What was the answer? Lincoln, appealing to what he called his “ancient faith,” declared, “Let no one be deceived. The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit of Nebraska, are utter antagonisms; and the former is being rapidly displaced by the latter.” He believed America was witnessing a march backward from the moral values of the Declaration of Independence.
Then he employed biblical imagery to ressurect the truth of the Declaration of Independence. He issued a call for repentance in the highly evocative, apocalyptic imagery of the book of Revelation where, in the context of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, John the Elder described how the robes of the Christian martyrs had been washed and made white, the symbol for purity. “Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust,” Lincoln said. “Let us repurify it. Let us turn slavery from its claims of ‘moral right,’ back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of ‘necessity.’ ” Just as the writer of the book of Revelation called people to return to their first faith, Lincoln called for a return to the first faith of the founders. “Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices and policy, which harmonize with it.”
For Lincoln’s audiences, the meaning of his argument would not necessarily have been understood. Before 1854, Lincoln had appealed to the Declaration of Independence only twice in his public remarks, first in the speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum in 1838, and then in his eulogy for Henry Clay. Starting in 1854, Lincoln would reach back behind the Constitution to invoke the Declaration again and again.
For the revolutionary generation, the Declaration of Independence was primarily about the present act of separation from Great Britain. Their emphasis was not so much on the introduction,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
as the conclusion,
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.
For the first fifteen years after 1776, the Declaration languished in neglect. The framers of the Constitution barely mentioned it, either in substance or language, in their deliberations.
It reentered the national dialogue when the new Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson challenged the Federalists for office in the first years of the nineteenth century. The Federalists, with no love for Jefferson, focused their patriotic national celebrations not on July 4 but on February 22, the birthday of George Washington.
Lincoln grew up attending Fourth of July celebrations where the entire Declaration would be read. Yet, by the 1840s, many of Lincoln’s fellow Whigs interpreted the Declaration and the Revolution as not “the creation of something new,” but rather a recognition of a reality that had already been realized in the earlier colonial experience. Thus, Rufus Choate, Massachusetts conservative Whig politician, declared in 1834, “The Declaration of Independence, the succeeding conduct of the war, the establishment of our local and general governments” were not new developments but simply “effects, fruits, outward manifestations!” For many Whigs, the Declaration became noteworthy chiefly as a historical signpost. This view, as Lincoln well understood, defused the Declaration as an impetus for reform in mid-nineteenth-century American life.
As the debate over slavery escalated, Southerners also weighed in on the meaning of the Declaration. In a June 27, 1848, Senate debate over how Oregon should be organized, Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina argued that government meddling with slavery was embedded in the “false and dangerous assumption” that “all men are created equal.” Calhoun stated that this idea had been “inserted in the Declaration of Independence without any necessity” to the main purpose of separation from Great Britain. Furthermore, he argued that the Declaration’s contention was “a hypothetical truism” about human equality in the state of nature, drawn from the writings of John Locke and Algernon Sidney, but in the present political state the idea that “all men are created equal” was “the most false and dangerous of all political error.”
In his speech at Springfield, Lincoln cut through the political, social, and economic arguments about slavery to expose the moral issue at stake. His intellectual imagination shone in his use of the Declaration of Independence as the centerpiece of his argument.
The next day, Lincoln wrote out a summary of the speech for the Illinois State Journal. Herndon wrote a Journal editorial on the speech, stating, “The anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln was the profoundest in our opinion that he has made in his whole life.” Twelve days later, Lincoln offered essentially the same speech in Peoria. This time he wrote out the entire speech for publication, and thus it became known as the Peoria speech, which, distributed as an 1854 campaign document, began to spread the word about Lincoln beyond Illinois.
ON OCTOBER 4, 1854, the same day that Lincoln spoke at the state fair, two Congregational ministers, Owen Lovejoy and Ichabod Codding, attempted to gather a group in Springfield with the intention of starting a Republican state party. Melding their evangelical theology to abolitionist practice, they wished to draw all free-soil groups together. Wanting to hear Lincoln speak, they postponed their meeting. When they met the next day, Lincoln, although invited, did not attend. According to Herndon, who was empathetic with the radical Republican ideals but knew his partner was not, he counseled Lincoln to get out of town, “under the pretense of having business in Tazewell County.”
With or without Lincoln’s presence, Lovejoy and Codding were so impressed with his speech two days before that they hoped to recruit him for the new party’s leadership. In their enthusiasm, they placed Lincoln’s name on a new state committee without his approval.
This action was one of what would become a growing number of attempts in the 1850s to define Lincoln even as he was struggling to define himself. One reason that Lincoln got on so well with Herndon was that he knew that his junior partner, who held more radical views on slavery than did Lincoln, would not attempt to impose his views or misrepresent Lincoln’s opinions. This could not be said for other friends, colleagues, and even acquaintances, who not only sought to define Lincoln but also co-opt him for their cause.
When Lincoln discovered a few weeks later what Lovejoy and Codding had done, he wrote a strongly worded letter to Codding. “I have been perplexed to understand why my name was placed on that committee. I was not consulted on the subject; nor was I apprized of the appointment.” He quickly added, “My opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as any member of the Republican party.”
Why was he not willing to join? First, Lincoln continued to hope for the rejuvenation of the Whig Party. Second, he was concerned that the Republicans seemed to be a narrow party of extreme abolitionists rather than a broad party of antislavery men. Indeed, Lovejoy and Codding’s meeting in Springfield had advocated the immediate abolition of slavery across the nation and the repeal of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Because of the convention’s radical stance, the Illinois Journal, which allied itself with Lincoln, discouraged the forming of a Republican Party in Illinois. Finally, as Lincoln began to consider running for political office again, he wondered if the emergent Republican Party would have staying power. Lovejoy and Codding had met with only a few dozen people in Springfield and had failed to persuade other prominent Whigs to join, and thus a Republican Party in Illinois never got off the ground in 1854.
WHEN LINCOLN REEMERGED in politics in the congressional elections of 1854, he said that “he took the stump with no broader practical aim or object than to secure, if possible, the reelection of Hon Richard Yates to congress.” But things were moving quickly. As anti-Nebraska men sought to pack the state legislature, they
approached Lincoln about running. A group of Know-Nothings also informed him that their party had nominated him—secretly—for the legislature. On September 3, Dr. William Jayne, Lincoln’s family physician, placed an announcement of the candidacy of Lincoln and Logan for the state legislature in the Illinois State Journal. The surprise announcement angered Mary Lincoln, who marched down to the offices of the newspaper and demanded that the editor take the announcement out. The next day, Dr. Jayne called on Lincoln to make his case in person. Years later, Jayne remembered Lincoln’s response. Deeply upset, Lincoln exclaimed, “No—I can’t. You don’t know all. I say you don’t begin to know one-half and that’s enough.”
What didn’t Jayne know? The state legislature may have seemed to Lincoln a step backward after having served in the House of Representatives. Lincoln never explained his reservations, but he quickly changed his mind. He announced his candidacy as a Whig for the state legislature, believing it could help Yates in his tight race for Congress and, at the same time, strengthen the Whigs in the legislature. The 1854 elections confirmed the power of the anti-Nebraska movement in Illinois. On election day Lincoln received the highest number of votes of any candidate in Sangamon County.
At some point during this period, Lincoln set his sights on a higher goal. In the closing weeks of the campaign for the state legislature, he started speaking beyond his district, traveling as far as Chicago, an indication that he was considering a run for the U.S. Senate. In one speech in Chicago, in addition to his usual blasts at Douglas, he took aim at a recent detractor of the Declaration of Independence, Senator John Pet-tit, a Democrat from Indiana, who had spoken in favor of expanding slavery into Kansas. In 1853, on the Senate floor, Pettit said that the Declaration’s decree that “all men are created equal” was not a “self-evident truth” but instead “is nothing more to me than a self-evident lie.” Lincoln now asked, “What would have happened if he had said it in old Independence Hall? The door-keeper would have taken him by the throat and stopped his rascally breath awhile, and then have hurled him into the street.”
James Shields, Lincoln’s old dueling foe, had been elected to the Senate in 1849. At the time, all U.S. senators were elected by state legislatures. Everyone agreed that Shields could be defeated by an anti-Nebraska candidate in the election of 1855. Lincoln’s appetite for public office, stimulated by the responses to his anti-Nebraska speeches, became whetted once again.
But immediately after his election to the legislature, Lincoln made an unsettling discovery. He learned that the state constitution mandated that the legislature could not elect one of its own members as senator. By winning one election, he made himself ineligible for a second election. On November 25, 1854, after more than two weeks of deliberations, Lincoln declined his recently won seat in the legislature.
Lincoln’s withdrawal did not sit well. Some among the Whigs, the anti-Nebraska coalition, and the Know-Nothings felt betrayed. A number believed that Lincoln was an opportunist putting personal ambition ahead of both cause and party.
As Lincoln began his campaign for the U.S. Senate, he displayed his resourcefulness as a politician. In the space of five days in November, he wrote numerous letters to friends all over the state asking them for their support. It was time to call in the chits he had earned in both his legal and political careers. With Charles Hoyt, prominent merchant in Aurora, the bond was legal. Lincoln had represented Hoyt in a lengthy lawsuit in Chicago over the patent for a water wheel in 1850. Four years later, Lincoln wrote to ask for his political support. For others, it was primarily political. Lincoln asked Joseph Gillespie, a political colleague from southern Illinois, whether he intended to make a run and told him, “I do not ask you to yield to me.” Lincoln also wrote to editors, such as Hugh Lemaster, editor of the Fulton Republican at Lewistown. In each letter, Lincoln thanked his correspondents for their support, and concluded by requesting “the names, post-offices, and ‘political position’ of members round about you.” He included a copy of his Peoria speech in each letter.
As Lincoln surveyed his prospects, he understood he had much work to do. In order to win election he would need to gain the votes of some anti-Nebraska Democrats. The majority of Democrats, in revolt against Douglas, were cozying up to the well-liked governor Joel A. Matteson. An alternative was Lyman Trumbull, a former Illinois secretary of state and Supreme Court justice, who had just been elected to Congress from the Eighth District. Trumbull’s wife, the former Julia Jayne, was Mary Lincoln’s close friend. The regular Democrats despised Trumbull because of his anti-Nebraska stance, but he was attracting the interest of independent Democrats who had broken ranks with Douglas, and yet would never vote for an old-line Whig.
Lincoln stepped up his efforts in December, bringing in old friends and colleagues to help. Judge David Davis wrote letters and Leonard Swett traveled the state to line up elected officials for Lincoln. Responses to Lincoln’s November letters were encouraging. Charles Hoyt promised his support: “It will give me pleasure to do what I can for your appointment to the Sennet.” Hugh Lemaster responded, “We want some one that can stand right up to the little Giant (excuse me) it takes a great Blackguard (you know) to do that—and thou art (excuse again) the man.”
Abraham Lincoln ran against Lyman Trumbull, an anti-Nebraska Democrat, for a U.S. Senate seat in 1854–55.
Lincoln made a special effort to reach out to Elihu B. Washburne. A Galena attorney and former Whig, Washburne was one of the first Republicans elected to Congress. On December 11, 1854, Lincoln wrote that he was “a total stranger” to members of Washburne’s northern district and asked, “Could you not drop some of them a line?” On December 14, Lincoln wrote again, complaining that “my most intimate friends” in Chicago “do not answer my letters,” and asking Washburne to contact both Republicans and Democrats. On December 19, after hearing concerns about whether he would represent the rapidly growing northern part of the state, Lincoln assured Washburne he would represent the whole state.
When the legislature assembled in Springfield on January 1, 1855, Lincoln wrote the names of all one hundred members of the Senate and House on seven pages of lined paper. After each name he placed a “W” for Whig, “D” for Democrat, or “A.N.D.” for Anti-Nebraska Democrat. He wrote a number of copies of his list and sent them to some of his key contacts across the state. Davis, Swett, and several others came to Springfield to help. On January 6, Lincoln sent a detailed analysis to Washburne of his assessment of where things stood. He was cautiously optimistic. “I cannot doubt but I have more committals than any other one man.”
After delays caused by the fiercest Illinois snowstorm in twenty-four years, the House and Senate convened in joint session at 3 p.m. on February 8, 1855, to begin the balloting. Mary Lincoln watched the proceedings from the packed gallery.
At the end of the first ballot, Lincoln had 45 votes; followed by Shields, the incumbent, with 41; Trumbull with 5; and Governor Mat-teson and eight other candidates with 1 vote each. Lincoln was seven votes short of a majority. Lincoln had told Washburne two months earlier, “I do not know that it is much advantage to have the largest number of votes at the start.” Nothing changed much through five more ballots; although Lincoln slowly declined to 34 on the fifth ballot, his vote total was back to 36 on the sixth ballot. On the seventh ballot, the regular Democrats made their flanking move. They abandoned Shields, who fell from 41 to 1, and shifted their votes to Matteson, who rose from 0 to 44. On the eighth ballot, Lincoln dropped to 27 and on the ninth to 15. Meanwhile, Matteson had risen to 47, the most that any candidate had yet received and only four votes short of election.
What could Lincoln do? On the one hand, Lincoln hoped that if he could prevent Matteson from winning on one or two more ballots, his original backers might return to him. His old legal colleagues Stephen Logan and Judge Davis encouraged him to hang on. On the other hand, Lincoln was worried that Matteson might be able to win away some of Trumbull’s backers. At this critical moment, Gillesp
ie asked Lincoln what he should do. “You ought to drop me and go for Trumbull,” Lincoln advised. Lincoln had decided he could not take the chance that the Democrats could elect the pro-Nebraska Matteson. He released his backers and instructed his friends to go for Trumbull, a Democrat but an avowed anti-Nebraska man. Lincoln decided that the long-term cause of stopping slavery trumped his short-term ambition. Trumbull was elected on the tenth ballot with the necessary 51 votes.
BALLOTS FOR UNITED STATES SENATE
1855
Lincoln was both philosophical and gracious in defeat. The next day he told Congressman Washburne, “I regret my defeat moderately, but I am not nervous about it.” He added, “On the whole, it is perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected.”
Lincoln’s family and friends did not take the defeat as well. Mary Lincoln broke off her long friendship with Julia Trumbull, who had stood up with Mary at her wedding. Thinking of her role within her own marriage, Mary believed Julia could have influenced her husband’s political decision making.
Logan and Davis were furious. Lincoln, they pointed out, who began with 45 votes, actually had 47 different people vote for him, whereas Trumbull had begun with only 5 votes.
Immediately after his defeat, Lincoln told Gillespie “he would never strive for office again.” Yet with more time to consider all that had taken place, Lincoln began to see things in a different light. He realized that the person who had been defeated was not Matteson, nor Shields, nor even himself, but Douglas. Douglas had become the personification of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which, its critics said, opened the door to slavery, not just in the territories, but everywhere. Lincoln told Wash-burne, “his defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain.”
A. Lincoln Page 23