nator. So hopeless did the success of the
opposition appear at midnight of the second day, that Greeley
telegraphed the _Tribune_ predicting Seward's nomination, and the
"irrepressibles" anticipated victory in three hundred bottles of
champagne. As late as the morning of the third day, the confidence of
the Seward managers impelled them to ask whom the opposition preferred
for Vice President.

[Footnote 540: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 360.]

[Footnote 541: _Ibid._, p. 448.]

[Footnote 542: "Mr. Julius Wood of Columbus, O., an old and true
friend of Mr. Weed, met Mr. Seward in Washington, and reiterated his
fears in connection with the accumulation of candidates. 'Mr. Lincoln
was brought to New York to divide your strength,' he said. But Mr.
Seward was not disconcerted by these warnings. Less than a fortnight
afterwards Mr. Wood was at the Astor House, where he again met Mr.
Weed and Mr. Seward. Sunday afternoon Mr. Greeley visited the hotel
and passing through one of the corridors met Mr. Wood, with whom he
began conversation. 'We shan't nominate Seward,' said Mr. Greeley,
'we'll take some more conservative man, like Pitt Fessenden or Bates.'
Immediately afterwards Mr. Wood went to Mr. Seward's room. 'Greeley
has just been here with Weed,' said Mr. Seward. 'Weed brought him up
here. You were wrong in what you said to me at Washington about
Greeley; he is all right.' 'No, I was not wrong,' insisted Mr. Wood.
'Greeley is cheating you. He will go to Chicago and work against you.'
At this Mr. Seward smiled. 'My dear Wood,' said he, 'your zeal
sometimes gets a little the better of your judgment.'"--Thurlow Weed
Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 269.]

But opponents had been industriously at work. They found that
Republicans of Know-Nothing antecedents, especially in Pennsylvania,
still disliked Seward's opposition to their Order, and that
conservative Republicans recoiled from his doctrine of the higher law
and the irrepressible conflict. Upon this broad foundation of unrest,
the opposition adroitly builded, poisoning the minds of unsettled
delegates with stories of his political methods and too close
association with Thurlow Weed. No one questioned Seward's personal
integrity; but the distrust of the political boss existed then as much
as now, and his methods were no less objectionable. "The
misconstruction put on his phrase 'the irrepressible conflict between
freedom and slavery' has, I th