Abraham Lincoln, a History — Volume 02

by John G. Nicolay; John Hay

Lincoln to Frazer, Nov. 1, 1859. MS.

This spirit of fairness in politics is also shown by the following letter, written apparently in response to a suggestion that Cameron and Lincoln might form a popular Presidential tickets "Yours of the 24th ult. was forwarded to me from Chicago. It certainly is important to secure Pennsylvania for the Republicans in the next Presidential contest; and not unimportant to also secure Illinois. As to the ticket you name, I shall be heartily for it after it shall have been fairly nominated by a Republican National Convention; and I cannot be committed to it before. For my single self, I have enlisted for the permanent success of the Republican cause; and for this object I shall labor faithfully in the ranks, unless, as I think not probable, the judgment of the party shall assign me a different position. If the Republicans of the great State of Pennsylvania shall present Mr. Cameron as their candidate for the Presidency, such an indorsement of his fitness for the place could scarcely be deemed insufficient. Still, as I would not like the public to know, so I would not like myself to know, I had entered a combination with any man to the prejudice of all others whose friends respectively may consider them preferable."

Lincoln to Judd, Feb. 9, 1860. MS. Also printed in a pamphlet.

Not long after these letters, at some date near the middle of the winter 1859-60, the leaders of the Republican party of Illinois met at Springfield, the capital of the State, and in a more pressing and formal manner requested him to permit them to use his name as a Presidential candidate, more with the idea of securing his nomination for Vice-President than with any further expectation. To this he now consented. His own characteristic language, however, plainly reveals that he believed this would be useful to him in his future Senatorial aspirations solely, and that he built no hopes whatever on national preferment. A quarrel was going on among rival aspirants to the Illinois governorship, and Lincoln had written a letter to relieve a friend from the imputation of treachery to him in the recent Senatorial contest. This act of justice was now used to his disadvantage in the scramble for the Illinois Presidential delegates, and he wrote as follows: "I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me not to be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt some for me not to get the Illinois delegates. What I expected when I wrote the letter to Messrs. Dole and others is now happening. Your discomfited assailants are most bitter against me; and they will for revenge upon me, lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to the Seward egg in the North, and go far towards squeezing me out in the middle with nothing. Can you not help me a little in this matter in your end of the vineyard?"

The extra vigilance of his friends thus invoked, it turned out that the Illinois Republicans sent a delegation to the Chicago Convention full of personal devotion to Lincoln and composed of men of the highest standing, and of consummate political ability, and their enthusiastic efforts in his behalf among the delegations from other States contributed largely to the final result.

1860.

The political campaign had now so far taken shape that its elements and chances could be calculated with more than usual accuracy. The Charleston Convention had been disrupted on the 30th of April, and adjourned on May 3; the nomination of John Bell by the Constitutional Union party occurred on May 10. The Chicago Convention met on May 16; and while there was at that date great uncertainty as to whom the dissevered fragments of the Democratic party would finally nominate, little doubt existed that both the Douglas and Buchanan wings would have candidates in the field. With their opponents thus divided, the plain policy of the Republicans was to find a candidate on whom a thorough and hearty union of all the elements of the opposition could be secured. The party was constituted of somewhat heterogeneous material; a lingering antagonism remained between former Whigs and Democrats, protectionists and free-traders, foreign-born citizens and Know-Nothings. Only on a single point were all thus far agreed—opposition to the extension of slavery.

But little calculation was needed to show that at the November polls four doubtful States would decide the Presidential contest. Buchanan had been elected in 1856 by the vote of all the slave States (save Maryland), with the help of the free States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California, Change the first four or even the first three of these free-States to the Republican side, and they, with the Frémont States of 1856, would elect the President against all the others combined. The Congressional elections of 1858 demonstrated that such a change was possible. But besides this, Pennsylvania and Indiana were, like Ohio, known as "October States," because they held elections for State officers in that month; and they would at that early date give such an indication of sentiment as would forecast their November vote for President, and exert a powerful, perhaps a decisive, influence on the whole canvass. What candidate could most easily carry New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, became therefore the vital question among the Chicago delegates, and especially among the delegates from the four pivotal States themselves.

William H. Seward, of New York, was naturally the leading candidate. He had been longest in public life, and was highest in official rank. He had been Governor of the greatest State of the Union, and had nearly completed a second term of service in the United States Senate. Once a prominent Whig, his antecedents coincided with those of the bulk of the Republican party. His experience ran through two great agitations of the slavery question. He had taken important part in the Senate discussions which ended in the compromise measures of 1850, and in the new contest growing out of the Nebraska bill his voice had been heard in every debate. He was not only firm in his anti-slavery convictions, but decided in his utterances. Discussing the admission of California, he proclaimed the "higher law" doctrine in 1850;[1] ] reviewing Dred Scott and Lecompton, he announced the "irrepressible conflict" in 1858.[2] ] He had tact as well as talent; he was a consummate politician, as well as a profound statesman. Such a leader could not fail of a strong following, and his supporters came to Chicago in such numbers, and of such prominence and character, as seemed to make his nomination a foregone conclusion. The delegation from New York, headed by William M. Evarts, worked and voted throughout as a unit for him, not merely to carry out their constituents' wishes, but with, a personal zeal that omitted no exertion or sacrifice. They showed a want of tact, however, in carrying their street demonstrations for their favorite to excess; they crowded together at the Richmond House, making that hotel the Seward headquarters; with too much ostentation they marched every day to the convention with music and banners; and when mention was made of doubtful States, their more headlong members talked altogether too much of the campaign funds they intended to raise. All this occasioned a reaction—a certain mental protest among both Eastern and Western delegates against what have come to be characterized as "machine" methods.

The positive elements in Seward's character and career had developed, as always happens, strong antagonisms. One of the earliest symptoms among the delegates at Chicago was the existence of a strong undercurrent of opposition to his nomination. This opposition was as yet latent, and scattered here and there among many State delegations, but very intense, silently watching its opportunity, and ready to combine upon any of the other candidates. The opposition soon made a discovery: that of all the names mentioned, Lincoln's was the only one offering any chance for such a combination. It needed only the slightest comparison of notes to show that Dayton had no strength save the New Jersey vote; Chase little outside of the Ohio delegation; Cameron none but that of Pennsylvania, and that Bates had only his Missouri friends and a few in border slave-States, which could cast no electoral vote for the Republicans. The policy of the anti-Seward delegates was therefore quickly developed—to use Lincoln's popularity as a means to defeat Seward.