Lincoln Part 24

The first step was to secure the unanimous support of the Illinois delegation. This was not an easy task, because both the Sewardites in northern Illinois and the Bates men in the south favored selecting delegates by districts, thus, as Judd said, "hoping to steal in a few men." Alerted that the votes of Yates and the other members of the central committee from central Illinois would determine this question, Lincoln promised: "I shall attend to it as well as I know how, which, G---d knows, will not be very well." In fact, he attended to it well enough, for the central committee voted for the statewide election of delegates.

It was equally important to have the Republican National Convention meet in Chicago, where the newspapers, the crowds, and the publicity would be heavily tilted in Lincoln's favor. The rival site was St. Louis, where the Bates influence would be strong. When Judd, as a member of the Republican National Committee, seemed slow to grasp the importance of this choice, Lincoln wrote him that "some of our friends here" thought the location of the convention of great consequence. With this prodding, Judd carried the case for Chicago to the meeting of the national committee, which chose the Windy City by a margin of one vote-his own.

Even more important was the action of the Illinois Republican state convention, which met at Decatur on May 910, a week before the national convention. To house the gathering the citizens of the town had followed a practice adopted by Republicans throughout the West and constructed what they called a Wigwam, a barnlike wooden structure capable of holding the hundreds of delegates and spectators. For many who attended, the princ.i.p.al business of this convention was the choice of a candidate for governor; eventually the supporters of Swett and Yates combined to defeat Judd and to give the nomination to Yates. As to presidential candidates, Illinois Republicans were divided, but it was generally recognized that the convention would give a complimentary endors.e.m.e.nt of Lincoln as a favorite son. Even David Davis thought it was a foregone conclusion that the national convention would choose either Bates or Seward; a first-ballot vote for Lincoln would simply be a compliment.

But a few of Lincoln's warmest supporters were determined to make the Decatur convention a launching pad for a serious presidential campaign. They felt that what had been lacking so far was a catchy slogan, like "Log Cabin and Hard Cider," which had done so much to elect President Harrison in 1840. Of course, Lincoln was already widely known as "Old Abe" or "Honest Abe," but these sobriquets seemed so colorless as to be almost negative. Richard J. Oglesby, a vigorous young Decatur politician, felt Lincoln needed a more dynamic image. Consulting with the elderly John Hanks, a first cousin of Lincoln's mother, he located a rail fence that Hanks and Lincoln had put up in 1830 and carried two of the rails home with him. On the first day of the convention, during an interruption in the voting for governor, Oglesby introduced Hanks, who, with an a.s.sistant, marched down the aisle carrying into the Wigwam the two rails labeled:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Rail Candidate

FOR PRESIDENT IN 1860.

Two rails from a lot of 3,000 made in 1830 by Thos. Hanks and Abe Lincoln-whose father was the first pioneer of Macon County.

The label was not entirely accurate, for Lincoln's father had not been the first pioneer in the county and it was John, rather than Thomas, Hanks who had helped split the rails, but n.o.body cared. As the rails, decorated with flags and streamers, were carried to the front of the Wigwam, the crowd burst into deafening applause. Lincoln, called to the stand, blushed and told the delegates that he had indeed built a cabin and split rails thirty years ago near Decatur. Whether these particular rails were taken from that fence, he could not vouch, but, he said in his disarming way, "he had mauled many and many better ones since he had grown to manhood."

The cheers that greeted Lincoln's remarks suggested that even his managers had underestimated his popularity. Now labeled "the Rail Splitter"-just as Andrew Jackson had been "Old Hickory" and Harrison "Tippecanoe"-he acquired an image with enormous popular appeal: he could be packaged not merely as a powerful advocate of the free-soil ideology or as a folksy, unpretentious, storytelling campaigner, but also as the embodiment of the self-made man, the representative of free labor, and the spokesman of the great West. It mattered very little that this myth-like most myths-was only partially true: Lincoln, in fact, had little love for his pioneer origins; he disliked physical labor and left it as soon as he could; he owed his early advancement as much to the efforts of interested friends like John Todd Stuart, Stephen T. Logan, and David Davis as to his own exertions. Rather than a simple backwoodsman, he was a prominent and successful attorney representing the most powerful interests in emerging corporate America. The delegates at Decatur understood that myth was more important than reality. They cheered now not just for a favorite son but for a viable Illinois presidential candidate.

After the convention adjourned for the day, Lincoln met with Judd, Davis, and a few other friends in a grove near the Wigwam, where, lying on the gra.s.s, they carefully studied the list of delegates to be sent to Chicago. Lincoln personally selected the four at-large delegates. Judd, as a member of the Republican National Committee and as a representative of Chicago interests, was one, of course. Recognizing the importance of the German vote, Lincoln named Koerner for the second slot. For the third he picked Browning, who had great influence among conservative old-line Whigs and, especially, among the former Know Nothings. Knowing that Browning preferred Bates, Lincoln relied on his old friend's personal loyalty and his devotion to Illinois interests. The final member of the team was David Davis.

Lincoln and his friends had no control over the selection of the eighteen other delegates who represented the individual congressional districts, but they suspected that about eight of them were Seward supporters. To prevent them from defecting, Lincoln's advisers agreed to ram through the convention the next day a resolution that John M. Palmer would introduce: "That Abraham Lincoln is the choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the Presidency, and the delegates from this State are instructed to use all honorable means to secure his nomination by the Chicago Convention, and to vote as a unit for him." At Chicago, Illinois would be unanimous for Lincoln.

IV

Lincoln was tempted to attend the Chicago convention. After he returned from Decatur, he told Leonard Swett that "he was almost too much of a candidate to go, and not quite enough to stay at home." On reflection, he decided to remain in Springfield while the delegates began to a.s.semble. He cordially greeted the occasional member who pa.s.sed through Springfield, a.s.suring several of them that he was a candidate only for the presidency and did not wish to be considered for the second place on the Republican ticket. Recognizing that Seward would have the votes of the more extreme antislavery men, Lincoln sought to ensure that he would be presented in Chicago as a moderate candidate. To Edward L. Baker, editor of the Illinois State Journal, who was going to the convention, he entrusted a brief note: "I agree with Seward in his 'Irrepressible Conflict,' but I do not endorse his 'Higher Law' doctrine." The former he viewed as little more than a restatement of his own house-divided thesis, while he recognized that Seward's invocation of a law higher than the Const.i.tution frightened moderate and conservative Republicans.

Lincoln was not directly involved in the tumultuous proceedings of the second Republican National Convention that a.s.sembled on May 1618 in the huge Wigwam just completed in Chicago. The Illinois delegation took no prominent part in the first day's debates on the credentials of members. Nor did it attempt to shape the party platform, which somewhat moderated the tone, though not the meaning, of the 1856 denunciation of the slave power. Illinois Republicans went along with the party's attempt to broaden its appeal by endorsing a homestead act to please western farmers; federal appropriations for improving rivers and harbors to satisfy Detroit, Chicago, and other cities on the Great Lakes; and, in opaque language, a moderately protective tariff to appease the iron interests of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. With much difficulty they agreed on a compromise resolution that on the one hand carefully refrained from mentioning, much less condemning, the Know Nothings and, on the other, cautiously opposed the Ma.s.sachusetts plan of extending the period before naturalized citizens could vote; it ended with a balanced call for "giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all cla.s.ses of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad."

The focus of Lincoln's representatives in Chicago was not on the platform but on the presidency. They found Seward's position stronger than they had antic.i.p.ated because the Democratic National Convention, deadlocked between Douglas's backers and the Southern states-rights advocates, had adjourned without making a nomination. Already a.s.sured of the support of what might be called Greater New England-the states of the upper North, ranging from Ma.s.sachusetts through New York to Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota-Seward might win if the Democrats continued to deny the nomination to Douglas, their strongest candidate in the North. But realistic Republicans antic.i.p.ated that when the Democratic National Convention reconvened in June, Douglas would be the nominee, with formidable strength in the Ohio Valley region-including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Seward's rivals were further encouraged when the new National Union party, more or less a reincarnation of the Whig and American parties, on May 10 nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Ma.s.sachusetts; Seward could not compete with this ticket for votes in the upper South. Unless Seward came into the convention with great strength on the first ballot, Republican managers were bound to pause and look for a more available nominee.

The shrewdest Republicans at Chicago were looking for a candidate who, in addition to carrying all the Northern states that had gone for Fremont in 1856, could win in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois. Seward, for all his strength elsewhere, was weak in these three states. Chase had the support of only a part of his own Ohio delegation. Cameron had no following outside of Pennsylvania. Despite the vigorous backing of Greeley and the powerful Francis Preston Blair family in Maryland and Missouri, Bates probably could not carry even his own home state.

That left Lincoln. He was not a dark horse-i.e., a nominee unexpectedly chosen after a deadlock of the leading candidates-but from the first day of the convention a serious contender backed by the unanimous delegation from the critical state of Illinois. Though he was not widely known except in the West, he appeared to be exactly what the Republican party needed: he was unequivocally opposed to the expansion of slavery; he had for years favored economic development, including internal improvements and the protective tariff so dear to Pennsylvanians; he had strong emotional appeal to former Whigs who still considered themselves followers of Henry Clay; and he had managed to oppose the Know Nothing party without indulging in moral condemnation of the nativists. If the Republican delegates at Chicago followed the dictates of political reason, he would be their choice.

But, of course, Lincoln knew that emotion plays as large a role in politics as reason, and that is why he wanted his team of managers in place at Chicago, ready to provide information, squelch rumors, listen to complaints, give moral support, soothe ruffled egos, and flatter doubting delegates. From his rooms at the Tremont Hotel, David Davis took charge of the operation. His primary objective was to secure at least one hundred votes for Lincoln on the first ballot-more than any other candidate except Seward-with other votes in reserve so that Lincoln would appear to gain strength on a second ballot. For this purpose he sent out members of his team to talk with delegations where they might have influence; Swett, for instance, visited the delegation from Maine, the state of his birth, and S. C. Parks canva.s.sed those from his native state of Vermont. Browning proved invaluable in talking with delegations that teetered between supporting Bates and Lincoln; known as a former Bates man, he was the better able to show the weaknesses of the Missouri candidate. Logan kept an eye on the Kentucky delegates; he carried a private letter from Lincoln authorizing him to withdraw his name if he thought it prudent to do so. Medill was in charge of newspaper publicity for Lincoln, and, aided by C. H. Ray, he kept up a barrage of pro-Lincoln editorials in the influential Chicago Press and Tribune, beginning with a three-foot editorial headed "The Winning Man, Abraham Lincoln" on the day before the convention came to order. Judd, in charge of seating arrangements in the Wigwam, took pains to put the New York delegation at one end of the hall and the Pennsylvania delegation at the other; separated by pro-Lincoln supporters, they could not confer or influence each other during the balloting. Aware that Thurlow Weed, commandant of the Seward forces, had come to Chicago on a special thirteen-car train filled with the New York senator's supporters, Judd also arranged for Illinois railroads to offer special rates so that thousands of Lincoln men could attend the convention. After the first day, when it seemed likely that Seward men would pack the Wigwam, Jesse W. Fell and Ward Hill Lamon oversaw the printing of duplicate tickets and made sure they went to Lincoln men who would come early and occupy the seats before the Seward backers arrived.

Inevitably there was talk at this convention-as at all political conventions-of horse trading between candidates and of promising undecided or unscrupulous delegates future patronage, or sometimes immediate cash, for their votes. Weed was prepared to make deals in Chicago just as he had long done in Albany. He dangled before the Illinois delegates a promise of the vice presidential nomination for Lincoln if they supported Seward on the first ballot and also offered to contribute $100,000 to the campaign chests of the Illinois and Indiana Republican parties.

Some of Lincoln's supporters wanted to play the same game. "You need a few trusty friends here to say words for you that may be necessary to be said," Ray warned Lincoln as the convention was a.s.sembling. "A pledge or two may be necessary when the pinch comes." Delahay, the Kansas Republican, whose expenses in Chicago Lincoln was paying, had a similar idea. He wrote the candidate that Davis, Dubois, and the other members of his team were "too honest to advance your Prospects as surely as I would like to see" and too innocent to compete with New York politicians, who were "desperate gamblers." Lincoln ought to pick one representative from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Iowa and promise each full control over all patronage in his state if he delivered the vote of his delegation. "I know that you have no relish for such a Game," Delahay continued, "but it is an old maxim that you must fight the devil with fire."

In response to such suggestions Lincoln sent a terse message to Chicago: "Make no contracts that will bind me." For the most part, his directive was unnecessary. Though Davis's team had been working incessantly to woo uncommitted delegates, they did not find it necessary to resort to bribery or corruption. Subsequent stories about the numerous bargains Davis and his aides made in Chicago were mostly based on speculation by ill-informed politicians who had been surprised by the showing Lincoln made at the convention. For instance, the charge that Davis promised a cabinet post to Caleb B. Smith in order to secure the vote of the Indiana delegation on the first ballot had no foundation. Before the convention met, a delegate from Vincennes, Indiana, alerted Lincoln "that the whole of Indiana might not be difficult to get," and at his instruction Davis and Dubois paid special attention to the Indiana delegation in Chicago. Indiana Republicans were looking for an alternative to Seward because Henry S. Lane, their candidate for governor, felt that he had no chance for success if the New Yorker headed the ticket. Some favored Bates, who appealed to the old Whigs, but others supported Lincoln. At a caucus of the delegation Bates's managers tried to woo the Hoosiers, but they were routed when Koerner reminded the delegates that German Republicans from nearly every Northern state, meeting at the Deutsches Haus in Chicago on May 14, had agreed to bolt the party before supporting any candidate, like Bates, who had a nativist record. The Indiana delegation then agreed to vote unanimously for Lincoln on the first ballot. No special pledge was needed to gain Smith's support; after serving with Lincoln in Congress and working with him to elect Zachary Taylor, he was proud to be chosen to second Lincoln's nomination in Chicago.

There was more credibility to the report that Davis made a bargain with the Pennsylvania delegation, offering a cabinet post to Simon Cameron if his supporters went for Lincoln after the initial ballot. Judge Joseph Casey, Cameron's representative in Chicago, demanded that Davis and Swett pledge that Cameron would become Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's cabinet, with control of all federal patronage in Pennsylvania, in return for the votes of that state on the second ballot. Davis responded vaguely that Pennsylvania would surely have a place in the cabinet and that he would personally recommend Cameron for it. a.s.suming Davis was authorized to speak for Lincoln, Casey thought he had received a pledge and shortly after the convention wrote Cameron that the switch of Pennsylvania votes to Lincoln "was arranged carefully and unconditionally in reference to Yourself-to our satisfaction." But Swett, who was present at the conference between Davis and the Pennsylvanian, came away with a different understanding and told a friend in a private letter written only nine days after the convention, "No pledges have been made, no mortgages executed." Davis himself, believing he had made only a personal, conditional promise, flatly denied any bargain: "Mr. Lincoln is committed to no one on earth in relation to office-He promised nothing to gain his nomination, and has promised nothing." That also was Lincoln's understanding when, three days after his nomination, he a.s.sured Joshua R. Giddings, "The responsible position a.s.signed me, comes without conditions, save only such honorable ones as are fairly implied."

V

While the Republican National Convention was in session, Lincoln went quietly about his business in Springfield, but he eagerly sought to learn what was going on in Chicago. Up early on Friday, May 18, the day when nominations were to be made, he pa.s.sed some time playing "fives"-a variety of handball-with some other men in a vacant lot next to the Illinois State Journal office. Learning that James C. Conkling had unexpectedly returned from Chicago, he went over to his law office to hear the latest news from the convention. Stretched out on an old settee, so short that his feet stuck out over the end, he listened to Conkling's prediction that Seward could not be nominated and that the convention would choose Lincoln. Lincoln demurred, unwilling to tempt fate by being overoptimistic, and said that either Bates or Chase would probably be the choice. Getting up, he announced: "Well, Conkling, I believe I will go back to my office and practice law."

At the Lincoln & Herndon office Baker, of the Illinois State Journal, came in with telegrams announcing that the names of the candidates had been placed in nomination and that Lincoln's was received with great enthusiasm. Shortly afterward, a new telegram announced the result of the first ballot: Seward 173 Lincoln 102; Bates 48; Cameron 50; Chase 49. The other votes were widely scattered; 233 were needed for a choice. Giving no indication of his feelings, Lincoln went over to the telegraph office, where a report on the second ballot was just coming in: Seward now had 184 votes; Lincoln, largely as a result of a switch in the Pennsylvania vote, rose to 181 votes; and all the other candidates lost strength. Lincoln then awaited the results of the third ballot in the Journal office. As he had antic.i.p.ated, this was the last ballot. Seward retained most of his strength, but nearly all the other delegates flocked to Lincoln, with a total of 231 votes-one and a half votes short of a majority. At this point David K. Cartter rose to switch four Ohio votes from Chase to Lincoln, and other delegations promptly followed, giving him a total of 364, out of a possible 466, votes. The Seward men then moved to make the nomination unanimous.

"I knew this would come when I saw the second ballot," Lincoln remarked as he accepted the congratulations of his fellow townsmen. Emerging from the Journal office, he said jokingly to the ball players who broke off their game to congratulate him: "Gentlemen, you had better come up and shake my hand while you can-honors elevate some men." Then he headed for home, explaining: "Well Gentlemen there is a little woman at our house who is probably more interested in this dispatch than I am."

When the news of his nomination became official, along with a report that the convention had balanced the ticket by naming a former Democrat, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, for Vice President, Lincoln felt under some pressure to go to Chicago, where he could bask in his triumph, allow the Republican delegates a chance to meet their candidate, and soothe the disgruntled Seward element in the party, but his advisers unanimously urged him to stay in Springfield. "Dont come here for G.o.d's sake," Davis wired succinctly, adding, "Write no letters and make no promises till you see me."

That was the policy that Lincoln followed. On May 19 a delegation from the convention, headed by George Ashmun of Ma.s.sachusetts, came to his house in Springfield to notify him of his nomination. Initially the interview was very stiff. Only a few of the delegates had ever seen their candidate before, and they were startled by his appearance. Lincoln was tense because he and Mary had just had a quarrel over whether liquor should be served to the visitors-as it certainly would have been at her father's mansion in Kentucky. But Lincoln knew the strength of the temperance movement and insisted on offering only ice water. As he explained a little later, "Having kept house sixteen years, and having never held the 'cup' to the lips of my friends then, my judgment was that I should not, in my new position, change my habit in this respect." After Ashmun read the notice of his nomination, he responded cautiously that he needed more time fully to consider the platform-and in fact did not formally accept until four days later. To keep the meeting from being a fiasco, Lincoln resorted to a gambit he was frequently to employ in the White House. Singling out the lanky Pennsylvania delegate, William D. Kelley, he asked how tall he was.

"Six feet three," was the answer.

"I beat you," chuckled Lincoln. "I am six feet four without my high-heeled boots."

"Pennsylvania bows to Illinois," Kelley responded in a courtly fas.h.i.+on. "I am glad that we have found a candidate for the Presidency whom we can look up to."

As the visitors began to relax, they moved into the adjoining parlor to meet Mrs. Lincoln. She was such a charming conversationalist, in the Southern style, that Ashmun reported, "I shall be proud, as an American citizen, when the day brings her to grace the White House."

Most of Lincoln's encounters in the months between his nomination and the election were equally content-free. Now that he was a celebrity, everybody wanted to see him, and the number of visitors became too great to be handled at the house on Eighth and Jackson Streets, especially after Willie fell ill with scarlet fever. Gladly Lincoln accepted the invitation of Governor John Wood to use his office in the state capitol. He worked there daily during the summer. Nicolay, who was paid $75 a month from a fund contributed by ten of Lincoln's wealthy Springfield friends, served as his secretary and a.s.sistant.

Most of Lincoln's correspondence was of the usual but necessary inconsequential sort expected of public men. He had to make gracious acknowledgment of the hundreds of letters of congratulations he received. There were so many applications for autographs that he prepared a standard reply: "You request an autograph, and here it is. Yours truly A. Lincoln." He had politely to acknowledge election as honorary member of the Was.h.i.+ngton Agricultural Literary Society of the Farm School in Pennsylvania (later Pennsylvania State College) and to accept a "Chair of State," made of thirty-four different kinds of wood, each representing a state of the Union. Knox College, which had been the home of one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, conferred on him the LL.D. degree, with the implication, as Browning joked, that he should thereafter "consider yourself a 'scholar,' as well as a 'gentleman,' and deport yourself accordingly."

Much of Lincoln's time was occupied in attempting to satisfy the enormous public curiosity about a candidate whose career was not widely known outside his own state. There was uncertainty about his first name, and he had to a.s.sure even Ashmun that he was "Abraham," rather than "Abram." Photographers flocked to Springfield to take his picture. The most successful was Alexander Hesler of Chicago, whose sharply defined prints gave, as Lincoln said, "a very fair representation of my homely face"; they showed Lincoln at the height of his powers and captured, as no other photographs ever did, the peculiar curve of his lower lip, the mole on his right cheek, and the distinctive way he held his head. But most photographers found it hard to take a good picture of the candidate whose face in repose showed such harsh lines that it looked like a mask, and their cameras could not catch the light that flashed in his eyes and the smile that animated his face when he was conversing or telling a story. Several artists also came to Springfield to paint his portrait, and Lincoln uncomplainingly sat for them. To combat the general impression in the East that Lincoln was a very ugly man, Judge John M. Read of Pennsylvania commissioned John Henry Brown to paint a miniature that would be "good-looking whether the original would justify it or not." The distinguished artist Thomas Hicks completed a romantic portrait, which Lincoln said would "give the people of the East... a correct idea of how I look at home I think the picture has a somewhat pleasanter expression than I usually have, but that, perhaps, is not an objection."

Along with Lincoln's portrait, people clamored for facts about his life. Requests for biographical information became so numerous that Lincoln drafted a form reply for Nicolay to send out: "Applications of this cla.s.s are so numerous that it is simply impossible for him to attend to them." Hardly was the Chicago convention over before campaign biographies of Lincoln and Hamlin were announced. Probably the earliest to be published was the anonymous Life, Speeches and Public Services of Abram [sic] Lincoln, Together with a Sketch of the Life of Hannibal Hamlin, issued, in "The Wigwam Edition," by Rudd & Carleton in New York by June 2. Others quickly followed. The most significant, because of its authors.h.i.+p, was by William Dean Howells, which relied in considerable part on interviews that his research a.s.sistant, James Quay Howard, conducted in Springfield. Howard himself published another biography. Of greater lasting merit was a Life of Lincoln, by John Locke Scripps, an editor of the Chicago Press and Tribune, which was based on an extensive autobiographical sketch that Lincoln gave him. In all perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 of such campaign biographies were distributed.

Part of Lincoln's time was spent in attempting damage control of rumors about his record. Opponents whispered that he was a deist and a duelist. Stories of his stand on the Mexican War were resurrected, with charges that he failed to vote for supplies to the American army in the field. He was charged with slandering the memory of Thomas Jefferson by accusing him of "puling about liberty, equality, and the degrading curse of slavery" while selling off his own children into slavery. A report surfaced that Lincoln had attended a Know Nothing lodge in Quincy. All these Lincoln painstakingly refuted in private letters, cautioning his correspondents not to get him involved in controversy. "Our adversaries think they can gain a point, if they could force me to openly deny this charge," he explained to one. "For this reason, it must not publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the charge."

Forbidden by the unanimous advice of his friends from taking any public role in the canva.s.s, Lincoln followed the campaign closely. After June, when the Democratic party split, with the Northern wing of the party nominating Douglas and the Southerners nominating John C. Breckinridge, he had little doubt that the Republicans would win the presidential election if the discordant and rival elements that composed the party could work together. He spent much time attempting to conciliate the rival factions in Pennsylvania, headed by Senator Cameron and Andrew G. Curtin, the Republican candidate for governor. Because that state was so crucial, he tried to impress on both the soundness of his record on the tariff, going so far as to send a collection.of snippets from his addresses during the 1840s showing that he favored protection. Aware that Seward's followers were disgruntled because of his defeat in Chicago, Lincoln sent word to New Yorkers through David Davis that he "neither is nor will be... committed to any man, clique, or faction; and that... it will be his pleasure ... to deal fairly with all." Again and again, he pledged that if elected his slogan would be "Justice and fairness to all." In welcoming visitors to Springfield and in writing letters, he firmly refused to make any distinction between Republicans who had supported his candidacy before Chicago and those who had favored other candidates. "I go not back of the convention," he explained to Carl Schurz, who had backed Seward, "to make distinctions among its' members." "You distinguish between yourself and my original friends," he told Schuyler Colfax, the glib young Indiana politician who had supported Bates; that was "a distinction which, by your leave, I propose to forget."

Despite all the visitors and all the correspondence, Lincoln found life as a presidential candidate confining. He rarely went to the law office these days, and when Herndon dropped in on his partner in the state capitol, he found his partner "bored-bored badly,' and exclaimed to Trumbull, "Good gracious, I would not have his place and be bored as he is."

Lincoln's one public appearance during the campaign was at a giant rally in Springfield in August, where he expected simply to see the people and to allow himself to be seen. Entreated to address the crowd, he reiterated his policy: "It has been my purpose, since I have been placed in my present position, to make no speeches." So enthusiastic was his reception that, when he got ready to leave, the crowd at the fairgrounds surrounded his carriage, broke through the top, and came near to smothering him. He escaped only when a friend backed his horse next to the carriage, pulled Lincoln out, "slipped him over the horses tail on to the saddle [and] led the horse to town."