In the 1864 presidential election, George B. McClellan carried the State of New York along with all other Northern States except New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, despite the efforts of the Republican Party and Lincoln’s War Department marshalling the soldier vote against him. After Lincoln’s assassination in mid-April 1865, the Yonkers Herald-Gazette condemned it as “the darkest crime” but added that “it might have been a wise move at the beginning of the war or during the darker days of the struggle.”Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.org The Great American Political Divide
Revised: In September 1864, the New York World editorialized “for the simple reason that, after [peace candidate George B. McClellan’s] inauguration, the character of the war will have so changed that the Southern people will no longer have a sufficient motive to stand out.” Despite a critical New York press, Lincoln barely won the State’s 212 electoral votes in November 1864 against McClellan, the manipulated soldier vote assisting greatly in the .92% margin of victory. After Lincoln’s assassination in mid-April 1865, the Yonkers Herald-Gazette condemned it as “the darkest crime” but added that “it might have been a wise move at the beginning of the war during the darker days of the struggle.”
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.org
The Second War on the Liberties of American Citizens
“For the Democrats of Westchester County [New York], the presidential contest of 1864 appears as the last opportunity for opposition to Lincoln, his policies, and the future course of the war. This time, they could rally around a single candidate, George B. McClellan.
For Mary Lydig Daly, having Lincoln as president once again was a repulsive thought. [She] wrote in her diary . . . “We are at present ruled by New England, which was never a gentle or tolerant mistress, and my Dutch and German obstinate blood begins to feel heated to see how arrogantly she dictates and would force her ideas down our throats, even with the bayonet.”
In 1864, McClellan made it clear he would continue the war to its successful conclusion, that is, the restoration of the Union as it was. He did not advocate “peace at any price,” in spite of the sentiments of some members of his party.
Should he have won the presidency in 1864, he would have dismantled the repressive aspects of Lincoln’s policies against civil liberties and civilians. He would have undone the Republican experiments in social engineering, especially emancipation.
When his Northern solders commented on the evils of slavery (many of them having seen the institution for the first time), what they were really seeing were the consequences and disorder of emancipation. The Reconstruction Era presented a clear picture of what that was like, resulting in “nothing but freedom” for the ex-slaves.
When Lincoln was nominated that June [1864], the Yonkers Herald-Gazette . . . commented “Another four years of “Honest old Abe” would leave nothing but the shadow of a Republic on the American continent. The Republican papers in the county, such as the rival Yonkers Statesman, trotted out their familiar epithet of “disloyalty” against this paper and other Democratic sheets . . .
The Yonkers Herald-Gazette retorted: “We confess to the smallest possible amount of respect for the Republican professions of “loyalty,” or Republican charges of “disloyalty.” The word is not American, nor Republican even – here it originally expressed the treasonable attachment of the loyal Tories to George the Third, in his wanton war against American liberty; and as now used, it general means partisan devotion to Abraham Lincoln, not in resistance to a Southern Rebellion, but in a would-be second war on the liberties of American citizens.”
(The Last Ditch of Opposition: The Election of 1864 and Beyond; Yankees & Yorkers: Opposition to Lincoln’s Policies in Westchester County, New York, and the Greater Hudson Valley, Richard T. Valentine; Northern Opposition to Mr. Lincoln’s War, D. Jonathan White, editor, Abbeville Institute Press, 2014, excerpts pp. 204-206)
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ReplyDeleteEither that quote was absolutely bungled, or the author is a full barking mad loon.
In the election of 1864, Lincoln carried every state except KY, NJ (McClellan's home state), and DE.
McClellan got his hindquarters served on a platter.
The electoral math was 221 votes to 21, and even had the entire non-voting South thrown in its 81 electoral votes, and they'd all gone to him, McClellan still would have lost in a landslide.
As Casey Stengel used to tell people, "You could look it up."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1864
Lincoln carried the entire state of NY by nearly 7,000 votes.
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1864&datatype=national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
They do not, however, get to claim alternate reality in regard to the historical facts.
A bit more precision, if you please.
I'll send this to Bernhard and let you know.
DeleteThanks Brock, it was a direct quote from that source. I will have a deeper look.
DeleteBernhard
Deeper my arse. This is just buck naked wrong. Admit it and move on with your life.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies to the error-checkers, the introductory statement was in error and should have read in reverse. It was a long day -- glad to see people are awake out there. The point of the piece was to illuminate opposition to Lincoln in New York, and the barest of victories. Abe did get the 212 electoral votes, but by .92% of the popular vote. See the updated piece at www.circa1865.org.
ReplyDeleteThanks for correcting the errata, but you're still cherry-picking. NY was close, but it was also the only state that close, and even if Little Mac had won all of its monstrous 33 electoral votes with a shift of 3600 votes, McClellan still would have only lost the electoral tally by 179 to 54.
ReplyDeleteMost of the other states were won by Lincoln with margins of 10-60+%, and it should also be noted that McClellan only won his own state of NJ by 7300 votes.
He lost the national popular vote by 55% to 45%, and he lost the electoral tally 89% to 11%.
He remains one of the most unpopular Democratic candidates for president until McGovern in 1972 and Mondale in 1984, and his drubbing at the polls was epic.
A look at the NY county map for 1864 shows McClellan only led in the areas of NYFC proper, Buffalo, and Albany, and was soundly thrashed in rural and small-town upstate and western NY.
Times change, but not by much.