Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860Blaine, James Gillespie
History
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860
Blaine, James Gillespie
United States -- History; United States -- History -- 1865-1898
Before the time arrived for the Utica Convention to assemble, the
anti-slavery revolt was widely extended, and was, apparently, no
less against Taylor than against Cass. There was agitation in many
States, and the Barnburners found that by uniting with the opposition
against both the old parties, a most effective combination could
be made. It was certain to profit them in New York, and it promised
the special revenge which they desired in the defeat of Cass. The
various local and State movements were merged in one great convention,
which met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, with imposing demonstrations.
Many of those composing it had held high rank in the old parties.
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was selected as president. The convention
represented a genuine anti-slavery sentiment, and amid excitement
and enthusiasm Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, and
Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The Barnburners, the
anti-slavery Whigs, and the old Abolitionists, co-operated with
apparent harmony under the general name of the Free-soil party;
and the impression with many when the convention adjourned was,
that Mr. Van Buren would have a plurality over both Cass and Taylor
in the State of New York. The management of the popular canvass
was intrusted to Democratic partisans of the Silas Wright school,
and this fact had a significant and unexpected influence upon the
minds of anti-slavery Whigs.
In the first flush of the excitement, the supporters of the regular
Democratic nominee were not alarmed. They argued, not illogically,
that the Free-soil ticket would draw more largely from the Whigs
than from the Democrats, and thus very probably injure Taylor more
than Cass. But in a few weeks this hope was dispelled. The Whigs
of the country had been engaged for a long period in an earnest
political warfare against Mr. Van Buren. In New York the contest
had been personal and acrimonious to the last degree, and ordinary
human nature could hardly be expected the bury at once the grievances
and resentments of a generation. Nor did the Whigs confide in the
sincerity of Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery conversion. His repentance
was late, and even the most charitable suspected that his desire
to punish Cass had entered largely into the motives which suddenly
aroused him to the evils of slavery after forty years of quiet
acquiescence in all the demands of the South. Mr. Seward, who
possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men of New
York, led a most earnest canvass in favor of General Taylor, and
was especially successful in influencing Whigs against Van Buren.
In this he was aided by the organizing skill of Thurlow Weed, and
by the editorial power of Horace Greeley. Perhaps in no other
National election did three men so completely control the result.
They gave the vote of New York to General Taylor, and made him
President of the United States.
MR. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD SPEECH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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