Volume II Part 20 (1/2)
[Footnote 535: James F. Rhodes, _History of the United States_, Vol.
2, p. 455.]
A few days afterward Davis referred to the matter again. ”I have a declining respect for platforms,” he said. ”I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made.” This stung Douglas. ”If the platform is not a matter of much consequence,” he demanded, ”why press that question to the disruption of the party? Why did you not tell us in the beginning of this debate that the whole fight was against the man and not upon the platform?”[536]
[Footnote 536: _Ibid._, p. 456.]
These personalities served to deepen the exasperation of the sections.
The real strain was to come, and there was great need that cool heads and impersonal argument should prevail over misrepresentation and pa.s.sion. But the coming event threw its shadow before it.
CHAPTER XXI
SEWARD DEFEATED AT CHICAGO
1860
The Republican national convention met at Chicago on May 16. It was the prototype of the modern convention. In 1856, an ordinary hall in Philadelphia, with a seating capacity of two thousand, sufficed to accommodate delegates and spectators, but in 1860 the large building, called a ”wigwam,” specially erected for the occasion and capable of holding ten thousand, could not receive one-half the people seeking admission, while marching clubs, bands of music, and s.p.a.cious headquarters for state delegations, marked the new order of things. As usual in later years, New York made an imposing demonstration. The friends of Seward took an entire hotel, and an organised, well-drilled body of men from New York City, under the lead of Tom Hyer, a noted pugilist, headed by a gaily uniformed band, paraded the streets amidst admiring crowds. For the first time, too, office-seekers were present in force at a Republican convention; and, to show their devotion, they packed hotel corridors and the convention hall itself with bodies of men who vociferously cheered every mention of their candidate's name.
Such tactics are well understood and expected nowadays, but in 1860 they were unique.
The convention, consisting of 466 delegates, represented one southern, five border, and eighteen free States. ”As long as conventions shall be held,” wrote Horace Greeley, ”I believe no abler, wiser, more unselfish body of delegates will ever be a.s.sembled than that which met at Chicago.”[537] Governor Morgan, as chairman of the Republican national committee, called the convention to order, presenting David Wilmot, author of the famous proviso, for temporary chairman. George Ashmun of Ma.s.sachusetts, the favourite friend of Webster, became permanent president. The platform, adopted by a unanimous vote on the second day, denounced the Harper's Ferry invasion ”as among the gravest of crimes;” declared the doctrine of popular sovereignty ”a deception and fraud;” condemned the attempt of President Buchanan to force the Lecompton Const.i.tution upon Kansas; denied ”the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of an individual to give legal existence to slavery in any territory;” demanded a liberal homestead law; and favoured a tariff ”to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country.” The significant silence as to personal liberty bills, the Dred Scott decision, the fugitive slave law, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, evidenced the handiwork of practical men.
[Footnote 537: New York _Tribune_, June 2, 1860.]
Only one incident disclosed the enthusiasm of delegates for the doctrine which affirms the equality and defines the rights of man.
Joshua E. Giddings sought to incorporate the sentiment that ”all men are created free and equal,” but the convention declined to accept it until the eloquence of George William Curtis carried it amidst deafening applause. It was not an easy triumph. Party leaders had preserved the platform from radical utterances; and, with one disapproving yell, the convention tabled the Giddings amendment.
Instantly Curtis renewed the motion; and when it drowned his voice, he stood with folded arms and waited. At last, the chairman's gavel gave him another chance. In the calm, his musical voice, in tones that penetrated and thrilled, begged the representatives of the party of freedom ”to think well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the summer of 1860, you dare to shrink from repeating the words of the great men of 1776.”[538] The audience, stirred by an unwonted emotion, applauded the sentiment, and then adopted the amendment with a shout more unanimous than had been the vote of disapproval.
[Footnote 538: M. Halstead, _National Political Conventions of 1860_, p. 137.]
The selection of a candidate for President occupied the third day.
Friends of Seward who thronged the city exhibited absolute confidence.[539] They represented not only the discipline of the machine, with its well-drilled cohorts, called the ”irrepressibles,”
and its impressive marching clubs, gay with banners and badges, but the ablest leaders on the floor of the convention. And back of all, stood Thurlow Weed, the matchless manager, whose adroitness and wisdom had been crowned with success for a whole generation. ”He is one of the most remarkable men of our time,” wrote Samuel Bowles, in the preceding February. ”He is cool, calculating, a man of expedients, who boasts that for thirty years he had not in political affairs let his heart outweigh his judgment.” Governor Edwin D. Morgan and Henry J.
Raymond were his lieutenants, William M. Evarts, his floor manager, and a score of men whose names were soon to become famous acted as his a.s.sistants. The brilliant rhetoric of George William Curtis, when insisting upon an indors.e.m.e.nt of the Declaration of Independence, gave the opposition a taste of their mettle.
[Footnote 539: ”Mr. Seward seemed to be certain of receiving the nomination at Chicago. He felt that it belonged to him. His flatterers had encouraged him in the error that he was the sole creator of the Republican party.”--H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 214. ”I hear of so many fickle and timid friends as almost to make me sorry that I have ever attempted to organise a party to save my country.”
Letter of W.H. Seward to his wife, May 2, 1860.--F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 448.]
Seward, confident of the nomination, had sailed for Europe in May, 1859, in a happy frame of mind. The only serious opposition had come from the _Tribune_ and from the Keystone State; but on the eve of his departure Simon Cameron a.s.sured him of Pennsylvania, and Greeley, apparently reconciled, had dined with him at the Astor House. ”The sky is bright, and the waters are calm,” was the farewell to his wife.[540] After his return there came an occasional shadow. ”I hear of so many fickle and timid friends,” he wrote;[541] yet he had confidence in Greeley, who, while calling with Weed, exhibited such friendly interest that Seward afterward resented the suggestion of his disloyalty.[542] On reaching Auburn to await the action of the convention, his confidence of success found expression in the belief that he would not again return to Congress during that session. As the work of the convention progressed his friends became more sanguine.
The solid delegations of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Kansas, supplemented by the expected votes of New England and other States on a second roll call, made the nomination certain. Edward Bates had Missouri, Delaware, and Oregon, but their votes barely equalled one-half of New York's; Lincoln was positively sure of only Illinois, and several of its delegates preferred Seward; Chase had failed to secure the united support of Ohio, and Dayton in New Jersey was without hope. Cameron held Pennsylvania in reversion for the New York Senator. So hopeless did the success of the opposition appear at midnight of the second day, that Greeley telegraphed the _Tribune_ predicting Seward's nomination, and the ”irrepressibles” antic.i.p.ated victory in three hundred bottles of champagne. As late as the morning of the third day, the confidence of the Seward managers impelled them to ask whom the opposition preferred for Vice President.
[Footnote 540: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 360.]
[Footnote 541: _Ibid._, p. 448.]
[Footnote 542: ”Mr. Julius Wood of Columbus, O., an old and true friend of Mr. Weed, met Mr. Seward in Was.h.i.+ngton, and reiterated his fears in connection with the acc.u.mulation of candidates. 'Mr. Lincoln was brought to New York to divide your strength,' he said. But Mr.
Seward was not disconcerted by these warnings. Less than a fortnight afterwards Mr. Wood was at the Astor House, where he again met Mr.
Weed and Mr. Seward. Sunday afternoon Mr. Greeley visited the hotel and pa.s.sing through one of the corridors met Mr. Wood, with whom he began conversation. 'We shan't nominate Seward,' said Mr. Greeley, 'we'll take some more conservative man, like Pitt Fessenden or Bates.'
Immediately afterwards Mr. Wood went to Mr. Seward's room. 'Greeley has just been here with Weed,' said Mr. Seward. 'Weed brought him up here. You were wrong in what you said to me at Was.h.i.+ngton about Greeley; he is all right.' 'No, I was not wrong,' insisted Mr. Wood.
'Greeley is cheating you. He will go to Chicago and work against you.'