 CHAPTER IX. THE SENATORIAL CONTEST IN ILLINOIS. The House Divided Against Itself Speech. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The Freeport Doctrine. Douglas Deposed from Chairmanship of Committee on Territories. Benjamin on Douglas. Lincoln's Popular Majority. Douglas Gains Legislature. Greeley Crittenden et al. The Fight Must Go On. Douglas's Southern Speeches. Senator Brown's Questions. Lincoln's Warnings Against Popular Sovereignty. The War of Pamphlets. Lincoln's Ohio Speeches. The John Brown Raid. Lincoln's Comment. The hostility of the Buchanan Administration to Douglas, for his part in defeating the Lacompton Constitution and the multiplying chances against him, served only to stimulate his followers in Illinois to greater efforts to secure his re-election. Precisely the same elements inspired the hope and increased the enthusiasm of the Republicans of the State to accomplish his defeat. For a candidate to oppose the little giant there could be no rival in the Republican ranks to Abraham Lincoln. He had in 1854 yielded his priority of claim to Trumbull. He alone had successfully encountered Douglas in debate. The political events themselves seemed to have selected and pitted these two champions against each other. Therefore, when the Illinois State Convention on June 16, 1858, passed by acclamation a separate resolution that Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas, it only recorded the well-known judgment of the party. After its routine work was finished, the convention adjourned to meet again in the Hall of the State House at Springfield at eight o'clock in the evening. At that hour Mr. Lincoln appeared before the assembled delegates and delivered a carefully studied speech which has become historic. After a few opening sentences he uttered the following significant prediction. Quote, A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well as south." Then followed his critical analysis of the legislative objects and consequences of the Nebraska bill, and the judicial effects and doctrines of the Dred Scott decision with their attendant and related incidents. The first of these had opened all the national territory to slavery. The second established the constitutional interpretation that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could exclude slavery from any United States territory. The President had declared Kansas to be already practically a slave state. Douglas had announced that he did not care whether slavery was voted down or voted up. Adding to these many other indications of current politics, Mr. Lincoln proceeded. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may airlong see filled with another Supreme Court decision declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its limits. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the states. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their state free, and we shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave state." To avert this danger, Mr. Lincoln declared it was the duty of Republicans to overthrow both Douglas and the Buchanan political dynasty. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over 1,300,000 strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now? Now when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come. End of quote Lincoln's speech excited the greatest interest everywhere throughout the free states. The grave peril he so clearly pointed out came home to the people of the North almost with the force of a revelation, and thereafter their eyes were fixed upon the Illinois senatorial campaign with undivided attention. Another incident also drew to it the equal notice and interest of the politicians of the slave states. Within a month from the date of Lincoln's speech, Douglas returned from Washington and began his campaign of active speech-making in Illinois. The fame he had acquired as the champion of the Nebraska bill and, more recently, the prominence into which his opposition to the Lacompton fraud had lifted him in Congress, attracted immense crowds to his meetings, and for a few days it seemed as if the mere contagion of popular enthusiasm would submerge all intelligent political discussion. To counteract this, Mr. Lincoln, at the advice of his leading friends, sent him a letter challenging him to joint public debate. Douglas accepted the challenge but with evident hesitation, and it was arranged that they should jointly address the same meetings at seven towns in the state, on dates extending through August, September, and October. The terms were that, alternately, one should speak an hour in opening, the other an hour and a half in reply, and the first again have half an hour in closing. This placed the contestants upon an equal footing before their audiences. Douglas's senatorial prestige afforded him no advantage. Face to face, with the partisans of both, gathered in immense numbers and alert with critical and jealous watchfulness, there was no evading the square, cold, rigid test of skill and argument, and truth and principle. The processions and banners, the music and fireworks of both parties, were stilled and forgotten, while the audience listened with high strung nerves to the intellectual combat of three hours' duration. It would be impossible to give the scope and spirit of these famous debates in the space allotted to these pages, but one of the turning points in the oratorical contest needs particular mention. Northern Illinois, peopled mostly from free states, and Southern Illinois, peopled mostly from slave states, were radically opposed in sentiment on the slavery question. Even the old wigs of Central Illinois had, to a large extent, joined the Democratic Party, because of their ineradicable prejudice against what they stigmatized as abolitionism. To take advantage of this prejudice, Douglas, in his opening speech in the first debate at Ottawa in Northern Illinois, propounded to Lincoln a series of questions designed to commit him to strong anti-slavery doctrines. He wanted to know whether Mr. Lincoln stood pledged to the repeal of the fugitive slave law, against the admission of any more slave states, to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, to the prohibition of the slave trade between different states, to prohibit slavery in all the territories, to oppose the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery were first prohibited therein. In their second joint debate at Freeport, Lincoln answered that he was pledged to none of these propositions except the prohibition of slavery in all territories of the United States. In turn he propounded four questions to Douglas, the second of which was, Quote, Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution? End of quote. Mr. Lincoln had long and carefully studied the import and effect of this interrogatory, nearly a month before, in a private letter accurately foreshadowed Douglas's course upon it. You shall have hard work, he wrote, to get him directly to the point whether a territorial legislature has or has not the power to exclude slavery, but if you succeed in bringing him to it, though he will be compelled to say it possesses no such power, he will instantly take ground that slavery cannot actually exist in the territories unless the people desire it, and so give it protection by territorial legislation. If this offends the South, he will let it offend them, as at all events he means to hold on to his chances in Illinois. On the night before the free-port debate the question had also been considered in a hurried caucus of Lincoln's party friends. They all advised against propounding it, saying, If you do, you can never be senator. Gentlemen, replied Lincoln, I am killing larger game. If Douglas answers, he can never be president, and the Battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this. As Lincoln had predicted, Douglas had no resource but to repeat the Sophism he had hastily invented in his Springfield speech of the previous year. It matters not, replied he, what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under the Constitution. The people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it, as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave territory or a free territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill. In the course of the next joint debate at Jonesboro, Mr. Lincoln easily disposed of this Sophism by showing, one, that practically slavery had worked its way into territories without police regulations in almost every instance, two, that United States courts were established to protect and enforce rights under the Constitution, three, that members of a territorial legislature could not violate their oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and, four, that in default of legislative support Congress would be bound to supply it for any right under the Constitution. The serious aspect of the matter, however, to Douglas was not the criticism of the Republicans, but the view taken by Southern Democratic leaders of his Freeport Doctrine or Doctrine of Unfriendly Legislation. His opposition to the Lacompton Constitution in the Senate, grievous stumbling block to their schemes as it had proved, might yet be passed over as a reckless breach of party discipline, but this new announcement at Freeport was unpardonable doctrinal heresy, as rank as the abolitionism of giddings and love-joy. The Freeport Joint Debate took place August 27, 1858. When Congress convened on the first Monday in December of the same year, one of the first acts of the Democratic senators was to put him under party ban by removing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories, a position he had held for eleven years. In due time, also, the Southern leaders broke up the Charleston Convention rather than permit him to be nominated for President. And three weeks later, Senator Benjamin of Louisiana frankly set forth in a Senate speech the light in which they viewed his apostasy. Quote, We accuse him for this, to wit, that having bargained with us upon a point upon which we were at issue, that it should be considered a judicial point, that he would abide the decision, that he would act under the decision and consider it a doctrine of the party, that having said that to us here in the Senate, he went home and under the stress of a local election his knees gave way, his whole person trembled, his adversary stood upon principle and was beaten, and lo, he is the candidate of a mighty party for the Presidency of the United States. The Senator from Illinois faltered. He got the prize for which he faltered, but lo, the grand prize of his ambition to-day slips from his grasp, because of his faltering in his former contest, and his success in the Canvas for the Senate, purchased for an ignoble price, has cost him the loss of the Presidency of the United States. End of quote. In addition to the seven joint debates, both Lincoln and Douglas made speeches at separate meetings of their own during almost every day of the three-months campaign, and sometimes two or three speeches a day. At the election which was held on November 2, 1858, a legislature was chosen containing fifty-four Democrats and forty-six Republicans, notwithstanding the fact that the Republicans had a plurality of thirty-eight hundred and twenty-one on the popular vote. But the apportionment was based on the census of 1850 and did not reflect recent changes in political sentiment, which, if fairly represented, would have given them an increased strength of from six to ten members in the legislature. Another circumstance had great influence in causing Lincoln's defeat. Douglas's opposition to the Lacompton Constitution in Congress had won him great sympathy among a few Republican leaders in the Eastern States. It was even whispered that Seward wished Douglas to succeed as a strong rebuke to the Buchanan administration. The most potent expression and influence of this feeling came, however, from another quarter. Senator Crittenden of Kentucky, who, since Clay's death in 1852, was the acknowledged leader of what remained of the Whig Party, wrote a letter during the campaign openly advocating the re-election of Douglas and this, doubtless, influenced the vote of all the Illinois Whigs who had not yet formally joined the Republican Party. Lincoln's own analysis gives, perhaps, the clearest view of the unusual political conditions. Quote, Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the most extreme anti-slavery views of any men in the Republican Party expressing their desire for his re-election to the Senate last year. That would of itself have seemed to be a little wonderful, but what wonder is heightened when we see that, wise of Virginia, a man exactly opposed to them, a man who believes in the divine right of slavery, was also expressing his desire that Douglas should be re-elected, that another man that may be said to be kindred to wise, Mr. Breckenridge, the vice president and of your own state, was also agreeing with the anti-slavery men in the North that Douglas ought to be re-elected. Still to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky whom I have always loved with an affection as tender and as endearing as I have ever loved any man, who was opposed to the anti-slavery men for reasons which seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to wise and Breckenridge, was writing letters to Illinois to secure the re-election of Douglas. Now that all these conflicting elements should be brought, while at Dagger's points with one another, to support him, is a feat that is worthy for you to note and consider. It is quite probable that each of these classes of men thought by the re-election of Douglas their peculiar views would gain something. It is probable that the anti-slavery men thought their views would gain something that wise and Breckenridge thought so too, as regards their opinions. But Mr. Crittenden thought that his views would gain something, although he was opposed to both these other men. It is probable that each and all of them thought they were using Douglas, and it is yet an unsolved problem whether he was not using them all. END OF QUOTE Lincoln, though beaten in his race for the Senate, was by no means dismayed, nor did he lose his faith in the ultimate triumph of the cause he had so ably championed. According to a friend, he said, QUOTE You doubtless have seen ere this the result of the election here. Of course I wished, but I did not much expect a better result. I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age which I could have had in no other way. And though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone. END OF QUOTE And to another, QUOTE Yours of the thirteenth was received some days ago. The fight must go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be supported in the late contest, both as the best means to break down and to uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can keep these antagonistic elements in harmony long. Another explosion will soon come. END OF QUOTE In his house divided against itself speech, Lincoln had emphatically cautioned Republicans not to be led on a false trail by the opposition Douglas had made to the Lacompton Constitution. That his temporary quarrel with the Buchanan administration could not be relied upon to help overthrow that pro-slavery dynasty. QUOTE How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the public heart to care nothing about it. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly he is not now with us. He does not pretend to be. He does not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be entrusted to and conducted by its own undoubted friends, those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. END OF QUOTE Since the result of the Illinois senatorial campaign had assured the reelection of Douglas to the Senate, Lincoln's sage advice acquired a double significance in value. Almost immediately after the close of the campaign, Douglas took a trip through the southern states, and in speeches made by him at Memphis, at New Orleans, and at Baltimore, sought to regain the confidence of southern politicians by taking decidedly advanced ground toward southern views on the slavery question. On the sugar plantations of Louisiana he said, It was not a question between the white man and the negro, but between the negro and the crocodile. He would say that between the negro and the crocodile he took the side of the negro, but between the negro and the white man he would go for the white man. The Almighty had drawn a line on this continent, on the one side of which the soil must be cultivated by slave labor, on the other by white labor. That line did not run at thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, the Missouri Compromise Line, for thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes runs over mountains and through valleys. But this slave line, he said, meanders in the sugar fields and plantations of the south, and the people living in their different localities and in the territories must determine for themselves whether their middle belt were best adapted to slavery or free labor. He advocated the eventual annexation of Cuba in Central America. Still going a step further, he had laid down a far-reaching principle. It is a law of humanity, he said, a law of civilization that whenever a man were race of men, show themselves incapable of managing their own affairs, they must consent to be governed by those who are capable of performing the duty. In accordance with this principle, I assert that the Negro race, under all circumstances, at all times and in all countries, has shown itself incapable of self-government. This pro-slavery coquettin, however, availed him nothing, as he felt himself obliged in the same speeches to defend his free port doctrine. Having taken his seat in Congress, Senator Brown of Mississippi toward the close of the short session, catechized him sharply on this point. If the territorial legislature refuses to act, he inquired, will you act? If it pass unfriendly acts, will you pass friendly? If it pass laws hostile to slavery, will you annul them and substitute laws favoring slavery in their stead? There was no evading these direct questions, and Douglas answered frankly. I tell you, gentlemen of the South, in all candor, I do not believe a Democratic candidate can ever carry any one Democratic state of the North on the platform that it is the duty of the federal government to force the people of a territory to have slavery when they do not want it. An extended discussion between northern and southern Democratic senators followed the colloquy, which showed that the free port doctrine had opened up an irreparable schism between the northern and southern wigs of the Democratic Party. In all the speeches made by Douglas during his southern tour, he continually referred to Mr. Lincoln as the champion of abolitionism, and to his doctrines as the platform of the abolition or Republican Party. The practical effect of this course was to extend and prolong the Illinois senatorial campaign of 1858, to expand it to national breadth, and gradually to merge it in the coming presidential campaign. The effect of this was not only to keep before the public the position of Lincoln as the Republican champion of Illinois, but also gradually to lift him into general recognition as a national leader. Throughout the year 1859, politicians and newspapers came to look upon Lincoln as the one antagonist who could at all times be relied on to answer and refute the Douglas arguments. His propositions were so forcible and direct, his phraseology so apt and fresh, that they held the attention and excited comment. A letter written by him in answer to an invitation to attend a celebration of Jefferson's birthday in Boston contained some notable passages. Soberly it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true, but nevertheless he would fail utterly with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society, and yet they are denied and evaded with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them glittering generalities. Another bluntly calls them self-evident lies, and others insidiously argue that they apply to superior races. These expressions differing in form or identical in object and effect. The supplanting of the principles of free government and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the vanguard, the miners, and sappers of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensation, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. End of quote. Douglas's quarrel with the Buchanan administration had led many Republicans to hope that they might be able to utilize his name and his theory of popular sovereignty to aid them in their local campaigns. Lincoln knew from his recent experience the peril of this delusive party strategy, and was constant and earnest in his warnings against adopting it. In a little speech after the Chicago municipal election on March 1, 1859, he said, quote, If we, the Republicans of this state, had made Judge Douglas our candidate for the Senate of the United States last year, and had elected him, there would today be no Republican party in this union. Let the Republican Party of Illinois dally with Judge Douglas, let them fall in behind him and make him their candidate, and they do not absorb him, he absorbs them. They would come out at the end, all Douglas men, all claimed by him as having endorsed every one of his doctrines upon the great subject with which the whole nation is engaged at this hour. That the question of Negro slavery is simply a question of dollars and cents, that the Almighty has drawn a line across the continent on one side of which labor, the cultivation of the soil, must always be performed by slaves. It would be claimed that we, like him, do not care whether slavery is voted up or voted down. Had we made him our candidate, and given him a great majority, we should never have heard an end of declarations by him that we had endorsed all these dogmas. To a Kansas friend he wrote on May 14, 1859, You will probably adopt resolutions in the nature of a platform. I think the only temptation will be to lower the Republican standard in order to gather recruits. In my judgment such a step would be a serious mistake, and to open a gap through which more would pass out than pass in. And this would be the same whether the letting down should be in deference to Douglasism or to the southern opposition element. Either would surrender the object of the Republican organization, the preventing of the spread and nationalization of slavery. Let a union be attempted on the basis of ignoring the slavery question and magnify other questions which the people are just not caring about, and it will result in gaining no single electoral vote in the south, and losing everyone in the north. To Schuyler Colfax, afterward vice president, he said in a letter dated July 6, 1859. My main object in such conversation would be to hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks generally and particularly for the contest of 1860. The point of danger is the temptation in different localities to platform for something which will be popular just there but which, nevertheless, will be a firebrand elsewhere and especially in a national convention. As instances, the movement against forerunners in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire to make obedience to the fugitive slave law punishable as a crime, in Ohio to repeal the fugitive slave law, and to squatter sovereignty in Kansas. In these things there is explosive matter enough to blow up half a dozen national conventions if it gets into them, and what gets very rife outside of conventions is very likely to find its way into them. And again, to another warm friend in Columbus, Ohio, he wrote in a letter dated July 28, 1859. There is another thing our friends are doing which gives me some uneasiness. It is their leaning toward popular sovereignty. There are three substantial objections to this. First, no party can command respect which sustains this year what it opposed last. Secondly, Douglas, who is the most dangerous enemy of liberty because he is the most insidious one, would have left little support in the North. And by consequence, no capital to trade on in the South, if it were not for his friends thus magnifying him and his humbug. But lastly and chiefly, Douglas's popular sovereignty, accepted by the public mind as a just principle, nationalizes slavery and revives the African slave trade inevitably. Taking slaves into new territories and buying slaves in Africa are identical things, identical rights or identical wrongs, and the argument which establishes one will establish the other. Try a thousand years for a sound reason why Congress shall not hinder the people of Kansas from having slaves, and when you have found it, it will be an equally good one why Congress should not hinder the people of Georgia from importing slaves from Africa. End of quote. An important election occurred in the state of Ohio in the autumn of 1859, and during the canvas Douglas made two speeches in which, as usual, his pointed attacks were directed against Lincoln by name. Quite naturally the Ohio Republicans called Lincoln to answer him, and the marked impression created by Lincoln's replies showed itself not alone in their unprecedented circulation in print and newspapers and pamphlets, but also in the decided success which the Ohio Republicans gained at the polls. About the same time also Douglas printed a long political essay in Harper's Magazine, using as a text quotation from Lincoln's House Divided Against Itself speech, and Seward's Rochester speech defining the irrepressible conflict. Attorney General Black of President Buchanan's Cabinet here entered the lists with an anonymously printed pamphlet in pungent criticism of Douglas's Harper essay, which again was followed by reply and rejoinder on both sides. Into this field of overheated political controversy the news of the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry on Sunday, October 19, fell with startling portent. The scattering and tragic fighting in the streets of the little town on Monday, the dramatic capture of the fanatical leader on Tuesday by a detachment of federal marines under the command of Robert E. Lee, the famous Confederate General of subsequent years, the undignified haste of his trial and condemnation by the Virginia authorities, the interviews of Governor Wise, Senator Mason, and Representative Vellandigam with the prisoner, his sentence and execution on the gallows on December 2 and the hysterical laudations of his acts by a few prominent and extreme abolitionists in the East kept public opinion, both north and south, in an inflamed and feverish state for nearly six weeks. Mr. Lincoln's habitual freedom from passion and the steady and common-sense judgment he applied to this exciting event which threw almost everybody into an extreme of feeling or utterance are well illustrated by the temperate criticism he made of it a few months later. QUOTE John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts related in history at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt which ends in little else than his own execution. Orcini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were in their philosophy precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on Old England in the one case and on New England in the other does not disprove the sameness of the two things. CHAPTER 10 OF A SHORT LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ernst Schnell. A SHORT LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by John G. Nicolay. CHAPTER 10 LINCOLN'S CANZA SPEECHES, THE COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH, NEW INGLAND SPEECHES, THE DEMOCRATIC SKISM, SENATOR BROWN'S RESOLUTIONS, JEFFERSON DAVIS' RESOLUTIONS, THE CHILDSTON CONVENTION, MAJORITY AND MINORITY REPORTS, CUTTON STATE DELEGATIONS, SEED, CHILDSTON CONVENTION ADJURANCE, DEMOCRATIC BALTIMORE CONVENTION SPLITS, BRACKENRIDGE NOMINATED, DUCKLES NOMINATED, BELL NOMINATED BY UNION CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, CHICAGO CONVENTION, LINCOLN'S LETTERS TO PICKET AND JUDD, THE PIVOTAL STATES, LINCOLN NOMINATED. During the month of December 1859, Mr. Lincoln was invited to the territory of Kansas, where he made speeches at a number of its new and growing towns. In these speeches, he laid special emphasis upon the necessity of maintaining undiminished the vigor of the Republican organization and the high plain of the Republican doctrine. We want and must have, said he, a national policy as to slavery which deals with it as being a wrong. Whoever would prevent slavery becoming national and perpetual yields all when he yields to a policy which treats it either as being right or as being a matter of indifference. To effect our main object, we have to employ auxiliary means. We must hold conventions, adopt platforms, select candidates and carry elections. At every step, we must be true to the main purpose. If we adopt a platform falling short of our principle or elect a man rejecting our principle, we not only take nothing affirmative by our success, but we draw upon us the positive embarrassment of seeming ourselves to have abandoned our principle. A still more important service, however, in giving the Republican presidential campaign of 1860 precise form and issue, was rendered by him during the first three months of the new year. The public mind had become so preoccupied with the dominant subject of national politics that a committee of enthusiastic young Republicans of New York and Brooklyn arranged a course of public lectures by prominent statesmen, and Mr. Lincoln was invited to deliver the third one of the series. The meeting took place in the hall of the Cooper Institute in New York on the evening of February 27th, 1860, and the audience was made up of ladies and gentlemen comprising the leading representatives of the wealth, culture and influence of the great metropolis. Mr. Lincoln's name and arguments had filled so large a space in eastern newspapers, both friendly and hostile, that the listeners before him were intensely curious to see and hear this rising western politician. The West was even at that late day, but imperfectly understood by the East. The poets and editors, the bankers and merchants of New York vaguely remembered having read in their books that it was the home of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, the country of bowie knives and pistols, of steamboat explosions and mobs, of wild speculation and the repudiation of state debts. And these half-forgotten impressions had lately been vividly recalled by a several-year succession of newspaper reports retailing the incidents of border ruffian violence and free-state guerrilla reprisals during the civil war in Kansas. What was to be the type, the character, the language of this speaker? How could he impress the great editor Horace Greeley, who sat among the invited guests? David Dudley Field, the great lawyer who escorted him to the platform, William Cullen Bryant, the great poet who presided over the meeting. Judging from after-effects, the audience quickly forgot these questioning thoughts. They had but time to note Mr. Lincoln's impressive stature, his strongly marked features, the clear ring of his rather high-pitched voice, and the almost commanding earnestness of his manner. His beginning foreshadowed a dry argument, using as a text Douglas's phrase that our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well and even better than we do now. But the concise statements, the strong links of reasoning and the irresistible conclusions of the argument, with which the speaker followed his close historical analysis of how our fathers understood this question, held every listener as though each were individually merged with the speaker's thought and demonstration. It is surely safe to assume, said he with emphasis, that the 39 framers of the original Constitution and the 76 members of the Congress, which framed the amendments there too, taken together do certainly include those who may be fairly called our fathers who framed the government under which we live. And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever in his whole life declared that, in his understanding any proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution forbade the federal government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. With equal skill he next dissected the complaints, the demands and the threats to dissolve the Union made by the Southern States, pointed out their emptiness, their fallacy and their injustice and defined the exact point and center of the agitation. Holding as they do, said he, that slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws and constitutions against it are themselves wrong and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality, its universality. If it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension, its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant if we thought slavery right. All we ask they could readily grant if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation. But can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national territories and to overrun us here in the free states? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophisticated contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored. Contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man, such as a policy of don't care on a question about which all true men do care, such as union appeals beseeching true union men to yield to disunionist reversing the divine rule and calling not the sinners but the righteous to repentance, such as invocations to Washington imploring men to unsay what Washington said and then do what Washington did. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusation against us nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. 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 close attention bestowed on its delivery, the hearty applause that greeted its telling points, and the enthusiastic comments of the Republican journals next morning showed that Lincoln's Cooper Institute speech had taken New York by storm. It was printed in full in four of the leading New York dailies, and at once went into large circulation in carefully edited pamphlet editions. From New York, Lincoln made a tour of speechmaking through several of the New England states and was everywhere received with enthusiastic welcome and listened to with an eagerness that bore a marked result in their spring elections. The interest of the factory men who listened to these addresses was equaled perhaps excelled by the gratified surprise of college professors when they heard the style and method of a popular western orator that would bear the test of their professional criticism and compare with the best examples in their standard textbooks. The attitude of the Democratic Party in the coming presidential campaign was now also rapidly taking shape. Great curiosity existed whether the radical differences between its northern and southern wings could by any possibility be removed or adjusted, whether the adherents of Douglas and those of Buchanan could be brought to join in a common platform and in the support of a single candidate. The Democratic leaders in the southern states had become more and more outspoken in their pro-slavery demands. They had advanced step by step from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, the attempt to capture Kansas by Missouri invasions in 1855 and 1856, the support of the Dred Scott decision and the Lickompton fraud in 1857, the repudiation of Douglas's free port heresy in 1858 to the demand for a congressional slave code for the territories and the recognition of the doctrine of property and slaves. These last two points they had distinctly formulated in the first session of the 36th Congress. On January 18th 1860 Senator Brown of Mississippi introduced into the Senate two resolutions, one asserting the nationality of slavery, the other that when necessary Congress should pass laws for its protection in the territories. On February 2nd Jefferson Davis introduced another series of resolutions intended to serve as a basis for the National Democratic Platform, the central points of which were that the right to take and hold slaves in the territories could neither be impaired nor annulled and that it was the duty of Congress to supply any deficiency of laws for its protection. Perhaps even more significant than these formulated doctrines was the pro-slavery spirit manifested in the congressional debates. Two months were wasted in a parliamentary struggle to prevent the election of the Republican John Sherman as Speaker of the House of Representatives because the southern members charged that he had recommended an abolition book, during which time the most sensational and violent threats of this union were made in both the House and the Senate containing repeated declarations that they would never submit to the inauguration of a black Republican president. When the National Democratic Convention met at Charleston on April 23rd 1860 there at once became evident the singular condition that the delegates from the free states were united and enthusiastic in their determination to secure the nomination of Douglas as the Democratic candidate for president, while the delegates from the slave states were equally united and determined upon forcing the acceptance of an extreme pro-slavery platform. All expectations of a compromise, all hope of coming to an understanding by juggling omissions or evasions in the declaration of party principles, were quickly dissipated. The platform committee after three days and nights of fruitless effort presented two antagonistic reports. The majority report declared that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could abolish or prohibit slavery in the territories and that it was the duty of the federal government to protect it when necessary. To this doctrine the northern members could not consent, but they were willing to adopt the ambiguous declaration that property rights in slaves were judicial in their character and that they would abide the decisions of the Supreme Court on such questions. The usual expedient of recommitting both reports brought no relief from the deadlock. A second majority and a second minority report exhibited the same irreconcilable divergence in slightly different language and the words of mutual defiance exchanged in debating the first report rose to a parliamentary storm when the second came under discussion. On the seventh day the convention came to a vote and the northern delegates being in the majority the minority report was substituted for that of the majority of the committee by 165 to 138 delegates. In other words the Douglas platform was declared adopted. Upon this the delegates of the cotton states Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas and Arkansas withdrew from the convention. It soon appeared however that the Douglas delegates had achieved only a barren victory. Their majority could indeed adopt the platform but under the acknowledged two thirds rule which governs democratic national conventions they had not sufficient votes to nominate their candidate. During the 57 ballots taken the Douglas men could muster only 152 and one half votes of the 202 necessary to a choice and to prevent mere slow disintegration the convention adjourned on the tenth day under a resolution to reassemble in Baltimore on June 18th. Nothing was gained however by the delay. In the interim Jefferson Davis and 19 other southern leaders published an address commending the withdrawal of the cotton state delegates and in a senate debate Davis laid down the plain proposition we want nothing more than a simple declaration that Negro slaves are property and we want the recognition of the obligation of the federal government to protect that property like all other. Upon the reassembling of the Charleston convention at Baltimore it underwent a second disruption on the fifth day. The northern wing nominated Stephen 8 Douglas of Illinois and the southern wing John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky as their respective candidates for president. In the meanwhile also regular and irregular delegates from some 22 states representing fragments of the old wick party had convened in Baltimore on May 9th and nominated John Bell of Tennessee as their candidate for president. Upon a platform ignoring the slave issue and declaring they would recognize no other political principle than the constitution of the country the union of the states and the enforcement of the laws. In the long contest between slavery extension and slavery restriction which was now approaching its culmination the growing demands and increasing bitterness of the pro-slavery party had served in an equal degree to intensify the feelings and stimulate the efforts of the republican party and remembering the encouraging opposition strength which the united vote of Fremont and Fillmore had shown in 1856 they felt encouraged to hope for possible success in 1860 since the Fillmore party had practically disappeared throughout the free states. When therefore the Charleston convention was rent asunder and adjourned on May 10th without making a nomination the possibility of republican victory seemed to have risen to probability. Such a feeling inspired the eager enthusiasm of the delegates to the republican national convention which met according to appointment at Chicago on May 16th. A large temporary wooden building christened the wigwam had been erected in which to hold its sessions and it was estimated that 10 000 persons were assembled in it to witness the proceedings. William H. Seward of New York was recognized as the leading candidate but Chase of Ohio, Cameron of Pennsylvania, Bates of Missouri and several prominent republicans from other states were known to have active and zealous followers. The name of Abraham Lincoln had also often been mentioned during his growing fame and fully a year before an ardent republican editor of Illinois had requested permission to announce him in his newspaper. Lincoln however discouraged such action at that time answering him as to the other matter you kindly mentioned I must in candor say I do not think myself fit for the presidency. I certainly am flattered and gratified that some partial friends think of me in that connection but I really think at best for our cause that no concerted effort such as you suggest should be made. He had given an equally positive answer to an eager Ohio friend in the preceding July but about Christmas 1859 an influential caucus of his strongest Illinois adherents made a personal request that he would permit them to use his name and he gave his consent not so much in any hope of becoming the nominee for president as in possibly reaching the second place on the ticket or at least of making such a showing of strength before the convention as would aid him in his future senatorial ambition at home or perhaps carry him into the cabinet of the republican president should one succeed. He had not been eager to enter the lists but once having agreed to do so it was but natural that he should manifest the becoming interest subject however now as always to his inflexible rule of fair dealing and honorable faith to all his party friends. I do not understand Trumbull and myself to be rivals he wrote December 9th 1859 you know I am pledged not to enter a struggle with him for the seat in the senate now occupied by him and yet I would rather have a full term in the senate than in the presidency and on February 9th he wrote to the same Illinois friend 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 letters to Misha's doll and others is now happening your disconfident assailants are most bitter against me and they will for revenge upon me lay to the baits egg in the south and to the seward egg in the north and go far towards squeezing me out of the middle with nothing can you not help me a little in this matter in your end of the vineyard it turned out that the delegates whom the Illinois state convention sent to the national convention at Chicago were men not only of exceptional standing and ability but filled with the warmest zeal for mr. Lincoln's success they were able at once to impress upon delegates from other states his sterling personal worth and fitness and his superior availability it needed but little political arithmetic to work out the sum of existing political chances it was almost self-evident that in the coming November election victory or defeat would hang upon the result in the four pivotal states of New Jersey Pennsylvania Indiana and Illinois it was quite certain that no republican candidate could carry a single one of the 15 slave states and equally sure that Breckenridge on his extreme proslavery platform could not carry a single one of the 18 free states but there was a chance that one or more of these four pivotal free states might cast its vote for Douglas and popular sovereignty a candidate was needed therefore who could successfully cope with Douglas and the Douglas theory and this ability had been convincingly demonstrated by Lincoln as a mere personal choice a majority of the convention would have preferred seward but in the four pivotal states there were many voters who believed seward's anti-slave reviews to be too radical they shrank apprehensively from the phrase in one of his speeches that there is a higher law than the constitution these pivotal states all lay adjoining slave states and their public opinion was infected with something of the undefined dread of abolitionism when the delegates of the pivotal states were interviewed they frankly confessed that they could not carry their states for seward and that would mean certain defeat if he were the nominee for president for their voters Lincoln stood on more acceptable ground his speeches had been more conservative his local influence in his own state of Illinois was also a factor not to be idly thrown away playing practical reasoning of this character found ready acceptance among the delegates to the convention their eagerness for the success of the cause largely overbalanced their personal preferences for favorite aspirants when the convention met the fresh hearty hopefulness of its members was a most inspiring reflection of the public opinion in the states that sent them they went at their work with an earnestness which was an encouraging premonition of success and they felt a gratifying support in the presence of the ten thousand spectators who looked on at their work few conventions have ever been pervaded by such a depth of feeling or exhibited such a reserve of light and enthusiasm the cheers that greeted the entrance of popular favorites and the short speeches on preliminary business ran and rolled through the great audience in successive moving waves of sound that were echoed and re echoed from side to side in the vast building not alone the delegates on the central platform but in the multitude of spectators as well felt they were playing a part in a great historical event the temporary and afterward the permanent organization was finished on the first day with somewhat less than usual of the wordy and tantalizing small talk which these routine proceedings always call forth on the second day the platform committee submitted its work embodying the carefully considered and skillfully framed body of doctrines at which the republican party made up only four years before from such previously heterogeneous and antagonistic political elements was now able to find common and durable ground of agreement around its central tenant which denied the authority of congress of territorial legislature or of any individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the united states were grouped vigorous denunciations of the various steps and incidents of the pro-slavery reaction and its prospective demands while its positive recommendations embraced the immediate admission of Kansas free homesteads to actual settlers river and harbor improvements of national character a railroad to the pacific ocean and the maintenance of existing naturalization laws the platform was about to be adopted without objection when a flurry of discussion arose over an amendment proposed by mr. Giddings of Ohio to incorporate in it the phrase of the declaration of independence which declares the right of all men to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness impatience was at once manifested lest any change should produce endless delay and dispute i believe in the ten commandments commented a member but i do not want them in a political platform and the proposition was voted down upon this the old anti-slavery veteran felt himself aggrieved and taking up his head marched out of the convention in the course of an hours to sultry discussion however a member with stirring oratorical emphasis asked whether the convention was prepared to go upon record before the country as voting down the words of the declaration of independence whether the men of 1860 on the free prairies of the west quailed before repeating the words enunciated by the men in 76 at philadelphia in an impulse of patriotic reaction the amendment was incorporated into the platform and mr. giddings was brought back by his friends his face beaming with triumph and the stormy acclaim of the audience manifested the deep feeling which the incident evoked on the third day it was certain that balloting would begin and crowds hurried to the weak one in a fever of curiosity having grown restless at the indispensable routine preliminaries when mr. everts nominated william h steward of new york for president they greeted his name with a perfect storm of applause then mr. jut nominated abraham linkel of illinois and in the tremendous cheering that broke from the throats of his admirers and followers the former demonstration dwindled to comparative feebleness again and again these contests of lungs and enthusiasm were repeated as the choice of new york was seconded by michigan and that of illinois by indiana when other names had been duly presented the cheering at lengths subsided and the chairman announced that balloting would begin many spectators had provided themselves with tally lists and when the first roll call was completed were able at once to perceive the drift of popular preference cameron chase baits mclean daton and colomer were endorsed by the substantial votes of their own states but two names stood out in mark superiority seward who had received 173 and one half votes and lincoln 102 the new york delegation was so thoroughly persuaded of the final success of their candidate that they did not comprehend the significance of this first ballot had they reflected that their delegation alone had contributed 70 votes to seward's total they would have understood that outside of the empire state upon this first showing lincoln held their favorite almost an even race as the second ballot progressed their anxiety visibly increased they watched with eagerness as the complimentary votes first cast for state favorites were transferred now to one now to the other of the recognized leaders in the contest and their hopes sank when the result of the second ballot was announced seward 184 and one half lincoln 181 and the volume of applause which was with difficulty checked by the chairman shook the weak one at this announcement then followed a short interval of active caucusing in the various delegations while excited men went about rapidly interchanging questions solicitations and messages between delegations from different states now the candidate had yet received a majority of all the votes cast and the third ballot was begun amid a deep almost painful suspense delegates and spectators alike recording each announcement of votes on their tally sheets with nervous fingers but the doubt was a short duration before the secretaries made the official announcement the totals had been figured up lincoln 231 and one half seward 180 counting the scattering votes 465 ballots had been cast and 233 were necessary to a choice seward had lost four and one half lincoln had gained 50 and one half and only one and one half votes more were needed to make a nomination the big one suddenly became as still as a church and everybody leaned forward to see whose voice would break the spell before the lapse of a minute david k carter sprang upon his chair and reported a change of four ohio votes from chase to lincoln then a teller shouted a name toward the skylight and the boom of cannon from the roof of the wigbom announced the nomination and started the cheering of the overjoyed indians down the long chicago streets while in the wigbom delegation after delegation changed its vote to the victor amid a tumult of hurrahs when quiet was somewhat restored mr evers speaking for new york and for seward moved to make the nomination anonymous and mr browning gracefully returned the thanks of illinois for the honor the convention had conferred upon the state in the afternoon the convention completed its work by nominating hannibal hamlin of main for vice president and as the delegates but homeward in the night trains they witnessed in the bonfires and cheering crowds of the stations that the memorable presidential campaign was already begun end of chapter 10 of a short life of abraham lincoln this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by alana jordan a short life of abraham lincoln by john g nicolay chapter 11 candidates and platforms the political chances decater lincoln resolution john hanks and the lincoln rails the rail splitter candidate the wide awakes douglas's southern tour jefferson davis's address fusion lincoln at the state house the election result the nomination of lincoln at chicago completed the preparations of the different parties of the country for the presidential contest of 1860 and presented the unusual occurrence of an appeal to the voters of the several states by four district political organizations in the order of popular strength with which they afterward developed they were one the republican party whose platform declared in substance that slavery was wrong and that its further extension should be prohibited by congress its candidates were abraham lincoln of illinois for president and hannibal hamlin of main for vice president two the douglas wing of the democratic party which declared indifference whether slavery were right or wrong extended or prohibited and proposed to permit the people of a territory to decide whether they would prevent or establish it its candidates were steven a douglas of illinois for president and her shell v johnson of georgia for vice president c the buccane and wing of the democratic party which declared that slavery was right and beneficial and whose policy was to extend the institution and create new slave states its candidates were john c breckenridge of kentucky for president and joseph lane of oregon for vice president four the constitutional union party which professed to ignore the question of slavery and declared it would recognize no political principles other than the constitution of the country the union of the states and the enforcement of the laws its candidates or john bell of tennessee for president and edward everett of massachusetts for vice president in the array of these opposing candidates and their platforms it could be easily calculated from the very beginning that neither lincoln nor douglas had any chance to carry a slave state nor breckenridge nor bell to carry a free state and that neither douglas in the free states nor bell and either section could obtain electoral votes enough to succeed therefore but two alternatives seemed probable either lincoln would be chosen by electoral votes or upon his failure to obtain a sufficient number the election would be thrown into the house of representatives in which case the course of combination chance or intrigue could not be foretold the political situation and its possible results thus involved a degree of uncertainty sufficient to hold out a contingent hope to all the candidates and to inspire the followers of each two active exertion this hope and inspiration added to the hot temper which the long discussion of antagonistic principles had engendered served to infuse into the campaign enthusiasm earnestness and even bitterness according to local conditions in the different sections in campaign enthusiasm the republican party easily took the lead about a week before his nomination mr. lincoln had been present at the illinois state convention at decatur in coles county not far from the old lincoln home when at a given signal they're marched into the convention old john hanks one of his boyhood companions and another pioneer who bore on their shoulders two long fence rails decorated with a banner inscribed two rails from a lot made by abraham lincoln and john hanks in the sagaman bottom in the year 1830 they were greeted with a tremendous shout of applause from the whole convention succeeded by a united call for lincoln who sat on the platform the tumult would not subside until he rose to speak when he said gentlemen i suppose you want to know something about those things pointing to old john and the rails well the truth is john hanks and i did make rails in the sagaman bottom i don't know whether we made those rails or not fact is i don't think they are a credit to the makers laughing as he spoke but i do know this i made rails then and i think i could make better ones than these now still louder cheering followed the short but effective reply but the convention was roused to its full warmth of enthusiasm when a resolution was immediately and unanimously adopted declaring that abraham lincoln is the first choice of the republican party of illinois for the presidency and directing the delegates to the chicago convention to use all honorable means to secure his nomination and to cast the vote of the state as a unit for him it was this resolution which the illinois delegation had so successfully carried out in chicago and besides they had carried with them the two fence rails and set them up in state at the lincoln headquarters at their hotel where enthusiastic lady friends gaily trimmed them with flowers and ribbons and lighted them up with tapers these slight preliminaries duly embellished in the newspapers gave the key to the republican campaign which designated lincoln as the rail splitter candidate and added to his common illinois subricade of old honest ape furnished both country and city campaign orators a powerfully sympathetic appeal to the rural and laboring element of the united states when these homely but picturesque appellations were fortified by the copious pamphlet and newspaper biographies in which people read the story of his humble beginnings and how he had risen by dint of simple earnest work and native genius through privation and difficulty first to fame and leadership in his state and now to fame and leadership in the nation they grew quickly into symbols of a faith and trust destined to play no small part in a political revolution of which the people at large were not as yet even dreaming another feature of the campaign also quickly developed itself on the preceding fifth of march one of mr. lincoln's new england speeches had been made at hartford connecticut and at its close he was escorted to his hotel by a procession of the local republican club at the head of which marched a few of its members bearing torches and wearing caps and capes of glazed oil cloth the primary purpose of which was to shield their clothes from the dripping oil of their torches both the simplicity and the efficiency of the uniform caught the popular eye as did also the name wide awakes applied to them by the hartford current the example found quick imitation in hartford and adjoining towns and when mr. lincoln was made candidate for president every city town and nearly every village in the north within a brief space had its organized wide awake club with their half military uniform and drill and these clubs were often later in the campaign gathered into imposing torchlight processions miles in length on occasions of important party meetings and speechmaking it was the revived spirit of the harrison campaign of 20 years before but now shorn of its fun and frolic it was strengthened by the power of organization and the tremendous impetus of earnest devotion to a high principal it was a noteworthy feature of the campaign that the letters of acceptance of all the candidates either in distinct words or unmistakable implication declared devotion to the union while at the same time the adherents of each were charging disunion sentiments and intentions upon the other three parties douglas himself made a tour of speechmaking through the southern states in which while denouncing the political views of both lincoln and breckenrich he nevertheless openly declared in response to direct questions that no grievance could justify disunion and that he was ready to put the hemp around the neck and hang any man who would raise the arm of resistance to the constituted authorities of the country during the early part of the campaign the more extreme southern fire eaters abated somewhat of their violent menaces of disunion between the charleston and the baltimore democratic conventions an address published by jefferson davis and other prominent leaders had explained that the 17 democratic states which had voted at charleston for the successors platform could if united with pennsylvania alone elect the democratic nominees against all opposition this hope doubtless floated before their eyes like a will of the wisp until the october elections dispelled all possibility of securing pennsylvania for breckenridge from that time forward there began a renewal of disunion threats which by their constant increase throughout the south prepared the public mind of that section for the coming succession as the chances of republican success gradually grew stronger an undercurrent of combination developed itself among those politicians of the three opposing parties more devoted to patronage than principal to bring about the fusion of lincoln's opponents on some agreed ratio of a division of the spoils such a combination made considerable progress in the three northern states of new york pennsylvania and new jersey it appears to have been engineered mainly by the douglas faction though it must be said to his credit against the open and earnest protest of douglas himself but the thrifty plotters cared little for his disapproval by the secret manipulations of conventions and committees a fusion electoral ticket was formed in new york made up of adherence of the three different factions in the following proportion douglas 18 bell 10 breckenridge seven and the whole opposition vote of the state of new york was cast for this fusion ticket the same tactics were pursued in pennsylvania where however the agreement was not so openly avowed one third of the pennsylvania fusion electoral candidates were pledged to douglas the division of the remaining two-thirds between bell and breckenridge was not made public the bulk of the pennsylvania opposition vote was cast for this fusion ticket but a respectable percentage refused to be bargained away and voted directly for douglas or bell in new jersey a definite agreement was reached by the managers and an electoral ticket formed composed of two adherents of bell two of breckenridge and three of douglas and in this state a practical result was affected by the movement a fraction of the douglas voters formed a straight electoral ticket adopting the three douglas candidates on the fusion ticket and by this action these three douglas electors received a majority vote in new jersey on the whole however the fusion movement proved ineffectual to defeat lincoln and indeed it would not have done so even had the fusion electoral tickets deceived a majority in all three of the above name states the personal habits and surroundings of mr. lincoln were varied somewhat though but slightly during the whole of this election summer naturally he withdrew at once from active work leaving his law office and his whole law business to his partner william h herndon while his friends installed him in the governor's room in the state house at springfield which was not otherwise needed during the absence of the legislature here he spent the time during the usual business hours of the day attended only by his private secretary mr. nicolet friends and strangers alike were thus able to visit him freely without ceremony and they availed themselves largely of the opportunity few if any went away without being favorably impressed by his hearty western greeting and the frank sincerity of his manner and conversation in which naturally all subjects of controversy were courteously and instinctively avoided by both the candidate and his visitors by none was this free neighborly intercourse enjoyed more than by the old-time settlers of sangamon and the adjoining counties who came to revive the incidents and memories of pioneer days with one who could give them such thorough and appreciative interest and sympathy he employed no literary bureau wrote no public letters made no set or impromptu speeches except that once or twice during great political meetings at springfield he uttered a few words of greeting and thanks to passing street processions all these devices of propagandism he left to the leaders and committees of his adherents in their several states even the strictly confidential letters in which he indicated his advice on points in the progress of the campaign did not exceed a dozen in number and when politicians came to interview him at springfield he received them in the privacy of his own home and generally their presence created little or no public notice cautious politician as he was he did not permit himself to indulge in any overconfidence but then as always before showed unusual skill in estimating political chances thus he wrote about a week after the chicago convention so far as i can learn the nomination start well everywhere and if they get no back set it would seem as if they are going through again on july 4 long before this you have learned who is nominated at chicago we know not what a day may bring forth but today it looks as if the chicago ticket will be elected and on september 22 to a friend in oregon no one on this side of the mountains pretends that any ticket can be elected by the people unless it be ours hence great efforts to combine against us are being made which however as yet have not had much success besides what we see in the newspapers i have a good deal of private correspondence and without giving details i will only say it all looks very favorable to our success his judgment was abundantly verified at the presidential election which occurred upon november 6 1860 lincoln electors were chosen in every one of the free states except new jersey where as has already been stated three douglas electors received majorities because their names were on both the fusion ticket and the straight douglas ticket while the other four republican electors in that state succeeded of the slave states 11 chose brick and rich electors three of them bell electors and one of them missouri douglas electors as provided by law the electors met in their several states on december 5 to officially cast their votes and on february 13 1861 congress in joint session of the two houses made the official count as follows for lincoln 180 for brecken rich 72 for bell 39 and for douglas 12 giving lincoln a clear majority of 57 in the whole electoral college thereupon brecken rich who presided over the joint session officially declared that abraham lincoln was duly elected president of the united states for four years beginning march 4 1861 and of chapter 11 recording by lana jordan chapter 12 of a short life of abraham lincoln this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by alana jordan a short life of abraham lincoln by john g nicolay chapter 12 lincoln's cabinet program members from the south questions and answers correspondence with stevens action of congress peace convention preparation of the inaugural lincoln's farewell address the journey to washington lincoln's midnight journey during the long presidential campaign of 1860 between the chicago convention in the middle of may and the election at the beginning of november mr lincoln relieved from all other duties had watched political developments with very close attention not merely to discern the progress of his own chances but doubtless also much more seriously to deliberate upon the future in case he should be elected but it was only when on the night of november 6 he sat in the telegraph office at springfield from which all but himself and the operators were excluded and read the telegrams as they fell from the wires that little by little the accumulating republic majorities reported from all directions convinced him of the certainty of his success and with that conviction there fell upon him the overwhelming almost crushing weight of his coming duties and responsibilities he afterward related that in that supreme hour grappling resolutely with the mighty problem before him he practically completed the first essential act of his administration the selection of his future cabinet the choice of men who were to aid him from what afterward occurred we may easily infer the general principle which guided his choice one of his strongest characteristics as his speeches abundantly show was his belief in the power of public opinion and his respect for the popular will that was to be found and to be wielded by the leaders of public sentiment in the present instance there were no truer representatives of that will than the men who had been prominently supported by the delegates to the chicago convention for the presidential nominations of these he would take at least three perhaps four to compose one half of his cabinet in selecting seward chase baits and camera on he could also satisfy two other points of the representative principle the claims of locality and the elements of former party divisions now joined in the newly organized republican party with seward from new york cameron from pennsylvania chase from ohio and himself from illinois the four leading free states each had a representative with baits from missouri the south could not complain of being wholly excluded from the cabinet new england was properly represented by vice-president hamlin when after the inauguration smith from indiana wells from connecticut and blare from maryland were added to make up the seven cabinet members the local distribution between east and west north and south was in no wise disturbed it was indeed complained that in this arrangement there were four former democrats and only three former wigs to which lincoln laughingly replied that he had been a wig and would be there to make the number even it was not likely that this exact list was in lincoln's mind on the night of the november election but only the principal names in it and much delay and some friction occurred before its completion the post of secretary of state was offered to seward on december eight rumors have got into the newspapers wrote lincoln to the effect that the department named above would be tendered you as a compliment and with the expectation that you would decline it i beg you to be assured that i have said nothing to justify these rumors on the contrary it has been my purpose from the day of the nomination at chicago to assign you by your leave this place in the administration seward asked for a few days for reflection then cordially accepted bates was tendered the attorney general ship on december 15 while making a personal visit to springfield word had been meanwhile sent to smith that he would probably be included the assignment of places to chase and cameron worked less smoothly lincoln wrote cameron a note on january third saying he would nominate him for either secretary of the treasury or secretary of war he had not yet decided which and on the same day in an interview with chase whom he had invited to springfield said to him i have done with you what i would not perhaps have ventured to do with any other man in the country sent for you to ask whether you will accept the appointment of secretary of the treasury without however being exactly prepared to offer it to you they discussed the situation very fully but without reaching a definite conclusion agreeing to await the advice of friends meanwhile the rumor that cameron was going to go into the cabinet excited such hot opposition that lincoln felt obliged to recall his tender in a confidential letter and asked him to write a public letter declining the place instead of doing this cameron fortified himself with recommendations from prominent pennsylvania's and demonstrated that in his own state he had at least three advocates to one opponent pending the delay which this contest consumed another cabinet complication found its solution it had been warmly urged by conservatives that in addition debates another cabinet member should be taken from one of the southern states the difficulty of doing this had been clearly foreshadowed by mr. lincoln in a little editorial which he wrote for the springfield journal on december 12 first isn't known that any such gentleman of character would accept a place in the cabinet second if ye on what terms does he surrender to mr. lincoln or mr. lincoln to him on the political differences between them or do they enter upon the administration in open opposition to each other it was very soon demonstrated that these differences were insurmountable through mr. seward who is attending his senatorial duties at washington mr. lincoln tentatively offered a cabinet appointment successively to gilmer of north carolina hunt of louisiana and scott of virginia no one of whom had the courage to accept toward the end of the recent canvas and still more since the election mr. lincoln had received urgent letters to make some public declaration to reassure and pacify the south especially the cotton states which were manifesting a constantly growing spirit of rebellion most of such letters remained unanswered but in a number of strictly confidential replies he explained the reasons for his refusal i appreciate your motive he wrote october 23 when you suggest the propriety of my writing for the public something disclaiming all intention to interfere with slaves or slavery in the states but in my judgment it would do no good i have already done this many many times and it is in print and open to all who will read but those who will not read or heed what i have already publicly said would not read or heed a repetition of it if they hear not moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded through one rose from the dead to the letter of the louisville journal he wrote october 29 for the good men of the south and i regard the majority of them as such i have no objection to repeat 70 and seven times but i have had bad men to deal with both north and south who are eager for something new upon which to base new misrepresentations men who would like to frighten me or at least to fix upon me the character of timidity and cowardice alexander h stevens of georgia who afterward became confederate vice president made a strong speech against succession in that state on november 14 and mr. lincoln wrote him a few lines asking for a revised copy of it in the brief correspondence which ensued mr. lincoln again wrote him under date of december 22 i fully appreciate the present peril the country is in and the weight of responsibility on me do the people of the south really entertain fears that a republican administration would directly or indirectly interfere with the slaves or with them about the slaves if they do i wish to assure you as once a friend and still i hope not an enemy that there is no cause for such fears the south will be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of washington i suppose however this does not meet the case you think slavery is right and ought to be extended while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted that i suppose is the rub it certainly is the only substantial difference between us so also replying a few days earlier in a long letter to honorable john a gilmer of north carolina to whom as already stated he offered a cabinet appointment he said on the territorial question i am inflexible as you see my position in the book on that there is a difference between you and us and it is the only substantial difference you think slavery is right and ought to be extended we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted for this neither has any just occasion to be angry with the other as to the state laws mentioned in your sixth question i really know very little of them i have never read one if any of them are in conflict with the fugitive slave cause or any other part of the constitution i certainly shall be glad of their repeal but i could hardly be justified as a citizen of illinois or as president of the united states to recommend the repeal of a statute of vermont or south carolina through his intimate correspondence with mr seward and his personal friends in congress mr lincoln was kept somewhat informed of the hostile temper of the southern leaders and that a tremendous pressure was being brought upon that body by timid conservatives and the commercial interests in the north to bring about some kind of compromise which would stay the progress of disunion and on this point he sent an emphatic munition to representative washburn on december 13 your long letter received prevent as far as possible any of our friends from demoralizing themselves and their cause by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort on slavery extension there is no possible compromise upon it but what puts us under again and all your work to do over again whether it be a missouri line or elie there's popular sovereignty it is all the same let either be done and immediately filibustering and extending slavery recommends us on that point hold firm as a chain of steel between the day when a president is elected by popular vote and that on which he is officially inaugurated there exists an interim of four long months during which he has no more direct power in the affairs of government than any private citizen however anxiously mr lincoln might watch the development of public events at washington and in the cotton states whatever appeals might come to him through interviews or correspondence no positive action of any kind was within his power beyond an occasional word of advice or suggestion the position of the republican leaders in congress was not much better until the actual succession of states and the departure of their representatives they were in a minority in the senate while the so-called south americans and anti-lacompton democrats held the balance of power in the house the session was mainly consumed in excited profitless discussion both the senate and the house appointed compromise committees which met and labored but could find no common ground of agreement a peace convention met and deliberated at washington with no practical result except to waste the powder for a salute of 100 guns over a sham report to which nobody paid the least attention throughout this period mr lincoln was by no means idle besides the many difficulties he had to overcome in completing his cabinets he devoted himself to writing his inaugural address withdrawing himself some hours each day from his ordinary receptions he went to a quiet room on the second floor of the store occupied by his brother-in-law on the south side of the public square in springfield where he could think and write in undisturbed privacy when after abundant reflection and revision he had finished the document he placed it in the hands of mr william h bail hush one of the editors of the illinois state journal who locked himself and a single compositor into the composing room of the journal here in mr bail hawks presence it was set up proof taken and read and a dozen copies printed after which the types were again immediately distributed the alert newspaper correspondence in springfield who saw lincoln every day as usual did not obtain the slightest hint of what was going on having completed his arrangements mr lincoln started on his journey to washington on february 11 1861 on a special train accompanied by mrs lincoln and their three children his two private secretaries and a suite of about a dozen personal friends mr seward had suggested that in view of the feverish condition of public affairs he should come a week earlier but mr lincoln allowed himself only time enough comfortably to fill the appointments he had made to visit the capitals and principal cities of the states on his route in accordance with nonpartisan invitations from their legislatures and mayors which he had accepted standing on the front platform of the car as the conductor was about to pull the bell rope mr lincoln made the following brief and pathetic address of farewell to his friends and neighbors of springfield the last time his voice was ever to be heard in the city which had been his home for so many years my friends not one not in my situation can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting to this place and the kindness of these people i owe everything here i have lived a quarter of a century have passed from a young to an old man here my children have been born and one is buried i now leave not knowing when or whether ever i may return with a task before me greater than that which rested upon washington without the assistance of that divine being whoever attended him i cannot succeed with that assistance i cannot fail trusting in him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good let us confidently hope that all will yet be well to his care commending you as i hope in your prayers you will commend me i bid you an affectionate farewell it was the beginning of a memorable journey on the whole route from springfield to washington at almost every station even the smallest was gathered a crowd of people in hope to catch a glimpse of the face of the president-elect or at least to see the flying train at the larger stopping places these gatherings were swelled to thousands and in the great cities into almost unimaginable assemblages everywhere there were vociferous calls for mr. lincoln and if he showed himself for a speech whenever there was sufficient time he would step to the rear platform of the car and bow his acknowledgments as the train was moving away and sometimes utter a few words of thanks and greeting at the capitals of indiana ohio new york new jersey and pennsylvania as also in the cities of sincanny cleveland buffalo new york and philadelphia a halt was made for one or two days and a program was carried out of a formal visit and brief address to each house of the legislature street processions large receptions in the evening and other similar ceremonies and in each of them there was an unprecedented outpouring of the people to take advantage of every opportunity to see and to hear the future chief magistrate of the union party foes as well as party friends made up these expectant crowds the public suspense was at a degree of tension which rendered every eye and ear eager to catch even the slightest indication of the thoughts or intentions of the man who was to be the official guide of the nation in a crisis the course and end of which even the wisest dare not predict in the 20 or 30 brief addresses delivered by mr. lincoln on this journey he observed the utmost caution of utterance and reticence of declaration yet the shades of meaning in his carefully chosen sentences were enough to show how alive he was to the trials and dangers confronting his administration and to inspire hope and confidence in his judgment he repeated that he regarded the public demonstrations not as belonging to himself but to the high office with which the people had clothed him and that if he failed they could four years later substitute a better man in his place and in his very first address at indianapolis he thus emphasized their reciprocal duties if the union of these states and the liberties of this people shall be lost it is but little to any one man of 52 years of age but a great deal to the 30 millions of people who inhabit these united states and to their posterity in all coming time it is your business to rise up and preserve the union and liberty for yourselves and not for me i appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that not with politicians not with presidents not with office seekers but with you is the question shall the union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generations many salient and interesting quotations could be made from his other addresses but a comparatively few sentences will be sufficient to enable the reader to infer what was likely to be his ultimate conclusion and action in his second speech at indianapolis he asked the question on what rightful principle may a state being not more than 150th part of the nation in soil and population break up the nation and then coerce a proportionally larger subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way at stubenville if the majority should not rule who would be the judge where is such judge to be found we should all be bound by the majority of the american people if not then the minority must control would that be right at trenton i shall do all that may be in my power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties the man does not live who is more devoted to peace than i am none who would do more to preserve it but it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly at harrisburg while i am exceedingly gratified to see the manifestation upon your streets of your military force here and exceedingly gratified at your promise to use that force upon a proper emergency while i make these acknowledgments i desire to repeat in order to preclude any possible misconception that i do most sincerely hope that we shall have no use for them that it will never become their duty to shed blood and most especially never to shed fraternal blood i promise that so far as i may have wisdom to direct if so painful a result shall in any wise be brought about it shall be through no fault of mine while mr lincoln was yet at philadelphia he was met by mr fredrick w seward son of senator seward who brought him an important communication from his father and general scott at washington about the beginning of the year serious apprehension had been felt lest the sudden uprising of the successionists in virginia and maryland might endeavor to gain possession of the national capital an investigation by a committee of congress found no active military preparation to exist for such a purpose but considerable traces of disaffection and local conspiracy in baltimore and to guard against such an outbreak president bucanon had permitted his secretary of war mr holt to call general scott to washington and charge him with the safety of the city not only at that moment but also during the counting of the presidential returns in february and the coming inauguration of mr lincoln for this purpose general scott had concentrated at washington a few companies from the regular army and also in addition had organized and armed about 900 men of the militia of the district of columbia in connection with these precautions carnal stone who commanded these forces had kept himself informed about the disaffection in baltimore through the agency of the new york police department the communication brought by young mr seward contained besides notes from his father and general scott a short report from colonel stone stating that there had arisen within the past few days imminent danger of violence too and the assassination of mr lincoln in his passage through baltimore should the time of that passage be known all the risk he suggested might easily be avoided by a change in the traveling arrangements which would bring mr lincoln and a portion of his party through baltimore by a night train without previous notice the seriousness of this information was doubled by the fact that mr lincoln had that same day held an interview with the prominent chicago detective who had been for some weeks employed by the president of philadelphia wilmington and baltimore railway to investigate the danger to their property and trains from the baltimore successionists the investigations of this detective of mr pinkerton had been carried on without the knowledge of the new york detective and he reported not identical but almost similar conditions of insurrectionary feeling and danger and recommended the same precaution mr lincoln very earnestly debated the situation with his intimate personal friend honorable nb jud of chicago perhaps the most active and influential member of his suite who advised him to proceed to washington that same evening on the 11 o'clock train i cannot go tonight replied mr lincoln i have promised to raise the flag over independence hall tomorrow morning and to visit the legislature at harrisburg beyond that i have no engagements the railroad schedule by which mr lincoln had hitherto been traveling included a direct trip from harrisburg through baltimore to washington on saturday february 23rd when the harrisburg ceremonies had been concluded on the afternoon of the 22nd the danger and the proposed change of program were for the first time fully laid before a confidential meeting of the prominent members of mr lincoln's suite reasons were strongly urged both for and against the plan but mr lincoln finally decided and explained that while he himself was not afraid he would be assassinated nevertheless since the possibility of danger had been made known from two entirely independent sources and officially communicated to him by his future prime minister and the general of the american armies he was no longer at liberty to disregard it that it was not the question of his private life but the regular and orderly transmission of the authority of the government of the united states in the face of threatened revolution which he had no right to put in the slightest jeopardy he would therefore carry out the plan the full details of which had been arranged with the railroad officials accordingly that same evening he with a single companion colonel w.h. lamon took a car from harrisburg back to pennsylvania at which place about midnight they boarded the through train from new york to washington and without recognition or any untoward incident passed quietly through baltimore and reached the capital about daylight on the morning of february 23rd where they were met by mr seward and representative washburn of illinois and conducted to willard's hotel when mr lincoln's departure from harrisburg became known a reckless newspaper correspondent telegraphed to new york the ridiculous invention that he traveled disguised in a scotch cap and long military cloak there was not word of truth in the absurd statement mr lincoln's family and suite proceeded to washington by the originally arranged train and schedule and witnessed great crowds in the streets of baltimore but encountered neither turbulence nor in civility of any kind there was now of course no occasion for any since the telegraph had definitely announced that the president-elect was already in washington end of chapter 12 recording by lana jordan