spect. This was no time, of course, for making proselytes in the slave States; a Republican convention held at Baltimore in April, over which Montgomery Blair presided, had been mobbed and broken up; nor could Southern men even like the Blairs give the party a decent footing within the slave borders. But throughout the free States, and wherever the Republican banner was flung to the breeze, Lincoln's quiet influence was felt, strengthening and consolidating his followers. Disappointed aspirants were soothed and reassured by his solicitude. Seward, with a calm philosophy which the godlike Webster had failed to exemplify, put defeated aspirations aside and in a few weeks was seen stumping the States East and West on Lincoln's behalf. Party managers at first dejected soon worked for the candidate with a will. Edward Bates, of Missouri, was one of the earliest to indorse the nomination. Cameron lent his hand in Pennsylvania to admirable arrangements for carrying that State over to the cause. The Republicans had some excellent popular orators, Fessenden, Hale, Wilson, Seward, Chase, Trumbull, Adams, Burlingame, Corwin, Sherman, Stevens, and Caleb B. Smith, among those who now or formerly figured in Congress; and not the least among such as had no political antecedents was Carl Schurz, a young foreigner who spoke good English, but whose special aptitude for this campaign was in addressing German audiences in their own tongue.§ Young men, and the Germans of the Mid Thurlow Weed was induced by two of Lincoln's personal friends to make an express visit to Springfield to talk over the political prospects. He found Lincoln so practical and sagacious, with such intuitive knowl edge of human nature and of the virtues and infirmities of politicians, that he returned to New York his hearty supporter. 1 Weed's Memoirs, c. 62. § Eminent Northern clergymen, like Henry Ward Beecher, spoke in sympathy with the Republican cause; as also did George William Curtis and others identified more closely with literature. The eloquence of Wendell Phillips, which would have been so becoming at this time, was unfortunately wanting. Finding a fugitive-slave clause in the bill for emancipation in the District of Columbia which Lincoln had introduced 1860. WIDE-AWAKE CLUBS. 465 dle and Western States, caught quickly the true spirit of the campaign. Great was the demand for the joint debates of "Douglas and Lincoln" in 1858; and Republican managers circulated the pamphlet confidently for their cause without a word of comment. The folly of "wigwams" and "rail-splitters' battalions" with which the campaign opened, as though to idolize the earlier achievements of a candidate who had risen superior to opportunities, merged presently into the more appropri ate earnestness of "wide-awake clubs," which marched in nightly procession, bearing aloft their lantern torches, and wearing caps and capes of glazed or enamelled cloth of some chosen color, such as buff, white, black, or yellow. A Zouave drill which had been lately exhibited in our cities was imitated in the club manoeuvres; and a peculiar staccato cheer, also resembling that of the Zouaves, which was sharp and short, like the bark of a dog, supplanted the prolonged "hurrah" of former days. An adaptation of "Dixie" (the last of the famous negro melodies of the present era) was the favorite campaign song. "Free speech, free men, free homes, free territory," made the chief theme of the Republican transparencies. And while mauls and axes were frequently carried with the torches, and the vulgar humor of a flat-boat and rail-splitting candidate was allowed much scope, the real enthusiasm of the canvass was that of a high moral purpose, conducted under an honest, intelligent, and self-educated leader, who had risen from poverty by sheer force of character to the station for which he was fitted under the genius of our free institutions. This was true democracy; and no man, so truly a democrat with reference to all races of mankind as Abraham Lincoln had ever before been proposed for President. Young patricians of the Bell-Everett party flung out flags and ran up and down to the tinkling of a bell. These were their devices to attract popular attention. Able and into Congress in 1849, he attacked the latter fiercely in the "Liberator" as the slave hound of Illinois." VOL. V. 30 conservative speakers of this party deplored the sectional tendencies of the times, and pleaded for fraternity. Sam Houston harped on the same string; and some Northern politicians put him up as an independent candidate for the Presidency; but the movement developed no strength, and the Texan governor was soon forced to withdraw, leaving the field to the other four competitors. As between Douglas and Breckinridge, every good supporter of the administration had to choose for himself. President Buchanan in a public speech announced that there had been no regular nomination of the party, and that, therefore, any Democrat might vote consistently for the one or the other. Nevertheless, the whole influence of his administration was thrown in favor of Breckinridge, who, though not great, was esteemed a man of honor and sincere utterances. Douglas, thrown upon his own resources, set a new example to Presidential candidates by taking the stump, and in his combative fashion accosting the voters face to face. After a Northern tour, he proceeded to Virginia and North Carolina, and then journeyed West. His rôle was a difficult one. He bemoaned slavery agitation, and yet he had done most to arouse it; he maintained his specious principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the territories, and yet that principle was already a failure. The necessities of his cause forced him to maintain that the nominations of both Lincoln and Breckinridge, and the principles on which they were supported, were sectional alike, and hostile to the perpetuity of the Union. But, to do Douglas justice, he planted himself firmly upon loyal allegiance to the Constitution and laws; and when asked, at a Virginia gathering, whether the election of the Republican candidate would afford a just cause for the secession of the slave States, declared that it would not.* This same question, no doubt, rose to the lips of many honest Southerners, who pondered anxiously over the *This was at Norfolk. Virginia; and at a great barbecue near New York city, afterwards, Douglas reiterated this sentiment. 1860. PROSPECT OF REPUBLICAN SUCCESS. 467 present situation. Breckinridge himself wrote, no doubt sincerely, of his personal attachment to the Union; but, like thousands of his followers, he could not comprehend the disunion influences which bore him onward, nor his own moral inability to resist them successfully. This campaign was initiated with no great zeal and acrimony. Not even the Kansas, the territorial issue, presented aspects so exciting as in 1856; but the more the moral courage grew and displayed its strength in the free section, the more did the spirit of the slave States rebel at the humiliation in prospect for them. The situation, indeed, as between two contradictory labor systems, was that of an "irrepressible conflict;" and in the philosophy of that situation lies the best apology for the events which followed, the medicine for future reconciliation. In alarm at the favoring prospect of the Republicans, various propositions were broached for the fusion of their adversaries in Northern States, so as to carry the electoral colleges in any event, agreeably to the scope of discretion which the Constitution literally confers. Fusion was accomplished in a measure in New York State, where election results were of the greatest consequence, and also in New Jersey; but it was found easier, practically, to unite thus the supporters of Bell and Douglas than to fuse the two sections of the Democracy. The spring elections this year had given to each national party about the usual encouragement. March, Goodwin, a Republican, was chosen governor of April. New Hampshire, much to the chagrin of ex-President Pierce, who had lately returned from abroad, more Southern in his sympathies than ever. Connecticut, against desperate obstacles, yielded a Republican victory, and * See Pierce's letter of January 6, 1860, to Jefferson Davis (quoted in Appleton's Cyclopædia of Biography, "Pierce"), which foolishly prediets that, in case of Southern disruption of the Union, there will be in ternecine war in Northern States. The ex-President came out in favor of Breckinridge, disdaining Douglas, after the Democratic conventions. August. September, shook off Toucey forever; while Rhode Island, on the other hand, chose for governor the popular William Sprague, who had more than the nominal Democracy behind him. The August elections in several Southern States resulted encouragingly to the friends of Bell and Everett. Vermont and Maine, in September, adhered, as expected, to the Republican cause. It was the October elections in Ohio, Indiana, October and Pennsylvania, that forecast most clearly the issue of the national struggle. Ohio's less important contest was over inferior officers; but in Indiana Henry S. Lane, the Republican candidate for governor, defeated Thomas A. Hendricks, his opponent; while in Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, a man of splendid promise, was borne into the Executive chair by 32,000 majority. Each of these latter States chose a legislature Republican in both branches. Pennsylvania and Indiana, doubtful States hitherto, clasped hands across Ohio for Republican principles. These October elections clearly foreshadowed the choice of Abraham Lincoln in November. In New York the Republicans had renominated Edwin D. Morgan, an excellent governor, against divers other candidates, and headed their electoral ticket with the name of William Cullen Bryant. Lincoln's candidacy now grew every day November. stronger, as the 6th of November approached. The polls closed by sunset of that day, and by midnight votes had been counted, and telegraphic news received from Northern States sufficient to make positive the results. Republicans had just cause for elation. All the electoral votes of the free States were theirs, with a majority from New Jersey, and, as turned out unexpectedly, the votes of the two Pacific States, California and Oregon, with which they had meant to dispense. Although the footings of some States were quite close, Lincoln and Hamlin were chosen by a majority of 180 out of 303 electoral votes, 152 being all that their majority required.* *See Electoral Tables Appendix |