OREGON'S NOMINATION OF LINCOLN
By LESLIE M. SCOTT
That Horace Greeley brought about the nomination of Lin- coln for President in 1860, and that Oregon seated Greeley in the nominating convention, are central details of a political narrative which distinguishes Oregon in National annals at the beginning of its statehood career.
It is within the bounds of probability to say that Lincoln would not have won the nomination without the influence of Greeley. We may not go so far as to add that Greeley would have had no seat in the convention without an Oregon proxy ; but it is significant that the seat he occupied was Oregon's a State then but fifteen months a member of the Union, a State, moreover, that symbolized the fullest Western idea and marked the farthest Western expansion of the Nation.
The Republican National convention of 1860, at Chicago, was more vital to the country in its consequences than any other political gathering, save the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The convention of 1860 chose the leader who saved the National unity. We can hardly doubt that the Chicago meeting, in this great crisis, felt the guiding influence of that Providence which is ever watchful in a State, and sent Ore- gon to the fore and made the great New York editor its mes- senger.
Oregon had six seats in that convention. Oregon men sat in three of them Joel Burlingame, of Scio; Henry Bucking- ham, of Salem; Frank Johnson, of Oregon City. Two seats were occupied by nonresidents Horace Greeley, of New York City, and Eli Thayer, Member of Congress from Massachu- setts. The sixth place was vacant.
Greeley had opposed the admission of Oregon because of the general antislavery fear of its Democratic adherence. Thayer had joined the Democrats of Congress in admitting
