Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman Read Free Book Online

only because most people believed that slavery would die out. Besides, slavery wasn't just a matter of states' rights. It was a moral issue that affected the whole country. "This government was instituted to secure the blessings of freedom," said Lincoln. "Slavery is an unqualified evil to the Negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State."
    Douglas argued that the constitutional guarantee of equality applied only to white citizens, not to blacks. The Supreme Court had ruled that blacks weren't citizens at all. "I am opposed to Negro equality," said Douglas. "I believe this government was made by the white man for the white man to be administered by the white man."
    Douglas pressed the issue of white supremacy. Was Lincoln in favor of Negro equality? Did he advocate a mixing of the races? In Illinois, where many voters opposed equal rights for blacks, these were touchy questions. Across the state, Douglas kept racebaiting Lincoln, warning white crowds that he was a "Black Republican" who wanted to liberate the slaves so they could stampede into Illinois to work, vote, and marry with white people.
    Lincoln complained bitterly that Douglas was twisting and distorting the issue through a "fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse." The issue was not the social or political equality of the races, he protested defensively. He had never advocated that Negroes should be voters or office holders, or that they should marry whites. The real issue was whether slavery would spread and become permanent in America, or whether it would be confined to the South and allowed to die out gradually.
    Lincoln appealed to the voters to "discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man—this race and that race and the other race as being inferior." And he added: "There is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man."
    At the time, senators were elected by state legislatures, not by popular vote. When the returns came in, the Republicans had not won enough seats in the legislature to send Lincoln to the Senate. Douglas was reelected by a narrow margin. "The fight must go on," Lincoln told a friend. "The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats." Even so, the defeat hurt. "I feel like the boy who stumped his toe," he said. "I am too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh."
    Lincoln lost the election, but the debates had catapulted him to national prominence. He continued to speak out on the issues in Illinois and throughout the North, and by 1860, he was being mentioned as a possible candidate for president. At first he doubted that he could win. "I must, in all candor, say I do not think myself fit for the presidency," he told an Illinois newspaper editor. But powerful Republican leaders felt that Lincoln had a good chance to carry the party banner to Victory. As they began to work for his nomination, he did not interfere. "The taste
is
in my mouth a little," he admitted.
    When Illinois Republicans held their state convention on May 9, 1860, Lincoln was chosen unanimously as their favorite-son candidate. The cheering delegates lifted his long frame overhead and passed him hand-by-hand down to the speaker's platform.
    A week later, the national convention of the Republican party met in Chicago. Several prominent Republicans were competing for the presidency, and Lincoln was not the first choice of many delegates. But he was acceptable to all factions of the party, and after some backstage maneuvering, he was nominated on the third ballot. He had spent the day quietly down in Springfield, waiting for news from the convention, and passing the time playing handball.
    Meanwhile, the Democratic party had split in two. Northern