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STUDIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY
BEAUMARCHAIS, AND THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. Two volumes.
Illustrated. _By Elizabeth S. Kite._
THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC LANDS, FROM 1840 TO 1862. FROM
PRE-EMPTION TO HOMESTEAD. _By George M. Stephenson._
GEORGIA AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE--THE EXECUTION OF A TRUST. _By James
Ross McCain._
LINCOLN, THE POLITICIAN. _By T. Aaron Levy._
THE AGRICULTURAL PAPERS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. _Edited by Walter Edwin
Brooke, Ph.B._
RICHARD G. BADGER, PUBLISHER, BOSTON
LINCOLN THE POLITICIAN
BY
T. AARON LEVY
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY RICHARD G. BADGER
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America
The Gorham Press, Boston. U.S.A.
PREFACE
Love of kind alone transcended Lincoln's political ambition. His career
as President, Statesman, Emancipator is a mystery unless his preparation
for leadership is demonstrated. He was no product of sudden elevation,
no creature of opportunity. No American Statesman was better equipped to
meet a national emergency. Lincoln the plain politician, the Illinois
legislator, the congressman, and the prairie debater, was a child of the
grocery store, of the pioneer gathering, of caucus and convention. It
was this political training that determined the mode in which he
breathed life into the momentous proclamation of the nineteenth century.
The world that admires his charity is in equal need of his policy.
Until the coming of the industrial movement following the Civil War, the
Commonwealth commanded the best heart and intelligence of the Republic.
Captains of industry had not usurped the places of power. A degraded
conception of devotion to the general welfare is in itself a sign of
degeneration. A corrupt political system is incompatible with a healthy
national existence. When individual aggrandizement is often preferred to
the common good, when private institutions frequently allure the genius
of a people, it is an inspiration to return to a politician who in
simplicity and sincerity believed that civil service and patriotism are
better than gold. An abounding demand of the day is a practical
political philosophy.
In spite of golden vision, of saintly Grail, civilization still
questions its real progress, and the sphynx of human suffering baffles
understanding. Life has ever been a ceaseless compromise between spirit
and matter, dream and reality, shadow and substance. In the never ending
conflict between the hosts of darkness and of light, of radicalism and
of conservatism, the battle often has been won by the use of superior
strategy. Wasted energy, a lack of well directed idealism and
indifference to the laws of human progress are the main obstacles to
human advancement. There is an ever present need of a fine sense of
proportion between vision and reality. The reformer needs more method,
while the practical representative needs more vision. The solution of
vexing governmental problems will be hastened by a clearer and more
general comprehension of the gigantic difficulties that stand in the way
of the domination of ideas over matter. High political success comes
from a profound knowledge of the character of the hostility thwarting
human progress. Patience as well as faith must be the guide. Society
suffers from misdirected emotion on the one hand and from impervious
apathy on the other. Sensational onslaught on evil has been often tested
and its futility proved. Likewise the common politician has made many
despair of democratic government. Abraham Lincoln represents the sanest
example of wise political action, his political life the best platform
for eternal warfare on organized evil.
The artist is measured not alone by his sleepless imagination but also
by the technic through which his vision assumes external form. Dante
skillfully gave voice to "ten silent centuries." Even so the dreams of
prophet and humanitarian await the touch of the political artist to find
immortality in visible manifestation. Neither a politician without a
luminous idea nor a dreamer without political craft ever develops into a
statesman. Democracy can solve its destiny only by an adequate
appreciation of the importance of working out its intrinsic mission. The
national ideal must become a reality. Dreamer and reformer are needed
and likewise the politician, the man of method, the student of matter,
the wielder of the tool. A heroic past will not save a nation. "The
central idea" of a people cannot be safely relinquished, but must
restlessly follow the law of practical evolution in each generation.
Abraham Lincoln was a child of American Democracy. He was trained in the
college of republican institutions. The danger to Democracy is the
treason of her own children. Lincoln stayed with his teachers--the plain
people. He never longed for a place they could not give nor an honor
they could not bestow. The aristocracy of externality, of clothes,
fashion, wealth, station and descent ever remained shadows to him. He
valued them at their real worth, with finer judgment than any man in
modern history. The possibility of such a career is in itself a
justification of republican government.
He walked the way of the average citizen, labored in the factory of
political methods. Living in the common atmosphere, loving the strife of
debate, near to the pioneer heart and mind, a student of popularity and
party organization, he was from the beginning a champion of the better
and broader humanity. He lived his democracy and led his people to a
higher realization of the resistless purposes of the republic. Striking
the better chords of their being, he led them to make a mere declaration
of freedom the possession of a forgotten people. During his political
pilgrimage he ever sought to widen in a practical way the Declaration of
Independence. Many prate much of Democracy but Lincoln dared to make it
the bread of humanity.
Abraham Lincoln used political machinery for the welfare of the people.
He was ambitious and loved success but not for its own sake. Station
gave him wider opportunity to practice his philosophy of life, his
affection for his fellowmen, and sympathy for the downtrodden. He is a
guide to the perplexed, to those who have not bartered their idealism in
the stifling fight. His life is richly calculated to deepen faith in the
ultimate triumph of righteousness, to lead to the conviction that spirit
and method are not sundered of necessity, that the vision is not
essentially a stranger to the party worker, that policy and compromise
have their place in the domain of progress.
He looms up in American History as a politician who glorified his craft,
who kept his hands clean in all of the sordidness of material success.
Vicarious government in a republic is ruinous. Lincoln is therefore an
inspiration for political consecration and the prophet of permanency. He
dedicated his talent to the external manifestations of the destiny of
the republic. His common sense, his practical sagacity and knowledge of
human nature and of its limitations for progress, his prudent
recognition of the labored advance of ethical sentiment and of the
solidarity of vested interests, as well as his superb idealism and
exalted spirit may well become food and life to those who believe in the
better politics. As these become the property and the possession of a
broader community the republic will know no fear, dissension will little
disturb her serenity and she will be equal to every emergency that may
threaten her integrity.
Beginning with the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Abraham Lincoln became and
remained a national figure. From that time his life belongs to the
history of the United States and has been dwelt upon with ever
increasing fullness and eulogy. By contrast his early political life has
been almost forgotten. This work covers that neglected period, dealing
with Lincoln the politician, showing his development and his training
for national leadership. The story is largely told in the words of
Lincoln himself, stress being laid on crucial incidents hitherto, in the
main, indifferently considered. A unity, dramatic in its simplicity,
appears in his recital, giving glimpses of a man who was guided by a
supreme political philosophy in seeking to externalize his gospel of the
brotherhood of man in statute and decision. Considerable attention is
devoted to Lincoln in Indiana and at New Salem, showing the peculiarity
of his power, his political popularity, and the rapid maturity of his
convictions as to the wisest methods of attacking entrenched evil. An
earnest, reverent and impartial study of his political career is an
enriching education. There is no need of hiding its humble, rude phases.
The more his life is lingered over, the greater the wonder grows at the
emerging of Lincoln from the humility and the poverty of his environment
with a "message of range and sweep," to the sons of men the world
over.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LINCOLN IN KENTUCKY 15
II. LINCOLN'S ENVIRONMENT IN INDIANA 21
III. THE POLITICAL HERO OF NEW SALEM 39
IV. PRACTICAL LEGISLATOR 58
V. PROTESTOR AND PATRIOT 76
VI. PARTISAN IN STATE AND NATIONAL AFFAIRS 87
VII. RESTLESS POLITICAL AMBITION 109
VIII. LINCOLN OPPOSES THE INCEPTION OF THE MEXICAN
WAR IN CONGRESS 121
IX. LINCOLN'S ATTACK ON SLAVERY IN CONGRESS 135
X. THE SCHOOL OF SOLITUDE 152
XI. AN EMANCIPATED POLITICIAN 162
XII. THE PILOT OF THE NEW FAITH IN ILLINOIS 181
XIII. LINCOLN AND THE DRED SCOTT DECISION 197
XIV. LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN ILLINOIS 201
XV. THE DAWN OF NATIONAL LEADERSHIP 207
XVI. THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 213
BIBLIOGRAPHY 223
INDEX 227
LINCOLN THE POLITICIAN
CHAPTER I
LINCOLN IN KENTUCKY
The forefathers of Abraham Lincoln, like thousands of Western pioneers,
were of a sturdy English lineage. His immediate ancestry, however, was
less distinguished than that of many whose names are forgotten and whose
influence on American history is imperceptible. Every effort to explain
his career through an illustrious parentage has proved altogether
futile.
Lincoln's grandfather belonged to that band of fearless adventurers in
Kentucky, whose ideal was a lonely house in the middle of a vast farm,
even though maintained in the presence of skulking redskins.[1] It was
in this land that earned the title of "the Dark and Bloody Ground," that
a common frontier tragedy made the grandmother of Lincoln a widow. For
one day while her husband was in the fields, a short distance from the
house, with their youngest son Thomas, a sudden shot from an Indian
ambush broke the stillness of the woods and the father fell dead. The
oldest son Mordecai looking out of the loop hole in the loft of the
house saw an Indian raising his little brother from the ground. Aiming
at a silver ornament on the breast of the redman, he brought him down.
The boy ran to the cabin and the mother opened the door. She hastened
to a more settled community where her son Thomas, the father of the
President, grew to a shiftless manhood.[2]
[1] Shaler, 116.
[2] Lamon, 7-8.
The inhabitants of Kentucky were bred in the school of hardship. The
battle with the forest and buffalo abated, but there remained the heroic
fight with the soil. Splendid virile qualities were born in the strife
with the Indians and the forest. Inventions were yet unknown and a
living was drawn from the earth only through grinding labor. Yet
frontier life rapidly gave way to the march of civilization, the trail
and the path to the highway.
Hunters and warriors became tillers of the field. The merchant and
manufacturer, the pioneer preacher, physician, lawyer and politician
appeared with the onward tide of events.
The places of learning were few. Now and then a struggling teacher gave
all that he had from his humble store to the young confidently entrusted
to his care. Still something in the little log cabin school-house, even
on unfrequented paths, developed character. Out of the battle with
adverse conditions, with few advantages and manifold difficulties, came
statesmen, and even scholars, men who laid the foundation of states, who
guided the nation through its crises, and were equal to every emergency
that endangered its vitality.
The law abiding character of the people was notably evinced by the
supreme patience with which they effected their separation from the
mother state, Virginia.[3] With wisdom they established courts of
justice and the law of the land was speedily enforced. A malefactor who
violated the statute against card playing, after imprisonment, turned
his back on Kentucky, swearing "that it was the meanest country a white
man ever got into."[4]
[3] Shaler, 107.
[4] Milburn, 65.
The pioneers of Kentucky had in a high degree the instinct of
government, the passion for politics. Their sense of liberty was
tempered by devotion to constitutional principles and reverence for the
written law. The restless spirit of adventure was tamed by the potency
of political responsibilities. At an early day, they displayed interest
even in national problems. Their views were kindred to those of
Virginia. Accustomed to restrain their own freedom, they did not favor
the coercive measures of a distant, unknown, strong and centralized
government.[5] The political policy of Washington was far from popular;
that of Adams was odious.[6] The presidential contest between Adams and
Jefferson agitated Kentucky. Discussions were frequent and widespread
and even women participated. A pioneer boy was so elated over the
triumph of Jefferson that, sitting in his chamber alone, he drank in
cold water thirteen toasts in celebration of the triumphant event.[7]
[5] Ranck, 181-2, 216.
[6] Collins, 1, 284.
[7] Drake, 211.
It is probable that even in his infancy Lincoln listened at the fireside
to many political controversies. In that case he heard doctrines
advocated destructive of the national sovereignty, vitally hostile to
those avowed and cherished by him in his public career. Traces of his
early political surroundings on his vital convictions are hardly
discernible. Lincoln became a national politician with little patience
for the popular doctrine of State Sovereignty. He belonged to the
Federal party by instinct. No American statesman was broader in his
outlook of the general welfare. It is worthy of note that he passed his
infancy in Kentucky; his boyhood and minority in Indiana, and a varied
career in the State of Illinois. Not being the son of a single community
or commonwealth, he did not look to any individual state with fullness
of affection. He was a citizen of the Republic.
As early as 1790, an effort was made in Kentucky to promote the gradual
abolition of slavery. The arrival of Clay strengthened this movement.
Strong passions were aroused by the angry discussions that followed this
futile endeavor. About 1810 the number of slaves increased perceptibly.
The blighting effects of the institution soon began their revelation.
Labor was deemed disgraceful and demeaning. The possession of slaves,
not "high intellectual and moral endowments," became the test of social
status. Almost everything was subordinate to the dominating institution.
Such, in general, was the state of society in Kentucky when Thomas
Lincoln, in 1816, made his weary trail through tangled woodland to the
wild forests of Spencer County, Indiana. He was one of the multitude
discouraged with prospects in the Southern states. It was frequently the
overbearing conduct of slaveholders, rather than hatred to slavery, that
led the pioneer to leave the land of his nativity. Still it is amazing
that the majority of these emigrants bore no resentment to the
institution that provoked their removal, but became or remained vigorous
advocates in maintaining its supremacy.[8]
[8] Palmer,9. Drake, 208-209.
Efforts have been made to account for Thomas Lincoln's movement by
reason of his extreme hostility to slavery. Lamon indulges in a more
prosaic explanation, stating that there were not more than fifty slaves
in Hardin County; that it was practically a free community; that his
more fortunate relatives in other parts of the State had no scruples to
their ownership; that he was wanderer by nature gaining neither riches
nor credit; and that a quarrel with a neighbor, whose nose he bit off,
made him more anxious than ever to leave Kentucky.[9] Lincoln in his
campaign biography remarks that this removal was partly on account of
slavery, but chiefly on account of the difficulty in land titles in
Kentucky.[10] Ida Tarbell even endeavors to make a sort of Abolitionist
out of Thomas Lincoln. She quotes an old man, who claims that he was
present at the wedding of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, and that Tom
Lincoln and Nancy and Sally Bush were steeped full of Jess Head's
notions about the wrong of slavery and the rights of man, as explained
by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.[11] If this were the fact, it is
very strange that Thomas Lincoln never thereafter manifested any hatred
of slavery during a long life. If Thomas Lincoln had been a zealous
advocate of the rights of the black man, is it not stranger still that
his son never even hinted at receiving the slightest impetus to
anti-slavery opinions from his father? The long silence of Thomas,
Abraham and Sally Bush Lincoln disproves the contention that Thomas
Lincoln was a friend or champion of the enslaved, or that his views
differed from the prevailing sentiment in regard to Abolitionism.
[9] Lamon, 16-17.
[10] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 639.
[11] McClure, 234.
One incident looms up in the brief stay of Abraham in Kentucky. "I had
been fishing one day," said Lincoln, "and caught a little fish which I
was taking home. I met a soldier in the road, and having always been
told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my
fish."[12] This story strikingly displays the influence of his mother.
Events were few in his early life, and made a correspondingly abiding
impression.
[12] Nicolay and Hay, 1, 27.
Lincoln was seven years old when he passed beyond the borders of
Kentucky. There he received the rudiments of an education from two
nomadic teachers. At the time of his departure, caste feeling was
beginning to dominate society in Kentucky, but Lincoln never showed any
of its manifestations. "He was," says Frederick Douglas, "the first
great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no
single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself
of the difference of color, and I thought that all the more remarkable
because he came from a state where there were black laws."[13]
[13] Rice, 193.
No human mind would have selected Hardin County for the birthplace of
the man who was to grapple with the most portentous problem in all
American history. For the slavery question baffled the wisdom of the
makers of the Constitution. It darkened the last hours of the stalwart
statesmen, Webster, Clay and Calhoun. It tried and tested the endurance
of this nation in a crisis of grave moment.