Two Miserable Presidents

by Steve Sheinkin

  That was Lincoln—he just wasn’t a fancy guy. Born in a tiny log cabin in Kentucky in 1809, Lincoln had spent only about a year in school. He made up for this by reading every book he could get his hands on. He even stuck books in his pockets before going out to the field to plow. As twelve-year-old Abe explained: “The things I want to know are in books. My best friend is the man who’ll git me a book I ain’t read.”

  The Lincoln family moved west to Indiana, and then on to Illinois. By the time Abe turned eighteen, he was six feet four inches tall, with long limbs rock hard from years of farmwork. “He can sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw,” a friend said. He was also unbeatable at wrestling. When he was twenty-three, Lincoln decided to run for the Illinois state legislature. He traveled around Sangamon County talking to voters (and wrestling many of them). On Election Day he came in eighth.

  Lincoln ran again two years later—and won. He was a natural politician, the kind of guy who could walk into a room full of strangers and have everyone cracking up in a few minutes. But he had another side, a quiet and gloomy side. He sometimes sat still for hours, staring silently into the air. “I never saw a more thoughtful face,” a friend said of Lincoln. “I never saw so sad a face.”

  By the time he was fifty Lincoln had served in the state government and the United States House of Representatives, and had become a successful lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. But he had a bigger dream: to return to Washington, D.C., as a U.S. senator. And he got his chance in 1858 when the Republican Party announced: “Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate.”

  Who were the Republicans? The answer requires …

  A Brief Word About Political Parties

  At this time there were two main political parties in the United States: Democrats and Republicans. Just like today, Democrats and Republicans fought over all kinds of issues. But it was the issue of slavery in the western territories that caused the bitterest debate.

  The new Republican Party had been founded in 1854, and it opposed the expansion of slavery in the western territories. The Republicans got nearly all their support from the North. Members of the Democratic Party argued that slavery should be allowed in the territories if white settlers wanted it. The Democrats had some supporters in the North, but they got most of their support from the South.

  Long Abe vs. the Little Giant

  Now back to “Long Abe” Lincoln and his 1858 Senate dreams.

  The man who had the job that Lincoln wanted was Senator Stephen “the Little Giant” Douglas. Douglas’s nickname was based on two things: he was little (just over five feet), and he had the powers of a giant in Congress. Douglas, who was a Democrat, knew Lincoln would be a tough opponent. “You have nominated a very able and a very honest man,” he told a Republican friend. “I shall have my hands full.”

  Lincoln opened the contest with an alarming prediction—the North and South were speeding toward a dangerous showdown: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln said. “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

  The only way to prevent Northern states from becoming slave states, Lincoln argued, was to stop the expansion of slavery right now.

  Douglas thought this was ridiculous, and he said so over and over when the two candidates met in a series of famous debates all over Illinois. Lincoln and Douglas argued for three hours at a time before huge outdoor crowds—crowds that took part in the action by laughing, cheering, and, when they felt like it, yelling out insults and comments. When Lincoln took out a piece of paper to read something aloud, one person shouted, “Put on your specs!”

  “Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so,” Lincoln said, putting on his glasses. “I am no longer a young man.”

  This got a big laugh.

  Newspaper writers followed the Lincoln-Douglas debates, printing the arguments for the entire country to read. Lincoln and Douglas, both great debaters, were battling over the very issues that were splitting the country apart.

  Douglas attacked Lincoln’s idea that the Union could not remain half slave and half free. Why couldn’t it? Douglas demanded.

  “Let each state mind its own business and let its neighbors alone! … If we will stand by that principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this republic can exist forever divided into free and slave states.”

  Stephen Douglas

  The obvious solution, Douglas argued, was to let voters in the western territories decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery. And everyone else should just butt out.

  This was exactly what Lincoln refused to do. Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he was convinced slavery was evil. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” he said. And he was not willing to compromise on what he saw as a simple question of right and wrong.

  “That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong.”

  By the day of the election both men were exhausted. Trying not to get his hopes up, Lincoln kept telling himself he would never win. But his wife disagreed. “Mary insists,” he told a friend, “that I am going to be Senator, and President of the United States, too.” Lincoln laughed at this idea. “Just think of such a sucker as me as president!”

  Well, Abe was right—this time. Douglas won the election in a very close vote. Lincoln said he was too sad to laugh, too old to cry. “I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten.”

  Abraham Lincoln

  The Return of John Brown

  But Lincoln was not forgotten. Mostly because the issues he talked about were becoming more and more explosive.

  This was thanks largely to John Brown. Brown somehow made it out of Kansas alive and showed up in New England, where he began raising money for a new plan. Convinced that he had been chosen by God to strike a deadly blow against slavery, Brown now attempted to spark a massive slave rebellion. On the cold, drizzly night of October 16, 1859, Brown marched into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with an “army” of twenty-one men, white and black.

  One of Brown’s soldiers was Dangerfield Newby, a former slave who was hoping to free his wife from slavery in Virginia. In his pocket Newby carried a letter from her:

  “Dear Husband … There has been one bright hope to cheer me in all my troubles, that is to be with you, for if I thought I should never see you, this earth would have no charms for me. Do all you can for me, which I have no doubt you will. I want to see you so much.

  Brown’s small force seized the federal armory—a building full of guns and ammunition. They snatched a few people to hold hostage. (One of the hostages was George Washington’s great-grandnephew.) Then they waited for slaves to race to Harpers Ferry, take the weapons, and start freeing people all through the South.

  Harriet Newby

  Ever since that night, people have been arguing about whether or not John Brown was insane. One thing we can all agree on: his plan was very bad. Brown brought no food along and had to send out to a nearby hotel for breakfast for his men and hostages. More important, he didn’t arrange any way of letting slaves on nearby farms know what was going on in Harpers Ferry—so how were they supposed to know to join the rebellion?

  The people in Harpers Ferry knew what was going on, of course, and they grabbed their guns and began shooting at Brown’s army. The first of Brown’s men to die was Dangerfield Newby. Within twentyfour hours, a U.S. Army officer named Robert E. Lee led a group of soldiers to Harpers Ferry and attacked Brown’s crew. One of Lee’s men captured Brown after smacking him on the head with a sword.

  Seventeen men lay dead, including ten of Brown’s men (two of the dead were his sons). While Brown lay on
a cot with his head wrapped in bloody bandages, he was angrily questioned by the Virginia senator James Mason:

  Mason: What was your object in coming?

  Brown: We came to free the slaves.

  Mason: How do you justify your acts?

  Brown: I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity.

  Virginia authorities quickly put Brown on trial, found him guilty, and hanged him on the morning of December 2. He left behind a brief note: “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood.”

  John Brown died knowing he had shoved the nation toward a major crisis. It was as if he had lit the fuse on a massive bomb.

  No More Compromise!

  As Brown’s body swung from the end of a rope in Virginia, church bells tolled in many Northern towns. Cannons fired salutes to Brown’s memory. And abolitionist newspapers praised Brown as a hero, even a saint, who had bravely died battling the evil of slavery.

  Many Northern leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, spoke out against John Brown’s raid. Lincoln considered Brown a madman and a murderer. But this hardly calmed the fury that was sweeping though the South. Southern leaders charged that people such as Lincoln, people who kept hammering away on the slavery issue—they were the ones who had inspired John Brown in the first place.

  Nothing terrified white Southerners like the thought of millions of enslaved people, armed and angry, rising in rebellion. And they believed abolitionists and Republicans were working to make this happen. Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi accused Northerners of trying “to incite slaves to murder helpless women and children.”

  Most white Southerners were not slave owners. And most were strong supporters of the Union. But Brown’s action was seen as a Northern invasion of the South—practically a declaration of war. “THE DAY OF COMPROMISE IS PASSED” declared a South Carolina newspaper. Southerners naturally sided with their own section of the country. “Never before, since the Declaration of Independence, has the South been more unified,” wrote one reporter.

  Tensions between North and South exploded in Washington, D.C., where members of Congress showed up to work with weapons tucked into their pants.

  “The only persons who do not have a revolver and a knife are those who have two revolvers,” said Senator James Hammond of South Carolina. An all-out firefight nearly erupted on the floor of Congress when, in the middle of a furious shouting match, a pistol fell from the pocket of a New York congressman.

  What would happen if the country tried to elect a new president at a time like this? Americans were about to find out.

  Fire-Eaters Scorch the Little Giant

  In April 1860 leaders of the Democratic Party met in Charleston, South Carolina, to choose their candidate for president. After years of leadership in the Democratic Party, Stephen Douglas was pretty sure he would win the nomination. He was in for a shock.

  The convention hall in Charleston was filled with “fire-eaters”—Southern Democrats who were no longer interested in compromise with the North. The fire-eaters rejected Stephen Douglas’s idea that voters in western territories should vote on slavery. They demanded new laws protecting slavery in all the western territories, and they wanted them now! Fire-eater William Yancy of Alabama spoke to a roaring crowd:

  “What right of yours, gentlemen of the North, have we of the South ever invaded? … Ours is the property invaded … ours is the peace that is to be destroyed; ours is the property that is to be destroyed; ours is the honor at stake!”

  William Yancy

  Refusing to support Douglas, the fire-eaters walked out of the convention. The Democratic Party split in two—and went on to nominate two different candidates for president: Stephen Douglas in the North and John Breckinridge in the South.

  Alexander Stephens, a Georgia leader who hoped to save the Union, feared this split would lead to disaster.

  “What do you think of matters now?” a friend asked Stephens.

  “Think of them!” Stephens cried. “Why, that men will be cutting one another’s throats in a little while. We shall, in less than twelve months, be in a civil war, and one of the bloodiest in the history of the world.”

  Stephens knew that the votes of Democrats would now be split between two candidates. That would make it much easier for a Republican to win the election. And many Southerners were openly vowing that they would sooner break up the Union than live under a Republican president.

  Meanwhile, in Chicago …

  But Republicans were pretty excited about living under a Republican president. They knew this was their big chance.

  The city of Chicago turned into one huge carnival when Republicans met in May to pick their presidential candidate. Liquor flowed at nonstop parties, brass bands played, and everyone marched around waving hats and canes. But they also had some serious business: picking the person with the best chance of winning this election. Republican leaders agreed on a few things:

  We need someone who is respected as honest and intelligent.

  We want someone a little famous, but not too famous. Famous politicians usually have lots of powerful enemies.

  • We know we can win the Northeastern states no matter whom we nominate. We need someone who can also win key Midwestern states such as Indiana and Illinois.

  The more they thought about it, the more Republicans liked the idea of that tall guy from Illinois, the one who had spoken so well in those debates with Stephen Douglas … Abraham Lincoln!

  This is just what Lincoln was hoping would happen. He sent a team of friends to Chicago to fight for his nomination. (Candidates never campaigned for themselves in those days—it was considered ungentlemanly.) Lincoln’s men worked behind the scenes convincing important Republicans that “Honest Abe” was the most likely man to win a national election. They also found the loudest shouters in Illinois, brought them to the convention hall, and paid them to yell like crazy for Lincoln every time they were given a secret signal. “A herd of buffaloes or lions could not have made a more tremendous roaring,” said one reporter.

  Back home in Springfield, Lincoln was nervously checking in at the telegraph office every few hours. On May 18 he tried to relax by playing a few games of handball. Then he went with friends to a newspaper office to wait for news. A huge crowd gathered, eager for updates. Finally, an editor ran in with a telegram from Chicago. Lincoln read it to himself, then read it out loud. He was the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

  Suddenly swarmed with cheering supporters, Lincoln worked his way through the crowd, telling people, “Well, gentlemen, there is a short woman who will be interested in this news, and I will go home and tell her.”

  And he went home to tell Mary.

  A Four-Way Race to Ruin

  The election of 1860 really turned into two different elections—one in the North and one in the South. In the North, Abraham Lincoln battled Stephen Douglas for votes. Lincoln supporters formed “Wide Awake” clubs, groups that marched all night carrying torches, playing horns, and singing their theme song:

  Ain’t you glad you joined the Republicans?

  Joined the Republicans,

  Joined the Republicans,

  Ain’t you glad you joined the Republicans

  Down in Illinois?

  In the South everyone knew that most of the votes would go to John Breckinridge, or to a fourth candidate, John Bell of Tennessee.

  Americans felt a growing nervousness as Election Day approached. Some Southern newspapers were predicting that a Lincoln victory would mean death to the Union. One South Carolina paper put it simply: If Lincoln wins, it said, “there will have to be a separation from the North.”

  November 6, 1860, was a warm and sunny day in Springfield, Illinois. That afternoon Lincoln walked over to the county courthouse to vote. Later, after the polls had closed, he walked to the telegraph office and sat down on a couch.

  At about nine o’clock th
e telegraph machines began ticking—news was coming in.

  Abe Lincoln’s Troublesome Victory

  Mary Chesnut was on a train in South Carolina. It was the day after the election of 1860, and everyone was dying to know who had won.

  Mary’s brother tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Lincoln’s elected.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “The man over there has a telegram,” he said.

  Suddenly the train was filled with talking and shouting, with anger and declarations of Southern pride. Mary Chesnut began keeping a detailed journal—she knew she was about to witness history.

  The Trouble with Lincoln

  When he found out he had been elected president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln calmly walked home from the telegraph office and told his wife, “Mary, we’re elected.” The streets of Springfield were filled with cheers and music, but Lincoln didn’t feel much like celebrating. He was about to face the most difficult presidency in American history. And he knew it.

  The election results help explain Lincoln’s worries:

  As you can see on the map, Lincoln got all his support from the North and West. He did not win a single Southern state. In fact, in ten Southern states Lincoln did not even get a single vote! .

  White Southerners saw their worst fears coming true. They knew that the North’s population was growing more quickly than the South’s. And now they knew that the North could elect a president without any support from Southern voters. Leaders of several Southern states began talking about seceding, or officially withdrawing, from the United States. One Georgia man saw it like this: “We are either slaves in the Union or free men out of it.”