First Session of the Thirtieth Congress--Mexican War--"Wilmot
Proviso"--Campaign of 1848--Letters to Herndon about Young Men
in Politics--Speech in Congress on the Mexican War--Second Session
of the Thirtieth Congress--Bill to Prohibit Slavery in the District
of Columbia--Lincoln's Recommendations of Office-Seekers--Letters
to Speed--Commissioner of the General Land Office--Declines Governorship
of Oregon
Very few men are fortunate enough to gain distinction during their first
term in Congress. The reason is obvious. Legally, a term extends over
two years; practically, a session of five or six months during the
first, and three months during the second year ordinarily reduce their
opportunities more than one half. In those two sessions, even if we
presuppose some knowledge of parliamentary law, they must learn the
daily routine of business, make the acquaintance of their
fellow-members, who already, in the Thirtieth Congress, numbered
something over two hundred, study the past and prospective legislation
on a multitude of minor national questions entirely new to the new
members, and perform the drudgery of haunting the departments in the
character of unpaid agent and attorney to attend to the private
interests of constituents--a physical task of no small proportions in
Lincoln's day, when there was neither street-car nor omnibus in the
"city of magnificent distances," as Washington was nicknamed. Add to
this that the principal work of preparing legislation is done by the
various committees in their committee-rooms, of which the public hears
nothing, and that members cannot choose their own time for making
speeches; still further, that the management of debate on prepared
legislation must necessarily be intrusted to members of long experience
as well as talent, and it will be seen that the novice need not expect
immediate fame.
It is therefore not to be wondered at that Lincoln's single term in the
House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his
reputation. He did not attempt to shine forth in debate by either a
stinging retort or a witty epigram, or by a sudden burst of inspired
eloquence. On the contrary, he took up his task as a quiet but earnest
and patient apprentice in the great workshop of national legislation,
and performed his share of duty with industry and intelligence, as well
as with a modest and appreciative respect for the ability and experience
of his seniors.
"As to speech-making," he wrote, "by way of getting the hang 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." And again,
some weeks later: "I just take my pen to say that Mr. Stephens of
Georgia, a little, slim, pale-faced consumptive man with a voice like
Logan's, has just concluded the very best speech of an hour's length I
ever heard. My old, withered, dry eyes are full of tears yet."
He was appointed the junior Whig member of the Committee on Post-offices
and Post-roads, and shared its prosaic but eminently useful labors both
in the committee-room and the House debates. His name appears on only
one other committee,--that on Expenditures of the War Department,--and
he seems to have interested himself in certain amendments of the law
relating to bounty lands for soldiers and such minor military topics. He
looked carefully after the interests of Illinois in certain grants of
land to that State for railroads, but expressed his desire that the
government price of the reserved sections should not be increased to
actual settlers.
During the first session of the Thirtieth Congress he delivered three
set speeches in the House, all of them carefully prepared and fully
written out. The first of these, on January 12, 1848, was an elaborate
defense of the Whig doctrine summarized in a House resolution passed a
week or ten days before, that the Mexican War "had been unnecessarily
and unconstitutionally commenced by the President," James K. Polk. The
speech is not a mere party diatribe, but a terse historical and legal
examination of the origin of the Mexican War. In the after-light of our
own times which shines upon these transactions, we may readily admit
that Mr. Lincoln and the Whigs had the best of the argument, but it must
be quite as readily conceded that they were far behind the President and
his defenders in political and party strategy. The former were clearly
wasting their time in discussing an abstract question of international
law upon conditions existing twenty months before. During those twenty
months the American arms had won victory after victory, and planted the
American flag on the "halls of the Montezumas." Could even successful
argument undo those victories or call back to life the brave American
soldiers who had shed their blood to win them?
It may be assumed as an axiom that Providence has never gifted any
political party with all of political wisdom or blinded it with all of
political folly. Upon the foregoing point of controversy the Whigs were
sadly thrown on the defensive, and labored heavily under their already
discounted declamation. But instinct rather than sagacity led them to
turn their eyes to the future, and successfully upon other points to
retrieve their mistake. Within six weeks after Lincoln's speech
President Polk sent to the Senate a treaty of peace, under which Mexico
ceded to the United States an extent of territory equal in area to
Germany, France, and Spain combined, and thereafter the origin of the
war was an obsolete question. What should be done with the new territory
was now the issue.
This issue embraced the already exciting slavery question, and Mr.
Lincoln was doubtless gratified that the Whigs had taken a position upon
it so consonant with his own convictions. Already, in the previous
Congress, the body of the Whig members had joined a small group of
antislavery Democrats in fastening upon an appropriation bill the famous
"Wilmot Proviso," that slavery should never exist in territory acquired
from Mexico, and the Whigs of the Thirtieth Congress steadily followed
the policy of voting for the same restriction in regard to every piece
of legislation where it was applicable. Mr. Lincoln often said he had
voted forty or fifty times for the Wilmot Proviso in various forms
during his single term.
Upon another point he and the other Whigs were equally wise. Repelling
the Democratic charge that they were unpatriotic in denouncing the war,
they voted in favor of every measure to sustain, supply, and encourage
the soldiers in the field. But their most adroit piece of strategy, now
that the war was ended, was in their movement to make General Taylor
President.
In this movement Mr. Lincoln took a leading and active part. No living
American statesman has ever been idolized by his party adherents as was
Henry Clay for a whole generation, and Mr. Lincoln fully shared this
hero-worship. But his practical campaigning as a candidate for
presidential elector in the Harrison campaign of 1840, and the Clay
campaign of 1844, in Illinois and the adjoining States, afforded him a
basis for sound judgment, and convinced him that the day when Clay could
have been elected President was forever passed.
"Mr. Clay's chance for an election is just no chance at all," he wrote
on April 30. "He might get New York, and that would have elected in
1844, but it will not now, because he must now, at the least, lose
Tennessee which he had then, and in addition the fifteen new votes of
Florida, Texas, Iowa, and Wisconsin.... In my judgment, we can elect
nobody but General Taylor; and we cannot elect him without a nomination.
Therefore don't fail to send a delegate." And again on the same day:
"Mr. Clay's letter has not advanced his interests any here. Several who
were against Taylor, but not for anybody particularly before, are since
taking ground, some for Scott and some for McLean. Who will be nominated
neither I nor any one else can tell. Now, let me pray to you in turn. My
prayer is that you let nothing discourage or baffle you, but that, in
spite of every difficulty, you send us a good Taylor delegate from your
circuit. Make Baker, who is now with you, I suppose, help about it. He
is a good hand to raise a breeze."
In due time Mr. Lincoln's sagacity and earnestness were both justified;
for on June 12 he was able to write to an Illinois friend:
"On my return from Philadelphia, where I had been attending the
nomination of 'Old Rough,' I found your letter in a mass of others which
had accumulated in my absence. By many, and often, it had been said they
would not abide the nomination of Taylor; but since the deed has been
done, they are fast falling in, and in my opinion we shall have a most
overwhelming, glorious triumph. One unmistakable sign is that all the
odds and ends are with us--Barnburners, Native Americans, Tyler men,
disappointed office-seeking Locofocos, and the Lord knows what. This is
important, if in nothing else, in showing which way the wind blows. Some
of the sanguine men have set down all the States as certain for Taylor
but Illinois, and it as doubtful. Cannot something be done even in
Illinois? Taylor's nomination takes the Locos on the blind side. It
turns the war-thunder against them. The war is now to them the gallows
of Haman, which they built for us, and on which they are doomed to be
hanged themselves."
Nobody understood better than Mr. Lincoln the obvious truth that in
politics it does not suffice merely to nominate candidates. Something
must also be done to elect them. Two of the letters which he at this
time wrote home to his young law partner, William H. Herndon, are
especially worth quoting in part, not alone to show his own zeal and
industry, but also as a perennial instruction and encouragement to young
men who have an ambition to make a name and a place for themselves in
American politics:
"Last night I was attending a sort of caucus of the Whig members, held
in relation to the coming presidential election. The whole field of the
nation was scanned, and all is high hope and confidence.... Now, as to
the young men. You must not wait to be brought forward by the older men.
For instance, do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if
I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men? You young
men get together and form a 'Rough and Ready Club,' and have regular
meetings and speeches.... Let every one play the part he can play
best,--some speak, some sing, and all 'holler.' Your meetings will be of
evenings; the older men, and the women, will go to hear you; so that it
will not only contribute to the election of 'Old Zach,' but will be an
interesting pastime, and improving to the intellectual faculties of all
engaged."
And in another letter, answering one from Herndon in which that young
aspirant complains of having been neglected, he says:
"The subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me; and I cannot
but think there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the
old men. I suppose I am now one of the old men; and I declare, on my
veracity, which I think is good with you, that nothing could afford me
more satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends
at home are doing battle in the contest, and endearing themselves to the
people, and taking a stand far above any I have been able to reach in
their admiration. I cannot conceive that other old men feel differently.
Of course I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I
am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say.
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can,
never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure
you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation.
There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and
they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its
true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if
this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall
into it."
Mr. Lincoln's interest in this presidential campaign did not expend
itself merely in advice to others. We have his own written record that
he also took an active part for the election of General Taylor after his
nomination, speaking a few times in Maryland near Washington, several
times in Massachusetts, and canvassing quite fully his own district in
Illinois. Before the session of Congress ended he also delivered two
speeches in the House--one on the general subject of internal
improvements, and the other the usual political campaign speech which
members of Congress are in the habit of making to be printed for home
circulation; made up mainly of humorous and satirical criticism,
favoring the election of General Taylor, and opposing the election of
General Cass, the Democratic candidate. Even this production, however,
is lighted up by a passage of impressive earnestness and eloquence, in
which he explains and defends the attitude of the Whigs in denouncing
the origin of the Mexican War:
"If to say 'the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced
by the President,' be opposing the war, then the Whigs have very
generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all they have said
this; and they have said it on what has appeared good reason to them.
The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement,
frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other
property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable,
peaceful, unprovoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us. So to
call such an act, to us appears no other than a naked, impudent
absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had
begun, and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money
and our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is
not true that we have always opposed the war. With few individual
exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the necessary
supplies. And, more than this, you have had the services, the blood, and
the lives of our political brethren in every trial and on every field.
The beardless boy and the mature man, the humble and the
distinguished--you have had them. Through suffering and death, by
disease and in battle, they have endured, and fought and fell with you.
Clay and Webster each gave a son, never to be returned. From the State
of my own residence, besides other worthy but less known Whig names, we
sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin; they all fought and one
fell, and in the fall of that one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were
the Whigs few in number or laggard in the day of danger. In that
fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's
hard task was to beat back five foes or die himself, of the five high
officers who perished, four were Whigs. In speaking of this, I mean no
odious comparison between the lion-hearted Whigs and the Democrats who
fought there. On other occasions, and among the lower officers and
privates on that occasion, I doubt not the proportion was different. I
wish to do justice to all. I think of all those brave men as Americans,
in whose proud fame, as an American, I, too, have a share. Many of them,
Whigs and Democrats, are my constituents and personal friends; and I
thank them--more than thank them--one and all, for the high,
imperishable honor they have conferred on our common State."
During the second session of the Thirtieth Congress Mr. Lincoln made no
long speeches, but in addition to the usual routine work devolved on him
by the committee of which he was a member, he busied himself in
preparing a special measure which, because of its relation to the great
events of his later life, needs to be particularly mentioned. Slavery
existed in Maryland and Virginia when these States ceded the territory
out of which the District of Columbia was formed. Since, by that
cession, this land passed under the exclusive control of the Federal
government, the "institution" within this ten miles square could no
longer be defended by the plea of State sovereignty, and antislavery
sentiment naturally demanded that it should cease. Pro-slavery
statesmen, on the other hand, as persistently opposed its removal,
partly as a matter of pride and political consistency, partly because it
was a convenience to Southern senators and members of Congress, when
they came to Washington, to bring their family servants where the local
laws afforded them the same security over their black chattels which
existed at their homes. Mr. Lincoln, in his Peoria speech in 1854,
emphasized the sectional dispute with this vivid touch of local color:
"The South clamored for a more efficient fugitive-slave law. The North
clamored for the abolition of a peculiar species of slave trade in the
District of Columbia, in connection with which, in view from the windows
of the Capitol, a sort of negro livery-stable, where droves of negroes
were collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets,
precisely like droves of horses, had been openly maintained for fifty
years."
Thus the question remained a minor but never ending bone of contention
and point of irritation, and excited debate arose in the Thirtieth
Congress over a House resolution that the Committee on the Judiciary be
instructed to report a bill as soon as practicable prohibiting the slave
trade in the District of Columbia. In this situation of affairs, Mr.
Lincoln conceived the fond hope that he might be able to present a plan
of compromise. He already entertained the idea which in later years
during his presidency he urged upon both Congress and the border slave
States, that the just and generous mode of getting rid of the barbarous
institution of slavery was by a system of compensated emancipation
giving freedom to the slave and a money indemnity to the owner. He
therefore carefully framed a bill providing for the abolishment of
slavery in the District upon the following principal conditions:
_First_. That the law should be adopted by a popular vote in the
District.
_Second_. A temporary system of apprenticeship and gradual emancipation
for children born of slave mothers after January 1, 1850.
_Third_. The government to pay full cash value for slaves voluntarily
manumitted by their owners.
_Fourth_. Prohibiting bringing slaves into the District, or selling them
out of it.
_Fifth_. Providing that government officers, citizens of slave States,
might bring with them and take away again, their slave house-servants.
_Sixth_. Leaving the existing fugitive-slave law in force.
When Mr. Lincoln presented this amendment to the House, he said that he
was authorized to state that of about fifteen of the leading citizens of
the District of Columbia, to whom the proposition had been submitted,
there was not one who did not approve the adoption of such a
proposition. He did not wish to be misunderstood. He did not know
whether or not they would vote for this bill on the first Monday in
April; but he repeated that out of fifteen persons to whom it had been
submitted, he had authority to say that every one of them desired that
some proposition like this should pass.
While Mr. Lincoln did not so state to the House, it was well understood
in intimate circles that the bill had the approval on the one hand of
Mr. Seaton, the conservative mayor of Washington, and on the other hand
of Mr. Giddings, the radical antislavery member of the House of
Representatives. Notwithstanding the singular merit of the bill in
reconciling such extremes of opposing factions in its support, the
temper of Congress had already become too hot to accept such a rational
and practical solution, and Mr. Lincoln's wise proposition was not
allowed to come to a vote.
The triumphant election of General Taylor to the presidency in November,
1848, very soon devolved upon Mr. Lincoln the delicate and difficult
duty of making recommendations to the incoming administration of persons
suitable to be appointed to fill the various Federal offices in
Illinois, as Colonel E.D. Baker and himself were the only Whigs elected
to Congress from that State. In performing this duty, one of his leading
characteristics, impartial honesty and absolute fairness to political
friends and foes alike, stands out with noteworthy clearness. His term
ended with General Taylor's inauguration, and he appears to have
remained in Washington but a few days thereafter. Before leaving, he
wrote to the new Secretary of the Treasury:
"Colonel E.D. Baker and myself are the only Whig members of Congress
from Illinois--I of the Thirtieth, and he of the Thirty-first. We have
reason to think the Whigs of that State hold us responsible, to some
extent, for the appointments which may be made of our citizens. We do
not know you personally, and our efforts to see you have, so far, been
unavailing. I therefore hope I am not obtrusive in saying in this way,
for him and myself, that when a citizen of Illinois is to be appointed,
in your department, to an office, either in or out of the State, we most
respectfully ask to be heard."
On the following day, March 10, 1849, he addressed to the Secretary of
State his first formal recommendation. It is remarkable from the fact
that between the two Whig applicants whose papers are transmitted, he
says rather less in favor of his own choice than of the opposing
claimant.
"SIR: There are several applicants for the office of United States
Marshal for the District of Illinois, among the most prominent of whom
are Benjamin Bond, Esq., of Carlyle, and ---- Thomas, Esq., of Galena.
Mr. Bond I know to be personally every way worthy of the office; and he
is very numerously and most respectably recommended. His papers I send
to you; and I solicit for his claims a full and fair consideration.
Having said this much, I add that in my individual judgment the
appointment of Mr. Thomas would be the better.
"Your obedient servant,
"A. LINCOLN"
(Indorsed on Mr. Bond's papers.)
"In this and the accompanying envelop are the recommendations of about
two hundred good citizens, of all parts of Illinois, that Benjamin Bond
be appointed marshal for that district. They include the names of nearly
all our Whigs who now are, or have ever been, members of the State
legislature, besides forty-six of the Democratic members of the present
legislature, and many other good citizens. I add that from personal
knowledge I consider Mr. Bond every way worthy of the office, and
qualified to fill it. Holding the individual opinion that the
appointment of a different gentleman would be better, I ask especial
attention and consideration for his claims, and for the opinions
expressed in his favor by those over whom I can claim no superiority."
There were but three other prominent Federal appointments to be made in
Mr. Lincoln's congressional district, and he waited until after his
return home so that he might be better informed of the local opinion
concerning them before making his recommendations. It was nearly a month
after he left Washington before he sent his decision to the several
departments at Washington. The letter quoted below, relating to one of
these appointments, is in substance almost identical with the others,
and particularly refrains from expressing any opinion of his own for or
against the policy of political removals. He also expressly explains
that Colonel Baker, the other Whig representative, claims no voice in
the appointment.
"DEAR SIR: I recommend that Walter Davis be appointed Receiver of the
Land Office at this place, whenever there shall be a vacancy. I cannot
say that Mr. Herndon, the present incumbent, has failed in the proper
discharge of any of the duties of the office. He is a very warm
partizan, and openly and actively opposed to the election of General
Taylor. I also understand that since General Taylor's election he has
received a reappointment from Mr. Polk, his old commission not having
expired. Whether this is true the records of the department will show. I
may add that the Whigs here almost universally desire his removal."
If Mr. Lincoln's presence in Washington during two sessions in Congress
did not add materially to either his local or national fame, it was of
incalculable benefit in other respects. It afforded him a close
inspection of the complex machinery of the Federal government and its
relation to that of the States, and enabled him to notice both the easy
routine and the occasional friction of their movements. It brought him
into contact and, to some degree, intimate companionship with political
leaders from all parts of the Union, and gave him the opportunity of
joining in the caucus and the national convention that nominated General
Taylor for President. It broadened immensely the horizon of his
observation, and the sharp personal rivalries he noted at the center of
the nation opened to him new lessons in the study of human nature. His
quick intelligence acquired knowledge quite as, or even more, rapidly by
process of logical intuition than by mere dry, laborious study; and it
was the inestimable experience of this single term in the Congress of
the United States which prepared him for his coming, yet undreamed-of,
responsibilities, as fully as it would have done the ordinary man in a
dozen.
Mr. Lincoln had frankly acknowledged to his friend Speed, after his
election in 1846, that "being elected to Congress, though I am very
grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much
as I expected." It has already been said that an agreement had been
reached among the several Springfield aspirants, that they would limit
their ambition to a single term, and take turns in securing and enjoying
the coveted distinction; and Mr. Lincoln remained faithful to this
agreement. When the time to prepare for the election of 1848 approached,
he wrote to his law partner:
"It is very pleasant to learn from you that there are some who desire
that I should be reëlected. I most heartily thank them for their kind
partiality; and I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of Texas,
that 'personally I would not object' to a reëlection, although I thought
at the time, and still think, it would be quite as well for me to
return to the law at the end of a single term. I made the declaration
that I would not be a candidate again, more from a wish to deal fairly
with others, to keep peace among our friends, and to keep the district
from going to the enemy, than for any cause personal to myself; so that,
if it should so happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I could
not refuse the people the right of sending me again. But to enter myself
as a competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to enter me, is
what my word and honor forbid."
Judge Stephen T. Logan, his late law partner, was nominated for the
place, and heartily supported not only by Mr. Lincoln, but also by the
Whigs of the district. By this time, however, the politics of the
district had undergone a change by reason of the heavy emigration to
Illinois at that period, and Judge Logan was defeated.
Mr. Lincoln's strict and sensitive adherence to his promises now brought
him a disappointment which was one of those blessings in disguise so
commonly deplored for the time being by the wisest and best. A number of
the Western members of Congress had joined in a recommendation to
President-elect Taylor to give Colonel E.D. Baker a place in his
cabinet, a reward he richly deserved for his talents, his party service,
and the military honor he had won in the Mexican War. When this
application bore no fruit, the Whigs of Illinois, expecting at least
some encouragement from the new administration, laid claim to a bureau
appointment, that of Commissioner of the General Land Office, in the new
Department of the Interior, recently established.
"I believe that, so far as the Whigs in Congress are concerned," wrote
Lincoln to Speed twelve days before Taylor's inauguration, "I could
have the General Land Office almost by common consent; but then Sweet
and Don Morrison and Browning and Cyrus Edwards all want it, and what is
worse, while I think I could easily take it myself, I fear I shall have
trouble to get it for any other man in Illinois."
Unselfishly yielding his own chances, he tried to induce the four
Illinois candidates to come to a mutual agreement in favor of one of
their own number. They were so tardy in settling their differences as to
excite his impatience, and he wrote to a Washington friend:
"I learn from Washington that a man by the name of Butterfield will
probably be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office, This
ought not to be.... Some kind friends think I ought to be an applicant,
but I am for Mr. Edwards. Try to defeat Butterfield, and, in doing so,
use Mr. Edwards, J.L.D. Morrison, or myself, whichever you can to best
advantage."
As the situation grew persistently worse, Mr. Lincoln at length, about
the first of June, himself became a formal applicant. But the delay
resulting from his devotion to his friends had dissipated his chances.
Butterfield received the appointment, and the defeat was aggravated
when, a few months later, his unrelenting spirit of justice and fairness
impelled him to write a letter defending Butterfield and the Secretary
of the Interior from an attack by one of Lincoln's warm personal but
indiscreet friends in the Illinois legislature. It was, however, a
fortunate escape. In the four succeeding years Mr. Lincoln qualified
himself for better things than the monotonous drudgery of an
administrative bureau at Washington. It is probable that this defeat
also enabled him more easily to pass by another temptation. The Taylor
administration, realizing its ingratitude, at length, in September,
offered him the governorship of the recently organized territory of
Oregon; but he replied:
"On as much reflection as I have had time to give the subject, I cannot
consent to accept it."