1863
The political reaction in 1862 tied the two parties in the Legislature. In the Senate, elected in 1861, the Republicans had twelve majority, but in the Assembly each party controlled sixty-four members. This deadlocked the election of a speaker, and seriously jeopardized the selection of a United States senator in place of Preston King, since a joint-convention of the two houses, under the law as it then existed, could not convene until some candidate controlled a majority in each branch.[109] It increased the embarrassment that either a Republican or Democrat must betray his party to break the deadlock.
Chauncey M. Depew was the choice of the Republicans for speaker. But the caucus, upon the threat of a single Republican to bolt,[110] selected Henry Sherwood of Steuben. After seventy-seven ballots Depew was substituted for Sherwood. By this time Timothy C. Callicot, a Brooklyn Democrat, refused longer to vote for Gilbert Dean, the Democratic nominee. Deeply angered by such apostasy John D. Van Buren and Saxton Smith, the Democratic leaders, offered Depew eight votes. Later in the evening Depew was visited by Callicot, who promised, if the Republicans would support him for speaker, to vote for John A. Dix for senator and thus break the senatorial deadlock. It was a trying position for Depew. The speakership was regarded as even a greater honor then than it is now, and to a gifted young man of twenty-nine its power and prestige appealed with tremendous force. Van Buren's proposition would elect him; Callicot's would put him in eclipse. Nevertheless, Depew unselfishly submitted the two proposals to his Republican associates, who decided to lose the speakership and elect a United States senator.[111]
The Democrats, alarmed at this sudden and successful flank movement, determined to defeat by disorderly proceedings what their leaders could not prevent by strategy, and with the help of thugs who filled the floor and galleries of the Assembly Chamber, they instigated a riot scarcely equalled in the legislative history of modern times. Boisterous threats, display of pistols, savage abuse of Callicot, and refusals to allow the balloting to proceed continued for six days, subsiding at last after the Governor, called upon to protect a law-making body, promised to use force. Finally, on January 26, nineteen days after the session opened, Callicot, on the ninety-third ballot, received two majority. This opened the way for the election of a Republican United States senator.
Horace Greeley had hoped, in the event of Wadsworth's success, to ride into the Senate upon "an abolition whirlwind."[112] He now wished to elect Preston King or Daniel S. Dickinson. King had made a creditable record in the Senate. Although taking little part in debate, his judgment upon questions of governmental policy, indicating an accurate knowledge of men and remarkable familiarity with details, commended him as a safe adviser, especially in political emergencies. But Weed, abandoning his old St. Lawrence friend, joined Seward in the support of Edwin D. Morgan.
Morgan had a decided taste for political life. When a grocer, living in Connecticut, he had served in the city council of Hartford, and soon after gaining a residence in New York, he entered its Board of Aldermen. Then he became State senator, commissioner of immigration, chairman of the National Republican Committee, and finally governor. Besides wielding an influence acquired in two gubernatorial terms, he combined the qualities of a shrewd politician with those of a merchant prince willing to spend money.
The stoutest opposition to Morgan came from extreme Radicals who distrusted him, and in trying to compass his defeat half a dozen candidates played prominent parts. Charles B. Sedgwick of Syracuse, an all-around lawyer of rare ability, whose prominence as a persuasive speaker began in the Free-Soil campaign of 1848, and who had served with distinction for four years in Congress, proved acceptable to a few Radicals and several Conservatives.[113] Henry J. Raymond, also pressed by the opponents of Morgan, attracted a substantial following, while David Dudley Field, Ward Hunt, and Henry R. Selden controlled two or three votes each. Nevertheless, a successful combination could not be established, and on the second formal ballot Morgan received a large majority. The remark of Assemblyman Truman, on a motion to make the nomination unanimous, evidenced the bitterness of the contest. "I believe we are rewarding a man," he said, "who placed the knife at the throat of the Union ticket last fall and slaughtered it."[114]
The Democrats presented Erastus Corning of Albany, then a member of Congress. Like Morgan, Corning was wealthy. Like Morgan, too, he had a predilection for politics, having served as alderman, state senator, mayor, and congressman. He belonged to a class of business men whose experience and ability, when turned to public affairs, prove of decided value to their State and country. "We should be glad," said the Tribune, "to see more men of Mr. Corning's social and business position brought forward for Congress and the Legislature."[115] The first ballot, in joint convention, gave Morgan 86 to 70 for Corning, Speaker Callicot voting for John A. Dix, and one fiery Radical for Daniel S. Dickinson. Thus did Thurlow Weed score another victory. Greeley was willing to make any combination. Raymond, Sedgwick, Ward Hunt, and even David Dudley Field would quickly have appealed to him. The deft hand of Weed, however, if not the money of Morgan, prevented combinations until the Governor, as a second choice, controlled the election.[116] This success resulted in a combination of Democrats and conservative Republicans, giving Weed the vast patronage of the New York canals.
Perhaps it was only coincidental that Weed's withdrawal from the Evening Journal concurred with Morgan's election, but his farewell editorial, written while gloom and despondency filled the land, indicated that he unerringly read the signs of the times. "I differ widely with my party about the best means of crushing the rebellion," he said. "I can neither impress others with my views nor surrender my own solemn convictions. The alternative of living in strife with those whom I have esteemed, or withdrawing, is presented. I have not hesitated in choosing the path of peace as the path of duty. If those who differ with me are right, and the country is carried safely through its present struggle, all will be well and 'nobody hurt.'"[117] This did not mean that Weed "has ceased to be a Republican," as Greeley put it,[118] but that, while refusing to become an Abolitionist of the Chase and Sumner and Greeley type, he declined longer to urge his conservative views upon readers who possessed the spirit of Radicals. Years afterward he wrote that "from the outbreak of the rebellion, I knew no party, nor did I care for any except the party of the Union."[119]
At the time of his retirement from the Journal, Weed was sixty-six years of age, able-bodied, rich, independent, and satisfied if not surfeited. "So far as all things personal are concerned," he said, "my work is done."[120] Yet a trace of unhappiness revealed itself. Perfect peace did not come with the possession of wealth.[121] Moreover, his political course had grieved and separated friends. For thirty years he looked forward with pleasurable emotions to the time when, released from the cares of journalism, he might return to Rochester, spending his remaining days on a farm, in the suburbs of that city, near the banks of the Genesee River; but in 1863 he found his old friends so hostile, charging him with the defeat of Wadsworth, that he abandoned the project and sought a home in New York.[122]