BEHIND LINCOLN'S VISIT TO OHIO IN 1859
by EARL
W. WILEY
Professor of Speech, Ohio State
University
The wheels of Buckeye politics were set
spinning on September
1, 1859. That was the day when the Ohio
Statesman, published in
Columbus, tardily and reluctantly
released the announcement that
Senator Stephen A. Douglas would
barnstorm in Ohio during the
Ranney-Dennison campaign then off to a
running start. Its editor,
George W. Manypenny, was chairman of
the Democratic state
central committee. A former
administration man of some influence
himself, he knew only too well that the
Buchanan Democrats would
look upon Douglas' entry into the state
as an intrusion. Douglas
Democrats, contrarily, saw in the move
smart politics, fully aware
that it sounded the opening gun of the
senator's expanding presi-
dential campaign for 1860. Obviously,
the battle weary fragments
of the Democratic party would again be
tearing at one another's
throats. This was no way for the party
to get ready for the presi-
dential contest in 1860.
The Ohio Republican high command,
meanwhile, cocked a
wary eye at the maneuver. They smiled
indulgently at their op-
ponents and hoped that the new
altercation would lead to nothing
trivial. But on second thought they
realized that Douglas' plans
of invasion into home territory came
close to their own interests.
What they said on the subject when it
came up for consideration
behind the bolted doors of party
headquarters, or in the sequestered
corners of the Neil House lobby, was
never reported. But Buckeye
tongues wagged over the development.
That the Little Giant
should be answered in kind seemed
evident. The dog-eat-dog ameni-
ties of the western stump called for an
answer, and the stakes were
too high for the Republicans to ignore
the challenge. A Ranney
victory in 1859 would signalize
Douglas' potential strength for
1860, since Ranney carried Douglas'
blessing into the campaign. A
Dennison defeat, on the other hand,
would indicate a leveling
28
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 29
off of Republican voting power for the
first time since the presi-
dential election of 1856.
Choosing a man to send against Douglas
presented no great
problem to those concerned. True, Ohio
had speakers of her own
capable of matching wit with Douglas in
the gusty forensics of
the hustings. The best qualified
Buckeyes in this respect included
Corwin, Chase, and Wade--the trio
Lincoln himself singled out
and with shrewd calculation mentioned
in his Columbus address,
September 16, as gifted speakers. These
men were seasoned veterans
of the stump and nationally respected
politicians. Corwin in par-
ticular, the famed "wagon
boy" of the legendary campaign of 1840,
stood well at the top of actually great
stump speakers. Coveting
Republican honors in 1860, any one of
these men would jump at
the opportunity to put himself in the
public eye.
But the most inept politician
recognized that the designation
of any of these men to trail Douglas
over Ohio was out of the
question. Governor Chase, for example,
was the stormy center of
bitter and recriminatory political
enemies. These included the
venerable Justice McLean of Cincinnati,
who nursed a long-standing
grudge against the governor. They
included Thomas Ewing, Samuel
F. Vinton, and Thomas Corwin,
"whose stools have been pushed
from under them by the unceasing labor,
management and intrigue
of Governor Chase and his
adherents."1 They included lesser known
but singularly troublesome workers
among the lingering and diehard
"Americans." In Dayton a mild
drive was afoot to send Robert C.
Schenck, a former "American,"
to the United States Senate,2 a post
Chase arrogated to himself.
Like Chase, Wade was disqualified for
the Douglas assign-
ment by virtue of internal conditions.
A veritable curmudgeon in
person, he was too radical on abolition
to suit the moderate liberal-
ism of the Opposition in Hamilton
County on the "institution."
Corwin, on the other hand, associated
intimately with the respected
but reactionary McLean, was too
representative of the Ohio River
country to speak for the Western
Reserve extremists;3 indeed,
1 Ohio Statesman, February 29, 1860.
2 Cincinnati Commercial, September 17, 1859.
3 Daryl Pendergraft, "Thomas Corwin
and the Conservative Republican Reaction,
1858-1861," Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, LVII (1948), 1-23.
30 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Giddings had hectored Corwin on some
old hat aspects of slavery
in characteristic manner of late,
persisting in his nagging tactics
almost to the hour when the worried
assortment of delegates filed
into the Ohio Republican state
convention, in the preceding June.4
The tenseness of that gathering snapped
with dramatic suddenness
when Giddings and Corwin embraced one
another in a show of
affection and harmony at the closing
session of the meeting amid
the wild acclaim of the reassured
delegates.
This welter of involvements indicated
to the Republican high
command that the man to send against
Douglas must be brought
in from outside the state. The upshot
was that Abraham Lincoln
received two invitations to speak in
the Buckeye hustings of 1859
almost simultaneously. The official
call went out to him from
William T. Bascom, secretary of the
Republican state central com-
mittee, and an effective but
unspectacular worker in the ranks of the
capital city Republicans. The second
invitation was extended by
Peter Zinn of Cincinnati, chairman of
the Opposition Hamilton
County executive committee. There was
more than coincidence in
this brace of bids. Lincoln himself
attested that Zinn and Bascom
were "in correspondence with"
one another on the subject at the
time, and that Bascom would keep Zinn
duly informed of develop-
ments, thereby indicating the central
committee's initiative.5 This
evidence of teamwork between Bascom and
Zinn suggests that the
central committee handled the squeamish
problem of public re-
lations between the Republicans in the
northern areas of Ohio
and those in Hamilton County
realistically.6
4 For Giddings' letters, see the Ohio
State Journal, October 14, November 3,
1858.
5 Zinn addressed his invitation to
Lincoln on September 2, just about the time
the news of Douglas' intent to speak in
Cincinnati reached there. Lincoln replied
on the 6th. He promised to speak in
Columbus and Cincinnati, "but cannot do more."
Gilbert A. Tracy, ed., Uncollected
Letters of Abraham Lincoln (Boston and New
York, 1917), 116.
6 Rutherford B. Hayes, city solicitor of
Cincinnati at the time, in a letter to
Addison Peale Russell, secretary of
state, at Columbus, September 14, 1859, two
days before Lincoln spoke in Columbus,
cautioned that some responsible person ad-
vise Lincoln of the peculiar position
taken by the anti-Democratic faction in Hamilton
County, and in this way avoid offending
the "Americans" there unknowingly.
"My suggestion is," wrote
Hayes, "that Mr. Lincoln be informed of the facts
in regard to our position here, so that
he may not give a too strictly partisan cast
to his address. We go by the name of
'Opposition Party,' and injury might be
done if party names and party doctrines
were used by Mr. Lincoln in a way
to displease the American element of our
organization. The Americans are
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 31
Except for Lincoln's letter to Zinn,
September 6, 1859, all
documents bearing on this
correspondence appear to be lost.7 It is
impossible, accordingly, to know
exactly when Bascom's invitation
to Lincoln was authorized and
dispatched. As the action appears to
have been purely retaliatory in nature,
it is a fair presumption that
the central committee reached its
decision to summon Lincoln about
September 1, when Douglas was publicly
announced to speak in
Ohio.
The Lincoln request was not a single
and independent action.
The central committee as part of its
campaign program also in-
vited Senator Lyman Trumbull, of
Illinois, a liberal Republican, to
speak for the Republican ticket in
antislavery northern Ohio. This
stratagem complemented the tactics of
sending Lincoln, an old Clay
Whig conditioned to the tariff
antecedents partial to the economic
outlook of the Ohio-Kentucky river
country, to track Douglas in the
mild slavery soil of central and
southern Ohio. It was smart quarter-
backing. It implied, incidentally, that
the Ohio leadership looked
upon Lincoln as a progressive
conservative in 1859--progressive
enough for central Ohio and
conservative enough for southern Ohio.
Such was the mass pull of forces that
united with the political
ambition of Lincoln to draw him to Ohio
in 1859. But this over-all
view of the incident leaves a good deal
unaccounted for. Who were
the Buckeye admirers, for example, who
proposed Lincoln as the
one to pit against Douglas and pleaded
his case successfully in
party councils? How did Salmon P. Chase
respond to Lincoln's
mission to Ohio, knowing full well that
the latter had some sub-
stantial support for the Republican
nomination for president in
liberal, however, and very generally
sympathized with Mr. Lincoln in his contest with
Douglas, although perhaps not
subscribing to all his views. I understand Mr.
Lincoln was an old Clay Whig, of
Kentucky parentage, and with a wholesome dislike
of Locofocoism. These qualities with a
word of caution as to our peculiar position
will enable him to make a fine
impression here. ... I write, supposing you will
see Mr. Lincoln at Columbus."
Daniel J. Ryan, "Lincoln and Ohio," Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical
Quarterly, XXXII (1923), 70-71.
7 Nothing new is offered on this subject
in the first two volumes of The Lincoln
Papers, edited by David C. Mearns (Garden City, N. Y., 1948).
However, writing to Hawkins Taylor,
September 6, 1859, Lincoln mentioned
refusing an invitation to speak in
Keokuk, Iowa, but added that he had received
two invitations to speak in Ohio.
"These last are prompted by Douglas going
there; and I am really tempted to make a
flying trip to Columbus and Cincinnati."
Arthur B. Lapsley, ed., The Writings
of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New York, 1906),
V, 32.
32
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
1860? How did it happen that the
audience to greet Lincoln in
Columbus on September 16 was so small
that a Democratic wag
not inaccurately described it as
"a beggarly account of empty
boxes"?8
Clues pointing up answers to these
queries are at hand. For
one thing, Lincoln stood first in line
for the Ohio call. It was a
priority bedded in his showing against
Douglas in 1858. As he had
handled himself ably in Illinois that
year, it seemed likely to those
responsible in the matter that he would
do justice to the Republican
cause in Ohio in 1859. The intangibles
of the situation that ulti-
mately would combine to send him to
Washington were quietly
beginning to assert themselves.
At this point circumstance again
intervened to make Lincoln's
choice for the Ohio assignment in 1859
certain. In September of
that year Douglas' essay on popular
sovereignty was published in
Harper's Magazine. It hit the Ohio bookstands to the consternation
of the political world about the time
Douglas was announced to
speak in Ohio, a coincidence that did
not escape the trained eye
of the Republican state central
committee then bracing itself for
the rigors of the Ranney-Dennison
campaign.
Designed with scholarly care to
strengthen Douglas' version of
popular sovereignty on constitutional
grounds, the disclaimer was
an extension of the most controversial
phase of the Lincoln-Douglas
debates in 1858. Lincoln had struck at
every ramification of popular
sovereignty in that meeting vigorously.
He sneered at it, lampooned
it, and analyzed it with Socratic
precision. At Freeport he upended
Douglas in a crippling dilemma
involving it. This stratagem perhaps
constituted the most staggering
rational blow struck by either side
in the course of the discussion and one
of the epochal moments in
the stormy chronicles of American
political debate. It brought
down on Douglas' head the frantic cry
of fraud and humbug from
Republicans generally, and of heresy
and apostasy from the pro-
slavery bloc within his own party.
Impelled by these forces, Lincoln just
about nominated himself
for the Ohio assignment. To those who
heard George M. Parsons
explain in introducing Lincoln at
Columbus, September 16, 1859,
8 Ohio
Statesman, September 17. 1859.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 33
that the distinguished guest came to
discuss "the political issues
of the day," it meant only a
single thing. It meant that Lincoln
came to Ohio to blast Douglas' Harper's
concept of popular sover-
eignty to bits. What Lincoln said on
the subject in Ohio was largely
repetition of what he had said on it in
the past and prefatory to
what he was to say on it at Cooper
Union, where he finally got
down to the hard documentary core of
the historical thesis involved.
The individuals who sponsored Lincoln's
invitation to Ohio
in 1859 were never positively
identified. Colonel Llewellyn Baber,
however, was singled out by one
contemporary as the most aggres-
sive person in the state in pleading
Lincoln's qualifications for
high office, and in initiating the
action that brought him to Ohio
in 1859. "He succeeded,"
recollected E. L. Taylor, of Baber, "in
arranging to have Mr. Lincoln come to
Columbus and make a
speech, which he did in September,
1859."9 Samuel Galloway
was perhaps the most influential
Buckeye politician to push for
Lincoln and bring his name and
abilities to the critical attention of
his party associates. On July 23, 1859,
he had written Lincoln in
most complimentary terms, with Baber's
urging, regarding Repub-
lican leadership in 1860.10 As a member
of the Republican state
central committee he was in a strong
and commanding position to
make his views felt. Noah H. Swayne and
Jonathan Renick were
other Ohio notables attracted to
Lincoln in the early and unpromising
months of his candidacy for president
in 1860.
How Salmon P. Chase reacted to
Lincoln's Ohio visit in 1859
is not known. He was strangely naive in
political logrolling of this
kind. Yet, as Ohio's "favorite
son" candidate for president in 1860,
he had every reason to suspect
Lincoln's visit as an intrusion. Joseph
Medill was warning him at the time that
Lincoln was forging ahead
and bore watching.11 Here was Lincoln,
now, pounding at his door.
A less gullible man than Chase might
have challenged the very
9 "Richard Plantagenet Llewellyn
Baber," Ohio State Archaeological and His-
torical Quarterly, XIX (1910), 372. For another sketch of Baber, supporting the
thesis that he was the original
Lincoln-for-president man in Ohio, see The Bio-
graphical Encyclopaedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth
Century (Cincinnati and Phila-
delphia, 1876), 275-278.
10 Ibid., 276.
11 Elmer Gertz, "Joe Medill's War," Lincoln Herald, XLVII,
Nos. 3-4 (October-
December 1945), 2-12.
34
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
thought of bringing Lincoln into the
state, particularly at a time
when preliminary skirmishing for
position in the coming Re-
publican national convention was
developing. Buckeye supporters
of other hopefuls like McLean, Seward,
Bates, Cameron, Banks,
Fessenden, and Fremont, likewise might
have raised a questioning
eye at the coolness of the proposal to
call Lincoln to Ohio. There
is reason to believe that in the summer
of 1859 Lincoln was not an
altogether welcome visitor to the
Buckeye capital.
Chase followers, in particular, were
hard put by the develop-
ment. A word of praise for Lincoln on
general party grounds might
be construed as a dig at Chase and his
presidential aspirations.
Active preliminary support of the rally
might impute unfriendliness
to the governor. Local Republican
newspapers particularly found
themselves in an awkward dilemma in
handling the story. The
Ohio State Journal especially felt the burden of the situation.
"Chase
was of course our man for the
1860 nomination, and the political
relations between him and our chief
were close," wrote William
Dean Howells in retrospection.12 As
a staff member of the central
Republican organ, Howells must slant
his remarks toward the
distinguished visitor to Columbus with
appropriate gusto aand sin-
cerity, yet always with due deference
to Chase's soaring political
ambitions. That Howells would become
Lincoln's biographer in
1860 was fantastic in 1859. Could it be
that Howells' unwillingness
to go to Springfield in the spring of
1860 in order to gather material
for his campaign biography of Lincoln
reflected an innate indif-
ference to the project originating in
his earlier commitments for
Chase?
There is some justification for
thinking that the Lincoln meet-
ing on September 16 was blackballed by
the Chase crowd. Hint
of this attitude is found in the
behavior of John Greiner, editor
of the Columbus Gazette, a
weekly journal of substantial circula-
tion, and the most vocal propagandist
for Chase's nomination for
president in 1860. Under his own
signature in the spring of 1859
Greiner published a series of four
comprehensive articles advocating
12 Years of My Youth (New York and
London, 1916), 156. The proprietor of
the Ohio State Journal, to which
Howells was attached at the time, was Henry D.
Cooke.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 35
the nomination of Chase for president
and of Edward Bates of
Missouri for vice president on the
Republican ticket in 1860.13
Greiner not only failed to attend the
Lincoln rally, but he brushed
it off lightly in a grudging paragraph:
Old Abe.-Hon. Abraham Lincoln will address the people of Columbus
either at the State House or City Hall,
today, (Friday.) Mr. Lincoln has
the reputation of being one of the
ablest stumpers of the day.14
Greiner's aloofness to the event might
well have reflected the
covert fear of the Chase triggermen to
Lincoln's presence in
Columbus at the time. Howells and his Journal
associates, however,
unable to dismiss the quandary in the
abrupt Greiner manner, met
the situation more debonairly,
expressing neither curtness nor
cordiality toward Lincoln in covering
the rally. This they accom-
plished convincingly by making Douglas
the whipping boy of the
occasion, rather than by making Lincoln
the fair-haired lad.
At the time of the Columbus meeting
Chase was in northern
Ohio, ostensibly stumping for Dennison
in the state campaign
then going full blast.15 He
thus escaped facing whatever awkward-
ness obtained in the situation to him
personally. Had Chase been
in attendance at the affair, however,
it is difficult to think that he,
more cavalier than realistic in his
political relations, would have
sensed the least sign of threat in the
presence of the outlander
bidding for political honors almost
under the windows of the
executive chamber, where the harried
governor sweated out the
perplexities of his own faltering
presidential campaign.
Yet other questions pertinent to the
Chase-Lincoln episode
remain unanswered. Was Chase personally
consulted in advance on
the proposal to bring Lincoln to Ohio
in 1859? Or was he summarily
bypassed by the central committee,
perhaps swayed in this maneuver
by the counsel of Galloway and Swayne?
Or did Lincoln's threat
13 Columbus Gazette, April 22,
29, May 6, 13, 1859. The series was reprinted
in a single supplement of the Gazette,
May 20, 1859.
14 Ibid., September
16, 1859. For an account of the Greiner-Chase-Lincoln in-
cident, see the writer's article, "'Governor' John
Greiner and Chase's Bid for the
Presidency in 1860," Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, LVIII
(1949), 245-273.
15 "The town is full of people, the
morning trains having brought in large
loads. . . . Governor Chase also
arrived." Cleveland Herald, September 15, 1859.
36
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
to Chase's presidential ambitions
appear so unpromising at the time
that the central committee endorsed
Lincoln without debate?16
There is some slender reason to think
that Chase might have
approved of Lincoln's visit to Ohio in
1859. In 1858 Chase can-
vassed a part of Illinois for Lincoln
in the fading days of the
senatorial election. His unexpected
entry into that tight forum came
at a grave moment in the existence of
the Republican party, "when
many well-meaning Republicans were
inclined to regard Douglas
as an ally, and when the position of a
portion of the Republicans
in other States, was extremely
disheartening and damaging to the
Republicans of Illinois."17 Now,
in 1859, when Douglas again
threatened the stability of the
Republican cause, this time in Ohio,
Lincoln graciously returned Chase's
favor to him, in "recognition
of the services rendered by Gov. Chase
in Illinois, during the contest
of Douglas for the Senatorship."18
It is well to note, however, that the
reciprocal nature of
Lincoln's trip to Ohio described here
was a tardy revelation of the
episode. Lincoln made no reference to
it in his letter to Zinn. The
Ohio State Journal made no mention of it in its editorial salute
welcoming Lincoln to Columbus. One
feels constrained to think
that it was an afterthought of the red
herring variety. It was made
public only after Chase and his
bewildered followers were pressed
to declare that Lincoln's Ohio call in
1859 lacked all political
significance for 1860. It came in
immediate response to the apparent
"misapprehension" of the Berks
(Pennsylvania) Journal that the
plan to publish some of Lincoln's
speeches in book form indicated
a strong Buckeye leaning toward Lincoln
in 1860.19 The protest
served to imply that Lincoln's Ohio
speeches had backfired in the
governor's face, and that slow-burning
political fires were being
fanned in favor of the presidential
interests of Abraham Lincoln.
The Chase recession, however, was but
one of several factors
that tended to confuse the situation
behind the Lincoln rally on
16 As late as
February 20, 1860, David Davis, usually regarded by students as
the man most responsible for Lincoln's
nomination in 1860, thought the contest
lay between Bates and Seward, and that
Lincoln was hopelessly out of the race.
Harry E. Pratt, Concerning Mr.
Lincoln (Springfield, Ill., 1944), 23.
17 Ohio State Journal, February
22, 1860.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 37
the 16th. It is well to recall here
that in 1859 Lincoln was far from
being the popular drawing card that he
might seem to be today
when viewed in historical perspective.
That he had individual ad-
mirers scattered advantageously over
the state and a small but
loyal band of boosters in Columbus is
true. But the Ohio rank and
file voter knew little of him. The
legends and the myths after him
were of another day and generation.
Except for some legal con-
tacts in Cincinnati, Lincoln had had
practically no personal or pro-
fessional relations with Ohio.20 Prior
to 1859 he had never made a
political speech in the state. It
simply happened that Ohio lay
outside the purview of his earlier
activities. Galloway, Swayne,
Baber, and others of the Buckeye
contingent who came to look
upon him as a man of national promise,
gleaned their impressions
not first hand, like Davis, Swett,
Herndon, Medill, in Illinois, but
indirectly by reading contemporary
accounts of the Lincoln-Douglas
debates that filtered into Columbus in
out-of-town newspapers,
particularly those in the Chicago Press
and Tribune.21
Howells' recollections of Lincoln in
the Columbus setting of
1859 were more typical than distinct
and revealing. Recalling the
event in after years he wrote how
"one night I was a particle of the
crowd which seemed to fill the State
House yard on its western
front, dimly listening to the man whose
figure was a blur against
the pale stone. I knew that this man
was that Abraham Lincoln who
had met Stephen A. Douglas in the
famous Illinois debates. . . . I
could not well hear what he said . . .
I have only the vision of his
figure against the pale stone, and the
black crowd spread vaguely
before him."22
Howells' misty figure of Lincoln
"against the pale stone" was
exactly what one would expect under the
circumstances. The citizens
20 Ryan,
loc. cit., 7-21.
21 Biographical Encyclopaedia of
Ohio, 275.
22 Years of My Youth, 193-194.
Time had tricked Howells' memory. The rally
was held on the eastern terrace of the
statehouse and in the afternoon, not on the
"western front" of the
capitol, and not in the evening, as Howells recollected. He
also erred in placing the event after
the execution of John Brown at Charles Town and
following Lincoln's sensational Cooper
Union speech in February 1860, and his
subsequent triumphal tour of New
England. However, en route to Washington in
February 1861, Lincoln, president-elect,
spoke from the western esplanade of the
statehouse to an immense and impassioned
throng. Howells clearly confused the
two incidents.
38 Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
of Ohio simply were not acquainted with
the railsplitter in the
summer of 1859. Leading politicians and
editors of the state did
not know his correct name, as we shall
see. They were not informed
of his exact stand on slavery, whether
he stood with Corwin or with
Giddings, as we shall also see. Indeed,
there was no good reason
why Ohio should know Lincoln in 1859.
The fact that he received
110 votes for vice president at
Philadelphia in 1856 was largely
forgotten there except among political
leaders.
The one great opportunity that could
have made Lincoln
popular in Ohio came in course of his
debates with Douglas in 1858.
But that opportunity never
materialized. The Columbus press,
especially, treated the Illinois
contests in niggardly fashion. The
Ohio Statesman tiptoed guardedly round the series, as if fearful
that any publicity given Douglas might
offend President Buchanan.
The Ohio State Journal denied
Lincoln both space and commenda-
tion in its columns in spite of his
strong stand against Douglas,
ostensibly to avoid saying anything
that would militate against
Chase's presidential chances in 1860.
With jaunty detachment the Capital
City Fact blinked the vast
political implications of the debates
to note how in one of Lincoln's
thirty-minute speeches against Douglas,
the pronoun I appeared
two hundred and thirty-two times!23
And Greiner's Chase-bound
Gazette consistently ignored the series until the closing days
of the
contest when it announced that Chase
would visit Illinois and speak
for the Republican ticket there,
"in accordance with the urgent
request of the Republican Central
committee of that State."24 After
the debates closed, the Gazette repeated
the giddy rumor then
making the rounds that the Illinois
election "cost Stephen A.
Douglas from two to three hundred
thousand dollars."25
These partisan silences and quixotic
references constituted
thin fare for nourishing Lincoln's
political reputation at the grass
roots in the Buckeye country. In the
summer of 1859 the repre-
sentative Columbus citizen looked upon
Lincoln either as a tall
man who had done a formidable job in
debating Douglas in 1858,
23 September 25, 1858.
24 October 29, 1858.
25 November
19, 1858.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 39
or as "the man who was made famous
by being most beautifully
beaten in the Illinois canvass of 1858
by Senator Douglas."26
Contrariwise, Stephen A. Douglas was a
vivid and exciting
figure astride the national skyline
during the decade when Lincoln
mounted by slow steps to national
eminence. His garish behavior
was a commonplace of curbstone gossip,
and his strident brushes
with celebrities inside as well as
outside his own party added a
lustrous chapter to the political lore
of the republic. To the lusty
camp followers of the hustings the
simple announcement that he
would appear on a given platform
carried with it the promise of
lively things to come. "No man in
the Union," observed the
Cincinnati Enquirer, "can draw such immense crowds, by the force
of his name and character, as Senator
Douglas."27 The Queen City
had felt the impact of his dashing
personality first hand at the
Democratic national convention in
Cincinnati in 1856. In 1859,
moreover, Douglas was a top challenger
for the Democratic nomi-
nation for president and the possible
dispenser of luscious political
plums to the deserving ones of his
hungry entourage.
No such bread and beer expectations as
these titillated the
hearts of the Buckeye voters when
ABRAHAM C. LINCOLN was
billed to speak in Columbus, September
16, 1859. The man not only
lacked political prospects of the
bandwagon variety, he lacked funds
and organization for big-time office.
No Weed or Blair broke
ground for him. No Greeley gave him
editorial acclaim. The record
showed that he lacked both executive
training and administrative
experience. He was a belated entry to
the national folkways, and
communication processes on the prairie
were slow. He was a come-
lately to the Republican party, and he
offered no distinctive program
for unsnarling the slavery
entanglement. It was not strange in face
of these facts that Columbus people
failed to tumble over one
another on his trip to the city in
1859.
Perhaps the decisive deterrent to a
heart-warming, back-
slapping Republican turnout on the
16th, however, was not political
at all. It happened that the local
county fair climaxed its four-day
program of carnivals and displays on
the afternoon of the rally in
26 Ohio Statesman, September 16, 1859.
27 September
18, 1859.
40
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
a mighty effort, and this proved a
counter-attraction that the nodding
central committee had failed to reckon
with. "Yesterday being the
great day of the county fair,"
explained the Ohio State Journal,
September 17, 1859, apologetically,
"that performance prevented
so large an audience as would otherwise
have attended." With this
opinion the Capital City Fact concurred.28
For a variety of factors, accordingly,
not all of which were
politically inspired, voters from
Columbus and environs failed to
troop into the statehouse yard on the
16th. But from the hinterland
came a token representation that saved
the venture from being an
abject failure. The Newark North
American beat the drum lustily
for the rally, although somewhat late
for effective results.29 It
informed its readers that a
considerable number of local citizens
were planning to take advantage of the
half-fare railroad rates and
make the trip to Columbus. All were
assured that Lincoln would
not begin speaking until 3 o'clock,
thereby enabling "our people
to take the afternoon train. They can
return the same evening by
the Freight train, reaching Newark at
half past nine o'clock." The
original schedule called for Lincoln to
begin speaking at 2 o'clock.
Strangely, Columbus newspapers failed
to make known this post-
ponement, another oversight of
Republican publicity that added
to the ineptness with which the event
was managed.
Cincinnati Republicans were too busy
readying their own
belated plans to receive Lincoln in the
Queen City to send a special
delegation to Columbus in his honor.
But Whitelaw Reid, fresh
from the Miami University campus, was
an eager witness. With an
apostle's fervor born of the McGuffey
tradition, he welcomed
Lincoln to Ohio in the columns of the Xenia
News, of which he
was editor, and with a young man's
ardor boasted how Douglas'
Harper's version of popular sovereignty would be annihilated by
the crushing logic of the visitor.30
In this bristling vein he urged his
fellow Republicans in Xenia to
accompany him to the capital city
and enjoy the merry performance in
store for them.
Suddenly on the morning of September 9
the Ohio State Journal
announced that Lincoln would speak in
Ohio. This was just two
28 September 16, 1859.
29 September 15, 1859.
30 Royal Cortissoz, The Life of
Whitelaw Reid (2 vols., New York, 1921), I, 49.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 41
days after Douglas had departed the
city. Coming without previous
warning, it limited the local
Republicans to a scant seven days to
organize their reserves and make
preparations for the event. The
announcement stated that the central
committee had received a
dispatch31 notifying them that Lincoln would speak in Columbus,
September 16, and in Cincinnati,
September 17. "The great renown,
and national reputation of Mr. Lincoln,
as a speaker," heralded the
editorial with partisan zest,
"cannot fail to attract an immense
assemblage. . . . He follows on the
track32 of Douglas, and will not
leave a shred of his miserable logic
unraveled and unexposed. Let
our friends in the adjoining counties
prepare to attend by thousands."
Sponsorship of the project fell to the
unwilling lot of the
Young Men's Republican Club, a recently
formed local group
headed by James M. Comly, who was to
have a distinguished career
in the Civil War. Over the signatures
of the officers of this body, a
second advertisement of the event
appeared in the Ohio State
Journal of the 9th. It was reprinted in the Journal through
the 16th,
albeit somewhat inconspicuously under
the routine heading of
"Local Affairs." It announced
that the club would stage a second
rally in the evening following
Lincoln's afternoon speech, either
at the statehouse or at the city hall,
at which Lincoln and others
would speak. It closed with this
appeal: "Let everyone, the young
men, the friends of free labor and free
institutions, rally in their
strength on this occasion." This
exhortation marked the strategy
of the Buckeye Republican leadership to
capitalize on the idealism
of the young voters, who far
outnumbered their elders in the new
West.
The remarkable thing in this
announcement was reference to
the guest speaker as the "Hon.
ABRAHAM C. LINCOLN, of
Illinois." The editorial, on the
other hand, identified the speaker
31 Might not this wording imply that
Bascom received Lincoln's message by
telegraph, and not by mail? The item
says Trumbull's message to the committee
was telegraphed.
32 The paragraph was titled "The Hunters on his Track." This
metaphor had
become stereotyped in western political
chatter of the time. The expression received
local impetus in 1858, when the Capital
City Fact, September 13, 1858, quoted
from the Chicago Press the
message Douglas was alleged to have sent to U. F. Usher:
"For God's sake, Linder, come up
into the Northern part of the State and
help me. Every dog in the State
is let loose after me-from the bull dog Trumbull
to the smallest canine quadruped that
has a kennel in Illinois."
42
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
as the "Hon. Ab. Lincoln."
George M. Parsons, introducing Lincoln
at the rally on the 16th, correctly
called him by name. But the
variety of cognomens ascribed to him
continued in Columbus with
amusing regularity for some time
following his nomination at
Chicago. Indeed, it was not until May
31, 1860, that the Ohio State
Journal finally settled on Abraham Lincoln as the full and
authentic
signature for its masthead.33
The enterprise fared none too well at
the hands of these gay
and romantic tyros. But arrangements
were made with the Cleveland,
Columbus, and Cincinnati Railroad
Company for a special excursion
train to run from Crestline to
Columbus, September 16, leaving the
former city at 9:45 A.M. and stopping
at way stations, returning at
6 P.M. All railroads entering the city
cut rates in half for the day.34
The Young Republicans bore their full
share of the respon-
sibility for the failure to drum up a
crowd for Lincoln on the 16th
comparable to the one that stormed into
Columbus and greeted
Douglas on the 7th. Their attitude
toward the undertaking was
perfunctory and their publicity lax.
But other factors intervened.
Lincoln was not the popular attraction
that Douglas was in 1859.
The central committee slipped badly in
setting the date of the rally
in conflict with that of the great day
of the county agricultural
fair, and the Chase-for-president men
felt it the part of discretion
to keep its fingers off the venture as
far as possible.
The sensitiveness of the Chase fuglemen
to Lincoln's visit was
further intimated in the editorial
silence of the Ohio State Journal
in promoting the venture. Except for
the surprising initial puff
accorded it on the 9th, done in a high
and ringing key, the Chase
organ chose to avoid the matter
editorially. Thereafter, it made only
a single announcement of the meeting
and, as stated, in this item
failed to note the postponement of the
rally from 2 to 3 o'clock:
Grand Rally For Lincoln,
At Columbus, on Friday, the 16th inst.,
at 2 P.M. He will speak from a
stand on the Eastern front of the State
House. He will also address the
people of Cincinnati on Saturday
evening.35
33 For a satirical comment on the
flounderings of the Journal on the matter,
see the Ohio Statesman, June 1, 1860.
34 Ibid., September 14, 15, 1859.
35 September 14, 16, 1859.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in 1859
43
Could it be that the Chase influence in
the Cooke organ was
asserting itself positively at this
point? Could it mean that the
initial enthusiasm of the Journal toward
the event lacked Chase's
personal sanction?
The Ohio Statesman pooh-poohed
the idea of the Lincoln rally
with partisan zest and perversity. So
doing it revealed intelligence
useful to a complete understanding of
the event. As early as August
13 the Democratic organ taunted the Opposition
that the Franklin
County young men were not joining up
with the projected Young
Republican Club as readily as its
patrons had anticipated. The basis
of this resistance was, according to
Democratic opinion, that the
local young men were "not disposed
to put their heads into a dis-
union trap."
The Ohio Statesman next
speculated that the Young Repub-
licans were founded to take over the
control of the party machinery
"from the Giddings"
committee.36 This opinion followed hard on the
heels of the announcement in the Ohio
State Journal that the Young
Republican Club would do the
promotional honors for the Lincoln
rally. There is no available evidence
to show that this ambition
motivated the Bascom-Comly alliance.
But the charge was entirely
consistent with the Democratic strategy
to disturb the Giddings-
Corwin hairtrigger balance of amity as
much as possible.
Seventy-two hours before Lincoln
arrived in Columbus, the
Ohio Statesman flashed its trump card with a flourish. This took
the form of an editorial that sought to
tie Lincoln to the ultra-
liberal coattails of the
Giddings-Chase-Wade faction of the Re-
publican party:
More Negro Suffrage.
We have declared over and over again,
and have furnished incontestible
proof of the fact, that the design of
the Republicans of this State is to
fasten negro suffrage upon the people.
This base and disgusting insult to
the white men, especially to those of
the industrious classes, is the favorite
theme of Chase, Giddings, Wade, Spalding, Brinkerhoff,
Sutliffe, Taylor,
etc. It is also one of the objects most
dear to the hearts of the fanatics of
Oberlin. The Lorain County Convention
has just passed a resolution coming
out again flat-footed for negro
equality. The candidate for Senator in that
district is Professor Monroe, who declared that
Oberlin was at war with the
36 September
10, 1859.
44 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
United States, and who is a violent
negro-equality man. The Republican
papers in favor of this odious doctrine
are too numerous to be recapitulated
here. The chief of them are the
Ashtabula Sentinel and the Ohio State
Journal. In pursuance of their base design to fasten
negro-equality upon
this State the Republicans have sent
abroad for the champions of that
amalgamation principle. On Friday next
one of them, Abe. Lincoln of
Illinois, is to address them at this
city. In debating with Senator Douglas
during the memorable contest of last
fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor of
negro suffrage, and attempted to
defend that vile conception against the
Little Giant.37 He now comes here to make political speeches, and if
not
warned to hold his tongue upon that
topic, he will most likely vary the
stale and thread-bare stuff about the
encroachments of the slave power, by
recommending the adoption of an
amendment to the Constitution so as to
give the suffrage to negroes and make
them eligible to office. Any Republican
who doubts our assertion had better put
Mr. Lincoln to the question in
public meeting.
Manypenny's unqualified indictment in
this instance lumped
Lincoln with Giddings and the Oberlin
revolutionaries on negro
voting. It intimated, accordingly, that
the distinguished visitor was
out of step politically with the
organization that sponsored his visit
to Columbus, for the Ohio Statesman had
previously contended that
the Young Republicans intended to steal
the party organization from
the Giddings faction. Was Lincoln a
Giddings Republican or a
Corwin Republican? That was the
question raised in Columbus
political circles three days before
Lincoln arrived there in 1859.
No one in the city spoke up to clarify
the matter. The question
seemed too loaded to handle at the
moment. The Ohio State Journal
ignored it. Instead, it chose to deal
capriciously with the Ohio
Statesman's recommendation that doubting Thomases among the
Republicans would do well to quiz
Lincoln on negro equality "in
open meeting," impishly proposing
that "the bantam Cox" serve
as prosecutor in any cross-examination
at such a hearing.38 It re-
mained for Lincoln himself to challenge
the Ohio Statesman's
accusation, but following his public
disavowal of all sympathy
37 Italics mine. This sentence, quoted
by Lincoln in his Columbus speech, came
from the Ohio Statesman of
September 13, and not from that paper's issue of the
16th, as stated by Lincoln.
38 September 14, 1859. To the Buckeye
citizen of 1859 the casual mention of
Congressman Samuel S. Cox, close
political friend of Douglas, recalled the sen-
sational Giddings-Cox verbal tiff that convulsed the
national house of representatives,
January 12, 1859, and attracted nationwide attention.
Cox quizzed his reluctant
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in
1859 45
with the negro equality doctrine in his
Columbus address, the
Ohio State Journal blandly continued to ignore the matter.39
Reference to Cox under the
circumstances enabled the Chase-
disposed journal to retreat gracefully
from a frank discussion of
the factual question involved in the
explosive and pivotal issue.
The ruse was looked upon as good clean
fun in the adolescent
newspaper pyrotechnics of the time,
although behavior of this kind
might strike judicious minded men as
the underlying impulse that
caused words to give way to arms in
1861. It afforded Colonel
Manypenny, moreover, the opportunity to
remark on the morning
of the 16th that it was still unknown
whether Lincoln "will take
sides with Giddings or Corwin."40
From this indirection it appears
that the Republican organ was not
averse to leaving its readers
with the impression that Lincoln was a
negrophile of the Giddings
and Oberlin type despite the facts. It
took Lincoln's personal inter-
vention to expunge the record of this
error.
Of these domestic tensions and
cross-currents that raked Buck-
eye skies in September 1859, Lincoln
could hardly have been aware.
Somehow, however, he learned of the Ohio
Statesman's cocksure
editorial reading him willynilly into
the Giddings ranks of negro-
philes. It was the kind of lead that a
gifted rhetorician dreams of,
and Lincoln exploited it to the full in
the opening remarks of his
Columbus speech. Manypenny's accusation
was a convenient way
for him to begin his address, he
remarked disarmingly. It gave him
an opportunity "to show the
gentleman [Editor Manypenny] is
mistaken." Thirdly, it would make
it possible for Manypenny to
correct himself on the matter.41 Quoting
pertinent passages from
his speeches of 1858, he clinched his
denial of negro suffrage
leanings with these characteristic
words:
opponent on that occasion concerning his
precise stand on negro suffrage for the
record. On a previous occasion Giddings
openly admitted his full acceptance of that
doctrine, but the expression was made in a closed session
of the house and so
officially unreported. While Cox thrust
and Giddings parried in brilliant repartee a
ring of congressmen quickly formed to
audit the diverting battle of wit. The in-
cident became a subject of headline
importance for some days afterward. Garrison's
Liberator took a hand in the discussion and scornfully protested
Giddings' pussy-
footing on the issue. Newspapers decided
the victor in the hot encounter according
to their individual political
prejudices.
39 The Ohio Statesman, September
22, 1859, accounted for the Journal's silence
on the issue on the ground that negro
suffrage was a tenet of true Republican faith.
40 Ibid., September 16, 1859.
41 Ohio State Journal, September 17, 1859.
46 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
There, my friends, you have briefly what
I have, upon former oc-
casions, said upon the subject to which
this newspaper [Ohio Statesman],
to the extent of its ability, has drawn
the public attention. In it you not
only perceive, as a probability, that in
that contest I did not at any time
say I was in favor of negro suffrage;
but the absolute proof that twice--
once substantially and once expressly-I
declared against it. Having shown
you this, there remains but a word of
comment upon the newspaper article.
It is this: that I presume the editor of
that paper is an honest and truth-
loving man, and that he will be greatly
obliged to me for furnishing him
thus early an opportunity to correct the
mis-representation he has made,
before it has run so long that malicious
people can call him a liar.42
For six days Manypenny pondered this
passage before replying
to it. Conceding Lincoln the benefit of
his denial, he accounted for
the disclaimer on the ground that the
famed visitor came to Ohio
"under the Corwin wing of the
party":
This gentleman [Lincoln] took occasion
in his speech in this city,
to say that he had never been in favor
of granting the elective franchise to
the negro, which we had stated to be his
position. We give Mr. Lincoln
the benefit of this denial, and yet we
are not satisfied but he did in some
parts of Illinois preach that doctrine
in the campaign of 1858. He, how-
ever, says he did not, and we make the
correction so far as he is concerned.
We take it that Mr. Lincoln comes here
under the Corwin wing of the
party, and not as the representative of
real Republicanism as taught by
Chase, Giddings & Co. The Republican
orators in our own State have a
peculiar way of getting round a tight
point in their faith, by denying, when
in a locality where it would affect
them, that they hold such and such
opinions, and that when so made to say
in their reported speeches, the
reporter had not correctly reported
them. . . . We apprehend that if Mr.
Lincoln had made a speech at Oberlin, he
would not have gone to much
trouble to correct the charge made by us
that he was in favor of negro
voting.43
All was calm, on the surface at least,
when Lincoln stepped
down from his train in Columbus on the
pleasant morning of Sep-
tember 16, 1859. Indeed, the city went
about its accustomed tasks
oblivious of his lanky presence. The
local press had no representa-
tives on the spot to interview him. The
Young Republicans pro-
42 Ibid.
43 Ohio Statesman, September 22, 1859.
Behind Lincoln's Visit to Ohio in 1859 47
vided no fanfare. The central committee
was nowhere in sight,
although the visitor was on hand in
response to their own eleventh
hour appeal to him. It looked as if the
host had forgotten his guest.
The reception was far different from
that which greeted Douglas
nine days earlier, when drums beat,
rifles barked, and an escorting
committee headed up by no other than
"the bantam Cox" bundled
him into a waiting carriage and through
lines of people on the
curbs accompanied him to party
headquarters at the American
House. Apparently unattended, Lincoln
found his way down the
main thoroughfare of the city to the
Neil House, where members
of the state central committee of his
party called on him later in
the morning.44
Did Addison P. Russell, secretary of
state, in course of the
morning apprise Lincoln of Rutherford
B. Hayes's caution apropos
his Cincinnati address scheduled for
the following night? Did
Samuel Galloway discuss with him the
Republican leadership for
1860? Who was it that called his
attention to the three-day old
editorial on negro suffrage in the Ohio
Statesman?
These questions and related ones remain
unanswered. All we
know is that Columbus paid small homage
to Lincoln on the morn-
ing of September 16. This response
hinted an indifference born of
local complications and personalities,
some political and some non-
political. It mirrored in pale outline
the Chase diversion, the county
fair, and the painful lack of publicity
accorded the visitor and the
event.
These were but passing shadows. The
county fair quickly
became a memory. The Chase boom burst.
Vast inarticulate forces
were presently alerted that would prove
favorable to Lincoln's
nomination in 1860. Among these should
be included Lincoln's
flying trip to Ohio in 1859. It was on
that visit that important
Buckeye politicians for the first time
came under the spell of his
personality. And the printed texts of
his Columbus and Cincinnati
addresses copied and distributed widely
over the state made him
better known to the Buckeye rank and
file.
44 Capital City Fact, September 16, 1859.