Lincoln Raw

by DL Fowler

  Hanks grins. “At a farm you helped build down on the Sangamon.”

  I furrow my brow. “That was a long time ago. It’s possible I split these rails, but I cannot identify them.”

  More shouts erupt from the crowd, “Identify your work! Identify your work!”

  I suppress a smile as I ask Hanks in a loud voice, “What kind of timber are they?”

  Hanks shouts, “Honey locust and black walnut.”

  I say in a voice loud enough to carry to the back of the wigwam, “That is lasting timber, and it may be that I split the rails.”

  The crowd howls its approval.

  I get up and examine the rails, eying them closely. A hush falls over the assembly as I run my hands inside the notches. When I’m done I grin and proclaim, “Boys, I can say I have split a great many better looking ones.”

  The men on the platform laugh heartily, and I join them. Those in the audience yelp and holler and kick up their heels, dancing in front of us.

  After a few minutes of celebration, Gillespie, who now holds the gavel as Chairman of the convention, comes over to me and says, “Might as well let them carry on with the fun. We’ll re-convene in the morning and finish our business.”

  I nod, and he announces to the delegates, “We are adjourned until tomorrow.”

  I continue to sit on the stage and watch in disbelief at the commotion my name has caused. After a time, I leave the platform and pass through a back door that leads out to the street.

  The next morning Richard Yates, who was nominated by the convention as the party’s candidate for governor, announces that I am his preference for president. He promises to support me at the national convention in Chicago two weeks hence.

  I nod my gratitude.

  A resolution is read and approved by acclamation.

  Resolved that Abraham Lincoln is the choice of the Republican Party in Illinois for the presidency, and that the delegates from this State are instructed to use all honorable means to procure his nomination by the Chicago Convention, and that their vote be cast as a unit for him.

  Chairman Gillespie gavels the convention adjourned and walks over to offer his congratulations. We embrace, and I whisper to him, “My God, I now think this thing can be done.”

  He steps back, grinning. “We will give our lives if we must, to see to it.”

  Two weeks later, many of my friends are in Chicago at the national convention while I remain in Springfield. It is customary for men seeking their party’s nomination for president to be absent from the conventions. So my stomach is in knots as I wait for dispatches of the results at the offices of the Illinois State Journal, formerly the Sangamo Journal. The Journal editor, Edward Lewis Baker, not the same as my friend Ned Baker who has removed to Oregon where he is now a member of the U.S. Senate, has made an arrangement with the telegraph office to have dispatches from Chicago delivered directly to him.

  My friend Simeon Francis sold The Sangamo Journal to Baker whose purchase was financed by his father-in-law Ninian Edwards. Ninian is also Molly’s brother-in-law. I gloat over how Ninian, a former Whig turned Democrat, must gnash his teeth knowing Baker uses his paper to promote my candidacy. Just like Simeon Francis used to do, Baker tests my ideas in editorials without me having to take the blame if they fall flat.

  As I wait at the Journal for Baker to return from the telegraph office, I sit in a black bentwood hickory armchair supported by four twig legs. The seat made of branches is comfortable enough, but my body is too knotted with tension to take much pleasure in it. Before my arrival at the Journal, three dispatches were received from Chicago. The first announced the delegates had arrived in the wigwam. The second reported the names that were placed before the convention. I swallowed hard when I read the third dispatch giving the first round votes—Seward 173 ½, Lincoln 102, Cameron 50 ½, Chase 49, Bates 48. I told the boys before they left for Chicago that we could get the nomination if we gathered at least one-hundred votes on the first ballot.

  My heart pounds in my ears when Baker arrives. He’s poker-faced as he hands me the dispatch, his eyes fixed on mine. I breathe deeply and subdue every muscle in my face to hide even the slightest hint of expression.

  I read it aloud. “Seward 184 ½. Lincoln 181.”

  A third ballot is needed since 233 is a majority.

  I grin as the news spreads around the room. Hoots and cheers take on a life of their own. I say to Baker as he heads back to the telegraph office, “I can taste it.”

  Scarcely enough time passes for Baker to walk the short distance to the telegraph office and return before shouting and cheers fill the street outside. As we strain to decipher their words, several men push through the door. One yells, “Lincoln is nominated!” Another cries “Glory to God! Lincoln is nominated!” Behind them comes Baker waving a small scrap of paper in the air.

  I bite my lip, straining to hold back tears. Those around the Journal office chant “Read the dispatch.”

  Baker hands it to me.

  I will myself to. When I am composed, I say, “I felt sure this would come when I saw the second ballot.”

  The chant begins anew, “Read the dispatch!”

  In a solemn voice, weighed down by the great responsibility being thrust on me, I read, “Lincoln 349—”

  The remainder of the dispatch is drowned out by cheering.

  I sit again in the bentwood hickory chair, dazed, accepting the congratulations of friends who file by to assure me of their support for the coming campaign. After a while, I stand and give a short speech which I conclude by saying, “There is a lady over yonder on Eighth Street who is deeply interested in this news. I will carry it to her.”

  The next day, a delegation from the convention calls at my home to receive my acceptance of the Party’s nomination. I hand over a written statement to Newton Bateman, the Superintendent of Public Instruction. “Would you kindly tell me if I’ve used correct grammar?”

  Newt studies my reply and says, “It is all correct, with one slight exception—almost too trivial to mention.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  He points to what he calls a split infinitive. “It would be better to transpose the ‘to’ and ‘not’ in that sentence. You should say ‘not to’ rather than ‘to not.’”

  “So, I should turn those two fellows end for end, eh?”

  He nods.

  I take out a pen, make the correction, and hand the paper back to Newt. “You have my humble acceptance.”

  Just then, little Tad works his way up to my side and whispers very loudly in my ear that Mother has prepared tea for our guests in the dining room. I look around the room and observe a number of the men straining to hide their discomfort over the boy’s intrusion into our solemn business. I smile and assure them, “You see, gentlemen, if I am elected, it won't do to put that young man in the cabinet —he can't be entrusted with state secrets.”

  One month later Stephen Douglas becomes the Democratic Party nominee for president. His victory, however, comes at a great cost to his party. The southern delegates bolt and hold a convention of their own. They are angry over Douglas’ refusal to declare that slavery is right, and they nominate Vice President John Breckinridge to head their ticket. The arithmetic of the Electoral College now favors a Republican victory.

  My first act as the nominee is to hire young George Nicolay to be my secretary at a wage of seventy-five dollars per month. He recently worked for Secretary of State Hatch, who has made him available to me for the duration of the campaign. Nicolay’s steely eyes caught my attention when I first encountered him at the Pike County Free Press. He was working there as a printer’s apprentice when I rode the Circuit. Pale, lean, and nearly a foot shorter than me, he’s all business and a hard fellow to put one past.

  For an office, we cram two desks into a room in the Governor’s suite on the second floor of the State House. We share a spacious reception area with tiny Newt Bateman, whom I call “
the Big Schoolmaster.”

  Our quarters are so tight we can’t shut the door for formal meetings. I stand in the reception room when more than a couple of folks stop in to ask for jobs or offer their encouragement. Sometimes, the line of well-wishers and office seekers extends all the way down the staircase to the front entrance, and my entire day is consumed greeting them. It grieves me to turn anyone away, but young Nicolay ferrets out those who would only waste my time. A descendant of good German stock, he has a knack for sniffing out opportunists. We get as many as eighty letters in a day, and Nicolay decides which ones to answer. He also writes appropriate replies. I review the ones he declines to answer, and occasionally, veto his decision.

  I adhere to an established custom for presidential candidates to limit travel and speech making during the national canvass. Instead, I correspond with friends, political allies, and newspapermen advocating the Republican cause. On July 4, I write Dr. Anson Henry, my friend and former family doctor whose treatments for the “hypos” left me half-dead. He also introduced me to Dr. Drake, whose advice on my condition has been invaluable.

  Our boy, in his tenth year, (the baby when you left) has just had a tedious spell of scarlet-fever and he is not yet beyond all danger. I have a headache and a sore throat, inducing me to suspect that I have an inferior type of the same thing. Our eldest boy, Bob, has been away from us nearly a year at school and will enter Harvard University this month. He promises very well, considering we never controlled him much.

  Mother and I are proud Bob has made such a great success of his education. He’s nearly finished with his studies at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and will be attending Harvard College in the coming fall. I tell him if he is diligent in his studies, he shall learn more than I ever did as a lad, but he will never have so good a time.

  When Bob’s friend, George Latham, fails to win admission to Harvard, I write to him. My personal acquaintance with failure qualifies me on the subject.

  I have scarcely felt greater pain in my life than on learning yesterday from Bob's letter that you had failed to enter Harvard University. And yet there is very little to deter you if you will allow no feeling of discouragement to seize and prey upon you. It is a certain truth that you can enter and graduate in Harvard University, and having made the attempt, you must succeed in it.

  'Must' is the word. I know not how to aid you, other than to offer the assurance of someone of mature age and much severe experience that you cannot fail if you resolutely determine that you will not.

  Very truly your friend,

  A Lincoln

  Judge Douglas, never one to stand on either tradition or principle, crisscrosses the country making political speeches and pressing his case directly before the people. He attacks abolitionism in the north and disunion in the south, hoping to sway moderate voters to throw in with him. He paints me as a “Black Republican” and the Southern Democrats as rabid demagogues.

  A few weeks after my nomination, William Seward calls on me in Springfield, assuring me of his support. He’s on his way to Minnesota and Wisconsin to bolster our standing there, and he’ll stop in Indiana on his return to New York. We met once in 1848 while canvassing for the national Whig ticket, so I’m not surprised by his noble bearing and pretentious attire. Seward excels over me as a standard bearer for Republicanism in that regard. However, his short wiry frame, slumped shoulders, and shifting eyes are not attributes I recall from our previous encounter. Perhaps my recollection has been eclipsed by his enormous reputation.

  When we get down to business, I lay out for him a recent discovery I made while analyzing the composition of Electors from the various states. “I am convinced,” I say, “that we can win this thing if we take sixteen of the eighteen northern states plus California and Oregon.”

  Seward examines my tally sheet and smiles. Without looking at me he says, “Yes, New York’s thirty-five electoral votes will be the key. With the Democrats feuding among themselves as usual, we can depend on Thurlow Weed and his apparatus to deliver those votes without much trouble.”

  I fold up the tally sheet and stuff it in my pocket. “Nevertheless, we mustn’t give any slack.”

  He nods. “As I said, New York is in capable hands.”

  Chapter Thirty Four

  One week before Election Day, I receive a message from Thurlow Weed in New York pleading for more funds to press the campaign there. Weed says, “Douglas’ man Sanders claims they are gaining so rapidly the result is now impossible to foretell.”

  I groan. “How … how did this happen?”

  Nicolay looks up at me. “Apparently, the Democrats across New York have set aside their feuds and are rallying behind Douglas. He’s tempered his Popular Sovereignty message and has been whipping up Unionist sentiment, starting to sound almost like you.” He hands me a copy of Harper’s magazine. “His North Carolina speech is all over the New York papers.”

  I read aloud a few lines of the Harper’s account of the speech. “Douglas claims to be in favor of ‘executing in good faith every clause and provision of the Constitution and protecting every right under it—and then hanging every man who takes up arms against it.’” I shake my head. “He has been cultivating Northern minds for years and steering them off track. Without directly saying it, he accuses Republicans of forcing the Southern people to take up arms against the government in order to protect their Constitutional rights.”

  I throw the magazine onto the desk. “We don’t propose to take away any rights. We only want to stop the extension of slavery into the Territories. The only right to hold slaves that ever existed was the protection of it in the places slavery was found when the Union was formed. His Popular Sovereignty is just a contrivance to force something on us that was never intended.”

  Nicolay takes his seat behind the desk. “New York is vulnerable because its economy is knit together with that of the South.”

  I rake my fingers through my hair. “If Douglas wins New York, we lose. Without those thirty-five Electoral votes, the thing will get thrown to the House, and we don’t control enough state delegations there to win. Neither does Douglas. It’ll be between Breckinridge and Bell.”

  Nicolay picks up a pen and shakes his head. “Two pro-slavery men.”

  I look out into the hallway. “If that happens, there’ll be no returning to our Founders’ vision.”

  “How shall I reply?” he asks.

  “Tell him the money’s on its way.”

  While Nicolay is at the telegraph office sending the dispatch to Thurlow Weed, I poke my head into Newt Bateman’s office and say, “You, Big Schoolmaster, just come here, won’t you?”

  When he joins me in my office, I push the desk aside far enough to close the door and show him a book containing a canvass of the City of Springfield. “This book shows how each citizen of the city plans to vote in the coming election. Let’s take a look. I want to see in particular how the ministers have declared themselves.”

  Newt’s eyes widen. “How did you come by this?”

  “Friends.”

  As I turn the pages, I ask him to confirm for me the names of ministers or elders or members of various churches. I make careful notes on a sheet of how they intend to vote.

  When I add up the tally and give it to Newt, his expression turns grim. “Why,” he says, “twenty-three of the city’s ministers are against you, and only three are with you.”

  “A vast majority of their members oppose me, too.”

  Newt shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Newt, I know I am not a Christian, but I have read the Bible carefully.” I pull a New Testament from my pocket. “These men know full well that I am for freedom in the Territories, freedom everywhere, as free as the Constitution and the laws will permit. They also know my opponents are for slavery.” I shake the Testament in Newt’s face. “Yet with this book in their hands—in the light of which human bondage cannot exist for even a momen
t—they are going to vote against me. I do not understand it at all.”

  Newt replies, “I cannot explain it either, except to observe that some men are not ruled by reason, or by God, but by their own self indulgence.”

  I pace the room, tamping down my anger with each stride. After a while I stop and lay my hand on Newt’s shoulder. “I know there is a God and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me, and I think He does, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but Truth is everything. I know I am right because I know Liberty is right. Christ teaches us so. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and they will find it to be the truth.”

  Newt looks up at me. “A great many of us believe that God has placed you among us for the great purpose of bringing the slave system to its knees.”

  I pick up the canvass book and wave it at him. “Douglas don’t care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God cares. So does humanity. So do I. With God’s help we shall not fail. I may not see the end of slavery, but it will come, and I shall be vindicated.”

  I put the canvass book back on the shelf. “As for these men, they will find out that they have not read their Bible right. A revelation could not make it plainer to me that either slavery or the Government must be destroyed. It seems as if God has borne with the evil of slavery until every teacher of religion has come to defend it from the Bible and claim for it a divine sanction. Now, the cup of iniquity is full, and vials of wrath will be poured out.”

  I collapse into a chair and bury my head on the desk. Darkness and silence overwhelm me. When I peek up, Nicolay is gazing calmly at me from the open doorway. I look around for Newt, but he is no longer in the room.

  Several days afterward a visitor from New England chides me for remaining silent on the day’s great issues over the months since my nomination. He complains that many people are alarmed at the prospect I might be elected and the nation will be torn asunder. He urges me to reassure folks that I am not a danger to the Republic.