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

by De Alva Stanwood Alexander

There was much of this sentiment in New York. Extreme Democrats, taught that the debt was corruptly incurred, resented the suggestion of its payment in gold. "Bloated bondholders" became a famous expression with them, to whom it seemed likely that the $700,000,000 of United States notes, if inflated to an amount sufficient to pay the bonds, would ultimately force absolute repudiation. These views found ready acceptance among delegates to the State convention, and to put himself straight upon the record, John T. Hoffman, in his speech as temporary chairman, boldly declared "the honour of the country pledged to the payment of every dollar of the national debt, honestly and fully, in the spirit as well as in the letter of the bond."[375]

Seymour, with his usual dexterity, declined to commit himself or his party to any decided policy. Although he would "keep the public faith," and "not add repudiation to the list of crimes which destroy confidence in republican governments," his arguments shed no light on the meaning of those words. He declared that "waste and corruption had piled up the national debt," and that it was "criminal folly to exempt bonds from taxation." Then, entering into a general discussion of finance, he arraigned the war party for its extravagance, infidelity, and plundering policy. "Those who hold the power," he said, "have not only hewed up to the line of repudiation, but they have not tried to give value to the public credit. It is not the bondholder, it is the office holder who sucks the blood of the people. If the money collected by the government was paid to lessen our debt we could command the specie of the world. We could gain it in exchange for our securities as the governments of Europe do. Now, they are peddled out at half price in exchange for dry-goods and groceries. The reports of the Secretary of the Treasury show that we could swiftly wipe out our debt if our income was not diverted to partisan purposes. Do not the columns of the press teem with statements of official plunder and frauds in every quarter of our land, while public virtue rots under this wasteful expenditure of the public fund? It is said it is repudiation to force our legal tenders upon the bondholders. What makes it so? The low credit of the country. Build that up; make your paper as good as gold, and this question cannot come up. The controversy grows out of the fact that men do not believe our legal tenders ever will be as good as gold. If it is repudiation to pay such money, it is repudiation to make it, and it is repudiation to keep it debased by waste and by partisan plans to keep our country in disorder and danger."[376]

Perhaps no American ever possessed a more irritating way of presenting the frailties of an opposite party. The unwholesome sentiment of his Tweddle Hall and draft-riot speeches, so shockingly out of key with the music of the Union, provoked the charge of sinning against clear light; but ordinarily he had such a faculty for skilfully blending truth with hyperbole in a daring and spirited argument that Greeley, who could usually expose the errors of an opponent's argument in a dozen sentences, found it woven too closely for hasty answer. On this occasion his speech compelled the committee on resolutions, after an all day and night session, to refer the matter to Samuel J. Tilden and two associates, who finally evaded the whole issue by declaring for "equal taxation." This meant taxation of government bonds without specification as to their payment. John McKeon of New York City attacked the words as "equivocal" and "without moral effect," but the influence of Seymour and Tilden carried it with practical unanimity.

The power of Seymour, however, best exhibited itself in the treatment accorded Andrew Johnson. The conventions of 1865 and 1866 had sustained the President with energy and earnestness, endorsing his policy, commending his integrity, and encouraging him to believe in the sincerity of their support. In recognition Johnson had displaced Republicans for Democrats until the men in office resembled the appointees of Buchanan's administration. The proceedings of the convention of 1867, however, contained no evidence that the United States had a Chief Executive. Nothing could have been more remorseless. The plan, silently matured, was suddenly and without scruple flashed upon the country that Andrew Johnson, divested of respect, stripped of support, and plucked of offices, had been coolly dropped by the Democracy of the Empire State.

The campaign opened badly for the Republicans. Weighted with canal frauds the party, with all its courage and genius, seemed unequal to the odds against which it was forced to contend. The odious disclosures showed that the most trifling technicalities, often only a misspelled or an interlined word, and in one instance, at least, simply an ink blot, had been held sufficient to vacate the lowest bids, the contracts afterward being assigned to other bidders at largely increased amounts. So insignificant were these informalities that in many cases the official who declared the bids irregular could not tell upon the witness stand wherein they were so, although he admitted that in no instance did the State benefit by the change. Indeed, without cunning or reason, the plunderers, embracing all who made or paid canal accounts, declared bids informal that contracts at increased prices might be given to members of a ring who divided their ill-gotten gains. These increases ranged from $1,000 to $100,000 each, aggregating a loss to the State of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. "The corruption is so enormous," said the World, "as to render absurd any attempt at concealment."[377]

Republicans offered no defence except that their party, having had the courage to investigate and expose the frauds and the methods of the peculators, could be trusted to continue the reform. To this the World replied that "a convention of shoddyites might, with as good a face, have lamented the rags hanging about the limbs of our shivering soldiers, or a convention of whisky thieves affect to deplore the falling off of the internal revenue."[378] Moreover, Democrats claimed that the worst offender was still in office as an appointee of Governor Fenton,[379] and that the Republican nominee for canal commissioner had been guilty of similar transactions when superintendent of one of the waterways.[380] These charges became the more glaring because Republicans refused to renominate senators who had been chiefly instrumental in exposing the frauds. "They take great credit to themselves for having found out this corruption in the management of the canals," said Seymour. "But how did they exhibit their hatred of corruption? Were the men who made these exposures renominated? Not by the Republicans. One of them is running upon our ticket."[381] On another occasion he declared that "not one of the public officers who are charged and convicted by their own friends of fraud and robbery have ever been brought to the bar of justice."[382] The severity of such statements lost none of its sting by the declaration of Horace Greeley, made over his own signature, that Republican candidates were "conspicuous for integrity and for resistance to official corruption."[383]

The practical failure of the constitutional convention to accomplish the purpose for which it assembled also embarrassed Republicans. By the terms of the Constitution of 1846 the Legislature was required, in each twentieth year thereafter, to submit to the people the question of convening a convention for its revision, and in 1866, an affirmative answer being given, such a convention began its work at Albany on June 4, 1867. Of the one hundred and sixty delegates, ninety-seven were Republicans. Its membership included many men of the highest capacity, whose debates, characterised by good temper and forensic ability, showed an intelligent knowledge of the needs of the State. Their work included the payment of the canal and other State debts, extended the term of senators from two to four years, increased the members of the Assembly, conferred the right of suffrage without distinction of colour, reorganised the Court of Appeals with a chief justice and six associate justices, and increased the tenure of supreme and appellate judges to fourteen years, with an age limit of seventy.

Very early in the life of the convention, however, the press, largely influenced by the New York Tribune, began to discredit its work. Horace Greeley, who was a member, talked often and always well, but the more he talked the more he revealed his incapacity for safe leadership. He seemed to grow restive as he did in Congress over immaterial matters. Long speeches annoyed him, and adjournments from Friday to the following Tuesday sorely vexed him, although this arrangement convenienced men of large business interests. Besides, committees not being ready to report, there was little to occupy the time of delegates. Nevertheless, Greeley, accustomed to work without limit as to hours or thought of rest, insisted that the convention ought to keep busy six days in the week and finish the revision for which it assembled. When his power to influence colleagues had entirely disappeared, he began using the Tribune, whose acrid arguments, accepted by the lesser newspapers, completely undermined all achievement. Finally, on September 24, the convention recessed until November 12.

Democrats charged at once that the adjournment was a skulking subterfuge not only to avoid an open confession of failure, but to evade submitting negro suffrage to a vote in November. The truth of the assertion seemed manifest. At all events, it proved a most serious handicap to Republicans, who, by an act of Congress, passed on March 2, 1867, had forced negro suffrage upon the Southern States. Their platform, adopted at Syracuse, also affirmed it. Moreover, their absolute control of the constitutional convention enabled them, if they had so desired, to finish and submit their work in the early autumn. This action subjected their convention resolve for "impartial suffrage" to ridicule as well as to the charge of cowardice. If you shrink from giving the ballot to a few thousand negroes at home, it was asked, why do you insist that it should be conferred on millions in the South? If, as you pretend, you wish the blacks of this State to have the ballot, why do you not give it to them? How can you blame the South for hesitating when you hesitate? "It is manifest," said the World, "that the Republicans do not desire the negroes of this State to vote. Their refusal to present the question in this election is a confession that the party is forcing on the South a measure too odious to be tolerated at home."[384]