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cscmc1 · #12 10-24-2008, 04:20 PM

Canvassing the troops, Pt. 3

The New York legislature had accomplished a great feat in a short time: the mechanisms for soldiers to vote in November were now in place. The proxy law required each soldier to "authorize and empower any elector of the town or city" from which he was absent to cast his vote in his stead. This authorization was to be completed no more than sixty days before the election. Each soldier would prepare a document authorizing the elector at home to cast his vote, and this document would be signed by the soldier, a witness, and a commissioned officer from New York. The soldier would then enclose his ballot and the thrice-signed document in an envelope. On the outside of the envelope he would make out and sign an affidavit declaring himself to be an eligible voter from New York in the actual military service of the United States. The envelope would then be sealed and placed inside another envelope marked "Soldier's Vote," and the soldier would transmit the package "by mail or otherwise" to the elector he had authorized. The authorized elector at home could open the outer envelope (the one marked "Soldier's Vote") when he received it, but he had to leave the inner one sealed. On election day he would deliver the inner envelope to the inspectors of election at the polls of the soldier's election district, and the inspectors would check to see that the soldier's signature on the affidavit on the outside of the inner envelope corresponded with his name in the local election registry. If the soldier was listed, his vote would be "publicly opened" and cast in the ballot box. If the soldier's name did not appear in the registry, the inner envelope was to be left sealed and its contents rejected but retained and filed by the inspectors of election. (23)

The framers of the law established safeguards to prevent unscrupulous partisans from using soldiers' votes to manipulate the outcome of elections. Prior to an election, persons acting as proxies for soldiers were to sign receipts with the local postmaster declaring how many soldiers' votes they had received and would be depositing. Any inspector of election who refused to collect soldiers' ballots would be guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable by both fine and imprisonment, as would any person who attempted to forge soldiers' votes. Finally, the law required the secretary of state to see to the printing and distribution to New York regiments of the "blank forms and envelopes required to carry out the provisions of this act," thereby ensuring that all soldiers, regardless of party affiliation, had access to the mechanism for voting in the field. (24)

The statute left much of the process of canvassing the troops to the political parties. It made no mention of the distribution of ballots among the soldiers because the job of printing and circulating ballots at elections was usually the responsibility of the parties. It also placed no limitations on the parties in attempting to collect their own ballots. Soldiers could mail their ballots home individually, but doing so would be inconvenient. Thus, party operatives who were commonly known as "election commissioners" were employed to take the ballots to the field and then collect and send them back to their designated proxies in New York. (25)

As the presidential election of 1864 approached, the massive job of distributing and collecting the soldiers' ballots came to the forefront of many New York politicians' minds. (26) Under the terms of the law, Seymour was not required to supply the army with ballots; as a party leader, however, he decided to send Democratic tickets to the army. Seymour then made a seemingly nonpartisan gesture. He informed New York secretary of state Chauncey M. Depew, a Republican, that he would send both parties' tickets in the care of election commissioners appointed by both Seymour and Depew, if the Republicans would supply their own ballots. But Depew snubbed this offer--most likely because he did not trust the governor--so Seymour sent only Democratic tickets. (27)

Seymour advised Depew that he would have to take responsibility for sending Republican ballots to the field. "As the day for the election approaches, every delay becomes injurious to our soldiers, and as I have heard nothing from you, with reference to a co-operation in making such appointments [of election commissioners], I have selected several commissioners to proceed to Washington and the Army of the Potomac.... I have directed them to carry ballots for any parties, that may see fit to put them into their hands." When the Republicans rejected this offer to send ballots by election commissioners who would be jointly appointed by both parties, Seymour sent only Democratic commissioners, but he notified Depew that "I shall be happy to add others if you will name them." (20)

Striking about Seymour's offer to the Republicans is that he was a candidate for reelection in 1864. Seymour was offering to send not only Lincoln ballots to the field, but also the ballots of his own Republican gubernatorial opponent, Reuben E. Fenton. Also significant about this episode is that in rejecting Seymour's bipartisan offer, New York Republicans were choosing to rely on federal aid in canvassing the troops. "I will send [ballots] for both of the political parties," Seymour had informed Depew, "or if you prefer to send them [Republican ballots], I will give you any facility in my power." (29) But Republicans turned their backs on this state-level assistance and instead appealed to the Lincoln administration in Washington for the support they would need to ensure that New York's soldiers in the field received Republican ballots.

The Republican-controlled legislature made a considerable effort to win for soldiers the right to vote, but Republicans in New York were slow to ensure that their party's ballots reached the troops in time for the election. By late October they began to fear that their political allies in the army were unable to help reelect Lincoln, and they placed the blame on Seymour rather than themselves. "We are afraid there has been neglect to send Union soldiers' ballots to the army, with plain instructions how they are to be voted," worried the editors of the New York Tribune. Under these circumstances, "soldiers of decided Union preference may vote the McClellan ticket, rather than exclude themselves wholly from the right of suffrage." The Tribune charged that nine out of ten soldiers wanted to vote for Lincoln but could not do so because an unpatriotic governor had failed to send them ballots. The army was "flooded with McClellan votes," according to Republicans, because Seymour was acting not "as a trustee for all the soldiers of the State of New-York facing the enemy in the field" but only as an agent for the Democratic party. The following day the Tribune criticized Seymour for placing the responsibility of sending Republican ballots on the secretary of state, as he knew that Depew "had nothing more to do with the matter than any other citizen, and if he undertook to send ballots at all must do so at his private expense." The governor's goal, the Tribune concluded, "was, clearly, to escape the responsibility of sending ballots to Union soldiers." (30)

The Tribune's critique of Seymour was an understandably partisan assessment in the midst of an important campaign, yet the newspaper's complaint was inconsistent with the terms of the law, as well as with the actions of the governor. The legislature had made no provisions for the State of New York to supply ballots to the voters in the field. The state government was responsible only for printing and distributing the documents needed to authorize proxy electors at home, the two envelopes needed to carry the soldiers' ballots, and copies of the law. The state was not required to print and distribute election tickets. In the mid-nineteenth century political parties printed, distributed, and polled the ballots of their partisan supporters. The Republican editors of the New York Tribune therefore expected Seymour to do more than the law--and custom--demanded. The law did not require him to implement an impartial distribution of both parties' ballots to voters in the field any more than he was required to distribute Republican tickets to voters in New York. Seymour had offered to send Republican tickets to the field, but Republicans refused his offer. When he subsequently sent only Democratic tickets to the soldiers, he was acting as an agent of his party. That is precisely what he was supposed to be doing.