A number of states had scheduled elections for state offices in advance of the federal Election Day, and the Republican victories in the northern states – in particular Pennsylvania, which the Democrats had carried in the 1856 presidential election – indicated the strength of the Republicans there and increased the likelihood that they would win the presidency. The stock market was trending lower through October but recovered some at the end of the month.
The climax of the Republican campaign in New York City on the Friday evening before the Tuesday election featured an address by Senator Seward, candidate Lincoln’s best-known proxy, in the Palace Garden, a venue for entertainment located on the north side of Fourteenth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues that included a hall measuring 50 by 200 feet. The hall was decorated with flags and posters with the names of Republican candidates. The following quotation from Henry Clay appeared at the back of the stage: “As long as God allows the vital current to flow through my veins, I will never, never, never, by word or thought, by mind or will, aid in admitting one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of human bondage” – words spoken during the debate that preceded the Compromise of 1850. The hall was filled to overflowing, and on three speaker stands outside, orators addressed the many who had not been able to gain entry. Inside, the crowd pressed together, as the New York Times described, “until the undulating surface of sweltering heads resembled a vast measure crammed with well-ripened fruit.” When Senator Seward appeared, he was greeted by “thunders of applause”.
Senator Seward began by extolling the metropolis New York City had become, emphasizing that the greatness and prosperity of the city was linked to the greatness and prosperity of New York state. He contrasted that greatness with the comparative modesty of the city, state, and nation at the turn of the century when the African slave trade still existed and the influx of African Negroes that dissuaded white immigrants from coming to the United States. When he used the phrase “irrepressible conflict”, the crowd responded with “tremendous cheering”. The opportunity to abolish slavery, he continued, was available to all thirteen states, but only seven had adopted that “wise…the pious policy”. Over the course of sixty years, the city, the state, and the nation grew and prospered. “What remains”, he continued, “is to consider what is needful to secure that future for the city, as well as for the country for which you as well as myself are necessarily and naturally and justly so ambitious.” The answer was
to leave things to go on just exactly as they have gone on hitherto; to leave slavery to be gradually, peaceably circumscribed and limited hereafter, as it has been hitherto, and to leave the increase of our own white population, and the increase by foreign immigration to go on just exactly as they are already going on, and to leave the canals and railroads in full operation as they are, and to leave your systems of education and toleration to stand on the basis on which they now rest. There, if you please, is what I understand by republicanism. I do not know what complexion it wears to your glasses, but I do know that men may call it black, or green, or red, but to me it is pure, unadulterated republicanism and Americanism.
Senator Seward said, “That is the whole question in this political canvass. There is no more.” If elected, President Lincoln and a Republican Congress would leave slavery where it was and leave freedom where it was – keeping freedom in the United States and in “every foot and acre of the public domain”.
In contrast to the states that had embraced freedom and grown large and prosperous, the states that retained slavery had not prospered to the same extent. The slave states, Senator Seward observed, blamed that failure on not being able to extend slavery into the territories (as noted above), and to enable this expansion they demanded the reopening of the African slave trade. Furthermore they threatened to secede and dissolve the union if their demands were not met. Senator Seward then explored the arguments for secession and concluded they were not reasonable. He considered the effects of secession and determined they would be more harmful than helpful to the slave states. He finished by saying:
I do not doubt but that these southern statesmen and politicians think they are going to dissolve the Union, but I think they are going to do no such thing; and I will tell you in a very few words why. He who in this country thinks that this government and this constitution can be torn down, and that this Union of states can be dissolved, has no faith – first, in the constitution; he has no faith in the Union, no faith in the people…of the Union…I am not unwilling to see the members of that class of the American people brought up, so that we may see them altogether. For my part, I, on the contrary, have faith in the constitution, faith in the Union, faith in the people…of the Union, faith in freedom, faith in justice, faith in virtue, and faith in humanity. The constitution and the Union have stood eighty years only upon the foundation of such a faith existing among the American people. It will stand and survive this presidential election, and forty presidential elections after; aye, I trust a hundred and a thousand, because the people, since the government was established, have grown wiser, more just, humane and virtuous than they were when it was established.
The New York Times reported “Long and enthusiastic cheering.” Afterward the Republican Glee Club sang “Dixie”, and Old Abe’s Choir sang “Ain’t we glad Abe’s going to the White House?” The meeting adjourned, and the spectators joined the Wide Awakes in the street for the honor of escorting Senator Seward back to the Astor House. The procession moved through the streets with banners, badges, torches, and transparencies.
The same Friday evening was the climax in New York City of the of the Fusion Party – the New York supporters of Senator Douglas, Vice President Breckinridge, and Mr. Bell who had joined to oppose the election of Mr. Lincoln. The three speakers were Democratic politicians from New York, Mississippi, and Ohio. They called the Republicans a party of abolitionists who had blinded and misled the voters as they rose to power. They stated that the Constitution and the government were neither antislavery nor proslavery, and they denied the propriety of the antislavery Republicans imposing their beliefs upon the slave states. They expressed the belief that if Mr. Lincoln were elected the following Tuesday, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina would secede from the union. And they stated that if the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln “was to be the inauguration of the principles of the Republican Party”, then every southern state ought to withdraw immediately from the union. Thus the union was in danger, and they called upon the people of New York “to roll back the tide of fanaticism that threatened to overwhelm the country, and to save the Union from destruction.” The meeting broke up with nine cheers for the Fusion ticket.
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