A History of the Republican Party

by George Washington Platt

9. Resolved, That we are in favor of the speedy construction of the railroad to the Pacific coast.

10. Resolved, That the national faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept inviolate, and that for this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of taxation; and that it is the duty of every loyal state to sustain the credit and promote the use of the national currency.

11. Resolved, That we approve the position taken by the government, that the people of the United States can never regard with indifference the attempt of any European power to overthrow by force, or to supplant by fraud, the institutions of any republican government on the western continent; and that they will view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace and independence of their own country the efforts of any such power to obtain new footholds for monarchial governments, sustained by foreign military force, in near proximity to the United States.

After the adoption of the platform, Simon Cameron introduced a resolution declaring for Lincoln and Hamlin as the unanimous choice of the Convention for President and Vice-President; but this resolution was divided so that the Convention could vote separately on the two offices. On the first ballot Mr. Lincoln received the vote of every delegation except Missouri, which voted for Ulysses S. Grant, but changed immediately as soon as the ballot had been announced, and made Mr. Lincoln's nomination unanimous. The interest of the delegation and the spectators throughout the Convention had been centered on the nomination for Vice-President. A number of names were mentioned, the most prominent being Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, and Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York. Mr. Johnson was a War Democrat. The sentiment in the Convention was in favor of recognizing this element in the party, and Mr. Johnson was nominated on the first ballot; the vote as cast gave Johnson 200, Hamlin 150, Dickinson 108, and 61 scattering votes, but before the final result was announced many changes were made, and the final vote stood, Johnson 490, Dickinson 17, Hamlin 9.

[Illustration: From New York Herald, Saturday, April 15, 1865.]

The Democratic Convention did not meet until August 29th; George B. McClellan, of New Jersey, was nominated for President, and George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, for Vice-President. The platform called Mr. Lincoln's Administration "four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war," and demanded immediate efforts for cessation of hostilities and for peace. Gen. McClellan accepted the nomination, but repudiated the platform, saying, "I could not look in the faces of my gallant comrades of the Army and Navy and tell them that their labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain." The candidate was nobler than the party.

The President's homely expression, "It is not wise to swap horses while crossing a stream," was the basis of the great trend of political thought in the North, and there was little doubt of the result, although an animated campaign was conducted. The great military victories of the Union forces made the position of the President's opponents absurd. At the election on November 8, 1864, Lincoln and Johnson carried twenty-two States, receiving 212 of the total electoral vote of 233. McClellan and Pendleton carried three States, Delaware, Kentucky and New Jersey. The popular vote, including the Army vote (many States having made provision for taking the vote of the soldiers in the field), was, Lincoln 2,330,552, McClellan 1,835,985. Eleven States did not vote at this election.

The Government was now making rapid strides for the complete abolition of slavery. In June, 1864, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was repealed; in July the Coastwise Slave Trade was forever prohibited, and on January 31, 1865, the Joint Resolution proposing the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, passed the House.

On March 4, 1865, President Lincoln was inaugurated for the second time. The beautiful words closing his inaugural will live forever: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all Nations."

Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. On April 14th, the Stars and Stripes were again raised over Ft. Sumter, and the glad news swept over the North that the war was over. On the same evening the President was shot in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth, and died the next morning. "Now he belongs to the ages," said Stanton, at the death-bed. The death of the President meant that Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat, would be made President, and from the overwhelming shock of Mr. Lincoln's death the Republicans turned with misgiving and fear to the new Executive.