Fenton was a striking
example."--Andrew D. White, _Autobiography_, Vol. 1, p. 160.]

[Footnote 914: The State ticket was as follows: Secretary of state,
Chauncey M. Depew of Westchester; Comptroller, Lucius Robinson of
Chemung; Canal Commissioner, Benjamin F. Bruce of Madison; Treasurer,
George W. Schuyler of Tompkins; State Engineer, William B. Taylor of
Oneida; Prison Inspector, James K. Bates of Jefferson; Judge of
Appeals, Henry S. Selden of Monroe; Attorney-General, John Cochrane of
New York.]

The platform endorsed the Administration, praised the soldiers,
opposed a peace that changed the Constitution except in the form
prescribed by it, deplored the creation of a spirit of partisan
hostility against the Government, and promised that New York would do
its full share in maintaining the Union; but it skilfully avoided
mentioning the conscription act and the emancipation proclamation,
which Seymour charged had changed the war for the Union into a war for
abolition. When a delegate, resenting the omission, moved a resolution
commending emancipation, Raymond reminded him that he was in a Union,
not a Republican convention, and that many loyal men doubted the
propriety of such an endorsement. This position proved too
conservative for the ordinary up-State delegate, and a motion to table
the resolution quickly failed. Thereupon Charles A. Folger of Geneva
moved to amend by adding the words, "and as a war measure is
thoroughly legal and justifiable." Probably no man in the convention,
by reason of his learning and solidity of character, had greater
influence. In 1854 he left the Democratic party with Ward Hunt, whom
he resembled as a lawyer, and whom he was to follow to the Court of
Appeals and like him attain the highest eminence. Just then he was
forty-five years old, a State senator of gentle bearing and stout
heart, who dared to express his positive convictions, and whose
suggested amendment, offered with the firmness of a man conscious of
being in the right, encountered slight opposition.

The President's letter, addressed to the Union convention of New York,
gave the Radicals great comfort. With direct and forceful language
Lincoln took the people into his confidence. There are but three ways,
he said, to stop the war; first, by suppressing rebellion, which he
was trying to do; second, by giving up the Union, which he was trying
to prevent; and third, by some imaginable compromise, which was
impossible if it em