arty had honoured him when he wanted
office, he must now honour the party when it needed him. Besides, he
declared that Sanford E. Church, whom Seymour favoured, could not be
elected.[825] Having gained the Oneidan's consent, Richmond exercised
his adroit methods of packing conventions, and thus opened the way for
Seymour's unanimous nomination by making the Constitutional Union
convention the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

[Footnote 825: The author is indebted to Henry A. Richmond, son of Dean
Richmond, for this outline of Seymour's interview.]

To a majority of the Democratic party Seymour's selection appealed
with something of historic pride. It recalled other days in the
beginning of his career, and inspired the hope that the peace which
reigned in the fifties, and the power that the Democracy then wielded,
might, under his leadership, again return to bless their party by
checking a policy that was rapidly introducing a new order of things.
After his nomination, therefore, voices became hoarse with long
continued cheering. For a few minutes the assembly surrendered to the
noise and confusion which characterise a more modern convention, and
only the presence of the nominee and the announcement that he would
speak brought men to order.

Seymour, as was his custom, came carefully prepared. In his party he
now had no rival. Not since DeWitt Clinton crushed the Livingstons in
1807, and Martin Van Buren swept the State in 1828, did one man so
completely dominate a political organisation, and in his arraignment
of the Radicals he emulated the partisan rather than the patriot. He
spoke respectfully of the President, insisting that he should "be
treated with the respect due to his position as the representative of
the dignity and honor of the American people," and declaring that
"with all our powers of mind and person, we mean to support the
Constitution and uphold the Union;" but in his bitter denunciation of
the Administration he confused the general policy of conducting a war
with mistakes in awarding government contracts. To him an honest
difference of opinion upon constitutional questions was as corrupt and
reprehensible as dishonest practices in the departments at Washington.
He condemned emancipation as "a proposal for the butchery of women and
children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder,
which would invoke the interference of civilised Europe."[826]

[Footnote 826: Cook and Knox, _Pu