There are two things which made the campaign of 1860 paradoxical, so to speak. One was that the nomination was equivalent to an election, unless unforeseen difficulties should arise. The other was that this election might be used by the extreme Southern democrats as an excuse for precipitating war. They threatened this.
After the nomination the committee of the convention duly called on Lincoln to give him the formal notification. This committee included some names that were at that time, and still more so later, widely known. Among them were three from Massachusetts: Ashmun, then Governor, and chairman of the Chicago convention, Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, and Boutwell. There were also Gideon Welles, Carl Schurz, Francis P. Blair, and W. M. Evarts. The chairman of this committee notified Lincoln in a brief speech, to which he responded with equal brevity. Even these few words impressed his hearers with a sense of dignity and manliness which they were only too glad to perceive. Said Mr. Boutwell: "Why, sir, they told me he was a rough diamond. Nothing could have been in better taste than that speech."
One who had opposed Lincoln in the convention said: "We might have done a more daring thing [than nominate him], but we certainly could not have done a better thing." Carl Schurz evidently shared this feeling.
Judge Kelly of Pennsylvania was a very tall man and was proud of the fact. During the brief ceremony he and Lincoln had been measuring each other with the eye. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the President- elect demanded:
"What's your height?"
"Six feet three. What is yours, Mr. Lincoln?"
"Six feet four."
"Then," said the judge, "Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for many years my heart has been aching for a President I could look up to, and I've found him at last in the land where we thought there were none but little giants."
The general feeling of the committee was that the convention had made no mistake. This feeling quickly spread throughout the entire party. Some of Seward's friends wanted him to run on an independent ticket. It is to his credit that he scouted the idea. The democrats, at least the opponents of Lincoln, were divided into three camps, The first was the regular party, headed by Douglas. The second was the bolting party of fire-eaters, who nominated Breckinridge. The third was the party that nominated Bell and Everett. This was wittily called the Kangaroo ticket, because the tail was the most important part. Lincoln's popular vote at the November election was about forty per cent, of the total. It was plain that if his supporters held together and his opponents were divided, he could readily get a plurality. There were attempts on the part of the opponents of Lincoln to run fusion tickets in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, so as to divert the electoral votes from him; but these came to nothing more than that New Jersey diverted three of her seven electoral votes.
A curious feature of the campaign was that all four candidates declared emphatically for the Union. Breckinridge, who was the candidate of the Southern disunionists, wrote; "The Constitution and the equality of the states, these are symbols of everlasting union." Lincoln himself could hardly have used stronger language. Some people were doubtless deceived by these protestations, but not Douglas. He declared: "I do not believe that every Breckinridge man is a disunionist, but I do believe that every disunionist in America is a Breckinridge man." During the period of nearly six months between nomination and election, Lincoln continued simple, patient, wise. He was gratified by the nomination. He was not elated, for he was not an ambitious man. On the contrary, he felt the burden of responsibility. He was a far-seeing statesman, and no man more distinctly realized the coming tragedy. He felt the call of duty, not to triumph but to sacrifice. This was the cause of his seriousness and gravity of demeanor.