foolscap paper, which he placed on a friend's desk, bordering on an
alley-way, which he had obtained permission to speak from. At first
he followed his notes; but, as he warmed up, he left his desk and his
notes, to stride down the alley towards the Speaker's chair, holding
his left hand behind him so that he could now and then shake the tails
of his own rusty, black broadcloth dress-coat, while he earnestly
gesticulated with his long right arm, shaking the bony index-finger at
the Democrats on the other side of the chamber. Occasionally, as he
would complete a sentence amid shouts of laughter, he would return up
the alley to his desk, consult his notes, take a sip of water, and start
off again."
The _Baltimore American_ called it "the crack speech of the day," and
said of Lincoln: "He is a very able, acute, uncouth, honest, upright
man and a tremendous wag withal.... Mr. Lincoln's manner was so
good-natured, and his style so peculiar, that he kept the House in a
continuous roar of merriment for the last half-hour of his speech. He
would commence a point in his speech far up one of the aisles, and keep
on talking, gesticulating, and walking until he would find himself, at
the end of a paragraph, down in the centre of the area in front of the
clerk's desk. He would then go back and take another head, and work down
again. And so on, through his capital speech."
Referring to another brief speech made in defence of his Committee on
Post Roads, Lincoln wrote a friend at home, "As to speech-making, by
way of getting the hand of the House, I made a little speech two or
three days ago on a post-office question of no general interest. I find
speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing. I was about as badly
scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in court. I expect to make
one within a week or two in which I hope to succeed well enough to wish
you to see it."
The speech he was then preparing was delivered four days later. It was
his first formal appearance in Congress, and, according to custom, he
finished the occasion by a series of resolutions referring to President
Polk's declaration that the war of 1848 had been begun by Mexico's
"invading our territory and shedding the blood of our citizens on our
own soil," and calling upon him to give the House specific information
as to the invasion and bloodshed. These resolutions were frequently
referred to afterwards in his political contests, and were relied upon
to sustain a charge of lack of patriotism during the Mexican War made by
Mr. Douglas against their author.
Like all young members of the House of Representatives, Lincoln was
compelled to remain in the background most of the time; but he learned
a great deal in his brief experience, and created such an impression
by his speeches that upon the adjournment he was invited to enter the
Presidential campaign of 1848 in New England, making his first speech
at Worcester, where the meeting was presided over by ex-Governor Levi
Lincoln, who was also a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, of Hingham. The
New England newspapers and people gave him many compliments and in
subsequent campaigns repeated their invitations.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1895 by S. S. McClure Co.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1858
From a photograph owned by Hon. William J. Franklin, Macomb, Illinois,
taken in 1866 from an ambrotype made in 1858 at Macomb. By special
permission]
The first collision between Lincoln and Douglas occurred during the
Harrison Presidential campaign of 1840, and from that time they were
regarded as active rivals. These two remarkable men became acquainted
in 1834 during Lincoln's first session in the Legislature at Vandalia,
then the capital of Illinois. Mr. Douglas was four years younger and
equally poor. In his youth he had been apprenticed to a cabinet-maker
in Vermont, had studied law under very much the same difficulties as
Lincoln, was admitted to the bar as soon as he was twenty-one, and came
to Springfield, with no acquaintances and only thirty-seven cents in his
pocket, to contest for the office of State attorney with John J. Hardin,
one of the most prominent and successful lawyers of the State. By the
use of tactics peculiar to his life-long habits as a politician, he
secured the appointment, made a successful prosecutor, and in 1836 was
elected to the Legislature, and occupied a position on the Democratic
side of that body similar to that occupied by Lincoln on the Whig side.
In 1837 he secured from President Van Buren the appointment of Register
of the Public Land Office, and made Springfield his home. In the fall
of the same year he was nominated to Congress against John T. Stuart,
Lincoln's law partner and friend, and the campaign which followed was
one of the most remarkable in the history of the State, with Lincoln,
as usual, the conspicuous figure upon the Whig stump. When the vote
was counted, Stuart received a majority of only fourteen out of a total
of thirty-six thousand.
Douglas charged fraud, and his reckless attack upon the integrity of
Stuart aroused in Lincoln's breast a resentment which never died. From
that time he regarded Douglas with strong dislike and disapproval,
and, although his natural generosity as well as his sense of propriety
silenced his tongue in public, he never concealed from his friends his
conviction that Douglas was without political morals. At the same time
he recognized the ability and power of "the Little Giant" as Douglas
was already called, and no one estimated more highly his ability as
an orator and his skill as a debater. Personally, Douglas was a very
attractive man. He had all the graces that Lincoln lacked,--short
and slight of stature, with a fine head, a winning manner, graceful
carriage, a sunny disposition, and an enthusiastic spirit. His personal
magnetism was almost irresistible to the old as well as the young, and
his voice was remarkable for its compass and the richness of its tones.
On the other hand, Lincoln was ungainly and awkward; his voice was not
musical, although it was very expressive; and, as I have before said, he
often acknowledged that there was no homelier man in all the States.
Douglas recognized an antagonist who was easier to avoid than to meet,
and attempted to keep Lincoln out of his path by treating him as an
inferior. On one occasion, when both happened to be in the same town,
there was a strong desire among the people to hear them discuss public
questions. The proposition irritated Judge Douglas, who, with his usual
arrogance, inquired,--
"What does Lincoln represent in this campaign? Is he an abolitionist or
a Whig?"
The committee replied that Lincoln was a Whig, whereupon Douglas
dismissed the subject in his pompous way, saying,--
"Oh, yes, I am now in the region of the Old Line Whig. When I am in
Northern Illinois I am assailed by an abolitionist, when I get to the
centre I am attacked by an Old Line Whig, when I go to Southern Illinois
I am beset by an Anti-Nebraska Democrat. It looks to me like dodging a
man all over the State. If Mr. Lincoln wants to make a speech he had
better get a crowd of his own, for I most respectfully decline to hold a
discussion with him."
Lincoln calmly ignored this assumption of superiority at the time, but
never failed to punish Mr. Douglas for it when they met upon the stump,
and, according to the testimony of their contemporaries, he was equal to
his able and adroit opponent from the beginning of their rivalry either
in the court-room, or in a rough-and-tumble debate, or in the serious
political discussion of great political questions. Only one of Lincoln's
speeches of this period of his life is preserved. That is an address
delivered at a sort of oratorical tournament at Springfield. There was
such a demand for it that a few days after its delivery he wrote out as
much as he could remember and the Whig managers printed it in pamphlet
form as a campaign document; but it was the last time he indulged in
the old-fashioned flights of eloquence. From that hour the topics he
discussed demanded his serious attention and his closest argument, and
he spoke to convince, not to excite admiration or merely to stir the
emotions of his audiences.
In 1854 the moral sense of the nation was shocked by the repeal of
what is called "The Missouri Compromise." That was a law passed in
1820 for the admission of the Territory of Missouri to the Union as
a slave State, upon a condition that slavery should not go north of
its northern boundary, latitude 36° 30'. Lincoln shared the national
indignation. Douglas, then in the United States Senate, was one of the
advocates of the repeal, and his powerful influence in Congress made
it possible. As soon as the action of Congress was announced, the
entire country was plunged into a discussion of the question on the
platform, in the pulpit, in the press, in the debating societies, by the
firesides, at the corner groceries, at the post-office, and wherever
people met together. Lincoln took no public part in the controversy for
several months, but during the interval studied the question in its
moral, historical, and constitutional bearings, and while the Democrats
accused him of "mousing around" the libraries of the State-House, he was
preparing himself for a controversy which he knew was sure to come.
That fall (1854) Richard Yates was up for Congress and Lincoln took
the stump in his behalf. In the mean time Mr. Douglas was speaking in
other sections of the State, but came to Springfield to attend the State
Agricultural Fair, and, being a United States Senator and a political
idol, was of course a great attraction. He made a speech justifying
the action of Congress, and, by common impulse, the opponents of the
repeal called upon Lincoln to answer him. There is no doubt of the zeal
and ardor with which he accepted the invitation, and he spoke for four
hours, as one of his friends testifies, "in a most happy and pleasant
style, and was received with abundant applause." At times he made
statements which brought Senator Douglas to his feet, and their passages
at arms created much excitement and enthusiasm. It was evident that the
force of Lincoln's argument surprised and disconcerted Mr. Douglas, for
he insisted upon making a two-hours' rejoinder, which of itself was a
confession of his defeat.
Lincoln's triumph on this occasion placed him at the head of the
political debaters of the State, and, in order that Mr. Douglas might
have another chance to retrieve himself, they met again twelve days
later at Peoria. Lincoln yielded to Douglas the advantage of the opening
and closing speeches, explaining that he did so from selfish motives,
because he wanted to hold the Democratic portion of the audience through
his own speech. At the request of the Whig leaders and politicians in
other parts of the State who had not been able to hear the discussion,
Mr. Lincoln wrote out his speech from memory and we have it in full. It
was by far the ablest and most profound composition he had produced up
to that time, and even now, after the lapse of half a century, it is
recognized as a model of political argument. He here rose from the rank
of the politician to that of the statesman, and never fell below it in
his future addresses. Lincoln and Douglas were understood by themselves
as well as by the public to be contesting for a seat in the United
States Senate, and the latter was so alarmed by Lincoln's unexpected
manifestation of power that he sought an interview on the pretence of
friendship and persuaded him into an agreement that neither should
make any more speeches before the actual campaign began,--an agreement
violated by Douglas during the next week.
Horace White, now editor of the _New York Evening Post_, says of the
speech just mentioned, "I was then in the employ of the _Chicago Evening
Journal_. I had been sent to Springfield to report the political
doings of State Fair week for that newspaper. Thus it came about that
I occupied a front seat in the Representatives' Hall, in the old
State-House, when Mr. Lincoln delivered the speech already described
in this volume. The impression made upon me by the orator was quite
overpowering. I had not heard much political speaking up to that time.
I have heard a great deal since. I have never heard anything since,
either by Mr. Lincoln, or by anybody, that I would put on a higher
plane of oratory. All the strings that play upon the human heart and
understanding were touched with masterly skill and force, while beyond
and above all skill was the overwhelming conviction pressed upon the
audience that the speaker himself was charged with an irresistible and
inspiring duty to his fellow-men. Having, since then, heard all the
great public speakers of this country subsequent to the period of Clay
and Webster, I award the palm to Mr. Lincoln as the one who, although
not first in all respects, would bring more men of doubtful or hostile
leanings around to his way of thinking by talking to them on a platform
than any other."
The next occasion upon which Lincoln displayed unusual power as an
orator was the Bloomington Convention for the organization of the
Republican party early in 1856. Never was an audience more completely
electrified by human speech. The Convention, which was composed of
former members of all political parties had adopted the name Republican,
had taken extreme grounds against slavery, and had launched a new
political organization; but it contained many discordant, envious, and
hostile elements. Those who had watched the proceedings were anxious
and apprehensive of dissension and jealousy, and Lincoln, with his
acute political perceptions, realized the danger, perhaps, more keenly
than any other man in the assembly. He saw before him a group of
earnest, zealous, sincere men, willing to make tremendous sacrifices
and undertake Titanic tasks, but at the same time most of them clung
to their own theories and advocated their individual methods with a
tenacity that promised to defeat their common purpose. Therefore, when
he arose in response to the unanimous demand for a speech from the great
orator of Springfield, his soul was flooded with a desire and a purpose
to harmonize and amalgamate the patriotic emotions of his associates. He
realized that it was a crisis in the history of his country, and rose to
the full height of the occasion.
Those who were present say that at first he spoke slowly, cautiously,
and in a monotone, but gradually his words grew in force and intensity
until he swept the discordant souls of the assembly together and his
hearers "arose from their chairs with pale faces and quivering lips and
pressed unconsciously towards him." His influence was irresistible.
Even the trained reporters, accustomed to witness the most touching and
impressive scenes with the indifference of their profession, dropped
their pencils, and what was perhaps the greatest speech of Lincoln's
entire career was unreported. Joseph Medill, afterwards editor of the
_Chicago Tribune_, who was then a reporter for that paper, says,--
"I did make a few paragraphs of what Lincoln said in the first eight
or ten minutes, but I became so absorbed in his magnetic oratory that
I forgot myself and ceased to take notes. I well remember that after
Lincoln sat down, and calm had succeeded the tempest, I waked out of a
sort of hypnotic trance, and then thought of my report to the _Tribune_.
It was some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been 'scooped,'
as all the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the
excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report or
sketch of the speech."
But every reporter and editor went home bursting with enthusiasm, and
while none of them could remember it entire, fragments of "Lincoln's
Lost Speech," as it was called, floated through the entire press of the
United States. No one was more deeply moved than Lincoln himself, and,
although continually appealed to by his political associates and the
newspapers, he admitted his inability to reproduce his words or even his
thoughts after the inspiration under which he had spoken expired. But
his purpose was accomplished. Those who assumed the name "Republicans"
were thereafter animated by a single purpose and resolution.
As in former campaigns, Lincoln was placed upon the electoral ticket and
made fifty or more speeches in Illinois and the adjoining States for
Frémont in his contest against Buchanan for the Presidency in 1856.
Soon after the inauguration of President Buchanan, the Supreme Court
of the United States delivered an opinion in that famous trial known
as the Dred Scott case which created intense excitement. A slave of
that name sued for his freedom on the ground that his master had taken
him from Missouri to reside in the State of Illinois and the Territory
of Wisconsin, where slavery was prohibited by law. Judge Taney and a
majority of the Supreme bench, after hearing the case argued twice by
eminent counsel, decided that a negro was not entitled to bring suit in
a court. In addition, it indirectly announced its opinion that under the
Constitution of the United States neither Congress nor a territorial
Legislature had any power to prohibit slavery within Federal territory.
The people of the North cried out in protest, the people of the South
defended the decision as just and righteous altogether, and then began
a series of discussion which ended only with the emancipation of the
bondsmen.
Senator Douglas was left in a curious situation, for he had justified
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the extension
of slavery, on the ground of popular sovereignty, holding that under
the Constitution each Territory was authorized to decide the question
for itself, and in defence of that position he had made many speeches.
It became necessary, therefore, for him to reconcile it with the
decision of the Supreme Court, which he attempted to do by an able
argument at Springfield shortly after. It was the first presentation
of his ingenious and celebrated "Freeport Doctrine," which, briefly,
was that while the Supreme Court was correct in its interpretation of
the Constitution, a Territory cannot be divested of its right to adopt
and enforce appropriate police regulations. As such regulations could
only be made by Legislatures elected by a popular vote, he argued, the
great principle of popular sovereignty and self-government was not only
sustained, but was even more firmly established by the Dred Scott
decision.
This argument naturally excited the interest of Lincoln, who answered it
in an elaborate speech two weeks later, and thus forced the issue into
the campaign for the election of a Legislature which was to choose the
successor of Mr. Douglas in the United States Senate. Douglas was in an
unpleasant predicament. He was compelled to choose between the favor
and support of the Buchanan administration and that of the people of
Illinois. As the latter alternative was necessary to his public career,
he adopted it, and when Congress met he attacked the administration
with his usual force and ability. His course was approved by a large
majority of the Democratic party in Illinois, but stimulated the hope
of the Republicans of that State that they might defeat him and elect
Abraham Lincoln, who was entitled to the honor because he had yielded
his priority of claim to Lyman Trumbull in 1854 and was now recognized
as the foremost champion of the new Republican party in Illinois.
Therefore, when the Republican State Convention met in June, 1858, it
adopted by acclamation a resolution declaring that he was the first and
only choice of the Republican party for the United States Senate.
Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, says,--
"He had been led all along to expect his nomination to the Senate, and
with that in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing
a speech in acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred upon
him. This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as
ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscellaneous and
convenient receptacle, his hat. As the Convention drew near he copied
the whole on connected sheets, carefully revising every line and
sentence, and fastened them together for reference during the delivery
of the speech and for publication. A few weeks before the Convention,
when he was at work on the speech, I remember that Jesse K. Dubois,
who was Auditor of the State, came into the office and, seeing Lincoln
busily writing, inquired what he was doing or what he was writing.
Lincoln answered gruffly, 'It's something you may see or hear some time,
but I'll not let you see it now.' After the Convention Lincoln met him
on the street and said, 'Dubois, I can tell you what I was doing the
other day when you came into my office. I was writing that speech, and I
knew if I read the passage about 'the house divided against itself' to
you, you would ask me to change or modify it, and that I was determined
not to do. I had willed it so, and was willing, if necessary, to perish
with it.'
"Before delivering his speech he invited a dozen or so of his friends to
the library of the State-House, where he read and submitted it to them.
After the reading he asked each man for his opinion. Some condemned
and no one endorsed it. Having patiently listened to these various
criticisms from his friends, all of which, with a single exception,
were adverse, he rose from his chair, and after alluding to the careful
study and intense thought he had given the question, he answered all
their objections substantially as follows: 'Friends, this thing has been
retarded long enough. The time has come when those sentiments should be
uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this
speech, then let me go down linked to the truth--let me die in the
advocacy of what is just and right.'"
After completing its routine work, the Convention adjourned to meet
in the Hall of Representatives at Springfield that evening to hear
Lincoln's speech, and it was anticipated with intense interest and
anxiety because the gentlemen whom Lincoln had taken into his confidence
had let it be known that he was to take a very radical position. It was
the most carefully prepared speech he ever made, although he delivered
it from memory, and after a few opening sentences he uttered this bold
and significant declaration which evoked an enthusiastic response from
all of the free States of the Union:
"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not
expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the
States, old as well as new, North as well as South."
Shortly after this event, Senator Douglas returned from Washington and
took the stump, attracting immense crowds and exciting great enthusiasm.
His speeches, however, were evasive and contained much special pleading
as well as misstatement. Lincoln watched him closely, and, recognizing
that Douglas was fighting unfairly, decided to bring him to terms. Hence
he addressed him a challenge to joint debate. Judge Weldon, who was
living in Illinois at the time, tells the story as follows:
"We wrote Mr. Lincoln he had better come and hear Douglas speak at
Clinton, which he did. There was an immense crowd for a country town,
and on the way to the grove where the speaking took place, Mr. Lincoln
said to me,--
"'Weldon, I have challenged Judge Douglas for a discussion. What do you
think of it?'
"I replied, 'I approve your judgment in whatever you do.'