 Section 18 of Tin Horns and Calico by Henry Christman. Governor Silas Wright gave his approval to even more flagrant breaches of judicial integrity in Delhi. Word went out from Albany, down with the anti-rentors or Cato Falls, and on the slightest pretext tenants were charged with crimes they could not have committed. One democratic newspaper urged the authorities to let the anti-rentors hang. The loss of their lives was a little consequence compared with the public interest at stake. Another suggested that troops proceed in open day and take away anti-rent wives and children to a place of security, drive away their cattle, and destroy their farming implements. It is useless to expect that these men will ever be put down by force of shot and cannonball. One of the grimmest songs of the entire anti-rent movement grew out of the terrorism in Delhi. Written by Forrest Minstrel and first published in Young America on November 22nd, 1845, the song gained wide circulation, because it expressed so well the temper of the aroused farmers. Those who wish to seize the store of the injured labouring poor crush them so they rise no more haste to Delhi. Ye whose hearts are dark and fell, ye who affidavits sell, Tory lords will pay you well in old Delhi. Justice with her blinded sight might have stumbled on the right, but she's fairly to her flight from old Delhi. Ye who wish to fill your fob, join the law and order mob, ye may get a dandy job at old Delhi. It's for this the Delhi folks wear their law and order cloaks, make your courts of law a hoax in old Delhi. Ye who would your country save, dare to claim what heaven gave, dare the Inquisition brave, fear not Delhi. Nothing fear your cause is just, better days will come, we trust, tyrants yet will bite the dust in old Delhi. The prisoners who had been seized after the death of Osmond Steele were examined by Justice of the Peace Nathaniel Hathaway, brother of the landlord agent, and then referred to Judge N. K. Wheeler of Delhi, who summoned a grand jury headed by John Edgerton, a relative of Erastus Edgerton, the incautious deputy who had started the shooting. One of Brisbane's long letters described his hearing, which was held one evening shortly after he and his fellow prisoners had finished singing their evening hymn. I was taken into a room dimly lighted, a number of men were sitting around in it, while in the centre was placed a table. By it sat a man, bald-headed, with one of the most sensual-looking countenances I have ever gazed upon in my life. This man rose slowly from his seat, lifted a little book from the table, and thrust it in my face. I started back and asked where I was, if I was before the grand jury or not. Some of them said I was before the grand jury. I then said that when I took an oath I swore with uplifted hand. During this conversation the bald-headed man had said something and threw the book down again. So whether I was sworn or not I cannot tell you, and whether the book was Robinson Crusoe or the Holy Bible I cannot tell. The principal question that Judge Edgerton asked Brisbane was, did you hear Steele say he fired or not? The young Scott said that he did. Did he not say, pursued the bald-headed man, that he believed he had fired? No, sir, he said very plainly and distinctly, yes, I fired. You villain, you are the only man out of twenty that has sworn to such an oath. Brisbane said that he had perhaps had the best opportunity of any man there to hear what Steele said, as he had his left arm under the dying man's head at that moment, having just given him a drink. As he turned to leave the room he remarked, gentlemen, if I have to be punished it must be for what I have said not for what I have done. You villain, the questioner repeated, we will let you know what you have said. Brisbane had spoken more truly than he knew, for he was promptly indicted for the murder of Osmond Steele on nothing more than the sworn statement of a neighbour, James Glen Denning, that Brisbane had declared that Steele would be shot if he went to the Earl sale. Afterward Brisbane remembered with some chagrin how friendly he had been with the man one day before the sale. Glen Denning had come to him in the hay-field and suggested that he had enough hay down in such bad weather and ought to step over the fence and pick a few berries. Brisbane's account was as follows. I did so. We then rallied each other about our principles, he being up-rent and I down-rent. As I am naturally pretty free-spoken and was not dreaming of anything wrong, and likewise being good neighbours, I laughed ingested with him till one of my girls called to come to dinner. We went and took dinner together, little thinking I was eating with a man who was soon to do his best to bring me to an ignominious death. I never thought seriously of our conversation till he was leaving the house. As he went away he suddenly turned back as if he had forgotten something. Bill said he, if you know any Indians that want to buy any lead for balls, I have got a chunk that I melted down from tea-chest linings and I will sell it to them cheaper than they can buy it anywhere else. I told him I did not know of any Indians who wanted to buy any. He then looked disappointed and went away. I then remembered that he had said to me while sitting on the log that he had come to cut some broom-sticks in my woods, but as I had seen no axe his visit then appeared to me to be rather mysterious. But what I chiefly find fault with Glenn Denning is that he did not speak the whole truth. Why did he not state that he had offered to sell lead to the Indians and that I had told him that I knew of no Indians who wanted to buy any? His whole visit, therefore, appears to me to have partaken of the despised character of a spy, and to sit down and eat with an unsuspecting neighbour, how like a Judas. But perhaps the cold and unfeeling character of Glenn Denning cannot be better depicted than the following little incident portrays it. He one day asked one of my little girls to turn the grindstone for him. The child simply remarked that the stone would not turn for a tory, upon which he asked her how would she like to see her father hanging by the neck. When Dr. Calhoun's turn came he was subjected to five hours of abusive epithets. Among other things I was called a liar repeatedly, he reported, and to crown at all I was honoured with the appellation of being a damned little positive paddy. Calhoun at first thought an uncommon share of attention was being showered upon him, but a young lady called as a witness informed him that these epithets and many more were also tendered to her. Others were shamefully abused. Daniel Squires returned to the shelf in his cell and recorded in his diary, I was taken before the grand jury who reported what I swore to being different from what I actually swore to, being also untrue. Squires, too, was indicted for the murder of Steele, although he was at that time many miles away from the Moses Earl farm. In all more than two hundred were indicted, nearly one hundred specifically for murdering Steele. The grand jury was still handing down indictments and state troops were still bringing in anti-renters when circuit Judge Amasa J. Parker arrived in Delhi to conduct the trial. Because Judge Parker had favoured the tenants' objectives during Silas Wright's 1844 campaign, and had handled Dr. Bouton's first trial with less partiality than Judge Edmonds had shown in the second, the anti-renters were inclined to forget that he was a political friend of Wright and a nephew of the Colonel Parker who had berated Brisbane for his influence with the tenants, and that he had yielded to pressure in sidestepping the issue of bail for Dr. Bouton. Having previously elected him to the Assembly and to Congress, the farmers still respected him for soundness of mind, purity of intentions, and permanency of opinion. On September 22, 1845, when he addressed the jury, the farmers found their confidence in him had been misplaced. Judge Parker's words were bitter. Conforming to current democratic policy he went beyond the immediate issue of the Dingle Hill riot to attack the whole anti-rent organization. Only a year ago he said he had found the county flourishing even under the leasehold system, and no county had gone forward more rapidly in the acquisition of wealth and social happiness. He deplored that now, although heaven has contributed the blessings of labour upon the husbandmen, the crops had gone unharvested, and the husbandmen had been led to crime by lecturers from abroad. He praised the promptness with which people had come forward to enforce the law after the death of Steele. He found it gratifying that the press generally had been on the side of government, of law and order. But, said he, since the press was a powerful engine for good or evil, it was the jury's duty to indict any paper in which they discovered any evidence of licentiousness, of publications not true, incendiary and inflammatory in their character, and intended to stir up sedition. Judge Parker reviewed the history of the anti-rent agitation and concluded that it was as necessary to the tenant as to the landowner that titles which had been held for a long time should not be disturbed. Vested rights could not be infringed on, and the issue could be settled only by compromise, by purchase, or by arrangement. Giving the prisoners no hope of clemency, he addressed the jury as men he had known for years, and told them it could not be expected that the sympathy of an honest community would be extended to those who had violated the laws and arrayed themselves against the very government under which they lived. The first of the Delhi prisoners to face trial was John Van Steenburg of Bryant Hollow, who had been at the Earl sale in disguise. Only twenty-one, though he already had a rugged growth of whiskers, he was an uneducated product of leasehold privation, but honest and hard-working. In joining the Indians he had merely followed the lead of his lively neighbour, Edward O'Connor. John Steel, a brother of the slain man and district attorney of Otsego County, was brought on to assist the prosecution. It was well known that he welcomed a chance to avenge his brother's death. Van Steenburg's counsel struggled to get a fair trial, even going so far as to call in Stanley Grimes, a celebrated phrenologist, to help pick the jurors by examining their faces and the bumps on their craniums. But the choice was considerably narrowed by the fact that Judge Parker, like his old teacher Judge Edmunds, ruled out anyone who had any interest in leased land. In the end, with the exception of one known up-renter from Delhi, the jurors were all drawn from unaffected towns which had supported law and order meetings and furnished men for Judge Moore's posse. Reporters wrote confidently to their papers that the jury would convict, which, said one, was as it should be. Thomas Devere sent a bitter message to Governor Wright, protesting that the judge's ruling on juror's qualifications amounted to a denial of elementary justice, as it was made at a time when it was admitted that there was no neutrality in the county, every man having in the rush of excitement taken sides, strongly, decidedly, if not with the anti-rentors then against them. He charged that two jurors had publicly revealed their prejudice. If those two men had expressed themselves as prepossessed in favour of the prisoners, as they did prejudice against them, thank you they would have been suffered to go on the jury. And if this be so, and a knowledge of the fact goes abroad among the people, will it not tend to bring the administration of law into contempt? Silas Wright should reflect, Devere warned. Ask yourself, are you quite sure, are there no misgivings in your mind, but that those unfortunate prisoners will get an impartial trial? If you can answer this question to the satisfaction of your own heart, go to bed and repose in quietness. But if there is a doubt in your mind that intemperance has existed in Delaware county ever since the unhappy death of steel, if you think it probable that the intemperance should get into the jury box, that wrong may be done to the prisoners, then you ought to take some measure to prevent that wrong. The world will remember, and what is worse your own conscience will remember, that this wrong was done to citizens in jeopardy of their lives whilst Silas Wright was governor. If Wright was at all moved by this communication he gave no sign, and the trial proceeded without interference. The prosecution's chief witnesses were backsliding anti-rentors. Daniel Northrup, a torpid sluggish looking person who was also under indictment, testified that on leaving the sale he had remarked to John Van Steenburg that the death of steel was an awful thing. John made no immediate reply, he said, but put his finger on the mouth of his rifle, tapped it several times, and observed death was just what steel deserved. Defense counsel attacked Northrup as notorious in all this anti-rent war an informant, a confessed murderer, swearing to hang others to save himself. But the prosecution produced another turncoat who said that after the first volley at the riot he had heard Van Steenburg ask for a small ramrod to reload his rifle. As in Hudson the trial had an incongruous social aspect. On the final day reported the herald correspondent, the courtroom door opened and a brilliant array of beauty, grace, and loveliness entered the hall where justice sat enthroned in her majesty. Old Delaware's fairest daughters, with hearts full of sympathy and affection, had congregated in her courthouse to witness the trial of one of her sons. The hitherto downcast face of the prisoner seemed to brighten with hope, as he gasped in astonishment at this sudden display of loveliness. The handsome features of the presiding judge were wreathed with smiles as each blossoming hebe and simple maid of nature took her seat. Under the eyes of these bells of Delhi Judge Parker performed a remarkable feat. His charge to the jury presented them with a chain of selective reasoning that doomed Van Steenburg in advance, and left the jurors so dazed as to be practically incapable of an honest decision. He reasoned that any man armed and disguised at the sale was liable to a year in prison under Silas Wright's anti-disguise law. The law defined this offence as a misdemeanor, but under existing statutes any crime punishable by imprisonment in a state prison was a felony, and any death resulting from the commission of a felony was murder. All two hundred and fifty Indians present at the sale were therefore guilty of murder. The jury had only one task, the judge explained, and that was to decide whether John Van Steenburg had been at the sale armed and disguised. Mercy has nothing to do with the jury box, he said. After being out all night the jury returned to the courtroom to ask Judge Parker whether a person being at the Earl sale disguised and armed but not having fired was guilty of a felony. That was the law the judge reiterated. John Van Steenburg was therefore convicted of murder. But even this up-rent jury felt that there was some miscarriage of justice, for they immediately appealed to Governor Wright. The undersigned members of the jury of John Van Steenburg, convicted as one of the murderers of Osmond N. Steele, do respectfully recommend him as a fit subject for your clemency. Although this petition was signed by all twelve, the Governor did not reply. The prosecutors may have felt some misgivings, for the next case was handled differently. The defendant was William Brisbane. I was taken from my cell, he wrote, and brought before the American Jeffries, Judge Parker. This was at 9 a.m., and the judge ordered him to be ready to go on trial at 2 p.m. Thus observed Brisbane, five hours was allowed me to subpoena my witnesses and prepare for trial. The Herald reporter noted Brisbane's appearance as he received the order. This is the noblest Roman of them all. He looked indeed the hero, erect, proud, and undaunted, his eyes flashed with indignation like an imprisoned eagle's. When the court asked if he had counsel, he drew himself up proudly to his full height, looked the judge boldly and sternly in the face, and with firm tone and a broad scotch accent inquired, how am I to obtain counsel or anything else while cooped up in yonder jail? Before afternoon, however, Brisbane succeeded in retaining Samuel Gordon and Colonel Parker, the judge's uncle. In the meantime, Judge Parker had called together the counsel for both sides, and reminded them that nearly one hundred men were under indictment for murder. If they were convicted, all would be hanged. He did not wish to hang so many men, he said. All the sympathies of our nature revolt at the idea of wholesale slaughter. In as much as the law did not require a full example to be made of all indicted for murder, he was ready to receive pleas of guilty to manslaughter. He asked the authorities to put an end to further arrests, and urged the counsel for the prisoners to plead them guilty. Such a compromise would save the farmers from death, he explained, and save the state from extended time and expense. So it happened that when Brisbane was summoned at two o'clock, his attorneys took him not to the courtroom for trial, but into one of the jury rooms, where they told him they had had a conversation with the judge, who would accept a plea of guilty for manslaughter, otherwise he would be tried for murder and surely be hanged. Gentlemen, said Brisbane, I am guilty of neither. We believe that, said his lawyers. But Samuel Gordon added, the state could prove that you addressed the Indians and that you helped to disguise them. These things are false, the Scott insisted, and I can prove them false. Brisbane, said Gordon, it is no use what you can prove, it will not be believed. What is the punishment for manslaughter? Four years the least, seven the most. Brisbane wrote of a moment's indecision. I then began to calculate what age I would be at the end of my imprisonment. I thought I might still be of some benefit to my family, but to describe my thoughts and feelings as they rushed through my mind and heart is impossible. Be quick, said Gordon, the court's awaiting you, you may lose the favourable moment. Gentlemen, I am in your hands, Brisbane said, so do what seems best to you. They entered his plea of guilty to manslaughter, and a trial was averted. At this stage, triumphant from his conviction of Dr. Bouton in Hudson, John Van Buren arrived in Delhi. He insisted on trying old Moses Earl himself and at once. He had tasted blood, commented the free holder, and his appetite was wetted for more. He was eager to pounce upon the victims whom the Delhi hunters had caught and caged for him. Perhaps, too, he remembered that it was a murder trial in Delhi in 1819 that had raised his father to political eminence. Death against Earl had not abated. Van Buren was sure he could convict him of murder. But Judge Parker agreed with Mitchell Sanford, chief of the Anti-Rent Council, that at most the aged farmer's only guilt was that he had fed the Indians in the woods, refused to pay rent, and told the landlord's agent he would have to fight for it. The most that Judge Parker could make out of it was a misdemeanor. But Van Buren would not give in. His insistence that conviction was assured persuaded Sanford to enter a hasty plea of guilty to manslaughter. When the lawyer was criticized by many anti-rentors, he told them he was forced to do it to save Earl's life. To the court, however, he expressed himself with courage and vigor. I warn the landlords, he said, that unless they yield to these men they're just and equal rights in the spirit of conciliation, kindness, and forbearance, there will come down upon them from these hardy men who have cultivated and subdued these harder hills a storm of indignation that will sweep them away forever. If they will so dragon's teeth let them expect to reap a harvest of armed men. Must we forego the sympathies of our nature and forget that we are men? I must confess that my sympathies have been strongly excited by the scenes I have witnessed since I came to this place, and I would despise myself if I could go to yonder pens and see two hundred wretched men whose lives are sought by an excited population, the voice of pity I have not heard but only the language of denunciation and vengeance. Yes, I would despise myself if I did not sympathize with and pity the aged and widowed mothers of some of these prisoners who have come twenty miles on foot without a shilling to pay their expenses to see their sons in jail awaiting their trial. In a public statement he went even further in his bitter denunciation of the Delhi court. I begin to distrust the justice of my country. Fearful indeed are the doings of a mob, but more fearful the administration of criminal justice in the midst of passion, prejudice, and excitement. I had rather risk the mob. The next day the Albany Argus reported, Moses Earl has made his will, does not expect to receive much leniency, and ought not to. As Edward O'Connor awaited his turn he watched his friends one after another, buckle before the ruthless legalized injustice. Hot Irish blood coursed through his veins and he could not be induced to make a confession of convenience, although he realized the court and the prosecution were united in political intrigue to break the ranks of the anti-rentors. He was told that if he did not plead guilty he was fit to die, and officials would gladly wade in his blood. Nevertheless O'Connor insisted upon a trial. The court kept him waiting until the last, probably hoping he would change his mind, but he stood firm. At length early in October he got his chance, and the trial was a farce. Judge Parker repeated the legalistic jingo that had convicted John Van Steenburg. Again the jury convicted, and again they appealed to Governor Wright in a petition which read in part, the proof was clear and positive that he was not one of those who shot. The court charged the jury that all the disguised and armed persons numbering some two hundred forty who were on the grounds were engaged in a felony and were therefore guilty of murder, and upon that charge we found the prisoner guilty. There was nothing in the evidence to warrant the belief that he had anticipated, encouraged, or approbated the firing on or killing of Steele or anyone else. His character from his youth up was proven to have been good. The evidence that he was among the disguised persons was not positive. Again there was no immediate reply from the Governor. Edward O'Connor's conviction cleared the court calendar. The American Jeffries had set a record. Nearly two hundred and fifty cases had been disposed of in three weeks. On Saturday, October eleventh, eighteen forty-five, he called them up for sentence one by one. It was a dismal day. All nature seemed to be in mourning, wrote Brisbane. The wind sighed mournfully as it swept the trees. The yellow leaves trembled and fell to the ground. The rain fell in torrents. Yes, the very heavens seemed to weep over our misfortunes. Judge Parker proved as inclement as the weather. Young John Van Steenburg came first, and the judge did nothing to temper the shock. The court entertains no doubt of your guilt, he said. You have but a short time to live. It is not necessary now to admonish you of your relation to your awful situation. There are others who will see that you have every opportunity to prepare for your final end. It is the judgment of the court that you be taken hence to the place from whence you came, and that on the twenty-ninth day of November you be taken to a place of execution and hung until you are dead. The next was Edward O'Connor, who stood tall and proud before the bench. I have known your family for many years, the judge told him. You are a young man of more intelligence than Van Steenburg. You are young and possessed of abilities, and you have respectable connections. You are therefore less excusable. You are to be cut off in early life, from friends, from kindred, from the world. You have but a few days to live. It is your duty to improve the time and prepare for your death. An awful change awaits you, and we trust you will take advantage of the means in your power to prepare for that change." O'Connor heard the sentence without flinching. Then he turned and looked out over the packed courtroom. Remember, my friends, he said quietly and proudly, I die an innocent man. His eyes were clear and his voice firm, but tears stood in the eyes of the spectators. Then it was Moses Earl's turn. He looked more than his sixty-four years, and was near the end of endurance as he appealed to Judge Parker for mercy. I hope your judge will consider me, and do me all the good you can, he said, in a quiet tired voice, and I hope that God in heaven will reward you for it. I hope you will try to get me a pardon that I may return to my companion. I am an old man. Judge Parker was unmoved. He knew Moses Earl was not guilty of murder, he had said as much to John Van Buren, but there was still the charge of manslaughter for which the maximum sentence could be invoked. It was the course taken by you that led to the death of Steele, he sternly told the weary old man. We must sentence you to state prison for life. You will therefore be cut off from your family and from society, and the public will hereafter be secured from the presence of one who is guilty of so high a crime. William Brisbane came in for a full share of censure because he was a foreigner. Your whole life could not atone for the injury and injustice you have done to society, Judge Parker declared. Though he gave the young Scott the comparatively mild sentence of seven years in prison, tears rolled down Brisbane's cheeks. He had come to America in search of freedom, but had found it a crime to attack great political power and the wealth that fed it. Not that I feel shame for the country that gave me birth, he said, in a letter to Joseph Hogue. No, while the pages of history are adorned with the names of a Wallace, a Burns, and a Scott, I will ever feel proud of my Scottish birth. But it is hard that my foreign birth should militate against me. Political motives were at no time clearer than when the judge sentenced Daniel W. Squires. The young Roxbury farmer had not been at the Earl sale, and the previous June the sheriff had not been able to get a grand jury to indict him for being an Indian. Now he stood indicted for the murder of Osmond Steele in spite of the fact that his lawyers had entered a plea of guilty against my will. There is little doubt that your exertions have contributed in a great degree to the murder of Steele, Judge Parker told him. You were a mover and originator of the rebellion, and though not legally guilty, you are morally so, and the violated laws require that you should be punished with severity, society will be no more disturbed by your machinations. Life imprisonment was his sentence. The American Jeffrey's record stood O'Connor and Van Steenburg sentenced to be hanged. Moses Earl, Daniel W. Squires, Daniel Northrup and Zara Preston sentenced to life imprisonment. Calvin Madison, ten years. William Brisbane, John Phoenix, Isaac Berhands, John Birch, William Reside, John Latham and Charles McCumber, seven years each. William K. Jocelyn, two years. Fifty-one others paid fines ranging from twenty-five to five hundred dollars, or received suspended sentences. The remaining prisoners were released with an admonition to cease their illegal resistance. Moses Earl's neighbor, Justice of the Peace Richard Morse, was never tried on the conspiracy indictment. At the time of his arrest the New York Herald reporter had commented, nothing is more clear than his connection with the whole escapades of the Indians, and yet I would not hesitate to say that he is so acute, so cunning, and so cool, that he will baffle the whole of his prosecutors and get off with flying colors. On Morse's own motion his trial was put off to another term, and then the case was dropped. The New York Herald, with extraordinary obtuse-ness, spoke of Judge Parker's merciful and manly course in urging Moses Earl and the others to plead guilty. He has done more by this one act to restore peace quiet and order to the county than all the bayonets this side of Texas. These signs of mercy will have good effect, and are the best evidence to the anti-rentors that the administration of law has no desire to oppress or wrong them. The anti-rent press attacked Judge Parker's conduct of the trials furiously and condemned the political press for its support of him. There is nothing to equal it in this country since the hanging of witches in New England, declared George Evans in young America. Never, he said, should the wage earner forget that the newspapers, especially the Herald and the Sun, had the blood-thirsty audacity to approve of the sentences. These base-panderers to the money-god have pretended that the sentences would have the effect to quell the anti-rent excitement. Inordinate stupidity. Working men, behold the tender mercies of patroon law and landlord judges, and say how long you will groan under despotism before you will use the bloodless but effectual weapon of the ballot to redeem yourself. Horace Greeley, who had never before asked a governor to commute a sentence, now appealed to Silas Wright to save Edward O'Connor and John Van Steenburg. It was not until O'Connor returned to his cell to await death that his bold spirit faltered. Through a small hole in the partition between their cells William Brisbane watched the young man. He paced his cell with a slow and measured step, his eyes fixed steadily upon the floor, his lips compressed, and every little while a sort of quiver or tremulous motion would play over them, his whole soul seemed to be torn with intense agony. At length Brisbane spoke to him. Aren't you in your heart cursing the principles for which you're about to die? No, said O'Connor thoughtfully. Brisbane, I will die true to my souls. It is not for myself that I'm worn, but for her who is dearer to me than life. As the young man thought of his dear Janet Scott his bosom seemed to heave and swell almost to the bursting with extreme emotion. At length he gave vent to his feelings in a flood of tears. After this he talked with firmness about his approaching fate. Nay, he even gested with some of the other prisoners with regard to their sentences, and with Northrop in particular. Northrop was mourning sadly about his hard fate being sentenced for life. O'Connor playfully asked him if he would trade, and even went so far as to offer to trade even. Northrop gave such a hilarious shake of the head that we all burst out laughing. Brisbane had a heartening visit from his counsel, Colonel Parker, who came to his cell and said, Brisbane, the way you were represented to us when you came here, we took you to be an incarnate devil, but since we have become acquainted we find you to be a man of very different stamp. I did my best to get you home with the bill upon your head, but said they, Parker, if you attempt anything like that by God we will lynch you. The reply I made was lynch and be damned. Needless to say, however, Brisbane was not released on bail, and the Colonel ran no risk. When Daniel Squires returned to his cell after the sentencing, he wrote a farewell letter to his wife. I have been out and heard my sentence from the earthly judge, who, after talking to me about my crimes, said that I must remain in prison all the days of my natural life, which deprives me of all my friends and connections forever. But as long as there is life there is hope. I expected that when I heard my sentence it would affect me, but it did not. Although some people and the law have called me guilty, still I feel a clear conscience. Therefore I bear my burden with as much fortitude as possible. I wish you to make yourself as comfortable as you can under your circumstances. I am in good spirits, although it looks like a great thing for a man as young as I am to be sentenced off for life. But yet I cannot but think if I behave myself I shall see my family. Mr. Gould of Roxbury, J. Gould's father, told me today if I acted well he thought I would see my family again. You must keep up good courage and not give way to natural affections too much. Be careful, and do not mourn for me. I am better off than you are, for I have got someone to take care of me, but you have to take care of yourself and the children. And remember that you are not forgotten by me. I remain your affectionate husband, my mother's dutiful son, and my children's fond father, until death. With this letter Squires sent a brief journal of his days in Delhi jail, and a poem for his wife to keep as a memorial. Farewell, we part to meet no more, our fates will have it so. The dream of fondest bliss is o'er to distant lands I go. I go to solitude and thought, a slave to landlord's power, but faith and hope is my support, each passing solemn hour. Ah cruel fate it wounds my heart, ah cruel tyranny. I grieve from cherished friends to part, but mostly love for thee. Alas, alas, when hopes depart and all our prospects die, all that can cheer the mournful heart consists in memory, and you, perchance, may think upon affections-passioned spell, and sometimes two of him who now murmurs his last farewell. The next day was Sunday, a melancholy day, and trying to our feelings, for many friends came for farewells, so touching and trying were the scenes, wrote Brisbane, that I was glad when the shades of evening proclaimed the day at an end. On the following morning the thirteen prisoners started for Clinton Prison in the Adirondacks, leaving O'Connor and Van Steenburg behind to await the gallows. William Brisbane described the trip in two letters, one to a friend in Andes and the other to the schoolmaster Joseph Hogue. A confused noise of hurried footsteps mingled with the clanking of chains or shackles burst upon our ears, clank went the bolts and in came Sheriff Moore, accompanied by a body of men with evident disappointment in their looks, they had expected ropes instead of shackles. In a few moments we were all shackled, two and two. I took an affecting leave of O'Connor, struggled into our wagon and off we started for Clinton Prison. As we passed the crowd Peter Wright stepped forward and shook hands with me and told me he did not think I was very guilty. I was struck with the warmth and generous sympathy that the people manifested towards us as we passed along. As the party wound slowly down the east wall of the mountain to Catskill in Green County, Brisbane's mind was filled with tender and trying memories. Six years ago I was left in this little place by the rest of the Scottish families that came over with me, a stranger in a foreign land, a penniless and homeless wanderer. My heart began to swell as the recollections of those days crowded upon my memory. At last my eyes fell upon a little sheltered spot upon the creek side, where my wife and I used to visit on a Sunday to talk about our misfortunes. I thought I should see my wife, my children, there, but I looked in vain, the scene was a blank, and I was a shackled prisoner. I buried my face in the folds of my coat and wept as I remembered the past. I thought upon the present and trembled for the future. Streets and windows in Catskill were crowded, many women wept. One of them, seized with a kind of frenzy, clapped her hands and cried, Down with the rent, down with the rent! Brisbane confessed that her words affected him very much like the sound of a musical instrument sadly out of tune. These were the fatal words, and the words fell heavily and dull upon my ears. They were my funeral dirge to a living tomb. Yet he observed the scene was as strangely ridiculous as it was solemn. The posse formed into a hollow square with us terrible anti-rentors in the centre, while one solitary trumpeter rode at our head, playing that beautiful in patriotic air, old Dan Tucker. If ever there was a burlesque upon a Roman triumph, this was one. They spent the night in Catskill, and the next morning boarded a steamer for Albany. As we moved from the shore, I observed a young Scotchman among the crowd who had visited me the night before, waving a handkerchief as a token of farewell. When we came into Albany, the steamboat was literally covered with people, all striving to get a sight of the anti-rentors. It was curious to hear the remarks of the people as they turned away after getting a sight of us. Why, they're pretty decent-looking farmers. They ain't much like Indians. I don't see any hard-looking colts among them. A boy screamed out, I say, what is an anti-renter? Here they docked, and the sheriff went away to return presently, with a man whom Brisbane described as one of the most Judas Iscariot-looking customers I ever saw. Sheriff Moore singled out Moses Earl as the victim, and the newcomer showered him with abuse. During the harangue, wrote Brisbane, he said he had some sympathy for the rest of us. Good God, I thought, I am come low indeed when my situation demands such a ruffian sympathy. If there had been a Billingsgate College in Albany, I could almost have sworn he was its professor. Old Mr. Earl sat and stared into his professor's face like one bewildered. The prisoners were finally taken to the Albany jail, where there was another rush of visitors. Brisbane and his comrade in shackles sat down upon their cell floor, and sang my native Caledonia, upon which a fellow at the door growled, you're a happy soul, and you must be a miserable soul, retorted Brisbane, to make yourself miserable because you see your fellow man happy. By this time they were getting hungry, having breakfasted early that morning before they left Catskill, a man who was brought up and introduced as the sheriff told them they would get something to eat presently. About an hour afterwards a colored man came along with a basin in each hand. He opened the door a little, apparently with a kind of tremulous fear, and pitched two pieces of something out of each basin into the cell. I picked up two pieces of my share, one of them I made out to be some affinity of bread. The other baffled my skill to find out its nature. I handed it to my companion and asked if it was beef or Honduras mahogany. I tried it with my teeth, but could make no impression upon it. I then tried it upon my knife, but it was still no go, so I gave it up in despair and called it rather hard feed. Our waiter came at length with our water, but such water! It was as red and muddy as our brooks in a spring freshet. Wood de Godet had been as sweet. To our palate it tasted like epsom salts mixed with wormwood. All the furniture in our cell was a couple of coarse blankets, two bricks, and a basin. I could see use for everything except the bricks, whether they were left for the purpose of some life-sick prisoner to knock out his brains I cannot tell. But seeing that they were there I thought I would turn them to some useful purpose. So I gave one to my comrade and kept one myself and we used them as pillows. Sometime in the night we were waked up by some persons at our cell door with a lantern. They asked tauntingly what we were guilty of, then finally gave us some abusive language and left. They were respectively dressed men. How it comes I cannot tell you, but my mind was strongly impressed with the idea that Governor Wright was one of them. I mentioned this to Sheriff more the next day, but he gave me no answer. The night, but such a night, passed and the anti-rentors were given their breakfast coffee in their wash basins. The coffee was so execrable we could not drink it, Brisbane commented. That morning the prisoners were smuggled through the back streets toward Troy. Sometime later they arrived at Whitehall, Washington County, where they were permitted to write letters to be delivered by Sheriff Moore, who virtually dictated the contents by warning the men that their only hope for freedom lay in using their influence to stop anti-rent activity. People universally tell us that if the anti-rentors keep within the law, Brisbane wrote in one of his letters, and show an honest determination to maintain the law, that a pardon may ultimately be obtained. Now I hope you will exercise both your judgment and your influence with the people. He urged that the terms up-rent and down-rent be forever buried, and the old and united name of the people applied instead of the factious name of up and down-renter. Daniel Squires wrote a similar letter. I think the better way will be for you to hold meetings and dissolve all your associations that have had any connections with the Indians, he said. People think generally that if such should take place there will be something done for us. Weary and jaded after wearing chains for a week, the anti-rentors reached Clinton Prison on Saturday. The shackles were struck from their limbs, rather in an unceremonious manner, Brisbane remarked. The headkeeper never stopped to inquire whether our legs or shackles were iron, for he hammered away as if both were of the same material. We then put on our striped dress of degradation. We were shown to our bedroom. It was a long, narrow building with a row of beds, rather like kennels, on each side of it, with an alley up the centre. On each side of the alley ran an immense chain which extended the whole length of the hall. To these chains were attached smaller ones with a shackle at the end of them. These shackles were most ardently attached to the legs. I thought at one of the hardest sites I had yet seen to see about two hundred human beings chained to their beds. They soon found that life in Clinton Prison was scarcely the solitude and thought that Daniel Squires had expected. It consisted of hard unending labour, laying walls, digging excavations, and mining iron. The rugged mountains surrounding the prison reminded Brisbane of his native Scotland, so beautiful indeed that even my scathed and burning heart would sometimes bound with joy as I listened to the eloquent voice of nature. He described one autumn morning in Danamora as follows, The sun was scarcely risen and the teams had not yet arrived to begin the labourers of the day. I turned my eyes toward the south, and that I often did, for there lay the magnet that drew my heart. Lake Champlain lay stretched out before me. I thought that I could discern the faint flicker of a sail skimmering on its peaceful bosom in the grayness of the morning. It resembled one of Ossian's ghosts, which he described as floating on the gray mists of the hills. Yes, there lay that beautiful lake, and as the rosy fingers of mourn began to play over its glassy surface, in my moment of rapture I compared her to a beautiful and blushing bride locked in the arms of her husband. The lazy clouds hung heavy upon the mountaintops, while toward the east the land sunk toward a hollow, while the clouds above it were tinged with a gorgeous drapery that I cannot describe. The gap in the mountain seemed as if aurora had burst through the clouds and gracefully folded up the drapery of night, and thus made a triumphal gateway for the glorious god of day to pass. The vision of Merza that I used to read with so much pleasure at school came vividly to my recollections, and like Merza I felt my heart chastened and my mind elevated by the enchanting scene before me. But I was soon roused from this moralizing. Brisbane, your carts are awaiting you! The curtain fell on this fancy panorama. As I turned away from it my eye fell on the grated windows of my prison and finally rested on my striped dress of degradation. Prison work had its dangers. Daniel Northrop was caught in a slide and seriously injured, and had it not been for Dr. Bouton's skill he would hardly have recovered. Even in prison the anti-rentors looked to the doctor as their leader, and he was always ready to stand by them. Once Brisbane was ordered to work on one of the high walls of a new building, he told the guard it would be unsafe because he was subject to dizziness even at small heights, but the officer drove him off in the most insulting tones. Brisbane protested angrily at such tyranny. When I cooled down a little he wrote of the incident, I saw my danger, but I was not coolly to submit to be flogged. That was an indignity I was determined not to submit to. So I went down to the hospital, told Dr. Bouton what I had said and my fears. Well, said Bouton, if they punish one they will have us all to punish. But on the whole they were model prisoners. Early in November the newspapers reported that the anti-rentors at Clinton Prison deport themselves with great propriety and are very orderly and quiet. In Delhi jail Edward O'Connor and John Van Steenburg nursed their courage as the day of execution crowded upon them. John was bewildered and introspective, but Edward was somewhat bolstered by the sense of being part of a heroic struggle and by his resolution to go to the gallows true to his principles. Still mourning for Janet Scott, who is dearer to me than life, he wrote some verses which commenced in an apostrophe to freedom, still my chief delight, and ended as a love-song with the following verse. In midnight dreams and morning's prayers she's always present, always there, first earthly great desire. Her beautyous form and humble mean, so rarely found, so rarely seen, lights all my soul with fire. When Edward's 26th birthday arrived on October 17th, he celebrated it by writing what he planned as his farewell to the world. Sore, sore is my heart when I think of the night. So dark and so lonely, so gloomy the sight. But little I thought I should never see more, my fond, my sweet Janet, the girl I adore. So fondly I pressed her soft bosom to mine. I loved her so dearly, she was almost divine. But when we parted, what prophet could tell I was bidding my fair one for ever farewell? What tongue or what pen can my feelings express, to think of my loved one in keenest distress? My blood rushes through me and makes my heart swell, to write my fond one farewell, oh farewell. Oh well I remember the simple fond strain. When we parted, she asked, when shall we meet again? Our tears intermingled, and swiftly they fell. But oh we were taking our final farewell. Oh Father in heaven, it is my desire, and ever shall be my humblest prayer, that thou mayst protect her, our parents as well. I send her my fondest, my lasting farewell. At the end of the verses Edward made an advance notation, presented to my friends to preserve as a memorial for him who died in his country's cause, November 29, 1845, aged 26, on 17 October 1845, Freedom's willing sun bleeds free, though scourged and slain for liberty, Edward O'Connor. CHAPTER XIX November Ides The letters from Brisbane and Squires, which had been delivered by Sheriff Moore, did have some effect on the rest of the anti-rentors. Throughout the Manor Counties Indian disguises became a thing of the past. Bright Calico costumes were hemmed into dresses, window curtains, and bed quilts, and masks were burned or buried. On the slope of old clump above Roxbury, where young John Burroughs was to uncover it two years later, someone buried under a stone pile a hideous mask of stained leather with horns on the forehead and coarse animal hair glued on for a scalp lock. The most revolutionary anti-renter had always realized that feudalism could not be defeated on the field of battle. Only the ballot could destroy that unholy alliance of wealth and government. Nevertheless, in the tenant's darkest hour, the Calico army had proved its worth. The Indians had kept the landlord's agents and the sheriff at bay until the movement could grow into a political force, until it could stand the loss of its leaders without the slightest thought of retreat. Had not the Indians protected the livestock and the tools of the anti-rentors from forced sales, anti-rentism would have been choked off in infancy in the ravines of the Helderbergs where it was cradled. Deprived of their means of livelihood, a few farmers would have been cuffed into submission and dissuasion of the rest would have followed. The Indian riots also had focused national and even international attention on the existence of semi-feudal leases in the New World. Although the first impulsive resentment over the riots cost anti-rentism half of all the popular sympathy it might have gained from the public, the unjust enemy reprisals, vigilanteism, wholesale arrests, corruption of the courts, and subversion of the state constitution to party interests brought about a popular revulsion. Silas Wright had sent the sheriffs to unmask the Indians and in the end had himself been unmasked. The real issues emerged from the fabric of lies. Elements long critical of anti-rentism began to re-evaluate the principles at stake. A missionary sent by the Presbyterian Church of Delaware County to work among the anti-rent barbarians made the following report after a thorough study. I have found, to my very agreeable surprise, among the anti- renters much the most intelligence, the most piety, and by far the most hospitality, and since I have become acquainted with the merits of their cause I believe it to be just, and they have my sympathy. The Lutheran Herald, organ of another conservative group, deplored that in this boasted republic an extensive system of land ownership should be tolerated at war with the genius of our government, the character of our institutions, and the best interests of our society. The four-year-ists who had been alienated by the tenants' lawless invasion of the rights of property, now asked in the editorial columns of the Harbinger, what shall we say of the growing dissatisfaction with these, so to say, feudal tenures? Is no account to be taken of it? Is it to be smothered by the strong hand as coming solely from the great enemy? This is impossible. Our agrarian friends have too true a principle beneath their errors to be thus summarily disposed of. As proof that their strength did not lie solely in the leadership of such men as Dr. Bouton and William Brisbane, the farmers did not relax their efforts to achieve reform through legislation. If anything their viewpoint was broadened by the experiences of that summer of 1845. Their newspapers began to talk the same language as Evans and Devere, who in the Williamsburg shop that Sunday in February 1844 had discussed a new political alignment that would result in a republican party of progress. One of the anti-rent papers declared, There never can be either national glory or wealth until a party shall arise that is in truth and deed anti-rent, nor until the doctrine of an equality of compensation for labour and of time and equal chances is established upon the broad basis of equal rights, equal chances to all and privilege to none. The anti-rent party now forming may become the nucleus. The farmers' songs of emancipation dropped their stress on force and expressed a determination to work and vote. November ids shall put to flight the imps of tyranny. No partisan of aristocracy saw the menace in the broadening crusade more vividly than James Fenimore Cooper, the squire of Otsego Hall. The danger from anti-rent doctrines was most to be apprehended, he felt, not from misguided and impotent beings who have taken the field in the literal sense, but from the educated classes who had taken it in the moral sense. Provincial notions that the tenures were opposed to the spirit of free institutions, notions spreading to the urban centres of culture far too swiftly for comfort, those were the real danger. On the anti-rent side Ira Harris agreed with him. There lies the chief danger to this venerable and long cherished relation between landlord and tenant, he said, employing a typical Cooper euphemism. Public opinion is brought to bear upon it, the educated classes are beginning to think and talk and act upon the subject, and this is the element of reform beyond the reach of sheriff's posses or military force or governor's proclamations. Landlords who had entrusted their fortunes to politicians now moved to salvage what they could. A dozen landholders in Delaware, Ulster, Sullivan, Scowhary, Columbia, Green and Otsego counties made a general offer to sell all their lands on fair and equitable terms, and invited tenants to discuss purchase with them. Among the signatories were the Livingstons, the Verplanks, the Overings, and the Armstrongs. Earlier in 1845 Stephen Van Rensselier IV had offered to waive the quarter sale for $30, and several credulous farmers had paid. But the redrawn deeds were returned to them with a new clause inserted calling for a double rent payment at every transfer of the land. When Lawrence Van Dusen called this to the attention of a legislative committee, he was brusquely interrupted by a landlord's spokesman. That's a lie. Van Dusen did not have to answer for he was upheld by a committee member who said, I have one of the deeds in my hand and I have just read the very clause referred to. Now Stephen IV made his third piece offer. The six percent formula, evolved by his own tenants in May of 1839, and later advocated by William H. Seward, was resurrected and proposed as something new. He was willing to sell for a sum which at six percent would yield annual interest equal to the rent, or about half the five dollars an acre he had previously demanded. The freeholder commented that the present proposal might convince an unsuspicious public that Mr. Van Rensselier was willing to make a reasonable compromise. But again the Patroon's offer actually applied only to the Helderberg farms, which did not have enough topsoil to fill an ox cart. The richest and most fertile portions of Albany County were excluded. Even the Albany Argus admitted that the excluded tenants might have reason to complain, and added the freeholder, the day is gone when the tenants will be content with anything but justice. In both major parties the internal conflict between reaction and progress was sharpened. Reformers like Seward and Greeley had done much to cut the Whig party adrift from its aristocratic element, and new blood was beginning to appear in the inner councils. The same forces were working in the democratic ranks, driving the hunkers and the barn-burners farther and farther apart. The once dependable anti-monopoly appeal of the democratic party, and its old cry of popular rights, had become meaningless dogma, belied by the practice of friendship for land monopoly and landed aristocracy. Every signpost pointed to a political reshuffling just over the horizon. Again the anti-rentors waited for the two parties to make their selections, and then endorsed only the candidates who had consistently advocated adjustment of the feudal leases. The Whigs began a second courtship of anti-rentism. The tenants were right, wrote Thurlow Weed. Men who labored for their landlord with teams for a given number of days were neither substantial freeholders nor independent farmers. These were feudal exactions and villain services. Not to be outdone the Democrats made hasty pilgrimages to the farmers, and the atlas, Wright's Albany mouthpiece, spoke approvingly of anti-rent objectives. In Delaware County Sheriff Moore and his political friends tried to win tenant votes by means of the letters he had delivered for Brisbane and Squires. Every effort was made to employ the sorrow, the loneliness, and the destitution of the frightened families of the prisoners to break anti-rentism as a political force for all time. The politicians all but offered freedom for the prisoners if the anti-rentors would abandon politics. Many, including Thomas Devere, were actually convinced that Governor Wright was planning to intercede to save Edward O'Connor and John Van Steenburg before the election. Devere went to see the Governor and in a two-hour conference cited Judge Parker's prejudicial handling of the trials. Even in England, famed for its oppression of political enemies of the ruling class, he said, such a miscarriage of justice has never been permitted. Silas Wright was moved, not so much by Devere's appeal as by the realization that public opinion against the political aspects of the trials had crystallized. Even Timothy Corbyn, who had helped round up anti-rentors for persecution, was urging him to commute O'Connor's sentence or extend a final pardon. Corbyn wrote that there was no proof that Edward had fired his gun, but much proof to nullify that charge, and he did not think that misguided Caprice should select O'Connor as the victim to suffer the death penalty when two hundred others who had been at the Earl sale were equally guilty. No one ever knew whether this was genuine conviction on Corbyn's part or another effort to break the political resolve of the anti-rentors. Petitions came from all over the state demanding that the prisoner's lives be saved. Even the Delaware Express lost its bloodthirstiness. If the Governor should see fit to commute their punishment, far be it from us to oppose this act of mercy. Of this left-handed plea, Joseph Hogue remarked, a wolf when caught in a trap can be as tame as a lamb. Another factor was the astute legal opinions written for Horace Greeley's Tribune by George Clinton, Jr. Clinton held that the warrant under which the sheriff had acted was totally void and that Steele had been a trespasser on the Earl property. He had been the wrongdoer, Clinton said, warning Wright not to dispose of O'Connor and Van Steenburg in prejudice, passion, and excitement. They had been wrongfully indicted and convicted. Despite any possibilities of executive clemency, the farmers did not relent. Throughout the fall campaign they aimed such fury at the Governor that the Atlas remarked on their spirit of intense hostility, we do not deny it admitted the freeholder, reminding its readers that Wright had called the tenants, insurgents, rebels, and outlaws. Whether he had been basely deceived by his political advisers or basely dishonest did not matter, he had been responsible for these past six months of strife. Even the women joined in with a warning to Silas Wright and the opponents of anti-rentism, published in one of their papers, you may fix your canon in exaltation now, but you will hear it answered at the polls with the voice of Niagara. You who have fattened upon office and power which we gave you, your days are numbered, your political heyday is over, you are now in the seer and yellow leaf, the people are about to take these matters in their own hands. Although Silas Wright's term had another year to go, he could not help being worried about the effect of this agitation on the democratic majority in the legislature. He finally called in John Van Buren, Michael Hoffman, Peter Kager, and other party leaders whose advice had brought him to such a pass. The result was that a series of resolutions were adopted by Democrats throughout the state, viewing with unmitigated abhorrence those political demagogues who for personal or party purpose had fanned the flame and encouraged the deluded anti-renters, and declaring that the governor's course relating to the unhappy difficulties between landlord and tenant met with their entire approval. Schenectady Democrats disapproved of all political anti-rentism and called upon every supporter of democratic principle to withhold support and countenance from it. Party stalwarts elsewhere held that any man seeking election by pledging himself to stand by their cause may be a candidate from modern Higuery, but will receive, we trust, the signal rebuke which his demagoguism and hypocrisy so richly deserve. Buffalo found Cato's swift action worthy of the highest commendation. Similar endorsements came from virtually every county in the state. The farmers singled out the resolutions urging dissolution of their political organization as new evidence of Wright's aims. If we dissolve, said one leader, our enemies would pick us off in detail. We are not to be wheedled out of our objective by political jugglery. No man can be, at one and the same time, a friend of law and order and an anti-renter, was the slogan endlessly repeated by the Silas Wright press. Finally, in desperation, the friends of the governor adopted Indian tactics. Thugs were sent from Albany to break up anti-rent political rallies. Speakers were threatened with tar and feathers and pelted with rotten eggs. But this time the sheriff did not come with a posse and Wright did not drum for law and order. On election day the farmers were up before daylight. By noon the horses and wagons crowded the roads, bringing in the voters. The results exceeded their most sanguine expectations. Democratic party strategists had considered it political wisdom to destroy anti-rentism, assuming that the votes gained outside the feudal counties would more than make up for the loss of the tenant's support. But they were disappointed. The farmers piled up an anti-rent Whig majority of more than seven thousand in the traditionally Democratic Manor districts, thus as Ira Harris remarked by one blow annihilating the entire majority by which Silas Wright had risen to power the year before. The call for a constitutional convention was carried by more than two hundred thousand votes, and the tenants elected fourteen out of a total of one hundred and twenty-eight members of the legislature. Great fires burned in the towns and horns threw the news from valley to valley. Despite the presence of the state militia, anti-rentism carried up-rent Delhi. Let the log-jails be now chopped into firewood and distributed to the poor, advised the free holder. It will be the first instance in which the poor ever found comfort from the walls of a prison. Joseph Hogue, the schoolmaster, sent a jubilant letter to the anti-rent press. Truth, as she always does and is ever destined to, triumphed over oppression, monopoly, and the combined hosts of her enemies, he wrote, and indeed those who sought to palsy those whose aim was to restore to all equal rights are indeed crestfallen. The conservative press could only deplore the sordid interests of the tenantry and fear that politicians would go on truckling to anti-rentism until the rights of property were overthrown and everybody was reduced to the sad condition of the van-rent salirs. After the election was over and the fate of O'Connor and Van Steenburg could no longer affect votes, the politicians and up-renters who had been the loudest in favour of clemency now called upon Governor Wright to hang them on the ground that the people of Delaware County had shown by their large anti-rent vote that they were not subdued. The Methodist chaplain of the Delhi Jail admitted candidly to Joseph Hogue, both of them have confessed to me all that they have done and I am firmly convinced of their innocence. Though they were there, armed and disguised, I am certain that they had no more to do directly with the death of Steele than the others. But he could not sign a petition for reprieve, he said, because he had been told that some of the anti-renters had threatened to avenge their death. If that is so, he added, I only wish there were more to be hung. On November 22, one week before the scheduled hanging, Governor Wright commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment. Defending the trials as regular and inconformity to the law, he explained that he was saving the prisoner's lives in answer to appeals, even though he could find no evidence that they had surrendered all disposition to resist the law. He was influenced principally, he said, by petitions describing O'Connor as far from mediocrity, of irreproachable character, loved and esteemed by all who had the honour of being acquainted with him. When the Governor's commutation order reached the prisoners, the Delaware Express reported, Edward and John leaped about like madmen. Two hours later they were on their way to Sing Sing, guarded by forty soldiers. After boarding a boat at Catskill, Edward wrote to Reverend John Graham, giving the letter to Sheriff Moore for delivery. Six weeks I was under the sentence of death, which was more punishment than I thought I ought to have had, but still I am now to commence a new era. Could my countrymen have but known what clearness of conscience I have in this matter, they would never have sent me down the river, but the law holds me in this case, and I feel thankful that my countrymen sympathise with me. Much of the long letter which the preacher received was, surprisingly enough, devoted to Sheriff Moore and his friends. I must speak of them in the highest praise for their kindness to me. I am surprised to hear it said that I have been in irons in a room that I could not stand up in, also that I was not well fed. I deny it in toto. If you believe yourself and say, peace, peace, peace, and do what you can to make peace, it will be better for all the prisoners. Oh, beware, my friends, I have been in an awful school already, and God knows what still awaits me. If you ever have any more opposition to the law, Lord only knows what will be the consequence or where will be the end. If you take my advice you will turn right, right wrongs no man, and only return me to my friends, to society and to God. The letter even praised Silas Wright. Later O'Connor charged that Sheriff Moore had copied his original draft and distorted the contents. Needless to say, he said, he was much abused in Delhi. True, he had written a letter on the boat, yet never had he written such ecomiums nor such lavish praise of the officials of Delhi. At all events, he said flatly, I deny the tenor that it breathes as not being a production of mine. Winter came to the Catskills and the Helderbergs, the Blenheim and Grafton Hills, burying them in snow. Columbia County became a rolling blanket of white. It had been a hard, bitter year for the farmers, but they had gained votes in the legislature and won the struggle for a constitutional convention. They could turn to winter work with energy and confidence. There were kegs to be made, bark to be cut for the tanneries, and saplings to be gathered for barrel hoops. On Dingle Hill the fields that Moses Earl had made productive were cold and white. Sparrows rustled in the weed stalks above the fence where Osmond Steele had fallen. Sarah Earl carried on as Moses had asked her to. She was sensible for her age, reported Joseph Hogue, after talking to her before the roaring fire in the Earl farmhouse. But she wept when she told him her troubles. She was oppressed by debt, and now with her husband in prison it would take the annual proceeds of the farm to pay for hire. Three days before Christmas Governor Wright recalled the troops that were still occupying Delhi. If evil influences shall hereafter be carefully avoided and bad counsel firmly resisted by those who once yielded to dangerous delusions his message read, insurrection will not again make its appearance, and time for barrence and good conduct will soon wear out the deforming traces of that which has terminated. In January 1846 Silas Wright suddenly found feudal tenures proper subjects for legislative inquiry and discussion. There was no embarrassment in his blue gray eyes and round florid face when he told the legislature so in his annual message. He had no difficulty in rationalizing his reversal of policy. A year before he had refused relief on the grounds that the tenants came with unclean hands and that the issue was not the justice of their cause but the preservation of peace and the suppression of armed rebellion. Now the situation had changed. True, the spirit of defiance continued to be manifested in individual cases, but it was no longer general. He charged the legislature to act promptly to rid the state of the awful ghost of feudalism. Observed the free-holder, the trick of pretending to be precluded from discussing the real merits not having succeeded according to expectation, the Governor now finds it convenient to assume, what was just as true last year as this, that there is no real excuse for not entering upon discussion. The editorial went on to say that Silas Wright had magnified, distorted, and warped the riots to his own use, only to discover in the end that the people were with the farmers, in fancying it was as patriotic to prevent a poverty-stricken tenant from being turned out of his house and home as it was to empty a cargo of tea in Boston Harbour. The Democrats climbed aboard the bandwagon of reform with such celerity that only the calico dresses, the sound of the tin horn and the rattle of sabers was missing. Benjamin Bailey, one of Wright's most talented friends, who had felt in 1845 that there was no authority upon which the legislature could act, now called upon the lawmakers to remove the evil, unrepublican and degrading tenures, which he suddenly found to be a fungus upon the body politic. Imagine my surprise, said Henry Z. Hayner, the Whig anti-renter who had been one of Dr. Bouton's attorneys, when I found not a gentleman but was ready and willing, nay anxious, to do them ample in speedy justice, to search diligently to find a remedy for their grievances. Ira Harris listened sardonically as paraphrases of his own words came from the lips of the very men who had accused him of sedition, but he was willing to accept them into the ranks. I know that eleventh-hour conversions are always suspect, he said, on the floor of the legislature. Still I am not disposed to scrutinize too closely the motives of the gentleman placed in circumstances so embarrassing, nor to inquire too carefully into the reasons which have induced them to change ground. I am willing that their deeds shall speak for them. The Democrats did their best to shut out the Whigs from any participation in the reform action to which they had been forced. Those who have borne the heat and burden of the day need repose, said Benjamin Bailey, suggesting that Ira Harris should be spared the ordeal of serving on the committee to draft the relief for the tenants. When Harris declined to be relieved, Bailey turned on him for attempting to monopolize anti-rentism. The hewlin cry was immediately raised that the party of the responsible majority was in danger and that Silas Wright would not have a fair chance. During the bitter debate that followed the Democrats blamed former Governor Seward for the whole anti-rent crisis. Ira Harris retorted that far from provoking disturbances, Seward had exerted influence toward quieting the resistance. Even after the legislature had refused to act on Seward's 1840 recommendations, the tenants had continued to petition legally. Harris pointed out that in 1844 the legislature had answered the tenants' complaints with that infamous Judiciary Committee report. I charge upon the author of that report all the disorder and violence, he said. There the germ was planted which has produced all these evils. Until then a disposition had been manifested at least to listen to the complaints of these tenants. But in that report, exhibiting much sophistry, all hope was extinguished. They were told that there was no relief for them, that they must submit to their condition, that the degradation and hardships existed but in their imagination. The acrimony finally subsided with the appointment of a select committee headed by Samuel J. Tilden of New Lebanon, Columbia County, a tested friend of Martin Van Buren. Tilden's task was to save the party from its anti-rent blunder, and the choice was ideal. East of the Hudson, farmers knew and liked young Tilden. He had spoken strongly against the powerful financial interests which introduced into legislation influences the most subtle, founded on interests the most selfish, and the avaricious few who controlled legislation in order to concentrate and perpetuate their wealth. The appointment of the committee heralded a distinct advance for the tenants, but Devere was quick to see that they could not afford to sit back and wait for results. Seeking to make doubly sure that the farmers had a voice in the legislative session and the approaching constitutional convention, Devere urged a state anti-rent meeting to draft a program. Ira Harris strenuously opposed it, fearing that the farmers might demand sweeping changes that would upset his strategy of giving them moderate reforms while appeasing the conservatives. Through the freeholder, still edited by his Whig friend Alexander Johnson, he said there was no need for a convention since the farmer's cause was in able hands. Devere promptly urged the farmers to repudiate the freeholder and keep the anti-rent party from falling into the hands of a central clique, who would control even the calling of conventions. Ira Harris had sidestepped this head-on clash with Devere as long as he could, but in the face of increasing objection from the conservatives he could no longer uphold the free-soil policy or risk Devere's influence with the anti-renters. Accordingly the freeholder did not try to defend its opposition to the meeting, but opened a barrage against the instigator, characterizing Devere's farmer supporters as the mistaken adherents of a false-hearted and double-tongued man. If they actually knew Devere the freeholder declared, they would kick him out of their presence as unceremoniously as they would in ill-natured and unmanorly cur. His vanity, his assumption of infallible judgment upon all things, his dictatorial conduct, his acts of petty tyranny, his ungovernable temper and unregulated tongue are wholly unbearable. Wherever this man has been he has been an instrument of evil and an agent of mischief. Too vain and presumptuous to act a subordinate part, he is too rash and indiscreet to be a leader. Nevertheless Thomas Devere won the first round, for on February 27th, 1846, despite the snow blocking the roads, the anti-rent delegates gathered at J. H. Lockwoods across the street from the State Capitol. Thurlow Weed and other top-ranking Whigs rushed to the meeting to protect party interests, but Devere was elected secretary, and the most strenuous Whig efforts failed to head off the farmer's demand for the right to contest the landlord's titles. Even Devere was surprised at his strength. A comprehensive program of legislative needs was drawn up and taken across the street to the Tilden Committee by a delegation which included Dr. Frederick Crownes, Amos Loper, Lawrence Van Duzen, John Slingerland, John Mayhem, and the Reverend Hezekiah Pettit. Five weeks later, on April 2nd, at the Albany County Convention to nominate delegates to the coming Constitutional Convention, Devere was still in the ascendancy. He was named Secretary of the Meeting and Chairman of the Resolutions Committee. Although he did not wish to expose himself to the charge that he was seeking office, he was nominated as a delegate and received five votes on the first ballot in spite of having withdrawn his name. He then called upon the convention to nominate Horace Greeley, or someone else who would embody the principle of the Free Soil Movement. His enemies were able to block this move, but the final program for Constitutional reform was anything but Whig-inspired. The tenants passed a resolution that the landlord's titles required more substantial proof than the mere word of the Patroon. It read, We hold it to be the first and most sacred duty to take such measures as will tend to establish in this republic the principle of Freehold Soil. Having once put our hand to the plow, we will never look back until we have reached our just and noble object in the entire enfranchisement of those fields which the swords of our fathers redeemed from the English kings and the axe of our fathers redeemed from the primeval forest. Meanwhile the Tilden Committee had finished its investigation, and on March 28 submitted to the legislature a report embodying all the suggestions made at the February 27th meeting, except those referring to pardons and the right to test the landlord's titles. With what Ira Harris called great force and ability, Tilden had analyzed the evils of the leases and had recommended uncompromising destruction of the feudalistic manners which had been perpetuated by the old federalists. William H. Seward's criticisms in 1840 had not been more conclusive. The Tilden report declared that the tenants had not exaggerated the evils of the ten years. Experience and observation had proved their charges to be true. Successful husband Dree demanded a sense of complete ownership, which the leasehold system prohibited. Moreover the leases were impediments to a free exchange of the lands and tended to restrain labour from seeking, through shifting employments, the habit and opportunities of enterprise, and they made an invidious distinction in favour of a particular class of creditors. As a remedy Tilden favored such taxation of the landlord's reservations as would discourage these investments which have been found contrary to just public policy. Further, and this was his most daring proposal, he would not only limit all future agricultural leases to ten years, but would break up the estates upon the death of their present owners by the exercise of the unquestionable power of the legislature over the statutes of devise and dissent. He would then transfer the landlord's rights and interests to the tenants on equitable terms. The landlords were shocked into new and desperate political activity. They beset members of the legislature in all places. Stephen Van Rensselaer invited a large number to dine with him. Perhaps the free-holder commented he thinks good dinners, good wines, and good horses will be weighty arguments in his favour. Joshua Spencer, a patron-petted legislator, did his best to stem the tide of reform in the senate, the last stronghold of conservatism. As a member of the senate's select committee he filed a minority report opposing all relief for the farmers. The tenants could get any necessary redress, he explained, by availing themselves of the landlord's disposition to voluntarily sell out their interests. Mr. Spencer observed the free-holder has rooms in the house of the patron's pastor. He is himself a member of the church. This report was surely ushered into the world with due religious ceremony. Drawn up, read, and approved by the committee on Sunday, in the house of the minister of the gospel, the pastor of the patron, it must be the offspring of holy thoughts, and may be truly denominated a sanctified report. Pamphlets flowed from the presses of the landlord aristocracy, crying out against the injustice. Landlords would be robbed because they had so few votes compared with those who were to benefit by the robbery. The taxing of landlords was a violation of the spirit of the state constitution, if not the letter. The purpose was not to raise revenue, but to coerce them into selling or abandoning their property. Daniel D. Barnard's Defense of the Manor System, originally published in the American Review, was reissued in pamphlet form and distributed throughout the state. All the trouble, said Barnard, sprang from the agrarian spirit of the times, but he was confident that there were too many men of property and too many creditors, as well as too much principal, to allow debts in any form to be repudiated. He appealed to the farmers to give up their political activity. God help the poor if they must needs add hatred and envy and malice and strife to the necessary evils of poverty. He defended the quarter-sale reservation, as the patroons far-sighted effort to exclude dangerous or improper and unprofitable intruders from the property. As for the farmers, they should consider it a privilege to have been permitted by their labours to have made worthless land worth ten dollars an acre. A beehive is not the only community in which drones live on honey gathered by another's labour and industry, answered the freeholder. James Fenimore Cooper was more vituperative than usual. The hope of civilization had never been darker. Anti-rentism was tyranny in its worst form. Tilden's proposals were thimble-rigged, designed to conciliate three or four thousand voters who were on the market at the expense of those who, it was well known, were not to be bought. The tax, to choke off the landlords, was a disgrace to civilization and outrage on liberty. Tilden's proposal to break up the estates had put a premium on murder, at which said Cooper the farmers had proved themselves expert. Squire Cooper's concept of democracy was outraged. Democracy was a lofty and noble sentiment, and such injustice and roguery had no place in it. The most civilized countries on earth were under the leasehold system, and the relation of landlord and tenant was entirely natural and salutary. Editors of the anti-rent press turned literary critic with zeal. It would be unfair to call Cooper a demagogue, the freeholder commented. He hates and despises the people too much to flatter them. But we give him no credit for honesty in his course. A man so filled with vanity and ill nature could not please if he tried. If he should attempt to smile he would frown, and if he meant to laugh he would snarl and growl. Mr. Cooper is a cynic, a sneering philosopher. Cooper had by artful contrasts and skilled array of falsehood made rogues of the tenants in his novel The Redskins. His landlords are well educated, elegant, accomplished and liberal gentlemen, and his tenants are coarse, ignorant, selfish and hypocritical boors. The freeholder read Cooper's own opinion of universal suffrage into a speech by one of his characters. I suppose quite three-fourths of the whole population are opposed to it in their hearts. Hugh Little Page's remark in The Redskins was pointed out as revealingly autobiographical. For a moment as I gazed on the broad view I felt all my earlier interest in it revive, and am not ashamed to own that a profound feeling of gratitude to God came over me when I recollected it was by his providence I was born the heir to such a scene instead of having my lot cast among the serfs and dependents. We presume, said the freeholder, he would restore the old property qualification and apply it to the whites as well as the blacks. The man is no Democrat at all who would make any distinction between man and man in political rights and privileges on account of his color, property or employment. The man who does so has still to learn the first lesson in democracy. Owing to Cooper's admiration for French and English society the freeholder went on he wanted to introduce the same social distinctions in this country and pretended to think them compatible with democracy. He would persuade us all the land should first be given to a few favored families in order to raise up and perpetuate a class of liberal and cultivated gentlemen who shall be supported in ease and affluence by the labor of their tenants and who are to repay the toil of their humble servitors by setting them examples of intelligence, polished manners and high moral training. All the clamor of the wealthy landowners was unavailing, the time had come, Tilden's proposals to limit the term of agricultural leases and to break up the feudal estates on the death of the present owners, past the assembly, and were defeated in the conservative senate. But on May 13th, 1846, both houses of the New York State legislature voted to tax the landlord's income from the long-term leases and to outlaw the seizure and forced sale of tenant property for non-payment of rent. At the tenant's insistence Ira Harris sponsored two independent measures covering the points neglected by the Tilden report, one calling upon Governor Wright to pardon the anti-rent prisoners, the other creating a commission to investigate the landlord's titles to their estates. Both measures were defeated, but the strength of the farmers' united political action could no longer be denied. Democracy was emerging from theory into practice and the legislature was at last forced to accept the will of the people. On June 1st the Constitutional Convention opened in Albany to remain in session till October 9th. For the first time in the history of the state no great names dominated these meetings. Fifty-three of the delegates were farmers or mechanics who were determined to get rid of federalism as well as feudalism. While the Democrats cited the Bible to prove that the Negro was destined to occupy an inferior social position, the anti-rentors demanded equal rights without regard to race and asserted that there should be no qualifications for any right, trust, or profession except merit, integrity, and ability. One of the farmers' major goals was the extension of local self-government to provide for the election of judges and top-ranking state officers formerly appointed by the Governor. This was their reply to Silas Wright's removal of Commissioner Russell Doar in 1845 and his use of Attorney General John Van Buren as his personal agent against anti-rentism. In the case of the elective judiciary the farmers had more in mind than ridding the courts of political dependency. New blood was needed to make the administration of justice a living process. Old lawyers seldom make good judges, declared the freeholder. They have so long been accustomed to enlist on one side of every case that it is hard to weigh both sides impartially. They are apt upon the start to get bias one way or the other. Similar criticisms of the courts were made from the convention floor. The judiciary had worked well for an unprincipled portion of a privileged order of men, one of the delegates said. The courts had deeply humbled and disgraced the state another charged and were guilty of log-rolling and lobbying. Though he too argued in favour of an elected judiciary, Ira Harris reassured the conservative delegates by making a spirited defense of Judge Amasa J. Parker for his handling of the anti-rent trials at Delhi. Judge Parker had sentenced more than a score of unfortunate men, and yet said Harris I would scarcely venture to accept a nomination for Judge in opposition to that distinguished judge, so ably and faithfully as he discharged his delicate and responsible duties. Later events suggested that Harris had made a deal with the American Jefferies, whereby he would deliver an anti-rent endorsement to Parker, in return for hunker votes for himself when the judiciary became elective. The anti-renter fairly sizzled with Devere's reply. Now men, are ye men at all? Are ye citizens of the North America Republic? Do you live in the present enlightened age, and will you permit this man to tie down your intellectual faculties, to lead captive your common sense, to chain you to that car of his ambition from which he spits down upon ye the very filth of his insults and contempt? Oh, men and brethren, rouse, rouse, and do not give yourself up to bondage so detestable. Prove to the political office-dealers that their standing axiom, the people can be humbugged, in your case at least, is not true. Alexander Johnson hastened to uphold Harris's defence of Judge Parker in the free-holder. He avowed his complete confidence in Parker's integrity, honesty, and uprightness. If the Judge lost his equanimity and impartiality at Delhi, it was simply because he was caught in a tide of hate and revenge. But if God spared him he would be a light to his profession, an ornament to the bench and an honour to his state. Johnson pitied Devere's infirmity by reason of which he cannot differ from a man without quarreling with him, and cannot disapprove and censure a man's conduct without hating him and vilifying his public and private character. Devere charged that the tenants had cheated themselves of real constitutional reform by electing knaves and fools as delegates. The free-holder passed off the attack, explaining that Devere was revengeful because neither Horace Greeley nor George H. Evans nor Alvin Beauvais, to whom besides himself he condescends to concede a modicum of brains and a small measure of wisdom, were elected delegates. In spite of the clash of interests and ambitions, the convention approved of an elective judiciary. It was a real victory for the farmers. But they achieved their most important triumph when the leasehold system came up for debate. Feudal landlordism, said George Clyde, whom the tenants called on to handle their side, originated in power and craft, if not by fraud. He described the land-barons as a small class of men living idly and sumptuously on the toil of others, through leases skillfully and cunningly devised to keep the farmers inferior, mere serfs and vassals, hewers of wood and drawers of water. After the discussion substantial relief was voted for the tenants. Under the new state constitution no more feudal leases could be issued, and some of the worst features of the existing leases were eased. In order to prevent a recurrence of anti-rent difficulties, the revised statutes prohibited the lease of agricultural lands for a longer period than twelve years, and outlawed all fines, quarter-sales, and similar restraints upon the transfer of title. But the victory was not complete. The existing leases still stood. There was satisfaction in knowing that, as George Clyde said, the reforms would eventually wear out and destroy the existing evils. Still there was an untried battlefield. Now that justice could be anticipated from an elected judiciary, the farmers could and would test the legality of the reservations in the leases.