This portrait shows Abraham Lincoln as he appeared in 1860, the year in which he secured the Republican Party's presidential nomination and then the presidency itself. Lincoln's emergence at the 1860 Republican National Convention came as quite a surprise. Although he had made a reputation for himself in his 1858 debates with Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln was not a national party leader like William Seward of New York. Seward came into the Chicago convention as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, but doubts about his ability to carry the national election, combined with astute maneuvering by Lincoln's campaign managers, secured the shocking upset for the Illinoisian.