Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/442

 who were not of the stuff to respond to the chairman's lofty sentiments. Four names had been especially canvassed in the ante-convention discussions as to the presidential candidacy—Charles Francis Adams, Lyman Trumbull, Horace Greeley and David Davis. Of these only Adams and Trumbull were regarded by Mr. Schurz as in all respects fulfilling the ideal requirements. Greeley and Davis, however, were supported by many of the busy intriguers whose spirit and methods he had just denounced. He had been privately assured by such influential Democrats as August Belmont and Theodore Randolph that Adams, if nominated at Cincinnati, would be accepted by the Democracy; but the friends of Greeley in particular insisted that only their favorite was certain to secure Democratic endorsement. The New York and Pennsylvania delegates in the convention included many members whose only interest in the affair was a desire to get even with Grant for having preferred Conkling and Cameron to Fenton and Curtin respectively in the Republican faction-fights in the two States. These delegates, veterans of many a bitterly contested political field, had no thought of cleansing themselves and adopting the unwonted moral standard set up by Schurz and his friends, but promptly began to work on the familiar lines and with the familiar methods to secure the nomination for the man of their preference. Of the leading candidates Davis and Greeley were notoriously most eager for preferment, and least in sympathy with the spirit in which the Liberal movement had been conceived. A project to secure a successful combination of the Davis and the Greeley forces was suddenly put aside for a deal with Gratz Brown and his friends. Brown, who had been proposed as a candidate for the Presidency by the Missouri delegation, was not generally recognized as having the