I took the stage to Baltimore next day—­the twenty-sixth of May.  The convention thrilled me—­the flags, the great crowd, the bands, the songs, the speeches, the cheering—­I see and hear it all in my talk.  The uproar lasted for twenty minutes when Van Buren’s name was put in nomination.

Then the undercurrent!  The slave interest of the South was against him as Wright had foreseen.  The deep current of its power had undermined certain of the northern and western delegations.  Ostensibly for Van Buren and stubbornly casting their ballots for him, they had voted for the two-thirds rule, which had accomplished his defeat before the balloting began.  It continued for two days without a choice.  The enemy stood firm.  After adjournment that evening many of the Van Buren delegates were summoned to a conference.  I attended it with Judge Fine.

The Ex-president had withdrawn and requested his friends in the convention to vote for Silas Wright.  My emotions can be more readily imagined than described when I heard the shouts of enthusiasm which greeted my friend’s name.  Tears began to roll down my cheeks.  Judge Fine lifted his hand.  When order was at last restored he began: 

“Gentlemen, as a friend of the learned Senator and as a resident of the county which is the proud possessor of his home, your enthusiasm has a welcome sound to me; but I happen to know that Senator Wright will not allow his name to go before the convention.”

He read the letter of which I knew.

Mr. Benjamin F. Butler then said: 

“When that letter was written Senator Wright was not aware that Mr. Van Buren’s nomination could not be accomplished, nor was he aware that his own nomination would be the almost unanimous wish of this convention.  I have talked with the leading delegates from Missouri and Virginia to-day.  They say that he can be nominated by acclamation.  Is it possible that he—­a strong party man—­can resist this unanimous call of the party with whose help he has won immortal fame?  No, it is not so.  It can not be so.  We must dispatch a messenger to him by horse at once who shall take to him from his friend Judge Fine a frank statement of the imperious demand of this convention and a request that he telegraph a withdrawal of his letter in the morning.”

The suggestion was unanimously approved and within an hour, mounted on one of the best horses in Maryland—­so his groom informed me—­I was on my way to Washington with the message of Judge Fine in my pocket.  Yes, I had two days to spare on my schedule of travel and reckoned that, by returning to Baltimore next day I should reach Canton in good time.

It was the kind of thing that only a lithe, supple, strong-hearted lad such as I was in the days of my youth, could relish—­speeding over a dark road by the light of the stars and a half-moon, with a horse that loved to kick up a wind.  My brain was in a fever, for the notion had come to me that I was making history.