To him the quarter of a century covered by Van Buren, Marcy, and Wright, shone as an era of honour and truth, while the twenty-four years spanned by the Republicans and the party from whence they sprung brought shame and disgrace upon the…

The league between corrupt Republicans and corrupt Democrats, which was formed during Republican ascendency, proved too strong for honest men.

It has been noted with increasing admiration that Lincoln and Seward, without consultation and in the presence of a great impending crisis, paralleled one another's views so closely.

The spirit of an unsectarian patriotism that characterised Seward's speech proved highly satisfactory to the great mass of Republicans.

Altogether, it was a disappointing delegation, distrusted by the Douglas men, feared by the South, and at odds with itself; yet, it is doubtful if the Empire State ever sent an abler body of men to a national convention.

If you had taken the position directly that slavery was right ... you would have triumphed.

But you have gone down before the enemy so that they have put their foot upon your neck; you will go lower and lower still, unless you change front and change your tactics.

When I was a schoolboy in the Northern States, abolitionists were pelted with rotten eggs.

You of the North say it means one thing; we of the South another.

The North have maintained their position, but, while doing so, they have not acknowledged the rights of the South.

The claim that precedent required two-thirds of the electoral vote to nominate was rejected by Stuart as not having the sanction of logic.

Two-thirds of the vote given in this convention" was the language of the rule, he argued, and it could not mean two-thirds of all the votes originally in the convention.

If any further evidence were needed to show the utter collapse of the dwindling, discouraged convention, the dejected, despairing appearance of Richardson, until now supported by a bright heroism and cheery good humour, would have…

I would sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could construct than to have a man I did not trust on the best platform which could be made." This stung Douglas.

I hear of so many fickle and timid friends as almost to make me sorry that I have ever attempted to organise a party to save my country." Letter of W.H.

No one questioned Seward's personal integrity; but the distrust of the political boss existed then as much as now, and his methods were no less objectionable.

We joyfully believe that the country is acquiring a just and adequate conception of the malign influence exerted by the slave power upon its character, its reputation, its treatment of its neighbour, and all its great moral and material…

In a few years more we believe it will be ready to elect as its President a man who not only sees but proclaims the whole truth in this respect--in short, such a man as Governor Seward.

Greeley slaughtered Seward and saved the party," he wrote.

It was not chagrin; it was not the selfish fear that considers the loss of office or spoils; it was not discouragement or despair.

It ought to be equally so, if we have been equally thoughtful and zealous for friends, party, and country.

The reappearance at Washington in the character of a leader deposed by his own party, in the hour of organisation for decisive battle, thank God is past--and so the last of the humiliations has been endured," he wrote his wife.

Mason, Gwin, Davis, and most of the Democrats, came to me with frank, open, sympathising words, thus showing that their past prejudices had been buried in the victory they had achieved over me.

I have not shrunk from any fiery trial prepared for me by the enemies of my cause.

They went out with a protest, not against a candidate, but against the principles of a party, declaring they did not hold and would not support them.