The Ethnic Voter and the First Lincoln Election

THE ETHNIC VOTER AND THE FIRST LINCOLN ELECTION Robert P. Swierenga Scholars, particularly those interested in the impact of ethnic groups on key national elections, have long been intrigued by Abraham Lincoln's victory in 1860. Ever since Professor William E. Dodd's classic article it has been axiomatic in the works of historians that the foreign-born of the Old Northwest, voting in solid blocs according to the dictates of their leaders, cast the decisive ballots. Lincoln could not have won the presidency, Dodd suggested, "but for the loyal support of the Germans and other foreign citizens led by Carl Schurz, Gustav Koerner, and the editors of the Staatszeitung of Chicago."1 A decade later, taking his cue from Dodd, Donnai V. Smith scrutinized the immigrant vote in 1860 and confidently declared that "without the vote of the foreign-born, Lincoln could not have carried the Northwest, and without the Northwest ... he would have been defeated ." Smith's statistics also confirmed the premise that the social solidarity characteristic of ethnic groups invariably translated itself into political solidarity, and that because of the language barrier the immigrants needed leaders to formulate the political issues for them. "The leaders who were so trusted," Smith maintained, "were in a splendid position to control the political strength of the foreignborn ." And in the election of 1860, he continued, even to the "casual observer" the ethnic leaders in the Middle West were solidly Republican .2 Therefore, except for isolated, insignificant minorities, the foreign-born of the Old Northwest voted Republican. Most midwestern ethnic leaders, it is true, were predominately in the Republican camp in 1860. Foreign language newspapers generally ^'The Fight for the Northwest, I860," American Historical Review, XVI (1910), 786. The idea was quickly accepted. See, for example, Arthur C. Cole, The Era of the Civil War (Springfield, 1919), pp. 341-342. 2 "The Influence of the Foreign-Born of the Northwest in the Election of I860," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XIX (1932), 204, 193, 202. See also F. I. Herriott, "Iowa and the First Nomination of Lincoln," Annals of Iowa, 3rd Ser., VIII (1907), 196. 27 28CIVIL WAR HISTORY carried the Lincoln-Hamlin banner on their mastheads; prominent immigrants campaigned actively for Old Abe and played key roles at the Chicago convention.3 It is also widely conceded that the antislavery movement, the free homestead idea, and the Pacific railroad issue were key factors attracting ethnic leaders to the Republicans.4 The really crucial question, however, concerns not the foreign-born leaders but the masses that they supposedly represented. Did the naturalized immigrants vote as their spokesmen desired? Except for Dr. Joseph Schafer's deathbed protest in 1941 that the Wisconsin Germans did not fit the pattern,5 the Dodd-Smith thesis has stood unchallenged.6 But a recent analysis of the 1860 election statistics for Iowa suggests that the foreign-born, and particularly the Germans, may not have supported Lincoln as strongly as historians have long assumed to be the case.7 A possibly critical factor thus far ignored in studies of the ethnic impact on the first Lincoln election is the time-gap between the date of immigrant settlement and the year 1860. That ethnic leaders initially influenced the ballots of their countrymen is highly probable. Yet it seems reasonable to assume that a leader's power would steadily wane as the rank-and-file newcomers attained a measure of economic security and cultural acclimatization. If true, the student of ethnic voting must be careful when relying on what spokesmen said as an indication of how the foreign-born voted, particularly if ten or fifteen years had elapsed since the trans-Atlantic migration. The collective experience of the Netherlanders who migrated to central Iowa in the mid-nineteenth century, in illustrating this danger, is a case study 3 Besides Schurz of Wisconsin and Koemer of Illinois, prominent foreign-born campaigners included Frederick Hassaurek of Ohio, Theodore Hielscher of Indiana , and Henry P. Schölte and Nicholas Rusch of Iowa. See M. Halstead, Caucuses of 1860: A History of the National Political Conventions (Columbus, 1860), pp. 123, 127; Reinhard H. Luthin, The First Lincoln Campaign (Cambridge , 1944), pp. 185-187; Charles...