As he wisely said, the issue now involved was not one of
principle but of power.
The fate of that noble party to which they all belonged, and which
had a record that could never be forgotten, depended on their
letting principle alone. Their principle must be the want of
principles. There were indeed individuals who said in reply that
Ratcliffe had made promises which never could be carried out, and
there were almost superhuman elements of discord in the
combination, but as Ratcliffe shrewdly rejoined, he only wanted it
to last a week, and he guessed his promises would hold it up for
that time.
Such was the situation when on Monday afternoon the
President-elect arrived in Washington, and the comedy began. The
new President was, almost as much as Abraham Lincoln or
Franklin Pierce, an unknown quantity in political mathematics. In
the national convention of the party, nine months before, after
some dozens of fruitless ballots in which Ratcliffe wanted but
three votes of a majority, his opponents had done what he was now
doing; they had laid aside their principles and set up for their
candidate a plain Indiana farmer, whose political experience was
limited to stump-speaking in his native State, and to one term as
Governor. They had pitched upon him, not because they thought
him competent, but because they hoped by doing so to detach
Indiana from Ratcliffe's following, and they were so successful
that within fifteen minutes Ratcliffe's friends were routed, and the
Presidency had fallen upon this new political Buddha.
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