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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092679087 
 
The 
 DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE O^ NEW YORK 
 
 In Three Volumes 
 
THOMAS JEFFERS' 
 
THE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN, GROWTH AND ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF THE STATE OF 
 
 NEW YORK, INCLUDING A HISTORY OF 
 
 TAMMANY HALL IN ITS RELATION 
 
 TO STATE POLITICS 
 
 Edited by JAMES K. McGUIRE 
 
 AN HISTORICAL CHAPTER ON KINGS COUNTY DEMOCRACY 
 By MARTIN W. LITTLETON 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE 
 LEADING DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS 
 IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 UNITED STATES HISTORY COMPANY 
 
 1905 
 S 
 
A.^^ 
 
 5T^Z 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by 
 UNITED STATES HISTORY COMPANY 
 
 J. F. TAPLEY Co. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The purpose of this work is to impart historical information. 
 Therefore, its pages will not be found to consist of panegyrics upon 
 Democratic achievements nor critical disquisitions upon the conduct 
 of other parties. The aim has been toi give an impartial record of the 
 Democratic Party so that the reader may judge fairly of the men 
 and the measures it has given to the State of New York and to 
 the country. 
 
 Naturally, it has been found necessary to include some account of 
 national affairs to make clear political situations in the State. For 
 the same reason, more or less Republican history has been recorded. 
 
 The subject is so large that, even in the generous space allotted to 
 it, the narrative is of necessity succinct. It is hoped that not only 
 the politician and the general reader, but also the student, will find the 
 history both readable and instructive. The relation of the Party's 
 life to the life of the Nation is a subject of vast importance and a 
 study of surpassing interest. It is to enable ah readers to realize as 
 fully as possible the value of the services of Democratic navigators 
 to the Ship of State that this work is given to the public. 
 
 Since Hammond's work, no political history — as such — of the 
 Democratic Party in the State of New York has been published. No 
 little research has, therefore, been necessary to compile the record of 
 the party for the last sixty years. 
 
 Where criticism has been ventured upon, it is indicative merely 
 of individual opinion. These opinions may not meet with the indorse- 
 ment of all readers, but they have been made in the spirit of honesty 
 and impartiality. Almost every extant historical work on New Yark 
 State has been consulted, and where those have failed, pairticularly as 
 to events of recent years, facts have been gathered in personal inter- 
 views from men of large experience and knowledge. The growth. 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 work, achievements, successes, and reverses of the party have been 
 traced vv^ith an eye single to the evolution of the truth, so far as it 
 could be ascertained or understood. 
 
 The public career of each Democratic Governor of the State is 
 given, and a portrait of the finest quality accompanies the biography. 
 It has been said that biography is the only true history, and contem- 
 porary biography has its advantages over posthumous records. A life 
 of Julius Caesar by Brutus would be more interesting and more reliable 
 than even the splendid fiction of the great Shakespeare. For that 
 reason this work contains sketches of the prominent Democrats of the 
 State. The list is the most complete one ever published, and the work, 
 which was originally cast for two volumes, has grown into three. 
 
 In the preparation of this work, much valuable aid has been given 
 by experienced writers and reliable party workers. We take this 
 opportunity to convey our thanks to all such and to express our appre- 
 ciation of their assistance. 
 
AUTHORS CONSULTED 
 
 In addition to the following special works which are mentioned, 
 histories of every city and of almost every county in the State have 
 been consulted, as well as newspaper files and the archives at Albany, 
 which have been found especially helpful. Reports of the heads of 
 New York State Departments, of Commissions, and of Constitutional 
 Conventions, as well as Congressional Records, have also afforded 
 valuable information. 
 
 Broadhead's History of New York. 
 
 Smith's Colonial History of New York. 
 
 Dunlap's History of New York. 
 
 Barbor's Historical Collection of New York. 
 
 Watson's Annals and Occurrences. 
 
 Stone's History of New York City. 
 
 History of New York City, by M. L. Booth. 
 
 Hammond's Political History of New York. 
 
 Lossing's Empire State. 
 
 Marshall's Niagara Frontier. 
 
 Stone's History of Burgoyne's Campaign. 
 
 Our First Century, by R. M. Devens. 
 
 Life of Grover Cleveland, by Frederick E. Goodrich. 
 
 Life of Martin Van Burenr, by Edward M. Shepard. 
 
 Public Papers of the Democratic Governors of the State. 
 
 Campbell's Border Wars of New York. 
 
 Dictionary of American Politics, by Brown and Strauss. 
 
 Cooper's American Politics. 
 
 Life of Samuel J. Tilden, by John Bigelow. 
 
 Randall's Life of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 7 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS— VOLUME I 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Democracy — What It Has Done for Man — Causes Which Led to the 
 Formation of the Democratic Party — Principles of the Party — 
 Their Effect Upon the Nation — Individual and States' Rights. . 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Rise of Political Parties in New York State — Federalists — The 
 Philadelphia Convention — ^Adoption of the Federal Constitution 
 — Governor Clinton's Regime — 1786-1793 22 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early Conditions in New York State — Constitution of 1777 — Political 
 Confusion Arising Therefrom — The Council of Appointment — 
 The Council of Revision — Suffrage — French and English Sen- 
 timents in Politics — Decline of the Federalist Party — 1 793-1 800. . 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From 1800 to 1810: The Constitutional Convention of 1801 — The 
 Strife Between Aaron Burr and the Clintonian Faction and the 
 Livingstons — The Downfall of Burr — The New York State 
 Bank and the Merchants' Bank Company — Ascendancy of the 
 Republican Party — Regime of Governor Lewis — European Af- 
 fairs in American Politics — The Election of Governor Tompkins 
 
 — The Embargo on American Shipping 47 
 
 9 
 
lo CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1810 to 1820 : De Witt Clinton— His Aspirations to the Presidency- 
 Inland Navigation— The Erie and Champlain Canals— The Bank 
 of America— The War with England and New York's Attitude 
 Therein— Re-election of Governor Tompkins — Decay of the Fed- 
 eralist Party — De Witt Clinton Elected Governor — His First 
 Term and Re-election 61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Bucktail Party — Federal Interference in State Elections — Con- 
 flict of the Senate with Governor Clinton — The Constitutional 
 Convention of 1821 — Prominent Members Thereof — What the 
 Convention Did — Joseph C. Yates Elected Governor — Party 
 Split Over Presidential Candidates — Rise of the People's Party — 
 Attempt to Have Presidential Electors Chosen by the People — 
 1820-1823 80 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Politics Without Principles — Removal of Clinton from the Canal 
 Board — Error of Governor Yates — Clinton's Renewed Popular- 
 ity — Contest for Governor — Election of Clinton — Completion of 
 Erie Canal — Political Influence of Presidential Candidates — 
 Course of the Albany Regency — ^The Anti-Masons — Re-election 
 of Governor Clinton, 1826 — The Democratic Party and Protec- 
 tion — 1824 to 1827 96 
 
 CHAPl^ER VIII. 
 Life of De Witt Clinton , 112 
 
CONTENTS II 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Activity of Anti-Masons — Legislative Action Favoring Protection — 
 The Albany Convention — ^The Herkimer Convention — Martin 
 Van Buren Elected Governor — His Message to the Legislature 
 — Resignation of Governor Van Buren — Enos T. Throop Be- 
 comes Governor — Inauguration of the Spoils System — Prohibi- 
 tion of Bank Notes Under Five Dollars — The Workingmen's 
 Party 123 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The National Republican Party — Effect of National Politics Upon the 
 Democratic Cause in New York State — President Jackson's Fi- 
 nancial Policy— Quarrel Between Jackson and Calhoun — The 
 Eaton Case — ^Nullification — Destruction of United States Bank 
 — Causes Which Led to the Commercial Panic of 1837 — The 
 "Pet Banks" — Governor Throop's Opposition to Chenango Canal 
 — Triumph of the Jackson Party in New York State 139 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Regime of Governor Marcy — The Rise of the Whig Party — 
 Construction of Chenango Canal — Enlargement of Erie Canal— 
 The Abolitionists — Equal Rights' Party, or Loco-Focos — The 
 Legislature and Bank Charters — Wild Speculation of the Time — 
 The Specie Circular of President Jackson — Banks Suspend 
 Specie Payments — Commercial Panic of 1837 154 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Governor Seward's Regime — ^Effort to Rear Monument to De Witt 
 Clinton — No United States Senator Chosen — Van Buren's Visit 
 — The Virginia Controversy — The Registry Law — State and 
 National Elections of 1840 — Causes of Van Buren's Defeat — 
 
12 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Seward's Conflict with the Legislature— Death of President Har- 
 rison and Succession of Tyler— The State Almost Bankrupt- 
 Measure to Preserve the State's Credit— The People's Resolu- 
 tions — Election of Governor Bouck I74 
 
 CHAPTER XHL 
 
 Governor Bouck's Administration — Resolutions of Radical Conven- 
 tion of 1843 — Questions Before the Senate — The Baltimore Con- 
 vention — Democratic State Convention of 1844 — Silas Wright 
 Nominated for Governor — Life of William C. Bouck 190 
 
 Life of Martin Van Buren 201 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Gubernatorial Term of Silas Wright and a Sketch of His Life— 
 
 The Constitutional Convention of 1846 228 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 New York State Under Governor Young — The Wilmot Proviso — 
 Dissension Among Democrats — The Conventions of the Different 
 Factions of Parties — Their Declarations on the Question of 
 Slavery — General Taylor Elected President — Van Buren the 
 Free-Soil Candidate — Election of Governor Fish 241 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Gold Rush to California in 1849 — Inauguration of Zachary Taylor — 
 Closing of the Seventy-second Legislature — Death of James K. 
 Polk — Conventions and Elections of 1849 — Death of President 
 Taylor — Inauguration of Millard Fillmore — Admission to Union 
 of California— Compromise Measures — Conventions and Elec- 
 tions of 1850 259 
 
CONTENTS 13 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Slavery Agitation — Bills Passed by Assembly of 1850-1852 — Conven- 
 tions of 1850 — Conventions and Elections of 1851 — Slave Riot 
 at Syracuse — Death of Henry Clay — The Hungarian Episode- 
 Conventions and Elections of 1852 — Election of Governor Sey- 
 mour — Inauguration of President Pierce — Report on Canals — 
 Conventions of 1853 279 
 
 CITAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Know-Nothings — Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Con- 
 ventions of 1854 — Election of Myron Clark as Governor — Free 
 School and Prohibitory Liquor Bills — Forming of Republican 
 Party — State Campaign of 1855 — Result — Hard and Soft Demo- 
 crats — Appeal for Union of the Two Democratic Factions .... 296 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 National Conventions and Elections of 1856 — Friction Between the 
 Hards and Softs — Assault on Charles Sumner — Resignation of 
 Preston' — State Conventions of 1856 — Mormonism — Inaugural 
 Address of President Buchanan, and Cabinet of — The Dred Scott 
 Decision — Death of William L. Marcy; Sketch of — Conventions 
 and Elections of 1857 — Suspension of Banks and the Financial 
 Situation — The LeCompton Constitution 315 
 
 •CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Continuation of Kansas Dispute — Death of Thomas H. Benton — Ad- 
 mission of Minnesota and Oregon to Union — Election of 1858 — 
 Addresses for and against Slavery — Democratic State Conven- 
 tion of 1858 — Registering of Voters — John Brown's Raid — State 
 Suffrage for Negroes — Democratic National Conventions of i860 
 — Secession of Southern Delegates — Seceders' Convention of 
 i860 335 
 
14 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 National Republican Convention of i860— Lincoln-Douglas Debates 
 — ^State Conventions of i860 — National Democratic Conventions 
 — Reasons for Division of Democratic Party — Result of Presi- 
 dential Election — Proposed Concessions to South — Resignation 
 of Southern Officials— Is the State Sovereign ?— -The Verge of 
 War 356 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The War Period — Views of Leading Men and of the Press of that 
 Day — The Fall of Fort Sumter — Governor Seymour's Second 
 Administration — The Draft Riots in New York City — Elections 
 of 1864 373 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Reconstruction Measures and Amendments — ^Assassination of Lin- 
 coln — Political Conventions — Election of John T. Hoffman — 
 The Stanton Episode — Admission of Negro-Equality States — 
 Election of Grant^Re-election of Hoffman — The Tweed Ring — 
 Re-election of Grant — Election of John A. Dix — Bills Passed in 
 1873 — Amendments Added to State Constitution 394 
 
 The Liberal Republican Party 410 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Regime of Governor Tilden — His Exposure of the Canal Frauds 
 ■ — His Growth Into a Presidential Figure — Succeeded by Lucius 
 Robinson 410 
 
CONTENTS IS 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 State and National Campaigns of 1876 — Lucius Robinson Elected 
 Governor — Contest Over the Presidency — Hayes Declared 
 Elected — State Conventions of 1877 — The Entire Democratic 
 Ticket Successful — Acts of 1877 — State Conventions of 1878 — 
 The New Capitol — Reapportionment of Assembly Districts .... 436 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Life of Samuel Jones Tilden 454 
 
THE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Democracy — What it has done for Man — Causes which led to the 
 Formation of the Democratic Party — Principles of the Party — 
 Their Effect upon the Nation — Individual and States' Rights. 
 
 With the rise of Democracy began the age of individual rights. 
 The Spirit of Democracy dictated the Declaration of Independence, 
 proclaimed the American Colonies a Republic, bade Washington de- 
 cline, not only a crown, but a third term as President. It removed 
 not only the fetters, but also the restrictions which aristocratic govern- 
 ments have ever imposed upon the man; and the man, untrammeled, 
 free, inspired, has risen to the heights for which he was created and of 
 which he is worthy. It has made this nation what it is to-day ; not only a 
 great political power, but great in commerce, in arts, sciences, practical 
 mechanics, energy and intelligence. The millions of Democratic atoms 
 held together by the adhesive spirit of Democracy, constitute the glo- 
 rious and ever growing body of the United States, which to-day excites 
 the envious admiration of the world. 
 
 Hence, it is that the name is revered by many and should be hon- 
 ored by all, for it "hath lifted up the man of low estate," and hath 
 placed him on a level with the mightiest of the mighty. 
 
 Democracy has existed as long as the United States. Its history 
 runs through that of the nation like a range of mountains through 
 a country ; and, like noble peaks, many eminent names, many glorious 
 
 7 
 
i8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 achievements mark its way and stand out grandly against the azure 
 dome of the nation's history. Here and there a depression, but rising 
 again to lofty eminences, it has traversed eleven decades of time; and 
 as long as man exists and preserves his birthright, Democracy must 
 exist and flourish. 
 
 After the American colonies had won their independence and a 
 government had been established, it was inevitable that political parties 
 would spring into existence, and it was just as inevitable that one of 
 these parties would be founded upon the principles for which the col- 
 onies had fought — self-government and the equal rights of men, as 
 enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. The party drawn to- 
 gether by these sentiments took the name of Democrat-Republican — 
 a compound of two words, each meaning substantially the same thing. 
 The best definition given of either word was that given by Abraham 
 Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg speech, when he used the memorable 
 words: "Government of the people, for the people, and by the people." 
 There has been no period in the long history of the Democratic Party 
 when this definition did not exactly coincide with its principles. From 
 the formation of the party, it fought for the extension of suffrage 
 and championed not only individual but States' Rights, and to-day its 
 tenets are dictated by disinterested regard for the rights of the people. 
 
 The Articles of Confederation adopted in 1777 cannot be considered 
 as establishing a government, but merely a union of the States; and 
 no sooner had the treaty of 1783 been ratified by Great Britain, ac- 
 knowledging the independence of the colonies, than this fact became 
 startlingly apparent. The old Congress was nothing more than a con- 
 vention of ambassadors from the several States, and in the majority 
 of instances these ambassadors did not have the power to bind their 
 respective States by their acts. Except in a. few instances they could 
 only recommend, and their recommendations had to be ratified by their 
 States. It therefore became apparent that some form of general gov- 
 ernment must be adopted which would enable that government, with- 
 out the consent of all the States, to act upon the persons of the citizens 
 of each State, or the union would be useless, and the general govern- 
 ment so restricted in its power as to be but a government of straw. 
 All men admitted the imperfection and inadequacy of the Articles of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 19 
 
 Confederation; all were anxious that a new plan of government, or 
 constitution, should be devised and adopted ; but naturally there were 
 wide differences of opinion in relation to the principles which that con- 
 stitution ought to contain and the magnitude and nature of the powers 
 which should be granted to the general government. Each of the 
 States was jealous of its own rights and interests, yet the danger of 
 standing alone held them together. 
 
 It was this difference of opinion which produced the first organized 
 political parties in State and nation ; but as this great subject was con- 
 sidered, other ideas and principles were developed with it, giving a 
 stronger complexion to party lines. The first party in control of na- 
 tional affairs was the Federalist, and their opponents were called the 
 Anti-Federalists. The Democratic Party of to-day is the successor of 
 the latter. 
 
 Before President Monroe's administration, the members of the 
 Democratic Party were called either Republicans or Anti-Federalists. 
 It is true that for some years prior to 1830 the party persisted in 
 applying to itself the name of Republican, dropping the first half of 
 the original title. This came about through the use in Europe of the 
 word "Democrat" as a term of reproach; to those people a Democrat 
 was a vulgar, ignorant person. The people of Europe, long trained 
 to regard kings and emperors as the source of power and rule, were 
 unable to grasp the idea of the equality of man, and expressed their 
 contempt for those who claimed for the people the right of selecting 
 their own rulers. The word was particularly objectionable to Andrew 
 Jackson but, as the years went by, the strength and intelligence of the 
 party revived the word and gave to it the color and significance which 
 makes it to-day the name of the great political creed of mankind. 
 
 At the presidential election of 1856, the Republican Party of to- 
 day first came into national prominence, having appropriated part of 
 the name of the old Democratic Party. 
 
 The Democratic Party is, historically, the most important of Ameri- 
 can political parties, and Democracy is one of the foremost elements 
 in American life. Democracy is the creed of the man, the fruit of 
 Liberty. The Democratic Party was organized to secure and maintain 
 the rights of the citizen and of the individual States of the Union. 
 
20 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 At the close of the Revolutionary War, although the colonies had 
 attained their independence and established a republican form of gov- 
 ernment, the spirit of aristocracy still held a place in the land, and old 
 customs were still revered through force of habit and fear of change. 
 Washington himself vi^as an aristocrat, in some ways, and Hamilton 
 would have had a limited monarchy established in this country, could 
 he have had his way. Many prominent families were English in 
 their sympathies and education and, although they had countenanced 
 the Revolution, they were like aliens in their political doctrines. 
 
 There had been no time to frame new laws; the country had just 
 emerged from British rule and the only known laws were English 
 laws. The love of individual liberty was strong in the breasts of all 
 true Americans, and to this was joined a repugnance for England and 
 everything English. The Federal Party assumed the control of national 
 affairs upon the founding of the Republic, and Federalism was im- 
 pregnated with British doctrines, and codes and customs. One feature 
 of English rule was that it was carried on under a sovereign head, to 
 which all were subject, and the Federalists, retaining the idea of cen- 
 tralizing all power, desired to hold the States under the control of the 
 general government. Thinking men saw, in such usages, a perpetual 
 bar to the full liberty of the subject, and an undesirable, perhaps galling, 
 ,curb put upon the individual States of the Union. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was the first leader of the Democratic Party 
 in the nation, and fittingly so. Had he not drafted the Declaration 
 of Independence which proclaimed all men free and equal ? And was 
 not every phrase in the platform of the young party aglow with Lib- 
 erty? These favored manhood suffrage, States' Rights, freedom of 
 religion, of speech, of politics, of the press; advocated political rule, 
 economical government, free trade, hospitality to immigrants, the 
 avoidance of all foreign complications and believed in peace. 
 
 It is interesting, instructive, inspiring, to dwell upon these tenets 
 of the young party and realize what they have done for the country 
 and how strong a hold they have upon the national mind to-day. The 
 party has never sold nor bartered these birthrights and, by consistently 
 adhering to them, has seen other parties appear and disappear, while 
 to-day its ranks are greater than ever. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 21 
 
 The Federalist Party had control of national affairs until the elec- 
 tion of Jefferson as President, who was inaugurated in 1801. Up to 
 this time, the Democratic Party had been strict-constructionist, but 
 the acquisition of power threw their minds from the sole contempla- 
 tion of individual and States' Rights and they began to favor measures 
 of a nationalizing character. 
 
 After the War of 1812, the Federalist Party went out of existence 
 and the Democratic Party had complete possession of the field. In 1820 
 Monroe was re-elected without opposition, but opposing tendencies 
 in the nation and in the party had already begun to show themselves 
 and were preparing the way for a new party division between the 
 Whigs, who were advocates of protection and other nationalizing meas- 
 ures, and those Democrats who still held to the old program of States' 
 Rights, free trade and restricted government. 
 
 With the election of Jackson, in 1828, new social strata came into 
 power in the Democratic Party and the extension of the franchise 
 gave it a more popular character. From 1828 until 1840, the Demo- 
 crats carried the presidential elections. They were successful again 
 in 1844 but were defeated in 1848, after which they were again in 
 power until i860. During this period they had destroyed the United 
 States Bank, annexed Texas, and carried the country through the 
 war with Mexico. But meanwhile the slavery question was gradually 
 forcing a division between the Democrats of the South and those of 
 the North ; the latter not being willing to go so far in the protection 
 of slavery by national authority as the Southern Democrats desired. 
 The final rupture came in i860, when two Democratic candidates were 
 nominated, allowing the Republicans to elect Lincoln. 
 
 From i860 until 1884, the Republicans carried every presidential 
 election. Then Cleveland became President. His second presidential 
 term, from 1892 to 1896, was the closing regime of the Democratic 
 Party in the 19th century. 
 
22 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Rise of Political Parties in New York State — Federalists and Anti- 
 Federalists — the Philadelphia Convention — Adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution — Governor Clinton's Regime — 1786-1793. 
 
 Prior to and during the American Revolution, there were no po- 
 litical parties in New York State, but as soon as the treaty of peace 
 was ratified by England, in 1783, leading men, not only in this State, 
 but in all the States, began to deliberate upon the best means of ad- 
 vancing the interests of their respective States. The Articles of Con- 
 federation adopted in 1777 were well enough among a union of States 
 against an outside foe, but as soon as that foe disappeared and a na- 
 tional government was needed to regulate both domestic and foreign 
 relations, political and commercial, the insufficiency and weakness of 
 the Confederation document became apparent. A few years of peace 
 satisfied all of the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation, and 
 the leaders in all States agreed that some plan of government should 
 be devised and adopted, but there were many differences of opinion 
 as to what that plan should be. 
 
 Here party lines began to be drawn for the first time. The scope 
 of the Constitution was made known. The Anti-Federalist Party, the 
 parent of the Democratic Party, came into existence. It opposed strenu- 
 ously the ratification of the Constitution in its parent form, fearing 
 it would put liberty into jeopardy, because of the extensive grants 
 of power to a central government. It was not opposed to a Federal 
 government, but it wanted that Federal government put under proper 
 restraints. Here we find the germ of the few fundamental principles 
 that mark the division of the people into two great parties. The 
 Anti-Federalist opposed the Constitution, believing its tendency to cen- 
 tralize power endangered free government, and succeeded finally in 
 curtailing that power by ten amendments to the Constitution, which 
 were of the nature of a bill of rights, whereupon the Anti-Federalists 
 withdrew their opposition to the instrument. Soon there was a disposi- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 23 
 
 tion shown by the Federalists to drift away from the Fundamental 
 Law of the Land. The Anti-Federalists set themselves against any 
 loose construction of the Constitution, and favored, as the Democratic 
 Party now favors, the fullest compliance with the Constitution, believ- 
 ing that it is the surety of a free government, and that any deviation 
 from honest interpretation of it is dangerous. From the adoption of the 
 Constitution down to the present time this question has been to the 
 front. The Anti-Federalists wefe opposed to government outside of 
 the Constitution and the offspring of that party — the Democratic Party 
 — stands on the same ground. 
 
 After considerable intercourse, commissioners from several States 
 met at Annapolis, Md., in September, 1786, "to take into consideration 
 the trade and commerce of the United States and to consider how 
 far a uniform system in their commercial intercourse and regula- 
 tions might be necessary to the common interest and permanent hap- 
 piness" of all the States. In February, 1787, Congress resolved that 
 it was expedient that a convention of delegates, to be appointed by 
 these several States, should be held at Philadelphia, in May of that 
 year, "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Con- 
 federation and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such 
 alterations and provisions therein as should, when agreed to in Congress, 
 and confirmed by the States under the Federal Constitution, be adequate 
 to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union." 
 
 The Legislature of New York State was then in session in New 
 York City, and it devolved upon that body to decide whether it would 
 send delegates to the Philadelphia Convention in May, and to select 
 such delegates, if the decision were affirmative. Notwithstanding that 
 many of the leading men in this State were suspicious that the proposed 
 convention would take action which might prove inimical to the wel- 
 fare of the State of New York, it was decided to send delegates to 
 the Philadelphia Convention, and three were chosen, namely, John 
 Lansing, Robert Yates and Alexander Hamilton. The choice of Ham- 
 ilton did much credit to the liberality of the Legislature, or else poli- 
 ticians in that day were not so partisan as they have since become, for 
 Hamilton was always an ardent Nationalist. 
 
 George Clinton was then Governor of the State, and, although a 
 
24 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 protege of Sir George Clinton, the colonial Governor, was thoroughly 
 Democratic, and was one of the earliest friends of the American cause. 
 He had been repeatedly elected Governor and was very popular with 
 the people, besides possessing a keen, logical mind and great decision 
 of character. He was opposed to the adoption of a Federal Constitution 
 and was supported by such men as Robert Yates, afterwards Chief 
 Justice and Chancellor, and the talented Melancthon Smith. 
 
 It was a settled policy of New York to defeat, if possible, any 
 proposition for a national revenue. This State, with its great port 
 of New York, its vast territory and its geographical position, desired 
 to control and collect its own customs duties and had already had some 
 differences with Congress over the Port of New York. Also, there 
 were jealousies among all the States, from which New York State was 
 not free, and many of its leading men feared that it would not have 
 an equitable representation in a Federal government. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton was a Federalist and disliked Governor Clin- 
 ton. He was the most brilliant advocate of the Constitution, and 
 with James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Rufus King and Gouverneur 
 Morris served on a committee appointed by George Washington, Chair- 
 man of the National Convention, to put in order all plans and amend- 
 ments bearing on the proposed Constitution that had been offered dur- 
 ing the long and stormy session of the convention. Gouverneur Mor- 
 ris put the Constitution into proper literary form. These men desired 
 to establish an energetic national government and had a considerable 
 following. 
 
 A large majority of the Legislature were friendly to and sup- 
 porters of Governor Clinton, yet they generously gave Hamilton a seat 
 in the National Convention. They were, doubtless, influenced by his 
 abilities and legal learning, yet the Legislature acted with extreme 
 caution, for it passed a resolution declaring that the delegates were 
 appointed "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles 
 of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several Legisla- 
 tures such alterations and amendments therein as should, when agreed 
 to in Congress and confirmed by the several States under the Federal 
 Constitution, be adequate to the exigencies of the government and pres- 
 ervation of the Union." 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 25 
 
 The National Convention assembled at Philadelphia at the time 
 appointed by Congress, and it soon appeared that the delegates were 
 divided into three classes. The first of these desired to confine the 
 convention to an amendment of the Articles of Confederation, to es- 
 tablish Democratic governments by the respective States united by the 
 Articles of Confederation, varying little from a treaty of alliance, 
 offensive and defensive. To this view of the case, the delegates from 
 New York were undoubtedly restricted by the resolution of the Legis- 
 lature. A second party, which was headed by Alexander Hamilton, 
 advocated a strong aristocratic national government. A third party 
 was formed at the convention, which took the middle ground between 
 these two extremes, and advocated the formation of a government, 
 partly national and partly federal ; a government both elective and rep- 
 resentative in its character; a government which should represent the 
 people in their numerical strength and the States in their sovereign ca- 
 pacity. The people were to be represented in one branch of the Legis- 
 lature and the States in the other; while the national executive was 
 created partly by the people and partly by the States. This scheme 
 was sketched in a series of resolutions offered by Mr. Randolph, of 
 Virginia, although they were doubtless drawn mainly by Mr. Madison. 
 This was called "the Virginia Plan." A sufficient number of the first 
 and second parties alluded to yielded to this middle course to consti- 
 tute a majority of the convention. Hence our present Constitution, 
 exclusive of subsequent amendments, was reported by the convention 
 and recommended by that body to be adopted by the States. It should 
 be mentioned that Messrs. Yates and Lansing early retired from the 
 convention because they considered themselves bound by the resolution 
 of the Legislature restricting their powers, but there is no doubt that 
 they were in full accord with the spirit of that resolution. 
 
 The recommendation of the convention produced little effect on 
 the opponents of the new plan of government in the State of New York. 
 These opponents were called Anti-Federalists, and their numbers were 
 very strong. They claimed that the new Constitution sacrificed too 
 much to the small States, but the great cause of opposition was that 
 the proposed Constitution departed entirely from the principles of the 
 Confederacy and constituted a national government vested with exten- 
 
26 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 sive powers operating, not upon the States but upon individuals. That 
 it clothed the President with so much power and patronage that an 
 unprincipled, ambitious man could subvert the liberties of the people 
 and usurp the power of the government. Also, that the people them- 
 selves were not secured against the gradual encroachment upon their 
 rights. 
 
 Governor Clinton, the first leader of the Anti-Federalists in the 
 State of New York, and his friends, adhered tenaciously to the prin- 
 ciples contained in the resolution of the New York Legislature, for the 
 appointment of delegates to the National Convention. They contended 
 that the Philadelphia Convention had not confined itself to amending 
 the Articles of Confederation, but that it had created a new Constitu- 
 tion. Hamilton was a Federalist, and had proposed to have the Presi- 
 dents elected for life, and the Governors of States appointed; so they 
 feared all Federalists, believing that the proposed Constitution would 
 ultimately produce a limited monarchy. 
 
 In his speech to the Legislature, in 1788, Governor Clinton made 
 no reference to the fact that it had been recommended that the Legis- 
 lature of each State should provide by law for the choice of delegates 
 by the people to decide whether the proposed Constitution should be 
 adopted or not. However, on the 17th of January, 1788, a resolution 
 was offered by Egbert Benson, the purport of which was that members 
 should be elected by the people in pursuance of the recommendation 
 of Congress, to constitute a convention to take action on the proposed 
 Constitution. This resolution finally passed both branches of the Legis- 
 lature, and the election of delegates took place in the spring of that 
 year. The sole question which confronted the electors in the choice 
 of delegates was whether candidates were for or against the adoption 
 of the new Constitution, and it is important to note that the people of 
 the northern and middle counties were generally against, while those 
 of the southern counties were in favor of the measure. The contest 
 was a very heated one, and acrimonious speeches on both sides appeared 
 not only in newspapers but in pamphlets. It was about this period 
 that the celebrated numbers of "The Federalist," containing articles 
 written by Hamilton, Jay and Madison replying to the objection of the 
 Anti-Federalists, were published. 
 
^7z^, /^^ ^. ^- fPf/i^^ms ^^/-G A- y 
 
 GEORGE CLINTON. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 27 
 
 In the city of New York, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Chan- 
 cellor Livingston, Richard Morris, then Chief Justice, and James 
 Duane, Mayor of the city, were chosen delegates. In Albany County, 
 Abraham Ten Broeck, Jacob Cuyler, Francis Nicoll, J. Bloodgood, 
 Peter Gansvoort, John Lansing, Jr., Robert Yates, Henry Outhout, 
 Peter Vrooman, T. A. Ten Eyck and Derick Swart, who were Anti- 
 Federalists, were elected delegates. 
 
 The exact number of delegates to this convention is not easy to 
 determine. The historian Hammond fixes the number at 67, but Will- 
 iam Jay, in the life of John Jay, states that there were but 57 and 
 that 46 of these were Anti-Federalists. Governor Clinton, Melancthon 
 Smith and General James Clinton, father of De Witt Clinton, were 
 among the delegates. 
 
 The convention met at Poughkeepsie and was organized on June 
 17, 1788, with Cjeorge Clinton president, and on the 19th the dis- 
 cussion commenced. Able speeches were made on both sides, for the 
 convention contained nearly all the best talent of the State at that time, 
 and, on July 11, John Jay moved: "that the Constitution be ratified 
 and that whatever amendments might be deemed expedient should be 
 recommended." This brought forth the most vigorous opposition from 
 the Anti-Federalists, who proposed to amend Mr. Jay's resolution so 
 that it should read : "that the Constitution be ratified on the condition 
 that certain specified amendments should be made." Upon these two 
 propositions the discussion was continued, but, before any decisive vote 
 was taken, news arrived that the convention of New Hampshire had 
 adopted the Constitution. 
 
 One of the articles of the Constitution provided that when nine 
 States should ratify it, it was then declared adopted. New Hampshire 
 made the ninth State to adopt the Constitution, and New York was left 
 no alternative but to assent to it or to be considered as seceding from the 
 Union. 
 
 The Federalists at this juncture proposed to amend the amendment 
 by substituting the words, "in full confidence" for the words "on con- 
 dition," so that Jay's resolution would read : 
 
 "Resolved, that the Constitution be ratified in full confidence that 
 the amendments proposed by this convention shall be adopted." 
 
28 THE 'DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 To this resolution a portion of the Anti-Federalists yielded their 
 assent, although with great hesitation and reluctance, and so with these 
 the Federalists were able to carry the convention by a majority. 
 
 Gilbert Livingston had been elected as an Anti-Federalist to this 
 convention, but he was one of those who joined the Federalists in vot- 
 ing for the adoption of the Constitution. From a speech which he 
 made in the convention explaining his position, it is evident that the 
 Anti-Federalists who voted with the Federalists had some apprehension 
 as to how the public at large would construe their conduct, but that 
 he and his associates were influenced by only the highest consideration 
 is unquestionable. European governments had begun to evince a want 
 of confidence in the ability of Congress to enforce treaties. The credit 
 of the national confederacy was low, and the Articles of Confederation 
 were incompetent to enable Congress to regulate commerce or to restore 
 public credit. There were differences in the commercial regulations 
 of the different States, among whom jealousies already existed. All 
 these things combined to form a sufficient reason for any patriotic man's 
 subscribing to the Constitution. 
 
 The final vote, taken on July 26, 1788, stood thirty for ratification 
 of the Constitution and twenty-seven against it. Governor Clinton, who 
 was president of the convention, not voting. 
 
 The result gave little satisfaction to a great portion of the State, 
 and it is recorded that the new Constitution was burned in the city of 
 Albany in the presence of some of the officials of that city. It appears 
 that the Federalists of Albany, on receiving the news that the Constitu- 
 tion had been ratified by the requisite number of States, appointed a 
 day to celebrate the event. Having met, they formed a procession, in- 
 tending to march through the principal streets of the city, led by Gen- 
 eral Schuyler and Stephen Van Rensselaer. This aroused the Anti- 
 Federalists, who gathered together, made inflammatory speeches and 
 burned the Constitution. While highly excited, the two parties met 
 in Green Street, and the Anti-Federalists undertook to prevent the 
 march of the Federalists through that street. They procured a cannon 
 and loaded it with pebbles and gravel, intending to discharge it upon 
 the Federalists should they attempt to force a passage. Some of the 
 wiser ones, however, spiked the cannon; but this precaution did not 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 29 
 
 prevent an affray, in which paving stones, brickbats, cutlasses and 
 bayonets were used, and several were severely wounded. 
 
 After the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the organiza- 
 tion of a national government in pursuance of it, and the unanimous 
 election of George Washington for the first President, all disputes about 
 the Constitution and its principles subsided for a time; but the two 
 parties, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, which had formed in the 
 State of New York on this question, still continued to exist and, al- 
 though the cause which had brought them into opposition had been 
 settled, other questions arose which not only kept them active but in- 
 creased their antipathy. 
 
 The patronage of the national government, through the influence 
 of Hamilton, Jay and General Schuyler with the President, was be- 
 stowed, either personally or politically, hostile to Governor Clinton, 
 and Hamilton always spoke of -him unfavorably. The design of Hamil- 
 ton and his Federalist friends in this State was evidently to use the 
 national patronage so as to curtail the influence of Governor Clinton, 
 and finally prostrate both him and his party. 
 
 On October 13, 1788, the Governor issued a proclamation requiring 
 the Legislature to meet at Albany on December 8th, and in hfs speech 
 he stated to the two Houses that he had convened them at that early 
 day to lay before them the proceedings of the convention at Pough- 
 keepsie. He drew the attention of the Legislature to the amendments 
 proposed by the New York Convention and to the declaration of rights 
 which accompanied the ratification, and urged that active ratification 
 be assented to "on the express confidence that the exercise of different 
 powers would be suspended until it should undergo a revision by a 
 general convention of the States." He therefore urged them to use 
 their best endeavors to bring about a general convention. Governor 
 Clinton was too wise a man and too keen a politician not to know that 
 the matter was permanently settled, and his attitude at this time can 
 only be construed as a manoeuvre to hold together his party in New 
 York State and to afford evidence of his opposition to a loose construc- 
 tion of the Federal Constitution, which tendency was already shown 
 by the Federalists. 
 
 A few years after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jefifer- 
 
30 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 son, who was in France when the document was adopted, and who, 
 in letters to his friends, had urged that a "Declaration of Rights be 
 annexed," saw, now that the bill of rights was a part of the Constitu- 
 tion, the inapplicability of the name "Anti-Federalist," and selecte'd the 
 hyphenated name "Democratic-Republican," believing that the new 
 name was symbolical of the principles of the party and that it was the 
 direct antithesis of "Federal." However, the first part of the compound 
 title was soon after dropped, leaving the word Republican. 
 
 On the isth of December, 1783, the two Houses elected five dele- 
 gates to represent the State in the Continental Congress. The follow- 
 ing, all of whom were Anti-Federalists, were chosen : Abraham Yates, 
 Jr., David Gelston, Philip Pell, John Hathorn and Samuel Jones. 
 
 Although it was necessary for the Assembly to make provision by 
 law for the appointment of the electors of the President and Vice- 
 President, and for the election of Senators and Representatives in Con- 
 gress, as by the United States Constitution the government under it 
 was to go into operation the succeeding spring, yet Governor Clinton 
 did not allude to the subject in his address, and after considerable 
 wrangling provision was made for the appointment of electors of Presi- 
 dent and Vice-President. The two Houses could not agree, however, 
 on the mode of choosing Senators, and the consequence was that New 
 York was not represented in the United States Senate during the 
 first session of the first Congress. Presidential electors were chosen 
 and the law was passed by the New York Legislature for dividing 
 the State into districts and providing for the election of six members of 
 the House of Representatives of the United States. The first mem- 
 bers of Congress from this State under the present Constitution were : 
 Egbert Benson, William Floyd, John Hathorn, Jeremiah Van Rensse- 
 laer and Peter Sylvester. During this session of the New York Legis- 
 lature a very important act "for the amendment of the law and the 
 better advancement of justice," was passed. 
 
 Governor Clinton's term of office expired in July, 1789, that being 
 the end of the old political year, and the Federalists set about to secure 
 a strong candidate to represent their party. On February nth of that 
 year they held a meeting in the city of New York, at which Robert 
 Yates was nominated to oppose Governor Clinton. At this meeting 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 31 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, Robert Troup, William Duer and Aaron Burr 
 were members of a committee of correspondents appointed to promote 
 the election of Judge Yates. The object which Hamilton and the Fed- 
 eralists had in view was to detach from Governor Clinton all the Anti- 
 Federalists who would follow Yates, for Yates had been one of the 
 strongest opponents of the new Constitution. 
 
 The election was warmly contested, and terminated in favor of 
 the Federalists generally, though Clinton was re-elected. The vote 
 for Governor will be noted with interest. By comparing it with the 
 present vote in the State, more than 1,500,000, we can note the vast 
 growth of the State since that day, even allowing for extended suffrage. 
 Clinton received 6,391 and Yates 5,962 votes. Governor Clinton's 
 election was a signal proof of his popularity, for his friends, on all 
 sides, were defeated. 
 
 The principal officers in the State at this time were: Governor, 
 Lieutenant-Governor, Chancellor, Chief Justice, with two Associate 
 Justices, Secretary of State, Attorney-General and Surveyor General. 
 The Legislature of 1789 met at Albany on the sixth day of July, and 
 immediately proceeded to make a law providing for the choice of Sena- 
 tors in Congress, but the bill did not receive the approbation of the Coun- 
 cil of Revision, and was returned to the Legislature. The two Houses 
 then, by joint resolution, appointed General Philip Schuyler and Rufus 
 King Senators, and these were the first men who represented New 
 York State in the United States Senate. Mr. King was a native of 
 the State of Massachusetts and had represented that State in the Conti- 
 nental Congress. General Schuyler was at that time a member of the 
 State Senate, and also of the Council of Appointment. His holding 
 these positions concurrently resulted in a great deal of discussion in 
 the Legislature and considerable confusion in the Council of Ap- 
 pointment. 
 
 During this session of the Assembly Aaron Burr was appointed 
 Attorney-General in place of Mr. Varrick, who had resigned, and 
 Robert Yates was appointed Chief Justice to succeed Richard Morris, 
 who also resigned. 
 
 The general election of 1790 resulted in a nominal majori'ty in both . 
 Houses for the Federalists. 
 
32 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Ever since the organization of the United States government under 
 the new Constitution the funding system proposed by Alexander Ham- 
 ilton and the creation of a national bank had been subjects which ex- 
 cited much attention and upon which the public was greatly divided. 
 The most objectionable part of General Hamilton's scheme was the 
 assumption by the nation of the debts of the respective States and the 
 chartering of the bank. The Republicans (Anti-Federalists) of New 
 York State were generally opposed to the assumption of the State debts. 
 They were for preserving the importance of State authority and States' 
 Rights, and believed the accumulation of a large national debt very un- 
 desirable; while Hamilton declared it would be a national blessing. 
 It does not appear that the Republicans were opposed to the bank 
 scheme at that time. However, at the session of Congress in New 
 York during the summer a majority was obtained in favor of the 
 assumption. Both General Schuyler and Mr. King voted for the 
 measure in the Senate. 
 
 During the year 1790 a census had been taken in the State of New 
 York, which showed that the population then amounted to 324,127. 
 This showed an increase of 85,000 since 1786. The Governor, there- 
 fore, in his address to the Legislature, suggested that a new appor- 
 tionment of the representation in the Legislature was required, as well 
 as a new division of senatorial districts. The Legislature proceeded 
 to act upon the Governor's suggestion and made a new apportionment, 
 which indicated one Senator to each 817 electors. There were at that 
 time 19,626 electors for Senators in the State. 
 
 During this session of the Legislature Aaron Burr was elected 
 Senator against General Schuyler, and Morgan Lewis was appointed 
 Attorney-General in his stead. 
 
 This Legislature invested the commissioners of the land office 
 with great discretionary powers relative to the disposal and sale of 
 public lands, and this extension of the prerogative of the land office 
 subsequently led to fierce disputes. At the opening of the next session 
 of the Legislature, the Governor advised that the proceeds of the sales 
 of public lands should be applied to the discharge of the State debt and 
 the surplus invested, in such manner that the income arising therefrom 
 should be used annually to defray the expenses of the State. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 33 
 
 Governor Clinton's term of office expired in 1792, and both po- 
 litical parties early displayed a most intense anxiety regarding the 
 result of the next general election. The Republicans clung to Governor 
 Clinton, and the Federalists, after much deliberation, settled upon John 
 Jay. Aaron Burr w^as prominently mentioned as a candidate by the 
 moderate men of both parties. 
 
 During the anti-election days a violent attack was made upon Gov- 
 ernor Clinton on account of the manner in which the sales of public 
 lands were conducted. When this State became independent of Great 
 Britain it contained more than 7,000,000 acres of wild, unsettled lands. 
 Laws had been passed from time to time providing for the sale and 
 settlement of these lands, but up to the year 1790 few sales had been 
 effected. The State being in need, of funds, and all well-wishers of 
 the State desiring to encourage settlement, the Legislature, at their 
 session in 1791, passed a law to which we have referred, authorizing 
 the commissioners of the land office to dispose of the unappropriated 
 lands in this State "in such parcels and on such terms as they should 
 judge most conducive to the interests of the public." This was placing 
 vast power in the hands of the land commissioners, yet it was done 
 with the consent of both political parties. The commissioners were 
 the Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney-General, Treasurer and 
 Auditor. J. A. Scott was Secretary of State; Aaron Burr, Attorney- 
 General ; Girard Bancker, Treasurer, and Peter Certenius was Auditor. 
 During the year 1791, 5,542,173 acres of land were sold for the sum 
 of $1,030,433. This was less than twenty cents an acre. One man, 
 Alexander McComb, purchased an enormous tract of 3,635,200 acres 
 at eight pence (sixteen cents) an acre, payable in five annual install- 
 ments without interest. When this report came under consideration 
 in the Assembly, Colonel Talbot, of Montgomery County, presented 
 a series of resolutions which severely condemned the conduct of the 
 commissioners ; but, after a long and acrimonious discussion, these reso- 
 lutions were finally rejected. 
 
 The election for Governor in April, 1792, was fought out bitterly 
 by both parties, and resulted very unsatisfactorily to both sides. The 
 State canvassers that year were: David Gelston, Thomas Tillotson, 
 Melancthon Smith, Daniel Graham, P. Van Cortland, Jr., David Mc- 
 
34 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Carty, Joshua Sands, Jonathan N. Havens, Samuel Jones, Isaac Rose- 
 velt and Leonard Gansevoort. These gentlemen could not agree regard- 
 ing the votes given in the counties of Otsego, Clinton and Tioga, in 
 which counties irregularities had occurred. The first seven named were 
 for rejecting the votes of these counties, and the last four were for al- 
 lowing them. To extricate themselves from this dilemma, the canvassers 
 agreed to request the opinion of Rufus King and Aaron Burr, the two 
 State Senators, both of whom were eminent lawyers. The committee, 
 clearly and at length, stated all the points in the case and laid them 
 before King and Burr in writing. King decided that the votes of the 
 three counties, except part of those from Cherry Valley, were valid. 
 Burr decided that the votes of Clinton County were valid, but not 
 those of Otsego and Tioga. Messrs. Gelston, Tillotson, Smith, Gra- 
 ham, McCarty and Havens finally decided on rejecting the votes of 
 all three counties. Against this the other four protested, and entered 
 their protest on the minutes of the committee. 
 
 If the votes in these three counties had been canvassed, John Jay 
 would have been elected Governor, but, without the votes of these three 
 counties, Clinton had a majority of io8, as returned by the State can- 
 vassers. Clinton accepted the returns as electing him, for he had been 
 declared elected Governor by the only tribunal which had a right to 
 speak on the subject. Had he declined acting, the State would have 
 been, for the time at least, without an executive department. John 
 Jay took the result very philosophically, but the Federalists were ex- 
 asperated almost beyond expression. Public meetings were held in 
 almost every county of the State and the Governor was denounced as 
 an usurper, while the canvassing committee was branded as corrupt. 
 
 Governor Clinton was installed July ist, 1792, and on the 19th of 
 that month a public dinner was tendered him by his political friends 
 in New York. The toasts at this dinner were "The Constitution of 
 the United States," "General Washington," "Thomas Jefiferson," "The 
 French Republic." Reference is made to these toasts and to this dinner, 
 because the toast to the French Republic was an expression of growing 
 sentiment, which afterwards became a factor in the political affairs of 
 this State. The Republicans became friendly to France, while the 
 Federalists upheld England. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 35 
 
 On November 6, 1792, the Legislature met in New York City, 
 and on November 13 a body of men, calling themselves deputies, from 
 different parts of the State, appeared before the Legislature to solicit 
 "a legislative remedy for the late outrage said to be committed on 
 rights of suffrage by a majority of the canvassing committee." They 
 were introduced to the bar of the Assembly with great formality and 
 solemnity by Mr. Hoffman, who presented their memorial. The me- 
 morial was referred to a committee of the whole House, but it soon be- 
 came very evident that there was a decided majority opposed to any 
 legislative action on the subject, and the matter was dropped in the 
 Legislature. The Federalists, of course, pursued the matter with great 
 vigor, no doubt to keep up the popular excitement against the Governor 
 and his political friends. 
 
 As an offset to this, the friends of Governor Clinton introduced 
 a memorial against William Cooper, first judge of Otsego County, de- 
 claring that an impeachment might be found against him by the House. 
 The charge was that Judge Cooper interfered with voters at the polls 
 on election day and particularly menaced a Mr. Cannon. Like the 
 other case, this came to nothing, and both, at this time, convey only 
 one impression, and that is that they were political plays, each side 
 parading and burning red fire. 
 
 The election in April, 1793, resulted in a large Federal majority. 
 The Legislature met in Albany on January 7, 1794, and in his address 
 Governor Clinton referred to a matter which is worthy of notice, be- 
 cause it exhibits the state of the Criminal Code at this time, and shows 
 that the Governor was in advance of the age in which he lived. -Some 
 twenty-five separate crimes besides that of murder were punishable with 
 death by the laws then existing, and the Governor urged that the cer- 
 tainty, rather than the severity, of punishment, was the best means 
 of preventing crime. There can be but one deduction from this part 
 of his address, and that is that he desired the Legislature to take steps 
 towards lessening the extreme penalty for minor offences. In those 
 days men were hanged for felonies that would now subject them only 
 to a few years' imprisonment. 
 
36 THE DEMOCRATK: PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Early Conditions in New York State— ^Constitution of 1777 — Political 
 Confusion Arising Therefrom — The Council of Appointment — 
 The Council of Revision — Suffrage — French and English Senti- 
 ments in Politics — Decline of the Federalist Party — 1793- 1800. 
 
 It was often remarked by the residents of other States in the early 
 days, indeed, well into the 19th century, that the politics of New York 
 State were, to them, an enigma. It is doubtful if very many students 
 of history have to-day as clear and precise a knowledge of the early 
 political affairs of this State as they should wish. Let us, therefore, 
 before pursuing further the history of the young Republican Party in 
 its struggle against Federalism, consider a few of the social and political 
 conditions which characterized this State in the first years of its life. 
 
 The form of government first established in New York State was 
 less democratic than that of any other State in the Union. There were 
 two causes for this. The first cause was that when the Revolution 
 broke out New York had a greater factor of aristocracy than in any 
 other State. We had quite a few wealthy families, proud of their 
 position and lineage. In Westchester County there were the Morrises 
 and Van Cortlands; along the Hudson were the Livingstons and 
 Coldens ; Albany had the Van Rensselaers and Schuylers ; Sir William 
 Johnson lived in state at Johnstown, and New York City could boast 
 of several ancient families for so young a country. Several of these 
 families owned immense tracts of land and drew large incomes from 
 numerous tenantry. The population of the State was small in those 
 days, and, outside of these wealthy patroons, the people were poor. 
 It is, therefore, easy to understand that the wealthy few wielded an 
 influence altogether incommensurate with their numbers. The society 
 of that day was not democratic, nor had the laboring class anything 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 37 
 
 to say in the government. This condition did not exist so markedly 
 in any other State. 
 
 The second cause was that the Constitution of New York was one 
 of the first framed. John Jay was its principal author, and he had 
 neither experience to guide him nor a model constitution to copy from. 
 It is not derogatory to him to assert that he did not draw up a model 
 document. He was a good man and an honest man ; he was a clear- 
 headed politician, and his friends considered him a statesman, but he 
 belonged to the old aristocratic school. He had studied the history of 
 republican Rome, and he feared to trust power in the hands of the 
 multitude ; so the Constitution of New York restricted the suffrage and 
 gave the State judiciary an independent tenure of office ; so a Council 
 of Revision held a check upon the Legislature, and a Council of Ap- 
 pointment fought out its battles v/ith the Governor. 
 
 Second sight is not an attribute of the politician, nor foreknowl- 
 edge a part of the wisdom of the statesman. Honest John Jay could 
 not foresee that an educational, revolution would come upon the land ; 
 that Jedediah Peck would inaugurate a school system that would de- 
 velop constructive and not destructive citizens. He could not dream 
 that the different bloods of Europe, when mingled on American soil, 
 would produce a race as much superior to the Roman as the Roman 
 was superiof to the Gaul. He could not foreknow that the day on 
 which he wrote that Constitution would bequeath to coming days tra- 
 ditions which the men of this State would hold too sacred to violate. 
 ' What a revelation it would have been to John Jay could he have pos- 
 sessed for an hour the spirit of divination that beheld Abraham Lin- 
 coln, a man risen from among the people, standing upon the field of 
 Gettysburg and proclaiming a "government of the people, for the people 
 and by the people." 
 
 Much of the confusion and aborted legislative labor of the earlier 
 history of this State was produced by the Council of Revision and the 
 Council of Appointment. What were these Councils? 
 
 The Council of Revision was composed of the Chancellor, Judges 
 of the Supreme Court and the Governor. This Council held a nega- 
 tive upon all laws unless passed by two-thirds of both Houses of the 
 Legislature. 
 
38 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The Council of Appointment consisted of the Governor and four 
 Senators. For the purpose of electing these Senators, the State was di- 
 vided into four great districts, the southern, middle, eastern and west- 
 ern. Out of each of these districts the Assembly was required openly 
 to nominate and appoint a Senator annually. These Senators, then, 
 with the Governor, formed the Council of Appointment. The Governor 
 was president of the Council, and had a right to a casting vote, but 
 had no vote for any other purpose. The 23d Article of the Constitu- 
 tion said it was his duty "with the advice and consent of the Council, 
 to appoint all officers." The members of the Council construed this 
 one way, the Governor another, and collisions in the Council resulted. 
 Both Governor Clinton and Governor Jay claimed that under this 
 clause they possessed the exclusive right of nomination. The Council, 
 on the other hand, claimed the exclusive right of nomination, and held 
 that the Governor's province was simply to appoint their nominees. 
 As all civil and military officers of any consequence, except the State 
 Treasurer, from the heads of departments. Chancellor, and Judges of 
 the Supreme Court, down to justices of the peace and auctioneers, were 
 appointed by this Council, its powers can readily be seen. 
 
 Restricted suffrage was also the rule under the primitive Constitu- 
 tion of 1777, and was continued well into the 19th century. In New 
 York State the property qualification for voters was not abolished until 
 1 82 1, and then by the Republican Party. 
 
 The Constitution had no clause within itself to amend itself, and 
 therefore retarded reforms. 
 
 In the closing page of the last chapter, reference was made to the 
 address of Governor Clinton to the Legislature at its opening in 1794, 
 and the reference above made to the Council of Appointment brings 
 us again to that year in which more than the usual confusion of 
 politics was produced by a clash between the Governor and the other 
 members of the Council. 
 
 In October the Governor filed with the Secretary of State a protest 
 against the proceedings of a majority of the Council of Appointment 
 at the March meeting of that body. The Council had decided that 
 in all cases where the number of officers was not ascertained and limited 
 by law, the number should be fixed by a majority of the Council, and 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 39 
 
 that in cases where the officer was required to be commissioned an- 
 nually, the Council had the right to resist the reappointment of the 
 incumbent without assigning any cause. The Governor alleged in his 
 protest that he was charged with the faithful execution of the laws, 
 therefore he was held responsible for such execution, and must neces- 
 sarily be the judge of the proper means of effecting it. If that discre- 
 tion were confided to others, he would be responsible for the acts of 
 others, carried out against his wishes; that so many officers might be 
 created as to cause confusion, or so few that the force would not be 
 competent to accomplish the desired end. He admitted that the Con- 
 stitution left the continuation of an incumbent in office to the pleasure 
 of the Couripil, but he said : "By this was not intended a capricious, 
 arbitrary pleasure, but a sound discretion to be exercised for the pro- 
 motion of the public good." 
 
 General Schuyler, Selah Strong and Zinah Hitchcock, the three 
 Federal members of the Council, published a long reply to the Gov- 
 ernor's protest, and endeavored to show that his practice was not al- 
 ways in accord with his precepts. They were able, however, to cite 
 only one instance where the Governor had, with the consent of a pre- 
 vious Council, removed a sheriff without charges and he was an 
 offensive partisan. The most careful scrutiny of the record of Gov- 
 ernor Clinton will fail to produce any valuable evidence against the 
 statement that throughout his long career as Governor he considered 
 the qualifications of an applicant for an office in preference to the man's 
 political tendencies. On January 22, 1795, Governor Clinton published 
 an address to the freeholders of the State of New York declining to be 
 a candidate for Governor at the ensuing election. He stated that the 
 condition of his health would not permit it. He was then fifty-six 
 years of age and had held elective offices for thirty years. 
 
 When Governor Clinton announced his retirement, the Federalists 
 began to bestir themselves to find a candidate for Governor. Alexander 
 Hamilton was suggested, but declined to be nominated, and the party 
 began to turn its eyes towards its old standard-bearer, John Jay. He 
 was at that time in England, where he had been sent to conclude a 
 treaty with Great Britain, and it was generally expected that the pro- 
 posed treaty would be unpopular in the United States. If such should 
 
40 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 prove to be the case it would greatly weaken Judge Jay's chances. 
 However, he was elected before his return from England and before 
 the contents of the treaty were known. The Republican Party, after 
 much searching for candidates, finally selected Chief Justice Yates for 
 Governor and William Floyd for Lieutenant-Governor, but John Jay 
 was elected with Stephen Van Rensselaer for Lieutenant-Governor, and 
 the Federalists obtained a majority in both Houses of the Legislature. 
 
 Had the treaty with England been made public before the day of 
 election it is doubtful if John Jay would ever have been Governor, al- 
 though he carried the State by a large majority. 
 
 At this time came into notice one of the most remarkable men whom 
 the State has produced — De AVitt Clinton. He ran on the Republican 
 ticket for member of Assembly in New York City, but was defeated. 
 
 On July 2, 1795, the treaty with England was published and was 
 followed by an outbreak of popular indignation. Governor Jay was 
 burnt in effigy by a Philadelphia mob, and public meetings were held in 
 almost every part of the Union, denouncing the treaty. An open-air 
 meeting was held in New York and an immense crowd assembled. 
 General Hamilton attempted to address the meeting, but was driven 
 from the platform with stones. The meeting adopted violent reso- 
 lutions against the treaty and then marched, with American and French 
 colors flying, to a place opposite the Governor's house, where they 
 burned the treaty. 
 
 A careful perusal of the literature of that day leads to the conclusion 
 that the more intelligent of the Republican Party were not opposed to 
 Governor Jay so much on account of the treaty, although it had its 
 objectionable features, as on account of his political opinions in rela- 
 tion to the powers which should be exercised by the general government. 
 
 The Legislature convened in New York City on January 6, 1796, 
 and Governor Jay, in his address, declared it to be his intention "to 
 regard all his fellow citizens with an equal eye, and to cherish and 
 advance merit wherever found." Reference is made to this speech of 
 the Governor because it embodies the principle of civil service reform, 
 which has agitated the minds of politicians up to the present hour. 
 Governor Jay's declaration was very beautiful in theory, but no poli- 
 tician or statesman has ever carried it out rigidly in practice. When a 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 41 
 
 man is elected to an office which carries with it the power of appoint- 
 ment, it is only human nature that he should fill vacancies from the 
 ranks of the party which elected him, so long as there are competent 
 men in that party. 
 
 Like Governor Clinton, Governor Jay had his troubles with the 
 Council of Appointment, but the positions of the two parties were now 
 reversed regarding the right of nomination. The Republican Party 
 had contended that Governor Clinton was entitled to this right, which 
 the Federalists at that time disputed; now that there was a Federal 
 Governor, the Republicans disputed his right to make nominations, and 
 it placed the Federalists, who were now in power, in an awkward posi- 
 tion because, to carry out their wishes, they had to stultify themselves 
 and take the position which the Republicans formerly occupied. So, 
 the Council of Appointment continued to produce dissension and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 Owing to an increase in the population of the State, during this 
 session a bill was passed increasing the number of Senators from 
 twenty-four to forty-four. 
 
 The spring electionof 1796 was favorable to the Federalists. The 
 excitement over the British treaty had cooled down, and the demeanor 
 of the French government towards this country being hostile, the 
 Republicans, who were French sympathizers, lost force. Also, the 
 popularity of General Washington and the rectitude of Governor Jay 
 helped very materially to strengthen the Federalists. 
 
 The Legislature met in the city of New York on the first of 
 November, 1796, to choose presidential electors, and the result was that 
 not a single Republican elector was chosen. 
 
 During the session of 1797 a law was passed creating the office of 
 State Comptroller. 
 
 The general election of April, 1797, showed that the Republican 
 Party was gaining ground. It now included some notable men who 
 had formerly been ardent Federalists. Chancellor Livingston is now 
 found working with the Republican Party, and not only he, but all 
 his immediate connections, known as the Livingston family, had 
 changed ground and were working against their old allies. In New 
 York City the Republican candidates were elected by a majority of 
 
42 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 about i,ooo, and among them were Aaron Burr and De Witt Clinton. 
 Mr. Clinton was then about twenty-eight years old. He was a graduate 
 of Columbia College, had a high reputation for scholastic attainments, 
 was an able newspaper writer and a lawyer. 
 
 The Legislature met at Albany, January 2, 1798, when loi mem- 
 bers took their seats, and on the vote for Speaker, Derick Ten Eyck 
 was chosen over William Dunning by a vote of 59 to 42. This was 
 doubtless a party vote and showed the Federalists to have a majority 
 of seventeen. 
 
 From 1798 down to the present, the Legislature has regularly met 
 at Albany, which became the permanent seat of government in that 
 year. For some time the question of the French Republic had been 
 growing as a political factor in this State. It seems strange that, in a 
 young country, the affairs of foreign nations should creep in and become 
 political issues. This party sympathized with the French Republic, 
 while the Federalists had formed a treaty with England and were for 
 England and against France in sentiment. These sentiments became 
 factors in the gubernatorial election of 1798, in which the Republicans 
 nominated Chancellor Livingston against John Jay. Governor Jay was 
 re-elected by a majority of 2,380 votes, but the general result of the 
 election showed that the Republican Party was gaining ground. 
 
 Several men, afterwards prominent in the Republican Party, made 
 their first appearance in public life in 1798; among them Erastus Root, 
 Archibald Mclntyre, Obadiah German and Jedediah Peck. 
 
 The years 1798 and 1799 were remarkable for political excitement, 
 not only in New York State bub throughout the Union. All the old 
 political fires of 1788 blazed out anew and the general government 
 added fuel to the flames by some of its measures. The friends of Presi- 
 dent Adams were openly charged with treasonable partiality for the 
 British government and with attempting to invest the national govern- 
 ment with powers far exceeding those conferred by the Constitution, 
 and they were further accused of endeavoring to subvert our free 
 institutions that they might establish what would be a limited monarchy 
 similar to that of Great Britain. 
 
 Ever since the adoption of the Constitution, in 1787, it had been 
 the habit of leading Federalists, in their daily conversation, to declare 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 43 
 
 their convictions that our democratic institutions could not endure for 
 any length of time. Hamilton had openly avowed his principles in the 
 convention in favor of a government which would have been in effect 
 a limited monarchy, and had stated that he only yielded to the preju- 
 dices of the public to allow them "to try the experiment of a republic." 
 It was known that John Jay had written a letter to Washington, dated 
 March 7, 1787, on the subject of the form of government which this 
 country should have. In that letter he said : "Shall we have a king? 
 Not in my opinion while other experiments remain untried." These 
 two men, Hamilton and Jay, leaders of the New York Federalists, had 
 designated the republic an experiment, and no doubt honestly believed 
 that, as no republic had been a success up to that time, the United 
 States would share the fate of its predecessors. 
 
 In the State of New York, Hamilton and Jay were the dispefisers 
 of all the patronage, both State and national, and they bestowed it, 
 almost exclusively, in favor of those who declared in favor of a strong 
 and energetic government, and this the Republicans naturally resented. 
 
 Then, under President Adams, were passed the Alien and Sedition 
 Laws, to which Republicans, not only in New York State but all over 
 the United States, strenuously objected. Upon the top of these came 
 the stamp duty, enacted by Congress, the very measure which had 
 caused this country to rebel against England, and the people became 
 alarmed for the safety of their republic. 
 
 To add to the excitement at this time, the result of the mission to 
 France of Pinckney, Gerry and Marshall became known in this country, 
 and it was learned that the French had endeavored to extort money 
 from the American people as the price of a treaty with the French 
 Republic. It seemed almost certain that a war would be precipitated 
 with that nation, but happily it did not come. 
 
 In addition to all these things. New York State was wrought up 
 over the Alien and Sedition Laws. When the Legislature of 1799 
 was in session, the celebrated resolutions of Mr. Madison, denouncing 
 these laws, were communicated to our Legislature. When the As- 
 sembly was in committee of the whole on these resolutions, Mr. King, a 
 Federalist, moved a resolution to the effect that the right of deciding 
 on the constitutionality of all laws belongs to the judiciary department 
 
44 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and that the assumption of that right by the individual States is unwar- 
 rantable and tends to destroy the independence of the general govern- 
 ment. This was Federalism in its purity, strange as it may seem at 
 this day. The resolution was strongly opposed by the Republicans, 
 but finally passed by a vote of 50 to 43. A similar resolution was 
 passed in the Senate, where there were only seven votes against it. 
 
 After the election of 1799, in which the Federalists carried the 
 State, they began to press upon the Republicans in an unwise and 
 unwarrantable manner and used the Sedition Law to aid their purposes. 
 General John Armstrong had written a petition to Congress for the 
 repeal of the Alien and Sedition Laws and had allowed the bitterness 
 of his feelings to appear in the document. Some copies of this petition 
 were sent to Judge Peck, of Otsego County, who circulated them among 
 his neighbors for signature. A Mr. Hamilton was then United States 
 District Attorney and he instituted an action against Judge Peck under 
 the Sedition Law and issued a bench warrant for the arrest of that 
 gentleman. Judge Peck was taken from Otsego County to the city 
 of New York, but, as there were no railroads in those days, his journey 
 was nothing but a public exhibition of a martyr suffering for the right 
 of petitioning the government ; suffering for the freedom of speech and 
 of the press. The news of this outrage, for it can be called by no other 
 name in these enlightened days, spread all over the State and seriously 
 injured the cause of the Federalists. 
 
 Both parties were now making preparations for the elections of 
 1800, both State and national, and Aaron Burr became very prominent 
 on the Republican side. By using, with great skill, the services of 
 Obadiah German and Judge Peck he carried the western district for the 
 Republicans, and to him, more than to any other man, is undoubtedly 
 due the success of the Republicans in that year. 
 
 A few days before the adjournment of the session of the Legisla- 
 ture of 1799, an act for "supplying the city of New York with pure 
 and wholesome water" was passed. The scheme for chartering this 
 company was formed and mainly executed- by Aaron Burr. It was, in 
 reality, a bill chartering the Manhattan Bank, and was so drawn as to 
 enable Burr and his Republican friends to get control of the majority 
 of the stock. Mr. Burr was placed at the head of the Republican ticket 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 45 
 
 in New York City, but the secret of the Manhattan company leaked out 
 and that city was lost to the Republicans. 
 
 General George Washington died December 14, 1799, and his death 
 was an irreparable loss to the Federalists as a party. While he was 
 President, and subsequently while he was known to be a Federalist, the 
 country retained a confidence that the party would not be allowed to 
 go to extreme measures in subverting the rights of the people, but with 
 his death that confidence vanished. He had been a magician to the 
 Federalists, by the mention of whose name they could conjure votes, 
 and they never again controlled the country, although they carried the 
 New York Legislature in the yeai* 1809. 
 
 The election in April, 1800, resulted in a complete triumph for the 
 Republican Party in the State and also in the nation, and brought about 
 the election of Thomas Jefferson as President, and Aaron Burr as Vice- 
 President of the United States. 
 
 This brings us to that contest upon which so many men have written 
 and in connection with which so many diverse opinions have been ex- 
 pressed regarding the conduct of Aaron Burr. It will be remembered 
 that when the presidential electors met and the votes were canvassed, 
 it was found that Jefferson and Burr had each received 73 votes. Mr. 
 Adams received 66 and Mr. Pinckney 64. While affairs were in this 
 condition, it is charged that Mr. Burr attempted, by intrigue, to be 
 elected President in preference to Mr. Jefferson, but it was also charged 
 that Mr. Jefferson purchased votes. The result was, as everybody 
 knows, that Mr. Jefferson was finally elected, after the balloting had 
 been continued for four days and four nights. Pages after pages have 
 been written over this event, and the majority of writers trace Burr's 
 political downfall to his conduct at that time. It is a debatable question 
 whether up to the present any man has lived in the United States who, 
 did he see a chance to be elected President, would not use any means 
 within the range of politics, high or low, to secure his election ; there- 
 fore, even if all that has been charged against Burr were true, he was 
 no worse than other men. But very little of all that was charged was 
 ever proved. It has been charged against that good and martyred man, 
 Garfield, that he obtained his nomination by subterfuge, yet it did not 
 yast his political prospects. 
 
46 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 If, at the time Burr was elected Vice-President, he had lost his 
 political standing, how was it that at a splendid dinner given by the 
 Republican Party in Albany in the year 1801, the first toast was the 
 President of the United States and the second was Aaron Burr ? How 
 was it that the Constitutional Convention, which met at Albany, Octo- 
 ber 13, 1 80 1, unanimously elected Burr its president? How was it that 
 William P. Van Ness, who engineered Burr's campaign, and was his 
 second in his duel with Hamilton, was afterwards made a Judge of 
 the United States Court? De Witt Clinton was dismissed from the 
 position of Mayor of the City of New York in political disgrace and 
 abandoned by his party, yet that party, inside of two years, turned about 
 and elected him Governor of the State. It is true that politics "makes 
 strange bed-fellows," and political enemies during one campaign are not 
 infrequently political friends during the next. 
 
 The Federalist Party began to wane with the close of the century. 
 It had lost its great head and leader, George Washington, but it had 
 lost more. It had not only forfeited the confidence of the people but 
 had incurred their anger. The leaders of the Federalist Party never 
 appreciated the intelligence of the masses, in fact they did not give the 
 masses credit for having any intelligence, and Hamilton took pleasure 
 in telling them that they were their own worst enemies. The pro- 
 English sentiments of the Federalists also assisted in diminishing the 
 power of that party and the doctrines of the Republicans were more 
 attractive to the rising generation than the exclusive theories of the 
 Federalists. In the spring election of 1801, ex-Governor Clinton was 
 once more elected Governor of the State of New York and a majority 
 of Republicans were elected members of Assembly. 
 
£ritf ^^^f~ ^ iw/,^-,,^ dM-.- Myr 
 
 MOAN L]E^¥IS. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From 1800 to 1810: The Constitutional Convention of 1801 — The 
 Strife between Aaron Burr and the Clintonian faction and the 
 Livingstons — The Downfall of Burr — ^the New York State 
 Bank and the Merchants Bank Company — Ascendancy of the 
 Republican Party — Regime of Governor Lewis — European Af- 
 fairs in American Politics — The Election of Governor Tomp- 
 kins — The Embargo on American Shipping. 
 
 In April, 1801, an act was passed in the Legislature providing for 
 a convention to amend the State Constitution, and in August following 
 the election of delegates took place. The tendency of this convention 
 was strongly Republican, the Federalists making a poor showing on 
 election day. Aaron Burr, William P. Van Ness, John V. Henry, De 
 Witt Clinton, Smith Thompson, and Daniel D. Tompkins were notable 
 members of this body. 
 
 On October 13, 1801, the delegates met at Albany and Aaron Burr 
 was unanimously elected president of the convention. 
 
 This convention was restricted to the determination of two questions 
 only. The first was to decide upon the number of Senators and mem- 
 bers of Assembly, the other was to get at "the true construction of the 
 23d Article of the Constitution." They readily agreed as to the limita- 
 tion of the numbers of the two Houses of the Legislature. Regarding 
 the second question, they were merely authorized to declare "the true 
 construction of the 23d Article of the Constitution," but not to alter the 
 terms of that article, or to abolish, or to make a new one to take its 
 place; that is, they were to interpret the intent of the convention of 
 1777. The convention decided that the Council possessed a concurrent 
 right of nomination with the Governor, only fourteen members voting 
 against this construction. John V. Henry voted with the minority and 
 
48 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 made an argument in favor of the exclusive right of the Governor to 
 nominate. De Witt Clinton, who appears to have been the leader of 
 the majority in the convention, lived long enough to regret that the 
 convention had not adopted the construction given to Article 23d by 
 his uncle, Governor George Clinton. Daniel D. Tompkins voted with 
 the minority, and twenty years afterwards was able to refer to his con- 
 duct on this occasion in terms of self-congratulation. The act of the 
 convention in nowise mitigated the trouble caused by the Council of 
 Appointment, the members of which seem to have been almost con- 
 tinually at issue with the Governor. 
 
 De Witt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer had produced a rupture 
 with Governor Jay at a meeting of the Council in the winter of 1801, 
 and during Governor Clinton's last term of office, and for many years 
 following, ruptures between the Council of Appointment and the Gov- 
 ernor were frequent. 
 
 The political control of the State of New York was transferred from 
 the Federalist to the Republican Party by the elections of April, 1800 
 and 1 80 1, and within the latter party began a struggle for supremacy 
 among three different factions. These were the respective followers 
 of Clinton, the Livingstons and Aaron Burr. A large majority of the 
 party were attached to Governor Clinton, but the Livingston family was 
 numerous in itself, possessed wealth, and therefore much power. Aaron 
 Burr had a small number of friends and admirers in New York City, 
 and supporters in almost every county in the State. His adherents were 
 strongly devoted to him and many of them were men of much political 
 tact, while all of his supporters were very active in his interests. 
 
 When the Council of Appointment met, in 1801, the followers of 
 Clinton and the Livingstons decided that Burr and his following should 
 not be considered members of the Republican Party, and that the great 
 offices of the State should be divided between the Clintons and the 
 Livingstons, or their friends. Then followed wholesale removals from 
 office, and, in many cases, able men were deposed to make room for 
 others much less competent. By this means, the Council made its power 
 and influence felt in almost every community in the State. The result 
 was the creation of a corps of electioneerers in every township in the 
 State, under the name of Justices of the Peace, and thus, judicial 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 49 
 
 officers, who should be removed entirely from party bias, were made 
 the most active partisans in the political arena. In all these appoint- 
 ments, the friends of Aaron Burr were entirely ignored. In New York 
 City the personal friends of Mr. Clinton were appointed, but, of the 
 great State offices, the Livingstons received the largest share. 
 
 Under the Constitution as amended, the Assembly was to consist 
 of one hundred members, and an apportionment was made by a law of 
 the session of 1802, which gave each county its share of representation 
 in that branch of the Legislature, in proportion to its population. 
 During this session also, Mr. Clinton introduced an amendment to the 
 United States Constitution, providing that each State should be divided 
 into districts, and that the people of each district should choose one 
 elector of President and Vice-President. The bill also provided that 
 the electors should designate on their ballots which candidate they voted 
 for, that is, for President and Vice-President. This bill became a law. 
 
 The spring election of 1802 was decidedly favorable to the Repub- 
 lican Party. In the Assembly, a large majority of Republijcan members 
 were returned and there was not a single Federalist chosen for Senator 
 that spring. 
 
 Immediately after the result of the election was known, the war 
 between the faction of Aaron Burr and the allied factions of the Clin- 
 tons and Livingstons broke forth with renewed energy and was carried 
 on with great bitterness on both sides. A daily paper called The 
 American Citizen had been established in New York and came under the 
 control and influence of De Witt Clinton. This paper attacked Aaron 
 Burr venomously, calling up his conduct of two years previous, when 
 there was a contest between him and Thomas JeiTerson for the Presi- 
 dency. Burr and his friends started The Morning Chronicle in opposi- 
 tion to The American Citizen, and carried the war into the camp of 
 the Clintons and Livingstons. These two papers kept alive the political 
 strife between the opposing factions and helped to direct the course of 
 events which was to result in political calamity to Burr. It would 
 appear that not only was the political strife and enmity of those days 
 exceedingly bitter, but even the leading men did not scruple to use the 
 most violent language toward their opponents. For instance, De Witt 
 Clinton, in a conversation relating to Colonel John Swartwout, a per- 
 
50 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 sonal friend of Aaron Burr, called him "a liar, a scoundrel and a 
 villain." This offensive language was reported to Colonel Swartv^rout 
 and a duel was the consequence. Five shots were exchanged, and when 
 Colonel Swartwout was twice wounded the surgeons interfered to stop 
 the fight. To this Mr. Clinton was perfectly agreeable, declaring that 
 he felt no personal enmity against Colonel Swartwout. This fact 
 indicates that intemperate language was a habit of the times and was 
 used without any special cause of aggravation. 
 
 About this time James Cheetham, who was editor of The American 
 Citi::cn, published a pamphlet entitled : "A View of the Political Con- 
 duct of Aaron Burr." Shortly afterwards a pamphlet was issued under 
 the signature of Aristides, which venomously attacked the public and 
 private character of nearly every distinguished man of the Republican 
 Party. Judge Livingston, and, indeed, the whole Livingston family, 
 was fiercely assailed in this pamphlet, and De Witt Clinton and Am- 
 brose Spencer were denounced with peculiar venom. William P. Van 
 Ness has always been credited with being the author of this pro- 
 duction. 
 
 The Clintons and Livingstons used all their efiforts to discredit 
 Burr and rob him of his political power, and when the Legislature con- 
 vened in January, 1803, it soon became apparent that a very large 
 majority of the members had been alienated from Burr. 
 
 On the i^th of March, 1803, a law was passed chartering the New 
 York State Bank. There were then but three banks north and west 
 of the city of New York, namely, the Bank of Columbia, the Farmers' 
 Bank, between Lansingburg and Troy, and the Bank of Albany. The 
 stock of these banks was principally owned by Federalists, and, when 
 the application was made for the charter for the New York State Bank, 
 a large majority of the petitioners claimed to be Republicans and asked 
 for a charter upon party grounds, asserting that the bank would be 
 a Republican bank. To the people of to-day that claim of a Republican 
 bank naturally induces a smile. Yet in what way does it differ from 
 Republican prosperity, in which so many good men believe more firmly 
 than they do in Genesis ? If Republican prosperity, why not Republican 
 money or a Republican bank ? 
 
 The April election of 1803 resulted in the complete triumph of the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 51 
 
 Republican Party, not only in New York State, but in almost every 
 State in the Union. 
 
 Through the influence of his enemies all political confidence was 
 withdrawn from Aaron Burr, both at Washington and in this State, 
 and his friends did not think it advisable to attempt to procure his 
 nomination for Vice-President at the approaching presidential election. 
 Governor Clinton was the man upon whom the party was desirous of 
 conferring that honor. He accepted the nomination and another man 
 had to be selected to run for Governor. 
 
 Burr and his friends did not admit defeat. The last annual election 
 had exhibited so large a Republican majority in the State that there 
 was not the slightest hope that the Federalists would elect a Governor. 
 The situation induced the Burrites, who believed that the Federalists 
 would cast their votes for him, to bring out their chief in opposition 
 to the regular Republican candidate. For a time his prospects seemed 
 to brighten. His Republican friends in New York, though not 
 numerous, were talented and worked actively in his interests, while in 
 almost every county in the State distinguished men of his party de- 
 clared themselves in his favor. Jonathan Fiske, George Gardner, 
 David M. Westcott and Peter Townsend, of Orange County ; General 
 Erastus Root, of Delaware, the bold and uncompromising Republican 
 of 1798 and a member of Congress, were openly his friends. John 
 Van Ness Yates, of Albany, Judge Annin, of the Senate, Oliver Phelps, 
 the great land speculator of Ontario County, and Peter B. Porter, also 
 supported him strongly. But his acceptance of the nomination forfeited 
 his standing as a Republican, because he thereby estranged himself 
 from a majority of the party. Yet, it did not make his political over- 
 throw any the more certain, for the Clintons and Livingstons were 
 determined to accomplish that. Their numbers exceeded his and, as 
 it is votes which bring victory in politics, his overthrow was inevitable. 
 
 The Clinton and Livingston wing of the Republican Party nomi- 
 nated Chancellor Lansing for Governor, who at first accepted, but soon 
 afterwards withdrew. Morgan Lewis was then nominated. He had 
 been Attorney-General under Governor Clinton, Justice of the Supreme 
 Court and Chief Justice, and, although an indifferent politician, was 
 acceptable to both the Clintons and Livingstons. Burr's hopes rested 
 
52 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 upon the activity of his RepubHcan friends. He beheved that the 
 FederaHsts would give him an unbroken vote, but Hamilton was his 
 foe, and many of the FederaHsts were influenced by him either to 
 vote for Lewis or not to vote at all, so that Burr did not receive the 
 united support of the Federalists. 
 
 The contest terminated in Mr. Lewis' favor, and he was elected 
 Governor over Burr by a majority approximating over 8,000. 
 
 This election was the beginning of the end of Burr's political 
 career. He was as ambitious as he was capable, and the loss, first of 
 the Presidency, and next of the Governorship, must have been gall and 
 wormwood to his aspiring spirit. He was now a political Ishmaelite, 
 and to Hamilton he laid the blame of having driven him into this 
 political desert. He doubtless nursed his wrath, and was not averse 
 to taking revenge upon the one foe who had been most specifically his 
 Nemesis. Hamilton had always allowed his tongue much license in 
 discussing Burr and, in one conversation during the election, he had 
 spoken of him in very objectionable terms. Burr demanded a re- 
 traction or satisfaction, and this led to the correspondence preceding 
 their duel, which is well known to every reader of history. Hamilton 
 endeavored once too often to be evasively diplomatic, and the result 
 was that they met upon the "field of honor," where Hamilton received 
 his death wound. 
 
 The slaying of Hamilton had vastly more to do with Burr's down- 
 fall than all the political charges which his enemies had brought against 
 him. As has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, the history 
 of politics affords striking instances of men less able than Burr, who 
 lost and regained political caste; and, had it not been for his unfor- 
 tunate duel, Burr might still have remained a useful, perhaps, honored 
 man in his State and country. His abilities must be acknowledged, 
 and the fact that he at times persisted in a middle course should not 
 have been to his detriment, since it showed a broad and charitable mind, 
 slow to go to extremes, except in the direst necessity. In those days, 
 not only was political strife very bitter, but men spoke rudely to and 
 of each other. A moderate man was likely to be called a trimmer. 
 Politicians did not care for the golden mean, and intrigue seems to have 
 been preferred to fair and open war. To the writings of men living 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 53 
 
 in that atmosphere we are mainly indebted for our pictures of Burr. 
 He killed Hamilton, and that great Federalist, by the manner of his 
 dying, became invested with a halo that still endures. Hamilton was 
 a brilliant man, and died a martyr to a custom that is now detested 
 and obsolete in this country. Burr unwittingly bestowed on Hamilton 
 the priceless boon of the undying pity and regard of posterity by mak- 
 ing a martyr of him. 
 
 But Burr is also dead, and charity "which thinketh no evil" demands 
 a juster judgment upon the conduct of this great man and the calam- 
 ities that fell like the bolts of Jove upon his head. His duel with 
 Hamilton ended the political career of both men, and reminds one 
 strongly of Tom Hood's poem on the duel between Mr. Nott and Mr. 
 Shott, in which Nott was shot and Shott was not. Had Hamilton 
 slain Burr, while his splendid abilities would always have been recog- 
 nized, he would unquestionably have been heralded in history as the 
 pro-English aristocrat who slew the greatest republican of his day. 
 
 The following comparison of Hamilton and Burr by Erastus Root 
 is valuable in this place : "I was acquainted with Burr, and, I thought, 
 well acquainted with him, when in the height of his power and fame. 
 I was two years with him in the Assembly, was in Congress when he 
 was President of the Senate, and have heard him in the Supreme Court 
 and Court of Errors. As a lawyer and as a scholar, he was not inferior 
 to Hamilton. His reasoning powers were at least equal. Their modes 
 of argument were very different. Hamilton was very diffuse and 
 wordy. His words were so well chosen, and his sentences so finely 
 formed into a swelling current, that the hearer would be captivated. 
 The listener would admire, if he was not convinced. Burr's arguments 
 were generally methodized and compact. I used to say of them, when 
 they were rivals at the bar, that Burr would say as much in half an 
 hour as Hamilton in two hours. Burr was terse and convincing, while 
 Hamilton was flowing and rapturous. They were much the greatest 
 men in this State, and perhaps the greatest men in the United States. 
 Burr was not distinguished for his morality, nor was Hamilton ever 
 dubbed professor of the moral law." 
 
 Through the death of General Hamilton and the retirement of Gov- 
 ernor Jay, the Federalist Party of New York State was left without 
 
54 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 any accepted leader. In the Assembly of 1805 there were less than 
 thirty members of that political party, but William Van Ness, a young 
 and talented lawyer, began to assume the prerogatives of leadership. 
 
 The presidential election of 1804 resulted in the re-election of 
 Thomas Jefferson for President and George Clinton for Vice-Presi- 
 dent. There were then 176 electoral votes, and 162 of these were 
 cast for Jefferson and Clinton. Pinckney, of South Carolina, and 
 King, of New York, received the other fourteen votes. These figures 
 indicate the prodigious strength acquired by the Republican Party 
 within the space of a few years. 
 
 In his first message to the Legislature Governor Lewis strongly 
 recommended that measures be taken to encourage education, and, in 
 pursuance of this recommendation a bill was prepared, which became 
 a law on the 2d of April, by which the net proceeds of the first 500,000 
 acres of land which should be sold should be appropriated as a perma- 
 nent fund for the support of common schools. The money was to be 
 loaned out on bond and mortgage by the Comptroller, and, when a 
 fund sufficient to produce an annual interest of $50,000 should be ob- 
 tained, the interest was to be distributed among the schools. This 
 may be said to have been the commencement of the school fund. 
 
 This year, 1805, the Merchants Bank Company, which had made 
 two previous efforts to obtain a charter, again applied to the Legisla- 
 ture for one, and a great deal of scandal grew out of the attempts 
 to bribe members of the Legislature by those interested in securing the 
 charter. A bill chartering the bank was finally passed by both Houses, 
 but, in the Council of Revision Judge Spencer strongly opposed it, and 
 published his reasons for his opposition. 
 
 Governor Lewis was in favor of incorporating the company, and 
 De Witt Clinton, nephew of old George Clinton, commenced a war upon 
 him, alleging as his reason that the Governor favored the company 
 from corrupt motives. There does not seem to have been any ground 
 for this charge. Two reasons for Clinton's course stand out strongly. 
 He did not think that Morgan Lewis was strong enough to stand at 
 the head of the Republican Party in the State ; indeed, it is doubtful if, 
 during his entire career, De Witt Clinton thought any man except him- 
 self capable of the leadership of the party to which he belonged. He 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 55 
 
 was certainly a strong man and, mentally, far superior to the Governor, 
 for whom he never seems to have had any particular liking. The 
 second reason for his course was personal ambition. Allied with the 
 Livingstons, he had secured the overthrow of Aaron Burr, and, now 
 that Burr was out of the way, he desired to overthrow the Livingstons 
 also. Governor Lewis was allied with the Livingstons, and the defeat 
 of the Governor would be the defeat of that wing of the party. 
 
 During the summer of 1805 Clinton and his friends worked assidu- 
 ously. They foresaw that if Lewis and the Livingstons were joined 
 by the Federalists, there might be grave doubts as to the success of an 
 attempt to defeat them. The Burrites still existed, although their 
 great chief was in disgrace; and Clinton began to make overtures to 
 them, in order to strengthen his own party. The result of these nego- 
 tiations was successful, and the Burrites united with the Clintons. It 
 was asserted five years later that Clinton secured the co-operation of 
 the Burrites through the promise of pecuniary aid, but there does not 
 seem to be any real proof of the truth of this allegation ; yet the state- 
 ment caused De Witt Clinton much trouble. 
 
 Governor Lewis does not appear to have been a man capable of 
 judging the public temper, and it would seem that there were times 
 when he would have acted wisely had he submitted his addresses to 
 an able secretary before delivering them. Both of these points were 
 illustrated in his speech to the Legislature in 1806, by which he drew 
 upon himself both censure and ridicule. In this speech he referred 
 to a recent act of his by which he had granted a reprieve to a man 
 who had murdered a child, because he considered the man's case merely 
 manslaughter. For this his opponents criticised him most severely. 
 During the Revolutionary War he had seen some service, and was fond 
 of military display. In another part of his speech he made suggestions 
 relating to the improvement of the militia ; he spoke of the importance 
 of martial music and said : "The drum is all important in the day of 
 battle," and this remark brought down upon him innumerable shafts 
 from the wits of that day. 
 
 In this same speech, however, he alluded to a matter which was 
 then assuming a serious phase in this country, namely, the difficulties 
 between the American government and the belligerents of Europe. He 
 
56 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 expressed an apprehension that a war with England or France, or per- 
 haps both of them, might become inevitable, and urged the necessity 
 of improving the defenses of the State. 
 
 In connection with this subject it will be remembered that during 
 their existence the Republicans had sympathized with the French, while 
 the Federalists were attracted by the English cause, and among the 
 charges made by the Republicans against the Federalists— the one that 
 caused the greatest popular odium to attach itself to the latter party — 
 was that they were not only favorable to the principles of the British, 
 but were, in fact, partial to that nation. The parties still held their 
 respective views regarding France and England, much to the detri- 
 ment of the Federalists. The reason why the Federalists came to be 
 pro-British in their sentiment is doubtless due to the fact that many 
 of the Tories of the Revolution had attached themselves to that party. 
 The Federalists, as a body, were doubtless as warmly attached to their 
 own country and its institutions as was any body of men, yet their 
 espousal of England, which country was still regarded as an enemy 
 by the great mass of people, was a colossal political error, and unques- 
 tionably aided greatly in the final dissolution of that party. 
 
 During the Assembly of 1806, an act was passed for the prevention 
 of bribery, by which any person who should promise, offer, or give 
 any member of either house of the Legislature or Council of Revision 
 any money with intent to influence his vote, should, on conviction, 
 be fined a sum not exceeding $1,000, or be imprisoned for a term 
 not exceeding two years. The bill also included the member accept- 
 ing any bribe. 
 
 While the business of the Legislature was going on, the war be- 
 tween De Witt Clinton and the Governor also progressed, and nearly 
 all of the newspapers of that day took one side or the other. The 
 Federalists for some time looked on with indifference, but finally 
 avowed their determination to support Governor Lewis. The conse- 
 quence was that at the election of members of the Legislature the ma- 
 jority of those returned were favorable to the Governor. - 
 
 Soon after the election the Lewisites, or Quids, as they were some- 
 times called, began in their turn to take advantage of the powers of 
 the Council of Appointment in order to avenge themselves upon the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 57 
 
 Clintonians. On the first day of the meeting of the Council, De Witt 
 Clinton was removed from the office of Mayor of New York, and Smith 
 Thompson, then a Judge of the Supreme Court, was named as his 
 successor. Judge Thompson, however, declined to accept the position, 
 and Colonel Marinus Willett was then appointed Mayor. Perry C. 
 Van Wyck was removed from the office of Recorder of New York, and 
 many other changes were made in that city. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which De Witt Clinton was re- 
 moved from the mayoralty of New York a majority of the members 
 of the Legislature met in caucus and nominated Daniel D. Tompkins 
 as their next candidate for Governor. Daniel D. Tompkins was at 
 that time a Circuit Judge, but was little known in the political arena. 
 John Broome was nominated for re-election as Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 Morgan Lewis seems to have been not only a poor politician, but 
 a weak man. At all events, he completely lost control of the party, 
 and even the Federalists, to whom he had now to look for that sup- 
 port which would re-elect him, looked upon him with distrust. Al- 
 though he controlled the patronage of the party, he was unable to make 
 any use of it. He feared to appoint Federalists to office, lest he should 
 be called a traitor to his own party. He was at war with the Clintonian 
 faction and often at variance with the Council of Appointment, and 
 his moves were made with a timidity which disgusted his friends. 
 It was not, therefore, surprising that Judge Tompkins was elected 
 Governor in the spring of 1807. 
 
 During the regime of Governor Tompkins the troubles of Euro- 
 pean nations not only continued to have an effect upon the politics of 
 New York State, as well as of other States, but became a more pro- • 
 nounced factor in political affairs. The war between France and other 
 European powers had produced a great demand for breadstuffs, and 
 this had raised the price of produce in this country. America occu- 
 pied a neutral position; all the waters of the globe were open to her 
 vessels, and her ships began to do much of the ocean trade of other 
 powers, particularly of France. England, being much stronger in 
 shipping than France, desired to compel the French to transport their 
 supplies in their own vessels, not only expecting to hamper the foe 
 in this way, but to capture many of their transports. While the 
 
58 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 United States did so much of the carrying trade for the French thie 
 aims of the English were largely frustrated, so it came that the English 
 government adopted orders in Council to check all intercourse between 
 America and France. This move struck France hard, and that country 
 adopted retaliatory measures providing for the seizure of all American 
 vessels which carried on trade with England. The American govern- 
 ment remonstrated against these orders and decrees, but without efifect. 
 President Jefferson had an idea that neither England nor France could 
 dispense with our produce, so he recommended an embargo upon all 
 American shipping until our neutral rights were acknowledged by 
 either one or both of the European belligerents. Congress adopted 
 the recommendation and passed a law in accordance therewith. This 
 embargo was at once felt very heavily in New York State. Shortly 
 after it came into effect the price of wheat fell from two dollars to 
 seventy-five cents a bushel, and this aroused the people and rendered 
 them very susceptible to the arguments of the Federalists. 
 
 The Federalists unanimously denounced the embargo as a policy 
 ruinous to the country, while the Republicans generally approved of it. 
 De Witt Clinton, however, at first was opposed to these restrictive 
 measures, but within a short time changed his views and renounced 
 his opposition to the embargo laws, for which he was loudly denounced 
 by the Federalists. 
 
 The second term of President Jefferson would expire on the third 
 of March, 1809, and another President was to be elected in December, 
 1808. It was the custom in that day to designate the candidate for 
 President by a Congressional caucus. Such a caucus was held, and 
 James Madison was nominated, George Clinton being named for re- 
 election as Vice-President. 
 
 The Livingstons, some leading Burrites, and Morgan Lewis, with 
 his following, came out in support of Mr. Madison, and, at the same 
 time, assailed De Witt Clinton because of his change of front on the 
 embargo law. There was quite a sentiment throughout the Republican 
 Party for giving the vote of the State to George Clinton for President. 
 This, however, was opposed, on the ground that it would excite un- 
 kind feelings among the Republican friends of Mr. Madison and prob- 
 ably hurt the party with Republicans of other States, and would do 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 59 
 
 Mr. Clinton no good, as it was morally certain that Mr. Madison would 
 be elected. Eventually, however, six of the electors of this State did 
 vote for Clinton for President. 
 
 The result of the vote for President was 122 for James Madison, 
 48 for Charles C. Pinckney and 6 for George Clinton. For Vice- 
 President, George Clinton received 113 votes; Rufus King, 48; John 
 Landon, 9; James Monroe, 3, and James Madison, 3. 
 
 De Witt Clinton about this time suffered great abuse from the 
 Martling men, as his opponents in New York City were called. They 
 abused him not only in the party council, but through the press, for 
 his action regarding the embargo laws. So heated did the controversy 
 become that Mr. Clinton introduced into the Senate a series of reso- 
 lutions approving of the general administration, and took advantage 
 at the sarhe time of the occasion to defend himself against the charge 
 of his enemies. Resolutions condemnatory of the embargo were also 
 introduced, but those of Mr. Clinton were adopted by both houses. 
 
 It would seem that the Federalists had, at that time, a splendid 
 opportunity to retrieve themselves and regain their lost prestige, for 
 they were opposed to embargo laws ; and the people, who were suffering 
 loss through these laws, were also opposed to them. But the Feder- 
 alists would persist that England was in no way to blame for the 
 embargo ; they laid all the blame on . France. This revived the old 
 feeling of 1798, if not of Revolutionary days, and the Federalists lost 
 their last opportunity to return to power. 
 
 Napoleon having stated that when the English government would 
 rescind its Order in Council respecting American trade, he would re- 
 voke his Berlin and Milan decrees, the English minister at Washing- 
 ton, Mr. Erskine, in April, 1809, entered into a treaty with the 
 American government that the Orders in Council should be repealed 
 on the tenth of June next. The Republicans of the nation considered 
 this a triumph for the American adm.inistration. The English govern- 
 ment, however, disavowed the authority of Mr. Erskine to make any 
 such agreement, and thereby confounded both the Republicans and the 
 Federalists. The Republicans thought that the policy of the adminis- 
 tration at Washington had coerced" the European powers, and the Fed- 
 eralists had during this time exonerated England from any responsi- 
 
6o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 bility in causing the embargo laws. Both were wrong, and their 
 disappointment increased a general bitterness toward England, with 
 whom war was only two years distant. 
 
 The Federalists controlled the Legislature of 1809-10, and their 
 Council of Appointment cleared out almost every Republican office- 
 holder, from judges to justices of the peace. But a change was coming. 
 
 Tompkins and Broome were renominated and re-elected; and a 
 peculiarity of this election was that Ex-Governor Morgan Lewis was 
 a candidate for the Legislature on the same ticket with Governor Tomp- 
 kins, who had defeated him three years previously. 
 
 The causes which led to the defeat of the Federalists in 1810 were, 
 first, their alleged sympathy for England, and, second, the fact that 
 Congress had changed the embargo for the non-intercourse system. 
 
Tfi<f y->''e.- S-fatiS H'.jf^~!J Co 
 
 ~i^ i!f £: d^ :i^//iBms £ 3ri7 .yyr 
 
 ) ANIEL D. TOMFKIM 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 6i 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 j8io to 1820: De Witt Clinton — His Aspirations to the Presidency 
 — Inland Navigation — The Erie and Champlain Canals — The 
 Bank of America — The War with England and New York's 
 Attitude Therein — Re-election of Governor Tompkins — Decay 
 of the Federalist Party — De Witt Clinton Elected Governor — 
 His First Term and Re-election. 
 
 De Witt Clinton had for some years been an active politician and 
 a prominent character in the Republican Party, and was destined to 
 become still more prominent. For nearly a score of years the political 
 battles of the State were waged around him, and some of them on 
 his account. There was no movement during this period in which 
 he was not concerned, and it is doubtful if any other man has done as 
 much for New York State as he did. 
 
 In August, 1811, Lieutenant-Governor Broome died, and De Witt 
 Clinton was elected to fill his place, John Taylor acting as Lieutenant- 
 Governor in the interim. But Clinton did not secure the position with- 
 out a contest. The Martling men, who were his inveterate and un- 
 tiring foes, renewed their assaults upon him, not only holding meet- 
 ings to denounce him, but going so far as to break up meetings fa- 
 vorable to him. He and President Madison had always been op- 
 posed to each other, and the Republicans who opposed Clinton felt 
 sure of the President's approval. No historian seems to have been 
 able to satisfy himself why Clinton should have accepted the nomina- 
 tion at all, and there is little doubt that, even at that time, he was 
 contemplating a contest for the Presidency, and this position would 
 confer no political power. The Federalists nominated Nicholas Fish as 
 their candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, but, although the Martling men 
 in New York City gave him their support, De Witt Clinton was elected. 
 
62 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Almost immediately after his election to the office of Lieutenant- 
 Governor, Clinton's friends began to lay plans to have him nominated 
 for President. With all his brilliancy and ability, he never laid any 
 plans regarding his own future. It seemed an auspicious time to bring 
 out his name for President, as the country was dissatisfied with the 
 dilatoriness of President Madison in dealing with the English. That 
 nation had claimed the right of searching American merchant vessels 
 for British subjects to impress them into the British service, and some 
 of the President's warmest friends became very impatient with him 
 because he did not vigorously resent this. It is said that Henry Clay 
 threatened to abandon him unless he resorted to more decisive measures 
 Avith the English. 
 
 On the eighth of April, 1811, the Legislature passed an act ap- 
 pointing a commission, of which De Witt Clinton was one, to take 
 into consideration all matters relating to inland navigation. These 
 commissioners were authorized to make application to Congress, or to 
 any State or territory, and to invite them to co-operate with New York 
 in the project of improving the navigation between the Hudson River 
 and the great western lakes, and to raise money from individuals or 
 corporations for that purpose. This was the commencement of the 
 canal policy in New York, with which De Witt Clinton was so inti- 
 mately connected, and for which he did so much. Under the provisions 
 of the act just mentioned, Clinton and Gouverneur Morris went to 
 Washington in December, 181 1, to obtain from the United States a 
 grant of land in aid of the prosecution of the canal scheme. Their 
 mission was absolutely unsuccessful, and, to make it worse, Clinton's 
 enemies accused him of going to Washington for the sole purpose of 
 furthering his own cajididacy for the Presidency. Indeed, the idea 
 of connecting Buffalo and Albany by a canal was ridiculed as the most 
 chimerical of schemes. 
 
 About this time another great factor entered into the politics of 
 New York State, and had a direct bearing upon the presidential aspira- 
 tipns of Mr. Clinton. A number of New York capitalists wished to 
 incorporate the Bank of America, with a capital of $6,000,000. Gov- 
 ernor Tompkins was in favor of granting the charter ; De Witt Clin- 
 ton took no active part in the controversy, but was opposed to the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 63 
 
 charter. The friends of the bank in the Legislature professed to be 
 in favor of the nomination of De Witt CHnton for President. The 
 nominee was usually selected by a Legislative caucus, but these friends, 
 refused to hold a caucus until the question of the charter was disposed 
 of. Also, the members of Congress had put off holding their caucus 
 until an tuiusually late date, yet both the members of Congress and. 
 the Republicans in the Assembly professed to be very anxious for Mr. 
 Clinton's nomination. When things were in this condition the report 
 was spread that the promoters of the bank were bribing members of 
 the Legislature. Seizing upon this as a pretext. Governor Tompkins 
 prorogued the Legislature, thus preventing action on the charter and 
 consequently delaying the caucus. This action caused tremendous ex- 
 citement, it being held that he was exercising the prerogatives of a 
 monarch. Although the Constitution of 1777 gave him the power, it 
 had long been disregarded. The Legislature met again on May 21, 
 1812, and the bill granting a charter to the Bank of America was 
 finally passed by a vote of seventeen to thirteen. 
 
 De Witt Clinton continued his fight for the Presidency and control 
 of all the Republican electors from New York State. Some of his 
 best friends tried to dissuade him from the attempt, which could not 
 possibly result successfully; but he persisted, and his campaign may 
 be said to have been managed by Martin Van Buren, then a young 
 man just making his appearance in public life. However, when the 
 electoral votes were counted in Washington, Madison received 128 and 
 Clinton 89. He did not get a vote south of the Potomac. 
 
 During the year 181 1 an important change was made by the Re- 
 publicans in their mode of selecting candidates for the Senate. Before 
 that time the members of the Assembly from each senatorial district 
 met in a caucus and decided, by a majority vote, upon a candidate. 
 Instead of this mode of nomination, delegates were thereafter to be 
 chosen at a meeting of county delegates, such delegates being chosen 
 by the people at primary meetings. This was the commencement of 
 the present system of selecting representatives of all kinds. 
 
 On June 20, 18 12, Congress declared war against Great Britain, 
 but very few of the Republicans from New York State voted for the 
 measure. Considering their attitude up to that time, we would ex- 
 
64 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 pect to find them ardent advocates of war ; yet, they did not oppose the 
 measure because they were opposed to war, but because they thought 
 the country unprepared for it. Most of the New York members who 
 voted against war were CHntonians. In the Senate Mr. Gorman, who 
 was understood to represent De Witt Clinton, not only voted but spoke 
 against the war. 
 
 In New York State the party opposed to the war was now com- 
 posed of two strangely mated factions, the Federalists and the CHn- 
 tonians, the former declaring that we had more cause to fight France 
 than England, and the latter maintaining that the country was in no 
 condition to assume a belligerent attitude. The large majority of the 
 Republican Party, however, approved of the war at that time. 
 
 On April 20, 18 12, George Clinton, the venerable Vice-President, 
 died. He was the youngest son of Charles Clinton, and was born in 
 Ulster County, N. Y., July 26, 1739. He was carefully educated, and 
 early showed his enterprising character by sailing in a privateer in the 
 French War, and afterwards joining the militia, with which he took 
 part in the expedition against Fort Frontenac. He practiced law in 
 his native county until 1786, when he was elected to the Assembly. 
 He was elected to Congress in 1775, voted for the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, was appointed brigadier general of the United States in 
 1777, and in the same year was chosen both Governor and Lieutenant- 
 Governor of the State, and held the office of Governor for eighteen 
 successive years. He rendered important services throughout the war, 
 and it was largely due to his counsels that communication was pre- 
 vented between the British in Canada and in the city of New York. 
 In 1788 he presided over the convention at Poughkeepsie to consider 
 the Federal Constitution, the adoption of which he opposed, not deem- 
 ing it sufficiently decided in favor of the sovereignity of each State. 
 When Washington was elected President, in 1792, Clinton received 
 50 electoral votes for Vice-President. In 1801 he was again elected 
 Governor of New York, and in 1804 Vice-President of the United 
 States, receiving the same number of votes as Jefiferson received for 
 the Presidency. He opposed Madison for the Presidency in 1808, and 
 received 6 electoral votes, but was continued in the office of Vice-Presi- 
 dent by 113 electoral votes, in which office he died. By his casting 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 65 
 
 vote in the Senate, January 24, 181 1, the recharter of the National 
 Bank was refused, he thinking it inexpedient rather than uncon- 
 stitutional. 
 
 On January 28, 1813, Robert R. Livingston, late Chancellor, died 
 in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and with his death passed the in- 
 fluence of the Livingston party in the politics of the State. By his 
 death the Livingston family was deprived of its head, and Brockholst 
 Livingston being Associate Judge of the United States Supreme Court, 
 the party had no political leader. Chancellor Livingston will ever be 
 remembered as an able politician and an upright judge, also as the 
 man who encouraged and gave financial support to Fulton when he was 
 endeavoring to apply steam power to navigation. 
 
 A Legislative caucus was held in February, 18 13, to nominate a 
 Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. Although De Witt Clinton had 
 accepted the position of Lieutenant-Governor under Governor Tomp- 
 kins, they had drifted apart, and were pulling in opposite directions 
 politically. Clinton held it against Tompkins that he did not support 
 him in his contest for the Presidency, and he now opposed Tompkins' 
 re-election as Governor. The state of political affairs in the Republican 
 Party during that period was very much mixed, and men who were 
 allies one year were political enemies the next. Judge Spencer, who 
 had formerly been a friend of Clinton, was now opposed to him, and 
 Martin Van Buren, who did all he could to help Clinton in his presi- 
 dential fight, now supported Tompkins for Governor, and rightly so, 
 for he stood by the decision of the party caucus. He was, however, 
 accused of unfaithfulness to Clinton for pursuing this course. Like 
 many a politician since, Clinton sometimes felt himself greater than 
 his party, but there is no instance where that assumption has not 
 brought trouble to the over-weening statesman. 
 
 The Federalists nominated Stephen Van Rensselaer for Governor 
 and George Huntington for Lieutenant-Governor, against Tompkins 
 and Taylor. The Federalist candidates received the support of the 
 Clintonians, and confidently expected to carry the election, but, to the 
 surprise of both parties, Tompkins and Taylor were victorious. 
 
 Immediately after the election the Council of Appointment began 
 to oust the Clintons. The political records of those early days show 
 
66 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 that the Council of Appointment made poHtical offices as uncertain as 
 the proverbial flea, which now you have, and now you haven't. It 
 was not a question of going into office with the party and going out 
 with it; the Republicans ruled all these years except one, but, if an 
 office-holder incurred the displeasure of a member of the Council, off 
 went his head. As soon as one faction controlled the Council, out of 
 office went all who did not belong to that faction. In a year or so 
 another faction prevailed, and out went all office-holders again. Their 
 doctrine was "To the victor belongs the spoils." 
 
 It is doubtful if many citizens in this State to-day would know 
 who Daniel D. Tompkins was if his name was mentioned to them, 
 yet he was one of the best Governors in the history of this State, and 
 during his regime the State of New York may truthfully be said to 
 have saved the honor, if not the very existence, of the Union. Some 
 time after the commencement of the War of 1812 the national govern- 
 ment became embarrassed for want of funds to carry it on. They 
 found it difficult to collect the revenue in gold or to negotiate their 
 stock for gold. There was no national paper currency. The first 
 United States Bank had ceased to exist ; England controlled the money 
 market of the world, and it was England with whom we were at war. 
 The national government was therefore forced to defray its expenses 
 by borrowing money from the chartered banks of the different States, 
 and by issuing treasury notes.- But the banks of Boston, and indeed 
 the whole of New England, were almost entirely controlled by the 
 Federalists, who opposed the war and refused to lend a single dollar 
 to the government, or to do anything which might give credit or cur- 
 rency to the treasury notes. Under these circumstances it was inevit- 
 able that all the specie in the United States would flow into the New 
 England banks, unless the banks of the other States suspended specie 
 payments, and this they did. The consequence was that the paper of 
 the banks in New York and the States south and west of it began at 
 once to depreciate. 
 
 To remedy this state of affairs the Republicans of New York under- 
 took to help out the national government, and a resolution was intro- 
 duced into the Senate, and strongly supported by Van Buren, General 
 Root and Morgan Lewis, proposing that the State should loan the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 67 
 
 national government half a million dollars to enable it to sustain its 
 credit and meet its expenses. At this time the Federalists had a ma- 
 jority in the Assembly, while the Republicans had control of the Senate. 
 When the bill was sent to the Assembly it was rejected. 
 
 The Governor's speech in 1814 was chiefly confined to details of 
 the events of the war. This State presented a frontier of great extent, 
 which lay almost unprotected against attacks from the enemy on its 
 southern, northern and western borders. This rendered the duties and 
 responsibilities of the Governor very laborious, but he proved himself 
 equal to all emergencies. 
 
 The whole of New England had become Federalist, and the Fed- 
 eralists had all the time been opposed to the war. Moreover, the 
 Federalists of New England were of the most extreme kind in their 
 doctrines. Hammond, the historian, who lived in that day, says : "It 
 was apprehended that they were determined either to change the ad- 
 ministration or to secede from the Union and form a separate peace 
 with Great Britain. This, however, they would hardly have the 
 temerity to do, if New York continued to support the national adminis- 
 tration. But if New York joined them, or even became opposed to the 
 further prosecution of the war, the financial affairs of the nation would 
 become so straitened and embarrassed as would have compelled either 
 a change of administration or the submission of the United States to 
 a disgraceful peace." 
 
 During the contest for Governor just recorded the eyes of the 
 nation were turned expectantly toward New York State to see whether 
 the Federalists or the Republicans would secure control ; and it is said 
 that the election of Tompkins was hailed by Madison and his Cabinet 
 with uaspeakable exultation. It is not too much to say that this success 
 was mainly owing to the personal popularity of Governor Tompkins ; 
 and, moreover, that the stand taken by New York State had a great 
 influence over the actions of New England and of New Jersey, which 
 were fast developing Federalist sentiments. 
 
 An instance is recorded of Governor Tompkins which proves that 
 he was one of the grandest patriots this country has ever produced. 
 He was comparatively a poor man. Money was 'required to carry on 
 the war. The banks would not loan their money without better security 
 
68 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 than the stock or treasury notes of the United States. The banks, 
 however, stated that if the treasury notes were endorsed by Governor 
 Tompkins they would advance four or five hundred thousand dollars, 
 to be expended in erecting defenses for the Port of New York. Rufus 
 King called upon the Governor and laid this fact before him. Governor 
 Tompkins refused to act except upon his own responsibility, which he 
 said he would do and be ruined. He endorsed the notes and the money 
 was advanced by the banks. 
 
 De Witt Clinton, at the same time, was doing everything in his 
 power to assist the State and nation, although he was at variance with 
 both Governor Tompkins and President Madison. He raised men and 
 money for the defense of New York, and proved by his actions during 
 these trying days that he was as good a patriot as any, notwithstanding 
 the fact that he was denounced by his enemies as a mere politician. 
 
 The April election of 1814 resulted in a Republican victory through- 
 out the State. The city of New York elected Republican members of 
 Assembly, and several of the up-State counties changed from Federalist 
 to Republican, so that the Republicans had now a majority in the 
 Assembly, as well as in the Senate. In August, 1814, a small force 
 of British sailed up the Chesapeake and landed troops, drove off a few 
 regiments of raw militia, marched into Washington, destroyed some 
 of the stores at the Navy Yard, set fire to the President's house and 
 blew up the Capitol. This had the effect of stirring up even the Fed- 
 eralists of New York State. Meetings of all parties were held and 
 resolutions to support the Governor were adopted. De Witt Clinton, 
 who was then Mayor of New York, by his public addresses and in- 
 fluence with the city corporation, did much towards keeping up the 
 spirit of patriotism and the support of the national government. The 
 citizens organized themselves into military corps and agreed to attend 
 at regular hours for drilling. 
 
 The Legislature, which was now Republican in both branches, took 
 vigorous measures to put the State in an attitude of defense against the 
 enemy and to aid the war measures of the national government. They 
 increased the pay of the militia and passed an act to encourage priva- 
 teering by organizing associations for that purpose, and provided for 
 the raising of additional troops. A law was also passed for raising 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 69 
 
 two regiments of colored men for three years, among whom slaves 
 might be enlisted, with the consent of their masters, and who were to 
 receive their liberty on being honorably discharged. Nearly all of 
 these enactments were opposed by the Federalists in both branches of 
 the Legislature. 
 
 After the close of the war the Federalist Party rapidly declined. 
 The United States had emerged from the contest with military credit, 
 and a natural reaction set in against the Federalists, who had all along 
 been opposed to the national administration, both because of the war 
 and the way the war was conducted. Also they were, not without 
 cause, suspected with being in league with the New England StateS» 
 in relation to the call of the famous Hartford Convention. What the 
 objects of the convention were was never definitely known, because of 
 the close of the war. Its object was suspected to be treasonable, and 
 the fact that nothing ever became of it would indicate that the cause 
 for which it had been called had ceased to exist as soon as peace was 
 declared. The matter was largely discussed in that day, one party 
 claiming that the object was, if possible, to effect a reform in the ad- 
 ministration of the government ; another party insisting that the object 
 of the convention was treasonable, and that New England meant to 
 secede from the Union and to negotiate a separate peace with Great 
 Britain. 
 
 On September 27, 1814, a committee of the Federalist members of 
 the New York Legislature issued a circular calling for delegates to 
 a convention to be held at Albany on the fifth of October following. 
 These delegates were to take action against certain violent projects 
 which the Republican majority was said to have in contemplation. As 
 no election was near, the inference was drawn that the object of this 
 Albany meeting was to send delegates to the Hartford Convention, and 
 the Federalist cause suffered greatly from this belief. 
 
 Immediately after the close of the war the party in power in New 
 York State felt themselves able to distribute the public patronage to 
 suit themselves. The result was another season of wholesale removals, 
 which included several prominent men, among whom was De Witt 
 Clinton. He was removed from the position of Mayor of New York 
 City. It does not appear that Governor Tompkins desired to remove 
 
70 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Mr. Clinton, but that he was finally compelled to do so in order to 
 placate the Tammanyites. 
 
 At that time De Witt Clinton's political prospects were at the lowest 
 ebb. He was ruled out of the Republican Party, and the Federalist 
 Party had become so weakened that it was very improbable he would 
 ever again hold any power in the State, even if the latter party would 
 accept him as a leader and he would ally himself with it. The 
 party of the Federalists had existed because they made foreign issues 
 a prominent part of their policy. But in this they had gone to such 
 extremes that they would never again hold any power in the State. 
 They now found themselves, along with their policy, outside of Ameri- 
 can sympathy. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of note that the national administration under 
 the Virginia dynasty entertained a jealousy of the leading Republicans 
 of New York State. They seemed to feel that the rapidly increasing 
 popularity and political strength of this State were causes for grievance, 
 so the policy at Washington was to prevent any man from gaining 
 or retaining the leadership of the Republican Party of New York. In 
 order to discourage majority leaders the favoritism of the national 
 government was extended to the minority in the State, so they made 
 William P. Van Ness a Judge of the Supreme Court, while they sus- 
 tained the Martling men (Tammanyites) in their war upon Clinton. 
 Governor Tompkins secretly encouraged the general government in 
 this course of procedure, but, now that he had become the strongest 
 Republican in the State, he found the same policy exerted against 
 himself. 
 
 For some time President Madison had been figuring on the election 
 of James Monroe as the next President. Governor Tompkins had also, 
 for some time, been thinking of placing himself in the presidential 
 chair. At thai time the selection of the presidential candidate was 
 made by a caucus of the Republican members of Congress. When the 
 members from New York State arrived at Washington it was found 
 that they were almost a unit for Governor Tompkins. It became 
 speedily apparent, however, that his nomination could not be secured. 
 The southern Republicans were all against him, claiming that he would 
 be a weak candidate, as he had not achieved any national reputation 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 71 
 
 in a national office. Every member south of the Potomac was against 
 him, while not a few of those from northern States were for Monroe. 
 
 It should be mentioned that during the year 1814 the Legislature 
 of New York, which was Republican, interested itself to a notable ex- 
 tent in the cause of education and educational institutions. A bill was 
 passed granting the sum of $200,000 to Union College, and providing 
 that the sum should be raised by lotteries. The same bill also pro- 
 vided for small donations to Columbia College, to Hamilton College, 
 to the Historical Society, to the College of Physicians and Surgeons 
 of the Western District of New York, and to the Medical College of 
 New York. A law was also passed for the betterment of the common 
 school system. This law re-enacted in improved form the statute 
 of 1812 and added some new and important regulations, among 
 which was the power conferred upon trustees to exempt poor persons 
 from paying for the tuition of their children. But the care of the 
 Republican Party to advance the condition of the people, as well as 
 of the State, had always been a noticeable and highly commendable 
 feature of the legislation and work of the party. To it the State owes 
 not only the enlargement of public school advantages and the estab- 
 lishment of the free school system in the State, but also the extension 
 of the franchise, in 1821, the building of the Erie and Champlain 
 canals, the abolition of slavery, in 1827, and the development of the 
 territory that has become the great Empire State, to say nothing of 
 its having sustained the credit and power of the country through the 
 troublous times of 18 12-14. 
 
 In 1815, after he had been deposed from the mayoralty of New 
 York, the political fortunes of De Witt Clinton were at their lowest 
 ebb, but he turned his fine mind to literary work, and forgot the loaves 
 and fishes of public life in the charms that literature unfolds to its 
 devotee. Yet he was not long to remain in ostracism. Governor Tomp- 
 kins, by his great popularity, and Martin Van Buren, through his con- 
 summate party management, acting together, had gained commanding 
 control of the Republican Party, and Judge Spencer, who had ambi- 
 tions of his own, desired to put a check upon the power of these men. 
 He did this in a manner the most efliective, while the most unexpected. 
 He had not only been opposed to De Witt Clinton for some time, but 
 
7^ THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 had denounced him so strongly that, although his wife was Clinton's 
 sister, the men were not upon speaking terms. Now, in looking about 
 for a man to wrest the power from Tompkins and Van Buren, he could 
 see but one man, and that was Clinton. He became reconciled to 
 Clinton, and then undertook to convert back to Clinton the very men 
 he had helped to turn against him. It is surprising that he should 
 have succeeded in this task, but he did. An event occurred just before 
 the meeting of the Legislature, in 1816, which aided in restoring Clin- 
 ton's prestige. A great meeting was held in New York, where resolu- 
 tions were adopted in favor of constructing the Erie and Champlain 
 canals, and an able memorial was drawn up by Clinton, in the name 
 of the meeting, to be presented to the Legislature. This brought him 
 directly in contact with the Legislature at Albany, and so consum- 
 mately did he handle the canal question that, although the Legislature 
 passed "An act to provide for the improvement of the internal naviga- 
 tion of the State," the whole scheme was considered Clinton's by the 
 public at large, and he was given the entire credit for the project. 
 Stephen Van Rensselaer, Samuel Young, Joseph Ellicott, Michael 
 Holley and De Witt Clinton were appointed canal commissioners, and 
 thus the last named was again a notable figure in the political arena. 
 
 Before the adjournment of the Legislature in 1816 the Federalists 
 nominated Rufus King for Governor and George Tibbets for Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor. The Republican Party, at a Legislative caucus, nom- 
 inated Governor Tompkins and Lieutenant-Governor Taylor, and they 
 were elected, while the Republican Party had a strong majority in both 
 Llouses. 
 
 A presidential election would take place in the fall of 18 16, and 
 Governor Tompkins had been nominated for Vice-President, with 
 James Monroe for President. If these gentlemen should be elected the 
 office of Governor of New York State would become vacant on the 
 fourth of March, 181 7. The friends of De Witt Clinton at once be- 
 came active to procure his nomination by the Republican Party for 
 that office. The friends of the canal were strongly in his favor, and 
 this brought to him almost the entire support of the western part of 
 the State. Martin Van Buren was opposed to Clinton, yet he did not 
 seem to think that the latter was very strong. Governor Tompkins, 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 73 
 
 however, in his speech to the Legislature made no mention whatever 
 of the canal, the greatest project then before the State and the question 
 upon which Chnton was the strongest. 
 
 Monroe and Tompkins were elected President and Vice-President 
 of the United States over Rufus King, of New York, and John E. 
 Howard, of Maryland, Federalists, by a vote of 183 against 34 for 
 King, and 22 for Howard. 
 
 Before resigning from the office of Governor, Daniel D. Tompkins 
 sent a message to the Legislature on January 28, 1817, recommend- 
 ing the entire abolition of slavery in the State of New York, and nam- 
 ing July 4, 1827, as the day upon which such an act should go into 
 effect. The Legislature adopted the recommendation of the Governor 
 and passed the act. In connection with the great movement of abol- 
 ishing slavery in this State the names of Cadwallader D. Golden, Peter 
 A. Jay and William Jay should be mentioned in connection with that 
 of Daniel D. Tompkins. 
 
 Up to this time it had been the custom of the Republican Party 
 to select their candidate for Governor at a caucus of the Republican 
 members of the Legislature. The supporters of Clinton, desiring to 
 gain as much strength as possible, complained of this method, assert- 
 ing with full truth that the Republicans in counties which were repre- 
 sented by Federalists had no choice in the selection of a Governor. 
 They therefore proposed that delegates should be chosen in a county 
 convention, such convention being composed of delegates chosen at the 
 primary meetings of Republicans in the respective counties, that the 
 number of delegates thus chosen should be ec[ual to the number of mem- 
 bers of Assembly from the respective counties, and that the delegates 
 and members of Assembly should hold a joint caucus and nominate a 
 Governor. 
 
 This plan was carried out, much to the advantage of the Clin- 
 tonians, and at the meeting of the convention De Witt Clinton was 
 nominated over General Peter B. Porter, who was put forward by 
 Martin Van Buren. Van Buren and Tompkins worked assiduously to 
 prevent the election of Clinton, the former going so far as to advocate 
 the idea that no election for Governor was necessary, as Tompkins was 
 entitled, if he chose, to hold both the office of Vice-President and that 
 
74 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 of Governor, concurrently. This contention, it is believed, Tompkins 
 himself repudiated and so gave it its quietus. Clinton had the support 
 of the Federalists, who went so far as to state that if the Republicans 
 nominated a suitable man for Governor they would not place a caji- 
 didate in the field against him. Also, three members of the Council of 
 Appointment were favorable to Clinton, and office-holders generally 
 were therefore his friends, fearing to displease the Council. 
 
 Clinton and Taylor were elected, it may be said, unanimously, for 
 the only opposition to them was that exerted by the Tammany men, 
 who sent tickets into every county in the State with the name of Peter 
 B. Porter for Governor printed thereon. 
 
 Thus did this wonderful man, who in 1815 was friendless and in 
 the depths of political disfavor, become Governor of the State in 1817. 
 In the autumn of that year Governor Clinton issued a proclamation 
 recommending that Thursday, the 13th of November, be observed 
 throughout the State as a day of Thanksgiving, and that proclamation 
 established the usage of holding a thanksgiving day in November, 
 which has since been adhered to. Governor Jay, many years previous, 
 had attempted to establish this custom, but, after issuing one proclama- 
 tion, abandoned it because he was accused of endeavoring to enlist 
 religious prejudices in his favor. 
 
 During De Witt Clinton's first term as Governor, that faction of 
 the Republican Party known as Bucktails came into notice under that 
 name. They were really Tammanyites. One section or society of that 
 body, who adopted the practice on certain occasions of wearing in their 
 hats the tail of a deer, were from this custom dubbed Bucktails. The 
 name spread and eventually was applied to their friends and sup- 
 porters throughout the State. They were the uncompromising political 
 foes of Governor Clinton, and from them the party who opposed Clin- 
 ton's administration was known as the Bucktail Party. 
 
 No sooner had Clinton taken his seat as Governor than the Buck- 
 tails began to lay plans to curtail his power and make his first term his 
 last. Moreover, notwithstanding his unanimous election, there was a 
 feeling of antagonism to him throughout the Republican Party of the 
 State. In the Legislature he had more enemies than friends. The 
 policy which he pursued after his election was not calculated to 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 75 
 
 strengthen his hands. Possessed, as he was, of marvelous ability and 
 high ambition, he seems to have had a contempt, or at least an indif- 
 ference, for the little things which contribute to success. He would 
 decide that a certain result must be obtained ; for instance, he would run 
 for President, yet he would not take the trouble to organize, lay plans 
 and solidify his following. Even with the Bucktails doing all in their 
 power to weaken his political strength, and the crafty Van Buren 
 quietly undermining his foundations, he maintained an attitude of 
 indifference, even of austerity, toward men who were willing to be his 
 friends and whose support he needed. When he was elected Governor, 
 Judge Spencer, speaking for him, gave his solemn promise that he 
 would pursue a Republican course and discontinue all intercourse with 
 the Federalists, yet Clinton continued his friendship for the Federalists, 
 excusing himself upon the pretext that they approved of all Republican 
 measures and therefore were not a party. While he fraternized with 
 Judges Piatt and Van Ness, Federalists, he would not allow his friend- 
 ship to go the length of distributing patronage to their party, yet he 
 declined to affiliate with Van Buren. He seems to have endeavored to 
 hold the confidence of both parties, yet this course was the surest method 
 of weakening himself with both. By repelling Van Buren he naturally 
 made him leader of his Republican opponents and so contributed toward 
 a split in the party. 
 
 Van Buren, by a subtle move, in the beginning of the year 1818, 
 cast abroad a suspicion of the Clintonians and Clinton. The Legisla- 
 ture was to meet on January 5, of that year. Van Buren called a snap 
 caucus of the members on January 4 to decide upon a Speaker. The 
 caucus was packed with Bucktails, all of whom knew what was in- 
 tended, and the Clintonians who were present — for not all of the mem- 
 bers had arrived — went into the caucus not knowing what was in store 
 for them. The Bucktails proposed William Thompson, of Saratoga, 
 as Speaker, and naturally nominated him because they ran the caucus. 
 The Clintonians did all they could to prevent this nomination, but 
 failing therein, went out and bolted the caucus. This was just what 
 Van Buren wanted them to do, as they put themselves in the position 
 of seceding from the regular party and of men who would not keep 
 faith with the majority of the party. Obadiah German, a Clintonian, 
 
76 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 was finally elected Speaker after a hard fight, but this only made the 
 breach between the two parties the wider. 
 
 These were troublous times in the politics of New York State, and 
 a great deal has been said and written for and against both wings of 
 the party at that time, and also for and against Governor Clinton. His 
 opponents charged him with imagining himself the whole party, and 
 expecting not only the party approval of his acts, but the admiration 
 and even the homage of his friends. Others lavished upon him so 
 much fulsome praise that they disgusted some members of the party, 
 who came to be known, doubtless in derision, as "high-minded" men. 
 Notwithstanding all this, it is hard for an impartial historian at this 
 day to look upon Clinton as anything but a statesman and a patriot. 
 This view is supported not only by his conduct during the war of 
 1812-14, when he did everything possible for his State and country, 
 although opposed to the administration, but by his indefatigable efforts 
 for the protection of New York City, although his worst enemies were 
 fighting him in that city and, also, by his zeal for the internal im- 
 provement of the State, which nothing could abate. Moreover, during 
 the bitter political strifes which characterized his first term as Governor, 
 his speech to the Legislature in 1819 would indicate that there was not 
 a ripple upon the political waters, for the whole trend of the address 
 was the good of the State. He reviewed the canal policy and reminded 
 ■the Legislature that, by the act of April 15, 1817, the Canal Commis- 
 sioners were merely authorized to contract for constructing the canal 
 between the Mohawk and Seneca rivers and between Lake Champlain 
 and the Hudson at Fort Edward, and he strongly urged that the Legis- 
 lature authorize the commissioners, by law, to open the entire line of 
 canal navigation from Lake Erie to the tide-waters of the Hudson, and 
 from Fort Edward to the head of sloop navigation on that river. So 
 we say that, judged by his public acts, it is impossible at this day 
 for any right-minded man to understand how any man who had 
 the interests of his State at heart at that day could have opposed 
 him. 
 
 During Governor Clinton's first term of office an attempt was made 
 to abolish the abominable Council of Appointment. In the session of 
 1818 Mr. Edwards, one of the members from New York City, intro- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK TJ 
 
 duced a bill in the Assembly, calling for a State convention to consider 
 such parts of the Constitution as related to the appointment of officers. 
 The object of the bill was to abolish the Council of Appointment and 
 devise some other and better means of filling offices. The bill, however, 
 failed to pass. Governor Clinton did not favor it, but in his speech at 
 the opening of the session, in 1820, he recommended the call of a con- 
 vention with powers to abolish the Council. A bill was brought in 
 and discussed but, like its predecessor, failed to pass. 
 
 In the summer of 1818, Joseph Ellicott resigned his office of Canal 
 Commissioner and Governor Clinton appointed Senator Hart in his 
 stead. It was necessary, however, for the Legislature to ratify this 
 appointment, and the Bucktails brought forward Henry Seymour 
 against him. Upon a joint ballot of the Senate and Assembly, Mr. 
 Seymour was chosen by a majority of one vote. This appointment, 
 which ordinarily would not be considered of any great consequence, 
 was at that juncture a matter of vital interest to both the Clintonians 
 and the Bucktails. The appointment of Seymour gave the Bucktails 
 a majority in the Board of Canal Commissioners and so threw into 
 their hands a vast amount of patronage, which soon came to be felt 
 along the whole line of country from Albany to Lake Champlain on 
 the north, and to Lake Erie on the west. Moreover, the great scheme 
 for controlling the canals, which had been the pride of Governor Clin- 
 ton, was thereafter used as a means for his political annoyance and 
 undoing, instead of being a help to him, and to this appointment can 
 be traced the first weakening of the Clintonian Party. 
 
 The Bucktails at first opposed Clinton on the ground of his internal 
 improvement policy, but, seeing that this course would lose them the 
 vote of the western part of the State, they gradually changed front and 
 supported him not only in this, but in almost every detail of his policy. 
 They opposed him, however, as a political leader, and were unremitting 
 in their efforts to accomplish his overthrow. It was a strange condition 
 of affairs, yet not new to Governor Clinton. He had seen its like before 
 when he had assumed the same attitude toward Governor Lewis, of 
 whose policy he approved, yet whom he antagonized to his overthrow. 
 
 In the election of 1819 the Bucktail Party made a gain in the State, 
 but not sufficient to acquire control of the Legislature, where the Clin- 
 
78 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tonians could count upon enough Federalists to give them a working 
 majority. 
 
 During the year 1819 a controversy arose between the Comptroller, 
 Archibald Mclntype, and Daniel D. Tompkins, the Vice-President of 
 the United States, over the settlement of an account between the Vice- 
 President and the State. When Tompkins was Governor of the State 
 and during the war with England, he had done a great deal of finan- 
 ciering for the United States, which had placed at his disposal several 
 millions of dollars to be expended under his direction. The Governor's 
 accounts had not been kept as systematically as they ought to have been, 
 doubtless owing to the excitement of the times and the unsettled con- 
 dition of affairs, and when the books came to be audited he was brought 
 in debtor to the State to the amount of $120,000. No one would 
 think of accusing him of peculation, so both Houses of the Legislature 
 passed a resolution allowing him a commission sufficient to wipe out the 
 indebtedness shown. The Comptroller refused to balance the account 
 in this way, claiming that under the bill passed by the Legislature, 
 Tompkins could clairri from the State twice the amount of his indebt- 
 edness. Besides, if anyone owed him money, it was the United States 
 and not the State of New York. There was a long and tedious dis- 
 cussion of the question, which was carried so far that both Tompkins 
 and the Comptroller issued written statements of their side of the case, 
 and had these statements scattered broadcast over the State. The mat- 
 ter was not settled until November, 1820, when Mr. Tompkins sent a 
 release to the Legislature of all claims against the State, and a bill was 
 passed in both Houses declaring the acceptance of the release. It does 
 not appear that any one ever doubted the Governor's integrity, and no 
 such doubt was ever expressed, unless his defeat for Governor by 
 Clinton, in 1820, may be so construed. 
 
 On January 18, 1820, a legislative caucus of Republican members 
 opposed the re-election of Governor Clinton and nominated Daniel D. 
 Tompkins for Governor and General Benjamin Mooers of Pittsburgh 
 for Lieutenant-Governor. Clinton's friends were in the minority in the 
 Assembly, so they called no caucus but nominated him at a meeting of 
 citizens held in Albany. John Taylor was nominated for Lieutenant- 
 Governor at the same time. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 79 
 
 The sole and only ground upon which Van Buren and the Bucktails 
 opposed Clinton was that he claimed there was no Federalist Party, 
 while they asserted there was and that Clinton was favorable to it. 
 Otherwise they were in accord with him on his entire policy. 
 
 The result of the election was very close, but Clinton was returned 
 by a majority of 1,457. His opponents, however, secured a majority 
 in the Legislature. 
 
8o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Bucktail Party — Federal Interference in State Elections — Con- 
 flict of the Senate with Governor Clinton — The Constitutional 
 Convention of 182 1— Prominent Members Thereof — 'What the 
 Convention Did— Joseph C. Yates Elected Governor — Party 
 Split over Presidential Candidates — Rise of the People's Party 
 — Attempt to have Presidential Electors Chosen by the People — 
 1820-1823. 
 
 The Republican Party of the State was now distinctly divided into 
 two opposing wings, namely, the Clintonians and Bucktails. The 
 latter claimed to be the regular organization and was at that time so 
 considered, while the Clintonians were simply what their name implied 
 — the followers of the Governor, De Witt Clinton. The Bucktails 
 maintained that Clinton was himself the party which bore his name; 
 but it must be conceded that, even if this statement were admitted, this 
 one-man -party did more for the State of New York than the Bucktails 
 ever accomplished. Van Buren, who was the leader of the regular 
 Republican Party, ultimately became a greater man in the nation than 
 Clinton, but he never did so much for the welfare of New York State 
 as Clinton did. 
 
 Immediately after his second election to the gubernatorial chair, 
 Governor Clinton began to advocate a constitutional convention, and 
 in his speech to the Legislature he recommended that one be held. He 
 also showed his thorougfh adherence to Reoublican doctrines by cau- 
 tioning the legislative body to guard against encroachment, by the 
 Federal Government, upon States' Rights, as well as upon the rights 
 of the individual, by referring particularly to the interference, bv the 
 national government, in State elections. Although he had carried the 
 recent election, his party had been practically overwhelmed, and the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 8i 
 
 Council of Appointment, which was selected on November 8, 1820, was 
 politically hostile to him, so that he was shorn of all power of patronage. 
 
 The subject of a constitutional convention was referred to a com- 
 mittee, which reported a bill for the call of a convention. This bill 
 passed both Houses, but was rejected by the Council of Revision by the 
 casting vote of the Governor, who had recommended it in his arldress. 
 It seems that his wish was that a vote of the people should be taken 
 in order to determine whether it was their wish that such a convention 
 should be held or not. He thought that the new Constitution should be 
 submitted to the people by sections, instead of in toto, as the bill pro- 
 vided. 
 
 There seems to have been a seething unrest in the sea of politics at 
 that time, and its waters were full of swordfish and sharks looking for 
 political fishes and loaves to devour. The history of that period is rife 
 with charges and counter-charges, and many people could detect some 
 suggestion of wrongdoing or uncomfortable reflection on nearly every 
 prominent man of the day. Men elected by one party were soon after- 
 wards found working and voting with the other party ; even the Judges 
 of the Supreme Court were accused of chicanery. The Council of Ap- 
 pointment lopped off heads almost as fast as ever did the Jacobins 
 during the French Revolution, and the Council of Revision flung back 
 to the Legislature every bill that did not meet the personal wishes of 
 its members. The people of the State were overwhelmingly in favor of 
 a convention to amend the State Constitution, but the men they elected 
 to the Senate or Assembly quickly saw another light after reaching 
 Albany. Governor Clinton was the bete noire of all Bucktails, whose 
 sentiment could best have been expressed by the popular phrase of 
 the seventies, "Anything to beat Grant" ; with the Bucktails it was any- 
 thing to beat Clinton. 
 
 Amid the political unrest and disorder of the times, one combat 
 between the Governor and the Senate should be recorded, because it 
 led to legislation, the essence of. which yet remains in the country. 
 
 In his speech to the Legislature, in November, 1820, the Governor 
 did not precisely affirm, but intimated, that officers of the national 
 government had interfered in the last election, and he went on to say 
 that if they should interfere "as an organized corps," he trusted that 
 
82 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the people of the State would properly resist such alarming attempts to 
 subvert their rights. The Senate chose to place the worst possible con- 
 struction upon the Governor's words and seized upon this opportunity 
 to make war upon him. To carry out this design the following pre- 
 amble and resolution were introduced into the Senate by P. R. Living- 
 ston and passed despite the protest of the Governor's friends : 
 
 "In Senate — November 20, 1820. — Whereas, his Excellency the 
 Governor, in his reply to the call of the Senate for information relative 
 to the general government, or its officers, as an organized corps, inter- 
 fering in our elections, has not furnished the Senate with any evidence 
 in support of such charges. And, whereas, it is highly improper that 
 the chief magistrate of the State should criminate the administration 
 of the general government, without ample testimony in his possession, 
 by reason whereof the good people of this State may have their con- 
 fidence in the general government greatly impaired. Therefore, 
 
 "Resolved, That the Senate repose, the strictest confidence in the 
 patriotism and integrity of the general government, and will not change 
 such opinion, or yield to any insinuations against such administration, 
 but upon full and satisfactory testimony." 
 
 The clerk was then directed to deliver a copy to the Governor, who 
 upon the next morning sent the following reply : 
 
 "To THE Senate : 
 
 "Gentlemen — I have this moment received a resolution of your hon- 
 orable body, which, as well as the one to which it refers, I shall fully 
 notice at the next meeting of the Legislature ; and shall, therefore, at 
 this late hour, pass it over with the expression of riiy sincere regret that 
 any branch of the Legislature should, in so unprecedented a manner, 
 lose sight of the respect due to itself, and the courtesy due to a co- 
 ordinate department of the government. De Witt Clinton." 
 
 Upon motion of Senator Skinner, the Governor's note was directed 
 to be returned to him and then the Legislature adjourned within the 
 next few minutes. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 83 
 
 When the Legislature again met, on January 9, 1821, the Governor 
 sent to the Assembly a message accompanied by a great many cer- 
 tificates, letters and affidavits showing the interference of national 
 officers in the last election. These, in some instances, indicated pretty 
 clearly that the patronage of the national government had been used 
 against Clinton in the election. The documents altogether made up so 
 great a bulk that they were put into a bag for convenience of trans- 
 portation. From this fact, the Governor's message to the Assembly 
 received the name of "The Green Bag Message," and became famous as 
 such. 
 
 In this message the Governor reminded the Legislature of a reso- 
 lution passed by both Houses, in 1 790, that it was improper for a person 
 holding an office under the government of the United States to be a 
 member of the State Legislature. 
 
 A joint committee on "The Green Bag Message" reported on March 
 15, 1821. They abused the Governor, belittled his evidence, and re- 
 pudiated the message of 1790 referred to. But Clinton's stand at that 
 time was endorsed by the convention shortly to be convened. 
 
 The Republicans were determined upon passing a bill providing 
 for a constitutional convention, and a bill was introduced looking to 
 that end, which, after much changing, paring and tinkering, in order 
 to avoid the displeasure of the Council of Revision, was finally adopted 
 by both Houses and became a law March 13, 182 1. By this law, dele- 
 gates to propose alterations and amendments to the Constitution were 
 to be elected on the third Tuesday in June following, and delegates were 
 duly elected upon that date. 
 
 In almost every county in the State the selection was made a party 
 question, and a large majority of those chosen belonged to the regular 
 Republican Party, but a few Federalists and a few Clintonians were 
 also returned. 
 
 Considering the times in which that convention was held and the 
 work which it did, it is justly entitled to be considered one of the most 
 important events in the political history of the world. This is said 
 advisedly, because .important and fundamental principles of govern- 
 ment were changed by the will of the people, quietly and unostenta- 
 tiously, when in any other country in the world at that time such 
 
84 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 changes could have been brought about only by force of arms. Not 
 only was the whole patronage of the State changed, the courts re- 
 constructed, one branch of the law-making power abolished and the 
 functions held and exercised by that department transferred to an in- 
 dividual—all by the moral force of public sentiment — but there was a 
 liberal extension of the elective franchise. 
 
 The Constitutional Convention of .182K was notable, not only for 
 its acts, but also for the intelligence and character of the men who com- 
 posed it. Nearly all of the delegates were Republicans of one or other 
 wing of the party, and it is an imperishable monument to that party 
 that the enactions of this convention were the work of Republicans. 
 
 Among the most distinguished men of the convention were the fol- 
 lowing, all of whom were members of the Republican Party : Nathan 
 Sanford, Jacob Radcliff, William Paulding, Henry Wheaton, Ogden 
 Edwards, and Peter Sharp, of New York; Nathan Williams, of 
 Oneida; John Duer, of Orange; Samuel Nelson, of Cortland; Martin 
 Van Buren, representing Otsego; Daniel D. Tompkins, of Richmond; 
 Samuel Young of Saratoga; Jacob Sutherland, of Scoharie; Erastus 
 Root, of Delaware, and Rufus King, of Queens County. 
 
 There were also other distinguished and high-minded men who 
 were members of this convention, and, although this history is devoted 
 to the present Democratic Party and to its progenitor, the old Repub- 
 lican Party and while these men were not Republicans, still it is a 
 pleasure to accord them the recognition to which their patriotism, in 
 connection with this convention, entitles them. Among these we men- 
 tion: Stephen Van Rensselaer, James Kent, Ambrose Spencer, and 
 Abram Van Vechten, of Albany County ; William W. Van Ness, Elisha 
 Williams, and J. Rutsen Van Rensselaer, from Columbia County ; Peter 
 Jay, the son of John Jay; Judge Piatt, Ezekiel Bacon, of Oneida 
 County, and General James Tallmadge and Peter R. Livingston, from 
 Dutchess County. 
 
 The convention met at Albany on the 28th of August, 1821, and 
 consisted of 1 10 delegates. Daniel D. Tompkins was elected president. 
 The regular Republicans, or Bucktails, evidently controlled the con- 
 vention, for the members of all the important committees were selected 
 from that party, On August 30th, pursuant to a motion made by 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 85 
 
 Rufus King, a committee of thirteen members was appointed to con- 
 sider and report upon the manner in which it would be most convenient 
 to take up the business of the convention. This committee speedily 
 handed in a report making a minute subdivision of the matters which 
 the convention appeared disposed to take up, but the principal and all- 
 absorbing subjects which engrossed the attention of the convention 
 may be placed under the following heads : 
 
 First : An alteration in the Judiciary System. 
 
 Second : A change of the Appointing Power. 
 
 Third : The abolition of the Council of Revision ; that is, a transfer 
 of the Veto Power. 
 
 Fourth : An extension of the Right of Suffrage. 
 
 All of these questions elicited much discussion in the convention, 
 particularly the extension of suffrage and the change of the appointing 
 power, and many able and entertaining speeches were made during the 
 session of the convention, which lasted from August 28 to November 
 10. Those wishing to peruse these speeches are referred to the history 
 of that convention written by Colonel William L. Stone, one of the 
 official reporters admitted to the convention. We give here a concise 
 summary of the results of the work of the convention. 
 
 The Supreme Court practically embodied the whole judiciary sys- 
 tem of the State up to 182 1. It consisted of a chief justice and four 
 associates. The members of the court acted as circuit judges. The 
 convention deprived this court of all original jurisdiction, that is, judges 
 of the Supreme Court were not permitted thereafter to act as circuit 
 judges ; instead, the State was divided into eight judicial districts and 
 in each of these districts a circuit judge held court. The Supreme 
 Court was reduced from five members to three, the judges to hold office 
 until the age of sixty years, unless previously removed for cause. A 
 Chancellor was appointed for the determination of all cases of equity 
 jurisdiction. The CoUrt of Appeals consisted of the Chancellor and 
 the judges of the Supreme Court, sitting as a court for the correction 
 of errors. The judges of the county courts of Common Pleas, and also 
 justices of the peace were to be appointed by the Governor and 
 Senate. 
 
 The Council of Appointment was abolished. Those who have read 
 
86 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the history of the State up to the year 1821 will have realized that this 
 Council was one of the most gigantic political machines ever put in 
 motion, and also that it was used not only for partisan purposes, but 
 not infrequently to enable its members to vent their personal spite. 
 Much of the political chaos, upheavals and disruptions of the early days 
 of the 19th century in this State are to be attributed to the machi- 
 nations of this body. In the year 182 1 the Council had at its disposal 
 6,663 civil and 8,287 military offices, and the incumbents of these offices 
 held their commissions subject to its pleasure. The Council could ap- 
 point and dismiss at will, and, as its political complexion was subject 
 to frequent and sudden changes, the tenure of office of any incumbent 
 was very uncertain. This was naturally demoralizing to the civil ser- 
 vice, and the abolition of the Council was a highly meritorious act. 
 Thereafter, the two Houses of the Legislature were to appoint State 
 officers, including the Attorney-General. All the other officers, except 
 some of the officers in cities, were to be appointed by the Governor and 
 Senate. 
 
 The Council of Revision was also abolished. This Council was 
 objected to because it had exercised the veto power contrary to the spirit 
 of the Constitution and also because the members of the Council, who 
 could nullify the will of the Legislature, were beyond the reach of the 
 people. It was seen that this was a dangerous power to place in the 
 hands of a Council so constituted, but it was believed that it could be 
 safely entrusted to the Governor alone, as he was directly responsible 
 to the people. 
 
 The legislative department was to consist of a Senate composed of 
 thirty-two members, distributed equally over eight senatorial districts, 
 elected for four years, one- fourth of this number going out each year ; 
 the body to be presided over by the Lieutenant-Governor, with a casting 
 vote; and an Assembly consisting of 128 members, apportioned among 
 the several counties according to population, said members to be elected 
 annually. 
 
 The executive department was to consist of the Governor and Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, who should be elected every two years, and the State 
 officers, with the exception of the Adjutant-General, chosen by joint 
 ballot of the Senate and Assembly once in every three years. Sheriffs, 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 87 
 
 county clerks and coroners were to be elected by the people of the 
 several counties for a term of three years. 
 
 The right of suffrage was extended to every male citizen of the 
 age of twenty-one years, who had resided in the State one year pre- 
 ceding any election, and in the town or county where he offered to 
 vote six months, provided he had paid taxes within the year, or was 
 exempt from taxation, or had performed military duty or was a fire- 
 man; and also to every citizen who had been a resident of the State 
 three years, and of the town or county one year, and had performed 
 highway labor within the year or had paid an equivalent therefor. 
 Colored citizens were not allowed to vote unless they had resided in 
 the State three years and were possessed of a freehold of the value 
 of $250, over and above the debts and incumbrances thereon, and had 
 paid a tax on that amount. Persons convicted of crime were disfran- 
 chised. 
 
 Before adjourning, the convention passed a resolution requiring 
 the call of future conventions for the amendment of the Constitution 
 every twenty years thereafter. They also adopted a resolution author- 
 izing the Legislature, in the meantime, by a two-thirds vote, to submit 
 any amendment deemed requisite to the people, to vote for its ratifica- 
 tion. 
 
 At a special election held in September, 1822, the new Constitution 
 was ratified and adopted by a majority of nearly 34,000 votes. 
 
 It was clearly indicated by the result of the election of members of 
 Assembly, in 1821, and of delegates to the convention in June of that 
 year that the candidate who should be nominated for Governor by the 
 regular Republican Party would be elected. The most intelligent 
 friends of Governor Clinton clearly saw this and were very frank in 
 expressing their opinion to him, advising him to decline a renomination. 
 He finally decided to follow their advice, and at a meeting held in 
 Albany for that express purpose, declined a renomination. This action 
 left the Clintonian Party without a head and it began to disintegrate, 
 soon becoming of no more importance than the Federalist Party, which 
 only existed in fragments here and there throughout the State, if a 
 party can be said to so exist. 
 
 It was now a certainty that the nominee of the regular Republican 
 
88 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Party would be elected and many men were naturally qnxious for 
 the honor. Nathan Sanford, P. B. Porter, Henry Seymour and 
 Erastus Root were prominently mentioned, but the contest finally 
 settled down between Joseph C. Yates and Colonel Young. Judge 
 Yates was ultimately nominated and elected, but not without oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 Seeing that the Clintonian Party would not put a candidate in the 
 field against Judge Yates, Mr. Solomon Southwick announced himself 
 as a candidate for Governor in the summer of 1822. Mr. Southwick 
 was at first a business man andwas connected with the Albany Register 
 from 1801 to 1812. During that time he began to interest himself in 
 politics and, by a combination of fortuitous circumstances, came to have 
 great political influence, through which he became rich. In his palmy 
 days he was everybody's friend and bestowed favors and money with 
 a generosity that amounted to prodigality. He was not only a very 
 intelligent men — he was more. He was a genius and a poet, but he 
 lacked that capacity of keen discrimination which makes successful 
 business men of the world. Many of those who had been recipients 
 of his bounty were unworthy persons, and when he lost his political 
 power they ceased not only to regard him as a friend but became his 
 enemies. He became reckless in everything, and his gay disposition 
 and vivid imagination led him to consider no project chimerical. There- 
 fore, when he saw that Judge Yates was the only candidate in the field 
 for Governor, he boldly made a bid for that honor himself. Some men 
 of his day were disposed to ridicule him, especially after his contest 
 for Governor, and many regarded him as a weak man ; but his editorials, 
 which appeared in the Albany Register from 1801 to 1812, and his 
 poem entitled "The Pleasures of Poverty," to say nothing of other able 
 literary productions, certainly stamp him as an unusually "bright man. 
 He received a ridiculously small vote. 
 
 Erastus Root was elected Lieutenant-Governor on the same ticket 
 with Judge Yates, and the Republican Party carried the election for 
 members of the Legislature with scarcely any opposition. Indeed, 
 every member of the Senate was a Republican. 
 
 This was the first State government under the new Constitution, 
 and, having everything their own way, any dissensions which arose 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 89 
 
 would have to come from within the Republican Party itself. Yet two 
 years was to be its tenure of office. 
 
 Governor Yates had long been a member of the Supreme Court, 
 and in appointing the new members of that court there can be no ques- 
 tion but that he was anxious both for the public good and to preserve 
 the high standard of the court. Yet the Senate rejected his first three 
 appointees : Ambrose Spencer, Jonas Piatt and John Woodworth. 
 Subsequently, he sent to the Senate the names of John Savage, Jacob 
 Sutherland and Samuel R. Betts. The Senate confirmed Savage and 
 Sutherland, but refused to confirm the appointment of Betts ; and Mr. 
 Woodworth, who had been previously rejected, was finally given the 
 third position on the bench. 
 
 On February 13, 1823, the Legislature appointed John Van Ness 
 Yates Secretary of State; William L. Marcy, Comptroller; Simeon 
 De Witt, Surveyor General, and Alexander M. Muir, Commissary 
 General. De Witt was a Clintonian, but a very unobtrusive man, and, 
 while he was appointed Surveyor General, his salary was reduced. All 
 the appointments, which, under .the new Constitution, fell within the 
 prerogatives of the Governor, were made within the Bucktail Party. 
 
 The first Legislature under the new Constitution, while it contained * 
 several able men, did not distinguish itself for the enactment of any 
 notable legislation ; on the contrary, it made itself ridiculous by at least 
 one piece of procedure. Mr. Morse, a member of Assembly from New 
 York, offered a resolution declaring that the practice of addressing the 
 Governor by the title of "Excellency" and members of the Legislature 
 by the title of ""Honorable," should be abolished and discontinued, be- 
 cause such practice was incompatible with a republican form of govern- 
 ment and the principles of the Constitution. 
 
 This resolution was adopted. 
 
 The very next day General McClure from Steuben County moved 
 to reconsider the resolution of Mr. Morse, claiming that it would be 
 discourteous to carry it and would render State authorities ridicu- 
 lous in the eyes of neighboring States. This motion to reconsider was 
 given the greatest consideration of which the Assembly was capable, 
 and was carried by a large majority. The Assembly one day gravely 
 passed a resolution and the next day as gravely rescinded it. 
 
90 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The Bucktail Party had its first Governor in Joseph C. Yates and 
 had complete control of the political affairs of the State during his 
 regime, but now, like a great raft upon the political waters, it began 
 to break apart. 
 
 During the winter of 1823 a question began to agitate the public 
 mind which helped to disrupt the party. This question was : Who 
 should be the successor of President Monroe ? There was no disagree- 
 ment in the party on any question of political policy, and the question 
 of who should be selected as a presidential candidate was personal and 
 not political. William H. Crawford, then Secretary of the Treasury ; 
 John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State ; Henry Clay, Speaker of the 
 House of Representatives; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, and 
 General Andrew Jackson was the men prominently named as candi- 
 dates for the Presidency at the next election. De Witt Clinton was a 
 supporter of General Jackson and was the first prominent man in New 
 York State to advocate Jackson's candidacy. A large portion of the 
 Republican Party in New York State were in favor of John Q. Adams, 
 and Clinton's support of Jackson no doubt antagonized them against 
 Jackson. Besides, Adams belonged to Massachusetts and they wanted 
 • a northern man. 
 
 The leaders of the Republican Party, however, differed from many 
 of the rank and file in their views. They wanted a southern ally for 
 New York and believed that Virginia, which they thought would ulti- 
 mately control the South, was the State with which New York should 
 ally itself. Also, they believed that the election of Adams would lead 
 to an amalgamation of parties, which they feared. Therefore, Martin 
 Van Buren, General Root, Samuel Beardsley and other leading Repub- 
 licans supported Mr. Crawford, who, it was well known, was strong 
 in Virginia, Georgia and other southern States. 
 
 Crawford was at first the strongest candidate and, as has often 
 happened since, all other candidates combined against him to break 
 his strength. Not only were the politicians of the State divided in their 
 choice of a presidential candidate, but the newspapers were far from 
 being a unit. There was a newspaper war in New York City between 
 the New York American and the National Advocate over the contest 
 of Major M. M. Noah, editor of the latter paper, for the office of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 91 
 
 Sheriff. This kindled a flame, and, when early in the summer of 1823 
 the New York American came out in support of Mr. Adams as the next 
 President, Mr. Noah declared in the National Advocate that all persons 
 were traitors to the Republican cause who opposed Mr. Crawford, and 
 then there was a conflagration which reached other papers. 
 
 Although the Clintonians were not a unit in their choice for Presi- 
 dent, they were ready to unite in any scheme which would prostrate 
 the Albany Regency and the regular Republican Party. 
 
 This state of things alarmed the leaders of the Republican Party at 
 Albany, who had come to be known as the Albany Regency. Martin 
 Van Buren was the leader of the Regency, and his chief associates were 
 Benjamin F. Butler, Edwin Croswell and William L. Marcy. 
 
 The Regency, seeing that nothing but trouble could result from the 
 different opinions and sentiments entertained by different factions, 
 which were fast rising, took counsel with themselves and laid a plan. 
 The presidential electors were at that time chosen by the Legislature. 
 The crafty Van Buren at once began to lay plans for the election of a 
 Legislature agreeable to himself, and which would, therefore, choose 
 presidential electors favorable to Crawford. But this was met by a 
 counter-plan suggested by some man in Albany, whose name has not 
 been preserved, but who should have had a monument erected to his 
 memory. This plan was that the presidential electors should be chosen 
 by the people, and was the inception of the present law by which electors 
 are so chosen. 
 
 The Clintonian Party immediately declared themselves in favor of 
 this measure; newspapers came out in support of it, led by the New 
 York Patriot, and the proposition was so favorably received by the 
 people that no candidate, however regularly nominated by his party, 
 dared to avow his opposition to the measure. Indeed, many of the 
 candidates were required to publicly pledge themselves to vote for the 
 proposed law, if elected, and it is authoritatively stated that out of the 
 candidates elected to the Legislature that year, seventy-five had actually 
 pledged their word to vote for an electoral law. 
 
 The Republicans who were opposed to Crawford, Van Buren and 
 the Albany Regency assumed the name of the People's Party, and in 
 every county where they believed they had sufficient strength to elect 
 
92 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 their candidate they made nominations of their own in opposition to 
 the regular organization. 
 
 Thus, there were now three branches of the Republican Party, 
 which were known as the Regency Party, the People's Party and the 
 Clintonians. 
 
 At the fall elections of 1823, the People's Party elected quite a 
 number of their candidates. The Regency Party, however, retained 
 control of the Legislature, but the black clouds of a political storm were 
 already above the horizon, and would deluge them in the coming year. 
 The Republican Party, which, amoeba-like, for two decades had been 
 dividing itself and forming new bodies, was still continuing that process 
 ' and was predestined to continue it for some years to come. 
 
 The Legislature convened on January 6, 1824, and as soon as the 
 two houses were organized the Governor's message was delivered. In 
 this message there were two notable features : 
 
 First — He urged upon the Legislature the wisdom of encouraging 
 domestic manufactures by an increase of duty on foreign importations. 
 It is a fact, worthy of notice, that the policy of protecting American in- 
 dustries by moderate duties on foreign importations was adopted in 
 18 1 6 by the national government. At that time Daniel Webster and 
 many representatives from the New England States were opposed to 
 protective duties. The Democratic Governor of New York State in 
 1824 is found advocating an increase in the then existing duties, which 
 were small. 
 
 Second — He evaded a direct expression of opinion regarding an 
 electoral law and regretted that a uniform rule for choosing presidential 
 electors was not laid down in the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 The public at large considered that the Governor's action in respect 
 to an electoral law was only intended to throw the consideration of the 
 matter beyond the date of the next election, and finally to leave the 
 choice of electors as it then was — with the Legislature. 
 
 Soon after the House was organized, Henry Wheaton, who had 
 been elected to the Assembly by the People's Party of New York, gave 
 notice that it was his intention to introduce a bill authorizing the people 
 to choose electors for President and Vice-President. A. C. Flagg then 
 offered a resolution that the subject of changing the mode of choosing 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 93 
 
 the electors be referred to a committee of nine members. As a matter of 
 course, Flagg's resolution prevailed, and a committee was appointed 
 which subsequently reported "that the right of choosing the electors of 
 President and Vice-President of the United States ought to be vested 
 in the people of the State by a law to be passed at the present session of 
 the Legislature." The report was adopted and Mr. Wheaton ofifered a 
 resolution "that such election ought to be by general ticket." 
 
 Mr. Flagg proposed an amendment to add the following words : 
 "And that a majority of all the voters shall be necessary to make a 
 choice." 
 
 Now it had been the usage of the State to choose by plurality, and 
 if a majority were required instead of a plurality, and as there were no 
 less than four political parties in the State at that time, namely, the 
 Regency Republicans, the Clintonians, the People's Party and the 
 Federalists, the result of an election would probably be chaos, should the 
 Legislature pass the bill. The plan proposed by Mr. Flagg was that 
 in case no choice should be made by the people, the electors should be 
 named by the Legislature. 
 
 The truth is that a majority of the members of the Legislature were 
 opposed to the bill, while they professed to be favorable to an electoral 
 law giving the people the choice of presidential electors. From a po- 
 litical standpoint they were making a serious error, for they were killing 
 themselves with the very people to whom they owed office. 
 
 A bill was finally passed in the Assembly, which provided for the 
 choice of electors by the people, if any set of candidates obtained a 
 majority of all the votes ; but in case no person had such a majority, 
 then no election was effected, and no provision was made for a second 
 election in any form. 
 
 When the bill reached the Senate it evoked a great deal of dis- 
 cussion, but that body had no intention of adopting it. After con- 
 siderable delay E. P. Livingston moved a postponement of the bill until 
 the first Monday in November, and, in a speech in support of his 
 motion, he declared that the people had not called for an electoral law 
 and that the clamor in favor of such a law emanated chiefly from 
 barrooms and noisy politicians. The motion to postpone was carried 
 by a vote of 17 to 14. 
 
94 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The celebrated Silas Wright first came into particular public notice 
 during this session of the Legislature. He was a member of the Senate, 
 and took an active part in the discussion of the electoral bill, in con- 
 nection with which he was accused of disingenuousness, and apparently 
 there was some ground for the charge. 
 
 The attitude assumed by Governor Yates toward the electoral bill 
 was his political undoing. Some of his best friends had urged and 
 advised him to recommend the passage of the bill; to commit himself 
 in its favor, no matter what the Legislature might do. He declined 
 to listen to these suggestions but, finally, taking the advice of Judge 
 Skinner, assumed the non-committal position in his address, which has 
 been referred to. He had been given some assurance that the Craw- 
 ford Party would support him for Vice-President, and the Crawford 
 Party in the State was in favor of leaving the choice of presidential 
 electors with the Legislature. No sooner was his message published 
 than he was assailed on all sides, his opponents insisting that he was 
 opposed to the electoral law. He was the first Governor of the State 
 who had the sole power of making political appointments ; the number 
 of office-seekers was legion, and, although he had many offices at his 
 disposal, there naturally were many disappointments. Then, too, the 
 Clintonian papers were untiring in their denunciations of him and, 
 besides all this, his honesty and simplicity of character made him a 
 mark for the wits among his enemies. A particularly sarcastic writer, 
 using the nom de plume of "Bufifalo," in the Albany Daily Advertiser, 
 made him the laughing stock of the breakfast tables of Albany for 
 some time. These articles were, at that time, ascribed to ex-Governor 
 Clinton, but half of them were written by S. De Witt Bloodgood, and 
 the other half by Charles A. Clinton, a son of De Witt Clinton. 
 
 The result of all these things combined was the political ruin of 
 Governor Yates; but the party which he represented was soon to 
 share in his disaster. There is a very old saying that "Whom the gods 
 wish to destroy, they first make mad." The political storm clouds 
 were rising higher in the heavens, and the legislative mariners upon 
 the loosely constructed Bucktail raft, instead of seeking a harbor of 
 safety, steered directly upon a formidable rock, and irnmediately found 
 themselves among the breakers. That rock was De Witt Clinton. He 
 
r~^-.j i'vjT/L':- ftf/A^m^- 3ffr„ /if. 
 
 'SEPJHTC.YATI 
 
 ^^^ l'^,,f^.y i>„/,,, /-/„,„,.„ /;, 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 95 
 
 was then serving as canal commissioner, without pay, and from this 
 office the Legislature summarily dismissed him. The people of the 
 State had all this time given him the credit for the construction of 
 the canals, and by this act the Bucktail Party incurred the censure 
 of the people, who were already angry because of the refusal of the 
 Legislature to allow the people to choose the presidential electors. 
 
96 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 Politics Without Principles — Removal of Clinton from the Canal 
 Board — Error of Governor Yates — Clinton's Renewed Popu- 
 larity — Contest for Governor — Election of Clinton — Comple- 
 tion of Erie Canal — Political Influence of Presidential Candi- 
 dates — Course of the Albany Regency — The Anti-Masons — Re- 
 election of Governor Clinton, 1826 — The Democratic Party and 
 Protection — 1824 to 1827. 
 
 It would seem that the spirit of the masquerader walked the earth 
 in those days, for scarcely anybody in political circles presented his 
 true face to the world. A majority of the members of both the As- 
 sembly and Senate were strongly opposed to an electoral law, yet a 
 majority of these two bodies were professedly in favor of such a law; 
 hence the equivocal course pursued by the Legislature. Behold the 
 then young and aspiring Silas Wright playing chameleon, and the 
 Governor of the State, who had recently been the grave and solemn 
 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, forgetting his dignity and en- 
 deavoring to straddle a large question. The Legislature criticised the 
 Governor for his attitude regarding the electoral law, and then pro- 
 ceeded to do as he suggested; but immediately faced about, and laid 
 all the blame of the dismal consequences upon his shoulders. The 
 different parties in the State were watching each other with cunning 
 eyes, and the different leaders in the respective parties were each watch- 
 ing the others with jealous attention. 
 
 The Crawford party was strong in the Legislature, and the sup- 
 porters of that gentleman for President accused the People's party 
 of making an endeavor to coalesce with the Clintonians. This they 
 feared, and therefore determined to antagonize these two parties. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 97 
 
 Their plan was to dismiss De Witt Clinton from the position of Canal 
 Commissioner. If the members of the People's party in the Legisla- 
 ture voted against the removal, then they identified themselves with 
 the Clintonians, but if they voted for it the Clintonians would denounce 
 them. Th(S plan turned out to be a boomerang to those who con- 
 cocted it. 
 
 Clinton was at that time President of the Board of Canal Com- 
 missioners, a majority of whom were his political opponents. He had 
 always served as a commissioner without pay, although a poor man, 
 and no charge, not even the whisper of one, had ever been heard 
 against his conduct in office. 
 
 During the last hour of the session of the Legislature in 1824 one 
 Bowman, an Assemblyman from Monroe County, introduced a motion 
 for the removal of De Witt Clinton, and the disgraceful resolution was 
 acted upon with indecent haste. The friends of the ex-Governor, and 
 fair-minded men, who were appalled by the act, were taken unawares 
 and at a disadvantage; yet they made what protest they could in the 
 few minutes allowed them. 
 
 In both the Assembly and Senate nearly all the members belonging 
 to the People's party, who were supporters of Mr. Adams, voted for 
 the resolution, while some Crawford men voted against it, and so the 
 confusion among the parties increased. 
 
 James Tallmadge, who had for some time been making a bid for 
 public office and popularity, voted for the removal with a shortsighted- 
 ness that amazed his friends. That vote cost him the Governorship. 
 Had he opposed the act of removal, the whole Clintonian Party would 
 have supported him for Governor, but by that vote he left them only 
 one logical candidate, and that was Clinton himself. General Tall- 
 madge was a connection of the Clinton family, and had for many 
 years been a Clintonian ; indeed, was elected to Congress as a member 
 of that .party. In the convention of 182 1 he claimed affiliation with 
 the Bucktails. Still, in the winter of 1824, he was universally the 
 favorite candidate of the Clintonians for Governor. By his vote for 
 the removal of his great kinsman from office he alienated himself 
 from every Clintonian in the State of New York. Such was their 
 resentment against him that they would more willingly have supported 
 
98 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Henry Wheaton for Governor, who had been fighting against Clinton 
 most bitterly. 
 
 During all the political strife of the winter of 1824 neither Clinton 
 nor his friends had made any move toward putting him forward as 
 a candidate for any office ; but, now that his enemies had set him high 
 on a martyr's pedestal, all eyes saw him, and his friends became legion, 
 and many of them very active. 
 
 The rejection of the electoral law became every day more and more 
 unpopular, and not only the Legislature, but the people charged Gov- 
 ernor Yates with being the prime cause of its rejection. Colonel 
 Samuel Young had made a bid for the nomination for Governor in 
 1822, and his friends now put him forward again, claiming that if 
 Yates were nominated he would certainly be beaten. So, at a Legis- 
 lative caucus held on the third of April, 1824, Colonel Young was 
 nominated for Governor, that being the last Legislative caucus ever 
 held to choose a Governor in this State. Silas Wright and A. C. Flagg 
 stood faithfully by Governor Yates, and insisted that if he made an 
 error regarding the electoral law, it was in carrying out the policy of 
 his party, and that therefore the party should not. throw him over. 
 It was immediately given out that Colonel Young had all along been 
 a supporter of the electoral law, but the People's Party would have 
 none of him. They believed that, if elected, he would be controlled 
 by the Albany Regency, which, in addition to Van Buren, Marcy, 
 Croswell and Butler, now included Benjamin Knower, Samuel A. Tal- 
 cott and Roger Skinner. 
 
 On April 7th the People's Party held a caucus, and recommended 
 that a convention of delegates should be chosen by the friends of the 
 electoral law, and that these delegates should meet at Utica on Sep- 
 temebr 21, following, for the purpose of nominating a Governor and 
 Lieutenant-Governor. As soon as the news of Clinton's removal began 
 to spread, a mass meeting gathered in the Capitol at Albany. The 
 venerable John Taylor was appointed chairman, and General John H. 
 Wendell, an old Revolutionary soldier, secretary. At this meeting 
 resolutions were passed denouncing the removal of Clinton, praising 
 him for his ability, worth and works. They declared that the perpe- 
 trators of this act of violence and ingratitude were utterly unworthy 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 99 
 
 of public confidence, and justly deserving of the reprobation of an in- 
 jured and insulted community. A large committee of leading men 
 was delegated to convey to Mr. Clinton the highest regards and warm- 
 est thanks of the meeting. In New York City, where Clinton's enemies 
 had always been most numerous, a meeting was also held, which de- 
 nounced with great severity his removal. 
 
 Governor Yates became alarmed for his own political safety and 
 standing, seeing that the formidable Clinton was again a prominent 
 figure before the public and that his own party in the Legislature 
 had supplanted him by nominating Samuel Young as their candidate 
 for Governor. So, as foolish things seem to have been in order that 
 year, he proceeded to commit a folly himself. He issued a proclama- 
 tion requiring an extra session of the Legislature on the second of 
 August, and in this proclamation he said that whereas, contrary to 
 his anticipations. Congress had adjourned without taking any action 
 in amending the Constitution in relation to the selection of presidential 
 electors, and that whereas a bill had nearly unanimously passed the 
 Assembly, giving the people the power to choose the electors, which 
 bill had been postponed in the Senate, and that whereas the people 
 were justly alarmed with apprehension that "their undoubted right" 
 of choosing the electors of President and Vice-President would be 
 withheld from them ; therefore, for the purpose of enabling their repre- 
 sentatives to carry their wishes into effect in this respect, he directed 
 an extra meeting of the Legislature. 
 
 On August 2d the Legislature met at Albany, and there was a 
 very full attendance. The Governor's message was a reiteration of 
 his proclamation, and as soon as it was read the Assembly proceeded 
 to pass resolutions censuring the Governor, and these resolutions were 
 concurred in by the Senate. The Legislature adjourned on August 6, 
 after a session of four days, without having passed any act of legisla- 
 tion, and Governor Yates was in a worse position than ever. The 
 only thing accomplished by the extra session was that it started a 
 movement injurious to Colonel Samuel Young and the Crawford 
 Party. 
 
 Tallmadge, Wheaton, Burt, Ogden and Burrows were the leading 
 men in the People's Party, and when the Utica Convention, already 
 
loo THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 referred to, met on September 21, the contest over the nomination for 
 Governor was between General Tallmadge and De Witt Clinton. On 
 the second day of the convention Clinton received the nomination by 
 a large majority, and James Tallmadge was unanimously named for 
 Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 As soon as the convention declared for De Witt Clinton the New 
 York delegation and most of the delegates who belonged to the People's 
 Party seceded in a body from the convention and formed another 
 meeting; but a short deliberation convinced them of the folly of bolting 
 a convention which had been called through the sentiment in favor of 
 an electoral law and therefore popular with the people. They did 
 nothing but publish a protest against the nomination of Clinton, and 
 disbanded. 
 
 The result of the election in November was a landslide in favor 
 of Clinton and Tallmadge. Clinton was elected over Colonel Young 
 by a majority of 16,906 votes, while Tallmadge, for Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor, received a majority over General Root of 32,409. 
 
 Strange to say, while Clinton was elected by this majority, which 
 at that day was a handsome one, he was not popular with public men, 
 and the Legislature, before adjourning in the fall of 1824, took steps 
 to interfere with his patronage when he should come into power on 
 January ist following. They did this by passing an act which prac- 
 tically exists to-day, and which was couched in the following terms: 
 "All civil officers who now are or hereafter shall be duly commissioned, 
 and shall have taken upon themselves the duties of their respective 
 offices, shall continue to execute the duties of their respective offices, 
 notwithstanding the expiration of the time for which they shall have 
 been appointed, until successors to such offices respectively shall be 
 duly commissioned, and shall take upon themselves the duties of such 
 oiifices respectively." 
 
 This act was brought about by the Albany Regency, although a 
 majority of the Legislature were opposed to the Regency. The Re- 
 gency was enabled to do this because, while the Legislature was against 
 them, a majority of the members of both Houses were opposed to 
 De Witt Clinton, and were desirous of restricting his power and 
 patronage. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK loi 
 
 They also did another thing at this session which is worthy of 
 note because of its unworthiness. They knew that there must soon 
 be a revision of the statutes of the State in order to adapt the statutes 
 to the new Constitution, which was the result of the convention of 
 1 82 1. Up to the present they could never find time to attend to this 
 important matter, but now, not wishing to leave the appointment of 
 the revisors of the statutes to their successors, they passed a law ap- 
 pointing James Kent, Erastus Root and Benjamin F. Butler revisors 
 of the laws of New York, for which each of these gentlemen was to be 
 paid $1,000. 
 
 There were political microbes of a pernicious character in the air 
 in those days, and General Erastus Root was one of the men who de- 
 veloped political rabies of the worst type. During the November 
 session of the Legislature a committee was appointed, with General 
 Root as chairman, to nominate the presidential electors. General Root 
 directed that, in calling the roll the names of members who had joined 
 in recommending the Utica Convention should be omitted, with the 
 result that he precipitated so much disorder in the meeting that it dis- 
 solved in confusion. 
 
 On November 10, however, the Senate nominated electors in that 
 part of the Legislature. The Crawford ticket was nominated by a 
 vote of 17, Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay each receiving 7. The Assembly 
 finally nominated a ticket composed of electors, part of whom were 
 for Adams and part for Clay. Upon a joint ballot four Crawford 
 men were chosen. Had these four delegates been for Clay, instead 
 of for Crawford, it is probable that Clay would have been the next 
 President. 
 
 During this celebrated November session a complaint was made 
 that the passage of the bill for the chartering of the Chemical Bank 
 of New York had been obtained by corrupt means, and an investigat- 
 ing CQmmittee was appointed to look into the matter. The evidence 
 given before that committee exhibited the startling fact that quite a 
 number of the members of the Legislature degraded themselves by 
 accepting bribes. This corruption was not confined to individuals of 
 one party, but extended to all parties. Members of the Legislature 
 seemed to consider only their own private gain, and this doubtless is 
 
I02 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 one reason why parties were so unstable in that day. One witness 
 before the investigating committee testified that he heard a Senator say : 
 "I am a Crawford man to-day, but unless the Chemical Bank passes 
 I shall be a People's man to-morrow." 
 
 ■Clinton, as has been stated, was in favor of General Jackson for 
 the Presidency, while the People's Party was for Adams, and not only 
 was this party opposed to Clinton, but many of its members had a 
 personal aversion to him. Senators Ogden and Burrows, who were 
 leading members of the party, were particularly hostile to the Gov- 
 ernor. The wisest friends of Governor Clinton sought to bridge 
 over chasms, and urged upon him the wisdom of making an en- 
 deavor to gain the confidence of the leaders of the People's Party, 
 and, by a coalition with them, destroy the ascendancy of the 
 Albany Regency. But the Governor received this advice with cold 
 indifference. 
 
 General Tallmadge, then Lieutenant-Governor, who, like General 
 Root, was afHicted with political rabies, became very active against the 
 Governor as soon as each assumed his office. General Tallmadge was 
 never considered a monopolist of that commodity known as intelli- 
 gence, and his 32,000 votes led him to believe that he was a much 
 more popular man than Clinton, and that he should have been Gov- 
 ernor. He did not know that 32,000 votes are often but 32,000 snow- 
 flakes in an April sun. The burden of all his conversation was the 
 errors and faults of Clinton, and, when his hearers wearied of his story, 
 he regaled them with accounts of how he was haunted by a ghost called 
 Federalism. He feared Federalism would regain its old-time strength ; 
 he feared Clinton would join issues with the Federalists, and by his 
 conduct and conversation helped to disrupt the party and add to the 
 general confusion. 
 
 It seems to have been the fate of the great statesman and high- 
 minded man, De Witt Clinton, to work out his destiny surrounded by 
 enemies, caluminators and political hucksters. In his message to the 
 Legislature in January, 1825, he recommended an amendment to the 
 Constitution by an extension of the suffrage so as to make it universal, 
 and to have Justices of the Peace elected by the people of their respec- 
 tive towns. He referred to a recent decision of the Supreme Court of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 103 
 
 the United States on a question affecting the rights of individual States, 
 and urged that an amendment of the Constitution of the United States 
 ought to be made, conferring on the national Senate the jurisdiction 
 claimed by the Supreme Court over questions affecting the rights of 
 the States in their corporate capacity. 
 
 During the session of the Legislature in the winter of 1825 the 
 Senate prevented any election of a Senator of the United States. The 
 Assembly nominated Ambrose Spencer, but the- Senate nominated so 
 many candidates that no one could be elected, and the Legislature 
 adjourned without electing any one. 
 
 The result of the presidential election which had caused so much 
 political trouble in the State of New York was that of Andrew Jackson 
 received 99 votes; John Quincy Adams, 84; WiUiam H. Crawford, 
 41, and Henry Clay, 37. No candidate having a majority of the 
 electoral vote, the House of Representatives elected Adams. 
 
 One of the first acts of President Adams after his election, and 
 before his inauguration, was to tender Governor Clinton'the appoint- 
 ment of American Minister to Great Britain. Many of Governor 
 Clinton's best friends advised him to accept this appointment, but he 
 declined to do so, and Rufus King was afterward made Minister to 
 the Court of St. James. De Witt Clinton seems to have preferred to 
 be Governor of New York rather than to hold any political position 
 below that of President of the United States. 
 
 The construction of the Erie Canal was begun at Rome, July 14, 
 18 1 7, and De Witt Clinton turned the first sod upon that day. Eight 
 years and four months had been occupied in the construction of the 
 canal, and its completion was celebrated in the fall of 1825 by a remark- 
 able and historical pageant. On October 26 the first flotilla of canal 
 boats left Buffalo for the city of New, York. Principal among the 
 vessels composing the flotilla were the "Seneca Chief" and "Young 
 Lion of the West." The pageant was saluted at many points along 
 the route; the discharge of cannon commencing at Buffalo continued 
 along the whole line from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. When the 
 pageant arrived at Albany on November 2d, it was greeted by a large 
 assembly of people. Both civic and military processions were formed ; 
 the Governor and his travelling companions were escorted to the Capi- 
 
I04 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tol, and interesting services commemorative of the completion of the 
 canal were held. Philip Hone, the Mayor of 'New York, made a 
 speech congratulating De Witt Clinton and his friends of the canal 
 on the successful completion of the great waterway, and, in the name 
 of his city, invited the corporation of Albany to accompany the voy- 
 agers down to the ocean. 
 
 The years 1825 and 1826 saw almost every man in public life sub- 
 serving every patriotic principle to his desire to play politics. A states- 
 man works for his country's good; a politician cares for nothing but 
 the temporary success of his party and his own private ends. Clinton 
 was the only notable statesman in those days in State affairs. Van 
 Buren was at that time, and mostly, so taken up with national affairs 
 that he cannot be considered merely in connection with State politics, 
 although he was really the head of the Albany Regency. Young, 
 Root, Allen and Beardsley were the strongest men of the regular Demo- 
 cratic Party. Theodore Sill, Aaron Vanderpoel, Samuel S. Lush and 
 Francis Granger were the most notable Clintonians of the day. Mr. 
 Granger was first elected to the Assembly in 1825, and, like Silas 
 Wright, was in those unsettled days but a young man. 
 
 As early as 1826, Van Buren and other leading men of the Craw- 
 ford Party at Washington had come to the conclusion that they would 
 support Andrew Jackson for the next President, in opposition to John 
 Quincy Adams. Jackson had received the largest popular vote in 1824, 
 and had also received the largest vote in the Electoral College, although 
 he had not received a majority of the electoral votes. It was doubt- 
 less this consideration which led Van Buren to change his allegiance 
 from Crawford to Jackson. There is no doubt that Jackson's war 
 record made him popular with the masses. 
 
 Having decided to support Jackson, Van Buren began cultivating a 
 good understanding with Governor Clinton, and suggestions were 
 made that, if the Democratic Party in the State would assent to it, no 
 opposition candidate would be supported against Clinton at the next 
 gubernatorial election. Mr. Benjamin Know'er was the agent for the 
 Albany Regency in bearing the olive branch to Clinton, but, although 
 he could speak for the Regency, he could not for the Democratic Party 
 at large. Nor could Clinton guarantee that the Clintonians would 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 105 
 
 support Jackson, although he was a strong supporter of that candidate 
 himself. 
 
 Before the adjournment of the Legislature, each party held legis- 
 lative caucuses, not to select a Governor, as had been usual heretofore, 
 but to recommend a State convention which should nominate a Gov- 
 ernor. The Clintonians decided to hold their convention at Utica on 
 the twenty-first of September; the Democratic Party decided to hold 
 theirs at Herkimer on the first Wednesday in October. This was 
 the first time the Democratic Party in the Legislature had ever yielded 
 to delegates the right or power to nominate a Governor. The Clin- 
 tonian convention met at Utica and renominated De Witt Clinton for 
 Governor. Some difficulty was experienced in the selection of a candi- 
 date for Lieutenant-Governor. James Tallmadge had alienated him- 
 self from the Clintonians by his persistent abuse of the Governor dur- 
 ing the past two years, and the anti-Clintonians were too wise to cumber 
 themselves with him. Henry Huntington, of Oneida County, presi- 
 dent of the Bank of Utica, was finally nominated for second place on 
 the ticket. 
 
 The Democratic convention met at Herkimer on the fourth of 
 October and nominated Judge William B. Rochester for Governor, 
 and Nathaniel Pitcher for Lieutenant-Governor. Clinton and his 
 party seemed to have expected no contest, owing to the representations 
 made to them by the Albany Regency, and there is no doubt that Van 
 Buren and his immediate friends were sincere in their overtures, but 
 the bulk of the Democratic Party were determined, if possible, to elect 
 candidates of their own, and once these nominations were made the 
 Regency threw all its strength to their support. Judge Rochester was 
 a warm supporter of the administration of President Adams, and was 
 the personal and political friend of Henry Clay. A large fraction of 
 the Clintonians were also friendly to Mr. Adams, and General Peter 
 B. Porter and other politicians made a strong appeal to them to sup- 
 port Mr. Rochester on the presidential question, urging that Clinton, 
 being an avowed Jackson man, would be fatal to the prospects of Mr. 
 Adams in this State, whereas the election of Judge Rochester would 
 insure the success of the Adams Party. 
 \ Again, Judge Rochester was a western man, and the people of the 
 
io6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 western part of the State were ambitious to elect a Governor from 
 among themselves. 
 
 Van Buren and his friends found themselves in a peculiar position 
 at this time. They had invested all their political capital in the Jack- 
 son boom, yet the Democratic Party, which they were bound to sup- 
 port, was endeavoring to elect Judge Rochester, who was openly op- 
 posed to Jackson. The result of this peculiar condition of affairs was 
 that not a few leading men and even newspapers divided their al- 
 legiance and supported Clinton and Pitcher. 
 
 Then another factor came in which widened the breach. For some 
 time a project had been on foot to build a State road through the 
 southern tier of counties. Governor Clinton, with his great desire for 
 public improvements, was a strong supporter of this enterprise, and 
 in the southern counties many of the Democrats voted for him instead 
 of for Rochester. 
 
 The result of the election was that Clinton received a majority of 
 3,650 votes over Judge Rochester, and Pitcher received 4,188 over 
 Huntington. In the Legislature, however, the Democratic Party ob- 
 tained a complete and decisive victory. 
 
 While the Clintonian Democrats and the regular Democrats were 
 contending for supremacy in the year 1826, another party, destined 
 to be ephemeral, sprang into existence, but not from any political 
 cause. The party referred to was known as the Anti-Masonic Party, 
 and its members as Anti-Masons. 
 
 The Society of Free Masons has existed so long and is so well 
 known in every community that no particular explanation need be 
 made regarding it here, more than to say that it has always been popu- 
 larly understood that a Mason pledges himself not to reveal the secrets 
 of the order under a penalty of the forfeiture of his life. This law of 
 a society would shock the mind to-day, but it is not improbable that 
 it may have been rigidly adhered to even into the beginning of the 
 19th century. Countless men have forfeited their lives for religious 
 faith, and not a few for their lack of it, and a man is as likely to be 
 a fanatic on one subject as another. 
 
 William Morgan, a Free Mason, a printer, and a native of Virginia, 
 settled in Batavia, Genesee County, N. Y. His business not proving 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 107 
 
 successful, he conceived the idea of making money by publishing the 
 secrets of the Masonic fraternity. His intention was discovered by 
 some of his fellov^f Masons, and it soon became generally known 
 throughout the lodges of the State. On September 11, 1826, Mr. 
 Cheeseborough, the Master of the Masonic Lodge at Canandaigua, 
 Ontario County, N. Y., procured from Jeffry Chipman, a Justice of 
 the Peace, a warrant to arrest Morgan on the charge of stealing a 
 shirt and necktie. Morgan was arrested and brought before Justice 
 Chipman, who promptly discharged him, seeing that the charge was 
 a trumped-up one. He was immediately rearrested for a small debt, 
 and the justice re4:urned judgment against him for $2.00, upon which 
 an execution was instantly issued against Morgan, who was committed 
 to close confinement in the jail at Canandaigua. During the night 
 of September 12th he was quietly taken from the jail by a number 
 of persons, thrown into a carriage, and taken to the Canada side of 
 the Niagara River on September 14th. He was then taken back to 
 the American side and confined in the magazine of Fort Niagara. He 
 is known to have remained in Fort Niagara, under charge of Colonel 
 King and Elisha Adams, until September 29th, when he disappeared 
 and was never afterwards heard of.. It was always believed that the 
 Masons killed him under the authority of his own oath of secrecy. 
 
 The public at large believing that Morgan had been murdered, a 
 tremendous excitement was created, and a strong antipathy to the 
 Masons developed. Then, as now, a great many public men were mem- 
 bers of the Masonic Order. Governor Clinton himself was^ in 1826, 
 High Priest of the General Grand Chapter of the United States, and 
 undoubtedly this circumstance deprived him of many votes in the west- 
 ern part of the State at the election that fall. Judge Rochester also 
 was a Mason, but during the excitement over the alleged murder it 
 was charged that Governor Clinton, as Grand Master, had commanded 
 that Morgan's book be suppressed, by any means, and at all hazards. 
 Of this, however, there never was the slightest proof, but out of the 
 excitement there remained a settled opposition to Masons through- 
 out the State, and the Anti-Masons organized themselves into a party. 
 
 The vear 1826 was one of great commercial depression in New 
 York State, owing to the improvident use of paper money, to which 
 
io8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the country had not yet become accustomed, and to the erratic course 
 of the banks, which would make large issues and then suddenly con- 
 tract credit. This circumstance is referred to principally because paper 
 money seems to have caused trouble in many parts of the Union in 
 the early days of the 19th century. 
 
 Martin Van Buren was re-elected to the United States Senate in 
 the winter of 1827, and in his letter of acceptance addressed to the 
 Legislature on February 28th of that year, he said : "I do assure the 
 Senate that I am deeply sensible of the honor which has been conferred 
 upon me; and to justify their confidence it shall be my constant and 
 zealous endeavor to protect the remaining rights reserved to the States 
 by the Federal Constitution; to restore those of zvliich they liave been 
 divested by construction, and to promote the interests and honor of our 
 common country." 
 
 This extract from Van Buren's letter is reproduced to show how 
 zealous the statesmen of New York Avere of States' Rights in that day, 
 and how jealously they guarded them, for the Adams administration 
 never made any move toward interfering with States' Rights. Van 
 Buren was too sensible a man to write buncombe to a State Legisla- 
 ture, so it must be concluded that the subject was a very important 
 one in the eyes of all Democrats at that time. 
 
 Many writers of that day had a great deal to say about the general 
 government, and politicians appear to have entertained a strong belief 
 that unless the State of New York constantly stood on guard the 
 national government would snatch away all that the State possessed. 
 Any fair-minded man will admit that there has never been any good 
 ground for this belief since the days of Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 During the winter session of 1827, and indeed for some time pre- 
 vious to that, there was much talk and some attempted legislation 
 relative to building a State road through the southern tier of counties, 
 and the construction of the Genesee Valley, Crooked Lake, Black 
 River and Chenango canals, but no legislative act was carried through. 
 Governor Clinton had been so successful with the Erie and Cham- 
 plain canals that he had become an enthusiast on the subject of internal 
 improvements. He favored these projects, as did the people in the 
 sections of the State where the improvements were contemplated, but 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 109 
 
 there was a canal debt unpaid, and the majority of the people were 
 reluctant to incur a heavier burden. 
 
 Another presidential election was drawing near, and New York 
 State took a keen intere?t in the selection of a candidate. The Albany 
 Regency reflected the ideas of Van Buren, and Van Buren was non- 
 committal for a long time, so far as the people knew. The non-com- 
 mittal policy may be said to have been his political doctrine at that 
 time. But he had the Democratic Party in this State trained like a 
 regular army, and when he gave a command he marched to victory. 
 Even the Democratic newspapers of that day are said to have taken 
 their cue from him and to have watched for his signals before declar- 
 ing themselves. There is no doubt but that Van Buren was for 
 Jackson long before any authoritative assurance was given to that 
 effect. 
 
 Between the quiet, scholarly Adams and the spectacular Jackson 
 there could be no question as to which would be the greater public 
 favorite. The hero of New Orleans, the chivalric duelist, was the 
 public idol. When two candidates have courted public approval, one 
 bearing a sword and one a pen, it has never yet been demonstrated that 
 the pen has been mightier than the sword. We have seen this in our 
 own day. The gifted Governor Black was set aside to make way for 
 the man fresh from San Juan Hill, when the Republican Party saw 
 disaster ahead in the fall of 1898. So, in that day, it was in vain that 
 the friends of Mr. Adams represented him as an accomplished writer, 
 a learned constitutional lawyer, an experienced diplomat and a pro- 
 found statesman; Jackson had defeated the British at New Orleans, 
 and there was nothing more to be said. 
 
 Upon the near approach of the general election in November the 
 Albany Regency deemed it necessary to make a development of the 
 views of the Democratic Party in respect to the next candidate for the 
 Presidency. A meeting of the general committee was held at Tam- 
 many Hall on February 26, where resolutions were passed laudatory 
 of General Jackson and endorsing him for President. Immediately 
 afterwards all the political machinery which Van Buren had been per- 
 fecting and oiling for the last two years was put in motion, and it 
 worked to perfection. The result of the election was a complete tri- 
 
no THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 umph for the Jackson Party in both the Assembly and Senate of this 
 State. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the disposition of the Demo- 
 cratic Party to favor a moderate duty on certain articles for the pro- 
 tection of infant industries, planting and wool growing. From a 
 party standpoint this doctrine had always met with favor throughout 
 the country, yet in the middle of the century the Democratic Party 
 allowed the Republican Party to take this popular principle and gain 
 great strength thereby. The Republicans have carried this doctrine to 
 its extreme, while the Democratic Party for the last fifteen years has 
 advocated a moderate tariff. 
 
 On July 17, 1827, a State convention was held at Albany and was 
 attended by delegates from several of the counties in the State. That 
 convention asserted, unequivocally, the power and duty of Congress to 
 pass laws for the protection of home manufactures, and to encourage 
 wool growing. Because of the attitude of the two great political parties 
 to-day on this question, some of the resolutions passed by that con- 
 vention are here quoted to show the position which many of the lead- 
 ing men of the Democratic Party of that day maintained toward 
 protection. 
 
 "Resolved, That the laws of Congress have, from the first, assumed 
 the principle that revenue is so to be levied as shall most encourage 
 or least impede the various branches of commerce and of internal in- 
 dustry; that this principle may be, and ought to be, carried out to a 
 more full and extended application; and that to enact laws in disre- 
 gard of these interests would be an undue exercise of power. 
 
 "Resolved, That the laws of the United States, which have tended 
 to protect our interests of navigation, manufactures and planting, 
 against the exclusions, monopolies, regulations and bounties of other 
 nations, have been the main source of whatever prosperity this country 
 has enjoyed. 
 
 "Resolved, That inasmuch as the staple agricultural products of 
 the South, to wit, cotton, tobacco and rice, are admitted into the ports 
 of Europe without competition in their production, in that part of the 
 world; and while both competition and prohibitory laws operate to 
 exclude from an European market the breadstuffs, provisions and 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK m 
 
 manufactures of the northern, middle and western States, we deem it 
 unkind in our Southern brethren to oppose the passage of laws which 
 are calculated to create a home market for our agricultural productions, 
 and to prornote our national wealth and prosperity." 
 
112 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 Life of De Witt Clinton. 
 
 We have now arrived at the year 1828, and De Witt Clinton's 
 death occurred so early in that year that this is a fitting place to give 
 a sketch of his valuable and busy life. He died suddenly on February 
 II, 1828, at the comparatively early age of fifty-nine, having been in 
 his usual health up to the moment of his demise. He had been subject 
 to no unusual excitement during the day, and was sitting quietly con- 
 versing with two of his sons when he suddenly fell forward and never 
 breathed again. 
 
 De Witt Clinton was the son of General James and Mary (De 
 Witt) Clinton, and was born in Little Britain, New Windsor, Orange 
 County, N. Y., March 2d, 1769. His paternal ancestors were English, 
 while on his mother's side he was of Dutch and French extraction. He 
 is said to have been distantly lelated to the colonial Governor George 
 Clinton. His education was begun in a grammar school near home, 
 and completed in Columbia College, from which he was graduated 
 with honor in 1786, at the early age of seventeen. After graduating 
 he took up the study of law in the office of Samuel Jones, of New York, 
 and was admitted to the Bar in 1788. 
 
 While pursuing his studies he had become private secretary to his 
 uncle, George Clinton, during the heat of the debate on the adoption 
 of the Federal Constitution. Although but a young man at that time, 
 he sided with his uncle, the Governor, in that controversy, and con- 
 tributed able articles to the newspapers in opposition to those who 
 advocated the adoption of the Constitution. So ably did he maintain 
 the principles of the Anti-Federalists that he came to be considered 
 the leading champion of that party. About this time he was appointed 
 one of the secretaries of the newly organized Board of Regents of the 
 
Sna iy£'-/7 l>P7//,ams A^rs. /'/y 
 
 ^E^¥ITT CLWT 
 
 7a, -y-.r-y- Stiths y^i-*/y Ca. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 113 
 
 University, and secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Fortifica- 
 tions of the State. When Governor Jay took office in 1795 Mr. CHn- 
 ton returned to the study and practice of law in New York. 
 
 Although he was known as a member of the Anti-Federalist or 
 Republican Party, and an active one at that, and notwithstanding he 
 had fought strenuously against the adoption of the Constitution, yet, 
 after that instrument had become the supreme law of the land, it 
 had no stronger supporter than himself, and he urged upon his friends 
 the wisdom of supporting it in good faith. 
 
 Although his party was out of power, he still continued his cham- 
 pionship of the Anti-Federalist cause, and opposed both the administra- 
 tion of John Jay in this State and that of John Adams at Washington. 
 But, although assailing the Federalists for their alleged hostility to- 
 wards France, he patriotically raised, equipped and commanded a mili- 
 tary company, should the anticipated war with France occur. 
 
 In 1797 he was sent to the Assembly by New York City, and in 
 the following year to the State Senate. In 1801 he was very active 
 in securing means of public defense. He always labored zealously 
 to improve the health laws and to encourage agriculture and the arts. 
 At the age of thirty-three he was appointed to the Senate of the 
 United States, and remained in that body through two of its annual 
 sessions, finally resigning to become Mayor of New York City, to 
 which position he had been appointed by Governor George Clinton 
 and the Council of Appointment in 1803. He was removed from 
 the mayoralty in 1807, reappointed in 1809, displaced in 18 10, re- 
 stored in 181 1, and continued in that office until 18 15. He was also 
 a member of the State Senate from 1805 to 181 1, and was Lieutenant- 
 Governor from 181 1 to 1813, during part of which time he held a seat 
 in the Council of Appointment. 
 
 De Witt Clinton received little aid from his father, and was always- 
 a comparatively poor man. He married Maria Franklin, daughter of 
 Walter Franklin, a wealthy Quaker of New York City, who brought 
 him a fortune of about $40,000. He lived in New York, and, having 
 political ambitions, young and enterprising business men without capi- 
 tal, who were energetic supporters of the Democratic Party, came to 
 him to aid them either with cash or with credit, so as to enable them to 
 
114 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 establish themsehes in business. Ele was at that time a director in the 
 Manhattan Bank, and paper with his name upon it was sure to be ac- 
 cepted by the bank. He was anxious to patronize young men, and, being 
 Hberal to a fault, he lent both his influence and his name to all young 
 Democrats in whom he had confidence. All of these were not worthy 
 of confidence; there were many failures, and to discharge liabilities 
 thus incurred Clinton was obliged to create large debts, which em- 
 barrassed and harassed him during his life. Nor was this the worst; 
 the very men whom he had sought to aid united in a most vindictive 
 political war against him, and to these later on was added the host of 
 disappointed office-seekers, to whom he, of necessity, had to refuse ap- 
 pointments during his public career. 
 
 Notwithstanding his political vicissitudes, his ups and downs, he 
 finally came to be regarded as the foremost candidate of the Demo- 
 cratic Party of the State for the Presidency, but he came to the front 
 for this honor at a most unfortunate time. He hesitated to approve 
 the commercial restrictions adopted by Jefferson. He questioned the 
 wisdom of Madison's course immediately previous to the declaration 
 of war against Great Britain. His opponents imputed his hesitation 
 and reserve to sympathy with the Federalists, and many of his old 
 Democratic friends dropped away from him, and their places were 
 filled by Federalists. His aspirations to the Presidency had long been 
 known, and, even in the face of the unpopularity acquired by his op- 
 position to both Jefferson and Madison, he decided that it was time 
 his presidential ambitions were realized. Madison, however, received 
 the nomination at Washington, and Clinton was nominated by the 
 Democratic members of the State Legislature. Madison received 128 
 and Clinton 89 electoral votes. 
 
 The Democratic Party now deserted him, and in 1814 displaced 
 him from the office of Lieutenant-Governor, leaving him only the 
 mayoralty of New York. He had attempted to gain the Presidency, 
 not to overthrow the Democratic Party, but to re-establish it on a better 
 footing; not to favor the public enemy, but to push the war against 
 him with greater vigor. His party, however, did not understand him, 
 nor did they extend to him any charitable consideration, but abso- 
 lutely disowned him, and his fall seemed irretrievable. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 115 
 
 However, his great personal force soon began to tell in his favor. 
 He associated with citizens engaged in work for the improvement of 
 education, the encouragment of agriculture, arts and manufactures, 
 and the advancement of religion. He aided them by pen, speech, purse 
 and influence. He was always firm, dignified and intelligent; the 
 guardian of public health, the avenger of crime, the advocate of civil 
 and religious liberty, and the patron of knowledge and virtue. He 
 arrested the public prejudice against himself. This he did by his 
 loyalty, great liberality, and by his efficiency as Mayor and legislator 
 in securing means of public defense, providing loans to the govern- 
 ment, voting supplies of materials and men, and soliciting the military 
 command to which his courage, talent and influence entitled him. 
 
 He early supported the canal policy, and ably showed the benefits 
 which would result therefrom to the country ; in fact, he was the first 
 prominent man in New York State to advocate our canal system. In 
 1812 he was sent by the Legislature to Washington to solicit its patron- 
 age of the canal policy as a national measure. He was unsuccessful. 
 The occurrence of the War of 18 12 put the subject to rest for the 
 time being. 
 
 Although the tide of popular favor had fallen away from him and 
 left him destitute of power and influence, he still stood forth a solitary 
 figure, attracting the greatest admiration and interest. His opponents 
 worked zealously against him, and in January, 181 5, he was removed 
 from the mayoralty of New York by the Council of Appointment, in 
 the interests of the Democratic Party, so they asserted. He quietly 
 retired, and in the fall of the same year prepared a paper in favor of 
 the immediate construction of the Erie and Champlain canals. This 
 paper, which was most vigorous and comprehensive, was in the form 
 of a memorial to the Legislature of the State. The city adopted the 
 memorial, as did the citizens of the interior of the State. Other States 
 and Territories also approved, and the policy was from that moment 
 certain of success. It was hindered, however, by the malice of his 
 enemies, who affected to consider it merely the resort of a ruined poli- 
 tician, impracticable and absurd. For over a hundred years enlightened 
 statesmen had commended the policy, and before the war the State itself 
 had recommended the whole enterprise to the adoption of the Federal 
 
ii6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 government. This opposition put Clinton in the Hght of the inventor 
 of the system, whose prospective benefits were ah-eady triumphantly 
 demonstrated. He appeared at Albany at the assembling of the Legis- 
 lature to commend it. The Legislature appointed him one of the com- 
 missioners to make the necessary surveys and estimates, solicit grants 
 and donations, and report at the next session. 
 
 A vacancy was now about to occur in the office of Governor by the 
 transfer of Governor Tompkins to the Vice-Presidency. Spontaneous 
 demonstrations presented Clinton before the public as a candidate, and 
 in 1816 he was elected Governor, practically by the tinanimous voice 
 of the people. In 1819 he was re-elected by a small majority over 
 Daniel D. Tompkins. Clinton's enemies availed themselves of just 
 complaints against the Constitution to move the call of a convention 
 for its amendment. The measure was very popular. Clinton advocated 
 the convention in his message to the Legislature, but voted against it 
 in the Council of Revision because his opinion was that the people 
 should first declare that such a convention should be held, and that 
 then the Legislature should provide for holding it. 
 
 His enemies, always eager to assail him upon the slightest pretext, 
 identified him with the opposition to the convention, but it was finally 
 held in 182 1. It diminished the powers of the executive and judiciary 
 and enlarged the right of suffrage, while it adopted Clinton's canal 
 policy. By 1822 he had again become unpopular, and wisely decided 
 not to be a candidate for re-election. Joseph C. Yates was elected 
 Governor, while Clinton's party was weak in the Legislature. The 
 Legislature abused its triumph by removing Clinton without cause from 
 the office of canal commissioner, where he ^^'as serving without com- 
 pensation. This act awaliened widespread indignation, because of its 
 malice and injustice, and the result was that he was borne back into 
 the office of Governor in the fall of 1824. 
 
 Although that part of the Democratic Party which favored Clin- 
 ton bore his name, and its members were known as Clintonians, this 
 party supported John Quincy Adams as a candidate for President, 
 while he favored Andrew Jackson. The result was that he was barely 
 re-elected in 1826, while the Legislature was opposed to him. 
 
 De Witt Clinton had the good fortune to mature the system of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 117 
 
 finance which enabled the State to begin and carry out his system 
 of internal improvement, and to break with his own hand the ground 
 at the beginning of the construction of the Erie Canal on July 4, 
 1817. He was the greatest figure in the pageant in the fall of 1825, 
 when he was borne on the artificial river which he was credited with 
 having constructed, connecting Lake Erie with the bay of New York. 
 With the beginning of that great work the population became greatly 
 augmented or increased in the State, and prosperity became universal. 
 He inaugurated the construction of branches of the canal by which it 
 was finally connected with the interior lakes, Lake Ontario and the 
 Alleghany and St. Lawrence Rivers. Indeed, he may be said to have 
 laid the foundation of New York's commercial, if not political, great- 
 ness by his system of internal improvements and his general patronage 
 of industry. His advice, which was now everywhere sought, has- 
 tened the opening of canals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana 
 and Illinois, which, in connection with those in New York and with 
 natural channels, constitute a system equal to the internal commerce 
 of an empire. 
 
 When he died in 1828 his enemies, and even his lukewarm friends, 
 claimed that his death occurred at an opportune time for his fame; 
 but no act of his would ever have diminished it with posterity, how- 
 ever much his future course might have affected the unstable political 
 masses of his day. His death was mourned with national pomp. His 
 memory is cherished with that homage which is ever due to the bene- 
 factor of mankind. He failed to secure the Presidency, but at the 
 time of his death he held the only other office for which he ever seemed 
 to have any particular ambition. He lived long enough to witness 
 the beneficent results of his labor and the triumphant success of his 
 great plan for the advancement of the State. 
 
 When the news of his death reached Washington the members 
 of Congress from New York State at once held a meeting, regardless 
 of party distinctions, and adopted resolutions expressive of their esteem 
 for his character and appreciation of his public services. On that 
 occasion Martin Van Buren, who had almost always been opposed to 
 Clinton, delivered an eloquent address, part of which was as follows : 
 
 "The triumph of his talents and patriotism cannot fail to become 
 
ii8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 monuments of high and enduring fame. We cannot, indeed, but re- 
 member, that in our public career, collisions of opinion and action, at 
 once extensive, earnest and enduring, have arisen between the deceased 
 and many of us. For myself, sir, it gives me a deep-felt, though 
 melancholy satisfaction, to knoM^, and more so, to be conscious, that 
 the deceased also felt and acknovifledged that our political differences 
 have been wholly free from that most venomous and corroding of all 
 poisons, personal hatred. 
 
 "But in other respects it is now immaterial what was the char- 
 acter of those collisions. They have been turned to nothing, and less 
 than nothing, by the event we deplore, and I doubt not that we will, 
 with one voice and one heart, yield to his memory the well deserved 
 tribute of our respect for his name, and our warmest gratitude for his 
 great and signal services. For myself, sir, so strong, so sincere, and 
 so engrossing is that feeling, that I, who whilst living, never, no, never, 
 envied him anything, now that he has fallen, am greatly tempted to 
 envy him his grave with its honors." 
 
 The political successes and reverses of De Witt Clinton, his ups and 
 downs his defeats followed by victories, succeeded again by retreats, 
 lead the student of history to conclude that either he was unstable, 
 or the times in which he lived were erratic. Of course, in the early 
 days of the 19th century the country was growing, conditions of life 
 were changing, and with them the minds of men were also experienc- 
 ing variations; but the cause of Clinton's checkered political career 
 cannot be laid to any weakness or instability of character in himself. 
 He was a man of commanding figure and intellectual features, while 
 his manners were dignified and at times severe. He combined vigor, 
 versatility and comprehensiveness of mind with untiring perseverance 
 in the exercise of a lofty and unconcealed ambition. Personally, he 
 was unpopular, but his public acts, with the possible exception of 
 his attitude previous to the war of 1812, always commanded public 
 approval. His overmastering presence and severity of manner in 
 public life were not calculated to attach his friends to him very closely, 
 and yet it would seem that he expected his friends to believe exactly 
 as he believed and to bind themselves implicitly to his doctrines. So 
 sincerely did he believe that all his friends should see things as he 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 119 
 
 saw them, that he was inclined to consider those who differed from 
 him either as weak-minded or insincere. It is highly probable that 
 during his secretaryship to Governor George Clinton, so many favors 
 were sought through him that he came to have too large an opinion 
 of his own importance. He was at that time quite a young man, and 
 this effect would be produced upon him at that age, when, had he 
 had the same experience in riper years, his character and manners 
 would not have been injured by the experience. The influence and 
 power which he wielded under Governor Clinton, and which he had 
 done nothing to acquire, but which were thrust upon him, may have 
 given him the false impression that all this came to him through merit, 
 and that impression, created in his youth, was never eradicated from 
 his mind. Hence he retained through life that princely bearing and 
 dominant demeanor which made him obnoxious to so many Democrats. 
 But with all, he was really kind at heart, his private life was exemplary 
 and throughout his whole political career he never stooped to a little 
 or dishonest act. 
 
 His life was given up to politics, yet he was no politician. By 
 his political opponents he was perpetually accused of intrigue, yet 
 from experience he did not know the meaning of the word. Not only 
 was this charge untrue, but he was absolutely defective not only in 
 intrigue, but in that address which is necessary for every man who 
 expects to make a figure in public life. He believed in himself, and he 
 thought that everybody else must. So, when he made up his mind 
 to attain a certain end, he simply made the announcement, and ex- 
 pected that all his friends, and indeed the public at large, would flock 
 to his support. Therefore, he never considered it necessary to lay 
 any plans, to manage any political machine, or to provide ways and 
 means for accomplishing his end. He never played politics ; he never 
 practiced politics ; as has been said, he was no politician. 
 
 But as a statesman he was pre-eminent; yet that greatness was 
 never apparent as it should have been, because, although his ends were 
 always worthy and elevated, he always failed to provide means for 
 the accomplishment of those ends. His views were generally original, 
 and were stated in a politic and fearless manner. His forecasts were 
 most remarkable. He early discovered and attempted to remedy the 
 
120 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 defects in the organization of the general government with respect 
 to the election of President. He was among the first to point out the 
 danger which might grow out of a collision between the States and 
 the judiciary power of the nation. He discovered and warned the 
 people against the evils growing out of over-issues of banks, in ad- 
 vance almost, if not quite, of any other man. To him belongs the 
 credit of recommending a very large number of great and important 
 measures which have been adopted by the Legislature of this State, 
 because he was the first who took the responsibility of recommending 
 these measures. He was the only public man of his day in the State 
 of whom it can be said without qualification that he worked solely 
 for the good of the State, and that parties and persons were secondary 
 considerations with him, compared to the great issue of the public 
 weal. 
 
 He lived in a corrupt political age, yet he was thoroughly honest 
 himself ; still, he looked with too much leniency on corruption in others, 
 doubtless because he saw so much of it; but to the unscrupulous poli- 
 tician he never gave his confidence. Had he been a man of pliant 
 politics, even a little hypocritical, not to say diplomatic, he would 
 doubtless have avoided much of his political troubles; but he pursued 
 the straight path with a highmindedness that was too lofty for the 
 men of his day. 
 
 Jabez D. Hammond, who was his political and personal friend, 
 gives an incident which illustrates pretty well Clinton's lack of per- 
 sonal magnetism and his inabihty to make friends. He records that 
 a man from the interior of the State had a son convicted of felony 
 during the regime of Governor Tompkins. Tompkins was a suave 
 man of smooth address, whose strong play in politics was to make a 
 friend of every man he met. The farmer called upon him twice to 
 beg a pardon for his son, and twice Governor Tompkins refused him. 
 When Clinton became Governor the father called upon him with the 
 same request. Clinton not only pardoned his son, but invited the father 
 to dine with him. It is said that Clinton made great effoi'ts to en- 
 tertain the old gentleman at breakfast, but after going away the father 
 of the pardoned son said : "The Governor asked me to breakfast and 
 promptly pardoned my son. I have seen Governor Tompkins twice, 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 121 
 
 and at each time he positively refused to grant me the favor I desired ; 
 yet I Hke Governor Tompkins better than I can like Governor Clinton." 
 
 This incident reveals much to the modern reader. Conditions in 
 Clinton's day were vastly different from what they are now. The 
 masses were not educated in that day as in this, and an ignorant man 
 is usually inclined to do one of two things ; he will either fawn upon 
 his superior or throw a bomb at him. If his superior pats him, he 
 fawns; if he meets with austerity, he wants to kill; so we have the 
 sycophant and the anarchist. Clinton would not relax ; he could not 
 make a joke ; he was witty, but not humorous, yet his wit was sarcasm. 
 Moreover, a mastiff cannot play with a poodle, nor could his cultured, 
 aspiring mind comport itself to the topics of the ignorant. A man 
 may delight to catch fish yet abhor the fish house ; a politician may be 
 greedy for votes yet detest the smell of overalls. 
 
 De Witt Clinton was a States' Rights man and a strict-construc- 
 tionist of the strictest type, and, although his political faith was assailed 
 by every party of his day, not excepting the Clintonians, he was a 
 Democrat of the purest strain. The least indication of encroachment 
 by the national government upon the State government was viewed 
 by him with alarm and resisted with spirit. Of the great men in 
 America who were jealous of the national government, and who were 
 for confining its actions exclusively to the powers expressly granted, 
 De Witt Clinton was the most zealous. Jefferson may have theorized, 
 but Clinton felt in favor of States' Rights. He was also a sincere 
 friend to the equal rights, prosperity and happiness of the mass of men ; 
 yet unfortunately possessed of habits of thinking for himself and a 
 deportment which rendered him unacceptable to them. 
 
 De Witt Clinton was not only fond of literature, but was pos- 
 sessed of fine literary tastes and abilities himself. He published "Dis- 
 course Before the New York Historical Society" (1812) ; "Speeches 
 to the Legislature" (1823) ; "Memoir on the Antiquities of Western 
 New York" (1822), and several literary and historical addresses. 
 
 While yet young Mr. Clinton married Maria Franklin, who 
 brought him a liberal fortune, and who died in 18 18. In the follow- 
 ing year he married Catharine Jones, who survived him. 
 
 Chnton died a poor man, and four of his children, two sons and 
 
122 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 two daughters, were minors. With a view to making some provision 
 for these children a committee of the Assembly was appointed to con- 
 sider the matter. The committee reported a bill authorizing the pay- 
 ment to those children of the salary of a canal commissioner during 
 the time the late Governor had served as a member of the Canal Board 
 without pay, and one year's salary as Governor of the State. Strange 
 as it may seem, the bill was opposed by some members, and especially 
 by Erastus Root and Assemblyman Mann, of Herkimer County, who 
 exhibited much bitterness and animosity in their opposition, to their 
 lasting discredit. General Porter declared that he could not vote for 
 so large a sum, and a compromise was finally effected and carried by 
 a vote of 88 to 25 in the Assembly, granting the minors the sum of 
 $10,000. The bill was approved by the Senate. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 123 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Activity of Anti-Masons — Legislative Action Favoring Protection — 
 The Albany Convention — The Herkimer Convention — Martin 
 Van Buren Elected Governor — His Message to the Legislature 
 — Resignation of Governor Van Buren — Enos T. Throop Be- 
 comes Governor — Inauguration of the Spoils System — Prohi- 
 bition of Bank Notes Under Five Dollars — The Workingmen's 
 Party. 
 
 Upon the death of Governor Clinton-, General Pitcher, Lieutenant- 
 Governor, became acting Governor, and Peter R. Livingston, who had 
 been president of the Senate, becam.e Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 Nathaniel Pitcher v^^as an uneducated man, and had spent his life, 
 before engaging in active politics, on a farm in Washington County. 
 He had already had the experience of several terms in the Legislature 
 of the State, and of one term in the United States Congress. Having 
 risen from among the masses, and possessing no element of aristocracy, 
 he naturally had a large support among the rank and file of the people, 
 but he was scarcely able to cope with the wily and not too scrupulous 
 politicians with whom he had to deal primarily. 
 
 One of his first acts was to recommend to the Legislature that pro- 
 vision be made by law for the appointment of a public prosecutor to 
 avenge the murder of William Morgan. The Legislature acted upon 
 his advice, a law was passed, and Daniel Mosley, of Onondaga County, 
 was appointed to the office so created. During the winter session 
 of the Legislature in 1828 Assemblyman Ward well, from Jefl^erson 
 County, introduced into the Assembly resolutions favoring protection. 
 These resolutions passed both houses unanimously, and were forwarded 
 to the members representing this State at Washington. 
 
 Before the adjournment of the Legislature a Jackson caucus was 
 
124 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 held, at which it was decided to hold a convention in Herkimer on 
 the fourth Wednesday in September, for the purpose of nominating a 
 Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. The same caucus nominated Gen- 
 eral Jackson for President. On the twenty-second of April, the day 
 after the Legislature adjourned, the Adams Democratic members held 
 a meeting in Albany and adopted and published an address to the public 
 which was somewhat inflammatory in its tone, and contained a very 
 bitter attack upon Andrew Jackson. In the spring of 1828 General 
 Porter was made Secretary of War in place of James Barbour, who was 
 appointed Minister to London. He was a strong supporter of Presi- 
 dent Adams, and his appointment was not only a political reward, but 
 was calculated to strengthen the hands of the administration in New 
 York State. 
 
 On the tenth of June a convention of delegates from almost every 
 county in the State, friendly to the election of Adams, was held at 
 Albany. Some of the delegates were principally interested in the con- 
 vention because they wished to make it the medium of nominating a 
 Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. The convention accomplished 
 nothing beyond issuing an address to the people of the State, which, 
 however, failed to have any appreciable effect upon public sentiment. 
 
 The spring of 1828 found the number of Anti-Masons in the west- 
 ern part of the State quite large, and as they increased in numbers the 
 excitement on that subject became more and more intense, and they 
 very early manifested a determination to make Masonry a question 
 at the polls at the next election. They were generally opposed to the 
 Albany Regency, and, Andrew Jackson being a Mason, while Presi- 
 dent Adams was not, they almost unanimously preferred the latter 
 to the former for President. On this account the leading Adams men 
 of the State considered it wise to nominate for Governor and Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor men who were not Masons, and this contention was 
 strongly urged in the Adams convention of the tenth of June. If this 
 policy were pursued, it would naturally give the Adams ticket the sup- 
 port of the Anti-Masons. It was further urged that the Adams Party 
 should make a nomination as speedily as possible, because it was known 
 that the Anti-Masons intended to hold a convention for the nomina- 
 tion of a Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, and if the Adams Party 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 125 
 
 should have named their candidates before the Anti-Masons held their 
 convention, the new party would very likely indorse the Adams can- 
 didates. Francis Granger had been prominently named at the June 
 convention as a suitable candidate for Governor, and he was not only 
 a strong man, but one who was favorably known over the State. So, 
 in pursuance of the policy to nominate in advance of the Anti-Masons, 
 the Adams Party held a convention on July 22d. In this convention 
 a large majority of the delegates were Clintonians, yet all its officers 
 were taken from the party which the Clintonians had always opposed. 
 This was done to make a good impression on the Albany Regency. 
 The convention nominated Smith Thompson for Governor and Francis 
 Granger for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 Subsequently the Anti-Masons held their convention and nom- 
 inated Francis Granger for Governor and John Crary for Lieutenant- 
 Governor, both of whom were ardent Adams men. After some hesi- 
 tation and a conference through Samuel Stevens with Mr. Crary, 
 Granger declined the Anti-Masons' nomination, Crary having agreed 
 to do likewise. But, having succeeded in inducing Granger to resign, 
 Crary accepted the nomination, and Solomon Southwick was nominated 
 by the Anti-Masons instead of Granger. 
 
 It was pretty well known at this time that Martin Van Buren 
 would be the candidate for Governor of the Albany Regency, and 
 would support Andrew Jackson for President. It was also an open 
 secret that if Jackson were elected President, Van Buren would be 
 made Secretary of State ; hence it was highly important that a strong 
 man should be elected as Lieutenant-Governor, because he would step 
 up into Van Buren's place as soon as he entered the Cabinet. Crary 
 was opposed to the Albany Regency, and, unless he possessed more 
 stupidity than even the malice of his enemies could impute to him, he 
 must have known that he could not be elected on the Anti-Mason ticket ; 
 yet he must also have known that his remaining a candidate would 
 allow the Regency to win. The Anti-Masonic papers of the day de- 
 lighted to speak of him as "Honest John Crary," They would have 
 been nearer the mark had they called him "Stupid John Crary." 
 
 The Jackson Party was almost unanimous in support of Martin Van 
 Buren for Governor. General Pitcher claimed to be a candidate for 
 
126 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 re-election. He had made no mistakes, political or otherwise, while 
 acting as Governor, and it would seem had just claims upon his party. 
 However, Judge E. T. Throop was nominated as Lieutenant-Governor 
 on the ticket with Van Buren. General Pitcher had been a strong 
 supporter of the Albany Regency, in fact made himself almost sub- 
 servient to its edicts, but after he was supplanted he opposed them 
 strenuously until the day of his death. 
 
 The election for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor turned out to 
 be a very close contest, and, had not the Anti-Masons voted for^South- 
 wick and Crary, Van Buren and Throop would almost certainly have 
 been defeated. Van Buren received 136,783 votes, Thompson 106,415, 
 a majority of 30,368 for Van Buren. Southwick received 33,335 votes. 
 The votes for Lieutenant-Governor were about the same as for Gov- 
 ernor, so that, had Crary withdrawn his name as he at first agreed, 
 Granger would have been elected Governor. Of the thirty-six electoral 
 votes to which New York was entitled, eighteen chosen were favorable 
 to Jackson and sixteen in favor of Adams. At that time each of the 
 thirty-four congressional districts chose a presidential elector. When 
 the electoral college was organized^ the« two additional electors chosen 
 were for Jackson, so that there were 20 for Jackson' and 16 for Adams 
 from the State of New York. 
 
 In the electoral college Jackson was elected President over John Q. 
 Adams by a vote of 178 to 83, and had. a popular vote of 647,231 
 against 509,097 for Adams. 
 
 Several counties in the west sent Anti-Masons to the Assembly. 
 Among the most prominent o-f them were Millard Fillmore, from 
 Erie County; Philo C. Fuller, from Livingston County; Robert C. 
 Nicholas, from Ontario, and J. B. Skinner, from Genesee County. 
 The latter, however, did not hold religiously to the creed of his 
 constituents. 
 
 A perusal of the message of Governor Van Buren to the Legislature 
 in January, 1829, leaves the reader with the impression that the great 
 apostle of Non-Committalism was a rare politician. The message, 
 which was a long one, contained few distinct expressions upon any- 
 thing except the deceased Clinton and himself. After* a handsome 
 eulogy on De Witt Clinton, he went on to speak of his own "humble 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 127 
 
 efforts" and refers to himself as the "humblest instrument," yet a man 
 of his abilities must have been conscious of his own worth and must 
 have had some just pride in his own achievements. His political pros- 
 pects were very bright. He was strong at Washington and he was 
 head of the Albany Regency, which controlled the political situation 
 in the State of New York. For these reasons some writers find it hard 
 to believe that Van Buren was sincere in his remarks concerning him- 
 self. Times and manners change. While latter-day politicians seem 
 to believe that every one is taken at his own estimate of himself, the 
 great minds of an earlier date did not believe it necessary or seemly 
 to blow their own trumpets or herald themselves with red fire in order 
 to receive a proper appreciation. These modest expressions by Van 
 Buren are not to be taken as insincere, even though he knew he was not 
 doing himself justice. It was a mannerism — a pleasing mannerism — 
 of his day. A generation before him the great Burke and the mighty 
 Chatham used just such expressions in their greatest forensic efforts. 
 Burke in his speech on the "Conciliation of the American Colonies" 
 went so far as to disclaim the amount of knowledge possessed by the 
 members of Parliament, who were listening to him, yet he knew more 
 than any score of them combined, and his great mind must have felt a 
 noble scorn of their ignorance if he did not pity their shortsightedness. 
 In that speech, while he belittled himself, he prophesied conditions in 
 America that exist to-day. Chatham, in his old age, came tottering to 
 the House of Lords and, while lamenting that he lacked the knowledge 
 of the subject upon which he was speaking, namely, the war with Amer- 
 ica, he warned his hearers of the very things which happened a few 
 years later. So Van Buren had eminent examples to follow; besides, 
 great minds can afford to be modest. 
 
 The message, however, presented a very clear and distinct account 
 of the finances of the State, of its public works and of its literary and 
 financial institutions. In one case the Governor did assert himself with 
 great independence and good judgment. Up to that time the sales 
 at auction of all imported goods had been restricted to officers ap- 
 pointed by the State government, giving these officers a monopoly of 
 the business. He recommended the abolition of these appointments and 
 that the market be thrown open to friendly competition to all persons 
 
128 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 who would give proper security for the faithful and punctual payment 
 of all duties to the State. He. also advised the repeal of the district 
 system and the choice of presidential electors by general ticket. 
 
 He recommended a reform in the banking system and subsequently 
 sent a special message to the Legislature which outlined the details of 
 the plan which he proposed, and out of which grew the safety fund 
 bill. He was not the originator of the project, but his advocacy of it 
 had much to do with its becoming a law. 
 
 This bill required the stockholders to pay in- the whole bank capital, 
 restricted the issues of banks to a moderate amount, and provided a 
 fund, the preservation of which was guaranteed by the State for the 
 payment of dishonored bills of individual banks. It also made the 
 banks of the State reciprocally responsible for each other. 
 
 Thirty-one banks were immediately rechartered under the Safety 
 Fund bill*, but the banks of New York City refused to accept charters 
 under the law. They claimed that the bill reduced their credit to a 
 level with that of the country banks, of whose soundness they were 
 not certain. It seems, however, that this was a mistaken view, as the 
 effect was to improve the credit of all the banks, and subsequently the 
 banks of New York were glad to renew their charters under the Safety 
 Fund law. 
 
 Governor Van Buren also recommended to the Legislature the pass- 
 ing a law abolishing the district system then in vogue and directing 
 that the electors of President be chosen by general ticket. This law the 
 Legislature passed' and enacted in 1829, although it seems to have been 
 unpopular with the people at that time. Still, after the law was passed 
 no objection was made to it. This law had been advocated by De Witt 
 Clinton, and was then opposed by the Van Buren party, but after 
 Clinton's death this party adopted the very measure they had once 
 voted against. 
 
 In this year William L. Marcy was appointed to the office of Judge 
 of the* Supreme Court. This took him out of politics for a time, and 
 his loss was a heavy one to the Albany Regency. 
 
 Silas Wright, Jr., who was fast attaining prominence in the State 
 and attracting attention in the nation, was appointed Comptroller by 
 Governor Van Buren. He also made another appointment at this time 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 129 
 
 which is noticeable partly because of the extreme political acuteness 
 exhibited in the appointment. 
 
 Daniel Mosely had been appointed by Governor Pitcher as attorney 
 to prosecute the abductors and murderers of William Morgan, whose 
 assassination was the cause of the formation of the Anti-Masonic 
 Party. Van Buren made him a Circuit Judge and then selected John 
 C. Spencer as his successor in the office of Public Prosecutor. Spencer 
 was a political opponent of Van Buren. If he succeeded in convicting 
 the murderers of Morgan, Van Buren would receive the credit for his 
 success and of quieting the intense excitement among the people. If 
 Spencer failed, the failure would be attributed to lack of ability on 
 his part ; so Van Buren would either gain credit from the work of an 
 opponent, or see that opponent injured by his failure. 
 
 It might as well be stated here that the attempted prosecution was a 
 failure. Two thousand dollars had been appropriated to assist Spencer 
 in his work, but he never could get the money, and this apathy on the 
 part of the government kept up the bitterness of feeling and excitement 
 among the Anti-Masons and consolidated them into a party which 
 hoped for a permanent standing, although it had originally been organ- 
 ized in a spirit of revenge. 
 
 On March 12, 1829, Martin Van Buren communicated his resigna- 
 tion of the office of Governor to the Legislature, having been appointed 
 Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Jackson. Both Houses 
 passed resolutions of congratulation and thanks to the retiring Gov- 
 ernor, but in the Senate William H. Maynard took exception to the 
 resolution, contending that when Van Buren consented to stand as a 
 candidate for Governor he gave an implied pledge that, if elected, he 
 would serve throughout the gubernatorial term. He therefore con- 
 tended that the Senate could not approve of the Governor's conduct. 
 
 The Lieutenant-Governor, Enos T. Throop, became Governor on 
 March 12, 1829, and Charles Stebbins, of Madison County, became 
 Lieutenant-Governor in his stead. 
 
 During the session of the Legislature in 1829 a bill for constructing 
 the Chenango Canal was again brought into the Assembly, but the 
 first section of it, which contained the enacting clause, was rejected in 
 a committee of the whole. It was decided that the routes should be 
 
130 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 
 
 again surveyed under the immediate inspection of- the canal commis- 
 sioners, and the bill was subsequently amended so that the commis- 
 sioners were not permitted to contract for making the canal until they 
 should be convinced that the cost of construction would not exceed 
 $1,006,000; that there would be a sufficient supply of water; that it 
 would produce the first ten years after its construction an amount of 
 tolls which would be equal to the interest for its cost, together with 
 the necessary expense of repairs and attendance. 
 
 An act for constructing the Chemung Canal passed both the Senate 
 and Assembly and became a law during this year. 
 
 The election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency in 1828 marked 
 the beginning of a new era in the political life of the nation and of this 
 State, although the forces were not set in operation at once. Jackson 
 was a man of despotic temper and rugged honesty, and by ability and 
 audacity forced himself from the bottom to the top. He took Florida 
 from the Spanish in opposition to the wishes of the President; he de- 
 feated the British at New Orleans after a treaty of peace had been 
 signed. Both these acts brought him glory. He was a strict dis- 
 ciplinarian. He relentlessly hanged some raw recruits for a trivial 
 offence, to inspire discipline in his army, and he turned out of his Cab- 
 inet those ministers whose wives would not associate with a woman 
 whose character was in question. He appears to have been extreme in 
 his likes and dislikes, and was plainly self-sufficient and arbitrary. 
 
 In 1829 he inaugurated the "spoils system" of government. He 
 had previously written a letter of advice to President Monroe counseling 
 him that the period had arrived when the executive authority of the 
 nation might, with propriety, avail itself of the services of every citizen, 
 without regard to the political party of which he had been a member. 
 In 1829 he began what Duff Green, the government printer, character- 
 ized as a searching inquiry for all those in office who had opposed his 
 election, with a view to their removal. This determination was rigidly 
 carried into effect. Removals were general and numerous, not only of 
 great officers of State, but even petty officers of the customs, their clerks 
 and the deputy postmasters were made to feel the effects of this ref- 
 ormation. During the first year of his administration, 690 office- 
 holders were dismissed, as against 74 by all the preceding Presidents. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 131 
 
 This thorough and universal change was imputed to the influence of 
 Martin Van Buren, who certainly had displayed a distinct tendency 
 towards a system of rewards and punishments in New York State 
 through the medium of the Albany Regency. But the most casual study 
 of Jackson's character would indicate that he needed no mentor to 
 coach him in this direction. 
 
 President Adams had pursued a course directly the reverse. Under 
 his regime, when ofifices became vacant by death or resignation, the 
 vacancies were filled by friends of 4he administration; but he abso- 
 lutely refused to make removals on the ground of the political prin- 
 ciples of the incumbents. Jackson's rule being largely personal, his 
 motto would be well expressed in the modern phrase of "get even," and 
 this spirit was certainly not modified by his antipathy against his prede- 
 cessor, President Adams, who Jackson always believed had tricked him 
 out of the Presidency in 1824. In that year Jackson received 99 votes 
 in the electoral college and Adams 84, while Jackson's popular»vote was 
 50,000 in excess of that of Adams. But Henry Clay had 37 votes in 
 the electoral college, and William H. Crawford 41. Although Jackson 
 had the largest electoral vote, he fell short of a majority over all, to 
 have had which he would have needed 131 votes. No candidate having 
 a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives elected 
 Adams, much to Jackson's chagrin. No doubt, then, it afforded him 
 some pleasure to dismiss from office all who had held office under 
 Adams. 
 
 The November election in New York exhibited an overwhelming 
 majority in favor of Jackson's candidates. Seven of the eight Sena- 
 torial districts elected Senators favoring Jackson, and some of them 
 by very large majorities. Mr. Beardsley, in the sixth, received a 
 majority of about six thousand. That, however, was somewhat in- 
 creased by his persona] popularity in his own county (Otsego), where 
 he obtained a majority of more than twelve hundred votes over his 
 opponent, Mr. Mumford, the Anti-Masonic candidate. Two years be- 
 fore, the county of Otsego had returned Anti-Masonic members to the 
 Assembly. This year the average Jackson majority was over one 
 thousand. In the Assembly, too, the Jackson party elected a very large 
 majority. 
 
132 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The result of this election showed pretty satisfactorily that the Anti- 
 Masonic excitement could not be made to extend in this State, much 
 beyond the eighth district, which was the immediate theatre of the out- 
 rage committed on the unfortunate Morgan. Hence this district re- 
 ceived the appellation of "the infected district." The Anti-Masons of 
 the west had attempted to create a State and national party, as we have 
 seen in another part of these sketches, and when that was perceived, 
 many, and I may say nearly all the Masons belonging to the Adams 
 party, alarmed at what they believed to be the proscriptive spirit of 
 Anti-Masonry, preferred the ascendancy of the Albany Regency to the 
 domination of Anti-Masons, and either secretly or openly exerted their 
 influence and cast their votes in favor of the Jackson party. This cir- 
 cumstance increased the Jackson majority. Probably some politicians 
 of the Adams party were deceived by this appearance of strength, some 
 part of which was in fact adventitious, and were ready and disposed 
 at any favorable moment to wage a fierce war against them. 
 
 The name of Enos T. Throop has not come down to the present 
 generation as one of the great Governors of the State; indeed, it is 
 doubtful if one man in a thousand knows that he was ever Governor, 
 and in his own day he was criticised for lack of learning. His mes- 
 sages, especially, received much adverse criticism on account of their 
 lack of elegance. Yet in his message to the Legislature in January, 
 1830, his wise comments upon some subjects stamp him as a statesman, 
 a philosopher and a philanthropist. In that message he demurred 
 against the punishment of death for other crimes less than murder, for 
 in that day the death penalty was inflicted for burglary. Up to that 
 time, also, it is notable that no provision had been made by the State for 
 the care and support of the insane. The Governor in his address made 
 the following appeal : 
 
 "By the census of 1825 it was ascertained that there were at the 
 time eight hundred and nineteen insane persons in the State. Of these, 
 two hundred and sixty-three were of sufficient ability to pay for their 
 own support; two hundred and eight were in jail or supported by 
 charity, leaving three hundred and forty-eight insane paupers at large, 
 a terror to others, and suffering, in addition to mental derangement, 
 all the privations attending penury and want. The condition of those 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 133 
 
 under poor-house regulations, or confined in jails, is, if possible, worse. 
 No person of sensibility can look upon these sufferers, in their small 
 cells, surrounded by a bad atmosphere, sometimes chained to the walls, 
 and witness their dejected or wild despairing looks, or frantic madness, 
 without a feeling of horror. No restoration can be hoped for under 
 such circumstances; indeed, the instances are not rare, of persons 
 slightly deranged becoming incurable maniacs by these injudicious 
 means." 
 
 About this time there was much discussion over the right of govern- 
 ment to distribute the proceeds of the sales of lands belonging to the 
 United States. Governor Throop and his party claimed that this was 
 a proper thing to do, and he further favored duties upon the importa- 
 tion of merchandise. He maintained that in a few years the debt of 
 the nation would be paid off and that but a small portion of the revenue 
 would then be consumed in conducting the affairs of the country ; that, 
 while there were prudential reasons for continuing the duties to a 
 certain extent, there could be no valid objection to distributing the 
 surplus among the different States to be disposed of at their discretion. 
 He and his party also claimed that if constitutional objections existed 
 to such a measure they could be removed by constitutional means. 
 
 In 1817 a bill passed the two Houses of Congress for the distribu- 
 tion among the several States, according to the ratio of representation 
 of each State in the popular branch of the Legislature, of the dividends 
 of the United States which might accrue on $7,000,000 of stock owned 
 by the Government in the Bank of the United States ; these dividends 
 to be expended under the direction of the general government by con- 
 sent of the respective States in constructing roads and canals. The 
 whole representation from the State of New York both in the Senate 
 and House of Representatives, with the exception of General Root, 
 voted for this bill, which, however, was vetoed by President Madison. 
 
 Important as it is that the historian should record the facts of 
 history with the greatest possible exactness, it is even more important 
 to faithfully record the sentiments of the people during different epochs. 
 Sentiment rules the world and is crystallized into the facts of history. 
 For this reason we quote from the historian Hammond a paragraph 
 which throws some light on social, as well as political conditions, of 
 
134 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the year 1830, while, at the same time, it unequivopally states Ham- 
 mond's opinion of President Jaciison; and Hammond was acquainted 
 with all the characters of whom he wrote. In speaking particularly 
 of Peter R. Livingston, he says : 
 
 "N. P. Tallmadge and his relative, General James Tallmadge, had 
 been uniformly in Dutchess County the antagonists of Mr. Peter R. 
 Livingston. The selection of Mr. Tallmadge as the successor of Mr. 
 Livingston must have been extremely unpleasant to the last-named 
 gentleman. Politics among the old families of the State were always 
 more or less mingled with personal considerations and personal preju- 
 dices and predilections. Whether the neglect of his regency friends, in 
 not inviting him to become a candidate for one of the high State 
 offices; whether the early declaration of Mr. Clinton, that he was for 
 General Jackson, and the continued, unabated hostility of Mr. Living- 
 ston to Ml". C. ; or whether the bringing forward by his old political 
 friends one of the Tallmadge family for his successor in the Senate; 
 or whether his attachment to Henry Clay, to whom Mr. L. was known 
 to be personally very partial; or whether he was conscientiously of 
 opinion that General Jackson, from his education and habits, was 
 wholly unfit for the high office of President; or, indeed, whether all 
 these considerations jointly operated on his mind, Mr. Livingston, be- 
 fore he left the Legislature, manifested some unwillingness to go with 
 the majority of his party in support of Jackson, and soon after openly 
 joined the opposition to the Jackson party in this State." 
 
 The National Republican Party was the name given to the sup- 
 porters of Henry Clay, and in the year 1830 this party was represented 
 in the Legislature of the State of New York by Samuel S. Lush of 
 Albany and Luther Bradish of Franklin County. The term of service 
 of Mr. Stebbins, who was acting as Lieutenant-Governor, having ex- 
 pired, William L. Oliver of Yates County was chosen to fill that station 
 on the first day of the session, 1830. 
 
 General Root, who had been Speaker of the Assembly, was again 
 chosen over Mr. Granger in this year, but the course which he began 
 to pursue about this time resulted in his separation from the regular 
 Democratic Party. The New York banks petitioned the Legislature for 
 some modification of the Safety Fund law, and for charters under that 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 135 
 
 act. General Root had always been an opponent of the Safety Fund 
 law and was displeased at the New York banks because they so soon 
 abandoned the ground they had taken in objection to the principles of 
 banking presented by the statute. He carried his opposition so far as 
 to oppose the rechartering of the New York banks. It seems that Gen- 
 eral Root had been an applicant for the office of Bank Commissioner 
 and had been an unsuccessful candidate. The Safety Fund law had 
 been a pet scheme of Martin Van Buren, and General Root probably 
 was opposed to the act because of his disappointment in not receiving 
 the commissionership. 
 
 On March 12, 1830, Samuel S. Lush of Albany ofifered a resolution 
 in the Assembly, instructing the bank committee to inquire into the 
 expediency of prohibiting the circulation of all bank notes of a less 
 denomination than five dollars. He said that the State of Pennsylva- 
 nia had made such a prohibition, with the result that all the trash of 
 small bills had been thrown out of circulation and had given a whole- 
 some specie currency. The resolution was passed and was the begin- 
 ning of serious , financial trouble which disturbed this State for some 
 time afterwards. 
 
 How the Legislature of New York came to pass, by a large major- 
 ity, such a bill, is somewhat difficult to conceive at this day. It would 
 seem that many of the so-called legislators were influenced by the belief 
 that the intrinsic value of money consisted entirely in the value of the 
 material of which it was made, without any reference to the State whose 
 stamp constituted a legal tender. As this law was enforced, it pro- 
 duced hardships, distress and disaster, and the responsibility for such 
 was thrown upon the Democratic Party for many years. Such being 
 the case, it is interesting to know that Samuel S. Lush, the father of the 
 bill and the first advocate of the measure, throughout his entire life 
 claimed to be a uniform Federalist. 
 
 The year 1830 possesses a peculiar interest to those who are ob- 
 servant of the claims of workingmen and their struggles for desired 
 legislation- in their favor. The master builders of New York had for 
 some time previous to that year been endeavoring to obtain the passage 
 of a law giving the mechanic an efifectual lien upon buildings for re- 
 muneration for his labor and materials furnished. They even advo- 
 
136 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 cated that they should be allowed a lien upon the lots upon which such 
 buildings were situated. Their efforts proved futile, and they began 
 to complain that workingmen did not receive their share of the offices 
 and emoluments which were at the disposal of the State government. 
 With these two planks as a platform, they attempted, in the year 1830, 
 to form themselves into "The Working Men's Party." This party pro- 
 fessed to be governed by principles of its own, which were distinct from 
 those of the two great political parties in the State and nation, and also 
 distinct from the Anti-Masonic Party. Many men who were opposed 
 to the Albany Regency and the Jackson Party joined this new party, 
 which was also augmented by many Masons. The result was that in 
 nearly every city and village in the State bodies of men consisting of 
 doctors, lawyers and business men were found working for this party 
 and calling themselves workingmen. Such a party naturally could not 
 secure a permanent existence ; its constituent parts were too heteroge- 
 neous. It it said that the intelligent men who joined it were mostly 
 zealous supporters of Henry Clay, who allied themselves with the young 
 party for the purpose of preventing those who would not act with the 
 Anti-Masons from acting with the Jacksonians. 
 
 On April 16, 1830, this party held a meeting at 'Albany and nomi- 
 nated Erastus Root for Governor. General Root had been a member 
 of a Jackson legislative caucus in the previous February, and at that 
 caucus it had been decided to hold a convention at Herkimer for the 
 express purpose of nominating a Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. 
 It would seem, from General Root's political conduct at this time, that 
 he was laying plans, which seemed to him very subtle, to secure the 
 Governorship. It doubtless appeared to him that his nomination by 
 the Working Men's Party would give him strength in the Herkimer 
 convention, and, if he failed to secure the nomination at Herkimer, he 
 would still have the Working Men's nomination to fall back upon. 
 
 The Anti-Masons held their State convention at Utica in Aug^ist 
 for the nomination of State officers. There were 104 delegates present 
 from forty-eight counties. They unanimously nominated Francis 
 Granger for Governor and Samuel Stevens for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 Honest John Crary, who was a candidate for renomination, obtained 
 but seventeen votes, which seemed to indicate that the delegates had 
 
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK 137 
 
 not such a high opinion of his honesty as he doubtless would have- 
 wished. 
 
 The Herkimer convention met on September 8th and resulted in a 
 serious struggle between the friends of General Root and Lieutenant- 
 Governor Throop, the latter finally winning out and being nominated 
 for Governor. A resolution offered by Silas Wright to make the nomi- 
 nation of Throop unanimous was opposed by the friends of Root. 
 Edward P. Livingston was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 E. T. Throop was not a popular man. His most ardent biographer 
 might not credit him with great brilliancy of mind, and his manner was 
 unattractive. He was a strict and inflexible party man, and therein his 
 strength in an election contest lay. Yet he was a man of genuine worth 
 and he possessed sound judgment. His associate on the ticket, Edward 
 P. Livingston, was a dull, heavy-minded man. His characteristic was 
 family pride, but in him the talents which had distinguished some of 
 the Livingstons were notably absent. 
 
 General Root gave no indication as to whether he was a candidate 
 for Governor on the Working Men's ticket or not until about the first of 
 October, when, being pressed for an answer, he indicated that he was 
 not a candidate. 
 
 It was expected that Throop would easily defeat Granger, but, as a 
 matter of fact, he only carried the State by a little over 8,000 majority. 
 Had it not been for the Masons in counties along the Hudson River, 
 Governor Throop would have been defeated. These Masons had be- 
 come so alarmed at what they called the persecuting spirit of Anti- 
 Masonry that, much as they disapproved of Jackson and the Albany 
 Regency, they preferred them to an anti-Masonic rule. But the people 
 of the Chenango Valley had abandoned party allegiance and principles 
 to strike a blow at the Albany Regency, which had not fostered their 
 pet scheme of a Chenango canal. In what was at that day the Eighth 
 district. Granger polled twice as large a vote as Throop. 
 
 For a party that was not founded on any principle, but which was 
 produced by a murder, or supposed murder, the Anti-Masonic Party 
 attained great strength, as was exhibited in the splendid campaign 
 which Granger made in 1830. Up to the winter of that year the Anti- 
 Masonic Party had acted entirely from the impulse of feeling produced 
 
138 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 by the Morgan outrage, but in the winter of that year they began to 
 exhibit their design to become a State political party. Their very name 
 precluded this, however. It signified nothing beyond opposition to 
 Masonry, and there is much in a name in politics. No party has ever 
 existed for any length of time under a factional banner. There were 
 able men in the Anti-Masonic ranks and the party, with a wisdom 
 which was equal to its ambition, proceeded to send these to the Legis- 
 lature. In 1830 among the Anti-Masons in the Assembly and Senate 
 were William H. Steward, Trumbull Cary, Albert H. Tracy, John C. 
 Spencer, Francis Granger, John Birdsall, William H. Maynard, and 
 MiHard Fillmore — among the list are notable names which centuries 
 will not efface from the pages of American history. Moreover, Thur- 
 low Weed was editor of the Albany Journal, which was the organ of 
 the Anti-Masons. Weed was a powerful advocate and, while his at- 
 tacks upon his opponents were bitter and sometimes even ferocious, he 
 is remembered to-day as onfe of the greatest newspaper men of the 
 State. But, with all this prestige, the party lost its individuality and 
 became one of the factors in the formation of the Whig Party in 1834. 
 In the summer of 1830 Nicholas F. Beck, Adjutant-General of the 
 State, died at Albany. Governor Throop appointed Major John A. 
 Dix, a native of New Hampshire but whose residence was then in 
 Cooperstown, N. Y., to succeed him. Major Dix was a notable figure 
 in New York politics for a third of a century and was elected Governor 
 of the State in 1872. When we reach that period his regime and career 
 will be fully treated. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 139 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The National Republican Party — Effect of National Politics Upon the 
 Democratic Cause in New York State — President Jackson's 
 Financial Policy — Quarrel Between Jackson and Calhoun — 
 The Eaton Case — Nullification — Destruction of United States' 
 Bank — Causes Which Led to the Commercial Panic of 1837 — 
 The "Pet Banks" — Governor Throop's Opposition to Chenango 
 Canal — Triumph of the Jackson Party in New York State. 
 
 After Andrew Jackson defeated John Adams for the Presidency 
 in 1828, Henry Clay became the national leader of Jackson's opponents. 
 In the year 1830 these opponents took the name of National Repub- 
 licans. Jackson was a Democrat and his party was the Democratic 
 Party, the title used on banners being Democratic-Republican. 
 
 In the fall of 1830, shortly after election day, an important meeting 
 was held in Buffalo at which strong measures were passed favoring the 
 protection of American manufactures. The object of this was to pre- 
 pare the public mind of this State for a declaration in favor of Henry 
 Clay for President. On December 16 a public meeting was held in 
 New York City at which Clay was boldly launched as a presidential 
 candidate. The supporters of Clay, or National Republicans, thus be- 
 came an active party in the State of New York for a few years. The 
 most notable distinction between their principles and those of the Demo- 
 crats was their advocacy of protection, and in this it is easy to trace 
 the suggestion which crystallized into the formation of the present 
 Republican Party in 1855, the vital dogma of whose creed has been, 
 and is, the theory of protection to American industries. 
 
 The Jacksonian Party in the State Legislature was stronger in the 
 year 1831 than it had been in the previous year. Governor Throop 
 was an ardent Jacksonian and opened his address to the Legislature by 
 
I40 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 a flattering eulogy of the President. He also advocated the distribution 
 of the surplus revenue of the United States, in which he was following 
 Jackson's lead, but De Witt Clinton advocated this measure before 
 either of them. The Governor also urged upon the Legislature the 
 wisdom of restricting the number of crimes for which the penalty was 
 capital punishment. 
 
 The forces and influences controlling party politics is the State 
 of New York for several years after 1830, in fact, we may say for the 
 whole decade from 1830 to 1840, were situated outside the State. Van 
 Buren was in Washington, and was not only the intimate friend of 
 Jackson, but was looked upon by Democrats as his successor in the 
 presidential chair. Clay, the leader of the National Republicans, was a 
 Southern man. It is, therefore, necessary at this juncture to enter into 
 a brief review of the conditions at Washington in order to get a clear 
 understanding of the political situation of that day, in this State, as 
 well as throughout the Union. 
 
 After Jackson had been elected President in 1828, he expressed the 
 opinion that no man should hold the presidential chair for more than 
 one term. At that time John C. Calhoun was looked upon as his 
 logical successor, and Calhoun had, with great determination, set his 
 eyes upon the Presidency as the goal of his ambition. He and Jackson, 
 however, quarrelled, became enemies, and Jackson decided that he 
 would hold the Presidency for two terms. He turned his eyes toward 
 Martin Van Buren as his successor in office. Much of the history of 
 Jackson's life is a record of quarrels and contentions. He nol only 
 broke with Calhoun, but quarrelled with his whole Cabinet, with the 
 exception of Martin Van Buren, who helped him out of many dif- 
 ficulties. He had also set himself to destroy the United States Bank, 
 and in this he was supported by the Democrats at large. These three 
 fights were civil fights, but in them Jackson was just as successful as 
 he had always been with his sword. 
 
 Calhoun had been Secretary of War under President Monroe, and 
 during the Seminole War was, therefore, Jackson's official superior. 
 This war was an aftermath of the War of 1812. The English had for 
 a time occupied Florida, although that was Spanish territory, and they 
 had stirred up the Indians against the United States. Jackson had 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 141 
 
 command of the troops sent against the Seminoles, and his orders were 
 that he should, if necessary, pursue the enemy into Spanish territory, 
 but that in case they took refuge in any Spanish fort he should cease 
 operations and await instructions from Washington. This did not suit 
 Jackson, so he set about procuring the consent of President Monroe to 
 his carrying on the war-as he saw fit. This he sought to do through the 
 medium of a friend named John Rhea. Jackson maintained that, in this 
 way, he had obtained the sanction of the President for his acts. Mon- 
 roe always strenuously denied it and made an affidavit to that effect on 
 his death-bed. Jackson not only entered Spanish territory in pursuit 
 of the Seminoles, but captured St. Marks, where the Indians had taken 
 refuge, and even went so far as to drive the Spanish authorities out of 
 Pensacola, at the same time calling upon the government at Washington 
 to say the word and he would take the whole of Florida. Following 
 this he executed two Englishmen on the charge of inciting the Indians 
 to act against the United States. 
 
 At this very time the administration of the United States was 
 negotiating with Spain for the purchase of Florida, and Jackson's 
 conduct hampered the President greatly. The matter naturally came 
 up for discussion in the Cabinet and Calhoun proposed to hold a court 
 of inquiry into Jackson's conduct, at the same time speaking harshly 
 of him, although he and Jackson were very friendly. For a long time 
 Calhoun endeavored to keep this act a secret, which was not a very 
 difficult thing to do, because, occurring in the Cabinet, it was a Cabinet 
 secret. It was twelve years before Jackson became aware of Calhoun's 
 attitude toward him at that time, and when he was finally apprised of 
 it the information was brought to him through political animosity. 
 
 The only thing which the Cabinet did concerning Jackson's course in 
 the Seminole war was to disavow responsibility for his conduct, and in 
 this way succeeded in satisfying Spain. Jackson at that time did not 
 throw the blame upon Monroe, douTatless not wishing to hamper the 
 administration, but very manfully allowed the blame to fall upon his 
 own shoulders. However, some men in Congress, not content with the 
 rebuff given Jackson by the disavowal of his acts, made an attempt to 
 censure his conduct, probably hoping to injure his chances for the Presi- 
 dency, toward which at that time he was beginning to look. Jackson 
 
142 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 treated all such with a lavish amount of intemperate language and 
 with serious threats, the slightest of which was cutting off the ears of 
 all the Congressmen opposed to»him. 
 
 In 1824 Jackson was defeated for President, although he had the 
 largest popular vote, while Calhoun was elected Vice-President. In 
 1828 Jackson was elected President and Calhoun was again elected 
 Vice-President. This threw the two men closely together and Calhoun 
 began assiduously to lay his plans to succeed Jackson. It had become 
 an unwritten law that a Vice-President should not hold the office more 
 than two terms, and Jackson had declared himself against a second 
 term for any President. Calhoun had lent all his influence as Vice- 
 President against Adams during the previous administration, and this 
 naturally strengthened him with Jackson. Still, Calhoun's position was 
 a very delicate one in the light of Jackson's ambitious nature. There 
 were three of Calhoun's friends in the Cabinet, but Martin Van Buren, 
 the most astute politician of that time, was Secretary of State. Van 
 Buren also had his eyes on the Presidency and was a warm political and 
 personal friend of the President. 
 
 Little things often upset the best laid plans and lead to the most 
 tremendous results, so little personal matters ruined Calhoun's chances 
 and vastly strengthened those of Martin Van Buren. President Jack- 
 son had made John H. Eaton Secretary of War. Now John H. Eaton 
 had married the widow of a naval officer named Timberlake, and it 
 was understood that Timberlake had committed suicide because of 
 Eaton's attentions to his wife. Trouble at once began. The wives of 
 the other Cabinet ministers refused to recognize Mrs. Eaton socially. 
 President Jackson undertook to induce the members of the Cabinet to 
 order a different course of behavior on the part of their wives. But 
 this, it seems, none of them was willing to do. They looked upon the 
 matter as a social question with which the members of the Cabinet had 
 nothing whatever to do, and protested that they would not, if they 
 could, compel their wives to recognize Mrs. Eaton. Edward M. Shep- 
 ard, in his Life of "Martin Van Buren" (p. 182), suggests that they 
 could not if they would, and doubtless his view of the case is correct, 
 as he is an old bachelor and knows all about domestic complications. 
 Calhoun, then a member of the Cabinet, incurred Jackson's anger on 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 143 
 
 this account, as the President affected to beheve that the boycott against 
 Mrs. Eaton was a plan concocted by the other Cabinet members to 
 force Eaton out of the Cabinet. It is said that some time before the 
 Eaton incident, Jackson had become suspicious of the disinterested 
 friendship of Calhoun for himself, and, added to these things, came 
 the growing sentiment of nullification, which had been crystallized 
 by Calhoun shortly before the nomination of Jackson in his "South 
 Carolina Exposition" protest. 
 
 At the celebration of Jefferson's birthday in April, 1830, Jackson 
 gave as a toast, "Our Federal Union : it must be preserved." Calhoun 
 came back with "The Union ; next to our Liberty the most dear ; may 
 we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights 
 of the States and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the 
 Union." 
 
 After that evening there was a gap between Jackson and Calhoun. 
 Subsequently, Major Lewis informed Jackson of the existence of a 
 letter written by Governor Forsyth of Georgia setting forth the posi- 
 tion which Calhoun had taken against Jackson in regard to his conduct 
 of the Seminole war, and from that time Jackson was the implacable 
 enemy of Calhoun. 
 
 All these things redounded to the political benefit of Martin Van 
 Buren. He was a member of Jackson's Cabinet when the Eaton inci- 
 dent occurred, but, being at that time a widower, it required no 
 diplomacy on his part to smile at the other members of the Cabinet in 
 their embarrassment, to treat Mrs. Eaton civilly, and to still further 
 strengthen himself with President Jackson. 
 
 Moreover, Jackson decided upon the removal of the objectionable 
 members of his Cabinet ; certainly, to rid himself of the friends of Cal- 
 houn and probably also to avenge himself upon those members whose 
 wives had slighted Mrs. Eaton. Van Buren was the first to send in 
 his resignation, and, judging from the condition of affairs in Washing- 
 ton at that time, there can be no doubt that this move was prearranged 
 between him and the President. Van Buren assigned as the principal 
 cause for tendering his resignation that it was his belief that, should he 
 continue in the Cabinet, circumstances would tend to increase and em- 
 bitter the disputes about the successor to General Jackson, and thus 
 
144 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 increase the opposition to the administration. Secretary Eaton sent 
 in his resignation about the same time. Jackson had an interview with 
 each member of the Cabinet and declared that, as he had to appoint one 
 or two new secretaries, he had decided to have an entirely new Cabinet. 
 They all resigned and he appointed new secretaries. 
 
 Van Buren's course in resigning from the Cabinet was certainly a 
 wise one. Not only did he strengthen himself with Jackson by enabling 
 him to get rid of an objectionable Cabinet, but he left himself a free 
 lance with the Democratic Party. It would have been vain for him 
 to expect to unite the Democratic Party in his favor so long as he 
 remained in a Cabinet, the majority of whom were warmly in favor of 
 John C. Calhoun as the successor to Andrew Jackson. 
 
 Thus, through Calhoun's criticism of Jackson's conduct during the 
 Seminole war, and through his, for him, unfortunate though indirect, 
 connection with the Eaton case, his chances for the Presidency were 
 ruined. But as sour political weather began to blight his flowery hopes, 
 weeds of resentment began to grow, and he pursued the nullification 
 question to the verge of war. Calhoun was the great exponent of nul- 
 lification, and, as the leader in that movement, the course pursued by 
 South Carolina, his native State, had his endorsement, and was pursued 
 under his leadership, although he was strongly seconded by Hayne. 
 His course in this matter certainly did him no good outside of South 
 Carolina and some other southern States. 
 
 What is nullification ? It is the act of nullifying or declaring a law 
 to be void. In the history of the United States the term is applied to the 
 nullification, by a State, of a national law, and is always associated 
 in the mind with the case of South Carolina at the time of which we 
 are writing. The nullification doctrine of Calhoun differed somewhat 
 from that of Hayne. Hayne held that the right to nullify resided in 
 the State Legislature, but Calhoun maintained that this was a right 
 of the people and should be exercised by the people in a State con- 
 vention. 
 
 The tariffs of 1824 and 1828 had introduced the system of pro- 
 tection of home manufactures. The South did not employ any skilled 
 labor, the work in that part of the Union being almost entirely per- 
 formed by slaves. The southern States, therefore, derived no benefit 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 145 
 
 from protection. They had no manufactures to protect, and conse- 
 quently objected to a system which protected the northern manufac- 
 turers at their expense. 
 
 On July 14, 1832, a tariff bill which slightly reduced some duties 
 became a law, but~the South, and particularly the State of South Caro- 
 lina, was not satisfied. That State had been grumbling for some time, 
 and there was a serious menace in her tone. She now took steps to put 
 her threats into execution, and a State convention was called to meet 
 November 19, 1832. That convention passed a nullification ordinance 
 on November 24, which declared, the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 
 void; forbade the payment of duties under these acts after February 
 I, 1833 ; declared an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States 
 regarding the validity of the ordinance to be contempt of the State 
 court; caused every juror and every State officer to swear to support 
 the ordinance, and "declared that if force were used against her she 
 would consider herself no longer a member of the Union. 
 
 President Jackson took a firm stand. He issued a proclamation de- 
 claring that nullification was inconsistent with the Constitution, of the 
 United States, and that disunion by armed force was treason. General 
 Scott was ordered to Charleston; a naval force entered the harbor of 
 that city, and the Collector of the Port was instructed to take precau- 
 tions to insure the payment, of duties. South Carolina weakened be- 
 fore Jackson's vigorous measures, and in January, 1833, the nullifiers, 
 at a private meeting, decided to postpone the operations of the ordi- 
 nance until after the meeting of Congress, and duties were paid after 
 February i just as they had been before. That was practically the 
 close of the incident, but a new tariff bill was passed in February, 1833, 
 with a view to ameliorating the case. Although this bill was not en- 
 tirely satisfactory to the South, the State of South Carolina held a 
 convention on March 16, 1833, and repealed the Ordinance of Nulli- 
 fication. 
 
 Although nullification was subdued for the time, the seed was sown 
 which kept germinating until it broke out in the War of 1861, and it 
 is probable that had Calhoun at that time been on friendly terms with 
 Jackson the South Carolina ordinance would not have been passed, 
 nor would the War of the Rebellion have broken out when it did, al- 
 
146 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 though eventually it was inevitable on account of the institution of 
 slavery. 
 
 Jackson had decided upon the destruction of the United States 
 Bank, and he set about carrying that decision into effect. The imme- 
 diate consequences of this course of action were disastrous to the coun- 
 try and left to Martin Van Buren a legacy which proved his political 
 ruin. It is true that the Sub-Treasury of to-day owes its existence 
 to the abolition- of the. United States Bank ; but for this Jackson de- 
 serves no credit, as the idea of a Sub-Treasury was not suggested by 
 him, but by his successor. President Van Buren. 
 
 The United States Bank had, in the year 1816, received a charter 
 for twenty years. By the law creating this bank it was provided that 
 the national revenue should be deposited in that bank, to be paid out 
 and disbursed by it according to directions it should from time to 
 time receive from the Treasury Department. The Secretary of the 
 Treasury had, however, the right to remove these deposits whenever, 
 in his judgment, the public interests demanded the change, he being 
 required to give his reasons to Congress. The intention of the law 
 unquestionably was that the national deposits should be continued in 
 the Bank of the United States so long as that bank continued to. be 
 a safe depository and performed its duties in accordance with the laws 
 under which its charter was granted. 
 
 President Jackson set himself to destroy the bank. Jackson's plan 
 was to take the deposits from the Bank of the United States and dis- 
 tribute them among certain State banks throughout the Union. This 
 was ultimately done, and the banks to which the deposits were dis- 
 tributed became known as "pet banks." 
 
 In his messages to Congress in 1829, 1830 and 1831, President 
 Jackson expressed strong dislike of the United States Bank. His po- 
 sition was, therefore, clearly understood. Henry Clay, then a member 
 of Congress, having' successfully used his power to the disadvantage 
 of Calhoun by encouraging that statesman in his nullification course, 
 now led the friends of the United States Bank in an effort to have the 
 bank rechartered. Not only were a great many people in the United 
 States in favor of continuing the bank, but political opponents of 
 Jackson conceived the idea that if the bank were rechartered it would 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 147 
 
 hamper Jackson in the coming presidential election. Clay was endeav- 
 oring to clear his own path to the Presidency by handicapping his 
 great rivals. 
 
 As a large portion of the revenue was collected at the Port of 
 New York, the banlcs of this State, and many people who were politi- 
 cally opposed to Jackson, favored the distribution of the national sur- 
 plus to the State banks, as it would leave in this State a great deal 
 of money which would otherwise go into the Bank of the United 
 States. 
 
 Under the fine manipulation of Henry Clay both Houses of Con- 
 gress, in the winter of 1832, passed a bill providing for the renewal 
 of the charter of the bank. This bill Pixsident Jackson promptly 
 vetoed. His opponents had felt sure that he would not venture to take 
 this step. They were, moreover, disappointed in the result, for they 
 expected such a course would make him enemies and increase the 
 strength of the National Republicans. In the next Congress, however, 
 he had a majority of his own supporters, so that no further attempt 
 was made in that body to renew the charter of the bank. 
 
 The bank's charter would not expire until 1836, but President 
 Jackson, having set out to destroy the institution, was not willing to 
 allow it to die a natural death. He therefore undertook to remove the 
 deposits, on the ground that they were unsafe while in charge of the 
 bank", and he brought this matter before Congress during the session 
 of 1833. The House of -Representatives, however, expressed them- 
 selves as averse to the project. He then laid his views on the subject 
 before his Cabinet, but Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, declared 
 he could not conscientiously consent to the measure, and Jackson found 
 it utterly impossible to change the Secretary's determination. So de- 
 termined was the President upon the success of his project, and find- 
 ing that he could not remove the deposits from the United States 
 Bank, he removed the Secretary of the Treasury and appointed Roger 
 B. Taney in his stead. Secretary Taney at once issued an order for 
 the removal of the deposits from the national bank to the State banks. 
 This act produced loud denunciations from the National Republicans 
 all over the country, but did not have any appreciable effect upon the 
 political situation. 
 
148 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The managers of the Bank of the United States at once set out for 
 revenge and for financial self-protection. Their retaliatory move was 
 entirely based on' their professed desire for the latter. They proceeded 
 to call in their loans, and they restricted discdimts. Inside of a few 
 months they had forced the collection of many millions of dollars. The 
 managers of the bank declared thai they had made their loans on the 
 credit of the government deposits and^ these being withdrawn, they were 
 compelled to call in such loans. They were especially severe toward 
 New York State debtors. Jackson and' his friends declared that the 
 course pursued by the bank was entirely unnecessary; but it cannot 
 be denied that the bank's managers were fighting with the President's 
 own weapons, and were actuated by the same despicable sentiments 
 which urged him to work against the bank, namely, revenge. 
 
 The bank's course was a direct result of Jackson's act. The conse- 
 quence was financial troubles in the winter of 1836, which such men 
 as Daniel Webster and Henry Clay claimed were serious, and the re- 
 sponsibility for which they laid at the President's door. Jackson's 
 act in removing the deposits was characterized all over the land as 
 high-handed and tyrannical. It was claimed' that he had obtained pos- 
 session and control of the national treasury, of which the representa- 
 tives of the people in Congress were the constitutional guardians. 
 
 Meanwhile the State banks which had received the surplus revenue 
 looked upon it as a permanent deposit, as capital, in short, and pro- 
 ceeded to enlarge the scope of their operations accordingly. So it 
 came about that men who formerly were permitted to borrow from 
 the banks what they actually needed, could now borrow what they 
 might wish. Speculation largely increased, not only in western lands, 
 which was the favorite investment, but in steamboat lines, in new roads, 
 in suburban tracts — in short, in any project which a speculator might 
 present to the market. Western lands were sold by the government at 
 $1.25 per acre. These were purchased by speculators, paid for in 
 notes, and sold at higher values, the operation to be repeated over 
 and over as the boom in values progressed. Labor was drawn from 
 productive to unproductive work ; men rich in bonds, soon to be worth- 
 less, accumulated debts. Banking was looked upon as a splendid road 
 to wealth, so there was a clamor at the doors of Legislatures for char- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 149 
 
 ters for new banks; speculation extended to almost all classes. The 
 plenitude of money, the seeming prosperity of the times, naturally 
 induced a more luxurious style of living in the, then, young country. 
 Men grew rich rapidly; farmers' wives became grand dames, with 
 silks and carriages; their sons became gentlemen of leisure. In a 
 new country, such as United States then was, labor is what counts. 
 Labor creates and promotes prosperity, and the condition produced 
 in the country by the spirit of speculation robbed men of the desire 
 to work, when they could make a living more easily. Besides, labor 
 was attracted to the new western fields ; the productive East was bereft 
 of those who should have been still working in its fields, and the labor 
 of those who had gone west was as yet unproductive to any extent. 
 
 Speculation in public lands swiftly grew to tremendous propor- 
 tions. The rule that all but actual settlers must pay for such purchases 
 in coin was not maintained. In 1829 the sale of public lands amounted 
 to a little over $1,500,000. In 1830 it was $2,300,000; in 1832, 
 $2,600,000; in 1833, $3>900,ooo; in 1834, $4,800,000; in 1835, $14,- 
 757,000; in 1836, $24,877,000. In 1836 President Jackson determined 
 to check the wild speculation which had developed all over the land. 
 President Jackson issued an order that the land offices should receive 
 nothing but gold and silver or certificates of deposit in specie in the 
 United States Treasury in payment of land. The law at that time 
 was that all except actual settlers should pay for the land in gold or 
 silver. 
 
 The amount of money taken from the United States Bank and 
 distributed among the "pet" banks was about ten million dollars, and 
 there are writers on the subject who claim that this paltry sum was 
 not sufficiently large to have supplied any special impetus toward in- 
 creased speculation. It must be remembered, however, that the popu- 
 lation of the United States at that time was only about thirteen mil- 
 lions, and that ten million dollars in that day would be like sixty 
 millions to-day, figuring pro rata for population. The wealth of pri- 
 vate individuals to-day and the concentration of wealth in commercial 
 circles is out of all proportion to what existed then. Men talk of 
 millions to-day as they would of thousands in those days, and the ten 
 million dollars distributed to the "pet" banks was unquestionably a 
 
I50 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 vast sum of money in the eyes of the country, and even of the bankers. 
 Sixty milHons is just the amount of bonds issued by Cleveland in 
 1893 to relieve the national distress of that year. A sum of money, 
 like any commodity, would weigh as much in one end of the scale as 
 in the other. Moreover, ten million dollars was the amount of Treas- 
 ury notes issued by Van Buren's special session of Congress to relieve 
 the commercial distress. 
 
 However, in the year 1836 the government deposit with the banks 
 had reached the sum of forty-one million, five hundred thousand dol- 
 lars, and, immediately upon the heels of Jackson's order restricting 
 payment for public lands to specie. Congress ordered this money dis- 
 tributed among the several States in a ratio in proportion to the num- 
 ber of presidential electors to which each State was entitled, the money 
 to be used for internal improvements. Van Buren was opposed to this 
 action. The banks, as has been said, had looked upon this money as 
 a permanent deposit, and had gone on lending money upon the strength 
 of this belief. With vaults full of paper securities, how could they 
 pay in gold? The gold had disappeared, and in its place was paper, 
 which, when the crisis came, nobody would take. The banks had 
 depended upon the government deposits with which to meet their own 
 notes. Was not this an argument against the deposit with them ? Did 
 it not show that speculation was heightened by the distribution of this 
 money to the banks ? The order, therefore, embarrassed the speculators 
 seriously, and precipitated the terrible financial calamity of 1837. 
 
 More detailed particulars of the the commercial troubles of 1837 
 and their effect upon Van Buren and the Democratic Party will be 
 found in the life of Van Buren, which appears in another part of this 
 work. 
 
 We will now return to the year 183 1 and to the consideration of 
 events in New York State, which were, to a great extent, an echo of 
 the bank affairs at Washington. 
 
 The Jackson Party in New York State, like the personal and po- 
 litical friends of the President all over the Union, were opposed to the 
 rechartering of the Bank of the United States. There were some 
 reasons for this outside of party politics. About two-thirds of the 
 United States revenue was paid into the United States branch bank. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 151 
 
 and when there was under the absolute control of the parent bank in 
 Philadelphia. The State banks believed that if these large deposits 
 could be diverted to their vaults, all benefits arisuig from such de- 
 posits would redound directly to the advantage of the State banks. 
 They could largely increase their operations without increasing their 
 capital, and would profit by the very great circulation of United States 
 bank notes. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, to find that during the session of the 
 Legislature in 183 1 both houses at Albany passed a resolution to tlie 
 effect that the charter of the Bank of the United States ought not to 
 be renewed. It required two attempts, however, to put the resolution 
 through before it was successful. 
 
 On June 3, 1831, a convention of National Republicans assembled 
 at Albany, during the session of which President Jackson was soundly 
 abused and Henry Clay exalted. At this convention a State organiza- 
 tion was arranged for. 
 
 James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, died July 4, 
 1831. On July 4, 1826, John Adams died in Massachusetts, and 
 Thomas Jefferson on the same day died in Virginia. At the time of 
 Monroe's death the strange coincidence that these three ex-Presidents 
 should all have died upon the Fourth oi July excited much comment 
 and conjecture. The superstitious, the ultra-patriotic and the philos- 
 opher all had explanations and deductions. Everything of that char- 
 acter being of the nature of useless speculation, forms no part of a 
 page of history. 
 
 Early in the session of the Legislature of 1832 the Jacksonian mem- 
 bers of that body began to assail the Bank of the United States, in 
 order, no doubt, to assist as far as possible in upholding the hands of 
 the President. A resolution opposing the rechartering of the bank was 
 passed in both the Senate and Assembly. 
 
 In 1832 occurred the remarkable action of the United States Con- 
 gress against Martin Van Buren. He had been appointed Minister 
 to England by President Jackson, and had gone to England and was 
 the accredited representative of the United States at the court of St. 
 James. Early in the session of 1832 the President sent his nomina- 
 tion to the Senate, but that body long delayed taking action upon it. 
 
152 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and when the Senate finally did take action it was to reject the nomi- 
 nation. This was intended as a political blow to Van Buren, but it 
 was in every way an ill-advised act, and particularly so with regard 
 to its results as they affected those who had been instrumental in bring- 
 ing about the rejection. In England Van Buren would simply have 
 been a prominent American abroad. By this act he was brought home 
 to mingle with his friends, and by his presence to stir their resentment 
 against his enemies. In England he would simply have been United 
 States Minister ; he came home to be at once declared a candidate for 
 Vice-President, and was elected to that office in the fall of 1832. At 
 that election Jackson was re-elected President, so that those: two great 
 friends, personal and political, were made the first and second men in 
 the nation, and were in a position to lay their plans and carry out 
 their projects with their combined strength. 
 
 In New York State the Albany Regency was not dead. Van 
 Buren's friends in this State were as loyal to him as ever. William 
 L. Marcy, one of the strong men in the Albany Regency, was con- 
 sidered a possible candidate for Governor, so that, in the year 1832, 
 the Democrats in New York State felt not only strong, but ardent 
 and confident of success. 
 
 Soon after the rejection of Van Buren by the Senate a meeting 
 was held in Albany, at which public speeches were made denouncing 
 the action of the Senate against Van Buren as an unprecedented out- 
 rage. It is said that the term "indignation meeting" originated with 
 this and other meetings held to denounce the Senate for its action. 
 
 The Anti-Masons convened their State convention at Utica on June 
 21, and nominated Francis Granger for Governor and Samuel Stevens 
 for Lieutenant-Governor. On July 26, following, the National Repub- 
 licans held a convention at Utica also. They did not make any nomi- 
 nation for Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, but recommended that 
 Granger and Stevens be supported. They also recommended the sup- 
 port of Henry Clay for President of the United States and of John 
 Sergeant for Vice-President. 
 
 Governor Throop's opposition to the construction of the Chenango 
 Canal, which had been continually agitated during his regime, made 
 his renomination for Governor by his party an impossibility, yet it is 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 153 
 
 doubtful if he cared for re-election. Consequently, the members of 
 the Albany Regency had to look for another candidate, and speedily 
 decided that William L. Marcy was the man of the hour. The Demo- 
 crats held their convention at Herkimer on September 19. William 
 L. Marcy was nominated for Governor and John Tracy for Lieutenant- 
 Governor. 
 
 In the fall of 1832 there were four presidential candidates in the 
 field : Andrew Jackson, Democratic ; Henry Clay, National Republican ; 
 John Floyd, Independent, and William Wirt, Anti-Masonic. The Jack- 
 son Party triumphed, not only in New York State, but throughout the 
 nation. Jackson was, for the second time, elected President, and Will- 
 iam L. Marcy was elected Governor of the State of New York, with 
 John Tracy Lieutenant-Governor. The Democratic majority in New 
 York State was about 13,000. In the Electoral College Jackson re- 
 ceived 219 votes; Clay, 49; Floyd, 11, and Wirt, 7. 
 
154 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Regime of Governor Marcy — The Rise of the Whig Party — Con- 
 struction of Chenango Canal — Enlargement of Erie Canal — 
 The Abolitionists — Equal Rights' Party, or Loco-Focos — The 
 Legislature and Bank Charters — Wild Speculation of the Time 
 — The Specie Circular of President Jackson — Banks Suspend 
 Specie Payhnents — Commercial Panic of 1837. 
 
 Governor Marcy began a regime on January i, 1833, which was 
 destined to last six years. At the time of his election the Democratic 
 Party in the State of New York was in splendid condition. While 
 he had been living in Washington as a member of the United States 
 Senate, he had not lost touch with the Albany Regency, nor had he 
 been forgotten by his friends in New York State. He had been, him- 
 self, for some time one of the most active members of the Albany Re- 
 gency, which was now represented by Silas Wright, A. C. Flagg, E. 
 Croswell, John A. Dix, James Porter and B. Knower. With Marcy 
 as Governor and this galaxy of able men to lead and control the Demo- 
 cratic Party in the State, the only marvel is that it should have lost 
 its strength in the short space of six years. Van Buren was in Wash- 
 ington filling the office of Vice-President and taking a very active part 
 in national affairs and national politics. He was the friend and confi- 
 dant of President Jackson, and was universally acknowledged as the 
 "heir apparent" to the Presidency. This ought to have aided in 
 strengthening and maintaining the Democratic Party in New York 
 State, and such was the result for a time, but, as has already been 
 pointed out, affairs at Washington so shaped themselves that great 
 dissatisfaction ultimately arose in this State as a result of occurrences 
 in the national capital. 
 
 But, for the present, the party was strong active and aggressive. 
 
WILLIAM L.MAE' 
 
 ;4i- /•.*/«/ /--.-'■■, /-fi-:/,,--ei Cs 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 155 
 
 Governor Marcy was a "spoils" man; he had openly avowed it, but 
 this did not weaken him with his political friends in New York State. 
 He was one of those strong men whose character dignifies even an 
 indifferent act. 
 
 Governor Marcy, in conjunction with the Albany Regency, at once 
 set about making arrangements to strengthen the party wherever pos- 
 sible, and to get the right men in the right places. Marcy himself had 
 resigned his seat in the United States Senate in order to step into the 
 Governor's chair, and it was very important that his successor should 
 not only be a sagacious man, but one capable of taking care of himself 
 and his party in the Senate. This was the more necessary because of 
 Van Buren's peculiar position, holding the office of Vice-President and 
 laying his plans to succeed to the Presidency. Therefore, Silas Wright 
 was selected as United States Senator. Wright was Comptroller, and 
 this left that office vacant, so A. C. Flagg was appointed Comptroller. 
 General Dix was made Secretary of State, and the office of Adjutant- 
 General, thus left vacant, was filled by Levi Hubbell. Hubbell came 
 from Canandaigua, which is in what was then called the "infected dis- 
 trict," and it was with a view to gain strength there that his appoint- 
 ment was made. 
 
 During the session of the Legislature in 1833 the project of con- 
 structing the Chenango Canal was again taken up. For session after 
 session of the Legislature this question had beai brought to the front, 
 and for one reason or another had been rejected each time. The 
 principal argument used against it was that its construction would 
 cost a large amount of money, and that it would not pay. Sections 
 of the State not contigttous to the canal took no interest in the mat- 
 ter beyond opposing the project in order to keep down taxes. How- 
 ever in February, 1833, a bill for the construction of the canal was 
 carried through both Houses. It was claimed by political writers of 
 that day that this bill was carried through as the result of a political 
 deal, in other words, that the Albany Regency bargained with the 
 counties of Chenango and Broome, agreeing to construct the canal if 
 those counties returned Democratic members. In order to pass the 
 bill many members of the Legislature had to cast a vote contrary to 
 their previous arguments and to their previous vote. It is even 
 
156 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 asserted that some of these members excused their change of front 
 on the ground that the bill would be brought up at every Legislature 
 until it was finally passed, so it was just as well to pass it then and 
 set the matter at rest. 
 
 During this session of the Legislature charters were granted to 
 eight banking companies, and before the session of 1834 began one 
 hundred and five applications for charters for new banks were filed. 
 The tide of speculation induced by the proposed distributing of the 
 surplus revenue to the pet banks was beginning to set in. Early in 
 the session of 1834 a resolution was moved in the Assembly approv- 
 ing of the removal of the deposits from the United States Bank, and 
 the resolution passed both the Assembly and the Senate by large ma- 
 jorities, although there was opposition from such men as Seward. 
 
 The action of the United States Bank in forcing collections soon 
 began to cause serious apprehension to the State banks. They began 
 to fear that they would be compelled to suspend specie payments unless 
 they could receive some outside aid. So alarming did the question 
 become that the banks reported their condition to Governor Marcy, 
 and on March 22d, 1834, the Governor sent a message to the Legis- 
 lature recommending a loan of the credit of the State to the banks, 
 this to take the shape of State stocks to the amount of five or six 
 million dollars; but with the proviso that such aid should be given 
 only in the event that the banks should require such aid. In accord- 
 ance with the suggestion of the Governor, the Legislature at once 
 passed the act. The United States Bank, however, perceiving that the 
 New York banks would be sustained by the credit of the State, and 
 could not, therefore, be compelled to suspend payment of their notes 
 in specie, soon changed its course, and, instead of curtailing, began 
 to extend its loans and increase its issues. The State banks were, 
 therefore, not compelled to call upon the State for the aid extended 
 to them. 
 
 An attempt was made by the Whigs to assail the Governor for 
 recommending the measure. They declared it to be a mortgage on 
 the property of the people of the State for the benefit of moneyed cor- 
 porations, but their eflforts proved futile, as, not only then, but ever 
 since, the action of Governor Marcy has been approved by all parties. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 157 
 
 That year, 1834, the National Republican Party, the Anti-Masonic 
 Party, and factious Democrats in some of the southern States united 
 to form the Whig Party. They were all opposed to Andrew Jackson, 
 and from sharing this common enmity found themselves working to- 
 gether, and so they became united. Of course there were Anti-Masons, 
 there were National Republicans, and there were advocates of Nullifica- 
 tion in different parts of the country after this date, but so many 
 of each of these parties were absorbed into the Whig Party that the 
 fragments were thereafter scarcely worth considering. 
 
 James Watson Webb, of the New York Courier and Enquirer, sug- 
 gested the name of Whig for this combination, as he claimed that in 
 England the word meant opposition to "executive usurpation." That 
 may have been the sense in which the Whig Party in America un- 
 derstood the word, but it never had that meaning in England. Ac- 
 cording to the best English writers, notably Collier, the term Whig 
 meant "sour whey." It is so given in old English dictionaries also. 
 Both of the names Whig and Tory were nicknames, and after the 
 Restoration in England the Tories, who considered themselves the 
 cream of the political milk, called those opposed to them "Whigs," or 
 the sour vwhey — the watery or less valuable part of the milk. 
 
 The advocates of nullification were confined entirely to the South. 
 They did not become absorbed into the Whig Party, but formed a 
 pro-slavery faction in the Democratic Party of the South. 
 
 William Henry Harrison was the first presidential candidate on 
 the Whig ticket, and was defeated by Martin Van Buren in 1836. 
 The Whigs held their first State convention in the summer of 1834, 
 and nominated William H. Seward for Governor and Silas Stillwell 
 for Lieutenant-Governor. The latter had formerly been a Democrat 
 and a member of Assembly from New York City. Seward had, even 
 at that day, acquired a high reputation, and the Whigs felt that in 
 him they had a strong candidate. 
 
 The Democrats held their convention at Herkimer in September, 
 and nominated Marcy and Tracy for re-election for Governor and 
 Lieutenant-Governor respectively. The campaign seems to have been 
 fought principally on the question of the removal of the deposits and 
 the trouble produced by the consequent stringency of money. Marcy 
 
158 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and Tracy were elected by a majority of about 11,000, and seven of 
 .the eight Senatorial districts returned Democratic Senators. 
 
 The message of Governor Marcy to the Legislature in January, 
 1835, was mainly taken up with the review of the conduct of the 
 United States Bank and a history of the act of the previous session 
 providing for the loaning of the credit of the State to the embarrassed 
 banks. He also suggested the suppression of the circulation of all 
 notes under five dollars. He recommended the enlargement of the 
 Erie Canal. 
 
 His recommendation was acted on with regard to the suppression 
 of bank notes under five dollars, an act to that efifect being passed 
 by both Houses. This was manifestly to compel the circulation of 
 silver. The Legislature also passed "An Act in Relation to the Erie 
 Canal," which authorized the directors to enlarge and improve the 
 canal, and to construct a double set of lift locks therein, as soon as 
 such improvements were necessary in the opinion of the Board of 
 Canal Commissioners. Under the authority of this act the Canal 
 Board began a system of improvements of the canal with the inten- 
 tion of expending about twelve million dollars, but which ultimately 
 cost twice that much. As it was provided in the act that the cost of 
 this work should be paid out of the moneys belonging to the Erie and 
 Champlain canal funds, this was a heavy mortgage upon these funds. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Legislature acted with such liberality toward 
 the Erie Canal, the Senate rejected a bill for the construction of the 
 Black River Canal, and also a bill for the construction of the Genesee 
 and Olean Canal. 
 
 At this session of the Legislature Samuel Young introduced into 
 the Senate the following resolution : 
 
 "Resolved (the Assembly concurring herein), That the Senators 
 from this State in the Congress of the United States be, and they 
 are hereby instructed to use their best efiforts to cause to be expunged 
 from the journals of the Senate of the United States the resolution 
 of the twenty-eighth of March, 1834, declaring 'That the President 
 in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has 
 assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Con- 
 stitution and laws, but in derogation of both.' " 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 159 
 
 The Legislature of 1835 also passed an act providing for tlie estab- 
 lishment of a Hbrary in every school district in the State. Samuel 
 Young and Levi Beardsley were the principal advocates of the bill. 
 
 The Democratic Party of the country had decided to hold a na- 
 tional convention at Baltimore on the twentieth of May, and a New 
 York State convention was also held. Forty-two delegates were chosen 
 to represent this State at the Baltimore convention. At that conven- 
 tion Martin Van Buren received every vote, and R. M. Johnson^ of 
 Kentucky, was nominated for Vice-President. 
 
 When it had become evident that Andrew Jackson was determined 
 upon the annihilation of the United States Bank even the most cautious 
 statesmen of that day began to believe that the bank capital in the 
 different States might safely be increased, and there developed a rage 
 for possessing bank stock which was manifested at the next ses- 
 sion of the Legislature. After Jackson vetoed the recharter of the 
 United States Bank, at succeeding sessions of the Legislature in this 
 State, numerous applications were made for bank charters, and were 
 pressed along by their advocates with great urgency. It must be ad- 
 mitted that the Democratic Party, which was then in power in this 
 State, sought to turn to their own advantage the pressure for charters 
 and bank stock. When a charter was granted a majority of the com- 
 missioners selected to distribute the stock was always Democratic. 
 These commissioners generally distributed the most of the stock among 
 their political friends, notwithstanding provision had been made by law 
 for a fair distribution. This only increased the pressure upon the 
 Legislature for new bank charters, and the result was not beneficial 
 to the political spirit of the party nor to the commercial interests of 
 the State. 
 
 There were statesmen, disinterested and high-minded, who saw the 
 evil and realized, at least to some extent, its consequences. John B. 
 Yates, a brother of Governor Yates, introduced a bill in 1835 for a 
 repeal of the banking law as it then stood, with a view to making 
 banking free — that is, to leave the business open to competition, the 
 same as any other business. The feeling in favor of confining the 
 business of banking to chartered companies was so strong in the Legis- 
 lature that the bill was defeated. Yet the principle for which he 
 
i6o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 fought in the Assembly in 1835 is substantially that which exists 
 to-day. 
 
 In the previous chapter reference was made to the conditions which 
 at this time prevailed all over the country in regard to speculation and 
 the extension of credit, which ultimately resulted in financial disaster. 
 In the State of New York there were men who foresaw that there 
 must be a reaction sooner or later. One of these was Governor Marcy. 
 and we give an extract from his message to the Legislature in 1836, 
 not only because it sets forth the conditions which existed in New York 
 State at that time, but also because it makes the understanding of the 
 commercial disaster of 1837 more readily understood. Governor 
 Marcy said : 
 
 "There can be no mistake as to the fact, and it should not pass 
 unnoticed, that an unregulated spirit of speculation has, within the 
 last year, prevailed to an unprecedented extent. Our citizens, who 
 have been influenced by this spirit, have not confined their operations 
 to objects within our own State. They have made large investments 
 in other sections of the Union. These operations have required some- 
 thing more than the use of our circulating credits. The amount of 
 capital that has thus been transferred from this State to others cannot 
 be ascertained with any degree of accuracy, but it must be very great. 
 These transactions, large as they have been, bear no comparison to the 
 enormous speculation in stocks and in real property within our own 
 State. 
 
 "The vacant lands in and about several of our cities and villages 
 have risen, in many instances, several hundred per cent. Large quan- 
 tities of them have been sold at prices which seem to me to have been 
 produced more by the competition of speculation than any real demand 
 resulting from the increase of our population and actual prosperity. 
 That the sudden rise in the price of these lands is ascribed to the 
 true cause, is evident from the conceded fact, that most of them have 
 been purchased, not for the purpose of being occupied by the buyers, 
 but to be again put in the market and sold at still higher prices. No 
 estimate can be made of the amount of these transactions ; but a con- 
 jecture may be formed as to the extent of the sales, from the fact that 
 a single auctioneer in the city of New York sold real estate during 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK i6i 
 
 the year ending on the thirtieth of September last, to the amount of 
 more than twenty millions of dollars ; and the character of these sales 
 is indicated by the further fact that about eleven millions of this prop- 
 erty was sold on a bid made, by or for the owners. It is proper that 
 I should remark, that the speculations in real property in this State 
 have not been confined to city and village lots, but have extended to 
 farms and wild lands. 
 
 "I presume that it will not be denied that a very considerable por- 
 tion of capital has been devoted to these speculations in land and stocks. 
 I have deemed it necessary to allude to these transactions with a 
 view to lay open the true causes of the alleged deficiency of capital to 
 subserve the purposes of commerce, manufactures, and other pursuits 
 of the productive classes of our fellow citizens, deeming it very im- 
 portant that these causes should be well considered before you attempt 
 to apply a remedy, particularly such a remedy as is asked for — an un- 
 exampled extension of our credit system. 
 
 "It cannot, I think, be denied that a large amount of capital has 
 been sent out of the State to subserve the purposes of foreign specula- 
 tions'. This is undoubtedly one cause of the want of sufficient capital 
 to transact our ordinary business. It is not less true, I apprehend, that 
 the existing banks have, to some extent at least, lessened their ability 
 to accommodate persons employed in regular business pursuits, by af- 
 fording assistance to those who are embarked in these speculations. 
 This is another cause of the present want of banking facilities. But 
 the main cause of this want, which now presses so severely upon our 
 fellow citizens, is less obvious, but not the less entitled to your con- 
 sideration. The passion for speculation prevails to an extent here- 
 tofore unknown, not only among capitalists, but among merchants and 
 traders. The funds of these capitalists have been withdrawn to some 
 extent from situations in which they afforded accommodations to busi- 
 ness men, and they have consequently been obliged to supply this 
 deficiency in their means. Merchants and others, have abstracted from 
 their business a portion of their capital, and devoted it to speculations 
 in stocks and lands, and have then resorted to the banks for increased 
 accommodations. To these causes I ascribe most of the embarrassment 
 now felt for the want of sufficient bank facilities to conduct success- 
 
i62 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 fully our ordinary business concerns. The proposed remedy, judging 
 from the appHcations, is to double the present number of banks, and 
 nearly to treble the amount of banking capital. Before you apply this 
 remedy, in whole or in part, you ought to be well satisfied that it will 
 remove the difficulty, and that the use of it will not leave us in a worse 
 condition than we are at present. If the passion for speculation has 
 engrossed the pecuniary resources of the State to such an extent as 
 to interfere with the strong claims that commerce and trade have upon 
 them, is it not to be apprehended that it will appropriate to itself a 
 large portion of any additional accommodations you may provide* for 
 these and other branches of business? If I rightly apprehend its char- 
 acter, it will not be likely to abate while it can find means for its grati- 
 fication. I am well aware that this spirit of speculation cannot be 
 restrained by direct legislation ; but you should be careful to avoid 
 encouraging or sustaining it even incidentally by any measures which 
 you may deem expedient to adopt for the purpose of repairing the 
 injuries it has done to the business concerns of the State." 
 
 This appeal by Governor Marcy to the Legislature might as well 
 not have been written, so far as that body was concerned. It 'only 
 aroused a great many to use strong language in referring both to the 
 Governor and his message. Times were good, and no one in the Legis- 
 lature or out of it cared to listen to pessimistic predictions. 
 
 The Democrats had been successful in the November elections of 
 1835, the party controlled the State, times were good, a presidential 
 election was approaching, at which Van Buren was expected to be 
 the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party in the nation, and few 
 Democrats cared to have any expression of a want of confidence, either 
 in political or comrnercial affairs, expressed. 
 
 In the presidential election of 1836 the Abolitionists, as a party, 
 first came into distinct notice, and it is therefore appropriate to give 
 some account of that party at this juncture. In 1620 the first cargo 
 of slaves was landed in Virginia. From that State and fromi that 
 date the institution of slavery gradually spread over the South. After 
 the Revolution, statesmen, both of the North and South, deplored the 
 fact that their forefathers had introduced slavery into the country, but 
 they deplored it as a necessary evil. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 163 
 
 The first society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Penn- 
 sylvania in 1774; New York followed in 1785, Rhode Island in 1786, 
 Maryland in 1789, and Connecticut, Virginia and New Jersey between 
 the last date and 1792. These societies never did anything except to 
 petition Congress, and they were little heard of after 1808. In 1829, 
 however, acute interest was revived on this question, and in that year 
 William Lloyd Garrison, of Massachusetts, published, in Baltimore, 
 the Genius of Universal Emancipation. Driven from Baltimore, Gar- 
 rison began the publication of the Liberator in Boston, January i, 1831. 
 In 1832 the New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and in 
 the following year the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized. 
 Benevolent men and philanthropists all over the country took an active 
 interest in these organizations and in the abolition question. An asso- 
 ciation was formed at Philadelphia, the avowed object of which was 
 to convince, by peaceable means, the people of the slave-holding States 
 that slavery was a political and moral evil and ought to be abolished. 
 They also sought to effect the immediate abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia. Auxiliary organizations were formed all over 
 the country, and so much activity was exhibited by the Abolitionists 
 that the slaveholders became alarmed. This was the sowing of the 
 seed which culminated in the War of the Rebellion, although the po- 
 litical genesis of the slavery question in America may properly be 
 dated from the Wilmot Proviso, of which a record will appear in its 
 proper place. 
 
 Martin Van Buren was the Democratic candidate for President in 
 1836. A native of New York State, he was naturally allied with the 
 Northern Democrats, yet this wing of the party knew that he could 
 not be elected without the support of his -Southern friends. Therefore, 
 he and his supporters in New York State were particularly anxious 
 to convince the Southern Democrats that he would not countenance 
 the Abolitionists. The Northern Whigs, who had nominated William 
 Henry Harrison for President, were in exactly the same position with 
 regard to their Southern friends, and so both parties were endeavoring, 
 by opposing the Abolitionists, to hold the fealty of the South. The 
 Whigs were also embarrassed by the fact that Hugh L. White, of 
 Tennessee, was also a candidate for President on the Whig ticket, and 
 
i64 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 was the favorite of the Southern Whigs. The result was a great 
 deal of political excitement throughout the country, which New York 
 State did not escape. It was not unusual for mobs to gather, for 
 riots to occur — indeed, the political animosity burned to a white heat. 
 
 In 1836 it does not seem that the Whig Party in New York State 
 was very sanguine of success, for they put up a man of straw, namely, 
 Jesse Buel, of Albany, as their candidate for Governor, and G. H. 
 Barstow, of Tioga County, as Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 The result of the elections in November, 1836, was that Martin 
 Van Buren was elected President, R. M. Johnson Vice-President, and 
 that Governor Marcy was again re-elected Governor of the State of 
 New York, with John Tracy again Lieutenant-Governor. Van Buren 
 received 170 votes in the Electoral College; Harrison, "j^,', White, 26; 
 Daniel Webster, 14, and W. P. Mangum, 11. Marcy and Tracy were 
 elected by over 29,000 majority in the State of New York. The 
 Democratic Party had carried the State and nation, but breakers were 
 close ahead, and almost from the day of his inauguration, on March 
 4, 1837, Martin Van Buren was destined, throughout the rest of his 
 political career, to endeavor without success to beat his way against 
 adverse political waves and winds. 
 
 The bank question seems to have been the principal cause of the 
 trouble. A paper called the Utica Democrat was established in the 
 city of Utica, and took strong ground against the monopoly of* bank- 
 ing, at the same time denouncing the old paper system of currency. 
 In New York the Loco-Focos, or Equal Rights Party, was also mak- 
 ing trouble for their Democratic brethren. 
 
 Regarding the Loco-Focos some explanation at this point will be 
 timely. The removal in 1833 of the deposits from the Bank of the 
 United States to specified State banks led to the formation of many 
 new banks. Charters for these new banks were purchased from the 
 Legislature, and this buying of charters produced a scandal which 
 assumed such proportions that in 1835 a number of Democrats in New 
 York City, chiefly members of Tammany Hall, organized for the 
 purpose of opposing the banks. These men gave themselves the name 
 of the Equal Rights Party. A meeting of this faction held in Tam- 
 many Hall, October 29, 1835, was also attended by the regular Demo- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 165 
 
 crats, who attempted to control the proceedings. This they failed 
 to do, and, in order to break up the meeting, turned out the gas. 
 The Equal Rights men lit Loco-Foco matches and proceeded with the 
 meeting. Both the Democrats and Whigs seized upon this circumstance 
 to give them the name of Loco-Focos, and the term subsequently 
 spread and was used as an appellation for the whole Democratic Party 
 by their opponents. 
 
 Thus, in the Mohawk Valley and in New York City the process 
 of disintegration had begun in the Democratic Party. 
 
 In Governor Marcy's message to the Legislature in 1837 he made 
 a recommendation to that body which is notable for its peculiarity. It 
 was to modify the restraining law and to authorize individuals to re- 
 ceive deposits and make discounts. This furnishes a grave indication 
 of the serious financial embarrassment which was already beginning 
 to be felt, and which had been precipitated by President Jackson's 
 specie circular and the call upon the pet banks to distribute their 
 $41,500,000 of government deposits to the several States. 
 
 Acting upon the Governor's recommendation, a bill in accordance 
 therewith passed both Houses and became a law. 
 
 Almost as soon as the Assembly was organized, Robertson, of 
 Oswego, Cutting, of New York, and King, of St. Lawrence County, 
 began a furious attack upon the banks and their management. A 
 resolution was offered to instruct the bank committee to refuse all 
 applications for new charters or for an increase of the capital of banks, 
 but the resolution was not carried. Another resolution authorizing the 
 formation of associations for the purpose of banking passed the Legis- 
 lature, but was vetoed because the Attorney-General declared it un- 
 constitutional. The storm was almost upon them, but these mariners 
 on the ship of state would not reduce sail. 
 
 It was already becoming very apparent to many that to survey a 
 wilderness did not convert it into farms, nor would platting farms 
 build cities. The spirit of speculation had produced in the public 
 mind a state of enchantment like that of the poet Bryant, when he 
 wrote "The Prairie." Standing upon an uninhabitated tract, his fancy 
 ran riot until he not only saw cultivated fields and populous cities, but 
 heard the voices of the people. When he became hungry he went back 
 
i66 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 to dinner. So with the people of this country in 1837, when they 
 had to have three meals a day, wear clothes and pay notes at the 
 bank they found it necessary to get back to cold facts. The only facts 
 which were of any use when disaster came were gold and silver. These 
 could be obtained only by earning them ; they could not be earned in 
 a day, a week or a month ; consequently the disaster could not be 
 averted. 
 
 The specie circular tied up the public ; the distribution of the treas- 
 ury surplus to the States tied up the banks. The first quarter's pay- 
 ment of this surplus, which amounted to $9,367,000, was made on 
 January i, 1837. There was disturbance in transferring this large 
 amount of money from the deposit banks. Loans had to be called in, 
 and accommodations to business men were greatly restricted. This 
 created an apprehension of greater trouble when the April payment 
 should become due. This apprehension was increased by the financial 
 pressure in England, which was very serious. In March England 
 began to look to America for remittances of specie through bills on 
 American houses. In that month the merchants of Liverpool sent a 
 memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying: "The distress 
 of the mercantile interest is intense beyond example." American houses 
 were not able to pay their bills in specie, and by April 8, 1837, nearly 
 one hundred failures had occurred in New York City, and the num- 
 ber rapidly increased with succeeding days. Before* the end of the 
 month they were too numerous to be recorded. 
 
 In April a committee of fifty men from New York City was ap- 
 pointed to remonstrate with the President. It was loudly asserted 
 that the continuance of the specie circular was more high-handed 
 tyranny than that which had cost Charles I. his crown and head. 
 On May 3 this committee visited Washington, and had an interview 
 with President Van Buren. They laid before him a terrible account 
 of the condition in New York, saying that the credit of the city was 
 blighted, its industries paralyzed, and that there was no hope for 
 them unless relief came from Washington. They asserted that it 
 was unjust to attribute the trouble to excessive development of mer- 
 cantile enterprise, when, in reality, it was caused by "that unwise sys- 
 tem which aimed at the substitution of a metallic for a paper currency." 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 167 
 
 They declared that Jackson's, financial measures were more destructive 
 than fire or pestilence. These were not good arguments to Van Buren, 
 who had endorsed most of Jackson's acts. The President told them 
 that he would adhere to all these measures and that the specie circular 
 should be neither repealed nor modified. The committee returned to 
 New York, and, on May 10, every bank in that city suspended specie 
 payment. The very next day the banks of Philadelphia also suspended ; 
 on the 1 2th the banks of Boston and Mobile; on the 13th those of 
 New Orleans, and on the 17th those of Charleston and Cincinnati 
 followed. In fact, the- banks of the United States had suspended 
 specie payment, and there was a general bankruptcy. The banks would 
 not even pay specie to the government, whose deposits they held. Men 
 gave up all attempts to meet their notes because they could not renew 
 them with other paper securities. Those who had real money would 
 not lend it, because they could only get paper promises for its re- 
 payment. 
 
 Several different soubriquets were conferred upon Van Buren dur- 
 ing his political career. But while time has softened all of these, the 
 principal "trait by which he is remembered in history was his "non- 
 committalism." For that characteristic his enemies reproached him 
 and friendly writers have sought to minimize the force of the accusa- 
 tion that he was the disciple of non-committalism. Even if he pos- 
 sessed that quality to the degree charged, he needs no- defence. Dur- 
 ing the earlier years of his political experienca and up to the date of 
 his election as President; even when he was the central figure of the 
 Albany Regency, he is reputed to have been discreet in expressing his 
 opinions. However he may have been taunted in his day with non- 
 committalism, or however that appellation may have been applied to 
 him since to his derogation, it was not a trait fer which he or any other 
 man should be censured. His reticence was but the manifestation of 
 discreet wisdom. 
 
 But when he became President and the New York delegation came 
 to him to ask him to have the government interfere between specula- 
 tors and disaster; to have the government identify itself with com- 
 merce, in fact — there was no non-committalism in his answer. Yet 
 that was the one occasion in his life when he should have been politic. 
 
i68 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 had he considered his own prospects alone. It is poor policy to change 
 horses when crossing a stream, and he* was in the middle of a torrent. 
 The splendid stand which he took upon that occasion must ever elicit 
 admiration, but it did himself harm, and it is a debatable question if 
 it did the country any good. It almost engenders regret to think that 
 so famous a political warrior should, in the greatest conflict of his 
 life, thr&w away his shield and bare his bosom to the lance of Fate. 
 And the regret becomes real, with the after-knowledge that Fate had 
 planned his destruction. 
 
 On May 12th the Secretary of the Treasury directed government 
 collectors to keep in their own hands public moneys where the deposit 
 banks had suspended. This compelled Van Buren to issue his call 
 for an extra session of Congress to meet on the first Monday in Sep- 
 tember. This proclamation did not contain any suggestion of any 
 measures- to be taken for relief ; it simply said that Congress was called 
 to consider "great and weighty matters." 
 
 During this summer the Whig papers kept up a continual attack 
 upon the administration, declaring that the government did nothing 
 to relieve, but everything to distress the commercial community. 
 
 When the special session of Congress met in September Van Buren 
 sent.them a. message which deserves to be ranked as one' of the greatest 
 state papers in America. In that message he proposed the establish- 
 ment of the Sub-Treasury system, and he fortified his position with 
 forcible arguments. He pointed out that the government was not es- 
 tablished to confer special favors on individuals or any class of in- 
 dividuals ; it was not established to crea,te any system of agriculture, 
 manufacture or trade; its province was not to engage in these, either 
 separately or in connection with any individual citizens or organiza- 
 tions. The message, however, met with a fierce outburst of anger all 
 over the country, and Congress did not pass his Sub-Treasury bill. 
 It passed the Senate by 26 to 20, but was defeated in the House. That 
 Congress did, however, adopt a bill authorizing the issue of ten mil- 
 lion dollars in Treasury notes as a provision for temporary relief. 
 It was also decided to postpone the distribution of the surplus among 
 the States. 
 
 At that extra session of Congress Henry Clay sought to push 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 169 
 
 through a bill for the establishment of a great banking institution, 
 which, according to his exposition of the matter,- would produce magic 
 results. His arguments failed, however, to convince Congress of the 
 wisdom of this course, and the bill was defeated by 123 to 91. 
 
 The commercial houses of the country began, during the summer 
 of 1837. to recover slowly from the disaster which had come upon 
 them, but both the summer and fall elections were disastrous for the 
 Democrats of New York State. The Whig triumph was far-reaching 
 and decisive, and out of 128 members of Assembly they elected loi, 
 • and they carried six of the eight Senatorial districts. 
 
 Some other causes assisted in producing the defeat of the Democrats 
 in the fall of 1837. One of the provisions of the Safety Fund Law 
 was that, in case any bank should refuse to pay its notes on demand 
 in current com the Chancellor should order its effects to be turned 
 over to a receiver, and should issue his injunction preventing the bank 
 from issuing notes. Immediately after the banks had suspended specie 
 payment the New York Legislature passed a law suspending any action 
 under that clause of the Safety Fund bill. This was a good provision 
 and of course met with the approval of all. But Senator Tracy, with 
 some following, sought to follow it up by another bill seeking to amend 
 the act to prohibit the circulation of small bills, which had been passed 
 in 1835. Senator Tracy's bill failed to pass, and this action of the 
 Democratic majority in the Legislature brought upon them the censure 
 of the public generally. 
 
 The M{ashington Globe was understood to represent the adminis- 
 tration of Martin Van Buren. That paper, seconded by the Evening 
 Post, a leading Democratic journal of New York City, carried on a 
 bitter attack against the banks. The attitude of the Globe aroused a 
 suspicion in the public mind regarding the solvency and soundness 
 of banks in general, and this led to the further conclusion that Van 
 Buren contemplated the destruction of the whole paper system. This 
 supposition injured the Democratic Party. 
 
 Within the Albany Regency itself there was a difference of opinion 
 regarding the course pursued by the Democratic editors, and particu- 
 larly those of the Evening Post and Washington Globe. A. C. Flagg 
 was the leader of those who upheld the course pursued by the Globe, 
 
I70 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 while Samuel Beardsley headed the party who questioned the wisdom 
 of that policy. Thus, through internal differences, the Albany Re- 
 gency, which had controlled the policies of the Democratic Party for 
 so long, began to lose its power, and the effect upon the party was 
 soon apparent. 
 
 When the Legislature assembled on January 7, 1838, Governor 
 Marcy read them what was to be his last gubernatorial message. In 
 that message he advocated three important public measures. He spoke 
 strongly in favor of a general banking law ; he declared in favor of an 
 independent treasury, such as had been recommended by the Presi- 
 dent at the special session of Congress; and he advised an increased 
 appropriation for the purpose of hastening the enlargement of the Erie 
 Canal. 
 
 The Whigs, who were vastly stronger in number in the Legisla- 
 ture than the Democrats, immediately began to take legislation into 
 their own hands. Their first act was to bring forward a bill to repeal 
 the law which prohibited banks from issuing bills under five dollars. 
 This bill passed the Assembly, but in the Senate was amended so as 
 to suspend, for two years, the law which prohibited the issuing of 
 small bills. A bill was also passed appropriating four million dollars 
 to be expended during the current year for the enlargement of the 
 Erie Canal. A bill known as the General Banking Law was also passed 
 by the Legislature of 1838. 
 
 A bill for an independent treasury was introduced into the United 
 States Senate in the winter of 1838, and passed that body, but was 
 laid on the table in the House. 
 
 The panic of '-^"j had passed, and commercial affairs were gradu- 
 ally entering upon a more prosperous condition, and, as business affairs 
 became less harassing, the newly acquired popularity of the Whigs 
 began to diminish. The charter election of New York City showed a 
 decided loss in Whig strength, and elections which took place in sev- 
 eral States during the summer of 1838 resulted more favorably to the 
 general administration than had been hoped. 
 
 These things inspired the Democratic Party of New York State 
 to hope for success in the fall, when the election for Governor should 
 recur. The Whigs could not readily decide upon a man as their 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 171 
 
 standard-bearer; some were for Luther Bradish, some for Francis 
 Granger and some for William H. Seward. They ultimately nomi- 
 nated Seward for Governor and Bradish for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 Both the Whig and Democratic conventions were held upon the same 
 day, the Whig at Utica and the Democratic at Herkimer. The Demo- 
 crats unanimously nominated Marcy and Tracy for re-election. 
 
 On October 3, 1838, a meeting of politicians from all over the 
 State was held at Syracuse. These men had formerly belonged to the 
 Democratic Party, but now called themselves Conservatives. The lead- 
 ing men in this movement were United States Senator N. P. Tall- 
 madge, John C. Clark, of Chenango, and Judah Hammond, of New 
 York. The convention was not very important in itself, but a resolu- 
 tion was adopted pledging the support of the Conservatives to Seward 
 and Bradish. 
 
 The Whig candidates carried the State by about 10,000 majority 
 for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. The Whigs returned to the 
 Assembly with a majority of two to one. They were still in the 
 minority in the Senate, although they carried five of the eight districts. 
 
 But even while the political heavens seemed to be clearing for the 
 Democrats, both State and national, it seemed as though the Fates were 
 against them. Further commercial troubles were near at hand, for 
 which the administration at Washington was to be held in some degree 
 accountable, and which would work against the interests of the party in 
 New York State. Besides, the Whigs had gained a foothold; they 
 were in control of the Assembly, and their ablest man was in the 
 Governor's chair. But an eVent with which no party in the State or 
 nation had any concern did the Democrats a great deal of mischief. 
 This was the rebellion of 1837-38 in Canada, generally known as the 
 Mackenzie Rebellion. As a matter of fact, Mackenzie led the insurrec- 
 tion in Upper Canada (now Ontario) while Pappineau was the leader 
 in Lower Canada (now Quebec). The Canadian Parliament had pro- 
 posed various reforms, which were vetoed by the Governor-General, 
 who was, and still is, appointed by England. The Provinces broke 
 into rebellion, or, more correctly, part of the citizens resorted to arms. 
 The rebellion never assumed any serious proportions. Pappineau was 
 seized and executed, and Mackenzie fled to Buffalo, where, without 
 
172 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 doing himself any good, he did the Democratic Party a great deal of 
 injury. There was a price of $4,000 set upon his head, but he called 
 for volunteers, enlisted twenty-five men, commanded by Van Rensse- 
 laer, an American, and seized Navy Island, which lies in Niagara 
 River a short distance above the Falls. There he established a pro- 
 visional government, with a flag and a great seal, and even issued paper 
 money. 
 
 In December, 1837, a party of Canadian militia crossed the Niagara 
 to seize the "Caroline," a steamer in the service of the rebels. The 
 vessel lay upon the American shore, but, notwithstanding this, the 
 Canadians seized her, killed several men in the affray, set fire to the 
 vessel, and sent her blazing over the Falls. This was really an invasion 
 of American territory. President Van Buren promptly sought to 
 prevent any hostile demonstration against the Canadian government 
 from American shores, and declared that the neutrality laws would be 
 rigidly enforced and all offenders punished. Moreover, were any 
 American citizens to engage in the •Cvar and fall into the hands of the 
 British, no succor would be given them by the United States. 
 
 Upon the renewal of the raids from America into Canada in 1838, 
 the President issued a proclamation calling upon all misguided Ameri- 
 cans to abandon projects dangerous to their own country, and warned 
 them that if taken in Canada they would be left to the justice of 
 the government whose dominion they had, "without the shadow of 
 justification or excuse, nefariously invaded." This was too much for 
 a people many of whom were only too glad to injure England, and 
 Van Buren was promptly declared to be a British tool. During the 
 portion of the rebellion which occurred under Marcy's rule, as Gov- 
 ernor of New York State, he had taken precisely the same stand as the 
 President, so that throughout this State much feeling was developed 
 against the party, both State and national. 
 
 The Whig Party, as a party, did not countenance the extending 
 of assistance to the Canadian rebels, but it certainly profited greatly 
 by the feeling raised against the President and his party. Certainly 
 there was a marked falling off in the Democratic strength, and a 
 corresponding increase in the Whig vote in the fall of 1838, especially 
 in the border counties. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 173 
 
 Marcy's last act as Governor, which was truly a refusal to act, was 
 most creditable to him. Many of his political friends sought to induce 
 him to call an extra session of the Senate for the purpose of transact- 
 ing executive business. This was for the purpose of enabling those 
 office-holders whose terms of office would expire during the next two 
 years to resign and to procure the appointment of other persons who 
 were the political friends of the Governor, as well as the political 
 friends of the then office-holders. This Governor Marcy absolutely 
 refused to do. 
 
174 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 Governor Seward's Regime — Effort to Rear Monument to De Witt 
 Clinton — No United States Senator Chosen — Van Buren's 
 Visit — The Virginia Controversy — The Registry Law — State 
 and National Elections of 1840 — Causes of Van Buren's Defeat 
 — Seward's Conflict with the Legislature — Death of President 
 Harrison and Succession of Tyler — The State Almost Bank- 
 rupt — Measure to Preserve the State's Credit — The People's 
 Resolutions — Election of Governor Bouck. 
 
 Governor Seward entered upon the duties of his office on the first 
 day of January, 1839, and broke the long chain of Democratic Gov- 
 ernors of the State. He was an able man and was destined to a long 
 and prominent career, not only in State, but in national politics. In 
 his first message to the Legislature he could not refrain from making 
 several insinuations against the Democratic Party, and found fault with 
 the extensive power given to the Canal Commissioners. He recom- 
 mended some reforms in the judiciary, had considerable to say on the 
 achievements of the State, its resources and possibilities, and altogether 
 produced quite a lengthy document from a Whig point of view. He 
 recommended to the Legislature that a monument be erected to the 
 memory of De Witt Clinton. A bill was introduced in the Assembly 
 which provided for the erection of a monument in Albany. The 
 measure failed to pass, as many of the members of the Legislature pro- 
 fessed that, in a Republican government, it was unwise to establish 
 a precedent for the erection of a monument to the memory of any man. 
 They also claimed that it tended toward a species of man-worship. 
 Some facetious gentlemen, also opposed to the bill, proposed amend- 
 ments providing for the erection of monuments to other deceased states- 
 men. It is not easy to understand the attitude of these men, in this 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 175 
 
 day, when monuments are to be seen all over the land and the Uni- 
 versity of New York lias established a Hall of Fame. It may be un- 
 charitable, but it is difficult to repress the reflection that the memory 
 of De Witt Clinton, then dead only eleven years, still aroused bitter 
 jealousies in lesser men, and in their envy they declined to pay a grace- 
 ful tribute to his worth. 
 
 Willis Hall, a lawyer of limited practice, was appointed Attorney- 
 General; John C. Spencer was made Secretary of State; Bates Cooke, 
 of Niagara County, was mad'e Comptroller, and Jacob Haight, of 
 Greene County, became State Treasurer. 
 
 It will be remembered that in 1825 no United States Senator was 
 chosen by the Legislature. The same thing happened again in 1839, 
 no one receiving enough votes to secure the nomination. In both cases 
 the result was intended to be just what it was, and both exhibit the per- 
 nicious side of politics. There was a great degree of political excite- 
 ment throughout the entire legislative session of the winter of 1839 
 because the majority in the Assembly was Whig, while the majority in 
 the Senate was Democratic. What the Assembly would do, the Senate 
 would revoke ; what the Senate wished to do would be defeated in the 
 Assembly; consequently very few laws of any importance were passed. 
 The two Houses, however, did agree to pass an act "to preserve the- 
 purity of elections." Judging from the attitude which the two parties 
 displayed toward each other during that session of the Legislature, the 
 concurrence of each in the passage of this act was a doubtful compli- 
 ment to the other. 
 
 During the summer of 1839 President Van Buren visited the State 
 of New York. This was his first return to the State after his election 
 in 1836, and it is doubtful if his popularity in his native State was 
 enhanced by that visit. The Whigs declared it was a political trip, and 
 every speech which he made was given a political twist. A strong 
 opinion has long prevailed that it is a dangerous proceeding for a can- 
 didate for popular favor to go out among the people, and it is doubtful 
 if even William Jennings Bryan proved this notion to be incorrect. 
 
 However, after the President had completed his trip and left, both 
 parties in this State felt that he was reasonably sure of re-election. The 
 Whig Party had scarcely yet become crystallized throughout the nation. 
 
176 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 It was composed of many distinct elements, and it was considered 
 doubtful if these different factions would unite on one man as the presi- 
 dential candidate. The result of the November election in the State of 
 New York, however, disheartened the friends of Martin Van Buren 
 while it inspired the Whigs to renewed exertions. Although the Whig 
 majority in the Assembly was reduced by the election in the autumn of 
 1839, the}^ succeeded in capturing a majority of the Senate, and this 
 gave them control of both Houses of the Legislature. 
 
 The Whigs of the nation began early to lay their plans for the 
 presidential election of the next year, and arranged for a convention to 
 be held at Harrisburg, Pa., on December i, 1839. Daniel Webster was 
 undoubtedly the favorite candidate of the Eastern States, but he had 
 written a letter from Europe declining to be a candidate. The south- 
 ern Whigs had no candidate, so the field was left between two western 
 men, Henry Clay and General William Henry Harrison. Clay was 
 undoubtedly the favorite of the great mass of the Whig Party in 
 the nation, and especially of those in New York State. When the 
 convention was assembled the New York delegation was found to be 
 divided, part of them having taken up General Scott, while some were 
 for Harrison and some for Clay. The friends of Scott finally aban- 
 doned him, and Harrison received the nomination. John Tyler, of 
 Virginia, who had been a strong supporter of Clay, was named on the 
 ticket as the candidate for Vice-President. When this nomination was 
 announced it revived the hope of the Democrats, because Harrison 
 was not a strong man, outside of his limited war record, and Tyler 
 was, if anything, weaker. 
 
 The Legislature of 1840 assembled on January 7th, and the Gov- 
 ernor again regaled the members with a message of unusual length. 
 He again recommended some improvements in the judiciary system, 
 an extention of the civil jurisdiction of justices of the peace, and that 
 the children of foreigners should be educated by teachers speaking 
 their own language and of the same religious faith as themselves. 
 He charged the administration of the general government with hos- 
 tility to our State institutions on the currency question, and with an 
 intention to establish a metallic currency as the circulating medium of 
 the country. His attack on the national administration was very bitter. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 177 
 
 He recommended retrenchment on State expenditures. On the sub- 
 ject of internal improvements he receded from the ground taken by 
 him in his message of 1839. He quoted figures showing the expendi- 
 tures on the Black River, Erie and Genesee Valley canals had been 
 double what the estimates called for, and he asserted that when he 
 formerly recommended the speedy completion of these works such 
 recommendation was based on the assumption that the estimates of the 
 agents of the State were correct. What a glorious thing it would be 
 sometimes to be a prophet. Governor Seward could not divine that 
 in the year 1903 the then Governor of the State of New York would 
 endorse an outlay of $101,000,000 upon the Erie Canal alone, and that 
 the people would vote that enormous sum of money without any hesi- 
 tancy. 
 
 He also laid before the Legislature his side of the dispute with 
 the Governor of Virginia. The Governor of that State had made a 
 demand upon Governor Seward for the delivery of three persons as 
 fugitives from justice, who were charged with having stolen a negro 
 slave in the State of Virginia. Seward would not sign the extradi- 
 tion papers. He said that he declined to comply with the request of 
 the Governor of Virginia because the right to demand or to surrender 
 fugitives from justice between sovereign and independent nations only 
 existed where the act constitMing the offense was recognized as a 
 crime by the universal laws of civilized countries. The stealing of 
 a slave being a crime only in slave States, he did not consider he had 
 a right to surrender the fugitives. 
 
 During this session of the Legislature the State Printer, Mr. Cros- 
 well, was removed, and Thurlow Weed was appointed in his place. 
 For many years a large majority of the Canal Commissioners had been 
 active Democratic politicians, and in 1840 four of the five men com- 
 posing the commission were Democrats. On February 13 a concur- 
 rent resolution was introduced into both houses of the Legislature to 
 appoint five persons to fill the office of Canal Commissioners instead of 
 Samuel Young, John Bowman, William C. Bouck, Jonas Earll and 
 William Baker. The resolution passed both houses, and Asa Whitney, 
 S. Newton Dexter, David Hudson, George H. Boughton and Henry 
 Hamilton, all Whigs, were appointed to constitute the new Canal Com- 
 
178 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 mission. The Whigs had recognized and adopted the spoils system. 
 In this session, also, a law called the Registry Law was passed. 
 It required that all voters of the city of New York should be registered 
 under the direction of commissioners of the several wards, appointed 
 for that purpose some two or three weeks before the election. Chal- 
 lenges were to be made before such commissioners, and the right of 
 voting was to'be settled by them. This law was opposed by a majority 
 of the Democratic Party in New York. They contended that it vio-" 
 lated the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution, and that it made 
 an invidious distinction between the electors of that city and those in 
 all other parts of the State. They further asserted that it implied 
 a suspicion of the honesty of the voters of New York City which was' 
 dishonorable to the inhabitants. In the session of 1841 General Root 
 sought to have a bill passed extending the provisions of this law so 
 as to cover the whole State, but his efforts were futile. 
 
 At Washington the friends of President Van Buren had been using 
 every effort to secure the passage of the Independent Treasury bill. 
 Early in the winter it was adopted by the Senate, but it lingered in 
 the House until near the close of the long session of that year. It was 
 finally passed, and the President signed it on the Fourth of July. 
 
 On September 2d a Democratic State convention for the nomina- 
 tion of Governor and presidential electors was held at Syracuse. There 
 were several candidates for the Governorship, the most prominent being 
 Silas Wright, John A. Dix, Chief Justice Savage and William C. 
 Bouck. After the convention was organized letters from Wright and 
 Savage were received declining to be candidates, and William C. Bouck, 
 of Schoharie, was nominated for Governor, with Daniel S. Dickinson, 
 of Broome County, for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 The Whig convention nominated for re-election Governor Seward 
 and Lieutenant-Governor Bradish. 
 
 The result of the election was a complete triumph for the Whigs 
 in both State and nation. The Harrison electoi^al ticket carried the 
 State by more than 13,000 majority, while Seward obtained only 
 about 5,000 over Bouck. This would indicate that Van Buren was 
 not as popular as his party in New York State, but, at the same time, 
 Bouck was very popular along the Erie Canal, of which he had for 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 179 
 
 a long time been a commissioner. The State Assembly consisted of 
 66 Whigs and 62 Democrats, while in the Senate there were 2 1 Whigs 
 and II Democrats. Harrison and Tyler received 234 votes in the 
 Electoral College, Van Buren, 60, and R. M. Johnson, who was on 
 the ticket with Van Buren as Vice-President, received 48. 
 
 Many causes might be assigned for the political revolution of 1839 
 and '40, which swept the Democrats out of power in State and nation 
 and placed the young Whig Party in the ascendancy. In national 
 affairs Van Buren's espousal of an Independent Treasury would, at the 
 first glance, seem to be the rock upon which he foundered. This would 
 imply that in the year 1840 a majority of the people of the United 
 States preferred a national bank to the sub-treasury system. It may 
 fairly be said that the Whig Party was asked if it believed a majority 
 of the people in that year preferred a national bank, because, when 
 they held their convention at Harrisburg they did not embody in their 
 platform any announcement of their endorsement of a national bank. 
 They evidently felt that to be a question which it would be well to 
 disregard. It is a fact that they did undo the work of Van Buren in 
 establisTiing an independent treasury system. Also, during the cam- 
 paign, Van Buren was assailed for his sub-treasury plan, and no 
 doubt many imagined they could trace the beginning of the troublous 
 times of '37 to the destruction of the United States Bank, and enter- 
 tained the belief that a return to the old order of things would be wise. 
 Yet both parties, Whigs and Democrats alike, condemned the pet bank 
 system. It is, therefore, improbable that his advocacy of the sub-treas- 
 ury system was the cause of the great majority by which Van Buren 
 was defeated. The fact is that Van Buren was held responsible for 
 both the real and imaginary errors of President Jackson. Also, he 
 had been so unfortunate as to be President during a great commercial 
 crisis, and the people, not only of that day, but of this, have a strange 
 habit of laying all their commercial troubles at the White House door. 
 Times had been bad during the most of his regime, and the general 
 cry was for a change. Things might become better; they could not 
 well be worse, or so the people evidently thought. That the commercial 
 troubles which occurred under Van Buren's administration and a conse- 
 quent desire for a change were the causes of the defeat of himself and 
 
i8o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 his party is made absolutely clear by a perusal of the speeches of Daniel 
 Webster during that campaign. With all his abilities as an orator and 
 statesman, he was, like all statesmen, afflicted with a political bias. He 
 must have known that Van Buren's attitude during the recent troublous 
 times had been grand; and if he possessed in any degree the fore- 
 sight with which statesmen are usually credited, he must have seen 
 that the sub-treasury system was vastly superior to a national bank. 
 Indeed, it is to be presumed that he did see and understand those things. 
 In his speeches he studiously avoided logic, and regaled his audiences 
 with eloquence. So he cried out to his hearers : "Every breeze says 
 change; the cry, the universal cry is for change." Change was the 
 keynote of his orations. The people were uneasy because of the 
 troubles through which they had passed, so the watchword of the 
 Whigs during that election was "change." 
 
 It is doubtful if in any American campaign any political party ever 
 used so much buncombe and so little brains as did the Whigs in the 
 presidential contest of 1840. Yet they won. It was a popular rush 
 to a circus where the admission was free and all who attended could 
 take part in the festive performance. Enormous political meetings 
 were held, and these were attended, not by men alone, but by entire 
 families; fathers, mothers, sons and daughters all turned out, and the 
 voice of the spellbinder was heard in the land. There was the log 
 cabin with the latchstring hanging out, and there was a live coon in- 
 side, as a sideshow. There were Revolutionary soldiers marching in 
 procession; there were bands of music and there were barrels of cider. 
 It was the proletariat running loose in a bloodless raid. There was 
 so much enthusiasm that there was no time for thought. 
 
 President Van Buren was pictured as a cynic, self-satisfied and 
 utterly disregarding the rights of the people, and, unfortunately, while 
 the tempest of wind and dust was further adding to the blindness of 
 the people, he increased their rage, for he regarded it all with an aristo- 
 cratic sneer and drove out in a carriage of English manufacture. With 
 a generosity characteristic of all superior minds, he placed too much 
 confidence in the good sense of the people at large. It is strange that 
 a man of his ability and experience should not have fully realized that 
 sentiment and not fact rules the world. It may be that he did realize 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK i8i 
 
 it, and that this was not a politician's error on his part, but that he 
 was too proud to lower himself to the enemy's mode of warfare. Then 
 there were still other causes which contributed to Van Buren's defeat, 
 although the commercial troubles under his administration constituted 
 the principal grievance. He was proclaimed as a Northern man with 
 Southern sympathies. This was not pleasing to his friends in the 
 North, and the South did not sustain him. In fact, the South at that 
 date had rarely ever given a presidential vote to a Northern man. 
 The banks were against him also, and they naturally had their influence. 
 
 Governor Seward met the Legislature of 1841 with his usual 
 lengthy message, in which he devoted considerable space to the canals. 
 Again he recommended reform in the system of jurisprudence, and 
 again urged legislation favorable to the public schools. 
 
 During this session Assemblyman Townsend, of New York, intro- 
 duced a bill providing for the division of towns and wards into elec- 
 tion districts, and for holding the general election on one day only. 
 This wise measure was ultimately adopted by the Legislature, as is 
 universally known. 
 
 The Legislature of 1841 was mainly occupied by three important 
 questions, namely, the Virginia controversy, the removal of Recorder 
 Morris, of New York City, and the question of capital punishment. 
 
 The Virginia controversy, which arose in 1840, has already been 
 alluded to. It grew out of the alleged theft of a slave in Virginia, 
 who was carried by his abductors to the State of New York. These 
 abductors Governor Seward refused to deliver over to the authorities 
 of Virginia upon the requisition of the Governor of that State. In 
 1840 he had laid the correspondence relating to the matter before the 
 Legislature, and in 1841 he brought the attention of that body to the 
 case again. It excited a great deal of interest, not only in the States 
 interested, but throughout the Union. It was one of those incidents 
 which contributed to foster antagonism between the North and South. 
 While the controversy was going on a man named Curry was charged 
 with committing forgery in the State of New York, and he fled to the 
 State of Virginia. Governor Seward sent a requisition to Governor 
 Gilmer, of Virginia, for the return of Curry. Governor Gilmer de- 
 clined to extradite Curry until New York State extradited the men 
 
1 82 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Virginia accused of slave-stealing. So the matter became a deadlock, 
 in which Governor Seward clung tenaciously to what he conceived to 
 be the law, while Governor Gilmer took the stand that what was good 
 for Virginia could not be bad for New York. Resolutions were passed 
 in both States relating to the matter, and there were found men in 
 each Legislature to take opposite sides of the question. Some thought 
 the Legislatures had no business with the matter, others thought 
 the legislative body thoroughly entitled to take action. But it does 
 not appear that, any definite conclusion was ever reached. The case 
 seems to have dragged its slow length along for several years, then 
 died out. The abductors remained in New York, aijd Curry remained 
 in Virginia. 
 
 Previous to the presidential election of November, 1840, a plan, 
 appears to have been concocted to smuggle into New York City from 
 Philadelphia certain men, who, upon their arrival in New York, would 
 be fraudulently registered as voters. The plan was discovered by Col- 
 onel John D. Stevenson, who was approached on the subject by one 
 Glentworth. Colonel Stevenson joined with Glentworth to import such 
 voters from Philadelphia for the puqjose, he alleged, of securing evi- 
 dence of fraud. A few days before the election he made a full disclosure 
 of the plot to Benjamin F. Butler. A prosecution was instituted 
 against Glentworth, and an endeavor was made to gain possession of 
 his papers. These papers had been deposited with a Mr. Pierce, an 
 apparently innocent party. Criminal proceedings were instituted 
 against Glentworth before Recorder Morris. The Recorder, in com- 
 pany with an officer, went to the house of Mr. Pierce in the night, and 
 secured the papers by threatening to search for them unless they were 
 delivered to him. Shortly afterwards a grand jury was impaneled 
 for the Court of General Sessions in New York, of which the Recorder 
 was the presiding judge. It had been given out that an attempt would 
 be made to procure the indictment of Recorder Morris on the charge 
 of a misdemeanor committed in coercing the delivery of the papers 
 by Pierce. The Recorder in charging the Grand Jury, stated the case 
 as he supposed it would be proved against himself and proceeded to 
 deliver an exhaustive argument in justification of his conduct. On 
 December 29th Governor Seward wrote to Recorder Morris informing 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 183 
 
 him that he would recommend his removal from office for two reasons : 
 Because he deemed his conduct at the house of Pierce unjustifiable, 
 and because it was improper for the Recorder to take advantage of his 
 official position to charge the Grand Jury on a question in which he 
 was individually concerned. At that time there had been no charges 
 preferred against the Recorder to the Governor. His knowledge of 
 the case seems to have been drawn' from newspaper reports, and his 
 action was, therefore, unusual. Furthermore, although the Recorder 
 replied to the Governor's letter; the Governor, before that letter was 
 received, sent a message to the Senate recommending the Recorder's 
 removal. A long controversy followed, which took up much of the 
 time of the Senate. There was much talk of right and wrong, of 
 law and justice, but there seems to have been more politics than any- 
 thing else in the case, and the Recorder was finally removed. This 
 removal took place in February, but within three months, namely, in 
 May, Morris was "elected Mayor of New York City by a large ma- 
 jority, clearly implying that the inhabitants of his own city thought 
 pretty well of him. The Whigs, however, tried to make capital out 
 of the whole transaction, and accused the Democrats of New York 
 of having long carried on the nefarious practice of introducing foreign 
 voters to the polls. 
 
 A committee was appointed during the Legislature of 1841 to 
 consider that part of the Governor's message which related to capital 
 punishment. The committee reported in favor of the abolition of capi- 
 tal punishment and the substitution therefor of life imprisonment at 
 hard labor. A bill to that effect, introduced by Assemblyman O' Sul- 
 livan, of New York, editor of the Democratic Reviezv, passed to a third 
 reading, but on the final vote was lost by a vote of 52 to 46. 
 
 John C. Spencer was at that time Secretary of State, and there- 
 fore State Superintendent of Public Schools. He gave untiring atten- 
 tion to the betterment of the system. To his efforts and abilities many 
 of the commendable changes of that day are due. The Legislature 
 took up the question in 1841, and modified the existing system by 
 providing for the appointment of a deputy superintendent of schools 
 in every county. The sum of $2,800 was also appropriated to be 
 paid to the printer of the Common School Journal, a periodical which 
 
1 84 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 was entirely devoted to the cause of popular education. Francis 
 Dwight conducted this journal, and to his efforts and those of S. S. 
 Randall, who was deputy superintendent under John C. Spencer, much 
 of the credit is due for the impetus given to public education in that 
 day. 
 
 On the fourth of March, 1841, William Henry Harrison was 
 inaugurated President of the United States, and it is amusing to notice 
 in the writings of that day that some doubts were expressed as to 
 whether he wrote his own inaugural address. Every man living to- 
 day has heard that same thing about Presidents whom he remembers, 
 and there is a flavor of cynical humor in the suggestion that we have 
 elected to the highest seat in the nation men who could neither think 
 nor write well. President Harrison appointed as his Cabinet : Daniel 
 Webster, Secretary of State ; Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury; John Bell, Secretary of War; George E. Badger, Secretary of 
 the Navy ; John J. Crittenden, Attorney-General, and Francis Granger, 
 Postmaster-General. The pressure upon General Harrison for appoint- 
 ments to office was extreme; so great indeed that it has been claimed 
 the distraction arising from this cause helped to produce his death. 
 On March .17th, the President issued a call for an extra session of 
 Congress to meet on May 31st. In the latter part of March, while 
 out for a long walk, he was overtaken by a rainstorm and caught a 
 cold, which assumed serious proportions and produced his death on 
 April 4th. John Tyler, the Vice-President, then became President. 
 
 It was generally believed when Tyler succeeded to the Presidency 
 that his administration would be really a Clay administration, because 
 he had been a strong supporter of Henry Clay for the Presidency. In 
 this his friends were greatlv disappointed. John Tyler, as President, 
 entertained very different ideas from those of John Tyler the citizen, 
 or John Tyler, the Vice-President. As soon as the extra session 
 of Congress was convened, on May 31st, the President sent in 
 his message. Its principal feature was a recommendation for 
 the repeal of the Sub-Treasury Law, and an intimation that a fiscal 
 agency, as he termed it, might be established as a substitute for a 
 chartered bank. The Whig Party, and especially Henry Clay, was 
 very desirous to pass a law to charter a national bank ; in fact, this was 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 185 
 
 a long cherished measure of Henry Clay. He introduced such a bill, 
 which passed both the Senate and House of Representatives, not- 
 withstanding the opposition of Silas Wright and other Democrats. 
 The President detained the bill for several days, but finally vetoed it, 
 and a rupture with his own party ensued. Not only was the party 
 in favor of the bill, but his Cabinet, which had been formed by General 
 Harrison, was in favor of it. In order to place the President in the 
 proper light a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives for 
 what was denominated a "fiscal bank." From this bill all the objec- 
 tionable features which the President had found in the previous one 
 were cut out. It passed both Houses, and the President vetoed it. The 
 Whig Party then declared war upon him; his Cabinet was dissolved, 
 and all except Daniel Webster retired. Walter Forward became Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury; John C. Spencer, Secretary of War; A. P. 
 Upshur, Secretary of the Navy; Charles A. Wickliffe, Postmaster- 
 General, and H. S. Legare, Attorney-General. 
 
 In 1 84 1 a peculiar incident, which for a time threatened the rela- 
 tions between England and the United States, occurred in Niagara 
 County, N. Y. Reference to the rebellion in Canada of 1837-38 has 
 been made in its proper place. When the steamer "The Caroline" was 
 taken by the Canadians and sent over Niagara Falls, Colonel McNab 
 was in command of the British forces, and had ordered the seizure 
 of the vessel. A fight had occurred at the capture of "The Caroline," 
 during which a man named James Durfee, an American, was shot 
 dead. In January, 1841, a Canadian named Alexander McLeod was 
 over in Niagara County, and there boastfully declared that he himself 
 had shot Durfee. He was arrested upon the charge of murder and 
 lodged in the Lockport jail, and such was the bitterness of feeling 
 against him that the citizens would not allow him to be bailed out, 
 notwithstanding that McLeod was a dissolute fellow, given to drink, 
 and seemingly had proclaimed himself the slayer of Durfee in a boast- 
 ful mood. As soon as the imprisonment of McLeod came to the knowl- 
 edge of the British government it declared that England fully recog- 
 nized the seizure of "The Caroline," and was responsible for the con- 
 sequences which might result from it. The British ambassador at 
 Washington officially communicated this avowal of his government to 
 
i86 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, and made a formal demand 
 upon him for the immediate release of McLeod. Webster admitted 
 the justice of the claim, but declared the national government had no 
 authority to interfere with the affairs of an independent State. In 
 the meantime McLeod had been indicted by the Grand Jury, and the 
 case came up before the Supreme Court at Utica. The question was, 
 should McLeod be held or set at liberty ? Judge Cowen, to the sur- 
 prise of many ot the best lawyers in the nation, decided that the 
 prisoner ought not to be discharged from imprisonment until he should 
 ~be tried by a jury of the country. He was severely criticised by many, 
 notwithstanding the high judicial position which he held, and it was 
 not forgotten that he had been a sympathizer with the Canadian re- 
 bellion, which sympathy might have influenced his legal mind. The 
 public mind seems slow to realize that judgeships are political offices 
 and that judges are only men. McLeod's trial was transferred to 
 Oneida County, and it finally turned out that McLeod had nothing 
 whatever to do with the killing of Durfee; that his words had been 
 but foolish boast, and he was consequently acquitted. 
 
 The election of November, 1841, resulted in the complete, although 
 unexpected, triumph of the Democratic Party in the State. The prin- 
 cipal cause of the defeat of the Whig Party was the rapid accumulation 
 of the State debt, against which the newspapers had made a loud 
 outcry, demanding retrenchment. Also, Governor Seward was con- 
 sidered too radical in his political views by influential Whigs in dif- 
 ferent parts of the State, and what was called the treachery of Presi- 
 dent Tyler had estranged others. 
 
 The New York Legislature of 1842 contained a number of men 
 whose names were destined not only to become prominent in their 
 own day, but which have stood the test of time. Among them were 
 Horatio Seymour, John A. Dix, George R. Davis, Calvin T. Hurlburt, 
 Halsey Rogers, Levi S. Chatfield and others of but little less note. 
 
 Although this is a history of the Democratic Party of the State, 
 a somewhat extended chapter is devoted to the regime of Governor 
 Seward because during that regime the Democratic Party regained 
 control of the State Legislature; because of the conflict between the 
 Governor and the Legislature, and because, under Governor Seward 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 187 
 
 the credit of the State sank to the lowest point it has ever experienced, 
 from which condition it was redeemed mainly by the Democratic 
 Party. 
 
 In 1 84 1 a law had been passed and was approved by the Governor 
 transferring the appointment of receivers of insolvent corporations 
 from the Chancellor to the Bank Commissioners. Early in 1842 a 
 bill passed both houses repealing this law. The Governor signed the 
 bill, but returned it to the Senate accompanied by a message demur- 
 ring against the bill which he had signed. The message was stricken 
 from the minutes after considerable discussion of the Governor and 
 his act. A few days later the Governor sent another message to the 
 Senate declaring that he regarded their act as a dangerous invasion 
 of the rights of the executive department. This message, by a party 
 vote, was returned to the Governor. 
 
 Outside of party measures, the great question which engaged the 
 attention of the Legislature of 1842 was that in relation to the finan- 
 cial condition of the State. The State was at that time in a condition 
 which can be described only as bordering on bankruptcy. During the 
 greater part of the year 1841 it had been impossible to negotiate 
 permanent loans, except at a ruinous rate of interest. Six per cent, 
 stocks had fallen twenty per cent, below par; large loans were not 
 only due, but the State was in arrears to contractors, some of whom, 
 because they could not get their money, were compelled to borrow 
 on their own credit in order to pay their laborers. As is always the 
 case under such conditions, capitalists became alarmed, and some of 
 them refused to lend money to the State on any terms. In this condi- 
 tion of things the State officers were obliged to raise money on short 
 loans, in order to prevent the suspension of public work and a total 
 wreck of the credit of the State. Flagg, the new Comptroller, was 
 appointed on February 7th, and on the 15th he made a statement to 
 the Assembly which resulted in the passage of an act, the principal 
 features of which were : First, that the expenditures of the State must 
 cease; Second, a tax of one mill on the dollar on the assessed value 
 of all taxable property, one-half of this tax to go to the general fund, 
 the other one-half to the Canal Commissioners for the aid of the canal 
 fund. This tax was to be collected during the years from 1843 to 
 
1 88 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 1846, inclusive. Third, the funds subject to the legal control of the 
 State should be collected and invested in such loans as the Legislature 
 shall authorize to meet the pressing demands of the canals for 1842. 
 
 The result of this statement to the Legislature by Comptroller 
 Flagg vi^as "An Act to Provide for Paying the Debt and Preserving 
 the Credit of the State." The passage of this act, together w^ith the 
 appointment of Flagg as Comptroller, -who was a very conservative 
 man, produced an immediate effect for the better upon public credit, 
 and it was not long before confidence in the soundness of the financial 
 system of the State was restored. 
 
 In 1 84 1 Arphaxad Loomis introduced into the Assembly what 
 became known as "The People's Resolutions." Not meeting with 
 success in that year, he again introduced them in the session of 1842, 
 when they were again defeated. These resolutions, no doubt, had con- 
 siderable to do in aiding the restoration of confidence in the financial 
 condition of the State, but, moreover, their spirit, and to a great ex- 
 tent their very words, were adopted by the Constitution of 1846, which 
 will be referred to in its proper place. 
 
 During the session of 1842 the Democratic Party, which had again 
 become strong in the Legislature, divided into two wings, known as 
 the Barnburners, or Radicals, and the Hunkers, or Cortservatives. 
 
 The Barnburners were followers of Martin Van Buren, and re- 
 ceived their name because they were compared to a farmer who burned 
 his barn in order to free it from rats. Later they became known as 
 the "Softs," or "Softshells." 
 
 The origin of the name "Hunkers" is uncertain. But it seems 
 that the name was intended to convey the meaning "all right." This 
 is in keeping with the old-time phrase "he is all hunk," or the other 
 form, "he is all hunky dory." This meaning of the term is confirmed 
 by the fact that the Hunkers were the conservative or safe wing of the 
 Democratic Party. The name has at various times been applied to 
 the conservative element in the Democratic Party in other States of 
 the Union. 
 
 These two divisions in the Democratic Party first began to act 
 independently in the winter of 1842, and about the same time the 
 Whig Party showed evidences that it was also splitting in twain. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 189 
 
 Seward and his friends were radical in their poHtical principles, were 
 favorably disposed toward foreigners, and especially toward Irish im- 
 migrants, and were tolerant of the principles of the Abolitionists. The 
 other faction of the Whig Party was conservative, and exhibited a 
 strong tendency to retain things just as they were. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention of 1842 was held at Syracuse 
 on September 7th. William C. Bouck and Daniel S. Dickinson were 
 nominated by acclamation for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, re- 
 spectively. Apart from his popularity as a sterling Democrat and an 
 able man, Bouck controlled a large following through his connection 
 with the Erie Canal. Dickinson, who was a resident of Binghamton, 
 had for a long time been an ardent supporter of the New York & Erie 
 Railroad, and this also added to his strength. 
 
 The Whig convention was also held on the seventh of September, 
 and nominated Luther Bradish, the then Lieutenant-Governor, as their 
 candidate for Governor, and Gabriel Furman of Kings County for 
 Lieutenant-Governor. This convention also adopted a resolution con- 
 demning the State tax and the suspension of public works, no doubt 
 considering this a strong bid for public approval. 
 
 In 1842 the Abolitionists declared themselves as a distinct and 
 separate party. Up to that date they had made it a practice to vote 
 for the candidates who declared themselves most warmly in sympathy 
 with the principles of the Abolitionists. In that year, however, they 
 nominated Alvin Stewart as their candidate for Governor. They also 
 held a general convention, and resolved to nominate candidates of their 
 own in the towns and counties throughout the State. 
 
 The election resulted in the complete triumph of the Democratic 
 Party in the State. Bouck received 208,072 votes; Bradish, 186,091 ; 
 Stewart, 7,263. These figures show that the Abolitionist Party was 
 not very strong, while Bouck carried the State by almost 22,000 votes. 
 
190 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Governor Bouck's Administration — Resolutions of Radical Conven- 
 tion of 1843— Questions Before the Senate— The Baltimore 
 Convention — Democratic State Convention of 1844 — Silas 
 Wright Nominated for Governor — Life of William C. Bouck. 
 
 On January i, 1843, William C. Bouck began his regime as Gov- 
 ernor of the State of New York, and the Legislature assembled two 
 days later. 
 
 Governor Bouck's message to the Legislature gives an indication 
 of the bitterness of party spirit at that time, for the Governor deemed 
 it necessary in that document to call upon the Legislature to lay aside 
 party interests and co-operate with him in placing the public welfare 
 above all other considerations. 
 
 He also attacked the Federal government in his message, and as- 
 serted that several unwarrantable assumptions of power had been exer- 
 cised by the national administration. He declared that the right to 
 collect money from the people in any form for the purpose of distribut- 
 ing it among the several States had not been delegated to the general 
 government. Congress had passed a bankruptcy law, by which a debtor 
 could be discharged from his debts without the consent of his creditors ; 
 this. Governor Bouck declared unconstitutional. 
 
 On the Virginia controversy he claimed that this State was bound 
 by compact not to screen a transgressor of the criminal laws of other 
 States, thus taking a stand exactly opposite to that taken by Governor 
 Seward, so far as related to giving shelter to men accused of slave- 
 stealing. 
 
 The Governor was in favor of prosecuting work on the canals, but 
 he was particular to assert that such work should be carried on strictly 
 within the financial ability of the State. The recent embarrassment of 
 the State's credit was a warning to all men to be cautious. 
 
«l^%s 
 
 
 ^■7q ti, £: /r I4f/Aa^s S ^rc A"K 
 
 WILLIAM C . EOUCK. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 191 
 
 During Bouck's term as Governor a new schism was produced 
 in the Democratic Party. The Governor was not a strenuous 
 character. It is not easy at this day to find any fault with him, 
 ahhough in his own day many of his friends censured him. To- 
 day he is one of the least known of the Governors of the State. 
 While he may have possessed qualifications to make a statesman, he 
 was a failure as a politician. He was consistent and honorable, 
 but he was weak as a leader of men. That he possessed superior 
 intelligence is unquestionable, because, with only a moderate edu- 
 cation he rose to be Governor of the State. Having reached the 
 Governor's chair, he shrank from some of the responsibilities which 
 that position imposed upon him, that is, if he were to continue to be 
 a party leader. When he was elected there was some disaffection 
 against him in the Democratic Party; this he lacked the tact to re- 
 move. The trouble was aggravated over the question of appointments. 
 The clamor for office swept him off his feet, and, instead of making 
 appointments himself, and so retaining complete control of the patron- 
 age with which the Constitution had invested him, he made his ap- 
 pointments from candidates recommended by county conventions or 
 by members of the Legislature. So it happened that office-holders 
 were selected from among his enemies as well as from among his 
 friends. He still retained his enemies, and his friends were dissatis- 
 fied with his weakness in appointing to office men who were opposed 
 to him. It is a good principle that a subordinate must be in accord 
 with his chief, if harmony is to prevail and success assured. How can 
 a subordinate faithfully and earnestly carry out the ideas and wishes 
 of a chief when he is opposed to his ideas and wishes ? Various con- 
 troversies grew out of these appointments. There were collisions be- 
 tween the Governor and the Legislature. The wrangle caused over 
 the appointment of a State Printer as the successor of Thurlow Weed 
 occupied more public attention during the winter of 1843 than any 
 State question. Edwin Croswell had been the State Printer from 1823 
 until his removal by the Whigs in 1840. Thurlow Weed was ap- 
 pointed in his place. In 1843 the Democrats decided to depose Weed, 
 and Croswell made a persistent attempt to secure his own appointment. 
 Some members of the Legislature were in favor of H. H. Van Dyke 
 
192 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 for State Printer, and a war resulted over the whole question, but the 
 outcome of it finally was that the Senate and Assembly had each sepa- 
 rate printers. 
 
 During the session of 1843 A. B. Dickinson charged that Governor 
 Bouck, while Canal Commissioner, had expended more money in en- 
 larging the Erie Canal between Albany and Schenectady, and in erect- 
 ing ornamental works than was necessary. It was never made to ap- 
 pear, however, that any very large sum of money had been expended 
 on that part of the canal, and a committee of three which had been 
 appointed to inquire into the charges made by Dickinson failed to find 
 any improper conduct on the part of Governor Bouck. 
 
 During the session of 1843 ^ '^i'" 'was passed abolishing the office 
 of Bank Commissioner. The bill was principally passed by the Whigs 
 and Radicals, and the Hunkers charged that the course pursued by the 
 Radicals on the question originated from a desire to curtail the patron- 
 age of the Governor. At the same time, it gave additional power and 
 influence to the Comptroller, on whom, through the provisions of the 
 bill, the principal duties performed by the Bank Commissioner devolved. 
 
 The Legislature adjourned on April i8th. Nothwithstanding that 
 considerable bitterness had at times prevailed during the session be- 
 tween the Democratic members, a caucus was held on the evening be- 
 fore adjournment, at which resolutions were adopted, one of which 
 recommended the support of Martin Van Buren for the office of Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 The charter elections of both Albany and New York gave the 
 Democrats handsome majorities in 1843. 
 
 On September 5th a Democfatic convention assembled at Syracuse 
 to elect delegates from the State of New York to represent the Demo- 
 cratic Party of the State in the national convention, which was to be 
 held at Baltimore to nominate a President and Vice-President of the 
 United States. The delegates elected were instructed to support Mar- 
 tin Van Buren for President. 
 
 In November, 1843, ^ Radical convention, held at Albany in the 
 interests of constitutional reform, passed the following resolutions : 
 
 "Resolved, That we believe the Constitution of this State needs re- 
 vision and vital and elemental modifications, both in the extent of the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 193 
 
 power to be delegated by the people and in the manner of its adminis- 
 tration; that these changes include the entire prohibition of the right 
 of government to entail a public debt upon the people, except in time 
 of war or insurrection, without their consent expressed directly 
 through the ballot-boxes ; and also the right to erect privileged incor- 
 porations, the members of which shall enjoy a dispensation from the 
 ordinary obligations of debt ; that they also contemplate the limitation 
 of the central power of government by the return to the people in 
 their town and county organization, first, of the power of the Legis- 
 lature over matters of merely sectional interest, and, second, of the 
 power of the executive over the local administrative and judicial offi- 
 cers of the State; that they contemplate also such a modification of 
 the State judiciary as shall ensure to the people a cheap and prompt 
 administration of justice, and dispense with the necessity of a tribunal 
 of last resort, armed both with judicial and legislative power, and using 
 one to justify and fortify the other. 
 
 "Resolved, That we seek these changes through the agency of a 
 convention, constituted by law, and representing the whole people; be- 
 cause repeated, unavailing efforts by the people have shown that it is 
 hopeless to seek of the representative body the limitation of its own 
 power; because the combinations of local and corporate interests in 
 that body are already armed, by the Constitution, with a veto power 
 against the people, which will almost inevitably defeat the popular 
 will; because we believe, with Jefferson, that a solemn opportunity 
 should be afforded to each generation to reconsider and revise the 
 charter of their rights and liberties, to accommodate it to the circum- 
 stances in which they live, and to renew in its behalf the expression 
 of their loyalty and devotion." 
 
 In his message to the Legislature of 1844 Governor Bouck said : 
 "The means of doing anything more at this time than making all 
 needful repairs and keeping the canals in good navigable condition 
 cannot be obtained without increasing the present State tax or dis- 
 crediting the public faith. The former I deem highly inexpedient, and 
 the latter entirely inadmissible." 
 
 This allusion by the Governor to the canals, and indeed it may be 
 considered as referring to all public works, indicates well the condition 
 
194 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 of the State at that time. There were those who favored rescinding- 
 the act of 1842, which curtailed the expenditure on pubHc works, 
 while others were in favor of reducing the State debt and more firmly 
 re-establishing its credit, so recently endangered. The Governor seems 
 to have endeavored to pursue a cautious middle course between the two 
 extreme sections of his own party. 
 
 For some time an agitation had been growing in favor of a re- 
 vision of the State Constitution, and many advocated the holding of a 
 convention to consider what changes should be made. The Governor 
 in his message of 1844 gave a good deal of attention to this subject. 
 The principal points upon which changes in the Constitution were de- 
 manded were: First, an increase in the judicial force and a different 
 organization of the courts. These changes, it was maintained, had 
 become necessary through the increase in population and business of 
 the State. Second, it was maintained that some restrictions ought 
 to be placed on the power of the Legislature to loan either the money 
 or the credit of the State to corporations, or to increase the public 
 debt by undertaking to build new roads or canals. In these ideas the 
 Legislature itself generally concurred, but there was so much difference 
 of opinion as to details that no specific proposition could be agreed 
 upon to submit to the people. The Governor in his message debated 
 against the call of a convention. He admitted that the Constitution 
 required amendment, but he contended that all necessary amendments 
 could be made if the proper spirit of compromise should prevail. He 
 contended that the calling of a convention was unconstitutional. 
 
 For some time the Radicals, or Barnburners, as they were more 
 popularly known, had entertained an idea that an association had been 
 formed, of which Governor Bouck was the head, the object of which 
 was to change the policy established by the act of 1842. The Hunkers 
 denied that there was any such combination, and it is doubtful if it ever 
 existed, and if it did the number of its members was quite limited. 
 
 The two important questions which occupied the attention of the 
 Legislature of 1844 were: First, the amendments to the Constitution; 
 and, second, the financial and internal policy of the State. 
 
 At this session of the Legislature resolutions were introduced in 
 favor of a reduction in postage. These resolutions were, in substance. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK i95 
 
 ultimately adopted by the United States Congress, and were carried 
 through by the votes of Northern members, every member from a 
 slave State voting against the measure. 
 
 The subject of increasing the expenditures for internal improve- 
 ments by a partial resumption of public work was brought before the 
 Senate in the early part of the session. The spirit of this resolution 
 was antagonistic to the policy adopted in 1842, and it received very 
 little favor in the Senate, although large petitions for a resumption of 
 public work were presented to the Legislature. However, two lengthy 
 reports were laid before the Legislature, one from the Canal Com- 
 mittee to the Senate, and the other from the Canal Committee in the 
 Assembly. The former was written by Mr. Dennison, and the latter 
 by. Horatio Seymour. Seymour introduced, along with his resolution, 
 a bill which provided for the carrying on of repairs and improvements 
 on the Erie Canal. On some points it conflicted with the act of 1842, 
 but finally passed both the Assembly and the Senate. 
 
 During this session several amendments to the Constitution were 
 proposed and adopted by the joint resolution of both houses. But all 
 bills proposed, either by the Whigs or Democrats, looking toward the 
 calling of a convention, came to nothing. 
 
 One of the last acts of the Legislature of 1844 was to pass a bill 
 abolishing the office of non-acting Canal Commissioner, and providing 
 that there should be but four commissioners, who should be elected by 
 the people. 
 
 During that session of the Legislature the members were practically 
 divided into three parties, the Whigs and the two sections of the Demo- 
 cratic Party, between which there were many bitter strifes and alter- 
 cations. 
 
 The Democrats held their usual annual caucus just before the ad- 
 journment of the Legislature, and some resolutions were adopted, but 
 those which approved of the official conduct of Governor Bouck and 
 Lieutenant-Governor Dickinson met with opposition, and considerable 
 bitterness was engendered. The resolutions were finally adopted, but 
 the next day a score or more Democrats wrote to the chairman of 
 the committee appointed to publish the address and resolution that their 
 names must not be attached to it. In this way the Democratic mem- 
 
196 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 bers of the Legislature of 1844 separated and returned to their several 
 constituencies, many of them bearing with them bitter recollections of 
 the session just closed, and robbed of a part of the enthusiasm which 
 was more than ever necessary in that year. This want of harmony 
 manifested by the public men at Albany spread all over the State, and 
 not only did great harm to the Democratic cause, but weakened Van 
 Buren at the Baltimore Convention, which was to be held within three 
 weeks of the date of the dissolution of the Legislature. 
 
 The delegates to the Baltimore Convention had been chosen dur- 
 ing the winter, and a large majority of them had been instructed by 
 their respective State conventions to vote and work for the nomination 
 of Martin Van Buren for President. In the early part of the spring 
 of 1844, however, a question arose in the South which gradually be- 
 gan to lessen his chances. This was the question of the extension of 
 slavery by the annexation of Texas. The South had thoroughly de- 
 termined upon this project, but throughout the Southern States it was 
 supposed that Van Buren would oppose it. His opponents in the 
 South, therefore, set about, very skillfully, to procure his defeat. In 
 February, 1843, they procured from Andrew Jackson a strong letter 
 in favor of the annexation of Texas. This letter they intended to use 
 just before the convention, as was said "To blow Van Buren out of 
 the Water." The letter was first published in March, 1844, and Van 
 Buren was specifically asked by one of the Southern delegates, to de- 
 clare himself as to whether he was in favor of the annexation of Texas 
 or not. Van Buren replied, admitting that his views were different from 
 those of many of his political friends, that he would stand upon the 
 decision of his administration of 1837, which had decided against the 
 annexation of Texas, but that he would yield upon that question if, 
 after the subject had been thoroughly discussed, a Congress chosen with 
 reference to the question indicated that the popular will was in favor of 
 it. Van Buren's attitude at the time was strong and consistent, but he 
 was wrong. Not because he threw away his chance for the Presidency, 
 but because Texas was shortly afterwards annexed, and his throwing 
 himself under the wheels of the political juggernaut did not retard the 
 movement in the direction of annexation, while it injured himself. 
 
 As soon as the Baltimore Convention assembled a motion was intro- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 197 
 
 duced that a two-thirds vote would be required for a nomination, and 
 the contest over this motion was the real contest of the convention. Van 
 Buren had a majority of the delegates, but not two-thirds, and under 
 this rule the Southern delegates who were pledged to him could escape 
 from their obligation. The two-thirds rule was a-d,opted by a vote of 
 148 to 118; of the negatives, 104 votes were from the Northern States. 
 Fifty-eight "Northern men with Southern principles" voted with 
 ninety Southerners to carry the motion. It was really a vote on the 
 annexation of Texas, which carried with it the extension of slavery 
 into new territory. On the first ballot Van Buren received 146 votes, 
 which left him eight to spare over a majority; on the second ballot 
 Van Buren's vote had shrunk to 127, and on the seventh ballot had 
 dwindled to 99. A motion was made to have him declared the nominee 
 as the choice of the majority of the convention, and this precipitated a 
 scene of fury. Taunts were hurled back and forth between Northern 
 and Southern delegates; bitter accusations of treachery were made 
 against those who had pledged their support to Van Buren, and Samuel 
 Young, of New York, declared that the "abominable Texas question," 
 thrown among them by the "mongrel administration at Washington," 
 had produced all the trouble. The motion was ruled out of order, and 
 the name of James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was presented to the con- 
 vention. The New York delegation withdrew for a time and returned 
 during the time the convention was taking the ninth ballot. Daniel 
 S. Dickinson cast New York's thirty-five votes for Polk, saying that 
 he "loved this convention because it had acted so like the masses." Silas 
 Wright, of New York, was nominated for Vice-President, but he 
 promptly telegraphed his refusal, and explained his action by saying 
 to his friends, "I do not choose to ride behind on the black pony." 
 George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, was substituted for him. 
 
 Henry Clay was nominated by the Whigs for President, and T. 
 Frelinghuysen for Vice-President. Polk received 170 votes in the 
 Electoral College and Henry Clay 105. 
 
 Van Buren supported the Democratic ticket, and was faithful to his 
 party throughout the campaign. His friends saved New York State, 
 but they doubtless voted more in support of Silas Wright, the candidate 
 for Governor, than they did for the presidential candidate. More- 
 
198 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 over, while standing by their party, they virtually voted for the an- 
 nexation of Texas, because that was what Polk represented. 
 
 Although Van Buren was in favor of the re-election of Bouck while 
 his own prospects of receiving the presidential nomination were bright, 
 the State officers and their friends were generally opposed to Bouck's 
 renomination. The Governor's enemies maintained their position, and 
 Van Buren naturally lost interest after the result of the Baltimore Con- 
 vention. The one man in the State whom the Democrats felt that they 
 could best unite upon was Silas Wright, then United States Senator. 
 Wright had refused to be a candidate for Governor out of deference 
 to Martin Van Buren. He had also declined to accept the appointment 
 as judge of the Supreme Court; he had been nominated for the office 
 of Vice-President, and had declined, and the opportunity which his 
 friends now offered him of becoming Governor of the State seemed 
 to have been outweighed by the fact that, in entering the contest for 
 that position he would be giving support to Polk, who had deposed 
 his own great friend. Besides, he seems to have been very well pleased 
 with the office of United States Senator, and there were few abler men 
 in that body during his day. 
 
 Before the Baltimore Convention Martin Van Buren was in favor 
 of the re-election of Bouck as Governor, afterward he was in favor of 
 Silas Wright. Bouck was himself inclined to withdraw from the con- 
 test, but many of his friends, believing he could still succeed, urged 
 him to remain in the field. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention of 1844 "let at Syracuse on 
 September 4th, and when the issue between Bouck and Wright came 
 to a vote there were 95 votes for the latter and 30 for the former, 
 whereupon Silas Wright's nomination was made unanimous on the 
 motion of Horatio Seymour. Addison Gardiner was placed upon the 
 ticket for the office of Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 Although this did not end the struggle, it ended Bouck's advance- 
 ment in State politics, and at this juncture a short history of his life 
 is appropriate. 
 
 William C. Bouck was born in the county of Schoharie. His 
 father was a farmer and owned a farm on the banks of the Schoharie 
 Creek. The family was of German origin. Governor Bouck was 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 199 
 
 reared on the farm and, although he received a fairly good English 
 education, was more familiar with work than with literature during 
 the years of life in which men usually lay the foundation of their edu- 
 cation. The county of Schoharie in that day can scarcely be said to 
 have been in touch with the rest of the world, so that Bouck must 
 have been possessed of more than ordinary native ability in order to 
 become one of the leading public men of the State, and ultimately its 
 Governor. No sooner had he attained to manhood than he became 
 a leader among his neighbors and friends, and while he was yet a 
 young man he was appointed the sheriff of Schoharie County. He 
 discharged the duties of that office in a manner to increase his repu- 
 tation, as well as the number of his friends, and through this public 
 office naturally became more widely known. Upon the expiration of his 
 term as sherifif he was elected a member of the State Assembly, and 
 in 1817 was chosen one of the Senators from what was then called 
 the Middle District. He seemed to make a friend of almost everybody 
 he met. The more widely he became known the greater became his 
 popularity. In 1821 he was appointed Canal Commissioner by the 
 Legislature of the State, and for many years he discharged the duties 
 of that office in a manner which convinced all of his thorough integ- 
 rity. He not only made the interests of the public his first considera- 
 tion, but, what is more remarkable, the people were convinced of this 
 fact. The consequence was that he made many ardent and zealous 
 friends in all the counties bordering upon not only the Erie, but the 
 Genesee Valley and Black River canals, and it was mainly owing to the 
 exertions of these friends that he received the nomination for Governor. 
 He was the first Governor of the State who had not been educated 
 as a lawyer. He became Governor at a very trying time. The credit 
 of the State was in a desperate condition, and a majority of the 
 Democrats were in favor of retrenchment. The people who lived along 
 the canals and who were interested in seeing the work upon these 
 waterways prosecuted were opposed to the principles of economy which 
 the State was inaugurating. Bouck practically owed his position as 
 Governor to his friends, who were also friends of the canals, yet he 
 knew that the majority of the Democrats of the State were not in 
 accord with those friends on the canal question. He did not wish to 
 
200 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 antagonize either party, and the result was that he endeavored to take 
 a middle course, which naturally pleased neither party, and he did not 
 receive a second nomination for Governor. Had he taken a strong 
 stand on either side he might have added to his reputation as a de- 
 termined and energetic man, but it is doubtful if such a course would 
 have affected his future career, as he would have estranged a large 
 number of Democrats, no matter which side he took. He was, how- 
 ever, well thought of by the national administration under President 
 Polk, and it is even asserted that he was partially instrumental in 
 procuring the overthrow of Silas Wright through his alliance with the 
 central government. He is said to have been an upright and honest 
 man, who was always faithful to his friends. His seeming failure in 
 the gubernatorial chair resulted more from a desire to please everybody 
 than from want of ability or intelligence. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 201 
 
 LIFE OF MARTIN VAN BUREN. 
 
 The imperial State of New York has produced many great men, 
 and one of the greatest among them was unquestionably Martin Van 
 Buren. As a master of affairs, it is doubtful whether this country 
 has ever seen his superior. His mind was not only keen, but broad, 
 with varied and complex capacities seldom united in the same indi- 
 vidual. Granting that he was subtle rather than masterful, it does 
 not detract from his strength ; it was rather a higher manifestation of 
 power. Indeed, his reputation for astuteness and cunning was simply 
 a recognition of his superlative common sense. He made no parade of 
 strenuousness, and never indulged in heroics, but without any fanfare 
 of trumpets or beating of drums he achieved results just the same. 
 He had a sound mind in a sound body ; he was not a dreamer, and he 
 indulged in no illusions, having the rare faculty of being able to see 
 things as they are and to correctly estimate their weight and force. 
 This was the true magic which made him seem like a wizard to his 
 contemporaries, friends and foes alike. 
 
 Of his patriotism there was never any question, and of his courage 
 none of our statesmen ever gave a higher exhibition or a stronger 
 proof than he did in his famous letter regarding the annexation of 
 Texas. For it was this letter which cost him the Democratic nomi- 
 nation for President in 1844, a nomination which would not only 
 have insured him another term in that great office, but would- have 
 been a vindication that he would have prized beyond measure, after 
 his undeserved defeat four years before. 
 
 As a politician, using that term in its largest sense, it is doubtful 
 whether Mr. Van Buren ever had a superior, in any age or in any 
 land. In winning the favor and gaining the confidence of his fellow- 
 men his success was truly phenomenal. He held all the greatest offices 
 under our government, President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, 
 
202 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Minister to Great Britain, United States Senator and Governor of 
 New York, the only statesman in American history who ever filled all 
 these posts. From the very outset of his public career he was in per- 
 sonal contact with the ablest men in the country. He was an im- 
 portant factor in the overthrow of Aaron' Burr, one of the keenest 
 and craftiest of American politicians, and one whO' had waged an al- 
 most equal conflict with Jefferson himself. He was the intimate friend 
 and supporter of De Witt Clinton and Daniel D. Tompkins in State 
 politics, and the recognized leader of such giants as Silas Wright, 
 William L. Marcy, John A. Dix and Daniel S. Dickinson. He suc- 
 ceeded John C. Calhoun as Vice-President, and overthrew that subtle 
 and brilliant champion of nullification. He was probably the most 
 intimate and trusted friend of the great and heroic President of the 
 people, Andrew Jackson. 
 
 That Martin Van Buren rendered his country illustrious services 
 is not disputed. As Minister to England, a position in which he has 
 to stand comparison with the most skillful and masterful diplomatists 
 of Europe as well as our own country, he stands in the first rank. 
 As one of the Fathers of the Democratic Party the highest praise is 
 no more than his due. When the system of human slavery became a 
 political power, Martin Van Buren was one of the first and ablest of 
 its opponents. His active political career extended through almost half 
 a century, and probably no one of his contemporaries wielded a greater 
 power in shaping our national life through all these years. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that, for his own fame. Van Buren 
 lived too long. After he was defeated for the nomination for Presi- 
 dent in 1844, unjust as was the treatment he received, he did not 
 bear his defeat with the dignity that would have been becoming to so 
 great a man. His provocation was unquestionably very great, but 
 the selfish revenge he wreaked upon his party, that had given him its 
 highest honors, by causing its defeat in 1848, savors of smallness, and 
 it would not have been possible in a nature that was truly great. It 
 brought its own punishment, however, for it not only smirched his fame 
 but it destroyed his power, leaving him a querulous old man, merely 
 looking at the stage on which he had for a generation played so great 
 a part. A political "kicker," to use an expressive term in the slang 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 203 
 
 of the day, is certain to destroy himself whenever he defeats, or even 
 seriously injures the party that has honored him, in order to work 
 revenge for a purely personal grievance. 
 
 The life of Van Buren naturally divides itself, like "omnia Gallia," 
 into three parts. First, came his career as a lawyer ; second, his career 
 as a public man, politician and statesman ; third, his later years, after 
 his official career was closed. 
 
 Martin Van Buren was born at Kinderhook, Columbia County, 
 New York, December 5th, 1782. He came of good family, of the old 
 Dutch stock, but one not especially distinguished for wealth nor for 
 prestige, either social or political. He had, however, an inheritance 
 of brains and of vigorous health, which were a much more valuable 
 equipment for success in those earlier days, when money had far less 
 power than it has acquired in these later times, when what has been, 
 not inaptly, styled "the communism o"f pelf" has become so potent a 
 factor in public affairs. Young Van Buren was not a college-bred 
 man. Indeed, his schooling of any kind was extremely limited, as he 
 left the Kinderhook Academy and his school life ended when he was 
 but fourteen years old. He at once entered the law office of Francis 
 Sylvester, of Kinderhook, continuing his studies there until 1802, when 
 he was in his twentieth year. He then continued his preparation for 
 his chosen profession with William P. Van Ness, in New York City. 
 Van Ness was, himself, a Columbia County man, and one of the most 
 eminent lawyers in the State. He was also a prominent Republican, 
 in politics, and a close friend and champion of Aaron Burr, the then 
 Vice-President of the United States. Van Buren remained in the city 
 but one year, however. He became of age in 1803, and returned to 
 Kinderhook, when he formed a law-partnership with James J. Van 
 Alen, his half-brother, on his mother's side, who was older, and already 
 had an established practice. If Van Buren's tastes had not led him 
 into politics, where his remarkable talents found such a large and fruit- 
 ful field for their exercise, he must surely have become one of the 
 first lawyers of his time. The brightness and alertness of his mind, 
 his prodigious industry, his- power of long-sustained application, which 
 became a virtual absorption in the work he had on hand, his courage 
 and his tenacity, all marked him out for great eminence in his chosen 
 
204 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 profession. He soon outgrew the professional limitations of Kinder- 
 hook. He had been admitted as a counselor of the Supreme Court 
 in 1807, and he very happily celebrated this promotion by marrying 
 Miss Hannah Hoes, a young lady of his own age, and also of Dutch 
 descent, a kinswoman of his mother. In 1808, the Council of Appoint- 
 ment having become Republican, he was mad\e Surrogate of Columbia 
 County, at the age of twenty-six, succeeding his partner. Van Alen, 
 who was a Federalist. Within a year he removed to Hudson, which 
 afforded a much wider field, and he practiced his profession with a 
 rapidly* growing business for seven years, acquiring a high reputation 
 in his profession. At this time he may be said to have become firmly 
 established as a leader, both in his profession and in his party. He 
 evidently realized both his present strength and his capacity for 
 growth. He had also, through his strong common sense and native 
 shrewdness, attained financial ease, if not financial independence, and 
 it is worthy of note that he purchased a large and valuable library and, 
 by diligent study, sought, with success, to make up the deficiency of 
 his early educational opportunities. Indeed, he became one of the best 
 informed of all our great public men. 
 
 For many years Van Buren's growth and development in law and 
 in politics kept fairly equal pace. In 1813 he was elected a member 
 of the State Senate, a body which at that time also exercised judicial 
 functions. At all events, the Senators were ex-oMcio members of the 
 State's Court for the Correction of Errors, the tribunal of last resort, 
 the other members being the Chancellor, the Judges of the Supreme 
 Court and the Lieutenant-Governor. While still Senator, Van Buren 
 was, in 1815, elected Attorney-General, one of the great offices of the 
 State government. Here he added to his reputation and his power, 
 continuing in office until 18 19, when that strange and unique fountain 
 of official honors, the Council of Appointment, was captured by the 
 Federalists, and he was removed. For, although that slogan of po- 
 litical warfare, later enunciated by Governor William L. Marcy, one 
 of New York's greatest Democrats, "To the victors belong the spoils," 
 had not yet been heard, the doctrine it proclaimed had long been in 
 force in the Empire State. In 1816 the rapidly rising party leader re- 
 moved to Albany, where he made his home until appointed Secretary 
 
Jt ■7-5'. ^j^_Zril^ y-iyF//?i^r7s ^.jF^irA^ 
 
 IN VAM BUEEN. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 205 
 
 of State by President Jackson, in 1829. Soon after coming to Albany 
 he admitted to partnership another brilliant lawyer from Columbia 
 County, Benjamin F. Butler, afterward Attorney-General of the United 
 States, and a lawyer whose ability won for him a national reputation. 
 
 In 1819 Van Buren's domestic life was broken up by a great sor- 
 row. His wife died at Albany in 1819, leaving him four sons. It 
 is proper to say in this place that this great statesman's family life 
 was a model of purity and affection. He was devotedly attached to his 
 wife, and remained always loyal to her memory during the forty-three 
 years that he survived her. In all the bitterness and rancor of the 
 constant political strife in which he was engaged, no enemy ever 
 breathed a suggestion of an attack upon the purity of his private life, 
 which was in every way above reproach. In 1821 he was elected to 
 the United States Senate, and at once became an important and im- 
 posing figure in national politics. He did not definitely abandon the 
 practice of law until seven years afterward, when he was elected Gov- 
 ernor, but upon his entrance to the United States Senate his whole 
 time was practically devoted to public affairs for more than a quarter 
 of a century. 
 
 It is not necessary to give in this biographical sketch an account 
 of the politics of the State of New York during the formative and 
 stormy period of a quarter of a century in which Van Buren bore so 
 large a part. That has already been done in the historical part of this 
 work. The original division into Republicans and Federalists, though 
 it remained throughout the country at large, had been greatly modified 
 in New York by the appearance of various factions and subdivisions, 
 some of them both long-lived and, powerful. The Federalists became 
 such a weak minority after the first election of Jefferson, and espe- 
 cially after the death of Hamilton in 1804, that the Republican Party 
 made a fertile field for the development of factional differences. Each 
 of the great leaders had his own special brand of Republican followers, 
 though the most conspicuous were the Clintonians, the Livingstons, 
 and the Burrites, who were devoted to the fortunes of Aaron Burr 
 until he became a negligible factor after his defeat for Governor in 
 1804, and his killing of Hamilton in a duel in the same year. Van 
 Buren was for a time a Clintonian, the faction to which most of the 
 
2o6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 powerful party leaders belonged. The Federalists became so impotent 
 that they hardly attempted indeperident action for many years, simply 
 allying themselves with one or the other faction of the victorious 
 Republicans. As family quarrels are the bitterest of all, and as the 
 wranglings of party factions are the most intense and vituperative 
 known to politics, the strenuousness of the feuds between the leaders, 
 and even the members of the factions of the dominant party in the 
 State of New. York during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, 
 has seldom been approached in our political history. But it is worthy 
 of remark that although Van- Buren was one of the most formidable 
 and most feared of all the leading politicians, no charge was ever 
 brought against his official or personal integrity. 
 
 As but few Americans have ever given themselves up so com- 
 pletely to public affairs as Van Buren did during the average lifetime 
 of a generation, so no one has ever shown greater skill or reaped a 
 larger measure of success. His views were always clear upon public 
 questions. He held convictions, very strong convictions, upon all po- 
 litical matters, and he never concealed them. He did not carry around 
 a "big stick," and had never heard of the "strenuous life," but he 
 never ran away from any sort of political disturbance. He also had 
 the noble quality of always being true to his friends. Nor was he 
 ever the bitter, relentless, proscriptive partisan that his political foes 
 were so fond of picturing him. The famous Albany Regency, of 
 which he was a member, did not begin the work of political proscrip- 
 tion. Its founders, DeWitt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, were long 
 his political enemies. On the other hand, Governor George Clinton, 
 with whom Van Buren acted, had the honorable record of never hav- 
 ing consented to a political removal during the eighteen years that he 
 filled the office of Governor of New York. In November, 1812, Van 
 Buren voted in the Senate for presidential electors favorable to the 
 election of DeWitt Clinton, as against Madison, the ground for this 
 action being that the Republican Party of New York had regularly 
 declared for Clinton. He and Clinton were soon after personally 
 estranged, and their friendly relations were never resumed, though 
 Van Buren paid a pathetic tribute to his former friend after Clinton's 
 death in 1826. Van Buren also favored the Erie Canal, the completion 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 207 
 
 of which is Clinton's strongest title to fame. In 1813 Van Buren 
 warmly supported the re-election of Daniel D. Tompkins for Governor, 
 and prepared a clear and forcible address to the Republican voters in 
 his behalf. It should be borne in mind that there was a strong opposi- 
 tion to the War of 1812, then in progress, and this address did much 
 to strengthen the war sentiment. In the election of April, 1814, Van 
 Buren was the acknowledged leader, and the country pronounced 
 definitely in favor of a strong war policy. Van Buren's "Classification 
 Act" was declared by Benton, in after years, to have been "the most 
 energetic war measure ever adopted in this country." Upon his ad- 
 vent in the United States Senate in 182 1, at the beginning of Monroe's 
 second administration, and during the reign of "the era of good feel- 
 ing," which had given that splendid President a unanimous re-election, 
 Van Buren was received as the recognized leader of his party in the 
 greatest State in the Union. In 1821 he was a member of the New 
 York Constitutional Convention, in which he added to his reputation 
 as a wise, progressive statesman, yet one whose conservative judg- 
 ment defeated all wild, radical schemes, which were many at that time. 
 In March, 1822, he voted in the Senate for a proviso in the bill creat- 
 ing the new Territory of Florida, by which the introduction of slaves 
 was forbidden, except by citizens removing there for actual settlement, 
 and by which slaves introduced in violation of the law were* to be 
 freed. This proviso was defeated, but Van Buren's vote in its favor 
 shows that even at that early day his sympathies were opposed to the 
 encroachment of the slave power, and that he had the courage to voice 
 his convictions by his vote. He had not been long in the Senate be- 
 fore he was thrown together with Jackson and Benton, and the foun- 
 dation of their lifelong intimacy and personal affection was no doubt 
 laid at this time. Benton entered the Senate at the same time as Van 
 Buren, and began his long and' distinguished career of thirty consecu- 
 tive years in that body. 
 
 Van Buren had a distinguished, although not a great, career in 
 the Senate. He was there, as everywhere else, a leader, though party 
 lines were not sharply defined so as to make his voice determine the 
 action of a majority of the body. In fact, party lines were greatly 
 confused and very indistinct, having been to a great extent submerged 
 
2o8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and obliterated during Monroe's "era of good feeling." Midway in 
 his term came the famous presidential contest in 1824, in which the 
 four candidates all belonged, nominally, to the Republican Party. 
 Van Buren supported Crawford, who had the regular nomination of 
 the Congressional caucus; but of the 36 votes of New York, 31 were 
 controlled by a union of the forces of Adams and Clay, and Crawford 
 secured the remaining 5. It is said that he gained these only by the 
 help of the Adams men. General Jackson, it will be noted, had none 
 at all. After the election of Adams it was inevitable that party di- 
 visions should again arise, and it was during his administration that 
 the new cleavage into Democrats and Whigs took place. In the forma- 
 tion of the Democratic Party Van Buren was unquestionably the most 
 influential of any individual factor. Its great fundamental principle 
 was that all political power rightfully resided in the people, and in 
 all the people, and not at all in any oligarchy or aristocracy, or self- 
 constituted, especially virtuous and intelligent class of people. 
 
 It is worthy of note that the probability that the Electoral College 
 of 1824 would not give a majority to any candidate, and that the 
 choice would thus devolve once more upon the House of Represent- 
 atives, led to much discussion of a change to some better alternative 
 method than fhe one provided by the Constitution, as modified after 
 the Jefferson-Burr contest of 1801. Van Buren favored a plan which, 
 like all the others, failed of adoption or even serious consideration, 
 which yet seems to possess many desirable features. It provided that 
 in case there was no choice by the electors they should be reconvened 
 and directed to choose between the two candidates receiving the highest 
 vote on the first ballot. This would not only be simple and direct, but 
 it is in line with the avowed purpose of the framers of the Constitution 
 to make the presidential electors really electors, and not mere dum- 
 mies without any real power of choice. 
 
 No sketch of the life and work of Martin Van Buren would be 
 complete without a paragraph devoted to the "Albany Regency," of 
 wide fame. Probably no other coterie or ring of politicians ever be- 
 came so well known to the country, or exercised so large an influence 
 in public matters. It certainly was composed of Van Buren's followers, 
 and it had its immediate field of operations at the State Capital. Its 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 209 
 
 enemies called its members "the conspirators." The leaders included 
 William L. Marcy, then State Comptroller; Samuel A. Talcott, At- 
 torney-General ; Benjamin F. Butler, District-Attorney ; Edwin Cros- 
 well, State Printer ; Roger Skinner, United States District Judge, and 
 Benjamin Knower, State Treasurer. Later were added Silas Wright, 
 Azariah C. Flagg, Thomas W. Olcott and Charles E. Dudley, all skill- 
 ful politicians and men of a very high order of ability and strong polit- 
 ical convictions. They were all men of unquestioned integrity and un- 
 doubted patriotism. In 1830 John A. Dix gave as a chief reason for 
 accepting office at Albany that he should there be "one of the Regency." 
 His son, Rev. Dr. Morgan L. Dix, describes their "aggressive hon- 
 esty," their refusal "to tolerate in those whom they could control what 
 their own fine sense of honor did not approve" ; and he quotes a re- 
 mark made to him by Thurlow Weed, their long time and most formid- 
 able political enemy, that he "had never known a body of men who 
 possessed so much power and used it so well." In his Memoirs, Weed 
 describes their "great ability, great industry, indomitable courage." 
 The successors of these original "Regents" were also of a very high 
 type of public men, such as Horatio Seymour, Dean Richmond, Samuel 
 J. Tilden and Daniel Manning. These Democratic sages and giants 
 of a former generation certainly contrast very favorably with the Re- 
 publican "bosses" of their party "machine" in. these years of the new 
 century. 
 
 As an illustration of Van Buren's broadmindedness in politics, and 
 his freedom from the prescriptive spirit of the spoilsman, the pot- 
 hunters of politics, he actively and earnestly promoted the re-election 
 of Rufus King, the most distinguished Federalist in the State, to the 
 United States Senate. His courage and his persistent opposition to 
 the encroachments of the slave oligarchy are shown in his signing a 
 call for a public meeting at Albany, while the struggle over the ad- 
 mission of Missouri as a slave State was in progress, to protest against 
 extending the area of slave territory beyond the Mississippi River. 
 It is no more than just to call attention to such concrete facts, to 
 show that this great American was free from the charges made with 
 such bitterness against him, that he was a spoilsman and a "dough- 
 face." It is worthy of note, also, that almost every Democrat who 
 
2IO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 has become a power in national politics has been subjected to similar 
 malignant representation from their baffled opponents, as witness the 
 opprobrium sought to be heaped upon Samuel J. Tilden, Grover Cleve- 
 land, Daniel Manning and David B. Hill. 
 
 Like all great Democrats, Van Buren was a "strict constructionist." 
 That is, he favored a limitation of the powers of the Federal govern- 
 ment to those directly and expressly conferred upon it by the Constitu- 
 tion, and that there was something much more than a meaningless 
 generality in the words of that immortal document, namely, "The 
 enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be con- 
 strued to deny nor disparage others retained by the people." And 
 "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
 nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, 
 or to the people." Believing thus, he was a consistent opponent in 
 the Senate to all the schemes of internal improvements, not national 
 in their purpose, by the general government. In December, 1825, he 
 proposed a resolution "that Congress does not possess the power to 
 make roads and canals within the respective States," and he was always 
 a resolute opponent of all schemes to use the money which belongs to 
 the whole people for the benefit of purely local interests, limited in 
 their scope to a mere fraction of the people. This doctrine became one 
 of the cardinal principles of the new Democratic Party, which took 
 shape during his service in the Senate, and of which Van Buren was 
 probably the most conspicuous and influential founder. 
 
 February 6th, 1827, he was re-elected Senator for another term 
 of six years by a large majority of both branches of the New York 
 Legislature. In his brief letter of acceptance he stated that it should 
 be his "constant and zealous endeavor to protect the remaining rights 
 reserved to the States by the Federal Constitution," and "to restore 
 those of which they have been divested by construction." While in 
 the Senate Van Buren, in the same line of opposition to the absorption 
 by the Federal government of powers not expressly conferred upon it 
 by the Constitution, pronounced against the United States Bank, fore- 
 shadowing the great conflict in Jackson's second administration, by 
 which this citadel of the concentration of power in the Federal gov- 
 ernment was overthrown. He was neither a trimmer nor an oppor- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 211 
 
 tunist, but a bold and aggressive fighter against what he beheved 
 to be wrongful assertions and assumptions of power not granted by the 
 Constitution. 
 
 The presidential campaign of 1828 was a memorable one in the 
 political history of the United States. Jackson was the inevitable 
 Democratic candidate, and with him was associated John C. Calhoun, 
 renominated for Vice-President. In May, Van Buren, universally 
 recognized as the chief organizer of the new party, appropriately styled 
 the Democratic, and its leader in Congress, left Washington to return 
 to his home in Albany. Jackson, who was also a Senator, had been 
 greatly impressed with his ability, and, after listening to one of his 
 speeches in the Senate, expressed himself in terms of strong admiration. 
 Adams was the equally inevitable candidate of the opposition to the 
 new political organization. The issues were sharp and clearly defined. 
 The party of Jackson favored the strict limitation of Federal powers, 
 jealous for local powers, opposed to internal improvements, and to 
 the "Tariff of Abominations," as the act which Adams had signed 
 was called. Adams led a party "strongly national in temper, with 
 splendid conceptions of a powerful and multifariously useful central 
 administration, impatient of the poverties and meannesses of many of 
 the States." Jefferson had died in 1826, and in one of his last public 
 utterances had declared himself in "the deepest affliction" at the usurpa- 
 tions by which the Federal branch, through the decisions of the Fed- 
 eral Court, the doctrines of the President and the misconstructions of 
 Congress, was stripping its "colleagues, the State authorities, of the 
 powers reserved to them." The new party was out of power, and some 
 popular cry was needed to fire the hearts of the people. Van Buren, 
 with unfailing wisdom and skill, grasped the situation. Much was made 
 of Jackson as a great military hero, and the coalition between Adams 
 and Clay, which had defeated him in 1824, when he was the popular 
 choice, furnished an irresistible war cry. Van Buren took the nomi- 
 nation for Governor of New York and managed the campaign in a 
 masterly manner. Adams was a genuine statesman of remarkable 
 ability, but there was nothing, either in his character or his career, 
 to awaken enthusiasm, and the avowed doctrines of his party, favor- 
 ing the use of the national treasury to make local improvements. 
 
212 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and generally extending the Federal powers, alarmed many thoughtful 
 and patriotic citizens. They felt then what has since become clear 
 to every one, that to levy Federal taxes to construct works of purely 
 local advantage, or to take stock in private speculations or enterprises, 
 was fraught with great peril. 
 
 Jackson, as is well known, won a tremendous triumph, receiving 
 a popular majority then unprecedented, with 171 electoral votes, to 
 83 for Adams. Van Buren was elected Governor of New York by a 
 plurality of more than 30,000 over Smith Thompson, a Judge of the 
 United States Supreme Court. He was inaugurated in January, 1829, 
 and at once resigned his seat in the Senate. He delivered a striking 
 inaugural address, declared by a historian, by no means too friendly 
 to him, "the best executive message ever communicated to the Legis- 
 lature." But his return to State ai^airs was of but brief duration. 
 Jackson tendered him the position of Secretary of State, and March 
 1 2th he resigned the Governorship. His new appointment had been 
 made March 5th, but he did not reach Washington until the 22d, and 
 did not begin his duties until April 4, 1829. 
 
 As the head of the Cabinet, the leader of his party, the intimate 
 friend of the great President, who regarded him not only with confi- 
 dence in his judgment, admiration for his talent, and personal affec- 
 tion for his deference and unswerving loyalty. Van Buren became a 
 great figure in the affairs of the nation. His sound sense, tact and 
 courtesy enabled him to conduct the foreign relations of the country 
 with dignity and success. As a matter of fact. Van Buren was a born 
 diplomat, who could have easily held his own with the best of them 
 that any country has produced. His unchallenged primacy incurred 
 the disfavor of Calhoun, who aspired to succeed Jackson; but he was 
 no match for the astute and imperturbable Secretary. Calhoun was 
 serving his second term as Vice-President, and he aspired to succeed 
 Jackson at the close of the latter's first term, as a third election to 
 the Vice-Presidency was obviously impracticable. To let another man, 
 whom he doubtless foresaw would be Van Buren, hold the second 
 office during Jackson's second term, which was taken for granted, 
 would place the South Carolina statesman at a great disadvantage. 
 Van Buren, however, with the sound, practical sense which was char- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 213 
 
 acteristic of him, knew that Jackson's renomination was as sure as 
 any future event could be, and was far too shrewd to oppose it, even 
 if he desired to do so, which is in the highest degree unlikely. Like 
 all suave, politic public men, his reputation for urbanity was largely 
 at the expense of his reputation for sincerity, but this seems to have 
 been undeserved. While Van Buren was unquestionably what would 
 be styled in the expressive slang of this day, "a very smooth proposi- 
 tion," or a very "foxy" politician, he never was charged with treachery, 
 nor even disloyalty, but was always true to his friends and to his 
 friendships. 
 
 In 183 1, after serving two years in the Cabinet, Van Buren re- 
 signed, and in doing so frankly stated his reasons, chief among them 
 being the desire that he might not stand in the way of his chief's 
 renomination and re-election through any antagonisms toward himself, 
 and virtually letting it be understood that he should aspire to succeed 
 Jackson four years later. He did not propose, in short, that his own 
 efforts to plan for securing the nomination in 1836 should be allowed 
 to embarrass Jackson in his desire for a renomination in 1832. This 
 was undeniably adroit, but it was honorable. Jackson accepted the 
 resignation in a letter, in which he practically assented to Van Buren's 
 candidacy to succeed him. Of all the instances of loyal attachments 
 between public men, there is none more creditable than that between 
 these two illustrious Democrats. 
 
 Van Buren's retirement from the Cabinet in June, 1,831, was fol- 
 lowed, on August I, by his nomination as Minister to Great Britain. 
 Jackson had taken pains to make his personal regard conspicuous by 
 riding with his former Premier out of the city when the latter left 
 Washington, and a few weeks later he conferred this new honor upon 
 his friend. It was a recess appointment, so that it took effect at once, 
 without waiting confirmation, and in September Van Buren arrived 
 in London. He found the Legation in charge of Washington Irving, 
 and the two became warm and lifelong friends. Irving had been ap- 
 pointed Secretary of the Legation by Van Buren, but had tired of it 
 and had resigned ; but he consented to remain, and did so as long as 
 Van Buren continued as Minister. While they were thus associated 
 Irving wrote : "The more I see of Mr. Van Buren the more I feel con- 
 
214 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 firmed in a strong personal regard for him. He is one of the gentlest 
 and most amiable men I have ever met with ; with an affectionate dis- 
 position that attaches itself to those around him, and that wins their 
 kindness in return." Van Buren and Irving posted through Eng- 
 land together in an open carriage. Among the diplomats Van Buren 
 met in London was Talleyrand, and these two masters of diplomacy, 
 neither of whom probably ever had a superior, became mutual ad- 
 mirers of each other. Indeed, it was while getting ready to attend a 
 party at Talleyrand's, in February, 1832, that Van Buren learned of 
 the rejection of his nomination by the Senate. This rejection was a 
 pitiable exhibition of political rancor and of personal spite and jealousy. 
 It is a discreditable and shameful fact that it was not brought about 
 by the work of narrow-gauge, small-fry politicians, either, but the 
 leaders in this pitiful business were Webster, Clay and Calhoun. As 
 to the manner in which the leading men in England regarded the out- 
 rage, Washington Irving said that, "to the credit of John Bull" he 
 "was universally received with the most marked attention," and 
 "treated with more respect and attention than before by the royal 
 family, by the members of the present and old Cabinet, and the different 
 persons of the diplomatic corps." 
 
 The anger of President Jackson was intense, and the indignation 
 of the country was hardly less pronounced. The first national con- 
 vention ever held by the Democratic Party assembled in Baltimore, 
 May 21, 1832. On the first ballot for Vice-President Van Buren re- 
 ceived 208 out of 283 votes, No platform was adopted by the con- 
 vention. None was necessary. Jackson and Van Buren were a suffi- 
 cient platform in themselves, and their victory was the most pro- 
 nounced and complete that had ever been won in a presidential election 
 that had been vigorously contested. 
 
 After his inauguration Van Buren took up his residence in Wash- 
 ington. The office of Vice-President was no ornamental sinecure in his 
 hands. lie was what no other Vice-President has been, either before 
 or since, the chief adviser of the President, a genuine and important 
 factor in the administration, the second officer of the government in 
 power, as well as in the dignity of his station. 
 
 The National Convention of the Democratic-Republican Party, the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 215 
 
 original title of "Republican" being still retained, met at Baltimore 
 May 20, 1835, nearly eighteen months before the presidential election 
 of 1836. Long campaigns were the rule in those days. Jackson did 
 not allow his position as President to restrain his direct and vigorous 
 advocacy of Van Buren's nomination, which met with no really 
 serious opposition. 
 
 It is worthy of note that it was in this campaign that the supporters 
 of the system, or "peculiar institution" of human slavery brought that 
 system into politics. Many of the Southern party leaders attacked Van 
 Buren for his action against admitting more slave States when the 
 Missouri question was before the country for decision. He had aided 
 the re-election of Rufus King, a determined opponent of slavery, to 
 the United States Senate. He had strongly opposed Calhoun and the 
 "nullifiers" and had greatly aided Jackson in their defeat. It was, 
 however, stoutly denied by his friends that Van Buren had any con- 
 nection or sympathy with the Abolitionists. And in the campaign 
 preceding his election as President he had announced himself as in- 
 flexibly opposed to any attempt by Congress to abolish slavery in the 
 District of Columbia against the wishes of the slaveholding States. 
 Once begun, the champions of the slave power relaxed no effort to 
 compel acquiescence in their schemes. Among these was the introduc- 
 tion of a bill to forbid postmasters to deliver "incendiary literature," 
 knowing it to be such, in any slave State, and Van Buren's enemies 
 arranged so that there should be a tie in the Senate in the vote, com- 
 pelling Van Buren to place himself on record, by his casting vote as 
 Vice-President. He promptly voted for it, as did Silas Wright. That 
 either of them really favored its passage is highly improbable, but 
 it was clearly a trick to injure Van Buren in the South by forcing him 
 into a position the slave power could use against him, the supposition 
 being that he would defeat the bill. It was not a vote to be proud of, 
 but as there was really nothing in it but a contest of cunning, Van 
 Buren was not to be caught by so transparent a trick. 
 
 The election resulted in the choice of Van Buren, who received 
 170 electoral votes, to JT) fo*" General William Henry Harrison, 14 for 
 Daniel Webster and 26 for Hugh L. White. The last named was a 
 Southern Senator and a "Democrat, put forward to divide the party 
 
2i6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 vote and again throw the election into the House of Representatives. 
 Van Buren received both a popular and electoral majority in New 
 England, the only Democrat since Monroe who ever performed that 
 feat. But one change was made in the Cabinet, Van Buren's adminis- 
 tration being really a continuation of Jackson's. 
 
 The great event of Van Buren's term was the financial panic and 
 collapse of 1837. It was really brought about by the usual causes 
 which have produced so many, and almost periodical monetary crises in 
 our history, among which speculation, undue extension of credits, 
 unproductive investments, and large, unwarranted expenditures are 
 prominent. But with the unreason inseparable from a panic of any 
 kind, the party in power was held responsible, and both Jackson and 
 Van Buren were the objects of unsparing denunciation. The great 
 and long-concealed devastation of physical wealth, and of the accumu- 
 lations of legitimate labor, by premature and ill-advised public im- 
 provements, to which must be added extravagant living expenditures, 
 produced their natural fruit. Also, as in all such financial convulsions, 
 the lack of confidence, causing a paralysis of credits, was a tremendous 
 force, incalculable to estimate. 
 
 But Van Buren did not lose his head. Here, as always, he looked 
 the situation squarely in the face. His first thought was to avoid 
 calling Congress in extra session, but, with his usual open-mindedness, 
 when he saw this course to be injudicious, if not impracticable, he 
 issued his proclamation. May 15th, for Congress to convene on the 
 first Monday of September. In the interim, to check the tide of popular 
 excitement, public meetings, probably inspired by Van Buren, were 
 held to influence general sentiment. 
 
 When the extra session convened Van Buren met it with a message 
 which deservedly ranks among the greatest of American state papers. 
 His bearing through the preceding weeks and months of stress had 
 been admirable. Dr. Van Hoist, the well known publicist, a severe 
 critic of Van Buren, admits that "he really evinced courage, firmness 
 and statesmanlike insight. * *' * Van Buren bore the storm 
 bravely. He repelled all reproaches with decision, but with no bit- 
 terness. * * * i ■ 
 
 "Van Buren unquestionably merited well of the country, because 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 217 
 
 he refused his co-operation, in accordance with the guardianship prin- 
 ciple of the old absolutisms, to accustom the people of the republic also 
 to see the government enter as a saving deus ex machina in every ca- 
 lamity brought about by their fault and folly. * * * Van Buren 
 had won a brilliant victory, and placed his countrymen under lasting 
 obligations to him." 
 
 In his message he made no effort to evade the questions put to him, 
 nor to divert attention from the true issue. The government could 
 not, he showed, help people earn their living; but it could refuse to 
 aid the deception that paper was gold, and the delusion that value could 
 arise without labor. The law required that public moneys should be 
 deposited only in banks that paid their notes in specie. All the banks 
 had stopped such payment. It was obvious, therefore, that some other 
 custody of public moneys must be provided, and it was for this that 
 he had summoned Congress. The government, had not caused, and 
 it could not cure, the profound commercial distemper. The enormous 
 inflations of bank currency and other credits, among them many mil- 
 lions of foreign loans, had stimulated antecedent causes. Undue ex- 
 tensions of credits to dealers in the interior for supplies greatly be- 
 yond the wants of the people, vast expenditures in unproductive public 
 lands, the creation of cities and villages, the diversion of labor to other 
 pursuits that should have gone to agriculture, had helped on the trouble. 
 The immense destruction of values by the great fire in New York in 
 December, 1835, ^^^ contributed to the distress. To the demand for 
 the re-establishment of the United States Bank as a remedy for com- 
 mercial distress he replied that just the opposite needed to be done. 
 The fiscal returns of the government must be separated from those of 
 individuals or corporations. The Bank of the United States had not 
 prevented former and similar embarrassments, and the Bank of Eng- 
 land had but lately failed to prevent similar abuses of credit. His 
 conviction had been strengthened that a national bank meant a con- 
 centrated money power hostile to the spirit and permanency of our 
 republican institutions. The collection and custody of public moneys 
 should be in the hands of public officers. The public revenues must 
 be limited to public expenses, so there should be no great surplus. 
 Thus was announced the scheme of an Independent Treasury, the di- 
 
2i8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 vorce of bank and State, the famous achievement of Van Buren's 
 administration. The bill for this purpose was firmly pressed by the 
 administration, and it passed the Senate by 26 tO' 20. It was, how- 
 ever, defeated in the House by 120 to 106. 
 
 The administration further proposed the issue of $10,000,000 in 
 treasury notes. This was intended merely for temporary relief. This 
 was promptly passed. There were but five negative votes in the Senate, 
 one of which was cast by Henry Clay, and in the House it was carried 
 by 127 to 98. In 1840, during the succeeding Congress, the Inde- 
 pendent Treasury Bill passed the Senate by 24 to 18, and the House 
 by 124 to 107. This was the great monumental achievement of Van 
 Buren's administration. It was wiped out by the Whig administra- 
 tion, brought in by the landslide of 1840, but it was re-established 
 in 1846, and it continues to this day a cardinal feature of American 
 finance. 
 
 The extra session ended October i6th. Commeixial distress had 
 materially abated, although many of its wounds were deep and un- 
 healed. Still further substantial progress was made before the meet- 
 ing of the regular session in December. By the spring of 1838 business 
 had revived by a year of enforced industry and economy among the 
 people. In this year there was a renewal of the raids across the. border 
 of Canada, which had taken place during 1837 in connection with the 
 Canadian insurrection. Van Buren promptly issued a vigorous proc- 
 lamation, appealing to the good sense and patriotism of the raiders, 
 and notifying them that this government would not interfere to- shield 
 them from the consequences, if they should be taken upon neighboring 
 territory without excuse or justification. Of course the President's 
 enemies could see in this performance of international obligations 
 nothing but further proof of Van Buren's coldness toward popular 
 rights and his sycophancy to power. This was not a large matter, but 
 it caused heavy Democratic losses in the ensuing elections in the New 
 York counties along the Canadian border. The years 1838 and 1839 
 witne'ssed a steady recovery of business, and Van Buren was aacour- 
 aged to hope that before the presidential election of 1840 the efifects 
 of the panic would have passed away. This hope was frustrated, how- 
 ever, by the crash of the Bank of the United States under pressure 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 219 
 
 from England. This bank, after its recharter had been defeated by 
 President Jackson, had received a charter from the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania. This failure caused much distress and more despondency, but 
 Van Buren met the situation without faltering, and in his message to 
 Congress in December, 1839, he sounded another blast against any 
 government partnership with a bank. 
 
 In May, 1840, Van Buren was renominated for President by the 
 Democratic National Convention, which met at Baltimore. The Whigs 
 had already nominated General William Henry Harrison, the hero 
 of Tippecanoe, who had been his principal competitor in 1836. The 
 campaign was marked by an excitement and enthusiasm probably never 
 surpassed by any other in the history of the government. The result 
 was plainly foreshadowed long before the election. The financial dis- 
 tresses during his administration were a great weight to carry, but the 
 personality of General Harrison undoubtedly created the enthusiasm 
 which gave him such an overwhelming victory. Van Buren carried 
 no Northern State except Illinois, and but five in the South, Virginia, 
 South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas and Missouri. Harrison received 
 234 electoral votes and Van Buren but 60 ; still, the popular vote shows 
 no such great disparity in strength as would be inferred from these 
 figures, the vote for Harrison being 1,275,017, and for Van Buren, 
 1,128,702, a majority for Harrison of only 146,315, while in 1832 
 Jackson's majority over Clay had been 157,313. Indeed, Van Buren's 
 vote in defeat was about 350,000 more than it had been in his vic- 
 tory four years before. This certainly showed great strength among 
 the people, in spite of the tremendous financial crash for which the 
 burden of the blame was laid upon him. 
 
 In his last message to Congress, in December, 1840, Van Buren 
 dwelt upon the dangers of a national debt, and the equal danger of 
 too much money in the Treasury, stating a theorem which has been 
 verified by abundant later experience, that "practical economy in the 
 management of public afifairs can have no adverse influence to contend 
 with more powerful than a large surplus revenue." And in the very 
 last words of this, his last message, he gave an account of his efforts 
 to suppress the slave trade and to prevent "the prostitution of the 
 American flag to this inhuman purpose," asking Congress "by a pro- 
 
220 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 hibition of American trade which took suppHes to the slave factories 
 on the African coast, to break up those dens of iniquity." 
 
 He welcomed his successor to the Whit© House and, until the in- 
 auguration, entertained him there as a guest. Van Buren was always 
 a gentleman, and the hardy old soldier, who was to have but a single 
 month more of life to enjoy, was touched by the easy and cordial 
 courtesy of his defeated antagonist. Van Buren returned to Kinder- 
 hook, which he reached May 15, 1841, there to make his home in the 
 delightful retirement of Lindenwald until his death, more than twenty 
 years later. While in New York on his way home he was the chief 
 figure in the obsequies of his successor. 
 
 Although his return to his peaceful home on the Hudson proved 
 his final retirement from public station, it by no means signified any 
 lack, or even any diminution, of interest in public affairs. He re- 
 mained the undisputed leader of his party, which was, indeed, spoken 
 of as "the Van Buren Party," until 1844, so universal was the sup- 
 position that he would again be its candidate for the Presidency in 
 the contest of that year. In 1842 he made a tour through the South, 
 visiting Clay at Ashland, and Jackson at the Hermitage. It is a testi- 
 mony to the largeness of his nature that he was one of the very few 
 men on personally friendly terms with both these long-time bitter 
 enemies. 
 
 The utterly incongruous elements which had been held together 
 through the campaign of 1840 by discontent and Avild, unthinking 
 enthusiasm, had already fallen apart. By the death of Harrison and 
 the accession of John Tyler to the Presidency the Whigs had lost the 
 substantial fruits of their victory. Tyler had not concealed his Demo- 
 cratic views of government, but he was given the Whig nomination, 
 probably because of his supposed availability and partly because his 
 power as Vice-President would be practically nothing. The unexpected 
 death of Harrison had, however, changed everything, and when Con- 
 gress passed a bill to establish a national bank, Tyler vetoed it. In 
 1844 he was anxious for the Democratic nomination, claiming it on 
 account of his support of the annexation of Texas. 
 
 This, the first of the great pro-slavery movements, had become the 
 predominant issue, succeeding economics. And here Van Buren de- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 221 
 
 serves lasting praise for the courage with which he met the issue. He 
 was supposed to be against annexation, and in February, 1843, his 
 Southern opponents got Jackson to write a letter taking strong ground 
 in its favor. Then Van Buren was explicitly asked by a delegate for 
 his views. If Van Buren had really been a political "trimmer," as has 
 been charged, here was certainly the place to trim. But he did noth- 
 ing of the kind. Although his nomination seemed conditioned upon 
 his surrender, he stated squarely that he knew his views upon annexa- 
 tion differed from those of many friends, personal and political; but 
 in 1837 his administration, after a careful consideration, had decided 
 against annexation of the State whose independence had lately been 
 recognized by the United States; the situation had not changed. He 
 intimated that there was jobbery in some of the enthusiasm for an- 
 nexation. The only crumb of comfort he could give the annexationists 
 was that if, after the subject had been fully discussed, a Congress 
 chosen with reference to the question showed the popular will to favor 
 it, he would yield. He closed his letter in these words : "Nor can I 
 in any extremity be induced to cast a shade over the motives of my 
 past life, by changes or concealment of opinions maturely formed upon 
 a great national question, for the unworthy purpose of increasing my 
 chances for political promotion." 
 
 While it might be too much to say that Van Buren thus deliberately 
 threw away all his chances for the nomination which, with its assured 
 ratification at the polls, would have grandly rounded out and completed 
 his public career, it is certainly true that this was the effect of his 
 letter. As an exhibition of political courage, it is probably the finest 
 and bravest in our history. 
 
 The convention met at Baltimore, May 2^, 1844. On the first bal^ 
 lot for the candidate for President, Van Buren received 146 votes, 13 
 more than a clear majority. On the second ballot his vote dropped to 
 127, and on the seventh to 99. Qn the motion to abrogate the rule 
 requiring a two-thirds vote to nominate, made before the balloting be- 
 gan, the two-thirds rule had carried the day by a vote of 148 to 118. 
 After the seventh ballot a motion was made to declare Van Buren 
 the nominee, as the choice of the majority of the convention, but the 
 motion was declared out of order, and no appeal appears to have been 
 
222 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 taken from this ruling. Before the eighth ballot was taken the name 
 of James K. Polk was presented as that of "a pure, whole-hogged 
 Democi-at," and he received 44 votes. On the ninth ballot came the 
 stampede to Polk, a performance which seems to have been a startling 
 novelty. Since that day stampedes of conventions have become by no 
 means unusual. Then New York's great Democratic Senator, long 
 recognized as a close friend of Van Buren, was nominated for Vice- 
 President to placate Van Buren's friends. Wright promptly tele- 
 graphed a peremptory refusal to accept, and George M. Dallas, of 
 Pennsylvania, was given the nomination. 
 
 Van Buren loyally supported Polk, and this, together with his 
 persuading Silas Wright to accept the Democratic nomination for 
 Governor of New York, secured Polk's election. The result was so 
 close that it hinged upon the vote of New York, which Polk carried 
 by 5,000 plurality, Wright, for Governor, having 10,000. But even 
 Van Buren and Wright could not have saved Polk's election, had not 
 James G. Birney, the Abolitionist candidate, received 15,812 votes in 
 New York, the greater part of them presumably from disgusted Whigs. 
 Clay had, during the campaign, made a strong bid for the pro-slavery 
 vote by changing front and coming out for the annexation of Texas, 
 and indulging in flings at the Abolitionists, and this piece of folly 
 drove thousands of Whigs to vote for Birney. 
 
 The annexation of Texas was consummated just before the close 
 of Tyler's administration, and the next year came the Mexican War. 
 This resulted in the acquisition of California and New Mexico, and 
 much more territory, so that the slavery question became still more 
 prominent in the discussion of measures for the government of these 
 new additions to the national domain. The New York Democrats 
 divided into two factions. Barnburners and Hunkers. The former 
 were the Van Buren men, and included most of the prominent leaders 
 — Silas Wright, then Governor; Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Dix, 
 David Dudley Field, William Cullen Bryant, Azariah C. Flagg, the 
 famous Comptroller, and John Van Buren, the ex-President's son, 
 an able lawyer and a brilliant orator. The Hunkers, who were by no 
 means as numerous, were led by Daniel S. Dickinson and William L. 
 Marcy. Dix and Dickinson were United States Senators, and Marcy 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 223 
 
 was Secretary of War in Polk's Cabinet, selected after Silas Wright 
 had declined the Treasury portfolio. Possibly a greater man than 
 any of these veteran leaders, Samuel J. Tilden, then a young man 
 just entering politics, was also a Barnburner. Like Van Buren, he 
 was a Columbia County man, a great admirer and a loyal follower of 
 the ex-President. 
 
 The first great struggle on the slavery question, which had now come 
 to the front and was soon to occupy the whole stage, was over the Wil- 
 mot Proviso, a measure introduced in Congress by David Wijmot, a 
 Democrat from Pennsylvania, providing slavery should be excluded 
 from the territory acquired by the peace which followed the Mexican 
 War. The Barnburners strongly favored this measure, which, how- 
 ever, failed to be adopted by Congress. 
 
 In October, 1847, ^n enthusiastic admirer of his, who was the 
 editor of a Democratic newspaper in Pennsylvania, hoisted the name 
 of Van Buren at the head of his editorial page, as the Democratic 
 candidate for President in 1848. Van Buren wrote him a letter, in 
 which he said that whatever had been his aspirations in the past, he 
 now had no desire to be President; every day confirmed him in the 
 political opinions to which he had adhered. Not a word of praise did 
 he speak for Polk's administration, and in this he was, for once, grimly 
 non-committal. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention assembled in May, 1848. As 
 Hunkers and Barnburners each had a full delegation clamoring for 
 admission, the convention proposed to give half the State's repre- 
 sentation to each wing. The Barnburners denounced this as a simple 
 nullification of the vote of the State, and then withdrew. General 
 Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was nominated for President, thus condemn- 
 ing the Wilmot Proviso, which Cass had bitterly attacked. That very 
 attack seems to have commended him to the South, which gave him 
 a strong support in the convention. 
 
 The Barnburners had met at Utica on February i6th. The Wil- 
 mot Proviso was endorsed, and delegates were appointed to the na- 
 tional convention to oppose the Hunkers. In June another Barnburner 
 convention was held at the same city. David Dudley Field read 
 an explicit declaration from Van Buren against the candidates of 
 
224 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the national convention. This letter created a profound impression. 
 He declared that the convention had not allowed the Democrats of 
 New York fair representation, and its acts did not therefore bind them. 
 If our ancestors, when the opinion and conduct of the world about 
 slavery were far different, had rescued from slavery the territory now 
 making five great States, should we, he asked, in these later days, 
 when nearly all mankind was convinced of its evils, doom to slavery 
 a territory from which as many more new States might be made ? He 
 counseled moderation and forbearance, but still a firm resistance to 
 injustice. 
 
 This powerful declaration from the old chief of the Democracy 
 was decisive with the convention. There was an informal ballot, upon 
 which Van Buren received 159 votes to 129 for John P. Hale, a Sena- 
 tor from New Hampshire, and the candidate of the Free Soil Party 
 for President in 1852. The nomination of Van Buren was then made 
 by unanimous acclamation. 
 
 A brief letter from Van Buren was read, declaring that his nomi- 
 nation at Utica had been against his earnest wishes ; that he had yielded 
 because his obligations to his friends, who had now gone so far, re- 
 quired him to abide by their decision that his name was necessary 
 to enable "the ever faithful Democracy of New York to sustain them- 
 selves in the extraordinary position into which they have been driven 
 by the injustice of others." Charles Francis Adams, the son of John 
 Ouincy Adams, was nominated for Vice-President, thus presenting 
 on the same ticket with Van Buren the son of one of his oldest and 
 bitterest adversaries. 
 
 Van Buren's attitude, although in opposition to the regularly nomi- 
 nated candidate of the party, was in nowise inconsistent with his own 
 record. Neither his party nor himself had ever pronounced in favor 
 of the extension of slavery. The Buffalo Convention was silent upon 
 the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. There was, for 
 the time being, but one question in politics, and that was born of the 
 annexation of Texas and the acquirement of territory through the war 
 with Mexico : Shall slavery go into free territory ? 
 
 The popular vote gave Taylor 1,360,099 votes; Cass, 1,220,544, 
 and Van Buren, 291,263. The latter, however, had not carried any 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 225 
 
 State, and so had no electoral votes, Cass receiving 127 and Taylor 
 163. In no State did Van Buren receive as many votes as Taylor, 
 but in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts he had more than Cass. 
 The vote in New York was indeed a remarkable personal tribute, as 
 he had 120,510 votes, to 114,318 for Cass. As Taylor had something 
 over 218,000, the two former having some 16,000 more than Taylor, 
 united they would have carried the State, and with it the election. 
 And it was clear that substantially the whole of Van Buren's vote 
 came from the Democracy. Nor did the Free Soil people gain any- 
 thing by the election of Taylor. He died before any important legisla- 
 tion was passed, and was succeeded by Fillmore, a New York Whig, 
 who signed the Fugitive Slave Law and approved all the other pro- 
 slavery legislation of Congress in the effort to succeed himself by 
 election. 
 
 The campaign had been a bitter one, and Van Buren came in for 
 unmeasured abuse. He, however, received some fine tributes, includ- 
 ing one from Charles Sumner, who was soon to do battle against the 
 slave power in the Senate. Said Sumner : "It is not for the Van 
 Buren of 1838 that we are to vote; but for the Van Buren of to-day — 
 a veteran statesman, sagacious, determined, experienced, who, at an 
 age when most men are rejoicing to put off their armor, girds himself 
 anew and enters the lists as the champion of freedom." And, indeed, 
 there was much to warrant this splendid eulogium. A political leader 
 who has received high political honors from his party is always the 
 subject of venomous vituperation when he opposes it. Van Buren 
 did not escape. Neither was the personal abuse he received all from 
 the Democrats. Even Daniel Webster said at Marshfield that for 
 "the leader of the Free Spoil Party" to become the leader of the Free 
 Soil Party "would be a joke to shake his sides and mine." But in 
 the serene light of history Van Buren appears much better than Web- 
 ster. The former merely defeated his party to oppose slavery, while 
 the latter sold himself to slavery for the hope of thus reaching the 
 Presidency. Both of these great men lived to dim their fame by yield- 
 ing, in their old age, to the soporific which Clay in his old age ad- 
 ministered to the American people. In their support of the Compromise 
 of 1850, between slavery and freedom, all three of these statesmen 
 
226 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 forfeited much of their fame, and justly. It would have been a wise 
 heroism in Van Buren, and would have given him a higher and clearer 
 place with posterity, if, after 1848, he had kept aloof from the timid 
 politics of the time ; if he had at least refused to acquiesce in any com- 
 promise by which concessions were made in vain to slavery. But he 
 was now an old man. He shared with his famous Whig rivals that 
 intense love and almost adoration of the Union, upon which the arro- 
 gant leaders of the slave power so long and so successfully played. 
 Their surrender was in much the same spirit as that in which Mr. 
 Lincoln, himself, said that if he could save the Union without slavery 
 he would do it ; that if he had to save the Union with slavery, he would 
 do that. The trouble was that slavery would not be placated. Van 
 Buren, in his prime, with that wonderful common sense and clear 
 insight in which no American statesman has ever surpassed him, would 
 have seen this great truth, that no surrender to the slave power could 
 ever be a finality; that, on the contrary, one surrender only invited 
 another, and that the sooner issue were joined the better. 
 
 After Pierce's election in 1852, Van Buren spent two years in 
 Europe. The President tendered him the position of American Arbi- 
 trator upon the British-American Claims Commission, established 
 under the treaty of February 8, 1853, '^ut he declined. 
 
 In the election of 1856 Van Buren voted for Buchanan, an act 
 which was inconsistent and much to be regretted. The new Republican 
 Party was, however, repulsive to him, as made up chiefly of old Whigs, 
 his long-time and bitter adversaries, whom he distrusted, and hosts 
 of camp followers smelling the coming spoils. In i860, his last vote 
 for President, he supported the Fusion or Union electoral ticket, which 
 in New York represented the combined opposition to Lincoln. After 
 his return from Europe, in 1855, he lived in dignified repose at Linden- 
 wald. He began writing memoirs of his life and times, which were 
 brought down to the years 1833- 1834; but they were never revised 
 by him, and have not been published. Out of this work grew a sketch 
 of the early growth of American parties, which was edited by his sons, 
 and published in 1867. He died at his home July 24, 1862, having 
 almost completed his four-score years. The country was then passing 
 through some of its darkest hours, but the aged statesman and patriot 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 227 
 
 expressed his confidence in President Lincoln and General McClellan, 
 and declared his faith that the rebellion would end without lasting 
 damage to the Union. 
 
 Inman's painting, now in the City Hall of New York, gives his 
 face in the prime of life — the shrewd, kindly expression, touched with 
 that half-cynical doubt of men which almost invariably belongs to those 
 in great places. His form was always slender and erect, but hardly 
 reached the middle height, so that to his political enemies it afforded 
 endless delight to call him "Little Van." His life was entirely free 
 from the charges of dissipation or of irregular habits, then so com- 
 monly, and often truly, made against prominent public men. This 
 very correctness was a part of the offense he gave to his rivals and 
 their followers. Of social and cheerful temper, he not only liked the 
 decorous gaiety of receptions and public entertainments, but was de- 
 lighted and delightful in closer and easier conversation and in the chat 
 of familiar friends. His reminiscences of men are said to have been 
 full of the charm which flows from a strong, natural sense of humor 
 and a correct and vivid memory of human action and character. 
 
 No American in public life has shown firmer and longer devotion 
 to* his friends. His reputation for statesmanship must doubtless rest 
 upon the indisputable facts of his career. But for the integrity of 
 his life, for his sincerity, for his fidelity to those obligations of po- 
 litical, party and personal friendship, his relations with Jackson, Butler, 
 Wright, Flagg and Dix, make a proof not to be questioned. He thor- 
 oughly, honestly, and without demagogy, believed in the common 
 people and in their competence to deal wisely with political difficulties. 
 Even when his faith was tried by what he deemed the mistakes of 
 popular elections, he still trusted to what, in a famous phrase of his, 
 he called "the sober second thought of the people." 
 
 Of his eminent ability there has never been any question. No 
 American statesman has ever been called upon to deal with greater 
 or more complex problems of politics or government, and no one of 
 them all has ever shown greater clearness of vision. He filled many 
 great stations, and he achieved an honorable record in every one of 
 them. He was a true patriot, an illustrious statesman, and, in every 
 sense of the term, he was a great American ! 
 
228 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Gubernatorial Term of Silas Wright and a Sketch of His Life — 
 The Constitutional Convention of 1846. 
 
 Silas Wright became Governor of New York State January i, 
 1845. The most prominent points of his message to the Legislature 
 were his advocacy of increased public school advantages and his recom- 
 mendation regarding the Anti-Renters. His remarks pertaining to 
 the school question were so pleasing in a literary sense, and they ex- 
 hibit so well the easy and logical grasp of the mind of this great 
 statesman that we reproduce the following extract : 
 
 "No public fund of the State is so unpretending, yet so all-pervad- 
 ing; so little seen, yet so universally felt; so mild in its exactions, yet 
 so bountiful in its benefits; so little feared or courted, and yet so 
 powerful as this fund for the support of common schools. The other 
 funds act upon the secular interests of society ; its business, its pleasures, 
 its pride, its passions, its vices, its misfortunes. This acts upon its mind 
 and 'its morals." 
 
 Governor Wright's administration was disturbed by the agitations 
 and outrages of the Anti-Renters. This party, or faction of a party, 
 as it was at that time, was dignified by the name of party, and it arose 
 in this way : Under the old Dutch rule in New York, privileged per- 
 sons, called patroons, acquired vast tracts of land in this State, then 
 called New Netherlands. After the days of the Revolution the laws 
 of primogeniture were abolished in accordance with the new spirit of 
 liberty ; still a large portion of the settled land of the State was held by 
 these patroons. The cultivators of these estates held their farms on 
 leases made out to run during one or more lives or for one or more 
 years. It was really the old European feudal system. After the feudal 
 tenures were abolished the owners of manor grants got out a form of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 229 
 
 lease by which the tenants agreed to pay rents and dues almost as they 
 had previously done. This condition of things became burdensome and 
 odious to the workers of the soil, and in 1839 a movement" was started 
 to devise some plan of relief. In that year Patroon Van Rensselaer 
 died, and he was the last of what may be called the feudal barons in 
 America. The movement soon became known as Anti-Rentism. Soon 
 after the movement began it mainfested itself in open resistance to the 
 service of legal processes for the collection of rents. In Rensselaer 
 County, in the town of Grafton, a band of Anti-Renters killed a man, 
 and the perpetrators of the crime were never discovered. The grievance 
 grew to such dimensions that in 1841 and 1842 Governor Seward rec- 
 ommended a reference of the subject in dispute on both sides to arbi- 
 trators, and appointed three men to investigate the matter and make 
 a report to the Legislature. Nothing was accomplished, however, and 
 the disaffection not only spread, but gradually became more intense. 
 In 1844 and 1845, i" Delaware County, the Anti-Renters proceeded to 
 such extremes that Governor Wright recommended legislation for its 
 suppression, and the Legislature passed an "Act to prevent persons 
 appearing disguised and armed." From the wording of the act there 
 can be no question but that the Anti-Renters adopted methods similar 
 to those which are familiar to people of the present day under the name 
 of Whitecaps. The act authorized the arrest of all persons who should 
 appear having their faces concealed or discolored, and it further au- 
 thorized sheriffs to call a posse to their aid in making arrests. This 
 law repressed violence by the Anti-Renters, and, like several other so- 
 called parties formed upon personal grievances or individual opinions, 
 the Anti-Renters gradually disappeared from view. They first formed 
 themselves into a political party in 1839. 
 
 Although the Democratic Party had been so successful in both 
 State and nation at the election of 1844 that the Whig Party seemed 
 to be paralyzed, yet the State government does not appear to have 
 been in close touch with the national administration. There was some 
 feeling on the part of the friends of ex-Governor Bouck that he had 
 not been fairly treated, as he had not been renominated. Moreover, 
 although Governor Wright had received the loyal support of the party 
 generally, he had been classed as a Radical and the Hunkers were not 
 
230 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 in sympathy with him or his section of the party. Both sections were 
 unreasonably jealous of each other, but the Hunkers seemed to have 
 laid their plans well, and they succeeded in accomplishing a great deal 
 more than would naturally be expected tinder the circumstances in 
 which they found themselves placed. 
 
 Governor Wright was the firm friend of Martin Van Buren, and 
 President Polk's nomination had been a death blow to Van Buren's 
 aspirations. It is, therefore, only natural to suppose that the President 
 should credit Governor Wright with such sentiments as Van Buren 
 doubtless entertained. However, President Polk wrote to both the 
 Governor and Van Buren stating that either the State or Treasury 
 Department should have a New York man at its head. When Wright 
 replied, expressing his appreciation and indicating to the President 
 that Butler would be an acceptable man for Secretary of State, or that 
 for the Treasury Department A. C. Flagg would be a good man to 
 appoint, the President responded by tendering the appointment to Gov- 
 ernor Wright himself. The President and his administration must 
 have been well aware of the fact that Wright had pledged himself over 
 and over again that if elected Governor he would serve through his 
 term, and Wright did what the President doubtless expected, that is, 
 declined a seat in the Cabinet. The President then offered Butler the 
 office of Secretary of War. This Butler declined because it was not 
 in line with his profession, which he did not wish to entirely abandon. 
 Ex-Governor Marcy was then made the Secretary of War, and thus 
 a New York man was given a seat in the Cabinet, but Marcy was a 
 Hunker. The appointment was made against the wishes of Governor 
 Wright and his friends. 
 
 Although the outlook for the Hunkers was not bright at the be- 
 ginning of the legislative session of 1845, because the Radicals num- 
 bered as many as they, and also had the prestige of the Governor on 
 their side, yet the Hunkers achieved a great deal during that session. 
 They procured the election of their own Speaker and of a United States 
 Senator, a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and had 
 their ablest man installed a member of the National Cabinet, besides 
 receiving one-half of the State offices. Their affairs had mainly been 
 managed by Horatio Seymour and Edwin Croswell, but there can be 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 231 
 
 no doubt that they were assisted from Washington, where a plan was 
 on foot adverse to the poHtical aspirations of Wright and Van Buren. 
 It should be stated that Governor Wright in no way acted as a 
 partisan while in the Governor's chair, but was ever solicitous to treat 
 both Hunkers and Radicals fairly, and to heal breaches between them. 
 This attitude of the Governor did not, however, prevent a constant war- 
 fare between the two factions of the Democratic Party. The subject 
 of a constitutional convention furnished the bone of contention over 
 which they fought. The Hunkers did not want any convention ; they 
 did not deny that perhaps the Constitution could be amended in some 
 particulars, but they did not think these of sufficient importance to call 
 for a convention. The leading Radicals believed in the absolute neces- 
 sity of making the substance of the Act of 1842 part of the Constitu- 
 tion. Governor Wright does not seem to have considered the con- 
 vention a necessity. 
 
 The Native Americans desired some alterations in the Constitution, 
 particularly regarding the eligibility to office of adopted citizens, and 
 the radical Whigs were in favor of a convention. 
 
 Outside of Governor Wright and Martin Van Buren, John Young, 
 a Whig, was at that time the ablest politician in the State of New York. 
 He possessed more subtle sagacity than either of the two notable men 
 above mentioned ; indeed, Wright was too honest to make his way by 
 craftiness, and Van Buren seems to have never recovered from the stun- 
 ning fall he received at the Baltijnore Convention of 1844. Young was 
 in favor of a convention. He saw it wojild benefit the Whigs, who 
 had everything to gain and nothing to lose by dissensions which the 
 convention might arouse. In order to have a convention, an act must 
 be passed recommending it, so Young set himself to work to have such 
 an act passed, and not pnly that, but to have it passed in such a manner 
 that it could be claimed as a Whig measure. To do this he saw that it 
 would be necessary to avail himself of the division among the Demo- 
 cratic members of the Legislature, and this he adroitly did. He suc- 
 ceeded in securing the passage of the bill in such form and under such 
 circumstances that it had all the appearance of a Whig measure, while 
 at the same time he prevented any union of the Democratic members 
 upon its form and provisions. The ability he displayed throughout the 
 
232 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 session of 1845, ^nd particularly in relation to the convention measure, 
 placed him at the head of the Whig Party in the State. The Hunkers 
 were opposed to the bill throughout, and Governor Wright seems to 
 have accorded with their view of the matter, yet he signed the bill. 
 
 During the same session, however, he vetoed a bill appropriating 
 $197,000 for various purposes. Part of the provisions of this bill 
 looked toward the continuation of work on the Genesee Valley Canal 
 and the Black River Canal. Its veto injured Governor Wright with 
 those Democrats who were in favor of prosecuting the work. 
 
 The results of the session of 1845 were detrimental to the interests 
 of the Democratic cause. The breach between the Hunkers and the 
 Barnburners was, if anything, wider than it had been at the beginning 
 of the session. If the Barnburners were pleased that a convention bill 
 had passed, the Hunkers were correspondingly dissatisfied. Many of 
 Governor Wright's old friends seem to have fallen away from him, 
 while continuing a profession of their friendship. The high-minded 
 and independent course which he pursued failed to please the partisans 
 of either section of the party, and so the very qualities which should 
 have increased his popularity tended to lessen the number of his fol- 
 lowers. The convention bill was claimed as a Whig measure, and had 
 all the appearance of such, as it passed through the Legislature, and, 
 such being the case, John Young was elevated before the eyes of the 
 people as the strongest man in the State. In fact, the result of the 
 session of 1845 secured the Governorship to John Young. 
 
 It should be distinctly stated that the masses of the Democratic 
 Party throughout New York State did not take sides with either the 
 Hunkers or the Barnburners, but, on the contrary, were so bewildered 
 by the operations of these two sections that they lost interest in their 
 party's cause. 
 
 Although John Young, the Whig candidate, 'was elected Governor, 
 the Senate consisted of 25 Democrats, 6 Whigs and i Native American, 
 while the Assembly consisted of 72 Democrats, 52 Whigs and 2 Anti- 
 Renters. 
 
 Andrew Jackson, ex-President of the United States, died on the 
 8th of January, 1845. 
 
 During the same year the national administration, which was Dem- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 233 
 
 ocratic, consummated the annexation of Texas, which was finally com- 
 pleted on July 4th of that year. The South was unanimously in favor 
 of this measure; the North was divided respecting it, with a majority 
 opposing it. Mexico would not acknowledge the independence of 
 Texas, so the United States sent an "Army of Observation" into Texas 
 and stationed it on the border of Mexico. The dispute between the 
 two nations over the annexation of Texas developed into the Mexican 
 War in 1846. 
 
 The great event in the State of New York during the year 1846 
 was the Constitutional Convention. The election of delegates to the 
 convention was made a party question in almost every county in the 
 State, and the Democratic Party succeeded in electing a majority of 
 them, notwithstanding dissensions in the party. It is a notable fact 
 that there was but one member of that convention who had been a 
 member of the convention of 1821. That member was General James 
 Tallmadge of Dutchess County. The whole number of delegates was 
 128. Of these, forty-three were farmers, forty-five lawyers, eight doc- 
 tors, thirteen merchants, six mechanics, two surveyors, one banker, one 
 furnaceman, one blacksmith, one printer, one engineer, one manufac- 
 turer, one miller, one ironmaster, one geologist, one teacher, and one 
 author. According to their nationalities, they were divided as follows : 
 One Irishman, one Scotchman, and the rest stated as Americans, of 
 whom twelve were natives of Massachusetts, thirteen of Connecticut, 
 six of New Hampshire, six of Vermont, three of Rhode Island, three of 
 New Jersey, two of Pennsylvania, and one each of Maine, North Caro- 
 lina, Virginia, and Maryland, while the remaining seventy-five were 
 natives of New York State. The convention was convened on the ist 
 of June, and ex-Lieutenant-Governor John Tracy was elected presi- 
 dent; Thomas Starbuck and Henry W. Strong were appointed secre- 
 taries. A committee of seventeen was assigned the duty of formulating 
 topics to be considered in the proposed revision of the Constitution. 
 They reported eighteen, and each of these was referred to a standing 
 committee. 
 
 Only immaterial changes were made in the organization of the 
 executive department as it had previously existed, and the only change 
 in the legislative department was that Senators and Assemblymen 
 
234 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 should be elected by single districts. The power to impeach public 
 officers was vested in the Assembly, but the Senate and the Judges of 
 the Court of Appeals, with the Lieutenant-Governor presiding, con- 
 stituted the tribunal for the trial of all such cases. 
 
 Radical changes were made in the judiciary department. The 
 power of that department was greatly increased, while the number of 
 its judicial officers was diminished. Centralization of judicial power 
 was abolished, and the election of judges was placed entirely in the 
 hands of the people. A Court of Appeals was organized, consisting 
 of eight judges, four of whom were to be elected by the people and four 
 to be selected from justices of the Supreme Court having the shortest 
 time to serve. The judges were made removable by a concurrent reso- 
 lution of the Legislature. Tribunals of conciliation were authorized 
 for the voluntary settlement of litigated cases. 
 
 The banking law was changed so as to abolish monopoly. The 
 power to grant special charters for banking purposes was taken away 
 from the Legislature, but laws were provided under which banks and 
 other corporations could organize and carry on business. The Legis- 
 lature was prohibited from sanctioning the suspension of specie pay- 
 ments ; all bills or notes put into circulation by banks were required to 
 be registered, and the banks issuing them had to give security for their 
 redemption in specie. 
 
 Provision was made for the payment of the public debt, which at 
 that time amounted to about seventeen million dollars, and the power 
 of the Legislature to create State indebtedness without the sanction of 
 a majority of the people was greatly curtailed. 
 
 Provision was made so that the Legislature could provide for the 
 organization of villages and cities, and it was vested with authority to 
 restrict their powers of taxation, assessment, borrowing money, loaning 
 their credit, etc. 
 
 The last vestiges of the patroon system with regard to land were 
 completely wiped out, and the tenure of all lands was declared to be 
 allodial. The leasing of agricultural lands for a longer term than 
 twelve years was prohibited. 
 
 It may be said generally that the convention of 1846 completed the 
 good work begun by the convention of 1821. The former had accom- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 235 
 
 plished a good work by transferring the power from the few to the 
 many. The convention of 1846 carried this principle to a theoretical 
 completion ; theoretical because the central power can never be entirely 
 subjugated to the will of the people. 
 
 The convention was in session for about four months, and within 
 a month after its adjournment the people of the State, at a general 
 election, adopted the revised Constitution by a majority of about 130,- 
 000. It is worthy of note that the deliberations of the convention 
 throughout its long sitting were not disturbed by political wrangles or 
 animosities, and this is the more remarkable because both Whigs and 
 Democrats were at that time divided into factions on political issues. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention of the year 1846 was held at 
 Syracuse and convened on October ist. The Barnburners had control 
 of the convention, outnumbering the Hunkers by almost two to one. 
 At that convention Silas Wright was nominated to succeed himself 
 as Governor, with Addison Gardiner on the ticket for Lieutenant- 
 Governor. 
 
 The Whig Convention had been convened at Utica on September 
 23d, and John Young was nominated for Governor, with Hamilton 
 Fish named as candidate for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 Political conventions were numerous during the summer of 1846. 
 The Liberty Party nominated Henry Bradley, with William E. Chaplin 
 for Lieutenant-Governor. The Native Americans nominated Ogden 
 Edwards as their candidate for Governor. The Anti-Renters also held 
 a convention and decided to support John Young for Governor and 
 Addison Gardiner for Lieutenant-Governor, that is, to support the 
 Whig nominee for the first place and the Democratic nominee for the 
 second place. The National Reformers decided to support the nominees 
 of the Liberty Party. 
 
 The result of the election was peculiar. Young was elected Gov- 
 ernor over Silas Wright by a majority of 11,572, while Gardiner, the 
 Democratic candidate for Lieutenant-Governor on the same ticket with 
 Silas Wright, was elected over Hamilton Fish by a majority of 13,357. 
 Silas Wright was at that time regarded as the leading Democrat, if not 
 the strongest public man, in the State, and the fame he justly achieved 
 has not since diminished. It was, therefore, a great surprise to his 
 
236 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 friends that he should be defeated, and many were the speculations 
 made at the time as to the cause of his defeat. It would seem that 
 there was more than one cause. When in the Governor's chair, Silas 
 Wright had adopted drastic methods to subdue the agitation of the 
 Anti-Renters, and that body voted against him. That they did so was 
 plainly indicated from the fact that at their convention they endorsed 
 Young for Governor and Gardiner for Lieutenant-Governor. Also, 
 Governor Wright had vetoed a canal bill, and this estranged many votes 
 from him of those interested in canals. Besides, it was evident at the 
 time that many of the Hunkers proved disloyal to him. He was too 
 rigid in his principles and too scrupulous in carrying out the wishes of 
 the people to suit some of the local leaders. In addition to these causes, 
 the national administration was against him ; this was the current belief 
 for some time before and until after election day. It is true that 
 President Polk and some members of the Cabinet wrote to Mr. Wright, 
 just on the eve of election, expressing their desire to see him succeed, but 
 their protests cams when they were too late to do his cause any good. 
 The letters were not published previous to the election, and the friends 
 of the national administration believed that the plan was to defeat 
 Wright. It would seem that President Polk could never overlook the 
 fact that Wright was the staunch supporter of Martin Van Buren. 
 Many and strong were the protestations that Wright was acceptable, 
 to the national administration, but these declarations, coming at the 
 time they did, remind one of the line in the play : "Methinks the lady 
 doth protest too much." 
 
 With the end of the year 1846 the public career of Silas Wright 
 terminated, and this is, therefore, an appropriate point at which to 
 give an outline of his life. 
 
 Silas Wright was born in the town of Amherst, Hampshire County, 
 Massachusetts, May 24, 1795. His father's name was also Silas, and 
 it was for this reason that during almost his entire life the great states- 
 man was known as Silas Wright, Jr. Before he was a year old his 
 parents moved to Weybridge, Vt., and there he was reared on a farm. 
 At the age of fourteen he entered the academy at Middlebury, Vt., and 
 in 181 1 was admitted to the Middlebury College, from which he was 
 graduated in the year 1815. In that year he began the study of law 
 
ir^.i ill £'iST4'://ui^s ASro.Afy" 
 
 ^ILAS WRKMT. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 237 
 
 in the office of Henry C. Martindale at Sandy Hill, N. Y. He com- 
 pleted his studies under the direction of Roger Skinner, who after- 
 wards became United States Judge of the Northern District of New 
 York. He was admitted to the bar in 1819, and shortly afterwards 
 settled at Canton, St. Lawrence County, N. Y., and that was his resi- 
 dence during the remainder of his life. Canton at that time consisted 
 of but a few houses, yet it is thought that Wright selected that location 
 because he foresaw that Canton must eventually become the county- 
 seat. The country was new and his neighbors were almost entirely 
 farmers, yet such was the unpretentious nature of this man of high 
 mental qualities that he speedily became very popular, not only with the 
 majority of people, but with everybody he met. 
 
 In 1820 he was appointed surrogate of St. Lawrence County. This 
 office must certainly have been conferred upon him because of his 
 merit, for he was a Bucktail and De Witt Clinton was then Governor 
 of the State. In 182 1 he was appointed a justice of the peace and com- 
 missioner of deeds. In 182 1, 1822 and 1823 he was elected town clerk 
 and inspector of common schools. He also held the office of postmaster 
 for several years prior to 1827. 
 
 In 1822 Silas Wright raised and organized an independent com- 
 pany of riflemen, and, as was natural, he was elected and commissioned 
 Captain of the company. In 1825 the Seventh Rifle Regiment was 
 organized and his company was absorbed by it. At the first election 
 of officers for the new regiment Silas Wright was elected Major and 
 performed military duty for a year. In the fall of 1826 he was elected 
 Colonel, and commanded the regiment until the fall of 1827, when he 
 was elected and commissioned Brigadier-General of the Forty-ninth 
 Brigade, Twelfth Division, New York Militia. He resigned his com- 
 mand in 1829, when he was appointed Comptroller of the State. It is 
 peculiar in these days of colonels and generals to reflect upon the fact 
 that he was seldom, if ever, addressed as general, notwithstanding he 
 had attained that rank. It is scarcely to be questioned that his com- 
 manding abilities as a statesman so overshadowed his military rank 
 that he was thought of solely as a great public man. It is said that not 
 a single member of the old rifle company ever cast a vote against him 
 when he ran for public office, and his popularity is further attested by 
 
238 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ^ 
 
 the fact that at one election where two hundred votes were cast in his 
 district, he received one hundred and ninety-nine. The one vote given 
 to his opponent was cast by Silas Wright himself. 
 
 In 1823 he was elected to the State Senate, being at that time but 
 twenty-eight years of age. From January, 1824, until January, 1847, 
 his life was spent either at Albany or Washington, for during those 
 years he was actively engaged in public affairs. 
 
 He did not entirely abandon his law practice, but, on the contrary, 
 rose to distinction in the bar of the State. He is reputed to have been 
 one of the most adroit examiners of witnesses that the State has pro- 
 duced. It is also asserted that he prevented more law suits than he con- 
 ducted, by advising his clients to keep out of the courts. When at 
 home in Canton he was an extremely neighborly and unpretentious 
 man. He was a friend to all the country people. In the summer-time, 
 when home from Albany or Washington, he worked on his farm with 
 his own hands. When it was proposed to make Canton the county- 
 seat, and other parts of the county declared that there were not mate- 
 rials in that part of the county from which to erect county buildings, 
 he called a meeting and at that meeting proposed that all the men pro- 
 ceed to a certain quarry the next day and begin getting out stone for 
 building purposes. He himself worked twenty-one days in the quarry 
 to carry through the project. 
 
 When in the State Senate Silas Wright opposed the popular election 
 of presidential electors. His course at that time does not show the 
 broad-mindedness which afterwards characterized him, but he was 
 then quite a young man. The reason given at that time for Wright's 
 stand was, that he feared the popular election of presidential electors 
 would result in the launching of De Witt Clinton for President, and 
 Wright, being a Bucktail, was opposed to Clinton. 
 
 On March 4, 1827, Silas Wright resigned his seat in the State 
 Senate, having been elected a member of Congress. He was re-elected 
 to Congress on December 4, 1828, but, Van Buren being elected Gov- 
 ernor in that year, he resigned his seat in Congress to accept the posi- 
 tion of State Comptroller in 1829. That office he held until 1833, in 
 which year he was chosen to fill out Senator Marcy's term as United 
 State Senator. Marcy was elected Governor of the State of New York 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 239 
 
 in the fall of 1832. In 1833 Silas Wright married Clarissa Moody. He 
 held the office of United States Senator from his appointment in 1833 
 until 1844, having been elected in 1837 for a term of six years. 
 
 Silas Wright was, throughout his life, a personal as well as a 
 political friend of Martin Van Buren, and was chairman of the Finance 
 -Committee of the United States Senate during the panic of 1837. At 
 that time he wrote two very able papers on the finances of the country 
 and the situation at that time. Throughout his entire career in Wash- 
 ington, and subsequently, all his public acts were guided by the in- 
 flexible doctrine "Measures, not Men," and in his political affiliations 
 the party was everything and himself nothing. He was one of the 
 most upright and honest of public men, whether considered with rela- 
 tion to his own day or any other day. In the United States Senate he 
 had to meet with men like Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton and White, 
 and if, as an orator, he did not rank with the first three, as a far-seeing 
 statesman and in the weight of his arguments he was the peer of any 
 one of them. 
 
 He supported Clay's compromise bill, although he did not approve 
 of all of its provisions. Whey Clay introduced a resolution censuring 
 -President Jackson for his proceedings in relation to the public revenue, 
 Wright made a speech of great power in defense of the President. He 
 also opposed Webster's bill introduced to recharter the United States 
 Bank for a limited time. 
 
 In December, 1837, Silas Wright introduced the Independent 
 Treasury bill, which was the beginning of the sub-treasury system. 
 This system is probably the finest proof of the statesmanship of Martin 
 Van Buren. Before it was fairly tried, the system was overturned by 
 President Tyler, but it became firmly established under President 
 Polk. 
 
 During the wild election of 1840 Silas Wright exerted himself to 
 the utmost to assist in the re-election of Martin Van Buren, and made 
 speeches in different parts of the State in support of his political 
 friend. Again, in 1844, at the Baltimore Convention, he exerted him- 
 self to secure the nomination of Van Buren, but in both of these in- 
 stances he was fated to see his efforts unavailing. He declined the 
 nomination for Vice-President, after it had been made by that conven- 
 
240 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tion, because of his loyalty to Van Buren, his lifelong personal and 
 political friend. 
 
 In 1844 he was elected Governor of the State of New York, and 
 his acts during the following two years are outlined in the early part 
 of this chapter. Also, the causes of his defeat, which led to his retire- 
 ment, have been discussed. He died August 27, 1847. He had been 
 working upon his farm, as was his custom, during the hot days of 
 August, and his sudden death in the prime of life was attributed to 
 heart failure caused by the heat. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 241 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 New York State Under Governor Young — The Wilmot Proviso — Dis- 
 
 . sension Among Democrats — The Conventions of the Different 
 
 Factions or Parties — Their Declarations on the Question of 
 
 Slavery — General Taylor Elected President — Van Buren the 
 
 Free-Soil Candidate — Election of Governor Fish. 
 
 The next Democratic Governor of the State, after Silas Wright, 
 was Horatio Seymour, in 1852. From 1854 until 1862 there was no 
 Democratic Governor, but in the latter year Horatio Seymour was 
 again elected. Yet all these years were important not only to the State 
 and nation, but to the Democracy of the State. The troubles which 
 culminated in the War of the Rebellion were constantly growing, and 
 the attitude of the State of New York, blending in and affecting the 
 affairs of the nation, is important to trace. During the great struggle. 
 New York State was the mainstay of the North. Therefore, from this 
 point forward for twenty years, national and State issues must be con- 
 sidered together. 
 
 As early as April, 1847, the position of national politics was that 
 of the probable nomination of General Taylor for the presidential can- 
 didate. He was a slaveholder and a native and resident of a slave 
 State. He was favored by the strongly northern, anti-slavery and 
 Wilmot Proviso Whig Party. The hotly contested and bloody battle 
 of Buena Vista had been fought to a finish with a splendid victory. It 
 was fought on the 22d and 23d of February. The Albany Evening 
 Journal was not long in hinting that "the force of circumstances" might 
 put General Taylor at the head of the Whig opponents of the war. It 
 was easier to look forward to this because the Democratic administra- 
 tion had made a new deal in military matters in view of which Taylor 
 had retired to New Orleans. Taylor had fought with brilliant success 
 the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma and Monterey, and, with 
 
242 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the operations executed by General Wool, Colonel Kearney, Colonel 
 Doinphan, Captain Fremont, and Commodores Sloat and Stockton, 
 New Mexico and the Calif ornias had been added as conquests to our 
 territory. The opinion at Washington that Taylor's line of attack was 
 not the most promising, led to new plans in November, 1846, under 
 which General Scott was made "Commandei'-in-Chief of the American 
 Army in Mexico," for th^ seizure of Vera Cruz and a march directly 
 upon the Mexican capital. Scott had sent word at once to T-aylor, 
 ordering that nearly all the regulars, under Worth, Patterson, Twiggs, 
 and Ruitman — the best and most efficient of Taylor's troops — should 
 proceed to Vera Cruz, leaving Taylor to make, as best he could, a stand 
 against Santa Anna with an army known, to- be the most effective that 
 Mexico could put into the field. Taylor had met the situation with an 
 ability and fighting energy which made Buena Vista a name of glory 
 wherever the stoiy was told. It had enabled him. to leave General Wool 
 in secure possession of a new northern frontier of Mexico, behind 
 which lay New Mexico and the Californias added to the territory of 
 the United States-. 
 
 General Taylor was a Whig, but not on the lines of Webster and 
 Clay. Near the close of the first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress 
 there had come before the House what was known as the "Wilmot 
 Proviso," a proviso added to a bill for authorizing the President to- use 
 $2,000,000 in negotiating a peace with Mexico. David Wilmot moved 
 the addition to this bill of a proviso forbidding slavery extension be'- 
 yond the States where it already existed. The terms used were the 
 same as those of the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, which forbade 
 slavery extension north of the Ohio. The House accepted the proviso, 
 but the bill was not acted on in the Senate. In the next session of 
 Congress the House repeaied its action, but the Senate rejected the 
 proviso and compelled the House to- agree to this. 
 
 Thus General Taylor and the Wilmot Proviso became elements of 
 a political situation destined to profoundly affect the fortunes of the 
 Democracy of New York. 
 
 On April 9, 1,847, ^ Democratic legislative caucus issued a call for 
 a convention to be held at Syracuse, May 19th, to nominate judges and 
 a clerk of the Court of Appeals. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 243 
 
 The Albany charter election, held April 13, 1847, resulted in the 
 election of a Whig mayor by 3,334 over the Democratic candidate, and 
 a Common Council of fourteen Whigs and six Democrats. The license 
 question was a material element in the contest, and many Democrats 
 openly and actively supported the Whig candidate. The vote on 
 Mayor was : Democrats, 592 ; Temperance Party, 1,154; Whig, 3,926. 
 In New York City the Whigs elected their candidate for Mayor by 
 some 1,500 majority over the Democratic candidate, and twelve alder- 
 men, to six elected by the Democrats. The Brooklyn election gave 
 exactly the same result. Bad faith on the part of Democrats was openly 
 recognized as ^^he explanation of Democratic defeat in New York, about 
 a thousand Democrats having voted the Whig ticket. The New York 
 Evening Post was especially responsible for this apostacy of bolters, 
 in the interest of the same national views as those of the New York 
 Tribune. The Atlas, of Albany, was accounted by the Argus (May i, 
 1847), ^ worker in the same field of "alienation and division in the 
 Democratic ranks," furthermore, upon the view represented by the 
 Argus, the "distraction and defeat of the Democratic party" thus 
 brought about in the State of New York was "responsible for throwing 
 the House of Representatives at Washington into the hands of the 
 Whigs." On April 30th, 1847, i" the hall of the Assembly, Asa Whit- 
 ney sought some expression of public and legislative opinion on the 
 project of a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific. Resolutions 
 recommending the work to the favorable consideration of Congress 
 passed both branches of the Legislature by a nearly unanimous 
 vote. 
 
 On May II, 1847, a joint meeting of the Democratic members of 
 the Legislature issued a call for a Democratic State Convention to be 
 held September 29th at Syracuse. 
 
 The first Legislature under the new Constitution of 1846, which had 
 made radical changes in the framework of government, concluded a 
 session of 129 days. May 13th, 1847. It had passed acts 280 in num- 
 ber, and much that it had done was of importance to the permanent 
 interests of the State. The adjournment taken was until September 8, 
 
 1847. 
 
 Prominent among the new features of the State organization was 
 
244 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the reorganization of the judiciary, which, in the words of Judge 
 Amasa J. Parker, "was loudly called for by the public interest," the 
 delays existing in many of our courts having shown a necessity for 
 radical change. Of the new system Judge Parker said : "It brings 
 to the public service ample force to secure a prompt administration of 
 justice, and in a manner worthy of an age distinguished for its just 
 and growing appreciation of popular rights." 
 
 The State convention, for nomination of Judges and Clerk of the 
 Court of Appeals representing the Democracy of the State, was held at 
 Syracuse May 19, 1847. The candidates nominated for Judges of the 
 Court of Appeals were : Greene C. Bronson, Addison Gardiner, Free- 
 born G. Jewett, and Charles H. Ruggles ; for Clerk, Charles S. Benton. 
 The Argus said of the convention and its candidates : 
 
 "The concluding proceedings were characterized by great harmony, 
 and by a general belief that dissension and controversy would give place 
 to a spirit of conciliation, and to a cordial and united support of the 
 Democratic ticket. Chief Justice Bronson, Lieutenant-Governor 
 Gardiner and Judges Jewett and Ruggles have long been associated 
 with the judicial character of the State. Each of them has served in 
 the highest judicial capacities with conceded honor and ability; and 
 each has maintained, through a long and distinguished course, an en- 
 viable reputation for worth, purity, learning, and all the high quali- 
 fications which adorn and elevate the Bench and command the popular 
 respect and confidence." 
 
 The Democratic district nominations for Justices of the Supreme 
 Court were : Amasa J. Parker, of Albany ; John C. Wright, of Scho- 
 harie; Henry Hogeboom, of Columbia, and Malbone Watson, of 
 Greene. 
 
 The Whig State Convention, also held at Syracuse, May 19th, 
 nominated for the Court of Appeals, Frederick Whittlesey, of Monroe ; 
 B. Davis Noxon, of Onondaga ; Marcus T. Reynolds, of Albany, and 
 Ambrose L. Jordan, of New York. This was also a strong ticket. In 
 the Whig Convention a committee of eight was deputed to propose to 
 the Democratic Convention a union ticket for Judges of the Court of 
 Appeals. An equal committee, named by the Democratic Convention, 
 carried to the Whig body a declination on the part of the Democrats. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 245 
 
 In the election of June 7, 1847, the Democrats elected all the Judges 
 of Appeals, Bronson, Ruggles, Gardiner, and Jewett, by an average 
 majority of 13,895. Of the Justices of the Supreme Court the Demo- 
 crats elected twenty-two, viz. : The entire four in each of the First, 
 Second, Fifth and Sixth districts, three in the Fourth, two in the Third, 
 and one in the Seventh ; and the Whigs elected ten, viz. : Two in the 
 Third, one in the Fourth, three in the Seventh, and four in the Eighth. 
 The Democratic Clerk of the Court of Appeals was elected by some- 
 thing over 7,000 majority (7,094). Such was the result of the first 
 election under the new Constitution, a substantial and sweeping Demo- 
 cratic victory. Somewhat over one-half the electoral vote was polled. 
 Among the specially gratifying results were the large majorities for 
 Judges Parker and Willard over their Whig opponents. 
 
 The result in the city of Albany was a Whig majority for Re- 
 corder of 870, for County Judge, 1,430; for Surrogate, 965, and for 
 District- Attorney, 551. The Argus openly charged that "a majority 
 of from 1,000 to 1,400 against the city Democratic tickets" was "the 
 natural fruit of the open coalition with Whiggery, which had charac- 
 terized the course and efforts of the Democratic Atlas and its abetters." 
 It declared that "the partisans of Messrs Flagg, John Van Buren & Co. 
 stood at every poll in the city and were more noisy and inveterate than 
 the Whigs themselves;" and that they "peddled and urged" a ticket 
 on which were the names of four Whigs, "to the exclusion of regular 
 and well-known Democrats." 
 
 The position of the Evening Post of New York, under the editor- 
 ship of the poet Bryant, was an element of the situation in which the 
 Democracy of the State was involved by the open alliance of the Al- 
 bany Atlas, clique of Democrats with the Whigs. The Argus of June 
 21, 1847, denounced Mr, Bryant as "a crooked and wayward poli- 
 tician, and personally the propagator and abetter of calumny." Of 
 Mr. Bryant and his paper the Argus said : 
 
 "Starting as a Federalist, and giving to the world, among his first 
 lispings in rhyme, doggerel attacks upon the great Apostle of Democ- 
 racy, it is not singular, nor perhaps unnatural, that the leaven of youth 
 should exhibit itself through all the phases of manhood. The Evening 
 Post, of which he is the principal and responsible editor, is scarcely 
 
246 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 entitled to the name of a Democratic paper. It has rarely supported, 
 entire, the regular Democratic ticket." 
 
 President Polk was the guest of the city of New York from Friday, 
 June 25th, to Monday, June 28, 1847. The citizens of Albany tendered 
 him an invitation to accept their hospitality on his return from New 
 England to Washington, but urgent occasion for a speedy return by 
 the nearest route compelled him to decline. 
 
 The meeting, July 5, 1847, of a convention at" Chicago, for pro- 
 moting the lake and river navigation of the West, gave occasion to 
 comment on the position occupied by Comptroller Flagg, of the State 
 of New York. Flagg had been Comptroller of the State for ten years, 
 and, during his last incumbency, was most zealously opposed to all 
 plans for the enlargement of the Erie Canal, and had pronounced 
 against all lateral canals as likely to become a curse to the State. The 
 stand thus taken by Comptroller Flagg was not only most unpopular, 
 but facts of canal progress showed conclusively that his view of the 
 growth of canal business was wholly wrong. While he had prophesied 
 that canal receipts would never be any higher, they had doubled within 
 three years. 
 
 The unexpected death of Silas Wright on Friday morning, August 
 27th, by an apoplectic stroke at his Canton home, removed one of the 
 notable figures of the time. His full biography appears elsewhere in 
 this work. 
 
 At the date of Silas Wright's death there was rising through- 
 out the State, a demand for "New Men" to represent the Democ- 
 racy of the State — an entire new ticket for State officers ; candidates 
 who were not in any way connected with the rival factions at the 
 capital. 
 
 Press reports of September 2, 1847, enumerated thirty-nine Demo- 
 cratic journals in the State as heartily joining in the demand for new 
 men on the Democratic State ticket ; it was reported at the same time 
 that Comptroller Flagg would not be a candidate for re-election, and 
 that John Van Buren was about to remove to the city of New York to 
 pursue his profession, and that he would not be a candidate for At- 
 torney-General. There soon followed, however, authoritative denial 
 of so much of this as referred to Flagg, to whom twenty-three years 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 247 
 
 of public service, including ten in the office of Comptroller, had not 
 brought a desire for retirement. 
 
 Under date of September ist, a letter appeared in the Albany Argus, 
 from President Polk's Secretary of State, Hon. James Buchanan, 
 strongly deprecating as unnecessary, impolitic and injurious any agita- 
 tion of the question of slavery in any new territory which might be 
 acquired from Mexico. Buchanan took the position that under the 
 Missouri Compromise of 1826, slavery was forever prohibited north 
 of the parallel of 36 degrees and 30 minutes ; and that south of this 
 parallel the question was left to be decided by the people. "In my 
 opinion," Mr. Buchanan declared, "the harmony of the States, and 
 even the security of the Union itself, require that the line of the Mis- 
 souri Compromise should be extended to any new territory which we 
 may acquire from Mexico." The question of any establishment of 
 slavery in any such territory was not of the least practical importance, 
 in Mr. Buchanan's view, and yet he said, "its agitation, however, hon- 
 estly intended, can produce no effect but to alienate the people of dif- 
 fereiit portions of the Union from each other; to excite sectional 
 divisions and jealousies, and to distract and possibly destroy the Demo- 
 cratic Party, on the ascendancy of whose principles and measures de- 
 pends, as I firmly believe, the success of our grand experiment of self- 
 government." In conclusion, Buchanan asserted that these had been his 
 opinions ever since the commencement of the unfortunate agitation. 
 
 The Argus pronounced the positions thus taken not only "im- 
 pregnable in themselves," but "sufficiently broad for the Democracy of 
 the Union to stand upon." 
 
 The Legislature met September 8, 1847, pursuant to adjournment 
 from May 13th. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention assembled at Syracuse September 
 29, 1847, and spent that day and the next in an attempt to organize and 
 to decide upon contested seats. At the close of the second day, after a 
 protracted exhibition of asperity of feeling, the convention was found 
 to be within the control of the "Hunkers" by about 67 to 61 "Barn- 
 burners." On the third day the battle over contested seats was still on, 
 and John Van Buren had spent four and a half hours in supporting a 
 claim, which, upon being put to vote, secured only 49 supporters to 
 
248 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 66 against it. The next day until 3 P. M. was occupied in further 
 deciding contests, and that of John Van Buren and Mr. Litchfield of 
 Albany was decided against Van Buren by 61 to 53 votes. The nomi- 
 nations made were : Nathan Dayton, of Niagara County, Lieutenant- 
 Governor ; Orville Hungerford, of Jefiferson, for Comptroller, defeating 
 A. C. Flagg by 59 to 47 votes ; Edward Sanford, of New York, for 
 Secretary of State, including the Department of Education; Levi S. 
 Chatfield, of Otsego, for Attorney-General; George W. Cuyler, of 
 Wayne, for Treasurer ; Orville W. Childs, of Onondoga, for State En- 
 gineer ; John C. Mather, of Rensselaer ; Elisha B. Smith, of Chenango, 
 and Frederick Follet, of Genesee for Canal Commissioners; and for 
 State Prison Inspectors, Norman B. Smith, of New York; George 
 Caldwell, of Montgomery, and John Fisher of Westchester. 
 
 Resolutions offered by Mr. Smith, of Wayne, in support of the 
 Wilmot Proviso views were laid on the table by a vote of 69 to 45, and 
 a second attempt in the same direction, which kept the convention in 
 session until after midnight, was similarly defeated, by a vote of 49 
 to 32. This disposition of the matter was claimed to be in accordance 
 with the judgment of the great body of the Democracy throughout the 
 State. 
 
 In the address of the Convention to the Democratic electors of the 
 State the portion dealing with special State interests contained the 
 following on internal improvements, as dealt with by the Democratic 
 Party and its political opponents, respectively : 
 
 "From 18 1 7 to 1835 the State of New York had constructed about 
 650 miles of canal, and had reduced the debt incurred for that purpose, 
 deducting available means on hand, to four and a half millions of dol- 
 lars. We had then substantially all the works of internal improvements 
 that we have now (1847). After the political revolutions of 1837 
 and 1838, under the control of our political opponents, we contracted 
 a canal debt of more than twenty millions of dollars, and yet we have 
 added but fifty miles of canal to what we had then. 
 
 "At the close of 1837 the entire debt of the State was only about 
 $200,000 more than it was in 1825, and the debt, over the funds on 
 hand, was only about $4,500,000 in 1837, and during this time the 
 Oswego, the Cayuga and Seneca, the Crooked Lake, the Chemung and 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 249 
 
 Chenango canals were completed and put in operation ; thus showing 
 that in twelve years 165 miles of new canals were constructed, and 
 yet the State debt was not materially increased from what it was in 
 1825. If the funds on hand be deducted from the liabilities, and most 
 of those funds were applicable to the payment of the debt, there re- 
 mained on the thirtieth of September, 1837, only $4,540,474 of debt 
 unprovided for. 
 
 "Up to 1838 the history of our canal system shows that, while we 
 were rapidly extending our improvements to all sections of our State, 
 we were at the same time paying off our comparatively small debt. Its 
 success was a source of State pride and patriotic congratulation. These 
 advantages were unqualified by debt or taxation, but unfortunately the 
 safe policy which had formerly governed our legislative action was 
 abandoned in 1838. 
 
 "The following sums were borrowed in the several years from 1838 
 to 1842: 1838, $4,350,761.54; 1839, $2,139,185.49; 1840, $4,497.- 
 297.90; 1841, $3,609,414.57; 1842, $4,814,182.00. Total, $18,410,- 
 841.50. 
 
 "It will be seen that the amount of debt created in 1838 was about 
 equal to the whole State debt in 1837, deducting available means then 
 on hand; and that in the period of five years liabilities were created 
 to the enormous amount of $18,410,841.50 for canals alone, independ- 
 ently of loans to railroa.d companies and other heavy charges upon the 
 general fund. This system of policy was most destructive to our canal 
 system in all its bearings. 
 
 "At this time, with a canal debt of $20,000,000, we have only the 
 unfinished Genesee and Black River canals, and the Erie Canal enlarge- 
 ment less than half completed, in addition to the canals in use in 1837, 
 when our debt was about four millions and a half." 
 
 The Albany Atlas, especially representing John Van Buren, brought 
 about, at a meeting October 8th, an open repudiation of the action of 
 the State Convention, on the ground that it had "attempted to enroll 
 the Democracy of New York in the cause of aggressive slavery," and 
 with a declaration of full approval of the Wilmot Proviso. The Atlas 
 inscribed at the head of its columns, as its cornerstone campaign prin- 
 ciple, a resolution offered by David Dudley Field in the State Conven- 
 
250 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tion, the purpose of which was to avow "uncompromising hostility to 
 the extension of slavery." The same resolution, exactly, had been of- 
 fered by Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, in the Whig 
 convention, and unanimously adopted by that body. 
 
 On October i8th the Atlas published a call for a convention of 
 bolters, to be held October 26th at Herkimer. The New York Tribune 
 announced in its morning issue of the same day that the, Atlas would 
 make this announcement. 
 
 On October 22d the Democratic State Central Committee issued a 
 vigorous address "To the Democracy of New York," pointing out the 
 proposal made by Daniel Webster to the Whigs of Massachusetts 
 against any further prosecution of the war with Mexico, and appealing 
 for loyal support to the national administration with whatever inevit- 
 able results in acquisition of territory might ensue. 
 
 The Herkimer Convention of the 26th voiced the spirit of bolting 
 sympathy with Whiggism, and in the election of November 2d, 1847, 
 the Whig State ticket was elected by a very large majority. The 
 Assembly for the whole State stood 95 Whigs to 33 Democrats, and the 
 Senate 24 Whigs to 8 Democrats. 
 
 Just previous to the election ex-President Martin Van Buren, in 
 a published letter absolutely declining to- be a candidate for the Presi- 
 dency a second time, gave very strong expression of his opinion of the 
 duty of the Democracy to give loyal support to the national admin- 
 istration in the crisis created by the Whig cry for stopping supplies 
 rather than see territory acquired, over which, in new States, slavery 
 might be extended. At the same time the son of the ex-President was 
 directing a conspiracy of bolting Democrats in aid of Whig efforts to 
 utterly shatter the Democracy of the State. 
 
 On November i8th, 1847, a Democratic legislative caucus, the mo- 
 tive of which was mainly Whig, decided upon the call, for February 
 1 6th, of a State convention at Utica. A motion to make it a Herkimer 
 convention was voted down by 29 to 21. 
 
 Upon the publication December 6th, 1847, of the official returns 
 of the election of Novembe. 2d, the Whig majorities on State officers 
 were found to range from 23,516 to 38,729. The highest vote for any 
 Democratic candidate was 17,124, a falling off from the vote for Polk 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 251 
 
 in 1844 of 91,534. The Whig vote, also, compared with that for Clay- 
 in 1844, showed a falling off of 36,974. 
 
 The message of President Polk, sent to Congress December 7th, 
 1847, took strong ground for prosecution of the war with increased 
 energy and power in the vital parts of the enemy's country, with a 
 view to insure an honorable peace, and thereby secure ample indemnity 
 for the expenses of the war. The terms of peace which must be in- 
 sisted on were stated to be the establishment of the boundary of the 
 Rio Grande, and the cession to the United States of New Mexico and 
 the Calif or nias. 
 
 A second Democratic legislative caucus, the movers in which were 
 Herkimerites, was held December 13th. On December i8th the Demo- 
 cratic State Central Committee issued a call for a State convention, to 
 be held at Albany, January 26, 1848, in pursuance of the purposes of 
 the Syracuse Convention, and opposed to the scheme of a bolters' con- 
 vention. At this time, also, addresses from the Herkimer Democrats 
 in the Legislature, and. from the regular Syracuse Democrats, were 
 issued to the Democracy of the State. Thirty-five delegates were 
 credited with favoring the regular address, thirty-seven signed the 
 Herkimer Wilmot Proviso document. Meanwhile indications were 
 not wanting, at Albany and Washington, that Whig schemes for starv- 
 ing the gallant armies of the nation had begun to create disgust in the 
 minds of many Whigs. The Albany Evening Journal of December 
 28th, while admitting all the Whig views of the war as unjust and 
 causeless, pronounced for unflinching prosecution of the war. This 
 protest against a policy of scuttle in Mexico was echoed at Utica by 
 the Oneida Morning Herald, an influential Whig journal. In the New 
 York Legislature, Whig resolutions of censure upon President Polk, 
 which passed to a third reading January 20th, 1848, in the Assembly, 
 were voted against by every Democratic member present and voting. 
 
 The State Convention, which assembled at Albany January 26th 
 to the number of nearly one hundred, made a declaration broadly sup- 
 porting President Polk's administration, and condemning the Herki- 
 mer-Utica movement of alliance with the Whigs. Presidential electors 
 were chosen for the thirty-four districts of the State and two at large, 
 and Congressional committees were chosen. 
 
252 . THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The Utica bolters' convention assembled February i6th, 1848, and 
 appointed delegates to the Baltimore Democratic Convention. The 
 Albany Convention had recommended the election of these delegates by 
 district conventions. A strong party in the Utica Convention wished 
 to pronounce in favor of the nomination of General Taylor for Presi- 
 dent, and General Dix for Vice-President, but this the managers pre- 
 vented. 
 
 With February 22d, 1848, a year had passed from the commence- 
 ment, in the war with Mexico, of the bloody, but glorious battle of 
 Buena Vista. With the evening of the next day the venerable John 
 Quincy Adams, in the eighty-first year of his age, breathed his last in 
 the Speaker's room at the Capitol in Washington, where he had lain 
 insensible and speechless under a stroke which he suffered at i P. M. 
 on the 2 1 St. A eulogy upon Mr. Adams was delivered in Albany 
 April 6th, 1848, by Hon. William H. Seward. 
 
 The treaty with Mexico upon the conclusion of the war was rati- 
 fied March 10, 1848, by a vote of four-fifths of the Senate. What 
 this war had cost in men and treasure was widely considered the 
 direct result of Whig Mexicanism by prominent statesmen, whose 
 speeches served to make the Mexicans think that their friends in the 
 United States were in a position to cripple the prosecution of the war. 
 The battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma and Monterey had been 
 fought and won by vastly inferior American forces, and the defeat 
 of their splendid army on the Rio Grande was bearing with crushing 
 weight on the hopes of the Mexicans, when the speeches of Corwin 
 and others against the war, and promising if they held out awhile a 
 large party in the United States would come to their aid, caused a 
 renewal of Mexican effort to- put large armies into the field and to carry 
 on the war with increased energy. Even after the bloody battle of 
 Buena Vista, with Webster, Clay, Horace Greeley and the Whigs gen- 
 erally maintaining an anti-American crusade, the battles from Vera 
 Cruz to the Mexican capital were fought before the opportunity for 
 peace arrived. 
 
 On the third of March, 1848, a meeting of the Whigs proper was 
 held at the Capitol in Albany to make a demonstration in favor of 
 Henry Clay for President. Among the names of signers of this call 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 253 
 
 appeared that of John Van Buren. The tone of the meeting, given 
 by Horace Greeley, the chief spealter, was that of ignoring the war, 
 and of repudiating the claims of General Taylor. But during this 
 month reports were in circulation to the effect that General Taylor was 
 winning the Whigs of the Southern States by a declaration that the 
 provisions of the Wilmot Proviso ought not to be accepted. On April 
 20th, 1848, General Taylor wrote a letter stating that if nominated 
 by the Whig National Convention he would not refuse acceptance, 
 provided no pledges were demanded and he was permitted to maintain 
 his position of independence of all parties. He also declared that he 
 was a Whig, but not an ultra- Whig, and that, if elected he would 
 not be the mere President of the party, but would endeavor to act 
 independent of party domination, and should feel bound to administer 
 the government vmtrammeled by party schemes. 
 
 On the third of May, 1848, a bill was reported to Congress to 
 set apart and sell to Asa Whitney, of New York, a portion of the 
 public lands, to enable him to construct a railroad from Lake Michigan 
 to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The Baltimore Democratic National Convention met on the 22d 
 of May, 1848, and the question between the Syracuse regular De- 
 mocracy and the Herkimer pro-Whig bolters was decided against the 
 latter by the committee on credentials. The convention, disregarding 
 this report, gave seats to both delegations with power to cast the votes 
 of New York. To this the Herkimer delegation responded by with- 
 drawing from the convention and the Syracuse delegation by declin- 
 ing to vote. The convention nominated Lewis Cass, of Michigan, 
 and William O. Butler, of Kentucky, as presidential and vice-presiden- 
 tial candidates. 
 
 The Herkimer-Utica bolters, after withdrawing from the Baltimore 
 Convention, resolved not to support the ticket at that convention, and 
 further brought about the calling of a convention at Utica, June 22d, to 
 nominate a national ticket and "to propose an address to the Republi- 
 cans of the State." The Globe and Evening Post, of New -York, in- 
 dulged in fierce appeals in favor of the bolting State convention and 
 against the Baltimore nominees. The Whig National Convention as- 
 sembled at Philadelphia on the seventh of June, 1848, with the New 
 
254 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 York delegation reported by Horace Greeley as 32 for Clay, 3 for Scott, 
 I for Daniel Webster and none for Taylor. Upon the first ballot, 
 June 8th, the vote stood, for Taylor, 1 1 1 ; for Clay, 97 ; for Scott, 49 ; 
 for Webster, 22, and for Clayton, 4. On the second ballot the only 
 changes were Taylor to 118 and Clay to 88. The third ballot, June 
 9th, gave Taylor 133 ; Clay, 74; Scott, 53 ; Webster, 16, and Clayton i. 
 The final ballot gave Taylor 171 ; Scott, 63 ; Clay, 30, and Webster 13. 
 On this ballot New York gave Scott 17, Taylor, 6, and Clay 13. Mil- 
 lard Fillmore was nominated on the second ballot, June 9th, for Vice- 
 President, by a vote of 173. Massachusetts delegates bitterly de- 
 nounced and openly repudiated the nomination of General Taylor, and 
 to New York Whigs it was an extreme disappointment, not to say an 
 occasion of great indignation. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, each 
 a colossus of statesmanship, in party view, were sent to a back seat, 
 while a soldier of Southern sympathies was entrusted with the na- 
 tional standard! But this action is not unique in American history. 
 
 On the afternoon of June 8th, 1848, General Cass received .a grand 
 welcome in New York, and from this point he proceeded to Albany, 
 thence to Syracuse and on to Bufifalo. 
 
 On the evening of June i6th a great demonstration of "unchanged 
 Clay Whigs" was held in New York to express extreme disapproba- 
 tion of the Taylor and Fillmore ticket. Horace Greeley said : "If 
 General Taylor shall consent to be the Whig candidate, identified with 
 the great cardinal principles of our party, I shall feel bound to support 
 him; but, with the defeat of Mr. Clay I have ceased to seek or desire 
 to lead public opinion in this matter." One speaker carried the en- 
 thusiasm of the meeting to the highest pitch by declaring for a Clay 
 ticket. 
 
 The Utica bolters' State Convention of June 22d put in nomination 
 for the Presidency Martin Van Buren, of New York, and for the 
 second place on the ticket used the name of General Henry Dodge, of 
 Wisconsin. The ex-President, thus made a figurehead, had written 
 a letter, in which he said : "I do unhesitatingly approve of the course 
 you propose to pursue in withholding your votes from General Cass, 
 and shall do so myself If no other candidates than those now before 
 the country are presented, I shall not vote for President." 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 255 
 
 It was said that B. F. Butler gave the assurance to the convention, 
 after the nomination had been made, that it would not, under the cir- 
 cumstances, be declined. 
 
 Henry Clay was heard from at this time as taking the ground that 
 the convention at Philadelphia had abandoned the principles and dis- 
 solved the organization of the Whig Party. 
 
 General Taylor's acceptance of the Baltimore nomination expressly 
 reasserted his independence of party and refusal to serve as a Whig 
 figurehead. The Albany demonstration of June 27th in response to 
 the Philadelphia nomination was more an explosion of dissent and 
 disgust than a voice of approval. The indignant refusal of General 
 Dodge, of Wisconsin, to figure with Van Buren as a disgruntled and 
 disloyal Democrat added, about July ist, to the confusion of the situa- 
 tion in New York. General Dodge had been elected to the United 
 States Senate from Wisconsin, and his son. General A. C. Dodge, 
 was at the head, as an elector-at-large, of the Cass and Butler ticket 
 in Iowa. 
 
 On July 29th the Democratic State Committee issued a call for a 
 State convention to meet at Syracuse, September 5th, 1848. The chair- 
 man of the committee, John V. L. Pruyn, issued a stirring address to 
 the Democracy" of New York, urging the utmost possible effort to 
 defeat the Taylor army ticket, and to bring to naught the "selfish and 
 ingrate" schemes of ex-President Van Buren, under whom, in 1840, the 
 party had suffered "an inglorious and overwhelming defeat." 
 
 The Buffalo convention of bolters from the Baltimore nominations 
 nominated, August 10, 1848, Martin Van Buren for President and 
 Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. 
 
 Under date of June 17th Mr. Fillmore wrote a letter of acceptance 
 of his nomination at Baltimore. This letter, dated at Albany, did not 
 become public there until July 29th, Mr. Fillmore having made a long 
 delay before sending it. Meanwhile nothing had been heard from Gen- 
 eral Taylor, and it turned out that the letter notifying him of his 
 nomination to the Presidency had not reached him, and in reply, July 
 15th, when it (dated June loth) had reached him, Taylor wrote, 
 July 15th, saying, "I cordially accept." In regard to this acceptance 
 General Taylor said, in a letter which became public at Charleston 
 
256 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 August 6th : "I have accepted the nomination of the Philadelphia Con- 
 vention, as well as the nomination of many primary assemblies got- 
 ten up in various sections of the Union, in some instances irrespective 
 of party; and would have accepted the nomination of the Baltimore 
 Convention had it been tendered on the same terms." 
 
 About this time a Taylor and Butler meeting of Democratic citizens 
 of Charleston, held for the purpose of nominating Taylor for the Presi- 
 dency, had been reported to General Taylor by a letter of July 26th, 
 and he replied to this, August 9th, accepting first place on a ticket 
 which was called Democratic, and which, as to the second name, was 
 wholly Democratic. The announcement of this, August 26th, at Al- 
 bany, resulted in a tremendous demonstration of consternation and 
 wrath, that very evening, on the part of the Albany Whigs, to whom 
 Taylor, preferred to Clay, had been a cruel disappointment. Although 
 intended to deal a blow of blind anger at General Taylor, the Albany 
 meeting only served to advertise Taylor's chances, and to encourage 
 Whig hopes, in the face of indications that Cass and Butler would be 
 elected. Daniel Webster, meanwhile, had made at Marshfield, Mass., 
 his "only campaign speech," and had pronounced Taylor's nomination 
 one "not fit to be made, not satisfactory to the Whigs of Massa- 
 chusetts," and "without precedent or justification." The "great ex- 
 pounder," however, gave as his opinion that General Taylor "has no 
 disposition to.go to war, or 'to increase the limits of slavery, or to allow 
 of the annexation of new States to the Union." 
 
 On September 5th, 1848, the Democratic State Convention at Syra- 
 cuse nominated Reuben H. Walworth, of Saratoga, for Governor, and 
 Charles O'Conor, of New York, for Lieutenant-Governor. The ad- 
 dress issued by the convention said : "The position which we occupy 
 on this question of slavery, viewing it as one* that concerns the whole 
 country and with reference to constitutional provisions, is this : We 
 regret that it should exist anywhere, but we have neither the right nor 
 the power to interfere with it in any State of the Union except our 
 own. It is not our concern that slavery has been abolished in 
 some of our sister States or that it still exists in others, for neither, 
 in this respect, were dependent upon, or under any obligation to us. 
 And as to territory belonging to the United States into which it may 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 257' 
 
 be sought to introduce slavery, we desire that the citizens of such terri- 
 tory should decide the matter for themselves. All agree that the peo- 
 ple of the several States have an exclusive right to dispose of the ques- 
 tion of slavery within the limits of such States, and why, we would ask, 
 may not a similar power, with equal propriety, be conceded to the peo- 
 ple of a territory ? The citizens of Oregon have recently exercised that 
 power as they deemed proper, and we are wholly unable to discover any 
 reason why those of California and New Mexico, when those terri- 
 tories come to have a population qualified for self-government, should 
 not also possess and exercise a similar power." 
 
 The anti-Taylor spirit among the Whigs found expression in a 
 large and enthusiastic meeting at Poughkeepsie, September 2d, 1848, 
 the purpose of which was to secure a Clay and Fillmore ticket for 
 the use of disgruntled and desperate Whigs. A similar demonstra- 
 tion was made in New York September 7th, and the declaration boldly 
 made that General Taylor had no claim upon the Whigs; and hopes 
 were expressed that a Clay ticket would carry New York State by 
 50,000 majority. 
 
 The "codfish and cabbage" ticket was put in a bad light at this 
 time by the publication of a contemptuous opinion of Martin Van 
 Buren, which Adams had published in 1844. Mr. Adams charged 
 in 1844 that Van Buren had "bargained away the right of petition, 
 protection to home industry, freedom of speech, and indeed almost every 
 other security of liberty, for the sake of assuring himself of the sup- 
 port of the Southern States." 
 
 Syracuse had a Clay, anti-Taylor demonstration September nth, 
 and Albany followed, September 14th, with a great explosion of Whig 
 enthusiasm for "Clay, Fillmore and Whig principles." 
 
 On September 13th a Van Buren convention at Utica received into 
 fraternal co-operation an abolition convention, and on the 14th put in 
 nomination General John A. Dix for Governor and Seth M. Gates, 
 a Whig Abolitionist, for Lieutenant-Governor. General Dix had pro- 
 nounced, immediately after the Baltimore nominations, for support of 
 the ticket, and had pledged himself to do nothing adverse to party 
 success. 
 
 The Whig Convention at Syracuse, September 14th, nominated 
 
258 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Hamilton Fish for Governor and George W. Patterson for Lieutenant- 
 Governor. 
 
 The national election, held November 7th, but not fully reported as 
 to the complete result until November 27th, gave Cass 127 electoral 
 votes and Taylor 163. Each candidate had fifteen States. The 36 
 votes of New York and the 26 of Pennsylvania went to Taylor ; the 
 23 of Ohio to Cass. New York gave Taylor 218,546; Van Buren, 
 120,517, and Cass, 114,583. The vote for Governor was 218,616 for 
 Fish; 122,583 for Dix, and 116,019 for Walworth. Of members of 
 Congress, New York elected 32 Whigs, i Democrat and i "free soil" 
 Abolitionist. Horace Greeley was among the new members. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 259 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Gold Rush to California in 1849 — Inauguration of Zachary Taylor — 
 Closing of the Seventy-second Legislature — Death of James K. 
 Polk — Conventions and Elections of 1849 — Death of President 
 Taylor — Inauguration of Millard Fillmore — Admission to 
 Union of California — Compromise Measures — Conventions and 
 Elections of 1850. 
 
 A LETTER of August 29th, 1 848, in the Albany Argus of December 
 I ith, gave a graphic account of the wild rush of seekers for gold over 
 a region of California some two hundred miles north and south and 
 some sixty miles east and west, with new discoveries every day enlarg- 
 ing these limits. The report of the Secretary of War to the second 
 session of the thirtieth Congress contained a letter from Colonel R. B. 
 Mason, dated September lo, 1848, in which he set forth the situation 
 suddenly created by the rush to the gold fields. Colonel Mason was 
 military commandant of California, and, with Lieutenant W. T. Sher- 
 man, he visited the scenes of the earliest gathering of gold. On June 
 20th he found San Francisco almost deserted, and going thence to 
 Sutter's Fort, which was reached July 2d, he everywhere found "mills 
 lying idle, fields of wheat open to cattle and horses, houses vacant and 
 farms going to waste." Some three months before the first discovery 
 had been made, and already not less than 4,000 men, of whom more 
 than one-half were hired Indians, were at work, and $30,000 to $50,000 
 in gold was daily obtained. 
 
 Under the head of "Time and Space Annihilated," the Albany 
 Argus of December 12th, 1848, commented on the fact that "in just 
 twenty-four hours" the entire message of President Polk, "even to the 
 punctuation and paragraphs, a thing not usually done in telegraph- 
 ing," was telegraphed from Baltimore to St. Louis, and was at the 
 
26o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 same time "dropped" at about twenty places on the way. The Phila- 
 delphia Ledger, .in reporting this, said : 
 
 "The idea of a document of 50,000 words appearing in print in 
 a city nearly one thousand miles distant from Washington, twenty- 
 four hours after its delivery, is almost beyond belief." 
 
 On December nth Douglas introduced in the United States Sen- 
 ate a bill contemplating the admission at once, as a State, of the entire 
 territory acquired by the treaty with Mexico, giving it two representa- 
 tives in Congress until the census and apportionment of 1850, and 
 reserving to the United States the right to create other States out of 
 that portion of the territory lying east of the summit of the Sierra 
 and California mountains. 
 
 At this time the project of a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama 
 was before Congress under the memorial of the mail contractors by 
 steamers to Chagres and from Panama to ports on the Pacific. The 
 transit existing was by canoe up the Chagres River as far as Cruces, 
 in about thirty hours, and thence by a mule road in about ten hours 
 to Panama. The distance for a railway was about fifty miles, and 
 they proposed to accomplish the gigantic undertaking in three years. 
 
 The completion in December, 1848, of the railroad connecting 
 Whitehall with Saratoga was noted by the Albany Argus of December 
 1 6th as completing the link of steam communication between the Hud- 
 son River and the lakes. The trade report of the canals for the season 
 of 1848 showed a trade balance of $25,537,571 in favor of New York. 
 That for 1847 h^d t)^^" the other way to the amount of $1,260,398. 
 
 At a meeting of Southern members of Congress, held December 
 22d, 1848, a telegraphic report, December 27th, said that it was unani- 
 mously resolved that a separation of the Union was preferable to sub- 
 mission to the Wilmot Proviso, and that the faith of each was pledged 
 to protect Southern interests in the territories at the point of the 
 bayonet. The immediate occasion for action of this kind was the in- 
 troduction, December 21st, in the House of a resolution moved by Mr. 
 Gott, of New York, for the abolition of the slave trade in the District 
 of Columbia. Upon consideration of this motion, Mr. Holmes, of 
 South Carolina, had proposed to move that the Southern members leave 
 their seats, and when the motion had been generally greeted with "No, 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 261 
 
 No, No," and had been pronounced out of order, Mr. Holmes had 
 himself taken his hat and left the House. 
 
 At this moment of agitation and peril the London Times, in view 
 of the recent presidential election, gave expression to the following 
 opinion of Democratic stability in America : 
 
 "Whatever may be the fate of popular governments in Europe, a 
 greater testimony could not have been afforded of the stability of demo- 
 cratic institutions in America than that just offered by the calmness 
 with which twenty millions of people, scattered over so vast a surface, 
 and representing so many conflicting interests, have proceeded, in a time 
 of almost universal excitement, to that which is the greatest trial of 
 their system — ^the election of a chief magistrate. And it is not unin- 
 structive to observe that while so many systems have been tottering 
 around us, and while it has been so fashionable to malign the people 
 as in every instance the sole cause of the wrecks that have taken place, 
 and of the confusion and anarchy which have prevailed, the only po- 
 litical fabric which has not only stood firm amid the storm, but has not 
 ever been assailed by a menace, is that which rests upon a purely demo- 
 cratic basis — in fact, begins and ends in the people." 
 
 To bring more distinctly into view the position of England and 
 America at this time, as the latter was represented by the Polk Demo- 
 cratic administration, we may spend a moment in looking back to the 
 first day of 1846. That year came in with the Oregon boundary ques- 
 tion threatening the peace of America and England. The year 1845 
 had gone out with more or less of a war panic, in view of the stand 
 taken by the British minister of refusal to accept the very large con- 
 cession which President Polk proposed. This panic had subsided some- 
 what, when it was roused again by examples of American Whig 
 writers taking sides with England for a boundary not higher up than 
 49 degrees — a concession to England of the region from 49 degrees 
 to 54 degrees 40 minutes. President Polk's message to Congress had 
 referred to the proposition made to the British Minister to have the 
 49th parallel the line to the north of Oregon under American rule, 
 as it was farther east; but this proposition the British Minister had 
 at once declined, and had thus given rise to fear that war might result. 
 
 Ex-President John Quincy Adams made a speech in the House, Jan- 
 
262 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 uary 2d, vigorously objecting to any concession to England, or any 
 compromise which involved giving up any part of the Oregon terri- 
 tory south of 54 degrees 40 minutes. 
 
 Governor Silas Wright, in his message of January 6th, 1846, to the 
 Legislature of New York, took ground strongly and unequivocally 
 sustaining the position of President Polk. On January 12th the United 
 States Senate voted by 32 to 18 to postpone the motion to annul the 
 existing arrangement with England, under which the question of 
 boundary across Oregon was left undecided. 
 
 There was in the popular mind at this time an intense development 
 of imperialism, and a new consciousness of the place of America in 
 world history. The new Oregon territory, under the claim extending 
 from the parallel of 42 degrees north latitude to that of 54 degrees 
 40 minutes — nearly 400,000 square miles, and about equal in extent 
 to the original thirteen United States — was looked upon as the seat of 
 America in relation to Asia such as the Atlantic States are in relation 
 to Europe. 
 
 On January 15th the Southern caucus reported an address which 
 had been drawn up by Calhoun, with Bayly's assistance, but after pro- 
 tracted discussion its recommittal was ordered. Calhoun's position 
 was that of urging the dissolution of the Union as preferable to sub- 
 mission to enforcement of the Wilmot Proviso, but this was not agreed 
 to by the committee in charge of preparation of the address. 
 
 On January 6th, 1849, the House of the New York Legislature 
 passed, precisely as they had previously passed the Senate, a set of 
 resolutions of instruction to the New York members of Congress to 
 urge the dismemberment of Texas, and the taking of a large part of her 
 nominal territory as United States territory, and to oppose the estab- 
 lishment of a territorial government in New Mexico. These resolu- 
 tions were presented to the United States Senate on January 22d, and 
 occasioned a debate not the least remarkable feature of which was the 
 high and indignant tone of feeling which characterized the speeches 
 of Southern Senators under what they regarded as an insult. 
 
 On February 6th, 1849, an election of a Senator in Congress from 
 New York for a term of six years from March 4, 1849, resulted in 
 the choice of William H. Seward. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 263 
 
 At midnight on Saturday, March 3d, 1849, the administration of 
 James K. Polk came to an end, and on Sunday, March 4th, General 
 Zachary Taylor entered upon the Presidency. 
 
 ^The Legislature closed it^ hundred days of the seventy-second 
 session on Wednesday, April nth, 1849. An act establishing free 
 schools throughout the State was among the public acts passed; and 
 also bills to incorporate the Panama Railroad Company, and steam 
 lines from New York to Liverpool, and from New York to Havre. 
 The Democratic members of the Legislature issued an address, the 
 concluding passage of which said : 
 
 "We suggest that both organized sections of those that once com- 
 posed the united Democracy of the State hold their next State con- 
 vention at the same time and place, and that the Democratic State 
 Committee take such measure as in their judgment shall best conduce 
 to the attainment of the great object of union ; and that, if practicable, 
 candidates for the next State election be nominated who shall be ac- 
 ceptable to all, (and) who, in accordance with a liberal spirit of com- 
 promise, may receive a united support. We solicit the Democracy 
 of the State individually, in their collective assemblies, and in all of 
 their conventions, to exert their best energies and liberal sentiments 
 to secure a perfect union and universal fraternization of the true 
 Democracy of the State and the Union." How often since that day has 
 this appeal, unfortunately, been necessary! 
 
 The Free Soil Democrats issued an address and a call for a con- 
 vention at Utica, September 12th, 1849, ^ step which left the regular 
 Democracy to accept this initiative if the aspirations for reunion of 
 the party and its bolting faction were to be acted upon. 
 
 In national matters many indications of failure of the Taylor 
 administration to act on broad, non-partisan principles had come to 
 public notice before two months after Polk's retirement had passed. 
 It was but too evident that the spoils system was as real with Taylor 
 as it ever was with Jackson. Sweeping changes and removals, even 
 against public interest and popular demand, in the instance of post- 
 offices, were the order of the day, in total disregard of General Tay- 
 lor's abundant campaign professions. 
 
 On May 15, 1849, the Democratic State Committee, John V. 
 
264 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 L. Pruyn, chairman, issued a call for a Democratic State convention, 
 to be held September 5th, 1849, ^t Syracuse, and this call was ac- 
 companied by some remarks on "the distractions and divisions" of the 
 Democracy of New York, which had '^not only given to its political 
 opponents the control of public affairs in the State, but brought upon 
 the country at large the further calamitv of a Whig administration." 
 
 "The committee," the address concluded by saying, "invite all sin- 
 cere Democrats, however alienated or separated heretofore by circum- 
 stances and events, to meet, upon the old common and safe ground 
 which time has sanctioned and principle and patriotism confirmed, and 
 by united efforts, by mutual concessions, and by the nomination of 
 a ticket acceptable to all, restore and maintain the Democratic ascend- 
 ancy in the State and in the Union." Forty-five to fifty of the Demo- 
 cratic journals of the State seconded the call and appeal made by the 
 State committee. 
 
 Of the spirit finding expression at this time an instance appears 
 in words of the negro orator Frederick Douglass to the effect that the 
 death of Major-General Worth meant "one legalized murderer gone 
 from among us," and that he "should have no tears to shed if the news 
 should come to-morrow that every promoter of an unholy war and 
 every oppressor of his fellow had been taken from the earth" ; and 
 also that, "identified as he was with his brethern who are in bondage 
 at the South, he would welcome the intelligence that an insurrection 
 had broken out among them, spreading death and devastation through 
 the land, if by such means their liberty could be obtained." The scene 
 of these utterances was the platform of the New England Anti-Slavery 
 Society in Boston. 
 
 On May 22, 1849, ^ letter from George Lippard, of Philadelphia, 
 to President Taylor was published. It most unsparingly impeached his 
 integrity, because of express pledges made to Mr. Lippard in a letter 
 of July 24, 1848, and grossly violated, after an election to the Presi- 
 dency, by votes in Pennsylvania of Democrats whom these pledges in- 
 fluenced. There was no question of the express character of the 
 pledges, nor was there any of their comprehensive and shameless 
 violation. 
 
 The death of Ex-President Polk at Nashville, June 16, 1849, ^t the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 265 
 
 age of fifty-three years and seven months, removed from the political 
 scene one of its most conspicuous and most respected figures. 
 
 On June 20th Chairman John V. L. Pruyn, of the Democratic 
 State Committee, addressed to the State Committee of the Free Soil 
 faction a proposal that the two committees unite to secure a convention 
 of each of the parties at Rome, August 1 5th, to consult upon and devise 
 means of union, and to meet in joint convention and suggest a union 
 ticket, if this should be deemed expedient. On July 3d the Radical 
 Democracy, as they designated themselves, accepted the proposal for 
 a Rome convention August 15th. 
 
 The Albany Argus of July i6th, 1849, said under the head of "The 
 Democratic Attitude on the Slavery Question" : 
 
 "The Democrats of the Empire State have a great duty before them. 
 The convention they are about to hold at Rome is one of the highest 
 importance. It will determine their position in the next presidential 
 campaign and in all the future contests for the supremacy of the Demo- 
 cratic or the Federal features of our government. 
 
 "A declaration of opposition to the extension of slavery to free 
 territory might not be objectionable ; but we would make no such decla- 
 ration unless coupled with the disclaimer that we recognize anything 
 on the subject as a political test." 
 
 The meeting of the Democratic and Radical Democratic conven- 
 tions on August iSth, i6th and 17th was without result in the direc- 
 tion of union. The regular Democratic Convention was not only one 
 of the largest, but one of the most distinguished political bodies 
 ever assembled in the State. The Radical Democrats made haste in 
 their convention to adopt resolutions laying down the Wilmot Proviso 
 as an essential part of any basis of union. On this basis the regular 
 Democrats declined to go into joint convention, although willing and 
 desirous to assert the principle, as a basis of union, of opposition to 
 the extension of slavery to free territory. The Radical, or Free Spil 
 Democrats defeated union by pronouncing beforehand for uncondi- 
 tional acceptance of the Wilmot Proviso, without any sort of modifi- 
 cation. The address issued by the regular convention put upon the 
 Radical leaders the brand of regarding "division and disseverance of 
 the Democratic Party, the formation of a new sectional party, and the 
 
266 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 enforcement of new and degrading tests as the only means by which 
 they hope to advance their poHtical or personal aims." The address 
 reviewed the history of the slavery agitation, from its origin in the 
 Hartford Convention, with a view to showing that it has been used to 
 divide, dissever and defeat the Democratic Party. 
 
 Prominent citizen^ of Monroe, Livingston and Orleans counties, 
 representing both sections of the Democracy, were reported, August 
 27th, as having united in a call for a union mass convention, to be held 
 at Syracuse on the 14th of September, with a view to recommending a 
 Democratic union ticket, and taking other steps looking to Democratic 
 harmon)''. 
 
 The Democratic Convention called to assemble at Syracuse, Sep- 
 tember 5th, adopted, on the 6th, a State ticket, and at the same time 
 authorized the State Committee to withdraw the candidates for Judge 
 of the Court of Appeals, Secretary of State, Treasurer and State Engi- 
 neer, in case the Utica Radical Convention, to be held on the 12th, 
 should make suitable nominations for these offices. The Free Soil 
 Convention accepted the opportunity thus given them, and made the 
 four nominations. It also nominated as its own candidates the four 
 nominees of the other convention. The mass convention at Syracuse 
 on the 14th thus found their work already done, and they therefore 
 merely endorsed what the two previous conventions had accomplished. 
 The action of the Utica Convention was accepted, September 19th, by 
 the Democratic State Committee as entirely satisfactory, and the com- 
 posite ticket was pronounced the regular ticket. 
 
 An indication of Democratic activity at this time appeared in an 
 address of the Young Men's Democratic Council of One Hundred, of 
 the City of Albany, October 3d, 1840, contrasting in clear and forci- 
 ble terms the respective positions of the Federal, or Whig Party, and 
 the Democratic Party. The address pointed out that, while General 
 Taylor had loudly professed that he was not an ultra-Whig, he had 
 come into office surrounded by a Cabinet composed of the most violent 
 and embittered Federalists. In contrast with the administration of 
 President Polk, General Taylor's administration had proved recreant, 
 in the case of Hungary, to the American principle of generous sym- 
 pathy with struggles for liberty in the old world. The pending elec- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 267 
 
 toral campaign would be decisive of the political character of the na- 
 tional Congress, and the outlook was most hopeful. "But it is not to 
 be imagined that the victory is to be an easy one," said the address. 
 "The results of treachery, ingratitude and lavish expenditure are not 
 easily given up by the Federal Party. They still hope for a gigantic 
 monster bank, for an unequal and oppressive tariff, and for a contin- 
 uance of the places of honor and profit in the national administration.* 
 And the Empire State must again be steeped in debt to gratify their 
 longings for internal improvement. 
 
 "Every advance is distrusted and resisted by the Federal Party, 
 which in all its theories, principles and actions has ever been behind 
 the age. That there is a sufficient amount of Democratic strength 
 to overcome the combined hosts of Federalism and its factional ad- 
 juncts there can be no doubt. Let the young Democrats of the Empire 
 State organize immediately, and the knell of Federalism is already 
 sounded." 
 
 It will be observed that representatives of the second and third 
 generation after Washington very distinctly preserved the point of 
 view which contrasts Democratic with Federal, and popular with 
 artistocratic principles. And it must be particularly noted that when 
 the authors of this Democratic appeal against Federalism refer to 
 guarding and preserving the integrity of this Union, they refer to the 
 separation and rights of the States, the tradition of which was so famil- 
 iar to the Colonies before and during the Revolution, and which Fed- 
 eralism was assumed to have threatened with limitation, if not with 
 overthrow. The great popular instinct in all the Colonies, and early 
 States, was that of sovereignty in each of the distinct peoples, and of a 
 Union on the lines of a fellowship, of unimpaired sovereignties. The 
 idea of any national sway whatever, supreme over these sovereignties 
 and suppressing them in certain respects, was not only a new idea, diffi- 
 cult of comprehension, and more difficult still of application, but it was 
 reckoned an English idea, a notion of aristocrats, a dangerous looking 
 back from the ideals of liberty. 
 
 The State elections in the fall of 1849 showed changes from Whig 
 to Democratic equal to 49 electoral votes. Pennsylvania, Tennessee 
 and Georgia had helped to make General Taylor President; but a 
 
268 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 brief experience of his administration had sent these States back into 
 the Democratic column. Ohio followed, and with Maine handsomely- 
 carried by the Democrats the outlook for Democratic recovery of power 
 was most hopeful. Even Florida, the theater of General Taylor's ex- 
 ploits with the Indians, gave decisive indications of striking the 
 Whig flag. 
 
 In the New York State election, November 6th, the contest was 
 expected to be close, and the first returns indicated, not only that New 
 York City and Albany had been carried by the Whigs, but that the 
 State was in doubt at least as to four of the eight candidates voted for. 
 The returns available after ten days showed the election of Freeborn G. 
 Jewett, Judge of Appeals ; Levi S. Chatfield, Attorney-General ; Fred- 
 erick Follett, Canal Commissioner, and Darius Clark, State, Prison 
 Inspector; while the Whigs had elected Washington Hunt, "Comp- 
 troller; Christopher Morgan, Secretary of State; Alvah Hunt, Treas- 
 urer, and Hezekiah C. Seymour, State Engineer. In the judicial dis- 
 tricts the Democrats elected, in the Second, John W. Brown; in the 
 Third, Henry Hogeboom ; in the Fifth, Frederick W. Hubbard, and 
 in the Sixth William H. Shankland; while the Whigs elected, in the 
 First, William Mitchell ; in the Fourth, Daniel Cady ; in the Seventh, 
 Thomas A. Johnson, and in the Eighth, James A. Hoyt. A Demo- 
 cratic majority of two in the House was offset by a Whig majority 
 of two in the Senate. The average vote of the four Democratic judges 
 was 97,013; that of the four Whig judges, 99,423. The full returns 
 showed that for the entire State the Democrats had fallen a few votes 
 behind the Whigs. 
 
 In the United States Congress, December 13th, 1849, Robert 
 Toombs, of Georgia, made a vehement speech in review of Free Soil 
 and Abolition proceedings, declaring that he would insist on Southern 
 rights ; that rather than submit to further aggression the South would 
 resist ; and that he was for disunion if this state of things should con- 
 tinue. 
 
 On January 16, 1850, Clemens, of Alabama, in a speech of great 
 heat and bitterness, denounced the Northern Democrats as less to be 
 trusted than even the Whigs in the matter of the slavery issue. Dick- 
 inson, of New York, in a speech of remarkable power, repelled the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 269 
 
 charge, and declared that even the Abolition fanatics were outdone in 
 mischief-making by the fire-eating, pro-slavery extremists. 
 
 In January a considerable convention of Abolition promoters was 
 held at Syracuse and disunion openly advocated "on the highest moral 
 and religious grounds." Garrison and the negro Douglass were espe- 
 cially violent in disunion declarations. A gathering of sympathizers 
 with these declarations was held at Albany, in the hall of the Assembly, 
 January 31st. 
 
 In the latter part of January, 1850, Colonel Jefferson Davis, in 
 reply to resolutions of instruction of the Vermont Legislature on the 
 question of slavery said in a speech in the United States Senate : 
 
 "The constant drippings must inevitably — yes, sir, and speedily 
 — ^wear away the bonds which have united us as one people. These 
 are such outrages as change the heart of a nation and turn it from 
 feelings of fraternity into the bitterness of civil strife. I know the 
 temper of those I represent. They require no promptings to resist ag- 
 gression and to repel insult. Their determination is calmly and irre- 
 vocably fixed, as will be shown when a crisis requires their action. 
 This is our position — you of the North have not respected it. I know 
 yours, and cannot respect, it ; and, knowing it, came to this session of 
 Congress with melancholy foreboding — with apprehension that it might 
 be the last of our government. Doubt gathers upon doubt, and con- 
 viction slowly but steadily settles upon the mind, that aggression is the 
 fixed policy of the North, and that the hour for Southern resistance is 
 at hand. In the halls of Congress Southern representatives are put 
 on the defense of a domestic institution which they inherited and 
 which, notwithstanding the guarantees of the Constitution, it is at- 
 tempted to destroy by Federal interference." 
 
 On' January 29th Clay offered Compromise Resolutions, and sup- 
 ported them in an elaborate speech. Rusk, of Texas, Davis, of Missis- 
 sippi, and Mason of Virginia opposed them. The eight proposals of 
 Clay so far failed to make a real compromise as to secure support from 
 neither side of the Senate. 
 
 The slavery question was taken up in the Legislature of New York, 
 in a series of resolutions offered in the Senate early in the session, and 
 finally passed in the House, February 14th. The purpose of these res- 
 
270 THE. DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 olntions, which was to make an occasion for a division of the Demo- 
 crats, was for the most par-t defeated. 
 
 In the Senate, February 5th to 15th, Henry Clay spoke at length 
 on the Compromise Resolutions by which he sought to meet the situa- 
 tion. He said that if Congress attempted to interfere within the States 
 his vote would then be for war. Then the South would be called upon 
 for resistance. After an hour and a half of impressive argument and 
 appeal on the 5th, he continued for two hours on the 6th. There was 
 anything but compromise in- the reception accorded the speech. The 
 Southern Senators, without distinction of party, rejected it, declaring 
 that the resolution in relation to territorial governments proposed, vir- 
 tually, as direct prohibition of slavery therein as that of the Wilmot 
 Proviso. And not a single Northern Senator came to the support of 
 Clay's appeal. His proposition was, the admission of California with 
 no restriction as to slavery, and the establishment of territorial govern- 
 ments for the territories acquired from Mexico, outside of the boun- 
 daries of California, with no conditions or restrictions affecting slavery. 
 General Houston made a speech of great power in the Senate February 
 9th, in which he urged extension of the Missouri Compromise to the 
 Pacific, and declared his unyielding hostility to any application of its 
 restrictions south of the line fixed in that compromise. 
 
 A great Union meeting at Castle Garden, in New York, unani- 
 mously endorsed Clay's proposals. 
 
 California had taken action without waiting for action at Washing- 
 ton. The people assembled in September, 1849, ^^ Monterey, and on 
 October 13th a constitution was signed by members of a. convention 
 entrusted with the duty of calling into being the State of California. 
 In the Constitution adopted, slavery was prohibited. 
 
 On February nth Senator Chase, of Ohio, presented in the Senate 
 of the United States a. petition from citizens of Delaware and Mary- 
 land asking a peaceful dissolution of the Union — "a prayer," said the 
 Albany Argus, "that could" only come from the most desperate char- 
 acters or from perfect madmen." Three Senators only. Chase, Hale 
 and Seward, voted to receive it, and fifty voted refusing to receive. 
 Senator Cass protested that any such action would mean "one of the 
 bloodiest wars the world ever saw." Just at this time an Abolition 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 271 
 
 meeting, held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, denounced the poet Longfellow 
 for his lines on "The Ship of State." 
 
 W. L. Garrison offered the resolution, declaring regret that "the 
 poet Longfellow has prostituted his fine poetical genius to eulogize the 
 blood-stained American Union as freighted with the hopes and inter- 
 ests of humanity," when in fact this same Union "was destined to go 
 down 'full many a fathom deep' to the joy and exultation of all who 
 are yearning for the deliverance of a groaning world." The Gar- 
 risonian genius for violent exaggeration ran wild to all lengths of crazy 
 mendacity from this time on, with unquestionably the most deplorable 
 effect to exasperate not only the South to pro-slavery anger, but even 
 the North to hesitation in anti-slavery resolution and zeal. 
 
 An Albany Argus Washington letter of February loth said : 
 
 "The passage of the Wilmot Proviso into a law will certainly fear- 
 fully convulse, if not utterly dissolve, this Union of States. No man 
 here pretends to doubt it, not even those who are most profuse in their 
 sneers at the inability of the South to carry out their threats. Conscious 
 that slavery is already virtually excluded from the territories, the 
 South will regard the passage of the Proviso as intended as a personal 
 indignity and insult, and designed to degrade them in the eyes of the 
 nation and the world, and they are determined to resent it accordingly. 
 Is it worth while when the end proposed has already been accomplished 
 with reference to California, and is morally certain to be similarly ac- 
 complished in reference to the other territories — to force the South 
 into- this extremity for the sake of the assertion of a mere abstraction 
 which can be of no practical utility?" 
 
 The New York Journal of Commerce, early in February, 1850, 
 speaking of "the dangerous crisis" created by the slavery question, 
 said : 
 
 "As the case originally stood, it seemed incapable of solution. But 
 as it now stands the solution is easy. The gold discovery produced a 
 wondrous change. In a few short months it rendered the establishment 
 of slavery in California impossible. The rest of the new territory west 
 of Texas will follow the same example." 
 
 California, the new State, elected J. C. Fremont and William M. 
 Gwin Senators from the State in Congress. The Legislature of 
 
272 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the new State met December 15th, 1849, and on December 20th 
 had taken place the inaugm-ation of a Governor and Lieutenant- 
 Governor. Of the 54 members of the Legislature 47 were Dem- 
 ocrats. 
 
 On March 4, 1850, Senator Calhoun presented an appeal to the 
 Senate, in a two hours' speech, which was read by Mason, of Virginia. 
 He said that the primary cause of Southern discontent was the loss 
 of equilibrium between the South and the North, and that if it was not 
 settled it would end in disunion. Reviewing the charges of Northern 
 aggression, he said the North was forcing the South to secede, and 
 it must come unless the question was fairly and speedily settled. 
 The Ordinance of '87, the Missouri Compromise and the exclusion of 
 slavery from Oregon were acts of the general government giving con- 
 trol to a sectional majority by which the South was deprived of its 
 share in the territories. The system of revenues and disbursements, 
 moreover, which the North had adopted, had imposed unequal burdens 
 on the South. Congress, also, he said, had taken action concentrating 
 power in the Federal government, to the prejudice of the rights of the 
 States. The result was the ascendancy of the North in every depart- 
 ment of the government. There had developed, moreover, a hopeless 
 antagonism between the views and feelings of the North and those of 
 the South relative to the institution of slavery, which the South felt 
 to be necessary to her social organization. The cords of church union 
 were breaking, and not less those of political organizations. The 
 Union could not be saved by any such plan of compromise as Clay's or 
 that of the administration. 
 
 The course taken in California, setting up a State without the en- 
 abling action of Congress, was in gross violation of Constitutional prin- 
 ciple, and the exclusion of slavery by the State Constitution adopted 
 was without validity. The one basis of continuance of the Union was 
 the concession to the South of equal participation in the territories, 
 fidelity to the law in regard to fugitive slaves, cessation of aggressive 
 agitation against the social situation in the South, and such an amend- 
 ment of the Constitution as would give the South equal power with 
 the North for self-protection. The admission of California must serve 
 as a test, decisive of the intention of the North not to meet the just 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 273 
 
 demands of the South. If this is the case, let the States agree to sepa- 
 rate and part in peace. 
 
 On March 8th General Houston made a speech, the whole tone of 
 which was in opposition to extreme Southern views. 
 
 On March 7th Daniel Webster startled his Massachusetts Free Soil 
 constituents, and surprised the political world generally, by a speech of 
 reply to Calhoun, which yet took the most decided ground against 
 the Wilmot Proviso as unnecessary and useless, and in favor of leav- 
 ing all territories open to the slave States as well as to the free, and fur- 
 ther declared readiness on his part to do anything requisite to secure 
 action under the law for the arrest of fugitive slaves. 
 
 That Webster's speech was a profoundly just review of the historical 
 facts, and of the situation of the South in respect to legal bonds for 
 negro laborers and servants, and that his consent to new slave States, 
 as well as new free States, was a consent of statesmanship, logically 
 demanded and honorably conceded, the Garrison and negro Douglass 
 fanatics, and the Free Soil politicians, were too blind to see and too 
 partisan to understand. 
 
 On March nth Seward replied to both Calhoun and Webster. 
 He insisted upon the admission of California, regardless of slavery, 
 and categorically denied the representations and demands of Calhoun 
 in regard to the situation between the North and the South. 
 
 On March 12th Douglas spoke at length, advocating non-interven- 
 tion with slavery, and on March 14th he continued, advocating the im- 
 mediate and unconditional admission of California, disconnected from 
 all other questions. 
 
 Daniel Webster, on March 13th, pronounced the admission of Cali- 
 fornia, just as she was, the unquestionably proper course. 
 
 Senator Cass, on the 13th, said in the first part of an extensive 
 speech that he thought the fugitive slave bill ought to be taken up, 
 adjusted so as to be satisfactory to the majority, and passed. On the 
 next day he further said, in reply to Calhoun, that the action taken 
 by one -hundred thousand people on the shore of the Pacific, to safe- 
 guard themselves against anarchy, was no ground of complaint, much 
 less of objection to the admission of California. Commenting with 
 some severity on Calhoun's demand for an equilibrium between 
 
274 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the North and the South, he ridiculed it as impractical and non- 
 sensical. 
 
 The Washington Republic, supposed to speak as the organ of Presi- 
 dent Taylor, and the administration, reviewed Seward's speech with 
 a tone and terms more than suggesting a declaration of absolute an- 
 tagonism. Mr. Seward had said in regard to the fugitive slave law 
 that "no government had ever yet succeeded in changing the moral 
 convictions of its subjects by force; that the extradition of fugitives 
 from justice was not admitted by the law of nature and of nations; 
 that compacts for the extradition of slaves the law of nations disavows, 
 and the law of nature, in the hearts and consciences of freemen, re- 
 pudiates." 
 
 The evils of slavery Mr. Seward found in the fact that its influences 
 "are subversive of free institution, conducive of ignorance and conse- 
 quent vice, inhuman, expensive, and at war with equality and the in- 
 alienable rights of life, liberty and the choice of pursuits of happiness." 
 Therefore he "could not consent to the introduction of slavery into 
 any part of the Continent which is now exempt from so great an 
 evil." 
 
 Tlie Republic pronounced all such appeals to "higher law" as anar- 
 chistic, subjecting the law to the caprices of every citizen, and as the 
 worst form of disunion. 
 
 The death of John C. Calhoun on March 31, 1850, removed from 
 the political arena the only man who stood intellectually at the level 
 of consummate statesmanship with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. 
 However, in character and eloquence other members of Congress, at 
 the middle of the century, challenged recognition as political leaders, 
 Calhoun, Clay and Webster alone brought intellectual power of the 
 highest order to the great tasks of the chambers of legislation. 
 
 In New Mexico the people met in convention May 15th and May 
 25th, and a constitution was adopted, one of the provisions of which 
 was exclusion of slavery. It was a month later that news of this action 
 was received in St. Louis, and after two days published in Albany. 
 The convention in New Mexico had been held under a proclamation 
 of Colonel John Monroe, Civil and Military Governor. The action 
 thus taken caused great indignation among the Southern members of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 275 
 
 both houses at Washington, but was not unwelcome to the ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 On June 27th Daniel Webster spoke at length in the Senate urging 
 the immediate admission of California, and opposing the proposal of 
 Soule, of Louisiana, to extend the Missoui'i Compromise to the Pa- 
 cific and to organize the territory of South California. This proposal 
 was defeated on the 28th by a vote of 36 to 19. 
 
 On July loth, at 12 o'clock, Millard Fillmore was inaugurated 
 President, General Taylor having died the evening before. The Clay 
 and Webster Whigs were by this event brought into power. On July 
 20th President Fillmore announced to the Senate his Cabinet : Daniel 
 Webster, State Department; Thomas Corwin, Treasury; James A. 
 Pearce, Interior; Edward Bates, War; William A. Graham, Navy; 
 John J. Crittenden, Attorney-General ; N. K. Hall, of New York, Post- 
 master-General — the latter a law partner of the President. 
 
 On July 22d Henry Clay made another of his marvelously eloquent 
 speeches in support of the compromise measures reported by him from 
 the Committee of Thirteen. But with the last day of July, after two or 
 three days of varying action, it was voted, by 34 to 24, in the Senate, 
 to strike out from the scheme all the sections excepting that relating 
 to Utah. The question of the boundary of Texas threatened to stand 
 in the way of any action in regard to California, and, on August 6th, 
 President Fillmore sent in a special message urging the settlement of 
 that question by reasonable concessions to Texas. A bill passed in the 
 Senate August 9th defining the proper boundary and tendering to Texas 
 an indemnity of ten millions for the surrender of her claim to disputed 
 territory. 
 
 On August 13th a California bill passed the Senate by 34 yeas 
 to 18 nays. It was the bill introduced in March by Senator Douglas, 
 with an amendment in the third section. On August 14th a bill, 
 organizing the territory of New Mexico, also passed the Senate, by a 
 vote of 2y to 10. On the same day Senator Mason presented a protest 
 of himself and eight other southern members against the admission of 
 California, and most solemnly urged to have it entered on the journal 
 of the Senate. After considerable discussion it was laid on the table 
 by a vote of 22 to 10. 
 
276 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 On August 23d a Fugitive Slave Bill passed the Senate by a vote 
 of 27 to 12, and on August 28th the House voted by 168 to 34 not to 
 refuse consideration of the Texas boundary bill of the Senate. This, 
 however, was reconsidered, and a bill passed September 6th with a New 
 Mexico territorial bill attached, by a vote of 107 to 97, and the next day 
 the House passed the California admission bill by a vote of 150 to 57, 
 2nd the Utah territorial bill by 97 to 85. The Wilmot Proviso was 
 excluded from both of the territorial bills, and it was believed that "the 
 irritating and absorbing question of slavery, which had so long threat- 
 ened the tranquillity and integrity of the Union, had been put to rest, 
 never again (it was hoped) to be revived with its train of disturbing 
 and dangerous influences." On September loth Mr. Gwin and Colonel 
 Fremont took their seats in the Senate. 
 
 On September i6th Clay's bill for abolishing the slave trade in the 
 District of Columbia passed the Senate, and on the next day passed the 
 House. This was the last of the measures proposed by Clay on behalf 
 of the Committee of Thirteen ; all had gone through, and on the next 
 day Mr. Clay said in the Senate : "There is peace now throughout our 
 borders, and I hope it will be perpetual and universal." 
 
 Here it is very appropriate to say that more effective than all the 
 magnificent speeches, more effective than all the long and wordy reso- 
 lutions, was the adoption of popular or "squatter" sovereignty, which 
 was, in effect, to allow the people of a territory to determine the ques- 
 tion of slavery for themselves — a simple, sensible and Democratic 
 proceeding. The northern Democrats had favored annexation and the 
 Wilmot Proviso. "Squatter sovereignty" enabled them to turn about 
 and oppose the Wilmot Proviso. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention met at Syracuse, September i ith, 
 and on September 13th put in nomination Horatio Seymour for Gov- 
 ernor, Sanford E. Church for Lieutenant-Governor, John C. Mather 
 for Canal Commissioner, and William P. Angel for State Prison In- 
 spector. 
 
 The Whig State Convention met at Syracuse on September 26th 
 and came to open rupture of the most serious character. A Hunt and 
 Cornell ticket was put in nomination by one section, while the other 
 seceded and issued a call for a convention to be held October 17th, at 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 277 
 
 Utica. The platform adopted by the majority at Syracuse was of a 
 sectional character, inconsistent with support of the administration. 
 The seceders, thirty-eight in number, issued an address appealing for 
 the support of all "who desire to maintain their connection with the 
 Whig Party of the United States, and who are opposed to the action 
 of the convention recently held at Syracuse, in condemning the course 
 of President Fillmore and his Cabinet, and in seeking to renew agita- 
 tion on the subject of slavery." 
 
 On September 27th the first case under the new slave law came up 
 in New York, and a negro man was returned to a Mrs. Brown, of 
 Baltimore, from whose service he had escaped two years before. The 
 new situation created by efficient local support of the efforts of owners 
 to recover runaway slaves caused a considerable uprising in the chief 
 cities of the North, both of the colored people, not a few of whom were 
 fugitives from slavery, and of anti-slavery zealots, who counted it a 
 moral concession beyond the requirements of the Constitution for 
 northern States to take any hand in rendition proceedings, or even for 
 the United States to supplement the Constitution by action designed to 
 make it more than a dead letter. 
 
 General Cass, at a reception given him in New York, at Tammany 
 Hall, October ist, said of the recent measures passed by Congress : 
 
 "We have now a national platform of American principles on which 
 we can all stand, and we can exist only as a national party. The satis- 
 factory settlement of the slavery question was owing to the people 
 themselves. Your own Senator Dickinson, Mr. Foote, Henry Clay, 
 and Daniel Webster aided in settling it." 
 
 The Pennsylvania and Ohio elections of October 9th were compre- 
 hensive Democratic victories, as that of Maryland a few days earlier 
 had been. The "National" Whig Convention at Utica, October 17th, 
 did nothing more than to agree to accept the Syracuse Whig ticket, 
 with the understanding that the ticket was national, even if the Syra- 
 cuse platform was not. 
 
 In the State election, November 5, 1850, Washington Hunt was 
 elected Governor, and Sanford E. Church, a Democrat, Lieutenant- 
 Governor. The Whig majority by which Washington Hunt was elected 
 Comptroller in the previous year was cut down about 5,ocx). The 
 
278 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Democratic gain lacked about i,ooo votes of electing Seymour ; and yet 
 all the Democratic candidates except Seymour were elected. For mem- 
 bers of Congress there were 17 Whigs and 17 Democrats. The As- 
 sembly stood 82 Whigs to 44 Democrats, and 2 Independent Demo- 
 crats, and the Senate elected a year earlier was Whig by a majority of 
 two. 
 
 On joint ballot the Whigs would have 99 votes and the Democrats 
 61, and would thus be able to defeat Senator Dickinson for re-election. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 279 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 Slavery Agitation — Bills Passed by Assembly of 1850-1852 — Conven- 
 tions of 1850 — Conventions and Elections of 185 1 — Slave Riot 
 at Syracuse — Death of Henry Clay — The Hungarian Episode 
 — Conventions and Elections of 1852 — Election of Governor 
 Seymour — Inauguration of President Pierce — Report on 
 Canals — ^^Conventions of 1853. 
 
 Although the adoption of squatter sovereignty put to rest for a 
 time the question of slavery in annexed territory, and although such 
 statesmen as Clay and Webster believed that legislative action at Wash- 
 ington had forever given the slave question its quietus and produced 
 abiding peace, that peace was destined to be but of short duration. The 
 inevitable struggle had to come, and come it did in 1861. The dis- 
 cussion of the grave question of slavery and the rights of the southern 
 States was scarcely allayed by all the work of Congress ; not only poli- 
 ticians, but the public press kept the question alive before the public. 
 In the North this was done with apparently the best intentions, the aim 
 being to hold the people to a composed state of mind. 
 
 In reviewing a speech by Senator Douglas at Chicago, attacking the 
 nullification declarations of the Chicago Common Council, the Albany 
 Argus said of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850: 
 
 "It is a measure that must be sustained as it is, or the compromise 
 is violated. It is the essential measure of the series of peace measures 
 passed by Congress. If that is disturbed, the compromise loses the ele- 
 ment which makes it a compromise. The North will have gained every- 
 thing — the South nothing. The South insists upon its being executed 
 in good faith, as a matter of constitutional right and obligation. That 
 right on the one side, and that obligation on the other, cannot be in- 
 validated or evaded, except at the fearful hazard of disruption, anarchy 
 and civil war." 
 
 At the anniversary of the New England Society, Monday evening, 
 
28o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 December 23, at the Astor House in New York, Daniel Webster said : 
 "The dayspring from on high has visited us, the time for disunion has 
 gone by, never to return." 
 
 December 2, 1850, the first message of President Fillmore, pre- 
 sented to Congress, announced that his administration would stand 
 upon all the compromise bills without exception or abatement in any 
 respect. To a letter, however, of Governor Seabrook of South Caro- 
 lina, asking for an explanation of the sending to Charleston of addi- 
 tional troops, the President replied that he was not responsible to any 
 State authorities. 
 
 A new Free School bill, giving final decisive recognition to the prin- 
 ciple of free schools, passed in the New York Assembly, March 28, 
 185 1, by a vote of 72 to 23. The bill did not indeed carry out the free 
 school principle to the full extent of supporting schools entirely by tax 
 on the property of the State. Beyond $800,000 raised by State tax, 
 further expense was provided for through a rate bill in the several 
 districts. On April loth the bill passed the Senate. 
 
 An Erie Canal Enlargement bill was ordered to a third reading in 
 the Assembly, March 29th; April ist, instructions to amend, essentially 
 changing the character of the bill, were adopted, and in the form under 
 which the bill came up for passage, April 17th, it authorized a loan 
 of nine million dollars on a pledge of "the remainder of the canal 
 revenues in each fiscal year." In protest against this, as grossly vio- 
 lating the Constitution of the State, twelve Democratic Senators ten- 
 dered their resignations. The disbanding of the Legislature by ad- 
 journment sine die which followed, not only left the canal bill hanging, 
 but caused the loss of a great many important bills. In an address 
 issued by the Democratic members of the Legislature, fifteen Senators 
 and forty Assemblymen, the reasons which induced twelve Senators to 
 resign were set forth. The action was taken under a self-protection 
 clause in the Constitution of Democratic origin. The Whigs had a 
 full working majority of seventeen when they abruptly closed the ses- 
 sion without action on bills of general importance, and under the proffer 
 of one of the Democratic minority they had also the necessary quorum 
 to pass all the appropriation and other bills requiring the presence of 
 three-fifths of the members. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 281 
 
 At the twenty-sixth ballot, on April 24, 1851, and after a prolonged 
 struggle, Charles Sumner was elected to the United States Senate from 
 Massachusetts, by a combination of Free Soil Whigs and Democrats, 
 the Whig candidate Winthrop getting but 166 of 384 votes, and Sum- 
 ner 193. 
 
 On May 5, 1851, a Southern Rights' Convention in the interest of 
 disunion as a remedy for the situation of the owners of slaves, met in 
 Charleston, South Carolina. Ex-Governor J. P. Richardson, chairman 
 of the convention, declared that southern institutions, under existing 
 circumstances, could not last twenty years. The blood and treasure 
 expended by the South were disregarded by the exclusion of slavery 
 from the territories. He further said : "When dangers thus reach 
 our very doors, it is time to arm. It is futile to hope that the Constitu- 
 tion, based upon such legislation, can survive." On the second day. 
 May 6, a resolution by Rhett, advocating separate State action and 
 favoring secession, had a "fearfully enthusiastic" reception. Langdon 
 Cheves and Judge Butler, advocating moderation, were overborne. 
 
 An Anti-Slavery Convention at Syracuse, N. Y., in session at the 
 same time, gave occasion to Edmund Quincy of Boston, to declare in 
 a resolution unanimously passed, that "the great cardinal doctrine of 
 the right of secession by the single State is a doctrine vital to liberty, 
 and the only safeguard of the sovereignties from the tyranny of crush- 
 ing centralization." 
 
 The Boston Commonwealth, a paper edited by Quincy, said at this 
 time : "The Union ! Can a union of pirates last long, or be otherwise 
 than a curse while it does last ?" 
 
 The New York Tribune at the time said : 
 
 "There is no alternative between emancipation under some form and 
 a servile revolt. Free the blacks or in time they will terribly free them- 
 selves." 
 
 From these utterances it will be seen that there was not lacking 
 either in the North or in the South a strong sentiment impelling toward 
 the clash which finally came in 1861. 
 
 May 14, 15 and 16, a grand excursion from New York to Bufifalo, 
 with President Fillmore and his Cabinet as guests, celebrated the com- 
 pletion of the Erie Railroad to Dunkirk — the trip thence to Bufifalo 
 
282 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 being made by steamer. At Dunkirk the President gave the toast "The 
 New York and Erie Railroad — the greatest private enterprise of the 
 age." 
 
 The special election, September 27, to fill the vacancies in the State 
 Senate, caused by the resignation of twelve Democratic Senators, re- 
 sulted in the re-election of six of the retiring Senators and the success, 
 against five of the other six, of Canal-bill men. One district was a tie 
 and no Senator elected. Of the five new Senators, three were Canal- 
 bill Democrats and two Whigs. 
 
 The Canal bill passed in the Senate by twenty-two votes to eight. 
 An Oswego Canal Enlargement bill was also passed. Chief Justice 
 Bronson, who had lately retired from the bench to practice as a coun- 
 selor in New York, gave at this time an opinion that the Canal Act, 
 as finally passed, "does not conflict with the fundamental law." A 
 contrary opinion was shortly after given by "one of the most learned 
 and able of the legal profession." 
 
 The Democratic State Convention for nomination of State officers 
 met September 10, 185 1, at Syracuse, and on the 12th nominated for 
 Judge of the Court of Appeals, Alexander S. Johnson ; for Comptroller, 
 John C. Wright ; for Secretary of State, Henry S. Randall ; for Treas- 
 urer, Benjamin Welch, Jr.; for Attorney-General, Levi S. Chatfield; 
 for State Engineer and Surveyor, William J. McAlpine; for Canal 
 Commissioner, Horace Wheaton; for State Prison Inspector, Henry 
 Storms. The positions taken by the convention were harmoniously and 
 unanimously reached, and by no delegate was any extreme proposal 
 made or expression uttered. 
 
 A fugitive-slave riot of considerable proportions' occurred at Syra- 
 cuse, September 30th, with the rescue of the slave, and a hot assault 
 upon the owner claiming his return. On the same day at Bufifalo a 
 negro boy of ten years of age was remanded upon the demand of his 
 master, and great public excitement occasioned. 
 
 On October 8, 1851, the completion of the Hudson River Railroad 
 through from New York to Albany was celebrated. A train of seven 
 cars came up from New York in three hours and twenty-four minutes 
 running time. James Boorman, who had recently resigned the presi- 
 dency of the company, gave an account at the banquet in Albany of his 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 283 
 
 experience as pioneer of the great enterprise which had been inaugu- 
 rated in 1840. 
 
 On the next day after the State election of November 4, 1851, the 
 returns had "a decided Whig aspect," but ten days later it seemed 
 reasonable to claim "the election of the entire Democratic State ticket" 
 — but a day cut that down one-half as to certainty and one-quarter as 
 to probabilities. It was not until December i that the last official re- 
 turns showed that two Whigs had got in with six Democrats, Cook 
 for Treasurer and Fitzhugh for Canal Commissioner. The State 
 Senate was a tie, 16 to 16, and the Assembly 63 Democrats to 65 
 Whigs. The final record of votes cast was for Johnson (D.), Judge 
 of the Court of Appeals, 201,144 to 197,823 for Samuel A. Foot (W.) ; 
 for Randall (D.), Secretary of State, 199,426 to 158,582 for James C. 
 Forsyth (W.) ; for Wright (D.), Comptroller, 200,790 to 200,532 for 
 George W. Patterson (W.) ; for James M. Cook (W.), Treasurer, 
 200,693 to 200,465 for Welch (D.) ; for McAlpine (D.), State En- 
 gineer and Surveyor, 203,032 to 199,304 for Hezekiah C. Seymour 
 (W.) ; for Henry Fitzhugh (W.), Canal Commissioner, 201,147 to 
 200,234 for Wheaton (D.) ; for Storms (D.), Inspector of State Pris- 
 ons, 202,801 to 198,578 for Alexander H. Wells (W.) ; for Chatfield 
 CD.), Attorney-General, 200,205 to 199,973 ior* Daniel Ullman (W.). 
 For the aggregate of votes the scattering, for Attorney-General, 
 were 2,987. 
 
 The celebrated Hungarian patriot and phenomenally eloquent 
 orator, Louis Kossuth, arrived in New York, December 5, 185 1, and 
 was the recipient of a magnificent reception, not only in the metropolis 
 and at the capital, but in the chief cities of the State, until December 
 22d, when he proceeded to Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, 
 everywhere meeting a welcome almost unprecedented from the mass 
 of the people. 
 
 Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, in an elaborate and well- 
 considered speech, took very advanced ground against the treatment 
 which Hungary had received, and closed an appeal of great eloquence 
 -with the toast: "Hungarian independence; Hungarian control of her 
 own destinies, and Hungary as a distinct nationality among the nations 
 of Europe." 
 
284 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 On December 17, 1851, Henry Clay's letter of resignation Tronii the 
 Senate of the United States, addressed to the General Assembly of 
 Kentucky, to take effect on the first Monday in September, 1852, an- 
 nounced that the voice second to none in charm and appealing power, 
 whatever the audience addressed, had been heard in the councils of 
 American statesmen for the last time. 
 
 February 9th, 1852, a gold medal, of great value and very artistic 
 in execution, was presented to Clay, in his sick room at Washington, 
 as a token of high appreciation from New York friends. On the face 
 of it was engraved all the great public measures which Clay had 
 effectively promoted, and on the other side a remarkably good likeness 
 of the great orator-statesman, who just then stood to all parties in the 
 North as a conspicuous figure of union interests against disunion. 
 
 February 10, 1852, General Cass made a singularly lucid and able 
 speech in the United States Senate, declaring with great emphasis that 
 the people of the United States were not prepared to maintain the rights 
 of Hungary by war; that the only influence we could exert was a 
 moral and not a physical one, and that, although the present occasion 
 was a violation of public law suflficient to justify the armed action of 
 any nation, yet our present duty and policy were to place our views 
 upon record, leaving the future to disclose our proper obligations and 
 our proper line of policy. 
 
 On February 20, 1852, a debate took place in the New York As- 
 sembly on the abolition of feudal tenures still existing in the form of 
 manorial titles. 
 
 The question of contracts under the Canal law of 185 1 came up 
 for extended consideration in the Legislature of 1852, and on the ist 
 of April a bill affirming the validity of such contracts passed the As- 
 sembly by a vote of 76 to 24. Of this vote 23 Democrats voted for and 
 the same number against the bill. 
 
 In March, 1852, Judge Brown, of the Second District Court, pro*- 
 nounced against the constitutionality of the Stale Canal law, and, al- 
 though the Whig Albany Journal treated the decision as a matter for 
 ridicule, the full bench of the Supreme Court, all the judges concurring 
 in the opinion, affirmed Judge Brown's decision. The Senate passed the 
 bill April 13, by a vote of 19 to 9. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 285 
 
 A Whig caucus at Washington, April 20, 1852, was signalized by 
 an open rupture between the northern and southern Whigs, growing 
 out of old differences on the subject of the compromise measures, which 
 were in fact Democratic measures carried by Democratic votes. A de- 
 bate the next day in the House brought out very clearly the fact that 
 the Whig national convention was not likely to accept the compromise 
 measures fathered by Henry Clay, as a finality, but would favor the 
 free-soil section of the party and have no principles to avow. Ten 
 southern Whigs of note and influence issued a manifesto justifying 
 their secession from the Whig congressional caucus. 
 
 A new bill of apportionment for 1852, making the number of con- 
 gressional districts for thirty-one States 234, and of presidential elec- 
 tors 296, reduced New York from 36 members of the House in 1848 
 
 toss- 
 In May, 1852, the Court of Appeals, five judges concurring, pro- 
 nounced the Canal law unconstitutional. 
 
 May 18 the Hungarian orator-patriot was sent from Boston to 
 Albany, after magnificent entertainment in Massachusetts, and was 
 accorded a welcome scarcely less demonstrative by Governor Hunt and 
 the people of Albany. On the 20th, the Third Presbyterian Church 
 was crowded to the doors by sympathizers with democracy in Europe, 
 who paid one dollar to five dollars each, for tickets of admission, to 
 listen to the master-orator of European emancipation, who for more 
 than five months had borne through the country the standard of Hun- 
 garian liberty. 
 
 The representative of Austria at Washington, M. Hulseman, to 
 whom Daniel Webster, President Fillmore's Secretary of State, had 
 refused audience, requiring communication by letter, had sent a note 
 April 20th announcing his withdrawal, because his government would 
 no longer permit him to "continue official relations with the principal 
 promoter of the Kossuth episode." 
 
 The Democratic National Convention of 1852 met at Baltimore 
 June I, and began balloting for presidential candidates, June 3, with 
 Cass, Buchanan, Marcy, and Douglas the leading ones. There were 
 116, 93, 27, and 21 votes, respectively, on the first ballot. With Cass 
 123 on the thirty-third ballot, June 4th, the name which was to win 
 
286 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 had not appeared. On the thirty-fifth ballot, the next day, Virginia 
 cast her vote for Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire. On the forty- 
 eighth ballot the chief candidates stood : Marcy 89, Cass 72, Pierce 
 55, Douglas 33, Buchanan 28. The very next ballot gave Pierce 283 to 
 Cass 2, Buchanan 2, and Marcy i. 
 
 Franklin Pierce was a popular brigadier-general, appointed by 
 President Polk and brilliantly successful at Cherubusco and other bat- 
 tles before the City of Mexico. His father was a Jackson Democrat, 
 elected Governor of New Hampshire in 1827, defeated by the John 
 Quincy Adams faction for re-election the next year, but again elected 
 in 1829. General Pierce's earlier years had been devoted to public 
 life, but in 1842 he resigned from the United States Senate with the 
 fixed purpose never again to leave his home for public station, or 
 service, unless in time of war, and upon this ground he had declined 
 President Polk's invitation to him to take the office of Attorney-Gen- 
 eral. The delicate health of an invalid wife was to him "an insur- 
 mountable objection to our leaving our quiet home for a public station 
 at Washington." 
 
 General Pierce had been from his college days greatly beloved for 
 his genial nature, fine manners and rare character. He entered upon 
 law practice in 1827, was elected to the New Hampshire Legislature 
 in 1829, and was Speaker of the House in 183 1 and 1832 ; was a mem- 
 ber of the House of Representatives at Washington, 1833-37, and of 
 the Senate from March 4th, 1837, to his resignation in February, 1842. 
 From 1838 his residence had been at Concord, N. H., and for ten years 
 before his nomination at Baltimore he had stood at the head of his 
 profession in New Hampshire. Soon after declining to be Attorney- 
 General under President Polk, he responded to the call of duty in the 
 war with Mexico, and during nine months of service made a record of 
 efficiency and personal character in the highest degree honorable to 
 himself and to the service. At the time of his election to the United 
 States Senate, he was the youngest man that had ever entered that 
 body from the North, and he, if elected, would be the youngest Presi- 
 dent up to that time. "Incomparably the most promising candidate the 
 late convention could have placed upon the course ; a man of most noble 
 and cordial address ; a man who has no superior in detecting character ; 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 287 
 
 a cautious and well-balanced man, who would be a safe President ; and, 
 like Daniel Webster, a Union man in spirit as in name," was the testi- 
 mony of the chief Webster Whig organ of Boston. His career as 
 President added nothing to his fame, except the name. 
 
 The Whig National Convention, held at Baltimore, June i6th, 19th, 
 and 2 1st, reached a nomination on the fifty-third ballot by a vote of 
 157 for General Scott, 107 for Fillmore, and 19 for Daniel Webster. 
 The latter's vote at no time exceeded 30, although the convention rose 
 at his name with immense applause. President Fillmore's Secretary of 
 the Navy, Hon. William A. Graham, of North Carolina, was nomi- 
 nated for Vice-President. Gen. Scott was not acceptable to the south- 
 ern members, and even Whig organs frankly declared that, as com- 
 pared with Daniel Webster especially, he was a candidate of no real 
 weight against General Pierce. 
 
 The resolutions adopted by the convention declared that Congress 
 has no power under the Constitution to interfere with slavery where it 
 is a State domestic institution; that the recently adopted compromise 
 measures, including "the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or 
 labor," should be faithfully executed; that efforts tO' induce Congress 
 to take a contrary course endanger the union of the States ; and that all 
 attempts to renew agitation of the slavery c[uestion, in whatever form 
 or under whatever color, are regarded as of like dangerous tendency. 
 
 On June 5, Kossuth made an address of farewell in Albany, in 
 which he spoke particularly of the part which the youth of Europe had 
 acted during the stormy days of the century. 
 
 The failure of the Whig Convention to nominate Daniel Webster 
 was regarded in New York, as well as in Boston and in those States 
 which could be expected generally to cast a Whig vote, as a need- 
 less sacrifice of the prospects of the party. In Boston the news of 
 Scott's nomination "fell like a funeral pall upon the spirits" of the 
 Whigs generally, except a few of free-soil proclivities. Even Demo- 
 crats were disgusted with the treatment accorded to Webster. A 
 New York Whig organ said : "The mass of the Whigs in this city 
 have received the intelligence with sullen indignation. On every side 
 have we heard determination expressed not to support the Baltimore 
 nominee." 
 
288 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Another organ of Webster's said : "The nomination of Scott fell 
 like a shower of ice over the city. The same may be safely said ot all 
 New England. The nomination has hung the political sky with a 
 black, ponderous cloud." New York Whigs charge that Scott's nomi- 
 nation was due to control of the party by "Seward, Weed, Greeley, 
 Johnston, and the Syracuse rioters, the men of abolition, anti-rent and 
 all manner of 'isms.' " "Conservative Whigs generally," the writer 
 added, "and in the southern States universally, must consider the party 
 as in effect broken up. Southern men, at least, although defeated, can- 
 not surrender to the treacherous foe whose knife has so long sought 
 their throats. The election will show that the party will no longer have 
 a show of existence." 
 
 Speedy publication of letters of General Scott presented him as a 
 representative of intolerant and prescriptive views of citizenship, deny- 
 ing its privileges to persons of foreign birth ; of opposition to the exer- 
 cise of the veto power, and of favor to a variety of exploded and dis- 
 carded Whig heresies. It added to the confusion of the situation for 
 the Whig Party that the New York Tribune, representing Scott as 
 against Webster, repudiated the Whig platform in its pretended ac- 
 ceptance of compromise and of disuse of agitation. 
 
 The death, June 29, 1852, of Henry Clay, the statesman above all 
 others of the national, as against the Free Soil Whigs, added to the 
 gloom of Webster's defeat in the Baltimore Convention. 
 
 A magnificent reception to Daniel Webster on Boston Common, 
 July 9th, brought out very general expression of opinion that he would be 
 run, or at least ought to be run, as an independent candidate for Presi- 
 dent ; and a day or two later a call for a convention at Philadelphia on 
 August 1st, to carry out this suggestion, was published. 
 
 With the August elections in several States, wherever an oppor- 
 tunity for a contest was presented, the Democracy prevailed, and of 
 the thirty-one Governors of States the Whigs had left on their side 
 only five. 
 
 The New York Democratic State Convention assembled at Syra- 
 cuse September ist, and on the 2d put in nomination, in addition to 
 presidential electors, the following State ticket : 
 
 For Governor, Horatio Seymour; for Lieutenant-Governor, San- 
 
^-"t,, tl, ^Z-? rMl,',„ms S^rr ,T; 
 
 M.OKATIO SEYMOUR. 
 
 {■^i.'c-/' f'.-o'/i'i- .'^■■-'■'rt^ ''~^ 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 289 
 
 ford E. Church; for Canal Commissioner, Frederick Follett; and for 
 State Prison Inspector, Darius Clark. 
 
 As late as the middle of September, General Webb, in the New York 
 Courier and Enquirer, denounced as "an act of national ingratitude 
 and political insanity," the failure to nominate Webster instead of 
 Scott, at Baltimore. Meanwhile the suggestion of a Webster national 
 convention had been taken up in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, 
 Massachusetts and other States. 
 
 In the Whig State Convention at Syracuse, September 22, 1852, 
 which nominated Governor Hunt for re-election, the- finality of the 
 compromise measures was virtually repudiated. 
 
 • The October elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana placed 
 those great States in the- Democratic column; and at the same time 
 North Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Maine, and Connecticut 
 were heard from to the same effect ; Florida also a little later. These 
 results ensured Democratic preponderance in both Houses of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 The news from the national election of November 2, 1852, pub- 
 lished the next morning, gave Scott two States and 18 votes, and 
 Pierce fourteen States and 174 votes. This was changed the next 
 morning to 30 for Scott and 205 for Pierce. The final vote was 254 
 for Pierce and 42 for Scott. 
 
 This was the last of the Whigs as a national party. Whigism was 
 a second growth of Federalism and was succeeded by Republicanism, 
 a third sprout from the same root, but upon the grown tree not a few 
 Democratic buds have been engrafted. 
 
 The Pierce majority in New York was over 27,000. The Con- 
 gressional delegation from the State stood at 20 Democrats, 10 Whigs, 
 and 3 Independents. The State Assembly counted 85 Democrats and 
 42 Whigs. The average Democratic majority on the State ticket was 
 over 23,000. The entire vote — the largest polled up to that time — 
 showed an increase over the popular vote of 1850 of 73,840. The 
 vote for Governor — for Seymour, 264,121 ; for Hunt, 239,736, and for 
 Tompkins, 19,299 — aggregated a total of 523,126, and with some 
 votes thrown away, 524,915. 
 
 The aggregate vote for Pierce and King was 262,158; for Scott and 
 
290 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Graham, 234,889, and for Hale and Julian, 25,433, making the entire 
 vote in the State for President 522,480. 
 
 With the inauguration of President-elect Pierce, the following 
 members of his Cabinet were chosen and their names sent to the Senate, 
 March 7, 1853 : William L. Marcy, of New York, Secretary of State; 
 James Guthrie, of Kentucky, Treasury ; Robert McClelland, of Mich- 
 igan, Secretary of Interior ; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Secretary 
 of War; James C. Dobbin, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy; 
 James Campbell, of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-General, and Caleb 
 Gushing, of Massachusetts, Attorney-General. 
 
 The inaugural message of Governor Seymour made important sug- 
 gestions in regard to the canals, and these he reiterated and urged upon 
 the Legislature in a special message,.of April 5th. On the same day 
 the Senate voted favorably, by 20 to 5, on a plan for such a change.of 
 the State Constitution as would permit a general carrying to comple- 
 tion of the public works. The message pointed out that by June i, 
 1853, there would be a complete line of enlarged locks on the Erie 
 Canal between Albany and Buffalo; that a large number of boats, 
 capable of carrying two hundred and' forty tons, and adapted to the 
 enlargement of the locks, had been built during the winter of 1852- 
 1853, ready to be brought into use upon the completion of the locks; 
 these boats adapted to an extreme lock width oi fifteen feet seven 
 inches, while the old boats were for the most part fourteen feet six 
 inches wide from outside to outside, would require an increased width 
 of the bottom of the canal ; that the old Erie Canal was forty feet wide 
 at the top and twenty-eight feet wide at the bottom; and that unless 
 greater width can be given to the bottom of the old canal, the naviga- 
 tion must be greatly obstructed by the wedging of boats in the nar- 
 rower part of the line. 
 
 The message further stated that the utility of the canal had been 
 greatly restricted during the past season by the want of breadth in the 
 canal at many points, to allow the largest of even the old class of boats 
 to pass each other loaded, and with the larger new boats the trouble 
 would be very much worse. During three or four years, moreover, 
 the uncertainties of the situation had discouraged the building of more 
 boats of the old size, and yet had not encouraged building boats of the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 291 
 
 new size; so that boats enough for the business offered had not been 
 provided; canal freights had advanced for the last two years in spite 
 of a reduction of canal tolls ; a very large trade had been forced to seek 
 other channels ; and from all these causes the State had suffered largely 
 in her revenues. The State Engineer's proposals for raising the banks 
 for the entire length of the Erie Canal, where the enlargement had not 
 been made, would give a depth of five feet of water at an estimated cost 
 of $533,967, and the elevation of the water would furnish an addi- 
 tional width, permitting boats of the enlarged size, drawing three feet 
 of water, to pass on the straight portions of the canal. At the curves, 
 and at some places where the width has been contracted an increase 
 of the width was suggested. "The number of boats in use upon the 
 canal in 1848 was 3,991, while the present number (April, 1853) is 
 but 3,404. There has also been a falling off from the tonnage. The 
 canals annually pay into the State Treasury the amount of $550,000, 
 and the judicious expenditure of $533,000 will nearly double the 
 capacity of the Erie Canal ; will admit of the convenient use of the en- 
 larged boat ; will cheapen its navigation and protect its commerce from 
 the danger of an entire interruption by the failure of structures needing 
 repair. The additional sum of $50,000 will in. like manner improve 
 the channel of the Oswego Canal ; $75,000 will connect the Black River 
 Canal with the Black River at High Falls, and $100,000 will extend 
 the Genesee Valley Canal sixteen miles to Cuba. Besides paying more 
 than half a million towards the expenses of the State and the interest 
 of the State debt, the canals contribute annually $1,300,000 to pay the 
 interest and principal of the canal debt. There cannot be unwilling- 
 ness to have the sum of $758,000 raised by some form of taxation for 
 the objects involved in the completion of the Erie Canal enlargement. 
 I also think that the Oswego (and the Cayuga and Seneca canals) 
 should also be increased to the proposed dimensions of seventy feet 
 width and seven feet depth ; and I recommend an annual application of 
 at least $1,000,000 for the purpose of effecting these objects. Under 
 the policy which was pursued before 1835, the State constructed and 
 nearly paid for six hundred and fifty-six miles of canals, connecting 
 the Hudson River with the Erie, Ontario, Cayuga, Seneca and Crooked 
 lakes, and with the valleys of the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers. 
 
292 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 This great system of internal improvement cost only $11,652,652.76, 
 although it was conducted under great disadvantages, as the Erie Canal 
 traversed a great extent of dense forests and pestilential swamps. 
 Since that time we have expended on our canals $25,240,000, besides 
 $9,477,000 paid for interest ; yet no public work commenced subsequent 
 to 1835 has been completed." * 
 
 The question of amending the Constitution of the State in such a 
 manner as to secure the- speedy completion of the public works was 
 vigorously pressed by the majority of Democratic legislators, and April 
 6th the Senate voted by 19 to 6 to propose an amendment "enabling 
 the State to borrow a sufficient amount of money to complete in the 
 most expeditious manner the enlargement of the Erie Canal commen- 
 surate with the greatly increased productions of the country." The 
 language quoted is that of the New York Chamber of Commerce urging 
 the action taken by the Senate. 
 
 The sum contemplated to be spent was fixed at ten and a half mil- 
 lions. The action of the Assembly left the question undecided, while 
 the Legislature took a recess, April 1 5th, the second day of an extra 
 session, until May 24th. 
 
 Just before the hour of adjournment, April 13th, a select committee, 
 appointed March 17th, sprung upon the Assembly a report and reso- 
 lutions of impeachment of John C. Mather, Canal Commissioner. The 
 staunchly national character of Commissioner Mather's Democracy, 
 with the character of the committee, backed by the Speaker of the 
 Assembly, together with malignant Free Soil zealots, sufficiently in- 
 dicated a conspiracy to injure a good man by charges of a wholly 
 trumped-up character. 
 
 Upon the reconvening of the Legislature, May 24th, the action of 
 the Assembly gave small promise of acceptance of the action of the 
 Senate. The result was a conference committee, which reached an 
 agreement June nth, practically approving the proposals which had 
 passed the Senate; providing for speedy enlargement and completion, 
 by loans based upon the net earnings of the canals, and without add- 
 ing to the public burdens. The plan thus agreed upon passed the As- 
 sembly, June 14, by a unanimous vote, and passed the Senate the next 
 day with only one negative vote. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 293 
 
 On September 13, 1853, the Democratic State Convention met at 
 Syracuse, under circumstances of such confusion from an attempt by 
 Free Soil and coalition contesting delegations to preoccupy the place 
 of meeting and to capture the convention, that it was with great diffi- 
 culty "that the regular Democracy transacted the business of the con- 
 vention. It put in nomination the following candidates for State 
 offices : James E. Cooley, for Comptroller ; George W. Clinton, for Sec- 
 retary of State ; Winslow C. Watson, for State Treasurer ; James T. 
 Brady, for Attorney-General; John C. Mather, for Canal Commis- 
 sioner ; John D. Fay, for State Engineer ; Miles W. Bennett, for State 
 Prison Inspector ; Hiram Denio and Charles H. Ruggles, for Judges 
 of the Court of Appeals ; Samuel S. Bowne, for Clerk of the Court of 
 Appeals, and for Justices of the Supreme Court, Third District, Mal- 
 bone Watson, of Greene ; Fourth District, John Willard, of Saratoga. 
 A Free Soil and Anti-Canal body, including a few seceders from the 
 regularly elected delegates, and led by John Van Buren, made nomina- 
 tions in opposition to the regular ticket, except in the case of Judges 
 of the Court of Appeals, in which they endorsed the regular candidates. 
 Governor Seymour, Attorney-General Chatfield, Comptroller Wright, 
 Naval Officer Redfield, Postmaster Fowler and Surveyor John Coch- 
 rane, of New York, were conspicuously active on the Free Soil side 
 of the divided Democratic house. Other United States officials who 
 contributed their efforts in the same direction were Postmaster Dickey, 
 of Buffalo; Collector Campbell, of Rochester; District- Attorney Gar- 
 vin, of the Northern District of New York, and Collector Talcott, of 
 Oswego. There were also numerous subordinates ardently bent upon 
 a stampede for control of the convention. Speaker Ludlow, of the 
 State Assembly, was a chief actor with John Van Buren in this attempt 
 to sidetrack the regular Democracy. Meanwhile the Court of Impeach- 
 ment, in the case of Canal Commissioner Mather, had dismissed as 
 baseless all the charges presented by Speaker Ludlow's select committee. 
 
 Among the Adamantine or Regular Democrats, Greene C. Bronson, 
 Collector of New York, was conspicuously able and active. Upon 
 charges of "insubordination," the motive to which was Judge Bron- 
 son's indisposition to sufficiently recognize the Free Soil Democrats, 
 Secretary Guthrie removed him with less than ordinary consideration, 
 
294 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and under pressure from ex-Governor Marcy, the head of the Cabinet. 
 The "Democratic RepubHcan General Committee of the City and Coun- 
 ty of New York," and the Democratic State Committee passed resolu- 
 tions, and the latter issued an address denouncing Judge Bronson s re- 
 moval "in consequence," the former committee said, "of his refusal to 
 become the tool of Van Buren, Marcy and Company," and, as the latter 
 committee said, "an act which has no parallel in the history of the 
 American government." Both Secretary Guthrie and Secretary Jef- 
 ferson Davis wrote letters imputing to Judge Bronson Free Soil opm- 
 ions and associations in 1848; but to this charge Judge Bronson's reply 
 of indignant denial was as conclusive of the purity of his record as it 
 was calmly resentful of an ignoble assault on his character. The Rich- 
 mond (Virginia) Examiner made Judge Bronson's removal the occa- 
 sion of complaint on behalf of the South, that the administration of 
 President Pierce was "siding with the part most obnoxious to one-half 
 of the Union"; that the authorities at Washington had "taken sides 
 where there is the least political purity and patriotism," and "with an 
 obnoxious faction against such men as Dickinson," who "had stood by 
 the South in their own tribulation." 
 
 The United States District Attorney for New York, Charles 
 O'Conor, addressed a letter to the President, identifying himself with 
 Judge Bronson and his cause and tendering his resignation. O'Conor's 
 resignation was not accepted until June 13th, 1854, when a Marcy 
 man was appointed in his place. And on the part of Admantine or 
 Regular National Democrats the issue was presented : "Shall high- 
 handed interference with the local affairs of the State be suffered to 
 pass without a stern and indignant popular rebuke?" It was charged 
 that "the State administration opened a war upon the 'old line' Demo- 
 cracy while the last presidential campaign was in progress," that "the 
 Auditor, G. W. Newell, a relative and tool of the then disappointed 
 presidential aspirant and Secretary of State in expectancy, immediately 
 prior to the September convention, presented a series of groundless ac- 
 cusations * * * against the two Democratic Canal Commis- 
 sioners" ; that "the national Democratic members of the late Assembly 
 received dishonorable and unjust treatment at the hands of the un- 
 scrupulous Free Soil Speaker and his well-drilled band of coalitionists" ; 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 295 
 
 that "the crowning act of war upon the national Democrats," "the 
 assassin-like impeachment of Commissioner Mather," was "a proceed- 
 ing instigated and directed by Secretary Marcy" ; and that at Syracuse, 
 upon the meeting of the State Convention, "the direct personal inter- 
 position of United States government officials — ^high and low State 
 government officials — Free Soil and coalition partisans * * * a 
 combined force of ruffians and officials, completely outraged all usage 
 and decency ; sought to control results by intimidation and brute force, 
 and finally succeeded in breaking up the convention." 
 
 In the election of November 8th the returns showed the success of 
 the entire State Whig ticket, but with indications of great relative 
 superiority of the National Democrats to the Free Soil. In Albany, 
 city and county, the home of Secretary Marcy, Clinton's majority 
 reached 400 and Mather's 546. In the Assembly the National Demo- 
 crats elected 20 to 30 members, the Free Soil 10, and the Whigs the 
 remainder. The comparative votes of the opposing sections of the De- 
 mocracy, by majorities, in the counties were 29,800 in thirty-two coun- 
 ties by the National, and 28,568 in twenty-seven counties by the Free 
 Soil. 
 
 November 23, 1853, the Democratic State Committee issued an 
 address reciting these facts : 
 
 "George W. Clinton, the first of the nominees on the National 
 Democratic ticket, leads the Free Soil and coalition candidate, Isaac 
 Verplanck, more than 3,000 votes, and we have a good average ma- 
 jority over our Free Soil opponents on the entire ticket for State 
 officers. 
 
 "To the Senate the National Democrats elect eight, and the Free 
 Soil and coalition but two. 
 
 "To the Assembly the National Democrats elected a decided ma- 
 jority over the coalition. In five of the Senate districts where the 
 'United Democracy,' so-called, presented their nominations, the Demo- 
 cratic candidates were defeated and Whigs elected, by the defection of 
 the Free Soil leaders. 
 
 "We can point to an aggregate in the State of 100,000 votes. Free 
 Soilism and the coalition have received, in this contest, their mortal 
 wound." 
 
296 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XVHT. 
 
 The Know-Nothings — Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Conven- 
 tions of 1854 — Election of Myron Clark as Governor — Free 
 School and Prohibitory Liquor Bills — Forming of Republican 
 Party — State Campaign of 1855 — Result — Hard and Soft 
 Democrats — Appeal for Union of the TwO' Democratic 
 Factions. 
 
 The year 1854 opened with a large Democratic majority in the 
 Thirty-third Congress, and yet with parties disjointed and dislocated 
 in a fashion never before seen. In New York State Daniel S. Dickin- 
 son and Greene C. Bronson held up the National Democratic standard 
 against William L. Marcy and Horatio Seymour, who represented 
 coalition and Free Soil. With these able men fighting each other the 
 Democratic Party was in jeopardy every hour, and during that year 
 there came into existence the most formidable opponent which the party 
 has ever had to encounter — the great Republican Party of to-day. 
 
 There was chaos in politics in those days. Factions, organizations 
 and parties, whose names and aims would fill a small glossary, crowded 
 the political arena. Although the Whig Party still existed, its dissolu- 
 tion may fairly be dated from 1852. Its life had not been long, and its 
 great men were not many. 
 
 During the early fifties the Know-Nothings played a more or less 
 important part. As may be inferred, this was a nickname. When the 
 Whig Party began to fall asunder a secret organization, said to have 
 been called "The Sons of '76," or "The Order of the Star-Spangled 
 Banner," was formed. Those of its members who had not attained 
 to its higher degrees were sedulously kept in ignorance of the aims 
 and even of the name of the organization, and it is said that their in- 
 variable answer of "I don't know" to questions regarding their society 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 297 
 
 gave them the title of "Know-Nothings." At all events, that name 
 persistently stuck to them. All meetings of the order were secret, and 
 it sedulously avoided the subject of slavery. Its principal aims were 
 opposition to Catholics and aliens ; its motto was "Americans must rule 
 America." The first national convention of the party met in Febru- 
 ary, 1856. The day previous a secret convention of the order had 
 adopted resolutions abolishing much of the secrecy previously prevail- 
 ing, and placed the organization upon a political basis. They then de- 
 manded a lengthening of the residence necessary before an alien could 
 be naturalized. At that time they nominated Millard Fillmore, of New 
 York, for President, and Andrew Jackson Donelson for Vice-Presi- 
 dent. These nominations were endorsed by the Whig Convention the 
 following September. The party was also known as the American 
 Party, but it must not be confounded with the party formed in 1872 
 by members of the National Christian Association ; nor with the third 
 party organized under that name in Philadelphia on September i6th 
 and 17th, 1887. 
 
 At the earliest moment after the assembling of the New York Leg- 
 islature, the constitutional amendment to secure a speedy completion of 
 the canal enlargement plans was taken up, January 4, 1854, and carried 
 in both Houses with but one vote against it in each House. 
 
 On January 4, 1854, Senator Douglas reported a bill in the United 
 States Senate to organize Nebraska as a Territory, with provisions to 
 make the fugitive slave law operative, and to leave to the people the 
 question of having or not having slavery. The last provision involved 
 releasing the territory from the operation of the Missouri Compromise. 
 
 On January 17th the State Senate passed a bill for submitting to 
 the vote of the people on the third Wednesday of February the question 
 of canal enlargement under an amendment to the Constitution, as voted 
 by the Legislature, and this bill passed the Assembly the next day. 
 The result of the popular vote, February isth, was a very large ma- 
 jority in favor of the canal amendment. Of the whole number of 
 votes cast there were 185,768 in favor, to 60,493 against. The entire 
 vote cast at the last previous State election was 359,000. The vote 
 favorable to the canal amendment is thus seen to have been 6,267 i" 
 excess of half the whole body of voters. 
 
298 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 After a protracted sitting the Senate at Washington passed the 
 Nebraska bill by a vote of 37 to 14. The position of the administra- 
 tion, announced in view of the passage of the bill, was regarded by Na- 
 tional Democrats as a surrender to Van Buren and Marcy. 
 
 On March 24, 1854, a liquor bill "for the suppression of intemper- 
 ance," to take efifect December ist, passed both Houses of the State 
 Legislature. On March 31st Governor Seymour sent a message to 
 the Senate with his veto of the bill, on the ground of the inefifective 
 character of prohibitory laws, and the harm done by fruitless legis- 
 lation. As only half the Senate voted to pass the bill, despite the veto, 
 the prohibitory scheme was lost. 
 
 An important step in the development of educational plans in the 
 State was the election, by the two Houses in convention, of Victor M. 
 Rice, of Bufifalo, Superintendent of Public Instruction, in pursuance of 
 a recent act separating this office, from the secretaryship of the State. 
 
 The disastrous overthrow of the Democracy in New Hampshire 
 and Connecticut, due to failure to make the fight against the Whigs 
 under the banner of thoroughly national principles, which had been 
 vindicated in New York, was a cloud on the Democratic horizon in 
 the first months of 1854, while on the same ground of shiftless and 
 senseless infidelity to nationalism — as National Democrats viewed the 
 situation — the Pierce and Marcy administration was bringing on "a 
 broken and fallen condition of the recently triumphant Democratic 
 Party." "Bold and shameless treachery to its professions; not less 
 bold and shameless proscription of the only reliable friends of the policy 
 and principles on which it came into power ; betrayal of the expecta- 
 tions and hopes of the confiding party which gave it existence," and 
 a "course characterized by duplicity, tergiversation and treachery" 
 were the complaints of the New York Democracy, represented as every- 
 where repenting their agency in giving the breath of life to "Pierce and 
 Marcy abortions." 
 
 On April nth, 1854, the Democratic State Committee, Augustus 
 Schell, Chairman, issued a call for a State convention to be held on 
 July 1 2th at Syracuse, tO' nominate State officers for the ensuing elec- 
 tion. It was received by the National Democratic press of the State 
 in a spirit of eager desire for the struggle of "the National Demo- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 299 
 
 cratic masses, from one end to the other of this great State," with 
 "an administration which they had aided to place in power" only to 
 be "betrayed and cheated" by it. 
 
 On Monday night, May 22d, the bill of Senator Douglas, reported 
 by Senator Richardson, for the organization of Nebraska and Kansas, 
 which was pending in the House, passed, by a vote of 113 to 100, 
 with the Clayton amendment out. With twelve Democrats and 8 
 Whigs absent or not voting, the total vote against the bill was "46 Dem- 
 crats and mongrels, 48 Whigs, 5 Abolitionists and i Independent." 
 Five Democratic members of Congress from New York, who had 
 voted against the Nebraska bill, issued an address, May 24th, to their 
 constituents, alleging as reasons for their action the features of the 
 bill which involved renewal of agitation through wanton disturbance 
 of the settlement understood to have been made by the Missouri Com- 
 promise ; a position which the National Democrats questioned, on the 
 ground that what the institutions of a future State should be ought to 
 be left to the decision of the people of that State. • A speech by one 
 of the five members, Rufus W. Peckham, member from the (Albany) 
 Fourteenth District, which was made May i8th, was published in the 
 Albany Argus of June 3d. He especially pointed out that when the 
 Missouri Compromise line was accepted by the South, the region north 
 of it was considered, as Charles Pinckney said, "a vast tract, unin- 
 habited, or only by savages and wild beasts, in which not a foot of the 
 Indian claim to the soil is extinguished, and in which, according to 
 the ideas prevalent, no land office will be open for a great length of 
 time." In this light the South was seen, Mr. Peckham said, to have 
 secured all the advantages then in sight, and now, finding that the 
 North really had some advantage under the settlement agreed upon, 
 the South wanted to undo the bargain and trample on the rights of the 
 North secured by it. This, Mr. Peckham maintained, could be opposed 
 without in the least interfering with any rights of the South. 
 
 The State Democratic Convention, which met at Syracuse, July 12, 
 1854, put in nomination the following candidates : Greene C. Bronson, 
 for Governor ; Elijah Ford, for Lieutenant-Governor ; Clark Burnham, 
 for Canal Commissioner, and Abram Vernam, for State Prison In- 
 spector. The convention took high ground in support of "the great 
 
300 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Democratic principle of Congressional non-interference and popular 
 sovereignty." Judge Bronson was made the head of the ticket by ac- 
 clamation at once unanimous and hearty. 
 
 The Pierce administration, elected and inaugurated as Democratic, 
 was at this time denounced as a failure^ and Franklin Pierce was 
 proclaimed, by the National Democratic organ in New York, politically 
 dead. "Credit for its few tolerable acts," and "stern condemnation for 
 its appalling array of blunders and treacheries," was the attitude of the 
 regular party press. 
 
 The Whig State Convention, at Syracuse, September 20, 1854, 
 put in nomination for Governor Myron H. Clark, identified with the 
 prohibition movement in New York, and for Lieutenant-Governor, 
 Henry J. Raymond, whose paper, the New York Times, had strenu- 
 ously opposed prohibition. Both candidates were "Seward Whigs," 
 and the platform adopted was to all intents and purposes an Abolition 
 platform. Judge Bronson had at this time written a letter taking 
 ground very decidedly for regulation of the liquor business by amend- 
 ment of the license laws, and as decidedly against any prohibitory law. 
 
 On September 30th Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, in a speech at Delhi, 
 Delaware County, ably stated the National Democratic view of the re- 
 peal of the Missouri Compromise and the probable results. That inter- 
 dict had to give way, Mr. Dickinson said, to the great principle of non- 
 intervention by Congress in State affairs ; and the North ought to re- 
 member that removal of the interdict permitted it to go south of the 
 compromise line, and that the strong probabilities, if not the all but cer- 
 tainty, were that freedom would go south of the line and that there 
 would be no coming of slavery north of the line. As early as De- 
 cember 14, 1847, Mr. Dickinson had offered resolutions in the United 
 States Senate, proposing as a basis of Congressional action the princi- 
 ple of non-intervention and popular sovereignty. The policy thus pro- 
 posed was comparatively novel. Congress having up to that time acted 
 on the contrary principle; on the one hand excluding slavery from the 
 Northwest, and on the other expressly permitting it in the Southwest. 
 
 On October 4th Judge Bronson addressed to E. C. Delevan, con- 
 spicuously connected with the prohibition cause, a letter, which he also 
 gave to the press, in which he declared that the bill attempted to be 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 301 
 
 passed the preceding winter "went much beyond mere prohibition, and 
 contained highly questionable provisions," such as could never receive 
 his support. Judge Bronson further pointed out how "the temperance 
 cause had been thrown into the vortex of party politics, and had been 
 made an instrument in promoting the madness of the times," through 
 the alliance of its friends with a movement designed to array one sec- 
 tion of the Union against another. 
 
 The State Temperance Convention, held at Auburn, September 27th, 
 endorsed the Clark and Raymond Whig ticket, and September 28th 
 the State Committee representing the Pierce and Marcy administration 
 faction induced Governor Seymour to run as a third party candidate, 
 with anti-Maine Lawism as the chief platform plank. The situation 
 inspired a Bronson supporter to say : "Bronson goes in for good liq- 
 uor, Seymour for poor liquor, and Clark for no liquor at all." A "Rum 
 and Rum only" platform for Seymour was noted as leaving Pierce 
 and Marcy out altogether. In New York City the administration fac- 
 tion nominated Fernando Wood as candidate for Mayor. 
 
 Previous to the election of November 7th the Albany Argus said 
 of the candidates of the National Democracy : 
 
 "So far as the administration of Franklin Pierce is concerned, 
 they are its open and undisguised opponents. Although in this par- 
 ticular they may be alleged to occupy the same ground with some of 
 their party opponents, there is this great distinction to be kept in view, 
 that only by a popular demonstration in favor of Judge Bronson and 
 his associates on the Democratic ticket can a fatal blow be dealt at 
 President Pierce and his perfidious Cabinet. * * * ^ command- 
 ing vote for Judge Bronson would effectually show to the Democracy 
 of the whole Union that New York had forever repudiated this ad- 
 ministration. It would be the death knell of the Pierce dynasty. 
 
 "The representative of Pierce and Guthrie in this State, Governor 
 Seymour, was announced for renomination as bidding for what are 
 elegantly termed by his supporters 'the rum and foreign votes.' The 
 chief, almost the only, plank in the Seymour platform was opposition 
 to the passage of a prohibitory law. Every vote cast for Horatio 
 Seymour will be claimed as a vote in favor of the most corrupt and 
 iniquitous national administration which ever existed in this country." 
 
302 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Fourteen distinct organizations were marshaled on the pohtical 
 field for the New York State election, ten of which made Myron H. 
 Clark, the "Seward Whig," Maine Law and Free Soil representative, 
 their standard bearer ; while Governor Seymour represented the Pierce 
 administration; Judge Bronson the National Democracy strenuously 
 antagonistic to Pierce, Marcy and Guthrie ; Daniel Ullmann, the Know- 
 Nothings, whose immense vote in Pennsylvania had been one of the 
 - signs of the times ; and William Goodell, the squad of zealots known 
 as the Liberty Party. The Argus said of Governor Seymour's position 
 in the campaign : "It cannot be forgotten that Horatio Seymour is the 
 agent and medium of the Pierce policy in this State, and that he has 
 advised or dictated the proscriptions and insults inflicted upon the Na- 
 tional Democracy by this perfidious Cabinet ; and that he is running now, 
 in compliance with secret directions from Washington, for the purpose 
 of preventing, if possible, the election of Greene C. Bronson. He was 
 nominated by a convention packed by Custom House and Post Office 
 officials ; and it is a fact that he would not have taken the nomination 
 without a distinct command from Washington, a command that in- 
 cluded a promise that so distinguished a service as defeating Judge 
 Bronson would not be forgotten." 
 
 The aggregate vote for Governor in the election of November 7th 
 was 469,674, with Myron H. Clark elected by a majority over Seymour 
 of 223. The official returns gave Bronson 33,850; Ullman, 122,282; 
 Seymour, 156,495, and Clark 156,804. 
 
 It will be seen from these figures that the man elected Governor 
 of the State received just about one-third of the votes cast at the elec- 
 tion. The result was explained as due to the intense desire on the 
 part of Democrats to defeat Seymour, the pet of the administration, 
 and on the part of the Whigs to elect him, as the champion of the 
 liquor interest, and to defeat their own Maine Law candidate. Party 
 differences and preferences were entirely obliterated and swallowed up. 
 
 The National Democratic strength, in the vote for members of 
 Congress and of the State Assembly met the party expectations. The 
 Maine Law members of the Assembly numbered 82 ; the Anti-Maine 
 Law, 22, and the unknown or doubtfuls, 23. Judge Bronson's Albany 
 organ said of the result : 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 303 
 
 "The vote for Judge Bronson was the only dean party vote thrown 
 in the State. That it was small compared with that cast for Clark and 
 Seymour is a striking illustration of the extent to which the liquor 
 question divided parties, and obliterated, for a time, the old lines of 
 demarcation. The moment that Governor Seymour stepped into the 
 arena in opposition to Clark on the liquor question all legitimate party 
 questions became merged in the issue thus distinctly made. All parties 
 and factions were split up by it. There never was such an election in 
 this State, and probably never will be again." 
 
 It may be noted as one of the political surprises of the moment 
 that the Massachusetts House of Representatives, newly elected, 
 counted but one Whig, one Democrat and one Republican, to a Know- 
 Nothing legion numbering 362. The Know- Nothing apparition on the 
 political field, coming out to public view from the council chambers of 
 a secret order, was a startling surprise in many directions and a singu- 
 lar betrayal of sound Democratic principles. 
 
 The "Republican" Party, as originated by Thomas Jefferson and 
 his associates of the strict constructionists and States' Rights school, 
 did not employ the terms Democrat and Democratic. Its opponents 
 used these terms as terms of reproach, and the response of the party 
 was that of admitting the imputation and employing the designation 
 Democratic-Republicans, to denote a republic of all the people. - 
 
 The Nebraska Territory, in 1854, embracing 335,822 square miles, 
 an area large enough to cut up into seven States as large as New 
 York, with an eighth as large as Connecticut, was the largest terri- 
 torial area under the Union. Utah came next ; then Texas ; then New 
 Mexico ; then Oregon, Minnesota, California, Washington and Kansas 
 territories, in the order named, and the last equal in area to twice Ohio 
 with Indiana. 
 
 A Massachusetts scheme at this time was an "Emigration Aid So- 
 ciety," a chief ]5urpose of which was promotion of settlement in Kansas 
 and Nebraska territories of persons hostile to the extension of slavery. 
 A London scare, or it may have been sneer, commented on this as "A 
 Project for Emptying Europe." Another scheme broached in certain 
 quarters at this time was the annexation of the Sandwich Islands, to 
 form a State of the Union from the start, and upon this there was 
 
304 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 something of a scare on the score of mixing races to the advantage of 
 the negro type of culture. 
 
 At this time Judge Dean, of the New Yorlc Supreme Court, gave 
 an opinion of strong protest against very gross abuse of the naturahza- 
 tion privilege, allowing aliens to be made citizens in disregard of the 
 law and by the action of clerks without the knowledge of the courts 
 which they represented. 
 
 The new Mayor of the city of New York, Fernando Wood, ad- 
 dressed, to President Pierce, January 2d, 1855, a letter urgently asking 
 the interference of the government for the prevention of admission into 
 the United States of pauper and criminal emigrants from Europe. 
 The re-election to the United States Senate, February 6th, of William 
 H. Seward, whose position in the public eye had been largely made by 
 the unwearied devotion of Thurlow Weed in the Albany Journal, and 
 the ardor of Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune, made secure 
 in the Senate at Washington, energetic, if not effectual anti-slavery. 
 Free Soil agitation, and zealous prosecution of political equality for 
 negroes. 
 
 The Boston fanaticism of extreme type was illustrated at this time 
 in the refusal of the overseers of Harvard College to make Edward 
 Loring Professor of Law, because he had acted as United States Com- 
 missioner in the rendition of the fugitive slave. Burns. It was not 
 charged that in even the smallest particular he had wrested the law 
 to the prejudice of Burns, but simply that he executed it. The death, 
 February 19th, 1855, of William Lusk Crandal, brought to a prema- 
 ture end the career of an ardently humanitarian educator, whose ser- 
 vices in aid of the successful establishment of the free school system 
 of the State were at once conspicuous and effective. A law passed 
 in 1849 had made a new departure in the direction of free schools, 
 but ander conditions anything but satisfactory, and there was danger 
 that resubmission of the matter to the people would result unfavorably 
 to the free school system. Of this crisis, and of the services of Mr. 
 Crandal, the Albany Argus said : "The law of 1849 could not have been 
 worse framed to render the idea of free schools odious. Taxation in its 
 most offensive form was involved in its features ; and dishonorable men 
 in many sections of the State employed their utmost skill to prevent the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 305 
 
 raising of school moneys in the different towns and counties, thus 
 defeating the object of the law and embarrassing the educational in- 
 terests. Mr. Crandal placed his fortune and energies at hazard, when, 
 in 1850, the Legislature passed an act resubmitting to the people the 
 Free School Law, under circumstances, as just stated, which threat- 
 ened disaster. He edited for the campaign 'The Free School Clarion,' 
 and to his exertions was largely due the triumph of the free school 
 principle at the polls in 1850 (which secured the permanence of the 
 system). 
 
 "The next year he was employed by the Legislature to prepare a 
 report upon the public school policy of the State, a task which he re- 
 cently completed. For some reason it has not been distributed as con- 
 templated; but those who have examined the work impartially have 
 almost unqualifiedly spoken in its praise. It projects new features in 
 our public school policy, many of which, if accepted, would adapt our 
 educational system to the popular necessity to an extent exceeding com- 
 putation. 
 
 "While engaged upon the report he also prepared another work, 
 'Three Hours School a Day,' which is one of the most earnest, correct 
 and truthful expositions of the errors of our present school customs 
 which ever issued from the press. Gladly would we have wished the 
 author's triumph, could he have lived for its achievement." 
 
 A prohibitory liquor biH passed the State Assembly, February 
 21, 1855, by a vote of 80 to 45. The ayes counted 67 Whigs, 11 
 Democrats and 2 Know-Nothings. The noes were 14 Whigs, 27 
 Democrats and 4 Know-Nothings. The bill was reported to the Senate 
 March 3d, as a stringent prohibitory bill, and it soon began to appear 
 that a scheme was in hand, with State administration support, to sub- 
 stitute for it an act to amend the excise laws increasing the penalties 
 for retailing liquors without proper compliance with the law, and by 
 striking out the search and seizure clauses of the Assembly bill. Gov- 
 ernor Clark, by a letter to the Argus, March 12th, repudiated for him- 
 self any intention to emasculate the Assembly bill. Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor Raymond, who had promised before election to give his support 
 to a stringent prohibitory bill, indicated through editorial utterances 
 of the New York Times, that he connived at the plans of Senators for 
 
3o6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 so amending the Assembly bill as to "strike out of it some provisions 
 which will only make the law obnoxious to the common sense of the 
 community, and array against it the sentiment of the conservative and 
 judicious friends of temperance." When, however, the bill was re- 
 ported to the Senate from the committee of the whole, several amend- 
 ments which had been adopted were of no great importance. When 
 the bill came to a final vote in the Senate, April 3d, the debate was pro- 
 tracted far into the night, and the bill passed by a vote of 21 to 11, 
 after amendments of minor significance had been adopted. The As- 
 sembly concurred in these amendments, April 6th, and upon the sign- 
 ing of the bill by the Governor a Maine Law for the State after July 
 4th became 5, fixed fact until such time as the people could get back 
 at the authors of an enactment certain to prove both ineffective and 
 unpopular. As the law finally passed, the provisions against retail 
 liquor selling were to become operative on the first Monday of May, 
 and the new penalties to attach, and the search and seizure clause come 
 into force after the Fourth of July. Edward C. Delevan's State Tem- 
 perance Society came out with an elaborate address deploring as ex- 
 ceedingly serious the changes made by the Senate, but congratulating 
 temperance zealots that "the great principles of search, seizure and de- 
 struction" had escaped the danger which had threatened them in the 
 Senate. The temperate judgment of the Democratic press was to the 
 effect that the zealots of prohibition had combined with the dema- 
 gogues of politics to bring comprehensive disaster upon the cause of 
 temperance. Eminent legal authorities promptly pronounced the 
 search, seizure and destruction principle a violation of fundamental 
 law. Ex-Chief Justice Beardsley of the Supreme Court a little later 
 pronounced a similar opinion. Judge Beardsley also pronounced that 
 imported liquors were not touched by the act, and that the Legislature 
 had no power to prevent the sale of liquors by importers in the original 
 packages. The Massachusetts Legislature, by a vote of 27 to 11 in 
 the Senate, on a resolution which had passed the House, finally de- 
 termined to remove Judge Loring from the bench, on account of his 
 action as commissioner in the Burns negro case, and to permit him to 
 resign the office of commissioner. The perpetration of this anarchistic 
 outrage was arrested by the veto of Governor Gardner. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 307 
 
 The Albany Argus of May 4, 1855, ^" ^ vigorous and fearless 
 article, pronounced the action of the Missouri pro-slavery partisans, in 
 going over the line into Kansas to control the election there, a palpable 
 violation of the principle of the Nebraska bill. 
 
 A Know-Nothing National Convention, reported to have met in 
 secret in Philadelphia June 5, 1855, elected, June 8th, E. B. Bartlett, 
 of Kentucky, for president of the order and C. D. Freeman, of Penn- 
 sylvania, for vice-president. A pro-slavery platform adopted June 
 13th caused a grand disruption, and the assembling of a separate con- 
 vention June 14th, of the northern and western delegates, under the 
 lead of Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. 
 
 A letter of Hon. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, asking for the South 
 that Kansas shall be allowed to frame her own Constitution, and that 
 her citizens shall be permitted to determine for themselves whether 
 they will tolerate slavery, and to come into the Union with or without 
 that institution, drew from the Albany Argus, accepting this as just, 
 the following complaint : 
 
 "What we complain of on the part of the South just now is, that 
 Kansas is not allowed to determine this question for herself, but that 
 her rights of sovereignty have been violated." 
 
 The difference in the case manifestly was, that actual Kansas, made 
 up to any extent by actual settlers whose coming had an anti-slavery 
 motive, was so much an offense to pro-slavery partisans as to lead them 
 to lawless casting of fraudulent votes in order to defeat a bona fide 
 lawful voting of anti-slavery settlers. It counted one against the South 
 in the impending conflict of two types of culture. In reply to the 
 charge made by the Albany Journal that the Argus was willing to see 
 slavery extended into Kansas and Nebraska, the Argus, July 4th, 
 branded this charge as "recklessly made," and further said : 
 
 "On the contrary, all our opinions and sympathies lead us anxiously 
 to desire to see both of these territories grow up into vigorous free 
 States, and to hope for such a result, in spite of the outrages of Mis- 
 souri borderers, and the not less wicked and mischievous agitations 
 of Northern political, abolition demagogues. We entertain about equal 
 respect for each of these two classes of adventurers. We detest the 
 aims of both, and shall not cease to denounce the attempts of either to 
 
3o8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 smother the voice of the actual settlers of Kansas, or to precipitate her 
 admission as a State, until the deliberate, unawed, sober thought of her 
 citizens, who intend to live permanently within her borders, has defin- 
 itely shaped her Constitution in respect to slavery. This is solid ground 
 of principle, upon which Democrats certainly can stand, however little 
 it may meet the views of speculators in politics, or in human chattels, 
 either at the North or at the South. The sovereignty of the citizeas 
 of Kansas over this question of slavery within her limits must be 
 defended and preserved, from whatever quarter of the Union assailed." 
 
 Thq Democratic State Committee, Augustus Schell, Chairman, 
 issued, June 6, 1855, ^ '^'^'^ ^o^" ''• National Democratic Convention, to be 
 held September 5th at Syracuse, to nominate a State ticket. The failure 
 of this call to make an appeal for Democratic harmony, in view of the 
 impending issues of a presidential campaign, and to congratulate the 
 party upon the Democratic defeat of Know-Nothingism in Virginia, 
 occasioned anxious inquiry, in leading organs of staunch Democracy in 
 the State, as to the truth of a rumor that some members of the com- 
 mittee, in disregard of the antagonism of sound Democracy to Know- 
 Nothing aims and principles, were disposed to come to terms with this 
 political heresy, the rampant onset of which over the field of politics 
 had thrown party lines into great confusion. 
 
 The separate faction of the Democracy disposed to worship strange 
 gods, issued, July 3d, a call for a Democratic convention at Syracuse, 
 August 29th, to nominate a State ticket ; and equally with the call of 
 the regular Democratic committee, it made no allusion to principles 
 and aims, and contained no reference to events in the political world. 
 Commenting on this call, the Argus said : 
 
 "The Democrats of this State constitute a large majority of its 
 citizens. An immensely important election is to occur this fall — im- 
 portant both in its bearings upon the good government of the State 
 and its several cities and counties, and in the value of the offices to be 
 disposed of. It is quite time that the Democrats of New York at- 
 tended to the duty of self-preservation. In their present condition they 
 are without respect at home, without influence upon the administration 
 of the government at Washington, and without weight in the councils 
 of the Democratic Party of the nation. The way to make themselves 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 309 
 
 felt abroad is first to make themselves powerful at home. Considera- 
 tions of patriotism, honor and interest will alike prompt Democrats 
 to contrive some motive of united action, which will give the adminis- 
 tration of public affairs into their hands instead of surrendering it to 
 their opponents." 
 
 And especially the Argus said : "National Democrats cannot make 
 any terms with Know-Nothingism during the coming campaign, open 
 or tacit, without separating themselves from the Democracy of the 
 Union." 
 
 The Republican Party had its inception in 1854. It is said to have 
 been suggested at a meeting of a number of members of Congress, 
 and the name was first formally adopted at a convention held in Michi- 
 gan in July of that year. The party took from the Democrat-Republi- 
 can Party the latter part of its name, and this has not been the only val- 
 uable idea which it has been shrewd enough to appropriate from the 
 Democrats during its fifty years of existence. The name was adopted 
 not only because it was a good name, but because under that caption 
 many of the warring factions and disintegrating parties of the day 
 could join together. The Republican Party, from the outset, was a 
 consistent advocate of broad construction, and to that, in i860, it 
 added the principle of high protection. The old Whigs, the Free Soil- 
 ers, many Know-Nothings and some Democrats were the elements from 
 which the party was originally made up ; the Abolitionists were a spe- 
 cies of allies fighting outside the breastworks. The Republican Party 
 held its first national convention in 1856. 
 
 In the State a "Republican State Committee," formed to promote 
 the creation of a new party held a meeting in Albany July 4, 1855, and 
 was reported to have issued a call for a State convention to be held at 
 Syracuse, August 22d, for the nomination of a State ticket. By concert 
 of action with the Whig State Committee the call was made later to 
 contemplate a meeting September 26thj at the same time as a meeting 
 of the Whig State Convention. The New York Tribune announced 
 that the Whig Party, at the contemplated convention, would "formally 
 renounce its organization in order to co-operate" in organizing a new 
 party, understood to have had its conception from a convention at Au- 
 burn, in September, 1854, and to represent the Whig- Abolition-Maine- 
 
3IO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Law coalition which secured the election of Governor Clark. The ul- 
 terior purpose of the schemers was understood to be that of putting 
 Mr. Seward forward in 1856 as a presidential candidate. Ex-Governor 
 Hunt came out August 8th in a published letter strongly protesting 
 against the scheme. 
 
 An opinion declaring the prohibitory law of the State unconstitu- 
 tional was given by Judge Bronson, June 26th, and a month later the 
 Attorney-General of the State, Ogden Hoffman, gave his opinion to the 
 same effect, in response to the demand of Governor Clark. 
 
 On August 1st the committee which had issued a call for a con- 
 vention August 29th, at Syracuse, issued a second call for the sending 
 of two delegates from each Assembly District, with a view to full repre- 
 sentation and union of all Democrats opposed to Know-Nothingism 
 and to Maine Law Prohibition. 
 
 On August nth the Schell "National" Democratic Committee an- 
 nounced a change in the date of its convention from September 5th 
 to August 23d. The action of this convention proved most disappoint- 
 ing to those who counted upon seeing Democratic harmony in the 
 State thoroughly restored. Not only were proposals looking to recon- 
 ciliation of the two factions of the party met with refusal of considera- 
 tion, and all action tending to union on a common ticket declined, 
 but delegates to the national convention of 1856 were appointed, earlier 
 than was necessary, and pledged to Daniel S. Dickinson as the New 
 York candidate for the Presidency. Daniel E. Sickles offered a resolu- 
 tion looking to united action of all New York Democrats, and supported 
 it by a speech of signal ability and eloquence, but without effect. 
 
 On August 22d, 1855, Senator Lewis Cass published a letter of 
 vigorous protest against Democrats having any dealings whatever with 
 the Know-Nothing organization. "Its secrecy," he said, "its oath- 
 bound obligations, its control of the ballot box, its system of proscrip- 
 tion, striking both at political rights and religious duties, and its in- 
 evitable tendency to array one portion of the community against an- 
 other, and to carry deadly feuds into every corner of the land — these 
 characteristics mark it as the most dangerous scheme which has ever 
 been introduced into our country to regulate its public action or its 
 social condition." 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 311 
 
 The Philadelphia Convention of the Know-Nothing Order had 
 pronounced, by one of its factions, that "Congress ought not to leg- 
 islate upon the subject of slavery within the territory of the United 
 States," and this Senator Cass agreed with, but the convention had 
 avoided passing upon the existence of the power of Congress to thus 
 legislate, and had thus left the real peril untouched. "The negation 
 of all power of interference by Congress in the internal government of 
 the Territories," said Senator Cass, "is the true constitutional doctrine, 
 and the only safe and practicable one. * * * ^g early as 1774 
 the Continental Congress declared that the English colonists were 'en- 
 titled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several pro- 
 vincial Legislatures, where the right of representation can alone be 
 preserved in all cases of taxation and internal polity.' * * * 
 Judge McLean, of the Supreme Court of the United States, in some 
 considerations published by him on the subject, * * * brings the 
 Constitution of the United States to the support of the good old doc- 
 trine, that right to establish colonies or territories does not carry with 
 it the just power to interfere with and regulate the domestic concerns 
 of the people who inhabit them. 'Congress may organize a govern- 
 ment which shall protect the lands purchased, and provide for the ad- 
 ministration of justice among the settlers, but it does by no means fol- 
 low that they may establish slavery.' Slavery, Judge McLean pro- 
 nounces one of the 'domestic concerns of the people.' He says : 'It is 
 a domestic relation, over which the Federal government can exercise 
 no control.' * * * The Democratic Party is the American Party ; 
 it has neither sectional prejudices nor sectional preferences ; and I be- 
 lieve the fate of the republic is now in its hands ; and so believing, I 
 earnestly hope that its action will be firm, prompt and united." 
 
 In contrast with this appeal for national union, the aims of the new 
 "Republican" movement were severely arraigned by the Democratic 
 press of the State as reckless and unprincipled in their subservience to 
 the ambition of William H. Seward. 
 
 The Democratic Convention at Syracuse, August 29th, represent- 
 ing aims and action to a considerable extent separate from the aims and 
 actions of the hitherto regular and "National" Democracy, nominated a 
 State ticket, three of the names on which were the same as those on 
 
312 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the "National" ticket. The matter of the choice of delegates to the 
 National Convention was left to be acted upon by a special State Con- 
 vention to be called for the purpose. 
 
 On September 24th a Knovi^-Nothing State Convention met at Au- 
 burn, and on the 26th the Whig and Republican conventions met at 
 Syracuse. Know-Nothing nominations were made September' 25th, 
 and two days later the Whig and Republican bodies effected a fusion, 
 and put in nomination a ticket, under the name "Republican." The 
 two classes of names on this ticket — Whigs and ultra-Radicals — gave 
 it, to Democrats, the appearance of a grotesque monster. A Seward 
 Know-Nothing Convention, which had met September 25th and ad- 
 journed over to the 27th, adopted on that day the "Republican" nomi- 
 nations. On the evening of the 28th ex-G'overnor Seymour made a 
 speech at Tammany Hall, in New York, most eloquently and power- 
 fully denouncing the Maine Law and Know-Nothing issues, and it was 
 especially important for what the Albany Argus, pronounced "its mas- 
 terly exposition of Democratic principles." 
 
 On October 3d National Democrats of the city of New York set 
 in motion a movement based on objection tO' the suppression of pri- 
 maries by the General Committee, an objection specially urged by Dan- 
 iel E. Sickles. This movement became known as the Half-Shell, 
 in contrast with the Hards, or regular Nationals. It later adopted a 
 ticket selected by the Liquor Dealers' Convention from the two Demo- 
 cratic tickets (Hard and Soft). With a prospect of a large support 
 in New York, this ticket did not seem likely to meet with much favor 
 elsewhere in the State. Abijah Mann, Preston King and Bradford 
 R. Wood were put in nomination on this ticket as Democrats in the 
 past with well developed inclination to get over the dividing line into 
 the Whig fold — Preston King, especially, the Argus said, "at the rate 
 of five dollars per day and all expenses paid." 
 
 Four tickets came to the polls November 6th, 1855 — the Demo- 
 cratic Soft Shell, Israel T. Hatch for Secretary of State; (Soft Shells 
 a new name for the Hunkers, as Hards was for the Barnburners) ; 
 Democratic Hard Shell, or National — ^the Dickinson ticket — Aaron 
 Ward for Secretary of State ; the Know-Nothing, Joel T. Headley for 
 Secretary of State; and the "Republican," headed by Preston King. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 313 
 
 The Albany city election resulted in a plurality for the Hatch ticket, 
 small over Know-Nothingism, but overwhelming against Fusionists. 
 The contest throughout the State was a sort of free fight, without much 
 regard to past political affinities. The Democrats lost what would have 
 been a brilliant victory by the split due to the indisposition of the Na- 
 tional leaders to forego a futile scheme to boom an anti-Marcy candi- 
 date for the Presidency, and plan for Democratic union. The advan- 
 tage thus given to the Know-Nothings enabled them to carry the State. 
 The official returns gave Headley, for Secretary of State, 146,374; 
 King, 135,750; Hatch, 90,057, and Ward, 58,426. The State Senate 
 stood 8 Democrats, 12 Know-Nothings and 12 Republicans ; the House, 
 50 Democrats, 44 Know-Nothings, and 33 Republicans. The "insane 
 internal contest" which had defeated the Democracy was admitted on 
 all hands to be needless. A reunited Democracy, which would have 
 polled 200,000 votes, could with the greatest ease, have been secured 
 had the Hards cared to make some effort in that direction. 
 
 Of the twenty-one States which had held State elections, fourteen 
 had gone Democratic, and ten other States, which had not held elec- 
 tions, had been strongly Democratic in the last presidential election. 
 
 The developments of public discussion early in December, 1855, 
 showed Gideon J. Tucker, editor of the Daily News, in New York, 
 scorning to give even a hearing to Soft-Democratic appeal for union, 
 and indignantly refusing to even appear to "submit once more to the 
 rule of Marcy, Van Buren and Seymour." Gideon J. Tucker said in 
 a personal letter : "I am opposed to a 'union' with you Softs, unless 
 upon the terms set forth by me in the Daily News, some time since, and 
 which the Argus, on your behalf, rejected." The statement of terms 
 made by Gideon J. Tucker in the Daily News had been as follows : 
 
 "If those of the Soft Shells who profess to be National men will 
 call a State convention, denounce Mr. John Van Buren and all his 
 associates, throw overboard Mr. Cassidy's Wilmot Proviso cornerstone, 
 repudiate Messrs. Hatch, Stetson, Thurston, Tilden and all other un- 
 changed Free Soilers, approve the Democratic platform of 1848, the 
 principle of non-intervention contained in the Compromise Measures 
 of 1850, and of the Nebraska bill as carrying out that same principle, 
 approve the Fugitive Slave Law, and refuse all alliance with persons 
 
314 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 who do not hold these views, they will be able to place themselves on 
 the National Democratic ground, and will have come upon the 'Hard' 
 Democratic platform." 
 
 This recitation of intolerant demands, initiating, quite apart from 
 the true Democratic proposition, the attitude of a faction, which came 
 to be stigmatized as "Copperhead," was so manifestly meant to humili- 
 ate the larger number of genuine Democrats as to make inevitable the 
 suggestion by the Argus of a basis of union decently considerate of 
 mutual convictions not inconsistent with fundamental unity. Tucker's 
 demand of the Argus to "deal summarily with those tinctured with 
 Free Soil ; to read every man out of the party who will not say aye to 
 such a platform (as he outlined above) ; and to utterly abandon the 
 Soft Shell organization," savored too much of the "fool fury" of in- 
 tolerant inquisition to answer any purpose but that of a mad rush upon 
 defeat, disgrace and destruction. The Argus proposed starting from 
 mutual respect, and coming together on a platform, the only declara- 
 tion of which on the subject of slavery should be adopted of the prin- 
 ciple, fundamental to both factions, of non-intervention. 
 
 The total population of the State June i, 1855, was 3,470,059, and 
 after deducting aliens and colored persons not taxed the number upon 
 which the Legislature apportionment was made in 1856 was 2,797,416. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 315 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 National Conventions and Elections of 1856 — Friction Between the 
 Hards and Softs — Assault on Charles Sumner — Resignation 
 of Preston — State Conventions of 1856 — Mormonism — ^In- 
 augural Address of President Buchanan, and Cabinet of — 
 The Dred Scott Decision — Death of William L. Marcy ; Sketch 
 of — CoHi^ntions and Elections of 1857 — Suspension of Banks 
 and the Financial Situation — The Lecompton Constitution. 
 
 A Democratic State Convention at Syracuse, January loth, 1856, 
 chose delegates to the National Democratic Convention appointed to 
 be held at Cincinnati to nominate Democratic candidates for President 
 and Vice-President. Nicholas Hill, Jr., of Albany, reported an address 
 of powerful appeal to the principles underlying the political issues of the 
 day. After a long delay the Assembly, January i6th, elected Orville 
 Robinson, a candidate on whom the Democrats united, as Speaker. The 
 election of a Speaker by the House of Representatives at Washing- 
 ton was not accomplished until February 2d, 1856, when Banks, of 
 Massachusetts, was chosen under the operation of a plurality rule. 
 The combination which elected Banks was one of Know-Nothings and 
 Republicans. Banks was elected to Congress as a Know-Nothing, and 
 in the last Congress he was the Know-Nothing leader on the floor of 
 the House. The event was recognized by Democrats as signaling the 
 death of the old Whig enemy and the succession to that foe of a Know- 
 Nothing-Black Republican coalition. 
 
 February i6th, 1856, announcement was made that Comstock, of 
 the Albany Argus, had become sole proprietor of that paper, and that 
 its union with the Albany Atlas had been effected through the purchase 
 by William Cassidy of his partner's interest in, the Atlas, and an al- 
 liance between Comstock and Cassidy to set an example of Democratic 
 
3i6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 union. The change to a morning daily was also made, and the paper 
 issued under the name Atlas and Argus. It will be convenient, in these 
 annals of the Democracy, to refer to the paper, in future, as heretofore, 
 under its notable historic name, the Albany Argus. Under the con- 
 solidation the paper was the foremost in the State in circulation. 
 
 February 22d a Know-Nothing Convention at Philadelphia de- 
 veloped into a fight among factions of the order, which resulted in 
 explosive separation of the two leading factions. The smaller of these 
 nominated- as national candidates George Law and Samuel Houston. 
 The majority ran up the names of Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jack- 
 son Donelson. A "Republican" convention at Philadelphia, June 7th, 
 received a telegram from the minority faction of the Know-Nothings 
 at Philadelphia — "Americans are with you." iSf" 
 
 March 25th, 1856, a decision of the Court of Appeals by concur- 
 rence of five of the eight judges pronounced the Prohibitory Liquor 
 Law null and void because of violation in its provisions of the Consti- 
 tution. Governor Seymour's veto of a Prohibitory Law Act had de- 
 clared that procedure authorized by it was not "due process of law re- 
 quired by the Constitution of the State," and it was on this point that 
 the Court of Appeals gave a decision. The grosser characteristics of 
 the law authorizing search, seizure and confiscation of liquors, the per- 
 versions of the logic of evidence and the presumptions of law, were not 
 taken up by the Court. 
 
 The Albany city election of April 8th, 1856, was carried by the 
 Democrats, against the Know-Nothings, with a locally popular candi- 
 date of "Hard" Democratic antecedents. 
 
 April 9, 1856, Senator Seward made an elaborate speech on Kansas 
 which was regarded as his first great efifort in this Congress. The 
 argumentative aims of the speech were directed against President 
 Pierce's message of January 24th, 1856, and his special Kansas mes- 
 sage of February nth, the representations of which, in contrast with 
 the facts alleged by the orator as historical, were viciously attacked. 
 An able press correspondent said by way of comment on this speech : 
 
 "The political features of the discourse were the avowal of the 
 design to bring the 'State of Kansas' into the Union with the Topeka 
 constitution as her charter; the invocation of members of the House 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 317 
 
 to stop the supplies until the design be accomplished; the declaration 
 that the slavery agitation can never be suppressed while a single human 
 being remains in bondage ; the not obscure expression of the conviction 
 that African slavery is doomed the world over, especially in the United 
 States ; the utterance of the opinion that the Union is indissoluble, but 
 that if the contrary were true, the cause of dissolution would be the 
 direct or indirect extension of slavery by the Federal government ; and 
 the solemn impeachment of the President for his conduct in relation 
 to Kansas, in the very language in which the first Congress of the con- 
 federated colonies impeached George III. 
 
 "The claims of Kansas, Senator Seward based exclusively upon 
 the right of revolution. He scouted the idea of inquiring whether the 
 conduct of the Free State men was technically legal or not, as they 
 were a community struggling against foreign dominion. Projects of 
 evil omen to the South lurk in every line of Seward's programme. 
 He urges the admission of Kansas as a free State, and its exclusion 
 if a slave State, as a Northern battle-cry in the canvass for the Presi- 
 dency; a project which would be at war with the spirit of the Consti- 
 tution and the letter and spirit of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. 
 Seward has no hope that his bill proposing to admit Kansas into the 
 Union by this Congress will pass either House; nor does he desire it, 
 for he hopes to dam up all legislation until the waters accumulate, 
 and the torrent is potent enough when turned into another course, to 
 sweep away all obstacles, and bear him on the topmost wave to the 
 White House. Looking merely to the preservation of the Union, I do 
 not hesitate to say that he is a most dangerous man, notwithstanding 
 his declaration that the Union is indissoluble. 
 
 "Judging from this speech, I should say Seward is not a born ora- 
 tor. His general appearance is that of a student, whose lamp burns 
 during the silent hours of the night. Nothing in his person or aspect 
 gives you the impression of mental or physical power. I should char- 
 acterize him as a man possessing a passionless intellect, incapable of 
 seizing reason on its throne through the avenues either of imagination 
 or feeling. It would seem to be the fate of the student, engaged in 
 the contemplation of abstract truth, to lose in a great measure the quick 
 sympathies which render him impassionable as a man and impressive as 
 
3i8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 an orator. Seward may be great in his closet, but his name will never 
 be a rallying cry to the masses." 
 
 The Argus, in quoting this exceptionally fine comment on the ora- 
 tor, the statesman, and the man, from the St. Louis Republican, said : 
 "If this is the language of a paper devoted to 'freedom in Kansas,' 
 what must be the tone of the Southern press?" History cannot fail 
 to see from Seward's appeal to ideas far away from those wrought in 
 the history of the Union, that he bore, at once recklessly and unflinch- 
 ingly, a banner of unscrupulous menace; that he swung the identical 
 Boston bludgeon of Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy and Garrison, 
 who were out to smash things generally in the interest of negroes held 
 to service by State law ; and that, whatever humane or patriotic mo- 
 tives he cherished, a dominant aim of his political career was personal 
 ambition, cold-blooded and selfish. The Southern press and people 
 easily discerned in him a man of scheming antagonism, purposing dis- 
 union and destruction under a profession of union. 
 
 With the developments, political and journalistic, of 1855 and 1856, 
 the Albany Atlas and Argus of May 12, 1856, urged the view that at 
 the Syracuse Convention of 1853 the Soft invaders were the regular 
 Democracy of the State, and that the delegates who completed their 
 work at the Globe Hotel historically represented the origin of an ir- 
 regular Hard section or faction; and further that Judge Bronson, in 
 1854, was the faction candidate and Seymour the regular candidate, 
 Seymour having polled 156,000 votes to 33,000 for Bronson. This 
 view, however, is not in accordance with the history. It was not when 
 the Bronson supporters polled but 33,000 votes and the Seymour sup- 
 porters polled 156,000, that the banner of regular Democratic or- 
 ganization passed from the Hards to the Softs ; much less was it when 
 a mob of Softs seized the chair of the convention hall at Syracuse, and 
 compelled the hitherto unquestioned regulars to complete their work at 
 a hotel. The transformation took place when the Hard convention 
 arrogantly assumed to construe a Dickinson anti-administration mi- 
 nority as the whole thing, and found itself left in the position of a 
 minor faction in consequence of surprisingly, not to say scandalously, 
 undemocratic methods and measures. This is surely the Democratic 
 view. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 319 
 
 This statement of historical facts was questioned by John Cochrane 
 in a speech before the Union Club, in May, 1856, on the ground that 
 of 98 delegates, who had been enrolled as members of the convention 
 and had taken their seats, only 30 remained to participate in the action 
 taken at the hotel, while 68 returned to their seats in the captured hall, 
 and participated in the action taken there. The 30 had the formal 
 organization with them, and the 68 flocked to the other place as in- 
 dividuals, not unwilling, perhaps, to desert the regular organization. 
 Cochrane admits that the 68 took part in the revolutionary action of the 
 convention at the hall. The later course of events brought the Hards 
 back into a position of comparative equality with the Softs, but mainly 
 through influences not representative of the State at large, but of New 
 York City, or not representative of the State at all, but of the party 
 outside of the State. There remained in New York City a vigorous 
 Hard organization, which figured as Dickinson partisans, and the Cin- 
 cinnati Convention of 1856 insisted, in disregard of the majority report 
 of the credentials committee, that the Hards should have half the New 
 York representation; and Buchanan, the nominee of the convention, 
 stood for the Hard ideas. But all the same, the Softs represented the 
 weight of the State, and the next Baltimore Convention, with its over- 
 weight for Douglas, went their way, and gave them the future of the 
 Democracy of the State. 
 
 In May, 1856, a committee from the Pennsylvania State Demo- 
 cratic Convention apprised Hon. James Buchanan, who was on a visit 
 from his post of American Minister at London, that the Democrats of 
 Pennsylvania would make him their presidential candidate. That the 
 election of the candidate of the Democracy was inevitable was already 
 manifest, in view of the division of the opponents of Democracy into 
 Know-Nothings, without a respectably national candidate, and Black 
 Republicans, inclined to make a standard-bearer of Colonel Fremont, 
 a nondescript character who counted for nothing of significance beyond 
 the fact that he was the son-in-law of Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. 
 
 An event of unhappy notoriety at Washington, May 22, 1856, was 
 an "act of rage and folly" on the part of Colonel Preston S. Brooks, a 
 South Carolina member of the House. He gave Senator Charles Sum- 
 ner, of Massachusetts, in the Senate chamber, and in his seat compara- 
 
320 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tively helpless, a terrible beating with a heavy gutta-percha cane. The 
 violence of the attack was so severe as to leave his victim prostrate and 
 bleeding on the floor, with spinal wounds of the most painful and dis- 
 abling character. The weapon used for the attack could hardly have 
 been more brutal and ruffianly in its effect, however true may have been 
 the declaration of Colonel Brooks that he "did not wish to hurt him 
 much, but only to whip him." The cane was "an inch thick, -but 
 hollow," and perhaps efficient as an instrument of "rage and folly" to 
 a degree not expected by the assailant of Charles Sumner. It was used 
 with swift and vicious energy upon Sumner, confined by his seat. The 
 first and heaviest blow fell upon his head, and the rain of blows contin- 
 ued until the cudgel was broken into fragments, and the large and 
 powerful frame of the Massachusetts Senator was a helpless wreck on 
 the floor of the Senate. Charles Sumner was a man of large and hand- 
 some figure, of noble bearing, a gentleman of aristocratic hauteur and 
 dignity, the figure before all others from the North a brutal assault upon 
 whom meant intolerable offence. The assault had been provoked by 
 a very bitter and scarcely defensible attack on one of the Senators from 
 South Carolina. 
 
 On the meeting, June 2, 1856, at Cincinnati, of the Democratic 
 National Convention, two delegations numbering seventy each con- 
 tested the right to seats in the convention to represent the Democracy 
 of New York. The committee on credentials favored, by a majority 
 vote, the claim of the Softs to be the regular Democracy, but reported 
 that the Hards should be given 26 votes in the convention and the Softs 
 the other 44. Senator Bayard, of Delaware, chairman of the com- 
 mittee on credentials, reported in favor of giving half the seats to each 
 section, and this was carried in the convention with immense enthu- 
 siasm, the general feeling being that the Hards represented the true 
 line of Democratic development, and that the great preponderance of 
 the Softs in number was due to leanings of a very great number away 
 from regular and genuine Democratic principles. The New York 
 delegation came into the convention on the fourth day, in two sections, 
 and each voted separately its assent to the platform already adopted. 
 Nominations of James Buchanan, Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin 
 Pierce, and Lewis Cass were made. The names of Buchanan and 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 321 
 
 Douglas were received with great applause, but that of Pieixe coldly. 
 The New York Softs voted for Pierce, and the Hards for Buchanan, 
 on the first ballot. Buchanan led at the start with 135 votes to 122 for 
 Pierce, 33 for Douglas and 5 for Cass. By the seventh ballot Pierce 
 had lost heavily. On the fifteenth ballot Pierce's State voted for 
 Douglas, whose total vote rose from 63 to 118, while Pierce's fell from 
 75 to 3, with Buchanan 50 votes above Douglas. Before the sixteenth 
 and final ballot was taken, a telegraphic despatch from Douglas was 
 read withdrawing his name, and the convention proceeded, with exu- 
 berance of speech-making, to a ballot which gave the unanimous vote 
 of the body to James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. The Softs voted 
 throughout for Pierce, and then for Douglas, v/hile Buchanan was from 
 the first the Hard candidate. The result of the convention both in the 
 seating of delegates and in the choice of a candidate was to bring the 
 Hards up to equality with the more numerous Softs, and while the con- 
 vention was in the full heat of the final ballot a motion was carried to 
 efface from the record the reports of the majority and the minority of 
 •the committee on credentials, and leave New York united in Demo- 
 cratic loyalty to the nomination of Buchanan. John C. Breckenridge 
 was nominated for Vice-President on the second ballot. Of Buchanan 
 even the extreme "Republican" press spoke favorably, and the opposi- 
 tion admission generally was : "He will be a hard candidate to beat." 
 Colonel Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, had written a few days be- 
 fore (May 27th) : "I think Buchanan would be the safest for the 
 peace and harmony of the country, both at home and abroad; but he 
 is proscribed for not having 'the smoke of the Kansas battle on his 
 skirts.' " Democratic organs, especially Southern journals, recognized 
 that Colonel Brooks' "terrible blunder," in the attack on Sumner, was 
 largely responsible for the defeat of Pierce in the convention, and that 
 it had "strengthened Black Republicanism immensely." Sympathizers 
 with Sewardism openly said that the Brooks "outrage" was a most 
 fortunate event. Rev. Dr. Halley, at the. Capitol in Albany, said: 
 "While I am ashamed and sorry at this outrage, in one sense I rejoice 
 at it. I rejoice for the salutary influence it will exert upon the North. 
 We require some startling, impressive fact to wake us up, and we have 
 got it. That blow, though dealt by a ruffian's arm, was wisely timed." 
 
322 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The fatuous confusion of the clergymen and philanthropists of the 
 North, glad of evil done if it helped their wishes, and ready to do any 
 evil almost, if by that evil good might come, was the notable criminal 
 blunder of the time,on one side of the conflict, destined to come to the 
 terrible arbitrament of bloody battles. 
 
 When the time came to call a convention of the united Democracy 
 of New York, the Soft committee were unable to persuade the Hard 
 committee to join them in making such a call, the Hard idea being 
 that each section should call its own convention, and that the united 
 action should be taken by the two conventions. In view of the Hard 
 refusal to join in calling a convention for July loth, at Syracuse, the 
 Soft committee issued a call for a convention of all Democrats, July 
 30th, at Syracuse. The Hard committee issued a call for a convention 
 August 6th, but very soon changed the date to July 30th. The call 
 expressly requested the Soft committee to be ready with a Soft con- 
 vention to enter into the proposed union. 
 
 The "Republican" National Convention met at Philadelphia, June 
 16, 1856, and on the next day put in nomination for the Presidency 
 John C. Fremont. Dayton, a Know-Nothing, was nominated for 
 Vice-President. The name second to Dayton's on the informal ballot 
 (no votes to Dayton 259) was that of Lincoln. 
 
 July 2, 1856, the bill of Senator Douglas for the admission of 
 Kansas passed the Senate by 33 ayes to 12 nays. Seward's attempt to 
 substitute a bill recognizing the Topeka Constitution got only 11 
 votes to 36 against it. • 
 
 July 14th the House voted by 121 yeas to 95 nays for the expulsion 
 of Preston S. Brooks for his assault on Senator Sumner. The vote 
 was not effective because it fell short of the required two-thirds, but 
 in view of it Brooks announced that he had resigned his seat. A vote 
 on Keitt, who was with Brooks when he made his assault, brought 
 from him also the announcement that he had resigned. 
 
 Upon the meeting, July 30, 1856, of the separate Soft and Hard 
 conventions, a speedy conjunction of the two bodies was effected and 
 the consolidated Democracy put in nomination the following State 
 ticket : 
 
 Amasa J. Parker for Governor, John Vanderbilt for Lieutenant- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 323 
 
 Governor, John L. Russell for Canal Commissioner, Matthew T. Bren- 
 nan for Prison Inspector, and Horatio G. Warner for Clerk of Court of 
 Appeals. The convention also nominated an electoral State ticket. 
 Addison Gardiner and David L. Seymour were named for electors-at- 
 large. 
 
 August 30th, the Army bill, which had been held up through the 
 insistence by the majority on a proviso against use of the army in sup- 
 port of free-soil legislation in Kansas, was passed by the House with 
 this proviso — 99 to 79. The Senate almost at once sent it back with 
 the proviso struck out, and with this action the House concurred, and 
 the bill passed, loi to 98. 
 
 Elections in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, October 
 14th, gave two of these States to the Democracy, with absolute prom- 
 ise of their support of Buchanan in November, and a prospect of secur- 
 ing the third, Ohio, for the Democratic column. 
 
 In the election of November 4, 1856, the whole number of votes 
 cast in the State was 592,706, and of these Fremont received 275,440, 
 Buchanan 195,314, and Fillmore 124,206. Buchanan, in the country 
 at large, carried the election by 174 to 114 for Fremont, and 8 for Fill- 
 more. The popular vote for Buchanan was 1,847,738, for Fremont 
 1,356,311, and for Fillmore 858,438. 
 
 Congress showed, as a press notice said, "an absolute, irresistible 
 Democratic majority in the House of Representatives," an overthrow 
 of Black Republican strength of good omen for every real public in- 
 terest. 
 
 The last annual message of President Pierce was one not only of 
 review but of congratulation, "that the courageous energy of our 
 people is making of these United States the great republic of the world," 
 and that "in our foreign relations we can place ourselves in the calmness 
 and conscious dignity of right by the side of the greatest and wealthiest 
 of the empires of Europe." 
 
 England had had her minister sent away and consuls dismissed for 
 misconduct of grave import, and the Austrian minister had gone off in 
 high dudgeon at Daniel Webster's generous appreciation of the appeal 
 of Kossuth for American sympathy, but neither country wanted any 
 other than friendly relations with us. The expenses of the Govern- 
 
324 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 ment amounted for the fiscal year 1855-56 to $72,948,401, including 
 $3,000,000 in execution of the treaty with Mexico, and $12,776,390 
 on account of the public debt. During the same year the receipts from 
 all sources were $73,918,141. 
 
 March 4, 1853, the public debt had been $69,129,937, and with 
 $2,750,000 added for the debt of Texas, the total of debt became $71,- 
 879,937. At the date of President Pierce's message, $45,025,319 had 
 been paid, and the balance could be paid within a year without embar- 
 rassment to the public service, but for the fact that the public creditors 
 would not accept payment, the debt being not yet due. 
 
 In New York at this time the experiment with Maine Liquor Law 
 prohibition had ended in a slump so pronounced as to cause the New 
 York Tribune to give notice that it must be counted out for the future, 
 on the ground of the utterly inefifective and fatuous character of pro- 
 hibitory legislation. 
 
 On the subject of Mormonism, including polygamy, the Albany 
 Argus of January 3, 1857, said: 
 
 "What is to be done with the new barbarism growing out of the 
 old civilization ? If quack politicians make an 'issue' of it, we do not 
 see that humanity will be the wiser. * * Let us have faith in De- 
 mocracy. The founders of our government declared that it mattered 
 little if error was left free by government, so long as truth was left 
 free to combat it. Let the monstrous delusion of Mormonism exist. 
 It is thus that England deals with polygamy, and the monstrous idol- 
 atry of India; thus France, with its Arab colonies; thus all civilized 
 nations with their dependencies. Force will not do. It has been tried 
 and failed. Let us have faith in Democracy; and, above all, let us 
 not wipe the promise of 'religious toleration' from our escutcheon at 
 the first provocation of error — great as the error is, yet home-grown, 
 and the fruit of our social and religious system — the result of neglect 
 of the poor, and of the insufficiency of a religion whose highest virtues 
 are mere decorum and gentility." 
 
 The two questions of toleration and of the conditions of which 
 Mormonism was the result were not equally weighed in the above judg- 
 ment. It was easy to pronounce for toleration, and yet it could not be 
 assumed that Mormonism was a case in point, if it included features 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 325 
 
 of seriously immoral character, such as massacre of enemies of the faith, 
 and with this a grotesque fiction of marriage as security for admission 
 to eternal life. That it appealed in some cases, or in many, to persons 
 who had felt the defects of existing religious communion was no proof 
 that it was the result of experience of these defects. It was rather the 
 result of crude, ignorant, credulous impulse to make a scheme of re- 
 ligion, partly out of spiritualistic stuff, partly out of imagination freely 
 indulged, and very largely out of the Bible record of Israelite, Hebrew, 
 Jew, story, in which massacre of enemies of the faith and indulgence in 
 polygamy, were authenticated as subjects of divine revelation. It was 
 not, in fact, a case of simple and honest religion, to be tolerated, but 
 a case of dangerously low superstition, of insensate reversion to bar- 
 barism in -social law, and of criminal subversion of the just order of 
 organized welfare. 
 
 At Worcester, Mass., under the lead of "Rev." Thomas Wentworth 
 Higginson, a convention of disunion shriekers was called for January 
 ^5' 1857, "to consider the practicability, probability and expediency of 
 a separation between the free and slave States," the reason given for 
 this being "the fundamental difference in the education, habits and 
 laws" of the two peoples. 
 
 With the message of Governor John A. King, January 6, 1857, 
 the Albany Argus said : 
 
 "It is a relief to his opponents as well as to his party, that a states- 
 man of elevated views, and who will preserve the dignity of his office 
 for his own sake, not less than for that of the State with which his 
 name is identified, succeeds to the executive, who, with the sordid and 
 fanatic crew that surrounded him, has just abandoned a seat, which 
 he might lower, but which could not elevate him." Governor Myron 
 H. Clark had particularly outraged public sentiment by a large jail- 
 delivery of convicts, in the last week of his term of service. One of 
 these, who was under a ten-years sentence for rape, and let out after 
 two years' confinement, had already committed a slung-shot murder in 
 New York. 
 
 February 3d, 1857, Preston King was elected to the United States 
 Senate by a considerable majority over Daniel E. Sickles, the Demo- 
 cratic candidate. 
 
326 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The inaugural address of President Buchanan, March 4, 1857, said 
 in a brief reference to the slavery question : 
 
 "All agree that under the Constitution, slavery in the States is 
 beyond the reach of any human power, except that of the respective 
 States themselves wherein it exists. The agitation of this subject for 
 more than twenty years has been the prolific source of great evils to 
 the master, to the slave and to the whole country. It has alienated and 
 estranged the people of the sister States from each other, and has se- 
 riously endangered the very existence of the Union. Nor has the dan- 
 ger yet entirely ceased. The question of domestic slavery is of far 
 greater importance than any political question, because, should the 
 agitation continue, it may eventually endanger the political safety of a 
 large portion of our countrymen where the institution exists. In that 
 event no form of government, however productive of material benefits, 
 can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around the 
 family altar. 
 
 "It is an evil of the times that men have undertaken to calculate 
 the mere material value of the Union. Considerations of trade, im- 
 portant as they are in themselves, sink into insignificance when we 
 reflect on the terrific evils which would result from disunion, to every 
 portion of the confederacy, to the North not more than to the South, 
 to the East not more than to the West." 
 
 Buchanan's Cabinet, confirmed by the Senate, March 6, consisted of 
 Lewis Cass, Secretary of State; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Treasury; 
 John B. Floyd, of Virginia, War; Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut, 
 Navy; Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Interior; Jeremiah S. Black, 
 of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General, and A. V. Brown, of Tennessee, 
 Postmaster-General. 
 
 Lewis Cass was born at Exeter, N. H., October 9, 1782, and died 
 at Detroit, June 17, 1866. He was a lawyer. During the War of 1812 
 he rose to the rank of brigadier-general; from 1813 to 1831 he was 
 Governor of Michigan Territory ; under Jackson he was Secretary of 
 War; from 1845 to 1857 he was United States Senator from Michigan. 
 In 1848 he was a candidate for President 
 
 Howell Cobb, in his forty-second year, had been in Congress since 
 1842, and became Speaker of the House in 1849. ^- V. Brown, sixty- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 327 
 
 two years of age, had been in the House from 1839 to 1845, and was 
 Governor of Tennessee 1845-47. John B. Floyd had been Governor 
 of Virginia, and was the choice of the Virginia Democracy for a seat 
 in the Cabinet. Jacob Thompson, forty-five years of age, had been a 
 member of the House from Mississippi for many years. Isaac Toucey 
 had been Attorney-General under President Polk and United States 
 Senator from Connecticut. Jeremiah S. Black, Chief Justice of Penn- 
 sylvania, was a jurist of the highest distinction. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States passed upon the claim of 
 Dred Scott, a negro, who demanded freedom on the ground that he 
 had resided two years, by the act of his owner, in a State where 
 slavery is prohibited, under the Constitution, and afterwards in a ter- 
 ritory from which it was excluded by the Missouri Compromise. The 
 decision denying his claim set forth these points : 
 
 1st. — That an African negro is not a citizen, and therefore cannot 
 sue in the courts of the United States. 
 
 2d. — That negroes, not citizens under the Constitution, could not 
 derive freedom from any legitimate operation of the ordinance of 1787. 
 
 3d. — That the Missouri Compromise was of no legal effect to give 
 freedom and citizenship to negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana 
 cession of territory. 
 
 The New York Tribune gave the decision a character morally at 
 the level of a Washington bar-room crowd, and declared that it was 
 dictated to the Bench by the stump under threat of the bowie knife, and 
 was "of a piece with the votes of Benton, Dix, etc., for the annexation 
 of Texas." The shriek of the Legislature of Massachusetts upon the 
 annexation of Texas had been that "by the act of annexation the Union 
 is dissolved," and now the shriek of the Tribune was "that this Union 
 is not worth preserving, upon the basis of the doctrine of the inaugural 
 (of Buchanan), backed by the decision of the Supreme Court." 
 
 The Albany -Argus at that time pointed out that all the departments 
 of the Federal government, and many of the States, had acted upon the 
 assumption of fact that Africans and their descendants cannot be made 
 "citizens." Free negroes of the northern States had been invariably 
 refused passports as "citizens" of the United States. Chief Justice 
 Daggett, of Connecticut, had declared that African negroes were not 
 
328 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 citizens. The California courts had pronounced that the Chinese, like 
 the Indians, cannot be naturalized into citizenship. The African freed- 
 man could vote and hold office in his own State, but beyond the limits 
 of that State he was only a free negro. Chief Justice Daggett's deci- 
 sion, in 1834, had expressly declared that in the sense of Art. 4, Sec. 2, 
 1st sub. of the Constitution of the United States, giving "the citizens 
 of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
 States," negroes were not citizens. Justice Daggett quoted Chancellor 
 Kent as saying : "In most of the United States there is a distinction 
 in respect to political privileges between, free white persons and free 
 colored persons of African blood, and in no part of the country do the 
 latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exer- 
 cise of civil and political rights. The African race are essentially a 
 degraded caste. Marriages are forbidden between them and whites, in 
 some of the States, and when not absolutely contrary to law, they are 
 revolting and regarded as an offence against public decorum. By an 
 old statute of Massachusetts of 1705, such marriages were declared 
 void, and are so still. A similar statute provision exists in Virginia 
 and North Carolina. Such connections in France and Germany coh- 
 stitute the degraded state of concubinage which is known in the civil 
 law. But they are not legal marriages, because the parties want that 
 equality of state or condition which is essential to the contract." 
 
 And, further, Justice Daggett said : 
 
 "I go further back still. When the Constitution was adopted, every 
 State (Massachusetts excepted) tolerated slavery. It was not until 
 July 4, 1827, that New York was ranked among the free States. To 
 my mind, it would be a perversion of terms and the well-known rule of 
 construction to say that, slaves, free blacks or Indians, were citizens, 
 within the meaning of that term, as used in the Constitution. God 
 forbid that I should add to the degradation of this race of men; but 
 I am bound, by my duty, to say they are not citizens." 
 
 This doctrine, William Wirt, when Attorney-General of the United 
 States, in 1821, officially announced, as advice to the Secretary of the 
 Navy, in Monroe's administration. Wirt stated the conclusion of his 
 research in these words : 
 
 "Upon the whole, I am of the opinion that free persons of color in 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 329 
 
 Virginia are not citizens of the United States, within the intent and 
 meaning of the acts regulating foreign and coasting trade, so as to be 
 quahfied to command vessels." 
 
 The zealots of negro equality in the State of New York were excited 
 by the Dred Scott decision to try to extend negro suffrage to other 
 blacks than the holders of $250 freehold. The vote of the State in 
 1846 had been 223,834 against it to 85,306 for it. The free colored 
 population of the State at this time numbered upwards of 50,000. The 
 Legislature of 1857 voted to amend the State Constitution by abolish- 
 ing the property qualification and dispensing with the three years of 
 residence for'persons of color. 
 
 In consequence of an oversight in the Executive office these resolu- 
 tions of the Legislature were not duly published, and no second action 
 on them to send them to the people to be voted upon could be taken. 
 
 The sudden and unexpected death of William L. Marcy, July 4, 
 1857, at Ballston Spa, at 71 years of age, removed from the political 
 stage a character second to none in the nation, in intellectual power and 
 in the experience and honors of statesmanship. At the breaking out of 
 the War of 1812 he had turned from the threshold of the legal profes- 
 sion to serve as a soldier. His initiation into political service was as a 
 confidential friend of Van Buren, the support of whom occasioned his 
 removal in 1818 from the office of Recorder of Troy, to which Gov- 
 ernor Tompkins had appointed him. He was immediately nominated 
 to the office of Attorney-General ; and upon the reorganization of the 
 State under the Constitution of 182 1 he was chosen Comptroller. In 
 1829 he was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court, and from this 
 position he was advanced to that of United States Senator. He re- 
 signed from the Senatorship to become Governor of New York, and 
 held this office for three terms, with rare demonstration of administra- 
 tive ability. He had been an able judge, and an eloquent Senator, but 
 in the State offices which he held, first as Comptroller, and then as Gov- 
 ernor, the full measure of his powers and the uncommon qualities of his 
 character, made a record of the highest distinction. This eminence in 
 statesmanship made illustrious his service as Secretary of War under 
 President Polk and as Secretary of State under President Pierce. The 
 conduct of the war with Mexico fell peculiarly under his direction, and 
 
330 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the promptness, vigor and thoroughness with which he discharged his 
 office may be compared most favorably with any known example of war 
 administration. And in the later and still higher administration of 
 diplomacy, as Secretary of State in a critical period, not less imperisha- 
 ble laurels were won. He was a candidate before the Democracy for the 
 Presidency in 1852, with claims far above those of any competitor, and 
 again in 1856 he should have been, on the score of abilities and charac- 
 ter, of experience and distinction, the Democratic standard-bearer, but 
 at both of these critical moments a hard and narrow concern for the 
 machine of State rather than the people under national administration, 
 caused hesitation to give great place to so broadminded a statesman as 
 William L. Marcy, the friend of Martin Van Buren, and the foremost 
 example of the Democracy of the Empire State. Where Buchanan 
 was a Democrat of the past, of preservation of the Union, Marcy was 
 a Democrat of the future, of development of the Union along lines of 
 destined progress. A political opponent, speaking editorially in the 
 Albany Evening Journal, said : "We know with what enlightened 
 judgment, with what comprehensive grasp, with what surpassing abil- 
 ity, and with what devoted patriotism his public duties were all dis- 
 charged. We know that during his forty years of official life, in sta- 
 tions of great trust and high responsibility, he was governed by the 
 golden rule of right. We know that at all times and under all circum- 
 stances, he was a man of inflexible integrity. Every office he received 
 from the people was returned to them graced by his acceptance of it, 
 and made honorable by the manner its duties had been discharged. He 
 was an efficient Comptroller. He preserved the purity of the Ermine. 
 His Senatorial Robe was without spot or blemish. He was an upright 
 Chief Magistrate. He was an effective Secretary of War. And he 
 was confessedly a wise, fearless and accomplished Secretary of State. 
 The brilliant diplomatic achievements of his last four years most appro- 
 priately close and crown a life of stirring incident, high aspiration, 
 great labor and greater usefulness." 
 
 William L. Marcy had for thirty years suffered touches of disturbed 
 heart action, and for two years these had been such as to lead him to 
 say of i860 presidential prospects : "I shall never live to see the elec- 
 tion of another President." To friends who would have promoted his 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 331 
 
 retention in office under Buchanan he was inflexibly peremptory in re- 
 fusing to permit any thought but of retirement to private Hfe. The 
 New York Evening Post said of the great Secretary in death : "If 
 Mr. Marcy had hved longer he would probably have left the country 
 additional evidences of his wonderful controversial ability, at least on 
 the subject which had engaged' his attention in his masterly letter in 
 reply to the propositions of the European powers relative to the abol- 
 ishment of privateering. He will always be" remembered as the great- 
 est expounder of the doctrine of exemption of private property from 
 capture on the high seas, whether by privateers or naval vessels, in time 
 of war as well as in peace." 
 
 'The last, and in the judgment of his friends, the ablest official pro- 
 duction of Secretary Marcy, was his reply to the demand of the French 
 Government for indemnity for losses sustained by French residents in 
 Greytown at the time of its bombardment. 
 
 "Mr. Marcy's correspondence with General Scott is perhaps his 
 most signal effort in one peculiar style of controversy to which his con- 
 nection with the political press in early life had trained him. It seemed 
 as if nothing could be added to or taken from a specimen so perfect of 
 its kind ; yet a few minutes after he had sent his concluding letter he 
 told a friend that he had forgotten the most important point which he 
 had intended to make — the only point which remained to perfect his 
 argument, but unfortunately the discovery was too late to enable him 
 to supply the omission." 
 
 William L. Marcy was a man of books, of study and culture, with 
 the rare combination of the scholar and the statesman. He was in per- 
 sonal qualities and in private life attractive and noble to a very high de- 
 gree. He was one of the four founders of Rochester University. The 
 president of that institution, after remarking on his gifts and powers 
 as a statesman, went on to say : 
 
 "But it was not these qualities, great and splendid as they were, that 
 formed his chief claim to our reverential regard. It was his stainless 
 honor and incorruptible integrity, the moral power with which he with- 
 stood outrage and wrong at home, and vindicated the political outcast 
 from the grasp of tyranny abroad; the unshrinking confidence with 
 which he laid down the simple doctrines of Christian morality as the 
 
332 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 only legitimate basis of international law — that will give his name and 
 fame to everlasting remembrance." 
 
 Governor Marcy's message to the Legislature in 1836 had broadly 
 and clearly advocated the national Democratic principle of * non-inter- 
 vention in the matter of slavery. 
 
 It was related in a letter to the Boston Transcript soon after Mar- 
 cy's death, that when a mere boy his father was led by circumstances 
 to speak of him to Salem Towne, the well-known educator, as a bad 
 boy. A school in which blows were freely administered had not made 
 a success of its discipline, and the father frankly stated that the boy was 
 wont to give trouble. Towne, then teaching a school in Charlton, the 
 next town to Sturbridge, undertook to receive the boy, even against the 
 protest of the school agent, who took the father's word for it that the 
 boy would make trouble. At the first recitation the boy, when told to 
 close his book, dodged his head, as if expecting a blow. To Towne's 
 inquiry why he recoiled and dodged his head, the boy said he expected 
 to be beaten. On further inquiry Towne learned that that had been 
 his experience, and he thereupon took pains to explain that it was 
 never his way, and that he believed he was a good boy, and was sure 
 he wanted to be a good boy. The effect was two winters' schooling, 
 and advice from Towne to have the boy fitted for college. The father 
 asked why he advised this, and Towne said : "I see in him a boy that 
 you will hear from in after life." In after life Marcy said : "What- 
 ever I have attained I owe to him. Towne made me." 
 
 A' ten thousand dollar silver service, ordered in the spring of 1857, 
 but not completed until after Marcy's death, was presented to his 
 family about September ist. The gift was from merchants of New 
 Yorkj to express their a-ppreciation of Marcy's "wise and able ad- 
 ministration of the foreign affairs of the country." 
 
 The State Democratic Convention met at Syracuse September loth, 
 1857, and put in nomination the following State ticket : Hiram Denio, 
 Judge of the Court of Appeals ; Gideon J. Tucker, Secretary of State ; 
 Sanford E. Church, Comptroller; Isaac V. Vanderpoel, State Treas- 
 urer; John M. Jaycox, Canal Commissioner; Lyman Tremain, At- 
 torney-General; Van Rensselaer Richmond, State Engineer and Sur- 
 veyor, and William C. Rhodes, Inspector of State Prisons. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 333 
 
 A Seward "Republican" convention assembled at Syracuse Sep- 
 tember 23d, nominated an opposition ticket of varied character, with 
 one Clapp for Secretary of State, whose only distinction was that of 
 his denunciation of his party and his Know-Nothing principles. 
 
 On Tuesday, October 13, 1857, nineteen of the banks of New York 
 suspended payment, and on the next day a general suspension of specie 
 payment swept over the country, all the New York banks having set 
 the example. 
 
 In the election November 3d, 1857, Albany County gave a Demo- 
 cratic plurality of four thousand, and the Seward Republicans were 
 in a minority of eight thousand. The Democrats elected their State 
 ticket, but came a little short of control of the Legislature. On Sec- 
 retary of State the vote stood, Tucker, Democrat, 195,482 ; Clapp, 
 Seward Republican, 177,425; Putnam, Know-Nothing, 66,882. 
 
 The Tucker vote was 14 above that of the preceding fall for Bu- 
 chanan. The Democratic gain of a year over Republicans was 98,457. 
 It was a revolution of national as well as State significance. The 
 State Legislature counted 58 Democrats, 61 Republicans and 9 Know- 
 Nothings in the Assembly; and in the Senate, 14 Democrats, 15 
 Republicans, 2 Americans and i Independent. The count of Con- 
 gress showed a House composed of 128 Democrats, 92 Republi- 
 cans, and 14 Know-Nothings or "Americans." Orr, of South Caro- 
 lina, was elected Speaker. This Congress had been elected in 
 1856. 
 
 December 4th more than one-half of the balances at the bank clear- 
 ing house was paid in specie, and almost at once the resumption of 
 specie payments was complete. The fact was that there was not gen- 
 eral actual suspension ; banks in the interior were not in it at all ; the 
 notes of the suspended banks remained at par with specie; exchange 
 upon England fell, instead of rising; the bank vaults became glutted 
 with gold ; the New York institutions held many times more coin than 
 the Bank of England or of France ; there was, in fact, as much specie 
 in the country as its whole paper currency. The general situation was 
 that of ability to remit $100,000,000 in gold to Europe annually. The 
 Bank of Commerce voted, December nth, to resume on the 14th, and 
 this led the other banks to follow, but throughout the other parts of 
 
334 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the State resumption had been coming into operation with the renewal 
 of redemptions in New York in November. 
 
 Such a rapid recovery from suspension was most indubitable proof 
 of the soundness of the financial condition of the country, due to a 
 substratum of wealth and resources equal to resist almost any shock. 
 The opportune arrival of $2,225,000 in gold from California was at 
 once an item of weight on the scale, and an indication of expectations 
 of security for the future. 
 
 December 9, 1857, Senator Douglas made a speech in reply to 
 the Kansas matter in President Buchanan's message. The President 
 had appeared to be willing to have Kansas become a State of the Union 
 with the Lecompton State Constitution. This instrument, Senator 
 Douglas said, had not been submitted to the people. It was framed 
 by a convention which did not represent the people, and its framers 
 avoided having it submitted to popular vote, because they very well 
 knew that it would be rejected by an overwhelming majority. 
 
 Regarding the Lecompton Constitution a word of explanation may 
 be proper. In 1857 the majority of the inhabitants of the Territory 
 of Kansas were of the Free State Party. In former years the intimi- 
 dation and frauds of armed bands from Missouri, called border ruffians, 
 had invariably resulted in the election of pro-slavery Legislatures. 
 The election of October, 1857, resulted in the choice of a Free State 
 Legislature. The old Legislature, foreseeing this, had met at Lecomp- 
 ton, in September, 1857, and had adopted a pro-slavery Constitution. 
 The Free State Party had never recognized the old Territorial Legis- 
 lature, and had not voted on the only clause of the Constitution that 
 was submitted for popular approval, and so that clause was of course 
 carried. The new Free State Legislature submitted the whole Consti- 
 tution to the people, and it was overwhelmingly rejected. President 
 Buchanan favored the Lecompton Constitution^ as did also the Senate, 
 but the opposition of the Northern Democrats sufficed to turn the 
 House against it. A conference committee of Congress therefore sub- 
 mitted a proposition for certain changes to the people of Kansas, and 
 it was agreed to regard the rejection thereof as the rejection of the 
 Lecompton Constitution. The vote was largely against it. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 335 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Continuation of Kansas Dispute — Death of Thomas H. Benton — Ad- 
 mission of Minnesota and Oregon to Union — Election of 1858 
 — Addresses For and Against Slavery — Democratic State Con- 
 vention of 1858 — Registering of Voters — John Brown's -Raid 
 — State Suffrage of Negroes — Democratic National Conven- 
 tions of i860 — Secession of Southern Delegates — Seceders' 
 Convention of i860. 
 
 Governor John A. King's message to the State Legislature with 
 the opening of the year 1858 was one of unrelieved gloom, due, in 
 Democratic opinion, to "the legacy of error and delusion," which Sew- 
 ardism in public affairs had left to him. The State Senators hardly 
 waited to get into their seats before issuing their defiance to the very 
 thought of any Kansas or Nebraska scheme not embracing positive 
 prohibition of slavery. The Assembly effected an organization, after 
 three weeks and a day of delay, with Democratic triumph in the elec- 
 tion of Thomas G. Alvord as Speaker. "American" votes aided the 
 Democrats to reach this conclusion of an unexampled struggle. 
 
 February 2d, 1858, President Buchanan sent to Congress a special 
 message of reply to the objections made by Senator Douglas to the ad- 
 mission of Kansas with the Lecompton Constitution. The concoctors 
 and supporters of the Topeka Constitution were vigorously arraigned 
 by the message for open defiance of the authority of the United States. 
 A passage at arms in the Senate between Hale, of New Hampshire, 
 and Seward, was notable for the refusal of the latter to continue the 
 policy of scrimmage and struggle, when in reality the battle was al- 
 ready over ; Kansas would come in as a free State, Nebraska also ; and 
 
336 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the count of States, free and slave, would become nineteen to fifteen. 
 The cry of Greeley that if Kansas came in with the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution slavery was fastened on her beyond her power to shake it 
 off, wholly overlooked the fact that any State in the Union had full 
 power over its own Constitution, to make or to unmake, at its own 
 sovereign will, in all domestic matters. 
 
 Seward made a speech on Kansas affairs March 3d, of specially 
 abolition character, rather than anti-Lecompton ; and one of the episodes 
 of which was a scandalously demagogic assault upon the United States 
 Supreme Court. John Van Buren appeared again the next day in a 
 speech of great power, in New York, in vindication of the stand on 
 Kansas taken by the administration of Buchanan. 
 
 March 19th announcement was made that the Legislature of Kan- 
 sas elected under the Lecompton Constitution had a majority of Free 
 State members, and would therefore be organized in the Free State 
 interest. The Lecompton Constitution protected slavery only as to the 
 value in money of the slaves. The new Legislature could at once 
 abolish slavery on the condition that the masters be paid for the slaves. 
 Senator Douglas interposed again, March 22d, in a speech of opposi- 
 tion to the admission of Kansas, the only effect of which was to make 
 impossible undivided support of his candidacy for the regular Demo- 
 cratic nomination for the Presidency to succeed Buchanan. The bill 
 against which Douglas spoke passed the Senate on the next day by 
 a majority of eight votes. The bill passed in the House April ist, by a 
 vote of 120. to 112, with an amendment — the Crittenden amendment 
 not accepted by the Senate — ^to admit Kansas, but requiring that the 
 Lecompton Constitution be first referred to the vote of the people, and 
 that subsequent proceedings shall depend upon the result of that vote. 
 April I2th, upon a vote of 108 to 108, the Speaker cast his vote in 
 favor of a committee of conference with the Senate on the bill as 
 amended by the House. The Republican scheme had been to refuse 
 this, and thus "kill Lecompton." The conference committee modified 
 the House bill slightly, and April 30, 1858, the admission of Kansas 
 was voted by 31 to 22 in the Senate and 112 to 103 in the House. 
 On the occasion of a great demonstration of congratulation at Wash- 
 ington, Senator Toombs said that after a contest of ten years the House 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 337 
 
 and Senate had concurred in "a measure of great permanent peace 
 for ourselves and our children after us." 
 
 A correspondent, writing at Washington May 4th, 1858, of the 
 prospects of Douglas in Illinois, said : "One of the strongest men of 
 the Republican Party in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, will be a candidate 
 against him." 
 
 The death of Thomas H. Benton, April 9th, 1858, removed from 
 the political arena one of the notable Democrats of the first half of the 
 century. He had come into Congress with the admission of Missouri, 
 August loth, 182 1, and for thirty years he ranked among the chief 
 participants in political discussion, and the foremost leader in political 
 action. He was one of the chief props and supporters of the adminis- 
 trations of Jackson and Van Buren. Partisan denunciation, combined 
 with desire of other leaders to supplant him, finally brought his official 
 career to a close, but he remained to the last an influential and an inter- 
 esting figure. He was very decided in his support of Buchanan for 
 the Presidency, and in opposition to the ambition of his son-in-law, 
 Fremont. His speeches were a record of able discussion, and this 
 record he supplemented by his "Thirty Years in the United States 
 Senate." At the time of his death he was engaged on a work of 
 great labor and high value, his "Annals of Congress," which he had 
 brought down to 1850, when the strong hand failed and the heart of 
 patriot passion ceased to beat. 
 
 May I ith, 1858, the House passed the bill for the admission of Min- 
 nesota, by 157 to 38. The bill had passed the Senate. 
 
 Upon the question of admitting Oregon, Senator Seward waived - 
 the objection that its Constitution excluded negroes from residence, 
 but Fessenden, of Maine, Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Hale, of New 
 Hampshire, opposed their conscience of negro rights to letting in a 
 State of white men ; and Hale animadverted upon the injustice to the 
 Chinese of denying to them the right to hold real estate or mining 
 claims. 
 
 On August 4th, 1858, the Democratic State Committee issued a 
 call for a convention to be held at Syracuse September 15th, to nomi- 
 nate candidates for Governor, etc. The convention, upon assembling, 
 made Horatio Seymour its permanent chairman, and the following 
 
338 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 nominations were made : Amasa J. Parker, for Governor ; John J. Tay- 
 lor, for Lieutenant-Governor ; Sherburne B. Piper, for . Canal Com- 
 missioner, and Edward L. Donnelly, for State Prison Inspector. 
 
 In a speech at Rochester, October 26th, Seward raised the banner 
 of negro emancipation as the single and supreme issue of American 
 politics. "The United States," he said, "must and will, sooner or later, 
 become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free labor 
 nation." This preposterous prediction against the condition of labor 
 in the two sections of the country, the operation of which, and not 
 any mere philanthropy, had caused disuse of slavery in the North, 
 and an unforeseen increase of need for it in the South, Seward fol- 
 lowed with the puerile argument that "Slavery has at length made a 
 stand, not merely to retain its original defensive position, but to extend 
 its sway throughout the whole Union." And he further said : "Let us 
 anticipate the blow (slavery made the rule of the Northern States, as 
 well as the Southern) by invading the States of South Carolina and 
 Georgia, and emancipating the laborer who is toiling on the rice plan- 
 tations there. The two principles cannot live. Either slavery must 
 triumph and become universal, or emancipation must be carried into 
 every State. If the South lives the North must die. Then, down 
 with the South. Delenda est Carthago. And if the compact of the 
 confederation stands in the way, tear it to pieces. There is no faith 
 to be kept with slaveholders. In politics that only is obligatory which 
 is expedient." 
 
 The result of the election November 2d, 1858, was the election 
 of Morgan, Republican, for Governor, by 247,679 votes, to 230,412 
 for Parker, Democrat, and 61,473 for Burrows, "American." The 
 other Republican candidates shared in this success. The only Demo- 
 crats elected to Congress were Sickles, Cochrane, Barr and Maclay. 
 The vote on the call for a convention was against it by a majority 
 of 15.372. 
 
 In Illinois a very small majority in each branch of the Legislature 
 assured the defeat of Abraham Lincoln in the race for the Senate, and 
 the re-election of Douglas. 
 
 In striking contrast with the speech of Seward, Senator Hammond, 
 of South Carolina, made a speech October 29th, 1858, in which he 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 339 
 
 earnestly disavowed the desire of the South for disunion, and, while 
 strenuously defending slavery, declared that all that the slave States 
 ask is to be let alone within their present limits. Senator Ham- 
 mond said that the equilibrium of free and slave States was gone 
 forever; that the preponderance of the free States in both Houses of 
 Congress had come to stay. He vigorously protested against all 
 thought of revival of the slave trade, and declared that slavery exten- 
 sion was neither practicable nor desirable. He equally deprecated de- 
 sire to secure Cuba in the interest of the South, and denied that any 
 advantage would result to the Southern States from the acquisition of 
 Mexico and Central America. 
 
 Both North and South saw in Seward's speech an invocation to 
 civil war — a proclamation of irreconcilable hostility between the States 
 of the North and the States of the South. 
 
 A note of response to Seward's menace was the declaration by 
 Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, in a speech, that if an abolitionist, 
 pledged to measures of hostility to the South, were to get possession 
 of the executive office he would advise the secession of the Southern 
 States from the Union. Davis said : "Already that arch enemy of the 
 South, William H. Seward, has proclaimed war upon the institution 
 of slavery itself. In his recent speech at Rochester he had declared 
 that there was a direct, irreconcilable antagonism between free and 
 slave labor. This was not true In the South we are an agricultural 
 people, and our soil and productions were suited alone for slave labor. 
 No such antagonism existed. But with such sentiments avowed by 
 the most powerful leader of the enemies of the South, and their prob- 
 able success, it behooved the South to take instant and active measures 
 to put themselves into a state of preparation, * * * so as to be 
 ready against any emergency — cast cannon, make guns, prepare pow- 
 der, shot, shell, ammunition of all kinds, and manufacture all the neces- 
 sary implements of war. This was but the part of prudent precau- 
 tion. Its effect would be to strengthen, and not to weaken, the bonds 
 of Union; to cement and not separate the States." 
 
 With the organization of the Assembly upon the meeting of the 
 Legislature, January ist, 1859, the Republican majority elected as 
 Speaker DeWitt C. Littlejohn, an extreme representative of aggressive 
 
340 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and virulent Sewardism. While Speaker of the Assembly in 1857, 
 Little John had taken the floor, April i6th, for a speech violently pro- 
 nouncing for a stand, on the part of the State, in disregard of the 
 Constitution of the Union, which should be "a death blow struck against 
 slavery." 
 
 The note in national politics at this time, on the Anti-Democratic 
 side, was the preparation of William H. Seward for the presidential 
 race in i860. Greeley had, in his most violent manner, very near to 
 actual mendacity, denounced Seward for complicity with stealing and 
 gross corruption in Congress, but this he now softened to a mild charge 
 of being "too favorably inclined to what is called the liberal school in 
 public expenditure." In fact, with fine show of a moderation which 
 would have altered the whole course of our history if Greeley, Seward 
 and Boston Pharisaism in politics, had applied it in national afifairs, 
 Greeley said : "We are not likely to oppose Governor Seward on a 
 single point in which he is not in advance of the great majority of our 
 statesmen." 
 
 There were two respects in which Seward was at this moment a 
 man after Greeley's own heart. The first was the foolishness and 
 malignity of his declaration of war upon the slave labor States ; and 
 the second was his strong support of extreme protection. Another 
 political character, destined to figure for immense mischief in the near 
 future of the country, was Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, whose views of 
 "public robbery" by members of Congress, "senatorial stealing," and 
 "squandering public money corruptly," were about the same as Gree- 
 ley's, but for the two reasons given above Greeley decided to run up 
 the Seward flag. 
 
 Senator Douglas had been for a short time the hope of such Re- 
 publicans as Preston King, but with the new year Douglas gave them 
 occasion to announce that he would not play politics with them, but 
 would adhere to the Democracy for what they might give him. 
 
 On February 12th, 1859, a move of importance in the political 
 game was the admission of Oregon by the passage in the House, pre- 
 cisely as it came from the Senate, of the admission act — 1 14 ayes and 
 103 noes. Although Oregon came in as a free State, 72 Republicans 
 voted against admission, to 92 Democrats who voted for it. Greeley 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 341 
 
 called the vote "a humiliating defeat." The trouble to Greeley was the 
 prospect that Oregon would be Democratic in i860. 
 
 On Augiist 3, 1859, the Democratic State Committee issued a call 
 for a State convention to be held at Syracuse, September 14th, to nom- 
 inate a State ticket, and to determine upon action with reference to the 
 National Convention to be held at Charleston. 
 
 Upon the assembling of the convention, September 14, Mayor 
 Wood, of New York, at the head of the Mozart Hall delegation, un- 
 dertook, a little before the hour of twelve, to take possession of the 
 platform and commence securing an organization. The appearance 
 on the stage of the official representatives of organization was followed 
 by violent proceedings on the part of Wood's party, and in the face 
 of this, adjournment was taken until one o'clock. The Wood contingent 
 retired soon after one, and the convention proceedings were at once 
 entered upon. It was voted not to defer the selection of delegates to 
 Charleston; and for the State ticket the following nominations were 
 made : David R. Floyd- Jones, for Secretary of State ; Sanford E. 
 Church, for Comptroller; Lyman Tremain, for Attorney-General; 
 Van R. Richmond, for State Engineer and Surveyor; Isaac Vander- 
 poel, for State Treasurer; William J. Skinner, for Canal Commis- 
 sioner; Noble S. Elderkin, for State Prison Inspector; Alexander S. 
 Johnson, for Judge of the Court of Appeals ; John L. Lewis, Jr., for 
 Clerk of the Court of Appeals. These were renominations, with one 
 exception. Tucker had declined to stand again for Secretary of State. 
 His defeat was likely, as the convention was controlled by the Softs. 
 
 The Wood episode was in the interest of a "Hard" faction, spe- 
 cially friendly to Daniel S. Dickinson, and the turn which things took 
 was remarked on by the New York Tribune as "the triumph of the 
 Softs," and "one of the most important victories they had ever achieved 
 over the 'National' Democracy." The outcome was due in large part 
 to the prompt action of Dickinson and his more respectable supporters 
 in disavowing and repressing the brutal violence of the roughs of the 
 Wood party, one of whom knocked down and tumbled from the plat- 
 form the regular temporary chairman. 
 
 A law requiring voters to register came into operation for the first 
 time in October, 1859. Its passage had been unanimously opposed 
 
342 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 by Democrats, and the first experience of its operation seemed to be 
 universally unsatisfactory. 
 
 October 17th, 1859, brought the starthng news of a seizure by a 
 few armed men under Captain John Brown, a notorious Kansas figure,' 
 of the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, just across the Po- 
 tomac in Virginia, from a rendezvous in Maryland known as Ken- 
 nedy's Farm. Brown confessed to Governor Wise that the scheme 
 he had undertaken to carry out was planned in 1856, and that he had 
 had reason to expect to lead a force of from 3,000 to S;000, and to 
 be able to establish himself where slaves in large numbers would resort 
 to him. The attempt at servile insurrection and civil war, on the lines 
 of Seward's declaration of an irrepressible conflict to either destroy 
 slavery or extend it over the whole country, was dealt with by the 
 Virginia authorities under laws which brought the heroic old fanatic 
 to the gallows. Brown admitted at once that his failure meant this, 
 and looked for no other result, unless some effort for his rescue could be 
 successfully made. With this situation of Brown condemned to death, 
 the radical press gave notice of civil war to avenge the perfectly 
 legal punishment of a single criminal. The instance which we may, 
 to most purpose, be cited is that of Seward's special organ at Albany, 
 the Journal, which said, December i, 1859: "Should John Brown be 
 hung, the muttered thunder of pent-up sympathy will be augmented 
 an hundredfold, and hatred of slavery will become the predominant 
 emotion in the breasts of millions who have thus far had neither fel- 
 lowship nor sympathy with those who seek to goad the South into 
 just such exhibitions of weakness and folly as these executions will 
 afford." The Journal of December ist devoted very large space to 
 testimonies of persons who had expressed approval of Brown's conduct, 
 and on the day of Brown's execution, December 2d, the Journal pro- 
 moted a demonstration of canonization of Brown, by resolutions de- 
 claring him worthy of "the sympathy and honor of all lovers of liberty 
 and human rights," and by the firing of minute guns at the foot of 
 State Street by the keeper of the arsenal in Albany. The Journal put 
 at the head of the editorial quoted above, the caption, "The Beginning 
 of the End." 
 
 The election, November 8, 1859, was largely determined by the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 343 
 
 votes of "Americans," whose convention made no nominations, but 
 endorsed names selected from each of the two opposing tickets. The 
 composite result gave the Democrats the Secretary of State, State En- 
 gineer and Canal Commissioner, and the Republicans all the other 
 State officers. 
 
 Governor Morgan, in his message January 3, i860, to the Legis- 
 lature, frankly admitted that John Brown's purpose to liberate and 
 arm the slaves was unlawful, and was justly resisted. He added that 
 "Bloodshed thus incited, rests, in the eye of human law, on the heads 
 of those who, in violation of laws, provoked or caused it." And the 
 justice of this view, he said, was not changed by the fact that the 
 violators of law were unselfish and even philanthropic, and honestly 
 risked their lives in behalf of the wronged and oppressed. 
 
 A somewhat belated expression of Northern condemnation of the 
 armed fanaticism of John Brown sprang up within two months after 
 his execution, and at Albany a demonstration of this kind was par- 
 ticipated in by Henry J. Raymond, Horatio Seymour, Martin Van 
 Buren, Sanford E. Church, John A. Dix, Washington Hunt, and a 
 very large number of the leading representatives of sober political 
 and social action in the State. Raymond expressly recognized, in a 
 very clear and powerful speech, that the South had reached a state of 
 frantic fear and resentment amounting to the madness of revolution, 
 and he unhesitatingly declared that the cause of this upheaval of the 
 South was the proceedings of the Abolitionists reflected in political 
 action by parties of the North. The grossest misrepresentation of 
 Northern sentiment had been made by the anti-slavery extremists, and 
 the alarmed and angry response of the South was no more than was 
 to have been expected. A member of the Assembly had been conspic- 
 uous among the Abolition fanatics clamorous for bringing about im- 
 mediate disunion, and the use of the Assembly chamber was refused 
 to the public meeting of protest on behalf of the Union. 
 
 Charles O'Conor came out at this time in a letter, as well as in 
 speeches, declaring that "if the proposition that negro slavery is un- 
 just cannot be refuted, the most vehement and extreme admirers of 
 John Brown's sentiments are right, and our Union cannot endure — 
 ought not to endure." The bad logic of arguing from honest senti- 
 
344 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 ments, however just, to unlawful and lawless action, O'Conor disre- 
 garded, as Seward had done. 
 
 A note of sound opinion in the London Times at this date was to 
 the effect that a half-caste republic in the United States would be in 
 every way a disaster, inasmuch as all experience had shown that en- 
 forced equality of the Europeans and the Africans not only tended to 
 the elevation of the black, but to the degradation of the white man. 
 
 February i, i860, the House of Representatives, after a long 
 struggle of the Republicans to make an extreme Republican, John 
 Sherman, Speaker, elected to that office Pennington, a moderate Re- 
 publican. 
 
 The question of admitting negroes to full and free participation in 
 the suffrage was favorably acted on by the State Legislature in 1859, 
 and a bill passed the Assembly early in i860, by 70 Republican votes, 
 only 5 Republicans voting against it. 
 
 February 29th Seward made a speech on the admission of Kansas, 
 in which he was at great pains to look in a direction almost contrary 
 to that of his Rochester speech. He protested against construing Re- 
 publicanism as sectional, and said that he was no assailant of States. 
 It was wisely arranged, he decalred, that the several States were sov- 
 ereign on the subject of slavery within their own borders. He asserted 
 of John Brown and his associates that they acted upon earnest, though 
 fatally erroneous, convictions. Their act was one of sedition and 
 treason, and criminal to just the extent that it affected the public 
 peace and was destructive of human life. As to danger to the Union, 
 he said that he did not think that anything serious would grow out 
 of the oft-repeated threats to dissolve the Union. The speech was 
 a notice, as distinct as it was futile, that the conflagration which he 
 had set raging through his Rochester speech was needless and mis- 
 taken. One point only of positive character Seward insisted on, that 
 the issue of slavery in the Territories should be fought out in Congress, 
 instead of being left, as the Democrats proposed, for decision by the 
 people of the Territories. 
 
 April II, i860, the House passed, by 134 to 78 votes, a bill for the 
 admission of Kansas under the Wyandotte Constitution, on an equal 
 footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 345 
 
 In the Albany city election of April loth, i860, the Democracy 
 carried their city ticket by about 1,000 majority, and elected seven of 
 the ten aldermen. 
 
 Sumner appeared in the Senate, April 16, in a minor attack on 
 Mason, of Virginia, manifestly intended to be personally offensive. 
 He told how "it w^as said in antiquity of one of the judges of hell that 
 he punished first and heard afterwards," and Mason, he said, "on this 
 occasion takes a precedent from that court." 
 
 The assembling of the Democratic National Convention, at Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina, April 23, i860, with Caleb Cushing of Massa- 
 chusetts, permanent president, introduced a day of great expectations 
 destined to disappointment. The prospects of Douglas were the best 
 of all, until Slidell arrived to throw cold water on the movement, and 
 the tide of Southern objection began to run in strong. The strength 
 of the unexpected objection to Douglas led his friends from the North- 
 west and elsewhere to proclaim, as early as the evening of April 21st, 
 the alternative of his nomination or the defeat of the party. The 
 sentiment, in fact, of the Douglas supporters was strong for retalia- 
 tion on the South if the convention rejected Douglas. The contest 
 of the Wood delegates from New York against the Dean Richmond 
 delegates found favor with only six members of the committee on cre- 
 dentials. The proposition to adopt the Cincinnati platform and to 
 affirm loyalty to all Supreme Court decisions was voted down by 17 to 
 16, against the urgent counsel of Douglas. 
 
 A midnight press dispatch of April 26th, from Charleston, said 
 that great sectional excitement was raging; that the Southern cotton 
 States were rampant and threatened to leave the convention in a body, 
 and nominate a Jefferson Davis and Fernando Wood ticket, if the 
 platform failed to repudiate squatter sovereignty. Douglas had tele- 
 graphed to his friends to accept the Cincinnati platform and the Dred 
 Scott decision, but not to go one step beyond this. William L. Yan- 
 cey, of Alabama, v^ras reported as cocked and primed to the full, and 
 the fire-eaters generally in a state of the greatest excitement. Seven 
 States were expected to secede in case of a flare-up — Alabama, Florida, 
 Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, South Carolina and Georgia. 
 
 The discussion on Saturday, the 28th, brought out opposing views 
 
346 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 on the main lines of the platform, with frank warning from moderate 
 Northern Democrats that a split in the convention, or a split in the 
 party, if the convention adopted the platform favored by Southern 
 members generally, must inevitably result in the election of a Black 
 Republican President and Congress. 
 
 On the rejection, however, of the majority report on platform, 
 which made the concessions demanded by the South, and the adoption 
 by the convention of the minority report, by a vote of 165 to 138, a 
 secession of several Southern States took place. The chief concession 
 demanded by the South and refused by the convention was the asser- 
 tion of the right to hold slaves in any Territory up to the time of its 
 admission as a State, and the duty of the national government to de- 
 fend and protect that alleged right. It was a very frank demand for 
 United States promotion of the establishment and development of slav- 
 ery in the Territories, the concession of which was all that could be 
 asked or accomplished towards preparing Territories to become slave 
 States. The majority report, making this concession, was the combined 
 work of Bayard, of Delaware; Cochrane, of New York, and Bigler, 
 of Pennsylvania. Samuels, of Iowa, in presenting the miriority report, 
 which found favor with the convention, warned the Southern members 
 not to persist in demanding an abstraction that would drive one-half 
 of the North into the arms of the Black Republicans. Butler, of Massa- 
 chusetts, in the name of his own State, and of Illinois, Indiana and 
 Minnesota, presented a second minority report, consisting of the Cin- 
 cinnati platform pure and simple. 
 
 After a speech supporting the majority report, and another favoring 
 the minority proposition, Burroughs, of Arkansas, introduced a scene 
 of the greatest bitterness of feeling and violence of speech, the close 
 of which, after two and a half hours, was an adjournment dark with 
 gloom and uncertainty. Burroughs denounced Douglas as no less a 
 traitor than Seward. The Northern Democrats, he said, were worse 
 than the Black Republicans. He considered the Black Republicans 
 the most open and manly of the two, and he did not care which whipped 
 the other. Douglas he would not support under any circumstances, not 
 even if nominated by the convention. The South had from the first 
 been the support of the Democratic Party, had done all the work of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 347 
 
 extending the boundaries of the country, and had found the money to 
 pay the debts of the country. Burroughs dared the Northern men to 
 reject the majority resolutions, and declared that if, by superior num- 
 bers, such rejection was accomplished, the South would consider it a 
 breach of the constitutional compact. 
 
 The prospect over Sunday, April 29th, was of a bolt of eight South- 
 ern States, on the issue of freedom and aid from the national govern- 
 ment to build up slavery within the Territories. Upon renewal of the 
 struggle March 30th Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina 
 (excepting three members), Florida, Texas and Arkansas announced 
 their secession from the convention.* The next day. May ist, Bayard, 
 of Delaware, with one of his colleagues, joined in the secession. 
 Georgia followed, and other delegations had the question under ad- 
 visement. A seceders' convention opened proceedings April 30th, in 
 the evening, and effected an organization. May i, with Bayard as 
 president. May 2 it adopted the platform which the original conven- 
 tion had rejected. 
 
 The regular convention began May ist to ballot for a presidential 
 candidate, and the end of the next day was reached without result. 
 On the next day the Douglas Party, under instructions from Washing- 
 ton, adjourned to meet June i8th at Baltimore. The seceders' con- 
 vention of about forty delegates protested by many voices on the 3d 
 of May that their movement was not one of disunion, and an adjourn- 
 ment was taken to Richmond on the second Monday in June.^ It was 
 proposed by each of the conventions that the States not represented 
 in them elect representatives. 
 
 The men who led the secession movement in the Charleston Con- 
 vention were understood by the Democratic press of the North to have 
 acted, not in view of any step taken by the convention, but from a 
 purpose, to disorganize the party and destroy the Union, which had 
 been previously formed. The conspicuous leader of the secession pro- 
 ceedings, Yancey, had written a letter as early as June 15th, 1858, in 
 which the purpose had been avowed to organize revolutionary prep- 
 arations all through the South, and then, "at the proper moment, 
 by one organized, concerted action, precipitate the cotton States into 
 a revolution." The number of these schemers for disruption of the 
 
348 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Democracy and the destruction of the Union was not large, and they 
 had as yet no considerable constituency to support them in their several 
 States. It was thought possible in the North, and to some extent in 
 the South, that pressure upon some of the secessionists, and perhaps 
 express action by their constituencies, would cause them to resume 
 their places in the regular convention when it should come together at 
 Baltimore. The Richmond Examiner said at the moment : "Every 
 Southern State will be fully represented at Baltimore. The idea in- 
 dustriously promulgated by the opposition press that there is no Na- 
 tional Democracy at this time in the cotton States, in consequence of 
 the much-regretted secession, is absurd. There may be in the cotton 
 States a small number of secessionists, per se, who place no faith in the 
 National Democracy; but the great mass of the Southern people are 
 as firmly wedded to the usages, organizations and principles of the 
 Democracy of the Union as the Virginia Democracy are." 
 
 At New Orleans a public meeting was called to repudiate and con- 
 demn the action of the Louisiana delegates in participating in disunion 
 proceedings at Charleston. The New Orleans True Delta said of this 
 meeting: "True to their national reputation, the people of New Or- 
 leans will meet on Tuesday evening next (May 8th) in mass assem- 
 blage at Lafayette Square, to take counsel together and to send abroad, 
 to every portion of the republic, their utter repudiation and condemna- 
 tion of the recent secession movement in South Carolina^ where a 
 delegation of men, impudently pretending to represent them, lent them- 
 selves to a movement prelusive of a dissolution of the Union. No man 
 is impudent or bold enough to defend a proceeding so directly con- 
 trary to the past history and present well understood wishes of the 
 loyal and devoted Unionists of Louisiana. A repellent spectacle, truly, 
 is it to see men calling themselves delegates of the Democracy of 
 Louisiana uniting with the proclaimed and vaunted advocates of a 
 dissolution of the Union, and co-operating with them to degrade, de- 
 feat and destroy the great, conservative Democratic Party of the na- 
 tion, at a time, too, when their brethren of the Free States are making 
 matchless efforts for the overthrow of our enemies in the approaching 
 contest for the Presidency. In vain do the Free State Democracy 
 tender to us the hand of fellowship; it is rudely repelled. They re- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 349 
 
 mind us of the fearful odds against which they have to contend for 
 the maintenance of Southern rights and the Constitution of their 
 country; they are answered with contumely and reproach. They call 
 upon us to make no more new tests of party fealty, but to accept 
 the reiteration of the Cincinnati platform, which we constructed, and 
 their proclaimed assurance to abide, in all issues involving slavery, 
 by the decisions of the Supreme Federal Judiciary; but, in response 
 they have flung in their faces new platforms which they dare not ac- 
 cept, and principles are put forward for their adoption which their 
 concostors know the South itself cannot be expected to endorse. When, 
 thus harassed, insulted, and reduced to the last extremity, their man- 
 hood revolts, certain States which make treason their boast secede from 
 fellowship with them, and Louisiana, to the humiliation, astonish- 
 ment, and mortification of her Union-loving people, finds herself in 
 company and partnership with Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, Ala- 
 bama and South Carolina in their plot to destroy the Union." 
 
 The meeting to which the above refers resolved to regard as enemies 
 all who should attempt to produce a separation of the States. 
 
 The Wood delegates from New York, who were refused admission 
 into the regular convention at Charleston, sought admission to the 
 seceders' convention, but, upon the protest of South Carolina, were 
 turned back from this body also. 
 
 On May 5th, i860, Alexander H. Stephens wrote an eloquent let- 
 ter advising in favor of sending delegates to the Baltimore Conven- 
 tion, and against renewing there the demands made by the Charles- 
 ton seceders. Stephens said the only cause of complaint at the South 
 was the difference between Southern and Northern views of what 
 non-intervention meant. The South understood that not only Con- 
 gress, but the people of the Territory, must not stand in the way of 
 the settlement in the Territory of slaveholders with their slaves, while 
 the North was determined that the Territory, before it became a State, 
 should have power to keep out slavery. 
 
 A National Union Convention at Baltimore, which met May 9th, 
 i860, with all the States except South Carolina .and Oregon repre- 
 sented, was organized, with Washington Hunt, of New York, as chair- 
 man. Hunt referred, in his address on taking the chair, to the slavery 
 
350 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 question, that had spHt the Democratic Party, as a miserable abstrac- 
 tion, and expressed confidence that the convention had power to rally 
 around it the patriotism of the country. On the second ballot. May 
 loth, John Bell, of Tennessee, was made the head of the ticket, and 
 at a later session the same day the name of Edward Everett was added 
 by acclamation without a ballot. As representing the American Party, 
 already deceased, the nomination was of a decidedly effete character. 
 
 An ultra-Southern Georgia paper, in view of the conventions to 
 be held, proposed as candidates Alexander H. Stephens, for President, 
 and Daniel S. Dickinson for Vice-President. It advised sending dele- 
 gates to Baltimore, rather than Richmond, making the best compro- 
 mise possible there, and trusting to the next four years to get the 
 South into shape for dissolution of the Union. Stephens had written 
 a letter advising attendance of a delegation at Baltimore. Toombs 
 sent word from Washington that the Southern members had agreed 
 to advise this course. 
 
 On May 7th Jefferson Davis made a speech in the Senate, in which 
 he contended that the one great source of the difficulties of the time 
 was the theory that our government is a government of one people, 
 instead of a compact between separate sovereignties. Davis further 
 contended that the several States could at any time, when deemed neces- 
 sary, resume powers which they had only delegated to the general 
 government. 
 
 Davis had introduced, February 2, i860, a series of resolutions 
 declaratory of the obligations of the Constitution under which the 
 States entered and remained in the Union. The declarations in ques- 
 tion were these : 
 
 That the States had formally accepted the Constitution as inde- 
 pendent sovereigns, delegating to the general government a portion 
 of their power for the sake of security ; that the intermeddling on the 
 part of any one of them with the domestic institutions of another was 
 not only insulting, but was dangerous to the domestic peace and tend- 
 ing to destroy the Union ; that negro slavery was legal, and that neither 
 Congress nor Territorial legislation had the right to interfere with it. 
 
 On May isth and i6th Douglas spoke at great length in opposi- 
 tion to the Territorial resolutions of Jefferson Davis. Davis imme- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 351 
 
 diately replied. He concluded by saying that "all the cotton States 
 wanted was a recognition that slaves are property, and as such entitled 
 to protection. He contended at length that there must be a distinct 
 and unequivocal declaration in regard to this." 
 
 The Democratic National Convention having disrupted at Charles- 
 ton, reassembled at Baltimore June 18, i860. The question of 
 greatest importance before the convention, and that upon which the 
 whole course of events turned, was that of receiving the Charleston 
 seceders, in case they presented themselves and wished to take part 
 again in convention proceedings. On this question the report of the 
 credentials committee was awaited with great anxiety ; and as it was 
 seen later to have had a decisive bearing against harmonious proceed- 
 ings on the part of the convention, a view of the exact facts is im- 
 portant. 
 
 On June 21st, Thursday, in a densely crowded theatre, 3,000 to 
 4,000 persons being present, the reports, majority and minority, from 
 the committee on credentials were presented. The committee had found 
 vacancies of whole delegations in the cases of Alabama, Mississippi, 
 Louisiana, Texas, Florida and South Carolina; partial vacancies in 
 Georgia, Arkansas and Delaware ; and contested seats in Massachusetts, 
 Delaware and Missouri. The report gave seats to the original Missis- 
 sippi delegation; the original Texas delegation; the Soule delegates 
 from Louisiana, instead of the original ; the contestants from Alabama, 
 instead of the original ; half of each delegation from Georgia, instead 
 of the whole original delegation; both sets of delegates from Arkan- 
 sas, instead of the original alone; Chafifee, of Massachusetts, to the 
 exclusion of Hallett; Bayard and Whitely, of Delaware, as against 
 Boyd contesting Bayard's seat, and J. O. Dalton, of Missouri, against 
 a contestant. Stevens, of Oregon, made a minority report, which ex- 
 cluded Bayard, in favor of Boyd; Chafifee, in favor of Hallett; Dal- 
 ton, in favor of the contestant, and admitted the original delegations 
 from Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Missis- 
 sippi. This report insisted that delegates who had withdrawn were 
 not out if they chose to return. Oregon, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
 Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, California 
 and New Hampshire, in part, supported this report. 
 
352 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 At the evening session, June 22d, 24 delegates from Virginia with- 
 drew, leaving six in their seats. North Carolina then announced that 
 a majority of the delegation (8) would withdraw on account of the 
 outrage upon the people of the South, which the report adopted had 
 perpetrated. Tennessee and Kentucky asked leave to go to consider 
 whether they would secede. Then Maryland reported that six dele- 
 gates had decided to secede. Stevens, of Oregon, announced that his 
 State joined the seceders. Tennessee announced that 19 delegates 
 would go out and five remain. 
 
 On reassembling, June 23d, the convention heard from Kentucky 
 that 10 would withdraw and 9 would remain. One of the retiring 
 delegates presented a paper of violent abuse of the convention, which 
 it was unanimous^ voted not to receive. Two Missouri delegates, 
 out of 18, announced their withdrawal. Tennessee reported that 13 
 delegates had withdrawn. 
 
 At this point of the proceedings, preparatory to the nomination 
 of candidates, Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, chairman of the con- 
 vention, resigned his seat to the vice-president of the convention, and 
 joined the seceders outside. On the call of the roll for nominations, 
 Butler responded for Massachusetts with a protest of a part of the 
 delegation against the exclusion of Hallett, and their withdrawal. 
 Pennsylvania announced that 9 delegates refused to vote. 
 
 On June 23, i860, the convention, largely reduced in numbers 
 by withdrawal of anti-Douglas delegates, effected the nomination of 
 Douglas for the Presidency by the necessary two-thirds vote, and for 
 a second name on the ticket that of Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Alabama. 
 
 The first ballot gave Douglas 173^ votes, and the second ballot 
 181^, which was the necessary two-thirds of the depleted convention. 
 The States not represented were Delaware, South Carolina, Florida, 
 Texas, Mississippi, California and Oregon. 
 
 Just before the second and decisive ballot, when, of 194I votes, 
 Douglas had 181^, David L. Seymour, on behalf of Daniel S. Dickin- 
 son's supporters on the New York delegation, announced their cordial 
 acceptance of Douglas as unquestionably the choice of a majority of 
 the people of the State. 
 
 At the evening session of the sixth day, June 23d, a letter was 
 
OF .THE STATE OF NEW YORK 353 
 
 produced, which Douglas had written on the 20th, in which he said 
 of "the perils of the sectional strife between the Northern and South- 
 ern partisans of Congressional intervention upon the subject of slavery 
 in the Territories : 
 
 "Intervention means disunion. There is no difference in principle 
 between Northern and Southern intervention. The one intervenes 
 for slavery, and the other against slavery; but each appeals to the 
 passions and prejudices of his own section, against the peace of the 
 whole country and the right of self-government by the people of the 
 Territories. Hence, the doctrine of non-intervention must be main- 
 tained at all hazards. If, therefore, you and my other friends shall 
 be of the opinion that the unity and ascendency of the Democratic 
 Party can be maintained, and the country saved from the perils 
 of Northern abolitionism and Southern disunion, by withdrawing my 
 name, I beseech you to pursue that course. My interest will be best 
 promoted by that course on the part of my friends which will be most 
 effectual in saving the country from being ruled or ruined by a sec- 
 tional interest." 
 
 Of the whole 303 votes of the convention, as the contested seats 
 were finally settled, the number who actually seceded was about 86, in- 
 cluding the South Carolina and Florida delegates, who did not appear 
 at Baltimore at all. The 105 votes counted as present in the seceders' 
 convention included contesting delegates from Alabama and Louisiana, 
 who failed of admission to the regular convention, and therefore could 
 not count as seceders from it. The number of votes actually counted 
 as cast in the regular convention, 212^ on the first ballot, with Douglas 
 173!; and 194^ on the second ballot with Douglas i8ii, was cut down 
 by the large number of delegates who declined to vote, while yet they 
 did not secede. 
 
 The Richmond Convention, representing the Charleston seceders, 
 was organized June 12th, but adjourned over to June 21st. Upon 
 meeting on the latter date it adjourned again to await the results of 
 the Baltimore Convention; and in fact to leave the case of the South 
 in the hands of their sympathizers at Baltimore. These were in full 
 swing of determined secession by June 22d, with plans in hand which 
 left nothing to be done at Richmond. For the most part, in fact, the 
 
354 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Richmond delegates were at Baltimore, where the line of battle was, 
 and the standard under which the Southern extremists expected to 
 make secession a broadly and thoroughly accomplished fact. 
 
 The Baltimore seceders met at noon, June 23d, with the following 
 States represented, in whole or in part : Virginia, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, Missouri, Oregon, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, 
 Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. Caleb Cushing was of the num- 
 ber, and he was made chairman of the convention. Loring, another 
 Massachusetts delegate, claimed the privilege of nominating John C. 
 Breckenridge, of Kentucky, as candidate for the Presidency. Other 
 nominations were R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, and Daniel S. Dick- 
 inson, of New York. On the first ballot 105 votes were cast, of which 
 Dickinson had 24 and Breckenridge 81, and the latter was declared the 
 nominee of the convention. Joseph Lane, of Oregon, was nominated 
 for Vice-President. 
 
 The Albany Argus, of June 26, i860, said of the result at Balti- 
 more: "In an evil hour our Southern brethren have refused to be 
 content with mere equality. They have made an impracticable issue 
 — one at which the manhood and self-respect of the North revolts. 
 They demand that the Federal government shall assume the special 
 occupation of watching their negroes in the Territories. We are will- 
 ing that their property shall stand upon the same footing as our own ; 
 but we are not willing to assume the special occupation of overseers, 
 and cast upon Congress the invidious duty of protecting slave prop- 
 erty and enacting slave codes. Our Southern brethren have asked 
 the Democrats of the nation to go one step too far, and they have 
 deliberately, in national convention, refused to take that step. For 
 this refusal a portion of the ultra-men of the South have bolted — 
 seceded from the national convention, and set up a disorganizing ticket 
 in opposition to the regular Democratic nominees. The Democrats of 
 the North will act with nearly perfect unanimity in support of the 
 nominees of the regular national convention. The venue of the con- 
 flict is changed. The struggle has been transferred from the North 
 to the South. Moderate and conservative men at the South will rally 
 upon the National Democratic platform of non-intervention. In no 
 States in the Union will there be a fiercer conflict than in those of 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 355 
 
 those extreme Southern States, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia. And 
 in all the Southern States the platform and candidates of the regular 
 National Democracy will find a vigorous and determined support. 
 The platform of non-intervention is the only one upon which a national 
 party can ever hereafter exist. The idea of founding such a party 
 upon Congressional protection of slavery is absurd, and will never 
 find currency outside of the most ultra and fanatical slave States." 
 
356 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 National Republican Convention of i860 — Lincoln- Douglas Debates — 
 State Conventions of i860 — National Democratic Conventions 
 — Reasons for Division of Democratic Party — Result of Presi- 
 dential Election — Proposed Concessions to South — Resignation 
 of Southern Officials — Is the State Sovereign ? — The Verge of 
 War. 
 
 The National Republican Convention which assembled at Chicago, 
 May 17, i860, was opened with immense demonstrations of enthusiasm 
 for William H. Seward. His New York and Michigan supporters 
 joined in a parade of 3,000 carrying the Seward banner. The extent 
 to which there was opposition to Seward did not bring out anywhere 
 mention of the name which was to be written on the campaign banner, 
 and graven on the tablets of history. But from the moment that Will- 
 iam M. Evarts, of New York, had made the nomination of Seward 
 and Judd, of Illinois, had followed with the nomination of Abraham 
 Lincoln, the tremendous outbreak of convention cheering, mainly that 
 of the vast crowd in which the delegates were but a nucleus, indicated 
 that the name of the anti-Douglas orator of the Illinois prairies sug- 
 gested a far greater purpose than the orator of the Senate at Washing- 
 ton. Dayton, of New Jersey, Cameron of Pennsylvania, and Chase 
 of Ohio were named for nomination with little popular response, and 
 then Indiana raised another outburst by seconding the nomination of 
 Lincoln. Michigan, seconding the nomination of Seward, brought the 
 immense number of his supporters out in an attempt to ofifset the 
 demonstration for Lincoln. But Ohio and Iowa successively seconded , 
 Lincoln's nomination and Judge Logan, of Illinois, created unprece- 
 dented excitement by calling for cheers for Lincoln as manifestly the 
 choice of the convention, when as yet no ballot had been taken. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 357 
 
 The first ballot gave Seward but 173 to Lincoln 102, Cameron 50, 
 Chase 49, Bates 48, Dayton 14, McLean 12, Collamer 10, Wade 3, Fre- 
 mont I, Sumner i and Read i. Lincoln gained 79 on the second ballot 
 and Seward only 11. On the third ballot Lincoln gained 50, within 
 two votes of a nomination, and thereupon John A. Andrew changed 4 
 Massachusetts votes to Lincoln and set in motion a storm of changes 
 which raised his count to 354, leaving Seward with but no. The ex- 
 planation of this result was twofold, the conviction of the most astute 
 Western leaders that Lincoln alone could carry Illinois and Indiana and 
 was thus the only possible man to carry the election, and the fact that 
 the stump speeches of the Illinois contestant for a seat in the United 
 States Senate against Douglas had revealed him to all that section of 
 the country as the matchless man and immaculate patriot as well as a 
 marvelous orator, which the coming years were to prove to all the 
 world. 
 
 The reception accorded to the news that Seward had failed of the 
 nomination at Chicago, which was most confidently expected, not only 
 throughout his own State but in the Eastern and Middle States gener- 
 ally, was an example of meagre information in the offices of leading 
 journals which cannot but seem inexplicable to-day. It would seem that 
 Lincoln was scarcely known in the East. He was strong in the then 
 West in consequence of his being the only man able to carry Illinois 
 and Indiana against Douglas. This was undoubtedly the primary 
 cause of Lincoln's nomination. But of this the Eastern newspapers 
 seemed to have no inkling. 
 
 The Albany Argus of May 19th declared that the intelligence of the 
 afternoon before that "Seward was displaced to make room for this 
 Mr. Lincoln — a man unnamed and unknown in three-fourths of the 
 States when the delegations were chosen — caused not so much grief 
 and indignation as wonder and a puzzled consciousness of some great 
 but inexplicable fraud and cheat." The Argus, not foreseeing that 
 Lincoln's majorities in the several counties of the State would be double 
 those of Douglas, did not, of course, pretend to regret "a result which 
 ensures to the Democratic Party (unless they have the fatuity to throw 
 it away) a majority of the electoral colleges of the free States." The 
 Argus pronounced that "the Republican Party had committed suicide 
 
358 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 in order to escape from justice." That, instead of fighting it out man- 
 fully in face of public judgment falling heavily upon Sewardism, "they 
 had retreated irito a position of cowardly refuge." It is the unexpected 
 which happens to the dismay of the prophets. 
 
 The fatuity which overtook the party at large did not prevent a 
 union Democratic vote in the State, and a result in the number of Dem- 
 ocratic ballots cast beyond expectation, and yet Lincoln carried the 
 State by nearly 50,000 over Douglas, through the tremendous appeal 
 which his name and his principle made to the sturdy yeomanry of the 
 State. Lincoln's principle, the record of which will long remain an 
 indisputable proof of his inflexible justice and immovable integrity, 
 was in every way in which it could be tested fairer to the South and 
 calmer in its temper than any other Northern man's. One of the re- 
 spects in which he resembled Washington, and in which Douglas pre- 
 sented the greatest contrast to him, was his modesty and absence of 
 self-assertion. On his way to Washington as President-elect he said to 
 the Ohio Legislature at Columbus : "I cannot but know, what you all 
 know, that without a name, perhaps without a reason why I should 
 have a name, there has fallen Upon me a task such as did not rest even 
 upon the Father of his Country." The speeches which he made, when 
 he and Douglas went over Illinois together, were as different as possi- 
 ble from those of Douglas. Lincoln's were notable for the absence of 
 assertion. He invariably made an effort to bring out admitted facts 
 and relied upon arguments or appeals to each hearer to consider for 
 himself. It was this rare temper, with his invariable good humor and 
 fairness, which enabled him to hold in rapt attention audiences of men 
 not more than half of whom were on his side. The great debates 
 between Douglas and Lincoln were begun at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, 
 and after Douglas had filled a powerful speech with accusations against 
 Lincoln of conspiracy to excite a war of sections, and to get the negroes 
 of the South into a position of equality with the whites, the reply of 
 Lincoln began as follows : 
 
 "When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented it provokes 
 him — or at least I find it so with myself — but when misrepresentation 
 becomes very gross and palpable, it is more likely to amuse him." This 
 mood of superiority to anger Lincoln maintained, while he calmly de- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 359 
 
 nied the assertions of Douglas and stated his own position. In speak- 
 ing of an amendment to the Nebraska bill to expressly authorize the 
 people to exclude slavery, Lincoln said: "And now I state it as a 
 fact, to be taken back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge Doug- 
 las and those acting with him voted that amendment down, because 
 they knew that the Dred Scott decision, already made but not given 
 out, would deny the power of a Territory to thus exclude slavery." And 
 Lincoln added: "If this was not the reason it will avail the Judge 
 much more to calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people 
 what that other reason was for voting the amendment down, than 
 swelling himself up to vociferate that he may be provoked to call some- 
 body a liar." 
 
 Another point in the same connection was, why Douglas said in the 
 Nebraska bill, "It being the true intent and meaning of this bill not to 
 legfslate slavery into any Territory or State." Why the word "State ?" 
 said Lincoln, unless Douglas expected that another Dred Scott decision 
 would come, holding that the people of a State cannot exclude slavery 
 from it, and he added : "If there was any different reason for putting 
 it there. Judge Douglas, in a good-humored way, without calling any- 
 body a liar, can tell what the reason was." 
 
 It was with the finest good humor that Lincoln fought his side of 
 the debate, and nothing could be further from the mark than represent- 
 ing him as "a slang-whanging stump speaker," of whom his own party 
 was ashamed. The quality of the speeches, as reasoning and as litera- 
 ture, in style and in argument, is very high indeed. In his command of 
 the facts, and still more in his handling of them, every page shows 
 the hand of a master. 
 
 Not only had Lincoln studied every aspect of the facts with calmer 
 and clearer vision than any other man of the time, but he held as pre- 
 • cisely as possible the exact principle of loyalty to the Constitution which 
 was the fundamental principle of the Democracy of the North. He 
 was by extraction of Kentucky and Virginia ; he understood the term 
 "Republican" as a return to the name under which the disciples of Jef- 
 ferson were first known, and although he figured as a Whig, he was no 
 more a Whig, in a narrow, partisan sense, than he was a narrow, par- 
 tisan Democrat. And we have but to note his career in Central Illi- 
 
36o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 nois; his early rise in politics, and his steady climb to a place above 
 Douglas, the most consummate politician of the time, to be assured that 
 Democrats, far more than Whigs, were his constituents, and that in 
 fact he emerged above party, as Washington did, and bore up the stand- 
 ard of the nation in the character of a Democrat without a peer, a Re- 
 publican such as no partisan has ever been. That the true Democrats 
 made no mistake in giving large and loyal support to Lincoln, in his 
 great war Presidency, will be more and more clearly understood as the 
 steps of his career are traced, as the principles on which he acted are 
 clearly understood and as the results of his life and work are appraised. 
 Although nominally a Republican, he was essentially a Democrat. 
 
 "It must be understood," the Argus of July 2d said, "that the con- 
 test is between the unlucky Lincoln, and the man who never yet was 
 beaten in a contest, Stephen A. Douglas." A movement in a corner on 
 the part of Gideon J. Tucker and a few ultra-Hards, who had been de- 
 nied recognition before any secessions at Charleston and who had 
 sought in vain to have a hand in the seceders' convention at Richmond, 
 began work in New York about July i to make a Breckenridge diver- 
 sion from the Douglas Democracy of the State. Mayor Wood 
 had gone with the Tuckerized Democrats to Charleston, had stepped 
 out when the convention had denied them recognition, and he now op- 
 posed the proposed action. Wood wrote a letter, July 6, in which he 
 recited, in the name of "The National Democracy," that he had favored 
 an open declaration by the National Convention of the duty of Con- 
 gress to give protection to slaves, as property, in the Territories; but 
 had been shut out from helping to make that view prevail, and was thus 
 compelled to see the Democracy split into factions. The inevitable re- 
 sult, said Wood, if any such split worked out at the polls, would be 
 Democratic defeat and Lincoln made President. Therefore he coun- 
 seled the getting together of all classes of Democrats simply as anti- 
 Republicans, with no alternative but to vote for Douglas. The Argus 
 of July 9th declared that the nomination of Lincoln was a cheat ; that he 
 was never advocated, suggested or thought of for the Presidency by the 
 people or by his party, or any portion of his party, when the convention 
 delegates were chosen ; that some of the delegations conspired against 
 Seward and Seward's friends retaliated, and from this antagonism it 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 361 
 
 resulted that "the obscure and unpopular Lincoln was selected, pre- 
 cisely as if a name had been drawn in a raffle." 
 
 A Breckenridge State Convention assembled at Syracuse August 7, 
 i860, and in the name of "the old line National Democracy of New 
 York," passed resolutions endorsing the nomination made by the se- 
 ceders' Richmond Convention. The convention put in nomination a 
 full State ticket and a Breckenridge and Lane electoral ticket, headed 
 by Gideon J. Tucker and Henry S. Randall as electors-at-large. In 
 contrast with this action the Bell and Everett supporters, under the lead 
 of Washington Hunt, planned for throwing their vote as much as possi- 
 ble to Douglas, the expectation being that no election by the people 
 would be made and that the House of Representatives might elect Bell. 
 This was a possibility, but party lines were too rigid to try it. 
 
 On August 15, i860, the regular Democratic State Convention as- 
 sembled at Syracuse, and with great enthusiasm and harmony put in 
 nomination the following State ticket : William Kelly for Governor, 
 William F. Allen for Lieutenant-Governor, William W. Wright for 
 Canal Commissioner and William C. Rhodes for State Prison Inspec- 
 tor. A Douglas electoral ticket acceptable to the Bell and Everett 
 "Union" party was made up. 
 
 One of the nominees of the Breckenridge electoral ticket sent to the 
 Daily News of New York a letter of refusal to act. The writer said 
 that he could see no reason why the "National Hards" of i860 "should 
 follow the lead of Dickinson and his friends, when they are now fight- 
 ing against what, in 1854-5-6, they were fighting for," namely, a plat- 
 form, with Judge Bronson on it, idejitical with the Douglas platform 
 of i860. Daniel S. Dickinson had made a speech in the Breckenridge 
 convention, and the reference just quoted shows that it was a conven- 
 tion of Dickinson and his friends. 
 
 The Republican State Convention, at Syracuse, August 22d, nom- 
 inated Morgan and Campbell for re-election as Governor and Lieuten- 
 ant-Governor, and also an electoral ticket headed by William C. Bry- 
 ant and James O. Putnam as electors-at-large. A feature of Republi- 
 canism at the coming election was to be a vote of the people on the 
 amendment to the State Constitution, opening to citizenship the entire 
 negro population of the State on the same terms as whites. This 
 
362 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 would bring in about 60,000 negro voters unable to become political 
 factors under the limitations of the Constitution of the State. The 
 vote against free negro suffrage in 1846 had been 138,816 to 85,518 
 for it. On October 9th the Breckenridge State Committee withdrew 
 the Breckenridge electoral ticket in favor of the Democratic "Union" 
 ticket, the expectation being that the election would go to the House of 
 Representatives. The circumstances attending this action led to the 
 charge that the Tucker contingent had sold out to the Republicans, and 
 meant anything but honest promotion of Democratic union and Demo- 
 cratic success. 
 
 The campaign activity of Senator Seward, after he had experienced 
 resurrection from the death he suffered at the Chicago Convention, was 
 that of vicious proclamation, as contrary to truth as possible, that Lin- 
 coln stood for destruction of slavery in the slave States ; that abolition 
 was the cornerstone of his statesmanship, and that his policy for the 
 negro would be "the ballot or the bullet." The real aim of Seward 
 seems to have been to make trouble for Lincoln, who was greatly 
 misrepresented by the Senator in his harangues. 
 
 The Argus of November 2, i860, commenced the publication of a 
 letter of Samuel J. Tilden to Hon. William Kent, and gave the fourth 
 and final installment of it November 8th. The letter was dated Octo- 
 ber 26th, and it was an argument showing apprehension regarding the 
 election of Lincoln as giving "a Northern partisan Presidency preg- 
 nant with perils which threaten the whole fabric of our Union with 
 swift destruction" — a result of the impending election sure to bring on 
 "a frightful agitation in all the South, general alarm and excitement. 
 State conventions to deliberate upon the continuance of the Union." 
 "Lincoln," said Tilden, "would find that nearly a thousand newspapers 
 in the South had been preoccupying the minds of the people with dis- 
 trust, hatred or fear of him, and that the whole shock of the crisis 
 would be thrown upon the mere intrinsic strength of our Federal Gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 "Elect Lincoln," said Tilden in the conclusion of his elaborate re- 
 view of the situation, "and we invite those perils which we cannot meas- 
 ure ; we attempt in vain to conquer the submission of the South to an 
 impracticable and intolerable policy; our only hope must be that as 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 363 
 
 President he will abandon the creed, the principles and pledges on 
 which he will have been elected." 
 
 "It is too late! It is too late! We are upon the breakers. 
 * * * I hear only the wailing cry of selfish terror as I sit upon 
 the straining timbers, and watch the rage of the sea. My mind is filled, 
 -my heart swells with the thought that yon wave which towers above 
 us will engulf more of human happiness and human hopes than have 
 perished in any catastrophe since the world began." 
 
 In the first section of his letter Tilden said of the question between 
 the eighteen Northern States and fifteen Southern States of the Con- 
 federacy : "It is a controversy which touches the relations of two 
 races, being eight and a half millions of blacks, composing all the popu- 
 lation of those fifteen States ; relations which constitute a whole system 
 of industry furnishing their staple exports and their exchanges with 
 us and with all the world ; relations which thus involve a vast interest 
 in property — not less than three thousand millions of dollars permeat- 
 ing these fifteen States ; relations which are the basis of the habits of 
 families and of society in all these commonwealths and of their social 
 order, a shock which is associated, in the minds of the dominant race, 
 with a pervading sense of danger to the life of every human being." 
 
 To explain the change of position apparent in the stand taken in 
 his letter Tilden said : "In renouncing the habit of Federal legislation 
 as to slavery, in which we all grew up, and advocating the idea of Fed- 
 eral non-interference with the industry system of the South, I but con- 
 form to that sound political philosophy which, upon all the great in- 
 dustrial questions, has always guided not myself alone, but all radical 
 Democrats." 
 
 That the State metropolis would give Douglas fifty thousand ma- 
 jority, insuring him a commanding lead in the State, was the confident 
 Democratic prediction of the morning of Tuesday, November 6, i860. 
 Twenty-four hours later the indelible record printed at the top of the 
 election report was : "The Republicans have carried the State of New 
 York by a decided majority, and have elected Abraham Lincoln Presi- 
 dent. Doubtless every Northern State, except California and Oregon, 
 has voted for Lincoln." Democratic defeat in Pennsylvania, Ohio and 
 Indiana in the October elections had fore^adowed the result. The 
 
364 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 estimate of relative majorities in the State made November 9th was 
 that the Democrats had carried fifteen counties, with majorities aggre- 
 gating 41,780, and that the Republicans had carried forty-five counties 
 with majorities aggregating 82,970. The Congressmen elected were 
 nine Democrats and twenty-four Republicans. Of the Democratic 
 majorities that of New York City was 28,604 instead of 50,000, and 
 even 50,000 would not have given the State to Douglas. Against the 
 Kings County majority of 3,771, St. Lawrence showed 7,214; Onon- 
 daga, 4,026, and Cayuga, 3,966, with Allegany, 3,744; Oswego, 3,638; 
 Oneida, 3,607; Jefferson, 3,500; Monroe, 3,485; Madison, 3,300, and 
 Chautauqua and Steuben each 3,000. This heavy support of Lincoln 
 in Seward's State was of phenomenal significance to the South. The 
 press report from Virginia was that the great source of concern there 
 was the vote in New York. 
 
 A press report of November 5, i860, the day before the election, 
 from Columbia, South Carolina, announced that instantly upon the 
 organization of legislation, the impulse to immediate secession action 
 was seen to be dominant, not to say rampant. The Governor's message 
 put secession in the front, suggested that the Legislature remain in 
 session to watch the course of events, and that it take action to prepare 
 the State for the crisis, and advised military reorganization, arming 
 every man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and that a force 
 of ten thousand volunteers be got ready for action upon the shortest 
 notice. Apprehending Lincoln's election, the Governor recommended 
 that if it should take place a convention should be called to determine 
 the mode and measure of redress. He said that, individually, he con- 
 sidered secession the only alternative left, and that the indications were 
 that the secession of the State would instantly bring about that of the 
 entire South. At the celebration of the completion of the Charleston 
 and Savannah Railroad, the Mayor of Savannah pledged fifty thou- 
 sand Georgians to rush to the assistance of South Carolina if coercion 
 should be attempted by United States authorities. At an evening cau- 
 cus, November 5th, it was found that a large majority of the Legisla- 
 ture favored immediate secession by State action. Senator Chesnut, 
 who had not previously committed himself, spoke at great length and 
 eloquently, declaring that the last hope of the Union was gone and that 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 365 
 
 resistance to Northern action was unavoidable. Action, however, was 
 postponed on the 6th, for two days, to ascertain if Lincoln should be 
 elected. In Georgia a mass meeting at Savannah, November 8th, 
 adopted unanimously, with great enthusiasm, resolutions demanding 
 secession rather than submision to Lincoln's election. 
 
 On November 10 the resignation of Senator Chesnut of South 
 Carolina, from the United States Senate, was announced. A bill 
 calling a convention to meet December 17, i860, was passed November 
 10 by the Legislature of South Carolina, and on the same day Judge 
 McGrath resigned from the bench of the United States District Court, 
 as a step preparatory to participation in secession because of the election 
 of Lincoln. On November 12 Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, 
 followed Senator Chesnut in resigning his seat in the United States 
 Senate. On the same day the Charleston Courier ran up the palmetto 
 flag, and bade adieu to its Union principles. Hon. Alexander H. Ste- 
 phens and Hon. Herschel V. Johnson were announced, November 13, 
 as standing firmly for not joining the secession movement. It was an- 
 nounced, also, that at Charleston, in the arsenal, there were twenty 
 thousand stand of arms, the best Government arms with plenty of am- 
 munition, and that a local company, the Washington Light Infantry, 
 was in charge of the arsenal. 
 
 Under the head of "A Budget of Blunders" the Albany Argus 
 of November 14th said that no mistake was made in the platform 
 adopted at Charleston, and that "the first great and fatal mistake" was 
 the "secession of a few States" because of unreasonable and unwar- 
 ranted objection to the platform. But for "the folly of the Charleston 
 secession" there would have been, after a day or two of failure to nomi- 
 nate Douglas, some other nomination satisfactory to South and North 
 alike, and the nominee of a thoroughly united Democracy would have 
 been elected. 
 
 But the secession was not the only blunder. From the moment that 
 union upon Douglas was seen to be impossible, the withdrawal of his 
 candidacy and selection of a candidate satisfactory to Democrats gen- 
 erally, not only could, but would have been carried out, if the dele- 
 gates had clearly discerned the path of wisdom and the line of duty. 
 The stubborn, not to say stupid, adherence of the Douglas supporters 
 
366 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 to a candidate who could not unite all Democrats acted fatally both at 
 Charleston and later at Baltimore. It delayed the selection of a can- 
 didate, and it put wrong the action of the convention in its reassembling 
 at Baltimore. The question of who should sit in the reassembled body 
 was influenced, unfortunately and harmfully, by the question of who 
 would adhere to Douglas. "The convention made a mistake in not 
 admitting the seceding delegations," and thereby opening the way to 
 selection of a candidate whose harmonious nomination would have 
 ensured victory at the polls. But even this need not have closed the 
 book of fate to Democratic chances of triumph. A further great mis- 
 take was that of a second secession, when some patience with Northern 
 excess of zeal for the nomination of Douglas would have opened the 
 way to his withdrawal, and the harmonious nomination of a candidate 
 on whose selection a united party could count. The sequel to these 
 mistakes was three nominations, where there need have been only one, 
 and the overthrow of a house divided against itself. 
 
 In reply to the Argus representative Democrats pointed out that 
 the Alabama (Yancey) State Convention framed a slavery protection 
 platform and instructed its delegation to demand its acceptance by the 
 convention before the making of a nomination, and in case that accept- 
 ance should be refused, the delegation should secede. The Alabama 
 platform would have rendered impossible Democratic success in any 
 Northern State. If another name than that of Douglas had been 
 coupled with the Douglas platform, not only would the enthusiasm for 
 Douglas have been lost, but the South would have had a candidate on 
 the Alabama platform, and Democratic success would have been very 
 doubtful. The real blunders affecting both the nation at large and the 
 New York Democracy were these: Prevention by the Buchanan ad- 
 ministration of the demonstrations of enthusiasm for Douglas which 
 would have been made if the administration had not done its utmost to 
 crush Douglas, regardless of crushing the Democratic Party. (2) 
 The bargain under which old line Whigs were given places on the Dem- 
 ocratic electoral ticket. (3) The still greater blunder of arranging, 
 as a concession to the merchants of New York, to have Breckenridge 
 disunionists given places on the Democratic ticket. 
 
 In giving its readers letters of protest as above, the Argus said: 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 367 
 
 "The question now is whether we are longer to have a country around 
 which our affections can cling, and in supporting and forwarding whose 
 best interests we can indulge in patriotic rivalry. Our painful convic- 
 tions are that the days of the American Union are numbered, and that 
 all that now remains is a question of months or, it may be, of years in 
 relation to the line of division and the manner of separation." 
 
 On November 14, i860, Hon. A. H. Stephens made a forceful 
 speech at Savannah, advising that the State Legislature had no power 
 to take the State out of the Union, and that the question could properly 
 be acted upon only by a convention of the people of the State. T. R. 
 Cobb had urged secession without tarrying for anything and Toombs 
 protested his fear that a convention would not take decisive action. Had 
 Stephens prevailed, wise counsels might have curbed headlong haste. 
 
 On November 1 5th the Governor of Alabama published a letter stat- 
 ing that on December 7th a proclamation would be issued by him call- 
 ing a convention to meet on the first Monday of January to act upon 
 the situation and that he concurred with the Governor of South Caro- 
 lina in advising immediate secession without waiting for other States 
 to act. 
 
 On November 17th the South Carolina secession convention met at 
 Charleston and the question of action to make the movement decisive 
 was from this moment urgently pressed. 
 
 In view of angry demands from the South for action in the North 
 calculated to remove Southern fears and anxieties, concessions began to 
 be suggested in some quarters of the North. Thus the Albany Even- 
 ing Journal made these suggestions: Enforcement of the Fugitive 
 Slave Law, compensation out of county funds for rescued slaves, exten- 
 sion of slavery, or protection for slavery, in the newly acquired Territo- 
 ries of the Southwest ; and a convention to amend the Constitution with 
 a view to greater security of slavery against interference. 
 
 The message of President Buchanan, December 3, i860, denied the 
 power of Congress "to coerce into submission a State which is attempt- 
 ing to withdraw or had actually withdrawn from the confederacy." It 
 suggested by an amendment to the Constitution three points could be 
 settled more clearly and effectively than the disputed Dred Scott deci- 
 sion — (i) the right of property in slaves in the slave States; (2) pro- 
 
368 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tection of that property in the Territories; and (3) greater security for 
 the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law, by making void all State laws 
 designed to defeat that law. 
 
 On December 8th Hon. Howell Cobb resigned from the office of 
 Secretary of the Treasury, with the prophecy to President Buchanan 
 that "history will record yours as the last administration of the present 
 Union." Cobb gave as his reason for resigning his desire to take a 
 hand in the secession proceedings of his State. 
 
 The resignation of General Cass from the office of Secretary of 
 State followed, in consequence of President Buchanan's refusal to at 
 once send to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, a reinforcement of 
 troops sufficient to secure it against attack. General Cass urged that 
 hesitation to send troops, after the threats that had been made and the 
 events that had transpired, indicated a discreditable weakness in the 
 Government and an inability to enforce its authority and compel obedi- 
 ence to its laws, the observation of which would permit and encourage 
 the secessionists to go on much more boldly and confidently than they 
 otherwise would. General Wool had advised General Cass that the 
 first duty of the Government was the arming of Fort Moultrie. Gen- 
 eral Scott also wished Fort Moultrie to be reinforced at once. But 
 Buchanan had no nerve for duty against the secession schemers, chief 
 among whom were Floyd, his war secretary, and Wigfall, of Texas, 
 who declared to Buchanan that to comply with the counsel of Cass, 
 Wool and Scott would precipitate civil war. Under the terror of the 
 situation the President issued a proclamation for fasting and prayer, 
 January 4th, declaring that only God's arm could save us from the 
 awful effects of our crimes and follies. 
 
 On November 15th the Albany Argus said : "We have steadfastly 
 stood by the rights of the South as secured by the Constitution. We 
 have deemed it not only a political, but also a moral obligation to fulfill 
 towards them in its spirit every duty imposed by the federal compact. 
 But our action must he within the Constitution and the Union. We 
 can neither go out of the Union nor aid or justify others in going out. 
 Fellow countrymen and fellow Democrats of the South, we will stand 
 side by side with you to the last in the defence of yours and our rights 
 under the Constitution and with the flag of the Union over us; but 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 369 
 
 should you turn your backs upon that flag and desert it you will, by the 
 same act, turn your backs upon us and separate from us." 
 
 In his 1854 speech at Peoria, when Lincoln called the extension of 
 slavery the great behemoth of danger, declaring that it endangered the 
 liberties and institutions of the American people more than any or all 
 other causes, he yet asserted that : "Much as I hate slavery I would 
 consent to the extension of it rather than see the Union dissolved, just 
 as I would consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one. But when 
 I go to Union-saving I must believe, at least, that the means I employ 
 have some adaptation to the end." 
 
 The Argus of November 26, i860, said : "The South has no right 
 to demand the privilege of its citizens to travel in the North with their 
 slaves. It was extended to them not as a right, but as a matter of 
 comity. Its repeal (in 1841) harmed the slave more than the master, 
 for it shut him out of the State altogether and cut off entirely that sum- 
 mer vacation of travel and pleasure which was enjoyed by thousands 
 of colored servants." 
 
 Upon the meeting of Congress, December 3, i860, President 
 Buchanan's very elaborate message protested that the grievances of the 
 South did not justify the revolutionary remedy of secession ; and yet he 
 denied the power of "the Confederacy" to wage war upon a State, and 
 advised an amendment of the Constitution, to define the status of 
 slavery under the Constitution, in States and in Territories. 
 
 It was universally assumed and constantly argued on the part of the 
 Southern States that the Union was a "Confederacy" of sovereign 
 States. The term "Confederacy" survived in use among Republicans 
 even, and the impression was very general throughout the country that 
 what it had meant before 1787, it had continued to mean. The argu- 
 ment based upon this impression was to the last degree crude, but it did 
 not lack craftiness. More than half of the notable patriots of Wash- 
 ington's time had fought the adoption of the Constitution to the utrnost 
 under the impression that the colonies were, and of right should con- 
 tinue to be, absolute political sovereignties. They did this with the 
 more confidence and conscience because of their profound conviction 
 that only small aggregates of population could preserve complete lib- 
 erty. It was the exceptional minds only who saw farther than this, 
 
370 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The keen, prophetic intelHgence of Washington put a mark of just 
 condemnation upon the "State sovereignty" fiction, when he said, in a 
 letter of March, 1787, to John Jay, of the prospect of opposition in the 
 several States to the adoption of the Constitution : "A thirst for power 
 and the bantling — I had liked to have said the monster — sovereignty, 
 which has taken such fast hold of the States individually, will, when 
 joined by the many whose personal consequence in the line of State 
 politics will, in a manner be annihilated, form a strong phalanx 
 against it." 
 
 A month later James Madison said in a letter to Edmund Randolph : 
 "I hold that an individual independence of the States is utterly irrecom 
 cilable with the idea of aggregate sovereignty." 
 
 It is obvious that colonial organic action had been under a sover- 
 eignty of continental character. It is hardly less clear that the confed- 
 eration of the colonies, represented by a Continental Congress and 
 Continental army was expected to take the place of the sovereignty 
 of Great Britain ; but the several colonies had failed to carry out this 
 expectation in their Articles of Confederation and thus found them- 
 selves under the necessity of beginning again, and strengthening the 
 weakness of the aggregate sovereignty. And to begin again they made 
 a plan in the name of the aggregate people of all the colonies or States. 
 They avoided having either the colonial Legislatures or their Conti- 
 nental Congress concerned in the making and adoption of this plan; 
 and thus the final acceptance of it by conventions of the peoples of the 
 several colonies meant acceptance of subordination of each State to a 
 central aggregate of sovereignty. Failure to understand this lay at the 
 bottom of the great conflict necessarily resulting from secession on the 
 basis of appeal in each and every single State. 
 
 Measures of concession proposed by the Albany Evening Journal, 
 November 30, i860, and supposed to have the approval of Senator 
 Seward were : The enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, the com- 
 pensation to masters, by the counties, for rescued slaves ; the extension 
 of slavery to the newly acquired Territories of the Southwest ; and a 
 convention to amend the Constitution. The New York Tribune's 
 suggestion of concession was that of payment of a fixed annual sum for 
 escaped slaves, Talk of repeal of Personal Liberty acts came to a test 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 371 
 
 in Vermont by a vote of 58 for repeal (25 Republicans and 33 Demo- 
 crats) to 125 against, all Republicans. The Albany Journal gave as 
 reasons for concession: i. Imminent danger of dissolution of the 
 Union. 2. Origin of the danger in the ambition and cupidity of men 
 who desire a Southern despotism ; and in the fanatic zeal of Northern 
 abolitionists who seek the emancipation of slaves regardless of conse- 
 quences. The disunion sentiment, the Journal said, "is paramount 
 in at least seven States, while it divides and distracts as many more. 
 And the South is in earnest ; the sentiment has taken hold of all classes 
 with such blind vehemence as to crush out the Union sentiment." 
 
 The Argus pointed out that there was no provision for a convention 
 of the States to revise the Constitution. Action by two-thirds of both 
 Houses of Congress, ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the 
 States, was the only legitimate method of initiating changes in the Con- 
 stitution. To-day (December 3d), the Argus added, "Congress meets 
 — perhaps the last that will represent these United States." 
 
 Of what would probably be the immediate result of disunion pro- 
 ceedings carried to the last extreme not even the most discerning and 
 most confident leaders had taken account. The impression was espe- 
 cially strong with them, that sympathizers with their situation through- 
 out the North would control public action there. When Benjamin F. 
 Butler, of Massachusetts, who had sided with the extreme Breckenridge 
 Southern delegates in the conventions at Charleston and Baltimore, 
 came to Washington in the winter after the election of Lincoln to look 
 into the situation, and asked what the secession threats meant and to 
 the reply that they meant a Southern Confederacy, said, "Are you 
 prepared for war?" "There will be no war," was the answer, "the 
 North won't fight ;" very promptly and emphatically he replied, "The 
 North will fight; the North will send the last man and expend the 
 last dollar to maintain the government." "But," was the response, 
 "the North can't fight; we have too many allies there." "You have 
 friends," replied Butler, "in the North who will stand by you as long 
 as you fight your battles in the Union ; but the moment you fire on the 
 flag the North will be a unit against you. And you may be assured 
 that, if war comes slavery ends." 
 
 To General Charles Stewart, of New York, who asked what would 
 
372 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 be the result of the efforts of Jefferson Davis and his associates to break 
 asunder the Union, Mr. Douglas had replied, on New Year's Day, 
 1861: 
 
 "The Cotton States are making an effort to draw in the Border 
 States to their schemes, and I am but too fearful they will succeed. If 
 they do there will be the most fearful civil war the world has ever seen, 
 lasting for years. Virginia, over yonder across the Potomac, will be- 
 come a charnel house — but in the end the Union will triumph. They 
 will try to get possession of this capital, but in that effort they will 
 never succeed ; the North will rise en masse to defend it. But Wash- 
 ington will become a city of hospitals, the churches will be used for the 
 sick and wounded. This Minnesota block (in which Mr. and Mrs. 
 Douglas had their residence) will be devoted to that purpose before the 
 end of the war." 
 
 And to the question what justification for all this the South had 
 Mr. Douglas replied : "There is no justification. I will go as far as 
 the Constitution will permit to maintain their just rights, but if the 
 Southern States attempt to secede I am in favor of their having just as 
 many slaves and just so much slave territory as they can hold at the 
 point of the bayonet, and no more." 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 373 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The War Period — Views of Leading Men and of the Press of that 
 Day — The Fall of Fort Sumter — Governor Seymour's Second 
 Administration — The Draft Riots in New York City — Elec- 
 tions of 1864. 
 
 The national dilemma created by the situation in i860 was one to 
 make the judicious pause, and the bravest hesitate. It was not given to 
 any one to either put courage to the utmost proof, regardless of results, 
 or to see, through no matter what smoke of conflict, a day of more per- 
 fect union. The ordinance of secession passed by the State convention 
 of South Carolina, December 20, i860, set in motion wheels of destiny, 
 the full significance of which no man could discern. It seemed to the 
 authors of this act that their State might properly seek, by commission- 
 ers sent to President Buchanan, to have such property as forts, arse- 
 nals, arms and ammunition turned over to them upon their assurance 
 that such property would be properly accounted for. It seemed not 
 less plain that any process of seizure, necessary to make sure of pos- 
 session and use of properties of the United States, could not be called 
 in question. And to secure themselves against all the chances, and 
 make sure of all the advantages, the Buchanan administration were 
 warily and watchfully influenced to do nothing at present, and to un- 
 derstand themselves as pledged not to do anything, in the least calcu- 
 lated to raise an arm of law, or arms of power, against the secession 
 schemers. 
 
 One man, solitary and apart. Major Anderson, at Fort Moultrie, in 
 Charleston harbor, escaped the effect of these arrangements, and acted 
 on his discernment, his judgment and his courage in executing the 
 transfer of his little force from Moultrie to Sumter, on the 26th of De- 
 cember. Buchanan's war secretary, John B. Floyd, who was using his 
 
374 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 position to promote to the utmost possible a concentration of advan- 
 tages and resources within reach of the secession schemers, desired 
 Buchanan's permission, December 27, i860, to order Major Anderson 
 back from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie, and failing to make Bu- 
 chanan concede this he promptly resigned, December 29th. A very 
 serious charge of embezzlement brought against Floyd had caused Bu- 
 chanan to ask for his resignation three days before, and the 31st saw the 
 conspirator out altogether. Jeremiah S. Black had succeeded Cass as 
 Secretary of State, and his position as Attorney-General had been 
 taken by Edwin M. Stanton. Postmaster-General Holt was given 
 charge of the War Department. The developments of a short time had 
 transformed Black from a supporter of Buchanan's hesitation to an 
 energetic adviser of prompt and fearless action, and with Stanton and 
 Holt co-operating, the Cabinet was no longer what it had been, a clear- 
 ing house for secession schemers. 
 
 On Friday, December 28th, Buchanan got the news from Charles- 
 . ton that Governor Pickens had gone the whole length of active war by 
 military seizure of Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, the arsenal, the 
 postoffice and the custom house, and directly after he gave an interview 
 to commissioners from Pickens, whose business was to propose sur- 
 render of all United States properties and positions to the seceded State. 
 These commissioners ventured an accusative and angry attitude, count- 
 ing upon not less success than when Cobb and Floyd were in control, 
 but they got instead a denial, due to the new influence of Black, Holt 
 and Stanton. Saturday night, December 29th, when a Cabinet meet- 
 ing closed with Buchanan stupidly doubtful, hesitating and ineffective. 
 Black, Holt and Stanton were moved to put forth their utmost energy 
 to have something done. On Sunday morning, the 30th, Black made 
 known to Holt and Stanton his resolve to resign because of Buchanan's 
 indisposition to maintain the Government, and Stanton joined in the 
 step. Toucey, the Cabinet member who most nearly shared Buchanan's 
 views, reported the situation, and the immediate result was the 
 abdication of the nerveless President to the extent of denial for the 
 future of secession demands. 
 
 Holt took charge of Floyd's duties December 31st, and promptly 
 called into co-operation General Scott, for whom for six weeks the Cab- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 375 
 
 inet had had no use. The commissioners heard from Buchanan his 
 refusal to give up Sumter, or to trade with South CaroHna, and the 
 envoys of Pickens sent him this word : "Holt has been appointed Sec- 
 retary of War. He is for coercion and war is inevitable." 
 
 The dawn of 1861 was gloomy in the extreme. No naval power to 
 speak of was at hand available for immediate use, nor were there troops 
 within call for any task of importance. The credit of the Government 
 was shattered, and to put anything into an empty treasury meant bor- 
 rowing at twelve per cent, interest. On January 8th, the day on which 
 Buchanan sent a special message to Congress bemoaning a situation 
 which was too much for him, Thompson, Secretary of the Interior, re- 
 signed on the ground that the sending of reinforcements was a breach 
 of faith with him, as a sentry on guard for the secession schemers. 
 War Department orders to send the Brooklyn with reinforcements to 
 Fort Sumter had been suspended by Buchanan, December 31st, and 
 what to do in the matter was hotly discussed in a special Cabinet meet- 
 ing, January 2d, and at the moment when Thompson had been over- 
 ruled by Black, Holt and Stanton, there came in a final letter from the 
 Pickens envoys, the vigorously accusative character of which caused 
 great indignation, and roused Buchanan to say : "It is now all over 
 and reinforcements must be sent." 
 
 The steamer Star of the West left New York during the night of 
 January 5th with supplies and reinforcements for Fort Sumter, and 
 reached her destination on the 9th, but only to give up, when more than 
 half accomplished, the experiment of passing the secession batteries to- 
 the fort. As soon as Floyd heard of the move he wrote out his resig- 
 nation, January 8th, and at the same moment sent a telegram to 
 Charleston which enabled the Pickens extemporized batteries to fire on 
 the Government steamer carrying supplies and troops for Sumter. 
 
 The newly inaugurated Governor of South Carolina, F. W. Pick- 
 ens, on the instant of his inauguration, December 17th, the day of the 
 meeting of the secession convention, but before it had taken any action, 
 sent off a messenger to Washington with a letter to Buchanan request- 
 ing that Fort Sumter be turned over to his keeping, on pain of "the 
 effusion of blood, which no human power may be able to prevent." 
 This was a plain threat that an attack on the fort to get possession of it 
 
376 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 would be made, and instead of taking steps against such lawless blood- 
 shed Governor Pickens implied that he would permit and promote it, if 
 the President did not surrender possession. 
 
 On December 20th Buchanan replied to Pickens : "1 have no power 
 to surrender Fort Sumter. It is for me to- preserve the status of the 
 public property as I found it. If South Carolina should attack any of 
 these forts she will then become the assailant in a war with the United 
 States. It will not then be a question of coercing a State to remain in 
 the Union, to which I am utterly opposed, but it will be a question of 
 voluntarily precipitating a conflict of arms on her part. Between inde- 
 pendent governments, if one possesses a fortress within the limits of 
 another, and the latter should seize it without calling upon the appro- 
 priate authorities of the power in possession to surrender it, this would 
 not only be a just cause of war, but the actual commencement of hos- 
 tilities." 
 
 This reply was not sent, because persons in Washington interfered 
 to have Pickens withdraw his letter the morning after Buchanan wrote. 
 What had been previously done in the direction of Pickens' demand, 
 while Cobb and Floyd and Thompson were the power behind Buchanan, 
 appears from the letter sent to Pickens, December 21st, by his 
 agent at Washington, William Henry Trescott, who filled the office of 
 Assistant Secretary of State, and acted as agent-general for the se- 
 cession scheme. Mr. Trescott said to Pickens of Buchanan's course 
 to that date : "He had removed Colonel Gardiner from command at 
 Fort Moultrie for carrying ammunition from the arsenal at Charleston ; 
 he had refused to send reinforcements to the garrison there; he had 
 accepted the resignation of the oldest, most eminent and highest mem- 
 ber of his Cabinet, rather than consent to send additional force, and the 
 night before your letter arrived, upon a telegram that arms (forty mus- 
 kets) had been removed from the arsenal to Fort Moultrie, the Depart- 
 ment of War had issued prompt orders by telegraph to the office, remov- 
 ing them, to restore them at once." 
 
 A memorandum of Buchanan's says of the facts in the case: 
 "Thursday night, December 20th, between 9 and 10 o'clock, Mr. Tres- 
 cott called upon me. He said that he had seen Messrs. Bonham and 
 McQueen of the South Carolina delegation ; that they all agreed that 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 377 
 
 this letter of Governor Pickens was in violation of the pledges which 
 had been given by themselves not to make an assault upon the forts, 
 but to leave them in statu quo until the result of an application of com- 
 missioners to be appointed by the State was known." This shows that 
 Pickens' letter was understood to be an ultimatum preparatory to an 
 act of war, without justification in any act of war on the part of the 
 United States. 
 
 The day after Pickens wrote this ultimatum Buchanan had written 
 to Pickens a letter commending Caleb Gushing to his attention as a 
 Government envoy. Gushing had an interview with Pickens, Decem- 
 ber 20th, the day of the passage of the secession ordinance, and got very 
 scant attention, the only reply vouchsafed by Pickens to Buchanan being 
 the grotesquely undiplomatic assurance that disunion was an accom- 
 plished fact and that nothing could deter him from fighting it out. 
 
 On January i, 1861, Alexander H. Stephens wrote of "the address 
 put forth by the convention at Charleston to the Southern States :" 
 
 "It has not impressed me favorably. In it South Carolina clearly 
 shows that it is not her intention to be satisfied with any redress of 
 grievances. Indeed she hardly deigns to specify any. The slavery 
 question is almost entirely ignored. Her greatest complaint seems to 
 be the tariff, though there is but little intelligent or intelligible thought 
 on that subject. Perhaps the less she said about it the better. For the 
 present tariff from which she secedes is just what her own Senators 
 and members in Congress made it. There are general and vague 
 charges about consolidation, despotism, etc., and the South having, 
 under the operation of the General Government, been reduced to a mi- 
 nority incapable of protecting itself. This complaint I do not think 
 well founded. The truth is, the South, almost in mass, has voted, I 
 think, for every measure of general legislation that has passed both 
 Houses and become law for the last ten years. Indeed, with but few 
 exceptions, the South has controlled the Government in its every impor- 
 tant action from the beginning. The protective policy was once, for a 
 time, carried against the South, but that was subsequently completely 
 changed. Our policy ultimately prevailed. The South put in power 
 — or joined a united country in putting in power and sustaining the 
 administration of Washington for eight years. She put in and sus- 
 
378 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tained Jefferson for eight years, Madison eight years, Monroe eight 
 years, Jackson eight years. Van Buren four years, Tyler four years, 
 Polk four years. Pierce four years and Buchanan four years. That 
 is, they have aided in making and maintaining the administra- 
 tion for sixty years out of seventy-two of the government's exist- 
 ence. Does this look like we were or are in an abject minority 
 at the mercy of a despotic Northern majority, rapacious to rob and 
 plunder us? It is true we are in a minority, and have been a long 
 time. It is true also that a party at the North advocates principles 
 which would lead to a despotism ; and they would rob us if they had the 
 power — I have no doubt of that. But by the prudent and wise counsels 
 of Southern statesmen this party has been kept in the minority in the 
 past, and by the same prudent and wise statesmanship on our part, I 
 can but hope and think it can be kept so for many long years to come." 
 
 One concession to South Carolina Mr. Stephens made, in saying 
 that the Personal Liberty bills of fourteen Northern States, by rendei-- 
 ing the recovery of fugitives impossible, had created a real grievance, 
 in view of which he said : "They constitute the only cause in my opin- 
 ion which can justify secession." Yet the facts were that South Caro- 
 lina lost in i860 but 23 slaves, a little more than one two-hundredth of 
 one per cent, of that species of property ; and for the whole South in 
 i860 the entire loss of fugitives had been only 803, only about one- 
 fiftieth of one per cent, of her property in slaves. 
 
 Two days before Mr. Stephens wrote as above in a private letter to 
 his brother, he had said in a confidential correspondence with President- 
 elect Lincoln : "The leading object in the platform of principles an- 
 nounced by the triumphant party seems to be simply, and wantonly, if 
 you please, to put the institutions of nearly half the States under the 
 ban of public opinion and national condemnation. This, upon general 
 principles, is quite enough of itself to arouse a spirit not only of general 
 indignation, but of revolt on the part of the proscribed." 
 
 Governor Gist, the predecessor of Pickens, had said in a letter of 
 November 29th to Trescott : "I have found great difficulty in re- 
 straining the people of Charleston from seizing the forts, and have only 
 been able to restrain them by the assurance that no additional troops 
 would be sent to the forts, or any munitions of war * * * jf 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 379 
 
 President Buchanan takes a different course from the one indicated and 
 sends on a reinforcement, the responsibility will rest on him of light- 
 ing the torch of discord, which will only be quenched in blood." The 
 letter in which Governor Gist wrote thus began with declaring that 
 South Carolina was "determined to secede from the Federal Union 
 very soon after her convention meets ;" and yet it went on to say, "the 
 desire of her constituted authorities is, not to do anything that will 
 bring on a collision before the ordinance of secession has been passed 
 and notice has been given to the President of the fact ; and not then, 
 unless compelled to do so by the refusal of the President to recognize 
 our right to secede, by attempting to interfere with our exports or im- 
 ports, or by refusal to surrender the forts and arsenals in our limits." 
 
 This letter Trescott was given liberty to show to Buchanan, and he 
 did show it to him on the evening of Sunday, December 2d, and got 
 an appearance of acquiescence in the views of Governor Gist. The ad- 
 ministration had refused, December ist, to send to Major Anderson at 
 Fort Moultrie the reinforcements he so urgently asked for. The 
 steam sloop-of-war Brooklyn had arrived home at the Norfolk navy 
 yard, November 28th, and her presence suggested to the hopes of some 
 and to the fears of others, that she might serve for asserting the au- 
 thority of the United States, in the harbor of Charleston. In view of 
 this fear South Carolina representatives secured an interview with 
 Buchanan, and delivered this menace: "It is our solemn conviction 
 that if you attempt to send a solitary soldier to these forts, the instant 
 the intelligence reaches our people (and we shall take care that it does 
 reach them, for we have sources of information in Washington so that 
 no orders can be issued without our getting information) these forts 
 will be~ forcibly and immediately stormed. We all assured him that if 
 an attempt was made to transport reinforcements our people would 
 take these forts, and we would go home and help them to do it ; for it 
 would be suicidal folly for us 'to allow the forts to be manned. And 
 we further said to him that a bloody result would follow the sending of 
 troops to those forts." 
 
 It was under such open and arrogant threats of war that Buchanan 
 laid himself prostrate for the secession schemers to trample over him in 
 their eager scurrying about to create a situation entirely to their satis- 
 
38o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 faction. Buchanan's war secretary, Floyd, sent an officer to Major 
 Anderson with written instructions deHvered to him at Fort Moultrie, 
 December nth, the purport of which was that nothing whatever was 
 to be done at all calculated to bring on a collision ; on no account must 
 he take up any position that could be construed as hostile ; and yet if he 
 should be attacked he must defend himself to the last extremity, and 
 might remove with his small force into the most defensible of the three 
 forts. 
 
 The resignation of Cobb from the Cabinet, December 8th, was fol- 
 lowed December 1.3th by a Cabinet meeting in which Buchanan turned 
 upon advisers who were in fact conspirators, with these words of alarm 
 and indignation: "Mr. Floyd, are you going to send recruits to 
 Charleston to strengthen the forts? Don't you intend to strengthen 
 the forts at Charleston?" 
 
 Floyd said in reply that he did not intend to do anything of the 
 kind ; and to that Buchanan said : "Mr. Floyd, I would rather be at 
 the bottom of the Potomac to-morrow than that these forts in Charles- 
 ton should fall into the hands of those who intend to take them. It 
 will destroy me, sir, and Mr. Floyd, if that thing occurs it will cover 
 your name with an infamy that all time can never efface." 
 
 Floyd replied to this that to garrison the forts would be "the inaug- 
 uration of civil war," while for the real interest, that of the value of the 
 forts as property, the true policy was to wait until commissioners from 
 South Carolina could deal with Congress for the transfer of the prop- 
 erty. Floyd related after he had resigned that he called to his aid Jef- 
 ferson Davis, James M. Mason, Hunter and many others, and that they 
 quieted Buchanan's fears and convinced him that without any sending 
 of troops to Charleston harbor the property there in forts and arsenals 
 would be safe. It involved the immediate resignation of Cass, the fore- 
 most representative of the loyal Democracy of the North. The de- 
 mand of Cass was "that additional troops should be sent -to reinforce 
 the forts in the harbor of Charleston, with a view to their better defense 
 if they should be attacked, and that an armed vessel should likewise be 
 ordered there, to aid, if necessary, in the collection of the revenue • re- 
 moving the custom house to one of the forts." Against this, which 
 involved no war of coercion upon South Carolina, Buchanan stupidly 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 381 
 
 stood out, on the ground that "no present necessity exists for a resort 
 to force for the protection of the pubHc property," and that any action 
 guarding against future attack would be at the risk of "a collision of 
 arms in the harbor of Charleston." 
 
 The State election of November, i860, had resulted in a Legislature 
 for 1 86 1 composed of 23 Republicans and 9 Democrats in the Senate, 
 with 93 Republicans and 35 Democrats in the Assembly. Governor 
 Edwin D. Morgan advised repeal of the Personal Liberty bill, and sug- 
 gested that other States should do the same, and that the State repre- 
 sentatives in Congress should lean strongly to conciliation. The re- 
 sponse of the two Houses was the reverse of conciliatory, by a nearly 
 unanimous vote, 157 out of 160. Resolutions were passed January 
 nth, 1 86 1, with only one negative in the Senate and two in the Assem- 
 bly, declaring, in view of acts of war and openly avowed treasonable 
 designs at Charleston, that the State tendered the President "whatever 
 aid in men and money may be required to enable him to enforce the 
 laws and uphold the authority of the Federal Government, and that, in 
 defense of the Union, we are ready to devote our fortunes, our lives 
 and our sacred honor." 
 
 This note of firm, fearless defiance by the united Legislature of the 
 Empire State of the North was received with great indignation in Vir- 
 ginia and in Georgia, and in contrast with it, several attempts were 
 made to operate some scheme of conciliation adequate to arrest the dis- 
 union outbreak all over the South. A compromise memorial with an 
 immense number of signatures was sent to Congress, January 12th; a 
 Chamber of Commerce demonstration, January i8th, operated in the 
 same direction ; commissioners were sent to the Peace Commission at 
 Washington, February 4th, which Virginia had called, and other com- 
 missioners to a half dozen of the extreme secession States ; and at Al- 
 bany a Democratic call brought together a convention of notable men 
 whose united voices were for concession, compromise, conciliation. 
 
 Meanwhile, Governor Pickens, at Charleston, demanded, January 
 nth, the surrender of Fort Sumter, and on the same day at Washing- 
 ton, Thomas, who had succeeded Cobb as Secretary of the Treasury, 
 resigned on the ground that he could not consent to any attempt to en- 
 force the collection of the customs at Charleston, The appointment at 
 
382 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 once of John A. Dix as Secretary of the Treasury brought into line for 
 distingfuished Union service one of the staunchest of New York Demo- 
 crats. Mr. Dix gave his support without fear and with great zeal to 
 Buchanan's views of the December 3d annual message and the Jan- 
 uary 8th special message, against the right of secession, and on "the 
 duty to use military force defensively against those who resist the Fed- 
 eral officers in the execution of their legal functions, and against those 
 who assail the property of the Federal Governnient." 
 
 At a meeting in Union Square of later date, April 20th, Mr. Dix 
 stated that if South Carolina authorities had tendered war to the Bu- 
 chanan administration by a hostile and deadly assault, it would have 
 been unanimously accepted. He cited a declaration of Secretary of War 
 Holt to Mr. Hayne, Commissiener of South Carolina, that an assault 
 on Fort Sumter, plunging the country into the horrors of civil war, 
 would be upon their responsibility. On January 22d Secretary Holt 
 stated to the South Carolina Commissioner that General Anderson 
 would be reinforced whenever it should appear necessary. 
 
 Upon the fall of Fort Sumter, April 14, 1861, under a tremendous 
 assault for thirty-four hours of thirty guns and seventeen mortars, and 
 the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 troops, the New York Legis- 
 lature within a few hours passed an act appropriating $3,000,000, con- 
 ferring large powers on the Governor, authorizing the enrollment of 
 30,000 men to cover the quota of 13,000 called for, and for two years 
 instead of three months. An officer dispatched to Washington ob- 
 tained the acceptance of the surplus twenty-one regiments, and on April 
 1 6th the regitnents rendezvoused at New York City received marching 
 orders to proceed to Washington. Large contracts for supplies were 
 at once made. On April 24th an agent with a letter of credit for half 
 a million left for Europe to buy arms, and at a cost of $375,000 19,000 
 Enfield rifles were landed in New York. Between April 15th and May 
 25th the authorized 30,000 men had been raised, and by July 12th the 
 thirty-eight regiments had been organized, officered and sent to the seat 
 of war. A Union Defense Committee in New York City had further se- 
 cured the further enlistment of 8,300 three months' militia, 3,400 three 
 years' militia, and 5,000. three years' volunteers, bringing the total of 
 New York troops in the field, three months from the first call, to 46,700. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW .YORK 383 
 
 After the battle of Bull Run, with the proofs which it gave of a contest 
 the magnitude and continuance of which no man could forecast, Gov- 
 ernor Morgan issued a call for 25,000 three years' troops. On Octo- 
 ber 1st the quota of the State was raised to 100,000 and November 6th 
 to 120,000. On September 7th the State paymaster, General Van 
 Buren, paid $287,490 to forty regiments on account of services ren- 
 dered before transfer from the State muster roll to the payroll of the 
 United States. Both the State and the city of New York faced the 
 emergency without distinction of parties, with a promptness, energy 
 and generosity of exertions impossible to have been surpassed. The 
 aggregate number of volunteers furnished up to January i, 1862, was 
 120,361, and with all reductions there were in the field December 31, 
 1 86 1, 89,034 New York troops, while the number of volunteers not yet 
 sent to the front brought this force up to 103,307. 
 
 At the close of the year it was seen that while all the States had 
 been very active in mustering troops into the service of the Govern- 
 ment, the sinews of war for payment of $2,000,000 a day had to come 
 from New York. The Secretary of the United States Treasury re- 
 ported that he had borrowed up to the close of 1861 $260,000,000, and 
 in addition $210,000,000 advanced by New York. While Boston re- 
 duced the quota of its advance from 30 to 20 per cent. New York, 
 neither doubting nor hesitating, took not only its own, but that which 
 Boston failed to take. 
 
 A remarkable change took place in the political affairs of the State 
 of New York in the year 1862. It has long been a popular opinion 
 that the war of 1861 to '65 was inaugurated to destroy the institution 
 of slavery in the United States. Such an intention was not enter- 
 ■ tained by any political party except the Abolitionists. The Republican 
 Party certainly began the war with no such purpose. In the year 
 named the Democrats began to charge the administration with the in- 
 tention to destroy the institution of slavery. The idea began to grow 
 from various causes as the war progressed. In order to cripple the 
 South some of the Northern generals, on their own responsibility, set 
 slaves free when they had the opportunity, until warned by President 
 Lincoln that they must not do so. Northern politicians, seeing that it 
 was one means of crippling the South, began to advocate the abolition 
 
384 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 of slavery and many Republican nominees for office in 1862 openly 
 advocated anti-slavery. This was going much further than many men 
 in the North were vv^illing to go. For, notwithstanding the fact that 
 the South had precipitated the war, there were still men who could not 
 bring themselves to the point of robbing the South of its great indus- 
 trial institution without any recompense. 
 
 In New York State the Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour for 
 Governor. At the same time the convention expressed by resolutions 
 the intention of the Democratic Party to uphold the national Govern- 
 ment in its struggle with the South. 
 
 The convention, which met at Albany, said : "That the Democ- 
 racy of New York will continue to render the Government their sincere 
 and united support in the use of all legitimate means to suppress the 
 rebellion and restore the Union as it was and maintain the Constitu- 
 tion as it is;" that they wished to abide by the unanimously adopted 
 declaration of Congress, passed in July, 1861, which set forth: 
 
 "That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the 
 country by the disunionists," and that "the war is not waged with any 
 purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the right of established 
 institutions of the Southern States," and that "the illegal and uncon- 
 stitutional arrests and imprisonment of citizens in this State are with- 
 out the justification of necessity." 
 
 Of the thirty-one members of Congress the Democrats elected 14 
 and the Republicans 17. The State Senate stood 23 Republican to 9 
 Democratic, and the Assembly 64 of one to 64 of the other. 
 
 The Republicans nominated a ticket headed by General James S. 
 Wadsworth for Governor, a man of wealth and high character, but an 
 extreme radical in the conduct of the war. 
 
 Horatio Seymour was no new figure in the political life of the State. 
 He had been active in politics for twenty years and had achieved the 
 reputation of being one of the ablest statesmen of his day in this State. 
 
 He was born in the town of Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, 
 in the year 181 1. He studied law, but gave up his practice after the 
 death of his father, when he inherited the family estate. When thirty 
 years of age he was elected Mayor of the city of Utica and in the fall 
 of 1 84 1 was elected to the State Legislature, as member of Assembly. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 385 
 
 He was re-elected to the Assembly in 1843 ^"d 1844. In 1850 he was 
 the Democratic candidate for Governor against Washington Hunt, the 
 celebrated Whig, but was defeated. He was, however, elected Governor 
 in 1852, as has already been noted in these pages. In 1854 he was re- 
 nominated for Governor, but was defeated by Myron H. Clark. 
 
 When nominated for the fourth time for the office of Governor in 
 1862 Horatio Seymour was not only an old campaigner, but he had a 
 high reputation as an able and wise legislator, and was very intimately 
 known all over the State. It would seem that his personal popularity 
 was a considerable factor in his election, for at that time politics were 
 subservient to national sentiment and the national administration was 
 Republican, as was that of the State. Moreover, he was elected by a 
 majority of 10,752, while the State Senate remained overwhelmingly 
 Republican and the Assembly was a tie between the Republicans and 
 Democrats. 
 
 Governor Seymour was inaugurated January i, 1863, and his first 
 message to the Legislature was characterized by its tone of strong dis- 
 sent from almost the entire policy of the national administration. He 
 declared that not only Congress, but the Government, had violated the 
 rights of the States ; he declared the origin of the war to be a disregard 
 of the obligations of the Constitution and disrespect for constitutional 
 authority, and supported his contention by arguments. He charged the 
 Government with extravagance and corruption in every department and 
 violations of the Constitution and laws in making arbitrary arrests in 
 disregard of the rights and authority of the States. He arraigned the 
 administration for suppressing newspapers and proclaiming martial 
 law and for attempting to emancipate the slaves. He prophesied na- 
 tional bankruptcy and declared that the Government, in its persistent 
 attempts to subjugate the South, had violated its pledges, made at the 
 beginning of the war, and had failed in the attainment of its ends. At 
 the same time he insisted that the Union must be restored to its integ- 
 rity as it had existed before the rebellion ; that the situation, being as it 
 was, must be accepted ; that the armies must be supported and that all 
 requirements of the Constitution must be respected and responded to. 
 He declared that under no conditions could a division of the Union be 
 permitted. 
 
386 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The patriotic tone of the message gave great strength to that part 
 of it arraigning the national administration, but it is more than doubtful 
 if the attack upon the national Government effected any good, either to 
 Governor Seymour or to the country at large. Had all men of his day 
 possessed his mind and heart, such an arraignment would not have pro- 
 duced ill results, but it certainly cooled the patriotic ardor of many men 
 throuehout New York State. 
 
 There is always a peace faction and there was one in 1862. The 
 peace faction used the message as an argument for the discouragement 
 of volunteering, and Northern agitators who sympathized with the 
 South made it a basis for inflammatory speeches intended to divide and 
 disturb the people. Early in June, 1862, a mass meeting under the 
 auspices of the peace faction assembled in New York City and adopted 
 a series of characteristic resolutions. After declaring their allegiance 
 to the Constitution, they proceeded to deny that the national Govern- 
 ment had power to coerce a State. They asserted that the war was 
 unconstitutional and ought to be brought to an end, and they protested 
 against the "cowardly, despotic and inhuman act of the banishing of 
 C. L. Vallandigham." 
 
 In the spring of 1863 Vallandigham, an ex-member of Congress, 
 from the State of Ohio, busied himself sowing sedition among the peo- 
 ple of his State. General Burnside was commander of the military 
 department where Vallandigham was operating. He had issued a gen- 
 eral order for the suppression of seditious speech and action, but this 
 Vallandigham defied. He was thereupon arrested at his own house in 
 Dayton, Ohio, was tried by court-martial, convicted and sentenced to 
 close confinement in a fortress during the remainder of the war. This 
 sentence was afterwards commuted to banishment within the Confed- 
 erate lines. The Southerners, however, treated him so coolly that he 
 became disgusted and made his way to Canada. In the meantime, 
 however, the Democratic State Convention of Ohio nominated "him for 
 Governor. 
 
 The obstructions which the peace faction succeeded in casting in 
 the way of enlistments reduced recruits to such an extent that the 
 President was compelled, under the authority of Congress, to 
 order a general draft to fill up the ranks of the armies. Immediately 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 387 
 
 after the proclamation for a conscription appeared a public meeting was 
 held in Albany to consider the arrest of Vallandigham and Governor 
 Seymour was invited to attend. He declined the invitation, but sent 
 a letter in which he expressed his views very freely and denounced the 
 act as a violation of the most sacred rights of every citizen. He de- 
 clared that the governments and the courts of some of the Western 
 States had sunk into insignificance before military power and that the 
 people would now "pause to see what kind of a government it is for 
 which we are asked to pour out our blood and treasure" and "whether 
 this war is waged to put down rebellion at the South or to destroy free 
 institutions at the North." 
 
 These things tended toward dissatisfaction and, when the procla- 
 mation for a draft was published, organized resistance to the measure 
 instantly appeared. The leaders of the peace faction denounced the 
 draft and all acts under it as despotic and unconstitutional. A lawyer 
 in. New York, named McCunn, who never succeeded in achieving dis- 
 tinction in any other way, declared the draft unconstitutional ; he was, 
 however, sustained by Judges Lowrie, Woodward and Thompson of 
 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. With the support of these deci- 
 sion behind them, politicians opposed to the draft were reckless in stir- 
 ring up opposition to it. 
 
 On the evening- of July 3rd an incendiary handbill, inciting to insur- 
 rection, was scattered all over New York City and a morning paper ad- 
 vised its readers to provide themselves with arms to. "defend their 
 homes and personal liberties from invasion from any quarter." The 
 draft began in New York City on July 13th in a building on the corner 
 of Forty-sixth street and Third avenue. A crowd suddenly collected, 
 cut the telegraph wires leading out of the city, attacked the building, 
 drove out the men in charge of the draft, poured kerosene over the floor 
 of the room and set fire to the edifice. This was the beginning of a 
 three days' riot. Firemen and police were driven off and disloyal men 
 from the Southern States, aided by foreigners from the slums of the 
 city, continued a career of crime until July 17th. The wrath of the 
 mob was especially directed against the innocent colored people. Men 
 and women were pounded to death in the streets and colored people 
 were hunted as if they were wild beasts. The insurrection was finally 
 
388 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 suppressed by the police, aided by some troops, but not until two mil- 
 lion dollars' worth of property had been destroyed and i,ooo persons 
 had been killed or wounded. 
 
 Governor Seymour was at the seashore, a few miles from New 
 York, when the rjot took place and he came into the city to endeavor, 
 by his presence, to quell the disturbance. He issued a proclamation 
 declaring the town in a state of insurrection, and then repaired to the 
 City Hall and from its steps addressed the multitude in his quiet, sooth- 
 ing way, telling them he had sent his Adjutant-General to Washington 
 to demand a suspension of the draft until a judicial decision concerning 
 it might be reached. His mild exhortation had no effect whatever upon 
 the mob and his demand for the suspension of the draft was disre- 
 garded by Lincoln. General Dix was at that time commander of the 
 Department of the East and he asked Governor Seymour for military 
 aid to enforce the draft. The Governor refused and the Secretary of 
 War ordered several regiments and batteries of artillery to the assist- 
 ance of General Dix. 
 
 The draft riot in New York City in 1863 must in no way or sense 
 be construed as an indication that this State was not loyal to the na- 
 tional administration in its conduct of the war. But for foreigners and 
 Southerners the draft riot would probably never have occurred at all, 
 for the peace faction, who certainly were opposed to fighting, would 
 scarcely have gone to that extremity. In fact there was no more loyal 
 and patriotic State than New York during the war of the rebellion and 
 no State in the Union contributed in men and money as this State did. 
 From April, 1861, to May, 1865, the State gave for military service. 
 473,443 men, and of that number 116,382 went from New York City 
 and the State disbursed over $35,000,000 to its soldiers, in bounties 
 alone. 
 
 On March 30, 1863, a powerful association, which was the pre- 
 cursor of the Union League Club, was formed in New York City for 
 the purpose of giving both moral and physical support to the Govern- 
 ment in its struggle with the South. This club asked Governor Sey- 
 mour to give them authority to recruit a regiment of colored men. The 
 Governor refused on the ground that he had no power to do so. The 
 Secretary of War then gave the club the desired authority and within 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 389 
 
 a month a full regiment was recruited and placed in the field, the club 
 contributing $18,000 toward the regiment. 
 
 In February, 1863, the United States Congress passed an act for 
 the establishment of national paper currency and also providing for a 
 creation of national banking institutions. That act was the parent of 
 our national banks, and the Chase National Bank of New York City 
 was the first establfshed under the law. 
 
 In 1863 Governor Seymour had suggested to the Legislature that 
 an amendment to the State Constitution be secured, giving to soldiers 
 absent in the service of the United States the privilege of voting wher- 
 ever they might be; and such an amendment, passed in 1863, and con- 
 curred in by the Legislature of 1864, was approved by popular vote, in 
 March, 1864, and a law to carry it out put in force with Governor Sey- 
 mour's signature, April 21st. 
 
 On September 10, 1863, the Democratic convention assembled at 
 Albany and nominated Daniel B. St. John for Secretary of State, San- 
 ford E. Church for Comptroller, Marshall B. Champlain for Attorney- 
 General, William B. Lewis for Treasurer and Van R. Richmond for 
 State Engineer. The Republicans nominated a ticket headed by 
 Chauncey M. Depew, Lucius Robinson, George W. Schuyler and John 
 Cochrane, for the four leading offices, as above. The Depew ticket 
 was elected by 314,347 for Depew to 284,942 for St. John. 
 
 An attempt was made in the spring of 1864 to stop payment in gold 
 of the interest due to foreign State creditors. Home creditors had 
 been paid in currency, while under a special provision foreign creditors 
 had been paid in gold. Governor Seymour, by a special message 
 to the Legislature, April 22, 1864, and by an appeal also to capitalists, 
 bankers and merchants, succeeded in securing continuance of payment 
 of foreign creditors of the State in gold coin. 
 
 In the autumn of 1864 the Democrats renominated Governor Sey- 
 mour and Lieutenant-Governor Jones, and the Republicans Reuben E. 
 Fenton and Thomas G. Alvord for Governor and Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor. The impending presidential election gave occasion to demon- 
 strations of alarm, precaution and military interference, which dis- 
 turbed the relations of Governor Seymour's administration with that of 
 President Lincoln. On October 28th, General John A. Dix, in com- 
 
390 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 mand of the Department of the East, issued an order with reference to 
 possible operations either of fraud at the polls or of armed violence by- 
 sympathizers with the Confederates, either resident in the North or 
 coming over the border from Canada. Both- General Dix and Gover- 
 nor Seymour issued orders of precaution against military interference 
 with voters. 
 
 On November 4, General B. F. Butler, coming from Fortress Mon- 
 roe, took command in New York City and on Monday before the elec- 
 tion about 7,000 United States troops arrived at Fort Hamilton and 
 Governor's Island. These troops were put upon steamers and re- 
 mained within call on Tuesday, election day, and on Wednesday and 
 Thursday. A special trouble arose from the arrest of State agents at 
 Baltimore, October 27th, and at the same time of Colonel Samuel North 
 and other persons at Washington under the charge of fraud in connec- 
 tion with the taking of soldiers' votes. The two Baltimore agents, one 
 of whom entered a plea of guilty and the other, who was convicted, were 
 sentenced to imprisonment for a term of years. Governor Seymour, on 
 October 30th, sent a commission to Washington to intercede on behalf 
 of Colonel North and for the privilege of soldiers from the State of 
 New York to vote. The failure of the commission to obtain satisfaction 
 was followed by the trial of Colonel North, protracted through several 
 weeks of imprisonment and his acquittal and discharge. 
 
 The State election showed a total vote of 730,821 of which Fenton 
 received 369,557 and Seymour 361,264. For members of Congress the 
 Democrats secured 12 and the Republicans 20. 
 
 The presidential election was variously complicated by differences 
 of opinion in regard to the conduct of the war. Secretary Chase re- 
 fused as early as March 15th to be a candidate against Mr. Lincoln. 
 Senator Pomeroy of Kansas had scattered through the country, in Feb- 
 ruary, a circular signed by himself as "Chairman of the National Exe- 
 cutive Committee," suggesting the elevation of Secretary Chase to the 
 Presidency, in the interest of a war policy more destructive and pro- 
 scriptive than that of Mr. Lincoln. In the United States Senate, 
 March nth, Senator Pomeroy explained in regard to the committee 
 which he represented that the organization contemplated an effort to 
 make Secretary Chase the Republican presidential candidate. The 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 391 
 
 Legislature of Mr. Chase's State declared for Mr. Lincoln and the cir- 
 cumstances left Chase no choice but to refuse to run against the Presi- 
 dent. The Republican Convention had been called for June 7th, and a 
 strongly supported movement to secure postponement to September 
 was made by New York Republicans on the anxious seat of doubt as to 
 the candidacy of Mr. Lincoln. The appeal of this movement came out 
 March 25th, with the name of WiUiam C. Bryant first on the list of 
 its supporters. 
 
 On May i6th, B. Gratz Brown and others under the style of "Peo- 
 ple's Provisional Committee," issued a call for a mass convention at 
 Cleveland, May 31st, of opponents of a second term for Lincoln. An- 
 other call, to the same effect, and signed by Lucius Robinson, John Coch- 
 rane and others, appeared shortly after in New York ; and to this prom- 
 inent Abolitionists added a third call in the interest of the proposed con- 
 vention, and in hope of "immediate extinction of slavery throughout the 
 whole United States, by Congressional action, the absolute equality of 
 all men before the law, without regard to race or color, and such a plan 
 of reconstruction as shall conform to the policy of freedom for all, plac- 
 ing the political power in the hands of the loyal alone, and executing 
 with vigor the law for the confiscation of the property of rebels." The 
 proposed convention brought into a mass meeting some five hundred 
 persons, zealous for the suppression of Lincoln, for a more extreme 
 prosecution of all rebels in both person and estate and for complete 
 negro equality. John C. Fremont was nominated for President and 
 John Cochrane, Attorney-General of New York, for Vice-President. 
 Fremont put forth a letter of acceptance and of complaint of Lincoln, 
 in which he said : "Had Mr. Lincoln remained faithful to the princi- 
 ples he was elected to defend, no schism could have been created and no 
 contest would have been possible." 
 
 "The ordinary rights secured under the Constitution and laws of 
 the country have been violated and extraordinary powers have been 
 usurped by the Executive." 
 
 "If Mr. Lincoln is nominated, as I believe, it would be fatal to the 
 country to endorse a policy and renew a power which has cost us thou- 
 sands of men and needlessly put the country on the road to bankruptcy, 
 there will remain no other alternative but to organize against him every 
 
392 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 element of conscientious opposition with a view to prevent the misfor- 
 tune of his re-election. In this contingency I accept the nomination at 
 Cleveland, and as a preliminary step I have resigned my commission in 
 the army." 
 
 The call for the Baltimore Republican Convention had been issued 
 February 22d, Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, being chairman of 
 the National Committee. On the meeting of the convention, June 7th, 
 Mr. Lincoln was nominated by 492 votes against 22 for General Grant. 
 Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, was nominated for Vice-President. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention, called January 12th, to meet 
 at Chicago, July 4, 1864, was organized with Horatio Seymour as 
 chairman. Major-General George B. McClellan was nominated for 
 President and George H. Pendleton for Vice-President. The resolu- 
 tions of the convention condemned in the strongest possible terms the 
 conduct and the results of the war, and demanded "a cessation of hos- 
 tilities with a view to an ultimate convention of States or other peace- 
 able means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may 
 be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." To this 
 General McClellan responded by saying : 
 
 "So soon as it is clear, or even probable, that our present adversa- 
 ries are ready for peace upon the basis of the Union, we should exhaust 
 all the resources of statesmanship practiced by civilized nations and 
 taught by the traditions of the American people, consistent with the 
 honor and interests of the country to secure such peace, re-establish the 
 Union and guarantee for the future the constitutional rights of every 
 State." 
 
 The campaign was one of hot discussion and immense zeal for the 
 differing aims of the opposing parties. The Democrats were put upon 
 the defensive under the charge that their proposals might be found to 
 mean peace without restoration of the Union, and the Republicans were 
 indicted for conducting the war, not so much to restore the Union as to 
 destroy slavery. 
 
 Mr. Seward met the latter charge by saying in a speech at Auburn, 
 September 3d : "When the insurgents shall have disbanded their 
 armies and laid down their arms, the war will instantly cease; and all 
 the war measures then existing, including those which affect slavery, 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 393 
 
 will cease also ; and all the moral, economic and political questions af- 
 fecting slavery, as others, which shall then be existing, between indi- 
 viduals and States, and the Federal Government will, by force of the 
 Constitution, pass over to the arbitrament of the courts of law and to 
 the councils of legislation." 
 
 The day before Mr. Seward thus spoke there had been announced 
 victories of the Union arms of Sherman at Atlanta and Farragut at 
 Mobile, which produced great popular effect, and among other results, 
 General Fremont withdrew from the contest. On September 17th, he 
 said in an announcement of his withdrawal from the field as a can- 
 didate : "The presidential question has, in effect, been entered upon in 
 such a way that the union of the Republican Party has become a para- 
 mount necessity. The policy of the Democratic Party signifies either 
 separation or re-establishment with slavery. The Chicago Platform is 
 simply separation. General McClellan's letter of acceptance is re-es- 
 tablishment with slavery. I believe I am consistent with my antece- 
 dents and my principles in withdrawing, not to aid in the triumph of 
 Mr. Lincoln, but to do my part toward preventing the election of the 
 Democratic candidate. , In respect to Mr. Lincoln I continue to hold 
 exactly the sentiments contained in my letter of acceptance. I con- 
 sider that his administration has been politically a failure, and that its 
 necessary continuance is a cause of regret for the country." 
 
 In the election, held November 8th, McClellan electors were chosen 
 in Delaware, Kentucky and New Jersey and Lincoln electors in all the 
 remaining States. The popular vote for Lincoln was 2,203,831 and 
 that for McClellan 1,797,019. In New York, Lincoln received 368,735 
 votes and McClellan 361,986. Out of a total electoral vote of 233, 
 Lincoln received 212 and McClellan 21. 
 
394 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Reconstruction Measures and Amendments — Assassination of Lincoln 
 — Political Conventions — Election of John T. Hoffman — ^The 
 Stanton Episode — Admission of Negro-Equality States — Elec- 
 tion of Grant — Re-election of Hoffman — The Tweed Ring — 
 Re-election of Grant — Election of John A. Dix — Bills Passed 
 in 1873 — Amendments Added to State Constitution. 
 
 The dawn of the year 1865, preceded by a new levy of troops in 
 December, witnessed extraordinary energy throughout the North to 
 make up the quota of cities, towns, and counties, and in the field Union 
 armies to press the exhausted and yielding enemy. In Congress a like 
 burst of zeal for securing the results of the war by laws of fundamental 
 application made an epoch of great significance. The anti-slavery 
 amendment to the Constitution, which had failed in the House at the 
 previous session of Congress, was reconsidered by that body imme- 
 diately after it convened in November, and passed in January, 1865. 
 In an address of January 31st, President Lincoln announced that the 
 necessary action on the part of the States had been initiated by Illinois, 
 with Maryland a close second. 
 
 In a conference of Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and 
 John A. Campbell, with President Lincoln and Secretary of State Sew- 
 ard, February 3d, the representatives of the Confederate States were 
 informed that the only terms on which peace would be made were un- 
 conditional submission with entire acceptance of the recent legislation 
 extinguishing slavery throughout all the States. 
 
 Reporting these facts at Richmond to the Confederate authorities 
 occasioned an outburst of desperation, the outcome of which was a law 
 to enlist slaves as soldiers with promise of emancipation, and the ap- 
 pointment of General Lee to the command of all the Confederate armies. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 395 
 
 It meant, however, for the course of events, the surrender of the Army 
 of Northern Virginia to General Grant, April 9th, and the speedy col- 
 lapse of the whole Confederate States' organization, armies, Congress, 
 and councils, and the setting in motion of reconstruction proceedings. 
 
 The death on the morning of April 15th of President Lincoln, shot 
 by an assassin, brought these proceedings under the administration of 
 Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to a task upon which history cannot 
 but regret that the great powers and rare spirit of President Lincoln 
 could not have been employed. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention for 1865 was held at Albany, 
 September 6th and 7th, and a ticket for State officers was nominated, 
 with General H. W. Slocum as candidate for Secretary of State. The 
 resolutions adopted pledged to President Johnson the most hearty sup- 
 port in reconstruction proceedings — far more liberal than those favored 
 by the Republican leaders. 
 
 The Republican Convention nominated for the same office General 
 Barlow, one of the most popular soldiers of the Civil War. The elec- 
 tion, November 7th, gave Barlow 300,254 and Slocum 272,793. The 
 Legislature elected was composed of 27 Republicans and 5 Democrats 
 in the Senate, and 89 Republicans to 30 Democrats in the Assembly. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention, held at Albany, September 11, 
 1866, nominated John T. Hoffman for Governor and J. V. L. Pruyn 
 for Lieutenant-Governor. Resolutions were adopted affirming the com- 
 plete restoration of the people of the South to all their rights and privi- 
 leges as citizens of the Union, and strongly deprecating centralization 
 of power in the State. 
 
 The Republicans renominated Reuben E. Fenton for Governor and 
 Thomas G. Alvord for Lieutenant-Governor. The resolutions adopted 
 especially urged a pending amendment to the Constitution as "essential 
 to engraft upon the organic law the legitimate results of the war." At 
 the election in November, Fenton received 366,315 votes, and Hoffman 
 352,526. The State Constitution of 1846 provided that the question 
 of a constitutional convention be submitted to vote of the people at the 
 several elections every twenty years, and in compliance with this a vote 
 now taken counted 352,854 for a convention and 256,364 against. 
 
 The convention met June 4, 1867, and after a three months' session 
 
396 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 adjourned to November 12th, and continued its sessions for several 
 weeks in the year 1868. 
 
 At the Democratic Convention, which met at Albany, October 3d, 
 ex-Governor Seymour, upon taking the chair, made an address depre- 
 cating the continued exclusion of the Southern States from the practi- 
 cal benefits of the Union. The third resolution adopted said : "We 
 denounce the effort of the Radical Party to retain the power it has 
 usurped by establishing negro supremacy in the South by military force, 
 coupled with the disfranchisement of the mass of the white population, 
 as an outrage upon democratic principles, and an attempt to undermine 
 and destroy the Republic; and that we stigmatize the refusal of that 
 party in this State to submit the question of negro suffrage to the 
 people as a cowardly evasion of a paramount issue in the pending 
 struggle." 
 
 The convention nominated for Secretary of State, Homer A. Nel- 
 son; for Comptroller, William F. Allen; for Treasurer, Wheeler H. 
 Bristol ; for Attorney-General, Marshall B. Champlain ; for Canal Com- 
 missioner, John D. Fay; for State Engineer, Van Rensselaer Rich- 
 mond; for Prison Inspector, Solomon Scheu; and for Judge of the 
 Court of Appeals, Martin Grover. The Republican convention had 
 nominated a ticket containing the names of General McKean, Thomas 
 Hillhouse, General T. B. Gates, Joshua M. Van Cott, A. C. Powell, 
 John M. Hammond, Gilbert De La Matyr, and Charles Mason. Hon. 
 Roscoe Conkling, on taking the chair of the convention, had made a 
 speech of some length condemning the course of President Johnson on 
 the great national question of admitting the Southern States to a par- 
 ticipation in the general government of the country, and the platform 
 had "unhesitatingly declared that suffrage was a right not limited by 
 property or color." 
 
 The election, thus turning upon treatment of the South and negro 
 suffrage, resulted in the success of the entire Democratic ticket. The 
 legislators elected were 15 Democrats in the Senate to" 16 Republicans 
 and I Independent, and in the Assembly 73 Democrats and 55 Repub- 
 licans. 
 
 The question of reconstruction of the Union, thus pronounced upon 
 in the New York State election, was the subject of a bitter struggle be- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 397 
 
 tween President Johnson and the Republicans in Congress. The res- 
 toration of the Southern States to all the rights and privileges of States 
 as co-equal members of the Union, had received the approval of the 
 executive and judicial branches of the Government at an early period 
 after the cessation of hostilities in 1865. Congress, however, not only 
 withheld its assent, but during its session in June, 1866, had required, 
 as a condition precedent to such recognition, the adoption of an amend- 
 ment to the Federal Constitution, known as Article 14. This amend- 
 ment made all persons, born or naturalized within the United States, 
 citizens of the United States and of the State in which they resided. 
 It required that the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United 
 States should not be abridged by the law of any State ; thus removing 
 all distinctions of color, race, intelligence and property, in the enjoy- 
 ment of any State, as well as of national citizenship. 
 
 The question really involved in this amendment was, the admission 
 to citizenship and the ballot of the negroes in the Southern States. It 
 was the opinion then existing that the authority to determine this ques- 
 tion resided in the States severally, and nowhere else. The amendment 
 was submitted to the States in June, 1866, and up to March 2, 1867, 
 when Congress adopted other measures, 19 States had ratified the 
 amendment and 12 had rejected it. In the course of a month Massa- 
 chusetts ratified and Maryland rejected. 
 
 The action of Congress during the larger part of the session of 
 1866-67, was confined to the passage of acts requiring the elective 
 franchise to be granted to all persons in the Territories, without regard 
 to color, upon the admission of such Territories as States in the Union, 
 and in the extension of the franchise in the District of Columbia. In 
 every case of these acts to confer suffrage upon all negroes. President 
 Johnson interposed his veto, but without effect, as Congress passed 
 the rejected bills by the requisite two-thirds vote over the veto. 
 
 The unquestioned principle in regard to the States had been that 
 in the several States Congress could not interfere with the freedom 
 of the State to fix the conditions of State citizenship. And in view 
 of this bar to making the negroes in all the States of the South voters, 
 Congress underook the establishment of unqualified military despotism, 
 escape from subjection to which was conditioned upon the'organization 
 
398 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 of State government in any State on the basis of complete acceptance 
 of negro suffrage. The bill to create this military domination was 
 passed over the veto of President Johnson. And then a supplementary 
 bill required that in each State negro equality proceedings should be 
 carried through, to get into shape nominal negro equality States, that 
 such States with negro-equality Senators and Representatives might be 
 admitted as genuine States of the Union while the real States, their 
 people and interests remained under the heel of military Federalism. 
 
 A "Union Republican Congressional Committee" followed up these 
 proceedings with an address to the Southern people on "The Policy 
 of Congress in reference to the Reconstruction of the Union," in the 
 front of which was this boldly partisan statement : "The negroes of 
 the South, by the measures of the Republican Party, as expressed in 
 the Acts of Congress of the 2d of March and the 23d of March, 1867, 
 are elevated to the full and equal rights of the citizens of the States 
 to which they belong. The negro race is indebted to the country, con- 
 trolled in its policy by the Republican Party, for the emancipation of 
 the race from slavery, and now by these Acts of Congress for its eleva- 
 tion to a position of equality. The nation will at once, and freely, con- 
 cede to the colored race every political and public right that is enjoyed 
 by any class of citizens ; and the negroes, on their side, cannot hesitate 
 to support the party and principles by whose labors and influence their 
 redemption has been accomplished." 
 
 The States of Mississippi and Georgia sought to secure from the 
 Supreme Court relief from the monstrous outrage of these negro-equal- 
 ity proceedings, but got from Chief Justice Chase only refusal of leave 
 to file a bill. 
 
 In order to secure suffrage, without regard to race or color, through 
 all the States of the Union, a bill for that purpose was presented in the 
 Senate, during the last session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, by Sen- 
 ator Sumner, of Massachusetts. No progress was made in the passage 
 of the bill during that session. 
 
 On September 12th a "Border State" convention was held at Balti- 
 more, the object of which was, in the language of the call, "to advance 
 the cause of manhood suffrage, and to demand of Congress the passage 
 of the Sumner- Wilson bill." Sumner said in a letter to this conven- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 399 
 
 tion : "The idea is intolerable, that any State, under any pretension 
 of State rights, can set up a political oligarchy within its borders, then 
 call itself a Republican government." Senator Wilson wrote : "I sug- 
 gest that your convention declare for suffrage either by law or constitu- 
 tional amendment. We can carry the amendment if we cannot the 
 law. At the last session I offered an amendment on the 17th of July, 
 allowing all, without distinction of color^ to vote and hold office, mak- 
 ing no distinction in rights or privileges. Some of our strongest men 
 doubt our power to pass a law. If we cannot do it, let us set about 
 amending the Constitution." 
 
 The hold-over Secretary of War, E. M. Stanton, was one of the 
 extremist zealots of negro-equality reconstruction, and August 12, 
 1867, President Johnson suspended him from his office, and made Gen- 
 eral Grant Secretary of War ad interim. An elaborate explanation of 
 his reasons for this proceeding the President sent to the Senate Decem- 
 ber 12, 1867. 
 
 On August 20, 1867, President Johnson issued his proclamation, 
 declaring that the insurrection which heretofore existed in the State of 
 Texas was at an end, and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil 
 ■ authority existed throughout the whole United States. On September 
 3d the President issued another proclamation, declaring the supremacy 
 of the Constitution and the laws, with directions to all subordinates to 
 have strict regard to this. And again, September 7th, in another 
 proclamation, the announcement was made of amnesty, relieving* nearly 
 all the whites of the Southern States of any liability to confiscation of 
 their property, and restoring them to the same right of suffrage which 
 they had before the war, so far as could be effected by the action of the 
 Federal Government. 
 
 On December 7, 1867, a resolution to impeach President Johnson 
 was proposed in the House of Representatives, but failed to pass. On 
 January 13, 1868, the Senate refused to approve of the suspension of 
 Secretary Stanton, and on February ist the President removed Stan- 
 ton, and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas ad interim Secretary. 
 This the Senate pronounced illegal, and on February 24th, the House of 
 Representatives voted by 124 to 42 to impeach the President. Pro- 
 ceedings of impeachment begun March 5th before the Senate were 
 
400 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 abandoned May 26th, from the impossibility of getting a two-thirds 
 vote sustaining any of the articles. 
 
 The Republican National Convention assembled at Chicago May 
 2 1 St, nominated General Grant and Schuyler Colfax for President and 
 Vice-President. On June 22d a negro-equality Arkansas was admitted 
 to representation by Congress over the President's veto, and on June 
 25th there was a similar admission of the negro-equality States of 
 North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and 
 Florida — the creations of Republican military despotism approved by 
 the authors of the despotism against the veto of President Johnson. 
 
 On July 4, 1868, the President issued a proclamation of amnesty 
 and pardon of all late rebels not under presentment or indictment. 
 
 The National Democratic Convention of 1868 met at Tammany 
 Hall, which had then but recently been completed on its present site, on 
 July 9th of that year. Many of the prominent Southern leaders were 
 there and they were not only more ardent in their utterances than their 
 Northern brethren, but they were more aggressive. Salmon P. Chase 
 had been prominently mentioned as the Democratic candidate for Presi- 
 dent, but he would not suit the Southern delegates. He had declared 
 for universal suffrage. The convention rang with the cries of "Down 
 with military usurpation!" "The same money for bondholder and 
 plowholder 1" A plank appeared in the Democratic platf rom and was 
 accredited to Wade Hampton, declaring that "we regard the Recon- 
 struction Acts of Congress as unconstitutional, revolutionary and 
 void." This pointed the way to the nomination for President of a 
 Southern general or a Northern man of like views. Then Horatio 
 Seymour's name began to be spoken. His peace proclivities were in- 
 terpreted as sympathy for the South and although he did not desire the 
 nomination he was nominated. For Vice-President, General Francis 
 P. Blair, of Missouri, was named, and there the convention made a 
 grave error. Blair was the Southern representative and should have 
 carried the solid South. Had he been able to do this Seymour would 
 have been elected. Moreover Blair seemed to consider Hampton's 
 plank the whole platform and so estranged Northern voters. 
 
 The campaign was bitter. The benign Seymour was represented 
 as Satyr, demon, Satan, in cartoon and pamphlet. At first he did not 
 
^^ A.Z"^' *:>iC,^, SFr^A^ 
 
 TMOFF. 
 
 /"'iff C^rf^f/' S fa /as /-/':■ fO'^'^ /^tf. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 401 
 
 take the stump, but Blair was making so many votes for the Repub- 
 licans that he at last went into the campaign actively. He carried New 
 York, but received only 80 electoral votes to Grant's 214. 
 
 The negro-equality State of Georgia having ratified "the fourteenth 
 amendment," July 21, 1868, it was proclaimed by the President as an 
 article of the Constitution, July 27, 1868. 
 
 The Democratic State convention, which met at Albany September 
 2, 1868, nominated for Governor John T. Hoffman, at that time Mayor 
 of the city of New York; for Lieutenant-Governor, Allen C. Beach; 
 for Canal Commissioner, Oliver Bascom; for Inspector of Prisons, 
 David B. McNeil ; and for Clerk of the Court of Appeals, E. O. Perrin. 
 The Republicans nominated a ticket, July 8, at Syracuse, headed by 
 John A. Griswold for Governor and Alonzo B. Cornell for Lieutenant- 
 Governor. 
 
 In the election of November 3d, Grant and Colfax were chosen 
 President and Vice-President, by the votes of 26 States and a popular 
 vote of 3,015,071, while Seymour and Blair carried 12 States, and had 
 a popular vote of 2,709,613. 
 
 The election gave Hoffman 439,301 to 411,455 for Griswold. For 
 presidential electors the Seymour ticket had 429,883 votes and the 
 Grant ticket 419,883. For members of Congress 13 Democrats were 
 chosen to 18 Republicans. The State Legislature counted 15 Demo- 
 crats in the Senate to 17 Republicans, with 52 Democrats in the House 
 and 76 Republicans. 
 
 On the 25th of December President Johnson proclaimed uncondi- 
 tional pardon and amnesty to all concerned in the insurrection of the 
 Confederate States. 
 
 On February 27, 1869, the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution 
 of the United States, prohibiting restriction of suffrage because of race, 
 color, or previous condition of servitude, was proposed by resolution 
 of Congress, and transmitted to the Department of State. This amend- 
 ment was submitted to the New York Legislature for approval, and, 
 having been made the special order for March 17, 1869, it was passed 
 April 14th by a strict party vote, 17 to 15 in the Senate and 72 to 47 in 
 
 the House. 
 
 The Democratic convention, which assembled at Syracuse, Septem- 
 
402 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 ber 22cl, resolved, "That the fifteenth amendment of the Federal Consti- 
 tution, proposed by the radical majority in Congress in a spirit of con- 
 tempt of the people, and the right of the States to regulate the elective 
 franchise, and in utter disregard of the pledges of the party, and at- 
 tempted to be forced upon the States as a condition to their restoration 
 to civil government and to their representation in the National Legis- 
 lature, is intended to place the question of suffrage in the hands of the 
 central powers and by debasing to demoralize the representative sys- 
 tem." 
 
 The convention put in nomination the following Derriocratic ticket : 
 Homer A. Nelson for Secretary of State ; William F. Allen for Comp- 
 troller ; Wheeler H. Bristol for Treasurer ; Marshall B. Champlain for 
 Attorney-General ; Van Rensselaer Richmond for State Engineer ; W. 
 W. Wright for -Canal Commissioner ; Fordyce Laflin for Prison In- 
 spector ; John A. Lott and Robert Earl for Judges of the Court of Ap- 
 peals. The Republican ticket was headed by General Franz Siegel for 
 Secretary of State and Horace Greeley for Comptroller. One of the 
 issues of the State election was the question of adoption of the new 
 Constitution, framed by the convention of 1867-68. A separate vote 
 was to be taken on each of the questions of suffrage for negroes with- 
 out the restrictions of the existing Constitution^ of taxation, and of 
 the judiciary. 
 
 The election, November 2, 1869, resulted in the choice of the* entire 
 Democratic ticket, and the rejection of all the revised Constitution, ex- 
 cept the judiciary article. The negro suffrage proposition was voted 
 down by 282,403 votes against it to 249,802 for it. Nelson over Siegel 
 had a majority of 20,241. The Legislature stood 18 Democrats and 
 14 Republicans in the Senate, and 72 Democrats to 56 Republicans in 
 the Assembly. 
 
 One of the first acts of the Legislature on its assembling in Jan- 
 uary, 1870, was a resolution withdrawing the assent of the State to the 
 fifteenth (negro-equality) amendment to the Constitution of the United 
 States. Under the provisions of the new judiciary article of the Con- 
 stitution, an election was held on the 17th of May for a Chief Justice 
 and six associate justices of the Court of Appeals, each party being 
 allowed to put only four candidates for associate justices in nomina- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 403 
 
 tion. The nominations on the Repubhcan ticket were: For Chief 
 Justice, Henry R. Selden ; and for associates, Charles J. Folger, Charles 
 Andrews, Charles Mason and Robert S. Hale. The Democrats nomi- 
 nated Sanford E. Church for Chief Justice, and for associates, William 
 F. Allen, Martin Grover, Rufus W. Peckham and Charles A. Rapallo. 
 The election resulted in the choice of all the Democratic candidates, 
 and Folger and Andrews of the Republican nominees. The vote for 
 Chief Justice was, Church 239,685 to 151,788 for Selden. 
 
 The regular Democratic convention for the nomination of State 
 officers was held at Rochester on the 21st of September, 1870, and 
 John T. Hoffman was renominated for Governor ; Allen C. Beach for 
 Lieutenant-Governor; Asher P. Nichols for Comptroller; John D. 
 Furey and George W. Chapman for Canal Commissioners ; and Solo- 
 mon Scheu for Prison Inspector. The Republicans named to head their 
 ticket, Stewart L. Woodford and Sigismund Kauffmann. The elec- 
 tion, November 8th, resulted in the success of the entire Democratic 
 ticket, with Hoffman's majority over Woodford 33,096. Of 31 mem- 
 bers of Congress elected, 16 were Democrats and 15 Republicans. The 
 Legislature counted 17 Democrats and 14 Republicans in the Senate, 
 and 65 Democrats to 63 Republicans in the Assembly. 
 
 John Thompson Hoffman was born at Sing Sing, N. Y., January 
 10, 1828. His grandfather, Philip Livingston Hoffman, was a lawyer 
 and a resident of Columbia County. His father, Adrian Kissam Hoff- 
 man, was a celebrated physician of Westchester County. He married 
 the daughter of Dr. John Thompson, of Saratoga County, and Gov- 
 ernor Hoffman was named after his maternal grandfather. 
 
 At the age of fifteen, John T. Hoffman entered Union College and 
 was graduated with honors in the class of 1846. His oration on that 
 occasion was considered unusually brilliant. 
 
 While he was yet a student he exhibited a clearness of foresight and 
 soundness of judgment which indicated his future capacity for public 
 affairs. 
 
 After leaving college he took up the study of law in his native vil- 
 lage. 
 
 His political career began when he was twenty-one years of age. 
 In 1848 he was elected a member of the State Central Democratic Com- 
 
404 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 mittee by the convention of Hunker or Hardshell Democrats. That was 
 thfe year in which Martin Van Buren's candidacy for the Presidency 
 on the Free-Soil ticket divided the Democracy of New York, causing 
 bitter feeling between his supporters and those of Lewis Cass and 
 throwing the election to the Whigs. Although too young to vote, 
 Hoffman took the stump for Cass and Walworth and achieved a high 
 reputation as a political speaker. ^ 
 
 He was admitted to the Bar, January lo, 1849, his twenty-first 
 birthday. In October of the same year he removed to New York and 
 formed a law partnership with Samuel M. Woodruff and Judge Will- 
 iam H. Leonard. For the next ten years he devoted himself closely 
 to the practice of his profession and was so successful that in 1859 
 many prominent citizens of New York desired to see him made United 
 Statdfe District Attorney. President Buchanan, however, objected on 
 account of his youth and Jtidge Roosevelt, a prominent Democratic 
 lawyer of New York City, received the appointment. 
 
 In i860 John T. Hoffman was elected Recorder of the city of New 
 York and he filled the office with great credit to himself and to Tam- 
 many Hall, which elected him. Along with high legal attainments he 
 was gifted with a rare sense of justice tempered with mercy, so that 
 he made an ideal judge. Many of the rioters of July, 1863, were tried 
 before him and his course throughout that deplorable affair added to 
 the number of his friends. In 1863 he was nominated for re-election. 
 Tammany and Mozart united on him and the newspapers, regardless 
 of party, endorsed him, so that he was elected for the second time by a 
 nearly unanimous vote. 
 
 On November 21, 1865, Hoffman was nominated for the office of 
 Mayor of the city of New York by Tammany Hall. The Mozart or- 
 ganization and the Citizens' Association put forward John Hecker, 
 who was supported by the New York Tribune. C. Godfrey Gunther, 
 who was then Mayor, announced himself as a candidate for re-election 
 and was supported by the McKeon Democracy. With so many Dano- 
 cratic candidates in the field, the Republicans believed they saw a 
 chance for success and nominated Marshall O. Roberts for their candi- 
 date. 
 
 Hoffman was elected and took his seat as Mayor, January i, 1866. 
 
OF THE STATE, OF NEW YORK. 405 
 
 This put him in Hne for the nomination by the Democratic Party for 
 the office of Governor. 
 
 In that year the Democratic Party began to cast about for the 
 strongest possible man to head the State ticket. The party was dispir- 
 ited by successive defeats and the Republicans, being in office, had a 
 strong hold upon the patronage of the State. When the convention 
 met at Albany, September 11, 1866, such men as Sanford E. Church, 
 Henry C. Murphy, William F. Allen, Henry W. Slocum, William 
 Kelly and John A. Dix were respectfully considered and passed over 
 for John T. Hoffman as candidate for Governor. , 
 
 After his nomination he made a tour of the State, speaking in all 
 the large cities, winning golden opinions everywhere, and solidifying 
 the Democratic Party. About that time Grant and Johnson made their 
 celebrated tour, the result of which was. to aid in solidifying the ranks 
 of Democracy. The Republicans, however, carried the election, but 
 after the returns were in, the Democrats awoke to the knowledge that 
 had they put forth more earnest effort, Hoffman would have defeated 
 Fenton. 
 
 In the fall of 1867 Hoffman was renominated for Mayor of New 
 York and was re-elected. 
 
 On August 13, 1868, the Democratic State Committee met at Utica 
 for consultation and agreed that Mayor Hoffman would be the Demo- 
 cratic candidate that year for Governor. The Democratic State Con- 
 vention met in September and he was regularly nominated. Horatio 
 Seymour was the Democratic candidate for President the same year. 
 
 The Republicans nominated John A. Griswold as their candidate 
 for Governor and sought to make capital out of the fact that he was 
 heralded as the builder of the first "Monitor." 
 
 At the election on November 2, Hoffman carried the State by a 
 majority of 27,946. There was a cry of fraud after the election, but 
 once Governor Hoffman entered upon his duties his bitterest enemies 
 became his friends and even Republican newspapers commended his 
 course, especially regarding his numerous vetoes which were aimed at 
 special legislation. 
 
 It was during Hoffman's second term as Governor that the in- 
 famous Tweed ring was broken up. Although that matter was an af- 
 
4o6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 fair relating distinctly to New York City, it had an influence not only 
 throughout the State, but also throughout the nation. Hoffman had 
 been the Tammany Mayor of New York before his election as Gov- 
 ernor, and, when he was the second time elected to the gubernatorial 
 chair, he became Tammany's candidate for President. There was, 
 however, another and greater Democrat who had presidential aspira- 
 tions ; who had already achieved high fame as a lawyer and was widely 
 known as a public man, and who was destined, through his prosecution 
 of the Tweed ring, to become the Democratic apostle of reform. This 
 was Samuel J. Tilden. Governor Hoffman's name was never in any 
 way smirched by the operations of the ring, and it is not the province of 
 this work to go into a detailed account of the means by which the ring 
 plundered New York City. But as it was instrumental in turning the 
 eyes of the State towards Samuel J. Tilden as the great champion-of 
 reform, and as the operations of the ring were made possible through 
 bad legislation and corruption at Albany, a brief account is proper. 
 
 Bigelow, in his "Life of Tilden," says : 
 
 "In the year 1857 the Legislature of the State of New York was 
 beguiled into imposing upon the city of New York a charter which pro- 
 vided that but six persons should be voted for as supervisors by each 
 elector and twelve chosen. In other words, that the nominees of both 
 the Republican and Democratic Party caucuses should be elected. At 
 the succeeding session of the Legislature their term3 of office were ex- 
 tended from four to six years. This gave a Board of Supervisors con- 
 sisting of six Republicans and six Democrats, to change a majority of 
 which it was necessary to have the control of the primary meetings of 
 both of the great national and State parties for four years in succes- 
 sion, a series of coincidences which rarely happens in a generation. 
 The individual man has little enough chance of converting a minority 
 into a majority when allowed a choice between two opposing parties. 
 This scheme deprived him of that little chance and left the public en- 
 tirely at the mercy of the managers of the primaries, by withdrawing 
 from the latter all local restraints. 
 
 "The result of such a political solecism responded promptly to the 
 intention of those who devised it, in a combination between these twelve 
 supervisors and the members of easy virtue in the Legislature, which 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 407 
 
 rapidly developed- into the most powerful, reckless and rapacious organ- 
 ization of which American politics had had any experience. It em- 
 braced just enough influential men in the organization of each party 
 to control the action of both; men who in public pushed to extremes 
 the abstract ideas of their respective parties, while secretly they joined 
 hands in common schemes for personal power and profit. It soon ac- 
 quired the control of all legislation affecting the city, multiplied offices 
 to be filled by its dependents, took possession of the city judiciary, and 
 in time managed to hold the balance of power in the conventions and 
 other political organizations of both parties. Intoxicated by their suc- 
 cess and encouraged by the patience with which the people had sub- 
 mitted to their depredations, they induced the Legislature in 1870 to 
 so enlarge their power as practically to place the power and wealth of 
 the' city at the mercy of a man who had been a contractor under the 
 city government, William M. Tweed. 
 
 "It has been publicly stated by Mr. Tilden — and the statement has 
 never been discredited — that one million of dollars .stolen from the tax- 
 payers of New York were taken to Albany to secure the passage of this 
 charter, and a prominent judge of the Supreme Court — a Republican 
 in politics — has been given as authority for the statement that six of the 
 leading Senators of his own party received $10,000 each for voting for 
 this charter, and $10,000 more for their votes in favor of other bills 
 in the same interest during that and the following year. By this char- 
 ter the city government was confided to several commissioners who 
 were respectively heads of departments, each entirely independent of 
 the other, could only be removed by impeachment, and were accountable 
 to no one. It also provided that all claims should be audited by three 
 persons : the Commissioner of Public Works, the Mayor, and Comp- 
 troller." 
 
 The exposure of the Tweed ring was first /made in the columns of 
 the New York Times and that paper kept up a continual and tremen- 
 dous assault upon the ring until Tweed and all his associates were in 
 prison. In 1871 the Sheriff of New York was James O'Brien, a Tam- 
 many man, and a close friend of Tilden. 
 
 O'Brien had a bill against the city which he could not collect, and, 
 having learned, through a clerk, of some of the gross irregularities 
 
4o8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 which were going on, he threatened to hand his evidence of corruption 
 to the New York Times unless his bill was paid. Tweed, believing him- 
 self to be invulnerable, paid no attention to him, with the result that 
 after some time O'Brien actually did place his information in the hands 
 of the Times. Tweed was at that time in the zenith of his fame, and 
 was so popular that prominent citizens of New York were talking of 
 erecting a monument to his memory even before his death, and when 
 the Times' exposure appeared prominent papers like the Sun and the 
 Herald would not give credence to the astounding rfevelations against 
 the man who was looked upon as a great benefactor. 
 
 A. Oakey Hall was at that time Mayor of New York and was one 
 of Tweed's confederates, as were Richard B. Connolly, Comptroller, 
 and P^ter B. Sweeney, Commissioner of Public Works. It seemed for a 
 time as if the public wDuld not be able to do anything against the ring, 
 so strongly was it intrenched, and Mayor Hall said : "It will all blow 
 over. Next year we shall be in Washington." This remark about 
 Washington referred to Tammany Hall's hope of being able to place 
 Hofifman in the presidential chair. It has been asserted that this prob- 
 ably had no little influence in enlisting the services of Samuel J. Tilden 
 as one of the leading attorneys in the prosecution of the ring. No one 
 will deny that Tilden may have had presidential ambitions. He was 
 entitled to them if ever man was, but his clean record as a public man 
 indicates that he was ready to assail even those of his own political 
 party rather than permit corruptionists to gain control of the State or 
 nation. He was not one o'f those who would sacrifice the public wel- 
 fare for self-aggrandizement. His attitude when robbed of the Presi- 
 dency puts that question beyond dispute. He must have been a prophet 
 if he foresaw that his efforts, as a lawyer, in the cause of reform would 
 bring him the Governorship and afterwards the nomination for Presi- 
 dent. At all events, Tilden's successful prosecution of Tweed and his 
 associates placed him in line for the next nomination of the Democratic 
 Party for Governor of the State and spread his name over all the Union 
 as a most uncompromising reformer. To that fame he added during 
 his term as Governor of the State from 1874 to 1876. 
 
 The fifteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution was ratified 
 by the necessary number of States — twenty-nine — early in 1870. On 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 409 
 
 March 30th President Grant, in a special message, reported the votes 
 to Congress and announced the result. He was himself among the 
 zealots for negro equality as a result of the war. Congress at once 
 passed a bill to secure to male negroes in every State equality of suf- 
 frage with the whites. 
 
 The Democratic convention of 1871 put in nomination, October 4th, 
 at Rochester, the following ticket : D. Willers, Jr., for Secretary of 
 State; Asher P. Nichols for Comptroller; Marshall B. Champlain for 
 Attorney-General ; Wheeler H. Bristol for Treasurer ; Van Rensselaer 
 Richmond for State Engineer; George W. Chapman for Canal Com- 
 missioner; and David B. McNeil for Prison Inspector. The Repub- 
 licans nominated a ticket headed by G. Hilton Scribner, and Nelson K. 
 Hopkins. The election, November 7th, resulted in the election of all 
 the Republican candidates with a majority for Scribner over Willers of 
 18,907. The Legislature for 1872 stood 24 Republicans and 8 Demo- 
 crats in the Senate, and 97 Republicans to 3 1 Democrats in the Assem- 
 bly. 
 
410 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 One of the most short-lived, but at the same time one of the most 
 promising, and apparently one of the most formidable, political move- 
 ments since the great Civil War was that of the Liberal Republican 
 Party, in 1872. It had its inception in 1870, but its appearance was 
 merely sporadic until the campaign of 1872 approached. 
 
 There was a great and deep-seated dissatisfaction with the admin- 
 istration of President Grant, which began March, 1869. Before the 
 war Grant had been a Democrat. He had voted for Buchanan for 
 President, in 1856, and in i860 he had supported Douglas. When the 
 time for the presidential election of 1868 drew near there was clearly 
 a very strong and widespread sentiment in favor of elevating the great 
 commander of the Union -army to the Presidency, the supreme reward 
 and recognition which a free people could grant for his superlative 
 services to his country. 
 
 The Republican organization was held firmly in the grasp of the 
 Radicals. Their strongest and most influential leader was Thaddeus 
 Stevens, a member- of Congress from Pennsylvania, an able man, but 
 a strong and bitter partisan, a sort of American Jacobin in sentiment, 
 relentless, uncompromising and always driving the party headlong into 
 extreme measures. Among these was the impeachment of President 
 Johnson, which resulted only in his acquittal by the Senate, through 
 the votes of a number of Republicans acting with the Democrats. This 
 and other measures of an extreme partisan character had effectually 
 eliminated all the great Radical leaders as presidential possibilities, and 
 the party was forced to look for a candidate who would appeal to the 
 conservative element of the country. The people were tired of the riot 
 of extravagance and turbulence which had succeeded the period of the 
 settlement of the war issues by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Fed- 
 eral Constitution. 
 
 The practical politicians of the Republican organization, therefore, 
 turned eagerly to General Grant as the only man who seemed able to 
 deliver them from the troubles in which they had involved their party. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 411 
 
 At the same time, the Democrats were looking in the same direc- 
 tion. In fact there developed a remarkable situation in American poli- 
 tics, a situation without any parallel since the "Era of Good Feeling" 
 which had brought about the unanimous re-election of President 
 Monroe, in 1820. Each of the great political parties was anxious to 
 have the same nominee for President, and it was a generally accepted 
 fact that he would accept a nomination from either party. He was 
 not actively opposed by anybody except the irreconcilable Republican 
 extremists of the Wendell Phillips type, and that brilliant orator 
 made a so-called lecture tour of the country, the burden of his lecture 
 being that, from the Radical standpoint. Grant would be an unsafe 
 President. 
 
 The practical Republican politicians, however, carried the day. 
 They forestalled any possible Democratic appropriation of Grant and 
 his prestige by calling an early convention and giving him a unanimous 
 nomination. He accepted, and was elected, but at the beginning of his 
 administration he seemed likely to disappoint the eager Republican 
 anticipations concerning his policy. He was slow and cautious in 
 his removal of Democrats from Federal offices and seemed disposed 
 to follow a conservative course. 
 
 Grant, however, was no politician. His experience in public affairs 
 had been that of a soldier, and he had little sympathy or patience with 
 the political proscription which the Republican leaders wished him to 
 proclaim. They were, however,- insistent and persistent, and he finally 
 surrendered, and allowed his official actions to be practically controlled 
 by them, the leading spirits being Senator Conkling, of New York, and 
 Senator Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana. 
 
 The result proved very unsatisfactory to a large and influential 
 body of the best element in the Republican organization. Discontent 
 took the place of the unanimity and enthusiasm which had greeted the 
 great military hero, and a very strong Republican opposition began to 
 manifest itself before his administration was many months old. This 
 opposition grew and was intensified because of the popular dislike of 
 certain favorites of the President who were deemed to have been given 
 power and prominence far beyond their capacity or their deserts, but 
 to whom the President clung with all his well-known and characteristic 
 
412 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tenacity. He not only retained them in office, every one, but he gener- 
 ally made their cause his own, and when they were attacked, as many, 
 if not most, of them deserved to be, he took it as a personal affront to 
 himself and visited his displeasure upon their assailants. It is doubtful 
 whetlier any other President over suffered as much in this way as did 
 General Grant. 
 
 Before his term was half expired he had alienated many of the 
 ablest, best, most patriotic and most unselfish leaders in the Republican 
 party. As an illustration of this truth the case of Charles Sumner fur- 
 nished a conspicuous example. For some reason. Grant became ear- 
 nestly in favor of a project to annex the island of Hayti, or San 
 Domingo. There was a prevalent impression that he was being used 
 by a ring of speculators and jobbers to further their personal schemes 
 for profit and plunder. Indeed, this charge was openly asserted. Sen- 
 ator Sumner was strongly opposed to this whole enterprise. His oppo- 
 sition was, however, based principally upon his announced repugnaaice 
 to seeing this "Black Republic" blotted out. But his reasons made no 
 difference. He had dared to attack a scheme which Grant and all 
 his pets were anxious to put through. The decree went forth, there- 
 fore, that he must be punished for his temerity. He was, however, a 
 man without any schemes that could be defeated, his personal char- 
 acter was unassailable, he was one of the heroes among the Anti- 
 Slavery veterans, a brave, clean, pure and patriotic man and known 
 to be such by the entire country. But he was a proud, sensitive man, 
 so it was determined to humiliate him by removing him from the posi- 
 tion of Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, in the Senate, 
 a place he had filled with great honor ever since the secession of the 
 Southern Senators had given the Republicans a majority in that body. 
 This high-handed outrage was resented, not only by Senator Sumner 
 himself, but also by great numbers of the staunchest Republicans, espe- 
 cially the veterans who had been devoted to the party from the time of 
 its organization. 
 
 The roll of distinguished Republicans who became hostile to the 
 Grant regime was a long one. It embraced such leaders as Charles 
 Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, Nathaniel P. Banks, Horace Greeley, 
 William Cullen Bryant, Chauncey M. Depew, Parke Godwin, William 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 413 
 
 Dorsheimer, Lyman Trumbull, Colonel Alexander K. McClure, ex- 
 Governor Andrew G. Curtin, the great war Governor of Pennsylvania ; 
 George Hoadly, Stanley Matthews, John B. Henderson, B. Gratz 
 Brown, Carl Schurz, ex-Governor Reuben E. Fenton, ex-Governor 
 Jacob D. Cox of Ohio, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Supreme Court 
 Justice David Davis, Theodore Tilton and Whitelaw Reid. The Lib- 
 eral Republican movement was especially noticeable from the support it 
 received from many of the leading newspapers of the country, includ- 
 ing such powerful organs of Republican opinion as the New York 
 Tribune, the Cincinnati Commercial, the Chicago Tribune and the St. 
 Louis Globe-Democrat. 
 
 The discovery of the Credit Mobilier scandal, showing the bribery 
 of men prominent in official life, including the Vice-President and 
 many influential members of Congress, added to the anti-Grant move- 
 ment, and as the time of the presidential election of 1872 approached 
 matters began to take shape and steps were taken toward the forming 
 of an organization. The first appearance of the Liberal Republicans 
 under that name was in the State of Missouri, in 1870. They allied 
 themselves with the Democrats and swept the State against all the influ- 
 ence of the Grant administration. It was from Missouri, also, that the 
 call was issued for a Liberal Republican National Convention, to be 
 held at Cincinnati. The call was issued January 24, 1872, and the 
 convention was to meet on the ist of May. 
 
 It was a remarkable convention in a great many ways. Though 
 national in its scope, it was not composed of accredited delegates from 
 organized constituencies, but partook more of the nature of a great 
 mass-meeting. When it came to voting, however, the balloting was 
 by States, on the same basis of representation as obtained in the reg- 
 ular party national conventions. Carl Schurz, then a United States 
 Senator from Missouri, was chosen chairman, and the usual course 
 of procedure in such gatherings was followed. The first ballot resulted : 
 
 Charles Francis Adams 203 
 
 Horace Greeley 147 
 
 Lyman Trumbull 100 
 
 David Davis 92 
 
414 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 On the third ballot the vote of Adams rose to 264, on the fourth 
 to 279, and on the fifth to 309. Greeley's vote on the same ballots, 
 respectively, had risen to 258, 251 and 258, respectively. The drift 
 was unquestionably to Adams, and his nomination on the next ballot 
 seemed assured. It was defeated, however, by an organized demon- 
 stration, led by Theodore Tilton and John Cochrane, of New York. 
 Each announcement of votes for Greeley was greeted with wild out- 
 bursts of stamping and cheering, for the purpose of causing a stam- 
 pede. The plan succeeded, although Adams was certainly ahead and 
 in an orderly convention would unquestionably have received the nom- 
 ination. B. Gratz Brown, of St. Louis, a journalist of national repu- 
 tation, was nominated for Vice-President. 
 
 It is an inborn trait of human nature to speculate as to what might 
 have been, and this propensity was indulged tO' the fullest extent after 
 the fatuous action of this really able convention became known. Greeley 
 had probably made himself more conspicuously obnoxious to the Dem- 
 ocrats of the country than any other man. His newspaper was prob- 
 able more widely circulated at that time than any other in the United 
 States, and for many years there had been scarcely a week that it did 
 not contain bitter abuse of everything Democratic from the virile and 
 vigorous, but vitriolic, pen. At the same time, it took this really able 
 pen out of the canvass, and its loss was by no means, supplied. The 
 place of Greeley on the New York Tribune was taken by Whitelaw 
 Reid, who had been one of those instrumental in organizing the Greeley 
 stampede in the convention. He was an able man and a forceful writer, 
 but neither he nor any other man in the country was to be compared 
 with Horace Greeley as an effective political controversialist. 
 
 The Republican organs and orators were loaded with excerpts from 
 the New York Tribune, in which all sorts of abusive and stinging epi- 
 thets had been applied to Democrats and their most honored leaders 
 by Greeley for thirty years, and they made highly effective use of this 
 ammunition. One of the many bitter pleasantries, which became a 
 proverbial expression, was the following evolved by some Republican 
 journalistic humorist : 
 
 "First Democrat — Er you goin' to vote fer Greeley? 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW, YORK 415 
 
 "Second Democrat — Yes, but I don't like it. What er you goin' 
 to do? 
 
 "First Democrat — Well, I kin eat crow, but I don't hanker after it." 
 
 The fact was that the nomination of Greeley, though it was unani- 
 mously affirmed by the Democratic National Convention, divided the 
 party and rendered success impossible. 
 
 It was claimed that the nomination of Charles Francis Adams, or 
 of either of the men supported in the Liberal Republican Convention, 
 would have received a united and enthusiastic support, and would 
 have greatly strengthened the Republican division, so that the defeat 
 of Grant would have become a certainty. 
 
 After the overwhelming defeat of Greeley, the Liberal Republican 
 organization virtually ceased to exist. It held a State convention in 
 New York in 1873, and really decided the election, choosing all the 
 Democratic candidates, whose nominations it endorsed, and also Nelson 
 K. Hopkins, the Republican nominee for State Comptroller, whose 
 name was placed upon the Liberal Republican ticket. 
 
 This was the last public appearance of an organization which cer- 
 tainly began its existence with great possibilities. Its spirit, how- 
 ever, still survived and it was a great factor in the success of Samuel 
 J. Tilden before the people. It has also influenced American politics 
 for the better, to the present day. 
 
 The Democratic State convention, which met at Rochester, May 15, 
 1872, for the purpose of choosing delegates to the National Democratic 
 Convention, ucclared in favor of a union of all patriotic citizens on the 
 platform of pohtical principles recently adopted by the convention at 
 Cincinnati, and instructed its delegates to take the course best calcu- 
 lated to secure the triumph of those principles. 
 
 The Republican National Convention, assembled at Philadelphia, 
 June 5th and 6th, renominated General Grant, with Henry Wilson for 
 second place on the ticket. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore July 9, 
 1872, and, after reaffirming "the principles already adopted at Cin- 
 cinnati," gave Horace Greeley 686 out of 732 votes as candidate for 
 President and B. Gratz Brown 713 out of 732 as candidate for Vice- 
 
4i6 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 President. Demand for "the immediate and absolute removal of all 
 disabilities imposed on account of the rebellion," was a chief feature 
 of the Cincinnati movement. 
 
 Both the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats held their con- 
 ventions in Syracuse, September 4-6, and the flirtations which they car- 
 ried on with each other over the matter of candidates and delegates, 
 and which resulted in a ticket of mixed political complexion, caused 
 them to be known as the Dolly Varden conventions. 
 
 The Democratic convention opened on the 4th and was called to 
 order by Samuel J. Tilden, after which Lester B. Faulkner was elected 
 temporary chairman. Samuel J. Tilden, Delos Scoville, John Kelly, 
 Joseph Warren and William Cassidy were appointed as a committee to 
 arrange terms with the Liberal Republicans. On the 6th the Demo- 
 crats nominated Francis Kernan for Governor, after the names of 
 Allen C. Beach, Augustus Schell, Homer A. Nelson, Sanford E. 
 Church and Lucius Robinson had been prominently before the conven- 
 tion and had each received a respectable number of votes. 
 
 After the nomination of Francis Kernan for Governor, John F. 
 Hubbard, Jr., was nominated for Canal Commissioner and S. S. Cox, 
 of New York, for Congressman-at-Large. 
 
 At the evening session of the convention a committee from the Lib- 
 erals appeared and announced their nominations, naming Chauncey M. 
 Depew for Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 The Committee on Resolutions reported a platform which expressed 
 gratification with the uprising of the people in favor of reform ; asserted 
 that the condition of the country demanded a forgetfulness of past 
 prejudices; recounted the corruptions of the Republican administra- 
 tion ; assailed the last Legislature for not being true to reform ; called 
 for a pure judiciary ; appealed to the South to educate, the blacks and 
 declared "that equality of all citizens of whatever creed or race is one of 
 the cardinal principles of Democracy." 
 
 At the general election, November 5, 1872, Grant and Wilson car- 
 ried 31 States and received 286 electoral votes. Greeley received 47 
 and died on November 29th of the same year, twenty-four days after 
 his defeat. 
 
 John A. Dix, the Republican candidate, was elected Governor of 
 
HORACE GMEELX 
 
 nir/''r;f,:r-' S/„frs /^t'.f,;-,' ZT,. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 417 
 
 New York by a majority of over 55,000, and the State Legislature was 
 strongly Republican. The Liberal Republican faction was largely ab- 
 sorbed into the Democratic Party and disappeared from sight as a 
 political factor in this State. 
 
 The vote of New York for presidential electors was for Grant and 
 Wilson 440,759 to 387,279 for Greeley and Brown. The members of 
 Congress elected were 9 Democrats to 23 Republicans. The State 
 Legislature stood 8 Democrats to 24 Republicans in the Senate, and 35 
 Democrats, 2 Independents and 91 Republicans in the Assembly. 
 
 During the legislative session of 1873, a Civil Rights Bill was 
 passed to compel the managers of theatres and other places of amuse- 
 ment to permit the enjoyment of the privileges of their exhibitions to 
 every person, no matter what his race, color, or previous condition of 
 servitude. During the same session a commission was appointed to 
 prepare and submit to the Legislature a set of amendments to the Con- 
 stitution. The committee reported amendments of nine acts and two 
 new acts. All of these amendments were submitted to the people at 
 the fall election and were ratified. The notable changes made in the 
 organic law of the State by these amendments to the Constitution were : 
 the absolute security of equality in the exercise of the elective franchise; 
 provision for the punishment of thc' givers and receivers of bribes at 
 election; the salary of the members of the Legislature was fixed at 
 $1,500; the term of office for the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the State was changed from two to three years and the salary of the 
 Governor was fixed at $10,000 a year; that of the Lieutenant-Governor 
 at $5,000 a year; further restrictions were put upon the Legislature 
 in the management of the finances of the State and the chartering of 
 banks. 
 
 At the election in the fall of 1873, two questions relating- to the 
 judiciary were submitted to the people. They were : 
 
 1. Shall the Chief Judge and the Associate Judges of the Court of 
 Appeals and the Justices of the Supreme Court be hereafter elected or 
 appointed ? 
 
 2. Shall the Judges of the Superior Courts of New York City and 
 Brooklyn, of the Court of Common Pleas, of Buffalo, and the chief 
 County Judges throughout the State be hereafter elected or appointed ? 
 
4i8 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The people decided for the election of both higher and lower judges 
 by a majority of over two hundred thousand. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention, assembled at Utica, October i 
 and 2, 1873, made the following nominations: Diedrich Willers for 
 Secretary of State ; A. P. Nichols for Comptroller ; Judge Daniel Pratt 
 for Attorney-General; Thomas Raines for State Treasurer; James 
 Jackson, Jr., for Canal Commissioner; and George W. Millspaugh for 
 Prison Inspector. In the election, held November 4th, Willers and 
 Raines were elected by majorities of 9,893 and 12,835, while Hopkins, 
 Republican nominee for Comptroller, was elected over Nichols by a 
 majority of 4,065. The Liberal Republicans had endorsed Willers and 
 Raines, and also Hopkins. 
 
 The State Legislature stood, in the Senate, 17 Republicans, 12 
 Democrats, 2 Independents, and i Liberal Republican ; and in the As- 
 sembly, 73 Republicans, 49 Democrats, 3 Independents, and 2 Liberal 
 IJlepublicans. 
 
 The most important event which occurred in the New York State 
 administration of Governor Dix was the passage of an act, which be- 
 came a law on May 11, 1874, for the compulsory education: of the chil- 
 dren of the commonwealth. The law went into effect on January i, 
 1875- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 419 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Regime of Governor Tilden — His Exposure of the Canal Frauds 
 — His Growth Into a Presidential Figure — Succeeded by 
 Lucius Robinson. 
 
 The political campaign of 1874 exhibited some interesting features. 
 On the same day in June of that year two conventions assembled in 
 Auburn, N. Y. One was the Prohibition convention and the other was 
 a convention of Temperance Republicans. The regular Prohibition 
 convention nominated ex-Governor Myron H. Clark for Governor. 
 On the same day on which that nomination was made the Temperance 
 Republicans passed resolutions condemning ex-Governor Dix because 
 he vetoed a so-called local option bill for the repression of intemperance. 
 In September the Liberal Republicaxis held a convention at Albany, but 
 they made no nominations. 
 
 Although in 1872 New York State was dissatisfied with Grant's 
 administration, and Democratic politicians generally felt themselves 
 outraged by the operations of the Tweed Ring in New York City, the 
 Democrats were unable to elect Francis Kernan as Governor, because 
 the nomination of Horace Greeley for President had made a fiasco of 
 the Democratic cause. In 1874 there was no presidential election 
 pending, and New York State, untrammeled by national issues, was 
 free to choose a reform government. Men were determined to purge 
 public office, and reform was in the air. Samuel J. Tilden had been 
 prominent in clearing out the Tweed Ring in New York City, and the 
 wisest men of the Democratic Party turned their eyes toward him as 
 the logical candidate for Governor. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention met at Syracuse, September 17, 
 1874, and nominated Samuel J. Tilden for Governor on the first ballot, 
 with great enthusiasm. 
 
420 THE DE:\I0CRATIC PARTY 
 
 The State at large was so dissatisfied with the regime of Governor 
 Dix that many leading Republican newspapers endorsed Tilden's can- 
 didacy. He ran as a reform candidate, and his acceptance of the nomi- 
 nation committed the Democratic Party to reform measures. 
 
 The Republican Party renominated Governor Dix, but his name 
 had lost the magic which first brought it into prominence — ^the New 
 Orleans flag incident. He had changed sides so often, and had proved 
 so vacillating that he was considered unsafe. His weakness was well 
 illustrated by a letter which Horatio Seymour wrote to Samuel J. 
 Tilden on October 3d, 1874. Part of the letter is as follows : 
 
 "I think the right way to expose General Dix is to hold him up to 
 ridicule. His age, etc., might make serious attacks unpopular. Sup- 
 pose some of the bright writers of the World should defend him against 
 the charge that he was always ready to change his politics, and that 
 he never did so unless he got a large consideration and pay down. 
 Starting out with a view of being an Anti-Mason, he shifted to the 
 Democratic Party for the office of Adjutant-General. He hesitated 
 between Cass and Van Buren until he was nominated for Governor by 
 the Free Soilers. He went back to the Democratic Party for the 
 New York Post Office, under Pierce. He went over to Buchanan for 
 a place in the Cabinet; and from his Free Soil views he became so 
 violent for the South that he would not vote for Douglas, but sup- 
 ported Breckenridge. After presiding at an anti-war meeting, he at 
 once went over to Lincoln when he was made a major-general. To 
 get a nomination for the French mission he took part with President 
 Johnson. To get confirmed, he left him for Grant. In 1868 he in- 
 trigued for a presidential nomination from the Democratic Party, as 
 in 1866 he had tried to be nominated by the same party for the office 
 of Governor. Not getting this nomination, he held on to Grant, and 
 in 1872 he got a nomination from the Republicans. I think that this 
 history shows that he valued his political principles at a high rate, and 
 never sold them unless he got a round price and pay down." 
 
 During the campaign preceding the election of 1874 Mr. Tilden un- 
 dertook to interest young men in politics, and his endeavors in that 
 direction were distinctly visible in the elections in New York State for 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 421 
 
 the next sixteen years. Of course the battle-cry was "Reform," but his 
 endeavors to bring young men to the front in pohtical Hfe was a dis- 
 tinct supplement. 
 
 At the election in November Tilden won by a majority of 50,317, 
 reversing Dix's majority in 1872 of 55,000. 
 
 When Samuel J. Tilden entered the Governor's chair at Albany 
 he was admirably equipped for the discharge of his duties. It is doubt- 
 ful if any other incumbent ever entered upon the duties of the office of 
 Governor so well qualified at the start to assume the reins of govern- 
 ment. His life, experience and education had been a continual prepara- 
 tion for just such work as he was called upon to do. From his youth 
 up he had been more or less in touch with political affairs, had always 
 kept an eye on current events, and he was one of the foremost lawyers 
 in the State. For half a century he had lived in constant intercourse 
 with leading men, and had had jnost excellent opportunities for study- 
 ing the various phases of political life, as well as the characters of public 
 men. 
 
 He was a member of the Assembly from New York in 1846, and 
 also a member of the Constitutional Convention of that year. In i860 
 he used his utmost endeavor to avert the Civil War, but not less loyally 
 sustained the administration of President Lincoln. In 1866 he became 
 Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, and the next year he 
 was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and served with dis- 
 tinction on the Finance Committee. For several years before his elec- 
 tion as Governor Mr. Tilden had been an indefatigable laborer in the 
 cause of judicial and political reform in the city of New York. He 
 was chief mover in the organization of the Bar Association of the city, 
 which had for its object the correction of judicial abuses. When the 
 contest came on against the city officials, who were charged with de- 
 frauding the city treasury of many millions of dollars, Mr. Tilden's 
 legal acumen, in his analysis of the accounts of the Broadway Bank, 
 showing conclusively criminal sharing of spoils, and furnishing legal 
 proof for the conviction of the culprits, was a monumental service to 
 the cause of reform. In 1872 Mr. Tilden was again elected to the 
 Assembly, and continued his exertions to make the work of reform 
 complete. 
 
422 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 He had been nominated and elected Governor as the Moses of re- 
 form. After his election there was a great deal of speculation as to 
 whether he would venture to carry out the system of reform advocated 
 in pre-election days. Just after his inauguration, his friend, Charles 
 O'Conor, addressed to him a lengthy letter, which breathed a doubt 
 that Tilden would adopt drastic measures of reform ; at the same time 
 Mr. O'Condr declared that he did not mean to intimate any sus- 
 picion of the kind. Tilden's message and subsequent course effectually 
 removed all apprehensions and settled all doubts. 
 
 The Legislature of 1875 was so divided politically that the Gov- 
 ernor could not count upon its hearty support. The Senate consisted 
 of 18 Republicans, 12 Democrats and 2 Independents; the Assembly 
 of 73 Democrats, 53 Republicans and 2 Independents. So, while the 
 Democrats controlled the Assembly, the Republicans controlled the 
 Senate. 
 
 Governor Tilden's message to the Legislature of 1875 is considered 
 to be one of the ablest State papers ever issued from the gubernatorial 
 chair of the State. It received the unusual honor of being extensively 
 copied by the press of other States, and it was a distinct forecast of 
 the policy of Tilden's regime. The three principal topics of the ad- 
 dress were: 
 
 1. Reform in the administration. 
 
 2. The restoration of the financial principles of Jackson and Van 
 Buren. 
 
 3. The unconditional acceptance of the 13th, 14th and 15th amend- 
 ments of the Federal Constitittion. 
 
 In order to inaugurate his systern of reform he recommended a 
 revision of the laws providing penal and civil remedies for official 
 frauds. These recommendations were carefully wrought into the 
 legislation of the State during the session. Chapter 19 of the Laws 
 of 1875, entitled: "An act to provide more effectually for the punish- 
 ment of peculation and other wrongs affecting public moneys and 
 rights of property," gave the Governor the weapon he needed to effec- 
 tually carry out his plan of reform. Had the importance and force of 
 that act been thoroughly appreciated by the Legislature, or had that 
 body foreseen the uses it would subserve, it is doubtful if the act could 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 423 
 
 have been passed. It really did not encounter any strong opposition. 
 The Legislature passed three bills, in all, providing judicial remedies 
 against frauds affecting public moneys or property, and all these bills 
 were passed, it may be said, unanimously. 
 
 Although this feature of the Governor's message led the public 
 to speculate as to the extent to which he would carry reform, a more 
 profound impression was produced by that part of his message which 
 related to the financial policy of the Federal government. Since the 
 war no prominent Democrat had ventured to attempt to return to the 
 financial policy, which was still associated in the public mind with 
 Democratic rule. Chimerical notions of repairing the wastes of war 
 and of fostering the depressed energies of industry and commerce 
 by unlimited issues of irredeemable currency had become apparent 
 realities in the public mind. The people had become accustomed to 
 a printed promise of the government, and politicians of both parties 
 were timid about interfering with the existing state of things. Even 
 conventions were afraid to express themselves against the pernicious 
 financial condition, yet Governor Tilden, who had no toleration for 
 such delusions, boldly attacked the Federal financial system in his mes- 
 sage. The views expressed in the message he had previously stated to 
 Secretary Stanton. 
 
 The message was presented to the Legislature on January 5th, and 
 on March 19th he sent a special message to that body regarding the 
 mismanagement of the canals. 
 
 Regarding the canal ring, John Bigelow, in his life of Samuel J. 
 Tilden,, says : 
 
 "The 'canal ring' embraced, as the name implies, about an equal 
 proportion of both political parties. It consisted of men who had be- 
 come wealthy by plundering the State as contractors, and of political 
 parasites who were indebted to them for their positions, and who, as 
 agents of the State, certified their work, audited and paid their bills. 
 The master spirits of this ring at the time of Tilden's accession to 
 the Governorship were Messrs. Denison and Belden, of Syracuse. Deni- 
 son trained and traded with the Democrats, Belden with the Repub- 
 licans. In this way they had a key to the pantry of every administra- 
 tion, and between them both, like Jack Spratt and his wife, they licked 
 
424 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 the platter of both parties clean. Denison was a good-natured and 
 festive creature, who stepped to the front when the Democrats were 
 in power; while his partner, Belden, was a cool-headed and capable 
 man of business, strictly temperate in his habits, and punctual in his 
 attendance upon the services of his church. He appeared on the stage 
 when the Republicans prevailed. It was currently said of the firm that 
 'Denison furnished the rum and the Democracy, and Belden the hypoc- 
 risy and the Republicanism.' (Cook's 'Life of Tilden,' p. 183.) 
 Jarvis Lord and Willard Johnson, who at this time occupied seats in 
 the Legislature, and George D. Lord, the son of Jarvis, who had been 
 in the Legislature, and was soon to be indicted for bribery, were also 
 extensive canal contractors, and more or less closely connected, for ring 
 purposes, with Denison and Belden. The Legislature contained many 
 more members who were, some partially and others entirely, indebted 
 for their seats to these men. Several, if not all, of the State officers 
 were under like obligations of fealty. Mr. Tilden had been familiar 
 for years with their power and methods of operation, for he had fre- 
 quently tried conclusions with them, in which, when not defeated, his 
 victories cost nearly, if not quite, all they were worth. 
 
 "Knowing the power of the adversary with which he proposed to do 
 battle, and that it would not do to make any charge which he was not 
 prepared to substantiate and maintain against all comers, he had begun 
 to collect the material for this message soon after his election. He em- 
 ployed Mr. Elkanah Sweet, a civil engineer, whose professional and 
 personal character had won his confidence, to visit those portions of 
 the canal upon which contract work had been done during the five or 
 six preceding years, and instructed him to take down sufficient of the 
 walls in the prism of all the canals to ascertain the dimensions and 
 character of their work, and then to visit the auditor's office to compare 
 the work done with the work required by their contracts. The result 
 of this investigation and comparison was laid before the Governor at, 
 or very soon after, his inauguration, but without a suspicion of what 
 had been going on, or the purpose of it, gaining currency outside of 
 the executive chamber. With these reports in his hand, the Governor 
 prepared his message, which, when presented by his private secretary, 
 was equally a surprise to the Legislature and the public. In it he set 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 425 
 
 forth in detail the fraudulent processes by which, for an indefinite 
 period, the State had been plundered, its agents debauched, its politics 
 demoralized and its credit imperilled." 
 
 Having carefully collected his information, the Governor set about 
 preparing his indictments of those who had been corrupt in office. He 
 set forth in detail the processes by which contractors, acting in col- 
 lusion with the engineers and the canal board, had drawn pay for work 
 never done, and had received excessive pay for what work they had 
 performed. He cited ten cases, setting forth the sums paid by the State, 
 and the sums for which the contract was let. The total of the contract 
 prices was $424,735, but the contractors received $1,560,769, or more 
 than a million dollars in excess of contracts of less than half a million. 
 The Governor laid his information before the Legislature, accompanied 
 by his own remarks, and asked that a commission be appointed to 
 investigate the abuses so that appropriate legislation might be enacted. 
 
 The boldness of the charge, made strong by the specific allegations 
 it contained, aroused a good deal of comment, not only throughout the 
 entire State, but over the entire country, and while moralists will say 
 that Governor Tilden simply performed his duty, the fact of his doing 
 that duty so boldly and fearlessly is one of the highest tributes to the 
 integrity of his character. He was antagonizing a caste composed of 
 members of both great political parties, who claimed, no doubt truth- 
 fully, that they held the balance of power in the State with both parties. 
 The man of expediency, the mere politician, thinking solely of his own 
 aggrandizement, would have made friends with the mammon of un- 
 righteousness or, at best, would have hesitated long, and would have 
 had to be assvtred of strong support before he would have moved 
 against the canal ring. It is claimed by some historians that Silas 
 Wright was exiled from public life in the heyday of his career because 
 he would not join forces with the baser elements of his party, and it 
 is fresh in the memory of every one that there was a great deal of talk 
 in 1898 over the dissipation of the nine million dollars voted by the 
 Legislature for the improvement of the Erie Canal, yet no one was 
 found courageous enough to prosecute an inquiry into the expenditure 
 of that money as Tilden prosecuted his inquiry. 
 
 The Legislature contained quite a few of the most notorious canal 
 
426 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 jobbers and their political allies, yet the body was obliged to yield to 
 the public sentiment which the Governor's message aroused, and he 
 was promptly authorized by a joint resolution of both Houses to ap- 
 point a committee of investigation. He appointed John Bigelow, Alex- 
 ander E. Orr, Daniel Magone and John D. Van Buren, Jr. 
 
 The canal interests in the Legislature apparently feared what the 
 report of the Governor's commission might be, and also the effect of 
 that report. At all events a movement was started in the Assembly 
 to create another commission, which should represent the Assembly and 
 discharge the same duty as the Governor's commission. Applications 
 were then made upon various pretexts to have this commission joined 
 to the Governor's commission, but these invitations were always 
 promptly declined. As a consequence the Assembly commission soon 
 abandoned all pretense of making an investigation and passed out of 
 public view. 
 
 The reports, some twelve in number altogether, of the Governor's 
 canal investigating committee, were handed in from time to time dur- 
 ing the summer of 1875 and the winter of 1876, and sustained all of 
 Governor Tilden's charges. As a consequence there followed the in- 
 dictment of one of the Board of Canal Appraisers for conspiracy to 
 cheat the State; the indictment of an ex-Canal Commissioner, and of 
 two ex-Superintendents of Canals; the "indictment of George D. Lord 
 for bribery ; the suspension and final removal from office of the Auditor 
 of the canal department, and the indictment of one division engineer. 
 
 After the Governor's annual message at the beginning of the legis- 
 lative session of 1875, and notwithstanding his recommendations for 
 retrenchment, the appropriation for ordinary repairs, as it passed the 
 canal committee of the Senate, was nearly as large as that of the pre- 
 ceding year, and the appropriations for extraordinary repairs, or new 
 work, was nearly as large as that of 1874. After the Governor's canal 
 message was handed in the Legislature seems to have realized that 
 he was very much in earnest in his determination to have refonn and 
 economy, and the appropriation for ordinary repairs was reduced $200,- 
 000 below that of 1874, while the appropriations for new work were 
 reduced from $2,000,000 to $365,000. Every appropriation containing 
 items which did not appear to the Governor to be necessary was vetoed. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 427 
 
 and these vetoes not only put a stop to the systematic plunder of the 
 State under the guise of extraordinary repairs, but it confirmed the 
 impression already abroad in the country that the Governor was in 
 earnest when he made his promise of reforming the State adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 During the five years preceding Governor Tilden's regime the re- 
 pairs on the canals of the State had cost the State over five million 
 dollars more than the revenue received from the canals in tolls. 
 
 Acting along the line of reform, Governor Tilden endeavored to 
 secure legislation which should regulate the debts of the cities of the 
 State. In New York City the tax rate had doubled from 1850 to 1876, 
 an increase in expenditure, compared with the increase in population 
 during the same period, of four hundred per cent. The Governor con- 
 sidered that this state of things was partly owing to the neglect of the 
 Legislature to discharge the duty imposed upon it by the Constitution 
 of 1846, properly to restrict municipal corporations and their powers 
 of taxation, borrowing, contracting debts, etc. The familiarity which 
 the Governor's four years' contest with the Tweed ring in New York 
 had given him of the methods by which these abuses throve, led him 
 to urge upon the Legislature a prompt compliance with its long- 
 neglected constitutional duty. On May 11, 1875, he sent a message 
 to the Legislature recommending the creation of a commission which 
 should report at the next session "the forms of such laws or constitu- 
 tional amendments as were required." The result of this message was 
 the appointment of a commission, which consisted of William M. Evarts, 
 Oswald Ottendorfer, William A. Butler, James C. Carter, E. L. God- 
 kin, Simon Sterne, Joshua Van Cott, Edward Cooper, Samuel Hand 
 and Judge Lott. The work of this commission never produced any 
 practical results. They reported the draft of an amendment to the 
 State Constitution outlining a form of government for all the cities of 
 the State. This amendment failed to become law, owing to the dic- 
 tation of Roscoe Conkling; at least that was the way the matter was 
 considered at the time. 
 
 Governor Tilden not only assailed the Federal government on its 
 financial policy, in his January message of 1875, but in January, 1876, 
 he again considered it his duty to make a communication to the Legis- 
 
428 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 lature which reflected censure upon the administration at Washington. 
 In the fall of 1875 a squad of United States soldiers, acting upon the 
 orders of General Sheridan, entered the Legislature of the State of 
 Louisiana, while that body was in session, and arrested five of its 
 members. Sheridan then sent a message tO' Washington, asking that 
 a class of citizens, indefinite in number and description, should be de- 
 clared banditti, and requesting either the President or Congress to 
 make such declaration. He further declared his purpose to court- 
 martial and execute such persons under military law. The President 
 and Cabinet seem to have discovered nothing wrong in the outlawry 
 of Sheridan, for the Secretary of War telegraphed him that "the 
 President and all of us have full confidence in and thoroughly approve 
 your course." On January 12, 1876, Governor Tilden made these 
 proceedings the subject of an earnest and impressive communication to 
 the Legislature, treating the question ably from a legal standpoint, 
 and appealing to the Legislature of New York to condemn the action 
 of General Sheridan "by a public reprobation, which shall make it 
 memorable as a warning to all future officers of the State and army." 
 He condemned severely "the outrage by the soldiery of a power to 
 decide the membership of our legislative assemblies whose right to 
 judge exclusively in such cases has ever been regarded with peculiar 
 jealousy by our race." 
 
 The Legislature adopted several of the financial measures recom- 
 mended by Governor Tilden, and this, aided by the vigorous use of his 
 right to veto, produced considerable reduction of the State tax during 
 the first year of his administration, and led to a greater reduction the 
 following year. 
 
 In the summer of 1875 Governor Tilden, acting no doubt upon the 
 advice of his friends, made a tour of the canal counties of the State. 
 During this tour he made several speeches, and took advantage of 
 those opportunities to urge upon the people the election to the Legis- 
 lature of men who would assist him in carrying through reform 
 measures. He was uniformly bold and fearless in his denunciation of 
 public wrongdoers, and was very emphatic in the expression of his 
 determination to carry through his ideas of reform. The impression 
 made upon the country by these speeches, as well as his messages to 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 429 
 
 the Legislature, won for him a high national reputation, and he held 
 an authority over his party in the State of New York such as no man 
 has exercised before or since. No party action was taken without con- 
 sulting him, and his decision was always final. He began to be talked 
 of as the successor to General Grant in the President's chair, and the 
 ability which he had exhibited as an executive had placed him above all 
 competitors in his party. The newspapers of the day, without reference 
 to party, began seriously to consider him as a presidential possibility, 
 and his popularity with the people at large was very concisely explained 
 by the New York Nation, which said : 
 
 "Mr. Tilden has been making a sort of progress through the State, 
 addressing crowds in the towns through which he passed, on the sub- 
 ject of reform. He has spoken very plainly about it, and told his 
 audience that what was meant by reform was not electing 'straight- 
 out Democrats' nor Jefferson Democrats, nor 'rallying,' nor 'wheeling 
 into line,' nor even hurling the corrupt centralizer from power, but 
 the election of honest men of whatever party to do the work of the 
 government. His remarks seem to have struck the assembled multi- 
 tudes very favorably, and it would appear from their manifestations 
 of approval that this is just the sort of thing they mean by reform 
 themselves." 
 
 Republican politicians became alarmed, and the Federal adminis- 
 tration at Washington was anxious to disparage him. An election of 
 State officers, was. near, and if the Democracy should succeed, and the 
 Governor's reform policy be approved by the people, the result could not 
 be regarded except as a rebuke to the Federal administration from 
 the Empire State, for had not Tilden assailed that administration, both 
 on its financial policy and on its approval of military usurpation of 
 civil power? The fall elections of 1875 were, therefore, destined to 
 be more than usually important. Realizing this. Governor Tilden kept 
 up his close contact with the people, and continued to make occasional 
 addresses throughout the State. 
 
 The Democratic Party of the State of New York made distinct 
 issues on administrative reform, a declaration in favor of sound cur- 
 rency, including the repeal of the legal tender act, and a declaration 
 against third term candidates for the Presidency. The election was 
 
430 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 held on November 3d of that year, and the Democrats carried the State 
 by majorities ranging from fifteen t^ twenty thousand. 
 
 After the resuhs of the election were known Judge Blair said that 
 Tilden seemed to be the only arrow in the Democratic quiver, or, in 
 other words, that he was the logical Democratic candidate for the 
 Presidency. 
 
 Soon after the organization of the Legislature in 1875 Francis 
 Kernan was elected to the United States Senate for six years, from 
 March 4, 1875. Mr. Kernan had been Reporter of the Court of Ap- 
 peals from 1854 to 1857, and in i860 was elected to the Assembly from 
 a district which had been in the previous year strongly Republican. In 
 1862 he was elected to Congress, and was an important member of 
 the judiciary committee. He was a member of the Constitutional Con- 
 vention of 1867, and of the Constitutional Commission, whose work 
 was ra.tified in 1874. In 1872, as candidate of the Democrats and 
 Liberal Republicans for Governor, he shared in the defeat of that ticket. 
 Always a Democrat in politics, of high rank as a jurist and states- 
 man, forcible in debate, attractive in manner, and of commanding 
 presence, he went to the Senate at Washington with promise of dis- 
 tinction for himself, for his party and for the State. 
 
 During the legislative session of 1875 632 bills were passed, to 
 which Governor Tilden gave his assent. One of the most important 
 subjects dealt with was that of reform in the management of the canals. 
 On the 1 8th of March Governor Tilden submitted to the Legislature 
 a special message on the subject. He showed that for five years, end- 
 ing September 30, 1874, the total receipts for the tolls had been $15,- 
 058,361, while the expenses for operating and for ordinary repairs 
 had been $9,202,434, leaving an apparent surplus of $5,855,927. But 
 during the same period the disbursements for extraordinary repairs 
 had been $10,960,624, causing a real deficiency of $5,104,697; and, 
 adding to this payments on the canal debt, and other outlays on ac- 
 count of the canals, an aggregate was reached of over $11,000,000 
 expended by the State in five years to maintain the canals in operation. 
 Governor Tilden made these facts the basis of a charge that the ex- 
 penses for both ordinary and extraordinary repairs had been greatly in 
 excess of what was required ; and he showed that there had been corrupt 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 431 
 
 and fraudulent contracts for work and materials, with the result of 
 payment, up to February i, 1875, on ten contracts, of $1,560,769, 
 when the contracts honestly handled should have involved payment 
 of only $424,735. The recommendations of acts to remedy the evils 
 in canal management, not only commanded attention and applause 
 from many public bodies, and from the press of the State, but led to 
 thorough legislative action, both by a number of special acts aimed at 
 known evils, and by the appointment of a commission which made no 
 less than twelve reports of exposure of frauds, and at the end of the 
 year the suspension from office of the Auditor of the Canal Depart- 
 ment, Francis S. Thayer. 
 
 Suggestions with regard to future measures affecting the canals, 
 Governor Tilden made in his message to the Legislature of 1876, his 
 general object being to clear away the debris of the old rotten system, 
 and enable the State to attempt the work of real utility and small cost 
 which the people could well afford to pay for. With a view to this a 
 constitutional amendment, changing the system of administering the 
 canals, had been unanimously passed by both Houses of the Legis- 
 lature of 1875. 
 
 The Democratic State Conventian, in session at Syracuse September 
 15-16, 1875, made the following nominations : John Bigelow, for Sec- 
 retary of State; Lucius Robinson, for Comptroller; Charles S. Fair- 
 child, for Attorney-General; Charles N. Ross, for Treasurer; John 
 D. Van Buren, Jr., for State Engineer and Surveyor; Christopher A. 
 Walrath, for Canal Commissioner, and Rodney D. Crowley for In- 
 spector of State Prisons. Referring to the Democratic National Con- 
 vention Platform of 1872, and the New York Democratic Platform of 
 1874, the convention pronounced for the maintenance of the public 
 credit by honest payment of the public debt in coin, and speedy resump- 
 tion of specie payments with no money not convertible into coin. He 
 wanted honesty in everything. 
 
 The Republicans put in nomination a ticket headed by Fred W. 
 Seward, Francis E. Spinner and George F. Danforth, and at the elec- 
 tion held on the second of November, 1875, the Democratic candidates 
 were chosen. Bigelow's plurality over Seward was 14,810. The Leg- 
 islature chosen for 1876 consisted of 20 Republicans and 12 Demo 
 
432 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 crats in the Senate, and 71 Republicans and 57 Democrats in the 
 Assembly. 
 
 At the first session of the Forty-fourth Congress the Democrats, 
 for the first time in fifteen years, had a majority of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, and were able to elect as Speaker Michael C. Kerr, of 
 Indiana. 
 
 The political campaign of 1876 was one of unusual activity and 
 importance. The position and character of Governor Tilden gave the 
 Democracy of the nation promise of a President of thoroughly Jeffer- 
 sonian principles, and the fact that New York would cast thirty-five 
 electoral votes, and would in all probability decide the electoral contest, 
 stimulated all parties to unwonted exertions. The "Greenback" Party 
 held a convention March 15th at Syracuse, and, without attempting a 
 ticket, gave out a protest against the Democratic resolutions of the 
 1874 and 1875 conventions on the subject of finance. 
 
 A second "Greenback" convention was held in New York June 
 1st, and four delegates-at-large chosen to the Democratic convention 
 at St. Louis, with a claim that they alone represented the true Democ- 
 racy of the State. A State convention of this party assembled at Al- 
 bany September 26th, and a State ticket was nominated, with R. M. 
 Griffin candidate for Governor. 
 
 The Republicans held their convention for the selection of delegates 
 to their national convention at Syracuse March 22d, and voted to pre- 
 sent the name of Roscoe Conkling for the presidential nomination. 
 The proposal of George W. Curtis to leave the matter open, in the 
 interest of Secretary Bristow, as the Reform Republican candidate, 
 was voted down by 250 to 113. 
 
 The Republicans held their State convention at Saratoga, and put 
 in nomination a ticket headed by Edwin D. Morgan and Sherman S. 
 Rogers. 
 
 The Democratic convention, for the appointment of delegates to a 
 national Democratic convention at St. Louis, was held at Utica, April 
 26th and 27th. Of several contesting delegations from the twenty-one 
 districts of New York City, the Tammany delegations were admitted. 
 Endorsement of the administration of Governor Tilden was voted, and 
 his name was presented as the choice of the New York Democrats 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 433 
 
 for the Presidency. The Democratic National Convention at St. Louis, 
 which met and was organized June 28th, voted on its first ballot for 
 a candidate for President as follows : 
 
 Samuel J. Tilden, of New York 404I 
 
 Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana 140^ 
 
 General W. S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania 75 
 
 William Allen, of Ohio 54 
 
 Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware 33 
 
 Joel Parker, of New Jersey 18 
 
 James O. Broadhead, of Missouri 16 
 
 Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio 2 
 
 On the second ballot, with 492 necessary for a choice, Tilden had 
 535 votes, and the nomination was at once made unanimous. The 
 second strongest name before the convention, that of Thomas A. 
 Hendricks, was added to complete a ticket of very exceptional 
 strength. The affirmations of the platform which were most 
 significant of the crisis in national affairs, which seemed almost certain 
 to turn the confidence of a majority of the nation to the Democratic 
 Party, under a candidate of the known distinction of Governor Tilden, 
 were these : 
 
 "For the Democracy of the whole country, we do here reaffirm our 
 faith in the permanence of the Federal Union, our devotion to the 
 Constitution of the United States, with its amendments universally 
 accepted as a final settlement of the controversies which engendered 
 civil war, and do here record our steadfast confidence in the perpetuity 
 of republican self-government. 
 
 "In absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority — the vital 
 principal of republics ; in the supremacy of the civil over the military 
 authority; in the total separation of Church and State, for the sake 
 ahke of civil and religious freedom; in the equality of all citizens 
 before just laws of their own enactment ; in the liberty of individual 
 conduct, unvexed by sumptuary laws ; in the faithful education of the 
 rising generation, that they may preserve, enjoy, and transmit these 
 best conditions of human happiness and hope, we behold the noblest 
 
434 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 products of a hundred years of changeful history ; but, while upholding 
 the bond of our Union and great charter of these our rights, it behooves 
 a free people to practice also that eternal vigilance which is the price of 
 liberty. Reform is necessary to rebuild and establish the Union, eleven 
 years ago happily rescued from the danger of a secession of States, 
 but now to be saved from a corrupt centralism, which, after inflicting 
 upon ten States the rapacity of carpet-bag tyrannies, has honey-combed 
 the offices of the Federal government with incapacity, waste and fraud. 
 
 "Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the 
 public credit, and maintain the national honor. We denounce the 
 failure, for all these eleven years of peace, to make good the promise 
 of the legal tender notes. We denounce the financial imbecility and 
 immorality of that party which, during eleven years of peace, has made 
 no advance toward resumption, no preparation for resumption, but, in- 
 stead, has obstructed resumption, by wasting our resources and ex- 
 hausting all our surplus income. We denounce the present tariff, levied 
 upon nearly four thousand articles, as a masterpiece of injustice, in- 
 equality and false pretence. We demand that all custom house taxation 
 shall be only for revenue. Abuses, wrongs and crimes, the product of 
 sixteen years' ascendency of the Republican Party, create a necessity 
 for reform confessed by Republicans themselves. We demand a change 
 of system, a change of administration, a change of parties, that we may 
 have a change of measures and of men." 
 
 Mr. Tilden made an elaborate and powerful exposition of the de- 
 mands and expectations of the Democracy of the nation, in a letter of 
 acceptance of the St. Louis nomination, dated Albany, July 31, 1876. 
 Discussing "the necessity of a reform 'in the scale of public expense — 
 Federal, State and municipal,' and 'in the modes of Federal taxation,' " 
 he declared that "the present depression in all the business and in- 
 dustries of the people, depriving labor of employment, and carrying 
 want into so many homes," had "its principal cause in excessive gov- 
 ernmental consumption." He said that "under the illusions of a spe- 
 cious prosperity," engendered by the false policies of the Federal gov- 
 ernment, a waste of capital had been going on ever since the peace of 
 1865, which could only end in universal disaster. Enormous taxation, 
 aggravated by bad methods of collection, and by a most unwise finan- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 435 
 
 cial policy, had drained the resources of the people to the hmits of great 
 pubhc calamity. The Democratic House of Representatives, struggling 
 to reduce expenditures, had to face the menace of the Senate and Execu- 
 tive compelling consent to objectionable appropriations on pain of 
 hindrance to the operations of the government. Governor Tilden said 
 of this state of things : "In my judgment, an amendment to the Con- 
 stitution ought to be devised separating into distinct bills the appropria- 
 tions for the various departments of the public service, and excluding 
 from each bill all appropriations for other objects, and all independent 
 legislation." 
 
 Governor Tilden specifically denounced "the systematic and insup- 
 portable -misgovernment imposed on the States of the South," and 
 urged efforts "to establish a cordial fraternity and good will among 
 citizens, whatever their race or color, who are now united in the one 
 destiny of a common self-government." The great subject of "resump- 
 tion-of specie payments on the legal tender notes of the United States," 
 with the establishment of "specie payments by all the banks on all their 
 notes," Governor Tilden discussed with masterly discrimination of all 
 the aspects of the case, and he denounced with just severity the reck- 
 less operations of a government which had gone on for a year and a 
 half of the four years to January i, 1879, under a pledge of resump- 
 tion at that date, yet doing nothing in preparation for that event, and 
 in fact wasting every possible surplus needed for redeeming the pledge. 
 
 For the nomination of a Democratic State ticket a convention was 
 held at Saratoga August 30th and 31st. After unanimous and en- 
 thusiastic ratification of the nomination at St. Louis of Governor Til- 
 den, as the Democratic standard-bearer for the presidential' campaign, 
 ex-Governor Seymour was nominated by acclamation for Governor, 
 and the ticket completed by the selection of William Dorsheimer for 
 Lieutenant-Governor, Darius A. Ogden, for Canal Commissioner, 
 Robert H. Anderson, for Prison Inspector, and Robert Earl for Judge 
 of the Court of Appeals. The state of Mr. Seymour's health com- 
 pelled him to positively decline being the candidate, and at another 
 convention, called to meet September 13th to fill the vacancy, Lucius 
 Robinson was nominated for Governor by acclamation. 
 
436 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 State and National Campaigns of 1876 — Lucius Robinson Elected 
 Governor — Contest Over the Presidency — Hayes Declared 
 Elected — State Conventions of 1877 — The Entire Democratic 
 Ticket Successful — Acts of 1877 — State Conventions of 1878 
 — The New Capitol — Re-Apportionment of Assembly Districts. 
 
 The Democrats of the State of New York were not all Tilden men 
 in the year 1875. As Governor of the State he had taken a bold stand, 
 and had been strenuous in his efforts for reform, and these efiforts had 
 been wonderfully successful. It would seem natural that the Demo- 
 crats of his own State, to a man, would have supported him, but such 
 was not the" case. Besides, there were many other presidential can- 
 didates in the Democratic Party to whom reports of his success and 
 ever-increasing popularity were not the most agreeable news. The 
 condition of affairs on the Democratic side at that time were well ex- 
 pressed by William C. Bryant, in the Evening Post of May 26, 1875. 
 He said : 
 
 "The Democratic schism that recently developed opposition to Gov- 
 ernor Tilden in his own party in this State is curiously significant of 
 certain things which are worthy of careful study, and especially worthy 
 of consideration by honest and sincere Democrats outside of New York. 
 
 "There are two 'wings,' so to speak, in that party, and Governor 
 Tilden represents one of them, while the persons" who oppose him con- 
 stitute the other. It is natural enough that the canal ring and its fol- 
 lowers, Tammany and its adherents, and that sort of Democrats who 
 are commonly called Bourbons, should' labor to defeat the nomination 
 for high office of the man who represents everything that they oppose 
 and opposes everything that they represent ; but it will be a most dis- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 437 
 
 couraging thing to every person who hopes for good at the hands of 
 the Democratic Party, and every man in that party who sincerely seeks 
 to make it the instrument of governmental purification and a return 
 to sound principles and honest methods, if such opposition is permitted 
 to prevail in its councils. Governor Tilden represents all that there 
 is in the Democratic Party which the people are at all disposed to 
 trust; his opponents represent that which the people just now most 
 earnestly dread, and the development of the opposition in these circum- 
 stances affords that party a precious opportunity to strengthen itself 
 and win some of that popular confidence which it badly needs, by 
 placing itself fairly upon the side of the right. 
 
 "It will not be easy to close the breach which exists in the Demo- 
 cratic Party in this State, for the reason that it is never easy to recon- 
 cile an honest desire to do right with a set purpose to do wrong ; and it 
 will be difficult to arrange a compromise which shall not seem to be 
 a mere bargain. Governor Tilden has fought manfully for hard money 
 and honest government. It is impossible to mistake his attitude on 
 these questions ; and if at this juncture the party yields to the demands 
 of the men in New York who oppose him, it can scarcely hope to escape 
 the reputation of having rejected these principles and written hostility 
 to them upon its banners, whatever clever devices it may hit upon for 
 concealing the fact under formal declarations of doctrine. His name 
 has been put forward too far to be withdrawn now without a practical 
 declaration of hostility to the principles which his name has come to 
 represent. 
 
 "The country is asking the question, 'Can we trust the Democratic 
 Party?' and it will take its answer, very probably, from the temper 
 with which the party in other States shall deal with the schism here. 
 The case is a very peculiar one. There are other Democrats in plenty 
 who believe in the doctrines which this particular Democrat holds to 
 be primary principles; but he has managed to make himself the special 
 representative and equivalent of these principles in that party as no 
 other man has. He has put his principles in practice in the most fear- 
 less and resolute manner, and has made himself especially obnoxious 
 to their opponents, as the iiostility to him, of which we write, clearly 
 shows; and the consequence is that, rightly or wrongly, the country 
 
438 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 is disposed to regard his acceptance or rejection as the head of the 
 party in the nation as an answer to its question concerning the trust- 
 worthiness of Democratic professions of honesty and sincerity." 
 
 During the month of May of the same year, 1875, a number of 
 RepubHcans met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York City, for the 
 ostensible purpose of organizing a movement looking toward the puri- 
 fication of the Federal government, and to prevent, if possible, the 
 nomination of Blaine, Conkling or Morton, or any member of the po- 
 litical staff of General Grant for the Presidency. Among the one 
 hundred and seventy persons forming the conference were: Theodore 
 Woolsey, William C. Bryant, Parke Godwin, Carl Schurz, Hbrace 
 White, Peter Cooper, David A. Wells and Professors Seelye and Sum- 
 ner. They issued the following address : 
 
 "A national election is approaching under circumstances of peculiar 
 significance. Never before in our history has the public mind been so 
 profoundly agitated by the apprehension of the dangers arising from 
 the prevalence of corrupt tendencies and practices in our political, life, 
 and never has there been any greater reason for it. ' We will not dis- 
 play here in detail the distressing catalogue of the disclosures which 
 for several years "have followed one another in rapid succession, and 
 seem to have left scarcely a single sphere of our political life untouched. 
 The records of courts, of State Legislatures, and of the national Con- 
 gress speak with terrible plainness, and still they are adding to the 
 scandalous exhibition. Our republic, but a century old, and just issued 
 from the only great civil conflict we have had to deplore, is so strong 
 in resources and organization that it stands in the foremost rank of the 
 great powers of the earth ; and yet, with all these splendid results on 
 record, it cannot be denied that at no period during the century now 
 behind us, the American people have been less satisfied with themselves ; 
 and that the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, 
 in so many respects to all Americans a day of sincerest pride and re- 
 joicing, is felt to be in other respects not without self-reproach and 
 humiliation. Of this the corruption revealed in our political life is the 
 cause." 
 
 And this is the way the conferees decided to deal with it : 
 
 "We therefore declare, and call upon all good citizens to join us 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 439 
 
 in it, that at the coming presidential election we shall support no can- 
 didate who, in public position, ever countenanced corrupt practices or 
 combinations, or impeded their exposure and punishment, or opposed 
 necessary measures of reform. 
 
 "We shall support no candidate who, while possessing official in- 
 fluence and power, has failed to use his opportunities in exposing and 
 correcting abuses coming within the reach of his observation, but for 
 personal reasons and party ends has permitted them to fester on ; for 
 such men may be counted on not to uncover and crush corruption but, 
 for the party's sake, made ready to conceal it. 
 
 "We shall support no candidate, however conspicuous his position 
 or brilliant his ability, in whom the impulses of the party manager 
 have shown themselves predominant over those of the reformer; for 
 he will be inclined to continue the fundamental abuse, the employment 
 of the government service as a machinery for personal or party ends. 
 
 "We shall support no candidate who, however favorably judged 
 by his nearest friends, is not publicly known to possess those qualities 
 of mind and character which the stern task of genuine reform requires ; 
 for the American people cannot now afford to risk the future of the 
 republic in experiments on merely supposed virtue or rumored ability 
 to be trusted on the strength of private recommendation. 
 
 "In one word, at present no candidate should be held entitled to the 
 
 support of patriotic citizens of whom the question may be fairly asked : 
 
 'Is he really the man to carry through a thorough-going reform of the 
 
 government? Can he with certainty be depended upon to possess the 
 
 moral courage and sturdy resolution to grapple with abuses which have 
 
 acquired the strength of established custom, and to this end firmly to 
 
 resist the pressure even of his party friends ?' Whenever there is room 
 
 for such a question (and doubt as to the answer) the candidate should 
 
 be considered unfit for this emergency. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Every American citizen who has the future of the republic and 
 the national honor seriously at heart should solemnly resolve that the 
 country must have a President whose name is already a watchword of 
 reform ; whose capacity and courage for the work are matters of record, 
 rather than of promise; who will restore the simplicity, independence 
 
440 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 and rectitude of the early administrations, and whose life will be a 
 guaranty of his fidelity and fitness ; a man at the mere sound of whose 
 name even the most disheartened will take new courage, and all man- 
 kind will say : 'The Americans are indeed in earnest to restore the 
 ancient purity of the government.' " 
 
 After the conference one of its members said that the above mani- 
 festo was intended to guard against the nomination of such aspirers 
 as Blaine, Conkling and Morton, and also to shut out such "make- 
 shifts as Messrs. Hayes and Hartranft." Yet the Republican Party 
 nominated one of the makeshifts, namely, Hayes, and in order to elect 
 him perpetrated the greatest political fraud in the history of the coun- 
 try, bringing forcibly to mind the English assassin who had a high 
 reverence for the fifth commandment, but whose motto was "Killing 
 no Murder." 
 
 At the election, November 7, 1876, the votes cast for presidential 
 electors in New York State were 1,015,502, of which the Democratic 
 ticket received 521,949, the Republican, 489,207; the Prohibition, 
 2,359, and the "Greenback," 1,987. For Governor, Robinson's plu- 
 rality over Morgan was 30,460. The amendments to the Constitution 
 providing for a Superintendent of Public Works and a Superintendent 
 of State Prisons were adopted by immense majorities. Of the 33 
 members of Congress chosen, 17 were Republicans and 16 Democrats. 
 The Legislature of 1877 was composed of 19 Republicans and 13 
 Democrats in the Senate, and 71 Republicans and 57 Democrats in the 
 House. The total vote of New York City for President was 112,378 
 for Tilden, and 58,696 for Hayes. 
 
 The official returns of the popular vote for President gave Tilden 
 4,284,265 votes; to Hayes, 4,033,295; Cooper, Greenback candidate, 
 81,737, ^"d Smith, Prohibition candidate, 9,522. With the votes of 
 Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina given to Hayes, against the 
 protest of the Tilden managers, the question of deciding on the returns 
 had to await the action of Congress, of which the lower br'anch was as 
 firm for giving the election to Tilden as the upper branch was for de- 
 claring the election of Hayes. The certificates of the results in each 
 State, sent to Washington under the official seal of the respective Gov- 
 ernors, gave Hayes the election by a majority of one of the electoral 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 441 
 
 votes. Two of these Governors, however, were the Hessians of a 
 corrupt partisan and military occupation — those of Louisiana and 
 South CaroHna — the scandal and iniquity of whose use of usurped and 
 conscienceless power Hayes must have known at the moment; and 
 which a very little later he, himself, as President, recognized and put 
 an end to. The Democratic managers for Tilden insisted that ample 
 evidence could be procured in support of their assertion that in each of 
 the States of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, illegal rejection 
 of Democratic votes alone was responsible for returns giving a Re- 
 publican majority, and that to give Hayes the election upon a majority 
 of one vote was to defeat the fair election by the people, and by the 
 honest electoral returns as well, of the Democratic candidate. Under 
 the method invariably pursued on previous occasions, Congress was 
 expected to merely pass upon the certificates, and give. Hayes the elec- 
 tion. But with the House largely Democratic, and with circumstances 
 scandalously suspicious, not to say demonstrative of rascally procure- 
 ment of conveniently false results, there seemed little doubt that the 
 House could not concur with the Republican Senate in a. plajn. robbery of 
 the Presidency from Governor Tilden, resting upon a popular majority 
 of the citizens of the whole country. The circumstances led to the 
 passage of an act to refer all contested cases to a commission consist- 
 ing of five Senators, five Representatives, and five Justices of the Su- 
 preme Court. The Senate chose as commissioners, George F. Ed- 
 munds, Oliver P. Morton, F. T. Frelinghuysen, Allen G. Thurman and 
 T. F. Bayard. The House selected Henry B. Payne, Eppa Hunton, 
 Josiah G. Abbot, George F. Hoar and James A. Garfield. The act desig- 
 nated four justices, two of whom were, politically. Republican, and 
 two Democratic — ^Nathan Clifford, Samuel J. Miller, Stephen J. Field, 
 and W. Strong — and required these four to add one other. Under 
 this feature of the act Joseph P. Bradley was added. The proceedings 
 of the commission were from first to last determined by the equal 
 division of seven Republican commissioners on the Hayes side of every 
 contest, and seven Democratic commissioners on the Tilden side, with 
 Justice Bradley giving the casting vote on the Republican side. This 
 grotesque travesty of justice ended as it began, with 185 electoral votes 
 counted for Hayes and Wheeler, and 184 conceded to Tilden and Hen- 
 
442 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 dricks. The action of Hayes, at the moment, in the case not only of 
 Louisiana, but of South CaroHna, in withdrawing Federal support, both 
 military and moral, from the carpet-bag State governments which had 
 controlled the election proceedings under which he had obtained the 
 Presidency, appeared conclusive of the Democratic contention that the 
 proceedings had been of a reprehensible character, fair and honest scrut- 
 iny of which must have compelled commissioners, not unscrupulously 
 partisan, to concede that no Louisiana or South Carolina votes could 
 with justice be counted for the Republican candidate. 
 
 A transaction of the utmost significance, while the electoral com- 
 mission was assisting Congress to count the electoral votes, was a bar- 
 gain made by Hayes, through Stanley Matthews and Charles Foster, 
 on his side, with John Y. Brown, of Kentucky, and General J. B. 
 Gordon, of Georgia, for South Carolina and Louisiana, to the effect 
 that if, by the count of these States, Hayes should become President, 
 he would clean- out the carpet-bag and shotgun, bogus State administra- 
 tions of Chamberlain and Packard. Under date of February 17th, 
 at Washington, Matthews and Foster gave to Brown and Gordon their 
 written assurance, strongly expressed, of their confidence that Hayes, 
 as President, would "adopt such a policy as will give to the people of the 
 States of South Carolina and Louisiana the right to control their own 
 affairs in their own way." The expectation of a great act of justice, 
 and of statesmanship on the part of Hayes, might with the utmost pro- 
 priety have been raised under any circumstances, and Hayes may be 
 assumed to have been in this matter a Liberal Republican, prepared 
 to go a long way in that direction of justice which President Grant 
 was reputed to think the times were ripe for. But with the proofs, 
 what history shows them to have been, namely, that the electoral votes 
 for Hayes were not as many as the electoral votes for Tilden, and 
 that this larger number of electoral votes for Tilden was but the just 
 expression of Tilden's popular majority over Hayes, the question -will 
 with time and thought become more and more urgent, whether Hayes 
 did not consciously and corruptly trade with South Carolina and Lou- 
 isiana to give them justice for some quiet on their part while he made 
 off with the Presidency. 
 
 Two weeks after Hayes got the Presidency a mass meeting of the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 443 
 
 supporters of the Packard succession to Kellogg proclaimed to the 
 world that the new State government headed by Governor Nicholls, 
 and representing the mass of the population and the wealth of the 
 State, were a rebel gang, to yield to whom would be to encourage law- 
 less outrage, and compel the Republicans "to follow the example of the 
 Nicholls Party, and attempt to settle legal questions by the use of the 
 rifle and the cannon." This did not prevent the sending of a com- 
 mission by President Hayes, two weeks later, the proceedings of which 
 resulted in the break-up, April 21st, of the Packard Legislature, and 
 the recognition, of the Nicholls administration for what it was, the 
 organic expression of a self-governed State. 
 
 President Hayes had meanwhile withdrawn, military support, April 
 loth, from the Chamberlain rump of negroes and a few white men 
 claiming to be the Legislature of South Carolina, and the consequent 
 slump of the whole fraud, proclaimed by Chamberlain himself April 
 loth, had left South Carolina once more a free, self-governed State, 
 under the administration of the Democratic soldier-statesman. Wade 
 Hampton. 
 
 The last act of reprehensible negro domination in South Carolina 
 was the efficient fraud through which Hayes shamelessly took a Presi- 
 dency which was not his. 
 
 The House of Representatives, May 17th, 1877, upon the motion 
 of Clarkson N. Potter, of New York, passed a preamble and resolution 
 for the investigation of alleged fraud in the presidential election in 
 Florida and Louisiana. The vote taken was 146 yeas and 2 nays, 
 with 143 Republicans not voting, and the committee appointed reported 
 by 7 to 3 of their number that the electoral votes of Florida and 
 Louisiana were given to Hayes and Wheeler through the perpetration 
 of gross frauds, and that upon an honest count Tilden and Hendricks 
 were elected. Immediately upon the passage of the Potter preamble 
 and resolution Eugene Hale, chairman of the Republican Congressional 
 Committee, gave out an address to the country, alleging that the in- 
 vestigation was a mere pretence, and that the real intention was a 
 revolutionary expulsion from his office of President Hayes. To this 
 indictment, based wholly upon violent partisan malice, C. N. Potter, 
 chairman of the investigating committee, made a temperate reply ; and 
 
444 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 October i6th Tilden published a card thoroughly exposing the political 
 dishonesty which had controlled the making up and sending in of the 
 Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana returns, and the failure of the 
 Democratic Party to deal with it to any Democratic advantage because 
 the utmost Democratic diligence had been used to have neither money 
 nor promises of office employed for any corruption whatever of voters 
 or purchase of electoral support. 
 
 Proof, the most incontestable, was alleged by Tilden.that the boards 
 of State canvassers were utterly corrupt ; that the certificates of election 
 were offered for money to the Democratic managers; but were given 
 to the Republican managers under the inducement of promises of office 
 under Hayes ; and that the Republican commissioners evaded getting at 
 the honest facts. The very basis of Tilden's candidacy, attested not 
 merely by protestations, but by what had been done through him in both 
 the New York City and State administrations, was the promise of re- 
 forms in the administration of national affairs. Competition for re- 
 turning board certificates from State governments would have been 
 a descent to the Republican level; a disgraceful downfall into the 
 pit-hole of ignorant negroism, where Chamberlain and Kellogg were 
 trading in political results. The cornerstone of Tilden's policy was 
 abstinence from the least appearance of such corrupt trading. Hence 
 the justice with which he said : "While thus abstaining from an igno- 
 minious competition for returning board certificates, which would have 
 been to abandon all that made victory desirable, I saw these certificates 
 obtained for the Republican electors who had not been chosen by the 
 people, and denied to the Democratic electors who had been chosen by 
 the people. 
 
 "Those false and fraudulent certificates, now confessed and proved 
 to have been- obtained by corrupt inducements, were afterwards made 
 the pretexts for taking from the people the rightful choice for the 
 Presidency and Vice-Presidency. 
 
 "These certificates were declared, by the tribunal to which Congress 
 had abdicated the function of deciding the count of electoral votes, to 
 be the absolute and indisputable conveyance of title to the chief magis- 
 tracy of the nation. 
 
 "The State of Florida, which had united all her executive, legis- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 445 
 
 lative and judicial powers to testify to Congress, long before the count, 
 who were her genuine agents, which had, by statute caused a recanvass, 
 the issue of new certificates and a formal sovereign authentication of 
 the right of the true electors to deposit the votes entitled to be counted 
 — was held to be incapable of communicating to Congress a fact which 
 everybody then knew, and which cannot now be disputed. 
 
 "Congress, though vested by the Constitution with the authority 
 to count the electoral votes; though unrestricted either as to the time 
 when it should receive evidence, or as to the nature of that evidence, 
 and though subject to no appeal from its decision, was declared to 
 have no power to guide its own count by any information it could ob- 
 tain, or by any authority which it might accept from the wronged and 
 betrayed State whose vote was about to be falsified. 
 
 "The monstrous conclusion was thus reached that the act of one 
 man holding the deciding vote in a board of State canvassers (for 
 without his concurrence the frauds of the other returning boards would 
 have failed) in giving certificates, known at the time, and now by him- 
 self confessed, to be false and fraudulent, and confessed to have been 
 obtained by the promise of office, certificates whose character was 
 known months before Congress could begin the count — must prevail 
 over all the remedial powers of the State of Florida and of the Congress 
 of the United States combined, and must dispose of the Chief Magis- 
 tracy of this republic." 
 
 The average public of all parties throughout the United States were 
 comparatively passive during a period which with less self-restraint on 
 the part of the people might have bred civil distraction of the most dan- 
 gerous character. In the South, the concession by President Hayes of 
 restored self-government, in such States as South Carolina and Louis- 
 iana, had a great effect, sympathy with which in the North tended to 
 toleration of the wrong done by the false and fraudulent count of presi- 
 dential votes. It was a result of the overwhelming triumph of Demo- 
 cratic principles that Hayes, almost from the count of the electoral 
 votes, yielded to demands which were so nearly those of the Democ- 
 racy as to lose him the confidence of Republican zealots, whose un- 
 scrupulous fanaticism had carried them into the depths of disgusting 
 political miscegenation. The country reaped a broad harvest of results 
 
446 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 of the Tilden campaign and the Tilden triumph at the polls, which 
 counted for new departure developments, contrary to those which had 
 been under Republicanism driving the ship on the rocks. It co-oper- 
 ated with this turn in the tide of politics that the year 1878 was one 
 of overflowing wealth from the field, the forests and the mines of the 
 country, and that, with the coming of the year 1879, the Democratic 
 ideals in finance, as understood from the first in New York, were ac- 
 claimed by resumption of specie payments, abating a scandal which 
 dated from suspension by the banks of New York City, December 
 30, 1861. 
 
 Returning to State politics : Lucius Robinson was elected Gov- 
 ernor on November 7, 1876, by 519,831 votes to Morgan's 489,371, 
 giving Robinson a plurality of 30,460 over Morgan and a majority 
 over all of 25,612. The members of Congress elected by New York 
 State were 17 Republicans and 16 Democrats. The New York Legis- 
 lature of 1877 consisted of 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats in the 
 Senate and 71 Republicans and 57 Democrats in the House, so that the 
 Republicans had a majority of 6 in the Senate and 14 in the House and 
 20 on a joint ballot. 
 
 Lucius Robinson was well known in the public life of the State be- 
 fore his election to the office of Governor. He had spent many years 
 in active political service and at the time of his nomination was 
 serving as State Comptroller, an office in which he had won special 
 distinction. He was a native of Greene County, where he was born 
 in 1 8 10. He was educated for the law and after serving some time as 
 District Attorney, received the appointment of Commissioner of Chan- 
 cery in New York City. That office he held from 1843 to 1846. He 
 was elected to the Assembly in 1859 and again in 1873 'ind proved 
 himself an able and useful man during both his terms. He was one 
 of the best Comptrollers the State ever had. He was first elected to that 
 office in 1861 on the Union ticket by the overwhelming majority of 
 160,000 votes. In 1863 he was again elected, but lost in his contest 
 for a third term. Shortly after the beginning of the war the Govern- 
 ment began to issue greenbacks, and as Comptroller of the State he 
 decided to pay the interest on the canal debt in coin. By strict economy, 
 with systematic and able management of the State treasury, his services 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 447 
 
 were of great benefit to the State in trying times. He wiped out the 
 bounty debt in twelve years, was very efficient in assisting in the break- 
 ing up of the canal ring and aided effectively in any movement which 
 frustrated railroad frauds. His whole record shows him to have been 
 a man of great capacity for public affairs, of earnest effort, enlightened 
 views, and possessed of a discriminating and steady judgment. With 
 such a man as Governor of New York and Samuel J. Tilden in the Pres- 
 ident's chair, the Democratic Party had looked forward with sanguine 
 hopes to a rehabilitation of the party both in the State and nation. The 
 process by which Tilden was counted out of the Presidency nullified 
 these hopes, so far as national affairs were concerned. 
 
 Among the laws passed by the Legislature of 1877 was one pro- 
 viding that the Superintendent of State Prisons shall have the manage- 
 ment and control of the prisons and convicts therein and of all matters 
 relating to the government, discipline, police, contracts and fiscal con- 
 cerns of those institutions. It also provided that the system of labor in 
 the State prisons should be by contract or by the State, or partly by one 
 system and partly by the other, at the discretion of the superintendent. 
 The superintendent was also empowered to appoint a State Agent to 
 visit the different prisons of the State with a view to aiding convicts 
 whose terms of imprisonment were near expiration. 
 
 An act to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors to children under 
 the age of fourteen years was also passed ; also an act empowering the 
 Boards of Education in cities and villages to designate the text-books 
 to be used in the schools under their charge. A notable bill of the year 
 was that by which Crooked Lake Canal ceased to exist as a State 
 waterway and provision was made for the sale of the lateral canals. 
 Under the provisions of this act, the Chenango Canal extension was to 
 be discontinued after May i, 1878, and the Chemung and Genesee 
 Valley canals were to be abandoned after September 30, 1878. 
 
 Probably the most important subject which came before the Legis- 
 lature of 1877 was the proposition to amend the State Constitution. 
 Six amendments were agreed to and it was decided that if these amend- 
 ments were approved by the Legislature of 1878, they would be sub- 
 mitted to the vote of the people at the fall election of that year. The 
 most important proposed amendment was that relating to the organiza- 
 
448 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 tion and government of cities. It proA'ided that city elections should 
 be held separately from State and national elections and in March or 
 April. It also proposed that the legislative power conferred on a city 
 be vested in a Board of Aldermen, who were to have none of the powers 
 vested in the Board of Finance. The Board of Aldermen were to be 
 empowered to pass measures over the Mayor's veto provided that such 
 vote be taken at the next meeting of the Board after the communication 
 of the veto. The executiA-e power of every city should be vested in the 
 Mayor and in such executive officers and departments as might be 
 created by law. The Mayor was to have the appointment of the chief 
 financial and law officers and the heads of executive departments with 
 the consent of the Board of Finance. 
 
 The year 1877 is notable in the annals of New York State as mark- 
 ing the commencement of the operation of the new code of civil pro- 
 cedure. In 1848 the old system of the practice of law and equity was 
 abolished. In 1870 the Legislature passed an act authorizing desig- 
 nated commissioners to "revise, simplify, arrange and consolidate all 
 statutes of the State of New York, general and permanent in their 
 nature." The commissioners prepared and submitted a very volumi- 
 nous account entitled "The Code of Remedial Justice." One thousand 
 four hundred and ninety-six sections of this Code were ciystallized into 
 law by the Legislature of 1876 with provision that it should not take 
 effect until May i, 1877. The Legislature of 1876 changed this date 
 to September i, 1877, since which time that part of the system has been 
 in operation under the name of "The Code of Civil Procedure." The 
 remaining part of the Code submitted by the commissioners contained 
 1,800 sections and was passed upon by the Legislature, but with about 
 250 other bills it was sent to the Governor to be acted upon during 
 the thirty days following the adjournment of the Legislature. Through 
 lack of time to read the act, the Governor did not approve it and it nat- 
 urally failed to become law. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention of 1877 assembled in Albany 
 on October 3d and nominated the following ticket : For Secretary of 
 State, Allen C. Beach ; for Comptroller, Frederic P. Olcott ; for Treas- 
 urer, James Mackin; for Attorney-General, Augustus Schoonmaker, 
 and for State Engineer and Surveyor, Horatio Seymour, Jr. The con- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 449 
 
 vention also adopted resolutions denouncing the usurpation of the 
 Presidency by Rutherford B. Hayes and declaring, "gold and silver 
 the only legal tender." 
 
 The State Convention of Workingmen and Labor Reformers was 
 held in Troy, October 9, and after adopting a platform, the following 
 candidates were put in nomination : John J. Junio, for Secretary of 
 State ; George Blair, for Comptroller ; Samuel G. Rice, for Treasurer ; 
 Warren T. Worden, for Attorney-General ; and Walter Griswold, for 
 State Engineer and Surveyor. 
 
 The Republican convention met at Rochester on September 26, and 
 Roscoe Conkling was chosen permanent chairman, but declined to serve, 
 and Thomas C. Piatt was chosen for the position. The resolutions 
 adopted by the convention did not endorse the national administra- 
 tion, although a minority made strenuous efforts to accomplish that end. 
 The convention put in nomination the following: For Secretary of 
 State, John C. Churchill; for Comptroller, Francis Sylvester; for 
 Treasurer, William F. Bostwick ; for Attorney-General, Grenville Tre- 
 maine; and for State Engineer, Howard Soule. 
 
 The Prohibition Party, the Greenback Party and- the "German- 
 American" Party, also put tickets in the field in the fall of 1877. The 
 election resulted in the success of the Democratic ticket. 
 
 The Legislature of 1878 convened on the first Tuesday of January. 
 The Senate was composed of 18 Republicans, 13 Democrats and i 
 Independent. In the Assembly there were 66 Republicans, 61 Demo- 
 crats and I Independent. The question of the apportionment of the 
 members of the Legislature according to the population became a sub- 
 ject of more than usual interest. The Constitution of the State directs 
 that the Senate districts "be altered by the Legislature at the first 
 session after the return of every enumeration of the inhabitants so that 
 each district shall contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of in- 
 habitants, excluding aliens and persons not taxed." The subject 
 evolved a great deal of controversy, but nothing definite was accom- 
 plished that year. During this session a concurrent resolution provid- 
 ing for biennial sessions of the Legislature failed of adoption. 
 
 The Democratic State Convention met at Syracuse, September 25, 
 and was organized with Erastus Brooks as president. The only nom- 
 
450 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 ination was that of George B. Bradley for Judge of the Court of Ap- 
 peals. 
 
 The Republican State Convention assembled at Saratoga on Sep- 
 tember 26. George F. Danforth, of Rochester, was nominated for 
 Judge of the Court of Appeals. 
 
 The National Greenback Labor Reform Party held a convention 
 at Syracuse, July 25th, and nominated Gideon J. Tucker for Judge of 
 the Court of Appeals. The Prohibition State Convention, which met at 
 Albany on April 24, nominated Joshua M. Van Cott for Judge of the 
 Court of Appeals. Among the conventions of the year the Woman's 
 Suffrage Convention, held at Rochester, was notable. It passed a num- 
 ber of resolutions embodying the views generally held regarding woman 
 suffrage, but did not make any nominations. 
 
 The election held November 5th was for choice of a Judge of the 
 Court of Appeals, Members of Congress and members of the State 
 Legislature. The result was a victory for the Republicans. Danforth 
 was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals and the State Legislature 
 for 1879 consisted of 19 Republicans, 12 Democrats and i National 
 Greenback Republican in the Senate, while in the Assembly there were 
 98, Republicans, 28 Democrats and 2 Nationals. 
 
 The Legislature of 1879 opened on January 7 and continued its 
 labors into the month of May. This was the first session of the New 
 York Legislature held in the new Capitol and an effort was made on 
 the evening of February 12th to signalize the change both historically 
 and officially. There was a joint convention of the two Houses, to 
 which Judges of the Court of Appeals and State officers were invited 
 and speeches were made by the president of the Senate, Lieutenant- 
 Governor William Dorsheimer, and Thomas G. Alvord, Speaker of the 
 House that year. At that time the finished portion of the Capitol was 
 only about one-fourth the area of the whole building. 
 
 The Capitol of the State, built of white granite, is by far the most 
 imposing building in Albany and stands upon the highest of the several 
 hills upon which the city is situated. Its total cost approximated 
 $27,000,000. The old Capitol, which stood in the little Capitol Park, 
 just east of the present edifice, was built in 1806 at a cost of $110,000. 
 The agitation for a new Capitol began about the year i860, about 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW, YORK 451 
 
 which time the old Capitol began to proclaim its inadequacy to the 
 growing requirements of the State. On April 24, 1863, James A. Bell, 
 Senator from the Eighteenth Distrfct, who was Chairman of the Com- 
 mittee on Public Buildings, offered a resolution in the Senate, which 
 was adopted, that the trustees of the Capitol and the Chairman of the 
 Committee on Public Buildings be authorized to procure suitable plans 
 for a new Capitol and to report to the next Legislature. The commit- 
 tee submitted plans for a new_Capitol by Thomas Fuller, of the firm 
 of Fuller & Jones. This architect had designed the new parliament 
 buildings at Ottawa, Canada, and had achieved fame thereby. Two 
 years passed before any action was taken upon his plans, and, in the 
 meantime, a committee of the Legislature solicited invitations from di-f- 
 ferent cities in the State for the new Capitol. New York, Yonkers, 
 Saratoga and Argyle offered sites, while Buffalo, Oswego and Ithaca 
 declined to make any offer. The first committee appointed sug- 
 gested that the plans for a new Capitol should be made with reference 
 to the square about the old State Capitol as the site for the new one. 
 The city of Albany finally offered to convey to. the State the lot ad- 
 joining, occupied by the Congress Hall Block, or any other lands in the 
 city which might be required for the purpose. 
 
 On May i, 1865, an act was passed authorizing the erection of a 
 new Capitol whenever the city of Albany should deed over the land 
 proposed and providing for the appointment of three commissioners 
 and appropriating $10,000 with which to commence the prosecution 
 of the work. On April 14, 1866, an act was passed ratifying and con- 
 firming the location of the Capitol and on May 3 of that year, Hamilton 
 Harris, John V. L. Pruyn and O. B. Latham were appointed new cap- 
 itol commissioners. On April 22, 1867, an act was passed appropri- 
 ating $250,000 toward the new Capitol, but providing that no part 
 should be expended until a plan for a new building had been agreed 
 upon not to cost, when completed, more than $4,000,000. The plan 
 submitted by Thomas Fuller was adopted and he was appointed arch- 
 itect and William J. McAlpine consulting engineer. On the 9th day 
 of December, 1867, the first pick was struck into the ground for the ex- 
 cavation at the corner of Hawk and State streets. On May 19, 1868, 
 a second sum of $250,000 was appropriated, and this act added to the 
 
452 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 names on the Capitol Commission, those of James S. Thayer, Alonzo 
 B. Cornell, William A. Rice, John T. Hudson and James Terwilliger. 
 The commission was also authorized to add to the land already ob- 
 tained, one-half the block adjoining Congress Hall Block on the west 
 and to change the plans at their discretion, with this proviso: that if 
 they changed the plans so as to make the cost exceed four million dol- 
 lars, they were not to proceed with the work until such plans were ap- 
 proved by the Legislature. This brought about new and enlarged plans 
 by Fuller & Jones, which were duly reported to the Legislature and ap- 
 proved by an act of May lo, 1869. The first stone in the foundation 
 of the Capitol was laid July 7, 1869, by John V. L. Pruyn. Ten years 
 later the Legislature first met within the building. The cornerstone 
 was laid with great ceremony by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted 
 Masons on June 24, 1871. Upon that occasion addresses were made 
 by Hon. Hamilton Harris and Governor John T. Hoffman. 
 
 The election of a Senator in Congress to succeed Roscoe Conkling 
 took place on January 20. His opponent was Lieutenant-Governor 
 Dorsheimer. In the Senate Conkling received 19 votes and Dorsheimer 
 12; in the Asesmbly Conkling 95, Dorsheimer 23, and Peter Cooper 2. 
 The Democratic members of the Legislature immediately held a caucus 
 at which it was proposed to make a protest against the granting of a 
 certificate to Roscoe Conkling as the duly elected Senator. The grounds 
 upon which the protest were made were that the Constitution of the 
 State requires that at the next session of the Legislature after every 
 State census the senatorial districts shall be altered so as to contain, as 
 nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants and that the members 
 of Assembly shall be apportioned according to population. That a 
 census was taken in 1875, but that no alteration of the Senate districts 
 and no reapportionment of the members of Assembly had been made 
 by the Legislature since that enumeration ; that the effect of such neg- 
 lect had been that large numbers of the people of the State had been 
 and were misrepresented in the Legislature; that the political com- 
 plexion of the Legislature had been thereby changed from one party to 
 another, with the result that the Legislature then sitting was a Legis- 
 lature de facto and not de jure. The caucus did not adopt this resolu- 
 tion, but resolved upon an address to the people. This address covered 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 453 
 
 the grounds set forth in the resolution presented to the caucus. Conk- 
 Hng was, however, returned to the United States Senate. 
 
 Subsequently, an apportionment bill was pased by the Legislature, 
 which gave to New York City 24 members of Assembly (a gain of 3) 
 and to Kings County 12 members (also a gain of 3) ; while Columbia, 
 Delaware, Madison, Oneida, Ontario and Oswego each lost one. The 
 Governor allowed the bill to become a law without his signature and 
 gave as his reason that the bill did not meet the requirements of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 During this session resolutions for biennial sessions of the Legis- 
 lature were adopted, which were to be presented to the next Legislature 
 and if adopted by that body were then to be submitted to a vote of the 
 people. 
 
454 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 i 
 LIFE OF SAMUEL JONES TILDEN. 
 
 Samuel Jones Tilden, one of the ablest men and one of the pro- 
 foundest statesmen that this country has ever produced, was born at 
 New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, February 9, 1814. He 
 was the son of Elam and Polly (Younglove) Tilden and was the fourth 
 of the seven children born to them. Samuel's grandfather, John Tilden, 
 had removed from Connecticut in 1790. The Tilden family is one of 
 very ancient lineage. For centuries it had been prominent in the County 
 of Kent, in England, in which a part of London is located. The fam- 
 ily name appears as far back as the knighting of the famous Edward, 
 the Black Prince, eldest son of King Edward III., in 1346, and is even 
 mentioned two centuries earlier, during the reign of King Henry II. 
 The armorial bearings are said to show that Sir Richard Tylden, who 
 lived at that time, was descended from the first Norman Earl of Ches- 
 ter, a nephew of William the Conqueror. 
 
 This genealogy of one of the greatest of Americans is, however, 
 more curious than valuable, and no man set less store by the aristocratic 
 titles of the Old World than that sturdy and robust Democrat, Samuel 
 J. Tilden, himself. Said he, in referring to a paper in which his an- 
 cestry had been traced : "This paper may pass for what it is worth. 
 For my part, I am not ambitious to trace my ancestry to the ruffian 
 and robber chivalry of Normandy. It is more consonant with my prin- 
 ciples and my tastes to prefer to deduce my lineage from the yeomanry 
 of Saxon Kent, who preserved their free customs and their liberal 
 landed tenures, rejecting primogeniture and maintaining equality of in- 
 heritance among all children, and caused their institutions to be re- 
 spected by the victorious Normans after their occupation of England. 
 It is a line of ancestors who, during centuries of conflict, have, in every 
 instance, been on the side of the largest liberty, and have borne their full 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 455 
 
 share in the struggles, the perils, and the sacrifices through which free 
 institutions have been established." 
 
 We give this statement as one which clearly reveals the character of 
 this illustrious man. It illustrates not only his thorough Americanism, 
 but also the clearness and soundness of his judgment, a faculty in which 
 he has never been surpassed by any of our public men. 
 
 Mr. Elam Tilden was a man of brains and intelligence, the oracle 
 of the village on most questions'of public interest a great admirer of 
 President Jackson, and the neighbor and lifelong friend of Jackson's 
 successor, President Martin Van Buren, who frequented his house and 
 prized his political sagacity and judgment. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that this quiet, rural community of Columbia 
 County should have given birth to two men of such phenomenal ability 
 as Martin Van Buren and Samuel J. Tilden. In breadth of mind, keen- 
 ness and subtlety of intellectual perception, as citizens, as lawyers and 
 as statesmen, vigorous and in every way sound and sane, they stand pre- 
 eminent. Which of the two was the greater man, it would be a very 
 difficult matter to decide, but it is probable that most students of affairs 
 would award the palm to Tilden as, upon the whole, the stronger. At 
 least, the stage upon which he played his part was the larger. 
 
 The family friendship with Mr. Van Buren made the Tilden home- 
 stead also the resort of that remarkable group of men composing what 
 was familiarly known as "The Albany Regency," and especially of 
 Governor William L. Marcy, .United States Senator Silas Wright, 
 Comptroller Azariah C. Flagg and Editor Edwin Croswell, of the 
 Albany Argus. In the conversation of such men as these young Tilden 
 was a patient and eager listener, and it is not strange that under such 
 auspices political life should have appeared to him as the ideal life, and 
 that all his thought, study and aspirations were fixed in that direction 
 at an age when most boys are not yet through with their playthings. It 
 was an- ideal training for one who was to play so great a part. 
 
 This sort of educational influence was the more potent from the fact 
 that when Mr. Tilden was about three years old he had a severe illness, 
 and that the illness, or the drugs, or both combined, left him with a 
 weak stomach and impaired digestion from which he never fully recov- 
 ered. The immediate effect was to prevent his indulging in the active 
 
456 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 outdoor, boyish exercise and sports so essential to the development 
 of robust physical vigor. His intellect was left unimpaired, fortunately, 
 and he sought his pleasures and recreation mostly within doors. The 
 schopls at New Lebanon were like the usual country schools at that 
 time, brief terms with long intermissions, and not of a very high grade. 
 Young Tilden's health, for several years after illness, would not permit 
 his confinement in a schoolroom, so his education was necessarily ac- 
 quired at home. It was not neglected, however, even if it was irreg- 
 ular and in no way systematic. He read Jefferson's writings until he 
 knew them almost by heart. The famous work of Jonathan Edwards 
 on "The Will," he had read before he was fifteen, and before he was 
 eighteen he had mastered the no less famous work of Adam Smith on 
 "The Wealth of Nations." 
 
 In 1830, when he was sixteen, he was sent to an academy at Wil- 
 liamstown, Mass., to be fitted for college. He remained there, however, 
 only three months, his short stay doubtless being on account of his 
 health. In 1832 he went to New York, to live with a widowed aunt, 
 both for more skillful medical attention and for educational advantages. 
 His health was, however, his chief care. His stay in the metropolis was 
 also brief, and he returned home the same year. This was* the year of 
 Jackson's re-election, and Van Buren was on the Democratic ticket for 
 Vice-President. The visit and political talk of an uncle inspired young 
 Tilden to write a lengthy political argument in favor of Jackson and 
 Van Buren's election. It was approved by Van Buren and published 
 in the Albany Argus, filling half a page, and the youthful writer was 
 still further delighted to see that the Albany Evening Journal attrib- 
 uted it to the pen of Van Buren, himself. 
 
 This incident led to a lifelong intimacy between these two great 
 Democrats. The old political chief constantly consulted his young 
 friend, in whose sagacity and judgment he had the highest confidence, 
 and even in the drawing of his will, some years afterward, he made im- 
 portant changes at Tilden's suggestion. In the exciting campaign of 
 1832, Tilden, though only eighteen years old, contributed a striking 
 printed broadside which was posted throughout the State. 
 
 Of course these effusions of the coming statesman were not of espe- 
 cial weight and value in themselves, but they are interesting as showing 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 457 
 
 the bent of his mind even in its formative period. In the great fight 
 over the United States Bank he took an active part, though he had not 
 yet obtained his majority, participating actively in party conventions 
 and addressing still larger audiences through the Democratic news- 
 papers. Even at that early age Mr. Tilden showed something of that 
 clearness of thought, that remarkable power of statement and that fa- 
 cility and felicity of expression which made his public papers in later 
 life so trenchant and so memorable. This is the more remarkable as he 
 was by no means a concise writer, being, on the other hand, given to 
 prolixity, but even with this drawback it is doubtful whether any Amer- 
 ican statesman's utterances upon large public matters, unless Grover 
 Cleveland's should be excepted, were ever so gladly received and so 
 generally read by their countrymen, as were those of Samuel J. Tilden. 
 The official papers of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln 
 were, of course, keenly welcomed and greatly enjoyed, but their unoffi- 
 cial utterances hardly commanded such universal attention as those of 
 Samuel J. Tilden. He was a master among publicists. 
 
 As an illustration of his style and, at the same time, a statement of 
 his views upon national policy, read what he said of Jefferson, whose 
 political standards were adopted by Mr. Tilden as his own. Said he in 
 reply to an invitation to be present at a celebration of Jefferson's birth- 
 day anniversary, only four years before his own death : 
 
 "Jefferson penned the immortal statement of the principles that led 
 our ancestors to assert the independent existence of our country, and 
 which has been substantially adopted as a model for every people who 
 have since attempted to establish national independence on the basis of 
 human rights. He was the first in his day to completely emancipate his 
 own mind from the monarchical and aristocratical traditions which still 
 enslaved most of the best intellects of the country. But the obligations 
 of the world to Mr. Jefferson do not end here. On the completion of 
 the Federal Constitution, Gouverneur Morris, being asked what he 
 thought of it, answered : 'That depends upon how it is construed.' 
 After the organization of the Federal government, a powerful class 
 sought to impress upon it in its practical working the features of the 
 British system. Mr. Jefferson was the great leader of the party formed 
 to resist these efforts, and to hold our institutions to the popular char- 
 
458 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 acter which was understood to belong to them when the Constitution 
 was ratified by the people. 
 
 "When elevated to the Presidency, he put the ship of state, to use his 
 own expression, 'upon the Republican tack.' He arrested centralizing 
 tendencies, reinvigorated local self-government ; restored the rights of 
 the States, and protected and enlarged the domain of the individual 
 judgment and conscience. For eight years he administered the gov- 
 ernment, and for sixteen years more it was administered by his pupils 
 under his observation and advice. Thus was established a habit which 
 largely shaped the standards for the guidance of the popular judgment, 
 the modes of thinking of statesmen and the general course of govern- 
 ment for sixty years. * * * ]y[]-. JefYerson gave to our admin- 
 istrative system an aspect of republican simplicity; he repressed job- 
 bery as well as all perversions of power, and by his precepts, his in- 
 fluence, and his example elevated the standard of public morals. In his 
 personal practice he was not only pure, but, to make his example more 
 effective, he refrained, while administering the greatest of official trusts, 
 from all attempts to increase his private fortune, even by methods open 
 to every private citizen." 
 
 These words cannot be too deeply pondered by all our statesmen. 
 The principles of public action and of private conduct which they enun-. 
 ciate enforced, as Mr. Tilden truly says, through the eight, years of 
 Jefferson's administration and the sixteen years of Madison and Mon- 
 roe which followed, gave a trend to our national government and the 
 habits of thought of our people which has ruled ever since. And they 
 are likely to rule, in spite of temporary exploitations of policies of ad- 
 venture and sensational experiments, to which some President of pic- 
 turesque personality may give an evanescent vogue. 
 
 In estimating the achievements of Mr. Tilden, it should always be 
 borne in mind that this remarkable man, while not an invalid, yet was 
 a stranger to the vigorous health which is such an important asset of 
 men who reach distinction by their own efforts. After the campaign 
 of 1832, and he did not become eighteen years old until December of 
 that year, his delicate health made it a difficult matter to decide upon 
 any plans for his future. This uncertainty depressed and discouraged 
 him. In a letter written to his father, while this matter was yet under 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 459 
 
 discussion, the ambitious youth spoke of the difficulty he suffered from 
 loss of time on account of his infirm health. He did not fear that he 
 could not keep up with his class at New Haven, but that would not 
 satisfy him. Said he : "I never would make mediocrity my aim in any- 
 thing; low indeed is his standard who seeks a mere equality with his 
 fellows." Here appears clearly the high ambition to excel which was 
 manifested all through his life. Even physical weakness and suffering, 
 which render the ambition of most men flabby and flaccid, and make 
 them limit their aims largely to physical comfort, had no power over 
 his indomitable spirit. It was finally decided that he should enter Yale 
 College, which he did in June, 1834. Among his sixty classmates were 
 many who became famous men, including Chief Justice Waite, William 
 M. Evarts, Edwards Pierrepont and Benjamin Silliman. His career 
 at Yale was brief, however. His health broke down, and when he went 
 home for the Christmas holidays he did not return. 
 
 In the fall of 1832 he had written an "Address to the Democratic 
 Young Men of the County of Columbia," which contains many striking 
 thoughts and phrases that show, even at that early age, the force and 
 pungency of his literary style. For instance, he tells how "the capitalist 
 class had banded together all over the world and organized the modern 
 dynasty of associated wealth, which maintains an unquestioned ascend- 
 ancy over most of the civilized portions of our race." This dynasty, in 
 England, said he, "at this moment, exerts an influence over her far 
 more mighty than that of her hereditary aristocracy, and, in truth, 
 sways her destinies. A heartless, soulless moneyed power — a tyranny 
 sternly inexorable and unrelenting, when, as in the recent glorious 
 struggles for reform, even the monarch and many of the titled no- 
 bility were ready to yield something to the just complaints of an op- 
 pressed people. And can we be insensible to the rapid and fearful 
 strides which the same power is making in our own country? Are 
 not monopolies and corporations springing up like hydras in every part 
 of the nation? Are they not obtaining an alarming ascendancy over 
 our legislative bodies, and over the people themselves ? * * * Has it 
 not assailed the purity of the press, the fidelity of our representatives, 
 and the freedom of our elections, the three great pillars which support 
 the noble superstructure of American liberty ? * * * it will assemble 
 
46o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 around it all the rich and aristocratic, giving unity to their efforts and 
 wielding their energies, till finally, as with advancing time wealth ac- 
 cumulates and poverty becomes more excessive, a moneyed aristocracy 
 will hold undisputed sway over this now free and happy people." 
 
 Further prosecution of his studies at Yale having been definitely 
 abandoned, it was finally determined that he should go to New York 
 and enter the university then recently opened. This he did at the com- 
 mencement of the year 1835. His health, however, was so uncertain 
 that his connection with the university was more nominal than real. 
 He remained, however, for more than a year, after which he planned 
 various health trips. He does not seem to have taken any of these, 
 probably from the fact that in that year his friend and neighbor, Martin 
 Van Buren, was a candidate for President. The warm, personal and 
 political sympathy and friendship existing between that great leader 
 and the Tilden family, makes it altogether probable that Samuel re- 
 mained at home, and forgot his physical ailments for the time and took 
 an active part in securing Van Buren's election. 
 
 From a letter written at this period we get a glimpse of Tilden's 
 shrewd knowledge of human nature. Said he : "Impartiality and in- 
 dependence also have their counterfeits. I know that thei^e is a class of 
 no-party men who vindicate their claim to that character by doing in- 
 justice to all, even without the excuse of bias. I know that society is 
 sometimes troubled with T-always-speak-my-mind' nuisances, who 
 seem to think it a virtue to violate the comities of social intercourse, and 
 always to sacrifice the feelings of others to their own caprice or ill- 
 nature." 
 
 In 1835 President Jackson had removed the government deposits 
 from the United States Bank and distributed them among the State 
 banks. These treated this new line of deposits, for discount purposes, 
 as a part of their own capital; and if this did not actually cause, it cer- 
 tainly contributed largely to the wild and reckless speculation of 
 1836-37. Partly to protect the government from loss, and partly to 
 check the speculation craze, President Jackson ordered that the gov- 
 ernment land offices should receive nothing but gold and silver or cer- 
 tificates of deposit in payment for land. The middle western States 
 were then rapidly filling up and the sales of the public lands to settlers 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 461 
 
 were enormous. At this time, it is w'orthy of note, when this first of our 
 periodical great monetary crashes set in, the United States Govern- 
 ment was, for the first and last time absolutely frfee from debt, and had, 
 besides, a surplus of $40,000,000. To the amazement of the banks 
 which were using this money as part of their capital, as before stated, 
 the Congress passed a law that it should be called in and distributed 
 among the States. May 10, 1837, only two months after President 
 Van Buren's inauguration, the banks of New York City, with but a 
 single exception, suspended specie payments, and most of the banks of 
 the country promptly followed their example. 
 
 The Legislature of New York was then in session, and upon the 
 recommendation of Governor Marcy, it passed a law legalizing the 
 suspension. May 13th, Mr. Tilden wrote a letter to his father in which 
 he criticised this actioH in the strongest terms, showing even that far 
 back the wonderful sagacity which made him one of the greatest mas- 
 ters of finance this country has ever known. In the course of this letter 
 he said : "A permanent currency of irredeemable paper is a more in- 
 tolerahle curse than war, pestilence, or famine, and one to which, I 
 hope and trust, the people will not long submit." 
 
 The people of the United States have had only too much reason to 
 experience the truth of this far-seeing statement ! 
 
 President Van Buren issued a message calling the Congress to 
 assemble in special session in September, 1837, and in his message to 
 that body, upon its opening, he strongly recommended a separation of 
 the government business from that of the banks, and the establishment 
 of the Independent Treasury. This measure, which was eventually 
 adopted and proved one of the most beneficent ever enacted in the his- 
 tory of the government, was violently attacked. A series of articles 
 opposing its adoption appeared in the Albany Argus over the signa- 
 ture of "Marshall." At once Mr. Tilden came to the defense of the 
 President, over the signature of "Crino," with arguments which were 
 marked not only by that infallible good sense, which was instinctive 
 with him in financial matters, but were written in a trenchant, and at 
 the same time lucid, style that attracted wide attention. 
 
 In the discussions of this time, the letters, platforms and public ad- 
 dresses of Mr. Tilden possessed a clearness and cogency, a grasp of 
 
462 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 principles and a mingled power and felicity of statement, that caused 
 him to be appealed to for years afterward to frame and settle, by ad- 
 dress or resolutions, the issues upon which, at each successive campaign, 
 the party was to form its line of battle. From this time until his death, 
 half a century afterward, he never ceased to be one of the counselors 
 to whom the Democratic Party turned for aid and guidance in all polit- 
 ical emergencies. And it is the truth to add that his counsel was rarely 
 overruled that the party did not, sooner or later, have abundant reason 
 to regret it. 
 
 Mr. Tilden entered the Law School of the New York University in 
 1838, the year in which it was organized, anrd'was a member of the 
 first class that was graduated from that school. The lecturers were a 
 famous trio, ex- Attorney-General Benjamin F. Butler, Judge William 
 Kent and David Graham. While attending the' lectures at the univer- 
 sity Mr. Tilden was also articled as a law student with the Hon. John 
 W. Edmonds, a former State Senator and also-a Columbia County man. 
 In the fall of this same year Senator N. P. Tallmadge, the colleague of 
 Silas Wright, who had left the Democrats on the financial question, ad- 
 dressed a meeting in Columbia County, held for the purpose of winning 
 Democrats away from the Administration. Tilden was in the audience, 
 and when one of the Whig leaders asked if any one wished to reply to 
 the Senator, a general cry went up for Tilden. The young law student 
 accepted the invitation and effectually routed the Senator. In the cam- 
 paign of 1840 Mr. Tilden took an active part, and on the 3d of October 
 he delivered a speech at New Lebanon which made a profound impres- 
 sion, and is still regarded as a masterpiece in the discussion of the fun- 
 damental principles of economical science. 
 
 But his health continued to be precarious. In fact there were but 
 rare and comparatively brief intervals during his whole life when his 
 health was such that he could with entire confidence pledge a single 
 hour of his time in the future. In 1841, as the time approached for his 
 admission to the Bar, for a time he had serious misgivings about be- 
 ing able to stand the physical demands for a professional career. At the 
 May term of the Supreme Court in that year he was, however, ad- 
 mitted and at once opened an ofifice in New York, and from that day 
 forth he ceased to be a burden to his parents. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 463 
 
 After the Whigs came into power at Washington, they naturally 
 began to agitate for rechartering the United States Bank; and to confer 
 upon it a charter which Congress should not have power to repeal. Mr. 
 Tilden quickly showed the unsoundness of such an attempt on the part 
 of Congress to disable itself. His argument has never been answered, 
 and its soundness is shown in the fact that Congress actually did repeal 
 this charter subsequently, and that action has never been reversed. The 
 indomitable pluck and spirit of the man may be seen from this excerpt 
 from a letter to his father, dated January 20, 1842. He said : "I am, 
 on the whole, better than for several winters before. Though on the 
 day that I made the speech at the bankrupt meeting — I was in commit- 
 tee all the evening and kept up late by Mr. Ward's business — I was 
 fagged, and the next night was at a party at Mr. Butler's, and then edit- 
 ing the Post, I became a little worn. All that is now done, and I am in 
 the usual trim again." Fagged, indeed ! Here is a fine illustration of 
 the triumph of mind over matter. 
 
 On the loth of April, 1842, Mr. Tilden's father died. It was a very 
 great loss to bim in many ways. Father and son were devotedly at- 
 tached to each other. Flam Tilden was a man of superior capacity and 
 enjoyed the acquaintance and friendship of many of the leading men 
 of the State. His house has been already mentioned as a favorite place 
 of meeting for the famous Albany Regency. Not only to show his 
 standing, but as a vivid picture of the limited means of the greatest 
 public men of that day, the following excerpt froni a letter written to 
 him, from Washington, by Silas Wright, then United States Senator, 
 is of great interest. Flam- Tilden had written to President Van Buren, 
 suggesting the nomination' of Senator Wright for Governor. Van 
 Buren showed the letter to Wright and the latter wrote his thanks, but 
 declined to act upon the suggestion. In the course of his reply, dated 
 July 3, 1840, he said : 'T have been^ as you know, in public life al- 
 most since I became a man. of business at all. I was not worth $500 in 
 the world when I was elected to the Senate of our State in the fall of 
 1823. * * * I have really had no private business during the 
 whole period since, and my opportunities to make property, therefore, 
 have been merely those which my official compensations have placed in 
 my way. I have lived prudently, or endeavored to do so, and I consider 
 
464 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 myself now worth about $8,000. Located where I am, and pursuing 
 the style of living which I have always preserved, and having no fam- 
 ily but my wife, and owing no debts, I am quite independent; but- make 
 me Governor, and it will require from from $5,000 to $6,000 to furnish 
 a house for that officer in a manner due to the office, an expense which I 
 cannot defray without going in debt to three-quarters of the amount. 
 I know from Governor Marcy that the salary, with great prudence, will 
 just about defray the expenses of the Governor's house for the term, and 
 cannot be made to do more, the rent being paid by the State. At the 
 close of the term, then, all my property, very nearly, if not entirely, 
 would consist of worn furniture for which I should have no use, and I 
 should be left without other means, not to live in the quiet and retired 
 manner I heretofore have, and now do, but to support the standing of 
 an ex-Governor of New York. In. other words, I should be left a po- 
 litical pauper, a character which it has been the most anxious effort of 
 my life to avoid. This is one of my reasons. 
 
 "The second is not less strong. My wife was taken from the coun- 
 try, and has been bred up and always lived there, and is most exceed- 
 ingly averse to being placed in any situation which shall require from 
 her the discharge of duties to which she does not consider herself fitted 
 either by education, habit, or feeling." 
 
 This is certainly a picture worth preserving, for Silas Wright ranks 
 among the greatest men who have figured in the public life of the State 
 of New York. The financial outlays of the Governor's mansion, which 
 formed so strong an objection with Governor Wright, and which he set 
 forth with such simple pathos, are no longer required, the State having 
 provided an executive residence at Albany, and it was the son of Elam 
 Tilden, to whom this letter was addressed, who was its first official oc- 
 cupant. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention of 1844, in which Mr. Van 
 Buren appeared to have an assured majority of the delegates, refused 
 him the nomination, which was given to James K. Polk, of Tennessee, 
 very much to the surprise of the nation and to the intense disgust of the 
 Democracy of the State of New York. The split in the party, which 
 had long been threatened, now became pronounced. Mr. Tilden be- 
 longed, of course, to the Van Buren wing. There can be no doubt that 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 465 
 
 his indignation was as hot as that of any other man, but he was a man 
 who was never carried away by impulses into- foolish performances. To 
 use a homely slang phrase of great expressiveness, as one of our Ameri- 
 can humorists said of George Washington, "he never slopped over." 
 He had become a recognized force in the party, at Washington as well 
 as in New York. He saw that to revolt was to bring political ruin to 
 Mr. Van Buren's friends as well as to the ex-President himself. There- 
 fore, with that practical sagacity which never deserted him, he saw 
 that the only hope of his friends and himself was in making Mr. Polk 
 owe his electioiLto them, by giving him the electoral vote of New York. 
 To do this, it was essential, in the first place, to nominate Silas Wright 
 for Governor. No other Democrat could confidently be relied upon to 
 carry the State. It was a great sacrifice for him to leave the Senate, 
 where he had become not only a power, but the unquestioned leader of 
 his party. He had peremptorily declined the nomination for Vice- 
 President, which had been given him. That he did not desire the Gov- 
 ernorship he had clearly shown in his letter to Mr. Elam Tilden, before 
 quoted. But Mr. Tilden undertook the task and succeeded. The young 
 man with the clear vision prevailed with the older statesman, and now 
 that Senator Wright had consented to run, no stone must be left un- 
 turned to make the sacrifice accomplish its purpose. 
 
 Mr. Tilden, consequently, devoted himself to the campaign and, al- 
 though it was not recognized at the time, there can be but little doubt 
 in the light of the later revelations of his unrivaled political generalship, 
 that the victory in New York and, through that, the victory in the na- 
 tion, was the work of this astute young Democrat who had induced 
 Silas Wright to run for Governor, and who had shaped the campaign 
 upon successful lines. One of his most important moves was to found 
 and manage a daily newspaper in the city of New York. Mr. Tilden 
 had to the end of his days a firm faith in the supreme value of the press 
 as an aid to the success of a political party, and he had illustrated the 
 soundness of his belief in the election of 1844. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention of 1844 was the first one in 
 which the slave power appeared prominently as an aggressive force. 
 This was really the power which defeated the nomination of Van Buren. 
 That this power had now fully determined upon its policy of rule or 
 
466 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 ruin became steadily clearer until the day when it broke out in armed 
 rebellion. The new President ignored Van- Buren and his friends. In- 
 stead of appointing Silas Wright Secretary of the Treasury, he se- 
 lected as the New York representative in the Cabinet William L. 
 Marcy, the leader of the "Hunkers," who received the portfolio of Sec- 
 retary of War. Mr. Tilden was tendered the position of Naval Officer 
 at the Port of New York, said to pay $20,000 a year. He was poor, 
 and he could not have hoped for any such income from his profession 
 for many years. But he promptly declined the ofifer, stating that he 
 did not labor for the 'election of President Polk to push his own inter- 
 ests. The two factions of the Democratic Party in New York, popu- 
 larly known as "Hunkers" and "Barnburners," "Hardshells" and 
 "Softshells" or later as simply "Hards" and "Softs," were now formed, 
 and continued until the rise of the modern Republican Party. 
 
 Marcy and \A"right were the heads of the respective factions, or 
 wings, although ex-President Van Buren was really at the head of the 
 Softshells. For the time being, however, it was a fight for supremacy 
 between Wright and Marcy. The question was which of them should 
 be forced out of public life. Tilden naturally sided with Wright, and 
 at his special instance accepted a nomination to the Assembly, which 
 was followed by an election. This was his first experience in any legis- 
 lative body, but he was a valuable and influential member, notwith- 
 standing, and as Chairman of a committee which settled the threaten- 
 ing "Anti-Rent" war, he gained much prominence. While still a mem- 
 mer of the Assembly he was elected to the convention elected in 1846 
 to revise the State Constitution-. Here, again, he was a man of mark 
 and received great consideration. He was especially familiar with ques- 
 tions of finance and the canals, both of pre-eminent importance and, at 
 the same time, about which the gitater portion, of his colleagues were 
 much less competent to deal. With the possible exception of Michael 
 Hoffman, a very able Democrat from Herkimer County, no member 
 had more influence in shaping the action of the convention on the canal 
 question than Mr. Tilden, unless it was Charles O'Conor, who was on 
 the same committee. His great specialty, however, was banking and 
 currency. Indeed he made a fine record on this subject in the conven- 
 tion, and in the course of the discussions he made a remarkable speech. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 467 
 
 in which may be found the germs of the best modern thought, after 
 sixty years of further experience. The keynote of the speech was deny- 
 ing the power, under the Constitution, of any government, State or Fed- 
 eral, to make a legal tender of anything but gold and silver. 
 
 In 1846 Governor Wright was nominated with practical unanimity. 
 If elected he would be the predestined successor to President Polk. But 
 he was a man who could be neither corrupted nor cajoled, and to pre- 
 vent the succession of such a powerful opponent of the further exten- 
 sion of slave territory to the Presidency, the influence of Polk and his 
 Administration was turned against him and he was defeated. Nine 
 moriths later this noble man, true patriot and consummate statesman 
 died, at his home, in St. Lawrence County. He was just in his prime, 
 and had he lived he would have played a great part in the stormy times 
 that were just ahead. 
 
 The Administration had wrecked its party in New York and the 
 political enemy had gained possession of the entire State government 
 and elected a large majority of the delegation to the National Congress. 
 The full fruit of this course did not appear until the presidential cam- 
 paign of 1848. Several Southern States had adopted resolutions in 
 their State conventions taking the most extreme ground against Con- 
 gress being- permitted to prohibit the introduction of slaves into Terri- 
 tories then free, and maintaining that slaveholders might legally take 
 their slaves along with their other property when settling in the Terri- 
 tories. They further pledged themselves not to support any man for 
 Prfesident or Vice-President who would not openly avow himself in 
 favor of the position they had taken. On the other hand ex-President 
 Van Buren had. prepared an address which he handed to Mr. Tilden to 
 revise, and which he did revise in collaboration with John Van Buren, 
 and which- was given to the public as an Address from the Democratic 
 Members of the Legislature. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore in May, 
 1848. The regular delegates, appointed by the Democratic State Con- 
 vention, had their seats contested by a self-appointed delegation of 
 Hunkers. The convention voted to divide the State's representatives 
 equally between- the two delegations. The regular, or Free-Soil dele- 
 gation, of which Mr. Tilden was a member, therefore withdrew after 
 
468 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 sending a written protest. A State Democratic Convention was called 
 to meet at Utica, June 22d, to hear the report of its rejected delegates, 
 which Mr. Tilden had been instructed by his colleagues to prepare. 
 Every delegate signed it. The outcome was a Free-Soil Democratic 
 State Convention, held September 15th, at which Martin Van Buren 
 was nominated for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice- 
 President. 
 
 The immediate effect was to divide the Democracy of New York 
 into two nearly equal portions, which gave the electoral vote of the 
 State to General Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate. The vote of 
 New York again, as in 1844 ^J^d as it has been in several later presi- 
 dential elections, was decisive of the contest, Taylor receiving 163 elec- 
 toral votes and Cass 127. The ultimate effect of this convention was to 
 lead the North to accept the challenge of the South, to divide the coun- 
 try on new lines and to bring about the final extinction of human slav- 
 ery in the United States. 
 
 Mr. Tilden, after the wreck of the State organization of his party, 
 practically withdrew from active leadership, or even participation in 
 politics, devoting himself to his profession, in which he attained a 
 very high rank and accumulated a very large fortune. His only ven- 
 ture in politics for many years was to accept an unsolicited nomination 
 by his party for Attorney-General of the State in 1855, but the Know- 
 Nothing craze was then in full swing and he was- defeated along with 
 the remainder of the ticket. 
 
 While out of politics and devoting himself to the practice of his 
 profession, Mr. Tilden won two remarkable cases, each by the sheer 
 force of his intellect in untangling and demolishing an apparently per- 
 fect mass of evidence prepared by his opponents. These cases were 
 the contested election of City Comptrollei: Azariah C. Flagg, one of his 
 long-time intimate Democratic associates, and the celebrated Burdell 
 murder case, in which he defeated the claim of the alleged widow to 
 the dead man's estate through a pretended marriage. The untiring 
 energy and the wonderful skill with which he won victory where defeat 
 seemed certain gave him great prestige. This was increased by his 
 management of a case between the Delaware and Hudson Canal Com- 
 pany and the Pennsylvania Coal Company. The perfection with which 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 469 
 
 he brought out the real facts, so that they seemed perfectly clear, from 
 a mass of circumstances and complicated evidence which apparently 
 made his case hopeless, brought him not only great reputation, but em- 
 ployment in a class of litigations from which he literally made millions 
 of dollars from his labors as a lawyer. He did not engage in a general 
 office practice, but concentrated his energies entirely upon cases involv- 
 ing great monetary interests. Limiting his practice to these, he had 
 time to master each one thoroughly. Thus he accomplished results that 
 seemed almost like magic, and for many years there was scarcely a case 
 involving railroads or other large corporations in which he was not re- 
 tained. Nor was his great fortune accumulated by excessive charges. 
 They were based upon the amount of work done, and not upon the value 
 in dollars to his client of the result. In fact he distrusted the clients 
 who offered him excessively large retainers. And he never allowed 
 himself to accept a contingent retainer. He always mastered his causes 
 thoroughly, and he was always the perfect master of himself. It is said 
 of him that "he never lost his presence of mind in court, on the plat- 
 form or indeed in any assembly, nor did he ever seem surprised or em- 
 barrassed." He had an intuitive comprehension of the vital points in a 
 case and he concentrated his force upon them. His business habits were 
 not at all systematic. His office hours were irregular, he was not punc- 
 tual and in his office was an utter lack of method. The writer of this 
 sketch is reminded of a remark of William M. Evarts, when asked the 
 secret of his longevity and his amazing vitality at his great age. Said 
 he : "I do not know what it is, unless it is because I retire late, am ir- 
 regular at my meals, always eat what I want to and never take any 
 exercise." So of Tilden, his vast and varied business was all at loose 
 ends. He rarely, if ever, endorsed or filed away any law paper or made 
 an entry in his register. He was a life-long invalid, as already stated, 
 but few men in the full vigor of physical powers ever accomplished as 
 much through persistent and exhausting labor as Samuel J. Tilden. He 
 wasted none of his strength ; each blow struck aided his triumph. 
 
 When the political parties of the country divided on the slavery 
 issue, Mr. Tilden was urgently pressed to join the newly formed Repub- 
 lican organization, but he declined. He thought his place of highest 
 influence was inside the Democratic Party, and he feared the conse- 
 
470 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 quences of dividing the people of the United States into geographical 
 parties. He had no doubt that the triumph of the Free-Soil Party, how- 
 ever it might be styled, through the electoral votes of the Free States, 
 and without the vote of any Slave State, would necessarily be civil war. 
 He saw clearly the desperation of the Southern leaders, and he shrank 
 from civil war. The election of Buchanan, while it postponed the armed 
 conflict, did not give rest to the country and the slave power, during 
 the whole of his administration, was busily engaged in strengthening 
 its entrenchments. In i860 he supported the Fusion electoral ticket in 
 New York, formed by the opponents of Mr. Lincoln. That he had any 
 sort of sympathy with slavery or with the course of its champions, it 
 would be absurd to suppose, but he thought the rising tide of im.migra- 
 tion would soon settle the conflict without war. He attended the ad- 
 journed meeting of the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, 
 and made two speeches in the convention, a very unusual performance 
 for him. 
 
 In this matter of the probable consequences of the election of Lin- 
 coln, Mr. Tilden simply gave another evidence of that clearness of vis- 
 ion and soundness of judgment which was one of his pre-eminent gifts. 
 But when the war came he felt it his duty to sustain the government 
 and his loyalty knew no faltering. In a speech in 1866 he said that he 
 had studied this whole question, of the right of a- State to withdraw 
 from the Union at its own pleasure, in 1833, when Madison, the father 
 of the Constitution, was still living, and participated largely in the dis- 
 cussions of that period. And in these discussions it was established 
 that Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic Party, entirely 
 concurred with Mr. Madison in denying the right of any State to so 
 nullify the laws as to secede from the Union. All the great Democrats 
 of New York — ^Van Buren, Livingston, Wright, Marcy, as well as 
 President Jackson — took part in the discussions and all repudiated 
 nullification and secession, as had Madison and Jefferson. Though 
 never what was generally styled an Abolitionist, neither was he ever 
 the advocate or apologist of human slavery. In the questions growing 
 out of the annexation of Texas and the territory acquired from Mexico 
 he was in favor of everything possible to exclude slavery from free 
 territory. Again, in 1854, he was open and decided in his opposition 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 471 
 
 to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the discussions after the 
 election of Lincoln, when many strong Republicans favored letting- the 
 seceded States go, Mr. Tilden contended that peaceful separation was 
 an illusion; that the questions in controversy would be rendered infi- 
 nitely more difficult by separation, and new ones still more difficult 
 would be created ; that if the antagonized parties could not agree upon 
 peace within the Union, they certainly would not have peace without 
 the Union — they never could agree upon terms" of separation, nor could 
 they agree* upon the relations to subsist between them after the separa- 
 tion ; and', however lamentable might be the consequences, force could 
 be the only arbiter of their differences. 
 
 After the attack on Fort Sumter Mr. Tilden, with his usual clear- 
 sightedness and far-sightedness said, at a meeting at the residence of 
 General Dix, that "the prevailing estimate of the impending war was, 
 in his judgment, entirely incorrect; that it could not be a small war; 
 that, instead of seventy-live thousand men which had been called for by 
 the proclamation of the 15th of April, five hundred thousand at least 
 ought to be enlisted — two hundred and fifty thousand for immediate 
 service, and the remainder to be put in camps of instruction ; that it was 
 idle to hope to get on, except at unnecessary sacrifice, without the ad- 
 vantages of discipline and without preparation on a scale commensu- 
 rate with the territorial proportions of the belligerents." 
 
 And during the week preceding and the week following Mr. Stan- 
 ton's assuming the duties of Secretary of War, and at his invitation, 
 Mr. Tilden had frequent conferences with him, at the first of which he 
 said in substance : "You have no right to expect a great military gen- 
 ius to come to your assistance. The whole human race have been able 
 to furnish such men only once in a century or two ; you can only count 
 on the average military talent ; you have three times the available popu- 
 lation and perhaps nine times the industrial resources of your antago- 
 nist; though you- occupy the exterior line, you have an immense ad- 
 vantage in the superior capacity of your railways to move men and sup- 
 plies. What you have to do is to make your advantages available; you 
 must make your combinations so as to concentrate your forces and or- 
 ganize ample reserves to be ready to precipitate them on critical points. 
 In the probable absence of military genius you should rely on over- 
 
472 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 whelming numbers wisely concentrated." Mr. Stanton seemed to agree 
 with these views, but unfortunately they were not adopted. Nor does 
 it seem to have been Secretary Stanton's fault. A year and a half later, 
 when Mr. Tilden and Governor Morgan, of New York, visited Wash- 
 ington for the purpose of securing greater harmony of action between 
 the Federal and the State governments, Mr. Stanton, in a conversation 
 with Mr. Tilden, referred to this advice, and added : "I beg you to 
 remember, my dear sir, I always agreed with you." 
 
 Mr. Tilden's views, seen in the light of experience, seem to have 
 been prophetic. The government's superior forces were of no value 
 except as they were called into use. As long as comparatively small 
 drafts were made upon them, the rebel authorities were able to draw as 
 much from their more limited resources. If the whole power of the 
 government had been put forth in 1861 the war would never have 
 dragged along, with its enormous and ever increasing cost in blood and 
 treasure, for more than four years. 
 
 Another point of, perhaps, equal value, was Mr. Tilden's advice 
 concerning the finances. Before the government's financial policy had 
 beeil fully determined upon, he advised that the money for carrying on 
 the war should be chiefly drawn from loans to be supplemented by 
 taxes, and no more treasury notes not bearing interest be issued than 
 were barely necessary to supply the new uses created by the govern- 
 ment in its own payments. The adoption of this plan would have pre- 
 vented the issue of the floods of irredeemable paper money which proved 
 so costly and so embarrassing to the people. Mr. Tilden said in after 
 years, in his first official message to the Legislature as Governor of New 
 York, in 1875 : "If the Federal government had paid out treasury 
 notes, not made a legal tender, in its own transactions whenever it was 
 convenient, and redeemed them by the proceeds of loans and taxes on 
 their presentation at a central point of commerce, and meanwhile had 
 borrowed at the market rates for its bonds, secured by ample sinking 
 funds, founded on taxation, and had supplemented such loans by all 
 necessary taxes, the sacrifices would not have been half those required 
 by the false system adopted ; perhaps the cost of the war would not have 
 been half what it became." 
 
 His attitude throughout the war was that of consistent loyalty to 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 473 
 
 the government, while retaining the hberty of criticising such of its 
 measures as seemed to him to be unsound or unwise. 
 
 Mr. Tilden's first public employment after the close of the great 
 civil war, was as a delegate to the convention called to revise the Con- 
 stitution of New York in 1867. He was an influential member, it is 
 needless to say. The speech he made against a proposed enlargement 
 of the Erie Canal attracted much attention. He foresaw the waste and 
 jobbery that the scheme would cause, and maintained : "It is an en- 
 largement of the capacity of the men who administer the canal, which 
 is now wanted, and not an enlargement of the canal." The experiment 
 of enlargement, made under Republican management twenty-seven 
 years after, showed again the prophetic power of his insight and of his 
 common sense. 
 
 In the course of a discussion in the convention, a Republican dele- 
 gate made imputations that Mr. Tilden and those who acted with him 
 on the finance committee, sympathized with the Rebellion. Mr. Tilden 
 made a scorching reply to this base calumny. He said that when he 
 was asked at the outset of the war to take some part in the public meas- 
 ures in the city of New York relating to that subject, he had answered 
 that he would give to the public agents, although elected by the oppo- 
 site party, although he was unable tO' influence their policy, a support 
 as full, as fair, as candid and as liberal as he would have given to 
 Andrew Jackson if he had been in the presidential chair in place of Mr. 
 Lincoln, and that during the entire war he had never deviated from 
 that position. The proposed new Constitution prepared by the conven- 
 tion was defeated at the polls. 
 
 Mr. Tilden had scarcely finished his labors in the Constitutional 
 Convention, when he became engaged in the titanic struggle to over- 
 throw the combination of corruptionists in the municipal government 
 of New York City, familiarly known as "The Tweed Ring." The ring 
 was entrenched in what not only its members, but the public generally, 
 considered an impregnable position. This ring, like all the others that 
 do business on an extensive scale, was entirely devoid of such a narrow 
 thing as partisanship. Large-handed, long-fingered thieves of both po- 
 litical parties had a share in the "swag." Indeed, legislative bodies in 
 which each party held control participated in the plunder. While the 
 
474 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 actual stealing was the work of Democratic scoundrels in New York 
 City, they operated under privileges granted them by Republican scoun- 
 drels who controlled legislation at Albany. The combination is said to 
 have robbed the city treasury, through fraudulent bills, of the sum of 
 $12,250,000 in 1870, and of $3,400,000 in 1871. It must be said, how- 
 ever, in explanation of their apparent remissness in the latter year, that 
 Mr. Tilden was on their trail and they had to be more guarded. The 
 courage and the tenacity of the fight by which he overthrew the robbers 
 and landed most of them in prison makes a heroic story and one that 
 gave him a national and a permanent fame. The full history of this 
 struggle is too long for this narrative, but any sketch of Samuel J. Til- 
 den would be inctimplete without some account of his marvelous work. 
 
 In the beginning there was nothing more than» suspicion. The 
 municipal outlays were astoundingly large, without corresponding vis- 
 ible results. At the same time certain municipal functionaries were 
 reveling in such extravagance and luxury that "rolling in wealth" is a 
 phrase that would but faintly describe it. 
 
 There was obviously some connection between these two facts, and 
 at last it was given to Samuel J. Tilden to discover it. The corruption 
 had proceeded so far that the Bar, and even the Bench, had become in- 
 volved, and this fact had much to do with sharpening Tilden's sword 
 and strengthening his determination to uncover the frauds and see that 
 punishment was meted out to the thieves. He fought and overthrew the 
 ring in a fight for the control of the Democratic State organization. 
 He also directed his most earnest efforts toward dislodging the cor- 
 rupt majority through which the ring controlled" the State Legislature. 
 The ring felt Tilden's influence and feared it still more. He was ap- 
 proached and almost all possible inducements were held out to him to 
 persuade him to discontinue his relentless work. To use his own 
 words : "A great many times that offer was repeated, and everything 
 was tendered me except the Senate and Assembly of the State of New 
 York, but I said that everything else was of no value for them to give, 
 and of no value for me to take ; whatever else I might compromise, the 
 legislation to affect the city government / could not compromise, and I 
 would not. I told the State Convention — being the nominal head of 
 the Democratic Party of the State — for the sal^e of perfect frankness 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 475 
 
 and distinctness, and in order that I might not be misunderstood — I 
 told them that I felt it to be my duty to oppose any man who would not 
 go for malcing the government of this city what it ought to be, at what- 
 ever cost, at whatever sacrifice. If they did not deem that 'regular,' / 
 would resign as Chairman of the State Committee and take my place 
 in the ranks of my plundered fellow citizens, and help them to fight 
 their battle of emancipation." 
 
 These tones are not of the time-server, nor even of the politician. 
 They are the tones of a bold and determined patriot, and that is what 
 Samuel J. Tilden proved himself to be, in every emergency. He was 
 no trimmer, no seeker after popularity or selfish advantage, where the 
 public service was concerned. On the contrary he was always the reso- 
 lute and fearless champion of that for which, according to the Ameri- 
 can theory, all governments are instituted — the well being of the gov- 
 erned. That a person who had done wrong to the public ought to be 
 sheltered and excused if he happened to belong to his own political 
 party, was a doctrine of political ethics which he opposed with all his 
 might. 
 
 In order to properly estimate the moral courage and civic devotion 
 of Mr. Tilden in his overthrow of the Tweed Ring, and afterwards of 
 the Canal Ring, it should always be kept in remembrance that such 
 combinations are generally not only tolerated, but even looked upon 
 with favor, and actually encouraged, by political party leaders and 
 bosses, for it is from such sources that the heaviest contributions to the 
 party campaign funds are often secured. And in this instance, it was 
 not alone campaign funds that were at stake, but the very party organi- 
 zation in the great city whose overwhelming Democratic majority gave 
 the only reasonable ground to hope for a Democratic majority in the 
 State. 
 
 It has been well said that "a party in power is naturally disposed to 
 risk the continuance of abuses rather than hazard the extreme remedy 
 of 'cutting them out by the roots.' " Mr. Tilden had neither office nor 
 patronage to confer, nor to promise, but he appealed to what the ordi- 
 nary politician generally neglects, the moral forces of the community. 
 In his greatest victories at the Bar he had discovered, and acted upon, 
 the fact that truth is always harmonious and is irreconcilable with error. 
 
476 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 While he did not by any means see all the steps of the way, the end he 
 was seeking was perfectly clear, and he pushed the fight without any 
 shadow of misgiving. 
 
 All this time Mr. Tilden had no actual, concrete facts to work on ; 
 he possessed only his shrewd deductions from the general status of 
 things. But at last the wrongdoers, who were inevitably apprehensive 
 when they found this sleepless and inexorable foe determined to' expose 
 and punish them, became more or less demoralized and panic-stricken, 
 and the impulse toward self-protection and, indeed, self-preservation, 
 became too strong to be resisted. A clerk in the office of the City Comp- 
 troller copied a series of entries from the official books, and handed 
 them to the press for publication. They showed the dates and amounts 
 of certain payments made by the Comptroller, the enormous amounts 
 of which, compared with the times and alleged purposes of the pay- 
 ments, and the frequent recurrence of suspected names, gave the strong- 
 est presumption of gross frauds. Mr. Tilden was, of course, at once 
 struck with this and called upon the city officials for explanations. 
 These attempted explanations were so obviously futile that he began to 
 comprehend that the public treasury had been systematically looted by 
 frauds far greater than he had even suspected. 
 
 On the 14th of September, Mr. Connolly, one of the "big four," 
 popularly so-called, the others being Tweed, Sweeney and Mayor A. 
 Oakey Hall, applied to Mr. Tilden for an interview. It was granted, 
 and finally Connolly was induced to virtually turn his office over to An- 
 drew H. Green, by deputizing Mr. Green to exercise all its powers. This 
 gave Tilden the records, to prove the rascality of the ring, prevented 
 their destruction to destroy evidence and it also put a summary stop to 
 the stealing. The work now made rapid progress. At length Tweed 
 and several of his confederates were condemned and sent to prison, and 
 many millions of dollars of their plunder was restored to the city. 
 
 In the State Convention of 1868 to send delegates to the Democratic 
 National Convention, Mr. Tilden strongly denounced the irritating pol- 
 icy pursued by the Republican National Administration, and the waste 
 of life and property in the prosecution of the war. He also made a 
 forcible argument against universal negro sufifrage. In the National 
 Convention Mr. Tilden's old and warm friend, ex-Governor Horatio 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 477 
 
 Seymour, was nominated for President. It was done against his de- 
 clared wishes, but he was at length persuaded to accept the nomination. 
 Tilden gave him an earnest support, but the war feeling was yet very 
 strong, and the Republicans had taken- advantage of it by nominating 
 General Ulysses S. Grant. The Southern States were, politically, still 
 in a more or less chaotic condition, and in several of them United States 
 troops were still stationed, to assist in the work of reconstruction. Grant 
 was elected, but Seymour received the electoral votes of New York. In 
 the interim before the presidential election of 1872, Mr. Tilden gave 
 his attention to his professional business. In the contest of 1872 he sup- 
 ported Horace Greeley, who had been nominated by a large convention 
 of so-called "Liberal Republicans," who were dissatisfied with the ad- 
 ministration of General Grant. In fact Grant had proved a disappoint- 
 ment in the Presidency, and there seemed a good chance to defeat his 
 re-election, but this was thrown away by the nomination of Greeley, 
 who was afterward accepted also as the Democratic candidate by the 
 National Convention of that party. The Democrats were divided 
 throughout the country, in some States almost as badly as they had 
 been in New York in the campaign of 1848, and Grant's majority was 
 overwhelming. Greeley died before the electoral colleges met, and the 
 electors chosen for him divided their support among several candidates. 
 
 At the same election the Republicans also elected General John A. 
 Dix Governor of New York. 
 
 The outlook for the Democratic Party had never been so dark in a 
 time of peace as it was after the presidential election of 1872. It had 
 not only been beaten, but divided and apparently crushed. But both in 
 the State and in the nation the Republican regime made a great fail- 
 ure. Unsavory politicians of the dominant, and apparently invincible, 
 victorious party crowded to the front and there was a regular carnival 
 of corruption. The people were ripe for revolt but, as in all such cases, 
 efficient leadership was the great, the vital need. Mr. Tilden spent the 
 summer of 1873 i^i Europe, and found upon his return that there was 
 a very strong sentiment in favor of making him the Democratic candi- 
 date for Governor against General Dix. In spite of his activity and 
 prominence in politics, he had never sought and had rarely accepted pub- 
 lic office. In fact the sum total of his experiences in that direction had 
 
478 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 been in the lower House of the State Legislature and in the two State 
 constitutional conventions. Indeed, Mr. Van Buren had been heard 
 to say that Mr. Tilden was the most unambitious man he had ever 
 known. His profession had yielded him ample fame and an ample for- 
 tune. He was recognized as a statesman of the highest order, a sincere 
 and unselfish patriot, a leader of undaunted courage and unsurpassed 
 ability. He had the respect and the confidence of the best citizens of 
 all parties, and his counsel was eagerly sought in all matters of great 
 public importance. Official station, even- the highest, had but little to 
 offer him aside from its opportunities for usefulness. And even in the 
 sphere of public usefulness in which he saw such need of thorough and 
 laborious effort, he was sure to encounter the enmity of powerful an- 
 tagonists strongly entrenched. He was certain to become the target for 
 personal abuse in the newspapers controlled by his adversaries, and to 
 incur the envy and hostility of eager rivals and bitter competitors. His 
 nomination was by no means a certainty, for in his warfare upon the 
 Tweed Ring he had aroused many antagonisms in many quarters. Even 
 so old and tried and true a friend as Horatio Seymour could offer him 
 but little encouragement except that "the crown of martyrdom is a 
 glorious one." 
 
 But no other Democrat, measuring up to the. emergency, seemed to 
 care to take the risk of running against Governor Dix, who had been 
 elected two years before by a plurality of 53,451, and who was, as far as 
 any one could see, entirely acceptable to his party. And, more than 
 all, the very cause of reform had apparently come to a halt. The people 
 had begun to lose confidence in the practicability of uprooting abuses. 
 To accept the nomination himself would silence the cry of his enemies 
 that he did not dare to go before the people of the State and submit his 
 record, as the prosecutor of Tweed and his allies in city and country, to 
 the popular judgment. He felt that the moral effect of his election 
 as a smasher of corrupt political rings would be a very wholesome thing 
 for the country at that juncture, as other States needed encouragement 
 and inspiration in that direction as much as New York. Indeed the 
 National Government itself, with its Whiskey Ring and other frauds 
 and abuses, seemed to need a striking example of successful honesty as 
 urgently as any State. 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 479 
 
 The trend toward Tilden's nomination became so strong that the 
 canal jobbers tried to discourage him from accepting it. They also 
 claimed that his unpopularity in the city, on account of the ring prose- 
 cutions, would weaken him. They therefore urged that the nomination 
 be given to Chief Judge Sanford E. Church, of the Court of Appeals, 
 or his kinsman, Judge Allen. Judge Church had, earlier, refused to 
 let his name go before the convention, but as the prospects brightened 
 he became anxious for the nomination, and Tilden was urged to give 
 way in his favor. This Tilden refused to do. He knew Church's limi- 
 tations and determined that, whether he were nominated or not, Church 
 should not be. 
 
 The convention met September 17th and Tilden was nominated 
 without serious opposition, and with great enthusiasm, on the first bal- 
 lot. His nomination was received with great favor by Democrats, and 
 with marked respect by the New York Tribune and other leading Re- 
 publican newspapers. General Dix was classed by them as Tilden's 
 equal in character and ability, but this did deceive the people. Dix had 
 been a trimmer and a time-server, shifting repeatedly from one party to 
 the other to secure office, and to class him with a man of Tilden's stamp 
 was absurd. The voters knew that fact, and Tilden beat Dix 53,315 
 votes, almost exactly the plurality of 53,451 which had been received 
 by Dix in 1872. 
 
 The victor gave his own interpretation of this remarkable personal 
 triumph in an interview with a representative of the New York Tribune 
 the day after the election. He said: "The people are beginning to 
 think that it is time to have a real peace in the United States. It is now 
 ten years since the conflict of arms closed ; but we still have the financial 
 system and the taxation which grew out of the period of war. The 
 Grant Administration subsists upon the passions and hatreds that were 
 engendered by the war. * * * The country feels the waste of cap- 
 ital during the war ; it feels the reaction, the false system of finance, the 
 burdens of debt, and the blight of excessive taxation. The inevitable 
 evils of the situation are increased by the policy of the government to- 
 ward the States of the South. How can we * * * hold the peo- 
 ple of those States by force and by terror under such a dominion as the 
 'carpet-bag' governments, maintain there the most gigantic and auda- 
 
48o THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 cious system of robbery ever known among civilized people, and not ex- 
 pect that these wrongs would react upon our own prosperity? The 
 whole spirit of the government policy is founded on the illusion of a 
 false prosperity, which could not but break and spread fragments of 
 ruin around us. Everything since the war has been fictitious. The peo- 
 ple were taught, after four years of havoc, in which millions of human 
 lives were lost and at least five thousand millions of dollars of property 
 destroyed, that we had been all the time growing richer. This tended to 
 satisfy the people with the existing policy of the government, and to 
 keep in office the men who held the power. It deluded the people into 
 allowing a continuance of public expenditures that was unnecessary and 
 extravagant, fat jobs, distribution of plunder to favorites, costly estab- 
 lishments which ought to have been cut off, hordes of office-holders and 
 dependents, unjust and oppressive systems of taxation, adopted not to 
 raise revenue with the least sacrifice to the people, but to promote the 
 selfish interests of favored classes. The waste of capital during the ten 
 years since the war occasioned by this policy would be equal to some 
 years of the ravages of actual war. The people are now waking from 
 the illusion." 
 
 The practical sagacity of Mr. Tilden was shown, upon his election 
 to the Governorship, in his policy of recruiting from the younger 
 men of the State. The party leaders were mostly old men, inured to 
 defeat for so many years as to have lost the spirit and courage which 
 wins victories. He therefore welcomed young men into positions of 
 leadership, bringing new and warm blood into the party, young men 
 who had not been demoralized by repeated defeats nor by bad examples. 
 One of his epigrams was : "Old men grunt, young men lift." The one 
 question of human slavery, and the war and, later, questions growing 
 out of it, had obscured all other matters from view so, as Mr. Tilden 
 said, "We had almost ceased to educate young men to do their part in 
 human society towards carrying on the functions of government. 
 * * * I have been one of those who, amid periods pregnant with 
 despondency, still retained that trust in the body of the American peo- 
 ple with which I began life. I did not incline to censure those who 
 sometimes felt despondent. But I myself never lost courage; never 
 lost my belief that the element of human society which seeks for what 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 481 
 
 is good is more powerful, if we will trust it, than all those selfish com- 
 binations that would obtain unjust advantages over the masses of the 
 people." 
 
 On New Year's Day of 1875 Mr. Tilden was inaugurated Gover- 
 nor. Many illustrious men had preceded him in that great office, but 
 no one of them had ever brought such a complete mental and moral 
 equipment for the work in hand. He had often deplored measures of 
 the Democratic Party, but had always giveu it his adherence, frbm the 
 conviction that this great, historic organization had a truer grasp of the 
 principles making for and conserving the rights and interests of the 
 American people than any of its rivals. The Legislature was divided, 
 politically. The Senate had been elected in 1873 ^"d had a majority of 
 Republicans, while the Assembly, chosen in 1874, had a majority of 
 Democrats. His message was a great state paper and one that pro- 
 duced a profound impression throughout the country. It foreshadowed 
 three leading principles : 
 
 First. Reform in administration. 
 
 Second. Restoration of the financial principles which triumphed 
 in the election of Jackson and Van Buren, and left the country for the 
 first time in its history without a dollar of indebtedness, and with un- 
 rivaled credit. 
 
 Third. The cordial and unconditional acceptance of the Amend- 
 ments to the Constitution growing out of the great civil war and secur- 
 ing the settlement of the issues it had decided. 
 
 In this first message. Governor Tilden reiterated his views, al- 
 ready given upon the great mistake of issuing the "greenback" irre- 
 deemable currency during the war, and devoted much attention to other 
 matters connected with the subject of finance, of which he was an un- 
 disputed master. 
 
 The great event of his administration as Governor, however, was his 
 uncovering of the enormous frauds in connection with the State canals, 
 and the exposure of the thieves who had for years been systematically 
 robbing the public treasury. He presented the case against the Canal 
 Ring to the Legislature in a special message, March 19, 1875. He had 
 first, however, secured the passage of such legislation to discover and 
 punish official delinquencies as he desired. The Canal Ring was com- 
 
482 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 posed of members belonging to both the great political parties, so that 
 it had powerful friends at court, no matter which party might happen 
 to be in power at any particular time. Its members had been able to 
 accumulate large wealth through plundering the State treasury as 
 contractors. There were also a number of henchmen, appointed by the 
 ring's influence as agents of the State, who certified to the amount of 
 work alleged to have been performed, and audited and paid the bills for 
 the same. At the time Tilden throttled the conspiracy, the chief man- 
 agers were Messrs. Denison and Belden, of Syracuse. The former 
 looked after the Democrats and the latter after the Republicans, and 
 they were thus prepared for any political emergency. It was said of 
 this pair that "Denison furnished the rum and the Democracy, and Bel- 
 den the hypocrisy and the Republicanism." They had contactors and 
 other agents and tools in the Legislature, men who had been placed there 
 through the influence and the money of the ring. Mr. Tilden was 
 thoroughly posted as to the power and methods of operation of this 
 conspiracy for plunder, for he had more than once tried conclusions 
 with it, but when not defeated by the thorough organization and the 
 skilfully prepared evidence, his victories had cost substantially all they 
 were worth from a financial standpoint. 
 
 Here, therefore, as always and everywhere, he was not laboring 
 under any illusions. He did not malte the fatal mistake of underrating 
 the power of his adversaries, their skill or their resources. As soon as 
 he was elected Governor he began to collect the evidence for the contest 
 before him. He employed a competent engineer, in whose capacity and 
 integrity he had implicit confidence, to visit those portiol'^s of the canal 
 upon which contract work had been done during several years imme- 
 diately preceding, instructing him to take down enough of the walls to 
 ascertain the amount and character of the work that had been paid for, 
 and then to compare this work with that for which the contracts had 
 called, and for which the contractors had been paid by the State. This 
 investigation was managed so discreetly that no suspicion had been 
 aroused, and the results had been laid before the Governor before, or 
 very soon after, his inauguration. 
 
 Governor Tilden had, indeed, prepared everything with his usual thor- 
 oughness and when he prepared his message on the subject, it was not 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 483 
 
 based upon suspicion or mere surmises, and the investigation demanded 
 was no mere dragnet cast out with the hope of landing something. On 
 the contrary this remarkable document, which startled both the Legis- 
 lature and the State, set forth in detail the fraudulent processes through 
 which for an indefinite period of years the State treasury had been 
 robbed, officials had been debauched, politics demoralized and the 
 State's credit impaired. His opening statement was one which immedi- 
 ately fastened the attention of the reader. In it he said that for the five 
 years preceding his election the sum paid for repairs on the State canals 
 had cost the State over five millions of dollars more than the revenue 
 received from them in tolls. He then cited ten cases in which, at the 
 letting of the contracts, the bids of the contractors called for an outlay 
 of $424,735, while the State had actually paid the enormous sum of 
 $1,560,769. He laid bare the evolution of such a system of gigantic 
 robbery as follows: "The interest which fattens on abuses of public 
 expenditures is intelligent, energetic, and persistent, acting as a unit ; it 
 takes part through its members in the organization and the doings of 
 both political parties; seeks to control nominations; rewards friends; 
 punishes enemies ; and it begins to operate by every form of seductive 
 and coercive influence upon public officers as they are elected." 
 
 It was a bold move, a defiant challenge. Thirty years before, that 
 illustrious patriot and statesman, Silas Wright, in a similar contest 
 with the baser elements of his party, had been stricken down, and exiled 
 from -public life. Tilden was aware of this fact and aware, also, that 
 the resources of the enemy he had attacked were many times greater 
 than those which had proved fatal to his predecessor. It was certainly 
 a striking instance and example of the heroic in politics. 
 
 The reluctant Legislature was forced to yield to the Governor's de- 
 mand for an investigation, and he was authorized to appoint a com- 
 mittee for that purpose. To break the effect of any findings which this 
 committee might present, the canal interest induced the Assembly to 
 create another commission of its own, to ostensibly discharge the same 
 duty. The purpose of this scheme was soon disclosed by an applica- 
 tion from the members pf this new commission, based on various plaus- 
 ible pretexts, to be adjoined to the commission appointed by the Gov- 
 ernor. The ring promptly discovered, however, that it had to deal with 
 
484 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 an executive who was not to be cajoled, who united to indomitable cour- 
 age a craft and skill fully equal to its own. 
 
 The commission, of twelve members, set to work, and during the 
 summer of 1875 and the following winter, it handed in twelve reports, 
 which fully substantiated all the Governor's charges and a number of 
 indictments, nearly all of them against members of the Governor's own 
 political party, were found. 
 
 It was a grand triumph, not only for the State, but for Governor 
 Tilden, personally. One of the leading Republican newspapers in the 
 western part of the State hit off the situation in this way. It said : 
 "Governor Tilden weighs only one hundred and thirty pounds, but the 
 canal ring entertains the view of him that the boy did of the mule, 
 'How much did he weigh ?' Said the boy, 'Well, I only weighed one of 
 his hind legs, and I calculate that weighed about 7,000 pounds.' ." 
 
 The Governor next recommended the creation of a commission to 
 investigate and report upon a plan to curb the inordinate growth of in- 
 debtedness by the municipal corporations of the State. Its labors were 
 not, however, productive of any result. It presented a plan, including 
 the establishment of a Board of Audit in each municipality, the mem- 
 bers to be voted for only by taxpayers or owners of property to a lim- 
 ited amount, and this "property qualification" proved fatal to its adop- 
 tion. 
 
 Some time before the meeting of the Legislature a squad of United 
 States soldiers had been directed to enter the hall of the Legislature of 
 Louisiana, while that body wa^ in session, and remove five of its mem- 
 bers. There was also an effort made to try and execute these members 
 through the process of a military commission. This outrage, although 
 approved, if not actually instigated, by the administration at Washing- 
 ton, naturally excited intense indignation throughout the country. Gov- 
 ernor Tilden made the matter the subject of a communication to the 
 Legislature soon after it assembled, in which he recommended that the 
 Legislature should condemn this assault "by a public reprobation which 
 shall make it memorable as a warning to all future officers of the State 
 and army." This outrage doubtless had a cpnsiderable effect in secur- 
 ing his great majority when a candidate for President, two years later. 
 
 In the summer of 1875 Mr. Tilden yielded to a general desire in the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 485 
 
 western part of the State that he should make a tour through the canal 
 counties. He left Albany on the 8th of August and went direct to Buf- 
 falo, where he accepted an invitation from the Board of Trade to a 
 pulalic reception on the loth. He was cordially received all along the 
 route, and on his return he gratified a large crowd at Syracuse, which 
 had been the headquarters of the canal ring, by making an address from 
 the platform of his car. He was serenaded at Utica, where he stopped 
 over night and here, also, he delivered a brief address. He was greeted 
 with large crowds, salutes of cannon and bands of music at all the lead- 
 ing stations, responding briefly, and at Albany he received a general 
 welcome from the citizens who were gathered in the Assembly chamber 
 to receive him. 
 
 This tour was, of course, a large topic for the newspapers, not only 
 of New York, but of the entire country, and Governor Tilden at once 
 began to be prominently mentioned for the Presidency in 1876. As a 
 specimen of the newspaper comments on this trip, we give the following 
 from the New York Nation, not a party organ, by the way. The Nation 
 said : "Mr. Tilden has been making a sort of progress through the 
 State, addressing crowds in the towns through which he passed, on the 
 subject of reform. He has spoken very plainly about it, and told his 
 audiences that what was meant by reform is not electing 'straight-out' 
 Democrats, nor Jefferson Democrats, nor 'rallying,' nor 'wheeling into 
 line,' nor even hurling the corrupt centralizer from power, but the elec- 
 tion of honest men of whatever party to do the work of the government. 
 His remarks seem to have struck the assembled multitudes very favor- 
 ably, and it would appear from their manifestations of approval that 
 this is just the sort of thing they mean by reform themselves." 
 
 An election for State officers was to take place in November, 1875, 
 and already the presidential election of 1876 began to loom up large 
 on the political horizon. The fearless integrity of Governor Tilden and 
 his marvelous skill in unearthing official corruption and bringing public 
 thieves to justice, made him easily the foremost man in public life. The 
 eyes of the nation were turned to him, as the invincible and incorruptible 
 patriot to whom should be entrusted the gigantic task of letting in the 
 light upon the festering mass of corruption in the general government, 
 which had grown up under the great Civil War and the tax system 
 
486 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 which had since prevailed in the conduct of national affairs. This made 
 the approaching State election one of great interest far beyond the 
 boundaries of New York. Governor Tilden was fully alive to its im- 
 portance. He delivered an address at the Columbia County Fair, the 
 county of his birth and the home of his boyhood, which abounded in the 
 political and patriotic wisdom for which he had became pre-eminent. 
 He also delivered an address at the Central New York Annual Fair, 
 at Utica. In both of these addresses he made prominent the enormous 
 cost of the government, and the inordinate sum of public taxation. 
 These addresses attracted wide attention and favorable comment in 
 every part of the country, and greatly increased the popular desire to see 
 him in the presidential chair. The Democratic State ticket was elected 
 over a coalition of its adversaries by majorities ranging from fifteen 
 thousand to twenty thousand. The State Democracy had won its vic- 
 tory on issues that were of national scope and interest, administrative 
 reform, a sound currency, repeal of the legal tender act, and against 
 third-term candidates for the Presidency. The country felt the need 
 of reform and was crying for it, and here was a Reformer with a big 
 R, a Reformer who actually reformed public abuses and smashed cor- 
 rupt rings of jobbers with relentless and refreshing indifference as to 
 which party they claimed to belong. In his official position as Gov- 
 ernor he worked as strenuously as if he were preparing an important 
 case for a client. Indeed he seems to have felt that such was the case, 
 that the State' and its people had retained him as counsel and it was his 
 duty to win their cause. Unfortunately he was not as wise and con- 
 siderate in conserving his own health and physical powers as he was in 
 his care for the public interests committed to his charge. In February, 
 1875, he experienced a cerebral attack which was so near akin to paraly- 
 sis that his friends were alarmed and his enemies rejoiced. They pro- 
 claimed that the great foe of corruption was a mental wreck. In their 
 case, however, "the wish was father to the thought," the attack proving 
 to be not serious. 
 
 In his second annual message, January i, 1876, Governor Tilden 
 devoted a good deal of space to national affairs, and more especially 
 those relating to the systems of national taxation and expenditure. His 
 excuse for this unusual course was that New York's own share of the 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 487 
 
 taxes levied by the Federal Government annually exceeded $80,000,- 
 000 ; that the Federal Government controlled the currency and banking 
 of the whole country; that it was the principal dealer in the precious 
 metals ; that it "regulates" the supply and rates of the loan market, the 
 terms of our foreign exchanges, the prices of our exports and imports, 
 the quality of our circulating medium, and in addition to this exerts a 
 natural and powerful ascendancy over public opinion through its pecu- 
 liar and exclusive means of propagating ideas in sympathy with the 
 methods according to which its awn operations are conducted. He also 
 suggested a prompt resumption of specie payments, which was marked 
 by his usual clearness and force. 
 
 The opposition to Governor Tilden's nomination as the Democratic 
 candidate for President was. active as the time for the election of New 
 York's delegates to the national convention drew near. They tried to 
 prevent the instruction of these delegates to support his nomination, but 
 it was all in vain. Governor Tilden's friends were in a large majority 
 in the State convention, and in the delegation appointed to the national 
 convention, and to make things secure ironclad instructions were given 
 the delegates to vote as a unit. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention met at St. Louis, June 27th. 
 Colonel Henry Watterson, of Kentucky, was elected temporary chair- 
 man and General John A. McClernand, of Illinois, permanent chairman. 
 Both were staunch friends of Governor Tilden. There was but one 
 ballot necessary. It resulted : 
 
 Whole number of votes 738 
 
 Necessary to a choice, two-thirds 492 
 
 Samuel J. Tilden, of New York 535 
 
 Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana 60 
 
 Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania 59 
 
 William Allen, of Ohio 54 
 
 Joel Parker, of New Jersey 18 
 
 Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware 11 
 
 Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio 2 
 
 Governor Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, who was the only 
 formidable rival of Mr. Tilden, was nominated for Vice-President. 
 
488 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The platform was strong and uncompromising in its demands for re- 
 form, and if not actually dictated by Mr. Tilden, it certainly spoke his 
 voice, and foreshadowed the kind of administration it was his purpose 
 to give the country. 
 
 In the evening of the day of Mr. Tilden's nomination he was ser- 
 enaded at the executive mansion, and made one of his thoughtful and 
 earnest addresses. In- it he said : "The government no longer exists 
 for the people. The people exist for the government. Our centennial 
 products are the evils, license, and wrongs, to escape which our ances- 
 tors abandoned their homes in the Old World and planted themselves in 
 a wilderness. Now, I ask, what is the remedy for these public evils, for 
 this private distress, for this disorder in business which carries suffer- 
 ing into every household ? It is comprised in one word — Reform !" 
 
 In a conversation with James C. Carter, Esq., the eminent New 
 York lawyer, during a drive on the day of the convention, he had re- 
 marked as one of his objections to the Republican Party that it was 
 a party of self-seekers. He explained that he did not mean this in 
 any offensive sense ; that he meant that the controlling men of that party 
 were men of large pecuniary interests, seeking to build up fortunes and 
 families; that these personal interests were so large as necessarily to 
 engross their thoughts and control their opinions, leading them to use 
 their powerful influence so as to shape the legislation of the country in a 
 form which would favor those interests; * * * ^ji^t the Demo- 
 cratic Party held within its ranks a far less number of men of this de- 
 scription — not enough to control its action — and consequently the opin- 
 ions of its great masses could be more easily shaped and moulded by the 
 mere force of ideas ; that this was the distinction between the former 
 Democratic and Whig parties, and that the Republican Party would, 
 as the patriotic inspirations caught from the opposition to slavery and 
 the defense of the Union died away, became the mere successor to the 
 spirit and policy of the Whig Party. 
 
 The nomination was a very popular one, hailed with satisfaction, 
 indeed, by pretty nearly everybody except the predatory plunderers of 
 the people who feared that Tilden's election would surely mean the 
 bringing of them to judgment. 
 
 In his brief speech of acceptance to the committee which gave him 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 489 
 
 formal notice of his nomination he closed with this sentence : "If your 
 choice should be ratified by the people at the election, I should enter 
 upon the great duties which, would be assigned to me, not as a holiday 
 recreation, but very much in that spirit of consecration in which a sol- 
 dier enters battle." 
 
 The presidential campaign of 1876 was one of remarkable bitter- 
 ness. The Democrats assailed the favoritism, mismanagement and cor- 
 ruption of Republican rule in general, and of Grant's administration, 
 with its multitude of scandals, in particular. The Republicans, on the 
 other hand, their leaders and managers filled with fear at the prospect 
 of having such a keen, strong, uncompromising enemy of dishonesty 
 as Mr. Tilden look over the books, were fairly frantic. He was charged 
 with everything imaginable, from ill-health to dodging his income tax. 
 But all they could do proved unavailing. The Tilden tide rose steadily 
 and irresistibly swept all before it. His majority in the popular vote 
 was 264,300. He had carried all the Southern States, and also New 
 York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Indiana in the North, giving him 
 203 electoral votes to 166 for Hayes. 
 
 The conspiracy by which the American people were defrauded of 
 their choice, fills the blackest page in the history of American politics. 
 The story of the crimes, perjury, bribery, intimidation and forms of 
 rascality with which this infamy was achieved, is a long one. But it 
 may be briefly summarized as follows : On the morning after the 
 election the victory of Tilden and Hendricks was practically conceded 
 by all the Republican newspapers in the United States, the Republican 
 National Committee, and politicians generally. The first move was 
 made by the New York Times, at that time the most prominent Repub- 
 lican organ in the country, which set up a claim, in its issue on the 
 morning after the election, that the result was in doubt. It claimed 
 South Carolina and Louisiana, which Tilden had carried by large ma- 
 jorities, which made a showing of 181 electoral votes for Hayes, and 
 184 for Tilden. The vote of Florida was declared to be in doubt. 
 Urgent dispatches were sent to the Republican managers in the three 
 States, and also in California, Nevada and Oregon, directing them to 
 "claim everything." Each State was also told that the election of 
 Hayes depended upon the vote of that State. 
 
490 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 Then the machinery was set to work by which, through infamous 
 "returning boards," every one of these States was given to Hayes, 
 raising his electoral vote to 185, as against Tilden's 184. 
 
 The leading spirits in the concoction of this infamous robbery ap- 
 pear to have been Zachariah Chandler, of Michigan, long a Senator of 
 the United States, and at that time the chairman of the Republican 
 National Committee, and William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire. 
 There was a large following of big and little scoundrels, givers and 
 handlers of money for bribery and any other needful crime, a great 
 array of perjurers and villains of every degree. Promises of official 
 positions under the Federal Government were given with a lavish hand. 
 It seems so disgraceful as to be incredible, but these promises of reward 
 for committing perjury were afterwards fulfilled by Hayes, several of 
 these unspeakable liars and villains being appointed by him to lucrative 
 federal offices. 
 
 But however base and unworthy the tools, they made so sure of 
 their work that returns from all the disputed States were sent to Wash- 
 ington, having a pretence or semblance of regularity, certifying that 
 the electoral vote of each State had been cast for Hayes. The electors, 
 on the other hand, actually chosen but counted out by fraud, abetted 
 by intimidation and perjury, met at the appointed time, cast their votes 
 for Tilden, and these returns, also, were duly certified and sent to 
 Washington. 
 
 Then followed such a period of uncertainty and excitement as the 
 country has never known except during the dark days of the great Civil 
 War. Indeed it seemed as though another civil war were impending, 
 in which the dividing line between the combatants should not be the 
 line separating sections, nor States, but should run through counties, 
 cities, communities, even through families. 
 
 The Constitution provides that the two Houses of Congress shall 
 meet and count the electoral votes. The Republicans contended that 
 this meant that the certificates from the States should be opened and 
 announced by the president of the Senate, as the presiding officer of the 
 joint session to determine and announce the result. This would give 
 him the power, where more than one return should have been received 
 from any State, to determine which one should be announced and 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 491 
 
 counted. The Democrats, on the other hand, contended that the powers 
 of the presiding officer were merely ministerial, that he should present 
 all the returns in his possession, and the two Houses should decide 
 which should be received and counted. 
 
 The Republicans had control of the Senate and the Democrats had 
 control of the House of Representatives. If both Houses had to concur 
 in receiving any vote, the Democrats could throw out the fraudulent 
 ones; while if the Vice-President could determine which should be 
 counted, it was reasonably sure that those in favor of the Republican 
 candidates would be presented. That the Democratic position was 
 sound is admitted by all reputable constitutional lawyers. 
 
 Finally it was agreed that each House should select seven members 
 who should act together in preparing a measure for counting the elec- 
 toral votes. This committee reported a bill for the appointment of an 
 Electoral Commission, to be composed of five Senators, five Members 
 of the House of Representatives and five Associate Justices of the Su- 
 preme Court, to which should be referred the conflicting certificates and 
 all other documents from the contested States, and all questions relating 
 to the powers of Congress in the premises, with the authority to exer- 
 cise the same powers in ascertaining the legal vote of each of such 
 States. The bill further provided that the decisions of such tribunal 
 in every case should stand, unless rejected by the concurrent vote of 
 both Houses. Also that objections which might be made to any votes 
 from States not presenting double certificates should be considered, not 
 by the commission, but by the Houses separately, and unless sustained 
 by both should be of no effect. 
 
 Mr. Tilden, with his clear insight and his splendid courage in 
 battling against public wrongs, was strongly opposed to any extra con- 
 stitutional procedure in determining the result. He assured his friends 
 in Congress that, if properly resisted, the conspiracy must break down ; 
 that it must not be encouraged by the least symptom of concession, but 
 fought inch by inch on the floors of Congress, until the real character- 
 of the proposed usurpation should become known throughout the coun- 
 try and the nation's opinion of it could reach Washington. It is clear 
 that if the House had resolutely stood up for its constitutional rights, 
 Mr. Tilden would have been seated in the presidential chair. A chal- 
 
492 ■ 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 lenge of a single one of the contested States would have resulted in his 
 election, either by the concurring vote of the two Houses, or, they fail- 
 ing to concur, in his election by the House of Representatives, to which 
 the Constitution has confided the choice in such an emergency, and 
 where the Democrats were in the majority, either in voting per capita 
 or by States. 
 
 It has been asserted, and apparently with good reason, that Mr. 
 Tilden was betrayed by envious rivals in Congress, in permitting the 
 creation of any tribunal outside of that provided by the Constitution. 
 It is certainly very plain that, if there was no treachery, there must 
 have been inexcusable selfishness, weakness and cowardice by the Demo- 
 crats in Congress when they surrendered their right to seat as President 
 of the United States the man who had been rightfully elected to that 
 office. 
 
 The work of this Electoral Commission was a striking instance of 
 the inability of strong political partisans to decide a question against 
 their own party, no matter what exalted political, or even judicial, posi- 
 tions they may hold at the time. In every contested question brought 
 before this commission, the vote stood eight Republicans against seven 
 Democrats. Those Democrats who had hoped the palpable justice of 
 their cause would induce, would indeed compel the commission to a 
 righteous judgment, saw too late their credulous folly. 
 
 The bearing of Mr. Tilden was, throughout, that of the patriot and 
 statesman. The outrage perpetrated against him, and through him 
 upon the majority of the American people, was indeed infamous, but it 
 had been perpetrated under the forms of law, and he submitted as a law- 
 abiding citizen. As an act of patriotic self-denial, it has no parallel in 
 our history, and it stamps him as a true hero of the highest class — one 
 who is willing to sacrifice himself that his country may have peace. 
 
 In 1877 Mr. Tilden visited Europe, spending some six months in 
 Ireland, England and France. 
 
 It is a principle of human nature for a man to hate another whom 
 he has injured, and this applies to political organizations as well. This 
 principle was strikingly illustrated in the abuse, scurrilous and venom- 
 ous, which continued to be heaped upon Mr. Tilden by those who had 
 robbed him, to the day of his death. It might have been thought that 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 
 
 493 
 
 they would at least treat him with the respect and consideration due to 
 one of the greatest and purest of American statesmen. The bene- 
 ficiaries of the great fraud had also a lively apprehension of the retribu- 
 tion which would be likely to follow their unparalleled crime. They 
 therefore kept up their frantic efforts to. destroy Mr. Tilden's phenome- 
 nal popularity. The most important of their nefarious schemes was 
 through the so-called "cipher dispatches." The Republican president 
 of the Western Union Telegraph Company delivered to Republican 
 partisans a lot of alleged copies of dispatches forwarded during the 
 contest over canvassing the votes in the disputed States. The sum 
 total of the pretended revelations amounted to the proposed sale of offi- 
 cial certificates of election by the manipulators of the infamous Return- 
 ing Boards of contested Southern States. These offers were in some 
 cases coupled with threats that if Tilden did not purchase what was 
 offered, sale would be made to the Republican managers. Tilden cer- 
 tainly did not purchase, and the electoral votes offered in the dispatches 
 ■were given to Hayes. The matter was finally brought before a Con- 
 gressional committee, and Mr. Tilden appeared before it, solemnly 
 denying any knowledge of these cipher dispatches. And the American 
 people never believed that he did have anything to do with them. 
 
 On the other hand, the Hayes campaign managers had kept the 
 wires hot with telegrams during the same period, but the obliging 
 Western Union Telegraph Company never turned them over, and the 
 eager and urgent Republican examiners never called for them. 
 
 Another shameful attempt at misrepresenting the great statesman 
 who had been so unspeakably wronged, was made under cover of an in- 
 vestigation as to whether he had made the prescribed returns of his 
 income for taxation, while the income tax was in operation. This proved 
 equally groundless and futile, and the suit brought by officials under 
 the fraudulent Hayes administration to compel Mr. Tilden to pay large 
 sums on the pretext that he had evaded the Income Tax Law was dis- 
 missed by the United States Circuit Court. 
 
 As the presidential campaign of 1880 approached it was the uni- 
 versal expectation and the ardent desire of all Democrats that Mr. 
 Tilden should be renominated by the Democratic National Convention. 
 No other Democratic candidate was seriously discussed, and his nomi- 
 
494 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 nation, which would unquestionably have been followed by a triumph- 
 ant re-election, waited only upon his word. 
 
 His health decided his course in the matter. There can be no doubt 
 of that. The campaign of 1876 and the disputed result which followed 
 it had been a terrible tax upon his vital powers. Never a hale and robust 
 man, he felt that he could not stand another such strain. In Decem- 
 ber, 1879, he said to a friend, the Hon. John Bigelow, referring to the 
 condition of his health, that he did not see how it was possible for him 
 to go through the excitement of another political canvass. There were 
 many aspirants for the nomination, but the desire for the nomination 
 of Mr. Tilden was so strong that everything was still at sea when the 
 national convention met, at Cincinnati, in June, 1880. Mr. Manning 
 had a letter from Mr. Tilden, addressed to the delegates from New 
 York, stating that he renounced a renomination. Even that did not 
 suppress the demand for him to again head the Democratic ticket, and 
 his name was still the only one seriously discussed until Mr. Manning 
 wired him from Cincinnati, asking him if he might yield to the pressure 
 for his renomination. To this he replied that his decision was irrevoca- 
 ble, and the convention nominated Major General Winfield S. Hancock. 
 The Republicans nominated General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, after 
 defeating a determined attempt to force the nomination of General 
 Grant for another term. The campaign was a spirited one, but the 
 Democrats could not, under another leader, reap the full advantage of 
 the outrageous fraud by which Mr. Tilden had been counted out. Still 
 General Hancock came so near an election that the electoral votes of 
 New York would have secured it. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that, while not only the Democrats, but the 
 people were crying out for the renomination of Tilden, the name of 
 Hayes was never mentioned in the Republican convention'. The Re- 
 publican Party did not dare to ask for a vindication of their infamy at 
 the hands of the people they had defrauded. Another noteworthy inci- 
 dent was the determined attempt of many of the Republican leaders to 
 nominate General Grant for a third term and its defeat by the conven- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Tilden was greatly rejoiced at the phenomenal victory of 
 Grover Cleveland for Governor of New York in 1882. That he had 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 495 
 
 not lost anything of his remarkable hold, either upon the Democratic 
 Party or the American people^ was continually made manifest to Mr. 
 Tilden, and the desire for this- renomination in 1884 looked as though 
 it must prove irresistible. In New York many counties had instructed 
 their delegates for him. Some of these were doubtless intended merely 
 to prevent a spontaneous expression for Governor Cleveland, but the 
 desire for Tilden was unquestionably genuine and universal. The State 
 convention was to meet at Saratoga on the i8th of June, and early in 
 that month Daniel Manning, at that time the chairman of the Demo- 
 cratic State Committee, visited him at Graystone to get an authorized 
 statement from Mr. Tilden as to his wishes concerning a renomination. 
 Mr. Tilden's letter in reply definitely declining a nomination was pub- 
 lished on the 1 2th of June. 
 
 Governor Cleveland was nominated for President, and there was a 
 partial reparation for the crime of 1876 made possible, by again placing 
 the name of the Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks on the ticket as the nomi- 
 nee for Vice-President. Cleveland and Hendricks were also elected, 
 as Tilden and Hendricks had been, eight years before. The vote in 
 New York was very close, Cleveland's majority being only 1,149, 
 and there was much excitement. The defeated Republicans, however, 
 acquiesced this time, for the temper of the people was such that they 
 would not have tolerated another fraud. 
 
 Before the excitement of 1884 began, Mr. Tilden had written a 
 letter to a friend in Pennsylvania which clearly explains his idea of the 
 events of 1876. Said he : "The cause which triumphed by the votes 
 of the people in the great national contest of 1876, but which was foully 
 lost in the count of those votes, was the cause of the son? of toil who, 
 on their farms and in their workshops, expect no special advantages 
 from the government, and only ask that the sunshine of its favors may 
 fall equally upon all. These isolated atoms of human society are not 
 easily combined, and not often truly represented ; while the more selfish, 
 active and intriguing classes are all the while wresting the government 
 from its true functions, and making it a machine to enrich the few at 
 the expense of the many, and then corrupting the administrative service, 
 the legislation and the elections, in order to hold and enlarge their un- 
 just advantages." 
 
496 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 The Democratic National Convention of 1884 paid Mr. Tilden the 
 unprecedented compliment of inserting in its declaration of principles 
 the following personal tribute to Mr. Tilden : 
 
 "With profound regret we have been apprised by the venerable 
 statesman, through whose person was struck that blow at the vital 
 principle of republics, acquiescence in the will of the majority, that he 
 cannot permit us again to place in his hands the leadership of the Demo- 
 cratic hosts for the reason that the achievement of reform in the ad- 
 ministration of the Federal Government is an undertaking now too 
 heavy for his age and failing strength. Rejoicing that his life has been 
 prolonged until the general judgment of our fellow countrymen is 
 united in the wish that that wrong were righted in his person, for the 
 Democracy of the United States, we offer to him in his withdrawal 
 from public cares not only our respectful sympathy and esteem, but also 
 that best homage of freemen, the pledge of our devotion to the princi- 
 ples and the cause now inseparable in the history of this republic from 
 the labors and the name of Samuel J. Tilden." 
 
 The National Convention also passed some resolutions, regretting 
 the necessity which compelled him to decline a renomination. These 
 resolutions were presented to Mr. Tilden by a committee appointed for 
 that purpose, and in his reply, dated the 6th of October, he said : 
 
 "The Democratic Party had its origin in the efforts of the more 
 advanced patriots of the Revolution to resist the perversion of our gov- 
 ernment from the ideal contemplated by the people. Among its con- 
 spicuous founders are Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Sam- 
 uel Adams and John Hancock, of Massachusetts ; George Clinton and 
 Robert R. Livingston, of New York; and George Wythe and James 
 Madison, of Virginia. From the election of Mr. Jefferson as President, 
 in 1800, for sixty years the Democratic Party mainly directed our na- 
 tional policy. It extended the boundaries of the Republic, and laid the 
 foundations of all our national greatness, while it preserved the limita- 
 tions imposed by the Constitution and maintained a simple and pure 
 system of domestic administration. 
 
 "On the other hand, the Republican Party has always been domi- 
 nated by principles which favor legislation for the benefit of particular 
 classes at the expense of the body of the people. It has become deeply 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 497 
 
 tainted with the abuses which naturally grow up during a long pos- 
 session of unchecked power, especially in a period of civil war and false 
 finance. The patriotic and virtuous elements in it are now unable to 
 emancipate it from the sway of selfish interests which subordinate 
 public duty to personal gain. The most hopeful of the best citizens it 
 contains, despair of its amendment except through its temporary ex- 
 pulsion from power. 
 
 "It has been boastingly asserted by a modern Massachusetts states- 
 man, struggling to reconcile himself and his followers to their presi- 
 dential candidate, that the Republican Party contains a disproportionate 
 share of the wealth, the culture, and the intelligence of the country. 
 The unprincipled Grafton, when taunted by James the Second with his 
 personal want of conscience, answered, 'That is true, but I beiong to a 
 party thai has a great deal of conscience.' 
 
 "Such reasoners forget that the same claim has been made in all 
 ages and countries by the defenders of old wrongs against new reforms. 
 It was alleged by the Tories of the American Revolution against the 
 Patriots of that day. It was repeated against Jefferson and afterwards 
 against Jackson. It is alleged by the Conservatives against those who, 
 in England, are now endeavoring to enlarge the popular suffrage. 
 
 "All history shows that reforms in government must not be expected 
 from those who sit serenely on the social mountain-tops, enjoying the 
 benefits of the existing order of things. Even the Divine Author of our^ 
 religion found his followers, not among the self-complacent Pharisees, 
 but among the lowly-minded fishermen." 
 
 Mr. Tilden naturally took a great interest in the administration of 
 President Cleveland, especially in relation to the government finances. 
 He also urged the necessity of strengthening our seacoast defences, and 
 wrote urgent letters, both to Secretary Manning, of the Treasury De- 
 partment, and to Speaker Carlisle, of the House of Representatives. 
 
 In a letter to the Hgn. Henry Watterson, dated March 26, 1885, 
 Mr. Tilden says concerning official patronage; "I depended on ideas 
 as a political force more liberally, and less on party machinery than 
 anybody else has done. What is called patronage I never had to any 
 appreciable extent, and yet I held my ascendency with the Democratic 
 masses of this State when I had to confront the adverse influence of the 
 
498 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 executive, of the heads of departments, of the judiciary, and of the 
 majority of both branches of the Legislature, and of one-third of the 
 county leaders. I held also a majority of the voters of this State 
 against at least twenty thousand office-holders. I carried on politics 
 upon a plane which approached to the impracticable. I do not exact 
 of anybody else to encounter the risks I ran, or to imitate so adven- 
 turous a policy. For there was no moment in which I was not willing 
 to be consigned to private life. It seems to me sometimes remarkable 
 to hear men called great leaders who, while swaying all the patronage 
 of the country — Federal, State and local — failed to hold their own 
 party, or to hold a majority of the people." 
 
 In these last years of his life Mr. Tilden became greatly interested 
 in the matter of strengthening our coast defences. With his usual 
 prescience he foresaw the complications with which we are in constant 
 danger of becoming involved with the great European powers, on ac- 
 count of the Spanish-American republics. The American people have 
 always been substantially a unit in maintaining the well-known prin- 
 ciple popularly called the Monroe Doctrine, and Mr. Tilden was assured 
 that this would, sooner or later, make us clash with other nations. In 
 order to arouse a livelier appreciation of the dangers to be reasonably 
 apprehended from the enforcement of our announced purpose in regard 
 to possible European encroachments in Spanish America, Mr. Tilden 
 prepared a compact history of the origin of the Monroe Doctrine, and 
 some of the responsibilities involved in maintaining it, to reinforce his 
 plea for strengthening our sea-coast defences. The paper was entitled, 
 "The Monroe Doctrine and Its Origin." It is a very clear and suc- 
 cinct paper and worthy of careful remembrance and consideration by all 
 those who are interested in the prosperity and perpetuity of our govern- 
 ment and its institutions. 
 
 Mr. Tilden gives the following statement of the Monroe Doctrine 
 and its origin : 
 
 "After the final fall of Napoleon and his second abdication, the Em- 
 peror Alexander I., of Russia, the Emperor Francis, of Austria, and 
 King Frederick William III., of Prussia, formed a league. Alexander 
 drew up the agreement, which was signed at Paris by these monarchs, 
 September 26, 1815; and they christened the league the 'Holy Alii- 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 499 
 
 ance.' Its professed purpose was to regulate the States of Christendom 
 on principles of Christian amity. Its real aim was to maintain existing 
 dynasties and to suppress all revolutionary or popular movements. To 
 secure the co-operation of the people, some of these sovereigns, espe- 
 cially Frederick William III., had promised to give to their subjects a 
 liberal charter, allowing them practical self-government. But all such 
 promises were violated. To this alliance most of the European powers 
 except the Holy See and England acceded. 
 
 "The Holy Alliance held frequent congresses, and its policy was to 
 intervene with military force in the internal afifairs of any country 
 which should attempt to establish less despotic government. At its in- 
 stance the revolutionary movements in Naples and in Piedmont were 
 suppressed in 182 1. At its instance, in 1823, France marched an a:rmy, 
 nominally of 100,000 men, into Spain, and restored absolutism in that 
 country. Alexander of Russia assured France of his support, offering 
 to march an army to the Rhine. 
 
 "It was known that the Holy Alliance meditated enabling Spain to 
 reconquer the States of South America and Mexico. It was arranged 
 that the Holy Alliance should have a consultation on the subject. The 
 policy was avowed to Mr. Canning by Prince Polignac, Ambassador of 
 France to England, of ensuring, by concert between the European 
 powers, the establishment of monarchical governments over the re- 
 volted colonies of Spain. 
 
 "Under Castlereagh England had refused to be a party to the en- 
 gagements of the Holy Alliance. Under the lead of his successor as 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, George Canning, she took a 
 position of more pronounced dissent and opposition. She threw her 
 moral weight in the scale of condemnation of the intervention of France 
 in the domestic affairs of Spain. 
 
 "In the meantime the United States had recognized the independ- 
 ence of the revolted colonies of Spain. President Monroe, by his special 
 message of March 8, 1822, recommended the measure. Congress, by 
 an act approved May 4, 1822, made an appropriation to defray the ex- 
 penses of such missions as the President might institute to the inde- 
 pendent nations on the American continents. 
 
 "In 1823 Mr. Canning proposed to Mr. Rushy the American Min- 
 
500 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 ister to Great Britain, that the United States should unite with England 
 in a joint declaration condemning any attempt of the Holy Alliance to 
 help Spain to reconquer its revolted colonies in South America and 
 Mexico. In reply Mr. Rush urged the immediate recognition by Eng- 
 land of the independence of the South American States. If that were 
 done he offered to unite in the joint declaration proposed by Mr. Can- 
 ning. The correspondence was transmitted to John Quincy Adams, 
 Secretary of State. President Monroe submitted that correspondence 
 to Mr. Jefferson and through him to Mr. Madison. 
 
 "President Monroe, after consulting Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madi- 
 son, availed himself of his annual message of December 2, 1823, to 
 state the position of the American government upon the subject." 
 
 It was in this famous message that the celebrated Monroe Doctrine 
 was announced. President Monroe recited the situation and the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, and added : "The occasion has been judged 
 proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of 
 the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the 
 free and independent condition they have assumed and maintain, are 
 henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by 
 any European pozvers." 
 
 This is the Monroe Doctrine, the assertion of a principle which has 
 ever been dear to the American people and has been resolutely main- 
 tained by them ever since. A striking instance of its assertion was 
 given by another Democratic President, Grover Cleveland, in his great 
 message on the disputed boundary claims between England and Vene- 
 zuela, during his second administration. 
 
 Few public or international questions are so well known, and at the 
 same time so little understood by the American people. It will be ob- 
 served that there is no hint of interference with "the Big Stick," nor by 
 any other means, with the perfect independence of these Spanish- Amer- 
 ican countries, nor with their freedom to establish their own relations 
 and manage their own affairs, both foreign and domestic. Our gov- 
 ernment simply asserts that all the Americas are closed to any further 
 colonization or exploitation by European powers. That they are, one 
 and all, free and independent States, and their independence and sover- 
 eignty are practically guaranteed by the United States. And that is 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 501 
 
 all. They must keep their international engagements in their own way, 
 and take the consequences. Only, their territory shall not be appro- 
 priated by any European power. 
 
 This clear exposition of the Monroe Doctrine, the clearest ever 
 given by any of our statesmen or publicists, was one of the last public 
 utterances of Mr. Tilden. He, however, took great interest in the mat- 
 ters connected with the construction of the surface railway through 
 Broadway, New York City, the most valuable street railway in the 
 world, without legal authority, without the consent of the property- 
 holders on Broadway, and without any adequate compensation to the 
 city. He insisted strenuously that the charter should be repealed. 
 
 In these last days he also expressed his sympathy with the move- 
 ment to secure Home Rule for Ireland, and he prepared a series of 
 "Notes on the Canals." Mr. Tilden had probably mastered the canal 
 question more thoroughly than any other man in the State, and those 
 who are interested in these important waterways will do well to study 
 these "Notes." He was firmly of the opinion that the days of large 
 usefulness for the canals were past, and that large expenditures would 
 inevitably lead to the formation of new canal rings, with their inevit- 
 able robberies, as the event proved in the enlargement scheme of 
 1897-8, in which more than nine millions of dollars were wasted and 
 stolen. He summed up his views thus : "The Erie Canal still has 
 a certain utility. It should be nursed along, but without any expecta- 
 tion of regaining the place it once occupied in the transportation of the 
 country." 
 
 During the winter and spring of 1886 his strength failed rapidly. 
 He could not write, on account of the nervous trouble with which he 
 had so long been affected, and the same weakness prevented his being 
 able to hold a book to read. This was a very great privation, as he had 
 always been an industrious reader and his literary tastes had a wide 
 range. And, still worse, his voice failed, so that he was practically cut 
 off from conversing with his friends. 
 
 As would naturally be inferred from Mr. Tilden's munificent be- 
 quest for a great free library, he was a diligent reader, and a great 
 lover of books. His own private library was one of the largest, and 
 probably the most valuable, ever collected by any American for his own 
 
502 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 
 use. While by no means a bibliomaniac, his taste for books was quite 
 fastidious, and he freely indulged it as one of the greatest of his luxu- 
 ries. His library contained some fifteen thousand volumes, many of 
 them exceedingly rare and costly publications. His selections were 
 such as he, himself, wished to read and enjoy at the time of purchase. 
 He had no purpose of collecting a library that should be complete in all 
 departments, nor indeed in any department of literature. His law 
 library, however, which was designed for business, was as complete as 
 knowledge, money and research could make it. 
 
 In the closing months of his life, when his physical powers had 
 failed so as to render him almost as helpless as an infant, he found great 
 enjoyment in these treasures of his library. When he could no longer 
 hold a book himself, he had them read to him. One of these readers, 
 who -kept a careful list, found that in the' last four years of his life she, 
 herself, had read to him the contents of eight hundred volumes, in ad- 
 dition to magazines and newspapers. His other reader had also a very 
 extensive list. 
 
 In the course of his researches he discovered the records of a meet- 
 ing held in the town of his birth, June 24, 1776, which contains this 
 entry : "The question being put, whether the said district chooses to 
 have the united American colonies independent of Great Britain, voted 
 unanimously in the affirmative." This, it will be noted, was several 
 days before the Declaration of Independence, and shows the patriotism 
 of the environment in which, some two-score years later, one of the 
 greatest American patriots was born. 
 
 On the 19th of July he wrote a reply to an invitation to attend the 
 two hundredth anniversary of the granting of a charter to the city of 
 Albany. On the 4th of August his great spirit took its flight. 
 
 Mr. Tilden had so long been an invalid that it was generally recog- 
 nized that the end of his days upon the earth was fast approaching, yet 
 the intelligence that he was dead came as a great shock to the country. 
 Even his physicians, two of whom were at his bedside, were startled 
 when the end came. All the public and private honors possible were 
 paid to the memory of this illustrious citizen. John G. Whittier, the 
 poet, paid him a noble tribute in verse. We reproduce the first and third 
 stanzas : 
 
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK' 503 
 
 "Once more, O all-adjusting Death, 
 
 The nation's Pantheon opens wide; 
 Once more a common sorrow saith^ 
 'A strong, wise man has died.' 
 
 ********** 
 
 "Ambitious, cautious, yet the man 
 
 To strike down fraud with resolute hand; 
 A patriot, if a partisan. 
 He loved his native land !" 
 
 Mr. Tilden's surviving next of kin consisted of his sister, Mrs. 
 Mary B. Pelton, and the two sons and four daughters of his brother 
 Henry. His estate, consisting chiefly of personal property, was ap- 
 praised by experts at something more than five million dollars. After 
 providing a number of generous legacies and bequests for special pur- 
 poses, the residue of the estate, amounting to about $4,000,000, was left 
 to the founding and maintenance of a free library and reading room in 
 the city of New York. 
 
 His two nephews brought suit to break the will, and extensive litiga- 
 tion ensued. It was finally compromised, and the increase of the value 
 of the estate brought up the amount available for the library pretty 
 nearly to the sum Mr. Tilden intended to provide for this great public 
 use. This sum was afterwards, by the trustees, consolidated with the 
 bequests of John Jacob Astor, William B. Astor and James Lenox, and 
 the building erected for the combined library, on the site of the old 
 Croton Reservoir, in the heart of New York City, is far and away the 
 most magnificent structure ever erected by private munificence in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 Samuel Jones Tilden was not only a great man, he ranks among the 
 greatest of men. He had a feeble body, but a robust mind and a heroic 
 soul. In sheer intellectual force he was a marvel. He was a ripe 
 scholar, a masterly lawyer, a king among politicians, a wise statesman, 
 a peerless financier, an accomplished publicist, a courageous, true and 
 loyal friend, a generous giver, and a gentle, gracious Christian man, a 
 splendid example of the highest type of the race. Such men as Samuel 
 Jones Tilden are the glory of their country. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
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