Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/506

476 legislature passed a prohibitory law, which Gov. Seymour vetoed, declaring its provisions to he un- constitutional, and denying its good policy. In isr,4 he was renominated for the governorship, and received 156,495 votes, to 156,804 cast for Myron H. Clark, the Whig and temperance candi- date. 132,282 for Daniel Ullman. the ' Know-Noth- ing " candidate, and 33,500 for Greene C. Bron- son, the candidate of the " Hard-shell " Democrats. The vetoed law was again passed by the legislature, approved by Gov. Clark, and after- ward declared un- i -i institutional by the court of ap- peals. In 1856 Mr. Seymour was a delegate to the Democratic na- tional convention at Cincinnati, and he supported the Democratic can- didates, Buchan- an and Breckin- ridge, actively in the presidential canvass of that year. In a speech delivered at Springfield. Mass., 4 July, 1856, he set forth the political principles that he had previous- ly followed and afterward adhered to. It gives the key to his whole political career. He argued against centralization and for local authority: "That government is most wise which is in the hands of those best informed about the particular questions on which they legislate, most economical and hone-it when controlled by those most interest- ed in preserving frugality and virtue, most strong when it only exercises authority which is beneficial to the governed." He argued against the attempt to reform by legislative restraint, instancing a prison as a type of society perfectly regulated and yet vicious. He argued for a liberal policy in re- gard to immigration, saying that it was bringing acquisitions of power, peacefully and easily, such as no conqueror had ever won in war : but he did not deny the right of the people of this country to regulate immigration or even to forbid it altogether, which he asserted many years afterward in regard to the importation of Chinese. He. argued that the growth of the north was so much more rapid than that of the south that political supremacy had passed into the hands of the free states. He argued for the right of the people of the territories to settle the slavery question for themselves, as- suming that under such a policy there would be a rapid increase of free states.

In 1857 Mr. Seymour received from President Buchanan the offer of a first-class foreign mis- sion, but declined it ; and he took no prominent part in politics again until the secession movement began. He was a member of the committee on resolutions at the convention held in Tweddle hall, Albany, 31 Jan., 1861, after the secession of six states, to consider the feasibility of compromise measures; and he delivered a "speech designed mainly to show the peculiar dangers of civil war. When the war began in 1861, Mr. Seymour was in Madison, Wis., and the Democratic members of the legislature, then in session, called him into con- sultation as to the proper course of political action. He counselled the simple duty of loyalty, to obey the laws, and maintain the national authority, and he was active in raising one of the first com- panies of Wisconsin volunteers. When he returned home in the autumn he spoke at a Democratic ratification meeting held in Utica, 28 Oct., 1861, saying: "In common with the majority of the American people, I deplored the election of Mr. Lincoln as a great calamity; yet he was chosen in a constitutional manner, and we wish, as a defeated organization, to show our loyalty by giving him a just and generous support." He was an active member of the committee appointed by Gov. Ed- win D. Morgan to raise troops in Oneida county, and he contributed liberally to the fund for the volunteers. In the following winter he delivered at Albany an address on the state and national defences ; at a meeting of representative Demo- crats, held in the state capital in the disastrous summer of 1862, he introduced a resolution that " we were bound in honor and patriotism to send immediate relief to our brethren in the field " ; and, at the request of the adjutant-general of the state, he became chairman of the committee to take charge of recruiting in his own neighborhood. On 10 Sept.. 1862, the Democratic state convention nominated him for governor. In his address to that body, accepting the nomination, he intimated that compromise measures might have prevented the war, justified the maintenance of party organi- zation, criticised the spirit of congress as con- trasted with that of the army as he had found bnth during a visit to the national capital and the camps, and argued that the Republican party could not, in the nature of things, save the nation. After a canvass in which he asserted on all occasions the right of criticising the administration and the duty of sustaining the government, he was elected, defeating Gen. James S. Wadsworth by a majority of 10,752 votes. Perhaps the fairest statement of his position in regard to the war at that period is to be found in the following passage from his in- augural message of 7 Jan., 1863 : " The assertion that this war was the unavoidable result of slavery is not only erroneous, but it has led to a disastrous policy in its prosecution. The opinion that slavery must be abolished to restore our Union creates an antagonism between the free and the slave states which ought not to exist. If it is true that slavery must be abolished by the force of the Federal gov- ernment, that the south must be held in military subjection, that four millions of negroes must for many years be under the direct management of the authorities at Washington at the public expense, then, indeed, we must endure the waste of our armies in the field, further drains upon our popu- lation, and still greater burdens of debt. We must convert our government into a military despotism. The mischievous opinion that in this contest the north must subjugate and destroy the south to save our Union has weakened the hopes of our citizens at home and destroyed confidence in our success abroad." This argument against the prob- ability of success along the path that finally led to it was of course supplemented by an unequh< al declaration in favor of the restoration of the Union and the supremacy of the constitution. On 23 March, 1863, President Lincoln wrote to Gov. Seymour a letter seeming to suggest a personal pledge of co-operation, and the governor sent his brother to Washington to convey assurances of loyal support, but along with them a protest against the policy of arbitrary arrests. On 13 April, 1863, Gov. Seymour sent to the legislature a message suggest mi; a constitutional amendment as a necessary preliminary to a law allowing sol-