The Day Lincoln Lost

by Charles Rosenberg

  “Nothing,” Lincoln said. “Perhaps you are rubbing the wrong head. Washington pretended to be above politics, but Quincy Adams certainly did not. Try him.”

  It was Pennington’s turn to laugh, but he did as Lincoln suggested. Adams, too, remained silent. “Well, Mr. Lincoln, I guess we are stuck with our own prognostications. I am the first to admit I have little idea what will happen when they count the electoral votes tomorrow. And, apparently, the journalists who have been trying to sniff out faithless electors also have no idea.”

  “It didn’t help that, when the electors caucused out in the states in December, many states made their electors meet in secret,” Lincoln said. “And...”

  Pennington finished his thought, “Then mailed in their ballots to the president of the Senate in sealed envelopes. Which won’t be opened until tomorrow! Are you sure you don’t want a drink, sir?”

  “Perfectly sure.”

  “I hate to say it, Mr. Lincoln, but I think you will not win a majority in the electoral college. Let us, therefore, turn to the contingent vote here in the House that will follow, where the odds may be better.”

  “Better in some ways,” Lincoln said. “But not in others. There used to be 33 states, and I needed the votes of only 17 delegations to have a majority of the states. With the admission of Kansas to the Union two weeks ago, there are now 34, and I need 18.”

  “Correct,” Pennington said. “You have 16 states definitely in your column, but now you will need to add 2 more instead of just 1 more.”

  “I am hopeful that Illinois will swing my way,” Lincoln said. “Others have been working on the Democratic congressmen from California, Oregon and Delaware, who could swing their state to me if they would switch their vote.”

  “Well, Mr. Lincoln, we will just have to wait and hope. But now we have three procedural matters to discuss.”

  Lincoln glanced over at the busts on the wall. “Will we need to consult the heads again?”

  “I think not.”

  69

  “Let me address the first matter,” Pennington said. “Assuming the electoral college vote yields no majority winner for president, do we want to let the Senate hold its contingent election for vice president first or let the House hold its contingent election for president first?”

  “Shouldn’t we, in fairness, consult Senator Douglas and Vice President Breckinridge as to their preferences?”

  “Senator Douglas’s representatives have told me that I should decide. They added that despite the fact that I was chosen as a consensus Speaker, I am a lifelong Republican, and no one will be offended if I act as a partisan in this particular matter.”

  “What about Vice President Breckinridge?”

  “As the current vice president, he will be presiding over the Senate, despite the fact that he is himself one of the three electoral college candidates for president. He has also left the choice on this matter to me. He described it as a courtesy.”

  Lincoln rose and began to pace the room, hands behind his back. Finally, he stopped and said, “Let us have the Senate’s contingent vote for vice president held first.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “That will force the senators, particularly the Democratic ones, to choose for vice president between my vice presidential running mate, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine and Douglas’s running mate, the pro-slavery, slave-owning former governor of Georgia, Herschel Johnson.”

  “I don’t quite see...”

  “Mr. Speaker, the senators will have to vote before knowing whether the House will later be able to choose a president. Which means that in choosing a vice president they will be staring a potential acting president in the face. I hope that will cause them to come to their patriotic senses and avoid picking a man who owns slaves and will, if he becomes acting president, likely take the Union down, no matter what he says now.”

  “I will inform the vice president of our choice of timing, then,” Pennington said. “But now there is a second question from someone else who wishes to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “The Sergeant at Arms of the House, who is, as you know, the protector of all of the members of the House as well as our guests.” Pennington leaned out his office door and said, “Mr. Jarvis, please send Mr. Hoffman in.”

  A large, burly man entered the room, and Pennington said, “Mr. Lincoln, this is our recently appointed Sergeant at Arms, Mr. Henry Hoffman. He is former member of this House from Maryland and has now returned as our protector.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lincoln,” Hoffman said. “May I say, I hope you will be our next president!”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir, and thank you for the thought. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company today?”

  “I am concerned about protecting you while you are our guest in the House tomorrow.”

  “Do you think I will need protection?”

  “Yes. There have been many threats against you. Most are probably exaggerated, but I have been talking with Allan Pinkerton, who shares my concerns.”

  Lincoln smiled. “Ah, Mr. Pinkerton. My guardian angel.”

  “He thinks of himself that way, I believe,” Hoffman said.

  “I assume you have some advice for me, Mr. Hoffman, in regard to these threats.”

  “I do. First, I must ask a question. I understand the electoral college votes will be counted tomorrow in the Senate, with the entire Congress in attendance.”

  “That is indeed what the Twelfth Amendment mandates.”

  “That will be a very large crowd gathered in a very small space. And we have had, as you know, bad experiences on the Senate floor not so long ago.”

  Lincoln knew he was referring to an episode several years before in which an irate Southern congressman had beaten radical Republican Senator Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death at his desk in the Senate, using a metal-tipped cane.

  Hoffman was continuing. “I understand that since you are a candidate, Vice President Breckinridge, who will preside over the Senate in his capacity as vice president, has extended you an invitation to attend the counting of the electoral ballots.”

  “He has very kindly issued me that invitation, yes.”

  Hoffman glanced at Pennington, as if seeking permission to say what he was about to say. Then he plunged ahead, “I’d request that you not go.”

  “Even though I am the candidate most likely to win if anyone wins in the electoral college vote?”

  “Yes, and to make you more comfortable about that, I have also persuaded Senator Douglas to forgo attendance, despite being a sitting senator, and he has agreed.”

  Lincoln raised his eyebrows. “And Douglas will not attend even the contingent vote for vice president that follows in the Senate in the event there is no electoral vote winner for that office?”

  “Correct. Unless there is a tie in the contingent election and his vote is needed to break it.”

  “I will need to think on that,” Lincoln said. “I will let Speaker Pennington know my decision.”

  “Thank you. There is more, however. I assume you will want to attend the contingent election in the House if there is one, since it might elect you as our next president.”

  “Yes, that I must attend.”

  “I understand, sir. But because you are a former member of this House, you have the privilege of the floor and could be on the House floor during the vote.”

  “I intend to do that,” Lincoln said.

  “I would ask that instead you sit in the House gallery during the vote. Both Senator Douglas and Vice President Breckinridge have already agreed to do so.”

  Lincoln grinned. “So we will be like three peas in a pod.”

  Hoffman laughed, albeit nervously. “I plan to drop the pod and keep you all as peas some ways apart. And the press will be kept well away, of cours
e.”

  “Alright,” Lincoln said. “I will let you know my decision on that by this evening.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hoffman, for coming and letting me know your concerns,” Lincoln said. “And thank you for your hard work on this.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  After Hoffman had left, Lincoln said, “Mr. Speaker, you said there were three procedural questions. What is the third?”

  “It is simple. Five Southern states have seceded.”

  “No, they have announced they are seceding, but they have no right to do so. The Union is perpetual.”

  “Agreed. But they have nonetheless announced and many of their representatives and senators have resigned, or in some cases, just left. Indeed, last month Senator Jefferson Davis gave a formal farewell speech.”

  “Please get to the point, Mr. Speaker, as it is growing late.”

  “The point is this. I have met with the parliamentarian of the House, who for reasons I have not been here long enough to understand, is called the Messenger to the Speaker.”

  Lincoln chuckled. “And he has spoken to you about something. As if from on high.”

  “Yes, for purposes of the contingent election only, the House could declare, so long as the Senate concurs, that there are now only 29 states with the right to vote in the contingent election, even if representatives from the seceding states are still here.”

  Lincoln got up and walked over to the bust of George Washington. “I don’t suppose I need to ask George here to calculate it for me. If the supposedly seceded Southern states were ruled no longer present in the Congress, those resolutions would pass.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then, with only 29 states left my 16 states would easily be a majority, and I would be elected president.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Speaker, if I were to countenance that, I will have conceded the right of the Deep South states to depart, and I suspect the other Southern states and the Border states would quickly follow.”

  “It guarantees you the presidency,” Pennington said. “And avoids the possibility that the slaveholder Herschel Johnson of Georgia, would become acting president of our Union.”

  “It would be a Union not much worth having.”

  “You will not countenance it, then?”

  “No, and if I am elected in that fashion, I will decline to take the oath of office. There is only one Union, which has 34 states, and that is the one I intend to lead.”

  There was a long silence.

  Finally, Pennington said, “Alright, I will not do it.”

  “Thank you. And to make your task at least somewhat less of a burden, I will accede to the wishes of the Sergeant at Arms and not attend the counting of electoral votes in the Senate tomorrow, nor the contingent election for vice president that will follow.”

  “Will you agree to sit in the House gallery, rather than on the floor, for the contingent election for president?”

  “Yes. So long as Douglas and Breckinridge are both there.”

  “I will guarantee it.”

  70

  February 13

  The House of Representatives

  The counting of the electoral votes had been scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Lincoln had arrived in the Speaker’s Room around 9:00 a.m. and had met briefly with Pennington, who left shortly thereafter. From time to time Jarvis came in and inquired if he wished something to drink or eat. He had politely declined each time.

  It was now noon.

  Lincoln noticed a small pendulum clock on a table in one corner of the room. He stared at it for a while, watching the pendulum move back and forth through its arc. He wondered whether the clock was ticking away the end of his political career or heralding the start of something he’d long strived to achieve. He hadn’t realized until recently that he might achieve it only to confront the young republic’s greatest crisis.

  He finally dozed off.

  Jarvis’s voice awakened him. “Mr. Lincoln, there is someone here to see you who claims to know you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A Mrs. Foster.”

  Lincoln blinked, decided to ignore the potential adverse political consequences of seeing her again—the popular election was over—and said, “Show her in, please.”

  “That will leave you alone with a woman,” Jarvis said. “Would you like me to stay lest people say things?”

  “People have already said I am the spawn of the devil, so it will hardly matter. I will see her alone.”

  A moment later, Abby walked in and said, “Abraham, I found myself in Washington on another matter today, and the congressman I called on earlier this morning told me you were likely to be with the Speaker.”

  Lincoln smiled “As indeed I am. It is a pleasure to see you again, Abby. Will you please have a seat?”

  “I thank you, but I would prefer to stand. What I have to stay will take not long.”

  Lincoln laughed. “Ah, because you have come simply to wish me a quick good luck?”

  Lincoln thought he detected a trace of a smile on her face, but it quickly vanished, and she said, “No, for as you know, I have no preference in this election.”

  “As you have said many times.”

  “I came to see you because it seems likely to me that you will soon be the most powerful man in the United States. If that comes to pass, I beseech you to use your powers to help the slave.”

  “I hate slavery as much, I think, as you do, Abby. I will try to do what I can.”

  “Abraham, there is a gulf as wide as the ocean between trying to do something and actually doing it.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “Goodbye, then. Perhaps the next time I see you, I will call you Mr. President.”

  “If that transpires, Abby, you may always call me by whatever name you wish. Although I think the odds are that I am going to leave here today the same way I came in—as plain Abe Lincoln, a lawyer from Springfield, Illinois.”

  After she left, Lincoln returned to watching the clock. In not too long, a voice behind him said, “The electoral vote count is completed.”

  It was Pennington, accompanied by the Sergeant at Arms.

  “Who won?” Lincoln said.

  “No one polled a majority of the electoral votes,” Pennington said.

  “What was my actual count?”

  “You were first with 140 electoral votes. The remaining 163 were split four ways, exactly as expected, with Douglas in second place, Breckinridge in third and Bell in fourth.”

  Lincoln rose from his chair and stretched his lanky frame. “So, there were no faithless electors.”

  “Not a single one,” Pennington said.

  “I guess faithless electors are a bit like leprechauns,” Hoffman said. “Oft talked about but rarely seen.”

  They all laughed, and Lincoln said. “Who won the contingent election for vice president in the Senate?”

  “Herschel Johnson,” Hoffman said. “If you are elected president, what will you do about him?”

  “Endure him, I suppose,” Lincoln said. “As one must endure so many things in life...and in government.”

  Pennington glanced at the clock, whose dial read one o’clock. “The House will convene at 2:00 p.m.,” he said, “to conduct the contingent election for president of the United States. Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Hoffman will escort you to the House gallery.”

  “Thank you both.”

  “Godspeed, sir,” Pennington said. “Our country needs you.”

  * * *

  Not long after, inside the House chamber, Hoffman assisted Lincoln down the steep gallery steps to his seat, which was in the third row back from the front. The rows immediately in front of him were empty, as were the seats immediately to his left and right.


  Lincoln looked to his left and saw Senator Douglas sitting three seats over. Three seats to his right was Vice President Breckinridge. They both avoided looking at him.

  Behind Douglas there was an entourage of seven or eight people, and about the same number behind Breckinridge. He turned and looked behind his own seat and saw an equal number. Amid the crowd, he spotted Annabelle, sitting at the very back, next to the entry door. His face broke out in a broad smile. He gave her a special wave, and she waved back.

  Lincoln looked toward the floor of the House and tried to count the number of representatives gathered there. A full complement, now that Kansas had been added, would be 238. But he could tell from the many empty desks that a lot of Southern state representatives had departed. Looking at the desks—each a small wooden writing desk with a hinged top and scroll legs—brought back to mind the two years he had spent on that floor in the late ’30s. Congressmen didn’t have offices, so the desk, and whatever a man could get inside it, on top of it or on the floor around it, made up his entire work space.

  At 2:00 p.m. sharp by the clock on the wall, Pennington, standing on the rostrum beneath two crossed American flags, with a large portrait of Washington to his right and one of Lafayette to his left, banged his gavel and said, “The House will come to order. I am informed by the president of the Senate that he has caused to be counted the electoral votes forwarded to him by the presidential electors, and that no candidate for president or vice president has received a majority of the electoral votes.”

  He took a deep breath, looked out at the gathered congressmen, over whom a hush had fallen, and said, “Now, accordingly, pursuant to the procedures required of us by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, we will conduct an election for the office of president of the United States from among the three candidates in the election who received the most electoral votes. He looked down at a piece of paper and said, “Those three candidates are, in order of the total electoral votes received, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge.”

  He looked up at the gallery as if to acknowledge the presence of the candidates. “Let the record reflect that each candidate is present in the gallery of the House.”