friends," said he at the close of an agricultural address, "remember that the end of all true agriculture, as well as of effort in other directions, is the growth and perfection of the human race. Vain is all other progress unless the human race progresses in knowledge, in industry, in temperance, and in virtue; and when this end is attained, no other need be despaired of. Let us remember this, and in all our fairs, in our festivals, in our gatherings, ask: 'Have the people around us grown in knowledge? Are our schools better, our people better educated, more intelligent, more virtuous than they were thirty or ten years ago?' If they are, we may rejoice and feel confident that agriculture and all other useful arts will go forward hand in hand."

To the Mechanics' Institute of San Francisco he said:

"The new idea of our time is founded upon a better understanding of the law of God and humanity. It recognizes all useful labor as essentially laudable and honorable, — the greater honor where there is the greater proficiency. The digger who makes the thousandth part of a canal is not of honor equal to the scientific engineer who fully accomplishes the work of its construction. More honor with greater intelligence, but honor to each in his degree, but the larger honor is due to him who accomplishes the greater result. Simply manual labor can never achieve the highest reward, nor command the greatest regard. Hand and head must work together. To accomplish great results the laborer must be intelligent and educated. In this country, the price of labor is comparatively high, and yet it is a question whether it is not, on the whole, cheaper in the end than elsewhere. Nicholas Biddle, and other distinguished thinkers upon the subject, asserted that American labor at a higher price was cheaper than the labor of Spain or most other countries at almost nominal rates. In building the bed of a railroad, for instance, it is found cheaper with American labor, or labor under their guidance and direction, than with any other. This is proved by the fact that railroads can be built in America at one sixth part of the cost of constructing them in Italy, and I believe, in Ireland also. Labor, as it becomes better educated, will also become more effective, and when it receives its double reward, it will be more profitable."

Nor did he omit, in view of the coming struggle in politics, to expound the principles of the Republican party, and lay bare the

designs of the rulers of the South. His political addresses added to the strength of the Republicans in California, and made their triumph easier.

Returning homeward by way of Panama, Mr. Greeley reached New York on the 28th of September, after an absence of nearly five months.

CHAPTER XXX.

HORACE GREELEY AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION

OF 1860.

Mr. Greeley's reasons for opposing Mr. Seward-Mr. Raymond's accusation-The private letter to Mr. Seward-The comments of Thurlow Weed-The three-cent stamp correspondence-Mr. Greeley a candidate for the Senate-He declines a seat in Mr. Lincoln's Tabernacle.

On the 16th of May, 1860, a National Convention of the Republican party met at Chicago for the purpose of nominating candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. Mr. Greeley attended the Convention as a delegate from Oregon. The general expectation was that Mr. Seward would receive the nomination for the first office. He was set aside, however, and Abraham Lincoln became the candidate of the party. The person chiefly instrumental in frustrating the hopes of Mr. Seward's friends was the editor of the Tribune. At least we may say, with the utmost confidence, that, had Mr. Greeley, in his newspaper and at Chicago, given a hearty support to Mr. Seward, that gentleman would have been nominated. Mr. Greeley's reasons for his course on this memorable occasion were stated by himself as follows:

"My mind had been long before deliberately made up that the nomination of Governor Seward for President was unadvisable and unsafe; yet I had resolved to avoid this Convention for obvious reasons. But when, some four or five weeks since, I received letters from Oregon, apprising me that, of the six delegates appointed and fully expecting to attend from that State, but two would be able to do so, on account of the very brief notice they had of the change of time of holding the Convention, and that Mr. Leander Holmes, one of those who had been appointed, and clothed with full power of substitution, had appointed and requested me to act in his stead, I did not feel at liberty to refuse the duty thus imposed on me. Of the four letters that simultaneously reached me, one from Mr. Holmes, another from Mr. Corbitt, chairman of the Republican State Committee, a third from the editor of a leading Republican journal, and the fourth from an eminent ex-editor

-at least three indicated Judge Bates as the decided choice of Oregon for President, and the man who would be most likely to carry it, a very natural preference, since a large proportion of the people of Oregon emigrated from Missouri. One of them suggested Mr. Lincoln as also a favorite, many Illinoisans being now settled in Oregon.

"I went to Chicago to do my best to nominate Judge Bates, unless facts there developed should clearly render another choice advisable. I deemed Judge Bates the very man to satisfy and attract the great body of conservative and quiet voters who have hitherto stood aloof from the Republican organization, not because they dissent from our principles, but because they have been taught to distrust and hate us on other grounds. I deemed him the man whose election would, while securing the devotion of the Territories to free labor, conciliate and calm the Slave States in view of a Republican ascendency. But, more than all, I felt that the nomination of Judge Bates would have given a basis and an impetus to the emancipation cause in Missouri which would nevermore have been arrested. And now, when all the world is raining bouquets on the successful nominee, so that, if he were not a very tall man, he might stand a chance to be smothered under them; when thousands are rushing to bore him out of house and home, and snowing him white with letters, and trying to plaster him all over with their advertising placards, I, who knew and esteemed him ten years ago, reiterate that I think Judge Bates, to whom I never spoke nor wrote, would have been the wiser choice. I say this, knowing well that his nomination would have fallen like a wet blanket on nearly the whole party, that thousands would have sworn never to support it, and that counter-nominations would have been got up, or seriously threatened. But I kept my eye steadily on the fact that the first and only summer election that is to be held in a State that we could in any event hope to carry is that of Missouri, where the Republicans all earnestly desired the selection of their loved and honored fellow-citizen, and where thousands not Republicans were ready and eager to co-operate with them in case of his nomination. I do not know that they could have carried their State in August; but they confidently thought they could, and would at all events have made a desperate effort. And that effort, even though defeated, would have shown a result most inspiriting to Republicans

everywhere, and especially propitious to the free-labor cause in Missouri. There is no truer, more faithful, more deserving Republican than Abraham Lincoln; probably no nomination could have been made more conducive to a certain triumph; and yet I feel that the selection of Edward Bates would have been more farsighted, more courageous, more magnanimous."

Mr. Greeley proceeded to state that the true cause of Mr. Seward's defeat was, not his own opposition to him, but the conviction, on the part of the delegates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, that the nomination of Mr. Seward would jeopardize the election in those States.

This article in the Tribune elicited a reply from Mr. Henry J. Raymond. On his return from the Chicago Convention Mr. Raymond visited his friend Seward at Auburn, where he wrote a letter to the New York Times, commenting upon Mr. Greeley's conduct with severity, and attributing it to personal motives. The following is the material part of his letter:

-

"I observe that to-day's Tribune contains a long personal explanation from Mr. Greeley of the part which he took in the action of the Chicago Convention. It is never easy for a public man to be the historian of his own exploits. If he be a vain man, he will exaggerate his personal influence; if he be an overmodest one, he will underrate it. It is scarcely necessary to say that Mr. Greeley has fallen into the latter mistake. With the generosity which belongs to his nature, and which a feeling not unlike remorse may have stimulated into unwonted activity, he awards to others the credit which belongs transcendently to himself. The main work of the Chicago Convention was the defeat of Governor Seward; that was the only specific and distinct object towards which its conscious efforts were directed. The nomination which it finally made was purely an accident, decided far more by the shouts and applause of the vast concourse which dominated the Convention, than by any direct labors of any of the delegates. The great point aimed at was Mr. Seward's defeat; and in that endeavor Mr. Greeley labored harder, and did tenfold more, than the whole family of Blairs, together with all the gubernatorial candidates, to whom he modestly hands over the honors of the effective campaign. He had special qualifications, as well as a special love for the task, to which none of the others could lay any claim. For twenty years he had been sustaining the political principles and vindicating the political conduct of Mr. Seward, through the columns of the most influential political newspaper in the country. He had infused into the popular mind, especially throughout the Western States, the most profound and thorough devotion to the antislavery sentiments which had given character to Mr. Seward's public career; he had vindicated his opinions upon naturalization and upon the organ ization of the Know-Nothing party from the assaults made upon them; he