ditions were unfavorable, and where
therefore they had no intention of going.[842]

The nomination of Lincoln rather than Seward, at the Republican
convention in Chicago, was a bitter disappointment to those who felt
that the latter was the real leader of the party of moral ideas, and
that the rail-splitter was simply an "available" candidate.[843] But
Douglas, with keener insight into the character of Lincoln, said to a
group of Republicans at the Capitol, "Gentlemen, you have nominated a
very able and a very honest man."[844] For the candidate of the new
Constitutional Union party, which had rallied the politically
unattached of various opinions in a convention at Baltimore, Douglas
had no such words of praise, though he recognized John Bell as a
Unionist above suspicion and as an estimable gentleman.

These nominations rendered it still less prudent for Northern
Democrats to accept a candidate with stronger Southern leanings than
Douglas. No Northern Democrat could carry the Northern States on a
Southern platform; and no Southern Democrat would accept a nomination
on the Douglas platform. Unless some middle ground could be
found,--and the debates in the Senate had disclosed none,--the
Democrats of the North were bound to adhere to Douglas as their first
and only choice in the Baltimore convention.

When the delegates reassembled in Baltimore, the factional quarrel had
lost none of its bitterness. Almost immediately the convention fell
foul of a complicated problem of organization. Some of the original
delegates, who had withdrawn at Charleston, desired to be re-admitted.
From some States there were contesting delegations, notably from
Louisiana and Alabama, where the Douglas men had rallied in force.
Those anti-Douglas delegates who were still members of the convention,
made every effort to re-admit the delegations hostile to him. The
action of the convention turned upon the vote of the New York
delegation, which would be cast solidly either for or against the
admission of the contesting delegations. For three days the fate of
Douglas was in the hands of these thirty-five New Yorkers, in whom the
disposition to bargain was not wanting.[845] It was at this juncture
that Douglas wrote to Dean Richmond, the _Deus ex machina_ in the
delegation,[846] "If my enemies are determined to divide and destroy
the Democratic party, and perhaps the country, rather than see me
elected, and if the unity of the party can be preserv