Part 11 (1/2)
”What's your height?”
”Six feet three What is yours, Mr Lincoln?”
”Six feet four”
”Then,” said the judge, ”Pennsylvania bows to Illinois My dearfor a President I could _look up to_, and I've found hiht there were none but _little_ giants”
The general feeling of the committee was that the convention had hout the entire party
Some of Seward's friends wanted him to run on an independent ticket It is to his credit that he scouted the idea The democrats, at least the opponents of Lincoln, were divided into three calas The second was the bolting party of fire-eaters, who noe The third was the party that noaroo ticket, because the tail was the most important part Lincoln's popular vote at the November election was about forty per cent, of the total
It was plain that if his supporters held together and his opponents were divided, he could readily get a plurality There were attempts on the part of the opponents of Lincoln to run fusion tickets in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, so as to divert the electoral votes fro more than that New Jersey diverted three of her seven electoral votes
A curious feature of the can was that all four candidates declared ee, as the candidate of the Southern disunionists, wrote; ”The Constitution and the equality of the states, these are sy union” Lincoln hie Some people were doubtless deceived by these protestations, but not Douglas He declared: ”I do not believe that every Breckinridge man is a disunionist, but I do believe that every disunionist in A the period of nearly six months between nomination and election, Lincoln continued siratified by the nomination He was not elated, for he was not an ambitious man On the contrary, he felt the burden of responsibility He was a far-seeing statesedy He felt the call of duty, not to triumph but to sacrifice This was the cause of his seriousness and gravity of dee in his si Friends and neighbors calad to see them He answered the door-bell himself and acco to save his strength in these little ro valet, Thomas by naht belonged to Thoo to Washi+ngton with head- gear equal to the occasion A fars Hundreds of such attentions, kind in intent, grotesque in appearance, he received with that kindness which is the soul of courtesy There was a woman at whose modest farmhouse he had once dined on a bowl of bread andelse had been eaten up She caies and to reh for the President” While he commanded the respect of Bryant, Schurz, Boutwell, and such, he was at the same time the idol of the plain people, whoht the Lord particularly loved plain people, for he had made so many of them
Shortly after his noirl approached ti for her She replied that she wanted his nairls--they will feel badly if I give ht of theht sheets of paper, and a pen and ink, and I will see what I can do for you” The -room he sat dorote a sentence and his nairls happy
The careat excitement His letter of acceptance was of the briefest description and simply announced his adherence to the platform For the rest, his previous utterances in the debates with Douglas, the Cooper Institute speech, and other addresses, were in print, and he was content to stand by the record He showed his wisdo to be diverted, or to allow his party to be diverted, fro the further extension of slavery The public were not perht of the fact that this was the real issue The Chicago as copied in many cities: tes These did good service as rallying centers
Then the caan to appear It was said that by June he had had no less than fifty-two applications to write his biography
One such book ritten by W D Howells, not so famous in literature then as now Lincoln furnished a sketch of his life, an ”autobiography”
so called This contains only about five hundred words Its brevity is an indication of its istic s were J G Whittier and E C Stedent of the party was represented by the ”Wide- Awakes” The uniform was as effective as simple It consisted of a cadet cap and a cape, both anized in Hartford It had escorted Lincoln froain when he spoke in that city in February after his Cooper Institute speech The idea of this uniformed company of cadets captivated the public fancy Bands of Wide-Awakes were organized in every community in the North At the frequent political rallies they poured in by thousands and tens of thousands, a very picturesque sight The original band in Hartford obtained the identical maul hich Lincoln had split those rails in 1830 It is now in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society, in Hartford
Though Lincoln had much to cheer hie, that it is given nearly in full A careful canvas had been field, and the intention of each voter had been recorded Lincoln had the book containing this record He asked his friend Mr Bateman, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to look through the book with hiht be considered leaders of public ymen, officers, or prominent members of the churches
When the memorandum was tabulated, after some minutes of silence, he turned a sad face to Mr Bateman, and said: ”Here are twenty-three ainst reat e ainst me Mr Bateman, I am not a Christian--God knoould be one--but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not so understand this book” He drew from his pocket a New Testament ”These men well know that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and laill permit, and that my opponents are for slavery They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which huainstpause, he added with tears: ”I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery I see the stor, and I know that His hand is in it If He has a place and work for , but truth is everything I know I aht, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God I have told theainst itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the salas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or voted down, but God cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with God's help I shall not fail I may not see the end; but it will come and I shall be vindicated; and these ht”
After another pause: ”Doesn't it appear strange that nore the moral aspects of this contest? A revelation could not overn awful, as I look at it, but for this rock [the Testa] on which I stand,--especially with the knowledge of how theseto vote It see [slavery] until the very teachers of religion had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out”
Lincoln did not wear his heart upon his sleeve On the subject of religion, he was reticent to a degree Peter Cartwright had called hieneral, ireat injustice It is for this reason that his reth Froreat pains to have a memorial serious He did no injustice to any other man, he did not do justice to himself
The election occurred on the sixth day of November The vote was as follows: Lincoln received 1,866,452 popular votes, and one hundred and eighty electoral votes Douglas received 1,375,157 popular votes, and twelve electoral votes Breckinridge received 847,953 popular votes, and seventy-two electoral votes Bell received 590,631 popular votes, and thirty-nine electoral votes
Lincoln carried all the free states, excepting that in New Jersey the electoral vote was divided, he receiving four out of seven In the fifteen slave states he received no electoral vote In ten states not one person had voted for him
Of the 303 electoral votes he had received 180, while the aggregate of all against hi him an absolute majority of 57
The electoral vote was duly counted in the joint session of the two houses of congress February 13, 1861, and it was officially announced that Abraha received a majority of the votes of the presidential electors, was duly elected President of the United States for four years, beginning March 4, 1861
One circumstance is added which may be of interest to the reader This was published, after his death, by his personal friend, Noah Brooks It is given in Lincoln's oords: ”It was just afterin thick and fast all day, and there had been a great 'Hurrah boys!' so that I ell tired out and went hoe in my chaing glass upon it; and looking in that glass, I saw th; but es, the tip of the nose of the one being about three inches from the tip of the other I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler--say five shades--than the other I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and, in the exciteot all about it,--nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while co uncomfortable had happened When I went home, I told my wife about it, and a few days after I tried the experiain; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to ht it was 'a sign' that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an oh the last ter in so far as everything about Lincoln is of interest The phenoe--the ”paler,” or lass, while the other is reflected froh Lincoln understood that it was an optical illusion, yet the thought of it evidently weighed on him
Otherwise he would not have repeated the experiment several times, nor would he have told of it to different persons