John F. Hume, The abolitionists together with personal memories of the struggle for human rights

[152] of a more or less academic sort, it was known that Mr. Lincoln was antagonistic to slavery; but as to whether he favored that institution's immediate or speedy extinguishment, and, if so, by what measures, was altogether unknown. We now know, from what has been set forth in another chapter, that at the time of his first nomination and election, he had very few things in common with the Abolitionists. He then evidently had no thought of being hailed as the “liberator of a race.” He preferred, for the time at least, that the race in question should remain where it was, and as it was, unless it could be bodily transported to some other country and be put under the protection of some other flag.

He did not break with the Abolitionists, although he kept on the edge of a quarrel with them, and especially with what he called the “Greeley faction,” a good part of the time. He never liked them, but he was a shrewd man — a born politician-and was too sagacious to discard the principal round in the ladder by which he had climbed to eminence. He managed to keep in touch with the Anti-Slavery movement through all its steady advancement, but, as elsewhere stated, it was as a follower rather than as a leader.

While a resident of the slave State of Missouri, I twice voted for Mr. Lincoln, which was some evidence of my personal feeling toward him. Both times I did it somewhat reluctantly. On the first occasion there were four candidates. Breckenridge and Bell were Southern men — both by residence and principle-and had no claim on Anti-Slavery support. But with Douglas the case was different.