USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 51
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STATE
The banking monopoly was abolished by EXECUTIVE PRIVY SEAL taking from the Legislature the power of granting special charters for banking purposes. Authority was given for the formation of banking and other corpora- tions under general laws, but the Legislature was prohibited from sanctioning the suspension of specie payments. Bills or notes put into circulation by such corporations as money were required to be regis- tered, and ample security given for their redemption in specie.
Provision was made for the preservation of the School, Literature, and State Deposit funds, and the legitimate expenditure of the revenues arising from them. The Legislature was also directed to provide for the organization of cities and villages, with anthority to restrict their powers of taxation, assessment, borrowing money, contracting debts, and loaning their credit.
The tenure of all lands was declared to be allodial. All restrictions upon alienation were abolished, and the leasing of agricultural lands for a longer term than twelve years was prohibited.
505
AN OLIGARCHY DISAPPEARS.
It was during the sessions of this convention that the first movement was made for the establishinent of absolutely free schools throughout the State. The subject was introduced by Robert Campbell, of Otsego, on June 15th, in the form of a resolution. With a memorial on the same subject from the State Convention of County Superintendents, it was referred to the Committee on Education. On July 22d that committee reported to the convention a series of resolutions, one of them providing for the establishment by the Legislature of a system of free schools, for the education of every child in the State between the ages of four and sixteen years, whose parents were residents of the State. This resolution was adopted on the day before the final adjournment of the convention, but, on being reconsidered, was rejected. This desirable measure was only postponed for a season.
The convention adjourned on October 9th, after a session of about four months. Although it was composed of warm partisans, there did not appear the shadow of partisanship in the debates. It exhibited to the world a spectacle never before seen.
The instrument then adopted became a mighty emancipator of the people-a marvellons and puissant supporter of popular liberty and the popular will. Before the convention of 1821 every officer, civil and military, with a few exceptions, was appointed by a board-the Conneil of Appointment-possessed of absolute power within its legitimate domain. It was composed of only five members, sitting at the State capital. At its own sovereign will it played at football with the offices of trust and emolument in the State, appointing and dismissing incum- bents in obedience to the behests of partisan or personal favor or dislike, or the dictates of self-interest or mere caprice.
The convention of 1821 wrested some strength from this tyrannical oligarchy. The convention of 1846 wholly annihilated this terrible power, and placed the public interests under the direct control of the people, the true source of all political sovereignty.
In less than a month after the adjourminent of the convention the people of the State, at a general election, adopted the revised Constitu- tion by a majority of abont one hundred and thirty thousand. At the same election John Young,* the Whig and anti-rent candidate for gov-
* John Young was born at Chelsea, Vt., in 1802 ; died in New York City in April, 1852. In his young childhood his father removed to Livingston County, N. Y., where John received a common-school education, and studied and practised law. He was a member of the State Legislature in 1831 and subsequently, and in 1841-43 he was a member of Congress. His political affinity was with the Democratic Party until he became an Anti-Mason in 1829, and was elected to Congress by the Whigs. He was
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
ernor, was elected over Governor Wright by eleven thousand majority, while Addison Gardiner, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant-gov- ernor, was elected over Hamilton Fish by about thirteen thousand majority. On the elevation of Gardiner to the bench of the Court of Appeals Mr. Fish was appointed to fill the chair of lieutenant-governor.
Governor Young gave special attention to the subject of common schools. The system of county superintendents had worked admirably, but a growing tendency of supervisors to make the appointments to that office on political grounds merely, caused widespread dissatisfaction. At the special session of the Legisla- ture in the fall of 1847 the office was abolished and that of town superintendent was created. The best friends of popular education lamented the change. The schools steadily retrograded in efficiency. Finally, in 1856, the office of school commissioner was created, that of town superintendent was abolished, and that of. county superintendent was practically re- instated.
The free - school system was thoroughly discussed after the adjournment of the convention of JOHN YOUNG. 1846, and in the spring of 1849 an act was passed for the estab- lishment of free schools throughout the State, and the abolition of the rate-bill system. The law was ratified by a majority of one hundred and fifty-eight thousand votes of the people, every county in the State but four giving majorities for it. The whole of the expense of the schools beyond the State appropriation was made a tax upon the property of each district. This act was sustained by a majority of three to one of the people. At the same session teachers' institutes, which had existed for some years as voluntary associations, were legally established.
The free-school system did not work satisfactorily, owing to inequality in the taxation imposed. The people murmured. They remonstrated, and clamored for a repeal of the law. The question was submitted to
elected Governor of the State by the Whigs and Anti-Renters in 1847, and in 1849-52 he was Assistant United States Treasurer in New York City.
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THE WHIG PARTY IN POWER.
them in 1850, and the law was sustained by a diminished majority .* It was repealed in the spring of 1851, and the rate-bill system was reinstated.
At the election in the fall of 1848 the Whigs were triumphant in the State and in the choice of Presi- dent of the United States. Lieu- tenant-Governor Fish + was elect- ed Governor of New York, and General Zachary Taylor, a brave, skilful, successful, and honest military leader in the war with Mexico, was chosen Chief Magis- trate of the republic, with Millard Fillmore, of New York, as Vice- President. Mr. Van Buren ac- cepted the nomination for Presi- dent from the Free-Soil or anti- slavery Democrats, and thus diminished the strength of the regularly nominated candidate, HAMILTON FISH. General Lewis Cass. President Taylor died in the summer of 1850, and Vice-President Filhnore became his official successor.
The administration of Governor Fish (1849-51) was a very quiet one, nothing of special importance in the history of the State occurring except- ing the excitement concerning the repeal of the free-school law. There
* The vote in favor of the free-school law in 1849 was 249,872 against 91,951. In 1850 it was 209,347 against 184,208.
+ Hamilton Fish, son of Colonel Nicholas Fish, a distinguished officer of the Revolu- tion, was born in New York City in August, 1808. He was graduated at Columbia College in 1827, and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He took an active part in politics in early life as a member of the Whig Party, and in 1842 he was elected to a seat in Con- gress. He denounced the principles of the Anti-Renters, and in 1846 he was defeated by them as a candidate for the office of lieutenant-governor of the State. He was after- ward chosen to fill that office, and in 1848 was elected Governor of the State by a large majority. In 1851 he was chosen United States Senator, and in 1854 he strenuously opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He was a most earnest supporter of the Government during the late Civil War. President Grant called him to his Cabinet as Secretary of State in 1869, and in that capacity he served eight years, retiring to private life on the accession of President Hayes. In 1854 he was chosen President-General of the Society of the Cincinnati, which office he yet (1887) holds. The next year he was chosen President of the New York State Society of the Cincinnati. He has been an active and influential member of the Union League Club from its organization, and has long been an efficient officer of the New York Historical Society. His hand and bounty are felt in many benevolent works.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
was a very heated canvass of the matter, and at the fall election in 1850, as we have seen, there was a diminished majority against repeal. The rural counties were generally for repeal. Forty-two of the fifty-nine counties of the State gave an aggregate of forty-nine thousand votes for repeal, while the seventeen remaining counties, including the city of New York, gave an aggregate majority of seventy-two thousand against repeal. New York City and County alone gave thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven votes of that majority.
At the fall election of 1850 Washington Hunt,# Comptrol- ler of the State, and a Whig, was elected Governor of New York by a small majority over Horatio Seymour. The Demo- cratic candidate for lientenant- governor, Sandford E. Church, was elected.
The administration of Gov- ernor Hunt was also a quiet one. The most exciting question was that of the repeal of the free-school law, in the winter WASHINGTON IIUNT. and spring of 1851. The gov- ernor urged upon the Legis- lature the importance of making satisfactory amendments to the law, so as to secure its sustentation. The Legislature was beset with petitions for its repeal, from taxpayers of the rural districts especially. The pressure was so great that the law-makers yielded, and repealed the law in April. The governor, in a subsequent message, characterized the actions of the people of the State and of the Legislature as a " temporary compromise" between the advanced views of the advocates of free schools and the fears and prejudices of a majority of the taxpayers and
* Washington Hunt was born in Windham, N. Y., in August, 1811 ; died in New York City in February, 1867. IIe was admitted to the bar at Lockport, N. Y., in 1834 ; was appointed first judge of Niagara County in 1836, and was elected to a seat in Con- gress in 1843, where he served until 1849 as chairman of the Committee on Commerce. In 1851 he was Governor of New York. He was a Whig, and in 1854 was one of the founders of the Republican Party. He became a leader of the conservative wing. He presided over the convention that nominated Mr. Lincoln for the presidency, but soon afterward joined the Democratic Party. In 1864 he was a delegate to the convention that nominated Mcclellan for President of the United States.
509
THE COMMON-SCHOOL FUND AND LAWS.
inhabitants of the rural districts long accustomed to the existing system. He said that the progress of public opinion might be relied upon to diffuse a more liberal view of the relations of the State to its future citizens. At that time the capital of the common-school fund was $6,500,000, of the revenue of which nearly $1,500,000 had been expended during the current year (1851-52) in the payment of teachers' wages and the purchase of school libraries. The number of pupils in attendance upon the several public schools was 726, 000. The Legislature in 1852 authorized the governor to appoint a special commission for the revision and codification of the school laws of the State. For this task S. S. Randall, Deputy Superintendent of Common Schools, was appoint- ed.
Again the Democratic Party in the State and nation acquired HORATIO SEYMOUR. political ascendancy. In the fall of 1852 Horatio Seymour # was elected Governor of the State of New York, and General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, was chosen President of the United States by a large majority over General Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate.
# Horatio Seymour was one of the most notable of the later governors of New York. He was born in Onondaga County, N. Y., in May, 1816, and went to Utica with his parents in early childhood. He was educated for a lawyer, but, inheriting a large estate from his father, he devoted his time to the care of it. Very studious, he acquired much and varied knowledge, which he used with skill. Becoming attached to the staff of Governor Marcy in young manhood, on which he served six years, he became enamored with public life. In 1841 he was elected a member of Assembly by the Democratic Party, and held the position four years. Ile was chosen Speaker in 1843. He had been elected Mayor of Utica in 1842. In 1852 he was elected Governor of the State. By vetoing a prohibitory liquor bill in 1854 he incurred the displeasure of the advocates of temperance, and he was defeated as a candidate for re-election. Mr. Seymour was again elected governor in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, and he gave his support to the Govern- ment, though not very cordially. He was defeated in the fall of 1864. In 1868 he was nominated for the presidency, but failed to be elected. He then retired to private life, but keeping a lively interest in all passing events until his death at Utica in February, 1886.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
The administration of Governor Seymour was also a quiet one, yet important measures were adopted. In his first message (1853) he urgently recommended provision to be made for the speedy completion of the canals, and the establishment of a State agricultural college and experimental farm. A charter for such an institution was granted that spring.
At a special session convened immediately after the adjournment of the regular session in 1853, an act was passed for the consolidation of the ward and Public School Society's schools in the city of New York, and placing them under the supreme control of a Board of Education, as we have already observed. At that time there were two hundred and twenty-four of these schools in the city, with about 1000 teachers and F NEWYOR 123,530 pupils on register ; also 25 evening schools, with 4000 pupils. CE TA
*
In the spring of 1854 the Legislature STA PER created the office of State superintend- ent of public instruction. The first incumbent of this office was Victor M. Rice. The superintendent is made, ex- EXCELSIOR officio, a regent of the University. At INSTRUCTION that session an amendment to the Con- JT stitution proposed the preceding year was ratified, requiring an annual ap- SEAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUB- LIC INSTRUCTION. propriation of a sum not exceeding $2,250,000 for the completion of the canals. An act for that purpose was passed. The Whigs gained ascendancy in the State in the fall of 1854. Governor Seymour had lost the favor of the friends of temperance by vetoing an act passed by a large majority of the Legislature which aimed to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks. He pronounced it " unconstitutional, unjust, and oppressive," and declared his belief that intemperance could not be extirpated by prohibitory laws. The press and the pulpit denounced his action. He was a candidate for re-election in the fall. The Whigs were not represented in the canvass. A fusion convention, which met at Syracuse, nominated for governor Myron H. Clark,* of Ontario, a stanch advocate of prohibitory liquor
* Myron Halley Clark was born in Naples, Ontario County, N. Y., October 23d, 1806, and has been a resident of that county ever since. His father, Joseph Clark, was a native of Cunington, Berkshire County, Mass. ; his grandfathers were natives of Con- necticut. He attended the common schools of his native town three winter months each
511
FORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
laws, and he was elected over both Seymour and Daniel Ullman, the candidate of the Native American Party. There was a Whig majority in both branches of the Legislature.
During that year a new national party was formed, and grew vigor- ously. It was composed largely of progressive and independent Whigs and many Democrats. It is claimed that Jackson, Mich., was the place of its nativity, and July 6th, 1854, the time of its birth, when a political convention was held at that place pursnant to a call signed by more than ten thousand names. The chief planks in the platform con- 1. structed by the convention were opposition to the extension of slavery and its abolition in the District of Columbia. The name of " REPUBLICAN " was given to the new party.
Two years later the Republican Party was thoroughly organized and strong in numbers. They nominated Colonel J. C. Fremont for President of the United States MYRON II. CLARK. in 1856. He was defeated by his Democratic competitor, James Buchanan. Fremont received one hundred and fourteen of the two hundred and eighty-eight electoral votes cast. At the next presidential election (1860) the Republican, candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected by a majority of fifty-seven of the electoral votes over three other candidates-Breckinridge, Douglas, and Bell. It was the final political triumph of the anti-slavery men
year, and worked on his father's farm the remainder of the year until he was eighteen years of age, when he became a merchant's clerk in his town. At the age of twenty-one he became a clerk in Canandaigua. Two years later he returned to Naples and engaged in mercantile business on his own account with partners, and married in 1830. In 1837 he was elected sheriff of the county, and made Canandaigua his residence, where he still resides. At the close of his term of office he again engaged in trade. In 1851 Mr. Clark was elected State Senator, where he was distinguished for his advocacy of legislative enactments in favor of temperance. He was chairman of the committee that reported the " Bill for the Suppression of Intemperance," which, as we have observed, Governor Seymour vetoed. Senator Clark was the leader of the debates on the subject. He had served only one half of a second term in the Senate when he was elected Governor of the State, in 1854. He was appointed United States Collector of Internal Revenue in 1862.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
and women of the Union, and led to the speedy emancipation of the slaves in every part of the Republic.
After Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, in the spring of 1861, the Repub- lican Party retained its domination of the National Government for abont a quarter of a century, and became a great historic party. Mean- while, as usual, New York was an " uncertain" State in political calcu- lations, for its political aspect frequently changed, the Republican and Democratic parties alternately holding the reins of power.
Governor Clark, in his first message to the Legislature (1855), called their attention to a pending controversy with the State authorities of Virginia concerning the force and operations of the infamous Fugitive Slave Law passed by Congress in 1850, which made every citizen a slave- catcher .* Its practical operations aroused the slumbering conscience of the people of the free-labor States and their intelligence to the danger foreshadowed by the increasing aggressiveness of the upholders of the slave system ; and several of these States passed "Personal Liberty" bills in opposition to the obnoxious law.
The State of New York had statutory laws already which met the case, and when, late in 1852, Jonathan Lemon, of Norfolk, Va., brought eight slaves to New York City for reshipment to Texas, they were taken before Judge Paine, of the Superior Court, on a writ of habeas corpus to claim their right to freedom under the provisions of a law of the State which declared that every slave should be free on touching its soil when brought thither by his or her alleged owner. The judge set them free, and they fled to Canada. The case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, which sustained Judge Paine's decision.
This case produced very great excitement in the slave-labor States, and was the beginning of the preliminary skirmishes between the friends of freedom and of slavery which immediately preceded the civil war kindled in 1861 by the slaveocracy for the perpetuation and nationalizing of the system of hopeless bondage for the African race in the United States. + Some of the most violent of these skirmishes, resulting some-
* The law provided that the master of a fugitive slave or his agent might go into any State or Territory, and with or without legal warrant there obtained seize such fugitive and take him before any judge or commissioner, declare that the fugitive " owed labor" to the party who arrested him, when it was the duty of the judge to use the power of his office to take the alleged fugitive back to bondage. In no case should the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence. It further provided that no impediment should be put in the way of the slave-catcher by any process of law or otherwise, and any citizen might be compelled to assist in the capture and rendition of the slave.
+ Threats of disunion freely uttered in 1850 to accelerate the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law were now heard echoing from State to State in the South. The Governor of
513
CONSCIENCE AND MAMMON.
times in bloodshed, occurred in the then recently organized Territory of Kansas.
The decision of Judge Paine was followed by the flight of slaves from bondage, through New York and Ohio, to Canada. They were secretly aided in their exodus by the friends of freedom in New York City. The process was known as the " Underground Railroad," of which New York was the principal station. The consequence was Southern dealers became suspicions of New York merchants, and began to withdraw their trade. The effect was very demoralizing. Many merchants engaged in the Southern trade be- came obedient slaves of Mammon and the Southern oligarchy at the sacrifice of self-respect. "I am ashamed to own," said one of these merchants to me, " that when our Southern customers were in town, I felt compelled to order my clerks not to let the Tribune be seen in the store, for it would not do to let such customers know that I gave any countenance to that abolition sheet. From the bottom of my JOHN . KING. heart I despised myself."
Little of special importance in the history of New York occurred between the administration of Governor Clark and the kindling of the Civil War in 1861, when the State put forth its giant strength in defence of the life of the imperilled nation. Then the city of New York, so conservative before that crisis, became the foremost city in the republic in support of the National Government.
John A. King # succeeded Mr. Clark as governor in 1857. His
Virginia declared that if the decision of Judge Paine should be sustained all comity between the States would be destroyed, and the value of " slave property" be greatly diminished. Governor Howell Cobb, of Georgia, who, as Secretary of the United States Treasury in the Cabinet of President Buchanan, conspired to destroy the republic, declared that it was a sufficient cause for making war on the Union.
* John Alsop King, son of Hon. Rufus King, was born in the city of New York January 3d, 1788. He accompanied his father-who was Minister at the court of St. James-to England, and while there attended the famous school at Harrow. Among his fellow-pupils were his brother Charles, late President of Columbia College, Lord Byron, and Robert Peel. On his return home he studied law and was admitted to the bar. In
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
administration was quiet and uneventful. He recommended a judicious revision of the excise laws, and submitted to the Legislature a proposed constitutional amendment extend- ing the right of suffrage to col- ored voters without a property qualification ; also a strenuous resistance on the part of the Legislature to the further exten- sion of slavery in the Territories.
In the autumn of 1858 Ed- win D. Morgan," a distinguished merchant of New York City, was elected by the Republicans Governor of the State by a ma- jority of abont seventeen thou- sand. It was during his adminis- tration that the fierce Civil War in the nation was begun.
EDWIN D. MORGAN.
National affairs had now begun to attract unusual attention, and there was widespread uneasiness in the public mind. The slavery question had been brought conspicuously to the front in the arena of public discussion by the virtual repeal of the
the War of 1812-15 he served as lieutenant of a troop of horse, and continued in the service until the close of the contest, after which he took up his residence at Jamaica, Long Island, and there passed the remainder of his life in the business of agriculture. Six times Mr. King represented Queens County in the Assembly, and once in the Senate of his native State. In 1825 he was Secretary of Legation to Great Britain under his father. He represented his district in the Congress of the United States in 1849-51, and was very active in opposition to the compromise measures of the so-called " Omnibus Bill " of 1850, especially that of the Fugitive Slave Bill. He warmly advocated the admission of California as a free-labor State. Mr. King was an active member of the Whig Party, and in the organization of the Republican Party in 1854. In 1856 he was elected the first Republican Governor of New York, and was an earnest promoter of the canal system of the State. Governor Morgan appointed him a delegate to the notable Peace Congress at Washington early in 1861. He took his seat therein, and this was his last public act. On July 4th, 1867, he was addressing the young men of Jamaica, who had just raised a new flag, and as he uttered the words, " Life is all before you, but men like me are passing away," he was suddenly smitten with paralysis, and died three days afterward, in the eightieth year of his age.
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