one, of our great educational institutions, as an instructor; he is, confessedly, a scholar of national and international reputation. But mere scholarship, however profound and cos mopolitan, cannot he urged as excuse or jus tification for the errors or bias of judgment. Such mistakes, coming from such a source, are rather accentuated and emphasized, and the author of them merits the application of more rigid tests and a severer arraignment, than would otherwise be accorded him. It is difficult for Americans to fully under stand how a scholar and a critic of Professor Smith's acknowledged ability and learning could be responsible for such remarkable ut terances as appear in the above quotation. They certainly do not comport with current public opinion: they have the stamp of his torical inaccuracy; they ignore certain con stitutional powers of the President; they mis state, or, at least, misinterpret, certain state ments of the President: they belittle pre eminent qualities in the Chief Executive of a representative form of government; they fail to fairly comprehend the facts of our political history; they dignify mere rumors and at tempt to treat them as historical truth; in fine, the quotation is practically unsupported by the record, and contemporaneous history repudiates the sentiments therein expressed as false, or unjust, or prejudiced. The loyal American heart will give little heed to these sentiments, and impartial history will find no place for their lodgment.
But to return to the consideration of the specific criticisms of Professor Smith. Mr. Lincoln was not nominated for President by the Republican National Convention in 1860 because "he had the Illinois vote." Illinois was not a pivotal State in the national cam paign of 1860. Its electoral vote could have gone to any of the other presidential candi dates, and still there would have been a suf ficient number of electoral votes left to elect Mr. Lincoln. The Republican party, in national conven
tion assembled, had declared in its platform against any further extension of slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States, as a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of the Constitution, with contemporaneous exposi tion, and with legislative and judicial prece dent." The platform also maintained "that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the union of the States must and shall be preserved." With these cardinal principles of the Republican party Mr. Lin coln was in hearty accord, and was known to have taken strong and advanced ground to the advocacy of them, both in public utter ance and private statement. His record was clear, pronounced and unmistakable. It was the knowledge of this record which finally determined a majority of the delegates to support Mr. Lincoln in the convention for the Presidency, and not because "he had the Illinois vote." Professor Smith is the first and only person, so far as the writer knows, who has ever suggested Mr. Lincoln's strength in his adopted State as a final rea son for his availability as a presidential can didate in 1860. It is true, as Professor Smith says, that Mr. Lincoln was "a Western politician," if by that is meant that he was born, raised and lived in the West, as it was then known and called. But it is not true that his availability was solely or mainly determined by his shrewdness and skill as a political manipula tor. Ante-dating the National Republican Convention of 1860, Mr. Lincoln had gained something more than a local reputation as a lawyer, had served one term in Congress with credit, declining a renomination, and had, in his debates with Stephen A. Douglas on the hustings, aroused the entire country, secured for himself a national reputation as an orator and debater, and demonstrated his fitness and qualifications for the highest office in the gift of the people. It has been truly said that these "speeches of Lincoln, circulated and
