Volume III Part 40 (2/2)
The next morning everybody knew what had happened. Although secrecy was removed only from the vote, nothing of the seven hours' conflict remained untold, the result of which to all New Yorkers proved a great surprise. They had supposed Conkling invincible in the Senate.
Nevertheless, to most Republicans, whether friends or foes, his defeat on February 3 was a great relief. Merritt had made an excellent collector, and a feeling existed, which had crystallised into a strong public sentiment, that it was unwise to force into his place an official unsatisfactory to the Secretary of the Treasury.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
JOHN KELLY ELECTS CORNELL
1879
If threatened danger had bred an artificial harmony among the Republican factions of the State in 1878, the presence of a real peril, growing out of the control of both branches of Congress by the Democrats, tended to bring them closer together in 1879. During a special session of the Forty-sixth Congress the Democratic majority had sought, by a political rider attached to the army appropriation bill, to repeal objectionable election laws, which provided among other things for the appointment of supervisors and deputy marshals at congressional elections. This law had materially lessened cheating in New York City, and no one doubted that its repeal would be followed in 1880 by scenes similar to those which had disgraced the metropolis prior to its enactment in 1870.
But the attempt to get rid of the objectionable Act by a rider on a supply bill meant more than repeal. It implied a threat. In effect the Democrats declared that if the Executive did not yield his veto power to a bare majority, the needed appropriations for carrying on the government would be stopped. This practically amounted to revolution, and the debate that followed reawakened bitter partisan and sectional animosities. ”Suppose in a separate bill,” said Conkling, ”the majority had, in advance of appropriations, repealed the national bank act and the resumption act, and had declared that unless the Executive surrendered his convictions and yielded up his approval of the repealing act, no appropriations should be made; would the separation of the bills have palliated or condoned the revolutionary purpose?
When it is intended that, unless another species of legislation is agreed to, the money of the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used to maintain their government, the threat is revolution and its execution is treasonable.” Then he gave the mortal stab. Of the ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these ”revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. It is a contrivance to clutch the national government. That we believe; that I believe.”[1639] The President, by advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the desperate tactics invoked by the majority, added to Northern indignation.
[Footnote 1639: Cooper, _American Politics_, Book 3, pp. 176-186.]
It was a losing battle to the Democrats. The longer they insisted the more the Southern brigadiers were held up to public scorn as if they had again betrayed their country, and when, finally, the appropriation bills were pa.s.sed without riders, it left Republicans more firmly united than at the beginning of the Hayes administration.[1640]
[Footnote 1640: The extra session of Congress adjourned July 1, 1879.]
Two months later the Republican State convention, held at Saratoga (September 3), evidenced this union.[1641] Every distinguished Republican of the State was present save Thurlow Weed, whose feebleness kept him at home. Conkling presided. With fine humour, George William Curtis, the sound of whose flute-like voice brought a burst of applause, asked that the crowded aisles be cleared that he might see the chairman. Conkling's speech excited close attention. It was freer and more vivid because of more human interest than his address of the year before, and his appeal for harmony, his denunciation of revolutionary methods in Congress, and his demand that freedmen be protected in their rights, brought strenuous, purposeful applause from determined men. The principles thus felicitously and rhetorically stated formed the basis of the platform, which pledged the party anew to national supremacy, equal rights, free elections, and honest money. It also thanked the President for his recent att.i.tude.
[Footnote 1641: On August 29, the State convention of Nationals a.s.sembled at Utica, and nominated Harris Lewis of Herkimer, for governor. The platform opposed National banks and demanded an issue of greenbacks at the rate of $50 per capita, at least. Lewis, who had been a member of the a.s.sembly twenty years before, was president of the Farmers' Alliance.
The State Prohibition convention met at Syracuse, September 3, and nominated a full State ticket, with John W. Mears of Oneida, for governor. The platform declared the license system the cornerstone of the liquor traffic and favoured woman suffrage.]
Nevertheless, a disposition to contest the strength of the organisation and its methods boldly a.s.serted itself. For months Cornell had been Conkling's candidate for governor. A searching canva.s.s, extended into all sections of the State and penetrating the secrets of men, had been noiselessly and ceaselessly carried on.
Indeed, a more inquisitorial pursuit had never before been attempted, since the slightest chance, the merest accident, might result, as it did in 1876, in defeating Cornell.
So much depended upon the control of the temporary organisation that the anti-Conkling forces begged the Vice-President to stand for temporary chairman. They could easily unite upon him, and the belief obtained that he could defeat the Senator. But Wheeler, a mild and amiable gentleman, whose honours had come without personal contests, was timid and unyielding.[1642] What the opposition needed was a real State leader. It had within its ranks brilliant editors,[1643]
excellent lawyers, and with few exceptions the best speakers in the party, but since Fenton lost control of the organisation no man had arisen capable of crossing swords with its great chieftain.
[Footnote 1642: ”The only complaint that his friends have ever made of Mr. Wheeler is that his generous nature forbids him, politically, to fight. Had he been willing to lead in the State convention in 1879, it would have had a different result.”--_Harper's Weekly_, March 26, 1881.]
[Footnote 1643: Among the more influential Republican editors, who wrote with rare intelligence, representing both factions of the party, may be mentioned Charles E. Smith, Albany _Journal_; Carroll E. Smith, Syracuse _Journal_; Ellis H. Roberts, Utica _Herald_; James N.
Matthews, Buffalo _Express_; S. Newton Dexter North, Albany _Express_; Whitelaw Reid, New York _Tribune_; John H. Selkreg, Ithaca _Journal_; John M. Francis, Troy _Times_; Beman Brockway, Watertown _Times_; Charles E. Fitch, Rochester _Democrat-Chronicle_; George William Curtis, _Harper's Weekly_; Charles G. Fairman, Elmira _Advertiser_; William Edward Foster, Buffalo _Commercial_; George Dawson, Albany _Journal_; Lewis J. Jennings, New York _Times_.]
Of the four p.r.o.nounced candidates for governor Frank Hisc.o.c.k of Syracuse divided the support of the central counties with Theodore M.
Pomeroy of Cayuga, while William H. Robertson of Westchester and John H. Starin of New York claimed whatever delegates Cornell did not control in the metropolis and its vicinity. Among them and their lieutenants, however, none could dispute leaders.h.i.+p with Conkling and his corps of able managers. Starin had pluck and energy, but two terms in Congress and popularity with the labouring cla.s.ses, to whom he paid large wages and generously contributed fresh-air enjoyments, summed up his strength.[1644] Pomeroy was better known. His public record, dating from the famous speech made in the Whig convention of 1855, had kept him prominently before the people, and had he continued in Congress he must have made an exalted national reputation. But the day of younger men had come. Besides, his recent vote for John F. Smyth, the head of the Insurance Department, injured him.[1645] Robertson, as usual, had strong support. His long public career left a clear imprint of his high character, and his attractive personality, with its restrained force, made him a central figure in the politics of the State.
[Footnote 1644: The sale of a condition powder for cattle started Starin on the road to wealth, which soon discovered itself in the owners.h.i.+p of ca.n.a.l, river, and harbour boats, until he became known as High Admiral of the Commerce of New York. Like success attended his railroad operations.]
[Footnote 1645: Pomeroy was district-attorney of his County, 1851-56; in the a.s.sembly, 1857; in Congress, 1861-69, being elected speaker in place of Colfax on the day the latter retired to be sworn in as Vice-President; mayor of Auburn, 1875-76; State Senate, 1878-79.]
Hisc.o.c.k was then on the threshold of his public career. He began life as the law partner and political lieutenant of his brother, Harris, an adroit politician, whose violent death in 1867, while a member of the const.i.tutional convention, left to the former the Republican leaders.h.i.+p of Onondaga County. If his diversion as a Liberal temporarily crippled him, it did not prevent his going to Congress in 1876, where he was destined to remain for sixteen years and to achieve high rank as a debater on financial questions. He was without a sense of humour and possessed rather an austere manner, but as a highly successful lawyer he exhibited traits of character that strengthened him with the people. He was also an eminently wary and cautious man, alive to the necessity of watching the changeful phases of public opinion, and slow to propound a plan until he had satisfied himself that it could be carried out in practice. It increased his influence, too, that he was content with a stroke of practical business here and there in the interest of party peace without claiming credit for any brilliant or deep diplomacy.
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