The people of Danville were excited about the coming election in 1860. They had what some considered a favorite son running for President of the United States. He had been coming to Danville for nearly 20 years to attend court. But could he win?
A reporter heard him speak at a rally and gave a rather brutal assessment of the candidate’s appearance. “He is a long, lean, cadaverous-looking specimen of humanity, standing six feet four in his stockings, with a sand-hill crane-like body, surmounted by a head which looks like a starved canvassed ham, which, with a huge rent on the side, if large enough, would look like a mouth. The rent, when he laughs, stretches from ear to ear, displaying a fine set of natural teeth, which tends to relieve his otherwise extremely ugly visage.”
That description was not the most flattering, then there was the candidate’s voice. It was described as high-pitched and reedy, with volume enough to reach the most distant individual at an outdoor event. Those words had all been used to describe Abraham Lincoln as he sought the highest office in the land.
The reporter who was critical of Lincoln’s physical appearance did have a kind word for him after his speech ended. “We think that Lincoln talked away at least fifty percent of his ugliness before the close of his speech,” he wrote.
Others would note the sound of the reedy voice was soon forgotten when Lincoln spoke. When he addressed a New York audience at Cooper’s Union, they were moved by the words and the manner in which they were delivered. William Cullen Bryant proclaimed it the best delivery of a political speech he had ever heard. The New York Evening Post declared an audience had never been more thoroughly carried away by an orator. That speech was an important milestone in Lincoln’s ascension to the presidency.
Becoming the presidential candidate of the Republican party had not been a cakewalk for Abe. While he stayed in Springfield during the tumultuous Republican National Convention in Chicago his friends Judge David Davis, Ward Hill Lamon, and others worked tirelessly to round up votes to obtain his nomination.
It was necessary to make promises to state committees to obtain the needed votes. Abe’s former Danville law partner Lamon was at the forefront of these efforts. To obtain 19 votes from Indiana, Caleb Smith was reportedly promised a cabinet post; to be guaranteed 15 crucial supporters from Pennsylvania, Simon Cameron was said to have received the same promise. Lincoln took no part in the deal-making and later would dispute the reported deals, but politics are politics, and Abe’s friends did what was necessary to gain him the nomination.
Vermilion County residents could be sure of one thing in that 1860 election. The next President of the nation would be an Illinois resident. Four men were running for the position, but only Stephen Douglas, the Democrat, and Lincoln, the Republican, had a real chance of winning. Both men resided in the Prairie State.
The election was all about slavery. The South realized if Abraham Lincoln won the election, he was anti-slavery. Douglas had established himself as a friend of the slave owners and their abominable institution by the speeches he made in the debates he had with Lincoln during the 1858 contest for the U. S. Senate.
When the votes were counted in November, Abe was elected the 16th President of the United States. There was a wild celebration in Danville at the news. When he took office, Indiana and Pennsylvania were not forgotten. Caleb Smith became Secretary of the Interior and Simon Cameron was appointed Secretary of War.
There was hope slavery could be ended peacefully but Abraham Smith, who ran an Underground Railroad station in what is now Ridge Farm, had a clear vision of how slavery would end. The Quaker, who had assisted numerous people to flee to freedom, proclaimed he had no doubt slavery would end, “But I do doubt that it will end peacefully.” His words were prophetic.
Lincoln led the nation through the Civil War, the Union was preserved and slavery was abolished. He has been gone for more than a 150 years, but he still remains the most admired of America’s presidents. One of his favorite places when he rode the judicial circuit was “Old Vermilion.”