CHAP. II. argument and exhortation, and right nobly did he honor their demand. A silence full of emotion filled the assembly as for a moment before beginning his tall form stood in commanding attitude on the rostrum, the impressiveness of his theme and the significance of the occasion reflected in his thoughtful and earnest features. The spell of the hour was visibly upon him; and holding his audience in rapt attention, he closed in a brilliant peroration with an appeal to the people to join the Republican standard, to 1856 Come as the winds come, when forests are rended; The influence was irresistible; the audience rose and acknowledged the speaker's power with cheer upon cheer. Unfortunately the speech was never reported; but its effect lives vividly in the memory of all who heard it, and it crowned his right to popular leadership in his own State, which thereafter was never disputed. The organization of the Republican party for the nation at large proceeded very much in the same manner as that in the State of Illinois. Pursuant to separate preliminary correspondence and calls from State committees, a general meeting of prominent Republicans and anti-Nebraska politicians from all parts of the North, and even from a few border slave States, came together at Pittsburgh on Washington's birthday, February 22. Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania sent the largest contingents; but around this great central nucleus were gathered small but earnest delegations aggregating between three and four hundred zealous leaders, representing twenty-eight States and Territories. It was merely an informal mass convention; but many of the delegates were men of national character, each of whose names was itself a sufficient credential. Above all, the members were cautious, moderate, conciliatory, and unambitious to act beyond the requirements of the hour. They contented themselves with the usual parliamentary routine; appointed a committee on national organization; issued a call for a delegate convention; and adopted and put forth a stirring address to the country. Their resolutions were brief and formulated but four demands: the repeal of all laws which allow the introduction of slavery into Territories once consecrated to freedom; resistance by constitutional means to slavery in any United States Territory; the immediate admission of Kansas as a free State, and the overthrow of the present national Administration. In response to the official call embodied in the Pittsburgh address, the first National Convention of the Republican party met at Philadelphia on the 17th of June, 1856. The character and dignity of the Pittsburgh proceedings assured the new party of immediate prestige and acceptance; with so favorable a sponsorship it sprang full-armed into the political conflict. That conflict which opened the year with the long congressional contest over the speakership, and which found its only solution in the choice of Banks by a plurality vote, had been fed by fierce congressional debates, by presidential messages and proclamations, by national conventions, by the Sumner assault, by the Kansas war; the body politic throbbed with CHAP. II. activity and excitement in every fiber. Every free State and several border States and Territories were represented in the Philadelphia Convention; its regular and irregular delegates counted nearly a thousand local leaders, full of the zeal of new proselytes; Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, was made its permanent chairman. The party was too young and its prospect of immediate success too slender to develop any serious rivalry for a presidential nomination. Because its strength lay evidently among the former adherents of the now dissolved and abandoned Whig party, William H. Seward of course took highest rank in leadership; after him stood Salmon P. Chase as the representative of the independent Democrats, who, bringing fewer voters, had nevertheless contributed the main share of the courageous pioneer work. It is a just tribute to their sagacity that both were willing to wait for the maturer strength and riper opportunities of the new organization. Justice John McLean, of the Supreme Bench, an eminent jurist, a faithful Whig, whose character happily combined both the energy and the conservatism of the great West, also had a large following; but as might have been expected, the convention found a more typical leader, young in years, daring in character, brilliant in exploit; and after one informal ballot it nominated John C. Frémont, of California. The credit of the selection and its successful management has been popularly awarded to Francis P. Blair, senior, famous as the talented and powerful newspaper lieutenant of President Jackson; but it was rather an intuitive popular choice, which at the moment |