Today, the Lincoln Presidential Dollar Coin remembers the election events of November 6, 1860.
On that day men traveled to their voting places to cast their ballot for the presidential election.
Four different president/vice-president teams battled for victory that day.
The winner, of course, was a man from Springfield, Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, running on the Republican ticket, won with 180 electoral votes carrying 18 states. They also obtained the most popular votes at almost 40%, more than 1.8 million ballots.
A couple of days after election day, the Baltimore American and Commercial newspaper published an account of how Mr. Lincoln’s activities.
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How Mr. Lincoln Received the News of His Election.—
A special dispatch from Springfield, Illinois, to the New York Times, tells how Mr. Lincoln received the news of his election.
Mr. Lincoln spent most of the election night in the telegraph office, where he heard returns and received private dispatches with a most marvelous equanimity.
Those who saw him at the time say it would have been impossible for a bystander to tell that the tall, lean, wiry, good-natured, easy-going gentleman, so anxiously inquiring about the success of the local candidates, was the choice of the people to fill the most important office in the nation.
Even during election day and night Mr. Lincoln was about town attending to his business as usual.
Many of his Springfield acquaintances will long remember how he sat in a social circle at the Cheny House, while the returns were coming in, and inquired alike in pleasant chat and his propensity for story-telling.
So far as the Cabinet is concerned, there are so many conflicting rumors afloat that I cannot credit any.
Mr. Lincoln is not at all anxious to gabble, and I don’t believe he has told anyone his intentions in this regard.
It seems to be generally conceded that Mr. Seward will be tendered the mission to the Court of St. James, and that Mr. Bell will be offered the department of the Interior, or some other seat in the Cabinet.
Wednesday, Nov. 7—PM
Mr. Lincoln was this evening captured by a number of his friends who carried him to the Hall of the House of Representatives, where about three hundred citizens spontaneously collected and earnestly but vainly pressed him for a speech.
They finally got him in the Speaker’s chair, and speeches were made by Messrs. Sweet and Orme, of Bloomington, Farmer, Joab, Wilkinson and others.
A dispatch was received by Mr. Lincoln, stating that Indiana had given twenty thousand Republican majority.
Mr. Lincoln finally made the following speech, his first public address since his election.
“The representation of Coles and Douglas counties is elected on the Republican side. We expected it would be so, and so it is pretty generally these times.” [Applause and laughter.]
Mr. Lincoln finally, in a jocular way, took advantage of his position as Chairman to say that it was customary for the presiding officer to call some distinguished member to the Chair.
He accordingly called Mr. Kent to take his place, and retired through a side door, in spite of vociferous calls for him to speak.
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The Lincoln Presidential Dollar Coin shows beneath an image of artwork for the Lincoln/Hamlin campaign of 1860.
