the mind of William H.
Ludlow, chairman of the convention, who packed the committee on
resolutions. Similar methods won fifty other delegates. But despite
the shock, Preston King did not hesitate. He might be broken, but he
could not be bent. Rising with dignity he withdrew from the
convention, followed by a hundred others who ceased to act further
with it. Subsequent proceedings reflected the gloom of a body out of
which the spirit had departed. Delegates kept dropping out until only
one hundred and ninety-nine remained to cheer the nomination of
Horatio Seymour. On a roll call for lieutenant-governor, Philip
Dorsheimer declared it a disgrace to have his name called in a
convention that had adopted such a platform.

The Whig convention followed on September 20. A divided Democracy
again made candidates confident, and eight or ten names were presented
for governor. Horace Greeley thought it time his turn should come. He
had been pronounced in his advocacy of the Maine liquor law and active
in his hostility to the Nebraska Act. As these were to be the issues
of the campaign, he applied with confidence to Weed for help. The
Albany editor frankly admitted that his friends had lost control of
the convention, and that Myron H. Clark would probably get the
nomination. Then Greeley asked to be made lieutenant-governor. Weed
reminded him of the outcry in the Whig national convention of 1848
against having "cotton at both ends of the ticket." "I suppose you
mean," replied Greeley, laughing, "that it won't do to have
prohibition at both ends of our state ticket."[445] But, though he
laughed, the editor of the _Tribune_ went away nettled and humiliated.
In the contest, which became exciting, Greeley's friends urged his
selection for governor without formally presenting his name to the
convention; but on the third ballot Clark received the nomination,
obtaining 82 out of the 132 votes cast.

[Footnote 445: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p.
226.

"Mr. Greeley called upon me at the Astor House and asked if I did not
think that the time and circumstances were favourable to his
nomination. I replied that I did not think the time and circumstances
favourable to his election, if nominated, but that my friends had lost
control of the state convention. This answer perplexed him, but a few
words of explanation made it quite clear. Admitting that he had
brought the people up to the point of accepting a temperance ca