The numbers were brought in to them, city by city and county by county, by a runner from the local office of the Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company. The returns from nearby places naturally arrived first. Every time Lincoln won a city or county in Illinois, all of the people cheered. When Illinois looked to be won, Lincoln, ever phlegmatic, said only, “Had it been otherwise, we would be in trouble.” Later, growing anxious to hear the results more quickly, the group walked over to the offices of I&M itself, on the second floor of a building on the north side of the square.
The telegraph room held several wooden desks, the telegraphers’ swivel chairs, and a couple of wooden file cabinets. On each desk sat a pad of three-by-five mustard-colored paper on which the telegraphers could translate the incoming dots and dashes of the Morse code into English. Each desk also held a brass telegraph key, set atop a polished wooden block.
The chief telegrapher on duty greeted them, then turned back to transcribing incoming messages and tapping out those being dispatched elsewhere.
Lincoln stared at the small rolls of paper tape—called registers—that sat next to each telegraph key, on which incoming dots and dashes, heard audibly in the room as beeps, were reduced to small spots of ink. By the next day, he thought, those inky dots would let him know one of two things—that he would be the next president of the United States or that his dreams would be consigned to the dustbin of history. Lincoln assumed Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell were watching similar returns elsewhere in the country. Douglas, he knew, was still in Alabama, where he had been campaigning.
Somewhat later in the evening, when the New England states had unanimously moved into Lincoln’s column, along with Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota, Herndon said, “Lincoln, Pennsylvania and Indiana are almost certainly going to go for you, and I am quite confident about New York. I think we are going to win the whole thing.”
“You know how I feel about counting your chickens, Billy...”
“I do, but I’m hungry. The Republican ladies of Springfield have set up refreshments in front of the ice cream parlor across the square. Let’s go there, eat and drink and come back here later to savor the final victory.”
And so they went, although Lincoln shrank away—as politely as he could—from those who wanted to congratulate him even though the final result was still unknown. Mary was there, too, of course, and he tried to assure her that victory was in hand. He could tell, though, that Mary, who had lived politics since she was a small girl in a political family, was not persuaded. “I am not going to bed until we know for sure,” she said. And yet, even without final victory in hand, but only anticipated, he could already feel the weight and formality of the office he might assume begin to come between him and these good men and women of Springfield, many of whom he had known all of his adult life.
In late evening, Lincoln and the others returned to the telegraph office. But it was in the early hours of the morning that the results came in from New York, with its trove of thirty-five electoral votes—more than 20 percent of the 152 needed for victory. Finally, New York was declared won, and a boisterous cheer went up in the room. But even assuming Lincoln were to win California and Oregon, with their combined 7 electoral votes, he would only be at 140, still 12 short. Either Pennsylvania, with 27, or Indiana, with 13, could put him over the top.
The results from Pennsylvania and Indiana, though, had still not come in, by early morning of the next day. No one understood why, since those states were not very far away. Lincoln spent the night sleeping on a couch in the telegraph office.
He was awakened by Hay saying, “Mr. Lincoln, the Indiana and Pennsylvania results are coming in.” Lincoln sat up, heard the cacophony of two separate keys beeping and watched them as they moved up and down.
“Is one telegraph key bringing the results from Indiana, and the other from Pennsylvania?” he said.
“Yes,” said one of the telegraphers.
“Hay, you tally the results from the Indiana key,” Lincoln said. “I’ll take Pennsylvania.”
“I need a pencil,” Hay said. One of the telegraphers started to hand him one. Instead of taking it, Hay, who’d worn a bowler into the office earlier in the evening, lifted it off the hat rack on which he’d hung it and, bowing, extracted a pencil from the hatband. Lincoln laughed hard.
Over the next half hour, one telegrapher handed Lincoln the Pennsylvania results as they came in. Using his own pencil, Lincoln tallied them on one of the mustard-yellow sheets.
Lincoln finished his total first. “Johnny, I’ve lost Pennsylvania by almost 7,000 votes.” He said it without emotion.
Hay paused in his own count of Indiana and said, “Before considering Pennsylvania and Indiana, you had already garnered 133 electoral votes from the other states. Pennsylvania, with its 27, would have put you way over the 152 you need to win. But now you’re not going to have those 27 Pennsylvania votes. So even if you get California and Oregon, you’ll only be at 140. Not enough.”
“Well, Johnny, there’s still Indiana,” Lincoln said. “It may have only 13 electoral votes, but assuming we land the 7 that are out there in California and Oregon, Indiana would get me to 153. Which would be enough, if only by one.”
After a few minutes, Hay said, “Mr. Lincoln, I’m sorry. I think you’ve lost Indiana by about 5,000 votes. So, even if we assume California and Oregon have gone for you—which we won’t know for sure for days, or even weeks—without Indiana you’ll still end up with only 140 electoral votes, 12 shy of the 152 that you need.” He paused. “And there are no other states left to count.” He looked over at Lincoln, who was still sitting on the couch, staring at the floor.
Lincoln looked up and said, “Well, Johnny, we’ve lost. No, I’ve lost. There’s no one to blame but myself.”
Herndon, who’d come back into the room at some point and had been listening quietly said, “No, Lincoln, you’ve simply failed to win this round. But no one else has won it either. The next round will be in the House of Representatives.”
63
Washington, DC
United States House of Representatives
November 8, 1860
William Pennington looked around him and marveled at the situation in which he found himself—ensconced behind an elegant desk in the opulent Speaker’s Room of the United States House of Representatives, complete with high ceilings, a large fireplace and carved marble pediments. He was there because, in a situation he could not have imagined in his wildest dreams, he was the Speaker of the House, and had been since February. Even more amazingly, he had been elected to that high position despite the fact that he was only serving his first term in Congress.
One of his two clerks, a man named Jeremiah Jarvis, came in and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. There is a man to see you name of Horace Trenton. Here is his calling card. Like most such these days it bears only his name.”
Pennington turned the card over in his hand but said nothing.
Hearing no response from Pennington, Jarvis said, “He says he has come as a representative of Senator Douglas. As it is almost evening, should I ask him to come back tomorrow?”
“No, I am expecting him, Mr. Jarvis. Please show him in.”
The man who entered a moment later looked to be in his midfifties and was tall, with muttonchop whiskers, perhaps intended to set off the fact that he was quite bald up top.
Pennington rose to greet him. After they had introduced one another and shaken hands, Pennington directed him to one of the two black horsehair couches that faced each other across a low table, and took a seat on the other one.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Speaker, and with no formal introduction.”
“It is not a problem. Well, what can I do for you, sir? When your appointment was arranged I was told you were coming on behalf of Senator Douglas.”
“Yes, I was Senator Douglas’s camp
aign chairman in Philadelphia, and he has entrusted me with a special errand.”
“Congratulations on a successful campaign there. Along with whoever ran the senator’s campaign in Indiana, you have managed to deny Mr. Lincoln the presidency. For now at least.”
“That is what I wanted to talk with you about—the for now part. As you know, the electoral votes, cast by the electors in each state, will be counted in early March here in Washington, as provided by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, before a joint meeting of the Senate and the House.”
“Yes, but the counting of the ballots will be presided over by the president of the Senate, our current vice president, Mr. Breckinridge. I will have no role in that process.”
“Do you mind, Mr. Speaker, if I get up and walk about a bit? Or lean against something? I have a very bad back, and sitting is hard for me.”
“Not at all. If you want to lean against a wall, try the wall right next to the three marble heads over there.” He pointed to them. “They came with the room.”
Trenton got up and walked over to them. “Washington and Jefferson are easy to identify.” He peered down at the final one. “Who is the third man? I can’t make out his name on the plaque.”
“That is Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, the first Speaker of this House, back in 1789.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“I’m afraid he’s faded into history. As I soon will, too, since I was defeated for reelection to my House seat a few days ago.”
“I have heard that, and I’m sorry. Perhaps you’ll find something equally interesting to do in government when your term is finished.”
So there it is, Pennington thought. Whatever it is Mr. Trenton wants, he has subtly hinted, in an eminently deniable way, that if I do whatever it is Senator Douglas wants me to do, the good senator, if elected, will make sure I have something “interesting” to do in the next administration. He decided to avoid playing the game and just ask straight-out what they wanted.
“Mr. Trenton, this next May I will turn sixty-five years old. Many years ago now, in a time that seems almost beyond recall, I was a member of the New Jersey Legislature for several terms and subsequently, way back in the forties, governor of New Jersey for six years. So I am far too old to dance around things. What does Senator Douglas want?”
“He wants both you and Vice President Breckinridge to assure a fair count of the electoral votes.”
“How could it be unfair?”
“By allowing faithless electors to vote for a candidate other than the one they are pledged to.”
“You are worried that Mr. Lincoln, who looks to have 140 electoral votes if we assume he’ll also get California and Oregon, will find 12 faithless electors to vote for him, thus bringing him to a winning 152, even though they are pledged to vote for someone else?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, Mr. Trenton, that you are scheming to defeat the man who got both the most electoral votes and the most popular votes?”
“No. Politics is my business.”
“As it is mine, I suppose. But the issue of faithless electors is a matter for the states, Mr. Trenton. State law determines whether an elector may vote for a different candidate than the one to which he’s pledged.”
“Perhaps so, but if the states take no action, the Senate and House, acting together, could refuse to accept the votes of faithless electors.”
“Isn’t this a moot issue, Mr. Trenton? I see no way Lincoln can find 12 faithless electors, which is what he’ll need, assuming he also gets California and Oregon with their combined 7.”
“It nevertheless concerns us.”
Well, Pennington thought, I’m not going to find out today what Senator Douglas really wants. I will have to wait on that. He got up from the couch, where he’d been sitting the entire time and said, “Mr. Trenton, thank you for coming. I will keep your concerns in mind.”
“Thank you for hearing me out. If I might ask you a personal question, how did you come to be elected Speaker?”
“As a first-term member of this House?”
“Yes.”
“Well, as I’m sure you must know, the Republicans have a plurality in the current House, but, due to third parties, not a majority. So they and the Democrats went through forty-three ballots without being able to choose a Speaker. I was selected on the forty-fourth.”
“How did your selection solve the problem?”
“I was seen by both parties as a moderate Republican who wouldn’t do anything important while in office. Meanwhile, the Republican Party—which is my own party, of course—expects to have a firm majority in the next Congress. It can then replace me with someone they really want.”
“And you have obliged them by failing to be reelected.”
“Yes. Considerate of me, don’t you think?”
Trenton, no doubt sensing that Pennington wasn’t looking for an actual answer to his question, thanked him again and left.
After Trenton departed, Pennington walked over to a fourth bust that sat by itself in a niche on the opposite wall. It was of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States.
Pennington remembered very well the election in which Adams had been chosen. It was 1824, and neither Quincy, as Adams was universally called, nor his opponent, Andy Jackson, had garnered enough electoral votes to be elected. Under the procedures set forth in the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, the election had been thrown into the House of Representatives, where each state, no matter its size, had only one vote.
Pennington, like most people, had been shocked when the House elected Quincy, despite the fact that in the election itself Jackson had received both more electoral votes and more popular votes than Quincy.
Pennington had been only twenty-nine when that happened, but he still remembered the anger and bitterness that followed Adams’s ascension to the presidency. It had been known ever-after as the “corrupt bargain”—corrupt because it was widely believed that Henry Clay of Kentucky had thrown the votes of the three states he controlled—Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri—to Quincy Adams in exchange for being appointed Secretary of State.
Now, he thought, thirty-five years later, the presidential election was going to end up in the House again, with the same Twelfth Amendment rules. But there would nevertheless be a lot of parliamentary maneuvering before the vote, which, as the Speaker, he would control.
What would he be offered for his support? What did he want? Perhaps nothing?
He expected someone from the Lincoln campaign would be coming by soon.
64
Law Offices of Lincoln and Herndon
Springfield
November 10, 1860
“Billy, I have been reading the Constitution,” Lincoln said. He was stretched out in his favorite chair and, as usual, surrounded by heaps of newspapers and magazines. “In particular, the Twelfth Amendment.”
Herndon, who had been pacing back and forth across the office, hands behind his back, said, “By which old John Quincy Adams got himself selected as president?”
“Yes, back in ’24.”
“I actually remember that.” Herndon grinned. “I was six years old, and my parents were outraged. I think it was the first time I ever heard the word corrupt.”
“You know, Billy, I met Quincy Adams when he had returned to the House after finishing his supposedly ill-gotten presidency, back in ’48, when I was a first-term congressman.”
“Your only term, as I recall.”
He nodded. “That is true.”
“Lincoln, did you ever ask Quincy about the corrupt bargain he supposedly put together back in ’24?”
“Ha! I was a greenhorn first-termer. I felt honored he even deigned to speak with me. I certainly did not ask him about that.”
Herndon stopped pacing
and sat himself down in a chair at the end of the big table. Lincoln grabbed a few newspapers from his stack, came over and joined him.
“The way I figure it is this,” Lincoln said. “We now have a new campaign in front of us.”
“To find twelve so-called faithless electors so you’ll move from 140 to 152 electoral votes. Assuming you garner the 7 out on the Coast. Otherwise you’ll need 19 faithless souls.”
“No, I have been over at the statehouse for three days arguing with the Republican National Committee about that. They are going to pursue that idea. I am not. It’s a fool’s errand. Most of the Douglas and Breckinridge electors—and Bell’s, too, really—despise me and think that even a whiff of me anywhere near the White House will drive Southerners to immediate disunion.”
“I’m not convinced, but you’re the man running.”
“Also, we may have difficulty hanging on to all of our own electors.” He walked back over to the chair he’d been sitting in, sifted through the pile of newspapers he’d left behind, found the one he wanted and brought it back to the table.
He passed it to Herndon. “Look at the top article in the New York Herald.” Herndon read it, grimaced and handed it back without comment.
“So as you can see, the Herald is urging what is, in effect, an electoral college coup. Suggesting all of my electors abandon me and vote for someone—according to them—less destructive to the Union.”
“Well, that editor has never supported you,” Herndon said. “So it’s hardly surprising.”
“That is so. But now look at this, too, Billy.” Lincoln passed him another newspaper.
Herndon studied it and said, “My God. This says Alexander Hamilton’s son, John Church Hamilton, is urging your pledged New York electors to desert you. And he’s a Republican.”
“Yes. But aside from his name, he’s never had any power in New York politics, and that will not happen no matter who urges it. And in any case this whole business of chasing after faithless electors is a waste of time. No one is going to win that way.”
The Day Lincoln Lost Page 32
