Authors: Doris Kearns Goodwin
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 convention 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.
S
EWARD’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.
Writing home after the dinner, Seward joshingly noted that he “found much comfort” in the discovery that Ohio was home to at least three candidates for the presidency, “all eminent and excellent men, but each preferring anybody out of Ohio, to his two rivals within.” While Seward immediately intuited signals that Ben Wade, in particular, coveted the nomination, Chase remained oblivious, refusing to believe that Ohio would not back its most deserving son. On the Chases’ last evening in Washington, the Blairs threw them a lavish party at their country estate in Silver Spring.
As usual, Kate left a deep impression on everyone. Seward afterward told Frances that she was quite “a young lady, pleasant and well-cultivated.” Chase wrote Nettie how pleased he was that many showed “attention to Katie,” and many were “kind to me.” He returned home convinced that his trip had accomplished a great deal. “Everybody seems to like me and to feel a very gratifying degree of confidence in me,” he reported to a Cincinnati friend. Confusing hospitality with hard allegiance, he told one of his supporters that “a great change seemed to come over men’s minds while I was in Washington.”
T
HE BEGINNING
of the pre-presidential year found the backers of Edward Bates more active in the pursuit of his nomination than the candidate himself. While Bates would gradually warm to the idea, he found himself, as always, conflicted about plunging into politics. Without the encouragement of the powerful Blairs, it is unlikely that he would have put his name forward. Once he agreed to stand, he was confronted with a political dilemma. His strength lay among old Whigs and nativists concentrated in the border states, and conservatives in the North and Northwest. To have a genuine chance for the nomination, he would have to prove himself acceptable to moderate Republicans as well.
Had he used the months prior to the nomination to travel to the very different states of Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Maryland, he might have acquainted himself with the wide range of views that comprised the new party. But he never left his home state, preferring to rely on intelligence received from colleagues and supporters who came to visit him. Not only did he keep to Missouri, he rarely left his beloved home, noting in his diary when he was forced to stay overnight in St. Louis that it was “the first that I have slept in town for about two years.” Four decades of marriage had not diminished his bond with Julia.
Secluding himself at home, Bates never developed a clear understanding of the varied constituencies that had to be aligned, a deficit that resulted in a number of missteps. While his distance from the fierce arguments of the fifties was considered beneficial to his candidacy, his long absence from politics made him less familiar with the savage polarization created by the slavery issue. In late February 1859, he answered the request of the Whig Committee of New York for his “views and opinions on the politics of the country.” The New York Whigs had passed a resolution calling for an end to agitation of “the Negro question” so that the country might focus on “topics of general importance,” such as economic development and internal improvements, that would unite rather than fracture the nation. In his letter, which was published nationwide, Bates declared that he had always considered “the Negro question” to be “a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousy of sections.” He believed that those who continued to press the issue, “after the sorrowful experience of the last few years,” must be motivated by “personal ambition or sectional prejudice.”