THE LINCOLN LETTER

The Lincoln Leadership Society January 2013

“I can make more

generals,
but horses cost
money.”

"Don't interfere with

anything in the
Constitution. That
must be maintained, for
it is the only safeguard
of our liberties."
Lincoln’s
Remarkable Rise to -A. Lincoln
the Presidency
Continued from the previous Lincoln Letter
page 2

email: lincolnleadershipsociety@[Link] web: [Link]

 THE LINCOLN LETTER PAGE 2

LINCOLN’S REMARKABLE RISE TO THE PRESIDENCY

Because of Stephen A. Douglas’ political prowess from his successful passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the national stir
that it caused, the challenge to Douglas by an obscure prairie lawyer was viewed with a playful interest by many major newspapers.
But the folksey, yet deep and principled utterances of Lincoln turned out to be even more intriguing and would lead to national
coverage of nearly all of his upcoming debates with Douglas. Through this expanded national coverage, Lincoln gained a remarkable
success in guiding the mind of Americans to a sense of the slippery slope that Douglas, the Supreme Court, the American Congress
and the President had placed them on.

Douglas would speak on his new political principle of choice which he had just championed. It provided each state and territory
the right to decide for or against slavery, with the unspoken design that white men on this continent would be free to pursue
mountainous wealth off the lifelong toil of the Supreme Court-defined “beings of a lesser order.” Douglas’ political-choice doctrine
wrested from the Bible, the long-established standards of right and wrong and left it to the whims of the voters, a condition that
remains to this day. It was Lincoln’s opposition to this break from the creator’s moral codes of conduct that propelled Lincoln
headlong into the national spotlight.

Douglas said of the Dred Scott ruling that blacks were indeed “an inferior race, who in all ages, and in every part of the globe…
had shown themselves incapable of self-government.”1 On another occasion he said, “This government of ours is founded on the
white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men.”2 Over the next six
years, the press coverage of Lincoln’s controlled moral outrage against slavery and white America’s misguided sense of superiority,
would catapult him into the highest political office in the land.

Historians have marked Lincoln’s first Douglas-debate rebuttal as the beginning of a new Lincoln. It is important to keep in
perspective that in that time there was no shortage of antislavery voices throughout the North. It was a major theme for dozens of
the most prominent down to the lesser politicians, not to mention the continuous stream of newspaper and magazine articles on the
subject that blanketed the nation. But there would be a unique quality in Lincoln’s speeches in comparison to the other political
messengers of the day. He would focus on the principles of immorality found in slavery and in the centuries old tradition of racial
superiority among whites. And he would expound as well, on the founding fathers, the sanctity of the Union and the divine nature
of the Declaration of Independence. This message would be consistently delivered without invective personal attacks that were
common from the political podiums. Absent also would be impassioned accusations, statements of judgment, dispersions on
opponent’s character, and self-promoting themes. His messages would be loftier than those of the other defenders of freedom. His
would be focused on principles and on doing ones duty to God and country. In Buffalo, New York he expressed this sentiment, “I
must trust in that Supreme Being who has never forsaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent
people.”3

He would often say that Americans had an obligation not just to this nation but also to the rest of the world to protect and
defend the liberties afforded them in their Constitution declaring that this responsibility was, “the last best hope of earth.” And he
would repeatedly remind his listeners of their responsibility to remember and honor the “Almighty God,” the Founding Fathers, the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Lincoln’s voice was a new voice, a prophet-like voice in America, with an ability
to speak from a spiritual plane devoid of hypocrisy, duplicity and condescension. His messages were directed toward the “better
angels”4 of the souls in Americans. John Wesley Hill said, “In the light of subsequent events it seems that Lincoln was endowed
with more than mortal wisdom and that he was God’s chosen instrument to clarify the issues of the inevitable conflict for which the
time was now fully ripe.” 5
1 Lincoln, David Herbert Donald, p 201
2 Lincoln, David Herbert Donald, p 210
3 The Almost Chosen People, William J. Wolf, p 150
4Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
5Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, John Wesley Hill, p 115
 THE LINCOLN LETTER PAGE 3
It was with this righteous fire that Lincoln captured the hearts and confidence of enough Americans to win the 1860 presidential
election over his long-time nemesis Stephen A. Douglas. In the campaigning process for the Republican nomination there was non-
stop political wrangling, positioning, agreements, promises, and bribes as each candidate’s managers labored for their candidate’s
nomination, except those with Lincoln. There were whisperings of unethical collusions throughout, but Lincoln’s men knew that he
would have no part of them. One friend telegrammed Lincoln encouraging him to consider a deal with certain other aspirants, saying,
“I know that you have no relish for such a Game, but it is an old maxim that you must fight the devil with fire.”6 Lincoln responded
tersely, “Make no contracts that will bind me.”7 Upon Lincoln’s victory for the nomination, Leonard Swett, a member of Lincoln’s
campaign committee, wrote a friend a few days later saying, “No pledges have been made, no mortgages executed.”8 That was also
Lincoln’s understanding as he assured Joshua Giddings that, “The responsible position assigned me, comes without conditions, save
only such honorable ones as are fairly implied.” Predictably, the South did not take the election of the “nigger-loving”9 Lincoln well.
The day after his victory, the people of Pensacola, Florida hung his effigy by the neck. The Dallas Herald wrote, “Evil days are upon
us”; 10 the Augusta Constitutional declared, “The South should arm at once.” 11

On Lincoln’s first day as president he was faced with the impending crisis that led to the Civil War. It was during the four months
between Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861 that the pre-planned unraveling of this nation took
place through the open rebellion and secession of the Southern states under the passive observance of President James Buchanan and
his treasonous cabinet. Southern U.S. senators, congressmen, cabinet members, judges, and military generals left their posts, forsook
their oaths of office, and abandoned the greatest nation ever to be formed in history. Most of President Buchanan’s cabinet was
sympathetic and even complicit with the rebellion. In the four months between Lincoln’s election and inauguration they committed a
number of treasonous acts. Howell Cobb, the Secretary of the Treasury from Georgia, “managed to destroy the credit of the
Government, and when, on December 10th, he resigned…he left the treasury empty.”12 Just before the Secretary of War John B. Floyd
resigned to become a Confederate general, he “partly disarmed the free States and sent soldiers belonging to the regular Army so far
away as to not be available until the conspirators should have time to consummate the revolution.”13 “Isaac Toucy, of Connecticut,
Secretary of the Navy under Buchanan, scattered the Federal ships to distant seas, and left the Government without a navy.”14
The government was hardly prepared for such a monumental crisis. The House of Representatives had just adjourned and the
congressmen were heading home, his cabinet had not yet been approved or assembled, and Lincoln had never worked at an executive
level. He had always worked on his own. The delegation and coordination among massive government departments was completely
foreign to him. It had been eleven years since he was even a government-elected official when he completed his only term in the
House of Representatives, and now he found himself as the inexperienced chief executive of a nation on the brink of civil war.
It is stunning that the gargantuan events of secession, which took place in the 118 days between Lincoln’s November 6 election
and his inauguration on March 4, 1861 were done with Congress in session and with that body doing nothing to stop the
disintegration of the nation. President Buchanan also turned spectator, saying, “Congress alone has power” to decide the legality of
secession. 15 “But,” observed Ward Hill Lamon, “Congress behaved like a body of men who thought the calamities of the nation were
no special business of theirs.” 16 Those congressmen from the Deep South were merely looking for the proper time to resign their
elected offices and return to their home states…17 Lamon continued, “The nation was going to pieces, and Congress left it to its fate.
The vessel, freighted with all the hopes and all the wealth of thirty millions of free people was drifting to her doom, and they who
alone had power to control her course refused to lay a finger on the helm. 18

John Wesley Hill writes, “So bold were the secessionists that they actually planned to prevent Lincoln’s inauguration…Buchanan
was clay in the hands of Jefferson Davis, Cobb, Toombs, and their disloyal associates. The government was in the power of
conspirators who were plotting its overthrow. Treasonable messages were actually sent back and forth between the desks of high
officials. No attempt was made to interfere, much less to arrest open and avowed traitors.
6 Lincoln, David Herbert Donald, p 249 To be continued...
7 Lincoln, David Herbert Donald, p 249
8 Lincoln, David Herbert Donald, p 250
9 Abraham Lincoln, An Illustrated Biography, Philip B. Kunhardt Jr.,Philip Kunhardt III,Peter W. Kunhardt p 133
10 Abraham Lincoln, An Illustrated Biography, Philip B. Kunhardt Jr.,Philip Kunhardt III,Peter W. Kunhardt p 133
11 Abraham Lincoln, An Illustrated Biography, Philip B. Kunhardt Jr.,Philip Kunhardt III,Peter W. Kunhardt p 133
12 Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, John Wesley Hill, p 157
13 Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, John Wesley Hill, p 157
14 Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, John Wesley Hill, p 157
15 Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, Ward Hill Lamon, p 57
16 Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, Ward Hill Lamon, p 57
17 Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, Ward Hill Lamon, p 57
18 Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, Ward Hill Lamon, p 58