Hampshire. He was a delicate child and from babyhood was indulged and
petted by his parents and brothers and sisters. He was fond of outdoor
sports, but he was fond of study too and easily led his classes. Many
characteristic stories are told of his boyhood. It is said that one
of his first purchases was a handkerchief on which was printed the
recently-adopted Constitution of the United States. Thus as a child he
read and studied the great instrument which he was so eloquently to
uphold. Looking back to his childhood in later years, Webster said: “I
read what I could get to read, went to school when I could, and when
not at school was a farmer’s youngest boy, not good for much for want
of health and strength, but expected to do something.”
By means of many sacrifices on the part of his family, Daniel was kept
at school and finally sent to college. The attitude of the family
toward him is illustrated by an incident of his boyhood. He and his
brother Ezekiel were one day allowed to go to town, each being provided
with a small sum of spending-money. When they returned home Mrs.
Webster asked Daniel, “What did you do with your money?”
“Spent it,” was the reply, and there followed an enthusiastic
description of the day’s pleasures. Then the mother turned to the
silent elder brother.
“And what did you do with yours, ’Zekiel?”
“Lent it to Dan’el,” was the quiet answer.
The family was always “lending to Daniel”--making sacrifices for him
and feeling amply repaid by his affection and success.
Young Webster’s talents were early recognized; even in his college days
his eloquence and commanding presence and deep sonorous voice attracted
attention. When he was eighteen he delivered at Hanover a Fourth of
July oration; in crude form it uttered the message--love of country
and loyalty to the Constitution--which was the burden of his later
speeches. After leaving college he began the study of law. He taught
for awhile in order to aid his brother Ezekiel to obtain a collegiate
education, but kept steadily on with his studies.
In 1805 he was admitted to the bar, and established himself in a New
Hampshire village. He was an eloquent and able speaker, and gradually
became prominent in politics, making addresses at Federalist meetings
and on public occasions. In 1813, he was sent to Congress as a member
of the House. There he met Clay and Calhoun, the other members of
the “Great Triumvirate” of which you have heard. Webster spoke ably
in behalf of a national bank, of the tariff, and of other measures
advocated by the Federalists; he soon came to be recognized as one of
the foremost men of his party.
After serving a term in Congress, however, he returned to private
life for a few years. He removed to Boston where he continued the
practice of his profession, earning money easily and spending it with
equal facility, often before it was earned. He was known as one of the
ablest lawyers and greatest orators in the country. The effect of his
eloquence was aided by his commanding presence. “Good heavens, he is a
small cathedral by himself,” said a witty Englishman.
Among Webster’s famous addresses on public occasions were the
oration at Plymouth on the two hundredth anniversary of the landing
of the Pilgrims, the address five years later at the laying of the
corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument, and the eulogy on Adams and
Jefferson. The best-known passage in the eulogy is the imaginary speech
of John Adams, which many people have supposed to be an extract from a
real speech. This begins with the famous words, “Sink or swim, live or
die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.”
After serving again in the House, Webster was sent in 1827 to the
Senate; there he supported Henry Clay’s “American system.” About this
time the question of the tariff was causing much friction between the
North and the South, and the people of South Carolina were discussing
nullification. This discussion led to one of Webster’s ablest speeches.
In 1830 General Hayne of South Carolina made a speech expressing the
view that the Constitution was “a compact between sovereign states”
and asserting the right of secession which Kentucky and Virginia in
1799 and New England in 1814 had threatened to exercise. In his reply
to Hayne, Webster insisted that the Constitution was not a “compact”
but a “national instrument,” and he made an eloquent argument for the
Union and the Constitution. This speech was published and scattered far
and wide; it was inserted in school-books and declaimed in debating
societies; its author was regarded as the “great expounder and defender
of the Constitution.”
The life-long ambition of Webster, as of Clay, was to become president,
but like his rival he was doomed to disappointment. Many people thought
that Webster might have attained the honor in 1852 had it not been
for his speech in 1850 on the Fugitive Slave Law. Webster was not an
extremist. He considered slavery “one of the greatest evils, both moral
and political,” and he was opposed to its being admitted into the
western territories. He said, however, that the Constitution “found
slavery in the Union, it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties”
which could not honestly and honorably be broken. He asserted that
a state had no right to refuse to give up runaway slaves to their
masters, as was provided by the Fugitive Slave Law. He concluded his
speech with an eloquent appeal for national harmony and the Union. His
position was legally unassailable and he was animated by a desire to
conciliate and unite the jarring sections, but the speech called forth
a storm of indignation from the abolitionists. There was no longer any
hope that he would receive the presidential nomination.
But the time was at hand when earthly honors were a matter of no moment
to the great orator. His health was giving way, and he died September
8, 1852, at Marshfield, his beloved home beside the sea. His dying eyes
were gladdened by the sight of the flag he loved, the symbol of the
“Union and liberty” for which he had striven.
Abraham Lincoln
The War President
When asked about his early life Abraham Lincoln once said, “It can all
be condensed into a single sentence and that sentence you will find in
Gray’s ‘Elegy,’
‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’”
His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a roving, shiftless, man, a carpenter
by trade; after his marriage his wife taught him to read and to write
his name, but here his education began and ended. Abraham Lincoln’s
mother came, he said, “of a family of the name of Hanks,” about whom
nothing good is recorded. Of his mother personally, almost nothing is
known.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN]
Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky.
When he was seven years old, his father made one of his numerous moves,
going to Indiana and taking up a claim of land. There he built what was
called “a half-faced camp”--a log-shed open on one side; in this his
family passed the winter. The next year Thomas Lincoln built a cabin;
it had four walls, but for years it was left without floor, door, or
window. Instead of steps there were pegs in the wall by means of which
Abraham ascended to the loft where he slept. The furniture was rude
and scanty. It consisted of a few stools, a rough table and bed, some
pewter dishes, a skillet and a pot.
Abraham was only nine years old when his mother succumbed to a fatal
disease. As she lay on her death-bed she called her son and daughter to
her and gave them her last charge. “Be good to one another,” she said,
“love God and your kin.”
The winter which followed was dreary and desolate for the motherless
children. A few months later Thomas Lincoln brought to the cabin a
second wife who was a mother indeed to the two little ones. She was
thrifty and industrious, as well as kind and affectionate, and under
her rule the family had more of the comforts of life than it had ever
known before. Mrs. Lincoln insisted that ten-year-old Abe must be sent
to school and so he trudged every day to the log schoolhouse a mile and
a half from home.
He was a diligent student, and he read every book on which he could lay
his hands. These books were few in number; the Bible, “Æsop’s Fables,”
“Robinson Crusoe,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” a history of the United
States, and Weems’ “Life of Washington,” were read and re-read. His
bookcase was a crack between the logs of the cabin wall. One night the
binding of the “Life of Washington,” was injured by a driving storm; to
pay the man from whom it was borrowed for the damage, Abe worked three
days in his corn field. At night the boy would lie flat on the floor
before the fire and cipher on a plank or a wooden shovel with a piece
of charcoal; when the surface was covered with figures, he would erase
them and begin anew.
His father considered the hours spent in study as wasted time, and
Abe was often called to put his books aside to grub and plow and mow.
Such work was little to his taste; he said in later years, “his father
taught him to work but never taught him to love work.”
Abe grew fast and at seventeen he was over six feet tall. He was
strong and active, but an awkward figure, in his homespun shirt,
buckskin trousers, and cap of squirrel or coon skin.
In the spring of 1830 when Abe was twenty-one his father moved to
Illinois where fertile land was to be had on easy terms. The household
goods were carried on an ox-wagon and it took two weeks to make the
long and tedious journey. In the new settlement the men set to work to
clear away the forest and build cabins. Abe helped to split rails to
fence in the little farm. He not only helped at home, but worked for
others as occasion demanded. We are informed that he bargained with a
Mrs. Miller “to split four hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans
dyed with white walnut bark that would be necessary to make him a pair
of trousers.”
A little later he made a trip to New Orleans with a boat-load of meat,
hogs, and corn. In that city for the first time he saw slaves bought
and sold. You remember that slavery had been introduced into America
early in the seventeenth century. For a long time slavery existed in
both the northern and the southern colonies, but in the course of time
it was limited to the south where alone slave labor was profitable.
Lincoln did not think that it was right that negroes should be sold
like cattle, and he said, “If ever I get a chance to hit that thing
[slavery] I’ll hit it hard.”
After his return home, he became clerk in a country store. Here by
his scrupulous honesty he earned the nickname “Honest Abe.” One day
he made an overcharge of fourpence and that night he walked several
miles to return the money. During his leisure he continued his studies.
Books were scarce, and on one occasion he walked six miles to borrow a
grammar.
In 1832 Abe Lincoln was elected captain of a company of volunteers
who marched with the regular troops against the Indian chief, Black
Hawk. Most of the men went home when their term of enlistment expired
but Abe Lincoln re-enlisted and served as a private. This was his
only experience in actual warfare. When he returned home he presented
himself as a candidate for the legislature. His neighbors heartily
supported “humble Abraham Lincoln” who was one of them, but he was
defeated. He was a clear, straightforward speaker with a pointed,
well-told joke for every occasion.
After his political defeat he opened a store in partnership with a
friend. As Lincoln spent his time in studying and telling jokes and
Berry spent his in drinking, it is no wonder that the business proved
a failure. Berry died soon after this; Lincoln assumed all the debts
of the firm and paid them to the last penny, although it required his
savings for over fifteen years.
Lincoln now began to study law, supporting himself, meanwhile, by doing
such work as came to hand. People took it as a joke that this rough,
awkward fellow was preparing himself for a profession. One day a man
who saw him sitting on a woodpile poring over a book asked, “What are
you reading, Abe?” “I am not reading; I am studying,” was the answer.
“Studying what?” “Law, sir,” said Abe. The man laughed uproariously,
but Lincoln kept on with his studies; neither in youth nor in manhood
was he to be turned from a purpose by ridicule. He worked as a
farmhand, he learned to survey lands, he served as postmaster of the
country office. We are told that “he carried the office around in his
hat,”--putting in his hat the handful of letters which came to New
Salem and distributing them as he went to survey land.
In 1837 Lincoln was licensed to practice law. He resolved to make his
home in Springfield, lately made the capital of the state. He rode
thither on a borrowed horse, carrying in a pair of saddle-bags all
his personal effects,--“two or three law books and a few pieces of
clothing.” One who knew him in those days describes him as a tall,
gaunt, awkward figure; he wore a faded brown hat, a loose, ill-fitting
coat, and trousers which were too short; in winter he added to this
costume a short cloak or a shawl. In one hand he carried a carpet-bag
containing his papers, and in the other a faded green cotton umbrella,
tied with a string. Like the other lawyers of the place, he “traveled
on the circuit,” going from one place to another to attend courts.
He usually carried with him a book or two; rising earlier than his
companions, he would sit by the fire to read and think. In later days
when a young lawyer asked Lincoln’s advice as to the best method of
obtaining a knowledge of law, he answered that it was “simple though
laborious,” such knowledge must be gained by careful reading and study.
“Work, work, work, is the main thing.”
Lincoln was popular with men and was known as an honest, kind-hearted
fellow. He himself told the following anecdote: one day as he was
riding along dressed in his best he saw a hog “mired up” beside the
road. Unwilling to soil his clothes, he passed on. The poor animal
gave a grunt which seemed to say, “There now, my last chance is gone.”
Unable to resist the brute’s appeal, Lincoln went back and helped it
out.
In 1842 Lincoln married Miss Mary Todd, a clever, well-bred woman, who
forwarded his professional and political success. She lacked, however,
the amiable temper which would have made a happy home; more and more
her husband’s interest centered in public matters and in politics. In
1844 he gave his enthusiastic support to Henry Clay, the presidential
candidate, who was “his ideal of a statesman.” Two years later Lincoln
was elected to Congress; after serving a term, he retired from public
life for awhile, devoting himself to his profession and to his studies.
In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise led him again to take an
interest in politics. Lincoln was opposed to the extension of slavery,
but he did not agree with the extreme abolitionists; he said that
“loyalty to the Constitution and the Union” forbade interference with
slavery where it was already established. In 1856 he was a member of
the Convention at Bloomington, Illinois, which formed the Republican
party, the object of which Lincoln said was “the preventing of the
spread and nationization of slavery.”
He became the Republican candidate for senator in 1858 and made a
famous speech in which he asserted that the Union could not endure,
part free and part slave. “‘A house divided against itself cannot
stand,’” he said. “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 the one thing or the other.” To a friend
who objected to this utterance he said, “If I had to draw a pen across
my record and erase my whole life from sight and I had one poor gift or
choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose
that speech and leave it to the world unerased.”
Lincoln was defeated by Douglas in this contest, but the eyes of the
people were on him and in 1860 the Republican party made him its
candidate for president. Some of the rails he had split were brought
into the convention; the contest between free and slave labor was
made an issue of the campaign. There were three other candidates
in the field, and the division of votes in the old parties caused
Lincoln to be elected. The southern people knew little about Lincoln
personally; they knew, however, that he led the party which wished to
destroy slavery. There had been so much disagreement and friction in
the Union that some of the southern states now decided to leave it. The
Constitution did not give the general government power to enforce a
permanent union. In course of time there came to be held two different
views about the Union,--one, generally held in the South, was that it
was “a compact between sovereign states” and that the power of the
state was supreme; the other, generally held in the North, was that
the states made up one great nation to which belonged the supreme
authority. The latter was the view held by Lincoln. He prepared for his
inaugural address by studying the Constitution, Clay’s great speech of
1850, Jackson’s proclamation against nullification, and Webster’s reply
to Hayne: locked in his dingy office he composed his inaugural address.
Before he left home, he paid a farewell visit to his aged step-parent
who had been as a mother to him. Then with his wife and three sons, he
set forth to Washington.
When he took the oath of office, it was over a divided Union. South
Carolina had seceded and several other southern states had followed its
example. Lincoln said, “the Union must be preserved” and he issued a
call for seventy-five thousand soldiers. At this call there withdrew
from the Union several states which loved the Union but believed in the
supreme power of the states and the constitutional right of secession.
The reverse at Manassas distressed but did not daunt Lincoln. As
commander-in-chief of the army and the navy, he appointed officers
and supervised their movements. There were three great military tasks
necessary for the northern forces,--to control the Mississippi River,
to blockade southern ports, and to capture Richmond. The sea forces
under Farragut and Porter successfully performed their tasks. In
Virginia one unsuccessful or incompetent general after another was put
forward and supported,--McClellan, Halleck, Pope, and Hooker. Meanwhile
the great commanders, Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman, were fighting
undiscovered in the west. At last they were brought forward and put at
the head of magnificent armies to “end the job.”
As a military measure, in 1863, President Lincoln made the emancipation
proclamation granting freedom to slaves. In November, of that year
he made his famous address, consecrating the military cemetery at
Gettysburg.
Not long before the presidential election of 1864, Lincoln issued
a call for five hundred thousand soldiers; friends urged him to
wait a few weeks as this call for troops might injure his chance of
re-election. He refused saying, “What is the presidency worth to me if
I have no country?”
In his second inaugural address are the famous words, “With malice
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are
in.” The end was already in sight. The capital of the Confederacy fell
and Lee’s little army was forced to surrender. Lincoln expressed only
sympathy for the defeated and desolate South. But his plans for reunion
in peace and kindness were not to be carried out. Just as the great
victory was accomplished he was struck down by the hand of an assassin,
John Wilkes Booth. His death was an even greater loss to the South than
to the North which mourned so bitterly, the heroic man of the people,
the martyred president.
Ulysses Simpson Grant
April 27, 1822, was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, who by an error of which
you will hear later had his name changed to Ulysses Simpson Grant. His
father was Jesse Grant, an Ohio tanner. Grant’s ancestors had settled
in New England in the seventeenth century and some had served in the
French and Indian War and some had served in the Revolution, so he was
of good American stock.
When Ulysses was about ten years old, his father moved to Georgetown,
Ohio, about forty miles from Cincinnati. There he prospered and became
the owner of a farm as well as a tannery. Ulysses was not specially
fond of books, but his father was resolved that he should have a good
education. The boy was sent regularly to school and was a faithful
student. He had work to do at home too--sometimes in the tannery which
he disliked, sometimes on the farm, which he liked better. He was fond
of horses and learned to ride and drive well.
From the time he was eleven till he was seventeen, he did the plowing
and hauling on his father’s farm. His father who seems to have been
more ambitious for his son than the boy was for himself, secured an
appointment to West Point. Ulysses did not wish to go and feared he
could not pass the entrance examinations. But his father’s word was the
law of the family and so the sandy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen
left his Ohio home to go to West Point. He lingered on the way to see
the sights in Philadelphia and other places.
Two weeks after he left home, he reached West Point, in May, 1839. He
passed the dreaded examinations and was enrolled among the cadets. The
Congressman who had secured the appointment for him forgot his name
and filled in the application for Ulysses Simpson Grant, and by that
name he was called. The boys nicknamed him “Uncle Sam” and called him
“Sam Grant.” He got on well in his studies, especially in mathematics
which had always been his favorite. He was more famous as a horseman,
however, than as a student. At West Point there is still shown the
place where he made a famous leap of six feet, three inches, on a big
horse named York. Except for his horsemanship the young Ohioan, quiet
in manner and careless in dress, was not much noted one way or another.
He was graduated, June, 1843, twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine.
In 1846 came war with Mexico which Grant then and forty years later
thought “one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger against a
weaker nation.” He had hoped for a place in the cavalry, but was sent
in the infantry as second lieutenant.
He took part in many battles and distinguished himself by his coolness
and courage under fire. In the battle of Monterey his regiment
lacked ammunition and Lieutenant Grant volunteered to go for it to
headquarters, four miles away. The route he had to travel was exposed
to the enemy’s fire. He hung his foot on the saddle and held on to his
horse’s mane; thus swinging on the horse’s side he galloped off and
carried the message, returning unharmed.
In Mexico served many men and officers with and against whom he fought
in the War between the States. He said afterwards that the knowledge
of their character and methods which he gained during the campaign in
Mexico was very useful. In the battle of Chapultepec, Grant, with the
help of some comrades, dragged a small cannon up into the belfry of a
church and used the place as a fort with great advantage. Major Robert
E. Lee, in his report of the battle, commended the young lieutenant,
saying that “Second Lieutenant Grant behaved with distinguished
gallantry.” In 1848 Grant returned home and that year he was married.
Soon after, his regiment was ordered to California and Oregon.
Unwilling to be separated from his family, in 1854 he resigned and came
home. From his pay he had not been able to lay aside enough to defray
his expenses home and these were paid by his father.
At thirty-two he had to begin the world with a wife and children to
support. He moved to Missouri to a small tract of land belonging to his
wife. Here he cut and hauled logs and split shingles and built a cabin.
He named the place Hardscrabble, because, he said, life there was a
“hard scrabble.” He worked diligently raising corn, wheat, and potatoes
and cutting cord-wood for sale to help out his expenses, but he did not
succeed as a farmer. At the end of three years, he was two thousand
dollars in debt. Then he tried the real estate business but at that too
he failed.
“Grant did not seem to be just calculated for business, but a more
honest, generous man never lived,” said one who knew him in those
days. “I don’t believe he knew what dishonor was.”