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212 LESLIE M. SCOTT

that result. We deem it only just to Mr. Greeley thus early to award him the full credit for the main result of the Chicago convention."

Raymond said that Greeley inflicted the defeat by conceal- ing his personal motives of revenge under professions of gen- eral friendship for Seward, and by representing that the sacri- fice of Seward was necessary for party success. These pro- fessions and his long political association with Seward gave Greeley, said Raymond, a hold on Republican sentiment and a weight of authority; also: "Mr. Greeley was in Chicago several days before the meeting of the convention, and he devoted every hour of the interval to the most steady and re- lentless prosecution of the main business which took him there the defeat of Governor Seward." The result, continued Raymond, was "the deadly effect of his pretended friendship for the man upon whom he was thus deliberately wreaking the long-hoarded revenge of a disappointed office seeker."

Thus came Oregon into the great political affairs of the country at the time of its own beginnings as a State and in the greatest crisis of the Nation. It came into those great af- fairs through the small resentments of rival men, thus proving again that momentous things turn on events seemingly insignifi- cant. For while Greeley's disappointed enemies may go too far in attributing Greeley's course to the political revenge of an unsuccessful office seeker, yet it would seem that Greeley's purposes did partly grow out of personal antagonisms. His- tory amply proves that the desires of all the greatest men are made that way; that antagonisms make the subconscious mo- tives of their actions, just as the wish or the regret becomes the father to the thought.

But it is fair to say that not office-seeking disappointments impelled Greeley against Seward and Weed so much as their recognition and support of his rival, Raymond, especially after his long work for their political fortunes. Greeley had done much for them ; he had been their hewer of wood and the drawer of water; they had done nothing for him; and they added insult to injury by casting him aside and taking Ray- mond as a political partner. Those who know the human-