes and powers of attorney are in the hands of their friends. These packages correspond with the work described in the recent Baltimore investigation.”[1024] Meantime Governor Seymour, uneasy lest the liberties of his agents be limited, directed Amasa J.

Parker, William F. Allen, and William Kelly to proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton and ”vindicate the laws of the State” and ”expose all attempts to prevent soldiers from voting, or to detain or alter the votes already cast.” These commissioners, after a hurried investigation, reported that ”although there may have been irregularities, they have found no evidence that any frauds have been committed by any person connected with the New York agency.”[1025] Nevertheless, the sequel showed that this plot, if not discovered, would probably have changed the result in the State.

[Footnote 1023: Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1864, pp. 584-8; New York _Herald_, November 4 and 5; New York _Tribune_, October 27, 28, 29, November 2, 4. 5.]

[Footnote 1024: _Ibid._, November 5, 1864.]

[Footnote 1025: Appleton's _Cyclopaedia_, 1864, pp. 584-588.]

During the last month of the campaign the interest of the whole country centred in New York. Next to the election of Lincoln, Republicans everywhere desired the defeat of Seymour. To them his speech at Chicago had been a malignant indictment of the Government, and his one address in the campaign, while it did not impute personal dishonesty to the President, had branded his administration as a party to fraud. Lincoln regarded the contest in New York as somewhat personal to himself, and from day to day sought information with the anxious persistency that characterised his inquiries during the canva.s.s in 1860. Fenton fully appreciated the importance of vindicating the President, and for the admirable thoroughness of the campaign he received great credit.

After the polls had closed on November 8 it soon became known that although the President had 179 electoral votes to 21 for McClellan, New York was in grave doubt. On Wednesday approximated returns put Republicans 1,400 ahead. Finally it developed that in a total vote of 730,821, Lincoln had 6,749 more than McClellan, and Fenton 8,293 more than Seymour. Fenton's vote exceeded Lincoln's by 1,544. ”We believe this the only instance,” said the _Tribune_, ”in which a Republican candidate for governor polled a heavier vote than that cast for our candidate for President at the same election.”[1026] The Legislature was largely Republican, and the twenty congressmen, a gain of five, included Roscoe Conkling and John A. Griswold, an intrepid, energetic spirit--the very incarnation of keen good sense. Like Erastus Corning, whom he succeeded in Congress, Griswold was a business man, whose intelligent interest in public affairs made him mayor of Troy at the age of twenty-eight. In 1862 he carried his district as a Democrat by over 2,000 majority, but developing more political independence than friend or foe had antic.i.p.ated, he refused to follow his party in war legislation, and with Moses F. Odell, a Democratic colleague from Brooklyn, boldly supported the Thirteenth Amendment. This made him a Republican.

[Footnote 1026: New York _Tribune_, January 18, 1869.]

To this galaxy also belonged Henry J. Raymond. He had come into possession of great fame. His graceful and vigorous work on the _Times_, supplemented by his incisive speeches and rare intelligence in conventions, had won many evidences of his party's esteem, but with a desire for office not less p.r.o.nounced than Greeley's[1027] he coveted a seat in Congress from a district which gave a Tammany majority of 2,000 in 1862. To the surprise of his friends he won by a plurality of 386. It was the greatest victory of the year, and, in the end, led to the saddest event of his life.

[Footnote 1027: Apropos of Greeley's desire for office, Waldo M.

Hutchins when in Congress in 1879 told Joseph G. Cannon, now the distinguished speaker of the House of Representatives, that in September, 1864, during a call upon Greeley, the latter exhibited a letter from Lincoln two days old, inviting him to the White House.

Greeley, mindful of his efforts to subst.i.tute another candidate for Lincoln, said he would not reply and should not go, but Hutchins finally gained consent to represent him. Hutchins reached Was.h.i.+ngton very early the next morning, and the President, although clad only in unders.h.i.+rt and trousers, received him and began enlarging upon the importance of a re-election, suggesting that in such event Seward would enjoy being minister to England, and that Greeley would make an admirable successor to Benjamin Franklin, the first postmaster-general.

Hutchins reported this to Greeley, who immediately turned the _Tribune_ into a Lincoln organ. In the following April Greeley recalled Lincoln's statement to Hutchins, who at once left for the capital. He reached Was.h.i.+ngton the morning after the President's a.s.sa.s.sination.]

CHAPTER X

A COMPLETE CHANGE OF POLICY

1865

For the moment the surrender of Lee and the collapse of the Confederacy left the Democrats without an issue. The war had not been a failure, peace had come without the intervention of a convention of the States, the South was ”subjugated,” the abolition of slavery accomplished, arbitrary arrests were forgotten, the professed fear of national bankruptcy had disappeared, and Seymour's prophetic gift was in eclipse. Nothing had happened which he predicted--everything had transpired which he opposed. Meanwhile, under the administration of Andrew Johnson, the country was gradually recovering from the awful shock of Abraham Lincoln's a.s.sa.s.sination.

Substantially following Lincoln's policy, the President had issued, on May 29, 1865, a proclamation of amnesty pardoning such as had partic.i.p.ated in rebellion,[1028] with restoration of all rights of property except as to slaves, on condition that each take an oath to support the Const.i.tution and to obey the laws respecting emanc.i.p.ation.

He also prescribed a mode for the reconstruction of States lately in rebellion. This included the appointment of provisional governors authorised to devise the proper machinery for choosing legislatures, which should determine the qualification of electors and office-holders. In this preliminary scheme Johnson limited the voters to white men. Personally he declared himself in favour of a qualified suffrage for negroes, but he thought this a matter to be determined by the States themselves.

[Footnote 1028: Except certain specified cla.s.ses, the most important of which were civil or diplomatic officers of the Confederacy, military officers above the rank of colonel, governors of States, former members of Congress who had left their seats to aid the rebellion, and all who owned property to exceed $20,000 in value. But these excepted persons might make special application to the President for pardon and to them clemency would be ”liberally extended.”]

A policy that excluded the negro from all partic.i.p.ation in public affairs did not commend itself to the leaders of the Radicals. It was believed that Mississippi's denial of even a limited suffrage to the negro, such as obtained in New York, indicated the feeling of the Southern people, and the Union conventions of Pennsylvania, dominated by Thaddeus Stevens, and of Ma.s.sachusetts, controlled by Charles Sumner, refused to endorse the President's scheme. During the summer Horace Greeley, in several earnest and able editorials, advocated negro suffrage as a just and politic measure, but he carefully avoided any reflection upon the President, and disclaimed the purpose of making such suffrage an inexorable condition in reconstruction.[1029]

Nevertheless, the Radicals of the State hesitated to leave the civil status of coloured men to their former masters.

[Footnote 1029: New York _Tribune_, June 14, 15, 20, 26, 28, July 8, 10, 31, August 26, September 20, October 7, 19, 1864.]

Johnson's policy especially appealed to the Democrats, and at their State convention, held at Albany on September 9 (1865), they promised the President their cordial support, commended his reconstruction policy, pledged the payment of the war debt, thanked the army and navy, and denounced the denial ”of representation to States in order to compel them to adopt negro equality or negro suffrage as an element of their Const.i.tutions.”[1030] Indeed, with one stroke of the pen the convention erased all issues of the war, and with one stroke of the axe rid itself of the men whom it held responsible for defeat. It avoided Seymour for president of the convention; it nominated for secretary of state Henry W. Sloc.u.m of Onondaga, formerly a Republican office-holder, whose superb leaders.h.i.+p as a corps commander placed him among New York's most famous soldiers; it preferred John Van Buren to Samuel J. Tilden for attorney-general; and it refused Manton Marble's platform, although the able editor of the _World_ enjoyed the hospitality of the committee room. Further to popularise its action, it welcomed back to its fold Lucius Robinson, whom it nominated for comptroller, an office he was then holding by Republican suffrage.

[Footnote 1030: New York _Herald_, September 9.]

Robinson's political somersault caused no surprise. His dislike of the Lincoln administration, expressed in his letter to the Cleveland convention, influenced him to support McClellan, while the Radicals'

tendency to accept negro suffrage weakened his liking for the Republican party. However, no unkind words followed his action.

<script>