The Wide Awake Parade was formed in 1860 by Republicans in the Northern states to help nominate Abraham Lincoln as the President of the United States. As Abraham Lincoln’s ideas of abolishing slavery grew, so did his supporters. People of the Northern states knew the Southern states would vote against Lincoln because of his ideas of anti-slavery and took action to rally supporters for Lincoln.
The parade involved large groups of supporters who favored Abraham Lincoln who marched up and down cities while making their voices heard. Their attempts to rally up supporters involved bearing signs proclaiming support for Lincoln. Many other supporters assisted in watching over Democratic voting to make sure no voting fraud was to be committed. The attention the Wide Awake Parade gathered, caused the Southern states to attempt similar parades, but in the end were unsuccessful. The Wide Awake Parade was major factor in getting Abraham Lincoln elected into office.
Famous quotes containing the words wide awake, wide, awake and/or parade:
“Success is somebody else’s failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“It was a wide and moony grin
Together peaceful and obscene;”
—Howard Nemerov (b. 1920)
“Those great ideas which come to you in your sleep just before you awake in morning, those solutions to the world’s problems which, in the light of day, turn out to be duds of the puniest order, couldn’t they be put to some use, after all?”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The parade was here, but it disappeared around a corner.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)