USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 3
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[1865
this aristocracy, rather than the southern people in general, had been responsible for the war.
The conservative Republicans in New York approved this course. They were led by Secretary Seward, who indeed claimed the credit of having steered the President into it, and by Thurlow Weed, Senator Edwin D. Morgan, and Henry J. Raymond. Weed had established relations with Johnson, shortly after his accession, through ex-Senator Preston King, and continued as the President's mentor concerning New York politics and patronage after King's suicide in November, 1865, in a fit of depression over the responsibilities of the Collector's office, which he had reluctantly taken to please the President. Raymond had just been elected to Congress, where he was to prove Johnson's most conspicuous defender, and his news- paper, the New York Times, was the chief advocate of conservatism. On the other side stood Horace Greeley, who, despite his often inconsistent and petulant leader- ship, which, however, could not obscure his loftiness of purpose, perfect honesty, and controversial force, made the New York Tribune for a quarter of a century the most powerful exponent of political opinion ever known in America. The rivalry between these two factions was of long standing and had done much to embarrass Lincoln's administration. The radicals charged Seward and his friends with having beaten General Wadsworth for Governor in 1862. On the other hand, Seward had reason to remember Wadsworth's oppo- sition to his Presidential aspirations and the even more effective work done against him by Greeley at Chicago
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in 1860. Greeley had on several occasions been an advocate of conciliation toward the south, and even now was a merciless critic of Thaddeus Stevens's scheme of confiscation and other harsh measures. But his friendship for the negro was enthusiastic and sin- cere, and, as he had tried to force Lincoln's hand on the question of emancipation, so now he began to urge negro enfranchisement as the only guarantee of freedom.
The Democrats for their part were dependent on Republican differences for a policy. The Seymour leadership was bankrupt, though his charm and purity of character left his personal popularity undiminished. Any gift at the command of his party was his not merely by asking, but by accepting. He was by no means disloyal, but in a crisis where determination was needed his gentleness was ineffective. He censured lawlessness, but his subtle haggling on constitutional rights in the face of violence made him a practical apologist for resistance to the government. Seymour had made the issue that the war was a failure, and it had been brought to success. He had opposed the measures of the administration for raising troops and dealing with sedition, had addressed the draft rioters as "my friends," and had been repudiated by the loyal voters. But the War Democrats who stuck by the party, like Dean Richmond and "Prince" John Van Buren, had offered no consistent alternative policy. The prob- lem of maintaining partisan opposition in war times and really supporting the administration of the government had been insoluble.
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The election of 1864 put the Republicans again in control of the State government. They elected 20 of the 32 Congressmen, and had a majority of 10 in the Senate and of 24 in the Assembly, which chose George G. Hoskins, of Wyoming, Speaker. The new Governor was Reuben E. Fenton, a radical by conviction, a Barn- burner who stood by his anti-slavery principles and joined in the formation of the Republican party. A successful lumber merchant, without oratorical ability and with neither the learning nor the intellectual power requisite to first-class statesmanship, he had a genius for managing men and attaching them to his interest. His greatest gifts were keen powers of perception and unfailing tact and courtesy. With characteristic cen- soriousness Gideon Welles wrote: "He is cunning, false, selfish, is no statesman but a shrewd politician." But to Welles all radicals seemed rascals. John Russell Young, a scarcely more friendly if more genial critic, said : "In skill, patience, tact, a recognition of the limitations of human nature, with a firm, unyielding will, and a technical education in the business aspects of politics, Mr. Fenton never had a superior."2 Even Fenton's friends sometimes remarked on his "smooth platitudes," but behind them was sincere amiability and a distinct talent for public affairs. With the rise of the radicals he succeeded to Weed's sway over the party machinery and held the leadership until overcome by Conkling and the power of the Grant administration.
2Diary of Gideon Welles, III, p. 509; John Russell Young, Men and Mem- ories, p. 215.
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In his first annual message to the Legislature of 1865, Fenton expressed the hope that an anti-slavery amend- ment to the Constitution would soon be submitted by Congress. The Legislature promptly passed a concur- rent resolution on January 11 and 17 recommending such an amendment and suggesting its terms. A few days after, the Thirteenth amendment as submitted by Congress was trasmitted to it and approved in the form of a concurrent resolution on February 2 and 3, and also, to avoid any technical objections, by statute passed April 22. Thus New York anticipated and promptly confirmed the first step to recognize in the Constitution the results of the war.
Fenton also recommended the establishment of Cor- nell University, and this was done by the act of April 27, which appropriated to the University to be estab- lished at Ithaca the proceeds of the land granted to the State by Congress in 1862 for colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, on condition, among others, that Ezra Cornell should give to the institution $500,000. Mr. Cornell not only gave this sum, but also by his purchase and skillful handling of the land, which must otherwise have been improvidently sold, he secured to the University a fund that made it one of the richest institutions of the period.
An act had been passed in 1864 to enable the State banks without dissolution to enter into the new national system, but it had not been signed by Governor Sey- mour. At Fenton's suggestion, a similar bill was once more passed and, though some parts of it were after- ward declared unconstitutional, through it the State
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committed itself to a nationalized financial system. Governor Fenton was an excellent administrator with clear and sound ideas of public policy, which were perhaps most clearly shown in his vetoes. He disap- proved many special charters and insisted on incorpo- ration only under general laws. Public service corpo- rations were suffering from bad business and depre- ciated paper money and asked for increased fares to recoup themselves, but the Governor held that these conditions were temporary and could not be made the excuse for what would be in the long run excessive charges. He also vetoed what would now be called "franchise grabs" in New York City, as well as a bill to legalize the acts of local officers in paying bounties, which would have covered with one indiscriminating blanket of immunity official corruption as well as offi- cial error.
At this session the first steps were taken toward the building of the new Capitol and the site was fixed subject to the gift of the necessary land by the city of Albany. The site having been purchased, the location was confirmed the next year, and in 1868 the State itself purchased additional land and undertook the construc- tion of a building limited in cost to $4,000,000. With prophetic but ineffectual caution the Legislature for- bade the Commissioners to proceed on what was to prove a $20,000,000 undertaking, unless they were satisfied that the structure could be completed within the limit set. The accumulation of business in the Court of Appeals led to the submission of a constitu-
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tional amendment creating five Commissioners of Appeal, but on March 14 the people voted it down by over 25,000 majority.
During the summer Greeley published a series of effective articles in favor of negro suffrage, but the fall campaign approached without any open break between Johnson and the Republicans. Meanwhile the Demo- crats were doubtful whether to join Ohio in proclaim- ing the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 the true doctrine of State and Federal relations and to con- tinue like their brethren in neighboring States to denounce the administration, or to take a more mod- erate tone and adopt Johnson as their own. On the eve of the State convention, Samuel L. M. Barlow3 wrote to Tilden: "I hope the tone of the resolution to be passed will be more moderate than in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or Ohio." On the other hand, many Democrats were fearful that their party might be swal- lowed up and shared the feeling expressed by Francis P. Blair in a letter to Tilden on October 19, "Seward and Chase, who never were identified with the Democ- racy, have entered into a coalition to control its destiny."
The Democratic convention met in Albany on September 6. Greeley in a dispatch to the Tribune on that day said that the Seymour men wanted a platform on State sovereignty and reserved rights, while Dean Richmond swore it was "all damned nonsense and dead long ago." The selection of Charles H. Winfield of Orange for temporary chairman was a strategic triumph for the Johnson conservatives, but J. M. Humphrey of
3John Bigelow, Letters and Memorials of Samuel J. Tilden, I, pp. 197, 198.
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Erie, the permanent chairman, was a follower of Sey- mour. The Tammany delegation from New York City was seated, and the Mckeon and Fernando Wood's Mozart Hall delegations were excluded. Manton Marble of the New York World and William Cassidy of the Albany Argus appeared with a ready-made plat- form, part of which was adopted, but under the leader- ship of John B. Haskin, chairman of the committee on resolutions, three planks prepared by Tilden and Marble were dropped. These indorsed the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio platforms, continued to com- plain about arbitrary arrests, military courts, and sus- pension of habeas corpus, and favored the disbanding of the army, the abolition of military bureaus, the dismissal of United States revenue collectors and assessors, and the turning of their work over to State officials. Haskin would have none of these, but insisted on a hearty indorsement of Johnson to supplement the coldness of the Marble-Tilden resolution and "to make him the great leader of the people and of the Democratic party."4 The platform as adopted commended John- son, indorsed his plan of restoration, which confided the work to those then "recognized as electors by the laws of their respective States," demanded subordination of military to civil rule, condemned efforts to compel the south to adopt negro equality or negro suffrage, and, while recognizing the obligation to pay the public debt, declared: "All constitutional and legal means should be taken to compel the whole property of the
4Letter of Haskin quoted in New York Tribune, September 22, 1865.
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country, real and personal, to share in the public bur- dens, believing that equality of taxation is not only equity, but also the soundest possible basis of public credit." This last declaration was a plain hint at one form of repudiation, taxation of securities of men who had loaned to the government during the war at rates based on the freedom of the bonds from taxation. It was a fitting complement to the refusal of the same party in the Legislature of 1864 to allow payment of any interest on the State debt in coin, even at Governor Seymour's request, notwithstanding its consent to the payment of foreign but not domestic creditors in coin the year before.
The convention, determined to avoid any appearance of disloyalty, next turned to a conspicuous soldier for the head of the ticket and named General Henry W. Slocum, then of Syracuse-afterward of Brooklyn,- one of the corps commanders at Gettysburg, for Secre- tary of State. It named Lucius Robinson, of Elmira, to succeed himself in the Comptrollership, to which he had before been elected by the Republicans.5
Raymond hailed the action of the Democrats as a great victory for the President, declaring in the Times : "The Democratic party in the State met yesterday at Albany and after due deliberation and with great
5The ticket was: Secretary of State, Henry W. Slocum, Onondaga; Comp- troller, Lucius Robinson, Chemung; Attorney-General, John Van Buren, New York; Treasurer, Marsena R. Patrick, Ontario; State Engineer, Sylvanus H. Sweet, Oneida; Canal Commissioner, Cornelius W. Armstrong, Albany; Prison Inspector, Andrew J. McNutt, Allegany; Judges of the Court of Appeals, John W. Brown, Orange, and Martin Grover, Allegany; Clerk of the Court of Appeals, Edward O. Perrin, Queens.
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unanimity surrendered, horse, foot, and dragoons, to the Unionists and Republicans. The resolutions of the convention would scarcely be voted down in the Republican convention."6 Greeley declared that the Democratic organization was completely in the hands of the Barnburners and that the Hunkers had no future.7 He treated Robinson with fairness, declaring that he had never changed but had always been a Union Democrat, and urged that the Republicans should also renominate him. He turned his guns, however, on Martin Grover, one of the candidates for the Court of Appeals, denounced him as a "copperhead" notwith- standing his record as a War Democrat, and said: "No other man in the State has taken so miserly a view of the struggle as Judge Grover; while, as to its moral aspects, his daily talk has run like this-'I oppose the extension of slavery, because I am opposed to niggers anyhow; if we must have them, I prefer to have them as slaves. "8 Greeley with a better sense of humor would have been more just to the sterling character and ability of one whose wit, quaintness of expression, and assumption of Bœotian rusticity made him a salient and amusing char- acter without diminishing the respect in which he was held by bench and bar.
The Republican State convention met at Syracuse on September 20 with Charles J. Folger of Geneva as temporary chairman. On its eve Greeley telegraphed to
"New York Times, September 8, 1865.
7New York Tribune, September 7, 1865.
8New York Tribune, September 8, 1865.
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the Tribune: "The flourish of trumpets in certain habitually ill-informed journals over alleged conserva- tive or Weed preponderance in the convention seems unfounded. Any advantage which may be gained by that side will be due to dexterity rather than strength." If so, the dexterity was not wanting. Raymond and his friends dictated the platform. It rejoiced in the over- throw of the Rebellion and demanded adequate provi- sion for wounded soldiers and for the families of their dead comrades. It deplored the death of Lincoln, but recognized "in Andrew Johnson, his successor, a states- man of ability, experience, and high-toned patriotism and the most unsullied integrity." It said: "We renew to him in his administration those assurances of cordial and effective support which were tendered by us in his nomination and election." It approved "as eminently wise and just the sentiment of kindness and confidence" that President Johnson had evinced toward the States that accepted the perpetuation of the Union and the prohibition of slavery as the legitimate and irrevocable result of the war. It sanctioned the steps taken to restore the people to complete control of local affairs and affirmed the principle of State rights over all local and domestic concerns. Swayed by the feeling that led the Democrats to call for the equal taxation of bond- holders, the Republicans expressed themselves guard- edly in favor of measures to "impose the burden of taxation equally and impartially upon all classes." The Republican convention also adopted resolutions on the death of the great free trader, Richard Cobden, who had been recognized as one of the truest of those who
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had sustained the cause of American nationality in England.
Greeley declared this platform "timid and wordy," but better than the Democratic wherever they differed. He said there was in the convention a majority of at least fifty professed radicals, but they had no cohesion or discipline and so were seldom able to profit by their strength and allowed devotion to men to overbear attachment to principles. "If a resolve had been in order distinctly affirming the right of all loyal people of the south to a voice in reorganizing and controlling their respective State governments, it would have been largely carried on a vote of yeas and nays."9
Sentiment in the convention was strong for the recog- nition of the defenders of the Union. Depew, though proffered a renomination as Secretary of State by both wings of the party, withdrew in deference to this senti- ment and was made permanent chairman. Major- General Francis C. Barlow, an intrepid soldier and knightly figure, whose austere integrity was later to be put to the test in several offices, was named for Secretary of State. Despite his fine record, Robinson was left to the Democrats, but in Thomas Hillhouse the Repub- licans found a candidate for Comptroller of the highest character.10
9New York Tribune, September 21, 1865.
10The ticket was: Secretary of State, Francis C. Barlow, New York; Comptroller, Thomas Hillhouse, Ontario; Attorney-General, John H. Martin- dale, Monroe; Treasurer, Joseph Howland, Dutchess; State Engineer, J. Platt Goodsell, Oneida; Canal Commissioner, Robert C. Dorn, Sche- nectady; Prison Inspector, Henry W. Barnum, Onondaga; Judges of the Court of Appeals, Ward Hunt, Oneida, and John K. Porter, Albany; Clerk of the Court of Appeals, Patrick Henry Jones, Cattaraugus.
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The tide of the campaign ran strongly with the Republicans. Mississippi and other extremist southern States had not yet passed their vagrancy codes, or shown their determination to deny civil rights to the negroes, so there was a comparative truce between the Repub- lican factions, while the Democrats were in spirit divided. Seymour appeared on the platform, rejoicing indeed in the signal victories of the soldiers, which had made the country glorious, but still threshing over the old issues between himself and Lincoln, talking of the rights of "subjugated"11 States, and preaching discon- tent with the overwhelming debt. His attitude angered John Van Buren, who, though himself a candidate, pub- licly remarked after a speech at Troy on October 23, that "if Seymour and Vallandigham had been knocked out of the national convention it would have been a good thing for the party."12
The election on November 7 resulted in a signal Republican victory, Barlow winning by 27,491 plu- rality, receiving 300,254 votes to Slocum's 272,763. The Republicans secured a majority of 22 in the Senate and 50 in the Assembly, of which Lyman Tremain became Speaker.
11Speech at Seneca Falls, New York World, November 4, 1865.
12New York Tribune, November 3, 1865.
CHAPTER III OVERTHROW OF THE CONSERVATIVES 1866
T HE prevailing sentiment of the north was at first undoubtedly against negro suffrage. Negroes could vote nowhere, except in the New England States-barring Connecticut-and in New York, where a property qualification not required of white men was imposed. The south itself forced radicalism to the front by statutes subjecting blacks and whites to dif- ferent penalties for the same crime, and by labor and vagrancy laws that the north interpreted as attempts to establish peonage on the ruins of slavery. While Gen- eral Grant, after a trip through the southern States, reported them to be in earnest in wishing to do what was required by the government, not humiliating to them as citizens, Carl Schurz, who made a more extended investigation, declared that there was no real loyalty to the new order of things and that the south meant to keep the negroes to some form of enforced labor. He believed that suffrage should be a condition precedent to readmission and proposed to make actual votes instead of population the basis of representation. This suggestion involved more than regard for the negro's protection. It went to the heart of the question of
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political balance. One of the great compromises of the Constitution had allowed the southern whites represen- tation for three-fifths of their slaves. With the abolition of slavery, the north was confronted with the prospect that these same southern whites would still further increase their disproportionate weight in Congress by a representation of not merely three-fifths but all of the blacks, while still depriving the latter of all political existence. Some attempt to redress the political balance was inevitable. It soon took form in the Fourteenth amendment, intended to safeguard the negro's civil rights and to put pressure on the south to admit him to political rights for the sake of maintaining its own weight in national affairs. It failed to accomplish this, or even to obtain equal political weight for the white voter of the north with the white voter of the south, but it did succeed in the larger work of nationalizing the whole sphere of civil liberty.
When Congress met in December, 1865, the President in his message advocated the admission of the southern States on the ratification of the Thirteenth amendment, leaving the question of negro suffrage to the States. The radicals no longer hesitated to join issue. Stevens took the ground that the original contract had been severed and that the south must now come back into the Union as new States on terms made by Congress and approved by the President. If suffrage was to be denied to the negroes, then they must be excluded from the basis of representation. The task of defending the President's position fell to Henry J. Raymond. He maintained the doctrine that secession was null and that
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[1866
the southern States were legally right where they had been before the war. Raymond enjoyed great influence. He was personally popular. The patronage of the administration was potent, and, moreover, many Repub- licans for more unselfish reasons were reluctant to split the party. Nevertheless, Raymond in Congress could not prevent his resolution 'of confidence in the President from being sidetracked by reference to the committee on reconstruction, by a vote of 32 to 107. Raymond and his friend and fellow-New Yorker, William A. Darling, were the only Republicans ready to indorse the President's policy. On February 6 Con- gress passed the Freedman's Bureau bill, which the President vetoed. It speedily followed with the Civil Rights bill, and on April 8 overrode the President's veto by a vote of 122 to 41, Raymond being one of seven Republicans who sustained the President.
The New York Legislature of 1866 assembled in the midst of the struggle, and adopted resolutions declar- ing: "No State within which there has been insubordi- nation or rebellion should be admitted to share in the national legislation until it presents itself not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the persons of representatives whose loyalty cannot be questioned." It held that Congress had full power to judge when the constituency or representatives met that test; that the "liberty and civil rights of every human being subject to the government of the United States should be pro- tected and enforced," and that this policy was not ful- filled "until every subject of that government stands free not only, but equal before the law." It failed to
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adopt the whole radical program only in respect to a specific declaration for negro suffrage.
State affairs could receive little attention at such a time. Governor Fenton in his message denounced the growing practice of passing bills for the relief of con- tractors, some of which he frankly confessed he had mistakenly approved, and on his recommendation the Legislature gave the Governor power to appoint com- missioners to represent him in inquiring into charges against officials subject to removal by the Governor, a power which has been found most useful ever since. At this session the Governor took a noteworthy stand against the policy of State aid to railroads, which threatened to plunge New York into a riot of reckless railroad building. Railroads were being projected in every quarter of the State, often with inadequate private financial backing and with little prospect of immediate paying traffic. Local communities, which undoubtedly needed their facilities, liberally bonded themselves in aid of these railroads, but many companies not content with this assistance asked for legislative grants. In vetoing such a grant for the Plattsburg & Whitehall Railroad, the Governor took a position that he generally maintained throughout his term in the face of many and repeated attempts to force the State into partnership in such enterprises.
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