Longshot Lincoln

 

LONGSHOT LINCOLN 

Democrats claim that the parties have ‘flipped’ and they are now the party of civil rights and they really love Lincoln.  If so, why do they only like his slavery stance and hate his reasoning about why slavery “should be placed in the course of ultimate extinction”? Why do they dislike limited government and low taxes and the Bill of Rights? Maybe Rs should ask them how Lincoln got elected. He was mostly a loser—lost the House Speakership in Illinois, had one term as a Congressman, helped Taylor get elected President and was passed over for any post, lost twice to the Senate.  Most people thought of him as just a good stump speaker with a up-from-humble-roots story and a has-been.  Thus the Rs placed their convention in Chicago thinking there was no home state favorite son. That was important in those days since conventions were closed affairs and the gallery could be packed with locals cheering on a favorite son.  Lincoln ran and did just that. Remember, in those days candidates did not go to conventions but depended on floor managers and allies. Seward was supposed to win and he was a firebrand abolitionist.  Horace Greeley thought he was too radical and so did Southerners, anticipation of whom caused part of their reason for secession. Lincoln, recognizing he was nobody’s favorite, positioned himself as the guy everybody thought of secondly. Nice guy, never attacks anybody.  First ballot Seward won by plurality.  Second ballot, Bates rose, but many thought him wishy-washy and too moderate. Bates’ floor manager was Browning and on the 3^rd ballot, he gave a rousing endorsement of Lincoln.  Gallery went wild.  Lincoln had let it be known he would put rivals, Cameron as secretary of war, Seward, Bates and Chase in other positions.  Lincoln was humble and quoted Scriptures a lot (ask your Dem friends if they love this)—qualities that made him seem more moderate and reasoned than Seward. Lincoln carried the majority of votes.

            On the campaign trail, Lincoln wrote his positions about slavery.  If a man works to raise corn, why can’t he get to keep part of it for his family. You say slavery is because of skin color? Well, sooner or later you’ll meet someone lighter than you are.  Should you be his slave? Or it’s intelligence.  Sooner or later you’ll meet someone smarter.  Should you then be enslaved? Lincoln’s logic won the vast majority of northern farmers who in those days were 80% of the vote. He won 39% and a bare majority of electoral votes. 3 Dems split the rest.  Lincoln was elected. Had Lincoln been a Jimmy Carter, he would have waffled and compromised leaving the South permanently slave.  Had he been an uncompromising Biden, a Seward, he would have not retained neutrality of the border states and the North would have lost in 1862.  USA would then have been two weaker squabbling countries, fighting again over the West and never achieving great development—rather like Argentina and Chile. Instead, Lincoln’s resolute principles yet personal humility found a way to win, first by fighting for union, then slavery, then designing a peace that Grant put in place that brought the two countries back together under the Constitution we know. It gave the party a nickname, Grand Old Party, because it espoused the grand old principles---liberty, rights, and limited government--that Americans could rally around.