It was perhaps an instinct rather than any clear spirit of prophecy which drove the antislavery Democrats away from their affiliations and kept the Whigs, for the moment, substantially together. So far as the authorized utterances of their conventions were concerned, there was little to choose between them. They had both evaded any profession of faith in regard to slavery. The Democrats had rejected the resolution offered by Yancey committing them to the doctrine of "non-interference with the rights of property in the territories," and the Whigs had never allowed the Wilmot proviso to be voted upon. But nevertheless those Democrats who felt that the time had come to put a stop to the aggression of slavery, generally threw off their partisan allegiance, and the most ardent of the antislavery Whigs,—with some exceptions it is true, especially in Ohio and in Massachusetts, where the strength of the "Conscience Whigs," led by Sumner, the Adamses, and Henry Wilson, was important,—thought best to remain with their party. General Taylor was a Southerner and a slaveholder. In regard to all questions bearing upon slavery, he observed a discretion in the canvass which was almost ludicrous. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote (3) relocated to chapter end.] Yet there was a well-nigh universal impression among the antislavery Whigs that his administration would be under influences favorable to the restriction of slavery. Clay, Webster, and Seward, all of whom were agreed at that time against any extension of the area of that institution, supported him with more or less cordiality. Webster insisted upon it that the Whigs were themselves the best "Free-soilers," and for them to join the party called by that distinctive name would be merely putting Mr. Van Buren at the head of the Whig party. Mr. Seward, speaking for Taylor at Cleveland, took still stronger ground, declaring that slavery "must be abolished;" that "freedom and slavery are two antagonistic elements of society in America;" that "the party of freedom seeks complete and universal emancipation." No one then seems to have foreseen that the Whig party—then on the eve of a great victory—was so near its dissolution, and that the bolting Democrats and the faithful Whigs were alike engaged in laying the foundations of a party which was to glorify the latter half of the century with achievements of such colossal and enduring importance.
There was certainly no doubt or misgiving in the mind of Lincoln as to that future, which, if he could have foreseen it, would have presented so much of terrible fascination. He went into the campaign with exultant alacrity. He could not even wait for the adjournment of Congress to begin his stump-speaking. Following the bad example of the rest of his colleagues, he obtained the floor on the 27th of July, and made a long, brilliant, and humorous speech upon the merits of the two candidates before the people. As it is the only one of Lincoln's popular speeches of that period which has been preserved entire, it should be read by those who desire to understand the manner and spirit of the politics of 1848. Whatever faults of taste or of method may be found in it, considering it as a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, with no more propriety or pertinence than hundreds of others which have been made under like circumstances, it is an extremely able speech, and it is by itself enough to show how remarkably effective he must have been as a canvasser in the remoter districts of his State where means of intellectual excitement were rare and a political meeting was the best-known form of public entertainment.
He begins by making a clear, brief, and dignified defense of the position of Taylor upon the question of the proper use of the veto; he then avows with characteristic candor that he does not know what General Taylor will do as to slavery; he is himself "a Northern man, or rather a Western free-State man, with a constituency I believe to be, and with personal feelings I know to be, against the extension of slavery" (a definition in which his caution and his honesty are equally displayed), and he hopes General Taylor would not, if elected, do anything against its restriction; but he would vote for him in any case, as offering better guarantees than Mr. Cass. He then enters upon an analysis of the position of Cass and his party which is full of keen observation and political intelligence, and his speech goes on to its rollicking close with a constant succession of bright, witty, and striking passages in which the orator's own conviction and enjoyment of an assured success is not the least remarkable feature. A few weeks later Congress adjourned, and Lincoln, without returning home, entered upon the canvass in New England, [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote (4) relocated to chapter end.] and then going to Illinois, spoke night and day until the election. When the votes were counted, the extent of the defection among the Northern Whigs and Democrats who voted for Van Buren and among the Southern Democrats who had been beguiled by the epaulets of Taylor, was plainly seen. The bolting "Barnburners" had given New York to Taylor; the Free-Soil vote in Ohio, on the other hand, had thrown that State to Cass. Van Buren carried no electors, but his popular vote was larger in New York and Massachusetts than that of Cass. The entire popular vote (exclusive of South Carolina, which chose its electors by the Legislature) was for Taylor 1,360,752; for Cass 1,219,962; for Van Buren 291,342. Of the electors, Taylor had 163 and Cass 137.
[Relocated Footnote (1): The following extract from a letter of Lincoln to his partner, Mr. Herndon, who had criticized his anti-war votes, gives the names of some of the Whig soldiers who persisted in their faith throughout the war: "As to the Whig men who have participated in the war, so far as they have spoken to my hearing, they do is not hesitate to denounce as unjust the President's conduct the beginning of the war. They do not suppose that such denunciation is directed by undying hatred to them, as 'the Register' would have it believed, There are two such Whigs on this floor (Colonel Haskell and Major James). The former fought as a colonel by the side of Colonel Baker, at Cerro Gordo, and stands side by side with me in the vote that you seem dissatisfied with. The latter, the history of whose capture with Cassius Clay you well know, had not arrived here when that vote was given; but, as I understand, he stands ready to give just such a vote whenever an occasion shall present. Baker, too, who is now here, says the truth is undoubtedly that way; and whenever he shall speak out, he will say so. Colonel Doniphan, too, the favorite Whig of Missouri and who overran all northern Mexico, on his return home, in a public speech at St. Louis, condemned the Administration in relation to the war, if I remember. G. T. M. Davis, who has been through almost the whole war, declares in favor of Mr. Clay;" etc.]
[Relocated Footnote (2): To show how crude and vague were the ideas of even the most intelligent men in relation to this great empire, we give a few lines from the closing page of Edward D, Mansfield's "History of the Mexican War," published in 1849: "But will the greater part of this vast space ever be inhabited by any but the restless hunter and the wandering trapper? Two hundred thousand square miles of this territory, in New California, has been trod by the foot of no civilized being. No spy or pioneer or vagrant trapper has ever returned to report the character and scenery of that waste and lonely wilderness. Two hundred thousand square miles more are occupied with broken mountains and dreary wilds. But little remains then for civilization.">[
[Relocated Footnote (3): It is a tradition that a planter once wrote to him: "I have worked hard and been frugal all my life, and the results of my industry have mainly taken the form of slaves, of whom I own about a hundred. Before I vote for President I want to be sure that the candidate I support will not so act as to divest me of my property." To which the general, with a dexterity that would have done credit to a diplomatist, and would have proved exceedingly useful to Mr. Clay, responded, "Sir: I have the honor to inform you that I too have been all my life industrious and frugal, and that the fruits thereof are mainly invested in slaves, of whom I own three hundred. Yours, etc."—Horace Greeley, "American Conflict," Volume I., p. 193.]
[Relocated Footnote (4): Thurlow Weed says in his Autobiography, Vol. I., p. 603: "I had supposed, until we now met, that I had never seen Mr. Lincoln, having forgotten that in the fall of 1848, when he took the stump in New England, he called upon me at Albany, and that we went to see Mr. Fillmore, who was then the Whig candidate for Vice-President." The New York "Tribune," September 14, 1848, mentions Mr. Lincoln as addressing a great Whig meeting in Boston, September 12. The Boston "Atlas" refers to speeches made by him at Dorchester, September 16; at Chelsea September 17; by Lincoln and Seward at Boston, September 22, on which occasion the report says: "Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois, next came forward, and was received with great applause. He spoke about an hour and made a powerful and convincing speech which was cheered to the echo."
Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, Jr., in his recent memoir of the Hon. David Sears, says, the most brilliant of Mr. Lincoln's speeches in this campaign "was delivered at Worcester, September 13, 1848, when, after taking for his text Mr. Webster's remark that the nomination of Martin Van Buren for the Presidency by a professed antislavery party could fitly be regarded only as a trick or a joke, Mr. Lincoln proceeded to declare that of the three parties then asking the confidence of the country, the new one had less of principle than any other, adding, amid shouts of laughter, that the recently constructed elastic Free-Soil platform reminded him of nothing so much as the pair of trousers offered for sale by a Yankee peddler which were 'large enough for any man and small enough for any boy.'"
It is evident that he considered Van Buren, in Massachusetts at least, a candidate more to be feared than Cass, the regular Democratic nominee.]