Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1898 — LINCOLN’S NOMINATION. [ARTICLE]

LINCOLN’S NOMINATION.

A Chicagoan Give. Inside Information of that Interesting Kvent. A Chicagoan, E. O. Lanphere, gives some inside history as to the nomination of President Lincoln In 1860. Lanphere was .young at the time of that famous convention in Chicago, and was working in the interests of William H. Seward, of New York. “It was pretty . thoroughly understood,” says Mr. Lanphere, “that the vote of Indiana must control the convention. The Republicans had to nominate a man who could carry Indiana. On the morning of the opening of the convention, May 16, matters were still in a very doubtful condition. The friends of Lincoln and the partisans of Seward were declaring that their candidate was the only man in the party who could carry Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illnois. On the morning of the 16th Parker Dresser, a friend of mine and a delegate from Indiana, told me the Indiana delegation was going to hold a caucus in the old court house, which stood where the Rookery Building now .stands. I knew that that caucus would name the next President of the United States, and I was determined to be present. I asked Dresser to help me, and he smuggled me past the doorkeeper, and I laid flat down on a bench at the back of the hall just as the hall opened.” One after another of tne southern Indiana delegates made speeches protesting against the nomination of Seward. They declared that he was entirely too radical, and that it would be Impossible for them to carry their districts for him if he were nominated. At last, according to a preconcerted plan, when sufficient feeling had been aroused, Henry S. Lane, the presiding officer, called Parker Dresser to the chair and took the floor. He began by reciting the weakness of Seward as a party leader and declaring that he could never be elected. “But there is a man,” continued the speaker, “whom we can elect. Nobody can pick flaws in his record. He is honest, he is able, he is the man for us to nominate.” “Hurrah, hurrah, name him,” shouted the delegates. But Lane was skilled in the management of caucuses. He veered away from the name and began again. He spoke of his candidate as a self-made man, a man of the people. “He Is not from our State, but he is a near neighbor of ours,” he said. “He has towed a canal boat up our rivers; he has split rails and hewed logs in Indiana forests.” “What’s his name?” yelled a score of voices. But Lane kept on with his oratory, striking out with his long right arm In gesture, his coat sleeve not much below his elbow. The delegates left their seats and crowded around jthe speaker. 1 “I raised up, too,” says Mr. Lanphere, “and ventured forward with the rest. In the excitement nobody noticed me, an alien in the camp. Lane kept on talking about the rail splitter of the Wabash, but all the while refrained from naming him. At last an old farmer delegate roared. “Well, if you won’t name him we’ll nominate the old railsplitter and elect him anyhow.” “I will name him, gentlemen,” then said Lane; “the man I nominate is honest Abe Lincoln.’ ’ Shouts of applause rang out through the old court house, and in five minutes Indiana had decided to east her twen-ty-six votes for the nomlnation’of Abraham Lincoln.