LINCOLN'S   COOPER  INSTITUTE   SPEECH. 
theory,  but  advanced  boldly  to  its  logical 
sequence, —  Congressional  protection  to  slav- 
ery in  the  Territories. 
Of  the  convention's  preliminary  work  little 
is  worth  recording. —  there   were  the  clamor 
and  protest  of  contesting  delegations  and  small 
fire  of  parliamentary  skirmishes,  by  which  fac- 
feel  and  measure  each  other's  strength. 
b  Gushing  was  made  permanent  chair- 
man, for  the  triple  reason  that  he  was  from 
Massachusetts,  that  he  was  the  ablest  presiding 
officer  in  the  body,  and  was  for  the  moment  filled 
with  blind  devotion  to  Southern  views.  The  act- 
ual temper  of  the  convention  was  made  manifest 
by  the  ready  agreement  of  both  extremes  to  join 
battle  in  making  the  platform  before  proceed- 
ing to  the  nomination  of  candidates.  The 
usual  committee  of  one  member  from  each 
State  was  appointed,  and  to  it  was  referred  the 
deluge  of  resolutions  which  had  been  showered 
upon  the  convention. 
Had  an  amicable  solution  of  the  slavery 
issue  been  possible,  this  platform  committee 
would  have  found  it,  for  it  labored  faithfully 
to  accomplish  the  miracle.  But  after  three  days 
and  nights  of  fruitless  suggestion  and  persua- 
sion, the  committee  re-appeared  in  conven- 
tion. Upon  four  points  they  had  come  to  either 
entire  or  substantial  agreement.  In  addition 
to  formally  re-affirming  the  Cincinnati  plat- 
form of  1856,  they  advised  the  convention  to 
favor.  1.  The  faithful  execution  of  the  fugi- 
tive slave  law.  2.  The  protection  of  natural- 
ized citizens.  3.  The  construction  of  a  Pacific 
railroad.  4.  The  acquisition  of  the  Island  of 
Cuba.  But  upon  the  principal  topic,  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  in  the  Territories,  they  felt 
compelled  to  report  that  even  an  approximate 
unanimity  was  impossible.  In  undisguised 
sorrow  they  proceeded  to  present  two  radically 
rent  reports.  The  convention,  not  yet  in 
the  least  realizing  that  the  great  Democratic 
party  had  suffered  fatal  shipwreck  in  the  se- 
cret caucus-room,  listened  eagerly  to  the  re- 
ports and  explanatory  speeches  of  the  majority 
and  minority  of  the  committee. 
The  majority  report  *  planted  itself  squarely 
upon  the  property  theory  and  Congressional 
protection.  Mr.  Avery,  of  North  Carolina,  said 
it  was  presented  in  the  name  of  17  States  with 
127  electoral  votes,  every  one  of  which  would 
be  cast  for  the  nominee.  He  argued  that  in 
occupying  new  Territories  Southern  men  could 
not  compete  with  emigrant-aid  societies  at 
the  North.  These  could  send  a  voter  to  the 
Territories  for  the  sum  of  $200,  while  it  would 
cost  a  Southern  man  $1500.  Secure  political 
power  by  emigration,  and  permit  the  Territo- 
rial legislatures  to  decide  the  slavery  question,, 
and  the  South  would  be  excluded  as  effectually 
as  by  the  Wilmot  proviso.  Cuba  must  be  ac- 
quired, and  the  flag  of  this  great  country  must 
float  over  Mexico  and  the  Central  American 
States.  But  if  you  apply  this  doctrine  of  pop- 
ular sovereignty,  and  establish  a  cordon  of 
free  States  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic,, 
where  in  the  future  are  the  South  to  emigrate  ? 
They  asked  the  equal  right  to  emigrate  with 
their  property,  and  protection  from  Congress 
during  the  Territorial  condition.  They  would 
leave  it  to  the  people  in  convention  assem- 
bled, when  framing  a  State  constitution,  to 
determine  the  question  of  slavery  for  them- 
selves. They  had  no  purpose  but  to  have  a 
vexed  question  settled,  and  to  put  the  Demo- 
cratic party  on  a  clear,  unclouded  platform, 
not  a  double-faced  one — one  face  to  the  North 
and  one  face  to  the  South. 
Henry  B.  Payne,  of  Ohio,  presented  and 
defended  the  report  of  the  minority.f  It  as- 
serted that  all  questions  in  regard  to  property 
in  States  or  Territories  are  judicial  in  their 
character,  and  that  the  Democratic  party  will 
abide  by  past  and  future  decisions  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  concerning  them.  Mr.  Payne 
explained  that  while  the  majority  report  was 
supported  by  fifteen  slave  and  two  free  States,  %. 
representing  127  electoral  votes,  the  minority 
*  MAJORITY    REPORT. 
"  Resolved,  That  the  platform  adopted  at  Cincin- 
nati be  affirmed,  with  the  following  resolutions  : 
';  Resolved,  That  the  Democracy  of  the  United  States 
hold  these  cardinal  principles  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  the  Territories  :  First.  That  Congress  has  no  power 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Territories.  Second.  That  the 
Territorial  legislature  has  no  power  to  abolish  slavery 
in  any  Territory,  nor  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of 
slaves  therein,  nor  any  power  to  exclude  slavery  there- 
from, nor  any  power  to  destroy  or  impair  the  right  of 
xty  in  slaves  by  any  legislation  whatever. 
"  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  protect,  when  necessary,  the  rights  of  persons 
and  property  on  the  high  seas,  in  the  Territories,  or 
wherever  else  its  constitutional  authority  extends." 
t  MINORITY    REPORT. 
"  Resolved,  That  we,  the  Democracy  of  the  Union, 
in  convention  assembled,  hereby  declare  our  affirm- 
ance of  the  resolutions  unanimously  adopted  and  de- 
clared as  a  platform  of  principles  by  the  Democratic 
Convention  at  Cincinnati  in  the  year  1856,  believing 
that  Democratic  principles  are  unchangeable  in  their 
nature  when  applied  to  the  same  subject-matters ; 
and  we  recommend  as  the  only  further  resolutions, 
the  following  : 
"  Resolved,  That  all  questions  in  regard  to  the  rights 
of  property  in  States  or  Territories  arising  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  are  judicial  in  their 
character,  and  the  Democratic  party  is  pledged  to  abide 
by  and  faithfully  carry  out  such  determination  of  these 
questions  as  has  been,  or  may  be  made  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States." 
t  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
Mississippi,  Texas,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Tennessee, 
Kentucky,  California,  Oregon.
LINCOLN'S   COOPER  INSTITUTE   SPEECH 
53* 
report  was  indorsed  by  fifteen  free  States  *  rep- 
resenting 176  electoral  votes.  He  argued  that, 
by  the  universal  consent  of  the  Democratic 
party,  the  Cincinnati  platform  referred  this 
question  of  slavery  to  the  people  of  the  Terri- 
tories, declaring  that  Congress  shall  in  no 
event  intervene  one  way  or  the  other,  and  that 
all  controversies  shall  be  settled  by  the  courts. 
Now  the  proposition  of  the  majority  report  is 
to  make  a  complete  retraction  of  those  two 
cardinal  doctrines  of  the  Cincinnati  platform. 
The  Northern  mind  has  become  thoroughly 
imbued  with  this  great  doctrine  of  popular 
sovereignty.  You  cannot  tear  it  out  of  their 
hearts  unless  you  tear  out  their  heart-strings 
themselves.  "  I  repeat,  that  upon  this  ques- 
tion of  Congressional  non-intervention  we  are 
committed  by  the  acts  of  Congress,  we  are  com- 
mitted by  the  acts  of  National  Democratic 
Conventions  ;  we  cannot  recede  without  per- 
sonal dishonor,  and,  so  help  us  God,  we  never 
will  recede  !  " 
Between  these  extremes  of  recommendation 
another  member  of  the  platform  committee  — 
Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  Massachusetts — pro- 
posed a  middle  course.  He  advocated  the 
simple  re-affirmance  of  the  Cincinnati  plat- 
form. If  it  had  suffered  a  double  interpreta- 
tion, so  had  the  Bible  and  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  But  beyond  serving  to  con- 
sume time  and  amuse  the  convention,  Mr. 
Butler's  speech  made  no  impression.  The 
real  tournament  of  debate  followed,  between 
William  L.  Yancey,  of  Alabama,  and  Senator 
Pugh,  of  Ohio. 
It  turned  out  in  the  end  that  Mr.  Yancey 
was  the  master-spirit  of  the  Charleston  Con- 
vention, though  that  body  was  far  from  enter- 
taining any  such  suspicion  at  the  beginning. 
In  exterior  appearance  he  did  not  fill  the  por- 
trait of  the  traditional  fire-eater.  He  is  de- 
scribed as  "  a  compact  middle-sized  man, 
straight-limbed,  with  a  square-built  head  and 
face,  and  an  eye  full  of  expression ; "  "  a  very 
mild  and  gentlemanly  man,  always  wearing  a 
genuinely  good-humored  smile,  and  looking 
as  if  nothing  in  the  world  could  disturb  the 
equanimity  of  his  spirits."  f  He  had,  besides,  a 
marvelous  gift  of  persuasive  oratory.  He  was 
the  Wendell  Phillips  of  the  South,  for,  like  his 
Northern  rival,  he  was  a  born  agitator.  Above 
all  his  colleagues,  he  was  the  brain  and  soul 
and  irrepressible  champion  of  the  pro-slavery 
reaction  throughout  the  Cotton  States.  He  was 
tireless  and  ubiquitous;  traveling,  talking,  writ- 
ing, lecturing,  animating  every  intrigue,  direct- 
ing every  caucus,  making  speeches  and  draft- 
ing platforms  at  every  convention.  To  defend, 
propagate, and  perpetuate  African  slavery  was 
his  mission.  He  was  the  ultra  of  the  ultras,  ac- 
cepting the  institution  as  morally  right  and 
divinely  sanctioned,  desiring  its  extension  and 
inclined  to  favor,  though  not  then  himself  ad- 
vocating the  re-opening  of  the  African  slave- 
trade.  He  held  that  all  Federal  laws  prohibit- 
ing such  trade  ought  to  be  repealed  so  that 
each  State  might  decide  the  question  for  it- 
self. Still  more,  Mr.  Yancey  was  not  only 
an  agitator  and  fire-eater,  but  for  years  an 
insidious,  persevering  conspirator  to  pro- 
mote secession.  Occupying  such  a  position, 
he  was  naturally  the  champion  of  the  Cotton 
States  at  Charleston.  The  defense  of  the  ultra 
demands  of  the  South  was  by  common  consent 
devolved  upon  him, J  and  it  was  understood 
long  beforehand  that  he  was  prepared  with  the 
principal  speech  from  that  side. 
In  full  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  he  and 
his  colleagues  were  then  at  Charleston  with  a 
predetermination  to  force  a  programme  of  dis- 
ruption expressly  designed  as  a  prelude  to  in- 
tended disunion,  Mr.  Yancey  stood  up  andwTith 
smiling  face  and  silvery  tones  assured  his  hear- 
ers that  he  and  his  colleagues  from  Alabama 
were  not  disunionists  per  se.  Then  he  pro- 
ceeded with  his  speech.  Only  its  key-note  was 
new,  but  the  novelty  was  of  startling  import  to 
Northern  delegates.  The  Northern  Democrats, 
he  stated,  were  losing  ground  and  falling  before 
their  victorious  adversaries.  Why  ?  Because 
they  had  tampered  with,  and  pandered  to,  the 
antislavery  sentiment.  They  had  admitted  that 
slavery  was  wrong.  This  was  surrendering  the 
very  citadel  of  their  argument.  They  must  re- 
form their  lines  and  change  their  tactics.  They 
must  come  up  to  the  high  requirements  of  the 
occasion  and  take  anew  departure.  Theremain- 
der  of  his  speech  was  an  insinuating  plea  for 
the  property  doctrine  and  Congressional  inter- 
vention, for  which  the  galleries  and  conven- 
tion rewarded  him  with  long  and  earnest  ap- 
plause. Even  if  the  great  Southern  agitator's 
speech  had  been  wanting  in  point  and  elo- 
quence, success  was  supplied  by  the  unmis- 
takable atmosphere  and  temper  of  this  great 
Charleston  audience. 
The  more  astute  of  the  Douglas  delegates 
were  struck  with  the  dismay  of  a  new  revela- 
*  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Rhode  Island, 
Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
Minnesota.  Massachusetts  presented  a  separate  report 
through  Mr.  Butler,  but  her  electoral  vote  is  included 
in  Mr.  Payne's  estimate. 
t  Halstead,  The  Conventions  of  i860,  pp.  5,  48. 
X  "  The  leadership  at  Charleston,  in  this  attempt  to 
divide  and  destroy  the  Democratic  party,  was  intrusted 
to  appropriate  hands.  Xo  man  possessed  the  ability, 
or  the  courage,  or  the  sincerity  in  his  object  for  such 
a  mission  in  a  higher  degree  than  the  gifted  Yancey." 
—  Douglas,  Senate  speech,  May  16th,  i860;  Appendix 
to  Congressional  Globe,  page  313.
53* 
LINCOLN'S    COOPER   INSTITUTE   SPEECH. 
tion.  Their  cause  was  lost  —  their  party  was 
gone.  Senator  Pugh,  of  Ohio,  resented  the  dic- 
tation of  the  advocates  oi  slavery  in  a  warmth 
of  just  indignation.  He  thanked  God  that  at 
Last  a  bold  and  honest  man  had  told  the  whole 
truth  o{  the  demands  of  the  South.  It  was 
now  before  the  country  that  the  South  did  de- 
mand an  advanced  step  from  the  Democratic 
party.  He  accurately  traced  the  downfall  of 
the  Northern  Democracy  to  her  changing  and 
growing  exactions.  Taunted  with  their  weak- 
ness, they  were  now  told  they  must  put  their 
hands  on  their  mouths  and  their  mouths  in  the 
dust.  ••  Gentlemen  of  the  South,"  said  Mr. 
Pugh,  ,;  you  mistake  us  —  we  will  not  do  it." 
Such  language  had  never  been  heard  in  a 
Democratic  National  Convention,  and  the 
hall  was  as  still  as  a  funeral.  This  was  Friday 
night,  the  fifth  day  of  the  convention.  "A 
crisis  "  had  long  been  whispered  of  as  the 
skeleton  in  the  party  closet.  It  seemed  to  be 
at  hand,  and  in  a  parliamentary  uproar  the 
';  question  "  was  vehemently  demanded,  but 
the  chairman  skillfully  managed  at  length  to 
secure  an  adjournment. 
The  "  crisis  "  had  in  reality  come  on  Thurs- 
day night,  in  the  committee-room,  in  the  hope- 
less first  double  report  of  its  platform  com- 
mittee. The  dissolution  of  the  convention 
did  not  take  place  till  the  Monday  following.  A 
great  party,  after  a  vigorous  and  successful 
life  of  thirty  years,  could  not  die  easily. 
The  speeches  of  x\very  and  Payne,  of  Yancey 
and  Pugh,  on  Friday,  were  recognized  as  cries 
of  defiance,  but  not  yet  accepted  as  moans  of 
despair.  On  Saturday  morning,  President 
Buchanan's  lieutenant,  Bigler,  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, essayed  to  ride  the  storm  and  steer  to  a 
Southern  victory.  But  he  only  succeeded  in 
securing  a  recommittal  of  both  platforms  to 
the  committee.  Nothing,  however,  was  gained 
by  the  manoeuvre.  Saturday  afternoon  the 
committee  once  more  reported  the  same  dis- 
agreement in  slightly  changed  phraseology;* 
two  antagonistic  platforms,  presenting  the 
same  sharp  difference  of  principle  —  one  de- 
manding Congressional  intervention,  the  other 
insisting  upon  Congressional  non-intervention. 
Then  the  parliamentary  storm  was  unloosed 
for  the  remainder  of  that  day  with  such  fury 
that  the  chairman  declared  his  physical  in- 
ability to  continue  a  contest  with  six  hundred 
gentlemen  as  to  who  should  cry  the  loudest, 
and  threatened  to  leave  the  chair.  On  Mon- 
day, April  30th,  the  seventh  day  of  the  conven- 
tion, a  final  decision  was  reached.  By  a  vote  of 
165  to  138,  the  convention  voted  to  substitute 
the  minority  report  for  that  of  the  majority ; 
in  other  words,  to  adopt  the  Douglas  non- 
intervention platform. 
The  explosion  was  near,  but  still  delayed,  and 
the  Cotton-States  delegates  sat  sullenly  through 
a  tangle  of  routine  voting.  Finally,  the  ques- 
tion was  put  on  Butler's  proposition  to  adopt 
the  Cincinnati  platform  pure  and  simple.  This 
was  the  red  flag  to  the  mad  bull.  Mississippi 
declared  that  the  Cincinnati  platform  was  a 
great  political  swindle  on  one  half  the  States 
of  the  Union;  and  from  that  time  on,  though 
a  large  affirmative  vote  sustained  the  proposi- 
tion (2371^  to  65),  the  Cotton  States  ceased 
to  act  as  a  part  of  the  convention.  As  soon 
as  a  lull  in  the  proceedings  permitted,  Mr. 
Yancey  put  in  execution  his  programme  of 
demand,  disruption,  disunion,  and  rebellion, 
labored  for  through  long  years,  and  announced 
by  himself,  with  minute  distinctness,  three 
months  before.f  Led  by  the  Alabama  dele- 
gation, the  Cotton  States, —  Alabama,  Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana,  South  Carolina,  Florida,  Tex- 
*  SECOND    MAJORITY    REPORT. 
u  Resolved,  That  the  platform  adopted  by  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  at  Cincinnati  be  affirmed  with  the  follow- 
ing explanatory  resolutions  : 
"  First.  That  the  government  of  a  Territory  organized 
by  an  act  of  Congress  is  provisional  and  temporary, 
and,  during  its  existence,  all  citizens  of  the  United 
States  have  an  equal  right  to  settle  with  their  property 
in  the  Territory  without  their  rights,  either  of  person 
or  property,  being  destroyed  or  impaired  by  Con- 
ional  or  Territorial  legislation. 
"  Second.  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment in  all  its  departments,  to  protect,  when  necessary, 
the  rights  of  persons  and  property  in  the  Territories, 
and  wherever  else  its  constitutional  authority  ex- 
tends. 
"  Third.  That  when  the  settlers  in  a  Territory  having 
an  adequate  population,  form  a  State  constitution,  the 
right  of  sovereignty  commences,  and,  being  consum- 
mated by  admission  into  the  Union,  they  stand  on  an 
e  jual  footing  with  the  people  of  other  States,  and  the 
State  thus  organized  ought  to  be  admitted  into  the  Fed- 
eral Union,  whether  its  constitution  prohibits  or  rec- 
ognizes the  institution  of  slavery." 
SECOND    MINORITY    REPORT. 
"  I.  Resolved,  That  we,  the  Democracy  of  the 
Union,  in  convention  assembled,  hereby  declare  our 
affirmance  of  the  resolutions  unanimously  adopted 
and  declared  as  a  platform  of  principles  by  the  Dem- 
ocratic Convention  at  Cincinnati,  in  the  year  1856,  be- 
lieving that  democratic  principles  are  unchangeable 
in  their  nature  when  applied  to  the  same  subject- 
matters  ;  and  we  recommend  as  the  only  further 
resolutions  the  following: 
"  Inasmuch  as  differences  of  opinion  exist  in  the 
Democratic  party  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
powers  of  a  Territorial  legislature  and  as  to  the  powers 
and  duties  of  Congress  under  the  constitution  of  the 
United  Stales  over  the  institution  of  slavery  within 
the  Territories  : 
"  2.  Resolved,  That  the  Democratic  party  will  abide  by 
the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  on  the  questions  of  constitutional  law." 
t  "  To  obtain  the  aid  of  the  Democracy  in  this  con- 
test, it  is  necessary  to  make  a  contest  in  its  Charleston 
Convention.  In  that  body  Douglas's  adherents  will 
press  his  doctrines  to  a  decision.  If  the  State-Rights 
men  keep  out  of  that  convention,  that  decision  must
LINCOLN'S   COOPER   INST/TUTfi    SPARC ff. 
533 
CALEB    CUSHING.     (FROM    A    PHOTOGRAPH    BY    BRADY.) 
as,  and  Arkansas, —  with  protests  and  speeches, 
with  all  the  formality  and  "  solemnity  "  which 
the  occasion  allowed,  seceded  from  the  Charles- 
ton Convention,  and  withdrew  from  the  delib- 
erations of  Institute  Hall. 
That  same  Monday  night  the  city  of  Charles- 
ton held  a  grand  jubilee.   Music,  bonfires,  and 
inevitably  be  against  the  South,  and  that  either  in  di- 
rect favor  of  the  Douglas  doctrine,  or  by  the  indorse- 
ment of  the  Cincinnati  platform,  under  which  Douglas 
claims  shelter  for  his  principles."  "  The  State-Rights 
men  should  present  in  thatconvention  their  demands  for 
a  decision,  and  they  will  obtain  an  indorsement  of  their 
demands,  or  a  denial  of  these  demands.  If  indorsed, 
we  shall  have  a  greater  hope  of  triumph  within  the 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 73. 
extravagant  declamation  held  an  excited  crowd 
in  Court-house  Square  till  a  late  hour ;  and  in 
a  high- wrought  peroration  Yancey  prophesied, 
with  all  the  confidence  and  exultation  of  a 
triumphant  conspirator,  that  "  perhaps  even 
now  the  pen  of  the  historian  was  nibbed  to 
write  the  story  of  a  new  revolution." 
Union.  If  denied,  in  my  opinion,  the  State-Rights 
wing  should  secede  from  the  convention,  and  appeal  to 
the  whole  people  of  the  South,  without  distinction  of 
parties,  and  organize  another  convention  upon  the 
basis  of  their  principles,  and  go  into  the  election  with 
a  candidate  nominated  by  it,  as  a  grand  constitutional 
party.  But  in  the  presidential  contest  a  black  Repub- 
lican may  be  elected.   If  this  dire  event  should  happen,
534 
IS  JT  A    PIECE    OF  A    COMET? 
in  my  opinion  the  only  hope  of  safety 
for  the  South  is  in  a  withdrawal  from 
the  Union  before  he  shall  be  inaugu- 
rated :  before  the  sword  and  treasury 
o(  the  Federal  Government  shall  be 
placed  in  the  keeping  oi  that  party.  I 
would  suggest  that  the  several  State 
legislatures  should  by  law  require  the 
governor,  when  it  shall  be  made  mani- 
fest that  the  black  Republican  candi- 
date for  the  Presidency  shall  receive  a 
majority  of  the  electoral  vote,  to  call  a 
convention  of  the  people  of  the  State. 
5S<  mble  in  time  to  provide  for  their 
safety  before  the  4th  of  March.  1S61. 
1  f.  however,  a  black  Republican  should 
2  elected,  then,  in  pursuance  of 
ilicy  of  making  this  contest  with- 
in the  Union,  we  should  initiate  meas- 
ures in  Congress  which  should  lead  to 
a  repeal  of  all  the  unconstitutional  acts 
against  slavery.  If  we  should  fail  to 
obtain  so  just  a  system  of  legislation, 
then  the  South  should  seek  her  in- 
dependence out  of  the  Union." — 
Speech  of  W.  L.  Yancey  before  the 
Alabama  Democratic  Convention,  Jan- 
uary, 1S60. 
The  authors  copy  this  declaration 
of  Mr.  Yancey  from  a  campaign  pam- 
phlet issued  by  the  central  committee 
of  the  Douglas  party,  in  Washington, 
in   1S60.    They  have  been  unable  to 
find  the  original  newspaper  report,  but 
the  corroboration  and  fulfillment  of  the 
plot  here  indicated  are  found  in  the  offi- 
cial proceedings  of  the  Alabama  Con- 
vention and  the  Alabama  Legislature. 
The  convention  on  January  13th,  i860, 
expressly  instructed    its    delegation  at  Charleston  to 
secede  in  case  the  ultra-Southern  doctrines  were  not 
incorporated    in    the    National    Democratic  platform, 
and  sent   Mr.  Yancey  as  a  delegate  to  execute  their 
instructions,  which   he   did  as    the  text  states.     The 
Alabama  Legislature,  on  its  part,  passed  a  joint  res- 
olution,   which    the    governor    approved,    February 
I.    L.    YANCEY.       (FROM     A     PHOTOGRAPH     BY    COOK.) 
24th,  i860,  providing  "that  upon  the  election  of  a 
President  advocating  the  principles  and  action  of 
the  party  in  the  Northern  States  calling  itself  the 
Republican  party,"  the  governor  should  forthwith  call 
a  convention  of  the  State.  This  convention  was  duly 
called  after  the  election  of  Lincoln,  and  passed  the 
secession  ordinance  of  Alabama. 
IS    IT    A    PIECE    OF    A    COMET? 
"  Of  star-dust  and  star-pilgrimages  " — 
HERE  has  recently  come 
nto  my  possession  the  ninth 
iron  meteorite  whose  fall 
to  the  earth  has  been  ob- 
served. It  is,  moreover, 
the  first  meteorite  which 
seems  to  evidence  a  direct 
connection  with  a  star- 
shower.  The  mass  acquires  still  further  in- 
terest from  the  fact  that  it  is  presumably  a 
fragment  of  the  famous  comet  of  Biela. 
A  brief  account  of  this  celestial  wanderer 
will  doubtless  be  of  interest  to  the  readers  of 
The  Century,  in  which  magazine  the  essays 
of  the  astronomer  Langley  have  recently 
appeared. 
Astronomers  have  waited  patiently  for  the 
fall  to  the  earth's  surface,  at  the  time  of  the 
periodical  star-showers,  of  something  tangible, 
but  until  now  they  have  waited  in  vain. 
In  looking  over  a  considerable  amount  of 
astronomical  literature,  only  one  record  can  be 
found  of  the  falling  of  a  body  to  the  earth  at 
such  a  time;  this  was  near  Paris,  on  the  10th 
of  April,  1 094,  when  "  many  shooting-stars  were 
seen,  and  a  very  large  one  was  said  to  have 
been  found  on  the  ground  as  a  glowing  sub- 
stance." 
From  the  24th  to  the  29th  of  November, 
1885,  the  earth  was  passing  through  a  train 
of  meteors  that  proceeded  from  the  constel- 
lation Andromeda,  and  once  formed  a  part  of 
Biela's  comet.  These  meteors  are  now  known 
to  astronomers  as  Andromedes  or  Bielids.  The
THE  LATER    YEARS    OF  MONTJCELLO. 
go  out  at  all  hours  and  in  all  kinds  of  weather 
to  see  which  way  the  wind  was  blowing,  this 
vane  was  connected  by  a  rod  with  a  dial  under 
the  roof  of  the  porch,  so  that  it  was  only  neces- 
sary to  step  outside  the  door  and  look  up  at  this 
dial  to  see  to  what  quarter  the  hand  upon  it  was 
pointing.  Another  very  curious  contrivance  was 
a  little  dumb-waiter,  not  more  than  six  inches 
wide,  which  ran  from  the  wine-cellar  to  the 
dining-room,  its  upper  opening  being  covered 
with  a  movable  panel  in  the  wood-work  of  the 
mantel-piece.  In  this  dumb-waiter  were  two 
shelves,  each  one  large  enough  to  contain  a 
bottle  of  wine ;  the  butler  put  these  in  place 
in  the  cellar,  and  when  the  master  wanted 
them  he  pulled  them  up. 
Not  only  in  his  house,  but  in  its  grounds, 
Jefferson's  ingenuity  gave  itself  full  scope.  In 
order  that  every  one  might  take  whatever 
degree  of  exercise  inclination  or  the  weather 
made  desirable,  several  "  roundabouts  "  were 
laid  out  on  the  varying  surface  of  the  moun- 
tain. These  were  walks  or  roads  which  en- 
vironed the  house,  one  being  of  quite  mod- 
erate length,  and  not  far  from  the  mansion, 
while  the  longest  was  several  miles  in  extent, 
in  one  part  running  by  the  banks  of  the  River 
Rivanna  at  the  base  of  the  mountain.  Here  one 
could  walk  or  drive  around  and  around,  always 
amid  fair  scenery,  and  sometimes  reaching 
points  from  which  could  be  had  the  most  lovely 
views  of  far-stretching  plains  and  mountains. 
These  grounds  were  abundantly  enjoyed  by 
Jefferson's  numerous  friends,  especially  perhaps 
those  from  Europe,  who  were  not  accustomed 
to  see  art  so  pleasantly  commingled  with  what 
must  have  appeared  to  them  as  the  wildest  na- 
ture. Jefferson  was  a  very  systematic  man,  and 
could  always  be  relied  upon  to  appear  at  meal- 
time, but  one  day  dinner  was  long  kept  wait- 
ing for  his  visitor,  M.  Volney,  and  himself, 
who  were  out  walking.  It  afterwards  appeared 
that  the  two  philosophers  had  been  detained 
by  the  labor  of  damming  up  a  little  stream  in 
order  that  they  might  design  a  picturesque 
waterfall.  A  portrait  of  Jefferson  by  Kosciusko 
used  to  hang  in  the  room  occupied  by  Mrs. 
Randolph,  the  oldest  daughter,  a  flattering  in- 
scription, placed  beneath  it  by  the  artist,  having 
banished  it  from  the  more  public  apartments. 
What  became  of  this  portrait  is  not  known. 
The  entrance  hall,  in  which  stood,  very  ap- 
propriately on  opposite  sides,  busts  of  Jeffer- 
son and  Alexander  Hamilton,  is  a  somewhat 
remarkable  apartment.  It  is  the  largest  room 
in  the  house,  and  is  as  high  as  the  dome. 
There  is  a  railed  gallery  in  it  which  connects 
the  chambers  in  the  upper  part  of  the  building. 
It  has  been  supposed  that  there  was  to  have 
been  a  staircase  in  this  hall,  communicating 
with  this  gallery;  but  none  was  ever  built, 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 91. 
access  to  the  gallery  and  the  upper  room 
ing  obtained  by  small  and  inadequate  stairways 
in  inside  passages.  The  walls  of  the  hall  were 
adorned  not  only  with  horns  of  elk  and  moose, 
interspersed  with  Indian  and  Mexican  weap- 
ons and  implements,  but  with  great  bones  of 
mastodons,  and  other  fossil  remains,  and  with 
huge  specimens  of  native  minerals.  The  whole 
collection  is  calculated  to  produce  a  very 
American  impression  on  a  foreign  visitor. 
Indoors  and  out,  wherever  one  might  wan- 
der through  the  apartments  or  grounds  of  this 
delightful  home,  one  could  not  fail  to  perceive 
that  the  mind  or  the  hand  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son was  at  the  bottom  of  everything.  He 
thought  nothing  so  large  or  so  small  that  his 
ingenuity  or  his  care  need  not  be  exercised  upon 
it.  With  his  own  hands  he  made  all  the  plans  for 
the  buildings  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  and 
he  has  left  behind  him  the  carefully  prepared 
drawings  of  a  gate-latch  which  he  invented. 
Jefferson's  hope  that  his  only  surviving 
child  would  be  left  the  mistress  of  Monticello 
was  not  fulfilled.  The  times  were  hard,  and, 
although  after  his  death  all  the  estates  were 
sold,  the  debts  were  not  paid,  and  Mrs.  Ran- 
dolph was  obliged  to  leave  this  happy  "  Little 
Mountain,"  which  was  never  again  occupied 
by  Jefferson's  descendants. 
The  first  purchaser  of  Monticello  was  a  Dr. 
Barclay,  who  was  afflicted  with  the  morus  mul- 
ticaulis  disease,  and  he  cut  down  many  of  the 
beautiful  trees  about  the  house,  some  of  them 
exotics,  for  the  purpose  of  planting  a  mulberry 
grove, —  the  leaves  of  which  were  to  feed  the 
silk-worms  which  were  to  become  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  halls  and  chambers  of  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  mansion.  But  his  cocoons  proving  to 
be  anything  but  golden,  the  doctor  gave  up  his 
silken  dreams  and  sold  the  estate. 
The  next  purchaser,  Captain  Levy,  kept  the 
house  in  good  condition ;  but  the  civil  war 
and  the  litigations  among  his  heirs,  which  con- 
tinued for  some  fifteen  years  after  the  captain's 
death,  had  a  depressing  effect  upon  the  beau- 
ties of  Monticello.  If  it  had  been  a  modern- 
built  house  it  would  have  gone  to  wreck  and 
ruin;  but  Jefferson  built  it  to  stay;  and, 
although  it  suffered  very  much,  especially  in 
regard  to  shutters,  window-sashes,  and  water- 
spouts, and  although  the  terraced  walks  which 
stretched  over  the  two  lines  of  out-buildings 
connecting  the  main  building  with  the  pavil- 
ions v/ere  destroyed,  and  were  replaced  by  or- 
dinary roofs,  the  whole  establishment  has  been 
put  in  excellent  order  by  the  present  owner, 
a  nephew  of  Captain  Levy,  and  is  now  as 
sound  and  substantial  a  country  mansion  as 
it  ever  was.  There  is  a  modern  air  about  its 
furnishings  and  fittings  which  is  not  Jefferso- 
nian,  but  the  house  is  still  Monticello.
658 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION 
But  Jefferson's  orchards  and  terraced  gar- 
dens, the  serpentine  flower-borders  on  the  west- 
ern lawn,  to  which  came  yearly  contributions 
from  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  of  Paris,  and  the 
beautiful  "  roundabout "  walks  and  drives  have 
all  disappeared  ;  while  in  the  little  graveyard 
on  the  mountain-side,  around  the  simple  mon- 
ument erected  to  the  memory  of  the  "Author 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  of  the 
.  te  of  Virginia  for  Religious  Freedom,  and 
Father  of  the  University  of  Virginia,"  lie  the 
bones  of  five  generations  of  his  descendants, 
in  the  only  ground  they  inherited  from  him. 
Although  Thomas  Jefferson  died  owing 
much  money,  no  shadow  of  debt  now  rests 
upon  his  fame.  Having  no  son,  his  grandson, 
Thomas  Jefferson  Randolph,  became,  at  an 
early  age,  the  general  manager  of  his  estates; 
and,  at  the  death  of  his  grandfather,  Mr.  Ran- 
dolph — then  living  at  Edge  Hill,  a  large  neigh- 
boring estate,  which  had  come  by  original 
grant  to  the  Randolph  family — set  himself  to 
work  to  pay  Mr.  Jefferson's  debts.  In  this  la- 
bor of  love  he  was  assisted  by  his  daughters, 
who  established  a  school,  which  soon  became 
a  noted  one,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  helping 
their  father  pay  what  was  due  to  the  creditors 
of  their  great  ancestor.  Their  efforts  were  en- 
tirely successful,  for  many  years  did  not  elapse 
before  every  cent  was  paid. 
Frank  R.  Stockton. 
[BEGUN   IN    THE    NOVEMBER    NUMBER.] 
LINCOLN'S    NOMINATION    AND    ELECTION. 
ABRAHAM     LINCOLN:     A     HISTORY.* 
EY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
THE  BALTIMORE  NOMINATIONS. 
HOUGH  the  compact  voting 
body  of  the  South  had  retired 
from  the  Charleston  Conven- 
tion, her  animating  spirit  yet 
remained  in  the  numbers  and 
determination  of  the  anti-Doug- 
las delegates.  When  on  Tuesday  morning, 
May  rst,  the  eighth  day,  the  convention  once 
more  met,  the  Douglas  men,  with  a  view  to 
making  the  most  of  the  dilemma,  resolved  to 
force  the  nomination  of  their  favorite.  But 
there  was  a  lion  in  the  path.  Usage  and  tra- 
dition had  consecrated  the  two-thirds  rule. 
Stuart,  of  Michigan,  tried  vainly  to  obtain  the 
liberal  interpretation,  that  this  meant  "  two- 
thirds  of  the  votes  given,"  but  Chairman  Cush- 
ing  ruled  remorselessly  against  him,  and  at 
the  instance  of  Howard,  of  Tennessee,  the 
convention  voted  (141  to  112)  that  no  person 
should  be  declared  nominated  who  did  not 
ive  two-thirds  of  all  the  votes  the  full 
convention  was  entitled  to  cast. 
This  sealed  the  fate  of  Douglas.  The  Elec- 
toral College  numbered  303;  202  votes 
therefore  were  necessary  to  a  choice.  Voting 
for  candidates  was  duly  begun,  and  continued 
throughout  all  the  next  day  (Wednesday, 
May  2d).     Fifty-seven  ballots  were  taken  in 
'  The  first  ballot  stood  :  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of 
Illinois,  145^  ;  James  Guthrie,  of  Kentucky,  35^; 
Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  of  New  York,  7;  R.  M.  T.  Hunter, 
of  Virginia,  42  ;  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  12  ; 
*  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1886-7.     All  rights  reserved. 
all;  Douglas  received  145^  on  the  first,  and 
on  several  subsequent  ballots  his  strength  rose 
to  152^.  The  other  votes  were  scattered 
among  eight  other  candidates  with  no  near 
approach  to  agreement.* 
The  dead-lock  having  become  unmistakable 
and  irremediable,  and  the  nomination  of  Doug- 
las under  existing  conditions  impossible,  all 
parties  finally  consented  to  an  adjournment, 
especially  as  it  became  evident  that  unless  this 
were  done  the  sessions  would  come  to  an  end 
by  mere  disintegration.  Therefore,  on  the 
tenth  day  (May  3d),  the  Charleston  Conven- 
tion formally  adjourned,  having  previously 
resolved  to  reassemble  on  the  18th  of  June,  in 
the  city  of  Baltimore,  with  a  recommendation 
that  the  several  States  make  provision  to  fill 
the  vacancies  in  their  delegations. 
Mr.  Yancey  and  his  seceders  had  mean- 
while organized  another  convention  in  St. 
Andrew's  Hall.  Their  business  was  of  course 
to  report  substantially  the  platform  rejected 
by  the  Douglasites,  and  for  which  rejection 
they  had  retired.  Mr.  Yancey  then  explained 
to  them  that  the  adoption  of  this  platform  was 
all  the  action  they  proposed  to  take  until  the 
"rump  democracy"  should  make  their  nom- 
ination, when,  he  said,  "  it  may  be  our  privi- 
lege to  indorse  the  nominee,  or  our  duty  to 
proceed  to  make  a  nomination."  Other  seced- 
Joseph  Lane,  of  Oregon,  6;  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mis- 
sissippi, \yz\  Isaac  Toucey,  of  Connecticut,  2j^; 
Franklin  Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire,  I.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
ers  were  more  impatient,  and  desired  that 
something  be  done  forthwith;  but  as  the  ses- 
sions were  continued  to  the  second  and  third 
day,  their  overflowing  zeal  found  a  safety- 
valve  in  their  speeches.  Mr.  Yancey's  pro- 
gramme prevailed,  and  they  also  adjourned 
to  meet  again  in  Richmond  on  the  nth  of 
June. 
At  the  time  of  the  disruption,  rumors  were 
current  in  Charleston  that  the  movement,  if  not 
prompted,  was  at  least  encouraged  and  sus- 
tained by  telegrams  from  leading  senators  and 
representatives  then  at  their  Congressional  du- 
ties in  Washington.  As  the  day  for  reassem- 
bling in  Baltimore  drew  near,  the  main  fact  was 
abundantly  proved  by  the  publication  of  an  ad- 
dress, signed  by  Jefferson  Davis,  Toombs,  Iver- 
son,  Slidell,  Benjamin,  Mason,  and  some  four- 
teen others,  in  which  they  undertook  to  point 
out  a  path  to  union  and  harmony  in  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  They  recited  the  withdrawal  of 
eight  States  at  Charleston,  and  indorsed  the 
step  without  qualification.  "We  cannot  re- 
frain," said  the  address,  "  from  expressing  our 
admiration  and  approval  of  this  lofty  mani- 
festation of  adherence  to  principle,  rising 
superior  to  all  considerations  of  expediency, 
to  all  trammels  of  party,  and  looking  with  an 
eye  single  to  the  defense  of  the  constitutional 
rights  of  the  States."  They  then  alleged  that 
the  other  Democratic  States  remained  in  the 
convention  only  to  make  a  further  effort  to 
secure  "  some  satisfactory  recognition  of  sound 
principles,"  declaring,  however,  their  determi- 
nation also  to  withdraw  if  their  just  expectation 
should  be  disappointed.  The  address  now 
urged  that  the  seceders  should  defer  their 
meeting  at  Richmond,  but  that  they  should 
come  to  Baltimore  and  endeavor  to  effect  "  a 
reconciliation  of  differences  on  a  basis  of  prin- 
ciple." If  the  Baltimore  Convention  should 
adopt "  a  satisfactory  platform  of  principles," — 
and  their  votes  might  help  secure  it, —  then 
cause  of  dissension  would  have  ceased.  "  On 
the  other  hand,"  continues  the  address,  "  if  the 
convention,  on  reassembling  at  Baltimore,  shall 
disappoint  the  just  expectations  of  the  remain- 
ing Democratic  States,  their  delegations  can- 
not fail  to  withdraw  and  unite  with  the  eight 
States  which  have  adjourned  to  Richmond." 
The  address,  in  another  paragraph,  explained 
that  the  seventeen  Democratic  States  which 
had  voted  at  Charleston  for  the  seceders'  plat- 
form, "  united  with  Pennsylvania  alone,  com- 
prise a  majority  of  the  entire  electoral  vote 
of  the  United  States,  able  to  elect  the  Demo- 
cratic nominees  against  the  combined  opposi- 
tion of  all  the  remaining  States." 
This  was  a  shrewd  and  crafty  appeal.  Un- 
der an  apparent  plea  for  harmony  lurked  an 
insidious    invitation   to    Delaware,    Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  Missouri,  Tennessee,  Ken- 
tucky, California,  Oregon,  and  Pennsylvania 
to  join  the  seceders,  reconstruct  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  cut  off  all  the  "  popular  sover- 
eignty "  recusants,  and  secure  perpetual  as- 
cendency in  national  politics  through  the 
consolidated  South.  The  signers  of  this  ad- 
dress, forgetting  their  own  constant  accusation 
of  "  sectionalism  "  against  the  Republicans, 
pretended  to  see  no  impropriety  in  proposing 
this  purely  selfish  and  sectional  alliance.  If 
it  succeeded,  their  triumph  in  the  Union  was 
irresistible  and  permanent ;  if  it  failed,  it 
served  to  unite  the  South  for  secession  and  a 
slave  confederacy. 
If  any  Democrat  harbored  a  doubt  that 
the  proposed  reconciliation  meant  simply  a 
reunion  on  the  Davis- Yancey  platform,  the 
doubt  was  soon  removed.  In  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  Jefferson  Davis  was  press- 
ing to  a  vote  his  caucus  resolutions,  submitted 
in  February,  to  serve  as  a  model  for  the 
Charleston  platform ;  and  this  brought  on  a 
final  discussion  between  himself  and  Douglas. 
Davis  had  begun  the  debate  on  the  7th  of 
May  by  a  savage  onslaught  on  "  Squatter 
Sovereignty  " —  a  fallacy,  he  said,  fraught  with 
mischief  more  deadly  than  the  fatal  upas, 
because  it  spread  its  poison  over  the  whole 
Union.*  Douglas  took  up  the  gauntlet,  and, 
replying  on  May  15th  and  16th,  said  he  could 
not  recognize  the  right  of  a  caucus  of  the  Sen- 
ate or  the  House  to  prescribe  new  tests  for 
the  Democratic  party.  Senators  were  not 
chosen  for  the  purpose  of  making  platforms. 
Tha.t  was  the  duty  of  the  Charleston  Conven- 
tion, and  it  had  decided  in  his  favor,  platform, 
organization,  and  least  of  all  the  individual,  by 
giving  him  a  majority  of  fifty  votes  over  all 
the  other  candidates  combined.  He  reprobated 
the  Yancey  movement  as  leading  to  dissolu- 
tion and  a  Southern  confederacy.  The  party 
rejected  this  caucus  platform.  Should  the 
majority,  he  asked,  surrender  to  the  minority  ?  f 
Davis,  replying  on  the  17th,  contended  that 
Douglas  had  on  the  Kansas  policy  of  the  Ad- 
ministration put  himself  outside  the  Demo- 
cratic organization.  He  desired  no  divided 
flag  for  the  party.  He  preferred  that  the  sen- 
ator's banner  should  lie  in  its  silken  folds  to 
feed  the  moth  ;  "  but  if  it  impatiently  rustles  to 
be  unfurled  in  opposition  to  ours,  we  will  plant 
our  own  on  every  hill."  %  Douglas  retorted,  and 
again  attacked  the  caucus  dictation.  Why.  he 
asked,  are  all  the  great  measures  for  the  public 
good  made  to  give  place  to  the  emergency  of 
passing  some  abstract  resolutions  on  the  sub- 
ject of  politics  to  reverse  the  Democratic  piat- 
*  Globe,  May  7th,  i860,  p.  1940. 
t  Globe,  May  15th  and  16th.  i860.  Aopendix,  p,  312. 
X  Globe,  May  17th,  i860.
66o 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION 
form,  under  supposition  that  the  representatives 
of  the  people  are  men  of  weak  nerve  who  are 
going  to  be  frightened  by  the  thunders  of  the 
Senate  Chamber?*  Davis  rejoined,  that  they 
wanted  a  new  article  in  the  creed  because  they 
could  not  get  an  honest  construction  of  the 
platform  as  it  stands.  "  If  you  have  been 
beaten  on  a  rickety,  double-construed  plat- 
form, kick  it  to  pieces,  and  lay  one  broad  and 
strong,  on  which  men  can  stand."  "  We  want 
nothing  more  than  a  simple  declaration  that 
negro  slaves  are  property,  and  we  want  the 
gnition  of  the  obligation  of  the  Federal 
Government  to  protect  that  property  like  all 
other.' "  t  A  somewhat  restrained  undertone 
of  personal  temper  had  been  running  through 
the  debate,  and  Jefferson  Davis  could  not 
resist  an  expression  of  contempt  for  his  op- 
ponent. "  The  fact  is,"  said  he,  "  I  have 
a  declining  respect  for  platforms.  I  would 
sooner  have  an  honest  man  on  any  sort  of  a 
rickety  platform  that  you  could  construct,  than 
to  have  a  man  I  did  not  trust  on  the  best  plat- 
form which  could  be  made." 
Douglas  promptly  called  attention  to  the 
inconsistency  of  Davis's  method  of  forcing  his 
resolutions  with  one  breath  and  avowing  his 
indifference  to  a  platform  with  another,  espe- 
cially as  Yancey  and  his  followers  had  seceded 
on  the  platform  and  not  on  the  man;  but  he 
did  not  press  his  adversary  to  the  wall,  as  he 
might  have  done,  on  the  insincerity  which 
Davis's  sneer  exposed.  He  was  hampered 
by  his  own  attitude  as  a  candidate.  Douglas, 
who  had  received  a  hundred  and  fifty  votes 
at  Charleston,  and  who  expected  the  whole 
at  Baltimore,  could  not  let  his  tongue  wag  as 
freely  as  Davis,  who  had  received  only  a  vote 
and  a  half  at  Charleston,  and  could  count  on 
none  at  Baltimore ;  else  he  might  have  de- 
nounced him  on  the  score  of  patriotism.  For 
Jefferson  Davis,  like  Yancey,  only  not  so 
constantly,  and  like  so  many  others  of  that 
secession  coterie,  blew  hot  and  cold  about 
disunion  as  occasion  demanded.  This  same 
debate  of  May  17th  furnished  an  instructive 
example. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  day's  discussion 
Davis  indulged  in  a  repetition  of  the  old  alarm- 
cry  : 
■■  And  so,  sir,  when  we  declare  our  tenacious  adher- 
ence to  the  Union,  it  is  the  Union  of  the  Constitution. 
If  the  compact  between  the  States  is  to  be  trampled 
into  the  dust ;  if  anarchy  is  to  be  substituted  for  the 
usurpation  which  threatened  the  Government  at  an 
earlier  period  ;  if  the  Union  is  to  become  powerless 
for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  established,  and  we 
inly  to  appeal  to  it  for  protection, —  then,  sir,  con- 
of  the  rectitude  of  our  course,  and  self-reliant 
within  ourselves,  we  look  beyond  the  confines  of  the 
Union  for  the  maintenance  of  our  rights."  % 
*  Globe,  May  17th,  i860. 
t  Globe,  May  17th,  i860,  p.  2155. 
But  after  Douglas  had  made  a  damaging 
exposure  of  Yancey's  disunion  intrigues,  which 
had  come  to  light,  and  had  charged  their 
animus  on  the  Charleston  seceders,  Davis 
changed  his  tone.  He  said  there  were  not 
more  than  seventy-five  men  in  the  lodges  of 
the  Southern  Leagues.  He  did  not  think  the 
Union  was  in  danger  from  them, 
"  I  have  great  confidence,"  said  he,  "  in  the  strength 
of  the  Union.  Every  now  and  then  I  hear  that  it  is 
about  to  tumble  to  pieces;  that  somebody  is  going  to 
introduce  a  new  plank  into  the  platform,  and  if  he  does, 
the  Union  must  tumble  down ;  until  at  last  I  begin  to 
think  it  is  such  a  rickety  old  platform  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  prop  it  up.  But  then  I  bring  my  own  judg- 
ment to  bear,  instead  of  relying  on  witnesses,  and  I 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Union  is  strong  and 
safe, —  strong  in  its  power  as  well  as  in  the  affections 
of  the  people."  § 
The  debate  made  it  very  plain  that  it  was  not 
reconciliation  but  domination  which  the  South 
wanted.  So  in  due  time  (May  25th)  the  Jef- 
ferson Davis  resolutions,  affirming  the  "  prop- 
erty "  theory  and  the  "  protection"  doctrine, 
were  passed  by  a  large  majority  of  the  Demo- 
cratic senators. 
When  the  Charleston  Convention  proper 
reassembled  at  Baltimore,  it  was  seen  that  the 
programme  laid  out  by  Jefferson  Davis  and 
others  in  their  published  address  had  been 
duly  adopted.  The  seceders  had  met  at  Rich- 
mond, taken  a  recess,  and  now  appeared  at 
Baltimore  making  application  for  readmission. 
But  some  of  the  States  that  withdrew  at 
Charleston  had  sent  contesting  delegations, 
and  it  resolved  itself  into  tangled  rivalry  and 
quarrel  of  platforms,  candidates,  and  delega- 
tions all  combined.  For  four  days  a  furious 
debate  raged  in  the  convention  during  the 
day,  while  rival  mass-meetings  in  the  streets 
at  night  called  each  other  "  disorganizes," 
"  bolters,"  "  traitors,"  "  disunionists,"  and  "  ab- 
olitionists." When  Douglas,  before  a  test-vote 
was  reached,  sent  a  dispatch  suggesting  that 
the  party  and  the  country  might  be  saved  by 
dropping  his  name  and  uniting  upon  some 
other  candidate,  his  followers  suppressed  the 
dispatch. 
On  the  fifth  day  at  Baltimore  the  Demo- 
cratic National  Convention  underwent  its  sec- 
ond "  crisis,"  and  suffered  its  second  disruption. 
This  time,  also,  the  secession  was  somewhat 
broadened;  Chairman  Cushing  resigned  his 
seat,  and  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Ten- 
nessee, Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and 
California  withdrew  wholly  or  in  part  to  join 
the  States  which  had  gone  out  at  Charleston. 
For  the  present  the  disunion  extremists  were 
keeping  their  scheme  too  well  masked  to  estab- 
lish clearly  its  historical  record.    But  the  signs 
X  Globe,  May  17th,  i860,  p.  215 1. 
§  Globe,  May  17th,  i860,  p.  2156.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
661 
and  footprints  of  their  underplot  are  evident. 
Here  at  Baltimore,  as  at  Charleston,  and  as 
on  every  critical  occasion,  Mr.  Yancey  was 
conspicuously  present.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he 
was  no  doubt  persistently  intriguing  for  dis- 
union in  secret  while  ostentatiously  denying 
disunion  purposes  in  public. 
But  little  remained  to  do  after  the  disrup- 
tion at  Baltimore,  and  that  little  was  quickly 
done.  The  fragments  of  the  original  conven- 
tion continued  their  session  in  the  Front- 
street  Theatre,  where  they  had  met,  and  on 
the  first  ballot  nominated  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
for  President  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote. 
The  seceders  organized,  under  the  chairman- 
ship of  Caleb  dishing,  in  Maryland  Institute 
Hall,  and  also  by  a  nearly  unanimous  ballot 
nominated  as  their  candidate  for  President, 
John  C.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky.  Then  Mr. 
Yancey,  who  in  a  street  mass-meeting  had  de- 
clared that  he  was  neither  for  the  Union  per 
se  nor  for  disunion /<?r  se,  but  for  the  Consti- 
tution,* announced  that  the  Democracy,  the 
Constitution,  and,  through  them,  the  Union 
were  yet  safe. 
A  month  prior  to  the  reassembling  of  the 
Charleston  "  Rumps  "  above  described,  Balti- 
more had  already  witnessed  another  Presi- 
dential convention  and  nomination,  calling 
itself  peculiarly  "  National,"  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  "  sectional "  character  which  it 
charged  upon  the  Democratic  and  Republi- 
can parties  alike.  This  was  a  third  party, 
made  up  mainly  of  former  Whigs  whose  long- 
cherished  party  antagonisms  kept  them  aloof 
from  the  Democrats  in  the  South  and  the 
Republicans  in  the  North.  In  the  South,  they 
had  been  men  whose  moderate  antislavery 
feelings  were  outraged  by  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  and  the  Lecompton 
trick.  In  the  North,  they  were  those  whose  tra- 
ditions and  affiliations  revolted  at  the  extreme 
utterances  of  avowed  abolitionists.  In  both 
regions  many  of  them  had  embraced  Know- 
nothingism,  more  as  an  alternative  than  from 
original  choice.  The  Whig  party  was  dissolved; 
Know-nothingism  had  utterly  failed  —  their 
only  resource  was  to  form  a  new  party. 
In  the  various  States  they  had,  since  the 
defeat  of  Fillmore  in  1856,  held  together  a 
minority  organization  under  names  differing  in 
different  localities.  All  these  various  factions 
and  fragments  sent  delegations  to  Baltimore, 
where  they  united  themselves  under  the  des- 
ignation of  the  Constitutional  Union  Party. 
They  proposed  to  take  a  middle  course  be- 
tween Democrats  and  Republicans,  and  to 
allay  sectional  strife  by  ignoring  the  slavery 
question. 
Delegates  of  this  party,  regular  and  irregu- 
*  Halstead,  The  Conventions  of  i860. 
lar,  from  some  twenty-two  States,  convened  at 
Baltimore  on  the  9th  of  May.  John  J.  Crit- 
tenden, of  Kentucky,  called  the  meeting  to 
order,  and  Washington  Hunt,  of  New  York, 
was  made  both  temporary  and  permanent 
chairman.  They  adopted  as  their  platform  a 
single  resolution  declaring  in  substance  that 
they  would  "  recognize  no  other  political  prin- 
ciple than  the  Constitution  of  the  country,  the 
Union  of  the  States,  and  the  enforcement  of 
the  laws."  They  had  no  reasonable  hope  of 
direct  success  at  the  polls  in  November;  but 
they  had  a  clear  possibility  of  defeating  a  pop- 
ular choice,  and  throwing  the  election  into  the 
House  of  Representatives;  and  in  that  case 
their  nominee  might  stand  on  high  vantage- 
ground  as  a  compromise  candidate.  This  pos- 
sibility gave  some  zest  to  the  rivalry  among 
their  several  aspirants.  On  their  second  bal- 
lot, a  slight  preponderance  of  votes  indicated 
John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  as  their  favorite,  and 
the  convention  made  his  nomination  unani- 
mous. Mr.  Bell  had  many  qualities  desirable 
in  a  candidate  for  President.  He  was  a  states- 
man of  ripe  experience,  and  of  fair,  if  not  brill- 
iant, fame.  Though  from  the  South,  his  course 
on  the  slavery  question  had  been  so  moderate 
as  to  make  him  reasonably  acceptable  to  the 
North  on  his  mere  personal  record.  He  had 
opposed  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise and  the  Lecompton  outrage.  But  upon 
this  platform  of  ignoring  the  political  strife 
of  six  consecutive  years,  in  which  he  had  him- 
self taken  such  vigorous  part,  he  and  his  fol- 
lowers were  of  course  but  as  grain  between 
the  upper  and  nether  mill-stones. 
This  party  becomes  historic,  not  through 
what  it  accomplished,  but  by  reason  of  what 
a  portion  of  it  failed  to  perform.  Within  one 
year  from  these  pledges  to  the  Constitution, 
the  Union,  and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws, 
Mr.  Bell  and  most  of  his  Southern  adherents 
in  the  seceding  States  were  banded  with  others 
in  open  rebellion.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr. 
Everett  and  most  of  the  Northern  members, 
together  with  many  noble  exceptions  in  the 
border  slave  States,  like  Mr.  Crittenden,  of 
Kentucky,  supported  the  Government  in  the 
war  with  patriotic  devotion. 
LINCOLN    NOMINATED    AT    CHICAGO. 
In  recognition  of  the  growing  power  and 
importance  of  the  great  WTest,  the  Republican 
National  Convention  was  called  to  meet  in 
Chicago  on  the  16th  of  May.  The  former  Pres- 
idential canvass,  though  resulting  in  the  de- 
feat of  Fremont,  had  nevertheless  shown  the 
remarkable  popular  strength  of  the  Republican 
party  in  the  country  at  large ;  since  then,  its 
double  victory  in  Congress  against  Lecompton,
66. 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AXD   ELECTION. 
and  at  the  Congressional  elections  over  the  rep- 
resentatives who  supported  Lecompton,  gave  it 
confidence  and  aggressive  activity.  But  now 
it  received  a  new  inspiration  and  impetus  from 
the  Charleston  disruption.  Former  possibility 
was  suddenly  changed  to  strong  probability 
of  success  in  the  coming  Presidential  election. 
Delegates  were  not  only  quickened  with  a  new 
zeal  tor  their  principles ;  the  growing  chances 
spurred  them  to  fresh  efforts  in  behalf  of  their 
favorite  candidates.  Those  who  had  been 
prominently  named  were  diverse  in  antece- 
dents and  varied  in  locality,  each  however  pre- 
senting some  strong  point  of  popular  interest. 
Seward,  oi  New  York,  a  Whig  of  preeminent 
fame  :  Chase,  of  Ohio,  a  talented  and  zealous 
antislavery  Democrat,  an  original  founder  of 
the  new  party;  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey,  an 
old  Whig  high  in  personal  worth  and  political 
service  ;  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  a  former 
Democrat,  now  the  undisputed  leader  of  an  in- 
fluential tariff  State;  Bates,  of  Missouri,  an  able 
and  popular  antislavery  Whig  from  a  slave 
State ;  and  last,  but  by  no  means  least  in  pop- 
ular estimation,  Lincoln,  of  Illinois. 
The  idea  of  making  Lincoln  a  Presidential 
candidate  had  occurred  to  the  minds  of  many 
during  his  growing  fame.  The  principle  of 
natural  selection  plays  no  unimportant  part 
in  the  politics  of  the  United  States.  There  are 
always  hundreds  of  newspapers  ready  to  "  nail 
to  the  mast-head  "  the  name  of  any  individual 
which  begins  to  appear  frequently  in  dispatches 
and  editorials.  A  few  months  after  the  close 
of  the  Lincoln- Douglas  debates,  and  long 
before  the  Ohio  speeches  and  the  Cooper 
Institute  address,  a  warm  personal  friend,  the 
editor  of  an  Illinois  newspaper,  wrote  him  an 
invitation  to  lecture,  and  added  in  his  letter : 
'•  I  would  like  to  have  a  talk  with  you  on  political 
matters,  as  to  the  policy  of  announcing  your  name  for 
the  Presidency,  while  you  are  in  our  city.  My  partner 
and  myself  are  about  addressing  the  Republican  ed- 
it >rs  of  the  State  on  the  subject  of  a  simultaneous 
announcement  of  your  name  for  the  Presidency."  * 
To  this  Lincoln  replied : 
'■'  As  to  the  other  matter  you  kindly  mention,  I  must 
in  candor  say  I  do  not  think  myself  fit  for  the  Presi- 
.     I  certainly  am  flattered  and  gratified  that  some 
partial  friends  think  of  me  in  that  connection;  but  I 
think  it  best  for  our  cause  that  no  concerted  ef- 
fort, such  as  you  suggest,  should  be  made."t 
A  much  more  hopeful  ambition  filled  his 
mind.  Notwithstanding  his  recent  defeat,  he 
did  not  think  that  his  personal  contest  with 
Douglas  was  yec  finished.  He  had  the  faith 
and  the  patience  to  wait  six  years  for  a  chance 
to  repeat  his  political  tournament  with  the 
"Little  Giant."     Prom   his  letter  quoted  in  a 
*  Pickett  to  Lincoln,  April  13th,  1859.    MS. 
t  Lincoln  to  Pickett,  April  16th,  1859.   MS. 
previous  chapter  we  know  he  had  resolved 
to  "fight  in  the  ranks"  in  i860.  From  an- 
other, we  know  how  generously  he  kept  faith 
with  other  Republican  aspirants. 
"  If  Trumbull  and  I  were  candidates  for  the  same 
office  you  would  have  a  right  to  prefer  him,  and  I  should 
not  blame  you  for  it ;  but  all  my  acquaintance  with  you 
induces  me  to  believe  you  would  not  pretend  to  be  for 
me  while  really  for  him.  But  I  do  not  understand 
Trumbull  and  myself  to  be  rivals.  You  know  I  am 
pledged  not  to  enter  a  struggle  with  him  for  the  seat 
in  the  Senate  now  occupied  by  him ;  and  yet  I  would 
rather  have  a  full  term  in  the  Senate  than  in  the  Presi- 
dency. "| 
This  spirit  of  fairness  in  politics  is  also  shown 
by  the  following  letter,  written  apparently  in 
response  to  a  suggestion  that  Cameron  and 
Lincoln  might  form  a  popular  Presidential 
ticket : 
"  Yours  of  the  24th  ult.  was  forwarded  to  me  from 
Chicago.  It  certainly  is  important  to  secure  Pennsyl- 
vania for  the  Republicans  in  the  next  Presidential  con- 
test ;  and  not  unimportant  to  also  secure  Illinois.  As 
to  the  ticket  you  name,  I  shall  be  heartily  for  it 
after  it  shall  have  been  fairly  nominated  by  a  Repub- 
lican National  Convention  ;  and  I  cannot  be  committed 
to  it  before.  For  my  single  self,  I  have  enlisted  for  the 
permanent  success  of  the  Republican  cause ;  and  for 
this  object  I  shall  labor  faithfully  in  the  ranks,  unless, 
as  I  think  not  probable,  the  judgment  of  the  party  shall 
assign  me  a  different  position.  If  the  Republicans  of 
the  great  State  of  Pennsylvania  shall  present  Mr.  Cam- 
eron as  their  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  such  an  in- 
dorsement of  his  fitness  for  the  place  could  scarcely  be 
deemed  insufficient.  Still,  as  I  would  not  like  the  pub- 
lic to  know,  so  I  would  not  like  myself  to  know,  I  had 
entered  a  combination  with  any  man  to  the  prejudice 
of  all  others  whose  friends  respectively  may  consider 
them  preferable."  § 
Not  long  after  these  letters,  at  some  date 
near  the  middle  of  the  winter  of  1859-60,  the 
leaders  of  the  Republican  party  of  Illinois 
met  at  Springfield,  the  capital  of  the  State, 
and  in  a  more  pressing  and  formal  manner 
requested  him  to  permit  them  to  use  his  name 
as  a  Presidential  candidate,  more  with  the 
idea  of  securing  his  nomination  as  Vice-Pres- 
ident than  with  any  further  expectation.  To 
this  he  now  consented.  His  own  characteris- 
tic language,  however,  plainly  reveals  that  he 
believed  this  would  be  useful  to  him  in  his 
future  senatorial  aspirations  solely,  and  that 
he  built  no  hopes  whatever  on  national  pre- 
ferment. A  quarrel  was  going  on  among  rival 
aspirants  to  the  Illinois  governorship,  and 
Lincoln  had  written  a  letter  to  relieve  a  friend 
from  the  imputation  of  treachery  to  him  in 
the  recent  senatorial  contest.  This  act  of  jus- 
tice was  now  used  to  his  disadvantage  in  the 
scramble  for  the  Illinois  Presidential  delegates, 
and  he  wrote  as  follows : 
"I  am  not  in  a  position  where  it  would  hurt  much 
for  me  not  to  be  nominated  on  the  national  ticket ;  but 
I  am  where  it  would  hurt  some  for  me  to  not  get  the 
$  Lincoln  to  Judd,  Dec.  9th,  1859.   MS. 
§  Lincoln  to  Frazer,  Nov.   1st,  1859.  MS.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   KIKC7I0N. 
Oil  (%>tJ&zuf JUp 
uajzA/,  a 
thirls     <rf  Pr"  /rfm-  ^Jf)*^z? fUL***^> 
i>»v    C^-*^<x<?y" 
-^rft^2rr?^*^P-fc3NdtA. 
~~-^h~*^^ 
Lincoln's  letter  to  pickett,  concerning  the  presidency,     (from  a  photograph  furnished  by  robert  mcReynolds.) 
Illinois  delegates.  What  I  expected  when  I  wrote  the 
letter  to  Messrs.  Dole  and  others  is  now  happening. 
Your  discomfited  assailants  are  most  bitter  against  me  ; 
and  they  will  for  revenge  upon  me,  lay  to  the  Bates 
egg  in  the  South,  and  to  the  Seward  egg  in  the  North, 
and  go  far  towards  squeezing  me  out  in  the  middle 
with  nothing.  Can  you  not  help  me  a  little  in  this  mat- 
ter in  your  end  of  the  vineyard  ?  "  * 
The  extra  vigilance  of  his  friends  thus  in- 
voked, it  turned  out  that  the  Illinois  Republi- 
cans sent  a  delegation  to  the  Chicago  Conven- 
tion, not  only  full  of  personal  devotion  to 
Lincoln,  but  composed  of  men  of  the  highest 
standing,  and  of  consummate  political  ability, 
and  their  enthusiastic  efforts  in  his  behalf  anion  g 
the  delegations  from  other  States  contributed 
largely  to  the  final  result. 
The  political  campaign  had  now  so  far  taken 
shape  that  its  elements  and  chances  could  be 
calculated  with  more  than  usual  accuracy.  The 
Charleston  Convention  had  been  disrupted 
on  the  1st  of  May,  and  adjourned  on  May  3d; 
the  nomination  of  John  Bell  by  the  Constitu- 
tional Union  party  occurred  on  May  9th.  The 
Chicago  Convention  met  on  May  16th;  and 
while  there  was  at  that  date  yet  great  uncer- 
*  Lincoln  to  Judd,  Feb.  9th,  i860.  MS.  Also  printed 
in  a  pamphlet. 
tainty  as  to  whom  the  dissevered  fragments  of 
the  Democratic  party  would  finally  nominate, 
little  doubt  existed  that  both  the  Douglas  and 
Buchanan  wings  would  have  candidates  in  the 
field.  With  their  opponents  thus  divided,  the 
plain  policy  of  the  Republicans  was  to  find  a 
candidate  on  whom  a  thorough  and  hearty 
union  of  all  the  elements  of  the  opposition 
could  be  secured.  The  party  was  constituted 
of  somewhat  heterogeneous  material;  a  lin- 
gering antagonism  remained  between  former 
Whigs  and  Democrats,  protectionists  and 
free-traders,  foreign -born  citizens  and  Know- 
nothings.  Only  on  a  single  point  could  all 
hitherto  agree, —  opposition  to  the  extension 
of  slavery. 
But  little  calculation  was  needed  to  show 
that  at  the  November  polls  four  doubtful 
States  would  decide  the  Presidential  contest. 
Buchanan  had  been  elected  in  1856  by  the 
vote  of  all  the  slave  States  (save  Maryland), 
with  the  help  of  the  free  States  of  New  Jersey. 
Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  California. 
Change  the  first  four  or  even  the  first  three  of 
these  free  States  to  the  Republican  side,  and 
they,  with  the  Fremont  States  of  1856,  would 
elect  the  President  against  all  the  others  com-
664 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
billed.  The  Congressional  elections  of  1S5S 
demonstrated  that  such  a  change  was  possible. 
But  besides  this,  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana 
were,  like  Ohio,  known  as  "  October  States," 
because  they  held  elections  for  State  officers 
in  that  month  ;  and  they  would  at  that  early 
date  give  such  an  indication  of  sentiment 
as  would  forecast  their  November  vote  for 
President,  and  exert  a  powerful,  perhaps  a 
decisive,  influence  on  the  whole  canvass. 
What  candidate  could  most  easily  carry 
New  Jersey.  Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois,  became  therefore  the  vital  question 
among  the  Chicago  delegates,  and  especially 
among  the  delegates  from  the  four  pivotal 
States  themselves. 
William  H.  Seward,  of  New  York,  was  nat- 
urally the  leading  candidate.  He  had  been 
longest  in  public  life,  and  was  highest  in  official 
rank.  He  had  been  governor  of  the  greatest 
State  of  the  Union,  and  had  nearly  completed 
a  second  term  of  service  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  Once  a  prominent  Whig,  his  antece- 
dents coincided  with  those  of  the  bulk  of  the 
Republican  party.  His  experience  ran  through 
two  great  agitations  of  the  slavery  question. 
He  had  taken  important  part  in  the  Senate 
discussions  which  ended  in  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850,  and  in  the  new  contest 
growing  out  of  the  Nebraska  Bill  his  voice 
had  been  in  every  debate  from  "  Repeal  "  to 
"  Lecompton."  He  was  not  only  firm  in  his 
antislavery  convictions,  but  decided  in  his 
utterances.  Discussing  the  admission  of  Cali- 
fornia, he  proclaimed  the  "  higher  law  "  doc- 
trine* in  1850;  reviewing  Dred  Scott  and 
Lecompton,  he  announced  the  "irrepressible 
conflict  "t  in  1858.  He  had  tact  as  well  as  tal- 
ent; he  was  a  consummate  politician,  as  well  as 
a  profound  statesman.  Such  a  leader  could  not 
fail  of  a  strong  following,  and  his  supporters 
came  to  Chicago  in  such  numbers,  and  of  such 
prominence  and  character,  as  seemed  to  make 
his  nomination  a  foregone  conclusion.  The 
delegation  from  New  York  worked  and  voted 
throughout  as  a  unit  for  him,  not  merely  to 
carry  out  their  constituents'  wishes,  but  with  a 
personal  zeal  that  omitted  no  exertion  or  sac- 
rifice. They  showed  a  want  of  tact,  however, 
in  carrying  their  street  demonstrations  for  their 
*  "  It  is  true  indeed  that  the  national  domain  is  ours. 
It  is  true  it  was  acquired  by  the  valor  and  with  the  wealth 
of  the  whole  nation.  But  we  hold,  nevertheless, no  ar- 
bitrary power  over  it.  We  hold  no  arbitrary  authority 
anything,  whether  acquired  lawfully  or  seized  by 
usurpation.  The  Constitution  regulates  our  steward- 
ship ;  the  Constitution  devotes  the  domain  to  union, 
»o  justice,  to  defense,  to  welfare,  and  to  liberty.  But 
there  is  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitution  which  regu- 
lates our  authority  over  the  domain,  and  devotes  it  to 
the  same  noble  purposes.  The  territory  is  a  part,  no 
inconsiderable  part,  of  the  common  heritage  of  man- 
kind, bestowed  upon  them  by  the  Creator  of  the  uni- 
iavorite  a  little  to  excess ;  they  crowded  to- 
gether at  the  Richmond  House,  making  that 
hotel  the  Seward  headquarters,  with  some- 
what too  much  ostentation ;  they  marched 
every  day  to  the  convention  with  music  and 
banners  and  badges  ;  and  when  any  mention 
was  made  of  doubtful  States,  their  more  head- 
long members  talked  altogether  too  much  of 
the  campaign  funds  they  intended  to  raise. 
All  this  occasioned  a  reaction, —  a  certain 
mental  protest  among  both  Eastern  and 
Western  delegates  against  what  have  in 
later  days  come  to  be  characterized  as 
"  machine  "  methods. 
The  positive  elements  in  Seward's  charac- 
ter and  career  had  developed,  as  always  hap- 
pens, strong  antagonisms.  Having  many 
enthusiastic  friends,  he  had  also  very  active 
and  decided  opponents.  One  of  the  earliest 
symptoms  of  this  among  the  delegates  at 
Chicago  was  the  existence  of  a  strong  un- 
dercurrent of  opposition  to  his  nomination. 
This  opposition  was  as  yet  latent,  and  scat- 
tered here  and  there  among  many  State 
delegations,  but  very  intense,  silently  watch- 
ing its  opportunity,  and  ready  to  combine 
upon  any  of  the  other  candidates.  The  op- 
position soon  made  a  discovery :  that  of 
all  the  names  mentioned,  Lincoln's  was  the 
only  one  offering  any  chance  for  such  a 
combination.  It  needed  only  the  slightest 
comparison  of  notes  to  show  that  Dayton 
had  no  strength  save  the  New  Jersey  vote ; 
Chase  little  outside  of  the  Ohio  delegation; 
Cameron  none  but  that  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  that  Bates  had  only  his  Missouri  friends 
and  a  few  in  border  slave  States,  which 
could  cast  no  electoral  vote  for  the  Republi- 
cans. The  policy  of  the  anti-Seward  delegates 
was  therefore  quickly  developed,  namely,  to 
use  Lincoln's  popularity  as  a  means  to  defeat 
Seward. 
The  credit  of  the  nomination  is  claimed  by 
many  men,  and  by  several  delegations,  but 
every  such  claim  is  wholly  fictitious.  Lincoln 
was  chosen  not  by  personal  intrigue,  but 
through  political  necessity.  The  Republican 
party  was  a  purely  defensive  organization ; 
the  South  had  created  the  crisis  which  the 
new  party  was  compelled  to  overcome.    The 
verse.  We  are  his  stewards,  and  must  so  discharge 
our  trust  as  to  secure  in  the  highest  attainable  de- 
gree their  happiness." — William  H.  Seward,  Senate 
speech,  March  nth,  1850. 
t  "  Shall  I  tell  you  what  this  collision  means  ?  They 
who  think  that  it  is  accidental,  unnecessary,  the 
work  of  interested  or  fanatical  agitators,  and  therefore 
ephemeral,  mistake  the  case  altogether.  It  is  an  irre- 
pressible conflict  between  opposing  and  enduring 
forces,  and  it  means  that  the  United  States  must  and 
will,  sooner  or  later,  become  either  entirely  a  slave- 
holding  nation,  or  entirely  a  free-labor  nation." — Sew- 
ard, Rochester  speech,  October  25th,  1858.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND    ELECTION. 
JOHN     C.    BRECKINRIDGE,    NOMINEE    FOR     PRESIDENT    OF    THE 
BUCHANAN    WING    OF    THE    DEMOCRATIC    PARTY. 
(FROM    A    DAGUERREOTYPE    TAKEN    ABOUT    1850.       LENT 
BY     ANSON     MALTBY.) 
The  ascendency  of  the  free  States,  not  the 
personal  fortunes  of  Seward,  hung  in  the 
balance.  Political  victory  at  the  ballot-box 
or  a  vital  transformation  of  the  institutions 
of  government  was  the  immediate  alternative 
before  the  free  States. 
Victory  could  only  be  secured  by  help  of 
the  electoral  votes  of  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Indiana,  and  Illinois.  It  was  therefore 
a  simple  problem :  What  candidate  could 
carry  these  States  ?  None  could  answer  this 
question  so  well  as  their  own  delegates,  and 
these,  when  interrogated,  still  further  reduced 
the  problem  by  the  reply  that  whoever  else 
could,  Seward  certainly  could  not.  These  four 
States  lay  on  the  border  land  next  to  the 
South  and  to  slavery.  Institutions  inevitably 
mold  public  sentiment ;  and  a  certain  tender- 
ness toward  the  "  property  "  of  neighbors  and 
friends  infected  their  people.  They  shrunk 
from  the  reproach  of  being  "  abohtionized." 
They  would  vote  for  a  conservative  Republi- 
can ;  but  Seward  and  radicalism  and  "  higher 
law  "  would  bring  them  inevitable  defeat. 
Who,  then,  could  carry  these  doubtful  and 
pivotal  States  ?  This  second  branch  of  the 
question  also  found  its  ready  answer.  The 
contest  in  these  States  would  be  not  against 
a  Territorial  slave  code,  but  against  "  popular 
sovereignty  ";  not  with  Buchanan's  candidate, 
but  with  Douglas;  and  for  Douglas  there 
was  only  a  single  antagonist,  tried  and  true- 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Such,  we  may  reasona- 
Voi..  XXXIV.— 92. 
bly  infer,  was  the  substaru  e  of  the  discu 
and  argument  which  ran  through  the  caucus- 
rooms  of  the  delegates,  day  and  night,  during 
the  16th  and  17th  of  May.  Meanwhile  the 
Seward  men  were  not  idle ;  having  the  large- 
New  York  delegation  to  begin  with, and  count- 
ing the  many  positive  committals  from  other 
States,  their  strength  and  organization  seemed 
impregnable.  The  opposing  delegations,  each 
still  nursing  the  chances  of  its  own  candidate, 
hesitated  to  give  any  positive  promises  to 
each  other.  At  midnight  of  May  17th, 
Horace  Greeley,*  one  of  Seward's  strongest 
opponents,  and  perhaps  better  informed  than 
any  other  single  delegate,  telegraphed  his 
conclusion  "  that  the  opposition  to  Governor 
Seward  cannot  concentrate  on  any  candidate, 
and  that  he  will  be  nominated."  f 
Chicago  was  already  a  city  of  a  hundred 
thousand  souls.  Thirty  to  forty  thousand 
visitors,  full  of  life,  hope,  ambition,  most  of 
them  from  the  progressive  group  of  incircling 
North-western  States,  and  strung  to  the  high- 
est tension  of  political  excitement,  had  come 
to  attend  the  convention.  Charleston  had 
shown  a  great  party  in  the  ebb-tide  of  dis- 
integration, tainted  by  the  spirit  of  disunion. 
Chicago  exhibited  a  great  party  springing 
to  life  and  power,  every  motive  and  force 
compelling  cooperation  and  growth.  The 
rush    and   spirit  of  the   great  city,   and  the 
*  Greeley  sat  in  the  convention  as  a  delegate  for 
Oregon. 
t  Greeley  to  the  N.  Y.  "  Tribune,"  May  17th,  i860. 
JOSEPH     LANE,    NOMINEE     FOR     VICE-PRESIDENT    OF    THE 
BUCHANAN      WING    OF    THE     DEMOCRATIC     PARTY.
666 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
enthusiasm  and  hope  of  its  visitors,  blended 
and  reacted  upon  each  other  as  if  by  laws  of 
chemical  affinity.  Something  of  the  freshness 
and  sweep  of  the  prairie  winds  exhilarated 
the  delegates  and  animated  the  convention. 
GEORGE    ASHMUN,    OF    MASSACHUSETTS. 
(FROM     A     PHOTOGRAPH     BY     NOTMAN.) 
No  building  in  the  city  of  Chicago  at  that 
time  contained  a  hall  with  sufficient  room 
for  the  sittings  of  the  great  assemblage.  A 
temporary  frame  structure,  which  the  com- 
mittee of  arrangements  christened  "  The 
Wigwam,"  was  therefore  designed  and  erected 
for  this  especial  use.  It  was  said  to  be  large 
enough  to  hold  ten  thousand  persons,  and 
whether  or  not  that  estimate  was  entirely  ac- 
curate, a  prodigious  concourse  certainly  gath- 
ered each  day  within  its  walls. 
The  very  first  day's  session  (May  16th)  dem- 
onstrated the  successful  adaptation  of  the 
structure  to  its  uses.  Participants  and  spectators 
alike  were  delighted  with  the  ease  of  ingress  and 
egress,  the  comfortable  division  of  space,  the 
perfection  of  its  acoustic  qualities.  Every  ce- 
lebrity could  be  seen,  every  speech  could  be 
heard.  The  routine  of  organization,  the  choice 
of  officers  and  committees,  and  the  presen- 
tation of  credentials  were  full  of  variety  and 
zest.  Governor  Edwin  D.  Morgan,  of  New 
York,  as  Chairman  of  the  National  Repub- 
lican Committee,  called  the  convention  to 
order;  and  when  lie  presented  the  historic 
name  of  David  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  for 
temporary  chairman,  the  faith  of  the  audience 
in  the  judgment  of  the  managers  was  already 
won.    The  report  of  the  committee  on  organ- 
ization in  the  afternoon  made  George  Ashmun, 
of  Massachusetts,  a  most  skillful  parliamenta- 
rian, ready  in  decision  and  felicitous  in  his 
phrases,  the  permanent  presiding  officer.  One 
thing  was  immediately  and  specially  manifest: 
an  overflowing  heartiness  and  deep  feeling 
pervaded  the  whole  house.  No  need  of  a 
claque,  no  room  for  sham  demonstration  here! 
The  galleries  were  as  watchful  and  earnest  as 
the  platform.  There  was  something  genuine, 
elemental,  uncontrollable  in  the  moods  and 
manifestations  of  the  vast  audience.  Seats 
and  standing-room  were  always  packed  in 
advance,  and,  as  the  delegates  entered  by 
their  own  separate  doors,  the  crowd  easily 
distinguished  the  chief  actors.  Blair,  Giddings, 
Greeley,  Evarts,  Kelley,  Wilmot,  Schurz,  and 
others  were  greeted  with  spontaneous  ap- 
plause, which,  rising  at  some  one  point,  grew 
and  rolled  from  side  to  side  and  corner  to 
corner  of  the  immense  building,  brightening 
the  eyes  and  quickening  the  breath  of  every 
inmate.* 
With  the  second  day's  proceedings  the  in- 
terest of  delegates  and  spectators  was  visi- 
bly increased,  first  by  some  sharp-shooting 
speeches  about  credentials,  and  secondly  by 
the  main  event  of  the  day, — the  report  from 
the  platform  committee.  Much  difficulty  was 
expected  on  this  score,  but  a  little  time  had 
smoothed  the  way  with  an  almost  magical 
effect.  The  great  outpouring  of  delegates 
and  people,  the  self-evident  success  of  the 
gathering,  the  harmonious,  almost  joyous,, 
beginning  of  the  deliberations  in  the  first 
day's  session,  were  more  convincing  than 
logic  in  solidifying  the  party.  These  were 
the  premonitions  of  success  •  before  the 
signs  of  victory  all  spirit  of  faction  was  fused 
into  a  generous  glow  of  emulation. 
The  eager  convention  would  have  accepted 
a  weak  or  defective  platform ;  the  committee, 
on  the  contrary,  reported  one  framed  with  re- 
markable skill.  It  is  only  needful  to  recapitu- 
late its  chief  points.  It  denounced  disunion,. 
Lecomptonism,  the  property  theory,  the  dog- 
ma that  the  Constitution  carries  slavery  to 
Territories,  the  reopening  of  the  slave-trade,, 
the  popular  sovereignty  and  non-interven- 
tion fallacies,  and  denied  "  the  authority  of 
Congress,  of  a  Territorial  legislature,  or  of 
any  individuals  to  give  legal  existence  to  slav- 
ery in  any  Territory  of  the  United  States."  It 
opposed  any  change  in  the  naturalization  laws. 
It  recommended  an  adjustment  of  import 
duties  to  encourage  the  industrial  interests 
of  the  whole  country.  It  advocated  the  im- 
mediate admission  of  Kansas,  free  homesteads 
*  One  of  the  authors  was  a  spectator  at  all  the  ses- 
sions of  the  convention,  and  witnessed  the  scenes  in  the 
Wigwam  which  he  has  endeavored  to  describe.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION 
to  actual  settlers,  river  and  harbor  improve- 
ments of  a  national  character,  and  a  railroad  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean.  Bold  on  points  of  common 
agreement,  it  was  unusually  successful  in  avoid- 
ing points  of  controversy  among  its  followers, 
or  offering  points  for  criticism  to  its  enemies. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  Charleston  and  Chi- 
cago should  furnish  many  striking  contrasts. 
At  the  Charleston  Convention,  the  principal 
personal  incident  was  a  long  and  frank  speech 
from  one  Gaulden,  a  Savannah  slave-trader, 
in  advocacy  of  the  reopening  of  the  African 
slave-trade.*  In  the  Chicago  Convention,  the 
exact  and  extreme  opposite  of  such  a  theme 
created  one  of  the  most   interesting  of  the 
announces  the  right  of  all  men  to  "  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."    The  con 
tion  was  impatient  to  adopt  the  platform  with- 
outchange;  several  delegates  urged  objections, 
one  of  them  pertinently  observing  that  there 
were  also  many  other  truths  enunciated  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  "Mr.  President;' 
said  he,  "  I  believe  in  the  ten  commandment-, 
but  I  do  not  wantthem  in  a  political  platform." 
Mr.  Giddings's  amendment  was  voted  down, 
and  the  antislavery  veteran,  feeling  himself 
wounded  in  his  most  cherished  philosophy, 
rose  and  walked  out  of  the  convention. 
Personal  friends,  grieved  that  he  should  feel 
offended,  and  doubly  sorry  that  the  general 
1  I  f  |)K 
THE     WIGWAM     AT     CHICAGO     IN     WHICH     LINCOLN     WAS     NOMINATED. 
debates.  The  platform  had  been  read  and 
received  with  tremendous  cheers,  when  Mr. 
Giddings,  of  Ohio,  who  was  everywhere  eager 
to  insist  upon  what  he  designated  as  the 
"  primal  truths  "  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, moved  to  amend  the  first  reso- 
lution by  incorporating  in  it  the  phrase  which 
*"I  tell  you,fellow-Democrats,  that  the  African  slave- 
trader  is  the  true  Union  man  [cheers  and  laughter].  I 
tell  you  that  the  slave-trading  of  Virginia  is  more  im- 
moral, more  unchristian  in  every  possible  point  of  view, 
than  that  African  slave-trade  which  goes  to  Africa  and 
brings  a  heathen  and  worthless  man  here,  christian- 
izes him,  and  sends  him  and  his  posterity  down  the 
stream  of  time  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  civilization.  .  . 
It  has  been  my  fortune  to  go  into  that  noble  old  State 
to  buy  a  few  darkies,  and  I  have  had  to  pay  from  $1000 
to  $2000  a  head,  when  I  could  go  to  Africa  and  buy 
harmony  should  be  marred  by  even  a  single 
dissent,  followed  Mr.  Giddings,  and  sought  to 
change  his  purpose.  While  thus  persuading 
him,  the  discussion  had  passed  to  the  second 
resolution,  when  Mr.  George  William  Curtis. 
of  New  York,  seized  the  chance  to  renew  sub- 
stantially Mr.  Giddings's  amendment.    There 
better  negroes  for  $50  apiece.  .  .  I  advocate  the  re- 
peal of  the  laws  prohibiting  the  African  slave-trade, 
because  I  believe  it  to  be  the  true  Union  movement.  I 
do  not  believe  that  sections  whose  interests  are  so  dif- 
ferent as  the  Southern  and  Northern  States  can  ever 
stand  the  shocks  of  fanaticism  unless  they  be  equally 
balanced.  I  believe  that  by  reopening  this  trade,  and 
giving  us  negroes  to  populate  the  Territories,  the 
equilibrium  of  the  two  sections  will  be  maintained.*' — 
Speech  of  W.  B.  Gaulden,  of  Georgia,  in  the  Charles- 
ton Democratic  National  Convention,  May  1st,  1S60.
668 
LINCOLX'S  XOMIXATIOX  AXD   ELECTIOX. 
HANNIBAL     HAMLIN. 
were  new  objections,  but  Mr.  Curtis  swept  them 
away  with  a  captivating  burst  of  oratory.  "  I 
have  to  ask  this  Convention,"  said  he,  "  whether 
they  are  prepared  to  go  upon  the  record  before 
the  country  as  voting  down  the  words  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence?  .  .  .  I  rise  sim- 
ply to  ask  gentlemen  to  think  well  before, 
upon  the  free  prairies  of  the  West,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  i860,  they  dare  to  wince  and  quail 
before  the  assertions  of  the  men  in  Philadel- 
phia, in  1776 — before  they  dare  to  shrink 
from  repeating  the  words  that  these  great  men 
enunciated."  "  This  was  a  strong  appeal,  and 
took  the  convention  by  storm,"*  writes  a 
recording  journalist.  A  new  vote  formally 
embodied  this  portion  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  in  the  Republican  platform; 
and  Mr.  Giddings,  overjoyed  at  his  triumph, 
had  already  returned  to  his  seat  when  the  plat- 
form as  a  whole  was  adopted  with  repeated 
and  renewed  shouts  of  applause  that  seemed 
to  shake  the  wigwam. 
The  third  day  of  the  convention  (Friday, 
May  1 8th)  found  the  doors  besieged  by  an 
exciter!  multitude.  The  preliminary  business 
was  disposed  of, —  the  platform  was  made, — 
and  every  one  knew  the  balloting  would  be- 
gin. The  New  York  delegation  felt  assured 
of  Seward's  triumph,  and  made  an  effort  to 
have  its  march  to  the  convention,  with  ban- 
ners and  music,  unusually  full  and  imposing. 
ft  proved  a  costly  display;  for  while  the  New 
York  "  irregulars  "  were  parading  the  streets, 
the  Illinoisans  were  filling  the  wigwam:  when 
the  Seward  procession  arrived,  there  was  little 
room  left  except  the  reserved  seats  for  the 
delegates.  New  York  deceived  itself  in  an- 
*  Halstead,  "Conventions  of  i860,"  p.  138. 
other  respect :  it  counted  on  the  full  New 
England  strength,  whereas  more  than  half  of 
it  had  already  resolved  to  cast  its  vote  else- 
where. This  defection  in  advance  practically 
insured  Seward's  defeat.  New-  York  and  the 
extreme  North-west  were  not  sufficiently  strong 
to  nominate  him,  and  in  the  nature  of  things 
he  could  not  hope  for  much  help  from  the 
conservative  middle  and  border  States.  But 
this  calculation  could  not  as  yet  be  so  accu- 
rately made.  Caucusing  was  active  up  to  the 
very  hour  when  the  convention  met,  and 
many  delegations  went  to  the  wigwam  with 
no  definite  programme  beyond  the  first  ballot. 
What  pen  shall  adequately  describe  this  vast 
audience  often  thousand  souls  ?  the  low,  wave- 
like roar  of  its  ordinary  conversation ;  the  roll- 
ing cheers  that  greeted  the  entrance  of  popular 
favorites ;  the  solemn  hush  which  fell  upon  it 
during  the  opening  prayer  ?  There  was  just 
enough  of  some  unexpected  preliminary  wran- 
gle and  delay  to  arouse  the  full  impatience  of 
both  convention  and  spectators;  but  at  length 
the  names  of  candidates  were  announced. 
This  ceremony  was  still  in  its  simplicity.  The 
more  recent  custom  of  short  dramatic  speeches 
from  conspicuous  and  popular  orators  to  serve 
as  electrifying  preludes,  had  not  yet  been  in- 
vented. "  I  take  the  liberty,"  said  Mr.  Evarts, 
of  New  York,  "  to  name  as  a  candidate  to  be 
nominated  by  this  convention  for  the  office 
of  President  of  the  United  States,  William  H. 
Seward."   "  I  desire,"  followed  Mr.  Judd,  "  on 
GEORGE    WILLIAM    CURTIS.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND    IlIIiCTION. 
66i 
WILLIAM    M.    EVARTS.       (FROM     AN     OIL-PAINTING    BY    THOMAS     HICKS. 
[867.) 
behalf  of  the  delegation  from  Illinois,  to  put 
in  nomination  as  a  candidate  for  President  of 
the  United  States,  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illi- 
nois." Then  came  the  usual  succession  of 
possible  and  alternative  aspirants  who  were  to 
be  complimented  by  the  first  votes  of  their 
States, — Dayton,  Cameron,  Chase,  Bates,  Coll- 
amer,  McLean.  The  fifteen  minutes  required 
by  this  formality  had  already  indisputably 
marked  out  and  set  apart  the  real  contestants. 
The  "  complimentary  "  statesmen  were  lustily 
cheered  by  their  respective  State  delegations ; 
but  at  the  names  of  Seward  and  Lincoln,  the 
whole  wigwam  seemed  to  respond  together. 
There  is  something  irresistibly  exciting  in 
the  united  voice  of  a  great  crowd.  For  a 
moment  the  struggle  appeared  to  resolve  it- 
self into  a  contest  of  throats  and  lungs.  Indi- 
ana seconded  the  nomination  of  Lincoln,  and 
the  applause  was  deafening.  Michigan  sec- 
onded the  nomination  of  Seward  ;  the  New 
York  delegation  rose  en  masse,  waved  their 
hats,  and  joined  the  galleries  in  a  shout  which 
doubled  the  volume  of  any  yet  given.  Then 
a  portion  of  the  Ohio  delegates  once  more 
seconded  Lincoln,  and  his  adherents,  feeling 
themselves  put  upon  their  mettle,  made  an 
effort.  "  I  thought  the  Seward  yell  could  not 
be  surpassed,"  wrote  a  spectator;  "but  the 
Lincoln  boys  were  clearly  ahead,  and,  feeling 
their  victory,  as  there  was  a  lull  in  the  storm, 
took  deep  breaths  all  round,  and  gave  a  con- 
centrated shriek  that  was  positively  awful, 
and  accompanied  it  with  stamping  that 
made  every  plank  and  pillar  in  the  building 
quiver."  * 
The  tumult  gradually  died  away,  and  bal- 
loting began.  Here  we  may  note  another 
contrast.  The  Charleston  Convention  was 
reactionary  and  exclusive;  it  followed  the  two- 
thirds  rule.  The  Chicago  Convention  was  pro- 
gressive and  liberal ;  it  adopted  majority  rule. 
Liberal  even  beyond  this,  it  admitted  the  Ter- 
ritories and  border  slave  States,  containing 
only  a  minority  or  fraction  of  Republican  sen- 
timent, to  seats  and  to  votes.  It  was  throwing 
a  drag-net  for  success.  Under  different  circum- 
stances, these  sentimental  delegations  might 
have  become  powerful  in  intrigue ;  but,  dom- 
*  Halstead,  "  Conventions  of  1S60,"  p.  145.
l'7° 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND  ELECTION. 
mated  as  they  were  by  deeper  political  forces, 
they  afforded  no  distinct  advantage  to  either 
candidate.* 
Though  it  was  not  expected  to  be  decisive, 
the  very  first   ballot  foreshadowed  accurately 
JOHN     BELL,    NOMINEE     FOR     PRESIDENT    OF    THE     CONSTITUTIONAL    UNION 
PARTY.       (FROM     A     PHOTOGRAPH     BY    BRADY.) 
the  final  result.  The  "  complimentary  "  can- 
didates received  the  tribute  of  admiration  from 
their  respective  States.  Vermont  voted  for 
Collamer,  and  New  Jersey  for  Dayton,  each 
solid,  t  Pennsylvania's  compliment  to  Cam- 
eron was  shorn  of  six  votes,  four  of  which 
went  at  once  for  Lincoln.  Ohio  divided  her 
compliment,  34  for  Chase,  4  for  McLean,  and 
at  once  gave  Lincoln  her  8  remaining  votes. 
"These  sentimental  delegations  were:  Maryland,  11 ; 
Delaware,  6  ;  Virginia,  22  ;  Kentucky,  23  ;  Texas,  6  ; 
Kansas,  0;  Nebraska,  6;  District  of  Columbia,  2. 
Total,  82  votes.  Of  these  the  leading  candidates  re- 
ceived as  follows  : 
i-t  ballot   Seward,  30    .  Lincoln,  21 
2d       «  u         ^  „         3Q 
3d       "       .  .  .  .  "         33.  .  "         43 
Missouri  might  be  counted  in  the  same  category; 
but,  as  she  voted  steadily  for  Bates  through  all  the  bal- 
lots, she  did  not  in  any  wise  influence  the  result. 
t  Each  State  cast  a  vote  equal  to  double  the  number 
of  its  Electoral  College. 
Missouri  voted  solid  for  her  candidate,  Bates, 
who  also  received  a  scattering  tribute  from 
other  delegations.  But  all  these  compliments 
were  of  little  avail  to  their  recipients,  for  far 
above  each  towered  the  aggregates  of  the 
leading  candidates :  Seward,  173^ ; 
Lincoln,  102. 
In  the  grounds  well  of  suppressed 
excitement  which  pervaded  the  con- 
vention there  wras  no  time  to  ana- 
lyze this  vote ;  nevertheless,  dele- 
gates and  spectators  felt  the  full 
force  of  its  premonition ;  to  all  who 
desired  the  defeat  of  Seward  it 
pointed  out  the  winning  man  with 
unerring  certainty.  Another  little 
wrangle  over  some  disputed  and 
protesting  delegate  made  the  audi- 
ence almost  furious  at  the  delay, 
and  "  Call  the  roll !  "  sounded  from 
a  thousand  throats. 
A  second  ballot  was  begun  at 
last,  and,  obeying  a  force  as  sure 
as  the  law  of  gravitation,  the  former 
complimentary  votes  came  rushing 
to  Lincoln.  The  whole  10  votes  of 
Collamer,  44  from  Cameron,  6  from 
Chase  and  McLean,  were  now  cast 
for  him,  followed  by  a  scatter  of 
additions  along  the  whole  roll-call. 
In  this  ballot  Lincoln  gained  79 
votes,  Seward  only  11.  The  faces 
of  the  New  York  delegation  whit- 
ened as  the  balloting  progressed 
and  as  the  torrent  of  Lincoln's 
popularity  became  a  river.  The 
result  of  the  second  ballot  was:  Se- 
ward, 1 84 y2  ;  Lincoln,  181 ;  scatter- 
ing, 99}^.  When  the  vote  of  Lin- 
coln was  announced,  there  was  a 
tremendous  burst  of  applause,  which 
the  chairman  prudently  but  with  difficulty 
controlled  and  silenced. 
The  third  ballot  was  begun  amid  a  breath- 
less suspense;  hundreds  of  pencils  kept  pace 
with  the  roll-call,  and  nervously  marked  the 
changes  on  their  tally-sheets.  The  Lincoln 
figures  steadily  swelled  and  grew.  Votes  came 
to  him  from  all  the  other  candidates, —  4^ 
from  Seward,  2  from  Cameron,  13  from  Bates, 
18  from  Chase,  9  from  Dayton,  8  from  Mc- 
Lean, 1  from  Clay.  Lincoln  had  gained  50^, 
Seward  had  lost  41/.  Long  before  the  official 
tellers  footed  up  their  columns,  spectators  and 
delegates  rapidly  made  the  reckoning  and 
knew  the  result:  Lincoln,  231  y2\  Seward,  180. 
Counting  the  scattering  votes,  465  ballots  had 
been  cast,  and  233  were  necessary  to  a  choice; 
only  1^4  votes  more  were  needed  to  make  a 
nomination. 
A  profound  stillness  suddenly  fell  upon  the
LINCOLN'S   NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
671 
wigwam ;   the   men   ceased   to   talk   and 
the  ladies  to  flutter  their  fans ;  one  eould 
distinctly  hear  the  scratching  of  pencils 
and  the  ticking  of  telegraph  instruments 
on  the  reporters'  tables.  No  announce- 
ment had  been  made  by  the  chair;  changes 
were  in  order,  and  it  was  only  a  question 
of  seconds  who  should  speak  first.  While 
every  one  was  leaning  forward  in  intense 
expectancy,  Mr.  Cartter  sprang  upon  his 
chair  and  reported  a  change  of  four 
Ohio  votes  from  Chase  to  Lincoln.  There 
was  a  moment's  pause, — -a  teller  waved 
his  tally- sheet  toward  the  skylight  and 
shouted  a  name, —  and  then  the  boom 
of  a  cannon  on  the  roof  of  the  wigwam 
announced  the  nomination  to  the  crowds 
in  the  streets,  where  shouts  and  salutes 
took  up  and  spread  the  news.  In  the 
convention  the  Lincoln  river  now  became 
an  inundation.  Amid  the  wildest  hurrahs, 
delegation  after  delegation  changed  its 
vote  to  the  victor. 
A  graceful  custom  prevails  in  orderly 
American  conventions,  that  the  chairman 
of  the  vanquished  delegation  is  first  to 
greet  the  nominee  with  a  short  address 
of  party  fealty  and  promise  of  party  sup- 
port. Mr.  Evarts,  the  spokesman  for  New 
York,  essayed  promptly  to  perform  this 
courteous  office,  but  was  delayed  a  while 
by  the  enthusiasm  and  confusion.  The  din 
at  length  subsided,  and  the  presiding  offi- 
cer announced  that  on  the  third  ballot  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  received  364  votes, 
and  "  is  selected  as  your  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States."  Then  Mr.  Evarts, 
in  a  voice  of  unconcealed  emotion,  but  with 
admirable  dignity  and  touching  eloquence, 
speaking  for  Seward  and  for  New  York, 
moved  to  make  the  nomination  unanimous. 
The  interest  in  a  National  Convention  usu- 
ally ceases  with 
the  announce- 
ment of  the  prin- 
cipal nomination. 
|1  It  was  only  aft- 
||  erward  that  the 
0-:  delegates  realized 
?V."  how  fortunate  a 
X-;  selection  they 
;f::  ..  made  by  adding 
:;;'  Hannibal  Ham- 
lin, of  Maine,  to 
the  ticket  as  can- 
.;'■  .'  didate  for  Vice- 
President.  In- 
deed, this  was 
even  more  true 
of    Mr.    Lincoln. 
:--V^s 
WIDE     AWAKES. 
For  the  moment 
EDWARD     EVERETT,    NOMINEE     FOR     VICE-PRESIDENT     OF     THE 
CONSTITUTIONAL     UNION     PARTY. 
their  chief  self-congratulation  was  that  they 
had  secured  the  doubtful  vote  of  the  conser- 
vative States.  Or  rather,  perhaps,  might  it  be 
said  that  it  was  hardly  the  work  of  the  dele- 
gates—  it  was  the  concurrent  product  of 
popular  wisdom.  Political  evolution  had 
with  scientific  precision  wrought  "  the  survi- 
val of  the  fittest."  The  weary  delegates  leav- 
ing Chicago  on  the  various  homeward-bound 
railroad  trains  that  night,  saw  that  already  the 
excitement  and  enthusiasm  of  the  convention 
was  transferred  from  the  wigwam  to  the 
country. 
"At  every  station  where  there  was  a  village,  until 
after  2  o'clock,  there  were  tar-barrels  burning;, 
drums  beating,  boys  carrying  rails,  and  guns  great 
and  small  banging  away.  The  weary  passengers  were 
allowed  no  rest,  but  plagued  by  the  thundering  of  the 
cannon,  the  clamor  of  drums,  the  glare  of  bonfires, 
and  the  whooping  of  the  boys,  who  -were  delighted 
with  the  idea  of  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  who 
thirty  years  before  split  rails  on  the  Sangamon  River 
—  classic,  stream  now  and  for  evermore  —  and  whose 
neighbors  named  him  'honest.'  " 
LINCOLN    ELECTED. 
Thus  the  Presidential  canvass  in  the  United 
States  for  the  year  i860  began  with  the  very 
*  Halstead,  "  Conventions  of  1S60,"  p.  154.
o;- 
LINCOLX'S  X0MIXATI0X  A  XI)   ELECT/OX. 
strietion  or  extension.  Its  avowed  policy  was 
to  permit  the  people  of  a  Territory  to  decide 
whether  they  would  prevent  or  establish  slav- 
ery, and  it  further  proposed  to  abide  by  the 
decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  on  all  ques- 
tions of  constitutional  law  growing  out  of  it. 
Third.  The  Buchanan  wing  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  which  at  Baltimore  nominated 
John  C.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky,  for  Presi- 
dent, and  Joseph  Lane,  of  Oregon,  for  Vice- 
President.  Its  animating  spirit  was  a  belief 
and  declaration  that  slavery  was  morally  right 
and  politically  beneficial ;  its  avowed  policy 
was  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  Territories, 
and  the  creation  of  new  slave  States,  whereby 
it  might  protect  and  perpetuate  itself  by  a  pre- 
ponderance, or  at  least  a  constant  equality,  of 
political  power,  especially  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  As  one  means  to  this  end,  it 
proposed  the  immediate  acquisition  of  the 
island  of  Cuba. 
Fourth.  The  Constitutional  Union  party, 
which  in  its  convention  at  Baltimore  nomi- 
nated John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  for  President, 
and  Edward  Everett,  of  Massachusetts,  for 
Vice-President.  It  professed  to  ignore  the 
question  of  slavery,  and  declared  that  it  would 
recognize  no  political  principle  other  than 
"  the  Constitution  of  the  Country,  the  Union 
of  the  States,  and  the  enforcement  of  the 
Laws." 
The  first,  most  striking  feature  of  the  four- 
sided  Presidential  canvass  which  now  began, 
was  the  personal  pledge  by  every  one  of  the 
The  Republican  party,  which  at  the    candidates  of  devotion  to  the  Union.    Each 
of  the  factions  was  in   some  form  charging 
HERSCHEL    V.    JOHNSON,    CANDIDATE     FOR    VICE-PRES'.DENT    OF 
THE     DOUGLAS    WING     OF    THE     DEMOCRATIC     PARTY. 
(FROM     A     PHOTOGRAPH     BY     BRADY.) 
unusual  condition  of  four  considerable  parties, 
and  four  different  candidates  for  President 
and  Vice-President.  In  the  order  of  popular 
strength,  as  afterward  shown,  they  were : 
Chicago  Convention  had  nominated  as  its  can- 
didate for  President,  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illi- 
nois, and  for  Vice-President,  Hannibal  Hamlin, 
of  Maine.  Its  animating  spirit  was  a  belief  and 
declaration  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was 
wrong  in  morals  and  detrimental  to  society; 
its  avowed  policy  was  to  restrict  slavery  to  its 
present  limits  in  the  States  where  it  existed  in 
virtue  of  local  constitutions 
and  laws. 
disunion  motives  or  tendencies 
upon  part  or  all  of  the  others ; 
*  Benjamin  Fitzpatrick,  of  Alabama, 
had  been  nominated  at  Baltimore,  but 
he  declined  the  nomination,  and  the  Na- 
tional Committee  substituted  the  name 
of  Herschel  V.  Johnson,  of  Georgia. 
Second.   Th e  Douglas 
win 't  of  the  Democratic 
party,  which  at  Bal- 
timore nominated 
Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
of  Illinois,  for  Pres- 
ident, and  whose 
candidate  for  Vi<  e- 
President  was  Her- 
schel V.  Johnson, 
of  Georgia*  It  de- 
clared indifference 
as  to  the  moral 
right  or  wrong  of 
slavery,  and  indif- 
ference   to   its   re- 
VTATL-HOCSE    IN     WHICH     WAS     LINCOLN  S     OFFICE     DURING     HIS     CAMPAIGN.
LINCOLN'S   NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
but  each  indignantly  denied  the  allegation 
as  to  itself.  To  leave  no  possible  doubt, 
the  written  letters  of  acceptance  of  each  of 
the  candidates  emphasized  the  point.  Lin- 
coln invoked  "the  inviolability  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  the  perpetual  union,  harmony, 
and  prosperity  of  all."  Douglas  made  his 
pledge  broad  and  full.  "  The  Federal  Union," 
wrote  he,  "  must  be  preserved.  The  Con- 
stitution must  be  maintained  inviolate  in  all 
its  parts.  Every  right  guaranteed  by  the  Con- 
stitution must  be  protected  by  law  in  all  cases 
where  legislation  is  necessary  to  its  enjoyment. 
The  judicial  authority,  as  provided  in  the  Con- 
stitution, must  be  sustained,  and  its  decisions 
implicitly  obeyed  and  faithfully  executed.  The 
laws  must  be  administered,  and  the  constituted 
authorities  upheld,  and  all  unlawful  resistance 
to  these  things  must  be  put  down  with  firm- 
ness, impartiality,  and  fidelity."  "  The  Consti- 
tution and  the  equality  of  the  States,"  wrote 
Breckinridge,  "  these  are  the  symbols  of  ever- 
lasting union.  Let  these  be  the  rallying  cries 
of  the  people."  Bell  declared  that,  if  elected, 
all  his  ability,  strength  of  will,  and  official  in- 
fluence should  be  employed  "  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  Constitution  and  the  Union 
against  all  opposing  influences  and  tenden- 
cies." Even  President  Buchanan,  in  a  little 
campaign  speech  from  the  portico  of  the  Ex- 
ecutive mansion,  hastened  to  purge  himself 
of  the  imputation  of  suspicion  or  fear  on  this 
point.  He  declared  that  neither  of  the  Demo- 
cratic conventions  was  "  regular,"  and  that 
therefore  every  Democrat  was  at  liberty  to 
vote  as  he  thought  proper.  For  himself,  he  pre- 
ferred Breckinridge.  The  Democratic  party, 
when  divided  for  the  moment,  "  has  always 
closed  up  its  ranks,  and  become  more  power- 
ful even  from  defeat.  It  will  never  die  whilst 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union  survive.  It 
will  live  to  protect  and  defend  both."  * 
No  progress  was  made,  however,  toward 
a  reunion  of  the  Democratic  party.  The 
Buchanan  faction  everywhere  waged  unrelent- 
ing war  on  Douglas,  both  in  public  discussion 
and  in  the  use  of  official  patronage.  The  con- 
test was  made  with  equal  obstinacy  and  bitter- 
ness in  the  Northern  and  the  Southern  States. 
Douglas,  on  his  part,  was  not  slow  to  retaliate. 
He  immediately  entered  on  an  extensive  cam- 
paign tour,  and  made  speeches  at  many  of 
the  principal  cities  of  the  Northern  States, 
and  a  few  in  the  slave  States.  Everywhere 
he  stigmatized  the  Breckinridge  wing  of  the 
Democracy  as  an  extremist  and  disunion  fac- 
*G.  T.  Curtis,  "  Life  of  Buchanan,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  294. 
t "  In  my  opinion  there  is  a  mature  plan  throughout 
the  Southern  States  to  break  up  the  Union.  I  believe 
the  election  of  a  Republican  is  to  be  the  signal  for  that 
attempt,  and  that  the  leaders  of  the  scheme  desire  the 
election  of  Lincoln  so  as  to  have  an  excuse  for  dis- 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 93. 
tion,f  charging  that  it  was  as  obnoxious  and 
dangerous  as  the  Republicans.  Whatever  be 
his  errors,  it  must  be  recorded  to  his  last- 
ing renown  that  he  boldly  declared  for  main- 
taining the  Union  by  force.  At  Norfolk, 
Virginia,  the  question  was  put  to  him  in  writ- 
ing. "  I  answer  emphatically,"  replied  Douglas, 
"that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  all  others  in  authority  un- 
der him,  to  enforce  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  passed  by  Congress,  and  as  the 
courts  expound  them,  and  I,  as  in  duty 
bound  by  my  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  Consti- 
tution, would  do  all  in  my  power  to  aid  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  in  maintain- 
ing the  supremacy  of  the  laws  against  all  re- 
sistance to  them,  come  from  what  quarter  it 
might.  In  other  words,  I  think  the  President, 
whoever  he  may  be,  should  treat  all  attempts 
to  break  up  the  Union  by  resistance  to  the 
laws,  as  Old  Hickory  treated  the  nullifiers  in 
I832."J 
All  parties  entered  upon  the  political  can- 
vass with  considerable  spirit;  but  the  chances 
of  the  Republicans  were  so  manifestly  supe- 
rior that  their  enthusiasm  easily  outran  that  of 
all  their  competitors.  The  character  and  ante- 
cedents of  Mr.  Lincoln  appealed  directly  to 
the  sympathy  and  favor  of  the  popular  masses 
of  the  Northern  States.  As  pioneer,  farm- 
laborer,  flat-boatman,  and  frontier  politician, 
they  saw  in  him  a  true  representative  of  their 
early  if  not  their  present  condition.  As  the 
successful  lawyer,  legislator,  and  public  de- 
bater in  questions  of  high  statesmanship,  he 
was  the  admired  ideal  of  their  own  aspirations. 
The  popular  fancy  seized  upon  his  personal 
characteristics  as  effective  symbols  of  their 
zealous  partisanship. 
While  the  Illinois  State  Republican  Con- 
vention was  in  session  at  Decatur  (May  10th), 
about  a  week  before  the  Chicago  Convention, 
the  balloting  for  State  officers  was  interrupted 
by  the  announcement,  made  with  much  mys- 
tery, that  "an  old  citizen  of  Macon  County  " 
had  something  to  present  to  the  convention. 
When  curiosity  had  been  sufficiently  aroused, 
John  Hanks,  Lincoln's  fellow-pioneer,  and  a 
neighbor  of  Hanks  were  suddenly  marched 
into  the  convention,  each  bearing  upright  an 
old  fence-rail,  and  displaying  a  banner  with  an 
inscription  to  the  effect  that  these  were  two 
rails  from  the  identical  lot  of  three  thousand 
which,  when  a  pioneer  boy,  Lincoln  had 
helped  to  cut  and  split  to  inclose  his  father's 
first  farm  in  Illinois,  in  1830.    These  emblems 
union.  I  do  not  believe  that  every  Breckinridge  man 
is  a  disunionist,  but  I  do  believe  that  every  disunion- 
ist  in  America  is  a  Breckinridge  man." — Douglas, 
Baltimore  speech,  September  6th,  1S60. 
t  Douglas,  Norfolk  speech  August  25th,  1S60.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION 
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CLc^Jt    stiff     LjtaX,    A<-o-ywr2^_ 
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*jf^M*<C4r£s 
FAC-SIMILE    OF    LINCOLN  S    LETTER    OF    ACCEPTANCE. 
of  his  handiwork  were  received  by  the  con- 
vention with  deafening  shouts,  as  a  prelude  to 
a  unanimous  resolution  recommending  him 
for  President.  Later,  these  rails  were  sent  to 
Chicago;  there,  during  the  sittings  of  the 
National  Republican  Convention,  they  stood 
in  the  hotel  parlor  at  the  Illinois  headquarters, 
lighted  up  by  tapers,  and  trimmed  with  flowers 
by  enthusiastic  ladies.  Their  history  and  cam- 
i  incidents  were  duly  paraded  in  the 
newspapers,  and  throughout  the  Union  Lin- 
coln's ancient  and  local  sobriquet  of  "  Honest 
Old  Abe  "  was  supplemented  by  the  national 
epithet  of"  The  Illinois  Rail-splitter."  Of  the 
many  humors   and   peculiarities  of  the  cam- 
*  We  condense  the  following  account  of  the  origin 
of  the  "  Wide  Awakes"  from  memoranda  kindly  fur- 
nished us  by  Mr.  William  P.  Fuller,  one  of  the  editors 
of  the  Hartford  "Com  ant"  in  i860,  Major  J.  C.  Kin- 
ent  connected  with  the  paper,  and  General 
-  R.  Haw  ley,  the  principal  editor,  now  United 
States  Senator  from  Connecticut,  and  who  in  i860 
marched  in  the  ranks  in  the  first  "  Wide  Awake " 
parades. 
The  "  Wide  Awake  "  organization  grew  out  of  the 
first  campaign  meeting  in  Hartford  on  February  25th, 
—  State  election    campaign.      Hon.   Cassius    M. 
Clay   was    the    speaker,   and    after    the    meeting   was 
escorted  to  the  Allyn  House  by  a  torch-light  parade. 
paign,  one  feature  deserves  special  mention. 
Political  clubs,  for  parades  and  personal  cam- 
paign work,  were  no  novelty ;  now,  however,  the 
new  expedients  of  a  cheap  yet  striking  uniform 
and  a  half-military  organization  were  tried 
with  marked  success.  When  Lincoln  made 
his  New  England  trip,  immediately  after  the 
Cooper  Institute  speech,  a  score  or  two  of 
active  Republicans  in  the  city  of  Hartford 
appeared  in  close  and  orderly  ranks,  wearing 
each  a  cap  and  large  cape  of  oil-cloth,  and 
bearing  over  their  shoulders  a  long  staff,  on 
the  end  of  which  blazed  a  brilliant  torch- 
light. This  first  "Wide  Awake"*  Club,  as 
it  called  itself,  marching  with  soldierly  step, 
Two  of  the  young  men  who  were  to  carry  torches, 
D.  G.  Francis  and  H.  P.  Blair,  being  dry-goods  clerks, 
in  order  to  protect  their  clothing  from  dust  and  the  oil 
liable  to  fall  from  the  torches,  had  prepared  capes  of 
black  cambric,  which  they  wore  in  connection  with  the 
glazed  caps  commonly  worn  at  the  time.  Colonel 
George  P.  Bissell,  who  was  marshal,  noticing  the 
uniform,  put  the  wearers  in  front,  where  the  novelty 
of  the  rig  and  its  double  advantage  of  utility  and  show 
attracted  much  attention.  It  was  at  once  proposed  to 
form  a  campaign  club  of  fifty  torch-bearers  with  glazed 
caps  and  oil-cloth  capes  instead  of  cambric ;  the  torch- 
bearing  club  to  be  "  auxiliary  to  the  Young  Men's 
Republican  Union."     A  meeting  to  organize  formally
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECT/ ON. 
and  military  music,  escorted  Mr.  Lincoln, 
on  the  evening  of  March  5th,  from  the  hall 
where  he  addressed  the  people,  to  his  hotel. 
The  device  was  so  simple  and  yet  so  strik- 
ingly effective  that  it  immediately  became 
the  pattern  for  other  cities.  After  the  cam- 
paign opened,  there  was  scarcely  a  county  or 
village  in  the  North  without  its  organized 
and  drilled  association  of  "  Wide  Awakes," 
immensely  captivating  to  the  popular  eye,  and 
forming  everywhere  a  vigilant  corps  to  spread 
the  fame  of,  and  solicit  votes  for,  the  Repub- 
lican presidential  candidate.  On  several  oc- 
casions twenty  to  thirty  thousand  "  Wide 
Awakes  "  met  in  the  larger  cities  and  marched 
in  monster  torch-light  processions  through  the 
principal  streets. 
His  nomination  also  made  necessary  some 
slight  changes  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  daily  life.  His 
law  practice  was  transferred  entirely  to  his 
partner,  and  instead  of  the  small,  dingy  office 
so  long  occupied  by  him,  he  was  now  given 
the  use  of  the  Governor's  room  in  the  State- 
house,  which  was  not  needed  for  official 
business  during  the  absence  of  the  legisla- 
ture. This  also  was  a  room  of  modest  propor- 
tions, with  scanty  and  plain  furniture.  Here 
Mr.  Lincoln,  attended  by  only  his  private  sec- 
retary (Mr.  Nicolay),  passed  the  long  summer 
days  of  the  campaign,  receiving  the  constant 
stream  of  visitors  anxious  to  look  upon  a  real 
presidential  candidate.  There  was  free  access 
to  him;  not  even  an  usher  stood  at  the  door; 
any  one  might  knock  and  enter.  His  immedi- 
ate personal  friends  from  Sangamon  County 
and  central  Illinois  availed  themselves  largely 
of  this  opportunity.  With  men  who  had  known 
him  in  field  and  forest  he  talked  over  the  in- 
cidents of  their  common  pioneer  experience 
with  unaffected  sympathy  and  interest,  as 
though  he  were  yet  the  flat-boatman,  sur- 
veyor, or  village  lawyer  of  the  early  days. 
The  letters  which  came  to  him  by  hundreds, 
the  newspapers,  and  the  conversation  of  friends, 
kept  him  sufficiently  informed  of  the  progress 
of  the  campaign,  in  which  personally  he  took 
a  very  slight  part.  He  made  no  addresses, 
wrote  no  public  letters,  held  no  conferences. 
Political  leaders  several  times  came  to  make 
campaign  speeches  at  the  Republican  wig- 
was  appointed  for  March  6th ;  but  before  the  new 
uniforms  were  all  ready,  Abraham  Lincoln  addressed 
a  meeting  in  Hartford  on  the  evening  of  March  5th. 
After  his  speech,  the  cape- wearers  of  the  previous 
meeting  with  a  number  of  others  who  had  secured 
their  uniforms  escorted  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  hotel. 
The  club  was  formally  organized  on  the  following 
night.  Mr.  William  P.  Fuller,  city  editor,  had,  in 
noticing  this  meeting  for  organization,  written  in  the 
"  Courant  "  of  March  3d  :  "  The  Wide  Awakes. — 
The  Republican  club-room  last  evening  was  filled  as 
usual  with  those  who  are  going  to  partake  in  the  great 
Republican  triumph  in  this  State  in  April  next,"  etc., 
warn  in  Springfield.  But,  beyond  a  few  casual 
interviews  on  such  occasions,  the  great  presi- 
dential canvass  went  on  with  scarcely  a  pri- 
vate suggestion  or  touch  of  actual  direction 
from  the  Republican  candidate. 
It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  record  Lincoln's 
expression  on  one  point,  which  adds  testimony 
to  his  general  consistency  in  political  action. 
The  rise  of  the  Know-nothing  or  American 
party,  in  1854-5  (which  was  only  a  renewal 
of  the  Native-American  party  of  1844),  has 
been  elsewhere  mentioned.  As  a  national  or- 
ganization, the  new  faction  ceased  with  the 
defeat  of  Fillmore  and  Donelson  in  1856;  its 
fragments  nevertheless  held  together  in  many 
places  in  the  form  of  local  minorities,  which 
sometimes  made  themselves  felt  in  contests 
for  members  of  the  legislature  and  county 
officers ;  and  citizens  of  foreign  birth  contin- 
ued to  be  justly  apprehensive  of  its  avowed 
jealousy  and  secret  machinery.  It  was  easy 
to  allege  that  any  prominent  candidate  be- 
longed to  the  Know-nothing  party,  and  at- 
tended the  secret  Know-nothing  lodges ;  and 
Lincoln,  in  the  late  senatorial,  and  now  again 
in  the  presidential,  campaign,  suffered  his  full 
share  of  these  newspaper  accusations. 
We  have  already  mentioned  that  in  the  cam- 
paign of  1844  he  put  on  record,  by  public 
resolutions  in  Springfield,  his  disapprobation 
of,  and  opposition  to,  Native- Americanism  * 
In  the  later  campaigns,  while  he  did  not 
allow  his  attention  to  be  diverted,  from  the 
slavery  discussion,  his  disapproval  of  Know- 
nothingism  was  quite  as  decided  and  as  pub- 
lic. Thus  he  wrote  in  a  private  letter,  dated 
October  30th,  1858  : 
"  I  understand  the  story  is  still  told  and  insisted 
upon  that  I  have  been  a  Know-nothing.  I  repeat 
what  I  stated  in  a  public  speech  at  Meredosia,  that  I 
am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  connected  with  the  party 
called  the  Know-nothing  party,  or  party  calling  them- 
selves the  American  party.  Certainly  no  man  of  truth, 
and  I  believe  no  man  of  good  character  for  truth,  can 
be  found  to  say  on  his  own  knowledge  that  I  ever  was 
connected  with  that  party."  t 
So  also  in  the  summer  of  i860,  when  his 
candidacy  for  President  did  not  permit  his 
writing  public  letters,  he  wrote  in  a  confiden- 
tial note  to  a  friend  : 
etc.  The  name  "  Wide  Awakes  "  was  here  applied  to 
the  Republican  Young  Men's  Union,  torch-bearers  in- 
cluded ;  but  at  the  meeting  of  March  6th,  the  torch- 
bearers  appropriated  it  by  making  it  the  distinctive  title 
to  their  own  special  organization,  which  almost  imme- 
diately, there  as  elsewhere,  swallowed  up  the  names 
and  the  memberships  of  other  Republican  clubs.  Just 
one  year  after  they  escorted  Mr.  Lincoln  in  their  first 
parade,  he  was  inaugurated  President  of  the  United 
States. 
*  Compare  The  Century,  Jan.,  1887,  p.  396. 
t  Lincoln  to  Edward  Lusk,  Oct.  30th,  1858.  MS.
676 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION 
••  Yours  of  the  20th  is  received.  I  suppose  as  good 
or  even  better  men  than  I  have  boon  in  American  or 
Know-nothing  lodges;   but,  in  point  of  fact,  1  never 
was  in  one,  at    Quincy  or  elsewhere   
And 
now  a  word  of  caution.  Our  adversaries  think  they  can 
a  point  if  they  can  force  me  to  openly  deny  the 
charge,  by  which  some  degree  of  offense  would  be 
given  to  the  Americans.  For  this  reason  it  must  not 
publiclv  appear  that  1  am  paying  any  attention  to  the 
chargi 
His  position  on  the  main  question  involved 
was  already  sufficiently  understood;  for  in  his 
elsewhere  quoted  letter  of  May  17th,  1859,  he 
had  declared  himself  against  the  adoption  by- 
Illinois,  or  any  other  place  where  he  had  a 
right  to  oppose  it,  of  the  recent  Massachusetts 
constitutional  provision  restricting  foreign-born 
citizens  in  the  right  of  suffrage.  It  is  well  to 
repeat  the  broad  philosophical  principle  which 
guided  him  to  this  conclusion  :  "  Understand- 
ing the  spirit  of  our  institutions  to  aim  at  the 
elevation  of  men,  I  am  opposed  to  whatever 
tends  to  degrade  them."  f 
As  the  campaign  progressed  the  chances  of 
the  result  underwent  an  important  fluctuation, 
involving  some  degree  of  uncertainty.  The 
Democratic  disruption,  and  the  presence  of 
four  tickets  in  the  field,  rendered  it  possible 
that  some  very  narrow  plurality  in  one  ormore 
of  the  States  might  turn  the  scale  of  victory. 
Calculating  politicians,  especially  those  be- 
longing to  the  party  hitherto  in  power,  and 
who  had  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  its  extensive 
ral  patronage,  seized  eagerly  upon  this 
possibility  as  a  means  of  prolonging  their 
official  tenure,  and  showed  themselves  not  un- 
willing to  sacrifice  the  principles  of  the  general 
contest  to  the  mere  material  and  local  advan- 
tage which  success  would  bring  them. 
Accordingly,  in  several  States,  and  more 
notably  in  the  great  State  of  New  York,  there 
was  begun  a  quiet  but  unremitting  effort  to 
bring  about  a  coalition  or  "fusion,"  as  it 
was  termed,  of  the  warring  Democratic  fac- 
tions, on  the  basis  of  a  division  of  the  spoils 
which  such  a  combination  was  hoped  to  be 
able  to  secure.  Nor  did  the  efforts  stop  there. 
If  the  union  of  the  two  factions  created  the 
probability,  the  union  of  three  seemed  to  in- 
sure certainty,  and  the  negotiations  for  a  coa- 
lition, therefore,  extended  to  the  adherents  of 
Bell  and  Everett.  Amid  the  sharp  contest  of 
ideas  and  principles  which  divided  the  coun- 
*  Lincoln  to  lion.  A.  Jonas,  July  2 1st,  i860.  MS. 
+  Lincoln  to  Dr.  Theodore  Canisius,  May  17th,  1859. 
%"■  I  will  give  you  my  opinion  as  to  fusion.  I  think 
that  every  man  [sic]  who  believes  that  slavery  ought  to 
be  banished  from  the  halls  of  Congress,  and  remanded  to 
the  people  of  the  Territories  subject  to  the  Constitution, 
ought  to  fuse  and  act  together ;  but  that  no  Democrat 
can,  without  dishonor,  and  forfeiture  of  self-respect  and 
principle,  fuse  with  anybody  who  is  in  favor  of  inter- 
vention, either  for  slavery  or  against  slavery.     Lincoln 
try,  such  an  arrangement  was  by  no  means 
easy  ;  yet  in  a  large  voting  population  there 
is  always  a  percentage  of  party  followers  on 
whom  the  obligations  of  party  creeds  sit  lightly. 
Gradually,  from  talk  of  individuals  and  spec- 
ulations of  newspapers,  the  intrigue  proceeded 
to  a  coquetting  between  rival  conventions  ;
where  the  formal  proceedings  encountering 
too  much  protest  and  indignation,  the  scheme 
was  handed  over  to  standing  committees,  who 
could  deliberate  and  bargain  in  secret.  It 
must  be  stated  to  the  credit  of  Douglas,  that 
he  publicly  rejected  any  alliance  not  based  on 
his  hobby  of  "  non-intervention  "  ;  $  but  the 
committees  and  managers  cared  little  for  the 
disavowal.  In  due  time  they  perfected  their 
agreement  that  the  New  York  electoral  ticket 
(numbering  35)  should  be  made  up  of  ad- 
herents of  the  three  different  factions  in  the 
following  proportion  :  Douglas,  18;  Bell,  10; 
Breckinridge,  7.$  This  agreement  was  carried 
out,  and  the  fusion  ticket  thus  constituted  was 
voted  for  at  the  presidential  election  by  the 
combined  opponents  of  Lincoln. 
In  Pennsylvania,  notwithstanding  that 
Douglas  disfavored  the  scheme,  an  agreement 
or  movement  of  fusion  also  took  place ;  but  in 
this  case  it  did  not  become  complete,  and  was 
not  altogether  carried  out  by  the  parties  to  it,
as  in  New  York.  The  electoral  ticket  had  been 
nominated  by  the  usual  Democratic  State  con- 
vention (March  1st)  prior  to  the  Charleston 
disruption,  and,  as  it  turned  out,  about  one- 
third  of  these  nominees  were  favorable  to  Doug- 
las. After  the  disruption,  the  Douglasites  also 
formed  a  straight,  or  Douglas,  electoral  ticket. 
In  order  to  unite  the  two  wings  at  the  October 
State  election,  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  original  convention  recommended  (July 
2d)  that  the  electors  first  nominated  should 
vote  for  Douglas  if  his  election  were  possible; 
if  not,  should  vote  for  Breckinridge.  A  subse- 
quent resolution  (August  9th)  recommended 
that  the  electors  should  vote  for  either  Doug- 
las or  Breckinridge,  as  the  preponderance  of 
Douglas  or  Breckinridge  votes  in  the  State 
might  indicate.  On  some  implied  agreement 
of  this  character,  not  clearly  defined  or  made 
public,  the  Douglas,  Breckinridge,  and  Bell 
factions  voted  together  for  governor  in  Octo- 
ber. Being  beaten  by  a  considerable  majority 
at  that    election,  the  impulse  to  fusion  was 
and  Breckinridge  might  fuse,  for  they  agree  in  prin- 
ciple. I  can  never  fuse  with  either  of  them,  because  I 
differ  from  both.  I  am  in  favor  of  all  men  acting  to- 
gether who  are  opposed  to  this  slavery  agitation,  and 
in  favor  of  banishing  it  from  Congress  forever  ;  but 
as  Democrats  we  can  never  fuse,  either  with  North- 
ern abolitionists,  or  Southern  bolters  and  secession- 
ists."—  Douglas,  speech  at  Erie.  Penn.,  "  N.  Y.  Trib- 
une," October  3d,  i860,  p.  4. 
$  Greeley,  "  American  Conflict,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  324.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION 
greatly  weakened.  Finally  the  original  Dem- 
ocratic State  Committee  rescinded  (October 
12th)  all  its  resolutions  of  fusion,  and  the 
Douglas  State  Committee  withdrew  (October 
18th)  its  straight  Douglas  ticket.  This  action 
left  in  the  field  the  original  electoral  ticket 
nominated  by  the  Democratic  State  conven- 
tion at  Reading  prior  to  the  Charleston  Con- 
vention, untrammeled  by  any  instructions  or 
agreements.  It  was  nevertheless  a  fusion  ticket 
in  part,  because  nine  of  the  candidates  (one- 
third  of  the  whole  number)  were  pledged  to 
Douglas.  What  share  or  promise  the  Bell  fac- 
tion had  in  it  was  not  made  public.  At  the 
presidential  election  it  was  voted  for  by  a 
large  number  of  fusionists ;  but  a  portion  of 
the  Douglasites  voted  straight  for  Douglas,  and 
a  portion  of  the  Bell  men  straight  for  Bell* 
In  New  Jersey  also  a  definite  fusion  agree- 
ment was  reached  between  the  Bell,  Breck- 
inridge, and  Douglas  factions.  An  electoral 
ticket  was  formed,  composed  of  2  adherents 
of  Bell,  2  of  Breckinridge,  and  3  of  Douglas. f 
This  was  the  only  State  in  which  the  fusion 
movement  produced  any  result  in  the  elec- 
tion. It  turned  out  that  a  considerable  frac- 
tion of  the  Douglas  voters  refused  to  be  trans- 
ferred by  the  agreement  which  their  local 
managers  had  entered  into.  They  would  not 
vote  for  the  two  Bell  men  and  the  two  Breck- 
inridge men  on  the  fusion  ticket,  but  ran  a 
straight  Douglas  ticket,  adopting  the  three 
electors  on  the  fusion  ticket. J  By  this  turn 
of  the  canvass  the  3  Douglas  electors  whose 
names  were  on  both  tickets  were  chosen, 
but  the  remainder  of  the  fusion  ticket  was 
defeated,  giving  Lincoln  4  electoral  votes 
out  of  the  7  in  New  Jersey.  Some  slight 
efforts  towards  fusion  were  made  in  two  or 
three  other  States,  but  accomplished  noth- 
ing worthy  of  note,  and  would  have  had  no 
influence  on  the  result,  even  had  it  been  con- 
summated. 
All  these  efforts  to  avert  or  postpone  the 
great  political  change  which  was  impending 
were  of  no  avail.  In  the  long  six  years'  agi- 
tation popular  intelligence  had  ripened  to 
conviction  and  determination.  Every  voter 
substantially  understood  the  several  phases  of 
the  great  slavery  issue,  its  abstract  morality,  its 
economic  influence  on  society,  the  intrigue  of 
the  Administration  and  the  Senate  to  make 
Kansas  a  slave  State,  the  judicial  status  of 
slavery  as  expounded  in  the  Dred  Scott  de- 
cision, the  validity  and  the  effect  of  the  fugi- 
tive-slave law,  the  question  of  the  balance  of 
political  power  as  involved  in  the  choice  be- 
tween slavery  extension  and  slavery  restric- 
*  The  vote  in  Pennsylvania  stood :  Lincoln,  268,030 ; 
Breckinridge  (nominally),  178,871;  Douglas,  16,765; 
Bell,  12,776. 
tion, —  and  reaching  beyond  even  this,  the 
issue  so  clearly  presented  by  Lincoln  whether 
the  States  ultimately  should  become  all  slave 
or  all  free.  In  the  whole  history  of  American 
politics  the  voters  of  the  United  States  never 
pronounced  a  more  deliberate  judgment  than 
that  which  they  recorded  upon  these  grave 
questions  at  the  presidential  election  in  No- 
vember, i860. 
From  much  doubt  and  uncertainty  at  its 
beginning,  the  campaign  swept  onward 
through  the  summer  months,  first  to  a  proba- 
bility, then  to  an  assurance  of  Republican 
success.  In  September  the  State  of  Maine 
elected  a  Republican  governor  by  18,000 
majority.  In  October  the  pivotal  States  gave 
decisive  Republican  majorities :  Pennsylva- 
nia 32,000  for  governor,  Indiana  nearly 
10,000  for  governor,  and  Ohio  12,000  for 
State  ticket  and  27,000  on  congressmen. 
Politicians  generally  conceded  that  the  vote 
in  these  States  clearly  foreshadowed  Lincoln's 
election.  The  prophecy  not  only  proved  cor- 
rect, but  the  tide  of  popular  conviction  and 
enthusiasm,  rising  still  higher,  carried  to  his 
support  other  States  which  were  yet  consid- 
ered uncertain. 
The  presidential  election  occurred  on  No- 
vember 6th,  i860.  In  seventeen  of  the  free 
States  —  namely,  Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut, 
Vermont,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana, Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota, 
Iowa,  California,  and  Oregon  —  all  the  Lincoln 
electors  were  chosen.  In  one  of  the  free  States 
(New  Jersey)  the  choice  resulted  in  4  electors 
for  Lincoln  and  3  for  Douglas,  as  already 
explained.  This  assured  Lincoln  of  the  votes 
of  180  presidential  electors,  or  a  majority  of 
57  in  the  whole  electoral  college.  The  15 
slave  States  were  divided  between  the  other 
3  candidates.  Eleven  of  them  —  Alabama.  Ar- 
kansas, Delaware,  Florida,  Georgia,  Louisi- 
ana, Maryland,  Mississippi,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  and  Texas  —  chose  Breckin- 
ridge electors,  72  in  all.  Three  of  them  —  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  and  Virginia  —  chose  Bell 
electors,  39  in  all;  and  one  of  them — Missouri — 
Douglas  electors,  9  in  number,  -which,  together 
with  the  3  he  received  in  the  free  State  of 
New  Jersey,  gave  him  12  in  all ;  the  aggregate 
of  all  the  electors  opposed  to  Lincoln  being  123. 
The  will  of  the  people  as  expressed  in  this 
popular  vote  was  in  due  time  carried  into  exe- 
cution. As  the  law  prescribes,  the  presidential 
electors  met  in  their  several  States  on  the  5th 
of  December,  and  cast  their  official  votes 
according  to  the  above  enumeration.    And  on 
t  Greeley,  "American  Conflict,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  328. 
t  Greeley,  "American  Conflict,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  328.
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND  ELECTION. 
678 
the  13th  of  February,  1861,  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  in  joint  session  made  the 
;\  count,  and  declared  that  Abraham 
Lincoln,  having   received  a  majority  of  the 
-  of]  residential  electors,  was  duly  elected 
President  of  the  United  States  for  four  years, 
1  March  4th,  1861. 
One  feature  oi  the  result  must  not  be 
emitted.  Many  careless  observers  felt  at  the 
time  that  the  success  of  Lincoln  was  due  en- 
tirely to  the  fact  of  there  having  been  three 
•sing  candidates  in  the  field ;  or,  in  other 
words,  to  the  dissensions  in  the  Democratic  par- 
ty, which  divided  its  vote  between  Breckinridge 
and  Douglas.  What  merely  moral  strength 
the  Democratic  party  would  have  gained 
had  it  remained  united,  it  is  impossible  to  es- 
timate. Such  a  supposition  can  only  be  based 
on  the  absence  of  the  extreme  Southern  doc- 
trines concerning  slavery.  Given  the  presence 
of  those  doctrines  in  the  canvass,  and  no  hy- 
.111  furnish  a  result  different  from  that 
h  occurred.  In  the  contest  upon  the 
questions  as  they  existed,  the  victory  of  Lin- 
coln was  certain.  If  all  the  votes  given  to  all 
the  opposing  candidates  had  been  concen- 
trated and  cast  for  a  "  fusion  ticket,"  as  was 
wholly  or  partly  done  in  five  States,  the  re- 
sult would  have  been  changed  nowhere  ex- 
cept in  New  Jersey,  California,  and  Oregon; 
Lincoln  would  still  have  received  but  n  less, 
or  169  electoral  votes  —  a  majority  of  35  in 
tiie  entire  electoral  college.  It  was  a  contest 
of  ideas,  not  of  persons  or  parties.  The  choice 
was  not  only  free,  but  distinct  and  definite.  The 
voter  was  not,  as  sometimes  happens,  compelled 
to  an  imperfect  or  partial  expression  of  his 
will.  The  four  platforms  and  candidates  offered 
him  an  unusual  variety  of  modes  of  political  ac- 
tion.   Among  them  the  voters  by  undisputed 
jtitutional  majorities,  in  orderly,  legal, 
and  unquestioned  proceedings,  chose  the  can- 
te  whose  platform  pronounced  the  posi- 
tive and  final  popular  verdict  that  slavery 
should  not  be  extended,  and  whose  election 
unchangeably  transferred  the  balance  of  power 
to  the  free  States. 
BEGINNINGS    OK     REBELLION. 
Disunion  was  not  a  fungus  of  recent  growth 
merican  politics.  Talk  of  disunion,  threats 
of  disunion,  accusations  of  intentions  of  dis- 
:,  lie  scattered  rather  plentifully  through 
the  political  literature  of  the  country  from  the 
formation  of  the  Government.  In  fact, 
the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
was  strenuously  opposed  by  large  political 
factions,  and,  it  may  almost  be  said,  succeeded 
by  only  a  hair's-breadth.  That  original  oppo- 
sition perpetuated  itself  in  some  degree  in  the 
form  of  doubts  of  its  duration  and  prophecies 
of  its  failure.  The  same  dissatisfaction  and 
restlessness  resulted  in  early  and  important 
amendments,  but  these  did  not  satisfy  all  dis- 
senters and  doubters.  Immediate  and  pro- 
found conflict  of  opinion  sprang  up  over  the 
administration  and  policy  of  the  new  Govern- 
ment ;  active  political  parties  and  hot  discus- 
sion arose,  the  one  side  proclaiming  that  it 
was  too  strong,  the  other  asserting  that  it  was 
too  weak,  to  endure. 
Before  public  opinion  was  well  consolidated, 
the  war  of  18 12  produced  new  complaints  and 
new  opposition,  out  of  which  grew  the  famous 
Hartford  Convention.  It  has  been  charged 
and  denied,  that  this  was  a  movement  of  dis- 
union and  rebellion.  The  exact  fact  is  not 
important  in  our  day  ;  it  is  enough  that  it  was 
a  sign  of  deep  political  unrest  and  of  shallow 
public  faith.  Passing  by  lesser  manifestations 
of  the  same  character,  we  come  to  the  event- 
ful nullification  proceedings  in  South  Carolina 
in  the  year  1832.  Here  was  a  formal  legisla- 
tive repudiation  of  Federal  authority  with  a 
reserved  threat  of  forcible  resistance.  At  this 
point  disunion  was  in  full  flower,  and  the 
terms  nullification,  secession,  treason,  rebel- 
lion, revolution,  coercion,  constitute  the  cur- 
rent political  vocabulary.  Take  up  a  political 
speech  of  that  period,  change  the  names  and 
dates,  and  the  reader  can  easily  imagine  him- 
self among  the  angry  controversies  of  the 
winter  of  i860. 
Nullification  was  half-throttled  by  Jackson's 
proclamation,  half- quieted  by  Clay's  compro- 
mise. But  from  that  time  forward  the  phrase- 
ology and  the  spirit  of  disunion  became  a 
constant  factor  in  congressional  debate  and 
legislation.  In  1850,  it  broke  out  to  an  extent 
and  with  an  intensity  never  before  reached. 
This  time  it  enveloped  the  whole  country,  and 
many  of  the  wisest  and  best  statesmen  believed 
civil  war  at  hand.  The  compromise  measures 
of  1850  finally  subdued  the  storm;  but  not 
till  the  serious  beginning  of  a  secession  move- 
ment had  been  developed  and  put  down,  both 
by  the  general  condemnation  of  the  whole 
country,  and  the  direct  vote  of  a  union  ma- 
jority in  the  localities  where  it  took  its  rise. 
Among  these  compromise  acts  of  1850  was 
the  admission  of  California  as  a  free  State.  The 
gold  discoveries  had  suddenly  filled  it  with  pop- 
ulation, making  the  usual  probation  as  a  Terri- 
tory altogether  needless.  A  considerable  part 
of  the  State  lay  south  of  the  line  of  360,  30', 
and  the  pro-slavery  extremists  had  demanded 
that  it  should  be  divided  into  two  States  —  one 
to  be  a  free,  and  the  other  to  be  a  slave  State — 
in  order  to  preserve  the  political  balance  be- 
tween the  sections,  in  the  United  States  Senate. 
This  being  refused,  they  not  only  violently  op- 
posed the  compromise  measures,  but  organized
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
670 
a,  movement  for  resistance  in  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  and  Mississippi,  demanding  redress, 
and  threatening  secession  if  it  were  not  ac- 
corded. A  popular  contest  on  this  issue  fol- 
lowed in  185 1  in  these  States,  in  which  the 
ultra-secession  party  was  signally  overthrown. 
It  submitted  sullenly  to  its  defeat;  leaving  how- 
ever, as  always  before,  a  considerable  faction 
unsatisfied  and  implacable,  only  awaiting  a 
new  opportunity  to  start  a  new  disturbance. 
Phis  new  opportunity  arose  in  the  slavery  agi- 
tation, beginning  with  the  repeal  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  in  1854,  and  ending  with 
the  election  of  Lincoln.  During  this  six  years' 
:ontroversy,  disunion  was  kept  in  the  back- 
ground because  the  pro-slavery  party  had  con- 
stant and  sanguine  hopes  of  ultimate  triumph. 
[t  did  not  despair  of  success  until  the  actual 
Section  of  Lincoln,  on  the  6th  of  November, 
[860 ;  consequently,  even  in  the  Southern 
states,  as  a  rule,  disunion  was  frowned  upon 
;ill  near  the  end  of  the  presidential  campaign, 
md  only  paraded  as  an  evil  to  be  feared,  not 
:o  be  desired. 
This  aspect,  however,  was  superficial.  Un- 
der the  surface,  a  small  but  determined  dis- 
union conspiracy  was  actively  at  work.  It 
ias  left  but  few  historical  traces;  but  in  1856 
distinct  evidence  begins  to  crop  out.  There 
was  a  possibility,  though  not  a  probability, 
:hat  Fremont  might  be  elected  President; 
ind  this  contingency  the  conspirators  pro- 
Dosed  to  utilize  by  beginning  a  rebellion.  A 
etter  from  the  governor  of  Virginia  to  the 
governors  of  Maryland  and  other  States  is 
sufficient  proof  of  such  an  intent,  even  with- 
out the  evidence  of  later  history. 
"  Richmond,  Va.,  Sept.  15th,  1856. 
"  Dear  Sir  :  Events  are  approaching  which  address 
ihemselves  to  your  responsibilities  and  to  mine  as  chief 
Executives  of  slave-holding  States.  Contingencies  may 
soon  happen  which  would  require  preparation  for  the 
worst  of  evils  to  the  people.  Ought  we  not  to  admon- 
ish ourselves  by  joint  counsel  of  the  extraordinary 
duties  which  may  devolve  upon  us  from  the  dangers 
which  so  palpably  threaten  our  common  peace  and 
safety  ?  When,  how,  or  to  what  extent  may  we  act, 
separately  or  unitedly,  to  ward  off  dangers  if  we  can, 
to  meet  them  most  effectually  if  we  must  ? 
"  I  propose  that,  as  early  as  convenient,  the  govern- 
ors of  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Caro- 
lina, Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Louisiana,  Texas, 
Arkansas,  Mississippi,  and  Tennessee  shall  assemble 
at  Raleigh,  N.  C,  for  the  purpose  generally  of  con- 
sultation upon  the  state  of  the  country,  upon  the  best 
means  of  preserving  its  peace,  and  especially  of  pro- 
tecting the  honor  and  interests  of  the  slave-holding 
States.  1  have  addressed  the  States  only  having 
Democratic  Executives,  for  obvious  reasons. 
"This  should  be  done  as  early  as  possible  before 
the  presidential  election,  and  I  would  suggest  Mon- 
day, the  13th  of  October  next.  Will  you  please  give 
me  an  early  answer,  and  oblige, 
"Yours  most  truly  and  respectfully, 
"  Henry  A.  Wise. 
"  His  Excellency  Thomas  W.  Ligon, 
"  Governor  of  Maryland." 
Jf  any  explanation  were  needed  of  the  evi- 
dent purpose  of  this  letter,  or  of  the  proposed 
meeting,  it  may  be  found  in  the  following 
from  Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  to  Jefferson 
Davis,  of  Mississippi,  who  was  at  the  time 
Secretary  of  War  under  President  Pierce  : 
"  Sklma,  near  Winchester,  Va., 
"  Sept.  30th,  1856. 
"  MY  Dear  Sir  :  I  have  a  letter  from  Wise,  of  the 
27th,  full  of  spirit.  He  says  the  governors  of  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  Louisiana  have  already 
agreed  to  rendezvous  at  Raleigh,  and  others  will  — 
this  in  your  most  private  ear.  He  says,  further,  that 
he  had  officially  requested  you  to  exchange  with  Vir- 
ginia, on  fair  terms  of  difference,  percussion  for  flint 
muskets.  I  don't  know  the  usage  or  power  of  the  de- 
partment in  such  cases,  but  if  it  can  be  done,  even  by 
liberal  construction,  I  hope  you  will  accede.  Was  there 
not  an  appropriation  at  the  last  session  for  converting 
flint  into  percussion  arms  ?  If  so,  would  it  not  furnish 
good  reason  for  extending  such  facilities  to  the  States  ? 
Virginia  probably  has  more  arms  than  the  other  South- 
ern States,  and  would  divide,  in  case  of  need.  In  a 
letter  yesterday  to  a  committee  in  South  Carolina,  I 
give  it  as  my  judgment,  in  the  event  of  Fremont's 
election,  the  South  should  not  pause,  but  proceed  at 
once  to  'immediate,  absolute,  and  eternal  separation.' 
So  I  am  a  candidate  for  the  first  halter. 
"  Wise  says  his  accounts  from  Philadelphia  are 
cheering  for  Old  Buck  in  Pennsylvania.  I  hope  they 
be  not  delusive.      Vale  et  Salute  [sic]. 
"J.  M.  Mason. 
"Colonel  Davis."* 
In  these  letters  we  have  an  exact  coun- 
terpart of  the  later  and  successful  efforts 
of  these  identical  conspirators  conjointly  with 
others,  to  initiate  rebellion.  When  the  Sena- 
torial campaign  of  1858  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  was  at  its  height,  there  was  printed 
in  the  public  journals  of  the  Southern  States 
the  following  extraordinary  letter,  which  at 
once  challenged  the  attention  of  the  whole 
reading  public  of  the  country,  and  became 
known  by  the  universal  stigma  of  "  The  Scar- 
let Letter."  In  the  light  of  after  events  it  was 
both  a  revelation  and  a  prophecy : 
"  Montgomery,  June  15th,  1858. 
"Dear  Sir:  Your  kind  favor  of  the  15th  is  received. 
I  heartily  agree  with  you  that  [no]  general  movement 
can  be  made  that  will  clean  out  the  Augean  stable.  If 
the  Democracy  were  overthrown,  it  would  result  in 
giving  place  to  a  greater  and  hungrier  swarm  of  flies. 
"  The  remedy  of  the  South  is  not  in  such  a  process. 
It  is  in  a  diligent  organization  of  her  true  men  for 
prompt  resistance  to  the  next  aggression.  It  must 
come  in  the  nature  of  things.  No  national  party 
can  save  us ;  no  sectional  party  can  ever  do  it.  But  if 
we  could  do  as  our  fathers  did  —  organize  '  committees 
of  safety'  all  over  the  Cotton  States  (it  is  only  in  them 
that  we  can  hope  for  any  effective  movement) —  we 
shall  fire  the  Southern  heart,  instruct  the  Southern 
mind,  give  courage  to  each  other,  and  at  the  proper 
moment,  by  one  organized  concerted  action,  we  can 
precipitate  the  Cotton  States  into  a  revolution. 
"  The  idea  has  been  shadowed  forth  in  the  South  by 
Mr.  Ruffin ;  has  been  taken  up  and  recommended 
in  the  'Advertiser  '  (published  at  Montgomery,  Ala- 
bama), under  the  name  of '  League  of  United  Southern- 
*  Victor,  "American  Conspiracies,"  p.  520.
68o 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND  ELECTION. 
ers,'  who,  keeping  up  their  old  party  relations  on  all 
other  questions,  will  hold  the  Southern  issue  para- 
.:.  and  will  influence  parties.  Legislatures,  and 
statesmen.  I  have  no  time  to  enlarge,  but  to  suggest 
merely.  In  haste,  yours,  etc., 
-•  Wm.  L.  Yancey. 
••  To  James  Slaughter,  Esq."* 
The  writer  of  this  "Scarlet  Letter"  had 
long  been  known  to  the  country  as  a  promi- 
nent politician  of  Alabama,  affiliated  with  the 
Democratic  party,  having  once  represented  a 
district  of  that  State  in  Congress,  and  of  late 
j  ears  the  most  active,  pronounced,  and  con- 
spicuous disunionist  in  the  South.  In  so  far 
as  this  publication  concerned  himself,  it  was 
no  surprise  to  the  public ;  but  the  project  of 
an  organized  conspiracy  had  never  before  been 
broached  with  such  matter-of-fact  confidence. t 
*  Quoted  in  Appendix  to  Globe  for  1859-60,  p.  313. 
t  As  an  evidence  of  the  disunion  sentiment  com- 
bination which  lay  like  smoldering  embers  under 
the  surface  of  Southern  politics,  it  is  instructive  to 
read  a  hitherto  unpublished  letter  from  Governor 
Henry  A.  Wise,  of  Virginia,  to  a  gentleman  in  Phila- 
delphia, for  a  copy  of  which  we  are  indebted  to  Gen- 
eral Duncan  S.  Walker.  The  other  letter  of  Wise  — 
previously  quoted  —  shows  us  his  part  and  interest 
in  the  proposed  conspiracy  against  Fremont  ;  but  the 
erratic  governor  had,  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  two 
years,  become  an  anti-Lecompton-Douglasite,  and  was 
to  give  confidential  warning  of  designs  with 
which  he  was  only  too  familiar.  As  this  was  written 
nearly  three  weeks  before  Yancey's  "Scarlet  Letter," 
its  concurrent  testimony  is  of  special  significance: 
"  Richmond,  Va.,  May  28th,  1858. 
"To  Wm.  Sergeant,  Esq. 
"  My  Dear  Sir:  I  write  to  you  almost  from  a  sick- 
bed. I  am  just  up  out  of  a  two  weeks'  bedridden  ill- 
ness, and  am  very  weak.  Mr.  Forney's  letter  does  not 
surprise  me,  for  the  suggestions  and  queries  are  natural 
and  necessary,  and  to  me  not  at  all  offensive  or  disagree- 
able. Vet  I  would  not  go  before  the  public  at  this 
time  with  such  a  correspondence  as  it  calls  for.  The 
present  aspect  of  politics  is  gloomy  enough.  It  is  well 
to  define  what  it  is.  The  Kansas  question  has  not  been 
the  cau^e  of  a  split  in  the  Democratic  party.  It  has 
only  been  the  pretext  for  a  development  of  dissension 
which  previously  existed.    The  truth  is  that  there  is  in 
,uth  an  organized,  active,  and  dangerous  faction, 
embracing  most  of  the  Federal  politicians,  who  are 
bent  upon  bringing  about  causes  of"  a  dissolution  of  the 
..  They  desire  a  united  South,  but  not  a  united 
country.  Their  hope  of  embodying  a  sectional  antag- 
onism ')-.  to  secure  a  sectional  defeat.  At  heart,  they  do 
wish  the  Democracy  to  be  any  longer  national, 
united,  or  successful.  In  the  name  of  Democracy  they 
propose  to  make  a  nomination  for  i860,  at  Charleston  ; 
but  an  ultra  nomination  of  an  extremist;    on  the  slav- 
»ue  alone;   to  unite  the   South  on  that  one  idea; 
n  that  to  have  it  defeated  by  a  line  of  sectional- 
ism which  will  inevitably  draw  swords  between  fanatics 
le  and   fire-eaters  on  the  other.     Bear  it  in 
mind,  then,  that  they  desire  to  control  a  nomination  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  have  it  defeated  by  a  line  of 
.  re  defeat,  for  no  other  end  than  to 
make  a  pretext  for  the  clamor  of  dissolution.  This 
must  be  borne  in  mind  in  order  to  understand  why  it 
is  that  the  argument  of  splitting  the  Democracy  has 
not  only  no  weight  with  them  for  desisting  from  their 
madness,  but  is  the  very  stimulus  which  pricks  them 
on   to  the  extreme  of  designed  defeat,  so  it  be  purely 
An  almost  universal  condemnation  by  the 
public  press  reassured  the  startled  country 
that  the  author  of  this  revolutionary  epistle 
was  one  of  the  confirmed  fanatics  who  were 
known  and  admitted  to  exist  in  the  South,  but 
whose  numbers,  it  was  alleged,  were  too  insig- 
nificant to  excite  the  most  distant  apprehension. 
The  letter  was  everywhere  copied, its  author 
denounced,  and  his  proposal  to  "  precipitate 
the  Cotton  States  into  a  revolution  "  held  up  to 
public  execration.  Mr.  Yancey  immediately 
printed  a  statement  deploring  the  betrayal  of 
personal  confidence  in  the  publication,  and  to 
modify  $  the  obnoxious  declaration  by  a  long 
and  labored  argument.  But  in  the  course  of 
this  explanation  he  furnished  additional  proof 
of  the  deep  conspiracy  disclosed  by  the  "  Scar- 
sectional.  This  you  see  is  their  only  hope.  What  will 
be  their  scheme  of  action?  To  pack  the  Charleston 
Convention  with  fire-eating  disunionists  from  the 
South,  and  with  Lecompton  Democrats  of  the  North 
—  to  nominate  a  Southern  Lecomptonite,  purposely 
to  be  defeated  by  a  sectional  vote  !  The  Adminis- 
tration don't  or  won't  see  this,  and  an  Administration 
organization  cannot  prevent  it,  perhaps,  if  it  did  or 
would  see  it.  What  then  ?  The  only  hope  is  in  the 
anti-Lecomptonite  Democrats,  North  and  South.  I 
have  no  doubt  we  can  beat  them  on  the  Lecompton 
issue  in  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Kentucky.  Tennessee, 
Arkansas,  and  Maryland.  The  Lecomptonites  have  in 
fact  the  pap-fed  office-holders  alone  in  the  free  States 
North  and  West,  but  they  will  send  their  whole  force 
and  ten  times  more  to  Charleston.  What  have  our 
friends  to  do,  then  ?  Why,  to  adhere  to  the  national 
Democracy,  the  Union-saving  Democracy,  to  save 
Democracy  itself  from  maladministration.  We  must 
claim  our  identity,  and  never  let  go  the  party.  We  must 
organize,  and  send  all  our  forces  to  Charleston.  The  con- 
sequence will  probably  be  that  every  Northern,  West- 
ern, and  Middle  State  will  be  split.  They  will  be  divided, 
and,  like  New  York  in  the  Cincinnati  Convention,  be 
neutralized  and  count  nothing.  Or  the  Lecomptonites 
will  be  counted  entirely  out.  In  either  event,  a  minor- 
ity, a  combined  Southern  and  office-holding  minority, 
will  nominate  at  Charleston.  It  will  then  be  time 
enough  for  the  anti-Lecomptonite  Democrats  to  decide 
not  to  abide  by  a  nomination  so  made.  What,  then,  if 
they  do  not?  Why,  they  may  return  to  their  respective 
States,  appeal  to  the  people  who  still  abide  a  national 
platform,  and  still  desire  to  preserve  the  Union,  and,  in 
their  respective  States,  make  their  own  nominations. 
This  may  save  the  North  from  absorption  by  black- 
Republicanism,  may  throw  the  election  into  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  save  the  Union.  I  see  no  other 
course.  The  word  now  should  be  silent,  quiet,  active 
organization,  with  a  preconcerted  understanding  as 
to  ultimate  action.  Let  us  be  earnestly  conservative  ; 
maintain  party  relations  until  forced  to  separate  action, 
and  when  forced,  be  prepared  to  save  and  not  destroy 
the  country  and  the  party. 
"  This  is  crude,  I  know,  but  you  may  fill  the  skeleton 
with  muscle  and  nerve.  Show  this  to  Mr.  Forney  as  my 
general  view,  and  beg  him  not  to  publish  it  at  this  time 
at  all  events. 
"  All  are  well  except  myself.     Love  to  all. 
"Yours  truly,  HENRY  A.  Wise."    MS. 
X  "  I  am  a  secessionist  and  not  a  revolutionist,  and 
would  not  'precipitate  '  but  carefully  prepare  to  meet 
an  inevitable  dissolution."  — Yancey  to  Pryor.  "  Rich- 
mond South,"  copied  in  "National  Intelligencer," 
Sept.  4th,  1858.
LINCOLN'S   NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
68  j 
.et  Letter."  He  made  mention  of  "  A  well- 
:onsidered  Southern  policy,  a  policy  which 
las  been  digested,  and  understood,  and  ap- 
proved by  the  ablest  men  in  Virginia,  as  you 
/ourselves  must  be  aware,"  to  the  effect  that 
vvhile  the  Cotton  States  began  rebellion,  "  Vir- 
ginia and  the  other  border  States  should  re- 
nain  in  the  Union,"  where,  by  their  position 
md  their  counsels,  they  would  form  a  protect- 
ng  barrier  to  the  proposed  separation.  "  In 
;he  event  of  the  movement  being  successful," 
le  continued,  "  in  time  Virginia  and  the  other 
3order  States  that  desired  it  could  join  the 
southern  Confederacy." 
Less  uncertainty  than  ordinary  hung  over 
;he  final  issue  of  the  presidential  campaign  of 
[860.  To  popular  apprehension  the  election 
}f  Lincoln  became  more  and  more  probable. 
rhe  active  competition  for  votes  by  four  pres- 
dential  tickets  greatly  increased  his  chances 
)f  success;  and  the  verdict  of  the  October 
Sections  appeared  to  all  sagacious  politicians 
;o  render  his  choice  a  practical  certainty.  San- 
guine partisans,  however,  clung  tenaciously 
;o  their  favorites,  and  continued  to  hope 
igainst  hope,  and  work  against  fate.  This  cir- 
:umstance  produced  a  deplorable  result  in  the 
South.  Under  the  shadow  of  impending  de- 
feat the  Democrats  of  the  Cotton  States  made 
;he  final  months  of  the  canvass  quite  as  much 
1  threat  against  Lincoln  as  a  plea  for  Breck- 
nridge.  This  preaching  of  secession  seemed  to 
shallow  minds  harmless  election  buncombe ; 
Dut  when  the  contingency  finally  arrived,  and 
:he  choice  of  Lincoln  became  a  real  event, 
:hey  found  themselves  already  in  a  measure 
pledged  to  resistance.  They  had  vowed  they 
would  never  submit ;  and  now,  with  many,  the 
mere  pride  of  consistency  moved  them  to 
adhere  to  an  ill-considered  declaration.  The 
sting  of  defeat  intensified  their  resentment,  and 
in  this  irritated  frame  of  mind  the  secession 
demagogues  among  them  lured  them  on  skill- 
fully into  the  rising  tide  of  revolution. 
In  proportion  to  her  numbers,  the  State  of 
South  Carolina  furnished  the  largest  contin- 
gent to  the  faction  of  active  conspirators ;  and 
to  her,  by  a  common  consent,  were  accorded 
the  dangers  and  honors  of  leadership.  Since 
conspiracies  work  in  secret,  only  fragmentary 
*  Victor,  "  History  of  Southern  Rebellion,"  Vol.  I., 
p.  203. 
t "  Executive  Department, 
"Unionville,  So.  CA.,Oct.  5th,  i860. 
I  His  Excellency  Governor  Moore. 
"  Dear  Sir  :  The  great  probability,  nay  almost  cer- 
tainty of  Abram  Lincoln's  election  to  the  Presidency, 
renders  it  important  that  there  should  be  a  full  and 
free  interchange  of  opinion  between  the  Executives  of 
the  Southern,  and  more  especially  the  Cotton  States,  and 
while  I  unreservedly  give  you  my  views  and  the  prob- 
able action  of  my  State,  I  shall  be  much  pleased  to 
hear  from  you ;  that  there  may  be  concert  of  action, 
Vol.  XXXIV.— 94. 
proofs  of  their  efforts  ever  come  to  light. 
Though  probably  only  one  of  the  many  early 
agencies  in  organizing  the  rebellion, the  follow- 
ing circular  reveals  in  a  startling  light  what 
labor  and  system  were  employed  to  "  fire  the 
Southern  heart"  after  the  November  election  : 
"  Charleston,  Nov.  19th,  i860. 
"  Executive  Chamber,  'The  i860  Association.' 
"  In  September  last,  several  gentlemen  of  Charles- 
ton met  to  confer  in  reference  to  the  position  of  the 
South  in  the  ev*ent  of  the  accession  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
the  Republican  party  to  power.  This  informal  meet- 
ing was  the  origin  of  the  organization  known  in  this 
community  as  '  The  i860  Association.' 
"  The  objects  of  the  Association  are  : 
"First.  To  conduct  a  correspondence  with  leading 
men  in  the  South,  and  by  an  interchange  of  informa- 
tion and  views  prepare  the  slave  States  to  meet  the 
impending  crisis. 
"  Second.  To  prepare,  print,  and  distribute  in  the 
slave  States,  tracts,  pamphlets,  etc.,  designed  to  awaken 
them  to  a  conviction  of  their  danger,  and  to  urge  the 
necessity  of  resisting  Northern  and  Federal  aggression. 
"  Third.  To  inquire  into  the  defenses  of  the  State, 
and  to  collect  and  arrange  information  which  may  aid 
the  Legislature  to  establish  promptly  an  effective  mili- 
tary organization. 
"To  effect  these  objects  a  brief  and  simple  Consti- 
tution was  adopted,  creating  a  President,  a  Secretary, 
and  Treasurer,  and  an  Executive  Committee,  specially 
charged  with  conducting  the  business  of  the  Associa- 
tion. One  hundred  and  sixty-six  thousand  pamphlets 
have  been  published,  and  demands  for  further  supplies 
are  received  from  every  quarter.  The  Association  is  now 
passing  several  of  them  through  a  second  and  third 
edition. 
"  The  conventions  in  several  of  the  Southern  States 
will  soon  be  elected.  The  North  is  preparing  to  soothe 
and  conciliate  the  South  by  disclaimers  and  overtures. 
The  success  of  this  policy  would  be  disastrous  to  the 
cause  of  Southern  Union  and  Independence,  and  it  is 
necessary  to  resist  and  defeat  it.  The  Association  is 
preparing  pamphlets  with  this  special  object.  Funds 
are  necessary  to  enable  it  to  act  promptly.  '  The  i860 
Association '  is  laboring  for  the  South,  and  asks  your 
aid. 
"  I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 
"  Robert  N.  Gourdin, 
"  Chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee."  * 
The  half-public  endeavors  of  "The  i860 
Association  "  to  create  public  sentiment  were 
vigorously  seconded  by  the  efforts  of  high 
official  personages  to  set  on  foot  concerted 
official  action  in  aid  of  disunion.  In  this  also, 
with  becoming  expressions  of  modesty,  South 
Carolina  took  the  initiative.  On  the  5th  of 
October,  Governor  Gist  wrote  a  confiden- 
tial letter,f  which  he  dispatched  by  a  secret 
which  is  so  essential  to  success.  Although  I  will  con- 
sider your  communication  confidential,  and  wish  you  so 
to  consider  mine  so  far  aspublishingin  the  newspapers 
is  concerned,  yet  the  information  of  course  will  be  of 
no  service  to  me  unless  I  can  submit  it  to  reliable  and 
leading  men  in  consultation  for  the  safety  of  our  State 
and  the  South  ;  and  will  only  use  it  in  this  way.  It  is 
the  desire  of  South  Carolina  that  some  other  State 
should  take  the  lead,  or  at  least  move  simultaneously 
with  her.  She  will  unquestionably  call  a  convention 
as  soon  as  it  is  ascertained  that  a  majority  of  the  elect- 
ors will  support  Lincoln.  If  a  single  State  secedes,  she 
will  follow  her.  If  no  other  State  takes  the  lead,  South
s 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AXD  ELECTION 
his  colleagues,   the  several   gover- 
>f  the  Cotton   States,  whom  the  bearer, 
era!  S.  R  sited  in  turn  during  that 
mont  Governor  Gist  wrote  that, 
in  view  of  the  almost  certain  election  of  Lin- 
coln, it  became  important  to  have  a  full  and 
free  inten  g  f  opinion  between  the  South- 
ern States,  that  concert  of  action  might  be  ob- 
it was  th<  les  of  South  Carolina 
that  some  other  State  should  take  the  lead. 
-  ,  would  unquestionably  call  a  convention. 
s     gle  State  s  -  she  will  follow  her. 
If  no  other  State  takes  the  lead.  South  Caro- 
lina will  secede  (in 'my  opinion)  alone,  if  she 
-     ranee  that  she  will  be  soon  fol- 
lowed by  another  or  other  States ;  otherwise 
I    -    loubtful." 
The  responses  to  this  inquiry  given  by  the 
Executives  of  the  other  Cotton  States  were 
not  all  that  so  ardent  a  disunionist  could  have 
wished,  but  were  yet  sufficient  to  prompt  him 
to  a  further  advance.  The  adjoining  State  of 
North  Carolina  was  first  to  reply.*  "  Our 
people  are  very  tar  from  being  agreed  as  to 
what  action  the  State  should  take."  wrote 
Governor  Ellis:  "  somefavor  submission. some 
resistance."'  He  intimated  that  no  convention 
would  be  called,  and  that  the  State  would  not 
secede,  but  on  the  other  hand  added.  "  I  do 
not  think  North  Carolina  would  become  a 
party  to  coercion."  Louisiana  sent  an  equally 
lukewarm  answer.!  Governor  Moore  said, 
while  he  believed  in  the  right  of  secession  for 
just  cause,  he  would  not  advise  it,  and  did  not 
Carolina  will  secede  ^in  my  opinion)  alone,  if  si 
hat  she   will  be   soon  followed  by  an- 
?r  other  States  ;  otherwise  it  is  doubtful.  If  you 
dl  a  convention  upon  the  election  of  a  ma- 
jority of  Electors    favorable    to    Lincoln.  I    desire    to 
the  day  you  propose  for  the  meeting,  that  we 
may  call  our  convention  to  meet  the  same 
If  your  S  repose  any  other  remedy, 
m   me  w:  probably  be,  and  any 
formation  you  will  be  pleased  to  give  me. 
"  V.        g  spect  and  consideration, 
"I  am  yours,  etc.,  Wit.  H.  Gist. 
ernor  Thos.  0.  Moore."   MS. 
xecutive  Department, 
"Raleigh,  N.  C,  Oct.  iS:h.  i860. 
ar  Sir  :   I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the 
:  of  your  favor  of  the  5th,  which  reached  me  on 
the  12th  ii 
••  In  compliance  with  your  request.  I  will  give  as 
as  it  is  in  my  power  to  do  the  views  and 
feelings  of  the  people  of  North  Carolina  upon  the  im- 
portant subject  of  your  communis; 
litical  differences  and  party  strife  have  run  so 
high  in  this  State  for  some  years  past,  and  particularly 
g  the  past  nine  months,  that  anything  like  una- 
•  upon  any  question    of  a   public  nature 
:   and  such  is  the  case  with  the 
one  un  ier  consideration.    Our  people  are  very  far  from 
being  agreed  as  to  what  action  the  State  should  take 
in  the  event  of  Lincoln's  election  to  the  Presidency. 
nission,  some  resistance,  and  others 
mid  await  the  course  of  events  that  might  fol- 
l  :■:■  that  he  would  be  powerless  for  evil 
with  a  minority  party  in  the  Senate,  and  perhaps  in 
I    use  of  Representatives  also  ;  while  othe: 
-  with  entire  sincerity,  that  the  placing  of 
the  power  of  the  Federal  Government  into  his  hands 
would  prove  a  fatal  blow  to  the  institution  of  negro 
slavery  in  this  country. 
ne  of  our  public  speakers  I  believe  have  taken 
the  ground  before  the  people  that  the  election  of  Lin- 
would,  of  itself,  be  a  cause  of  secession.    Many 
have    said    it   would  not,  while    others  have    spoken 
equivocally. 
••  Upon  the  whole  I  am  decidedly  of  opinion  that  a 
majority  of  our  people  would  not  consider  the  occur- 
rence of  the  event  referred  to  as  sufficient  ground  for 
•  ing  the  union  of  the  >\  5.  For  which  reason 
I  do  not  suppose  that  our  Legislature,  which  will  meet 
on  the  10th  prox.,will  take  any  steps  in  that  direction  — 
such  for  instance  as  the  calling  of  a  convention. 
"Thus  sir.  I  have  given  you  what  I  conceive  to  be 
the  sentiment  of  our  people  upon  the  subject  of  your 
letter,  and  I  give  it  as  an  existing  fact,  without  com- 
ment as  to  whether  the  majority  be  in  error  or  not. 
•'  My  own  opinions,  as  an  individual,  are  of  little 
moment.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  say.  that  as  a  S 
Rights  man.  believing  in  the  sovereignty  and  reserved 
powers  of  the  States,  I  will  conform  my  actions  to  the 
action  of  Xorth  Carolina,  whatever  that  may  be.  To 
this  general  observation  I  will  make  but  a  single  quali- 
fication—  it  is  this  :  I  could  not  in  any  event  assent 
to.  or  give  my  aid  to  a  political  enforcement  oi  the 
monstrous  doctrine  of  coercion.  I  do  not  for  a  mo- 
ment think  that  North  Carolina  would  become  a  party 
to  the  enforcement  of  this  doctrine,  and  will  not  there- 
fore do  her  the  injustice  of  placing  her  in  that  posi- 
tion, even  though  hypothetically. 
••  With  much  respect,  I  have  the  honor  to  be, 
••  Your  obt.  servt., 
••  John  W.  Ellis. 
"  His  Excellency  William  H.  Gist'. 
M  Governor  of  So.  Carolina."   MS. 
"  -  Alexandria,  La..  26th  October.  1S60. 
H  His  Excellexcv  Governor  Gist. 
"Dear  SiR:  Your  favor  of  the  5th  inst.  was  re- 
ceived a  few  days  ago  at  this  place.  I  regret  my  ina- 
bility to  consult  with  as  many  of  our  leading  citizens 
as  I  wished,  but  I  will  not  delay  in  replying  anyloi  ger. 
You  will  [of  course]  consider'my  letter  as  private,  ex- 
cept for  use  in  consultation  with  friends. 
"  I  shall  not  call  a  convention  in  this  State  if  Lincoln 
is  elected,  because  I  have  no  power  or  authority  10  do 
so.  I  infer  from  your  letter  that  an  authority  has 
been  vested  in  you  by  your  Legislature  to  call  a  con- 
vention in  a  specified  contingency.  Our  Legislature  has 
taken  no  action  of  that  or  any  similar  kind.  That  body 
will  meet  in  regular  annual  session  about  the  middle 
of  January  ;  but  it  is  not  improbable  that  I  may  con- 
sider it  necessary  to  convene  it  at  an  earlier  day,  if  the 
complexion  of  the  Electoral  Colleges  shall  indicate  the 
election  of  Lincoln. 
••  Even  if  that  deplorable  event  shall  be  the  result  of 
the  coming  election.  I  shall  not  advise  the  secession 
of  my  State,  and  I  will  add  that  I  do  not  think  the  peo- 
ple of  Louisiana  will  ultimately  decide  in  favor  of  that 
course.  I  shall  recommend  that  Louisiana  meet  her 
sister  slave-holding  States  in  council  to  consult  as  to 
the  proper  course  to  be  pursued,  and  to  endeavor  to 
effect  a  complete  harmony  of  action.  1  fear  that  this 
harmony  of  action,  so  desirable  in  so  grave  an  emer- 
gency, cannot  be  effected.  Some  of  the  Cotton  States 
will  pursue  a  more  radical  policy  than  will  be  pala- 
table to  the  border  Stales,  but  this  only  increases  the 
necessity  of  convening  the  consultative  body  cf  ^hich 
I  have  spoken.    I  believe  in  the  right  of  secession  for
LINCOLN'S   NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
think  the  people  of  Louisiana  would  ultimately 
decide  in  favor  of  that  course.  The  answer 
of  Mississippi  was  a  little  more  radical.*  Gov- 
ernor Pettus  replied  that  both  politicians  and 
people  seemed  willing  to  do  anything  to  pre- 
vent that  State  from  passing  under  the  Black 
Republican  yoke.  He  thought  Mississippi 
would  call  a  council  of  the  Southern  States, 
and  if  that  council  should  advise  secession, 
she  would  go  with  them.  Mississippi  would 
not  move  alone,  but  if  any  State  moved,  she 
would  go  with  her.  Georgia  hung  in  a  more  un- 
certain balance,  t  Governor  Brown  answered 
he  had  no  doubt  Georgia  would  determine 
her  action  by  a  convention  ;  that  he  favored 
retaliatory  legislation,  and  thought  the  people 
would  be  inclined  to  wait  for  an  overt  act. 
Alabama,  her  governor  replied,  \  did  not  con- 
just  cause,  of  which  the  sovereignty  must  itself  be  the 
judge.  If  therefore  the  General  Government  shall  at- 
tempt to  coerce  a  State,  and  forcibly  attempt  the  exer- 
cise of  this  right,  I  should  certainly  sustain  the  State 
in  such  a  contest. 
"  There  has  never  been  any  indication  made  by  Lou- 
isiana, or  by  any  public  body  within  her  limits,  of  her 
probable  course  in  the  event  of  an  election  of  a  Black 
Republican  President,  and  she  is  totally  unprepared  for 
any  warlike  measures.  Her  arsenals  are  empty.  While 
some  of  her  sister  States  have  been  preparing  for  an 
emergency,  which  I  fear  is  now  imminent,  she  has  been 
negligent  in  this  important  matter. 
"  If  coming  events  should  render  necessary  the  con- 
vocation of  the  Southern  Gonvention,  I  shall  endeavor 
to  compose  the  representation  of  Louisiana  of  her  ablest 
and  most  prudent  men,  if  the  power  shall  be  vested 
in  me  to  appoint  them.  However,  I  presume  the  Leg- 
islature will  adopt  some  other  course  in  the  appoint- 
ments. The  recommendations  of  such  a  body  assembled 
in  such  a  crisis  must  necessarily  carry  great  weight, 
and  if  subsequently  ratified  and  adopted  by  each  State 
by  proper  authority,  will  present  the  South  in  united 
and  harmonious  action. 
"  I  have  the  honor  to  be  your  Excellency's  obt.  servt., 
"Thos.  O.  Moore."  MS. 
*"  Macon,  Oct.  26th,  i860. 
I  His  Excellency  Gov.  Gist. 
"  Dear  Sir  :  Your  letter  of  Oct.  5th  was  handed  me 
by  General  Gist.  Having  but  few  moments  to  reply, 
I  write  this  more  to  acknowledge  its  receipt  than  to 
reply  to  its  contents.  Our  friends  in  this  State  are  will- 
ing to  do  anything  they  may  have  the  power  to  do  to 
prevent  the  State  from  passing  under  the  Black  Re- 
publican yoke.  Our  people  know  this,  and  seem  to 
approve  such  sentiments,  yet  I  do  not  believe  Missis- 
sippi can  move  alone. 
"  I  will  call  our  Legislature  in  extra  session  as  soon 
as  it  is  known  that  the  Black  Republicans  have  carried 
the  election.  I  expect  Mississippi  will  ask  a  council  of 
the  Southern  States,  and  if  that  council  advise  seces- 
sion, Mississippi  will  go  with  them.  If  any  State 
moves,  I  think  Mississippi  will  go  with  her.  I  will 
write  at  length  from  Jackson. 
"  Yours    respectfully, 
"John  J.  Pettus."  MS. 
t"  Executive  Department. 
"  MlLLEDGEVILLE,  Ga.,  Oct.  31st,  i860. 
I  
His  Excellency  W.  H.  Gist. 
"  Dear  Sir  :  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the 
receipt  of  your  favor  by  the  hand  of  General  Gist, 
with  whom  I  have  had  a  free  interchange  of  opinions. 
In  the  event  of  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Pres- 
idency I  have  no  doubt  that  Georgia  will  determine 
her  action  by  a  convention  of  the  people,  which  will 
probably  be  held  before  the  4th  day  of  March  next. 
Her  legislature,  which  convenes  here  next  Wednesday, 
will  have  to  determine  on  the  time  when  the  conven- 
tion shall  be  held.  My  opinion  is  that  the  people  of 
Georgia  will,  in  case  of  the  election  of  Lincoln,  decide 
to  meet  all  the  Southern  States  in  convention  and  take 
common  action  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  of  all. 
Events  not  yet  foreseen  may  change  their  course  and 
might  lead  to  action  on  the  part  of  Georgia  without 
waiting  for  all  the  Southern  States,  if  it  should  be  found 
necessary  to  her  safety.  I  have  handed  General  Gist 
a  copy  of  my  message  on  our  federal  relations,  which 
will  be  sent  to  our  legislature  on  the  first  day  of  the 
session.  I  send  only  the  forms  from  the  press  as  it  is 
just  being  put  in  type.  I  may  make  some  immaterial 
alterations  before  it  is  completed.  If  your  State  re- 
mains in  the  Union,  I  should  be  pleased  that  she  would 
adopt  such  retaliatory  measures  as  I  recommend  in  the 
message,  or  others  which  you  may  determine  to  be 
more  appropriate.  I  think  Georgia  will  pass  retaliatory 
laws  similar  to  those  I  recommend,  should  Lincoln  be 
defeated.  Should  the  question  be  submitted  to  the 
people  of  Georgia,  whether  they  would  go  out  of  the 
Union  on  Lincoln's  election  without  regard  to  the  ac- 
tion of  other  Sates,  my  opinion  is  they  would  determine 
to  wait  for  an  overt  act.  The  action  of  other  States 
may  greatly  influence  the  action  of  the  people  of  this 
State.  This  letter  is  not  intended  for  publication  in 
the  newspapers,  and  has  been  very  hastily  prepared. 
"  I  have  the  honor  to  be  your  Excellency's 
"Obt.  servt., 
"Joseph  E.  Brown."  MS. 
X  "  Executive  Department, 
"Montgomery,  Ala.,  Oct.  25th,  i860. 
"  His  Excellency  W.  H.  Gist. 
"  Dear  Sir  :  Your  letter  of  the  5thinst.  was  handed 
me  a  few  days  since  by  General  Gist.  I  fully  concur 
with  you  in  the  opinion  that  Lincoln  will  be  elected 
President,  and  that  a  full  and  free  interchange  of  opin- 
ion between  the  Executives  of  the  Southern  States,  and 
especially  of  the  Cotton  States,  should  be  had  as  to 
what  ought  to  be  done  and  what  will  be  done  by  them 
to  protect  the  interest  and  honor  of  the  slave-holding 
States  in  the  event  he  should  be  elected. 
"  My  opinion  is,  that  the  election  of  Lincoln  alone 
is  not  sufficient  cause  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  ; 
but  that  fact,  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  avowed 
objects  and  intentions  of  the  party  whose  candidate  he 
is,  and  the  overt  acts  already  committed  by  that  party 
in  nullifying  the  fugitive-slave  law,  and  the  enactment 
of  personal  liberty  bills  in  many  of  the  non-slave- 
holding  States,  with  other  acts  of  like  kind,  is  sufficient 
cause  for  dissolving  every  tie  which  binds  the  Southern 
States  to  the  Union. 
"  It  is  my  opinion  that  Alabama  will  not  secede  alone, 
but  if  two  or  more  States  will  cooperate  with  her,  she 
will  secede  with  them;  or  if  South  Carolina  or  any 
other  Southern  State  should  go  out  alone  and  the 
Federal  Government  should  attempt  to  use  force 
against  her,  Alabama  will  immediately  rally  to  her 
rescue. 
"  The  opinions  above  expressed  are  predicated  upon 
observation  and  consultation  with  a  number  of  our  most 
distinguished  statesmen.  The  opinion  thus  expressed 
is  not  intended  as  a  positive  assurance,  but  is  my 
best  impression  as  to  what  will  be  the  course  of 
Alabama.  Should  Lincoln  be  elected,  I  shall  certainly 
call  a  convention  under  the  provisions  of  the  resolu- 
tions of  the  last  General  Assembly  of  the  State.  The 
convention  cannot  be  convened  earlier  than  the  first
684 
LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION  AND   ELECTION. 
skier  the  election  ot  Lincoln  in  itself  sufficient 
cause  tor  disunion  ;  but,  taken  in  connection 
with  other  objects  and  acts  of  the  North,  it 
was.  In  his  opinion  she  would  not  secede 
alone,  but  would  cooperate  with  two  or  more 
Southern  States  :  or  would  rally  to  the  aid  of 
South  Carolina  in  resisting  coercion.  He  in- 
tended calling  a  convention  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable. Florida,  though  the  last  to  respond, 
was  loudest  in  her  eagerness  to  embark  in  the 
revolt.*  Governor  Perry  wrote  :  "  Florida  is 
ready  to  wheel  into  line  with  the  gallant  Pal- 
metto State,  or  any  other  Cotton  State  or 
States  in  any  course  which  she  or  they  may 
in  their  judgment  think  proper  to  adopt." 
He  suggested  that  she  might  be  unwilling 
to  lead  off,  but  would  most  assuredly  coop- 
erate or  follow  the  lead  of  any  single  Cotton 
State. 
Two  agencies  have  thus  far  been  described 
as  engaged  in  the  work  of  fomenting  the  re- 
bellion :  the  first,  secret  societies  of  individuals, 
like  "  The  i860  Association,"  designed  to  ex- 
Monday  in  February  next,  and  I  have  fixed  upon  that 
day  (in  my  own  mind).  The  vote  of  the  electors  will 
be  cast  for  President  on  the  5th  day  of  December, 
after  which  it  will  require  a  few  days  to  ascertain  the 
result.  Thirty  days'  notice  will  have  to  be  given  after 
the  day  upon  which  the  delegates  to  the  convention  will 
be  elected,  and  the  convention  is  required  to  convene 
in  two  weeks  after  the  election.  This  is  not  a  matter 
of  discretion  with  me,  but  is  fixed  by  law.  I  regret 
that  earlier  action  cannot  be  had,  as  it  maybe  a  matter 
of  much  importance  that  all  the  States  that  may  deter- 
mine to  withdraw  from  the  Union  should  act  before 
the  expiration  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  term  of  service. 
"  The  facts  and  opinions  herein  communicated  you 
are  at  liberty  to  make  known  to  those  with  whom  you 
may  choose  to  confer,  but  they  are  not  to  be  published 
in  the  newspapers. 
"  I  have  had  a  full  and  free  conversation  with  General 
Gist,  the  substance  of  which  is  contained  in  this  letter. 
He  will,  however,  give  it  to  you  more  in  detail.  It  is 
ny  opinion  that  all  the  States  that  may  determine  to 
take  action  upon  the  election  of  Lincoln  should  call  a 
convention  as  soon  as  practicable  after  the  result  is 
known.  With  ^reat  respect,  your  obt.  servt. 
"A.  B.  Moore."  MS. 
'  ■■  Executive  Department,  Nov.  9th,  i860. 
"  His  Excellency  Gov.  Gist. 
•'  DEAR  Sir:  Your  communication  of  the  5th  ultimo 
reached  me  per  last  mail  under  cover  from  General 
States  Rights  Gist,  with  an  explanatory  note  from  that 
gentleman  in  relation  to  the  subject-matters  thereof. 
"  The  mode  employed  by  your  Excellency  to  collect 
authoritatively  the  views  of  several  of  the  Executives  of 
the  Southern  States  as  to  their  plan  of  action  in  the 
event   of   the    election    of   Lincoln,  commends    itself 
cite  the  masses  and  create  public  sentiment ; 
the  second,  a  secret  league  of  Southern  gov- 
ernors and  other  State  functionaries,  whose 
mission  it  became  to  employ  the  governmen- 
tal machinery  of  States,  in  furtherance  of  the 
plot.  These,  though  formidable  and  dangerous, 
would  probably  have  failed,  either  singly  or 
combined,  had  they  not  been  assisted  by  a 
third  of  still  greater  efficacy  and  certainty. 
This  was  nothing  less  than  a  conspiracy  in  the 
very  bosom  of  the  National  Administration  at 
Washington,  embracing  many  United  States 
Senators,  Representatives  in  Congress,  three 
members  of  the  President's  Cabinet,  and  nu- 
merous subordinate  officials  in  the  several  Ex- 
ecutive departments.  The  special  work  which 
this  powerful  central  cabal  undertook  by  com- 
mon consent,  and  successfully  accomplished, 
was  to  divert  Federal  arms  and  forts  to  the  use 
of  the  rebellion,  and  to  protect  and  shield  there- 
volt  from  any  adverse  influence,  or  preventive 
or  destructive  action  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment. 
warmly  to  my  judgment.  Concert  of  action  can  alone 
be  arrived  at  by  a  full  and  free  interchange  of  opinion 
between  the  Executives  of  the  Cotton  States,  by  whom 
it  is  confidently  expected  that  the  ball  will  be  put  in 
motion. 
"  We  are  in  the  midst  of  grave  events,  and  I  have  in- 
dustriously sought  to  learn  the  public  mind  in  this 
State  in  the  event  of  the  election  of  Lincoln,  and  am 
proud  to  say  Florida  is  ready  to  wheel  into  line  with 
the  gallant  Palmetto  State,  or  any  other  Cotton  State 
or  States  in  any  course  which  she  or  they  may  in 
their  judgment  think  proper  to  adopt,  looking  to  the 
vindication  and  maintenance  of  the  rights,  interests, 
honor,  and  safety  of  the  South.  Florida  may  be  unwill- 
ing to  subject  herself  to  the  charge  of  temerity  or 
immodesty  by  leading  off,  but  will  most  assuredly 
cooperate  with  or  follow  the  lead  of  any  single  Cotton 
State  which  may  secede.  Whatever  doubts  I  may  have 
entertained  upon  this  subject  have  been  entirely  dissi- 
pated by  the  recent  elections  in  this  State. 
"  Florida  will  most  unquestionably  call  a  convention 
as  soon  as  it  is  ascertained  that  a  majority  of  the  elec- 
tors favor  the  election  of  Lincoln,  to  meet  most  likely 
upon  a  day  to  be  suggested  by  some  other  State. 
"I  leave  to-day  for  the  capital,  and  will  write  you 
soon  after  my  arrival,  but  would  be  pleased  in  the 
mean  time  to  hear  from  you  at  your  earliest  conven- 
ience. 
"  If  there   is    sufficient   manliness  at  the  South  to 
strike  for  our  rights,  honor,  and  safety,  in  God's  name 
let  it  be  done  before  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln. 
"  With  high  regard,  I  am  yours,  etc., 
"M.  S.  Perry. 
"Direct  to  Tallahassee. 
"  P.  S.  I  have  written  General  Gist  at  Union  C. 
H."  MS. 
Js-f  Ml
[BEGUN   IN    THE    NOVEMBER    NUMBER.} 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.* 
THE    SECESSION    MOVEMENT. 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRKSIDENT. 
THE    CABINET    CABAL. 
ERY  soon  after  the  effort 
to  unite  the  cotton-State 
governors  in  the  revolu- 
tionary plot,  we  find  the 
local  conspiracy  at  Char- 
leston in  communication 
with  the  central  cabal  at 
Washington.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  bear  in  mind  that  at  the  time  of  which 
we  write,  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania 
was  still  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
that  his  Cabinet  consisted  of  the  following 
members :  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan,  Secretary 
of  State ;  Howell  Cobb  of  Georgia,  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury ;  John  B.  Floyd  of  Virginia, 
Secretary  of  War  ;  Isaac  Toucey  of  Connecti- 
cut, Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  Jacob  Thompson 
of  Mississippi,  Secretary  of  the  Interior ;  Jos- 
eph Holt  of  Kentucky,  Postmaster-General; 
and  Jeremiah  S.  Black  of  Pennsylvania,  At- 
torney-General. It  was  in  and  about  this  Cab- 
inet that  the  central  secession  cabal  formed 
itself.  Even  if  we  could  know  in  detail  the 
successive  steps  that  led  to  the  establishment 
of  this  intercourse,  which  so  quickly  became 
|  
both  semi-official  and  confidential,"  it  could 
add  nothing  to  the  force  of  the  principal  fact 
that  the  conspiracy  was  in  its  earliest  stages 
efficient  in  perverting  the  resources  and  in- 
strumentalities of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  to  its  destruction.  That  a  United 
States  Senator,  a  Secretary  of  War,  an  Assist- 
ant Secretary  of  State,  and  no  doubt  sundry 
minor  functionaries  were  already  then,  from 
six  to  eight  weeks  before  any  pretense  of  se- 
cession, with  "  malice  aforethought "  organiz- 
ing armed  resistance  to  the  Constitution  and 
laws  they  had  sworn  to  support,  stands  forth 
in  the  following  correspondence  too  plainly  to 
be  misunderstood.  As  a  fitting  preface  to  this 
correspondence,  a  few  short  paragraphs  may 
be  quoted  from  the  private  diary  of  Secretary 
of  War  Floyd,  from  which  longer  and  more 
important  extracts  appear  in  a  subsequent 
chapter.  Those  at  present  quoted  are  designed 
more  especially  to  show  the  names  of  the  per- 
sons composing  the  primary  group  of  this  cen- 
tral cabal,  and  the  time  and  place  of  their  early 
consultations  and  activity. 
*  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  Joh 
Extracts   from   Floyd's    Diary.  * 
"November  8th,  i860.  ...  I  had  a  long  conver- 
sation to-day  with  General  Lane,  the  candidate  for 
Vice-President  on  the  ticket  with  Mr.  Breckinridge. 
He  was  grave  and  extremely  earnest ;  said  that  resist- 
ance to  the  anti-slavery  feeling  of  the  North  was  hope- 
less, and  that  nothing  was  left  to  the  South  but '  resist- 
ance or  dishonor ' ;  that  if  the  South  failed  to  act  with 
promptness  and  decision  in  vindication  of  her  rights, 
she  would  have  to  make  up  her  mind  to  give  up  first 
her  honor  and  then  her  slaves.  He  thought  disunion 
inevitable,  and  said  when  the  hour  came  that  his  ser- 
vices could  be  useful,  he  would  offer  them  unhesitat- 
ingly to  the  South.  I  called  to  see  the  President  this 
evening,  but  found  him  at  the  State  Department  en- 
gaged upon  his  message  and  did  not  see  him.  Miss 
Lane  returned  last  evening  from  Philadelphia,  where 
she  had  been  for  some  time  on  a  visit.  Mr.  W.  H. 
Trescott,  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  called  to  see  me 
this  evening,  and  conversed  at  length  upon  the  condi- 
tion of  things  in  South  Carolina,  of  which  State  he  is 
a  native.  He  expressed  no  sort  of  doubt  whatever  of 
his  State  separating  from  the  Union.  He  brought  me 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Drayton,  the  agent  of  the  State, 
proposing  to  buy  ten  thousand  muskets  for  the  use  of 
the  State.    .    .    . 
"  November  10th.  .  .  .  Beach,  Thompson,  and  Cobb 
came  over  with  me  from  Cabinet  and  staid,  taking  in- 
formally a  family  dinner.  The  party  was  free  and  com- 
municative ;  Toucey  would  not  stay  for  dinner.  Mr. 
Pickens,  late  Minister  to  Russia,  came  in  after  dinner 
with  Mr.  Trescott,  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  and 
sat  an  hour,  talking  about  the  distracted  state  of  public 
feeling  at  the  South.  He  seemed  to  think  the  time  had 
come  for  decisive  measures  to  be  taken  by  the  South. 
"November  nth.  I  spent  an  hour  at  the  Presi- 
dent's, where  I  met  Thompson,  Robert  McGraw,  and 
some  others  ;  we  sat  around  the  tea-table,  and  discussed 
the  disunion  movements  of  the  South.  This  seems  to 
be  the  absorbing  topic  everywhere. 
"November  12th.  Dispatched  the  ordinary  busi- 
ness of  the  department ;  dined  at  5  o'clock ;  Mr. 
Pickens,  late  Minister  to  Russia,  Mr.  Trescott,  Mr. 
Secretary  Thompson,  Mr.  McGraw,  Mr.  Browne,  edi- 
tor of  the  '  Constitution,'  were  of  the  party.  The  chief 
topic  of  discussion  was,  as  usual,  the  excitement  in 
the  South.  The  belief  seemed  to  be  that  disunion  was 
inevitable ;  Pickens,  usually  very  cool  and  conserv- 
ative, was  excited  and  warm.  My  own  conservatism 
seems  in  these  discussions  to  be  unusual  and  almost 
misplaced." 
TRESCOTT   TO    RHETT. 
"  Washington,  Nov.  1st,  i860. 
"  Dear  Rhett  :  I  received  your  letter  this  morn- 
ing. As  to  my  views  or  opinions  of  the  Administration, 
I  can,  of  course,  say  nothing.  As  to  Mr.  Cobb's  views, 
he  is  willing  that  I  should  communicate  them  to  you, 
in  order  that  they  may  aid  you  in  forming  your  own 
*  Printed  on  pages  791  to  794  in  "The  Life  and 
Times  of  Robert  E.   Lee,"  etc.     By  a  distinguished 
Southern  journalist.     (E.  A.  Pollard,  author  of  "The 
Lost  Cause.") 
n  Hay,  1886-7.    All  rights  reserved.
$20 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
judgment ;  but,  you  will  understand  that  this  is  confi- 
dential—  that  is,  neither  Mr.  Cobb  nor  myself  must  he 
quoted  as  the  source  of  your  information.  I  will  not 
dwell  on  this,  as  you  will,  on  a  moment's  reflection,  see 
the  embarrassments  which  might  be  produced  by  any 
statement  of  his  opinions.  I  will  only  add, 
by  way  of  preface,  that  after  the  very  fullest  and  freest 
conversations  with  him,  I  feel  sure  of  his  earnestness, 
singleness  of  purpose,  and  resolution  in  the  whole 
matter. 
"  Mr.  Cobb  believes  that  the  time  is  come  for  resis- 
tance; that  upon  the  election  of  Lincoln,  Georgia  ought 
to  secede  from  the  Union,  and  that  she  will  do  so; 
that  Georgia  and  every  other  State  should,  as  far  as 
secession,  act  for  herself,  resuming  her  delegated 
powers, and  thus  put  herself  in  position  to  consult  with 
other  sovereign  States  who  take  the  same  ground. 
After  the  secession  is  effected,  then  will  be  the  time  to 
consult.  But  he  is  of  opinion,  most  strongly,  that  what- 
ever action  is  resolved  on  should  be  consummated  on 
the  4th  of  March,  not  before. 
"  That  while  the  action  determined  on  should  be 
decisive  and  irrevocable,  its  initial  should  be  the  4th 
of  March.  He  is  opposed  to  any  Southern  convention, 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  consultation.  If  a  Southern 
convention  is  held,  it  must  be  of  delegates  empowered 
to  act,  whose  action  is  at  once  binding  on  the  States 
they  represent. 
"  But  he  desires  me  to  impress  upon  you  his  con- 
viction, that  any  attempt  to  precipitate  the  actual  issue 
upon  this  Administration  will  be  most  mischievous  — 
calculated  to  produce  differences  of  opinion  and  de- 
stroy unanimity.  He  thinks  it  of  great  importance 
that  the  cotton  crop  should  go  forward  at  once,  and 
that  the  money  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  people, 
that  the  cry  of  popular  distress  shall  not  be  heard  at 
the  outset  of  this  move. 
"  My  own  opinion  is  that  it  would  be  well  to  have  a 
discreet  man,  one  who  knows  the  value  of  silence,  who 
can  listen  wisely,  present  in  Milledgeville,  at  the  meet- 
ing of  the  State  Legislature,  as  there  will  be  there  an 
outside  gathering  of  the  very  ablest  men  of  that  State. 
"And  the  next  point,  that  pou  should,  at  the  earliest 
possible  day  of  the  session  of  our  own  Legislature, 
elect  a  man  as  governor  whose  name  and  character  will 
conciliate  as  well  as  give  confidence  to  all  the  men  of 
the  State, —  if  we  do  act,  I  really  think  this  half  the 
battle, —  a  man  upon  whose  temper  the  State  can  rely. 
"  I  say  nothing  about  a  convention,  as  I  understand, 
on  all  hands,  that  that  is  a  fixed  fact,  and  I  have  con- 
fined myself  to  answering  your  question.  I  will  be 
much  obliged  to  you  if  you  will  write  me  soon  and 
fully  from  Columbia. 
"  It  is  impossible  to  write  you,  with  the  constant  in- 
terruption of  the  office,  and  as  you  want  Cobb's  opin- 
ions, not  mine,  I  send  this  to  you.         Yours, 
"  W.  H.  T."* 
THOS.    F.    DRAYTON    TO    GOVERNOR   GIST. 
"Charleston,  3d  Nov.,  i860. 
"  On  the  22d  of  last  month  I  was  in  Washington, 
and  called  upon  the  Secretary  at  War,  in  company 
with  Senator  Wigfall  of  Texas,  to  make  inquiries  as 
to  the  efficiency  and  price  of  certain  muskets  belong- 
ing to  the  United  States,  which  had  been  altered  by 
the  Ordnance  Department  from  flint  to  percussion. 
They  will  shoot  for  200  yards  as  well  as  any  smooth- 
bored  gun  in  the  service,  and  if  rifled  will  be  effective 
at  500  yards.  But  if  the  conical  ball  will  be  made 
lighter  by  enlarging  the  hollow  at  the  base  of  the  cone, 
the  effective  range  may  be  increased  to  700  yards. 
Should  your  Excellency  give  a  favorable  consideration 
to  the  above,  I  can  have  the  whole  of  what  I  have 
stated  authenticated  by  the  board  of  ordnance  officers, 
*  Lossing,  "  Civil  War."  Vol.  I.,  p.  44. 
who  inspected  and  reported  to  the  Secretary  at  War 
upon  these  muskets.  If  10,000  or  more  of  these  muskets 
are  purchased,  the  price  will  be  two  ($2)  dollars  each; 
for  a  less  quantity  the  charge  will  be  $2.50  each.  If  a 
portion  or  all  of  them  are  to  be  rifled,  the  Secretary 
says  he  will  have  it  done  for  the  additional  cost  of($i) 
one  dollar  per  barrel.  As  this  interview  with  Mr. 
Secretary  Floyd  was  both  semi-official  and  confidential, 
your  Excellency  will  readily  see  the  necessity,  should 
this  matter  be  pursued  further,  of  appointing  an  agent 
to  negotiate  with  him,  rather  than  conduct  the  nego- 
tiation directly  between  the  State  and  the  Department. 
.  .  .  I  unhesitatingly  advise  purchasing  several 
thousand  of  them.  .  .  .  There  are  many  other  im- 
portant facts  in  connection  with  the  above  that  I  could 
disclose,  but  will  reserve  them  for  some  other  occasion, 
that  I  may  give  them  verbally  as  soon  as  I  can  find  a 
day  to  wait  upon  your  Excellency  in  Columbia. 
"  The  State  of  Texas  has  engaged  twenty  thousand 
(20,000)  of  these  muskets,  and  the  State  of  Kentucky 
purchased  several  thousand  last  summer."  t 
THOS.    F.    DRAYTON   TO   GOVERNOR   GIST. 
"  Charleston,  6th  Nov.,  i860. 
"  I  have  only  within  a  few  hours  received  yours  of 
the  5th  inst.,  authorizing  me  to  purchase  from  the 
War  Department  at  Washington  10,000  rifles  of  pat- 
tern and  price  indicated  in  my  letter  to  your  Excellency 
of  the  3d  inst. 
"  I  accept  the  appointment  and  will  discharge  the 
duty  assigned  to  the  best  of  my  ability  and  with  the 
least  possible  delay.  For  I  feel  that  the  past  and  pres- 
ent agitation  are  ruinous  to  our  peace  and  prosperity 
and  that  our  only  remedy  is  to  break  up  with  dispatch 
the  present  Confederacy  and  construct  a  new  and  bet- 
ter one.  I  will  communicate  with  Mr.  Secretary  Floyd 
to-night  and  have  the  rifles  put  in  preparation  so  as  to 
have  them  for  use  at  an  early  day.   .   .   . 
"  I  would  wish  that  my  agency  in  this  transaction  be 
kept  private  until  I  reach  Washington,  or  indeed 
till  I  write  to  say  the  arms  are  on  their  way  to  Colum- 
bia.  .   .   ."t 
THOS.  F.  DRAYTON  TO  GOVERNOR   GIST. 
"  Charleston,  8th  Nov.,  i860. 
"I  have  just  received  your  letter  of  the  7th  inst., 
and  I  think  I  can  render  you  all  the  information  you 
desire,  without  resorting  to  any  agent.  If  my  ability 
can  only  be  made  to  keep  pace  with  my  zeal,  I  hope 
yet  to  render  some  service  to  the  dear  old  State  of 
South  Carolina,  "t 
THOS.  F.  DRAYTON   TO    GOVERNOR   GIST. 
"Charleston,  16th  Nov.,  i860. 
"  I  have  been  most  reluctantly  detained  here  by  an 
accidental  fall,  and  also  by  business  of  an  urgent  kind 
associated  with  the  railroad.  My  absence  from  Wash- 
ington, however,  has  not  delayed  the  execution  of  your 
order  for  the  rifles  :  the  Secretary  of  War  has  had  the 
preparation  of  them  in  hand  for  some  time. 
"  When  I  write  to  you  from  Washington,  had  I  not 
better  address  you  through  your  private  secretary  .  .  . 
Please  address  me  at  Washington  to  the  care  of  Wm. 
H.  Trescott,  Esq.  ...  I  will  give  strict  attention  to 
your  letter  of  the  7th  inst.,  and  hope  to  furnish  you 
with  much  of  the  information  you  desire,  for  I  am 
quite  sensible  of  the  importance  of  knowing  the  views 
and  policy  of  the  President  at  this  juncture."  t 
THOS.    F.    DRAYTON   TO   GOVERNOR   GIST. 
"Washington,  19th  Nov.,  i860. 
"  ....  I  called  this  morning  upon  the  Secretary 
of  War  to  make  arrangements  for  the  immediate  trans- 
t  MS.  Confederate  Archives,  War  Department.