Lincoln Comes to Michigan
Abraham Lincoln's single visit to Michigan on August 27, 1856, at first glance might seem but a footnote in history. On closer examination however, it gives insight into Lincoln's rise to power and reveals the progression in his thinking on the questions of slavery and the union's future. His response to these two questions would become his legacy. By saving the union and ending slavery, he fulfilled the ideal of the Declaration of Independence and set the country on a new course.
Setting the scene
Lincoln's Kalamazoo visit stemmed directly from Michigan's leadership role in the anti-slavery fusion movement which led to the formation of the Republican Party. As this movement spread throughout the North, the stage was set for Lincoln's rise to power and the sectional conflict which would follow.
With the ratification of the Federal Constitution in 1788, an unsteady equilibrium evolved between free and slave states. In the South, slaves counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning members of congress. To placate free states, slavery had been banned in the northwest territories. With the 1820 Missouri compromise, Missouri had been allowed to enter the union as a slave state while slavery had been forbidden north of latitude 36o 30'.
To maintain the balance of power, free and slave states were admitted to the union in pairs. Preserving the balance, Michigan and Arkansas were admitted together in 1837. Michigan was largely settled by New Englanders who in varying degrees opposed slavery. Many saw it as an evil, but were content with its confinement to the south. A few radicals belonged to the anti-slavery Liberty Party.
Some anti-slavery activists called for the succession of the north as the only means to dissociate themselves from a federal government that affirmed the right of slavery to exist. Others circulated petitions opposing the admission of Texas to the union as a slave state. More practical activists operated Michigan's portion of the underground railway. By the 1840s free blacks and Quakers ran a series of busy "stations" in Michigan. The Detroit terminus became one of the busiest sites in the country
The two main political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, took no official position on the slavery issue. In 1847, while Lincoln was serving his single term as a Whig congressman from Illinois, the question of restricting slavery from new territories gained in the War with Mexico was raised. The proposal, known as the Wilmot Proviso, was not adopted; however, it served to identify Whig and Democratic congressmen who were willing to take a stand against the extension of slavery.
In 1854, the anti-slavery factions of the Michigan Whig and Democratic parties fused with the Liberty party in Jackson, to form the first statewide Republican Party. The immediate cause of this alliance was the adoption that spring of the Kansas-Nebraska act, allowing the future states of Kansas and Nebraska to chose for themselves whether to be slave or free. Since both Kansas and Nebraska lay above the 36o 30' parallel, many northerners interpreted this as a treacherous violation of the Missouri compromise which would allow for slavery to expand northward.
The fusion movement spreads to Illinois
Kansas became "bleeding Kansas" when violence erupted between pro-slavery and free settlements. This helped to further fuel the fusion movement throughout the North. Lincoln, who had returned to his successful law practice after his brief congressional stint, was moved to again turn his attention to these national events. In February, 1856 he joined the call for an Illinois fusion convention. The convention was held in Bloomington, in May. Lincoln helped lead wavering Whigs into the new party and actively participated in the business of the convention.
At the meetings end, Lincoln was called upon to speak. His law partner, William Herndon was at the fusion convention and wrote, "I have heard or read all of Mr. Lincoln's great speeches, and I give it as my opinion that the Bloomington speech was the grand effort of this life. Heretofore he had simply argued the slavery question on grounds of policy, - the statesman's grounds, -never reaching the question of the radical and the eternal right. Now he was baptized and freshly born; he had the fervor of a new convert; the smothered flame broke out; enthusiasm unusual to him blazed up; his eyes were aglow with an inspiration…"
"His speech was full of fire and energy and force; it was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm; it was justice, equity, truth, and right set ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by the wrong; it was hard, heavy, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath. I attempted for about fifteen minutes as was usual with me then to take notes, but at the end of that time I threw pen and paper away and lived in the inspiration of the hour . . . Unfortunately Lincoln's speech was never written out nor printed, and we are obliged to depend for its reproduction upon personal recollection."1
The speech at Bloomington is commonly known by Lincoln scholars as the "Lost Speech" and is credited with establishing Lincoln as the de facto leader of the new Illinois Republican party.
The first national Republican convention
As events unfolded, a call went out for a national Republican convention to be held in June in Philadelphia, in order to select a presidential candidate for that fall's elections. Michigan sent eighteen delegates, including Governor Kinsley S. Bingham, future U.S. Senator Zachariah Chandler, and Hezekiah Wells of Kalamazoo. Wells, a former Whig, had once served as the president of the Village of Kalamazoo and was then a prominent judge. The convention adopted an anti-slavery platform and chose the famous western explorer John Fremont as its presidential candidate.
Lincoln was not present at the convention, but the Illinois delegation nominated him for the vice-presidential slot on the ticket. He received 110 votes, including five from Michigan, which put him second in the balloting to William Dayton of Ohio. The Fremont - Dayton ticket was set. With President Franklin Pierce choosing not to run again, the Democrats had already met in Cincinnati and chosen James Buchanan as their candidate. Former President, Millard Fillmore became a third party candidate with the American Party, an anti-catholic, anti-immigration party, known derisively as the "Know-Nothing Party."
A rally is planned
With the conventions over, the delegates returned to their homes and to the task of getting their candidates elected. Judge Wells took this assignment seriously and began to organize a large Fremont campaign rally to be held in Kalamazoo that August. He arranged for speakers, including his fellow delegates, Governor Bingham and Zachariah Chandler. He also wrote Lincoln, inviting him to speak.
Lincoln's response was equivocal, "Yours of July 24 inviting me to be present at a Fremont mass meeting to be held on the 27th of August, at Kalamazoo has been forwarded to me by Mr. Mechem of Kankakee - It would give me great pleasure to be with you, and I will do so if possible; but I can not promise positively- We are having trouble here that needs the attention of all of us- I mean the Fillmore movement- With the Fremont and Fillmore men united, here in Illinois, we have Mr. Buchanan in the hollow of our hand; but with us divided, as we now are, he has us - This is the short and simple truth, as I believe. Very Respectfully, A. Lincoln."2
Lincoln was stumping vigorously for Fremont in Illinois but had turned down other invitations to speak out of state. In response to an Iowa invitation, he wrote, "I am superstitious. I have scarcely known a party preceding an election to call in help from the neighboring states, but that they lost the state."3
The content of Wells invitation to Lincoln is not known. Wells may have been one of the five Michigan delegates to support Lincoln's vice-presidential nomination. Perhaps he referenced the Illinois delegation's promotion of Lincoln at the convention. Or, Wells may have asked Lincoln to counter a planned September visit to Kalamazoo by Buchanan's running mate, John Breckenridge.
The identity of the letter bearer, a "Mr. Mechem of Kankakee" remains a mystery. Though the text has been commonly interpreted as "Mechem," the two "e"s have been written over other letters, garbling the name. Perhaps Mr. Mechem of Kankakee, was really Mr. Alonzo W. Mack of Kankakee, a banker who had served as an Illinois delegate at the Philadelphia convention. It's possible to imagine Wells meeting Mack at the convention and then writing him for help. Mack was a Lincoln acquaintance who appears in later letters written by Lincoln.
As the summer passed, announcements for the rally began to appear in newspapers throughout Michigan. Temporary wooden stands were built for the speakers in the park. Special trains were chartered to carry groups in from Detroit, Niles, and Jackson. Kalamazoo's two partisan newspapers, the Gazette and the Telegraph traded barbs over the campaign.
The Gazette claimed, "We have discovered the most conclusive and blasting proof that Fremont, while acting as Governor of California was guilty of defrauding the United States Government. That ought to sink him to infamy in the estimation of all honest minds."
The Telegraph responded, "The heart of the people beats for liberty. It says, gentlemen of the South, we desire not to interfere with your domestic arrangements; but when, by the force of arms, you carry the "peculiar institution" into free territory, it is time that you should look out."
The Gazette countered, "The leaders of the Fremont party assail and traduce our fellow countrymen of the South more than they could assail and traduce the vilest despotism on the globe. Not satisfied with the overthrow of our civil rights and liberties, they are sowing the seeds of discord in the Christian Church."
A few days before the rally, Wells received a confirmation from Lincoln, "At last I am able to say, no accident preventing, I will be with you on the 27th. I suppose I can reach in time, leaving Chicago the same morning. I shall go to the Matteson House, Chicago, on the evening of the 26th. Yours truly A. Lincoln"4
August 27, 1856
Most of the contemporary accounts of the Wednesday, August 27, 1856 rally focused on the size of the crowd, the food preparations, and the parade of Fremont supporters. Kalamazoo was then just a village with a population of about 10,000. By all accounts the turnout was immense.
The Niles Enquirer gave this colorful report, "The largest Convention ever held in this State came off at Kalamazoo yesterday. The number of people in attendance was set down by competent judges, at over 30,000 . . . Never did we view such a congregated mass of honest, intelligent men, as thronged the streets of the 'Bur Oak City.'"
"The principal streets were hung with banners.-- About 8 o'clock delegations commenced pouring in from every direction, and at 11 o'clock a procession over five miles in length was formed. In the procession were ten bands of music and two companies of 32 ladies, 31 of which were dressed in the purest white, and bore white flags and in each company was one dressed in black bearing a red flag, representing Kansas."
"By ten o'clock Main Street from the Kalamazoo House to the Court House, and Burdick St., from the Depot to three-quarters of a mile southward, were literally filled with a moving mass of human beings. So densely were the streets filled that teams were forced to move with the greatest caution, for fear of trampling upon the multitudes of people that blocked up their way."
A Schoolcraft farmer, Henry Parker Smith, attended the rally and recorded his impressions in his diary. "We stopped upon the corner of Portage & some other street under the shade of some oaks and saw our delegation come up. (It) was over two miles long! We then went in near the ground for speaking and attempted to count the number of teams that drove past . . . after going up to 250 they came pouring in so fast that we gave up in despair."
To accommodate the crowd's appetite, the hosts supplied refreshments which impressed the Niles Enquirer, "The most extensive preparations had been made by the citizens of Kalamazoo, to entertain all who might attend the convention; and most nobly was it carried out. The citizens generously threw open their doors and invited all to partake of their hospitality. Kalamazoo is but another name for philanthropy and generosity."
Henry Parker Smith deserted his wife to look for food, "I left Hattie & the horse, and came to the grounds where there were four or five tables spread with the staples of the land, bread, meat, cheese, etc. The tables were about 15 rods long and every few rods were set barrels of ice water with tin cups attached. I commenced at one end of a table and ate my way threw [sic] and when I gave in from sheer fatigue I was alarmed at what I had done . . ."
Lincoln came by train, arriving at the Michigan Central Railroad depot in the early afternoon. According to a 1893 account given by Charles S. May in the Kalamazoo Telegraph, the organizing committee met Lincoln at the Burdick Hotel (where the present day Kalamazoo Radisson stands), found him shaving, and escorted him to the village park (now Bronson Park).
There several speaking platforms were put to simultaneous use. Lincoln was the only out of state speaker and joined a program featuring Governor Kinsley S. Bingham, Zachariah Chandler, and several others. Most of the newspaper accounts say little about the speakers.
The partisan Gazette noted, "In the way of speakers the effort of our opponents was a bad failure. No man of commanding talent was present or could be procured. Mr. Lincoln of Illinois was the only foreign Speaker in attendance. During Lincoln's speech, we had occasion to test . . . the fact that the Republican league is in no sense a party, but a conglomeration of all the discordant factions that are running riot in our land."
The reporter for the Telegraph meanwhile, had participated in the parade and only said about the speakers, "Before we refer to the speakers on this great occasion, it would be well to say that the most significant speech to the public was the vast numbers who thronged the procession." At the end of his column he adds, "The course of the people was evinced in every countenance; and, although some speakers who were expected, and who had been written to, did not attend, still five large congregations assembled, and there was no lack for speakers."
Charles S. May's account describes Lincoln's appearance, "The people saw a tall, gaunt, smooth-shaven man with black disheveled hair and heavy eyebrows, dressed in a short alpaca sack coat. Black satin open vest, wide turn down collar with black necktie and dark pants of cheap texture- the whole outfit probably not costing more than $10 in the money of the period."
The published personal sources, with the exception of Henry Parker Smith's diary, were recorded years later. Some are at odds with the known facts. In 1909, the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and more than fifty years after the event, the Gazette published personal reminiscences:
"I was 31 years old at the time I came down to Kalamazoo with my mother to hear him. He stood on top of the mound in Bronson Park and it was one of the best speeches I ever heard . . . He took the platform of both parties and explained each one in detail. Then he asked the people to be the judges of which they wanted. He was campaigning for the election of Fremont and his talk won a lot of votes for him."
L. B. Fisher, Cooper Township
"I was a lad of 13 summers at the time Abraham Lincoln spoke in Kalamazoo. I accompanied my father to hear his speech . . . He spoke on a platform constructed at the northwest corner of the courthouse. The roof was made of green boughs. My first vote I cast for Abraham Lincoln, his second term."
A.M. Prouty, South Haven, MI
"It was the formation period of the Republican party and the people were intensely interested about anything of a political nature and came by thousands from all the country around and the neighboring villages and cities to hear about that all-absorbing topic, 'the impending crisis' . . . The Republicans, anticipating a large crowd erected two platforms in Bronson Park. The grandstand was placed over the present mound and another stand to accommodate the overflow was erected over a mound in the northeast corner of the park near the county jail at South Rose
and Academy streets . . . Mr. Lincoln's speech was very logical and was devoid of anything like a sensation and his utterances were very pacific, more like a gifted advocate pleading with a jury for his client's life and honor. He handled the slavery question with the utmost fairness. After the speech Mr. Lincoln stood in the corner of the park and shook hands with everybody who wished to meet him. Many thanked Mr. Lincoln for explaining the slavery matter so plainly and fairly."
Andrew Oliver, Kalamazoo
"My desire to hear Lincoln's speech was caused by an attorney by the name of Ira Scott of Chicago, who said Lincoln was the greatest lawyer in Illinois. I stood by Scott and heard Lincoln through his entire speech. Was 30 years of age at that time and was one of a large delegation of "wide awakes" from Marshall, and participated in all of their maneuvers day and evening. Respectfully,"
B. F. Welch, Marshall, MI
"I had decided to vote for Fremont. I had urged my father who was a strong . . . Democrat to do the same. He thought it was a move to favor the Negro, of whom he had a strong dislike. I agreed to pay his fare if he would go to hear Lincoln, which he did, and it did the job. Ever after he voted for 'Father Abraham'."
Amos Knapp, Dowagiac, MI
Lincoln's Kalamazoo Speech
For years, of the many speeches given that day, only a fragment of Zachariah Chandler's could be found in an early biography.5 Unlike Lincoln, he was a fiery abolitionist and would become Michigan's first Republican Senator. Lincoln later said that he had given as many as fifty speeches during the Fremont campaign, but was not aware that any had been preserved. In 1930 however, Tom Starr, a Lincoln enthusiast, discovered the text of Lincoln's Kalamazoo address. A reporter from the Detroit Advertiser, using phonography, the shorthand of the day, had attended the rally and recorded it word for word. Starr found that the 1856 bound volume of the Advertiser, had fallen behind the others on a shelf in the Detroit Public Library. When he retrieved the missing issue, he rediscovered the Kalamazoo speech.
In 1941, Starr published the speech in a monograph entitled, Lincoln's Kalamazoo Address. It would have taken Lincoln about forty minutes to deliver the speech. In it Lincoln touches on the two main themes that will dominate his career, the question of slavery and the future of the union. He states flatly that, "The question of slavery, at the present day, should be not only the greatest question, but very nearly the sole question." He discusses the problems in Kansas and the risk of slavery gaining a foothold there. He chides Buchanan and Fillmore for not taking a stand against the spread of slavery, and invites any of their supporters who oppose slavery to vote for Fremont.
Lincoln reminds his audience that by partially counting their slaves, white men in the south have disproportionately more influence and power in congress than northerners. He favorably contrasts prosperity in the free states to our neighbors in the north, ruled by a Queen, and to people of the south who keep their fellow beings in bondage. He argues that we have an interest in keeping the territories free, and without this interest, our government is "worth nothing."
He states the south has a mistaken view of northern laborers, not understanding that, "the man who labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year he will hire others to labor for him. Tell me not that we have no interest in keeping the territories free!"
Lincoln then responds to the south's threat of succession should Fremont be elected. He points out that the union did not dissolve with southern presidents. He acknowledges that only northern votes could elect Fremont, but asks how that is different from the south electing Buchanan. The crowd laughs when he says Fillmore will be the only national candidate with "no prospect of having a single vote on either side of the Mason-Dixon line, to trouble his poor soul about."
Lincoln returns the listeners to the importance of stopping the spread of slavery. Since slavery did not yet exist in Kansas, Fremont and his supporters were not "abolitionists," as their opponents claimed, because there was nothing yet there to abolish. In the end "we must submit, and allow slavery to triumph . . . submit and vote for Buchanan, submit and vote that slavery is a just and good thing . . . or unite with us and help us to triumph. We would all like to have the question done away with, but we cannot submit."
Lincoln gets the crowd laughing again when he once more alludes to the Democrat's charge that some of Fremont's supporters are abolitionists. Who cares? If you Buchanan men don't like it, why don't you "come in and use your influence to make our party more respectable?"
Lincoln closed with an oratorical flourish, "Now. I make this appeal to the Democratic citizens here . . . come forward. Throw off these things, and come to the rescue of this great principle of equality . . . And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles. Come and keep coming! Strike, and strike again! So sure as God lives, the victory shall be yours."
The Detroit Advertiser article concluded with the note, "Great cheering."
Lincoln's "transitional pronouncement"
Tom Starr's discovery of the text of Lincoln's Kalamazoo speech helps complete the record from the "Lost Speech" which was so important in Lincoln's rise to power, and which had been given just three months earlier. In the Kalamazoo Speech, Lincoln repeats his admonitions against the extension of slavery, but with the Fremont campaign now underway, a new issue is raised: The possibility of the break up of the country.
Lincoln scholar, Louis A. Warren said that between the two speeches, "Lincoln came to the viewpoint that more emphasis should be placed on the unity of the states." He called the Kalamazoo Speech Lincoln's "transitional pronouncement"6 falling between the "Lost Speech" and the "House Divided Speech" given two years later, when Lincoln will further expand his view on the future of the union, ". . . it will cease to be divided. It will become all of one thing or all the other."
Perhaps the best endorsement of Lincoln's Kalamazoo speech is found in the words of Henry Parker Smith, who recorded in his diary entry for August 27, 1856, " . . . meanwhile we listened to the different speeches that were being made. Mr. Lincoln, Blair, Bingham, Bates, Jones, Kellogg and many other distinguished speakers were there. They occupied four different stands at once and the crowd was so dense at every one of them that we could not listen with much satisfaction. Listened to Mr. Bates the longest and liked him much, but Lincoln is the man for me."
Epilogue
Various accounts have the speakers gathering near the courthouse later in the afternoon of the 27th for a repeat performance. This may explain some of the discrepancies in reports given years later regarding Lincoln's location while giving his speech. It is believed that Lincoln spent the night in Kalamazoo and returned to Chicago by train the next day.
Hezekiah Wells, the person most responsible for Lincoln's visit would later be offered a post in the Lincoln administration as the minister to Honduras, a post which he declined. That fall's elections saw Buchanan elected president, though the Republicans continued to make gains in the north. Fremont carried Michigan and the state legislature selected Zachariah Chandler as the state's first Republican U.S. Senator. During the Civil War, Chandler would serve on the Joint Committee to Investigate the Conduct of the War, where he was a frequent critic of Lincoln's war effort.
Lincoln would never return to Michigan, though Zachariah Chandler invited Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln to be his guests at the 1860 Michigan State Fair. On August 31, 1860, in the midst of his first presidential campaign, Lincoln responded, "Your kind letter of the 28th is duly received. I very well remember meeting you at Kalamazoo in 1856. I very well remember the jovial elderly lady, and wife of an M. C. with whom we took tea, calling you "Zach Chandler. Your kind invitation I suppose I must decline. It is the opinion of friends backed by my own judgement, that I should not really, or apparently, be showing myself about the country. Please accept my thanks for the kindness of your invitation. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln"7
Endnotes
- William H. Herndon, Herndon's Life of Lincoln, DeCapo Press, Inc, New York, NY 1983 pp 312-13
- August 4, 1856 letter to Hezekiah Wells
- July 12, 1856 letter to William Grimes
- August 21, 1856 letter to Hezekiah Wells
- Zachariah Chandler: An Outline Sketch of His Life and Public Service, The Detroit Post and Tribune, 1880
- Louis A. Warren, Kalamazoo, MI 1956
- August 28, 1860 letter to Zachariah Chandler