The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Arnold)/Chapter X
The great intellectual conflict was over. Lincoln, weary but not exhausted, returned to his home at Springfield, and when the returns came in, it appeared that he had won the victory for his cause, his party, and his country. The republican state ticket was elected; he had carried a majority of the popular vote, but he was again baffled in obtaining the position of Senator, which he so much desired. A sufficient number of Douglas democrats elected two years before from districts now republican, still held over, and inequalities in the apportionment enabled Douglas to control a small majority of the Legislature, although defeated in the popular vote.
As soon as this became known, a perfect ovation was given to that popular idol. After a little rest, the Senator started for Washington, by way of the Mississippi river. Popular receptions awaited him at St. Louis, at Memphis, and at New Orleans. Taking a steamer to New York, on his arrival in that city, he was welcomed by a great concourse of people, and this welcome was repeated, with the utmost enthusiasm, at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Lincoln was resting quietly at his little cottage in Springfield. He had been speaking constantly from July to November, for both he and Douglas, when not engaged in joint discussion, were speaking elsewhere. He was cheerful, and apparently so gratified with the result, that he almost forgot his personal disappointment. It does not appear that the honors lavished upon his rival disturbed his sleeping or waking hours. At the end of the canvass, both Douglas and Lincoln visited Chicago; Douglas was so hoarse that he could scarcely articulate, and it was painful to hear him attempt to speak. Lincoln's voice was clear and vigorous, and it really seemed in better tone than usual. His dark complexion was bronzed by the prairie sun and winds, but his eye was clear, his step firm, and he looked like a trained athlete, ready to enter, rather than one who had closed a conflict.
On the 16th of November, in reply to a letter of the Chairman of the State Committee relating to the expenditures of the canvass, he says:
"I have been on expense so long, without earning anything, that I am absolutely without money now to pay for even household expenses. Still, you can put in two hundred and fifty dollars for me towards discharging the debt of the committee. I will allow it when we settle the private matter between us..."
"This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which, added to my loss of time and business, bears heavily on one no better off than I am."[1]
He owned at this time the little house and lot on which he lived, and a few law-books, and was earning not to exceed three thousand dollars per annum in his profession. He was not then worth over ten or fifteen thousand dollars altogether.
One would suppose that the sacrifice of time and money involved in paying his own expenses in the canvass, had fully met his share of the cost, and that the committee would have raised the money they had expended, from the wealthy members of the party in Chicago and elsewhere, rather than, under the circumstances, have called upon their candidate for the Senate. The close of his letter: "You are feeling badly," "and this too shall pass away, never fear," shows that so far from feeling chagrin or depression over his defeat, he had a word of cheer for his friends.
In the autumn of 1859 he visited Kansas, and the people of that young commonwealth received him as one who had so eloquently plead their cause should be received.
That Lincoln's friends began, during the debates of 1858, seriously to consider him as an available candidate for the Presidency, is well known. Late in the autumn of that year, after the close of the canvass, some of his friends proposed to begin an organization with the view of bringing him before the people for nomination in 1860. Mr. Fell, of Bloomington, Secretary of the Republican State Central Committee, had an interview with him on the subject.[2]
Lincoln discouraged the proposition, and said that he was not well enough known. "What," said he, "is the use of talking of me, whilst we have such men as Seward and Chase, and everybody knows them, and scarcely anybody, outside of Illinois, knows me? Besides," said he, "as a matter of justice, is it not due to them?" In reply, his friends urged his great availability, on the ground that he was not obnoxious as a radical, or otherwise. They reminded him that the party was in a minority; that defeated in 1856, with Fremont, they would be beaten in 1860--unless a great many new votes could be obtained. These would be repelled by the extreme utterances and votes of Seward and Chase, but on the simple issue of opposing the extension of slavery, an issue with which Lincoln was distinctly identified, a majority could probably be obtained. That, by his debate with Douglas, he, more than any other man in the nation, represented that distinct issue, and that he had no embarrassing record; that he was personally popular, and that with him for their candidate, the republican party had a fair chance of success. Nothing came of this conference at that time, but it was not forgotten.
In the autumn of 1859, Douglas visited Ohio, and made a canvass for the democratic party. On his appearance, the cry arose at once: "Where is Lincoln, the man who beat him in Illinois? Send for him!" Lincoln was sent for. He came, and spoke with great ability, at Columbus and at Cincinnati, and, at the latter place, addressed himself especially to Kentuckians. He said, among other things, that they ought to nominate for President "my distinguished friend, Judge Douglas." "In my opinion it is," says he, "for you to take him or be beaten."
A portion of this speech was as follows:
"I should not wonder that there are some Kentuckians about this audience; we are close to Kentucky; and whether that be so or not, we are on elevated ground, and by speaking distinctly, I should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians would hear me on the other side of the river. For that purpose I propose to address a portion of what I have to say to the Kentuckians... I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know now, when that thing takes place, what you mean to do. I often hear it intimated that you mean to divide the Union whenever a republican, or anything like it, is elected President of the United States. (A voice--'That is so.') 'That is so,' one of them says; I wonder if he is a Kentuckian? (A voice--'He is a Douglas man.') Well, then, I want to know what you are going to do with your half of it? Are you going to split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece? Or are you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous fellows? Or are you going to build up a wall some way between your country and ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over here any more, to the danger of your losing it? Do you think you can better yourselves on that subject, by leaving us here under no obligation whatever to return those specimens of your movable property that come hither? You have divided the Union because we would not do right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we cease to be under obligations to do anything for you, how much better off do you think you will be? Will you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions; but man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us."
This speech showed how confident he was of success. It defined his position, and added much to his popularity.
In December, 1859, the feeling in favor of his nomination for the Presidency had become so general, that he consented to permit his friends to take such steps as they deemed expedient to bring him forward as a candidate for the nomination. On the 20th of December, he gave to Mr. Fell that modest paper giving some details of his life, which has already been set forth in the early part of this volume.
On Tuesday evening, February 27th, 1860, Mr. Lincoln delivered, in the city of New York, the Cooper Institute speech; a speech that probably did more to secure his nomination, than any other act of his life. He had become widely known as the successful stump-speaker against Douglas. It was known that he was an able, effective debater, but many supposed that he was a mere declaimer, and successful stump-speaker only; that with much coarse humor, he was probably superficial. True, he had beaten Douglas, and by beating Douglas, he had beaten the whole field; but exactly what manner of man he was, nobody outside of Illinois knew. Great curiosity was manifested to hear this Western prodigy, this prairie orator, this rough, uncouth, unlearned backwoodsman. He realized all this, and his Cooper Institute speech, either designedly, or otherwise, was admirably adapted to remove prejudice, and create confidence. It was the speech of a statesman.
Cooper Institute, an immense hall, was filled to its utmost capacity. Horace Greeley, who, in the New York Tribune, had advised the Illinois republicans not to oppose Douglas in his canvass for the Senate, and who had thus, by implication, opposed Lincoln, now said: "No man has been welcomed by such an audience of the intellect and mental culture of our city, since the days of Clay and Webster."
On the platform were the most distinguished scholars, jurists, and divines of the city. Bryant, the poet, presided, and introduced the speaker. Never was an audience more surprised, and never more delighted. It was a political argument; brief, profound, and exhaustive. Instead of rant, declamation, striking and witty points, it was a calm, clear, learned, dignified, and complete exposition of the whole subject; the speech of a scholar, and showed that he was an accurate and laborious student of history. There is compressed into it such an amount of historical learning, stated in the simplest language, as within such a compass, is perhaps unparalleled.
The argument demonstrating the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, and that such was the understanding of "our fathers," who framed the Constitution and organized the government, has never been surpassed; it never has been, nor can it be, successfully answered. The effort was so dignified, and exhibited so much learning, and such thorough mastery of the subject, that, coming from a source whence this kind of excellence was not expected, it was a surprise and revelation, and, therefore, made the greater impression. He awoke the next morning to find himself famous. He closed his great argument with these words: "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." The speech was published in full by the New York Tribune and other papers, and scattered all over the Union, and it perfectly satisfied the thoughtful and intellectual men of the republican party as to Lincoln's great intellectual power and wise moderation, and it prepared the way for his nomination. Subsequently, he spoke in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, everywhere making personal friends, and leaving a lasting impression of his great ability.
A clergyman of Norwich, Connecticut, who heard him in that city, met him the following day in the cars. Introducing himself, he said:
"Your speech last night was the most remarkable I ever heard." "I should like to know," said Lincoln, "what there was you thought so remarkable?" The clergyman replied: "The clearness of your statements, the unanswerable style of your reasoning, and especially your illustrations, which were romance and pathos, fun and logic, all welded together."[3]
The presidential election of 1860 now approached. The storm of political excitement, North and South, was raging with intense violence. The democratic convention to nominate candidates was called to meet at Charleston, S.C., in April. Douglas was the popular candidate in the free states, with many strong personal friends in the slave states. The politicians of that party believed, as Lincoln had told them at Cincinnati, that they must take Douglas or be defeated. But the ultra slaveholders, as a class, were bitterly opposed to him, on account of his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, and his replies to Lincoln at Freeport, Illinois. Hitherto the North had generally yielded to the more determined leaders among the slaveholders, and many supposed that the friends of Douglas, as those of Benton, Van Buren, and Wright had done in days gone by, would yield, and permit the nomination of some negative man, some compromise candidate. An Illinois republican, a short time before the Charleston convention, said to Colonel Richardson, one of Douglas's efficient friends, and one likely to lead his friends in that convention:
"Douglas will be sacrificed. As Van Buren was sacrificed because of his opposition to Texas annexation, so the South will sacrifice Douglas because he opposed Lecompton."
"No," replied Richardson, "the South will find Douglas's friends as firm and determined as they are. We have the majority, and our leader shall not be sacrificed. The South will find they have now to deal with the West, with men as determined as themselves."
In the Charleston convention was a large party who were secessionists, disunionists, and who desired separation. They meant to push matters to extremes, to divide the democratic party, thereby rendering the success of the republican party certain, and then to make the election of a republican a pretext for the dissolution of the Union.
The first thing done after organization was the adoption of a platform. A majority reported resolutions declaring that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature had any power to abolish or prohibit slavery in the territories, "nor to impair or destroy the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever." This was intended to be, and was, a direct repudiation of Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty, and his friends knew that they might as well give up the canvass as go before the people with this platform. A minority of the committee, but representing states which held a decided majority of the electoral votes, reported resolutions re-affirming the platform adopted by the national convention at Cincinnati four years before; declaring that "inasmuch as there were differences of opinion in the democratic party as to the powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress under the Constitution over the institution of slavery in the territories, the democratic party would abide by the decrees of the Supreme Court on questions of constitutional law." Butler, of Massachusetts, reported the old Cincinnati platform. After voting down Mr. Butler's proposition, the convention adopted the minority report. This was supported by the friends of Douglas.
Thereupon L.P. Walker, subsequently the rebel Secretary of War, presented the protest of the delegates from Alabama, and these delegates withdrew from the convention. Among these delegates was William L. Yancy, long before a notorious secessionist. The delegates from Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Georgia, and Delaware thereupon also withdrew. The convention then resolved that it should require two-thirds of a full convention to nominate. After balloting several times, on each of which ballots Mr. Douglas had a large, but not the two-thirds majority required, the convention adjourned to meet at Baltimore on the 18th of June. The seceding delegates adjourned to meet at Richmond on the second Monday in June.
The Baltimore convention met and nominated Stephen A. Douglas for President, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, for Vice-President; but on his declining, Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, was substituted. The convention of the seceders met at Richmond, and, adopting the resolutions of the majority of the committee, nominated John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, for President, and Colonel Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for Vice-President. The disruption of the democratic party was hailed with delight by the infatuated people of Charleston and other parts of the rebel states as the prelude to the breaking up of the Union.
The republican convention had been called to meet at Chicago on the 16th of May. On the 10th of May, the Illinois republican state convention was held at Decatur, in Macon County, to nominate state officers and appoint delegates to the national presidential convention. This was not very far from where Lincoln's father had settled and worked a farm in 1830, and where young Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Hanks had split the rails for enclosing the old pioneer's first corn field. On the 9th of February preceding, Lincoln had written a characteristic letter to Mr. Judd, the chairman of the state central committee, in which he said: "I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me not to be nominated on the national ticket, but I am where it would hurt some for me not to get the Illinois delegates."[4]
Lincoln was present at the Decatur convention, and as he entered the hall he was received with such demonstrations of attachment as left no doubt as to the wishes of Illinois on the question of his nomination. When he was seated, General Oglesby announced that an old democrat of Macon County desired to make a contribution to the convention. Immediately some farmers brought into the hall two old fence rails, bearing the inscription: "Abraham Lincoln, the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of three thousand, made in 1830, by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose father was the first pioneer of Macon County."
The effect of this cannot be described. For fifteen minutes, cheer upon cheer went up from the crowd. Lincoln was called to the stand, but his rising was the signal for renewed cheering, and this continued until the audience had exhausted itself, and then Mr. Lincoln gave a history of these two rails, and of his life in Macon County. He told the story of his labor in helping to build his father's log cabin, and fencing in a field of corn. This dramatic scene was not planned by politicians, but was the spontaneous action of the old pioneers. The effect it had upon the people satisfied all present that it was a waste of words to talk in Illinois of any other man than Abraham Lincoln for President.
No public man had less of the demagogue than Mr. Lincoln. He never mentioned his humble life, or his manual labor, for the purpose of getting votes. He knew perfectly well that it did not follow because a man could split rails, that he would make a good statesman or President. So far from having any feeling of this kind, he realized painfully the defects of his education, and did his utmost to supply the deficiencies. When told that the people were talking of making him President, he said: "They ought to select some one who knows more than I do." But while he did not think any more of himself because he had in early life split rails, he had too much real dignity to lose any self-respect on that account.
The committee appointed to select delegates to the national convention, submitted the list of names to him.[5] As illustrating how presidents are nominated, I will add that the committee, and other personal friends of Lincoln, among whom were Judd, David Davis, Swift, Cook, and others, retired from the convention, and, in a grove near by, lay down upon the grass and revised the list of delegates, which they reported to, and which were appointed by, the convention.
An immense building called the "Wigwam," and capable of holding many thousands of people, had been erected especially for the meeting of the national convention. A full, eager, and enthusiastic representation was present from all the free states, together with representatives from Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia, and some scattering representatives from some of the other slave states; but the Gulf states were not represented. Indeed, few of the slave states were fully and perfectly represented. On motion of Governor Morgan, chairman of the national executive committee, David Wilmot, author of the Wilmot proviso, was made temporary chairman, and George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, permanent president.
There was not much difficulty about the platform. The convention resolved "that the new dogma that the Constitution carried slavery into all the territories, was a dangerous political heresy, revolutionary in tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country; that the normal condition of all the territories is that of freedom; that neither Congress, the territorial legislature, nor any individual, could give legal existence to slavery; that Kansas ought to be immediately admitted as a free state; that the opening of the slave trade would be a crime against humanity." It declared also in favor of a homestead law, harbor and river improvements, and the Pacific railroad.
The leading candidates for the nomination for President, were William H. Seward, of New York; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania; and Edward Bates, of Missouri; but it early became apparent that the contest was between Seward and Lincoln. Mr. Seward had been for many years a leading statesman. Governor of New York, and long its most distinguished senator; he had brought to the discussions of the great issue between liberty and slavery, a philosophic mind, broad and catholic views, great sagacity, and an elevated love of liberty and humanity. Few, if any, had done more to enlighten, create, and consolidate public opinion in the free states. His position had been far more conspicuous than that of Mr. Lincoln. Hence he had been supposed to be more in the way of rivals, and had become the object of more bitter personal and political hostility.
The Illinois candidate was principally known, outside of the Northwest, as the competitor of Douglas. Yet the sobriquet of "honest old Abe, the rail-splitter of Illinois," had extended throughout the free states; he had no enemies, and was the second choice of nearly all those delegates of whom he was not the first. He was supposed by shrewd politicians to have, and he did possess, those qualities which make an available candidate. Although a resident of the state, he did not attend the convention, but was quietly at his home in Springfield.
Few men of that convention realized, or had the faintest foreshadowing of the terrible ordeal of civil war, which was before the candidate whom they should nominate and the people elect. Yet there seems to have been a peculiar propriety in Mr. Lincoln's nomination; and there was here illustrated that instinctive sagacity, or more truly, providential guidance, which directs a people in a critical emergency to act wisely.
Looking back, we now see how wise the selection. The Union was to be assailed; Lincoln was from the national Northwest, which would never surrender its great communications with the ocean, by the Mississippi, or the East. The great principles of the Declaration of Independence were to be assailed by vast armies; his political platform had ever been that Declaration. Aristocratic power, with the sympathy of the kings and nobility of Europe, was to make a gigantic effort to crush liberty and democracy; it was fit that the great champion of liberty, of a government "of the people, for the people, by the people," should be a man, born on the wild prairie, nurtured in the rude log cabin, and reared amidst the hardships and struggles of humble life.
On the first ballot, Mr. Seward received 173½ votes, to 102 for Lincoln; the others being divided on Messrs. Cameron, Chase, Bates, and others. On the second ballot, Mr. Seward received 184, to 181 for Mr. Lincoln. On the third ballot Mr. Lincoln received a majority, and his nomination was then made unanimous.
An incident occurred, which, but for the tact and eloquence of George William Curtis, a delegate from New York, might have proved a serious blunder. Carter, of Ohio, chairman of the committee, reported the resolutions constituting the platform, and endeavored to put them through under the previous question. Joshua R. Giddings, the old gray-haired veteran anti-slavery leader from the Western Reserve, Ohio, begged Carter to withdraw the previous question, so that he might offer an amendment. Carter refused, but on a vote, the previous question was not sustained. The convention was not willing to treat the great Ohio abolitionist with rudeness, but was obviously afraid of his radicalism. He offered an amendment, embracing that part of the Declaration of Independence, which declares that "all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," etc. He accompanied his motion with a most earnest and eloquent speech, but the convention, by a large majority, rejected the amendment.
The venerable old man was grieved and disappointed, and, being the representative man of the abolitionists, it was feared the result would create coolness, or drive away these earnest men from supporting the ticket. Many members of the convention were still very much afraid of abolitionism. The party was far from homogeneous, and there was danger of a rupture. At this crisis, George William Curtis, one of the most scholarly, earnest, and enthusiastic young men in the republic, came forward, and renewed Giddings's amendment, slightly altered, and in a speech of ten or fifteen minutes, electrified, and carried with him the convention. "Is this convention prepared," cried he, "to vote down the Declaration of your fathers, the charter of American liberty?"
The speech was impromptu, but vehement and eloquent beyond description. It was received with deafening applause, and he carried with him the convention; the amendment was adopted by almost universal acclamation. No speaker ever achieved a more brilliant immediate triumph than young Curtis. It was touching to see old Mr. Giddings as he went up to Curtis, and throwing his arms around his neck, exclaimed: "God bless you, my boy. You have saved the republican party. God bless you." Curtis certainly did save the party from a great blunder, if from nothing worse.
On the first day of the convention the friends of Lincoln discovered that there was an organized body of New Yorkers and others in the "Wigwam," who cheered vociferously whenever Seward's name was mentioned, or any allusion was made to him. The New Yorkers did the shouting, Lincoln's friends were modest and quiet.
At a meeting of the Illinois delegation at the Tremont, on the evening of the first day, at which Judd, Davis, Cook, and others were present, it was decided, that on the second day, Illinois and the West should be heard. There was then living in Chicago, a man whose voice could drown the roar of Lake Michigan in its wildest fury; nay, it was said that his shout could be heard on a calm day, across that lake; Cook, of Ottawa, knew another man, living on the Illinois River, a Dr. Ames, who had never found his equal in his ability to shout and huzza. He was, however, a democrat. Cook telegraphed to him to come to Chicago by the first train. These two men, with stentorian voices, met some of the Illinois delegation at the Tremont House, and were instructed to organize, each a body of men to cheer and shout, which they speedily did out of the crowds which were in attendance from the Northwest. They were placed on opposite sides of the "Wigwam," and instructed that when Cook took out his white handkerchief, they were to cheer, and not to cease until he returned it to his pocket. Cook was conspicuous on the platform, and, at the first utterance of the name of Lincoln, simultaneously with the wave of Cook's handkerchief, there went up such a cheer, such a shout as had never before been heard, and which startled the friends of Seward, as the cry of "Marmion" on Flodden Field "startled the Scottish foe." The New Yorkers tried to follow when the name of Seward was spoken, but, beaten at their own game, their voices were instantly and absolutely drowned by cheers for Lincoln. This was kept up until Lincoln was nominated, amidst a storm of applause never before equalled.
Ames was so carried away with his own enthusiasm for Lincoln, that he joined the republican party, and continued to shout for Lincoln during the whole campaign; he was afterwards rewarded with a country post-office. The New York delegation were greatly disappointed and chagrined, especially the immediate personal friends of Thurlow Weed and Mr. Seward.
Horace Greeley, while not especially pleased with Lincoln's nomination (his candidate having been Edward Bates, of Missouri), had telegraphed to his paper, the New York Tribune, at 2 A.M. on the night preceding the day of Lincoln's nomination: "Seward will be nominated to-morrow." He now rejoiced at the defeat of Weed and Seward, but the New York delegation could not understand how it was done. On the second day Seward had lacked but a very few votes, and their confidence in Weed, who had long and successfully managed the politics and controlled the conventions of the Empire State, was so great, that he had acquired the title of the "Warwick of New York." He was the "King maker."
They wondered greatly how the Illinois boys had managed to beat the old veteran, and especially when, as many thought, he held the winning cards in his hands. The canvass for Lincoln had been skillfully conducted, and his personal friends, and especially Mr. Judd, the chairman of the delegation, together with David Davis and others, were entitled to great credit.
There was in the New York delegation, an eloquent and jovial member, James W. Nye, afterward Senator from Nevada. He was a great wag; his wit and humor were well known, and the echo of the laughter caused by his jokes and stories had been heard from the Hudson to Lake Michigan. The Illinois delegation was in session, anxiously considering how the friends of Seward and Weed could be satisfied, so that they would give the ticket their cordial and hearty support. A knock at the door was heard, and the door-keeper announced: "General Nye, of New York. He says he has a message from New York to Illinois."
"Admit him instantly," said Judd, the chairman.
The General entered.
"What can Illinois do for New York," enquired Judd. "Name it, and if in our power, consider it done."
"Well," said Nye, "if you sucker boys will please send an Illinois school-master to Albany to teach Thurlow Weed his political alphabet, we will be greatly obliged."
The Illinois delegation appreciated the compliment.
While the convention was in session, Lincoln was at his home in Springfield. The proceedings and the result of each ballot were immediately communicated to him by a telegraph wire extending from the "Wigwam." At the time of the second ballot, Lincoln was with some friends in the office of the "Sangamon Journal." Soon a gentleman hastily entered from the telegraph office, bearing a slip of paper, on which his nomination--the result of the third ballot--was written. He read the paper to himself, and then aloud, and then, without stopping to receive the congratulations of his friends, he said: "There is a little woman down at our house who will like to hear this. I'll go down and tell her." The incident speaks eloquently of the affectionate relations between him and his wife. She was far more anxious that he should be President than he himself was, and her early dream was now to be realized.
No words can adequately describe the enthusiasm with which this nomination was received in Chicago, in Illinois, and throughout the Northwest. A man who had been placed on top of the Wigwam to announce to the thousands outside the progress of the balloting, as soon as the secretary read the result of the third ballot shouted to those below: "Fire the salute--Lincoln is nominated!" The cannon was fired, and before its reverberations died away a hundred thousand voters of Illinois and the neighboring states were shouting, screaming, and rejoicing at the result. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President. The nomination of Lincoln was hailed with intense enthusiasm, not only by the crowds in attendance and the Northwest, but throughout the free states. Everywhere the people were full of zeal for the champion from the West. Never did a party enter upon a canvass with more earnest devotion to principle than the republican party of 1860. Love of country, devotion to liberty, hatred of slavery, pervaded all hearts. A keen sense of the wrongs and outrages inflicted upon the free state men of Kansas, the violence, and in many instances the savage cruelty, by which freedom of speech and liberty of the press had been suppressed in portions of the slave states, and strong indignation at the long catalogue of crimes of the slaveholders, fired all hearts. Confident of success, and determined to leave nothing undone to secure it, the republican party entered upon the canvass.
This Presidential campaign has had no parallel. The enthusiasm of the people was like a great conflagration, like a prairie fire before a wild tornado. A little more than twenty years had passed since Owen Lovejoy, brother of Elijah Lovejoy, on the bank of the Mississippi, kneeling on the turf not then green over the grave of the brother who had been killed for his fidelity to freedom, had sworn eternal war against slavery. From that time on, he and his associate abolitionists had gone forth preaching their crusade against oppression, with hearts of fire and tongues of lightning, and now the consummation was to be realized of a President elected on the distinct ground of opposition to the extension of slavery. For years the hatred of that institution had been growing and gathering force. Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, Longfellow, and others, had written the lyrics of liberty; the graphic pen of Mrs. Stowe, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," had painted the cruelties of the overseer and the slaveholder, but the acts of slaveholders themselves did more to promote the growth of anti-slavery than all other causes. The persecutions of abolitionists in the South; the harshness and cruelty attending the execution of the fugitive slave laws; the brutality of Brooks in knocking down, on the floor of the Senate, Charles Sumner, for words spoken in debate; these and many other outrages had fired the hearts of the people of the free states against this barbarous institution. Beecher, Phillips, Channing, Sumner, and Seward, with their eloquence; Chase, with his logic; Lincoln, with his appeals to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and to the opinions of the founders of the republic, his clear statements, his apt illustrations, above all, his wise moderation--all had swelled the voice of the people, which found expression through the ballot-box, and which declared that slavery should go no further. It was now proclaimed that "the further spread of slavery should be arrested, and it should be placed where the public mind should rest in the belief of its ultimate extinction."
A most remarkable feature of the campaign was the personal canvass made by Douglas. This is almost the only instance in which a presidential candidate has taken the stump in his own behalf. The division in the democratic party must have destroyed any hope on his part of success; yet he made a personal canvass, displaying all the vigor, and spirit, and eloquence, for which he was so distinguished. He spoke in most of the free, and in many of the slave states, and his appeals were against Breckenridge on one side, and Lincoln on the other, as representing sectionalism, while he assumed that he carried the banner of the Union. If the efforts of any one man could have changed the result, his would have changed it, but they were in vain. Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, and a popular vote of 1,866,452. Douglas received 12 electoral votes, and 1,375,157 of the popular vote. Breckenridge received 72 electoral, and a popular vote of 847,953; and Bell 39 electoral votes, and 570,631 of the popular vote. By the success of Mr. Lincoln, the executive power of the country passed from the hands of the slaveholders. They had controlled the government for much the larger portion of the time during which it had existed.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ The letter is as follows:
Springfield, Nov. 16, 1858.
Hon H.B. Judd-- My Dear Sir: Yours of the 15th is just received. I wrote you the same day. As to the pecuniary matter, I am willing to pay according to my ability, but I am the poorest hand living to get others to pay. I have been on expense so long, without earning anything, that I am absolutely without money now for even household expenses. Still, if you can put in two hundred and fifty dollars for me towards discharging the debt of the committee, I will allow it when you and I settle the private matter between us. This, with what I have already paid with an outstanding note of mine, will exceed my subscription of five hundred dollars. This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which being added to my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no better off than I am. But as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over-nice. You are feeling badly, 'and this, too, shall pass away,' never fear.
Yours as ever,
A. Lincoln. - ↑ See a full statement of this interview in the Lincoln Memorial Album, pp. 477-478.
- ↑ The Rev. John Sullivan. New York Independent, September 1st, 1864.
- ↑ "Springfield, Ill., February 9, 1860.
"Hon. N.B. Judd--Dear Sir: I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me not to be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt some for me not to get the Illinois delegates. What I expected when I wrote the letter to Messrs. Dole and others is now happening. Your discomfited assailants are more bitter against me, and they will, for revenge upon me, lay to the Bates egg in the South and the Seward egg in the North, and go far towards squeezing me out in the middle with nothing. Can you not help me a little in this matter in your end of the vineyard? (I mean this to be private.)
Yours as ever,
A. Lincoln." - ↑ Honorable B.C. Cook, a delegate.