That great national body, the Republican Convention of Chicago, has nominated ABRAHAM LINCOLN as the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and Hannibal Hamlin as a candidate for the Vice Presidency.
Nobly has its work been done. It met in harmony, and in harmony it has acted, all through. No division scattered discord in the Convention—no ill feeling, no jarring, disturbed its proceedings. It looked to the country, and above men; it kept in view the Republic and heeded not party.
The candidates before the Convention were true men.
Two of them, Seward and Chase, were known to every voter as being great and good. Even our enemies will acknowledge their ability, and few among them will deny their integrity. The New Yorker, especially, stood foremost. He was the man of mark. Sagacious, cool, decided, yet liberal, he plead ever, as he will ever plead, for the cause of the Constitution and of humanity; of justice and law; of truth and liberty. Yet of Seward and of Chase, as well as of their friends, may it be said, that none bolder, none truer, will found fighting in the Republican ranks for Lincoln and Hamlin.
Of ABRAHAM LINCOLN we need say but little.
Of all characters, the hardest to describe is the honest man. The warrior has his points. These hit, and the narrator of them can tell in depicting them. The rude disturber of society wakes it up and makes his mark. Men gaze upon him as a meteor, and describe him as they would a meteor. But the true citizen, the just and law abiding man, he who would silently and steadily do what is right, and have it, such a man it is hard to photograph.
Yet precisely such a man is ABRAHAM LINCOLN!
He is of the people. Life, as he breathed it, offered him no advantages. He inherited it and poverty. Yet with that energy inborn in him, with that perseverance which a pioneer experience only could awaken, with that resolve which belongs to genius, he pushed right on, from boyhood up, and ere the man got his place, his comrades, one and all, acknowledged the power was in him to be and to do—to take high rank—to lead and to command in society.
But Lincoln is for the people. Often the hardships of poverty and its fierce struggles, narrow and soil the best of hearts and of minds. It was not so with him. Wise as all admit him to be, he is, as he has always been, child-like in his simplicity. “Good,” is the word applied to him by those who have known him best and longest. “Honest Old Abe,” is the phrase friend and foe apply when speaking of him, at his own home. No difficulties in early life have soured his temper. No contentions have narrowed his liberality. No untoward causes have weakened his love of truth and of justice. On the contrary, when passed mid-age, he stands forth an example of firmness, of virtue, of integrity—of that combination which gives character to the highest and noblest.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN is a pure man, and of course his administration will be pure.
Since Washington’s day, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS stands foremost as among the best of our Presidents. He did his duty and did it nobly and well. LINCOLN will be like the Father of his Country and like ADAMS. We care not how he may be opposed or who may oppose him—we care not what the South may say or threaten; ere his administration closes—for he is certain to be elected—the whole land will applaud his honesty and admire his wisdom, will call him, JUST.
In no hurra impulse; with no idle enthusiasm, without any partisan feeling; or that antagonism which makes the blood flow quickly and strongly, we rejoice, as the people will rejoice, over the nomination of ABRAHAM LINCOLN. It is one fit to be made. It promises, in every way, reform of abuse, executive ability and integrity, justice to the States and to the Nation—full of justice to the West, and the preservation of those liberties which the Constitution guarantees and the fathers sought to secure to themselves and their posterity.