Messrs. Nicolay and Hay say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice of the American people," and by way of sustaining the statement say that, if the "whole voting strength of the three opposing parties had been united upon a single candidate, Lincoln would nevertheless have been chosen with only a trifling diminution of his electoral majority."[111] It might be better to say that Lincoln was the "indisputable choice" of the electoral college. The "American people" fell enormously short of showing a majority in his favor. His career as president was made infinitely more difficult as well as greatly more creditable to him by reason of the very fact that he was _not_ the choice of the American people, but of less than half of them,--and this, too, even if the Confederate States be excluded from the computation.[112] The election of Lincoln was "hailed with delight" by the extremists in South Carolina; for it signified secession, and the underlying and real desire of these people was secession, and not either compromise or postponement.[113] FOOTNOTES: [95] Lamon, 422. [96] The majority report was supported by 15 slave States and 2 free States, casting 127 electoral votes; the minority report was supported by 15 free States, casting 176 electoral votes. N. and H. ii. 234. [97] This action was soon afterward approved in a manifesto signed by Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Iverson, Slidell, Benjamin, Mason, and others. _Ibid._ 245. [98] Greeley's _Amer. Conflict_, i. 326. [99] _Ibid._ i. 306, 307. [100] Mr. Blaine says that Lincoln "was chosen in spite of expressions far more radical than those of Mr. Seward." _Twenty Years of Congress_, i. 169. [101] "In strong common sense, in sagacity and sound judgment, in rugged integrity of character, Mr. Hamlin has had no superior among public men." Blaine, _Twenty Years of Congress_, i. 170. [102] Lamon, 453. [103] McClure adds, or rather mentions as the chief cause, Seward's position on the public-school question in New York. _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 28, 29. [104] "To the country at large he was an obscure, not to say an unknown man." _Life of W.L. Garrison_, by his children, iii. 503. [105] _Life of W.L. Garrison_, by his children, iii. 503. [106] See remarks of McClure, _Lincoln and Men of War-Times_, 28, 29. [107] See N. and H. ii. 284 n. [108] See letter of May 17, 1859, to Dr. Canisius, Holland, 196; N. and H. ii. 181. [109] _Life of W.L. Garrison_, by his children, iii. 502. [110] This table is taken from Stanwood's _History of Presidential Elections_. [111] N. and H. iii. 146.