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How Two Old Pieces of Wood
Helped to Elect a U.S. President
By Rita Buday
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Richard Oglesby admired his friend Abraham Lincoln and wanted him to be nominated for President at the 1860 Republican National Convention. The front-runner was nationally-known U.S. Senator and former New York Governor William Seward, whose campaign was being run by Thurlow Weed, New York's long-time kingmaker. Weed called in political IOUs, showing delegates The Promised Land of Patronage if they delivered votes for his man.
Seemed like it was all over and done except for the shouting.
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Oglesby was new to politics. He took a hiatus from his Illinois law office to hunt for gold in 1849; returned to his office two years later--no better off. Ran for Congress in 1858; defeated.
Lincoln was known in Illinois as a pretty good country lawyer, though a political lightweight; he was undistinguished as U.S. Congressman 1847-49, but when he made a speech in the House criticizing President Polk for starting the Mexican War, the voters back home called Honest Abe "unpatriotic, a second Benedict Arnold"; said he "pleaded the case of the enemy." (That was said in 1849, not 2006 !) He was not re-elected.
Twice he ran for Senator; twice he learned voters sometimes have long memories; twice he was soundly defeated. The National Convention was coming. Illinois Republicans would soon gather to pick their delegates for that assembly.
The Cooper Union speech and debates with Stephen Douglas, "The Little Giant," brought some national notice, but for Lincoln to have a real chance for the nomination, Oglesby needed "a something"--a something catchy--so Abe's name would come to peoples' minds quickly.
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John Hanks, Lincoln's relative on his mother's side, always said how--30 years ago--he and
Abe cleared twenty acres of forest, built a log cabin, and split the felled trees into fence rails.
Oglesby and Hanks rode out to the old cabin, found the fences still standing, took two of the rails home, and made a sign--"Abe Lincoln The Rail-Splitter for President in 1860." At the State Delegate Meeting, in walked John Hanks with the two fence rails and the home-made sign. The Delegates went wild; Oglesby had found his "something."
People saw Lincoln as another common man, just like them! Illinois Delegates, fired-up for Lincoln, rolled their bandwagon into the National Convention. On the third ballot, "Abe Lincoln the Rail-splitter" swamped Seward to become the Republican nominee.
In the national campaign Lincoln reinforced his country-folk image. He plodded into town on a tired-horse-drawn freight wagon, instead of the gussied-up, flashier coach-and-four favored by most politicians. His tall stovepipe hat and rumpled black suit with pants that never quite reached his ankles hung on him in silent apology.
There was not much to inspire voter enthusiasm--until he started to speak. His speeches were those of a quiet-spoken country lawyer, peppered with bits of humor and a few back-porch anecdotes, always building a strong and stronger legal case for his national jury to consider.
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In the election Lincoln had over 489,000 votes more than his nearest competitor. Thurlow Weed, Seward's political manager, had been out-foxed by Oglesby, a political neophyte.
It was enough to make a man lose his faith in practical politics!
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Richard Oglesby often told this story; he was elected Illinois Governor 1865-69; re-elected Governor in 1873 but was promptly appointed U.S. Senator 1874-70; re-elected Governor again 1885-89. /// William Seward was Secretary of State under Lincoln; later, under Andrew Johnson. Seward was ridiculesd for buying Alaska ("Seward's Folly.")
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