crisis, with a judicial intellect, and above all a man without enemies, whom few envied, and some laughed at for his grotesque humor and awkward manners.  He was also modest and unpretending, and had the tact to veil his ambition.  In his own State he was exceedingly popular.  It was not strange, therefore, that the Illinois Republican State Convention nominated him as their presidential candidate, to be supported in the larger national convention about to assemble.

In May, 1860, the memorable National Republican Convention met in Chicago, in an immense building called the Wigwam, to select a candidate for the presidency.  Among the prominent Republican leaders were Seward, Chase, Cameron, Dayton, and Bates.  The Eastern people supposed that Seward would receive the nomination, from his conceded ability, his political experience, his prominence as an antislavery Whig, and the prestige of office; but he had enemies, and an unconciliatory disposition.  It soon became evident that he could not carry all the States.  The contest was between Seward, Chase, and Lincoln; and when, on the third ballot, Lincoln received within a vote and a-half of the majority, Ohio gave him four votes from Chase, and then delegation after delegation changed its vote for the victor, and amid great enthusiasm the nomination became unanimous.

The election followed, and Lincoln, the Republican, received one hundred and eighty electoral votes; Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat, seventy-two; Bell, of the Union ticket—­the last fragment of the old Whig party—­thirty-nine; and Douglas, of the Northern Democracy, but twelve.  The rail-splitter became President of the United States, and Senator Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, Vice President.  It was a victory of ideas.  It was the triumph of the North over the South,—­of the aroused conscience and intelligence of the people against bigotry, arrogance, and wrong.  Men and measures in that great contest paled before the grandeur of everlasting principles.  It was not for Lincoln that bonfires were kindled and cannons roared and bells were rung and huzzas ascended to heaven, but for the great check given to the slave-power, which, since the formation of the Constitution, had dominated the nation.  The Republicans did not gain a majority of the popular vote, as the combined opposing tickets cast 930,170 votes more than they; but their vote was much larger than that for any other ticket, and gave them a handsome majority in the electoral college.

Between the election in November, 1860, and the following March, when Lincoln took the reins of government, several of the Southern States had already seceded from the Union and had organized a government at Montgomery.  Making the excuse of the election of a “sectional and minority president,” they had put into effect the action for which their leaders during several months had been secretly preparing.  They had seized nearly all the Federal forts, arsenals, dock-yards, custom-houses, and post-offices within their limits, while a large number of the officers of the United States army and navy had resigned, and entered into their service, on the principle that the authority of their States was paramount to the Federal power.