of these very qualifications[103] it was now admitted that the all-important “October States” of Indiana and Pennsylvania could not be carried by the Republicans if Seward were nominated; while Greeley, sitting in the convention as a substitute for a delegate from Oregon, cast as much of the weight of New York as he could lift into the anti-Seward scale.  In plain fact, the convention, by its choice, paid no compliment either to Lincoln or to the voters of the party.  They took him because he was “available,” and the reason that he was “available” lay not in any popular appreciation of his merits, but in the contrary truth,—­that the mass of people could place no intelligent estimate upon him at all, either for good or for ill.  Outside of Illinois a few men, who had studied his speeches, esteemed him an able man in debate; more had a vague notion of him as an effective stump speaker of the West; far the greatest number had to find out about him.[104] In a word, Mr. Lincoln gained the nomination because Mr. Seward had been “too conspicuous,” whereas he himself was so little known that it was possible for Wendell Phillips to inquire indignantly:  “Who is this huckster in politics?  Who is this county court advocate?"[105] For these singular reasons he was the most “available” candidate who could be offered before the citizens of the United States!

It cannot be said that the nomination was received with much satisfaction.  “Honest old Abe the rail-splitter!” might sound well in the ear of the masses; but the Republican party was laden with the burden of an immense responsibility, and the men who did its thinking could not reasonably feel certain that rail-splitting was an altogether satisfactory training for the leader in such an era as was now at hand.  Nevertheless, nearly[106] all came to the work of the campaign with as much zeal as if they had surely known the full value of their candidate.  Shutting their minds against doubts, they made the most spirited and energetic canvass which has ever taken place in the country.  The organization of the “Wide-Awake” clubs was an effective success.[107] None who saw will ever forget the spectacle presented by these processions wherein many thousands of men, singing the campaign songs, clad in uniform capes of red or white oil-cloth, each with a flaming torch or a colored lantern, marched nightly in every city and town of the North, in apparently endless numbers and with military precision, making the streets a brilliant river of variously tinted flame.  Torchlight parades have become mere conventional affairs since those days, when there was a spirit in them which nothing has ever stirred more lately.  They were a good preparation for the more serious marching and severer drill which were soon to come, though the Republicans scoffed at all anticipations of such a future, and sneered at the timid ones who croaked of war and bloodshed.