THE PAPERS AND WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
COMPLETE
CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION
By Abraham Lincoln
Edited by Arthur Brooks Lapsley
With an Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt
The Essay on Lincoln by Carl Schurz
The Address on Lincoln by Joseph Choate
VOLUME 1.
INTRODUCTORY
Immediately after Lincoln's re-election to the Presidency, in an
off-hand speech, delivered in response to a serenade by some of his
admirers on the evening of November 10, 1864, he spoke as follows:
"It has long been a grave question whether any government not too strong
for the liberties of its people can be strong enough to maintain its
existence in great emergencies. On this point, the present rebellion
brought our republic to a severe test, and the Presidential election,
occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little
to the strain.... The strife of the election is but human nature
practically applied to the facts in the case. What has occurred in this
case must ever occur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In
any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall
have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.
Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn
wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.... Now that the
election is over, may not all having a common interest reunite in a
common fort to save our common country? For my own part, I have striven
and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I
have been here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom.
While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election
and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my
countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think for their own good, it adds
nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or
pained by the result."
This speech has not attracted much general attention, yet it is in a
peculiar degree both illustrative and typical of the great statesman who
made it, alike in its strong common-sense and in its lofty standard of
morality. Lincoln's life, Lincoln's deeds and words, are not only of
consuming interest to the historian, but should be intimately known to
every man engaged in the hard practical work of American political life.
It is difficult to overstate how much it means to a nation to have as
the two foremost figures in its history men like Washington and Lincoln.
It is good for every man in any way concerned in public life to feel
that the highest ambition any American can possibly have will be
gratified just in proportion as he raises himself toward the standards
set by these two men.
It is a very poor thing, whether for nations or individuals, to advance
the history of great deeds done in the past as an excuse for doing
poorly in the present; but it is an excellent thing to study the history
of the great deeds of the past, and of the great men who did them, with
an earnest desire to profit thereby so as to render better service in
the present. In their essentials, the men of the present day are much
like the men of the past, and the live issues of the present can be
faced to better advantage by men who have in good faith studied how the
leaders of the nation faced the dead issues of the past. Such a study of
Lincoln's life will enable us to avoid the twin gulfs of immorality and
inefficiency--the gulfs which always lie one on each side of the careers
alike of man and of nation. It helps nothing to have avoided one if
shipwreck is encountered in the other. The fanatic, the well-meaning
moralist of unbalanced mind, the parlor critic who condemns others but
has no power himself to do good and but little power to do ill--all
these were as alien to Lincoln as the vicious and unpatriotic
themselves. His life teaches our people that they must act with wisdom,
because otherwise adherence to right will be mere sound and fury without
substance; and that they must also act high-mindedly, or else what seems
to be wisdom will in the end turn out to be the most destructive kind of
folly.
Throughout his entire life, and especially after he rose to leadership
in his party, Lincoln was stirred to his depths by the sense of fealty
to a lofty ideal; but throughout his entire life, he also accepted human
nature as it is, and worked with keen, practical good sense to achieve
results with the instruments at hand. It is impossible to conceive of a
man farther removed from baseness, farther removed from corruption, from
mere self-seeking; but it is also impossible to conceive of a man of
more sane and healthy mind--a man less under the influence of that
fantastic and diseased morality (so fantastic and diseased as to be in
reality profoundly immoral) which makes a man in this work-a-day
world refuse to do what is possible because he cannot accomplish the
impossible.
In the fifth volume of Lecky's History of England, the historian draws
an interesting distinction between the qualities needed for a successful
political career in modern society and those which lead to eminence in
the spheres of pure intellect or pure moral effort. He says:
"....the moral qualities that are required in the higher spheres
of statesmanship [are not] those of a hero or a saint. Passionate
earnestness and self-devotion, complete concentration of every faculty
on an unselfish aim, uncalculating daring, a delicacy of conscience and
a loftiness of aim far exceeding those of the average of men, are here
likely to prove rather a hindrance than an assistance. The politician
deals very largely with the superficial and the commonplace; his art is
in a great measure that of skilful compromise, and in the conditions
of modern life, the statesman is likely to succeed best who possesses
secondary qualities to an unusual degree, who is in the closest
intellectual and moral sympathy with the average of the intelligent
men of his time, and who pursues common ideals with more than common
ability.... Tact, business talent, knowledge of men, resolution,
promptitude and sagacity in dealing with immediate emergencies, a
character which lends itself easily to conciliation, diminishes friction
and inspires confidence, are especially needed, and they are more likely
to be found among shrewd and enlightened men of the world than among men
of great original genius or of an heroic type of character."
The American people should feel profoundly grateful that the greatest
American statesman since Washington, the statesman who in this
absolutely democratic republic succeeded best, was the very man who
actually combined the two sets of qualities which the historian thus
puts in antithesis. Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, the Western
country lawyer, was one of the shrewdest and most enlightened men of the
world, and he had all the practical qualities which enable such a man to
guide his countrymen; and yet he was also a genius of the heroic type,
a leader who rose level to the greatest crisis through which this nation
or any other nation had to pass in the nineteenth century.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
SAGAMORE HILL, OYSTER BAY, N. Y., September 22, 1905.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
"I have endured," wrote Lincoln not long before his death, "a great
deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of
kindness not quite free from ridicule." On Easter Day, 1865, the world
knew how little this ridicule, how much this kindness, had really
signified. Thereafter, Lincoln the man became Lincoln the hero, year by
year more heroic, until to-day, with the swift passing of those who knew
him, his figure grows ever dimmer, less real. This should not be. For
Lincoln the man, patient, wise, set in a high resolve, is worth far more
than Lincoln the hero, vaguely glorious. Invaluable is the example of
the man, intangible that of the hero.
And, though it is not for us, as for those who in awed stillness
listened at Gettysburg with inspired perception, to know Abraham
Lincoln, yet there is for us another way whereby we may attain such
knowledge--through his words--uttered in all sincerity to those who
loved or hated him. Cold, unsatisfying they may seem, these printed
words, while we can yet speak with those who knew him, and look into
eyes that once looked into his. But in truth it is here that we find his
simple greatness, his great simplicity, and though no man tried less so
to show his power, no man has so shown it more clearly.
Thus these writings of Abraham Lincoln are associated with those of
Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, and of the other "Founders of the
Republic," not that Lincoln should become still more of the past, but,
rather, that he with them should become still more of the present.
However faint and mythical may grow the story of that Great Struggle,
the leader, Lincoln, at least should remain a real, living American.
No matter how clearly, how directly, Lincoln has shown himself in his
writings, we yet should not forget those men whose minds, from their
various view-points, have illumined for us his character. As this nation
owes a great debt to Lincoln, so, also, Lincoln's memory owes a great
debt to a nation which, as no other nation could have done, has been
able to appreciate his full worth. Among the many who have brought about
this appreciation, those only whose estimates have been placed in these
volumes may be mentioned here. To President Roosevelt, to Mr. Schurz
and to Mr. Choate, the editor, for himself, for the publishers, and on
behalf of the readers, wishes to offer his sincere acknowledgments.
Thanks are also due, for valuable and sympathetic assistance rendered in
the preparation of this work, to Mr. Gilbert A. Tracy, of Putnam, Conn.,
Major William H. Lambert, of Philadelphia, and Mr. C. F. Gunther, of
Chicago, to the Chicago Historical Association and personally to
its capable Secretary, Miss McIlvaine, to Major Henry S. Burrage, of
Portland, Me., and to General Thomas J. Henderson, of Illinois.
For various courtesies received, the editor is furthermore indebted to
the Librarian of the Library of Congress; to Messrs. McClure, Phillips
& Co., D. Appleton & Co., Macmillan & Co., Dodd, Mead & Co., and Harper
Brothers, of New York; to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Dana, Estes & Co.,
and L. C. Page & Co., of Boston; to A. C. McClure & Co., of Chicago; to
The Robert Clarke Co., of Cincinnati, and to the J. B. Lippincott Co.,
of Philadelphia.
It is hardly necessary to add that every effort has been made by the
editor to bring into these volumes whatever material may there properly
belong, material much of which is widely scattered in public libraries
and in private collections. He has been fortunate in securing certain
interesting correspondence and papers which had not before come into
print in book form. Information concerning some of these papers had
reached him too late to enable the papers to find place in their proper
chronological order in the set. Rather, however, than not to present
these papers to the readers they have been included in the seventh
volume of the set, which concludes the "Writings."
[These later papers are, in this etext, re-arranged into chronologic
order. D.W.]
October, 1905, A. B. L.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: AN ESSAY BY CARL SHURZ
No American can study the character and career of Abraham Lincoln
without being carried away by sentimental emotions. We are always
inclined to idealize that which we love,--a state of mind very
unfavorable to the exercise of sober critical judgment. It is therefore
not surprising that most of those who have written or spoken on that
extraordinary man, even while conscientiously endeavoring to draw a
lifelike portraiture of his being, and to form a just estimate of his
public conduct, should have drifted into more or less indiscriminating
eulogy, painting his great features in the most glowing colors, and
covering with tender shadings whatever might look like a blemish.
But his standing before posterity will not be exalted by mere praise of
his virtues and abilities, nor by any concealment of his limitations
and faults. The stature of the great man, one of whose peculiar charms
consisted in his being so unlike all other great men, will rather lose
than gain by the idealization which so easily runs into the commonplace.
For it was distinctly the weird mixture of qualities and forces in him,
of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that which
he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that made him
so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, gave him his singular
power over their minds and hearts, and fitted him to be the greatest
leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.
His was indeed a marvellous growth. The statesman or the military hero
born and reared in a log cabin is a familiar figure in American history;
but we may search in vain among our celebrities for one whose origin and
early life equalled Abraham Lincoln's in wretchedness. He first saw the
light in a miserable hovel in Kentucky, on a farm consisting of a
few barren acres in a dreary neighborhood; his father a typical "poor
Southern white," shiftless and without ambition for himself or his
children, constantly looking for a new piece of land on which he might
make a living without much work; his mother, in her youth handsome and
bright, grown prematurely coarse in feature and soured in mind by daily
toil and care; the whole household squalid, cheerless, and utterly void
of elevating inspirations... Only when the family had "moved" into the
malarious backwoods of Indiana, the mother had died, and a stepmother,
a woman of thrift and energy, had taken charge of the children, the
shaggy-headed, ragged, barefooted, forlorn boy, then seven years old,
"began to feel like a human being." Hard work was his early lot. When a
mere boy he had to help in supporting the family, either on his father's
clearing, or hired out to other farmers to plough, or dig ditches, or
chop wood, or drive ox teams; occasionally also to "tend the baby,"
when the farmer's wife was otherwise engaged. He could regard it as an
advancement to a higher sphere of activity when he obtained work in a
"crossroads store," where he amused the customers by his talk over the
counter; for he soon distinguished himself among the backwoods folk
as one who had something to say worth listening to. To win that
distinction, he had to draw mainly upon his wits; for, while his thirst
for knowledge was great, his opportunities for satisfying that thirst
were wofully slender.
In the log schoolhouse, which he could visit but little, he was taught
only reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. Among the people
of the settlement, bush farmers and small tradesmen, he found none of
uncommon intelligence or education; but some of them had a few books,
which he borrowed eagerly. Thus he read and reread, AEsop's Fables,
learning to tell stories with a point and to argue by parables; he read
Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress, a short history of the United
States, and Weems's Life of Washington. To the town constable's he went
to read the Revised Statutes of Indiana. Every printed page that fell
into his hands he would greedily devour, and his family and friends
watched him with wonder, as the uncouth boy, after his daily work,
crouched in a corner of the log cabin or outside under a tree, absorbed
in a book while munching his supper of corn bread. In this manner he
began to gather some knowledge, and sometimes he would astonish the
girls with such startling remarks as that the earth was moving around
the sun, and not the sun around the earth, and they marvelled where
"Abe" could have got such queer notions. Soon he also felt the impulse
to write; not only making extracts from books he wished to remember, but
also composing little essays of his own. First he sketched these with
charcoal on a wooden shovel scraped white with a drawing-knife, or on
basswood shingles. Then he transferred them to paper, which was a scarce
commodity in the Lincoln household; taking care to cut his expressions
close, so that they might not cover too much space,--a style-forming
method greatly to be commended. Seeing boys put a burning coal on the
back of a wood turtle, he was moved to write on cruelty to animals.
Seeing men intoxicated with whiskey, he wrote on temperance. In
verse-making, too, he tried himself, and in satire on persons offensive
to him or others,--satire the rustic wit of which was not always fit for
ears polite. Also political thoughts he put upon paper, and some of
his pieces were even deemed good enough for publication in the county
weekly.
Thus he won a neighborhood reputation as a clever young man, which he
increased by his performances as a speaker, not seldom drawing upon
himself the dissatisfaction of his employers by mounting a stump in the
field, and keeping the farm hands from their work by little speeches in
a jocose and sometimes also a serious vein. At the rude social frolics
of the settlement he became an important person, telling funny, stories,
mimicking the itinerant preachers who had happened to pass by, and
making his mark at wrestling matches, too; for at the age of seventeen
he had attained his full height, six feet four inches in his stockings,
if he had any, and a terribly muscular clodhopper he was. But he
was known never to use his extraordinary strength to the injury or
humiliation of others; rather to do them a kindly turn, or to enforce
justice and fair dealing between them. All this made him a favorite in
backwoods society, although in some things he appeared a little odd,
to his friends. Far more than any of them, he was given not only to
reading, but to fits of abstraction, to quiet musing with himself, and
also to strange spells of melancholy, from which he often would pass in
a moment to rollicking outbursts of droll humor. But on the whole he
was one of the people among whom he lived; in appearance perhaps even
a little more uncouth than most of them,--a very tall, rawboned youth,
with large features, dark, shrivelled skin, and rebellious hair; his
arms and legs long, out of proportion; clad in deerskin trousers, which
from frequent exposure to the rain had shrunk so as to sit tightly on
his limbs, leaving several inches of bluish shin exposed between their
lower end and the heavy tan-colored shoes; the nether garment held
usually by only one suspender, that was strung over a coarse homemade
shirt; the head covered in winter with a coonskin cap, in summer with a
rough straw hat of uncertain shape, without a band.
It is doubtful whether he felt himself much superior to his
surroundings, although he confessed to a yearning for some knowledge
of the world outside of the circle in which he lived. This wish was
gratified; but how? At the age of nineteen he went down the Mississippi
to New Orleans as a flatboat hand, temporarily joining a trade many
members of which at that time still took pride in being called "half
horse and half alligator." After his return he worked and lived in the
old way until the spring of 1830, when his father "moved again," this
time to Illinois; and on the journey of fifteen days "Abe" had to drive
the ox wagon which carried the household goods. Another log cabin was
built, and then, fencing a field, Abraham Lincoln split those historic
rails which were destined to play so picturesque a part in the
Presidential campaign twenty-eight years later.
Having come of age, Lincoln left the family, and "struck out for
himself." He had to "take jobs whenever he could get them." The first
of these carried him again as a flatboat hand to New Orleans. There
something happened that made a lasting impression upon his soul:
he witnessed a slave auction. "His heart bled," wrote one of his
companions; "said nothing much; was silent; looked bad. I can say,
knowing it, that it was on this trip that he formed his opinion on
slavery. It run its iron in him then and there, May, 1831. I have
heard him say so often." Then he lived several years at New Salem,
in Illinois, a small mushroom village, with a mill, some "stores" and
whiskey shops, that rose quickly, and soon disappeared again. It was a
desolate, disjointed, half-working and half-loitering life, without any
other aim than to gain food and shelter from day to day. He served as
pilot on a steamboat trip, then as clerk in a store and a mill; business
failing, he was adrift for some time. Being compelled to measure his
strength with the chief bully of the neighborhood, and overcoming him,
he became a noted person in that muscular community, and won the esteem
and friendship of the ruling gang of ruffians to such a degree that,
when the Black Hawk war broke out, they elected him, a young man of
twenty-three, captain of a volunteer company, composed mainly of roughs
of their kind. He took the field, and his most noteworthy deed of valor
consisted, not in killing an Indian, but in protecting against his own
men, at the peril of his own life, the life of an old savage who had
strayed into his camp.
The Black Hawk war over, he turned to politics. The step from the
captaincy of a volunteer company to a candidacy for a seat in the
Legislature seemed a natural one. But his popularity, although great
in New Salem, had not spread far enough over the district, and he was
defeated. Then the wretched hand-to-mouth struggle began again. He "set
up in store-business" with a dissolute partner, who drank whiskey while
Lincoln was reading books. The result was a disastrous failure and a
load of debt. Thereupon he became a deputy surveyor, and was appointed
postmaster of New Salem, the business of the post-office being so small
that he could carry the incoming and outgoing mail in his hat. All this
could not lift him from poverty, and his surveying instruments and horse
and saddle were sold by the sheriff for debt.
But while all this misery was upon him his ambition rose to higher aims.
He walked many miles to borrow from a schoolmaster a grammar with which
to improve his language. A lawyer lent him a copy of Blackstone, and he
began to study law.
People would look wonderingly at the grotesque figure lying in the
grass, "with his feet up a tree," or sitting on a fence, as, absorbed
in a book, he learned to construct correct sentences and made himself
a jurist. At once he gained a little practice, pettifogging before a
justice of the peace for friends, without expecting a fee. Judicial
functions, too, were thrust upon him, but only at horse-races or
wrestling matches, where his acknowledged honesty and fairness gave his
verdicts undisputed authority. His popularity grew apace, and soon
he could be a candidate for the Legislature again. Although he called
himself a Whig, an ardent admirer of Henry Clay, his clever stump
speeches won him the election in the strongly Democratic district.
Then for the first time, perhaps, he thought seriously of his outward
appearance. So far he had been content with a garb of "Kentucky jeans,"
not seldom ragged, usually patched, and always shabby. Now, he borrowed
some money from a friend to buy a new suit of clothes--"store clothes"
fit for a Sangamon County statesman; and thus adorned he set out for the
state capital, Vandalia, to take his seat among the lawmakers.
His legislative career, which stretched over several sessions--for
he was thrice re-elected, in 1836, 1838, and 1840--was not remarkably
brilliant. He did, indeed, not lack ambition. He dreamed even of making
himself "the De Witt Clinton of Illinois," and he actually distinguished
himself by zealous and effective work in those "log-rolling" operations
by which the young State received "a general system of internal
improvements" in the shape of railroads, canals, and banks,--a reckless
policy, burdening the State with debt, and producing the usual crop of
political demoralization, but a policy characteristic of the time and
the impatiently enterprising spirit of the Western people. Lincoln,
no doubt with the best intentions, but with little knowledge of the
subject, simply followed the popular current. The achievement in which,
perhaps, he gloried most was the removal of the State government from
Vandalia to Springfield; one of those triumphs of political management
which are apt to be the pride of the small politician's statesmanship.
One thing, however, he did in which his true nature asserted itself, and
which gave distinct promise of the future pursuit of high aims. Against
an overwhelming preponderance of sentiment in the Legislature, followed
by only one other member, he recorded his protest against a proslavery
resolution,--that protest declaring "the institution of slavery to
be founded on both injustice and bad policy." This was not only the
irrepressible voice of his conscience; it was true moral valor, too; for
at that time, in many parts of the West, an abolitionist was regarded
as little better than a horse-thief, and even "Abe Lincoln" would hardly
have been forgiven his antislavery principles, had he not been known
as such an "uncommon good fellow." But here, in obedience to the great
conviction of his life, he manifested his courage to stand alone, that
courage which is the first requisite of leadership in a great cause.
Together with his reputation and influence as a politician grew his law
practice, especially after he had removed from New Salem to Springfield,
and associated himself with a practitioner of good standing. He had now
at last won a fixed position in society. He became a successful lawyer,
less, indeed, by his learning as a jurist than by his effectiveness as
an advocate and by the striking uprightness of his character; and it may
truly be said that his vivid sense of truth and justice had much to do
with his effectiveness as an advocate. He would refuse to act as the
attorney even of personal friends when he saw the right on the other
side. He would abandon cases, even during trial, when the testimony
convinced him that his client was in the wrong. He would dissuade those
who sought his service from pursuing an obtainable advantage when their
claims seemed to him unfair. Presenting his very first case in the
United States Circuit Court, the only question being one of authority,
he declared that, upon careful examination, he found all the authorities
on the other side, and none on his. Persons accused of crime, when he
thought them guilty, he would not defend at all, or, attempting their
defence, he was unable to put forth his powers. One notable exception is
on record, when his personal sympathies had been strongly aroused. But
when he felt himself to be the protector of innocence, the defender
of justice, or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such
unexpected resources of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to
such fervor of appeal as to astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make
him fairly irresistible. Even an ordinary law argument, coming from him,
seldom failed to produce the impression that he was profoundly convinced
of the soundness of his position. It is not surprising that the mere
appearance of so conscientious an attorney in any case should have
carried, not only to juries, but even to judges, almost a presumption
of right on his side, and that the people began to call him, sincerely
meaning it, "honest Abe Lincoln."
In the meantime he had private sorrows and trials of a painfully
afflicting nature. He had loved and been loved by a fair and estimable
girl, Ann Rutledge, who died in the flower of her youth and beauty, and
he mourned her loss with such intensity of grief that his friends feared
for his reason. Recovering from his morbid depression, he bestowed
what he thought a new affection upon another lady, who refused him.
And finally, moderately prosperous in his worldly affairs, and having
prospects of political distinction before him, he paid his addresses to
Mary Todd, of Kentucky, and was accepted. But then tormenting doubts of
the genuineness of his own affection for her, of the compatibility
of their characters, and of their future happiness came upon him. His
distress was so great that he felt himself in danger of suicide, and
feared to carry a pocket-knife with him; and he gave mortal offence
to his bride by not appearing on the appointed wedding day. Now the
torturing consciousness of the wrong he had done her grew unendurable.
He won back her affection, ended the agony by marrying her, and became a
faithful and patient husband and a good father. But it was no secret
to those who knew the family well that his domestic life was full of
trials. The erratic temper of his wife not seldom put the gentleness
of his nature to the severest tests; and these troubles and struggles,
which accompanied him through all the vicissitudes of his life from
the modest home in Springfield to the White House at Washington,
adding untold private heart-burnings to his public cares, and sometimes
precipitating upon him incredible embarrassments in the discharge of his
public duties, form one of the most pathetic features of his career.
He continued to "ride the circuit," read books while travelling in his
buggy, told funny stories to his fellow-lawyers in the tavern, chatted
familiarly with his neighbors around the stove in the store and at the
post-office, had his hours of melancholy brooding as of old, and became
more and more widely known and trusted and beloved among the people
of his State for his ability as a lawyer and politician, for the
uprightness of his character and the overflowing spring of sympathetic
kindness in his heart. His main ambition was confessedly that of
political distinction; but hardly any one would at that time have seen
in him the man destined to lead the nation through the greatest crisis
of the century.
His time had not yet come when, in 1846, he was elected to Congress. In
a clever speech in the House of Representatives he denounced President
Polk for having unjustly forced war upon Mexico, and he amused the
Committee of the Whole by a witty attack upon General Cass. More
important was the expression he gave to his antislavery impulses
by offering a bill looking to the emancipation of the slaves in the
District of Columbia, and by his repeated votes for the famous Wilmot
Proviso, intended to exclude slavery from the Territories acquired from
Mexico. But when, at the expiration of his term, in March, 1849, he left
his seat, he gloomily despaired of ever seeing the day when the cause
nearest to his heart would be rightly grasped by the people, and when he
would be able to render any service to his country in solving the great
problem. Nor had his career as a member of Congress in any sense been
such as to gratify his ambition. Indeed, if he ever had any belief in a
great destiny for himself, it must have been weak at that period; for he
actually sought to obtain from the new Whig President, General Taylor,
the place of Commissioner of the General Land Office; willing to
bury himself in one of the administrative bureaus of the government.
Fortunately for the country, he failed; and no less fortunately, when,
later, the territorial governorship of Oregon was offered to him, Mrs.
Lincoln's protest induced him to decline it. Returning to Springfield,
he gave himself with renewed zest to his law practice, acquiesced in the
Compromise of 1850 with reluctance and a mental reservation, supported
in the Presidential campaign of 1852 the Whig candidate in some
spiritless speeches, and took but a languid interest in the politics of
the day. But just then his time was drawing near.
The peace promised, and apparently inaugurated, by the Compromise of
1850 was rudely broken by the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill
in 1854. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the Territories
of the United States, the heritage of coming generations, to the
invasion of slavery, suddenly revealed the whole significance of the
slavery question to the people of the free States, and thrust itself
into the politics of the country as the paramount issue. Something like
an electric shock flashed through the North. Men who but a short time
before had been absorbed by their business pursuits, and deprecated all
political agitation, were startled out of their security by a sudden
alarm, and excitedly took sides. That restless trouble of conscience
about slavery, which even in times of apparent repose had secretly
disturbed the souls of Northern people, broke forth in an utterance
louder than ever. The bonds of accustomed party allegiance gave way.
Antislavery Democrats and antislavery Whigs felt themselves drawn
together by a common overpowering sentiment, and soon they began to
rally in a new organization. The Republican party sprang into being to
meet the overruling call of the hour. Then Abraham Lincoln's time was
come. He rapidly advanced to a position of conspicuous championship in
the struggle. This, however, was not owing to his virtues and abilities
alone. Indeed, the slavery question stirred his soul in its profoundest
depths; it was, as one of his intimate friends said, "the only one on
which he would become excited"; it called forth all his faculties and
energies. Yet there were many others who, having long and arduously
fought the antislavery battle in the popular assembly, or in the press,
or in the halls of Congress, far surpassed him in prestige, and compared
with whom he was still an obscure and untried man. His reputation,
although highly honorable and well earned, had so far been essentially
local. As a stump-speaker in Whig canvasses outside of his State he had
attracted comparatively little attention; but in Illinois he had been
recognized as one of the foremost men of the Whig party. Among the
opponents of the Nebraska Bill he occupied in his State so important
a position, that in 1856 he was the choice of a large majority of the
"Anti-Nebraska men" in the Legislature for a seat in the Senate of the
United States which then became vacant; and when he, an old Whig, could
not obtain the votes of the Anti-Nebraska Democrats necessary to make
a majority, he generously urged his friends to transfer their votes
to Lyman Trumbull, who was then elected. Two years later, in the
first national convention of the Republican party, the delegation from
Illinois brought him forward as a candidate for the vice-presidency, and
he received respectable support. Still, the name of Abraham Lincoln was
not widely known beyond the boundaries of his own State. But now it was
this local prominence in Illinois that put him in a position of peculiar
advantage on the battlefield of national politics. In the assault on the
Missouri Compromise which broke down all legal barriers to the spread
of slavery Stephen Arnold Douglas was the ostensible leader and central
figure; and Douglas was a Senator from Illinois, Lincoln's State.
Douglas's national theatre of action was the Senate, but in his
constituency in Illinois were the roots of his official position and
power. What he did in the Senate he had to justify before the people
of Illinois, in order to maintain himself in place; and in Illinois all
eyes turned to Lincoln as Douglas's natural antagonist.
As very young men they had come to Illinois, Lincoln from Indiana,
Douglas from Vermont, and had grown up together in public life, Douglas
as a Democrat, Lincoln as a Whig. They had met first in Vandalia, in
1834, when Lincoln was in the Legislature and Douglas in the lobby; and
again in 1836, both as members of the Legislature. Douglas, a very able
politician, of the agile, combative, audacious, "pushing" sort, rose in
political distinction with remarkable rapidity. In quick succession he
became a member of the Legislature, a State's attorney, secretary
of state, a judge on the supreme bench of Illinois, three times a
Representative in Congress, and a Senator of the United States when only
thirty-nine years old. In the National Democratic convention of 1852 he
appeared even as an aspirant to the nomination for the Presidency, as
the favorite of "young America," and received a respectable vote. He had
far outstripped Lincoln in what is commonly called political success
and in reputation. But it had frequently happened that in political
campaigns Lincoln felt himself impelled, or was selected by his Whig
friends, to answer Douglas's speeches; and thus the two were looked
upon, in a large part of the State at least, as the representative
combatants of their respective parties in the debates before
popular meetings. As soon, therefore, as, after the passage of his
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Douglas returned to Illinois to defend his cause
before his constituents, Lincoln, obeying not only his own impulse, but
also general expectation, stepped forward as his principal opponent.
Thus the struggle about the principles involved in the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill, or, in a broader sense, the struggle between freedom and slavery,
assumed in Illinois the outward form of a personal contest between
Lincoln and Douglas; and, as it continued and became more animated,
that personal contest in Illinois was watched with constantly increasing
interest by the whole country. When, in 1858, Douglas's senatorial term
being about to expire, Lincoln was formally designated by the Republican
convention of Illinois as their candidate for the Senate, to take
Douglas's place, and the two contestants agreed to debate the questions
at issue face to face in a series of public meetings, the eyes of the
whole American people were turned eagerly to that one point: and the
spectacle reminded one of those lays of ancient times telling of two
armies, in battle array, standing still to see their two principal
champions fight out the contested cause between the lines in single
combat.
Lincoln had then reached the full maturity of his powers. His equipment
as a statesman did not embrace a comprehensive knowledge of public
affairs. What he had studied he had indeed made his own, with the eager
craving and that zealous tenacity characteristic of superior minds
learning under difficulties. But his narrow opportunities and the
unsteady life he had led during his younger years had not permitted
the accumulation of large stores in his mind. It is true, in political
campaigns he had occasionally spoken on the ostensible issues between
the Whigs and the Democrats, the tariff, internal improvements, banks,
and so on, but only in a perfunctory manner. Had he ever given much
serious thought and study to these subjects, it is safe to assume that
a mind so prolific of original conceits as his would certainly have
produced some utterance upon them worth remembering. His soul had
evidently never been deeply stirred by such topics. But when his moral
nature was aroused, his brain developed an untiring activity until it
had mastered all the knowledge within reach. As soon as the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise had thrust the slavery question into politics
as the paramount issue, Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all
its legal, historical, and moral aspects, and then his mind became a
complete arsenal of argument. His rich natural gifts, trained by long
and varied practice, had made him an orator of rare persuasiveness. In
his immature days, he had pleased himself for a short period with that
inflated, high-flown style which, among the uncultivated, passes for
"beautiful speaking." His inborn truthfulness and his artistic instinct
soon overcame that aberration and revealed to him the noble beauty and
strength of simplicity. He possessed an uncommon power of clear and
compact statement, which might have reminded those who knew the story
of his early youth of the efforts of the poor boy, when he copied his
compositions from the scraped wooden shovel, carefully to trim his
expressions in order to save paper. His language had the energy of
honest directness and he was a master of logical lucidity. He loved
to point and enliven his reasoning by humorous illustrations, usually
anecdotes of Western life, of which he had an inexhaustible store at his
command. These anecdotes had not seldom a flavor of rustic robustness
about them, but he used them with great effect, while amusing the
audience, to give life to an abstraction, to explode an absurdity, to
clinch an argument, to drive home an admonition. The natural kindliness
of his tone, softening prejudice and disarming partisan rancor, would
often open to his reasoning a way into minds most unwilling to receive
it.
Yet his greatest power consisted in the charm of his individuality. That
charm did not, in the ordinary way, appeal to the ear or to the eye. His
voice was not melodious; rather shrill and piercing, especially when it
rose to its high treble in moments of great animation. His figure was
unhandsome, and the action of his unwieldy limbs awkward. He commanded
none of the outward graces of oratory as they are commonly understood.
His charm was of a different kind. It flowed from the rare depth and
genuineness of his convictions and his sympathetic feelings. Sympathy
was the strongest element in his nature. One of his biographers, who
knew him before he became President, says: "Lincoln's 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.'" Only half of this is
correct. It is certainly true that he could not witness any individual
distress or oppression, or any kind of suffering, without feeling a pang
of pain himself, and that by relieving as much as he could the suffering
of others he put an end to his own. This compassionate impulse to help
he felt not only for human beings, but for every living creature. As in
his boyhood he angrily reproved the boys who tormented a wood turtle by
putting a burning coal on its back, so, we are told, he would, when a
mature man, on a journey, dismount from his buggy and wade waist-deep
in mire to rescue a pig struggling in a swamp. Indeed, appeals to his
compassion were so irresistible to him, and he felt it so difficult
to refuse anything when his refusal could give pain, that he himself
sometimes spoke of his inability to say "no" as a positive weakness.
But that certainly does not prove that his compassionate feeling was
confined to individual cases of suffering witnessed with his own eyes.
As the boy was moved by the aspect of the tortured wood turtle to
compose an essay against cruelty to animals in general, so the aspect of
other cases of suffering and wrong wrought up his moral nature, and set
his mind to work against cruelty, injustice, and oppression in general.
As his sympathy went forth to others, it attracted others to him.
Especially those whom he called the "plain people" felt themselves drawn
to him by the instinctive feeling that he understood, esteemed, and
appreciated them. He had grown up among the poor, the lowly, the
ignorant. He never ceased to remember the good souls he had met among
them, and the many kindnesses they had done him. Although in his mental
development he had risen far above them, he never looked down upon them.
How they felt and how they reasoned he knew, for so he had once felt and
reasoned himself. How they could be moved he knew, for so he had once
been moved himself and practised moving others. His mind was much larger
than theirs, but it thoroughly comprehended theirs; and while he thought
much farther than they, their thoughts were ever present to him. Nor had
the visible distance between them grown as wide as his rise in the world
would seem to have warranted. Much of his backwoods speech and manners
still clung to him. Although he had become "Mr. Lincoln" to his later
acquaintances, he was still "Abe" to the "Nats" and "Billys" and "Daves"
of his youth; and their familiarity neither appeared unnatural to
them, nor was it in the least awkward to him. He still told and
enjoyed stories similar to those he had told and enjoyed in the Indiana
settlement and at New Salem. His wants remained as modest as they had
ever been; his domestic habits had by no means completely accommodated
themselves to those of his more highborn wife; and though the "Kentucky
jeans" apparel had long been dropped, his clothes of better material
and better make would sit ill sorted on his gigantic limbs. His cotton
umbrella, without a handle, and tied together with a coarse string to
keep it from flapping, which he carried on his circuit rides, is said to
be remembered still by some of his surviving neighbors. This rusticity
of habit was utterly free from that affected contempt of refinement and
comfort which self-made men sometimes carry into their more affluent
circumstances. To Abraham Lincoln it was entirely natural, and all those
who came into contact with him knew it to be so. In his ways of thinking
and feeling he had become a gentleman in the highest sense, but the
refining process had polished but little the outward form. The plain
people, therefore, still considered "honest Abe Lincoln" one of
themselves; and when they felt, which they no doubt frequently did, that
his thoughts and aspirations moved in a sphere above their own,
they were all the more proud of him, without any diminution
of fellow-feeling. It was this relation of mutual sympathy and
understanding between Lincoln and the plain people that gave him his
peculiar power as a public man, and singularly fitted him, as we shall
see, for that leadership which was preeminently required in the great
crisis then coming on,--the leadership which indeed thinks and moves
ahead of the masses, but always remains within sight and sympathetic
touch of them.
He entered upon the campaign of 1858 better equipped than he had ever
been before. He not only instinctively felt, but he had convinced
himself by arduous study, that in this struggle against the spread of
slavery he had right, justice, philosophy, the enlightened opinion of
mankind, history, the Constitution, and good policy on his side. It
was observed that after he began to discuss the slavery question his
speeches were pitched in a much loftier key than his former oratorical
efforts. While he remained fond of telling funny stories in private
conversation, they disappeared more and more from his public discourse.
He would still now and then point his argument with expressions of
inimitable quaintness, and flash out rays of kindly humor and witty
irony; but his general tone was serious, and rose sometimes to genuine
solemnity. His masterly skill in dialectical thrust and parry, his
wealth of knowledge, his power of reasoning and elevation of sentiment,
disclosed in language of rare precision, strength, and beauty, not
seldom astonished his old friends.