Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley

4. A Fight for Union and for Freedom

67 c h a p t e r f o u r A Fight for Union and for Fr eedom In the months following Abraham Lincoln’s presidential nomination at the Chicago convention, publishers scrambled to find information about him for a voting public that knew little about the Republican candidate from Illinois. Among the most informative of the thirteen Lincoln campaign biographies that appeared in 1860 included one compiled by John Locke Scripps, a friend of Lincoln’s and an editor of and shareholder in the Chicago Tribune. Lincoln had prepared an autobiographical sketch for Scripps, and although it was brief, it provided more information on his political background than did an autobiography he had drafted in 1859. Knowing a hard stand on the slavery issue might repel potential supporters, Lincoln made few comments on it, other than to reproduce a denunciation that he had made more than twenty years before as “injustice and bad policy.” However, he did address with more detail the stand he had taken in the House against the Mexican-American War, knowing his opponents would attempt to hold his past positions against him.1 Lincoln and his primary opponent, Democratic nominee Stephen A. Douglas, had both made clear their insistence that the Union must hold and that, despite recurring threats from southern states throughout the latter part of 1860, disunion was simply not an option. Douglas made speeches throughout the South, trying to emphasize his differences with Lincoln, but he nonetheless insisted that no grievance could justify secession. Yet, as Douglas continued to campaign, southern editors published an address by Jefferson Davis that pushed 68 | a fight for union and for freedom for secession if the results from Democratic states in the fall election made it necessary. As the campaign for “Honest Old Abe” swung into full operation with the support of both the Chicago and New York Republican machinery , a myriad of Lincoln portraits became available on ornaments and paraphernalia. With his homespun (and homely) profile also appearing in print materials, including pamphlets and newspapers, in which people read the story of his humble beginnings, Lincoln began to relive a history he had helped to create exactly twenty years earlier. Lincoln “The Rail Splitter” had replaced Harrison “the Log-Cabin Candidate,” at times with virtually identical imagery. However, a notable difference during the 1860 campaign included the seriousness of Lincoln’s organizers. “It was the revived spirit of the Harrison campaign,” William Herndon wrote, “shorn of its fun and frolic [and] strengthened by the power of organization and the tremendous impetus of earnest devotion to a high principle.”2 Horace Greeley’s response to Lincoln’s campaign exceeded the efforts he had invested in securing his nomination, and following the Chicago convention, the New York Tribune featured stories and editorials with enthusiastic support for Lincoln and the Republican ticket. A report from the Republican Central Campaign Club published in the Tribune claimed Lincoln’s popularity would allow him to sweep states “like a tornado” and “run like chain lightning from the Allegheny to the Missouri.”3 Such content also boosted circulation of the Tribune throughout the Midwest, bringing its combined daily and weekly totals to 300,000—by Election Day, the daily edition alone reached 72,500 copies, with the demand for election returns boosting sales to the unprecedented number.4 However, Greeley was only half-correct in his assessment of the nation’s mood. While Republicans did indeed rally behind Lincoln after the Chicago convention, the Democratic Party remained split. Although under ordinary circumstances, such a division might have simply worked toward the advantage of the Republicans, the 1860 election was no ordinary event. With an electorate entrenched in factions, Stephen Douglas (the northern Democrat), John Breckinridge (the southern Democrat), and John Bell (of the Constitutional a fight for union and for freedom | 69 Union Party) battled for support in parts of the country where voters feared outright the rise of the Republicans. The fragmented canvas gave secessionists in the summer of 1860 reason to entertain the possibility that the House might have to decide the election, as it appeared possible that no one candidate might secure the required electoral majority. Therefore, a disputed election could either give secessionists grounds, they reasoned, to question the integrity of the results—and, ultimately, of the Union itself—or provide the opportunity to put a southern rights advocate into the White House instead...