Our Presidents and how we make them

by Alexander K. McClure

The only exhibition of weakness I ever saw in Lincoln was exhibited during what might be called the contest for his renomination. There was, in point of fact, no contest at all, as after all the efforts of the opposing leaders had been exhausted the Republican people rallied to his support and asserted their mastery. He was painfully impressed with the apprehension that he might be defeated in the convention, and on a number of occasions I heard him discuss the question with a degree of interest that was painful. Even after a majority of all the delegates to the convention had been positively instructed for him, and certainly two-thirds of the remainder were publicly pledged to his support, he could not dismiss the fears of his possible defeat.

I visited him several times within a month of the convention, in obedience to his telegrams, when he discussed only the political dangers which beset him. He told me that his name would go into history darkly shadowed by a fraternal war that he would be held responsible for inaugurating if he were unable to continue in office to conquer the Rebellion and restore the Union.

Lincoln was human, as are all men, and a more anxious candidate I have never known. The last time I conferred with him on the subject was within two weeks of the meeting of the convention, and I could hardly treat with respect his anxiety about his renomination. He had given close study to the election of delegates, and I called his attention to the fact that a decided majority were positively instructed for him, and that he certainly knew that a majority of the others could not be diverted from him. He had to admit that there seemed to be no plausible reason for doubting the result, but, with a merry twinkle of the eye, he said:

“Well, McClure, I don’t quite forget that I was nominated by a convention that was two-thirds for the other fellow.”

I had to admit that he had been nominated by a convention that was two-thirds for Seward, but no such conditions could arise as presented themselves in the Seward fight to swerve the convention from its purpose.

So anxious was he about the situation that he made the very unreasonable request of me to become a delegate-at-large from Pennsylvania when I had already been unanimously elected a delegate from my Congressional district. I vainly attempted to convince him that it mattered not whether I was a delegate-at-large or a district delegate, as my power to serve him would be just the same; but he persisted in urging me to go before the State convention with the ungracious request to elect me a delegate-at-large—a position that was sought as one of honor—when I was already a member of the delegation from my district.

The only possible explanation I could conceive was that, as Cameron was certain to be a delegate-at-large, he desired me to be one with Cameron, and thus have both the Cameron and Curtin wings of the party equally represented at the head of the delegation. Fortunately, political conditions enabled me to carry out his wish, and Cameron and I were elected on the 1st ballot by a nearly unanimous vote.

I never suspected Lincoln’s purpose in asking me to change my position as a delegate until three days before the meeting of the convention, when I went to Washington in obedience to his summons. He then asked me to vote for the nomination of Andrew Johnson for Vice-President. He had Cameron already committed to the nomination of Johnson as a War Democrat to succeed Hamlin, but he gave me no intimation of Cameron’s position. I was favorable to the renomination of Hamlin, but after hearing Mr. Lincoln’s reasons for the request he made I would have voted for Johnson in obedience to a sense of public duty, although Lincoln was not wrong in assuming that I was likely to vote for any candidate for Vice-President he specially desired. He was not opposed to Hamlin, but he knew that the success of the party depended upon bringing into the Republican fold a large body of War Democrats who had never become Republicans, such as Judge Holt, General Dix, General Butler, and Governor Johnson, and he wished to nationalize the Republican party.

But the conclusive reason why he desired the nomination of Johnson was that it would most effectually prevent the recognition of the Confederacy by England and France. That was the great peril in the last year of the war, and Lincoln believed that in no way could the success of the Government in the suppression of the Rebellion be so clearly presented to the world as by taking Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, who had filled every important position within the gift of his State, and elect him to the Vice-Presidency from a reorganized rebellious State in the heart of the Confederacy. It is needless to say that, notwithstanding my prejudice against Johnson, I agreed to support him; but Lincoln’s caution prevented him from giving me any intimation as to the attitude of Cameron, who was equally pledged to Lincoln in the Johnson cause. Cameron and I met at the convention in Baltimore on June 7 without either knowing the position of the other, and as our political relations were not of the confidential order, although our personal intercourse was always pleasant, it required some diplomacy for us to reach an understanding. Cameron had been committed to Hamlin, with whom he had served in the Senate, and was somewhat embarrassed, and he suggested that while he was friendly to Hamlin he did not believe that he could be nominated, to which I agreed. He then proposed that we should line up the two factions of the State in the delegation and cast a unanimous vote for Hamlin when the State was first called, and change it to a unanimous vote for Johnson when the roll-call ended, to which I readily assented; and with some effort we had a harmonious delegation on that line with the exception of Thaddeus Stevens, who sat beside me when I cast my vote for Johnson, and who with a grim smile said to me: “Can’t you find a candidate for Vice-President without going down into a d——d rebel province?” The vote of the State was, however, recorded unanimously for Johnson, and it was the like efforts of Lincoln in his very quiet and earnest way that made Andrew Johnson Vice-President and President.

The Republican National Convention met in Baltimore on the 7th of June, 1864, and the venerable Rev. Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, was temporary president and Ex-Governor William Dennison, of Ohio, permanent president. Every State outside of the Southern Confederacy, and some that were partially inside of it, were fully represented. There was no contest for President, as the nomination of Lincoln was conceded. He received the unanimous vote of every State on 1st ballot with the exception of the Missouri delegation, that was instructed for Grant, and that was promptly changed to Lincoln to make the vote unanimous. There was a considerable undercurrent in the convention that was not friendly to Lincoln, but so powerless that no attempt was made to assert it.