The services and fame of Mr. Lincoln are so identified with the
organization, doings and character of the Republican Party, that
something of the history of that party is the necessary incident of
every attempt to set forth the services and the fame of Mr. Lincoln.
In a very important sense Mr. Lincoln may be regarded as the founder of
the Republican Party. He was its leader in the first successful
national contest, and it was during his administration as President
that the policy of the party was developed and its capacity for the
business of government established. The Republican Party gave to Mr.
Lincoln the opportunity for the services on which his fame rests, and
the fame of Mr. Lincoln is the inheritance of the Republican Party.
His eulogy is its encomium, and therefore when we set forth the
character and services of Mr. Lincoln we set forth as well the claims
of the Republican Party to the gratitude and confidence of the country,
and the favorable opinion of mankind.
If it could be assumed that for the Republican Party the Book of Life
is already closed, it is yet true that that party is an historical
party and Mr. Lincoln is an historical personage, not less so than
Cromwell, Napoleon, or Washington, and all without the glamor that
rests upon the brows of successful military chieftains.
Of Mr. Lincoln's predecessors in the Presidential office, two only,
Washington and Jefferson, can be regarded as historical persons in a
large view of history. The author of the Declaration of Independence
is so identified with the history of the country that that history
cannot outlast his name and fame.
As the author of that Declaration and as the exponent of new and
advanced ideas of government, Jefferson was elected to the Presidency,
but his administrations, excepting only the acquisition of Louisiana,
were not marked by distinguished ability, nor were they attended or
followed by results which have commanded the favorable opinion of
succeeding generations.
Washington had no competitors. The gratitude of his countrymen rebuked
all rivalries. He was borne to the Presidency by a vote quite
unanimous, and he was supported in the discharge of his duties by a
confidence not limited by the boundaries of the Republic.
It is only a moderate exaggeration to say that when Mr. Lincoln was
nominated for the Presidency, he was an unknown man; he had performed
no important public service; his election was not due to personal
popularity, nor to the strength of the party that he represented; but
to the divisions among his opponents.
In 1862, when eleven hostile States were not represented in the
Government, the weakness of the administration was such that only a
bare majority of the House of Representatives was secured after a
vigorous and aggressive campaign on the part of the Republican Party.
Thus do the circumstances and incidents of the formative period in
Mr. Lincoln's career illustrate and adorn the events that distinguished
the man, the party and the country.
I am quite conscious that in our attempt to give Mr. Lincoln a
conspicuous place in the ranks of historical personages, we are to
encounter a large and intelligent public opinion which claims that
distance in time and even distance in space are the necessary conditions
of a wise and permanent decision.
The representatives of that opinion maintain that contemporaries are too
near the object of vision, that to them a comprehensive view is
impossible, and that the successive generations of one's countrymen
may be influenced by inherited passions, or by transmitted traditions.
Some of us were Mr. Lincoln's contemporaries, and one and all we are
his countrymen, and in advance we accept joyfully any qualifications
of our opinions that may be made in other lands or by other ages, if
qualifying facts shall be disclosed hereafter. But nearness of
observation, and a knowledge of the events with which Mr. Lincoln's
public life was identified, may have given to his associates and
co-workers opportunities for a sound judgment that were not possessed
by contemporary critics and historians of other lands, and that the
students of future times will be unable to command.
The recent practical improvements in the art of printing, the telegraph
and the railway, have furnished to mankind the means of reaching safe
conclusions in all matters of importance, including biography and
history, with a celerity and certainty which to former ages were
unknown. In these five and twenty years, since the death of Mr.
Lincoln, there has been a wonderful exposition of the events and
circumstances of the stupendous contest in which he was the leading
figure, and all that knowledge is now consummated on the pages of
Nicolay and Hay's complete and trustworthy history. Of the minor
incidents of Mr. Lincoln's career, time and research will disclose
many facts not now known, which may lend coloring to a character whose
main features, however, cannot be changed by time nor criticism. The
nature of Mr. Lincoln's services we can comprehend, but their value
will be more clearly realized and more highly appreciated by posterity.
As to the nature of those services the judgment of his own generation
is final--it can never be reversed. Indeed, it may be asserted of
historical personages generally, that the judgment of contemporaries is
never reversed. Attempts have been made to reverse the judgment of
contemporaries, in the cases of Judas Iscariot, of Henry the Eighth,
and of Shakespeare, and I venture the assertion that all these attempts
have failed, most signally. In our own country there have been no
reversals. Modifications of opinions there have been--growth in some
cases, decrease in others, but absolute change in none. The country
has grown towards Hamilton and away from Jefferson. They are, however,
as they were at the beginning of the last century, the representatives
of antagonistic ideas in government, but their common patriotism is
as yet unchallenged. It is the fate of those who take an active part
in public affairs, to be misjudged during their lives, but death
softens the asperities of political and religious controversies and
tempers the judgment of those who survive. Franklin, Washington,
Jackson, Clay and Webster, are to this generation what they were to the
survivors of the respective generations to which they belonged. Mr.
Calhoun has suffered by the attempt to make a practical application of
his ideas of government, but the nature and dangerous character of those
ideas were as fully understood at the time of his death as they are at
the present moment.
I pass over as unworthy of serious consideration the detractions and
attacks, sometimes thoughtless, and sometimes malicious, to which Mr.
Lincoln was subject during his administration. He made explanations
and replied to these detractions and attacks only when they seemed to
put in peril the fortunes of the country; but when he made replies,
there were none found, either among his political friends or his
political enemies who were capable of making an adequate answer.
Consult, as we may consult, his correspondence in regard to the
transit of troops through Maryland, in regard to the invasion of
Virginia, in case the city of Washington should be attacked or
menaced from the right bank of the Potomac, in regard to the suspension
of the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_, in regard to the arrest
of Vallandingham, in regard to our foreign relations, and, finally,
consult his numerous papers in regard to the objects for which the
war should be prosecuted, and the means, as well, by which it could be
prosecuted. Consider, also, that this work was done by a man called to
the head of an administration that had no predecessor, to the management
of the affairs of a government distracted by civil war, its navy
scattered, its treasury bankrupted, its foreign relations disturbed by
a traditional and almost universal hostility to republican institutions,
and all while he was threatened constantly by an adverse public
judgment in that section of the country in which his hopes rested
exclusively. And consider, also, that Mr. Lincoln had had little or
no experience on the statesmanship side of his political career, that
as an attorney and advocate he had dealt only with local and municipal
laws; that he was separated by circumstances from a practical
acquaintance with maritime and international jurisprudence, and yet
consider further with what masterful force he rebuked timid or
untrustworthy friends who would have abandoned the contest and consented
to the independence of the seceding States, in the vain hope that time
might aid in the recovery of that which by pusillanimity had been lost;
with what serenity of manner he put aside the suggestion of Mr. Seward
that war should be declared against France and Spain as a means of
quieting domestic difficulties which were even then represented by
contending armies; with what calmness of mind he laid aside Mr.
Greeley's letter of despair and self-reproach of July 29, 1861, and
proceeded with the preparation of his programme of military operations
from every base line of the armies of the Republic; with what skill and
statesmanlike foresight he corrected Mr. Seward's letter to Mr. Adams
in regard to the recognition by Great Britain of the belligerent
character of the Confederate States; and, finally, consider with what
firmness and wisdom he annulled the proclamations of Fremont and
Hunter, and assumed to himself exclusively the right and the power to
deal with the subject of slavery in the rebellious States. In what
other time, to what other ruler have questions of such importance been
presented, and under circumstances so difficult? And to what other
ruler can we assign the ability to have met and to have managed
successfully all the difficult problems of the Civil War? It cannot be
claimed for Mr. Lincoln that he had had any instructive military
experience, or that he had any technical knowledge of the military
art; but it may be said with truth that his correspondence with the
generals of the army, and his memoranda touching military operations
indicate the presence of a military quality or facility, which in
actual service might have been developed into talent or even genius.
His letter to General McClellan, of October 13, 1862, is at once a
memorable evidence and a striking illustration of his faculty on the
military side of his official career. He sets forth specifically, and
in the alternative, two plans of operation, and with skill and caustic
severity he contrasts the inactivity and delays of General McClellan,
with the vigor of policy and activity of movement which characterized
the campaign on the part of the enemy. He brings in review the facts
that General McClellan's army was superior in numbers, in equipment,
and in all the material of war. The President in conclusion said:
"this letter is not to be considered as an order," and yet it is
difficult to reconcile the continued inactivity of General McClellan
with the claim of his friends that he was a patriotic, not to say an
active, supporter of the cause of the Union. With that letter in hand
a patriotic and sensitive commander would have acted at once upon one
of the alternatives presented by the President, or he would have formed
a plan of campaign for himself and ordered a movement without delay, or
he would have asked the President to relieve him from duty. No one of
these courses was adopted, and the policy of inactivity was continued
until Lee regained the vantage ground which he abandoned when he
crossed the Potomac into Maryland. It is at this point, and in this
juncture of affairs that the policy of Mr. Lincoln requires the
explanation of a friendly critic. The historian of the future may
wonder at the procrastination of the President. He may criticize his
conduct in neglecting to relieve McClellan when it was apparent that he
would not avail himself of the advantages that were presented by the
victory at Antietam. The explanation or apology, is this, in substance:
The Army of the Potomac had been created under the eye of McClellan and
the officers and men were devoted to him as their leader and chief.
They had had no opportunity for instituting comparisons between him and
other military men. After Pope's defeat, the army had been unanimous,
substantially, in the opinion that McClellan should be again placed in
command. The President had yielded to that opinion against his own
judgment, and against the unanimous opinion of his Cabinet. Having
thus yielded, it was wise to test McClellan until the confidence of the
army and the country should be impaired, or, as the President hoped
would be the result, until McClellan should satisfy the Administration
and the army, that he was equal to the duty imposed upon him. Hence
the delay until the 5th of November, when McClellan was relieved,
finally, from the military service of the country.
It was known to those who were near President Lincoln, that he was a
careful student of the war maps and that he had daily knowledge of the
position and strength of our armies. I recall the incident of meeting
President Lincoln on the steps of the Executive Mansion at about eleven
o'clock in the evening of the day when the news had but just reached
Washington that Grant had crossed the Black River and that the army was
in the rear of Vicksburg. The President was returning from the War
Office with a copy of the despatch in his hand. I said:--
"Mr. President, have you any news?" He said in reply:
"Come in, and I will tell you."
After reading the despatch, the President turned to his maps and traced
the line of Grant's movements as he then understood and comprehended
those movements. That night the President became cheerful, his voice
took on a new tone--a tone of relief, of exhilaration--and it was
evident that his faith in our ultimate success had been changed into
absolute confidence. In the dark days of 1862 he had never despaired
of the Republic, when others faltered, he was undismayed. He put aside
the suggestion of Mr. Seward that he should surrender the chief
prerogative of his office; he rebuked the suggestion of General Hooker
that he should declare himself dictator; and he treated with silent
contempt the advice of General McClellan, from Harrison's Landing, in
July, 1862, that the President should put himself at the head of the
army with a general in command, on whom he could rely, and thus assume
the dictatorship of the Republic. He asserted for himself every
prerogative that the laws and the Constitution conferred upon him, and
he declined to assume any power not warranted by the title of office
which he held. He was resolute in his purpose to perform every duty
that devolved upon him, but he declared that the responsibility of
preserving the Government rested upon the people.
Of the officers who successively were at the head of the Army of the
Potomac, none ever possessed his entire confidence, until General
Grant assumed that command, in person. His letter to General Grant
when he entered upon the Campaign of the Wilderness contains conclusive
evidence that his confidence was given to that officer, without
reservation.
Turning again to the civil side of his administration, consider the
steps by which he led the country up to the point where it was willing
to accept the abolition of slavery in the States engaged in the
rebellion. History must soon address itself to generations of
Americans who will have had no knowledge of the institution of slavery
as an existing fact. Indeed, at the present moment, more than two
thirds of the population of the United States have no memory of the
time when slavery was the dominating force in the politics of the
country, when it was interwoven in the daily domestic life of the
inhabitants of fifteen States; when it muzzled the press, perverted
the Scriptures, compelled the pulpit to become its apologist, and when
successive generations of statesmen were brought down on an "equality
of servitude" before an irresponsible and untitled oligarchy.
As early as 1839, Mr. Clay estimated the value of the slaves at
$1,200,000,000, and upon the same basis, their value in 1860, exceeded
$2,000,000,000. This estimate conveys only an inadequate idea of the
power of slavery and it presents only an imperfect view of the
difficulties which confronted Mr. Lincoln in 1861 and 1862. Delaware,
Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri were slave States, and
all of them, with the exception of Delaware, were hesitating between
secession and the cause of the Union. They were in favor of the Union,
if slavery could be saved with the Union, but it was doubtful in all
the year 1861, whether those States could be held, to the "Lincoln
Government" as it was derisively called, if the abolition of slavery
were a recognized part of our public policy. Nor is this even yet a
full statement of the difficulties which confronted Mr. Lincoln. With
varying degrees of intensity, the Democratic Party of the North
sympathized with the South in its attempts to dissolve the Union.
During the entire period of the war, New York, Ohio and Indiana were
divided States, and Indiana was only kept in line by the active and
desperate fidelity of Oliver P. Morton. In the presence of these
difficulties Mr. Lincoln recommended the purchase of all the slaves in
the States not in rebellion; then he suggested the deportation of the
manumitted slaves and the free blacks, to Central America, and for this
purpose an appropriation was made; then came the proposition to give
pecuniary aid to States that might voluntarily make provision for the
abolition of slavery, and then came, finally, the statute of July,
1862, by which slaves captured, and the slaves of all persons engaged
in the rebellion were declared to be free. It is not probable that Mr.
Lincoln entertained the opinion that these measures, one or all, would
secure the complete abolition of slavery, but they gave to the slave-
holders of the border States an opportunity to obtain compensation
for the loss of their slaves, and the pendency of these propositions
occupied the attention of the country while the formative processes were
going on, which matured finally in the opinion that slavery and the
Union could no longer co-exist. In the same time the country arrived at
the conclusion that separation and continuous peace were impossible.
The alternative was this: Slavery, a division of territory, and a
condition of permanent hostility on the one side; and on the other, a
union of States, domestic peace, a government of imperial power, with
equality of citizenship in the States and an equality of States in the
Union. Thus his measures, which were at once measures of expediency and
of delay, prepared the public mind to receive his monitory Proclamation
of September 1862. In that time the border States had come to realize
the fact that the negroes were no longer valuable as property, and they
therefore accepted emancipation as a means of ending the controversy.
To the Republicans of the North, the Proclamation was a welcome message;
to the Democrats it was a result which they had predicted, and against
which they had in vain protested. But the controversy would not have
ended with the war. Slavery existed in the States that had not
participated in the rebellion, and the legality of the Emancipation
Proclamation might be drawn in question in the courts. One thing more
was wanted, an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery
everywhere within the jurisdiction of the Government. This was secured
after a protracted struggle, and the result was due in a pre-eminent
degree to the personal and official influence of Mr. Lincoln. In one
phrase it may be said that every power of his office was exerted to
secure the passage, in the Thirty-eighth Congress, of the resolution,
by which the proposed amendment was submitted to the States. Mr.
Lincoln did not live to see the consummation of his great undertaking,
in the cause of Freedom, but the work of ratification by the States
was accelerated by his death, and on the 18th day of December, 1865,
Mr. Seward, then Secretary of State of the United States, made
proclamation that the amendment had been ratified by twenty-seven of the
thirty-six States then composing the Union, and that slavery and
involuntary servitude were from that time and forever forth impossible
within our limits. Such was then the universal opinion in all America.
It was our example that wrought the abolition of slavery in Brazil, and
in colonies of Spain and Portugal; it has led to the extermination of
the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and it was an inspiration to the nations
of Europe in their effort to destroy the traffic in human beings on the
continent of Africa.
There is an aspect of Mr. Lincoln's career, which must attract general
attention and command universal sympathy. His loneliness in his office
and in the performance of his duties is deeply pathetic. It is true
that Congress accepted and endorsed his measures as they were presented
from time to time, but there were bitter complaints on account of his
delays on the slavery question, and not infrequently doubts were
expressed as to the sincerity of his avowed opinions. There were
little intrigues in Congress, and personal aspirations in the Cabinet
in regard to the succession. Of the commanders of the Army of the
Potomac from McDowell to Meade, each and all had failed to win
victories, or they had failed to secure the reasonable advantages of
victories won. There were divisions in the Cabinet which were
aggravated by personal rivalries. On one occasion, leading Republican
members of Congress engaged in a movement for a change in the Cabinet;
a movement which was without a precedent and wholly destitute of
justification under our system of government.
His want of faith in his Cabinet was shown in his preliminary statement
when he proceeded to read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Mr. Lincoln
was then about to take the most important step ever taken by a President
of the United States and yet he informed the men, the only men whose
opinions he could command by virtue of his office that the main
question was not open for discussion; that the question had been by him
already decided, and that suggestions from them would be received only
in reference to the formalities of the document.
It may be the truth, and our estimation of Mr. Lincoln would not be
lowered, if, indeed, it were shown to be the truth, that he chose to
act upon his own judgment in a matter of the supremest gravity, and
in which, from the nature of the case, the sole responsibility was
upon him. On the great question of the abolition of slavery his mind
reached a definite conclusion, a conclusion on which he could act, but
neither too early nor too late. The Proclamation was issued at a
moment when the exigencies of the war justified its issue as a military
necessity, and when, as a concurrent fact, the public mind was first
prepared to receive it, and to give to the measure the requisite support.
Mr. Lincoln prepared the way for the reorganization of the government.
Under him the old order of things was overthrown and the introduction
of a new order became possible. Through his agency the Constitution
of the United States has been brought into harmony with the Declaration
of Independence. The system of slavery has perished, the institutions
of the country have been reconciled to the principles of freedom, and
in these changes we have additional guarantees for the perpetuity of
the Union.
A just eulogy of Mr. Lincoln is a continuing encomium of the Republican
Party. By the election of 1860 he became the head of that party and
during the four years and more of his official life he never claimed
to be better nor wiser than the party with which he was identified.
From first to last he had the full confidence of the army and of the
masses of the voters in the Republican Party, and of that confidence
Mr. Lincoln was always assured. Hence he was able to meet the
aspirations of rivals and the censures of the disappointed with a good
degree of composure. To the honor of the masses of the Republican
Party it can be said that they never faltered in their devotion to the
President and in that devotion and in the fidelity of the President to
the principles of the party were the foundations laid on which the
greatness of the country rests.
The measure of gratitude due to Mr. Lincoln and to the Republican Party
may be estimated by a comparison of the condition of the country when he
accepted power in March, 1861, with its condition in 1885, and in 1893,
when we yielded the administration to the successors of the men who had
well-nigh wrecked the Government in a former generation.
The Republican Party found the Union a mass of sand; it left it a
structure of granite. It found the Union a by-word among the nations
of the earth, it left it illustrious and envied, for the exhibition of
warlike powers, for the development of our industrial and financial
resources in times of peace, for the unwavering fidelity with which
every pecuniary obligation was met; for the generous treatment
measured out with an unstinted hand to the conquered foe; and, finally,
for the cheerful recognition of the duty resting upon the Republican
Party and upon the country to enfranchise, to raise up, to recreate
the millions that had been brought out of bondage.
This work was not accomplished fully in Mr. Lincoln's time, but he was
the leader of ideas and policies which could have no other consummation.
At the end it must be said of Mr. Lincoln that he was a great man, in a
great place, burdened with great responsibilities, coupled with great
opportunities, which he used for the benefit of his country and for the
welfare of the human race. Among American statesmen he is conspicuously
alone. From Washington to Grant he is separated by the absence on his
part of military service and military renown. On the statesmanship side
of his career, there is no one from Washington along the entire line
who can be considered as the equal or the rival of Lincoln.
And we may wisely commit to other ages and perhaps to other lands the
full discussion and final decision of the relative claims of
Washington and Lincoln to the first place in the list of American
statesmen.
XLIV
SPEECH ON COLUMBUS