# A Radical Abolitionist Youth Movement Consumed America in 1860, Elected Lincoln, Then Disappeared Completely

An episode of [History Unplugged Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1237796990), 23 Apr 2024, 44 min.

Audio: https://s.gum.fm/s-62a121b02a6f7798fef24ea9/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5e27a451-e6e6-4c51-aa03-a7370003783c/f29261d0-2b21-4ca3-8530-b192014643e7/8ce41f35-99a8-43a9-9da4-b1f601087cff/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=f2485583-8f85-4713-b316-b19201465f8d

At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young white and black men, and a number of women, were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades of their own. These Wide Awakes—mostly working-class Americans in their twenties—became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history. To some, it demonstrated the power of a rising majority to push back against slavery. To others, it looked like a paramilitary force training to invade the South. Today’s guest, Jon Grinspan (author of “Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War”) examines how exactly our nation crossed the threshold from a political campaign into a war. We look at the precarious relationship between violent rhetoric and violent actions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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