[28] John H. Bryant, a man of large influence in central Illinois, brother of William Cullen Bryant. [29] Green B. Raum, Lawyer, Democrat, brigadier-general in the Union army in the Civil War. CHAPTER V THE LECOMPTON FIGHT In June, 1856, Lincoln wrote to Trumbull urging him to attend the Republican National Convention which had been called to meet in Philadelphia to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President and suggesting that he labor for the nomination of a conservative man for President. Trumbull went accordingly and coöperated with N. B. Judd, Leonard Swett, William B. Archer, and other delegates from Illinois in the proceedings which led up to the futile nominations of Frémont and Dayton. The only part of these proceedings which interests us now is the fact that Abraham Lincoln, who was not a candidate for any place, received one hundred and ten votes for Vice-President. This result was brought about by Mr. William B. Archer, an Illinois Congressman, who conceived the idea of proposing his name only a short time before the voting began, and secured the coöperation of Mr. Allison, of Pennsylvania, to nominate him. Archer wrote to Lincoln that if this bright idea had occurred to him a little earlier he could have obtained a majority of the convention for him. When the news first reached Lincoln at Urbana, Illinois, where he was attending court, he thought that the one hundred and ten votes were cast for Mr. Lincoln, of Massachusetts. He wrote to Trumbull on the 27th saying, "It would have been easier for us, I think, had we got McLean" (instead of Frémont), but he was not without high hopes of carrying the state. He was confident of electing Bissell for governor at all events. In August, Lincoln wrote again saying that he had just returned from a speaking tour in Edgar, Coles, and Shelby counties, and that he had found the chief embarrassment in the way of Republican success was the Fillmore ticket. "The great difficulty," he says, "with anti-slavery-extension Fillmore men is that they suppose Fillmore as good as Frémont on that question; and it is a delicate point to argue them out of it, they are so ready to think you are abusing Mr. Fillmore." The Fillmore vote in Illinois was 37,444. The Republican state ticket, headed by William H. Bissell for governor, was elected, but Buchanan and Breckinridge, the Democratic nominees, received the electoral vote of the state and were successful in the country at large. The defeat of Frémont caused intense disappointment to the Republicans at the time, but it was fortunate for the party and for the country that he was beaten. He was not the man to deal with the grave crisis impending. Disunion was a club already held in reserve to greet any Republican President. Senator Mason, of Virginia, frankly said so to Trumbull in a Senate debate (December 2, 1856), after the election: