H. Ford Douglas, an eloquent black abolitionist from Chicago, asked an antislavery gathering in Massachusetts “if any man can tell me the difference between the anti-slavery of Abraham Lincoln, and the anti-slavery of the old Whig party, or the anti-slavery of Henry Clay,” who “was just as odious to the anti-slavery cause and anti-slavery men as ever was John C. Calhoun.… I do not believe in the anti-slavery of Abraham Lincoln, because he is on the side of this Slave Power.” Douglas alleged that Lincoln in 1858 had refused his request to sign a petition calling for the repeal of Illinois’s infamous black laws. He also complained that in 1849 Lincoln “introduced, on his own responsibility, a fugitive slave law for the District of Columbia.”72
Rising from the audience, Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson challenged Douglas’s version of that proposed 1849 statute. “Mr. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, a slave State, and went to Illinois, and living in a portion of that State which did not entertain the sentiments of this State [Massachusetts], and with a constituency living under what he called the Black Laws of Illinois, he went into Congress and proposed to make the District of Columbia free. I think that he should be honored for that and not misrepresented.” Wilson passionately admonished the assembled opponents of slavery: “When you undertake to arraign men who, in the halls of Congress, before dominating majorities, in a city where public sentiment is against them, where the sneer and the profane word meet them at every step in the streets, are true to the right, I ask you when you deal with such men that you shall do them justice, and that if they have done good deeds and brave deeds, that you say it.” Wilson declared that Lincoln was “ahead of the Anti-Slavery sentiment of the Republican party, rather than behind it.” No one, Wilson added, “ever grew faster in intellectual stature than Mr. Lincoln, from the time he commenced the contest with Douglas till the day he received the Chicago nomination.”73
In addition to Wilson, some other Radicals were willing to make allowances for Lincoln. Although the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society chastised him for supporting the Fugitive Slave Act, for opposing citizenship rights for blacks, and for advocating a timid approach to abolition in the District of Columbia, it nevertheless acknowledged that “it is due to truth and candor to say that, as between him and his opponents, and on the issues involved in the present contest, the election of Abraham Lincoln will be a great and encouraging triumph.”74
As the campaign wore on, H. Ford Douglas came to regard Lincoln more favorably, reasoning that even if there was little difference between Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, “there is in the Republican party a strong anti-slavery element. And though the party will do nothing for freedom now, that element will increase; and before long—I trust—springing up from the ruins of the Republican party will come a great anti-slavery party.” So he endorsed Lincoln.75 Another black abolitionist, John Mercer Langston of Ohio, also supported Lincoln even though he thought that the candidate’s “ground on the score of humanity” was “too low” and “did him no honor.”76
H. Ford Douglas was not the only Radical to criticize Lincoln’s 1849 bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. In May, the antislavery purist Wendell Phillips cited that legislation as justification for calling the Republican standard-bearer “the slave hound of Illinois,” a “knave,” a “huckster in politics,” and “a county court lawyer, whose only recommendation was that, out of the emptiness of his past, lying newspapers could make him any character they pleased.”77 He paid Lincoln the dubious compliment of being candid: “I wish I could say of Mr. Lincoln, as I can of Giddings or Sumner, when I see him swearing to support the Constitution of the United States, ‘I respect him so much that I do not believe he will do what he promises.’ ”78 Curiously, Phillips compared Lincoln unfavorably to Seward because the latter had enunciated the “great philosophical principle” of the “irrepressible conflict” while the former “is merely known as the antagonist of Douglas.”79 Readers of Phillips’s philippic were quick to point out that Lincoln’s “House Divided” address clearly spelled out the same thesis as that of Seward’s Rochester speech, delivered five months after the Rail-splitter’s.
Phillips’s attack did not go unchallenged. The Connecticut antislavery editor Joseph Hawley indignantly protested against it. “I know Mr. Lincoln; he is not quite up to my standard,” Hawley told the Massachusetts abolitionist orator, “but he has always been ahead of his neighbors; he has fought gallantly, honorably and unselfishly.” Phillips’s criticism of Lincoln made Hawley feel “really insulted, grossly wronged.” Applying such “savage epithets” to Lincoln was worthy of an irresponsible Radical like Parker Pillsbury, but not of a gentleman, Hawley declared.80 A “highly esteemed friend and long-time supporter” of the New York National Anti-Slavery Standard called Phillips’s attack a “calumny against Lincoln.”81 The New York Tribune also protested against Phillips’s “calumnious,” “unfounded,” “reckless,” and “unmanly” condemnation of Lincoln’s proposal to abolish slavery in Washington; his strictures were a “gross misrepresentation” that constituted “a slander.”82
A fellow Massachusetts abolitionist, Edward Lillie Pierce, gently but firmly disagreed with Phillips, describing Lincoln as “an able lawyer, a fair disputant and an honest man.” Pierce asserted that “[f]ew public men of our time have in their discourses treated slavery as a wrong more logically and feelingly” than Lincoln. To be sure, he may have “a technical record in favor of legislation by Congress for the rendition of fugitive slaves,” but so did Seward and John Quincy Adams. (The Albany Evening Journal echoed that point, stating that Lincoln’s 1849 emancipation bill was “a project somewhat similar to those which were proposed by John Quincy Adams and Gov. Seward, and if there is any more reasonable and practicable way of legislating on the subject at all, we should like to hear it proposed.”)83 “Considering the community and associations among which he was reared & has lived,” Pierce concluded, “I think Lincoln stands as well as they [Seward and Adams] do on record. And whatever may have been his technical record, I believe that ‘he himself is right’!”84
In September, when antislavery Radicals gathered in Worcester, Massachusetts, to choose an alternative to Lincoln, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (who styled himself “a rather radical Republican”) told the convention that “he was glad of the excellence of the Republican nominations for President and Governor [John A. Andrew], and intended, for himself, to go for them.”85 Charles Sumner, the most radical antislavery member of the U.S. senate, paid tribute to Lincoln as one “whose ability, so conspicuously shown in his own State, attracted at once the admiration of the whole country, whose character no breath has touched, and whose heart is large enough to embrace the broad Republic and all its people.”86 Other abolitionists supporting Lincoln included Henry B. Stanton, Elizur Wright, Theodore Tilton, Sydney Howard Gay, Moncure D. Conway, William H. Burleigh, John Jay, George Luther Stearns, Richard Hinton, John Wallace Hutchinson, and David Lee Child.
The conservative New York Herald predicted that Phillips’s speech exposing “the inconsistency and insincerity of ‘honest Abe’ ” would seriously hurt the candidate.87 An Illinoisan reported that Radical Republicans in his state “find it very hard to support Lincoln, on account of his position on the fugitive slave law, slavery in the District of Columbia, the admission of slave states, &c. They think he is not so good as the Chicago platform, and too much like his political progenitor, Henry Clay.”88
Moderate and conservative Republicans were more uniformly enthusiastic about Lincoln. Senator James Dixon of Connecticut, who disapproved of Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, nevertheless said his was “as good a nomination as could have been made” and predicted that he would run well and “as a President he will be capable & incorruptible.… I know him well. He is a man of more than average talents—and as honest as the light of day.”89 Daniel Ullman, the Know-Nothing candidate for governor of New York in 1856, praised Lincoln as the true heir of Henry Clay. William L. Dayton of New Jersey decl
ared that, except for slaveholders themselves, “he did not believe there was a man in the whole country more conservative in his views on the question of Slavery than Abraham Lincoln.”90
Some Northern Democrats also had positive things to say. In New Hampshire they called Lincoln “a man of respectable character and talents” and complimented the Republicans on the “improvement they have made over 1856.”91 In neighboring Massachusetts, a Democratic paper remarked that Lincoln’s nomination “is a strong one, and will be difficult to defeat, and those who flatter themselves that the Democrats are to walk over the Presidential course with ease will find themselves mistaken. The Convention at Chicago has given evidence of shrewdness, no less in the nomination of Mr. Lincoln than in the platform adopted, which is progressive without being ultra.”92
Even some Southerners praised Lincoln. William L. Goggin, a prominent Virginia supporter of Bell, lauded his industry and character. George D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville Journal, described the Republican standard-bearer as “a genial, delightful, and high toned gentleman, whose pleasant hospitality we have enjoyed, and, although we think him in great error in some of his political opinions, we have as much confidence in his patriotism as we have in that of any man except ourselves.”93 A dispatch from Louisville stated that there Lincoln “is liked for his honesty and sincerity, his Democratic habits and manners, and his Henry Clay type of character.”94 The New Orleans Bee called Lincoln “a man of agreeable manners, a ready and forcible speaker, self-made and self-taught, and personally popular among the burly sons of the West.”95
Douglas also spoke well of his opponent: “Lincoln and I have called each other some pretty hard names on the stump, but I’ll do him justice. He is an honest, able and very popular man,” a “very clever fellow; a kind-hearted, good-natured, amiable man. I have not the heart to say anything against Abe Lincoln; I have fought him so long that I have a respect for him.… I would not permit, without rebuke, any Democrat to say an unkind or disrespectful word about him.”96 To the Speaker of the U.S. House, the Little Giant stated: “I have competed with the most distinguished men in the country and I say the hardest man to beat I ever had to meet in combat, was Abraham Lincoln.”97 When it was speculated that the election might be thrown into the House of Representatives because no candidate would win a majority of the electoral votes, Douglas exclaimed: “By God, sir, the election shall never go into the House—before it shall go into the House, I will throw it over to Lincoln.”98
Lincoln returned the compliment, saying that with Douglas “he has had personally only the most friendly relations, for, notwithstanding their public argumentative and political contests, there has never been any quarrel between them.” For good measure he also praised John Bell as “an honorable, high-toned gentleman” and Breckinridge “as a man of considerable ability, who can make a scathing speech when occasion demands.”99
Formal Notification
Lincoln was correct in assessing his wife’s enthusiasm about the nomination. As the exceedingly ambitious Mary Lincoln and the rest of Springfield anxiously awaited news from the convention, she “said she thought she had more interest and concern in whom the Chicago convention nominated than her husband.”100 A Springfield clergyman believed that Mrs. Lincoln would be so puffed up with pride that she “ought to be sent to the cooper’s and well secured against bursting with iron hoops.”101 Her childhood dream of becoming First Lady of the land was about to come true. (One Springfielder joked about Mrs. Lincoln’s ambition, speculating that if Lincoln died before inauguration day, she “like another Boadicea, will repair to the ‘White House’ and assume the reins of government!”)102
Mary Lincoln busily prepared for the arrival of the official delegation which would formally notify her husband of his nomination. Lincoln was not looking forward to the ceremony, which he thought unnecessary. To friends he complained “that he had no idea what to say to the gentlemen.”103
Reaching the capital before the others was an advance party of that committee, including Ebenezer Peck, who suggested to some Springfielders that Mrs. Lincoln should be informed that her presence when the committee called would be inappropriate. Too timid to do so, the townsfolk replied: “Go up & tell her yourself.”104 When Peck and Gustave Koerner called at the Lincolns’ house, they were taken aback by the sight of brandy decanters, champagne baskets and glasses, cakes, and sandwiches all spread out. (The alcoholic beverages had been provided by Lincoln’s neighbors, who knew he was a teetotaler.) A black servant explained that the refreshments were for the committee. When Mrs. Lincoln came in and asked what Peck and Koerner thought of the repast she was providing for her guests, they replied that it was not advisable, for some of the committee members might be temperance men. She protested vigorously until Koerner finally instructed the black man to remove the refreshments. As he was doing so, she continued to argue. Overhearing the dispute, Lincoln entered the room and said: “Perhaps, Mary, these gentlemen are right. After all is over, we may see about it, and some may stay and have a good time.”105
When the committee did call on the evening of May 19, Mrs. Lincoln swept into the parlor wearing a fancy low-neck dress. Lincoln, by contrast, looked anything but statesmanlike in his new but ill-fitting black suit. When the dignitaries arrived, he bowed awkwardly, evidently feeling ill-at-ease. One of the guests thought he resembled “an ungainly school-boy standing alone before a critical audience.”106 After George Ashmun, head of the delegation, briefly explained their mission, Lincoln replied that he was “[d]eeply, and even painfully sensible of the great responsibility which is inseparable from that honor—a responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon some one of the far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose distinguished names were before the Convention.” He promised to consider the proffered nomination carefully and reply soon in writing.107
Despite his initial awkwardness, Lincoln made a favorable impression on his visitors, most of whom felt completely at ease in his house. A Massachusetts member of the delegation thought “nothing could have been more elegant and appropriate” than Lincoln’s brief response.108 After the formalities, the host and guests chatted amiably for over an hour. George G. Fogg, secretary of the Republican National Committee, was impressed by “the unerring quickness with which he recognized every man whom he had, though ever so casually, met before, and the distinctness with which he recollected the time and place of such meeting.”109
During the exchange of pleasantries, Lincoln asked William D. Kelley his height. When that Pennsylvania congressman replied 6 feet 3 inches, the candidate said he was 6 feet 4 inches. “Then,” Kelley quipped, “Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for years my heart has been aching for a President that I could look up to, and I’ve found him at last in the land where we thought there was none but little giants.”110 (Months later, when Kelley asked Lincoln for permission to dedicate his two-volume treatise on international law to him, Lincoln consented as long as “the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect.”)111
After leaving, the committee members expressed relief and gratification. Kelley declared: “Well, we might have done a more brilliant thing, but we could hardly have done a better thing.”112 A New Englander observed, “I was afraid I should meet a gigantic rail-splitter, with the manners of a flatboatman, and the ugliest face in creation; and he’s a complete gentleman.”113
Not everyone had such a positive impression of Lincoln. Edwin D. Morgan, shocked when the committee was greeted by Willie and Tad Lincoln looking like ragamuffins, came away especially skeptical. According to Carl Schurz, some committee members “could not quite conceal their misgivings as to how this single-minded man, this child of nature, would bear himself in the contact with the great world and in the face of the large and complicated problems, for grappling with which he had apparently so scant an equipment.”114
Other Republicans shared that wor
ry. Robert H. Morris of Chicago called Lincoln “honest, well-meaning & amiable,” but with insufficient backbone. “In trying to please everybody he may fail to satisfy anybody.—From my own knowledge of the man I should say, if elected it will be very hard work for him to be President.”115 Connecticut Senator James Dixon, who had served in Congress with Lincoln, said privately, “I think he is rather credulous & unsuspecting, and may possibly be exposed to the craft & cunning of men, who professing honesty, may take advantage of him.”116 Perhaps the skeptics would have been reassured by the assessment of a Springfield Democrat, who argued that a man “engaged in political life so long as has been Mr. Lincoln, surrounded by all the temptation to rascality and sharp dealing of Western life, coming out unscathed, and with unblemished reputation for integrity must have not only a will, but one that is very determined.”117
As he composed his acceptance letter, Lincoln heard from several leaders urging him to placate Know-Nothings by shying away from the platform’s immigration provisions. Papers like the Boston Atlas and the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser deplored the so-called Dutch planks. E. B. Washburne warned that the “Pennsylvanians, of American proclivities, are somewhat troubled by the Anti-Know [Not]hing planks, and they have appealed to me to write you and suggest that in your letter of acceptance you say nothing about the platform, so they can support you, without committing themselves to those planks. I really think the suggestions are worth considering.”118 In Indiana, his old friend from congressional days, Richard W. Thompson, followed suit. Ignoring such counsel, Lincoln wrote a short formal letter of acceptance in which he endorsed the entire party platform: “The declaration of principles and sentiments, which accompanies your letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate, or disregard it, in any part. Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention; to the rights of all the states, and territories, and people of the nation; to the inviolability of the constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and prosperity of all, I am most happy to co-operate for the practical success of the principles declared by the convention.”119
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