Volume III Part 13 (1/2)
”Robinson is to-day,” said the _Tribune_, ”what he has always been, a genuine Democrat, a true Republican, a hearty Unionist, and an inflexibly honest and faithful guardian of the treasury. He has proved a most valuable officer, whom every would-be plunderer of the State regards with unfeigned detestation, and, if his old a.s.sociates like him well enough to support his re-election, it is a proof that some of the false G.o.ds they have for years been following have fallen from their pedestals and been crumbled into dust.”[1031]
[Footnote 1031: New York _Tribune_, September 9, 1864.
”The ticket nominated was as follows: Secretary of State, Henry W.
Sloc.u.m, Onondaga; Comptroller, Lucius Robinson, Chemung; Attorney-General, John Van Buren, New York; Treasurer, Ma.r.s.ena R.
Patrick, Ontario; State Engineer, Sylva.n.u.s H. Sweet, Oneida; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Cornelius W. Armstrong, Albany; Prison Inspector, Andrew J. Mc.n.u.tt, Allegany; Judges of Appeals, John W. Brown, Orange; Martin Grover, Allegany; Clerk of Appeals, Edward O. Perkins, Kings.”--New York _Herald_, September 9, 1864.]
The Union Republican convention, held at Syracuse on September 20, followed the policy of the Democrats in the nomination of Sloc.u.m.
Officers of distinguished service abounded. Daniel E. Sickles, a hero of Gettysburg; Francis G. Barlow, the intrepid general of Hanc.o.c.k's famous corps; Henry W. Barnum, a soldier of decided valour and energy; Charles H. Van Wyck, who left Congress to lead a regiment to the field; John H. Martindale, a West Point graduate of conspicuous service in the Peninsular campaign, and Joseph Howland, whose large means had benefited the soldiers, were especially mentioned. Of this galaxy all received recognition save Sickles and Van Wyck, Chauncey M.
Depew being dropped for Barlow, Cochrane for Martindale, Bates for Barnum, and Schuyler for Howland. In other words, the officials elected in 1863, ent.i.tled by custom to a second term, yielded to the sentiment that soldiers deserved recognition in preference to civilians.[1032]
[Footnote 1032: The ticket nominated was as follows: Secretary of State, Francis G. Barlow of New York; Comptroller, Thomas Hillhouse of Ontario; Attorney-General, John H. Martindale of Monroe; Treasurer, Joseph Howland of Dutchess; State Engineer, J. Platt Goodsell of Oneida; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Robert C. Dorn of Schenectady; Inspector of Prisons, Henry W. Barnum of Onondaga; Judges of Court of Appeals, Ward Hunt of Oneida; John K. Porter of Albany; Clerk of Appeals, Henry Jones of Cattaraugus.]
The question of negro suffrage troubled the convention. The Radicals had a decided majority--”not less than fifty,” Greeley said; but Weed and Raymond, now the acknowledged friends of the President, had the power. Shortly after Johnson took the oath of office, Preston King presented Weed to the new Executive and the three breakfasted together. King's relations with the President bore the stamp of intimacy. They had served together in Congress, and on March 4, 1865, that ill-fated inauguration day when Johnson's intoxication humiliated the Republic, King concealed him in the home of Francis P. Blair at Silver Springs, near Was.h.i.+ngton.[1033] After Lincoln's death King became for a time the President's constant adviser, and through his influence, it was believed, Johnson foreshadowed in one of his early speeches a purpose to pursue a more unfriendly policy towards the South than his predecessor had intended. For a time it was thought King would displace Seward in the Cabinet if for no other reason than because of the latter's part in defeating the former's re-election to the Senate in 1863. However, differences between them were finally adjusted by King's acceptance of the collectors.h.i.+p of the port of New York in place of Draper. This, it was understood, meant a complete reconciliation of all the factions in the State. Within sixty days thereafter, King, in a moment of mental aberration, took his life by jumping from a Jersey City ferry-boat.
[Footnote 1033: Edward L. Pierce, _Life of Sumner_, Vol. 4, pp. 230, 250.]
There was something peculiarly pathetic in the pa.s.sing of King. In accepting the collectors.h.i.+p he yielded to the solicitation of friends who urged him to retain it after his health, due to worry and overwork, was seriously impaired. ”He thought it inc.u.mbent upon him,”
says Weed, ”to sign nothing he did not personally examine, becoming nervously apprehensive that his bondsmen might suffer.”[1034] It was surmised, also, that the President's change of policy occasioned him extreme solicitude as well as much embarra.s.sment, since the threatened breach between President and Radicals made him sensitive as to his future course. He was a Radical, and, deeply as he regarded the President, he hesitated to hold an office, which, by a.s.sociating him with the Administration, would discredit his sincerity and deprive him of the right to aid in overthrowing an obnoxious policy. Premeditated suicide was shown by the purchase, while on his way to the ferry, of a bag of shot which sank the body quickly and beyond immediate recovery.
[Footnote 1034: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 475.]
Every delegate in the Syracuse convention knew that Weed's cordial relations with Johnson, established through Preston King, made him the undisputed dispenser of patronage. Nevertheless, the failure of Pennsylvania and Ma.s.sachusetts to endorse the President's policy, supplemented by Mississippi's action, made a deep impression upon radical delegates. Besides, it had already been noised abroad that Johnson could not be influenced. Senator Wade of Ohio discovered it early in July, and in August, after two attempts, Stevens gave him up as inexorable.[1035] ”If something is not done,” wrote the Pennsylvanian, ”the President will be crowned King before Congress meets.”[1036] Under these circ.u.mstances the leading Radicals desired to vote for a resolution affirming the right of all loyal people of the South to a voice in reorganising and controlling their respective State governments, and Greeley believed it would have secured a large majority on a yea and nay vote.[1037] But Raymond resisted. His friends.h.i.+p for Johnson exhibited at the Baltimore convention had suddenly made him an acknowledged power with the new Administration which he was soon to represent in Congress, and he did not propose allowing the _Tribune's_ editor to force New York into the list of States that refused to endorse the President.
[Footnote 1035: _Sumner's Works_, Vol. 9, p. 480.]
[Footnote 1036: Edward L. Pierce, _Life of Sumner_, Vol. 4, p. 480.]
[Footnote 1037: New York _Tribune_, September 21, 1865.]
Such a course, he believed, would give the State to the Democrats, whose prompt and intrepid confidence in the President had plainly disconcerted the Republicans. Besides, Raymond disbelieved in the views of the extreme Radicals, who held that States lately in rebellion must be treated as conquered provinces and brought back into the Union as new States, subject to conditions prescribed by their conquerors. As chairman of the committee on resolutions, therefore, the editor of the _Times_ bore down heavily on the Radical dissenters, and in the absence of a decided leader they allowed their devotion to men to overbear attachment to principles. As finally adopted the platform recognised Johnson's ability, patriotism, and integrity, declared the war debt sacred, thanked the soldiers and sailors, commended the President's policy of reconstruction, and expressed the hope that when the States lately in rebellion are restored to the exercise of their const.i.tutional rights, ”it will be done in the faith and on the basis that they will be exercised in the spirit of equal and impartial justice, and with a view to the elevation and perpetuation of the full rights of citizens.h.i.+p of all their people, inasmuch as these are principles which const.i.tute the basis of our republican inst.i.tutions.”[1038] Greeley p.r.o.nounced this language ”timid and windy.”[1039]
[Footnote 1038: New York _Herald_, September 21, 1865.]
[Footnote 1039: New York _Tribune_, September 21, 1865.]
In the campaign that followed the Democrats flattered the President, very cleverly insisting that the Radicals' devotion to negro suffrage made them his only real opponents. On the other hand, conservative Republicans, maintaining that the convention did not commit itself to an enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro, insisted that it was a unit in its support of the President's policy, and that the Democrats, acting insincerely, sought to destroy the Union party and secure exclusive control of the Executive. ”They propose,” said the _Times_, ”to repeat upon him precisely the trick which they practised with such brilliant success upon John Tyler and Millard Fillmore, both of whom were taken up by the Democracy, their policy endorsed, and their supporters denounced. Both were flattered with the promise of a Democratic nomination and both were weak enough to listen and yield to the temptation. Both were used unscrupulously to betray their principles and their friends, and when the time came both were remorselessly thrown, like squeezed oranges, into the gutter. The game they are playing upon President Johnson is precisely the same. They want the offices he has in his gift, and when his friends are scattered and overthrown they will have him at their mercy. Then, the power he gives them will be used for his destruction.”[1040]
[Footnote 1040: New York _Times_, October 17, 1865.]
Horatio Seymour made two speeches. With charming candor he admitted that ”signal victories have been won by generals who have made the history of our country glorious.” But to him the great debt, the untaxed bonds, the inflation of the currency, the increased prices, and the absence of congressmen from the States lately in rebellion, seemed as full of peril as war itself. In his address at Seneca Falls his field of view, confined to war-burdens and rights withheld from ”subjugated” States, did not include the vision that thrilled others, who saw the flag floating over every inch of American territory, now forever freed from slavery. ”When we were free from debt,” he said, ”a man could support himself with six hours of daily toil. To-day he must work two hours longer to pay his share of the national debt.... This question of debt means less to give your families.... It reaches every boy and girl, every wife and mother.... It affects the character of our people.” Prosperity also troubled him. ”We see upon every hand its embarra.s.sing effect. The merchant does not know whether he will be a loser or gainer. We see men who have been ruined without fault, and men who have made great fortunes without industry. Inquire of the person engaged in mechanical operations and he will say that labour has lost its former certain reward.” He disapproved the national banking act because the new banks ”have converted the debt of the country into currency and inflated prices;” he disputed the correctness of the Treasury debt statement because ”it is the experience of all wars that long after their close new claims spring up, which render the expense at least fifty per cent. more than appeared by the figures;” and he condemned the national system of taxation because it ”disables us to produce as cheaply at home as we can buy in the markets of the world.”[1041]
[Footnote 1041: New York _World_, November 2, 1865.]
The brief campaign promised to be spiritless and without incident until John Van Buren, in his extended canva.s.s for attorney-general, freely expressed his opinion of Horatio Seymour. Van Buren was not an admirer of that statesman. He had supported him with warmth in 1862, but after the development of the Governor's ”pa.s.sion for peace” he had little sympathy with and less respect for his administration. In the campaign of 1864 he practically ignored him, and the subsequent announcement of his defeat liberated Van Buren's tongue. ”Seymour is a d.a.m.ned fool,” he said. ”He spoiled everything at Chicago, and has been the cause of most of the disasters of the Democratic party.”[1042]
At Troy he declared that ”the Democracy were suffering now from the infernal blunder at Chicago last year,” and that ”if Seymour and Vallandigham had been kicked out of the national convention it would have been a good thing for the party.”[1043]
[Footnote 1042: From letter of Chauncey M. Depew.--Albany _Evening Journal_, October 23, 1864.]