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Tag: Election of 1860

Instructions for John Nicolay (July 16, 1860)

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#82 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

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HD Daily Report, July 16, 1860

The Lincoln Log, July 16, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“It is only this scrap of writing which makes the incident at all worthy of record. There could be no better exemplification of Mr. Lincoln’s character and caution than this short memorandum of instructions. It reflects all his directness of method, all his sincerity of dealing, all his determination to keep free from any entanglements of intrigue, and to expressly avoid any inferential obligations. ‘Commit me to nothing’ is his positive injunction; on the other hand the announcement of his motto ‘fairness to all’ is the promise of that broad liberality which he carried out as President, and through which he maintained the easy party leadership that secured his renomination and re-election.”

–Michael Burlingame, An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 94.

 

“Callers who tried to get at Lincoln personally in his temporary capital office were screened first by Nicolay, who was told to schedule interviews only if ‘indispensable’ and to ‘commit me to nothing’ Lincoln did not even write to the vice-presidential nominee whom the convention had selected for him Hannibal Hamlin, a former Maine Democrat, until mid-July.”

–Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 248.

“Although concerned with progress in all the Northern states, he focused his attention primarily on the critical West. He urged Caleb Smith to do his utmost in Indiana, believing that nothing would affect the November results in Illinois more strongly than the momentum provided by an Indiana victory in the October state elections. In July, he sent Nicolay to an Indiana supporter who wished to prevent a Bell ticket from being placed on the ballot. ‘Ascertain what he wants,’ Lincoln instructed Nicolay. ‘On what subjects he would converse with me. And the particulars if he will give them. Is an interview indispensable? Tell him my motto is ‘Fairness to all,’ but commit me to nothing.’”

–Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 272.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Ascertain what he wants.
 
On what subjects he would converse with me.
 
And the particulars if he will give them.
 
Is an interview indispensable?
 
Tell him my motto is “Fairness to all,”
 
But commit me to nothing.

Letter to Alexander McClure (August 30, 1860)

Ranking

#97 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’ – ‘counting noses?'”

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HD Daily Report, August 30, 1860

The Lincoln Log, August 30, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln also asked Alexander K. McClure, chairman of the Pennsylvania State Republican Committee, to keep him informed of the status of the campaign at the local level. On August 27, Lincoln responded to McClure report on the campaign by asking, ‘When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’—‘counting noses?’’ Lincoln’s inquiry reveals the keen interest that he took in local party organization during the 1860 campaign. A New York visitor reported after a meeting with Lincoln: ‘He sat down beside me on the sofa and commenced talking about political affairs in my own State with a knowledge of details which surprised me.’”

William C. Harris, “Lincoln’s Role in the 1860 Presidential Campaign” in Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President, Ed. Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds, and Frank J. Williams, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015).

 

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Private
Springfield, Ills. Aug. 30, 1860
 
A.K. McClure, Esq.
My dear Sir,
 
Yours of the 27th was received last evening; as also was one only a few days before.  Neither of these bears quite so hopeful a tone as your former letters.  When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are “canvassing” – “counting noses?”
 
I am always glad to see your letters.   
Yours very truly, 
A.Lincoln

Speech at Columbus (September 16, 1859)

Ranking

#106 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“…The Giant himself has been here recently. [Laughter.] I have seen a brief report of his speech. If it were otherwise unpleasant to me to introduce the subject of the negro as a topic for discussion, I might be somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt exclusively in that subject while he was here. I shall, therefore, without much hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this subject.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, September 16, 1859

The Lincoln Log, September 16, 1859

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln found Douglas’s activities decidedly threatening.  Considering the Little Giant ‘the most dangerous enemy of liberty, because the most insidious one,’ he readily accepted an invitation from the Ohio Republican state central committee to participate in the campaign and thus ‘to head off the little gentleman.’  He did not appear on the same platform with Douglas in Ohio, but his speeches at Columbus, Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati (September 16–17), as well as one he delivered in Indianapolis two days later, were, in effect, continuations of the 1858 debates.  For the  most part, Lincoln presented arguments that he had advanced during those debates, but he was now freer in his criticisms of Douglas.”

–David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 233

 

“Lincoln refined his nationalist ideology in response to Douglas’s September 1859 essay in Harper’s Magazine. Seeking to justify the policy of popular sovereignty, Douglas contended that the founders had enshrined the principle of local self-government in the Constitution and early territorial law.  From this basis, Douglas argued that Congress could confer—but not exercise—powers over a territory’s “domestic affairs,” most notably slavery.  Although Lincoln considered the essay a gross perversion of American history and a dangerous philosophical defense of slavery, it gave him another ideal opportunity to define Republican politics by combating Douglas.  In a series of speeches given in Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin in September, and Kansas in December, Lincoln took issue with Douglas’s historical argument.  At Columbus, he developed ideas broached briefly in a speech at Carlinville a year earlier, claiming that the Republicans’ ‘original and chief purpose’ was the ’eminently conservative’ object of preventing slavery’s nationalization.  He explained that the Republicans promised ‘to restore this government to its original tone,’ desiring no more in relation to slavery ‘than that which the original framers of the government themselves expected.’  Despite his professed conservatism, these arguments were no more than a freshly minted version of his ultimate extinction doctrine.  After all, he maintained that the founders had intended freedom’s nationalization.  He observed that the Constitution’s authors had avoided the words ‘slave or slavery’ because they expected slavery’s extinction, and he argued that passage of the Northwest Ordinance evinced the founders’ intention to slowly kill it.  Lincoln built on this argument by fusing antislavery nationalism to the interests of free society.  He pointed out that Indiana’s settlers unsuccessfully petitioned the government at an early date to suspend the antislavery provision of the Northwest Ordinance, and he argued that Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois would all likely have become slave states had the Ordinance not warded off slaveholders.  As proof, he observed that slavery now flourished on one side of the Ohio River but not on the other.  The nation’s history thus demonstrated that law, rather than climate, determined slavery’s spread.  Reasoning from this proposition, Lincoln invoked free labor arguments to demonstrate the need for antislavery law.  Comparing the ‘mud-sill’ theory of labor, in which laborers were fixed in their position for life, and free labor, in which laborers accumulated capital throughout their life, Lincoln contended that free labor was a ‘just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all—gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all.’  To Lincoln, slavery deliberately destroyed the “inspiration of hope” required for ‘human exertion,’ while free labor encouraged men to innovate and excel.  Given these considerations, he urged northerners to return to the ideals that served their interests. In his estimation, progress was ‘the order of things’ only in ‘a society of equals.’  Never before had Lincoln so completely conflated northern interests and American nationalism.”

Graham Alexander Peck, “Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of an Antislavery Nationalism,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 28.2 (2007)

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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…The Giant himself has been here recently. [Laughter.] I have seen a brief report of his speech. If it were otherwise unpleasant to me to introduce the subject of the negro as a topic for discussion, I might be somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt exclusively in that subject while he was here. I shall, therefore, without much hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this subject.
The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, found the African slave trade prohibited by a law of Congress. In a majority of the States of this Union, they found African slavery, or any other sort of slavery, prohibited by State constitutions. They also found a law existing, supposed to be valid, by which slavery was excluded from almost all the territory the United States then owned. This was the condition of the country, with reference to the institution of slavery, on the 1st of January, 1854. A few days after that, a bill was introduced into Congress, which ran through its regular course in the two branches of the National Legislature, and finally passed into a law in the month of May, by which the act of Congress prohibiting slavery from going into the territories of the United States was repealed. In connection with the law itself, and, in fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing prohibition was not only repealed, but there was a declaration of a purpose on the part of Congress never thereafter to exercise any power that they might have, real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or spread of slavery. This was a very great change; for the law thus repealed was of more than thirty years’ standing. Following rapidly upon the heels of this action of Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is made, by which it is declared that Congress, if it desires to prohibit the spread of slavery into the territories, has no constitutional power to do so. Not only so, but that decision lays down principles, which, if pushed to their logical conclusion—I say pushed to their logical conclusion—would decide that the constitutions of the Free States, forbidding slavery, are themselves unconstitutional. Mark me, I do not say the judge[s?] said this, and let no man say that I affirm the judge[s?] used these words; but I only say it is my opinion that what they did say, if pressed to its logical conclusion, will inevitably result thus. [Cries of “Good! good!”]
Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I understand its principles and policy, believe that there is great danger of the institution of slavery being spread out and extended, until it is ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this Union; so believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consummation, is the original and chief purpose of the Republican organization. I say “chief purpose” of the Republican organization; for it is certainly true that if the national House shall fall into the hands of the Republicans, they will have to attend to all the other matters of national house-keeping, as well as this. This chief and real purpose of the Republican party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change, in reference to it, than that which the original framers of the government themselves expected and looked forward to.
The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just now the revival of the African slave trade, or the passage of a Congressional slave code, or the declaring of a second Dred Scott decision, making slavery lawful in all the States. These are not pressing us just now. They are not quite ready yet. The authors of these measures know that we are too strong for them; but they will be upon us in due time, and we will be grappling with them hand to hand, if they are not now headed off. They are not now the chief danger to the purpose of the Republican organization; but the most imminent danger that now threatens that purpose is that insidious Douglas Popular Sovereignty. This is the miner and sapper. While it does not propose to revive the African slave trade, nor to pass a slave code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is preparing us for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies when they shall be ready to come on and the word of command for them to advance shall be given. I say this Douglas Popular Sovereignty—for there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, between that article and a genuine popular sovereignty.
I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition of genuine popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about this: That each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him. Applied to government, this principle would be, that a general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them. I understand that this government of the United States, under which we live, is based upon this principle; and I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have any war to make upon that principle.
Now, what is Judge Douglas’ Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object. [Cheers and laughter.] Applied in government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this: If, in a new territory into which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their limits, or to establish it there, however one or the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons who are afterward to inhabit that territory, or the other members of the families of communities, of which they are but an incipient member, or the general head of the family of States as parent of all—however their action may affect one or the other of these, there is no power or right to interfere. That is Douglas’ popular sovereignty applied….
…It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea, to say to men who want to adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to that party, and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to it, but nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas’ Popular Sovereignty is as good a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded easily in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief, that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political associations. We can do so without being called negro worshippers. We can do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place of argument where no argument can be found; so let us stick to this Popular Sovereignty—this insidious Popular Sovereignty. Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened, which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion, this course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for the territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry slavery into the free States. Did you ever five years ago, hear of anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the Declaration of National Independence; that it did not mean negroes at all; and when “all men” were spoken of negroes were not included?
I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon paper by any living being anywhere. I have been unable at any time to find a man in an audience who would declare that he had ever known any body saying so five years ago. But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but declares his firm belief that the Declaration of Independence did not mean negroes at all? I do not know how this is; I have not been here much; but I presume you are very much alike everywhere. Then I suppose that all now express the belief that the Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes. I call upon one of them to say that he said it five years ago.
If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you (laughter and applause), and a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro, in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They are taking him down, and placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.
Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change? Public opinion in this country is everything. In a nation like ours this popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a change in the public mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who can contradict it.
Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody I ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal with the negro everywhere as with the brute. If public sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, a new turn of the screw in that direction is all that is wanting; and this is constantly being done by the teachers of this insidious popular sovereignty. You need but one or two turns further until your minds, now ripening under these teachings will be ready for all these things, and you will receive and support, or submit to, the slave trade; revived with all its horrors; a slave code enforced in our territories, and a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery up into the very heart of the free North. This, I must say, is but carrying out those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay, many, many years ago. I believe more than thirty years when he told an audience that if they would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must go back to the era of our independence and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual joyous return on the Fourth of July; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul and eradicate the love of liberty; but until they did these things, and others eloquently enumerated by him, they could not repress all tendencies to ultimate emancipation.
I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these popular sovereigns are at this work; blowing out the moral lights around us; teaching that the negro is no longer a man but a brute; that the Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile and the reptile; that man, with body and soul, is a matter of dollars and cents. I suggest to this portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats if there be any present, the serious consideration of this fact, that there is now going on among you a steady process of debauching public opinion on this subject. With this my friends, I bid you adieu.

Letter to John Gilmer (December 15, 1860)

Contributing Editors for this page include Susan Williams Phelps

Ranking

#109 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“May I be pardoned if I ask whether even you have ever attempted to procure the reading of the Republican platform, or my speeches, by the Southern people? If not, what reason have I to expect that any additional production of mine would meet a better fate? It would make me appear as if I repented for the crime of having been elected, and was anxious to apologize and beg forgiveness.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 15, 1860

The Lincoln Log, December 15, 1860

Close Readings

Susan Williams Phelps, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), August 26, 2013 

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln was doubtless correct in thinking that no statement would placate the Deep South. The editors of the Charleston Mercury had announced that even if he were “to come out and declare that he held sacred every right of the South, with respect to African slavery, no one should believe him; and, if he was believed, his professions should not have the least influence on the course of the South.”

Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapters, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 17 (PDF), pp. 1944

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Strictly confidential.
 Springfield, Ill.
Dec 15, 1860.
 
Hon. John A. Gilmer:
My dear Sir—
Yours of the 10th is received. I am greatly disinclined to write a letter on the subject embraced in yours; and I would not do so, even privately as I do, were it not that I fear you might misconstrue my silence. Is it desired that I shall shift the ground upon which I have been elected? I can not do it. You need only to acquaint yourself with that ground, and press it on the attention of the South. It is all in print and easy of access. May I be pardoned if I ask whether even you have ever attempted to procure the reading of the Republican platform, or my speeches, by the Southern people? If not, what reason have I to expect that any additional production of mine would meet a better fate? It would make me appear as if I repented for the crime of having been elected, and was anxious to apologize and beg forgiveness. To so represent me, would be the principal use made of any letter I might now thrust upon the public. My old record cannot be so used; and that is precisely the reason that some new declaration is so much sought.
 
Now, my dear sir, be assured, that I am not questioning your candor; I am only pointing out, that, while a new letter would hurt the cause which I think a just one, you can quite as well effect every patriotic object with the old record. Carefully read pages 18, 19, 74, 75, 88, 89, & 267 of the volume of Joint Debates between Senator Douglas and myself, with the Republican Platform adopted at Chicago, and all your questions will be substantially answered. I have no thought of recommending the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, nor the slave trade among the slave states, even on the conditions indicated; and if I were to make such recommendation, it is quite clear Congress would not follow it.
 
As to employing slaves in Arsenals and Dockyards, it is a thing I never thought of in my life, to my recollection, till I saw your letter; and I may say of it, precisely as I have said of the two points above.
 
As to the use of patronage in the slave states, where there are few or no Republicans, I do not expect to inquire for the politics of the appointee, or whether he does or not own slaves. I intend in that matter to accommodate the people in the several localities, if they themselves will allow me to accommodate them. In one word, I never have been, am not now, and probably never shall be, in a mood of harassing the people, either North or South.
 
On the territorial question, I am inflexible, as you see my position in the book. On that, there is a difference between you and us; and it is the only substantial difference. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. For this, neither has any just occasion to be angry with the other.
 
As to the state laws, mentioned in your sixth question, I really know very little of them. I never have read one. If any of them are in conflict with the fugitive slave clause, or any other part of the constitution, I certainly should be glad of their repeal; but I could hardly be justified, as a citizen of Illinois, or as President of the United States, to recommend the repeal of a statute of Vermont, or South Carolina.
 
With the assurance of my highest regards I subscribe myself
Your obt. Servt.,
A. LINCOLN

Letter to Henry Raymond (December 18, 1860)

Contributing Editors for this page include Susan Williams Phelps

Ranking

#110 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“Yours of the 14th. is received. What a very mad-man your correspondent, Smedes is. Mr. Lincoln is not pledged to the ultimate extinctinction [sic] of slavery; does not hold the black man to be the equal of the white, unqualifiedly as Mr. S. states it; and never did stigmatize their white people as immoral & unchristian; and Mr. S. can not prove one of his assertions true.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 18, 1860 

The Lincoln Log, December 18, 1860

Close Readings

Susan Williams Phelps, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), August 19, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln was doubtless correct in thinking that no statement would placate the Deep South.  The editors of the Charleston Mercury had announced that even if he were ‘to come out and declare that he held sacred every right of the South, with respect to African slavery, no one should believe him; and, if he was believed, his professions should not have the least influence on the course of the South.’  Lincoln’s legendary patience wore thin as disunionists continued to misrepresent him.  He lamented that the South ‘has eyes but does not see, and ears but does not hear.  William C. Smedes, president of the Southern Railroad Company of Mississippi, claimed that the president-elect ‘holds the black man to be the equal of the white,’ ‘stigmatizes our whole people as immoral & unchristian,’ and made ‘infamous & unpatriotic avowals . . . on the presentation of a pitcher by some free negroes to Gov: Chase of Ohio.’”

Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapters, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 17 (PDF), pp. 1944-1945

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Confidential
Springfields, Ills.
Dec. 18, 1860
 
Hon. H. J. Raymond 
My dear Sir 
Yours of the 14th. is received. What a very mad-man your correspondent, Smedes is. Mr. Lincoln is not pledged to the ultimate extinctinction [sic] of slavery; does not hold the black man to be the equal of the white, unqualifiedly as Mr. S. states it; and never did stigmatize their white people as immoral & unchristian; and Mr. S. can not prove one of his assertions true.
Mr. S. seems sensitive on the questions of morals and christianity. What does he think of a man who makes charges against another which he does not know to be true, and could easily learn to be false?
As to the pitcher story, it is a forgery out and out. I never made but one speech in Cincinnati—the last speech in the volume containing the Joint Debates between Senator Douglas and myself. I have never yet seen Gov. Chase. I was never in a meeting of negroes in my life; and never saw a pitcher presented by anybody to anybody.
I am much obliged by your letter, and shall be glad to hear from you again when you have anything of interest. 
Yours truly
A. LINCOLN

Letter to E. Stafford (March 17, 1860)

Ranking

#125 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“Thanking you very sincerely for your kind purposes toward me, I am compelled to say the money part of the arrangement you propose is, with me, an impossibility. I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, March 17, 1860

The Lincoln Log, March 17, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln turned down suggestions to use money to help line up delegates. His friend Mark W. Delahay had complained to him that Seward spent freely to win support in Kansas and that ‘we, your friends, are all very poor,’ and hinted that ‘a very little money now would do us and you a vast deal of good.’ Lincoln would have none of it: ‘I can not enter the ring on the money basis – first, because in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.’ Yet, he added, ‘for certain objects, in a political contest, the use of some, is both right, and indispensable.’ So saying, he agreed to give Delahay $100 to enable him to attend the Chicago convention, assuming that he would be chosen a delegate. In fact, Delahay and all other Lincoln supporters in Kansas were defeated. Upon learning of this development, Lincoln advised Delahay not to stir the Seward delegates ‘up to anger, but come along to the convention, and I will do as I said about expenses.’ The following day, Lincoln told a correspondent who had proposed some scheme involving the expenditure of $10,000: ‘I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.’”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 14 (PDF), 1625-1626.

 

“During most of the nineteenth century, presidential candidates did not campaign openly; the post was supposed to seek the man. Lincoln remained true to that tradition, but a number of managers pushed his campaign… When E. Stafford suggested that Lincoln raise a campaign chest of $10,000, the candidate replied “’I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success.’”

–Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000).

 

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Springfield, Illinois, March 17, 1860.

Dear Sir: Reaching home on the 14th instant, I found yours of the 1st. Thanking you very sincerely for your kind purposes toward me, I am compelled to say the money part of the arrangement you propose is, with me, an impossibility. I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown. Nor have my friends, so far as I know, yet reached the point of staking any money on my chances of success. I wish I could tell you better things, but it is even so. Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

Letter to Mary Lincoln (March 4, 1860)

Contributing Editors for this page include Christopher Watson

Ranking

#140 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

On This Date

HD Daily Report, March 4, 1860

The Lincoln Log, March 4, 1860

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Christopher Watson, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), June 26, 2014

How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln’s success at Cooper Institute led to many speaking invitations from Republicans in New England, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He had originally intended to visit his son Robert at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then return to Springfield promptly, but he agreed to take to the stump in the Granite State, in Rhode Island, and in Connecticut, where state elections were scheduled that April. The race in Connecticut was especially important, for Democrats believed that their popular candidate, Thomas Seymour, could capture the governorship, thus breaking the Republican hold on New England and inspiring Democrats everywhere. During the next two weeks, Lincoln gave hastily-scheduled addresses in Providence and Woonsocket, Rhode Island; Manchester, Exeter, Concord, and Dover, New Hampshire; and Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Norwich, and Meriden, Connecticut. In the midst of that whirlwind tour, he complained to his wife: ‘I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it I think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New York, being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well, and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine others, before reading audiences, who have already seen all my ideas in print.’”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1609-1610.

 

“Lincoln stayed at Exeter Sunday night and left on the morning train. On his way home to Springfield, he made a number of other political stops, making a total of ten speeches during his eastern trip, although he originally had only intended to make the one in New York. Such a busy schedule caused him to tell his wife, ‘I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it I think I would not have come East at all.’ Robert found this comment by his father ‘interesting in view of the effect which was made upon his future career without thought of it by him, by his unanticipated speeches, which would not have been made but for a visit to a schoolboy.’” 46

–Jason Emerson, Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), 46.

 

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Exeter, N. H. March 4. 1860
 
Dear Wife:
When I wrote you before I was just starting on a little speech-making tour, taking the boys with me– On Thursday they went with me to Concord, where I spoke in day-light, and back to Manchester where I spoke at night– Friday we came down to Lawrence — the place of the Pemberton Mill  tragedy –where we remained four hours awaiting the train back to Exeter– When it came, we went upon it to Exeter where the boys got off, and I went on to Dover and spoke there Friday evening– Saturday I came back to Exeter, reaching here about noon, and finding the boys all right, having caught up with their lessons– Bob had a letter from you saying Willie and Taddy were very sick the Saturday night after I left– Having no despatch from you, and having one from Springfield, of Wednesday, from Mr. Fitzhugh,  saying nothing about our family, I trust the dear little fellows are well again–
This is Sunday morning; and according to Bob’s orders, I am to go to church once to-day– Tomorrow I bid farewell to the boys, go to Hartford, Conn. and speak there in the evening; Tuesday at Menden,  Wednesday at New-Haven — and Thursday at Woonsocket, R. I– Then I start home, and think I will not stop– I may be delayed in New-York City an hour or two– I have been unable to escape this toil– If I had foreseen it I think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New-York, being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well, and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine others, before reading audiences, who have already seen all my ideas in print–
If the trains do not lie over Sunday, of which I do not know, I hope to be home to-morrow week– Once started I shall come as quick as possible–
Kiss the dear boys for Father–
Affectionately
A. Lincoln

Letter to Samuel Galloway (March 24, 1860)

Ranking

#141 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“My name is new in the field; and I suppose I am not the first choice of a very great many. Our policy, then, is to give no offence to others—leave them in a mood to come to us, if they shall be compelled to give up their first love.” 

On This Date

HD Daily Report, March 24, 1860

The Lincoln Log, March 24, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“From New York, Lincoln continued on to New England for two arduous weeks of speechmaking. He returned home in the middle of March, weary but pleased by the results of his Eastern tour. Now more or less openly a presidential candidate, he explained his strategy to a supporter in Ohio, where another party leader, Salmon P. Chase, was eyeing the nomination.”

— Don Edward Fehrenbacher, Abraham Lincoln: a Documentary Portrait Through his Speeches and Writings (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), 143.

“But it was not absurd, for the race for the nomination was wide open. Seward seemed to be the front runner, but many thought him as unelectable as Chase. Other names being tossed about – John McLean, Nathaniel P. Banks, Edward Bates, Lyman Trumbull, Jacob Collamer, Benjamin F. Wade, Henry Wilson – were all long shots at best. As Schuyler Colfax noted in December 1858, ‘there is no serious talk of any one.’ Despite his modesty, Lincoln between August 1859 and March 1860 positioned himself for a presidential run by giving speeches and corresponding with party leaders in several states, among them Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Kansas. At the same time, he labored to keep Republicans true to their principles by having them steer a middle course between the Scylla of Douglas’s popular sovereignty and the Charybdis of radical abolitionism. Only thus could he and his party capture the White House. And only thus could a lesser-known Moderate like himself lead the ticket.”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 14 (PDF), 1524-1525.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Chicago, March 24 1860
 
Hon. Samuel Galloway
My dear Sir: 
I am here attending a trial in court. Before leaving home I received your kind letter of the 15th. Of course I am gratified to know I have friends in Ohio who are disposed to give me the highest evidence of their friendship and confidence. Mr Parrott  of the Legislature, had written me to the same effect. If I have any chance, it consists mainly in the fact that the whole opposition would vote for me if nominated. (I dont mean to include the pro-slavery opposition of the South, of course.) My name is new in the field; and I suppose I am not the first choice of a very great many. Our policy, then, is to give no offence to others—leave them in a mood to come to us, if they shall be compelled to give up their first love. This, too, is dealing justly with all, and leaving us in a mood to support heartily whoever shall be nominated. I believe I have once before told you that I especially wish to do no ungenerous thing towards Governor Chase, because he gave us his sympathy in 1858, when scarcely any other distinguished man did. Whatever you may do for me, consistently with these suggestions, will be appreciated, and gratefully remembered.
Please write me again. 
 
Yours very truly
A. LINCOLN

Endorsement (May 17, 1860)

Ranking

#142 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“I agree with Seward in his ‘Irrepressible Conflict,’  but I do not endorse his ‘Higher Law’ doctrine. Make no contracts that will bind me.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, May 17, 1860

The Lincoln Log, May 17, 1860

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How Historians Interpret

“Davis wanted to cut a deal with the Pennsylvanians, but the previous day Lincoln had sent a terse message via Edward L. Baker: ‘Make no contracts that will bind me.’ According to Henry C. Whitney, Baker ‘related that when he read the note to the delegates and workers gathered at the Lincoln headquarters he was greeted with a burst of laughter.’ Davis, who guffawed louder than anyone else, said: ‘Lincoln ain’t here, and don’t know what we have to meet, so we will go ahead, as if we hadn’t heard from him, and he must ratify it.’ Davis and Swett negotiated with the leading Cameron operatives, John P. Sanderson and Joseph Casey, ‘in the wee small hours of Friday morning.’ Before the convention met, Sanderson had predicted that Lincoln, unlike other contenders, might be able to carry the Keystone State. Cameron was allegedly offered a cabinet post in return for the votes of the Pennsylvania delegates on the second ballot. The Cameron representatives, wary because their counterparts had no authorization from Lincoln to act, were reassured that the Rail-splitter would never repudiate a promise they made.”

–Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript by Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 15 (PDF), 1681-1682.

 

“All through the feverish night of May 17-18 the Illinois politicos worked to line up scattered second-ballot support for Lincoln. Despite the latter’s injunction from Springfield to ‘make no contracts that will bind me,’ his lieutenants in Chicago probably promised cabinet posts and other patronage plums to Indianans, to Cameron of Pennsylvania, and perhaps to the Blairs of Maryland and Missouri. How important these pledges were in winning votes is debatable – after all, Weed could make similar promises on Seward’s behalf. The belief that Lincoln could carry the lower North and Seward could not was the most powerful Lincoln weapon. And delegates from other states were influenced by the action of Indiana and Pennsylvania because they know that the party must capture them to win.”

— James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 219.

 

“Lincoln remained in Springfield during the Republican national convention. People passing through town on their way to Chicago stopped to chat with him. He presented himself as a moderate candidate, while Seward represented the extreme antislavery faction. Edward L. Baker, editor of the Illinois State Journal, also stopped on his way to Chicago. He carried a copy of the Missouri Democrat containing Seward’s position on slavery. In the margin of the Democrat Lincoln wrote, “I agree with Seward in his ‘Irrepressible Conflict,’ but I do not endorse his ‘Higher Law’ doctrine.” That message was for Baker to print, but Lincoln added another message, this one for his managers in Chicago. Well aware of Davis and Swett’s penchants for bargaining, Lincoln added with an underlined emphasis, ‘Make no contracts that will bind me,’ and he instructed Baker to make sure Davis and Swett read the message. The extent to which Lincoln’s handlers adhered to this instruction produced a ripple effect that transcended the outcome of the convention.”

— Chester G. Hearn, Lincoln, the Cabinet and the Generals (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 11.

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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  I agree with Seward in his “Irrepressible Conflict,” but I do not endorse his “Higher Law” doctrine. Make no contracts that will bind me.

Letter to Abraham Jonas (July 21, 1860)

Contributing Editors for this page include Jonas Sherr

Ranking

#144 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“I suppose as good, or even better, men than I may have been in American, or Know-Nothing lodges; but in point of fact, I never was in one, at Quincy, or elsewhere. I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights, while Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 21, 1860

The Lincoln Log, July 21, 1860

Close Readings

Jonas Sherr, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), Sep. 29, 2013 

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How Historians Interpret

“In 1860, Lincoln recalled his Quincy visit in a letter to Jonas: ‘It was in 1854, when I spoke in some Hall there,  and after the speaking, you, with others, took me to, an oyster saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy-House, quite late at night. I left by stage for Naples before day-light in the morning, having come in by the same route, after dark, the evening previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy House to meet me…’ He went on to recall that it was this visit that led to a charge circulated by Congressman William A. Richardson that Lincoln had attended a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy. Lincoln wanted to refute the allegation but without his personal involvement.”

–Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincoln At Peoria: The Turning Point (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2008), 361.

 

“While it is possible to interpret these recollected accounts as confirmation that Lincoln resisted the Know-Nothings and saw himself primarily as a Whig, that interpretation would miss an important nuance. Lincoln opposed nativism but worked with nativists. In other words, the meeting itself had significance. What Lincoln avoided in 1854 was any open fusion between Whigs and Know-Nothings, which he feared would alienate strongly antislavery German immigrants such as George Schneider and potentially divide the opposition forces. As his concern about Benjamin Edwards and his discussion with Ballinger indicated, he certainly did not ignore the Know-Nothings who considered him an ally. Lincoln may have even accepted a secret arrangement with Know-Nothings but was at the very least willing to play down, or even abandon, his Whig identity in order to forge a broad-based coalition with them that might finally defeat the Democrats and, in particular, their statewide leader and his longtime nemesis, Senator Stephen Douglas.’

–Matthew Pinsker, “Not Always Such a Whig: Abraham Lincoln’s Partisan Realignment in the 1850s,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 29, no. 2 (2008): 27-46.

 

 

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

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Confidential
 
Springfield, Ills.
July 21, 1860
 
Hon. A. Jonas
My dear Sir:
Yours of the 20th. is received. I suppose as good, or even better, men than I may have been in American, or Know-Nothing lodges; but in point of fact, I never was in one, at Quincy, or elsewhere. I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights, while Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights. I had never been there before in my life; and never afterwards, till the joint debate with Douglas in 1858. It was in 1854, when I spoke in some Hall there,  and after the speaking, you, with others, took me to, an oyster saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy-House, quite late at night. I left by stage for Naples before day-light in the morning, having come in by the same route, after dark, the evening previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy House to meet me. A few days after I was there, Richardson,  as I understood, started this same story about my having been in a Know-Nothing lodge. When I heard of the charge, as I did soon after, I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have suggested it; and I remembered that on parting with you the last night, I went to the Office of the Hotel to take my stage passage for the morning, was told that no stage office for that line was kept there, and that I must see the driver, before retiring, to insure his calling for me in the morning; and a servant was sent with me to find the driver, who after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps a dozen steps farther, and in my hearing called to some one, who answered him apparantly from the upper part of a building, and promised to call with the stage for me at the Quincy House. I returned and went to bed; and before day the stage called and took me. This is all.
That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, I should expect, could be easily proved, by respectable men, who were always in the lodges and never saw me there. An affidavit of one or two such would put the matter at rest.
And now, a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a point, if they could force me to openly deny this charge, by which some degree of offence would be given to the Americans. For this reason, it must not publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the charge. 
Yours truly 
A. LINCOLN

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