NEW YORK CITY,
August 15, 1848.
During the last six days every body here has been agog
with the Buffalo Convention,1 and matters thereunto
appertaining. It seems that seventeen States had delegations there—Ohio by
hundreds, and New York by thousands.—From the reports, there were some fifty
thousand person assembled, about one-third of whom were delegates. Judge McLean2 withdrew in the beginning. Senator Hale's3 friends, however, rallied a very respectable vote for
him, but not quite enough to take the game; whereupon they gave in with a good
grace, and Van Buren4 was ratified by acclamation.
Much astonishment is felt, however, at the nomination for
the Vice Presidency. Very few people had hitherto heard of Charles Francis Adams5—except, perhaps, in the demesnes of Boston, where
he has occupied, for years past, a position among the editorial corps. What the
reasons of bringing him forward are, do not as yet appear upon the surface. The
managing men at Buffalo, however, had some good reasons in their own minds, no
doubt. McLean or Hale had been generally fixed upon for the station.
O, what a ferment we are in! The impetus from Buffalo has
come five hundred miles to us, and little is talked of in the streets and public
places generally, but the three tickets. Taylor6 has
many firm friends here, notwithstanding the heavy ground-swell that sets in from
certain quarters against him. Cass,7 I judge from what I
hear and see, is least likely to carry New York of any of the candidates. Indeed,
the shrewdest politicians do not count this State for the regular Democratic
nominees at all.
Very many of the "good society" of the town are off to
watering places, and spots all along shore, and some of them in the woods. They are
having high times, I see, at Saratoga. Down at Rockaway, and off at Newport, also,
balls, pic-nics, jollity, courting, promenading, etc., form the happy employment of
some five thousand, probably more, happy dogs. Happy did I say? Well, who knows that
they are any happier than we who are comfortably staying at home, and don't stir out
during the three hours on each side of meridian line?
There is a report in town that Gen. Worth8 has arrived—he of the "waving plume." He should
have come hereafter, or else a couple of months earlier. Just about now, he won't
find people disposed to pay anybody much attention, except he come to them talking
politics. The gallant General wrote a gratuitous letter to act on the Baltimore
Convention,9 in which the desire for something stood out so prominently that even he who ran might
read what he, the General, so very much wanted. This letter-writing has killed
better men than Worth; and it has cooled the ardor of the friends of the latter
exceedingly. It is every way to be hoped, however, that the gallant General will be
received by his fellow citizens with due honor and courtesy; for he bore himself
valiantly and wisely in the field.
Mr. Trist's10 violent and
passionate attack on the President does not receive much serious attention. The
Ex-Commissioner overleaps the mark in his fury, and charges too much on his
extensively abused Excellency of the White House. Probably Trist is a little
demented—at least at times. What do you think about it?
Every body is anxious to hear what they have done in
Ireland.11 Heaven grant it may be good news for Freedom!
MANHATTAN.
Notes
- 1. Whitman
is referring to the first National Free Soil Convention that
was held in Buffalo in August 1848. The Free Soil
Party opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories of the western
United States. At the convention, attendees endorsed
Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) as the Free Soil presidential candidate
and nominated Charles F. Adams (1807–1886) for Vice President. [back]
- 2. John McLean (1785–1861) was
a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio and later served
as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. McLean
was not chosen as the Free Soil Vice Presidential nominee in the 1848 election. Instead, Charles
F. Adams (1807–1886) became the running mate of Free Soil Presidential candidate
Martin Van Buren (1782–1862).
[back]
- 3. John Parker Hale
(1806–1873) was a lawyer and politician from New Hampshire. He served in
the United States House of Representatives and in the United
States Senate, representing the state of New Hampshire. Early in his political career Hale was a Democrat; later he
aided in the founding of the Free Soil Party before becoming a member
of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln appointed
Hale an ambassador to Spain, and Hale served in this role from 1865 until 1869. [back]
- 4. A founder of the Democratic
Party, Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) was the eighth president of the United
States, serving from 1837 to 1841. Whig candidate William Henry Harrison
defeated the incumbant Van Buren in the 1840 election to become the ninth
president of the United States. Van Buren was also the Free Soil candidate for
president in the 1848 election; the Whig Candidate Zachary Taylor
(1784–1850) won the election and served as the twelfth president of the
United States, from 1849 until his death in 1850. [back]
- 5. Charles F. Adams (1807–1886) was
the son of John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth President of the United States.
Charles studied law and served as a member of the Massachusetts legislature.
He was the Free-Soil Vice Presidential nominee in the 1848 election, alongside his running mate, Free Soil Presidential candidate
Martin Van Buren (1782–1862). Adams served as a U.S. Diplomat during the American Civil War. [back]
- 6. Zachary Taylor (1784–1850), a Southern
slaveholder and a well-known American miltary leader in the Mexican-American War,
was the Whig Candidate for president in the 1848 United
States Presidential Election. Taylor won the election and went on to serve as the twelfth president of the
United States, from 1849 until his death in 1850. [back]
- 7. Lewis Cass (1782–1866) was a statesman, politician, and
military officer. He served as a Senator representing the state of Michigan, as the Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson,
and as Secretary of State under James Buchanan. In 1848 he was the Democratic candidate for president. Cass was a
proponent of the Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which held that each territory should choose whether to
permit slavery. Cass was also crucial in the implementation of Andrew Jackson's policy of Indian Removal. For
more information on Cass, see The Biographical Directory of the
United States Congress, 1774–2005 (United States Government Printing Office, 2005), 797. [back]
- 8. General William J. Worth (1794–1849) was an
officer in the United States Army for more than thirty-five years. He served during the War
of 1812 and during the Mexican-American War. [back]
- 9. Whitman is referring to the 1848 Democratic National Convention, which
was held in Baltimore, Maryland, from May 22 to May 26, 1848. The purpose of the convention was to nominate the Democratic
Party's candidates for President and Vice President in the 1848 election. The nominees were Lewis
Cass (1782–1866) for President and William O. Butler (1791–1880) for Vice President. [back]
- 10. Born in Virginia, Nicholas Trist (1800–1874)
studied law and went on to become an attorney and a businessman. He served in a diplomatic position
as a negotiator with the government of Mexico; although he was dismissed from this role by
President James K. Polk (1795–1849). Despite his dismissal, Trist negotiated
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War. [back]
- 11. Whitman is referring to
the Young Ireland movement—an Irish
nationalist movement that supported Irish independence. The movement
had its origins in the Repeal Association's campaign to repeal
the 1800 Irish Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland.
Young Irelanders seceded from the Repeal Association and formed
the Irish Confederation, garnering a strong base in
Dublin, and exerting a lasting influence on subsequent separatist endeavors.
Young Irelanders attempted an unsuccessful insurrection in 1848 with
the aims of Irish independence and democratic reform and
as a response to British Parliament's passage of a "Crime and Outrage Bill"
that enacted martial law in Ireland in an attempt to counter Irish nationalism.
The Young Irelanders' rebellion in July 1848, resulted in the arrest of the movement's leaders and the collapse
of the rebellion efforts. Ireland would not become self-governing until 1922.
[back]