Ohio History Journal

TABLET TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT MANSFIELD

 

WHERE THE ORGANIZED MOVEMENT BEGAN TO

MAKE    HIM  PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES

 

 

SPEECH BY HONORABLE CHARLES II. WORKMAN

I arise on behalf of the Abraham Lincoln Association

of Richland county.

We meet to give proper recognition to our fore-

bears in 1858 in this city and in this country, for their

political acumen, sagacity and intuition. We meet to

commemorate an important fact or event in the political

history of the United States, the beginning of the or-

ganized movement to make Abraham Lincoln President.

We meet to augment our attachment for one of the great

characters of the ages.

At the outset, I raise but a single question,-- who

opened to Abraham Lincoln his career of president and

martyr ?

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, apparently, had no inti-

mation whatever, that he would ever be a candidate for

President of the United States.

Early in the senatorial campaign, in Illinois, between

Douglas and Lincoln, in a speech on July 17, 1858, at

Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln, discussing the advantages

of Douglas and his disadvantages, said:

There is still another disadvantage under which we labor,

and to which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the rela-

tive position of the two persons who stand before the state as

candidates for the senate. Senator Douglas is of world-wide

renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have

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been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as

certainly, at no distant day, to be president of the United States.

They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-

offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and

foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful ex-

uberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And

as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they

cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party,

bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier

anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches,

triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days

of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his

favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be

president. In my poor, lean. lank face, nobody has ever seen

that any cabbages were sprouting out.

Nevertheless, the earlier biographers of Lincoln

usually devoted a chapter to "Premonitions of the Presi-

dency". These refer, however, I think, to the premoni-

tions of the public, and not to those, if any, of Abraham

Lincoln.

The chapter usually gave an account of the events

leading up to the nomination of Lincoln, at Chicago,

Illinois, on May 16, 1860. The first group of facts,

circled about the Illinois State Republican Convention

held at Decatur, Illinois, on the 10th day of May, 1859,

frequently referred to as the "Rail-Splitter Convention",

where, and when Lincoln had scarcely taken his seat in

the convention when Governor Oglesby of Decatur an-

nounced that an old Democrat of Macon county, desired

to make a contribution to the convention. Whereupon,

two old fence rails, gayly decorated, were borne into the

convention, bearing the inscription "Abraham Lincoln,

the rail candidate for the presidency'in 1860." The

two rails were of a lot of three thousand rails made in

1830 by John Hanks and Abe Lincoln. On the presenta-

tion of the rails, pandemonium reigned for a quarter of

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield  507

an hour. The convention subsided and Lincoln was

formally nominated for President of the United States.

This was Illinois' first essay to make Abraham Lincoln

a candidate, -- organized effort.

The second group of facts in the chapter gave an ac-

count of Lincoln's contact, first contact with Ohio, and

included the speech of Abraham Lincoln at Columbus,

Ohio, September 16, 1859, and the speech at Cincin-

nati, Ohio, September 17, 1859. In these two speeches,

Lincoln was following up Douglas, and such is the mat-

ter and the style of these two speeches as to make them

a distinct contribution to the political literature of the

period. For the first time Lincoln was in the state of

Corwin, Wade, Giddings and Chase. The Buckeyes,

for the first time, had a "close-up-view" of Abraham

Lincoln, and were able to see for themselves, that Lin-

coln was not as emotional as Joshua R. Giddings,

Thomas Corwin, Salmon P. Chase, nor as radical, but

withal, more practical than either, calm, philosophical,

constitutional, in his arguments, unanswerable as Eu-

clid, and in his patriotism, chaste and pure as the driven

snow. Tonight, we are near the sixty-sixth anniversary

of those political addresses.

The third group of facts revolved around the speech

of Lincoln at Cooper Institute, New York City, Febru-

ary 27, 1860, of which meeting, William Cullen Bryant,

the poet, was chairman, probably the greatest purely

political speech ever made on the American continent.

Whatever may have been the opinion then, whatever

may have been the thoughts then, we now see, that from

that night, and on, Abraham Lincoln was a candidate

for president of the United States and he was to try

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conclusions with William H. Seward, Senator from the

State of New York, a statesman of thirty years' ex-

perience and whose name and fame then ranked with

that of Webster and Clay. Seward against Lincoln, --

Lincoln against Seward, Lincoln, the unknown and un-

tried from the plains of Illinois against William H.

Seward, the Edmund Burke of American politics.

It is to be noted that all these moving events occurred

in 1859 and 1860, -- not one in 1858, nothing suggesting

the presidency to Abraham Lincoln in 1858. The ques-

tion recurs, -- "who opened to Abraham Lincoln his

memorable career of president and martyr ?"

My answer is, he did it himself,-- chiefly by and

through the seven joint debates with Stephen A. Doug-

las in 1858 on the plains of Illinois, -- Douglas, Stephen

A. Douglas, the most adroit, skillful, resourceful, vigor-

ous antagonist then in the American forum. He did

it at Ottawa, at Freeport, at Jonesboro, at Charleston,

at Galesburg, at Quincy and at Alton. Here, like some

Titan of myth, he forged the chains, -- the chains of

logic, -- that fastened Douglas to the rock of "Squatter

Sovereignty". Here, is no so-called joint debate, with

which we are familiar where independent speeches are

made by creditable opposing candidates, but a debate, a

joint debate. Here, we have propositions pared to the

bone and issue taken. Then, we have applied all the kinds

of argument known to logic, the argument of sign, the

argument of cause, the argument of example, of anal-

ogy! Nor were the joint debates a dress parade of

pomp and circumstance. Here, -- no joust, tilt between

knights in shining armor. It was a battle of the gods.

This debate was no mere incident in American poli-

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield  509

tics. Its influence and effect is co-extensive with the

republic itself. It alienated Douglas from the Demo-

cratic party in the South. It gave the Republican party

its first distinctive principle, -- the inhibition of slavery

to the Free Territory of the North, it opened to Abra-

ham Lincoln his immortal career of president and

martyr.

If Lincoln himself opened his career, who aided?

What State? What City? What organization of men?

When? Where?

It was a movement in our politics.  Where did it

begin

The day of the mere annalist is past. The day of the

mere compiler is past. The day of the historical ex-

plorer is on us. The historical explorer exhumes buried

cities. The Parthenon must yield its secret. Men get

back to the beginning of things. We face the dawn.

Imitating this spirit and purpose the Illinois His-

torical Association and perhaps other historical socie-

ties and magazine historians began, prosecuted and con-

cluded an investigation to find the beginning of the or-

ganized movement to make Abraham Lincoln president.

They searched the newspaper offices of the country, and

dug deep into the musty files. They visited the libraries

of states, universities and colleges and scrutinized the

archives therein. They coaxed from every private col-

lection, every vestige of evidence, every scrap of paper,

letter, account, resolution, memorial that would throw

light upon the question of the first organized effort in

the United States favoring the choice of Abraham Lin-

coln as president, and published their findings and con-

clusions, volume III, Lincoln Series, in which we find

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the first announcement of organized effort to have been

contained in the Sandusky Daily Register, under date

of November 6, 1858, and is as follows:

 

"LINCOLN FOR PRESIDENT

We are indebted to a friend at Mansfield for the fol-

lowing special dispatch:

Mansfield, November 5, 1858.

Editor Sandusky Register:--An enthusiastic meeting is in

progress here tonight in favor of Lincoln for the next Republican

candidate for President.--Reporter.

November 5, 1858, and Mansfield, Ohio, is there-

fore credited with the distinction of standing at the be-

ginning of the organized movement to make Abraham

Lincoln president, by the Illinois Historical Society,

since which discovery notable writers and historians

have concurred in its findings and conclusions, in and

out of the State of Ohio, by Daniel J. Ryan in his article,

"Lincoln and Ohio", contributed to the OHIO ARCH.EO-

LOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, under date of

January, 1923; by Ohio's Historian, Charles B. Gal-

breath, in his forth-coming edition of the History of

Ohio; notably by Ida M. Tarbell, the leading magazine

historian of Lincoln, in her "The Footsteps of the Lin-

colns".

As a further confirmation I quote from the Peoria

Daily Messenger as reproduced in the Daily Herald,

Quincy, Illinois, November 15, 1858:

 

A NOTCH HIGHER

Defeat works wonders with some men. It has made a hero

of Abraham Lincoln. Two or three Republican journals in dif-

ferent sections of the Union are beginning to talk of him for

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield      511

 

vice-president, with Seward for president; and a Republican

meeting just held in Mansfield, Ohio, raises him a notch higher,

by announcing him as its candidate for president. We have no

sort of objections to this sort of a programme. It suits us as

well that both presidential candidates in the next race shall be

selected from Illinois as that one of them shall come from here

and the other from some other State.  Illinois has been the

cynosure of all eyes in the late senatorial contest, and we are

quite willing it should hold the same position before the world

when the next president comes to be chosen. Of course, our

side will win -- that is written in the book of destiny; but then

the honor will be awarded to the "living dog" of being once more

kicked to death by the "dead lion."

I paraphrase a line from Emerson on the fight at

Concord:

"Here once the embattled farmer stood

And fired the shot heard around the World."

And to this and for this, we today raise our "votive

stone".

So much, for the announcement. What about the

meeting?    About its personnel and the details of the

meeting?

I was desirous on this occasion to go into that meeting

and determine its personnel. I could find no account

of the meeting in any of the local histories of Richland

County, and the same was the result of the examination

of the histories of Ohio. I was compelled to go to in-

terview and conference, but this did not avail, since the

event was not within the memory of the average man.

The only possible open source of information were the

files,--the old files of local papers.

I wanted to find the files of a local Lincoln paper in

1858, for in those days, the modern notion did not ob-

tain that a newspaper must publish all the news that is

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fit to print. A newspaper in 1858, a local newspaper,

was largely a political sheet.

And I must tell you that in 1858, the Lincoln men of

Mansfield and Richland county had no newspaper.

Their messages were carried by post, or messenger or

on the wings of rosy dawn, the wings of morning, and

this explains why the dispatch above quoted found pub-

lication in the Sandusky Daily Register.

The Douglas men had a newspaper, the Mansfield

Shield and Banner, edited by John Y. Glessner, and the

failure of Stephen A. Douglas to win the coveted honor

of president of the United States in 1860 cannot be at-

tributed to any lack of support of the Mansfield Shield

and Banner.

The Chase men in 1858 in Mansfield had a news-

paper, the Mansfield Herald, then owned and edited by

Roeliff Brinkerhoff, who at all times was a Chase en-

thusiast, admirer and supporter.

An examination of the Shield and Banner, the old

files, discloses no reference to the dispatch announce-

ment on the 5th day of November, 1858, nor the meet-

ing. The old files of the Mansfield Herald disclose

only one mention of the dispatch announcement or meet-

ing under date of November 10, 1858.

 

 

"LINCOLN FOR PRESIDENT

We are indebted to a friend at Mansfield for the following

special dispatch:

'Mansfield, November 5, 1858.

Editor Sandusky Register:--An enthusiastic meeting is in

progress here tonight in favor of Lincoln for the next Repub-

lican candidate for President.'-- Reporter."

"To learn the news of the town, go to the country", is an old

saying which, with a slight alteration would read "to learn the

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield    513

 

news of Mansfield go to Sandusky". Mansfield we know is a

large city, and a great many occurrences doubtless take place in

it which we never hear of, yet we are inclined to think that a

"large and enthusiastic" political meeting would be likely to come

to our knowledge. Under these circumstances we are rather dis-

posed to consider the Register's Lincoln demonstration, some-

what imaginary. The truth is, the Register has been hoaxed.

Mr. Lincoln is a popular man in this region of the country,

and should he receive the Republican presidential nomination in

1860, he will find the voters of old Richland enthusiastic in his

support. It so happens, however, that in Ohio, we have our own

standard bearer, "The Noblest Roman of them All", around

whom we shall rally until the convention shall decree otherwise.

Now is not the time to propose presidential candidates, but when

that time does come, unless we greatly mistake the shaping of

events, Ohio will be a unit for her own representative man.

This refutation, it would appear, never got beyond

the bounds of Richland county. I have examined the

files of the daily issue of the Sandusky Register from

November 5, 1858, down to December 15, 1858, and

I find no mention of the refutation; while on the other

hand, the dispatch, the announcement of the meeting

at Mansfield, Ohio, was carried North and South and

East and West.

On November 19, 1858, the Illinois State Journal,

Lincoln's home paper at Springfield, Illinois, contained

the following announcement:

 

"LINCOLN FOR PRESIDENT

The Sandusky (Ohio) Register announces the nomination of

Hon. Abraham Lincoln for the next President, by an enthusias-

tic meeting at Mansfield in that State."

Among the portraits of Lincoln, one is wanting, the

face of Lincoln on first reading this announcement.

On the same date the Illinois State Journal published

a news note to the same effect from the New York Her-

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514      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

ald -- The Mansfield announcement, -- dropped like

a pebble in a pool, starts concentric waves that go out,

and out to the limits of its outer borders, or like a flash

of light or a peal of thunder that goes out in ether, out

and out until it is lost in mystery and darkness.

Two possible views or constructions arise from this

dispatch and refutation.

The first view is to the effect that there was no actual

meeting of citizens on the evening of November 5, 1858,

in the City of Mansfield, that the whole affair was con-

ceived, designed and executed as an announcement,

primarily, to weaken Chase in his own state, incidentally

to promote the candidacy of Lincoln, and if possible to

effect ultimately his nomination. A fact is not a fluid

thing that men can make out of it what they choose.

Take the dispatch at its four corners, take the refutation

at its four corners and construe the two together and

the fact remains, fixed, -- that from Mansfield, Ohio,

came the first announcement of organized men to make

Lincoln president of the United States, -- the announce-

ment is secure in history.

If this be the fact, if this be the design, if this be the

purpose, then the promoters of that design and purpose,

-- here, in Mansfield on the evening of November 5,

1858, builded wiser than they knew; they may have rea-

soned that a feigned or pretended thing in politics as in

war has the same effect as the actual, but the mental

process required more than reason, it required intuition,

vision. If this be the fact, then the Lincoln men of

Mansfield in 1858, must be deemed and held to have been

men of no little political strategy and it is meet that we

their successors erect a Tablet in recognition of their

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield  515

political acumen, sagacity and intuition for human

greatness, for the men that opened the way of Abraham

Lincoln merit the benediction of the nation and its

people.

The second view of this dispatch and refutation is to

the effect that there was, in fact, an actual meeting of

the citizens, that the dispatch was no political stunt or

coup-d'ctat, but the voluntary action of serious men.

Lincoln men were here, original Lincoln men were here,

whose political opinions were independent of any resolu-

tion of any convention, or I do not read aright the his-

tory of our country. Here, were old line Whigs, here,

were the Free Soil democrats, and here, and there, traces

of the Underground Railway, here, the stuff, here, the

fiber, that put a company on the march within twenty-

four hours after Lincoln's first call for troops for the

defense of the Union.

Here, was the home of John Sherman. He had been

elected for three successive terms to the Lower House.

He had struck his gait on national finances and was the

leading candidate for Speaker of the House. Here, was

the home of Mordecai Bartley, ex-member of Congress,

eighteenth Governor of the State of Ohio, the Whig

Governor of Ohio, here, was the home of Jacob Brink-

erhoff, ex-member of Congress, real author of the Wil-

mot Proviso, then a member of the Supreme Court of

the State of Ohio, -- he was a Lincoln man from the

sole of his feet to the crown of his head, here, was the

home of Governor Thomas H. Ford, Lieutenant Gov-

ernor under Salmon P. Chase, the orator and patriot,

and here were solid men of all vocations.

And here, was the home of a group of young men rep-

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516      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

resented by Robert McFarland, merchant, Dr. George

Mitchell, first voters, who since have grown into man-

hood and passed on to their reward, only here and there

one of such remains. Heaven has vouchsafed the life

of one of these first voters, L. J. Bonar, President of the

Abraham Lincoln Society of Richland county. I ask

him to arise that he may receive your salutations.

The Lincoln sentiment was here in 1858. Richland

county was either in the thirteenth or fourteenth Con-

gressional District. Officially, the state of Ohio, in its

delegates at large was instructed to vote for Chase at

the Chicago Convention in 1860. Each District in-

structed its own delegates. As it happened, Richland

county had no delegate. What took place at that con-

vention unmistakably evidenced the sentiment of this

part of Ohio.

When it came to nominate candidates there were no

long speeches such as made by Roscoe Conkling in 1880

when he nominated Grant or at the same convention,

when Garfield nominated John Sherman. Mr. Judd of

Illinois said:

"I desire, on behalf of the delegation from Illinois, to

put in nomination, as a candidate for President of the

United States, Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois". (Im-

mense applause, long continued).

This is all of the speech. Other candidates were nom-

inated in similar speeches, Seward, Chase and others.

Then we come to a speech evidently not on the pro-

gram. It was the speech of Columbus Delano of Mount

Vernon, Ohio, then a prominent lawyer, inter-married

in the Sherman family,-- Knox county, an adjoining

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield    517 county, a part of this Congressional District. Here is the speech: "I arise on behalf of a portion of the delegation from

Ohio, to put in nomination the man who can split rails and maul Democrats." (Great applause.) Let me quote what Murat Halstead, the famous editor, of the Cincinnati Commercial had to say at the time about the speech of Columbus Delano:

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As Mr. Delano of Ohio, on behalf "of a portion of the dele-

gation of that State", seconded (?) the nomination of Lincoln,

the uproar was beyond description. Imagine all the hogs ever

slaughtered in Cincinnati giving their death squeals together, a

score of big steam whistles going (steam at 160 lbs. per inch)

and you conceive something of the same nature. I thought the

Seward yell could not be surpassed; but the Lincoln boys were

clearly ahead and feeling their victory, as there was a lull in the

storm, took deep breaths all around, and gave a concentrated

shriek that was positively awful, and accompanied it with stamp-

ing that made every plank and pillar in the building quiver.

 

There were three votes before a nomination was

reached at the Chicago Convention in 1860. On the first

vote Lincoln had eight Ohio delegates, Columbus

Delano was one of the eight. On the second ballot,

Abraham Lincoln had fourteen delegates, Columbus

Delano of Knox county, John J. Gurley of Morrow

county, a part of our Congressional District, and G. U.

Harn of Wooster, at one time a part of our Congres-

sional District, and at that time a part. On the third

ballot, Lincoln had twenty-nine votes from Ohio, Co-

lumbus Delano of Knox county, John J. Gurley of Mor-

row county, G. U. Harn of Wayne county, P. N. Schuy-

ler of Huron county, nearly all of the Congressional Dis-

trict, only one delegate, James Monroe, of Oberlin, ad-

hered to Chase. These delegates had apparently drawn

into the Lincoln tide adjoining counties, for D. W. Swi-

gart of Crawford county and R. K. Enos of Holmes

county are listed on the Lincoln ballot.

Before the third ballot was announced, it became evi-

dent to those who had their pencils on the ballot that

Lincoln had received two hundred and thirty-one and

one-half votes, thus lacking only one and one-half votes

necessary for the nomination. Joseph Medill of the

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield  519 Chicago Tribune years afterward in the Saturday Eve- ning Post, August 5, 1899, adds this chapter of his- tory from the convention.  Medill was sitting beside David J. Cartter, of Cleveland, chairman of the Ohio delegation: "I whispered to Cartter of Ohio, -- 'If you can

throw the Ohio delegation for Lincoln, Chase can have anything he wants.' 'H-how d'dye know?' -- stuttered Cartter. 'I know, and you know I wouldn't promise if I didn't know'!" Cartter was on his feet in an instant, the convention

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for a moment was still but tense. Cartter stuttered, as

he always did, but said:

"I-I a-a-rise, Mr. Chairman to a-a-nnounce the

c-c-change of f-four votes, from Mr. Chase to Abraham

Lincoln".

The four votes were:

H. Y. Beebe, of Ravenna.

David K. Cartter, of Cleveland.

Fred Hassaurek, of Cincinnati.

Thomas Corwin, of Lebanon.

It was done, it was over. Abraham Lincoln was

nominated. And thus, Ohio, chiefly through its Lincoln

zone, joined Illinois and opened to Abraham Lincoln his

immortal career of president and martyr.

Here, in this Lincoln zone of Ohio, in the center of

that zone, and in the center of our city, selected by

pioneers, and set apart and safeguarded by the toil and

the care of its citizens for a hundred years, we this day

erect our votive stone.

May the children of Richland county gather around

it in the years to come and learn how near they are a

part of the history of the United States and a part

thereof in its making. May the citizens of other states

in passing through our city, pause, read and reflect upon

the beginning of that movement that changed the course

of events in our common country. May it be known

from this day, -- henceforth, and throughout the land,

that on November 5, 1858, in this city, began the or-

ganized movement which resulted in the election of

Abraham Lincoln to the office of President of these

United States.

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Tablet to Abraham Lincoln at Mansfield  521 Judge Galbraith, on behalf of the Abraham Lincoln Association of Richland County, I present to the people of Richland County this Tablet of bronze and granite.

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