ife-long
antagonist confounded their plans and put them to open shame. At the
outset, the majority of the Democratic journals of the North either
deplored and condemned the result or adopted a non-committal tone.
Some of them, like the _New-York World_, emphatically declared that the
Democracy could not ratify a choice which would involve a
stultification so humiliating and so complete. A few shrewder
journals, of which the _Cincinnati Enquirer_ and the _Saint-Louis
Republican_ were the most conspicuous, took the opposite course and
from the beginning advocated the indorsement of Mr. Greeley.

In the South the nomination was received with more favor. Mr.
Greeley's readiness to go on the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis, his
earnest championship of universal amnesty, and his expressed sympathy
with the grievances of the old ruling element of the slave States, had
created a kindly impression in that section. The prompt utterances of
the Southern journals indicated that no obstacle would be encountered
in the Democratic ranks below the Potomac. At the North, as the
discussion proceeded, it became more and more evident that however
reluctant the party might be, it really had to alternative but to
accept Mr. Greeley. It had committed itself so fully to the Liberal
movement that it could not now abandon it without certain disaster.
Its only possible hope of defeating the Republican party lay in the
Republican revolt, and the revolt could be fomented and prolonged only
by imparting to it prestige and power. The Liberal leaders and
journals did not hesitate to say that if it came to a choice between
Grant and a Democrat, they would support Grant. With this avowal they
were masters of the situation so far as the Democracy was concerned,
and the Democratic sentiment, which at first shrank from Greeley,
soon became resigned to his candidacy.

While the work of reconciling the free-traders to the nomination of a
Protectionist, and of inducing the Democracy to accept an anti-slavery
leader, was in full progress, the Republican National Convention met
at Philadelphia on the 5th of June. The venerable Gerritt Smith led
the delegation from New York, with William Orton, Horace B. Claflin,
Stewart L. Woodford, William E. Dodge, and John A. Griswold among his
associates. Governor Hayes came from Ohio; General Burnside from Rhode
Island; Governor Hawley from Connecticut; Governor Claflin and
Alexander H. Rice from Massachusetts; He