It was in the air that Seward would be nominated. Greeley said so, but he was really fighting Seward. We spied the bald head and bespectacled eyes of the great editor moving about the Oregon delegates. The tumult and the passion of the Charleston convention were not as dramatic as this. These men were here to destroy the Democratic party, to take control of the government. The air was of concentrated passion and will. There was a declaration of principles to be formulated out of sagacity and dramaturgy. Principles were to be observed but baits to be dangled; factions were to be conciliated, relative claims adjusted; the higher thought of the nation respected; radicalism tickled but not embraced; wrong censured, but needless offense avoided. Hence state rights got a sop; the tariff was advocated and the Pacific railroad; the harmless Declaration of Independence was quoted at large. Everybody had used it for more than eighty years—why not this platform?
The balloting begins. The expectation is intense. All of us have caught the crowd spirit, the infection of the mob. New England is polled first. What is the matter? She does not give Seward the fully expected vote. Very well! New York is reached. William M. Everetts, hook-nosed and dished of mouth, plumps New York seventy votes for Seward. The convention recovers from its fear. All is going well for Seward after all. What of Pennsylvania and her tariff? She has fifty-seven votes; fifty and one half of these go to a favorite son, Simon Cameron. This is a mere compliment; Pennsylvania will come to Seward now that her favorite son has been honored. Illinois is reached and votes for Lincoln. There are cheers. But he is the favorite son of Illinois. These are his people. The next ballot they will go to Seward. Indiana is reached. All of her vote goes to Lincoln. There are great cheers. But Lincoln split rails once in Indiana. This is a complimentary vote too. Ohio is reached. She has two favorite sons, Chase and McLean. Missouri is reached. Edward Bates is her son and gets the vote. What is this vote of Virginia,—fourteen votes out of her twenty-three for Lincoln? Some one near us whispers: "The South hates Seward worse than any one."
At last the whole vote is announced: Seward has 173-1/2; Lincoln 102. The Illinois River breaks loose; the great shouter for Lincoln, hired for the occasion, storms and bawls above the hubbub of the convention. Where is Hyer the prize fighter? He has been out with his gang. Drinking? We do not know. At any rate he is late, has missed one of the psychologies of the convention. After the noise is subsided, we hear that Bates, Greeley's favorite, has forty-eight votes. "Call the roll!" "Call the roll!" shout hundreds of delegates. Men are going mad with anxiety. Arms are waved frantically, delegates rise from their seats and bawl undistinguishable words. Curses and hisses fill the air. The second ballot begins. Why does Pennsylvania deliberate, why does she retire so often to consult her wishes? There is laughter over it. She changes her vote now. Her favorite son, Cameron, gets two; forty-eight go to Lincoln. What is the matter with Seward? We had heard there was plenty of Seward money in Pennsylvania. Yarnell had told me so. Why doesn't the machinery work? Ohio falls off seven votes for Chase; Bates loses thirteen of his Missouri votes. Vermont throws her whole vote to Lincoln, and the Stentor from the Illinois River bottoms raises a thunder of applause. But Tom Hyer has now arrived and the Seward chorus is working.
The vote is announced: Seward has 184-1/2; Lincoln 181; necessary to a choice, 233. Seward is ruined. Tom Hyer is down. The band, the banners are for nothing. All the Seward money is for nothing. To be Governor, Senator, the leading man of the party for years, the great debater of the Senate, the author of the irrepressible conflict, the most dreaded enemy of the South—all this goes up and out in a second like a poor sulphur match in a gale. Seward is ruined. A country lawyer from Springfield, Illinois, once a state legislator, once a Congressman, has killed him in two blows. What has done it? The irrepressible conflict. It has crushed him before it crushed many more, old and young throughout the land. He is too famous. His words are too well known. The house divided against itself is not so well known. Lincoln is obscure. He is a trim new champion of fifty-one years of age, ready after some fifteen or more years of resting and training, for a great fight.
Yet may not Greeley's Bates still come in? A horse not so swiftly running before now has a chance. Where would Seward's strength be thrown now that he cannot use it for himself? Can he throw it to any one? No! For the third ballot gives Seward 180 and Lincoln 231-1/2. But Seward is still holding on. Ohio has been sticking to Chase. The vote is not announced by the chair. But hundreds of pencils have kept the score. And just about as it is to be announced, Ohio throws four votes from Chase to Lincoln. Lincoln is nominated! The West of Douglas has won.
The convention goes mad. The Illinois River roars like waters over a thousand dams. Lake Michigan shouters make the rafters tremble. A cannon is fired from the roof. But no one inside hears it. We go forth to the street. Masses are yelling and crying with delight. Old Abe from Illinois is nominated. Chicago is delirious with joy. From the Tremont House a hundred guns are fired. Processions start; everywhere men are bearing rails. Bands play. Drink flows like sudden freshets. Yarnell passes at a distance. He is staring straight ahead, hurrying somewhere. What is left for Seward, for his supporters? Virginia had been bought, why didn't she deliver? Ohio was fingered for Seward. Why didn't Ohio yield? Pennsylvania had taken quantities of Seward money. Why this ingratitude? What nominated Lincoln? The Seward men have an answer.
The madness of the crowd for railsplitting! The log-cabin tradition! Genius and statesmanship have been set aside for a popular symbol, railsplitting. A party of moral ideas has reverted to claptrap. These are the bitter comments of Seward's beaten army. Then there are curses for Greeley. Greeley has avenged Seward's lifetime enmity. He has slaughtered the great man of the party. Why? The old traitor wants Douglas elected.
CHAPTER LXI
The press comments of the country on Lincoln's nomination were exceedingly conflicting. He was written of as the man whom Douglas had beaten two years before, and without other distinction; as lacking in culture, in every way inferior to Seward; as a whangdoodle stump speaker of the second class, and without any known principle. What is this talk of Old Abe Lincoln, Old Uncle Abe, Honest Abe Lincoln? Was he not a log roller in the Illinois legislature of 1836? Had he not been driven from position to position by Douglas in the debates? What is honest about him above other men? Why a nomination on the strength of a deceiving nickname? Is he not for the tariff and loose construction? Has he not been a Whig with all the humbuggery of that party, of log cabins and imperial practices?