candidate? Told that they had not agreed, he withdrew. Shortly afterward he sent to his New York
Tribune
a story that began: “My conclusion, from all that I can gather tonight, is that the opposition to Gov. Seward cannot concentrate on any candidate and that he will be nominated.” Editor Halstead, who was also keeping in touch, sent a similar dispatch to his Cincinnati
Commercial
. He explained later that at midnight on Thursday every man in Chicago believed that Seward was in, and the champagne party at Seward headquarters took on the aspects of a victory celebration. 3
But the caucus in the Tremont Hotel was not over. After Greeley left, someone suggested that it was time to see just how many votes each candidate could count on. Davis was very well informed on this point and he produced his own tabulation, which showed that Lincoln had far more votes than any other candidate except Seward. The men from New Jersey and Pennsylvania thereupon agreed that they would call their own delegations into caucus and recommend support of Lincoln on the second ballot. Later that evening the New Jersey crowd swung into line. Pennsylvania would act the following morning, just before the convention was called to order.
What was working for Lincoln here was the old matter of availability. The delegates from these important states were against Seward because they did not think they could carry their states with him, and of the other candidates only Lincoln seemed to lack Seward’s handicaps. Judge Bates, satisfactory on so many points, was fatally handicapped now by his former activity in the Know-Nothing party: desperately needing the votes of the foreign-born, the Republicans could hardly hope to get them with Bates. Chase was branded as an extremist; a good many Douglas Democrats would vote Republican this fall if they were appealed to properly, but they could not in any circumstances be won by Chase, whose abolitionist tendencies were pronounced and unmistakable. That left Lincoln. He had avoided the pitfall that awaits the man who is too prominent. 4
The thing was not yet done, however. Next morning—Friday, May 18, with the opening of the session very near—Davis andSwett had a caller: Judge Joseph Casey, of Harrisburg, who was empowered to speak for the ambitious Pennsylvania boss, Simon Cameron. Cameron, said Casey, wanted to make a deal. He would swing the Pennsylvania vote to Lincoln, provided he could be sure that he would become Secretary of the Treasury in the new cabinet, and provided also that he could have complete disposal of all Federal patronage in his state.
This was a lot to ask, and Davis and Swett fenced for a time. Cameron was not widely admired. He was the archetype of the political boss: anything goes, so long as you hold on to the throttle of the machine. He had enemies in his own state, among them brisk Andrew Curtin, who was going to be the next governor, and the Philadelphia publisher Alexander K. McClure, but for the moment Cameron had the Pennsylvania delegation in his pocket, and a candidate who wanted that delegation’s votes had to deal with him. No one supposed that he really ought to be Secretary of the Treasury, and the notion that any state boss should at this moment be given complete control of patronage in his state was outlandish, but the Pennsylvania delegation today was probably going to vote the way Cameron told it to, and Davis and Swett were under the gun.
The accepted version is that they surrendered and promised (in Lincoln’s name, although Lincoln had told them to do nothing of the kind) that Cameron would be paid off as he wished. A wire was sent to Lincoln, and his answer came back: “I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none.” But the managers had victory within their purchase. Davis is supposed to have said: “Lincoln ain’t here and don’t know what we have to meet, so we will go ahead as if we hadn’t heard from him and he must ratify it.” To Joseph
Tribune
a story that began: “My conclusion, from all that I can gather tonight, is that the opposition to Gov. Seward cannot concentrate on any candidate and that he will be nominated.” Editor Halstead, who was also keeping in touch, sent a similar dispatch to his Cincinnati
Commercial
. He explained later that at midnight on Thursday every man in Chicago believed that Seward was in, and the champagne party at Seward headquarters took on the aspects of a victory celebration. 3
But the caucus in the Tremont Hotel was not over. After Greeley left, someone suggested that it was time to see just how many votes each candidate could count on. Davis was very well informed on this point and he produced his own tabulation, which showed that Lincoln had far more votes than any other candidate except Seward. The men from New Jersey and Pennsylvania thereupon agreed that they would call their own delegations into caucus and recommend support of Lincoln on the second ballot. Later that evening the New Jersey crowd swung into line. Pennsylvania would act the following morning, just before the convention was called to order.
What was working for Lincoln here was the old matter of availability. The delegates from these important states were against Seward because they did not think they could carry their states with him, and of the other candidates only Lincoln seemed to lack Seward’s handicaps. Judge Bates, satisfactory on so many points, was fatally handicapped now by his former activity in the Know-Nothing party: desperately needing the votes of the foreign-born, the Republicans could hardly hope to get them with Bates. Chase was branded as an extremist; a good many Douglas Democrats would vote Republican this fall if they were appealed to properly, but they could not in any circumstances be won by Chase, whose abolitionist tendencies were pronounced and unmistakable. That left Lincoln. He had avoided the pitfall that awaits the man who is too prominent. 4
The thing was not yet done, however. Next morning—Friday, May 18, with the opening of the session very near—Davis andSwett had a caller: Judge Joseph Casey, of Harrisburg, who was empowered to speak for the ambitious Pennsylvania boss, Simon Cameron. Cameron, said Casey, wanted to make a deal. He would swing the Pennsylvania vote to Lincoln, provided he could be sure that he would become Secretary of the Treasury in the new cabinet, and provided also that he could have complete disposal of all Federal patronage in his state.
This was a lot to ask, and Davis and Swett fenced for a time. Cameron was not widely admired. He was the archetype of the political boss: anything goes, so long as you hold on to the throttle of the machine. He had enemies in his own state, among them brisk Andrew Curtin, who was going to be the next governor, and the Philadelphia publisher Alexander K. McClure, but for the moment Cameron had the Pennsylvania delegation in his pocket, and a candidate who wanted that delegation’s votes had to deal with him. No one supposed that he really ought to be Secretary of the Treasury, and the notion that any state boss should at this moment be given complete control of patronage in his state was outlandish, but the Pennsylvania delegation today was probably going to vote the way Cameron told it to, and Davis and Swett were under the gun.
The accepted version is that they surrendered and promised (in Lincoln’s name, although Lincoln had told them to do nothing of the kind) that Cameron would be paid off as he wished. A wire was sent to Lincoln, and his answer came back: “I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none.” But the managers had victory within their purchase. Davis is supposed to have said: “Lincoln ain’t here and don’t know what we have to meet, so we will go ahead as if we hadn’t heard from him and he must ratify it.” To Joseph
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