Abram J. Dittenhoefer

“ Open and frank opposition came from such influential Republicans as Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, and Horace Greeley, of New York, who believed his re-election impossible. But the opposition of Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, was secret, as he had been scheming for the nomination himself. Chase, while regarding himself as Mr. Lincoln’s friend and constantly protesting his friendship to the President, held a condescending opinion of Mr. Lincoln’s intellect. He could not believe the people so blind as to prefer Abraham Lincoln to Salmon Chase. ”

“ The Federal Government, with the spineless Buchanan at its head, was utterly unprepared for the crisis.
Such was the situation when President Lincoln took the oath of office; such the already divided nation when the irresolute, truckling Buchanan handed over the destinies of the Republic to his successor.
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No heavier burden ever was imposed upon a ruler of any people.
Mr. Lincoln was only partially fortunate in choosing his Cabinet. Seward was inevitable. Chase was a lucky guess, because he was without a record as a financier. ”

“ North was looked upon as merely a blind to cover the extension of slavery in free territory.
Douglas had introduced bills giving Statehood to the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and commenting upon these bills he said it was not intended to legislate slavery into any State or Territory or to exclude it therefrom, but “to leave the people thereof entirely free to form and regulate their domestic institutions as they thought best, subject only to the Federal Constitution.” ”

“ Lincoln replied, “There is one man in this country who, though little in stature, is a giant in mind, and he has given me much hard work to do.”
Mr. Lincoln’s reply to the committee that visited Springfield on May 19, to notify him of his nomination, and his formal letter of acceptance, dated May 23, avoided all reference to what Mr. Seward had described as “the impending crisis.” In his letter Mr. Lincoln pledged “due regard to the rights of all States and Territories and people of the nation, to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and prosperity of all.” ”

“ An act popularly regarded as madness at one period is hailed as concrete wisdom at another. History is only a crystallization of popular beliefs.
Many people very close to Lincoln have doubted his sympathy for the slaves, and have referred to his frequent characterization of abolitionists as “a disturbing element in the nation, that ought to be subjected to some sort of control.” They assert that his efforts were directed solely to restraining the ambitions of the slaveholders to extend their system of human bondage over larger areas of the United States. ”

“ Lincoln gave way to despondency, and, although he never said so in words, one could clearly see by the anxiety he manifested that he was sorely perplexed to account for the animus of certain men against him. He appeared to be especially anxious about New York, and to fear that the enmity of Seward’s old friends and the hostility of Mr. Greeley might cause him to lose the delegation from the Empire State. I was in Washington at that time on professional business, and was able to impart to him positive information regarding his strength in various parts of the State. ”

“ Lincoln’s re-election will banish all hope of triumph for the Confederacy. A firm and everlasting peace will follow, based upon a reconstructed Union and freedom everywhere. The American Union, strong, powerful, and freed from slavery, will be honored the world over.
“Be it storm, or summer weather,
Peaceful calm or battle jar,
Stand in beauteous strength together,
Sister States as once ye were.”
Large sums of money were expended in expensive printing during that campaign. Some of the publications were elaborately designed and illustrated. ”

“ Every man in the North influenced by “Copperheads,” who opposed the war, demanded that this “fighting general” be replaced at the head of our armies. He had become harnessed to the slave power, and he, with General Pendleton, candidate for Vice-President, became the incarnation of the Democratic peace platform.
McClellan’s nomination was received with enthusiasm and cheers by the Confederate soldiers; the Southern newspapers declared that McClellan’s election would be helped by Grant’s defeat in the field. Confederate bonds advanced on the announcement of McClellan’s nomination. ”

“ Lincoln’s address will serve as the keynote upon which he subsequently based his candidacy for the Presidency in opposition to the extremely radical anti-slavery views of Horace Greeley and William H. Seward.
“Wrong as we think slavery,” said Lincoln, “we can afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent, allow it to spread in the national Territories and to overrun us here in these free States? ”

“ Lincoln’s place in the history of civilization is immutably fixed. During the last ten years of his career, he was the greatest of all living men. As statesman and reformer he belongs not alone to America, but to the whole world.
George Washington established this Republic, [Pg 95] but the curse of human slavery adhered to the otherwise splendid Government he was so largely instrumental in creating. ”

“ The demand of the people of the North, where the Republican strength lay exclusively, was for a candidate who would appeal to both Free-Soilers and abolitionists. Between these factions there was an almost impassable gulf.
Now as the years have rolled on Lincoln has grown steadily in the love and admiration of the American people, and the unjust criticism which was made by the abolitionists at the time of his nomination, namely, that he did not favor the abolition of slavery in the States because he was born in the South, is regarded with disdain. ”

“ Jefferson Davis, his resources crippled and with his last levies on the firing-line, is naturally anxious that Lincoln be defeated, for he knows, by this time, that with Lincoln as President the Confederacy will be compelled to abandon a hopeless contest. ”

“ The Democratic National Convention met in New York on the 4th of July, 1868. There was a strong sentiment among the delegates favorable to the nomination of a liberal Republican for President, but Chief Justice Chase, who was an old-time Democrat and who had won a very large measure of Democratic confidence by his ruling in the impeachment case of President Johnson, was a favorite with a very powerful circle of friends who had quietly, but very thoroughly, as they believed, organized to have him nominated by a spontaneous tidal wave after a protracted deadlock between the leading candidates. ”

“ Led and encouraged by Southern sympathizers, who had retained the feelings they held before the war, the rabble of the city surged through the streets, destroying property, burning a negro orphan-asylum, and killing black men. Nominally a protest against enforced enlistment, the riots were really an uprising of the dangerous element that existed in the city at the time.
I lived in Thirty-fourth Street, near Eighth Avenue, and had been a persistent speaker against the extension of slavery and in favor of the Federal cause. ”

“ I remember on one occasion hearing him say, “Religion is a matter of faith; all good men will be saved.” Judging by our standard of to-day, this utterance would class him with the Unitarians.
Upon one occasion, after he had become our President, he visited the Five Points Mission in New York, at that time a notorious slum, and addressed a number of children; while there he gave no intimation that he was President of the United States. When he was leaving the teacher [Pg 51] thanked him, and asked who he was. He simply answered, “Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois.” ”

“ When about to cross the Ohio River into Virginia, a slave State, he gave it as his opinion that devotion to the Constitution was equally great on both sides of the stream, and he went on to emphasize the right of the majority to rule.
Arriving at Cleveland, he made an address in which he referred to the apprehended trouble as “altogether artificial, due only to differences in [Pg 42] political opinion.” “Nothing,” he declared, “is going to hurt the South; they are citizens of this common country and we have no power to change their conditions. ”

“ It has no foundation in fact. It can’t be argued up and it can’t be argued down. Let it alone, and it will go down of itself.”
This would seem to show that Mr. Lincoln really believed that the trouble in the South would blow over. How sadly he was mistaken! It was not until he arrived in the East and learned from trustworthy sources of the danger confronting him between New York and Washington that he accepted the situation as it actually existed. ”

“ On August 31, 1861, Fremont issued a military order emancipating the slaves of all persons in arms against the United States. This action did not meet with Mr. Lincoln’s approval; he considered it premature, and perhaps he was right in that view; accordingly he directed that the proclamation should be withdrawn.
I was afterward reconciled to Fremont’s defeat in 1856, for the reason that, had he been elected, the probability is that Abraham Lincoln, the greatest figure in American history, never would have attained the Presidency. ”

“ All Lincoln demanded for the negro was the right to eat the bread which his own hands had earned without leave of anybody.
Lincoln was fond of quoting from the Bible without mentioning the fact, whereas Douglas was often caught differing with the Scriptures. Naturally Lincoln took advantage of his political opponent’s lack of Biblical knowledge.
Judge Douglas, in the debate of July 16, 1858, said: “Mr. Lincoln tells you in his speech made in Springfield, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free. ”

“ At least two-thirds of the delegates at the Chicago convention favored his nomination, and even the majority of the delegates from Illinois, Lincoln’s own State, while instructed to vote for “Honest Old Abe” as the favorite son, passively favored Seward.
In the New York delegation was Tom Hyer, the noted champion prize-fighter of his generation. He bore the banner of the New York City Republican Club, and was an ardent supporter of Seward. Being a man six feet two and a half inches in height, he presented an imposing figure. ”

“ Louis, and a so-called convention of opponents of Lincoln gathered at Cleveland in May, and indulged in denunciation of Lincoln, which included a bitter letter from Wendell Phillips. This self-styled “radical Democracy” adopted a platform, nominated Fremont, and practically disappeared.
The patriotic and self-sacrificing people of the North were almost a unit in sustaining President Lincoln, and, by sheer force of numbers, swept aside the ungrateful or designing Republican leaders who would have defeated the great emancipator. ”

“ Lincoln was not created to adorn fashionable society, and did not care for it. Clothing never troubled him, while Mrs. Lincoln set much store upon appearances and was concerned over her husband’s indifference to them. ”

“ The Republican National Convention that convened in Chicago, May 16, 1860, proved a complete refutation of the frequently expressed belief that the new party had died with Fremont’s defeat in 1856. Some of the ablest and most distinguished men in the country appeared as delegates and as candidates for nomination. During the four years following Fremont’s defeat by James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, former minister to England, the Republican party had been strengthened by the affiliation of many Northern Democrats who were inclined to oppose the extension of slavery. ”

“ The Democratic managers at Chicago had committed the execrable blunder of declaring in their platform that the war had been a failure and that the public welfare demanded “an immediate effort be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the States.”
Little more than two months remained before election day in November, and every speaker that could be commandeered was put into active service. ”

“ The mob of spectators along the streets are there largely as a matter of curiosity, and are not to be swerved from their convictions by any mere spectacle.
While this outside parade was being carried on, Lincoln’s friends developed tremendous energy and skill in marshaling the delegates. Among the leaders of the “rail-splitter’s” cause were Joseph Medill, the celebrated editor of the Chicago Tribune, David Davis, the intimate friend of Lincoln, afterward appointed by him justice of the United States Supreme Court ”