not been able to meet the Radical arguments, the Democratic vote fell off, with a proportionate increase in the Radicals' strength.' The promise with which the Radicals tempted the Irish vote in the campaign was the passage of more favorable neutrality laws.

Another important element that entered into the campaign and one which made Fenton's victory more notable, was the excise movement. A stringent excise law was passed on April 14, 1866, which caused great excitement in the metropolitan police district. The law was rigidly enforced through the months of May and June, 1866, but after the Fourth of July the authorities. gave up its enforcement, in consequence of a decision by Judge Cardozo declaring it unconstitutional.3 On Sunday, July 1st, two hundred and eighty injunctions were served permitting open saloons. Governor Fenton, in order to settle the troublesome question at once, called a special term of the Supreme Court for the first judicial district.5

A case was brought up under this law in which the lower courts decided that the law was constitutional. The case was taken up to the Court of Appeals, where the lower court was sustained, in the Metropolitan Board

'New York World, Nov. 7, 1866.

"An Act to regu

'Laws of New York, 1866, C. 578, vol. ii, p. 1242. late the sale of intoxicating liquors within the Metropolitan Police District of the State of New York." No one could dispose of spirituous liquors in quantities less than five gallons at a time without a license. Only persons of good moral character were permitted to receive licenses. No liquor could be sold to persons under eighteen years of age. All places where liquors were sold, except regular hotels subject to restriction contained in the act, were required to close between midnight and sunrise, also on Sundays. Provisions were made for enforcement, prosecution and penalties.

Harper's Weekly, Nov. 10, 1866, p. 706.

*New York Herald, July 2, 1866.

4

+ Ibid.

of Excise v. John Harris et al., and in several other cases.' Hoffman and the "Ring" were forced to bear the full brunt of the attacks from the supporters of the excise. Harper's Weekly was uncompromising: "It is not a pleasant thing to say, but it is the strict truth, that Mr. Hoffman is the candidate of the 'conservatism' of the grog-shops." The Independent made it doubly hard for Mr. Hoffman and Tammany Hall to ignore its blunt attack. "Mr. Hoffman is opposed to a law which closes the rum-dens on the Sabbath; is opposed to a law which shuts up the grog-shop at midnight; and forbids it to be reopened until daylight-which forbids women to sell strong drink, or boys under eighteen to buy it." 3 The sole argument which the Democrats advanced against the attack was that the harmless customs of a large portion of the population were ignored.*

In the eastern and southern counties of New York State, especially those in which the patroon system of

'Metropolitan Board of Excise v. John Harris, et al., 34 N. Y., 657. The points upon which the courts gave decisive dicta were: That the legislature of the State had a constitutional right to regulate and control the liquor traffic; that neither the State nor the United States Constitution places a limit upon the legislature in its regulation of a traffic which is connected with public morals, safety and prosperity; that a law which prohibits an indiscriminate traffic in spirituous liquors, and places the trade under public regulation, violates no constitutional restriction; that licenses to sell liquor are mere temporary permits, giving legal protection to what would otherwise be unlawful, not contracts between the State and the licensee, giving the latter vested rights; and further, that such licenses are not property in any legal or constitutional

sense.

'Harper's Weekly, Nov. 10, 1866, p. 706.

'The Independent, Sept. 27, 1866.

Of the up-State papers, the Binghamton Daily Republican, Oct. 10, 21, 24, 1866, led in the attack upon the liquor interests of New York City.

former days had flourished, a revival of the anti-rent' agitation exerted a strong influence upon the campaign of 1866. The anti-rent troubles came to a head in the town of Knox, Albany County, and spread along either side of the Hudson, wherever lands were still held under the old "lease-hold" system. In July, of 1866, it became necessary to detail a battalion of the tenth regiment of militia to suppress the disturbances, but no fire-arms were used or actual bodily resistance given. The troops were met by a considerable body of men, who broke and ran, nine prisoners being taken. Similar disturbances of a more violent sort broke out in the town of Berne, resulting in an ambuscade of Colonel Walter S. Church, who was connected with the Van Rensselaer's by marriage, and had, as agent for the owners, made himself particularly obnoxious to the lease holders.3 Colonel Church was a local Democratic politician of some note. This, together with the fact that a majority of the land owners were Democrats, produced a strong reaction in that portion of the State against the Democrats. The New York Times, in commenting on the anti-rent movement, said:

This party again manifested its influence at the polls on Tuesday last. Most of the prominent owners of these lands are Democrats . . . . the particular agent for the collection of rents and distraints from delinquents together with the sheriff, who

'Originally started about 1839. The movement aimed to break the onerous control of the descendants of the Dutch patroons over the “lease-hold” lands throughout the eastern and southeastern counties of the State.

2 These disturbances continued throughout the summer and broke out with renewed vigor in September. Vide Troy Whig, Sept. 28, 1866; Troy Times, Sept. 26, 1866.

8 Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1866, pp. 543-4.

....

is a Democrat . . . . divided the curses of the inhabitants. This feeling has reacted upon the party of which they are members and many votes were lost in this region to that once allconquering organization.'

The New Orleans and Memphis massacres, together with the pictures in Harper's Weekly and the letters of Petroleum V. Nasby contributed powerful Radical arguments to the campaign.2

'New York Times, Nov. 14, 1866. For a detailed discussion of the anti-rent agitation see David Murray, The Anti-Rent Episode in the State of New York, Annual Report of the Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1896, vol. i, pp. 130-172; Albany Freeholder, organ of Anti-Rent party, April, 1845-54; Franklin B. Hugh, Gazetteer of the State of New York, 1873; Edward P. Cheyney, The Anti-Rent Agitation in the State of New York, 1839-46 (Phila., 1887), p. 46; Senate Documents, 1835-1851; Assembly Documents, 1840–1855; Lincoln, Messages from the Governors, vol. iv, p. 413; Laws of New York, 1846, C. 274, vol. i, p. 369; ibid., C. 327, vol. i, p. 466; The People v. Van Rensselaer and others, 9 N. Y. 291; The People v. Clarke, 9 N. Y. 349.

'Cf. Harper's Weekly, Aug. 25, 1866, for pictures and account of the massacres. See New York Tribune, Oct. 3, 1866, for the report of the military commission which investigated the New Orleans massacre. Thomas Nast was a powerful factor backed by Harper's Weekly in lampooning Johnson with his pictures. One of Nast's most notable caricatures appeared September 1, 1866. Johnson was represented as Othello, saying to Iago, a discharged negro soldier, "Dost thou mock me?" to which Iago replied: "I mock you! No, by Heaven. Would you could bear your fortunes like a man." Surrounding Johnson are pictures of Southern rights-" What they were "-i. e., negroes being sold and whipped. The contrast with their present condition was represented by the slaughter at the New Orleans and Memphis massacres. Under the central portion, Johnson is represented as a snake charmer, seated in oriental manner playing upon a reed, viz., the United States Constitution, while before him a C. S. A. rattlesnake and a Northern copperhead snake are strangling and biting a negro. Chase, Stanton and Seward, dressed in oriental garb, stand gravely by. Placards surround Johnson, bearing such sentiments as "Treason is a crime and must be made odious, and traitors must be punished,' "Love thine enemies," "I am your Moses." Other virulent caricatures appeared in Harper's Weekly on September 8, 1866, September 29, 1866, p. 617,

The treatment of Union soldiers in the Southern prisons was also a stimulant to fury against the Democrats. The latter on their part were not slow to charge Congress with a betrayal of the United States Constitution in making the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment a requirement before the admittance of the late Confederate States.

Roscoe Conkling, who was making what proved to be his last campaign for the House of Representatives,' toured the State extensively. In his opening speech at Utica on September 13, 1866, Conkling struck the keynote of the Republican campaign. He began with the statement that Reconstruction was an exaggerated question, artificially manufactured by politicians, and a mere distortion of reality. The commercial, the agricultural, the material, the social, even the political prosperity of the South, did not and does not depend at all upon October 27, 1866, pp. 680-1, November 3, 1866, p. 696; the last being "Amphitheatrum Johnsonianum," which represented Johnson as Nero, looking on composedly at the "Massacre of the Innocents," called to mind by the race riots in New Orleans and Memphis. For the complete cycle of Nast's pictures see Albert Bigelow Paine, Thomas Nast -His period and his pictures (New York, 1904), passim.

'Assembly Documents, vol. iv, pp. 358-429, give a detailed account of the conditions in Southern hospitals and prisons. The diary of one Samuel Henderson is given in full during his incarceration in Ander

sonville:

"June 23-Went down to the creek to wash my clothes, but the water was so muddy and greasy that I could not; this is the water we have to drink; the rebels do all their washing in it above, and throw all the slops from their work-house into it," pp. 420-1.

"July 20-There was a prisoner shot to-day by one of the rebel officers. His offense was asking for rations," p. 422.

"Dec. 10-My weight before being taken prisoner was 142 lbs. When I arrived at Annapolis my weight was 55 lbs.." p. 429.

Conkling, in the following January, 1867, was elected to the United States Senate from New York, where he served until his resignation in May, 1881.