On this day in 1860 dark-horse candidate Abraham Lincoln received the Republican nomination for president. He then promptly set out on a barnstorming tour across America, giving stirring campaign speeches to enthusiastic audiences.

Actually, he did not do that. Between the day he was nominated and the day he was elected, Lincoln did not give a single speech and he never even left his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln?s refusal to campaign was partly because his party wanted him to stay quiet and not risk giving any ammunition to his opponents, who were desperately trying to portray him as a dangerous extremist. But the main reason he stayed home during that critical election campaign was that at the time it was considered unseemly and undignified for a candidate to actively seek the office of president.

The model presidential candidate, according to the popular opinion of the time, had been George Washington, who did not campaign or show any sign of seeking the office. As James K. Polk would later remark, ?The office of president of the United States should neither be sought nor declined.? According to Henry Clay, presidential candidates should not campaign because the voters should be ?wholly unbiased by the conduct of a candidate himself.? ?I meddle not with elections,? Andrew Jackson declared, ?I leave the people to make their own President.? The sentiment is reflected in the terminology of the time, when candidates were said to ?stand for office,? rather than ?run for office.?

Breaking with tradition, candidate Winfield Scott went on a five-week speaking tour during the 1852 presidential campaign, although he carefully avoided any reference to political issues during his speeches. Nevertheless, many observers (both Whigs and Democrats) blamed his defeat on his having ?begged for votes,? unlike his silent opponent Franklin Pierce.
During the 1860 campaign, Lincoln?s Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas broke with precedent, but his vigorous campaigning ended in a loss, of course. Likewise, Horatio Seymour took to the stump in 1868, as did Horace Greeley in 1872, and both lost their elections. Greeley acknowledged that it is ?the unwritten law of our country that a candidate for President may not make speeches,? but being a talented speaker, he refused to not use his gift. For doing so he was denounced as ?the great American office beggar.?

In 1876 candidate Rutherford B. Hayes refused even to vote in the election, believing casting a vote for himself would be undignified and inappropriate.
In the campaigns of 1888 and 1892, the signs of change were showing. In those elections the challengers toured the country and gave stump speeches, but even then, the incumbent presidents did not. The thought of a sitting president campaigning, the New York Times declared, ?disgusts the people.?

The traditional reluctance to appear undignified by ?vote begging? would be gone forever after the 1896 election. In that campaign, the electrifying William Jennings Bryan stormed across 27 states giving over 600 speeches to a combined audience of over 5 million people. His opponent William McKinley never left home, but from his front porch gave over 300 speeches, reaching an estimated 750,000 people.

The last vestige of the old order (the notion that sitting presidents shouldn?t campaign) was swept away in the 1936 election, when the incumbent Franklin Roosevelt mounted a vigorous and historic barnstorming campaign that defeated challenger Alf Landon.

Nowadays, of course, campaigning for the presidency is seemingly nonstop and no one expects candidates to stay quietly at home until the election is over.