] The President, by
advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the
desperate tactics invoked by the majority, added to Northern
indignation.

[Footnote 1639: Cooper, _American Politics_, Book 3, pp. 176-186.]

It was a losing battle to the Democrats. The longer they insisted the
more the Southern brigadiers were held up to public scorn as if they
had again betrayed their country, and when, finally, the appropriation
bills were passed without riders, it left Republicans more firmly
united than at the beginning of the Hayes administration.[1640]

[Footnote 1640: The extra session of Congress adjourned July 1, 1879.]

Two months later the Republican State convention, held at Saratoga
(September 3), evidenced this union.[1641] Every distinguished
Republican of the State was present save Thurlow Weed, whose
feebleness kept him at home. Conkling presided. With fine humour,
George William Curtis, the sound of whose flute-like voice brought a
burst of applause, asked that the crowded aisles be cleared that he
might see the chairman. Conkling's speech excited close attention. It
was freer and more vivid because of more human interest than his
address of the year before, and his appeal for harmony, his
denunciation of revolutionary methods in Congress, and his demand that
freedmen be protected in their rights, brought strenuous, purposeful
applause from determined men. The principles thus felicitously and
rhetorically stated formed the basis of the platform, which pledged
the party anew to national supremacy, equal rights, free elections,
and honest money. It also thanked the President for his recent
attitude.

[Footnote 1641: On August 29, the State convention of Nationals
assembled at Utica, and nominated Harris Lewis of Herkimer, for
governor. The platform opposed National banks and demanded an issue of
greenbacks at the rate of $50 per capita, at least. Lewis, who had
been a member of the Assembly twenty years before, was president of
the Farmers' Alliance.

The State Prohibition convention met at Syracuse, September 3, and
nominated a full State ticket, with John W. Mears of Oneida, for
governor. The platform declared the license system the cornerstone of
the liquor traffic and favoured woman suffrage.]

Nevertheless, a disposition to contest the strength of the
organisation and its methods boldly asserted itself. For months
Cornell had been Conkling's candidate for governor. A searching
canvass, ex