Lincoln's great skill and wisdom in his debate with Douglas turned
the eyes of the whole country upon him; and the force and logic of
his Cooper Institute speech convinced every one that in him they had
discovered a new national leader. He began to be mentioned as a possible
candidate for President in the election which was to take place that
fall to choose a successor to President Buchanan. Indeed, quite a year
earlier, an editor in Illinois had written to him asking permission to
announce him as a candidate in his newspaper. At that time Lincoln had
refused, thanking him for the compliment, but adding modestly: "I must
in candor say that I do not think myself fit for the Presidency."
About Christmas time, 1859, however, a number of his stanchest Illinois
friends urged him to let them use his name, and he consented, not so
much in the hope of being chosen, as of perhaps receiving the nomination
for Vice-President, or at least of making a show of strength that would
aid him at some future time to become senator. The man most talked
about as the probable Republican candidate for President was William H.
Seward, who was United States senator from New York, and had also been
governor of that State.
The political unrest continued. Slavery was still the most absorbing
topic, and it was upon their stand for or against slavery that all the
Presidential candidates were chosen. The pretensions and demands of the
Southern leaders had by this time passed into threats. They declared
roundly that they would take their States out of the Union if slavery
were not quickly made lawful all over the country, or in case a "Black
Republican" President should be elected. The Democrats, unable to agree
among themselves, split into two sections, the Northerners nominating
Stephen A. Douglas for President, while delegates who had come to their
National Convention from what were called the Cotton States chose John
C. Breckinridge. A few men who had belonged to the old Whig party, but
felt themselves unable to join the Republicans or either faction of the
Democrats, met elsewhere and nominated John Bell.
This breaking up of their political enemies into three distinct camps
greatly cheered the Republicans, and when their National Convention came
together in Chicago on May 16, 1860, its members were filled with the
most eager enthusiasm. Its meetings were held in a huge temporary wooden
building called the Wigwam, so large that 10,000 people could easily
assemble in it to watch the proceedings. Few conventions have shown such
depth of feeling. Not only the delegates on the central platform, but
even the spectators seemed impressed with the fact that they were taking
part in a great historical event. The first two days were taken up
in seating delegates, adopting a "platform" or statement of party
principles, and in other necessary routine matters. On the third day,
however, it was certain that balloting would begin, and crowds hurried
to the Wigwam in a fever of curiosity. The New York men, sure that
Seward would be the choice of the convention, marched there in a body,
with music and banners. The friends of Lincoln arrived before them, and
while not making so much noise or show, were doing good work for their
favorite. The long nominating speeches of later years had not then come
into fashion. "I take the liberty," simply said Mr. Evarts of New York,
"to name as a candidate to be nominated by this convention for the
office of President of the United States, William H. Seward," and at Mr.
Seward's name a burst of applause broke forth, so long and loud that
it seemed fairly to shake the great building. Mr. Judd, of Illinois,
performed the same office of friendship for Mr. Lincoln, and the
tremendous cheering that rose from the throats of his friends echoed
and dashed itself against the sides of the Wigwam, died down, and began
anew, until the noise that had been made by Seward's admirers dwindled
to comparative feebleness. Again and again these contests of lungs
and enthusiasm were repeated as other names were presented to the
convention.
At last the voting began. Two names stood out beyond all the rest on the
very first ballot--Seward's and Lincoln's. The second ballot showed that
Seward had lost votes while Lincoln had gained them. The third ballot
was begun in almost painful suspense, delegates and spectators keeping
count upon their tally-sheets with nervous fingers. It was found that
Lincoln had gained still more, and now only needed one and a half votes
to receive the nomination. Suddenly the Wigwam became as still as a
church. Everybody leaned forward to see who would break the spell. A man
sprang upon a chair and reported a change of four votes to Lincoln. Then
a teller shouted a name toward the skylight, and the boom of a cannon
from the roof announced the nomination and started the cheering down the
long Chicago streets; while inside delegation after delegation changed
its votes to the victor in a whirlwind of hurrahs. That same afternoon
the convention finished its labors by nominating Hannibal Hamlin
of Maine for Vice-President, and adjourned--the delegates, speeding
homeward on the night trains, realizing by the bonfires and cheering
crowds at every little station that a memorable Presidential campaign
was already begun.
During this campaign there were, then, four Presidential candidates in
the field. In the order of strength shown at the election they were:
1. The Republican party, whose "platform," or statement of party
principles, declared that slavery was wrong, and that its further spread
should be prevented. Its candidates were Abraham Lincoln of Illinois for
President, and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Vice-President.
2. The Douglas wing of the Democratic party, which declared that it did
not pretend to decide whether slavery was right or wrong, and proposed
to allow the people of each State and Territory to choose for themselves
whether they would or would not have it. Its candidates were Stephen A.
Douglas of Illinois for President, and Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia
for Vice-President.
3. The Buchanan wing of the Democratic party, which declared that
slavery was right, and whose policy was to extend it, and to make new
slave States. Its candidates were John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for
President, and Joseph Lane of Oregon for Vice-President.
4. The Constitutional Union party, which ignored slavery in its
platform, declaring that it recognized no political principles other
than "the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and the
enforcement of the laws." Its candidates were John Bell of Tennessee for
President, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for Vice-President.
In enthusiasm the Republicans quickly took the lead. "Wide Awake" clubs
of young men, wearing caps and capes of glazed oilcloth to protect their
clothing from the dripping oil of their torches, gathered in torchlight
processions miles in length. Fence rails, supposed to have been made by
Lincoln in his youth, were set up in party headquarters and trimmed
with flowers and lighted tapers. Lincoln was called the "Rail-splitter
Candidate," and this telling name, added to the equally telling "Honest
Old Abe," by which he had long been known in Illinois, furnished country
and city campaign orators with a powerful appeal to the sympathy and
trust of the working-people of the United States. Men and women read in
newspaper and pamphlet biographies the story of his humble beginnings:
how he had risen by simple, earnest work and native genius, first to
fame and leadership in his own State, and then to fame and leadership
in the nation; and these titles quickly grew to be much more than mere
party nicknames--to stand for a faith and trust destined to play no
small part in the history of the next few years.
After the nominations were made Douglas went on a tour of speech-making
through the South. Lincoln, on the contrary, stayed quietly at home in
Springfield. His personal habits and surroundings varied little during
the whole of this campaign summer. Naturally he gave up active law
practice, leaving his office in charge of his partner, William H.
Herndon. He spent the time during the usual business hours of each day
in the governor's room of the State-house at Springfield, attended only
by his private secretary, Mr. Nicolay. Friends and strangers alike were
able to visit him freely and without ceremony, and few went away without
being impressed by the sincere frankness of his manner and conversation.
All sorts of people came to see him: those from far-away States, East
and West, as well as those from nearer home. Politicians came to ask
him for future favors, and many whose only motives were friendliness or
curiosity called to express their good wishes and take the Republican
candidate by the hand.
He wrote no public letters, and he made no speeches beyond a few words
of thanks and greeting to passing street parades. Even the strictly
private letters in which he gave his advice on points in the campaign
were not more than a dozen in number; but all through the long summer,
while welcoming his throngs of visitors, listening to the tales of old
settlers, making friends of strangers, and binding old friends closer
by his ready sympathy, Mr. Lincoln watched political developments very
closely, not merely to note the progress of his own chances, but with
an anxious view to the future in case he should be elected. Beyond
the ever-changing circle of friendly faces near him he saw the growing
unrest and anger of the South, and doubtless felt the uncertainty of
many good people in the North, who questioned the power of this untried
Western man to guide the country through the coming perils.
Never over-confident of his own powers, his mind must at times have
been full of misgivings; but it was only on the night of the election,
November 6, 1860, when, sitting alone with the operators in the little
telegraph-office at Springfield, he read the messages of Republican
victory that fell from the wires until convinced of his election, that
the overwhelming, almost crushing weight of his coming duties and
responsibilities fell upon him. In that hour, grappling resolutely and
alone with the problem before him, he completed what was really the
first act of his Presidency--the choice of his cabinet, of the men who
were to aid him. People who doubted the will or the wisdom of their
Rail-splitter Candidate need have had no fear. A weak man would have
chosen this little band of counselors--the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of the Treasury, and the half-dozen others who were to stand
closest to him and to be at the head of the great departments of the
government--from among his personal friends. A man uncertain of his own
power would have taken care that no other man of strong nature with a
great following of his own should be there to dispute his authority.
Lincoln did the very opposite. He had a sincere belief in public
opinion, and a deep respect for the popular will. In this case he felt
that no men represented that popular will so truly as those whose names
had been considered by the Republican National Convention in its choice
of a candidate for President. So, instead of gathering about him his
friends, he selected his most powerful rivals in the Republican party.
William H. Seward, of New York, was to be his Secretary of State; Salmon
P. Chase, of Ohio, his Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of
Pennsylvania, his Secretary of War; Edward Bates, of Missouri, his
Attorney-General. The names of all of these men had been before the
Convention. Each one had hoped to be President in his stead. For the
other three members of his Cabinet he had to look elsewhere. Gideon
Welles, of Connecticut, for Secretary of the Navy; Montgomery Blair, of
Maryland, for Postmaster-General; and Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, for
Secretary of the Interior, were finally chosen. When people complained,
as they sometimes did, that by this arrangement the cabinet consisted of
four men who had been Democrats in the old days, and only three who had
been Whigs, Lincoln smiled his wise, humorous smile and answered that he
himself had been a Whig, and would always be there to make matters even.
It is not likely that this exact list was in his mind on the night of
the November election; but the principal names in it most certainly
were. To some of these gentlemen he offered their appointments by
letter. Others he asked to visit him in Springfield to talk the matter
over. Much delay and some misunderstanding occurred before the list was
finally completed: but when he sent it to the Senate, on the day after
his inauguration, it was practically the one he had in his mind from the
beginning.
A President is elected by popular vote early in November, but he is not
inaugurated until the following fourth of March. Until the day of his
inauguration, when he takes the oath of office and begins to discharge
his duties, he is not only not President--he has no more power in the
affairs of the Government than the humblest private citizen. It is easy
to imagine the anxieties and misgivings that beset Mr. Lincoln during
the four long months that lay between his election and his inauguration.
True to their threats never to endure the rule of a "Black Republican"
President, the Cotton States one after the other withdrew their senators
and representatives from Congress, passed what they called "Ordinances
of Secession," and declared themselves to be no longer a part of the
United States. One after another, too, army and navy officers stationed
in the Southern States gave up to the Southern leaders in this movement
the forts, navy-yards, arsenals, mints, ships, and other government
property under their charge. President Buchanan, in whose hands alone
rested the power to punish these traitors and avenge their insults to
the government he had sworn to protect and defend, showed no disposition
to do so; and Lincoln, looking on with a heavy heart, was unable
to interfere in any way. No matter how anxiously he might watch the
developments at Washington or in the Cotton States, no matter what
appeals might be made to him, no action of any kind was possible on his
part.
The only bit of cheer that came to him and other Union men during this
anxious season of waiting, was in the conduct of Major Robert Anderson
at Charleston Harbor, who, instead of following the example of other
officers who were proving unfaithful, boldly defied the Southern
"secessionists," and moving his little handful of soldiers into the
harbor fort best fitted for defense, prepared to hold out against them
until help could reach him from Washington.
In February the leaders of the Southern people met at Montgomery,
Alabama, adopted a Constitution, and set up a government which they
called the Confederate States of America, electing Jefferson Davis,
of Mississippi, President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia,
Vice-President. Stephens was the "little, slim pale-faced consumptive
man" whose speech in Congress had won Lincoln's admiration years before.
Davis had been the child who began his schooling so near to Lincoln in
Kentucky. He had had a far different career. Good fortune had carried
him to West Point, into the Mexican War, into the cabinet of President
Franklin Pierce, and twice into the Senate. He had had money, high
office, the best education his country could give him--everything, it
seemed, that had been denied to Lincoln. Now the two men were the
chosen heads of two great opposing factions, one bent on destroying the
government that had treated him so kindly; the other, for whom it had
done so little, willing to lay down his life in its defense.
It must not be supposed that Lincoln remained idle during these four
months of waiting. Besides completing his cabinet, and receiving his
many visitors, he devoted himself to writing his inaugural address,
withdrawing himself for some hours each day to a quiet room over the
store of his brother-in-law, where he could think and write undisturbed.
The newspaper correspondents who had gathered at Springfield, though
alert for every item of news, and especially anxious for a sight of his
inaugural address, seeing him every day as usual, got not the slightest
hint of what he was doing.
Mr. Lincoln started on his journey to Washington on February 11,
1861 two days after Jefferson Davis had been elected President of the
Confederate States of America. He went on a special train, accompanied
by Mrs. Lincoln and their three children, his two private secretaries,
and about a dozen personal friends. Mr. Seward had suggested that
because of the unsettled condition of public affairs it would be better
for the President-elect to come a week earlier; but Mr. Lincoln allowed
himself only time comfortably to fill the engagements he had made to
visit the State capitals and principal cities that lay on his way, to
which he had been invited by State and town officials, regardless of
party. The morning on which he left Springfield was dismal and stormy,
but fully a thousand of his friends and neighbors assembled to bid him
farewell. The weather seemed to add to the gloom and depression of their
spirits, and the leave-taking was one of subdued anxiety, almost of
solemnity. Mr. Lincoln took his stand in the waiting-room while his
friends filed past him, often merely pressing his hand in silent
emotion. The arrival of the rushing train broke in upon this ceremony,
and the crowd closed about the car into which the President-elect and
his party made their way. Just as they were starting, when the conductor
had his hand upon the bell-rope, Mr. Lincoln stepped out upon the front
platform and made the following brief and pathetic address. It was the
last time his voice was to be heard in the city which had so long been
his home:
"My Friends: No 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, and 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 who ever
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."
The conductor gave the signal, the train rolled slowly out of the
station, and the journey to Washington was begun. It was a remarkable
progress. At almost every station, even the smallest, crowds had
gathered 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 crowds swelled to thousands, and in the great cities to almost
unmanageable throngs. Everywhere there were calls for Mr. Lincoln, and
if he showed himself; for a speech. Whenever there was time, he would
go to the rear platform of the car and bow as the train moved away, or
utter a few words of thanks and greeting. At the capitals of Indiana,
Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and in the cities of
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, and Philadelphia, halts of
one or two days were made, the time being filled with formal visits and
addresses to each house of the legislature, street processions, large
evening receptions, and other ceremonies.
Party foes as well as party friends made up these expectant crowds.
Every eye was eager, every ear strained, to get some hint of the
thoughts and purposes of the man who was to be the guide and head of the
nation in the crisis that every one now knew to be upon the country, but
the course and end of which the wisest could not foresee. In spite of
all the cheers and the enthusiasm, there was also an under-current of
anxiety for his personal safety, for the South had openly boasted that
Lincoln would never live to be inaugurated President. He himself paid no
heed to such warnings; but the railroad officials, and others who were
responsible for his journey, had detectives on watch at different points
to report any suspicious happenings. Nothing occurred to change the
program already agreed upon until the party reached Philadelphia; but
there Mr. Lincoln was met by Frederick W. Seward, the son of his future
Secretary of State, with an important message from his father. A
plot had been discovered to do violence to, and perhaps kill, the
President-elect as he passed through the city of Baltimore. Mr. Seward
and General Scott, the venerable hero of the Mexican War, who was now at
the head of the army, begged him to run no risk, but to alter his plans
so that a portion of his party might pass through Baltimore by a night
train without previous notice. The seriousness of the warning was
doubled by the fact that Mr. Lincoln had just been told of a similar,
if not exactly the same, danger, by a Chicago detective employed in
Baltimore by one of the great railroad companies. Two such warnings,
coming from entirely different sources, could not be disregarded;
for however much Mr. Lincoln might dislike to change his plans for so
shadowy a danger, his duty to the people who had elected him forbade
his running any unnecessary risk. Accordingly, after fulfilling all
his engagements in Philadelphia and Harrisburg on February 22, he and a
single companion took a night train, passed quietly through Baltimore,
and arrived in Washington about daylight on the morning of February 23.
This action called forth much talk, ranging from the highest praise to
ridicule and blame. A reckless newspaper reporter telegraphed all over
the country the absurd story that he had traveled disguised in a Scotch
cap and a long military cloak. There was, of course, not a word of truth
in the absurd tale. The rest of the party followed Mr. Lincoln at
the time originally planned. They saw great crowds in the streets of
Baltimore, but there was now no occasion for violence.
In the week that passed between his arrival and the day of his
inauguration Mr. Lincoln exchanged the customary visits of ceremony with
President Buchanan, his cabinet, the Supreme Court, the two houses of
Congress, and other dignitaries.
Careful preparations for the inauguration had been made under the
personal direction of General Scott, who held the small military force
in the city ready instantly to suppress any attempt to disturb the peace
and quiet of the day.
On the morning of the fourth of March President Buchanan and Citizen
Lincoln, the outgoing and incoming heads of the government, rode side by
side in a carriage from the Executive Mansion, or White House, as it
is more commonly called, to the Capitol, escorted by an imposing
procession; and at noon a great throng of people heard Mr. Lincoln read
his inaugural address as he stood on the east portico of the Capitol,
surrounded by all the high officials of the government. Senator Douglas,
his unsuccessful rival, standing not an arm's length away from him,
courteously held his hat during the ceremony. A cheer greeted him as he
finished his address. Then the Chief Justice arose, the clerk opened his
Bible, and Mr. Lincoln, laying his hand upon the book, pronounced the
oath:
"I, Abraham Lincoln, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute
the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of
my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United
States."
Amid the thundering of cannon and the applause of all the spectators,
President Lincoln and Citizen Buchanan again entered their carriage and
drove back from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion, on the threshold
of which Mr. Buchanan, warmly shaking the hand of his successor,
expressed his wishes for the personal happiness of the new President,
and for the national peace and prosperity.