Immediately following the adjournment of Congress in August, 1848,
Mr. Lincoln set out for Massachusetts to take part in the presidential
campaign. Being the only Whig in the delegation in Congress from
Illinois, he was expected to do gallant work for his chief, General
Taylor. As this chapter in his career seems to have escaped the notice
of former biographers, the writers have thought best to insert here
extracts from the various descriptions which they have been able to
obtain of the tour and its incidents.
One of the most interesting accounts is from the pen of Hon. Edward L.
Pierce, of Milton, Mass., whose memory is not less tenacious than is his
style happy and entertaining. He says:
"It is not known at whose instance Mr. Lincoln made his visits to
Massachusetts in 1848. The Whigs of the State were hard pressed at
the time by a formidable secession growing out of General Taylor's
nomination, and led by Henry Wilson, Charles Francis Adams, Charles
Allen, Charles Sumner, Stephen C. Phillips, John G. Palfrey, E. Rockwood
Hoar, Richard H. Dana, Jr., Anson Burlingame, John A. Andrew, and other
leaders who had great weight with the people and were all effective
public speakers. Generally the State had had a sufficient supply of
orators of its own, but in that emergency some outside aid was sought.
Gen. Leslie Coombs was invited from Kentucky, and Mr. Lincoln was
induced to come also, on his way home from Washington at the end of the
session.
"The Whig State Convention met at Worcester, September 13th. The
Free-Soil secession was greater here than in any part of the State. It
was led by Judge Charles Allen, who was elected to Congress from the
district. There was a meeting of the Whigs at the City Hall on the
evening before the convention. Ensign Kellogg presided and except his
introductory remarks, Mr. Lincoln's speech, which lasted one and a half
or two hours, was the only one. The Boston _Advertiser's_ report was
nearly a column in length. It said: 'Mr. Lincoln has a very tall and
thin figure, with an intellectual face, showing a searching mind and a
cool judgment. He spoke in a clear and cool and very eloquent manner,
carrying the audience with him in his able arguments and brilliant
illustrations, only interrupted by warm and frequent applause. He began
by expressing a real feeling of modesty in addressing an audience "this
side of the mountains," a part of the country where, in the opinion of
the people of his section, everybody was supposed to be instructed and
wise. But he had devoted his attention to the question of the coming
presidential election, and was not unwilling to exchange with all whom
he might meet the ideas to which he had arrived.' This passage gives
some reason to suppose that, conscious of his powers, he was disposed to
try them before audiences somewhat different from those to which he had
been accustomed, and therefore he had come to New England. The first
part of his speech was a reply, at some length, to the charge that
General Taylor had no political principles; and he maintained that the
General stood on the true Whig principle, that the will of the people
should prevail against executive influence or the veto power of the
President. He justified the Whigs for omitting to put a national
platform before the people, and, according to a Free-Soil report, said
that a political platform should be frowned down whenever and wherever
presented. But the stress of his speech was against the Free-Soilers,
whose position as to the exclusion of slavery from the territories, he
claimed, to be that of the Whigs; while the former were subject to the
further criticism that they had but one principle, reminding him of
the Yankee peddler, who, in offering for sale a pair of pantaloons,
described them as 'large enough for any man, and small enough for any
boy,' He condemned the Free-Soilers as helping to elect Cass, who was
less likely to promote freedom in the territories than Taylor and passed
judgment on them as having less principle than any party. To their
defence of their right and duty to act independently, 'leaving
consequences to God,' he replied, that 'when divine or human law does
not clearly point out what is our duty, it must be found out by an
intelligent judgment, which takes in the results of action.' The
Free-Soilers were much offended by a passage which does not appear in
the Whig report. Referring to the anti-slavery men, he said they were
better treated in Massachusetts than in the West, and, turning to
William S. Lincoln, of Worcester, who had lived in Illinois, he remarked
that in that State they had recently killed one of them. This allusion
to Lovejoy's murder at Alton, was thought by the Free-Soilers to be
heartless, and it was noted that Mr. Lincoln did not repeat it in other
speeches. It was probably a casual remark, which came into his mind at
the moment, and meant but little, if anything. Cheers were given at the
end of the speech for the eloquent Whig member from Illinois. The Whig
reports spoke of the speech as 'masterly and convincing' and 'one of the
best ever made in Worcester;' while the Free-Soil report describes it
as 'a pretty tedious affair,' The next morning he spoke at an open-air
meeting, following Benjamin F. Thomas and Ex-Governor Levi Lincoln, but
his speech was cut short by the arrival by train of the delegates from
Boston, who, with the speakers, proceeded at once to the hall. The
convention listened to a long address to the people, reported by a
committee, and then to a brilliant speech from Rufus Choate, followed
by others from Robert C. Winthrop, the Whig Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Charles Hudson, M. C., and Benjamin F. Thomas. Mr.
Lincoln listened to these, but was not himself called out.
Mr. Lincoln spoke at Washingtonian Hall, Bromfield street, Boston, on
the 15th, his address lasting an hour and a half, and, according to the
report, 'seldom equaled for sound reasoning, cogent argument and keen
satire.' Three cheers were given for 'the Lone Star of Illinois,' on
account of his being the only Whig member from the State. He spoke
at Lowell the 16th, and at the Lower Mills, Dorchester, now a part of
Boston, on Monday, the 18th. At this last place the meeting was held in
Richmond Hall, and the chairman was N. F. Safford, living till 1891, who
introduced him as one of the Lincolns of Hingham, and a descendant of
Gen. Benjamin Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln, as he began, disclaimed descent from
the Revolutionary officer, but said, playfully, that he had
endeavored in Illinois to introduce the principles of the Lincolns of
Massachusetts. A few of his audience are still living. They were struck
with his height, as he arose in the low-studded hall. He spoke at
Chelsea on the 19th, and a report states that his speech 'for aptness of
illustration, solidity of argument, and genuine eloquence, was hard to
beat.' Charles Sumner had defended the Free-Soil cause at the same place
the evening before. Mr. Lincoln spoke at Dedham, in Temperance Hall, on
the 20th, in the daytime. Two Whig nominating conventions met there the
same day, at one of which Horace Mann was nominated for a second term
in Congress. A report states that he 'spoke in an agreeable and
entertaining way.' He left abruptly to take a train in order to meet
another engagement, and was escorted to the station by the Dorchester
band. The same evening he spoke at Cambridge. The report describes
him as 'a capital specimen of a Sucker Whig, six feet at least in his
stockings.' Of his speech, it was said that 'it was plain, direct and to
the point, powerful and convincing, and telling with capital effect upon
the immense audience. It was a model speech for the campaign.' His last
speech was on the 22d, at Tremont Temple, with George Lunt presiding, in
company with William H. Seward, whom he followed, ending at 10.30 P.
M. The Whig newspaper, the _Atlas_, the next morning gave more than a
column to Mr. Seward's speech, but stated that it had no room for the
notes which had been taken of Mr. Lincoln's, describing it, however, as
'powerful and convincing, and cheered to the echo.' The Free-Soil paper
(Henry Wilson's) refers to the meeting, mentioning Mr. Seward, but not
Mr. Lincoln. The next day Mr. Lincoln left Boston for Illinois. The
'Atlas' on Monday contained this paragraph: 'In answer to the many
applications which we daily receive from different parts of the State
for this gentleman to speak, we have to say that he left Boston on
Saturday morning on his way home to Illinois.'
It is evident from all the contemporaneous reports, that Mr. Lincoln
made a marked impression on all his audiences. Their attention was drawn
at once to his striking figure; they enjoyed his quaintness and humor;
and they recognized his logical power and his novel way of putting
things. Still, so far as his points are given in the public journals, he
did not rise at any time above partisanship, and he gave no sign of the
great future which awaited him as a political antagonist, a master of
language, and a leader of men. But it should be noted, in connection
with this estimate, that the Whig case, as put in that campaign, was
chiefly one of personalities, and was limited to the qualities and
career of Taylor as a soldier, and to ridicule of his opponent, General
Cass. Mr. Lincoln, like the other Whig speakers, labored to prove that
Taylor was a Whig.
Seward's speech at Tremont Temple, to which Lincoln listened, seems to
have started a more serious vein of thought on slavery in the mind
of the future President. That evening, when they were together as
fellow-lodgers at a hotel, Lincoln said: "Governor Seward, I have been
thinking about what you said in your speech. I reckon you are right. We
have got to deal with this slavery question, and got to give much more
attention to it hereafter than we have been doing." *
* Seward's Life, vol. ii, p. 80.
It is curious now to recall how little support, in the grave moments of
his national career which came twelve years later, Mr. Lincoln received
from the Whigs of Massachusetts, then conspicuous in public life, whom
he met on his visit. Mr. Lunt, who presided at Faneuil Hall, was to the
end of his life a pro-slavery conservative. Judge Thomas, in Congress,
during the early part of the civil war, was obstructive to the
President's policy. Mr. Winthrop voted against Lincoln in 1860 and
1864. Mr. Choate died in 1859, but, judged by his latest utterances, his
marvelous eloquence would have been no patriotic inspiration if he had
outlived the national struggle. On the other hand, the Free-Soilers of
Massachusetts, whom Mr. Lincoln came here to discredit, became, to
a man, his supporters; and on many of their leaders he relied as
his support in the great conflict. Sumner was chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Affairs during the war; Wilson was chairman of the
Committee on Military Affairs; Adams was Minister to England; and Andrew
War-Governor of the State. These, as well as Palfrey, Burlingame and
Dana, who, in 1848, almost every evening addressed audiences against
both Taylor and Cass, while Mr. Lincoln was here, were earnest and
steadfast in their devotion to the Government during the civil war; and
the last three received important appointments from him. How the press
treated Mr. Lincoln may be learned from the following editorial in the
Lowell _Journal and Courier_, in its issue of September 18, 1848:
Whig Meeting.
The sterling Whigs of Lowell came together last Saturday evening, at the
City Hall. The meeting was called to order by the Chairman of the Whig
Central Committee, Hon. Linus Child. Homer Bartlett, Esq., was chosen
chairman, and A. Gilman, secretary. After a few animating remarks from
the Chairman, he introduced George Woodman, Esq., of Boston, who made
a very pertinent and witty offhand speech, which was frequently
interrupted by the spontaneous plaudits of the audience. At the close of
his speech Mr. Woodman introduced the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois.
It would be doing injustice to his speech to endeavor to give a sketch
of it. It was replete with good sense, sound reasoning, and irresistible
argument, and spoken with that perfect command of manner and matter
which so eminently distinguishes the Western orators. He disabused the
public of the erroneous suppositions that Taylor was not a Whig; that
Van Buren was anything more than a thorough Loco-foco on all subjects
other than Free Territory, and hardly safe on that; and showed up, in a
masterly manner, the inconsistency and folly of those Whigs, who, being
drawn off from the true and oldest free-soil organization known among
the parties of the Union, would now lend their influence and votes
to help Mr. Van Buren into the presidential chair. His speech was
interrupted by frequent cheers of the audience. At the close the
secretary, by request, read the letter of General Taylor to Captain
Alison, which had just been received, in which he says: "From the
beginning till now, I have declared myself to be a Whig, on all proper
occasions."
Ex-Governor Gardner, after a brief history of the Whig Convention at
Worcester, Mass., contributes this pleasing reminiscence:
"Gov. Levi Lincoln, the oldest living Ex-Governor of Massachusetts,
resided in Worcester. He was a man of culture and wealth; lived in
one of the finest houses in that town, and was a fine specimen of a
gentleman of the old school. It was his custom to give a dinner party
when any distinguished assemblage took place in Worcester, and to invite
its prominent participants. He invited to dine, on this occasion, a
company of gentlemen, among them myself, who was a delegate from
Boston. The dining-room and table arrangements were superb, the dinner
exquisite, the wines abundant, rare, and of the first quality.
"I well remember the jokes between Governor Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln
as to their presumed relationship. At last the latter said: 'I _hope_
we both belong, as the Scotch say, to the same clan; but I _know_ one
thing, and that is, that we are both good Whigs.'
"That evening there was held in Mechanics' Hall (an immense building)
a mass-meeting of delegates and others, and Lincoln was announced to
speak. No one there had ever heard him on the stump, and in fact knew
anything about him. When he was announced, his tall, angular, bent form,
and his manifest awkwardness and low tone of voice, promised nothing
interesting. But he soon warmed to his work. His style and manner of
speaking were novelties in the East. He repeated anecdotes, told stories
admirable in humor and in point, interspersed with bursts of true
eloquence, which constantly brought down the house. His sarcasm of
Cass, Van Buren and the Democratic party was inimitable, and whenever
he attempted to stop, the shouts of 'Go on! go on!' were deafening. He
probably spoke over an hour, but so great was the enthusiasm time could
not be measured. It was doubtless one of the best efforts of his life.
He spoke a day or two afterward in Faneuil Hall, with William H. Seward,
but I did not hear him.
"In 1861 business called me to Washington, and I paid my respects to the
President at the White House. He came forward smiling and with extended
hand, saying: 'You and I are no strangers; we dined together at Governor
Lincoln's in 1848.' When one remembers the increased burden on the
President's mind at this trying time, the anxieties of the war, the
army, the currency, and the rehabilitating the civil officers of the
country, it seemed astonishing to me to hear him continue: 'Sit down.
Yes, I had been chosen to Congress then from the wild West, and with
hayseed in my hair I went to Massachusetts, the most cultured State
in the Union, to take a few lessons in deportment. That was a grand
dinner--a superb dinner; by far the finest I ever saw in my life. And
the great men who were there, too! Why, I can tell you just how they
were arranged at table. He began at one end, and mentioned the names in
order, and, I verily believe, without the omission of a single one."
This chapter would be incomplete without the account of Mr. George H.
Monroe, a young man living in Dedham, Mass., in 1848, who, forty years
later, wrote out his recollections of Mr. Lincoln's visit to that
town. Mr. Monroe has a vivid and retentive memory, and has since
been identified with the public life and journalism of Massachusetts:--
"Massachusetts, on account of the great defection of Whigs to the
Free-Soilers, and Daniel Webster's sudden and damaging attitude toward
General Taylor's nomination to the presidency, began to be considered
rather doubtful ground for the Whigs. The national committee sent
Mr. Lincoln to the State, after Congress had adjourned, to make some
speeches. Our people knew very little about him then. I lived in Dedham,
the shire town of Norfolk county, and was secretary of a Whig club
there. One of the county courts was in session, and it was determined to
have a meeting in the daytime, before it adjourned. I was commissioned
to go to Boston to engage the speaker. I went at once to see my friend,
Colonel Schouler, of the Boston _Atlas_. He told me that a new man had
just come into the State from Washington, who, he thought, would answer
our purpose exactly, and said he would get him for me if possible. That
man was Abraham Lincoln. When the day for the meeting came I went to
the Tremont House and found Mr. Lincoln there. I remember well how tall,
awkward and ungainly he was in appearance. I remember how reticent he
was, too, but I attributed this to my own youth, for I was only
just past twenty-one years of age. He was as sober a man in point of
expression as ever I saw. There were others in the party later, but in
the journey out in the cars he scarcely said a word to one of us. I did
not see him smile on any part of the journey. He seemed uneasy and out
of sympathy with his surroundings, as it were. I should say that the
atmosphere of Boston was not congenial to him. We took him to one of
the most elegant houses in the town of Dedham, and here he seemed still
less, if possible, at home. The thing began to look rather blue for us.
When we went over to the hall it was not much better. It was a small
hall, and it was only about half full; for Mr. Lincoln had not spoken in
Boston yet, and there was nothing in his name particularly to attract.
But at last he arose to speak, and almost instantly there was a change.
His indifferent manner vanished as soon as he opened his mouth. He went
right to his work. He wore a black alpaca sack, and he turned up the
sleeves of this, and then the cuffs of his shirt. Next he loosened his
necktie, and soon after he took it off altogether. All the time he was
gaining upon his audience. He soon had it as by a spell. I never saw men
more delighted. His style was the most familiar and off-hand possible.
His eye had lighted up and changed the whole expression of his
countenance. He began to bubble out with humor. But the chief charm
of the address lay in the homely way he made his points. There was no
attempt at eloquence or finish of style. But, for plain pungency of
humor, it would have been difficult to surpass his speech. In this
making of points which come home to the general mind, I don't think
Lincoln was ever surpassed by any American orator. I often thought of it
afterward, when he was exhibiting this faculty in a more ambitious way
on a broader field. The speech which I am trying to describe was not a
long one. It abruptly ended in a half-hour's time. The bell that called
to the steam cars sounded. Mr. Lincoln instantly stopped. 'I am engaged
to speak at Cambridge to-night,' said he, 'and I must leave.' The whole
audience seemed to rise in protest. 'Oh, no! go on! finish it!' was
heard on every hand. One gentleman arose and pledged himself to take his
horse and carry him across the country. But Mr. Lincoln was inexorable.
'I can't take any risks,' said he.
"'I have engaged to go to Cambridge, and I must be there. I came here
as I agreed, and I am going there in the same way.' A more disappointed
audience was never seen; but Mr. Lincoln had fairly wakened it up, and
it stayed through the afternoon and into the evening to listen to other
speakers. We tried to get him to come again, but it was impossible. I
heard the speech finished afterward in Tremont Temple, Boston; and it
is a notable fact that on the same evening, and from the same platform,
William H. Seward also spoke, and made the only political speech he ever
delivered in Boston. Who could have dreamed then that in Lincoln we were
listening to the man who was to be the future president of the United
States, and to leave a reputation second only to that of Washington! Mr.
Lincoln moved his Boston audience in much the same way I have described,
but Mr. Seward made the first speech, and was looked upon as the
chief star, of course. Seward's speech was much more ambitious and
comprehensive than that of Lincoln. The latter had not begun to treat
broad principles in the 1848 campaign. Mr. Seward's argument was a
triumph of intellect, after the most careful preparation. I don't think
Mr. Lincoln had ever written his speech at all. He aimed at not much
more than to be bright, effective and taking with his audience, and his
success was perfect here."