Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Democrats urged the public to defeat black equality. “Let voters remember Lincoln’s famous declaration that it is dangerous to except one race from perfect equality; that if we deny it to the negro to-day, that denial will be used as a precedent for denying it to some other race to-morrow,” warned the Illinois State Register. “Let the national policy of the republicans,—to admit negroes to a perfect equality with the whites, be considered, and let voters pause before they give their approval to any such policy.” The editors predicted that slaves would rebel if the Republicans won. In Texas, the Register alleged hyperbolically, “This fever got so high that the election of Lincoln could not be waited for; something must be done, and done at once; so, acting under the impulse men and women poisoned the wells, servants poisoned the food of their master’s family, laborers fired the dwellings, strong men used the assassin’s knife, women seized helpless infants and brained them against trees, stalwart men seized the weak females of the whites, and after perpetrating outrages too horrible to relate, mutilated with fiendish cruelty the bodies they had so recently violated. Mr. Abraham Lincoln this is the fruit of your teaching; this is the crop grown from the seed planted by you in your speeches of 1858–59.”362

  After the election, Lincoln addressed such allegations, maintaining “that some of the politicians of the South had falsely announced, during the recent campaign, that if he (Mr. Lincoln) was elected armed bands were formed in the North to go down there and liberate the slaves, and the most that he feared was, that an insurrectionary movement among the slaves would result from their own teachings.”363

  As Douglas stumped the country, he displayed true statesmanship by warning the South against disunion. Lincoln’s election might constitute “a great national calamity,” but he insisted that the South must abide by the result: “the election of any man … according to the provisions of the Constitution is no pretext for breaking up this Union.” In New York, Douglas told a large audience, “I know him [Lincoln] well.… I have no word of unkindness or personal disrespect to utter concerning him, but I do believe that he holds political opinions which, if carried out, would be subversive of all the principles of the American Constitution.” Yet “if Lincoln should be elected—which God in his mercy forbid [laughter]—he must be inaugurated according to the Constitution and the laws of the country, and I, as his foremost, strongest and irreconcilable opponent, will sustain him in the exercise of every Constitutional function [applause].”364 Undermining his claim to statesmanship, however, was Douglas’s continued race-baiting; he told a Rhode Island crowd “that he preferred clams to niggers” and at Baltimore he insisted that the U.S. government was “made by white men for white men, to be administered by white men, and by nobody else, forever.”365

  With the campaign drawing to a close, Lincoln became ever more confident. Two weeks before its conclusion, Benjamin Welch of New York met with him in Springfield and reported that “Lincoln was in excellent spirits, regarding his election as certain.”366 When asked how he could stand the pressure, he replied “that he should endeavor to sustain himself “ at least until November 6.367

  Victory in November

  On election day, Springfield shed its customary tranquility as cannons boomed to herald the dawn. Augmenting their din were bands blaring from wagons drawn about the city to arouse the populace. Vociferous men loitering around the polls contributed their mite to the pandemonium. There was little violence, though the editor of the Illinois State Register was caned by a gentleman whom he had accused of lying.

  That morning at the statehouse, Lincoln showed little concern as he received visitors while sitting in an armchair that dwarfed him. Among his callers were some Illinoisans who, having cast their ballots, wanted to see him in the flesh. Then came a few New Yorkers, who, Lincoln thought, should have remained home to vote. He told one resident of the Empire State that “he was afraid there were too many of us from New York that day.” When that caller asked Lincoln whether the South would secede if the Republicans captured the White House, he “said they might make a little stir about it before [the inauguration], but if they waited until after his inauguration and for some overt act, they would wait all their lives.”368 When queried about rail-splitting, he showed how it had been performed when he was young and contrasted that technique with the method then employed, which he acknowledged was superior.

  Lincoln had intended to vote late in the day to avoid crowds; in mid-afternoon, however, when told that there were few people at the polls, he decided to cast his ballot then. The day before he had been asked for whom he would vote. “Yates,” he replied puckishly. When pressed how he would vote for president, he responded: “How vote? Well, undoubtedly like an Ohio elector of which I will tell you—by ballot.”369

  As Lincoln approached the courthouse, accompanied by Ozias M. Hatch and other friends, the crowd started shouting wildly and parted to allow him entrance to the polling place. They then followed him down the hall and up the stairs to the jam-packed courtroom, cheering him all the while. There the huzzaing grew ever louder. Even men handing out Douglas tickets joined in. An elderly gentleman with an armload of Democratic documents led several cheers for Lincoln. Before depositing his ballot, he cut off the names of the presidential electors so that he would not be voting for himself. One wag cried out, “You ought to vote for Douglas, Uncle Abe, he has done all he could for you.”370 As Lincoln made his way back to the statehouse, he passed through a screaming gauntlet of enthusiasts who grabbed his hands and his coat. Still others embraced him.

  Lincoln spent the rest of the afternoon at the capitol, where he discussed not his own election prospects but those of local and state candidates. At one point, “he mentioned a candidate for the Legislature in one of these counties who he hoped would be elected, and he would be, Mr. Lincoln added, ‘if he didn’t find Abe Lincoln too heavy a load to carry on the same ticket.’ ” Later “he said that elections in this country were like ‘big boils’—they caused a great deal of pain before they came to a head, but after the trouble was over the body was in better health than before. He hoped that the bitterness of the canvass would pass away ‘as easily as the core of a boil.’ ”

  When one of his friends mentioned the New York fusionists, Lincoln “remarked that they would probably get into such a row going up Salt River as to ‘obstruct navigation’ thereafter.” To Ozias Hatch’s observation “that it was lucky for him that women couldn’t vote, otherwise the monstrous portraits of him which had been circulated during the canvass by friends would surely defeat him,” Lincoln replied smilingly: “Hatch, I tell you there is a great deal more in that idea than you suppose,” and “then related a story about a Presbyterian church in McLean County in Illinois holding a congregational meeting to vote a call to a pastor. The elders and deacons and principal men in the church had united in recommending a certain man, and it was supposed he would be called unanimously; but in an evil hour somebody got hold of the man’s likeness and exhibited it to the sisters. They didn’t like the wart he had on his nose, so they turned out in force and voted down the call.”371

  When a dispatch arrived from Charleston, South Carolina, expressing the wish that Lincoln would win because, if he did, the Palmetto State “would soon be free,” Lincoln laughed as he remarked that several Southerners had written him to the same effect. He handed the message to Hatch, telling him “that the sender of it would bear watching.”372

  At about 7 P.M., the crowd at the statehouse flooded into the room where Lincoln awaited the returns. When someone suggested that they be cleared out, he immediately objected, saying “he had never done such a thing in his life and wouldn’t commence now.” Soon the room was jammed. The candidate remained cool and collected until a messenger arrived from the telegraph office; his face then betrayed a touch of anxiety. That first dispatch, from Decatur, showed a significant Republican gain over the previous election. It was greeted with shouts and taken from the governor’s office to the assembly chamber as
if it were a trophy. At 8 P.M. Lincoln was greatly pleased by a dispatch from Jacksonville indicating a 210-vote Republican gain.

  An hour later Lincoln and some friends left the statehouse for the telegraph office to see the returns as they arrived. Fragmentary reports coming in from nearby counties were like tea leaves that Lincoln was able to read cannily. He was gleeful when news arrived from Saline County, where in 1856 Frémont had received one lone vote while Buchanan got nearly 2,000; but now three of the main precincts gave Lincoln a majority of nearly 200 over Douglas. Laughingly, he called the result “a tribute from Egypt to the success of our public school fund.”

  As the good news rolled in, Lincoln’s friends and the telegraph operators could hardly contain their enthusiasm. The nominee himself, however, remained calm. A dispatch announcing that Lincoln had won by 2,500 votes in Chicago occasioned a thrill of elation. The candidate instructed: “Send it to the boys” in the statehouse. He was equally delighted with good news from St. Louis, where he bested Douglas by over 900 votes. When word from Pittsburgh arrived indicating that Lincoln had carried Allegheny County by 10,000 votes, he “remarked that this was better than expected.”373

  Soon returns arrived from more distant points. Lincoln betrayed some anxiety about the result in New York, “remarking that ‘the news would come quick enough if it was good, and if bad, he was not in any hurry to hear it.’ ” Around 10:30, in response to a hopeful message from Thurlow Weed, Lincoln said “that the news was satisfactory so far, only it was not conclusive.” Then returns from New Jersey showed that the Douglas-Bell-Breckinridge slate was doing surprisingly well. Offsetting this bad news were encouraging returns from New England. When word came in that Massachusetts had gone for him by 50,000, Lincoln called it “a clear case of the Dutch taking Holland.”374 As expected, he carried Pennsylvania easily, a result that he said could be accounted for “only on one supposition and that is that the Quakers voted.”375 (The Democrats had feared a large Quaker turnout in Philadelphia, a city that Lincoln won with 52% of the vote.) Worries about New York, however, persisted. Then, after hours of mostly positive news, returns began arriving from Democratic states. “Now we should get a few licks back,” Lincoln remarked.376

  As predictable results continued to roll in from the South, Lincoln and his friends took a break shortly after midnight, visiting the collation prepared by the women of Springfield, who lined up to kiss him on the cheek. He ruled that it would be “a form of coercion not prohibited by the Constitution or Congress,” and submitted meekly to the friendly assault.

  After partaking of the abundant refreshments, Lincoln and his companions returned to the telegraph office. There cheering news from New York thrilled Lincoln’s companions, but he observed solemnly, “Not too fast, my friends. Not too fast, it may not be over yet.” When even more favorable reports arrived Lincoln’s friend and neighbor Jesse K. Dubois asked: “Well, Uncle Abe, are you satisfied now?” Lincoln replied with a smile, “Well, the agony is most over, and you will soon be able to go to bed.”

  When it was learned that Bell had carried Virginia, Lincoln “suggested that this was the most hopeful return for the peace of the country he had heard, and he hoped the majority was so large as to crush out the fire-eaters completely. He spoke with considerable emphasis and satisfaction about the strength shown for the conservative American ticket in the border States.”377

  Finally, when definitive word of his victory in New York arrived, Lincoln read the fateful dispatch with obvious pleasure. So did the crowd at the statehouse, where men cheered lustily, tossed their hats, and even rolled about on the floor in uncontrollable delight. Men dashed through the streets to inform the citizenry that Lincoln had won. The citizenry shouted from their houses, stores, roofs, and everywhere else. Some ran about singing “Ain’t I glad I’ve joined the Republicans” over and over. The howling and cheering continued throughout the night; then, near dawn, a cannon was dragged out and fired a few times.

  After accepting hearty congratulations, Lincoln prepared to leave. When a messenger announced that he had won Springfield by 69 votes, he abandoned his reserve and exuberantly let out an expression of joy that sounded like a cross between a cheer and a crow. Then he laughed contentedly, bade everyone good night, and returned home. (Though he won Springfield, he lost Sangamon County by 42 votes.)

  Later, when serenaders called at Eighth and Jackson, Mrs. Lincoln reportedly “cursed—swore and held him back, so that it was with difficulty that he went out to meet the people.”378

  Several times the next day Lincoln told friends, “Well, boys, your troubles are over now, but mine have just commenced.” As callers became more numerous, he held a regular levee, shaking the hands of all, including an elderly farmer who exclaimed, “Uncle Abe, I didn’t vote for yer, but I am mighty glad yer elected just the same.” Lincoln responded, “Well, my old friend, when a man has been tried and pronounced not guilty he hasn’t any right to find fault with the jury.”379 David Davis reported from Springfield that “Mr. Lincoln seems as he always does. You would not think that he had been elevated to the highest office in the world.”380

  Lincoln made no formal response to his victory until a grand celebration took place in Springfield two weeks later. During that time he received advice to make a Union-saving address to appease Southern fire-eaters, but Joseph Medill insisted that “[w]e want no speech from Lincoln on the 20th on political questions. W[e] are content with the Republican platform, his letter of acceptance and his published speeches.”381 The capital was subdued, as if the populace needed time to recover from the great excitement of election night. Sobered by the Deep South’s earnest preparations to secede, they postponed their celebration several times. It finally took place on November 20, when the city, overflowing with visitors, was brilliantly illuminated.

  Although Lincoln won only 39.9 percent of the popular vote (far more than the 29% Douglas received), he took a solid majority of the electoral votes, 180 out of 303. He carried all the Free States except New Jersey, where the Bell, Breckinridge, and Douglas forces created a fusion ticket at the last moment and took 52.1 percent of the ballots cast. (But because some anti-Lincoln voters refused to go for the fusion slate, the Republicans took four of the state’s seven electoral votes.) According to John Bigelow, “That little State, the property of a railroad company [the Camden and Amboy] which runs through it and twirls it around like a Skewer[,] voted against him because it has the misfortune to be inhabited by two men, each of whom wished to be Secretary of the Navy and hoped by making the State look insecure, to get an offer of terms.”382 Those men were William L. Dayton and William Pennington, former speaker of the U.S. House. Their lukewarm support of the ticket was widely criticized.

  The Republicans triumphed because of their party’s unity and the bitter split within the Democracy; because of the rapidly growing antislavery feeling in the North, where the Lecompton Constitution and the Dred Scott decision outraged many who had not voted Republican in 1856; because of the North’s ever-intensifying resentment of what it perceived as Southern arrogance, high-handedness, and bullying; because Germans defected from the Democratic ranks; because the Republican economic program appealed both to farmers (with homestead legislation) and to manufacturers and workers (with tariffs) far more than the Democratic economic policies adopted in response to the Panic of 1857; because the rapidly improving economy blunted fears that businessmen had felt as they contemplated a Republican victory; and because of public disgust at the corruption of Democrats, most notably those in the Buchanan administration. Lincoln did especially well among younger voters, newly eligible voters, former nonvoters, rural residents, skilled laborers, members of the middle class, German Protestants, evangelical Protestants, native-born Americans, and most especially former Know-Nothings and Whig-Americans.

  Correspondence, newspaper commentary, and other anecdotal sources suggest that Lincoln’s victory was in part due to his character, biography, and public record. In J
uly, John A. Kasson reported from Iowa: “I never talk to an audience of farmers without noticing the intense interest as they listen to the story of his early life & trials in making himself what he is,—the ablest & most eminent man in the West.”383 An Ohio farmer praised Lincoln as “a self-made man, who came up a-foot. We like his tact—we like his argumentative powers—we like his logic, and we like the whole man.”384 A resident of Champaign, Illinois, wrote that “[e]very man who is struggling to improve his fortune by honest toil and patient endeavor, feels that in Abraham Lincoln he has a generous and confiding friend, and dignified representative.” Lifelong Democrats, he observed, “now find themselves irresistibly impelled by their reverence for the public virtues of Mr. Lincoln.”385 By choosing a candidate with such a humble background, Republicans demonstrated “that their hearts are with the people,” said Frank Blair.386 Lincoln “is the representative of the great idea of the Republican party—labor—free labor,” Richard Yates told a crowd at Springfield. “The poor boy … can point to Abraham Lincoln, and straighten himself up and say, ‘I have the same right and same opportunity to be President as any other boy.’ ”387

  The rail-splitter image underscored that message. Throughout the campaign, Republicans emphasized rail-splitting in posters, transparencies, newspapers, rallies, cartoons, and oratory. The Breckinridge-Democratic candidate for governor of New York sneeringly asked “whether it would not be just as good reasoning to claim that a man ought to be made President of the United States because he had once carried a hod?”388 Horace Greeley responded that the sobriquet rail-splitter “is merely an emphatic way of stating that he rose from the class of men stigmatized by slave-holding Senators as the ‘mud-sills’ of society.” Since he advanced “from rail-splitting to be a prominent citizen of Illinois, and a candidate for the Presidency, there must be talent and capacity enough in him to qualify him for the discharge of the duties of that office. The main object, however, is an appeal … to the sympathy and the self-respect of that great body of voters who split rails or follow similar laborious employments.”389 According to the Milwaukee Free Democrat, “it is not because Abe Lincoln once mauled and split rails for a living that he thus takes hold of the popular heart, but because from the position of occupation of a common farm laborer he has ascended to the position of a probable President, without ever stooping to a mean thing or in any way tampering with his integrity.”390 The Houston Telegraph called Lincoln “the most dangerous politician in the Union—doubly dangerous from the fact of his popularity as a self-made man.”391