My Memories of Eighty Years | Page 9

their most important mass
meeting. The occasion drew together the largest audience the village
had known, composed not only of residents but many from a distance.
The committee of arrangements finally reported to the waiting audience
that the last train had arrived, but Mr. Curtis had not come.
It suddenly occurred to the committee that it would be a good thing to
call a young recruit from a well-known Democratic family and publicly
commit him. First came the invitation, then the shouting, and when I
arose they cried "platform," and I was escorted to the platform, but had
no idea of making a speech. My experience for years at college and at
home had saturated me with the questions at issue in all their aspects.

From a full heart, and a sore one, I poured out a confession of faith. I
thought I had spoken only a few minutes, but found afterwards that it
was over an hour. The local committee wrote to the State committee
about the meeting, and in a few days I received a letter from the
chairman of the State committee inviting me to fill a series of
engagements covering the whole State of New York.
The campaign of 1856 differed from all others in memory of men then
living. The issues between the parties appealed on the Republican side
to the young. There had grown up among the young voters an intense
hostility to slavery. The moral force of the arguments against the
institution captured them. They had no hostility to the South, nor to the
Southern sIaveholders; they regarded their position as an inheritance,
and were willing to help on the lines of Mr. Lincoln's original idea of
purchasing the slaves and freeing them. But the suggestion had no
friends among the slaveholders. These young men believed that any
extension or strengthening of the institution would be disastrous to the
country. The threatened dissolution of the Union, secession, or
rebellion did not frighten them.
Political conventions are the most interesting of popular gatherings.
The members have been delegated by their fellow citizens to represent
them, and they are above the average in intelligence, political
information of conditions in the State and nation, as the convention
represents the State or the republic. The belief that they are generally
boss-governed is a mistake. The party leader, sometimes designated as
boss, invariably consults with the strongest men there are in the
convention before he arrives at a decision. He is generally successful,
because he has so well prepared the way, and his own judgment is
always modified and frequently changed in these conferences.
In 1858 I had the first sensation of the responsibility of public office. I
was not an applicant for the place; in fact, knew nothing about it until I
was elected a delegate to the Republican State convention from the
third assembly district of Westchester County. The convention was
held at Syracuse. The Westchester delegates arrived late at night or,
rather, early in the morning, and we came to the hotel with large
numbers of other delegates from different sections who had arrived on
the same train. It was two o'clock, but the State leader, Thurlow Weed,
was in the lobby of the hotel to greet the delegates. He said to me: "You

are from Peekskill. With whom are you studying law?" I answered:
"With Judge William Nelson." "Oh," he remarked, "I remember Judge
Nelson well. He was very active in the campaign of 1828." It was a feat
of memory to thus recall the usefulness of a local politician thirty years
before. I noticed, as each delegate was introduced, that Mr. Weed had
some neighborhood recollections of the man which put a tag on him.
The next day, as we met the leader, he recalled us by name, the places
where we lived, and the districts represented. Mr. Blaine was the only
other man I ever met or knew who possessed this extraordinary gift for
party leadership.
There was a revolt in the convention among the young members, who
had a candidate of their own. Mr. Weed's candidate for governor was
Edwin D. Morgan, a successful New York merchant, who had made a
good record as a State senator. I remember one of Mr. Weed's
arguments was that the Democrats were in power everywhere and
could assess their office-holders, while the Republicans would have to
rely for campaign funds upon voluntary contributions, which would
come nowhere so freely as from Mr. Morgan and his friends. When the
convention met Mr. Weed had won over a large majority of the
delegates for his candidate. It was a triumph not only of his skill but of
his magnetism, which were always successfully exerted upon a
doubtful member.
I was elected to the assembly, the popular branch of