De Alva Stanwood Alexander

“ Traversing New York, over rough roads, before the days of canals and railroads, in the heavy, lumbering stage coach that took five or six days and nights, and, in muddy seasons, six days and seven nights of continuous travel, to go from Albany to Buffalo, made a strenuous life, but Weed's devotion to party, and fidelity to men and principles, sent him on his way with something of the freshness of boyhood still shining on his face. ”

“ I have venerated Andrew Jackson, and my blood boiled, in old time, when that brave patriot and soldier of Democracy said—'the Union, it must and shall be preserved.' (Loud applause.) Preserve it? Why should we preserve it, if it would be the thing these gentlemen would make it? Why should we love a government that has no dignity and no power? Look at it for a moment. Congress, for just cause, declares war, but one State says, 'War is not for me—I secede.' And so another and another, and the government is rendered powerless. ”

“ If Washington and Lincoln be excepted, it is doubtful if an American was ever more deeply mourned. Had he been President, he could not have been buried with greater pomp, or with manifestations of more profound sorrow. Although he had been hated by his enemies, and at times misunderstood by some of his friends, at his death the people, without division, instantly recognised that his life had been passionately devoted to his country, and they paid him the tribute only accorded the memory of a most illustrious patriot. Such demonstrations were not confined to New York. ”

“ All must be made to feel that the mighty efforts we are making to save our Union are stimulated by a purpose to restore peace and prosperity in every section. If it is true that slavery must be abolished by force; that the South must be held in military subjection; that four millions of negroes must be under the management of authorities at Washington at the public expense; then, indeed, we must endure the waste of our armies, further drains upon our population, and still greater burdens of debt. We must convert our government into a military despotism. ”

“ The Governor's approval completed Young's triumph. He had not only retained his place as an able minority leader against the relentless, tireless assaults 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. ”

“ I am not prepared to humble the general government at the feet of the seceding States. I am unwilling to say to the government, 'You must abandon your property, you must cease to collect the revenues, because you are threatened.' In other words, gentlemen, it seems to me—and I know I speak the wishes of my constituents—that, while I abhor coercion, in one sense, as war, I wish to preserve the dignity of the government of these United States as well. ”

“ DeWitt Clinton, happy and eminently efficient as the mayor of New York, seemed to have before him a bright and prosperous career as a skilful and triumphant party manager; while George Clinton, softened by age, rich in favouring friends, with an ideal face for a strong, bold portrait, was basking in the soft, mellow glow that precedes the closing of a stormy life. Never before, perhaps never since, did a governor enter upon his duties, neither unusual nor important, under more favourable auspices ”

“ Did they say that men might be deprived of the right of trial by jury? Did they say that men might be torn from their homes by midnight intruders?... If you would save your country and your liberties, begin at the hearth-stone; begin in your family circle; declare that their rights shall be held sacred; and having once proclaimed your own rights, claim for your own State that jurisdiction and that government which we, better than all others, can exercise for ourselves, for we best know our own interests. ”

“ Although Clinton's canal policy, upon the success of which he had staked his all, was signally vindicating itself in rapidity of construction, and the very moderate estimate of cost, his friends did not hesitate to advise him that his re-election to the governorship was impossible. It was a cold proposition for a man to face who had inaugurated a system of improvement which would confer prosperity and wealth upon the people, and enrich and elevate the State. For a time, like a caged tiger, he bit at the bars that seemed to limit his ambition. ”

“ It was a great day for the Governor. A popular jubilation extended from Buffalo to New York, and, amidst the roar of artillery and the eloquence of many orators, the praises of the distinguished canal builder sounded throughout the State and nation. To a man of intellect far lower than that of Martin Van Buren, it must have been obvious that forces were at work in the minds and hearts of people which could not be controlled by Regency edicts or party traditions. ”

“ Hamilton had cherished the hope that Clinton might become a Federalist, not because he was a trimmer, or would seek a party in power simply for the spoils in sight, but because he had the breadth and liberality of enlightened opinions, the prophetic instinct, and the force of character to make things go his way, without drifting into success by a fortunate turn in tide and wind. ”

“ There is no such thing as legal secession. The Constitution of these United States was intended to form a firm and perpetual Union. If secession be not lawful, then, what is it? I use the term reluctantly but truly—it is rebellion! rebellion against the noblest government man ever framed for his own benefit and for the benefit of the world. What is it—this secession? I am not speaking of the men. I love the men, but I hate treason. What is it but nullification by the wholesale? ”

“ Next to the "tricksters" the platform-makers embarrassed the convention. It was easy to recognise the equality of all men before the law, to pledge fidelity to the Union, to oppose the re-election of the President, to denounce repudiation, to demand local self-government for the Southern States, to ask "the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities imposed on account of the rebellion," and to favour "a thorough reform of the civil service;" but for a tariff reform assemblage to frame a resolution which the apostle of protection could accept required great patience and persistence. ”

“ The people did not love Clinton, but they believed in his policy, and a blow at him, in their opinion, was a blow at the canal. Nothing in the whole of Van Buren's history exhibits a more foolish disregard of public sentiment, or led to a greater disaster. But the Regency, blinded by its overwhelming victory at the last election, was prepared to pay a gambler's price for power, and, in the twinkling of an eye, before the Assembly knew what had happened, the Senate removed Clinton from the office of canal commissioner, only three votes being recorded for him. ”

“ Such a sudden and tempestuous change in the popularity of a public official is unprecedented in the history of American politics. In a night the whole State was thrown into a ferment of intense excitement, the storm of vituperation seeming to centre in New York city. Jay was burned in effigy; Hamilton was struck in the face with a stone while defending Jay's work; a copy of the treaty was burned before the house of the British Minister; riot and mob violence held carnival everywhere. Party spirit never before, and never since, perhaps, ran so high. ”

“ It was easy to stand with one's State in opposing the Constitution when opposition had behind it the powerful Clinton interest and the persuasive Clinton argument that federal union meant the substitution of experiment for experience, and the exchange of a superior for an inferior position; but it required a splendid stubbornness to face, daringly and aggressively, the desperate odds arrayed against the Constitution. Every man who wanted to curry favour with Clinton was ready to strike at Hamilton, and they covered him with obloquy. ”

“ Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labour, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men. ”

“ Many great men seem to have a suit of armour in the form of coldness, brusqueness, or rudeness, which they put on to meet the stranger, but which, when laid aside, reveals simple, charming, and often boyish manners. Clinton had such an armour, but he never put it off, except with intimates, and not then with any revelation of warmth. He was cold and arrogant, showing no deference even to seniors, since he denied the existence of superiors. Nobody loved him; few really liked him; and, except for his canal policy, his public career must have ended with his dismissal from the New York mayoralty. ”

“ That extreme democratic principle has been regarded with terror by the wise men of every age, because in every European republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has terminated disastrously, and been productive of corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny. And dare we flatter ourselves that we are a peculiar people, who can run the career of history exempted from the passions which have disturbed and corrupted the rest of mankind? ”

“ There is a legend that from the first, destiny seemed determined to oppose the genius and fame of Hamilton with the genius and fame of Aaron Burr. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence that two men, born without the State, so nearly of an age, so similar in brilliant attainments, so notably distinguished in charm of manner and phenomenal accomplishments, and so strikingly alike in ripeness of intelligence and bent of ambition, should happen to have lived at the same time, in the same city, and become members of the same profession ”

“ It cared nothing for the Democratic party except as it contributed to its selfish ends. This corrupt oligarchy, continued the orator, his face flushed and his eyes flashing with anger, intends through Hoffman to control the entire patronage of the State, and if Seymour is elected it will grasp that of the whole country. Suppose this offensive ring, with its unfinished courthouse and its thousand other schemes of robbery and plunder, controls the political power of the State and nation as it now dominates the metropolis, what honest Democrat can charge corruption to the opposite party? ”

“ If any State, therefore, could survive without a union with other Colonies, it was New York, and it is not surprising that many, perhaps a majority of its people, under the leadership of George Clinton, settled into a policy unfriendly to a national revenue, and later to a national government.
The Governor had gradually become mindful of an opposition as stubborn as it was persistent. He had encountered it in his treatment of the Tories, but not until Alexander Hamilton became an advocate of amnesty and oblivion, did Clinton recognise the centre and future leader of the opposing forces. ”

“ The President's letter, addressed to the Union convention of New York, gave the Radicals great comfort. With direct and forceful language Lincoln took the people into his confidence. There are but three ways, he said, to stop the war; first, by suppressing rebellion, which he was trying to do; second, by giving up the Union, which he was trying to prevent; and third, by some imaginable compromise, which was impossible if it embraced the maintenance of the Union. The strength of the rebellion is in its army, which dominates all the country and all the people within its range. ”

“ An evident desire existed on the part of many in both parties, to avoid a discussion of the annexation of Texas, and its consequent extension of slavery, lest too much or too little be said; but leaders like Seward and Fillmore were too wise to believe that they could fool the people by concealing the real issue. "Texas and slavery are at war with the interests, the principles, the sympathies of all," boldly declared the unmuzzled Auburn statesman. "The integrity of the Union depends on the result. To increase the slave-holding power is to subvert the Constitution ”

“ In the midst of all Horatio Seymour remained undaunted. No one had better poise, or firmer patience, or possessed more adroit methods. The personal attractions of the man, his dignity of manner, his finished culture, and his ability to speak often in debate with acceptance, had before attracted men to him; now he was to reveal the new and greater power of leadership. Seymour's real strength as a factor in state affairs seems to date from this contest. It is doubtful if he would have undertaken it had he suspected the fierceness of the opposition. He was not ambitious to be speaker. ”

“ For nearly a year New York City saw with wonder the spectacle of a few fearless radicals, organised into a vigilance committee of fifty, closing the doors of a custom-house, guarding the gates of an arsenal, embargoing vessels ladened with supplies for British troops, and removing cannon from the Battery, while an English fleet, well officered and manned, rode idly at anchor in New York harbour. ”

“ Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your valley its name, than the memory of the brave men who died for freedom. And yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the silent plains of Kansas. ”

“ The radical newspapers broke into a chorus of applause. The Radicals themselves were delighted. The air rung with praises of the courage and spirit of their candidate, and if here and there the faint voice of a Conservative suggested that emancipation was premature and arbitrary arrests were unnecessary, a shout of offended patriotism drowned the ignoble utterance.
Wadsworth and his party were too much absorbed in the zeal of their cause not to run counter to the prejudices of men less earnest and less self-forgetting. ”

“ If ever there was a period in the history of the United States when the opposite party should have been encouraged to talk, and to talk loudly and saucily, it was in the summer of 1798, when the American people had waked up to the insulting treatment accorded their envoys in France; but the Federalist leaders, horrified by the bloody record of the French Revolution, seemed to cultivate an increasing distrust of the common people, whom they now sought to repress by the historic measures known as the Naturalisation Act of June 18, 1798, the Alien Act of June 25, and the Sedition Act of July 14. ”

“ The "high minded" Federalists, in a published document signed by forty or fifty leading men, declared the Federal party dissolved and annihilated, and pronounced the Clinton party simply a personal one. To belong to it independence must be surrendered, and to obtain office in it, one must laud its head and bow the knee, a system of sycophancy, they said,i. 280 disgusting all "high minded" men. But DeWitt Clinton's strength was not in parties nor in political management. He belonged to the great men of his time, having no superior in New York, and, in some respects, no equal in the country. ”

“ Dickinson's Democracy are of the most marked type. Ever since he changed his vote from Van Buren to Polk, with such hearty alacrity in the Baltimore convention of 1844, he has promptly yielded to every requisition which the Southern Democracy has made upon their Northern allies. All along through the stormy years when the star of the Wilmot Proviso was in the ascendant, and when Wright and Dix bowed to the gale, and even Marcy and Bronson bent before it, Dickinson, on the floor of the Senate, stood erect and immovable."—New York Tribune, July 4, 1860. ”

“ We sympathise with and justify the South, as far as this—their rights have been invaded to the extreme limit possible within the forms of the Constitution; and, if we deemed it certain that the real animus of the Republican party could become the permanent policy of the nation, we should think that all the instincts of self-preservation and of manhood rightfully impelled them to resort to revolution and a separation from the Union, and we would applaud them and wish them God-speed in the adoption of such a remedy. ”

“ New parties, like poets, are born, not made, and a love for principle, not a desire for spoils, must precede their birth. If Clinton had sincerely desired a new organisation, he should have disclaimed all connection with the Republican or Federalist, and planted his standard on the corner-stone of internal improvements, prepared to make the sacrifice that comes to those who are tired of existing conditions and eager for new policies and new associations. ”

“ The Confederates, entering upon the path of revolution with the hope of a divided North, exhibited much feeling over this unanimity of sentiment. "Will the city of New York 'kiss the rod that smites her,'" asked the leading paper in Virginia, "and at the bidding of her Black Republican tyrants war upon her Southern friends and best customers? Will she sacrifice her commerce, her wealth, her population, her character, in order to strengthen the arm of her oppressors?" ”

“ One is enthusiastic, resourceful, with ability to organise victory by filling languishing patriotism with new and noble inspiration—the other simply performs his duty, sometimes respectably, sometimes only perfunctorily. George Clinton illustrated, in his own person, the difference between a great war governor and a governor in time of war. If he failed to win renown on the battlefield, his ability to inspire the people with confidence, and to bring glory out of threatened failure and success out of apparent defeat, made him the greatest war governor the country had yet known. ”

“ Van Ness coupled real literary ability with political audacity, putting Cheetham's fancy flights and inferences to sleep as if they were babes in the woods. It was quickly seen that Cheetham was no match for him. He had neither the finish nor the venom. Compared to the sentences of "Aristides," as polished and attractive as they were bitter and ill-tempered, Cheetham's periods seemed coarse and tame. The letters of Junius did not make themselves felt in English political life more than did this pamphlet in the political circles of New York. ”