PARIS — When Maine Sen. Hannibal Hamlin was roused from bed one night in May  1860, a group of friends saluted him as the Republican Party’s candidate for vice president.

“But I don’t want the place,” Hamlin replied, according to documents at the Paris Hill library and museum that bear his name.

Despite this initial reaction, the Paris Hill native announced at the end of the month that he would accept the nomination. Later in the year, he was elected along with the Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln.

The Hamlin Memorial Library and Museum has set up a small educational display to honor the 150th anniversary of Hamlin’s nomination and election. Among other items, the exhibit includes several reproductions from diaries and letters as well as a campaign flag for Lincoln, Hamlin and Maine gubernatorial candidate Israel Washington.

Hamlin was born on Paris Hill in 1809, worked as a teacher and lawyer, and entered into a wide-ranging political career. He served in the Maine Legislature and House of Representatives, joined the Senate in 1848, left in 1857 to become governor of Maine, and left that post after only two months to return to the Senate. He was serving in this capacity when he was nominated for vice president, even though he had not attended the convention.

“He really was quite shocked by the nomination,” said Ann McDonald, curator of the museum. “It was unexpected. He was quite happy as a senator.”

When Hamlin accepted the nomination, he pledged his support for keeping a vast swath of territory from the Mississippi River to Washington free of slavery. McDonald said Hamlin and Lincoln knew of each other, but had never met. Lincoln sent his running mate a letter in July 1860 to get acquainted.

“The prospect of Republican success now appears very flattering, so far as I can perceive,” Lincoln said. “Do you see anything to the contrary?”

Hamlin returned to his hometown for a rally atop Paris Hill that same month. Persis Sibley Andrews Black noted in her diary that Republicans estimated the crowd of supporters at 5,000 to 8,000, while Democrats put it at 3,000.

“All I know is that there were more people here than I ever saw in the place before,” Black concluded.

The tension between the North and South was evident in the election’s spread of votes. The Democratic Party split into Northern and Southern factions, with the Constitutional Union Party also running.

Lincoln and Hamlin took most of the Northern states, winning 18 for a total of 180 electoral votes. Most of the Southern states sided with the Southern Democrats, with the Northern Democrats and Constitutional Union parties picking up a handful of border states each.

Several Southern states seceded soon after the election, and the Civil War began in April 1861. McDonald said that though Hamlin was a strong supporter of civil rights and the abolition of slavery, he did not have many responsibilities within the Lincoln Administration. At one point, he even returned to Maine to go through basic training with the militia, but never saw action.

At the Republican convention of 1864, he was replaced by Tennessee military governor Andrew Johnson as the vice presidential candidate.

McDonald said the exhibit will run through the rest of the museum’s season, which ends Nov. 1, and she will also start to display Civil War items later in the year.

[email protected]