Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [177]
On October 1, en route to Chicago, Seward’s train made a brief stop in Springfield. “There was a rush into and about the windows of the car in which Mr. Seward was seated,” observed a correspondent. Lincoln and Trumbull had waited with the crowd and came aboard to pay their respects. Lincoln “was a revelation,” young Adams recorded in his diary. “There he was, tall, shambling, plain and good-natured. He seemed shy to a degree, and very awkward in manner; as if he felt out of place, and had a realizing sense that properly the positions should be reversed. Seward too appeared constrained.” Adams undoubtedly ascribed his own feelings to Lincoln, who most likely did not feel “out of place” at all.
This was the first time Lincoln and Seward had met since the evening they spent together in Massachusetts in 1848. “Twelve years ago you told me that this cause would be successful,” Lincoln told him, referring to the antislavery crusade, “and ever since I have believed that it would be.”
During their conversation, Lincoln asked Seward if he would be willing in his upcoming Chicago speech to address a certain problematic subject: John Wentworth, now the mayor of Chicago, was continually making references to an argument the party was trying to avoid—that a Republican win would bring an eventual end to slavery altogether. Knowing Wentworth was set to introduce Seward, Lincoln asked the New Yorker to reassure the audience that Republicans “would not interfere with slavery where it already existed.” Seward readily agreed and made it clear in his speech that Republicans were not attacking slavery in the South, that securing freedom for the territories need not interrupt ordinary intercourse with the South. In distancing themselves from Northern abolitionists, the Lincoln team was far more concerned with reassuring Northern conservatives than with conciliating the South.
Seward’s tour came to a triumphant close on October 6. His train pulled into Auburn, where a “noisy throng” gave him a warm welcome home. “Seward, in fact, never appeared so well as at home,” young Adams observed. “He walked the streets exchanging greetings with everyone.” His responses were “all genuine, the relations were kindly, unaffected, neighborly.” Seward’s return created “an impression of individuality approaching greatness.” It was a journey Adams would never forget.
Although Lincoln himself made no public statements or speeches, he labored constantly on his campaign and fully justified Weed’s appraisal of his political acumen. He strove to hold his coalition together, while disrupting efforts of his opponents to unite on fusion tickets. He sent emissaries to his supporters with instructions to solve campaign problems and heal divisions. Indirectly, he sought to clarify his position on important issues without breaking his vow of silence. He rigorously abstained from making patronage commitments. Responding to Senator Trumbull’s suggestion that he make some pledges in New York, Lincoln replied, “Remembering that Peter denied his Lord with an oath, after most solemnly protesting that he never would, I will not swear I will make no committals; but I do think I will not.”
Despite the unremitting, consuming labor of organizing his campaign, Lincoln somehow found time to write a humorous fictional dialogue between Breckinridge and Douglas. He also answered many of the endless letters he received, writing personal, unpretentious replies to supporters and well-wishers of every kind. An author wishing to dedicate his new legal work to Lincoln was answered: “I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect.” In mid-October, he replied to eleven-year-old Grace Bedell, who had recommended that he