Franklin: "Chapter XLVI. Political Conditions in 1861.," by Alexander K. McClure, 1905
Summary: McClure describes the strong anti-war sentiment in Pennsylvania in 1861 and the political difficulties faced by the People's and Republican parties. He discusses their strategy of alignment with War Democrats and describes how he and other Republicans stonewalled an investigation that might have helped the Democrats and thereby hindered the Lincoln administration in the war effort.
THE adjournment of the Legislature of 1861 left the State in a most confused and unpromising political condition. Pennsylvania at that time was not a Republican State. If Curtin had been nominated as a distinct Republican candidate for Governor in 1860 his defeat would have been inevitable, and it was only by holding the old Whigs, the Know Nothings, the radical Republicans and the anti-slavery Democrats in some sort of united battle line under the flag of the People's party that the defeat of the Democrats was assured in 1860 and in the two previous years.
In the positive Republican States the war was popular, but in Pennsylvania, with the Democrats next to solid against coercing the South by war, most of the Know Nothings cherishing the same convictions, and a very large proportion of the Republicans unwilling to accept fratricidal war unless it should be absolutely unavoidable, our State did not present the earnestness in support of the war policy of the government that was exhibited in Ohio, New York and the New England States. The disastrous defeat at Bull Run in June and the failure of the army to gain any important achievements until after the election in the fall of 1861, gave us next to a hopeless political condition in Pennsylvania.
Fortunately there were no State officers to be elected and no State convention to be held to embarrass us by the declarations of our platform. The same political conditions existed in Indiana and Illinois, but fortunately neither of them had State officers to be elected, although Illinois elected members to a constitutional convention in which the Democrats had a large majority. In New York the opposition to the Democracy united, as they had done in Pennsylvania, on three of the four State officers to be chosen, and elected them by over 100,000 majority, but on the office of canal commissioner the Republicans refused to accept the Union candidate, who was practically the Know Nothing representative, and the Democrats filled that office by a majority of nearly 20,000. Ohio elected Tod, Union Republican, Governor, by 55,000, and Maryland elected Bradford, Union, Governor, with a decided Union majority in both branches of the Legislature.
In Pennsylvania the contest was only for members of the Legislature and county offices, and with the discordant elements which made up the People's party and the rebellious feeling against the record of the last Legislature, especially in the repeal of the tonnage tax, the political conditions in the State seemed utterly hopeless for the Republicans.
Having been chairman of the People's State committee in the State and National contests of 1860, my position continued until a new State convention met with power to fill the place. With a discordant party that could not be made cohesive, and the grievous disappointments because of the army's defeat, with Pennsylvania's exposed condition as a border State, there was very general unrest and distrust throughout the Commonwealth. I was left practically in charge of the party organization, with no State convention to relieve me of my responsible duties, or to declare the policy of the party.
The only important officers to be chosen at the election of that year were members of the Legislature. It was most important that the Legislature should be held in harmony with the administration, but very early in the year it became evident that only by extraordinary efforts and combinations could the control of the house be maintained. The landslides of 1859 and '60 had made the senate largely Republican, but it was of vital moment to hold control of the house, and after giving the State a most careful investigation by direct inquiry with reliable men in every county, I was fully satisfied that unless we could make a combination with the new element of War Democrats, the Democrats would elect a majority of the popular branch of the legislature.
There were a half-dozen or more legislative districts which could be carried only with the aid of the Democrats who preferred loyalty to the government to loyalty to the party, and after the State had been fully covered by inquiries to and answers from the most reliable men, I proposed to Governor Curtin that we should assure control of the house by nominating a number of prominent War Democrats in Republican or doubtful districts. The matter was fully discussed and the plan approved. I hastened to inaugurate it by calling an unusually early convention in my own county of Franklin, and placed at the head of the Republican ticket ex-Surveyor General John Rowe, who had just retired from the office of surveyor general to which he had been elected by the Democrats, but he had never, in any way, severed his relations with his party. There were then a number of very positive supporters of the war among the Democrats, and Major Rowe was one of them.
When the People's Union convention of Franklin County led off with a Democrat of State reputation as the Republican nominee for the Legislature, without asking any pledges from him other than to give loyal support to the government, like movements were made in a number of the legislative districts. John Scott, afterwards Republican United States Senator, but then a Democratic leader in Huntingdon, and a positive supporter of the war, was nominated by the Republicans in Huntingdon, and Cyrus L. Pershing, another leading Democrat in Cambria, who had been a Democratic member of the house, and who, later, served with eminent distinction for many years as president judge of Schuylkill County, was made the Republican candidate in Cambria, and Mr. Pfoutz, another Democrat, was made a Republican candidate in Adams.
This liberal action on the part of the Republicans brought to the support of legislative candidates a large Democratic war element, and every one of the Democrats thus nominated by the Republicans was elected. As between the old parties the majority of the members elected to the house were Democrats, but enough War Democrats were chosen to enable them to hold the balance of power, and the house was fortunately organized by a combination with the Republicans and War Democrats, with Major Rowe, from my own county, elected speaker.
William H. Armstrong, of Lycoming, then the leading attorney in the West Branch region, was a member of the house and was the logical candidate of the Republican or People's party for the speakership, and his high character and ability made him the party leader without dispute; but, appreciating, as he did, the necessity of bringing the War Democrats into hearty accord with the administration, State and National, he voluntarily declined to be a candidate for speaker and supported the combination that gave the War Democrats the speakership.
Major Rowe was not new in legislative duties, as he had been twice elected by the Democrats to the house from Franklin County in 1852-53. He was a man thoroughly fitted for the position, and his unblemished integrity and always courteous discharge of the duties of the chair made him one of the most popular of the many presiding officers of the body.
But for this combination made between the Republicans and the War Democrats, by which prominent War Democrats were placed on the Republican ticket, the popular branch of the Legislature would certainly have been Democratic and serious embarrassment would have been suffered in the effort to give cordial legislative support to the National government and the war.
The revolt against the bill repealing the tonnage tax of the Pennsylvania Railroad contributed very largely to aid the Democrats in the contest of 1861, and the new Legislature was overwhelmingly in favor of repealing the act of the previous Legislature releasing the Pennsylvania corporation from tonnage taxes. Certainly three-fourths of the members of the house were in favor of such repeal; in the senate on the direct question of the repeal the vote stood twenty-two for repeal to eleven against it, and this ebullition of popular hostility, inspired chiefly by deep-seated prejudice against all corporate interests, was directed against a policy that was absolutely indispensable to our State unless we desired to drive the entire commerce from the teeming wealth of the West away from Philadelphia, our great commercial emporium. There never was a measure before the Legislature of the State that was more clearly right in every feature of its merits, and it was an imperious necessity, unless we decided to exclude the great commerce of the West entirely from the use of our railways and of our leading city as an important center of Western trade; but with all these facts facing intelligent legislators the house was wildly enthusiastic on the question of the repeal, and it would have been utterly idle to attempt to prevent it.
I have already stated in a former chapter how the repeal passed the house by a four-fifths vote and was defeated in the Senate by legislative strategy; but intense as was the interest felt in both branches on the question of repealing the tonnage taxes, still greater interest was exhibited on every hand by the movement to investigate the alleged corrupt methods employed to pass the bill in the Legislature at the previous session.
It was known before the Legislature met that the demand for investigation would come from William Hopkins, of Washington, an old, experienced legislator, and a man of much more than ordinary ability and unfaltering integrity. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor, and, while he was not of the class of demagogues who would have inaugurated an investigation without believing that it was imperatively demanded, it was certainly ex-pected by himself and his friends that the exhaustive investigation and fearless report he must make would not fail to aid him greatly in his contest.
Abreast with him in the movement was Thomas Williams, one of the most brilliant members of the Allegheny bar, who had previously served in the senate, and who was one of the foremost leaders in the Allegheny repudiation movement against the Pennsylvania Railroad; and when Hopkins made motion for the appointment of a committee it was promptly seconded by Williams, which assured their appointment on the committee, in obedience to parliamentary rules.
It was well known that Hopkins and Williams were strongly prejudiced against the Pennsylvania corporation, and the selection of the five other members of the committee became a matter of more than usual importance. I had very close personal and political relations with Speaker Rowe, who was from my own county, and he well understood that the earnest efforts I had made for the passage of the bill repealing the tonnage tax in the previous Legislature made me extremely anxious to sustain the measure, and prevent its sincere supporters from suffering by an investigation that might aim at a desperate political lay to inflame popular prejudice rather than to meet the issue in a spirit of manliness and justice. He informed me that he would appoint any five members of the house I named to make up the full committee, provided, however, that no one suggested for the position had supported the measure in the last Legislature, or was in any degree lacking in ability or reputation. What he desired was a thoroughly able committee, the names of whose members would inspire general confidence in the integrity of the inquiry.
Colonel Scott, who was more directly interested in the proposed investigation than any other person in the State, had given very careful attention to the question, and he named a dozen members of the house, not one of whom had made a record in support of the repeal of the tonnage tax, and all of whom were men of unblemished reputation and above the average of the intelligence of the house, while most of them were lawyers of high legal attainments and standing in their profession. Five of the twelve men thus named were appointed by the speaker, and it was conceded on all sides that no abler or more reputable committee of investigation was ever appointed by the Legislature.
It goes without saying that while Chairman Hopkins and Williams, of Allegheny, were determined to make the investigation a battle to the death against the Pennsylvania Railroad, the five additional members of the committee not only shared none of the prejudices and destructive purposes of Hopkins and Williams, but were in hearty and honest sympathy with the progressive movement inaugurated by the law whose passage was to be inquired into.
It was not difficult for the committee to prove that more than questionable methods had been employed in the passage of the bill, simply because the bill could be passed in no other way. It was not a battle against intelligent conviction that had to be corrupted to accomplish legislative results; it was a battle in which intelligent conviction was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of popular prejudice cherished in utter ignorance of, or indifference to, the highest commercial and industrial advancement of the State. A powerful lobby was employed, and each member of it in turn was called before the committee. Most of them were probably severely economical in the measure of truth they gave to the committee, but it was impossible for them to do less than to establish the fact that disreputable means had to be employed to give success to the measure.
Colonel Scott was then in the employ of the government as Assistant Secretary of War, and was generally on the wing looking after the transportation of troops and supplies, and opening or repairing railway lines. Williams, who was violently aggressive in his hostility to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and believed that he had reached the point when he could practically accomplish its destruction, insisted that Colonel Scott should be subpoenaed to testify before the committee. It was unanimously agreed to by the committee, and the subpoena was delivered to the sergeant-at-arms of the house. He at once proceeded to Washington, where he found that Colonel Scott was absent attending to his official duties in some part of the army in Virginia.
The officer, learning of Scott's location, hastened to meet him, and after a very full chat about the condition of things at Harrisburg, and receiving suggestions which were to be delivered to some of Scott's friends at home, the sergeant-at-arms returned and reported that he had made diligent search for the person named in the subpoena, but had not been able to find him. Ten days or two weeks later the same officer was dispatched by the committee to find Colonel Scott and serve the subpoena upon him. The officer was a very close friend of Colonel Scott's, and his second attempt to obtain service of the process of the committee resulted precisely as did the first, and a few weeks later a third attempt was made by the sergeant-at-arms, under orders from the committee, to serve the subpoena upon Colonel Scott, resulting just as did the previous efforts.
Williams became suspicious of the fidelity of the officer of the house, and decided that he would make a bold movement to capture Colonel Scott himself. He was well acquainted with Secretary Stanton, who had then succeeded Cameron as Secretary of War, as they were old acquaintances at the Pittsburg bar in their earlier days, and he telegraphed to Secretary Stanton inquiring when he could meet Colonel Scott personally at the War Office in Washington. This dispatch was sent on Thursday, and Stanton promptly replied that Williams could meet Colonel Scott at his office in the War Department at ten o'clock on the following Saturday.
Williams was wildly enthusiastic in his prosecution of the case that amounted really to a persecution of all who were connected with the Pennsylvania corporation, and on receipt of Stanton's despatch, he announced in the house that the committee would no longer have to make fruitless search for Colonel Scott, as he was to meet him in person at the War Office on the following Saturday, and would have the sergeant-at-arms with him to serve the process.
There were very potential reasons why Colonel Scott should not appear before that committee, even beyond every consideration relating to more personal interests. The battle against the Pennsylvania Railroad and against the repeal of the tonnage tax had become the chief political stock in trade of the Democracy, and a triumph of the Democracy at that time in Pennsylvania meant a deliverance from the most important State of the Union against the war policy of the Lincoln administration. In considering what should be done in an emergency so grave, I can say with the utmost frankness that no one was consulted who was in personal fear of an honest and thorough investigation, but at a conference of a dozen or more men responsibly charged with the direction of political affairs on the Republican side, held in the evening after Williams had made his announcement in the house, it was decided that Scott should not be permitted to be brought to the bar of the house as Williams had openly threatened.
Wilmot was then a member of the United States Senate, having been chosen to fill the vacancy made by Senator Cameron entering the cabinet, and his election to the Senate, after an earnest contest, in which State Senator Ketchum was his chief competitor, was accomplished by an arrangement with a number of Wilmot's friends in the Legislature, who gave their support to the repeal of the tonnage tax in return for Scott's successful efforts for Wilmot's promotion. Congress was then in session and Wilmot in Washington, and I wrote a confidential letter to him fully stating the political necessities which confronted us, all of which he would well understand and requested him on receipt of the letter to go immediately to President Lincoln and present the naked truth.
Williams and the sergeant-at-arms took the noon train at Harrisburg for Washington on Friday, and I selected a trusted messenger to go on the same train with them and deliver my letter to Wilmot, who, in obedience to a telegram, would be waiting for him at Willard's Hotel on his arrival. The letter was delivered to Wilmot, and he immediately proceeded to the President, gave him my letter and presented the situation with absolute candor. Lincoln at once sent for Secretary Stanton, who promptly appeared, and the matter was presented to him.
It was one of Stanton's peculiarities that when an extreme but somewhat irregular necessity was presented to him, he would promptly accept the responsibility and find his own way of meeting it, but as a rule his methods were most effectual. He expressed no opinion as to what he would do in the matter if it were an open question for him to decide, but he at once answered that a sudden and unexpected order he had just issued in the early part of the evening to Colonel Scott, then at Fortress Monroe, in itself solved the whole problem. He said that the Southwestern army was suffering beyond measure for want of a master of transportation, and he found it necessary, from complaints made to him about the halting movements of Halleck's several commands, to order Colonel Scott to leave Fortress Monroe at once and proceed directly to the Southwest and report to General Halleck.
I much doubt whether Secretary Stanton had issued the order or thought of issuing the order transferring Colonel Scott, until after his conference with Lincoln and Wilmot, as no such thing had been spoken of in any government circles up to that time, but doubtless a master transportationist was needed in the Southwest, and he saw that such an order would not only serve the Southwestern army, but would serve other important purposes as well, and Scott certainly received the order in time to leave Fortress Monroe on Friday, passed through Washington Friday night without stopping, and, having been advised of his movement, I met him at three o'clock on Saturday morning in the railroad depot at Harrisburg, and had twenty minutes' conference with him while the train tarried. He then hurried on to the Southwest and remained with Halleck and Pope until some three or four months after the adjournment of the Legislature.
On Saturday morning Williams and the sergeant-at-arms leisurely breakfasted together and then proceeded to the War Office to meet Colonel Scott just about the time that Colonel Scott was breakfasting at Altoona. Stanton, of course, received his old friend with great cordiality, and after the usual salutations Williams inquired how soon he could meet Colonel Scott. Stanton in the blandest way said: "Is it personally important to you that you should meet Colonel Scott?" To which Williams replied that it was of the utmost importance.
Stanton expressed profound regret that he was compelled, after having made the appointment for Williams to meet Scott at the War Office, to order Colonel Scott to start immediately for the Southwest, where great victories were lost by our army for want of adequate transportation facilities. Next to Williams' hostility to the Pennsylvania Railroad, his most intense resentment was against the South, and, sadly as he was disappointed, he could not dispute the imperious character of the duty Stanton had performed.
The investigation committe had gradually become greatly conserved in its movements by the influence of the five men who were the fellow-members of the committee with Hopkins and Williams. Instead of continuing as a malignant crusade against the great corporation and greater commercial and industrial interests of the State, it pursued its inquiry without passion, vindicated its appointment by proving the employment of corrupt methods to pass the measure, and made a dignified and temperate report, summing up the testimony and condemning corrupt practices in legislation.
Williams made an effort to have the house permit the committee to sit during the recess. That would have authorized them to follow Scott anywhere, but the house responded by refusing the request, requiring the committee to make final report and be discharged before the adjournment. Thus ended one of the bitterest struggles I have ever witnessed in the Pennsylvania Legislature.
Bibliographic Information: Source copy consulted: Alexander K. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, 1905, pages 500-512.
