CHAPTER XII
SEWARD SPLITS THE WHIG PARTY
1849-1850
The Legislature of 1849 became the scene of a contest that ended in a rout. John A. Dix's term as United States senator expired on March 4, and the fight for the succession began the moment the Whig members knew they had a majority.
William H. Seward's old enemies seemed ubiquitous. They had neither forgotten his distribution of patronage, nor forgiven his interest in slaves and immigrants. To make their opposition effective, John A. Collier became a candidate. Collier wanted to be governor in 1838, when Weed threw the nomination to Seward; and, although his election as comptroller in 1841 had restored friendly relations with Weed, he had never forgiven Seward. It added strength to the coalition, moreover, that Fillmore and Collier were now bosom friends. The latter's speech at Philadelphia had made the Buffalonian Vice President, and his following naturally favoured Collier. It was a noisy company, and, for a time, its opposition seemed formidable.
"Fillmore and Collier came down the river in the boat with me," wrote Seward from New York on November 16, 1848. "The versatile people were full of demonstrations of affection to the Vice President, and Mr. Collier divided the honours. The politicians of New York are engaged in plans to take possession of General Taylor before he comes to Washington. Weed is to be supplanted, and that not for his own sake but for mine."[104] As the days passed intrigue became bolder. Hamilton Fish, Washington Hunt, and other prominent members of the party, were offered the senatorship. "I wish you could see the letters I get," Hunt wrote to Weed. "If I wanted to excite your sympathy they would be sufficient. Some say Seward will be elected. More say neither Seward nor Collier will be chosen, but a majority are going for a third man by way of compromise, and my consent is invoked to be number three."[105] Then came the letter, purporting to be written by Seward, declaring that "Collier must be defeated, or our influence with the Administration will be curtailed. You must look to your members, and see the members from Cattaraugus, if possible. I think Patterson will take care of Chautauqua."[106] Out of this forgery grew an acrimonious manifesto from Collier, who professed to believe that Seward was giving personal attention to the work of making himself senator. In the midst of this violent and bitter canvass, Horace Greeley wrote one of his characteristic editorials. "We care not who may be the nominee," said the Tribune of January 24, 1849. "We shall gladly coincide in the fair expression of the will of the majority of the party, but we kindly caution those who disturb and divide us, that their conduct will result only in the merited retribution which an indignant people will visit upon those who prostitute their temporary power to personal pique or selfish purposes."
Seward was continuously in Baltimore and Washington, studying briefs that had accumulated in his long absence during the campaign; but Weed, the faithful friend, like a sentinel on the watch-tower, kept closely in touch with the political situation. "The day before the legislative caucus," wrote an eye-witness, "the Whig members of the Legislature gathered around the editor of the Evening Journal for counsel and advice. It resembled a President's levee. He remained standing in the centre of the room, conversing with those about him and shaking hands with new-comers; but there was nothing in his manner to indicate the slightest mystery or excitement so common with politicians."[107]
The Whig senators met in caucus on January 29, and by a vote of twelve to eleven decided to join the Assembly. Then the fight began. William S. Johnson, a Whig senator from New York City, declared that he would neither vote for Seward in caucus nor support him in the Legislature. "It would be equivalent," he continued, "to throwing a firebrand into the South and aiding in the dissolution of the Whig party and of the Union." Thereupon the eleven withdrew from further participation in the proceedings. When the caucus of the two houses convened, fourteen members declared it inexpedient to support either Seward or Collier; but an informal ballot gave Seward eighty-eight votes and Collier twelve, with twenty-two scattering. Three days later, on joint ballot, Seward received one hundred and twenty-one out of one hundred and thirty Whig votes. "We were always confident that the caucus could have but one result," said the Tribune, "and the lofty anticipations which the prospect of Seward's election has excited will not be disappointed."
Successful as Seward had been in his profession since leaving the office of governor, he was not entirely happy. "I look upon my life, busy as it is, as a waste," he wrote, in 1847. "I live in a world that needs my sympathies, but I have not even time nor opportunity to do good."[108] His warm and affectionate heart seemed to envy the strife and obloquy that came to champions of freedom; yet his published correspondence nowhere directly indicates a desire to return to public life. "You are not to suppose me solicitous on the subject that drags me so unpleasantly before the public," he wrote Weed on January 26, 1849, three days before the caucus. "I have looked at it in all its relations, and cannot satisfy myself that it would be any better for me to succeed than to be beaten."[109] This assumed indifference, however, was written with a feeling of absolute confidence that he was to succeed, a confidence that brought with it great content, since the United States Senate offered the "opportunity" for which he sighed in his despondent letter of 1847. On the announcement of his election, conveyed to him by wire at Washington, he betrayed no feeling except one of humility. "I tremble," he wrote his wife, "when I think of the difficulty of realising the expectations which this canvass has awakened in regard to my abilities."[110] To Weed, he added: "I recall with fresh gratitude your persevering and magnanimous friendship."[111]
From the outset, difficulties confronted the new senator. The question of limiting slavery excited the whole country, and one holding his views belonged in the centre of the struggle. But strife for office gave him more immediate embarrassment. Apprehensive of party discord, Thurlow Weed, at a dinner given the Vice President and Senator, had arranged for conferences between them upon important appointments within the State; but Seward's first knowledge of the New York custom-house appointments came to him in an executive session for their confirmation. Seward, as Lincoln afterward said, "was a man without gall," and he did not openly resent the infraction of the agreement; but when Weed, upon reaching Washington, discovered that Fillmore had the ear of the simple and confiding President, he quickly sought the Vice President. Fillmore received him coldly. From that moment began an estrangement between Weed and the Buffalo statesman which was to last until both were grown gray and civil war had obliterated differences of political sentiment. For twenty years, their intimacy had been uninterrupted and constantly strengthening. Even upon the slavery question their views coincided, and, although Fillmore chafed under his growing preference for Seward and the latter's evident intellectual superiority, he had exhibited no impatience toward Weed. But Fillmore was now Vice President, with aspirations for the Presidency, and he saw in Seward a formidable rival who would have the support of Weed whenever the Senator needed it. He rashly made up his mind, therefore, to end their relationship.
With Taylor, Weed was at his ease. The President remembered the editor's letter written in 1846, and what Weed now asked he quickly granted. When Weed complained, therefore, that the Vice President was filling federal offices with his own friends, the President dropped Fillmore and turned to the Senator for suggestions. Seward accepted the burden of looking after patronage. "I detest and loathe this running to the President every day to protest against this man or that,"[112] he wrote; but the President cheerfully responded to his requests. "If the country is to be benefited by our services," he said to the Secretary of the Treasury, "it seems to me that you and I ought to remember those to whose zeal, activity, and influence we are indebted for our places."[113]
While Weed employed his time in displacing Hunker office-holders with Whigs, the Democratic party was trying to reunite. It called for a bold hand. John Van Buren, with a courage born of genius, had struck it a terrible blow in the face of tremendous odds, the effect of which was as gratifying to the Barnburners as it was disastrous to the Hunkers. But, in 1849, the party professed to believe that a union of the factions would result in victory, since their aggregate vote in 1848 exceeded the Whig vote by sixteen thousand. It is difficult to realise the arguments which persuaded the Barnburners to rejoin their adversaries whom they had declared, in no measured terms, to be guilty of the basest conduct; but, after infinite labour, Horatio Seymour established constructive harmony and practical co-operation. "We are asked to compromise our principles," said John Van Buren. "The day of compromises is past; but, in regard to candidates for state offices, we are still a commercial people. We will unite with our late antagonists."[114]