SEYMOUR. Maryland, Illinois, Texas, Delaware, Virginia, Vermont, Georgia and Louisiana were heard above the din, and such announcement added fuel to the roaring flame. Sovereign States scrambled forward with unseemly haste, and rudely jostled each other in their rush to be first in changing to SEYMOUR. The end was seen, and the order issued for the battery in Union square, which had been waiting, for two days to belch forth the nominations from the cannon's mouth, to begin. With the roar of the first gun the crowd within the hall was invigorated, and began again to cheer continuously, lustily. There seemed no limit to their capacity for uproar, nor their endurance in maintaining it. All business and order was swept before the storm, and the officers strove in vain to restore some semblance of order. Accidentally or instinctively the Democracy had found a way out of the dead-lock of balloting, and borne along by the current, States were swept like straws in a rapid river. When at last the tumult partially subsided, through sheer exhaustion of the audience and delegates, the change of States was obtained and recorded."

The nomination of Horatio Seymour as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency was declared unanimous amid wild cheering within, and the booming of cannon without the hall. And here we subjoin a table of all the ballots for convenience of reference by the reader :

TABLE OF ALL THE BALLOTS.

191

CANDIDATES.

1. 2. 8.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. | 14. | 15. | 16. | 17. | 18. | 19. 20. 21. | 22.

Doolittle.

12 12

12 12 13

ཚྭ།ཆ।བ༅།|

317

J. Q. Adams....
McClellan.....

THE NOMINATION FOR VICE-PRESIDENT.

The Convention proceeded at once to nominate a candidate for Vice-President. Illinois presented the name of Gen. John A. McClernand, who promptly insisted upon its withdrawal. Iowa proposed the name of the Hon. Aug. C. Dodge, and Kansas that of Gen. Thomas Ewing, Jr. Kentucky then presented, amid great cheering, the name of Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri; Louisiana, in the person of Gen. Jas. B. Steedman, hastened to second the nomination; Gen. Wade Hampton, speaking for South Carolina, warmly indorsed it, and one by one each State, on the first ballot, recorded its entire vote for Gen. Blair, thus making his nomination unanimous. The result, as announced by the President, was received with intense enthusiasm.

The Convention had done its work and done it well. Resolutions of compliment to the officers of the body, to the Tammany Society, to the citizens of New York, and to the Press were adopted, and after giving a hearty round of cheers for Seymour and Blair, the Convention adjourned sine die.

CHAPTER XXV.

HIS LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.

Gov. SEYMOUR's noble letter in which he formally accepts the nomination to the Presidency and states his views of the national situation and needs, is worthy of the man and his position as a leader of the Democratic ranks. It reveals the true statesman. He has a steady grasp of the situation, and calm foresight both of obstacles and the means of surmounting them. The moderation, the self-poise, the calm and courageous confidence of a statesman, speak in every line of the letter:

UTICA, August 4.

GENTLEMEN: When in the city of New York on the 11th of July, in the presence of a vast multitude, on behalf of the National Democratic Convention, you tendered to me its unanimous nomination as its candidate for the office of President of the United States, I stated I had no words "adequate to express my gratitude for the good-will and kindness which that body had shown me. Its nomination was unsought and unexpected. It was my ambition to take an active part, from which I am now excluded, in the great struggle going on for the restoration of good government, of peace and prosperity to our country.

But I have been caught up by the whelming tide which is bearing us on to a great political change, and I find myself unable to resist its pressure. You have also given me a copy of the resolutions put forth by the Convention, showing its position upon all the great questions which now agitate the country. As the presiding officer of that Convention, I am familiar with their scope and import; as one of its members, I am a party to their terms. They are in accord with my views, and I stand upon them in the contest upon which we are now entering, and shall strive to carry them out in future, wherever I may be placed, in political or private life."

I then stated that I would send you these words of acceptance in a letter, as in the customary form. I see no reason, upon reflection, to change or qualify the terms of my approval of the resolutions of the Convention.

I have delayed the mere formal act of communicating to you in writing what I thus publicly said, for the purpose of seeing what light the action of Congress would throw upon the interests of the country. Its acts since the adjournment of the Convention show an alarm lest a change of political power will give to the people what they ought to have a clear statement of what has been done with the money drawn from them during the past eight years. Thoughtful men feel that there have been wrongs in the financial management which have been kept from the public knowledge. The Congressional party has not only allied itself with military power, which is to be brought to bear directly upon the elections in many