The credit of the nomination is claimed by many men, and by several delegations, but every such claim is wholly fictitious. Lincoln was chosen not by personal intrigue, but through political necessity. The Republican party was a purely defensive organization; the South had created the crisis which the new party was compelled to overcome. The ascendency of the free-States, not the personal fortunes of Seward, hung in the balance. Political victory at the ballot-box or a transformation of the institutions of government was the immediate alternative before the free-States.
Victory could be secured only by help of the electoral votes of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois. It was therefore a simple problem: What candidate could carry these States? None could answer this question so well as their own delegates, and these, when interrogated, still further reduced the problem by the reply that Seward certainly could not. These four States lay on the border land next to the South and to slavery. Institutions inevitably mold public sentiment; and a certain tenderness towards the "property" of neighbors and friends infected their people. They shrunk from the reproach of being "abolitionized." They would vote for a conservative Republican; but Seward and radicalism and "higher law" would bring them inevitable defeat.
N.Y. "Tribune," May 18, 1860.
Who, then, could carry these doubtful and pivotal States? This second branch of the question also found its ready answer. The contest in these States would be not against a Territorial slave code, but against "popular sovereignty "; not with Buchanan's candidate, but with Douglas; and for Douglas there was only a single antagonist, tried and true—Abraham Lincoln. Such, we may reasonably infer, was the substance of the discussion and argument which ran through the caucus-rooms of the delegates, day and night, during the 16th and 17th of May. Meanwhile the Seward men were not idle; having the large New York delegation to begin with, and counting the many positive committals from other States, their strength and organization seemed impregnable. The opposing delegations, each still nursing the chances of its own candidate, hesitated to give any positive promises to each other. At midnight of May 17, Horace Greeley,[3] ] one of Seward's strongest opponents, and perhaps better informed than any other single delegate, telegraphed his conclusion "that the opposition to Governor Seward cannot concentrate on any candidate, and that he will be nominated."
Chicago was already a city of a hundred thousand souls. Thirty to forty thousand visitors, full of life, hope, ambition, most of them from the progressive group of encircling North-western States, and strung to the highest tension of political excitement had come to attend the convention. Charleston had shown a great party in the ebbtide of disintegration, tainted by the spirit of disunion. Chicago exhibited a great party springing to life and power, every motive and force compelling coöperation and growth. The rush and spirit of the great city, and the enthusiasm and hope of its visitors, blended and reacted upon each other as if by laws of chemical affinity. Something of the freshness and sweep of the prairie winds exhilarated the delegates and animated the convention.
No building in the city of Chicago at that time contained a hall with sufficient room for the sittings of the great assemblage. A temporary frame structure, which the committee of arrangements christened "The Wigwam," was therefore designed and erected for this special use. It was said to be large enough to hold ten thousand persons, and whether or not that estimate was entirely accurate, a prodigious concourse certainly gathered each day within its walls.
The first day's session (May 16) demonstrated the successful adaptation of the structure to its uses. Participants and spectators alike were delighted with the ease of ingress and egress, the comfortable division of space, the perfection of its acoustic qualities. Every celebrity could be seen, every speech could be heard. The routine of organization, the choice of officers and committees, and the presentation of credentials were full of variety and zest. Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, as Chairman of the National Republican Committee, called the convention to order; and when he presented the historic name of David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, for temporary chairman, the faith of the audience in the judgment of the managers was already won. The report of the committee on organization in the afternoon made George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, a most skillful parliamentarian ready in decision and felicitous in his phrases, the permanent presiding officer. One thing was immediately and specially manifest: an overflowing heartiness and deep feeling pervaded the whole house. No need of a claque, no room for sham demonstration here! The galleries were as watchful and earnest as the platform. There was something genuine, elemental, uncontrollable in the moods and manifestations of the vast audience. Seats and standing-room were always packed in advance, and, as the delegates entered by their own separate doors, the crowd easily distinguished the chief actors. Blair, Giddings, Greeley, Evarts, Kelley, Wilmot, Schurz, and others were greeted with spontaneous applause, which, rising at some one point, grew and rolled from side to side and corner to corner of the immense building, brightening the eyes and quickening the breath of every inmate.[4] ]
With the second day's proceedings the interest of delegates and spectators was visibly increased, first by some sharp-shooting speeches about credentials, and secondly by the main event of the day—the report from the platform committee. Much difficulty was expected on this score, but a little time had smoothed the way with almost magical effect. The great outpouring of delegates and people, the self-evident success of the gathering, the harmonious, almost joyous, beginning of the deliberations in the first day's session, were more convincing than logic in solidifying the party. These were the premonitions of success; before such signs of victory all spirit of faction was fused into a generous glow of emulation.
The eager convention would have accepted a weak or defective platform; the committee, on the contrary, reported one framed with remarkable skill. It is only needful to recapitulate its chief points. It denounced disunion, Lecomptonism, the property theory, the dogma that the Constitution carries slavery to Territories, the reopening of the slave-trade, the popular sovereignty and non-intervention fallacies, and denied "the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States." It opposed any change in the naturalization laws. It recommended an adjustment of import duties to encourage the industrial interests of the whole country. It advocated the immediate admission of Kansas, free homesteads to actual settlers, river and harbor improvements of a national character, and a railroad to the Pacific Ocean. Bold on points of common agreement, it was unusually successful in avoiding points of controversy among its followers, or offering points for criticism to its enemies.
It is not surprising that Charleston and Chicago should furnish many striking contrasts. At the Charleston Convention, the principal personal incident was a long and frank speech from one Gaulden, a Savannah slave-trader, in advocacy of the reopening of the African slave-trade.[5] ] In the Chicago Convention, the exact and extreme opposite of such a theme created one of the most interesting of the debates. The platform had been read and received with tremendous cheers, when Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, who was everywhere eager to insist upon what he designated as the "primal truths" of the Declaration of Independence, moved to amend the first resolution by incorporating in it the phrase which announces the right of all men to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The convention was impatient to adopt the platform without change; several delegates urged objections, one of them pertinently observing that there were also many other truths enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. "Mr. President," said he, "I believe in the ten commandments, but I do not want them in a political platform." Mr. Giddings's amendment was voted down, and the anti-slavery veteran, feeling himself wounded in his most cherished philosophy, rose and walked out of the convention.