by Bruce Catton
There was something here for everyone except Southerners —for anti-slavery people, for the foreign-born, for the Eastern manufacturers, for the developing Northwest—and the platform was adopted with a great burst of cheers. Delegates and spectators sprang to their feet, waved their hats, and yelled, the ladies in the gallery fluttered their handkerchiefs and clapped their hands, and Halstead reported that "such a spectacle as was presented for some minutes has never before been witnessed at a convention." He felt, too, that all of this jubilation carried a powerful element of enthusiasm for Seward, and as the crowds poured out into the streets, he wrote that "there is something almost irresistible here in the prestige of his fame."12
Seward that Thursday evening was within reaching distance of the nomination, and if balloting could have begun then, he would probably have attained his goal. When the uproar that followed adoption of the platform died down slightly, some Seward delegate arose to move that the convention proceed to the nomination of a candidate, and if this had been done, Seward almost certainly would have got what he wanted. Unfortunately, the convention secretary was compelled to announce that the tally sheets were not quite ready. They would arrive in a few minutes; would the delegates wait?
At that moment the delegates were prepared to do anything but wait. The mood to shout, to parade about, to slap backs, and to rejoice in the prospect of victory was too strong, and the convention adjourned for the evening. The nomination would be made Friday, and the Seward managers were unworried. There would be a great deal of caucusing and pleading during the evening, but the New Yorkers' lines looked firm. At Richmond House headquarters an immense
quantity of champagne was opened and consumed, brass bands tramped all over town with Seward banners in the breeze, serenading state delegations that might still be uncommitted . . . and at the Tremont Hotel the determined men from Illinois settled down for a night of very hard work.13
Railsplitter
WHEN THE convention opened, David Davis weighed very nearly 300 pounds. He had hardly had half a dozen hours of sleep in three days, he was mussed and rumpled, and beyond question he had worked off some of that surplus flesh. On this Thursday evening he telegraphed Lincoln that he was "nearly dead from fatigue," and when the convention ended he would be all but completely exhausted;1 he believed, however, that the convention was going to go the way he wanted it to go if proper steps were taken, and he and the rest of the Lincoln high command went to work the moment the Thursday afternoon session adjourned to see what they could do.
They would work from the fact that the Seward front was not really as solid as it looked, even though most of the political experts in Chicago were about ready, this evening, to concede Seward's nomination. To win the election the Republicans must carry at least three of the four states which were listed as doubtful—New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Despite the wild jubilation that followed adoption of the platform, the party could lose those states if it followed the wrong candidate. Illinois illustrated the problem perfectly. As was the case in most other Northern states, the Republican party in Illinois contained a number of diverse factions. There were the outright abolitionists, and the Free-Soilers who had a more conservative bent; there were former Know-Nothings who distrusted foreigners, and German-born voters who were repelled by Know-Nothingism; there were former Democrats and there were old-line Whigs to whom all former Democrats were suspect; and of all the candidates, only Lincoln had managed to avoid arousing the enmity of one or more of these groups. If the delegates from such states as Indiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania could be shown that Lincoln could please all factions in their states and that Seward could not, Seward could be stopped.
A point of immense importance here was the fact that both Pennsylvania and Indiana, through a quirk in state laws, would hold their state elections in October, a month ahead of the national election. Other things being equal, their voters would line up in these state elections just about as they would in the national election. If the national ticket could not produce internal harmony, the Republicans in Indiana and Pennsylvania would lose in the October balloting and hence would lose in November as well—and, in addition, would provide the party with a deadly psychological handicap all across the North. It was essential, therefore, for the Wigwam to produce a candidate who could win in Indiana and Pennsylvania, and the principal Republican politicians in those two states did not believe Seward could do it. The job facing the group at the Tremont suite was to demonstrate that Lincoln could.
Seward was paying the price which, as Wentworth had said, was apt to be exacted of the man who was too prominent. In his famous remark about the irrepressible conflict, he had, as a matter of fact, said nothing that Lincoln himself had not said when he asserted that a house divided against itself could not stand, but somehow it had made more people angry. He had coupled it with vague, damaging talk about a "higher law" than the Constitution; also—and in some ways this was the biggest handicap of all—he was totally unacceptable to the suspicious Know-Nothings, because he had, as governor of New York, years ago, urged the support of Catholic parochial schools with public funds. Both Indiana and Pennsylvania contained many voters strongly tinged with the Know-Nothing prejudice. Like the Free-Soil moderates who felt that Seward's statements on slavery had been a bit extreme, they might not follow the Republicans if Seward carried the banner. There was, indeed, grave danger that dismaying numbers of them would vote for John Bell, running on the Constitutional Union ticket; if that happened, states which the Republicans ought to carry might wind up in the Democratic column.
The pivotal state of Indiana was already pretty well in line for Lincoln. Key man here was Caleb Smith, a former Whig who had been friendly with Lincoln when Lincoln was in Congress, prominent enough in Indiana Republican ranks to believe that he ought to be named to the cabinet if a Republican won the election. Davis had talked to him carefully and persuasively—indeed, the whole Indiana delegation had been most carefully cultivated—and Smith and the delegation had been won over. It would be asserted afterward that, in flat disregard of Lincoln's order that no binding pledges be made in his name, Davis had promised Smith the cabinet appointment. This may be an overstatement, but in any case Smith had agreed to second Lincoln's nomination from the floor, and the Indiana delegation was prepared to vote for Lincoln on the first ballot.2 The job now was to win Pennsylvania, plus such other delegations as might feel that Seward was an unsafe candidate.
So on that Thursday evening there was a meeting at Davis's suite, and if the hoary tradition of a smoke-filled room was not born there, it at least took on a good deal of growth. The Lincoln men had been working hard in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey—another delegation that was uneasy about Seward—and delegates from Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were convening now to take stock of the situation. On Judd's suggestion, a subcommittee composed of three men from each state was formed, with the hope that it could agree on a candidate, and this group met for five hours and more.
Somewhere around ten o'clock that night the door to Davis's suite opened and the pink, cherubic face of Horace Greeley, fringed with silky hair and whiskers, peered blandly in. As a determined foe of Seward, Greeley realized that the fate of the stop-Seward movement depended on what was being done right here, and as a good reporter he wanted to know what was going on. Had they, he inquired, agreed upon a candidate? Told that they had not agreed, he withdrew. Shortly afterward he sent to his New York Tribune a story that began: "My conclusion, from all that I can gather tonight, is that the opposition to Gov. Seward cannot concentrate on any candidate and that he will be nominated." Editor Halstead, who was also keeping in touch, sent a similar dispatch to his Cincinnati Commercial. He explained later that at midnight on Thursday every man in Chicago believed that Seward was in, and the champagne party at Seward headquarters took on the aspects of a victory celebration.3
But the caucus in the Tremont Hotel was not over. After Greeley left, someone s
uggested that it was time to see just how many votes each candidate could count on. Davis was very well informed on this point and he produced his own tabulation, which showed that Lincoln had far more votes than any other candidate except Seward. The men from New Jersey and Pennsylvania thereupon agreed that they would call their own delegations into caucus and recommend support of Lincoln on the second ballot. Later that evening the New Jersey crowd swung into line. Pennsylvania would act the following morning, just before the convention was called to order.
What was working for Lincoln here was the old matter of availability. The delegates from these important states were against Seward because they did not think they could carry their states with him, and of the other candidates only Lincoln seemed to lack Seward's handicaps. Judge Bates, satisfactory on so many points, was fatally handicapped now by his former activity in the Know-Nothing party: desperately needing the votes of the foreign-born, the Republicans could hardly hope to get them with Bates. Chase was branded as an extremist; a good many Douglas Democrats would vote Republican this fall if they were appealed to properly, but they could not in any circumstances be won by Chase, whose abolitionist tendencies were pronounced and unmistakable. That left Lincoln. He had avoided the pitfall that awaits the man who is too prominent.4
The thing was not yet done, however. Next morning—Friday, May 18, with the opening of the session very near— Davis and Swett had a caller: Judge Joseph Casey, of Harrisburg, who was empowered to speak for the ambitious Pennsylvania boss, Simon Cameron. Cameron, said Casey, wanted to make a deal. He would swing the Pennsylvania vote to Lincoln, provided he could be sure that he would become Secretary of the Treasury in the new cabinet, and provided also that he could have complete disposal of all Federal patronage in his state.
This was a lot to ask, and Davis and Swett fenced for a time. Cameron was not widely admired. He was the archetype of the political boss: anything goes, so long as you hold on to the throttle of the machine. He had enemies in his own state, among them brisk Andrew Curtin, who was going to be the next governor, and the Philadelphia publisher Alexander K. McClure, but for the moment Cameron had the Pennsylvania delegation in his pocket, and a candidate who wanted that delegation's votes had to deal with him. No one supposed that he really ought to be Secretary of the Treasury, and the notion that any state boss should at this moment be given complete control of patronage in his state was outlandish, but the Pennsylvania delegation today was probably going to vote the way Cameron told it to, and Davis and Swett were under the gun.
The accepted version is that they surrendered and promised (in Lincoln's name, although Lincoln had told them to do nothing of the kind) that Cameron would be paid off as he wished. A wire was sent to Lincoln, and his answer came back: "I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none." But the managers had victory within their purchase. Davis is supposed to have said: "Lincoln ain't here and don't know what we have to meet, so we will go ahead as if we hadn't heard from him and he must ratify it." To Joseph Medill, of the Chicago Tribune, Davis is alleged to have said that he got the Pennsylvanians "by paying their price." It may not have been that simple. A century later Davis's biographer, Willard King, after an exhaustive study, concluded that the bargain was not made. Davis and Swett, he believed, said only that Pennsylvania certainly was entitled to a place in the cabinet and that they personally would recommend Cameron; when Casey refused to accept this, they added that they would get every member of the Illinois delegation to endorse Cameron's claim. They agreed, also, that Cameron would, on their word, have access to Lincoln immediately after the election. With this, Casey finally was content.5
However it was done, it was done. When delegates and spectators elbowed their way into the Wigwam, the Pennsylvania delegation was committed to vote for Lincoln on the second ballot.
There had been other things to do. On this day when the names would be formally placed in nomination and the votes would be counted, the pressure of the galleries would be extremely important. There were many delegates outside of the wavering Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey groups who were ready to desert Seward and go with a winner if they saw the actual victory taking shape before their eyes and within sound of their ears. Vermont and Virginia would break away with suitable incentive, and even Chase's Ohio delegation contained men who knew Chase could not win and were looking for a place to light. Persuasive men from Illinois would work on all such groups. Also, certain political realists would make certain that the Wigwam was as full as possible of men who would cheer for Lincoln whenever the occasion offered.
The Seward people this morning were as confident as they had been the night before. More than a thousand leather-lunged rooters from New York were ready to make a cheering section, and these were marshaled in front of the Richmond Hotel with a brass band to play them down to the convention. It took time to get these people assembled, and the march was not brisk—and when the procession reached the Wigwam, every empty seat (aside from the section reserved for accredited delegates) was occupied by a man from Illinois, ready to yell his head off for the home-state favorite. The Seward rooters were frozen out. It was rumored afterward that Davis's cohorts had had a print shop run off fake admission tickets, although this apparently had not been necessary; but whether outright fakery was employed or not, the galleries and aisles were crammed almost to suffocation with Lincoln men. The gallery at Charleston had helped to kill Douglas; now Seward would be killed with the help of the gallery at Chicago.6
When the Friday session opened, there was not in the Wigwam room for one more man, and thousands of people, some of them doubtless cursing vigorously, jammed the streets outside. In the hall there was a tense hush; then the roll was called, and the states put their candidates in nomination. The modern custom of thirty-minute nominating and seconding speeches did not then prevail, fortunately for the tempers of all concerned, and the nominations were made quickly. Evarts put in Seward's name, Judd offered Lincoln's, Francis P. Blair nominated Bates, and others put up Chase, Cameron, and such outside contenders as Justice John McLean, of Ohio, and William L. Dayton, of New Jersey. Most of the applause, it was noticed, came for the names of Seward and Lincoln; and when Caleb Smith, of Indiana, rose to second Lincoln's nomination, and Austin Blair, of Michigan, seconded Seward, Halstead wrote that "the shouting was absolutely frantic," so that some delegates stopped their ears in pain, and hundreds of hats, tossed toward the ceiling by enthusiastic delegates, filled the air like a swarm of hornets. The loudest shouting, Halstead said, came for Lincoln: "Imagine all the hogs ever slaughtered in Cincinnati giving their death squeals together, a score of big steam whistles going . . . and you can conceive something of the same nature." Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, who was going to run for governor this fall and wanted to be on a winning ticket, stood on a table, swinging hat and cane, touching off an uproar of yelling and foot-stamping that made the wooden auditorium quake. After a time quiet was restored, and the balloting began.7
The first ballot showed clearly that the Seward men had underestimated Lincoln's strength. Seward led, as had been expected, with 173½ votes, but Lincoln polled 102, Bates had 48, and Cameron had 50½; the votes of these three, plus anticipated defections which were sure to come on later ballots, might well be enough to stop Seward, and sharp cries of "Call the roll!" demanded a second vote.
On the second ballot the trend was clear. Seward lost votes in New England, and Pennsylvania swung obediently away from Cameron into the Lincoln column. In all, Lincoln picked up 79 votes while Seward was gaining only 11; the tabulation showed Seward with 184½, Lincoln with 181, and the rest nowhere. The band wagon was rolling at last, and the convention began to understand that those delegates who had gone to bed at all the night before had done so under a mistaken assumption. Seward was not going to make it.
The third ballot did it. Seward lost a few votes, in New England and in Ohio, and when the roll call was ended, Seward had dropped to 180 and Lincoln had gone to 231½, just one and o
ne-half votes away from victory. No candidate ever got that close to the top without going the rest of the way, and before a fourth roll call could be ordered (while state delegations were furiously canvassing their memberships), Delegate D. K. Cartter, of Ohio, got to his feet and won the attention of the chair. Cartter was a big man with a shock of bristling black hair, afflicted by an unfortunate impediment in his speech, but the impediment did not matter now. The crowd collectively held its breath, while he forced out the words: "I rise (eh) Mr. Chairman (eh) to announce the change of four votes of Ohio from Mr. Chase to Mr. Lincoln." There was a brief pause, and then an enormous yell went up, while chairmen of other delegations fought for a chance to put their own change of heart on the record.
On the roof there was a man who had been put there to fire off a salute from waiting small-bore cannon once a nomination had been made. He heard the wild racket coming up from below and thrust his head through a skylight, gesturing madly to get someone to tell him what had happened. Some functionary, tally sheet in hand, saw him and shouted: "Fire the salute—Old Abe is nominated!" and the guns promptly went off, whereon the mob outside took up the shouting. The noise from outside stimulated the hoarse crowd within to new endeavors, and the racket became so intense that the banging of the cannon overhead could not be heard. Wisps of powder smoke drifted down into the auditorium, and a woman in the gallery wrote that although everybody seemed to be joining in the cheering, "I think everyone was half joyful and half frightened"; some of the yelling seemed to come from men who wanted to reassure themselves that what they had just done would really be for the country's good.