Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  At Manchester, Mayor Frederick Smyth introduced Lincoln as the next president. After his talk, Lincoln skeptically asked Smyth if he meant his prediction seriously. The mayor replied that if Lincoln “had made the same impression in the other States where he had spoken that he made that day on the people of New Hampshire, he would certainly receive the presidential nomination.” Lincoln replied, “No! No! That is impossible. Mr. Seward should and will receive the nomination. I do not believe that three States will vote for me in the convention.” Earlier he had told Smyth that Seward’s February 29 senate speech, in which the New Yorker sought to portray himself as a Moderate rather than a Radical, would make him the next president.201 (In that address, the senator disclaimed any desire “to introduce negro equality,” much to the dismay of abolitionists.)202 Later, Smyth boasted to Lincoln that he was “the first man in N. Hampshire who advicated your nomination to the highest office in the world,” and that he had “labored for more than a year to convince my Republican friends that you were the man for the times.”203

  In Rhode Island, even the editor of a Democratic paper called Lincoln’s speech at Providence “the finest constitutional argument for a popular audience that I ever heard.”204 A Republican observed that Lincoln “made a decided hit & left a good impression” with his “plain, able and argumentative” address, which came “directly from the heart.”205 (Not everyone agreed. After the election, in which the Republicans suffered a reverse, a Bostonian claimed that Lincoln’s speech in the Rhode Island capital “is the very reason that Providence has by such an overwhelming majority repudiated the party of which Mr. Lincoln is a leader.”)206

  On his return trip to Illinois, Lincoln stopped over in New York where, on Sunday, March 11, he attended Beecher’s church with James A. Briggs. A gallery usher recalled that as Beecher spoke, “Lincoln’s body swayed forward, his lips parted, and he seemed at length entirely unconscious of his surroundings—frequently giving vent to his satisfaction, at a well-put point or illustration, with a kind of involuntary Indian exclamation—‘ugh!’—not audible beyond his immediate presence, but very expressive!”207 Lincoln told the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field of New York that “he thought there was not upon record, in ancient or modern biography, so productive a mind, as had been exhibited in the career of Henry Ward Beecher.”208

  Afterward, accompanied by Briggs and Hiram Barney, a pro-Chase lawyer, Lincoln visited the Five Points House of Industry School in one of the poorest districts of New York. When a teacher asked him to address the children, he at first declined, saying: “I am not used to speaking in religious meetings.” At the youngsters’ insistence, he finally spoke to them, saying “the way was open to every boy present, if honest, industrious, and persevering, to the attainment of a high and honorable position.” When he tried to cut short his remarks, the lads clamored for more, and he obliged them.209

  Lincoln found Barney quite impressive. Barney’s sister-in-law, Julia Tappan, daughter of the philanthropic abolitionist Lewis Tappan, had tea with Lincoln and was at first put off by his “awkwardness of manner, homeliness of feature, and not over clean hands.” But quickly she “forgot the disagreeable in admiration of his intelligence and heartiness and wit.”210

  Briggs had predicted that Seward, Chase, or Lincoln would win the Republican presidential nomination. (Mason Brayman reported that the “New-Yorkers really regard him [Lincoln] as one of the strongest of the Republicans—and treated him accordingly.”)211 Now Lincoln told Briggs that during his tour of New England, “several gentlemen made about the same remarks to me that you did … about the Presidency; they thought my chances were about equal to the best.”212

  By the time his Eastern tour ended, Lincoln had achieved a new stature and attracted a horde of presidential supporters. Among them was James G. Blaine, a rising star in the political firmament of Maine, who resolved to work for Lincoln’s nomination. In New Haven, Lincoln was so impressive that the editor of the Palladium, James Babcock, endorsed him for the presidency and persuaded two delegates to the national convention to vote for him. In response, Lincoln told Babcock: “I do not envy the man who shall stand at the helm of this great Ship of State during the next four years.”213 After his talk in Norwich, Lincoln and local Republican leaders conferred at the Wauregan Hotel, where one gentleman suggested that their guest of honor might be a candidate for vice president. “Sir,” interjected Amos W. Prentice, “we want him at the other end of the Avenue.” This remark elicited long and loud applause.214

  Connecticut journalist Gideon Welles, with whom Lincoln visited during his stay in Hartford, heaped praise on him: “This orator and lawyer has been caricatured. He is not Apollo, but he is not Caliban. He was made where the material for strong men is plenty, and his huge, tall frame is loosely thrown together. He is every way large, brain included, but his countenance shows intellect, generosity, great good nature, and keen discrimination. When he is called a great stump orator, people think of bellowing eloquence, and clownish stories. He is an effective speaker, because he is earnest, strong, honest, simple in style, and clear as crystal in his logic.”215 (Lincoln found Welles “one of the clearest headed men he had ever met” and a year later would name him secretary of the navy.)216

  New England’s most influential journal, the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, declared that Lincoln’s “visit East has added greatly to his reputation among the republicans of this section, and they will be readily reconciled to any use of his name which the Chicago convention may propose in its selections for the national ticket.”217 An Illinois paper concurred: “The enthusiasm which his presence raised in the East is an earnest of that which would be excited by his nomination for the Presidency. There seems to be a strong feeling in favor of nominating Mr. Lincoln in case Douglas is the Democratic candidate; it being generally conceded that he is the strongest candidate against Douglas.”218 In Maine, the Machias Republican predicted that “Lincoln on the Republican Presidential ticket second, if not first, will give it strength and prestige all over the Union.”219 A pro-Seward lawyer in Poughkeepsie speculated that Lincoln would do better than the New York senator not only in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, but even in the Empire State. Lincoln, said this attorney, “is emphatically a man of the people, and he will run like a wild-cat.”220 Another New Yorker, who preferred Seward, admitted that Lincoln “would make the strongest Republican candidate.” When visiting Springfield in the winter of 1860, this same man had asked a Douglas supporter what effect Lincoln’s nomination would have on the Little Giant’s chances. “It would be devilish bad for us,” came the reply.221

  Lincoln’s success encouraged his friends from Ohio. Samuel Galloway wrote, “I … congratulate you … You could not have ever anticipated a more cordial & favorable welcome than you received.”222 Lyman Trumbull concurred: “You made a great many friends by your Eastern trip. Have not heard a single man speak of your speeches but in the highest terms.”223 C. D. Hay told Lincoln: “I have been highly delighted at seeing the perfect success of your tour East. It is very evident that nothing has transpired recently to so much advance your interest and elevate you in the minds of the people, as that short trip.”224 Hay expressed regret that Lincoln had not spoken in Pennsylvania or New Jersey; indeed, it is curious that he turned down invitations from those swing states. En route to New York he was invited to meet with Simon Cameron and David Wilmot when stopping briefly in Philadelphia; he tried to avail himself of the offer but could not connect with them.

  Also mysterious is Lincoln’s decision to decline an invitation to address the Massachusetts Republican convention on March 7. Evidently, he believed that the Bay Staters were so strongly pro-Seward that he could win no support among them. In addition, the lack of a gubernatorial contest made a visit there less urgent than in other states holding elections that spring. Edward H. Rollins told him that the “Connecticut people need you more,” for the party “is strong in Massachusetts & Connecticut is suffering.�
�225 (In the Nutmeg State, Republicans were in trouble because they were “stiff people who undertake to abolish niggers and lager beer at the same time,” according to Herman Kreismann. Connecticut Germans resented the “foolish persecution of the lager beer saloons” by Republican prohibitionists.)226

  When Lincoln departed New Hampshire, the Concord Independent Democrat, edited by George G. Fogg, said that the “blessings and hopes of many thousands who have seen and heard him for the first time, will go with him.”227 Fogg, a member of the Republican National Committee, would play an important role at the Chicago Convention a few weeks later.

  A chorus of praise and optimism greeted Lincoln when he returned to Springfield in mid-March. “No inconsiderable portion of your fellow citizens in various portions of the country have expressed their preference for you as the candidate of the Republican party for the next Presidency,” Milton Hay proudly told him on behalf of the capital’s Republican Club. “There are those around you sir who have watched with manly interest and pride your upward march from obscurity to distinction. There are those here who know something of the obstacles which have lain in your pathway.… In the long list of those who have thus from humble beginnings won their way worthily to proud distinction there is not one can take precedence of the name of Abraham Lincoln.” Since the dawn of the Republican movement in 1854, said Hay, Lincoln had demonstrated “statesmanship … well worthy of the Presidency itself.”228

  Probably travel-weary, Lincoln declined most invitations to speak, explaining that “I am not personally very prepossessing” and that potential audiences “have seen all my thoughts on paper.”229 One exception was a request from Republicans in Bloomington, where on April 10 he attacked popular sovereignty from a new angle. A bill criminalizing polygamy, which had passed the U.S. House five days earlier, prompted Lincoln to charge Illinois Democrats with hypocrisy. For Congress to outlaw polygamy in the Utah Territory would violate the principle of popular sovereignty, yet to allow it would be unpalatable to the voters of Illinois. Therefore, said Lincoln, Congressman John A. McClernand had proposed a compromise measure, which would have divided up Utah among other territories. But, asked Lincoln, “If you can put down polygamy in that way, why may you not thus put down slavery?” Lincoln “said he supposed that the friends of popular sovereignty would say—if they dared speak out—that polygamy was wrong and slavery right; and therefore one might thus be put down and the other not.” To undermine thus the principle of popular sovereignty, Lincoln argued, would be like saying: “If I cannot rightfully murder a man, I may tie him to the tail of a kicking horse, and let him kick the man to death!”230

  Girding for the Republican National Convention

  Lincoln faced moral and practical dilemmas about using money to line up delegates to the Republican national convention. His ally Mark W. Delahay had complained to Lincoln that Seward spent freely to win support in Kansas and that “we, your friends, are all very poor” and hinted that “a very little money now would do us and you a vast deal of good.” Lincoln would have none of it: “I can not enter the ring on the money basis—first, because in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.” Yet, he added, “for certain objects, in a political contest, the use of some, is both right, and indispensable.” So saying, he agreed to give Delahay $100 to enable him to attend the Chicago Convention, assuming that he would be chosen a delegate. When Delahay and all other Lincoln supporters in Kansas were defeated, Lincoln advised Delahay not to stir the Seward delegates “up to anger, but come along to the convention, & I will do as I said about expenses.”231 The following day, Lincoln told a correspondent who had proposed some scheme involving the expenditure of $10,000: “I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.”232

  News that the Republicans won in Connecticut (though by a narrow margin) and in New Hampshire delighted Lincoln. He deemed the result in Rhode Island a “quasi defeat.” The Republican gubernatorial candidate, Radical Seth Padelford, lost to the wealthy William Sprague, running as an independent. (The Democrats had fielded no candidate.) The political implications, Lincoln thought and others agreed, boded ill for Seward’s nomination and well for his own, increasing his appetite for the ever-more-attainable nomination. To Lyman Trumbull, he confided on April 29, “The taste is in my mouth a little.”233 He spelled out his strategy to a loyal booster, Samuel Galloway: “If I have any chance, it consists mainly in the fact that the whole opposition would vote for me if nominated.… My name is new in the field; and I suppose I am not the first choice of a very great many. Our policy, then, is to give no offence to others—leave them in a mood to come to us, if they shall be compelled to give up their first love. This, too, is dealing justly with all, and leaving us in a mood to support heartily whoever shall be nominated.” Lincoln was particularly eager to avoid offending Chase, for “he gave us his sympathy in 1858, when scarcely any other distinguished man did.”234

  This strategy made sense, for the front-runners might well knock each other out of contention. In April, a supporter of dark horse John M. Read of Pennsylvania prophetically remarked that he had never seen “so many candidates before an ‘opposition’ convention with fair chances. The result it seems must not be in favor of either one of the three having the most strength now.”235 (Presumably he was referring to Seward, Bates, and Chase.) Lincoln worked hard to avoid offending other presidential aspirants, including Bates, Seward, and Cameron. When asked about their chances to carry Illinois, he tactfully observed that “Mr. Seward is the very best candidate we could have for the North of Illinois, and the very worst for the South of it. The estimate of Gov. Chase here is neither better nor worse than that of Seward, except that he is a newer man.” Bates “would be the best man for the South of our State, and the worst for the North of it. If [75-year-old] Judge McLean was fifteen, or even ten years younger, I think he would be stronger than either, in our state, taken as a whole; but his great age, and the recollection of the deaths of Harrison and Taylor have, so far, prevented his being much spoken of here. I really believe we can carry the state for either of them, or for any one who may be nominated; but doubtless it would be easier to do it with some than with others.”236 More candidly, Lincoln told Trumbull: “I think neither Seward nor Bates can carry Illinois if Douglas shall be on the track; and that either of them can, if he shall not be. I rather think McLean could carry it with D. on or off,” though McLean’s age told against him. Seward’s nomination would, Lincoln said, make it difficult to win the Illinois Legislature, though Seward and Bates were equally likely to carry the state.237

  To reduce conflict within the state party, Lincoln urged Trumbull to “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. I have hesitated some to write this paragraph, lest you should suspect I do it for my own benefit, and not for yours; but on reflection I conclude you will not suspect me.”238 Wentworth and others were alleging that Trumbull angled to outstrip Lincoln in the race for the vice-presidential nomination. When Long John advised “You must do like Seward does—get a feller to run you,” Lincoln replied that “events, and not a man’s own exertions in his behalf, made presidents.”239 Wentworth spoke warmly of Lincoln but urged the nomination of Seward. Similarly, though expressing support for Lincoln, Trumbull favored McLean.

  As the date for the Republican national convention (May 16) drew near, Lincoln expressed guarded optimism, predicting that only the Illinois delegation would unanimously support him, though Indiana “might not be difficult to get.” In the other states, “I have not heard that any one makes any positive objection to me.”240 The cl
ear implication was that if Seward did not win, Lincoln might well do so, especially since most delegates would support a candidate who could carry Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The shrewd Mark W. Delahay had told him that Seward was unacceptably radical to delegates from those swing states; that Connecticut was also “a doubtful state” and therefore chary of Seward; that Ohio would go for any Republican and therefore Chase “can claim nothing in the way of availability”; that Bates was unacceptable to the Germans and to the Radicals and could not carry his own state; and that Cameron, known as a corrupt wheeler-dealer, was unable to win the nomination.241

  Delahay’s astute analysis was echoed by many of Lincoln’s correspondents and jibed with his own understanding. Certainly, Cameron was weakened by doubts surrounding his character. His sobriquets—“The Great Winnebago Chief “ and “Old Winnebago”—referred to his conduct in 1838 when he, acting as a claims commissioner, had allegedly cheated the Winnebago Indians by paying them $66,000 in wildcat currency, issued by his own Pennsylvania bank, which could not be cashed or used to purchase anything in their territory. One Pennsylvanian remarked acidly: “If Cameron had his deserts, he would be serving out a sentence in the penitentiary instead of serving in the U.S. Senate.” A New York Herald correspondent called him “shrewd, unscrupulous and selfish.”242 Chase and Seward suffered from their prominence; having been in the spotlight for many years, they had made enemies. David Wilmot believed that Old Line Whigs would not back either of them, though they “would support other men of equally advanced republican positions, but who had not been held up before them for years, in so unfavorable a light.”243 That description fit Lincoln, who looked good by comparison, for he was, as Horace Greeley pointed out, “unencumbered by that weight of prejudice, and that still heavier responsibility for the sins of others, sure to be fastened upon the shoulders of every man who occupies for a long time the position of a political leader.”244