The Republicans had named May 16th, 1860, as the date and Chicago as the place for holding their second National Convention. They had been greatly encouraged by the vote for Fremont and Dayton, and, what had now become apparent as an irreconcilable division of the Democracy, encouraged them in the belief that they could elect their candidates. Those of the great West were especially enthusiastic, and had contributed freely to the erection of an immense “Wigwam,” capable of holding ten thousand people, at Chicago. All the Northern States were fully represented, and there were besides partial delegations from Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia, with occasional delegates from other Slave States, there being none, however, from the Gulf States. David Wilmot, of Penna., author of the Wilmot proviso, was made temporary chairman, and George Ashmun, of Mass., permanent President. No differences were excited by the report of the committee on platform, and the proceedings throughout were characterized by great harmony, though there was a somewhat sharp contest for the Presidential nomination. The prominent candidates were Wm. H. Seward, of New York; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, and Edward Bates, of Missouri. There were three ballots, Mr. Lincoln receiving in the last 354 out of 446 votes. Mr. Seward led the vote at the beginning, but he was strongly opposed by gentlemen in his own State as prominent as Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed, and his nomination was thought to be inexpedient. Lincoln’s successful debate with Douglas was still fresh in the minds of the delegates, and every addition to his vote so heightened the enthusiasm that the convention was finally carried “off its feet,” the delegations rapidly changing on the last ballot. Lincoln had been a known candidate but a month or two before, while Seward’s name had been everywhere canvassed, and where opposed in the Eastern and Middle States, it was mainly because of the belief that his views on slavery were too radical. He was more strongly favored by the Abolition branch of the party than any other candidate. When the news of his success was first conveyed to Mr. Lincoln he was siting in the office of the State Journal, at Springfield, which was connected by a telegraph wire with the Wigwam. On the close of the third ballot a despatch was handed Mr. Lincoln. He read it in silence, and then announcing the result said: “There is a little woman down at our house would like to hear this—I’ll go down and tell her,” and he started amid the shouts of personal admirers. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President with much unanimity, and the Chicago Convention closed its work in a single day.
The American Convention.
A “Constitutional Union,” really an American Convention, had met at Baltimore on the 9th of May. Twenty States were represented, and John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, were named for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. Their friends, though known to be less in number than either those of Douglas, Lincoln or Breckinridge, yet made a vigorous canvass in the hope that the election would be thrown into the House, and that there a compromise in the vote by States would naturally turn toward their candidates. The result of the great contest is elsewhere given in our Tabulated History of Politics.
THE PRINCIPLES INVOLVED.
Lincoln received large majorities in nearly all of the free States, his popular vote being 1,866,452; electoral vote, 180. Douglas was next in the popular estimate, receiving 1,375,157 votes, with but 12 electors. Breckinridge had 847,953 votes, with 76 electors; Bell, with 570,631 votes, had 39 electors.
The principles involved in the controversy are given at length in the Book of Platforms, and were briefly these: The Republican party asserted that slavery should not be extended to the territories; that it could exist only by virtue of local and positive law; that freedom was national; that slavery was morally wrong, and the nation should at least anticipate its gradual extinction. The Douglas wing of the Democratic party adhered to the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and claimed that in its exercise in the territories they were indifferent whether slavery was voted up or down. The Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party asserted both the moral and legal right to hold slaves, and to carry them to the territories, and that no power save the national constitution could prohibit or interfere with it outside of State lines. The Americans supporting Bell, adhered to their peculiar doctrines touching emigration and naturalization, but had abandoned, in most of the States, the secrecy and oaths of the Know-Nothing order. They were evasive and non-committal on the slavery question.
Preparing for Secession.
Secession, up to this time, had not been regarded as treasonable in all sections and at all times. As shown in many previous pages, it had been threatened by the Hartford Convention; certainly by some of the people of New England who opposed the war of 1812. Some of the more extreme Abolitionists had favored a division of the sections. The South, particularly the Gulf States, had encouraged a secret organization, known as the “Order of the Lone Star,” previous to and at the time of the annexation of Texas. One of its objects was to acquire Cuba, so as to extend slave territory. The Gulf States needed more slaves, and though the law made participancy in the slave trade piracy, many cargoes had been landed in parts of the Gulf without protest or prosecution, just prior to the election of 1860. Calhoun had threatened, thirty years before, nullification, and before that again, secession in the event of the passage of the Public Land Bill. Jefferson and Madison had indicated that doctrine of State Rights on which secession was based in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, facts which were daily discussed by the people of the South during this most exciting of all Presidential campaigns.
The leaders in the South had anticipated defeat at the election, and many of them made early preparations for the withdrawal of their States from the Union. Some of the more extreme anti-slavery men of the North, noting these preparations, for a time favored a plan of letting the South go in peace. South Carolina was the first to adopt a secession ordinance, and before it did so, Horace Greeley said in the New York Tribune:
“If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we can not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861.”