outspokenly sectional and two semi-compromising, the contest lay between it and the opposing sectional party. Whichever side was numerically stronger would win. The old commercial Whig elements had joined the Republican forces in the East even before the West, realizing their commercial antagonism to the South some years before the Western farmer came in direct conflict with slavery. The last fifteen years had seen a revolution in transportation and industries, cities had grown, a working-class had appeared. The famines and hard times of Ireland and Germany sent their hundreds of thousands yearly to America. Men no longer flocked to the wilderness, but settled close together to develop the internal resources of the land by the marvellous new machines that were invented, thousands a year; and the East, already commercial and industrial, waited for the West to withdraw its entire allegiance from the South. Its great carrier, the Mississippi, had made the South and West one for a period of two generations. They were united by their agricultural interests and were both suspicious of the commercial schemes of the East, and were jealous together of central power. But these were weak ties, beside the industrial changes which were turning the face of the West toward the East, whereby the labourer of one section could become the small capitalist of the other. Victory lay before the Republican Party if it could get within its fold but two of the Western States which had formerly been Democratic-Indiana and Illinois. Lincoln had shown in the sectional contest that Illinois was equally divided between Republicanism and Democracy. A Western candidate might carry these doubtful states.

A great point was made in that direction when it was voted that Chicago be the seat of the Convention in June.

Lincoln was in the mind of the Republican State Convention of Illinois when it met in May. The ground was so well prepared for him that he seemed to enter upon the arena spontaneously, as if by a sudden popular demand. Lincoln was sitting on his heels in a hall among the onlookers when the presiding officer suggested that a distinguished citizen of Illinois should have a seat upon the platform. The audience knew whom he meant, and Lincoln was lifted upon their shoulders and brought to a seat of honour. Later it was voted by the House that an old Democrat, who was standing outside ready to present something to the Convention, be admitted. The door was opened, and John Hanks, the pioneer cousin of Lincoln, marched in, bearing two triangular rails and a banner on which were printed the words:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

THE RAIL CANDIDATE

FOR PRESIDENT IN 1860

Two rails from a lot of three thousand made in 1830 by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln-whose father was the first pioneer of Macon County.

Lincoln rose and said that he was not sure whether he made those identical rails or not, but that he was quite sure he had made a great many just as good. This demonstration over, the Convention instructed its delegates to give their vote as a unit for Lincoln in the National Convention which was to meet a week later.

To this Convention, the Eastern section came ready to vote for Governor Seward of New York. But though acceptable to the East, he appeared too radical for the West, and the delegates felt they were too close to victory to sacrifice it by a candidate who would not be voted for in the doubtful states. Lincoln then became the one possible candidate, not well enough known by the people at large for them to be against him, and known just well enough to appear safe and sound to the newly-turned West.

To those present the nomination of Lincoln at Chicago seemed unlooked-for and accidental. Seward's men came in full force, and the papers of the East had "boomed" him for months. They were prepared for victory. But the Lincoln men knew that if in the first ballot in the Convention at Chicago Seward were to fail in getting the majority, he could not rise, for they came with their maximum amount of supporters. Lincoln was in home territory and could gather recruits. To define his position more clearly, he sent a dispatch, on the eve of the voting, saying he agreed with Seward in his irrepressible conflict idea, and in negro equality, but he opposed his "higher law" doctrine. Underlined in this dispatch was the sentence, "Make no contracts that will bind me," to which his managers did not pay absolute attention, for they were more intent upon receiving the nomination than on being scrupulous. By bargaining and half-binding Lincoln they received the votes of Indiana, Pennsylvania (which was more interested in the Morill tariff than in the question of slavery), and New Jersey.

The Convention, which met in the Wigwam, a large pavilion holding ten thousand men, built especially for the occasion, was crowded with Lincoln men. On the morning of the balloting, the Seward contingent paraded the streets of Chicago with much flying of banners and music; but the lusty Westerners filled all the seats and were there in full force to shout for their "favourite son." Such a series of yells went up at the mention of his name that all other "howlers" were discouraged. It was this incident which gave rise to the statements later that Lincoln was nominated because of the accidental crowding of the Wigwam with his friends. As a matter of fact, the voting was pretty well arranged before that. At the first ballot Seward received 173 votes: Lincoln, 102. At the second ballot Pennsylvania threw in her vote with Lincoln, and he stood 181 to Seward's 184; and at the third ballot Lincoln began to gain from all directions, his vote rising to 231, while Seward went back to 180. Before it was over Lincoln's total amounted to 354, and soon Seward's managers themselves moved that his nomination be made unanimous. For second place, Hannibal Hamlin of Massachusetts was nominated, to appease the more radical wing of the party. Cannon boomed, torch-light processions were organized, rails and axes became the symbols of the campaign, and "Honest Abe" and "the Rail Splitter" common appellations.

The Abolitionists of the East received the announcement of Lincoln's nomination with scorn. "Who

is this huckster in politics?" asked Wendell Phillips. "Who is this country court advocate?" It was

Phillips who called Abraham Lincoln the slave hound of Illinois," because he did not favour the abolition of the Fugitive Slave Laws. In fact, to most of the anti-slavery elements of the East this nomination seemed a sad compromise. Seward's defeat meant to them that the party had not the courage to put forward a man who had been violent in the opposition of slavery. But the delegates in the Party Convention were seeking a practical result, and they chose a man who, without promising to lower the Republican standard, was able to get the most electoral

votes.

Lincoln did not go on his own canvass, but went back to Springfield to await the general elections in November, and this town became a miniature capitol, with lobbyists and office-seekers and party delegates, and the usual crowd of reporters and photographers. He received everyone who came to him in a little room in the State House. He saw all but consulted none, and on the question of the impending crisis maintained a Sphinx-like silence, warding off all embarrassing questions with apt anecdotes.

The Nationalists, who realized the danger of the extreme sectional elections going on in the South and in the North, tried fusion in many states with any faction that would unite with them. But the people of each section had girded themselves for the fight, and fusion only succeeded in New Jersey, where Lincoln lost three electoral votes. By the voting of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Indiana-October states, so called because they voted in October instead of in November-it was seen that the Republican vote would