Abraham Lincoln: A Biography

8. Lincoln Re-enters Politics

CHAPTER VIII -.Lincoln Re-enters Politics IfM M E D I ATE L Y upon the passage of the KansasII Nebraska Act, frayed party ties began to snap. Thousands of Northern Democrats withdrew in indignation from their party. The Whig Party, already split along sectional lines, ceased to function as an effective national organization though it managed to maintain itself a little longer in some Northern states. Inevitably, the antislavery castoffs came together. As early as February ~8, 1854 a group of Whigs, Democrats, and FreeSoilers , meeting at Ripon, Wisconsin, resolved to organize a new party to resist the extension of slavery if the Kansas-Nebraska Bill became law. On May 9 several antislavery Congressmen, meeting in a Washington boarding-house, advocated the same course. On July 6 a great fusion mass meeting at Jackson, Michigan, adopted the name Republican in emulation of the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson. Thereafter hundreds of gatherings in the North took similar action. The fact that seven states later claimed to have been the birthplace of the Republican Party proves the spontaneity of the movement. In some states fusion of the various free-soil elements into the new Republican Party was accomplished quickly; elsewhere it took a year or more. In Illinois the fusion movement began as early as March 18, 1854, when a mass meeting at Rockford voted for the formation of a new party. On August 1 a gathering at Ottawa adopted the name Republican. But both Whigs and Lincoln Re-enters Politics 145 Democrats held back. Many free-soil Democrats still hoped to control their state organization instead of leaving it. And among old-line Whigs like Lincoln, an ingrained party loyalty, a reluctance to sacrifice prestige and position won through years of party service, and above all a hesitancy about identifying themselves with antislavery radicals, inspired a final effort to maintain their organization and quicken its feeble pulse. Consequently, the Republican Party in Illinois was originally composed almost exclusively of former Free-Soilers and abolitionists. If the embryonic Republican Party looked to the principles of Jefferson for its ideals, the American or Know-Nothing Party, likewise an outgrowth of the political derangement of the times, was nurtured in intolerance and prejudice. Revolutions in continental Europe and famine in Ireland induced a swelling tide of emigration to America, and while many of the newcomers displayed energy and ambition and brought cultural enrichment to the land of their adoption, many others were ill-educated, improvident, and troublesome. Most of the Irish and large numbers of the Germans were Catholics. The Irish were often disorderly. Settling mostly in cities and remaining largely unassimilated , the new arrivals were regarded with hostility by many of the native-born. As early as the 1840's numerous anti-foreign and antiCatholic secret societies had sprung up in opposition to what their members ardently believed to be a threat to the Republic and its ideal of religious freedom. In the early fifties these dispersed units came together to form the American Party, popularly known as the Know-Nothings because members, when questioned about their organization, professed utter ignorance. With old party structures crumbling, many lovers of the Union, especially conservative Whigs both North and South, were attracted to the new party by its fervent nationalism. But if many persons joined from honest convictions, the rank and file were bigoted and ignorant. The tenets of the party were pernicious, and as the venom of intolerance seeped through the party organism and found outlet in provocative demonstrations, bloody riots broke 146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN out in several cities. Nevertheless, in the elections of 1854 the Know-Nothings swept New England, would have carried New York except for the opposition of Seward and Greeley, won a number of municipal elections, and rolled up impressive totals almost everywhere. * W HEN LIN COL N re-entered politics in 1854, he had no thought of a new political career for himself. His sole purpose was to assure the re-election of Richard Yates, of Jacksonville, who, as representative of the Seventh Congressional District, had been a staunch opponent of the Nebraska Bill. In late August, Lincoln took the stump in Yates's behalf, and, in an effort to rally the Whig forces, he and Stephen T. Logan agreed to run for the State Legislature. From the time Douglas introduced the Nebraska Bill in the Senate, Lincoln, while pondering deeply on the slavery...