[Illustration: MR. LINCOLN ON HORSEBACK IN FRONT OF HIS RESIDENCE,
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, AT THE TIME OF HIS RETURN FROM THE CAMPAIGN WITH
               SENATOR DOUGLAS. [_From an old Print._]]




                             HOW WE ELECTED
                                LINCOLN

                                PERSONAL
                        RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN
                          AND MEN OF HIS TIME

                                   BY
                         ABRAM J. DITTENHOEFER

                        A CAMPAIGNER FOR LINCOLN
                         IN 1860 AND A LINCOLN
                            ELECTOR IN 1864

                             [Illustration]

                           HARPER & BROTHERS
                          NEW YORK AND LONDON




                          BOOKS ABOUT LINCOLN


                   LINCOLN AND THE SLEEPING SENTINEL
                        By LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN

                   RECOLLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN
                         AND HIS ADMINISTRATION
                        By LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN

             HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN. By A. J. DITTENHOEFER

               THE TOY SHOP. By MARGARITA SPALDING GERRY

                 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By CHARLES C. COFFIN

                    REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
                        By ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE

                LINCOLN’S OWN STORIES. By ANTHONY GROSS


                      HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK


                         HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN

                 Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
                Printed in the United States of America
                       Published September, 1916




                               CONTENTS


CHAP.                                                               PAGE

I. THE MAN--LINCOLN                                                    1

II. LINCOLN’S INTRODUCTION TO THE EAST                                14

III. HOW LINCOLN WAS FIRST NOMINATED                                  20

IV. HOW LINCOLN WAS FIRST ELECTED                                     34

V. THE JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL                                         41

VI. STORIES AND INCIDENTS                                             47

VII. FOUR YEARS OF STRESS AND STRAIN                                  55

VIII. THE RENOMINATION                                                71

IX. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864                                              85




                                PREFACE


This book offers my personal recollections of the immortal Emancipator,
and of the memorable campaigns of 1860 and 1864, in which, as a young
man, I was actively engaged.

In looking back upon a life of fourscore years I find no prouder
memories than those of the years 1860-65. They illumined my being, and
my life became inspired through association with the immortal Abraham
Lincoln and the great men of the anti-slavery conflict.

I am unwilling to allow these reminiscences to go forth without giving
credit to my old friend Julius Chambers, for the valuable assistance he
rendered in compiling them.

                                                         [Illustration:

                                                  Abram J. Dittenhoefer]




                             HOW WE ELECTED
                                LINCOLN




                                   I

                           THE MAN--LINCOLN


Circumstances brought to me personal knowledge of Mr. Lincoln for
nearly four years. I had frequent interviews with him, and so was able
to form a well-considered estimate of the great Emancipator’s character
and personality.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, of Democratic pro-slavery parents,
I was brought in early youth to New York; and although imbued with the
sentiments and antipathies of my Southern environment, I soon became
known as a Southerner with Northern principles. At that time there were
many Northern men with Southern principles.

The city of New York, as I discovered upon reaching the age of
observation, was virtually an annex of the South, the New York
merchants having extensive and very profitable business relations with
the merchants south of the Mason and Dixon line.

The South was the best customer of New York. I often said in those
days, “Our merchants have for sale on their shelves their principles,
together with their merchandise.”

An amusing incident occurred to my knowledge which aptly illustrates
the condition of things in this pro-slavery city. A Southerner came to
a New York merchant, who was a dealer in brushes and toilet articles,
and offered him a large order for combs. The New York merchant, as it
happened, was a Quaker, but this was not known to the Southerner. The
latter made it a condition, in giving this large order, that the Quaker
merchant should exert all his influence in favor of the South. The
Southerner wished to do something to offset the great agitation headed
by the abolitionists which had been going on for years in the North
for the extinction of slavery in the South. The Quaker merchant coolly
replied that the South would have to go lousy for a long time before he
would sell his combs to them under any such conditions.

Another occurrence that took place at an earlier period still further
illumines this intense pro-slavery feeling. When Wendell Phillips, to
my mind one of the greatest orators of America, delivered a radical
and brilliant anti-slavery speech at the old Tabernacle, situated in
Broadway below Canal Street, the hall was filled with pro-slavery
shouters; they rotten-egged Phillips in the course of his address. With
some friends I was present and witnessed this performance.

At nineteen I was wavering in my fidelity to the principles of the
Democratic party, which, in the city of New York, was largely in favor
of slavery.

I had just graduated from Columbia College, which was then situated
in what is now known as College Place, between Chambers and Murray
streets. At that time many of our prominent and wealthy families
lived in Chambers, Murray, and Warren streets, and I frequently
attended festivities held by the parents of the college boys in the
old-fashioned mansions which lined those thoroughfares.

Soon after leaving college I became a student in the law office of
Benedict & Boardman, occupying offices in Dey Street, near Broadway.
At that time the late John E. Parsons, a distinguished member of the
New York bar, was the managing clerk; and Charles O’Connor, the head of
the New York bar in that generation, and who, in later years, ran as an
Independent candidate for the Presidency, was connected with that firm
as counsel.

Sitting one day at my desk, I took up a newspaper, and the debate
between Judah P. Benjamin, the rabid but eloquent pro-slavery Senator
from Louisiana, and Benjamin F. Wade, the free-soil Senator from Ohio,
attracted my attention.

Benjamin had made a strong address in defense of slavery when Wade
arose and replied. He began his reply with some bitter and memorable
words, words which completely changed my political views.

“I have listened with intense interest,” said he, “as I always do
to the eloquent speech of my friend, the Senator from Louisiana--an
Israelite with Egyptian principles.”

My father, who was a prominent merchant of New York in those days, and
very influential with the German population, had urged me to become a
Democrat, warning me that a public career, if I joined the Republican
party, would be impossible in the city of New York. I felt that he was
right in that view, as the party was in a hopeless minority, without
apparent prospect of ever being able to elect its candidates.

This was absolutely plain from the fact that Tammany Hall controlled
the entire election machinery in this city, there being no law at that
time which required the registration of voters before Election Day.
Moreover, the inspectors of election were Tammany heelers, without any
Republican representation on the election boards. In consequence,
fraudulent voting prevailed to a large extent.

And yet my convictions were irrevocably changed by the reading of
Wade’s speech in answer to Benjamin. It struck me with great force that
the Israelite Benjamin, whose ancestors were enslaved in Egypt, ought
not to uphold slavery in free America, and could not do so without
bringing disgrace upon himself.

Having convinced my father that slavery should no longer be tolerated,
he abandoned his old political associations, cast his vote for Lincoln
and Hamlin, and remained a Republican until his death.

Several years later, if I may anticipate, William M. Tweed, who had not
yet become “Boss,” but who had great and powerful influence in Tammany
Hall, besought me to join Tammany, calling my attention to the fact
that the power of the Democratic party was supreme in the city of New
York, and that the organization needed some one to influence the German
element.

He gave me his assurance that if I came into Tammany Hall I should
receive prompt recognition, and in a few years undoubtedly would become
judge of the Supreme Court; later on I might go still higher up. I
thanked Mr. Tweed for his friendly interest in me, but told him that
no political preferment could induce me to abandon my convictions and
lead me to support slavery.

When Tweed became the absolute “Boss” of Tammany, some years later,
he renewed his request that I should join Tammany Hall. Recurring to
his previous promise, he again urged me to become a member of his
organization; again I refused.

One can hardly appreciate to-day what it meant to me, a young man
beginning his career in New York, to ally myself with the Republican
party. By doing so, not only did I cast aside all apparent hope of
public preferment, but I also subjected myself to obloquy from and
ostracism by my acquaintances, my clients, and even members of my own
family.

I was about twenty years of age when the first Republican convention
met at Pittsburg. It succeeded the disruption of the old Whig party,
the latter losing in public esteem on account of its indifference
toward the slavery question.

Gen. John C. Fremont, known as the Pathfinder, was nominated for
President, and William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, was nominated for
Vice-President. The appellation of Pathfinder was given to Fremont
because in earlier years he had explored the then hardly known Western
territory, with the aid of scouts and pioneers, and had indicated
passes and routes through the mountains.

Though not yet of age, I stumped for Fremont and Dayton, making many
speeches during that memorable campaign, and participating in several
barbecues, which were then the usual accompaniment of a political
campaign. I was well received in the towns where I was scheduled to
speak. A military band and a citizens’ committee generally met me
at the station, and escorted me through the streets to the hotel or
private house in which it was arranged that I should stay.

The thrilling battle-cry of that campaign was, “Free Speech, Free Soil,
Free Men, and Fremont!” These words were shouted at all public meetings
and in all public processions, and were received with the wildest
enthusiasm. Indeed, the cry was a stump speech in itself; it still
thrills me as I write. Like the “Marseillaise,” it was a shout for
freedom set to music.

Fremont had served by appointment for a brief period as Senator from
the State of California. His popularity as a candidate was aided by the
fact that his wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, was the brilliant daughter
of Thomas H. Benton, who for thirty years was a Senator from Missouri;
and who, in later years, published his well-known book, _Thirty
Years in the United States Senate_. In the later part of his career,
Benton, who had been a strong supporter of the “peculiar institution”
in the South, became an opponent of the extension of slavery in new
territory. Mrs. Fremont was an important figure in that campaign; her
name was always mentioned with great respect by the opposition speakers.

Early in the Civil War, President Lincoln, in appreciation of Fremont’s
splendid services in the exploration of the West and because he had
been the first Republican candidate for President, appointed him
commander of a portion of the Federal forces. On August 31, 1861,
Fremont issued a military order emancipating the slaves of all persons
in arms against the United States. This action did not meet with Mr.
Lincoln’s approval; he considered it premature, and perhaps he was
right in that view; accordingly he directed that the proclamation
should be withdrawn.

I was afterward reconciled to Fremont’s defeat in 1856, for the reason
that, had he been elected, the probability is that Abraham Lincoln,
the greatest figure in American history, never would have attained the
Presidency.

Here it may be of interest to record that in the convention of 1856,
which nominated Fremont, Lincoln received one hundred and ten votes for
the Vice-presidency, while Mr. Dayton, the successful candidate, had
only a few more votes. Nevertheless, Lincoln did not achieve a national
reputation until he engaged in the memorable Lincoln and Douglas
debates in Illinois.

During the Fremont campaign I sometimes spoke in German, especially in
towns in which there was a large Teutonic population, and I was hoping
that I might influence the German population of New York, two-thirds of
which had allied itself with the Democratic party.

The most memorable event in Mr. Lincoln’s career, after the Fremont
campaign, was his appearance in joint debate with Stephen A. Douglas,
then known as the “Little Giant,” during the months of August,
September, and October, 1858. The challenge came from Lincoln, in a
letter of July 24th, proposing the joint meetings. Seven debates were
subsequently agreed upon to take place in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro,
Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. These debates attracted
great attention in all parts of the country, and were fully reported
by the New York and Chicago newspapers. Robert H. Hitt, who afterward
became chargé d’affaires at Paris, and in later years chairman of the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, reported stenographically all the
speeches, and gave me a vivid impression of them.

In the opening address at Ottawa, the “Little Giant” explained clearly
what he meant by the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which he had
advocated in the United States Senate for many years, and which by the
Free Soil people of the North was looked upon as merely a blind to
cover the extension of slavery in free territory.

Douglas had introduced bills giving Statehood to the Territories of
Kansas and Nebraska, and commenting upon these bills he said it was not
intended to legislate slavery into any State or Territory or to exclude
it therefrom, but “to leave the people thereof entirely free to form
and regulate their domestic institutions as they thought best, subject
only to the Federal Constitution.”

Now in the North the agitation to prevent the extension of slavery in
those States was intense; indeed, as the question involved the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the extension of slavery
in newly acquired territory and which had been on the statute-book for
many years, it became the great issue of the Republican party.

Mr. Lincoln’s speeches were filled with quaint phrases and interpolated
jests. The latter always were apt and calculated to keep his hearers,
friendly or antagonistic, in a good humor. In his Ottawa answer to
Douglas’s opening speech Mr. Lincoln asserted that any attempt to show
that he (Lincoln) advocated “perfect social and political equality
between the negro and the white man is only a specious and fantastic
arrangement of words, by which one might prove a horse-chestnut was a
chestnut horse.”

All Lincoln demanded for the negro was the right to eat the bread which
his own hands had earned without leave of anybody.

Lincoln was fond of quoting from the Bible without mentioning the
fact, whereas Douglas was often caught differing with the Scriptures.
Naturally Lincoln took advantage of his political opponent’s lack of
Biblical knowledge.

Judge Douglas, in the debate of July 16, 1858, said: “Mr. Lincoln tells
you in his speech made in Springfield, ‘A house divided against itself
cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half
slave, half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not
expect the house to fall; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It
will become all one thing or all the other.’”

Judge Douglas then proceeded to use as his keynote of his speech
Lincoln’s sentence: “A house divided against itself cannot stand,”
arguing eloquently and apparently quite unaware of its Biblical origin.

Referring to Judge Douglas’s criticism of his expression, “A house
divided against itself cannot stand,” Lincoln asked: “Does the judge
say it can stand? If he does, then it is a question of veracity not
between him and me, but between the judge and an authority of somewhat
higher character.”

Lincoln’s fondness for scriptural stories and incidents is further
illustrated when, having appointed a man to a judgeship who had been
suspected of having been connected with a certain secret organization
which was opposed to Lincoln’s renomination, he was remonstrated with
and his magnanimity criticized. He replied: “I suppose Judge ----,
having been disappointed, did behave badly, but I have scriptural
reasons for appointing him. When Moses was on Mount Sinai, getting a
commission for Aaron, that same Aaron was at the foot of the mountain
making a false god for the people to worship. Yet Aaron got the
commission.”

As an answer to Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty Lincoln said
that he could not understand why, in the Territories, any man should be
“obliged to have a slave if he did not want one. And if any man wants
slaves,” argued Lincoln, “all other citizens in the Territory have no
way of keeping that one man from holding them.”

He denounced fiercely the scheme of the Southern slaveholders to annex
Cuba as a plan to increase the slave territory. It may be recalled that
the conference at Ostend during Buchanan’s administration was held for
that purpose.

Horace White has published an admirable description of his tour with
these debaters. In a parade at Charleston thirty-two young ladies,
representing States of the Union, carried banners. This “float” was
followed by a handsome young woman on horseback, holding aloft a burgee
inscribed: “Kansas, I will be free!” Upon the side of the float was the
legend:

    Westward the star of empire takes its way;
    We girls link on to Lincoln, as our mothers did to Clay.

Senator Douglas charged that these debates had been instituted for the
purpose of carrying Lincoln into the United States Senate. Although
Lincoln denied this, the Democrats believed there was some foundation
for the assumption.

The meeting at Dayton was a particularly boisterous one. Elijah Parish
Lovejoy, a brother of the distinguished Owen Lovejoy, who was very
prominent in the abolitionist agitation, had been assassinated there
nineteen years before for his anti-slavery opinions, but neither of the
speakers referred to the fact.

To show the pro-slavery sentiment that dominated the entire Government
at that time, the famous dictum of Chief-Justice Taney in the Dred
Scott decision that “a negro had no rights that a white man was bound
to respect,” may appropriately be recalled.




                                  II

                  LINCOLN’S INTRODUCTION TO THE EAST


Abraham Lincoln made his first public appearance in New York at Cooper
Union on the night of the 27th of February, 1860. My anti-slavery
attitude was strengthened by that wonderful speech.

My acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln began on the afternoon of that
memorable day. I was presented to him at his hotel, and I venture
to hope that I made some impression on him. This may have been due
to the fact that at an early age I had taken an active part in the
Republican campaigns, and had followed with close attention the Lincoln
and Douglas debates as they were reported in the New York journals.
Consequently I could talk intelligently of national politics.

I was on hand early at the Institute that night, and, having a seat
upon the platform, I was able to observe the manner of the orator as
well as to hear every word he uttered. The way in which he carried
himself before the large audience that filled every nook and corner of
that underground hall is engraven on my mind. He was a very homely man.
Indeed, he often referred to his homeliness himself. His tall, gaunt
body was like a huge clothed skeleton. So large were his feet and so
clumsy were his hands that they looked out of proportion to the rest of
his figure. No artistic skill could soften his features nor render his
appearance less ungainly, but after he began to talk he was awkwardness
deified.

In repose, as I saw him on many subsequent occasions, his face seemed
dull, but when animated it became radiant with vitalized energy.

No textual report of his Cooper Institute address can possibly give any
idea of its great oratorical merits. Mr. Lincoln never ranted, but gave
emphatic emphasis to what he wished especially to “put across” by a
slowness and marked clearness of enunciation. His voice was unpleasant,
almost rasping and shrill at first. Perhaps this was due to the fact
that he found it necessary to force it. A little later, he seemed to
control his voice better, and his earnestness invited and easily held
the attention of his auditors.

To summarize the seven thousand words spoken by Mr. Lincoln on that
great occasion would be a difficult task and could not be successfully
attempted in these reminiscences. I will only state that his theme was
“slavery as the fathers viewed it.” Its delivery occupied more than an
hour, its entire purpose being to show that the fathers of the Republic
merely tolerated slavery where it existed, since interference with it
would be resisted by the South; moreover, recognition of the legality
of slavery in those States had been the inducement offered to them to
enter the Union.

Mr. Lincoln, however, indicated that he was unalterably and inflexibly
opposed to the extension of slavery in territory in which it did not
exist.

Mr. Lincoln began with a quotation from one of Senator Douglas’s
speeches, in which the “Little Giant” asserted that the framers of the
Constitution understood the slavery question as well as, or better
than, their descendants. He brilliantly traced the origin and growth of
democracy under the various forms that preceded the final adoption of
the Constitution.

As it appeared to an abolitionist in principle, the speaker handled
the slavery question somewhat cautiously, chiefly condemning the
contemplated repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and opposing the
extension of slavery into Territories and States where it did not
exist. The appeal that he made to the reason and the common sense
of the Southerner was forcible. He denied that the Republicans of
the North were sectional, or that they blamed the present generation
of the South for the existence of slavery. He went out of his way
to condemn the John Brown raid, asserting that the Republican party
had no sympathy with that foolhardy enterprise. He compared the John
Brown raid to the previous outbreak at Southampton, Virginia, under
the negro, Nat Turner, in which sixty white people, mostly women and
children, were destroyed. He denounced the declaration of the Southern
people that Northern anti-slavery men had instigated the John Brown
incursion at Harper’s Ferry, and he showed that the trial of John Brown
at Charlestown proved the allegation to be utterly fallacious.

The sentences near the close of Mr. Lincoln’s address will serve as
the keynote upon which he subsequently based his candidacy for the
Presidency in opposition to the extremely radical anti-slavery views of
Horace Greeley and William H. Seward.

“Wrong as we think slavery,” said Lincoln, “we can afford to let it
alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising
from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes
will prevent, allow it to spread in the national Territories and to
overrun us here in these free States? Let us have faith that right
makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we
understand it.”

The reception of these closing words by former Whigs and partially
convinced Republicans who were in the audience can hardly be described
as enthusiastic. Many of these men left the auditorium that night, as I
did, in a seriously thoughtful mood.

Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln was congratulated by many upon the “boldness”
of his views. And, indeed, they seemed radical at a time when nearly
every prominent statesman of the country was “trimming” on the slavery
question. The great Daniel Webster had ruined his political career some
years previously by trying to be “all things to all men” politically.

When I called at Mr. Lincoln’s hotel the following morning, I found Mr.
Lincoln alone. The shouts of approbation of the previous night were
still ringing in my ears, but the figure of the awkward Illinoisan
suggested nothing in the way of public enthusiasm or personal
distinction. He then and there appeared as a plain, unpretentious man.
I ventured to congratulate him upon the success of his speech, and
his face brightened. “I am not sure that I made a success,” he said,
diffidently.

During the remainder of the brief time I was with Mr. Lincoln in his
hotel, together with two members of the Republican committee, there was
only a general conversation about the Douglas-Lincoln debates, and the
intense anti-slavery agitation prevailing in the Kansas and Nebraska
Territories and in Illinois.

A few days after that epoch-making speech a prominent Democratic
acquaintance, who had often expressed to me in language of bitterness
his hatred of all people who opposed the South, assured me that Mr.
Lincoln’s speech had made him a Free-Soiler, although he had not
believed it possible that such a change in his views could ever occur.

In subsequent speeches throughout New England Mr. Lincoln went to
greater lengths in his denunciation of slavery. At Hartford, on the 5th
of March, he denounced slavery as the enemy of the free working-man;
a day later, at New Haven, he characterized slavery as “the snake in
the Union bed”; at Norwich, on the ninth of that month, he described
Douglas’s popular sovereignty as “the sugar-coated slavery pill.”

These later speeches greatly strengthened the anti-slavery agitation
throughout the North, and went far to settle the opinions of the
voters, who were wavering between Douglas’s popular sovereignty and the
ultra radicalism of Garrison and Phillips.




                                  III

                    HOW LINCOLN WAS FIRST NOMINATED


The Republican National Convention that convened in Chicago, May 16,
1860, proved a complete refutation of the frequently expressed belief
that the new party had died with Fremont’s defeat in 1856. Some of the
ablest and most distinguished men in the country appeared as delegates
and as candidates for nomination. During the four years following
Fremont’s defeat by James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, former minister to
England, the Republican party had been strengthened by the affiliation
of many Northern Democrats who were inclined to oppose the extension of
slavery. The struggles to exclude the curse of slavery from Kansas and
Nebraska had agitated the entire country during these years, and had
brought many new voters into the ranks of the Republican party.

William H. Seward was admittedly the great Republican leader and the
ablest champion of his party. His speech in the United States Senate
on the “Irrepressible Conflict” had made him famous all over the
country, and he was constantly talked of by both friends and foes. At
least two-thirds of the delegates at the Chicago convention favored
his nomination, and even the majority of the delegates from Illinois,
Lincoln’s own State, while instructed to vote for “Honest Old Abe” as
the favorite son, passively favored Seward.

In the New York delegation was Tom Hyer, the noted champion
prize-fighter of his generation. He bore the banner of the New York
City Republican Club, and was an ardent supporter of Seward. Being a
man six feet two and a half inches in height, he presented an imposing
figure.

The defeat of Seward’s ambition was generally ascribed to an unhealed
break between Horace Greeley, Thurlow Weed, and himself. These three
men, all eminent in their spheres, constituted what was known then
as the “Republican Triumvirate,” or what would now be called the
“Big Three.” This breach occurred in November, 1854, over five years
previously. Greeley resented the injustice that he believed had been
meted out to him, being sincerely of the opinion that Senator Seward
had deceived him, and this unfriendly feeling had fermented into a
fully developed hatred.

His letter to Seward announcing “a dissolution of the political firm of
Seward, Weed, and Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner,”
is a part of political history. It is a long epistle, covering more
than five pages in Greeley’s _Recollections of a Busy Life_, in which
is recounted the writer’s career in New York, from his start as “a
poor young printer” to his affiliations with the political powers of
the Empire State. While it contains kindly words for Thurlow Weed, it
proclaims the severance of all relations with Seward. In conclusion, it
acknowledges acts of kindness by his former partner in politics, and,
reiterating that “such acts will be gratefully remembered, the writer
takes an eternal farewell.”

In the stormy days preceding the Chicago convention the New York
_Tribune’s_ opposition to Seward’s nomination had been continuous. But
I have always had an idea, based upon a study of the actual occurrences
in the convention where I was a looker-on, and from my intimacy with
Mr. Greeley, that the factor which had the most to do with Seward’s
defeat was the fear of Henry S. Lane, Republican candidate for Governor
of Indiana, and of Andrew G. Curtin, Republican candidate for Governor
of Pennsylvania, that Seward could not carry these two States. This
weakness would not only insure defeat of the Presidential ticket, but
would carry down with it the aspirations of these two Gubernatorial
candidates.

I talked with both of these able politicians on the subject, and the
reasons they gave for their opposition to Seward were that he had
antagonized the Protestant element of the country and the remnants of
the old “Know Nothing party” by his advocacy, in a message to the New
York Legislature, of a division of the school funds between Catholic
parochial schools and the common or public schools of the States in
proportion to the number of Catholics and non-Catholics. How much
ground there was for the anxiety of Lane and Curtin I have never been
able to settle in my mind. Whether they were unduly alarmed or not, the
dissemination of these views among the delegates created a noticeable
weakening on the part of Seward’s friends.

The battle in the convention was a contest of political giants. Thurlow
Weed, to whom Lincoln afterward became greatly attached, was Seward’s
devoted and loyal friend and champion. He gallantly led the fight for
him, ably supported by Edwin D. Morgan, the war Governor of New York,
and chairman, at that time, of the National Committee, and also by
Henry J. Raymond, the distinguished founder of the New York _Times_,
and in later years Lieutenant-Governor of the State of New York.

Before the convention was called to order at least eight candidates
were in the field; to enumerate them:

    William H. Seward, of New York.
    Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois.
    Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania.
    Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio.
    Edward Bates, of Missouri.
    William L. Dayton, of New Jersey.
    Justice John McLean, of the Supreme Court.
    Jacob Collamer, of Vermont.

George Ashman, of Massachusetts, was chosen permanent chairman of the
convention, and after the platform was read Joshua Giddings moved
that it should be amended by inserting a part of the Declaration of
Independence. This was violently opposed by another delegate in a
rather sarcastic speech, whereupon George William Curtis, one of the
great orators of America, and at the time editor of _Harper’s Weekly_,
got the floor and in his mellifluous voice said:

“Gentlemen, have you dared to come to this convention to undo what your
fathers did in Independence Hall?”

Curtis’s speech carried the amendment.

To impress all wavering delegates, an imposing political parade through
the streets was organized by Seward’s friends. It was great in numbers
and enthusiasm. Hundreds of marchers, among whom Tom Hyer, in his
glossy silk hat, was a prominent figure, were drafted into the parade
by the political wire-pullers, but it had no effect in determining the
result on the floor of the convention.

Indeed, from my long political experience I have come to the conclusion
that these public parades, while imposing for the moment, have no
permanent influence upon the voters. The mob of spectators along the
streets are there largely as a matter of curiosity, and are not to be
swerved from their convictions by any mere spectacle.

While this outside parade was being carried on, Lincoln’s friends
developed tremendous energy and skill in marshaling the delegates.
Among the leaders of the “rail-splitter’s” cause were Joseph Medill,
the celebrated editor of the Chicago _Tribune_, David Davis, the
intimate friend of Lincoln, afterward appointed by him justice of
the United States Supreme Court; Norman B. Judd; and Leonard Swett,
remarkable for his close resemblance to Lincoln.

Greeley was an intense champion of Edward Bates, who had been a
representative from Missouri during the administration of John Quincy
Adams.

Greeley’s championship of Bates was remarkable for several reasons.
Bates was born in Virginia, he had been a lifelong slaveholder, and in
politics he was what was known as a “Silver-gray Whig.” Consequently he
was conservative on the slavery question, clinging to the doctrine of
the revolutionary sages that “slavery was an evil to be restricted,
not a good to be diffused.” Greeley insisted that the position that
Bates thus held made him essentially a Republican. While he believed
that Bates would poll votes even in the slave States, he was confident
that he would rally about him all that was left of the old Whig party.

Greeley, regarding trouble with the Southern States as probably
inevitable, yet believed that the nomination of Bates would check
and possibly avert an open schism. He did not at the time avow these
reasons for supporting Bates, but afterward frankly admitted them.
While these views may have influenced his opposition to Seward’s
nomination, there is no doubt in my mind but that the real reason of
his fight against Seward were the grounds hereinbefore stated.

The Free Soil element at Chicago was both prominent and aggressive. A
characteristic anecdote is told of Greeley during a caucus at which a
Free Soil member shouted, “Let us have a candidate, this time, that
represents our advanced convictions against slavery.”

“My friend,” inquired Greeley, in his falsetto voice, as he rose to
his feet, “suppose each Republican voter in your State were to receive
a letter to-morrow advising him that he (the said voter) had just
lost a brother living in the South, who had left to him a plantation
stocked with slaves. How many of the two hundred and fifty thousand
Republicans would, in response, set free those slaves?”

“I fear I could not stand that test myself,” was the rejoinder.

“Then it is not yet time to nominate an abolitionist,” retorted
Greeley, sitting down.

This is a good story, but if the incident took place at all it must
have occurred elsewhere than in the caucus of the New York delegation,
for the reason that Greeley, not being a delegate from the State of New
York, could not attend the caucus of that delegation. He was appointed
a delegate from Oregon, by the special request of the Republicans of
that State, and as such sat in the convention.

Seward had all of the delegates from New York, Michigan, Massachusetts,
and he counted many followers in other States.

Lincoln had a strong following from his own State, and on the first
ballot mustered one hundred and two votes out of a total of four
hundred and sixty-six. Seward received one hundred and seventy-two
and a half on the second ballot; then Cameron turned his votes over
to Lincoln, and thirteen of the Bates delegates followed suit. On the
third ballot Lincoln’s vote had increased to two hundred and thirty-one
and a half, while Seward’s was only one hundred and eighty. When the
break started I turned to my neighbor in the gallery and remarked,
“Seward is defeated; Lincoln will be nominated.”

“No,” he objected; “this is only one delegation, and Seward’s friends
are too devotedly attached to his fortunes. They will never go over to
his opponent.”

“And what will Greeley do?” I asked.

“Greeley will be left with only his hatred,” he rejoined.

And yet, even as we were speaking, the tide had turned. Delegate after
delegate came over to Lincoln, and the final ballot gave him three
hundred and fifty-four votes and the nomination. When the result was
announced there was an outbreak from the galleries which had been
packed with Lincoln sympathizers, but the New York delegates sat silent
and sullen in their seats. It seemed a long time, although it was
really only a few minutes, before William M. Evarts, the distinguished
member of the New York bar, who later became Secretary of State under
President Hayes, and Senator from the State of New York, rose and
moved, presumably with Seward’s acquiescence, that Lincoln’s nomination
be made unanimous. Then the applause broke out again and this time it
was much more general and spontaneous.

Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President
practically without opposition. The singular coincidence that the last
syllable of Lincoln’s first name, “Abraham,” and the first syllable
of his last name, “Lincoln,” form the name “Hamlin,” attracted wide
attention at that time.

A great many anti-slavery advocates in the North differed with Lincoln
as regards his views on the grave question of the immediate extinction
of slavery in the Southern States. They did not understand him.

They did not comprehend that he was at heart thoroughly imbued with the
unrighteousness of property in human beings, but that he felt it was
good policy to go gradually, step by step, hoping to unite the entire
North and so bring about the ultimate abolishment of slavery; whereas,
if the policy for the immediate extinction of slavery should be adopted
it must inevitably have disrupted the Republican party.

I was present at that convention, not as a delegate, but as a
“looker-on” and a student of American politics. I need not say that I
learned much about the finesse and spirit of compromise that enters
into all national conventions.

From a brief conversation which I had with Mr. Greeley, I understood
that while he disclaimed having effected Seward’s defeat, he was only
moderately gratified at Lincoln’s nomination.

In his well-known volume of _Recollections_ he intimates that he
exerted much less influence in bringing about Seward’s defeat than I
gathered from the conversation I had with him on the morning following
Lincoln’s nomination.

The demand of the people of the North, where the Republican strength
lay exclusively, was for a candidate who would appeal to both
Free-Soilers and abolitionists. Between these factions there was an
almost impassable gulf.

Now as the years have rolled on Lincoln has grown steadily in the love
and admiration of the American people, and the unjust criticism which
was made by the abolitionists at the time of his nomination, namely,
that he did not favor the abolition of slavery in the States because
he was born in the South, is regarded with disdain. The abolitionists
in their intemperate criticism used language, in discussing Lincoln,
hardly less acrimonious than that employed by the “fire-eaters” of the
South; but they had no recourse except to vote for him. Thus were added
thousands of unwilling votes to swell the Lincoln aggregate in the
November election.

The Democratic convention had convened at an earlier date in
Charleston, South Carolina, the city of my birth. After quarreling
over a platform for a week, the convention was split by the withdrawal
of the majority of the delegates of the slave States, following the
adoption of the plank favoring the Douglas “popular sovereignty”
doctrine.

After fifty-seven ballots for President, in which Douglas had the
majority in every instance, but not the two-thirds required for
nomination in Democratic conventions, the convention adjourned on
May 3, 1860, to reassemble at Baltimore, June 18. There, the places
of the seceders having been filled, Douglas received one hundred and
seventy-three and a half votes on the first ballot and one hundred
and eighty-one and a half on the second, still lacking the vote of
two-thirds of the three hundred and three delegates in convention. On
motion of Sanford E. Church, of New York, who, in later years, became
chief-justice of the Court of Appeals of that State, he was declared
the nominee. Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, was named as candidate
for Vice-President.

The remnant of the Charleston convention gathered itself together
in a separate convention, also held in Baltimore, on the eleventh
day of June. It adjourned on the 25th of that month, when John
C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky,--at that time Vice-President under
Buchanan--was unanimously named for President, with Gen. Joseph H.
Lane, of Oregon, as his running mate.

In the Charleston convention Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, who
during the Civil War became identified with the North and was made a
major-general in the Union Army, cast a solitary vote for Jefferson
Davis as the Democratic candidate for President.

The three-cornered contest that followed between Lincoln, Douglas,
and Breckenridge is paralleled in American political history by the
famous campaign of 1824 when Jackson, Adams, Clay, and Crawford, all
of the same party, were running for the Presidency. As none of the
latter received a majority of the electoral vote, the election, under
the provisions of the Constitution, was thrown into the House of
Representatives, where John Quincy Adams received the nomination.

When the committee went to Springfield to notify Mr. Lincoln of his
nomination, Judge Kelly, of Pennsylvania, known, because of his
service of over thirty years in Congress, as the father of the House
of Representatives, was one of the committee. The judge was unusually
large in stature, and his great height attracted Mr. Lincoln, who, upon
shaking hands with him, asked, “What is your height, Judge?”

“About six feet three,” said Judge Kelly. “What is yours, Mr. Lincoln.”

“Six feet four,” replied Lincoln, with a smile, pulling himself up to
his full stature.

“Pennsylvania,” said Judge Kelly, “bows to Illinois. My dear man, for
years my heart has been aching for a President that I could ‘look up
to,’ and I have found him in the land where we thought there was none
but ‘Little Giants.’”

Lincoln replied, “There is one man in this country who, though little
in stature, is a giant in mind, and he has given me much hard work to
do.”

Mr. Lincoln’s reply to the committee that visited Springfield on
May 19, to notify him of his nomination, and his formal letter of
acceptance, dated May 23, avoided all reference to what Mr. Seward had
described as “the impending crisis.” In his letter Mr. Lincoln pledged
“due regard to the rights of all States and Territories and people of
the nation, to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual
union, harmony, and prosperity of all.” This assurance satisfied
neither slaveholders of the South nor anti-slave men of the North. This
letter often rose to haunt Lincoln in the latter part of the war, after
he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation which gave freedom to all
the slaves.

Mr. Lincoln was in the office of the Springfield _Journal_ when he
received the first notification of his nomination. After allowing the
assembled people to congratulate him, he said, “There is a little woman
down at our house that would like to hear the news,” and he started at
once for home.




                                  IV

                     HOW LINCOLN WAS FIRST ELECTED


Not long after the nomination I went to Chicago and thence to
Springfield. When I called at the modest Lincoln home, in order to
offer my congratulations, I found him eager to obtain every ray of
light upon the prospects of the coming campaign.

“What are the chances of my election?” he asked, as he took my hand.

“You are going to get the entire North,” I replied, “on account of the
Democratic division between Breckenridge and Douglas.”

“That is my own way of calculating,” he assented, “but I am glad to get
the views of everybody of experience in political matters.”

“Mr. Dittenhoefer is absolutely correct in his figuring,” put in a
bystander, and the glimmer of a smile of satisfaction passed over
Mr. Lincoln’s rugged countenance. I stepped back and stood looking
and wondering. Typically Western he seemed to be in face, figure,
and dress. How would he bear himself if called upon to direct the
destinies of the Republic? Let me say frankly that, at this early day,
no suspicion of his real greatness had ever entered my mind. I knew
he was an able man, and I was content to hope that he might be strong
enough to cope with the coming crisis in national affairs.

The Republican campaign, which began in earnest by the middle of June
and lasted until the night before election day in November, differed in
many respects from any other in my recollection.

I believe that there was more sincerity of soul put into the efforts to
win by fair means than has appeared in more recent national contests.

A few days before the election of 1860 I made a speech at Cooper
Institute, which began as follows:

    “With banners waving and with bugle horns,
    We are coming, Father Abraham, five hundred thousand strong,
    One blast upon the bugle horn is worth a thousand men.”

This was repeated by numerous speakers on the stump throughout the
country.

Memories of these parades, stump speeches, and bonfires linger with me
vividly. The marching clubs were called “Wide Awakes,” and upon the
oil-cloth cloaks, cut amply long in order to protect their wearers
from the weather, the words “Wide Awake,” in tall, white letters, were
painted. Each man carried a swinging torch which maintained an upright
position no matter how it was held. The campaign developed numerous
parades of these “Wide Awakes” in cities and towns throughout the
country.

The Republican National Committee was not in possession of large
funds, and each organization financed itself. It is doubtful if the
National Committee had more than $100,000 to spend, and most of this
went for printing and postage. There was no “yellow-dog fund” in those
days. Had it been necessary for Mr. Lincoln or his managers to raise a
half-million dollars, or go down to defeat, Lincoln would have lost out.

Our “infant industries” had not yet been developed and “brought to a
head by the poultice of protection.” The late Senator Hanna would have
regarded the prospects of a successful campaign without contribution
from the protected interests as exceedingly doubtful.

I threw all my energy into this campaign, and, though young, I was
frequently making several speeches during a day and evening. I marched
with the “Wide Awakes,” and was sent to different parts of the State,
where, with other speakers, I addressed large audiences. The temper of
my hearers was not always encouraging.

I have always doubted whether Seward’s partisan adherents in central
New York gave really loyal support to Lincoln, since it continued
to rankle in their breasts that the sentiment of two-thirds of the
convention, originally in favor of Seward, had been turned to Lincoln
through the machinations of Horace Greeley, Reuben E. Fenton--afterward
Governor of the State of New York--and other prominent anti-Seward men.

No attempt was made by the Republicans to campaign in the Southern
States, where the breach existing between the Douglas and Breckenridge
adherents was remorselessly unrelenting. The drift in those States
was naturally unanimously in favor of Breckenridge, and it was early
recognized that Douglas, though a Democrat, would not carry a single
Southern State.

In the North the contest lay between Lincoln and Douglas. Breckenridge
and Bell counted comparatively few and scattered followers, and their
names awakened no enthusiasm.

Stephen A. Douglas was one of the best types of the American aggressive
politician this country ever produced. I heard Douglas speak on several
occasions. His figure was short and chunky, hardly measuring up to his
popular title of the “Little Giant.” He was very eloquent, but his
campaign theme, “Popular Sovereignty,” was never a drawing-card in
the North, and the practical application of this doctrine was really
restricted to the Territories, including “Bleeding Kansas.” The many
speeches that Douglas made throughout the North only had the effect of
consolidating the opponents of “Squatter Sovereignty.”

The adoption by Southern States of the principle of “State rights,”
which in effect was only another name for the right of secession, was
the reason advanced to justify the rebellion which broke out with such
fury in later years; but the demand for the right to introduce slavery
into new territory was, in my opinion, the impelling reason that
finally made the Civil War inevitable.

In the free States the division of the popular vote was chiefly
between Lincoln and Douglas, while the slave States were largely
for Breckenridge, with a minority for Bell, the “Silver-gray Whig”
candidate.

The totals in the two sections are interesting as matters of record:

               LINCOLN    DOUGLAS    BRECKENRIDGE  BELL
Free States    1,831,180  1,128,049  279,211       130,151
Slave States      26,430    163,574  570,871       515,973
               ---------  ---------  ------------  -------
Total          1,857,610  1,291,623  850,082       646,124

Mr. Lincoln had 180 electoral votes to 123 for all the other
candidates. Every free State, with the exception of New Jersey, went
for him, and even New Jersey gave him four votes, the three remaining
going to the “Little Giant.” Breckenridge, with a much smaller popular
vote than Douglas, had 72 electoral votes, while Douglas, with a larger
popular vote, had only 12 in all.

As Mr. Greeley accurately summed it up: “A united North succeeded over
a divided South; while in 1856 a united South triumphed over a divided
North.”

Let us remember that a majority of the members of the Supreme Court
had shown strong Southern proclivities; the Senate was also largely
anti-Republican, and the House of Representatives had a very mixed
political complexion, owing to the fact that many of its members had
been chosen in the October election preceding the Presidential election.

Such was the national situation after the popular verdict had been
declared in favor of Lincoln and Hamlin. The South could not reconcile
itself to the result. Trouble was in the air, but the North did not yet
realize the inevitability of civil war.

It was a long, anxious winter for the President-elect, and the strain
upon him then was even more noticeable than after he assumed the burden
of his great office.

He delivered his pathetic farewell address to his neighbors and friends
in Springfield on February 11, 1861, and the following extract is
entitled to a place in this record:

 My friends: No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling
 of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these
 people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century,
 and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been
 born, and here one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether
 I ever may return, with a task before me greater than that which
 rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being
 who ever attended him I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot
 fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and yet remain with you and
 be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be
 well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will
 commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

Many of Mr. Lincoln’s neighbors were in tears. I was not at Springfield
on that day, but I heard directly from men who were present that the
pain of separation was keenly felt by all classes of society.

Mr. Lincoln left Springfield not to return.




                                   V

                      THE JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL


The trip from Springfield to Washington was one of continuous
enthusiasm, the President-elect receiving an ovation at every city en
route. The first halt was made at Indianapolis, where he addressed a
meeting, at which the famous War-Governor Morton presided. On this
occasion he declared that “the preservation of the Union rests entirely
with the people.”

On the same day he spoke before a joint meeting of the Indiana
Legislature, choosing for his theme: “The Union, is it a marriage bond
or a free-love arrangement?”

When about to cross the Ohio River into Virginia, a slave State, he
gave it as his opinion that devotion to the Constitution was equally
great on both sides of the stream, and he went on to emphasize the
right of the majority to rule.

Arriving at Cleveland, he made an address in which he referred to the
apprehended trouble as “altogether artificial, due only to differences
in political opinion.” “Nothing,” he declared, “is going to hurt the
South; they are citizens of this common country and we have no power to
change their conditions. What, then, is the matter with them? Why all
these complaints? Doesn’t this show how artificial is the crisis? It
has no foundation in fact. It can’t be argued up and it can’t be argued
down. Let it alone, and it will go down of itself.”

This would seem to show that Mr. Lincoln really believed that the
trouble in the South would blow over. How sadly he was mistaken! It was
not until he arrived in the East and learned from trustworthy sources
of the danger confronting him between New York and Washington that he
accepted the situation as it actually existed.

Buffalo was the next stopping-place, and the mayor and a large
assemblage welcomed the President-elect. The stability of the Union was
the speaker’s theme, but he reiterated that he relied more upon divine
assistance than help from human hands and hearts.

At Albany Governor Morgan presided over a public meeting, at which
Lincoln again declared that he would be “President not of a party,
but of a nation.” Later in the day he delivered another address, in
which he said that “the mightiest of tasks confronted the humblest of
Presidents.”

He remained two days in New York City, where he delivered two
addresses. To a large audience, over which the unsympathetic Democratic
mayor, Fernando Wood, presided, Mr. Lincoln expressed his doubts as to
the situation in quaint language. He likened the Union to a ship and
its traditions to the cargo, saying that he was willing and anxious to
save both the ship and cargo, but if not both, the cargo would have to
go overboard for the safety of the ship.

I heard that address and it gave me the impression that Mr. Lincoln had
become bolder in the expression of his feeling against the continuance
of slavery in the South. To-day it recalls itself to me as being the
first gleam of emancipation.

The speaker was more grave and serious than usual; his voice was harsh
and his manner indicated either fatigue or anxiety regarding the
future. I detected a decided change in Mr. Lincoln since seeing him at
Springfield; he was a man carrying a burden that grew heavier day by
day.

The journey toward Washington was resumed on February 21, a halt being
made at Trenton for the President-elect to address, separately, the
Senate and the Assembly of New Jersey.

Later in the afternoon the train reached Philadelphia, where a
reception presided over by the mayor was tendered to him. In
consequence of reports of danger he was practically smuggled away from
Philadelphia, being hurried in a closed carriage to the old Prince
Street station, on South Broad Street, where an engine and one car
was waiting. This was run through to Baltimore and thence over the
Baltimore and Ohio branch to Washington.

A large number of citizens in Baltimore, not confined by any means
to the mob, were bitterly hostile to “the Yankee President,” as they
derisively described the man from Illinois. That the precautions
taken were justified was proven within two months by the murderous
assault upon the Sixth Massachusetts regiment during its march through
Baltimore.

A little over four years later, when Lincoln’s funeral cortège passed
through Baltimore, a complete change of feeling had taken place. In the
selfsame city which had been considered unsafe for President Lincoln to
pass through, the first great demonstration of grief occurred.

The President-elect arrived in Washington on February 27, and although
no outward evidence of the coming storm was observable, there was an
intense feeling of anxiety among all classes at the national capital;
it must be remembered that most of the office-holders were Southerners
and that the city was filled with residents sympathetic with the
South. In a reply to a serenade at his hotel on the evening of February
28, Mr. Lincoln lamented the misunderstanding that existed between the
people of the North and the South, and reiterated his determination to
enforce equal rights under the Constitution to all citizens. He pledged
an impartial administration of the law.

I was present at the delivery of Lincoln’s inaugural address, a
wonderful piece of English composition which will continue to live when
the monuments of bronze and marble erected to his memory have crumbled
to dust. In it occur these unforgetable words:

 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
 right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish
 the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him
 who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan--to
 do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
 ourselves, and with all nations.

The President impressed me as being very serious in manner. His voice
sounded shrill, but he was talking at high pitch in order that he might
be heard by as many as possible of the immense crowd. The assemblage
was orderly, respectful, and attentive. Little by little his auditors
warmed toward him, until finally the applause became overwhelming,
spontaneous, and enthusiastic. Then, for the first time, it dawned
upon me that Lincoln was not only the strong man needed at this crisis
of our national affairs, but one of the few great men of all time; and
I may say safely that this conviction was shared by all within hearing
of his voice.

Thirty-nine days later the cannon were booming at Fort Moultrie and
Fort Sumter.




                                  VI

                         STORIES AND INCIDENTS


Apparently the world is never weary of asking what was the true Abraham
Lincoln, and every side-light upon his character is significant.

A man whom I knew well discovered the President at his office counting
greenbacks and inclosing them in an envelope. He asked Mr. Lincoln how
he could spare the time for such a task in the midst of the important
duties that were pressing upon him.

Lincoln replied: “The President of the United States has a multiplicity
of duties not specified in the Constitution or the laws. This is one
of them. It is money which belongs to a negro porter from the Treasury
Department. He is now in the hospital, too sick to sign his name, and
according to his wish I am putting a part of it aside in an envelope,
properly labeled, to save it for him.”

An eye-witness relates that one day while walking along a shaded path
from the Executive Mansion to the War Office, he saw the tall form of
the President seated on the grass. He afterward learned that a wounded
soldier, while on his way to the White House seeking back pay and a
pension, had met the President and had asked his assistance. Whereupon
Mr. Lincoln sat down, looked over the soldier’s papers, and advised him
what to do; he ended by giving him a note directing him to the proper
place to secure attention.

Driving up to a hospital one day he saw one of the patients walking
directly in the path of his team. The horses were checked none too
soon; then Mr. Lincoln saw that he was nothing but a boy and had been
wounded in both eyes. He got out of the carriage and questioned the
poor fellow, asking him his name, his service, and his residence.
“I am Abraham Lincoln,” he said, upon leaving; and the sightless
face lighted at the President’s words of sympathy. The following day
the chief of the hospital delivered to the boy a commission in the
Army of the United States as first lieutenant. The papers bore the
President’s signature and were accompanied by an order retiring him on
three-quarters pay for the years of helplessness that lay before him.

“Some of my generals complain that I impair discipline in the Army by
my pardons and respites,” Lincoln once said. “But it rests me, after a
hard day’s work, if I can find some excuse for saving a man’s life, and
I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will
make him and his family and his friends.”

I once heard Mr. Lincoln telling a number of Congressmen in the
anteroom of the White House that in the distribution of patronage care
should be taken of the disabled soldiers and the widows and orphans of
deceased soldiers, and these views were subsequently conveyed to the
Senate in a message which contained the following language:

 Yesterday a little endorsement of mine went to you in two cases of
 postmasterships sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in the
 battles of the war. These cases occurring on the same day brought me
 to reflect more attentively than I had before as to what is fairly
 due in the dispensing of patronage to the men who, by fighting our
 battles, bear the chief burden of saving our country. My conclusion
 is that, other claims and qualifications being equal, they have the
 better right; and this is especially applicable to the disabled
 soldier and the deceased soldier’s family.

It may not be out of place to consider here what would be Mr. Lincoln’s
attitude toward the irrepressible conflict that has been raging with
such fierceness all over the world, between capital and labor, and
which is ever increasing in intensity. I quote the following extracts
from Lincoln’s message to Congress as showing his views on that
question:

 It is not needed, not fitting here, that a general argument should be
 made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point not so
 hackneyed to which I ask a brief attention--it is an effort to place
 capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure
 of the Government. Capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have
 existed if labor had not existed. Labor is the superior of capital,
 and deserves much higher consideration.

It will thus be seen that the President’s sympathies were with
struggling labor, and against the powerful capitalists, and that he
would exercise his constitutional powers to promote the welfare of the
laboring class. That attitude is in keeping with the broad humanitarian
principles that always influenced Mr. Lincoln’s actions.

Truly, Lincoln’s great, tender heart was always open to the sufferings
of humanity; certainly his sympathy was never branded by the
limitations of creed or dogma. He never became a member of any church,
but no one could doubt that he was a man of deep religious feeling.
I remember on one occasion hearing him say, “Religion is a matter of
faith; all good men will be saved.” Judging by our standard of to-day,
this utterance would class him with the Unitarians.

Upon one occasion, after he had become our President, he visited the
Five Points Mission in New York, at that time a notorious slum, and
addressed a number of children; while there he gave no intimation that
he was President of the United States. When he was leaving the teacher
thanked him, and asked who he was. He simply answered, “Abraham
Lincoln, of Illinois.”

I have spoken of seeing Lincoln smile, but I never remember hearing
him laugh heartily, even when he was convulsing every one about him
with one of his inimitably told stories. And yet he apparently enjoyed
exciting the mirth of others, and to that extent, at least, he seemed
to enter into the spirit of the comedy. Many of the great humorists of
the world have been men of melancholy mood, and both tears and laughter
are based on the same precious essence.

I was often in Washington in those days, and I recollect frequently
seeing the great President walking on Pennsylvania Avenue, with “Little
Tad” clasping his hand. The fact that he took Tad with him on his
important mission to Richmond, where he attended the conference with
some of the leaders of the Confederacy, shows the companionship and
intense affection between the President and the son of his old age.

Once while Mrs. Lincoln was at Manchester, Vermont, she received a
message from the President, saying, “All is well, including Tad’s pony
and the goats.” A little later he asked her to tell “dear Tad that poor
nanny-goat is lost.”

I often saw the President sitting in the White House in carpet
slippers, and wearing an old bombazine coat out at the elbows. Indeed,
Mr. Lincoln was not created to adorn fashionable society, and did
not care for it. Clothing never troubled him, while Mrs. Lincoln set
much store upon appearances and was concerned over her husband’s
indifference to them.

The severe trials which confronted him, greater than any other
President encountered, and the heavy burden that rested on him, did not
blunt his finer feelings.

In a conversation with Mr. Lincoln, in which his visit to Richmond came
up, I casually inquired what he thought should be done with Jefferson
Davis at the end of the war, which appeared then to be approaching.
After a moment’s deliberation his sad face brightened as he answered
that, if he had his way, he would let him die in peace on his Southern
plantation. I remember well that at that time my interpretation of his
words was that he would not permit any punishment to be inflicted on
Jefferson Davis, unless it were absolutely demanded by the American
people.

During the early part of President Johnson’s administration, after the
collapse of the rebellion, Davis was captured and brought on habeas
corpus proceedings before a Virginia court and released on bail. Horace
Greeley, Gerritt Smith, and other Northern anti-slavery men became
sureties on the bail bond, but no proceedings were ever taken to
bring Davis to trial. He was allowed to die in peace on his Southern
plantation.

Can history show any thought more magnanimous in the life of a ruler
or statesman than this? Lincoln urged Meade, after the battle of
Gettysburg to pursue Lee in retreat and with one bold stroke end the
war. The order was peremptory, but a friendly note was attached, as
follows:

 The order I enclose is not of record. If you succeed, you need not
 publish the order. If you fail, publish it. Then, if you succeed, you
 will have all the credit of the movement. If not, I’ll take care of
 the responsibility.

A striking example of the President’s unselfish refusal to use his
official position for the advancement of any member of his family, is
found in his letter to General Grant, asking for a commission for his
son, Robert.

 Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but
 only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, having graduated
 at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do
 not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet give him a commission to
 which those who have already served long are better entitled and
 better qualified to hold.

 Could he, without embarrassment to you or detriment to the service,
 go into your military family with some nominal rank; I, and not the
 public, furnishing his necessary means? If not, say so without the
 least hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply interested
 that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.

Mr. Lincoln was famous for disposing of office-seekers without leaving
a sting behind. H. C. Whitney told this story to a friend of mine:

“I had business in Washington in 1861 pertaining to the Indian service,
and I remarked to Mr. Lincoln that, ‘Everything is drifting into the
war, and I guess you will have to put me in the Army.’ Lincoln smiled
and said: ‘I’m making generals now. In a few days I’ll be making
quartermasters, then I’ll see to you.’”

Lincoln, referring to the criticisms made upon the administration,
particularly in regard to matters entirely outside of its jurisdiction,
said that he was reminded of a certain Long Island fisherman who
was accustomed to go out eeling every morning. In the old days, he
asserted, he never caught less than a pailful of eels, but since
this administration came into power he had to be content with half a
pailful. Therefore he was going to vote for the Democratic party; he
_wanted a change_.




                                  VII

                    FOUR YEARS OF STRESS AND STRAIN


Buchanan belonged to the school of American pro-slavery Presidents.
During the last year of his administration he was as completely
dominated by the Southern members of his Cabinet as were the
Merovingian kings by their mayors of the palace. By blackest treachery,
John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, and Isaac Toucey, Secretary of
the Navy, gorged the armories and navy-yards located in the slave
States with arms, ordnance, and all manner of munitions of war, thus
anticipating months ahead what the Southern politicians regarded as
the “inevitable conflict.” The Federal Government, with the spineless
Buchanan at its head, was utterly unprepared for the crisis.

Such was the situation when President Lincoln took the oath of office;
such the already divided nation when the irresolute, truckling Buchanan
handed over the destinies of the Republic to his successor.

No heavier burden ever was imposed upon a ruler of any people.

Mr. Lincoln was only partially fortunate in choosing his Cabinet.
Seward was inevitable. Chase was a lucky guess, because he was without
a record as a financier. Cameron was a mistake, and the error was
not rectified as promptly as it should have been. The other members,
with the possible exception of Gideon Welles, who received the Navy
portfolio, were negligible.

The administration found itself without an army, many of its ablest
officers having left the service to take up arms against the Federal
Government. The rank and file of the army was fairly loyal, but the
troops had been so scattered by Buchanan’s secretary of war that they
could not be mobilized promptly when the hour of danger came. Despite
the plottings of Secretary Toucey, however, the vessels of the Navy
were so dispersed that the Confederacy was unable to seize many of
them. This was most fortunate, since it made possible the prompt
establishment of a Federal blockade over important Atlantic and Gulf
ports.

Legal business took me to Washington about four months after Lincoln’s
first inauguration and I called at the White House, in company with Mr.
Fenton. Although a score of men were present in the different parts of
the large room overlooking the South lot, Mr. Lincoln was walking the
floor in a preoccupied manner, evidently deeply distressed.

The Federal troops had just been defeated at Big Bethel by a much
smaller force under Magruder, a crushing blow for the Union arms.

I suggested to Mr. Fenton that we should retire, as the visit seemed
inopportune, but the President’s grave face showed signs of recognition
when he saw Mr. Fenton. He stopped, and as we approached him, he said:

“The storm is upon us; it will be much worse before it is better.
I suppose there was a divine purpose in thrusting this terrible
responsibility upon me, and I can only hope for more than human
guidance. I am only a mortal in the hands of destiny. I am ready for
the trial and shall do my best, because I know I am acting for the
right.”

He did not mention the defeat that had occurred only two days before,
but it was evident that he comprehended fully the desperate situation
that confronted the Federal Government.

Big Bethel was within ten miles of Fortress Monroe, and I subsequently
learned from a member of the Cabinet that the utmost anxiety existed
regarding the safety of that post. If treachery existed among its
officers, the secret has been kept until this day, but one can
understand the agonizing suspense of that hour. Had the great fortress
at Old Point Comfort fallen into the hands of the Confederacy, the
early part of the war would necessarily have been fought upon entirely
different lines.

Mr. Lincoln possessed no knowledge of the art of war, but he had
sufficient intuitive foresight to comprehend what the loss of control
of the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the James River
would mean. Although he said so little, this meeting and the few words
he used were most impressive, and are stamped deep upon my memory.

As I have just remarked, military and naval technicalities did not
matter much to Lincoln, and he was accustomed to brush them aside in
his familiar, humorous way. When Mr. Bushnell brought to Washington
the plans for the _Monitor_, the recent invention of Mr. Ericsson,
which became famous in the sea-fight with the rebel _Merrimac_, most
of the naval officers expressed doubts as to the efficiency of the
_Monitor_ in a naval fight. Mr. Lincoln’s opinion was asked. He said he
knew little about ships, but he “did understand a flat-boat, and this
invention was flat enough.”

Later, at a meeting of the Army board, when asked by Admiral Smith what
he thought of the _Monitor_, he remarked, with his most quizzical look,
“Well, I feel a good deal about it as a fat girl did when she put her
foot in her stocking; she thought there was something in it.”

All present laughed at this drollery, but it was the way Lincoln
sometimes took of conveying a really serious thought.

At that period of the war and until the battle of Gettysburg, two
years later, Southern leaders acted upon the theory that the people
of the North were greatly divided in their sympathies, and that the
“Copperheads” would either develop sufficient strength to stop the war;
or, in the event of invasion of the Northern States, they would take
up arms in support of the Confederacy. John Morgan’s raid into Ohio
encouraged that belief, although he was captured and imprisoned; but
the utter indifference shown by the Pennsylvania “Copperheads,” who had
talked loudest in favor of the Southern cause, completely disillusioned
the Confederate chiefs. Vallandigham and Voorhees were shown to be
without great influence. I had a direct statement from a member of the
Lincoln Cabinet that the President did not approve of Vallandigham’s
arrest by General Burnside, or his trial by court-martial and
banishment to the Southern lines. Lincoln declared the proceedings to
be those of an over-zealous general.

Defeat after defeat of the Northern forces followed that of Big Bethel.
The raw volunteers from the Northern States could not successfully
oppose the better-trained Southern troops, led by West Point graduates.

Mr. Lincoln never lost heart; his courage never abated during those
terrible months, while many men close to him were in a mental condition
of dismay and panic.

The day of Burnside’s defeat at Fredericksburg Lincoln spent hours
in the office of the War Department in dressing-gown and slippers,
forgetting even to eat. When he heard of the great disaster he bowed
his head in despair, and murmured, “If there is any man out of
perdition who suffers more than I do, I pity him.”

Sufficient credit was never given to Thurlow Weed for his successful
efforts in England to prevent recognition of the Confederacy. Mr.
Lincoln described Weed as “a master of masters in politics,” and sent
him on that difficult mission late in 1861 when the situation looked
very dark. Our able minister at the court of St. James’s, Charles
Francis Adams, possessed Mr. Lincoln’s entire confidence, but the
President deemed it advisable to have a special commissioner to present
his protest against the apprehended British recognition of the Southern
Confederacy.

The day before Mr. Weed’s departure I met him in the rotunda of the
old Astor House, and found him imbued with more hope than I felt,
regarding the conflict with the South. Of course, he made no mention
of his intended mission to England, thinking that he could get away
without the fact becoming known. He was disappointed, however, as the
day following his departure all the newspapers published the news of
his special embassy. There were no Atlantic cables in those days, and
by prompt action on his arrival he managed to hold his first interview
with Lord Russell before official information reached the British
Cabinet from Washington regarding the purpose of his presence in London.

Henry Ward Beecher also visited England at Mr. Lincoln’s request,
possibly at the suggestion of John Bright, who was almost the only
prominent Briton who remained friendly to the Federal cause. Gladstone,
Palmerston, and Disraeli were at that time in open sympathy with the
Confederacy.

Mr. Beecher’s mission was wholly unofficial, and his efforts were
devoted to delivering addresses, such as only he could make, throughout
England. These speeches and Mr. Weed’s efforts created such a wave
of popular sentiment in behalf of the Federal cause that the British
Cabinet, if ever it had the purpose, was deterred from recognizing the
States in rebellion. It was the same kind of moral suasion employed
by Gladstone prior to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and which
prevented England from going to the defense of Turkey, then her ally.

The relief experienced through General Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg and
his retreat across Maryland into Virginia was followed, ten days later
(July, 1863), by the draft riots in New York.

The horrors of those three days have never been fully described.

Led and encouraged by Southern sympathizers, who had retained
the feelings they held before the war, the rabble of the city
surged through the streets, destroying property, burning a negro
orphan-asylum, and killing black men. Nominally a protest against
enforced enlistment, the riots were really an uprising of the dangerous
element that existed in the city at the time.

I lived in Thirty-fourth Street, near Eighth Avenue, and had been a
persistent speaker against the extension of slavery and in favor of the
Federal cause. The day before the riots began, an anonymous note was
received by my family, stating that our home would be attacked and that
we had best leave the city. We did not heed the warning.

On the first day of the riots, July 13, 1863, a crowd gathered in
front of my house, shouting: “Down with the abolitionists!” “Death to
Dittenhoefer!” I sent a messenger for the police, and a squad arrived
as the leaders of the mob were preparing to break in my door. Active
club work dispersed the crowd, and by order of the captain of the
precinct several policemen were kept on guard until the end of the
riots.

It was at this time that I met Mrs. Carson, the daughter of the only
Union man in South Carolina, who, with her father, was compelled, after
the firing on Fort Sumter, to leave South Carolina, while his property
was confiscated. I had been anxious to sell my house in Thirty-fourth
Street. Noticing a “For Sale” sign on the property, Mrs. Carson called
on me and expressed a willingness to buy the house at the price named,
asking me to see Samuel Blatchford, who in later years became a Supreme
Court Judge of the United States, and who, she said, was the head
of an association raising funds for her support in New York. I saw
Judge Blatchford, and a contract was signed for the sale. Later, in
consequence of the serious illness of my wife, I was obliged to ask
Judge Blatchford to cancel the contract, saying that, by way of making
up for the disappointment, I would gladly contribute a sum of money
to the fund for Mrs. Carson. The contract was accordingly canceled. I
never saw Mrs. Carson afterward. About a year before the close of the
rebellion, Mr. Lincoln offered to appoint me judge of the district
court of South Carolina, my native State, but my increasing business
in the city of New York and the disinclination of my wife to move to
South Carolina compelled me to decline the honor.

A little while before the offer of the Carolina judgeship was made me
by the President I received a letter signed by Mrs. Carson, in which
the writer said that the President had asked her to recommend a man for
the position, and, remembering what I had done years before, she had
suggested my name to him. For a long time I could not think who Mrs.
Carson could be, until my wife reminded me of the incident of the sale
of the house.

Patriotic neglect of self-interest in behalf of the salvation of
the Union caused thousands of Northerners to lose opportunities
for accumulating wealth from the vast sums of money disbursed by
the Government; but there was a class at home and in Congress that
neglected no chance to enrich itself. Its leaders were more concerned
about the commercial phase of the conflict than the triumph of the
Federal arms.

They gambled on the destiny of the Republic, and their sources of
information reached to the innermost sanctuaries of Government
departments.

On advance information of a staggering defeat to the Northern arms,
they bought gold for a rise. Early news of a Federal victory caused
them to sell the precious metal for a decline. This transaction was
described by these gamblers in the nation’s life-blood as “coppering
old Lincoln.”

This detestable clan pushed its representatives into the very councils
of state, asserting its right to dictate the policy of the country,
foreign and domestic. Its members were as intolerably arrogant as if
they had amassed their wealth by the strictest integrity.

During a great part of the war President Lincoln, unsuspected by
him, was surrounded by a coterie of professional heroes, commercial
grafters, and alleged statesmen, every one of whom was in politics for
personal profit. Many “shining lights” then lauded for their patriotism
have long since been exposed as selfish and corrupt egotists. Close as
some of these unworthy persons contrived to get to Mr. Lincoln, they
were never able to besmirch him in any way.

During one of my visits to the White House some weeks before the
promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, I had the temerity to
refer to the oft-reported plan of Mr. Lincoln, before the rebellion
burst upon the country, to free the Southern slaves by purchase. It
was a theme that had often engaged my thoughts. After the beginning
of the war and a realization that the conflict was costing more than
$1,000,000 per day, I had become somewhat reconciled to the idea.

Mr. Lincoln was slow to answer, saying, in effect, that however wise
the idea might have been, it was too late to revive it. He did not
intimate that he had in contemplation the Emancipation Proclamation
which was to take effect January 1, 1863.

Mr. Lincoln had all the figures about slave property at his
finger-ends, but, much to my regret, I did not make a memorandum of
the interview and, therefore, cannot recall the exact number of slaves
that he estimated would have to be purchased. Field hands were valued
at from six hundred to one thousand dollars each, but the old men and
women and young children would reduce the average price. This would
have absorbed $500,000,000, a sum that, prior to the experience of one
year’s war expenditure, would have appeared staggering. When, however,
Mr. Lincoln called attention to the rapidly growing national debt, with
no prospect of ending the conflict for years to come, he exclaimed:

“What a splendid investment it would have been!”

These words, as the mentally distressed Lincoln uttered them in that
dark hour of the Civil War, were of thrilling import. He rose to his
full height; my eyes instinctively traced his majestic length from his
slippers to his head of iron-gray hair, and there was an expression of
sadness in his face that I never shall forget.

Referring to the severe criticisms that were launched against him
respecting the views he entertained about the reconstruction of the
Union, he said:

“I do the best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If
the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount
to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was
right would make no difference.”

The entrance of a delegation prevented a continuance of the
conversation. Years afterward, Col. A. K. McClure told me that as late
as August, prior to the November elections of 1864, President Lincoln
had recurred to his plan for freeing the negroes by purchase, and
settling the war on the basis of universal extinction of slavery in all
States of the Union at an expense of $400,000,000, a compromise which
he believed the Southern leaders, in their hopeless condition after
the battle of Gettysburg, would be glad to accept. Mr. Lincoln went on
to predict that the promulgation of such a scheme at that time would
defeat his re-election. McClure not only confirmed him in that opinion,
but added that Congress was in no mood to appropriate so large a sum of
money.

Redemption of these bonds, if the Union was restored after the war,
would fall in part on the Southern people; they would be paying out of
their own pockets for the liberation of their slaves. This statement
of McClure’s is remarkable because it indicates that Lincoln believed
that the _status quo ante bellum_ could be restored and reconstruction
formalities avoided. Unfortunately, under Andrew Johnson, who succeeded
to the Presidency after Lincoln’s assassination, and subsequently under
President Hayes, the “carpet-bag” régime, with all its horrors and
corruption, was inflicted upon the Southern States.

Colonel McClure’s judgment was keen and accurate. Congress, led by
Senator Sumner and Representatives Thaddeus Stevens and Henry Winter
Davis, would have repudiated such a proposition if made by Lincoln.
Even after his re-election he could not have secured the money for that
purpose.

Mr. Carpenter, who made the famous painting of the Cabinet when Mr.
Lincoln read the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, and who was
a client of mine, told me Mr. Lincoln had said to him that for a long
time he had been considering the necessity of eventually issuing the
Proclamation; but that he was held back by the intense desire that
was always in his mind to restore the Union, and his fear that if he
proclaimed emancipation prematurely the restoration of the Union would
be prevented. During his entire administration and in all his addresses
this desire to restore the Union was supreme and it controlled his
every action.

On the momentous occasion when Lincoln read the preliminary draft of
his Emancipation Proclamation before his Cabinet, he amused himself and
the others--with the exception of Secretary Stanton, who was plainly
amazed at the President’s seeming levity--by first reading to them from
Artemas Ward’s amusing story of “The High-Handed Outrage at Utica.”

Later on I remember having been present when Lincoln said, “If my name
is ever remembered it will be for this act; my whole soul is in it.”

It is curious, the thing we call history. An act popularly regarded as
madness at one period is hailed as concrete wisdom at another. History
is only a crystallization of popular beliefs.

Many people very close to Lincoln have doubted his sympathy for
the slaves, and have referred to his frequent characterization of
abolitionists as “a disturbing element in the nation, that ought to be
subjected to some sort of control.” They assert that his efforts were
directed solely to restraining the ambitions of the slaveholders to
extend their system of human bondage over larger areas of the United
States.

Such judgment of Lincoln is at variance with my personal observations
and does him a grave injustice. His nature was essentially
sympathetic, although he never went the length of asserting that he
regarded the black man as his social equal.

Subsequent observation has shown me that the immediate admission of the
liberated slaves to equal rights of franchise was an error.

It revived the former bitterness with which the Southern people had
regarded the Northerners, and imposed a grievous injustice upon them,
an injustice naturally and forcibly resented. And so followed the
formation of the “Invisible Empire” and the excesses of the “Ku-Klux
Klan.”




                                 VIII

                           THE RENOMINATION


The renomination of Mr. Lincoln in 1864 was not accomplished with ease.
The difficulties did not all show upon the surface, because some of the
President’s closest associates were secretly conspiring against him.
Open and frank opposition came from such influential Republicans as
Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, and Horace
Greeley, of New York, who believed his re-election impossible. But the
opposition of Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, was secret, as he had been
scheming for the nomination himself. Chase, while regarding himself as
Mr. Lincoln’s friend and constantly protesting his friendship to the
President, held a condescending opinion of Mr. Lincoln’s intellect.
He could not believe the people so blind as to prefer Abraham Lincoln
to Salmon Chase. He vigorously protested, both verbally and in
letters written to every part of the country, his indifference to the
Presidency, at the same time painting pessimistically the dreadful
state of government affairs, and indicating, not always subtly, his
willingness to accept the nomination.

As to Chase’s candidacy, Lincoln once said, according to Nicolay: “I
have determined to shut my eyes as far as possible to everything of the
sort. Mr. Chase makes a good secretary and I shall keep him where he
is.” Then with characteristic magnanimity, he added: “If Chase becomes
President, all right. I hope we may never have a worse man.” But as
Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago _Tribune_, wrote in December, 1863:

 I presume it is true that Mr. Chase’s friends are making for his
 nomination, but it is all lost labor; Old Abe has the inside track
 so completely that he will be nominated by acclamation when the
 convention meets.

A reference here to the activities of Chase’s brilliant daughter,
Kate Chase Sprague, in the Tilden and Hayes contest many years later,
may be pardoned. It is well known that through her potent influence
the contest was finally decided in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes, and
against Samuel J. Tilden. This influence, it has been said, was used
in a spirit of revenge against Mr. Tilden for defeating her father for
the Democratic nomination in 1868. Col. A. K. McClure agrees with me in
this, as will be shown by the following quotation from his book, _Our
Presidents and How We Make Them_:

 The Democratic National Convention met in New York on the 4th
 of July, 1868. There was a strong sentiment among the delegates
 favorable to the nomination of a liberal Republican for President,
 but Chief Justice Chase, who was an old-time Democrat and who had won
 a very large measure of Democratic confidence by his ruling in the
 impeachment case of President Johnson, was a favorite with a very
 powerful circle of friends who had quietly, but very thoroughly, as
 they believed, organized to have him nominated by a spontaneous tidal
 wave after a protracted deadlock between the leading candidates.
 Chase would have been nominated at the time Seymour was chosen,
 and in like manner, had it not been for the carefully laid plan of
 Samuel J. Tilden to prevent the success of Chase. Tilden was a master
 leader, subtle as he was able, and he thoroughly organized the plan to
 nominate Seymour, not so much that he desired Seymour, but because he
 was implacable in his hostility to Chase.

 It was well known by Chase and his friends that Tilden crucified Chase
 in the Democratic convention of 1868, and this act of Tilden’s had
 an impressive sequel eight years later when the election of Tilden
 hung in the balance in the Senate, and when Kate Chase Sprague, the
 accomplished daughter of Chase, decided the battle against Tilden.

While Charles Sumner was openly for Lincoln, he privately criticized
him, even after the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation which
had freed the slaves of the South.

I have always believed that Lincoln did not consult with Sumner as to
that message, and that that was the cause of his ill-feeling. Thaddeus
Stevens, the great Free Soil representative of Pennsylvania, was
dissatisfied because the President was unwilling to confiscate all the
property of the secessionists and to inflict other punishments upon
them: he was openly hostile to Lincoln.

For the following hitherto unpublished letter, from Horace Greeley to
Mark Howard, a prominent Connecticut Republican, I am indebted to the
latter’s daughter, Mrs. Graves. It throws an interesting light upon the
fears and uncertainties of the period, and indicates Greeley’s lack of
confidence in Lincoln as the strong man of the nation. The letter is
dated ten months before the second election, and Greeley’s opposition
to Mr. Lincoln’s renomination became the more undisguised and intense
as time went on.

                                                  OFFICE OF THE TRIBUNE.

                                              NEW YORK, _Jan. 10, 1864_.

 DEAR SIR,--I mean to keep the Presidency in the background until
 we see whether we cannot close up the war. I am terribly afraid of
 letting the war run into the next Presidential term; I fear it will
 prove disastrous to go to the ballot-boxes with the war still pending.
 Let us have peace first, then we can see into the future.

                                                         Yours,
                                                         HORACE GREELEY.

                                                      MARK HOWARD, ESQ.,
                                                      Hartford, Conn.

Horace Greeley gave open expression to his opposition in the New York
_Tribune_, Friday, April 29, 1864.

In this issue Mr. Greeley, referring to the statement of the President,
“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events
have controlled me,” declared that “had he been a little more docile
to their teaching and prompt to apprehend their bearing we should have
been saved many disasters and rivers of precious blood. May we hope
that with regard to the murder of our soldiers who have surrendered,
and other questions of the hour, he will have learned something from
the sore experience of the past?”

Other newspapers joined the _Tribune_ in opposing Lincoln’s
renomination, as witness these excerpts from the New York _Herald_,
August 6, 1864:

 Senator Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Davis, of Maryland,
 Chairman of the Senate and House Committees on the rebellious States
 prepared and presented in their official capacity an indictment
 against Abraham Lincoln, the executive head of the nation, and the
 nominee of his party for another term of office, charging him with
 arrogance, ignorance, usurpation, knavery, and a host of other deadly
 sins including that of hostility to the rights of humanity and to the
 principles of republican government.

 Mr. Lincoln has been frequently represented as entertaining and
 expressing an ardent wish that he could slip off his shoulders the
 anxieties and labors belonging to his present position and place upon
 them the musket and knapsack of a Union volunteer. The opportunity
 of realizing that wish now presents itself. The country would be
 overjoyed to see it realized, and all the people would say “Amen” to
 it. Let him make up his mind to join the quota which his town of
 Springfield, Ill., will next be called on to furnish. He is said to
 have done well as railsplitter, and we have no doubt that he will do
 equally well as a soldier. As a President of the United States he must
 have sense enough to see and acknowledge he has been an egregious
 failure. The best thing he can do now for himself, his party, and his
 country is to retire from the high position to which, in an evil hour,
 he was exalted.

 One thing must be self-evident to him, and that is that under no
 circumstances can he hope to be the next President of the United
 States, and if he will only make a virtue of necessity and withdraw
 from the Presidential campaign....

In the New York _Tribune_, August 24, 1864, under the heading,
“Copperhead Treason,” the _Daily News_ is quoted as referring to
President Lincoln as “our intriguing chief magistrate.”

Finally, there was general disaffection, centering largely in New York
and St. Louis, and a so-called convention of opponents of Lincoln
gathered at Cleveland in May, and indulged in denunciation of Lincoln,
which included a bitter letter from Wendell Phillips. This self-styled
“radical Democracy” adopted a platform, nominated Fremont, and
practically disappeared.

The patriotic and self-sacrificing people of the North were almost a
unit in sustaining President Lincoln, and, by sheer force of numbers,
swept aside the ungrateful or designing Republican leaders who would
have defeated the great emancipator.

During the days that immediately preceded his renomination, Mr. Lincoln
gave way to despondency, and, although he never said so in words, one
could clearly see by the anxiety he manifested that he was sorely
perplexed to account for the animus of certain men against him. He
appeared to be especially anxious about New York, and to fear that
the enmity of Seward’s old friends and the hostility of Mr. Greeley
might cause him to lose the delegation from the Empire State. I was
in Washington at that time on professional business, and was able to
impart to him positive information regarding his strength in various
parts of the State. To his inquiry about the situation in New York,
I told him that, while Greeley was still in the sulks, yet I thought
Seward and Weed were coming around to him (Lincoln) handsomely, and
that their action would undoubtedly influence the Seward partisans.
I added that in my opinion Greeley would before long forget his
disappointment and fall into line. Mr. Lincoln listened attentively and
nodded assent. “That’s good news,” he said, heartily, seemingly well
pleased with my prognostications.

Col. A. K. McClure, of Pennsylvania, stood very close to the President
at this time and did not disguise from him the treachery of several
Republican leaders.

Anxiety had become an obsession with the President. This seemed due to
a physical and mental reaction after three years of incessant worry and
strain. And yet at this hour General Grant appeared to be smashing his
way through the Wilderness, toward Richmond; General Sherman had left
Chattanooga on his march to the sea by which the Confederacy was cut
in two; the dashing Sheridan was harassing the enemy in the Shenandoah
Valley, and the collapse of the rebellion was foreshadowed.

I am sure Mr. Lincoln cared but little for his own political future,
but he was most desirous of carrying out his plans regarding
reconstruction, and the frankness with which he had spoken his views on
the subject made enemies of such men as Greeley, Sumner, and Stevens.
Had he dissembled, concealing his sympathies for the suffering civilian
population in the South who had taken no active part in the rebellion,
until such time as he could properly lay his plans before Congress and
explain them, hostility against him would have been confined to a few
politicians actuated by envy or personal ambition.

But Mr. Lincoln made no secret of his desire for the prompt
reorganization of the seceded States, immediately peace was attained;
and for their readmission into the Union, with representation in both
Houses of Congress, thus carrying out the thought always uppermost
in his mind of the restoration of the Union. And yet his sorrows,
worriments, and perplexities could not drown his sense of humor, as the
following occurrence shows:

A conference was held on shipboard in Hampton Roads about the time
that the collapse of the Confederacy seemed imminent, the consultants
including the Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stevens,
and R. M. T. Hunter and J. A. Campbell, on the one side, and Mr.
Lincoln and Mr. Seward on the other.

Mr. Hunter, to enforce his contentions, referred to the correspondence
between Charles the First, of England, and Parliament.

“Mr. Lincoln’s face,” it is reported, “wore the inscrutable expression
which generally preceded his hardest hits,” as he replied: “Upon
questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is
posted in such things, and I do not profess to be; my only distinct
recollection of the matter is that Charles lost his head.”

Under the reconstruction policy planned by the great President and
carried out by his successor, President Johnson, the rebel States were
taken back in the Union with the same representation in Congress they
had before they started on the war of secession.

To obviate the danger which would arise from the control of the
Southern States by the unrepentant rebels, and to minimize the danger
that might result from the large number of members they would have in
Congress, it was deemed necessary to give the illiterate and shiftless
negroes, just emerging from slavery, and who constituted a majority of
the voters in many of the Southern States, the right to vote.

This resulted in the detestable State governments composed of negroes
and “carpet-bag” whites, no less corrupt than the negroes. The whites
were called “carpet-baggers,” because they came from the North, with
no intention of remaining permanently; they only wanted to exploit
the South for their own profit; and they generally traveled in light
marching order, with all their worldly possessions packed in the
familiar carpet-bag of the period.

Sumner, Stevens, and Winter Davis opposed this reconstruction policy,
contending that the rebel States should be held as conquered territory
until a new generation should arrive on the scene.

I did not hesitate to say at the time that they were right. Had their
policy been adopted the terrible evils of the “carpet-bag” governments
would have been avoided.

In the last conversation I had with Mr. Lincoln on the subject of his
renomination, about ten days before the convention of 1864, I tried
to convince him that his doubts and fears were unwarranted, but I
did not succeed in lightening the gloom. He probably thought me too
young a man to form an accurate opinion, but I had investigated for
myself, as well as advised with the best-informed Republicans in my
State. It seemed as though he could not forget that previous miraculous
nomination by a convention in which two-thirds of the delegates favored
another candidate; he feared lest now the boot might be on the other
leg.

The Republican National Convention assembled at Baltimore on June
7, 1864, the aged Rev. Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky,
being temporary chairman, and ex-Governor William Dennison, of Ohio,
permanent presiding officer.

All opposition melted away when the platform was read and adopted. The
third plank therein denounced “slavery as the cause of the rebellion,
always and everywhere hostile to principles of republican government;
therefore, national safety demands its utter and complete extirpation
from the soil of the Republic.”

Mr. Lincoln was renominated on the first ballot, receiving the
unanimous vote of every State, with the exception of Missouri, the
delegation from which State was instructed for General Grant. The
Missouri vote was at once changed to Lincoln, making the nomination
unanimous.

At that convention I circulated among the representatives from other
States, and overheard many mutterings of dissatisfaction at the
inevitability of the choice, but not a hostile word was spoken from the
rostrum. I joined with delegates from my State in addressing a message
of congratulation to Mr. Lincoln at Washington.

Greeley, of course, was obliged to come around to support Lincoln’s
re-election, but he could not refrain from damning him with faint
praise.

Under the caption of “Opening the Presidential Campaign,” Mr. Greeley,
in the _Tribune_ of February 23, 1864, thus indicated his change of
front toward Mr. Lincoln:

 He has been patriotic, honest, and faithful. He has done his utmost to
 serve and save the country.... He is not infallible, not a genius, not
 one of those rare, great men who mould their age into the similitude
 of their own high character, massive abilities, and lofty aims. But,
 considering his antecedents and his experience of public affairs we
 are sure the verdict of history in his case will be “well done, thou
 good and faithful servant.” The luster of his good deeds will far
 outlive the memory of his mistakes and faults.

Perhaps Greeley stood too close to his subject, but surely these
condescending words may be considered a masterpiece of ineptitude.

Nor was Mr. Greeley averse to reprinting hostile criticisms from
outside sources, as the following excerpts will witness:

In the New York _Tribune_, June 21, 1864, under the heading, “Rebel
Views of our Nomination--A Railsplitter and a Tailor,” the Richmond
_Examiner_ is quoted as saying:

 The Convention of Black Republicans in Baltimore have nominated for
 President of their country Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois railsplitter.

 The great army of contractors and office-holders--in short, those who
 live by war and on the country--have succeeded, at least, in starting
 Lincoln fairly for another race. It amounts to a declaration that
 those conventioners desire to see four years more in all respects like
 unto the last four years.

Another extract from the Richmond _Examiner_ also appears in the
_Tribune_ at about the same date:

 The only merit we can discover in this Baltimore ticket is the merit
 of _consistency_; it is all of a piece; the tail does not shame the
 head, nor the head shame the tail. A railsplitting buffoon and a
 boorish tailor, both from the backwoods. Both growing up in uncouth
 ignorance, they would afford a grotesque subject for a satiric poet.

I had known from the President’s own lips, at my last interview,
that he desired the selection of Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean, whose
steadfast support of the Federal cause in these troublesome times had
attracted attention. I was not in sympathy with that plan, because I
thought that Johnson would cost the party many votes among the radicals
in New England.

Nobody could forecast at that time with reasonable certainty the
Democratic candidates, and there was considerable fear that General
Grant might be named. He was popularly believed to be bringing
the rebellion to an early finish; if he succeeded in forcing the
capitulation of General Lee before the Democratic convention met in
Chicago at the end of August, the opposition party might seize upon him
and could probably elect him. Grant had been an old-line Democrat and,
so far as known, had voted for Douglas in 1860. There was no political
reason why Grant could not accept such a nomination.

In June, General McClellan’s name had not been seriously considered. He
was a man with a grievance, for he had been removed from the command of
the Federal Army after a long endurance of his procrastinating policy
by the administration. The universal affection felt for McClellan
throughout the Northern Army, especially the Army of the Potomac, seems
difficult of explanation.




                                  IX

                         THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864


The campaign for the Republican ticket began before the name of
the Democratic candidate was known. Speakers were haranguing the
people in every Northern State, but if Mr. Lincoln’s doubts about
his renomination had been serious, his fear of defeat at the polls
developed into a veritable mental panic. Both Nicolay and Gideon
Welles refer to the following note, which, indorsed on the back by all
the Cabinet members, was sealed and committed to the keeping of the
Secretary of the Navy, with instructions that it should not be opened
until after election. I believe that the original has been presented by
Miss Nicolay to the Library of Congress:

 This morning, as for some days past, it seemed improbable that
 this administration will be re-elected. Then it will be my duty
 to co-operate with the President-elect so as to save the Union
 between the election and the inauguration, as my successor will have
 secured his election on such grounds that he cannot possibly save it
 afterwards.

                                          _August 23, 1864._ A. LINCOLN.

It will be seen that this remarkable document bears date six days
before the assembling of the Democratic convention at Chicago, on
August 29. At that time Mr. Lincoln was aware of the plan to nominate
McClellan, and feared his strength.

In the interval between the Republican convention, early in June, and
the gathering of the Democrats at the end of August, the progress of
the Federal arms had not realized expectations. Grant had not taken
Richmond, and Sherman had not administered a decisive blow to General
Johnson.

Politically, the situation was somewhat more hopeful. The selection
of Andrew Johnson as Vice-President on the Republican ticket had
conciliated many Northern Democrats like Judge Holt, General Dix,
and General Butler; moreover, it had prevented recognition of the
Confederacy by France and England. Lincoln’s foresight in substituting
the Tennessean for Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was generally admitted.

McClellan developed more strength than was suspected. The best opinion
is that, had the election occurred directly after his nomination and
before people had had opportunity to study the platform upon which
he had consented to stand, he would have been successful. Soon after
the Democratic convention adjourned, however, the capture of Atlanta
by Sherman was announced; then followed the sturdy blows of Grant
at the Confederate capital and Sheridan’s series of victories in the
Shenandoah Valley. These happy events completely changed the political
attitude of the country.

The Democratic managers at Chicago had committed the execrable blunder
of declaring in their platform that the war had been a failure and
that the public welfare demanded “an immediate effort be made for a
cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all
the States.”

Little more than two months remained before election day in November,
and every speaker that could be commandeered was put into active
service. Lincoln himself took no active part in the campaign outside
of a few addresses to soldiers, but mass-meetings were held every day
and night of the week, and popular preachers with Republican sympathies
filled their discourses with appeals in behalf of Lincoln and the
necessity of his re-election for the preservation of the Union. Henry
Ward Beecher became a tower of strength to the Lincoln cause, and in
and out of Plymouth pulpit he advocated the duty of sustaining the
administration that had already saved the Union and must ultimately put
down the rebellion. I addressed meetings every night.

The campaign soon became one of great acrimony on both sides. Night and
day, without cessation, young men like myself, in halls, upon street
corners, and from cart-tails, were haranguing, pleading, sermonizing,
orating, arguing, extolling our cause and our candidate, and denouncing
our opponents. A deal of oratory, elocution, rhetoric, declamation, and
eloquence was hurled into the troubled air by speakers on both sides.

Denunciation of Lincoln by Democratic spellbinders was of the bitterest
character. Newspapers affiliated with the anti-war party criticized
every act of the administration and belittled the conduct of the war by
Federal generals in the field. Therefore, Republican speakers did not
mince words in criticism of the Democratic Presidential candidate, Gen.
George B. McClellan.

On September 27, five weeks before election day, I spoke to an audience
that filled every seat in Cooper Institute, on the questions of the
hour. Read in the calmness of to-day my language appears unwarrantedly
aggressive, but at that time it seemed conservative. As an example of
the spirit of the campaign I venture to quote a few extracts:

 The battle that will be fought in November between the Union and the
 Confederate forces north of the Potomac will end in the destruction
 or exhaustion of the Southern Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln is the
 commander of the Union forces. I will now prove that George B.
 McClellan is the leader of the Confederate forces.

 While at the head of the Army, McClellan attempted to dictate to
 President Lincoln a policy acceptable to the Confederate South.
 Every man in the North influenced by “Copperheads,” who opposed the
 war, demanded that this “fighting general” be replaced at the head
 of our armies. He had become harnessed to the slave power, and he,
 with General Pendleton, candidate for Vice-President, became the
 incarnation of the Democratic peace platform.

 McClellan’s nomination was received with enthusiasm and cheers by
 the Confederate soldiers; the Southern newspapers declared that
 McClellan’s election would be helped by Grant’s defeat in the field.
 Confederate bonds advanced on the announcement of McClellan’s
 nomination. Every Southern sympathizer in the North, passive or active
 in his devotion to Jefferson Davis, will vote for McClellan.

 He says in his letter of acceptance that his sentiments are identical
 with those of the platform which pronounced the war a failure, and
 he promised, if the Democratic candidate were elected, an immediate
 cessation of hostilities.

I called attention to the fact that such men as Fernando Wood,
Vallandigham, and Horatio Seymour, once Governor of New York, supported
McClellan, thus indorsing the letter of acceptance, in which he
promises to enforce the policy set forth in the peace platform of his
party.

 McClellan’s military career, consistent with his whole history, may
 be summed up in one word--“delay”--which gave to the Confederacy what
 it needed--time. Is it not then true that McClellan heads, in this
 campaign, the Confederate forces North?

I then read the following excerpt from the Democratic platform:

 Resolved, that this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense
 of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore
 the Union by the experiment of war during which, under the pretense
 of a military necessity for a war-power higher than the Constitution,
 the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part; and
 public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material
 prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity,
 liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be
 made for the cessation of hostilities, with a view to the ultimate
 convention of the States or other peaceful means, to the end that at
 the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of
 Federal Union of the States. Resolved, that the direct interference of
 the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections
 held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shameful
 violation of the Constitution and a repetition of such acts in the
 approaching election will be held as revolutionary and resisted with
 all the means and power under our control.

       *       *       *       *       *

 In other words [I resumed], it was a bold and pernicious declaration
 of hostilities that war should close at once and that a convention
 should be called at a later period, to revise the Constitution. But it
 is easy to comprehend that when such a convention should be called,
 Jefferson Davis would refuse to enter its doors, and be prepared to
 enforce his refusal.

 Jefferson Davis, his resources crippled and with his last levies on
 the firing-line, is naturally anxious that Lincoln be defeated, for he
 knows, by this time, that with Lincoln as President the Confederacy
 will be compelled to abandon a hopeless contest. Davis cannot, and
 will not, continue the fight if Lincoln is re-elected, notwithstanding
 his threat to “fight to the last ditch.”

 Lincoln’s re-election will banish all hope of triumph for the
 Confederacy. A firm and everlasting peace will follow, based upon
 a reconstructed Union and freedom everywhere. The American Union,
 strong, powerful, and freed from slavery, will be honored the world
 over.

    “Be it storm, or summer weather,
      Peaceful calm or battle jar,
    Stand in beauteous strength together,
      Sister States as once ye were.”

Large sums of money were expended in expensive printing during that
campaign. Some of the publications were elaborately designed and
illustrated. Recently one of the Lincoln and Johnson posters has been
presented to me, and the miniature reproduction on the following page
should be of interest.

The names of the electors for the State of New York include that of
the writer. The poster is printed in several colors, it is five feet
high and three and one-half feet wide. It is in a perfect state of
preservation.

As I have indicated, the victories of Sheridan and Sherman produced a
revulsion against peace sentiment throughout the North that literally
swamped McClellan. The popular vote was large, Lincoln securing
2,213,665 votes, and McClellan 1,802,237 votes. Except among the troops
from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, the soldier vote was overwhelmingly in
favor of Lincoln. This was a surprise.

                            [Illustration:

                           Union Nominations

                         CLARRY & REILLEY, ENG.

   For Electors of President and Vice President of the United States,

                     HORACE GREELEY, PRESTON KING,
     Obadiah Bowne William H. McKinney Guy R. Pelton Thaddeus Hait
        Hiram Horton John Clarke John E. Seely John W. Stebbins
 James S.T. Stranahan Thomas B. Asten Alexander Davidson John Tweddle
    Allen C. Churchill John J. Knox Jedediah Dewey William Bristol
    George Ricard Isaac T. Smith James W. Taylor Cornelius L. Allen
    Ebenezer Blakely Thomas Kingsford Myron H. Weaver Joseph Cander
 Abram J. Dittenhoefer George Opdyke Charles L. Beale Alonzo W. Morgan
            George W. Bradford James Alley John P. Darling

                  FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
                            ABRAHAM LINCOLN

                FOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
                            ANDREW JOHNSON.


                             FOR GOVERNOR,
                            REUBEN E. FENTON

                        FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR,
                           THOMAS G. ALVORD.

        For Canal Commissioner, For Inspector of State Prisons,
                FRANKLIN A. ALBERGER. | DAVID P. FORREST

            FOR SHERIFF OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK,
                            JOHN W. FARMER.

  FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY For Clerk of the City and County of New-York,
                WM. T. B. MILLIKEN. | JAMES M. THOMPSON.

                             FOR CORONERS,
     LOUIS NAUMANN EDWARD COLLIN JAMES W. RANNEY, ALEXANDER WILDER

                    FOR CITY JUDGE, FOR SUPERVISOR,
                 Orlando L. Stewart | Andreas Willman.

=SIMEON DRAPER=, Pres’t Union Gen. Com. =HARVEY H. WOODS=, Sec. U. G. C.
                =R. C. HAWKINS=, Ch’n Ex. Com. U. G. C.

                M. B. BROWN & CO., STEAM JOB PRINTERS,
                  201 S 208 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK.

          Poster for Lincoln’s Second Presidential Campaign.]

It is interesting to illustrate the growth of our country by a
comparison with the popular vote of 1912 when Wilson received 6,291,776
votes, Taft 3,481,119, and Roosevelt 4,106,247.

Of the electoral votes, Lincoln received 212, and McClellan only 21.
Until the defeat of Mr. Taft by Woodrow Wilson in 1912, this was a
record of defeat. In the latter year Mr. Wilson received 435 votes, Mr.
Taft 15, and Mr. Roosevelt 81.

The electoral ticket for Lincoln having been successful in New York
State, the thirty-three electors, of whom I was one, met at Albany and
cast the votes of the State for Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

The ballots were inscribed on wooden blocks, and read as follows:

 President, Abraham Lincoln

and underneath, in brackets,

 [Abram J. Dittenhoefer] Elector

A few weeks later I took one of these wooden block ballots with me to
Washington and showed it to the President. He asked me if I would not
give it to him as a souvenir, which I was very glad to do.

Horace Greeley and Preston King were the two electors-at-large.
Although Greeley had violently opposed the renomination of Lincoln,
wise counsels put him at the head of the Presidential electors, a
compliment that Mr. Greeley told me highly gratified him, in view of
his previous attitude toward the President.

When Mr. Greeley became the Democratic candidate for President in 1872
and many Republicans seceded from the Republican party, Mr. Greeley
requested me to act as chairman of the executive committee of the
Liberal Republican Central Committee in New York City, and I consented
to do so. Chauncey M. Depew, who also identified himself with the
Liberal Republican organization, became the candidate of the party for
Secretary of State of New York. I afterward regretted that I had joined
in that movement, and my regret was intensified when Greeley’s campaign
turned out to be so great a fiasco.

Lincoln’s assassination, April 12, 1865, thwarted the generous,
noble-hearted plans which he had devised for the restoration of the
Union, and resulted in imposing upon the Southern people by Andrew
Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, the corrupt “carpet-bag” régime.

Lincoln’s place in the history of civilization is immutably fixed.
During the last ten years of his career, he was the greatest of all
living men. As statesman and reformer he belongs not alone to America,
but to the whole world.

George Washington established this Republic, but the curse of human
slavery adhered to the otherwise splendid Government he was so largely
instrumental in creating.

Abraham Lincoln eradicated this curse.

Halleck’s verse comes back to me again as I close these recollections:

    One of the few, the immortal names
      That were not born to die!


                                THE END