nistration and anti-Administration
forces, and of concentrating public attention upon himself as a
suitable candidate for President.[971] Seymour was never without
ambition, for he loved politics and public affairs, and the Presidency
captivated him. With deepest interest he watched the play at
Charleston and at Baltimore in 1860, and had the nomination come to
him, Lincoln's election, depending as it did upon New York, must have
given Republicans increased solicitude. Developments during the war
had stimulated this ambition. The cost of blood and treasure, blended
with arbitrary measures deemed necessary by the Government, pained and
finally exasperated him until he longed to possess the power of an
Executive to make peace. He believed that a compromise, presented in a
spirit of patriotic clemency, with slavery undisturbed, would quickly
terminate hostilities, and although he made the mistake of surrounding
himself with men whose influence sometimes betrayed him into weak and
extreme positions, his ability to present his views in a scholarly and
patriotic manner, backed by a graceful and gracious bearing, kept him
in close touch with a party that resented methods which made peace
dependent upon the abolition of slavery. He never provoked the
criticism of those whom he led, nor indulged in levity and flippancy.
But he was unsparing in his lectures to the Administration,
admonishing it to adopt the principles of government which prevailed
when happiness and peace characterised the country's condition, and
prophesying the ruin of the Union unless it took his advice. While,
therefore, his eulogy of the flag, the soldiers, the Union, and the
sacrifices of the people won him reputation for patriotic
conservatism, his condemnation of the Government brought him credit
for supporting and promoting all manner of disturbing factions and
revolutionary movements.

[Footnote 971: Horace Greeley, _History of the Rebellion_, Vol. 2, p.
667.]

The Regency understood the Governor's ambition, and the Democratic
State convention, assembling at Albany on February 24 to designate
delegates to Chicago, opened the way for him as widely as possible. It
promulgated no issues; it mentioned no candidate; it refused to accept
Fernando Wood and his brother as delegates because of their pronounced
advocacy of a dishonourable peace; and it placed Seymour at the head
of a strong delegation, backed by Dean Richmond and August Belmont,
and controlled