NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
November and December 1864
From The Missouri Democrat, Wednesday, November 2, 1864.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
It is with more than ordinary pride and satisfaction, that we can look back upon our record during the pending Presidential canvass. It will not be denied that, in the outset, it required no little resolution to declare for Lincoln in the State of Missouri. The disloyal were, of course, hostile to him, while the Unionists of the State, who were mainly radical, were, as a general thing, far from satisfied with his re-nomination, on account of the policy he had pursued towards them. Hence, at the date of his nomination, it appeared extremely doubtful whether Mr. Lincoln could receive an effective support in this State. The timid refused to commit themselves in his favor. The time-serving and more ambitious for office made haste to array themselves in opposition, and we were earnestly admonished of the peril we encountered, should we give Mr. Lincoln our support, and were bitterly assailed by many who had been our friends, after doing so.
To us nothing was clearer from the hour Mr. Lincoln received the nomination at Baltimore, than that the contest would ultimately narrow down to a choice between him and a representative of Copperheadism, and in that view our duty appeared perfectly plain. It was at once to declare for him a faithful and consistent support. We have done so to the best of our ability, not withstanding the bitter opposition we have encountered from professed friends in consequence, and the loss and disappointment otherwise flowing from their alienation.
We have had, throughout, the consciousness of doing our duty and now other cause for congratulations is added. We have now the satisfaction of seeing our course indorsed by almost the entire Union strength of Missouri, and followed even by those who have been the most unkind towards us on account of our adoption of it. The timid have become strengthened through the force of example. The time-serving have discovered that through Mr. Lincoln’s name lies the road to both executive and popular favor, and are now seeking to outstrip all others in devotion to that name, while others, whose pride of opposition had not yet given way, nurse their dissatisfaction in silence. Thus has the position been conquered, at the end of a most trying struggle, and the fact is all but positively assured, that Missouri will join with the great Union column of the nation in giving her electoral vote to Lincoln and Johnson.
There is in this view of the matter certainly cause for personal congratulation. But a higher source of satisfaction exists in the fact, that it is the country which, in the end, is chiefly to be benefited. Mr. Lincoln, whatever may have been his shortcomings heretofore, is to-day the Union’s hope. His position is such that his personal is eclipsed by his representative character, although we would may be understood as charging that he is unworthy of that position. The Union sentiment of the nation is his indorser in the course he has pursued, and certainly no man who has passed through the trials of the last four years in such manner as to secure from the loyal [illegible] of the nation, the plaudit of “Well done, good and faithful servant,” can be said to have materially failed in the discharge of the alloted [sic] [illegible].
