when he became
aroused and spoke fitting words to which life were added by the fire of
his earnest countenance, they felt reassured, and went away delighted.

In all the history of America, the selection of George Washington to
lead the army of the Revolution, is the only event to be compared in
good fortune with this nomination of Abraham Lincoln; but to the country
as a whole he was comparatively obscure and unknown. The "wise men" of
the nation had some misgivings. While "Honest Abe, the rail splitter,"
might sound well to the masses, the party leaders could not be assured
that rail splitting and mere honesty were sufficient qualifications for
the President of a great republic in a great crisis. Nevertheless Seward
and Chase supported him with a sincerity that delighted him, and the
entire party entered into the campaign with great enthusiasm.

And very early in the campaign it seemed that the Republicans were quite
likely to win; for the Democrats, in their convention at Charleston,
divided; the Northern Democrats being for Douglas and the Southern
Democrats against him. They adjourned to Baltimore, where Douglas was
nominated, after which the extreme Southerners bolted and nominated
Breckenridge. Also the border states organized a new party which they
called the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell.

Douglas made a most energetic campaign, even making speeches in the
South, but the questions that Lincoln had made him answer in the great
debate in Illinois in 1858 were not forgotten by the Southerners, who
would have nothing to do with him, but supported Breckenridge.

Lincoln remained quietly in Springfield during the campaign, exercising
most careful discretion as to what he said and the little that he
wrote. The Governor placed his own rooms at the statehouse at Lincoln's
disposal, where he met callers and talked and joked pleasantly with all
who came, but was careful to say nothing that would add to the confusion
of tongues that already existed.

Some of the most radical abolitionists of the North were not at all
pleased with Lincoln because he was conservative, practical, recognized
slavery as existing under the constitution, stood for preserving the
Union as the first consideration, restricting the extension of slavery,
and hoped for gradual compensated emancipation, but favored nothing
revolutionary or threatening to the integrity of the Union.

Many of the most ardent, but reasonable, abo