Three days after the nomination Greeley wrote James S. Pike: "Massachusetts was right in Weed's hands, contrary to all reasonable expectation. It was all we could do to hold Vermont by the most desperate exertions; and I at some times despaired of it. The rest of New England was pretty sound, but part of New Jersey was somehow inclined to sin against the light and knowledge. If you had seen the Pennsylvania delegation, and known how much money Weed had in hand, you would not have believed we could do so well as we did. Give Curtin thanks for that. Ohio looked very bad, yet turned out well, and Virginia had been regularly sold out; but the seller could not deliver. We had to rain red-hot bolts on them, however, to keep the majority from going for Seward, who got eight votes here as it was. Indiana was our right bower, and Missouri above praise. It was a fearful week, such as I hope and trust I shall never see repeated."[266] That Greeley received credit for all he did is evidenced by a letter from John D. Defrees, then a leading politician of Indiana, addressed to Schuyler Colfax. "Greeley slaughtered Seward and saved the party," he wrote. "He deserves the praises of all men and gets them now. Wherever he goes he is greeted with cheers."[267]
The profound sorrow of Seward's friends resembled the distress of Henry Clay's supporters in 1840. It was not chagrin; it was not the selfish fear that considers the loss of office or spoils; it was not discouragement or despair. Apprehensions for the future of the party and the country there may have been, but their grief found its fountain-head in the feeling that "his fidelity to the country, the Constitution and the laws," as Evarts put it; "his fidelity to the party, and the principle that the majority govern; his interest in the advancement of our party to victory, that our country may rise to its true glory,"[268] had led to his sacrifice solely for assumed availability. The belief obtained that a large majority of the delegates preferred him, and that had the convention met elsewhere he would probably have been successful. In his Life of Lincoln, Alex. K. McClure of Pennsylvania, an anti-Seward delegate, says that "of the two hundred and thirty-one men who voted for Lincoln on the third and last ballot, not less than one hundred of them voted reluctantly against the candidate of their choice."[269]
At Auburn a funeral gloom settled upon the town.[270] Admiration for Seward's great ability, and a just pride in the exalted position he occupied in his party and before the country, had long ago displaced the local spirit that refused him a seat in the constitutional convention of 1846; and after the defeat his fellow townsmen could not be comforted. Sincere sorrow filled their hearts. But Seward's bearing was heroic. When told that no Republican could be found to write a paragraph for the evening paper announcing and approving the nominations, he quickly penned a dozen lines eulogistic of the convention and its work. To Weed, who shed bitter tears, he wrote consolingly. "I wish I were sure that your sense of disappointment is as light as my own," he said. "It ought to be equally so, if we have been equally thoughtful and zealous for friends, party, and country. I know not what has been left undone that could have been done, or done that ought to be regretted."[271] During the week many friends from distant parts of the State called upon him, "not to console," as they expressed it, "but to be consoled." His cheerful demeanour under a disappointment so overwhelming to everybody else excited the inquiry how he could exhibit such control. His reply was characteristic. "For twenty years," he said, "I have been breasting a daily storm of censure. Now, all the world seems disposed to speak kindly of me. In that pile of papers, Republican and Democratic, you will find hardly one unkind word. When I went to market this morning I confess I was unprepared for so much real grief as I heard expressed at every corner."[272]
But deep in his heart despondency reigned supreme. "The reappearance at Washington in the character of a leader deposed by his own party, in the hour of organisation for decisive battle, thank God is past—and so the last of the humiliations has been endured," he wrote his wife. "Preston King met me at the depot and conveyed me to my home. It seemed sad and mournful. Dr. Nott's benevolent face, Lord Napier's complacent one, Jefferson's benignant one, and Lady Napier's loving one, seemed all like pictures of the dead. Even 'Napoleon at Fontainebleau' seemed more frightfully desolate than ever. At the Capitol the scene was entirely changed from my entrance into the chamber last winter. Cameron greeted me kindly; Wilkinson of Minnesota, and Sumner cordially and manfully. Other Republican senators came to me, but in a manner that showed a consciousness of embarrassment, which made the courtesy a conventional one; only Wilson came half a dozen times, and sat down by me. Mason, Gwin, Davis, and most of the Democrats, came to me with frank, open, sympathising words, thus showing that their past prejudices had been buried in the victory they had achieved over me. Good men came through the day to see me, and also this morning. Their eyes fill with tears, and they become speechless as they speak of what they call 'ingratitude.' They console themselves with the vain hope of a day of 'vindication,' and my letters all talk of the same thing. But they awaken no response in my heart. I have not shrunk from any fiery trial prepared for me by the enemies of my cause. But I shall not hold myself bound to try, a second time, the magnanimity of its friends."[273] To Weed he wrote: "Private life, as soon as I can reach it without grieving or embarrassing my friends, will be welcome to me. It will come the 4th of next March in my case, and I am not unprepared."[274]
Defeat was a severe blow to Seward. For the moment he seemed well-nigh friendless. The letter to his wife after he reached Washington was a threnody. He was firmly convinced that he was a much injured man, and his attitude was that of the martyr supported by the serenity of the saint. But to the world he bore himself with the courage and the dignity that belong to one whose supremacy is due to superiority of talents. The country could not know that he was to become a secretary of state of whom the civilised world would take notice; but one of Seward's prescience must have felt well satisfied in his own mind, even when telling Weed how "welcome" private life would be, that, although he was not to become President, he was at the opening of a greater political career.
CHAPTER XXII
NEW YORK’S CONTROL AT BALTIMORE
1860
The recess between the Charleston and Baltimore conventions did not allay hostilities. Jefferson Davis' criticism and Douglas' tart retorts transferred the quarrel to the floor of the United States Senate, and by the time the delegates had reassembled at Baltimore on June 18, 1860, the factions exhibited greater exasperation than had been shown at Charleston. Yet the Douglas men seemed certain of success. Dean Richmond, it was said, had been engaged in private consultation with Douglas and his friends, pledging himself to stand by them to the last. On the other hand, rumours of a negotiation in which the Southerners and the Administration at Washington had offered the New Yorkers their whole strength for any man the Empire State might name other than Douglas and Guthrie, found ready belief among the Northwestern delegates. It was surmised, too, that the defeat of Seward at Chicago had strengthened the chances of Horatio Seymour, on the ground that the disappointed and discontented Seward Republicans would allow him to carry the State. Whatever truth there may have been in these reports, all admitted that the New York delegation had in its hands the destiny of the convention, if not that of the party itself.[275]