Albany, Governor Seymour's friend was surprised to find this officer an applicant for promotion. He took opportunity to mention to his Excellency the conversation referred to, and remonstrated against the promotion. The Governor merely smiled, and on examining the papers and finding that the officer was in regular line of promotion, and well recommended, granted the recommendation. The officer was very much mortified afterward, to learn that the Governor had granted it with a full knowledge of what he had said.

The Governor always promptly responded when called upon to aid in any measures for the relief of the soldiers. On the 22d of February, 1864, he was present and inaugurated the Albany Relief Bazaar, the fair and exhibition connected with which was kept open for some weeks, and from which a large sum was realized.

All the veteran regiments which returned by way of the State capital were warmly received and welcomed by him. During the session of the Legislature of 1863, a formal presentation of war-worn flags of veteran regiments to the State, took place at the Assembly Chamber, and were received by the Governor on behalf of the Bureau of Military Record. A like presentation was made during the session of 1864. We quote a passage from Governor Seymour's speech on the last occasion:

"It has required no stretch of imagination to picture to ourselves the scene when these brave, bold and stalwart men went forth from the hills and valleys and cities of our land to battle for our flag. You have seen them from time to time, returning here shattered and

broken, the mere remnants of those glorious bands, which excited our admiration and our enthusiasm on their departure. And in their history you have an epitome of the whole war. The banners that have been presented to you this night have been fanned by the breezes of Carolina, have been dampened with the dews that have fallen in the swamps of Virginia, have drooped under the almost tropical sun of Louisiana, have floated high in the heavens 'in the battle above the clouds,' at Lookout Mountain, where, under their folds, we won an honorable victory. It is well that our State on this occasion has shown its ancient fidelity to the flag of our country, to the Union of these States, and to the Constitution of our land."

Upon the repeal of the three hundred dollar commutation clause of the United Enrolment Act, passed July 4, 1864, provision was made by Congress for the enlistment of negroes in certain of the Southern States.

Competition between localities for the early filling of the quotas assigned under the call of the President of July 18, 1864, ran high, large bounties were demanded and paid to volunteers in the military or naval service, and great hopes of relief from negro recruits, were entertained in some quarters.

Numerous applications were accordingly made to Governor Seymour by local authorities, for commissions to proceed to the South as agents of the State, to procure negro recruits.

The Governor, foreseeing that this was a scheme to plunder the people while it would not aid the army, refused to grant these applications, or to commit the State to this scheme of evasion of duty and fraud.

In cases where supervisors of counties deputed agents for this purpose, he merely gave a certificate of the fact of such desigations by local boards, "subject at all times to revocation or modifica

tion," and with the provision that it was to be "expressly understood, that the State of New York is in no way to be held responsible for the acts of such agents."

While Governor Blair, of Michigan, adopted a similar course of action, the decision of Governor Seymour was coarsely assailed by many of the Republican journals of the State.

The New York Tribune, in speaking of the course of the Governor, charged that "he will be held responsible for the draft of just so many men as might, by proper diligence, have been obtained elsewhere."

The persons who were sent forward by towns and cities, as was anticipated, met with but indifferent success, and only a few hundred recruits were thus obtained. Many of the agents returned home in disgust without accomplishing any thing.

A system of fraud was inaugurated through complicity of United States authorities, whereby some "credits upon paper" were secured, while but few actual accessions were made to the army by the whole scheme, rendering new and additional calls for troops necessary in December, 1864.

So gross were these frauds, that while the quotas were apparently filled, the War Department has declared that although the records show that eight hundred thousand men had been enrolled, and bounties paid for them, not one-third of the number ever reached the army.

A Congressional investigation was at once entered upon, but the frauds were so wide-spread, they involved so many leading Republicans, and were so

gross in their character, that the Committee did not dare to proceed with their investigations. To get rid of the subject, the late Provost-Marshal-General was hastily thrown overboard, and as far as possible public attention turned away from the subject; but there is not a county in the State, which was not cheated and robbed under this system against which the Governor protested.

Since the close of the war, some of these bounty frauds have been unearthed and exposed and the Attorney-General of New York has instituted legal proceedings to try and determine charges of frauds against several "loyal" Republicans of the State.

CHAPTER XIV.

GOV. SEYMOUR'S EFFORTS TO PROCURE THE SOLDIERS THE RIGHT OF VOTING, AND TO PROTECT THEM AGAINST FRAUD.

On the 13th of April, 1863, Gov. Seymour sent to the Legislature a message upon the subject of taking the votes of soldiers and sailors absent at the seat of It commenced as follows:

war.

"To the Senate: The question of a method by which those of our fellow-citizens who are absent in the military and naval service of the nation may be enabled to enjoy their right of suffrage, is one of great interest to the people of this State, and has justly excited their attention. I do not doubt that the members of the Legislature participate in the general desire that those who so nobly endure fatigue and suffering, and peril life in the hope that by such sacrifices our National Union may be preserved and our Constitution upheld, shall, if possible, be secured an opportunity for the free and intelligent exercise of all their political rights and privileges. The Constitution of this State requires the elector to vote in the election district in which he resides; but it is claimed by some that a law can be passed whereby the vote of an absent citizen may be given by his authorized representative. It is clear to me that the Constitution intends that the right to vote shall only be exercised by the elector in person. It would be an insult and an injury to the soldier to place the exercise of this right upon a doubtful or unconstitutional law, when it can be readily secured to him by a constitutional amendment."

In view of these considerations, Gov. Seymour submitted the following recommendations and suggestions to the Legislature :—