Elections, as the saying goes, have consequences, a truism that is being realized throughout Minnesota and the rest of the country these days.
One of the most consequential elections in American history occurred in 1860 with the selection of Abraham Lincoln as President. It was the final spark that ignited 11 states to secede from the Union, precipitating the Civil War. Minnesota terrain was not impacted during that four-year national blood bath. But the new state, barely 1-1/2 years old at election time that fall, played key roles in the Civil War. It contributed the first militia to the Union after Lincoln’s call for 300,000 soldiers, its gallant 1st Infantry Regiment held the line at Cemetery Hill that turned the tide during the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, suffering 52 deaths there, and it experienced some 2500 casualties of dead and wounded of its 22,600 men who fought for the Union, among the total of 390,000 killed and 275,000 wounded, in addition to the 194,000 Confederate dead and wounded in the War.
Further, the state, St. Paul in particular, played a vital role in Lincoln’s electoral voting, with barely 39.9% of the vote in a four-way contest.
St. Paul Stop
One of the major events during the campaign that resulted in Lincoln’s election was a speech made here in St. Paul by William Seward. A senator from New York and a former governor of that state, Seward was the leading figure in the nascent Republican party and was considered the leading candidate for its presidential nomination before he was surprisingly bested by Lincoln for his party’s nomination.
Following his upset defeat, Seward dutifully took on a role as a spokesperson for Lincoln, who followed the tradition of not personally campaigning himself, although behind the scenes, he undertook a number of political machinations. Meanwhile, his chief opponent in a four-way race, reflective of the divisiveness in the county, fellow Illinois Democrat Stephen Douglas did, in fact, campaign vigorously around in the Northeast and East parts the nation.
It was left to Steward to counteract the Douglas campaign during an election that included a couple of other credible candidates: incumbent Vice President John Breckenridge, heading the southern Democratic wing of the party and John Bell, a Kentuckian, who carried the banner of a newly-formed compromise-oriented Constitution Union party.
It was 165 years ago this fall, September 18, 1860, to be precise, that Seward made one of the key speeches of the campaign, during his so-called “Grand Tour” of cities in what was then referred to as “the West,” now the Upper Midwest, from his home in Auburn, New York. Traveling around the country with a small retinue, Seward hit a number of important cities in crucial “battleground” states of the day beginning in the first week of September and culminating 125 years ago, on October 8th.
One of those was Minnesota, with 172,000 residents, which was casting its first ballots for President following its admission to the Union two years earlier. Commemorating Seward’s speech provides an opportune occasion to review the legal issues concerning his influential oratory and legal lore of the Civil War as it played out and here in Minnesota.
Seward In St. Paul
The leading contender for the Republican nomination in 1860, Seward licked his wounds after losing to Lincoln on the third ballot at the hastily-constructed Wigwam in Chicago in May of 1860. After spending the summer at home, he went back in the Senate, where he had one year left in his term, and there took to the campaign trail for a five week stretch from early September through mid-October on behalf of his onetime rival, who defeated him and secured the nomination because Seward was viewed to be too “radical” for some, whereas Lincoln was viewed as the more conservative Republican candidate on the critical issue of slavery.
Seward, whose outspoken opposition to slavery was characterized by his phrase of an “irrepressible conflict” between free slaves and slave-holding ones, took a bolder stance than Lincoln, who at the time was willing to allow slavery to continue to exist in some border states and the entire South, as long as it was not permitted to expand into other states and territories.
Seward’s “Grand Tour,” which traveled by railroads, boat, horseback, and carriages was widely covered by the media in his day, daily newspapers, publications that were widely consumed by the voting public, which consisted of white males over 21. Seward’s visit to St. Paul came after he made his way from Wisconsin, which followed his initial stop in front of a huge crowd in Detroit.
St. Paul was the largest city in Minnesota at the time, with a population of about 10,000 while across the Mississippi River, Minneapolis was not yet incorporated and was a small but growing outpost known as St. Anthony. Thousands of St. Paulites and others turned out for Seward’s lengthy oration, which replicated ones he had been making on the Tour, although each of them differed a bit, centering around the major theme of combatting slavery.
Seward’s arrival in St. Paul was referred to by a local newspaper correspondent as a “day memorable in the political history of our state.” The physically slight man with a booming voice was greeted by an exuberant crowd, which saw a procession of dancers and other celebrant characters heralding his arrival for a two-hour speech at the front steps of the state Capitol, the state’s second one, which was situated at the intersection on Tenth and Wabasha and Exchange and Cedar Streets, in downtown St. Paul. Costing the princely sum of $31,000 to build, it stood for nearly 30 years until it was destroyed by fire, and ultimately replaced by the current Cass Gilbert designed building, constructed in 1905.
Another newspaperman (they were all men in those days) described Seward’s stem-winder as “the broadest that he gave on his tour,” focusing on the usual themes of the evils of slavery and desire for national reconciliation, sprinkled with homages to types of Westerners like woodsman, trappers, hunters, and traders, who comprised much of the crowd gazing at him on the Capitol steps.
Seward Says
In the first portion of his remarks, Seward praised the “grandeur, the luxuriance, [and] beneficence” of the state, drawing loud applause from the large St. Paul gathering, dubbing the young state as the “freest of all” places.
After noting the “great revival of religion,” he proceeded to address the pressing issue of slavery, saying it was a “complete and absolute failure.”
He called for “absolute political equality” of Blacks, but not necessarily social equality, which echoed phrases used in the 1858 debates with Douglas, calling the Republican candidate a “great and glorious leader,” one of his few explicit references to the candidate in his speech. Although comparable to others he gave on his “Tour” before and after the St. Paul speech was described by an accompanying journalist as the most expansive of his presentations and was reported in its entirety or excerpted in the leading newspapers of the day.
Seward’s speech undoubtedly helped Lincoln carry all of the states west of the Appalachian Mountain range, with the exception of border state Missouri and a few in the south, on his way to a victory, but with barely 39% of the popular vote in the crowded four-candidate race. But he resoundingly carried Minnesota on the wings of Seward’s St. Paul speech by a nearly 2-1 margin over Douglas, 22,069 votes to 11,920 and a more convincing national total of 180 electoral votes, including Minnesota’s four, well more than needed to prevail.
Seward’s speech in St. Paul, boosting Lincoln, was not the only iconic Republican oration in the capital city. Some 41 years later, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt made his famous “speak softly and carry a big stick” remarks at the state fairgrounds, a few miles east of Seward’s site, shortly before he was elevated to the Presidency by the assassination of William McKinley.
Seward’s speech not only helped secure Minnesota’s three electoral votes, along with similar pickups surrounding states, that led to helped Lincoln achieve the Presidency.
Seward Stays
Seward also played a key role in the early days of Lincoln’s Presidency by editing and helping to craft a portion of the incoming President’s famous 1861 Inaugural address, which tried to stave off the brewing Civil War, but to no avail. During the balance of the war, he was the leading member of Lincoln’s cabinet and was instrumental in helping to keep Great Britain away from recognizing and aligning with the Confederacy.
Seward had accepted the post of Secretary of State, offered to help shortly before the Inauguration in order, he said, “to try to save freedom in my country,” a task for which he worked in close collaboration with the President. during the four years and one month they were together.
Seward shared another fate with Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre, and Seward, recuperating at home from a fall from a carriage, was viciously attacked and nearly killed by one of Booth’s tag-tag group of co-conspirators, Lewis Powell, although the Secretary of State barely managed to survive.
After his recovery, Seward stayed on his post for the ensuing period of Andrew Johnson’s presidency following Lincoln’s assassination. His major feat, for which he is probably most well-known, was his purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, which would be equal to about $120 million in today’s currency.
He was mocked for what was known as “Seward’s Ice Box” and came down in history to be known as Seward’s Folly, but he was proud of it and over time it became considered as one of our country’s best bargains.
Seward retired from public life after his tenure, passing away at his upstate New York home on the 12th anniversary of his “Grand Tour” on October 10, 1872, at age 71. His last words: “Love one another.”
Lincoln Lore
While Seward left a footprint in Minnesota, Lincoln apparently never set foot in the state. He does, however, occupy a place in Minnesota law and lore.
Shortly after his presidency began, he told one of Minnesota’s first two senators, Morton Wilkinson, that he was appreciative of the “rapid advance of everything desirable in that young sister of the Republic, …[where] the people up your way have very correct political views.”
Lincoln’s adroit handling of his authority drew praise years later from Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge James Randolph, ruminating at length about the independence of Native American tribes and social justice for their sovereign entities, in a concurring opinion in a case entitled Granite Valley Hotel Ltd. Partnership v. Jackpot Junction Bingo & Casino. In discussing Lincoln’s moral doubts about slavery, the jurist noted that “history would graciously vindicate Lincoln 100%, 500%, 1,000% although [at the time] Lincoln spoke contemporary history was not so kind.”
But history has borne out Lincoln’s greatness and the key role his one-time rival, then friend, and later Secretary of State Seward placed here in Minnesota in helping him to advance it.
