[Music] the only house the Lincoln's ever owned stood on the corner of 8th and Jackson streets in downtown Springfield Lincoln scraped together $1,200 to buy it in 1844 here Abraham and Mary would live for the next 17 years share the everyday routines of married life raise a family he moved quickly from living literally in log cabins to living in a house which by any standards represents the upper middle class of mid 19th century America I mean this is a guy who once he left the Prairie once he got out of New Salem he never went back [Music] Abraham Lincoln was certainly unschooled in the social niceties sometimes his shirts didn't match or his trousers were too short and she groomed him in terms of his appearance with one thing in mind that he should physically live up in his appearance to the greatness of his mind [Music] nine months after their wedding their first child Robert Todd Lincoln was born the second son Edward came three years later Lincoln now talked to calling Mary Mother he was a father which was very important to him he found love and affection with merit a daughter how can one minimize the significance of finding love and affection from somebody and be able to love somebody as well as be loved in return he became a different man after his marriage he didn't have to worry about his place in society he didn't have to worry about courtship he didn't have to worry about getting along with women he could concentrate on the things that he did best which was the man's world of politics Lincoln continued to build his reputation as a politician while his work as a lawyer spread his name across the state he rode the circuit from County Courthouse to County Courthouse getting to know voters all across Illinois and picking up clients wherever he could find them he liked to get out among the people and he liked the art form of being a trial lawyer of getting into a county seat the night before the case was to be heard meeting with clients one or two law books very few pieces of stationery in ink and doing up a case very quickly and effectively in fact he became so good at being a lawyer that he was referred cases by lawyers who lived in these county seats you go to the tavern the night before the case was to be heard is maybe a fire going in the fireplace the food was dismal you had four or five lawyers to a bed three beds to a room there was a comradery this was a very male oriented culture and Lincoln loved that at night he would swap stories with the other lawyers while the townspeople looked on laughing no one made them laugh harder than Lincoln his favorite jokes were ones which made him look bad or foolish or jokes about his ugliness jokes about his height he might say well I guess you wonder why I'm here and I said remember wonder myself why I'm here and I reminded of the days back in Indiana when I was out shopping wood in the forest and a woman came by her horse and she stopped as she looked at me and said my you are the ugliest man I ever saw and I said well ma'am there isn't a lot I can do about it and she said well you could have stayed at home [Music] he liked to make people laugh and apparently he always laughed as loud as anybody by the fact that he was the funniest storyteller around he was also a very gloomy man Lincoln told stories a friend said to whistle away the sadness he was often withdrawn given to spells of depression which he called the hypo depression separates you from other people in profound ways it it's lonely it's isolating and Lincoln's use of humor was an effective way to fight that to fend it off it was a deeply human kind of humor that connected with people that deepened the bonds in whatever audience he found himself and for him it was vital to whistle off sadness because it helped keep the depression at bay well Lincoln rode the circuit Mary stayed home with the children where she found it hard going without her husband she was haunted by fears of burglars dogs lightning storm she suffered from blinding headaches migraines that sent her to bed for days whenever Lincoln left Mary she experienced his abandonment pure and simple she desperately yearned for him to be more available than he was now for the most part in the early years of their relationship he did seem to meet most of those needs in her when he could Lincoln tried to calm her running home from his law office during the lightning storms that's so disturbed her but he was incapable of giving her everything she needed he was not a demonstrative man she once said when he felt most deeply he expressed the least [Music] everybody liked him no one was particularly close to him so that his law partner who sat in the law office with him every day for 16 years when it was all said and done asked about it said Lincoln was the most shut mouth man I ever knew and Mary blurted everything out she blurted out in letters to her friends she talked and talked and talked I think Mary desperately earned to have him there every moment and yet in her own confusions when he was there she would often get incredibly frustrated with his withdrawal [Music] Lincoln never lost sight of his political career and in 1844 when a group of Whigs invited him to speak in Indiana he accepted but this would be more than a political journey it would be a journey back into his past [Music] Lincoln's boyhood home was not very far from Springfield but he had never gone back as if he were afraid to revisit the scene of his mother's death now 35 years old lawyer legislator husband and father he felt he was ready Lincoln never pretended to be a poet but flooded by painful memories he tried to turn his feelings into verse near 20 years have passed away since here I bid farewell to woods and fields and scenes play and playmates loved so well the friends I left that parting day now changed as time has sped young childhood grown strong manhood gray and a half of all are dead arranged the fields with pensive tread and paste the hollow rooms and feel companion of the dead I'm living in the tombs Lincoln was discovering that language could help him confront his darkest nightmares all his life he would wrestle with words struggling first to give expression to his own feelings and then to those of his fellow countrymen now if you should hear anyone say that Lincoln don't want to go to Congress I wish you would tell him you have reason to believe he is mistaken the truth is I would like to go very much in 1846 Lincoln ran for Congress and was elected as a Whig to the House of Representatives at last he had arrived sometime that year the new congressman and his wife proudly sat for their first photographs Lincoln was 37 married 28 he is dressed up to have his picture taken because he is a man of importance and yet you look at him and you still say this is a pretty rough character I'm not sure how far he can go would you take a look at those eyes and you say ah he thinks he's going somewhere and he's really very pleased with himself his hair is slicked down on his head he would ever stay there more than five minutes but just long enough for this photograph you have the feeling that Mary had a brush with her right before this picture was taken and she pushed it down so far that it doesn't even look like him she looks very well put together she looks stylish there's an affectionate look on her face there is a sensual quality to the way she's looking out at the world she's dressed perfectly in silk in lace this is a woman who's established herself you get the feeling that they've come somewhere together he had been elected to the Congress he was moving on to national politics and beware world we're coming in 1847 congressman elect Abraham Lincoln his wife Mary and their sons Robert and Eddie arrived in the nation's capital the city was alive with excitement stood Azal a provincial couple lectures and plays concerts by the marine bane with his 50,000 people more than 3000 of them slaves Washington was the largest city either of them had ever lived in all four Lincoln's moved into a single large room in the crowded boardinghouse and Lincoln began his career as a congressman if you look at the congressional directory that he filled out himself during his only term in Congress they have a section that says education and he wrote in defective but Lincoln was in his element delighting in cloakroom politics learning how Washington worked sending home more than 7,500 copies of his speeches carefully addressing every envelope by hand politics were his life his law partner remembered newspapers his food and his great ambition his motive power he delighted in politics he reveled in it as a fish dozen water as a bird to sports himself on the sustaining air [Music] but while Lincoln flourished Mary found only disappointment she had come to Washington a friend said hoping to loom largely but with her husband away all day she was left alone with two small Restless noisy boys most wives just stayed at home especially for a first term congressman before you was sure how things were going to turn out but Mary was determined to come along and they ended up in a boarding house with a lot of other crusty old politicians and it was a very difficult time for her she realized it nobody was gonna make a fuss over her husband and what was she going to do with these two children one was barely an infant confined to a boardinghouse with nowhere to entertain and nothing to do Mary consoled herself by shopping sometimes spending too much she had this habit of living beyond her means of spending rather recklessly and of having a very slippery regard for debts and she was keeping it from her husband after just three months she packed her bags took the boys and went back to her family home in Kentucky with Mary gone Lincoln lost himself in national politics but no one in Washington paid any attention to his speeches or his proposals he was frustrated and lonely dear Mary in this troublesome world we are never quite satisfied when you were here I thought you hindered me summon attending to business but now to have a nothing but business it has grown exceeding the tasteless to me I hate to stay and sell rule by myself my dear husband I feel wearied and tired enough to know that this is Saturday night our babies are asleep how much I wish instead of writing we were together at this evening I feel very sad away from you what did Bobby and Eddie thinking little letters father sent them don't let the Blessed fellows forget father do not fear the children have forgotten you I was holy jesting even Eddie's eyes brighten at the mention of your name My dear wife last Wednesday pH hood and company done me for a little bill of five dollars and 38 cents and Walter Harper and company another four $8.50 for goods which they say you bought I hesitated to pay them because my recollection is that you told me there was nothing left unpaid kiss and love the dear Rascals affectionately a Lincoln in the fall of 1848 Lincoln set out for New England to help whip up support for the Whig candidate for president general Zachary Taylor [Music] Mary and the boys came along too they toured Massachusetts in New York then set out to see Niagara Falls there Lincoln still experimenting with words tried to describe his feelings Niagara strong and fresh today is 10,000 years ago the mammoths and mastodons now so long dead that fragments are their monstrous bones alone testify that they ever live have gazed on Niagara Lincoln attempted Rhapsody ah Niagara Falls all about this torrential water and the turbulence in the excitement was his all pretended in that long long time never still for a single moment never dry never froze never slept never rested he broke off in the middle of it this was clearly not his thing Lincoln never finished his meditation he was still learning how to write still falling short of the mark still searching for his own voice Zachary Taylor was elected president on November 7th and four months later took the oath of office Lincoln went to the inaugural ball but his own term in Congress had expired the day before [Music] Lincoln his one term in Congress was a learning experience that's about all you could say from it it had no concrete accomplishments he thought pretty much that his political career was dead Lincoln had promised to serve only one term Illinois was overwhelmingly democratic and the chance to run for the states only Whig congressional seat now went to another wig so what political future could an obscure Illinois ex-congressman have he was depressed and he went home essentially defeated and largely withdrawing from politics for the next few years [Music] the Lincoln's had been home just nine months when they were struck a devastating blow three year old Eddie Lincoln became dangerously ill with tuberculosis for 52 days and nights his parents took turns sitting by his bedside [Music] On February first 1850 Eddie died [Music] very collapsed her father had died the previous summer followed a few months later by her beloved grandmother it took everything out of her and for the first time you began to see the side of her nature that refused to be comforted that refused to accept Mary stopped eating Lincoln even as he grieved reached out to comfort her eat Mary but we must live [Music] it's as though Mary's despair is so total and so complete that it swallows up the capacity for him to grieve as well what you see with Lincoln is not a disappearance of depression but you find that he's able to control the depths to which he sinks ten months after Eddie's death William Wallace Lincoln was born Willie who was to become his mother and father's favorite and seemed an almost miraculous replacement for the boy they had lost Thomas their fourth son was born in 1853 his father nicknamed him tad because his large head and small body reminded him of a tadpole Lincoln was now more deeply involved in the law than he had ever been arguing before the Illinois Supreme Court and earning the largest fees of his life as attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad but he continued to keep up with the old unresolved issue that had now begun to consume the country slavery which had divided America since its beginning was threatening to tear it apart Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law that gave slave owners the right to recapture runaway slaves abolitionists vowed to defy it [Music] as african-americans were hunted down in the north a nice Lavery sentiment group Lincoln's law partner William Herndon an ardent abolitionist remembered constantly urging Lincoln to speak out against slavery but Lincoln believed above all in what he called reason cold calculating unimpassioned reason Billy Lincoln said you're too rampant and spontaneous he hoped that slavery would be ended he believed he would be ended in time but he felt as you couldn't just say let it be done and have slavery ended there was nothing anybody could do about it except to say as Lincoln himself had said that we deplore the institution as the country saved Lincoln continued quietly to practice the law his legal career is flourishing he's doing very well he's getting more respected he's making money and he's happy that that's happening but not really passionately fulfilled by that because his desires are elsewhere and they're not being met by legal success Mary Lincoln was unhappy too her behavior since Eddie's death had become increasingly erratic she fired servant after servant lashed out at neighbors and at her husband Lincoln was often away now sometimes half the year riding the circuit even when he was home he could remain distant and withdrawn the political dreams the Lincoln's had always shared seemed to be going nowhere once when he was reading his newspaper in front of the fire and paid no attention when married twice asked him to bring in more logs she hurled a chunk of wood at his head there are clearly developing signs of Mary's fragility she wants him to be involved in her life to care to attend to her to listen to her and her frustration leads to rage friends noticed that Lincoln now seemed even more tinged by sadness than usual his marriage was troubled and his political career at a standstill his law partner remembered melancholy dripped from him as he walked [Music] he's a man with great aspirations but nothing to show for it yet it was incredibly frustrating for somebody who dreamed of greatness to be nothing in the public realm then the Democratic senator from Illinois Steven a Douglas the man they called the Little Giant changed everything until 1854 despite the fiery disagreements over slavery there was still a fragile balance of power between north and south but on January 23rd of that year Douglass introduced the kansas-nebraska bill in Congress based on what he called popular sovereignty the bill would leave it to the people of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery the South's peculiar institution now threatened to spread with one stroke Douglas had thrown the country into turmoil [Music] Lincoln was arguing a case on the circuit when news reached him that the bill had passed it roused him he said as he had never been before he believed that under the Constitution no one had the right to interfere with slavery where it already existed but it must not be allowed to expand further it was a Kansas Nebraska Act that brought him back on the scene and really got his blood up the South kept saying slavery is a positive good as a positive good it ought to have a right to spread anywhere [Music] Lincoln was saying it's not a positive good it's something that needs to be blocked up something that needs to be stopped he did not favor abolition he did not call to the southern states to end slavery but he said slavery was a morally reprehensible institution which we cannot endorse the first time he's able to connect a major public issue and a large moral question [Music] there's a new tone in his speeches there is a tone of high moral outrage this covert zeal for the spread of slavery I cannot but hate I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself I hate it because it deprives our Republican example of its just influence in the world and especially because it forces so many good men amongst ourselves into an open war with a very fundamental principles of civil liberty criticizing the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there is no right principle but self-interest he spoke out logically he spoke out morally he spoke out emotionally and he found his voice and I think once you make a stand like that something changes inside of you it gives you the strength and the fervor to keep going in 1855 Lincoln now 46 ran for the Senate and lost the following year a new party was formed the Republican Party a party committed to stopping the expansion of slavery Lincoln had to choose either the unproven Republicans for his own Whig party now split over slavery like the country itself Lincoln tastes a political dilemma you can't do anything in American politics he once said unless you're a member of a political party but what party was he going to be a member of you can so easily cut off your political future if you join a party it's going to die within a year if it didn't work you would be lost and yet in the long run the Republican Party was the only place that he felt he could go and he represented principles that he favored that summer when the Republicans nominated the Explorer John C Fremont for president the party at an energetic new member Lincoln campaigned tirelessly for the Republican ticket stumping the state making over 50 speeches Fremont lost but Lincoln's hard work had paid off the former Whig had won a loyal following and made himself one of the most prominent Republicans in the state of Illinois by 1856 Lincoln had earned enough money to add a second story to their home his law practice was booming [Music] 47 years old he now had a new party because he believed in can three boisterous boys the Lincoln's couldn't resist spoiling them giving them the run of the house Mary Lincoln seemed more relaxed as the wife of a successful lawyer and a rising political star she was enjoying the attention that now came her way she was a wonderful hostess she was also a great sounding board and when he would come home at the end of the day they would talk politics he would ask her opinion about this issue or that issue or this personality or that and she would give it because she was his wife she could be straight with him she could be honest with him and they worked as a team politically I think it's important to realize that in Lincoln's political activities Mary was if often unseen a very stalwart supporter she wrote letters for him she gave parties for his political friends she did the very best that she could support him quietly Lincoln was working behind the scenes waiting for his chance to run again for the Senate this time for the seat held by Stephen Douglas himself his chance came in 1858 on June 16th in the capital building of Springfield he accepted his party's nomination in an address he delivered by heart it was the most important speech he had ever made [Music] a house divided against itself cannot stand I believe 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 it will become all one thing or all the other [Music] Lincoln challenged Senator Douglas to a series of debates Douglas reluctantly accepted the two men were renewing an old political rivalry Lincoln had known Douglas for twenty years and had never liked him he just like Steven a Douglas because Douglas wasn't politically successful and he wasn't Douglas got everything he wanted he was elected to everything to George to Congress to Senator and look at Lincoln's record one term in Congress he probably couldn't no one if you tried again defeated for the Senate in 1855 everything that he wanted was always dashed from him just as he's putting the cup to his lips it was a long grueling campaign Lincoln and Douglas each traveled more than 4,000 miles delivering scores of speeches often for two or three hours in a contest that captured the attention of the country Lincoln traveled by regular passenger train mingling with the voters Douglass outfitted his own train with a cannon trailing behind on a flat car to pull in the crowds six-foot-four Lincoln in the five-foot-four Douglas faced each other seven times Lincoln was taking on one of the most powerful men in the center and one of the most skillful debaters in the country their arguments over slavery would define the issue for the whole nation why can't the country endure half-slave and half-free Douglas asked it had 482 years after all I go for the principle of the kansas-nebraska Act he argued the right of the people to decide for themselves it would not do to minimize Douglas a very significant point this is a free country and if the people of Kansas Nebraska all the states choose to adopt the institution of slavery that is their business we should not interfere and impose our moral standard Lincoln countered the douglases reliance on majority rule was morally bankrupt it's as thin as a soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that it's starved to death Lincoln takes Douglass's argument that says that what the people in the territories decide is up to them it's a democracy if they vote for slavery so be it that's majority rule and he says no there's an independent standard of right and wrong that's more important than the majority vote slavery is wrong he believes so much that what the American system was all about was making it possible for other men to rise as he had done but slavery was completely against that a person worked hard they labored and yet the fruits of their labor belonged to somebody else [Music] Douglas tried to trap Lincoln by charging him with coddling the black man are you in favor of conferring upon the Negro the rights and privileges of citizenship he asked Lincoln I am opposed to Negro citizenship in any and every form I believe this government was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever Lincoln's response was clear I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races there is a physical difference between the two which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together on the footing of perfect equality he is not my equal in many respects certainly not in color perhaps not in intellectual or moral endowment but in the right to eat the bread which his own hand earns he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every other man he was deeply ambivalent about the idea of racial equality in America he says over and over and over again he does not believe the races are equal he made a clear distinction I hate slavery on the other hand I cannot I don't know what to do about ending slavery because I can't imagine that black and white can live together as equals in America the racial attitudes of nineteenth-century America among white people were essentially that african-americans were an inferior people this was an attitude that had been handed down since the nation evolved there had always been this sense of African American inferiority because of the color of their skin because they came from a foreign land that was considered a land of barbarism because many people in the northern and western states listen to southerners who said that African Americans would not work unless they were enslaved that they were lazy that they were shiftless that the plantation system was a school for them to civilize them so all of these kinds of stereotypes Lincoln heard and unfortunately Lincoln believed in the middle of October Lincoln took a steamboat down the Mississippi and met Douglas for the seventh debate at Alton Illinois for the last time Douglas would argue that in a democracy the majority rules and once again Lincoln would do his best to refute him the real issue is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong and another class that does not that is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of judge Douglas and myself shall be silent it is the eternal struggle between these two principles right and wrong throughout the world they are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle it reigned as Illinois voters went to the polls on November 2nd the fizzle games and fireworks as Lincoln called them were finally over the outcome would be decided by the state legislators meeting in the Capitol building where Lincoln had accepted his party's nomination the results were as close as they could be Lincoln's Republicans polled 4,000 more votes but Douglass as Democrats control the legislature for the third time in his political career Lincoln lost I feel just like the boy who stubbed his toe I'm too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh still he was glad he had made the race it gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age which I could have had in no other way and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I'm gone Lincoln had lost the election but his debates with Douglas have been reprinted all over the country and he now had a national following he held the middle ground somewhere between the abolitionists and the slaveholders of the south he continued speaking out across the Midwest in Illinois Kansas Indiana Wisconsin and wrote notes for a campaign biography which he introduced with characteristic self-deprecation their way this little sketch there is not much of it for the reason I suppose that there is not much of me there was now talk that he might run for higher office than the Senate Lincoln professed to be astonished just think of such a sucker as me as president he told a reporter although his wife he added was confident he would one day make it to the top then in early 1861 Caen eagerly traveled to New York where he had been invited to speak the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president that year was the popular senator from New York William Seward Lincoln would be speaking on Seward's home ground it was a chance for the Prairie politician to show the eastern leaders of the Republican Party what he could do 1,500 curious people crowded the auditorium at the Cooper Union Institute Lincoln later admitted he was uncomfortable unsure of his audience unsure of himself now this is a man who entered the Cooper Union at night with his host genuinely concerned about the impression that this guy was going to make this tall angular awkward man enclosed that didn't seem to fit him and said things like mr. chairman and and frankly most who were present said that when they first saw link and when he first stood up their initial impression was oh my goodness this would this will never do but when Lincoln began to speak doubts quickly vanished can we while our votes were prevented allow slavery to spread if our sense of duty forbids this then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith led us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it the crowd rose to its feet when he had finished no man one reporter wrote ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience he had proven he was a politician to be reckoned with a serious candidate for president the taste he admitted to a friend is in my mouth [Applause] on May 16th the Republicans gathered in Chicago to pick their candidate for the highest office in the land [Music] [Applause] [Music] in a crowded field of candidates the man to beat with still William Seward Lincoln's own chances seem slim Lincoln's qualifications in 1860 really paled compared to the other leading Republicans his sole experience on the national level had been as a one-term member of the House of Representatives but nothing that would have prepared him for the kinds of responsibilities that he would face his president most people wouldn't have given Lincoln much of a chance at all Lincoln didn't go to Chicago but he saw to it that able lieutenants were on hand determined to snatch the nomination for their man there was this tremendous passion for Lincoln inside the convention hall due in part to some maneuvering by Lincoln supporters they handed out duplicate tickets to make sure there were more Lincoln Heights there than Seward people they hired professional Shriekers as they recalled his leather long Midwesterners to go in there and start screaming for Lincoln's nomination Lincoln felt that his supporters could organize public sentiment on the convention floor and and pull some backroom deals and things like that and carry the day his becoming a president was no accident the wood fairy did not come down from the heavens and annoyed him president and commander-in-chief you just don't become president that way that man who thinks Lincoln sat down and gathered his robes about him waiting for the people to call him as a very erroneous knowledge of Lincoln his law partner remembered he was always calculating always planning ahead his ambition was a little engine that knew no rest to relieve the tension while he waited for the results Lincoln played handball at his home in Springfield on the first ballot Seward held a commanding lead but Lincoln was running ahead of everyone else on the second ballot Seward began losing ground he was considered too extreme in his opposition to slavery Lincoln hoped his own reputation as a moderate would carry the day he had given careful instructions to his supporters my name is new in the field and I suppose I'm not the first choice of very great many our policy then is to give no offense to others leave them in a mood to come to us if they should be compelled to give up their first love that is exactly what happened on the third ballot the Republicans at last united behind one man [Music] the campaign to elect the 16th President of the United States was on his name became known everywhere but even his most ardent admirers were still unsure what he looked like the opposition lampooned his looks and countrified ways but to millions he became known as Honest Abe and the Railsplitter though no one dared call him aid to his face and he never wanted to split rails again weakened by this point was a prominent very prosperous lawyer living in a good house in Springfield well-regarded in Illinois society with some national reputation this was not a humble man of the people out chopping rails well the other thing and there was a good deal of truth to this myth and he was an immensely popular one as well well he went along with it I don't think he initiated it but he did go along with it they brought to the hall actual rails that he supposedly split and he said well I might not have split those rails but I've split a rail in my day [Music] thousands of people came to Springfield to pay Lincoln tribute a parade of floats and marching band glared past his gate candidate towered above the crowd his excited sons hung out the window his wife looked on proudly Mary Lincoln entertained now as never before newspaper men knocked at her door eager to find out all they could about how the Lincoln's live and mrs. Lincoln eagerly showed them the house was neatly without being extravagantly furnished one row an air of quiet refinement pervaded the place there were flowers upon the table pictures upon the walls the hand of the domestic artist was everywhere visible what a pleasant home Abe Lincoln has Mary thrilled to all the attention she was getting she delighted in talking politics with reporters startling some of her husband's political allies by suggesting names for his cabinet she began to conceive of herself in a way that no Victorian political life ever did as an equal partner to her husband as his chief adviser and she went into the presidential election believing this but Lincoln was a very shrewd politician and he had another life that she didn't know about involved with all these politicians talking real strategy the things that really were going to get him elected in the end that June Lincoln's prospects dramatically improved the quarrel over slavery had split the Democrats northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas who continue to champion popular sovereignty Southern Democrats chose John C Breckinridge of Kentucky who argued that slavery should be allowed to spread to the territories there was even a fourth candidate John Bell whose only platform he said was the Constitution with the opposition splintered Lincoln suddenly became the favorite he continued to insist that slavery must not move farther west but pledged he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed [Music] certainly Lincoln was trying to reassure the South that he personally had no intention of interfering with their peculiar institution or their culture or their political power or anything else and yet they were not hearing that let the consequences be what they may set a prominent Georgia editor whether the Potomac is crimsoned in Gore and Pennsylvania Avenue is paved ten fathoms deep in mangled bodies the South will never submit to such humiliation and degradation as the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln to them he was part of an organization the Republican Party that was bent on the destruction of their way of life of their institutions of their culture there were plenty of warnings that if this black Republic and abolitionist and that's what his opponents called him was elected president that it would provoke the southern states to cede all kinds of people were warning that but the Republicans said and thought that they were bluffing Lincoln thought they were bluffing to Lincoln the American Union was a sacred institution it guaranteed every man's right to rise as he had risen he couldn't imagine it disintegrating as Election Day approach Mary admitted to a friend she was tense with excitement fortunately the time is rapidly drawing to a close a little more than two weeks will decide the contest I scarcely know how I would bear up under defeat I trust that we will not have the trial Election Day November 6 Lincoln and his supporters huddled in the State Capitol waiting for news at 1:30 in the morning it came [Music] [Applause] [Music] fifty-one years old with less than a year's formal schooling and Abraham Lincoln had been elected president of the United States but his victory was far from overwhelming [Music] he had pulled just 40% of the popular vote and had failed to win a single slave state while fireworks raced across the Springfield sky southern politicians were already calling for an end to the Union but Lincoln believed in the common sense of his fellow countrymen he meant to be president of all the United States [Applause] as Lincoln stepped out into the street a jubilant crowd of nearly 10,000 called for the president-elect to say something instead just waved I guess I'll go down and tell Mary about when he neared home he stepped up his pace and began to shout Mary Mary we are elected everything for which the Lincoln's had worked now seemed to be theirs [Music] but they could not celebrate for long within 90 days seven southern states would secede threats to kill Lincoln began arriving daily his election had shattered the Union he held sacred and would let loose a whirlwind you
