not do otherwise than accept
the party nominee; yet with what zeal could they work for the candidate
when they felt that they, the leaders of the party, had been something
worse than ignored in the selection of him? And what was their influence
worth, when all who could be reached by it knew well their extreme
hostility and distrust towards Mr. Lincoln? Stevens grudgingly admitted
that Lincoln would not be quite so bad a choice as McClellan, yet let no
chance go by to assail the opinions, measures, and policy of the
Republican President. In this he was imitated by others, and their
reluctant adhesion in the mere matter of voting the party ticket was
much more than offset by this vehemence in condemning the man in whose
behalf they felt it necessary to go to the polls. In a word the
situation was, that the common soldiers of the party were to go into the
fight under officers who did not expect, and scarcely desired, to win.
Victory is rare under such circumstances.

The opposition of the Democratic party was open and legitimate; the
unfriendliness of the Republican politicians was more unfortunate than
unfair, because it was the mistake of sincere and earnest men. But in
the way of Mr. Lincoln's success there stood still other opponents whose
antagonism was mischievous, insidious, and unfair both in principle and
in detail. Chief in this band appeared Horace Greeley, with a following
and an influence fluctuating and difficult to estimate, but
considerable. His present political creed was a strange jumble of
Democratic and Republican doctrines. No Democrat abused the
administration or cried for "peace on almost any terms" louder than he
did; yet he still declaimed against slavery, and proposed to buy from
the South all its slaves for four hundred millions of dollars.
Unfortunately those of his notions which were of importance in the
pending campaign were the Democratic ones. If he had come out openly as
a free lance, which was his true character, he would have less seriously
injured the President's cause. This, however, he would not do, but
preferred to fight against the Republicans in their own camp and
wearing their own uniform, and in this guise to devote all his capacity
to embarrassing the man who was the chosen president and the candidate
of that party. Multitudes in the country had been wont to accept the
editorials of the "Tribune" as sound political gospels, and the present
disaffected attitude of the variable ma