How we elected Lincoln

by Abram J. Dittenhoefer

To summarize the seven thousand words spoken by Mr. Lincoln on that great occasion would be a difficult task and could not be successfully attempted in these reminiscences. I will only state that his theme was “slavery as the fathers viewed it.” Its delivery occupied more than an hour, its entire purpose being to show that the fathers of the Republic merely tolerated slavery where it existed, since interference with it would be resisted by the South; moreover, recognition of the legality of slavery in those States had been the inducement offered to them to enter the Union.

Mr. Lincoln, however, indicated that he was unalterably and inflexibly opposed to the extension of slavery in territory in which it did not exist.

Mr. Lincoln began with a quotation from one of Senator Douglas’s speeches, in which the “Little Giant” asserted that the framers of the Constitution understood the slavery question as well as, or better than, their descendants. He brilliantly traced the origin and growth of democracy under the various forms that preceded the final adoption of the Constitution.

As it appeared to an abolitionist in principle, the speaker handled the slavery question somewhat cautiously, chiefly condemning the contemplated repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and opposing the extension of slavery into Territories and States where it did not exist. The appeal that he made to the reason and the common sense of the Southerner was forcible. He denied that the Republicans of the North were sectional, or that they blamed the present generation of the South for the existence of slavery. He went out of his way to condemn the John Brown raid, asserting that the Republican party had no sympathy with that foolhardy enterprise. He compared the John Brown raid to the previous outbreak at Southampton, Virginia, under the negro, Nat Turner, in which sixty white people, mostly women and children, were destroyed. He denounced the declaration of the Southern people that Northern anti-slavery men had instigated the John Brown incursion at Harper’s Ferry, and he showed that the trial of John Brown at Charlestown proved the allegation to be utterly fallacious.

The sentences near the close of Mr. Lincoln’s address will serve as the keynote upon which he subsequently based his candidacy for the Presidency in opposition to the extremely radical anti-slavery views of Horace Greeley and William H. Seward.

“Wrong as we think slavery,” said Lincoln, “we can 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, allow it to spread in the national Territories and to overrun us here in these free States? Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

The reception of these closing words by former Whigs and partially convinced Republicans who were in the audience can hardly be described as enthusiastic. Many of these men left the auditorium that night, as I did, in a seriously thoughtful mood.

Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln was congratulated by many upon the “boldness” of his views. And, indeed, they seemed radical at a time when nearly every prominent statesman of the country was “trimming” on the slavery question. The great Daniel Webster had ruined his political career some years previously by trying to be “all things to all men” politically.

When I called at Mr. Lincoln’s hotel the following morning, I found Mr. Lincoln alone. The shouts of approbation of the previous night were still ringing in my ears, but the figure of the awkward Illinoisan suggested nothing in the way of public enthusiasm or personal distinction. He then and there appeared as a plain, unpretentious man. I ventured to congratulate him upon the success of his speech, and his face brightened. “I am not sure that I made a success,” he said, diffidently.

During the remainder of the brief time I was with Mr. Lincoln in his hotel, together with two members of the Republican committee, there was only a general conversation about the Douglas-Lincoln debates, and the intense anti-slavery agitation prevailing in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories and in Illinois.