The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 5

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823-
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company
Number of Pages: 1098

USA > New York > Jefferson County > The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894 > Part 5

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There was another reason why Lyon was running behind his previous record. He had lost the friendship and support of that young newspaper man who had aided him so much when he was first a candidate for Congress. His second canvass was poorly managed, and notwithstanding his support by the Democrats and old-line Whigs, he

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was defeated by nearly 3,600 votes - though his Watertown meeting, held just before the election, was enthusiastic and largely attended.

Mr. Lyon was upon friendly terms with President Lincoln, who often sent him to various points to secure special information. He was eventually sent ont to Idaho as its territorial Governor, but the frontier life of that remote region, and his constitutional inability to discharge administrative du- ties, made a stay in Idaho irksome and dis- tasteful; he resigned in 1866, returning to his home on Staten Island, where he died soon after. He had relinquished his Lewis county home many years previons.

THE ABOLITIONISTS.

The mention of Gerrit Smith in this Caleb Lyon political episode, makes this stage of our political history perhaps as opportune as any in which to introduce that highly in- telligent and moral, but utterly impracti- cable organization, designated as " Aboli- tionists," who had, from 1838, for nearly twenty years, maintained an independent status upon the basis of opposition to slavery, and an uncompromising demand for its abolition by Congress. Dating from about 1840, which was the year of phenome- nal political disturbance, resulting in a dis- tinct Whig administration of the general government, these abolitionists increased rapidly in numbers and in the bitterness of their denunciations of the two older politi- cal parties for their acquiescence in the per- sistent demands of the South, which then, as it had long before, boldly claimed that they could carry their negro slaves into any free territory of the United States, and be pro- tected there under their normal rights as citizens. In addition to these demands, which in our day seem altogether untenable, the free North had witnessed the arrest, by marshals of the United States, of black men in many localities north of Mason and Dixon's line, who were claimed as slaves, and carried away, on ex-parte testimony, into darkest slavery. In one extraordinary brutal instance, a poor escaping slave had heen arrested in the city of Boston by a regular U. S. marshal; and though many offers were made to buy the slave at any price his alleged owner might demand-and thus that high-toned and historic free city be spared the unutterable shame of seeing a black man, in chains, marched down to slavery through the sorrowing and sympa- thetic crowd that lined those streets, up which, less than an hundred years before, the minute men from all New England had gladly marched to fight for freedom at Bunker Hill. Yet that was exactly what was witnessed there; and, as if that were not enough, a beloved and patriotic citizen of Boston who was bold enough to denounce such a proceeding as having brought dis-

grace upon his native city, was promptly arrested by one of these marshals, without any process, and locked up as a resistant to the execution of a law of Congress!

Such soul-stirring scenes as this (repeated but too often in the tree North) gained for the Abolitionists many adherents, and really threatened the stability of the government -for thinking men began to argue that if the laws of the United States virtually made every Northern man a slave-catcher if so selected by a government marshal, then a time had come for such a law to be changed. Some of the Abolitionists stig- matized the National Constitution as a " league with hell," and bitterly denounced all laws which reclaimed slaves escaping into free territory. Independent men, meanwhile, were not unmindful of such demonstrations as we have named; and if the Abolitionists were able to do nothing more, they helped to educate the North up to a more complete understanding of the slave- holder's designs. But, as an independent organization, the Abolitionists could not have accomplished freedom for the slaves. They were composed largely from the dis- contented of the older parties, and had gathered into their fold the long-haired cranks of varied aims who are always found intermingled with American political life. It is true that so able a statesman as Charles Sumner, United States Senator from Massa- chusetts, was almost as bitter in his de- nunciations of slavery as were the out-and- out Abolitionists themselves; but his astute mind clearly saw it was a political question, which could only be settled, if it were done peacefully, by some understanding which should be acceptable to both the North and the South. If it had not been that the country was destined to witness a startling illustration of the saying that " whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad," as was demonstrated in the insane attack upon Sumter, even before this year 1894 we might by statesmanlike compromises, have beheld slavery abolished, and the slave- owners paid a just compensation for their loss. When the South deliberately resolved to secede, the Abolition party ceased to ex- ist, for the first gun fired at Sumter made certain that the slaves were free -though President Lincoln's promulgation of that stupendous fact was delayed until 1863. And thus the Abolitionists' work was ac- complished - not, however, by their own efforts, or by the adoption of any of their favorite plans; but by the insane conduct of the oppressors themselves -as, in all history, we behold the hand of evil stayed by the retributive action of its own despo- tism.

But, stepping beyond the limitations of parties, their remains the very elevated con- sideration that the well-being of no race is perfect while another race is degraded. It is a doctrine of the oldest as well as the newest philosophy, that the human race is

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one-a unit-so far as natural rights are concerned. The genius of the Saxon race, friendly to liberty, the enterprise, the very muscular vigor of the nation were averse to slavery. The Infinite, looking through history from the beginning onward and out- ward, beheld this blot upon our escutcheon, and it disappeared. The sentiment of Right pronounces for freedom. The Power that has built up all these human fabrics affirms it in the heart, and in Lincoln's Emancipa- tion Proclamation that power made a sign of His will through all ages yet to come.

"SMART" POLITICS.

This brings our political history down to 1858, two years before the civil war; and as we aim to introduce illustrative incidents in nearly the order of their chronological occur- rence, right at this point is a good place to tell of some of the " smart " political moves of the Free-soilers :

In one of the "regular " Democratic nominating conventions, held early in the '50s, the Free-soilers had grown strong enough to outvote the Hunkers, and the re- sult was the nomination of a clean Free-soil Democratic ticket for sheriff, county clerk and the minor offices. The defeated Hunkers comforted themselves by a determination to defeat the ticket by staying away from the polls, and giving the Whigs a " walk- over." The Free-soilers became possessed of this information late on Saturday night previous to the election, which was to occur on the following Tuesday. They im- niediately prepared a printed circular, to which was appended (in type) the names of the leading disgruntled Hunkers, declaring that " a full vote should be polled in the in- terest of Democratic harmony, and to per- petuate the party's ascendency." Rufus Herrick, a very discreet and able man, and an active Free-soiler, was then sheriff, and late on Sunday night he had all his deputies warned to hold themselves in readiness on the following day, with the fleetest horses and the trustiest messengers, for an im- portant service, as to which they would be notified later on. Late on Monday he caused to be put into the hands of these men sealed en velopes directed to one or more leading Hunkers at each polling place in the county, and these sealed letters were every one delivered before daylight Tuesday morning. When these Hunkers read their "orders," duly authenticated (as they be- lieved) they went to work with a will, and the ticket was triumphantly elected.

The Hunker Democrats whose names were appended to the circular were very angry, and talked about a prosecution for forgery; but as no names could be shown as forged, and as none of these leaders de- sired to publicly appear as bolting a nomina- tion regularly made, the matter was quietly allowed to drop. It was a successful piece of

strategy, worthy of Von Moltke or Sherman, and was applauded, for the mass of man- kind admire success, even if won by methods that are a little shady.

A STUBBORN CONTEST IN A REPUBLI- CAN CONVENTION.

We venture to offer another illustration of the workings of political conventions in those days " before the war," when the Re- publican party had become so popular that its nomination was equivalent to an elec- tion. The year was 1858, and a very bitter and acrimonious contest had sprung up over a nominee for sheriff. Lotus Ingalls and John A. Haddock were at that time editors of the " Reformer," then the leading Republican newspaper of the county, and John W. Ingalls of Clayton (a cousin of editor Ingalls) was put forward as a candi- date for sheriff, while Hon. Byron B. Tag- gart, of LeRay, and Jessie E. Willis, of Ant- werp, were also prominently named, and each had warm supporters, for they were all of them able and deserving. John W. Ingalls could have been readily nominated but for a foolish blunder of his own. Had- dock had been one of the clerks of the Assembly the previous winter, and Ingalls had gone out of his way to make some un- called for criticisims, which Haddock heard of, and took to heart. He heartily espoused the candidacy of Taggart, for they had long been intimate friends. Taggart, as it finally transpired, had made an unwise agreement with Willis, that whichever polled the highest vote on the first ballot should re- ceive the other's support and withdraw from the contest-the design being to defeat Ingalls in any event. When the conven- tion began to ballot Willis showed more votes than Taggart, and Ingalls more votes than either, but not enough to nominate. When the next ballot was taken there was a tie between Ingalls and Willis. Some fifteen or twenty ballots followed in quick succession, but with the same result-a tie. On, perhaps, the sixteenth ballot, Willis had one majority, but the venerable chair- man, Hon. Levi Miller, of Antwerp (a neighbor of Willis), hesitated to declare the result for fear he might be accused of favoritism. This occasioned considerable delay and confusion, and in the meantime the Ingalls men had labored witli a weak- kneed Willis man, and vociferously de- manded another ballot. The chairman so ordered, expecting that Willis would be nominated beyond dispute, but the result was a tie-thus proving the correctness of the preceding count. Then both sides were angry, and the utmost confusion reigned. As it was growing late, the convention hav- ing balloted over six hours, an ad journment for supper was agreed to-to meet again in an hour, but in a larger hall, with fewer siderooms and less opportunities for cau- cusing.

TIIE GROWTH OF A CENTURY.

On coming to order in Washington Hall, several more ballots were taken, but each was a tie. When it was near midnight the contest had become so hopelessly bitter that a delegate arose and proposed a new name, that of Frank Cross, of Cape Vincent. He was immediately nominated, making an excellent, efficient officer. Thus so trivial a matter as an unfair but perhaps thoughtless criticism, unapologized for, defeated a re- putable man for an honorable office.

Having brought this political resume down to 1860, when the Republican party had elected Lincoln to the Presidency, and when the South, ill-advised by poorly bal- anced pro-slavery leaders, had resolved upon secession, which involved the destruction of that Union of the States under which the whole country has been so prosperous, and had risen in population since 1766 to over sixty-five millions, the best manner in which to acceptably and yet clearly describe to the reader of this history the momentous events, and their political significance, then trans- piring, becomes a matter of some difficulty, for there are yet living in every community hosts of men who mingled with the events of 1860 to 1865, and some of these men bore an important part in those events and have a natural right to freely criticise whatever may be said that has a bearing upon the civil war, either in its beginning, its con- duct or its ending. For full particulars, so far as now obtainable, relating to that war and the soldierly part borne in it by citizens of Jefferson county, we refer to the lengthy and important chapter upon that subject. We again venture to repeat that in this chapter we shall treat only of the politics and the legislation of that momentous era - the most critical that any community or government could have safely endured, and under which every power of man, whether it relates to property, or personal service, or to the workings of the human mind during great emergencies, seems to have been strained almost to the verge of breaking. The South was literally " worn out " in the struggle, and the North was so nearly so that three million paper dollars per day, seven days in the week, barely paid its current ex- penses during the last year. In 1863 the writer of this chapter exchanged $100 in gold for $280 in currency. The reader can himself figure out how much of the yellow metal was actually represented by the $3 .- 000,000 per day of currency expended, and in that way will be able to understand how the gold barons of Europe and their repre- sentatives on this side of the ocean grew so suddenly and mysteriously rich, and how, even to this day, the laboring man finds his burthens so heavy in paying off the national debt.

Many Democratic leaders in the North were somewhat slow in responding to the popular enthusiasm which swept over that

whole region when Sumter was fired upon. but the rank and file -to their eternal honor be it said - responded quite as readily as the Republicans to the call for troops. One company from Watertown (E) had but two Republicans among its members. The ancient affiliation of Northern Democrats with pro-slavery legislation, and its conse- quent relation to treason, had been so well discussed by Lincoln and Douglas upon the platform in Illinois, and the whole question of permitting slavery to be engrafted upon the political existence of those territories which had but lately been asking for admis- sion, and which are now rich and prosperous Western States, had been so ably discussed in the Northern newspapers, that it only needed the warlike demonstration made by rebels upon a National fort and the disloyal turning back of the steamer which President Lincoln had sent to provision the beleaguered soldiers there, to tell the common mind that its paramount duty was to support the gov- ernment. It is true that sporadic and un- popular efforts were made by certain men - always Democrats - to embarras recruit- ing for the Union army in Jefferson county, but they were secret in their work, and if one of them were now to be charged with this then unpatriotic course his cheek would mantle with shame, and he would make quick denial of the charge.

From 1860 to 1893 the political questions presented and the patriotic action of the people of Jefferson county under them were so intimately associated with the country at large that we shall be pardoned if we make our description more general for those years at least, and confine our remarks generally to the history of the Democratic and Repub- lican parties, since they were during that time the leading organizations. In passing, however, we will say here that all through the war and during the period of recon- struction in the Southern States, popular opinion in Jefferson county stood "like a stone wall," solid in sustaining Lincoln and Grant and the Republican administration in all their general plans and declarations. It was not until 1891 that the Republican majorities there were ever below 1,800. But in that year her most dearly loved and in- tensely popular native citizen, Roswell Petti- bone Flower, was the Democratic nominee for Governor, and after nearly forty years of straight Republican victories, by majorities varying from 2,000 to 3,000, Gov. Flower came within 339 votes of carrying the county over Fassett, who was also a popular man.

But to return to 1860. Let us try to get a clear understanding of the actual attitude of the two political parties as they then stood.

In anticipation of Lincoln's election, Howell Cobb so managed the treasury that government credit had sank to the point of

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paying 12 per cent. for loans ; Floyd trans- ferred the war munitions in the government arsenals to the South, and Toucey dispersed the navy to points beyond the reach of a ready recall by a new administration. Presi- dent Buchanan was compliant in all these movements, and when actual secession took place, declared himself without constitu- tional power to take any steps to thwart the schemes of the conspirators. Yet many prominent adherents of the party became War Democrats, of whom Mr. Lincoln had four in his cabinet. Still the Democrats kept up their organization, through which they contented themselves with obstructing the government. Fernando Wood, mayor of New York, who had recently been suc- ceeded in the control of Tammany Hall by Wm. M. Tweed (who was to die in prison as a felon), proposed to separate that city from the Union, and make it a "free city." Peace meetings and lodges of the Knights of the Golden Circle were organized, especially in Maryland and the Ohio valley, and wore so treasonable an aspect that the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, first in and about Washington, but finally, in 1863, over the whole country by Act of Congress. In

1862 the influence of Tammany Hall made Horatio Seymour Governor of New York, and he took up the hurthens of office re- solved to "maintain the sovereignity and jurisdiction of the State." He applied himself to the postponement of the draft, which he claimed bore unjustly upon the City of New York. The draft riots ensued. In 1863 the Ohio Democracy nominated Vallandigham for Governor. A stout opposer of the war and a contume- lious defamer of the government. he had been arrested by Gen Burnside, and the President had sent him within the Confed- erate lines. He escaped to Canada. His ar- rest was bitterly assailed by Governor Sey- mour and the peace party, whose often pro- posed plan, in Congress and out of it, was to cease hostilities and call a convention of the States and make peace. This would have sounded like a reasonable proposition (as we now look back over the whole field), if it had come from Jefferson Davis, as the head of the Confederate States, but was purely impracticable as coming from any adherent of the Northern cause, which was committed to the plan of breaking down and destroying any and all armed attempts to subvert the government, and to eventually restore all the States to their normal condi- tion under the Constitution. Vallandigham was defeated for Governor of Ohio by the extraordinary majority of over 100,000 votes, and throughout the North Republicans triumphed in the fall elections. The draft riots, the secret conspiracy societies, the cop- per-headed emblems unblushingly worn in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, the inteniper- ance of the peace advocates, but above all, the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, had turned the tide of sentiment strongly

and unchangeably towards Lincoln. It may be said, to quote again from an Encyclo- pædia, to be "one of the marvels of history that the Democratic party did not then sink from view, as for a far less treason the Fed- eralists had done 50 years before, and its persistence shows how much more organi- zation and party discipline will avail than sentiment and opinion."

In passing upon the action of Governor Seymour, as alluded to above, it seems strange that so pure, well-developed and able a man and politician, reared in Oneida county, in the midst of a patriotic and re- fined people, should have been for a single moment lacking in any attribute of highest citizenship or of official integrity. The action of such a man at such a time will probably invite inquiry by the student of history in the future, as to whether the many constitutional questions involved in the civil war were really so self-evidently all upon one side, and whether there was not in- deed much to be said to justify Governor Sey- mour's somewhat reluctant exhibition of patriotism, especially when his official posi- tion as Governor enabled him to understand how solidly founded in personal gain or grovelling ambition were the so-called "patriotic" acts of many who shouted "Down with the South " with their lips, but had both hands clutching at the national treasury. One thing is certain : all of Gov- ernor Seymour's military appointments were of a superior order : he was prompt in his attention to all his duties as Governor whenever such duties affected the soldiers at the front. who had borne a prominent part - though evidently with many men- tal reservations - in the efforts the great State of New York so grandly made to preserve the Uuion.

In 1864 General McClelland's name be- came the rallying word for the Democratic party, mainly to please the soldiers, but perhaps partly because he cherished griev- ances against Secretary Stanton and Presi- dent Lincoln, under the cover of which alleged grievances Mcclellan's friends at- tempted to excuse his palpable failures in the peninsula campaign against Richmond. The National Democratic Convention met late in August in Chicago, and the fugitive Vallandigham was permitted to write the material part of its platform, declaring the war "a failure to restore the Union, and that during its four years of continuance the Constitution had been in every part disre- garded, and public liberty and private right alike been trampled down."" McClellan was nominated, but in his letter of accept- ance he repudiated the platform, hoping thereby to preserve his consistency as a sol- dier, while running as the peace-at-any- price candidate. He was so badly beaten that he carried but three States, which held only one-eleventh of the electoral college. There were many failures during the war, but viewed in all the lights that have been

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turned upon his career, Mcclellan now ap- pears to have been the most complete and exhaustive.

To Andrew Johnson the Democratic party may be said to be indebted, at least partially. for its rehabilitation. He had been very active in Congress in demanding that treason should be punished, and when he became President, through the assassination of Lin- coln, the question he had to meet was how to reconstruct the States lately in rebellion. Slavery was forever put out of the way by the thirteenth article of the amended Con- stitution, and having freed the slaves the Republican party stood morally pledged to protect them in their rights. This was done by adopting what is known as the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which gave them all the rights of citizenship, and be- came the basis of reorganization of the States which had joined in the rebellion.

President Johnson had given these amend- ments his full support while in Congress, and it was naturally supposed that he would faithfully carry them out when he became the chief executive officer of the restored government. But soon after he was sworn into office his attitude underwent a marked change, perhaps influenced by promises of high social position in the South as the price of his treachery, that section having always denied him any other status than that which belonged to an average " poor white " who had come to the front in defiance of their ancient traditions. He appointed provisional governors for the secession States, who sum- moned conventions to draft constitutions for reorganizing those States. Thus recon- structed, with the political condition of the freedmen wholly ignored, except that in some he was excluded altogether from vot- ing, these States chose representatives in Congress ; but as there was not the least authority for Johnson's attempt to thus re- organize State governments in the South, the whole scheme was rejected by Congress, and the representatives thus chosen were not recognized. An attempt to impeach Johnson soon followed, but it was not suc- cessťul.

We will follow a little further the record made by the Democracy, mainly for the benefit of those who shall peruse this history in the years which are to come. The Na- tional Democratic Convention which met in New York on the 4th of July, 1868, placed Horatio Seymour in nomination for the Presidency, upon a platform denouncing the military usurpations of the Republicans in the South, hostility to the enfranchisement of the freedmen, and a declaration that the bonds which had been issued during the war, when not actually naming " gold " as the coin demanded in their redemption, should be paid in " lawful money," which, 'of course, meant greenbacks or any paper obligations of the government that the exigencies of the war had made a legal tender in payment of all debts, public or

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The growth of a century: as illustrated in the history of Jefferson county, New York, from 1793-1894, Part 5

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823- Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company Number of Pages: 1098

Author: Haddock, John A., b. 1823-
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Albany, N. Y., Weed-Parsons printing company
Number of Pages: 1098