d, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
3, p. 756. _Appendix._]

It is doubtful if Silas Wright himself fully comprehended the real
reason for such bitterness. He was a natural gentleman, kindly and
true. He might sometimes err in judgment; but he was essentially a
statesman of large and comprehensive vision, incapable of any meanness
or conscious wrong-doing. The masses of the party regarded him as the
representative of the opportunity which a great State, in a republic,
holds out to the children of its humblest and poorest citizens. He was
as free from guile as a little child. To him principle and party stood
before all other things; and he could not be untrue to one any more
than to the other. But the leaders of the Hunker wing did not take
kindly to him. They could not forget that the Radical state officers,
with whom he coincided in principle, in conjuring with his name in
1844 had defeated the renomination of Governor Bouck; and, though they
might admit that his nomination practically elected Polk, by
extracting the party from the mire of Texas annexation, they
preferred, deep in their hearts, a Whig governor to his continuance in
office, since his influence with the people for high ends was not in
accord with their purposes. For more than a decade these men, as
Samuel Young charged in his closing speech in the Assembly of that
year, had been after the flesh-pots. They favoured the banking
monopoly, preferring special charters that could be sold to free
franchises under a general law; they influenced the creation of state
stocks in which they profited; they owned lands which would appreciate
by the construction of canals and railroads. To all these selfish
interests, the Governor's restrictive policy was opposed; and while
they did not dare denounce him by name, as the Governor suggested in
his letter, their tactics increased the hostility that was eventually
to destroy him.

It must be confessed, however, that the representation of Hunkers at
the Democratic state convention, held at Syracuse on October 1, did
not indicate much popular strength. The Radicals outnumbered them two
to one. On the first ballot Silas Wright received one hundred and
twelve votes out of one hundred and twenty-five, and, upon motion of
Horatio Seymour, the nomination became unanimous. For lieutenant-governor,
Addison Gardiner was renominated by acclamation. The convention then
closed its labours with the adoption of a platform approvin