utobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 105.]

[Footnote 892: Nicolay-Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 7, p. 11.]

Seymour never wrote the promised letter. His inaugural expressed his
honest convictions. He wanted no relations with a President who seemed
to prefer the abolition of slavery and the use of arbitrary methods. A
few days later, in vetoing a measure authorising soldiers to vote
while absent in the army, he again showed his personal antipathy,
charging the President with rewarding officers of high rank for
improperly interfering in State elections, while subordinate officers
were degraded "for the fair exercise of their political rights at
their own homes."[893] John Hay did not err in saying "there could be
no intimate understanding between two such men."[894]

[Footnote 893: Horatio Seymour, _Public Record_, p. 109.]

[Footnote 894: Nicolay-Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 7, p. 12.]

General Burnside's arrest of Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio (May,
1863) increased Seymour's aversion to the President. Burnside's act
lacked authority of law as well as the excuse of good judgment, and
although the President's change of sentence from imprisonment in Fort
Warren to banishment to the Southern Confederacy gave the proceeding a
humorous turn, the ugly fact remained that a citizen, in the dead of
night, with haste, and upon the evidence of disguised and partisan
informers, had been rudely deprived of liberty without due process of
law. Thoughtful men who reverenced the safeguard known to civil
judicial proceedings were appalled. The Republican press of New York
thought it indefensible, while the opposition, with unprecedented
bitterness, again assailed the Administration. In a moment the whole
North was in a turmoil. Everywhere mass meetings, intemperate
speeches, and threats of violence inflamed the people. The basest
elements in New York City, controlling a public meeting called to
condemn the "outrage," indicated how easily a reign of riot and
bloodshed might be provoked. To an assembly held in Albany on May 16,
at which Erastus Corning presided, Seymour addressed a letter
deploring the unfortunate event as a dishonour brought upon the
country by an utter disregard of the principles of civil liberty. "It
is a fearful thing," he said, "to increase the danger which now
overhangs us, by treating the law, the judiciary, and the authorities
of States with contempt. If this proceeding is approved by the
government and sanctioned by th