Volume III Part 20 (1/2)
Tilden disclaimed all instrumentality in bringing about the nomination. ”I had no agency,” he wrote, ”in getting Governor Seymour into his present sc.r.a.pe.”[1183] He likewise professed ignorance as to what the convention would do. ”I did not believe the event possible,”
he said, ”unless Ohio demanded it.”[1184] This admission, frankly conceding the necessity of Ohio's action which he had himself forced, shattered the sincerity of Tilden's disclaimer.
[Footnote 1183: John Bigelow, _Life of Samuel J. Tilden_, Vol. 1, p.
211.]
[Footnote 1184: New York _World_, July 10, 1868.]
Seymour also had difficulty in preserving the appearance of sincerity.
The press claimed that when he saw the nomination coming to him with the approval of Pendleton's supporters he quickly retired instead of further insisting upon his declination. This insinuation allied his dramatic performance with Tilden's tactics, and he hesitated to expose himself to such a compromising taunt. In this emergency Tilden endeavoured very adroitly to ease his mind. ”My judgment is,” he wrote a mutual friend, ”that acceptance under present circ.u.mstances would not compromise his repute for sincerity or be really misunderstood by the people; that the case is not a.n.a.logous to the former instances which have made criticism possible; that the true nature of the sacrifice should be appreciated, while on the other hand the opposite course would be more likely to incite animadversion; that, on the whole, acceptance is the best thing. I think a decision is necessary, for it is not possible to go through a canva.s.s with a candidate declining. I am sincerely willing to accept such action as will be most for the honour of our friend; at the same time my personal wish is acceptance. You may express for me so much on the subject as you find necessary and think proper.”[1185]
[Footnote 1185: John Bigelow, _Life of Tilden_, Vol. 1, p. 212.]
On August 4, when Seymour finally accepted, he neither apologised nor explained. ”The nomination,” he wrote, ”was unsought and unexpected. I have been caught up by the overwhelming tide which is bearing us on to a great political change, and I find myself unable to resist its pressure.”[1186] Those who recalled the Governor's alleged tortuous course at Chicago and again at Albany in 1864 did not credit him with the candour that excites admiration. ”Such men did not believe in the sincerity of Seymour's repeated declinations,” said Henry J. Raymond, ”and therefore accepted the final result with the significant remark, 'I told you so.'”[1187] Horace Greeley was more severe. ”The means by which Horatio Seymour obtained his nomination,” he wrote, ”are characteristic of that political cunning which has marked his career.
The whole affair was an adroit specimen of political hypocrisy, by which the actual favourite of the majority was not only sold, but was induced to nominate the trickster who had defeated him.”[1188]
[Footnote 1186: _Public Record of Horatio Seymour_, p. 343.]
[Footnote 1187: New York _Times_, August 10.]
[Footnote 1188: New York _Tribune_, November 5, 1868.]
After Seymour's nomination the first expression of the campaign occurred in Vermont. Although largely Republican the Democrats made an unusually animated contest, sending their best speakers and furnis.h.i.+ng the needed funds. Nevertheless, the Republicans added 7,000 to their majority of the preceding year. This decisive victory, celebrated in Albany on September 2, had a depressing influence upon the Democratic State convention then in session, ending among other things the candidacy of Henry C. Murphy for governor. The up-State opponents of the Tweed ring, joined by the Kings County delegation, hoped to make a winning combination against John T. Hoffman, and for several days Murphy stood up against the attacks of Tammany, defying its threats and refusing to withdraw. But he wilted under the news from Vermont.
If not beaten in convention, he argued, defeat is likely to come in the election, and so, amidst the noise of booming cannon and parading Republicans, he allowed Hoffman to be nominated by acclamation.[1189]
[Footnote 1189: ”Then we have John T. Hoffman, who is kept by Tammany Hall as a kind of respectable attache. His humble work is to wear good clothes and be always gloved, to be decorous and polite; to be as much a model of deportment as Mr. Turvydrop; to repeat as often as need be, in a loud voice, sentences about 'honesty' and 'public welfare,' but to appoint to rich places such men as Mr. Sweeny. Hoffman is kept for the edification of the country Democrats, but all he has or ever can have comes from Tammany Hall.”--_Ibid._, March 5, 1868.]
In the selection of a lieutenant-governor Tammany did not fare so well. Boss Tweed, in return for Western support of Hoffman, had declared for Albert P. Laning of Buffalo, and until District Attorney Morris of Brooklyn seconded the nomination of another, Laning's friends had boasted a large majority. Morris said he had no objection to Laning personally. He simply opposed him as a conspirator who had combined with Tammany to carry out the programme of a grasping clique.
He wished the country delegates who had unconsciously aided its wire-pulling schemes to understand that it sought only its own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. It cared nothing for the Democratic party except as it contributed to its selfish ends. This corrupt oligarchy, continued the orator, his face flushed and his eyes flas.h.i.+ng with anger, intends through Hoffman to control the entire patronage of the State, and if Seymour is elected it will grasp that of the whole country. Suppose this offensive ring, with its unfinished courthouse and its thousand other schemes of robbery and plunder, controls the political power of the State and nation as it now dominates the metropolis, what honest Democrat can charge corruption to the opposite party? Did men from the interior of the State understand that Hoffman for governor means a ring magnate for United Sates senator? That is the game, and if it cannot be played by fair means, trickery and corruption will accomplish it. Kings County, which understands the methods of this clique, has not now and he hoped never would have anything in common with it, and he warned the country members not to extend its wicked sway.[1190]
[Footnote 1190: New York _Times_, _World_, and _Tribune_, September 3, 1868.]
Morris' speech antic.i.p.ated the startling disclosures of 1871, and as the orator raised his voice to a pitch that could easily be heard throughout the hall, the up-State delegates became deeply interested in his words. He did not deal in glittering generalities. He was a prosecuting officer in a county adjoining Tammany, and when he referred to the courthouse robbery he touched the spot that reeked with corruption. The Ring winced, but remained speechless. Tweed and his a.s.sociate plunderers, who had spent three millions on the courthouse and charged on their books an expenditure of eleven, had no desire to stir up discussion on such a topic and be pilloried by a cross-examination on the floor of the convention. A majority of the delegates, however, convinced that Tammany must not control the lieutenant-governor, nominated Allen C. Beach of Jefferson, giving him 77 votes to 47 for Laning.[1191]
[Footnote 1191: New York _World_, July 10, 1868.]
In the light of this result Murphy's friends seriously regretted his hasty withdrawal from the contest. Morris intended arraigning Tammany in his speech, nominating the Brooklyn Senator for governor, and the latter's supporters believed that Hoffman, whom they recognised as the personal representative of the Tweed ring, must have gone down under the disclosures of the District Attorney quite as easily as did Laning. This hasty opinion, however, did not have the support of truth. Hoffman's campaign in 1866 strengthened him with the people of the up-counties. To them he had a value of his own. In his speeches he had denounced wrongs and rebuked corruption, and his record as mayor displayed no disposition to enrich himself at the expense of his reputation. He was careful at least to observe surface proprieties.
Besides, at this time, Tammany had not been convicted of crime.
Vitriolic attacks upon the Tweed Ring were frequent, but they came from men whom it had hurt. Even Greeley's historic philippic, as famous for its style as for its deadly venom, came in revenge for Tweed's supposed part in defeating him for Congress in 1866.[1192]
[Footnote 1192: New York _Tribune_, March 5.
The ticket nominated was as follows: Governor, John T. Hoffman, New York; Lieutenant-Governor, Allen C. Beach, Jefferson; Ca.n.a.l Commissioner, Oliver Bascom, Was.h.i.+ngton; Inspector of Prisons, David B. McNeil, Cayuga; Clerk of Court of Appeals, Edward O. Perrin, Queens.]
CHAPTER XV
THE STATE CARRIED BY FRAUD
1868