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 candidate for governor against Marcy, who was chosen by about 10,000 plurality. As the anti-Masonic wave subsided its leaders and most of its adherents found a place in the newly organized Whig party, which was powerful enough in New York to elect William H. Seward governor in 1838, and to re-elect him and to carry the state for W. H. Harrison against Van Buren in 1840. It was during the first administration of Governor Seward that the anti-rent agitation in the Hudson river counties began. The greater part of the land in this section was comprised in vast estates such as Rensselaerwyck, Livingston, Scarsdale, Phillipse, Pelham and Van Cortlandt manors, and on these the leasehold system with perpetual leases, leases for 99 years or leases for one to three lives had become general. Besides rent, many of the tenants were required to render certain services to the proprietor, and in case a tenant sold his interest in a farm to another he was required to pay the proprietor one-tenth to one-third of the amount received as an alienation fine. Stephen van Rensselaer, the proprietor of Rensselaerwyck, had suffered the rents, especially those of his poorer tenants, to fall much in arrears, and when after his death (1839) the agents of his heirs attempted to collect them they encountered violent opposition. Governor Seward called out the militia to preserve order but asked the legislature to consider the tenants’ grievances. The legislature appointed an arbitration commission, but this was unsuccessful, and the trouble, spreading to other counties, culminated (1845) in the murder of the deputy-sheriff of Delaware county. Politically, the anti-rent associations which were formed often held the balance of power between the Whigs and the Democrats, and in this position they secured the election of Governor John Young (Whig) as well as of several members of the legislature favourable to their cause, and promoted the passage of the bill calling the constitutional convention of 1846. In the new constitution clauses were inserted abolishing feudal tenures and limiting future leases of agricultural land to a period of twelve years. The courts pronounced the alienation fines illegal. The legislature passed several measures for the destruction of the leasehold system, and under the pressure of public opinion the great landlords rapidly sold their farms. Up to the election of Seward as governor, New York had usually been Democratic, largely through the predominating influence of Van Buren and the “Albany Regency.” After the defeat of Governor Silas Wright in 1846, however, the Democratic party split into two hostile factions known as the “Hunkers,” or conservatives, and the “Barnburners,” or radicals. The factions had their origin in canal politics, the conservatives advocating the use of canal revenues to complete the canals, the radicals insisting that they should be used to pay the state debt. Later when the conservatives accepted the annexation of Texas and the radicals supported the Wilmot Proviso the split became irrevocable. The split broke up the rule of the “regency,” Marcy accepting the “Hunker” support and a seat in Polk’s cabinet, while Wright, Butler and Van Buren joined the “Barnburners,” a step preliminary to Van Buren’s acceptance of the “Free Soil” nomination for president in the campaign of 1848. Only once between 1846 and the Civil War did the Democratic party regain control of the state—in 1853–1855 Horatio Seymour was governor for a single term. In 1854 the newly organized Republican party, formed largely from the remnants of the Whig party and including most of the Free Soil Democrats, with the aid of the temperance issue elected Myron Holley Clark (1806–1892) governor. Two years later the Republicans carried the state for Frémont for president, and a succession of Republican governors held office until 1862 when the discouragement in the North with respect to the Civil War brought a reaction which elected Seymour governor.

With the exception of New York City the state was loyal to the Union cause during the war and furnished over a half million troops to the Federal armies. Certain commercial interests of New York City favoured the Confederate cause, but Mayor Wood’s suggestion that the city (with Long Island and Staten Island) secede and form a free-city received scant support, and after the sanguinary draft riots of July 1863 (see ) no further difficulty was experienced. After the Civil War the state began to reassume the pivotal position in national politics which has always made its elections second only in interest and importance to those of the nation, and the high political tension emphasized the evils of the “spoils system.” In 1868 (q.v.), then under the rule of William M. Tweed, forced the Democratic state convention to nominate its henchman, John T. Hoffman, for governor, and by the issue of false naturalization papers and fraudulent voting in New York City on a gigantic scale Hoffman was chosen governor and the electoral vote was cast for Seymour. Tammany and Hoffman were again victorious in 1870; but in 1871 the New York Times disclosed the magnitude of Tammany’s thefts, amounting in the erection of the New York county court house alone to almost $8,000,000, and Tweed and his “Ring” were crushed in consequence. The Republicans carried the state in 1872, but in 1874 Samuel J. Tilden, a Democrat and the leading prosecutor of Tweed, was elected governor. The Republican legislature had in 1867 appointed a committee to investigate the management of the canal system, but the abuses were allowed to continue until in 1875 Governor Tilden disclosed many frauds of the “Canal Ring,” and punished the guilty. In 1876, Tilden having been nominated for the presidency, New York cast its electoral vote for him. In 1880 it was cast for Garfield, the Republican nominee. Two years later the Republicans, having split over a struggle for patronage into the two factions known as “Halfbreeds,” or administration party, and “Stalwarts” of whom the leader was Roscoe Conkling, were defeated, Grover Cleveland being chosen governor. In 1884 Cleveland as the Democratic presidential nominee received the electoral vote of his state. Cleveland likewise carried the state in 1892, but in 1888 Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate, the factional quarrels being settled, carried the state. Hostility to free silver and “Bryanism” in the large financial and industrial centres put the state strongly in the Republican column in the elections of 1896, 1900, 1904 and 1908. It was carried by the Democrats in the gubernatorial campaign of 1910.