The press comments of the country on Lincoln's nomination were
exceedingly conflicting. He was written of as the man whom Douglas had
beaten two years before, and without other distinction; as lacking in
culture, in every way inferior to Seward; as a whangdoodle stump speaker
of the second class, and without any known principle. What is this talk
of Old Abe Lincoln, Old Uncle Abe, Honest Abe Lincoln? Was he not a log
roller in the Illinois legislature of 1836? Had he not been driven from
position to position by Douglas in the debates? What is honest about him
above other men? Why a nomination on the strength of a deceiving
nickname? Is he not for the tariff and loose construction? Has he not
been a Whig with all the humbuggery of that party, of log cabins and
imperial practices?
The Republican press was more favorable. He was hailed as a man of the
people, sprung from the people. On a hurried visit with Douglas, he told
me that Lincoln was as able as any man the Republicans had, abler far
than Seward; and of great integrity, though he loathed Lincoln's
political faith. "I'll carry nearly every northern state against him,"
said Douglas. "The Union must be saved. I know the South. They will
secede if Lincoln is elected. It's utter madness of them to think of
this; but mad they are. We must handle them accordingly. Wall Street,
New York, is afraid of Lincoln. They don't want their business disturbed
by secession or even by a hostile South. Cotton is that strong."
Douglas was full of fight and energy. He intended to canvass the entire
country. He was going into the South to point out the dangers of a
divided country. "They are terribly mad at me down there. But I have
never feared an audience yet. I intend to face them--and win them."
No Presidential nominee had ever made a speaking tour before. Lincoln
stayed quietly in Springfield. Seward made a speaking campaign,
traveling on a special train. At Springfield he stayed in his car and
did not show Lincoln the courtesy of calling upon him. Lincoln, without
standing on any pride, went to see Seward, edging his way through the
crowd to the car.
Douglas fought everywhere to the last. If in his Senatorial days and
before he had been complaisant to the slavocracy, the Charleston
convention would not have seceded from him. His course now in the
campaign silenced men like Hale and Seward who had nagged him for years
with their depreciations and suspicions. He went into Virginia and there
while speaking he was heckled by a Breckenridge follower. He was asked
if the Southern States would be justified in seceding if Lincoln should
be elected President. "No," thundered Douglas. "The election of a man
to the Presidency of the American people, in conformity to the
Constitution of the United States, would not justify any attempt at
dissolving this glorious confederacy."
"But if the Southern States secede upon the inauguration of Lincoln,
before he commits an overt act against their rights, would you advise or
vindicate resistance by force to their secession?" If Douglas had ever
prostituted his mind to the South, now was the time to do it again. But
this was his answer:
"I answer that it is the duty of the President of the United States and
all others in authority under him to enforce the laws of the United
States as passed by Congress and as the court expounds them. And I, as
in duty bound by my oath of fidelity to the Constitution, would do all
in my power to aid the government of the United States in maintaining
the supremacy of the laws against all resistance to them, come from what
quarter it might. The President should meet all attempts to break up the
Union as Old Hickory treated the nullifiers in 1832."
What of the right of revolution? Douglas conceded that, but insisted
that the election of Lincoln would not be "such a grievance as would
justify revolution, or secession."
I believed this too. Upon large ground if the South had the right to
hold the negroes in slavery, the North would have the right to hold the
South in the Union. If the South wanted to stuff fate into a small
pocket of logic and allow their narrow bigotry to get the better of
their reason, I was in favor of licking them in the name of sport and in
justification of Darwin's law of the survival of the fittest.
Douglas, in spite of threats against his life, went into the Far South
appealing to them to consider the dangers ahead. The Democratic party
was hopelessly divided. Some partisan newspapers were carrying two
tickets on the editorial page. Others were fighting Douglas bitterly;
others supporting with fierce energy Breckenridge of Kentucky. Many were
scheming with a view to the contingency that the election would be a tie
and that the House of Representatives, in making the choice, would
select Douglas.
Chicago was a whirlpool of excitement. In the middle summer Albert
Edward, Prince of Wales, traveling in America as Baron Renfrew, came to
Chicago on his way hunting in Illinois. The fate of the nation was a
passing play to him. While he was here he was a greater object of
interest than either Douglas or Lincoln. We heard that he was to stand
on the balcony of his hotel to watch the political parades of the
evening. Mr. Williams and I went forth to see the future King of
England.
The city was thronged with people. Bands were playing everywhere. The
Wide-awakes, a Republican organization, were out in force marching as
soldiers, dressed in glazed caps and capes, carrying torches. Mottoes
and transparencies were borne aloft by hundreds. "Free soil for free
men." "No more slave territories." "We do care whether slavery is voted
up or down." "Abraham Lincoln cares"--these were the banners. And
everywhere the banner "Protection to American Industries." Men carried
rails. The crowds cheered and roared. And Baron Renfrew looked on,
surrounded by his entourage and a few of the élite of Chicago. We stared
up into his face. Did he smile, approve? Was he greatly interested? If
America should divide it would be better for England. We saw him turn
and smile as he evidently spoke to one of his party.
Then a parade of Douglas men passed. They too carried banners. "Little
Giant." "Ever Readies." "Cuba Must Be Ours." "We want none but white men
at the helm." "We want a statesman, not a railsplitter for President."
"Free Trade"--these were the Douglas mottoes. We turned at last and made
our way through the crowd. Hawkers were selling railsplitter pins,
Honest Abe pins. The streets were a medley of noise, confusion; the
sidewalks were blocked. Drunken men, eager men pushed their way through.
Bands played. Far off a stump speaker's voice could be heard. All this
waste of sand and scrub oak which I had seen in 1833 was now covered
with buildings big and little. It was the battleground between two sons
of Illinois.
October came. I grew more and more apprehensive for Douglas' fate. I had
had a letter from Isabel gently foreshadowing her marriage. My boy was
not advancing in his work at school. Inexorable loneliness was
descending upon me.
Douglas came to Chicago on a speaking trip. He had been in Indianapolis
where his voice was so hoarse that he could scarcely be heard. Chicago
gave him a magnificent ovation. They saw the man now in all his
clearness of mind and strength of heart. He repudiated the schemes of
fusion.
"Every disunionist," he said, "is a Breckenridge man. As Democrats, we
can never fuse either with northern Abolitionists or southern bolters
and secessionists. Yes, my friends, I say to you what I said in North
Carolina and in the same words: I would hang every man higher than Haman
who would attempt to resist by force the execution of any provision of
the Constitution which our fathers made and bequeathed to us. You cannot
sever this Union unless you cut the heartstrings that bind father to
son, daughter to mother, and brother to sister in all our new states and
territories. I love my children, but I do not desire to see them survive
this Union."
With these words his tired and broken voice fell back into weakness from
the great melody and power of its habitual quality. His weary body had
risen into fresh strength for this utterance. His face assumed a great
majesty. Men and women alike wept to hear him speak so--wept for the
dark days ahead, wept for a great man failing in a struggle in which he
was yet holding to cherished ideals, now being blown and scattered by
the storm of the new era. They saw him surrounded on all sides by
enemies. The South hated him. The northern Democrats with southern
ideas hated him. The fanatics hated him. The Republican party which he
had stepped upon with giant contempt hated him. In eight years of
existence it had gathered to itself the contemptible factions that he
had satirized. They had united now in the supreme purpose of defeating
him. He was appealing for the same principles to which he had always
been devoted. He was defending the Union as he had defended it since the
days when I saw Jackson put his arm around him, and look with paternal
pride in his eyes. He knew the heart and the will of the South. He was
trying to tell it to the North. He felt that his own election would
prevent disunion. He asked people to believe that he wished to be
elected, not to gratify his personal ambition, but for the sake of the
Union.
It was all in vain. The avalanche, loosened years before by stray
adventurers building fires for their little kettles, and running
thoughtlessly over weakened attachments, was now moving down on Douglas
and the Union. The October election showed that he was defeated.
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana were carried by the Republicans in the
state elections. Douglas was speaking in the South. His life had been
threatened. An attempt was made to wreck his train. In Alabama he was
showered with missiles. Not a northern paper published these shameful
insults, which if published would have won him many friends in the
North. Amid dangers and discouragements he went on to the end.
He was in Mobile when the news of Lincoln's election reached him.
Before leaving Alabama he did what he could to prevent that state from
seceding.
Undismayed, he went on to New Orleans. There he addressed the business
men, pointing out to them that Lincoln would have a hostile Senate on
his hands if the South would only remain in the Union; that Lincoln
could carry out no abolition or unfriendly policy toward the South
without a Senate; that all of Lincoln's appointments would have to be
confirmed by the Senate. All of these things he said to dissuade the
South from secession. When they would not be persuaded, he tore the mask
from their faces and told them directly that Lincoln's election was only
a pretext for those who wished to set up a Southern Confederacy.
Lincoln was elected. But Douglas was not dishonored. He had achieved a
great personal triumph. He had polled 1,357,157 votes in the country
against Lincoln's 1,866,452. In Illinois he had polled 160,215 votes to
Lincoln's 172,161--in spite of New England and the Germans. He had
received 163,525 votes from the South against Lincoln's 26,430. But he
had lost to Breckenridge or Bell fourteen southern states. Protective
tariff Pennsylvania had given Lincoln 268,030 and Douglas 16,765.
Protective tariff Massachusetts had given Lincoln 106,533 and Douglas
34,372. Douglas had fought the South, he had fought against the
disadvantage of a divided party, he had fought the protective tariff,
yet Lincoln had polled but a little more than 500,000 votes more than
he had. No use to say that the populace does not understand questions of
government or that they cannot rise to high justices and rewards.
Douglas' personal triumph had been great, but his remarkable popular
support shrunk to an insignificant twelve votes in the electoral
college. He was vanquished and I was more deeply depressed than I had
ever been in my life. Lincoln was elected!
And the South seceded.