108
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The good of society demanded its suppression.
They accomplished what
otherwise could not have been done,"
There was no need for him to say more.
The whole case had been
stated, and the jury understood
it.
" Ladies," said the judge. " you need not remain any longer in court
unless you desire to.
I will require no bond of you
; and if there should
be any fine imposed, I will give you notice."
The judge was so j^olite
and smiling that everybody in the room understood that there was ho
probability of a fine. (')
Mr. Cass had a case
in court.
He owned two yoke
of oxen and a
breaking-up plough which he wanted to
sell, and which Mr. Snow's two
sons bought, giving their note
in payment.
Keith er of the
bo3^s had
arrived at the age of manhood.
Mr. Cass trusted that they would pay
the note when
it became due
; but
it was not paid.
Abraham Lincoln
questioned a witness
:
'* Can you tell me where the oxen are now ?" he asked.
" They are on the farm where the boys have been ploughing."
" Have you seen them lately V
" I saw them last week."
" How old are the boys now ?"
" One
is a
little over twenty-one, and the other
is nearly twenty-
three."
" They were both under age when the note was given ?"
" Yes, sir."
" That is all."
" Gentlemen of the jury
:
I do not think that those boys would have
tried to cheat Mr. Cass out of his oxen but for the advice of their coun-
sel.
It was bad advice in morals and in law.
The law never sanctions
cheating, and a lawyer must be very smart indeed to twist the law so
that it will sanction fraud.
The judge will tell 3'-ou what your own sense
of justice has already told you—that if those boys were mean enough to
plead the baby act when they came to be men, they at
least ought to
have taken the oxen and plough back to Mr. Cass.
The}^ ought to know
that they cannot go back on their contract and also keep what the note
was given for."
So plain the case the jury, without leaving their
seats, rendered a
verdict, and the young men were
obliged to pay for
the
oxen and
plough, besides learning a wholesome lesson.
While riding the circuit Abraham Lincoln Avas taking a lively inter-
est in political affairs.
There was much dissatisfaction throughout the
RIDING THE
CIRCUIT.
100
country
\Yith
the administration
of President Van Buren, whom
the
Democratic party renominated.
The Whig party nominated General
"William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, who was born
in a log-cabin, who
fought a battle with the Indians at Tippecanoe, in
Indiana, and whom
the Whigs called " Old Tippecanoe."
He won other battles ngainst the
British
in Canada.
During the campaign
there were mass-meetings,
log-cabins, processions, brass bands,
oxen
roasted whole,
flag -raisings,
speeches, and songs.
The songs sung
told about
General Harrison,
his
eating
corn -bread and
drinking
cider.
Abraham Lincoln was mak-
ing speeches throughout Illinois for
Harrison.
His
speeches were
en-
livened with anecdotes and
stories,
and were much liked by the people.
His partner, Mr. Stuart, was a mem-
ber of Congress.
With one mem-
ber of the firm in Washington, and.
the
other
giving
his
attention
to
politics, the spiders could spin their
webs undisturbed in their law office.
Xot much money came from riding
the circuit.
Once more he was elected to the
Legislature.
In the State-house he made the acquaintance
of men of
influence and position.
In the bar-room of the hotel he was the centre
of a circle of admiring listeners.
Springfield was no longer a small county seat, but the capital of the
State, the resort of men and women of influence and position.
It was a
hospitable mansion—that of Ninian Edwards—which opened
its doors
to the Governor, judges, members of the Legislature, and distinguished
visitors.
They received a gracious Avelcome from the young bride, whose
former home was in the most cultured town of Kentucky—Lexington.
Shall we wonder that the young men
of Springfield were often found
in the parlor of the Edwards
mansion, made doubly radiant and
at-
tractive by the
presence
of Mrs. Edwards and
her unmarried
sister,
Mary Todd ?
" I want to introduce you to Mary Todd," said Mr. Speed to Mr.
Lincoln, as
they entered
the house
of Mr. Edwards.
Doubtless, the
WILLIAM HENKY HARRISON.
110
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
acquaintance was
all the more pleasurable to him from the fact that
Miss Todd was
acquainted with Henry Clay.
She was twenty -one,
vivacious, sparkling, the centre of a circle of admiring young men.
She
never was
at
a
loss
for
a partner
in the promenade, the
minuet, or
waltz.
He did not dance, neither did he know how to play cards ;(') but
yet she was never more vivacious than when in conversation with him.
We are not to think that a young man who but a few years before
pulled an oar and swung an axe to earn his daily bread, whose life had
been a struggle against adversity, could at once become a general favor-
ite in cultured society.
He did not understand all the amenities of social
intercourse
; but somehow the attentions of Mr. Lincoln were more ac-
ceptable to Miss Todd than those proffered by other young men.
As
the weeks went on, friendship ripened to a marriage engagement.
In
his lonely chamber he was pondering a great question.
Could he give
her the affection that would be her due ?
Could he
fill her
life with
joy?
Ought he
to
accept
her love when he
could
give so
little
in
return?
Kot
for
the
world would he
imperil
her
happiness.
Is
it
strange that the tears glistened upon her cheeks when he informed her
he could not reciprocate her affection as he ought and as she deserved ?
Need we wonder that when he saw the tears he kissed them away and
plighted his troth anew ?
The day fixed for
the wedding
arrived.
The marriage
of Abra-
ham Lincoln and Mary Todd would be a notable
social event.
There
was much preparation
in
the hospitable
mansion
of
I^s'inian
iSiT""^'
Edwards.
The
guests
assemble
;
the
feast
is
prepared
;
all
are waiting.
The bride in her beauty is ready to descend from
her chamber to meet him who is to fill her life with happiness.
He has
not arrived.
ISTone of all the
listening
ears can hear his approaching
footsteps.
The evening wanes.
He does not come.
The guests take
their departure
; the lights are extinguished
; the wedding-feast
is not
eaten.
Mary Todd is in her chamber, overwhelmed with mortification.
Joshua Speed searches for the delinquent groom, and finds him pale,
haggard, and
in the deepest melancholy. (')
Heart-rending the letter
which he sent to his friend, Mr. Stuart
:
" I am the most miserable man living.
If what I feel were equally
distributed to the whole human family, there would not be a cheerful
face on earth.
Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell
;
I awfully
forebode I shall not.
To remain as I am
is impossible.
I must die or
be better." (')
In the mythology of our forefathers
of Norseland a bird of ebony
RIDING THE CIRCUIT.
Ill
plumage
\A'as the symbol of memory.
Through all ages, in all lands, the
raven has been the emblem of haunting recollections.
The world never
Avill know the tearful memories and heart-rending forebodings of that
night of agony.
The transcendent genius of Edgar Allen Poe faintly
portrays
it
:
" 'Prophet
!'
said
I, 'thing of
evil
!—prophet
still,
if bird
or devil
!
By that heaven
that bends above us—by that God we both adore
Tell
this soul with sorrow laden
if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp
a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'
Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'"
Unmindful of what was going on around him, silent, pale, his mind
tempest-tossed, Mr. Lincoln was sinking into distressful melancholy.
Jt
was
very
kind
in Joshua
F. Speed, who had
closed
his
business
in
Springfield, and who was going to Kentucky, to take Mr. Lincoln with
him to his former home just out from Louisville. (*)
There was tender-
ness in the sympathetic welcome given him by the mother of Mr. Speed,
a great-hearted Christian woman.
To men who think for themselves, no matter what may have been
their previous religious belief, there not unfrequently comes a period of
doubting.
Such a period came
to Abraham Lincoln.
The preachers
whom he heard through his early years, for the most part, had little ed-
ucation.
One of the Governors of Illinois says of them
:
" They were without previous training, except in religious exercises
and in the study of the Holy Scriptures.
It was not thought necessary
that a teacher should be a scholar.
It was thought to be his business
to make appeals warm from the heart
;
to paint heaven and hell to the
imagination of the
sinner, to terrify him with the one and to promise
the other as a reward for a life of righteousness.
.
.
. They made up by
loud holloaing and violent action what they lacked in information.'' (')
Many of those who travelled from
settlement to settlement knew
very little about the
Bible, but yet attempted to explain
all
its truths
and events.
At the camp -meetings held
in groves along the streams
there was weeping, wailing, excitement, frenzy, rolling upon the ground,
ecstatic
shoutings,
" Amen !"
'^ Glory
!''
" Hallelujah !"
Shall we won-
der that Abraham Lincoln came to the conclusion that there was not
much true religion in such ecstasy and excitement ?
It
is possible that
some of those who shouted loudest were hard and grasping
in their
dealings with
their
neighbors
;
aniens, hallelujahs, and
loud
praying
did not make them better men.
He had not forgotten
his
mother's
112
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
teachings.
He could repeat much of the Bible, but he was not moved
by emotional appeals.
Many
of the
doctrines taught were
repulsive
to him.
When Ann Kutledge died, and his soul was wrung with grief,
•no one had talked to him
of divine
love
and
eternal goodness.
So
far
as
he
could
see,
his own
life
had
been
a
failure.
Hopes had
not been realized, desires not gratified.
He had accomplished nothing.
" You will die unless you
rally," the words of his dear friend, Mr.
Speed.
" I am not afraid to die, and would be more than willing; but I have
an irrepressible desire
to live
till
I can be assured that the world
is a
little better for my having lived in it," the mournful reply. ('°)
He is out in the desert—hungry, thirsty, weary, depressed in spirit
no star to guide him.
But as the angels of God came to the carpenter's
Son
of Nazareth, so came
Joshua
F. Speed and Lucy Oilman Speed
to him.
He finds himself in a hospitable home.
Flowers are blooming around
it
; balmy breezes sweep through the
halls.
He
breathes
an atmos-
phere of restful peace.
A
saintly woman
sits by
his
side, opens the
New Testament, and reads the words of One who Himself had been in
the
wilderness.
Her
teachings are very
different from what he
has
heard from the
shouters.
The Oxford Bible which
she presents him
as a token of her respect and affection (") has given her comfort and
consolation
in
every hour
of trouble.
She
talks of God as a Father,
Jesus Christ as a Brother.
New truths dawn upon him, and the Bible
becomes a different book from what
it
has been
in the past.
That
home, with its blooming flowers, restful shade, and atmosphere of peace
and joy,
is the gateway of a new
life.
Little does Lucy Oilman Speed
know that God has crowned her
with honor and glory, to be a minis-
tering
spirit in leading a bewildered wanderer out of the desert of de-
spair and
unbelief, that he may do great things for
his fellow -men.
Weeks go by, the gloom and anguish disappear.
The period of doubt
has gone, never to return.
From that hour the Bible
is to be
his rule
of life and duty.
His biographers—those who were near him later in life—have this
to say of him
:
" The
late but splendid maturity of Lincoln's mind and character
dates from
this time
;
and although he grew in
strength and knowl-
edge to the end, from this year we observe a steadiness and sobriety of
thought and purpose discernible in his life." ('")
This estimate does not include the service rendered by Lucy Oilman
RIDING THE
CIRCUIT.
113
Speed.
AVhen
the great account
is made
up, and the angels of God
come from the harvest-fields to lay their sheaves at the feet of the Mas-
ter, hers will be the changed Hfe of Abraham Lincoln.
^-<*'
LUCY OILMAN SPEED.
[From a painting by Bush,
in possession of the family.]
As
this biography unfolds, there
will be
seen, as the years go by
and the responsibilities of life
roll upon him, a reverent recognition of
Divine Providence, an increasing faith and childlike trust in God.
114
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
NOTES TO CHAPTER
VII.
(
1 ) J. G. Holland, "Life of Abraham Liucolu," p. 81.
C)W. H. Herudou, "Liucolu," p. 340 (edition 1889).
(
3 )
Ibid., p. 327.
{*) Ibid., p. 343.
.
(") Joshua F. Speed, Lecture ou Abraham Liucolu, p. 31.
C) W. H. Herudou, " Lincolu," p. 215 (editiou 1889).
C) Letter to J. T. Stuart, quoted iu Herndou's "Liucolu," p. 215 (edition 1889).
(*•) Joshua F. Speed, Lecture ou Abraham Liucolu, p. 39.
(') Governor Ford, " History of Illinois."
('") Joijhua F. Speed, Lecture on Abraham Liucolu, p. 39.
(^') "Century Magazine," January, 18«7.
(>2) Ibid.
SEVEN YEARS OF ACTIVE
LIFE.
115
CHAPTER
VIII.
sevp:n years of active
life.
FROM the restful
I'etreat in the home of Lucy Gihnan Speed, Mr.
Lincoln, with new hopes and ambitions, took passage on a steam-
boat down the
(3hio and up the Mississippi and the
Ilhnois
rivers
t(^
his home.
It was the most convenient route
of
travel.
With-
1 84
out
doubt, when he
reached
Gentry's Landing be
recollected
the
day when
he
ferried two passengers out to a passing
boat, and
received
in return two
shining
half-dollars, which seemed
a fortune
at
the
time.
It was
the
locality where
Ivaty Robie had made
the
evening hours pleasant by her presence.
It was
the home
of Judge
Pitcher, who had been so kind to him.
From that point
to the junc-
tion of the Ohio with the Mississippi he had pulled an oar on a
tlat-
boat.
From
the
Mississippi
to Beardstown he would be once more
amid the familiar scenes
of
his second trip to Xew Orleans.
There
is
little question
that the
recollections
of
the auction of human beings
came back to him, for once more he beheld the barbarism of the
insti-
tution of slavery.
In the Kentucky home where he had found such
restfulness he had seen slavery in
its most attractive form^—the slaves
cared for as members of the household, and a tender affection existing
between them and their mistress.
In such a home, the institution was
patriarchal and seemingly beneficial, but upon the steamboat the
illu-
sion faded.
In a letter to Miss Mary Speed he said
:
" A
fine example
was
presented
on
board
the
boat
for
contem-
plating the
effect
of
condition upon human happiness.
A gentleman
had purchased
twelve
negroes
in
different
parts
of
Kentucky, and
was taking them to a farm in the South.
They were chained six and
six together; a
small
iron
clevis was around
the
left
wrist of
each,
and this was fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a conven-
ient distance from the
others, so that the negroes were strung together
precisely like so many fish upon a trout-line.
In this condition they were
being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends.
116
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, and many of them
from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery, where
the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless than anywhere else;
and yet amid
all these distressing
circumstances, as we would
think
them, they were
the most
cheerful and
apparently happy people on
board.
One, whose offence for which he was sold was an over-fondness
for his wife, played the
fiddle almost continually, and
others danced,
sang, cracked jokes, and played various games Avith cards from day to
day.
How true
it
is that
' God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,'
or, in other words, that He renders the worst of human conditions tol-
erable, while He permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable." (
'
)
In Kentucky slavery was in some respects patriarchal.
Kind-hearted
planters felt a degree
of responsibility for the physical and moral wel-
fare of their slaves.
Those of the household had many liberties, and en-
joyed rollicking times in the kitchen, singing songs and dancing.
It was
for the planter's interest to provide them comfortable
cabins.
Each
had its patch of ground for a garden.
In sickness they received kindly
care.
The dark
side was revealed when they were sold to enable the
master to pay his
debts.
There were mournful scenes when the law
stepped in to settle an estate of a deceased planter.
The inexpressible
hideousness of the institution was revealed when hard-hearted men dis-
posed of their slaves for gain, just as they sold cattle and pigs.
Mr, Lincoln did not write to Miss Speed the
effect that the
spec-
tacle had upon himself, but
it intensified his abhorrence of such a con-
dition of affairs in a free republic.
Times were hard.
The period which people were looking for when
ever3^body was to be rich had not arrived, but seemed farther off than
ever.
There had been a period of speculation in the East and South as
well as in the West.
In Illinois the inhabitants were feeling the
out-
come of the legislation which appropriated |12,000,000 for the construc-
tion of railroads and a canal.
The bonds had been printed and a por-
tion of them
sold
;
but the
rich men of New York and Boston, who
were expected to purchase them, had themselves been speculating, buy-
ing farms and house -lots, borrowing money from the
banks.
When
their notes became due they were unable to pay them.
The banks had
no more money to loan and were
crippled.
A firm
in New Orleans,
which had been buying cotton
at high
prices and borrowing money,
failed to pay its notes when due.
It was the beginning of a financial
crash.
Men who supposed themselves rich suddenly found they were
penniless.
Banks and individuals alike
failed.
Trade was at a stand-
SEVEN YEARS OF ACTIVE LIFE
119
still.
Very
little .money passed between buyer and
seller.
The mer-
chant was obliged to take farm produce at low price
in exchange for
his goods.
Creditors were suing those who owed them.
Lavv'yers were
making out writs and trying cases.
Taxes were especially burdensome
by the action of State officials, who refused all bank-bills and demanded
gold
or
silver, which had disappeared
from
circulation.
People saw
their fai'ms sold for taxes and were powerless to prevent the sale.
NEGRO CABINS OX A KENTUCKY PLANT.\TION.
The
official most active
in
this period of financial distress was Mr.
Shields, an emigrant from Ireland, who had been elected State Auditor.
He was believed by many to be
vain, egotistical, and pompous in the
discharge of the
duties
of the
office.
The Auditor regarded himself
with much complacency Avhen in the society of ladies, and lost no op-
portunity of showing them
attentions.
He was a Democrat, whereas
quite a number of the young ladies of Springfield were ardent Whigs,
especially
Miss Mary Todd
and
Miss
Julia
Jayne.
The
action
of
Shields
in
refusing
to
receive bank-bills
in payment
for taxes gave
120
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
great
offence.
He was
bitterly
denounced.
Abraham
Lincoln
gave
utterance
to no
denunciation, but, knowing
Shields, was
sensitive
to
ridicule, adopted a far different method of attack.
The " Spring-
field Journal," the last week in August, contained a letter which
set the Whigs
to laughing, but which
irritated Mr. Shields.
It
was
written from " Lost Township," a place not found on any map.
Tlie
writer was a widow, and signed herself " Kebecca."
The widow gave
an
account
of a
visit to her neighbor, whom she found very angry.
"What is the matter, Jeff?" she asked.
"I'm mad. Aunt 'Beccal
I've
been tugging ever since harvest, getting out wheat and hauling it to the
river to
raise State bank paper enough to pay my tax this year and a
little school debt
I owe
; and now, just as I've got
it, here
I open this
infernal 'Extra Register' [Democratic newspaper], expecting to find
it
full of Glorious Democratic Yictories and High Com'd Cocks, when, lo
and behold
!
I find a
set of fellows
calling themselves ofKcers of the
State have forbidden the tax
collectors and school commissioners
to
receive State paper at all
; so here it
is, dead on my hands."
The widow went on to tell how her neighbor used some bad words.
" Don't swear so," she said, in expostulation to Jeff
;
" you know I be-
long to the meetin', and swearing hurts my feehngs."
" Beg pardon, Aunt 'Becca, but I do say that
it
is enough to make
one swear, to have to pay taxes in
silver for nothing only that Ford
may get his S2000, Shields his S2400, and Carpenter
his $1600 a year,
and all without danger of loss from State paper." (')
The
ridicule
of " Rebecca " was
merciless.
A week passed and a
second
letter appeared, not written by Abraham Lincoln, but by Mary
Todd and Julia Jayne, in which " Rebecca " satirized the Auditor upon
his attention to the ladies.
Besides the letter there were rhymes
:
"Ye Jews-harp, awake
! the Auditor's won
;
Rebecca the widow has gained Erin's son
;
The pride of
the North from Emerald Isle
Has been wooed and won by a woman's smile." (^)
The Auditor, instead
of laughing at the
satire, became very angry,
and demanded the name of the writer.
" Give him my name, but say nothing about the young ladies," said
Lincoln. (*)
Shields demanded satisfaction.
In the Southern States a refusal to
fight a duel was looked upon as evidence
of cowardice.
Many public
men had fought duels—Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Colonel
GENEHAI. JAMES SHIELDS.
[From a photograph taken
in 1S61.]
Benton
and
General
Jackson, Commodore
Decatur and Commodore
Barron, Henry Clay and John Randolph.
Four years before the writ-
ing of the "Rebecca" letter Mr. Graves, of Kentucky, and Mr. Cilley,
of Maine, members
of Congress, fought
a
duel, in which
Cilley was
killed.
Lincoln was quite
willing to come to
satisfactory terms with
Shields for anything that he had written himself, but he could not
in
honor say to him that the second letter and poetry had been written by
two estimable young ladies.
"What will you do if" asked a friend.
, "I am wholly opposed to duelling, and will do anything to avoid
it
that will not degrade me in the estimation of myself and friends;
but
if
degradation or a fight are the alternatives, I shall fight." (')
He knew the party challenged could name the weapons.
He knew,
too, that small swords were generally used, but with grotesque humor
he selected heavy broadswords.
He
stipulated that there should be a
barrier between
himself and
Shields, over which
they were to hack
122
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
at each other, and they were to
be confined to a limited
space.
The
laws of
Illinois prohibited
duelling, and he demanded that the meet-
ing should be outside the
State.
Shields undoubtedly knew Lincoln
"vvas opposed to fighting a duel—that
his moral sense would revolt
at
the thought, and that he would not be likely to break the law by fight-
ing in the State.
Possibly he thought Lincoln would make a humble
apology.
Shields was brave but foolish, and would not listen to
over-
tures
for explanation.
It was arranged
that the meeting should be
in Missouri, opposite Alton.
They proceeded to the place selected, but
friends interfered and there was no
duel.
There
is
little doubt that
the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled
hickory logs could have
cleft the
skull of his antagonist, but he had
no such
intention.
He repeatedly
said
to the friends of Shields that
in writing the
first
article he had no thought
of anything
jDersonal.
The Auditor's vanity had been sorely wounded by the second
letter,
in regard to which Lincoln could not make any explanation except that
he had had no hand in writing
it.
The
affair
set
all Springfield to
]aughing
at
Shields, but
it detracted from the happiness
of
Lincoln.
By accepting the challenge he had violated his sense of right and out-
raged his better nature.
He would gladly have blotted it from memory.
It was ever a regret. (°)
Martin Yan Buren, freed from the cares of the nation by the
elec-
tion
of General Harrison, journeyed westward
to
Illinois.
The roads
were deep with mud, and instead of reaching Springfield on the day he
intended, found night overtaking him Avhen
six miles from the
capital.
Word came to
his friends
that he would spend the night
in the
vil-
lage of Rochester.
They knew the accommodations at the little tavern
Would be scanty.
The food would be bacon and eggs, or other homely
fare
;
and
so, providing
themselves with
delicacies, they
hastened
to
Rocliester.
Abraham Lincoln had made speeches supporting Harrison
; he had
commented severely upon the shortcomings of Van Buren's administra-
tion
; but a man who had been chief executive of the nation should be
honored by all, irrespective of party.
He accepted the invitation of his
Democratic fellow-citizens to accompany them to Rochester.
Courteous
the welcome extended to Yan Buren, and equall}^ kind the reception on
the part
of the ex-President, who talked of events in New York and
Washington, and narrated anecdotes to the company, Avho were charmed
by his genial ways.
But
it was the young Whig lawyer from Spring-
field who convulsed the ex-President with laughter by his anecdotes and
SEVEN YEARS OF ACTIVE
LIFE.
12;
stories.
It was an evening often
i-eferred
to
witli many expressions of
pleasure by Mr. Van Buren in after-life.
''My sides ached from laughingv' he was wont to say.(')
Although the marriage engagement between
]\[r. Lincoln and Mary-
Todd had boon suddenly suspended, the friendship had not been irrevo-
cably sundered.
Again he was
a, welcome guest at the hospitable home
of Governor Edwards.
A renewal
of
fi'iendship led to a re-engagement, re-
sulting in their marriage, November 4,
1842.
The officiating clergyman. Rev.
Mr. Dresser, used the marriage service
of
the
Episcopal Church, which was
new to one of the guests, Judge Thos.
C. Browne, an
early
settler
of
that
section
of the
country.
Mr.
Lincoln
])lacedthe ring upon the bride's linger,
and
solemnly^
repeated
the
words
:
'' With this ring I thee wed, and with
all my worldly goods I thee endow."
Suddenly there came an exclamation
from -the judge not found in the serv-
ice
: " Good gracious, Lincoln, the stat-
ute
fixes
all that!"
To an old-time, straightforward country lawyer
the formula was needless superfluity. A ripple of laughter went round
the room
; but the clergyman, recovering his self-possession, proceeded
with the service.
The newly-married cou[)le found accommodations at the Globe Tavern.
Soon after his marriage Mr. Lincoln associated himself in his profession
with William II. Herndon.
It was a congenial partnership.
Mr. Ilern-
don was an Abolitionist, and was holding correspondence with William
Lloyd
Garrison, AVendell
Phillips, and other leading agitators
for the
immediate
abolition of slavery.
Antislavery publications found
their
way to the office of Lincoln & Ilerndon.
Mr. Lincoln thought an im-
mediate abolition of slavery was not possible.
lie hated the institution,
but saw that it was intrenched in State and Church alike.
It was recog;-
nized
b}^ the Constitution of the United
States
;
it existed in half the
States composing the Union.
Public opinion regarding slavery must
change before laws could be changed.
The Abolitionists denounced the
Constitution and the Union because the Constitution recognized slavery.
Mr. Lincoln believed the government of the people under that agree-
MARTIN VAN BUREN.
124
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ment was the
best the world had ever seen, notwithstanding the
ex-
istence of slavery.
He read the speeches of the
Abolitionists, but did
not accept
their premises
or
conclusions.
He believed
emancipation
must be gradual.
He did not comprehend the aggressiveness
of the
slave power.
When Henr}' Clay was nominated
for President, Abraham Lincoln
became his ardent supporter.
He made speeches in Hlinois and Indiana.
He went to Pigeon Creek, and addressed the people of that sec-
tion of the country.
Those who had stood with him in the old
log school-house, and remembered how he surpassed them all in "speak-
ing pieces " and in everything else, were not surprised to find him one
of the foremost speakers in the political campaign.
He confidently ex-
pected that Mr. Clay would be
elected, and was much disappointed by
the
election
of the Democratic candidate, Mr. Polk, of Tennessee.
A
greater disappointment awaited him.
He had never seen Mr. Clay, but
learning
that
he was
to
give an
address
at Lexington, Ky., on
the
gradual emancipation
of the
slaves, he determined
to make a
trip to
that town to hear one whom he
regarded with
such veneration and
honor.
ITot many of us
like
to have our idols shattered.
It
is not
pleasant to have illusions which we have fondly cherished rudely blown
away.
' Mr. Lincoln
entered
the
hall
in Lexington
a
stranger
to
all
about
him.
He beheld a
brilliant assembly of men and women who
GLOBE TAVEHN.
[From a photograph
]
SEVEN YEARS
OP^ ACTIVE
LIFE.
12.J
had gathered
to hsten to the man who, for nearly half a centiuy, had
electrified audiences
b}'^ his eloquence.
But time had turned many fur-
rows on his brow.
The fire of early years was dying out.
He had held
many places of honor and trust, but had not reached the goal to the at-
tainment of which he had
directed
all
his
energies— the
Presidency.
Never again could there be a flaniing up of the old-time enthusiasm upon
any theme.
The address which he had prepared was not upon a subject
calculated to win the applause
of his hearers.
No
thrilling Avords fell
from his
lips.
In that evening hour the
illusions of many years were
fading away from the eyes of the man wdio had taken the journey from
Illinois to Lexington.
But a keener disappointment was to come.
Henry Clay had been
born in poverty, had made his way against adverse circumstances to an
exalted
position.
From his first entrance into public life he had been
accustomed
to
receive
adulation and homage.
Men a])proached him
as
if he were a superior
being
;
sycophants had fawned around him.
Through many years he had
maintained a dignified
public
life.
He
gave a courteous reception to the man from Illinois, who had been mak-
ing speeches
in
his
behalf— courteous, nothing
more.
Mr. Clay was
polite, affable, agreeable
in conversation, but
cold, distant, patronizing
in manner.
His was not a hearty grasp of the hand.
He manifested
no great pleasure in meeting the Illinois lawyer who, without hope or
expectation of reward, had labored to make him President.
Hundreds
had also been making speeches, and it is possible that Mr. Clay may not
have heard that a man by the name of Lincoln was stumping Illinois in
his behalf, and so received him politely, but without marked cordiality.
Beneath
the oaks, elms, and ashes casting their shade over the home
of the
o-reat statesman at Ashland, Al)raham
Lincoln became
disen-
chanted. (*)
Whether he
himself was
acquainted
with men
or
not,
whether they had labored for or against him, whether men were rich or
poor, whether occup\^ing humble or exalted positions, it made no differ-
ence to him
; to
all
there was
the hearty grasp of his hand.
It was
Abraham Lincoln's way, but not Mr. Clay's.
The Congressional districts in
Illinois were Democratic, except that
in which Abraham Lincoln resided.
The Democratic party nominated
liev. Peter Cartwright, a Methodist minister, who had preached
in nearly every school district, and who was known to everj^body.
The Whig party believed Mr. Lincoln would prove to be more popular
than
the
minister.
He
w^as nominated and
elected.
Some
of
his
friends, knowing that he had but little money, contributed $200 tow-
126
LIFE OF ABRAHA]\r LINCOLN.
HENRY CLAY.
ards meeting his expenses wliile travelling through the district and mak-
ing speeches, and were much surprised to receive the following
letter
from him, returning $199.25
:
" I have ridden my own horse.
My friends have entertained me at
SEVEN YEARS OF ACTIVE
LIFE.
127
night. My onl}'' outing has been 75 cents for some cider, whicli
I bought
for some farm-hands."
He saw no harm in the drinking
of
cider.
He may have thought
a httle given
to
a gang
of men whom he met
in
the harvest -field
would not harm them, and might
be of some
benefit
to
himself on
election-day.
In the Capitol at Washington, as a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives, Mr. Lincoln met men whose names are inseparably associated
with the history of the country
: Robert C. Winthrop, of Massa-
chusetts, Speaker of the House
; John Quinc}^ Adams, ex-President
of the United States, member of the House
; George Ashmun, from the
same State
; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana
; Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee
;
Alexander H. Stephens, Howell Cobb, and Robert Toombs, of Georgia
;
and Barnwell Rhett, of South Carolina.
On the same' day Stephen A.
Douglas became
a
Senator from
Illinois, meeting Daniel Webster, of
Massachusetts
; John
P. Hale, of Xew Hampshire
; John Adams Dix,
of New York
; Lewis
Cass, of Ohio
; Thomas R. Benton, of Missouri
;
Simon
Cameron, of Pennsylvania
; John
J. Crittenden, of Kentucky
;
James M. Mason, and R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia
; John
C. Calhoun,
of South
Carolina
; and
Jefferson
Davis, of
Mississippi, all
of whom
were
to
appear
in
the great drama
in which Abraham
Lincoln
was
to take the leading part.
Mr. Lincoln was meeting the foremost men
of the nation as their
equal in making laws for the country.
He mtroduced a resolution call-
ing upon the President to furnish the House with a statement of facts
relating to the war with Mexico, and advocated
its passage
in a very
able speech.
While member
of
Congress
he was
greatly
exercised
at
seeing
gangs of slaves
in chains marched away from the slave -prison to be
sold
in Southern markets.
He looked upon
it as a national disgrace.
Mr. Gait, member from New York, introduced a resolution prohibiting
the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.
Mr. Lincoln was in favor
not only
of prohibiting
slavery
in
the
district, but
he
would make
free
all children born after January
1, 1850;
and
if owners of slaves
were willing to part with them, he would have the Government pur-
chase their freedom.
He soon discovered, however, that the members
from the slave-holding States were bitterly opposed to any such bene-
ficent measure.
They would not listen to any proposition Avhich in the
remotest degree would interfere with the institution.
General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was the candidate
of the Demo-
128
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
cratic Party for President, in opposition
to General Zachary Taylor,
the candidate
of the Whigs.
The
partisans
of Cass unwisely
"^'is/s^'
ii^^giiifisd
his
military services.
Mr.
Lincoln, in common with
many other members, made a speech upon the political situation,
in which General Cass was held up to
ridicule, especially in regard to
extra charges upon the Treasury,
Mr. Lincoln said
:
"I have introduced General Cass's accounts here chiefly to show the wonderful pliys-
ical capacities of the man.
They show that he not only did the labor of several men at
the same time, but he often did it in several j)l'^ces many hundred miles apart at the same
time.
And
as
to
eating, too, his capacities are shown
to be quite as wonderful.
From
October, 1821, to May, 1833, he ate ten
rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a day here
in Washington, and nearly $5 worth a day, besides, partly on the road between
the two
places.
And then there is an important discovery in his example—the act of being paid
for what one eats, instead of having to pay for
it.
Hereafter, if any nice young man shall
owe a
bill which he cannot pay in any other way, he can just board
it out.
We have all
heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay and starving to death
;
the like of that would never happen to General Cass.
Place the stacks a thousand miles
apart, and he would stand
stock-still midway between them and eat, them both at once,
and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some, too, at the same time.
By
all means, make him President, gentlemen.
He will feed you bounteously,
if—if—there
is any left after he shall have helped himself,"
Just before the close of Mr. Lincoln's term in Congress the thought
came to him that he might possibly obtain an appointment from the
President as Commissioner
of
the General Land
Office, which would
give him a
fair
salary.
He
applied
for the
situation, but
his friend,
Edwin D. Baker, from Illinois, also w^anted the office.
Fortunately for
themselves and for the country neither of them received the appoint-
ment.
Mr. Lincoln
visited Kew York and
Boston,
He gave an
address
at Worcester,
Mass., which was much
liked by those who heard
it.
He journeyed to Niagara.
He beheld the swirling stream above the
falls,
the
cataract, and
the
fury
of
the
current
below.
A Yankee
thought it might be a good place to wash sheep.
Mr. Lincoln was not
thinking about washing
sheep, or of setting Niagara to turning
mill-
wheels, but wondered where all the water came from.
The most com-
fortable route home
Avas by steamboat down the Ohio Eiver and up
the Illinois.
The water was low, and the boat grounded on a bar.
The
firemen stuffed wood under the boilers, and black clouds of smoke rolled
out from the chimneys.
Louder the puffing of the steam, but the boat
was hard and fast upon the sand.
" Get out those empty barrels !" the
order of the captain.
The crew pitched a lot of empty casks into the
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
[From a painting by G.
P. A.
Healy,
in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington.]
SEVEN YEARS OF ACTIVE
LIFE.
1.31
river and fastened them with ropes under the bow of the boat, thus
hl't-
ing
it
till
clear of the obstruction.
A thought came
to the man who
looked down upon the operation from the deck of the steamer.
Quite
likely he
recalled the days when he took the Talisman over the sand-
bars of the Sangamon.
Why not get up a contrivance—a flexible air-
chamber, to be attached to the hull of the boat
\
It could be pumped
full of air whenever the vessel grounded, and so enable
it to glide over.
He thought about
it
all the way to
Springfield
;
set AValter
Davis, a
carpenter, to work making a
model, which he sent
to
the
Patent Office, and received a
patent for his invention
;
but,
like most of the patents issued,
it came to nothing.
Zachary Taylor, who won
the
battle of Buena Yista in
the war with Mexico, had been
elected President.
During the
campaign
Mr.
Lincoln made
many
speeches
favoring
his
election, and as a reward for
what he had done could have
an
office.
He
started
for
Washington
to
see what the
President would give him.
In
the
early morning he took
his seat in the stage at Raras-
delFs tav^ern.
There was only
one other passenger, a Kentuckian, who took a plug of tobacco from
his pocket, bit off a quid, and handed it to the silent man
beside him.
" No, I thank you,
sir
;
I do not chew."
"Perhaps you
will take
a
cigar?"'
and
the Kentuckian
held
out
a case well filled with cigars.
"Much
obliged
to you, but
I do
not smoke."
" Well, stranger, seeing you don't chew or smoke, perhaps you will take
a little nice French brandy V said the man, taking a flask from his pocket.
" You are very kind, but I am not
in the habit of drinking," replied
Lincoln.
The stage reached the tavern Avhere the horses were changed,
and where the Kentuckian was to
stop.
He did not quite understand
the man who had declined the offered courtesies.
LEWIS CASS.
132
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" See here, stranger," he said, " I think you are a real clever fellow
;
I wouldn't offend you for the world
; but allow me to say that a man
who does not chew, smoke, or drink, who has no vices of any kind, is
not likely to have many virtues."
Mr. Lincoln laughed heartily as he bade him good-bye.
At Terre Haute two prominent citizens of Indiana, Thomas H. Nel-
son and Judge Hammond, took
seats
for
Indianapolis.
It was early
morning, the sun not
up.
They saw a man
asleep, lying on the back
seat and his long legs stretched across the vehicle.
" Hullo, my
friend
!
Say, have you
chartered the whole
of
this
coach?" shouted the judge, slapping the sleeper on the shoulder.
" Beg your pardon, gentlemen
;
but I thought
I would make myself
as comfortable as I could," said Mr. Lincoln, as he courteously took the
front seat.
The sun rises, and the two passengers see that their fellow-traveller
is a tall man with deep-set eyes and thin cheeks.
It
is a warm morn-
ing, and he has laid aside vest and
cravat.
His hat
is
of palm -leaf,
tipped back on
his head.
He must
be a queer fellow, and
they
will
have some fun with him.
He laughs at their jokes, and does not seem
to mind,
it when they make him the butt
of their
raillery.
At night
they behold a comet blazing in the sky.
Ignorant people are fearful
it
is going
to destroy the world.
Judge Hammond and Mr. Nelson are
surprised at what their fellow -passenger has to say upon astronomy.
He seems to be well informed.
" What do you think
is to be the up-
shot of this comet business V he asks.
" I differ from the scientific men and the philosophers.
I should not
be surprised
if the world should follow the plaguy thing off," the reply
of Mr. Nelson.
The man without any vest or cravat laughs
heartily, but does not
controvert the
opinion.
Late
in
the
evening
the
stage
rolls up
to
Browning's Hotel, in Indianapolis, and Judge Hammond and Mr. Nel-
son go to their rooms to brush
the
dust from their
clothing.
They
are astonished when they come down and see Judge McLean and half a
dozen
of the foremost public men of the
State shaking hands with the
man wearing the palm-leaf hat.
" "Who is he ?" Nelson asked of the landlord.
" That is Abraham Lincoln."
Mortified and ashamed of their joking and
raillery, they sneak out
of the back
door and make
their way to another tavern.
They do
not care to meet him after what has taken place.
sevp:n years of active
life.
133
Mr.
Lincoln
reached Washington, and
learned
that
the
President
would appoint him Governor of
< )regon.
It was a territory far away,
with
but few inhabitants.
It
could
be reached
only
after a
tedious
journey across the plains of Nebraska, over the Ilocky Mountains and
the sterile Snake River region.
It would require many weeks of travel,
and when there he would
be, as
it Avere, out of the world.
The office
was respectfully declined, and he returned to Illinois, to again " ride the
circuit."
NOTES TO CHAPTER
VIII.
(
'
)
Joshiiii F. Speed, Lectnre on Abrali.ini Lincoln, p. 40.
(2) William H. Henulon, " Lincoln,"
p. 233 (edition 1889).
(3) Ibid., p. 242.
(•») Ibid., p. 243.
(5) E. H. Merrynian, letter to "Sangamon Jonrnal," qnoted in Hcrndon's "Lincoln,"
p. 248 (edition 1889).
(«) William H. Henulon, '-Lincoln," p. 231 (edition 1889).
(
' ) Joshua F. Speed, Lectnre on Abraham Lincoln, p. 36.
C^) "Centnrj- Magazine," January, 1887,
134
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
CHAPTER
IX.
BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY.
ABRAHAM
LHSTCOLlSr
was
forty
years
old.
It
cannot
be
said
-^-^
that he had accomplished very much for his fellow-raen.
Some-
how we cannot help thinking of Moses, who was
in the
desert
forty
years, doing nothing beyond tending the sheep of his father-in-
law—not knowing that he was biding God's time..
Great events
must take place before the man who had
declined
the
Governorship
of Oregon could do the work which
divine
Providence had planned
for the welfare
of our country and
the whole human
race.
In
his
Springfield home he bade good-bye to politics and resumed the
prac-
tice of law.
The war with Mexico was over, and California had become a part
of the United States.
While Abraham Lincoln was a legislator in the
Representatives' Hall in Washington, January, 1848, James W. Marshall
was digging a mill-race for John A. Sutter in California.
" I wonder what that yellow stuff is !" said Marshall, as he threw up
a shovelful of earth.
••' I guess it is brass," said one of the workmen.
" I'll
see what vinegar
will do to
it," said Marshall.
He put the
yellow particles into vinegar, but they did not change.
" I am going to San Francisco, and
will see what they say about
it
there," said Mr. Bennett, Avho went to that town and showed it to Isaac
Humphrey, who had worked in a gold-mine in Georgia.
" It is gold," said Humphrey.
The news spread.
There was a rush of people to the American River,
where the gold had been found.
In June and July, 1849, gold-dust val-
ued at $250,000 was received at San Francisco, then onlj^ a
little collec-
tion of houses.
Lieutenant Beale, of the United
States Navy, was
in
California, and was sent to Washington with despatches.
He made his
way down the coast to Monterey, crossed Mexico, and
in September
reached Washington.
" Rich Gold-mines Discovered in California!" was
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY.
135
the announcement in the Baltimore " Sun," September 20th,
The news
spread
far and wide
;
it was flying all over the country.
Miners were
making fortunes—hundreds of dollars a day.
From Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and all the Atlantic ports vessels were sailing for Califor-
nia.
By February, 1850, ninety had sailed, carrying 8,000 men.
Seventy
other ships w'ere getting ready.
The men of the Western States flocked
to St. Louis, went up the Missouri to the mouth of the Platte River, and
started from there in caravans across the plains, with oxen and horses,
drawing white canvas-topped wagons.
Over the plains, across the wide
reaches
of
sage
lands where
there
Avas
little
water, over the
Sierra
Nevada Mountains streamed a long line of weary, poverty-stricken men,
hungry for gold, more hungry for food.
Into the Golden Gate sailed
the white-winged
ships.
Before the year closed more than 400 vessels
were riding
at anchor
in the Bay
of
San
Francisco
;
and that
place,
Avhich was only a village when
the
first yellow gold-dust was thrown
to the surface, was a city with 20,000 people—a jostling, hurrying crowd,
having only one object in view
:
to get gold.
"VVe are not to forget that the slave-holders of the South had brought
about the annexation
of Texas
for the purpose of extending the area
of slavery and perpetuating
their power
in
political
affairs, that they
mig-ht control the Govermnent.
The annexation resulted in a war with
Mexico.
That republic had been forced to surrender California and a
vast extent of country between the Rio Grande and the Pacific coast,
wdiich the slave-holders confidently expected would become Slave States.
Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, of whom we shall speak further on, said in a
spaech
: " Slavery should spread itself, and have no limit except the South-
ern Ocean." Yery unexpectedly to him and all the slave-holders, the peo-
ple of the gold region declared there should be no slavery in California.
Twenty years had gone by since the imprisonment of the young print-
er
in Baltimore for saying the slave-trade was piracy
; twenty years
since a flat-boatman in New Orleans had sworn a solemn oath that
if
he ever got a chance to hit the institution he would hit
it hard.
During
the years a great change had taken place in public sentiment throughout
the Northern
States
regarding slavery.
Men were beginning
to see
that
it was an aggressive political force
;
that
it was wicked and cruel,
and threatened to subvert the liberties of the people.
Several men who
mainly had acted with the Democratic Party, but wdio were opposed to
the further extension of slavery, met at Buffalo, N.Y., and organized the
Free-soil Party.
" No more Slave States
!
No more Slave Territory I"
their motto.
136
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
"When the slave-holders heard that the miners of California intended
to make it a Free State they sent Senator Gwyn, of Mississippi, to the
Pacific coast to do what he could towards making it a Slave State
; but
his
efforts were
vain.
The slave-holders, chagrined
at
the
upsetting
of their plans, determined to oppose
its admission to the Union.
To
understand what
followed
we
must
remember
that
in
1820, when
Missouri was admitted
to the Union,
it was agreed that
all the
terri-
tory north
of
36°
30', which formed
the southern boundary
of that
State, should be
free.
Mexico, before the ceding of California to the
United States, had abolished servitude
;
so when California, New Mexi-
co, and Utah were joined to the United
States, those sections were free
from slavery.
Henry Clay had been instrumental in accomplishing the
Compromise
of
1820, and
in
his
declining
years, seeing
the
trouble
brewing between the Free and Slave States, bent all his waning energies
to bring about another Compromise, which he hoped would foi-ever settle
the question.
Daniel Webster, in Massachusetts, having a great love for
the Constitution and the Union, was ready to do what he could to secure
peace and harmony.
The agreement made was one-sided.
The slave-
holders were to consent that California should be admitted
as a Free
State.
To pay them for the concession Utah and New Mexico were to
be organized as territories, without any stipulation whether they should
or should
not permit
the holding
of
slaves.
Texas was
to
receive
$10,000,000 for 70,000 square miles belonging to that State north of the
Missouri Compromise line, and slavery was to be extended over
it.
No
more slaves were to be sold in the District of Columbia, but fugitives es-
caping from a Slave to a Free State were to be returned to their mas-
ters.
Insulting and degrading to the people of the Free States were the
provisions of the law regarding fugitive slaves.
Such was the Compromise which,
it was declared, would forever put
an end to the agitation of the slavery question.
"There shall be no more agitation.
These measures are a finality,
and we will have peace," said Daniel Webster. (')
" In taking leave of this subject," said Stephen A. Douglas, " I wish
to state that I have determined never to make another speech upon the
slavery question.
So long as our opponents do not agitate for repeal or
modification, why should we agitate for any purpose.
This Compromise
is a final settlement." (')
They did not comprehend the aggressive character of slavery.
The
Compromise became a law, and California was admitted to the Union.
During these days Abraham Lincoln was reading Shakespeare and
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY.
137
the poetry of Robert Burns.
AVhen work for the (hiy was done he was
accustomed to tip himself back
in
his
office chair, put
his
feet on the
table, and read aloud.
" I can understand
it better," he said.
A poem, entitled
•' The Last Leaf," written by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
gave him great pleasure.
He often recited
it to his friends.
His
lips
were tremulous at times as he repeated the lines
:
"The moss}' marbles
rest
On
the
lips
that he has
prest
la their bloom
;
And the name he loved
to hear
Has been carved
for many a
j'ear
On the tomb." (3)
" For pure pathos," he said, in after-years, " there
is, in my judgment,
nothing finer in the English language."
Without doubt the lines awakened tender and holy memories of Ann
Rutledge.
Mr. Lincoln was giving little attention to political affairs.
His one
term in Congress seems to have satisfied for the time
all desire for po-
litical distinction.
He had made the acquaintance of men prominent in
pubhc
affairs, and taken the measure of their
abilities.
He had
dis-
covered that with most of them politics was not devotion to principles,
but the advancement of selfish interests.
We have seen Mr. Lincoln assuming the joint indebtedness of Berry
& Lincoln, store - keepers of New Salem.
During the years that had
passed since the death of Berry and the failure of the firm he had strug-
gled under the burden, but the time came when the last cent of princi-
pal and interest was paid.
It was a happy day when he left the Globe
Tavern and began house-keeping
in his own home, where he could dis-
pense liberal hospitality to his friends.
It was a pleasure to them to sit
at a table bountifully supplied by Mrs. Lincoln.
There was little for-
mality in
his intercourse with
his
guests.
The repast was ever made
enjoyable by flashes of wit, humor, and story-telling on the part of the
host.
When the meal was finished, and the company assembled in the
room
set apart for the
library, the grave topics of the day were
dis-
cussed.
Although Mr. Lincoln was personally out
of
politics, he w^as
not indifferent to the great political questions of the hour
; on the con-
trary, he w^as keenly alive to them.
He was a Whig from principle, but
he took
little
interest
in the campaign between General
Scott,
the Whig
candidate
for
President, and
Franklin
Pierce,
the
Democratic candidate.
It seems probable that he saw from the outset
138
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
that the Democratic Party would triuraph.
General
Scott had been
selected as candidate by the Whigs
solely on account
of his military
services.
Franklin
Pierce, without
national
reputation, had been
se-
lected by
the
slave power
because he would
be
subservient
to
their
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY.
189
interests.
We ma}' believe Mr.
Lincoln, in common with
Daniel
W(?l)-
ster, saw that
after the
election
the
AViiig Party would
live only
in
history
; that new political combinations must be made.
He knew the
(Compromise of 1850 had settled nothing.
The law which compelled the
return of fugitive
slaves to their masters was hateful, unrighteous, and
contrary to human
instincts.
He knew that sooner or later vital ques-
tions would come up for consideration, but he
little thought he was to
be a leading actor in the historic drama of the future.
"The Compromise of 1850," said President Pierce, in
his
inaugural
address, " has given repose to the countr3\
That repose
is to suffer no
shock durin"' mv official term if I have power to avert it."
Pres-
ident Pierce, quite likely, w^as sincere in his expression.
"We are
not
to conclude he was cognizant
of the
plans of the
slave
- holders
;
but he was a partisan, and ready to do the bidding of those who had
elevated him to power.
Stephen A. Douglas, Senator, chairman of the Committee on Terri-
tories, reported a
bill which gave authority to the people
in
the Terri-
tory of Nebraska to say whether they would or would not have slavery.
It w^as north of the Missouri Compromise line.
Senator Dixon, of Ken-
tucky, in order to carry out the plans of the slave-holders, offered an
amendment to repeal the act of 1820 which prohibited slavery north
of that
line.
David
R. Atchison, of Missouri, advocating the amend-
ment, said
:
" I am entirely devoted to the interests of the South, and
I
would sacrifice everything but my hope of heaven to advance her wel-
fare."
He wanted very much to be chairman of the Committee on Ter-
ritories, that he might carry out his plans for making Kansas and Ne-
braska Slave States. He w^as President jo;'6> te?n. of the Senate, and asked
Douglas to change places with him.
So earnest was he that he would
willingly
step down
from
the
higher
position.
" I do
not
care
to
make such a change, but
1 intend to introduce a measure which will
repeal the Compromise of 1820," said
Douglas.
" I have become per-
fectly satisfied that
it
is my duty, as a fair-minded man, to co-operate
with you for
its
repeal.
It
is due the South
;
it
is due to the Consti-
tution.
The
repeal,
if we
can
effect
it,
will
produce much
stir and
commotion
in the
Free
States
for a
season.
I
shall
be
assailed by
demagogues and
fanatics without
stint or moderation.
Every oppro-
brious
epithet
will
be
api)lied
to
me.
I probably
shall
be hung
in
effigy in many places.
It
is more than probable that
I may become
permanently odious among those whose friendship I have hitherto pos-
sessed.
The
proceeding may end my
political
career.
But, acting
140
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
under the sense of duty which animates me, I am prepared to make the
sacrifice, and I will do it." (*)
Having been assured
that Douglas would do what
Senators from
the Slave
States wanted
done, Atchison was
quite
willing to remain
President of the Senate.
On Sunday morning, January 22d, Senator Douglas, of Illinois, and
Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, were ringing the bell at the White House.
President Pierce did not attend to public
business on Sunday
; he did
MU. LINCOLN S HOME.
[From a photograph taken by the author in 1890.]
not wish to have people call upon him on that day
; but the two Sena-
tors had an important matter in hand
: the jS^ebraska Bill, which Doug-
las proposed to lay before the Senate, and which, if passed, would
repeal
the Compromise
of
1820.
The President was ready to
listen
to their
plea.
"Yes, I will do all
that I can to secure
its pas-
sage," his welcome words.
The sun went down on May
8, 1854, with cannon thundering upon
Capitol
Hill,
in Washington, celebrating the passage
of the
Kansas-
IsTebraska Bill, carried through Congress by Douglas, Pierce, Davis, and
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY
141
the slave-holders, opening to slavery a
region
of country larger than
the original thirteen States of the Union.
Just what motives animated Douglas
to violate
his pledges never
will be known.
Not many people thought him to have been sincere in
his declarations, but believed he was influenced
l)y an ardent desire to
be
President, and attempted
to
secure
the
prize
by doing what
the
slave-holders wanted done.
He saw nothing immoral or wi'ong in hold-
ing
slaves.
Many other men
in the Northern
States did not regard
slavery as unchristian or sinful.
It might or
it might not be beneficial
to a community.
If the people of a Territory wanted slavery as one of
their institutions, Douglas was willing they should have
it.
In their estimate of the morality of the act which violated a solemn
compact in order to secure the extension of slavery, Douglas, Davis, and
Pierce did not stop to consider that for national wrong-doing there had
been no abrogation of the eternal law
: an e^^e for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth.
It did not occur to them that divine Providence might have
some part to
enact
in
carrying out
the
plan.
The booming
of
the
cannon on Capitol
Hill was heard
in every city and town throughout
the Northern States.
It was seen that the first movement of the slave-
holders would be to gain possession of Kansas, and there was therefore
a determination to secure that Territory to freedom.
The Free
State
men contemplated the establishing of towns, schools, colleges, churches,
happy homes
of free men and women, who should enjoy their civil and
political rights under a Constitution guar-
anteeing freedom.
The Slave Party deter-
mined
to doom
the
beautiful
region
to
the barbarism
of
slavery.
The
struggle
began, the slave-holders of Missouri taking
possession of the lands
nearest the
terri-
torial line in adv^ance of any settlers from
the Free States.
A society was formed in
Massachusetts
to
aid emigrants.
It was
a national
society, and Abraham
Lincoln
was one of tlie Executive Committee
; but
there
is no evidence that he was actively
engaged
in
promoting
the settlement
of
the Territory.
The first party of
settlers
from Massachusetts
reached Kansas, and
laid out the town
of Lawrence, naming
it
in honor
of Mr. Amos A.
Lawrence, the president
of the
society.
The
poet Whittier wrote a
FKANKLIN PIERCE.
142
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
song which the emigrants sang as they rolled onward to their future
homes
:
" We cross the
prairies, as of old
Tlie Pilgrims crossed the
sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead
of the
free.
"We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's Southern
line,
And
plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern
pine.
'
' We go
to plant her common-schools
On distant
prairie swells,
And give
the Sabbath of the wilds
The music of her
bells."
When
the
time came
to hold
the
first
election,
sev^eral thousand
ruffians from Missouri, under the lead of Senator Atchison, armed with
rifles, invaded the
Territory, and elected
officers favorable to slavery.
A newspaper m Leavenworth announced
the
result with triumphant
lines
:
"ALL HAIL
PRO -SLAVERY PARTY VICTORIOUS!
COME ON, SOUTH-
ERN MEN!
BRING YOUR SLAVES!
ABOLITIONISM REBUKED!"
The Pro-slavery Party seized William
Phillips, a Free State
settler,
shaved
his head, stripped
off
his
clothes, daubed him with
tar, ripped
open a bed and rolled him m the feathers, rode him on a rail, and sold
him at a mock auction.
They put Rev. Mr. Butler on a
raft and
set
him adrift on the Missouri River.
The Legislature elected by the Mis-
sourians voted that the laws of their State should be the laws of Kansas.
An act was passed prohibiting the prmting of anything against slavery.
Any one found with a book or newspaper containing an article against
slavery was to be imprisoned not less than two years, and wear a chain
and
ball attached
to
his
ankle.
The
Governor, Wilson Shannon, ap-
pointed by President Pierce, was using
his power to make
it a Slave
State. He ordered the militia to aid the marshal in driving out the Free
State settlers.
Rifles and revolvers were purchased for those who
fa-
vored
freedom.
The
Missourians kept a sharp watch on the steam-
boats going up the
Missouri, and
they were
sent by team through
Iowa.
A pro -slavery grand -jury indicted two newspapers for print-
ing articles against slavery.
A deputy marshal of the United
States,
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY.
143
JOUM
U.
WlllTTlEK.
with 800 men and
foui- cannon, entered Lawrence, destroyed the print-
ing-presses, set Mr. Eldridge's hotel on
fire, and piUaged the houses
of
the citizens.
Some of the Free State men, burning for rev^enge, killed
five of the ruffians.
The Missourians, under Captain Pate, seized a son
144:
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
of John Brown, marched him rapidly across the prairie
in a burning
sun, and
treated him
with such inhumanity
that
he became
insane.
Brown, with twenty-seven men, came upon the Missourians, took twenty-
two of them prisoners, and captured their horses and supphes.
Another
company of ruffians hacked another of Brown's sons to pieces with their
knives, threw his mangled body across a horse, took it to his own door,
and tumbled it to the ground at the feet of his young wife.
Civil war had begun.
Men were shot by lurking assassins
; houses
were
deserted
;
the smoke
of burning
dwellings
darkened
the
sky
;
women and
children were
fleeing from
their homes
to
escape from
the inhuman wretches who were desolating the land that they might
secure
it forever to slavery,
It seems probable that Douglas, when he
said he doubtless would be burned
in eSigy, did not look forward to
any such outbreak as that which suddenly flamed up on the plains of
Kansas.
He saw only the bauble of the Presidency of the nation—not
murdered men.
On the day of his arrival in Chicago, after the adjourn-
ment of Congress, many of the flags flying above the vessels in the har-
bor were displayed at half-mast, and at sunset the church-bells tolled as
at a funeral
service.
The feeling against him was deep and
intense.
Men w^ho had been
his friends did
not call upon him.
But he put a bold
face
upon
the
matter, and
began
an
address
vindicating
his
course.
No
cheer
welcomed
him
as
he
mounted the platform.
For a while
the peoj^le listened in sullen silence,
and
then
asked
questions
which
made
him
angry.
He
shook
his
fists in their faces, and the noise be-
came
so
great
that
he
could
not
finish
his
speech.
He
visited
his
old home
in Springheld.
A great crowd filled the Hall of
Representatives
in the
State-house.
Abraham
Lincoln
was
present,
a
silent listener to "what Douglas had
to offer.
For six j^ears he had taken
no part
in
political
affairs, but the
violation
of
a
sacred
compact by
JOHN BROWN.
Dougrlas and President Pierce in the
\
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY.
145
interest of tlie slave-holders had aroused his righteous indignation.
He
informed his friends that he should make a speech in repl\'.
Every seat, every inch of space
is occupied, when Al)i-aham
Lincoln
rises to speak.
People are curious to hear what he will say, for Douglas
is one of the able men
of the country.
He has
j)ractised law,
^1854' ^^^^ elected judge and
Senator.
He has shown himself strong
enough to secure the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and his
friends have named him
'' The Little Giant/'
He has respect for Abra-
ham
Lincoln, because, like
himself, he
has fought with
adversity and
won
success.
He knows Lincoln
is an
al)le lawyer, that he has been
member of Congress
;
but his measure of success has been small in com-
parison with his own.
Possibly Douglas feels a sense of superiority as
he takes a seat in the hall to hear Lincoln's argument.
He has encoun-
tered in debate Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts ; William H. Seward, of
New York
; Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri.
He is fresh from the arena,
where he has won a great victor3^
He has listened to all the arguments
that the champions of freedom could marshal
in opposition to the
re-
peal.
The literature of the question is at his tongue's end.
Lincoln has
heard none of the speeches.
He may have read portions of the argu-
ments
of Senators and members of Congress, but has been attending
to his own affairs through the months.
He has only a night to put his
thoughts
in
order.
After
a
cheerful welcome a hush
falls upon
the
great audience.
He has only a scrap of paper before him.
His friends
and Douglas are amazed at his marvellous
presentation
of
facts, and
his statement
of
political principles enforced with
thrilling eloquence.
Douglas
rises to interrupt him, but
is courteously waved
to
his
seat.
Memory recalls the scene
in the slave -market
in New (Orleans, and he
vividly pictures
it.
Douglas would reproduce such scenes all over the
fair domain once consecrated to freedom.
But the Territory
is doomed
to slavery by what has been done
if the INIissourians succeed in driving
out the settlers from the Free States.
These burning words
fall from
Lincoln's lips
:
" This declared indifference-—but I must think covert zeal—for the spread of slavery I
can but hate.
I hate
it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery
itself.
I hate
it
because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world
; enables the
enemies of free institutions to taunt us as hypocrites
; causes the
real friends of freedom
to doubt our sincerity
;
is
at war with the vital
principles of civic liberty; contrary to
the Declaration of Independence
; and maintains that there Is no right principle of action
but self-interest.
...
If the negro
is a man,
is
it not the destruction of self-government
to say that he
shall
not govern himself
?
When a white man governs himself, that is
self-government; but when he governs himself and another man, that
is more than
self-
146
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
government—it
is despotism.
No man
is good enough to govern another man without
the other's consent.
.
.
.
Slavery
is founded on the selfishness of man's nature
; opposi-
tion to it is his love of justice.
These principles are in eternal antagonism. ...
I object
to the Nebraska Bill, because it assumes there can be moral right in the enslaving of one
man by another.
.
.
.
Little by
little, but as steadily as man's march to the grave, we
have been giving up
the old for the new
faith.
Nearly eighty years ago we began by
declaring that
all men
are created equal
; but now we have come to the other declara-
tion
: that for some men
to enslave others
is a sacred right of self-government.
These
principles cannot stand together; they are as opposite as God and Mammon."
The building shook with
the stamping
of
feet.
Cheers
rent
the
air
; women
waved
their
handkerchiefs.
Douglas
was
confounded.
Through the long debate in Congress the
falsity of his position never
REPRESENTATIVES CHAMBER.
[The hall iu which Lincoln made his first speech in opposition to Douglas.'
had been so clearh^ held up before the
public.
Kever before had the
immoralit}^ of the
ISTebraska measure
been
so
exposed.
Lincoln had
spoken
four
hours, but Douglas was so stung that he spoke for two
hours in a vain endeavor to break the force of Lincoln's argument.
Douglas went to Peoria, and was followed by Lincoln.
As the trees
are swayed by the winds, so the great audience there was moved by the
thrilling words spoken in behalf of freedom.
Li the debate at Washing-
ton no Senator had given utterance to such fundamental truths
as
fell
CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOxM AND SLAVERY.
147
from
his
lips.
Douglas had intended to travel through the State and
make speeciies in the principal towns to vindicate his course, but aban-
doned the
plan.
He frankly said the arguments of Lincoln gave him
more trouble than any presented in Congress.
If
Douii'las or the
slave-holders thought there would be no
discus-
sion of the question of slavery, or that the people of the North would
quietly see Kansas given over to slavery, they greatly misunderstood
the temper of the times.
The
first
political condemnation of the act
came from JSTew Hampshire, the President's own State.
For a quarter
of a century, with the exception of one year, the Democratic Party had
controlled that State, but at the election, March, 1854, a Governor, the
Legislature, and members of Congress were elected w^ho were opposed
to the Nebraska Bill.
Other Northern States, one by one, elected mem-
bers who were opposed
to
the
further
extension
of
slavery
;
so
the
Democratic Party, instead of having a majority, found
itself
in a mi-
nority in the House of Representatives.
Illinois had always been a Democratic State.
The election
in No-
vember, 1854, \vas for members of the Legislature.
It was an exciting
campaign, for that body would have the choosing of a United
States
Senator to succeed Mr. Shields.
Douglas endeavored to make the peo-
ple vote once more for the rule of the Democratic Party, but had the
mortification
of
seeing
a majority
elected Avho were
opposed
to
his
course
in
Congress.
Some were
Democrats, others Whigs
;
but
all
agreed that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a
violation of
a sacred compact.
The
friends
of Abraham
Lincoln
ardentl}^
desired
his
election as
Senator.
It was due him.
No one had done more than he to expose
the iniquity of the course pursued by Douglas.
He had been elected a
member of the Legislature, and could not for that reason be a candidate
for the Senate, on account of a clause in the Constitution of the State
;
he therefore resigned his seat.
Unfortunately, the man chosen to
suc-
ceed him was a Democrat, which made the question of his election as
Senator very doubtful.
The time had come for the election of a Senator
;
it was an exciting
day in the Capitol at
Springfield.
Shields was the Democratic candi-
date.
The Whig members of the Free-soil Party were ready to
^}1^:^^' vote for Lincoln, but the Democratic members would not vote
for a Whig.
They liked Abraham Lincoln personally, but he was
a Whig.
They were for Lyman Trumbull,
a. Democrat, who did not
agree with Douglas.
Without their votes
it would not be possible to
148
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
elect a Senator opposed to the extension of slavery.
The Democrats,
seeing that they could not
elect
Shields, were ready to vote for Gov-
ernor Matheson.
Lincoln feared they would succeed.
A great hour
had come to him—a time when he could show that personal advantage
is
nothing, principle
everything.
If he
continued
to be
a candidate
Matheson would be
elected, and Douglas and slavery triumphant.
He
called his true and steadfast friends around him.
" Drop my name and
vote for Trumbull," he said.
It was a great thing to ask.
Why should
the Whigs give up their candidate and vote for a Democrat ?
Upon
every question, other than that
of Nebraska, Trumbull was an uncom-
promising Democrat.
The persuasive words of Abraham Lincoln pre-
vailed.
With
tears upon
their cheeks their votes were cast for Trum-
bull, and he was
elected.
The prize wdiich Lincoln hoped to win had
passed beyond his grasp
;
but when he walked to his home in the twi-
light
of
the
winter
evening, with
saddened
heart
and
disappointed
hopes, he was greater than ever before.
He had fought a battle for
principle and won the victory.
Self had been sacrificed, but Freedom
had triumphed.
On a summer night, while attending the Supreme Court in Chicago,
Mr. Lincoln sat upon the piazza of the residence of Mr. Norman B. Judd,
overlooking Lake Michigan.
The labors of the day were over, and host,
hostess, guest, and friends were enjoying the evening hour.
Daylight
was fading in the west, while in the east rose the full moon, seemingly
from the lake.
They beheld flocks of white-winged gulls
;
vessels were
spreading their sails to the evening
breeze.
The waves were rippling
upon the shore, and the
stars shining in the azure depths
of heaven.
Mr. Lincoln was greatly stirred by the beauty of the scene.
" In that mild, pleasant voice," writes the hostess, " attuned to har-
mony with his surroundings, and which was his wont when his soul was
stirred by aught that was lovely or beautiful, Mr. Lincoln began to speak
of the mystery which
for ages enshrouded and shut out those distant
worlds above us from our own
; of the poetry and beauty which was seen
and felt by seers of old when they contemplated Orion and Arcturus as
they wheeled, seemingly, around the earth in their nightl}^ courses
; of the
discoveries
since the invention
of the telescope, which had thrown a
flood of light and knowledge on what before was incomprehensible and
mysterious
;
of the wonderful computations of scientists who had meas-
ured the miles of seemingly endless space which separated the planets in
our solar system from our central
sun, and our sun from
other suns
which were now gemming the heavens above us with their resplendent
CONFLICT BETWEEN FKEEDOiAI AND SLAVERY
140
beauty.
He speculated ou the
i)()ssil)ilities of knowledge which an
in-
creased power of the lens would give in the years to come
;
and then
the wonderful discoveries of late centuries, as proving that beings en-
dow^ed with such
capacities as men must be immortal, and created for
some high and noble end by Him who had
sjioken those numberless
worlds into existence, and
made man a
little lower
than the
angels
that he
might
comprehend
the
glories
and
wonders
of
His creation.
When the
night air became too chill-
ing to remain longer on
the piazza we went
into
the parlor, and, seated on
the
sofa,
his
long limbs
stretching across the car-
pet and
his
arms
folded
behind
him, Mr. Lincoln
went on to speak of other
discoveries,
and
also
of
the inventions which had
been
made
during
the
long cycles of time lying
between the present and
those
early
days
when
the sons of Adam began to make use
of material things about them,
a,nd invent
instruments
of
various
kinds
in
brass and gold and
sil-
ver.
He gave us a short but succinct account of all the inventions re-
ferred to
in the Old Testament, from the time when Adam walked in
the Garden of Eden until the Bible record ended, 600 b.c.
I said,
' Mr,
Lincoln, I did not know you were such a Bible student.'
He replied,
' I
must be honest, Mrs. Judd, and
tell you just how I come to know
so
much about these earl}^ inventions.'
He then went on to sa}^ that, dis-
cussing with some friend the relative age of the discovery and use of the
precious metals, he went to the Bible to satisfy himself, and became so
interested
in
his researches that he made memoranda of the different
discoveries and inventions
; that soon
after he was invited to
lecture
before some literary society (I think in Bloomington)
; that the interest
he had felt in the studv convinced him that the subject would
interest
10*
NORMAN
B. JUDD.
150
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
others, and he therefore prepared and delivered his lecture on the
' Age
of
Different
Inventions.'
' Of
course,' he added,
' I
could
not
after
that forget the order or time of such discoveries and inventions.' "(')
NOTES TO CHAPTER
IX.
(
' ) Dauiel Webster's speech in Cougress, March 5, 1850.
{'') Stephen A. Douglas, " Congressional Globe," Appendix, 1851-52.
(^) "The Last Leaf" was first published
1836.
The volume had a limited sale.
It
seems probable that Mr. Lincoln first became acquainted with it through the "Louisville
Journal," the editor of which, being himself a poet, often enriched its columns with choice-
poems from other writers.
Mr. Lincoln for many years was a subscriber to that paper,
Mr. Holmes was nearly his own age, both having been born in 1809.—Author.
C) Archibald Dixon to H. S. Foote, in " Louisville Democrat," October 3, 1858.
(^) Mrs. Norman B. Judd, quoted in " Every-day Life of Lincoln," p. 208.
KANSAS-NEBKAbKA
bTliUGGLE.
151
CHAPTER
X.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
T3E0PLE
ill the Northern
States during- the month of Jnly, 1S54,
--
were holding meetings to form a new pohtical party which should
have for its object resistance to the aggressions of the slave power.
Twenty-three
yesn's had passed since William Lloyd Garrison was
put in prison for saying the slave traffic was piracy.
The Abolitionists,
as they called themselves, proposed to bring about the abohtion
^g.^^'
of slavery by convincing the people that it was morally wrong
a
sin against God and their fellow-men.
They denounced the
Constitution because
it recognizetl slavery, and they advocated the dis-
solution of the Union because
it was
in league with
iniquity.
They
saw the aggression of slavery, l)ut were opposed to any political action
to restrict it.
The Free Soil Party of 1S4S was formed more to avenge
the slight put upon President Van Buren by the slave power in not re-
nominating him for a second term than from any deep-seated sentiment
in favor of freedom.
The passage of the Nebraska Bill brought spontaneous combustion
a kindling of the fires of freedom throughout the Northern States, result-
ing in the formation of the Republican Party.
At Ostend, a seaport of Belgium, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania,
Minister of the United States to England, Pierre Soule, of New Orleans,
Minister to Spain, and Mr. Mason, of Virginia, Minister to France,
^854*'
^^^^ ^ conference as to the best way for the United
States to
gain
possession
of Cuba.
The slave-holders wanted to
obtain
that island for the purpose of extending the area of slavery and strength-
ening their
political power.
They
sent a
letter
to
President
Pierce
suggesting that the United States should otier Spain $120,000,000, and if
Spain would not sell, the United States ought to take the island by force.
The thought that the United States would be acting the part of a high-
way robber did not deter them from putting forth the proposition.
But
President Pierce discovered that
Spain, England, and other European
152
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
countries might have something to say about such a transaction
; be-
sides, such an outburst of indignation was heard from the people of the
ISTorthern States that no attempt was made to carry out the plan.
The
boldness and wickedness of the scheme aroused the people.
There must
be united action, or slavery would be the controlling political force.
Delegates from the several ISTorthern
States met in convention at
Philadelphia and formed the Eepublican Party.
They selected John
Charles Fremont
as
their candidate
for the Presidency.
The
'^jggg^'^' Democratic Party met
in
Cincinnati and nominated James Bu-
chanan, who had signed the
letter in regard
to
seizing Cuba,
Stephen A. Douglas confidently expected to be nominated.
He had
JOHN CHARLES FREMONT.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA
STJiL'GGLE.
io'i
rendered great service to the slave-holders, but tliey had no intention of
rewarding him for what he had done.
Abraham Lincoln travelled through Illinois making speeches for the
Kepublican Party, Douglas for the Democrats.
They often s[)oke in the
same town.
Very graceful the tribute which Lincoln paid to Douglas
:
'' Twenty years ago Mr. Douglas and I first became acquainted. We
were both young—he a trifle younger than I.
Even then we were am-
bitious—I, perhaps, quite as much as he.
With me the race has been a
failure—a flat
failure.
With him
it has been one of splendid success.
His name fills the nation, and is not unknown in foreign lands.
I affect
no contempt for tlie high eminence he has reached.
So reached that the
oppressed of my
species might have shared with me
the
elevation, I
would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that
ever pressed a monarch's brow."
Little does he know, as he utters the words, of the elevation towards
which divine Providence is leading him.
lie has been thinking of the
millions of his fellow-men in slavery.
He never has forgotten the scene
in the slave-market in New Orleans.
He believes that somehow Prov-
idence is to bring about the extinction of slavery.
He said to a friend,
" Sometimes when
I am speaking
I feel that the time
is soon coming
when the sun shall shine and the rain fall on no man who shall go forth
to unrequited
toil.
.
.
. How
it
will come about, when
it
will come, I
cannot tell
; but that time will surely come !" (
'
)
Mr. Buchanan was
elected.
His inaugural
address was carefully
written, and he was ready to take his seat.
We do not know who in-
formed him that the Supreme Court, the highest judicial tribunal
^Jg! J' of the nation, was prepared to make a decision in a case affecting
the rio'hts of slave-holders under the Constitution
;
but Mr. Bu-
chanan thought
it
best to
insert another sentence
in
his address.
It
Avas the expression
of a hope that the decision would forever
settle a
very vexatious question.
Two days passed, and Eoger B. Taney,
of
Maryland, Chief-justice, startled the people by what he had to say con-
cerning two slaves.
Dred Scott and his wife Harriet were owned by
Dr. Emerson, of St. Louis.
He Avas a surgeon in the army.
He took
them to Kock Island, in Iowa, Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and then to St.
Louis.
Having been taken voluntarily by him into a Free Territory, the
slaves claimed they were entitled to their liberty under the common,
law of the country.
Of the nine judges composing the court, five Avere
from the Slave States.
Seven of the judges agreed that the Constitution
recognized
slaves as property and
notliing more.
They were not and
154
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
itOGEll
B. TANEY.
could not be citizens.
Xot being citizens, they could not bring a suit in
any court of the United States.
The claim of Dred and Harriet Scott
must be settled by the court of Missouri.
The Constitution recognized
slaves
as
property, and
that
property must
be
protected.
It was
decided that the Compromise
of 1820 and that of 1850 were uncon-
stitutional.
By this decision a slave had no civil rights.
He was a thing only
no more than a horse, cow, or pig.
The logic
of the decision carried
slavery not only into the Territories, but into the Free States.
It upset
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
157
Mr. Douglas's theory that the people of a Territory alone liad the right
to say whether they
^^•oukl or woukl not have slavery.
Only two of the judges—Mr. McLean, of Ohio, and Mr. Curtis, of
Massachusetts—dissented from this opinion, which made slavery instead
of freedom the
basis upon which the nation had been
established.
If
President Buchanan thought this decision would settle a vexatious ques-
tion, lie little comprehended the spirit of the people.
Nothing can be
made permanent that
is not established
in
righteousness.
No people
with the spirit of freedom in
tlieir blood will ever see their great char-
ter of libertv utterly subverted.
The Supreme Court, instead of being
regarded with reverence, became an object of contempt.
The common-
sense of the people led them to say the judges had made an unwarranted
decision in the interests of slavery.
The struggle for the possession of Kansas was going on.
The Free
State candidate for Congress had a majority of more than 4000 votes.
The coveted prize was slipping away from the
slave-holders, who de-
termined to reverse the majority by stuffing the ballot-boxes with fraud-
ulent
votes.
They selected 600 names from an old Directory
of the
Cit}^ of Cincinnati, and registered them as the names of settlers in one
of the counties.
The Free State
settlers elected a legislature, which met at Topeka
and framed a constitution.
The slave-holders met
at Lecompton and
adopted a constitution recognizing slavery.
Both of these documents
were forwarded to Washington.
We have seen Abraham Lincoln in 1832 splitting rails on the bank
of the Sangamon when informed that John Calhoun had appointed him
surveyor of land.
A quarter of a century had gone by, and John Cal-
houn was surveyor of public lands in Kansas.
He was president of the
Lecompton convention, and was wielding his influence to make Kansas a
Slave State by changing the election returns. He had a list of 379 names
in a precinct where only forty-three votes were cast.
To keep them out
of the hands of a committee of Congress he secreted them in a candle-box
under a wood-pile.
For that act he was called " Candle-box Calhoun.''
In Washington the slave-holders were persuading President Buchanan
to recommend the admission of Kansas as a State with a constitution
recognizing slavery.
Stephen A. Douglas called upon the President.
He was angry, for
his theory of the rights of the ])eople in a Territory to say whether they
will or will not have slavery had been overturned by the
decision of
the Supreme Court.
158
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" I must recommend the acceptance of the Lecompton constitution,"
said Mr. Buchanan.
" I shall feel it my duty to oppose its acceptance."
" Allow me to remind you, Senator Douglas, that no Democrat ever
yet differed from an Administration of his own party without being
himself crushed.
I refer you to the fate of Tallmadge and Rives under
the administration of President Jackson."
"Mr. President, allow me to remind you that General Jackson
is
dead."
Mr. Douglas bows and leaves the White House.
He keeps his
word.
He knows the slave power never will forgive him, but he also
knows
that
unless he opposes the
slave-holders
in
their attempts to
force a hateful constitution upon the people of Kansas, he will endanger
his own re-election to the Senate.
On the banks
of the
little river Marias-des-Cj^gnes (Marsh of
the
Swans), three miles from Missouri, settlers from the Free
States were
ploughing their fields.
They never had taken part in any trou-
1858^'
^^^^ between other people and the Missouri ruffians, but they
did not want slaves in Kansas, and had voted to make it a Free
State.
Lawless men in Missouri were ever ready to shoot settlers from
the Free States.
Charles Hamilton, with a gang of twenty-seven, seized
eleven of the men who had taken farms in the valley of Marias-des-
Cygnes.
" Make ready
! Take aim
!
Fire !" the word of command.
The
rifles and revolvers
flashed, and
all but one were killed or wounded.
The murderers
fired once more, riddling the bodies with
bullets, and
then rode
back
to
Missouri
to
gloat
over the morning's work.
It
was their way of upsetting the popular sovereignty of Senator Douglas
—their way
of interpreting the meaning
of the
Constitution— their
method of carrying slavery into Kansas.
The people of the Northern States were horrified when they heard
of the cold-blooded massacre, and the peaceful Quaker poet, John G.
Whittier, far away on the banks
of
the Merrimac, in Massachusetts,
wrote these lines
:
"A blush as of roses,
Where roses never grew
;
Great drops on
the bunch-grass,
But not of the clew
;
A taint
in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun
;
A stain that shall never
Bleach out with the sun."
Into Missouri with a company of men marched John Brown, not to
MA RTL Hie iil iH \ ARNON ii | WAHT aaa mM Mi tH Mi i WN A ha hit) Hii!) } wa Li AW HMM HLINTIAT {MMi} VN HAH HATA UIA RRNA VHA TORT LITA \ Hi a i Wi i i) ATA 7 ULE ) LN UY TRIM AY, ALA DANY ANE y Vy i Vewlitit hy | y S \ wt oy H/ ; tf, 4 if AANA i (ih) } eee \ fi Y Y, << shy Hy NVALUE EY hia) z /| YI YE, 2 vaWLM \ \ Hy AVN | et | | HN) ' HORACE GREELEY.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
161
commit murder, but with a far different object in view.
The Supremo
Court had decided that under the Constitution slavery might be estab-
lished
in Kansas.
Missourians were determined
to force
it upon the
Territory.
He would
let the
ruffians know that slaves had
legs and
could run away.
lie found fourteen who were ready to be free men.
He started with them, bound for Iowa.
" Three thousand dollars reward
for the arrest of John Brown !" read the proclamation of the Governor
of Missouri.
" Two hundred and fifty dollars reward
!"' read the proclamation of
James Buchanan, President of the United States.
The Marshal of Missouri with a posse
of men surrounded the
log-
cabin occupied by Brown and
his company, but the muzzles of
rifles
projected from the crevices between the logs.
" Come
on, gentlemen,
if you wish
to."
It was a
pleasant
voice,
with no bravado in the tones.
But three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars Avas no tempta-
tion to advance.
Night came, and John Brown and the slaves were on
their w^ay
to
Iowa.
Never again Avould
the fugitives
call any man
master.
The disagreement of Douglas
with President Buchanan upon
the
acceptance of the Lecompton
constitution
led Horace Greeley, editor
of the New York " Tribune," and other men of the Eastern
States, to
think
it would be good
policy for the Republicans to support Doug-
las.
]\Ir. Lincoln and his friends thought differently.
They knew Mr.
Douglas desired to be President of the United States, and that he was
not opposing the acceptance
of the Lecompton constitution from any
noble principle.
Mr. Herndon, Mr.
Lincoln's law partner, thought
it
would be well for some one to let Mr. Greeley and other Eastern gen-
tlemen know their advocacy of Douglas was doing much harm to the
Republicans of
Illinois, and he accordingly visited the Eastern
States.
In Boston he made the acquaintance of Theodore Parker, a Unitarian
minister, who was making very
earnest
efforts
to
bring
about
the
abolition of slavery, and who presented him with a copy of a speech
which he had made.
Herndon carried
it to Springfield.
Mr. Lincoln
read
it, and made a pencil mark against this sentence: ^'Democracy
is
direct self-government over
all
the people, for
all
the people, hy
all the
peopled {^)
It was a sentence to be remembered.
Times had changed
in
Illinois
since that day when Abraham
Lin-
coln entered the State driving an ox-team.
Then the farmers reaped
162
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
their grain with a
sickle, or gathered it with a
cradle.
In 1833 Obed
Hussey invented a machine for reaping, and in 1834 Cyrus McCorraick
took out a patent for a similar machine.
Mr. Manny, of Chicago, also
took out a -patent, which McCorraick claimed was an infringe-
ment.
Mr. Manny employed two able lawyers to defend his claim
— George Harding,
of
Philadelphia, who
understood
mechanics, and
Abraham Lincoln, who was to take up the points of law involved.
Mr.
Reverdy Johnson, of Baltimore, regarded as one of the ablest ]aw3^ers
in the country, was employed by Mr. McCormick.
Mr.
Lincoln
pre-
pared himself with great care, and was quite ready to meet Mr. Johnson
in argument.
Judge McLean, of the Supreme Court, was to hear the case in Cin-
cinnati.
Mr. Lincoln reached that
cit}^ and found that Mr. Manny had
also engaged Edwin M. Stanton, of Pittsburg.
The three lawyers met
for consultation.
Only two of them could be heard by the Court.
Mr.
Harding, by mutual consent, was to present the mechanical features of
the invention.
Who should present the legal points, Lincoln or Stan-
ton?
By custom
it was Lincoln's
right.
He was
prepared, Stanton
was not.
" You will speak, of course," said Stanton.
" JSI"©, you," the
courteous reply.
" I will," the answer, and Mr. Stanton abruptl}^ and
discourteously left the room.
He had taken a great dislike to Lincoln,
who overheard him in an adjoining room say to a friend: "Where did
such a lank creature come from ?
His linen duster
is blotched on his
back with perspiration and dust, so that you might use
it for a map of
the continent." (')
Mr. Lincoln
felt the
discourtesy.
He had looked forward
to the
contest with keen zest, but Stanton had rudely pushed him aside and
assumed superiority.
We have seen Mr. Lincoln, wdien clerk in Offut's store in 'New Sa-
lem, vanquishing Jack Armstrong in a wrestling match, and Jack from
that day becoming a true and steadfast friend.
It was Hannah
^g^'
Armstrong, wife of Jack, Avho mended the clerk's clothing.
He
was
ever welcomed
to
the Armstrong
cabin.
But
Jack had
died and Hannah was in trouble.
To whom should she go
but
to the
great-hearted friend, no longer reseating chairs or surveying land, but
foremost among
the lawyers
of
Illinois?
It was a sad
story.
Her
son William was
in
jail, accused
of killing James T.
Metzger.
He
went to a camp-meeting, drank too much ^vhiskey, and quarrelled with
Metzger.
A fatal blow was struck either by William or by a boon companion.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
103
The people were so bitter against him that the trial was to be at Beards-
town, in another county.
" Hannah,
I'll do all I can for you."
That was all Law^^er Lincoln
could say.
The court-house
is filled with people.
The evidence in the case
is
very much against William.
The witnesses swear they heard the quar-
relling between him and Metzger.
It was in the evening.
They saw
Bill strike the fatal blow.
" You say that you saw him strike the fatal blow V Lincoln asks.
" Yes."
" What time was it V
" About eleven o'cloclv in the evening."'
" Was it a bright night ?"
" Yes, the moon was nearly full."
" What was its position in the sky ?"
" It was just about the position of the sun at ten o'clock in the fore-
noon."
" You say that the moon was nearly full, and shining so bright that
you could see Bill strike the blow."
" Yes."
Lawyer Lincoln takes an almanac from his pocket and shows
it to
the jury.
" Gentlemen, either this witness
is wrong or this almanac
is
wrong', for
it savs there was no moon that night.
Which will vou be-
lievef
Very eloquent are the closing words of his argument.
Han-
nah Armstrong is looking up into his face.
He sees the white hair and
the wrinkled brow of the woman who has been as a mother to him.
There is no conclusive evidence that her son plunged the knife into the
side of the murdered man.
The almanac contradicts the witnesses who
testify that they saw the stroke by the light of the moon.
There are
tears in his eyes as he tells the jury about the dead father, the cabin
where he lived
; how it had been a home to himself
; how tenderly the
woman sitting by his side had cared for him
; how the son, with no fa-
ther to restrain him, had fallen into bad company.
With
all the evi-
dence before them the
jur}'- could not unmistakably say that William
struck the blow.
The jurors brush the tears from their sunburnt faces.
The judge cannot conceal
his emotion, and there
is a sound of
stifled
sobbing in the room as he pictures the past.
The jury render
its verdict of " not guilty."
The court-room
sud-
denly changes
to a scene
of congratulation — lawyer,
judge, a great
crowd of citizens shaking hands with Mr. Lincoln.
164
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The summer birds were singing, but Abraham Lincoln did not heed
them as he walked the streets.
Old acquaintances met him, but he did
not see them.
He was lost in thought.
At times his friends saw him
take
a scrap of paper from
his hat and the stub of a pencil from
his
pocket and jot down a few words.
In by-gone years his hat had been
the
ISTew Salem
Post-office, but
it had come to be a receptacle of his
thoughts.
When he reached his office he usually emptied it of the bits
of paper, dipped his pen into a large wooden inkstand, and wrote out the
thoughts that had come to him.
He w^as thinking about the decision
of Chief-justice Taney, of what was going on in Kansas, and smiled as
he reflected upon the predicament in which
^g^^^^pg^^
Douglas found himself.
He looked into
^^^^^^^^^p
the future, and the smile faded away.
He
bB^HBHV
saw what
other men
did
not
see, that
^"^^'^'^
——
either
slavery or freedom was to be
su-
v^^^^^^^^^^P^SL
preme in the nation
; that ever since the
'^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^
advent of Jesus Christ on earth righteous-
__:=^______-- __^^-._
^^^^ ^^^ liberty had been making head-
way against wrong and slavery.
He had
ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S INKSTAND.
^^ abiding
faith
lu
God, and
saw
that
sooner or later freedom was to win.
Mr. Lincoln was not an
Abolitionist, but was against the further
extension of slavery.
Possibly before the formation of the Republican
Party he could not have said just what course ought to be pursued to
bring about
its
final extinction.
He was being educated by passing
events.
He read the "Antislavery
Standard," the
ISTew York "Tri-
bune,"
the
Chicago
" Tribune," which came
regularly
to
his
office.
" l^ever did a man," said his partner, Mr. Herndon, " change as did Mr.
Lincoln.
ISTo sooner had he planted himself right on the slavery ques-
tion than
his whole
soul seemed
burning.
He
blossomed right
out.
Spiritual things became clear to him."
The hotels of Springfield were
filled with
delegates from
all
the
counties in the State.
They were discussing the great question of the
hour— the
decision
of the Supreme
Court,
its
effect on the
''^isss^^' "Popular Sovereignty" doctrine of Douglas.
They had read
about the massacre
in Kansas, and were
enthusiastic over the
formation
of the Pepublican
Party.
In a
quiet chamber Abraham
Lincoln w^as reading his
speech to several
of his
confidential friends.
He wanted
their
opinion
in
regard
to
it.
These
the
opening
sen-
tences
:
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
165
" If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better
•judge what to do and how to do
it.
We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agita-
tion.
Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has
constantly augmented.
In my opinion
it will not cease until a crisis has been reached and
passed.
' A house divided against itself cannot stand.'
I believe this Government cannot
endure permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,
I do not expect the liouse to
fall, but I do expect
it will cease to be divided.
It will be-
come all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the fur-
ther spread of
it, and place
it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that
it is in
the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push
it forward
till
it shall become
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."('')
His friends were startled.
" It will never do for you to make that speech," they said.
'* What
you say
is true, but the time has not come for you
to say
it.
It will
defeat your election.
It will ruin the Republican Party."
Mr. Lincoln hears them, rises from his chair, stands erect.
He does
not look into the faces of those around him.
It is the old far-away look,
as if seeing what they cannot see.
"My friends,
I have given much thought to this question.
The time has come when
these sentiments should be uttered.
If
it is decreed that I should go down because of this
speech, then
let me go down linked with
it to the truth.
Let me die in
the advocacy of
what is just and right."
If it is decreed.
He believes in God, a being of absolute justice and
truth, who directs the affairs of men and nations. He himself is of little
account.
Justice and truth are eternal, and
if need be he will go down
in their defence.
Not quite half a century has gone by since his mother folded him in
her arms in the cheerless Kentucky home, less than twenty-five years
since he was swinging an axe in the woods on the bank of the Sangamon
;
but, \vith a great prize before him, he tramples all political and personal
considerations beneath his feet.
In
this supreme hour he stands with
the steadfast men of all the ages.
Not a w^ord is changed.
He will de-
liver it as written or not at all.
He exposed the plan by which Kansas was to be made a Slave State,
and slavery carried into the Free States—a plan arranged by Stephen A.
Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Roger B. Taney, and James Buchanan.
" We
cannot," he said, " absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are
the result of preconcert.
But when we see a lot of framed timbers, dif-
ferent
portions
of which we know have been gotten
out
at different
times and places by different workmen—Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and
166
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
James, for instance—and when we see these timbers joined together,
and see that they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the
tenons and mortises exactly fitting and all the lengths and proportions
exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or
too
few, not
omitting even
scaffolding, we find
it impossible not
to
believe that Stephen,
Franklin, Roger, and James
all understood one
another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan drawn
before the first blow was struck."
The convention nominated him
as candidate for Senator, but the
delegates went home with heavy hearts, fearing the sentiments expressed
would not be acceptable to the Republicans of the State.
" The
first ten lines of your speech will bring about your defeat,"
wrote his friend Swett from Chicago.
" You have made a great mistake," the words of another.
" If I had," wrote Mr. Lincoln in reply, " to draw my pen across
m}?^
record and erase my
whole life from sight,
and if I had one poor
choice left as to what
I
should
save from
the wreck, 1 should
choose
that
speech
and leave
it
to the
world as it is."
Douglas and Lin-
coln both visited Chi-
cago. A great crowd
assembled in front of
the Treraont House
to listen to a speech
from the former. He
had many
ardent
friends who admired
his great abilities and
his winning ways.
He knew Mr. Lincoln
was in the city and courteously invited him to take a seat on the plat-
form.
It was a gracious act.
The invitation was accepted.
The thou-
sands in the street had an opportunity of seeing the two foremost men
of the State, both of them in the full vigor of manhood.
LEONARD SWETT.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
167
" I take great pleasure," said Douglas,
'' in saying that I have known
personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, the worthy
gentleman who has been nominated for my place, and I will say that I
regard him as a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman—a good citizen
and an honorable opponent
; and whatever may be the issue I may have
with him it will be of principle and not of personalities."
He read the opening sentences of the speech of Lincoln at
Spring-
field, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," and said
:
" Mr, Lincoln advocates boldly and
clearl}" a war of sections, a war
of the North against the
South, of the
Free States against the Slave
States, a war of extermination to be continued relentlessly until the one
or the other shall be subdued, and all the States shall either become free
or become slave."
Mr. Lincoln had not indicated a desire to see any such contest, but
had stated what would be the probable course of events.
He had ut-
tered a prophecy, nothing more.
Douglas did not notice the allusion to the
political carpenters and
house-builders,
Stephen,
Franklin, Eoger, and
James.
He
boldly an-
nounced his support of the decision rendered by the Supreme Court in
relation to Dred and Harriet Scott.
" This Government is founded on the white basis.
It was made for
the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by
the white men as they shall determine.
.
.
. Kentucky has the right to
say that her negroes shall be slaves, Hlinois that her negroes shall not
vote. New York that hers may vote, when
qualified by property, and
Maine that the negro is equal at the polls to the white man."
The next ev^ening Abraham Lincoln stood upon the same platform,
looking down upon a sea of faces.
He made a vigorous reply to Doug-
las.
A w^eek
later both
candidates were
in
Bloomington.
Douglas
had misrepresented his opponent, but Lincoln was not irritated.
With
good-humor he spoke
of
those who
supported Douglas.
" They are
looking upon him
as certain at no distant day to be President,
They
ha\"e seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-ofiices, land-offices, mar-
shalships. Cabinet appointments, chargeships, and foreign missions burst-
ing and sprouting out in wonderful luxuriance ready to be laid hold of
by their greedy hands,
,
,
, On the contrary, nobody has ever expected
me to be President.
In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has seen any
cabbages sprouting out."
"Challenge
Douglas
to
a
joint
debate,"
said some
of
Lincoln's
friends.
168
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" Will
it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and
myself to divide the time and address the same audiences the present
canvass ?" read a note from Lincoln.
It lead ultimately to an arrange-
ment for a joint discussion in some of the principal towns in different
parts of the State.
" It never will do for Lincoln to meet Douglas on the same
plat-
form," said timid friends.
The hotel of Mr. Chenery in Springfield was crowded with the friends
of Lincoln, and he was there to meet them.
The old-time sadness was
on his face, for he knew many of them were fearful that he would be
no match for Douglas.
" We are looking forward with some anxiety to your proposed
de-
bate," the remark of one who had ridden the circuit with him.
" Sit down
;
let me
tell you a story.
Have you and I not seen two
men about to fight, one noisy and
boastful, jumping, striking his
fists
together, telling what he
is going to do, trying hard to skeer the other
fellow, who don't say anything?
His arms hang down, but his
fists
are clinched, his teeth are set, his muscles rigid.
You may be sure he
will whip.
Good-bye.
Remember what I say."
The sadness was gone
;
his face Avas beaming with smiles.
The arrangements were made.
The
first debate was at Ottawa, at-
tended by 20,000 people.
IS'o hall could hold the multitudes who gath-
ered
to
hear
the two men who had
risen from obscurity
to
be
the
foremost political debaters of the State.
Douglas had a series of ques-
tions for which he demanded answers.
Mr. Lincoln answered them un-
hesitatingly.
Before the next meeting came, which was to be held at
Freeport, Lincoln prepared four questions for Douglas to answer.
This
was the third question propounded
:
" If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States
cannot exclude slavery from
their
limits,
are you
in favor
of
acqui-
escing
in, adopting, and following such decision as a code of political
action ?"
" Douglas," said Lincoln's friends, " will reply by afiirming thi3 de-
cision as an abstract principle, but denying its political application."
" If he does that he can never be President," said Lincoln.
" That is not your lookout
; you are after the Senatorship."
" No, gentlemen
;
I am killing larger game.
The battle of 1860
is
worth a hundred of
this."
Mr. Douglas saw the dilemma
in which he would be placed, and
evaded answering the question.
Throughout the campaign he
trav-
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
169
elled from town to town
in a railway car decorated with
flags, accom-
panied by his friends and a brass band.
Mr.
Lincohi, on
the
other
hand,
travelled
alone.
No
trumpeter
heralded his coming.
He knew there was not much chance for him to
win, but he was battling for great principles.
" Why don't you tell funny stories, and make people laugh and cheer
you ?" asked a friend.
" The occasion is too serious and the issue too grave.
I do not seek
applause, or to amuse the people," the reply.
" Somehow," said one who heard them
both,
" while Douglas was
greeted with constant
cheers, when Lincoln
closed, the people seemed
serious and thoughtful, and
could
be
heard
all
through
the
crowd
gravely and anxiously discussing
the
subjects on
wdiich he had been
speaking." (')
Mr. Douglas
stated
that
he
did
not
care
whether
slavery was
voted
into
or
out
of the
Territories
;
the
negro was
not
his
equal
;
the
Declaration
of
Independence
was
not
intended
to
include
the
negro.
Far different
is the following statement
of Mr. Lincoln's con-
victions
:
"The men who signed the Declaration of Independence said that all men are created
equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights— life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.
This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the
universe.
This was their lofty and wise and noble understanding of the justice of the
Creator
to
His
creatures— yes,
gentlemen,
to
all
His
creatures,
to
the
whole
great
family of man.
In their enlightened
belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and
likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on
and degraded
and imbruted by
its
fellows.
They grasped not only the whole race of man then
living, but they reached
forward and seized upon
the farthest
posterity.
They erected a beacon
to guide their
children, and
their
children's children, and
the countless myriads who should inhalnt
the earth in other ages.
Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of
pos-
terity to breed tyrants, and so they established
these great self-evident truths,
that when
in the distant future some man, some faction, some
interest, should
set up the doctrine
that none but rich men, none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men were
entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again
to the Declaration of Independence and take courage
to renew the
battle which
their
fathers began
;
so
that truth and justice and mercy and
all the humane and Christian
virtues might not be extinguished from the land
; so that no man would hereafter dare to
limit and circumscribe
the great
principles on which the temple of
liberty was being
built.
"Now, my countrymen,
if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great
landmarks of
the
Declaration
of
Independence
;
if you have
listened
to suggestions
which would
take away from
its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetJ'y of
its pro-
portions
;
if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those
inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty—let me entreat you to come back.
170
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Return
to
the
fountain whose waters
spring
close by
the
blood
of
the
Revolution.
Think nothing of me
; take no thought for the
political
fate
of any man whomsoever,
but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.
You may do
anything with me you choose if you will but heed these sacred
principles.
You may
not only defeat me for the
Senate, but you may take me and put me to death.
While
pretending no indifference to earthly honors,
I do claim to be actuated in this contest by
something higher than an anxiety for
office.
I
charge you
to drop every paltry and
insignificant
thought
for
any
man's
success.
It
is
nothing
;
I am
nothing
;
Judge
Douglas
is
nothing.
But
do
not
destroy
that
immortal emblem
of
humanity
:
the
Declaration of American Independence."
It was a wearying campaign.
Besides the seven debates with Doug-
las,
Mr.
Lincoln made many
speeches
throughout
the
State.
Mr.
Douglas travelled
in a saloon
car, luxuriously fitted up for his accom-
modation, Avhere he could rest undisturbed after the fatigue of the day.
The
Superintendent
of
the
Illinois
Central
Eailroad, George B. Mc-
Clellan, was a Democrat, and Mr. Douglas's personal
friend.
Mr. Lin-
coln had been retained as an attorney for the railroad, but could obtain
no accommodation from the officials of the company, who Avere in sym-
pathy with Douglas, and who used their influence to secure his election.
The
majority of votes was more than four thousand
in
Lincoln's
favor, but the Democrats, through an unfair districting of the
State,
secured
the
election
of
a
majority
of
the
Legislature
favorable
to
Douglas.
" I am glad," he
said to a
friend, " that I made the race.
It gave
me a hearing on the questions of the age which I could have had in no
other way, and though
I may sink entirely out
of view and
shall be
forgotten, I believe
I have made some marks which
Avill
tell for the
cause of liberty after I am gone."(°)
The old-time depression returned.
It was a natural sequence to the
exhausting labors of
the campaign.
He was no longer receiving the
applause
of
listening
thousands.
The
enthusiasm which
sus-
^g^i^g'
tained him
as he
set
forth the great
questions
involving the
future
welfare
of
the country no
longer
thrilled
him.
Per-
nicious political principles were in the ascendent
; truth and justice had
gone down in the conflict.
Friends Avould soon forget that he had ever
lived.
Discouraged and downcast, he walked the
streets.
Little did
he know how divine Providence had planned comfort and consolation.
He heard sweet music—a melody and chorus.
He stopped and listened
to the enchanting strains floating upon the evening air.
He w^as soothed
by the music and enraptured by the
Avords.
They aAvakened tender
memories.
TELL ME, YE WINGED WINDS.
SONG
WITH
INVISIBLE
CHORUS*
Andante sosienuio.
H.
S. Thompson.
zSiX—t=lz:
E3
1.
Tell
me,
ye
wing-ed
3.
Tell
me,
tiioii might-y
3. And
thou,
se
- reu
-
est
winds, that round my
path
- way
roar.
Do
deep, whose bil - lows round me
play,Know'st
moon, that with such
ho
-
Iv
face
Dost
S^iE
^1
it^ibzip
-^-
115
ye
not
know some
spot
where
mor
-
tals
weep
no
more, Some
thou
some
fav
- ored
spot,
some
isl
-
and
far
a
-
way. Where
look
up
-
on
the
earth,
a
-
sleep
in
night's
em
- brace;
Tell
~4-
i^-Si
-J—
r
^-
-s
litl
^\iE^z
?-Ezt
PI
lone
and
pleas-ant
dell,
some
wea
-
ry
man may find
the
me,
in
all
thy
round,
hast
-|
i^
val
-
ley
in
the
west,
Where
bliss
for which he
sighs.
Where
thou
not found some spot,
Where
,lrt=»=-
S
;|==
ad lib.
free
from care
and pain
the
wea
- ry
soul
sor
-
row
nev
- er
lives,
and
friendship nev
we
poor wretched
men
may find
a
hap
may
cr
pier
rest?
dies?
lot?
* When sung in public,
tfie Chorus are placed in an adjoining room.
[By permission ot Oliver Uitsou & Co.]
TELL ME, YE WINGED WINDS.
f
CHORUS.
Soprnno.
^-feEE^
:ti=t:=
t^:
No
rest,
no
rest
for
mor-tals
here
be
-
low:
Alto.
:bEB
s=q=
s:i=M=:=Mt=±=;i:=^^___
g=g-^
S!SE
*=S;m
No
rest,
no
rest
for
mor-tals
here
be
-
low;
liass.
te=^=^=S?=i^E?Eg=^^=5
fel^^3:
l=EE=SEE
1^^:
=?;[r
g—i^-
»—=i=3=S= 2i^3i^l3
5=^=*::
trl=;
sl^c^:
^^!E^^fcE
-v
\—
zB-
5=1
Sor-row,
sin,
and
death
fill
the pathway
as
you
p
fee
=1
\-
=S==S:
qv:
Sor-row,
sin,
and
death
fill
the pathway
as
you
go.
El2=:U:=t:=
m-—w^
:U=p:
-s:
^-
V
-^
-,-
-•!
•
-^-
-i»-
•
••
-«'
(I
:&=IP5:
^—C:
=?=
-J
n
4 Tell me, my secret soul, oh
!
tell me, hope and faith,
Is there no resting-place from sorrow,
sin, and death?
Is there no happy spot where mortals may be bless'd.
Where grief may find a balm, and weariness a rest?
Chorus.
Yes, they rest
;
yes, they rest beyond the bright blue skies,
Where sorrow never comes, and friendship never dies.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
178
The depression was gone.
True friendship never dies.
Justice and
truth and love are eternal.
Right will triumph.
"I must have that," he
said, and addressed a note to the young lady whose voice had thrilled
him with
its sweetness and pathos, requesting a copy of the words. (')
So again angels ministered to him.
The speeches made by Lincoln and
Douglas were
published
in
a
volume, which people in other sections of the country were reading.
It
seems probable
that though Mr. Lincoln had served a term
in
1859
Congress, few outside of lUinois knew that such a man existed
till they read his speeches.
Douglas was known throughout the repub-
lic.
But who was Abraham Lincoln ?
AYhere had he been, and what
had he been doing through preceding years ?
People Avere astonished.
No statesman in Congress had grappled with the great questions of the
day with such transcendent power.
They were amazed that one
of
whom they had never heard should so suddenly appear to confront with
unanswerable arguments one of the ablest and most aggressive debaters
in the country.
Mr. Douglas had won a re-election to the Senate, but he was conscious
that he had lost ground politically in the Southern States, and so deter-
mined to visit that section of the country.
He made a speech at Mem-
phis.
" The question of slavery," he said, " is one of climate.
Wherever
it is for the interest of the inhabitants of a territory to encourage slave
property, they
will
pass a slave
code.
On the sugar plantations
of
Louisiana it is not a question between the white man and the negro, but
between the negro and the crocodile.
The Almighty has drawn a line
on the continent, on the one side of which the soil must be cultivated by
slave labor, on tlie other by free labor.
.
.
. We must have more territory.
Men may say we shall never want anything more of Mexico, but the
time will come w^hen we shall be compelled to take more. ... So of the
Island of Cuba.
It is a matter of no consequence whether w^e want it or
not
; we are compelled to take
it, and we can't help it."
He went
to New Orleans, and made
a
like
speech
in
that
city.
Jan., When
he
reached Washington he found the slave-holders had
1859.
deposed him from the chairmanship of the Committee on Ter-
ritories.
It was intended humiliation.
We have seen John Brown
in Kansas
fighting to make
it a Free
State.
He was born in Connecticut, but when he was only five years
old his father moved to Ohio.
He hated oppression and injustice, and
was ever ready to help the poor.
He wanted to be a minister, but be-
came a tanner instead, and w^as
so conscientious that he would never
174
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
sell his leather until it was perfectly dry.
He became a wool merchant,
but lost what little money he had earned.
He selected land in north-
ern ISTew York, cut down the trees, built a cabin
; but when emigrants
were called for to make Kansas a Free State, he started for that Terri-
tory with several of his sons.
He did not believe slavery would ever be
abolished by
telling the slave-holders
it was a
sin.
He thought the
only way to get rid of it was by making slave property insecure.
Of
the heroic deeds mentioned in the
Bible, he was deeply impressed by
what Gideon accomplished.
He came to believe that he, also, was to be
an instrument in the hands
of the Almighty to give freedom
to the
slaves.
He laid a plan to seize with a handful of men the United States
Arsenal at Harper's Ferry.
He thought the slaves everywhere would
flock to
him.
There was no sanity
in
his plan.
His few
friends
in
whom he confided tried to dissuade him from such an attempt, but he
HAKPER S FERRY.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA
STIIUGGI.E.
IT-")
felt that he was called of God
to execute
it.
Tie rented
a farm on a
mountain
in Maryland, near Harper's Ferry, obtained guns which had
been used by the Free
State men
in Kansas, and employed a
black-
smith to make pikes.
With seventeen white men and five negroes he marched in the night
to Harper's Ferry, seized the arsenal, captured Colonel Lewis Washing-
ton, and liberated his slaves.
He stopped a railroad train, but
^fo-n*''
after a little while allowed
it to go on.
Two of the citizens mor-
18o9.
"
tally wounded one of Brown's sons.
Brown's soldiers returned
the fire and killed one citizen.
The telegraph flashed the news far and
wide.
In Charleston the church-bells were ringing, drums beating, and
400 men hastening with shot-guns and
rifles towards Harper's
Ferry.
The story of John Brown in the engine-house
;
its defence
;
the arrival
of Robert E. Lee with United States marines from Washington and two
cannon
; the capture of John Brown
;
his mockery of a trial and execu-
tion, is a part of the history of the country.
Wendell Phillips, orator, from Boston, looking dow^n
into the open
coffin and the face of John Brown, calm and peaceful
in death, at
his
funeral in North Elbe, N. Y., said, " He has abolished slavery."
James Russell Lowell, poet, wrote of him
:
"Truth forever on the scafTold,
Wrong forever on the throne
;
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow.
Keeping watch above his own."
The curiosity of the people of New York and Boston in regard to the
hitherto unknown man who had proved himself a match
for Douglas
was so great that he received an invitation
to give a lecture in those
cities.
The
great
hall of
the Cooper
Institute
in
Is^ew York was
filled.
William Cidlen Bryant, poet and editor, presided.
" Since the day of
Clay and Webster no man has spoken
to a larger assemblage of the
intellect and mental culture
of our city," wrote Horace Greeley, the
editor of the "Tribune," when the
lecture was
over.
"Mr. Lincoln
is
one of Nature's orators, using
his rare powers solely
to elucidate and
convince,
though
the
irresistible
effect
is
to
delight
and
electrif}'^
as well.
.
.
. The
hall frequently rang with cheers and shouts of ap-
plause, which were prolonged and
intensified
at the
close.
No man
176
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a ISTew York
audience." (')
One of Mr. Lincoln's personal friends, Elihu B, Washburne,(°) mem-
ber of Congress from Galena,
111., was
in 'New York, and on Sunday
they made their way together to the Five Points Mission Sunday-school,
which had been established in the
-'-£?-'---
most degraded section of the city.
Many of the children were in rags.
"\
Eev. Mr. Pease, the superintendent,
kindly welcomed them, and
in
re-
^ ^
,
sponse to his invitation Mr. Lincoln
''
"
addressed the children,
Mr. Lincoln
repeated
his
ad-
dress at ISTew Haven, Conn. A pro-
fessor
of
rhetoric
in Yale College
listened
in
astonishment.
Never
before had
he
heard
such
plain,
direct,
clear, and
comprehensive
language—words
so simple that a
child could understand what he was
saying.
Mr. Lincoln was to speak
at Meriden, and the professor
hastened to that town to hear him
once
more.
He
returned
to
the
college and gave
a lecture to
his
class upon the marvellous rhetoric of this man from the "West who never
had had the advantages of an education.
From Meriden Mr. Lincoln went to Hartford and
jSTorwich.
Tlie
largest hall in ]^orwich was filled with people who desired to hear him.
" It gives me |)leasure," the words of Mayor A. W. Prentice, who
presided, "to introduce a gentleman with whom you are already
ac-
quainted, and whom you hope to see presiding in the Senate over Ste-
phen Arnold Douglas as Vice-president of the United
States."
The
mayor was
anticipating
that William H. Seward
w^ould be the
Ke-
publican candidate for President, and Mr. Lincoln for Yice-president.
Pev. John Putnam
Gulliver, one of the ministers of
]S"orwich,
lis-
tened in amazement to what Mr. Lincoln had to say.
He had heard
many eloquent men, but none that used such plain words with so much
power.
Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Gulliver, and the mayor met at the railroad
station in the morning
; the mayor introduced the minister.
WILLIAM CTJLLEN BRYANT.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
177
*'I have seen you before," Mr. Lincoln remarked.
" I think not.
You must mistake me for some other person."
"No;
I saw you last evening in the to\Yn-hall."
" Is it possible that you could have observed individuals so closely in
such an audience ?"
" Oh yes
;
that
is my way.
I do not forget faces.
Were you not
there ?"
" I was, and I was well paid for going.
I consider
it one of the most
extraordinary speeches I ever heard."
ELIIIU
15. AVASHBUKNE.
178
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" "Will you take a seat with me ?" the kind invitation of Mr. Lincoln
as they entered the
car.
*' Were you sincere in what you said about
my speech ?"
"I mean every word
of
it.
I learned more of the
art
of
public
speaking last evening than I could from a whole course of lectures on
rhetoric."
" That
is extraordinary.
I am informed that one of the professors
at Tale College followed me to Meriden to hear me a second time, and
has been lecturing about my speech.
I should like to know what there
is about what
I say that has made you and the professor think it any
way remarkable."
" It
is the clearness of your statements, your unanswerable style of
reasoning, and your
illustrations, w^iich are romance, pathos, and fun
welded together."
" I am much obliged to j^ou.
I have been wishing for a long time
to have some one make an analysis for me.
It throws light on a sub-
ject which has been dark to ine."
" May I ask how you acquired your unusual power of putting things?
It must have been a matter of education.
]S^o man has it by nature
alone.
What has been your education V
" Well, as to education, I never went to school more than six months
in my
life.
When
I was a child
I used to get
irritated
if anybod}"
talked to me in a way I could not understand.
I don't think I got an-
gry at other things, but that disturbed my temper.
I remember when
the neighbors came in and talked to my father in the evening, I tried to
understand what they were talking about.
When I got hold of an idea
I put it into my own language.
It has become a kind of passion with
me—has stuck to me.
I am not easy now w^hen I am handling a thought
till I have bounded
it north, south, east, and Avest.
Perhaps that
ac-
counts for the characteristic you spoke of, though I never put the two
things together before."
" Did you not have a law education ?"
" Oh yes
!
I
' read law,' as the phrase
is
; that
is, I became a law-
yer's clerk in Springfield, and copied tedious documents, and picked up
w^hat I could of law in the intervals of other work.
But your question
reminds me of a bit of education I had w^hich I am bound in honesty to
mention.
In the course of my law-reading I constantly came upon the
Avord
' demonstrate.'
I thought at first that I understood its meaning,
but soon became satisfied I did not.
I said to myself, 'What do I do
when I demonstrate more than when
I reason or prove ?
How does
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
179
demonstration differ from any other proof ^
T consulted Webster's Dic-
tionary.
That tohl of
' certain proof,"
' proof beyond the
possibility of
doubt;' but
I could form no
idea of what sort of proof that
was.
I
thought a great many things
were proved beyond the
possibility of
doubt without recourse to any such extraordinary process of reasoning
as I understood
' demonstration
' to be.
I consulted all the dictionaries
and books of reference
I could
find, but with no
better
results.
You
might as well have defined
' blue' to a blind man.
At last I said,
' Lin-
coln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what " de-
monstrate" means;' and I left my situation
in
Springfield, went home
to my father's house, and stayed there
till I could give any proposition
in the
six books of 'Euclid' at sight.
I then found out what 'demon-
strate' means, and went back to my law studies." ('"
)
Mr. Lincoln
visited
his
eldest son Eobert
at Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.
He proceeded
to New
Hampshire, and
addressed
audiences at Concord and Manchester.
" He
is far from prepossessing in personal appearance," wrote the
editor of the Manchester "Mirror," "and his voice is disagreeable, yet he
Avins attention and good-will from the start.
He indulges in no flowers
of rhetoric, no eloquent passages. He is not a wit, humorist, or a clown;
yet so fine a vein of pleasantry and good-nature pervades what he says,
gliding over a deep current
of poetical arguments, that he keeps his
hearers in a smiling mood, with their mouths open to hear all he says.
His sense of the ludicrous is very keen
; and an exhibition of that
is the
clincher to all his arguments—not the ludicrous acts of persons, but lu-
dicrous
ideas.
Hence he
is never
off'ensive, but
steals away willingly
into his train of belief persons who were opposed to him.
For the first
half-hour his opponents w^ould agree to every word he uttered
; and from
that point he began to lead them off little by little, until it seemed as if
he had got them all into his fold."
The newspapers of Springfield informed the people that Mr. Lincoln
had addressed the ragamuffins at the Five Points Mission.
Those most
intimate with him were accustomed to call him " Abe ;"
in like manner
he abbreviated their names.
" Well, Abe," said one of his neighbors upon his return, " I see you
have been making a speech to Sunday-school children."
" Yes
;
sit down, Jim, and I'll
tell you about
it.
On Sunday morn-
ing Washburne said,
' Let's go down to the Five Points Mission.'
I Avas
much
interested
in what I saw, Jim.
The superintendent, Mr. Pease,
came and shook hands with us, and Washburne introduced me to him.
180
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
He spoke to the children, and then I was urged to speak.
I told him
that I didn't know anything about talking
to Sunday-schools, but Mr.
Pease said that many of the children were homeless and friendless, and
I thought of the time when I had been pinched by terrible poverty.
And so I told them that I had been poor
;
I remembered when my toes
stuck out through my broken shoes in winter, when ray arms were out
at the elbows, when I shivered with the cold.
I told them there was
only one rule—always to do the very best you can.
I told them
I had
always tried to do the very best I could, and that
if they would follow
that rule they would get on somehow.
"When
I got through, Mr. Pease
said
it was
just the thing they
needed.
When the school was dismissed all the teachers came up and
shook hands with me and thanked me for
it, although I didn't know
that I was saying anything of any account.
I never heard anything
that touched me as one
of the songs they sung.
Here is one of their
song-books."
Mr. Lincoln took
a
little hjannal from
his pocket and
read one of the hymns.
As he read his lips became tremulous and tears
rolled down his cheeks. ('')
Doubtless memory went back once more to the floorless cabin of his
birthplace and to the lonely grave of his mother in the Indiana forest
to the poverty and hardship of his boyhood.
Looking into the faces of
the poor and friendless children touched his heart as nothing else could
have done, and awakened his tenderest sympathies.
NOTES
TO
CHAPTER
X.
(^) Isaac N. Arnold, "Life of Lincoln," p. 144.
('') This sentence was quoted by President Lincoln
at Gettysburg.
It occurs in au
address given by Theodore Parker before the Massachusetts Autislavery Societj^ at its an-
nual meeting, 1848, reported in the " Liberator."
The idea was not original with Mr. Par-
ker.
It may be found in a volume on "The Advancement in Knowledge and Eeligiou,"
by James Douglas, of Scotland, published at Edinburgh, 1825.
Mr. Douglas was about
Mr. Parker's
age, living at the place of his birth, Cavers, Eoxbnrgh County, Scotland.
He had abundant wealth, was endowed with a j)hilosophic mind, and gave himself to
studying the philosophy of history.
The book in question went through several editions
in Scotland, and was republished in the United States by Cooke & Co., Hartford, Conn.,
1830.
The volume contains a paragraph
entitled "New
Social Order
in America," in
which occurs the following sentence:
" The European emigrant might believe himself as
one transported to a new world, governed by new laws, and finds himself at once raised
in the scale of being—the pauper is maintained by his own labor, the hired laborer works
on bis own account, and the tenant is changed into a proprietor, while the despised vas-
sal of the old continent becomes
colegislator and coruler
in a government where
all
power
is from the people, and
in
the people, and for
the peopled''
The paragraph was repub-
KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE.
181
lisbed in tlio "Tlhptorical Reader," a book ior schools, which was the reading of mj' school-
days, and of wliicli more than one hundred thonsand copies were sold.
It seems prob-
able
that
President
Lincoln
acquired
the
thought from Parker, and that he
in
turn
received
it from Douglas.
The volume
in which
the
(inotation occurs
is very
ably
written, and there can bo no question that
it has left
its impress upon the i)hil()sopliy of
history during this century.—Author.
(3) W. H. Herndou, " Lincoln," p. 355 (edition
1889).
(*)
J. G. Holland, "Life of Abraham Lincoln," p. 161.
(^) Isaac N. Arnold, "Life of Lincoln," p. 145.
n W. H. Herndon, "Lincoln," p. 414 (edition 1889).
C ) The song was composed by H. S. Thompson, the most popular song-writer of Amer-
ica.
It was published in 1858, and was widely snug.—Author.
(^) New York "Tribune," Feb. 28, 1860.
C) Elihu B. Washburne was born at Livermore, Me., September 23, 1816.
His edu-
cation was obtained in the public-schools and a few terms at an academy.
He became
a printer, but the legal profession being more congenial, he studied law, emigrated to
Illinois, and became an attorney at Galena.
He was elected to Congress in
1853, and
took au active part in the debates on the Kansas-Nebraska affairs.
He was prominent in
the formation of the Republican Party in Illinois, and at an early period made the
ac-
quaintance of Abraham Lincoln.
He was in Congress from 1853 to 1869, with the excep-
tion of one term, occupying prominent and responsible positions on committees.
He was
often called the "Watch-dog of the Treasury," from his careful watch upon expenditures.
During the later years of his Congressional service he was called "Father of the House."
Recognizing the fitness of Ulysses S. Grant as military commander, he asked President
Lincoln to appoint him brigadier-general, and after the surrender of Vicksbiirg and the
victory
of Chattanooga he urged Grant's appointment as lieutenant-general.
He was
often with the army during the Wilderness campaign.
Upon the
election of General
Grant to the Presidency, Mr. Washburne became Secretary of State.
He was subsequent-
ly appointed Minister to France, and rendered conspicuous service during the siege of
Paris by the Prussians.—Author.
("*) John Putnam Gulliver to Author.
See, also, " Independent," Sept.
1, 1864.
( '' ) Edward Eggleston, quoted in " Every-day Life of Lincoln," p. 323.
182
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
CHAPTER XL
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
THE time was approaching (April 16, 1859) when candidates would be
nominated by the
different
political
parties
for
the Presidency.
Mr. Pickett, an editor in Illinois, wrote to Mr. Lincoln as follows
:
" My partner and myself are absent addressing the Eepublican editors
of the State on the subject
of a simultaneous announcement of 3^our
name for the Presidency."
"I must in candor say," Mr. Lincoln wrote in reply, ''that I do not
think myself
lit for the Presidency.
I
certainly am flattered
^Pggg^' and gratified that some partial friends think of me in that con-
nection ; but I really think it best for our cause that no concert-
ed effort such as you suggest should be made." (
'
)
He was not seeking the Presidency.
Neither would he be a rival to
Senator Trumbull when the time came to choose Mr. Trumbull's suc-
cessor.
Very frank and open his letter to a friend
:
" I do not understand Trumbull and myself to be rivals.
You know
I am pledged not to enter a struggle with him for the seat in the Senate
now occupied by him
; and yet I would rather have a full term in the
Senate than in the Presidency.
For my single
self, I have enlisted for
the permanent success of the Republican cause
; and for
this object
I
shall labor faithfully in the ranks, unless, as I think not probable, the
judgment of the party shall assign me a different position." (")
In this biography we have reached a point where
I who am writing
became an observer of passing events, and from this page to the close
shall at times write of what I saw and heard in connection with the life
of Mr. Lincoln.
There was one member of the Republican party who
had an earnest desire to be its candidate for the Presidency—William H.
Seward, Senator from ISTew York, who had rendered conspicuous
serv-
ice in the councils of the nation.
It was understood that a strong effort
would be made by his friends to secure his nomination.
" Who
is to be your candidate out West ?" was the question put by
NOMINATED
F(Ml THE PRESIDENCY.
183
me to my friend (nreorge W. Gage, of (.Uiicaoo, in the month of December,
1859.
"Well, the Democratic J*artv
is going- to
Ik; (hvicUnl, antl we can win
with almost any good candidate—Chase,
ol' Ohio, or Abraham Lincoln,
of our State," the reply.
I am not aware that Mr. Lincoln at that chite had been publicly men-
tioned as a candidate.
ISTot
till a month
later did
tlie people of New
York, New Haven, Hartford, and Boston become ac([uainted with him
personally.
The thought may have come to him that his friends might
bring him forward as a candidate, but I find no evidence that he him-
self had made any movement towards that end.
The Democratic Party had controlled the Government for many years.
It was united and powerful on that Sunday in 1854 when Stephen A.
Douglas and Jefferson Davis called upon President Pierce and unfolded
the plan for the introduction of slavery into Kansas and the other Ter-
ritories of the Union
; but
it was no longer a united party.
President
Buchanan had done what he could to prevent Douglas from
being
re-
elected to the Senate.
The Democratic Senators from the
slave-hold-
ing States had degraded him from the chairmanship of the Committee
on Territories.
They knew the Democrats of the Northern States were
enthusiastic for his nomination as candidate for the Presidency, and de-
termined to prevent
it.
The Democratic Convention assembled at Charleston, S. C.
A ma-
jority of the delegates from the Northern States were for Douglas.
He
was a popular leader.
The delegates from the Slave
States
ac-
'^"PggQ
' knowledged his abilities.
He had rendered them great
service,
but they did not accept his ideas of the right
of the Territories
to vote slavery m or out as the people pleased.
Slavery must be voted
in, never out.
They had no candidate for the Presidency, but were in
favor
of
establishing
a
great
principle
:
Congressional
protection
to
slavery
in the Territories and
States.
The Southern delegates knew
that Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, agreed with them, and secured
his election
as
president
of the
convention.
William
L.
Yancey,
of
Alabama, assumed leadership
in debate.
The men ^vho were shouting
for the nomination of Douglas were astonished when they heard
these
sentiments
fall from
his
lips
:
'' The
Northern Democrats
are
losing
ground before the rising Black Republican Party because they have not
stood resolutely up against the anti-slavery sentiment.
Northern Dem-
ocrats have admitted that slavery is wrong.
They must change.
There
must be legislation by Congress which will protect slavery ever3avhere."
184
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Senator Pugh, of Ohio, replied
to him
:
" We have been taunted
with our weakness.
We have been told that Ave must put our hands on
our mouths, and our mouths in the dust.
Gentlemen of the South, you
mistake us.
We will not do it."
For five days the delegates wrangled over resolutions, the Southern-
ers demanding what the Northerners would not
give.
Benjamin
F.
Butler, of Massachusetts, thought to
settle
all differences by adopting
the platform of the convention held in Cincinnati in 1856, upon which
Buchanan had been
elected.
"That was
a
swindle on
the Southern
States !" the shout of the delegates from Mississippi.
The motion was
adopted by a large majority.
If Mr. Butler thought
such
a motion
would bring peace and harmony he was mistaken.
The time had come
for carrying out what Yancey and his fellow-conspirators had planned.
The
delegates from Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, South
Carolina,
Florida, Texas, and Arkansas rose from their seats, marched out of the
room, and organized another convention.
The great and powerful Democratic Party was divided.
The
dele-
gates from the cotton States—who believed the world could not get on
without that product—had
split the party asunder.
It was the initial
step of a great and far-reaching scheme to bring about the disruption
of the Union.
Yancey outlmed
it in
a speech made in an Alabama
convention
:
"To obtain the aid of tlie Democracy in this contest
it
is necessary to malce a contest
in its Charleston convention.
In that body Douglas's adherents will press his doctrines to
a decision.
If the
State-rights men keep out of that convention that decision must in-
evitably be against the South, and that either in direct favor of the Douglas doctrine or by
the indorsement of the Cincinnati platform, under vphich Douglas claims shelter for his
principles.
.
.
. The State-rights men should present in that convention their demands for
a decision, and they will obtain an indorsement of their demands or a denial of these de-
mands.
If indorsed, we shall have a greater hope of triumph within the Union
;
if denied,
in my opinion the State-rights wing should secede from the convention and appeal to the
whole people of the South, without distinction of parties, and organize another convention
upon the basis of their principles, and go into the election with a candidate nominated by
it as a grand constitutional party.
But in the Presidential contest a Black Republican
may be elected.
If this dire event should happen, in my opinion the only hope of safety
for the South is in a withdrawal from the Union before he shall be inaugurated—before
the sword and treasury of the Federal Government shall be placed in the keeping of that
party."
The people of Charleston were wild in their enthusiasm.
Cultured
ladies flocked to the hall in which the seceders assembled, and waved
their handkerchiefs in token of their approval.
Bonfires illumined the
streets.
NOMINATED
FOIl TTTE PRESIDENCY.
187
The rival conventions adjourned
without, noniinatinf^ candidates for
the Presidency.
They were to reassemble
in Baltimoi'e
in the montli
of May.
The Whig Party also met in Baltimore.
Southern men controlled
the convention.
They nominated
.Tolm
Bell, of Tennessee, for
Presi-
dent, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, for Vice-president.
Public
opinion in the Northern
States regarded Everett
as the greater statesman.
One editor called
it the
"Kangaroo"
ticket,
as
its hind legs were long-
est.
I was present as a
journalist,
and
noticed
that the antagonism of
the
delegates from
the
Southern
States was
very much more intense
against
the Republican
Party than against either
wing of the Democratic
Party.
At the Capitol (Wash-
ington) Jefferson Davis,
of
Mississippi
;
Robert
Toombs,
of
Georgia
;
John M. Mason, of Virginia; and Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, were
crowding Douglas to the wall.
Like a stag at ba}^ he confronted them,
manifesting marvellous power and boldness in debate.
Better than any
other Northern
Senator
he
understood
their purpose.
He had been
deep in their counsels.
He was experiencing the implacable hate of the
slave oligarchy towards one whom the}' could not control.
The Repub-
lican Senators had
little sympathy for Douglas.
They took no part in
the debate.
I was sitting- on a sofa in the Senate-chamber with Sena-
tor Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, when Senatoi* Seward entered.
" He
is to be our next President.
He
feels
it
; you can see
it
in
his actions," the remark of Senator Wilson, who was regarded as one
of the far-sighted politicians of the period.
He knew every phase
of
public sentiment
in the Eastern
States, but he did not
fully compre-
hend the rapid development of thought and feeling in the West.
BEN.IAMIN
F. BUTT.KR.
188
LIFE OF ABEAHAM LINCOLN.
At that time (May 10, 1864) the
Illinois Kepublicans were assem-
bled in convention at Decatur, where Abraham Lincoln once split rails
for Nancy Miller.
Richard Oglesbj was chairman of the convention.
" Gentlemen," he said, " two old Democrats want to make a contri-
bution to the meeting."
Two farmers thereupon entered the room, each with a fence rail on
his shoulder bearing this inscription
:
ABRAHAM LINCOLR, THE RAIL CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY, I860!
Two
rails from a
lot of 3000 made in 1830 by Thomas Hanks and Abraham Lincohi.
Delegates and spectators sprung
to
their
feet, mounted the
seats,
swung their hats, and shouted
:
" Lincoln
! Lincoln
! Abe
! Abe !"
" It is true I helped build a house for my father," Mr. Lincoln said,
as he rose to speak.
"It
is true that Thomas Hanks and myself split
rails.
Whether
these
are some
of
the
identical
rails
I
cannot
say.
Quite likely they are."
The dramatic scene had not been planned by politicians.
It was the
outcome of the thought of a plain farmer who formerlj^ had been a
Democrat, but who had become a Republican.
" They are talking of you for President," said a friend.
SECEDERS'
CONVENTIOISf.
ST. ANDREW'S HALL.
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
189
" They ought to
select some one wh(j knows more than
I
do," Mr.
Lincoln replied. (')
It was voted
to
present
his
nfinie
at
the
National
Convention.
This action was brought about mainly by Leonard
Swett.
V>. C. Cook,
Norman
B. Judd, and
David Davis.
We are
not to conclude that
it
^
was wholly a
surprise
to
Mr. Lincoln.
He
knew people were talk-
^
ing about him as a pos-
sible candidate.
He
had
endeared
himself
to the Eepublicans
of
the
State by his devo-
tion to principle, his de-
bates with Douglas, his
unselfish action in secur-
ing the election of Sen-
ator
Trumbull.
They
loved him for his noble
manhood and the
sim-
plicity of his character.
During
a
journey
from
Washington
to
Pittsburg
I
conversed
with men prominent in political affairs, and was convinced that Mr. Sew-
ard would not receive the votes of Pennsylvania in the convention.
For
more than a third of a century New York and Pennsylvania had been
rival States for political prestige and power.
New York had assumed
to be the " Empire State ;"
Pennsylvania prided
herself on being the
"Keystone" in the arch
of the
republic.
It was plain that Pennsyl-
vania did not intend to support the favorite son of the Empire
State.
In Ohio there was a moderate enthusiasm for Mr. Chase, but I could not
discover active effort being made to secure his nomination,
(^f public
sentiment in Indiana I could form no definite opinion, except that the
candidate ought to be from the great and growing West.
Arriving in
Chicago several days before the assembling of the convention, I found
a number of delegates from
St. Louis actively advocating the nomina-
tion of Mr. Bates.
In no
city of the Union had there been so rapid a
UICHAUl) OGLESBY.
190
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
development of Republican sentiment as in St. Louis, and the delegates
believed, or affected to
believe, that with Mr. Bates they could secure
the electoral vote of the State.
There was but one name on the lips of the Republicans
of
Illinois
—Abraham
Lincoln.
They knew him
; had looked
into
his kindly
face
; had listened to bis unanswerable arguments in the debates with
Douglas, as clear and demonstrable as a proposition from " Euclid."
Mr. Thurlow Weed, of Albany, was managing affairs in the interest
of Mr. Seward.
He had engaged a number of rooms at the hotels.
His
agents were
in Chicago previous to the assembling of the convention.
He had men on the ground to ask admission to the convention as dele-
gates from Texas and other Southern
States, to
cast their ballots for
Mr. Seward.
I discovered companies of men strolling the streets—half
a dozen in a band—hurrahing for Seward.
The train from New York
bringing the delegates was decorated with flags.
A brass band played
the "Star Spangled Banner" and "Yankee Doodle."
Seward was an
experienced statesman, who had had long acquaintance with public af-
fairs.
Lincoln was only a homespun lawyer who had been' in Congress
but one term.
"A
rail-splitter!
What did he know of the needs
of
the nation?
Hurrahfor Seward P'' such the argument.
The Republicans of Chicago had erected a building sufficiently large
to accommodate
10,000 people.
They called
it
" The Wigwam."
It
was plain, unpretentious—built for the accommodation not only of the
delegates, but of the people.
Significant the holding of the convention
of the new party of the people in the rapidly-growing city of the West
in contrast to that of the Democratic Party in the old City of Charles-
ton, which had come to a
stand-still.
In Charleston every movement
of the slave aristocracy looked towards disintegration and defeat
;
in
Chicago the enthusiasm was indicative of harmony and victory.
The
first day was spent in organization.
George Ashman, of Mas-
sachusetts, w^as president of the convention.
I
noticed, as
I
sat
at a
small table in the section assigned to representatives of the Press,
' \m)
' ^^^ when Mr. Seward's name was mentioned there was. an out-
burst
of
applause
in
different
parts
of the
great
auditorium.
The
leaders had
received
their
instructions from Thurlow Weed,
of
Albany, who happened to
sit by my side, who was not using his pen,
but who saw everything that was going
on.
The
organization and
the enthusiasm of the convention was all that he could desire for bring-
ing about the nomination of Mr. Seward.
The second day w^as given
to preparing the platform and canvassing for candidates.
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
193
This the telegram sent by Horace Greeley
to
his paper, the Kew
York
'' Tribune :"
"Goveruor Seward will be uomiuated tomorrow."
JS^ot SO did I regard the outlook.
It was evident that the delegates
from the East, who never
before had
been
in
the West, were being
influenced by the
rising enthusiasm
of the
multitudes
which surged
through the streets in the evening, hurrahing for Abraham Lincoln.
Midnight
beheld
ISTorraan
Judd, of Chicago; Burton
C. Cook,
of
Ottawa; David
Davis, of
Springfield, and
others
ia
secret
consulta-
tion at the Tremont House.
"We
must
beat Sew-
ard's men
on
their own
ground,"
said
Judd.
"There
is a fellow in this
city
Avith
a
thundering
voice.
He can halloo loud
enough to be heard across
Lake Michigan, and I pro-
pose that Ave have him on
hand to-morrow."
" I know of anotlier fel-
low, by the name of Ames,
who lives doAvn my way,
who can halloo as loud as
your Chicago
chap.
He
is a Democrat, but I guess
will be open to a job.
I'll
telegraph
him
to
be
on
hand in the morning," said
Cook.
The
sun
rose
upon a
cloudless
sky.
Each
in-
coming train brought ad-
ditional
thousands
from
Northern
Illinois,
Indiana,
Michigan,
and
Southern
Wisconsin.
ISTo
one
had
marshalled
them.
They
^1860^' came
to manifest their enthusiasm
for
the party Avhich
stood
pledged
to
resist the aggressions of slavery.
They were more
ready to hurrah for Lincoln than for Seward.
Lincoln was the repre-
sentative of the bone, sinew, and muscle of the younger West
; Seward
EDWARD BATES.
194
LIFE OF ABEAHAM LINCOLN.
REPUBLICAI^ WIGWAM, CHICAGO,
1860.
represented the culture of the older East.
Stimulating and triumphant
strains of music burst upon the morning air, blown from clarionet, cor-
net, and trombone by the band from 'New York. A great crowd in the
interest of Seward was marching in procession to the Wigwam.
Mr.
Seward's lieutenants had made a mistake.
The procession never would
enter the Wigwam, for a dense mass already crowded
every avenue
leading to the building.
The interior was filled.
Candidates were put
in nomination.
At the mention of the name of Abraham Lincoln, Mr.
Cook,
of
Ottawa, standing
in a
conspicuous
place on the
platform,
waved a white handkerchief, and a stentorian voice broke forth at the
eastern end
of the building, answered by one equally loud from the
western end, followed
b}^ the shouts of the assembled thousands— con-
tinuing
till the "white handkerchief ceased to wave.
The man from
Chicago and the man from Ottawa, with voices
like fog-horns, were
carrying out their instructions.
The
first ballot was given, Seward receiving
173|^ votes
; Lincoln,
102
; the other 42 ballots were divided between Cameron, of Pennsyl-
vania
; Chase, of Ohio
; Bates, of Missouri, and others.
In a
full vote
of the convention the successful candidate must receive 233 votes.
The
second ballot gave Seward 184^; Lincoln, 181.
Louder the thunders of applause evoked by the white handkerchief
of Cook.
The smile upon the kindl}^ face of Thurlow Weed faded away.
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
195
A great hope was going down, never to
rise again.
The third
ballot
was taken; a total of 465 votes— 233 would be a majority.
Seward
received 180
;
Lincoln, 231^.
He needed only 1^ votes.
The president
had not announced the result, but scores of pencils had kept
tlie tally.
Profound the silence.
Delegates had the right of changing their votes.
THURLOW WEED.
196
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" Ohio changes four votes from Chase
to
Lincoln !" shouts Judge
Cartter.
Like the burst of a tornado is the roar that rolls up from the
vast assembl}^
A cannon upon
the
roof
of
the
building belches
its
thunder.
The thousands in the streets toss their hats into the air.
The
man who in early life had been a wood-chopper, rail-splitter, and
boat-
man
is before the world as a candidate for the highest office in the re-
public.
Thurlow Weed writes
a- word or two and hands
it to the tele-
graph
operator, bows
his head, covers
his eyes to hide
the unbidden
tears.
The great hope and expectations have gone down.
William H.
Seward never can be President.
Abraham Lincoln, in
SpringlSeld, was not unmindful of what was
going on at Chicago.
The telegraph had kept him informed as to the
doings of the convention from hour to hour.
He would be something
more or
less than human were he to remain indifferent to what was
taking place.
He could not sit quietly in his office and await the result,
but killed time by playing base-ball and billiards.
He was in the office
of the Springfield " Journal," sitting with compressed lips and thought-
ful countenance when the telegraph messenger entered with the result
of the ballot—his nomination.
" There is a little woman down the street who will want to hear the
news.
I will go and tell her," he said.
William H. Seward had
left Washington and was at his charming
home in Auburn, IST. Y.
Many people came from the surrounding coun-
try to be present when the telegraph announced the nomination of the
man
they
loved.
They were
sure he would be
selected.
A cannon
had been loaded.
Flags would be waved on the
instant.
Mr. Seward
was surrounded by intimate
friends.
A horseman came with a
tele-
gram giving the first ballot, which was received with tumultuous cheer-
ing.
He brought the result of the second ballot.
" I shall be nominated the next time," the words.
Again the cheers
resounded, and again the messenger appeared.
"Lincoln nominated.—T. W."
ISTothing more.
No cheer.
The
flags were furled.
The match to
fire the cannon was not lighted.
Friends took their departure as when
they have laid a loved one in the grave.
Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Yice-president.
An
excited crowd surged through the streets of Chicago.
Bonfires blazed,
cannon thundered, cheers rent the
air.
The work of the convention
was done, and the delegates turned their steps homeward.
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
197
%
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
On
Saturday
niorii-
ing,
after
the
adjourn-
ment, a
passenger
car
drawn by one
of the
fastest
locomotives
of
the Illinois Central Ilail-
road
rolled
out from
Chicago.
It
bore
to
Springfield
the
com-
mittee appointed
^1860^' ^y
^^^^ conven-
tion
to apprise
Mr. Lincoln of his nomi-
nation.
Being a member
of the
Press,
I
accom-
panied
the
committee.
The
sun
was
setting
when we reached Spring-
field.
A
crowd
had
gathered in the State-house grounds—not to welcome the committee,
but to hsten to John A. McClernand, who was to make a speech
fa-
voring Douglas
for the
Presidency.
The
clock had struck the hour
of
eight when
the
party
from Chicago proceeded
to
the
house
of
Mr. Lincoln.
Mr. Lincoln's two boys, Willie and Thomas—or " Tad,"
as
he was
familiarly
called— were perched
on
the fence
before
the
house, chaiRng
their playmates.
"Tad" stood
erect, and
welcomed
the
committee by
shouting
" Hooray !"
Both
boys were brimming
over with
life.
The
committee
entered
the
house and
passed
into
the
parlor, where
Mr.
Lincoln
received
them.
Mr. Ashman,
presi-
dent of the convention, made a
brief address.
The
replj^ was equally
brief.
The formality ended, and
all
restraint was
gone.
Smiles
rippled
upon Mr. Lincoln's
face
as
he
then addressed William D. Kelley, of
Pennsylvania.
" You are a tall man. Judge Kelley.
What is your height ^"
" Six feet three."
" I beat
3'"ou,"
said Mr. Lincoln
;
" I am
six feet four without my
high-heeled boots on."
"Pennsylvania bows
to
Illinois.
I am glad that we have found a
candidate for the Presidency whom we can look up to, for we have been
198
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN".
informed that
there were only
little giants
in
Illinois,"
the
graceful
allusion to Mr. Douglas.
A few moments before, Mr. Lincoln, under the
constraint
of
for-
mahty, was like a school -boy making his
first declamation.
The un-
HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
199
natural dignity
which had been
assumed
laid
aside, conversa-
tion
became
general.
"Mrs.
Lin-
coln
will
be
pleased to see
you in the oth-
er
room,
gen-
tlemen.
You
will be
thirsty
after your long
journey.
You
will find some-
thing
refresh-
ing
in the
li-
brary."
In the
li-
brary
were
several hundred
volumes ranged
upon
shelves,
two globes (one
terrestrial,
the
other celestial), a plain
table, a pitcher of cold water and
glasses, but
no wines nor liquors.
" You did not find any great spread of liquors, I take it," the remark
of a citizen of Springfield the next morning.
" No," my reply.
" Thereby hangs a little story
: When we knew you were on your
way, a number of us called on Mr. Lincoln and said that in
all proba-
bility some of the members of the committee would need some refresh-
ment, wines or liquors.
' I haven't any in the house,' he said.
' We will
furnish them.'
' Gentlemen, I cannot allow you to do what I will not
do myself,' the reply.
But that was not the end of
it.
Some of our
good Democratic citizens, feeling that Springfield had been highly hon-
ored by the nomination, sent over some baskets of champagne, but Mr.
Lincoln sent them back, thanking them for their intended kindness."
MRS. LINCOLN,
186L
[From a photograph in possession of the author.]
200
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The
birds were singing and
building their
nests
in
the
trees two
mornings later as I crossed the public square and entered the office of
Mr. Lincoln.
A pine table occupied the centre of the room, a desk one
corner.
The May sun shone through uncurtained windows upon ranges
of shelves
filled with law-books, pamphlets, and documents—a helter-
skelter arrangement.
^Newspapers littered the floor.
Mr. Lincoln was
WILLIAM
D. KELLET.
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
201
DESK UPON WHICH PRESIDENT LIN-
COLN WROTE
HIS
FIRST INAUGU-
RAL.
seated
at the desk, clad in a linen duster, with a pile of
letters and a
wooden inkstand before him.
He had a hearty welcome for
all who
came.
There was no
sign
of
elation.
To friends,
neighbors,
old
ac-
quaintances, and strangers
alike he was
simply Abraham Lincoln.
Pie saw two
tall young men—farmers, he judged by
their appearance —bashfully looking into
his office.
" How do you do, gentlemen ?
What
can I do for you ?
AVon't you come in
and take a seat?"
"We
are much
obliged to
you, Mr.
Lincoln," said one.
" You see, we are a
little curious to know which
is the
tall-
est, you or Jim here.
I told him he was
as tall as you."
" Oh,
that
is
it.
Well,
let
us
see.
Stand up beside the wall, young man."
Jim stood against the wall of the room, and Mr. Lincoln placed a
cane on the top of his head—the end against the plastering.
"That
is your height.
Now, you hold the cane, and
let me
see
what I can do."
He steps under the cane, wags his hair against
it.
" Well, young man, you are good at guessing.
We are exactly the
same height." (*)
The act was in keeping with his good-nature.
Did he lose anything
by gratifying
their
curiosity?
Did he
not
rather gain
their
friend-
ship ?
A farmer's wife drove into Springfield, bringing butter and eggs to
sell, and called to see the man who had been selected as candidate for
the Presidency.
" I thought I'd call and shake hands with you once more," she said.
Mr.
Lincoln
tried to remember when and where
she had shaken
hands with him.
" Oh, don't you remember ?
Why, you've stopped at our house to
get something to eat when you've been riding the circuit."
" Oh
yes.
Now
I know.
Well, I'm
right glad
to
see you once
more."
" Don't you remember, Mr. Lincoln, that day when you called and
I hadn't anvthino- to eat ?"
202
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" ISTo, I don't remember the time, for you always had a good dinner,"
" But you called one day when we had finished dinner and eat up
every scrap, and
I hadn't nothing but some bread-and-milk for you,
and you smacked your lips and said it was good enough for the Presi-
dent of the United States, and now you are going to be President.
I'm
right glad to see you so pert." (')
They were not flattering words, but a sincere and honest expression
of her regard for him.
While the Eepublican Convention was
in
session
in
Chicago, the
two
Democratic Conventions were
reassembling
in
Baltimore.
Mr.
LINCOLN & HERNDON'S OFFICE IN THE THIRD BUILDING FROM THE CORNER.
[From a photograph taken by the author in October, 1890.]
NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
2()'i
Douglas's friends nominated him for the Presidency, with Herschel Y.
Johnson, of Georgia, for Vice-president.
The delegates from the cot-
ton-producing States
nominated John
C.
Breckinridge,
of
Kentucky, for Presi-
dent
and
Joseph
Lane, of Oregon, for
Vice-president.
I remained in the
vicinity
of
Spring-
field
several
weeks.
Every train brought
people
to
that
cit}^
to
see
Mr.
Lincoln.
Politicians
who
wanted
to
be
Sec-
retary
of War, or
of
the Navy
; who
wanted to be made
Minister Plenipoten-
tiary
or
Consul
in
some
foreign
coun-
try, position
in a custom-house, surveyor of lands, Governor or Secre-
tary of a Territory, postmaster somewhere—all thinking to take time by
the forelock by making the acquaintance of Mr. Lincoln in advance of
his
election.
So many came that the Governor
of
the
State kindly
allo^ved him the use of the executive chamber in the State-house, where
he courteously welcomed
all those who wanted
ofiice, as well as those
who only wished to shake hands with him.
THE
STATE-HOUSE, SPRINGFIELD,
ILL.,
1860.
[The executive chamber was the corner room of the upper story in line
with the cupola.]
NOTES TO CHAPTER XL
(
' ) " Centnrj^ Magaziue," September, 1887.
('•') Letter to N. B. Jndd, December
9, 1859, quoted iu "Century Magaziue," Septem-
ber, 1887.
C) LN. Aruold, "Life of Abraham Lincoln," p. 163.
(•1)
J. G. Hollaud, "Life of Abraham Liucolu," p. 233.
C) Ibid., p. 235.
204
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLK
CHAPTEE
XII.
THE
ELECTION,
186 0.
T^HE campaign was one of intense excitement and unbounded enthu-
--
siasm on the part of the Republicans, who felt that with the Dem-
ocratic Party divided they could bring about
the election of Mr. Lin-
coln.
Mass meetino^s Avere held throughout the ISTorthern States.
The vital questions of the hour were the aggressions of the slave
power, the attempt to force slavery into the Territories and the Free
States, the Dred
Scott
decision, and
the preservation of
the Union,
The young men organized " Wide Awake " clubs.
They wore uniforms
and carried torches.
Little did they, in their enthusiasm, comprehend
what would be the ultimate outcome of their midnight
drilling and
marching.
Further on we
shall
see them making
other midnight
marches as soldiers of the Grand Army of the Eepublic.
The friends of Senator Douglas saw from the outset that they were
doomed to defeat.
The men who supported the nomination of Bell and
Everett in the ISTorthern States endeavored to awaken enthusiasm by
ringing bells mounted on wagons and drawn by horses, as their proces-
sions paraded the streets of towns and cities.
Breckinridge had not many supporters in the IsTorthern
States.
It
was but a small portion of the Democratic Party that followed his lead.
"We are not to think because there was an uprising of people to re-
strict the further extension
of slavery, the party supporting Abraham
Lincoln was for
its immediate
abolition.
The
printer imprisoned
at
Baltimore thirty years before for saying
the slave-trade was
pirac}^,
took no part in advocating the election of Abraham Lincoln, who was
not an Abolitionist.
Public
sentiment cannot be changed
in a
day.
Many good men
in the ISTorthern
States, including
ministers, lawyers,
judges, opposed the Republican Party.
They said it was sectional, and
its success would bring about a dissolution of the Union.
The slave-
holders were
threatening
to
secede, and
establish
a
Southern
Con-
federacy if Lincoln should be
elected.
He saw a dark and forbidding
^P^IMl ^nn
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-
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-"^^^i
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/sofas^
u^iBf
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'g-"i'^
'Ec::3i:sf
/i^r-aj
>-iifjf
THE ELECTION.
207
future.
Shall we wonder that
his friends beheld the old look of sad-
ness upon his face at times
i
" Mr. Bateman," said Mr. Lincoln to the Superintendent of Instruc-
tion, whose
office joined
the chamber where he
received his
friends,
" here is a book—a canvass of this city, which my friends have made
the name
of
every
citizen, and how
he
probably
will
vote.
Here
are
the names
of twenty -three
ministers
of
different denominations,
and
all but three of them are against me.
Here are the names of a
great many men who
are members
of
churches, and
a
very
large
majority of them are against me.
Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian.
God knows that I Avant to be one.
I have read the Bible ever since
I
sat at my mother's knee.
Here is the Isew Testament which
I carry
with me.
Its teachings are all for liberty.
Now, these ministers and
church members know that
I am for freedom
in the Territories—for
freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and law will permit, and
that my opponents are for slavery.
They know this, and yet with this
book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a
moment, they are going to vote against me.
I don't understand
it."
He rises and paces the room.
His voice is tremulous as he goes on, and
there are tears upon his cheeks.
" Mr. Bateman, I know there
is a God, and that He hates injustice
and slavery.
I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it.
If He has a place for me—and I think He has—I believe I am ready.
I
am nothing, but truth
is everything.
I know that I am right because
I know that liberty is right.
Jesus Christ teaches
it, and Christ is God.
I have
told them
that
a house
divided
against
itself cannot
stand.
Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so.
Douglas doesn't
care whether slavery
is voted up or down
; but God
cares, humanity
cares, and I care.
With God's help I shall not fail.
I may not see the
end
; but
it
will come, and
I
shall be vindicated, and these men wiU
find that they have not read their Bibles right."
He paces the floor in silence a while, and then goes on
:
" Doesn't
it seem
strange that men
ignore
the moral
aspects
of
this
contest ?
A
revelation
could
not make
it
plainer
to me
that
slavery or the Government must be destroyed.
The future would be
something awful, as I look at
it, but
for
this."
He holds up the ]^ew
Testament.
" There is the rock on which I stand.
It seems to me as
if God had
borne with slavery until the very teachers of religion had come to de-
fend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine charter and sanction,
208
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
till the cup of iniquity is
full, and the vials of wrath must be poured
out."(')
Before Mr. Lincoln was thought
of
as a candidate for the
Presi-
dency the slave-holders of South Carolina had purchased a cargo
of
slaves brought
direct from
Africa.
They were
sold
to
the cotton-
planters.
It was an attempt to reopen the slave-trade.
No preachers
of the gospel in the Slave States uttered a word in condemnation of the
traffic.
On the contrary, the leading religious publication of the South,
the
"Presbyterian Review,"
published
in
Columbia,
S. C, was advo-
cating the system of slavery
as an
institution expressly
ordained
of
God for the welfare of the human race.(')
Mr. Lincoln made a hurried trip to Chicago on business, and was re-
ceived with great enthusiasm by Democrats as well as Eepublicans.
At the house of a friend he beholds a group of little girls.
One of
them gazes at him wistfully.
" What is it you would like, dear ?"
" I would hke, if you please, to have you write your name for me."
" But here are several of your mates, quite a number of them, and
they will feel badly if I write my name for you and not for them also.
How many are there, all told ?"
" Eight of us."
" Oh, very well
; then get me eight slips of paper and pen and ink,
and I will see what I can do."
Each of the little misses, when she went home that evening, carried
his autograph.
If we had been in the village of Westfield, on the shore of Lake Erie,
Chautauqua
County,
IS". Y., on
an
October
evening, we might
have
seen little Grace Bedell looking at a portrait of Mr. Lincoln and a pict-
ure of the log-cabin which he helped build for his father in 1830.
" Mother," said Grace, " I think that Mr. Lincoln would look better
if he wore whiskers, and I mean to write and tell him so."
" Well, you may if you want to," the mother answered.
Grace's father was a Republican and was going to vote for Mr. Lin-
coln.
Two older brothers were Democrats, but she was a Republican.
Among the letters going west the next day was one with this super-
scription, " Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., Springfield, Uhnois."
It was
Grace's letter, telling him how old she was, where she lived, that she
was a Republican, that she thought he would make a good President,
but would look better
if he would let his whiskers grow.
If he would
she would try to coax her brothers to vote for him.
She thought the
THE ELECTION.
209
r
q^
i. j >i'
»
I
iHypiik
",y,«*^
rAAZi.-^
4l'h^,
.
^$1-^^^ £*^W^ ^^h^L^-:
'^
A
^(2-1^^
^<it?
^ig/-i^ /K#<^
^<^^^^!!<>w<C
J-^.^iT^'^
A/t^^v-^sJ^
FAC-SniILE OF LINCOLN S LETTER TO GRACE BEDELL.
rail-fence around the cabin very pretty.
" If 3^011 have not time to an-
swer my letter, ^Yill 3^011 allow your little girl to reply for you ?" wrote
Grace at the end.
Mr. Lincoln was sitting in his room at the State-house with a great
pile of letters before him from the leading Republicans
all over the
210
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ISTorthern States
in
regard to the progress of
the campaign;
letters
from men who would want an
office
after
his
inauguration
;
letters
abusive and indecent, which were tossed into the waste-basket.
He
came
to one from Westfield,
'N. Y.
It was not from any one whO'
wanted an
office, but from a
little
girl who wanted him
to
let
his;
whiskers grow.
That was a letter which he must answer.
A day or two later Grace Bedell comes out of the Westfield post-
office with a letter in her hand postmarked Springfield,
111.
Her pulse
beats as never before.
It
is a cold morning—the wind blowing bleak
and chill across the tossing waves of the lake.
Snow-flakes are falling.
She cannot wait till she reaches home, but tears open the letter.
The
melting flakes blur the writing, but this is what she reads
:
Springfield,
III.,
Oct.
19,
1860.
Miss Grace Bedell
:
My dear Little Miss,—Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received.
I regret
the necessity of saying I have no daughter.
I have three sons
;
one seventeen, one nine,
and one seven years of age.
They, v?ith their mother, constitute my whole family.
As-
to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call
it a piece of
silly affection (affectation) if I should begin it now ?
Your very sincere well-wisher,
A. Lincoln. {^)
Before the clocks in the church-towers of the Union tolled the mid-
night hour on the day of election,
it was known that Abraham Lincoln
was to be President.
There was great rejoicing throughout the
^1860^' ^orth, for it was the verdict of the people that slavery was not
to be extended into the
Territories.
There was also much
re-
joicing in Charleston, for South Carolina was ready to secede from the
Union.
In the hall of the South Carolina Institute a convention called by
the Governor voted that the union with the United States be dissolved.
Men tossed their hats into the
air
; women waved their hand-
•^jggQ*^' kerchiefs.
A
procession was formed
which
marched
to
St.
Michael's Church-yard, where, around
the grave
of Calhoun, a
solemn oath was taken to give their lives and fortunes to secure the
independence
of the
State.
Lieutenant - colonel Gardner, with a few
soldiers, was in command of the forts in Charleston harbor.
He saw
that the Secessionists were getting ready to seize the fortifications.
The
Secession members of Congress called upon the Secretary of War, John
B. Floyd, of Yirginia, and asked for Gardner's removal.
The request
was granted, and Major Eobert Anderson, of Kentucky, was appointed
to succeed him.
The Secessionists did not know how dearly he loved
THE ELECTION.
211
the flag of his country, or how true he was to his convictions.
lie, too,
saw what the Secessionists intended to do, and asked General Scott for
reinforcements.
Secretary Floyd thereupon sent a very curt
letter to
Anderson.
" Your communications," he wrote,
'* in the future will be
addressed to the Secretary of War."
There was a stormy scene in the
executive chamber of the White House Avhen it was known that Ander-
son had called for reinforcements.
Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, true
and
loyal, could no longer remain in the Cabinet when the President
yielded to the demand of the Secretary of War that no troops should
be
sent.
Mr. Black, Attorney-general, who had given an opinion that
the
President
could not
coerce a
State, also
resigned.
Quite likely
Floyd would have removed Major Anderson, but he had other things to
think of.
He had made a contract with the firm of Russell 6z Co. to
transport supplies for the army from
St. Louis to Utah, and had paid
them more than two million dollars in excess of money due for work
done—making the payments in drafts.
But the banks in
ISTew York
would not advance money on the drafts, whereupon Floyd's
nepheAv,
who had charge of bonds belonging to the Government, took them from
the safe and exchanged them with Russell & Co., taking the drafts as se-
curity—doing what he had no right to do.
In effect,
it was robbery.
The interest on the bonds was coming
due, and then the theft would
be known.
Christmas came with
its
joyful
scenes.
Major Anderson was at a
dinner-party in Charleston.
He heard remarks which caused him to
take immediate action.
No reinforcements had been sent him,
^f^A^'and he had come
to
the
conclusion that none w^ould be
sent.
In the darkness
of night he abandoned Fort Moultrie and
oc-
cupied Sumter.
The sun of the next morning was rising.
The soldiers
stood around the flag-staff.
Major Anderson kneeled, holding the hal-
yards, while the Rev. Matthew Harris, the chaplain, offered prayer, and
the Stars and Stripes rose to the top-mast to float serenely in the morn-
ino: sunlio-ht.
The people of Charleston, looking across the bay, beheld with aston-
ishment the flag at Sumter, and a column of smoke rising from Moultrie,
caused by the burning of the gun-carriages set on fire by Major Ander-
son.
The plans
of the
Secessionists had been upset by
this
action.
Sumter, standing on a reef in the bay, could not be
seized.
The
tele-
graph flashed the news to Washington.
Secretary Flovd hastened to
the White House, demanding that Anderson be ordered back to Moul-
trie ; but the President did not comply with the demand.
212
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The coupons on the bonds stolen by Floyd's nephew were due, but
when presented there was no money to pay them.
Floyd had done
what he
could to destroy the Union, and rear a Confederacy on
its
ruins.
He could remain in office no longer.
The court indicted him,
and he
fled to escape
arrest.
President Buchanan
apjDointed Joseph
Holt, of Kentucky, to succeed Floyd
; Edwin M. Stanton, of Pittsburg,
of whom we have previously spoken
(p.
162), to succeed Mr. Black as
Attorney-general, and John A. Dix, of
ISTew York, to succeed Howell
Cobb as Secretary of the Treasury.
They were able men, and true to
the
Union,
They were
in
position
to
render
great
service
to the
couni^y.
Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, ordered the Darlington Guards
and Columbia Artillery to
take
possession
of Morris
Island.
Slaves
were sent by the planters, and were
set to work building bat-
"1^86 /' ^^^^^^
^^^^ mounting cannon
for the bombardment
of Sumter.
Major Anderson had only a small amount of food.
It was
de-
cided at a meeting of the Cabinet
in the White House to send him
reinforcements and
supplies.
President Buchanan, perhaps, did
not
know that one
of the members
of
his
Cabinet, Jacob Thompson, of
Mississippi,
Secretary
of the
Interior, was
a
traitor.
The members
w^ere
in honor bound not to make known what was going
on, but
Thompson sent a telegram to Charleston informing the Governor of
the decision.
The steamer Stm' of the
West, with troops and provisions, reached
'Charleston harbor, but, being
fired upon, turned back.
Yery boastful
the language of the Charleston " Mercury " the next morning
:
" We
would not exchange or recall that blow for millions.
It has wiped out
balf a century of scorn and outrage.
The decree has gone forth.
Upon
each acre of the peaceful soil of the South armed men will spring up as
the sound breaks upon their ears."
Secession newspapers were saying
that the South never would submit to Republican rule—Lincoln would
not be allowed to take his seat.
In one of the committee-rooms of the Capitol at Washington there
was a secret midnight meeting of the Senators from Florida, Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, at which
it was
re-
''ise/' solved to
seize
all the
forts along the
southern
coast, with
all
the
arsenals, and to urge the Southern
States to follow South
Carolina and secede from the Union.
Governor Brown,
of
Georgia,
thereuj)on ordered a military company to take possession of Fort Pu-
laski.
A company went up
the
Mississippi from 'Kqw
Orleans, and
THE ELECTION.
215
took possession of the arsenal at Baton Eouge.
In all the seaports the
Secessionists
seized
the revenue -cutters.
The new
Secretary
of
the
Treasury, John Adams
Dix, sent Mr. Jones to New Orleans with an
order to Captain Breshwood, commanding the revenue-cutter there, to
sail to New York.
Breshwood was a Secessionist, and prepared to haul
down the Stars and Stripes and turn the vessel over to the Governor of
the State.
This the despatch sent by Mr. Dix
:
"If any man
attempts
to
haul
doicn
the American flag,
shoot him on
the
sjwt."
The people of the Northern States had been stupefied by the
suc-
cession of events.
They had seen the Union crumbling to pieces—the
Secessionists having everything their own way, Avithout a word of pro-
test from President Buchanan or anybody else connected with the Ad-
ministration.
The despatch awakened
intense enthusiasm
for main-
taining the honor of the country's flag.
Florida was the
first
of the
States (January
12,
ISGl)
to
follow
South Carolina out of the Union, and then Alabama, Georgia, Louisi-
ana, and Texas in turn seceded.
In the
hall of Wdlard's Hotel
in Washington delegates from
all
the
States except those which had seceded assembled in what
1*861
'
^^'^'^ called a Peace Convention— an effort to bring about har-
mony.
The seceding States on the same day assembled in con-
vention at Montgomery, Alabama, to organize a Confederate Govern-
ment.
Had we been
in
Springfield during
those
days and
inquired
for
Abraliam Lincoln, his secretary would have informed us that he could
not be
seen.
He was
not in
the
State - house — neither
in his own
house, but in an out-of-the-Avay chamber over a store, tlie key turned
in
the
lock.
Upon
the
table
before him were books containing
a
speech of Henry Clay, made in 1850, upon the compromise measures
then
before the country
;
President Andrew Jackson's proclamation,
made when South
Carolina, thirty years before, attempted to
nullify
the laws
of the United
States;
and
Daniel Webster's
speech
in the
Senate in reply to Hayne in
1830, together with the Constitution of
the United
States.
He was preparing the address to be delivered at
his inauguration.
He submitted
it to no one, asked no advice
as to
what he should say.
The time had come when he must bid good-bye to his friends.
He
visited Farmington, Coles County, where was still standing the log-cabin
216
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
which he assisted in building.
He gave directions for the erection of a
suitable monument to
his father, and then rode to Charleston, where
his step-mother was living. A great crowd had gathered
to welcome
him.
Many remembered him as he ajDpeared on that day when he j)ut
Dan N'eedham on his back in the wrestling-match (see page 60).
"I am afraid your
enemies will
kill you,
Abraham,"
said
Mrs.
Lincoln.
His voice was trem-
ulous,
and
the
tears
coursed down
his
cheeks as he gave the
good-bye
kiss.
There
had ever been the ut-
most
confidence
be-
tween them:
she was
loving
and
helpful—
he obedient, kind, and
tender.
Returning to Spring-
field, he found his old
friends of New Salem
there
to shake hands
with him once more
;
among them Hannah
Armstrong, whose son he defended when accused of murder.
" I am afraid that those bad people will kill you," said Hannah.
"Well, they can't do it but once," the reply. (')
It was
late in the afternoon, and the sun was setting when Isaac
Colgate
called.
They talked of old
times, of those whom he used
to
know
in 'New Salem.
Mr. Lincoln spoke tenderly of Ann Eutledge.
'' I have ever loved the name of Eutledge.
I loved Ann honestly, truly,
dearly.
She was beautiful, intellectual, good.
I think of her often."(')
So
he unbosomed
himself to
his dear
old
friend
in the twilight
of
that winter evening.
His business
in Springfield was
closed, his trunks packed.
He en-
Feb. 10. tered the
office of Lincoln & Herndon to bid his partner
fare-
1861.
^ell.
He was weary, and threw himself upon the lounge.
He
was once more looking far away.
He broke the silence at last.
THE CHAPMAN HOUSE, CHARLESTON, ILL.
[Where Abraham Lincoln bade farewell to his step-mother.
From a photo-
graph taken by the author in October,
1890.]
THE ELECTION.
217
" Billy, how long have we been together ?"
" Over sixteen years."
" We haven't had a cross word during all that time, have we ?"
"Not one."
The old smile was upon his face as he went over the past.
"Don't take down the sign, Billy;
let it swing that our clients may
understand that the election of a President makes no change in the firm
of Lincoln & Ilerndon."
He took a farewell glance at the room—the
books, the table, the chairs.
Together the partners descended the stairs.
" Oh, Billy, I am sick of ofRce-holding, and I shudder when I think
of what is before me.
The chances are that I never shall return."
The old sadness was upon him.
" Oh, that
is an illusory notion.
It
is not
in harmony or keeping
with the popular ideal of a President," the remark of
Ilerndon, who
did not know what else to say.
"But it is in keeping with my philosophy.
Good-bye." (')
The
Provisional Government of the Confederate States had been
organized—Jefferson Davis, President, and Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-
president of the Confederacy.
Mr. Davis was on his way from
^1861^' ^Mississippi to Montgomery, addressing the people in all the prin-
cipal towns.
He stood upon the balcony of the Exchange Hotel
in that
city the evening before his inauguration, with a negro by his
side holding a tallow candle, which threw
its
flickering light upon the
crowd in the street.
" England," he said, " will not allow our great
staple, cotton, to be
dammed up within our present limits.
If war must come, it must be on
Northern, not on Southern
soil.
A glorious future
is before
us.
The
grass
will grow
in Northern
cities where the
pavements have been
worn
off by the tread
of commerce.
We will carry war where
it
is
easy to advance, where food for the sword and torch await our armies
in the densely populated cities."
Mr. Davis had some reason
for using such
language, for a
great
many people in the Northern
States had assured the Secessionists that
they sympathized with them.
" If there
is to be any fighting,
it will be within our own borders,
and in our own
streets," wrote ex-President Franklin Pierce, of New
Hampshire.
Fernando Wood, Mayor of New York, proposed that New
York City secede from the State of New York.
" If force
is to be used,
it will be inaugurated
at home," said the
Democratic politicians of Albany.
218
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
JEFFEKSON DAVIS.
" If the cotton States can do better out of the Union than in
it, we
insist on letting them go in peace," wrote Horace Greeley, editor of the
iS^ew York" Tribune," who had done what he could to elect Mr. Lincoln.
The snow was falling in Springfield, but people were hastening to
the railroad station to see once more the man whom they honored and
loved.
The conductor of the train which was to bear the Presi-
^ggj*^" dential party to "Washington was about
to give the
signal
for
starting, but waited, for Mr. Lincoln was standing upon the plat-
form of the car with his hand uplifted.
These his parting words
:
"My friends
•
No one not in my situation can appreciate my feeling of sadness at
this parting.
To
this place and the kindness of these people I owe everything.
Here I
have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man.
Here
my children have been born, and one of them is buried.
I now leave, not knowing when
or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon
THE ELECTION.
219
Washington.
Without the assistance of that divine Being who ever attended him, I can-
not succeed.
With that assistance, I cannot fail.
Trusting in Him, who can go with me,
and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet
be well.
To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me,
I bid you an affectionate farewell."
Mr. Lincoln had
invited
several gentlemen
to accompany him
to
Washington
; among others, IS'orman B. Judd, David Davis, Edwin V.
Sumner, John Pope, David Hunter, and Ward Laman.
Mr. Lincoln was very much affected as he entered the car, after say-
ing good-bye to
his friends.
He was on his way to become the chief
executive of a great nation.
But instead of elation at the prospect be-
fore him of exercising influence and power, there was
depression
of
spirit.
In Montgomery, Jefferson Davis was talking of carrying the sword
and torch into Northern cities, of conquest, war, and devastation.
In
Springtleld, the words of Abraham Lincoln were in the
spirit of those
spoken by Jesus
Christ
in
the
" Sermon on
the Mount."
His voice
trembled and
its tender pathos brought tears to the eyes of those who
heard him.
It was natural that the people should desire to see the man who had
been elected President, and the route to Washington was arranged to
take
in a number of the large
cities—Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Colum-
bus, Pittsburg, Cleveland, and Buffalo.
In each
of these he spent a
night and addressed great crowds of people.
When the train left Cleve-
land, Mr. Patterson, of Westfield, was invited
into Mr. Lincoln's
car.
KAILROAD STATION, SPRINGFIELD.
220
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
" Did I understand that your home
is in Westfield ?" Mr. Lincoln
asked.
" Yes, sir
; that is my home."
" Oh, by-the-way, do you know any one living there by the name of
Bedell?"
" Yes, sir, I know the family very well."
" I have a correspondent
in that
family.
Mr. Bedell's
little
girl,
Grace, wrote me a very interesting letter advising me to wear whis-
kers, as she thought
it would improve my looks.
You see that I have
followed her
suggestion.
Her
letter was so
unlike many that
I
re-
ceived—some that threatened assassination in case I was elected—that
it was really a relief to receive it and a pleasure to answer it."
The train reached Westfield, and Mr. Lincoln stood upon the plat-
form of the car to say a few words to the people.
" I have a little correspondent here, Grace Bedell, and
if the
little
miss is present, I would like to see her."
Grace was far down
the
platform, and
the crowd prevented her
seeing or hearing him.
" Grace, Grace, the President is calling for you !" they shouted.
A friend made his way with her through the crowd.
" Here she is."
Mr. Lincoln stepped down from the car, took her by the hand, and
gave her a kiss.
" You see, Grace, I have let my whiskers grow for you."(')
The kindly smile was upon
his
face.
The
train whirled on.
His
heart was lighter.
For one brief moment he had forgotten the burdens
that were pressing him with their weight.
At
Buffalo, Albany, and New York
great crowds welcomed him.
No boastful words fell from his lips.
He gave no hint as to his course
of action other than to preserve the Union and faithfully execute the
trust committed to him by the people.
His speeches Avere disappointing.
People expected he would give
an outline of what he intended to do.
It seems probable that he him-
self did not know.
He had faith in God, in the people, and in himself.
He would endeavor to execute the laws in accordance with the Consti-
tution, and do the right thing at the right time.
Would he ever become
President?
There were rumors that the
electoral vote never would be declared—that something would happen
to prevent its being counted.
February 13th was the day fixed by law.
Strange faces appeared
THE ELECTION.
221
JOHN POPE.
in Washington.
The boarding-houses were filhng with dark-visaged
men wlio lounged in the saloons and swaggered along the streets, who
jostled Northern men into the gutter.
" That Black Eepublican Abolitionist never will be
President,'' the
common remark uttered with oaths.
Few Northern men
at the
capital doubted that there was a plan
to
seize
the Government.
It was known
that
General
Scott
^861^' ^^^ loyal.
What would he do to put down a conspiracy
?
Mr.
L.
E.
Chittenden,
a member
of
the
Peace
Congress,
called
upon him at
his
headquarters
in Winder's
Building.
He was
Ijang
on a sofa.
" A Chittenden
of Vermont
!
Why, that was a good name when
Ethan Allen took Ticonderoga
!
Well, Vermont must be as true to-day
222
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
as slie alwaj^s has been.
What can the commander of the army do for
Vermont ?"
" Yery Httle at present.
I called to pay my personal respects.
In
common with many other loyal men, I am anxious about the count of
the
electoral vote on next "Wednesday.
Many fear that the vote will
not be counted or the result declared."
"Pray,
tell me why
it
will
not
be
counted?
There have been
threats, but
I have heard
nothing
of them
recently.
I
supposed
I
had suppressed that infamy.
Has
it been resuscitated?
I have
said
that any man who attempted by force
or parliamentary disorder to
obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the
electoral vote
for
President and Vice-president of the United States should be lashed to
the muzzle of a 12-pounder and
fired out of a window of the CapitoL
I would manure the
hills
of Arlington with fragments
of
his body
were he a Senator or chief magistrate of my native State
!
It
is my
duty to suppress insurrection—my duty P\^')
The ruffianly-looking men who had frequented the bar-rooms when
they reached the Capitol on the morning of February 13th found they
could not gain admittance to the building without a ticket.
Sol-
^18*61^' c^^6^s of the United States in their blue uniforms guarded every
entrance.
The
tickets
were
signed
either by the Vice-presi-
dent, John C. Breckinridge, or by the Speaker of the House, and they
had been issued so sparingly that the galleries
of the representatives'
chamber and the corridors were
not crowded.
The members of the
Peace Conference in session at Willard's Hall were admitted by a vote
of both Houses
of Congress, but
Senators and
representatives
could
not admit their friends except by authority of the presiding
officers.
Ruffians might shake their fists at the
soldiers and use vile language,
but
neither by
bribe
or
threat
could
they
enter
the
Capitol.
ISTo
soldiers were to be seen except those that were guarding the
doors.
Within the Capitol were several hundred men, who entered as citizens,
but who, upon a preconcerted
signal, would be transformed into
sol-
diers armed with rifles.
The hour for the Senate and House to meet
in convention arrives,
and the Senators enter the
hall.
Mr. Breckinridge occupies the chair
as presiding officer.
For four years he has been Vice-president of the
United States, sworn to obey the laws.
He has been loyal to the Con-
stitution.
He has too high a sense of obligation to countenance any
plan for a seizure of the Government, or to obstruct the inauguration
of Abraham Lincoln.
His voice is clear and distinct
:
" It
is my duty
THE ELECTION.
223
to open the certificates
of election in the presence
of the two Houses,
and I now proceed to the performance of that duty."
Another voice breaks in
:
'' 1 rise to a point of order.
Is the count
to proceed under menaced
Shall the count be made under menace?
Shall members be required
to perform
constitutional duty before the
janizaries of Scott are withdrawn from the hall ?"
" The point of order
is not sustained," the calm reply of Breckin-
rido-e as he hands the
certificate of Maine to Senator Trumbull, who
reads
it.
There
is no other interruption.
The last
certificate
is read,
DAVID IIUNTEK.
224
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
and Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin are declared to be elected
President and Vice-president of the United States,
The Senate retires.
The pent-up anger of the Secession members from the Slave States
that had not seceded burst forth.
" Hurrah for Jeff Davis !"
" Scott
is a traitor to his native State!"
" He is a coward!" "An old dotard!"
" What right had he to put his blue-coated janizaries in the Capitol ?"
Oaths and curses rent the
air.
Impotent the rage.
Abraham Lincoln
and Hannibal Hamlin had been legally declared elected, but would they
be allowed to take their seats ?
The plan
to prevent
the
declaration
of
their
election was aban-
doned several days before that event, and another far darker conspiracy
was entered upon.
Miss Dorothy Dix, of JSTew York, w^ho had been in
the South, informed Samuel M. Felton, president of the railroad leading
from Baltimore to Philadelphia, that the Southern conspirators had de-
termined Mr.
Lincoln
should never reach Washington.
He read
in
Southern newspapers the threatening words that he would not be
al-
lowed to take his seat.
Mr. Felton knew there were many brutal men
in Baltimore—ruffians who had no regard for anything except brute
force.
They went by the name
of " Plug Ugiies."
They were
Seces-
sionists, and were determined to carry the State out of the Union.
He
knew they were ready to do any violent act to insure their success. He
discovered that organizations were forming in the
villages along
the
line
of
the
railroad, and decided to
investigate what was going
on.
" Will you come to Philadelphia ?" the message
to Mr.
Pinkerton, a
detective, who liastened to that city.
A few days
later
the men
drilling
at
Perryville, Magnolia, and
Havre de Grace
received new
recruits—rough-looking men—who an-
nounced themselves as Secessionists. (')
Among the guests at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore was one who
signed his name
'' Joseph Howard, Montgomery, Alabama."
Timoth}^
Webster, from Richmond, arrived at another hotel, not quite so aristo-
cratic as Barnum's.
Mr. Howard was very much of a gentleman—so
polite, Avell-educated, and handsome that the ladies in the parlor were
charmed with him.
In the smoking-room he was very courteous, and
the cigars which he presented to the young gentlemen who spent their
evenings
at Barnum's were
delicately flavored.
Mr. Howard listened
to what they had to say about secession, and the intimations that Lin-
coln might not get to Washington.
He made the acquaintance of Mr.
Kane, marshal of the Baltimore
police, member
of a
secret
society.
They gained entrance to a chamber by signs and passwords.
Caj)tain
THE ELECTION.
225
Ferrandini, president of the
society, declared that the election
of Lin-
coln was an insult to the gentlemen of the South.
" This
hireling,
Lincoln,"
he
shouted,
" shall never
be
President.
My
life
is of no consequence.
I am ready to die for the riglits of the
South, and to crush out the Abolitionists."
He flourished a dirk to
let the members of the society understand
that he was ready to use it.
Mr. Howard from Montgomer}^, with a friend from Georgia, met
Captain Ferrandini in Mr. Guy's restaurant.
The captain was pleased
to meet the gentleman from Georgia, who, as Mr. Howard assured him,
was " all right."
" Are there no other means ?" somebody asked.
" No
;
as well might you attempt to move that monument yonder
with your breath as to change our purpose.
He must die
; and die he
shall," said Captain Ferrandini.
" There seems to be no other way," Mr. Howard remarked.
" The cause
is noble
; and on
that day every one of us will prove
himself a hero.
With the
first shot he will die, and Maryland will be
with the South," the captain added.
" But have
all the plans been matured, and are there no fears of
failure?
A misstep would be fatal to the South, and everything ought
to be well considered," vSaid the gentleman from Georgia.
" Our plans are
fully matured, and
they cannot
fail.
If
I alone
must
strike
the
blow,
I
shall
not
hesitate or
shrink from the
task.
Lincoln will not leave this city alive.
Neither he nor any other Aboli-
tionist
shall
ever
set
foot on Southern
soil, except
to tind a grave,"
said Captain Trichat.
" But about the authorities
;
is there no danger to be apprehended
from them ?" asked the gentleman from Georgia.
" Oh
no.
They are
all with us.
I have seen the chief of
police,
and he is all right.
In a week from to-day the North will want another
President, for Lincoln will be a corpse," the reply.
Mr. Howard became quite
intimate with
Lieutenant
Hill.
They
walked the
streets arm
in arm, drank each the
other's
health, talked
over the plans in their own rooms.
" I shall
immortalize
myself
by
plunging a
knife
into
Lincoln's
heart," said the Lieutenant, ('")
Timothy "Webster, of Richmond, Ya., joined the military compan}^ at
Perry ville. The chamber in which the members met was hung with quilts,
that no listening ears in adjoining rooms might hear what was said.