Seward was fermenting. Even Samuel Bowles, in the Springfield Republican, thought that Seward had made a mistake, but Greeley saw and declared that the position was "calm, sagacious, profound and impregnable, showing a masterly comprehension of the present aspect and future prospects of the great question which now engrosses our politics."[1] Seward's speech was a bid for the Presidency. James Watson Webb, in the Courier and Enquirer, declared that it settled the question of Seward's nomination.
Lincoln, however, was moving up on him. He came to New York in 1860, and was introduced to his audience at a meeting over which William Cullen Bryant presided. Although Bryant and Weed had both met Lincoln years before, neither of them could recall him. Greeley's enthusiasm for Lincoln's address in Cooper Union was unbounded. "He is one of nature's orators," the Tribune declared.[2] To add to the increasingly favorable impression that Lincoln was making, Seward, in a speech before the Senate, showed a weakening in his position, leading Wendell Phillips to declare, in the Liberator, that he was phrasing his speech to suit Wall Street.
When the Republican Convention met in Chicago in 1860, Seward was the leading candidate and the Eastern politicians assumed that he would be nominated. Surrounded by the strongest men of New York, Weed attended, confident and arrogant, to direct the victory. He had not included Greeley in his list of delegates, but Greeley,—holding a proxy from far-off Oregon,—was just as busy, if not so confident or so arrogant, as Weed.
What was more important, the West knew him, knew him favorably and believed that his analysis of Seward's
