altogether the confidence in the possibility of success.(2)

This was his attitude during most of 1859. The glow, the enthusiasm, of
the previous year was gone. "I must in candor say that I do not think
myself fit for the Presidency," he wrote to a newspaper editor in April.
He used the same words to another correspondent in July. As late as
November first, he wrote, "For my single self, I have enlisted for the
permanent success of the Republican cause, and for this object I shall
labor faithfully in the ranks, unless, as I think not probable, the
judgment of the party shall assign me a different position."(3)

Meanwhile, both groups of supporters had labored unceasingly, regardless
of his approval. In his personal following, the companionableness of
twenty years had deepened into an almost romantic loyalty. The leaders
of this enthusiastic attachment, most of them lawyers, had no superiors
for influence in Illinois. The man who had such a following was a power
in politics whether he would or no. This the mere politicians saw. They
also saw that the next Republican nomination would rest on a delicate
calculation of probabilities. There were other Republicans more
conspicuous than Lincoln--Seward in New York, Sumner in Massachusetts,
Chase in Ohio--but all these had inveterate enemies. Despite their
importance would it be safe to nominate them? Would not the party be
compelled to take some relatively minor figure, some essentially new
man? In a word, what we know as a "dark horse." Believing that this
would happen, they built hopefully on their faith in Lincoln.

Toward the end of the year he was at last persuaded to take his
candidacy seriously. The local campaign for his nomination had gone so
far that a failure to go further would have the look of being discarded
as the local Republican leader. This argument decided him. Before the