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."[256] 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.
The selection of a candidate for President occupied the third day. Friends of Seward who thronged the city exhibited absolute confidence.[257] 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 assistants. The brilliant rhetoric of George William Curtis, when insisting upon an indorsement of the Declaration of Independence, gave the opposition a taste of their mettle.
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 assured 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.[258] After his return there came an occasional shadow. "I hear of so many fickle and timid friends," he wrote;[259] yet he had confidence in Greeley, who, while calling with Weed, exhibited such friendly interest that Seward afterward resented the suggestion of his disloyalty.[260] 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" anticipated 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.
But opponents had been industriously at work. They found that Republicans of Know-Nothing antecedents, especially in Pennsylvania, still disliked Seward's opposition to their Order, and that conservative Republicans recoiled from his doctrine of the higher law and the irrepressible conflict. Upon this broad foundation of unrest, the opposition adroitly builded, poisoning the minds of unsettled delegates with stories of his political methods and too close association with Thurlow Weed. No one questioned Seward's personal integrity; but the distrust of the political boss existed then as much as now, and his methods were no less objectionable. "The misconstruction put on his phrase 'the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery' has, I think, damaged him a good deal," wrote William Cullen Bryant, "and in this city there is one thing which has damaged him still more. I mean the project of Thurlow Weed to give charters for a set of city railways, for which those who receive them are to furnish a fund of from four to six hundred thousand dollars, to be expended for the Republican cause in the next presidential election."[261] Such a scheme would be rebuked even in this day of trust and corporation giving. People resented the transfer to Washington of the peculiar state of things at Albany, and when James S. Pike wrote of Seward's close connection with men who schemed for public grants, it recalled his belief in the adage that "Money makes the mare go." Allusion to Seward's "bad associates," as Bryant called them, and to the connection between "Seward stock" and "New York street railroads" had become frequent in the correspondence of leading men, and now, when delegates could talk face to face in the confidence of the party council chamber, these accusations made a profound impression. The presence of Tom Hyer and his rough marchers did not tend to eliminate these moral objections. "If you do not nominate Seward, where will you get your money?" was their stock argument.[262]
Horace Greeley, sitting as a delegate from Oregon, stayed with the friends of Bates and Lincoln at the Tremont Hotel. The announcement startled the New Yorkers. He had visited Weed at Albany on his way to Chicago, leaving the impression that he would support Seward,[263] but once in the convention city his disaffection became quickly known. Of all the members of the convention none attracted more attention, or had greater influence with the New England and Western delegates. His peculiar head and dress quickly identified him as he passed through the hotel corridors from delegation to delegation, and whenever he stopped to speak, an eager crowd of listeners heard his reasons why Seward could not carry the doubtful States. He marshalled all the facts and forgot no accusing rumour. His remarkable letter of 1854, dissolving the firm of Weed, Seward, and Greeley, had not then been published, leaving him in the position of a patriot and prophet who opposed the Senator because he sincerely believed him a weak candidate. "If we have ever demurred to his nomination," he said in the Tribune of April 23, in reply to the Times' charge of hostility, "it has been on the ground of his too near approximation in principle and sentiment to our standard to be a safe candidate just yet. We joyfully believe that the country is acquiring a just and adequate conception of the malign influence exerted by the slave power upon its character, its reputation, its treatment of its neighbour, and all its great moral and material interests. In a few years more we believe it will be ready to elect as its President a man who not only sees but proclaims the whole truth in this respect—in short, such a man as Governor Seward. We have certainly doubted its being yet so far advanced in its political education as to be ready to choose for President one who looks the slave oligarchy square in the eye and says, 'Know me as your enemy.'"
Greeley favoured Bates of Missouri, but was ready to support anybody to beat Seward. Bryant, disliking what he called the "pliant politics" of the New York Senator, had been disposed to favour Chase until the Cooper Institute speech. Lincoln left a similar trail of friends through New England. The Illinoisan's title of "Honest Old Abe," given, him by his neighbours, contrasted favourably with the whispered reports of "bad associates" and the "New York City railroad scheme." Gradually, even the radical element in the unpledged delegations began questioning the advisability of the New Yorker's selection, and when, on the night preceding the nomination, Andrew Curtin of Pennsylvania and Henry S. Lane[264] of Indiana, candidates for governor in their respective States, whose defeat in October would probably bring defeat in November, declared that Seward's selection would cost them their election, the opposition occupied good vantage ground. David Davis, the Illinois manager for Lincoln, against the positive instructions of his principal, strengthened these declarations by promising to locate Simon Cameron and Caleb B. Smith in the Cabinet. The next morning, however, the anti-Seward forces entered the convention without having concentrated upon a candidate. Lincoln had won Indiana, but Pennsylvania and Ohio were divided; New Jersey stood for Dayton; Bates still controlled Missouri, Delaware, and Oregon.
William M. Evarts presented Seward's name amidst loud applause. But at the mention of Lincoln's the vigour of the cheers surprised the delegates. The Illinois managers had cunningly filled the desirable seats with their shouters, excluding Tom Hyer and his marchers, who arrived too late, so that, although the applause for Seward was "frantic, shrill, and wild," says one correspondent, the cheers for Lincoln were "louder and more terrible."[265] Whether this had the influence ascribed to it at the time by Henry J. Raymond and others has been seriously questioned, but it undoubtedly aided in fixing the wavering delegates, and in encouraging the friends of other candidates to rally about the Lincoln standard.
The first roll call proved a disappointment to Seward. Though the pledged States were in line, New England fell short, Pennsylvania showed indifference, and Virginia created a profound surprise. Nevertheless, the confidence of the Seward forces remained unshaken. Of the 465 votes, Seward had 173½, Lincoln 102, Cameron 50½, Chase 49, and Bates 48, with 42 for seven others; necessary to a choice, 233. On the second ballot Seward gained four votes from New Jersey, two each from Texas and Kentucky, and one each from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska—making a total of 184½. Lincoln moved up to 133. The action of Ohio in giving fourteen votes to Lincoln had been no less disappointing to the Seward managers than the transfer of Vermont's vote to the same column; but, before they could recover from this shock, Cameron was withdrawn and 48 votes from Pennsylvania carried Lincoln's total to 181.
The announcement of this change brought the convention to its feet amid scenes of wild excitement. Seward's forces endeavoured to avert the danger, but the arguments of a week were bearing fruit. As the third roll call proceeded, the scattering votes turned to Lincoln. Seward lost four from Rhode Island and half a vote from Pennsylvania, giving him 180, Lincoln 231½, Chase 24½, Bates 22, and 7 for three others. At this moment, an Ohio delegate authorised a change of four votes from Chase to Lincoln, and instantly one hundred guns, fired from the top of an adjoining building, announced the nomination of "Honest Old Abe." In a short speech of rare felicity and great strength, William M. Evarts moved to make the nomination unanimous.
The New York delegation, stunned by the result, declined the honour of naming a candidate for Vice President; and, on reassembling in the afternoon, the convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. As Evarts was leaving the wigwam he remarked, with characteristic humour: "Well, Curtis, at least we have saved the Declaration of Independence!"