Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [141]
As the convention approached, overconfidence reigned in the Seward camp and poor judgment set in. Despite Weed’s generally keen political intuition, he failed to anticipate the damage Seward would suffer as a consequence of a rift with Horace Greeley. Over the years, Greeley had voiced a longing for political office, for both the monetary compensation it would provide and the prestige it promised. On several occasions, Greeley later claimed, he had made this desire clear to Seward and Weed. They never took his political aspirations seriously, believing that his strength and usefulness lay in writing, not in practical politics and public office. Greeley had written a plaintive letter to Seward in the autumn of 1854, in which he catalogued a long list of grievances and announced the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed, & Greeley. He recalled the work he had done to secure Seward’s first victory as governor, only to discover that jobs had been dispensed “worth $3000 to $20,000 per year to your friends and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my crust, and my desperate battle with pecuniary obligations.” With the exception of a single term in Congress, Greeley charged, Weed had never given him a chance to be nominated for any office. Despite hundreds of suggestions that he run for governor in the most recent election, Weed had refused to support the possibility, claiming that his candidacy would hurt Seward’s chances for the Senate. But the most humiliating moment had come, Greeley revealed, when Weed handed the nomination for lieutenant governor that year to Henry Raymond, editor of the New York Times, the Tribune’s archrival.
Seward was distressed to read Greeley’s letter, which he characterized as “full of sharp, pricking thorns,” but he mistakenly assumed that Greeley’s pique was temporary, akin to the anger, he said, that one of his sons might display if denied the chance to go to the circus or a dancing party. After showing it to his wife, Seward cast the letter aside. Frances read it more accurately. Recognizing the “mortal offense” Greeley had taken, she saved the letter, preserving a record of the tangled web of emotions that led Greeley in 1860 to abandon one of his oldest friends in favor of Edward Bates, a man he barely knew.
Week after week, through his columns in the Tribune, Greeley laid the groundwork for the nomination of Bates. Seward’s supporters were incensed when he subtly began to sabotage the New Yorker’s campaign. Henry Raymond remarked that Greeley “insinuated, rather than openly uttered, exaggerations of local prejudice and animosity against him; hints that parties and men hostile to him and to the Republican organization must be conciliated and their support secured; and a new-born zeal for nationalizing the party by consulting the slave-holding states in regard to the nomination.” The influence of the Tribune was substantial, and with each passing day, enthusiasm for Bates’s candidacy grew.
At some point that spring, Weed had a long talk with Greeley and came away with the mistaken conviction that Greeley was “all right,” that despite his editorial support for Bates, he would not play a major role at the convention. The conversation mistakenly satisfied Weed that ties of old friendship would keep Greeley from taking an active role against Seward once the convention began.
Overconfidence also played a role in Weed’s failure to meet with Pennsylvania’s powerful political boss, Simon Cameron, before the convention opened. In mid-March, Cameron told Seward that he wanted to see Weed in either Washington or Philadelphia “at any time” convenient to Weed. Seward relayed the message to his mentor, but Weed, certain that Cameron would deliver Pennsylvania to Seward by the second ballot, as he thought he had promised,