Franklin: "Chapter XXXVI. The Preliminary Battle of 1860.," by Alexander K. McClure, 1905
Summary: In this work, Alexander McClure details the history Andrew Curtin's nomination for governor in 1860 by following the heated relationship between Andrew Curtin and Simon Cameron.
THE year 1860 came upon us pregnant with the most momentous events of the century. It dated the second great political revolution, and the third distinct epoch, in the history of the Republic. The Federal party came into power with Washington, and ruled during the twelve years of the two terms of Washington and one of the elder Adams, when Jefferson won the first substantial revolution in the politics of the nation. Jefferson's battle was against the illiberal Federal views, which demanded a government of centralized power, while Jefferson battled for government of the people. The policy established by the Jefferson revolution ruled the country for sixty years. All of the Presidents during that time were not distinctly Democratic, as Adams, who was elected by the House in 1825, although nominated as a member of the then existing Republican party that later became the Democratic party, was drifting away from his old political affiliations and made an entirely independent administration. The two Whig Presidents -- Harrison, elected in 1840, and Taylor, in 1848 -- brought no material reversal of the general Democratic policy established by Jefferson in 1800, that gave us the acquisition of Louisiana and all our Pacific and Southern extension of territory; but 1860 brought a revolution that ended the Democratic party as a ruling power of the nation. Two Democratic Presidents have been elected since 1860, but, even with the strong personality of Cleveland in the Executive chair during two terms, no permanent change was made in the policy of the government.
A decided political revolution was generally expected in 1860, but none then dreamed that it would mean anything more than merely halting the extension of the slave power, and liberalizing the policy of the government in the support of free industries against the slave labor of the South. Had it been generally believed in 1860 that the election of Lincoln would bring the bloodiest civil war of modern times, and the sudden and complete overthrow of slavery at the point of the bayonet, it is doubtful whether the popular vote of the country would have invited such an appalling entertainment. The sectional feeling was greatly intensified by the earnest and constantly growing agitation that began with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854 and had continued to convulse the country by the desperate struggles over Kansas, with the battle for a free State then unsettled. The North believed that the South was more bombastic than earnest in the threat of provoking civil war for the protection of slavery, and the South believed that the Northern people were mere money-getters, ready to yield anything rather than accept fratricidal conflict.
Had the North and the South justly understood each other, as they should have done when remembering the common heroism exhibited by Northern and Southern soldiers on every battlefield, there would have been no civil war. It was common in those days to hear demagogues on the stump in the North declare that, in the event of secession, the women of the North would sweep away the bombastic South with their brooms, and like demagogues of the South told how, in the event of civil war, they would march to Boston and command their obedient slaves on Bunker Hill. How it was possible for the bravest and noblest people of the world thus to misunderstand each other merely because of irritating sectional divisions, must be incomprehensible to any intelligent student of the present day. The people of the North and the South were of the same blood; they had the same proud traditions; their heroism and their grandeur in field and forum had been established side by side in every triumph, and only the madness of the fiercest passion could have made either section assume that cowardice could be an attribute of the American people, North or South. The most fearful atonement was made for this strange misunderstanding of each other, and there is nothing in Grecian or Roman story that equals the heroism of the soldiers of the blue and the gray in four years of bloodiest conflict.
The second victory of the opposition to democracy in Pennsylvania was achieved in the fall of 1859, and it was notice to all that Pennsylvania was debatable ground for the great battle of 1860, with chances largely in favor of another defeat for the Democracy. So earnest were the people in forcing the unity of political action by the various elements which were not in hearty sympathy with each other, that the leaders who were ambitious for promotion by the success of the new organization were compelled to avoid disturbing the unity of the opposition forces by individual ambition, but as soon as the election of 1859 had reached a decided opposition victory, a host of candidates were suddenly sprung upon the new People's party for the office of Governor and United States Senator.
Curtin and Cameron had become implacably estranged in their desperate contest for the Senatorship in 1855, and from that time until the close of their political careers they never met or exchanged the ordinary courtesies of life except on ceremonial occasions. They became intensely embittered against each other in the three months' struggle for the Senatorship five years before, and reconciliation, or even the restoration of the ordinary civilities of life, was made impossible by a personal reproach put upon Curtin by Cameron when he had several of his political friends about him in a convivial mood, during the heat of the Senatorial struggle. The only time that I ever knew Curtin and Cameron to meet in conference was the morning after Sumter had surrendered, when Curtin with myself, as chairman of the military committee of the senate, was summoned hastily to Washington to confer with the President, the Secretary of War and General Scott as to the action necessary for Pennsylvania to take to meet the civil war that had been forced upon us.
In the raising and furnishing of troops in Pennsylvania many serious differences arose between Governor Curtin and Secretary Cameron, as both were probably inclined to judge the actions of each other harshly. When such disputes became serious, Lincoln invariably summoned me to Washington to confer with Cameron and himself on the subject, and in every instance the difficulties were adjusted and accepted by both Cameron and Curtin. My relations with Cameron were always personally pleasant, and while he was very earnestly opposed to me politically as a close and ardent friend of Curtin, he had confidence that I would always fulfill any obligations which I assumed. Cameron embarrassed Curtin very seriously on several occasions by giving special authority to favorites to raise regiments in Pennsylvania. Armed with the authority of the War Department, with all necessary expenses paid, the prospective colonel would locate in Philadelphia, or some section of the State, to raise a regiment, and as a rule they did not make much progress. Indeed, some of them were not in haste to fill their regiment and get into the field, as they were enjoying a good time and were well paid while on recruiting duty. A number of such embryo regiments were located in different parts of Pennsylvania when a requisition was made upon the State for additional troops, and Curtin, always prompt in response to the call of the government, at once declared his purpose to consolidate the various embryo regiments, appoint the officers and make them part of the quota.
In this Curtin was entirely warranted by the Constitution and the laws, as his right was absolute to appoint the officers of regiments. He communicated with the Secretary of War, officially announcing his right and his duty and asking the Secretary to issue his order to the recruiting colonels he had authorized, to consolidate their regiments under the direction of the Governor, but Cameron promptly and positively refused. Curtin and Attorney General Meredith went over the case very carefully, resulting in Meredith drawing an order to be signed by the Secretary of War, directing the consolidation of the regiments under the authority of the Governor, and I was requested to take the order to Cameron, then visiting his home at Lochiel, and explain why his signature was a necessity. Assuming that he would promptly refuse to sign the order, Mr. Meredith prepared for Curtin a letter to the President, stating the Governor's right under the Constitution and the laws of the State, and demanding that they should be respected by the National government, as it was the only way in which he could be relieved of painful embarrassment and grave obstacles in filling the quota of the State. My instructions were to present the order to Cameron at his home, and if he refused to sign it to take a train that night to Washington and present the letter and order to the President.
I reached Cameron's home in the evening some time after dark, and, as usual, was received with courtesy. I presented the order to him, and before he had time to read it, I explained the Governor's rights, which Cameron doubtless knew, and urged him to harmonize the effort to fill our quota by signing the order. He read it carefully and deliberated for some time, when he finally answered that he would refuse to sign the order. He insisted that he was trying to aid the Governor in furnishing troops from Pennsylvania, and that to sign the order would be to confess that he had exceeded his authority in a manner injurious to the service, by granting permission to various persons to organize regiments. He gave his answer very courteously and expressed his regret that there should be any difficulty between the State Executive and the War Department in such a crisis.
I took the order, placed it in my pocket, and, while putting on my overcoat, I remarked that I regretted his refusal to sign the paper, not only because it opened an unpleasant issue between him and the Governor, but because I was compelled to proceed to Washington that night to deliver the order and a letter in my possession to the President, explaining the situation and demanding the revocation of the Secretary's order as a matter of right to the Governor.
Cameron evidently knew that a letter from Curtin to Lincoln defining the Governor's rights and duties which were absolutely undisputed could have but one result. He asked me to sit down and talk the matter over. We had a very earnest, frank, but always kind and courteous discussion of the question for some time. I told Cameron that the President could do no less than direct him to issue the order, and it would make public a political scandal that would weaken the power of the State in furnishing troops, and I appealed to him not only for his own sake, but for the interests of the State, to end the dispute there by signing the order. He asked me to give it to him again, and when I did so he signed it promptly without any exhibition of unkindness toward Curtin or any others, and handed it back to me. This act of Cameron removed a multitude of troubles which had grown up in the State in organizing and furnishing troops. The dispute between the Governor and the Secretary of War had been wisely withheld from the public, and the order of the Secretary directing the consolidation of the various embryo regiments was made public by the Governor as though it were the voluntary act of the War Department, and thereafter no attempt was made to encroach upon the prerogatives of the State Executive.
Curtin was the logical candidate for Governor of the opposition that was united under the People's party flag. He was known as altogether the most effective popular campaigner in the State, and he had exhibited great administrative ability as secretary of the commonwealth under Pollock, especially in the advancement of our free school system. He was a man of the most genial and fascinating manners, and was the special favorite of the younger element of the party. Cameron was intensely hostile to him, and saw that unless he played a bold hand with reasonable success, Curtin would be nominated and elected as Governor and be strongly entrenched in the citadel of power of the new political organization. While, as a rule, the followers of Cameron and Curtin shared the prejudices of the chiefs, there were a number of men, and some of them quite prominent in political power, who supported Curtin for Governor as the most available of the candidates presented, but who were personally and politically friendly to Cameron as well. They were ready to serve Cameron in any movement for his own advancement, but unwilling to desert Curtin in doing so.
Cameron was one of the most sagacious political leaders of his day, and was heroic in effort when he had decided upon his plan of operation. He knew that he could not be nominated for President, as in the political conditions then existing he was simply an impossible candidate, but as he would be without a competitor for the Presidency in Pennsylvania, he decided to make an aggressive battle ostensibly for the Presidential nomination. He was formally announced as a candidate for the Presidency by his friends, and a very active campaign made to secure his endorsement by the State convention that was to nominate a candidate for Governor. It was a masterly movement on the part of Cameron, regardless of its utter hopelessness. It gave him a strong position in which to wield his power against the nomination of Curtin, and it would also give him special prominence for cabinet or other National honors if the Republicans elected the President. The Cameron campaign was pressed as Cameron always pressed his battles, persistently and methodically, and some time before the convention met it was generally conceded that Cameron would receive a decided majority in the convention for president, and that Curtin would be nominated for Governor. In point of fact, in a convention of 133 members, Cameron had about eighty who were ready to support him for President, and Curtin had about a like number who were ready to support him for Governor, and yet Cameron and Curtin both played to the limit in hostility to each other.
There were two prominent competitors of Curtin in the contest for Governor. They were John Covode, of Westmoreland, and David Taggart, of Northumberland. Cameron shrewdly planned to divide the party as much as possible by multiplying candidates for Governor, and Covode and Taggart were regarded as the two men, one of whom would ultimately be chosen, on whom to unite the opposition to Curtin. Thomas M. Howe, a highly respected Congressman from Allegheny, was brought into the field to divert the strength of Curtin, as was Levi Kline, of Lebanon, but the man upon whom Cameron intended ultimately to unite the opposition forces was Covode, and he was altogether the strongest of the opposing candidates.
Covode attained great distinction as a political leader. He was a man of rare sagacity, strong natural intellectual force, with little culture and rather inclined to take pride in his crude ways and expressions. He was elected to Congress in the Westmoreland Democratic district by the Know Nothing whirl of 1854, and early became a very aggressive leader in opposition to the slave power that was seeking to force slavery into Kansas and Nebraska; was elected to his fourth consecutive term in the popular branch of Congress, and he was chairman of the committee that went to Kansas and investigated the efforts that had been made to overthrow the rule of the bona fide residents. He was an expert in knowing how to develop all the bad political phases of the movement against free Kansas, and with a man of Repre-sentative Howard's ability and accomplishments to write a report, Covode's presentation of the wrongs of Kansas became the political text-book of the Republican party. He was a man of tireless energy, clean personal record, a master student of human nature and was one of the most skillful of all our prominent men in managing a campaign for himself. He retired from Congress in 1863, but did not abate his interest in politics. He was sent south by President Johnson in 1865 to aid in Johnson's reconstruction, but Covode soon rebelled against it and retired. He was renominated for Congress in 1868 and was elected, and in 1870 made his final political battle for Congress against Henry D. Foster, the ablest Democrat of the district, and was successful.
Covode was a man of liberal means, a most tireless worker, personally popular, and Cameron confidently counted upon his ability to give Covode sufficient support in the State convention to nominate him for Governor. Taggart had been elected to the State senate in 1854 in the Northumberland and Dauphin district, but bitterly opposed Cameron's election to the Senate in 1855. Cameron resented this opposition of his own immediate senator by severely retaliating upon Taggart and his family, taking from them the control of the Northumberland Bank that gave a livelihood to Taggart's father and increased his own revenues as attorney for the bank.
A few years later Taggart decided that Cameron was a dangerous enemy, and they reconciled their differences upon terms which Taggart confidently believed would bring Cameron to his support for Governor. He did not assume that Cameron was pledged to support him, but he did not doubt that he would be the Cameron candidate in the end. He lacked the strength and some important personal qualities possessed by Covode, and Cameron in the end logically concentrated his strength in the strongest candidate, and had Cameron not been caught bar Cumin's friends in the convention in a position much like that of Hooker's bull, who was fast on the fence and could neither hock in front nor kick behind, it is quite possible that Covode would have been nominated.
There were fully eighty men in the convention who were positively pledged or instructed for Curtin and sixty-seven were a majority, but by the time the convention met the friends of Curtin discovered that half a dozen or more of the men positively pledged to support him had been switched off to Covode, and among them Colonel Gehr, my fellow-delegate from Franklin, who was one of the very few known Cameron men in that section, and whose election I had aided to accomplish simply to demonstrate that Cameron's friends would not be ostracised. He was sincerely for Curtin and positively pledged to him, but I learned the night before the convention met that he was pledged to support Covode, as were McConkey, of York, and Haines, of Perry, two additional Cameron delegates, who were pledged to Curtin and elected for the same reason that had given me a Cameron associate from Franklin. Nearly the whole of the night before the meeting of the convention was devoted by Curtin's friends to getting his stragglers into line, but when the convention met the next day we were in grave doubt as to our ability to hold a majority for Curtin.
Fortunately Cameron pressed his nomination for the Presidency as the first duty of the body. It was an unusually able assembly with Governor Pollock in the chair, and such able anti-Cameron representatives as Tom Marshall, of Allegheny, and District Attorney Mann, of Philadelphia, while Schofield, of Warren, a man of unusual ability, championed the Cameron cause and stood with heroic fidelity in support of Curtin. A resolution was offered nominating General Cameron for the Presidency, and instructing the delegates-at-large to support him in the national convention. No other name was presented, and the delegates were compelled to vote directly for or against conferring the honor upon Cameron. Protracted and somewhat acrimonious debate was had upon the resolution, in which Tom Marshall, one of the ablest and most fearless of the Western Republicans, denounced Cameron unsparingly as a Presidential candidate, and declared that he could go out any dark night and grab fifty men who were better fitted for the position than Cameron.
Schofield ably supported Cameron, and sought to pour oil on the troubled waters, while Senator Mumma, who represented Cameron's home county, took the laboring oar of managing the Cameron side and defended his cause with great earnestness. When the vote was finally taken, forty-four of us voted squarely against the adoption of the resolution, and about eighty voted for Cameron, with a few who did not respond.
Cameron shrewdly sought to temper the opposition somewhat by proposing David Wilmot and Thaddeus Stevens, neither of whom was for Cameron, as two of the four delegates-at-large. He relied upon them obeying their instructions, which they did, but neither attempted to advance Cameron's nomination at Chicago. The question then arose as to how the district delegates should be chosen. As Cameron was weak with the Republican people in the State, I made a blind stroke to call him to a halt on the Curtin issue by offering a resolution providing that the district delegates should be chosen by the people of their respective districts and not by the convention, and to my surprise, after I had spoken briefly in support of the motion, Mumma followed with a motion to adjourn until the next morning. Although coming from a Cameron leader, I was very glad to accept it, and the convention adjourned, neither side knowing precisely where it stood, and the Curtin men did not know how weak the Cameron men were on the question of selecting a Cameron delegation by the convention.
Very early in the evening Alexander Cummings, then editor of the Philadelphia "Evening Bulletin," and ex-Senator Haldeman, of York, both very earnest Cameron men, sent for me to meet them in a private room in the same hotel where I was staying. I joined them at once, and they informed me that they had come to effect a compromise on the question of electing the district delegates to the National convention. I asked them why they did not defeat my resolution that was still pending before the convention, and they frankly informed me that they had not done so because they had not votes enough. They said:--
"You want Curtin for Governor, we want Cameron for President, and we are here, with the knowledge and by the advice of Cameron himself, to adjust the difficulty on the basis of giving Curtin the nomination for Governor."
I told them that as they had come from Cameron I certainly must confer with Curtin before I could propose to accept any definite proposition, and we adjourned for an hour. I immediately hastened to Cumin's room, locked the door, told him of the situation and asked him to go over the list of delegates and ascertain how many men we had who could be relied upon under all circumstances to support him. We found the names of sixty-five on the list who could be relied upon to stand by Curtin, and I proposed that the negotiations with Cameron's representatives should require them to return to us ten delegates who had been elected for Curtin, but who had been taken from us by Cameron. I suggested to Curtin, as a compromise proposition, that I should agree to modify my resolution to authorize the delegates in the convention from any congressional district to decide for themselves whether they would name delegates to be chosen by the convention, or whether they would refer the choice of district delegates back to the people, to which Curtin agreed.
I met Cummings and Hallman soon thereafter and gave them my ultimatum, viz., first, that they should return to Curtin ten delegates originally chosen for him, each of whom I named, who must come to Curtin personally and pledge their support to him, and that if that were done at once I would move to modify my resolution as Curtin had agreed to it. I named among the delegates to be returned to Curtin my own associate and others, who, like him, had been honestly committed to Curtin, but were taken from him by the power of Cameron. They were quite willing to give us the ten delegates or even more, as they meant the adjustment to involve the nomination of Curtin, but begged to be excused from compelling the men they had taken from us to return to their allegiance to Curtin. I peremptorily refused, and they finally assented, and every one of the delegates named came in person and pledged himself to Curtin before midnight.
They accepted the other proposition very willingly as to the district delegates, but insisted that I should give the example of electing the delegates from my own district. It would have been difficult then to find two men in my district fitted for the position of National delegate who were friendly to Cameron, but I finally agreed to elect delegates and to send two men of high position, neither of whom was friendly to Cameron, but whom I pledged to vote with the delegation.
It is quite possible that Curtin might have been defeated, but for this halt in the Cameron programme that enabled Curtin's friends to make reprisals. When the convention met the next morning Judge Hale, of Bellefonte, Curtin's immediate representative, offered a compromise resolution as an amendment to mine, as had been arranged, and it was promptly accepted by Mr. Mumma and myself and unanimously adopted. Curtin's nomination followed on the second ballot when he received seventy-four votes to twenty-seven for Covode, sixteen for Taggart, ten for Howe and a dozen scattering. Such is the story of the inner history of Cumin's nomination for Governor.
Bibliographic Information: Source copy consulted: Alexander K. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, 1905, pages 384-398.
