雙語(yǔ)·林肯傳 15

15

When the newly formed Republican party met in Chicago in the spring of 1860 to nominate a Presidential candidate, few people dreamed that Abraham Lincoln had a chance. A short time before that, he himself had written to a newspaper editor: “I must in all candor say I do not think myself fit for the presidency.”

It was generally accepted in 1860 that the nomination honors were going to the handsome William H. Seward of New York. There could hardly be any question about that, for straw ballots were taken on the trains carrying the delegates to Chicago, and they gave Seward twice as many votes as all the other candidates combined. On many of the trains there was not a single ballot cast for Abraham Lincoln. It is possible that some of the delegates did not even know that such a man existed.

The convention met on Seward's fifty-ninth birthday. How fitting! He was positive that he would receive the nomination as a birthday present. He was so confident of it that he said good-by to his colleagues in the United States Senate and invited his intimate friends to attend a great feast of celebration at his home in Auburn, New York; and a cannon was rented, hauled into his front yard, loaded, and cocked up in the air, ready to boom the joyous news to the town.

If the convention had started balloting on Thursday night, that cannon would have been fired, and the story of a nation would have been changed; but the voting could not begin until the printer delivered the papers necessary for keeping the tally. And the printer, on his way to the convention, probably stopped for a glass of beer. At any rate, he was late, and consequently there was nothing for the convention to do that Thursday evening but sit and wait for him.

Mosquitoes were bad in the hall, the place was hot and stuffy, and the delegates hungry and thirsty; so some one stood up and moved that the convention adjourn until ten o'clock the next morning. A motion to adjourn is always in order; it takes precedence over all other motions and it is nearly always popular. This one carried with a rush of enthusiasm.

Seventeen hours elapsed before the convention assembled again. That is not a long time, but it was long enough for Seward's career to be wrecked, and Lincoln's made.

The person largely responsible for the wrecking was Horace Greeley, a grotesque-looking man with a head as round as a cantaloupe; with thin, silky hair as light as an albino's; and with a string necktie that usually worked itself out of place until the bow was approximately under his left ear.

Greeley was not even advocating the nomination of Lincoln, but he was determined with all the bitterness of his soul to even up an old score with William H. Seward and Seward's manager, Thurlow Weed.

The trouble was this: For fourteen years, Greeley had fought side by side with these men; he had helped make Seward Governor of New York and then United States Senator; and he had aided Weed tremendously in his battle to become and remain political boss of the State.

And what had Greeley gotten out of all this struggle and combat? Very little but neglect. He had wanted to be made State printer, and Weed had taken that place for himself. He had longed to be appointed postmaster of New York City, and Weed did not offer to recommend him. He had aspired to be governor, or even lieutenant-governor, and Weed not only said “no,” but said it in a way that hurt and rankled.

Finally, when he could stand no more, Greeley sat down and wrote a long, stinging letter to Seward. It would fill seven pages of this book, and every paragraph of it was seared with bitterness.

That fiery message had been written on Saturday night, November 11, 1854.... And this was 1860. Greeley had waited six long years for an opportunity to get his revenge, but at last it had arrived, and he made the most of it. He didn't go to bed at all, that fateful Thursday night while the Republican nominating convention was having a recess in Chicago; but from sundown until long after dawn, he hurried from delegation to delegation, reasoning, arguing, pleading. His paper, the “New York Tribune,” was read all over the North; and it influenced public opinion as no other paper had ever done. He was a famous man, voices were hushed whenever he appeared, and the delegates listened to him with respect.

He hurled all kinds of arguments against Seward. He pointed out that Seward had repeatedly denounced the Masonic order; that in 1830 he had been elected to the State Senate on the anti-Mason ticket, and, as a consequence had aroused bitter, widespread, and undying resentment.

Later, when he was Governor of New York, Seward had favored the destruction of the common-school fund and the establishment of separate schools for foreigners and Catholics, and thus had stirred up another hornet's nest of fiery hatred.

Greeley pointed out that the men who had made up the once powerful Know Nothing party were violently opposed to Seward and would vote for a hound dog in preference to him.

And that wasn't all. Greeley pointed out that this “arch agitator” had been too radical, that his “bloody program” and talk of a higher law than the Constitution had frightened the border States, and that they would turn against him.

“I will bring you the men who are candidates for governor in these States,” Greeley promised, “and they will confirm what I say.”

He did, and the excitement was intense.

With clenched fists and blazing eyes, the gubernatorial candidates in Pennsylvania and Indiana declared that Seward's nomination meant inevitable defeat in their States, inevitable disaster.

And the Republicans felt that, to win, they must carry those States.

So, suddenly, the flood-tide that had been running toward Seward began to recede. And Lincoln's friends rushed about from delegation to delegation, trying to persuade those who were opposed to Seward to concentrate on Lincoln. Douglas was sure to be nominated by the Democrats, they said, and no man in the country was better equipped to fight Douglas than Lincoln. To him, it was an old job; he was used to it. Besides, Lincoln was born a Kentuckian, and he could win votes in the doubtful border States. Furthermore, he was the kind of candidate the Northwest wanted—a man who had fought his way up from splitting rails and breaking sod, a man who understood the common people.

When arguments like these didn't succeed, they used others. They won Indiana's delegates by promising Caleb B. Smith a place in the Cabinet, and they won Pennsylvania's fifty-six votes with the assurance that Simeon Cameron would sit at Lincoln's right hand.

On Friday morning the balloting began. Forty thousand people had poured into Chicago, eager for excitement. Ten thousand wedged into the convention hall, and thirty thousand packed the streets outside. The seething mob reached for blocks.

Seward led on the first ballot. On the second, Pennsylvania cast her fifty-two votes for Lincoln, and the break began. On the third, it was all but a stampede.

Inside the hall, ten thousand people, half crazed with excitement, leaped upon the seats, shouting, yelling, smashing their hats on one another's heads. A cannon boomed on the roof—and thirty thousand people in the streets raised a shout.

Men hugged one another and danced about wildly, weeping and laughing and shrieking.

One hundred guns at the Tremont House belched and barked their volleys of fire; a thousand bells joined in the clamor; while whistles on railway engines, on steamboats, on factories, were opened and tied open for the day.

For twenty-four hours the excitement raged.

“No such uproar,” declared the “Chicago Tribune,” “has been heard on earth since the walls of Jericho fell down.” In the midst of all this rejoicing, Horace Greeley saw Thurlow Weed, the erstwhile “maker of Presidents,” shedding bitter tears. At last, Greeley had his sweet revenge.

In the meantime what was happening down in Springfield? Lincoln had gone to his law office as usual that morning and tried to work on a case. Too restless to concentrate, he soon tossed the legal papers aside and went out and pitched ball for a while back of a store, then played a game or two of billiards, and finally went to the “Springfield Journal” to hear the news. The telegraph office occupied the room above. He was sitting in a big arm-chair, discussing the second ballot, when suddenly the operator burst down the stairway, crying: “Mr. Lincoln, you are nominated! You are nominated!”

Lincoln's lower lip trembled slightly, his face flushed. For a few seconds he stopped breathing.

It was the most dramatic moment of his life.

After nineteen years of desolating defeats, he had been suddenly whirled to the dizzy heights of victory.

Men rushed up and down the streets shouting the news. The mayor ordered the firing of a hundred guns.

Scores of old friends flocked about Lincoln, half laughing, half crying, shaking his hands, tossing their hats into the air, yelling in mad excitement.

“Excuse me, boys,” he pleaded; “there is a little woman down on Eighth Street who will want to hear this.”

And away he dashed, his coat-tails sailing behind him.

The streets of Springfield were rosy all that night with the light of bonfires fed by tar-barrels and rail fences, and the saloons never closed their doors.

It wasn't long before half of the nation was singing:

Old Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness,

Out of the wilderness, out of the wilderness;

Old Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness,

Down in Illinois.