On Monday, February 27, escorted by several of the Young Republicans, he caught a glimpse of Broadway and had his photograph, which he called his “shaddow,” taken at Mathew B. Brady’s studio, where he exchanged pleasantries with George Bancroft. “I am on my way to Massachusetts,” Lincoln told the historian, “where I have a son at school, who, if report be true, already knows much more than his father.” The portrait Brady produced after this sitting was a work of art; he retouched the negative in order to correct Lincoln’s left eye that seemed to be roving upward and eliminated harsh lines from his face to show an almost handsome, statesmanlike image.
That night, after a warm introduction by Bryant, Lincoln appeared before a capacity audience at the Cooper Union. Many of his listeners expected “something weird, rough, and uncultivated,” George Haven Putnam remembered, and Lincoln’s appearance did nothing to undeceive them. “The long, ungainly figure, upon which hung clothes that, while new for the trip, were evidently the work of an unskilled tailor; the large feet; the clumsy hands, of which... the orator seemed to be unduly conscious; the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair that seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed out,” Putnam continued, “made a picture which did not fit in with New York’s conception of a finished statesman.” Equally disconcerting was Lincoln’s voice, for it was high and piercing in tone at the outset.
But the speech that he delivered, reading carefully and soberly from sheets of blue foolscap, quickly erased the impression of a crude frontiersman. It was a masterful exploration of the political paths open to the nation. In the first third of the address Lincoln closely examined Douglas’s contention that popular sovereignty was simply a continuation of a policy initiated by the Founding Fathers. After digging through the records of the Constitutional Convention and the debates in the earliest Congresses, he was able to show that of the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution, at least twenty-one demonstrated by their votes that the federal government had the power to control slavery in the national territories; other noted antislavery men, like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris, should probably be added to that list, though they were not called to vote on this specific question. This minutely detailed record confirmed a position that Lincoln had been arguing for years: that prior to Douglas’s introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act it was impossible “to show that any living man in the whole world ever did ... declare that... the Constitution forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories.”
Next Lincoln examined the Southern position, though he had little hope that his arguments would be heard, much less heeded, in that section. Nevertheless, he seized the opportunity to argue that the Republicans were the true conservatives on questions relating to slavery; they adhered “to the old and tried, against the new and untried,” while Southern fire-eaters “with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy.” This gave him a welcome opening to explain the Republican attitude toward the raid that John Brown and a handful of zealous followers had staged in October 1859 on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. At that time Lincoln denounced Brown’s attempt to stir up an insurrection among the slaves as “wrong for two reasons. It was a violation of law and it was, as all such attacks must be, futile as far as any effect it might have on the extinction of a great evil.” Though he had paid tribute to Brown’s “great courage, rare unselfishness” and sympathized with his hatred of slavery, he concluded that the old abolitionist was “insane.” Now he took the offensive, pointing out that Brown’s raid was not a slave insurrection but “an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate”; further, he pointed out, Southerners after an elaborate congressional investigation had failed to implicate a single Republican in it. Southern efforts to capitalize on John Brown’s raid were simply additional evidence of their determination to “rule or ruin in all events.” More recently Southerners had gone so far as to announce that if a Republican was elected President in 1860 the Union would be dissolved and the fault would be the North’s. “That is cool,” Lincoln exclaimed. “A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’”
What should Northerners do? Avoiding both the moral indifference with which Douglas approached the slavery issue and the proslavery zeal of the Southern radicals, Republicans should fearlessly and effectively persist in excluding slavery from the national territories, confining it to the states where it already existed. “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves,” Lincoln announced in his spine-tingling peroration. “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
As a speech, it was a superb performance. The audience frequently applauded during the delivery of the address, and when Lincoln closed, the crowd cheered and stood, waving handkerchiefs and hats. Noah Brooks, then working for the New York Tribune, exclaimed: “He’s the greatest man since St. Paul,” and a student at the Harvard Law School, trained to master his emotions, told his father, “It was the best speech I ever heard.” The next day four New York papers printed the address in full. Bryant in the New York Evening Post called it forcible and “most logically and convincingly stated.” Greeley, less restrained, announced: “Mr. Lincoln is one of Nature’s orators, using his rare powers solely and effectively to elucidate and to convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well.” Immediately published in pamphlet form, the Cooper Union address was issued and reissued as a Republican tract by the New York Tribune, the Chicago Press and Tribune, the Detroit Tribune, and the Albany Evening Journal
It was also a superb political move for an unannounced presidential aspirant. Appearing in Seward’s home state, sponsored by a group largely loyal to Chase, Lincoln shrewdly made no reference to either of these Republican rivals for the nomination. Recognizing that if the Republicans were going to win in 1860 they needed the support of men who had voted for Fillmore in the previous election, Lincoln in his Cooper Union address stressed his conservatism. He did not mention his house-divided thesis or Seward’s irrepressible-conflict prediction; Republicans were presented as a party of moderates who were simply trying to preserve the legacy of the Founding Fathers against the radical assaults of the proslavery element. Even Lincoln’s language contributed to the effect he sought; the careful structure of the speech, the absence of incendiary rhetoric, even the laborious recital of the voting records of the Founding Fathers, all suggested reasonableness and stability, not wide-eyed fanaticism. In short, it was, as one of the sponsors wrote, an enormous success. Sending Lincoln the agreed-upon fee of $200, he added, “I would that it were $200,000 for you are worthy of it.”
The next day Lincoln moved on to New England, ostensibly to visit Robert, who had enrolled in the Phillips Exeter Academy the previous September. Of course, he was glad to see his son and to chat with his schoolmates. When one of them produced a banjo and gave an informal concert for the visitor, Lincoln was genuinely pleased and said to his stiff, unmusical son, “Robert, you ought to have one.” But it quickly became clear that the real object of his visit was to cement connections with influential Republicans who would be attending the forthcoming national convention. After the success of the Cooper Union address, Lincoln was something of a lion, much in demand at Republican rallies, and during his four days with Robert he made campaign addresses at Concord, Manchester, Dover, and Exeter. On the last of these occasions many of the boys from the academy turned out, and he had an audience of about five hundred people. The students, who knew Bob as “a gentleman in every sense of the word; quiet in manner, with a certain dignity of his own,” were astonished when Lincoln came into the hall, “tall, lank, awkward; dressed in a loose, ill-fitting black frock coat, with black trousers, ill-f
itting and somewhat baggy at the knees.” They observed his rumpled hair, his necktie turned awry, and his long legs that seemed to fit neither under or around his chair. “Isn’t it too bad Bob’s father is so homely?” they whispered to each other. “Don’t you feel sorry for him?” But after Lincoln disentangled his legs, rose slowly from his chair, and began speaking, they forgot his appearance; they no longer pitied Bob but felt proud to know his father.
During his two weeks in New England, Lincoln spoke nearly every day, avoiding Massachusetts, which was a Seward stronghold, but attempting to help the Republican candidates in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. He found it hard work. So many in his audiences had read the Cooper Union address that he could not simply repeat that speech, and he had to try to think of new ways of presenting his ideas. Perhaps his most telling innovation was his explanation of why Republicans firmly opposed to the extension of slavery were not pledged to eradicate it in the Southern states. If “out in the street, or in the field, or on the prairie I find a rattlesnake,” Lincoln explained, “I take a stake and kill him. Everybody would applaud the act and say I did right.” “But suppose the snake was in a bed where children were sleeping. Would I do right to strike him there? I might hurt the children; or I might not kill, but only arouse and exasperate the snake, and he might bite the children.” The best way to end slavery, he insisted, was firmly to oppose its spread into the national territories. On this issue there could be no compromise. “Let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively,” he urged over and over again, often ending with the peroration of his Cooper Union address: “Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.”
The success of Lincoln’s Eastern trip edged him a step closer to becoming an avowed candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. As recently as January he had been hesitant about making a race. Conferring with Judd, Hatch, Jackson Grimshaw, and a few other prominent Illinois Republicans who pressed him to run, he expressed doubt whether he could get the nomination if he wished it. Only after a night of reflection—and doubtless of conferences with Mary Lincoln, who was even more ambitious than he was—did he authorize the little group to work quietly for his nomination. Even then he did not consider himself a serious candidate but hoped that endorsement as a favorite son would help unite the Illinois Republicans and confirm his party leadership. He explained that he was “not in a position where it would hurt much for me to not be nominated on the national ticket” but that “it would hurt some for me to not get the Illinois delegates” at the Republican convention. But after his return from New York and New England he made no attempt to conceal his desire for the nomination. By April he wrote to Trumbull, who inquired about his intentions: “I will be entirely frank. The taste is in my mouth a little.”
III
Lincoln could not openly campaign for the nomination because tradition dictated that the office should seek the man, and he necessarily worked through aides and intermediaries, many of them veterans from his 1858 senatorial race. In Springfield he continued to rely on Hatch, the Illinois secretary of state, and Dubois, the state auditor, whose offices made them privy to detailed, confidential political information about every part of the state. In the Chicago area Wentworth offered to be Lincoln’s Warwick, but he turned instead to Judd. He did not entirely trust Judd but recognized his power as chairman of the Illinois Republican state central committee and as the Illinois member of the Republican National Committee. Both Leonard Swett and Richard Yates, who were competing with Judd for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, served as Lincoln’s agents in central Illinois. Gustave Koerner, the Belleville lawyer, was his principal connection to the German-American constituency, which he also tried to reach through Dr. Theodore Canisius, whose newspaper, the Springfield Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, he secretly owned. His most trusted adviser, however, was Judge David Davis, who emerged as his informal campaign manager. “I keep no secrets from him,” Lincoln declared.
These Lincoln managers were not an organized or unified group. Throughout Lincoln’s career, his advisers felt connected only to him, not to each other or to some larger cause. Indeed, their loyalty to Lincoln was matched, in many cases, by the distrust they exhibited toward each other. Davis never forgave Judd’s role in defeating Lincoln’s election to the Senate in 1855; Judd hated Wentworth; Wentworth attacked not merely Judd but Hatch and Dubois; Swett and Yates were rivals united only by their dislike of Judd. Of course, Lincoln was aware of this dissonance, but he tolerated it; perhaps he believed that advisers in competition with each other would work all the harder.
One result of this decentralized command structure was that each member of the group came to think that he, and he alone, truly understood Lincoln and gave him useful advice. Curiously enough, many of Lincoln’s advisers viewed him as a man who needed to be encouraged and protected. Even those who played only minor roles in the Republican party often shared this attitude. For instance, Nathan M. Knapp, chairman of the Scott County, Illinois, Republican party, believed that Lincoln was a greater man than he himself realized: “He has not known his own power—uneducated in Youth, he has always been doubtful whether he was not pushing himself into positions to which he was unequal.” David Davis put it another way: “Lincoln has few of the qualities of a politician and... cannot do much personally to advance his interests,” because he was such “a guileless man.” Had Lincoln known of this pronouncement, he might have been amused.
While his managers were hard at work, Lincoln had to appear above the fray. To requests for his views on the political scene, he replied that he was not the fittest person to answer such questions because “when not a very great man begins to be mentioned for a very great position, his head is very likely to be a little turned.” Nevertheless, he managed to offer opinions that, without being barbed or invidious, cast doubts on the availability of the other prominently mentioned candidates. Seward, he declared, “is the very best candidate we could have for the North of Illinois, and the very worst for the South of it.” The same held for Chase, “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.” The strongest candidate, he asserted with apparent lack of guile, was Justice John McLean, aged seventy-five—if only he were fifteen, or even ten, years younger.
Even with avowed supporters Lincoln was cagey. When James F. Babcock, editor of the New Haven Palladium, who had been much impressed by the speeches Lincoln made in the recent Connecticut campaign, offered to promote his candidacy, he replied, in unusually opaque language: “As to the Presidential nomination, claiming no greater exemption from selfishness than is common, I still feel that my whole aspiration should be, and therefore must be, to be placed anywhere, or nowhere, as may appear most likely to advance our cause.” Nevertheless, he passed along to Babcock a list of eleven “confidential friends” who were working for his nomination.
When one enterprising Illinois Republican suggested that he ought to have a campaign chest of $10,000, Lincoln replied that the proposal was an impossibility: “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.” To a request for money from Mark W. Delahay, an old and somewhat disreputable Illinois friend who hoped to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in order to promote his chance of being elected senator from Kansas, Lincoln responded, “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, admitting that “in a political contest, the use of some [money], is both right, and indispensable,” he offered to furnish Delahay $100 for his expenses in attending the convention. (As it turned out, Delahay was not chosen as a Kansas delegate but went to Chicago anyhow to root for Lincoln, who paid him the money he had promised.)
Central to Li
ncoln’s planning was Douglas’s expected role in the coming campaign. If the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to meet in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23, nominated the Little Giant, the Republicans would be obliged to choose a candidate from the West, where Douglas was enormously popular. On the other hand, if the Democrats nominated a Southern-rights champion, like Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, or if the party split, Republicans would feel free to nominate Seward, Chase, or any other antislavery leader. Thus, as had so often been the case, Lincoln’s prospects varied directly with Douglas’s.
Given this political reality, Lincoln adopted a very simple campaign strategy. He hoped to go into the Republican National Convention with the unanimous support of the Illinois delegation and perhaps with the backing of a few individuals in other delegations. If Seward failed to secure the nomination on the first ballot—a decision that would be determined in no small part by what happened to Douglas—Lincoln and other candidates would have their chance on a second ballot. Recognizing that most members of the convention would favor someone else, Lincoln thought that his great strength lay in the fact that no one made “any positive objection” to him. “My name is new in the field; and I suppose I am not the first choice of a very great many,” he explained to Samuel Galloway. “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.”
The first step was to secure the unanimous support of the Illinois delegation. This was not an easy task, because both the Sewardites in northern Illinois and the Bates men in the south favored selecting delegates by districts, thus, as Judd said, “hoping to steal in a few men.” Alerted that the votes of Yates and the other members of the central committee from central Illinois would determine this question, Lincoln promised: “I shall attend to it as well as I know how, which, G———d knows, will not be very well.” In fact, he attended to it well enough, for the central committee voted for the statewide election of delegates.
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