the best of terms."
While his younger son "Tad" was with his mother on a journey, Lincoln
telegraphed: "Tell Tad, father and the goats are well, especially
the goats."(14) He found time one bright morning in May to review the
Sunday-school children of Washington who filed past "cheering as if
their very lives depended upon it," while Lincoln stood at a window
"enjoying the scene... making pleasant remarks about a face that now and
then struck him."(15) Carpenter told him that no other president except
Washington had placed himself so securely in the hearts of the people.
"Homely, honest, ungainly Lincoln," said Asa Gray, in a letter to
Darwin, "is the representative man of the country."

However, two groups of men in his own party were sullenly opposed to
him--the relentless Vindictives and certain irresponsible free lances
who named themselves the "Radical Democracy." In the latter group,
Fremont was the hero; Wendell Phillips, the greatest advocate. They
were extremists in all things; many of them Agnostics. Furious against
Lincoln, but unwilling to go along with the waiting policy of the
Vindictives, these visionaries held a convention at Cleveland; voted
down a resolution that recognized God as an ally; and nominated Fremont
for the Presidency. A witty comment on the movement--one that greatly
amused Lincoln--was the citation of a verse in first Samuel: "And every
one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one
that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a
captain over them; and there were with him about four hundred men."

If anything was needed to keep the dissatisfied Senators in the party
ranks, it was this rash "bolt." Though Fremont had been their man in
the past, he had thrown the fat in the fire by setting up an independent
ticket. Silently, the wise opportunists of the Senate and all their
henchmen, stood aside at the "Union convention"--which they called the
Republican Convention--June seventh, and took their medicine.

There was no doubt of the tempest of enthusiasm among the majority of
the delegates. It was a Lincoln ovation.

In responding the next day to a committee of congratulation, Lincoln
said: "I am not insensible at all to the personal compliment there is
in this, and yet I do not allow myself to believe that any but a small
portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal compliment. . . . I do
not allow myself to suppose that either the Conve