A bright day, pleasantly cool — On going in to the office [I] found on my desk, the card of Wm. G Bates48 of Massts. — He called to see me (with Capt: Bissell) telling Dick that he was a couzen [sic] of my old friend I. C. Bates49 of Northampton, and that he wished to see me, partly on that account, and partly for my politics [.]
. . .
Colfax. Recd, a letter today, from Mr. Colfax50 who expresses himself much pleased with my long letter, amended in its phraseology in some particulars, as suggested by him; and he asks leave to shew the letter to Mr. C. A Dana 51 of the Tribune. Of course, I have no objection; my letter, tho' not written for publication, is not secret.
He also encloses, for my inspection, a letter from Mr. Dana to him, by which I find that D.[ana] prefers Chase52 to Seward — (but does not want either) as a candidate for the Presidency — and enquires, with apparent interest, about the present condition of "the Bates movement." Dana says — "If B.[ates] can be put forward as a representative of the emancipation cause in Missouri he will be the strongest candidate we can have. With any other man we shall have the Fillmore split over again [.] "
<Note this letter from D.[ana] to C.[olfax] is dated July 10[.] > About the same time Colfax wrote to Gibson,53 and sent him, among other things, a letter from Mr. Bowles,54 editor of the Springfield Republican (Massts.) to him, C[olfax]. [ ] Bowles, I believe, is in full concert with the Tribune of N. York, and Colfax, Defrese 55 and other party leaders in the North West, to bring me out as the candidate of the Republicans. They are all afraid of Seward — they have personal objections doubtless, but their main ground is their full conviction that with Mr. S.[eward] for their candidate defeat, is inevitable.56 And they seem to think, that if S.[eward] is not nominated, his friends will take care that neither Bankes57 nor Chase, nor any other Republican shall be. In that event, they think me the most available candidate — the only man in fact, who, getting the Republican vote, can also secure the general support of the Americans and Whigs. Some of them tell me that Mr. Weed58 (who is understood to be Mr. Seward's " master of the horse " in N. Y.) goes for me, second.
Mr. Bowles says in his letter, that my N.[ew] Y.[ork] letter59 "ought not to have been written." As a measure of policy, I differ from him widely.
1. It is satisfactory to the real economists every where[.]
2. It pleases the manufacturers, who need protection, especially in Pa.
3. It is agreeable to all the old whigs.
4. It is not offensive to the Americans at the South, very pleasing to those of the North.
5. It is rank poison to the proslavists of the South, and by resisting their propagandism — and hence, conciliatory to all their enemies.
6. The objection of Mr. Bowles, and other leading Republicans to my denunciation of slavery agitation, is, in my judgment, a positive advantage.
1. It keeps me separated from the Republican party, and yet not so far removed as to prevent their support: 2d. It allays the prejudices of Whigs and Americans farther south, who might not be willing to support any man who was fully identified with the Republican party. 3. It gives to the whole letter an air of courage and sincerity which may tend to beget a general feeling favorable to the writer, and especially among the multitude who are now disgusted with the frauds and mismanagement of all the parties [.]
["The Presidency in I860."60
"In this week's issue we run up the name of Hon. Edward Bates, of Missouri, for President in 1860; subject to the decision of the Union Convention.
"It is useless for us to eulogise Edward Bates ; he is too well and favorably known to the whole nation, for us to attempt to add anything to the lustre of his character. He is the man to lead on to victory the columns of the mighty 'Union Party,' that is daily gathering strength all over the country. With him at our head, we can break up, and disband the two pernicious and sectional parties, the Democratic and the Republican, whose strife and wrangling over mere abstractions, have brought us several times upon the very verge of civil war.
"Edward Bates, is an eminently conservative man, and if elevated to the high position of Chief Magistrate of the Nation, will administer the government upon those truly national principles which actuated the earlier Presidents.
"Should Edward Bates be nominated, we feel assured that the Union men of Missouri will exert themselves to secure his election, as patriots should do when their country is in danger."]
_______________
48 A lawyer of Westfield, Massachusetts; Whig state senator, 1841; member of Governor Briggs's Council, 1844-1845.
49 Isaac C. Bates: anti-Jackson Democratic congressman, 1827-1835 ; Whig U. S. senator from Massachusetts from 1841 until his death in 1845.
50 Supra, April 27, 1S59, note 28.
51 Charles A. Dana: assistant to Greeley on the New York Tribune, 1847-1862; special commissioner of the War Department, 1862-1863; assistant secretary of War, 1863-1865; later, editor of the New York Sun. He was an ardent war-time supporter of Lincoln, then a bitter enemy of Johnsonian restoration, but finally a Liberal Republican seeking reform of Grantisms. In 1859 he was still in complete sympathy with Greeley.
52 Infra, March 5, 1861, note 27. Chase, a perennial aspirant to the Presidency was really in 1859 a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, but lost it. partly because his own state was not united in his support and partly because he. like Seward, was too extreme on slavery to win moderate votes.
53 Supra, April 27, 1859, note 27.
54 Samuel Bowles — anti-slavery leader, strong supporter of Lincoln against the Radical Republicans, advocate of moderation toward the South — made his Springfield Republican one of the most powerful influences in the North.
55 John D. Defrees of Indiana: lawyer and state legislator ; first chairman of the Indiana Republican State Committee, 1856-1860 ; editor of the Indianapolis State Journal. He must, in the end, have supported Lincoln's candidacy, for Lincoln appointed him government printer in 1861.
56 See supra, April 27, 1859, note 30.
57 Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts: Democratic congressman, 1853-1855; American Party congressman and speaker of the House, 1855-1857; Republican congressman, 1857, 1865-1873, 1875-1879, 1889-1891 ; governor of Massachusetts, 1858-1861 ; president of the Illinois Central Railroad, 1861; major-general of volunteers, who served in Maryland, in the Shenandoah, at Vicksburg, in Louisiana, and in Texas, 1861-1865. As a former Know-Nothing, he was more "available " in 1860 than Seward whom the Know-Nothings hated.
58 Thurlow Weed: editor of the Albany Evening Journal; for years the most powerful political figure in New York politics; one of the early managers of the National Republican Party. At this time he was managing Seward's campaign for the Republican nomination.
59 See supra, 1-9.
60 A clipping from the Louisiana (Missouri) Journal of July 25, 1859.
SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 36-8
