these candidates Seymour favoured Chase. If nominated, he
said, the Chief Justice would disintegrate the Republican party, carry
Congress, and by uniting conservative Republicans and Democrats secure
a majority of the Senate. It was known that the sentiments of Chase
harmonised with those of Eastern Democrats except as to negro
suffrage, and although on this issue the Chief Justice declined to
yield, Seymour did not regard it of sufficient importance to quarrel
about. Indeed, it was said that Seymour had approved a platform,
submitted to Chase by Democratic progressionists, which accepted negro
suffrage.[1171]

[Footnote 1171: New York _Times_, September 4, 1868.]

Samuel J. Tilden, appreciating the importance of defeating Pendleton,
at once directed all the resources of a cold, calculating nature to a
solution of the difficult problem. To mask his real purpose he pressed
the name of Sanford E. Church until the eighth ballot, when he
adroitly dropped it for Hendricks. It was a bold move. The Hoosier was
not less offensive than the Buckeye, but it served Tilden's purpose to
dissemble, and, as he apprehended, Hendricks immediately took the
votes of his own and other States from the Ohioan. This proved the end
of Pendleton, whose vote thenceforth steadily declined. On the
thirteenth ballot California cast half a vote for Chase, throwing the
convention into wild applause. For the moment it looked as if the
Chief Justice, still in intimate correspondence with influential
delegates, might capture the nomination. Vallandigham, who preferred
Chase to Hendricks, begged Tilden to cast New York's vote for him, but
the man of sheer intellect was not yet ready to show his hand.
Meanwhile Hancock divided with Hendricks the lost strength of
Pendleton. Amidst applause from Tammany, Nebraska, on the seventeenth
and eighteenth ballots, cast three votes for John T. Hoffman. This
closed the fourth day of the convention, the eighteenth ballot
registering 144-1/2 votes for Hancock, 87 for Hendricks, 56-1/2 for
Pendleton, and 28 scattering.

On the morning of the fifth and last day, the New York delegation,
before entering the convention, decided by a vote of 37 to 24 to
support Chase provided Hendricks could not be nominated. Seymour
favoured the Chief Justice in an elaborate speech, which he intended
delivering on the floor of the convention, and for this purpose had
arranged with a delegate from Missouri to occupy the chair. It was
kn