Lincoln understood, too, that there were particular problems blocking his own candidacy. For one thing, in November, Sangamon County voters had elected him again to the state legislature, with the largest number of votes given to any candidate. This was, at best, bittersweet news, because the Illinois constitutional provision prohibiting the legislature from electing one of its own members to higher office might give unenthusiastic legislators an excuse not to vote for him. Apart from that, the new legislature was going to be so closely divided that, if Lincoln accepted the office, he might have the deciding vote in the election of senator. Propriety dictated that a man should not vote for himself but must abstain or cast his ballot for his opponent. There was, then, a real possibility that if Lincoln served in the legislature he might be obliged to assist in the reelection of the Democratic candidate, James Shields, his old political foe and Douglas’s right-hand man. He thought about the problem for two weeks and then declined to accept election to the House of Representatives. “I only allowed myself to be elected,” he explained, “because it was supposed my doing so would help Yates.”
According to Charles H. Ray, of the Chicago Tribune, Lincoln’s declination “did more than any thing else to damage him with the Abolitionists” throughout the state, for they thought he was putting his personal fortunes above those of the anti-Nebraska movement. The Know Nothings, who had supported Lincoln, were also resentful at what they considered betrayal; Dr. William Jayne reported that they were “down on Lincoln—hated him.” Taken by surprise by Lincoln’s refusal to serve, the anti-Nebraska forces in Sangamon County were unable to field a strong candidate in the special election held just before Christmas, and a Democrat won the Sangamon seat in the legislature. Opponents chuckled that the voters had slapped Lincoln’s face, and Shields called the outcome “the best Christmas joke of the season.”
Lincoln had also to steer his way out of his entanglement with the radical antislavery wing of the anti-Nebraska movement, which constituted the new Republican party. Whether from prudence or pressure of business, he had been absent from Springfield in October 1854, when their convention adopted a platform urging an end to slavery in all national territories and a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and made him a member of the state central committee. Lincoln neither accepted nor declined membership and, indeed, made no response until after the election, when Codding requested him to attend a meeting of the committee. As delicately as possible, he tried to disengage himself from a group whose votes he wanted but with whom he could not afford to be publicly affiliated. “I have been perplexed some to understand why my name was placed on that committee,” he wrote Codding. “I was not consulted on the subject; nor was I apprized of the appointment, until I discovered it by accident two or three weeks afterwards.” He could easily have resigned, but he was not willing to repudiate voters whose support he needed for the senate election. “I suppose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as that of any member of the Republican party,” he continued; “but I had also supposed that the extent to which I feel authorized to carry that opposition, practically; was not at all satisfactory to that party.” Did the Republicans misunderstand his position, he asked diplomatically, or did he misunderstand theirs?
Once again, Lincoln was making it clear that he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a Whig, not as a Republican, much less as an abolitionist. Despite the soaring eloquence of his Springfield speech, his message was a moderate one, which appealed to the conservatism of Whigs in central Illinois. Unlike the antislavery radicals, he did not favor prohibiting the admission of additional slave states to the Union; indeed, he stated explicitly that, much as he hated slavery, he “would consent to the extension of it rather than see the Union dissolved.” Unlike Republicans, he did not call for the elimination of slavery in all national territories; he stood pledged to the Compromise of 1850, which allowed New Mexico and Utah to tolerate or to forbid slavery. He accepted the Fugitive Slave Act, though he suggested it should be modified so that it would “not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.” Rather than condemning Southerners for the immorality of slaveholding, he expressed sympathy for the South, where he and so many other Whigs in central Illinois had been born.
In thus distancing himself from the Republican wing of the anti-Nebraska coalition, Lincoln knew that he risked alienating the earnest antislavery element. In the northern part of the state many felt that no man closely identified with either of the old parties ought to be elected senator. From repeated betrayals they distrusted the professions of all “mere politicians.” Many were suspicious of Lincoln because of his background. “I must confess I am afraid of ‘Abe,’” Ray wrote. “He is Southern by birth, Southern in his associations and southern, if I mistake not, in his sympathies.... His wife, you know, is a Todd, of a pro-slavery family, and so are all his kin.”
Through intermediaries Lincoln worked to assuage these doubts. The previous summer Herndon had tried to reach Zebina Eastman, the fiercely abolitionist editor of the Chicago Free West. Known to be more radical on the slavery issue than his partner, Herndon had a long talk with the editor about Lincoln and offered him “a sight of his heart.” “Although he does not say much,” he pledged, “you may depend upon it; Mr. Lincoln is all right.” Eastman was impressed, but not convinced, and the Free West continued to lament Lincoln’s shortcomings. For more effective assistance, Lincoln turned to Elihu B. Washburne, who had just been elected to Congress from the Galena district as a Republican but who as a former Whig had great admiration for Lincoln. Washburne earnestly recommended Lincoln to Eastman and the northern Illinois Republicans as “a man of splendid talents, of great probity of character,” who at Springfield had “made the greatest speech in reply to Douglas ever heard in the State.” Most influential of all with Illinois abolitionists was the veteran Ohio antislavery leader Joshua R. Giddings, who announced unconditional support for his old congressional messmate and declared that he “would walk clear to Illinois” to help elect Lincoln.
It was harder to know how to deal with the Know Nothings in the incoming legislature—in part because nobody was sure just who belonged to the secret order. Leonard Swett, who was rounding up support for Lincoln in northern Illinois, passed along the prediction of a local newspaper editor, himself a member of one of the lodges, that the Know Nothings would control the new General Assembly. There was a general belief that they favored Lincoln. The Free West announced bluntly, “Mr. Lincoln is a Know Nothing and expects the full vote... of the Know Nothings.” That was not true, but even the rumor of nativism lost him support. Publicly to repudiate the Know Nothings would be even more costly. Lincoln held his peace and did nothing to alienate voters who belonged to the secret organization.
Many of the responses to Lincoln’s letter-writing campaign were all that he could have hoped for. “It will give me pleasure to do what I can for your appointment to the Sennet,” Charles Hoyt wrote him. “So far as any effort of mine, can aid in securing such a result,” replied editor Robert Boal of Lacon, “it will not be spared, and in any way in which I can assist you, my services are at your disposal.” A correspondent in Lewistown wrote that the most prominent Whigs of his vicinity were earnestly for Lincoln on the somewhat equivocal ground that “we want some one that can stand right up to the little Giant (excuse me) it takes a great Blackguard (you know) to do that—and thou art (excuse again) the Man.”
But other responses were less encouraging. After talking with a new member of the legislature, Abraham Jonas, Lincoln’s firm friend in Quincy, had to report, “I can get nothing out of him, except that he will act altogether with the Whig party in regard to Senator and will make no pledges.” A representative from Coles County was said to think well of Lincoln, “tho he seems to make it a matter of pride not to commit himself.” And Thomas J. Turner of Freeport, who was to become the speaker of the new House of Representatives, lofti
ly replied: “I am not committed to any one for the office of U. S. Senator, nor do I intend to be untill I know where I can exert my influence the most successfully against those who are seeking to extend the era of Slavery.”
Even so, when the legislature assembled on January 1, 1855, Lincoln believed that he had 26 members committed to his election—more than twice as many as pledged to any other candidate. He needed 25 more votes. By his estimate, 43 of the 100 members of the General Assembly were Douglas Democrats, none of whom would vote for Lincoln. Douglas had made the senatorial election a referendum on popular sovereignty, and he insisted that all true Democrats in the legislature must endorse the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They should also support Shields, who had been Douglas’s loyal ally in the Senate. “Our friends in the Legislature should nominate Shields by acclamation, and nail his flag to the mast,” the senator directed, “and never haul it down under any circumstances nor for any body.” Even if that course resulted in a stalemate, with no candidate receiving a majority of the votes, that would be preferable to “the election of Lincoln or any other man spoken of.” If Shields was defeated, the Democrats could “throw the responsibility on the Whigs of beating him because he was born in Ireland.” “The Nebraska fight is over,” Douglas counseled, “and Know Nothingism has taken its place as the chief issue in the future.”
In order to win, therefore, Lincoln had to have the backing of nearly every anti-Nebraska legislator. Throughout January, as the rival elements in the anti-Nebraska coalition jockeyed for position, he constantly lobbied for election. He tried not to be too obvious in his efforts, but again and again, as he chatted with legislators, the senate election would come up and he would say, “That is a rather delicate subject for me to talk upon, but I must confess that I would be glad of your support for the office, if you shall conclude that I am the proper person for it.” To assist his supporters in the legislature he prepared several small notebooks in which he carefully listed the members of the state senate and house of representatives, the counties they represented, and their political affiliations. David Davis temporarily threw aside his judicial robes to help plan Lincoln’s legislative strategy. Logan, who had just been elected to the house of representatives, became his floor manager, entrusted with making necessary deals to secure the support of the northern antislavery members. Herndon did all he could to influence the abolitionist element, while Leonard Swett and Ward Hill Lamon buttonholed uncommitted legislators.
As a result of these efforts, Lincoln steadily gained strength during the early weeks of the legislative session. By careful negotiation his aides were able to win over all of what he called “the extreme Anti-Slavery men,” conceding to them the speakership and all of the lesser offices in the house of representatives. But during the same time he lost the support of at least three Whig members, including an old friend, J. L. D. Morrison, of St. Clair County, who was married to a Catholic and distrusted Lincoln’s reported connections with the Know Nothings. He could not afford to lose others. As January 31, the scheduled day for the election, approached, he still was about three votes short of a majority, and he did not see where they could come from.
A small group of Independent Democrats held the balance of power in the legislature—men like Norman B. Judd of Chicago, and John M. Palmer of Carlinville, who had been loyal Democrats all their lives but had broken with Douglas over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They had little in common with the other elements in the anti-Douglas coalition: they detested the radical antislavery men who styled themselves Republicans; they rejected even the tacit support of the Know Nothings; and they strongly suspected the motives of the Whigs, against whom they had fought in election after election. These anti-Nebraska Democrats had no personal objection to Lincoln, but they announced that “having been elected as Democrats they could not vote for any one but a Democrat for US senator.” Their candidate was Lyman Trumbull, the lifelong Democrat from Alton, in southern Illinois, whose hatred for slavery compelled him to give up his safe place on the Illinois Supreme Court to run a bitter, and successful, anti-Douglas campaign for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. As Lincoln summarized the situation, these four or five anti-Nebraska legislators were “men who never could vote for a whig; and without the votes of two of whom I never could reach the requisite number to make an election.”
Voting was delayed by a fierce snowstorm, the worst since 1831, which isolated Springfield for twelve days and prevented the assembling of a quorum in the state legislature, but in the initial ballot on February 8 the results were pretty much what Lincoln had anticipated. He led with 45 votes, to Shields’s 41, and Trumbull had 5.
Most significant, however, was the one vote cast for Governor Joel A. Matteson, for it suggested the Democrats’ strategy. Aware that they probably could not elect Shields, local Democrats rejected Douglas’s advice and quietly began rallying around the governor, a wealthy contractor for public works. Matteson had said just enough in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska Act not to offend Douglas but in private had expressed enough opposition to convince many of Douglas’s enemies. His strength in the legislature came from members in the districts along the Illinois and Michigan Canal, whom he had repeatedly assisted with favors, both legal and otherwise, in connection with his construction work.
The Democrats stuck with Shields for six ballots, and then, by prearrangement, they switched to Matteson on the seventh. Lincoln’s vote was dwindling, while Trumbull’s was gradually increasing. On the ninth ballot Lincoln was down to 15 hard-core loyalists, while Trumbull had 35 votes and Matteson, with 47, lacked only three of election. The danger at this point was that Matteson might use his wealth and his patronage to bribe a few of Trumbull’s supporters, and, according to one story, Lincoln learned of a “contract” that the governor had arranged with one of these men—Frederick S. Day, of La Salle County.
Once Lincoln was aware of the danger, he promptly directed that his fifteen remaining supporters go for Trumbull on the tenth ballot. Bitterly disappointed, Logan urged him to hold on to his support and try one or two ballots more, but Lincoln was firm. “I am for Trumbull,” he told his followers, and they loyally cast their votes as he directed. On the tenth ballot Lyman Trumbull was elected to the United States Senate.
Privately, according to friends, Lincoln was “disappointed and mortified” by the outcome and found it hard to accept that his 45 supporters had to yield to Trumbull’s five. “A less good humored man than I, perhaps would not have consented to it,” he grumbled. Immediately after his defeat he was so dejected that he told Joseph Gillespie, an old friend, that “he would never strive for office again,” because “he could bear defeat inflicted by his enemies with a pretty good grace—but it was hard to be wounded in the house of his friends.” Logan was furious over Lincoln’s defeat, as was David Davis, who distrusted Trumbull as “a Democrat all his life—dyed in the wool—as ultra as he could be.” Mary Lincoln was bitterly disappointed with the outcome; after Trumbull’s victory, she refused to speak to Mrs. Trumbull, the former Julia Jayne, who had been one of her oldest and most intimate friends.
But in public Lincoln gave no expression to his natural disappointment. “I regret my defeat moderately,” he wrote Washburne, “but I am not nervous about it,” adding, with an uncharacteristic lack of generosity, that Matteson’s “defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain.” He expressed no animosity toward the four anti-Nebraska Democrats who had blocked his election, two of whom—Norman B. Judd and John M. Palmer—became wheel horses in his later political campaigns. He went to considerable pains to make it clear that Trumbull had engaged in no underhand dealings or maneuvers, and on the night after the election he made a point of appearing at a reception that the Ninian Edwardses gave for the victor—a reception that had originally been planned to honor Lincoln himself. There he was at his smiling best, and when his hostess said she knew how disappointed he must be, he moved forward to shake the hand of the newly elected senator, saying,
“Not too disappointed to congratulate my friend Trumbull.”
On reflection, Lincoln did not consider his defeat a disaster. After all, he had entered the contest dubious of success. He could take satisfaction in knowing that the outcome was a blistering rebuke to Douglas and his popular-sovereignty ideas, and he knew that Trumbull, who had endless persistence and a sharp tongue, would make life miserable for the senior senator from Illinois. In addition, this election cleared the way for Lincoln to run against Douglas himself in 1858. On the night after Trumbull’s victory, the anti-Nebraska Democrats of the legislature, gratified by Lincoln’s conduct, pledged to support him in the next Senate race. Later Trumbull confirmed that pledge when he wrote Lincoln: “I shall continue to labor for the success of the Republican cause and the advancement at the next election to the place now occupied by Douglas of that Friend, who was instrumental in promoting my own.”
VIII
In March, Lincoln had to explain to a client why he had neglected some legal business directed to him back in December. “I was dabbling in politics; and, of course, neglecting business,” he wrote, adding, “Having since been beaten out, I have gone to work again.” For a full twelve months after his defeat, he made no speeches or public statements on political affairs but devoted himself to his law business trying, as he said, “to pick up my lost crumbs of last year.”
Much of the summer and fall of 1855 he spent in preparing to participate in the patent infringement suit that Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor of the reaper, had brought against John H. Manny, who was building closely similar machines. The suit was an important one, for it was already apparent that the mechanical reaper was transforming wheat cultivation, and there was a huge market for these machines, which could replace thousands of farm laborers. In the hope of breaking McCormick’s patent, a number of other Eastern and Western manufacturers helped finance Manny’s defense, and he employed a team of the leading patent lawyers in the country, headed by George Harding of Philadelphia. Because it seemed likely that Judge Thomas Drummond, of the United States Court for the Northern District of Illinois, would hear the case, Harding thought the team should include a local Illinois attorney who knew the judge and had his confidence—though, he said in his superior Eastern way, “we were not likely to find a lawyer there who would be of real assistance in arguing such a case.”
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