WE have seen already, from one of his letters to Mr. Herndon, that Mr.
Lincoln was personally quite willing to be a candidate for Congress the
second time. But his "honor" forbade: he had given pledges, and made
private arrangements with other gentlemen, to prevent "the district
from going to the enemy." Judge Logan was nominated in his place; and,
although personally one of the most popular men in Illinois, he was
sadly beaten, in consequence of the record which the Whig party had made
"against the war." It was well as it was; for, if Mr. Lincoln had been
the candidate, he would have been still more disastrously defeated,
since it was mainly the votes he had given in Congress which Judge Logan
found it so difficult to explain and impossible to defend.
[Illustration: Stephen T. Logan 371]
Mr. Lincoln was an applicant, and a very urgent one, for the office of
Commissioner of the General Land-Office in the new Whig administration.
He moved his friends to urge him in the newspapers, and wrote to some
of his late associates in Congress (among them Mr. Schenck of Ohio),
soliciting their support. But it was all of no avail; Mr. Justin
Butterfield (also an Illinoisian) beat him in the race to Washington,
and got the appointment. It is said by one of Mr. Lincoln's numerous
biographers, that he often laughed over his failure to secure this great
office, pretending to think it beneath his merits; but we can find no
evidence of the fact alleged, and have no reason to believe it.
Mr. Fillmore subsequently offered him the governorship of Oregon. The
news reached him whilst away at court at Tremont or Bloomington. Mr.
Stuart and others "coaxed him to take it;" the former insisting that
Oregon would soon become a State, and he one of its senators. Mr.
Lincoln saw it all, and said he would accept "if his wife would
consent." But his wife "refused to do so;" and time has shown that she
was right, as she usually was when it came to a question of practical
politics.
From the time of his retirement from Congress to 1854, when the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill broke the hollow
truce of 1856, which Mr. Clay and his compeers fondly regarded as a
peace, Mr. Lincoln's life was one of comparative political inactivity.
He did not believe that the sectional agitations could be permanently
stilled by the devices which then seemed effectual to the foremost
statesmen of either party and of both sections. But he was not disposed
to be forward in the renewal of them. He probably hoped against
conviction that time would allay the animosities which endangered at
once the Union and the principles of free government, which had thus far
preserved a precarious existence among the North American States.
Coming home to Springfield from the Tremont court in 1850 in company
with Mr. Stuart, he said, "The time will come when we must all be
Democrats or Abolitionists. When that time comes, my mind is made up.
The 'slavery question' can't be compromised."--"So is my mind made up,"
replied his equally firm companion; and at that moment neither doubted
on which side he would find the other when the great struggle took
place.
The Whig party everywhere, in Congress and in their conventions, local
and national, accepted the compromise of 1850 under the leadership of
Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster. Mr. Lincoln did the same; for, from the hour
that party lines were distinctly and closely drawn in his State, he
was an unswerving party man. But although he said nothing against those
measures, and much in favor of them, it is clear that he accepted the
result with reluctance. He spoke out his disapproval of the Fugitive
Slave Law as it was passed, believing and declaring wherever he went,
that a negro man apprehended as a slave should have the privilege of a
trial by jury, instead of the summary processes provided by the law.
"Mr. Lincoln and I were going to Petersburg in 1850, I think," says Mr.
Herndon. "The political world was dead: the compromises of 1850 seemed
to settle the negro's fate. Things were stagnant; and all hope for
progress in the line of freedom seemed to be crushed out. Lincoln was
speculating with me about the deadness of things, and the despair which
arose out of it, and deeply regretting that his human strength and
power were limited by his nature to rouse and stir up the world. He said
gloomily, despairingly, sadly, 'How hard, oh! how hard it is to die and
leave one's country no better than if one had never lived for it! The
world is dead to hope, deaf to its own death-struggle, made known by a
universal cry, What is to be done? Is any thing to be done? Who can
do any thing? and how is it to be done? Did you ever think of these
things?'"
In 1850 Mr. Lincoln again declined to be a candidate for Congress; and a
newspaper called "The Tazewell Mirror" persisting in naming him for
the place, he published a letter, refusing most emphatically to be
considered a candidate. The concluding sentence alleged that there were
many men among the Whigs of the district who would be as likely as he to
bring "the district right side up."
Until the death of his excellent step-mother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, Mr.
Lincoln never considered himself free for a moment from the obligation
to look after and care for her family. She had made herself his mother;
and he regarded her and her children as near relatives,--much nearer
than any of the Hankses.
The limit of Thomas Lincoln's life was rapidly approaching. Mrs.
Chapman, his step-daughter, wrote Mr. Lincoln to that effect; and so did
John Johnston. He began to fear that the straitened circumstances of the
household might make them think twice before they sent for a doctor, or
procured other comforts for the poor old man, which he needed, perhaps,
more than drugs. He was too busy to visit the dying man, but sent him
a kind message, and directed the family to get whatever was wanted upon
his credit.
Springfield, Jan. 12,1851.
Dear Brother,--On the day before yesterday I received a letter from
Harriet, written at Greenup. She says she has just returned from your
house, and that father is very low, and will hardly recover. She also
says that you have written me two letters, and that, although you do not
expect me to come now, you wonder that I do not write. I received both
your letters; and, although I have not answered them, it is not because
I have forgotten them, or not been interested about them, but because
it appeared to me I could write nothing which could do any good. You
already know I desire that neither father nor mother shall be in want of
any comfort, either in health or sickness, while they live; and I feel
sure you have not failed to use my name, if necessary, to procure a
doctor or any thing else for father in his present sickness. My business
is such that I could hardly leave home now, if it were not, as it is,
that my own wife is sick a-bed. (It is a case of baby sickness, and, I
suppose, is not dangerous.) I sincerely hope father may yet recover
his health; but, at all events, tell him to remember to call upon and
confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away
from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers
the hairs of our heads; and he will not forget the dying man who puts
his trust in him. Say to him, that, if we could meet now, it is doubtful
whether it would not be more painful than pleasant; but that, if it be
his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with loved ones
gone before, and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere
long to join them.
Write me again when you receive this.
Affectionately,
A. Lincoln.
Before and after the death of Thomas Lincoln, John Johnston and Mr.
Lincoln had a somewhat spirited correspondence regarding John's present
necessities and future plans. John was idle, thriftless, penniless, and
as much disposed to rove as poor old Tom had been in his earliest and
worst days. This lack of character and enterprise on John's part added
seriously to Mr. Lincoln's anxieties concerning his step-mother, and
greatly embarrassed his attempts to provide for her. At length he
wrote John the following energetic exhortation, coupled with a most
magnanimous pecuniary offer. It is the letter promised in a previous
chapter, and makes John an intimate acquaintance of the reader:--
Dear Johnston,--Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it
best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a
little, you have said to me, "We can get along very well now;" but in a
very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can
only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I
think I know. You are not _lazy_, and still you are an _idler_. I doubt
whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any
one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work
much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for
it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; and it
is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you
should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have
longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it
easier than they can get out after they are in.
You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall
go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for
it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home, prepare for
a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money-wages,
or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure
you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that, for every
dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your
own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give
you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a
month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for
your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the
lead-mines, or the gold-mines in California; but I mean for you to go at
it for the best wages you can get close to home, in Cole's County. Now,
if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better,
you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again.
But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just
as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven
for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap; for I am
sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars
for four or five months' work. You say, if I will furnish you the money,
you will deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money back, you
will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land,
how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me,
and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but
follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty
dollars to you.
Affectionately your brother,
A. Lincoln
Again he wrote:--
Shelbyville, Nov. 4, 1851.
Dear Brother,--When I came into Charleston day before yesterday, I
learned that you are anxious to sell the land where you live, and move
to Missouri. I have been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but
think such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri
better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than
here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there,
any more than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work,
there is no better place than right where you are: if you do not intend
to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling
about from place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this
year; and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and
spend it. Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will
never after own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for
the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you
will eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought.
Now, I feel it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery.
I feel that it is so even on your own account, and particularly on
_mother's_ account. The eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother
while she lives: if you _will not cultivate it_, it will rent for enough
to support her; at least, it will rent for something. Her dower in the
other two forties she can let you have, and no thanks to me. Now, do not
misunderstand this letter: I do not write it in any unkindness. I write
it in order, if possible, to get you to _face_ the truth, which truth
is, you are destitute because you have idled away all your time. Your
thousand pretences for not getting along better are all nonsense: they
deceive nobody but yourself. _Go to work_ is the only cure for your
case.
A word to mother. Chapman tells me he wants you to go and live with
him. If I were you, I would try it a while. If you get tired of it (as I
think you will not), you can return to your own home. Chapman feels
very kindly to you; and I have no doubt he will make your situation very
pleasant.
Sincerely your son,
A. Lincoln.
And again:--
Shelbyville, Nov. 9,1851.
Dear Brother,--When I wrote you before, I had not received your letter.
I still think as I did; but if the land can be sold so that I get three
hundred dollars to put to interest for mother, I will not object, if
she does not. But, before I will make a deed, the money must be had, or
secured beyond all doubt, at ten per cent.
As to Abram, I do not want him, _on my own account_; but I understand he
wants to live with me, so that he can go to school, and get a fair start
in the world, which I very much wish him to have. When I reach home, if
I can make it convenient to take, I will take him, provided there is no
mistake between us as to the object and terms of my taking him.
In haste as ever,
A. Lincoln.
On the 1st of July, 1852, Mr. Lincoln was chosen by a public meeting of
his fellow-citizens at Springfield to deliver in their hearing a eulogy
upon the life and character of Henry Clay; and on the 16th of the same
month he complied with their request. Such addresses are usually called
orations; but this one scarcely deserved the name. He made no effort to
be eloquent, and in no part of it was he more than ordinarily animated.
It is true that he bestowed great praise upon Mr. Clay; but it was
bestowed in cold phrases and a tame style, wholly unlike the bulk of
his previous compositions. In truth, Mr. Lincoln was never so devoted a
follower of Mr. Clay as some of his biographers have represented him. He
was for another man in 1836, most probably for another in 1840, and very
ardently for another in 1848. Dr. Holland credits him with a visit to
Mr. Clay at Ashland, and an interview which effectually cooled his ardor
in behalf of the brilliant statesman. But, in fact, Mr. Lincoln never
troubled himself to make such a pilgrimage to see or hear any man,--much
less Mr. Clay. None of his friends--Judge Davis, Mr. Herndon, Mr. Speed,
or any one else, so far as we are able to ascertain--ever heard of the
visit. If it had been made at any time after 1838, it could scarcely
have been concealed from Mr. Speed; and we are compelled to place it
along with the multitude of groundless stories which have found currency
with Mr. Lincoln's biographers.
If the address upon Clay is of any historical value at all, it is
because it discloses Mr. Lincoln's unreserved agreement with Mr. Clay in
his opinions concerning slavery and the proper method of extinguishing
it. They both favored gradual emancipation by the voluntary action of
the people of the Slave States, and the transportation of the whole
negro population to Africa as rapidly as they should be freed from
service to their masters: it was a favorite scheme with Mr. Lincoln
then, as it was long after he became President of the United States.
"Compensated" and "voluntary emancipation," on the one hand, and
"colonization" of the freedmen on the other, were essential parts
of every "plan" which sprung out of his own individual mind. On this
occasion, after quoting Mr. Clay, he said, "This suggestion of the
possible ultimate redemption of the African race and African continent
was made twenty-five years ago. Every succeeding year has added strength
to the hope of its realization. May it indeed be realized! Pharaoh's
country was cursed with plagues, and his hosts were drowned in the Red
Sea, for striving to retain a captive people who had already served them
more than four hundred years. May like disasters never befall us! If, as
the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of
our countrymen shall by any means succeed in freeing our land from the
dangerous presence of slavery, and at the same time restoring a captive
people to their long-lost fatherland, with bright prospects for the
future, and this, too, so gradually that neither races nor individuals
shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious
consummation. And if to such a consummation the efforts of Mr. Clay
shall have contributed, it will be what he most ardently wished; and
none of his labors will have been more valuable to his country and his
kind."
During the campaign of 1852, Judge Douglas took the stump for Pierce
"in twenty-eight States out of the thirty-one." His first speech was
at Richmond, Va. It was published extensively throughout the Union, and
especially in Illinois. Mr. Lincoln felt an ardent desire to answer it,
and, according to his own account, got the "permission" of the "Scott
Club" of Springfield to make the speech under its auspices. It was a
very poor effort. If it was distinguished by one quality above another,
it was by its attempts at humor; and all those attempts were strained
and affected, as well as very coarse. He displayed a jealous and
petulant temper from the first sentence to the last, wholly beneath the
dignity of the occasion and the importance of the topic. Considered as
a whole, it may be said that none of his public performances was more
unworthy of its really noble author than this one. The reader has
doubtless observed in the course of this narrative, as he will in
the future, that Mr. Douglas's great success in obtaining place and
distinction was a standing offence to Mr. Lincoln's self-love and
individual ambition. He was intensely jealous of him, and longed to
pull him down, or outstrip him in the race for popular favor, which
they united in considering "the chief end of man." Some of the first
sentences of this speech before the "Scott Club" betray this feeling
in a most unmistakable and painful manner. "This speech [that of Mr.
Douglas at Richmond] has been published with high commendations in at
least one of the Democratic papers in this State, and I suppose it has
been and will be in most of the others. When I first saw it and read it,
I was reminded of old times, _when Judge Douglas was not so much greater
man than all the rest of us, as he is now_,--of the Harrison campaign
twelve years ago, when I used to hear and try to answer many of his
speeches; and believing that the Richmond speech, though marked with the
same species of 'shirks and quirks' as the old ones, was not marked with
any greater ability, I was seized with a strange inclination to attempt
an answer to it; and this inclination it was that prompted me to seek
the privilege of addressing you on this occasion."
In the progress of his remarks, Mr. Lincoln emphatically indorsed Mr.
Douglas's great speech at Chicago in 1850, in defence of the compromise
measures, which Mr. Lincoln pronounced the work of no party, but which,
"for praise or blame," belonged to Whigs and Democrats alike. The rest
of the address was devoted to a humorous critique upon Mr. Douglas's
language in the Richmond speech, to ridicule of the campaign biographies
of Pierce, to a description of Gens. Shields and Pierce wallowing in the
ditch in the midst of a battle, and to a most remarkable account of a
militia muster which might have been seen at Springfield a few years
previous. Mr. Douglas had expressed great confidence in the sober
judgment of the people, and at the same time had, rather inconsistently
as well as indecently, declared that Providence had saved us from one
military administration by the timely removal of Gen. Taylor. To this
Mr. Lincoln alluded in his closing paragraph, which is given as a fair
sample of the whole:--
"Let us stand by our candidate as faithfully as he has always stood by
our country, and I much doubt if we do not perceive a slight abatement
in Judge Douglas's confidence in Providence, as well as in the people. I
suspect that confidence is not more firmly fixed with the judge than
it was with the old woman whose horse ran away with her in a buggy. She
said she 'trusted in Providence till the britchin' broke, and then she
didn't know what on airth to do.' The chance is, the judge will see the
'britchin' broke;' and then he can at his leisure bewail the fate of
Locofocoism as the victim of misplaced confidence."
On the 4th of January, 1854, Mr. Douglas, Chairman of the Committee
on Territories, of the Senate of the United States, reported a bill
to establish a territorial government in Nebraska. This bill contained
nothing in relation to the Missouri Compromise, which still remained
upon the statute-book, although the principle on which it was based had
been violated in the Compromise legislation of 1850. A Whig Senator from
Kentucky gave notice, that, when the Committee's bill came before the
Senate, he would move an amendment repealing the Missouri Compromise.
With this admonition in mind, the Committee instructed Mr. Douglas to
report a substitute, which he did on the 23d of the same month. The
substitute made two Territories out of Nebraska, and called one of them
Kansas. It annulled the Missouri Compromise, forbade its application to
Kansas, Nebraska, or any other territory, and, as amended and finally
passed, fixed the following rules:... "It being the true intent and
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or
State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Mr.
Douglas had long since denounced his imprecations upon "the ruthless
hand" that should disturb that ancient compact of peace between the
sections; and now he put forth his own ingenious hand to do the deed,
and to take the curse, in both of which he was eminently successful. Not
that the Missouri Act may not have been repugnant to the Constitution,
for no court had ever passed upon it; but it was enacted for a holy
purpose, was venerable in age, was consecrated in the hearts of the
people by the unsurpassed eloquence of the patriots of a previous
generation, and having the authority of law, of reason, and of covenant,
it had till then preserved the Union, as its authors designed it should;
and, being in truth a sacred thing, it was not a proper subject for the
"ruthless" interference of mere politicians, like those who now devoted
it to destruction. If, upon a regularly heard and decided issue, the
Supreme Court should declare it unconstitutional, the recision of the
compact could be attributed to no party,--neither to slavery nor to
antislavery,--and the peace of the country might still subsist. But
its repeal by the party that did it--a coalition of Southern Whigs and
Democrats with Northern Democrats--was evidence of a design to carry
slavery into the region north of 36° 30'; or the legislation was without
a purpose at all. It was the first aggression of the South; but be
it remembered in common justice, that she was tempted to it by the
treacherous proffers of a restless but powerful Northern leader, who
asked no recompense but her electoral votes. In due time he opened
her eyes to the nature of the fraud; and, if he carried through the
Kansas-Nebraska Act to catch the votes of the South in 1856, it cost him
no inconvenience to give it a false and startling construction to catch
the votes of the North in 1860. In the repeal of the Compromise, the
Northern Democrats submitted with reluctance to the dictation of Douglas
and the South. It was the great error of the party,--the one disastrous
error of all its history. The party succeeded in 1856 only by the
nomination of Mr. Buchanan, who was out of the country when the
Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, and who was known to have opposed it.
But the questions which grew out of it, the false and disingenuous
construction of the act by its author, the slavery agitations in Kansas
and throughout the country, disrupted the party at Charleston, and made
possible Mr. Lincoln's election by a minority of the votes cast. And to
the Whig party, whose Senators and Representatives from the South voted
for the Douglas Bill in a body, the renewal of the slavery agitation,
invited and insured by their action, was the signal of actual
dissolution.
Up to this date, Mr. Lincoln's views of slavery, and how they were
formed, are as well known to the reader as they can be made known from
the materials left behind for a history of them. It is clear that his
_feelings_ on the subject were inspired by individual cases of apparent
hardship which had come under his observation. John Hanks, on the last
trip to New Orleans, was struck by Lincoln's peculiarly active sympathy
for the servile race, and insists, that, upon sight of their wrongs,
"the iron entered his heart." In a letter to Mr. Speed, which will
shortly be presented, Mr. Lincoln confesses to a similar experience
in 1841, and speaks with great bitterness of the pain which the actual
presence of chained and manacled slaves had given him. Indeed, Mr.
Lincoln was not an ardent sympathizer with sufferings of any sort,
which he did not witness with the eye of flesh. His compassion might be
stirred deeply by an object present, but never by an object absent and
unseen. In the former case he would most likely extend relief, with
little inquiry into the merits of the case, because, as he expressed it
himself, it "took a pain out of his own heart;" and he devoutly believed
that every such act of charity or mercy sprung from motives purely
selfish. None of his public acts, either before or after he became
President, exhibits any special tenderness for the African race, or
any extraordinary commiseration of their lot. On the contrary, he
invariably, in words and deeds, postponed the interests of the blacks to
the interests of the whites, and expressly subordinated the one to the
other. When he was compelled, by what he deemed an overruling necessity,
founded on both military and political considerations, to declare the
freedom of the public enemy's slaves, he did so with avowed reluctance,
and took pains to have it understood that his resolution was in no wise
affected by sentiment. He never at any time favored the admission of
negroes into the body of electors, in his own State or in the States of
the South. He claimed that those who were incidentally liberated by the
Federal arms were poor-spirited, lazy, and slothful; that they could be
made soldiers only by force, and willing laborers not at all; that they
seemed to have no interest in the cause of their own race, but were as
docile in the service of the Rebellion as the mules that ploughed the
fields or drew the baggage-trains; and, as a people, were useful only to
those who were at the same time their masters and the foes of those who
sought their good. With such views honestly formed, it is no wonder that
he longed to see them transported to Hayti, Central America, Africa, or
anywhere, so that they might in no event, and in no way, participate in
the government of his country. Accordingly, he was, from the beginning,
as earnest a colonizationist as Mr. Clay, and, even during his
Presidency, zealously and persistently devised schemes for the
deportation of the negroes, which the latter deemed cruel and atrocious
in the extreme. He believed, with his rival, that this was purely a
"white man's government;" but he would have been perfectly willing to
share its blessings with the black man, had he not been very certain
that the blessings would disappear when divided with such a partner. He
was no Abolitionist in the popular sense; did not want to break over the
safeguards of the Constitution to interfere with slavery where it had
a lawful existence; but, wherever his power rightfully extended, he was
anxious that the negro should be protected, just as women and
children and unnaturalized men are protected, in life, limb, property,
reputation, and every thing that nature or law makes sacred. But this
was all: he had no notion of extending to the negro the _privilege of
governing_ him and other white men, by making him an elector. That was a
political trust, an office to be exercised only by the superior race.
It was therefore as a white man, and in the interests of white men,
that he threw himself into the struggle to keep the blacks out of the
Territories. He did not want them there either as slaves or freemen;
but he wanted them less as slaves than as freemen. He perceived clearly
enough the motives of the South in repealing the Missouri Compromise. It
did, in fact, arouse him "like a fire-bell in the night." He felt that a
great conflict impended; and, although he had as yet no idea that it was
an "irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces," which
must end in making all free or all slave, he thought it was serious
enough to demand his entire mind and heart; and he freely gave them
both.
Mr. Gillespie gives the substance of a conversation with him, which,
judging from the context, must have taken place about this time.
Prefacing with the remark that the slavery question was the only one "on
which he (Mr. Lincoln) would become excited," he says,--
"I recollect meeting with him once at Shelbyville, when he remarked that
something must be done, or slavery would overrun the whole country. He
said there were about six hundred thousand non-slaveholding whites
in Kentucky to about thirty-three thousand slaveholders; that, in the
convention then recently held, it was expected that the delegates would
represent these classes about in proportion to their respective
numbers; but, when the convention assembled, there was not a single
representative of the non-slaveholding class: every one was in the
interest of the slaveholders; 'and,' said he, 'the thing is spreading
like wildfire over the country. In a few years we will be ready to
accept the institution in Illinois, and the whole country will adopt
it.' I asked him to what he attributed the change that was going on in
public opinion. He said he had put that question to a Kentuckian shortly
before, who answered by saying, 'You might have any amount of land,
money in your pocket, or bank-stock, and, while travelling around,
nobody would be any wiser; but, if you had a darkey trudging at your
heels, everybody would see him, and know that you owned a slave.' 'It is
the most glittering, ostentatious, and displaying property in the world;
and now,' says he, 'if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry
is, how many negroes he or she owns. The love for slave property was
swallowing up every other mercenary possession. Its ownership betokened,
not only the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of
leisure, who was above and scorned labor.' These things Mr. Lincoln
regarded as highly seductive to the thoughtless and giddy-headed young
men who looked upon work as vulgar and ungentlemanly. Mr. Lincoln was
really excited, and said, with great earnestness, that this spirit
ought to be met, and, if possible, checked; that slavery was a great
and crying injustice, an enormous national crime, and that we could not
expect to escape punishment for it. I asked him how he would proceed in
his efforts to check the spread of slavery. _He confessed he did not
see his way clearly. I think he made up his mind from that time that he
would oppose slavery actively_. I know that Mr. Lincoln always contended
that no man had any right other than mere brute force gave him to a
slave. He used to say that it was singular that the courts would hold
that a man never lost his right to his property that had been stolen
from him, but that he instantly lost his right to himself if he was
stolen. Mr. Lincoln always contended that the cheapest way of getting
rid of slavery was for the nation to buy the slaves, and set them free."
If the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill awakened Lincoln from his
dream of security regarding the slavery question, which he hoped had
been put to rest by the compromises of 1820 and 1850, it did the
same with all likeminded people in the North. From that moment
the Abolitionists, on the one hand, discerned a hope, not only of
restricting slavery, but of ultimate emancipation; and the Southern
Disunionists, on the other, who had lately met with numerous and signal
defeats in their own section, perceived the means of inflaming
the popular heart to the point of disunion. A series of agitations
immediately began,--incessant, acrimonious, and in Kansas murderous and
bloody,--which destroyed the Whig party at once, and continued until
they severed the Democratic party at Charleston. All other issues were
as chaff to this,--slavery or no slavery in the Territories,--while the
discussion ranged far back of this practical question, and involved the
much broader one, whether slavery possessed inherent rights under
the Constitution. The Whigs South having voted for the repeal of the
compromise, and the Whigs North against it, that party was practically
no more. Some of its members went into the Know-Nothing lodges; some
enlisted under the Abolition flag, and others drifted about and together
until they formed themselves into a new organization, which they called
Republican. It was a disbanded army; and, released from the authority of
discipline and party tradition, a great part of the members engaged for
a while in political operations of a very disreputable character. But
the better class, having kept themselves unspotted from the pollution
of Know-Nothingism, gradually but speedily formed the Republican party,
which in due time drew into its mighty ranks nearly all the elements of
opposition to the Democracy. Such a Whig was Mr. Lincoln, who lost no
time in taking his ground. In Illinois the new party was not (in 1854)
either Abolitionist, Republican, Know-Nothing, Whig, or Democratic, for
it was composed of odds and ends of all; but simply the Anti-Nebraska
party, of which Mr. Lincoln soon became the acknowledged leader.
Returning from Washington, Mr. Douglas attempted to speak at Chicago;
but he was not heard, and, being hissed and hooted by the populace of
the city, betook himself to more complaisant audiences in the country.
Early in October, the State Fair being in progress there, he spoke at
Springfield. His speech was ingenious, and, on the whole, able: but he
was on the defensive; and the consciousness of the fact, both on his own
part and that of the audience, made him seem weaker than he really was.
By common consent the Anti-Nebraska men put up Mr. Lincoln to reply; and
he did reply with such power as he had never exhibited before. He was
not the Lincoln who had spoken that tame address over Clay in 1852,
or he who had deformed his speech before the "Scott Club" with petty
jealousies and gross vulgarisms, but a new and greater Lincoln, the like
of whom no one in that vast multitude had ever heard before. He felt
that he was addressing the people on a living and vital question, not
merely for the sake of speaking, but to produce conviction, and achieve
a great practical result. How he succeeded in his object may be gathered
from the following extracts from a leading editorial in "The Springfield
Journal," written by Mr. Herndon:--
"This Anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln was the profoundest, in our
opinion, that he has made in his whole life. He felt upon his soul the
truths burn which he uttered, and all present felt that he was true to
his own soul. His feelings once or twice swelled within, and came near
stifling utterance.... He quivered with emotion. The whole house was as
still as death.
"He attacked the Nebraska Bill with unusual warmth and energy; and all
felt that a man of strength was its enemy, and that he intended to blast
it if he could by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful, and
the house approved the glorious triumph of truth by loud and continued
huzzas. Women waved their white handkerchiefs in token of woman's silent
but heartfelt assent. Douglas felt the sting: the animal within was
roused, because he frequently interrupted Mr. Lincoln. His friends felt
that he was crushed by Lincoln's powerful argument, manly logic, and
illustrations from nature around us. The Nebraska Bill was shivered,
and, like a tree of the forest, was torn and rent asunder by hot bolts
of truth.... Mr. Lincoln exhibited Douglas in all the attitudes he could
be placed in a friendly debate. He exhibited the bill in all its aspects
to show its humbuggery and falsehood; and, when thus torn to rags, cut
into slips, held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn and
mockery was visible upon the face of the crowd and upon the lips of the
most eloquent speaker.... At the conclusion of this speech, every man,
woman, and child felt that it was unanswerable.... He took the heart
captive, and broke like a sun over the understanding."
Mr. Douglas rose to reply. He was excited, angry, imperious in his tone
and manner, and his voice loud and shrill. Shaking his forefinger at the
Democratic malcontents with furious energy, and declaiming rather than
debating, he occupied to little purpose the brief interval remaining
until the adjournment for supper. Then, promising to resume his address
in the evening, he went his way; and that audience "saw him no more."
Evening came, but not the orator. Many fine speeches were made during
the continuance of that fair upon the one absorbing topic,--speeches by
the ablest men in Illinois,--Judge Trumbull, Judge Breese, Col. Taylor
(Democratic recusants), and Stephen A. Douglas and John Calhoun (then
Surveyor-General of Nebraska). But it is no shame to any one of these,
that their really impressive speeches were but slightly appreciated,
nor long remembered, beside Mr. Lincoln's splendid and enduring
performance,--enduring in the memory of his auditors, although preserved
upon no written or printed page.
Among those whom the State Fair brought to Springfield for political
purposes, were some who were neither Whigs, Democrats, Know-Nothings,
nor yet mere Anti-Nebraska men: there were the restless leaders of the
then insignificant Abolition faction. Chief among them was Owen Lovejoy;
and second to him, if second to any, was William H. Herndon. But the
position of this latter gentleman was one of singular embarrassment.
According to himself, he was an Abolitionist "sometime before he was
born," and hitherto he had made his "calling and election sure" by
every word and act of a life devoted to political philanthropy and
disinterested political labors. While the two great national parties
divided the suffrages of the people, North and South, every thing in his
eyes was "dead." He detested the bargains by which those parties were
in the habit of composing sectional troubles, and sacrificing the
"principle of freedom." When the Whig party "paid its breath to time,"
he looked upon its last agonies as but another instance of divine
retribution. He had no patience with time-servers, and regarded with
indignant contempt the "policy" which would postpone the natural rights
of an enslaved race to the success of parties and politicians. He stood
by at the sacrifice of the Whig party in Illinois with the spirit of
Paul when he "held the clothes of them that stoned Stephen." He believed
it was for the best, and hoped to see a new party rise in its place,
great in the fervor of its faith, and animated by the spirit of
Wilberforce, Garrison, and the Lovejoys. He was a fierce zealot, and
gloried proudly in his title of "fanatic;" for it was his conviction
that fanatics were at all times the salt of the earth, with power to
save it from the blight that follows the wickedness of men. He believed
in a God, but it was the God of nature,--the God of Socrates and Plato,
as well as the God of Jacob. He believed in a Bible, but it was the open
scroll of the universe; and in a religion clear and well defined, but it
was a religion that scorned what he deemed the narrow slavery of verbal
inspiration. Hot-blooded, impulsive, brave morally and physically,
careless of consequences when moved by a sense of individual duty, he
was the very man to receive into his inmost heart the precepts of Mr.
Seward's "higher law." If he had pledged faith to slavery, no peril of
life or body could have induced him to violate it. But he held himself
no party to the compromises of the Constitution, nor to any law which
recognized the justice of human bondage; and he was therefore free to
act as his God and nature prompted.
Now, Mr. Herndon had determined to make an Abolitionist out of Mr.
Lincoln when the proper time should arrive; and that time would be only
when Mr. Lincoln could change front and "come out" without detriment to
his personal aspirations. For, although Mr. Herndon was a zealot in the
cause, he loved his partner too dearly to wish him to espouse it while
it was unpopular and politically dangerous to belong to it. "I cared
nothing for the ruin of myself," said he; "but I did not wish to see Mr.
Lincoln sacrificed." He looked forward to a better day, and, in the
mean time, was quite willing that Mr. Lincoln should be no more than
a nominal Whig, or a strong Anti-Nebraska man; being quite sure, that,
when the auspicious moment arrived, he would be able to present him to
his brethren as a convert over whom there would surely be great joy.
Still, there was a bare chance that he might lose him. Mr. Lincoln was
beset by warm friends and by old coadjutors, and besought to pause in
his antislavery course while there was yet time. Among these there was
none more earnest or persuasive than John T. Stuart, who was but the
type of a class. Tempted on the one side to be a Know-Nothing, and on
the other side to be an Abolitionist, Mr. Lincoln said, as if in some
doubt of his real position, "I _think_ I am still a Whig." But Mr.
Herndon was more than a match for the full array against him. An earnest
man, instant in season and out of season, he spoke with the eloquence
of apparent truth and of real personal love. Moreover, Mr. Lincoln's
preconceptions inclined him to the way in which Mr. Herndon desired him
to walk; and it is not surprising that in time he was, not only almost,
but altogether, persuaded by a friend and partner, whose opportunities
to reach and convince his wavering mind were, daily and countless. "From
1854 to 1860," says Mr. Herndon, "I kept putting in Lincoln's hands the
speeches and sermons of Theodore Parker, the speeches of Phillips and
Beecher. I took 'The Anti-slavery Standard' for years before 1856, 'The
Chicago Tribune,' and 'The New York Tribune;' kept them in my office,
kept them purposely on my table, and would read to Lincoln good, sharp,
and solid things well put. Lincoln was a natural antislavery man, as I
think, and yet he needed watching,--needed hope, faith, energy; and I
think I warmed him. Lincoln and I were just the opposite one of
another. He was cautious and practical; I was spontaneous, ideal, and
speculative. He arrived at truths by reflection; I, by intuition; he,
by reason; I, by my soul. He calculated; I went to toil asking no
questions, never doubting. Lincoln had great faith in my intuitions, and
I had great faith in his reason."
Of course such a man as we have described Mr. Herndon to be could have
nothing but loathing and disgust for the secret oaths, the midnight
lurking, and the proscriptive spirit of Know-Nothingism. "A number of
gentlemen from Chicago," says he, "among them the editor of 'The Star of
the West,' an Abolitionist paper published in Chicago, waited on me
in my office, and asked my advice as to the policy of going into
Know-Nothing Lodges, and ruling them for freedom. I opposed it as being
wrong in principle, as well as a fraud on the lodges, and wished to
fight it out in open daylight. Lincoln was opposed to Know-Nothingism,
but did not say much in 1854 or 1855 (did afterwards). I told Lincoln
what was said, and argued the question with him often, insisting that,
as we were advocating _freedom for the slave in tendency_ under the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, it was radically wrong to enslave the religious
ideas and faith of men. The gentlemen who waited on me as before stated
asked me if I thought that Mr. Lincoln could be trusted for freedom.
I said to them, 'Can you trust yourselves? If you can, you can trust
Lincoln forever.'"
[Illustration: John T. Stuart 392]
With this explanation of the political views of Mr. Herndon, and
his personal relations to Mr. Lincoln, the reader will more easily
understand what follows.
"This State Fair," continues Mr. Herndon, "called thousands to the city.
We Abolitionists all assembled here, taking advantage of the fair to
organize and disseminate our ideas. As soon as Lincoln had finished his
speech, Lovejoy, who had been in the hall, rushed up to the stand, and
notified the crowd that there would be a meeting there in the evening:
subject, _Freedom_. I had been with the Abolitionists that day, and knew
their intentions: namely, to force Lincoln with our organization, and
to take broader and deeper and more radical views and ideas than in his
speech, which was simply _Historic Kansas_.... He (Lincoln) had not
then announced himself for freedom, only discussed the inexpediency
of repealing the Missouri Compromise Line. The Abolitionists that day
determined to make Lincoln take a stand. I determined he should _not at
that time_, because the time had not yet come when Lincoln should show
his hand. When Lovejoy announced the Abolition gathering in the evening,
I rushed to Lincoln, and said, 'Lincoln, go home; take Bob and the
buggy, and leave the county: go quickly, go right off, and never mind
the order of your going.' Lincoln took a hint, got his horse and buggy,
and did leave quickly, not noting the order of his going. He staid away
till all conventions and fairs were over."
But the speech against the repeal of the Compromise signally impressed
all parties opposed to Mr. Douglas's late legislation,--Whigs,
Abolitionists, and Democratic Free-soilers,--who agreed with perfect
unanimity, that Mr. Lincoln should be pitted against Mr. Douglas
wherever circumstances admitted of their meeting. As one of the
evidences of this sentiment, Mr. William Butler drew up a paper
addressed to Mr. Lincoln, requesting and "urging him to follow Douglas
up until the election." It was signed by Mr. Butler, William Jayne,
P. P. Eads, John Cassady, B. F. Irwin, and many others. Accordingly,
Lincoln "followed" Douglas to Peoria, where the latter had an
appointment, and again replied to him, in much the same spirit, and with
the same arguments, as before. The speech was really a great one, almost
perfectly adapted to produce conviction upon a doubting mind. It ought
to be carefully read by every one who desires to know Mr. Lincoln's
power as a debater, after his intellect was matured and ripened by years
of hard experience. On the general subject of slavery and negroes in the
Union, he spoke as follows:--
"Before proceeding, let me say, I think I have no prejudice against the
Southern people: they are just what we would be in their situation. If
slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it: if
it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This I
believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals
on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and
others would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of existence.
We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and
become tip-top Abolitionists; while some Northern men go South, and
become cruel slave-masters.
"When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the
origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that
the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it
in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. _I
surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to
do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what
to do as to the existing institution_. My first impulse would be to free
all the existing slaves, and send them to Liberia,--to their own native
land; but a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high
hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its
sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day,
they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus
shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in
many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us
as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? _I
think I would not hold_ one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not
clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and
make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not
admit of this; and, if mine would, we all know that those of the great
mass of white people would not. Whether this feeling accords with
justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is
any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot
be safely disregarded. _We cannot, then, make them equals_. It does seem
to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for
their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren
of the South. When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I
acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; _and I would
give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives which
should not in its stringency be more likely to carry a free man into
slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one_.
"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting
slavery to go into our own free territory than it would for reviving the
African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves
_from_ Africa, and that which has so long forbidden the taking them _to_
Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the
repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of
the latter.
"But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving measure. Well, I, too,
go for saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the
extension of it, rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would
consent to any great evil to avoid a greater one. But, when I go to
Union-saving, I must believe, at least, that the means I employ have
adaptation to the end. To my mind, Nebraska has no such adaptation. 'It
hath no relish of salvation in it.' It is an aggravation, rather, of the
only one thing which ever endangers the Union. When it came upon us, all
was peace and quiet. The nation was looking to the forming of new bonds
of Union, and a long course of peace and prosperity seemed to lie before
us. In the whole range of possibility, there scarcely appears to me to
have been any thing out of which the slavery agitation could have been
revived, except the project of repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every
inch of territory we owned already had a definite settlement of the
slavery question, and by which all parties were pledged to abide.
Indeed, there was no uninhabited country on the continent which we could
acquire, if we except some extreme Northern regions, which are wholly
out of the question. In this state of the case, the Genius of Discord
himself could scarcely have invented a way of getting us by the ears,
but by turning back and destroying the peace measures of the past.
"The structure, too, of the Nebraska Bill is very peculiar. The people
are to decide the question of slavery for themselves; but _when_
they are to decide, or _how_ they are to decide, or whether, when the
question is once decided, it is to remain so, or is to be subject to an
indefinite succession of new trials, the law does not say. Is it to be
decided by the first dozen settlers who arrive there, or is it to await
the arrival of a hundred? Is it to be decided by a vote of the people,
or a vote of the Legislature, or, indeed, on a vote of any sort? To
these questions the law gives no answer. There is a mystery about this;
for, when a member proposed to give the Legislature express authority
to exclude slavery, it was hooted down by the friends of the bill.
This fact is worth remembering. Some Yankees in the East are sending
emigrants to Nebraska to exclude slavery from it; and, so far as I can
judge, they expect the question to be decided by voting in some way
or other. But the Missourians are awake too. They are within a
stone's-throw of the contested ground. They hold meetings and pass
resolutions, in which not the slightest allusion to voting is made. They
resolve that slavery already exists in the Territory; that more shall go
there; and that they, remaining in Missouri, will protect it, and
that Abolitionists shall be hung or driven away. Through all this,
bowie-knives and six-shooters are seen plainly enough, but never a
glimpse of the ballot-box. And really, what is the result of this? Each
party within having numerous and determined backers without, is it not
probable that the contest will come to blows and bloodshed? Could there
be a more apt invention to bring about a collision and violence on
the slavery question than this Nebraska project is? I do not charge or
believe that such was intended by Congress; but if they had literally
formed a ring, and placed champions within it to fight out the
controversy, the fight could be no more likely to come off than it is.
And, if this fight should begin, is it likely to take a very peaceful,
Union-saving turn? Will not the first drop of blood so shed be the real
knell of the Union?"
No one in Mr. Lincoln's audience appreciated the force of this speech
more justly than did Mr. Douglas himself. He invited the dangerous
orator to a conference, and frankly proposed a truce. What took place
between them was explicitly set forth by Mr. Lincoln to a little knot
of his friends, in the office of Lincoln & Herndon, about two days after
the election. We quote the statement of B. F. Irwin, explicitly
indorsed by P. L. Harrison and Isaac Cogdale, all of whom are already
indifferently well known to the reader. "W. H. Herndon, myself, P. L.
Harrison, and Isaac Cogdale were present. What Lincoln said was about
this: that the day after the Peoria debate in 1854, Douglas came to
him (Lincoln), and flattered him that he (Lincoln) understood the
Territorial question from the organization of the government better than
all the opposition in the Senate of the United States; and he did not
see that he could make any thing by debating it with him; and then
reminded him (Lincoln) of the trouble they had given him, and remarked
that Lincoln had given him more trouble than all the opposition in the
Senate combined; and followed up with the proposition, that he would
go home, and speak no more during the campaign, if Lincoln would do
the same: to which proposition Lincoln acceded." This, according to
Mr. Irwin's view of the thing, was running Douglas "into his hole," and
making "him holler, Enough."
Handbills and other advertisements announced that Judge Douglas would
address the people of Lacon the day following the Peoria encounter; and
the Lacon Anti-Nebraska people sent a committee to Peoria to secure Mr.
Lincoln for a speech in reply. He readily agreed to go, and on the way
said not a word of the late agreement to the gentleman who had him
in charge. Judge Douglas observed the same discreet silence among
his friends. Whether they had both agreed to go to Lacon before this
agreement was made, or had mutually contrived this clever mode of
deception, cannot now be determined. But, when they arrived at Lacon,
Mr. Douglas said he was too hoarse to speak, although, "a large portion
of the people of the county assembled to hear him." Mr. Lincoln, with
unheard-of magnanimity, "informed his friends that he would not like to
take advantage of the judge's indisposition, and would not address the
people." His friends could not see the affair in the same light, and
"pressed him for a speech;" but he persistently and unaccountably
"refused."
Of course, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas met no more during the campaign.
Mr. Douglas did speak at least once more (at Princeton), but Mr. Lincoln
scrupulously observed the terms of the agreement. He came home, wrote
out his Peoria speech, and published it in seven consecutive issues of
"The Illinois Daily Journal;" but he never spoke nor thought of speaking
again. When his friends insisted upon having a reason for this most
unexpected conduct, he gave the answer already quoted from Mr. Irwin.
The election took place on the 7th of November. During his absence,
Mr. Lincoln had been announced as a candidate for the House of
Representatives of the Illinois Legislature. William Jayne took the
responsibility of making him a candidate. Mrs. Lincoln, however, "saw
Francis, the editor, and had Lincoln's name taken out." When Mr. Lincoln
returned, Jayne (Mrs. Lincoln's old friend "Bill") went to see him. "I
went to see him," says Jayne, "in order to get his consent to run.
This was at his house. He was then the saddest man I ever saw,--the
gloomiest. He walked up and down the floor, almost crying; and to all my
persuasions to let his name stand in the paper, he said, 'No, I can't.
You don't know all. I say you don't begin to know one-half, and that's
enough.' I did, however, go and have his name re-instated; and there
it stood. He and Logan were elected by about six hundred majority."
Mr. Jayne had caused originally both Judge Logan and Mr. Lincoln to be
announced, and they were both elected. But, after all, Mrs. Lincoln
was right, and Jayne and Lincoln were both wrong. Mr. Lincoln was a
well-known candidate for the United States Senate, in the place of Mr.
Shields, the incumbent, who had voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill; and,
when the Legislature met and showed a majority of Anti-Nebraska men,
he thought it a necessary preliminary of his candidacy that he should
resign his seat in the House. He did so, and Mr. Jayne makes the
following acknowledgment: "Mr. Lincoln resigned his seat, finding
out that the Republicans, the Anti-Nebraska men, had carried the
Legislature. A. M. Broadwell ran as a Whig Anti-Nebraska man, and was
badly beaten. The people of Sangamon County was down on Lincoln,--hated
him." None can doubt that even the shame of taking a woman's advice
might have been preferable to this!
But Mr. Lincoln "had set his heart on going to the United States
Senate." Counting in the Free-soil Democrats, who had revolted against
Mr. Douglas's leadership, and been largely supported the Whigs in the
late elections, there was now on joint ballot a clear Anti-Nebraska
majority of two. A Senator was to be chosen to succeed Mr. Shields; and
Mr. Lincoln had a right to expect the place. He had fairly earned the
distinction, and nobody in the old Whig party was disposed to withhold
it. But a few Abolitionists doubted his fidelity to their extreme
views; and five Anti-Nebraska Senators and Representatives, who had been
elected as Democrats, preferred to vote for a Senator with antecedents
like their own. The latter selected Judge Trumbull as their candidate,
and clung to him manfully through the whole struggle. They were five
only in number; but in the situation of affairs then existing they
were the sovereign five. They were men of conceded integrity, of good
abilities in debate, and extraordinary political sagacity. Their
names ought to be known to posterity, for their unfriendliness at this
juncture saved Mr. Lincoln to the Republicans of Illinois, to be brought
forward at the critical moment as a fresh and original candidate for the
Presidency. They were Judd of Cook County, Palmer of Macoupin, Cook of
La Salle, Baker and Allen of Madison. They called themselves Democrats,
and, with the modesty peculiar to bolters, claimed to be the only
"Simon-pure." "They could not act with the Democrats from principle,
and would not act with the Whigs from policy;" but, holding off from the
caucuses of both parties, they demanded that all Anti-Nebraska should
come to them, or sacrifice the most important fruits of their late
victory at the polls. But these were not the only enemies Mr. Lincoln
could count in the body of his party. The Abolitionists suspected him,
and were slow to come to his support. Judge Davis went to Springfield,
and thinks he "got some" of this class "to go for" him; but it is
probable they were "got" in another way. Mr. Lovejoy was a member, and
required, as the condition of his support and that of his followers,
that Mr. Lincoln should pledge himself to favor the exclusion of slavery
from _all_ the Territories of the United States. This was a long step
in advance of any that Mr. Lincoln had previously taken. He was, as
a matter of course, opposed to the introduction of slavery into the
Territories north of the line of 36° 30'; but he had, up to this time,
regarded all south of that as being honestly open to slavery. The
villany of obliterating that line, and the necessity of its immediate
restoration,--in short, the perfect sanctity of the Missouri
settlement,--had formed the burden of all his speeches in-the preceding
canvass. But these opinions by no means suited the Abolitionists, and
they required him to change them forthwith. He thought it would be
wise to do so, considering the peculiar circumstances of his case; but,
before committing himself finally, he sought an understanding with Judge
Logan. He told the judge what he was disposed to do, and said he would
act upon the inclination, if the judge would not regard it as "treading
upon his toes." The judge said he was opposed to the doctrine proposed;
but, for the sake of the cause in hand, he would cheerfully risk his
"toes." And so the Abolitionists were accommodated: Mr. Lincoln quietly
made the pledge, and they voted for him.
On the eighth day of February, 1855, the two Houses met in convention to
choose a Senator. On the first ballot, Mr. Shields had forty-one votes,
and three Democratic votes were scattered. Mr. Lincoln had forty-five,
Mr. Trumbull five, and Mr. Koerner two. On the seventh ballot, the
Democrats left Shields, and, with two exceptions, voted for Gov.
Matte-son. In addition to the party strength, Matteson received also the
votes of two of the anti-Nebraska Democrats. That stout little knot, it
was apparent, was now breaking up. For many reasons the Whigs detested
Matteson most heartily, and dreaded nothing so much as his success. But
of that there now appeared to be great danger; for, unless the Whigs
abandoned Lincoln and went for Trumbull, the five Anti-Nebraska men
would unite on Matteson, and elect him. Mr. Gillespie went to Lincoln
for advice. "He said unhesitatingly, 'You ought to drop me, and go for
Trumbull: that is the only way you can defeat Matteson.' Judge Logan
came up about that time, and insisted on running Lincoln still; but the
latter said, 'If you do, you will lose both Trumbull and myself; and I
think the cause, in this case, is to be preferred to men.' We adopted
his suggestion, and turned upon Trumbull, and elected him, although it
grieved us to the heart to give up Mr. Lincoln. This, I think, shows
that Mr. Lincoln was capable of sinking himself for the cause in which
he was engaged." It was with great bitterness of spirit that the Whigs
accepted this hard alternative. Many of them accused the little squad
of Anti-Nebraska Democrats of "ungenerous and selfish" motives. One of
them, "Mr. Waters of McDonough, was especially indignant, and utterly
refused to vote for Mr. Trumbull at all. On the last ballot he threw
away his ballot on Mr. Williams."
"Mr. Lincoln was very much disappointed," says Mr. Parks, a member of
the Legislature, and one of Mr. Lincoln's special friends; "for I think,
that, at that time, it was the height of his ambition to get into the
United States Senate. He manifested, however, no bitterness towards Mr.
Judd, or the other Anti-Nebraska Democrats, by whom politically he was
beaten, but evidently thought that their motives were right. He told
me several times afterwards, that the election of Trumbull was the best
thing that could have happened."
In the great campaign of 1858, Mr. Douglas on various occasions
insisted, that, in 1854, Mr. Lincoln and Judge Trumbull, being until
then political enemies, had formed a secret agreement to abolitionize,
the one the Whig, and the other the Democratic party; and, in order that
neither might go unrewarded for a service so timely and patriotic,
Mr. Trumbull had agreed on the one hand that Mr. Lincoln should have
Shields's seat in the United States Senate (in 1855); and Mr. Lincoln
had agreed, on the other, that Judge Trumbull should have Douglas's seat
(in 1859). But Mr. Douglas alleged, that, when the first election
(in 1854) came on, Judge Trumbull treated his fellow-conspirator with
shameful duplicity, and cheated himself into the Senate just four years
in advance of his appointed time; that, Mr. Lincoln's friends being
greatly incensed thereat, Col. James H. Matheny, Mr. Lincoln's "friend
and manager for twenty years," exposed the plot and the treachery; that,
in order to silence and conciliate the injured party, Mr. Lincoln was
promised the senatorial nomination in 1858, and thus a second time
became a candidate in pursuance of a bargain more than half corrupt. But
it is enough to say here, that Mr. Lincoln explicitly and emphatically
denied the accusation as often as it was made, and bestowed upon the
character of Judge Trumbull encomiums as lofty and as warm as he ever
bestowed upon any contemporary. With the exception of Col. Matheny,
we find none of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar friends complaining of Judge
Trumbull; but as many of them as have spoken in the records before us
(and they are numerous and prominent) speak of the purity, devotion,
and excellence of Judge Trumbull in the most unreserved and unaffected
manner. In fact and in truth, he did literally nothing to advance his
own interest: he solicited no vote, and got none which did not come to
him by reason of the political necessities of the time. His election
consolidated the Anti-Nebraska party in the State, and, in the language
of Mr. Parks, his "first encounter with Mr. Douglas in the Senate filled
the people of Illinois with admiration for his abilities; and the ill
feeling caused by his election gradually passed away."
But Mr. Douglas had a graver charge to make against Mr. Lincoln than
that of a simple conspiracy with Trumbull to dispose of a great office.
He seems to have known nothing of Mr. Lincoln's secret understanding
with Lovejoy and his associates; but he found, that, on the day previous
to the election for Senator, Lovejoy had introduced a series of extreme
antislavery resolutions; and with these he attempted to connect Mr.
Lincoln, by showing, that, with two exceptions, every member who voted
for the resolutions on the 7th of February voted also for Mr. Lincoln
on the 8th. The first of the resolutions favored the restoration of the
prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30', and also a similar prohibition
as to "_all_ territory which now belongs to the United States, or which
may hereafter come under their jurisdiction." The second resolution
declared against the admission of any Slave State, no matter out of what
Territory, or in what manner formed; and the third demanded, first, the
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law, or, failing that, the
right of _habeas corpus_ and trial by jury for the person claimed as a
slave. The first resolution was carried by a strict party vote; while
the second and third were defeated. But Mr. Douglas asserted that Mr.
Lincoln was committed in favor of all three, because the members that
supported them subsequently supported him. Of all this Mr. Lincoln
took no further notice than to say that Judge Douglas might find the
Republican platform in the resolutions of the State Convention of that
party, held at Bloomington in 1856. In fact, he maintained a singular
reticence about the whole affair, probably dreading to go into it too
deeply, lest his rival should unearth the private pledge to Lovejoy, of
which Judge Logan has given us the history. When Judge Douglas produced
a set of resolutions which he said had been passed by the Abolitionists
at their Convention at Springfield, during the State Fair (the meeting
alluded to by Mr. Herndon), and asserted that Mr. Lincoln was one of the
committee that reported them, the latter replied with great spirit,
and said what he could say with perfect truth,--that he was not near
Springfield when that body met, and that his name had been used without
his consent.