With Malice Toward None
Life of Abraham Lincoln, the
Outside of Illinois, People knew little about him. Even newspapers were conspicuously reticent about his life and background. All most could say was that he hailed from Illinois, that he had served a single term in Congress and had lost a bitter Senate contest to Stephen A. Douglas a couple of years before. And now, in the summer of 1860, he was the Republican candidate for President of the United States in what promised to be the most combustible election the Union had ever known. In the South, Democrats who understood nothing about the candidate as a man, nothing at all, castigated him as a symbol of "Black Republicanism"--a "sooty and scoundrelly" abolitionist who wanted to free the slaves and mongrelize the white race. In the North, Democratic papersdisparaged him as a party hack and a political unknown who lacked the ability to serve as President. Even many Republicans were hard-pressed to talk specifically about their candidate, to sell voters on his appeal and his talents. Some party bosses mistakenly thought his first name was "Abram," and various newspapers persisted in calling him that.read full excerpt from With Malice Toward None ebook
