USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. III 1865-1896 > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
131
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
1872]
Elevated Road bill for New York City was passed at this session, and the Governor, on his own recommenda- tion, was directed to appoint a commission of thirty- two persons, four from each judicial district, to pro- pose constitutional amendments to the next Legislature. In this way some of the problems presented by the failure of the people to ratify the Constitution of 1867 were met. At the fall election the people voted to create a debt of $6,000,000 to meet canal deficiencies, and ratified an amendment to the Constitution creating for two years Commissioners of Appeals to dispose of the congested calendar of the highest court.
The Fenton faction, in a last fight to maintain itself, rallied around Thomas G. Alvord for Speaker at the opening of the session. But Conkling and the custom house elected Henry Smith of Albany. Only three members of the State committee, Merritt, Brown, and Rockwell, stood for Alvord against the dominant power.1 All those who were not blind followers of the administration and its representatives in New York were treated-to quote the Republican State platform of the next autumn-as "discarded elements of the Republican party." Greeley and Fenton were left without a party and ready for war on Grant, but larger issues had elsewhere started the movement that was first to annex and then to be annexed by the New Yorkers.
Dissatisfaction with the Grant administration among Republicans in all parts of the country had been grow-
1New York Times, January 1, 1872.
132
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1872
ing for more than two years. The radical policy, which had turned over the southern States to negro and car- petbag rule, had resulted in scandalous misgovernment and piled up huge debts. The delay in the granting of complete amnesty kept many of the natural white leaders of the south out of politics, and was held responsible in many quarters for the administrative abuses in the southern States and the counter atrocities inflicted by the Ku Klux Klan. The north was begin- ning to yearn for substantial fruits of Grant's declara- tion, "Let us have peace," and saw none. The dissat- isfaction was brought to a head by the Ku Klux act of April 20, 1871. This was no more extreme than some of the radical legislation that had been passed to thwart Johnson, but it was now attacked by Senator Schurz and pronounced unconstitutional by Senator Trumbull. The administration's proscription of those who opposed it, notably the removal of Charles Sumner from the chairmanship of the Senate committee on foreign relations, alienated moderate men. The gold specu- lation scandal, which had involved the President's brother-in-law, and the incautious innocence with which Grant allowed himself to be publicly associated with speculators like James Fisk, Jr., and to make unworthy appointments like that of Thomas Murphy, had shaken the confidence of the thoughtful in his judgment, though not in his integrity. The extent to which the abuses of patronage to control political action were carried started a demand for civil service reform, which later under the leadership of George William
133
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
1872]
Curtis and Dorman B. Eaton was to bear abundant fruit.
The revolt first crystalized as a political movement in Missouri, where in 1870 Carl Schurz with Demo- cratic associates had carried the State on a platform of universal amnesty. The Liberal Republicans, as they were called in that State, led by Schurz, Colonel Wil- liam M. Grosvenor, Joseph Pulitzer, and B. Gratz Brown, held a mass-convention in Jefferson City on January 24, 1872, and issued to Republicans who wanted reform a call for a national mass-convention at Cincinnati on May 1. The movement received the support of many influential newspapers. Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican led in Massa- chusetts. Horace White of the Chicago Tribune, Henry Watterson of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, and E. L. Godkin of the Nation were conspicuous in their encouragement. Jacob D. Cox, who had been in Grant's cabinet, Stanley Matthews, and George Hoadly led the Liberals in Ohio, while A. K. McClure dominated those of Pennsylvania. Greeley was slow to commit himself, but in March his refusal as a mem- ber of the Republican national committee to sign the formal call for the Republican national convention was accepted as reading him out of the party. Mean- while other Republicans were active in organizing for Cincinnati. Fenton, a Republican Senator, was, of course, among them. Others were Henry R. Selden, who had been the Republican candidate for Chief- Judge of the Court of Appeals; William Dorsheimer ;
134
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1872
Thomas Raines, the Republican State Treasurer ; D. D. S. Brown, State committeeman; Frederick A. Conk- ling, a brother of the Senator; Ben Field; Edwin A. Merritt, another State committeeman; and John Coch- rane and Waldo Hutchins, who had been driven out of the organization at the Syracuse convention of 1871. In their efforts to win adherents, they met at every hand the question as to Greeley's position; for it was clear that the movement could not hope for success without the great influence of the Tribune over the Republican masses. Finally Greeley signed, and on March 30 the Tribune published the acceptance by the Liberal Republicans of New York of the Missouri invitation.
Most of the newspaper sponsors of the Liberal move- ment favored the nomination of Charles Francis Adams. Justice David Davis of the Supreme Court and Lyman Trumbull, both of Illinois, had many friends, and Chief-Justice Salmon P. Chase was talked of, as usual. From the beginning Greeley had been attacked by the administration organs and cartooned by Nast as a seeker of the nomination. He declared that he was not an aspirant, but he would not decline. When the Liberals gathered at Cincinnati, his old New York organization, with Cochrane and Hutchins, was there to promote his interests. The New York dele- gation was by no means unanimous for him. An anti- protectionist contingent, which included Theodore Bacon and Henry D. Lloyd, opposed him on economic grounds, while Fenton, Selden, Brown, and others, though friendly to Greeley, thought David Davis would
1
1872]
135
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
be stronger. Fenton planned with McClure, Leonard Swett of Illinois, and John D. Defrees of Indiana to combine those great States for Davis and throw the Vice-Presidency to Greeley, who had intimated to McClure that the convention might be willing to take him "boots foremost" if not "head foremost." But the journalistic "Quadrilateral," Bowles, White, Hal- stead and Watterson, made a simultaneous newspaper attack upon Davis to clear the way for Adams or Trumbull; and Francis P. Blair, Jr., who represented B. Gratz Brown, stiffened the Greeley following by sug- gestions of a combination of New York and Missouri. Seeing his plan was hopeless, Fenton left Cincinnati, and McClure blocked a movement for Davis and Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania by committing his State for the first ballot to Curtin for President.
The political acumen of John Cochrane solidified New York for Greeley. On his motion at a meeting of the mass delegates from New York, a committee, of which Waldo Hutchins was chairman, was named to pick out the 68 delegates who were to sit in the national convention. The delegates present from each Congress district were to report two names to this com- mittee. The committee assumed the right to substitute friends of Greeley for others reported to them in sev- eral cases, and then Cochrane forced the adoption of the unit rule by a delegation so made up and stifled the voice of one-third of their number. Bacon, Lloyd, and others of the minority protested before the con- vention, but without avail, though Selden, who had been put on the delegation, denounced Cochrane's
136
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1872
tactics as an outrage and Carl Schurz declared that they indicated that "the reform movement, so far as it concerned New York, was virtually in the hands of a set of political tricksters, who came here not for reform but for plunder."2
The tariff issue was an obstacle to Greeley. The Missouri movement had been committed to tariff for revenue only, and many of the eastern reformers, including David A. Wells and William Cullen Bryant, were anti-protectionists. Greeley let it be known that he could not support a free trade movement, or any double-faced dealing with the question. At an informal meeting of the New York delegation on April 29, Whitelaw Reid, who represented Greeley, proposed a resolution that said: "Finding ourselves not fully agreed with respect to free trade as opposed to protec- tion, we respectfully recommend the grave issues involved in that controversy to a careful and unbiased adjudication of the people, urging them to choose members of Congress who will truly embody and will faithfully reflect their will on the subject."3 Even if Greeley were not to be the candidate, his support was felt to be essential and a tariff plank was finally agreed to along the lines of this suggestion, which declared : "We remit the discussion of the subject to the people in their Congressional districts and to the decision of 1
2New York Evening Post, May 2, 1872; McClure, Our Presidents and How We Make Them, p. 230; Watterson, The Humor and Tragedy of the Greeley Campaign, Century, November, 1912; statement of D. D. S. Brown to the writer.
3New York Tribune, April 30, 1872.
WILLIAM DORSHEIMER
William Dorsheimer; born in Lyons, Wayne county, N. Y., February 5, 1832; attended Phillips academy, Andover, Mass. and Harvard college; studied law and was admitted to the bar; practiced in New York City; appointed major in the union army in August, 1861; appointed United States attorney to the northern district of New York, March 28. 1867; was lieutenant governor under Samuel J. Tilden in 1875-1876 and under Lucius Robinson in 1877-1878; was elected as a demo- crat to the forty-eighth congress and served March 4, 1883 to March 3, 1885; died at Savannah, Ga., March 26, 1888.
WARD HUNT
Ward Hunt, jurist; born at Utica, N. Y., June 14, 1810; graduated Union college, 1826; admitted to the bar; member state assembly, 1839; mayor of Utica, 1844; opposed annexa- tion of Texas and extension of slavery; supported Van Buren in 1848; joined the republican party in 1856; judge of the court of appeals, 1865; chief judge court of appeals, 1868; com- missioner of appeals, 1870; appointed to the United States supreme court by President Grant in 1872; retired on account of ill health, 1883; died at Washington, D. C., March 24, 1886.
1
.F
137
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
1872]
Congress thereon, wholly free from Executive inter- ference or dictation." On the first ballot in the con- vention Adams had 205 votes, Greeley 147, Trumbull 110, Davis 921/2, B. Gratz Brown 95, Curtin 62, Chase 21/2. For a choice 358 votes were necessary. At this point B. Gratz Brown withdrew, evidently under an arrangement with Greeley's friends, in favor of the New Yorker, bringing his vote to 245 on the second ballot as against 243 for Adams. Adams regained and held the lead until after the fourth ballot, when most of the Trumbull and Davis votes went over to Greeley, who was nominated on the sixth ballot, receiving 482 votes after changes had been made; Adams, who stood next, had 187. The Greeley men then nominated B. Gratz Brown for Vice-President on the second ballot.
The nomination of Greeley was a great disappoint- ment to many of the Liberal leaders, and more than disappointing to the Democrats, who found it difficult to support their ferocious critic of half a century. New York Democrats met in Rochester on May 15 to choose delegates to the national convention. Thomas Kin-
sella presided. They indorsed the Cincinnati platform but passed the question of candidates on to the Balti- more convention, which met on July 9. Tilden, Sey- mour, Kernan, and Church did not attend the Balti- more convention, but John T. Hoffman was there from New York with Delos De Wolf, Henry C. Murphy, and Jarvis Lord, his fellow delegates-at-large, together with August Belmont, chairman of the national com- mittee, John Kelly, the new chief of Tammany, and Samuel S. Cox, long a Democratic Congressman from
138
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1872
Ohio and subsequently from New York, who had been violently assailed by Greeley but who now joined with the others in inducing the convention to accept the Liberal candidate. The question whether the Demo- crats should nominate Greeley as their own at the risk of repelling Republicans, or indorse him at the risk of being unable to deliver the Democrats to the support of another party, was finally settled, contrary to Greeley's judgment,4 in favor of nomination, and the Cincinnati ticket was named by a vote of 686 to 46 and the Cincinnati platform adopted without change.
The Republicans held their State convention at Elmira on May 15 with Henry R. Pierson in the chair, elected Gerrit Smith, William Orton, James N. Mat- thews, William F. Butler, Horace B. Claflin, and Stephen B. Moffitt delegates-at-large to Philadelphia, indorsed Grant, made a plea for harmony, and declared for revenue reform. At Philadelphia on June 6 the Republican national convention unanimously renomi- nated Grant and named Henry Wilson of Massachu- setts for Vice-President by a vote of 3641/2 to 3211/2 for Vice-President Colfax, who had sacrificed whatever chance he had for a renomination by an announcement that he was not a candidate.
The Republicans again met in State convention at Utica on August 21 and indorsed Grant and Wilson and the Philadelphia platform. In their discussion of State issues they pointed to the increase of the State debt by $6,000,000 as an index of Democratic extravagance,
4New York Tribune, December 23, 1872.
€ R
139
1872]
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
made a bid for Democrats who spurned "unprincipled coalition" with the "discarded elements of the Repub- lican party," and favored the enlargement of the canal to be accomplished without additional burden on the taxpayers through the aid of the national government and through the refunding of canal bonds for long time and at low interest. Conkling was complete master of the convention, as his forceful opponents had left the party. Judge William H. Robertson of Westches- ter appeared as the leading candidate for Governor, after Edwin D. Morgan had refused to enter the race and after Bradford R. Wood had shown a letter from Dix saying that he could not allow his name to be pre- sented. Dix was ready to do anything in his power to beat Greeley, but felt that his acceptance of a nomina- tion was not necessary to that end. Robertson had been a State Senator and Representative in Congress, and his ability was everywhere recognized. The New York Times, however, now the leading administration organ, opposed him because he had not been sufficiently strenuous in pushing its measures against Tammany. Nevertheless he would probably have been nominated but for Thurlow Weed. Weed was visiting Seward in Auburn when elected a delegate. Though in feeble health, he went to Utica, where he found all prospects favoring Robertson, who, he feared, would be defeated. He did not attend the sessions, but under his direction his substitute, Professor George W. Clark, after Rob- ertson, Martin I. Townsend, John C. Robinson, and Freeman Clarke had been presented, proposed the
140
[1872
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
name of Dix.5 The suggestion was received with enthusiasm. E. Delafield Smith seconded the nomina- tion and then Henry Clews6 indorsed it on behalf of the New York business men. Robertson and the other candidates were withdrawn and Dix was nominated by acclamation. The convention nominated General John C. Robinson for Lieutenant-Governor and Lyman Tre- main for Congressman-at-large. It also placed Fred- erick Douglass, the great colored leader, at the head of its Electoral ticket.7
The nomination of Dix by a Conkling convention of narrow partisanship was astonishing. He was polit- ically one of the most inconstant of men. A Barn- burner of 1848 and a candidate for Governor on the Van Buren ticket, he supported Pierce in 1852. A mem- ber of Buchanan's cabinet, at one moment inclined to allow peaceful secession, at another penning the his- toric dispatch, "If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," a Union general, president of Johnson's Philadelphia conven- tion of 1866, a candidate for the Republican nomina-
5Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, II, p. 485; New York Tribune and Times reports of the convention, August 22, 1872.
6Writing long after, when details had naturally slipped from the memory, Mr. Clews (Fifty Years in Wall Street, pp. 300-309) spoke of himself as springing Dix's name on the convention and attributed Robertson's subsequent break with Conkling to suspicion growing out of the fact that Clews was a guest at Utica in Conkling's house. His independent activity for Dix is beyond question, but the record is clear that the stampede was started by Clark and the foundation for it laid by Weed.
7The ticket was: Governor, John A. Dix, New York; Lieutenant-Gover- nor, John C. Robinson, Broome; Canal Commissioner, Reuben W. Stroud, Onondaga; Prison Inspector, Ezra Graves, Herkimer; Congressman-at-large, Lyman Tremain, Albany.
1872]
141
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
tion for Governor in 1862 and 1864 and for the Con- servative-Democratic nomination in 1866, he had been inclined to join in the Liberal movement, but, like Bryant, Weed, Ottendorfer, and Godkin, he had been alienated by the nomination of Greeley. In the Gov- ernor's chair his independence and moderation gave Conkling little reason for satisfaction with the choice, but in the campaign his military reputation and his hold on conservative men of all parties more than made up for his political inconstancy.
The Democrats and Liberal Republicans held sim- ultaneous conventions at Syracuse on September 4. John Cochrane, chairman of the State committee, called the Liberals to order, and ex-Speaker Truman G. Younglove was temporary and Chauncey M. Depew permanent chairman. The important business was to reach an agreement with the Democrats upon a union ticket, and Reuben E. Fenton, Waldo Hutchins, D. D. S. Brown, Archibald M. Bliss, Frank Hiscock, Edwin A. Merritt, Lyman Truman, and Hobart Krum were appointed a committee on conference. Samuel J. Til- den, Joseph Warren, John Kelly, Delos DeWolf, and William Cassidy were the conferees for the Democrats. The Liberals conceded the Governor to the Democrats, who agreed that the Liberals should have the Lieuten- ant-Governor and the Prison Inspector. The Liberals took 15 of the 34 Electors. In the Liberal convention, Hendee of Livingston tried to defeat Tilden's plan to name Francis Kernan for Governor by a resolution asking the Democrats to nominate Chief-Judge San- ford E. Church, and Roswell P. Flower offered a
142
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1872
substitute suggesting Allen C. Beach; but the leaders refused to permit this and left Tilden unhampered to master his own convention and defeat what was left of the old Tweed and canal ring combination, which in spite of Tweed's fall still had its adherents scattered through the State with memories of past contests with Tilden. Lester B. Faulkner was made temporary and George M. Beebe permanent chairman. Hoffman's renomination was obviously impossible. Although in the days of Tweed's power he had resisted some demands and vetoed some grabs, his complaisant parti- sanship and his theories of unrestrained local govern- ment had made him, in a large measure, the tool of the ring, and his belated efforts to cooperate with the Com- mittee of Seventy in punishing the thieves could not rehabilitate him. Lucius Robinson had some earnest friends, as did Homer A. Nelson, while Beach had a still larger following. Although Tilden had been made a sachem of the new Tammany Hall and Kelly was supposed to be in alliance with him, Kelly threw his strength to Augustus Schell, another Tammany sachem, while Kings county supported Chief-Judge Church, who was the popular favorite of the delegates. Tilden, however, disposed of Church by publishing a letter of declination that he had written some time before, and by getting Robinson to withdraw in favor of Francis Kernan, who was Tilden's first choice. Kernan had been Tilden's earliest confidant and his chief assistant in the political side of his fight against Tweed, as Charles O'Conor had been his chief assistant in the legal side. He was an able lawyer, pleasing in address,
143
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
1872]
public-spirited, and of irreproachable character. In answer to comments on his being a Roman Catholic Tilden said that those who opposed him "could have forgiven his religion if they could only have ceased to fear his honesty." Kernan was nominated by the Dem- ocrats and accepted by the Liberals, who named Chauncey M. Depew for Lieutenant-Governor.8
The Democrats in their platform denounced the Federal administration for its wastefulness and low tone, dwelt on the abuses and failure of the Republican Legislature to respond to the demands for reform and particularly on its refusal to expel Senator James Wood of Livingston, who confessed to accepting large "loans" from Tweed, which could not be interpreted by most persons as anything but bribes. It also opposed the Republican suggestion of Federal cooperation in the improvement of the canals. The Liberals proclaimed reform as the great duty of the hour in State and nation and deplored the failure of the Legislature to do the work expected of it.
The Democratic opposition to Greeley culminated in a convention of "Straight-outs" which met at Louis- ville on September 3. The Apollo Hall Democracy, led by James O'Brien, was the most active supporter of the movement in New York. This convention nominated Charles O'Conor of New York for President and John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for Vice-President.
8The fusion ticket was: Governor, Francis Kernan, Oneida; Lieutenant- Governor, Chauncey M. Depew, Westchester; Canal Commissioner, John Hubbard, Chenango; Prison Inspector, Enos C. Brooks, Cattaraugus; Con- gressman-at-large, Samuel S. Cox, New York.
144
POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
[1872
Notwithstanding O'Conor's declination to the conven- tion and his subsequent refusal to run, the "Straight- outs" continued their opposition to union and held a convention at Albany on October 3, which denounced the betrayal of the party at Baltimore, indorsed O'Conor and Adams, and nominated an independent Electoral ticket but named no candidates for State offices.
The campaign was one of exceedingly bitter per- sonalities on both sides. In his letter of acceptance Greeley said to the Liberals: "I accept your nomina- tion in the confident trust that the masses of our coun- trymen, north and south, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm."9 His prospects at first were encouraging, but it soon became evident that, wide as was the dissatisfaction with the Grant administration among thoughtful men, the bulk of the northern Repub- licans had not yet forgotten the war. Nast carica- tured Greeley's mannerisms and the administration speakers rang the changes on his political inconsis- tencies, picturing him as a partner in the Tammany frauds and a sympathizer with the rebels, who had gone on Jeff Davis's bail bond. Dix declared that Greeley could not be supported because he had talked conciliation in 1860. Greeley countered by quoting Dix's own statement of December 15, 1860, in favor of letting the south depart in peace. He also showed that Lyman Tremain, the Republican candidate for Congressman-at-large, had as late as February, 1861, protested, "traitorous though it may be," against war
9New York Tribune, May 22, 1872.
145
THE LIBERAL REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
1872]
with the south in the name of upholding the Constitu- tion, "now, hereafter, and forever."10 The action of Congress, after the nomination of Greeley, in passing a general amnesty act and in putting tea and coffee on the free list, weakened the force of the conciliation and revenue reform pleas of the opposition. Greeley ad- dressed large audiences and awakened great enthusiasm, but this reflected interest in the personality of the great editor rather than a readiness to help him put the Democracy in power. The Republican victories in North Carolina in August and in Maine and Ver- mont in September showed the Republican drift, and sent all the northern floaters scurrying to the adminis- tration camp and even led many of the southern Dem- ocrats to think that the best chance to secure power in their own States lay in friendly relations with the Re- publicans in Washington. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana went Republican in October, and on Novem- ber 5 Grant was reelected, securing 286 Electoral votes while Greeley carried only Georgia, Kentucky, Mary- land, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas, with 66 Electoral votes. In New York State Grant polled 440,759 votes to Greeley's 387,279, having a plurality of 53,480. The "Straight-outs" cast 1,454 votes for the O'Conor ticket. Dix carried the State by 55,451 plurality, receiving 447,801 to Kernan's 392,350. Tremain won over Cox for Congressman by 37,759. The Republicans won 24 and the Democrats 8 Congress districts. The Assembly stood 91 Republicans, 35 Democrats, and 2 Independ-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.