In 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the Illinois Republican Presidential nomination in this way: Lincoln's friend, Richard Oglesby of Decatur, learned that, when he was young, Lincoln had split rails near Decatur with a fellow named John Hanks. Hanks still lived near Decatur; so Oglesby found Hanks and asked if any of those rails still existed. Hanks remembered a farm ten miles out of town where they'd split locust and black walnut for a rail fence. Oglesby and Hanks drove a buggy to the farm and discovered the fence still in use. They lifted a couple rails off the fence, tied them onto their buggy, and took them to Decatur to store in Oglesby's barn.

At the state convention the next week, Oglesby waited for the right time, then announced that he'd like to introduce a former Democrat who had som…