June, but President Johnson had in the meantime refused to approve the bill for the admission of the territory as a state, passed in July. While, therefore, the delegateship was intrinsically lesser, yet it seemed at this time the surer of the two offices; and for Marquett the change might be a reduction or a promotion according to one's political forecast. John Gillespie and Augustus Kountze were again nominated by acclamation for the offices of auditor and treasurer respectively, and Robert S. Knox for librarian, also by acclamation.
   The call for the democratic territorial convention to be held at Plattsmouth, on the 11th of September, invited all to participate "who favored the reconstruction policy of the president and complete restoration of the states to their rightful position in the union at the earliest practicable moment, and are opposed to the disunion policy of Congress."
   The Philadelphia national union convention had endorsed or accepted the results of the war, but, while denying the right of any state to withdraw, also denied the right of any state or convention of states to exclude any state or states from the union. The Omaha Herald expressed its readiness to unite with all men who agreed with the Philadelphia declarations, and was anxious to realize the best practical results through the coming Plattsmouth convention. The democrats were thus only a little less cosmopolitan and comprehensive in their call than the republicans were in the enlarged name of their party. And so the Republican facetiously analyzes the Plattsmouth "national union" convention as composed of seven office-holders, three office-seekers, three democrats who "don't like Tipton, and two in the wrong boat."
   The democrats and Johnson republicans had simultaneous, but separate conventions, the first held upstairs and the second downstairs, in the same building -- and their mode of procedure exactly anticipated that of the fusion parties of Nebraska at a later date. Dr. Andrew S. Holladay, postmaster of Brownville, presided over the Johnson convention and Theodore H. Robertson over the democratic convention. We are told that Judge Lockwood appeared in the democratic convention and reported that the "conservative" or Johnson convention "accepted implicitly the resolutions of this (democratic) convention, and would heartily endorse its action and nominations." The democrats nominated J. Sterling Morton for delegate to Congress, Frank Murphy for auditor, and Andrew Dellone for treasurer. The Johnson convention nominated Algernon S. Paddock for member of Congress and Robert C. Jor-

ISAAC S. HASCALL

Pioneer lawyer and legislator

dan for librarian. Both conventions -- or wings of a convention -- endorsed the resolutions and address of the Philadelphia convention.
   The Plattsmouth Democrat censured the leaders -- Morton, Miller, Poppleton, and Woolworth -- for bad tactics, insisting that James R. Porter of Cass county should have been nominated instead of Mr. Morton. The opposition organ styled the distinguished democratic leader as, "J. Sterling Morton, the worst copperhead and rebel Nebraska affords," alleged that Colonel Patrick wanted a mild union democrat like James R. Porter, but

Morton, Miller, Woolworth, and Poppleton beat him and forced Morton on the ticket. Even the suavity and all-embracing friendliness of Secretary Paddock's deportment failed to stay the poisoned shafts of the "loyal" party organs. The Republican charges that,

   He has deserted the republican party in the time of its most severe trial, in its efforts to restore this union upon a firm basis, and allowed himself to be used as the standard-bearer of the copperhead and rebel party. He was a professed republican a few weeks since, and rested his claims to the highest office within the gift of our people with a radical legislature upon radical assurances. He was

LORENZO CROUNSE

Eighth governor of Nebraska

beaten. He went with unseemly haste to Washington and secured his reappointment to the secretaryship of the territory, by far the most valuable office within it. Immediately upon his return he heads a movement with the expressed intention of disorganizing his old party; and today he is a nominee on the same ticket with J. Sterling Morton, a bitter, uncompromising Vallandigham democrat.
   But if the Republican's pen was dipped in bitterness the Herald's was a fountain of gall, and even its defense was aggressive attack. As a sample Roland for an anti-Paddock Oliver the Herald notes that George B. Lake, "renegade democrat and African equalizer," tries to read Paddock out of the republican party. Attacking Thayer's vanity it says, "For weeks he has been so busy bragging himself into consequences that his activity has been tremendous."
   George Francis Train entered the canvass as an independent candidate for delegate, and a list of names of thirty-one Irishmen urging him to remain in the contest was published. They favored him because he had "advocated so long the cause of Irish nationality." The remark that "Mr. Train has already done and is now doing more for the future advancement of Nebraska than any other man, or set of men, has done for it since it was organized as a territory," might be taken to lend color to a previous averment that the "program of Morton and Miller is Morton and Train for United States senators"; and a later one that "Train found that, after being encouraged by Miller, et al., he was set aside for Morton, but he anticipated them by becoming an independent candidate." However, the Herald's puff was limited to Pacific railway purposes. While this most picturesque personage was very effective in his peculiar role, no one would have taken seriously a proposal to play him in an important political part, and if Morton and Miller put him aside once they doubtless did it twice; for he was probably embarrassing Morton's canvass, and so in a characteristic letter he withdrew from the contest. "When men," he says, "emancipate themselves from party, when voters regain their independence, when the people of Nebraska are more anxious to have me for their representative than I am to represent them, when an election can be carried without purchase, perhaps I may enter the field again."
   We have another example of the humor of this remarkable campaign in the Herald's illustration of the anxiety of Kountze to be elected treasurer: "We never saw Kountze before when he could speak more than two languages. Yesterday we heard him using not less than six, including Danish, and he spoke each with equal fluency. Augustus is always very busy when there is anything pecuniary in sight." This second campaign of 1866, con-

sidering both the number and ability of those engaged in it and the aggressiveness with which it was fought, had not been equaled by any political canvass of the territory. The formidable array of old war-horses Miller, Morton, Poppleton, and Woolworth -- old relatively speaking only, for they were really colts of thirty-five years or under -- were reënforced by Paddock and Lockwood, with Judge Kellogg, an astute politician, in the background. Woolworth made speeches in this campaign, but refused to become a candidate for state senator.
   Marquett, Mason, Taffe, Thayer, and Tipton were the most conspicuous republican orators, and they were ably reinforced by Orsamus H. Irish of Otoe and Isham Reavis of Richardson county, while Dundy "The Cautious," but of the longest head, kept more in the background, and his productive cunning in this instance presently brought him the appointment to the federal district bench by President Johnson and confirmation by the clashing Senate. Other able, and perhaps fitter, but certainly less astute aspirants were dashed against either this Scylla or that Charybdis. With the exception of course of George Francis Train's speeches, the inevitable joint discussion between Marquett and Morton -- for a forensic duel was always insisted upon when Morton was candidate was the striking feature of the campaign. While Marquett was no match for Morton in the positive sense, yet he was shrewd enough to appreciate, and witty enough to make the most of that disadvantage. Morton, in his usual aggressive style, consistently pressed Marquett to say whether he was for or against negro suffrage, but without effect; for suffrage sentiment in the territory was as yet either so conservative or so timid as to have placed the white restriction in the pending constitution whose acceptance republicans were urging upon Congress. Morton of course declared himself positively against negro, suffrage, and thereby strengthened his character but weakened his vote. He also positively endorsed President Johnson's policy. Morton on the stump and Miller in the press took the most aggressive ground against negro suffrage and the "disunion" conditions Congress was imposing on the return of the rebellious states to the Union. The republicans had little else to do but to cry "copperhead" and charge their opponents with intent to put unrepentant rebels in the saddle in the South. And in existing conditions the republicans won, almost as a matter of course..
   The republicans nominated the same set of candidates for both territorial and state legislative tickets.
   This was the last chance of the democratic party in Nebraska for many years; it required a generation of time for it to recover sufficiently from the disadvantages of the logic of conditions or of its own mistakes, so as to be able to make, single-handed, even a formidable campaign; and during that time republican majorities waxed rather than waned. It was also Morton's last chance; and it was chiefly a compliment to his prowess and not out of disrespect or wanton meanness that all the bitterness and vituperation, all the old wives' tales, all the facts and all the fiction which the greed for office could summon or invent, were focused upon him. The republican press even raked up the, scurrilous abuse which the democratic editors of Omaha heaped on Morton in the early days when he led the factional section of the South Platte. "J. Sterling Morton has long been a mark for the venom of political hatreds. No man in this territory has been more bitterly assailed in season and out of season. This has arisen in his independence of thought and action, and might have been expected." The Herald observed that Mr. Morton's loss by theft of two fine horses, one the favorite of his wife and children, "has brought out once more the venom and malignity which only political bloodhounds can cherish towards their opponents. Men and the press have openly rejoiced in his loss." But the very large vote which Morton received at home is illustrative of the fact that, in spite of his penchant for arousing enmity and opposition, those who knew him best never ceased to recognize in him great qualities which attracted them and