USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 18
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First, there was the Thurlow Weed Compromise, which proposed to extend the Missouri line to the Pacific, all territory south of the line to be open to slavery. The same arrangement was made the leading feature of the Crittenden Compromise, a Senate non- partisan measure that received strong support but failed to pass. The fact of its introduction and serious consideration after the plan that it represented had for twelve years been supposed dead, is a remarkable evi- dence of the anxiety for reconcilement.
By general Republican agreement, especially as expressed by a House committee headed by Thomas Corwin and by a meeting of Republican Governors held in New York, a movement was started and success- fully prosecuted to repeal the State Personal Liberty laws that had been enacted in the interest of fugitive slaves. Thus the local measures of the north directed against the slave institution were sacrificed in order to propitiate the seceders.
The following proposed constitutional amendment was passed by two-thirds in each house: "No amend- ment shall be made to the Constitution which will
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authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institu- tions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." In other words, the right of undisturbed existence for slavery at the south was perpetually guaranteed. For this measure the Republicans were responsible, as at the time of its adoption they were in undisputed control of both the Senate and House owing to the resignations of southern members. A southern commentator1 wrote: "This proposition, if carried out by the States, will remove the only real ground of apprehension in the slave States. It blows the Irrepressible Conflict doctrine moon-high, and received the sanction of the author of that doctrine himself." Lincoln gave his approval to the principle of the amendment in his first inaugural.
In addition, the right of slavery to enter New Mexico Territory was substantially conceded by the Republi- can Congress, and the new Territories of Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota were organized without slavery interdiction-a cardinal principle of the Republican party being waived in all these cases.
The striking measures to which we have referred were of course without fundamental party significance except as they illustrated, to the honor of all concerned, the suspension of party and sectional spirit in the great national emergency. None of them in any manner represented Republican policy as such or could have engaged the smallest Republican support before the election.
1Thomas A. R. Nelson, at that time a member of Congress from Tennessee.
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The Republicans simply came, at a late day, to the identical position in relation to inexorable facts in which the Democratic party had long stood on account of conditions and circumstances and their logical requirements that, as the result now proved, it had cor- rectly estimated from the viewpoint of the Union's preservation.
Lincoln, assuming the Presidency on the 4th of March, 1861, announced in his inaugural address his adherence to the principle of an indivisible and indestructible Union and asserted the belief of the north in the moral wrong of slavery, but declared his purpose of impartially enforcing the laws inclusive of the Fugitive Slave law, his resolve in no way to inter- fere with slavery in the States, and his determination that there should be "no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere" beyond what should be "necessary to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts." In no respect of immediate treatment did his policy for the situation diverge from that of his predecessor. But there was the necessary difference that it was for Lincoln, and Lincoln alone, to speak the words of final decision for the government and point out to the seceders what they had to expect. His allusion to conditional force was construed at the south to imply eventual war, be- cause any application of force within the seceding States for the objects that he specified would necessarily in- volve trouble with the Confederacy; and at the north, notwithstanding all his generous moderation, none
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could doubt that he would pursue an active course against attack. Douglas, the great leader of the north- ern Democracy, occupied a conspicuous place at the inaugural ceremony. By all his declarations and acts until his untimely death (June 3, 1861) he thoroughly and ardently sustained the national administration.
When the crash came (April 12) it was the result of Lincoln's firm continuation, despite Confederate threats, of the occupation of Fort Sumter and his decision accordingly (which he caused to be communi- cated to the South Carolina Confederate Governor) to provision, though not militarily reinforce, its garri- son. This time the fire was on the fort itself, an aggres- sion against which both the retiring and incoming Presidents had given solemn warning. No longer was the issue of war to be compromised, and a united north rallied to the flag of the country for the mighty conflict.
The connection of the Democratic party with the question of slavery and the beginnings of the Civil War has for more than half a century been a favorite theme with its foes. Innumerable have been the prejudiced versions, condemnatory judgments, and rancorous denunciations. We have treated the subject with some
particularity. The history is very extensive and intri- cate, and owing to the limitation of our space many details have been omitted ; but it is believed the essential elements have been set forth with precision and reason- able proportion.
No Democrat need be ashamed of the record.
In its relations to the waging of the war, to the associated questions, and to the political settlements
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that followed, the Democratic party was animated by singleness of devotion to the cause of restoring the Union, and-which it deemed to be 'an intimately related matter-the interest of ultimately reestablish- ing, so far as possible, fraternity between the north and south. At the outset there was no real issue between the Republicans and Democrats. Even party names were in a number of States discontinued, the new Union party being created and receiving cordial support from the followers of both old organizations. It was greatly due to the unselfish and fervidly patriotic spirit of the War Democrats that the splendid State administrations that contributed so much to vigorous prosecution of the struggle were elected and popularly sustained, and that the local disaffections springing up were repressed by the overpowering weight of public sentiment. At no time did any northern State waver in loyalty. In view of the extreme differences on principle concern- ing the sectional dispute that had previously obtained, the history of the conduct of the war presents no more notable aspect than that of the government's freedom from complicating difficulties within its own territory.
It is an indisputable fact that during the Civil War almost half the voters of the States remaining in the Union were strong, indeed uncompromising, supporters of the Democratic party on principle. Anyone taking the trouble to analyze the election returns for the four- years period will find this conclusion inescapable. At the Presidential election of 1864, when the general political conditions were more than commonly unfavor- able to the Democracy and presumably only the
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staunchest party men voted the ticket, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans was 4 to 5. Moreover, in 1864, not counting the votes of the four border States or of the newly admitted States of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada, the Democratic Presidential ticket received 160,000 more votes than were cast in identical northern States for Douglas and Breckin- ridge combined in 1860.
Regarding the questions of national policy that grew out of the contest, the position of the party in general conformed to the noted Crittenden resolution of July, 1861, adopted almost unanimously by both houses of Congress. That resolution declared that the war was not waged for conquest or subjugation, or to over- throw established institutions of the southern States, but to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union. The more extreme war meas- ures involving matters of gravely doubtful political necessity and wisdom, followed after the war by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (providing for negro citizenship and suffrage), by the carpetbag governments, and by the long protracted military occupation of the south, were believed by the Demo- crats to be intolerant, oppressive, and in the interest essentially of partisan Republican control and its per- petuation by arbitrary means.
Thus the comparative concord that marked the beginning of the war gave way to an ever growing dis- agreement between the parties. The great majority of the Democrats were not long content to remain merged in the Union party, and that organization was
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finally left to the Republicans, who in their national campaign of 1864 adopted its name in place of their own-a tactical proceeding to which they were influenced by the desire of retaining their large follow- ing of War Democrats and also by recognition of the inveterate prejudice against the Republican name among the loyal men in the border States, as well as in the States of the Confederacy that were being recovered with the progress of military operations. A further evidence of the appreciation by the Republi- cans of the Democracy's great popular strength and their anxiety in politic ways to gain Democratic votes, was their selection in 1864 of Andrew Johnson, a life- long Tennessee Democrat, as the running-mate of Lincoln in his second Presidential candidacy. There was no Republican party reason save that of campaign expediency for the nomination of Johnson ; and if ever politicians merited embarrassing consequences from a course supposed originally to have been brightly con- ceived but presently found to have been a sad mistake, the Republicans fully deserved their unhappy experi- ences with Johnson when he became President.
It is of historical interest, illustrative of the great disturbances in political thought resulting from the Civil War, that at the opening of the campaign of 1864 a faction of Radical Republicans held a national con- vention which repudiated Lincoln and nominated John C. Fremont for the Presidency on a platform demand- ing "the confiscation of the lands of the rebels and their distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers." General Fremont in his acceptance referred to the work
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of Lincoln as "politically, militarily, and financially a failure." Later he withdrew in Lincoln's favor.
The Democratic national convention met in Chicago, August 29, and nominated for 'President General George B. McClellan, of New Jersey, and for Vice- President George H. Pendleton, of Ohio. At that time the military situation did not promise a decision, and the Democrats were no more skilled than the discon- tented Radical Republicans in reading the future. As is customary in political platforms, the opposing party was arraigned with many specifications, one of which instanced the "failure to restore the Union" after four years of war; and resort to amicable measures for renewing "the Federal union of the States," was advo- cated. Assertion was made of the party's "unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution" for "the welfare and prosperity of all the States, both northern and southern." No objection was made in the plat- form to the proposed Thirteenth amendment (then before Congress), providing for the complete and permanent abolition of slavery throughout the United States.
The Democratic party never stood for irreconcilable hostility to the southerners as a prime matter, or for vin- dictive and oppressive treatment of the south after the war. Neither, it should be remembered, did Lincoln. He had solemnly averred that his whole object was to save the Union. Originally he was willing to save the Union by the extreme means of retaining southern slavery if necessary. As late as February, 1865, he prepared a message to Congress proposing payment to
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the south of $400,000,000 as the price of peace-his reasons being that the north was equally blameworthy with the south for the curse of slavery originally, that it was just to give an equivalent for manumission, and that cessation of war without any compromise being made of principle or national interest was worth the money. The cabinet disapproved the message, and he reluctantly withheld it.
If the Democratic party was culpable (as so often has been vehemently alleged) for its peace desire in August, 1864, not less was Lincoln culpable in Febru- ary, 1865. Both Lincoln and the Democratic party would have welcomed peace with the south in brother- hood, but only on the basis of the Union's restoration.
The Electoral College in 1864 was divided as fol- lows : Lincoln, 212; McClellan, 21 (3 in Delaware, 11 in Kentucky, and 7 in New Jersey). The popular vote stood : Lincoln, 2,216,067; McClellan, 1,808,725. Several of the important States were close. The Republican majority in New York was 6,700; in Pennsylvania, 20,000; in Connecticut, 2,400.
On April 15, 1865, Lincoln died by an assassin's bullet and Andrew Johnson became President, his term running to March 4, 1869.
From Lincoln's death until the Civil War issues ceased to be effective in national politics, the anti- southern extremists held absolute rule in the Republi- can party. They not merely ruled, they were in truth the whole of the real Republican party, as since their time the special interests have been.
When Lee surrendered his remnant of 27,000
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soldiers at Appomattox Court House (April 9, 1865), not only was there no more fight left in the Con- federacy, but there remained no remotest possibility that the southern people could again stand up in resistance to northern will. The north could do what- ever it chose with the southern people everywhere, in every respect, and for all time. It chose to regard and treat the southern people, excepting those of the colored race, as enemies and as disqualified for free political action.
Concerning the constitutional measures on behalf of the colored race-those of emancipation, citizenship, and suffrage,-all intelligent people knew from the beginning that the ultimate results and uses (in bene- ficial respects) to come from the south's necessary acceptance of the measures, would depend in part upon the colored citizens themselves and in part upon the ability of the southern whites successfully to deal, in time, with the new and strange conditions and problems. Upon all grounds and considerations of fact the southern whites were the chief factor, and would inevitably so continue. And there could be no desir- able permanent solution except along the line of the south's local interest as understood and directed, for certainly a long time, by the whites of the south.
2
But the Republican party had no friendly or tolerant spirit toward the southern whites, and never could acquire any. Because they had been rebels it cared nothing for their economic recovery and felt no kindly interest in their nobly energetic and wholly unaided efforts to make the best of their difficult lot
EDWARD MURPHY, JR.
Edward Murphy, Jr., senator; born in Troy, N. Y., Decem- ber 15, 1836; graduated from St. Johns college, Fordham, 1857; alderman of the city of Troy, 1864-1866; mayor of Troy, 1878- 1884, serving four terms; chairman of the democratic state committee in 1887 and reelected four times; elected to the U. S. senate and served from March 4, 1893 to March 3, 1899; delegate to the democratic national conventions of 1880, 1884, 1888, 1892 and 1896; died at Elberon, N. J., August 3, 1911.
DANIEL SCOTT LAMONT
Daniel Scott Lamont, secretary of war; born at Cortland- ville, February 9, 1851; educated at McGraw union school and Union college; reporter on various newspapers; private secre- tary to President Cleveland, 1885-1889; secretary of war in Cleveland's cabinet, March 6, 1893, to March 3, 1897; died in New York City, July 28, 1905.
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and rebuild their society in order, enlightenment, and industry. It dealt with them from the strict and sole point of view of successful Republican politics, forcibly imposing upon them arbitrary, ignorant, and villain- ously corrupt governments, which it propped up with bayonets as long as it dared in face of the growing northern revulsion against its selfish and merciless partisan course.
When finally the Federal troops were withdrawn from the southern States, in Hayes's administration, the Republican party as a national organization fell into decay in every one of them. More than forty years have passed. Two new generations of intelligent and loyal voters have grown up. Two foreign wars have been fought, in which the southerners have patriotically participated. For ten successive Presidential elections following the withdrawal of the troops, not one southern Electoral vote was ever given the Republican party.
The southern race question has long been dropped from national politics. It is a local question for the people of the south, purely economic and social as related to their lives in association with one another. No end useful to the country could possibly be served by national political interference. Agreeably to the south's convinced belief in the wisdom and necessity of suffrage discrimination, State laws have been adopted imposing educational and other qualifications. These have been tested in the courts and upheld. From time to time, however, Republican complaints are heard, with suggestions as to whether the conditional
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penalty of the Fourteenth amendment does not apply. On that point an impartial writer has said :
"Congress is not likely to take upon itself the enforce- ment of the penalty, for the ratification of those [ Four- teenth and Fifteenth] amendments was procured only by counting the votes of States which acted under duress, and the requirement of such ratification as a prerequisite to readmission is considered to have been of doubtful constitutionality. Moreover, serious doubt has been growing as to both the justice and the expediency of the suffrage conditions which the war forced upon the southern States. The foremost leaders among the negroes themselves have avowed their approval of both property and educational tests, if fairly administered, since each of them would serve as a spur to greater efforts on the part of the negroes in thrift and in education."1
1George W. Haynes, Cyclopedia of American Government, article on Suffrage.
CHAPTER IX TRANSITION AND NEW QUESTIONS
1865-1883
T HE twelve years covered by Johnson's adminis- tration and the two administrations of Grant are of party interest chiefly as constituting the period of transition from the old politics of passion and hate on the sectional subject to the modern politics concerned with economic questions, important reforms, and the general progressive tendencies and demands of the people. They were years of bitter contention and uncompromising hostility between the parties, and were marked by many dramatic events. To readers desiring a discriminative history of this famous period we recommend the very able book of William Archibald Dunning, "Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865-1877" ("The American Nation" series, vol. 22). A brief summary must here suffice.
President Johnson, as an old-line Democrat and a southern man, was devoted to the doctrine of the sanc- tity of the constitutional guarantees of State rights and liberties, and was a passionate believer in reconciliation as the best national policy. In the vacation of Congress at the opening of his administration he instituted an Executive program of reconstruction, mainly conform-
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ing to Lincoln's understood ideas, which contemplated the reestablishment of local government by the people of the south subject to their absolute acceptance of the results of the war and their submission to such Federal regulation and supervision as should be required. When Congress reassembled in December, 1865, there was at once developed a fierce and relentless opposition to the President on the part of the radical Republicans. The result was their historic "Congressional policy" for despotically dealing with the southern whites, which was made uniformly effective against the President's vetoes by their two-thirds control of both houses throughout his administration.
The Democrats upheld Johnson on the matters agree- ing with their position in favor of national reunion in both spirit and fact governed by good faith on the part of the south as well as the north; though they in no way approved those of his ideas which they regarded as more pro-southern than national and which, together with certain expressions in his public addresses, very much injured his cause. They prevented the dishonor to the nation of his impeachment. At their national convention of 1868 a resolution was adopted commend- ing him for his patriotic efforts, and a considerable complimentary vote was given him for the Presidential nomination on the first ballot. But the convention did not regard him as a party leader and was not inclined to the defensive course that his candidacy would have necessitated. Horatio Seymour, of New York, was nominated for President, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, for Vice-President.
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General Ulysses S. Grant, of Illinois, and Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, were nominated by the Republicans.
At the election all the States voted except Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia, which as yet had not been recon- structed. In the other southern States, under the operation of local laws disfranchising the ex-Confed- erates and granting suffrage to the freedmen, which had been enacted obediently to the Congressional recon- struction measures, the Republican ticket received the Electoral votes of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The only southern States carried by Seymour were Georgia and Louisiana. New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Mary- land, Delaware, and Kentucky gave him their votes. Total Electoral vote-Grant, 214; Seymour, 80. Popular vote-Grant, 3,015,068; Seymour, 2,709,633.
With a President thoroughly devoted to their policy and maintaining it by all the agencies of the govern- ment, including the power of the army, the radical Republicans now became even more aggressive in prosecuting their southern schemes. The notorious Force bills of 1870-71, with other drastic measures of southern interference, were adopted. On account of President Grant's ill-chosen appointments and many evidences of his lack of adaptation to civil affairs, poor judgment, and proneness to be badly influenced, as well as his ready compliance with every demand of the extremists, his administration was early regarded with great dissatisfaction by many of the best men of the Republican party. The Liberal Republican move- ment was the outcome. It soon took on formidable
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proportions, but owing to the high favor in which the President stood with the all-powerful radicals there manifestly could be no hope of dislodging him in 1872 by the means of regular action within the party. The Liberal Republicans accordingly set up a separate organization, which held a national convention in Cincinnati and nominated as its Presidential and Vice- Presidential candidates Horace Greeley, of New York, and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri. The platform opposed "any reopening of the questions settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments," and, consistently with the policy for regarding the sec- tional and race controversies as ended, demanded "the supremacy of the civil over the military authority," "State self-government," and "for the nation a return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limita- tions of power." Resolutions were adopted strongly urging reform of the civil service and "a return to specie payments."
The Liberal Republican nominees and platform were accepted by the Democrats in their national con- vention held in Baltimore. At that time Democratic desires and efforts were concentrated upon securing the renewal of peaceful order, contentment, and self- government at the south, and the settlement of the race question by the processes of local arrangement imme- diately since no other manner of settlement could possibly avail ultimately. It was therefore deemed both a patriotic and party duty to unite with the Liberal Republicans in the common cause. But the nomination of Greeley was unfortunate on account of his unaccep-
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