Their Conservative contestants had
distributed a leaflet, intended as an appeal to the Lincoln men,
setting forth the instructions to both delegations. Instead of the
openly avowed opposition of the Radicals to Mr. Lincoln's nomination
being an impediment in their way, it strengthened them with the
convention, which, notwithstanding its seeming harmony in his support,
contained many delegates who would very much have preferred nominating
somebody else; but who, for lack of organized opposition, were
compelled to vote for him. A sufficient evidence of that fact was the
presence in the convention of a large number of Congressmen whose
antagonism to the President was notorious. An incident that strikingly
illustrated Congressional sentiment toward the President at that time,
is given in the _Life of Lincoln_, by Isaac N. Arnold, then a member
of Congress from Illinois. A Pennsylvanian asked Thaddeus Stevens, the
Republican Congressional leader, to introduce him to "a member of
Congress who was friendly to Mr. Lincoln's renomination." Thereupon
Stevens took him to Arnold, saying: "Here is a man who wants to find a
Lincoln member of Congress, and as you are the only one I know of I
bring him to you.
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