FOOTNOTES:
[126] Chicago Times, April 22.
[127] Frank W. Bird, of Boston, who went to Cincinnati as an anti-Adams delegate, wrote to Charles Sumner on May 7: "Don't believe a word about the trade, in any discreditable sense, between Blair and Brown on the one part and the Greeley men on the other. Undoubtedly Blair wanted to head off Schurz, and equally truly an arrangement was made, or an understanding reached, on Thursday night, in a certain contingency to unite a portion of the Brown and Greeley forces: but, except perhaps in the motives of the leading negotiators on one side, there was nothing unusual in the affair, nothing that is not usually—indeed, almost necessarily—done in such conventions; nothing that was not contemplated and even proposed by the Adams men." (Sumner papers in Harvard University Library.)
CHAPTER XXVI
THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN
My own feelings immediately after the nomination were set forth in a telegram to the Chicago Tribune published in its issue of May 4. The chief part was in these words:
Cincinnati, May 3.—The nomination of Mr. Greeley was accomplished by the people against the judgment and strenuous efforts of politicians, using the latter word in its larger and higher sense. The Gratz Brown performance has given the whole affair the appearance of a put-up job, but it was merely a lucky guess. The Blairs and Browns do not like Schurz. To defeat a candidate who was likely to be on confidential terms with Schurz, as either Adams or Trumbull would have been, was the thing nearest to their hearts, and for this purpose Brown made his appearance here. His speech in the Convention fell like dish-water on the whole assemblage, and, being followed by the transfer of the Missouri votes to Trumbull, instead of Greeley, showed that he had no influence in his own delegation. The changes from Brown to Greeley were few and far between, and in a short time the convention only remembered that Brown had been a candidate once and was so no longer. But the personal popularity of Greeley was more than a match for the intellectual strength of Trumbull and the moral gravity of Adams. He was stealing votes from both of them all the time. When the Illinois delegation at last perceived that the heart of the convention was carrying away the head, and retired for consultation, the surprising fact was developed that fifteen of their own number preferred Greeley to any candidate not from their own state. The supporters of Adams, while entertaining the most cordial feeling for the friends of Trumbull, think that if the latter had come over to Adams's corner the result would have been different. I do not think so. If the Illinois vote could have been cast solid for Adams at an earlier stage, the result might have been different: but there was no time when Adams could have got more than the twenty-seven votes which were finally cast for him. The contingency of having to divide between Adams and Greeley had never been considered, and, therefore, no time had been allowed to compare views. The vote of the state being thus divided, its weight was lost for any purpose of influencing other votes. Then gush and hurrah swept everything down, and, almost before a vote of Illinois had been recorded by the secretary, the dispatches came rushing to the telegraph instruments that Greeley was nominated. For a moment, the wiser heads in the convention were stunned, though everybody tried to look perfectly contented. Of all the things that could possibly happen, this was the one thing which everybody supposed could not happen. Not even the Greeley men themselves thought it could happen. The only able politician who seemed to be really for Greeley was Waldo Hutchins, of New York, and even his sincerity was questioned by Greeley's backbone friends as long as the Davis movement was regarded as still alive.
How the news was received by Trumbull was told by the New York Herald's Washington dispatch of May 3: