dislike the Democratic party more. It is needless for any Democratic abstractionist to say that they are influenced by unreasonable prejudices. What is to be considered is the fact; not whether the causes of the fact are rational or irrational."

The Enquirer was at first disposed still to hold out, and urged:

"It is not in this little and remote New England State that the great battle of 1872 is to be fought, but is in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri that the contest will be decided. It is in those States, with a different population from New England, that we shall win."

But this journal soon after wheeled into the Passive line, and put on so docile a demeanor, that it was e'en willing, or at least ready, to take up Greeley himself, as the bearer of the coalition standard.

Mr. Greeley received the call of the Missouri malcontents with a mixture of real smiles and simulated frowns. In his paper of the 29th of January, he said:

"The Tribune is likely to be against the Bolters, since they are almost certain to make hostility to Protection one of the planks of their platform, and that the Tribune can never abide, no matter who may be the rival candidates for President. Now that Emancipation is a fixed fact, Impartial Suffrage nearly so, and Universal Amnesty inevitable, there is no remaining National issue which is half so important in the view of the Tribune as that of Protection vs. Free Trade. We have no shadow of doubt that the overthrow of Protection would be speedily followed (as in 1816-20, and again in 1833-'7) by a sweeping industrial collapse and commercial bankruptcy, which would carry hunger and distress into the homes of millions of our countrymen. To such a calamity the Tribune cannot contribute, even passively, for anyconceivable consideration."

This does not seem very favorable to the Disorganizers, of whose platform Free Trade was certainly the corner-stone; but the sting was taken out of his rebuke of this feature by the paragraphs which followed, and in which Mr. Greeley handled

very roughly the conduct of the Administration and the policy of Congress, adding, in his exclamatory style, "Men and brethren! a new leaf must be turned over, or there are breakers ahead. The proposed Cincinnati Convention may prove a fiasco, or it may name the next President"; and hinting that if "Roscoe Conkling & Co." are allowed to run the "Grant machine" a few months longer, it will be all up with the Republican party, and that Cincinnati will surely win. Altogether, this editorial of Greeley's forms a congeries of inconsistencies, like his political record in the large.

Under such auspices the Cincinnati Convention assembled. Its proceedings will form the subject of the next two chapters.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION.

The Place Gathering of the Clans-No Concert of Action-The Tariff Question-The Rival Candidates-Greeley's Name Received with Laughter-The Davis Hordes-Caucuses of the Syndicate-Opening of the Convention-A Side Show-Row in the New York Delegation-How Greeley's Strikers Captured that Body-Flank Movements-A Woman in the Case-Trouble, of Course-A Turbulent Session-Permanent Organization-Carl Schurz's Speech-Good Advice which was Not Followed.

The selection of Cincinnati as the place of holding the soi disant liberal convention was most agreeable to the people of that city. For this, there were various reasons, some of propriety, others of interest. The "new departure" had taken place from this point not so many months before that it had slipped the memories of observant politicians. This city and vicinity was a hot-bed of discontent with the present Administration. The region abounded with the flash element in politics.

There were lawyers of repute, ambitious of national distinction, like ex-Judges Hoadley, Stello, and Matthews, in neither of whom inhered persistency of purpose, or qualities that command permanent success. Their sworn allegiance to any

cause was the sure precurser or its speedy downfall and decay. Judge Stallo, representing the extreme phases of German freedom of thought, has never been trammeled by church or party. To these effervescent orators was added Judge Cox, an excellent gentleman and average lawyer, but not above revenge for offended vanity, and willing to accept any honorable means to compass the defeat of Grant.

THE LOCAL PRESS.

The newspapers of the Queen City were leavened with discontent. The Enquirer being a Democratic journal, was the hereditary enemy of the incumbent of the Presidential office. The Commercial, a fierce iconoclast, was eager for anything that seemed to promise the loss of others and its own gain. Even the Gazette was known to desire a change of national standard-bearers, although hoping it would be effected within the old organization. The Germans of Northern Ohio, like all their countrymen in the United States, for obvious reasons, are directly influenced and controlled by the journals published in their language. Whatever sparks of discontent were latent among them had been assiduously fanned into flame by the Volksblatt, Courier, and Volksfreund, the three daily German newspapers of the city. Fred Hassaurek, editor of the first, is an ex-office-holder of long standing, and has had ever an eye for spoils. The Courier, an infant newspaper, just

beginning to walk the devious paths of journalism, had its own reasons for desiring a change in the national management. The Volksfreund was Democratic, and an old and bitter enemy of the party in power.

LOCAL FUSION OF PARTIES.

Nowhere else in the country were the two great national parties so ready for fusion. One State Democratic Convention had adopted a platform expressing desire for conciliation and compromise, and the party had once suffered defeat on the issues of the new departure in a gubernatorial canvass. To offset this reverse, there had been a local victory upon a united ticket of rather pronounced character. The convention was therefore sure of a certain amount of local support and sympathy in case its action was sound and sensible. If a body of men which was to give voice to the opposition to Grant, and place a candidate in the field to defeat him, could not find moral encouragement and assistance, and accomplish its results with eclat in Cincinnati, the weakness of the cause which it espoused would be at once apparent, and its fall assured.

WANT OF CONCERTED ACTION.

The circumstances under which the convention assembled were anomalous. When such bodies gather in the ordinary course of events, their policy is generally foreshadowed. If the delegations