he first national convention I ever attended was held in Baltimore
in 1864, when Mr. Lincoln was renominated. I have since been four
times a delegate-at-large, representing the whole State, and many
times a delegate representing a congressional district. Judge
W. H. Robertson, of Westchester County, and I went to the convention
together. We thought we would go by sea, but our ship had a
collision, and we were rescued by a pilot boat. Returning to
New York, we decided to accept the security of the railroad.
Judge Robertson was one of the shrewdest and ablest of the Republican
politicians in the State of New York. He had been repeatedly
elected county judge, State senator, and member of Congress, and
always overcoming a hostile Democratic majority.

We went to Washington to see Mr. Seward first, had an interview
with him at his office, and dined with him in the evening. To dine
with Secretary Seward was an event which no one, and especially
a young politician, ever forgot. He was the most charming of hosts
and his conversation a liberal education.

There was no division as to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln, but
it was generally conceded that the vice-president should be a war
Democrat. The candidacy of Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York,
had been so ably managed that he was far and away the favorite.
He had been all his life, up to the breaking out of the Civil War,
one of the most pronounced extreme and radical Democrats in the
State of New York. Mr. Seward took Judge Robertson and me into
his confidence. He was hostile to the nomination of Mr. Dickinson,
and said that the situation demanded the nomination for vice-president
of a representative from the border States, whose loyalty had been
demonstrated during the war. He eulogized Andrew Johnson, of
Tennessee, and gave a glowing description of the courage and
patriotism with which Johnson, at the risk of his life, had advocated
the cause of the Union and kept his State partially loyal.

He said to us: "You can quote me to the delegates, and they will
believe I express the opinion of the president. While the president
wishes to take no part in the nomination for vice-president, yet
he favors Mr. Johnson."

When we arrived at the convention this interview with Mr. Seward
made us a centre of absorbing interest and at once changed the
current of opinion, which before that had been almost unanimously
for Mr. Dickinson. It was finally left to the New York de