led the Americans in 1859, was
nominated for judge of the Court of Appeals. To its platform it added
declarations favouring a protective tariff and excluding the Chinese.

The treatment of the Greenback question earlier in the year by the
older parties had materially strengthened the Nationalists. Democratic
conventions distinctly favoured their chief issue, and Republicans
employed loose and vague expressions. So accomplished and experienced
a politician as Thurlow Weed complimented the bold declarations of
Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, who had left the Republicans to
become the independent leader of a vast mass of voters that accepted
his Greenback theories and joined in his sneers at honest money.
Republican congressmen, returning from Washington, told how their
party held Greenback views and why Greenbackers ought to support it.
The Secretary of the Republican Congressional Committee practically
announced himself a Greenback Republican, and Blaine's position seemed
equivocal. During the entire financial debate in Congress, Conkling
said nothing to mould public opinion upon the question of sound money,
while the Utica _Republican_, his organ, thought it a "mistake to
array the Republican party, which originated the Greenback, as an
exclusively hard-money party.... It is not safe or wise to make the
finances a party question."[1606] As late as July 30, the evening
preceding the Maine convention, Blaine objected to the phrase "gold or
its equivalent," preferring the word "coin," which subsequently
appeared in the platform.

[Footnote 1606: The Utica _Republican_, July 1, 1878.]

The election in Maine, hailed with joy by every organ of the Greenback
movement, showed how profound was the political disturbance. The
result made it plain that the chief political issue was one of common
honesty, and that an alliance of Democratic and Greenback interests
threatened Republican ascendency. In the presence of such danger
Republican leaders, recognising that harmony could alone secure
victory, called a State convention to meet at Saratoga on September
26. As the time for this important event approached the impression
deepened that real harmony must rest upon an acceptance of the
President's plea for honest money and the honest payment of the
nation's bonds. The word "coin" seemed insufficient, since both coin
and currency should be kept at par with gold, and although this would
make Republicans "an exclusively hard-money