and
to the Seward egg in the North, and go far towards squeezing me out in
the middle with nothing. Can you not help me a little in this matter
in your end of the vineyard?"

The extra vigilance of his friends thus invoked, it turned out that
the Illinois Republicans sent a delegation to the Chicago Convention
full of personal devotion to Lincoln and composed of men of the
highest standing, and of consummate political ability, and their
enthusiastic efforts in his behalf among the delegations from other
States contributed largely to the final result.

[Sidenote] 1860.

The political campaign had now so far taken shape that its elements
and chances could be calculated with more than usual accuracy. The
Charleston Convention had been disrupted on the 30th of April, and
adjourned on May 3; the nomination of John Bell by the Constitutional
Union party occurred on May 10. The Chicago Convention met on May 16;
and while there was at that date great uncertainty as to whom the
dissevered fragments of the Democratic party would finally nominate,
little doubt existed that both the Douglas and Buchanan wings would
have candidates in the field. With their opponents thus divided, the
plain policy of the Republicans was to find a candidate on whom a
thorough and hearty union of all the elements of the opposition could
be secured. The party was constituted of somewhat heterogeneous
material; a lingering antagonism remained between former Whigs and
Democrats, protectionists and free-traders, foreign-born citizens and
Know-Nothings. Only on a single point were all thus far
agreed--opposition to the extension of slavery.

But little calculation was needed to show that at the November polls
four doubtful States would decide the Presidential contest. Buchanan
had been elected in 1856 by the vote of all the slave States (save
Maryland), with the help of the free States of New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California, Change the first four
or even the first three of these free-States to the Republican side,
and they, with the Fremont States of 1856, would elect the President
against all the others combined. The Congressional elections of 1858
demonstrated that such a change was possible. But besides this,
Pennsylvania and Indiana were, like Ohio, known as "October States,"
because they held elections for State officers in that month; and they
would at that early date give such an indication of sentiment as would
foreca