Campaign and Election of 1860 Quotes
Lincoln took the advice of avoiding pledges or promises. However, he did actively campaign.
This newspaper editorial has historical importance for two reasons. First, it is yet another proof that the sole reason for southern secession was slavery. Second, note the implication that Lincoln had Negro ancestry. As that could be the only reason that he would hold his views on slavery. This disreputable tactic of slandering opponents who hold different views have extended to German ancestry in WWI, Catholic religion, communist affiliation, and in one of the more recent examples, the accusation—believed by a number of Americans, that President Obama was a secret Muslim.
Southerners were paranoid that the relatively new Republican party leaders were conspiring to foment slave rebellions. In particular, they believed that the Republican party was behind John Brown’s failed slave revolt at Harper’s Ferry. For many Republicans, Brown’s raid was understandable and even inevitable and moral, but there was no assistance provided to Brown by the Republican party of even members of its leadership. Democrats attacked the Republicans with this charge. There were some strong abolitionists who were Republicans who did believe that violence to end slavery was not only moral but was inevitable due to the intransigence of the South.
The logic of Southern secession made so little sense to most Northerners, that they assumed that after the election, the Southern threats of treason and rebellion would stop. Most Northerners did not appreciate that Southerners had little economic vision absent slavery and could not imagine how they could survive. For the Northerners, they had seen great economic growth with free labor and no slavery. But most Southerners were ignorant of the possibilities except for the few very wealthy Southern families who had seen the North and England. They realized that the South could make it economically, but they whose total fortunes came from the ownership value of slaves, might not be in their exalted positions without slavery. At the time, the value of the Southern slaves was greater than the value of all the land, factories, mines, and farms of the South.
