Lincoln's
success; and they were able at once to impress upon delegates from other
States his sterling personal worth and fitness, and his superior
availability. It needed but little political arithmetic to work out the
sum of existing political chances. It was almost self-evident that in
the coming November election victory or defeat would hang upon the
result in the four pivotal States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana,
and Illinois. It was quite certain that no Republican candidate could
carry a single one of the fifteen slave States; and equally sure that
Breckinridge, on his extreme pro-slavery platform, could not carry a
single one of the eighteen free States. But there was a chance that one
or more of these four pivotal free States might cast its vote for
Douglas and popular sovereignty.
A candidate was needed, therefore, who could successfully cope with
Douglas and the Douglas theory; and this ability had been convincingly
demonstrated by Lincoln. As a mere personal choice, a majority of the
convention would have preferred Seward; but in the four pivotal States
there were many voters who believed Seward's antislavery views to be
too radical. They shrank apprehensively from the phrase in one of his
speeches that "there is a higher law than the Constitution.
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