atever is said at the meeting will seriously
injure the political future of the authors. If you write a letter
it will be on record, so I beg you, if you must participate, attend
the meeting and make a speech. A letter cannot be denied; it can
always be claimed that a speech has been misreported."

The Governor wrote the letter, one of the most violent of his
utterances, and it was used against him with fatal effect when
he ran for governor, and also when a candidate for president.

On July 11th the draft began in New York City. It had been
denounced as unconstitutional by every shade of opposition to
Mr. Lincoln's administration and to the prosecution of the war.
The attempt to enforce it led to one of the most serious riots
in the history of the city, and the rage of the rioters was against
the officers of the law, the headquarters of the draft authorities,
and principally against the negroes. Every negro who was caught
was hung or burned, and the negro orphan asylum was destroyed
by fire. The governor did his best to stop the rioting. He issued
a proclamation declaring the city in a state of insurrection, and
commanded obedience to the law and the authorities.

In this incident again the governor permitted his opposition to
the war to lead him into political indiscretion. He made a speech
from the steps of the City Hall to the rioters. He began by
addressing them as "My friends." The governor's object was to
quiet the mob and send them to their homes. So instead of saying
"fellow citizens" he used the fatal words "my friends." No two
words were ever used against a public man with such fatal effect.
Every newspaper opposed to the governor and every orator would
describe the horrors, murders, and destruction of property by
the mob and then say: "These are the people whom Governor Seymour
in his speech from the steps of the City Hall addressed as
'my friends.'"

The Vallandigham letter and this single utterance did more harm
to Governor Seymour's future ambitions than all his many eloquent
speeches against Lincoln's administration and the conduct of the war.

The political situation, which had been so desperate for the
national administration, changed rapidly for the better with
the victory at Gettysburg, which forced General Lee out of
Pennsylvania and back into Virginia, and also by General Grant's
wonderful series of victories at Vicksburg and other places which
liberated the Mississippi River.