210 LESLIE M. SCOTT
Behind the scenes, in the unconscious shiftings of the con- vention, worked the great editor of New York, the man whom Oregon sent there, the man whom the leaders of the party in his own State tried to shut out of the convention, the man, moreover, who, in the words of Seward's friends, turned the trick to the favorite of Illinois and thus worked out an old grudge that had smouldered many years unknown in the bosom of the editor.
The editor denied the grudge ; perhaps the friends of Seward exaggerated it ; perhaps the editor was unconscious of it ; cer- tainly Oregon knew nothing of it. Truly, in the nomination of the man who was to save the Nation from dissolution, the words of the poet had further proof :
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
Defeat in the National convention was a heavy blow to Seward ; also to Thurlow Weed, his political manager, and to Henry J. Raymond, founder and editor of the New York Times, keen rival of Greeley's New York Tribune. Weed and Raymond ascribed the defeat to Greeley and bitterly denounced his motives as those of revenge growing out of Greeley's fail- ure to win the Whig nomination for Governor of New York in 1854, and the nomination for Lieutenant-Governor in that year, of Raymond. Weed got his revenge in February, 1861, by defeating Greeley in a close caucus contest for United States Senator but that is another story.
Seward's enemies in the National convention of 1860 were of various kinds. There were cumulative hostilities from the Fillmore element of 1856, the Democratic Free Soilers, the Know Nothings and the foes of the Weed political machine. Greeley worked cleverly on these elements. His influence con- tributed greatly to ally them against Seward. Unaided, Greeley could have done little or nothing; but these forces fitted to his hand; the result was the greatest political stroke of his career.
In Parton's Life of Horace Greeley, the Tribune editor's work is thus described (pp. 442-43) :
