."--New York _Tribune_, November 5, 1868.]

Seymour's election as permanent chairman of the convention gave him
abundant opportunity to proclaim his abhorrence of the Administration.
His speech, prepared with unusual care, showed the measured dignity
and restraint of a trained orator, who knew how to please a popular
audience with a glowing denunciation of principles it detested. Every
appeal was vivid and dramatic; every allusion told. Throughout the
whole ran the thread of one distinct proposition,--that the Republican
party had sinned away its day of grace, and that the patriotic work
of the Democratic party must begin at once if the Union was to be
saved. To Seymour it was not a new proposition. He had stated it in
the last campaign and reiterated it in his latest message; but never
before did he impress it by such striking sentences as now fell upon
the ears of a delighted convention. "Even now, when war has desolated
our land," he said, "has laid its heavy burdens upon labor, when
bankruptcy and ruin overhang us, this Administration will not have
Union except upon conditions unknown to our Constitution; it will not
allow the shedding of blood to cease, even for a little time, to see
if Christian charity or the wisdom of statesmanship may not work out a
method to save our country. Nay, more than this, it will not listen to
a proposal for peace which does not offer that which this government
has no right to ask. This Administration cannot now save this Union,
if it would. It has, by its proclamations, by vindictive legislation,
by displays of hate and passion, placed obstacles in its own pathway
which it cannot overcome, and has hampered its own freedom of action
by unconstitutional acts. The bigotry of fanatics and the intrigues of
placemen have made the bloody pages of the history of the past three
years."

It was impossible not to be impressed by such an impassioned lament.
There was also much in Seymour himself as well as in his words to
attract the attention of the convention.[995] Added years gave him a
more stately, almost a picturesque bearing, while a strikingly
intelligent face changed its expression with the ease and swiftness of
an actor's. This was never more apparent than now, when he turned,
abruptly, from the alleged sins of Republicans to the alleged virtues
of Democrats. Relaxing its severity, his countenance wore a
triumphant smile as he declared in a higher and more resonant key,
that "if this