Volume III Part 15 (1/2)
CHAPTER XII
HOFFMAN DEFEATED, CONKLING PROMOTED
1866
The knowledge that Republicans, to overcome the President's vetoes, must have a two-thirds majority in Congress, precipitated a State campaign of unusual energy. The contest which began on April 9, when Johnson disapproved the Civil Rights Bill, was intensified by the Philadelphia convention and the President's ”swing-around-the-circle;”
but the events that made men bitter and deeply in earnest were the Memphis and New Orleans riots, in which one hundred and eighty negroes were killed and only eleven of their a.s.sailants injured. To the North this became an object-lesson, ill.u.s.trating the insincerity of the South's desire, expressed at Philadelphia, for reconciliation and peace.
The Republican State convention, meeting at Syracuse on September 5, echoed this sentiment. In the centre of the stage the Stars and Stripes, gracefully festooned, formed a halo over the portrait of Abraham Lincoln, while a Nast caricature of President Johnson betrayed the contempt of the enthusiastic gathering. Weed and Raymond were conspicuous by their absence. The Radicals made Charles H. Van Wyck chairman, Lyman Tremaine president, George William Curtis chairman of the committee on resolutions, and Horace Greeley the lion of the convention. At the latter's appearance delegates leaped to their feet and gave three rounds of vociferous cheers. The day's greatest demonstration, however, occurred when the chairman, in his opening speech, stigmatised the New York friends of the President.[1075] Van Wyck prudently censored his bitterness from the press copy, but the episode reflected the intense unpopularity of Seward, Weed, and Raymond.
[Footnote 1075: New York _Tribune_, September 6, 1866.]
In the privacy of the club Seward's old-time champions had spoken of ”the decline of his abilities,” ”the loss of his wits,” and ”that dry-rot of the mind's n.o.ble temper;” but now, in a crowded public hall, they cheered any sentiment that charged a betrayal of trust and the loss of principles. Of course Seward had not lost his principles, nor betrayed his trust. He held the opinions then that he entertained before the removal of the splints and bandages from the wounds inflicted by the bowie-knife of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. He had been in thorough accord with Lincoln's amnesty proclamation, issued in December, 1863, as well as with his ”Louisiana plan” of reconstruction, and Johnson's proclamation and plan of reconstruction, written under Seward's influence, did not differ materially. But Seward's principles which rarely harmonised with those of the Radicals, now became more conspicuous and sharply defined because of the tactlessness and uncompromising spirit of Lincoln's successor.
Besides, he was held responsible for the President's follies. To a convention filled with crutches, scarred faces, armless sleeves, and representatives of Andersonville and Libby Prisons, such an att.i.tude seemed like a betrayal of his trust, and the resentment of the delegates, perhaps, was not unnatural.
If Seward was discredited, Reuben E. Fenton was conspicuously trusted.
According to Andrew D. White, a prominent State senator of that day, the Governor was not a star of the magnitude of his Republican predecessors.[1076] Others probably held the same opinion. Fenton's party, however, renominated him by acclamation, and then showed its inconsistency by refusing a like honour to Thomas G. Alvord, the lieutenant-governor. The service of the Onondaga Chief, as his friends delighted to call him, had been as creditable if not as important as the Governor's, but the brilliant gifts of Stewart L. Woodford, a young soldier of patriotic impulses, attracted a large majority of the convention.[1077] Up to that time, Woodford, then thirty years of age, was the youngest man nominated for lieutenant-governor. He had made a conspicuous sacrifice to become a soldier. In 1861 Lincoln appointed him an a.s.sistant United States attorney, but the silenced guns of Sumter inspired him to raise a company, and he marched away at its head, leaving the civil office to another. Later he became commandant of the city that sheltered the guns first trained upon the American flag, and after his return, disciplined and saddened by scenes of courage and sacrifice, the clarion notes of the young orator easily commanded the emotions of his hearers. No one ever wearied when he spoke. His lightest word, sent thrilling to the rim of a vast audience, swayed it with the magic of control. He was not then at the fulness of his power or reputation, but delegates had heard enough to desire his presence in the important campaign of 1866, and to stimulate his activity they made him a candidate.
[Footnote 1076: ”There stood Fenton, marking the lowest point in the choice of a State executive ever reached in our Commonwealth by the Republican party.”--_Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 131.]
[Footnote 1077: ”The Republican ticket was as follows: Governor, Reuben E. Fenton, Chautauqua; Lieutenant-Governor, Stewart L. Woodford, Kings; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Stephen T. Hoyt, Steuben; Prison Inspector, John Hammond, Ess.e.x.”--New York _Tribune_, September 7, 1866.]
The platform declared that while the const.i.tutional authority of the Federal government cannot be impaired by the act of a State or its people, a State may, by rebellion, so far rupture its relations to the Union as to suspend its power to exercise the rights which it possessed under the Const.i.tution; that it belonged to the legislative power of the government to determine at what time a State may safely resume the exercise of its rights; and that the doctrine that such State is itself to judge when it is in proper condition to resume its place in the Union is false, as well as the other doctrine that the President was alone sole judge of the period when such suspension shall be at an end.
If these propositions created no surprise, the refusal squarely to meet the suffrage issue created much adverse comment. One resolution expressed a hope that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment would tend to the equalisation of all political rights among citizens of the Union, but although Greeley submitted a suffrage plank, as he did in the preceding year, Curtis carefully avoided an expression favourable even to the colored troops.
”Extreme opinions usually derive a certain amount of strength from logical consistency,” wrote Raymond. ”Between the antecedent proposition of an argument and its practical conclusion there is ordinarily a connection which commends itself to the advocates of principle. But the radicalism which proposes to reconstruct the Union has not this recommendation. Its principles and its policy are not more alike than fire and water. What it contends for theoretically it surrenders practically.”[1078] Although this was clearly a just criticism, the radicalism of Congress showed more leniency in practice than in theory. The Northern people themselves were not yet ready for negro suffrage, and had the South promptly accepted the Fourteenth Amendment and the congressional plan of reconstruction, it is doubtful if the Fifteenth Amendment would have been heard of.
[Footnote 1078: New York _Times_ (editorial), September 7, 1866.]
Conservative Republicans, however, were too well satisfied with their work at Philadelphia to appreciate this tendency of Congress. The evidence of reconciliation had been spectacular, if not sincere, and they believed public opinion was with them. The country, it was argued, required peace; the people have made up their minds to have peace; and to insure peace the Southern States must enjoy their const.i.tutional right to seats in Congress. ”This is the one question now before the country,” said the _Post_; ”and all men of every party who desire the good of the country and can see what is immediately necessary to produce this good, will unite to send to Congress only men who will vote for the immediate admission of Southern representatives.”[1079] In the opinion of such journals the situation presented a rare opportunity to the Democratic party. By becoming the vehicle to bring real peace and good will to the country, it would not only efface its questionable war record, but it could ”spike the guns”
of the Radicals, control Congress, sustain the President, and carry the Empire State. This was the hope of Raymond and of Weed, back of whom, it was said, stood tens of thousands of Republicans.
[Footnote 1079: New York _Evening Post_, August 27, 1866.]
To aid in the accomplishment of this work, great reliance had been placed upon the tour of the President. Raymond reluctantly admitted that these antic.i.p.ations were far from realised,[1080] although the managers thought the tour through New York, where the President had been fairly discreet, was of value in marshalling the sentiment of Republicans. Besides, it seemed to them to show, in rural districts and towns as well as in the commercial centres, a decided preference for a policy aimed to effect the union of all the States according to the Const.i.tution.
[Footnote 1080: New York _Times_, September 7.]
To encourage the cooperation of Republicans, the Democrats, led by Dean Richmond, agreed, temporarily at least, to merge their name and organisation in that of the National Union party. This arrangement was not easily accomplished. The _World_ hesitated and the _Leader_ ridiculed, but when the Democracy of the State approved, these journals acquiesced.[1081] In obedience to this understanding the Democratic State committee called a National Union State convention, and invited all to partic.i.p.ate who favoured the principles enunciated by the Philadelphia convention. The obscuration of State policies and partisan prejudices made this broad and patriotic overture, devoted exclusively to a more perfect peace, sound as soft and winning as the spider's invitation to the fly. ”If the action of the convention is in harmony with the spirit of the call,” wrote Raymond, ”it cannot fail to command a large degree of popular support.”[1082] As county delegations equally divided between Republicans and Democrats arrived at Albany on September 11, it was apparent that the invitation had been accepted at its face value. Although no Republican of prominence appeared save Thurlow Weed, many Republicans of repute in their respective localities answered to the roll call. These men favoured John A. Dix for governor. To them he stood distinctly for the specific policy announced at Philadelphia. In his opening address at that convention he had sounded the keynote, declaring a speedy restoration of the Union by the admission of Southern representatives to Congress a necessary condition of safe political and party action. Besides, Dix had been a Democrat all his life, a devoted supporter of the government during the war, and it was believed his career would command the largest measure of public confidence in the present emergency.
[Footnote 1081: Letter of Thurlow Weed, New York _Times_, October 9, 1866.]
[Footnote 1082: New York _Times_, September 10, 1866.]
This had been the opinion of Dean Richmond, whose death on August 27 deprived the convention of his distinguished leaders.h.i.+p. This was also the view of Edwards Pierrepont, then as afterward a powerful factor in whatever circle he entered. Although a staunch Democrat, Pierrepont had announced, at the historic meeting in Union Square on April 20, 1861, an unqualified devotion to the government, and had accepted, with James T. Brady and Hamilton Fish, a place on the union defence committee. Later, he served on a commission with Dix to try prisoners of state, and in 1864 advocated the election of Lincoln. There was no dough about Pierrepont. He had shown himself an embodied influence, speaking with force, and usually with success. He possessed the grit and the breadth of his ancestors, one of whom was a chief founder of Yale College, and his presence in the State convention, although he had not been at Philadelphia, encouraged the hope that it would concentrate the conservative sentiment and strength of New York, and restore Democracy to popular confidence. Stimulated by his earnestness, the up-State delegates, when the convention opened, had practically settled Dix's nomination.
There were other candidates. A few preferred Robert H. Pruyn of Albany, a Republican of practical energy and large political experience, and until lately minister to Italy, while others thought well of Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, a Democrat and State senator of recognised ability. But next to Dix the favourite was John T. Hoffman, then mayor of New York. It had been many years since the Democrats of the metropolis had had a State executive. Edwards Pierrepont said that ”no man in the convention was born when the last Democratic governor was elected from New York or Brooklyn.”[1083] This, of course, was hyperbole, since Pierrepont himself could remember when, at the opening of the Erie Ca.n.a.l, Governor DeWitt Clinton, amidst the roar of artillery and the eloquence of many orators, pa.s.sed through the locks at Albany, uniting the waters of Lake Erie with those of the Hudson.
Perhaps the thought of Clinton, climbing from the mayoralty to the more distinguished office of governor, added to the desire of Hoffman, for although the latter's capacity was limited in comparison with the astonis.h.i.+ng versatility and mental activity of Clinton, he was not without marked ability.
[Footnote 1083: New York _Times_, September 13, 1866.]