Page:Life of Abraham Lincoln - Bowers - 1922.djvu/38

 36 he wrote. The Governor placed his own rooms at the statehouse at Lincoln's disposal, where he met callers and talked and joked pleasantly with all who came, but was careful to say nothing that would add to the confusion of tongues that already existed.

Some of the most radical abolitionists of the North were not at all pleased with Lincoln because he was conservative, practical, recognized slavery as existing under the constitution, stood for preserving the Union as the first consideration, restricting the extension of slavery, and hoped for gradual compensated emancipation, but favored nothing revolutionary or threatening to the integrity of the Union.

Many of the most ardent, but reasonable, abolitionists supported him as having the most practical policy for the time being.

The total popular vote was 4,680,000. Lincoln got 1,866,000; Douglas, 1,375,000; Breckenridge, 846,900; Bell, 590,000. Of the electoral vote, Lincoln got 180; Douglas, 12; Breckenridge, 72; Bell, 39. Lincoln carried the Northern States, Breckenridge the Southern States, Bell the border states of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and Douglas New Jersey and Missouri. To show how the people were divided, Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell had some votes in nearly all states both North and South. Lincoln had no votes in the states farthest south, but carried all states north of the border states.

The career of Lincoln as President was made infinitely more difficult as well as all the more creditable to him by reason of the fact that he was not the choice of the majority of the peo-