Growth of a Century : as illustrated in the history of Jefferson County, New York, from 1793 to 1894, Part 5

Author: Haddock, John A. 1823-
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Sherman
Number of Pages: 1094

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Lyon was so well satisfied with the position of Rep- resentative in Congress that he made an attempt (in 1856) at re-election as an independent candidate. The " poor-Black-River-boy " and the "Holy-Land " methods were destined, however, to be far less ad- vantageous than when he ran against Mr. Mundy. His competitor was now Charles B. Hoard, an able, wealthy, and energetic man, who had filled several important offices, and shown himself exceptionally capable in all of them. This time the "Hunkers" were in a position to enjoy the fun. The Democrats made no nomination, merely observing the contest, and throwing their influence (such as it was) on the side of Lyon. But in the intervening years be-

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tween 1852 and his previous candidacy a party had arisen who "knew not Caleb," and, struggle and squirm as he might, his candidacy steadily dimin- ished in popularity.

While skirmishing about the county he had met Gerrit Smith, who was running for Governor on the Abolition ticket, and Gerrit advised him to invite the people (as Gerrit was doing in his own meetings), to propound questions as to his political views-to the end that there might be no doubt as to his position. Lyon thought this a cunning idea, and attempted to carry it out at the next meeting, which happened to be in the important and highly intelligent village of Carthage. When the meeting was duly organ- ized, and Lyon had spoken, he asked for questions. These rained down upon him in such a flood, and some of them were so insidiously and embarassingly worded, that Lyon's limited stock of patience was soon exhausted, and the meeting broke up amidst great excitement. This was Lyon's first and last attempt to answer questions fired at him in public, the scheme proving not less disastrous to him than to Smith, its Quixotic originator.

There was another reason why Lyon was running behind his previous record. He had lost the friend- ship and support of that young newspaper man who had aided him so much when he was first a candi- date for Congress. His second canvas was poorly managed, and notwithstanding his support by the Democrats and old-line Whigs, he was defeated by nearly 3600 votes-though his Watertown meet- ing, held just before the election, was enthusiastic and largely attended.

Mr. Lyon was upon friendly terms with President Lincoln, who often sent him to various points to secure special information. He was eventually sent out to Idaho as its territorial Governor, but the fron- tier life of that remote region, and his constitutional inability to discharge administrative duties, made a stay in Idaho irksome and distasteful ; he resigned in 1866, returning to his home on Staten Island, where he died soon after. He had relinquished his Lewis county home many years previous.

THE ABOLITIONISTS.

The mention of Gerrit Smith in this Caleb Lyon political episode, makes this stage of our political history perhaps as opportune as any in which to in- troduce that highly intelligent and moral, but ut- terly impracticable organization, designated as " Ab- olitionists," who had, from 1838, for nearly 20 years, maintained an independent status upon the basis of opposition to slavery, and an uncompromising de- mand for its abolition by Congress. Dating from about 1840, which was a year of phenomenal politi- cal disturbance, resulting in a distinct Whig admin-

istration of the general Government, these Abolit- ionists increased rapidly in numbers and in the bit- terness of their denunciations of the two older po- litical parties for their acquiescence in the persistent demands of the South, which then, as it had long before, boldly claimed that they could carry their negro slaves into any free territory of the United States, and be protected there under their normal rights as citizens. In addition to these demands, which in our day seem altogether untenable, the free North had witnessed the arrest, by marshals of the United States, of black men in many localities north of Mason and Dixon line, who were claimed as slaves, and carried away, on ex-parte testimony, into darkest slavery. In one extraordinarily brutal instance, a poor escaping slave had been arrested in the city of Boston by a regular U. S. marshal ; and though many offers were made to buy the slave at any price his alleged owner might demand-and thus that high-toned and historic free city be spared the unutterable shame of seeing a black man, in chains, marched down to slavery through the sorrowing and sympathetic crowd that lined those streets, up which, less than an hundred years before, the minute men from all New England had gladly marched to fight for freedom at Bunker Hill. Yet that was exactly what was witnessed there; and, as if that were not enough, a beloved and patriotic citizen of Boston who was bold enough to denounce such a proceeding as having brought disgrace upon his na- tive city, was promptly arrested by one of these marshals, without any process, and locked up as a resistant to the execution of a law of Congress !

Such soul-stirring scenes as this (repeated but too often in the free North) gained for the Abolitionists many adherents, and really threatened the stability of the government-for thinking men began to ar- gue that if the laws of the United States virtually made every Northern man a slave-catcher if so se- lected by a government marshal, then a time had come for such a law to be changed. Some of the Ab- olitionists stigmatized the National Constitution as a "league with hell," and bitterly denounced all laws which reclaimed slaves escaping into free territory. Independent men, meanwhile, were not unmindful of such demonstrations as we have named; and if the Abolitionists were able to do nothing more, they helped to educate the North up to a more complete understanding of the slaveholders' designs. But, as an independent organization, the Abolitionists could not have accomplished freedom for the slaves. They were composed largely from the discontented of the older parties, and had gathered into their fold the long-haired cranks of varied aims who are always found intermingled with American political life. It is true that so able a statesman as Charles Sumner, United States Senator from Massachusetts, was al- most as bitter in his denunciations of slavery as were

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the out-and-out Abolitionists themselves; but liis astute mind clearly saw it was a political question, which could only be settled, if it were done peace- fully, by some understanding which should be ac- ceptable to both the North and the South. If it had not been that the country was destined to witness a startling illustration of the saying that "whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad," as was demonstrated in the insane attack upon Sumter, even before this year 1894 we might, by statesmanlike compromises, have beheld slavery abolished, and the slave-owners paid a just compensation for their loss. When the South deliberately resolved to secede, the Abolition party ceased to exist, for the first gun fired at Sumter made certain that the slaves were free- though President Lincoln's promulgation of that stupendous fact was delayed until 1863. And thus the Abolitionists' work was accomplished-not, low- ever, by their own efforts, or by the adoption of any of their favorite plans; but by the insane conduct of the oppressors themselves-as, in all history, we be- hold the hand of evil stayed by the retributive ac- tion of its own despotism.

But, stepping beyond the limitations of parties, there remains the very elevated consideration that the well-being of no race is perfect while another race is degraded. It is a doctrine of the oldest as well as the newest philosophy, that the human race is one-a unit-so far as natural rights are concerned. The genius of the Saxon race, friendly to liberty ; the enterprise, the very muscular vigor of the na- tion were averse to slavery. The Intellect, looking through history from the beginning onward and out- ward, beheld this blot upon our escutcheon, and it disappeared. The sentiment of Right pronounces for freedom. The power that has built up all these hu- man fabrics affirms it in the heart, and in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that power made a sign of his will through all the ages yet to come.

"SMART " POLITICS.

This brings our political history down to 1858, two years before the civil war; and as we aim to intro- duce illustrative incidents in nearly the order of their chronological occurrence, right at this point is a good place to tell of some of the "smart " political moves of the Free-soilers :

In one of the " regular " Democratic nominating conventions, held early in the '50s, the Free-soilers had grown strong enough to outvote the Hunkers, and the result was the nomination of a clean Free- soil Democratic ticket for sheriff, county clerk, and the minor offices. The defeated Hunkers comforted themselves by a determination to defeat the ticket by staying away from the polls, and giving the Whigs a " walk-over." The Free-soilers became

possessed of this information late on Saturday night previous to the election, which was to occur on the following Tuesday. They immediately prepared a printed circular, to which was appended (in type) the names of the leading disgruntled Hunkers, de- claring that " a full vote should be polled in the in- terest of Democratic harmony, aud to perpetuate the party's ascendency." Rufus Herrick, a very discreet and able man and an active Free-soiler, was then sheriff, and late on Sunday night he had all his dep- uties warned to hold themselves in readiness on the following day, with the fleetest horses and trustiest messengers, for an important service, as to which they would be notified later on. Late on Monday he caused to be put into the hands of these men sealed envelopes directed to one or more leading Hunkers at each polling-place in the county, and these sealed letters were every one delivered before daylight Tuesday morning. When these Hunkers read their "orders," duly authenticated (as they believed) they went to work with a will, and the ticket was triumphantly elected.

The Hunker Democrats whose names were ap- pended to the circular were very angry, and talked about a prosecution for forgery; but as no names could be shown as forged, and as none of these lead- ers desired to publicly appear as bolting a nomina- tion regularly made, the matter was quietly allowed to drop. It was a successful piece of strategy, wor- thy of Von Moltke or Sherman, and was applauded, for the mass of mankind admire success, even if won by methods that are a little shady.

A STUBBORN CONTEST IN A REPUBLICAN CONVENTION.

We venture to offer another illustration of the workings of political conventions in those days " before the war," when the Republican party had become so popular that its nomination was equivalent to an election. The year was 1858, and a very bitter and acrimonious contest had sprung up over a nomi- nee for sheriff. Lotus Ingalls and John A. Haddock were at that time editors of the "Reformer," then the leading Republican newspaper of the county, and John W. Ingalls of Clayton (a cousin of editor Ingalls) was put forward as a candidate for sheriff, while Hon. Byron B. Taggart, of LeRay, and Jesse E. Willis, of Antwerp, were also prominently named, and each had warm supporters, for they were all of them able and deserving. John W. Ingalls could have been readily nominated but for a foolish blunder of his own. Haddock had been one of the clerks of the Assembly the previous winter, and Ingalls had gone out of his way to make some uncalled for criti- . cisms, which Haddock heard of, and took to heart. He heartily espoused the candidacy of Taggart, for

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they had long been intimate friends. Taggart, as it finally transpired, had made an unwise agreement with Willis, that whichever polled the highest vote on the first ballot, should receive the other's support, and withdraw from the contest-the design being to defeat Ingalls in any event. When the convention be- gan to ballot, Willis showed more votes than Taggart, and Ingalls more votes than either, but not enough to nominate. When the next ballot was taken there was a tie between Ingalls and Willis. Some 15 or 20 ballots followed in quick succession, but with the same result-a tie. On perhaps the 16th ballot, Willis had 1 majority, but the venerable chairman, Hon. Levi Miller, of Antwerp (a neighbor of Willis), hesitated to declare the result for fear that he might be accused of favoritism. This occasioned consider- able delay and confusion, and in the meantime the Ingalls men had "labored " with a weak-kneed Willis man, and vociferously demanded another bal- lot. The chairman so ordered, expecting that Willis would be nominated beyond dispute, but the result was a tie-thus proving the correctness of the pre- ceding count. Then both sides were angry, and the utmost confusion reigned. As it was growing late, the convention having balloted over 6 hours, an ad- journment for supper was agreed to-to meet again in an hour, but in a larger hall, with fewer side- rooms and less opportunities for caucusing.

On coming to order in Washington Hall, several more ballots were taken, but each was a tie. When it was near midnight the contest had become so hopelessly bitter that a delegate arose and proposed a new name, that of Frank Cross, of Cape Vincent. He was immediately nominated, making an excel- lent, efficient officer. Thus so trivial a matter as an unfair but perhaps thoughtless criticism, unapolo- gized for, defeated a reputable man for an honorable office.

Having brought this political resume down to 1860, when the Republican party had elected Lin- coln to the Presidency, and when the South, ill-ad- vised by poorly balanced pro-slavery leaders, had resolved upon secession, which involved the destruc- tion of that Union of the States under which the whole country had been so prosperous, and had risen in population since 1776 to over sixty-five millions, the best manner in which to acceptably and yet clearly describe to the reader of this history the mo- mentous events, and their political significance, then transpiring, becomes a matter of some diffi- culty, for there are yet living in every community hosts of men who mingled with the events of 1860 to 1865, and some of these men bore an important part in those events and have a natural right to freely criticise whatever may be said that has a bearing upon the civil war, either in its beginning,

its conduct or its ending. For full particulars, so far as now obtainable, relating to that war and the soldierly part borne in it by citizens of Jeffer- son county, we refer to the lengthy and important chapter upon that subject. We again venture to re- peat that in this chapter we shall treat only of the politics and the legislation of that momentous era- the most critical that any community or government could have safely endured, and under which every power of man, whether it relates to property, or personal service, or to the workings of the human mind during great emergencies, seems to have been strained almost to the verge of breaking. The South was literally "worn out " in the struggle, and the North was so nearly so that three million paper dollars per day, seven days to the week, barely paid its current expenses during the last year. In 1863 the writer of this chapter exchanged $100 in gold for $280 in currency. The reader can himself figure out how much of the yellow metal was actu- ally represented by the $3,000,000 per day of cur- rency expended, and in that way will be able to un- derstand how the gold barons of Europe and their representatives on this side of the ocean grew so suddenly and mysteriously rich, and how, even to this day, the laboring man finds his burthens so heavy in paying off the national debt.

Many Democratic leaders in the North were some- what slow in responding to the popular enthusiasm which swept over that whole region when Sumter was fired upon, but the rank and file-to their eternal honor be it said-responded quite as readily as the Republicans to the call for troops. One company from Watertown (E) had but two Republicans among its members. The ancient affiliation of Northern Democrats with pro-slavery legislation, and its con- sequent relation to treason, had been so well dis- cussed by Lincoln and Douglass upon the platform in Illinois, and the whole question of permitting slavery to be engrafted upon the political existence of those territories which had but lately been ask- ing for admission, and which are now rich and pros- perous Western States, had been so ably discussed in the Northern newspapers, that it only needed the warlike demonstration made by rebels upon a Na- tional fort and the disloyal turning back of the steamer which President Lincoln had sent to pro- vision the beleaguered soldiers there, to tell the com- mon mind that its paramount duty was to support the government. It is true that sporadic and un- popular efforts were made by certain men-always Democrats-to embarrass recruiting for the Union army in Jefferson county, but they were secret in their work, and if one of them were now to be charged with his then unpatriotic course his cheek would mantle with shame, and he would make quick denial of the charge.

From 1860 to 1893 the political questions presented

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and the patriotic action of the people of Jefferson County under them were so intimately associated with the country at large that we shall be pardoned if we make our description more general for those years at least, and confine our remarks generally to the history of the Democratic and Republican parties, since they were during that time the lead- ing organizations. In passing, however, we will say here that all through the war and during the period of reconstruction in the Southern States, pop- ular opinion in Jefferson county stood " like a stone wall," solid in sustaining Lincoln and Grant and the Republican administration in all their gen- eral plans and declarations. It was not until 1891 that the Republican majorities there were ever be- low 1800. But in that year her nost dearly loved and intensely popular native citizen, Roswell Petti- bone Flower, was the Democratic nominee for Gov- ernor, and after nearly forty years of straight Repub- lican victories, by majorities varying from 2000 to 3000, Gov. Flower came within 339 votes of carrying the county over Fassett, who was also a popular man.

But to return to 1860. Let us try to get a clear understanding of the actual attitude of the two poli- tical parties as they then stood.

In anticipation of Lincoln's election, Howell Cobb so managed the treasury that government credit had sank to the point of paying 12 per cent. for loans; Floyd transferred the war munitions in the government arsenals to the South, and Toucey dis- persed the navy to points beyond the reach of a ready recall by a new administration. President Buchanan was compliant in all these movements, and when actual secession took place, declared him- self without constitutional power to take any steps to thwart the schemes of the conspirators. Yet many prominent adherents of the party became War Democrats, of whom Mr. Lincoln had four in his cabinet. Still the Democrats kept up their organization, through which they contented them- selves with obstructing the government. Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, who had recently been succeeded in the control of Tammany Hall by Wm. M. Tweed (who was to die in prison as a felon), pro- posed to separate that city from the Union, and make it a "free city." Peace meetings and lodges of the Knights of the Golden Circle were organized, especially in Maryland and the Ohio valley; and wore so treasonable an aspect that the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, first in and about Washing- ton, but finally, in 1863, over the whole country by Act of Congress. In 1862 the influence of Tammany Hall made Horatio Seymour Governor of New York, and he took up the burthens of office resolved to " maintain the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the State," He applied himself to the postponement of the draft, which he claimed bore unjustly upon the

City of New York. The draft riots ensued. In 1863 the Ohio Democracy nominated Vallandigham for Governor. A stout opposer of the war and a contumelious defamer of the government, he had been arrested by Gen. Burnside, and the President had sent him within the Confederate lines. He escaped to Canada. His arrest was bitterly assailed by Governor Seymour and the peace party, whose often proposed plan, in Congress and out of it, was to cease hostilities and call a convention of the States and make peace. This would have sounded like a reasonable proposition (as we now look back over the whole field), if it had come from Jefferson Davis, as the head of the Confederate States, but was purely impracticable as coming from any ad- herent of the Northern cause, which was committed to the plan of breaking down and destroying any and all armed attempts to subvert the govern- ment, and to eventually restore all the States to their normal position under the Constitution. Val- landigham was defeated for Governor of Ohio by the extraordinary majority of over 100,000 votes, and throughout the North the Republicans tri- umphed in the fall elections. The draft riots, the secret conspiracy societies, the copper-headed em- blems unblushingly worn in Indiana, Ohio and Illi- noi", the intemperance of the peace advocates, but above all, the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, had turned the tide of sentiment strongly and un- changeably towards Lincoln. It may be said, to quote again from an Encyclopædia, to be " one of the marvels of history that the Democratic party did not then sink from view, as for a far less treason the Federalists had done 50 years before, and its persist- ence shows how much more organization and party discipline will avail than sentiment and opinion."

In passing upon the action of Governor Seymour, as alluded to above, it seems strange that so pure, well-developed and able a man and politician, reared in Oneida county, in the midst of a patriotic and refined people, should have been for a single moment lacking in any attribute of highest citizenship or of official integrity. The action of such a man at such a time will probably invite inquiry by the student of history in the future, as to whether the many constitutional questions involved in the civil war were really so self-evidently all upon one side, and whether there was not indeed much to be said to justify Governor Seymour's somewhat reluctant exhibition of patriotism, especially when his offi- cial position as Governor enabled him to understand how solidly founded in personal gain or grovel- ling ambition were the so-called "patriotic" acts of many who shouted "Down with the South " with their lips, but had both hands clutching at the national treasury. One thing is certain : all of Governor Seymour's military appointments were of a superior order; he was prompt in his atten-

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tion to all his duties as Governor whenever such duties affected the soldiers at the front, and has bore a prominent part -- though evidently with many mental reservations-in the efforts the great State of New York so grandly made to preserve the Union.

In 1864 General Mcclellan's name became the rallying word for the Democratic party, mainly to please the soldiers, but perhaps partly because he cherished grievances against Secretary Stanton and President Lincoln, under the cover of which alleged grievances Mcclellan's friends attempted to excuse his palpable failures in the peninsula campaign against Richmond. The National Democratic Con- vention met late in August in Chicago, and the fugi- tive Vallandigham was permitted to write the ma- terial part of its platform, declaring the war "a failure to restore the Union, and that during its four years of continuance the Constitution had been in every part disregarded, and public liberty and private right alike been trampled down." Mc- Clellan was nominated, but in his letter of accept- ance he repudiated the platform, hoping thereby to preserve his consistency as a soldier, while running as the peace-at-any-price candidate. He was so badly beaten that he carried but three States, which held only one-eleventh of the electoral college. There were many failures during the war, but viewed in all the lights that have been turned upon his career, McClellan now appears to have been the most complete and exhaustive.

To Andrew Johnson the Democratic party may be said to be indebted, at least partially, for its re- habilitation. He had been very active in Congress in demanding that treason should be punished, and when he became President, through the assassina- tion of Lincoln, the question he had to meet was how to reconstruct the States lately in rebellion. Slavery was forever put out of the way by the thirteenth article of the amended Constitution, and having freed the slaves the Republican party stood morally pledged to protect them in their rights. This was done by adopting what is known as the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which gave them all the rights of citizenship, and became the basis of reorganization of the States which had joined in the rebellion.

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Growth of a Century : as illustrated in the history of Jefferson County, New York, from 1793 to 1894, Part 5

Author: Haddock, John A. 1823- Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Sherman Number of Pages: 1094

Author: Haddock, John A. 1823-
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Sherman
Number of Pages: 1094