answer. The contest in
these States would be not against a Territorial slave code, but against
"popular sovereignty "; not with Buchanan's candidate, but with
Douglas; and for Douglas there was only a single antagonist, tried and
true--Abraham Lincoln. Such, we may reasonably infer, was the substance
of the discussion and argument which ran through the caucus-rooms of
the delegates, day and night, during the 16th and 17th of May.
Meanwhile the Seward men were not idle; having the large New York
delegation to begin with, and counting the many positive committals
from other States, their strength and organization seemed impregnable.
The opposing delegations, each still nursing the chances of its own
candidate, hesitated to give any positive promises to each other. At
midnight of May 17, Horace Greeley,[3] one of Seward's strongest
opponents, and perhaps better informed than any other single delegate,
telegraphed his conclusion "that the opposition to Governor Seward
cannot concentrate on any candidate, and that he will be nominated."

Chicago was already a city of a hundred thousand souls. Thirty to forty
thousand visitors, full of life, hope, ambition, most of them from the
progressive group of encircling North-western States, and strung to the
highest tension of political excitement had come to attend the
convention. Charleston had shown a great party in the ebbtide of
disintegration, tainted by the spirit of disunion. Chicago exhibited a
great party springing to life and power, every motive and force
compelling cooeperation and growth. The rush and spirit of the great
city, and the enthusiasm and hope of its visitors, blended and reacted
upon each other as if by laws of chemical affinity. Something of the
freshness and sweep of the prairie winds exhilarated the delegates and
animated the convention.

No building in the city of Chicago at that time contained a hall with
sufficient room for the sittings of the great assemblage. A temporary
frame structure, which the committee of arrangements christened "The
Wigwam," was therefore designed and erected for this special use. It
was said to be large enough to hold ten thousand persons, and whether
or not that estimate was entirely accurate, a prodigious concourse
certainly gathered each day within its walls.

The first day's session (May 16) demonstrated the successful adaptation
of the structure to its uses. Participants and spectators alike were
delighted with the ease