Lincoln (145 page)

240
“electrify as well”:
Herbert Mitgang, ed.,
Abraham Lincoln: A Press Portrait
(Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp. 157–158.

240
Albany Evening Journal: Monaghan,
Lincoln Bibliography,
1:14–15;
LL,
no. 589 (July 22, 1940).

240
“worthy of it”:
David C. Mearns, ed.,
The Lincoln Papers
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1948), 1:231.

240
the previous September:
On this tour, see Elwin L. Page,
Abraham Lincoln in New Hampshire
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1929).

240
“to have one”: John
S. Goff,
Robert Todd Lincoln: A Man in His Own Right
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), p. 32.

240
know his father:
Marshall S. Snow, “Abraham Lincoln: A Personal Reminiscence,”
Magazine of
History with Notes and Queries
11 (Feb. 1910): 64–65.

241
“bite the children”: CW,
4:5.

241
“we understand it”: CW,
4:29–30.

241
for his nomination:
Jackson Grimshaw to WHH, Apr. 28, 1866, HWC.

241
“the Illinois delegates”: CW,
3:517.

241
“mouth a little”: CW,
4:45.

242
“he secretly owned: CW,
3:383.

242
“secrets from him”: CW,
10:48.

242
“he was unequal”:
“Praise for the ‘Most Available Candidate,’”
JISHS
71 (Feb. 1978): 72.

242
“a guileless man”:
David Davis to [John Wentworth], Sept. 25, 1859, Davis MSS, ISHL.

243
ten, years younger: CW,
4:36.

243
for his nomination: CW,
4:43.

243
“chances of success”: CW,
4:33.

243
attending the convention: CW,
4:32.

244
“any positive objection”: CW,
4:47.

244
“their first love”: CW,
4:34.

244
“a few men”:
N. B. Judd to AL, Dec. 12, 1859, Lincoln MSS, LC.

244
“be very well”: CW,
3:509.

244
“our friends here”: CW,
3:509.

244
more dynamic image:
This account closely follows Wayne C. Temple’s excellent article, “Lincoln’s Fence Rails,”
JISHS
47 (Spring 1954): 20–34.

245
“grown to manhood”: CW,
4:48.

245
only partially true:
Although admitting that “Lincoln was an exceptionally decent and honest politician,” Gabor S. Boritt suggests that had voters known the reality rather than the myth he might have been defeated in 1860. “Was Lincoln a Vulnerable Candidate in 1860?”
Civil War History
27 (Mar. 1981): 31–48.

245
sent to Chicago:
Isaac N. Arnold,
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
(Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, & Co., 1885), p. 163.

246
“unit for him”:
Baringer,
Lincoln’s Rise to Power,
p. 186.

246
“stay at home”:
Rufus Rockwell Wilson, ed.,
Intimate Memories of Lincoln
(Elmira, N.Y.: The Primavera Press, Inc., 1945), p. 294.

246
the Republican ticket:
Jackson Grimshaw to WHH, Apr. 28, 1866, HWC.

246 “
’Higher Law’ doctrine”: CW,
4:50.

246
Pennsylvania and New Jersey:
Luthin,
The First Lincoln Campaign,
chap. 9, offers an excellent account of the convention proceedings.

247
“home and abroad”: Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions,
pp. 131–133.

247
a dark horse:
William Safire,
Safire’s New Political Dictionary
(New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 166–167.

248
of the operation:
King,
Lincoln’s Manager,
pp. 135–142.

248
to do so:
Stephen T. Logan, statement to WHH, undated, Lamon MSS, HEH.

248
Seward backers arrived:
For a spirited account, see Baringer,
Lincoln’s Rise to Power,
chap. 5.

248
Indiana Republican parties:
William Butler to AL, May 15, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

248
“the pinch comes”.
C. H. Ray to AL, May 14, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

249
“devil with fire”: Mark W. Delahay to AL, May 17, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

249
“will bind me”:
CW,
4:50.

249
his directive was unnecessary
: According to legend, Lincoln’s message vastly upset his lieutenants in Chicago, and Davis overruled it, saying, “Lincoln ain’t here and don’t know what we have to meet!” Nevins,
The Emergence of Lincoln,
vol. 2, p. 256. But the source of the story is
Henry C. Whitney’s highly unreliable
Lincoln the Citizen
(New York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1908), pp. 288–289.

249
had no foundation:
Nevins,
The Emergence of Lincoln,
p. 256, argues that Davis did make such a pledge to Smith, but King,
Lincoln’s Manager,
pp. 136–138, shows how weak the evidence for such an agreement is. For an astute analysis of the decision of the Indiana delegation, see Kenneth M. Stampp,
Indiana Politics During the Civil War
(Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1949), pp. 38–40.

249
“difficult to get”: CW,
4:47.

249
the initial ballot:
The evidence on an alleged bargain between Davis and the Cameron forces is complex and hard to evaluate. I conclude that there was no bargain, partly because Davis, Swett, and Lincoln, as quoted below, flatly denied it, partly because after the nomination Cameron and his friends pushed their claim with a nervous intensity that betrayed their uncertainty about the supposed pledge. The best conclusion may well be that of Willard L. King, who says
(Lincoln’s Manager,
p. 141) that Davis made a qualified pledge of his personal support to Cameron.

249
“to our satisfaction”:
Erwin S. Bradley,
Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s Secretary of War
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), pp. 149–151.

250
“no mortgages executed”:
Wilson,
Intimate Memories,
p. 296.

250
“has promised nothing”:
David Davis to Thomas H. Dudley, Sept. 1, 1860, Dudley MSS, HEH.

250
“are fairly implied”: CW,
4:51. Cf.
Herndon’s Lincoln,
3:473.

250
“and practice law”:
Jesse W. Weik,
The Real Lincoln: A Portrait
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1922), pp. 266–267.

250
the nomination unanimous: Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions,
pp. 151, 152, 155.

251
“than I am”:
Charles S. Zane, “Lincoln as I Knew Him,”
Sunset Magazine
29 (Oct. 1912): 430–438. Accounts of how Lincoln received the news of his nomination vary in detail. See Randall,
Lincoln the President,
1:173–174.

251
“you see me”:
David Davis to AL, May 18, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

251
“in this respect”: CW,
4:75.

251
“look up to”:
C. C. Coffin, in Allen Thorndike Rice, ed.,
Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by
Distinguished Men of His Time
(New York: North American Review, 1888), pp. 168–171.

251
“the White House”:
George Ashmun, “Abraham Lincoln at Home,” in
Springfield
(Mass.)
Daily
Republican,
May 23, 1860.

252
wealthy Springfield friends:
John G. Nicolay to Therena Bates, June 7, 1860, Nicolay MSS, LC; John W. Bunn to Jesse W. Weik, July 26, 1916, HWC.

252
“truly A Lincoln”: CW,
4:68.

252
“deport yourself accordingly”:
O. H. Browning to AL, July 4, 1860, Lincoln MSS, LC.

252
rather than “Abram”: CW,
4:68.

252
held his head:
Hamilton and Ostendorf,
Lincoln in Photographs,
p. 48; Mellon,
The Face of
Lincoln,
pp. 10–11, 76–77.

252
“not an objection”:
Rufus Rockwell Wilson,
Lincoln in Portraiture
(New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1935), pp. 111, 93–97.

252
“attend to them”: CW,
4:60.

253
biographies were distributed:
Ernest J. Wessen, “Campaign Lives of Abraham Lincoln, 1860: An Annotated Bibliography,”
Papers in Illinois History, 1937,
pp. 188–220, is authoritative. Howells’s biography is important not merely because its author was to become a distinguished novelist but because Lincoln, at the request of S. C. Parks, went over a copy of the biography and corrected it. That copy has been published as W. D. Howells,
Life of Abraham Lincoln
(Springfield, Ill: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938). The autobiography Lincoln prepared for Scripps is in
CW,
4:60–67. See also Grace Locke Scripps Dyche, “John Locke Scripps, Lincoln’s Campaign Biographer: A Sketch Compiled from His Letters,”
JISHS
17 (Oct. 1924): 333–351.

253
children into slavery: CW,
4:112.