ng upon nature and
the known disposition of the inhabitants to follow the lead of
California. This difference, however, could probably have been healed
had the Radicals not insisted that "the thanks of the Whig party are
especially due to William H. Seward for the signal ability and
fidelity with which he sustained those beloved principles of public
policy so long cherished by the Whigs of the Empire State, expressed
in state and county conventions as well as in the votes and
instructions of the state legislature." Upon this resolution the
Conservatives demanded a roll call, and when its adoption, by the
surprising vote of seventy-five to forty, was announced, the minority,
amidst the wildest excitement, left the hall in a body, followed by
Francis Granger, whose silver gray hair gave a name to the seceders.
Their withdrawal was not a surprise. Like the secession of the
Barnburners three years before, loud threats preceded action. Indeed,
William A. Duer, the Oswego congressman, admitted travelling from
Washington to Syracuse with instructions from Fillmore to bolt the
approval of Seward. But the secession seemed to disturb only the
Silver-Grays themselves, who now drafted an address to the Whigs of
the State and called a new convention to assemble at Utica on October
17.

The Democrats in their state convention, which met at Syracuse on
September 11, repeated the policy of conciliation so skilfully
engineered in 1849 by Horatio Seymour. They received Barnburner
delegates, they divided the offices, and they allowed John Van Buren
to rule. It mattered not what were the principles of the captivating
Prince and his followers so long as they accepted "the recent
settlement by Congress of questions which have unhappily divided the
people of these States." Thus the Free-soil Barnburners disappeared as
a political factor. Some of them continued to avow their anti-slavery
principles, but no one had the temerity to mention them in convention.
Men deemed it politic and prudent to affect to believe that the
slavery question, which had threatened to disturb the national peace,
was finally laid at rest. The country so accepted it, trade and
commerce demanded it, and old political leaders conceded it. In this
frame of mind, delegates found it easy to nominate Horatio Seymour for
governor and Sanford E. Church for lieutenant-governor. The next day
the Abolitionists, tired of their union with Hunkers and Barnburners,
nominated Willia