AUGUST 22, 1863:
The correspondent of the British newspaper The Spectator writes a scathing
indictment of local politics in New York:
“CHARLESTON is not
yet quite taken, but New York is; and, as I said in my last letter, that is the
more important victory. The quiet which has prevailed here during the draft,
there not having been the first symptom even of a row, and the changed tone of
the pro-slavery Democratic press, are due less to the thorough preparation of
the Police Department and the presence of national troops in considerable
force, than to the discovery . . . that the jurisdiction and authority of the
National Government are supreme and absolute . . . and thus that a man drafted into
the service of that Government cannot be taken from it by State authority,
except by armed and successful revolution . . . that the militia regiments, although
they are ready to obey Governor Seymour's order at a day's warning, to march
southward against the rebels, or to march northward against the rioters, cannot
be depended upon by him if he sets himself up against the national authority . . .
They laugh at the
Governor's airs as "Commander-in-Chief " --- a phrase he has been very
fond of using lately; they say that until the rebellion is put down they regard
themselves as actually, though not formally, in the national service as a
reserve corps for emergencies, and that the President is their
Commander-in-Chief . . . Under these
circumstances, Governor Seymour's ability to lay siege to Forts Lafayette and Hamilton
is discovered to be somewhat inadequate . . .
Meantime, and before
this subject of the draft and the riots fades from our memories, let me give
you a few facts and figures which have a bearing upon our Governor's recent
ungraceful and undignified position. There are in the city of New York, as in
older capitals, certain quarters which are almost entirely given up to the
lowest and vilest classes of society; these being composed here, with
exceptions so rare as to be unnoticeable, of persons of foreign birth. Names
have been given to these quarters, as Mackerelville, Five Points, Cow Bay,
Orleans Hook, &c., &c . . .
In these thirty-three
election districts, according to the records of the Police Department, are two
thousand seven hundred and forty-three groggeries, two hundred and seventy-nine
notorious and disorderly brothels, one hundred and seventy known and habitual
resorts of thieves and ruffians, one hundred and five policy shops (places in
which a vile kind of lottery business is done), gambling and dance houses
unnumbered, and also the head-quarters of the mob during the late riots . . .
Now, in these
districts, at the last State election, Governor Seymour received 12,664 votes . . . But
his majority is the whole State was only 10,752; so that you will see that from
these dens of thieves, ruffians, and drunkards came not only the full majority
by which he was elected, but 226 votes to spare. Remember that he is at present
the pro-slavery Democratic candidate for the next Presidency, and that these
quarters can always be relied upon to "go it blind" for the nominee
of that party, unless he has given them personal offence, and you will see why
it was that Governor Seymour, though not at heart a traitor, but only a
narrow-minded partizan politician, temporized with the rioters, and called them
openly his friends. It was by taking up their residence for a sufficient time
in these election districts, that Fernando Wood and his brother Benjamin Wood,
who made a fortune by dealing in " policies," were able to secure
their return as members of Congress. Corrupt as the politics of New York are,
they could have succeeded in no other way.”
