[CHAPTER VII.]
THE PEOPLE ASK LINCOLN TO BE THEIR PRESIDENT.
All this time A-bra-ham Lin-coln was go-ing on do-ing his work in law and help-ing as much as he could to fix in the minds of the peo-ple right i-de-as for the gui-dance of the na-tion.
Those who could un-der-stand the true needs of the hour, and saw how strong they were, felt that if they could place this man, who had ris-en up in the land to lead the for-ces to lib-er-ty, in a post where he could have full sway and do his best, they must name him for just that work, so, when the “Na-tion-al Re-pub-li-can Con-ven-tion” met at Chi-ca-go, May 16th, 1860, to pro-pose some one for their Chief, they named A-bra-ham Lin-coln, and said he was the man whom they want-ed to be the next Pres-i-dent of the U-ni-ted States.
Not on-ly was this a great thing for Lin-coln, but it was, al-so, a bless-ed tri-umph for the A-mer-i-can peo-ple. There were three oth-er men whose names were put up for the same post. These three men and their friends thought it a most un-wise act to name Lin-coln. But as time went on it was found that the e-lec-tion of A-bra-ham Lin-coln was the best thing that ev-er came to the coun-try.
At first, when Mr. Pick-ett, an ed-i-tor in Il-li-nois, wrote to Lin-coln, in A-pril, 1859, that he and his part-ner were off talk-ing to the Re-pub-li-can ed-i-tors of the state on the theme of hav-ing Lin-coln’s name come out at the same mo-ment from each pa-per, as a can-di-date for the Pres-i-den-cy, Lin-coln wrote to him in re-ply:
“I must, in truth, say that I do not think my-self fit for the Pres-i-den-cy.” Then he went on to say that he thanked his friends for their trust in him, but thought it would be best for the cause not to have such a step by all at the same time.
But some of Il-li-nois’ best men took the mat-ter se-ri-ous-ly in hand, and, at last, Lin-coln said they might “use his name.” Then his friends went to work, and in con-ven-tion it was found that A-bra-ham Lin-coln had not on-ly the whole vote of Il-li-nois to start with, but won votes on all sides, and did not make a foe of an-y ri-val.
The Dem-o-crat-ic par-ty had split in two on the slave theme. The ma-jor-i-ty of the Dem-o-crats who met at Bal-ti-more named Ste-phen A. Doug-las of Il-li-nois, the au-thor of the Kan-sas-Ne-bras-ka bill. Those Dem-o-crats who stuck close to the South put for-ward John C. Breck-in-ridge of Ken-tuc-ky. The “Con-sti-tu-tion-al Un-ion” par-ty, as it was called, which wished to make peace be-tween the an-gry sec-tions, named Bell of Ten-nes-see.
