The result of the campaign of 1858 wrought more disaster to Lincoln's
finances than to his political prospects. The loss of over six months
from his business, and the expenses of the canvass, made a severe drain
on his personal income. He was anxious to get back to the law once more
and earn a little ready money. A letter written about this time to his
friend Norman B. Judd, Chairman of the Republican State Committee, will
serve to throw some light on the situation he found himself in. "I have
been on expenses so long, without earning anything," he says, "that I am
absolutely without money now for even household expenses. Still, if you
can put in $250 for me towards discharging the debt of the committee, I
will allow it when you and I settle the private matter between us. This,
with what I have already paid, with an outstanding note of mine, will
exceed my subscription of $500. This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary
expenses during the campaign, all of which, being added to my loss of
time and business, bears prettily heavily upon one no better off than I
am. But as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over-nice."
At the time this letter was written his property consisted of the house
and lot on which he lived, a few law books and some household furniture.
He owned a small tract of land in Iowa which yielded him nothing, and
the annual income from his law practice did not exceed $3,000; yet the
party's committee in Chicago were dunning their late standard-bearer,
who, besides the chagrin of his defeat, his own expenses, and the
sacrifice of his time, was asked to aid in meeting the general expenses
of the campaign. At this day one is a little surprised that some of the
generous and wealthy members of the party in Chicago or elsewhere did
not come forward and volunteer their aid. But they did not, and whether
Lincoln felt in his heart the injustice of this treatment or not, he
went straight ahead in his own path and said nothing about it.
Political business being off his hands, he now conceived the idea of
entering the lecture field. He began preparations in the usual way
by noting down ideas on stray pieces of paper, which found a lodgment
inside his hat, and finally brought forth in connected form a lecture on
"Inventions." He recounted the wonderful improvements in machinery, the
arts, and sciences. Now and then he indulged in a humorous paragraph,
and witticisms were freely sprinkled throughout the lecture. During
the winter he delivered it at several towns in the central part of the
State, but it was so commonplace, and met with such indifferent success,
that he soon dropped it altogether.* The effort met with the disapproval
of his friends, and he himself was filled with disgust.
* "As we were going to Danville court I read to Lincoln a
lecture by Bancroft on the wonderful progress of man,
delivered in the preceding November. Sometime later he told
us--Swett and me--that he had been thinking much on the
subject and believed he would write a lecture on 'Man and
His Progress.' Afterwards I read in a paper that he had come
to either Bloomington or Clinton to lecture and no one
turned out. The paper added, 'That doesn't look much like
his being President.' I once joked him about it; he said
good-naturedly, 'Don't; that plagues me.'"--Henry C.
Whitney, letter, Aug. 27, 1867, MS.
"Springfield, March 28, 1859.
"W. M. Morris, Esq.,
"Dear Sir:--Your kind note inviting me to deliver a lecture
at Galesburg is received. I regret to say I cannot do so
now; I must stick to the courts awhile. I read a sort of
lecture to three different audiences during the last month
and this; but I did so under circumstances which made it a
waste of no time whatever.
"Yours very truly,
"A. Lincoln."
If his address in 1852, over the death of Clay, proved that he was no
eulogist, then this last effort demonstrated that he was no lecturer.
Invitations to deliver the lecture--prompted no doubt by the
advertisement given him in the contest with Douglas--came in very
freely; but beyond the three attempts named, he declined them all.
"Press of business in the courts" afforded him a convenient excuse, and
he retired from the field.
During the fall of 1859 invitations to take part in the canvass came
from over half-a-dozen States where elections were to be held, Douglas,
fresh from the Senate, had gone to Ohio, and thither in September
Lincoln, in response to the demands of party friends everywhere,
followed.*
* "He returned to the city two years after with a fame as
wide as the continent, with the laurels of the Douglas
contest on his brow, and the Presidency in his grasp. He
returned, greeted with the thunder of cannon, the strains of
martial music, and the joyous plaudits of thousands of
citizens thronging the streets. He addressed a vast
concourse on Fifth Street Market; was entertained in
princely style at the Burnet House, and there received with
courtesy the foremost citizens come to greet this rising
star. With high hope and happy heart he left Cincinnati
after a three days' sojourn. But a perverse fortune attended
him and Cincinnati in their intercourse. Nine months after
Mr. Lincoln left us, after he had been nominated for the
Presidency, when he was tranquilly waiting in his cottage
home at Springfield the verdict of the people, his last
visit to Cincinnati and the good things he had had at the
Burnet House were rudely brought to his memory by a bill
presented to him from its proprietors. Before leaving the
hotel he had applied to the clerk for his bill; was told
that it was paid, or words to that effect. This the
committee had directed, but afterwards neglected its
payment. The proprietors shrewdly surmised that a letter to
the nominee for the Presidency would bring the money. The
only significance in this incident is in the letter it
brought from Mr. Lincoln, revealing his indignation at the
seeming imputation against his honor, and his greater
indignation at one item of the bill. 'As to wines, liquors,
and cigars, we had none, absolutely none. These last may
have been in Room 15 by order of committee, but I do not
recollect them at all.'--W. M. Dickson, "Harper's Magazine,"
June, 1884.
He delivered telling and impressive speeches at Cincinnati and
Columbus,* following Douglas at both places. He made such a favorable
impression among his Ohio friends that, after a glorious Republican
victory, the State committee asked the privilege of publishing his
speeches, along with those of Douglas, to be used and distributed as a
campaign document.
* Douglas had written a long and carefully prepared article
on "Popular Sovereignty in the Territories," which appeared
for the first time in the September (1859) number of
"Harper's Magazine." It went back some distance into the
history of the government, recounting the proceedings of the
earliest Congresses, and sought to mark out more clearly
than had heretofore been done "the dividing line between
Federal and Local authority." In a speech at Columbus, O,
Lincoln answered the "copy-right essay" categorically. After
alluding to the difference of position between himself and
Judge Douglas on the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, he
said: "Judge Douglas has had a good deal of trouble with
Popular Sovereignty. His explanations, explanatory of
explanations explained, are interminable. The most lengthy
and, as I suppose, the most maturely considered of his long
series of explanations is his great essay in "Harper's
Magazine."
This request he especially appreciated, because after some effort he
had failed to induce any publisher in Springfield to undertake the
enterprise,* thus proving anew that "a prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country." In December he visited Kansas, speaking
at Atchison, Troy, Leavenworth, and other towns near the border. His
speeches there served to extend his reputation still further westward.
Though his arguments were repetitions of the doctrine laid down in the
contest with Douglas, yet they were new to the majority of his Kansas**
hearers and were enthusiastically approved. By the close of the year he
was back again in the dingy law office in Springfield.
* A gentleman is still living, who at the time of the debate
between Lincoln and Douglas, was a book publisher in
Springfield. Lincoln had collected newspaper slips of all
the speeches made during the debate, and proposed to him
their publication in book form; but the man declined,
fearing there would be no demand for such a book.
Subsequently, when the speeches were gotten out in book form
in Ohio, Mr. Lincoln procured a copy and gave it to his
Springfield friend, writing on the fly-leaf, "Compliments of
A. Lincoln."
** How Mr. Lincoln stood on the questions of the hour, after
his defeat by Douglas, is clearly shown in a letter written
on the 14th of May, 1859, to a friend in Kansas, who had
forwarded him an invitation to attend a Republican
convention there. "You will probably adopt resolutions," he
writes, "in the nature of a platform. I think the only
danger will be the temptation to lower the Republican
standard in order to gather recruits. In my judgment such a
step would be a serious mistake, and 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.
This object surrendered, the organization would go to
pieces. I do not mean by this that no Southern man must be
placed upon our national ticket for 1860. There are many men
in the slave states for any one of whom I could cheerfully
vote, to be either President or Vice-president, provided he
would enable me to do so with safety to the Republican
cause, without lowering the Republican standard. This is the
indispensable condition of a union with us; it is idle to
talk of any other. Any other would be as fruitless to the
South as distasteful to the North, the whole ending in
common defeat. Let a union be attempted on the basis of
ignoring the slavery question, and magnifying other
questions which the people are just now caring about, and it
will result in gaining no single electoral vote in the
South, and losing every one in the North."--MS. letter to M.
W. Delahay.
The opening of the year 1860 found Mr. Lincoln's name freely mentioned
in connection with the Republican nomination for the Presidency. To be
classed with Seward, Chase, McLean, and other celebrities was enough to
stimulate any Illinois lawyer's pride; but in Mr. Lincoln's case, if it
had any such effect, he was most artful in concealing it. Now and then
some ardent friend, an editor, for example, would run his name up to the
mast-head, but in all cases he discouraged the attempt. "In regard to
the matter you spoke of," he answered one man who proposed his name,
"I beg that you will not give it a further mention. Seriously, I do not
think I am fit for the Presidency."*
* Letter, March 5, 1859, to Thomas J. Pickett.
The first effort in his behalf as a Presidential aspirant was the action
taken by his friends at a meeting held in the State House early in 1860,
in the rooms of O. M. Hatch, then Secretary of State. Besides Hatch
there were present Norman B. Judd, chairman of the Republican State
Committee, Ebenezer Peck, Jackson Grimshaw, and others of equal
prominence in the party. "We all expressed a personal preference for
Mr. Lincoln," relates one who was a participant in the meeting,* "as the
Illinois candidate for the Presidency, and asked him if his name might
be used at once in connection with the nomination and election. With his
characteristic modesty he doubted whether he could get the nomination
even if he wished it, and asked until the next morning to answer us
whether his name might be announced. Late the next day he authorized
us, if we thought proper to do so, to place him in the field." To the
question from Mr. Grimshaw whether, if the nomination for President
could not be obtained, he would accept the post of Vice-president,
he answered that he would not; that his name having been used for the
office of President, he would not permit it to be used for any other
office, however honorable it might be. This meeting was preliminary to
the Decatur convention, and was also the first concerted action in his
behalf on the part of his friends.
* Jackson Grimshaw. Letter, Quincy, Ill., April 28, 1866, MS.
In the preceding October he came rushing into the office one morning,
with the letter from New York City, inviting him to deliver a lecture
there, and asked my advice and that of other friends as to the subject
and character of his address. We all recommended a speech on the
political situation. Remembering his poor success as a lecturer himself,
he adopted our suggestions. He accepted the invitation of the New York
committee, at the same time notifying them that his speech would deal
entirely with political questions, and fixing a day late in February
as the most convenient time. Meanwhile he spent the intervening time
in careful preparation. He searched through the dusty volumes of
congressional proceedings in the State library, and dug deeply into
political history. He was painstaking and thorough in the study of
his subject, but when at last he left for New York we had many
misgivings--and he not a few himself--of his success in the great
metropolis. What effect the unpretentious Western lawyer would have
on the wealthy and fashionable society of the great city could only be
conjectured. A description of the meeting at Cooper Institute, a list
of the names of the prominent men and women present, or an account of
Lincoln in the delivery of the address would be needless repetitions of
well-known history.*
* On his return home Lincoln told me that for once in his
life he was greatly abashed over his personal appearance.
The new suit of clothes which he donned on his arrival in
New York were ill-fitting garments, and showed the creases
made while packed in the valise; and for a long time after
he began his speech and before he became "warmed up" he
imagined that the audience noticed the contrast between his
Western clothes and the neat-fitting suits of Mr. Bryant and
others who sat on the platform. The collar of his coat on
the right side had an unpleasant way of flying up whenever
he raised his arm to gesticulate. He imagined the audience
noticed that also. After the meeting closed, the newspaper
reporters called for slips of his speech. This amused him,
because he had no idea what slips were, and besides, didn't
suppose the newspapers cared to print his speech verbatim.
It only remains to say that his speech was devoid of all rhetorical
imagery, with a marked sup-pression of the pyrotechnics of stump
oratory. It was constructed with a view to accuracy of statement,
simplicity of language, and unity of thought. In some respects
like a lawyer's brief, it was logical, temperate in tone,
powerful--irresistibly driving conviction home to men's reasons and
their souls. No former effort in the line of speech-making had cost
Lincoln so much time and thought as this one. It is said by one of his
biographers, that those afterwards engaged in getting out the speech
as a campaign document were three weeks in verifying the statements and
finding the historical records referred to and consulted by him. This is
probably a little over-stated as to time, but unquestionably the work of
verification and reference, was in any event a very labored and extended
one.* The day following the Cooper Institute meeting, the leading New
York dailies published the speech in full, and made favorable editorial
mention of it and of the speaker as well. It was plain now that Lincoln
had captured the metropolis. From New York he travelled to New England
to visit his son Robert, who was attending college.
* Mr. Lincoln obtained most of the facts of his Cooper
Institute speech from Eliott's "Debates on the Federal
Constitution." There were six volumes, which he gave to me
when he went to Washington in 1861.
In answer to the many calls and invitations which showered on him, he
spoke at various places in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.
In all these places he not only left deep impressions of his ability,
but he convinced New England of his intense earnestness in the great
cause. The newspapers treated him with no little consideration. One
paper* characterized his speech as one of "great fairness," delivered
with "great apparent candor and wonderful interest. For the first half
hour his opponents would agree with every word he uttered; and from that
point he would lead them off little by little until it seemed as if he
had got them all into his fold. He is far from prepossessing in
personal appearance, and his Voice is disagreeable; and yet he wins your
attention from the start.. He indulges in no flowers of rhetoric, no
eloquent passages.... He displays more shrewdness, more knowledge of the
masses of mankind than any public speaker we have heard since Long Jim
Wilson left for California."
* Manchester Mirror.
Lincoln's return to Springfield after his dazzling success in the East
was the signal for earnest congratulations on the part of his friends.
Seward was the great man of the day, but Lincoln had demonstrated to the
satisfaction of his friends that he was tall enough and strong enough
to measure swords with the Auburn statesman. His triumph in New York and
New England had shown that the idea of a house divided against itself
induced as strong cooperation and hearty support in prevention of a
great wrong in the East as the famous "irrepressible conflict" attracted
warriors to Seward's standard in the Mississippi valley. It was apparent
now to Lincoln that the Presidential nomination was within his reach.
He began gradually to lose his interest in the law and to trim his
political sails at the same time. His recent success had stimulated his
self-confidence to unwonted proportions. He wrote to influential party
workers everywhere. I know the idea prevails that Lincoln sat still in
his chair in Springfield, and that one of those unlooked-for tides in
human affairs came along and cast the nomination into his lap; but any
man who has had experience in such things knows that great political
prizes are not obtained in that way. The truth is, Lincoln was as
vigilant as he was ambitious, and there is no denying the fact that he
understood the situation perfectly from the start. In the management
of his own interests he was obliged to rely almost entirely on his own
resources. He had no money with which to maintain a political bureau,
and he lacked any kind of personal organization whatever. Seward had
all these things, and, behind them all, a brilliant record in the United
States Senate with which to dazzle his followers. But with all his
prestige and experience the latter was no more adroit and no more
untiring in pursuit of his ambition than the man who had just delivered
the Cooper Institute speech. A letter written by Lincoln about this time
to a friend in Kansas serves to illustrate his methods, and measures the
extent of his ambition.
[Illustration: Letter to Kansas delegate 196]
The letter is dated March 10, and is now in my possession. For obvious
reasons I withhold the friend's name: "As to your kind wishes for
myself," writes Lincoln, "allow me to say I cannot enter the ring on
the money basis--first, because in the main it is wrong; and secondly, I
have not and cannot get the money. I say in the main the use of money is
wrong; but for certain objects in a political contest the use of some
is both right and indispensable. With me, as with yourself, this long
struggle has been one of great pecuniary loss. I now distinctly say
this: If you shall be appointed a delegate to Chicago I will furnish one
hundred dollars to bear the expenses of the trip." There is enough
in this letter to show that Lincoln was not only determined in his
political ambition, but intensely practical as well. His eye was
constantly fastened on Seward, who had already freely exercised the
rights of leadership in the party. All other competitors he dropped
out of the problem. In the middle of April he again writes his Kansas
friend: "Reaching home last night I found yours of the 7th. You know I
was recently in New England. Some of the acquaintances while there
write me since the election that the close vote in Connecticut and
the quasi-defeat in Rhode Island are a drawback upon the prospects of
Governor Seward; and Trumbull writes Dubois to the same effect. Do not
mention this as coming from me. Both these States are safe enough in
the fall." But, while Seward may have lost ground near his home, he
was acquiring strength in the West. He had invaded the very territory
Lincoln was intending to retain by virtue of his course in the contest
with Douglas. Lincoln's friend in Kansas, instead of securing that
delegation for him, had suffered the Seward men to outgeneral him, and
the prospects were by no means flattering. "I see by the dispatches,"
writes Lincoln, in a burst of surprise, "that, since you wrote, Kansas
has appointed delegates and instructed for Seward. Don't stir them up
to anger, but come along to the convention and I will do as I said about
expenses." Whether the friend ever accepted Lincoln's generous offer I
do not know,* but it may not be without interest to state that within
ten days after the latter's inauguration he appointed him to a Federal
office with comfortable salary attached, and even asked for his
preferences as to other contemplated appointments in his own State.**
* This case illustrates quite forcibly Lincoln's weakness in
dealing with individuals. This man I know had written
Lincoln, promising to bring the Kansas delegation to Chicago
for him if he would only pay his expenses. Lincoln was weak
enough to make the promise, and yet such was his faith in
the man that he appointed him to an important judicial
position and gave him great prominence in other ways. What
President or candidate for President would dare do such a
thing now?
** The following is in my possession:
"Executive Mansion, March 13,1861.
"------, Esq.
"My Dear Sir:
"You will start for Kansas before I see you again; and when
I saw you a moment this morning I forgot to ask you about
some of the Kansas appointments, which I intended to do. If
you care much about them you can write, as I think I shall
not make the appointments just yet.
"Yours in haste,
"A. Lincoln."
In the rapid, stirring scenes that crowd upon each other from this time
forward the individuality of Lincoln is easily lost sight of. He was so
thoroughly interwoven in the issues before the people of Illinois that
he had become a part of them. Among his colleagues at the bar he was no
longer looked upon as the Circuit-Court lawyer of earlier days. To them
it seemed as if the nation were about to lay its claim upon him. His
tall form enlarged, until, to use a figurative expression, he could no
longer pass through the door of our dingy office. Reference has already
been made to the envy of his rivals at the bar, and the jealousy of his
political contemporaries. Very few indeed were free from the degrading
passion; but it made no difference in Lincoln's treatment of them. He
was as generous and deferred to them as much as ever. The first public
movement by the Illinois people in his interest was the action of the
State convention, which met at Decatur on the 9th and 10th of May. It
was at this convention that Lincoln's friend and cousin, John Hanks,
brought in the two historic rails which both had made in the Sangamon
bottom in 1830, and which served the double purpose of electrifying the
Illinois people and kindling the fire of enthusiasm that was destined
to sweep over the nation. In the words of an ardent Lincoln delegate,
"These rails were to represent the issue in the coming contest between
labor free and labor slave; between democracy and aristocracy. Little
did I think," continues our jubilant and effusive friend, "of the mighty
consequences of this little incident; little did I think that the tall,
and angular, and bony rail-splitter who stood in girlish diffidence
bowing with awkward grace would fill the chair once filled by
Washington, and that his name would echo in chants of praise along the
corridor of all coming time." A week later the hosts were gathered for
the great convention in Chicago. David Davis had rented rooms in the
Tremont House and opened up "Lincoln's headquarters." I was not a
delegate, but belonged to the contingent which had Lincoln's interests
in charge. Judge Logan was the Springfield delegate, and to him Lincoln
had given a letter authorizing the withdrawal of his name whenever his
friends deemed such action necessary or proper. Davis was the active
man, and had the business management in charge. If any negotiations were
made, he made them. The convention was held in a monster building
called the Wigwam. No one who has ever attempted a description of it
has overdrawn its enthusiasm and exciting scenes. Amid all the din
and confusion, the curbstone contentions, the promiscuous wrangling
of delegates, the deafening roar of the assembled hosts, the contest
narrowed down to a neck-and-neck race between the brilliant statesman
of Auburn and the less pretentious, but manly rail-splitter from the
Sangamon bottoms. With the proceedings of the convention the world is
already well familiar. On the first ballot Seward led, but was closely
followed by Lincoln; on the second Lincoln gained amazingly; on the
third the race was an even one until the dramatic change by Carter,
of Ohio, when Lincoln, swinging loose, swept grandly to the front. The
cannon planted on the roof of the Wigwam belched forth a boom across the
Illinois prairies. The sound was taken up and reverberated from Maine to
California. With the nomination of Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, the
convention adjourned. The delegates--victorious and vanquished alike--
turned their steps homeward, and the great campaign of 1860 had begun.
The day before the nomination the editor of the Springfield _Journal_
arrived in Chicago with a copy of the Missouri _Democrat_, in which
Lincoln had marked three passages referring to Seward's position on the
slavery question. On the margin of the paper he had written in pencil,
"I agree with Seward in his 'Irrepressible Conflict,' but I do not
endorse his 'Higher Law' doctrine." Then he added in words underscored,
"Make no contracts that will bind me." This paper was brought into the
room where Davis, Judd, Logan, and I were gathered, and was read to us.
But Lincoln was down in Springfield, some distance away from Chicago,
and could therefore not appreciate the gravity of the situation; at
least so Davis argued, and, viewing it in that light, the latter went
ahead with his negotiations. What the consequences of these deals were
will appear later on. The new's of his nomination found Lincoln at
Springfield in the office of the _Journal_. Naturally enough he was
nervous, restless, and laboring under more or loss suppressed
excitement. He had been tossing ball--a pastime frequently indulged in
by the lawyers of that day, and had played a few games of billiards to
keep down, as another has expressed it "the unnatural excitement that
threatened to possess him." When the telegram containing the result of
the last ballot came in, although apparently calm and undisturbed, a
close observer could have detected in the compressed lip and serious
countenance evidences of deep and unusual emotion. As the balloting
progressed he had gone to the office of the _Journal_, and was sitting
in a large arm-chair there when the news of his nomination came. What a
line of scenes, stretching from the barren glade in Kentucky to the
jubilant and enthusiastic throng in the Wigwam at Chicago, must have
broken in upon his vision as he hastened from the newspaper office to
"tell a little woman down the street the news!" In the evening his
friends and neighbors called to congratulate him. He thanked them
feelingly and shook them each by the hand. A day later the committee
from the convention, with George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, at its head,
called, and delivered formal notice of his nomination. This meeting took
place at his house. His response was couched in polite and dignified
language, and many of the committee, who now met him for the first time,
departed with an improved impression of the new standard-bearer. A few
days later he wrote his official letter of acceptance, in which he
warmly endorsed the resolutions of the convention. His actions and
utterances so far had begun to dissipate the erroneous notion prevalent
in some of the more remote Eastern States, that he was more of a
backwoods boor than a gentleman; but with the arrival of the campaign in
dead earnest, people paid less attention to the candidates and more to
the great issues at stake. Briefly stated, the Republican platform was a
declaration that "the new dogma, that the Constitution carries slavery
into all the Territories, is a dangerous political heresy, revolutionary
in tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country; that
the normal condition of all the Territories is that of freedom; that
neither Congress, the territorial legislature, nor any individual can
give legal existence to slavery in any territory; that the opening of
the slave trade would be a crime against humanity." Resolutions favoring
a homestead law, river and harbor improvements, and the Pacific railroad
were also included in the platform. With these the Republicans, as a
lawyer would say, went to the country. The campaign which followed was
one with few parallels in American history. There was not only the
customary exultation and enthusiasm over candidates, but there was
patient listening and hard thinking among the masses. The slavery
question, it was felt, must soon be decided. Threats of disunion were
the texts of many a campaign speech in the South: in fact, as has since
been shown, a deep laid conspiracy to overthrow the Union was then
forming, and was only awaiting the election of a Republican President to
show its hideous head. The Democratic party was struggling under the
demoralizing effects of a split, in which even the Buchanan
administration had taken sides. Douglas, the nominee of one wing, in his
desperation had entered into the canvass himself, making speeches with
all the power and eloquence at his command. The Republicans, cheered
over the prospect, had joined hands with the Abolitionists, and both
were marching to victory under the inspiration of Lincoln's sentiment,
that "the further spread of slavery should be arrested, and it should be
placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief of its ultimate
extinction."
As the canvass advanced and waxed warm I tendered my services and made a
number of speeches in the central part of the State. I remember, in
the midst of a speech at Petersburg, and just as I was approaching an
oratorical climax, a man out of breath came rushing up to me and thrust
a message into my hand. I was somewhat frustrated and greatly alarmed,
fearing it might contain news of some accident in my family; but great
was my relief when I read it, which I did aloud. It was a message from
Lincoln, telling me to be be of good cheer, that Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
Indiana had gone Republican.*
* The handwriting of the note was a little tremulous,
showing that Lincoln was excited and nervous when he wrote
it. Following is a copy of the original MS.:
"Springfield, Ill., October 10, 1860.
"Dear William: I cannot give you details, but it is entirely
certain that Pennsylvania and Indiana have gone Republican
very largely. Pennsylvania 25,000, and Indiana 5000 to
10,000. Ohio of course is safe.
"Yours as ever,
"A. Lincoln."
These were then October States, and this was the first gun for the great
cause. It created so much demonstration, such a burst of enthusiasm and
confusion, that the crowd forgot they had any speaker; they ran yelling
and hurrahing out of the hall, and I never succeeded in finishing the
speech.
As soon as officially notified of his nomination* Mr. Lincoln moved his
headquarters from our office to a room in the State House building,
and there, with his secretary, John G. Nicolay, he spent the busy and
exciting days of his campaign. Of course he attended to no law business,
but still he loved to come to our office of evenings, and spend an hour
with a few choice friends in a friendly privacy which was denied him
at his public quarters. These were among the last meetings we had with
Lincoln as our friend and fellow at the bar; and they are also the most
delightful recollections any of us have retained of him.**
* Following is Lincoln's letter of acceptance:
"Springfield, III., June 23, 1860.
"Sir: I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention
over which you presided, of which I am formally apprised in
a letter of yourself and others, acting as a committee of
the convention for that purpose. The declaration of
principles which accompanies your letter meets my approval,
and it shall be my care not to violate it or disregard it in
any part. Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and
with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were
represented in the convention, to the rights of all the
states and territories and people of the nation, to the
inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union,
prosperity, and harmony of all, I am most happy to cooperate
for the practical success of the principles declared by the
convention.
"Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,
"Abraham Lincoln."
"Hon. George Ashmun."
** One of what Lincoln regarded as the remarkable features
of his canvass for President was the attitude of some of his
neighbors in Springfield. A poll of the voters had been made
in a little book and given to him. On running over the names
he found that the greater part of the clergy of the city--in
fact all but three--were against him. This depressed him
somewhat, and he called in Dr. Newton Bateman, who as
Superintendent of Public Instruction occupied the room
adjoining his own in the State House, and whom he
'habitually addressed as "Mr. Schoolmaster." He commented
bitterly on the attitude of the preachers and many of their
followers, who, pretending to be believers in the Bible and
God-fearing Christians, yet by their votes demonstrated that
they cared not whether slavery was voted up or down. "God
cares and humanity cares," he reflected, "and if they do not
they surely have not read their Bible aright."
At last the turmoil and excitement and fatigue of the campaign were
over: the enthusiastic political workers threw aside their campaign
uniforms, the boys blew out their torches, and the voter approached the
polls with his ballot. On the morning of election day I stepped in to
see Mr. Lincoln, and was surprised to learn that he did not intend to
cast his vote. I knew of course that he did so because of a feeling that
the candidate for a Presidential office ought not to vote for his own
electors; but when I suggested the plan of cutting off the Presidential
electors and voting for the State officers, he was struck with the idea,
and at last consented. His appearance at the polls, accompanied by Ward
Lamon, the lamented young Ellsworth, and myself, was the occasion of no
little surprise because of the general impression which prevailed that
he did not intend to vote. The crowd around the polls opened a gap as
the distinguished voter approached, and some even removed their hats
as he deposited his ticket and announced in a subdued voice his name,
"Abraham Lincoln."
The election was held on the 6th of November. The result showed a
popular vote of 1,857,610 for Lincoln; 1,291,574 for Douglas; 850,022
for Breckenridge; and 646,124 for Bell. In the electoral college Lincoln
received 180 votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12.* Mr.
Lincoln having now been elected, there remained, before taking up the
reins of government, the details of his departure from Springfield, and
the selection of a cabinet.
* Lincoln electors were chosen in seventeen of the free
States, as follows: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Iowa, California, Oregon; and in one State,--New Jersey,--
owing to a fusion between Democrats, Lincoln secured four
and Douglas three of the electors. Alabama, Arkansas,
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland,
Mississippi, North, and South Carolina, and Texas went for
Breckenridge; Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia for Bell;
while Douglas secured only one entire State--Missouri.