I was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention, that met in Philadelphia on the 17th of June, 1856. It was also a mass convention, as the party had no organization, and States sent large or small delegations as was most convenient. I went to the convention, hoping to aid in the nomination of Judge McLean for President, who was sufficiently conservative to command both the Whig and American votes, and I had no faith whatever in the success of a distinctive Republican candidate and party. I was surprised to find the Republicans of New England and of New York who were attending the convention in favor of a radical Republican policy, and I was so much dissatisfied with the evident outcome of the convention that, although I attended its first session, I did not enroll as a delegate, and did not participate in any of its important proceedings. I well remember meeting Mr. Greeley among the first of those who came to the convention, and wondered how he had lost all his political cunning when he told me, in the most enthusiastic way, that Fremont would carry New York by 50,000 majority, and that the Republican party would be sufficiently strong to win the battle without any concessions whatever to the other elements opposed to the Democratic party. I had no faith in Fremont, either as a candidate or as a President. I shared the general conservative Whig sentiment of Pennsylvania that the Republican convention in nominating Fremont on a square-toed Republican platform was altogether too “wild and woolley” in flavor to win at the election. Greeley was mistaken as to New York only in making the Republican majority one-third less than it turned up on election night, when Fremont had nearly as many votes as Buchanan and Fillmore combined.