The American election system includes a quirky feature called the Electoral College, which casts the final votes on who becomes president. The ALPLM has some of the ballots that members of the Electoral College cast in 1864 to make Abraham Lincoln president for a second term. (Lincoln thumped opponent George McClellan 212-22. That was a better showing than four years earlier, when Lincoln got 180 votes.)
A flag promoting the campaign of Abraham Lincoln and running mate Andrew Johnson
Michelle Miller, an ALPLM manuscripts librarian, began thinking about these historic slips of paper. Was it possible, she wondered, to link particular ballots with the people who had cast them? She put on her detective hat and went to work.
The names of the Illinoisans serving as electors were public in 1864 as they are today. Miller looked at the list and found some familiar names – people who had written other documents that were also part of the ALPLM collection. So she got those documents and compared the handwriting to the writing on the electoral ballots. Sure enough, there were some matches.
Miller was able to conclude that one ballot was written by Lincoln’s close political ally James C. Conkling. Conkling was a New York attorney who moved to Springfield, Ill., about the same time Lincoln did. He and Lincoln both served as delegates to the state’s first Republican convention, in 1856. Conkling was also a state legislator, University of Illinois trustee, and a member of the Lincoln Monument Association.
Conkling's ballot
Miller could match another ballot to lawyer Henry S. Baker of Alton. Baker, a staunch opponent of slavery, had been a Democratic state legislator. (In fact, his vote helped to block Lincoln’s hopes for a U.S. Senate seat in 1855.) But he ended up helping to found the Illinois Republican Party at the convention Lincoln and Conkling had also attended. He went on to be a judge in Alton.
Baker's ballot
Conkling’s ballot was short and simple: “For President Abraham Lincoln.” Baker’s was more specific: “For President of the United States for four years from March 4th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln.”
Sadly, of course, Baker's ballot would prove incorrect. Lincoln's second term lasted only 42 days before it was cut short by John Wilkes Booth.