USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. II 1822-1864 > Part 27
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The Native Americans also held a State convention, early in October. They were a secret, oath-bound or-
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ganization, who, because of their professed inability to tell anything about their party, became known as Know- Nothings. Comprising members of all the other par- ties, their first thought was to make no separate nomina- tions. But other counsels prevailed, and their conven- tion nominated for Governor Daniel Ullman, a respect- able but by no means brilliant lawyer of New York, who had long sought office from the Whigs. In their platform they took no ground concerning the Kansas- Nebraska bill.
So the issues of the contest were joined. The Whigs and their allies were against the Kansas-Nebraska bill and in favor of radical temperance reform. Both the Hards and Softs were for the bill and against prohibi- tion. The Know-Nothings dodged each issue and con- tented themselves with demanding that none but native Americans hold office while they were supporting a candidate who was widely declared-probably with truth-to have been foreign born. The outcome was in doubt to the last moment, and the result proved very close. The Whigs and their allies won by the narrowest of margins. Clark received 156,804 votes, Seymour 156,495, and Bronson 33,850; while Ullman secured no fewer than 122,282, or more than twice as many as had been anticipated. For Lieutenant-Governor Ray- mond ran ahead of Clark, having 157,166 votes, while Ludlow had 128,833, Ford (Hard) 52,074, and Scroggs (Know-Nothing) 121,037. The Whigs swept the Leg- islature. The Senate stood : 22 Whigs, 7 Hards, and 3 Softs; the Assembly: 82 Whigs, 16 Hards, 26 Softs, and 3 Maine Law men. It was not, however, so much a
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Whig victory as it was a victory of the opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska bill and a demonstration of the disso- lution of old party ties and the formation of new ones on the vital issues of the day.
In that respect the result in New York was per- fectly symptomatic of political conditions and tenden- cies throughout the nation, and especially throughout the non-slave States. The old issues of Federalist and Anti-Federalist, of Democrat and National Republi- can or Whig, and what not, were either obsolete or were placed in abeyance before the one tremendous question which had irresistibly come to the fore and which the Missouri Compromise and all similar measures had merely delayed or masked for a time. In the transition period almost anything might hap- pen. But just ahead was clearly seen a new era in which the chosen leaders would be men who had taken aggressive ground on the question of human slavery and of its relation to the government of the United States.
CHAPTER XXVI THE REPUBLICAN ADVENT
T HE outstanding personality in New York politics at the beginning of 1855 was William H. Seward. He was now in the full maturity of his intellectual powers, with a reputation and prestige that made his party leadership unquestioned. More than any other man he had been vindicated and advanced in influence by the election of the preceding fall. His fight against the Kansas-Nebraska bill had made him a great national leader. There was much expectation that he would not only be reëlected to the United States Senate but would be elected to the Presidency the next year. Both these eventualities were confidently predicted in the Times by Raymond, who failed, however to take into account two things-the influence of Horace Greeley with his Tribune and the power of the Know- Nothings. Greeley was implacable against Seward on Weed's account, and the wide circulation and vast influence of his Weekly Tribune throughout all the free States formed a most important factor in the politics of the time. As for the Know-Nothings with their extra- ordinary development of voting strength in 1854, they were bitterly opposed to Seward because of his pro- posals when Governor for special school provision for Roman Catholic immigrants and because he was sup-
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posed to be a warm friend of Archbishop Hughes, who was endeavoring to have the reading of the Bible in public schools abolished. So when the Legislature met Seward faced a hard fight for reelection to the Senate.
The Legislature-the Seventy-eighth-met on Janu- ary 2, 1855. DeWitt C. Littlejohn, of Oswego, was chosen Speaker of the Assembly, and R. U. Sherman was continued as Clerk. Among the members were William B. Woodin, of Cayuga, and Joel T. Headley, the historian, from Orange county. Governor Clark's message dealt chiefly with routine matters. He gave much attention to the public schools and to excise. In response to his urgings on the latter topic the Legisla- ture passed another radical temperance bill, which the courts declared unconstitutional. But a moderate re- vision of the Excise laws was effected the next year, which stood unchanged until 1892.
Much space was given in the message to the famous Lemmon slave case. Jonathan Lemmon, of Virginia, had visited New York in November, 1852, with eight negro slaves, on his way with them to Texas. Anti- slavery leaders procured a writ of habeas corpus in be- half of the slaves, under which they were permitted to leave their master and escape to Canada. Pro-slavery citizens of New York voluntarily contributed to a fund of $5,000 which was given to Lemmon as a solatium for his loss. But the State of Virginia was jealous of the rights of its citizens, and it brought suit in the Supreme Court of New York against this State. This was the status of the case when Governor Clark presented his message, and he recommended that the Legislature
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make special provision for the conduct of the legal pro- ceedings by the Attorney-General, which was done, and the Attorney-General, Ogden Hoffman, made a bril- liant and successful defense. The case was carried to the Court of Appeals, which in 1860 finally disposed of it, affirming the principle that New York, as a sovereign State, had authority to determine the condition of all persons within its jurisdiction and therefore possessed full right and power to declare the eight negroes in question to be free men.
The Governor discussed at length the question of the extension of slavery, condemned the repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise, and maintained that the peace, per- manent welfare, and political rights of the State re- quired the reestablishment of the principles of that Compromise. Thereupon the Legislature adopted vig- orously-worded resolutions confirming the opinions thus expressed.
Then came the Senatorship fight. The Know- Nothings had no hope of defeating Seward in a square fight and on joint ballot. But they hoped to prevent the Senate from making a choice, and thus to prevent any election by that Legislature and have the Senatorship left vacant for a year. The result sought had been achieved before in the history of the State, and they ex- pected to repeat the performance. But that was not to be. Several of the Democratic Senators let it be known that since there was no possibility of electing a candi- date of their own they would, if necessary, vote for Seward rather than let him be beaten by the Know- Nothings, toward whom they were intensely hostile.
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The Whig caucus met on February 1, with five Senators and twenty Assemblymen absent; of the eighty present, seventy-four voted for Seward. When the election oc- curred in the Senate Seward received 18 of the 31 votes -there was one vacancy,-and in the Assembly he re- ceived 69 out of 126. The dissenting Whigs voted for Fillmore, Ullman, Ogden Hoffman, Preston King, and George R. Babcock. Seward was thus reëelected for a second term. The Legislature adjourned without day on April 14.
The Hards in their State convention, at Syracuse on August 23, showed themselves true Bourbons incapable of either learning or forgetting. They offered no olive- branch of peace to the Softs, unfavorably criticised the national administration, raged against the Know- Nothings, approved the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise, and ignored the wrongs of Kansas. If there was any change in their policy it was on the temperance question. At the beginning they had favored prohibi- tion; now they declared themselves against it. A con- spicuous figure in this convention was Daniel E. Sickles, who strove vainly though earnestly to persuade his colleagues to assume a more liberal and enlightened attitude. Fate seemed to have decreed that the Demo- crats should continue divided.
A week later the Softs met in a stormy convention that lasted several days. Their platform condemned the out- rages against Kansas which the President had condoned and approved, and opposed the extension of slavery into free Territories. Samuel J. Tilden was nominated for Attorney-General, and the Hard nomination of Samuel
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L. Selden for Judge of the Court of Appeals was en- dorsed.
The Anti-Nebraska State convention of 1854 had ap- pointed an executive committee to which, in emulation of what had been done in Michigan, it gave the name of "Republican State Committee." This body in 1855 en- tered into negotiations with the Whig State committee, with the result that the two agreed to summon their State conventions to meet at the same place and time- Syracuse, September 26. More than two hundred dele- gates attended the Republican convention, drawn from both Whig and Democratic ranks. The presiding of- ficer was Reuben E. Fenton, who had formerly been a Barnburner. He was at the time serving his first term in the national House of Representatives, and though a young man had already made his mark in public affairs. The Whigs had a somewhat larger convention, presided over by the venerable John Alsop King. After both conventions were organized each appointed committees on resolutions and nominations. These committees con- ferred together and agreed on identical work. Then the Whigs all proceeded to the hall where the Repub- licans were meeting and were received with much en- thusiasm. The two chairmen jointly presided, and the combined conventions ratified the platforms and nomi- nations that had been made separately. Horace Greeley reported the platforms, and on the stage were Thurlow Weed, John A. King, Edwin D. Morgan, and Reuben E. Fenton. It was on the motion of John A. King that the list of candidates, headed with the name of Preston King for Secretary of State, was
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formally and officially called the "Republican Ticket."
The Know-Nothings, now styling themselves the American party and abandoning all their former se- crecy and mystery, held a State convention at Auburn at the same time that the Republicans were assembled at Syracuse and nominated the accomplished and popular historian, Joel T. Headley, for Secretary of State. The Liberty party met at Utica and nominated Frederick Douglass, the negro leader, for Secretary of State, and Lewis Tappan, of New York, for Comptroller. A con- vention was held by the Free Democrats which nomi- nated candidates.
The campaign did not develop as favorably for the Republican organization as had been expected at the Syracuse convention, while the American party showed greater strength than had been thought possible. Ap- parently the change of name from Whig to Republican had been at least temporarily detrimental, while the imposing American name helped the Know-Nothings. Seward threw himself into the contest, and in a notable speech at Albany vindicated the formation of the new Republican party. But it was too late. The tide had already set toward Know-Nothing victory. When the votes were counted it was found that the American party had elected its entire State ticket and had secured the balance of power in the Legislature. For Secretary of State Headley, American, had 148,557 votes ; Preston King, Republican, 136,698; Hatch, Soft, 91,336; Ward, Hard, 59,353. Similar votes were cast for the other State officers. To the State Senate the Republicans elected 16 members, the Americans 11, the Democrats
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4, and Temperance party 1. In the Assembly the Demo- crats, Hard and Soft, had 50, the Americans 44, the Re- publicans 33, and one still clung to the name of Whig.
When the Seventy-ninth Legislature met on January 1, 1856, there appeared in the Senate Daniel E. Sickles, Erastus Brooks, Zenas Clark, and James S. Wads- worth; Samuel P. Allen was elected Clerk. Note- worthy members of the Assembly were Francis B. Spinola, of Brooklyn, and A. J. H. Duganne, of New York; Orville Robinson, of Oswego, was elected Speaker, and R. U. Sherman was retained as Clerk. The contest over the Speakership lasted until Janu- ary 16, and at that time Governor Clark sent in his message, which was chiefly a colorless presentation of routine matters. A recommendation of reform in the public school system moved the Legislature to pass a general act abolishing town Superintendents of Schools and creating a School Commissioner for each Assembly district. The Legislature adjourned without day on April 9.
Chief interest that year centered in the Presidential campaign. The new national organization of the Re- publican party would put its first candidate into the field, and the issue would be that of slavery with par- ticular reference to the civil war in Kansas. To the latter subject especial attention was paid in New York. Horace Greeley in the Tribune urged the equipping of all free settlers in Kansas with Sharps rifles- peculiarly effective breech-loaders then recently in- vented,-and Henry Ward Beecher took up collections in his church to provide every colonist on his way to
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Kansas with a rifle and a Bible-the rifle first. In the debate in the Senate over the bill for the admission of Kansas into the Union, Seward was probably the ablest champion of the Free State cause, and that fact made him appear to many as the logical candidate of the Re- publicans. But he was held back by Thurlow Weed, who shrewdly perceived the impossibility of his election at that time and feared that defeat in 1856 would militate against his chances in 1860. His success in 1856 was impossible, Weed argued, because no Free State man could hope to win without the vote of Pennsylvania, and that was not to be secured since the Democrats had selected their candidate from that State.
The Democrats were first in the field with their national convention, which met in Cincinnati June 2. President Pierce was a candidate for renomination. Stephen A. Douglas was a candidate on the strength of his leadership in the Senate. James Buchanan was a candidate on the ground that he was a Pennsylvanian and could carry that State, the vote of which, added to the votes of the sure Democratic States, would suffice. The New York delegates were divided, the Hards being bitterly opposed to Pierce and supporting Buchanan, while the Softs, under the lead of Marcy, voted for Pierce though having little expectation of his success and hoping for a union of his supporters with those of Douglas. The Softs continued to vote for Pierce until after the fourteenth ballot, when he was withdrawn; then they turned to Douglas only to see him also withdrawn and Buchanan chosen. They had "put their money on the wrong horse," but the tact
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of Horatio Seymour saved them from an awkward situation. ,
The Republicans assembled in national convention in Philadelphia on June 17 with high hopes of victory. They had elected Nathaniel P. Banks Speaker of the House of Representatives, and felt confident of carrying every northern State. With Seward with- drawn from the competition their leading candidates were John Charles Fremont and John McLean-the latter for many years a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. After a brief and entirely friendly preliminary contest Fremont was chosen. Had Seward been a candidate he would have been nominated probably by acclamation.
The American or Know-Nothing party nominated Millard Fillmore for President, but a considerable number of the delegates bolted, and ultimately the anti- slavery Know-Nothings endorsed Fremont. What was left of the Whig party held a convention, which rati- fied the regular Know-Nothing nomination of Fill- more.
Next came the New York State conventions, with the Democrats first in the field. The two factions held separate conventions, but on the same day and in the same city, Syracuse. As soon as the two bodies were organized they emulated the example of the Whigs and Republicans the year before, and came together as one assemblage. It was agreed to stand united on the Cincinnati platform, which approved the policy of the Pierce administration on the slavery issue. Horatio Seymour was the unchallenged leader of this
MYRON HOLLEY CLARK
Myron Holley Clark, 21st governor (1855-56) ; born at Naples, Ontario county, October 23, 1806; sheriff of Ontario county ; state senator, 1852-4; governor, 1855-1856; died at Canandaigua, N. Y., August 22, 1892.
GEORGE FRANKLIN COMSTOCK
George Franklin Comstock, jurist; born, Williamstown, Oswego county, August 24, 1811; graduated from Union college in 1834; lawyer; appointed by Governor Young as reporter to the court of appeals then newly organized, 1847; appointed by President Fillmore solicitor to the Treasury of the United States, 1852; judge of the court of appeals, 1855-1861; defeated for reelection; elected delegate at large to the constitutional convention of 1867 and with Charles J. Folger practically framed the article on the judiciary; was active in the move- ment to secure Syracuse university; died February 11, 1892, Syracuse, N. Y.
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joint body, and was indeed the most competent and masterful figure in the party.
Four ballots were needed for the choice of a can- didate for Governor, the leading candidates being Amasa J. Parker, Fernando Wood, Addison Gardiner, and David L. Seymour. Parker was a cultivated New Englander, an eminent lawyer who had served with distinction in the Legislature and in Congress; later he had a long and honorable career on the bench of the Supreme Court. Wood was a Philadelphia Quaker who had been a cigar-maker and grocer and had begun his political career at the Pennsylvania capi- tal. He had been elected to Congress from New York at the age of twenty-eight, and afterward was Mayor of New York City, in which office his record was far from creditable. Personally he was a man of much charm, but politically he was quite unscrupulous. Gardiner was a leading Soft, who had been Lieutenant- Governor with Silas Wright and afterward Judge of the Court of Appeals. David L. Seymour was one of the hardest of the Hards.
At first Parker was a poor third in the balloting (Wood standing fourth) ; but Horatio Seymour re- garded him as the best man to unite the party, and so prevailed upon Gardiner to withdraw and let his sup- porters go to Parker, who thereupon was nominated.
The Republicans met at Syracuse also, on September 17, a multiplicity of candidates being before the con- vention. Governor Clark would have liked to be re- elected, but his extreme temperance views made him unavailable in the new era that had come upon the
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State. Moses H. Grinnell, a wealthy, philanthropic, public-spirited, and immensely popular merchant of New York, was the favorite of many, but he declined to be considered. John Alsop King, Ira Harris, Simeon Draper, and James S. Wadsworth (once leader of the Barnburners in their famous bolt), were active candidates. Through the influence of Thurlow Weed the choice fell upon King, probably the best man who could have been named. He was a son of Rufus King, and had been educated in England when his father was Minister to that country, having for schoolmates Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel. Formerly an Anti- Mason, a Henry Clay National Republican, and a Whig, he had fought against Clay's Compromises in 1850 and the Fugitive Slave law and had become a pillar of strength to the Free State cause. The nomi- nee for Lieutenant-Governor was Henry R. Selden, of Monroe county, a younger brother of Samuel L. Selden, and like him an eminent lawyer.
The Americans or Know-Nothings nominated for Governor Erastus Brooks, who was a native of Maine and a younger brother of James Brooks, the founder and editor of the New York Express. He was a young man of ability and high character.
The campaign was waged with much spirit and en- gaged the activities of many notable men. Seward did not enter it until late in the season, but Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, Henry Ward Beecher, and others stumped the State for the Republican ticket. George William Curtis made his first appearances upon the platform, which for many years he so greatly
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graced; William Cullen Bryant also become a politi- cal speaker for the first time; and Washington Irving made known his interest in the Republican cause.
The result of the election justified the prophecy of Weed. Fremont lost Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indi- ana, Illinois, and California, and was defeated. In New York his victory was overwhelming. He received 276,007 votes to 195,878 for Buchanan and 124,604 for Fillmore. The Governorship contest showed a like result. John Alsop King was elected the first Repub- lican Governor of the State by 264,400 votes, against 198,616 for Parker and 130,870 for Brooks. For the other State officers the results were similar. In the State Senate the Republicans had 16, the Americans 11, the Democrats 4, and the Temperance party 1- that body holding over unchanged. In the Assembly the Republicans had 81, the Americans 8, the Democrats 31, and a combination of Americans and Democrats 8. Moses H. Grinnell and James S. Wadsworth were the Presidential Electors-at-large. Among the Represen- tatives elected to the Thirty-fifth Congress were Daniel E. Sickles, John Kelly, John Cochrane, John B. Has- kin, Erastus Corning, Francis E. Spinner, and Reuben E. Fenton.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE FIRST REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR
T HE first Republican Governor of New York addressed his first annual message to the Eightieth Legislature of the State on January 6, 1857. The Senate, having held over from the preceding year, was unchanged in membership and organization save for the new Lieutenant-Governor. In the Assembly, which had a large Republican majority, De Witt C. Little- john, of Oswego, was returned to his former place as Speaker, and William Richardson was made Clerk in place of Richard U. Sherman, who had been elected a member from Oneida county.
The message was comparatively brief and intensely practical. It reported that according to the census of 1855 the population of the State was 3,466,212, of whom 920,530 were of alien birth-figures which re- mind us how vast had already become the influx of European immigrants in the years following the great Irish famine and the revolutionary era on the Euro- pean continent and the subsequent proscription. Much attention was given to the educational system of the State, and announcement was made of the opening of the Dudley Astronomical Observatory at Albany, an institution which the Governor proudly estimated to be comparable with any other of the kind in the world.
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New York City's interests were discussed in detail, particularly the needs of greater safeguards against corrupt practices at elections and of a more efficient police organization. In response the Legislature en- acted a law creating the Metropolitan Police district and providing for its administration-the district com- prising the counties of New York, Kings, Richmond, and Westchester.
On the subject of slavery the document was one of the most outspoken in the history of the State. The Governor declared it to be "the deliberate and irrever- sible decree" of New York that so far as this State was concerned there should be no further extension of slavery in the Territories of the United States. "This conclusion," he said, "I most unreservedly adopt, and am prepared to abide by it at all times, under all circumstances, and in any emergency." He emphatic- ally took issue with President Pierce for the latter's im- putations against the people of New York on account of their conduct in the late election, and he suggested the propriety of making a generous appropriation from the State treasury for the relief of the citizens of Kansas who were suffering from the ravages committed upon them through the failure of the national government to do its duty toward them. This suggestion was not approved by the Legislature, but, echoing the Gover- nor's forceful words, resolutions were adopted declar- ing that New York would "not allow slavery within her borders in any form, or under any pretense, or for any time, however short," and that by its decision in the Dred Scott case the Supreme Court of the United
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