E 415 .9 S5 fl42 Copy 2 Gass £'^16 o Book _i -^^^ SEYMOUK. His Past and Present Position. ^Tf AT MILWAUKEE, WIS., SATURDAY EVENING, OCT. lOTH. Jdr. President and FfUowcitizen/i: nothing wrong in his own party— he sees In the brief space allowed me this evening, nothing good in an opposing party. He is I will pass by the subjects of reconstruction, simply a politician. Into the high and pure finance and taxation, that now agitate the atmosphere of statesmanship he never soared, public mind, and confine myself exclusively As a member of the legislature of the State to the status of the great political parties of New York, or as its Governor, his name that now divide the country, and I will be as is connected with no great measure, and his brief as possible, yet will endeavor to devel- fame is identified with nothing that would op and m.'ike plain the points I propose to elevate or exalt his state. He has always consider. been essentially a follower than a leader, Far be it from me 'to knowingly falsify a mounting the crest of public opinion, rather single fact, or, intentionally, to misrepresent than contributing to form that crest. The any man, however high or however humble rectnt letter of our Minister to France, Gen. be his position. ^ohn A. Dix, contains a perfect analysis The two great parties of the country are of his mental and moral qualities, led, in the pending canvass, by men well To form a correct judgment of the views known to the people, and they represent and position of Mr. Seymour at the distinct and divergent views and intentions; commencement and during the progress of the one led by Seymour and Blair, and the the war, it is necessary to go back a little other by Grant and Colfax. In analyzing and examine the state of the country, and the views and position of Mr. Seymour, I especially the position of the Democratic Bhall be careful to do him no injustice. Hav- party, and the utterances of its leaders, ing known him from early life— having met previous to the bombardment of Fort Sum- ;:i.-- c'ten an-! w tf. -rev. 'f.r,--cnHi p.-easure ter. —I wouici under uo cireumstances rovea, Tou will all, aentlcmon, readily call to anything that was nrivate or confidential, mind this position and these utterances, even were I in possession of anything of that President Buchanan devoted a large share kind, that was in my power to be revealed, of his last annual message to demonstrate Governor Seymour is a refined, cultivated that our government was a mere rope of Christian geutleni;.n. He is an intense par- sand— that it had no inherent powers for tisan, heac2 an unsafe leader. Ho sees s^-prcsei-vatlon— that a state could not b& '^. •65-f\42 coerced — that if it chose to secede it could do so, and there was no power in the govern- ment, under the Constitution, to prevent it. ' This was not the doctrine of President Jack- son and the Democratic party under the ear- ly nullification of South Carolina. But it was the doctrine held by President Buchanan and the Democratic party in 1860 and 1861. It was given out by the leaders of that party that the election of the sectional (so called) candidate, Mr. Lincoln, was a just cause for the South to withdraw from the Union, and that as there was no power, under the Constitution, to prevent their withdrawal, no such power should be exercised — no armed force should be attempted — and that if a Republic.in army should attempt to march South to coerce a seceding ■ state, it would have to march over the dead bodies of arm- ed Democrats. One prominent Democratic orator went so far as to promise the South ten thousand men from the city of New York alone. It was these utterances and these assertions that nerved the South to make the attempt. I will waste no time in •quotations substantiating these facts. They are within the memories of most of you, and the public press of those times is full to re^ pletion upon the point. These positions and declarations of the Democratic party were, to me, the darkest feature in those troubles that were then cu- mulating upon us. I well knew that our Union was destroyed if the Democratic party of the North were to join the side of the re- bellion. Time wore on, and event rapidly tread upon event. One state after another passed ordinances of secession, and joined an organization called the "Confederate States of America." Not a hand was raised to prevent it. One after another of our cus- tom houses and public forts were seized. Not a hand was raised to prevent it. The Dem- ocratic jarty declared we had no power to prevent it, and that no doubtful power should be exercised. The Republican party was powerless to act alone. Mr. Lincoln, after his inauguration, saw no solution to the problem. The Union was dissolving away, quietly but peacefully. The fact was being fast accom- plished, and there was no sentiment evoked that could prevent it. Had the entire con- summation been effected in this way, it is now clear that the Southern Confederacy would have been established and maintained. But an overruling Providence opened the way to a solution of the problem, and thus prevented the establishment of that great iniquity. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Not satisfied with the grad- ual and peaceful yet sure progress their scheme was making, it entered their minds that the Southern heart must be fired — so they fired on Sumter, and that fatal fire threw the whole North into one consuming fire of indignation and patriotism. The lamented Douglas, who did more for his country than an hundred thousand men upon its battle- fields, denounced the mad and desecrating act, and called upon his party to arm. The theories of non-coercion of a few days beforfe were laid aside, and there was but one voice and hut one emotion through the whole North, and that was that the iusult to the flag on Sumter must be avenged, and that the sequence must follow that the Union must be preserved. At this critical time in our history Gov. Seymour, of New York, was in our city. A large meeting was held in the street at mid-day, in front of the old Chamber of Commerce rooms. It was ad- dressed entirely by life-long Democrats. It was soon noised about that Gov. Seymour was at the Newhall House, and that the meeting should be adjourned there and he called out. Knowing him as I did, I has- tened to apprise him of their coming, in or- der that he might have a few moments for reflection. I found him in the public parlor, in apparent health, and fondling his hat. He told me he felt very well, in reply to my inquiry after his health. I then told him a very large crowd Of people would soon be there to call him out upon the subject of our national troubles and the attack upon Sum- ter. He replied, quickly and impetuously, "I will not go." Full of feeling as I then was, his reply — both the words and manner — appalled me, and I started back, and soon said: "Governor, what do you mean ?" Ho replied: "I don't know how this thing ia going to turn yet." I then added that the crowd of people would be there in a moment. He asked me to go to the balcony, on their arrival, and tell them that he was sick. Rightly or wrongly is not for me to deter mine, but the impression on me at the time was irresistible that this was a mere subter- fuge, and I declined to do so, and left. AVhat occurred immediately afterwards at the Newhall House I have no personal knowl- edge. I immediately left for my business office, and related to several gentlemen what had occurred precisely, as I have related it to you here to-night. Gentlemen, I now ask your careful atten- tion to a brief examination of the facts as here related. Mr. Seymour had held that there was no constitutional power to coerce a state, that we had no power, and hence no right to prevent a state from seceding, and hence it logically follows that a state had the right to secede at her pleasure — to put it in another form — if a state had a right to se- cede, we had no right to prevent it, and if we had no right to prevent it, it had a clear right to do it. So far Mr. Sey- mour was committed against the exercise of any war power against the seceding states. Furthermore, he had held and repeatedly declared that the election of Mr. Lincoln was a serious and not-to-be-forgiven offense against the South, that the entire sentiments and policy held by the Republican parly, which elected Mr. Lincoln, were at war against the South, and at war with the peace and best interests of our country, that the South was the ofifended and the aggrieved ^X party. Holding these views, his head and ty to the war and to the administration of his heart were necessarily both in sympathy Clie government than in any other place with with the South. which I was acquainted. It was a Republi- Other prominent Democrats had held the can town, and yet most of its people were same views and made the same utterances, deeply and deadly hostile to the war. On The firing upon Sumter had fired their souls inquiring of why such a state of sentiment, with patriotic indignation, and they at once I found it all to be ascribed to Horatio bey- took their stand on the side of their country, mour. They so ascribed it themselves. He Not so with Mr. Seymour. He felt none of had family friends residing there, often vis- this fire, his soul was unmoved by the surges ited there, and poisoned the whole public that rolled over other men's souls. He mind against the "unholy and unnatural wished for time to deliberate. From his war." I found other places equally previous sentiments and utterances, a ray of affected by his visits and influence, charity, however small that ray, can be He never failed to attack the &^ thrown upon his position at this time. His ministration and all its war measures — he course following this, and during the war, I maligned the motives of the administration, will detail briefly. and denounced its war measures as uncon- I have often seen it stated in the public stitutional and tyrannical — that the life of press, that Mr. Seymour made a speech dur- the nation was not worth preserving, unless ing the war, in which he stated that, if the it was preserved by the nostrums that he question lay between the preservation of the should prescribe. On every defeat of our governmeiit and the extermination of slave- arms, he would take occasion to throw the ry, he would say, let the government go, and war cause into disrepute. When clouds slavery be preserved. Whether this be true hung over us, he never failed to deepen their hue — he left nothing unturned to crip- ple the administration and bring to nought all its efforts for the suppression of the re- bellion. And in July, 1863, in the city of New York, at the time that Vicksburg sur- rendered, as the result of one of the most or not, 1 have no personal knowledge; I only hope, for one common humanity, that it is false. That he gave an open and (^lalified support to the war is true. That at times he may have rendered some service to the coun- try is also undoubtedly true. That he did, as Governor of the state of New York, on the skillful campaigns ever recorded in military occasion of the invasion of Pennsylvania annals — and when, also, our brave boys of by Lee's army, receive the commendations the Potomac army, wearied and exhausted of the War Department, while no other Gov- by long marches in July heats, without ernor did, is true. The fatted calf was not food or water, were brought upon the bloody brought forth for the son who had always fields of Gettysburgh — while they were there remained dutiful and faithful, but it was re- pouring out their blood like water which served for the wandered and returning prod- they could not get — and while the fate of the igal. While he professed loyalty to the gov- nation lay trembling in the balance — on that ernment, it is equally true, and a part of the fated day, when every heart that could be history of those times, that he placed every moved, was imploring the God of battles for obstacle in his power in the way of the His aid in that awful hour, Horatio Seymour prosecution of the war. That the administra- stood up and slandered the bravery of our tion committed errors in ihe prosecution of men and the ability of our officers, and with the war admits of no question. Nor is it a a cant that knew no patriotic] emotion, matter of surprise that it did. Civil war whined out, "where, oh where are the victo- was a new thing with us, the whole path ries that have been promised us for all these was untried and full of difficulties, the very sacrifices?" If there has been one day of power of self-defense had been denied on my life characterized above all others for be- high authority and by a large party. The ing in the depths of humiliation, it was the power exercised was the war power, not de- day on which I read that utterance from fined in the Constitution, and the right to Horatio Seymour. Poisoning the public exercise it was the right that inheres in all mind on every possible occasion against the governments — the right to protect and pre- war, thus crippling its power in the center serve itself. The ways and means of doing it of its resources, yet all the time claiming to were not provided in the organic law, be loyal— he was like the man who stood be- hence much depended upon circumstances hind the horse and teld him to go ahead, and and the best judgment that would be brought yet with his scimetar ham strung him, so that to bear. Instead of looking with forbear- he could not stir, and then beat him unmer- ance upon the actions and judgments of cifully, because he did not accomplish what men thus placed with all their responsibili- he himself bad deprived him of the power ties upon Mr. casion to harpoon the government for its rors, to malign it for its exercise of neces- sary powers, and to taunt and goad it when its best efforts were not attended with suc- cess. During the war I had occasion to visit my native village in the state of New York, and while there I found more hostili- mour took every oc- of accomplishing. In my own mind I have often compared Gov. Seymour with Mr. Breckenridge. Mr. Breckenridge remained in the Senate of the United States under protestations of loyal- ty, and while there at the extra session used every device of which his ingenuity was ca- pable to thwart the government in its proa- L e