Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/230

 would not have been willing, while admitting the advisability of giving up Seward, to accept a candidate whose nomination would compromise any essential Republican principle. But they were willing to accept a candidate fully representing those principles, but less likely to provoke those prejudices which stood in Mr. Seward's path. Such a candidate was found in Abraham Lincoln, upon whom all the elements of the opposition to Seward's nomination could, without much difficulty, be united. In the second place, not a few of those who had been among Seward's warmest supporters, were somewhat disenchanted—mortified might not be too strong a word—by the conspicuous appearance on the scene of the promiscuous crowd of New York politicians of the lower sort, who did but too much of the shouting for Seward, and thus forced themselves, in a somewhat repulsive manner, upon people's attention. It can hardly be doubted that Thurlow Weed's cohorts hurt Seward more than they helped him. Seward's true friends did not, indeed, abandon him on their account. But many of them felt themselves not a little embarrassed in pressing Seward's nomination in such companionship.

When on the third day of the Convention the balloting began, the contest was already decided. After the first ballot, which gave the several delegations the required opportunity for casting the complimentary votes for the “favorite sons” of their States, the opposition to Seward, obeying a common impulse, concentrated upon Abraham Lincoln, and the third ballot gave him the majority. Much has been said about the superior volume and fierceness of the shouting for Lincoln in the packed galleries and its effect upon the minds of the delegates. But that is mere reporters' talk. The historic fact is that, as the Convention would not take the risks involved in the nomination of Seward, it had no other alternative than to select