LINCOLN OPPOSES THE INCEPTION OF THE MEXICAN WAR IN CONGRESS
It is quite generally believed in Sangamon County that a bargain was
entered into between Baker, Lincoln, Logan and Hardin whereby the "four
should 'rotate' in Congress until each had had a term."[204] There is
evidence in the writings of Lincoln that there was some kind of an
understanding between Baker, Lincoln and Logan. There is a startling
story as to the character of the arrangement. A delegate to the Pekin
Convention of 1843 states, that he was asked by Lincoln immediately
after the nomination of Hardin, if he would favor a resolution
recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the
affirmative Lincoln told the delegate to prepare the resolution, and he
would support it. It created a profound sensation, especially among the
friends of Hardin. After angry discussion, the resolution passed by a
bare majority.[205] This incident illustrates the sagacious policy of
Lincoln in furthering his restless political ambition. He publicly
declined to contest the nomination of Baker in 1844. Pursuant to a
widespread expectation, Baker did not stand in the way of Lincoln two
years later.
[204] Lamon, 275.
[205] Tarbell, 195-6.
Lincoln kept close to those who moulded public opinion,--the men of the
press. Then the personality of an editor was a weighty factor in the
decision of political contests. He wrote to an editor and supporter in
1846 that as the paper at Pekin had nominated Hardin for governor and
the Alton paper indirectly nominated him for Congress, it would give
Hardin a great start, and perhaps use him up, if the Whig papers of the
district should nominate Hardin for Congress, and that he wished that
the editor would let nothing appear in his paper which might operate
against him.[206]
[206] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 82.
To this, he received a reply that this supporter had, in fact, nominated
Hardin for governor. The tactful response deserves attention: "Let me
assure you that if there is anything in my letter indicating an opinion
that the nomination for governor, which I supposed to have been made in
the Pekin paper, was operating or could operate against me, such was not
my meaning. Now that I know that nomination was made by you, I say that
it may do me good, while I do not see that it can do me harm. But, while
the subject is in agitation, should any of the papers in the district
nominate the same man for Congress, that would do me harm; and it was
that which I wished to guard against. Let me assure you that I do not
for a moment suppose that what you have done is ill-judged, or that
anything that you shall do will be."[207]
[207] _Ibid._, 83.
"I should be pleased," he wrote another friend, "if I could concur with
you in the hope that my name would be the only one presented to the
convention; but I cannot. Hardin is a man of desperate energy and
perseverance, and one that never backs out; and I fear, to think
otherwise is to be deceived in the character of our adversary. I would
rejoice to be spared the labor of a contest; but 'being in', I shall go
it thoroughly, and to the bottom." He then admonished his friend not to
relax any of his vigilance.[208]
[208] _Ibid._, 84.
He was sensitive to the shifting changes of the campaign. "Nathan
Dresser is here," he wrote a friend, "and speaks as though the contest
between Hardin and me is to be doubtful in Menard County.--I know he is
candid and this alarms me some--I asked him to tell me the names of the
men that were going strong for Hardin; he said Morris was about as
strong as any--Now, tell me, is Morris going it openly? You remember you
wrote me, that he would be neutral. Nathan also said that some man he
could not remember had said lately that Menard County was going to
decide the contest and that that made the contest very doubtful. Do you
know who that was?
"Don't fail to write me instantly on receiving telling me
all--particularly the names of those who are going strong against
me."[209]
[209] Tarbell, 1, 204.
The splendid generalship of Lincoln, his telling blows gradually
disposed of the gallant Hardin, who gracefully declined to be longer
considered as a candidate. Through the inspiration of Lincoln, with
equal gallantry, there promptly appeared in the leading Whig journal, a
statement superbly designed to soothe the dignity of his late
antagonist: "We have had, and now have, no doubt that he (Hardin) has
been, and now is, a great favorite with the Whigs of the district. He
states, in substance, that there was never any understanding on his part
that his name was not to be presented in the canvasses of 1844 and 1846.
This, we believe, is strictly true. Still, the doings of the Pekin
Convention did seem to point that way; and the general's voluntary
declination as to the canvass of 1844 was by many construed into an
acquiescence on his part. These things had led many of his most devoted
friends to not expect him to be a candidate at this time. Add to this
the relation that Mr. Lincoln bears, and has borne, to the party, and
it is not strange that many of those who are as strongly devoted to Gen.
Hardin as they are to Mr. Lincoln should prefer the latter at this time.
We do not entertain a doubt, that, if we could reverse the positions of
the two men, that a very large portion of those who now have supported
Mr. Lincoln most warmly would have supported Gen. Hardin quite as
warmly."[210]
[210] Lamon, 276-7.
He was a thorough politician. He attended to details himself. Like a
general on the battlefield, he kept his reserve forces well in hand. He
would rather minimize his own strength than mistake the power of
opposing forces. He never lost a victory through misplaced confidence.
Though he looked darkly at a contest, this rather increased than abated
his activity. From policy as well as inclination he did not engage in
the crimination of his adversaries. He had a marvelous capacity of
personally commanding the conduct of men.
Out of their ranks, the Democrats called the famed preacher--Peter
Cartwright, as their standard bearer in this Congressional contest.
Until he was sixteen years old, he was a slave to the common vices of
his day. His dramatic conversion during the revival of 1801 preluded the
marvelous career of a man who unflinchingly, for sixty years, "breasted
the storm and suffered the hardships" of his calling in forest and
prairie. His heroic treatment of Jackson shows the man. "Just then,"
Cartwright says, "I felt some one pull my coat in the stand, and turning
my head, my fastidious preacher, whispering a little loud, said:
'General Jackson has come in: General Jackson has come in.' I felt a
flash of indignation run all over me like an electric shock and facing
about to my congregation, and purposely speaking out audibly, I said,
'Who is General Jackson? If he don't get his soul converted, God will
damn him as quick as he would a Guinea negro!'"[211]
[211] Cartwright, 192.
The reasons that prompted Cartwright to follow the trail from Kentucky
to Illinois are of historical importance. "First, I would get entirely
clear of the evil of slavery. Second, I could raise my children to work
where work was not considered a degradation. Third, I believed I could
better my temporal circumstances, and procure lands for my children as
they grew up. And fourth, I could carry the gospel to destitute souls
that had, by their removal into some new country, been deprived of the
means of grace."[212] The South poorly reckoned the cost to her, of the
institution that drove into exile such master spirits, who enriched the
states of their adoption.
[212] _Ibid._, 245.
Hating human bondage, still he was no friend of abolitionism. He
declared that it riveted the chains of slavery tighter; blocked the way
to reasonable emancipation; threw fire brands into legislative halls;
that millions were expended every year in angry debates and that laws
for the good of the people were neglected; talents and money thrown
away; that prejudice, strife, and wrath, and every evil passion stirred
up until the integrity of the Union was in imminent danger, and that not
one poor slave was set free; not one dollar expended to colonize them
and send them home happy and free; that through unchristian, excited
prejudices mobs were fast becoming the order of the day.
He maintained that after more than twenty years' experience as a
traveling preacher in slave states, he was convinced that the most
successful way to ameliorate the condition of the slaves and
Christianize them, and finally secure their freedom was to treat their
owners kindly and not to meddle politically with slavery!
Patriot and prophet alike, he contended that abolitionism awakened a
bitter and wrathful spirit among the guardians of the black man that
made discord a partner in the Federal Union; that despite the legion
moral evils of slavery, he had never seen a rabid abolition or free soil
society that he could join, because they resorted to unjustifiable
agitation, confounding the innocent with the guilty, and that if force
was resorted to the Union would be dissolved, a civil war would follow,
death and carnage would ensue, and the only free nation on the earth
would be destroyed.[213] In early manhood, Cartwright cherished
sentiments that were brother to those Lincoln later avowed at the outset
of his career.
[213] Cartwright, 129.
In his autobiography, Cartwright states that he was twice elected as a
representative from Sangamon County, and he found that almost every
measure had to be carried by a corrupt bargain and sale.[214]
[214] _Ibid._, 262.
For nearly half a century he had traversed the western states. In nearly
every Methodist Church and mission his voice had summoned many to a
better life. His ministration to the sick, his rides at night over the
lonely prairie to the death bed had endeared him to thousands of homes.
He had a host of relations in the Congressional district. All this and
his steady advocacy of Jacksonian Democracy constituted him no paltry
antagonist.
An active campaign ensued. Lincoln was again subjected to the harsh
charge of religious infidelity. The Whigs, taking up the challenge
rallied to his support. Their activity soon turned the tide. Lincoln
carried the district by 1511, exceeding the vote of Clay in 1844 by
nearly 600. Sangamon County showed her loyalty by piling up a larger
majority than ever before given to a political favorite.[215] The
battle largely centered around the wisdom of a preacher participating in
politics. The pioneer, who twenty years before, had voted for Cartwright
had now become a citizen of a settled community. After this election,
there was no question as to the deep seated distrust of the average
voter permitting a church official to be the political representative of
the people.
[215] Herndon, 1, 259.
A Democrat who loathed the canvass of Cartwright still deemed it a hard
thing to vote against his party. So Lincoln told him that he would give
him a candid opinion as to whether the vote was needed or not. On the
day of election, Lincoln told the Democrat that he had got the
preacher,--and didn't want his vote.[216] With this power to foretell
results, Lincoln was more richly dowered than any modern leader. It was
this gift that enabled him to do and speak things that to other men
seemed ruinous.
[216] Lamon, 278.
The victory of Polk in its immediate results hardly surprised friend or
foe. His election was the signal gun of the Mexican war. Events were
rapidly hurried forward under the fostering guidance of the Tyler
administration and in its last gasp a messenger was dispatched to Texas
to mature the annexation.[217] In weighty words Greeley uttered the
protest of the aroused North, declaring that the annexation of Texas
challenged the regard of mankind and defied the consciences of our own
citizens; that for the first time our Union stood before the nations,
not merely as an upholder, but as a zealous, unscrupulous propagandist
of human slavery.[218] It required no special genius to provoke martial
hostilities and anxiety soon found ammunition to drive even a reluctant
opponent to the chance of battle. So Mexico was almost dared into the
inevitable combat.
[217] Nicolay & Hay, 1, 236.
[218] Greeley, 1, 178.
Until this time the nation was little stirred by political unrest and
strife. The battles in Congress that form so vast an asset of the
historian, hardly disturbed the daily life of the inventor, farmer,
mechanic and student. Lincoln entered the national Legislature at a
momentous period. For more than a third of a century, "grim visaged war
had smoothed her wrinkled front." The nation was lost in industrial
pursuits, the hero of the community was the business man. Patriotism
slumbered, national impulses seemed dead. Then the wild passion for war
awakened the people from apathy, they rejoiced that the spirit of the
fathers was still strong in them, that they had not forgotten Bunker
Hill and New Orleans. Commerce for the time forewent its eminence, the
soldier stepped to the front. In a moment the standard of the nation
shifted from the dollar to the deed. Men did not stop to debate the
righteousness of the war or what the end would be. They did not reason
as to its effect on the status of slavery. Emotion, not judgment, was
their guide. They knew only the pulsation of a subtle and subduing
patriotism. Many marched to the front, while others hurried on supplies
and ammunition to the seat of trouble. The present alone absorbed their
interest, busied every impulse.
Lincoln did not willingly come into conflict with this public sentiment.
He, too, was moved by the heroism of the hour, he too saw with pride the
flag unfurled and heard the throbbing drum. When Hardin and Baker and
Shields hastened from Springfield for the field of glory and danger, he
was one of the speakers at the parting public meeting. The
Congressman-elect urged a sturdy, vigorous prosecution of hostilities,
admonished all to permit no shame to the government and to stand by the
flag till peace came with honor.[219] This was not a reluctant politic
approbation, as Lamon intimates,[220] but a benediction upon the cause
of his country that came deep from the heart.
[219] Herndon, 1, 260.
[220] Lamon, 281.
The attitude of Lincoln toward the annexation of Texas is of importance,
not alone for its own intrinsic interest but as illustrating the opinion
of thousands of sober, patriotic citizens throughout the land. These had
no kinship with the radicals who regarded the conduct of the war, as
well as its inception, with bitter hostility; who feared the visitation
of Divine Power upon a conflict conceived in aggression. They were not
akin to the Democrats who looked neither to the right nor left but
marched over cherished principles of the Republic for the sake of
extending the territory and enlarging the activity of a sectional
institution.
Lincoln entered Congress with no thought of opposition to any phase of
the war. Like Grant, he doubtless knew that the man who criticized a war
in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong,
occupies no enviable place in life or history, and that he might better
advocate "war, pestilence and famine," than to act as an obstructionist
to a war already begun.[221]
[221] Grant, 45.
The President and his advisors would not allow the Whigs to vote alone
for supplies. They sought to interpolate resolutions expressing the
original justice of the war. Lincoln's interesting commentary on this
uncalled for procedure is worth quoting. "Upon these resolutions when
they shall be put on their passage I shall be compelled to vote; so that
I cannot be silent if I would. Seeing this, I went about preparing
myself to give the vote understandingly when it should come. I carefully
examined the President's message, to ascertain what he himself had said
and proved upon the point. The result of this examination was to make
the impression that, taking for true all the President states as facts,
he falls far short of proving his justification; and that the President
would have gone farther with his proof if it had not been for the small
matter that the truth would not permit him. Under the impression thus
made I gave the vote before mentioned."[222]
[222] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 101.
The issue once made, Lincoln and other Whigs did not hesitate; he did
not even hide in silence. He took up the challenge of the President that
war existed by the act of Mexico. He followed with probing resolutions,
with a series of penetrating questions that precluded quibbling. The
first one well illustrates the series.
"RESOLVED, By the House of Representatives, that the President of the
United States be respectfully requested to inform the House--
"First, whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as
in his message declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain,
at least after the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican revolution."[E]
[E] _Ibid._, 97.
The President never heeded them, nor does it appear that any friend of
the administration soberly attempted the sore task of facing their keen,
sabre-like stroke. They allowed little room for shifting, and demanded a
logical response. Three weeks later, came the speech which was
responsive to the desire of his Springfield friends to distinguish
himself.[223] It was sober and restrained in expression; curbed in
statement, concise in logic and comprehensive in treatment. He spoke
more like a distinguished jurist than a partisan pleader.
[223] _Ibid._, 96.
"Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very best evidence as to
whether Texas had actually carried her revolution to the place where the
hostilities of the present war commenced, let the President answer the
interrogatories I proposed, as before mentioned, or some other similar
ones. Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with
facts and not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where Washington
sat and so remembering, let him answer as Washington would answer. As a
nation should not, and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him
attempt no evasion--no equivocation. And if, so answering, he can show
that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed,--then
I am with him for his justification."[224] Then a sentence follows,
painful and remorseless in its treatment of the vacillating policy of
the President stating that his mind, taxed beyond its power, was running
hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface,
finding no position on which it could settle down and be at ease.[225]
[224] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 105.
[225] _Ibid._, 107.
This speech should have won him a high place in the national arena of
controversy and debate, were it not that the shifting standard of public
judgment often exalts the thing of the hour for intrinsic value,
ostentation for merit, popularity for worth. This speech may in itself
command the interest of those who would know the motives that led the
Whigs to their course of conduct. They did not seek hard duties, but
still they would not shirk or retreat when they showed their front.
Lincoln soon learned that his resolutions and speech, however
unanswerable, did not save him from the damaging charge of opposition to
the war of his country. Dissatisfaction ran through the Whig ranks in
Illinois. General discontent with the course of his partner even turned
Herndon into one of the malcontents. A letter soon advised Lincoln of
the condition, who sent a sturdy reply to the complaint on his vote on
Ashmun's amendment,--"That vote affirms that the war was unnecessarily
and unconstitutionally commenced by the President; and I will stake my
life that if you had been in my place you would have voted just as I
did. Would you have voted what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you
would not. Would you have gone out of the House--skulked the vote? I
expect not.--You are compelled to speak, and your only alternative is to
tell the truth or a lie. I cannot doubt which you would do."[226]
[226] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 110.
Later Herndon forwarded a constitutional argument in favor of the policy
of Polk ingeniously saying that it was the duty of the President as
Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, in the absence of Congress, if
the country was about to be invaded, to go, if necessary, into the very
heart of Mexico and prevent the invasion; that it would be a crime in
the executive to let the country be invaded in the least degree; that
the action of the President was a necessity.[227]
[227] Herndon, 1, 266.
The reply that hurried to Springfield was a supreme answer. No judge of
a high tribunal, no statesman of mature experience could have more
thoroughly disposed of a specious contention.[228] In this letter of
Lincoln there appears a might and an ability to grapple with a great
issue, a sincerity of purpose, a soberness of thought that well betokens
a student and patriot, whose heart was in unison with the inherent
purposes of the Republic. He insisted that the imperial function of the
Constitution in leaving the declaration of war with Congress was that no
one man should hold the power of bringing the oppression of war upon the
people.[229] Through this letter there looms up the man, who above all
men hated kingly power and domination, and the consequent impoverishment
of the people. Herndon, the Abolitionist, would, for the sake of
policy, sanction the inception of an unjust aggression, while the
conservative Lincoln stood resolutely when the hour summoned
uncompromising conduct; then his knees were as "unwedgeable as the
gnarled oak." When principle was at stake he sent policy to the rear. At
such times he was more aggressive than the radical.
[228] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 112.
[229] _Ibid._
A letter to the Editor of the _Tribune_ shows the deep hold that this
subject had on Lincoln, his restlessness to be rightly understood on the
theme. And the fact that he undertook to correct Horace Greeley in a
familiar tone is an indication that he was coming to the front as a
champion in the Whig ranks. He wrote the editor that he discovered a
paragraph in the _Tribune_ in which it was said that all Whigs and many
Democrats contended that the boundary of Texas stopped at the Nueces. He
contended that such a statement was a mistake which he disliked to see
go uncorrected in a leading Whig paper; that the large majority of Whigs
in the House of Representatives had not taken that position and that as
the position could not be maintained it gave the Democrats advantage of
them. In conclusion Lincoln asked the editor to examine what he said in
a printed speech that he was sending him.[230]
[230] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 133.
He earnestly wrote to a minister that he would be obliged for a
reference to any law, human or divine, in which an authority could be
found for saying that the action of the Government constituted "no
aggression." He then asked, "Is the precept 'Whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them' obsolete? of no force? of no
application?"[231]
[231] _Ibid._, 122.
He was not so elated with patriotism that he lost his standard of
righteousness. As he was an honest judge of his own conduct, so he was
of that of his country. This rare ability became a force of moment in
later years.
During the tumult of the debate on the Mexican war Lincoln wrote in his
own rare way that Stephens, of Georgia, a little slim, pale-faced,
consumptive man, with a voice like Logan's, had just concluded the very
best speech of an hour's length he ever heard; that his old withered dry
eyes were full of tears yet.[232]
[232] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 111.
His appreciation knew no sectional limits. His range of vision was not
bounded by the Mason and Dixon line. He was as much at home with the
sons of the South as of the North; he took the same interest in the
speech of Stephens of Georgia as he would in that of Webster.