Lincoln, Abraham 3 in United States

Lincoln, Abraham 3

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• Lincoln, Abraham
• Lincoln, Abraham 2
• Lincoln, Abraham 4

The State was carried on the popular vote, but the existing apportionment gave the advantage to Douglas who was returned to the Senate by a majority of five. Commenting upon the outcome Lincoln wrote 19 November, “I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and enduring question of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am gone.” But he was not to be lost from sight or memory. The great debate continued on a wider field. He was called to speak in other States and finally (27 Feb. 1860) by a masterly address at Cooper Institute, in New York City, the growing impression of his leadership was greatly extended. But there were few to think of him then as a possible chief magistrate. The national convention was to meet within the next 80 days (16 May 1860) and it was the general belief that Senator William H. Seward of New York would be the Republican nominee. Fully two-thirds of the delegates expected to vote for him. There were, however, elements of weakness in his candidacy. He had echoed the sentiment of Lincoln’s house-divided speech, terming the slavery dispute an “irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,” one of which must eventually triumph, but he had previously declared in a Senate debate that there is a higher law than the Constitution governing the nation’s stewardship of the public domain. This had associated him in the public mind with the extreme abolitionists by whom the constitution was openly flouted. Some of the Northern States which Frémont had failed to carry were necessary to Republican success. Three of them, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, were to elect State officers in October. Republican leaders, in the last two especially, were convinced that Seward’s nomination would alienate many voters otherwise friendly. Their firm opposition coupled with the purely personal hostility of Horace Greeley, whose newspaper, the New York Tribune, was widely read by Republicans, led to caution and delay. There was the usual array of “favorite sons” to receive perfunctory support on the opening ballot, but it was soon apparent that if Seward were set aside Lincoln would be the choice. The nomination was dictated by considerations of availability. Lincoln could carry Illinois — had done so but two years before. Indiana probably would favor him also. Pennsylvania, pledged to Simon Cameron, was indifferent toward Seward. In the midst of excitement prudence worked powerfully. Seward received but 173½ votes at first, 40½ fewer than the required majority. Lincoln had 102. The leader gained 11 votes on the second ballot as against a gain of 79 for his rival. The third resulted in a majority for Lincoln, and after a painful delay the nomination on motion of New York was made unanimous.

The Democratic convention had met at Charleston, S. C., in the preceding month (23 April 1860) hopelessly divided. Douglas held a decided preponderance over all opponents but not a two-thirds majority as required by the party usage. He had offended the South beyond forgiveness by his course in the debates with Lincoln hardly less than by his contumacy on the Kansas issue. The North refused to yield and the convention split into two angry factions without nomination by either. Eventually two Democratic candidates were presented, Douglas being named by the Northern wing and John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky by the Southern minority. A fourth ticket, headed by John Bell of Tennessee, appealed to the neutral element and proved stronger than was expected; it prevailed in three of the slave-holding States whose electoral votes aggregated 39. While division in the dominant party lent encouragement and vigor to the Republican campaign it can hardly be doubted that the pro-slavery element would have failed in any event. Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, all from the North, and Breckenridge 72, all from the South. Douglas carried Missouri only, but through a fusion agreement obtained three electoral votes from New Jersey, a total of 15. The popular vote, however, varied remarkably, that of Breckenridge being but a trifle more than that accorded to Bell. Douglas outstripped the former by more than half a million and fell behind Lincoln by a slightly lower number. The combined opposition polled nearly a million more votes than were cast for the candidate whose majority in the electoral college was 57 over all. Lincoln never forgot that he was a minority President, nor that his nomination had come from a convention “which was two-thirds for the other fellow.” To his analytical mind these circumstances evinced a confused state of public feeling and opinion calling for caution no less than firmness in the execution of his official trust.

The interval between the election and inauguration day (4 March 1861) was utilized by the southernmost States in perfecting measures of secession. Though it was well known that the incoming administration intended no interference with slavery where it already existed, its protagonists were stung to the quick by the decision of the country to confine the system to a limited area, and that upon the avowed ground that it was both politically and morally a wrong. Such a decision they regarded as insulting, but more than that, they perceived that it placed their cherished institution, as Lincoln had phrased it, “in the course of ultimate extinction.” Their resentment and their fears led to speedy action. Pretexts for dissolving the Union were not wanting; the thought was not new. Buchanan, confused and terrified by the situation, interposed no obstacles. In his message to the new Congress (3 Dec. 1860) he easily demonstrated the utter illegality of all attempts to secede, but with astonishing want of logic maintained that the Federal government possessed no lawful right to resist secession. In a word, that a nation ordained to be perpetual could not defend its perpetuity without breaking the law of its being. The result was that when the President-elect arose to repeat the inaugural oath, with its specific obligations to protect and defend the national Constitution and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, the forms of secession were already accomplished and a new nation, “all slave,” was asserting its separate existence.

The inaugural address, as tactfully as the case would admit, but without the slightest hint of uncertainty, declared that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union was unbroken; that all resolves and ordinances of attempted secession were legally void; and that so far as the means were provided the President would execute the laws in all the States alike. The rest was a calm review of the grounds of dissension and a moving appeal to the minds and hearts of all lovers of the Union for a peaceable settlement and a resumption of healing friendships. The address made no impression in the South except as its moderation was construed as a sign of weakness. The North indeed failed to grasp its real significance. As a declaration of policy it never stood in need of revision or enlargement. Doctrine, duty, purpose and method are all clearly defined; only the wisdom, perseverance, resourcefulness and will of the speaker were as yet unknown. With sagacity which seemed to border on rashness he summoned to his Cabinet the four principal leaders who had contested his nomination, Seward, Chase, Bates and Cameron. At least two of these deemed themselves vastly superior to their chief in all the qualities of statesmanship. Their great abilities served the country well, but the President’s mastery was not long in doubt. Carefully avoiding acts of aggression, and with equal care declining to recognize by word or deed the claims of the so-called Confederate government, he waited for the crystallization of Union sentiment. It came with the assault upon Fort Sumter and its enforced surrender, 14 April 1861. The following day he proclaimed a state of insurrection, called forth the militia to the number of 75,000 and summoned Congress to assemble on the ensuing 4th of July. Four days later a blockade of some of the Southern ports was announced. Other measures of defense were taken, including calls for volunteers to re-enforce the regular army and navy, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in disaffected quarters, extension of the blockade, and the like, all in harmony with the declared purpose to protect the Union and execute its laws.

Pending the meeting of Congress loyal sentiment gradually strengthened. In a message of great power the case for the government was explained and enforced. All suggested legislation was promptly enacted. The South, more firmly united and not less determined, plunged into a military struggle and four years of bloody warfare ensued. The story of battles and campaigns must here be omitted; neither can the civil history of that troubled period be narrated except in barest outline. There were many in the loyal States whose resentment of Southern domination led them to favor separation as a fortunate riddance. Others accepted the extreme view of State rights, including the right of secession. Many shrank from civil war and would consent to disunion rather than fight. The abolitionists would make the war a means of destroying slavery forthwith, while the President and a vast majority of his party were committed to the doctrine that abolition could not lawfully be enforced. These must unite, if at all, upon the single purpose of saving the Union. The avowal of any other aim within the first year inevitably would have wrecked the national cause. Lincoln almost alone perceived that the one unifying appeal must be kept in the foreground, and with undying patience, disregarding ridicule, distrust and obloquy, he restrained rashness, encouraged the timid, reassured the doubtful, persuaded the hostile. At bottom his title to enduring fame rests upon his unerring comprehension of the great task before him and his matchless skill in putting into timely and convincing words the fundamental truths to which the minds of honest men at last must yield. Slavery which had invoked the sword perished by the sword. Emancipation came (1 Jan. 1863) not of set purpose but as a by-product of national self-preservation. Neither side expected it. “Each,” as stated in the second inaugural, “looked for . . . a result less fundamental and astounding.” But Lincoln’s credit for the event is no less because he waited for an occasion to strike lawfully and with assured effect. It must have given him intense satisfaction. “I am naturally anti-slavery,” he wrote to A. C. Hodges, 4 April 1864. “If slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel. Yet I have never understood that the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.” Emancipation, when it came, was purely a military expedient, a blow at the economic resources of a public enemy. “I felt,” he stated in the same letter, “that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong I assumed that ground and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of the government, country and Constitution all together.” He had prepared well for the finishing stroke by proposing and urging a settlement on the basis of compensated emancipation. Logically, enemy property, especially that which the owner refused to sell, might be seized for military purposes. But only such as could be captured fell within that rule, hence a doubt as to the legal effect of a mere announcement of freedom to slaves not within military reach. This doubt was practically solved by the President’s emphatic declaration that he would never retract or modify the edict of emancipation nor return to slavery any person freed by its terms. This was repeated in his last annual message (6 Dec. 1864), this final assurance being added: “If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave such persons another and not I must be their instrument to perform it.” Negro regiments helped to extend the military lines which ultimately carried the reality no less than the promise of freedom to every slave. The 13th amendment to the Constitution was but the formal recognition of a fact already accomplished.