His nomination also made necessary some slight changes in Mr. Lincoln’s daily life.  His law practice was transferred entirely to his partner, and instead of the small dingy office so long occupied by him, he was now given the use of the Governor’s room in the State-house, which was not needed for official business during the absence of the Legislature.  This also was a room of modest proportions, with scanty and plain furniture.  Here Mr. Lincoln, attended only by his private secretary, Mr. Nicolay, passed the long summer days of the campaign, receiving the constant stream of visitors anxious to look upon a real Presidential candidate.  There was free access to him; not even an usher stood at the door; any one might knock and enter.  His immediate personal friends from Sangamon County and central Illinois availed themselves largely of this opportunity.  With men who had known him in field and forest he talked over the incidents of their common pioneer experience with unaffected sympathy and interest, as though he were yet the flat-boatman, surveyor, or village lawyer of the early days.  The letters which came to him by hundreds, the newspapers, and the conversation of friends, kept him sufficiently informed of the progress of the campaign, in which personally he took a very slight part.  He made no addresses, wrote no public letters, held no conferences.  Political leaders several times came to make campaign speeches at the Republican wigwam in Springfield.  But beyond a few casual interviews on such occasions, the great Presidential canvass went on with scarcely a private suggestion or touch of actual direction from the Republican candidate.

It is perhaps worth while to record Lincoln’s expression on one point, which adds testimony to his general consistency in political action.  The rise of the Know-Nothing or the American party, in 1854-5 (which was only a renewal of the Native-American party of 1844), has been elsewhere mentioned.  As a national organization, the new faction ceased with the defeat of Fillmore and Donelson in 1856; its fragments nevertheless held together in many places in the form of local minorities, which sometimes made themselves felt in contests for members of the Legislature and county officers; and citizens of foreign birth continued to be justly apprehensive of its avowed jealousy and secret machinery.  It was easy to allege that any prominent candidate belonged to the Know-Nothing party, and attended the secret Know-Nothing lodges; and Lincoln, in the late Senatorial, and now again in the Presidential, campaign, suffered his full share of these newspaper accusations.

  [Sidenote] Lincoln to Edward Lusk, October 30, 1858.  MS.