Cold Open

It’s March 4th, 1861 outside the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Senator Stephen Douglas takes his seat on a stage. As an invited guest to today’s Presidential inauguration, Senator Douglas has the luxury of a chair from which to watch the festivities.

In contrast, the ordinary American citizens in the crowd must stand—but that hasn’t stopped thousands flocking to the Capitol’s to watch a historic moment: the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the first Republican President of the United States.

The country that President-elect Lincoln will swear to serve has recently been plunged into an existential crisis. Since Lincoln won the election four months ago, seven states have seceded from the Union. Today, Senator Douglas hopes that Lincoln can find the right words to hold the rest of the fragile nation together.

Lincoln rises from his seat and approaches the lectern, ready to deliver his inaugural address. The crowd’s cheers dissipate into a hush as spectators push forward, eager to hear the new President speak. But Lincoln isn’t ready yet. He places his notes on the lectern. He rifles through his pockets to find his reading glasses. And then, Lincoln takes off his tall hat, and awkwardly holds it in his hands, confused on where to put it.

Senator Douglas realizes there’s no room for the hat on the small lectern… and Lincoln’s opponents in the crowd take advantage of the pause to disrupt the proceedings with boos and jeers.

Douglas decides to act before the protest gets out of hand. He jumps to his feet and approaches Lincoln, kindly taking the hat from the President-elect’s hands. Lincoln responds with a warm smile as Douglas returns to his seat, balancing the hat on his lap. Douglas knows it makes him look less like a famous senator and more like Lincoln’s servant, but he doesn’t care. All Douglas does care about—all he’s ever cared about—is preserving the future of the United States.

Senator Douglas’s intervention to keep Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration on track was unexpected. The two men were once fierce political rivals, and Douglas was the loser of the Presidential election that sent Lincoln to the White House. But the nation could use a show of unity now more than ever.

The Election of 1860 was momentous in the political history of the United States. It didn’t just mark the first victory of the Republican Party and spur Southern states to secede, it also caused a bad-tempered split in Douglas’s Democratic Party. Douglas, however, would prove to be one of Lincoln’s most loyal and steadfast supporters, even after he lost the election to the impressive lawyer turned politician on November 6th, 1860.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is November 6th, 1860: Abraham Lincoln’s Election.

Act One

It’s September 18th, 1858 in central Illinois; two and a half years before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration.

Almost the entire population of the small prairie town of Charleston has turned out to hear 49-year-old Lincoln debate with his rival for a United States Senate seat representing Illinois.

Lincoln is a Republican, a new political party with an anti-slavery platform. His opponent is Stephen Douglas, the incumbent senator from the Democratic Party. The two candidates have agreed to face off in seven debates in different towns across the state. And today, it’s Lincoln’s turn to speak first, and his supporters have urged him to be on the offensive from the start.

But as Lincoln looks out over the crowd, a large banner is raised awkwardly manhandled into the air by a boisterous group of Democrats near the stage. Lincoln squints as he reads the words: “Negro equality.” Underneath the text are drawings of a white man, a black woman, and a mixed-race child. It’s a crude attempt to play on the audience’s fears that a Republican administration will allow blacks and whites to live and work alongside each other equally—a prospect that horrifies many in 1850s America.

With a sigh, Lincoln realizes that, yet again, he must begin a debate on the back foot—defending the Republican position rather than attacking the Democratic one. Lincoln explains to the crowd that just because he is against the institution of slavery, it doesn’t mean he is pro-racial equality. Lincoln bluntly states that he does not want Black and white Americans to be treated equally. He does not want Black men to be jurors, to hold political office, or to even vote. He addresses the point of the banner directly, saying he does not want blacks and whites to intermarry either. But he does think that slavery is incompatible with the US Constitution and should be brought to an end.

The rapturous applause that punctuates Lincoln’s speech suggests that most of the audience agree with his statements, so he decides that now is the moment to go on the attack. Lincoln says he’s made the Republican position on slavery clear—but the Democrats have an incoherent policy when it comes to that peculiar institution. And Lincoln insists that Senator Douglas ought to clarify his thoughts on the issue.

This is a masterstroke by Lincoln. Because if Douglas answers he thinks slavery should be allowed to continue in the Southern states and expand into new territories, it will go down badly with the Northern wing of the Democratic Party. But if Douglas gives any hint that he favors the restriction of slavery, it will alienate the Southern wing of his party. So Douglas  is forced to try to to fudge a compromise position, saying it’s up to the people of each state or territory to decide. And although Senator Douglas’s answer satisfies many moderates within his party, it angers the extremists on both sides.

Four months after the debate at Charleston, people cast their votes in the Illinois state election. When the results are announced, Lincoln’s Republican Party has performed far better than expected. It receives 190,000 votes to the Democratic Party’s 166,000, outperforming it by six percentage points. But because of the way the district boundaries are drawn, the Democratic Party wins fifty-four seats in the state legislature to the Republicans’ forty-six. And since it’s the delegates in the state legislature who select the Senate candidate, it’s Douglas who wins re-election to the US Senate.

Despite Lincoln’s loss, the election campaign gives his reputation a boost. Thanks to the newly invented electric telegraph, which can quickly transmit messages over long distances, Lincoln’s speeches in his seven debates with Douglas are widely reported across the country. Republicans are impressed with the way Lincoln handled himself against an experienced opponent, and several consider Lincoln for their party’s nomination in the 1860 Presidential Election. Lincoln’s candidacy gains further momentum when he delivers a speech at Cooper college in New York. There, in February of 1860, in front of a largely Republican audience, Lincoln portrays the Republicans as a moderate party and infers that he would be a moderate President. This goes down well with the crowd.

Thanks to his impressive performances in the Douglas debates and at Cooper Union, Lincoln’s name will be included on a long list of potential Presidential candidates at the Republican National Convention in 1860. But the Republicans who gathered to select their candidate will face a daunting decision. They’ll be aware that whoever they choose stands a good chance of victory, since their opponents in the Democratic Party remain unable to unite over the biggest issue of the day: slavery.

Act Two

It’s April 23rd, 1860 at the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina; two years after Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated for the Illinois state election.

William Alexander Richardson walks into the auditorium at Institution Hall and immediately senses a hostile atmosphere. Several men turn their backs as William approaches, and he hears hisses of disapproval from the gallery.

William is attending the convention as a delegate from the Illinois branch of the Democratic Party. As a delegate, it's his job to select the party’s nominee for President—but William has a second task, one that has earned the anger of many of his peers. Since the men who are expected to contest the nomination traditionally don’t attend the convention, William has agreed to rally votes for his political mentor and friend: Senator Stephen Douglas.

Two years ago, Douglas was the clear favorite to win the Democratic nomination. But the senator’s public refusal to explicitly support slavery in his debates with Abraham Lincoln has cost Douglas the support of the South. Now, William faces an uphill battle to secure Douglas the Democratic nomination. South Carolina is a state known to be a hotbed of pro-slavery opinion, and the states' delegates are making clear that they want nothing to do with Douglas or his supporters.

William takes his seat at a table reserved for the Illinois delegation. A man walks past in a hurry, dropping a newspaper in front of William. It’s folded over to reveal an article that rails against Douglas, declaring him to be the “demagogue of Illinois.” William pushes the newspaper off the table in disgust, shaking his head and wondering how he’ll overcome the hostility of the Southern section of the party.

When the convention opens, the chairman asks delegates to cast their votes on the platform that the Democratic candidate will pledge to uphold in the Presidential election. The proposed platform, written by Southern senators, includes a promise to protect slavery.

This is unacceptable to William and the rest of the Northern delegates. So, they push through an alternative platform, based largely on the compromise position that Douglas laid out in his debate with Lincoln—it neither supports nor opposes slavery.

The Northern democrats have enough delegates on the convention floor to win the platform vote, but they are harangued and insulted by the South Carolinians watching from the gallery. When the result is announced that Douglas' compromise plan will be the democratic platform, fifty delegates from Southern states walk out in disgust. In their absence, the convention grinds to a halt. Without the votes of the Southern delegates, neither Douglas nor any other candidate can reach the two-thirds majority required to be nominated.

Six weeks later, William and the Democratic delegates reconvene in a second attempt to choose a Presidential candidate. This time, the convention is held in a more amenable location to Northerners: the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland.

And it’s not just the convention venue that’s changed—the entiere political landscape has shifted in the intervening period too. After the first Democratic convention collapsed, the Republican Party met and selected a surprise presidential nominee: Senator Douglas’s old rival, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln’s selection does nothing to promote unity within the Democratic factions. The Southern delegates walk out of the convention again when they’re told they cannot reopen the debate over the party’s platform. But this time, William persuades the remaining delegates to cast their votes anyways. Without the Southern delegates being included in the figures, Douglas reaches the required two-third majority among the mostly Northern delegations that are left. Elated, William sends a telegraph to inform Senator Douglas that he is now the Democratic candidate in the presidential election.

But Douglas' nomination comes at a cost. The Democratic Party is now irrevocably split. The Southern delegates who walked out of the convention find an alternative meeting place in Baltimore and establish a rival Democratic ticket. They adopt the pro-slavery platform rejected in Charleston and choose current Vice President John Breckinridge as their nominee. There are now two Democratic candidates, each with solid bases of support on opposite sides of the slavery issue. But the split means that neither nominee has any prospect of gaining enough national support to win the election.

So for the second time in three years, Stephen Douglas will face off against Abraham Lincoln. But this time, Douglas will be in a hopeless position. Sensing the futility of his efforts, Douglas won’t ask for votes when he hits the campaign trail. And instead, he’ll beg for national unity ahead of an election that both he and his audiences know the Democratic Party has little chance of winning.

Act Three

It’s 3:30 PM on November 6th, 1860 at the Sangamon County Court in Springfield, Illinois; five months after the Democratic Party split and selected two separate nominees for President.

Abraham Lincoln approaches an election clerk and quietly announces his name, though there’s no need for this—the clerk recognized the Presidential candidate as soon as he walked through the door.

The clerk hands him a ballot, and a few moments later, Lincoln deposits his paper into the ballot box. He’s voted for every Republican on the ticket but himself—Lincoln decided it would be unseemly to cast a vote in his own election, so he left that section blank.

As he exits the polling room, Lincoln walks into an excited throng of well-wishers and supporters. Everyone wants to shake the hand of the man who will surely be the next President, and Lincoln’s journey home is a slow one.

Fortunately for him, Lincoln’s failure to vote for himself makes no difference to the result. He wins Illinois with barely over fifty percent of the vote, just ahead of Stephen Douglas. It’s a similar story all across the North, where Lincoln outperforms Douglas in every state. In the South, most states are won by the Southern Democrat, John Breckinridge. But the votes of the North are enough to see Lincoln confirmed as the winner of the election and the next President of the United States.

Four months later, the country that Lincoln is elected to lead will already have been cut in pieces. Many in the Southern states will be outraged that an anti-slavery Republican will be the next President. And despite Stephen Douglas’s best efforts to mediate in Congress, seven Southern states will withdraw from the Union before Lincoln even moves into the White House. Their secession will plunge the country into a civil war, a bloody four-year conflict that became seemingly inevitable after Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency on November 6th, 1860.

Outro

Next on History Daily. November 7th, 1637. Puritan reformer Anne Hutchinson stands trial in Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy, highlighting the issue of religious freedom in the New World.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammed Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.