quire indignantly:
"Who is this huckster in politics? Who is this county court
advocate?"[105] For these singular reasons he was the most "available"
candidate who could be offered before the citizens of the United States!

It cannot be said that the nomination was received with much
satisfaction. "Honest old Abe the rail-splitter!" might sound well in
the ear of the masses; but the Republican party was laden with the
burden of an immense responsibility, and the men who did its thinking
could not reasonably feel certain that rail-splitting was an altogether
satisfactory training for the leader in such an era as was now at hand.
Nevertheless, nearly[106] all came to the work of the campaign with as
much zeal as if they had surely known the full value of their candidate.
Shutting their minds against doubts, they made the most spirited and
energetic canvass which has ever taken place in the country. The
organization of the "Wide-Awake" clubs was an effective success.[107]
None who saw will ever forget the spectacle presented by these
processions wherein many thousands of men, singing the campaign songs,
clad in uniform capes of red or white oil-cloth, each with a flaming
torch or a colored lantern, marched nightly in every city and town of
the North, in apparently endless numbers and with military precision,
making the streets a brilliant river of variously tinted flame.
Torchlight parades have become mere conventional affairs since those
days, when there was a spirit in them which nothing has ever stirred
more lately. They were a good preparation for the more serious marching
and severer drill which were soon to come, though the Republicans
scoffed at all anticipations of such a future, and sneered at the timid
ones who croaked of war and bloodshed.

Almost from the beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans
would win, and it was substantially certain that none of their
competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no election
might be made by the people, and that it might be thrown into Congress.
Douglas with his wonted spirit made a vigorous fight, traveling to and
fro, speaking constantly in the North and a few times in the South, but
defiant rather than conciliatory in tone. He did not show one whit the
less energy because it was obvious that he waged a contest without hope.
If there were any road to Democratic success, which it now seems that
there was not, it lay in uniting the sundered part