]

You can't name him? Let me try to nominate him for you---- On a
platform of proscription and revenge, the hanging of rebel leaders, the
confiscation of the property of the white people of the South and its
bestowment upon the negroes, the taking of the ballot from the whites
and setting their slaves to rule over them--on this program I resign as
your candidate and nominate for President, the Hon. Thaddeus
Stevens----

THE COMMITTEE

[_In a wild uproar._]

No! No! No! Not by a damn sight! To hell with Stevens!

[LINCOLN _quietly laughs and_ STEVENS _angrily lifts his hand to
quiet them._]

STEVENS

Now that you've had your joke--let me remind you that the radical wing
of the Republican Party has already named General John C. Fremont
against you----

LINCOLN

[_To the Committee._]

What say you, gentlemen----? Shall I resign in favor of the bolter who
attempted to dictate to you your platform and your candidate before
your convention met? Do you ask me to resign in favor of General
Fremont?

THE COMMITTEE

No! No! Down with the bolter! To the devil with Fremont. No! No! No!
Damnation--no----

[RAYMOND _quiets the uproar._]

STEVENS

I am not asking you to nominate Fremont. We split the party and named
Fremont because we wouldn't have you. Get off the ticket and we will
withdraw Fremont and put up a man who can be elected! Whatever the
chances of General Fremont at this moment the election of McClellan on
a Democratic Copperhead Platform is conceded by your own party
councils. McClellan is even now choosing his Cabinet----

LINCOLN

They say it is not wise to count chickens before they're hatched--we
still have our chance!

STEVENS

You have no chance! You have _already_ been weighed and found
wanting! In the Congressional election, what happened?--your majorities
were wiped out. Maine cut you down from nineteen thousand to four! The
Democrats swept Ohio. Indiana deserted us. In Pennsylvania even, we
lost by four thousand. New York elected Horatio Seymour against us. New
Jersey turned you down. Wisconsin was a tie. In your own state of
Illinois, the Democrats won by seventeen thousand----!

LINCOLN

Even so, Stevens--the ballots in _this_ elec