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

by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

The Hards held their state convention on the 12th of July. Their late trial of strength with the Softs had resulted in a drawn battle, and it was now their purpose to force the Pierce-Seymour Softs out of the party. The proceedings began with a challenge. Lyman Tremaine spoke of the convention as one in which the President had no minions; Samuel Beardsley, the chairman, after charging Pierce with talking one way and acting another, declared that the next Chief Executive would both talk and act like a national Democrat. Further, to emphasise its independence and dislike of the President, the convention nominated Greene C. Bronson for governor as the representative of Pierce's proscriptive policy for opinion's sake. But there was no disposition to criticise Pierce's pro-slavery policy. It favoured the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, proclaiming the doctrine of non-intervention by Congress and the right of the territories to make their own local laws, including regulations relating to domestic servitude. It also approved the recently ratified canal amendment and strongly favoured the prohibitive liquor law vetoed by Governor Seymour.

Greene C. Bronson's career had been distinguished. He had served as assemblyman, as attorney-general for seven years, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, and as an original member of the Court of Appeals. Although now well advanced in years, age had not cowed his spirit or lessened the purity of a character which shone in the gentleness of amiable manners; but his pro-slavery platform hit his consistency a hard blow. In 1819, as secretary of a mass-meeting called to oppose the Missouri Compromise, he had declared that Congress possessed the clear and indisputable power to prohibit the admission of slavery in any State or territory thereafter to be formed. If this was good law in 1819 it was good law in 1854, and the acceptance of a contrary theory put him at a serious disadvantage. His attitude on the liquor question also proved a handicap. He showed that the position of judge in interpreting the law was a very different thing from that of making the law by steering a party into power in a crucial campaign.

The convention of the Softs followed on September 6. Two preliminary caucuses indicated a strong anti-Nebraska sentiment. But a bold and resolute opposition, led by federal officials and John Cochrane, the Barnburners' platform-maker, portended trouble. There was no disagreement on state issues. The approval of Seymour's administration settled the policy of canal improvement and anti-prohibition, but the delegates balked on the cunningly worded resolution declaring the repeal of the Missouri Compromise inexpedient and unnecessary, yet rejoicing that it would benefit the territories and forbidding any attempt to undo it. It put the stamp of Nebraska upon the proceedings, and the deathlike stillness which greeted its reading shook the nerves of the superstitious as an unfavourable omen. Immediately, a short substitute was offered, unqualifiedly disapproving the repeal as a violation of legislative good faith and of the spirit of Christian civilisation; and when Preston King took the floor in its favour the deafening applause disclosed the fact that the anti-Nebraskans had the enthusiasm if not the numbers. As the champion of the Wilmot Proviso concluded, the assembly resembled the Buffalo convention of 1848 at the moment of its declaration for free soil, free speech, free labour, and free men. But the roll call changed the scene. Of the 394 delegates, 245 voted to lay the substitute on the table.

This result was a profound surprise. The public expected different action and the preliminary caucuses showed an anti-Nebraska majority; but the Custom-House had done its work well. The promise of a nomination for lieutenant-governor had changed the mind of William H. Ludlow, chairman of the convention, who packed the committee on resolutions. Similar methods won fifty other delegates. But despite the shock, Preston King did not hesitate. He might be broken, but he could not be bent. Rising with dignity he withdrew from the convention, followed by a hundred others who ceased to act further with it. Subsequent proceedings reflected the gloom of a body out of which the spirit had departed. Delegates kept dropping out until only one hundred and ninety-nine remained to cheer the nomination of Horatio Seymour. On a roll call for lieutenant-governor, Philip Dorsheimer declared it a disgrace to have his name called in a convention that had adopted such a platform.

The Whig convention followed on September 20. A divided Democracy again made candidates confident, and eight or ten names were presented for governor. Horace Greeley thought it time his turn should come. He had been pronounced in his advocacy of the Maine liquor law and active in his hostility to the Nebraska Act. As these were to be the issues of the campaign, he applied with confidence to Weed for help. The Albany editor frankly admitted that his friends had lost control of the convention, and that Myron H. Clark would probably get the nomination. Then Greeley asked to be made lieutenant-governor. Weed reminded him of the outcry in the Whig national convention of 1848 against having "cotton at both ends of the ticket." "I suppose you mean," replied Greeley, laughing, "that it won't do to have prohibition at both ends of our state ticket."[163] But, though he laughed, the editor of the Tribune went away nettled and humiliated. In the contest, which became exciting, Greeley's friends urged his selection for governor without formally presenting his name to the convention; but on the third ballot Clark received the nomination, obtaining 82 out of the 132 votes cast.

Myron H. Clark, now in his forty-ninth year, belonged to the class of men generally known as fanatics. He was a plain man of humble pretensions and slender attainments. He was originally a cabinet-maker and afterward a merchant. Then he became a reformer. He sympathised with the Native Americans; he approved Seward's views upon slavery; and he interested himself in the workingmen. But his hobby was temperance. Its advocates made his home in Canandaigua their headquarters, and during the temperance revival which swept over the State in the early fifties, he aided in directing the movement. This experience opened his way, in 1851, to the State Senate. Here he displayed some of the legislative gifts that distinguished John Young. He had patience and persistence; he could talk easily and well; and, underneath his enthusiasm, lingered the shrewdness of a skilled diplomat. When, at last, the Maine liquor bill, which he had introduced and engineered, passed the Legislature, his name was a household word throughout the State. Seymour's veto of the measure strengthened Clark. People realised that a governor no less than a legislature was needed to make laws, and, with the spirit of reformers, the delegates demanded his nomination. To Weed it seemed hazardous; but a majority of the convention, believing that Clark's public career had been sagacious and upright, refused to take another.

Clark's nomination made the selection of a candidate for lieutenant-governor more difficult. The prohibitionists were satisfied; Greeley was not. In their anxiety, the delegates canvassed several names without result. Finally, with great suddenness and amidst much enthusiasm, Henry J. Raymond was nominated. This deeply wounded Greeley. "He had cheerfully withdrawn his own name," wrote Weed, "but he could not submit patiently to the nomination of his personal, professional, and political rival."[164] Greeley believed it was not the convention, but Weed himself, who brought it about. On the contrary, Weed declared that he had no thought of Raymond in that connection until his name was suggested by others. Nevertheless, the Tribune's editor held to his own opinion. "No other name could have been put upon the ticket so bitterly humbling to me,"[165] he afterward wrote Seward. To Greeley, Raymond was "The little Villain of the Times;" to Raymond, Greeley was "The big Villain of the Tribune."[166] In any aspect, Raymond was an unfortunate nomination for Weed, since it began the quarrel that culminated in the defeat of Seward at Chicago in 1860.

Early in the campaign, Greeley favoured dropping the name of Whig and organising an anti-Nebraska or Republican party, with a ticket of Whigs and Democrats, as had been done in some of the Western States. But Seward and Weed, with a majority of the Whig leaders, thought that while fusion might be advisable wherever the party was essentially weak, as in Ohio and Indiana, it was wiser, in States like New York and Massachusetts where Whigs were in power, to retain the party name and organisation.[167] In so deciding, however, they agreed with Greeley that the platform should be thoroughly anti-Nebraska, and they gave it a touch that kindled the old fire in the hearts of the anti-slavery veterans. It condemned the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, approved the course of the New York senators and representatives who resisted it, declared that it discharged the party from further obligation to support any compromise with slavery, and denounced "popular sovereignty" as a false and deceptive cry, "too flimsy to mislead any but those anxious to be deluded and eager to be led astray." This declaration of principles was summarised as "Justice, Temperance, and Freedom." One delegate, amidst great applause, said he felt glorified that the party was disenthralled and redeemed. Roscoe Conkling, a vice president, spoke of the convention as belonging to "the Republican party." Greeley declared the platform "as noble as any friend of freedom could have expected." Other state organisations also approved it. The anti-Nebraska convention, upon reassembling in Auburn on September 26, adopted the Whig ticket. The state temperance convention indorsed the nomination of Clark and Raymond, and the Free Democrats accepted Clark. This practically made a fusion ticket.

Early in October the Native Americans went into council. This organisation, which had elected a mayor of New York in 1844, suddenly revived in 1854; and, in spite of its intolerant and prescriptive spirit, the movement spread rapidly. Mystery surrounded its methods. It held meetings in unknown places; its influence could not be measured; and its members professed to know nothing. Thus it became known as the "Know-Nothing" party. Members recognised each other by the casual inquiry, "Have you seen Sam?" and when one of the old parties collapsed at a local election the reply came, "We have seen Sam." Its secrecy fascinated young men, and its dominant principle, "America for Americans," stirred them into unusual activity. The skilful use of patriotic phrases also had its influence. The "Star Spangled Banner" was its emblem, Washington its patron saint, and his thrilling command, "Put none but Americans on guard to-night," its favourite password. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts joined it as an instrument for destroying the old parties, which he regarded an obstacle to freedom; but Seward thought this was doing evil that good might come. Everything is un-American, he argued, which makes a distinction between the native-born American and the one who renounces his allegiance to a foreign land and swears fealty to the country that adopts him. "Why," he asked, "should I exclude the foreigner to-day? He is only what every American citizen or his ancestor was at some time or other."[168]

The voting strength of this party in New York was estimated at 65,000, divided between Hards, Softs, and Whigs, with one-fifth each, and the Silver-Grays with two-fifths. On the question of putting up a state ticket, its council divided. The Silver-Grays, it was said, favoured candidates in order to defeat Clark; while the Whigs and Softs preferred making no nominations. In the end, Daniel Ullman, a reputable New York lawyer of mediocre ability, received the nomination for governor. The great overmastering passion of Ullman was a desire for office. For many years he had been a persistent and unsuccessful knocker at the door of city, county and state Whig conventions, and when the Know-Nothings appeared he turned to them to back his ambition. Possibly they knew that his parents were foreign-born, but the mystery surrounding his own birthplace became a comical feature of the canvass. It was claimed, upon what seemed proper evidence at the time, that Ullman was born in India and had not become a naturalised citizen of the United States. This made him ineligible as the candidate of his party, and disqualified him from serving as governor if elected.