Lincoln, of course, was elected President in 1860, but what about Velorous Taft? He was an incumbent, up for re-election in 1860 and, like Lincoln, he and was also victorious in 1860. At the bottom of the ticket is Velorous Taft (1819-1890), of Upton, Massachusetts, running for on one of three County Commissioner seats for Worcester County. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) tops the ticket, along with Vice Presidential candidate Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891).
Pictured here - and available at our Digital Collections website - is the Massachusetts Republican Party's ticket for Worcester County for the 1860 presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. Massachusetts, one of the earlier adopters of state-printed ballots, did not implement the practice until almost twenty years after the 1860 election, with the passage of "An Act to Preserve the Purity of Elections" in 1879. In an era before state-printed election ballots listed candidates from all political parties on a ballot, party leaders could insure straight ticket voting by supplying voters with these tickets, which voters then placed in ballot boxes for their vote. These tickets, often handed out at polling stations or printed in and clipped from newspapers, effectively functioned as ballots. But tickets were once just that: paper slips listing all of a political party's candidates. While we might still use phrases like the "party ticket" or "split-ticket voting," we are no longer talking about actual printed tickets. With the presidential election coming up next month, we thought it might be fun to highlight an item in our collection from the presidential election of 1860. Lincoln.” Voice of Masonry and Tidings from the Craft 3, no. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, SC 300.002. Handwritten preamble and resolution of Benjamin Dean, 1865 May 17. And although the President was not a Freemason, in an interview in October 1860 with the American poet and Freemason Rob Morris, presidential candidate Lincoln intimated his “great respect” for the fraternity, and it was widely speculated and reported that Lincoln had only “postpone his application for the honors of Masonry” until after his second term as President and the great burden of office had passed. Unanimously passed by the Supreme Council, Dean’s measure was only one of many tributes paid by Freemasons to the martyred President throughout the summer of 1865. Resolved, that this expression of our sympathy be spread upon our records, + a copy thereof be sent by our Secretary General to the family of our deceased President. Resolved – that we sympathize with the nation + with his distressed family in their unparallelled affliction.
Therefore, resolved – that we deplore the untimely end of our late honored President Abraham Lincoln – cut off by horrid violence – in the midst of the high dignities imposed upon him by this people.
It is peculiarly fit + proper that a body assembled from all the States of our Jurisdiction, and representing so largely our numerous + influencial brotherhood, a brotherhood whose ancient charges inculcate among its first duties – “to be peaceable citizens + cheerfully to conform to the laws of the country in which we reside – to avoid being concerned in plots and conspiracies against government + cheerfully to submit to the decisions of the Supreme Legislature it is fit + proper that such an assemblage – true to its teachings – should give some expression to the family of our deceased + honored President, of our sympathy with their misfortunes, + pray for the restoration of peace to their troubled minds. Since the last annual meeting of this Supreme Council the nation has been deprived of its chief magistrate by the hand of an assassin. In the Supreme Council of Sovereign Inspectors General 33º for the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States,
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