He was also part of the committee that drafted the Missouri Constitution. His biographer writes that, while there were abler politicians and more congenial colleagues, Chase did more than any of them to add to the storehouse of American political thought.Įdward Bates had been a judge and congressmen for many years. Salmon Chase had also served as a senator and governor for Ohio, and played a pivotal (and arguably the foremost) role in the establishment of the Republican Party. His home state was the nation’s most populous, and his close friend and veteran organizer, Thurlow Weed, was next to none. Despite the challenges to nomination, he was confident that the presidency was the natural next step for an already robust political career. He had a penchant for adjusting his position depending on public opinion, which led to the common critique that he was an opportunist. William Henry Seward had been a New York senator for over ten years and served as governor for eight.

In contrast to Lincoln’s relative obscurity, his three competitors were seasoned politicians. Lincoln wrote to the Republican chairman of the acceptance committee about the matter: “It seems as if the question of whether my first name is ‘Abraham’ or ‘Abram’ will never be settled. When he won the presidential nomination, many newspapers called him Abram. The majority of his modest career had been serving as an itinerant lawyer in Illinois with a circuit judge. Lincoln’s exposure to national-level politics consisted of two failed runs for Senate and a term in Congress over a decade earlier. Historians have a difficult time understanding how Lincoln managed to secure the Republican nomination in Chicago on May 18, 1860.

Political genius of abraham lincoln