This being the case, it is worth noticing that both Lincoln and Douglas confined their disputation closely to the slavery question. Disunion and secession were words familiar in every ear, yet Lincoln referred to these things only twice or thrice, and incidentally, while Douglas ignored them. This fact is fraught with meaning. American writers and American readers have always met upon the tacit understanding that the Union was the chief cause of, and the best justification for, the war. An age may come when historians, treating our history as we treat that of Greece, stirred by no emotion at the sight of the "Stars and Stripes," moved by no patriotism at the name of the United States of America, will seek a deeper philosophy to explain this obstinate, bloody, costly struggle. Such writers may say that a rich, civilized multitude of human beings, possessors of the quarter of a continent, believing it best for their interests to set up an independent government for themselves, fell back upon the right of revolution, though they chose not to call it by that name. Now, even if it be possible to go so far as to say that every nation has always a right to preserve by force, if it can, its own integrity, certainly it cannot be stated as a further truth that no portion of a nation can ever be justified in endeavoring to obtain an independent national existence; no citizen of this country can admit this, but must say that such an endeavor is justifiable or not justifiable according as its cause and basis are right or wrong. Far down, then, at the very bottom lay the question whether the Southerners had a sufficient cause upon which to base a revolution. Now this question was hardly conclusively answered by the perfectly true statement that the North had not interfered with Southern rights. Southerners might admit this, and still believe that their welfare could be best subserved by a government wholly their own. So the very bottom question of all still remained: Was the South endeavoring to establish a government of its own for a justifiable reason and a right purpose? Now the avowed purpose was to establish on an enduring foundation a permanent slave empire; and the declared reason was, that slavery was not safe within the Union. Underneath the question of the Union therefore lay, logically, the question of slavery.
Lincoln and the other Republican leaders said that, if slavery extension was prevented, then slavery was in the way of extinction. If the assertion was true, it pretty clearly followed that the South could retain slavery only by independence and a complete imperial control within the limits of its own homogeneous nationality; for undeniably the preponderant Northern mass was becoming firmly resolved that slavery should not be extended, however it might be tolerated within its present limits. So still, by anti-slavery statement itself, the ultimate question was: whether or not the preservation of slavery was a right and sufficient cause or purpose for establishing an independent nationality. Lincoln, therefore, went direct to the logical heart of the contention, when he said that the real dispute was whether slavery was a right thing or a wrong thing. If slavery was a right thing, a Union conducted upon a policy which was believed to doom it to "ultimate extinction" was not a right thing. But if slavery was a wrong thing, a revolution undertaken with the purpose of making it perpetual was also a wrong thing. Therefore, from beginning to end, Lincoln talked about slavery. By so doing he did what he could to give to the war a character far higher even than a war of patriotism, for he extended its meaning far beyond the age and the country of its occurrence, and made of it, not a war for the United States alone, but a war for humanity, a war for ages and peoples yet to come. In like manner, he himself also gained the right to be regarded as much more than a great party leader, even more than a great patriot; for he became a champion of mankind and the defender of the chief right of man. I do not mean to say that he saw these things in this light at the moment, or that he accurately formulated the precise relationship and fundamental significance of all that was then in process of saying and doing. Time must elapse, and distance must enable one to get a comprehensive view, before the philosophy of an era like that of the civil war becomes intelligible. But the philosophy is not the less correct because those who were framing it piece by piece did not at any one moment project before their mental vision the whole in its finished proportions and relationship.
[75] As an example of Greeley's position, see letter quoted by N. and H. ii. 140, note. The fact that he was strenuously pro-Douglas and anti-Lincoln is well known. Yet afterward he said that it "was hardly in human nature" for Republicans to treat Douglas as a friend. Greeley's American Conflict, i. 301.
[76] Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, ii. 567; for sketches of Douglas's position, see Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 141-144; von Holst, Const. Hist. of U.S. vi. 280-286; Herndon, 391-395; N. and H. ii. 138-143; Lamon, 390-395; Holland, 158. Crittenden was one of the old Whigs, who now sorely disappointed Lincoln by preferring Douglas. N. and H. ii. 142.
[77] Several months afterward, October 25, 1858, Mr. Seward made the speech at Rochester which contained the famous sentence: "It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free-labor nation." Seward's Works, new edition, 1884, iv. 292. But Seward ranked among the extremists and the agitators. See Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 244. After all, the idea had already found expression in the Richmond Enquirer, May 6, 1856, quoted by von Hoist, vi. 299, also referred to by Lincoln; see Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 262.
[78] Letter to Hon. Geo. Robertson, N. and H. i. 392; and see Lamon, 398; also see remarks of von Holst, vi. 277.
[79] Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 93. W.P. Fessenden, "who," says Mr. Blaine, "always spoke with precision and never with passion," expressed his opinion that if Fremont had been elected instead of Buchanan, that decision would never have been given. Twenty Years of Congress, i. 133.
[80] Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, James Buchanan.
[81] Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 198. At Chicago he said that he would vote for the prohibition of slavery in a new Territory "in spite of the Dred Scott decision." Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 20; and see the rest of his speech on the same page. The Illinois Republican Convention, June 16. 1858, expressed "condemnation of the principles and tendencies of the extra-judicial opinions of a majority of the judges," as putting forth a "political heresy." Holland, 159.
Years ago Salmon P. Chase had dared to say that, if the courts would not overthrow the pro-slavery construction of the Constitution, the people would do so, even if it should be "necessary to overthrow the courts also." Warden's Life of Chase, 313.
[82] For Lincoln's explanation of his position concerning the Dred Scott decision, see Lincoln and Douglas Deb. 20.
[83] A nickname for the southern part of Illinois.
[84] Henry Wilson has made his criticism in the words that "some of his [Lincoln's] assertions and admissions were both unsatisfactory and offensive to anti-slavery men; betrayed too much of the spirit of caste and prejudice against color, and sound harshly dissonant by the side of the Proclamation of Emancipation and the grand utterances of his later state papers." Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, ii. 576.
[85] Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 145
[86] N. and H. ii. 159, 160, 163; Arnold, 151; Lamon, 415, 416, and see 406; Holland, 189; Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, ii. 576; Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 148.
[87] Arnold, 144. This writer speaks with discriminating praise concerning Lincoln's oratory, p. 139. It is an illustration of Lincoln's habit of adopting for permanent use any expression that pleased him, that this same phrase had been used by him in a speech made two years before this time. Holland, 151.
[88] Published in Columbus, in 1860, for campaign purposes, from copies furnished by Lincoln; see his letter to Central Exec. Comm., December 19, 1859, on fly-leaf.
[89] Many tributes have been paid to Douglas by writers who oppose his opinions; e.g., Arnold says: "There is, on the whole, hardly any greater personal triumph in the history of American politics than his reëlection," pp. 149, 150; Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, i. 149.
[90] See Lincoln's letter to Judd, quoted N. and H. ii. 167; also Ibid. 169.
[91] Raymond, 76.
[92] The Senate showed 14 Democrats, 11 Republicans; the House, 40 Democrats, 35 Republicans.
[93] In September, 1859. These are included in the volume of The Lincoln and Douglas Debates, printed at Columbus, 1860.
[94] The Mirror, quoted by Lamon, 442.
CHAPTER VI
ELECTION
Mr. J.W. Fell, a leading citizen of Illinois, says that after the debates of 1858 he urged Lincoln to seek the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln, however, replied curtly that men like Seward and Chase were entitled to take precedence, and that no such "good luck" was in store for him. In March, 1859, he wrote to another person: "In regard to the other matter that you speak of, I beg that you will not give it further mention. I do not think I am fit for the presidency." He said the same to the editor of the "Central Illinois Gazette;" but this gentleman "brought him out in the issue of May 4," and "thence the movement spread rapidly and strongly."[95] In the winter of 1859-60 sundry "intimate friends," active politicians of Illinois, pressed him to consent to be mentioned as a candidate. He considered the matter over night and then gave them the desired permission, at the same time saying that he would not accept the vice-presidency.
Being now fairly started in the race, he used all his well-known skill as a politician to forward his campaign, though nothing derogatory is to be inferred from these words as to his conduct or methods. February 9, 1860, he wrote to Mr. Judd: "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 not to get the Illinois delegates.... Can you help me a little in this matter at your end of the vineyard?" This point of the allegiance of his own State was soon made right. The Republican State Convention met in the "Wigwam" at Decatur, May 9 and 10, 1860. Governor Oglesby, who presided, suggested that a distinguished citizen, whom Illinois delighted to honor, was present, and that he should be invited to a place on the stand; and at once, amid a tumult of applause, Lincoln was lifted over the heads of the crowd to the platform. John Hanks then theatrically entered, bearing a couple of fence rails, and a flag with the legend that they were from a "lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830." The sympathetic roar rose again. Then Lincoln made a "speech," appropriate to the occasion. At last, attention was given to business, and the convention resolved that Abraham Lincoln was the first choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the presidency, and instructed their delegates to the nominating convention "to use all honorable means to secure his nomination, and to cast the vote of the State as a unit for him."
With the opening of the spring of 1860 the several parties began the campaign in earnest. The Democratic Convention met first, at Charleston, April 23; and immediately the line of disruption opened. Upon the one side stood Douglas, with the moderate men and nearly all the Northern delegates, while against him were the advocates of extreme Southern doctrines, supported by the administration and by most of the delegates from the "Cotton States." The majority of the committee appointed to draft the platform were anti-Douglas men; but their report was rejected, and that offered by the pro-Douglas minority was substituted, 165 yeas to 138 nays.[96] Thereupon the delegations of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, and sundry delegates from other States, withdrew from the convention,[97] taking away 45 votes out of a total of 303. Those who remained declared the vote of two thirds of a full convention, i.e., 202 votes, to be necessary for a choice. Then during three days fifty-seven ballots were cast, Douglas being always far in the lead, but never polling more than 1521/2 votes. At last, on May 3, an adjournment was had until June 18, at Baltimore. At this second meeting contesting delegations appeared, and the decisions were uniformly in favor of the Douglas men, which provoked another secession of the extremist Southern men. A ballot showed 1731/2 votes for Douglas out of a total of 1911/2; the total was less than two thirds of the full number of the original convention, and therefore it was decided that any person receiving two thirds of the votes cast by the delegates present should be deemed the nominee. The next ballot gave Douglass 1811/2. Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was nominated for vice-president.
On June 28, also at Baltimore, there came together a collection composed of original seceders at Charleston, and of some who had been rejected and others who had seceded at Baltimore. Very few Northern men were present, and the body in fact represented the Southern wing of the Democracy. Having, like its competitor, the merit of knowing its own mind, it promptly nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon, and adopted the radical platform which had been reported at Charleston.
These doings opened, so that it could never be closed, that seam of which the thread had long been visible athwart the surface of the old Democratic party. The great record of discipline and of triumph, which the party had made when united beneath the dominion of imperious leaders, was over, and forever. Those questions which Lincoln obstinately and against advice had insisted upon pushing in 1858 had forced this disastrous development of irreconcilable differences. The answers, which Douglas could not shirk, had alienated the most implacable of men, the dictators of the Southern Democracy. His "looking-both-ways" theory would not fit with their policy, and their policy was and must be immutable; modification was in itself defeat. On the other hand, what he said constituted the doctrine to which the mass of the Northern Democracy firmly held. So now, although Republicans admitted that it was "morally certain" that the Democratic party, holding together, could carry the election,[98] yet these men from the Cotton States could not take victory and Douglas together.[99] It had actually come to this, that, in spite of all that Douglas had done for the slaveholders, they now marked him for destruction at any cost. Many also believe that they had another motive; that they had matured their plans for secession; and that they did not mean to have the scheme disturbed or postponed by an ostensibly Democratic triumph in the shape of the election of Douglas.
In May the convention of the Constitutional Union party met, also at Baltimore. This organization was a sudden outgrowth designed only to meet the present emergency. Its whole political doctrine lay in the opening words of the one resolution which constituted its platform: "That it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." This party gathered nearly all the peaceable elements of the community; it assumed a deprecatory attitude between angry contestants, and of course received the abuse and contempt of both; it was devoid of combative force, yet had some numerical strength. The Republicans especially mocked at these "trimmers," as if their only platform was moral cowardice, which, however, was an unfair statement of their position. The party died, of necessity, upon the day when Lincoln was elected, and its members were then distributed between the Republicans, the Secessionists, and the Copperheads. John Bell of Tennessee, the candidate for the presidency, joined the Confederacy; Edward Everett of Massachusetts, the candidate for the vice-presidency, became a Republican. The party never had a hope of electing its men; but its existence increased the chance of throwing the election into Congress; and this hope inspired exertions far beyond what its own prospects warranted.
On May 16 the Republican Convention came together at Chicago, where the great "Wigwam" had been built to hold 10,000 persons. The intense interest with which its action was watched indicated the popular belief that probably it would name the next President of the United States. Many candidates were named, chiefly Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, Edward Bates of Missouri, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey. Thurlow Weed was Seward's lieutenant. Horace Greeley, chiefly bent upon the defeat of Seward, would have liked to achieve it by the success of Bates. David Davis, aided by Judge Logan and a band of personal friends from Illinois, was manager for Lincoln. Primarily the contest lay between Seward and Lincoln, and only a dead-lock between these two could give a chance to some one of the others. But Seward's friends hoped, and Lincoln's friends dreaded, that the New Yorker might win by a rush on the first ballot. George Ashmun of Massachusetts presided. With little discussion a platform was adopted, long and ill-written, overloaded with adjectives and rhetoric, sacrificing dignity to the supreme pleasure of abusing the Democracy, but honest in stating Republican doctrines, and clearly displaying the temper of an earnest, aggressive party, hot for the fight and confident of victory. The vote of acceptance was greeted with such a cheering that "a herd of buffaloes or lions could not have made a more tremendous roaring."
The details of the brief but sharp contest for the nomination are not altogether gratifying. The partisans of Seward set about winning votes by much parading in the streets with banners and music, and by out-yelling all competitors within the walls of the convention. For this intelligent purpose they had engaged Tom Hyer, the prize fighter, with a gang of roughs, to hold possession of the Wigwam, and to howl illimitably at appropriate moments. But they had undertaken a difficult task in trying to outdo the great West, in one of its own cities, at a game of this kind. The Lincoln leaders in their turn secured a couple of stentorian yellers (one of them a Democrat), instructed them carefully, and then filled the Wigwam full actually at daybreak, while the Seward men were marching; so in the next yelling match the West won magnificently. How great was the real efficiency of these tactics in affecting the choice of the ruler of a great nation commonly accounted intelligent, it is difficult to say with accuracy; but it is certain that the expert managers spared no pains about this scenic business of "enthusiasm."
Meanwhile other work, entirely quiet, was being done elsewhere. The objection to Seward was that he was too radical, too far in advance of the party. The Bates following were pushing their candidate as a moderate man, who would be acceptable to "Union men." But Bates's chance was small, and any tendency towards a moderate candidate was likely to carry his friends to Lincoln rather than to Seward; for Lincoln was generally supposed, however erroneously,[100] to be more remote from Abolitionism than Seward was. To counteract this, a Seward delegate telegraphed to the Bates men at St. Louis that Lincoln was as radical as Seward. Lincoln, at Springfield, saw this dispatch, and at once wrote a message to David Davis: "Lincoln agrees with Seward in his irrepressible-conflict idea, and in Negro Equality; but he is opposed to Seward's Higher Law. Make no contracts that will bind me." He underscored the last sentence; but when his managers saw it, they recognized that such independence did not accord with the situation, and so they set it aside.
The first vote was:—
| Whole number | 465 | |
| Necessary for choice | 233 | |
| William H. Seward of New York | 173 | 1/2 |
| Abraham Lincoln of Illinois | 102 | |
| Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania | 50 | 1/2 |
| Salmon P. Chase of Ohio | 49 | |
| Edward Bates of Missouri | 48 | |
| William L. Dayton of New Jersey | 14 | |
| John McLean of Ohio | 12 | |
| Jacob Collamer of Vermont | 10 | |
| Scattering | 6 |
The fact was, and Lincoln's friends perfectly understood it, that Cameron held that peculiar kind of power which gave him no real prospect of success, yet had a considerable salable value. Could they refrain from trying the market? They asked the owners of the 501/2 Cameron votes what was their price. The owners said: The Treasury Department. Lincoln's friends declared this extravagant. Then they all chaffered. Finally Cameron's men took a place in the cabinet, without further specification. Lamon says that another smaller contract was made with the friends of Caleb B. Smith. Then the Lincoln managers rested in a pleasing sense of security.
The second ballot showed slight changes:—
| Seward | 184 | 1/2 |
| Lincoln | 181 | |
| Cameron | 2 | |
| Chase | 42 | 1/2 |
| Bates | 5 | |
| Dayton | 10 | |
| McLean | 8 | |
| Scattering | 2 |
Upon the third ballot delivery was made of what Mr. Davis had bought. That epidemic foreknowledge, which sometimes so unaccountably foreruns an event, told the convention that the decision was at hand. A dead silence reigned save for the click of the telegraphic instruments and the low scratching of hundreds of pencils checking off the votes as the roll was called. Those who were keeping the tally saw that it stood:—
| Seward | 180 | |
| Lincoln | 231 | 1/2 |
| Chase | 24 | 1/2 |
| Bates | 22 | |
| Dayton | 1 | |
| McLean | 5 | |
| Scattering | 1 |
Cameron was out of the race; Lincoln was within 11/2 votes of the goal. Before the count could be announced, a delegate from Ohio transferred four votes to Lincoln. This settled the matter; and then other delegations followed, till Lincoln's score rose to 354. At once the "enthusiasm" of 10,000 men again reduced to insignificance a "herd of buffaloes or lions." When at last quiet was restored, William M. Evarts, who had led for Seward, offered the usual motion to make the nomination of Abraham Lincoln unanimous. It was done. Again the "tremendous roaring" arose. Later in the day the convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin[101] of Maine, on the second ballot, by 367 votes, for the vice-presidency. Then for many hours, till exhaustion brought rest, Chicago was given over to the wonted follies; cannon boomed, music resounded, and streets and barrooms were filled with the howling and drinking crowds of the intelligent promoters of one of the great moral crusades of the human race.
Lamon says that the committee deputed to wait upon Lincoln at Springfield found him "sad and dejected. The reaction from excessive joy to deep despondency—a process peculiar to his constitution—had already set in."[102] His remarks to these gentlemen were brief and colorless. His letter afterward was little more than a simple acceptance of the platform.
Since white men first landed on this continent, the selection of Washington to lead the army of the Revolution is the only event to be compared in good fortune with this nomination of Abraham Lincoln. Yet the convention deserved no credit for its action. It did not know the true ratio between Seward and Lincoln, which only the future was to make plain. By all that it did know, it ought to have given the honor to Seward, who merited it by the high offices which he had held with distinction and without blemish, by the leadership which he had acquired in the party through long-continued constancy and courage, by the force and clearness with which he had maintained its principles, by his experience and supposed natural aptitude in the higher walks of statesmanship. Yet actually by reason of these very qualifications[103] it was now admitted that the all-important "October States" of Indiana and Pennsylvania could not be carried by the Republicans if Seward were nominated; while Greeley, sitting in the convention as a substitute for a delegate from Oregon, cast as much of the weight of New York as he could lift into the anti-Seward scale. In plain fact, the convention, by its choice, paid no compliment either to Lincoln or to the voters of the party. They took him because he was "available," and the reason that he was "available" lay not in any popular appreciation of his merits, but in the contrary truth,—that the mass of people could place no intelligent estimate upon him at all, either for good or for ill. Outside of Illinois a few men, who had studied his speeches, esteemed him an able man in debate; more had a vague notion of him as an effective stump speaker of the West; far the greatest number had to find out about him.[104] In a word, Mr. Lincoln gained the nomination because Mr. Seward had been "too conspicuous," whereas he himself was so little known that it was possible for Wendell Phillips to inquire indignantly: "Who is this huckster in politics? Who is this county court advocate?"[105] For these singular reasons he was the most "available" candidate who could be offered before the citizens of the United States!
It cannot be said that the nomination was received with much satisfaction. "Honest old Abe the rail-splitter!" might sound well in the ear of the masses; but the Republican party was laden with the burden of an immense responsibility, and the men who did its thinking could not reasonably feel certain that rail-splitting was an altogether satisfactory training for the leader in such an era as was now at hand. Nevertheless, nearly[106] all came to the work of the campaign with as much zeal as if they had surely known the full value of their candidate. Shutting their minds against doubts, they made the most spirited and energetic canvass which has ever taken place in the country. The organization of the "Wide-Awake" clubs was an effective success.[107] None who saw will ever forget the spectacle presented by these processions wherein many thousands of men, singing the campaign songs, clad in uniform capes of red or white oil-cloth, each with a flaming torch or a colored lantern, marched nightly in every city and town of the North, in apparently endless numbers and with military precision, making the streets a brilliant river of variously tinted flame. Torchlight parades have become mere conventional affairs since those days, when there was a spirit in them which nothing has ever stirred more lately. They were a good preparation for the more serious marching and severer drill which were soon to come, though the Republicans scoffed at all anticipations of such a future, and sneered at the timid ones who croaked of war and bloodshed.
Almost from the beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans would win, and it was substantially certain that none of their competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no election might be made by the people, and that it might be thrown into Congress. Douglas with his wonted spirit made a vigorous fight, traveling to and fro, speaking constantly in the North and a few times in the South, but defiant rather than conciliatory in tone. He did not show one whit the less energy because it was obvious that he waged a contest without hope. If there were any road to Democratic success, which it now seems that there was not, it lay in uniting the sundered party. An attempt was made to arrange that whichever Democratic candidate should ultimately display the greater strength should receive the full support of the party. Projects for a fusion ticket met with some success in New York. In Pennsylvania like schemes were imperfectly successful. In other Northern States they were received with scant favor. Except some followers of Bell and Everett, men were in no temper for compromise. At the South fusion was not even attempted; the Breckenridge men would not hear of it; the voters in that section were controlled by leaders, and these leaders probably had a very distinct policy, which would be seriously interfered with by the triumph of the Douglas ticket.
The chief anxiety of Lincoln and the Republican leaders was lest some voters, who disagreed with them only on less important issues, might stay away from the polls. All the platforms, except that of the Constitutional Union party, touched upon other topics besides the question of slavery in the Territories; the tariff, native Americanism, acquisition of Cuba, a transcontinental railway, public lands, internal improvements, all found mention. The Know-Nothing party still by occasional twitchings showed that life had not quite taken flight, and endeavors were made to induce Lincoln to express his views. But he evaded it.[108] For above all else he wished to avoid the stirring of any dissension upon side issues or minor points; his hope was to see all opponents of the extension of slavery put aside for a while all other matters, refrain from discussing troublesome details, and unite for the one broad end of putting slavery where "the fathers" had left it, so that the "public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the way of ultimate extinction." He felt it to be fair and right that he should receive the votes of all anti-slavery men; and ultimately he did, with the exception only of the thorough-going Abolitionists.
It was not so very long since he had spoken of the Abolitionist leaders as "friends;" but they did not reciprocate the feeling, nor indeed could reasonably be expected to do so, or to vote the Republican ticket. They were even less willing to vote it with Lincoln at the head of it than if Seward had been there.[109] But Republicanism itself under any leader was distinctly at odds with their views; for when they said "abolition" they meant accurately what they said, and abolition certainly was impossible under the Constitution. The Republicans, and Lincoln personally, with equal directness acknowledged the supremacy of the Constitution. Lincoln, therefore, plainly asserted a policy which the Abolitionists equally plainly condemned. In their eyes, to be a party to a contract maintaining slavery throughout a third of a continent was only a trifle less criminal than aiding to extend it over another third. Yet it should be said that the Abolitionists were not all of one mind, and some voted the Republican ticket as being at least a step in the right direction. Joshua R. Giddings was a member of the Republican Convention which nominated Lincoln. But Wendell Phillips, always an extremist among extremists, published an article entitled "Abraham Lincoln, the Slave-hound of Illinois," whereof the keynote was struck in this introductory sentence: "We gibbet a Northern hound to-day, side by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia." Mr. Garrison, a man of far larger and sounder intellectual powers than belonged to Phillips, did not fancy this sort of diatribe, though five months earlier he had accused the Republican party of "slavish subserviency to the Union," and declared it to be "still insanely engaged in glorifying the Union and pledging itself to frown upon all attempts to dissolve it." Undeniably men who held these views could not honestly vote for Mr. Lincoln.
The popular vote and the electoral vote were as follows:[110] —
Li: Abraham Lincoln, Illinois.
Do: Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois.
Br: John C. Breckenridge, Kentucky.
Be: John Bell, Tennessee.
| Popular Vote | Electoral Vote | |||||||
| Li | Do | Br | Be | Li | Do | Br | Be | |
| Maine | 62,811 | 26,693 | 6,368 | 2,046 | 8 | — | — | — |
| New Hampshire | 37,519 | 25,881 | 2,112 | 441 | 5 | — | — | — |
| Vermont | 33,808 | 6,849 | 218 | 1,969 | 5 | — | — | — |
| Massachusetts | 106,533 | 34,372 | 5,939 | 22,231 | 13 | — | — | — |
| Rhode Island | 12,244 | [B]7,707 | — | — | 4 | — | — | — |
| Connecticut | 43,792 | 15,522 | 14,641 | 3,291 | 6 | — | — | — |
| New York | 362,646 | [B]312,510 | — | — | 35 | — | — | — |
| New Jersey | 58,324 | [B]62,801 | — | — | 4 | 3 | — | — |
| Pennsylvania | 268,030 | 16,765 | [B]178,871 | 12,776 | 27 | — | — | — |
| Delaware | 3,815 | 1,023 | 7,337 | 3,864 | — | — | 3 | — |
| Maryland | 2,294 | 5,966 | 42,482 | 41,760 | — | — | 8 | — |
| Virginia | 1,929 | 16,290 | 74,323 | 74,681 | — | — | — | 15 |
| North Carolina | — | 2,701 | 48,539 | 44,990 | — | — | 10 | — |
| South Carolina[A] | — | — | — | — | — | — | 8 | — |
| Georgia | — | 11,590 | 51,889 | 42,886 | — | — | 10 | — |
| Florida | — | 367 | 8,543 | 5,437 | — | — | 3 | — |
| Alabama | — | 13,651 | 48,831 | 27,875 | — | — | 9 | — |
| Mississippi | — | 3,283 | 40,797 | 25,040 | — | — | 7 | — |
| Louisiana | — | 7,625 | 22,861 | 20,204 | — | — | 6 | — |
| Texas | — | — | 47,548 | [B]15,438 | — | — | 4 | — |
| Arkansas | — | 5,227 | 28,732 | 20,094 | — | — | 4 | — |
| Missouri | 17,028 | 58,801 | 31,317 | 58,372 | — | 9 | — | — |
| Tennessee | — | 11,350 | 64,709 | 69,274 | — | — | — | 12 |
| Kentucky | 1,364 | 25,651 | 53,143 | 66,058 | — | — | — | 12 |
| Ohio | 231,610 | 187,232 | 11,405 | 12,194 | 23 | — | — | — |
| Michigan | 88,480 | 65,057 | 805 | 405 | 6 | — | — | — |
| Indiana | 139,033 | 115,509 | 12,295 | 5,306 | 13 | — | — | — |
| Illinois | 172,161 | 160,215 | 2,404 | 4,913 | 11 | — | — | — |
| Wisconsin | 86,110 | 65,021 | 888 | 161 | 5 | — | — | — |
| Minnesota | 22,069 | 11,920 | 748 | 62 | 4 | — | — | — |
| Iowa | 70,409 | 55,111 | 1,048 | 1,763 | 4 | — | — | — |
| California | 39,173 | 38,516 | 34,334 | 6,817 | 4 | — | — | — |
| Oregon | 5,270 | 3,951 | 5,006 | 183 | 3 | — | — | — |
| Totals | 1,866,452 | 1,375,157 | 847,953 | 590,631 | 180 | 12 | 72 | 39 |
Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice of the American people," and by way of sustaining the statement say that, if the "whole voting strength of the three opposing parties had been united upon a single candidate, Lincoln would nevertheless have been chosen with only a trifling diminution of his electoral majority."[111] It might be better to say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice" of the electoral college. The "American people" fell enormously short of showing a majority in his favor. His career as president was made infinitely more difficult as well as greatly more creditable to him by reason of the very fact that he was not the choice of the American people, but of less than half of them,—and this, too, even if the Confederate States be excluded from the computation.[112]
The election of Lincoln was "hailed with delight" by the extremists in South Carolina; for it signified secession, and the underlying and real desire of these people was secession, and not either compromise or postponement.[113]