as Old Hickory treated the nullifiers in 1832."

[Sidenote] Douglas, Norfolk Speech, August 25, 1860.

All parties entered upon the political canvass with considerable
spirit; but the chances of the Republicans were so manifestly superior
that their enthusiasm easily outran that of all their competitors. The
character and antecedents of Mr. Lincoln appealed directly to the
sympathy and favor of the popular masses of the Northern States. As
pioneer, farm-laborer, flat-boatman, and frontier politician, they saw
in him a true representative of their early if not their present
condition. As the successful lawyer, legislator, and public debater in
questions of high statesmanship, he was the admired ideal of their own
aspirations.

While the Illinois State Republican Convention was in session at
Decatur (May 10), about a week before the Chicago Convention, the
balloting for State officers was interrupted by the announcement, made
with much mystery, that "an old citizen of Macon County" had something
to present to the convention. When curiosity had been sufficiently
aroused, John Hanks, Lincoln's fellow-pioneer, and a neighbor of
Hanks, were suddenly marched into the convention, each bearing upright
an old fence-rail, and displaying a banner with an inscription to the
effect that these were two rails from the identical lot of three
thousand which, when a pioneer boy, Lincoln had helped to cut and
split to inclose his father's first farm in Illinois, in 1830. These
emblems of his handiwork were received by the convention with
deafening shouts, as a prelude to a unanimous resolution recommending
him for President. Later, these rails were sent to Chicago; there,
during the sittings of the National Republican Convention, they stood
in the hotel parlor at the Illinois headquarters, lighted up by
tapers, and trimmed with flowers by enthusiastic ladies. Their history
and campaign incidents were duly paraded in the newspapers; and
throughout the Union Lincoln's ancient and local _sobriquet_ of
"Honest Old Abe" was supplemented by the national epithet of "The
Illinois Bail-splitter." Of the many peculiarities of the campaign,
one feature deserves special mention. Political clubs, for parades and
personal campaign work, were no novelty; now, however, the expedients
of a cheap yet striking uniform and a half-military organization were
tried with marked success. When Lincoln made his New England trip,
immediately after the Cooper I