Lowell went to the National Convention at Cincinnati, like others of the same mind, with the hope of securing the nomination for the presidency for Mr. Bristow of Kentucky, who as a member of Grant’s cabinet had shown himself very active in the prosecution of malfeasants. The fact, moreover, that he came from Kentucky was an additional reason in Lowell’s mind. “I believed,” he wrote, that a Kentucky candidate might at least give the starting-point for a party at the South whose line of division should be other than sectional, and by which the natural sympathy between reasonable and honest men at the North and the South should have a fair chance to reassert itself. We failed, but at least succeeded in preventing the nomination of a man[63] whose success in the Convention (he would have been beaten disastrously at the polls) would have been a lesson to American youth that selfish partisanship is a set-off for vulgarity of character and obtuseness of moral sense. I am proud to say that it was New England that defeated the New England candidate.”[64] In a letter written at two different times in the summer of 1876, to Thomas Hughes,[65] Lowell dwells at length upon the political situation and his own hopes and fears. His attitude toward public affairs was that of one who had not abandoned his fundamental beliefs but was questioning the methods of carrying them out, and was distrustful of existing machinery. He reiterates his conviction that the war was fought for nationality, and that emancipation was a very welcome incident. Hence he is inclined to lay the emphasis in reunion on the need of reconciliation with the Southern whites rather than on the protection of the blacks. He is disposed to sympathize with the Democratic party at the South but cannot overcome his distrust of the party as a whole. He bids his correspondent go slow in England in extending the suffrage, but he reasserts his unshaken faith in the people of his country. As the summer wears away he is more impatient over the confusion of issues, but on the whole thinks he shall vote for Hayes. Lowell’s new interest in politics and his slight active part led his neighbors to wish to send him to Congress as representative from his district, and he was urged to stand, but he resolutely refused, confident that he had not the true qualifications for the office, though he was touched by the confidence shown in him. He did, however, accept the honorable position of presidential elector on the Republican ballot. He let off a little of his mind in the first draft of the verses “In an Album,” where the last four lines of the first stanza read:-- “While many a page of bard and sage Deemed once the world’s immortal gain Lost from Time’s ark, leaves no more mark Than Conkling, Cameron, or Blaine.”