Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/146

 Although Lincoln, to the astonishment of his Republican opponents, who would not recognize any popular force behind him, had been renominated with substantial unanimity by the National Convention, the hostile movements in the Republican ranks did not cease. Senator Benjamin F. Wade, from Ohio, one of the oldest, most courageous, and most highly respected of the anti-slavery champions, and Henry Winter Davis, a member of the National House of Representatives from Maryland, a man of high character and an orator of rare brilliancy, rose in open revolt against Lincoln's reconstruction ideas, and issued a formal manifesto, in which, in language of startling vehemence, they assailed the integrity of his motives as those of a usurper carried away by lust of power. And then cries arose in the most unexpected quarters that Lincoln could not possibly be elected. Such men as Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed, usually hostile to one another in Republican factional fights, united in the gloomy prediction that Lincoln would most surely be defeated; and men of similar importance, severally and as members of committees, plied Lincoln himself with urgent entreaties that he should withdraw from the contest and make room for another more promising candidate. Neither was there much encouragement in the popular temper as it manifested itself during the first two months after Lincoln's renomination. The people seemed to be utterly spiritless. They would hardly attend a mass-meeting, much less inspire the speaker with enthusiastic declamations. This may have been partly owing to the fact that the Democrats had not yet held their National Convention, and there was, therefore, neither a candidate nor a declared policy of the opposite party to attack. But, surely, the administration party could not have been in a more lethargic and spiritless condition. Its atmosphere was thoroughly depressing.