were significant. The platform received the enthusiastic support of the followers of Seward, Lincoln, and the other candidates. After the vote had been taken on its adoption, the great hall rang with applause and with cheers from ten thousand lusty throats.

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It was now six o'clock of Thursday, the second day, and the convention adjourned without taking a ballot. Everything seemed to point to the nomination of Seward on the morrow. Just before midnight, Greeley, who sat as a delegate from Oregon, persistently advocated Bates, and yet was earnestly in favor of almost anything to beat Seward, telegraphed the Tribune: "My conclusion, from all that I can gather to-night, is that the opposition to Governor Seward cannot concentrate on any candidate, and that he will be nominated." Halstead sent the same word to his journal.' The Seward canvass had been made with vigor and, on the whole, with discretion. Thurlow Weed, Seward's trusted friend and counsellor, was the leader of the forces. No man of the opposition equalled him in adroitness and political management. On the floor of the convention, the cause was intrusted to William M. Evarts, of New York, Austin Blair, of Michigan, and Carl Schurz, of Wisconsin, who were backed by their respective delegations. The episode of which Curtis had been the hero redounded to the credit of Seward.' The New-Yorkers were exultant. At their headquarters, the Richmond House, champagne flowed freely in celebration of the expected victory, and Seward bands of music went the rounds, serenading the different delegations from whom support was expected.*

But during this night, made hideous by bacchanalian shouts, the blare of brass instruments and the noise of the drum, earnest men, believing that success depended on the

1 Date of despatch, Thursday, May 17th, 11:40 P.M., published in Friday morning's New York Tribune. ' Ibid., p. 141.

2 Cincinnati Commercial. See Halstead,

p. 142.

• Ibid.

nomination of some other man than Seward, were indefatigably at work. Prominent among them were Andrew Curtin, the nominee of the People's party for Governor of Pennsylvania, and Henry S. Lane, the Indiana Republican candidate for governor, who urged, in accents of undoubted sincerity, that if Seward were the standard-bearer they could not carry their respective States at the State elections in October, which would determine the national contest. Nothing could be done with Ohio, another October State; she would not unite on any candidate, on either the first or second ballot.' An impression was made on Virginia; and New England, really for Seward, was influenced by the argument of availability especially and strongly urged by Greeley, whose political influence was never greater than now.

All this opposition effort pointed either to Lincoln or Bates. Could it be concentrated on one or the other? Although Bates had earnest supporters in Indiana,' that State naturally inclined to Lincoln, and it was eminently desirable that her entire vote should be cast for him on the first ballot. Any wavering or hanging back was this night overcome by the promise of David Davis, the manager for Lincoln, of a cabinet position to Caleb Smith, one of the Indiana delegates at large, in case of Lincoln's election. All but a few of the Pennsylvania delegates would vote for Cameron on the first ballot. The question was, to whom would her vote go on the second? Cameron himself, although not at Chicago, was for Seward, and it had been expected before the meeting of the convention that his influence would bring most of the delegates over to the support of the New York

' Greeley, New York Tribune, May 22d.

3

2 Letter of Swett, May 26th, 1860, Life of Colfax, Hollister, p. 142. Herndon, p. 471; Lamon, p. 449. See also Political Recollections, Julian, p. 182; and Life of Colfax, Hollister, p. 175.

See Seward's letters to Weed, April 29th and March 15th, 1860, Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii. pp. 256, 261; note in Halstead, p. 142. See Cameron's speech, May 25th, 1860, reported in Philadelphia Press.

senator.' But it became early apparent that the followers of Seward in Pennsylvania were few, and that her second choice lay between Lincoln and Bates, a vote of the delegates being 60 for Lincoln to 45 for Bates as their second choice."

To win the support of the close followers of Cameron, David Davis promised that he should have a cabinet position in the event of Lincoln's election; and this, in addition to the other influences that had been used, secured nearly the whole vote of Pennsylvania.' Lincoln himself knew nothing of these bargains at the time,' and they were made against his positive direction. A careful and anxious observer of what was taking place at Chicago, he sent to his friends this word in writing, which reached them the day before the nomination: "I agree," he said, "with Seward in his 'irrepressible conflict,' but I do not endorse his 'higherlaw' doctrine;" then, underscoring the words, he wrote: "Make no contracts that will bind me.'

995

Greeley, either ignorant of these bargains, or distrusting that the Pennsylvania and Indiana delegations could be brought to fulfil their part, thought, when the convention met Friday morning, that there could be no concentration of the anti-Seward forces. The Seward managers them

'Lincoln and Seward, Welles. Welles was the chairman of the Connecticut delegation.

'Greeley, New York Tribune, May 22d. Although Pennsylvania cast but fifty-four votes, she had one hundred and eight delegates on the official roll of the convention, Halstead, p. 125; see also account of A. K. McClure, Boston Herald, Sept. 6th, 1891.

'Herndon, p. 471; Lamon, p. 449. Article of A. K. McClure, New York Sun, Dec. 13, 1891. See also Political Recollections, Julian, p. 182; and Swett's account, Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii. p. 292; but Swett did not know of the promises in regard to Cameron and Smith, for he wrote Drummond privately, May 27th: "No pledges have been made, no mortgages executed, but Lincoln enters the field a free man."

"The responsible position assigned me comes without conditions.”— Lincoln to Giddings, May 21st, 1860. Life of Giddings, Julian, p. 376. Herndon, p. 462.

selves felt so confident that they sincerely asked, and with no idea of bravado, whom the opposition would like for Vice-President.'

The convention met and the candidates were put in nomination without the speeches of eulogy that have since become the rule. At the mention of the name of Seward or Lincoln, the great hall resounded with applause and cheers; but the Lincoln yell far surpassed the other in vigor. Tom Hyer's men had this morning marched through the street to the music of victorious strains, and had so prolonged their march that when they came to the wigwam they found the best places occupied by sturdy Lincoln men; all of Seward's followers were not able to get into the wigwam, and much of the effect of their lusty shouts was therefore lost.

In many contemporaneous and subsequent accounts of this convention, it is set down as an important fact, contributing to the nomination of Lincoln, that on this day the Lincoln men out-shouted the supporters of Seward. One wonders if those wise and experienced delegates interpreted this manipulated noise as the voice of the people. While the shouts for "old Abe" were in a considerable degree spontaneous, due to the fact that the convention was held in his own State, art was not lacking in the production of these manifestations. The Lincoln managers, determined that the voice of Illinois should be literally heard, engaged a Chicago man whose shout, it was said, could be heard above the howling of the most violent tempest on Lake Michigan, and a Doctor Ames, a Democrat living on the Illinois river, who had similar gifts, to organize a claque and lead the cheering and applause in the convention hall.'

"As long as conventions shall be held, I believe," wrote Greeley, "no abler, wiser, more unselfish body of delegates

1 Greeley, New York Tribune, May 22d.

'Life of Lincoln, Arnold, p. 167. See also letter of Leonard Swett, May 27th, 1860; also Raymond's inside history of the convention, Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii. p. 276.

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from the various States will ever be assembled than that which met at Chicago." The vigor of the young men was tempered by the caution and experience of the gray beards. Sixty of the delegates, then unknown beyond their respective districts, were afterwards sent to Congress, and many of them became governors of their States.' That a convention composed of such men-men who had looked behind the scenes and understood the springs of this enthusiasm-should have had its choice of a candidate dictated by the cheers and shouts of a mob, is difficult to believe.

The convention was now ready to ballot. As the calling of the roll proceeded, intense interest was manifested by leaders, by delegates, and by spectators. New England came first, and did not give the number of votes for Seward that had been anticipated, but New York's plumper of 70, announced dramatically by Evarts, almost neutralized this effect. All but 6 votes of Pennsylvania went to Cameron. Virginia gave surprise by casting 14 votes out of her 23 for Lincoln; and the entire Indiana delegation (26 in number), declaring for the rail-splitter of Illinois caused a great sensation. The secretary announced the result of the first ballot: Seward, 1734; Lincoln, 102; Cameron, 501; Chase, 49; Bates, 48; scattering, 42; necessary to a choice, 233.

'New York Tribune, June 2d.

? See Twenty Years of Congress, Blaine, vol. i. p. 164. There were many noted men, or men who afterwards became so, in the convention. Among them were E. H. Rollins, of New Hampshire; John A. Andrew, Geo. S. Boutwell, Edw. L. Pierce, and Samuel Hooper, of Massachusetts; Senator Simmons, of Rhode Island; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut; Evarts, Preston King, and Geo. W. Curtis, of New York; Fred. T. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Wilmot, Thaddeus Stevens, and Reeder, of Pennsylvania; Francis P. Blair and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland; Cartter, Corwin, Monroe, Delano, and Giddings, of Ohio; Judd, David Davis, and Browning, of Illinois; Schurz, of Wisconsin; John A. Kasson, of Iowa; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana; Austin Blair and T. W. Ferry, of Michigan; Francis P. Blair, Jr., and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri. Greeley and Eli Thayer sat for Oregon.