A Powerful Nineteenth-Century Voting Bloc
How the Eastern Intelligentsia Helped Lincoln Win the White House
Apr 23, 2009
On February 27, 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech at Cooper Union, a private college in Manhattan. This speech led to Lincoln being nominated as the Republican Party's presidential candidate. The Eastern Intelligentsia, a powerful East Coast voting bloc comprised largely of academics, writers, and abolitionists, became ardent Lincoln supporters. The Eastern Intelligentsia ultimately helped the "prairie paradox" become the sixteenth president of United States.
The Prairie Paradox Wows the Eastern Elite
Following the success of his Cooper Union Speech, Abraham Lincoln delivered speeches in four New England states. He had garnered fame as an orator following his 1858 "House Divided" speech and debates with Stephen A. Douglas. During the Cooper Union speech, Lincoln employed the tools he used as a lawyer-- rigorous clarity, strict adherence to facts, and deep research into the debates that shaped the U.S. Constitution. He parlayed these skills into a three-part address in which he argued against the South's desire to extend slavery into the Western territories. Lincoln's main thesis was that the Founding Fathers would not have supported slavery's extension. This would prove to be a winning formula, for the crowd was automatically enamored with the onetime frontier legislator. Now, powerful Easterners wanted to know who this man, who was rumored to be uncouth, ill-clothed, and fond of corny jokes, was. They had realized that he was also brilliant and eloquent, and they wanted more.
Celebrity Endorsements
Many Eastern Republicans were very radical in their anti-slavery views. In fact, they tended to be much more radically opposed to slavery than Lincoln himself was. Still, a vast majority of New England abolitionists, including Congregationalist minister Henry Ward Beecher, who had invited Lincoln to speak in New York, felt that Lincoln was the one candidate who would most likely advance their cause. Beecher was the best-known preacher in America and a devout abolitionist. This initial celebrity endorsement of Lincoln would lead to many others. For example, Beecher's sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe-- author of the incendiary best-selling book Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)-- became a Lincoln supporter.
Perhaps no one helped propel Lincoln to victory more than Horace Greeley, an influential Republican newspaper editor. Greeley took remarks Lincoln had made at Beecher's Brooklyn church and turned them into the political speech Lincoln delivered in Manhattan. Greeley originally supported Edward P. Bates for the presidential nomination. In the general election, however, Greeley voted for Lincoln. (Interestingly, Greeley was often critical of President Lincoln's policies, which Greeley believed to be too moderate.) In November of 1860, many others saw what Beecher and Greeley saw in Lincoln and sent him to the White House via their ballots.
Source:
Various Authors. "A Westerner Woos the East" and "The Eastern Intelligentsia," excerpted from Abraham Lincoln: An Illustrated History of His Life and Times, p. 75. New York: TIME Books, Time Inc., 2009.
