USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume I > Part 41
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An event that created interest in the valley of the Bronx and in Westchester was the election of Daniel D. Tompkins to the Governor- ship of the State. Mr. Tompkins, although never representing West- chester County in an official position, having in early life made New York his home, was nevertheless a native of the county, having been born at Scarsdale, and being the descendant of one of the first settlers of the adjoining town of Eastchester. His father, Jonathan G. Tomp- kins, had represented the county in the legislative body, which adopted the first State Constitution in 1777, and also in the convention which framed the second in 1801. He was a member of the Assembly during the Revolution, and for several years after the close of the war. He
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was for a long period a judge of the county, and at the time of his son Daniel's election as Governor he had been for twenty-one years a Regent of the University of the State. The opponent of Daniel D. Tompkins was Governor Lewis, the Federalists in this, as in previous elections, not nominating or advocating any candidates from their own ranks. At the same time Jonathan Ward was promoted to the State Senate. The new senator was a son of General Stephen Ward, of earlier reputation.
Embargo and Non-Intercourse-There arose at this time questions which in their bearings on political parties involved more than personal considerations. The British Government, with its usual total indif- ference to the rights of other nations where its own interests were in- volved, adopted an order by which trade between its enemies and neutral powers was forbidden. France, in its turn, issued decrees which had the same result. The United States having expostulated with these governments to no effect, Congress, at the instigation of Jefferson, passed an embargo act on all vessels within the limits of the United States. No clearances were to be furnished and vessels sail- ing from one port of the United States to another were required to give bonds that the goods with which they were laden should be landed in some port of the United States. The object of this bill, in the language of Madison, was to make it "the interest of all nations to change the system which has driven our commerce from the sea." "Great Britain will feel it (the embargo) in her manufactures, in the loss of naval stores, and ... in the supplies essential to her colonies." "France will feel it in the loss of all which she has hitherto received through our neutral commerce, and her colonies will be cut off from the sale of their productions and the source of their supplies." "They have forced us into this measure by the direct effect on us of measures founded in an alleged regard for their own eventual safety and essential interests." "The ocean presents a field only where no harvest is to be reaped but that of danger, of spoliation, and of disgrace." It will be readily understood that this measure, bearing so hardly upon the interests of all classes of the community would naturally call forth violent protest and put to the severest strain the devotion of the Democratic-Republican Party to their great head, the President, and to his destined successor, the then Secretary of State. The representative in Congress at the time from the Westchester district, General Philip Van Cortlandt, voted against the Embargo, and was drawn into op- position to Madison's aspirations. It is certain also that the Vice- President, George Clinton, did not approve of the act. However, in spite of their dissatisfaction, these gentlemen still adhered to their
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party affinities, and by their course, no doubt, greatly counteracted the tendency of these measures to produce political changes among their followers in New York. So their columns seem not to have seriously wavered in Westchester County at the senatorial election that fol- lowed, when the Southern District, which lay in New York City, Long Island, Staten Island, and Westchester County, elected both the Demo- cratic-Republican candidates. In the selection of presidential candi- dates, which soon followed, the fact that the difference on this point in the party was regarded as of no moment is apparent in the concession of six votes to George Clinton, one of which in all likelihood belonged to Mr. White, of Westchester County. The Embargo Bill was repealed before the close of Mr. Jefferson's administration and in place of it was enacted what has been entitled "the Non-Intercourse Law," which forbade both importation and exportation. This change, in connection with fresh evidences of English animosity, seems to have had the effect of intensifying the national feeling, and the consequence was in 1810 an overwhelming defeat of the Federalists in all portions of the State. But the division in the Democratic-Republican Party that succeeded this victory gave their opponents the opportunity in the presidential contest two years after to decide to which of the Democratic-Republican candidates should fall the vote of the State, and the suffrages were given to De Witt Clinton. Madison was, however, reëlected. General Van Cortlandt ardently supported Clinton, but Governor Tompkins, though unwilling to be regarded as inimical to him, felt himself bound to support Mr. Madison as the representative not only of the national Democracy, but of the measures which Congress had adopted for the maintenance of the national honor. Clinton, however, would allow of no half-way support. The consequence was that the difference soon shaped itself in the State as between these two favorite citizens, and it needed but little time to prove that the largest sympathies were with the farmer's boy, as the Governor was styled. Governor Tomp- kins is described as a man of more than ordinary intellectual force and culture, but is better remembered for a cordiality and kindliness of manner that gave him great acceptableness and influence in his private and public relations. In the year 1815 Jonathan Ward, who had represented Westchester County in the State Senate, was sent as mem- ber of Congress to Washington and there is little doubt that this election had much political significance, from Ward's known opposi- tion to Clinton. When the presidential choice was to be made of a successor to Madison it was evident that the choice lay between James Monroe and Governor Tompkins. The preferences of Madison had much weight with the Democratic-Republican Party, and Monroe was elected, with Governor Tompkins as Vice-President. With the
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removal of this gentleman to Washington the fortunes of De Witt Clinton revived, and the Democratic-Republicans naming him, he was, almost without opposition, elected Governor of the State. But the truce in party dispute, so welcome, was but the precursor of a contest in the State, and in the county of Westchester, of uncommon bitter- ness. It might be right here to state that the championship by Clinton of the measures for the construction of the Erie Canal, the importance of which was the more evident as the work progressed, gave him an increased hold upon the confidence of the people. This, however, was more immediately felt in the neighborhoods to be benefited than in others, as Westchester County, where the influence could only be indirect.
Old Time Electioneering-Such calm as existed was of a deceitful character, according to observers of Clinton's almost unanimous election as Governor. The elevation of one who paid so little regard to party restraints, was exceedingly repugnant to the extreme Democracy. The Federalists in their turn, in expectation of some advantage, were only too glad to revive the old controversies, and Clinton was inclined to draw the line as between his personal friends and opponents. In the Westchester region the election for senators in the spring of 1819 was carried on with great animation. John Townsend, of Eastchester, who had been, a year or two before, a member of the Lower House, was elected Senator in opposition to Pierre Van Cortlandt, the Clinton candidate. It was at this time that the significant name, "Bucktail." designating the opponents of De Witt Clinton, sprang into use. To the Tammany Society, Clinton was particularly odious, and, as one of the insignia of the order was the tail of the deer in their hats, the other party soon applied the term to all who sympathized with them in their feelings and action. The "bucktail," an emblem of success in the chase, was gladly appropriated by the anti-Clintonians and be- came the favorite decoration in each political campaign. It must have been somewhere about this time that the following incidents, related in a journal of a trip to visit Chief Justice Jay and General Philip Van Cortlandt, occurred: "We now found ourselves in the town of North Castle, the inhabitants of which were assembled at this time to choose their officers. We discovered that they were all Bucktails. My friend whose enthusiasm counterbalances his prudence, ventured on the hopeless task of converting them to Clintonism. Accordingly, having singled out one who appeared to be the decentest man among them, he led him into a long argument, by which to convince him that Tompkins was a defaulter, and consequently unfit to be entrusted with the highly responsible office of chief magistrate of this great State.
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That the Bucktail, in his attempt to prove the immaculate purity of the man of his party, was foiled by the superior address and ingenuity of his antagonist, is not saying that he was convinced." Elsewhere it is reported in the journal-" 'Who is this?' whispered I. 'Dr. C --- k, the sheriff of the county,' replied my companion, 'and a warm Clinton- ian.' 'And you, doctor, I am glad to see you, too; how goes the election ?' Here a dialogue commenced on the topic next to the heart of these two men, who, alike forgetful of the rain, which now began to fall, ... these two mad politicians kept up their jabber a full half hour, cold, wind, and rain notwithstanding." Another extract is as follows: "A few minutes sufficed to bring us to the ancient seat of the Van Cortlandts. .. I had not another opportunity of drawing Hannibal into the recital of his campaign till the hour of retiring; his attention was wholly occupied by Cooper and his plans for bringing in De Witt Clinton." In spite of the fact that Governor Clinton was reelected in 1820, a strong blow was the actual result, for both to the Senate and the Assembly pronounced majorities against him were returned.
Tompkins, who had been brought out to oppose Clinton, had a majority of three thousand two hundred and thirty-one in the South- ern Senatorial District, which included Westchester County. The address at this election of a body of Federalists, which, it is asserted, had very little influence with the main force, is here recalled, because on the list of signatures to it the first is that of a noted citizen of Mamaroneck, Peter Jay Munro, a lawyer of much eminence in West- chester, while there were other names having connections with interests in what is now The Bronx. The significance of this paper was not only its open assault on the friends of Governor Clinton for their devotion to him, but in the galvanic display of the death scene of the dis- tinguished party to which they had belonged, the signers sought their own future political advancement. For two successive terms the Third Congressional District of the State, which consisted of Rockland and Westchester, was ably and faithfully represented by Caleb Tompkins, of White Plains, and for three years, from 1820 to '1823, the position of County Judge was held by William Jay, son of the Chief Justice.
Revision of the Constitution-The great political event which there- after fell under notice was the assembling of the convention ordered for the revision of the State constitution, and the presence in it of three distinguished citizens of the county, all members of its bar-Peter A. Jay, Peter J. Munro, and Jonathan Ward. It would seem that what- ever the motive elsewhere the political motive did not enter into the selections thus made north of the Harlem. Governor Tompkins was called upon to preside over the convention, and in the appointment of
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committees it is noteworthy that Peter Jay Munro, before referred to, who lived at Mamaroneck, and who had connections with The Bronx, was made chairman of the committee on the judiciary department and Mr. Ward a member of that on the council of revision. One of the noted periods in the debate of this body was that in which the right of the colored population to vote at elections was discussed. The question was handled very dispassionately, but Jay's speech appears to have been one of the very ablest on the subject. By far the severest work of the convention was the consideration of the report of the judiciary committee, when strong political feeling was aroused. The question really was the disposition of the old judges. Munro, although assisted by Van Buren, struggled unsuccessfully to prevent the sweeping change. At the session of the Legislature following the convention, Senator John Townsend, of Eastchester, was made a member of the Council of Appointment, the sessions of which were the last held in the State, its powers passing by the new Constitution to the Governor and the Senate. Townsend, at the next election to the county, was made its Sheriff, and John Hunter, of Pelham, was re- turned under the new apportionment one of the four Senators of the Second Senatorial District. In 1824, in the list of presidential electors, the last selected by the Legislature are the names of the two brothers, John and James Drake, both natives of Westchester County, the first residing in New York, and the latter on his estate at Eastchester. The election for President, as is noted in the national histories, was thrown into the House of Representatives, where John Quincy Adams, after several ballotings was elected, Joel Frost, of Putnam County, the member from the Fourth Congressional District, giving his vote to William H. Crawford, of Georgia, then Secretary of the Treasury.
Decades Preceding Civil War-In referring to the thirty years before Abraham Lincoln's election there are a number of facts which merit record in any historical narrative of the territory just north of the Harlem. General Aaron Ward was six times elected a member of Congress, fulfilling his duties to the eminent satisfaction of his con- stituents. He had been an officer in the war of 1812 and was for some years Brigadier-General of the Fifteenth Brigade and Fourth Division of the Militia of the State. In the convention in 1846 for amending the constitution General Ward represented the county and was made chairman of the committee on the militia and military officers. John Hunter of Hunter's Island, Pelham, in 1823, for one year, and from 1836, for eight years Senator from Westchester, was a man of large wealth and a man of agreeable character. He was a strong supporter of Van Buren, during whose administration Philip Schuyler,
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a brother-in-law of Mr. Hunter, and resident of Westchester for many years, held the consulship at London. Mr. Hunter was also a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1846. Allen MacDonald of White Plains held a seat in the Senate for two terms and is said to have been very popular. In 1836 he was appointed Adjutant-General of the State.
During the anti-Masonic agitation there was less feeling exhibited in the region immediately north of the Harlem than in the western part of the State. The brethren of the order quietly abandoned their local organization and awaited the passing of the storm. The effect, how- ever, of this ephemeral political movement was to make the Democratic Party as a party more compact and as a result stronger and better prepared for its mission. This was illustrated nowhere more thorough- ly than among the farmers of Westchester and the vicinity, who had the reputation of not being easily moved from their path, once they had been set in a certain direction. The business disasters of 1837 made more of an impression on them than the movement against the Masons. What was regarded as the impulsive trifling of President Jackson with the finances of the country, which at that time was sup- posed to throw a halo round his inflexible courage and will, brought upon his successor, through the troubles which during his administra- tion the people were compelled to suffer, a degree of obloquy which President Van Buren, it was agreed in a later time, did not individually deserve. The fact that the Democratic majority in the country was reduced from over one thousand two hundred in 1836 to two hundred and seventy in 1840 shows, making all allowances for the humors of the log-cabin and hard cider campaign, that a deliberate, sober, second thought of the people was making Van Buren and his party eat the bread of affliction. Following this date for a period of about two years the parties were more closely matched, though in reality the lines of both were much disturbed. The questions concerning the tariff and internal improvement were those which divided the professed politic- ians, but personal preferences and antipathies in certain divisions and localities were confounding plans and calculations. The advent too of a secret political organization, styled native American, which had a large following in certain towns, was unsettling as to the county and town nominations and elections. And in addition to all this there were the dissensions which sprang up as the question of the extension of slavery was discussed. As a result the majority of Polk in Westchester over Clay was smaller than that of his party four years before.
The admission of Texas into the Union, which increased the southern strength, and the war with Mexico, which necessarily followed it, added new subjects for differences of opinion and debate. At the guberna-
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torial election, in 1846, the defection in the Democratic Party, which ensured the defeat of Silas Wright, brought on confusion and revolt. The feeling was intensified when the death of Silas Wright in the succeeding August was announced. During the summer, at the primary meetings and conventions of the Democracy, bitter struggles were taking place. In September the State convention met at Syracuse, and the Radicals, being deprived as they alleged of their proper representa- tion, assembled in October, at Herkimer. Hunter's name appeared in the call. In this internal discussion the question involved the ex- tension of slavery into the territories. The Herkimer convention de- manded that the principle of non-extension, called also the Wilmot Proviso, be introduced into the party platform. The Whigs in the canvass of 1847 were generally victorious, but the seat of James E. Beers in the Assembly was contested by Colonel J. R. Hayward, who had held it in the previous year. Hayward was unsuccessful. In 1848 the breach between the two factions was made still wider at the meeting of the two conventions styled the "Old Hunker" and the "Barnburner," in both of which the Westchester Democrats were represented.
Following the nomination of General Lewis Cass for the presidency a complete division took place and separate national and state tickets were selected. Van Buren was named as the Free Soil candidate for the high position which he formerly held. In the election which fol- lowed the Whig candidate, General Zachary Taylor, who was elected, received in the Westchester region a majority over the entire opposing vote. General Cass fell behind Van Buren six thousand votes in the State, but exceeded him considerably in Westchester County. Some of the most ardent leaders of the Democracy of earlier days had by this time become the stanchest friends of the policies advocated by the Whigs. The old Senator and Sheriff, John Townsend, is mentioned in this connection. The history of the next four years is of the weakening of the hold thus obtained by the Whigs. The death of General Taylor, the accession of Mr. Fillmore, whose views were materially different from General Taylor's, and the exactions of what was called the "South- ern Oligarchy," brought in serious dissensions among the friends of the party in power. The compromise measures of Mr. Clay, however, served both the great parties as a cement for the divisions in their ranks, and the presidential contest of 1852 was carried on within the old lines. The county of Westchester gave Franklin Pierce, Democrat, who was elected, twelve hundred clear majority. The number of votes cast had increased, it would seem, over sixteen hundred. Little is remembered of an exciting or important nature during this national administration, so far as the valley and territory of The Bronx is concerned, save the barely-suppressed indignation at the unnecessary
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strain which the abetters of the Fugitive Slave Law were putting on the feeling for respect of the law among the people and the irritation caused by the intervention for conscience or for effect of the small body of the Abolitionists, who had no following in the region north of the Harlem.
However, the presidential election of 1856 brought into relief the fact of the general unwillingness among the population of being made uncomfortable by extremists. Although the free soil vote, less than one-fourth in 1848, was in 1856, more than one-third, it did not mean interference with slavery in the Southern States. The sentiment of abhorrence for the institution never took form beyond an opposition to its extension, and the rights of the States were as fully cherished as devotion to the Union was afterwards the absorbing principle. State sovereignty had free and open statement, and the charge of intermed- dling, whenever alleged, was laughed down as an absurd insinuation. The course of Mr. Buchanan in his Lecompton policy, which was be- lieved to be in direct contradiction to the principle of popular sovereign- ty, upon which he was elected, brought out the indignant opposition of a portion of his northern and western supporters, and their rep- resentatives in Congress, prominent among them being John B. Haskin of Fordham, the member from the Ninth District of New York, in which was The Bronx and Westchester County. In the congressional election of 1858, in the district north of the Harlem, the course of the adminis- tration was made the issue, and Governor Kemble, having been nominated by the Democratic Party, Haskin was placed by his friends in the political field. He was supported by the Republicans and elected by a small majority, over his opponent. To this election and to that in the Sixth District of Pennsylvania, where Mr. Hickman, an associate of Mr. Haskin, was in like manner opposed by the whole strength of the administration, the eyes of the whole country were turned. It was declared in Morrisania: "Should Mr. Haskin be defeated and an ad- ministration candidate be elected, every port-office and every office of the Government would be illuminated." An incident in Congress in the early part of 1860 brings to notice the determined and ardent part taken, after his reelection, by the representative of Westchester County in the fulfilment of his duties. While addressing the House Mr. Haskin accidentally let fall from the breast pocket of his coat a loaded revolver. On the question of the propriety of carrying this weapon into the House, not only in Congress, but among his constituents and through- out the country, a warm discussion followed. The explanation given was preparation for self-defense in the unprotected neighborhood of Washington in which Mr. Haskin resided and in which much lawless- ness prevailed. This incident, taken in connection with the rebellion
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which soon followed and the tragic scenes that marked it, illustrated the perils of public life at the time and the unflinching determination of those called to mingle in the discussions introductory to the strife.
For and Against Lincoln-And so the country was carried to the stirring canvass and election in which Abraham Lincoln was placed in the presidential chair, and as a result of which the party that had so long conducted the government passed into long exile. At the State convention of the Democratic Party, in which Thomas Smith, Gilbert S. Lyon, and Abraham Hyatt, represented Westchester County including The Bronx territory, Edwin Cresswell, of Greenburgh, was named as one of the two delegates from the Ninth District to the national convention of the Democratic Party, to be held at Charlestown in the next April, to nominate its candidate for President. At a conven- tion of Democrats of the Ninth District, dissatisfied with the action of the State convention, William Radford, of Yonkers, afterwards member of Congress, was chosen delegate to Charlestown. The State convention of the Republicans was held in April, 1860, at Syracuse, and E. F. Shonnard, of Yonkers, and Harvy Kidd, of Westchester, from the First Assembly District, Edmund J. Porter, of New Rochelle, and John J. Clapp, from the Second Assembly District, Odell Close, of North Salem, and J. H. Platt, of Ossining, from the Third Assembly District, represented the region north of the Harlem. Porter, formerly corporation counsel of the city of New York, was chosen as the delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago, at which Abraham Lincoln was nominated. On the ticket voted for presidential electors, on the Republican side, the Ninth Congressional District candidate was William H. Robertson, then county judge; and on the other ticket, whose motto was said to be "Union for the sake of the Union," was placed the name of Abraham B. Conger, of Rockland, formerly State Senator. Amid the, heated discussions at the public gatherings pre- paratory to the election, peace and order were everywhere preserved; and when the result was reached, although the majority in The Bronx valley and in Westchester County generally, was against Lincoln, the verdict was, as readily as after any previous contest, accepted and sustained. Among those chosen for office at this time was Edward Haight, of the town of Westchester, who, although in the opposition, proved to be a valuable member in the Lower House at Washington, during the first two years of Lincoln's administration.
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