CHAPTER XV.

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

At the close of the Senatorial contest Lincoln returned to the practice of his profession. His political pursuits for the last few years had interfered materially with his professional business. He, however, retained in the higher Courts all that he desired to attend to. During the Winter of 1858-9 he received invitations from a number of lyceums to deliver lectures. For the purpose of meeting this demand, or to change the range of thought from subjects in which he had so long been interested, he wrote out in a form of a lecture, a history of inventions, beginning with those described in the book of Genesis and running through all the different ages, ending with the latest inventions. He delivered this lecture in Springfield and one other city. The effort was not a satisfactory one to himself, and probably was not attractive to the lecture going public. Delivering lectures and making stump speeches require different styles of efforts, and orators are as often as much surprised themselves as are their audiences at their failures. This failure of Lincoln in his lecture on inventions calls to mind his steamboat invention. Visitors at Washington will find, on examination in the patent office, in one of the show-cases, a little model. It is a plain, simple model of a steamboat, roughly fashioned in wood by the hands of Abraham Lincoln. It bears date 1846, when the inventor was known simply as a successful lawyer and rising politician of Springfield, Illinois. The design of the invention is suggestive of one phase of Lincoln's early life, when he went up and down the Mississippi river as a flat-boat captain, and became familiar with the difficulties and dangers attending the navigation of the Western rivers. The main idea represented by the model is that of an apparatus resembling a noiseless bellows placed on each side of the hull of the craft, just below the water-line, and worked by an odd, but not complicated system of ropes, valves and pulleys. When the keel of the boat grated against the sand-bars or other obstructions, those bellows were to be filled with air, and the vessel thus buoyed up was expected to float lightly over the shoals, which would otherwise have proved a

serious interruption to the voyage. The model, which is about twenty inches long, has the appearance of having been whittled with a knife out of a cigar box and a shingle, and is built without any elaboration of adornment, or any extra apparatus beyond that necessary to show the operation of buoying the boat over the obstructions. It is a model carved as one might expect a railsplitter would whittle, strongly and not smoothly, and evidently made with a view solely to convey, by the simplest possible means, to the minds of the patent authorities an idea of the purposes and plans of the simple inventor. The label on the steamer's deck informs us that the patent was obtained. That little model has reposed there over thirty years, its merits not utilized. Soon after this model was deposited in its resting place, the inventor was called upon to prepare a model for the transportion of the ship of State over the shoals of secession and sand-bars of slavery, obstructions far more perilous and difficult than any dreamer had imagined or thought of when Lincoln wrote his autograph on the prow of his miniature steamer.

The private letters of Lincoln are so characteristic of his goodness of heart, and are so charmingly sincere and natural that one is given for an illustration. No one can read them without feeling that his personal friendships were the sweetest sources of his happiness. To a friend he wrote:

"Yours of the 16th announcing that Miss and you are no longer twain, but one flesh, reached me this morning. I have no way of telling you how much happiness I wish you both, though I believe you both can conceive it. I feel somewhat jealous of you both now, for you will be so exclusively concerned for one another that I shall be forgotten entirely. My acquaintance with Miss (I call her thus lest you should think I am speaking of her mother) was too short for me to reasonably hope to long be remembered by her; and still I am sure I shall not forget her soon. Try if you cannot remind her of that debt she owes, and be sure you do not interfere to prevent her paying it. I regret to learn that you have resolved not to return to Illinois. I shall be lonesome without you. How miserably things seem to be arranged in this world; if we have no friends, we have no pleasures; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them and be doubly pained by the loss. I did hope that she and you would make your home here, yet I own I have no right to insist. You owe obligations to her ten thousand times more sacred than any you can owe to others, and in that light let them be respected and observed. It is natural that she should desire to remain with her relations and friends. As to friends, she could not need them anywhere; she would have them in abundance here. Give my kind regards to Mr. and his family, particularly Miss E. -; also your mother, brothers and sisters. Ask little E. D if she will ride to town with me if I come there

again. And finally, give a double reciprocation of all the love she sent me. Write me often, and believe me, yours forever, LINCOLN."

It was the 10th of May, 1859, that the first movement took form for making Lincoln the Republican candidate for President. It was at the Illinois State Republican Convention held at Decatur. Lincoln was present as a spectator. When he entered the hall he was received with enthusiasm such as is rarely accorded on any occasion. This reception left no doubt that the audience regarded his late defeat as a great triumph, whose fruits would not long be delayed. Lincoln had hardly taken his seat when Lieutenant Oglesby (since Governor and United States Senator) of Decatur announced that an old Democrat of Macon county desired to make a contribution to the convention. The offer being at once accepted, two old fence-rails, with suitable emblazonry, were borne into the convention, and bearing the inscription, “Abraham Lincoln, the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of three thousand made in 1830 by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose father was the first pioneer of Macon county." Pen would fail to describe the effect on an audience already excited. After the strength of the assembly was completely exhausted in cheers, Lincoln was called upon to explain the matter of the rails, which he did by giving a history of his first work in Illinois, helping his father to build a log cabin and split rails to fence in a field of corn. It is said of Jackson that he was re-elected because he said, "By the eternal, the Union must and shall be preserved." That Harrison was elected because of log cabins and hard cider. Taylor, because he said, "A little more grape, Captain Bragg." Lincoln, because he was a rail splitter, and that Grant was elected and re-elected, because he said, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all Summer." These symbols or sayings, it is true, had but little to do with the duties or qualifications of those who were called to the Presidency. They prove, however, that when the people, the masses, take up a point or principle and make it a national watchword, they seldom fail to succeed.

Soon after Lincoln's nomination these rails were in demand in every State in the Union in which free labor was honored, where they were borne in processions of the people, and hailed by hundreds of thousands of freemen as a symbol of triumph and as a grand vindication of freedom and of the rights and dignity of free labor. Some time previous to this the State of Massachusetts had amended her constitution, making the naturalization of foreigners more difficult, and extended the period of time required. With many letters received by Lincoln after his nomination by the Illinois convention, was one from Theodore Cauisins, a German citizen of Illinois, of date May 17, 1859, inquiring what were his (Lincoln's) views relative to the constitutional provisions recently adopted in Massachusetts in relation to natural

ized citizens, and whether he favored or opposed a fusion of Republicans and other opposition elements in the approaching campaign of 1860. In reply to this letter Lincoln said: "I have no right to advise the sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts concerning her policy, but so far as I understand the provision she has made, I am against its adoption in Illinois, and in every other place where I have a right to oppose it. As I understand the spirit of our institutions, it is the design to promote the elevation of men. I am, therefore, hostile to anything that tends to their debasement. It is well known that I deplore the depressed condition of the blacks, and it would be very inconsistent for me to look with favor or approval upon any measure that infringes upon the inalienable rights of white men, whether or not they are born in another land or speak a different language from our own." To the inquiry touching the fusion of all opposition elements, he said: "I am in favor of it if it can be done on Republican principles, and upon no other consideration. A fusion on any other platform would be insane and unprincipled. There are good and patriotic statesmen in the South, whom I would willingly support if they were placed on Republican ground, but I shall oppose the lowering of the Republican standard even by a hair's breadth."

With what broad and catholic sentiments towards adopted citizens does Lincoln reply to this letter, characteristic of his principles and his entire life. How strong his appreciation of his Republican principles and platform. He felt that it was liberal and broad, on which all could unite and stand who desired the elevation of the human race, and the unity and prosperity of their common country. Lincoln had now become a representative man, and was regarded by the Republican party of the West as their candidate for the Presidency. His senatorial contest with Douglas had proven him the people's friend, the man of the people, from the people, and the champion of freedom, free soil and free labor. His statement that the battle of 1860 was worth a hundred of the senatorial contest was now understood and appreciated. The result of that contest was now bearing its legitimate fruit. It was marshaling and uniting the sons of freedom for the great battle for free soil and free labor, while the stand taken by Douglas was creating dissension in, and threatening the disruption of the Democratic party.

The movements of the Western Republicans indicated that Lincoln would be a prominent candidate for President before the Republican convention, and he, during the last of 1859 and first months of 1860, visited several portions of the Union and delivered a number of the most remarkable speeches of his life. In the last of 1859 Lincoln visited Kansas. He had a desire to see the people and State in whose behalf he had labored so efficiently

in his great contest with Douglas. He was received with unbounded enthusiasm by the people. He addressed the people at Leavenworth and at several other towns. His reception at Leavenworth was grand and magnificent. The Leavenworth Register said: 'Never did man receive such honors at the hands of our people, and never did our people pay honors to a better man, or to one who has been a truer friend to Kansas." The following is a paragraph of his speech on that occasion:

"But you Democrats are for the Union, and you greatly fear that the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union. Why? Do the Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it. Your own statement of it is, that if the black Republicans elect a President you won't stand it; you will break up the Union. That will be your act, not ours. To justify it you must show that our policy gives you just cause for such desperate action. Can you do that? When you attempt it you will find that our policy is exactly the policy of the men who made our Union-nothing more, nothing less. Do you really think you are justified in breaking up the government rather than in having it administered as it was by Washington? If you do, you are very unreasonable, and more reasonable men cannot and will not submit to you. While you elect Presidents we submit, and do not attempt to break up the Union. If we constitutionally elect a President it will be our duty to see that you also submit. Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a State. We cannot object even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So, if we constitutionally elect a President and therefore you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. We hope that no section will, as a majority, so act as to render such extreme measures necessary."