A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3

by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

In this emergency, the tactics of Edwin Croswell came to Polk's relief. The former knew that Silas Wright could not, if he would, accept a place in the Cabinet, since he had repeatedly declared during the campaign that, if elected, he would not abandon the governorship to enter the Cabinet, as Van Buren did in 1829. Croswell knew, also, that Butler, having left the Cabinet of two Presidents to re-enter his profession, would not give it up for a secondary place among Polk's advisers. At the editor's suggestion, therefore, the President tendered Silas Wright the head of the treasury, and, upon his declination, an offer of the secretaryship of war came to Butler. The latter said he would have taken, although with reluctance, either the state or treasury department; but the war portfolio carried him too far from the line of his profession. Thus the veteran editor's scheme, having worked itself out as anticipated, left the President at liberty, without further consultation with Van Buren, to give William L. Marcy[69] what Butler had refused. To the Radicals the result was as startling as it was unwelcome. It left the Conservatives in authority. Through Marcy they would command the federal patronage, and through their majority in the Legislature they could block the wheels of their opponents. It was at this time that the Conservatives, "hankering," it was said, after the offices to be given by an Administration committed to the annexation of Texas, were first called "Hunkers."

John Young, a Whig member of the Assembly, no sooner scented the increasingly bitter feeling between Hunker and Radical than he prepared to take advantage of it. Young was a great surprise to the older leaders. He had accomplished nothing in the past to entitle him to distinction. In youth he accompanied his father, a Vermont innkeeper, to Livingston County, where he received a common school education and studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1829, at the age of twenty-seven. Two years later he served a single term in the Assembly, and for ten years thereafter he had confined his attention almost exclusively to his profession, becoming a strong jury lawyer. In the meantime, he changed his politics from a firm supporter of Andrew Jackson to a local anti-masonic leader, and finally to a follower of Henry Clay. Then the Whigs sent him to Congress, and, in the fall of 1843, elected him to the celebrated Assembly through which Horatio Seymour forced the canal appropriation. But John Young seems to have made little more of a reputation in this historic struggle than he did as a colleague of Millard Fillmore in the Congress that passed the tariff act of 1842. He did not remain silent, but neither his words nor his acts conveyed any idea of the gifts which he was destined to disclose in the various movements of a drama that was now, day by day, through much confusion and bewilderment, approaching a climax. From a politician of local reputation, he leaped to the distinction of a state leader. If unnoticed before, he was now the observed of all observers. This transition, which came almost in a day, surprised the Democrats no less than it excited the Whigs; for Young lifted a minority into a majority, and from a hopeless defeat was destined to lead his party to glorious victory. "With talents of a high order," says Hammond, "with industry, with patient perseverance, and with a profound knowledge of men, he was one of the ablest party leaders and most skilful managers in a popular body that ever entered the Assembly chamber."[70] Hammond, writing while Young was governor, did not express the view of Thurlow Weed, who was unwilling to accept tact and cunning for great intellectual power. But there is no doubt that Young suddenly showed uncommon parliamentary ability, not only as a debater, owing to his good voice and earnest, persuasive manner, but as a skilful strategist, who strengthened coolness, courtesy, and caution with a readiness to take advantage of the supreme moment to carry things his way. Within a month, he became an acknowledged master of parliamentary law, easily bringing order out of confusion by a few simple, clear, compact sentences. If his learning did not rank him among the Sewards and the Seymours, he had no occasion to fear an antagonist in the field on which he was now to win his leadership.

The subject under consideration was the calling of a constitutional convention. The preceding Legislature, hoping to avoid a convention, had proposed several amendments which the people approved in the election of 1844; but the failure of the present Legislature to ratify them by a two-thirds majority, made a convention inevitable, and the question now turned upon the manner of its calling and the approval of its work. The Hunkers, with the support of the Governor, desired first to submit the matter to the people; and, if carried by a majority vote, taking as a test the number of votes polled at the last election, the amendments were to be acted upon separately. This was the plan of Governor Clinton in 1821. On the other hand, the Whigs, the Anti-Renters, and the Native Americans insisted that the Legislature call a convention, and that its work be submitted, as a whole, to the people, as in 1821. This the Hunkers resisted to the bitter end. An obstacle suddenly appeared, also, in the conduct of William C. Grain, who thought an early and unlimited convention necessary. Michael Hoffman held the same view, believing it the only method of getting the act of 1842 incorporated into the organic law of the State. Upon the latter's advice, therefore, Crain introduced a bill in the Assembly similar to the convention act of 1821. It was charged, at the time, that Crain's action was due to resentment because of his defeat for speaker, and that the Governor, in filling the vacancy occasioned by the transfer of Samuel Nelson to the Supreme Court of the United States, had added to his indignation by overlooking the claims of Michael Hoffman. It is not improbable that Crain, irritated by his defeat, did resent the action of the Governor, although it was well known that Hoffman had not sought a place on the Supreme bench. But, in preferring an unlimited constitutional convention, Crain and Hoffman expressed the belief of the most eminent lawyers of the Commonwealth, that the time had come for radical changes in the Constitution, and that these could not be obtained unless the work of a convention was submitted in its entirety to the people and approved by a majority vote.

Crain's bill was quickly pigeon-holed by the select committee to which it was referred, and John Young's work began when he determined to have it reported. There had been little difficulty in marshalling a third of the Assembly to defeat the constitutional amendments proposed by the preceding Legislature, since Whigs, Anti-Renters, and Native Americans numbered fifty-four of the one hundred and twenty-eight members; but, to overcome a majority of seventeen, required Young's patient attendance, day after day, watchful for an opportunity to make a motion whenever the Hunkers, ignorant of his design, were reduced by temporary absences to an equality with the minority. Finally, the sought-for moment came, and, with Crain's help, Young carried a motion instructing the committee to report the Crain bill without amendment, and making it the special order for each day until disposed of. It was a staggering blow. The air was thick with suggestions, contrivances, expedients, and embryonic proposals. The Governor, finding Crain inexorable, sent for Michael Hoffman; but the ablest Radical in the State refused to intervene, knowing that if the programme proposed by Wright was sustained, the Whigs would withdraw their support and leave the Hunkers in control.

When the debate opened, interest centred in the course taken by the Radicals, who accepted the principle of the bill, but who demurred upon details and dreaded to divide their party. To this controlling group, therefore, were arguments addressed and appeals made. Hammond pronounced it "one of the best, if not the best, specimens of parliamentary discussion ever exhibited in the capital of the State."[71] Other writers have recorded similar opinions. It was certainly a memorable debate, but it was made so by the serious political situation, rather than by the importance of the subject. Horatio Seymour led his party, and, though other Hunkers participated with credit, upon the Speaker fell the brunt of the fight. He dispensed with declamation, he avoided bitter words, he refused to crack the party whip; but with a deep, onflowing volume of argument and exhortation, his animated expressions, modulated and well balanced, stirred the emotions and commanded the closest attention. Seymour had an instinct "for the hinge or turning point of a debate." He had, also, a never failing sense of the propriety, dignity, and moderation with which subjects should be handled, or "the great endearment of prudent and temperate speech" as Jeremy Taylor calls it; and, although he could face the fiercest opposition with the keenest blade, his utterances rarely left a sting or subjected him to criticism. This gift was one secret of his great popularity, and daily rumours, predicted harmony before a vote could be reached. As the stormy scenes which marked the progress of the bill continued, however, the less gifted Hunkers did not hesitate to declare the party dissolved unless the erring Radicals fell into line.

John Young, who knew the giant burden he had taken up, showed himself acute, frank, patient, closely attentive, and possessed of remarkable powers of speech. Every word surprised his followers; every stroke strengthened his position. He did not speak often, but he always answered Seymour, presenting a fine and sustained example of debate, keeping within strict rules of combat, and preserving a rational and argumentative tone, yet emphasising the differences between Hunker and Radical. Young could not be called brilliant, nor did he have the capacity or finish of Seymour as an orator; but he formed his own opinions, usually with great sagacity, and acted with vigour and skill amid the exasperation produced by the Radical secession. Seward wrote that "he has much practical good sense, and much caution." This was evidenced by the fact that, although only four Radicals voted to report Crain's bill, others gradually went over, until finally, on its passage, only Hunkers voted in the negative. It was a great triumph for Young. He had beaten a group of clever managers: he had weakened the Democratic party by widening the breach between its factions; and he had turned the bill recommending a convention into a Whig measure.

The bad news discouraged the senators who dreamed of an abiding union between the two factions; and, although one or two Radicals in the upper chamber favoured the submission of the amendments separately to the people, the friends of the measure obtained two majority against all attempts to modify it, and four majority on its passage. The Governor's approval completed Young's triumph. He had not only retained his place as an able minority leader against the relentless, tireless assaults of a Seymour, a Croswell, and a Wright; but, in the presence of such odds, he had gained the distinction of turning a minority into a reliable majority in both houses, placing him at once upon a higher pedestal than is often reached by men of far greater genius and eloquence.

The determination of the Hunkers to pass a measure appropriating $197,000 for canal improvement made the situation still more critical. Although the bill devoted the money to completing such unfinished portions of the Genesee Valley and Black River canals as the commissioners approved, it was clearly in violation of the spirit of the act of 1842 upon which Hunker and Radical had agreed to bury their differences, and the latter resented its introduction as an inexcusable affront; but John Young now led his Whig followers to the camp of the Hunkers, and, in a few days, the measure lay upon the Governor's table for his approval or veto.

Thus far, Governor Wright had been a disappointment to his party. Complaints from Radicals were heard before his inauguration. They resented his acceptance of a Hunker's hospitality, asserting that he should have made his home at a public house where Hunker and Radical alike could freely counsel with him; they complained of his resignation as United States senator, insisting that he ought to have held the office until his inauguration as governor and thus prevented Bouck appointing a Hunker as his successor; they denounced his indifference in the speakership contest; and they murmured at his opposition to a constitutional convention. There was cause for some of these lamentations. It was plain that the Governor was neither a leader nor a conciliator. A little tact would have held the Radicals in line against a constitutional convention and kept inviolate the act of 1842, but he either did not possess or disclaimed the arts and diplomacies of a political manager. He could grapple with principles in the United States Senate and follow them to their logical end, but he could not see into the realities of things as clearly as Seymour, or estimate, with the same accuracy, the relative strength of conflicting tendencies in the political world. Writers of that day express amazement at the course of Silas Wright in vetoing the canal appropriation, some of them regarding him as a sort of political puzzle, others attributing his action to the advice of false friends; but his adherence to principle more easily explains it. Seymour knew that the "up-state" voters, who would probably hold the balance of power in the next election, wanted the canal finished and would resent its defeat. Wright, on the other hand, believed in a suspension of public works until the debt of the State was brought within the safe control of its revenues, and in the things he stood for, he was as unyielding as flint.

When the Legislature adjourned Hunkers and Radicals were too wide apart even to unite in the usual address to constituents; and in the fall campaign of 1845, the party fell back upon the old issues of the year before. To the astonishment of the Hunkers, however, the legislative session opened in January, 1846, with two Radicals to one Conservative. It looked to the uninitiated as if the policy of canal improvement had fallen into disfavour; but Croswell, and other Hunkers in the inner political circle, understood that a change, long foreseen by them, was rapidly approaching. The people of New York felt profound interest in the conflict between slavery and freedom, and the fearless stand of Preston King of St. Lawrence in supporting the Wilmot Proviso, excluding "slavery and involuntary servitude" from the territory obtained from Mexico, had added fuel to the flame. King was a Radical from principle and from prejudice. For four successive years he had been in the Assembly, hostile to canals and opposed to all improvements. In his bitterness he denounced the Whig party as the old Federalist party under another name. He was now, at the age of forty, serving his second term in Congress. But, obstinate and uncompromising as was his Democracy, the aggressive spirit and encroaching designs of slavery had so deeply disturbed him that he refused to go with his party in its avowed purpose of extending slavery into free or newly acquired territory.