Reproachful ironies and bitter animosity, boding ill for future harmony, now followed the factions into a furious and protracted caucus for the selection of United States senators in place of Silas Wright and Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, the latter having resigned to accept the governorship of Wisconsin.[350] The Conservatives supported Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson and Henry A. Foster; the Radicals John A. Dix and Michael Hoffman. There was more, however, at stake than the selection of two senators; for the President would probably choose a member of his Cabinet from the stronger faction; and to have time to recruit their strength, the programme of the Radicals included an adjournment of the caucus after nominating candidates for the unexpired terms of Wright and Tallmadge. This would possibly give them control of the full six years" term to begin on the 4th of the following March. A majority of the caucus, however, now completely under the influence of Edwin Croswell and Horatio Seymour, concluded to do one thing at a time, and on the first ballot Dix was nominated for Wright"s place, giving him a term of four years. The second ballot named d.i.c.kinson for the remaining month of Tallmadge"s term. Then came the climax--the motion to adjourn. Instantly the air was thick with suggestions.
Coaxing and bullying held the boards. All sorts of proposals came and vanished with the breath that floated them; and, though the hour approached midnight, a Conservative majority insisted upon finishing the business. The election of Dix for a term of four years, they said, had given the Radicals fair representation. Still, the latter clamoured for an adjournment. But the Conservatives, inexorable, demanded a third ballot, and it gave d.i.c.kinson fifty-four out of ninety-three members present. When the usual motion to make the nomination unanimous was bitterly opposed, Horatio Seymour took the floor, and with the moving charm and power of his voice, with temper unbroken, he made a fervid appeal for harmony. But bitterness ruled the midnight hour; unanimity still lacked thirty-nine votes. As the Radicals pa.s.sed out into the frosty air, breaking the stillness with their expletives, the voice of the tempter suggested a union with the Whigs for the election of Samuel Young. There was abundant precedent to support the plan. Bailey had bolted Woodworth"s nomination; German had defeated Thompson; and, in 1820, Rufus King had triumphed over Samuel Young. But these were the tactics of DeWitt Clinton. In 1845, the men who aspired to office, the men with a past and the men who looked for a future, had no words of approval for such methods; and before the Whigs heard of the scheme, Samuel Young had stamped it to death.
[Footnote 350: "On that occasion the feud between the two sections of the party was disclosed in all its intensity. The conflict, which was sharp and ended in the election of Daniel S. d.i.c.kinson for the six-years term, in spite of the strong opposition of the Radical members of the caucus, was a triumph for the Conservatives, and a defeat for the friends of Governor Wright. The closing years of the great statesman"s life were overcast by shadows; adverse influences were evidently in the ascendant, not only at Washington, but close about him and at home."--Morgan Dix, _Memoirs of John A. Dix_, Vol. 1, p. 194.]
To add to the chagrin of the Radicals, President Polk now invited William L. Marcy, a Conservative of great prestige, to become secretary of war. The Radicals did not know, and perhaps could not know the exact condition of things at the national capital; certainly they did not know how many elements of that condition told against them. President Polk, apparently with a desire of treating his New York friends fairly, asked Van Buren to recommend a New Yorker for his Cabinet; and, with the approval of Silas Wright, the former President urged Benjamin F. Butler for secretary of state, or Azariah C. Flagg for secretary of the treasury. Either of these men would have filled the place designated with great ability. Polk was largely indebted to Van Buren and his friends; Butler had given him the vote of New York, and Wright, by consenting to stand for governor at the urgent solicitation of Van Buren, had carried the State and thus made Democratic success possible. But Polk, more interested in future success than in the payment of past indebtedness, had an eye out for 1848. He wanted a man devoted solely to his interests and to the annexation of Texas; and, although Butler was a personal friend and an ornament to the American bar, he hesitated, despite the insistence of Van Buren and Wright, to make a secretary of state out of the most devoted of Van Buren"s adherents, who, like the sage of Lindenwald himself, bitterly opposed annexation.
In this emergency, the tactics of Edwin Croswell came to Polk"s relief. The former knew that Silas Wright could not, if he would, accept a place in the Cabinet, since he had repeatedly declared during the campaign that, if elected, he would not abandon the governorship to enter the Cabinet, as Van Buren did in 1829. Croswell knew, also, that Butler, having left the Cabinet of two Presidents to re-enter his profession, would not give it up for a secondary place among Polk"s advisers. At the editor"s suggestion, therefore, the President tendered Silas Wright the head of the treasury, and, upon his declination, an offer of the secretaryship of war came to Butler. The latter said he would have taken, although with reluctance, either the state or treasury department; but the war portfolio carried him too far from the line of his profession. Thus the veteran editor"s scheme, having worked itself out as antic.i.p.ated, left the President at liberty, without further consultation with Van Buren, to give William L. Marcy[351] what Butler had refused. To the Radicals the result was as startling as it was unwelcome. It left the Conservatives in authority. Through Marcy they would command the federal patronage, and through their majority in the Legislature they could block the wheels of their opponents. It was at this time that the Conservatives, "hankering," it was said, after the offices to be given by an Administration committed to the annexation of Texas, were first called "Hunkers."
[Footnote 351: "On the great question that loomed threateningly on the horizon, Wright and Marcy took opposite sides. Wright moved calmly along with the advancing liberal sentiment of the period, and died a firm advocate of the policy of the Wilmot Proviso. On this test measure Marcy took no step forward."--H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 40.]
John Young, a Whig member of the a.s.sembly, no sooner scented the increasingly bitter feeling between Hunker and Radical than he prepared to take advantage of it. Young was a great surprise to the older leaders. He had accomplished nothing in the past to ent.i.tle him to distinction. In youth he accompanied his father, a Vermont innkeeper, to Livingston County, where he received a common school education and studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1829, at the age of twenty-seven. Two years later he served a single term in the a.s.sembly, and for ten years thereafter he had confined his attention almost exclusively to his profession, becoming a strong jury lawyer.
In the meantime, he changed his politics from a firm supporter of Andrew Jackson to a local anti-masonic leader, and finally to a follower of Henry Clay. Then the Whigs sent him to Congress, and, in the fall of 1843, elected him to the celebrated a.s.sembly through which Horatio Seymour forced the ca.n.a.l appropriation. But John Young seems to have made little more of a reputation in this historic struggle than he did as a colleague of Millard Fillmore in the Congress that pa.s.sed the tariff act of 1842. He did not remain silent, but neither his words nor his acts conveyed any idea of the gifts which he was destined to disclose in the various movements of a drama that was now, day by day, through much confusion and bewilderment, approaching a climax. From a politician of local reputation, he leaped to the distinction of a state leader. If unnoticed before, he was now the observed of all observers. This transition, which came almost in a day, surprised the Democrats no less than it excited the Whigs; for Young lifted a minority into a majority, and from a hopeless defeat was destined to lead his party to glorious victory. "With talents of a high order," says Hammond, "with industry, with patient perseverance, and with a profound knowledge of men, he was one of the ablest party leaders and most skilful managers in a popular body that ever entered the a.s.sembly chamber."[352] Hammond, writing while Young was governor, did not express the view of Thurlow Weed, who was unwilling to accept tact and cunning for great intellectual power. But there is no doubt that Young suddenly showed uncommon parliamentary ability, not only as a debater, owing to his good voice and earnest, persuasive manner, but as a skilful strategist, who strengthened coolness, courtesy, and caution with a readiness to take advantage of the supreme moment to carry things his way. Within a month, he became an acknowledged master of parliamentary law, easily bringing order out of confusion by a few simple, clear, compact sentences. If his learning did not rank him among the Sewards and the Seymours, he had no occasion to fear an antagonist in the field on which he was now to win his leadership.
[Footnote 352: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
3, p. 537.]
The subject under consideration was the calling of a const.i.tutional convention. The preceding Legislature, hoping to avoid a convention, had proposed several amendments which the people approved in the election of 1844; but the failure of the present Legislature to ratify them by a two-thirds majority, made a convention inevitable, and the question now turned upon the manner of its calling and the approval of its work. The Hunkers, with the support of the Governor, desired first to submit the matter to the people; and, if carried by a majority vote, taking as a test the number of votes polled at the last election, the amendments were to be acted upon separately. This was the plan of Governor Clinton in 1821. On the other hand, the Whigs, the Anti-Renters, and the Native Americans insisted that the Legislature call a convention, and that its work be submitted, as a whole, to the people, as in 1821. This the Hunkers resisted to the bitter end. An obstacle suddenly appeared, also, in the conduct of William C. Grain, who thought an early and unlimited convention necessary. Michael Hoffman held the same view, believing it the only method of getting the act of 1842 incorporated into the organic law of the State. Upon the latter"s advice, therefore, Crain introduced a bill in the a.s.sembly similar to the convention act of 1821. It was charged, at the time, that Crain"s action was due to resentment because of his defeat for speaker, and that the Governor, in filling the vacancy occasioned by the transfer of Samuel Nelson to the Supreme Court of the United States, had added to his indignation by overlooking the claims of Michael Hoffman. It is not improbable that Crain, irritated by his defeat, did resent the action of the Governor, although it was well known that Hoffman had not sought a place on the Supreme bench. But, in preferring an unlimited const.i.tutional convention, Crain and Hoffman expressed the belief of the most eminent lawyers of the Commonwealth, that the time had come for radical changes in the Const.i.tution, and that these could not be obtained unless the work of a convention was submitted in its entirety to the people and approved by a majority vote.
Crain"s bill was quickly pigeon-holed by the select committee to which it was referred, and John Young"s work began when he determined to have it reported. There had been little difficulty in marshalling a third of the a.s.sembly to defeat the const.i.tutional amendments proposed by the preceding Legislature, since Whigs, Anti-Renters, and Native Americans numbered fifty-four of the one hundred and twenty-eight members; but, to overcome a majority of seventeen, required Young"s patient attendance, day after day, watchful for an opportunity to make a motion whenever the Hunkers, ignorant of his design, were reduced by temporary absences to an equality with the minority. Finally, the sought-for moment came, and, with Crain"s help, Young carried a motion instructing the committee to report the Crain bill without amendment, and making it the special order for each day until disposed of. It was a staggering blow. The air was thick with suggestions, contrivances, expedients, and embryonic proposals. The Governor, finding Crain inexorable, sent for Michael Hoffman; but the ablest Radical in the State refused to intervene, knowing that if the programme proposed by Wright was sustained, the Whigs would withdraw their support and leave the Hunkers in control.
When the debate opened, interest centred in the course taken by the Radicals, who accepted the principle of the bill, but who demurred upon details and dreaded to divide their party. To this controlling group, therefore, were arguments addressed and appeals made. Hammond p.r.o.nounced it "one of the best, if not the best, specimens of parliamentary discussion ever exhibited in the capital of the State."[353] Other writers have recorded similar opinions. It was certainly a memorable debate, but it was made so by the serious political situation, rather than by the importance of the subject.
Horatio Seymour led his party, and, though other Hunkers partic.i.p.ated with credit, upon the Speaker fell the brunt of the fight. He dispensed with declamation, he avoided bitter words, he refused to crack the party whip; but with a deep, onflowing volume of argument and exhortation, his animated expressions, modulated and well balanced, stirred the emotions and commanded the closest attention.
Seymour had an instinct "for the hinge or turning point of a debate."
He had, also, a never failing sense of the propriety, dignity, and moderation with which subjects should be handled, or "the great endearment of prudent and temperate speech" as Jeremy Taylor calls it; and, although he could face the fiercest opposition with the keenest blade, his utterances rarely left a sting or subjected him to criticism. This gift was one secret of his great popularity, and daily rumours, predicted harmony before a vote could be reached. As the stormy scenes which marked the progress of the bill continued, however, the less gifted Hunkers did not hesitate to declare the party dissolved unless the erring Radicals fell into line.
[Footnote 353: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
3, p. 544.]
John Young, who knew the giant burden he had taken up, showed himself acute, frank, patient, closely attentive, and possessed of remarkable powers of speech. Every word surprised his followers; every stroke strengthened his position. He did not speak often, but he always answered Seymour, presenting a fine and sustained example of debate, keeping within strict rules of combat, and preserving a rational and argumentative tone, yet emphasising the differences between Hunker and Radical. Young could not be called brilliant, nor did he have the capacity or finish of Seymour as an orator; but he formed his own opinions, usually with great sagacity, and acted with vigour and skill amid the exasperation produced by the Radical secession. Seward wrote that "he has much practical good sense, and much caution." This was evidenced by the fact that, although only four Radicals voted to report Crain"s bill, others gradually went over, until finally, on its pa.s.sage, only Hunkers voted in the negative. It was a great triumph for Young. He had beaten a group of clever managers: he had weakened the Democratic party by widening the breach between its factions; and he had turned the bill recommending a convention into a Whig measure.
The bad news discouraged the senators who dreamed of an abiding union between the two factions; and, although one or two Radicals in the upper chamber favoured the submission of the amendments separately to the people, the friends of the measure obtained two majority against all attempts to modify it, and four majority on its pa.s.sage. The Governor"s approval completed Young"s triumph. He had not only retained his place as an able minority leader against the relentless, tireless a.s.saults of a Seymour, a Croswell, and a Wright; but, in the presence of such odds, he had gained the distinction of turning a minority into a reliable majority in both houses, placing him at once upon a higher pedestal than is often reached by men of far greater genius and eloquence.
The determination of the Hunkers to pa.s.s a measure appropriating $197,000 for ca.n.a.l improvement made the situation still more critical.
Although the bill devoted the money to completing such unfinished portions of the Genesee Valley and Black River ca.n.a.ls as the commissioners approved, it was clearly in violation of the spirit of the act of 1842 upon which Hunker and Radical had agreed to bury their differences, and the latter resented its introduction as an inexcusable affront; but John Young now led his Whig followers to the camp of the Hunkers, and, in a few days, the measure lay upon the Governor"s table for his approval or veto.
Thus far, Governor Wright had been a disappointment to his party.
Complaints from Radicals were heard before his inauguration. They resented his acceptance of a Hunker"s hospitality, a.s.serting that he should have made his home at a public house where Hunker and Radical alike could freely counsel with him; they complained of his resignation as United States senator, insisting that he ought to have held the office until his inauguration as governor and thus prevented Bouck appointing a Hunker as his successor; they denounced his indifference in the speakership contest; and they murmured at his opposition to a const.i.tutional convention. There was cause for some of these lamentations. It was plain that the Governor was neither a leader nor a conciliator. A little tact would have held the Radicals in line against a const.i.tutional convention and kept inviolate the act of 1842, but he either did not possess or disclaimed the arts and diplomacies of a political manager. He could grapple with principles in the United States Senate and follow them to their logical end, but he could not see into the realities of things as clearly as Seymour, or estimate, with the same accuracy, the relative strength of conflicting tendencies in the political world. Writers of that day express amazement at the course of Silas Wright in vetoing the ca.n.a.l appropriation, some of them regarding him as a sort of political puzzle, others attributing his action to the advice of false friends; but his adherence to principle more easily explains it. Seymour knew that the "up-state" voters, who would probably hold the balance of power in the next election, wanted the ca.n.a.l finished and would resent its defeat. Wright, on the other hand, believed in a suspension of public works until the debt of the State was brought within the safe control of its revenues, and in the things he stood for, he was as unyielding as flint.
When the Legislature adjourned Hunkers and Radicals were too wide apart even to unite in the usual address to const.i.tuents; and in the fall campaign of 1845, the party fell back upon the old issues of the year before. To the astonishment of the Hunkers, however, the legislative session opened in January, 1846, with two Radicals to one Conservative. It looked to the uninitiated as if the policy of ca.n.a.l improvement had fallen into disfavour; but Croswell, and other Hunkers in the inner political circle, understood that a change, long foreseen by them, was rapidly approaching. The people of New York felt profound interest in the conflict between slavery and freedom, and the fearless stand of Preston King of St. Lawrence in supporting the Wilmot Proviso, excluding "slavery and involuntary servitude" from the territory obtained from Mexico, had added fuel to the flame. King was a Radical from principle and from prejudice. For four successive years he had been in the a.s.sembly, hostile to ca.n.a.ls and opposed to all improvements. In his bitterness he denounced the Whig party as the old Federalist party under another name. He was now, at the age of forty, serving his second term in Congress. But, obstinate and uncompromising as was his Democracy, the aggressive spirit and encroaching designs of slavery had so deeply disturbed him that he refused to go with his party in its avowed purpose of extending slavery into free or newly acquired territory.
To the Hunkers, this new departure seemed to offer an opportunity of weakening the Radicals by forcing them into opposition to the Polk administration; and a resolution, approving the course of the New York congressmen who had supported the annexation of Texas, appeared in the Senate soon after its organisation. Very naturally, politicians were afraid of it; and the debate, which quickly degenerated into bitter personalities, indicated that the Free-soil sentiment, soon to inspire the new Republican party, had not only taken root among the Radicals, but that rivalries between the two factions rested on differences of principle far deeper than ca.n.a.l improvement. "If you study the papers at all," wrote William H. Seward, "you will see that the Barnburners of this State have carried the war into Africa, and the extraordinary spectacle is exhibited of Democrats making up an issue of slavery at Washington. The consequences of this movement cannot be fully apprehended. It brings on the great question sooner and more directly than we have even hoped. All questions of revenue, currency, and economy sink before it. The hour for the discussion of emanc.i.p.ation is nearer at hand, by many years, than has been supposed."[354]
[Footnote 354: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 33.]
CHAPTER IX
THE FOURTH CONSt.i.tUTIONAL CONVENTION
1846
The const.i.tutional convention, called by the Legislature of 1845, received popular sanction at the fall elections; and, in April, 1846, one hundred and twenty-eight delegates were chosen. The convention a.s.sembled on the first day of June, and terminated its labours on the ninth day of October. It was an able body of men. It did not contain, perhaps, so many distinguished citizens as its predecessor in 1821, but, like the convention of a quarter of a century before, it included many men who had acquired reputations for great ability at the bar and in public affairs during the two decades immediately preceding it.
Among the more prominent were Michael Hoffman of Herkimer, famous for his influence in the cause of ca.n.a.l economy; James Tallmadge of Dutchess, whose inspiring eloquence had captivated conventions and legislatures for thirty years; William C. Bouck of Schoharie, the unconquered Hunker who had faced defeat as gracefully as he had accepted gubernatorial honours; Samuel Nelson, recently appointed to the United States Supreme Court after an experience of twenty-two years upon the circuit and supreme bench of the State; Charles S.
Kirkland and Ezekiel Bacon of Oneida, the powerful leaders of a bar famous in that day for its famous lawyers; Churchill C. Cambreling of New York, a member of Congress for eighteen consecutive years, and, more recently, minister to Russia; George W. Patterson of Livingston, a constant, untiring and enthusiastic Whig champion, twice elected speaker of the a.s.sembly and soon to become lieutenant-governor.
Of the younger delegates, three were just at the threshold of their brilliant and distinguished careers. John K. Porter of Saratoga--then only twenty-seven years old, afterward to become a member of the Court of Appeals and the a.s.sociate of William M. Evarts as counsel for Henry Ward Beecher in the Tilton suit--discussed the judiciary in speeches singularly adapted to reach the understanding of the delegates; Samuel J. Tilden, who had served respectably but without distinction in the a.s.sembly of 1845 and 1846, evidenced his inflexible courage and high intellectual qualities; and Charles O"Conor, already known to the public, gave signal proof of the prodigious extent of those powers and acquirements which finally ent.i.tled him to rank with the greatest lawyers of any nation or any time.
Of the more distinguished members of the convention of 1821, James Tallmadge alone sat in the convention of 1846. Daniel D. Tompkins, Rufus King, William W. Van Ness, Jonas Platt, and Abraham Van Vechten were dead; James Kent, now in his eighty-third year, was delivering law lectures in New York City; Ambrose Spencer, having served as chairman of the Whig national convention at Baltimore, in 1844, had returned, at the age of eighty-one, to the quiet of his agricultural pursuits in the vicinity of Lyons; Martin Van Buren, still rebellious against his party, was watching from his retreat at Lindenwald the strife over the Wilmot Proviso, embodying the opposition to the extension of slavery into new territories; Erastus Root, at the age of seventy-four, was dying in New York City; and Samuel Young, famous by his knightly service in the cause of the Radicals, had just finished in the a.s.sembly, with the acerbity of temper that characterised his greatest oratorical efforts during nearly half a century of public life, an eloquent indictment of the Hunkers, whom he charged with being the friends of monopoly, the advocates of profuse and unnecessary expenditures of the public funds, and the cause of much corrupt legislation.
But of all men in the State the absence of William H. Seward was the most noticeable. For four years, as governor, he had stood for internal improvements, for the reorganisation of the judiciary along lines of progress, for diminishing official patronage, for modifying, and ultimately doing away with, feudal tenures, and for free schools and universal suffrage. His experience and ability would have been most helpful in the formation of the new const.i.tution; but he would not become a delegate except from Auburn, and a majority of the people of his own a.s.sembly district did not want him. "The world are all mad with me here," he wrote Weed, "because I defended Wyatt too faithfully. G.o.d help them to a better morality. The prejudices against me grows by reason of the Van Nest murder!"[355] Political friends offered him a nomination and election from Chautauqua, but he declined, urging as a further reason that the Whigs would be in the minority, and his presence might stimulate fresh discords among them.
[Footnote 355: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 1, p. 791.]
Horace Greeley had expected a nomination from Chautauqua. He had relations who promised him support, and with their failure to elect him began that yearning for office which was destined to doom him to many bitter disappointments. Until now, he had kept his desires to himself. He wanted to be postmaster of New York in 1841; and, when Seward failed to antic.i.p.ate his ambition, he recalled the scriptural injunction, "Ask, and it shall be given you." So, he conferred with Weed about the const.i.tutional convention. Washington County was suggested, then Delaware, and later Albany; but, the nominees having been selected, the project was abandoned, and Horace Greeley waited until the convention of 1867. Weed expressed the belief that if Greeley"s wishes had been known two weeks earlier, his ambition might have been gratified, although on only two occasions had non-resident delegates ever been selected.
Popular sovereignty attained its highest phase under the Const.i.tution of 1846; and the convention must always be notable as the great dividing line between a government by the people, and a government delegated by the people to certain officials--executive, legislative, and judicial--who were invested with general and more or less permanent powers. Under the Const.i.tution of 1821, the power of appointment was placed in the governor, the Senate, and the a.s.sembly.
State officers were elected by the Legislature, judges nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, district attorneys appointed by county courts, justices of the peace chosen by boards of supervisors, and mayors of cities selected by the common council.
Later amendments made justices of the peace and mayors of cities elective; but, with these exceptions, from 1821 to 1846 the Const.i.tution underwent no organic changes. Under the Const.i.tution of 1846, however, all officers became elective; and, to bring them still nearer the people, an elective judiciary was decentralised, terms of senators were reduced from four to two years, and the selection of legislators was confined to single districts. It was also provided that amendments to the Const.i.tution might be submitted to the people at any time upon the approval of a bare legislative majority. Even the office of governor, which had been jealously reserved to native citizens, was thrown open to all comers, whether born in the United States or elsewhere.
As if to accentuate the great change which public sentiment had undergone in the preceding twenty years these provisions were generally concurred in by large majorities and without political bias.
The proposition that a governor need not be either a freeholder or a native citizen was sustained by a vote of sixty-one to forty-nine; the proposal to overcome the governor"s veto by a majority instead of a two-thirds vote was carried by sixty-one to thirty-six; the term of senators was reduced from four to two years by a vote of eighty to twenty-three; and their selection confined to single districts by a majority of seventy-nine to thirty-one. An equally large majority favoured the provision that no member of the Legislature should receive from the governor or Legislature any civil appointment within the State, or to the United States Senate. Charles O"Conor antagonised the inhibition of an election to the United States Senate with much learning and eloquence. He thought the power of the State to qualify or restrict the choice of senators was inconsistent with the Federal Const.i.tution; but the great majority of the convention held otherwise.
Indeed, so popular did this section become that, in 1874, members of the Legislature were prohibited from taking office under a city government.
The period when property measured a man"s capacity and influence also seems to have pa.s.sed away with the adoption of the Const.i.tution of 1846. For the first time in the State"s history, the great landholders lost control, and provisions as to the land law became clear and wholesome. Feudal tenures were abolished, lands declared allodial, fines and quarter sales made void, and leases of agricultural lands for longer than twelve years p.r.o.nounced illegal. Although vested rights could not be affected, the policy of the new const.i.tutional conditions, aided by the accessibility of better and cheaper lands along lines of improved transportation, compelled landlords in the older parts of the State to seek compromises and to offer greater inducements. The only persons required to own property in order to enjoy suffrage and the right to hold office were negroes, who continued to rest under the ban until the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution. The people of New York felt profound interest in the great conflict between slavery and freedom, but, for more than a quarter of a century after the Wilmot Proviso became the shibboleth of the Barnburners, a majority of voters denied the coloured man equality of suffrage. Among the thirty-two delegates in the convention of 1846 who refused to allow the people to pa.s.s upon the question of equality of suffrage, appear the names of Charles O"Conor and Samuel J. Tilden.
The great purpose of the convention was the reform of the laws relating to debt and to the creation of a new judicial establishment.
Michael Hoffman headed the committee charged with the solution of financial problems. He saw the importance of devoting the resources of the State to the reduction of its debt. It was important to the character of the people, he thought, that they should be restless and impatient under the obligation of debt; and the strong ground taken by him against an enlargement of the Erie and its lateral ca.n.a.ls had resulted in the pa.s.sage of the famous act of 1842, the substance of which he now desired incorporated into the Const.i.tution. He would neither tolerate compromises with debtors of the State, nor allow its credit to be loaned. He favoured sinking funds, he advocated direct taxation, he insisted upon the strictest observance of appropriation laws, and he opposed the sale of the ca.n.a.ls. In his speeches he probably exaggerated the ca.n.a.l debt, just as he minimised the ca.n.a.l income and brushed aside salt and auction duties as of little importance; yet everybody recognised him as the schoolmaster of the convention on financial subjects. His blackboard shone in the sunlight. He was courteous, but without much deference. There was neither yielding nor timidity. If his flint struck a spark by collision with another, it made little difference to him. Yet years afterward, Thurlow Weed, who backed Seward in his appeal for more extensive internal improvements, admitted that to Hoffman"s enlightened statesmanship, New York was indebted for the financial article in the Const.i.tution of 1846, which had preserved the public credit and the public faith through every financial crisis.[356]
[Footnote 356: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 34.]
Hoffman placed the state debt, with interest which must be paid up to the time of its extinguishment, at thirty-eight million dollars. Out of the ca.n.a.l revenues he wanted $1,500,000 paid yearly upon the ca.n.a.l debt; $672,000 set apart for the use of the State; and the balance applied to the improvement of the Erie ca.n.a.l, whenever the surplus amounted to $2,500,000. Further to conserve the interests of the Commonwealth, he insisted that its credit should not be loaned; that its borrowed money should not exceed one million dollars, except to repel invasion or suppress insurrection; and that no debt should be created without laying a direct annual tax sufficient to pay princ.i.p.al and interest in eighteen years. The result showed that, in spite of vigorous opposition, he got all he demanded. Some of the amounts were reduced; others slightly diverted; and the remaining surplus of the ca.n.a.l revenues, instead of acc.u.mulating until it aggregated $2,500,000, was applied each year to the enlargement of the Erie ca.n.a.l and the completion of the Genesee Valley and Black River ca.n.a.ls; but his plan was practically adopted and time has amply justified the wisdom of his limitations. In concluding his last speech, the distinguished Radical declared "that this legislation would not only preserve the credit of New York by keeping its debts paid, but it would cause every State in the Union, as soon as such States were able to do so, to sponge out its debts by payment and thus remove from representative government the reproaches cast upon us on the other side of the water."[357]
[Footnote 357: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
3, p. 655.]
But Hoffman, while exciting the admiration of all men for his persistence, dexterity, and ability, did not lead the most important contest. In 1846, the popular desire for radical changes in the judiciary was not less peremptory than the expression in 1821. Up to this time, the courts of the State, in part, antedated the War of Independence. Now, in place of the ancient appointive system, the people demanded an elective judiciary which should be responsible to them and bring the courts to them. To make these changes, the president of the convention appointed a committee of thirteen, headed by Charles H. Ruggles of Dutchess, which embraced the lawyers of most eminence among the delegates. After the chairman came Charles O"Conor of New York, Charles P. Kirkland of Utica, Ambrose L. Jordan of Columbia, Arphaxed Loomis of Herkimer, Alvah Worden of Saratoga, George W. Patterson of Livingston, and several others of lesser note.
At the end of the committee appeared a merchant and a farmer, possibly for the reason that condiments make a dish more savoury. Ruggles was a simple-hearted and wise man. He had been on the Supreme bench for fifteen years, becoming one of the distinguished jurists of the State.
In the fierce conflicts between Clintonians and Bucktails he acted with the former, and then, in 1828, followed DeWitt Clinton to the support of Andrew Jackson. But Ruggles never offended anybody. His wise and moderate counsel had drawn the fire from many a wild and dangerous scheme, but it left no scars. Prudence and modesty had characterised his life, and his selection as chairman of the judiciary committee disarmed envy and jealousy. He was understood to favour an elective judiciary and moderation in all doubtful reforms. Arphaxed Loomis possessed unusual abilities as a public speaker, and, during a brief career in the a.s.sembly, had become known as an advocate of legal reform. He was afterward, in April, 1847, appointed a commissioner on practice and pleadings for the purpose of providing a uniform course of proceedings in all cases; and, to him, perhaps, more than to any one else, is due the credit of establishing one form of action for the protection of private rights and the redress of private wrongs. Worden had been a merchant, who, losing his entire possessions by failure, began the study of law at the age of thirty-four and quickly took a prominent place among the lawyers of the State. Ambrose L. Jordan, although somewhat younger than Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Oakley, Henry R. Storrs, and other former leaders of the bar, was their successful opponent, and had gained the distinction of winning the first breach of promise suit in which a woman figured as defendant.
Patterson had rare and exquisite gifts which made him many friends and kept him for half a century prominent in political affairs. Though of undoubted intellectual power, clear-sighted, and positive, he rarely answered other men"s arguments, and never with warmth or heat. But he had, however, read and mastered the law, and his voice was helpful in conferring upon the people a system which broke the yoke of the former colonial subordination.
The majority report of the judiciary committee provided for a new court of last resort, to be called the Court of Appeals, which was to consist of eight members, four of whom were to be elected from the State at large for a term of eight years, and four to be chosen from the justices of the Supreme Court. A new Supreme Court of thirty-two members, having general and original jurisdiction in law and equity, was established in place of the old Supreme Court and Court of Chancery, the State being divided into eight districts, in each of which four judges were to be elected. In addition to these great courts, inferior local tribunals of civil and criminal jurisdiction were provided for cities. The report thus favoured three radical changes. Judges became elective, courts of law and equity were united, and county courts were abolished. The inclusion of senators in the old Court of Errors--which existed from the foundation of the State--had made the elective system somewhat familiar to the people, to whom it had proved more satisfactory than the method of appointment; but the union of courts of law and equity was an untried experiment in New York. It had the sanction of other States, and, in part, of the judicial system of the United States, where procedure at law and in equity had become a.s.similated, if not entirely blended, thus abolishing the inconvenience of so many tribunals and affording greater facility for the trial of equity causes involving questions of fact.
But delegates were slow to profit by the experience of other Commonwealths. From the moment the report was submitted attacks upon it became bitter and continuous. Charles O"Conor opposed the elective system, the union of the two courts, and the abolition of the county court. Charles P. Kirkland proposed that only three members of the Court of Appeals be elected, the others to be appointed by the governor, with the consent of the Senate. Alvah Worden wanted two Courts of Appeals, one of law and one of chancery, neither of which should be elective. Simmons desired a different organisation of the Supreme Court, and Bascom objected to the insufficient number of sessions of the court provided for the whole State. Others of the minority submitted reports and opinions, until the subject seemed hopelessly befogged and the work of the majority a failure. O"Conor was especially impatient and restless in his opposition. In skill and ability no one could vie with him in making the old ways seem better.
He was now forty-two years old. He had a powerful and vigorous frame, and a powerful and vigorous understanding. It was the wonder of his colleagues how, in addition to the faithful work performed in committee, he could get time for the research that was needed to equip him for the great speeches with which he adorned the debates. He never held office, save, during a portion of President Pierce"s administration, that of United States attorney for the southern district of New York; but his rapid, almost instinctive judgment, his tact, his ability to crush sophistries with a single sentence, and his vigorous rhetoric must have greatly distinguished his administration of any office which he might have occupied. Yet the conservatism which finally separated him from the cordial supporters of the government during the Civil War usually kept him in the minority. His spirit was not the spirit that governed; and, in spite of his brilliant and determined opposition, the convention of 1846 accepted the elective system, approved the union of equity and law courts, prohibited the election of a member of the Legislature to the United States Senate, and submitted to the decision of the people the right of coloured men to equal suffrage. Only in the retention of the county court were O"Conor"s views sustained; and this came largely through the influence of Arphaxed Loomis, the material part of whose amendment was ultimately adopted. When, finally, the Const.i.tution in its entirety was submitted to the convention for its approval, O"Conor was one of six to vote against it.
The Const.i.tution of 1846 was the people"s Const.i.tution. It reserved to them the right to act more frequently upon a large cla.s.s of questions, introducing the referendum which characterises popular government, and making it a more perfect expression of the popular will. That the people appreciated the greater power reserved to them was shown on the third of November, by a vote of 221,528 to 92,436. With few modifications, the Const.i.tution of 1846 still remains in force,--ample proof that wisdom, unalloyed with partisan politics or blind conservatism, guided the convention which framed it.