OREGON'S NOMINATION OF LINCOLN 205
their original plans, arriving after the nomination of Lincoln was accomplished."
In Parton's Life of Horace Greeley appears a brief explan- ation (pp. 442-43), written by Mr. Greeley, of how he obtained the Oregon proxy. He says :
"My mind had been long before deliberately made up that the nomination of Governor Seward for President was unde- sirable and unsafe. Yet I had resolved to avoid this conven- tion for obvious reasons. But when, some four or five weeks since, I received letters from Oregon apprising me that, of the six delegates appointed and fully expecting to attend from that State, .but two would be able to do so, on account of the very brief notice they had of the change of time of holding the con- vention, and that Mr. Leander Holmes, one of those who had been appointed and clothed with full power of substitution, had appointed and requested me to act, in his stead, I did not feel at liberty to refuse the duty thus imposed on me. Of the four letters that simultaneously reached me one from Mr. Holmes, another from Mr. Corbett, chairman of the Republican State Committee, a third from the editor of a leading Republican journal [Thomas J. Dryer of The Oregonian, or W. L. Adams of the Oregon City Argus'] and a fourth from an eminent ex- editor [Simeon Francis] at least three indicated Bates as the decided choice of Oregon for President, and the man who would be most likely to carry it a very natural preference, since a large proportion of the people of Oregon emigrated from Mis- souri. One of them suggested Mr. Lincoln as also a favorite, many Illinoisans being now settled in Oregon."
The National convention took three ballots to nominate Lin- coln, as follows :
First ballot William H. Seward, of New York, 173^; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, 102 ; Edward Bates, of Missouri, 48 ; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, 50^2 ; John McLean, of Ohio, 12; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, 49; Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, 3 ; William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, 14 ; John M. Reed, of Pennsylvania, 1; Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, 10; Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, 1 ; John C. Fremont, of California, 1 ; whole number of votes cast, 465 ; necessary to a choice, 233.
Second ballot Seward, 184^; Lincoln, 181; Bates, 35; Cameron, 2; McLean, 8; Chase, 42^ ; Dayton, 10; Cassius M.
