Volume III Part 19 (1/2)

The echo of Fenton's defeat seriously disturbed the Syracuse State convention (July 8). The Conservatives of New York City, many of whom had now become the followers of Conkling, objected to the Fenton method of selecting delegates, and after a bitter discussion between Matthew Hale of Albany and Charles S. Spencer, the Governor's ardent friend, the convention limited the number of delegates from a city district to the Republican vote actually cast, and appointed a committee to investigate the quarrel, with instructions to report at the next State convention.

The selection of a candidate for governor also unsettled the Republican mind. Friends of Lyman Tremaine, Charles H. Van Wyck, Frederick A. Conkling (a brother of the Senator), Stewart L. Woodford, and John A. Griswold had not neglected to put their favourites into the field at an early day, but to all appearances Horace Greeley was the popular man among the delegates. Although Conkling had snuffed out his senatorial ambition, he had been the directing power of the February convention, and was still the recognised guide-post of the party. Besides, the withdrawal of Tremaine, Van Wyck, and Conkling practically narrowed the rivalry to Greeley and Griswold. Indeed, it seemed as if the ambition of the editor's life was at last to be satisfied. Weed was in Europe, Raymond still rested ”outside the breastworks,” and the Twenty-third Street organisation, as the Conservatives were called, sat on back seats without votes and without influence.

Greeley did not go to Syracuse. But his personal friends appeared in force, led by Reuben E. Fenton, who controlled the State convention.

Greeley believed the Governor sincerely desired his nomination.

Perhaps he was also deceived in the strength of John A. Griswold. The people, regarding Griswold's change from McClellan to Lincoln as a political emanc.i.p.ation, had doubled his majority for Congress in 1864 and again in 1866. The poor loved him, the workmen admired him, and business men backed him. Though but forty-six years old he had already made his existence memorable. In their emphasis orators expressed no fear that the fierce white light which beats upon an aspirant for high office would disclose in him poor judgment, or any weakness of character. To these optimistic speeches delegates evinced a responsiveness that cheered his friends.

But the real noise of the day did not commence until Chauncey M. Depew began his eulogy of the great editor. The applause then came in drifts of cheers as appreciative expressions fell from the lips of his champion. It was admitted that Depew's speech adorned the day's work.[1160] He referred to Greeley as ”the embodiment of the principles of his party,” ”the one man towering above all others in intellect,”

who ”has contributed more than any other man toward the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves,” and ”with his pen and his tongue has done more for the advancement of the industrial cla.s.ses.” In conclusion, said the speaker, ”he belongs to no county, to no locality; he belongs to the State and to the whole country, because of the superiority of his intellect and the purity of his patriotism.”[1161]

As the speaker finished, the applause, lasting ”many minutes,”[1162]

finally broke into several rounds of cheers, while friends of Griswold as well as those of Greeley, standing on chairs, swung hats and umbrellas after the fas.h.i.+on of a modern convention. Surely, Horace Greeley was the favourite.

[Footnote 1160: New York _Tribune_, July 9, 1868.]

[Footnote 1161: New York _Tribune_, July 9, 1868.]

[Footnote 1162: _Ibid._]

The roll-call, however, gave Griswold 247, Greeley 95, Woodford 36.

For the moment Greeley's friends seemed stunned. It was worse than a defeat--it was utter rout and confusion. He had been led into an ambuscade and slaughtered. The _Tribune_, in explaining the affair, said ”it was evident in the morning that Griswold would get the nomination. His friends had been working so long and there were so many outstanding pledges.” Besides, it continued, ”when the fact developed that he had a majority, it added to his strength afterward.”[1163] Why, then, it was asked, did Greeley's friends put him into a contest already settled? Did they wish to humiliate him?

”Had Greeley been here in person,” said the _Times_, with apparent sympathy, ”the result might have been different.”[1164] The _Nation_ thought otherwise. ”In public,” it said, ”few members of conventions have the courage to deny his fitness for any office, such are the terrors inspired by his editorial cowskin; but the minute the voting by ballots begins, the cowardly fellows repudiate him under the veil of secrecy.”[1165] The great disparity between the applause and the vote for the editor became the subject of much suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt.

”The highly wrought eulogium p.r.o.nounced by Depew was applauded to the echo,” wrote a correspondent of the _Times_, ”but the enthusiasm subsided wonderfully when it came to putting him at the head of the ticket.”[1166] Depew himself appreciated the humour of the situation.

”Everybody wondered,” said the eulogist, speaking of it in later years, ”how there could be so much smoke and so little fire.”[1167] To those conversant with the situation, however, it was not a mystery.

Among conservative men Greeley suffered discredit because of his ill-tempered criticisms, while his action in signing Jefferson Davis's bail-bond was not the least powerful of the many influences that combined to weaken his authority. It seemed to shatter confidence in his strength of mind. After that episode the sale of his _American Conflict_ which had reached the rate of five hundred copies a day, fell off so rapidly that his publishers lost $50,000.[1168]

[Footnote 1163: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 1164: New York _Times_, July 9.]

[Footnote 1165: The _Nation_, July 16.]

[Footnote 1166: New York _Times_, July 9, 1868.]

[Footnote 1167: Conversation with the author.

The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, John A. Griswold, Rensselaer; Lieutenant-Governor, Alonzo B. Cornell, Wyoming; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Alexander Barkley, Was.h.i.+ngton; Prison Inspector, Henry A. Barnum, Onondaga.]

[Footnote 1168: _The Nation_, November 11, 1869.]

The platform approved the nomination of Grant and Colfax, held inviolate the payment of the public debt in the spirit as well as the letter of the law, commended the administration of Fenton, and demanded absolute honesty in the management and improvement of the ca.n.a.ls; but adopting ”the simple tactics of the ostrich” it maintained the most profound silence in regard to suffrage of any kind--manhood, universal, impartial, or negro.[1169]

[Footnote 1169: New York _Tribune_, July 9, 1868.]

The day the Syracuse convention avoided Greeley, the National Democratic convention which had a.s.sembled in Tammany's new building on July 4, accepted a leader under whom victory was impossible. It was an historic gathering. The West sent able leaders to support its favourite greenback theory, the South's delegation of Confederate officers recalled the picturesque scenes at Philadelphia in 1866, and New England and the Middle States furnished a strong array of their well-known men. Samuel J. Tilden headed the New York delegation, Horatio Seymour became permanent president, and in one of the chairs set apart for vice presidents, William M. Tweed, ”fat, oily, and dripping with the public wealth,”[1170] represented the Empire State.

[Footnote 1170: New York _Tribune_, March 5, 1868.]

The chairmans.h.i.+p of the committee on resolutions fell to Henry C.

Murphy of Brooklyn. Murphy was a brave fighter. In 1832, when barely in his twenties, he had denounced the policy of chartering banks in the interest of political favourites and monopolists, and the reform, soon after established, made him bold to attack other obnoxious fiscal systems. As mayor of Brooklyn he kept the city's expenditures within its income, and in the const.i.tutional convention of 1846 he stood with Michael Hoffman in preserving the public credit and the public faith.