Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Mary Lincoln shared her husband’s view of the vice-presidency. When he told a friend that Iowa delegates to the Chicago Convention would cast most of their votes for him as president and all of them for him as vice-president, “Mrs. Lincoln spoke up in a hard, bitter manner and said: ‘If you can not have the first place, you shall not have the second.’ ”141

  Having authorized friends to promote his candidacy, Lincoln sought to avoid offending his rivals or their supporters. On the evening of February 8, after the Republican State Central Committee had met, he conferred with Orville H. Browning, who opined that Edward Bates of Missouri would be the strongest Republican presidential candidate. Lincoln tactfully replied that “it is not improbable that by the time the National convention meets in Chicago he may be of [the] opinion that the very best thing that can be done will be to nominate Mr Bates.” Browning added that Richard Yates and David L. Phillips “also think Mr Bates stronger in this State than any other man who has been named.”142 Yates was not the only resident of Jacksonville to favor Bates over Lincoln. One of them reported in December 1859 that “there is an almost unanimous feeling in this county at present in favor of Bates” and that the “movement in favor of Lincoln, which is strong at Springfield, finds no response at all here.”143 From Charleston, Lincoln’s friend Thomas A. Marshall acknowledged that “Bates can get 100 votes in this county more than Lincoln can.”144

  Alarmed by his conversation with Browning, the next day Lincoln wrote to Judd: “I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me not to be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt some for me to not get the Illinois delegates. What I expected when I wrote the letter [vindicating Judd] … is now happening. Your discomfited assailants are most bitter against me; and they will, for revenge upon me, lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to the Seward egg in the North, and go far towards squeezing me out in the middle with nothing. Can you not help me a little in this matter?”145 Judd was willing to help in many ways. A week after Lincoln wrote him, the Chicago Press and Tribune, to which Judd had close ties, abandoned its neutrality and heartily endorsed Lincoln for president. The paper lauded him as “the peer of any man yet named,” a “gentleman of unimpeachable purity in private life” and “great breadth and great acuteness of intellect,” with “executive capacity,” who was “more certain to carry Illinois and Indiana than any one else” and had political antecedents that would “commend him heartily to the support of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.”146 Shortly thereafter Judd asked Lincoln: “You saw what the Tribune said about you—was it satisfactory?”147 In April 1860, Judd suggested to Lyman Trumbull that “a quiet combination between the delegates from New Jersey Indiana and Illinois be brought about—including Pennsylvania.” Together they could stop Seward, but they must maintain a low profile. “It will not do to make a fight for delegates distinctly Lincoln,” but he could get at least the unanimous backing of the Illinois delegation.148 Judd and other friends of Lincoln thought it best not to promote his candidacy vigorously but rather to let the supporters of Seward, Chase, Bates, and Cameron fight among themselves; then at the proper time, when a strong push was to be made, he would face no embittered opponents.

  Echoing the Press and Tribune’s editorial, a Washington dispatch dated February 20 by Joseph Medill speculated that Lincoln would be more electable than the conservative Bates or the radical Seward: “Does not common sense whisper in every man’s ear that the middle ground is the ground of safety?” Medill heard “the name of Lincoln mentioned for President in Washington circles, ten times as often as it was one month ago. The more the politicians look over the field in search of an available [i.e., electable] candidate, the more they are convinced that ‘Old Abe’ is the man to win the race with. If the States of the Northwest shall unite upon him, and present his name to the Chicago Convention, there is a strong probability that he will receive the nomination, and as certain as he is nominated he will be President.”149

  This article angered Seward, who considered it insulting. He accused Medill of “going back” on him and of preferring the “prairie statesman,” as he patronizingly referred to Lincoln. Seward boastfully told Medill “that he was the chief teacher of the principles of the Republican party before Lincoln was known other than as a country lawyer of Illinois.”150 Seward’s men tried to thwart Lincoln’s chances by puffing him for the vice presidency and by arguing that since both men were equally radical, the more prominent and long-serving Seward should be the presidential nominee.

  When not quarrelling with Wentworth, Judd was busy trying to persuade the Republican National Committee, on which he sat, to hold the party’s national convention in Chicago. It was Lincoln’s good fortune to have a man like Judd aiding his cause. Known as a shrewd manager, he was genial, personable, and popular with the men who tended to the party machinery. Lincoln was more concerned about the timing than the location of convention. In mid-December, he told Judd that “some of our friends here, attach more consequence to getting the National convention in our State than I did, or do. Some of them made me promise to say so to you. As to the time, it must certainly be after the Charleston fandango [i.e., the Democratic national convention scheduled for April]; and I think, within bounds of reason, the later the better.”151 Judd found the National Committee divided: Seward’s men wanted the convention held in New York, Chase’s men argued for Cleveland, and supporters of Bates insisted on St. Louis. Judd slyly suggested that because Illinois had no eminent candidate for the presidency, Chicago should be chosen as a neutral compromise site. Aided by George G. Fogg of New Hampshire, Judd on December 21 persuaded the committee to accept his proposal, thus improving Lincoln’s chances for the nomination. “The friends of Lincoln are highly pleased with the selection of Chicago as the place for holding the Republican National Convention,” reported the New York Herald. “Many of them now declare that his nomination is a foregone conclusion.”152 A newspaper in Iowa said that Chicago’s designation as the convention site was “a stroke of policy … on the part of the friends of Lincoln which will doubtless place him upon the ticket for Vice-President.”153

  In February the committee rescheduled the opening of the convention, originally slated for June 13, to May 16 in order to allow more time for organizing the campaign. They believed that a whole month was “entirely too long to allow the enemy to be in the field without striking a blow.”154 Seward’s Illinois supporters objected to moving the time of the convention, arguing that the proposal was designed to thwart the New York senator and improve the prospects of Chase and other potential nominees.

  Cooper Union Speech

  One day in October 1859, Lincoln rushed into his office brandishing an invitation to deliver a lecture at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, where the renowned minister, Henry Ward Beecher, presided. The topic could be virtually anything. An organizer of the lecture series explained to William H. Bailhache, co-editor of the Illinois State Journal, that Lincoln “must come. We want to hear a speech from him, such a one as he delivered in Cincinnati [in September] would be perfectly satisfactory. He may speak on any subject … the utmost latitude may be observed.”155 With this opportunity Lincoln could, if successful, overcome Eastern skepticism about the wisdom of nominating an ill-educated “prairie statesman.” Some of Lincoln’s friends, however, urged him to decline, arguing “that the contrast of his sledge hammer style with the polished language of the best Eastern orators would be disastrous.” Lincoln, who shared their misgivings, said: “I don’t know whether I shall be adequate to the situation; I have never appeared before such an audience as may possibly assemble to hear me.” But Bailhache maintained “that the people were weary of polished platitudes and many were ready and wishing for strong meat.”156 Seconding Bailhache was Herndon, who opined that he “could see the meaning of the move by the New York men, [and] thought it was a move against Seward.”157 In fact, a leading Chase operative, James A. Briggs, had extended the invitation, and Chase men, eager to sto
p Seward or any other rival of their hero, had earlier talked of boosting Lincoln as a way to head off a Bates movement. Seward was told that “Mr. Lincoln was brought to New York to divide your strength.”158

  Months later, Lincoln said that he had intended “to give a lecture on some other than a political subject, but as the time approached he could not find leisure to prepare a satisfactory discourse, and took up with politics, as being a topic with which he was more familiar.”159 So Lincoln proposed to Briggs that he give a political address toward the end of February. Because that was too late for the lecture series, the organizers approached the New York Republican Executive Committee, which showed no interest. Briggs offered to help underwrite Lincoln’s appearance. Later, Briggs and his friends, fearing that they would not be able to cover expenses ($350), turned Lincoln’s appearance over to the Young Men’s Republican Union of New York. Anti-Seward forces in that organization—whose advisory board included the poet-editor William Cullen Bryant, William Curtis Noyes, Hamilton Fish, and Horace Greeley—were employing the Union as a forum to showcase alternative candidates to Seward. Frank Blair, who was championing Bates, and Cassius M. Clay, a long-shot presidential hopeful, had already addressed it.

  In preparation for his New York appearance, Lincoln conducted thorough research in order to rebut Douglas’s Harper’s Magazine article. Assiduously he pored over his own copy of Jonathan Elliot’s Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution and at the Illinois State Library he consulted numerous volumes of political history and congressional proceedings. Despite his painstaking efforts, Lincoln left Springfield for New York with some trepidation, which his friends shared.

  Accompanying Lincoln on the train journey were his neighbor, Mrs. Stephen Smith, and her baby, to whom Lincoln was quite devoted. She had been planning to visit her family in Philadelphia and, at Lincoln’s suggestion, delayed her trip so that they could travel together. The infant, as a friend of the Smiths’ reported, “satisfied something which he [Lincoln] was always shy about explaining.” In Springfield he would often carry the youngster over his shoulder. On the way to New York, Lincoln seemed preoccupied, but whenever the train paused at stations, he would eagerly take up the child in his arms and walk him about the platform. He would then return to the car feeling refreshed and continue his introspective ruminations.160

  En route from Philadelphia to New York, Lincoln was surprised to read in a newspaper that he would be speaking at the Cooper Institute in New York instead of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Feeling the need to revise his speech to suit the New York audience, Lincoln devoted himself to that task. (Organizers of the event variously described that audience as New York’s “better, but busier citizens” who “generally attend lectures and rarely ever attend political meetings,” as “intelligent but inert individuals usually called ‘respectable citizens,’ ” and as “the best sort of citizens.”)161 Lincoln turned down the offer of merchant Henry C. Bowen to stay at his home, explaining that “he was afraid he had made a mistake in accepting the call to New York, and feared his lecture would not prove a success. He said he would have to give his whole time to it, otherwise he was sure he would make a failure, in which case he would be very sorry for the young men who had kindly invited him.” The following day, after the two men had attended services at Plymouth Church, Bowen repeated his offer of hospitality, and once again Lincoln declined, saying: “I am not going to make a failure at the Cooper Institute to-morrow night, if I can possibly help it. I am anxious to make a success of it on account of the young men who have so kindly invited me here. It is on my mind all the time.… Please excuse me and let me go to my room at the hotel, lock the door, and there think about my lecture.”162

  On Monday, February 27, the day of the speech, Lincoln’s Illinois friend Mason Brayman, in New York on business, reported that he and Lincoln were lodging at the same hotel and had “spent much time together.” At dinner that day, Lincoln “was waited upon by some admirers,” to whom he introduced Brayman “as a Democrat, but one so good tempered that he and I could ‘eat out of the same rack without a pole between us.’ ”163 In the restaurant, Lincoln asked his waiter to translate the French menu. Even in English, the names of the dishes were unfamiliar to him. Finally, when beans were mentioned, “Lincoln’s face brightened, and he made a quick gesture. ‘Hold on there, bring me some of those—some beans. I know beans.’ ”164 After their meal, Richard C. McCormick and George B. Lincoln called to take him sightseeing along Broadway. Their guest may have been startled by the hustle and bustle of Broadway, so different from Springfield. After this interlude, a New Jersey delegation called on Lincoln to ask him to campaign in their state. Brayman remarked to a friend, “you perceive the fame of Ancient Abraham has extended even into foreign lands.”165

  Later, members of the Young Men’s Republican Union visited Lincoln, who was wearing a black suit so badly wrinkled that he apologized for his appearance. His guests considered him “the most unprepossessing public man” they had ever seen. Lincoln recalled that despite the bustle and attention, the day of the speech “was one of the loneliest days of his life.” He “was perfectly conscious that the club committee who came to see him at the Astor House & took him around to see the sights, were over critical of his entire appearance.” He felt the same way “when on the platform of the hall before he spoke.”166 When urged to supply newspapers with a copy of his remarks, Lincoln expressed doubt that any paper would want to publish them. He visited the studio of Mathew Brady, where he had a photograph (which he called his “shadow”) taken. Brady found it difficult to pose his subject naturally. “When I got him before the camera,” Brady remembered, “I asked him if I might not arrange his collar, and with that he began to pull it up. ‘Ah,’ said Lincoln, ‘I see you want to shorten my neck.’ ‘That’s just it,’ I answered, and we both laughed.”167

  At Brady’s gallery Lincoln met the worldly George Bancroft (who had helped Douglas write his Harper’s article), a model of sophistication compared with the provincial Lincoln, who apologized frequently for his unfamiliarity with city ways. He told the eminent historian that he was on his way to New England to visit his son Robert who, he said, “already knows much more than his father.”168 (Robert was a student at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.)

  In urging its readers to attend Lincoln’s speech, the New York Tribune praised the Illinoisan for his “clearness and candor of statement,” his “chivalrous courtesy to opponents,” and his “broad genial humor.”169 Fifteen hundred New Yorkers took the Tribune’s advice, packing the Cooper Institute. There William Cullen Bryant, the distinguished poet and editor, introduced Lincoln as “a gallant soldier of the political campaign of 1856” and the man who almost defeated Douglas in 1858. “I have only to pronounce his name to secure your profound attention.” (Lincoln, a devotee of poetry, thought it “worth a visit from Springfield, Illinois, to New York to make the acquaintance of such a man as William Cullen Bryant.”)170

  As Lincoln awkwardly stepped to the podium, his ill-fitting clothing, self-conscious rusticity, and ungainly manner inspired pity in some members of the audience. His opening words, which he delivered in a Kentucky accent as he fiddled with his suspenders, grated on cultivated Eastern ears. (He addressed the chairman of the meeting as “Mr. Cheerman.”) He spoke in a low, dull monotone, emphatically stressing his words. One auditor was led to think, “Old fellow, you won’t do; it’s all very well for the wild West, but this will never go down in New York.”171 After a few minutes, Lincoln straightened himself up and began gesturing with some grace. His voice gained in volume and clarity, filling the hall. The audience at first thought his manner quite peculiar but soon found themselves captivated by it. His face, which seemed lit from within, contorted expressively. Mason Brayman considered it “somewhat funny” that Lincoln’s podium manner in New York differed so markedly from his style in Illinois. Brayman reported that he “was a little straightened” because he “was aware that much was e
xpected of him, and that much significance was attached to his words; and he talked like a man who was aware that his talk would be talked about by all people on the morrow.” Instead of speaking “in so familiar a way, walking up and down, swaying about, swinging his arms, bobbing forward, telling droll stories and laughing at them himself,” Lincoln stood “stiff and straight, with his hands quiet, pronouncing sentence after sentence, in good telling english, with elaborate distinctness, though well condensed, and casting at each finished period, a timid, sidelong glance at the formidable array of Reporters who surrounded the table close at his elbow, as if conscious, that after all the world was his audience, on whose ear his words would fall from the thousand multiplying tongues of the Press; and that for the time being, these little busy fellows were the arbiters of his fate.”172 Fearing that he might not be heard by everyone, Lincoln had arranged with Brayman that the latter would sit in the rear of the hall and if Lincoln’s voice was not audible there, his friend would send a signal by lifting up his hat on his cane. That precaution proved unnecessary.