“Are these your initials, and did you write this article concerning Justice McLean of the Supreme Court, in the case of Dr. Comstock and others, and the Crosswait family?” continued his interlocutor.
“That is my article, and these are my initials, sir.”
“I’ve but one question more to ask you. Did you hear Judge McLean deliver this decision, or did you receive the information from a third party?” demanded the questioner.
“I sat in the court-room each day during the entire trial, and reported only what I heard, having written down everything as it occurred,” returned Dr. Delany.
“That is all, sir; I am satisfied,” concluded the stranger, departing from the great pavilion, and going directly across the street to the church, wherein sat the executive or business part of the convention, leaving the corresponding editor of the North Star in a most aggravated state of conjectures.”
The all-important business at the church, then under consideration before them, was the nomination of a candidate for the presidency. The session was long and important. No report of the proceedings or their progress had been received during the day. Near sunset a representative of the council entered the pavilion, and announced from the stage that they would soon be ready to give the convention the result of their deliberations. Soon after there was a great move forward, and, amidst deafening applause, the Hon. Salmon P. Chase ascended the platform, and announced that, for reasons sufficiently satisfactory to the executive council, the name of Judge John McLean, of Ohio, had been dropped as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and that of Martin Van Buren substituted; and he had been selected by the council to make this statement, from considerations of the relationship which he bore to the rejected nominee; so that his friends in the convention might understand that it was no act of political injustice by which the change was made.
Probably, apart from the executive body, none knew at the time the cause of the withdrawal of the name of the judge. Whether or not his statement, made doubly eloquent by this infamous decision, added its weight to stay the march to the presidential goal of an ambitious, soulless man, we know that he was rejected, and Martin Van Buren received the preferment. And, as Martin Delany never claimed of him a reward for the service unconsciously rendered, in the event of his election, as is customary, it is likely he was forgotten, to be remembered, however, in the better days of the nation, and by its noblest president.
From the Free Soil Convention he and a number of the colored delegates went directly to Cleveland, to attend a national convention of colored men. They assembled in the court-room, granted to them by the proper authority, the court and bar having generously adjourned for the purpose—a mark of courtesy not often, if ever, recorded at the conventions of this color. And, what was equally as remarkable, the citizens, represented by gentlemen of position, on the last day of the convention, took a vote in the house expressive of their satisfaction with the entire proceedings of the delegates.
While travelling to advance the interests of his journal, a remarkable political foresight on his part was manifested by the publication of a letter in its columns. It established for him, ever after, a character for observation of national and international polity, in which he delights to search out and compare, not at that time accorded to one of his race. This attracted the attention of many of the leading men, and their inquiries led him to a conclusion which was soon verified by action, as the following editorial letter to the North Star of February 10, 1848, will show:—