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punishment, at forty-six years of age, of being made to sit as presiding officer over the Senate, to listen for four years to debates, more or less stupid, in which I can take no part nor say a word, nor even be allowed a vote upon any subject which concerns the welfare of the country, except when my enemies might think my vote would injure me in the estimation of the people, and therefore, by some parliamentary trick, make a tie on such question, so I should be compelled to vote; and then at the end of four years (as nowadays no Vice-President is ever elected President), and because of the dignity of the position I had held, not to be permitted to go on with my profession, and therefore with nothing left for me to do save to ornament my lot in the cemetery tastefully, and get into it gracefully and respectably, as a Vice-President should do. No, no, my friend; tell the President I will do everything I can to aid in his election if nominated, and that I hope he will be, as until this war is finished there should be no change of administration."

"I am sorry you won't go with us," replied my friend, “but I think you are sound in your judgment."

I asked: "Is Chase making any headway in his candidature?"

"Yes, some; but he is using the whole power of the Treasury to help himself."

1

"Well, that's the right thing for him to do."
"Do you really think so?"

"Yes; why ought not he to do it, if Lincoln lets him?"

How can Lincoln help letting him?"

"By tipping him out. If I were Lincoln I should say to Mr. Chase, My Secretary of the Treasury, you know that I am a candidate for re-election, as I suppose it is proper for me to be. Now every one of my equals has a right to be a candidate against me, and every citizen of the United States is my equal who is not my subordinate. Now, if you desire to be a candidate, I will give you the fullest opportunity to be one, by making you my equal and not my subordinate, and I will do that in any way that will be the most pleasant to you, but things cannot stay as they now are.' You see, I think it is Mr. Lincoln's and not Mr. Chase's fault that he is using the Treasury against Mr. Lincoln."

"Right again!" said my friend, "I will tell Mr. Lincoln every word you have said."

What happened after is a matter of history.

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.

VIII.

CHARLES CARLTON COFFIN.

THE

I.

'HE one political convention surpassing all others in enthusiasm, earnestness of purpose, and fidelity to principle, was that of the Republican Party held in Chicago, May, 1860. The spirit animating it was prefigured in the erection of the "wigwam," an edifice in which it was held. The convention was the sudden bursting into flower of the growing spirit of the free States against the aggressions of slavery.

The enthusiasm was stimulated by the conviction that through the dissensions of the Democratic Party the nominee of the convention would in all probability receive a majority of the electoral votes.

It was the opinion of most men east of Ohio that Mr. Seward of New York would receive the nomination. There were three other prominent candidates-Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Edward Bates of Missouri, and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.

Several weeks prior to the assembling of the convention, I started from Boston on a tour of obser

vation through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, to Baltimore, attending the Whig Convention in that city, which nominated John Bell of Tennessee, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. It was the last assembling of that party which had numbered among its leaders Daniel Webster and Henry Clay the raking together the embers of a dying political organization, appropriately held in an old church from which worshipers had forever departed. Southern men controlled the convention. They were enthusiastic over the nomination of Bell, but moderate in their demonstration over Everett's name, although public opinion in the Northern States regarded Everett as by far the greater statesman of the two. One editor called it the "kangaroo ticket, and said that its hind legs were longest. It was noticeable that the antagonism of the Southern Whigs was manifestly greater toward the “black Republicans than toward either wing of the divided Democratic Party.

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From Baltimore I passed on to Washington, finding the name of Mr. Seward upon the lips of most Republicans as the probable nominee of the approaching convention. Mr. Seward expected to be nominated. I recall a day in the Senate Chamber, and a conversation with Henry Wilson, Senator from Massachusetts. We were seated on a sofa, when Mr. Seward entered from the cloak-room.

"There is our future President," said Mr. Wilson "He will be nominated at Chicago, and elected. He feels it. You can see it in his bearing."

Of the public men of the period, there was no keener observer than Senator Wilson-Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania being a possible exception -no one whose fingers detected more closely the beating of the heart of the people of the Northern States. Mr. Wilson knew every phase of public sentiment in Massachusetts, comprehended New England far beyond any other man, but he did not fully comprehend the trend of thought and feeling in the great West-the rapid growth and change which was going on during those spring days in the Republican States beyond the Alleghanies. Had he seen what I saw a week later he would not have so readily concluded that Mr. Seward was to be the next President.

My journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburg sufficed to convince me that Mr. Seward would not receive the votes of Pennsylvania in the convention. A quarter of a century ago there was a rivalry between the two States for political prestige and power which has disappeared with the changed condition of affairs. New York gloried in being the "Empire" State, while Pennsylvania plumed herself upon being the "keystone" which sustained the Republic. It was plain to me that Pennsylvanian

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