We ran into Yarnell. He was
preoccupied, and was a little in drink. He stood with us for a moment,
and then was buttonholed and taken away. We returned to the streets to
watch the marchers.
Yarnell was good enough to get tickets for Abigail, Aldington, and me,
asking us with a half smile not to cheer for any one unless we cheered
for Seward.
It was in the air that Seward would be nominated. Greeley said so, but
he was really fighting Seward. We spied the bald head and bespectacled
eyes of the great editor moving about the Oregon delegates. The tumult
and the passion of the Charleston convention were not as dramatic as
this. These men were here to destroy the Democratic party, to take
control of the government. The air was of concentrated passion and will.
There was a declaration of principles to be formulated out of sagacity
and dramaturgy. Principles were to be observed but baits to be dangled;
factions were to be conciliated, relative claims adjusted; the higher
thought of the nation respected; radicalism tickled but not embraced;
wrong censured, but needless offense avoided. Hence state rights got a
sop; the tariff was advocated and the Pacific railroad; the harmless
Declaration of Independence was quoted at large. Everybody had used it
for more than eighty years--why not this platform?
The balloting begins.
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