form for the use of the chairman of the convention was donated by Michigan, as the first chair made in that State. It was an arm-chair of the most primitive description, the seat dug out of an immense log and mounted on large rockers. Another chair, one made for the occasion, attracted a great deal of attention. It was constructed of thirty-four kinds of wood, each piece from a different State or Territory, Kansas being appropriately represented by the "weeping willow" a symbol of her grief at being still excluded from the sisterhood of States. The gavel used by the chairman was more interesting even than his chair, having been made from a fragment of Commodore Perry's brave Law

rence.

Into the Wigwam, on the morning of the 16th of May, there crowded fully ten thousand persons. To the spectator in the gallery the scene was vividly picturesque and animated. Around him were packed hundreds of women, gay in the high-peaked, flower-filled bonnets and the bright shawls and plaids of the day. Below, on the platform and floor, were many of the notable men of the United States-William M. Evarts, Thomas Corwin, Carl Schurz, David Wilmot, Thaddeus Stevens, Joshua Giddings, George William Curtis, Francis P. Blair and his two sons, Andrew H. Reeder, George Ashmun, Gideon Welles, Preston King, Cassius M. Clay, Gratz Brown, George S. Boutwell, Thurlow Weed. In the multitude the newspaper representatives outnumbered the delegates. Fully nine hundred editors and reporters were present, a body scarcely less interesting than the convention itself. Horace Greeley, Samuel Bowles, Murat Halstead, Isaac H. Bromley, Joseph Medill, Horace White, Joseph Hawley, Henry Villard, A. K. McClure, names so familiar to-day, all represented various journals at Chicago in 1860, and in some cases were active workers in the cauIt was evident at once that the members of the con

cuses.

vention-some five hundred out of the attendant ten thousand -were not more interested in its proceedings than the spectators, whose approval and disapproval, quickly and emphatically expressed, swayed, and to a degree controlled, the delegates. Wednesday and Thursday mornings were passed in the usual opening work of a convention. While officers were formally elected and a platform adopted, the real interest centred in the caucuses, which were held almost uninterruptedly. Illinois was in a frenzy of anxiety. "No men ever worked as our boys did," wrote Mr. Swett; "I did not, the whole week, sleep two hours a night." They ran from delegation to delegation, haranguing, pleading, promising. But do their best they could not concentrate the opposition. "Our great struggle," says Senator Palmer, "was to prevent Lincoln's nomination for the vice-presidency. The Seward men were perfectly willing that he should go on the tail of the ticket. In fact, they seemed determined that he should be given the vice-presidential nomination. We were not troubled so much by the antagonism of the Seward men as by the overtures they were constantly making to us. They literally overwhelmed us with kindness. Judge David Davis came to me in the Tremont House, greatly agitated at the way things were going. He said: 'Palmer, you must go with me at once to see the New Jersey delegation.' I asked what I could do. Well,' said he, there is a grave and venerable judge over there who is insisting that Lincoln shall be nominated for Vice-President and Seward for President. We must convince the judge of his mistake.' We went; I was introduced to the gentleman, and we talked about the matter for some time. He praised Seward, but he was especially effusive in expressing his admiration for Lincoln. He thought that Seward was clearly entitled to first place and that Lincoln's eminent merits entitled him to second place. I listened for some time,

and then said: 'Sir, you may nominate Mr. Lincoln for Vice-President if you please. But I want you to understand that there are 40,000 Democrats in Illinois who will support this ticket if you give them an opportunity. We are not Whigs, and we never expect to be Whigs. We will never consent to support two old Whigs on this ticket. We are willing to vote for Mr. Lincoln with a Democrat on the ticket, but we will not consent to vote for two Whigs.' I have seldom seen a more indignant man. Turning to Judge Davis he said: 'Judge Davis, is it possible that party spirit so prevails in Illinois that Judge Palmer properly represents public opinion?' 'Oh,' said Davis, affecting some distress at what I had said, 'oh, Judge, you can't account for the conduct of these old Locofocos.' 'Will they do as Palmer says?' 'Certainly. There are 40,000 of them, and, as Palmer says, not one of them will vote for two Whigs.' We left the New Jersey member in a towering rage. When we were back at the Tremont House I said: 'Davis, you are an infernal rascal to sit there and hear that man berate me as he did. You really seemed to encourage him.' Judge Davis said nothing, but chuckled as if he had greatly enjoyed the joke. This incident is illustrative of the kind of work we had to do. We were compelled to resort to this argument—that the old Democrats then ready to affiliate with the Republican party would not tolerate two Whigs on the ticket-in order to break up the movement to nominate Lincoln for Vice-President. The Seward men recognized in Lincoln their most formidable rival, and that was why they wished to get him out of the way by giving him second place on the ticket."

The uncertainty on Thursday was harrowing, and if the ballot had been taken on the afternoon of that day, as was at first intended, Seward probably would have been nominated. Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania all felt this, and shrewdly

managed to secure from the convention a reluctant adjournment until Friday morning. In spite of the time this manœuvre gave, however, Seward's nomination seemed sure; so Greeley telegraphed the "Tribune" at midnight on Thursday. At the same hour the correspondent of the "Herald" (New York) telegraphed: "The friends of Seward are firm, and claim ninety votes for him on the first ballot. Opposition to Seward not fixed on any man. Lincoln is the strongest, and may have altogether forty votes. The various delegations are still caucusing."

It was after these messages were sent that Illinois and Indiana summoned all their energies for a final desperate effort to unite the uncertain delegates on Lincoln, and that Pennsylvania went through the last violent throes of coming to a decision. The night was one of dramatic episodes of which none, perhaps, was more nearly tragic than the spectacle of Seward's followers, confident of success, celebrating in advance the nomination of their favorite, while scores of determined men laid the plans ultimately effective, for his overthrow. All night the work was kept up. "Hundreds of Pennsylvanians, Indianians, and Illinoisans," says Murat Halstead, "never closed their eyes. I saw Henry S. Lane at one o'clock, pale and haggard, with cane under his arm, walking as if for a wager from one caucus-room to another at the Tremont House. In connection with them he had been operating to bring the Vermonters and Virginians to the point of deserting Seward."

In the Pennsylvania delegation, which on Wednesday had agreed on McLean as its second choice and Lincoln as its third, a hot struggle was waged to secure the vote of the delegation as a unit for Cameron until a majority of the delegates directed otherwise. Judge S. Newton Pettis, who proposed this resolution, worked all night to secure votes for it at the caucus to be held early in the morning. The Illinois men