Lincoln Raw

by DL Fowler

  I throw up my hands. “This is the same old trick by which the South breaks down every Northern victory.” I glare over at Nicolay. “If I were willing to barter away the moral principle involved in this contest and assure my own victory by making some new submission to the South, I would go to Washington without the favor of the men who were my friends before the election. I would be as powerless as a block of buckeye wood.”

  In measured tones I tell my visitor, “Those who will not read, or heed, what I have already publicly said, would not read or heed a repetition of it. What is it I could say which would quiet their alarm? Is it that no interference by the government with slaves or slavery within the states is intended? I have said this so often that a repetition of it is but mockery. All it would do is foster an appearance of weakness and cowardice.”

  When Election Day arrives, I rise at my usual time and join Mother, Willy, and Tad at the breakfast table to eat an egg and toast. The boys make their usual fuss.

  Mother stirs her coffee and muses, “I don’t think I shall know how to behave tomorrow if I wake and find that I am to be Mrs. President.”

  “I’m sure that you’ll find yourself acting just as you always do.” I chase the last morsel of toast with a gulp of coffee and get up from the table.

  “What will you be doing today?” she asks.

  I put on my coat and hat. “Just as I always do … go to the office and greet visitors. Although, I think I shouldn’t vote today. It’s unseemly for a man to vote for himself.”

  “Don’t forget your shawl,” she says. “It’s a mite chilly out.”

  I throw the shawl over my shoulders and head out the door. My breath forms a tiny cloud as I descend the steps and turn onto the walkway. Dead leaves turned brittle by an overnight frost crackle underfoot.

  At my office in the State House, Nicolay is already at his desk. He peers up at me. I wave my hand at the myriad gifts piled everywhere. “Reckon if we win, this place will be stacked to the gills tomorrow. We might not even be able to get in.”

  He laughs—an uncommon thing for him to do.

  We are visited during the day by a number of well-wishers. Billy Herndon is one of them. When he asks if I’ve voted, I look out the window at the crowd lined up outside the courthouse, waiting to cast their votes. Poll workers for each of the candidates are hawking their party’s printed ballots, pitching their man’s laurels and insulting opposing candidates.

  I shake my head. “It’s a long standing custom that a candidate ought not to vote for himself.”

  Billy winks. “At least vote for the other Republicans who are on the ballot.”

  I sit at my desk. “With all Republican names on a single ballot, everyone will think I’ve voted for myself.”

  “Before you drop your ballot in the box, simply cut off the top portion that has your name.”

  I sit back in my chair. “An excellent idea.”

  About three o’clock in the afternoon, I peer out the window and see the line is now short, so I head over to the courthouse to vote according to Billy’s plan.

  On my arrival, a crowd swarms me, cheering and shouting “Old Abe! Uncle Abe! Honest Abe!” Even the Democratic poll workers cheer me despite the shouts of “Giant Killer” coming from my supporters. I look around for Hill, someone big enough to hide behind, but am blocked by Republican agents exchanging blows over who will hand me their printed ballot. Several stout fellows struggle at lifting me off my feet to carry me up two flights of stairs to the courthouse polling room. I clutch onto my hat.

  The commotion arouses several of my friends including, Billy, Nicolay, Hill, Secretary of State Hatch, and a young five-foot-six law student named Elmer Ellsworth. They shove folks aside to open a path for me to proceed. Amidst an ongoing din of cheers, my friends usher me upstairs to the “Republican” window in the jammed polling room.

  After announcing my name to the election clerk, I hold my ballot over a glass bowl, and Billy hands me scissors. I snip off the top portion of the ballot and watch the bottom fall into the bowl. A roar goes up from the crowd. I greet their cheers with a broad grin.

  That evening I hunker down in the cramped, second-story telegraph office to wait for results; supper is the last thing on my mind. The young handle-bar mustached operator, John Wilson, hands me the first news from Thurlow Weed in New York. “All is safe in this state.” I’m unsure of his meaning. Maybe he means there have been no riots. Next Simon Cameron reports from Philadelphia that we have won the vote there.

  Within minutes of Cameron’s news, a dispatch from Alton, Illinois declares, “Republicans have checkmated Democrats’ scheme of fraud.” On hearing the latter news, I take a stroll down to Watson’s Oyster Saloon for a bite to eat.

  At Watson’s, Republican wives have laid out a lavish table of confections. Mother, who helped the other wives, is seated back in one corner, holding a place for me. Every other chair in the dining room is occupied, though they empty as everyone rushes up to greet me and offer tentative congratulations. Mother’s lips draw a tight line as various women beg permission to give me kisses on the cheek. Her eyes turn cold when I give in to their affections, saying, “Reckon that’s a form of coercion not prohibited by the Constitution or Congress.”

  As telegrams arrive throughout the evening, they are read aloud. Each reader stands on a chair to deliver the incoming news. After midnight, the telegraph operator rushes into Watson’s and hands me a dispatch. I gaze around the room at all the expectant faces, restraining a smile, though I imagine everyone can hear my heart pounding. Mother’s face is more anxious than all the others.

  Having no need for additional elevation, I stand in front of my seat and read aloud. “From Philadelphia. The city and state for Lincoln by a decisive majority.” Before anyone can let out a cheer, I point my forefinger in the air and say, “I think that settles Pennsylvania. Let’s hope the news from New York continues to be good.”

  Shouts and huzzahs ring out from around the room. Women and men burst into tears, then laughter. A crush of friends presses around me, offering heartfelt congratulations. Crying and laughing continue all around the room. Men fall into each other’s arms dancing and singing. I choke back tears of joy as the wild scene grows into even greater bedlam.

  A few minutes later, I slip past the sea of well-wishers and make my way back to the telegraph office to wait for more results. At the door I whisper to Norman Judd, “As good as the news is, I’m not fully certain that we have won. I’ll feel better when New York gives us a final tally.” My mouth is as parched as prairie grass in a summer drought.

  Along the short walk back to the telegraph office, Springfield’s sleepy residents can be seen peeking outside through just lit windows. They’ve been aroused by church bells pealing throughout the city. Word of the likely Republican victory spreads rapidly.

  Minutes after I enter the telegraph office, a dispatch arrives from New York. “We tender you our congratulations upon this magnificent victory.” I read it aloud and sink into a chair, absorbing the gravity of the moment. My spirit is lifted, but my shoulders are laden down under a yoke of enormous responsibility.

  As the dispatch is passed around, the tiny room erupts once again in wild celebration which soon spills out into the streets, spreading over to the courthouse and across the entire town. A cannon is fired in the distance to declare the victory is official.

  I sit silently for a few moments then stand, somber. Lyman Trumbull, who six years ago won the U.S. Senate seat I coveted, embraces me and shouts, “Uncle Abe, you’re the next President.”

  My mouth curls into a smile. “Well, the agony is mostly over, and soon we’ll all be able to go to bed.” I amble downstairs and pause on the street under a gaslight. I fill my lungs with cool air before walking home.

  If I had plans to retire for the night, my friends have other things on their minds. Despite the chilly night, they gather outside my window blowing whistles and horns, singing
and dancing in the street until we invite them inside for refreshments.

  All we have to offer them is water to drink, but they don’t seem to mind. Mother, who would ordinarily be mortified over the poverty of our cupboards, is nonetheless cheerful, having realized her dream of being Mrs. President. When the last reveler leaves, I climb the narrow stairs to my bed and lie awake deciding whom I will invite to serve on my Cabinet.

  Shortly after daybreak, I go to the law office and tell Billy Herndon of my planned appointments. He says, “They will eat you up.”

  I shake my head. “No. They will eat each other up.”

  Billy sits back in his chair. “Your Cabinet may be the least of your problems.”

  My head begins aching. “That’s not hard to see.”

  “If disunion comes, we must keep foreign capitals out of the fray.”

  I grimace. “Unless they come to our aid.”

  Billy leans forward. “We’ll need our own diplomats. The ones we’ll inherit owe their offices to the party that has fought hard to uphold slavery. Their loyalty belongs to those who are eager to celebrate your failure.”

  “Reckon, then, we have some big work to do.”

  A few days after the election, Nicolay hands me Thurlow Weed’s Albany Evening Journal. He warns me, “Weed’s pushing for compromise with the southern states.”

  “What kind of compromise?”

  “He’s for everything from compensation for fugitive slaves to the repeal of personal liberty laws and extending the Missouri Compromise line to the western coast.”

  I toss the paper on the desk. “How can any Republican in this hour of victory, even if in the face of danger, think of abandoning what we have just won?”

  Weed is not the only one suffering twinges of contrition. Wall Street is up wildly one day, then down the next. Newspapers on both sides of the ocean report anxiety over secession, asking what will become of cheap cotton.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Speed’s congratulatory letter raises a lump in my throat. My affection for him pinches my chest. He begins by saying,

  As a friend I am rejoiced at your success—as a political opponent I am not disappointed.

  But all men and all questions sink into utter insignificance when compared to the preservation of our glorious Union. Its continuance and its future will depend very much upon how you deal with the inflammable material by which you will be surrounded.

  My knees buckle. The vision of my old Speed and his Kentucky taking up arms against the Union flashes through my mind. I sink into my office chair and close my eyes. Tears seep out and trace the creases in my cheeks.

  Later in the morning, well-wishers begin to drop in to the office in a constant stream, sometimes like a river swollen with flood waters. Each visitor has his own morsel of advice. When I’m asked to give reassurances to the South and to the Border States, I fold my arms across my chest and reply, “The Republican newspapers are now, and for some time past have been, republishing copious extracts from my many public speeches. Any newspaper in the country could also publish them. I am not at liberty to shift my ground—that is out of the question. If I thought a repetition would do any good I would make it, but my judgment is, it would do harm. The secessionists, believing they had alarmed me, would clamor all the louder.”

  One fellow strikes me as having an uncommonly pleasant countenance. I study him closely for several minutes, unable to discern the source of his peculiar aura. Noticing that it’s about supper time, I invite him home. Mother fusses about the unexpected guest, a stranger no less, but I follow her back to the kitchen and say, “Don’t reckon he’ll eat too much. Looks kinda thin, don’t you think?”

  She peers out toward the parlor. “Humph.”

  After supper, my guest and I swap stories and jaw about politics. As usual, the boys crawl into my lap and squirm about, pushing each other as if playing a game of king-of-the-hill. Our guest is kind enough to tolerate the boys’ play and not press me for assurances or other declarations. On national matters, our conversation doesn’t stray far from my positions that are widely broadcast. Mostly, we banter about local affairs until we retire for the night.

  Petitioners who don’t call on me at the office write letters. The subjects are the same as ones raised by those who come in person. Three letters on the topic of my appearance are refreshing in that I can act on them without much fear of jeopardizing my standing with the Electoral College.

  First a woman complains of my ugliness. I say to Nicolay, “It is allowed to be ugly in this world, but not as ugly as I am.”

  A few days later, a letter from a group calling themselves “True Republicans” suggests that I cultivate whiskers and wear standing collars. They say I should do so for the benefit of the cause.

  The third letter comes from an eleven year-old girl. She echoes the True Republicans’ suggestion that I grow a beard. On my next visit to Billy Florville, my barber, I tell him, “Let’s give them a chance to grow.”

  One day, a southern merchant is among the sea of callers. He argues more desperately than most that I should break my public silence. I tell him that if left alone to work in their own time, the southern unionists will succeed in bringing their states back into the fold.

  He proposes I direct a surrogate to carry the message for me, just as many had done during the canvass. I heed his advice and write to Senator Lyman Trumbull, asking him to slip a message from me into one of his speeches as though he was saying it on his own account.

  I have labored in, and for, the Republican organization with entire confidence that whenever we shall be in power, each and all of the States will be left in as complete control of their own affairs, and at as perfect liberty to choose and employ their own means of protecting property and preserving peace and order within their respective limits, as they have ever been under any administration.

  Word soon wafts up from Washington City that proposals for compromise are flying about Congress like crows swarming a newly seeded cornfield. The House of Representatives has formed a committee of thirty-three members, while the Senate now has a committee of thirteen. Both are aiming to make compromises that will avert disunion. I write to our men on the committees.

  There is room to negotiate issues such as fugitive slaves, slavery in the District of Columbia, and the domestic slave trade. But, I will entertain no compromise regarding the extension of slavery.

  The instant we yield, they will regain the advantage we have now won. Every stitch of our labor will be lost, and sooner or later all must be done over. Douglas is sure to begin trying to bring in his Popular Sovereignty again. Have none of it.

  The tug has to come and better now than later. These aggressive actions by southerners to acquire territories in Cuba and Central America for the purpose of extending slavery prove their intentions.

  When Weed sends Seward to Springfield to lobby me on the question of extending the old Missouri Compromise line, he finds me reading anew the history of President Jackson’s response to the 1832 Nullification Crisis. Back then, South Carolina passed an ordinance declaring federal tariffs unconstitutional and unenforceable within its “sovereign boundaries.” President Jackson did not yield an inch. After gaining authority from Congress to use military forces against South Carolina, the state legislature repealed its Nullification Ordinance.

  Following Jackson’s tradition, a tough pill for this former Whig to swallow, I refuse to yield any ground. Seward leaves, shaking his head.

  I turn to Nicolay. “I am not unmindful of the troubles we face. I wish with all sincerity that they did not exist. Nonetheless, I will not be bullied into altering my stance, not even by friends.”

  Neither do I welcome an upbraiding by our son, Bob. He writes Mother and me from Harvard University, scolding us over our recent trip to Chicago. He writes, “I see by the papers that you have been to Chicago. Aren’t you beginning to get a little tired of this constant uproar?”

&nbs
p; I tell Nicolay, “Reckon when I was a boy, I didn’t think any higher of my father than Bob does of me. When you’re an old man you’ll see that many of life’s duties are merely to be tolerated, while a few are truly joyful. I shook hands with thousands of well-wishers in Chicago. That was a drudgery at times, but the hope I saw on their faces makes up for thousands of days of aching in my bones.” While in Chicago, I also met with Vice President-Elect Hamlin. Even though Hamlin and I heard each other’s speeches during my term in Congress, this was my first meeting with the robust Yankee from Maine.

  On December 20, Nicolay returns from his afternoon errands, grim faced. He hands me a dispatch from the telegraph office. My heart pinches as I read the news that the South Carolina legislature has passed a resolution to secede from the Union.

  Nicolay asks, “What do you suppose President Buchanan is going to do?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing. He claims secession is illegal, but professes he has no power to stop it.”

  “Speaking of incompetence ….” Nicolay hands me a letter someone sent to Secretary of State Hatch.

  I put on my spectacles and read it.

  Please consider me in among those you shall recommend to Old Abe for some job in his government. Poverty is no disgrace, but I find it damned inconvenient, and I should like something that would keep my nose and the grindstone apart for a while.

  “I think the proper word is impotence,” I burst into laughter.

  Nicolay grins. “Laughter is good medicine in times like these.”

  A couple of evenings later, I’m at home in front of the fireplace having a casual conversation with Joe Gillespie. Sitting backwards astride an old straight-backed wooden chair, I lament the long wait until my inauguration, which seems even longer on account of Buchanan’s bungling of the current crisis. I tell Joe, “I would willingly take out of my life a year for each of the months between now and my inauguration.”