No doubt much of this criticism was due to personal jealousy, or to the old prejudice against him as a Whig leader who had kept himself in accord with the changing tendencies of a progressive people, alternately exciting them with irrepressible conflicts and soothing them with sentences of conservative wisdom; but Bowles, in approving the speech because it had brought ultra old Whigs of Boston to Seward's support, exposed the real reason for the adverse criticism, since an address that would capture an old-line Whig, who indorsed Fillmore in 1856, could scarcely satisfy the type of Republicans who believed, with John A. Andrew, that whether the Harper's Ferry enterprise was wise or foolish, "John Brown himself is right." It is little wonder, perhaps, that these people began to doubt whether Seward had strong convictions.
CHAPTER XX
DEAN RICHMOND’S LEADERSHIP AT CHARLESTON
1860
When the Democratic national convention opened at Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23, 1860, Fernando Wood insisted upon the admission of his delegation on equal terms with Tammany. The supreme question was the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas, and the closeness of the contest between the Douglas and anti-Douglas forces made New York's thirty-five votes most important. Wood promised his support, if admitted, to the anti-Douglas faction; the Softs, led by Dean Richmond, encouraged Douglas and whispered kindly words to the supporters of James Guthrie of Kentucky. It was apparent that Wood's delegation had no standing. It had been appointed before the legal hour for the convention's assembling in the absence of a majority of the delegates, and upon no theory could its regularity be accepted; but Wood, mild and bland in manner, made a favourable impression in Charleston. No one would have pointed him out in a group of gentlemen as the redoubtable mayor of New York City, who invented surprises, and, with a retinue of roughs, precipitated trouble in conventions. His adroit speeches, too, had won him advantage, and when he pledged himself to the ultra men of the South his admission became a necessary factor to their success. This, naturally, threw the Softs into the camp of Douglas, whose support made their admission possible.[237]
The New York delegation, composed of distinguished business men and adroit politicians, was divided into two factions, each one fancying itself the more truly patriotic, public-spirited, and independent.[238] The Softs had trapped the Hards into allegiance with the promise of a solid support for Dickinson whenever the convention manifested a disposition to rally around him—and then gagged them by a rigid unit rule. This made Dickinson declamatory and bitter, while the Softs themselves, professing devotion to Douglas, exhibited an unrest which indicated that changed conditions would easily change their devotion. Altogether, it was a disappointing delegation, distrusted by the Douglas men, feared by the South, and at odds with itself; yet, it is doubtful if the Empire State ever sent an abler body of men to a national convention. Its chairman, Dean Richmond, now at the height of his power, was a man of large and comprehensive vision, and, although sometimes charged with insincerity, his rise in politics had not been more rapid than his success in business. Before his majority he had become the director of a bank, and at the age of thirty-eight he had established himself in Buffalo as a prosperous dealer and shipper. Then, he aided in consolidating seven corporations into the New York Central Railroad—securing the necessary legislation for the purpose—and in 1853 had become its vice president. Eleven years later, and two years before his death, he became its president. In 1860, Dean Richmond was in his forty-seventh year, incapable of any meanness, yet adroit, shrewd, and skilful, stating very perfectly the judgment of a clear-headed and sound business man. As chairman of the Democratic state committee, he was a somewhat rugged but an intensely interesting personality, who had won deservedly by his work a foremost place among the most influential national leaders of the party. His opinion carried great weight, and, though he spoke seldom, his mind moved rapidly by a very simple and direct path to correct conclusions.[239]
Around Richmond were clustered August Belmont and Augustus Schell of New York City, Peter Cagger and Erastus Corning of Albany, David L. Seymour of Troy, Sanford E. Church of Albion, and a dozen others quite as well known. Perhaps none of them equalled the powerful Richardson of Illinois, who led the Douglas forces, or his brilliant lieutenant, Charles E. Stuart of Michigan, whose directions and suggestions on the floor of the convention, guided by an unerring knowledge of parliamentary law, were regarded with something of dread even by Caleb Cushing, the gifted president of the convention; but John Cochrane of New York City, who had attended Democratic state and national conventions for a quarter of a century, was quite able to represent the Empire State to its advantage on the floor or elsewhere. He was a man of a high order of ability, and an accomplished and forceful public speaker, whose sonorous voice, imposing manner, and skilful tactics made him at home in a parliamentary fight. "Cochrane is a large but not a big man," said a correspondent of the day, "full in the region of the vest, and wears his beard, which is coarse and sandy, trimmed short. His head is bald, and his countenance bold, and there are assurances in his complexion that he is a generous liver. He is a fair type of the fast man of intellect and culture, whose ambition is to figure in politics. He is in Congress and can command the ear of the House at any time. His great trouble is his Free-soil record. He took Free-soilism like a distemper and mounted the Buffalo platform. He is well over it now, however, with the exception of a single heresy—the homestead law. He is for giving homesteads to the actual settlers upon the public land."[240]
Douglas had a majority of the delegates in the Charleston convention. But, with the aid of California and Oregon, the South had seventeen of the thirty-three States. This gave it a majority of the committee on resolutions, and, after five anxious days of protracted and earnest debate, that committee reported a platform declaring it the duty of the federal government to protect slavery in the territories, and denying the power of a territory either to abolish slavery or to destroy the rights of property in slaves by any legislation whatever. The minority reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform of 1856, with the following preamble and resolution: "Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress over the institution of slavery within the territories; Resolved, that the Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court on the questions of constitutional law."