TO E. L. GODKIN
Private.
I regret not to have had an opportunity to talk with
you after the conference. I called at the Nation office
yesterday, but did not find you.
The conference had doubtlessly convinced you that there was no escape from the Greeley-Grant alternative, when we met. Any attempt to nominate a new ticket would simply have increased the confusion and put the “third” candidates into an unenviable, perhaps even ridiculous, position, without even furnishing to those who want to vote neither for Greeley nor for Grant an opportunity to make a respectable demonstration of conscience; for a third ticket would probably not live as long this year as the Frémont ticket did in 1864. The spirit of the conference demonstrated all this very clearly.
I do not know how much weight you attach to the reasons I gave for supporting Greeley as against Grant. It is a point of view, which, I know, is but little appreciated in the Northeastern States, but appeals very strongly to those who are in contact with the South and feel the full importance of the problem which consists in the pacification and regeneration of that part of the country. The question is whether that problem is to be solved by Ku-Klux laws or by moral influences, and in this respect there is something in this campaign which does not depend on the individuality of the candidates. I intend to speak on that subject as soon as possible, and I wish I could prevail on you not to fix the course of the Nation so irrevocably that it cannot be changed, until the campaign shall have fully developed its tendencies and possibilities.
As you know, I am very far from denying the importance of what you say about Greeley personally. But I think some of the danger you apprehend may in a
