{"id":32,"date":"2010-09-01T02:58:48","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T02:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/?p=32"},"modified":"2010-09-01T03:03:21","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T03:03:21","slug":"1860springfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/2010\/09\/01\/1860springfield\/","title":{"rendered":"1860 Election Day in Springfield, Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This entry was originally posted by Don Sailer at Blog Divided<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cannon Salvo that thundered over Springfield, Illinois, to greet the sunrise on November 6, 1860, signaled not the start of a battle, but the end of one\u2026Election Day was finally dawning.\u201d \u2013 Historian Harold Holzer <\/a><\/p>\n

Abraham Lincoln, however, was not one to rush and vote right after the polling places opened in the morning. He apparently waited until 3pm when, as the New York Tribune<\/em> explained, \u201cthe multitude\u2026[had] diminished sufficiently to allow tolerably free passage.\u201d The Tribune<\/em>\u2019s correspondent described <\/a>what happened once the crowd realized that Lincoln had arrived:<\/p>\n

\u201cat that moment he was suddenly saluted with the wildest outbursts of enthusiasm every yielded by a popular assemblage. All party feelings seemed to be forgotten and even the distributors of opposition tickets joined in the overwhelming demonstrations of greeting\u2026there was only one sentiment expressed \u2013 that of the heartiest and most undivided delight at his appearance. Mr. Lincoln advanced as rapidly as possible to the voting table and handed in his ticket, upon which, it is hardly necessary to say, all the names were sound republicans. The only alteration he made was the cutting off of his own name from the top where it had been printed.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Holzer explains<\/a>, \u201cLincoln modestly cut his own name..from his ticket\u201d and \u201cvot[ed] only for his party\u2019s candidates for state and local office.\u201d Later that evening Lincoln went to the local telegraph office, where he waited for reports on election returns from across the country. \u201cAll safe in this state,\u201d as Thurlow Weed<\/a> explained <\/a>from Albany, New York. Simon Cameron<\/a> sent word<\/a> from Philadelphia, Pennsylvanian, while a report<\/a> from Alton, Illinois, noted that \u201c[Republicans] have checkmated [Democrats\u2019] scheme of fraud.\u201d \u201cThose who saw [Lincoln] at the time,\u201d as the New York Times<\/a><\/em> observed, \u201csay it would have been impossible for a bystander to tell that that tall, lean, wiry, good-natured, easy-going gentleman\u2026was the choice of the people to fill the most important office in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This entry was originally posted by Don Sailer at Blog Divided. \u201cThe Cannon Salvo that thundered over Springfield, Illinois, to greet the sunrise on November 6, 1860, signaled not the start of a battle, but the end of one\u2026Election Day was finally dawning.\u201d \u2013 Historian Harold Holzer Abraham Lincoln, however, was not one to rush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1860s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}