We came to the Times’ window and looked at the rails.  “Well,” I said, “if they nominate Lincoln, we’ll have another log-cabin campaign.”

“Yes, that’s what it will come to.  What’s all this talk anyway about Honest Old Abe?  Every man is honest enough, and no man in politics much more honest than another.  We don’t need that kind of dramatics to elect Seward.  There is enough to the man to elect him.  We mean to have a clean-cut, high-toned campaign with a great man to lead us, who is known to the whole country.  The day is past for this log-cabin business.  It’s now a stone front and champagne.”

I went back with Yarnell to the Richmond House, then turned my own way to study the crowds.  Chicago was a carnival of unlicensed spirits.  What thousands of blue flies already swarmed upon the fresh carcass of this new political party!  A few years before and it was poor, but of flesh that was fresh.  Now it was beginning to stink.  Tariffs, railroads, all powerful moneyed interests, special privileges, were settling upon it, blowing it full of eggs.  All the old Whigs now long hungry, the old Federalists in disguise, the old plotters and schemers long defeated, were here.  The motley elements that Douglas had derided as anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, Abolitionists, Spiritualists, where were they?  Sunk in silence, out shouted, out talked, outnumbered by office seekers and monopolists.  Tom Hyer was bawling, Garrison could not be heard.  The New England manufacturers were here.  Whittier was singing their songs and did not know it.  I began to think of Rabelais, and of life as gluttony, eating and drinking, digestion and evacuation.  I had a vision of all these hordes of men dead at last, their buttocks exposed to driving rains, upturned to a dark sky which breathed futility and contempt upon ended plots and hungers!

That night I started out again with Abigail and Aldington.  There had not been anything like the same amount of drinking at Charleston.  Harlots staggered through the streets, their arms interlocked with those of howling men.  Tom Hyer passed, leading his gang of toughs, the gayly liveried band swelling the air with great horns and drums.  Again the rails and banners for “Honest Old Abe.”  Rumors caught us as we passed:  the Germans were for Lincoln; Greeley wanted Douglas elected President and was scheming to defeat Seward for the nomination.  We went to the Richmond House.  I wanted Abigail and Aldington to see the smoking, drinking, gabbling delegates from New York.  We ran into Yarnell.  He was preoccupied, and was a little in drink.  He stood with us for a moment, and then was buttonholed and taken away.  We returned to the streets to watch the marchers.

Yarnell was good enough to get tickets for Abigail, Aldington, and me, asking us with a half smile not to cheer for any one unless we cheered for Seward.