Write Team: The Abraham Lincoln coverup

I worked as a teen at the Bureau County Republican long back ago. Times past, eras long gone and, heck, it kept me going.

I ran around town doing practical journalism – all kinds of stories, taking photos, doing interviews, writing stuff up. It was plenty of fun – and a better summer job than the fast-food industry!

It was a column there that started it. I wrote a newspaper column, “Teen Beat,” for $50 per column.

In the boggy murk of history there lurks a weird deal about the old Bureau County Republican. Back in its genesis, it was a radical antislavery newspaper – “Free the slaves!”

Princeton was the land of Ichabod Codding, a remarkable abolitionist orator; John Bryant of the Famous Bryants; and Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyred newspaper editor the Indomitable Elijah Lovejoy – killed because as a white man he believed in the brotherhood of man and believed Black people were equals to any and all. And Elijah kept up the agitation by publishing antislavery papers until they shot him for it!

But in 1860, a notorious deed was done in Princeton, imperiling the very fate of the nation. The Bureau County Republican printed a speech by Codding that portrayed Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln as an abolitionist.

The very worst kind!

Codding focused on Lincoln’s hot, little “house divided” speech, dwelt hard on possible sectional war to end the evil of human slavery. The Codding speech was printed as a small pamphlet and in enough quantity to cause grave concern.

A touchy subject, too sensitive for the public, it would turn off all the many moderate voters and kill Lincoln’s election chance.

The title hardly hints at the devastating rhetoric. Codding’s “A Republican Manual for the Campaign,” (Princeton, Illinois: “Republican” Book and Job Printing Office) sounds pretty boring.

Important politicos did not want Lincoln portrayed as an abolitionist! He was a tough enough sell as it was, since Lincoln was clear and loud about the wrongs of slavery to our country, and Abe had pledged to block slavery’s extension into the vast open West.

THIS was bad enough!

But to call Abe an abolitionist wanting to instantly free Blacks would be damning to the possibility of Republican victory!

So here’s what happened.

The fiery little abolitionisty tract was destroyed at its very birth. It was suppressed, and the rhetoric that portrayed Honest Abe as an abolitionist was snuffed out.

This is the opinion of the esteemed historian Ernest Wessen, who studied campaign biographies.

Only seven copies of this piece of incendiary agitprop exist!

I had the pleasure of reviewing a copy long ago in the old Fort Wayne Lincoln museum.

There, director Mark Neely, a Lincoln scholar, opened a metal drawer and placed a copy of the old, old pamphlet in my hands. It was that kind of moment when you feel a bit of time travel has instantly taken place – this was right straight from 1860, spanning decades, and right here today.

Both of us from Princeton, and both of us associated with the Bureau County Republican.

Todd Volker lives in Ottawa with his wife and son, and they enjoy reading, kayaking, hiking, tennis and camping. He’s a lifelong learner with books in his hands.