It was alleged that proof sheets had been found in the possession of a gentleman in Washington, who was known to be hostile to Douglas.[385] Few believed this story:  the explanation was too far-fetched.  Nevertheless, one of Douglas’s intimates subsequently declared, on the floor of the House, that the Judge was not responsible for anything that appeared in the Review, that he had no interest in or control over the magazine, and that he knew nothing about the January number until he saw it in print.[386]

In spite of this untoward incident, Douglas made a formidable showing.[387] He was himself well pleased at the outlook.  He wrote to a friend, “Prospects look well and are improving every day.  If two or three western States will speak out in my favor the battle is over.  Can anything be done in Iowa and Missouri?  That is very important.  If some one could go to Iowa, I think the convention in that State would instruct for me.  In regard to our own State, I will say a word.  Other States are appointing a large number of delegates to the convention, ... ought not our State to do the same thing so as to ensure the attendance of most of our leading politicians at Baltimore?...  This large number would exert a great moral influence on the other delegates."[388]

Among the States which had led off in his favor was California; and it was a representative of California who first sounded the charge for Douglas’s cohorts in the House.  In any other place and at any other time, Marshall’s exordium would have overshot the mark.  Indeed, in indorsing the attack of the Review on the old fogies in the party, he tore open wounds which it were best to let heal; but gauged by the prevailing standard of taste in politics, the speech was acceptable.  It so far commended itself to the editors of the much-abused Review that it appeared in the April number, under the caption “The Progress of Democracy vs.  Old Fogy Retrograder.”

To clear-headed outsiders, there was something factitious in this parade of enthusiasm for Douglas.  “What most surprises one,” wrote the correspondent of the New York Tribune, “is that these Congressmen, with beards and without; that verdant, flippant, smart detachment of Young America that has got into the House, propose to make a candidate for the Baltimore convention without consulting their masters, the people.  With a few lively fellows in Congress and the aid of the Democratic Review, they fancy themselves equal to the achievement of a small job like this."[389] As the first of June approached, the older, experienced politicians grew confident that none of the prominent candidates could command a two-thirds vote in the convention.  Some had foreseen this months beforehand and had been casting about for a compromise candidate.  Their choice fell eventually upon General Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire.  Friends were active in his behalf as early as April, and by June they had hatched their plot.  It was not their plan to present his name to the convention at the outset, but to wait until the three prominent candidates (Cass, Douglas, and Buchanan) were disposed of.  He was then to be put forward as an available, compromise candidate.[390]