Lincoln’s Legacy: Historic Americana from the Life of Abraham Lincoln

Printed broadside; 13 1/2 x 8 5/8 in. (343 x 219 mm); signed by Yates as Governor of Illinois, countersigned by Secretary of State O.M. Hatch and Auditor Jesse K. Dubois; creasing from old folds; unevenly toned along edges.

LINCOLN WINS RE-ELECTION IN HIS HOME STATE OF ILLINOIS. Here, Illinois Governor Richard Yates certifies the election of 16 presidential electors, all of whom would go to Abraham Lincoln in his win for a second term as president over Democratic candidate and former Union Army General George B. McClellan.

As the 1864 election neared, Lincoln's prospects of winning a second term were very much in doubt. With the war approaching its fourth year, the staggering casualties alarmed the public, and patience in the North and in the border states had grown thin over the slow gains made by the Union Army. Discord within Lincoln's own Republican Party had led to the formation of the Radical Republicans, who criticized Lincoln's post-war plans as too lenient toward the Confederate States. Meanwhile, the Democrats were bitterly divided over those who supported the war and those who wanted to negotiate a truce with the Confederacy to end the bloodshed. Several candidates were floated to unseat Lincoln, including his own Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, who ran a surreptitious campaign for the nomination (see lot 89). Republican John C. Fremont briefly ran for the nomination under the Radical Democracy Party, but he later withdrew and supported Lincoln. To stem their potential losses and to attract pro-war Democratic support, Lincoln ran under the Union Party ticket, and replaced his Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin, with former Democratic Tennessee senator Andrew Johnson.

Intra-party division eventually hampered Democratic success, and with the fall of Atlanta in September of 1864, Lincoln's election became inevitable. In the 8 November election, Lincoln won his home state of Illinois with 54.4% of the vote to McClellan's 45.6%, while nationwide he trounced McClellan, winning 212 electoral votes to McClellan's 12. Lincoln's victory signaled a continuance of the war, and the end of hope among the Peace Democrats and the Confederacy for a negotiated peace.

Provenance: 

Louise Taper, Beverly Hills, California