Whigs were numerically the largest
portion of the Republican party, a candidate of Democratic antecedents
would be preferable, especially in Pennsylvania, a State, they
declared, which Seward could not carry. To all this Greeley
undoubtedly assented. The dissolution of the firm of Seward, Weed, and
Greeley, announced in Greeley's remarkable letter of November 11,
1854, but not yet made public, had, indeed, taken effect. The result
was not so patent, certainly not so vitriolic, as it appeared at
Chicago in 1860, but Greeley now began insinuating doubts of Seward's
popular strength, exaggerating local prejudices against him, and
yielding to objections raised by his avowed opponents. His hostility
found no place in the columns of the _Tribune_, but it coloured his
conversations and private correspondence. To Richard A. Dana he wrote
that Callamer's speech on the Kansas question "is better than
Seward's, in my humble judgment;"[486] yet the _Tribune_ pronounced
Seward's "the great argument" and "unsurpassed in political
philosophy." The importance of Pennsylvania became as prominent a
factor in the convention of 1856 as it did in that of 1860, and
Greeley did not hesitate to affirm Seward's inability to carry it,
declaring that such weakness made his nomination fatal to party
success.

[Footnote 486: Letters of April 7, 1856.]

The opponents of Seward, however, could not have prevented his
nomination had he decided to enter the race. He was the unanimous
choice of the New York delegation. The mere mention of his name at
Philadelphia met with the loudest applause. When Senator Wilson of
Massachusetts spoke of him as "the foremost American statesman," the
cheers made further speaking impossible for several minutes. He was
the idol of the convention as he was the chief figure of his party.
John A. King declared that could his name have been presented "it
would have received the universal approbation of the convention."
Robert Emmet, the son of the distinguished Thomas Addis Emmet, and the
temporary chairman of the convention, made a similar statement. Even
Thurlow Weed found it difficult to prevail upon his friends to bide
their time until the next national convention. "Earnest friends
refused to forego my nomination," Seward wrote his wife on June 17,
the day the convention opened, "without my own authority."[487]

[Footnote 487: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 278.]

When the several state conventions con