contest for the nomination are not
altogether gratifying. The partisans of Seward set about winning votes
by much parading in the streets with banners and music, and by
out-yelling all competitors within the walls of the convention. For this
intelligent purpose they had engaged Tom Hyer, the prize fighter, with
a gang of roughs, to hold possession of the Wigwam, and to howl
illimitably at appropriate moments. But they had undertaken a difficult
task in trying to outdo the great West, in one of its own cities, at a
game of this kind. The Lincoln leaders in their turn secured a couple of
stentorian yellers (one of them a Democrat), instructed them carefully,
and then filled the Wigwam full actually at daybreak, while the Seward
men were marching; so in the next yelling match the West won
magnificently. How great was the real efficiency of these tactics in
affecting the choice of the ruler of a great nation commonly accounted
intelligent, it is difficult to say with accuracy; but it is certain
that the expert managers spared no pains about this scenic business of
"enthusiasm."

Meanwhile other work, entirely quiet, was being done elsewhere. The
objection to Seward was that he was too radical, too far in advance of
the party. The Bates following were pushing their candidate as a
moderate man, who would be acceptable to "Union men." But Bates's chance
was small, and any tendency towards a moderate candidate was likely to
carry his friends to Lincoln rather than to Seward; for Lincoln was
generally supposed, however erroneously,[100] to be more remote from
Abolitionism than Seward was. To counteract this, a Seward delegate
telegraphed to the Bates men at St. Louis that Lincoln was as radical
as Seward. Lincoln, at Springfield, saw this dispatch, and at once wrote
a message to David Davis: "Lincoln agrees with Seward in his
irrepressible-conflict idea, and in Negro Equality; but he is opposed to
Seward's Higher Law. _Make no contracts that will bind me_." He
underscored the last sentence; but when his managers saw it, they
recognized that such independence did not accord with the situation, and
so they set it aside.

The first vote was:--

Whole number 465
Necessary for choice 233

William H. Seward of New York 173-1/2
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois 102
Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania 50-1/2
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio 49
Edward Bates of Missouri