From the Easy Chair, Volume 2Curtis, George William
General
From the Easy Chair, Volume 2
Curtis, George William
American essays
On one occasion, when this fundamental rule was forgotten by an ardent
orator, who, in the warmth of his devotion to his candidate, declared
that no other man was so certain to draw out the whole party vote in
the state for which he spoke, a hurricane of hisses from the convention
and the galleries silenced him, and the friends of his candidate were
instantly aware that a fatal injury had befallen him. In another
convention the orator who nominated one of the candidates was so
exasperated by what he felt to be the treachery to his candidate of a
conspicuous friend of another that his denunciation of the traitor was
held to be a covert assault upon the traitor's candidate, and again a
tempest of universal hissing overwhelmed the luckless orator and his
candidate.
The announcement by states of the first formal vote for candidates is
made in impressive silence, followed by immense applause. But the second
ballot is more significant; and whenever upon any ballot the
announcement of a vote is seen by the tally to decide the nomination,
the feeling culminates in an indescribable tumult of frenzied
acclamation, and the convention generally adjourns to consider the
Vice-Presidency. But the interest in its work is at an end, and it is
astounding to see the happy-go-lucky Providence which presides over the
selection of the officer who has thrice become the President of the
United States.
In the history of national conventions there is no more touching
incident than that of Mr. Seward awaiting at his home in Auburn the
result of the balloting at the convention of 1860, which nominated Mr.
Lincoln. By what is called the logic of the situation Mr. Seward's
nomination was assured, and no disappointment could have been greater
than the selection of another. How bitter it was was not suspected until
his life was recently published! But he encountered the shock with his
usual equanimity, and before the election he had made the most
extraordinary series of speeches for his party which the annals of any
campaign record.
The journal's advice was sound. See a national convention if you can.
BRYANT'S COUNTRY.
The traveller in western Massachusetts, reaching some quiet village upon
the hills, which seems to him singularly lonely and remote, often finds
some little incident in its annals which connects it with the great
world. Coming to Goshen, a solitary little town wholly unknown to most
of our readers, he is conscious of the height, of the purity of the air,
and the peacefulness of the wooded landscape, and far below, towards the
east, he sees the undulating line of Holyoke, and on some fortunate day
may catch the gleam of the placid Connecticut winding through broad
meadows and between Tom and Holyoke to the Sound.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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