In the universe of God there are no accidents. From the fall of a
sparrow to the fall of an empire or the sweep of a planet, all is
according to Divine Providence, whose laws are everlasting. No accident
gave to his country the patriot we now honor. No accident snatched this
patriot, so suddenly and so cruelly, from his sublime duties. Death
is as little an accident as life. Never, perhaps, in history has this
Providence been more conspicuous than in that recent procession of
events, where the final triumph is wrapped in the gloom of tragedy. It
is our present duty to find the moral of the stupendous drama.
* * * * *
For the second time in our annals, the country is summoned by the
President to unite, on an appointed day, in commemorating the life and
character of the dead. The first was on the death of GEORGE WASHINGTON,
when, as now, a day was set apart for simultaneous eulogy throughout
the land, and cities, towns, and villages all vied in tribute. Since
this early observance for the Father of his Country more than half
a century has passed, and now it is repeated in tribute to ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
Thus are WASHINGTON and LINCOLN associated in the grandeur of their
obsequies. But this association is not accidental. It is from the
nature of things, and because the part Lincoln was called to perform
resembled in character the part performed by Washington. The work left
undone by Washington was continued by Lincoln. Kindred in service,
kindred in patriotism, each is surrounded in death by kindred homage.
One sleeps in the East, the other sleeps in the West; and thus, in
death, as in life, one is the complement of the other.
The two might be compared after the manner of Plutarch; but it must
suffice for the present to glance only at points of resemblance and of
contrast, so as to recall the parts they respectively performed.
Each was head of the Republic during a period of surpassing trial; and
each thought only of the public good, simply, purely, constantly, so
that single-hearted devotion to country will always find a synonym in
their names. Each was national chief during a time of successful war.
Each was representative of his country at a great epoch of history.
Here, perhaps, resemblance ends and contrast begins. Unlike in origin,
conversation, and character, they were unlike also in the _ideas_ they
served, except as each was servant of his country. The war conducted by
Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln, as the peace which
crowned the arms of the one was unlike the peace which began to smile
upon the other. The two wars did not differ in scale of operations and
in tramp of mustered hosts more than in the ideas involved. The first
was for National Independence; the second was to make the Republic
one and indivisible, on the indestructible foundation of Liberty and
Equality. The first cut the connection with the mother country, and
opened the way to the duties and advantages of Popular Government;
_the second will have failed, unless it consummates all the original
promises of the Declaration our fathers took upon their lips when
they became a Nation_. In the relation of cause and effect the first
was natural precursor and herald of the second. National Independence
became the first epoch in our history, whose mighty import was
exhibited when Lafayette boasted to the First Consul of France, that,
though its battles were but skirmishes, they decided the fate of the
world.[186]
The Declaration of our fathers, entitled simply “The Unanimous
Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,” is known
familiarly as the Declaration of Independence, because the remarkable
words with which it concludes made independence the final idea, to
which all else was tributary. Thus did the representatives of the
United States of America in General Congress assembled solemnly publish
and declare “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance
to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them
and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved;
… and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” To sustain this mutual
pledge Washington drew his sword and led the national armies, until at
last, by the Treaty of Peace in 1783, Independence was acknowledged.
Had the Declaration been confined to this pledge, it would have been
less grand. Much as it might have been to us, it would have been
less of a warning and trumpet-note to the world. There were two other
pledges it made. One was proclaimed in the designation “United States
of America,” which it adopted as the national name; and the other
was proclaimed in those great words, fit for the baptismal vows of a
Republic,--“We hold these truths to be self-evident: _that all men are
created equal_; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted
among men, _deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed_.” By the sword of Washington Independence was secured; but
the Unity of the Republic and the principles of the Declaration were
left exposed to question. From that early day, through various chances,
they were assailed and openly dishonored, until at last the Republic
was constrained to take up arms in their defence. And yet, since enmity
to the Union proceeded entirely from enmity to the great ideas of the
Declaration, history must record that the question of the Union itself
was absorbed in the grander conflict to uphold the primal truths our
fathers had solemnly proclaimed.
Such are the two great wars where these two chiefs bore each his part.
Washington fought for National Independence, and triumphed, making his
country an example to mankind. Lincoln drew a reluctant sword to save
those great ideas, essential to the life and character of the Republic,
which unhappily the sword of Washington failed to put beyond the reach
of assault.
By no accident did these two great men become representatives of
their country at these two different epochs, so alike in peril,
and yet so unlike in the principles involved. Washington was the
natural representative of National Independence. He might also have
represented National Unity, had this principle been challenged to
bloody battle during his life; for nothing was nearer his heart than
the consolidation of our Union, which, in his letter to Congress
transmitting the Constitution, he declares to be “the greatest interest
of every true American.”[187] Then again, in a remarkable letter to
John Jay, he plainly says that he does “not conceive we can exist long
as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade
the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State
governments extends over the several States.”[188] But another person
was needed, of different birth and simpler life, to represent the ideas
now impugned.
Washington was of ancient family, traced in English heraldry. Some
of his ancestors sleep in close companionship with the noble name of
Spencer. By inheritance and marriage he was rich in lands, and, let it
be said in respectful sorrow, rich also in slaves, so far as slaves
breed riches rather than curses. At the age of fourteen he refused a
commission as midshipman in the British Navy. At the age of nineteen he
was Adjutant General, with the rank of major. At the age of twenty-one
he was selected by the British Governor of Virginia as Commissioner
to the French posts. At the age of twenty-two he was at the head
of a regiment, and was thanked by the House of Burgesses. Early in
life he became an observer of form and ceremony. Always strictly
just, according to prevailing principles, and at his death ordering
the emancipation of his slaves, he was more a general and statesman
than philanthropist; nor did he seem inspired, beyond the duties of
patriotism, to active sympathy with Human Rights. In the ample record
of what he wrote or said there is no word of adhesion to the great
ideas of the Declaration. Such an origin, such an early life, such
opportunities, such a condition, such a character, were all in contrast
with the origin, early life, opportunities, condition, and character of
him we commemorate to-day.
* * * * *
Abraham Lincoln was born, and, until he became President, always lived
in a part of the country which at the period of the Declaration of
Independence was a savage wilderness. Strange, but happy, Providence,
that a voice from that savage wilderness, now fertile in men, was
inspired to uphold the pledges and promises of the Declaration! The
Unity of the Republic, on the indestructible foundation of Liberty and
Equality, was vindicated by the citizen of a community which had no
existence when the Republic was formed.
His family may be traced to Quaker stock in Pennsylvania, but it
removed first to Virginia, and then, as early as 1780, to the wilds
of Kentucky, which at that time was only an outlying territory of
Virginia. His grandfather and father both lived in peril from Indians,
and the former perished by their knife. The future President was born
in a log-house. His mother could read, and perhaps write. His father
could do neither, except so far as to sign his name rudely, like a
noble of Charlemagne. Trial, privation, and labor entered into his
early life. Only at seven years of age, for a very brief period, could
he enjoy school, carrying with him Dilworth’s Spelling-Book, one of
the three volumes that formed the family library. Shortly afterwards
his father turned his back upon that Slavery which disfigured
Kentucky, and with his poor effects and the future chief-magistrate
set his face towards Indiana, already guarded against Slavery by the
famous Northwestern Ordinance. Reaching the chosen home in a land of
Liberty, the son, who was less than eight years old, aided his father
in building a shelter of poles, fastened together by notches, and
filled in with mud. This preceded the log cabin, where for twelve
years afterwards he grew in character and knowledge, as in stature,
learning to write as well as read, and especially enjoying Bunyan’s
Pilgrim’s Progress, Æsop’s Fables, Weems’s Life of Washington, and the
Life of Henry Clay. At the age of ten he lost his mother. At the age
of nineteen he became a hired hand, at eight dollars a month, on a
flatboat laden with stores for plantations on the Mississippi, and in
this way floated on that lordly river to New Orleans, little dreaming
that only a few years later iron-clad navies would at his command float
on that same proud stream. Here also was he learner. From the slaves he
saw on the banks he took a lesson of Liberty, which gained new charms
by comparison with Slavery.
In 1830 the father removed to Illinois, transporting his goods in a
wagon drawn by oxen, and the future President, then twenty-one years
of age, drove the team. Another cabin was built in primitive rudeness,
and the future President split the rails to inclose the lot. In our
history these became classical, and the name of rail-splitter more
than the degree of a college,--not that the splitting of rails is any
way meritorious, but because the people are proud to trace aspiring
talent back to humble beginnings, and they found in this tribute new
opportunity to vindicate the dignity of free labor, and repel the
insolent pretensions of Slavery.
His youth was now spent, and at the age of twenty-one he left his
father’s house to begin the world. A small bundle, a laughing face, and
an honest heart,--these were his simple possessions, together with that
unconscious character and intelligence which his country learned to
prize. In the long history of worth depressed there is no instance of
such contrast between the depression and the triumph,--unless, perhaps,
his successor as President may share with him this distinction. No
academy, no university, no Alma Mater of science or learning nourished
him. No government took him by the hand and gave him the gift of
opportunity. No inheritance of land or money fell to him. No friend
stood by his side. He was alone in poverty: and yet not all alone.
There was God above, who watches all, and does not desert the lowly.
Plain in person, life, and manners, and knowing absolutely nothing of
form or ceremony, for six months with a village schoolmaster as his
only teacher, he grew up in companionship with the people, with Nature,
with trees, with the fruitful corn, and with the stars. While yet a
child, his father had borne him away from a soil wasted by Slavery, and
he was now citizen of a Free State, where Free Labor had been placed
under safeguard of irreversible compact and fundamental law. And thus
he took leave of youth, happy at least that he could go forth under the
day-star of Liberty.
The early hardships were prolonged into manhood. He labored on a
farm as hired hand, and then a second time in a flatboat measured
the winding Mississippi to its mouth. At the call of the Governor of
Illinois for troops against Black Hawk, the Indian chief, he sprang
forward with patriotic ardor, most prompt to enlist at the recruiting
station in his neighborhood. The choice of his associates made him
captain. After the war he became surveyor, and to his death retained
a practical and scientific knowledge of this business. Here again was
a parallel with Washington. In 1834 he was elected to the Legislature
of Illinois, and three years later was admitted to the practice of
the law. He was now twenty-eight years old, and, under the benignant
influence of republican institutions, he had already entered upon
the double career of lawyer and legislator, with the gates of the
mysterious Future slowly opening before him.
How well he served in these two characters I pause not to tell. It is
enough, if I exhibit the stages of advance, that you may understand
how he became representative of his country at so grand a moment.
It is needless to say that his opportunities of study as a lawyer
were small, but he was industrious in each individual case, and thus
daily added to his stores of professional experience. Faithful in
all things, most conscientious in conduct at the bar, so that he
could not be unfair to the other side, and admirably sensitive to the
behests of justice, so that he could not argue on the wrong side, he
acquired a name for honesty, which, beginning with the community where
he lived, became proverbial throughout his State,--while his genial,
mirthful, overflowing nature, apt at anecdote and story, made him,
where personally known, a favorite companion. His opinions on public
questions were formed early, under the example and teaching of Henry
Clay, and he never departed from them, though constantly tempted, or
pressed by local majorities, in the name of a false democracy. It is
interesting to know that thus early he espoused those two ideas which
entered so largely into the terrible responsibilities of his last
years,--I mean the Unity of the Republic, and the supreme value of
Liberty. He did not believe that a State, in its own mad will, had a
right to break up this Union. As reader of Congressional speeches, and
student of what was said by the political teachers of that day, he was
no stranger to those marvellous efforts of Daniel Webster, when, in
reply to the treasonable pretensions of Nullification, the great orator
of Massachusetts asserted the indestructibility of the Union, and the
folly of those who assail it. On the subject of Slavery, he had the
experience of his own family and the warnings of his own conscience.
Naturally, one of his earliest acts in the Legislature of Illinois was
a protest in the name of Liberty.
At a later day, he was in Congress for a single term, beginning in
December, 1847, being the only Whig Representative from Illinois. His
speeches during this brief period have the characteristics of his
later productions. They are argumentative, logical, and spirited,
with quaint humor and sinewy sententiousness. His votes were constant
against Slavery. For the Wilmot Proviso he voted, according to his
own statement, “in one way and another, about forty times.” His vote
is recorded against the pretence that slaves are property under the
Constitution. From Congress he passed again to his profession. The day
was at hand, when all his powers, enlarged by experience and quickened
to highest activity, would be needed to repel that haughty domination
already overshadowing the Republic.
The next field of conflict was in his own State, with no less an
antagonist than Stephen A. Douglas, at that time in alliance with
the Slave Power. The too famous Kansas and Nebraska Bill, introduced
by the latter into the Senate, assumed to set aside the venerable
safeguard of Freedom in the territory west of Missouri, under pretence
of allowing the inhabitants “to vote Slavery up or to vote it down,”
and this barbarous privilege was called by the fancy name of Popular
Sovereignty. The champion of Liberty did not hesitate to denounce this
most baleful measure in a series of popular addresses, where truth,
sentiment, humor, and argument all blended. As the conflict continued,
he was brought forward for the Senate against its able author. The
debate that ensued is one of the most memorable in our political
history, whether we consider the principles involved or the way it was
conducted.
It commenced with a close, well-woven speech from the Republican
candidate, showing insight into the actual condition of things, in
which were these memorable words: “‘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.”[189] Here was
the true starting-point. Only a few days before his death, in reply to
my inquiry, if at the time he had any doubt about this declaration, he
said, “Not in the least. It was clearly true, and time has justified
me.” With like plainness he exposed the Douglas pretence of Popular
Sovereignty as meaning simply, “that, if any _one_ man choose to
enslave _another_, no _third_ man shall be allowed to object,”[190] and
he announced his belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate
and nationalize Slavery, of which the Kansas and Nebraska Bill and the
Dred Scott decision were essential parts. Such was the character of
this debate at the beginning, and so it continued on the lips of our
champion to the end.
The inevitable topic to which he returned with most frequency, and
to which he clung with all the grasp of his soul, was _the practical
character of the Declaration of Independence in announcing the Liberty
and Equality of all Men_. No idle words were there, but substantial
truth, binding on the conscience of mankind. I know not if this grand
pertinacity has been noticed before; but I deem it a duty to declare
that to my mind it is by far the most important incident of that
controversy, and perhaps the most interesting in the biography of the
speaker. Nothing previous to his nomination for the Presidency is
comparable to it. Plainly his whole subsequent career took impulse and
complexion from that championship. And here, too, is our first debt of
gratitude. The words he then uttered live after him, and nobody now
hears how he then battled without feeling a new motive to fidelity in
support of Human Rights.
As early as 1854, in a speech at Peoria against the Kansas and Nebraska
Bill, after denouncing Slavery as a “monstrous injustice,” which
“enables the enemies of free institutions to taunt us as hypocrites,”
and “causes the real friends of Freedom to doubt our sincerity,” he
complains especially that “it forces so many really good men amongst
ourselves _into open war with the very fundamental principles of civil
liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence_.”[191] Thus,
according to him, criticism of the Declaration was the climax of
infidelity as citizen.
Mr. Douglas opened the debate, on his side, at Chicago, July 9, 1858,
by a speech, where he said, among other things, “I am opposed to negro
equality. I repeat, that this nation is a white people.… I am opposed
to taking any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian as the
equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving him a voice in the
administration of the Government.”[192] Thus was the case stated for
Slavery.
To this speech the Republican candidate replied promptly, and did not
forget his championship. Quoting the great words, “We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” he proceeds:--
“That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the
hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will
link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom
exists in the minds of men throughout the world.… I should
like to know, if, taking this old Declaration of Independence,
which declares that all men are equal, upon principle, and
making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says
it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean
some other man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us
get the statute-book in which we find it and tear it out. Who
is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out.
[_Cries of “No, no!”_] _Let us stick to it, then; let us stand
firmly by it, then._”
Noble utterance, worthy of perpetual memory! And he finished his
speech with a farewell truly apostolic:--
“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of Liberty will burn in your
bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are
created free and equal.”[193]
He has left us now, and for the last time. I catch the closing
benediction of that speech, already sounding through the ages like a
choral harmony.
The debate continued from place to place. At Bloomington, July 16th,
Mr. Douglas denied again that colored persons could be citizens, and
then broke forth upon the champion:--
“I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that
subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have
not the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes
that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and
privileges given to white men; but I do not agree with him.…
_I believe that this government of ours was founded on the
white basis._ I believe that it was established by white men.…
I do not believe that it was the design or intention of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of
the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior
races, with white men, as citizens.… _He wants them to vote.
I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would
all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I
do._”[194]
Then again at Springfield, the next day, Mr. Douglas repeated his
denial that the colored man was embraced by the Declaration, and thus
argued for the exclusion:--
“Remember that at the time the Declaration was put forth, every
one of the Thirteen Colonies were slaveholding colonies,--every
man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding
constituents. Did those signers mean by that act to charge
themselves and all their constituents with having violated the
law of God in holding the negro in an inferior condition to
the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in that term,
they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour,
not only to have abolished Slavery throughout the land, _but to
have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro,
and elevated him to an equality with the white man_.… The
Declaration of Independence only included the white people of
the United States.”[195]
On the same evening, at Springfield, the Republican candidate, while
admitting that negroes are not “our equal in color,” thus again spoke
for the comprehensive humanity of the Declaration:--
“_I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge
Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let
them come up and amend it. Let them make it read, that all men
are created equal except negroes._ Let us have it decided,
whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year
of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his construction of the
Declaration last year, he said it only meant that Americans
in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I
pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans,
the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who
have come amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs
his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant
Europeans. I press him a little further, and ask if it meant
to include the Russians in Asia. Or does he mean to exclude
that vast population from the principles of our Declaration
of Independence? I expect erelong he will introduce another
amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular.… _It
may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up._”[196]
Words like these are gratefully remembered. They make the Declaration,
what the Fathers intended, no mean proclamation of oligarchic egotism,
but a charter and freehold for all mankind.
At Ottawa, August 21st, Mr. Douglas, still excluding the colored men
from the Declaration, exclaimed:--
“I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I
believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men
and their posterity forever.”[197]
Again the Republican champion took up the strain.
“Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress
all tendencies to Liberty and ultimate Emancipation, that
they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our
Independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual
joyous return,--they must blow out the moral lights around
us,--they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there
the love of Liberty; and then, and not till then, could they
perpetuate Slavery in this country. To my thinking, Judge
Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that
very thing in this community, when he says that the negro has
nothing in the Declaration of Independence.”[198]
At Jonesboro’, September 15th, Mr. Douglas once more assailed the
rights of the colored race.
“I am aware that all the Abolition lecturers that you find
travelling about through the country are in the habit of
reading the Declaration of Independence to prove that all men
were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. Mr. Lincoln is very much in the habit
of following in the track of Lovejoy in this particular,
by reading that part of the Declaration of Independence to
prove that the negro was endowed by the Almighty with the
inalienable right of equality with white men. Now I say to you,
my fellow-citizens, that, in my opinion, the signers of the
Declaration had no reference to the negro whatever, when they
declared all men to be created equal.”[199]