Pine to Potomac

by E. K. Cressey

Nearly a month before the adjournment of congress the Union National Republican Convention met at Baltimore (June 7), to nominate a president.

Mr. Lincoln had been regarded as too conservative by the extreme radical wing of the party, notwithstanding the slaves were free, and armed, and organized by the thousands in defence of the Union; and Grant had been so successful in the West, he had been brought East and made lieutenant-general, having fought his way from Fort Henry to Pittsburgh Landing, to Vicksburg, and to Chattanooga. But the war had been prolonged beyond the expectation of the people. Rebels were still on the banks of the Rappahannock and the Tennessee. A few defeats, loss of men, great expenditures of money, and a rather dormant campaign during the winter, had produced some despondency and doubt.

Secretary Chase, with his powerful position in the cabinet and at the head of the treasury, was known to be seeking the presidency, and so he became the centre around which clustered various elements of discontent and opposition. He was the head, it is said, of the radical forces in the cabinet, as Mr. Seward was of the conservative forces. But though a man of great prominence, and of great power, a man with a splendid record as a political chief of the Free-soil party that had battled slavery before the war, his legislature of Ohio pronounced for Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Chase at once withdrew.

But everything was at fever-heat. The “radical men of the nation” were invited to meet at Cleveland on the 31st of May, eight days before the Republican Convention met at Baltimore. “It was simply a mass convention of one hundred and fifty persons, claiming to come from fifteen states.” General Frémont was put forward as candidate for president, and Gen. John Cochrane, of New York, for vice-president, and all in violent opposition to Mr. Lincoln, as the call indicated, and General Frémont’s letter of acceptance confirmed. If anybody else was nominated, he would not be a candidate.

This was the state of affairs when Mr. Blaine went with his delegation to Baltimore, where Union troops were first fired upon less than three years before.

It seems exceeding strange as we look back upon it now, that anyone could be found in all the North, and especially among his party, men who could oppose a man so great and worthy as Abraham Lincoln, and even attack the wisdom of his administration and the rectitude of his intentions, just as some were found to attack Washington, notwithstanding the magnitude of his service, the splendor of his life, and the magnificence of his character.

Mr. Blaine was among the staunchest friends of the president, and cannot look, even from this distance of years, with any respect, upon the actions of those who sought to undermine him. He regarded it as unwise, cruel, and next to disloyalty. But it availed not,—he was too proudly enthroned amid the affections of the people, so that every effort of opposition but increased their love and zeal for him, and made his nomination, which came in due time, doubly sure.

This convention, in which Mr. Blaine bore so signal a part, was full of interest, not only for the sake of Mr. Lincoln, but also of Vice-president Hannibal Hamlin, of his own state.

Many eminent men were included in its roll of delegates. Not less than five of the leading war-governors were chosen to participate in its councils. Vermont sent Solomon Foote, who had stood faithful in the senate during the struggle before the war. Massachusetts had commissioned her eloquent governor, John A. Andrew. Henry J. Raymond, Daniel S. Dickinson, and Lyman Tremaine were there from New York. New Jersey and Ohio each sent two ex-governors,—Marcus L. Ward and William A. Newell from the former, and William Dennison and David Tod from the latter. Simon Cameron, Thaddeus Stevens, and Ex-Speaker Grow, of Pennsylvania; Governor Blair and Omer D. Conger, of Michigan; Angus Cameron, of Wisconsin, and George W. McCrary, of Iowa, were among the other delegates.

Governor Morgan, of New York, called the convention to order, and Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge was chosen temporary chairman, who, on taking the chair, delivered the great speech of the convention, as Mr. Blaine thinks. It impressed him deeply, and he refers to it with emotions of admiration to-day.