Existing comment:
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865:
The May 26, 1860, edition of Harper's Weekly included a biography of Abraham Lincoln, who had just won the Republican Party's nomination for president. The national convention had opened on May 16 in Chicago, a plus for the Illinois-raised Lincoln, but the frontrunner was William Seward of New York. Seward, however, had weakened his changes among moderate Republicans with his former antislavery radicalism. Lincoln's less-adamant position -- opposing only the extension of slavery into the territories -- was viewed as giving him strength in the "battleground" states of the lower North, which the Republicans had lost in the 1856 election. There were 465 delegates packed into the Chicago convention hall. Seward won on the first two ballots, with Lincoln coming in second. On the third ballot, four Ohioana switched their votes to Lincoln, followed by a wild stampede of delegates for the "rail splitter."
Unidentified artist, after Mathew Brady, 1860 |