The action of the Hards in September, 1853, left the prestige of regularity with the Softs. The latter also had the patronage of the state and national administrations, the possession of Tammany, and the support of a large majority of the newspapers. But the Hards still treated the Softs as the real secessionists. "We have gotten rid of the mischievous traitors," said Daniel S. Dickinson, in his Buffalo speech of September 23, "and let us keep clear of them. It is true they say we are all on one platform, but when did we get there? No longer ago than last winter, when such resolutions as the platform now embodies were introduced into the Assembly, a cholera patient could not have scattered these very men more effectually."[146] Dickinson was not blessed with John Van Buren's humour. A flash of wit rarely enlivened his speeches, yet he delighted in attacking an adversary even if compelled to do it with gloomy, dogged rhetoric. Of all the Softs, however, Horatio Seymour was the one whom Dickinson hated. "It was the first time a governor was ever found in their convention," continued the Binghamton statesman, "and I know it will be the last time that Governor will be guilty of such an impropriety. He tempted them on with spoils in front, while the short boys of New York pricked them up with bowie knives in the rear."[147]
Seymour appears to have taken Dickinson's animosity, as he took most things, with composure. Nevertheless, if he looked for harmony on election day, the letters of Charles O'Conor and Greene C. Bronson, declining an invitation to ratify the Softs' ticket at a meeting in Tammany Hall, must have extinguished the hope. O'Conor was United States attorney and Bronson collector of the port of New York; but these two office-holders under Pierce used no varnish in their correspondence with the Pierce-Seymour faction. "As a lover of honesty in politics and of good order in society," wrote Bronson, "I cannot approve of nominations brought about by fraud and violence. Those who introduce convicts and bullies into our conventions for the purpose of controlling events must not expect their proceedings will be sanctioned by me." Then he betrayed the old conservative's deep dislike of the Radicals' canal policy, the memory of which still rankled. "If all the nominees were otherwise unexceptionable," he continued, "they come before the public under the leadership of men who have been striving to defeat the early completion of the public works, and after the shameless breach of past pledges in relation to the canals, there can be no reasonable ground for hope that new promises will be performed."[148]
Charles O'Conor, with the envenomed skill of a practised prosecutor coupled with a champion's coolness, aimed a heavier blow at the offending Softs. "Judging the tickets by the names of the leading members of the two conventions no reasonable doubt can be entertained which of them is most devoted to preserving union and harmony between the States of this confederacy. One of the conventions was uncontaminated by the presence of a single member ever known as an agitator of principles or practices tending in any degree to disturb that union and harmony; the leaders of the other were but recently engaged in a course of political action directly tending to discord between the States. It has, indeed, presented a platform of principles unqualifiedly denouncing that political organisation as dangerous to the permanency of the Union and inadmissible among Democrats; but when it is considered that the leaders, with one unimpressive exception, formerly withheld assent to that platform, or repudiated it, the resolution adopting it is not, in my opinion, entitled to any confidence whatever. I adopt that ticket which was made by a convention whose platform was adopted with sincerity and corresponds with the political life and actions of its framers."[149]
Bronson's letter was dated September 22, 1853; and in less than a month he was removed from his post as collector. In resentment, several county conventions immediately announced him as their candidate for governor in 1854. O'Conor continued in office a little longer, but eventually he resigned. "This proscriptive policy for opinion's sake will greatly accelerate and aggravate the decomposition of the Democratic party in this State," said the Tribune. "That process was begun long since, but certain soft-headed quacks had thought it possible, by some hocus pocus, to restore the old unity and health."[150]
The Whigs delayed their state convention until the 5th of October. Washington Hunt, its chairman, made a strong plea for harmony, and in the presence of almost certain victory, occasioned by a divided Democracy, the delegates turned their attention to the work of making nominations. It took three ballots to select a candidate for attorney-general. Among the aspirants were Ogden Hoffman of New York and Roscoe Conkling of Utica, then a young man of twenty-five, who bore a name that was already familiar from an honourable parentage. The people of Oneida had elected him district attorney as soon as he gained his majority, and, in the intervening years, the successful lawyer had rapidly proved himself a successful orator and politician who would have to be reckoned with.[151]
But Conkling did not get the coveted attorney-generalship. The great reputation of Ogden Hoffman, who has been styled "the Erskine of the American bar," and who then stood in isolated splendour among the orators of his party, gave him the right of way. Hoffman had served in Congress during Van Buren's administration and as United States attorney under Harrison and Tyler. He was now sixty years of age, a fit opponent to the brilliant Brady, twenty-two years his junior. "But for indolence," said Horace Greeley, "Hoffman might have been governor or cabinet minister ere this. Everybody likes him and he always runs ahead of his ticket."[152] There was also an earnest effort to secure a place upon the ticket for Elbridge G. Spaulding of Buffalo. He had been district attorney, city clerk, alderman, and mayor of his city. In 1848 he went to the Assembly and in 1849 to Congress. He had already disclosed the marked ability for finance that subsequently characterised his public and business career, giving him the distinguishing title of "father of the greenback." His friends now wanted to make him comptroller, but when this place went to James M. Cook of Saratoga, a thrifty banker and manufacturer, who had been state treasurer, Spaulding accepted the latter office. In its platform, the convention hailed with satisfaction the prospect of a speedy completion of the canals under Whig management, and boasted that the Democrats had at last been forced to accept the Whig policy, "so necessary to the greatness and prosperity of the State."
The success of the Whigs was inevitable. The secession of the Hards could not operate otherwise than in a division of the Democratic vote; but no one dreamed it would split the party in the middle. The Hards had fought against the prestige of party regularity, the power of patronage, the influence of Tammany, and the majority of the press, while the removal of Bronson served notice upon office-holders that those who favoured the Hards voluntarily mounted a guillotine. "Heads of this class," said Greeley, "rolled as recklessly as pumpkins from a harvest wagon."[153] Yet the Softs led the Hards by an average majority of only 312. It was a tremendous surprise at Washington. A cartoon represented Pierce and Marcy as Louis XVI and his minister, on the memorable 10th of August. "Why, this is revolt!" said the amazed King. "No, sire," responded the minister, "it is Revolution."
The Whigs polled 162,000 votes, electing their state officers by an average plurality of 66,000 and carrying the Legislature by a majority of forty-eight on joint ballot. Yet Ruggles and Denio, whose names appeared upon the ticket of each Democratic faction, were elected to the Court of Appeals by 13,000 majority, showing that a united Democratic party would have swept the State as it did in 1852.
The Whigs accepted their success as Sheridan said the English received the peace of Amiens—as "one of which everybody was glad and nobody was proud." Of the 240,000 Whigs who voted in 1852, less than 170,000 supported the ticket in 1853. Some of this shrinkage was doubtless due to the natural falling off in an "off year" and to an unusually stormy election day; but there were evidences of open revolt and studied apathy which emphasised the want of harmony and the necessity for fixed principles.