Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 89

On the first ballot for President, Mr. Seward received one hundred and seventy-three and one-half votes; Mr. Lincoln, one hundred and two votes, the others scattering. On the first ballot, Vermont had divided her vote, but on the second the chairman of the Vermont delegation announced: "Vermont casts her ten votes for the young giant of the West--Abraham Lincoln."

This was the turning point in the convention toward Mr. Lincoln's nomination. The second ballot resulted: Seward, one hundred and eighty-four and one-half; Lincoln, one hundred and eighty-one. On the third ballot, Mr. Lincoln received two hundred and thirty votes. One and one-half votes more would nominate him. Before the ballot was announced, Ohio made a change of four votes in favor of Mr. Lincoln, making him the nominee for President.

Other states tried to follow Ohio's example, but it was a long time before any of the delegates could make themselves heard. Cannons planted on top of the wigwam were roaring and booming; the large crowd in the wigwam and the immense throng outside were cheering at the top of their lungs, while bands were playing victorious airs.

When order had been restored, it was announced that on the third ballot Abraham Lincoln of Illinois had received three hundred and fifty-four votes and was nominated by the Republican party to the office of President of the United States.

Mr. Lincoln heard the news of his nomination while sitting in a newspaper office in Springfield, and hurried home to tell his wife.

As Mr. Lincoln had predicted, Judge Douglas' position on slavery in the territories lost him the support of the South, and when the Democratic convention met at Charleston, the slave-holding states forced the nomination of John C. Breckinridge. A considerable number of people who did not agree with either party nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

In the election which followed, Mr. Lincoln carried all of the free states, except New Jersey, which was divided between himself and Douglas; Breckinridge carried all the slave states, except Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, which went for Bell, and Missouri gave its vote to Douglas.

FORMATION OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

The election was scarcely over before it was evident that the Southern States did not intend to abide by the result, and that a conspiracy was on foot to divide the Union. Before the Presidential election even, the Secretary of War in President Buchanan's Cabinet had removed one hundred and fifty thousand muskets from Government armories in the North and sent them to Government armories in the South.

Before Mr. Lincoln had prepared his inaugural address, South Carolina, which took the lead in the secession movement, had declared through her Legislature her separation from the Union. Before Mr. Lincoln took his seat, other Southern States had followed the example of South Carolina, and a convention had been held at Montgomery, Alabama, which had elected Jefferson Davis President of the new Confederacy, and Alexander H.

Stevens, of Georgia, Vice-President.

Southern men in the Cabinet, Senate and House had resigned their seats and gone home, and Southern States were demanding that Southern forts and Government property in their section should be turned over to them.

Between his election and inauguration, Mr. Lincoln remained silent, reserving his opinions and a declaration of his policy for his inaugural address.

Before Mr. Lincoln's departure from Springfield for Washington, threats had been freely made that he would never reach the capital alive, and, in fact, a conspiracy was then on foot to take his life in the city of Baltimore.

Mr. Lincoln left Springfield on February 11th, in company with his wife and three sons, his brother-in-law, Dr. W. S. Wallace; David Davis, Norman B. Judd, Elmer E. Elsworth, Ward H. Lamon, Colonel E. V. Sunder of the United States Army, and the President's two secretaries.

GOOD-BYE TO THE OLD FOLK.

Early in February, before leaving for Washington, Mr. Lincoln slipped away from Springfield and paid a visit to his aged step-mother in Coles county. He also paid a visit to the unmarked grave of his father and ordered a suitable stone to mark the spot.

Before leaving Springfield, he made an address to his fellow-townsmen, in which he displayed sincere sorrow at parting from them.

"Friends," he said, "no one who has never been placed in a like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of earth were a.s.sumed. Here all my children were born, and here one of them lies buried.

"To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To-day I leave you. I go to a.s.sume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great G.o.d who a.s.sisted him shall be with and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail--I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the G.o.d of our fathers may not forsake us now.

"To Him I commend you all. Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these words I must leave you, for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell."

The journey from Springfield to Philadelphia was a continuous ovation for Mr. Lincoln. Crowds a.s.sembled to meet him at the various places along the way, and he made them short speeches, full of humor and good feeling. At Harrisburg, Pa., the party was met by Allan Pinkerton, who knew of the plot in Baltimore to take the life of Mr. Lincoln.

THE "SECRET Pa.s.sAGE" TO WASHINGTON.

Throughout his entire life, Abraham Lincoln's physical courage was as great and superb as his moral courage. When Mr. Pinkerton and Mr.

Judd urged the President-elect to leave for Washington that night, he positively refused to do it. He said he had made an engagement to a.s.sist at a flag raising in the forenoon of the next day and to show himself to the people of Harrisburg in the afternoon, and that he intended to keep both engagements.

At Philadelphia the Presidential party was met by Mr. Seward's son, Frederick, who had been sent to warn Mr. Lincoln of the plot against his life. Mr. Judd, Mr. Pinkerton and Mr. Lamon figured out a plan to take Mr. Lincoln through Baltimore between midnight and daybreak, when the would-be a.s.sa.s.sins would not be expecting him, and this plan was carried out so thoroughly that even the conductor on the train did not know the President-elect was on board.

Mr. Lincoln was put into his berth and the curtains drawn. He was supposed to be a sick man. When the conductor came around, Mr. Pinkerton handed him the "sick man's" ticket and he pa.s.sed on without question.

When the train reached Baltimore, at half-past three o'clock in the morning, it was met by one of Mr. Pinkerton's detectives, who reported that everything was "all right," and in a short time the party was speeding on to the national capital, where rooms had been engaged for Mr. Lincoln and his guard at Willard's Hotel.

Mr. Lincoln always regretted this "secret pa.s.sage" to Washington, for it was repugnant to a man of his high courage. He had agreed to the plan simply because all of his friends urged it as the best thing to do.

Now that all the facts are known, it is a.s.sured that his friends were right, and that there never was a moment from the day he crossed the Maryland line until his a.s.sa.s.sination that his life was not in danger, and was only saved as long as it was by the constant vigilance of those who were guarding him.

HIS ELOQUENT INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

The wonderful eloquence of Abraham Lincoln--clear, sincere, natural--found grand expression in his first inaugural address, in which he not only outlined his policy toward the States in rebellion, but made that beautiful and eloquent plea for conciliation. The closing sentences of Mr. Lincoln's first inaugural address deservedly take rank with his Gettysburg speech:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen," he said, "and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not a.s.sail you.

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and defend' it.

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pa.s.sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

"The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

FOLLOWS PRECEDENT OF WASHINGTON.

In selecting his Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln, consciously or unconsciously, followed a precedent established by Washington, of selecting men of almost opposite opinions. His Cabinet was composed of William H. Seward of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon E.

Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair of Maryland, Postmaster-General; Edward Bates of Missouri, Attorney-General.

Mr. Chase, although an anti-slavery leader, was a States-Rights Federal Republican, while Mr. Seward was a Whig, without having connected himself with the anti-slavery movement.

Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward, the leading men of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, were as widely apart and antagonistic in their views as were Jefferson, the Democrat, and Hamilton, the Federalist, the two leaders in Washington's Cabinet. But in bringing together these two strong men as his chief advisers, both of whom had been rival candidates for the Presidency, Mr.

Lincoln gave another example of his own greatness and self-reliance, and put them both in a position to render greater service to the Government than they could have done, probably, as President.

Mr. Lincoln had been in office little more than five weeks when the War of the Rebellion began by the firing on Fort Sumter.