Chapter 9: “A Man Knows His Own Name”

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Welcome to the Deep Dive.

Today, we're jumping into, well, one of the most absolutely critical moments in American history, the 1860 election.

Just try to picture it.

A nation basically on the brink, the whole political scene more shattered than ever before.

And then this figure, Abraham Lincoln, who honestly few people really expected rises to power.

Yeah, it's quite the setup.

We're pulling our insights today from Doris Kearns Goodwin's fantastic book, Team of Rivals, the political genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Specifically, we're digging into the chapter that shows how Lincoln, who seemed almost obscure to many,

actually managed to secure the presidency.

Our goal isn't just what happened.

We want to understand how he navigated this incredibly divided country, this really chaotic political feel, and how that set the stage for the massive challenges just around the corner.

This isn't just old history.

It's really a lesson in leadership under the most intense pressure imaginable.

It really is.

And what's so fascinating as Goodwin lays out is that this period leading up to Lincoln's election, it isn't just a political story.

It's really the dramatic opening act to the Civil War itself.

Exactly.

So if you connect this to the bigger picture, this election wasn't just about who gets to be president.

It was fundamentally about whether there would even be a united country left to be president of.

Wow.

We'll be looking at Lincoln, of course, this unexpected Republican nominee, but also his, well, his rivals, these really powerful figures like William Seward, Salmon Chase, Edward Bates, all within his own party.

Right, the team.

And then across the aisle, you've got Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge, John Bell.

These are the people whose choices, whose ambitions, their failures to really shaped everything.

So Lincoln gets the Republican nomination, defeating Seward, who was like the clear front runner that must have landed like a ton of bricks, right?

Especially back East.

Oh, absolutely.

A genuine shock.

Goodwin describes Charles Francis Adams, a big political figure then, observing just, you know, general incredulity when the news hit Capitol Hill.

Incredulity, wow.

Yeah.

He said the house was thrown into such confusion.

They just

adjourned, couldn't even conduct business.

Oh, amazing.

And a lot of the press, particularly the Eastern papers, they just sort of dismissed Lincoln, called him an accidental candidate, you know, some unknown guy from the West.

Right.

The obscure figure.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And there's that funny detail.

Newspapers in his own party kept calling him Abram.

No way.

Yeah.

Lincoln himself had to send a note to the Republican chairman, George Ashman, saying,

basically, look, it's Abraham.

Let's settle this.

He had to correct his own party chairman on his name.

He did.

It just shows how unfamiliar he was to many, even within the party leadership.

So why was there so much disbelief?

You'd think they'd know their own nominee.

Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it?

Yeah.

Lincoln's campaign for the nomination, it was masterful, but it was very much behind the scenes.

It operated under the radar.

So when he won, it caught almost everyone off guard.

And the Democratic papers.

They just had a field day.

The New York Herald called him a third rate Western lawyer, said he had a small intellect growing smaller,

mocked the Republicans for picking a fourth rate lecturer who cannot speak good grammar.

Ouch.

That's rough.

It was brutal.

They called his speeches illiterate compositions,

interlarded with coarse and clumsy jokes.

And the attacks got personal, really personal about his looks.

Yeah, I read about that.

The ugliest man stuff.

Exactly.

Hatchet face.

One paper even said he most unwarrantably abused the privilege, which all politicians have of being ugly.

That's creative, I guess, in a horrible way.

How did this play out in the South?

They react differently.

Oh, it intensified dramatically.

Southern papers like the Charleston Mercury were just dripping with contempt, asking things like after him what decent white man would be president.

Good grief.

They suggested Seward, the guy Lincoln beat, was actually sidelined because he wasn't tough enough to subjugate the South, implying Lincoln was somehow more dangerous.

A relentless, dogged, free soiled border ruffian.

So they saw him as a bigger threat than Seward.

In some ways, yes.

The Richmond Inquirer called him an illiterate partisan,

possessed only of his inveterate hatred of slavery.

This sheer venom, it wasn't just name calling.

It really underscored this deep growing fear among Southern Democrats, and it highlights something crucial.

The Democratic Party itself was splintering apart.

That division, that internal chaos,

actually, ironically,

boosted Lincoln's chances significantly, even if his opponents were too busy fighting each other to see it clearly.

And that splintering, that's a huge part of the story.

It was happening even before Lincoln got the nomination, right?

At the Democratic convention in Charleston.

Absolute chaos.

Panamonium, yeah.

Charleston, South Carolina.

The Democrats just could not paper over the slavery issue anymore.

Why then?

What made it impossible?

Well, you had recent events like the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid.

These things had hardened Southern positions.

They weren't just asking for slavery to be left alone.

They were demanding complete freedom to bring slaves into all the territories and federal protection for them there.

A much harder line.

So when a more moderate platform, one backed by Stephen Douglas, was approved, the Alabama delegation just walked out.

Boom.

Then Mississippi, Florida, Texas, others followed.

Wow.

A mass walkout.

Totally dramatic.

Goodwin quotes one delegate literally climbing onto a chair, yelling that in less than 60 days, there would be a United South.

A reporter there, you're at Halstead, said there was this weirdly celebratory like Fourth of July feeling in Charleston among the secessionists that night.

Celebrating the potential breakup of the union.

It seems that way.

It shows how deep the division ran.

So the failure to compromise in Charleston wasn't just internal party politics.

No, not at all.

It was, you could argue, a signal that national unity itself was breaking down.

They couldn't even agree on a nominee.

The convention had to adjourn and try again later in Baltimore.

Did that work?

Sort of.

Stephen Douglas eventually got the nomination he'd wanted for so long, but the party was shattered beyond repair.

The Northern Democrats backed Douglas, but the Southern delegates who had walked out, they nominated their own candidate.

Okay.

So two Democrats running now.

Right.

John C.

Breckenridge of Kentucky.

He was the sitting vice president, actually, and a strong believer in the constitutional right to take slaves into the territories.

And wasn't there a third party too?

Yep.

Adding to the chaos,

the constitutional union party, made up of, you know, old wigs, some former know nothings, people trying to hold the middle ground.

What was their platform?

Basically, ignore the slavery issue.

They nominated John Bell of Tennessee, hoping they could just sidestep the whole conflict and keep the country together.

Wishful thinking, maybe.

So Lincoln for the Republicans, Douglas for the Northern Democrats, Breckenridge for the Southern Democrats, and Bell for the constitutional unionists.

That's a four -way race.

Exactly.

Four major candidates.

Completely unprecedented fragmentation.

What did Lincoln himself make of all this?

Did he see his chance?

He definitely saw the division.

He wrote privately that the great democratic organization has finally burst into pieces.

He knew a united democratic party would be really tough to beat.

But divided.

Divided, he said.

Its chance appears very slim, though he was still cautious, you know, didn't underestimate their resources.

So how did that four -way split actually play out on the electoral map?

It sounds complicated.

It was incredibly complex.

Basically, two separate races happened.

Lincoln versus Douglas in the free states and Breckenridge versus Bell in the slave states.

Lincoln needed 152 electoral votes to win outright.

That meant he had to sweep almost the entire North.

If he didn't get that majority, the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives, which was a whole other level of uncertainty.

High stakes.

And was it all about slavery or were other things in play?

Slavery was absolutely the central defining issue, no question.

But it wasn't the only issue.

That's crucial.

You had things like free land for settlers.

The whole land for the landless slogan was big.

Or homesteading.

Exactly.

Internal improvements like railroads, especially out west.

And protective tariffs were huge in industrial states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Ah, so economic interests, too.

Definitely.

Goodwin makes the point that if the election had only been about slavery, Lincoln likely would have lost.

His ability to pull together this broad coalition, appealing to these diverse economic interests alongside the anti -slavery expansion stance, that was key to his victory.

Which brings us to Lincoln's own party.

The Democrats are falling apart, but he still has to unite the Republicans, right?

Especially after beating guys like Seward, Chase, Bates for the nomination.

How did he bring those powerful rivals on board?

Ah, this is where you really see his political skill, his empathy, I think.

It was subtle, but incredibly effective.

Take Sam and P.

Chase.

He was the governor of Ohio, a major figure.

Okay.

Initially, Chase felt really slighted.

He got just a standard, you know, mere printed circular asking for his support.

He was insulted.

His first thought was just not to reply at all.

Yeah, I can see that.

But then Lincoln sends him a personal letter, and it's written with such grace.

Lincoln basically twists Chase's formal congratulations into an offer of help.

He calls himself the humblest of all the candidates, and says he feels a special need of the assistance of all.

Wow, playing the humility card.

Totally.

But sincerely, it seems.

He says he's glad, very glad of the indication that you stand ready to help.

That personal touch, that validation, a completely soothed Chase's bruised ego.

And did Chase campaign for him then?

He did.

He spoke widely and effectively for Lincoln after that.

Smart move by Lincoln.

What about Edward Bates?

He was important with that new constitutional union party around, right?

Very important.

Bates was from Missouri, a border state, respected figure.

Lincoln sent an old mutual friend, Orville Browning, to visit Bates.

Bates then promised a public letter of endorsement.

And what did Bates say?

He praised Lincoln as a sound, safe national man, someone who could not be sectional if he tried.

He highlighted Lincoln's mix of amiability and courage, predicting he'd be as mild as Fillmore but as firm as Jackson.

High praise.

So Lincoln's basically building bridges, massaging egos, getting everyone pulling in the same direction?

Precisely.

Skillful coalition management.

It wasn't just about demanding loyalty.

It was about making these powerful men feel valued and needed.

Okay, but the biggest fish was William Seward.

The guy everyone expected to win.

He must have been devastated.

Goodwin quotes him saying he felt like a man walking about town after he is dead.

How on earth did Lincoln get him actively involved?

Seward's despair was real, absolutely.

He even thought about resigning from the Senate.

But, you know, friends talked him down, warned him it would look petty.

And ultimately,

his own ambition and his commitment to the Republican cause were too strong.

He couldn't stay on the sidelines.

Exactly.

As Charles Francis Adams observed, Seward realized his services are more necessary to the cause than they ever were.

And what's fascinating here is the total contrast in how they campaigned, right?

Lincoln stays quiet.

Seward goes on this massive tour.

Stark, stark contrast.

Lincoln's in Springfield.

Strategic silence.

Seward.

He launches this unprecedented whirlwind speaking tour with pure political theater.

Tell us about it.

He traveled everywhere, train, steamboat, carriage with this whole entourage.

Met by cannons firing, brass bands playing,

huge nighttime processions of these wide awakes.

The wide awakes.

Yeah, these were young Republican clubs famous for wearing these distinctive oil cloth capes and carrying torches.

They created this massive energy, almost a circus atmosphere, people said.

Huge crowds, thousands waiting past midnight just to hear him speak.

Even after losing the nomination.

Even after losing.

Charles Francis Adams Jr., who traveled with him, wrote about Seward giving these remarkable speeches, even while fueled by excessive consumption of liquors and cigars and wearing this eccentric Syrian cashmere cloak.

Huh.

Quite the image.

Did the tour actually help Lincoln?

Immensely.

It generated huge excitement for the Republican ticket.

Many credited Seward's tour with doing more for Lincoln's election than any hundred men.

And crucially, when Seward met with Lincoln in Springfield, Lincoln specifically asked him to reassure people that Republicans wouldn't interfere with slavery where it already existed.

Ah, trying to calm fears.

Exactly.

A critical message, especially for northern conservatives, though maybe not enough to calm the South as it turned out.

So Seward's out there making noise and Lincoln's back in Springfield, deliberately quiet.

That seems risky.

Why the strategic silence?

It was a calculated risk.

But Lincoln, very shrewdly, recognized that any new statement he made could just be twisted by opponents.

It could alienate some faction within his very fragile Republican coalition.

Remember, it included old Democrats, old Whigs, even some anti -immigrant know -nothings.

Right.

A real mixed bag.

A very mixed bag.

So by staying quiet, he kept the focus on the official party platform, which he'd endorsed.

That platform was carefully written to appeal to all those different groups.

But he wasn't just sitting there doing nothing, right?

Oh, absolutely not.

He was running the campaign from the governor's reception room, technically with only one assistant, John Nicolay.

But he was incredibly active, answering hundreds of letters, meeting delegations, contributing to his campaign biography, using the telegraph constantly, sending out messengers.

Wow, managing it all remotely.

Pretty much.

People who visited him were amazed by his knowledge of details about state politics, his ability to talk about government principles, but also, you know, practical things like how to navigate a vessel, maul a rail, or even to dress a deer skin.

Building that image.

Exactly.

It allowed the Republican press to really push back against those Democratic caricatures, the ignorant buffoon image.

They crafted this narrative of honest old Abe, a man of quiet refinement, helped by having an educated wife marry with her sophisticated education and vivacious manner.

So his silence created a sort of vacuum that his campaign could fill with the image they wanted, like the whole man of the people thing?

Precisely.

They leaned hard into that.

The log cabin story, him being a penniless and uneducated flat boatman, it built on the image of Harrison from 1840, but even more so, the Western man, the rails he'd supposedly split, all reinforcing that image.

And the beard.

Didn't that come about during the campaign?

It did.

That famous story of the little girl, Grace Bedell, writing to him saying his face was so thin and he should grow whiskers because all the ladies like whiskers.

And he actually did it.

Amazing.

So the silence wasn't just about avoiding mistakes.

It was about controlling the narrative.

Absolutely.

It let him hold together that diverse coalition.

Different groups could project their own hopes onto him.

And it allowed the campaign to emphasize different issues in different places.

Tariffs here, free land there without Lincoln himself getting pinned down on every single point beyond the core issue of stopping slavery's expansion.

Okay.

So all this maneuvering, the campaigning, the image making, it all leads up to these crucial state elections in October, right?

They were seen as a big indicator for November.

Hugely significant.

Real nail biters.

Lincoln was intensely focused on winning states like Indiana and Pennsylvania.

He was constantly urging supporters, sending out people like Nicolay with very careful instructions.

Fairness to all.

But crucially, commit me to nothing.

Still playing it close to the vest.

Very much so.

He even used these indirect methods.

Like Goodwin tells how Judge David Davils, a key Lincoln ally, discreetly showed a Pennsylvania senator some old newspaper clippings, scraps, of Lincoln's pro -tariff speeches from way back in the 1840s.

Just to reassure him.

Exactly.

But Davis warned him nothing about these must get into the newspapers.

Still managing the message carefully.

So how did those October elections turn out?

Big Republican wins.

Strong majorities in those key states.

Lincoln's headquarters apparently was in the highest glee.

There's that probably exaggerated story of Judge Davis being so excited he kicked over a desk, did a somersault in adjourned court until after the presidential election.

Ah.

Maybe a bit over the top, but it shows the relief.

Definitely shows the relief and the optimism.

Though Mary Lincoln, while enjoying the attention, was still apparently terribly anxious.

She wrote to a friend, I scarcely know how I would bear up under defeat.

Understandable.

Now while the Republicans are celebrating, what's Stephen Douglas doing?

He must have seen the writing on the wall after those October losses.

He did.

And this, as Goodwin points out, is really Douglas' finest hour.

He knew his own chances were gone.

But instead of giving up, he did something completely unprecedented for the time.

What was that?

He kept campaigning, but shifted his focus.

He defied custom and continued his nationwide tour, but declared, We must try to save the Union.

I will go south.

Wow.

Into the heart of the opposition.

Exactly.

An incredibly brave move.

He faced hostile crowds all across the deep south, arguing not for himself anymore, but for the Union itself.

He kept saying over and over, if Lincoln is elected, he must be inaugurated.

He was pleading for acceptance of the democratic process, even if it meant his rival won.

That takes guts.

Did the Republicans appreciate the danger he saw?

That's the tragic irony.

Most Republicans, including Lincoln and Seward initially, really failed to grasp how serious the southern secession threats were.

This was a cardinal error, as historian Alan Nevins called it.

They thought it was just talk.

Yeah, largely dismissed it as political posturing, a sort of political game of bluff.

Charles Francis Adams Jr.

later admitted they were living in a fool's paradise.

Seward was openly asking crowds, who's afraid?

And they'd roar back, nobody.

So they were dangerously complacent?

Dangerously complacent.

Only a few, like Frank Blair Jr.,

seemed to recognize the real possibility of civil discord.

But even he didn't quite believe the Union would actually break apart.

They just didn't take the southern warning seriously enough.

And phrases they used, like Seward's irrepressible conflict, which they saw as just describing reality, were interpreted in the south as direct threats.

A massive tragic misunderstanding.

Which brings us to the day itself, November 6, 1860, Election Day.

The culmination.

How did Lincoln handle the tension?

Was he pacing nervously?

Outwardly, incredibly calm.

Springfield woke up to canons and band music, the usual election day stuff.

Lincoln spent the morning at his office, apparently focused on local races, feet up on the stove, acting as if, you know, the local district attorney race mattered more than the presidency.

Just putting on a show.

Maybe partly.

He initially didn't even want to vote for himself, thought it unseemly.

But friends convinced him to at least vote the state and local ticket.

His walk to the courthouse drew a big crowd, lots of immense cheering.

And then the waiting for results?

Right.

That evening, he went to the telegraph office.

That's where the mask maybe slipped a little.

A reporter saw a nervous twitch when messengers came in.

The early results from the west were good.

Lots of great shouts of joy.

But then,

the agonizing wait for New York.

New York, 35 electoral votes, the big one.

Absolutely critical.

Without New York, the whole thing could have gone to the house.

Chaos.

So Lincoln must have been on edge waiting for that news.

He definitely was.

Goodwin recounts him getting fretful as the New York returns were delayed.

He told the group something like, the news would come quick enough if it was good.

If bad, he was not in any hurry to hear it.

Classic Lincoln understatement.

And then?

Around 1130 p .m., a message comes in.

Then, Senator Lyman Trumbull burst in shouting, Uncle Abe, you're the next president and I know it.

Must have been pandemonium.

You'd think.

But Lincoln, ever cautious, apparently just said, not too fast, my friends, it may not be over yet.

Still edging.

Still edging.

But his caution was unnecessary.

Thurlow Weed, the Republican boss in New York, had run an incredible get out the vote operation all day.

Just after midnight, the final results came through from New York City and Bricklin.

It was official.

He done it.

He done it.

Church bells started ringing all over Springfield.

People were cheering old Abe in the streets.

Lincoln finally pocketed the confirmation telegram and headed home.

To tell Mary.

To tell Mary, who'd been waiting anxiously.

Apparently, he just burst in and called out, Mary, Mary, we are elected.

What a moment.

So looking back at this whole deep dive into the 1860 election, what are the big takeaways for you?

Lincoln's path wasn't luck, clearly.

Not at all.

It was, as Goodwin shows, just a remarkable display of political skill,

of pragmatic strategy under unbelievable pressure.

His genius wasn't just his ideals, strong as they were.

It was his ability to actually navigate this impossibly broken political system, to manage all these competing interests, often through that strategic silence, and project an image that connected with people.

All while holding onto his core principles.

It's really a masterclass in building a coalition and managing perception.

Right.

It really is.

But here's the final, maybe provocative thought.

Lincoln won.

His political genius got him elected against incredible odds.

But that victory immediately put him face to face with the absolute worst crisis in American history.

A nation literally tearing itself apart over the very issue slavery that his party was built to oppose.

Yeah.

So the question that hangs there is, was the same political genius that won him the election going to be enough to actually hold the union together?

That's the question that would shadow his entire presidency, and ultimately decide the fate of the nation.

A sobering thought to end on.

Well, thank you for joining us on this deep dive.

We hope you feel a bit more informed, maybe a lot more curious, about Abraham Lincoln's incredible journey to the presidency.