This answer would be incomplete, if I did not call attention to
another and controlling consideration, which cannot be neglected
by the good citizen. Watching the remarkable movement that has
ended in the double nomination of Horace Greeley, it is easy to see
that it did not proceed from politicians, whether at Cincinnati or
Baltimore. Evidently it was the heart of the people, sorely wrung by
war and the controversies it engendered, which found this expression.
Sir Philip Sidney said of the uprising in the Netherlands, “It is
the spirit of the Lord, and is irresistible”; and such a spirit is
manifest now. I would not use the word lightly, but to my mind it
is Providential. Notwithstanding the counteracting influence of
politicians, Republican and Democratic, in the face of persistent
ridicule, and against the extravagance of unscrupulous opposition,
the nomination at Cincinnati was triumphantly adopted at Baltimore.
Such an unprecedented victory, without concert or propulsion of
any kind, can be explained only by supposing that it is in harmony
with a popular longing. That Democrats, and especially those of the
South, should adopt a life-time Abolitionist for President is an
assurance of willingness to associate the rights of their colored
fellow-citizens with that Reconciliation of which Horace Greeley was
an early representative. In standing by Jefferson Davis at his trial
and signing his bail-bond, he showed the same sentiment of humanity
he so constantly displayed in standing by the colored race throughout
their prolonged trial; so that the two discordant races find kindred
hospitality in him, and he thus becomes a tie of union. In harmony
with this interesting circumstance is the assurance in his letter of
acceptance, that, if elected, he will be “the President, not of a
party, but of the whole people.”