The Republican
Convention
A week later, on May 16, the Republican Party convened in
Chicago, Illinois, for their second national convention. The
leading candidate for the presidential nomination was Senator
William Henry Seward, a former governor of New York. He was a
smart, talented, and popular politician, but he also had several
negatives. His strong stance against nativism (the
anti-immigrant movement) and the American Party hurt his chances
with former Know-Nothings. For some, a close association with
New York State political boss Thurlow Weed tainted the
candidate. In addition, Seward would not be able to compete
effectively in Border States against native-son John Bell of
Tennessee, the Constitutional Union Party nominee. Furthermore,
the likely Democratic nomination of Stephen Douglas necessitated
a Republican candidate who could attract “Western” (i.e.,
Midwestern) voters. The main obstacle to Seward’s nomination,
though, was the slavery issue.
Peppering his speeches with references to the notions of “Higher
Law” and “Irrepressible Conflict,” Seward had gained a
reputation as an avid anti-slavery advocate. The Republican
Party was clearly opposed to the expansion of slavery, but many
party leaders thought they could not win with a candidate who
was considered too extreme on the issue. They needed to appeal
to voters in states outside their New England and Upper-Midwest
base; states like Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, which had
voted Democratic in 1856 and in which slavery was not the
paramount issue. Horace Greeley, the maverick editor of the
New York Tribune, privately stated the case: “I want to
succeed this time, yet I know the country is not Anti-Slavery.
It will only swallow a little Anti-Slavery in a great deal of
sweetening. An Anti-Slavery Man per se cannot be elected; but a
Tariff, River and Harbor, Pacific Railroad, Free Homestead man
may succeed although he is Anti-Slavery.” Seward tried to
moderate his views before the convention, but that only made him
seem like an insincere opportunist.
Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania was another major
candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, but his
support was limited primarily to his home state, and rumors of
corruption bedeviled him. Governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio had
the backing of a small coalition of antislavery delegates. The
elderly Edward Bates of Missouri was endorsed by Horace Greeley,
a leader of the anti-Seward faction. A second tier of candidates
included the 1856 presidential and vice presidential nominees,
John C. Frémont and William Dayton, Congressman Cassius Clay of
Kentucky, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, and Abraham Lincoln of
Illinois.
Lincoln had gained national recognition during the
Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, but was still not well known
outside of Illinois. In December 1859, he published a campaign
biography, and in February 1860, he delivered an address at
Cooper Union in New York City which garnered positive press
coverage and made him a sought-after speaker at Republican
rallies throughout New England. Lincoln’s advocacy of internal
improvements and tariffs made him popular in states like
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and he had managed to be
anti-nativist and anti-slavery without alienating moderates—just
the sort of candidate that editor Horace Greeley had been
seeking.
In May, the Illinois delegation entered the Republican National
Convention unified behind Lincoln. The convention’s location in
Chicago gave the “rail-splitter” the home-field advantage and
his campaign manager, David Davis, filled the hall with loud,
enthusiastic Lincoln supporters. The candidate telegraphed
Davis, “I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none.” To
which the campaign manager responded, “Lincoln ain’t here,” and,
therefore, made political deals to bring various state
delegations into the Lincoln camp. When Davis secured
Pennsylvania’s pledge of a second-ballot vote (in exchange for
promising a cabinet post to its favorite-son candidate, Simon
Cameron), Greeley became convinced that Lincoln was the only
candidate who could take the nomination from Seward. The editor
then lobbied to bring the Bates delegates into the Lincoln
column after initial balloting.
On the first ballot Seward led with 173˝ votes to 102 for
Lincoln, 50˝ for Cameron, 49 for Chase, and 48 for Bates, with
the rest distributed among several candidates. Although in the
lead, Seward had failed to win the necessary simple majority
(233), and the behind-the-scene efforts of Davis, Greeley, and
others working for Lincoln became tangible on subsequent
ballots. The switch of the Pennsylvania delegation from Cameron
to the Illinoisan resulted in a second-ballot tally of 181 for
Lincoln and 184˝ for Seward. On the third ballot, four Ohio
delegates switched from Chase to put Lincoln over the top and
other delegations followed suit, giving “Honest Abe” 364 of the
466 votes. The convention then nominated Senator Hannibal Hamlin
of Maine for vice president. The Republican platform opposed the
expansion of slavery into the western territories without
condemning it in the South, criticized the judicial activism of
the Dred Scott decision, denounced John Brown’s raid at
Harper’s Ferry, endorsed a federal homestead law and a
transcontinental railroad, and opposed stricter naturalization
laws.
Controversy had arisen when Congressman Joshua Giddings of
Massachusetts, an elderly abolitionist, proposed that the
Republican platform endorse the proposition from the Declaration
of Independence that all men are created equal. When his
resolution was defeated, perhaps out of fear that it would make
the party seem too radical, Giddings registered his disgust by
slowly ambling out of the convention hall. Delegate George
William Curtis, the 36-year-old columnist for Harper’s Weekly
and Harper’s Monthly, then sprang to his feet, demanded
recognition from the chairman, and delivered an impassioned
speech in favor of Gidding’s proposal. This time, the convention
was swayed to accept the resolution endorsing the Declaration’s
doctrine of equality.
The Campaign
The Republicans faced the general election united
behind Lincoln, with party leaders, including his former rivals
for the nomination, Seward, Chase, and Bates, campaigning
actively for him. Young Republican men formed “Wide Awake”
clubs, wearing helmets and capes and snake-dancing in torchlight
parades. Democrats faced the electorate with two essentially
regional—Northern and Southern—nominees. The Constitutional
Union Party hoped to win enough electoral votes to throw the
election into the House of Representatives.
Most Southerners believed that Lincoln was a secret abolitionist
and pointed to his House Divided speech and similar comments.
“Fire-eater” William Yancey toured the North warning that the
South would secede if the Republican were elected. Lincoln
refused to assuage Southern fears or to elaborate on his
position. He simply pointed to his previous statements that
slavery was immoral and he hoped it would be ended someday, but
he vowed not to disturb it where it already existed. In an
almost unprecedented move, Douglas went on a speaking tour
through the Northeast and the South (by tradition, presidential
nominees did not publicly
campaign). At first Douglas hoped to gather support for what
he thought was the unifying concept of popular sovereignty, but
by the fall he realized that Lincoln would probably be elected
president. Douglas explained to Southerners that they had no
reason to secede even if Lincoln was elected, and he warned that
secession would cause a civil war.
The Election Results
On November 6, 1860, 81% of eligible voters went
to the polls. Lincoln was elected president by earning an
Electoral College majority, which was greater than the combined
total of his three opponents: 180 for Lincoln to 72 for
Breckinridge, 39 for Bell, and 12 for Douglas. The Republican
won the popular vote with a nearly 40% plurality, and carried
all of the Northern and West Coast states. Douglas secured
almost 30% of the vote but received electoral votes from only
two states—Missouri and New Jersey. Bell garnered over 12% and
carried three states—Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Breckinridge won 18% of the popular vote and the electoral votes
of 11 slave states. However, the South was not as monolithic as
it appeared on an Electoral College map of the nation. In the
popular vote, the combined totals of the two more moderate
candidates on the slavery issue—Bell and Douglas—exceeded
Breckinridge’s plurality in three states—Georgia, Louisiana, and
Maryland—and neared it in three others—Alabama, Arkansas, and
North Carolina.
Nevertheless, Lincoln’s victory was wholly sectional. The
Republican had carried every county in New England, 109 of 147
counties in the Mid-Atlantic states, and 252 of 392 counties in
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. He received no votes in
nine states in the Deep South, and won only 2 of 996 counties in
the entire South. After the election results were known,
Southern slave states, led by South Carolina, began seceding
from the Union. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration in March
1861, seven states from the Deep South had left the Union. After
the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, the Civil War began and
four more Southern states seceded to join the Confederacy.
Sources consulted: William A. DeGregorio,
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents; William Harlan
Hale,
Horace Greeley: Voice of the People (1950); David Herbert
Donald, Lincoln (1995); Elting Morison, “Election of
1860” in
The Coming to Power: Critical Presidential Elections in
American History, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (New York:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1971), pp. 118-143; Phillip Shaw
Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1994); George
Brown Tindall and David E. Shi, America: A Narrative History
(1999); and, John C. Willis, “American’s Civil War,” Tables,
“The Presidential Election of 1860”:
www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/tables/1860Election.html
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