Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  Partisans from both sides saw the role that racism played in the outcome. A Democrat in Prairie City reported that the coroner of Fulton County “has just held an inquest over the defunct Black Republican party, and … the verdict of the jury is ‘died from a surfeit of negro wool.’ ”342 Republicans in eastern Illinois allegedly complained that “in taking his stand in favor of negro equality, Mr. Lincoln has placed them in a false light before their people, and that he has given them a heavier load to carry than they can bear.”343 Douglas’s victory prompted the Register to declare that Lincoln “has failed in the first open fight upon the proposition of negro equality.”344 Many Illinois voters evidently agreed with a journalist who wrote that Douglas, for all his faults, “is sound on niggers,” especially when compared with Lincoln, “a crazy fanatic, who openly proclaims the equality of the black and white races, and advocates the abolishing of the Supreme Court for its decision in the Dred Scott Case.”345

  Leonard Swett ascribed Lincoln’s defeat to the first ten lines of his “House Divided” speech, which were simply too radical for Moderates. That may have been true with German voters. A report prepared for Douglas indicated that while two-thirds of the state’s Germans were nominally Republicans, they were “wavering and malcontent since … Mr. Lincoln’s speeches and the disclosures of his past. He is evidently almost too much for them, and it will not take a superhuman labor to bring them over in squads.”346

  Douglas attracted voters who saw him as a martyr hounded by the leaders of his own party for standing on principle. From Springfield it was reported that “Douglas has made more friends out of the Lecomptonites on account of the proscription of his friends, than he could have hoped to have gained without.… It is very natural that one who is persecuted from within, and without, should excite the sympathies of all honest men.”347 The Chicago Press and Tribune plausibly speculated that “if the Administration had supported instead of opposing him, the Republicans would have carried the Legislature by a decided majority.”348 Many opponents of the Lecompton Constitution believed that Douglas’s defeat would be regarded as a triumph for Buchanan.

  Douglas prevailed in part because he outspent the Republicans by an astonishing amount. Lincoln said that the “whole expense of his campaign with Douglas did not exceed a few hundred dollars.”349 (In fact, the campaign cost more than that. After it was over, Judd begged Lincoln to help the state committee pay off $2,500 in bills.) The Little Giant’s campaign cost approximately $50,000. In late October, the Peoria Union published copies of mortgages recently made by Douglas on his Chicago property amounting to $52,000. New York boss Fernando Wood was the main mortgagee. The Quincy Whig and Republican commented that with those funds, “Douglas expects to carry the election. He thinks that he can buy enough votes for that purpose. He pays for the puffs he gets in the newspapers. He carries around with him hirelings whose business it is to manufacture crowds and enthusiasm. The occupation of this toady is the same as that of the man who is hired to puff some quack medicine into notoriety: ‘the greatest wonder of the age! one dose cures the most obdurate cases! certificates from some of the most distinguished clergymen, who have been miraculously saved through its instrumentality!’ This is the way Douglas’ hired quacks talk about him, and about what he is saying and doing in his perambulations through the State; and Douglas pays for the piping out of this $52,000. He carries a big cannon with him, to give him a puff wherever he goes, and he pays for that. He has somebody to go around and shoot it for him and he pays for that also. In fact, he has to throw his money right and left, and with a liberal hand, to keep up the little fictitious enthusiasm which has been manufactured by his creatures.”350

  During the canvass, when Lincoln’s friend William H. Hanna, a Bloomington attorney, offered to give him $500, Lincoln replied: “I am not so poor as you suppose—don’t want any money—don’t know how to use money on such occasions—Can’t do it & never will—though much obliged to you.”351 But in late June he did ask Alexander Campbell for financial assistance: “In 1856, you gave me authority to draw on you for any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars. I see clearly that such a privilege would be more available now than it was then. I am aware that times are tighter now than they were then. Please write me at all events; and whether you can now do anything or not, I shall continue grateful for the past.”352

  Some Republicans blamed Lincoln’s defeat on mismanagement by Norman B. Judd, head of the party’s state central committee. David Davis, who complained that Judd’s “policy at the head of that Committee was unwise,” thought that the central committee should have been based in Springfield “and composed of men of intellect and accustomed to a political campaign.” In mid-August Davis was appalled to find that there was “no plan of a campaign yet laid down.”353 John Wentworth criticized Judd for making the committee too large and unwieldy and for convening it too infrequently. “The triumph of Douglass falls heavily upon me,” Wentworth said, “& I feel as if he might have been beaten had the promptings of all political experience been followed.”354 Lincoln emphatically branded the charge “false and outrageous” but could not convince several party leaders that Judd was blameless.355 In fact, Judd deserved credit for suggesting the debates, for Lincoln did so well that he gained a national reputation.

  In the end, Douglas may have won simply because his forces worked harder than Lincoln’s. From Galena, where the Democrats won handily, Elihu B. Washburne reported on election day that “such unheard-of efforts as have been made by the Douglas party are without parallel.” Washburne confided to his wife: “I am utterly disgusted with politics and I have no desire ever to be at another election. Drunkenness, rowdyism, whiskey have been in the ascendant to-day.”356

  Lincoln had accomplished much in defeat. The Illinois Republican organization survived a fateful challenge, thanks largely to his efforts. A supporter congratulated him, saying, “I consider that your Campaign permanently established the Republican party.”357 Late in the canvass, Herndon speculated plausibly that “had we not organized the Republican forces in Ill[inoi]s this year, we should have been disorganized in 1860, and thrown into the great Traitor’s arms—Douglas’ arms; and he would have sold us to the Charleston Convention in 1860; or if he could not we would have been powerless, because disorganized. The whole People of all the U States may thank us in Ill[inoi]s.”358

  The Chicago Press and Tribune observed that Lincoln had gained “a splendid national reputation. Identified all his life long with the old Whig party, always in a minority in Illinois, his fine abilities and attainments have necessarily been confined to a very limited sphere. He entered upon the canvass with a reputation confined to his own State—he closed it with his name a household word wherever the principles he holds are honored, and with the respect of his opponents in all sections of the country.” His speeches, the editor accurately predicted, “will become landmarks in our political history.”359

  The debates were shortly to become landmarks, for Lincoln, obviously believing that he had won those seven encounters, had the text of both his speeches and Douglas’s published in book form. When that volume appeared early in 1860, it became a best seller and helped Lincoln secure the Republican presidential nomination. In the campaign that followed, the New York Tribune asked: “Did you ever hear a Douglas man urge or advise any candid inquirer to read the discussions between Messrs. Lincoln and Douglas?”360 The published debates became a handbook for Republicans. The Tribune recommended that spokesmen for the party obtain “a copy of the Illinois Discussions between Lincoln and Douglas, and master the arguments, not on one side only, but on both sides of the great question.”361 Even some prominent Democrats conceded that Lincoln won the debates. In 1860, Caleb Cushing declared that “Lincoln is a much abler man than is generally supposed, even in his own party. In his canvass with Douglas he beat him in law, beat him in argument, and beat him in wit; and the published debates of that canvass will sustain this assertion.”362 In fact, it could pla
usibly be argued that Douglas prevailed in the debates at Ottawa and Jonesboro, that the Freeport and Charleston debates were a draw, and that Lincoln won the last three (Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton).

  Other papers agreed with the Press and Tribune, including the Cincinnati Commercial, which proclaimed that the “reputation of Mr. Lincoln has gone all over the country. It is in extent, undoubtedly national. He has won high honors and made troops of friends.”363 The Ottawa Republican noted that Lincoln “has created for himself a national reputation that is both envied and deserved.”364 The Peoria Message declared that “[d]efeat works wonders with some men. It has made a hero of Abraham Lincoln.” Similarly, the New York Evening Post observed that “[n]o man of this generation has grown more rapidly before the country than Mr. Lincoln in this canvass.”365 The Iowa Citizen judged that Lincoln “has linked himself to the fortunes of the Republicans by hooks of steel. The name of Lincoln will be a household word for years to come. He has a brilliant future.”366 According to the Rochester, New York, Democrat, “Lincoln has now a reputation as a statesman and orator, which eclipses that of Douglas as the sun does the twinklers of the sky.”367 In Indiana, the Greensburg Republican observed that Lincoln “has won for himself a fame that will never die,” and the Indianapolis Journal called Lincoln “an able man, in close logical argument superior to Douglas himself, honest, tried, and true.”368 It is not surprising that the Springfield Register speculated with some astonishment: “If the Republican journals are to be taken as an index, Mr. Lincoln is to be made a presidential candidate upon the creed which he enunciated here in his June convention speech.”369

  Individuals concurred. Anson Miller declared that “Lincoln has made a brilliant canvass. He has achieved a National reputation and has gallantly & powerfully defended and sustained the Republican Cause. There is a future for him.”370 William Hanna and John H. Wickizer of Bloomington told Lincoln he had gained a national reputation greater than “that of S. A. Douglas, or any other Locofoco.”371 Another Bloomingtonian, David Davis, echoed his fellow townsmen: “You have made a noble canvass—(which, if unavailing in this State) has earned you a national reputation, & made you friends every where.”372 From Charleston arrived similar praise from H. P. H. Bromwell, with a prediction: “The way seems paved for the presidential victory of 1860,” where Lincoln had “a chance upon a wider field to meet our enemies where they Cannot skulk behind gerrymandered District lines to deprive you of the fruits of honest victory.”373 Horace White offered Lincoln this consoling message: “I don’t think it possible for you to feel more disappointed than I do, with this defeat, but your popular majority in the State will give us the privilege of naming our man on the national ticket in 1860—either President or Vice Pres’t. Then, let me assure you, Abe Lincoln shall be an honored name before the American people.… I believe you have risen to a national reputation & position more rapidly than any other man who ever rose at all.”374 Dr. James Smith, pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, consoled Lincoln by assuring him that the work he had performed would make him president one day. “If I am President,” Lincoln replied, perhaps jocularly, “I will make you Consul at Dundee.”375 (Three years later he did precisely that.)

  Lincoln was also gaining respect in the East. Chester P. Dewey of the New York Evening Post told him in late October, “I find that the N. Y. Republicans who were in love with Douglas, are rather more inclined to take a different view now. They find much to admire & praise in your conduct of the campaign & be assured that you have made hosts of warm friends at the East.”376 Another resident of the Empire State, John O. Johnson, reported that the debates had won Lincoln “golden opinions” and “hosts of friends here.”377 In the Portland, Maine, Advertiser, James G. Blaine observed that the debates secured for Lincoln “a wide-spread and most honorable reputation as a man of fine intellect, of ready and condensed power, and of chivalric and statesmanlike bearing.”378 Horace Greeley declared that “the man who stumps a State with Stephen A. Douglas, and meets him, day after day, before the people, has got to be no fool. Many a man will make a better first speech than Douglas, but, giving and taking, back and forward, he is very sharp.… I don’t believe we have got another man living who would have fought through that campaign so effectively and at the same time so good-naturedly as he did.… Lincoln went through with perfect good nature and entire suavity, and beat Stephen A. Douglas.”379

  Lincoln’s admiring party colleagues began searching for a fitting next step, a leadership position that would both reward him and strengthen the Republican cause. One suggested that he run for the seat of Congressman Thomas Harris, who had died in November.

  Others, however, began referring to Lincoln as presidential timber. George W. Rives said of the election results: “I am One of the Sickest men you ever Saw. I can Stand it as to myself but the thought of Lincoln’s defeat is almost too much for me to Stand.” Yet, he added, “We Must bear it—Now I am for Lincoln for the nomination for president in 1860.”380 The first known public suggestion that Lincoln should receive that nomination came from Israel Green, who had helped found the Republican Party in Ohio in 1854 and two years later served as a delegate to the party’s national convention. Writing on November 6 to the Cincinnati Gazette, Green proposed Lincoln for president and John Pendleton Kennedy of Maryland as his running mate. Two days later, the Illinois Gazette of Lacon declared that Lincoln “should be the standard-bearer of the Republican party for the Presidency in 1860.”381 Soon thereafter the Chicago Democrat recommended that Illinois Republicans “present his name to the National Republican Convention, first for President, and next for Vice President.”382 In November and December, other papers, both in state (the Illinois State Journal, the Illinois State Register, the Olney Times, the Rockford Republican) and out of state (the New York Herald, the Reading, Pennsylvania, Journal), mentioned Lincoln as a potential presidential candidate. The following spring, when the editor of the Central Illinois Gazette in West Urbana suggested to him that he should seek the presidency, Lincoln modestly pooh-poohed the idea. The editor nonetheless endorsed him on May 4. In the summer of 1859, Josiah M. Lucas reported from Washington that “I have heard various prominent men lately freely express themselves to me, and in crowds also, that Lincoln is the best man that we have got to run for the next President.”383

  While the debates significantly improved Lincoln’s chances for the presidency, they materially injured Douglas’s. Disillusioned by the “Freeport heresy,” and even more by the Little Giant’s refusal to support the Lecompton Constitution and a federal slave code for the territories, Southerners turned on the senator; in December, his Democratic colleagues deposed him from the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Territories. In 1860, the South refused to support his presidential bid for reasons spelled out by Louisiana Senator Judah P. Benjamin: “We accuse him of this, to wit: that having bargained with us upon a point upon which we were at issue [slavery in the territories], that it should be considered a judicial point; that he would abide the decision; that he would act under the decision, and consider it a doctrine of the party; that having said that to us here in the Senate, he went home, and under the stress of a local election, his knees gave way; his whole person trembled. His adversary stood upon principle and was beaten; and lo he is the candidate of the mighty party for the Presidency of the United States. The Senator from Illinois faltered. He got the prize for which he faltered, but lo, the grand prize of his ambition slips from his grasp because of his faltering which he paid as the price for the ignoble prize—ignoble under the circumstances under which he attained it.”384 The debate at Freeport, along with his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, had wrecked Douglas’s chances to become president.

  The campaign against Lincoln diminished Douglas in the eyes of many Northerners, too. Horace Greeley, who had championed the senator’s candidacy, said that Douglas’s campaign “has stamped him first among county or ward politicians” and “has evinced a striking a
bsence of the far higher qualities of statesmanship.” His speeches lacked “the breadth of view, the dignity, the courtesy to his opponent” that mark the true statesman. “They are plainly addressed to an excited crowd at some railway station, and seem uttered in unconsciousness that the whole American People are virtually his deeply interested though not intensely excited auditors. They are volcanic and scathing, but lack the repose of conscious strength, the calmness of conscious right.”385

  Douglas’s 1858 victory, then, came at ruinous cost. Hurt by his own tactics and language, he was irreversibly connected to a doctrine—popular sovereignty—whose time had come and gone. It no longer satisfied either North or South. He soon would suffer decline, defeat, and an early death.

  In 1859, looking back on the race against Douglas, Lincoln took some pride in its results. “Slavery is doomed,” he told David R. Locke, “and that within a few years. Even Judge Douglas admits it to be an evil, and an evil can’t stand discussion. In discussing it we have taught a great many thousands of people to hate it who would had never given it a thought before. What kills the skunk is the publicity it gives itself. What a skunk wants to do is to keep snug under the barn—in the day-time, when men are around with shot-guns.”386