Abraham Lincoln is one of four American presidents whose face is carved on Mt. Rushmore and yet, in many quarters, his election did not bring the screaming headlines most Americans see today. For some, his 1860 election was a line drawn in the sand. On George Washington’s birthday, a few weeks prior to Lincoln’s March 4, 1861 inaugural, residents from around Kewaunee County were invited to a “Great Union Ball,” an event seen as an attempt to help heal differences between political parties.
Kewaunee’s James Slausson held a celebration following Lincoln’s March inauguration. Again Democrats and Republicans, with their families, from Kewaunee, Ahnapee and Carlton were in attendance. Enterprise editor Dexter Garland commented on the splendor of the occasion and the ladies who prepared it.
On Tuesday March 12, Ahnapee merchant David McCummins brought a copy of Evening Wisconsin from Milwaukee. The newspaper ran the text of Lincoln’s inaugural address. In a commentary, the Enterprise said that “Mr. Lincoln is trying to steer the ship of state between the dangers of Scylla and Charybdis and if he gets the Union through safely, he will be forever sainted as the greatest of all men."
Prominent men such as Ahnapee’s David Youngs and Simon Hall and Kewaunee’s W.S. Finley supported Lincoln. Kewaunee and Pierce towns were carried by the Shanghuys - a term applied to abolitionists - thus tipping the towns toward Lincoln. However, Stephen Douglas carried the county by 362 votes. Historian George Wing wrote that “stiff necked old Democrats like Elliott, Yates, Major McCormick, Warner and Van Dooser” saw nothing good in abolitionism or republicanism” and then saw their sons “follow false gods of other political creeds.”
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