The madness of the crowd for railsplitting!  The log-cabin tradition!  Genius and statesmanship have been set aside for a popular symbol, railsplitting.  A party of moral ideas has reverted to claptrap.  These are the bitter comments of Seward’s beaten army.  Then there are curses for Greeley.  Greeley has avenged Seward’s lifetime enmity.  He has slaughtered the great man of the party.  Why?  The old traitor wants Douglas elected.

CHAPTER LXI

The press comments of the country on Lincoln’s nomination were exceedingly conflicting.  He was written of as the man whom Douglas had beaten two years before, and without other distinction; as lacking in culture, in every way inferior to Seward; as a whangdoodle stump speaker of the second class, and without any known principle.  What is this talk of Old Abe Lincoln, Old Uncle Abe, Honest Abe Lincoln?  Was he not a log roller in the Illinois legislature of 1836?  Had he not been driven from position to position by Douglas in the debates?  What is honest about him above other men?  Why a nomination on the strength of a deceiving nickname?  Is he not for the tariff and loose construction?  Has he not been a Whig with all the humbuggery of that party, of log cabins and imperial practices?

The Republican press was more favorable.  He was hailed as a man of the people, sprung from the people.  On a hurried visit with Douglas, he told me that Lincoln was as able as any man the Republicans had, abler far than Seward; and of great integrity, though he loathed Lincoln’s political faith.  “I’ll carry nearly every northern state against him,” said Douglas.  “The Union must be saved.  I know the South.  They will secede if Lincoln is elected.  It’s utter madness of them to think of this; but mad they are.  We must handle them accordingly.  Wall Street, New York, is afraid of Lincoln.  They don’t want their business disturbed by secession or even by a hostile South.  Cotton is that strong.”

Douglas was full of fight and energy.  He intended to canvass the entire country.  He was going into the South to point out the dangers of a divided country.  “They are terribly mad at me down there.  But I have never feared an audience yet.  I intend to face them—­and win them.”

No Presidential nominee had ever made a speaking tour before.  Lincoln stayed quietly in Springfield.  Seward made a speaking campaign, traveling on a special train.  At Springfield he stayed in his car and did not show Lincoln the courtesy of calling upon him.  Lincoln, without standing on any pride, went to see Seward, edging his way through the crowd to the car.