St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-07-07
POLITICAL SECRETS.
Why Hannibal Hamlin Did
Not Get a Second Nom
ination.
Johnson Was Named by the
Express Desire Of Mr.
Lincoln.
RumOrS Are AflOat Of an
Early Revolution in
Mexico.
More Blood May Be Shed in
Unhappy Hayti Before
Long.

PHILADELPHIA, July Elm leading
editorial entitled Lincoln and Hamlin'
the Times tomorrow will make the fol-
lowing important statement regarding
the defeat of Hannibal Hamlin for the
nomination of vice president in 1864:
lit is true that Hannibal Hamlin, an
entirely unObjectionable vice president
and a leader with peculiar claims
on the Republican party.was rejected as
vice president by the Republican con-
vention of 1864 to place Southern mani
in that office; and it is equally true that
it would not and could not have been
done had President Lincoln opposed it.
So far from opposing it, Lincoln
earnestly desired it. The writer
hereof was delegate at large
from Pennsylvania in the Baltimore
convention of 1864, and in response to
an invitation from the president to
visit Washington on eve of the meeting
VT the body a conference was held, in
which Lincoln gravely urged the nOmi-
nation of johnson for vice president.
1t was solely in Difference to Lii
coins convictions as to the national
and international desires which de-
manded Johnson's nomination for the
vice presidency that the writer's vote
was cast against Hamlin. and other
Pennsylvania delegates were influenced
to the same action by the confidential
assurance of Lincoln's wishes. 1t
should not be assumed that Lincoln
was ambitious TO play the role OF
political master, or that he was
perfdious to any. His position was not
only of the greatest delicacy in politics.
but he was loaded with responsibilities
to which all former presidents had been
strangers, His
One Supreme Desire
was the restoration of the Union, and he
would have gladly surrendered his own
high honor could he thereby
restore the discovered states. The
one great shadow that hung over
him and his power was the sectional
character of the ruling party and the
government. 1t weakened his arm to
make peace. 1t strengthed European
hostility to the cause OF the Union and
it left the South without even silver
lining to the dark cloud of subJuga-
ton. Lincoln firmly believed that
the nomination of Johnson, an
OIQ DeIDOcldUlC OOulHcIu S6IdlOI, WIZ
had been aggressively loyal to the
Union, and who was then the governor
of his rebelIious but restored state,
would not only desectionaliZe the party
and the government, but would chill
and curb the ant-Union senti-
ment of England and France
and inspire the friends OF
the Union in those countries to see
leading Southern statesman coming
from a conquered insurgent state to the
second office of the republic. Such were
LincOln's sincere convictions and such
his earnest arguments in favor of the
nomination of Johnson i'll 1864,
and but. for Lincoln'S conviction
on the subject Hamlin would
have been renOminated and succeeded
to the presidency instead. 1t is easy, i'll
the clear light of the present, to say
that the nomination of johnson was
a grave misfortune and to speculate on
the countless evils which could have
been averled, but the one man who was
most devoted to the endangered nation
and who could best judge of the neces-
sity of the time believed it was not only
wise but an imperiouS need to take a
vice president from the South, and that
is why Hannibal Hamlin was not re-
nominated in 1861"