There seemed to be but one sentiment on that occasion.  All entertained the opinion that, owing to Mr. Lincoln’s peculiar views on reconstruction, and especially his manifest inclination to postpone actual freedom for the negro to remote periods, and other “unhappy idiosyncrasies,” as one of the speakers expressed it, his re-election involved the danger of a compromise that would leave the root of slavery in the soil, and hence his nomination by the Republicans should be opposed.  Chase was clearly the choice of those present, but no one had a plan to propose, and, while some committees were appointed, I never heard anything more of the matter.  Two or three of those present on that occasion were in the nominating convention and quietly voted with the majority for Mr. Lincoln.  The writer was the only one in both gatherings that maintained his consistency.

All this, it is well enough to remember, was long after the President’s Emancipation Proclamation had appeared.

There was, however, another manifestation of the antagonism spoken of which the public, for some reason, never seemed to “get on to,” that at one time threatened very serious consequences, and which, if it had gone a little farther, might have materially changed the history of the country.  That was a movement, after Mr. Lincoln’s nomination, to compel him to retire from the ticket, or to confront him with a strong independent Republican candidate.  According to Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, Mr. Lincoln’s private secretaries and his biographers, the movement started in New York City and had its ramifications in many parts of the country.  One meeting was held at the residence of David Dudley Field, and was attended by such men as George William Curtis, Noyes, Wilkes, Opdyke, Horace Greeley, and some twenty-five others.  In the movement were such prominent people as Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, and Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio.  One of the men favorable to the proposition was Governor Andrew of Massachusetts.  “He,” says his biographer, Peleg W. Chandler, “was very busy in the movement in 1864 to displace the President.”  “The secrecy,” he adds, “with which this branch of the Republican politics of that year has been ever since enveloped is something marvelous; there were so many concerned in it.  When it all comes out, if it ever does, it will make a curious page in the history of the time.”  The signal for the abandonment of the movement, according to Mr. Chandler, was given by Mr. Chase.

Almost at the beginning of the movement the Missouri Democrat, doubtless because of its supposed opposition to Mr. Lincoln, was approached on the subject.  If the statements made to it were anywhere near correct, the conspiracy, as it might be called, had the countenance of a surprisingly great number of weighty Republicans.  The Democrat declined to become a party to the proposed insurrection.  It held that after what had occurred in the Baltimore convention, it could not consistently and honorably do so.