CHAPTER IL NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENT. THE * My partner and myself are absent addressing the Republican editors of the State on the subject of a simultaneous announcement of your name for the Presidency." ~I most in candor say," Mr. Lincoln wrote in reply, "that I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am flattered and gratified that some partial friends think of me in that connection; but I really think it best for our cause that no concert ed effort such as you suggest should be made."(') He was not seeking the Presidency. Neither would he be a rival to Senator Trumbull when the time came to choose Mr. Trumbull's successor. Very frank and open his letter to a friend: "I do not understand Trumbull and myself to be rivals. You know 1 am pledged not to enter a struggle with him for the seat in the Senate now occupied by him; and yet I would rather have a full term in the Senate than in the Presidency. For my single self, I have enlisted for the permanent success of the Republican cause; and for this object I shall labor faithfully in the ranks, unless, as I think not probable, the judgment of the party shall assign me a different position.”(*) In this biography we have reached a point where I who am writing became an observer of passing events, and from this page to the close shall at times write of what I saw and heard in connection with the life of Mr. Lincoln. There was one member of the Republican party who had an earnest desire to be its candidate for the Presidency-William H. Seward, Senator from New York, who had rendered conspicuous service in the councils of the nation. It was understood that a strong effort would be made by his friends to secure his nomination. "Who is to be your candidate out West?" was the question put by me to my friend George W. Gage, of Chicago, in the month of December, 1859. "Well, the Democratic Party is going to be divided, and we can win with almost any good candidate-Chase, of Ohio, or Abraham Lincoln, of our State," the reply. I am not aware that Mr. Lincoln at that date had been publicly mentioned as a candidate. Not till a month later did the people of New York, New Haven, Hartford, and Boston become acquainted with him personally. The thought may have come to him that his friends might bring him forward as a candidate, but I find no evidence that he himself had made any movement towards that end. The Democratic Party had controlled the Government for many years. It was united and powerful on that Sunday in 1854 when Stephen A. Douglas and Jefferson Davis called upon President Pierce and unfolded the plan for the introduction of slavery into Kansas and the other 'I'erritories of the Union; but it was no longer a united party. President Buchanan had done what he could to prevent Douglas from being reelected to the Senate. The Democratic Senators from the slave-holding States had degraded him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories. They knew the Democrats of the Northern States were enthusiastic for his nomination as candidate for the Presidency, and determined to prevent it. The Democratic Convention assembled at Charleston, S. C. A majority of the delegates from the Northern States were for Douglas. He 1860. was a popular leader. The delegates from the Slave States acApril 23, knowledged his abilities. He had rendered them great service, but they did not accept his ideas of the right of the Territories to vote slavery in or out as the people pleased. Slavery must be voted in, never out. They had no candidate for the Presidency, but were in favor of establishing a great principle: Congressional protection to slavery in the Territories and States. The Southern delegates knew that Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, agreed with them, and secured his election as president of the convention. William L. Yancey, of Alabama, assumed leadership in debate. The men who were shouting for the nomination of Douglas were astonished when they heard these sentiments fall from his lips: "The Northern Democrats are losing ground before the rising Black Republican Party because they have not stood resolutely up against the anti-slavery sentiment. Northern Democrats have admitted that slavery is wrong. They must change. There must be legislation by Congress which will protect slavery everywhere." Senator Pugh, of Ohio, replied to him: "We have been taunted with our weakness. We have been told that we must put our hands on our mouths, and our mouths in the dust. Gentlemen of the South, you mistake us. We will not do it." For five days the delegates wrangled over resolutions, the Southerners demanding what the Northerners would not give. Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, thought to settle all differences by adopting the platform of the convention held in Cincinnati in 1856, upon which Buchanan had been elected. "That was a swindle on the Southern States!" the shout of the delegates from Mississippi. The motion was adopted by a large majority. If Mr. Butler thought such a motion would bring peace and harmony he was mistaken. The time had come for carrying out what Yancey and his fellow-conspirators had planned. The delegates from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas rose from their seats, marched out of the room, and organized another convention. The great and powerful Democratic Party was divided. The delegates from the cotton States-who believed the world could not get on without that product-had split the party asunder. It was the initial step of a great and far-reaching scheme to bring about the disruption of the Union. Yancey outlined it in a speech made in an Alabama convention : "To obtain the aid of the Democracy in this contest it is necessary to make a contest in its Charleston convention. In that body Douglas's adherents will press his doctrines to a decision. If the State-rights men keep out of that convention that decision must inevitably be against the South, and that either in direct favor of the Douglas doctrine or by the indorsement of the Cincinnati platform, under which Douglas claims shelter for his principles.... The State-rights men should present in that convention their demands for a decision, and they will obtain an indorsement of their demands or a denial of these demands. If indorsed, we shall have a greater hope of triumph within the Union; if denied, in my opinion the State-rights wing should secede from the convention and appeal to the whole people of the South, without distinction of parties, and organize another convention upon the basis of their principles, and go into the election with a candidate nominated by it as a grand constitutional party. But in the Presidential contest a Black Republican may be elected. If this dire event should happen, in my opinion the only hope of safety for the South is in a withdrawal from the Union before he shall be inaugurated—before the sword and treasury of the Federal Government shall be placed in the keeping of that party." The people of Charleston were wild in their enthusiasm. Cultured ladies flocked to the hall in which the seceders assembled, and waved their handkerchiefs in token of their approval. Bonfires illumined the streets. |