Preparing to return to Springfield, Lincoln had accomplished more than he ever could have anticipated. No longer the distant frontiersman, he had made a name in the East. His possible candidacy was now widely discussed. “I have been sufficiently astonished at my success in the West,” Lincoln told a Yale professor who had praised his speech highly. “But I had no thought of any marked success at the East, and least of all that I should draw out such commendations from literary and learned men.” When James Briggs told him, “I think your chance for being the next President is equal to that of any man in the country,” Lincoln responded, “When I was East several gentlemen made about the same remarks to me that you did to-day about the Presidency; they thought my chances were about equal to the best.”
Now there was work to be done at home. A successful bid would require the complete support of the Illinois delegation. To accomplish this, Lincoln would need to bridge the often rancorous divisions within the Republican ranks, a task that would demand all his ample and subtle political skills.
At the end of January 1859, Lyman Trumbull, concerned that the increasingly popular Lincoln might contest his reelection to the Senate, had apprised him of an article “said to have been prepared by Col. John Wentworth,” the Republican mayor of Chicago, “the object of which evidently is, to stir up bad feeling between Republicans who were formerly Whigs, & those who were Democrats.” The piece suggested bad faith on the Democrats’ part, singling out Norman Judd and Trumbull himself, in 1855, and again in 1858, when Lincoln ran a second time against Douglas. “Any effort to put enmity between you and me,” Lincoln reassured Trumbull, “is as idle as the wind…the republicans generally, coming from the old democratic ranks, were as sincerely anxious for my success in the late contest, as I myself…. And I beg to assure you, beyond all possible cavil, that you can scarcely be more anxious to be sustained two years hence than I am that you shall be so sustained. I can not conceive it possible for me to be a rival of yours.
“A word now for your own special benefit,” Lincoln warned in a follow-up note. “You better write no letters which can possibly be distorted into opposition, or quasi opposition to me. There are men on the constant watch for such things out of which to prejudice my peculiar friends against you. While I have no more suspicion of you than I have of my best friend living, I am kept in a constant struggle against suggestions of this sort.”
It would require more effort to defuse the increasingly bitter feud between Norman Judd and John Wentworth. In public forums, Wentworth would drag out past wrongs, continuing to accuse Judd and his former Democratic allies of conspiring to defeat Lincoln in 1855, of “bungling” Lincoln’s campaign in 1858, and of working now “to advance Trumbull as a presidential candidate, at Lincoln’s expense.”
Lincoln hastened to reassure Judd, who hoped to run for governor, that the “vague charge that you played me false last year, I believe to be false and outrageous.” In 1855, “you did vote for Trumbull against me; and, although I think, and have said a thousand times, that was no injustice to me, I cannot change the fact, nor compel people to cease speaking of it. Ever since that matter occurred, I have constantly labored, as I believe you know, to have all recollection of it dropped.” Finally, “as to the charge of your intriguing for Trumbull against me, I believe as little of that as any other charge.” If such charges were made, Lincoln promised, they would not “go uncontradicted.”
The controversy erupted into public view when Judd brought a libel suit against Wentworth, who tried to retain Lincoln as his counsel, claiming that the “very reason that you may assign for declining my offer is the very one that urges me to write you. You are friendly to us both. I prefer to put myself in the hands of mutual friends rather than…in the hands of those who have a deep interest in keeping up a quarrel.” Of course, Lincoln had no intention of entangling himself in such explosive litigation, but he did help to mediate the altercation. The dispute was resolved without a court fight. Consequently, both Wentworth and Judd remained close to Lincoln and would support his efforts to control the Illinois delegation.
“I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me to not be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt some for me to not get the Illinois delegation,” Lincoln wrote Judd, knowing that the former Democrat had influence with the Chicago Press and Tribune, which covered the northern part of the state. “Can you not help me a little in this matter, in your end of the vineyard?” A week later, the Tribune published a resounding editorial on behalf of Lincoln’s candidacy. “You saw what the Tribune said about you,” Judd said to Lincoln. “Was it satisfactory?”
On May 10, 1860, the Illinois state Republicans assembled in Decatur. Buoyed by the noisy enthusiasm his candidacy elicited at the state convention, Lincoln nonetheless recognized that some of the delegates chosen to go to the national convention, though liking him, probably favored Seward or Bates. To head off possible desertions, Lincoln’s friends introduced a resolution on the second day of the meeting: “That Abraham Lincoln is the choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the Presidency, and the delegates from this State are instructed to use all honorable means to secure his nomination by the Chicago Convention, and to vote as a unit for him.”
With the Republican National Convention set to begin the following week, Lincoln could rest easy in the knowledge that he had used his time well. Though he often claimed to be a fatalist, declaring that “what is to be will be, and no prayers of ours can reverse the decree,” his diligence and shrewd strategy in the months prior to the convention belied his claim. More than all his opponents combined, the country lawyer and local politician had toiled skillfully to increase his chances to become the Republican nominee for president.
CHAPTER 8
SHOWDOWN IN CHICAGO
FORTY THOUSAND VISITORS descended upon Chicago in the middle of May 1860, drawn by the festive excitement surrounding the Republican National Convention. Dozens of trains, mechanical marvels of the age, carried the delegates and supporters of America’s youngest political party to America’s fastest-growing city. All along the routes, as trains roared past the Niagara, up across the majestic Ohio River, and troubled the air of the western frontier, crowds gathered at every bunting-draped station, sounding their enthusiasm for the Republican cause with brass bands and volleys of cannon fire. Even at crossroads, reporters observed, “small groups were assembled to lend their countenances to the occasion, and from farm houses the ladies waved their kerchiefs, and farmers in the fields swung their hats.”
Of all the trains bound for Chicago, none attracted more attention than the one that began its journey at the Suspension Bridge in Buffalo, New York, and swept to Chicago in an astonishing record time of sixteen hours. The unprecedented speed of the massive train was said to amaze every passenger. A reporter recalled that “when ‘a mile a minute’ was accomplished, the ‘boldest held his breath,’ and the timid ones trembled in their boots.” Every seat was occupied: in addition to delegates, the train carried dozens of newspapermen, professional applauders, henchmen, office seekers, and prizefighters hired “to keep the peace,” recalled one young passenger, “for in those hot days men’s opinions often cost them broken heads.” Amenities included a carload of “such refreshments,” one reporter noted, “as lead inevitably to the conclusion that the majority of delegates are among the opponents” of temperance laws.
With boosterish pride, young Chicago was determined to show its best face to the world during the convention. Chicago’s growth in previous decades had been “almost ridiculous,” a contemporary magazine suggested. Indeed, “growth is much too slow a word,” an English visitor marveled to describe the explosion Chicago had experienced since an 1830 guidebook depicted “a military post and fur station,” with wolves prowling the streets at night, and a meager population of twelve families who would bunk together in the town’s well-defended fort for safety each winter. Thirty years later, Chicago boasted a population of more tha
n a hundred thousand, and the distinction of being “the first grain market in the world,” surpassing not only Odessa, “the great grain market of Russia, but all of Europe.” It had supplanted St. Louis as the chief marketplace for the vast herds of cattle that grazed the northwest prairies, and had become “the first lumber-market in the world.” Newcomers to the bustling city were dazzled by its “miles of wharves crowded with shipping…long lines of stately warehouses,” and “crowds of men busy in the active pursuit of trade.” Only recently, its streets had been raised from the mud and water by a bold decision to elevate every building and roadway to a level of twelve feet above Lake Michigan.
“Our city has been chosen, here to throw to the winds the broad banner of Republicanism,” the Press and Tribune proclaimed, “and here to name the leader who shall lead all our hosts to victory.” Lavish preparations were made to give the arriving trains a reception to remember. Chicagoans who lived on Michigan Avenue were asked to illuminate their houses. “A most magically beautiful effect was the result,” one reporter noted, “the lights flashing back from and multiplied countlessly in the waters of the Lake shore basin.” Thousands of spectators lined the shore of the lake, and as the trains moved along the pier, “half minute guns were fired by the Chicago Light Artillery, and rockets shot off from the foot of Jackson Street.” No one present, the reporter observed, would forget the effect of “artillery pealing, the flight of the rockets, the gleaming windows from the entire residence front of our city, the vast depot edifice filled with the eager crowd.”
Hotels and boardinghouse proprietors had spent weeks sprucing up their establishments; private citizens were asked to open their homes; and restaurants promised hearty meals at low prices. The most popular luncheon in town included a glass of four-year-old ale and a ham sandwich for ten cents. As packed trains continued to steam into the thronged city, the number of eager Republican visitors on Chicago’s streets climbed to forty thousand.
“I thought the city was crowded yesterday,” one amazed reporter exclaimed on the day before the convention was set to open, “but it was as loose and comfortable as a last year’s shoe beside the wedging and packing of today. The streets are full, and appear very like conduits leading off the overflowings of the hotels, where huge crowds are constantly pouring out as if they were spouted up from below in some popular eruption.”
Even billiard rooms were enlisted to accommodate the staggering crowds. At a certain hour each evening, the games were brought to an abrupt halt as mattresses were laid across the tables to create beds for the sleepy visitors. Looking in on one such establishment at midnight, a reporter saw 130 people stretched out on billiard tables “with a zest, from the fatigues of the day, that would have excited the sympathy of the most unfeeling bosom.”
“The city is thronged with Republicans,” wrote the Chicago Evening Journal. “Republicans from the woods of Maine and the green valleys of all New England; Republicans from the Golden Gate and the old plantation, Republicans from everywhere. What seems a brilliant festival is but the rallying for a battle. It is an army with banners!” Amid “this murmur of the multitude, thought reverts to a time long past,” the Journal reminded readers, “when a single car and one small chamber could have conveyed them all,” when the antislavery principle that “now blossoms white over the land was deemed the vision of enthusiasts, ridiculed, shunned and condemned.”
By 1860, the Republican Party had clearly become the dominant force in Northern politics. Its growth and momentum had absorbed two parties, the Whigs and the Know Nothings, and ruptured a third—the Democratic Party. If this new party could carry three of the four conservative Northern states it had lost in 1856—Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—it could win the presidency. These battleground states lay along the southern tier of the North; they all bordered on slave states; they would play a decisive role in choosing a nominee.
IN THE EARLY HOURS of Wednesday, May 16, the streets surrounding the newly built convention hall swarmed with excited citizens “who crowded around the doors and windows, congregated upon the bridge, sat on the curb stones, and, in fine, used every available inch of standing room.” When the big doors of the Wigwam—“so called,” it was said, “because the chiefs of the Republican party were to meet there”—were finally opened to the assembled multitude, thousands of ticket holders raced forward to fill the center seats and the more exclusive side galleries, where gentlemen were allowed only if accompanied by a lady. Desperate men had scoured the streets for women—schoolgirls, washerwomen, painted ladies—anyone wearing a skirt and willing to be their date for the afternoon. Within minutes, every seat and nook of the Wigwam was occupied as ten thousand party members waited expectantly for the proceedings to begin.
Exactly at noon, New York’s governor Edwin Morgan, chairman of the Republican National Committee, lowered his gavel, and the convention officially began. In his opening address, Morgan told the cheering crowd that “no body of men of equal number was ever clothed with greater responsibility than those now within the hearing of my voice…. Let methen invoke you to act in a spirit of harmony, that by the dignity, the wisdom and the patriotism displayed here you may be enabled to enlist the hearts of the people, and to strengthen them in [their] faith.”
The work of the convention began. In the course of the first two days, credential battles were settled, and an inclusive platform, keyed to Northern interests, was enthusiastically adopted. While opposition to the extension of slavery remained as central as it had been in 1856, the 1860 platform also called for a Homestead Act, a protective tariff, a railroad to the Pacific, protection for naturalized citizens, and government support for harbor and river improvements—a far broader range of issues designed to attract a larger base.
After much debate, the delegates rejected a provision requiring a two-thirds vote to secure the nomination. Their decision that a simple majority was sufficient to nominate appeared to be a victory for Seward. Coming into Chicago as the best known of all the contenders, he already had nearly a majority of pledges. “The great body of ardent Republicans all over the country,” James Pike observed, “desired to elevate to the Presidency the man who had begun so early and had labored so long in behalf of their cardinal doctrines.” Indeed, when business came to a close at the end of the second day, a move was made to proceed directly to the presidential balloting. Had votes been cast at that moment, many believe, Seward would have emerged the victor. Instead, the secretary of the convention informed the delegates that the papers necessary for keeping the tally had not yet been prepared, and they adjourned until ten o’clock the next morning.
For those concerned that Seward was too radical on slavery and too liberal on immigration to win battleground states—Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—the central question was whether the opposition could be unified behind one man. A Committee of Twelve was formed by the prominent representatives of the four critical states to see if a consensus could be reached. By 10 p.m., twelve hours before the balloting was set to begin, no one had been agreed upon. “The time had been consumed in talking,” a member of the opposition committee lamented, as each delegation argued stubbornly for its favorite son.
Shortly before midnight, Horace Greeley visited the committee to see if any agreement had been reached. Having surprised Weed by gaining entrance to the convention by representing Oregon as a proxy, Greeley planned to promote Bates and defeat Seward. Disappointed to learn that no agreement had been reached, Greeley sent a telegraph to the Tribune, concluding that since the opposition “cannot concentrate on any candidate,” Seward “will be nominated.” Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial telegraphed the same message to his paper at the same time, reporting that “every one of the forty thousand men in attendance upon the Chicago Convention will testify that at midnight of Thursday–Friday night, the universal impression was that Seward’s success was certain.” In the rooms shared by the New York delegation, great cheers were heard. “
Three hundred bottles of champagne are said to have been cracked,” reported Halstead; “it flowed freely as water.”
Still, the night was young, the battle only just begun.
AS THE HOURS PASSED, Weed must have sensed growing opposition among politicians in the conservative battleground states, many of whom feared that supporting Seward’s candidacy would hurt their own chances in state elections. However, he never altered his original strategy: before each delegation, he simply asserted that in this perilous time, Seward was, without question, the best man for the job. His love and devotion to his friend of more than thirty years blinded him to the inner dynamics at work since the convention began, the serious doubts that were surfacing about Seward’s availability, which meant, bluntly, his ability to win.
“Four years ago we went to Philadelphia to name our candidate,” Weed told one delegation after another, “and we made one of the most inexcusable blunders…. We nominated a man who had no qualification for the position of Chief Magistrate…. We were defeated as we probably deserved to be…. We are facing a crisis; there are troublous times ahead of us…. What this country will demand as its chief executive for the next four years is a man of the highest order of executive ability, a man of real statesmanlike qualities, well known to the Country, and of large experience in national affairs. No other class of men ought to be considered at this time. We think we have in Mr. Seward just the qualities the Country will need…. We expect to nominate him…and to go before the Country full of courage and confidence.”
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