William Cassidy was an American journalist and politician.
Background
William Cassidy was born on August 12, 1815 in Maiden Lane, Albany, New York, United States. He was the son of John and Margaret Cassidy. He was named for his paternal grandfather who had migrated from Ireland late in the eighteenth century. John Cassidy, proprietor of a meat-market, won the esteem of the Albanians and represented them as alderman.
Education
At an early age Cassidy began his classical education at the Albany Academy, and at the age of sixteen was admitted to Union College in the Senior class graduating in 1833, after remaining in the college one year. He studied law in the offices of Judge McKown and John Van Buren.
Career
He was trained for the law in the office of John Van Buren and Judge James McKown, and was admitted to the bar but never practised, as his tastes were markedly literary and journalistic. He devoured the contents of books amazingly fast, became conversant with Latin, French, and German, and impressed Henry James as being the best-read man of his time in French ballads. At the age of twenty-five years he was writing caustic articles for the radical Plaindealer and Rough Hewer, an Albany newspaper which supported the Azariah Flagg faction of the New York Democracy. His political leanings, and his satirical and witty pen, made him acceptable to the Van Buren group, who had him chosen state librarian for 1841-43, after which he became joint editor with Henry Van Dyke of the Albany daily Atlas. His editorials, much shorter than those of many other partisan editors, were written in a dirty corner amidst the confusion of the composing room. His drafts were never transcribed, were seldom revised, and had few erasures, though they were "a very lunacy of hieroglyphics. " When the Albany Argus deserted Van Buren on the issue of the annexation of Texas, Cassidy attacked its editor, Edwin Croswell, in an editorial duel which was long remembered. Croswell finally sued Cassidy for libel, succeeded in having the office of state printer abolished, and bid in the state printing free of charge to prevent Cassidy's election as printer. After the factional fight of 1848, Cassidy turned to Pierce (1852) and through the influence of Horatio Seymour, united the Atlas and Argus (1856) to fight the Republican party. Lincoln seemed to him an uncouth and dangerous man to be elected president. The Atlas and Argus was classed as a copperhead sheet during the Civil War, and was barred from the mails. Cassidy's bitter opposition to Lincoln did not prevent him, however, from dashing off, in the heat of the hour, one of the best eulogies on the assassinated president.
Death came to Cassidy at his birthplace, the Cassidy homestead on Maiden Lane.
Religion
Mr. Cassidy was a life-long member of the Catholic Church, and died in that faith.
Politics
He ardently supported McClellan, Johnson, and Seymour, and reluctantly aided Greeley in 1872. An Irish Catholic, he was a life-long enemy of Great Britain. His paper bristles with anti-English editorials, but for consistent foreign news it fails the reader. It was simply a state partisan newspaper. The combative Cassidy was, however, courtly, dignified, and suave in manner. He became the Nestor of Democratic journalists in up-state New York, and was a lover of society, to the last.
His articles on political subjects written at his leisure and published in Democratic journals, found favor with the public. The taste thus cultivated and encouraged, induced him to leave his legal studies and adopt the profession of journalism. At a time of life when other young men are scarcely through with their collegiate education, Mr Cassidy's brilliant gifts as a writer were winning wide recognition and he was acknowledged by the leaders of the Democratic party as one their ablest and most effective political writers. At the age of twenty five he first entered the field journalism as a regular writing for the Plaindealer and Rough Hewer then published in Albany.
Membership
He served as a member of the constitutional convention of New York (1867), as secretary of the State Democratic Committee (1868 - 73), as president of the Argus Company (1865 - 73), and as a member of a commission on revision of the New York state constitution (1872).
Personality
Mr. Cassidy's personal appearance and bearing were striking and noble. His manner was uniformly courtly and dignified in its courtliness ; unstudied, yet perfect. His love for his native city was not the least of his characteristics. He believed in Albany, and never failed to enlarge upon its advantages of position and the manifest evidences of its marked progress.