An Emporian Tells of the Lincoln Nomination in 1860

A brief mention in my recent Founders Day column of the speech in February of 1911 by Addison G. Procter on the nomination of Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention, has elicited such interest and comment that I thought it might be best to elaborate on it further.

Procter, born in Gloucester Massachusetts in 1838, was sent to Emporia by Col. James Blood of Lawrence to manage his Emporia branch store in 1857 shortly after the founding of the town on the Kansas frontier. Only twenty-one years of age, he was the youngest of six Kansans chosen by local party leaders to represent Kansas Territory at the Republican National Convention at Chicago in May 1860.

It was not common to invite voting delegates from the territories to political conventions at that time, but the suffering of “Bleeding Kansas” in opposing the expansion of slavery into the territories caused Republican party leaders to give special attention to the Jayhawkers.

Procter moved from Emporia to St. Louis in 1867, later to Chicago, and he finally retired in St. Joseph, Michigan -- yet he remained in touch with his old friends in Emporia. The news stories of his 1911 Emporia speech suggest that it is similar, perhaps even identical, to the address he gave at the Annual Meeting of the Kansas State Historical Society about fourteen months earlier in December 1909, and published in volume 11 of the “Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society.”

Here, as in the Emporia accounts, he talked about how Senator William H. Seward of New York was popular with the Kansas delegates because of his fight against slavery in the territory and his promotion of Kansas statehood. The Seward forces came to the defense of the Kansas delegates when there was some doubt whether territorial delegates would be allowed to vote.

Thurlow Weed, Seward’s campaign manager, visited the Kansas delegates and was persuasive in supporting his candidate. Procter had no doubt that if the vote had been the first day Seward would have won.

Horace Greeley led the anti-Seward delegates and was joined by the Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Indiana governors who said he could not carry their states. Greeley suggested the Kansans might support Judge Edward Bates of Missouri in order to appeal to the border state delegates, although he was hesitant because Bates was not well known. According to Procter, the lines between the anti- and pro- Seward forces continued to become even more pronounced, but the anti-Seward delegates could not agree on an alternative candidate.

“At this juncture there came to the front, from a source not before taken into consideration, a movement led by the men of the border states. This body of resolute men from Maryland, the mountains of Virginia, from eastern Tennessee, from Kentucky, and from all over Missouri had organized and had selected Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, as leader and spokesman.”

“They were as earnest a group of men as I have ever met. They asked for a conference with us, which we arranged without delay. The Kansas delegation was the first to receive them. It may have occurred to them that Kansas was awake to what was coming, and would more likely appreciate the full force of their logic.”

“The company completely filled our room. There was something about the atmosphere of that meeting that seemed to mean business. Mr. Clay was a man of strong personality. He had all the mannerisms of a real ‘Kentucky colonel‚’ -- courtly, very earnest and very eloquent in address.”

“'Gentlemen, said he, in starting, ‘we are on the verge of a great civil war.’”

“One of the delegates said: ‘Mr. Clay, we have heard that before.’”

“Mr. Clay straightened himself up, and with a real oratorical pose he exclaimed: ‘Sir, you undoubtedly have heard that before; but, sir, you will soon have it flashed to you in a tone that will certainly carry conviction.’”

“He went on: ‘We are from the South. We know our people well. I say to you, the South is getting ready for war! In that great strip of border land reaching from the eastern shore of Maryland to the western border of Missouri stands a resolute body of men, determined that this Union shall not be destroyed without resistance! We are not proslavery men, not antislavery men, but Union Republicans, ready and willing to take up arms for the defense of the border! We are intensely in earnest! It means very much what you do here ˆ much to you, but more to us. Our homes and all we possess are in peril. We want to work with you for a nomination that shall give us courage and confidence! We want you to nominate Abraham Lincoln! He was born among us, and we believe in him! Give us Lincoln for a leader, and I promise you that we will push back the disloyal hordes of secession and transfer for the line of border warfare from the Ohio to the region beyond the Tennessee, where it belongs! We will make war on the enemies of our country at home, and join you in driving secession to its lair! Do this for us, and let us go home and prepare for the conflict.”

Procter said it was impossible to report Clay’s appeal satisfactorily. “It was the most impressive talk that I had ever listened to. It brought us face to face with the grim specter of civil war.”

According to Procter, Clay made the same appeal to other delegations and “its effect was instantly felt. There was a getting together of Lincoln sentiment all along the line. They formed the group around which the earnest Lincoln men rallied and organized their forces. I honestly believe that this was the movement that gave Lincoln his nomination. It was the turning point, for it awoke all to a realization of what was before us, and compelled a recognition of a new element on which might rest great results for good or evil.”

Procter noted that Lincoln’s inexperience in national affairs and in the complications of foreign affairs were concerns, in spite of the fact he was “an adroit politician and wonderful in debate.”

“This conflict seemed more and more to impress us with the great responsibility resting upon us. We simply put our trust in God and He gave us -- Abraham Lincoln! We were building better than we knew.”

Procter concluded that “when, through the succeeding four years of trial, Mr. Lincoln so happily displayed his great ability and complete fitness, we of the convention rested, in the assurance that our work after all was well done.”

Procter also addressed the Chicago Historical Society in April of 1918. This talk, published by the society, has less on the experiences of the Kansas delegation, and is more eulogistic and patriotic in its tone, but otherwise similar to the earlier speeches in content.

Emporia pioneer Addison G. Procter was often a delegate from Michigan at later conventions, and sometimes asked to take a bow. He was the last surviving delegate of the 1860 convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln at the time of his death in 1925.

It is difficult today not to be both envious and proud of those Kansans who were able to hear Addison Procter speak in Emporia or Topeka about the nomination of the Great Emancipator.

 

Last Updated July 2, 2007>