hand, Dickinson had always
favoured slavery.[568] Neither the Wilmot Proviso nor the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise disturbed him. What slavery demanded he
granted; what freedom sought he denounced. His belief that the South
would support him for a compromise candidate in return for his
fidelity became an hallucination. It showed itself at Cincinnati in
1852 when he antagonised Marcy; and his position in 1860 was even less
advantageous. Nevertheless, Dickinson nursed his delusion until the
guns at Fort Sumter disclosed the real design of Yancey and the men in
whom he had confided.

[Footnote 568: "The obduracy, the consistency of Mr. Dickinson's
Democracy are of the most marked type. Ever since he changed his vote
from Van Buren to Polk, with such hearty alacrity in the Baltimore
convention of 1844, he has promptly yielded to every requisition which
the Southern Democracy has made upon their Northern allies. All along
through the stormy years when the star of the Wilmot Proviso was in
the ascendant, and when Wright and Dix bowed to the gale, and even
Marcy and Bronson bent before it, Dickinson, on the floor of the
Senate, stood erect and immovable."--New York _Tribune_, July 4,
1860.]

CHAPTER XXIII

RAYMOND, GREELEY, AND WEED

1860

It was impossible that the defeat of Seward at Chicago, so unexpected,
and so far-reaching in its effect, should be encountered without some
attempt to fix the responsibility. To Thurlow Weed's sorrow[569] was
added the mortification of defeat. He had staked everything upon
success, and, although he doubtless wished to avoid any unseemly
demonstration of disappointment, the rankling wound goaded him into a
desire to relieve himself of any lack of precaution. Henry J. Raymond
scarcely divided the responsibility of management; but his newspaper,
which had spoken for Seward, shared in the loss of prestige, while the
_Tribune_, his great rival in metropolitan journalism, disclosed
between the lines of assumed modesty an exultant attitude.

[Footnote 569: "Mr. Weed was for a time completely unnerved by the
result. He even shed tears over the defeat of his old friend."--Thurlow
Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 2, p. 271.

"After the joy of Lincoln's nomination had subsided," wrote Leonard
Swett of Chicago, "Judge Davis and I called upon Mr. Weed. This was
the first time either of us had met him. He did not talk angrily as to
the result, nor did he complain of any on