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

by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

Thus did Greeley devote his great powers to force Lincoln into emancipation. It is impossible, even at this distance of time, to turn the pages of his ponderous volumes without feeling the matchless force of his energy, the strength of his masterly array of facts, his biting sarcasm, his bold assumptions, and his clear, unadorned style. There is about it all an impassioned conviction, as if he spoke because he could not keep silent, making it impossible to avoid the belief that the whole soul and conscience of the writer were in his work. Day after day, with kaleidoscopic change, he marshalled arguments, facts, and historical parallels, bearing down the reader's judgment as he swept away like a great torrent the criticisms of himself and the arguments of his opponents. Nothing apparently could withstand his onslaught on slavery. With one dash of his pen he forged sentences that, lance-like, found their way into every joint of the monster's armour.

Greeley's criticism of the President and the army, however, gave his enemies vantage ground for renewed attacks. Ever since he suggested, at the beginning of hostilities, that the Herald did not care which flag floated over its office, James Gordon Bennett, possessing the genuine newspaper genius, had daily evinced a deep, personal dislike of the Tribune's editor, and throughout the discussion of emancipation, the Herald, in bitter editorials, kept its columns in a glow, tantalising the Tribune with a persistency that recalls Cheetham's attacks upon Aaron Burr. The strategical advantage lay with the Herald, since the initiative belonged to the Tribune, but the latter had with it the preponderating sentiment of its party and the growing influence of a war necessity. Greeley fought with a broad-sword, swinging it with a vigorous and well-aimed effect, while Bennett, with lighter weapon, pricked, stabbed, and cut. Never inactive, the latter sought to aggravate and embitter. Greeley, on the contrary, intent upon forcing the Administration to change its policy, ignored his tormentor, until exasperation, like the gathering steam in a geyser, drove him into further action. In this prolonged controversy the Tribune invariably referred to its adversary as "the Herald," but in the Herald, "Greeley," "old Greeley," "poor Greeley," "Mars Greeley," "poor crazy Greeley," became synonyms for the editor of the Tribune.

The fight of these able and conspicuous journals represented the fierceness with which emancipation was pushed and opposed throughout the State. Conservative men, therefore, realising the danger to which a bitter campaign along strict party lines would subject the Union cause, demanded that all parties rally to the support of the Government with a candidate for governor devoted to conservative principles and a vigorous prosecution of the war. Sentiment seemed to point to John A. Dix as such a man. Though not distinguished as a strategist or effective field officer, he possessed courage, caution, and a desire to crush the rebellion. The policy of this movement, embracing conservative Republicans and war Democrats, was urged by Thurlow Weed, sanctioned by Seward, and heartily approved by John Van Buren, who, since the beginning of hostilities, had avoided party councils. The Constitutional Union party, composed of old line Whigs who opposed emancipation,[64] proposed to lead this movement at its convention, to be held at Troy on September 9, but at the appointed time James Brooks, by prearrangement, appeared with a file of instructed followers, captured the meeting, and gave Horatio Seymour 32 votes to 20 for Dix and 6 for Millard Fillmore. This unexpected result made Seymour the candidate of the Democratic State convention which met at Albany on the following day.

Seymour sincerely preferred another. Early in August he travelled from Utica to Buffalo to resist the friendship and the arguments of Dean Richmond. It cannot be said that he had outlived ambition. He possessed wealth, he was advancing in his political career, and he aspired to higher honours, but he did not desire to become governor again, even though the party indicated a willingness to follow his leadership and give him free rein to inaugurate such a policy as his wisdom and conservatism might dictate. He clearly recognised the difficulties in the way. He had taken ultra ground against the Federal Administration, opposing emancipation, denouncing arbitrary arrests, and expressing the belief that the North could not subjugate the South; yet he would be powerless to give life to his own views, or to modify Lincoln's proposed conduct of the war. The President, having been elected to serve until March, 1865, would not tolerate interference with his plans and purposes, so that an opposition Governor, regardless of grievances or their cause, would be compelled to furnish troops and to keep the peace. Hatred of conscription would be no excuse for non-action in case of a draft riot, and indignation over summary arrests could in nowise limit the exercise of such arbitrary methods. To be governor under such conditions, therefore, meant constant embarrassment, if not unceasing humiliation. These reasons were carefully presented to Richmond. Moreover, Seymour was conscious of inherent defects of temperament. He did not belong to the class of politicians, described by Victor Hugo, who mistake a weather-cock for a flag. He was a gentleman of culture, of public experience, and of moral purpose, representing the best quality of his party; but possessed of a sensitive and eager temper, he was too often influenced by the men immediately about him, and too often inclined to have about him men whose influence did not strengthen his own better judgment.

Richmond knew of this weakness and regretted it, but the man of iron, grasping the political situation with the shrewdness of a phenomenally successful business man, wanted a candidate who could win. It was plain to him that the Republican party, divided on the question of emancipation and weakened by arbitrary arrests, a policy that many people bitterly resented, could be beaten by a candidate who added exceptional popularity to a promised support of the war and a vigorous protest against government methods. Dix, he knew, would stand with the President; Seymour would criticise, and with sureness of aim arouse opposition. While Richmond, therefore, listened respectfully to Seymour's reasons for declining the nomination, he was deaf to all entreaty, insisting that as the party had honoured him when he wanted office, he must now honour the party when it needed him. Besides, he declared that Sanford E. Church, whom Seymour favoured, could not be elected.[65] Having gained the Oneidan's consent, Richmond exercised his adroit methods of packing conventions, and thus opened the way for Seymour's unanimous nomination by making the Constitutional Union convention the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

To a majority of the Democratic party Seymour's selection appealed with something of historic pride. It recalled other days in the beginning of his career, and inspired the hope that the peace which reigned in the fifties, and the power that the Democracy then wielded, might, under his leadership, again return to bless their party by checking a policy that was rapidly introducing a new order of things. After his nomination, therefore, voices became hoarse with long continued cheering. For a few minutes the assembly surrendered to the noise and confusion which characterise a more modern convention, and only the presence of the nominee and the announcement that he would speak brought men to order.

Seymour, as was his custom, came carefully prepared. In his party he now had no rival. Not since DeWitt Clinton crushed the Livingstons in 1807, and Martin Van Buren swept the State in 1828, did one man so completely dominate a political organisation, and in his arraignment of the Radicals he emulated the partisan rather than the patriot. He spoke respectfully of the President, insisting that he should "be treated with the respect due to his position as the representative of the dignity and honor of the American people," and declaring that "with all our powers of mind and person, we mean to support the Constitution and uphold the Union;" but in his bitter denunciation of the Administration he confused the general policy of conducting a war with mistakes in awarding government contracts. To him an honest difference of opinion upon constitutional questions was as corrupt and reprehensible as dishonest practices in the departments at Washington. He condemned emancipation as "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilised Europe."[66]

The convention thought seriously of making this speech the party platform. But A.P. Laning, declining to surrender the prerogative of the resolutions committee, presented a brief statement of principles, "pledging the Democracy to continue united in its support of the Government, and to use all legitimate means to suppress rebellion, restore the Union as it was, and maintain the Constitution as it is." It also denounced "the illegal, unconstitutional, and arbitrary arrests of citizens of the State as unjustifiable," declaring such arrests a usurpation and a crime, and insisting upon the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press.[67]

The speech of Seymour, as displeasing to many War Democrats as it was satisfactory to the Peace faction, at once aroused conservative Republicans, and Weed and Raymond, backed by Seward, favored the policy of nominating John A. Dix. Seward had distinguished himself as one of the more conservative members of the Cabinet. After settling into the belief that Lincoln "is the best of us"[68] his ambition centered in the support of the President, and whatever aid he could render in helping the country to a better understanding of the Administration's aims and wishes was generously if not always adroitly performed. He did not oppose the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, his clear discernment exhibited its certain destruction if the rebellion continued; but he opposed blending emancipation with a prosecution of the war, preferring to meet the former as the necessity for it arose rather than precipitate an academic discussion which would divide Republicans and give the Democrats an issue.