ed to lose the speakership and elect a
United States senator.[871]

[Footnote 870: Horace Bemis of Steuben.]

[Footnote 871: The writer is indebted to Mr. Depew for the interviews
between himself, Van Buren, and Callicot.]

The Democrats, alarmed at this sudden and successful flank movement,
determined to defeat by disorderly proceedings what their leaders
could not prevent by strategy, and with the help of thugs who filled
the floor and galleries of the Assembly Chamber, they instigated a
riot scarcely equalled in the legislative history of modern times.
Boisterous threats, display of pistols, savage abuse of Callicot, and
refusals to allow the balloting to proceed continued for six days,
subsiding at last after the Governor, called upon to protect a
law-making body, promised to use force. Finally, on January 26,
nineteen days after the session opened, Callicot, on the ninety-third
ballot, received two majority. This opened the way for the election of
a Republican United States senator.

Horace Greeley had hoped, in the event of Wadsworth's success, to ride
into the Senate upon "an abolition whirlwind."[872] He now wished to
elect Preston King or Daniel S. Dickinson. King had made a creditable
record in the Senate. Although taking little part in debate, his
judgment upon questions of governmental policy, indicating an accurate
knowledge of men and remarkable familiarity with details, commended
him as a safe adviser, especially in political emergencies. But Weed,
abandoning his old St. Lawrence friend, joined Seward in the support
of Edwin D. Morgan.

[Footnote 872: Albany _Evening Journal_, December 10, 1862.]

Morgan had a decided taste for political life. When a grocer, living
in Connecticut, he had served in the city council of Hartford, and
soon after gaining a residence in New York, he entered its Board of
Aldermen. Then he became State senator, commissioner of immigration,
chairman of the National Republican Committee, and finally governor.
Besides wielding an influence acquired in two gubernatorial terms, he
combined the qualities of a shrewd politician with those of a merchant
prince willing to spend money.

The stoutest opposition to Morgan came from extreme Radicals who
distrusted him, and in trying to compass his defeat half a dozen
candidates played prominent parts. Charles B. Sedgwick of Syracuse, an
all-around lawyer of rare ability, whose prominence as a persuasive
speaker began in the Free-Soil