ing he had burned his
bridges. It was said he had nowhere else to go; that the Hards went
out of business when the South went out of the Union; and that to the
Softs he was _non persona grata_. There was much truth in this
statement. But having once become a Radical his past affiliations gave
him some advantages. For more than twenty years he had been known
throughout the State as a Southern sympathiser. In the United States
Senate he stood with the South for slavery, and in the election of
1860 he voted for Breckinridge. He was the most conspicuous doughface
in New York. Now, he was an advocate of vigorous war and a pronounced
supporter of President Lincoln. This gave him the importance of a new
convert at a camp meeting. The people believed he knew what he was
talking about, and while his stories and apt illustrations, enriched
by a quick change in voice and manner, convulsed his audiences,
imbedded in his wit and rollicking fun were most convincing arguments
which appealed to the best sentiments of his hearers.[810] Indeed, it
is not too much to say that Daniel S. Dickinson, as an entertaining
and forceful platform speaker, filled the place in 1861 which John Van
Buren occupied in the Free-soil campaign in 1848.

[Footnote 810: "I have just finished a second reading of your speech in
Wyoming County, and with so much pleasure and admiration that I cannot
refrain from thanking you. It is a speech worthy of an American
statesman, and will command the attention of the country by its high
and generous patriotism, no less than by its eloquence and
power."--Letter of John K. Porter of Albany to D.S. Dickinson, August
23, 1861. _Dickinson's Life, Letters, and Speeches_, Vol. 2, p. 553.
Similar letters were written by Henry W. Rogers of Buffalo, William H.
Seward, Dr. N. Niles, and others.--_Ibid._, pp. 555, 559, 561.]

A single address by Horatio Seymour, delivered at Utica on October 28,
proved his right to speak for the Democratic party. He had a difficult
task to perform. Men had changed front in a day, and to one of his
views, holding rebellion as a thing to be crushed without impairing
existing conditions, it seemed imperative to divorce "revolutionary
emancipators" from the conservative patriots who loved their country
as it was. He manifested a desire to appear scrupulously loyal to the
Government, counseling obedience to constituted authorities, respect
for constitutional obligations, and a just and liberal support