aken it very
seriously. He said that there were distinguished men in the party who
were more worthy of the nomination, and whose public services entitled
them to it. Toward spring in 1860 Lincoln consented to a conference on
the subject with some of his more intimate friends. The meeting took
place in a committee-room in the State House. Mr. Bushnell, Mr. Hatch
(then Secretary of State), Mr. Judd (Chairman of the Republican State
Central Committee), Mr. Peck, and Mr. Grimshaw were present. They were
unanimous in opinion as to the expediency and propriety of making
Lincoln a candidate. But he was still reluctant; he doubted that he
could get the nomination even if he wished it, and asked until the next
morning to consider the matter. The next day he authorized his friends
to work for him, if they so desired, as a candidate for the Presidency,
at the National Republican convention to be held in May at Chicago.

It is evident that while Lincoln had no serious expectation of receiving
the nomination, yet having consented to become a candidate he was by no
means indifferent on the subject. The following confidential letter to
his friend N.B. Judd shows his feelings at this time.

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., FEBRUARY 9, 1860.

HON. N.B. JUDD--_Dear Sir_:--I am not in a position where it would
hurt much for me not to be nominated on the national ticket; but I
am where it would hurt some for me not to get the Illinois
delegates. What I expected when I wrote the letter to Messrs. Dole
and others is now happening. Your discomfited assailants are more
bitter against me, and they will, for revenge upon me, lay to the
Bates egg in the South and the Seward egg in the North, and go far
towards squeezing me out in the middle with nothing. Can you not
help me a little in this matter in your end of the vineyard? (I
mean this to be private.)

Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN.

It would seem that the original intention of Lincoln's friends had been
to bring him out as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Hon. E.M.
Haines states that as early as the spring of 1859, before the
adjournment of the Legislature of which he was a member, some of the
Republican members discussed the feasibility of urging Lincoln's name
for the Vice-Presidency. Lincoln appears not to have taken very strongly
to the suggestion. "I recollect," says Mr. Haines, "that one day Mr.
Lincoln came to my desk in the House of R