Lincoln in 1860, but was opposed by the Southern faction. At Lincoln's
inauguration he appeared with his usual dignity, and stood beside
his rival upon the platform. As a member of the Senate he criticised
Lincoln's policy until hostilities actually broke out, when his
patriotism overcame his partisanship and he became an earnest supporter
of the government. On the evening of April 14, the day of the fall of
Sumter, he called at the White House by appointment and spent two hours
alone with the President. Neither ever revealed what occurred at the
interview, but it was not necessary. From that hour until his death on
June 3 following he stood by Lincoln's side in defence of the Union. His
last public utterance was a patriotic speech before the Legislature on
April 25, urging the people of Illinois to stand by the flag. His last
interview with Lincoln occurred a few days previous.
"Douglas came rushing in," said the President afterwards, "and said he
had just got a telegraph message from some friends in Illinois urging
him to come out and help set things right in Egypt, and that he would go
or stay in Washington, just where I thought he could do the most good.
I told him to do as he chose, but that he would probably do best in
Illinois. Upon that he shook hands with me and hurried away to catch the
next train. I never saw him again."
The country at large had watched the debate between Lincoln and Douglas
with profound interest, and thinking men of both parties realized that
a new leader as well as a great orator and statesman had appeared
upon the horizon. Lincoln was overwhelmed with congratulations and
invitations came from every direction to make speeches and deliver
lectures, but most of them were declined. He spoke twice in Ohio, at
Columbus and at Cincinnati, where he excited great enthusiasm and left
so deep an impression that the State Committee published his speeches
and the debate with Douglas as a campaign document. In December he went
to Kansas and delivered five lectures, and in the spring of 1860 he
received an invitation from a young men's association in Brooklyn to
deliver a lecture in Plymouth Church, of which Henry Ward Beecher was
then pastor. They offered a fee of two hundred dollars which was very
acceptable because his practice had been sadly neglected and he was
feeling very poor. At the same time his natural diffidence made him
reluctant to appear before an Eastern audience, and when he arrived in
New York and discovered that he was to speak in Cooper Institute instead
of in Brooklyn, he was fearful that he had made a mistake. Henry C.
Bowen invited him to be his guest in Brooklyn, but he declined, saying
that he was afraid his lecture would not be a success and he must give
his whole time to revising it. He was afraid his audience would be
disappointed and the young men who had kindly invited him would suffer
financially.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1896, by S. S. McClure Co.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861
Copied from the original in the possession of Frank A. Brown, Esq.,
Minneapolis, Minnesota]
This was perhaps the first time Lincoln ever misjudged his situation.
His intuitions as well as his reasoning powers were usually very
accurate, but in this case they were far out of the way, for when he
arrived at Cooper Institute he was amazed to find the immense hall
crowded with the representatives of the culture, commerce, finance, and
industry of the metropolis. It was a notable audience in many respects.
He was escorted to the platform by Horace Greeley and David Dudley
Field, and introduced by William Cullen Bryant. Every man of importance
in New York City was present, many of them, no doubt, attracted by
curiosity to see and hear the homely lawyer from the prairies of whom
they had read in the newspapers. But he captivated his audience from
the start. Every hearer was impressed not only with his convincing
arguments, but with his dignity and eloquence.
Lincoln began his address in a low monotone, and was evidently
embarrassed, but the respectful attention with which he was heard gave
him confidence, his tones rose in strength and gained in clearness, and
his awkward manner disappeared, as it always did when his consciousness
was lost in the earnest presentation of his thoughts. His style was so
simple, his language so unstudied and terse, his illustration so quaint
and apt, his reasoning so concise and compact that his critics asked
themselves and one another, as Henry M. Field says, "What manner of
man is this lawyer from the West who has set forth these truths as we
have never heard them before?" Lincoln made no effort at display. He
estimated the intelligence of his hearers accurately, and introduced
neither anecdote nor witticism, nor is there a figure of speech or
a poetic fancy in the first half of his oration. There was no more
sentiment than he would have introduced in a legal argument before the
Supreme Court, but he nevertheless arrested and held the attention of
his hearers, and they gave abundant testimony that they recognized
him as a master. No man ever made a more profound impression upon an
American audience. His speech was published in full in four of the
morning papers and extracts were copied widely throughout the country.
The Honorable Joseph H. Choate, ambassador to Great Britain, himself one
of the most eminent of American orators, in an address at Edinburgh in
1900, has given us the following graphic description of Lincoln's Cooper
Institute speech:
"It is now forty years since I first saw and heard Abraham Lincoln, but
the impression which he left on my mind is ineffaceable. After his great
successes in the West he came to New York to make a political address.
He appeared in every sense of the word like one of the plain people
among whom he loved to be counted. At first sight there was nothing
impressive or imposing about him, except that his great stature singled
him out from the crowd; his clothes hung awkwardly on his giant frame,
his face was of a dark pallor, without the slightest tinge of color; his
seamed and rugged features bore the furrows of hardship and struggle;
his deep-set eyes looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave
little evidence of that brainpower which had raised him from the lowest
to the highest station among his countrymen. As he talked to me before
the meeting he seemed ill at ease, with that sort of apprehension which
a young man might feel before presenting himself to a new and strange
audience whose critical disposition he dreaded.
"It was a great audience, including all the noted men--all the learned
and cultured--of his party in New York: editors, clergymen, statesmen,
lawyers, merchants, critics. They were all very curious to hear him.
His fame as a powerful speaker had preceded him, and exaggerated rumor
of his wit had reached the East. When Mr. Bryant presented him on the
high platform of the Cooper Institute a vast sea of eager, upturned
faces greeted him, full of intense curiosity to see what this rude
child of the people was like. He was equal to the occasion. When he
spoke he was transformed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face
shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an hour and a half
he held his audience in the hollow of his hand. His style of speech
and manner of delivery were severely simple. What Lowell called 'the
grand simplicities of the Bible,' with which he was so familiar, were
reflected in his discourse. With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric,
without parade or pretence, he spoke straight to the point. If any
came expecting the turgid eloquence or the ribaldry of the frontier,
they must have been startled at the earnest and sincere purity of his
utterances. It was marvellous to see how this untutored man, by mere
self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all
meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of
absolute simplicity.
"He spoke upon the theme which he had mastered so thoroughly. He
demonstrated by copious historical proofs and masterly logic that the
fathers who created the Constitution in order to form a more perfect
union, to establish justice, and to secure the blessings of liberty
to themselves and their posterity, intended to empower the Federal
government to exclude slavery from the Territories. In the kindliest
spirit, he protested against the avowed threat of the Southern States to
destroy the Union if, in order to secure freedom in those vast regions,
out of which future States were to be carved, a Republican President
were elected. He closed with an appeal to his audience, spoken with all
the fire of his aroused and kindling conscience, with a full outpouring
of his love of justice and liberty, to maintain their political purpose
on that lofty and unassailable issue of right and wrong which alone
could justify it, and not to be intimidated from their high resolve and
sacred duty by any threats of destruction to the government or of ruin
to themselves. He concluded with this telling sentence, which drove the
whole argument home to all our hearts:
"'Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to
the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.'
"That night the great hall, and the next day the whole city, rang
with delighted applause and congratulations, and he who had come as a
stranger departed with the laurels of a great triumph."
While in New York he visited the Five Points House of Industry, and the
following account of what occurred is given by a teacher there: "Our
Sunday-School in the Five Points was assembled, one Sabbath morning,
when I noticed a tall, remarkable man enter the room and take a seat
among us. He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his
countenance expressed such genuine interest that I approached him and
suggested that he might be willing to say something to the children.
He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and, coming forward,
began a simple address which at once fascinated every little hearer and
hushed the room into silence. His language was strikingly beautiful and
his tones musical with the intensest feeling. The little faces around
him would droop into sad conviction as he uttered the sentences of
warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words
of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the
imperative shouts of 'Go on!' 'Oh, do go on!' would compel him to
resume. As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of the stranger
and marked his powerful head and determined features, now touched into
softness by the impressions of the moment, I felt an irresistible
curiosity to learn something more about him, and when he was quietly
leaving the room I begged to know his name. He courteously replied,--
"'Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois.'"
Lincoln received many invitations to speak in New England and delivered
addresses in all of the prominent cities, where he created the same
favorable impression and awakened the same popular enthusiasm.
After his inauguration as President, Lincoln made no formal speeches
except his two inaugural addresses, but scarcely a week passed that he
did not deliver some pleasant little speech from the balcony of the
White House or at one of the military camps, and during his journey
to Washington he was especially happy in his treatment of the serious
questions which were troubling the public mind.
IV
A PRAIRIE POLITICIAN
When Abraham Lincoln was twenty-two years old and a clerk in Denton
Offutt's store he offered himself to the voters of New Salem and
vicinity as a candidate for the Illinois Legislature. It was the year
that the Whigs held their first National Convention and nominated
Henry Clay as their candidate for President; and from that time, as
has been seen, Lincoln made politics as well as law a profession, and
participated actively in every campaign until he was elected President.
In those days nominations for office were made by announcement and not
by conventions, and, according to custom, with thirteen other citizens
fired with similar ambition, Lincoln issued a circular or "handbill,"
as it was familiarly called, setting forth in quaint and characteristic
candor his "sentiments with regard to local affairs." It was his
platform, and no utterance of his entire life is more interesting than
the few personal remarks which he addressed to his neighbors:
"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true
or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of
being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of
their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is
yet to be developed. I am young, and unknown to many of you. I was
born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have
no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case
is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county, and
if elected they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall
be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in
their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too
familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined."
It was an audacious act for a young man who had been in the county
only about nine months to aspire to the honor and responsibility of a
law-maker, but, compared with his neighbors, Lincoln's qualifications
were conspicuous. He could read and write, had a fair knowledge of
literature, had read two or three law-books, was a practical surveyor,
and by reason of his two journeys to New Orleans had seen a good
deal more of the world than any one in that neighborhood. But these
qualifications did not count for much in comparison with his ability
as a public speaker and his faculty of doing things which had already
made him a reputation throughout the county. Although his advantages
had been limited, they were superior to those enjoyed by three-fourths
of the young men in Sangamon County, and for education, experience,
and other qualifications he surpassed a majority of the members of
the Legislature. There were only a few men of culture and education
in that body. It was chiefly made up of illiterate pioneers who mixed
politics with farming and carried on their campaigns at camp-meetings,
horseraces, country stores, and taverns, and resorted to every
subterfuge that their shrewd minds could invent to secure votes. At the
same time they were generally honest, patriotic, and earnest for the
welfare of their constituents and their personal characters commanded
the esteem and confidence of the public. Among such men Lincoln's talent
for talking and writing, his knowledge of poetry and literature, and,
more than all, his genius as a story-teller excited admiration and
respect, and he was regarded as the most promising young man in the
neighborhood. His announcement "handbill" discussed the several topics
which at that time were being agitated, such as the improvement of the
Sangamon River. He related his experience with flat-boats, and declared
that by straightening the channel and clearing away the drift-wood
the stream could be made navigable. "The improvement of the Sangamon
River," he sagely remarked, "is an object much better suited to our
infant resources" than the construction of a railway, and, indeed, it
was fifteen years later that the first whistle of a locomotive was heard
in Illinois. He took broad grounds in favor of internal improvements,
advocated a law prohibiting money-loaners from charging exorbitant rates
of interest, and favored liberal appropriations for education.
"For my part," he said, "I desire to see the time when education, and
by its means morality, sobriety, enterprise, and industry, shall become
much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in
my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which
might have a tendency to accelerate that happy period."
Perhaps, if he could have made a thorough campaign and extended his
acquaintance and popularity throughout the county, he might have been
elected, but just a month after his announcement was published he went
off to the Black Hawk War (as is told in Chapter VI.) and did not
return until a few days before the election, so that his canvass was
limited. It was long enough, however, for him to make a record as a
man of moral courage and ability. Although the great majority of the
population were Democrats, he boldly declared himself a Whig, which must
have cost him many votes. National issues were not usually brought into
local politics, but the contest between Clay and Jackson was animated
and bitter; the Democrats were despotic and intolerant towards the
opposition, and were so much in the majority that a Whig had very little
consideration. Lincoln has left us a brief account of the campaign, in
which he says that he ran as "an avowed Clay man," and in his speeches
advocated the principles and policy of Henry Clay's platform. "I am
in favor of a national bank; I am in favor of an internal improvement
system and a high protective tariff," he announced boldly, and it must
have cost him a severe struggle with his ambition to have placed himself
upon the unpopular side and to have joined a hopeless minority at the
beginning of his political career; but he obeyed his convictions, and
nothing better illustrates the stuff of which the man was made.
The returns show that out of 2168 votes Lincoln received only 657, less
than one-third of the whole. In New Salem, where he lived, he received
all but three of the votes cast, although a few months later Andrew
Jackson carried the same precinct with 185 votes against 70 for Henry
Clay.
This was the only time that Abraham Lincoln was defeated on a direct
vote of the people. He was greatly gratified by the evidence of his
popularity, and was confident that if he could extend his acquaintance
through the county he would be successful at the next election; but
how was he to get a living in the mean time? Offutt's store had failed
and he was out of employment. He describes the situation himself as
follows: "He was now without means and out of business, but was anxious
to remain with his friends, who had treated him with so much generosity,
especially as he had nothing elsewhere to go to. He studied what he
should do; thought of learning the blacksmith trade, thought of trying
to study law, rather thought he could not succeed at that without a
better education."
It was a crisis in his life, but he was conscious of his own ability
and his faith in himself was strong. If his judgment had been equally
accurate, he would have been saved great anxiety and trouble, for it was
at this time that he was induced to go into the mercantile speculation
which turned out so badly. He managed to make a living, however, and
pull through, and when the campaign of 1834 came it was a matter of
course that he should again be a candidate for the Legislature. He spent
almost the entire summer electioneering, most of the time in those parts
of the county where he was least acquainted, appealing for votes in his
own peculiar way. It was a rough-and-tumble canvass, often in company
with other candidates. "Wherever he saw a crowd of men, he joined them,
and he never failed to adapt himself to their point of view in asking
for votes," says one of his friends. "If the degree of physical strength
was their test for a candidate, he was ready to lift a weight or wrestle
with any countryside champion. If the amount of grain a man could cut
would recommend him, he seized the cradle and showed the swath he could
cut." One of the farmers of the neighborhood tells this story:
"He [Lincoln] came to my house, near Island Grove, during harvest. There
were some thirty men in the field. He got his dinner and went out in
the field where the men were at work. I gave him an introduction, and
the boys said that they could not vote for a man unless he could make a
hand. 'Well, boys,' said he, 'if that is all, I am sure of your votes.'
He took hold of the cradle, and led the way all the round with perfect
ease. The boys were satisfied, and I don't think he lost a vote in the
crowd."
Thirteen candidates were contesting for the four seats in the
Legislature and all were engaged in the campaign, besides candidates for
Governor, for Congress, and for the State Senate. When the votes were
counted, Lincoln's name headed the list. He received 1376, considerably
more than a majority, and more than double the total he had received at
the election two years before.
At this point Lincoln's political career actually begins, and although
during his first session in the Legislature he showed no particular
talent and took a modest position in the background, he secured the
respect of his colleagues both for his abilities and his character, and
among them were several men who afterwards became almost as prominent
as himself. They included future governors, generals, senators, judges,
and cabinet ministers. In this and future sessions of the Legislature
he sat beside Stephen A. Douglas, afterwards United States Senator and
Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Lincoln; Edward D.
Baker, Senator from both Illinois and Oregon, who was killed at the
battle of Ball's Bluff; Orville H. Browning, afterwards United States
Senator and Secretary of the Interior; John A. McClernand, for several
years a member of the House of Representatives and a major-general in
the Civil War; John Logan, father of the late General John A. Logan;
Robert M. Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom, and others of
comparative distinction. These were new associates for the poor young
man, and more to his taste as well as his advantage. From this time he
cultivated men from whom he could learn, but never lost his affection
for those who had shared his humble hardships. He was re-elected to
the Legislature four successive terms, in 1836, 1838, and 1840, and
spent eight years in the service of his State, making many mistakes and
enjoying several triumphs, growing in the esteem and confidence of the
people, extending his usefulness and influence, and gradually advancing
to a high place among the leaders of the Whig party, which was rapidly
gaining in strength.
Among the interesting features of Lincoln's legislative career is a
declaration in favor of a limited woman suffrage which appeared in his
"handbill" in the campaign of 1836, when he was twenty-seven years old
and unmarried.
"I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in
bearing its burdens," he said; "consequently I go for admitting all
whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means
excluding females."
The Legislature of 1836 and 1837 was responsible for many "wild-cat"
schemes which brought disaster upon the people of the young State,
and Lincoln was guilty of the same folly and lack of judgment which
characterized his associates. It should be said, however, that he was
enthusiastically supported by his constituents and public opinion
generally, and believed that he was doing the best that could be done
for the community.
His greatest triumph was won as the leader of the movement to remove the
State capital from Vandalia to Springfield. Being given the management
of the bill, he applied all his energy and ability to the task, here
showing the same strategic genius which was afterwards demonstrated
in the management of the war. His plan of campaign was simple but
shrewd. He first persuaded the Legislature to pass a bill removing the
capital from Vandalia, then he secured a succession of votes upon other
locations, and finally succeeded in carrying a direct vote in favor of
Springfield, which was accomplished by his personal influence. Jesse
K. Dubois, who represented another part of the State, says, "We gave
the vote to Lincoln because we liked him, because we wanted to oblige
him, our friend, and because we wanted to recognize him as our leader,"
which is a great tribute considering the fact that the delegation from
Sangamon County was an unusually strong one. It was famous for the
stature of its nine members, which, combined, was fifty-five feet. The
delegation was known as "the Long Nine."
When the law was signed the citizens of Springfield tendered a banquet
to their representatives, and among the toasts was this:
"Abraham Lincoln: one of Nature's noblemen; he has fulfilled the
expectations of his friends and disappointed the hopes of his enemies."