would be a
unit in support of the war and the rebellion would be crushed within
six months after the expiration of the armistice.[937]

[Footnote 937: T.W. Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, pp.
437-439.]

In conversation Weed was the most persuasive of men. To a quiet,
gentle, deferential manner, he added a giant's grasp of the subject,
presenting its strong points and marshalling with extraordinary skill
all the details. Nevertheless, the proposition now laid before the
President, leaving slavery as it was, could not be accepted. "The
emancipation proclamation could not be retracted," he had said in his
famous letter to the New York convention, "any more than the dead
could be brought to life." However, Lincoln did not let the famous
editor depart empty-handed. Barney should be removed, and Weed,
satisfied with such a scalp, returned home to enter the campaign for
the President's renomination.[938]

[Footnote 938: New York _Herald_, May 24, 1864.]

Something seemed to be wrong in New York. Other States through
conventions and legislatures had early favored the President's
renomination, while the Empire State moved slowly. Party machinery
worked well. The Union Central Committee, holding a special meeting on
January 4, 1864 at the residence of Edwin D. Morgan, recommended
Lincoln's nomination. "It is going to be difficult to restrain the
boys," said Morgan in a letter to the President, "and there is not
much use in trying to do so."[939] On February 23 the Republican State
Committee also endorsed him, and several Union League clubs spoke
earnestly of his "prudence, sagacity, comprehension, and
perseverance." But the absence of an early State convention, the tardy
selection of delegates to Baltimore, and the failure of the
Legislature to act, did not reveal the enthusiasm evinced in other
Commonwealths. Following the rule adopted elsewhere, resolutions
favourable to the President's renomination were duly presented to the
Assembly, where they remained unacted upon. Suddenly on January 25 a
circular, signed by Simeon Draper and issued by the Conference
Committee of the Union Lincoln Association of New York, proposed that
all citizens of every town and county who favoured Lincoln's
nomination meet in some appropriate place on February 22 and make
public expression to that fact. Among the twenty-five names attached
appeared those of Moses Taylor and Moses H. Grinnell. This was a new
system of tactics. But the leg