Horatio Seymour

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Horatio Seymour
Speaker of the New York State Assembly
In office
January 7, 1845 – December 31, 1845
Preceded byElisha Litchfield
Succeeded byWilliam C. Crain
Member of the New York State Assembly
from Oneida County
In office
January 1, 1844 – December 31, 1845[a]
Preceded byMulti-member district[b]
Succeeded byMulti-member district[c]
In office
January 1, 1842 – January 31, 1842[d]
Preceded byMulti-member district[e]
Succeeded byMulti-member district[f]
Mayor of Utica, New York
In office
1842–1843
Preceded byJohn C. Devereux
Succeeded byFrederick Hollister
Personal details
Born(1810-05-31)May 31, 1810
Henry Seymour (father)
Origen S. Seymour (cousin)
Horatio Seymour (uncle)
Edward W. Seymour (nephew)
Horatio Seymour Jr. (nephew)
Roscoe Conkling (brother-in-law)
EducationHobart College
Norwich University (BA)
Profession
  • Politician
  • attorney
  • businessman
Signature

Horatio Seymour (May 31, 1810 – February 12, 1886) was an American politician. He served as Governor of New York from 1853 to 1854 and from 1863 to 1864. He was the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 1868 United States presidential election, losing to Republican Ulysses S. Grant.

Born in Pompey, New York, Seymour was admitted to the New York bar in 1832. He primarily focused on managing his family's business interests. After serving as a military secretary to Governor William L. Marcy, Seymour won election to the New York State Assembly. He was elected that body's speaker in 1845 and aligned with Marcy's "Softshell Hunker" faction. Seymour was nominated for governor in 1850 but narrowly lost to the Whig candidate, Washington Hunt. He defeated Hunt in the 1852 gubernatorial election, and spent much of his tenure trying to reunify the fractured Democratic Party, losing his 1854 re-election campaign in part due to this disunity.

Despite this defeat, Seymour emerged as a prominent national figure within the party. As several Southern states threatened secession, Seymour supported the

Reconstruction
policies.

As the 1868 Democratic National Convention opened, there was no clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, but Seymour remained widely popular. Serving as the chairman of the convention, as he had in 1864, Seymour refused to seek the nomination for himself. After twenty-two indecisive ballots, the convention nominated Seymour, who finally relented on his opposition to running for president. Seymour faced General Ulysses S. Grant, the widely popular Republican Party nominee, in the 1868 election. Grant won a strong majority of the electoral vote, though his margin in the popular vote was not as overwhelming. Seymour never again sought public office but remained active in politics and supported Grover Cleveland's 1884 campaign for president.

Early life and education

Seymour was born in

Greene Bronson and Samuel Beardsley. Though admitted to the bar in 1832, he did not enjoy work as an attorney and was primarily preoccupied with politics and managing his family's business interests.[4] He married Mary Bleecker in 1835.[5]

Political career

Entry into politics

Seymour's first role in politics came in 1833, when he was named military secretary to the state's newly elected

speaker in 1845.[4]
: 33–86 

When, in the late 1840s, the New York Democratic Party split between the two factions of

Hunkers and Barnburners, Seymour was among those identified with the more conservative Hunker faction, led by Marcy and Senator Daniel S. Dickinson. After this split led to disaster in the election of 1848, when the division between the Hunkers, who supported Lewis Cass, and the Barnburners, who supported their leader, former President Martin Van Buren
, Seymour became identified with Marcy's faction within the Hunkers, the so-called "Softshell Hunkers," who hoped to reunite with the Barnburners so as to be able to bring back Democratic dominance within the state.

First term as governor

In 1850, Seymour was the gubernatorial candidate of the reunited Democratic Party, but he narrowly lost to the Whig candidate, Washington Hunt. Seymour and the Softs supported the candidacy of their leader, Marcy, for the presidency in 1852, but when he was defeated they enthusiastically campaigned for Franklin Pierce in 1852. That year proved a good one for the Softs, as Seymour, again supported by a unified Democratic Party, narrowly defeated Hunt in a gubernatorial rematch, while Pierce, overwhelmingly elected president, appointed Marcy as his Secretary of State.

Seymour's first term as governor of New York proved turbulent. He won approval of a measure to finance the enlargement of the Erie Canal via a $10.5 million loan in a special election in February 1854. But much of his tenure was plagued by factional chaos within the state Democratic Party. The Pierce administration's use of the patronage power alienated the Hards, who determined to run their own gubernatorial candidate against Seymour in 1854. Furthermore, the administration's support of the unpopular Kansas–Nebraska Act, with which Seymour was associated indirectly through his friendship with Marcy, cost him many votes. Whigs controlling the state legislature also sought to injure him further politically by responding to his call for action on the problem of alcohol abuse with a bill establishing a statewide prohibition, which Seymour vetoed as unconstitutional. Yet for all his troubles Seymour's prospects for reelection looked promising, as the divisions of the Democrats' opponents between the regular Whig candidate, Myron H. Clark, and the Know-Nothing Daniel Ullman appeared to be more dangerous to the Democrats' opponents than the candidacy of the Hard Greene C. Bronson looked to Democratic unity. In the end, however, the anti-Democratic tide was too strong, and in the four-way race Clark, who received only one-third of the vote, defeated Seymour by 309 votes.

Interlude

Horatio Seymour, c. 1860

Despite his defeat, as a former governor of the largest state of the Union, Seymour emerged as a prominent figure in party politics at the national level.

Democratic candidate for the United States Senate, which was largely an empty honor as the Republican majorities in the state legislature rendered a Republican victory a foregone conclusion.[4]
: 171–173, 215–216, 231 

In the

secession crisis following Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, Seymour strongly endorsed the proposed Crittenden Compromise. After the start of the Civil War
, Seymour took a cautious middle position within his party, supporting the war effort but criticizing Lincoln's conduct of the war. Seymour was especially critical of Lincoln's wartime centralization of power and restrictions on civil liberties, as well as his support for emancipation.

Second term as governor

Gubernatorial portrait of Horatio Seymour
Campaign rally celebrating Seymour's election

In 1862, the sitting governor, Republican

series of victories by the Democratic ticket in the state that year.[4]
: 244–255 

Seymour's second term proved to be even more tumultuous than his first one. As governor of the largest state in the Union from 1863 to 1864, Seymour was one of the most prominent Democratic opponents of the President. He opposed the Lincoln administration's institution of the military draft in 1863 on constitutional grounds, an act which led many to question his support for the war. He also opposed a bill giving votes to the soldiers on legal grounds, vetoing the bill when it reached his desk. While not opposed to the goal he preferred to establish voting provisions through a constitutional amendment that was working its way simultaneously through the state legislature; nonetheless, his veto was portrayed by opponents as hostility to the soldiers. His decision to pay the state's foreign creditors using gold rather than

New York Draft Riots of July 1863 was used against him by the Republicans, who accused him of treason and support for the Confederacy.[4]
: 283–336 

The growing accumulation of problems steadily eroded Seymour's position as governor. In what was regarded as a rebuke of his policies, Republicans swept the 1863 state midterm elections, winning all of the major offices and taking control of the State Assembly. In the state elections the following year, Seymour himself was defeated for reelection in a close race by Republican Reuben Fenton.[4]: 350–359, 381 

Prominent Democrat

Seymour in an undated photograph

Seymour continued as a prominent figure in national Democratic politics both during and immediately after his second term as governor. In 1864, he served as permanent chairman at the Democratic National Convention, where the opposition of many delegates to the two frontrunners, General

Radical Reconstruction, with its emphasis on guaranteeing civil and political rights for freed slaves.[4]
: 359–370, 383–391 

1868 Presidential election

Seymour/Blair campaign poster

Nomination

As the 1868 presidential election approached, there was no clear candidate for the Democratic nomination. Of the numerous candidates in contention, George H. Pendleton, who had run as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1864, enjoyed considerable support but alienated the fiscal conservatives in the party with his plan to pay off federal debt using greenbacks. When Seymour was approached about running for the nomination, he demurred again, preferring that either Indiana Senator Thomas A. Hendricks or U.S. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase receive the nomination instead.

At the convention, Seymour once again served as permanent chairman. Balloting began on June 7; on the fourth ballot, the chairman of the North Carolina delegation cast his state's votes for Seymour, whereupon the former governor again restated his refusal to accept the nomination. Two days later, as the twenty-second ballot was being taken, it appeared that Hendricks was in the process of winning the nomination until the leader of the Ohio delegation suddenly switched his delegation's votes to Seymour. Though Seymour reiterated his unwillingness to be the nominee, the delegations revised their votes and gave the nomination to him unanimously.[4]: 411–431 

Campaign

Campaign badge, 1868, from the New York Public Library, Schomberg Collection

With the nomination forced upon him, Seymour committed himself to the campaign. He faced considerable challenges; his opponent, General

bloody shirt", highlighting Seymour's support for mob violence against African-Americans. Though Seymour ran fairly close to Grant in the popular vote, he was defeated decisively in the electoral vote by a count of 214 to 80.[4]
: 443–484  Subsequent to Seymour's loss, the Fifteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution was adopted which not only guaranteed the federal right to vote for recently emancipated slaves and others of African ancestry but also compelled New York State to reinstate voting rights for such citizens.

Later years

After the presidential election, Seymour remained involved in state politics, though primarily as an elder statesman rather than an active politician. He received a number of honors during this period, including the chancellorship of Union College in 1873. In 1874 he turned down almost certain election to the United States Senate, urging the nomination instead of the eventual choice, Francis Kernan. He refused two additional efforts to nominate him for the New York governorship, in 1876 and 1879, as well as a final attempt to select him as the Democratic presidential nominee in 1880.[4]: 512, 521–526, 535–539, 571 

Never enjoying robust health, Seymour suffered a permanent decline beginning in 1876. He made a final political effort in 1884 by campaigning for

Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica, New York; Mary died a month later and is buried next to him.[4]
: 570–574 

The gravesite of Governor Seymour

Legacy

The Horatio Seymour memorial at the Cathedral of All Saints (Albany, New York).

There is a memorial to Seymour at the Cathedral of All Saints (Albany, New York).

Seymour, Wisconsin, was founded in 1868 and named after Horatio Seymour.

Seymour Avenue in the Bronx, New York, was named for him.

Electoral history

Gubernatorial elections

New York Gubernatorial Election 1850
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic
Horatio Seymour 214,352 49.57% +22.87
Whig Washington Hunt 214,614 49.64%
Liberty
William Lawrence Chaplin 3,416 0.79%
Whig hold Swing
New York Gubernatorial Election 1852
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic
Horatio Seymour 264,121 50.31% +.74
Whig Washington Hunt (Incumbent) 241,525 46.01%
Free Soil Minthorne Tompkins 19,296 3.68%
Democratic gain from Whig Swing
New York Gubernatorial Election 1854
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic Horatio Seymour (Incumbent) 156,495 33.32% −16.99
Whig Myron H. Clark 156,804 33.38%
Know Nothing Daniel Ullman 122,282 26.03%
Democratic Greene C. Bronson 33,850 7.21%
Whig gain from Democratic Swing
New York Gubernatorial Election 1862
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic
Horatio Seymour 306,649 50.89% +7.08
Republican James S. Wadsworth 295,897 49.11%
Democratic gain from Republican Swing
New York Gubernatorial Election 1864
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic
Horatio Seymour (Incumbent) 361,264 49.43% −1.46
Republican Reuben Fenton 368,557 50.57%
Republican gain from Democratic Swing

1868 Presidential election

Electoral results
Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote(a) Electoral
vote(a)
Running mate
Count Percentage Vice-presidential candidate Home state Electoral vote(a)
Ulysses S. Grant
Republican
Illinois 3,013,650 52.7% 214 Schuyler Colfax Indiana 214
Horatio Seymour
Democratic
New York 2,708,744 47.3% 80
Francis Preston Blair, Jr.
Missouri 80
Other 46 0.0% Other
Total 5,722,440 100% 294 294
Needed to win 148 148

Notes

  1. ^ Serving with:
    1844: Justus Childs, James Douglass, Richard Empey
    1854: Andrew Billings, Merit Brooks, Calvert Comstock
  2. ^ Dan P. Cadwell, Amos S. Fassett, David Murray, John H. Tower
  3. ^ Chauncey C. Cook, Benjamin F. Cooper, Daniel G. Dorrance, Russel Fuller
  4. ^ Serving with: Ichabod C. Baker, Ebenezer Robbins, DeWitt C. Stephens
  5. ^ Calvin Dawley, Joseph Halleck, Luke Hitchcock, Nathaniel Odell
  6. ^ Dan P. Cadwell, Amos S. Fassett, David Murray, John H. Tower

See also

References

  1. ^ "Horatio Seymour".
  2. ^ Ellis, William Arba (1911). Norwich University, 1819–1911; Her History, Her Graduates, Her Roll of Honor. Vol. 2. Montpelier, VT: Capital City Press. p. 215.
  3. ^ a b Norwich University, 1819–1911
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Stewart Mitchell, Horatio Seymour of New York (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938).
  5. ^ "Horatio Seymour". HarpWeek. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
  6. ^ NY Public Library, Schomberg Collection, badge produced in 1868, digitized 2013
  7. ^ "Princeton, N. J., July 4th, 1885".

Further reading

Primary sources

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Speaker of the New York State Assembly

1845
Succeeded by
Preceded by Governor of New York
1853–1854
Succeeded by
Preceded by Governor of New York
1863–1864
Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by Democratic nominee for Governor of New York
1850, 1852, 1854
Succeeded by
Preceded by Democratic nominee for Governor of New York
1862, 1864
Succeeded by
Preceded by Democratic nominee for President of the United States
1868
Succeeded by