To the Hunkers, this new departure seemed to offer an opportunity of weakening the Radicals by forcing them into opposition to the Polk administration; and a resolution, approving the course of the New York congressmen who had supported the annexation of Texas, appeared in the Senate soon after its organisation. Very naturally, politicians were afraid of it; and the debate, which quickly degenerated into bitter personalities, indicated that the Free-soil sentiment, soon to inspire the new Republican party, had not only taken root among the Radicals, but that rivalries between the two factions rested on differences of principle far deeper than canal improvement. "If you study the papers at all," wrote William H. Seward, "you will see that the Barnburners of this State have carried the war into Africa, and the extraordinary spectacle is exhibited of Democrats making up an issue of slavery at Washington. The consequences of this movement cannot be fully apprehended. It brings on the great question sooner and more directly than we have even hoped. All questions of revenue, currency, and economy sink before it. The hour for the discussion of emancipation is nearer at hand, by many years, than has been supposed."[72]
CHAPTER IX
THE FOURTH CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
1846
The constitutional convention, called by the Legislature of 1845, received popular sanction at the fall elections; and, in April, 1846, one hundred and twenty-eight delegates were chosen. The convention assembled on the first day of June, and terminated its labours on the ninth day of October. It was an able body of men. It did not contain, perhaps, so many distinguished citizens as its predecessor in 1821, but, like the convention of a quarter of a century before, it included many men who had acquired reputations for great ability at the bar and in public affairs during the two decades immediately preceding it. Among the more prominent were Michael Hoffman of Herkimer, famous for his influence in the cause of canal economy; James Tallmadge of Dutchess, whose inspiring eloquence had captivated conventions and legislatures for thirty years; William C. Bouck of Schoharie, the unconquered Hunker who had faced defeat as gracefully as he had accepted gubernatorial honours; Samuel Nelson, recently appointed to the United States Supreme Court after an experience of twenty-two years upon the circuit and supreme bench of the State; Charles S. Kirkland and Ezekiel Bacon of Oneida, the powerful leaders of a bar famous in that day for its famous lawyers; Churchill C. Cambreling of New York, a member of Congress for eighteen consecutive years, and, more recently, minister to Russia; George W. Patterson of Livingston, a constant, untiring and enthusiastic Whig champion, twice elected speaker of the Assembly and soon to become lieutenant-governor.
Of the younger delegates, three were just at the threshold of their brilliant and distinguished careers. John K. Porter of Saratoga—then only twenty-seven years old, afterward to become a member of the Court of Appeals and the associate of William M. Evarts as counsel for Henry Ward Beecher in the Tilton suit—discussed the judiciary in speeches singularly adapted to reach the understanding of the delegates; Samuel J. Tilden, who had served respectably but without distinction in the Assembly of 1845 and 1846, evidenced his inflexible courage and high intellectual qualities; and Charles O'Conor, already known to the public, gave signal proof of the prodigious extent of those powers and acquirements which finally entitled him to rank with the greatest lawyers of any nation or any time.
Of the more distinguished members of the convention of 1821, James Tallmadge alone sat in the convention of 1846. Daniel D. Tompkins, Rufus King, William W. Van Ness, Jonas Platt, and Abraham Van Vechten were dead; James Kent, now in his eighty-third year, was delivering law lectures in New York City; Ambrose Spencer, having served as chairman of the Whig national convention at Baltimore, in 1844, had returned, at the age of eighty-one, to the quiet of his agricultural pursuits in the vicinity of Lyons; Martin Van Buren, still rebellious against his party, was watching from his retreat at Lindenwald the strife over the Wilmot Proviso, embodying the opposition to the extension of slavery into new territories; Erastus Root, at the age of seventy-four, was dying in New York City; and Samuel Young, famous by his knightly service in the cause of the Radicals, had just finished in the Assembly, with the acerbity of temper that characterised his greatest oratorical efforts during nearly half a century of public life, an eloquent indictment of the Hunkers, whom he charged with being the friends of monopoly, the advocates of profuse and unnecessary expenditures of the public funds, and the cause of much corrupt legislation.
But of all men in the State the absence of William H. Seward was the most noticeable. For four years, as governor, he had stood for internal improvements, for the reorganisation of the judiciary along lines of progress, for diminishing official patronage, for modifying, and ultimately doing away with, feudal tenures, and for free schools and universal suffrage. His experience and ability would have been most helpful in the formation of the new constitution; but he would not become a delegate except from Auburn, and a majority of the people of his own assembly district did not want him. "The world are all mad with me here," he wrote Weed, "because I defended Wyatt too faithfully. God help them to a better morality. The prejudices against me grows by reason of the Van Nest murder!"[73] Political friends offered him a nomination and election from Chautauqua, but he declined, urging as a further reason that the Whigs would be in the minority, and his presence might stimulate fresh discords among them.
Horace Greeley had expected a nomination from Chautauqua. He had relations who promised him support, and with their failure to elect him began that yearning for office which was destined to doom him to many bitter disappointments. Until now, he had kept his desires to himself. He wanted to be postmaster of New York in 1841; and, when Seward failed to anticipate his ambition, he recalled the scriptural injunction, "Ask, and it shall be given you." So, he conferred with Weed about the constitutional convention. Washington County was suggested, then Delaware, and later Albany; but, the nominees having been selected, the project was abandoned, and Horace Greeley waited until the convention of 1867. Weed expressed the belief that if Greeley's wishes had been known two weeks earlier, his ambition might have been gratified, although on only two occasions had non-resident delegates ever been selected.
Popular sovereignty attained its highest phase under the Constitution of 1846; and the convention must always be notable as the great dividing line between a government by the people, and a government delegated by the people to certain officials—executive, legislative, and judicial—who were invested with general and more or less permanent powers. Under the Constitution of 1821, the power of appointment was placed in the governor, the Senate, and the Assembly. State officers were elected by the Legislature, judges nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, district attorneys appointed by county courts, justices of the peace chosen by boards of supervisors, and mayors of cities selected by the common council. Later amendments made justices of the peace and mayors of cities elective; but, with these exceptions, from 1821 to 1846 the Constitution underwent no organic changes. Under the Constitution of 1846, however, all officers became elective; and, to bring them still nearer the people, an elective judiciary was decentralised, terms of senators were reduced from four to two years, and the selection of legislators was confined to single districts. It was also provided that amendments to the Constitution might be submitted to the people at any time upon the approval of a bare legislative majority. Even the office of governor, which had been jealously reserved to native citizens, was thrown open to all comers, whether born in the United States or elsewhere.