eling, and presented in his own person the spirit of the contest for
the Union and the evidence of its triumph. The Democratic candidate,
if not open to the charge of personal disloyalty, had done much as
Governor of New York to embarrass the National Administration in the
conduct of the war, and would perhaps have done more but for the
singular tact and address with which Mr. Lincoln had prevented an open
quarrel or even a serious conflict of authority. Mr. Seymour was
indeed unpleasantly associated in the public mind with the riot which
had been organized in the city of New York against the enforcement of
the draft. He had been a great favorite of the Peace party, and at
the most critical point in the civil struggle he had presided over a
National convention which demanded that the war should cease.

Under these circumstances it was not altogether re-assuring to the
ardent loyalists of the country, that the city of New York, whose
prosperity depended in so great a degree upon the preservation of the
Union, should now give Mr. Seymour a majority of more than sixty
thousand over General Grant, and that the Empire State, which would
cease to be Imperial if the Union ceased to exist, should in a popular
contest defeat General Grant by fully ten thousand votes. New Jersey
made an equally discouraging record by giving Mr. Seymour a majority
of three thousand. The Pacific coast, whose progress and prosperity
depended so largely upon the maintenance of the Union, presented an
astonishing result,--California giving General Grant a majority of only
514, while Oregon utterly repudiated the great leader and gave her
electoral vote for Mr. Seymour. Indiana, in the test vote of the
October election for governor, was carried for the Republicans by only
961; Ohio gave a smaller majority in the hour of National victory than
she had given during any year of the civil struggle, while Pennsylvania
at the same election gave the party but ten thousand majority. In the
city and county of Philadelphia the Democrats actually had a majority
of nearly two hundred votes. The Republican majorities in these three
States were considerably increased in the November election by the
natural falling off of the Democratic vote, but the critical and
decisive battle had been fought in each State in October. It was a
very startling fact that if Mr. Seymour had received the electoral vote
of the solid South (which afterwards came to be regarded eith