Seward's nomination too hazardous an experiment would consider Chase
unavailable for the same reason. They would then look round for an
"available" man; and among the "available" men Abraham Lincoln was easily
discovered to stand foremost. His great debate with Douglas had given
him a national reputation. The people of the East being eager to see the
hero of so dramatic a contest, he had been induced to visit several
Eastern cities, and had astonished and delighted large and distinguished
audiences with speeches of singular power and originality. An address
delivered by him in the Cooper Institute in New York, before an audience
containing a large number of important persons, was then, and has ever
since been, especially praised as one of the most logical and convincing
political speeches ever made in this country. The people of the West had
grown proud of him as a distinctively Western great man, and his
popularity at home had some peculiar features which could be expected to
exercise a potent charm. Nor was Lincoln's name as that of an available
candidate left to the chance of accidental discovery. It is indeed not
probable that he thought of himself as a Presidential possibility, during
his contest with Douglas for the senatorship. As late as April, 1859, he
had written to a friend who had approached him on the subject that he did
not think himself fit for the Presidency. The Vice-Presidency was then
the limit of his ambition. But some of his friends in Illinois took the
matter seriously in hand, and Lincoln, after some hesitation, then
formally authorized "the use of his name." The matter was managed with
such energy and excellent judgment that, in the convention, he had not
only the whole vote of Illinois to start with, but won votes on all sides
without offending any rival. A large majority of the opponents of Seward
went over to Abraham Lincoln, and gave him the nomination on the third
ballot. As had been foreseen, Douglas was nominated by one wing of the
Democratic party at Baltimore, while the extreme proslavery wing put
Breckinridge into the field as its candidate. After a campaign conducted