that Weed and Seward were more and more inclined to lean. He harbored the idea that this was the time for him to present himself as a candidate for governor.
In addition to the Nebraska question, the one absorbing topic before the people of the State of New York at that time was prohibition. An anti-liquor wave had swept over the country and the Prohibitionists were popular. Greeley had been ardent in the cause and had, to a large extent, fought its battles; this was to him an additional reason for believing that the time had come for him to run for office. To Weed, therefore, as the acknowledged boss of the Whig party in New York State, went Greeley, and there is very little doubt that there was also in his mind a determination to find out exactly what his own position was in the "firm," that had been known as the Weed-Seward-Greeley partnership.
Nowhere in the history of American politics is there a more lamentable exhibition of the weakness of the system that had grown up, the system of which Weed was the chief exponent, than the following account of the interview, taken from Weed's reminiscences:
"Mr. Greeley called upon me at the Astor House and asked if I did not think that the time and circumstances were favorable to his nomination for Governor. I replied that I did think the time and circumstances favorable to his election, if nominated, but that my friends had lost control of the state convention. This answer perplexed him, but a few words of explanation made it clear. Admitting that he had brought the people up to the point of accepting a temperance candidate for Governor, I remarked that another aspirant had ' stolen his thunder.In other words, while he had shaken the temperance bush, Myron H. Clark would catch the bird. ... I informed Mr. Greeley that Know-Nothing or 'Choctaw' lodges
