CHAPTER IV.

RISE OF POLITICAL ABOLITIONISM—MARTIN VAN BUREN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE ABOLITIONISTS—JOHN KELLY’S BRILLIANT COURSE IN THE SYRACUSE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OF 1855.

The rise and fall of the Know-Nothing party took place when John Kelly was yet a young man. The old Federal party and its several legitimate successors, more especially the Whigs and Know-Nothings, had not been fortunate in their conflicts with the Democratic party. Founded by Mr. Jefferson, the latter party always had been distinguished for two central ideas—a strict construction of the Constitution, and adherence to the minimum scale of governmental powers. The Federalists had destroyed themselves as a national organization by opposition to the war of 1812. General Jackson declared he would have hung the men who burned blue lights at New London, when Commodore Decatur was blockaded there by the British fleet.[10]These blue lights were said to be signals to the enemy of the movements of the American forces. The exposure by John Quincy Adams of the machinations at Boston of John Henry, theBritish emissary and spy, who was sent from Canada to instill treason in New England and bring about the secession of the Eastern States,[11]had hardly less effect in sealing the fate of the Federal party than the Hartford Convention, whose object was the dissolution of the Union. Massachusetts—not South Carolina—was the birthplace of the secession doctrine.[12]The extinction of the Federal party was followed by the “era of good feeling.” Then came the disruption during the administration of John Quincy Adams, who having first propitiated Jefferson and Madison by making war on the Hartford Convention and the Essex Junto, in the end showed he was a Federalist at heart by reviving the principles which had distinguished his father’s administration, and opening theway for the formation of the Whig party by fastening the protective system on the country, and deducing implied powers from the Constitution not found in that instrument. The inevitable tendency of these revived ideas of federalism was towards the centralization of all powers, whether delegated or not, in the General Government. The Whig party, though led by the brilliant Henry Clay, was no match for the Democratic party. Twice it succeeded in wresting the government from the Democrats, but on each occasion the result was due to Democratic dissensions, and to the furore excited over the name of a military chieftain—Harrison in 1840, and Taylor in 1848. With Clay and Webster the Whig party died, and was succeeded by Know-Nothingism. Mr. Kelly’s part in the overthrow of the American or Know-Nothing party was dwelt upon in the last chapter.

But the old Federal party, so unsuccessful with the Hartford Convention, and in its opposition to the second war with England; so short-lived in its regained supremacy under the Whigs; and so easily overthrown under its bigoted organization of Know-Nothingism; was at length about to adopt a new course, and to acquire a new vitality in its war with the party of the Constitution, the Jeffersonian Democracy, destined to place it in control of the government for a quarter of a century, and to revolutionize the institutions of the country, if not the principles of the Constitutionitself. Agitation over negro slavery furnished the anti-Jefferson party with this new lease of life. That agitation became the burning question in American politics while Mr. Kelly was in Congress. A maximum of government was now to be employed, and the disciples of Mr. Jefferson, divided and routed, were soon to behold the Hamiltonian school of politicians in absolute control of every department of the Federal Government.

The commanding influence of New York in the affairs of the United States was never more conspicuously displayed than at the time of the dissolution of the Whig and organization of the Republican parties. Dissensions among the Democrats of New York proved a potent factor in this process of decay and rejuvenation among their opponents. Prior to 1848 the Abolitionists had no strength as a party organization. Mobbed in Boston, New York and other cities, denounced by Daniel Webster as “infernal Abolitionists,” and by Henry Clay as “mad fanatics,” they struggled in vain for long years to effect a lodgment in American politics. A rapid glance at the origin of political Abolitionism will not be without interest to the historical student. Forty-four years ago, January 28-29, 1840, an anti-slavery convention was held at Arcade, then in Genessee County, New York. Reuben Sleeper of Livingston County presided. Among the delegates were Myron Holley and Gerrit Smith. Atthis conclave a call was issued for a national convention, to be held at Albany April 1, 1840, to discuss the expediency of nominating Abolition candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States. At the time and place appointed the first national convention of the anti-slavery party was held. Alvan Stewart presided, and the Liberty Party, after a long discussion, was organized. The convention was composed of delegates from six States. James G. Birney and Thomas Earle were nominated for President and Vice-President. They received a little less than 7,000 votes at the polls, the Harrison and Tyler tidal wave sweeping everything before it. In 1844 the Liberty Party again placed its candidates in the field—James G. Birney for President and Thomas Morris for Vice-President—who polled nearly 60,000 votes, and defeated Henry Clay. The politicians were not slow to perceive that the Abolitionists at last held the balance of power between the two national parties of Whigs and Democrats. But no one then dreamed that Martin Van Buren, who had achieved all his successes in life as a Democrat, whom the South had made President in 1836, and whom John Randolph described as the “Northern man with Southern principles,” would place himself at the head of the Abolitionists in 1848, and thereby defeat his own party at the Presidential election of that year. In this surprising defection of Mr. Van Buren from the Democraticparty, Samuel J. Tilden likewise struck his colors and went off with the Little Magician into the camp of the Abolitionists. Lucius Robinson also bolted with Tilden. John Kelly followed the lead of William L. Marcy and Horatio Seymour, and supported Cass and Butler, the nominees of the National Democracy.

A convention of the Liberty Party was held at Macedon Locke, Wayne county, New York, June 8, 9 and 10, 1847, at which the Abolitionists nominated Gerrit Smith and Elihu Burritt for President and Vice-President. Burritt declined, and at a convention held soon after at Rochester, New York, Charles C. Foote was nominated in Burritt’s place. The politicians now began to put in their fine work. The national committee of the Liberty Party and their outside advisers had their own plans with which the nomination of Gerrit Smith conflicted. They accordingly called another convention of the Liberty Party to meet at Buffalo, October 20, 1847. The Macedon convention thereupon separated from the Liberty Party, and took the name of Liberty League. Both wings were in agreement in maintaining that slavery was unconstitutional. William Lloyd Garrison and his followers, while not endorsing the Liberty Party in all things, held that a rising of the slaves in the Southern States would be no “insurrection.” In this view the Abolition editors concurred, as did also the Liberty Party conventions in Massachusetts and otherEastern States, those held in various parts of New York, and those convened in Ohio and other Western States. The Liberty League occupied the same ground in regard to slavery, with this difference: they took position on other public questions which the Liberty Party excluded from the scope of its operations. Gerrit Smith, who was one of the single idea Abolitionists, in fact their leader, was placed in nomination for the Presidency at the Buffalo Liberty Party Convention of October 20, 1847. His candidature would have received the hearty support of the Liberty League, for its members knew that a servile insurrection was what he desired. Thirteen years later Gerrit Smith supplied John Brown with the money to carry out his notorious Harper’s Ferry raid, the revelation of which fact in Frothingham’s biography of Gerrit Smith led to the suppression of the book by the friends of the latter. The managers of the convention passed over Mr. Smith, and for the first time went outside of their own ranks for candidates. John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and Leicester King, of Ohio, were nominated for President and Vice-President. These nominations were only temporary. In 1848 the Barnburners of New York were in open revolt against the Democrats, bolted at the National Democratic Convention of Baltimore, and held a convention of their own at Utica. The anti-slavery Whigs of Massachusetts and the followers of JoshuaR. Giddings and Salmon P. Chase in Ohio were ready to unite with the Abolitionists of the Liberty Party. A conference was held by the leaders of these various discordant factions, secessionists from the two old parties, which led to the call for the celebrated Buffalo Convention of August 9, 1848. In that Convention was born the Republican party of to-day. The Liberty Party was swallowed up, Hale and King withdrew, the name of Free Soil party was assumed, and two men never before considered as distinctive Abolitionists, Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, were nominated for President and Vice-President. “A party has arisen,” said Daniel Webster with vitriolic humor in a speech at Abington, Massachusetts, October 9, 1848, “which calls itself the Free Soil party. I think there is a good joke by Swift, who wished to ridicule some one who was making no very tasteful use of the words ‘natale solum’:

“‘Libertas, et natale solum!Fine words. I wonder where you stole ’em.’”

“‘Libertas, et natale solum!

Fine words. I wonder where you stole ’em.’”

Thomas H. Benton, the Jackson Democrat and friend and champion of Van Buren in the long struggle between the latter and Calhoun, added his condemnation to that of Webster, the New England Whig. Of the Free Soil party, which was launched on its stormy career at the Buffalo Convention, Benton says in his “Thirty Years’ View”: “It was an organization entirely to be regretted. Its aspect wassectional, its foundation a single idea, and its tendency to merge political principles in a slavery contention. And deeming all such organizations, no matter on which side of the question, as fraught with evil to the Union, this writer, on the urgent request of some of his political associates, went to New York to interpose his friendly offices to get the Free Soil organization abandoned; but in vain. Mr. Van Buren accepted the nomination, and in so doing placed himself in opposition to the general tenor of his political conduct in relation to slavery. I deemed this acceptance unfortunate to a degree far beyond its influence upon persons or parties. It went to impair confidence between the North and the South, and to narrow down the basis of party organization to a single idea; and that idea not known to our ancestors as an element in political organizations. Although another would have been nominated if he (Van Buren) had refused, yet no other nomination could have given such emphasis to the character of the convention and done as much harm.”[13]The vote in 1848 was as follows: Taylor and Fillmore, 1,360,752; Cass and Butler, 1,219,962; Van Buren and Adams, 291,342. Mr. Van Buren was assisted very warmly in this crusade against the National Democratic party by Samuel J. Tilden and Lucius Robinson, and having effected his object in joining the Abolitionists, the defeat ofGeneral Cass, he turned his back on his new allies in a single year and returned to the Democratic fold. But the “harm” predicted by Benton had been done, and the prodigal’s return could not undo it. It was by such exploits that Mr. Van Buren won the title of “Fox of Kinderhook.”

Four years later, in 1852, the Free Soil party again held a national convention, and nominated for President and Vice-President John P. Hale of New Hampshire, and George W. Julian of Indiana. They polled 157,685 votes at the election.

At the succeeding Presidential election the Whig party was dead, and the seed sown at the Buffalo Convention of 1848 by the Free Soilers had flowered in the interval into its natural fruit—the Republican party, a sectional organization founded on the single idea of opposition to slavery. The mission of this party was proclaimed by its leader. William H. Seward, to be an “irrepressible conflict” between a solid North and a solid South. John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton were nominated for President and Vice-President by the Republican National Convention of 1856. Francis P. Blair, Mr. Van Buren’s old friend of theGlobe, was the political inventor of Colonel Fremont. Buchanan received 1,838,169 votes, Fremont 1,341,264, and Fillmore 874,534.

Mr. Tilden was now back in the Democratic party, and acting in harmonious accord with Mr. Kelly.Not so Mr. Lucius Robinson. This gentleman, whose famous gubernatorial contest with Mr. Kelly twenty-three years later attracted national attention, and operated disastrously on the fortunes of Mr. Tilden, now left the Democrats and joined the Republican party. At a Fremont convention held at Syracuse, New York, July 25, 1856, resolutions denouncing the Democratic conventions, State and National, were adopted. The committee reporting these resolutions, of which Lucius Robinson was a member, also submitted an address which was adopted. “Mr. Buchanan,” it was said in this address, “the candidate of the Cincinnati Convention, stands pledged to make the resolutions of that convention his rule of practice. Such a candidate, under such circumstances, we cannot support. Mr. Fremont, who has been nominated by the Republicans, is an acceptable choice. In his hands the Presidential office will be vigorously and justly administered. We have, therefore, nominated him for the Presidency, and his associate Mr. Dayton, for the Vice-Presidency, and will use every honorable effort to secure their election, that we may rescue the Presidential office from the degradation into which it has fallen, and the politics of the country from the corruption which is fast undermining our best institutions.” Mr. Robinson’s committee also arraigned President Pierce for the “deplorable misrule of the present administration.”

For twenty years Lucius Robinson continued to be an active Republican. In 1876 when Mr. Tilden insisted on that gentleman’s nomination as Democratic candidate for Governor of New York, Mr. Kelly called Mr. Tilden’s attention to the record of his candidate, and advised against his nomination. As Mr. Tilden still insisted, and was himself the Democratic candidate for President, Mr. Kelly gave Mr. Robinson his support, in order not to weaken the national ticket. Robinson was elected Governor. His administration will long be memorable for the proscriptive policy adopted by the Governor against a respectable and powerful wing of the Democratic party. He surrounded himself with an inner council, or star chamber, and stretched the Executive prerogative of arraigning and removing Democratic officials to the verge of tyranny. It soon became evident that no Democrat, howsoever irreproachable in the walks of life, who did not belong to the Governor’s faction, and who might be reached by Mr. Robinson, could count on his safety in office, or feel himself secure for an hour from the vengeance of the Executive. To follow John Kelly, or to adhere to the Tammany Hall Democracy, became an atrocious crime in the estimation of Lucius Robinson. The revolt against Robinson which soon took place, cleared the moral atmosphere wonderfully, and proved that the spirit of manhood which De Witt Clinton half a century earlierinfused into the politics of New York, when he rebelled against a similar tyranny, was still to be relied upon in an emergency.

The rise of political Abolitionism presents a curious study, and this rapid outline of its genesis has been deemed necessary. Mr. Kelly at the juncture now reached was in a position to take an important and conservative part in the great anti-slavery controversy, about which so many angry passions have been lashed, and whose true history has not yet been written. The Democratic party of the State of New York has always been a quarrelsome family. De Witt Clinton and Van Buren were leaders of rival factions; Wright and Marcy renewed the controversy; and Tilden and Kelly, in the present generation, inherited the local feuds and marshalled the contending hosts of their party in the State. Settled first by the Dutch, New York was more rapidly colonized by the Puritans, and later by the Irish and Germans. Contrarieties of race sped the growth and power of the Empire State, but produced those antagonisms among its people, which have been more intense there than in any other State in the Union. Clinton, sprung from Irish stock, was at war with Van Buren, who, although of Dutch blood, became the leader of the New York Puritans. In the days of Jackson and Calhoun the quarrel was revived over the disputes in which those two celebrated national leaders, theretofore devoted friends,were embroiled by Martin Van Buren about the year 1830. Calhoun was supplanted in Jackson’s affections, and Van Buren, thanks to Peggie O’Neil, succeeded to the Presidency. But Calhoun’s retributive blows in 1840 and 1844 prostrated Van Buren, and destroyed his ascendency in the Democratic party. Stripped of dear bought power, Van Buren resolved on revenge, and in 1848 turned on the National Democratic party itself, of which Mr. Calhoun was then the powerful leader. Persons of a retrospective imagination may indulge in day dreams over what might have been the destiny of the United States, and over what other and happier story the Muse of History might have related, had Martin Van Buren restrained his feelings, and not rushed headlong into the camp of the Abolitionists. Pursuing the same pleasing train of reflection, they might say—if the Van Buren bolt had not occurred, the supreme calamity of disunion and war, which Henry Clay and Daniel Webster by the most marvellous exercise of statesmanship averted in 1850, might not have taken place in 1860. But this is all idle speculation, like the saying that if Richard Cromwell had possessed the genius of his father, he would have fixed the Protectorate in his family, which Count Joseph de Maistre brushes away with the pithy remark, that “this is precisely the same as to declare, if the Cromwell family had not ceased to rule it would rule still.”[14]

John Kelly was trained in the school of William L. Marcy, who, in consideration of his pre-eminent abilities, was chosen Secretary of State by General Pierce, and as the New Hampshire organ of the President, the ConcordPatriotdeclared, because Mr. Marcy had “completely succeeded in re-uniting the Democracy of New York.” Mr. Kelly occupied a similar position to that taken by Horatio Seymour in relation to African slavery. Regarding slavery as an evil, Kelly believed, if the principles of Jefferson should be allowed to work out their legitimate results without infraction of the compromises of the Constitution, that the Southern States themselves in time would adopt the policy of emancipation. This was the sentiment Washington and Jefferson[15]had often expressed, and which John Randolph put in practice by emancipating his four hundred slaves. Charles Fenton Mercer, a Virginia statesman whose zeal for the negro was no less ardent than that of Dr. Channing, the Boston philanthropist, devoted his life to the extinction of slavery in Virginia. In 1836 John Letcher and Charles James Faulkner championed a bill for gradual emancipation in the Legislature of the same State. The Emancipationists did their share in the interest of the black man, long before the Abolitionists began their agitation. In estimating theinfluence of the two forces upon the destinies of the negro race, greater sobriety of statement than that of partisans will be required for the purposes of history. Whether the views of Senator Ingalls of Kansas on John Brown are more correct than those of Mr. Daniel B. Lucas of West Virginia on John Randolph, or whether the verdict of posterity will pronounce both eulogists at fault, it is beyond the power of any man of this generation satisfactorily to decide. “Scholars,” Ingalls says, “orators, poets, philanthropists play their parts, but the crisis comes through some one whom the world regards as a fanatic or impostor, and whom the supporters of the system he assails crucify between thieves or gibbet as a felon. It required generations to arouse the conscience of the American people to the enormous iniquity of African slavery. The classical orators, the scholarly declaimers and essayists performed their work. They furnished the formulas for popular use and expression, but old John Brown, with his pikes, did more in one brief hour to render slavery impossible than all the speechmakers and soothsayers had done in a quarter of a century, and he will be remembered when they and their works are lost in dusty oblivion.”[16]

“In regard to African slavery,” Lucas says, “whichhas played so important a part in our political history, Randolph was an Emancipationist as distinguished from an Abolitionist. This distinction was a very broad one; as broad as that between Algernon Sidney and Jack Cade. It was the difference between Reason and Fanaticism. On this subject Randolph and Clay concurred; both were Emancipationists, and both denounced the Abolitionists, as did also Webster and all the best, wisest and purest men of that day. Randolph was right in his denunciation of the Abolitionists. They were a pestilent class of agitators who, for the most part, with little or no stake in the community, mounted their hobby-horses, Hatred and Fanaticism, and rode them, like Ruin and Darkness, the steeds of Lucifer in Bailey’s “Festus,” over the fairest portion of our Republic. An exhaustless empire of land has enabled the nation to survive this substitution of the methods of Abolition for those of Emancipation; but the eternal truth remains the same, that the one was legitimate and the other internecine; and to justify the Abolitionists, because Emancipation followed their efforts would be to justify the crime of the Crucifixion because Redemption followed the Cross.”[17]

The Democratic party in New York, after theBuffalo Convention, became divided upon the subject of slavery, and the Wilmot Proviso tended to widen the breach. Barnburners who trained under Van Buren, and Hunkers who followed the lead of Marcy, although all claimed to be Democrats, were more bitter against each other than against those of the opposite party. The election of Franklin Pierce in 1852, upon a platform which proclaimed the inviolability of the Compromise Measures of 1850, served to soften the asperities existing in the Democratic party of New York. Before that time, Marcy and Seymour, both Hunkers, had declared “that opinions upon slavery should not be made a test” of party loyalty. Daniel S. Dickinson, then a Democratic extremist, who afterwards became a Republican extremist, took opposite ground, and refused to unite with the Barnburners. This led to the division of the New York Democracy into “Hards” and “Softs.” And it is here, after these divisions had taken shape, that John Kelly came forward, and acted an interesting and conspicuous part in this great sectional controversy. His action and influence in the Soft Shell Conventions of August 29, 1855, and January 10, 1856, although he was not a delegate to the latter Convention, proved him to be a statesman of commanding abilities.

The New York Soft Shell Democratic Conventionof 1855 was composed of gentlemen who represented three distinct factions in the Democratic party.

First, of those who had not recanted their Free-soil sentiments of 1848, and were still simon-pure Barnburners, utterly opposed to any compromise with slaveholders, or the admission of another State into the Union with the institution of slavery recognized in its constitution.

Secondly, of those who had previously occupied the same ground as the first class, but who now enjoyed the patronage and favor of the Pierce administration in New York, and who had abandoned their Buffalo platform, and accepted the principles of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, prohibiting slavery in all territories, except Missouri, lying north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude.

Thirdly, of those who accepted the Webster-Clay Compromise of 1850 as a settlement “in principle and in substance” of the slavery question in all the territories, and who, therefore, acquiesced in the legislation of 1854 in re-affirmation of that memorable compromise.

The Union had been saved by the Compromise of 1850. Franklin Pierce had been elected on a platform squarely endorsing it. The Whigs had not given to it as hearty an endorsement in their platform, but rather evaded the issue. Pierce went to the people on this vital question, and beat Scott overwhelmingly.The verdict approached unanimity, only four States in the Union giving their electoral votes for Scott. The Congressional legislation of 1854, known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, was supplementary to, and in strict conformity with the principles of the Compromise of 1850, and left the question of slavery in those territories entirely to the people thereof to settle for themselves, with no interference from without. This was the ground taken by Henry Clay in his last great effort to pacify the sections on a basis just and honorable to each. It was the ground on which Daniel Webster took his stand so patriotically in his celebrated 7th-of-March speech in 1850. The only man who maintained the same position in the New York Soft Shell Democratic Convention of 1855 was John Kelly, notwithstanding the unparalleled approval the compromise received at the hands of the people in Pierce’s election. John Van Buren, who had been in company with President Pierce at the White Sulphur Springs in Virginia—an administration favorite of anti-administration proclivities—hastened back to New York, and appeared as a delegate at Syracuse, to defend, as it was reasonably supposed, the measures of Pierce in a convention composed of Democrats who enjoyed the patronage of the administration. But Prince John, as Mr. Van Buren was called, displayed his usual fickleness in this business, and went far in his dalliance with the Abolitionists, to undermine theadministration in whose sunshine he was basking, and to render the renomination of that excellent President, Franklin Pierce, practically hopeless. Without exactly joining the Abolitionists of the Syracuse Convention in an unqualified crusade against slavery, he kicked over the traces of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, repudiated the compromise of 1850, and in order to find a middle ground to stand on went back to the obsolete Missouri Compromise of 1820. Dean Richmond, Sandford E. Church, and others followed Van Buren’s lead in this matter, and voted for a resolution he submitted taking this position. The Abolitionists of the Convention, like General James W. Nye and Ward Hunt, pronounced the Van Buren resolution “mere patchwork,” and wanted to go further in condemnation of Franklin Pierce. There was only one man in the convention who stood up to rebuke the slippery conduct of Mr. Van Buren, and to defend the National Democracy from its false friends. This gentleman was Congressman John Kelly, the subject of this memoir.

Prominent among the delegates who took part in the Convention were Dean Richmond, chairman of the Democratic State Committee; Sandford E. Church, afterwards Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals; John Kelly, Congressman elect; John Cochrane, Surveyor of the Port of New York; Lorenzo B. Shepard, John Van Buren, Robert Kelly, Presidentof the Convention; James W. Nye, Timothy Jenkins, Wm. Cassidy, Ward Hunt, Andrew H. Green, Israel T. Hatch, who was nominated for Governor, Thomas B. Alvord, Peter Cagger, Dennis McCarthy and Benjamin Wood. Although the Convention was called to nominate candidates for State officers, the debate took a wide range, and the Kansas-Nebraska troubles became the subject of an angry discussion.

The New YorkHeraldof September 2, 1855, contained in its Syracuse correspondence a spirited sketch of the brilliant debate in the Convention, and of the exciting scenes to which it gave rise. A disruption at one time seemed inevitable. “The excitement,” said theHerald, “had been wrought up to fever heat. There were dire menacings of a bolt. Both divisions of the army seemed ready simultaneously to throw off their allegiance, and go over to the double enemy. Mr. John Kelly of New York, had thrown out awful menacings of defection in favor of the National Democracy, if the Convention should fail to endorse the administration; and Ex-Lieutenant Governor Church, Jenkins and Hunt, of Oneida, and the good-humored member from Suffolk, General Nye, seemed to be just as ready to march off with their hosts to the Republican party. The remnant of the faction, if any were left, might have divided themselves among the Whigs or Know-Nothings, leaving only the Custom House, marshalled by John Cochrane, as the sole corporal’sguard of the Administration. Such a dreadful contingency was to be avoided at all hazards and sacrifices. The recess was utilized in endeavoring to harmonize conflicting views, and to beat down the extravagant requirements of the extremists of either section. There was, therefore, intense interest manifested in the proceedings of the evening session, and when the Convention re-assembled at 7 o’clock P. M., the hall was crowded to its greatest capacity.”

In the preliminary stages of the Convention two sets of resolutions had been submitted. Those of the regularly appointed committee were reported by William Cassidy. In these the Pierce administration was endorsed, and the National Democracy sustained. Minority or supplementary resolutions taking directly opposite grounds were offered by Timothy Jenkins, a pronounced Free-soiler.

Jenkins, in a radical Barnburner speech, denounced the territorial legislation known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, arraigned the President, and demanded a restoration of the Missouri Compromise. He was answered by John Cochrane in defence of the President, but as Mr. Cochrane had been a violent Barnburner in 1848, his argument was handicapped by his record. Besides, he was Surveyor of the Port of New York, and the newspapers had often referred to a letter said to have been written by Franklin Pierce to the bolting Barnburners’ meeting in the Park in 1848,at which the standards of party rebellion against Cass and Butler and the National Democracy were first raised. If General Pierce wrote such a letter it was suppressed, but Mr. Cochrane’s opponents claimed that he was the recipient of this “scarlet letter,” as theHeraldstyled it, and as he subsequently obtained one of the President’s fat offices, uncharitable comments were made upon General Pierce’s motives in the transaction. But it is scarcely credible, in view of Pierce’s antecedents, that he could have committed himself to the Van Buren bolters of 1848. His record in the United States Senate, and in New Hampshire, had been that of a Jeffersonian Democrat of the strict construction school.

John Van Buren addressed the Convention after Mr. Cochrane, but as he too had been a Barnburner, and the Rupert of debate among the bolters of 1848, his effort now to throw oil on the troubled waters proved a failure. Besides, it was a very halting effort. He moved that all resolutions in relation to the Administration, Kansas-Nebraska legislation, and Slavery be laid on the table, but did not press the motion to a vote, and shortly after withdrew it. The motion to withdraw was more consonant with Mr. Van Buren’s real sentiments than the one to table the disturbing resolutions. The Convention was now face to face with Mr. Jenkins’s anti-Democratic programme, and Mr. Van Buren showed a disposition tosupport it. It was at this juncture that Mr. John Kelly rose to stem the tide of Sewardism that was sweeping over the Convention. With an intuitive understanding of a scene which was constantly shifting, but whose inevitable end, if not now stopped, he foresaw would be the elevation of William H. Seward to a position little short of that of dictator of the destinies of the Union, John Kelly pointed out the perilous levity of Mr. Van Buren’s conduct, and made a patriotic appeal to the Convention to close up its ranks and redeem the State from Know-Nothingism, and the sectional Republican party. “The firebrand of discord,” said Mr. Kelly, “which gentlemen of the old Barnburner persuasion are now on this floor throwing into the ranks of the Democratic party, would have even worse consequences than their course had produced in 1848, when they defeated General Cass for the Presidency, and enabled the Whigs to slip into control of the Legislature, and elect Mr. Seward United States Senator to succeed a Democrat. The fate of the Union now trembled in the balance, and dissensions in this Convention would go far to destroy the National Democracy, and place the sceptre of power in the hands of the arch-agitator, William H. Seward. Mr. Van Buren’s constituents,” continued Mr. Kelly, “will approve of the resolutions of the Committee in favor of the National Democracy, though that gentleman may not do so. I admire Mr.Van Buren’s personal character, but not his political tergiversations. I hope the Convention will sustain the administration of Franklin Pierce, and not divide the Democratic party by passing the supplementary resolutions of the gentleman from Oneida. But to preserve harmony here I am willing to leave out all matters relating to Kansas, and so will be the delegation from New York city, who are prepared now to vote for the resolutions of the regular committee.”[18]

General Nye, former political associate of Gerrit Smith, the John Brown Abolitionist, took the floor to reply to Mr. Kelly. Bowie knives, and pistols, and pronunciamentos in Kansas formed the burden of his speech. In conclusion the eloquent but somewhat comical General Nye declared: “I would say, President Pierce, you have openly insulted the spirit of your countrymen. Let us speak out and make this declaration. I know it is our opinion, and think it is his. I don’t think my friend Kelly would withdraw from the Convention if we passed the Jenkins resolutions; but if he should do so, we should obtain legions by adopting them. The Republican Convention is counting on our ominous silence.”

Another Free Soil resolution was introduced at this point by Sandford E. Church, declaring uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into free territory. John Van Buren again took the floor andloudly advocated the Church resolution. An administration resolution was next offered by Lorenzo B. Shepard, declaring that the people in the Territory of Kansas should be left to settle their own matters as to slavery without interference from the North or South. A Mr. Hinckley, of Ontario County, made a violent Abolition speech, and caused roars of laughter by assuming a tragic attitude and declaring, “I feel like a brave Indian on the battle field.”

John Van Buren, whose mission in the Convention seemed to be to destroy his friend President Pierce, now offered the following resolution:

“Resolved, That while the Democracy of this State will faithfully adhere to all the compromises of the Constitution, and maintain all the reserved rights of the States, they deem this an appropriate occasion to declare their fixed hostility to the extension of slavery into free territory.”[19]

He supported this resolution in a long speech, in which he tried hard to leave the Administration without a leg to stand on. As a death-blow to Pierce, the effort was eminently successful. In conclusion, he moved to lay the whole subject on the table. Having shot his parthian arrow into the side of the National Democracy, Prince John was not disposed to give its friends a chance to be heard. A sharp running debate now took place between Mr. Kellyand Mr. Van Buren. The New YorkHeraldpublished a synopsis of it:

“Mr. John Kelly, of New York, hoped the gentleman would not press his motion, but would give other gentlemen an opportunity of expressing their sentiments.”

Mr. Van Buren: “I will withdraw it, for I am going to dinner (laughter), provided you or the gentleman who shall speak last agrees to renew it in my name.”

Mr. Kelly: “I will agree to that if the Convention agrees to go to dinner now.” (Laughter.)

Mr. Van Buren: “But if the Convention does not now take a recess, I want to make the same bargain. I want the last man who speaks to renew the motion in my name.”

Mr. Kelly: “I will do no such thing.”

Mr. Van Buren: “Then I insist on my motion.”

Mr. Kelly: “I expected more generosity from the gentleman from the Thirteenth District of New York, than to do anything of this kind.”

At this point a recess was taken until 3 o’clockP. M.On the re-assembling of the body Mr. John Kelly addressed the Convention, and showed a determination not to be choked off by Mr. John Van Buren and the Seward contingent of Disunionists and Abolitionists, who, notwithstanding their noisy demonstrations, constituted only about one-third of the Convention. He made a powerful speech in defenseof the National Democracy, and the Administration of General Pierce. He reviewed, in scathing terms, the treason to Cass and Butler on the part of the bolting Barnburners in 1848, and when he declared sternly and with unmistakable indignation, that, if this treason was now to be repeated he would leave the Convention, and never again affiliate with Barnburners, a great sensation occurred, and it became evident that the schemes of the fanatics had been arrested and thwarted by Mr. Kelly. A hurried consultation took place between the friends and opponents of the Administration. Mr. Kelly’s demand that a delegation of true Democrats, and not Seward Democrats, should be sent to the Cincinnati National Convention, and that a platform endorsing the territorial legislation of Congress in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill (in effect a re-affirmation of the Webster-Clay Compromise of 1850) should be adopted, was reluctantly but finally conceded. The sectional and disturbing resolutions of Jenkins, Church and Hunt were withdrawn, and in return for these concessions it was agreed to by Kelly and his friends that the appointment of the delegation to Cincinnati should be postponed to a later day, and the drafting of an address and resolutions expressive of National Democratic principles should be deferred until the meeting of another convention, at which the National Convention delegates should be chosen. In view ofthis compromise any further conflict over the Van Buren Free-soil resolution was avoided, and it was adopted by the Convention.

No full report of Mr. Kelly’s important speech, which brought about the administration victory, was taken down at the time of its delivery, indeed none of the speeches before the convention was fully reported. The New YorkHerald, of September 1st, 1855, contained the following synopsis of what he said:

“Mr. John Kelly, of New York, took the floor. He came here, he said, to represent the Democracy of the city of New York, and he was determined to do so. He was always led to suppose that it was not upon principle, but upon personal grounds that the Democratic party was divided. He belonged to the Tammany Hall section of the party, but if it were resolved to force down the throats of the Convention resolutions derogatory to the honor of the Democratic party, and of the administration, he, for one, would not remain in the Convention. Let these dividing questions, he said, rest as they are. If the resolutions reported by the Committee were brought up, the city delegates would sustain them. But if on the other hand, the resolutions of the gentleman from Oneida were forced down the throats of the body, he would leave the Convention, and never attach himself again to this branch of the party. (Sensation and applause.)He asked was it desirable for one-third of this Convention to be the means of severing the ties which connect the party together? He knew that the constituents of the gentleman from New York who last spoke (Mr. Van Buren) would endorse the administration, and endorse the Kansas-Nebraska bill. If it were the desire of that gentleman to try and distract the Convention, he should have come from another district, and not disgrace that which sent him. (Hisses and applause.) When he—Mr. Kelly—remembered the causes of the division of the Democracy in 1848, he thought that the ‘isms’ and those causes of division were to be forever buried in oblivion. But they come here again. Shall it be said that the Democratic party of New York shall not sustain a Democratic administration? If so, let it go forth that the administration portion of the Democratic party of New York has refused to endorse and sustain it. He trusted the Convention would consider these matters well, and see what they were going to do. They were going to divide the party and dissever it, never to be brought together again in its present strength. They were going to give the power to the proscriptive Know-Nothing party, which would bring the country to ruin and desolation. Let them consider the matter well, and ask their consciences whether they could do such a thing as this. He, for one, would vote for the resolutions endorsing the administration, and if itwere necessary to endorse the Kansas and Nebraska bill, he would vote for such resolution, too, and he was sure that the majority of the New York delegation would do so.”

General Nye: “It is not on the issue of the Kansas-Nebraska bill that the Democratic party of New York can hope to triumph, nor on it that my friend from New York city, Mr. John Kelly, can expect to be sent to Congress in 1856.”

Mr. Kelly: “On that issue alone I was elected.”

General Nye: “It so happens, however, that the opposing candidate voted for the bill, and you could not have much advantage over him there. (Laughter.) Besides, the very district which my friend Mr. Van Buren is said to misrepresent—the Thirteenth—elected John Wheeler, who voted against the bill.”

Mr. Kelly: “Will you also state that John Wheeler was elected by the Know-Nothing party?”

General Nye: “No: I know nothing of that party. (Laughter.) I wish this Convention to treat the subject in a manly way. If you do, I do not believe Mr. Kelly will withdraw from the Convention; but even if he does, better he should go than that the hosts that I see around me should do so.”

Mr. Ward Hunt, of Oneida, made a violent Free soil speech, in the course of which he said:

“Another gentleman from the city of New York, a member of Congress elect (Mr. John Kelly), threatenedto walk out of the Convention, if it happened to adopt a course not in accordance with his views. He would only say that if that gentleman did walk out, his blessing would go with him, and the delegation of the city of New York might go with him, too.”

Mr. O’Keefe: “Except Van Buren.” (Laughter.)

Mr. Hunt: “Well, I am glad to see that there is one good man left in the city of New York.”

Mr. Van Buren: “I will not give notice, like my friend from the Fourteenth Ward, Mr. Kelly, that if the procedure of the Convention should not please me I would bolt. Perhaps if I did, the Convention on that very account would persist in adopting such measures.” (Laughter.)

The repeated references by the leading opposition members of the Convention to Mr. Kelly’s notice of his determination to retire, if the Seward wing of the party persisted in its factious course, and the concessions which followed, showed that the blow had been sent home. The one strong man had been found to arrest the progress of disunion, and to aid materially in staving off in 1856, the calamity which finally overtook the country in 1860.

Had New York entered the Democratic National Convention of 1856, distracted by intestine feuds, as was the case in 1848, the election of the Republican candidate for President, John C. Fremont, probably would have followed, together with the dreadful appealto arms which shook the continent four years later. The State ticket placed in the field by the Soft Shell Convention of 1855, was not successful at the polls. The State was carried by the Know-Nothings by decisive majorities. Samuel J. Tilden was the candidate on the Soft Shell ticket of that year for Attorney General. A short time before the election Mr. Tilden received the following letter from Josiah Sutherland, nominee for the same office on the State ticket of the other wing of the party:

Back to Index Next