or of the House, that the Judge was not responsible for anything
that appeared in the _Review_, that he had no interest in or control
over the magazine, and that he knew nothing about the January number
until he saw it in print.[386]

In spite of this untoward incident, Douglas made a formidable
showing.[387] He was himself well pleased at the outlook. He wrote to
a friend, "Prospects look well and are improving every day. If two or
three western States will speak out in my favor the battle is over.
Can anything be done in Iowa and Missouri? That is very important. If
some one could go to Iowa, I think the convention in that State would
instruct for me. In regard to our own State, I will say a word. Other
States are appointing a large number of delegates to the convention,
... ought not our State to do the same thing so as to ensure the
attendance of most of our leading politicians at Baltimore?... This
large number would exert a great moral influence on the other
delegates."[388]

Among the States which had led off in his favor was California; and it
was a representative of California who first sounded the charge for
Douglas's cohorts in the House. In any other place and at any other
time, Marshall's exordium would have overshot the mark. Indeed, in
indorsing the attack of the _Review_ on the old fogies in the party,
he tore open wounds which it were best to let heal; but gauged by the
prevailing standard of taste in politics, the speech was acceptable.
It so far commended itself to the editors of the much-abused _Review_
that it appeared in the April number, under the caption "The Progress
of Democracy vs. Old Fogy Retrograder."

To clear-headed outsiders, there was something factitious in this
parade of enthusiasm for Douglas. "What most surprises one," wrote
the correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, "is that these
Congressmen, with beards and without; that verdant, flippant, smart
detachment of Young America that has got into the House, propose to
make a candidate for the Baltimore convention without consulting their
masters, the people. With a few lively fellows in Congress and the aid
of the _Democratic Review_, they fancy themselves equal to the
achievement of a small job like this."[389] As the first of June
approached, the older, experienced politicians grew confident that
none of the prominent candidates could command a two-thirds vote in
the convention. Some had foreseen this months beforehand and had b