Of course, the first political convention ever held in Chicago was fixed.
New Hampshire had no primary in 1860. There was barely a Republican Party. And although political conventions, a distinctly American form of democratic chicanery, had been around a few years, that year’s Republican gathering in Chicago was the incubator for both the spirit and the strategies of the brokered convention system that endured for a century. While they were at it, those early Republicans managed to deliver the single candidate who reshaped America in a more profound manner than anyone else in the 19th Century, and perhaps ever.
On 23 subsequent occasions the nation’s political bosses came to Chicago to choose contenders for the presidency. On some of those occasions, there was as little suspense or historical foreboding as there will be this week for the routine second anointment of Bill Clinton.
But there were other conclaves that changed the nature of American society, shifted the nation’s political alignments, showcased the men who would direct destiny and offered winners and losers both distinguished and disgusting.
It all started with Norman Judd. Slavery was the key issue of the 1850s, and men (no women could vote) were on all sides of the issue. The white South wanted things exactly as they were for themselves. In the North, some factions wanted to retain slavery in the South but ban it in all new territories. Other Southerners wanted it extended to territories like Kansas and Nebraska.
The issue splintered the Whig Party into dozens of factions, including the new Republican Party, which had held its first convention in 1856 in Cincinnati. One of the first to join was Judd, a Chicago lawyer, who became the Illinois Republican chairman and national committeeman. One of his converts was a Springfield legislator, Abraham Lincoln.
This first partnership of the political convention system would have many imitations in the future century. Although Lincoln had closer mentors, Judd performed the tactical, nuts-and-bolts maneuvers that would be critical in convention politics.
Joseph Medill, a founder of the Chicago Tribune, was a cranky Ohioan who used his young newspaper to chart his version of the Republican gospel, which publicly condemned slavery and privately was committed to the transfer of political power from the East and South to the North and West. He would be pivotal to Lincoln’s nomination, but the most critical factor for 1860 was its site.
In the late 1850s, Chicago already was a city on the make. It was a muddy mess of wooden cabins and swampy gullies. Lake Michigan often was higher than the new city’s streets, and waste lolled back and forth along the Chicago River banks, fouling the air and the drinking supply.
No one drank much water anyway. The city already had as many commercial structures dedicated to serving whiskey as it did for the booming businesses of real estate, livestock, lumber, grain and railroads.
Most of all, it had a lot of whorehouses. Just north of the river was an area called the Sands where the most tawdry harlots set up shop. There were gambling houses everywhere, sponsoring dog fights and cock fights and betting on all things imaginable.
Chicago had 60 hotels in 1850, the Sherman House and the six-story Tremont House on Lake Street being the most elegant. These were hangouts for entrepreneurs who had come west to leave their mark and ultimately their names on the Chicago landscape.
Chicago, where wolves were still shot after dusk and elk haunches from nearby prairies hung on the porches of meat shops, was about to become main stage for the political drama of 1860.
The White House occupants of the 1850s: James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and the obscure Millard Fillmore, the most pallid trio in American history. The constant shuffling of party affiliations provided them no political base, and the great debate on the slavery question took place in the Congress. It was there that Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois emerged as the most dynamic politician in the country during the 1850s.
Douglas had moved in 1833 from New York to Illinois, where he became the founder of the state Democratic Party.
He was a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1852. Again in 1856, he was considered a strong possibility, but he was too closely identified with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had caused a swarm of defections among anti-slavery Democrats in New England and other Northern states.
In 1858, he ran for a third Senate term and guaranteed his place in American history–not as the first Chicago Democratic boss, nor as the leading shaker and mover of the tumultuous 1850s, but as the man who thought it might be a good idea to debate Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln spoke at the first Republican National Convention in 1856 and was well received. He spoke in a plain, logical fashion that contrasted favorably with the bombastic, lengthy oratorical style of the era. He was placed in nomination for the vice presidency but did not seriously compete for it.
His heart was set on the U.S. Senate, where the nation’s destiny was being debated. On June 16, 1858, the Republicans gathered in Springfield to choose a senatorial candidate. “Long John” Wentworth, finishing his second term as mayor of Chicago and later to serve six terms in Congress, was contending for the nomination. Wentworth owned and edited the Chicago Democrat, so it was no surprise that Medill and the Tribune were vigorously supporting Lincoln. At the convention Lincoln set forth the principle that would lead the nation to war in a speech that overwhelmed any opposition to his 1858 Senate nomination:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved–I do not expect the house to fall–but I do expect it will cease to be divided.”
The 1858 Senate campaign, a dress rehearsal for the 1860 presidential battle, began July 9 when Douglas spoke on the balcony of the Tremont House to a crowd estimated at 30,000 by the Chicago Democrat and 12,000 by the Chicago Tribune. Lincoln spoke the next night from the same balcony, and the Tribune, perhaps not quite as objective as modern journalism standards might dictate, declared that Lincoln had “demolished Douglas, knocked him higher than a kite.”
Douglas turned the debates, held around the state, into race-baiting sessions, forcing Lincoln to clarify his opposition to slavery: It was based on his belief that it was totally inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence, not from any conviction in total racial equality. In the Charleston debate he said, “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality.”
In November the Republicans carried Illinois by 4,000 votes, but the curious apportionment of legislative districts allowed Democrats to hold on to a majority of the state House, which then elected U.S. senators, so Douglas captured his third term. But Lincoln had become a national political figure, although no one was talking much about him as presidential material.
In December 1859, an event happened that would make it possible. Medill and the Tribune had been waging a campaign to get the Republicans to choose Chicago for the 1860 convention. Even in the earliest days of political conventions, the major parties understood their tactical significance. They usually chose sites in states they believed they could win or those they believed were critical to the election.
That December the Republican National Committee met at the Astor Hotel in New York, and Norman Judd, tutored by Medill, pointed out that Chicago had far more hotels and railroads than Indianapolis (then a front-runner) and that it would ensure a Republican victory in Illinois in 1860. And, in keeping with a political tradition as American as a stolen vote, he lied. Illinois, he said, had no presidential candidate of its own.
But that was his only fib. Chicago, indeed, was far more suited to host the Republican convention than any other western city.
By 1860, Chicago’s population had topped 100,000 and the city had all sorts of hotels. It had gourmet dining, theater, opera, sporting events and–despite Long John Wentworth’s sporadic police raids–bars and brothels. In short, Judd could offer the budding Republicans everything they wanted for a convention. And he also planned to give them a candidate.
In that winter of 1859, the only candidate the Republican Party had or seemed to need was Sen. William Seward of New York, who today would have been referred to as the presumptive nominee.
The earnest business of finding the candidate who would win began in January 1860. Judd and Judge David Davis of Bloomington, Lincoln’s chief mentor, met secretly in Springfield with Lincoln, who was doubtful about his chances but agreed they could start to work in his behalf. Lincoln was most concerned with Republican opposition in Illinois. He reasoned that he would have no chance at all if it appeared the party in his own state was not unified behind him. Judd reported the meeting to Medill.
Medill had not originally been impressed with Lincoln, but the debates changed his mind and, after his meeting with Judd, the Chicago Tribune became for the next year the unofficial campaign newsletter for Abraham Lincoln.
On March 15, 1860, the Tribune declared forthrightly if not entirely candidly: “Mr. Lincoln is our candidate. He has been so from the beginning and will be so until the convention takes from us the right as partisans to press his claim.”
In April the Democrats met in convention in Charleston, S.C., and could not agree on a candidate. The Southern pro-slavery Democrats would not accept Douglas, and the Northern faction would accept no one else. The party was split and Republican victory in November all but guaranteed.
The Republican convention was scheduled for May 16. Lincoln’s brain trust managed to set the state convention for the previous week so the impact of its unanimous endorsement of his candidacy would fall on the eve of the national gathering.
The actual political strategies for winning the presidency were the same then as now. And the personal ambitions, lofty and venal, of major delegation leaders were inseparable from backroom intrigues.
The Seward crowd jammed the opening session. It cheered every mention of Seward’s name, and it seemed the first convention stampede was well under way.
Indiana, with 26 delegates, was critical. Henry Lane, the Hoosier gubernatorial candidate, was certain he would lose with Seward at the top of the ticket. State party boss Caleb Smith wondered what was in it for him if Indiana went with Lincoln. Tribune editor Charles Ray returned to the Tremont and reported with elation to Medill that he had helped persuade the Hoosiers to vote for Lincoln on the first ballot. “We are going to have Indiana for Old Abe, sure,” Ray reported. Medill wanted to know what convinced the Indiana leaders. “By the Lord, we promised them everything they asked.”
Actually, the Lincoln operatives had been very persuasive reminding the Hoosiers that Lincoln had lived in their state for 14 years and would be a popular choice. That was an impressive argument. More impressive was the promise that Caleb Smith would be secretary of interior and that one of his henchmen, William Dole, could have the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Sold.
Other political forces were at work to help Lincoln emerge as the compromise. Gov. Edwin Morgan of New York, for example, had no love for his state’s standard carrier, Seward.
Ray wired Lincoln, “A pledge or two may be necessary when the pinch comes.”
Lincoln, suddenly fretful about future commitments, wired Davis, “Make no contracts that will bind me.” Davis and the horse traders paid no attention to their candidate’s admonitions. Nor, probably, did Lincoln expect them to. But his telegram provided, in modern political jargon, deniability.
On Thursday night, the Seward champagne flowed more freely than ever.
But other Republicans were not ready to give up. Gov. John Andrews of Massachusetts made the hotel rounds, visiting with delegations from Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He reaffirmed that New England was bound to Seward on the first ballot but wanted a November victory more than a Seward candidacy and would switch on later ballots if a compromise choice emerged.
That opening sent Davis and his cronies into a flurry of visits with delegates from New Jersey, Ohio and the now vital Pennsylvania bloc. When Davis, a 300-pound hulk, came lumbering down the steps of the Tremont about 3 a.m. Friday, May 18, he spotted Medill in the lobby. Medill asked if Pennsylvania was still sitting on a fence. “Damned if we haven’t got them,” Davis said. “How did you get them?” Medill asked. “By paying their price.”
Ray later arrived at the Tremont and told Medill that Sen. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania had been promised a Cabinet position. “What have you agreed to give Cameron?” Medill asked. “The Treasury Department,” Ray replied. “The Treasury Department? Good heavens, what will be left?” Medill remarked, startled that Cameron, who had a reputation for using office to make friends wealthy, would have the keys to the mint.
The nominations began at 10 a.m. Friday, May 18, 1860.
One practice of those early conventions that sadly did not survive to the modern era was the brevity of nominating speeches. William Evarts of New York nominated Seward in 26 words. Judd rose and used 27 to place Lincoln’s name before the convention.
Far more important than his terse statement was his planning, which resulted in a packed gallery that erupted with a mighty salute for Lincoln.
On the third ballot Lincoln’s total climbed to 231 1/2, only two votes shy of nomination. Medill, who had shaken off the seizure of morality he displayed on learning that the unscrupulous Cameron had been promised the Treasury Department, turned to Judge David Cartter, head of the Ohio delegation. If Ohio switched to Lincoln, “Chase can have anything he wants,” Medill said of the state’s governor, Salmon Chase. “How do you know?” Cartter asked. “I know and you know I wouldn’t promise if I didn’t know,” Medill said.
Cartter, who stuttered, was recognized and stood: “I arise, Mr. Chairman, to announce–the–change–of–four votes–from Mr. Chase–to Mr. L-L-Lincoln.”
Lincoln had been nominated.
The Democrats had split, the Southerners nominating John Breckinridge of Kentucky and the Northern group finally giving their nod to Douglas. But the election was a foregone conclusion. Lincoln carried almost all the North and won 40 percent of the popular vote.
Now, Lincoln–who had asked his political backers after the convention, “Where do I come in? You seem to have given everything away”–set about keeping promises. Caleb Smith indeed got the Interior Department, but the perceptibly corrupt Cameron was shifted to the post of secretary of war. Medill’s promise that Chase could have anything he wanted was fulfilled with the Treasury job, and Seward was given secretary of state. In exchange for New England’s second ballot switch to Lincoln, Gideon Welles of Connecticut was made secretary of the Navy.
Judd was terribly disappointed. He had wanted the Interior post, but Judge Davis had traded it off to Indiana and insisted that Lincoln give it to Smith. A deal was a deal and besides, Davis didn’t want his stature as Lincoln’s mastermind undermined by Judd. Judd later became minister to Prussia, not exactly a plum.
Medill, who fretted in the Tribune over the Cabinet selections, was no shrinking violet on the question of patronage. The Chicago postmastership was being sought by several Lincoln supporters, and the Tribune wanted its chief editor, John Locke Scripps, to get the job.
Medill wrote to Sen. Lyman Trumbull: “If Mr. Scripps had the office, the country postmasters of the Northwest would work to extend our circulation, and while this would greatly help our firm, it would also benefit the party and promote the legitimate produce of our paper. You see that the effect would be vastly more beneficial to us than to any individual and in our hands can be made greatly useful to the Republican cause.” Scripps was appointed.
Lincoln was the first Republican elected to the White House, and his historic presidency solidified the GOP well into the 21st Century. From 1860 to the present, the Republicans have won 21 of the 33 national contests; eight of their presidents were nominated in Chicago.
The year 1860 and the state of Illinois would cast a long shadow on all subsequent political events in America in ways large and small. On March 19, 1860, only a few days after Medill risked the future of the Chicago Tribune on Lincoln’s candidacy, an infant boy was born in Salem, Ill. His name was William Jennings Bryan.
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THE SERIES
SUNDAY: 1860
Favorite son Abraham Lincoln becomes the man to save the Union.
MONDAY: 1896/1920
Passionate speeches and smoke-filled rooms.
TUESDAY: 1932
Franklin Roosevelt displays a mastery of convention tactics.
WEDNESDAY: 1952
Television puts voters in the middle of the action.
THURSDAY: 1968
A tumultuous convention marks the end of political machine power.
FRIDAY: 1996
Powerbrokers give way to media spinmeisters.
