st their November vote for President, and exert a powerful,
perhaps a decisive, influence on the whole canvass. What candidate
could most easily carry New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and
Illinois, became therefore the vital question among the Chicago
delegates, and especially among the delegates from the four pivotal
States themselves.

William H. Seward, of New York, was naturally the leading candidate.
He had been longest in public life, and was highest in official rank.
He had been Governor of the greatest State of the Union, and had
nearly completed a second term of service in the United States Senate.
Once a prominent Whig, his antecedents coincided with those of the
bulk of the Republican party. His experience ran through two great
agitations of the slavery question. He had taken important part in the
Senate discussions which ended in the compromise measures of 1850, and
in the new contest growing out of the Nebraska bill his voice had been
heard in every debate. He was not only firm in his anti-slavery
convictions, but decided in his utterances. Discussing the admission
of California, he proclaimed the "higher law" doctrine in 1850;[1]
reviewing Dred Scott and Lecompton, he announced the "irrepressible
conflict" in 1858.[2] He had tact as well as talent; he was a
consummate politician, as well as a profound statesman. Such a leader
could not fail of a strong following, and his supporters came to
Chicago in such numbers, and of such prominence and character, as
seemed to make his nomination a foregone conclusion. The delegation
from New York, headed by William M. Evarts, worked and voted
throughout as a unit for him, not merely to carry out their
constituents' wishes, but with, a personal zeal that omitted no
exertion or sacrifice. They showed a want of tact, however, in
carrying their street demonstrations for their favorite to excess;
they crowded together at the Richmond House, making that hotel the
Seward headquarters; with too much ostentation they marched every day
to the convention with music and banners; and when mention was made of
doubtful States, their more headlong members talked altogether too
much of the campaign funds they intended to raise. All this occasioned
a reaction--a certain mental protest among both Eastern and Western
delegates against what have come to be characterized as "machine"
methods.

The positive elements in Seward's character and career had developed,
as always happens, str