bune_, April 21.]

Nor did the convention adjourn until its Committee on Resolutions
sprung a further surprise. The delegates anticipated and applauded an
elaborate statement of the fraud issue, but the presentation of Tilden
as a candidate for President came with the suddenness of his
unexpected majority. Manning did not intend to go so far. His courage
came with his strength. Proof of this, if any were needed, existed in
the fact that the endorsement was in manuscript, while the rest of the
platform was read from a printed slip. To define the situation more
clearly the committee submitted a unit rule, declaring "that in case
any attempt is made to dismember or divide the delegation by
contesting the seats of a portion of the delegates, or if delegates
countenance such an attempt by assuming to act separately from the
majority, or fail to cooeperate with such majority, the seats of such
delegates shall be deemed to be vacated."[1712] Never did convention
adopt a more drastic rule. The reading of these ball and chain
provisions provoked hisses and widened the chasm between Tilden's
convention and John Kelly's side-show.

[Footnote 1712: New York _Sun_, April 21.]

Kelly's bolt in 1879 had proved his power to destroy; yet to his
friends, if not to himself, it must have been deeply humiliating to
see the fierce light of public interest turned entirely on Tilden.
Kelly also realised the more poignant fact that jealousy, distrust,
and accumulated resentment lined the way he had marked out for
himself. Nevertheless, he walked on apparently heedless of the signs
of conflict. Since the regular Democratic convention would not admit
him, he threateningly assembled one of his own in Shakespeare Hall, to
be used, if the party did not yield, in knocking at the door of the
Cincinnati convention. William Dorsheimer acted as its temporary
chairman. Dorsheimer had become a political changeling. Within a
decade he had been a Republican, a Liberal, and a Democrat, and it was
whispered that he was already tired of being a Kellyite. His appeal
for Horatio Seymour indicated his restlessness. The feuds of Tilden
and Church and Kernan and Kelly and Robinson had left Seymour the one
Democrat who received universal homage from his party, and it became
the fashion of Tilden's enemies to refer to the Oneidan as the only
one who could unite the party and carry the State. It did not matter
to Dorsheimer that Seymour, having retired from active p