which in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin broke out into positive violence, over the draft necessary under the August call for 300,000 militia.

The result in Ohio was affected by the arrest of Dr. Edson B. Olds for a speech in which it was alleged that he had used treasonable language and discouraged enlistments. To drag a man of seventy from his house at night without legal warrant, and take him summarily to Fort Lafayette, was a procedure likely to set to thinking voters who were bred to liberty, especially as in this case the victim was an intelligent man of high character, who had served his constituents three terms in the legislature and six years in Congress. A vacancy occurring while Olds suffered in prison, his neighbors and fellow citizens promptly chose him to represent them again in the legislature. The normal Democratic majority in New Jersey was made larger through the feeling aroused by the arrest, the year previous, and incarceration in Fort Lafayette of James W. Wall, a lawyer and writer of culture, who was prosecuted probably on account of his severe criticism of the administration which appeared in the editorial columns of the New York Daily News. The newly elected legislature sent him to the United States Senate to fill an unexpired term. The arrests made in 1862, under the authority of Stanton, amounted to a considerable number, and were futile for good; attended as they frequently were by the insolence of subordinate officers, they were pregnant with mischief in that they increased the majorities against the administration. Fręquently they were suggested by local animosity or mistaken zeal, and the Secretary of War in putting these motives in the shape of formal orders displayed short-sighted judgment as well as the capriciousness of power. It must be reckoned as one of the results of the elections that he issued, November 22, an order which, after no more than a formal delay, effectuated the discharge from military custody of practically all of the political prisoners.

Allusion must be made to an explanation, then current to some extent among Republicans, which ascribed their defeat

to the fact that the Republicans were fighting the Confederates in the field while the Democrats stayed at home to vote.1 It was not alleged as necessarily true that the Republican volunteers exceeded greatly the Democratic, but that the natural tendency of the soldiers was to vote as they fought and to sustain the administration in its conduct of the war. A comparison, however, of the returns of 1862 with those of 1860 and 1863 will make it plain that this had little to do with the result.2

Senator Grimes thought that the anti-slavery declaration of the President enabled the Republicans to win in Iowa. "We took the bull by the horns and made the proclamation an issue," he wrote to Chase. "I traversed the State for four weeks, speaking every day, and the more radical I was the more acceptable I was. The fact is, we carried the State by bringing up the radical element to the polls. The politicians are a vast distance behind the people in sentiment." Sumner, in making the canvass of Massachusetts, planted himself squarely on the President's edict of freedom, which he maintained to be a military necessity. A legislature was chosen which sent him back to the Senate by a vote of nearly five to one, and Andrew, the most outspoken of all the war governors in his anti-slavery views, was re-elected.1

1 In 1862 only a few of the States authorized their soldiers to vote in camp.

2 An example of the high character of candidates for political office is seen in Ohio, where the Union men nominated Backus, one of the counsel for the Oberlin-Wellington rescuers (see vol. ii. p. 363), for supreme judge (no governor being chosen this year, the candidate for this office stood at the head of the ticket), while the Democrats drew forth from a grateful retirement Rufus P. Ranney (ibid., p. 380), and nominated and elected him against his will. Either of these men would have adorned the highest judicial bench of the country; either would make a heavy pecuniary sacrifice in becoming a member of the Supreme Court of his own State. 3 Life of Grimes, Salter, p. 218.

4 In his reply, May 19, to the Secretary of War on a demand for troops, Andrew had intimated that it would be difficult to furnish them on account of the manner in which the war was prosecuted, but let the President sustain General Hunter in his order freeing the slaves, and let the blacks be employed as soldiers, and "the roads will swarm, if need be, with multitudes

This result was remarkable in that the opposition contained elements of a high character, the moving force coming from the Bell-Everett supporters of 1860, and from conservative Republicans who took the name of the People's party, called for a vigorous prosecution of the war, and nominated for governor Charles Devens, a gallant general in active service.

The Democratic conventions of the great States which voted against the administration had been held before the issue of the proclamation, but the policy of emancipation was in the air and they denounced it in advance. A favorite catchword of the time," the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was," incorporated into many platforms of the Democrats, expressed exactly the principle for which they demanded the support of the country. By the Constitution as it is, they meant that there ought to be no more violation of it in time of war than in time of peace, and that it ought not to be stretched to cover an arbitrary use of power. By the Union as it was they signified that after the suppression of the rebellion the States should be as they had been before, slavery should remain unimpaired, and the country should adhere to the policy solemnly declared by Congress in its resolution of July, 1861.1

In most of the States the Republicans took the name of Union men. In New York and Illinois their conventions. were held late enough to allow their cordial approval to be given to the proclamation. In New York this approval was emphasized by the nomination for governor of General Wadsworth, a radical on the slavery question and one of the military advisers of the President. The Democrats had named for governor Horatio Seymour, a gentleman of public experi

whom New England would pour out to obey your call.". Schouler, Mass. in the Civil War, p. 333. "Who was it that demanded, before troops should be sent to defend the flag of the government, that that government should form a policy that pleased him ?" asked Horatio Seymour, Oct. 22. “Who was it but the extreme radical Governor of the State of Massachusetts ?" The intimation of Andrew was severely condemned by a resolution of the Democratic convention of Ohio.

1 See vol. iii. p. 464.

ence, culture, sterling character, and moral purpose. He repelled indignantly an electioneering statement of the other side, that every vote for Wadsworth was one of loyalty, every vote for Seymour one of treason. "God knows I love my country," he said; "I would count my life as nothing, if I could but save the nation's life." In the speeches which gave the key-note to his campaign, he made but one allusion, a brief one, to the proclamation of emancipation, and did not impart to his words a tone of bitterness. Recognizing "that at this moment the destinies, the honor, and the glory of our country hang poised upon the conflict in the battle-field . . . we tender to this government no conditional support" to put down "this wicked and mighty rebellion." Speaking always in a respectful manner of the President, he condemned the course of the radical Republicans, the infractions of the Constitution, the mismanagement of affairs, but he was most severe when he denounced corruption in the departments, dishonesty in the award of government contracts. Read the Congressional investigations, he said, and "learn for yourselves if fraud does not reek at the National Capital." We have a right to require that the National affairs "be conducted not only by efficiency, but with honesty, economy, and integrity." Our aim is to preserve the Constitution as it is, to restore the Union as it was.1

Seymour, who was the ablest Democrat to enter the political arena during the civil war, represented the best quality of the opposition, even as Lincoln stood for the highest purpose and most expedient methods in the prosecution of the war. Granted the necessity in a constitutional government of an opposition party even when the life of the nation is at stake, the leadership of it could not in this case have fallen into better hands. At the same time with his fearlessness in criticism Seymour's speeches were marked by patriotism, good temper, reverence for the constitution and the laws, and

1 Speeches at Cooper Institute, New York, Oct. 13, Brooklyn Acad. of Music, Oct. 22, Public Record of H. Seymour (N. Y. 1868).

respect for the constituted authorities. What was still more noteworthy was the moderation he displayed in his victory.1 Sturdy and thoughtful Democrats had been irritated indeed by a proclamation of the President two days after the edict of emancipation (September 24), which gave the authority of an executive decree to Stanton's arbitrary orders, created the new offences of "discouraging enlistments" and "any disloyal practice," ordered that such offenders and those who afforded "aid and comfort to the rebels" should be "subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by courts martial or military commissions," and for persons arrested on these charges suspended the writ of habeas corpus. This proclamation applied to the whole country, and supplemented with the machinery instituted by the Secretary of War for its enforcement, was the assumption of authority exercised by an absolute monarch. On the part of the President of the United States it was a usurpation of power, for which the military necessity was not as cogent as for the edict of emancipation: indeed it is not surprising that it gave currency to an opinion that he intended "to suppress free discussion of political subjects." 995 As it was not promulgated until after the Democrats had held their conventions, it is difficult to trace the effect it had on the elections, but it was probably not so potent a factor in the success of the opposition as the edict of freedom."

1 See his speech of Nov. 6. He was elected governor by a majority of 10,752.

2 In this remark I have followed Benjamin R. Curtis in his pamphlet on Executive Power.

3 This was undoubtedly to set at rest questions which had been raised in different courts whether the Secretary of War had by delegated authority the right to suspend the writ. This proclamation is printed in Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 239.

4 Joel Parker, Professor in the Harvard Law School, asked the people of Massachusetts, "Do you not perceive that the President is not only a monarch, but that his is an absolute, irresponsible, uncontrollable government; a perfect military despotism?" Boston Courier, Nov. 1.

5 Curtis's pamphlet.

6 My authorities for this account other than those already mentioned are