enough to show that it could not do much with what remained. Officially, it had adopted a platform and could now proceed to the nomination of a candidate, and the Douglas leaders approached this task with some hope; since the most violent of the Senator’s enemies had seceded, surely it would be simple for him to rally two thirds of those who remained? This, it developed, would not be enough. Caleb Cushing, presiding, ruled that whoever was nominated must get two thirds, not of the delegates in the hall, but of the total originally accredited to the convention, and this ruling stuck. The Southern delegates who yet remained would walk out if the convention overruled the chairman on this point, and they got a good deal of support from anti-Douglas elements in a number of Northern delegations, including that of New York. To nominate, then, the convention must give some candidate more than 200 votes, and it quickly became apparent that this was not going to be possible.
The session of May 1 began hopefully enough, with Cushing half invisible behind a huge bouquet of red roses and with a good clergyman offering a pious prayer for harmony. There were speeches. Twenty-six of Georgia’s delegates had left the premises, and one Georgian who remained, Delegate Solomon Cohen, ofSavannah, addressed the convention with impassioned pathos: “I will stay here until the last feather be placed upon the back of the camel—I will stay until crushed and broken in spirit, humiliated by feeling and knowing that I have no longer a voice in the counsels of the Democracy of the Union—feeling that the Southern states are as a mere cipher in your estimation—that all her rights are trampled underfoot; and I say here that I shall then be found shoulder to shoulder with him who is foremost in this contest.” This, although vague, was considered somehow ominous. A South Carolina delegate, B. F. Perry—oddly enough, an early benefactor and teacher of Yancey—arose to identify himself as “an old-fashioned Union Democrat,” announcing: “I love the South, and it is because I love her, and would guard her against evils which no one can foresee or foretell, that I am a Union man and a follower of Washington’s faith and creed … I came here not to sow the seeds of dissension in our Democratic ranks but to do all that I could to harmonize the discordant materials of our party.” 1
The discordant materials were beyond ready fusion. After the unsuccessful attempt to upset Cushing’s ruling about what a two-thirds majority really meant, the convention got down to the business of placing names in nomination. Nominating speeches were brief, and late in the afternoon, when it was time for the first roll call, the convention had six names before it—Douglas, of Illinois; James Guthrie, of Kentucky; Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York; R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; Joe Lane, of Oregon; and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee. When Douglas’s name was presented, the Northwestern men raised a brief cheer, but it seemed to lack body, and the gallery maintained a cold silence.
The first ballot told the story. There were 253 votes in the hall, and to win, someone would need to get 202 of them, which obviously was out of the question. Douglas got 145½ on the first ballot, and even his most hopeful followers realized that he would never rise much above this level. The Northwest was sullen and silent, and when Richardson stood up to announce the vote of Illinois, he looked and acted like a man attending a funeral—which, in a way, was the case. Eleven more ballots were taken before the day’s session ended, and Douglas could pick up only 5 additional votes, for a top strength of 150½. As the delegates left the hall,Halstead felt that wounds had been inflicted that could not be healed. “I hear it stated here a hundred times a day, by the most orthodox Democrats and rampant Southerners, ‘William H. Seward will be the next President of the United
The session of May 1 began hopefully enough, with Cushing half invisible behind a huge bouquet of red roses and with a good clergyman offering a pious prayer for harmony. There were speeches. Twenty-six of Georgia’s delegates had left the premises, and one Georgian who remained, Delegate Solomon Cohen, ofSavannah, addressed the convention with impassioned pathos: “I will stay here until the last feather be placed upon the back of the camel—I will stay until crushed and broken in spirit, humiliated by feeling and knowing that I have no longer a voice in the counsels of the Democracy of the Union—feeling that the Southern states are as a mere cipher in your estimation—that all her rights are trampled underfoot; and I say here that I shall then be found shoulder to shoulder with him who is foremost in this contest.” This, although vague, was considered somehow ominous. A South Carolina delegate, B. F. Perry—oddly enough, an early benefactor and teacher of Yancey—arose to identify himself as “an old-fashioned Union Democrat,” announcing: “I love the South, and it is because I love her, and would guard her against evils which no one can foresee or foretell, that I am a Union man and a follower of Washington’s faith and creed … I came here not to sow the seeds of dissension in our Democratic ranks but to do all that I could to harmonize the discordant materials of our party.” 1
The discordant materials were beyond ready fusion. After the unsuccessful attempt to upset Cushing’s ruling about what a two-thirds majority really meant, the convention got down to the business of placing names in nomination. Nominating speeches were brief, and late in the afternoon, when it was time for the first roll call, the convention had six names before it—Douglas, of Illinois; James Guthrie, of Kentucky; Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York; R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; Joe Lane, of Oregon; and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee. When Douglas’s name was presented, the Northwestern men raised a brief cheer, but it seemed to lack body, and the gallery maintained a cold silence.
The first ballot told the story. There were 253 votes in the hall, and to win, someone would need to get 202 of them, which obviously was out of the question. Douglas got 145½ on the first ballot, and even his most hopeful followers realized that he would never rise much above this level. The Northwest was sullen and silent, and when Richardson stood up to announce the vote of Illinois, he looked and acted like a man attending a funeral—which, in a way, was the case. Eleven more ballots were taken before the day’s session ended, and Douglas could pick up only 5 additional votes, for a top strength of 150½. As the delegates left the hall,Halstead felt that wounds had been inflicted that could not be healed. “I hear it stated here a hundred times a day, by the most orthodox Democrats and rampant Southerners, ‘William H. Seward will be the next President of the United
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