USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 5
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When, however, the convention made its ticket, it unfortunately retired the Secretary of State, General Barlow, and Comptroller Hillhouse, who had been conspicuous for their attacks on the canal ring. The radicals, dissatisfied with the attitude of some of the State officials toward the conservatives, demanded a new ticket and argued that any exceptions in making a clean sweep would be invidious. Therefore they refused to yield to the arguments of justice or expedi- ency, but named General James R. McKean for Secre- tary of State, Calvin T. Hulburd for Comptroller, and supplanted General Martindale by Joshua M. Van Cott of Kings for Attorney-General. Mr. Hulburd, who was in Europe, declined the nomination on reaching home, and the Republicans took the opportunity to strengthen their ticket by renaming Comptroller Hill- house.7
7The ticket was: Secretary of State, James R. Mckean, Saratoga ; Comp- troller, Thomas Hillhouse, Ontario; Treasurer, Theodore B. Gates, Ulster; Attorney-General, Joshua M. Van Cott, Kings; State Engineer, Archibald C.
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[1867
William M. Tweed planned to reassert the domina- tion over the Democracy of the State that Tammany Hall had shown in defeating Dix the year before, by making Hoffman chairman of the State convention, which met at Albany on October 3. Horatio Seymour, however, who had been in virtual retirement since the collapse of his war policy, saw the tide turning from the radicals and determined to resume his leadership. Hoffman had to be content with the temporary chair- manship. He squarely challenged a growing sentiment of the Democracy by a declaration for the payment of every dollar of the national debt in accordance with the letter and spirit of the bond. He bitterly attacked the State administration's control of the city and its enforcement of the Excise law of 1866, which had forbidden the retailing of spirits in the metropolitan police district without a license, confined licenses to persons of good moral character, forbidden the sale of liquor to minors under eighteen years of age, and closed saloons between midnight and sunrise, and also on Sun- days, with exceptional provisions for regular hotels. According to the report of the Police board on May 1, 1866, there were 9,250 places where intoxicating liquors were publicly sold, of which only 754 were licensed. The State law previously forbade Sunday sales, but every one of these places was openly violating Sunday provisions and a great majority of them every other provision of the liquor law. The Court of
Powell, Onondaga; Canal Commissioner, John M. Hammond, Allegany; Prison Inspector, Gilbert DeLaMatyr, Wyoming; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Charles Mason, Madison.
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1867]
Appeals, early in 1867, had sustained the act after its enforcement had for some time been suspended by injunctions from Judge Albert Cardozo. It had swollen the revenues of the city and had manifestly decreased drunkenness and disorder, but Hoffman frankly assailed it in the name of liberalism and "home rule." Seymour, as permanent chairman, evaded the financial question with generalities, but declared it "criminal folly" to exempt bonds from taxation. He said there could be no question of repudiation if paper money were made as good as gold, instead of being debased by Republican waste and partisanship. Then he proceeded to put before the convention one of the strangest issues ever made by a professed exponent of State rights doctrine, the issue of inequalities of repre- sentation in the United States Senate, where, he com- plained, New York with a population of four million people could be balanced by the threatened admission of Colorado with a population insufficient to uphold the rudiments of a State government. This complaint itself was just a side shot, but it was typical at once of Seymour's weakness and strength, his inconsistency and his power to make capital out of the details of an oppo- nent's policy, while avoiding main issues.
The platform, though it denounced the Republican reconstruction policy as an attempt to attain power by establishing negro supremacy in the south, made no attempt to champion Johnson. It was clear that the Democracy had used Johnson for all he was worth, foresaw the impeachment, and was ready to abandon him. The bond question was evaded by a mere declara-
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tion for "equal taxation," forced by Seymour and Tilden despite complaints that it was equivocal and without moral effect. The failure of the Constitutional convention to complete its work and promptly submit the question of negro suffrage to the people was criti- cised as an evasion by the Republicans of a paramount issue of the campaign. The platform denounced cor- ruption in the management of the canals, the Excise law of 1866, and the extraordinary commissions created to control municipalities. Like the Republicans, the Democrats sought the Irish vote by a ringing reaffirma- tion of William L. Marcy's doctrine in the Koszta case, that all citizens were entitled everywhere to the protec- tion of the flag. Homer A. Nelson of Dutchess was nominated for Secretary of State.8
The Republicans entered the campaign under distinct disadvantages. The October elections in Ohio, Penn- sylvania, and Iowa showed a Democratic drift. The country was clearly wearying of the extremes of radicalism. On State issues they were at least no better off, and the Democrats made the most of the canal frauds, charging that the Republican candidate for Canal Commissioner had been involved in them back in 1855. They also made capital of the renomination of some Republican Senators who stood charged with cor- ruption. Nelson, the candidate for Secretary of State,
8The ticket was: Secretary of State, Homer A. Nelson, Dutchess; Comp- troller, William F. Allen, Oswego; Treasurer, Wheeler H. Bristol, Tioga; Attorney-General, Marshall B. Champlain, Allegany; State Engineer, Van Rensselaer Richmond, Wayne; Canal Commissioner, John D. Fay, Monroe; Prison Inspector, Solomon Scheu, Erie; Judge of the Court of Appeals, Martin Grover, Allegany.
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sought the country vote as a temperance reformer, while adjusting himself to the Tammany fight against any restriction of the liquor traffic by the doctrine that it was not "right because some persons abuse a benefit, that others should be deprived of it."9 Besides the liquor interests, Tammany undoubtedly had the aid in New York City of fraudulent naturalization and registration, but the Democrats likewise gained in other parts of the State. They were the beneficiaries of a general reaction. Nelson won by 47,930 majority, receiving 373,029 votes as against 325,099 for General Mckean. The Democrats also elected their other State candidates and carried the Legislature, electing 15 Senators and 73 Assemblymen, as against one Independent and 16 Republican Senators and 55 Republican Assemblymen. They made William Hitchman, of New York, Speaker.
9Letter to E. C. Delavan, New York World, October 30, 1867.
CHAPTER V THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND THE ERIE WAR
1867-1868
T HE Constitutional convention met on June 4, 1867, and selected as its president William A. Wheeler of Franklin, afterward Vice-President of the United States. Few public bodies have shown a higher average of ability and character. Among the delegates were William M. Evarts, Horace Greeley, George William Curtis, Waldo Hutchins, Ira Harris, Charles J. Folger, Charles Andrews, Henry C. Mur- phy, Joshua M. Van Cott, Francis Kernan, George F. Comstock, Sanford E. Church, Samuel J. Tilden, Amasa J. Parker, and Theodore W. Dwight. The most important business of the convention was the reform of the judiciary system, which had proved utterly inadequate to the growing business of the State. The canal administration and the evident waste and corrup- tion in the letting of contracts for repairs, called for investigation. The convention faced a popular convic- tion that bribery was rampant in the Legislature, and under existing law could not be punished. Then it had to deal with negro suffrage, a question on which many Republicans were inclined to take less radical views
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GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS
George William Curtis, editor and orator; born, Providence, R. I., February 24, 1824; joined the Brook Farm colony of which Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller and other distinguished American thinkers of their time were connected in 1842; trav- eled and studied abroad, 1846-1850; joined staff of the New York Tribune, 1857; delegate to the republican national con- ventions of 1860 and 1864; delegate at large to the constitu- tional convention of 1867; appointed in 1871 by President Grant to a committee which should draw up a plan of civil service reform; bolted the Blaine ticket and came out for Grover Cleveland in 1884; died at Staten Island, August 31, 1892.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman; born at Litchfield, Conn., June 24, 1813; graduated from Amherst college, 1834; studied theology at Lane seminary near Cincinnati, O., under the tutelage of his father, the Rev. Lyman Beecher; first settled as a Presbyterian minister near Lawrenceburg, Ind., in 1837; re- moved to Indianapolis where he preached, 1839-1847; called to Plymouth Congregational church, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1847; ac- quired great reputation as a pulpit orator; withdrew with his congregation from the association of congregational churches in 1882 because of disbelief in eternal punishment; editor of The Independent, 1870; charged by Theodore Tilton, his asso- ciate editor, with having alienated the affections of his wife, 1874; jury disagreed in damage suit brought by Tilton; became a member of the republican party on its formation and ad- dressed many political meetings; supported Cleveland in the presidential campaign of 1884; died at Brooklyn, N. Y., March 8, 1887.
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with regard to New York than with regard to the south. The convention debated these questions ably and con- scientiously through the summer, much to the dissatis- faction of Greeley, whose attacks on long speeches and week-end adjournments did much to prejudice the voters. The convention had been directed by the Legis- lature to present an instrument for submission to the people at the fall election, but it was unable to complete its work in time and on September 20 adjourned over election to November 12.
The convention ended its labors on February 28, 1868, and reported to the Legislature an instrument that removed the property qualification required of negroes under the old Constitution and gave them the franchise in equality with the whites. It sought to deal with canal corruption and centralize administration by abolishing the offices of State Engineer, Canal Commissioner, and Canal Appraiser, and giving the Governor power to appoint a Superintendent of Public Works and four assistants for five-year terms. It provided for a Court of Claims of three Judges to be appointed by the Gov- ernor. It left the election of Judges with the people, but in deference to the strong sentiment manifested in the convention in favor of the practice that had pre- vailed before 1846, it provided that the question of appointing Judges by Executive authority should be submitted to the people in 1873. It consolidated the eight general terms of the Supreme Court into four, and, in place of the old Court of Appeals, which con- sisted of four elected Judges and four Supreme Court Justices sitting with them for short periods, it provided
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[1867-8
for a Court of Appeals to consist of a Chief-Judge and six associates to be elected by the people for fourteen- year terms. The term of Justices of the Supreme Court was also extended to fourteen years. The Legislature was reorganized so that the terms of half the Senators, who served four years, should expire every second year, and so that members of the Assembly should be elected by counties instead of districts. Provision was made against the passage of special laws and for the exercise of larger powers by Boards of Supervisors. A two-thirds vote of all the members of each house, instead of two-thirds of the members present, was required to pass a bill over the Governor's veto. The election of the Secretary of State and other State officers was fixed at the same time as that of the Governor. The powers and responsibilities of Mayors were increased, members of Common Councils were forbidden to hold any other office, and special acts for the government of cities were forbidden. A Prison commission of five persons, to be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate for ten-year terms, was substituted for the Prison Inspectors.
The convention, acting on the theory that it had the power and duty to fix the time and manner of submitting the Constitution, planned to submit the instrument at the general election of 1868 in three parts: The section relating to suffrage for negroes, the Judiciary article, and the rest of the Constitution. The convention, how- ever, in the act providing for the election of delegates had been ordered to prepare a Constitution for sub- mission in 1867. It having failed to do this, the Legisla-
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186 8-9]
ture assumed the right to fix the time and manner of submission of the proposed Constitution. The Demo- cratic Assembly of 1868 passed an act for its sub- mission in November, but this was blocked in the Republican Senate, and nothing was accomplished at this session except an act that ratified the proceedings of the convention held beyond the time originally fixed, with the saving clause that nothing therein con- tained should be held to ratify any form proposed by the convention for submitting the Constitution to the people. Not until the next session was legislation secured for submission. The Constitution was voted on at the general election of 1869 and then in four parts, the amendment for equal assessment and taxation being separately submitted, in addition to the three questions proposed by the convention. Then the Judiciary article alone was approved, by a vote of 247,240 to 240,442. The Taxation amendment was lost by 89,448, the Suf- frage amendment by 32,601. The rest of the Constitu- tion was rejected by 66,521 majority. This Constitution had many excellent features and anticipated several re- forms, which were later adopted, but it was then de- . nounced as a "vast scheme" of centralization and usurpation and was sacrificed to prejudice, to Republi- can half-heartedness, Democratic hostility, and the political manipulation of Tweed, who had no wish for safeguards against corruption either in State or city.1
The struggle between Daniel Drew and Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie Railroad kept the
1This brief summary of the work of the convention is chiefly based on Charles Z. Lincoln's Constitutional History of the State of New York.
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Legislature of 1868 in a turmoil. Beginning in 1866, while treasurer of the Erie, Drew had obtained $3,000,000 of convertible bonds as collateral for loans, and also 10,000 shares of stock issued in exchange for stock of the Buffalo, Bradford & Pittsburgh Railroad, which the Erie had leased. Vanderbilt began to buy stock in the open market, carrying up the price, while Drew sold short a vast quantity of stock at 97. Then he converted his bonds and threw his stock on the mar- ket, sending the price to 51. At the annual election of 1867, Vanderbilt unseated Drew from the board of directors, placed one of his own partisans, Frank Work, in it, and made John S. Elbridge, a representative of Boston interests, president. At the same time, Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., were admitted to the board and soon allied themselves with Drew to wrest control from Vanderbilt. A supposed Vanderbilt supporter resigned from the directorate and Drew was elected to the vacancy and again made treasurer. The struggle was then taken into the courts. On February 21, 1867, Justice George G. Barnard enjoined the Erie from pay- ing principal or interest on Drew's borrowings as treasurer. Attorney-General Champlain also brought action before Justice Barnard for the removal of Drew from the treasurership, on the ground that he had palmed off a worthless road on the Erie and then exchanged his holdings in it for Erie stock. Barnard suspended Drew as treasurer and director, forbade the issue of any new stock, and ordered Drew to return the 10,000 shares he had obtained by the Buffalo, Bradford & Pittsburgh transaction, and the 58,000 shares he had
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1868]
acquired by converting bonds. In retaliation Drew obtained an order from Justice Ransom Balcom of Binghamton suspending Frank Work from the direc- torate and staying all other proceedings. Then Vander- bilt shot back with an order from Barnard forbidding the Erie directors to transact any business without Work's participation. Vanderbilt was still buying stock and Drew continued to issue and convert bonds into stock and furnish it, regardless of the courts. Other Judges with conflicting orders were dragged into the case, and Drew, Gould, and Fisk took refuge in Jersey City.
Then the struggle came before the Legislature, and the whole transaction was investigated by a Senate committee, appointed March 6, 1868, consisting of Senators Pierce, Bradley, Mattoon, Chapman, and Humphrey. The last two signed a report on April 1, which sustained the Erie officials, held that the securi- ties had not been issued in willful violation of law, and favored legalizing the acts of the directors. A majority reported that Drew had issued bonds for his own personal gain and that Fisk and Gould were probably interested with him. They favored an act making the fraudulent issue of securities or the conversion of pro- ceeds a felony. Senator Mattoon, who had been in close conference with Drew and had agreed to the minority report the day before it was made, was openly charged with having sold out to Vanderbilt. The fact that, after the committee had been agreed on to consist of three persons, it had been increased to five on Mattoon's motion and he became one of the additional
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[1868
members, gave color to the charge that he had sought the committee and acted on it for personal profit. The Senate passed a bill in line with the minority report and Mattoon again swerved and voted for it. The Assembly first defeated the bill to legalize the acts of the Erie directors. At this point Assemblyman E. M. K. Glenn of Wayne charged that an attempt had been made to purchase his vote in favor of the Vanderbilt interests. An investigating committee was immediately appointed, and after some delay Glenn said that the would-be briber was Alexander Frear, a member of the investi- gating committee. But his testimony was entirely inconclusive. Other testimony suggested that Glenn, having scented money in the air, had asked his col- leagues about it and had been directed to Frear as a joke. At any rate it appeared that Frear had not sought him, but had been summoned by others to meet him, and so the committee reported that the charges were unjus- tified. Drew and Vanderbilt in the meantime reached a compromise. The action of the Erie directors was legalized, all litigation withdrawn, and Gould and Fisk became masters of the road, which they proceeded to loot with the aid of the Tweed ring. Tweed and Peter B. Sweeney, who had before acted for Vanderbilt, entered the Erie board, and Justice Barnard likewise transferred his allegiance and, together with Justice Cardozo, made the courts the instrument of Gould's manipulations.2
2For detailed accounts of the Erie war and its relation to politics see Charles Francis Adams's Chapters of Erie; John D. Townsend's New York
.
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THE ERIE WAR
1868]
The talk of corruption was so widespread that a Sen- ate committee consisting of Matthew Hale, Francis S. Thayer, and Asher P. Nichols was appointed on April 10 to investigate bribery in the Legislature. During the next ten months it took much testimony and reported on March 10, 1869, that it found no proof of actual bribery of any Senator, but it did find payment of large sums by Erie officials to outsiders to be used corruptly for pro- moting the railroad legislation of 1868. The com- mittee severely criticized the "utter recklessness" of newspaper charges about legislative corruption. It took pains to insure publicity for Erie expenditures intended to secure newspaper support, but was quite unable to find any corruption reaching Senators, even Mattoon. The money stopped with the lobbyists, some of whom received it on false pretenses of influence. The committee recommended an act, which was passed, exempting from prosecution the giver of an accepted bribe so as to secure testimony of corruption, and also making it an indictable offense for any officer of a cor- poration to use its money for corrupt purposes.
Many complaints of corruption, growing out of the contract system of canal repairs, came before the Legislature. The Assembly impeached Canal Com- missioner Robert C. Dorn as the result of investigations made by a select committee appointed the year before, but on the trial before the Senate and the Judges of the Court of Appeals in May Dorn was acquitted by a
in Bondage, ch. ii; Senate Documents, 1868, Vol. . V, and 1869, Vol. V; and Homer L. Stebbins's Political History of the State of New York, 1865-1869 (Columbia University thesis), ch. x.
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vote of 8 guilty to 20 not guilty. Attempts were also made to place the canal work in the hands of a superin- tendent. The Republican Senate, however, after a conference had agreed on a bill abolishing the contract method, defeated the measure. This failure of reform tended to make a political issue of corrupt government. The next Democratic State convention indorsed the Assembly bill, while the Republicans indulged in gen- eralities on economies and probity, but the subject was lost sight of in the excitement of the Presidential campaign.
CHAPTER VI GRANT AND SEYMOUR
1868
T HE widespread reaction toward the Democratic party in 1867 presented a serious problem for the Republicans in the Presidential campaign. Gen- eral Grant's name was naturally before the public from the close of the Civil War. In this State, as early as March 1, 1866, the Republican city convention of Rochester unanimously indorsed Grant for President. This movement was organized by D. D. S. Brown, whose newspaper, the Rochester Democrat, of March 2, said :
"We are proud that this city is the first in the land to set the ball in motion. It will roll through the land from the shores of Ontario to the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico and over the mountains and plains to the Atlantic on the one hand and the Pacific on the other, gathering size and strength as it goes and sweeping all obstacles from its path. General Grant is in sympathy with Congress and the Republican party on the great questions of the day. His nomination is a safe and scund one. Few candidates could be trusted to undergo the ordeal of a two years' campaign. Grant is one of the few. We can depend on his judgment and reticence. He will write no foolish letters, make no disgusting speeches. He will harmonize and reconcile all factions and draw to our standard multitudes of good and quiet citizens who care little for parties and are not concerned about platforms but who want to see the government in honest, strong, and wise hands."
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Nevertheless, Grant's report on southern conditions in 1865 and his "swinging 'round the circle" with John- son in 1866 filled the radicals with distrust. This was not lessened by the action of the Republican general committee of New York City, under the domination of Thurlow Weed and the conservatives, in presenting Grant's name on July 23, 1867, or by Johnson's selection of Grant for Secretary of War when he suspended Stanton in August, 1867. In October Greeley in the Tribune forcibly objected to the movement, and in November said: "General Grant we esteem by no means a great man, nor even a great general."1 But Grant's refusal to hold possession of the war office after the Senate declined to concur in Stanton's suspension and his subsequent controversy with the President brought the radicals to his support and assured him long before the national convention a unanimous nomination. The Republican State convention met in Syracuse on February 5, 1868, to select delegates to Chicago. The Fenton forces were in control and made Luther Cald- well temporary and Charles H. Van Wyck permanent chairman. The conservative organization from New York City made their usual demand for representation and left the hall when the convention invited them merely to seats on the floor. Major-General Daniel E. Sickles, Lyman Tremain, Charles Andrews, and D. D. S. Brown were chosen delegates-at-large and were instructed to support Grant for President and Fenton for Vice-President.
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