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Prominent Candidates for the Republican Presidential Nomination at Chicago:
As this wood engraving suggests, Abraham Lincoln was just one of several candidates who were in contention for the Republican Party's nomination for president in 1860. Moreover, at the start of the convention in May, he was not even one of the favorites. Many believed that William Henry Seward, the party's chief spokesman against slavery and a former governor of New York (center picture), stood the best chance, including Seward himself. But Lincoln bested them all. After he was elected president, Lincoln selected four of his rivals pictured here to serve in his cabinet. They included Seward for secretary of state, Edward Bates for attorney general, Salmon P. Chase for secretary of treasury, and Simon Cameron for secretary of war. |