The rail candidate, Currier & Ives. , Maurer, Louis, 1832-1932, artist, New York : Currier & Ives, c1860. , 1 print on wove paper : lithograph : (image) 27 x 36 cm. , The antislavery plank was a controversial feature of the 1860 Republican platform. Here Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln is shown uncomfortably straddling a rail--a dual allusion to the platform and to Lincoln's backwoods origins--carried by a black man and abolitionist editor of the New York 'Tribune' Horace Greeley (right). Lincoln says, 'It is true I have split Rails, but I begin to feel as if 'this' rail would split me, it's the hardest stick I ever straddled. ' The black man complains, 'Dis Nigger strong and willin' but its awful hard work to carry Old Massa Abe on nothing but dis ere rail! ! ' One of Lincoln's foremost supporters in the Northeast, Greeley here assures him, 'We can prove that you have split rails & that will ensure your election to the Presidency. '