With such an apparent lead after so many
ballots, the nomination of General Hancock on the ensuing day would,
under ordinary circumstances, have been reckoned as a probable result.
But it was not expected. It was indeed against the logic of the
situation that a Democratic Convention could at that time select a
distinguished Union general, of conservative record and cautious mind,
for a Presidential candidate. General Hancock's name was in fact used
only while the actual contestants of the Convention were fencing for
advantageous position in the final contest.

The outlook for Mr. Hendricks was considered flattering by his
immediate supporters, but to the skilled political observer it was
evident that the figures of the eighteenth ballot gave no assurance to
the friends of any candidate. After the adjournment of the Convention,
and throughout the night that followed, calculation and speculation
took every shape. The delegations from New York and Ohio absorbed
the interest of the politicians and the public. The two delegations
were playing at cross-purposes--each trying to defeat the designs of
the other, and each finding its most available candidate in the State
of the other. The tactics of New York had undoubtedly defeated
Pendleton, and the same men were now planning to nominate Chief Justice
Chase. The leading and confidential friends of Mr. Pendleton were
resolved that the New York plot should not succeed, and that Mr. Chase
should not, in any event, be the candidate. In a frame of mind which
was half panic, half reason, they concluded that it would be impossible
to defeat the Chief Justice if his name should be placed before the
Convention by the united delegation of New York speaking through the
glowing phrases of Mr. Seymour, who, as it was rumored, would next
morning leave the chair for that purpose. It was concluded, therefore,
in the consultations of Mr. Pendleton's friends, that the movement
should be anticipated by proposing the name of Mr. Seymour himself.
The consultations in which these conclusions were reached were made up
in large part of the aggressive type of Western Democrats, who had been
trained to political fighting under the lead of Stephen A. Douglas.
Among the most active and combative was Washington McLean of the
Cincinnati _Enquirer_. It was this class of Democrats that finally
rendered the nomination of the Chief Justice impossible.

On the following morning (of the last day of the