Frances Seward was less enthusiastic, perhaps fearing that her husband would bend too far to placate the moderates. “I wish it were over,” she told her son Will on the morning of the speech. Fanny, however, seated in the gallery directly opposite her father, was thrilled to witness the great event. “The whole house of Reps were there,” she gushed, “the galleries soon filled, alike with those of North and South, ladies and gentlemen, even the doorways were filled.” When the three-hour speech started, Fanny recorded, “no Republican member left his seat…the house was very still.” Everyone understood that this speech could influence the Republican nomination.
Seward took as his theme the enduring quality of the national compact. Though he maintained his principled opposition to slavery, he softened his tone, referring to the slave states as “capital States,” while the free states became the “labor States.” His language remained tranquil throughout, with no trace of the inflammatory phrases that had characterized his great speeches in the past. It seemed, one historian observed, that “‘the irrepressible conflict’ between slavery and freedom had graciously given way to the somewhat repressible conflict of the political aspirants.”
Departing from the bold assertions of his Rochester speech, Seward now claimed that “differences of opinion, even on the subject of slavery, with us are political, not social or personal differences. There is not one disunionist or disloyalist among us all…. We have never been more patient, and never loved the representatives of other sections more, than now…. The people of the North are not enemies but friends and brethren of the South, faithful and true as in the days when death has dealt his arrows promiscuously among them on the common battle-fields of freedom.”
The Republican Party in the North, he pledged, did not “seek to force, or even to intrude, our system” upon the South. “You are sovereign on the subject of slavery within your own borders.” The debate revolved only around the expansion of slavery in new and future states. Retreating from the larger vision of the nation’s future manifest destiny in some of his earlier speeches, he promised that Republicans did not harbor any ulterior motive “to introduce negro equality” in the nation at large.
Seward’s powerful conclusion—an altered form of which would appear in Lincoln’s inaugural address—was an impassioned testimony to the Union. The nation could never be sundered, for its bonds were not simply “the written compact,” or even the radiating network of roads, train tracks, trade routes, and telegraph lines that facilitated “commerce and social intercourse.” Rather, Seward urged his audience to conceive of the strongest bonds holding the Union together as “the millions of fibers of millions of contented, happy human hearts,” linked by affection and hope to their democratic government, “the first, the last, and the only such one that has ever existed, which takes equal heed always of their wants.”
The speech produced deafening applause in the galleries and widespread praise in the press. Reprinted in pamphlet form, more than half a million copies were circulated throughout the country. Some, of course, considered Seward’s tone too conciliatory, lacking the principle and fire of his previous addresses. That speech “killed Seward with me forever,” the abolitionist Cassius Clay reportedly said. Charles Sumner wrote to a friend that “as an intellectual effort,” Seward’s oration was “most eminent,” but that there was “one passage”—perhaps the one disclaiming any intention to support black equality—which he “regretted, & [Seward’s] wife agrees with me.”
Nevertheless, Seward’s goal had not been to rally the faithful but to disarm the opposition and placate uneasy moderates. “From the stand-point of Radical Abolitionism, it would be very easy to criticize,” Frederick Douglass observed in his monthly paper, but “it is a masterly and triumphant effort. It will reassure the timid wing of his party, which has been rendered a little nervous by recent clamors against him, by its coolness of temper and conservatism of manner…. We think that Mr. Seward’s prospects for the Chicago nomination will be essentially brightened by the wide circulation of this speech.” Seward, he concluded, was “the ablest man of his party,” and “as a matter of party justice,” he deserved the nomination.
“I hear of ultra old Whigs in Boston who say they are ready to take up Mr. Seward upon his recent speech,” a Massachusetts delegate told Weed. “All the New England delegates, save Connecticut’s, will be equally satisfactory.” And in Ohio, Salmon Chase admitted that there “seems to be at present a considerable set toward Seward.” Seward himself believed that the speech had been a great success, the final step in his long journey to the presidency.
In the heady weeks that followed, Weed assured him that everything was in readiness for a victory at the convention. By trading legislative charters to build city railroads for campaign contributions, Weed had assembled what one observer called “oceans of money,” a campaign chest worth several hundred thousand dollars.
As the convention approached, overconfidence reigned in the Seward camp and poor judgment set in. Despite Weed’s generally keen political intuition, he failed to anticipate the damage Seward would suffer as a consequence of a rift with Horace Greeley. Over the years, Greeley had voiced a longing for political office, for both the monetary compensation it would provide and the prestige it promised. On several occasions, Greeley later claimed, he had made this desire clear to Seward and Weed. They never took his political aspirations seriously, believing that his strength and usefulness lay in writing, not in practical politics and public office. Greeley had written a plaintive letter to Seward in the autumn of 1854, in which he catalogued a long list of grievances and announced the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed, & Greeley. He recalled the work he had done to secure Seward’s first victory as governor, only to discover that jobs had been dispensed “worth $3000 to $20,000 per year to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations.” With the exception of a single term in Congress, Greeley charged, Weed had never given him a chance to be nominated for any office. Despite hundreds of suggestions that he run for governor in the most recent election, Weed had refused to support the possibility, claiming that his candidacy would hurt Seward’s chances for the Senate. But the most humiliating moment had come, Greeley revealed, when Weed handed the nomination for lieutenant governor that year to Henry Raymond, editor of the New York Times, the Tribune’s archrival.
Seward was distressed to read Greeley’s letter, which he characterized as “full of sharp, pricking thorns,” but he mistakenly assumed that Greeley’s pique was temporary, akin to the anger, he said, that one of his sons might display if denied the chance to go to the circus or a dancing party. After showing it to his wife, Seward cast the letter aside. Frances read it more accurately. Recognizing the “mortal offense” Greeley had taken, she saved the letter, preserving a record of the tangled web of emotions that led Greeley in 1860 to abandon one of his oldest friends in favor of Edward Bates, a man he barely knew.
Week after week, through his columns in the Tribune, Greeley laid the groundwork for the nomination of Bates. Seward’s supporters were incensed when he subtly began to sabotage the New Yorker’s campaign. Henry Raymond remarked that Greeley “insinuated, rather than openly uttered, exaggerations of local prejudice and animosity against him; hints that parties and men hostile to him and to the Republican organization must be conciliated and their support secured; and a new-born zeal for nationalizing the party by consulting the slave-holding states in regard to the nomination.” The influence of the Tribune was substantial, and with each passing day, enthusiasm for Bates’s candidacy grew.
At some point that spring, Weed had a long talk with Greeley and came away with the mistaken conviction that Greeley was “all right,” that despite his editorial support for Bates, he would not play a major role at the convention. The conversation mistakenly satisfied Weed that ties of old friendship would keep Greeley from taking an active role against Seward once the conven
tion began.
Overconfidence also played a role in Weed’s failure to meet with Pennsylvania’s powerful political boss, Simon Cameron, before the convention opened. In mid-March, Cameron told Seward that he wanted to see Weed in either Washington or Philadelphia “at any time” convenient to Weed. Seward relayed the message to his mentor, but Weed, certain that Cameron would deliver Pennsylvania to Seward by the second ballot, as he thought he had promised, never managed to make the trip.
Weed’s faith in Cameron was due partly to Seward’s report of a special visit he had made to Cameron’s estate, Lochiel, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Shortly before leaving for Europe the previous spring, Seward had spent a day with Cameron and had returned certain that Cameron was pledged to his candidacy. “He took me to his home, told me all was right,” Seward told Weed. “He was for me, and Pa. would be. It might want to cast a first ballot for him or might not…. He brought the whole legislature of both parties to see me—feasted them gloriously and they were in the main so free, so generous as to embarrass me.” Reports of this lavish reception persuaded reporters and politicians alike that a deal had been brokered.
In the months that followed, even as gossip spread that Cameron did not have control of his entire delegation, Weed continued to believe that the Pennsylvania boss, so like himself in many ways, would do whatever was necessary to fulfill his pledge and deliver his state. After all, to Cameron was attributed the oft-quoted definition: “an honest politician is one who, when he is bought, stays bought.”
Cameron had been quicker than Weed to exploit the lucrative potential of politics. Through contracts with canal companies, railroads, and banks, he amassed “so much money,” he later boasted, that he might have become “the richest man in Pennsylvania” had he not pursued elective office. Unlike Weed, who remained behind the scenes, Cameron secured for himself two terms in the U.S. Senate; in 1844 and again in 1855. He began his political life as a Democrat but became frustrated by Democratic positions on slavery and, more important, on the tariff, which was his “legislative child.” In 1855, he was instrumental in establishing Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, initially called the People’s Party.
At the People’s Party state convention in February 1860, Cameron received the expected favorite-son nod for the presidency, but Andrew Curtin, a magnetic young politician who was challenging Cameron for control in the state, was nominated for governor. Though Cameron received a majority vote at the convention, a substantial number of district delegates remained to be chosen, eventually producing a split between the rival forces of Cameron and Curtin. Curtin was uncommitted to any candidate when the Republican Convention opened, yet it was known that he questioned Seward’s electability. Seward’s name on the ticket might hamstring his own election, for the anti-Catholic Know Nothings, who still exerted considerable power in Pennsylvania, had never forgiven Seward for his liberalism toward immigrants and his controversial support for parochial education. Boss Cameron might have been able to resolve these obstacles with Boss Weed in private conversation before the convention. Since that meeting never took place, Weed was left to navigate the countervailing forces of the Pennsylvania state delegation without Cameron’s guidance.
SEWARD’S LEISURELY SOJOURN abroad afforded Chase the opportunity to actively secure pledges and workers for his nomination. Never the most astute of politicians, Chase made curiously little use of the precious months of 1859 to better his chances. Sure of the power and depth of his support, he once again, as in 1856, assumed he would somehow gain the nomination without much personal intervention. News to the contrary Chase dismissed out of hand, even when the intelligence came from his close friend Gamaliel Bailey.
Bailey and Chase had become acquainted in Cincinnati when Bailey was editing The Philanthropist. Later on, when Bailey became publisher of The National Era and moved his family to Washington, they warmly welcomed the lonely Chase into their home. When the Senate was in session, Chase lived for months at a time at their house, forming friendships with Bailey’s wife, Margaret, and the entire Bailey clan. On Saturday evenings, the Baileys’ home became “a salon in European tradition,” replete with dinner and the word games at which Chase excelled.
Throughout their long friendship, Bailey had always been frank with Chase, castigating him in 1856 for his temporizing attitude toward the “detestable” Know Nothings. Nonetheless, Bailey remained loyal and supportive of his old friend, assuring him on numerous occasions that he would rather see him “in the presidential chair than any other man.” Yet, as Bailey assessed the temper of the country in early 1859, conversing with many people, “observing the signs of the times and the phases of public opinion,” he concluded in a long, candid letter to Chase that he thought it best to support Seward in 1860. The time for Chase would come again four years later.
“He and you are the two most prominent representative men of the party,” Bailey wrote on January 16, 1859, “but he is older than you.” His friends believe it is “now or never” with him, “to postpone him now is to postpone him forever…you are in the prime of life and have the promise of continuing so—you have not attained your full stature or status—he has—every year adds to your strength, and in 1864, you will be stronger than in 1860…. To be urgent now against the settled feeling of Seward’s numerous friends, would provoke unpleasant and damaging discords, and tend hereafter to weaken your position.” Bailey suspected that Chase might disagree with his recommendation, but “I know you will not question my integrity or my friendship.”
“I do not doubt your friendship,” Chase testily replied, “but I do think that if our situations were reversed I should take a different method of showing mine for you…. The suggestion ‘now or never’ [with regard to Seward] is babyish…how ridiculous…but to sum up all in brief…let me say it cannot change my position. I have no right to do so…. A very large body of the people—embracing not a few who would hardly vote for any man other than myself as a Republican nominee—seem to desire that I shall be a candidate in 1860. No effort of mine, and as far as I know none of my immediate personal friends has produced this feeling. It seems to be of spontaneous growth.”
Bailey responded that he presumed Chase’s characterization of the “now or never” position of Seward’s supporters as “babyish” was “a slip of your pen…. It may be erroneous, groundless, but…it is entitled to consideration. It has reference not only to age, & health, but other matters…. Governor Seward will be fifty-nine in May, 1860…. Should another be nominated, and elected, the chances would be in favor of a renomination—which would postpone the Governor eight years—until he should be sixty-seven, in the shadow of seventy…. You are still growing [Chase had just turned fifty-one]—you are still increasing in reputation—four years hence…your chances of nomination & election to the Presidency would be greater than they are now.” Bailey assured Chase that he would never work against him. “All I desired was to apprise you, as a friend.”
Deluded by flattery, Chase preferred the unrealistic projections of New York’s Hiram Barney, who thought his strength in New York State was growing so rapidly that it was possible he might receive New York’s vote on the first ballot. So heroic was his self-conception, Chase believed that doubtful supporters would flock to his side once they understood the central role he had played as the guardian of the antislavery tradition and father of the Republican Party.
Failing once again to appoint a campaign manager, Chase had no one to bargain and maneuver for him, no one to promise government posts in return for votes. He rejected an appeal from a New Hampshire supporter who proposed to build a state organization. He never capitalized on the initial support of powerful Chicago Press and Tribune editor Joseph Medill. He turned down an invitation to speak at Cooper Union in a lecture series organized by his supporters as a forum for candidates other than Seward. Refusing even to consider that his own state might deny him a united vote on the first ballot, he failed to confirm that every delegate appointed to the
convention was pledged to vote for him. Indeed, his sole contribution to his own campaign was a series of letters to various supporters and journalists around the country, reminding them that he was the best man for the job.
Frustrated supporters tried to shake him into more concerted action. “I now begin to fear that Seward will get a majority of the delegates from Maryland,” Chase’s loyal backer James Ashley warned. “He and his friends work—work. They not only work—but he works.” The willful Chase was blind to troubling signs, convinced that if the delegates voted their conscience, he would ultimately prevail.
“I shall have nobody to push or act for me at Chicago,” Chase boasted to Benjamin Eggleston, a delegate from Cincinnati, “except the Ohio delegation who will, I doubt not, faithfully represent the Republicans of the State.” While a large majority of the Ohio state delegation indeed supported Chase, Senator Ben Wade had his own devoted followers. “The Ohio delegation does not seem to be anywhere as yet,” delegate Erastus Hopkins warned. Heedless, Chase remained positive that the entire Ohio delegation would come around, given everything he had done and sacrificed for his state. To support any other candidate would put one “in a position no man of honor or sensibility would care to occupy.”
A month before the convention, Kate convinced her father that a journey to Washington would shore up his support among various congressmen and senators. Lodging at the Willard Hotel, they made the rounds of receptions and dinners. Seward was very kind to them, Chase admitted to his friend James Briggs. The genial New Yorker hosted a dinner party in their honor at which “all sides were pretty fairly represented” and “there was a good deal of joking.” The next evening, former Ohio congressman John Gurley organized a party to honor both Chase and Ohio’s new governor, William Dennison. Seward was invited to join the Ohio gathering, which included former Whig leader Tom Corwin and Senator Ben Wade.