LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH
[Sidenote] Lincoln to McNeill, April 6, 1860. Lamon, "Life of
Lincoln," p. 441.
[Sidenote] Jas. A. Briggs to Lincoln, November 1, 1859. MS. Jas. A.
Briggs in New York "Evening Post," August 16, 1867.
Among the many invitations to deliver addresses which Lincoln received
in the fall of 1859, was one from a committee asking him to lecture in
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in a course then in progress there,
designed for popular entertainment. "I wrote," said Lincoln, "that I
could do it in February, provided they would take a political speech,
if I could find time to get up no other." "Your letter was duly
received and handed over to the committee," was the response, "and
they accept your compromise. You may lecture at the time you mention,
and they will pay you $200. I think they will arrange for a lecture in
New York also, and pay you $200 for that."
[Sidenote] C.C. Nott to Lincoln, February 9, 1860. MS.
Financial obstacles, or other reasons, brought about the transfer of
the engagement to a new committee, and the invitation was repeated in
a new form: "The Young Men's Central Republican Union of this city
[New York] very earnestly desire that you should deliver what I may
term a political lecture during the ensuing month. The peculiarities
of the case are these: A series of lectures has been determined upon.
The first was delivered by Mr. Blair, of St. Louis, a short time ago;
the second will be in a few days, by Mr. Cassius M. Clay, and the
third we would prefer to have from you rather than any other person.
Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an ordinary
political meeting. These lectures have been contrived to call out our
better, but busier citizens, who never attend political meetings. A
large part of the audience will consist of ladies."
[Sidenote] Lincoln to McNeill, April 6, 1860. Lamon, "Life of
Lincoln." p. 441.
Lincoln, however, remained under the impression that the lecture was
to be given in Brooklyn, and only learned after he reached New York to
fulfill his engagement that he was to speak in the Cooper Institute.
When, on the evening of February 27, 1860, he stood before his
audience, he saw not only a well-filled house, but an assemblage of
listeners in which were many whom, by reason of his own modest
estimate of himself, he would have been rather inclined to ask advice
from than to offer instruction to. William Cullen Bryant presided over
the meeting; David Dudley Field escorted the speaker to the platform;
ex-Governor John A. King, Horace Greeley, James W. Nye, James A.
Briggs, Cephas Brainerd, Charles C. Nott, Hiram Barney, and others sat
among the invited guests. "Since the days of Clay and Webster," said
the "Tribune" next morning, "no man has spoken to a larger assemblage
of the intellect and mental culture of our city." Of course the
presence of such a gathering was no mere accident. Not only had
Lincoln's name for nearly two years found constant mention in the
newspapers, but both friendly and hostile comment had coupled it with
the two ranking political leaders in the free-States--Seward and
Douglas. The representative men of New York were naturally eager to
see and hear one who, by whatever force of eloquence or argument, had
attracted so large a share of the public attention. We may also fairly
infer that, on his part, Lincoln was no less curious to test the
effect of his words on an audience more learned and critical than
those collected in the open-air meetings of his Western campaigns.
This mutual interest was an evident advantage to both; it secured a
close attention from the house, and insured deliberation and emphasis
by the speaker, enabling him to develop his argument with perfect
precision and unity, reaching perhaps the happiest general effect ever
attained in any one of his long addresses.
He took as his text a phrase uttered by Senator Douglas in the late
Ohio campaign--"Our fathers, when they framed the government under
which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better
than we do now." Lincoln defined "this question," with a lawyer's
exactness, thus:
Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or
anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to
control as to slavery in our Federal Territories? Upon this
Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and the Republicans the
negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this
issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our
fathers understood "better than we."
From this "precise and agreed starting-point" Lincoln next traced with
minute historical analysis the action of "our fathers" in framing "the
government under which we live," by their votes and declarations in
the Congresses which preceded the Constitution and in the Congresses
following which proposed its twelve amendments and enacted various
Territorial prohibitions. His conclusions were irresistibly
convincing.
The sum of the whole is [said he] that of our thirty-nine fathers
who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority
of the whole--certainly understood that no proper division of
local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution,
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
Federal Territories; while all the rest probably had the same
understanding. Such unquestionably was the understanding of our
fathers who framed the original Constitution; and the text affirms
that they understood the question "better than we".... It is
surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original
Constitution and the seventy-six members of the Congress which
framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
Government under which we live." And so assuming, I defy any man
to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared
that in his understanding any proper division of local from
Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal
Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that any
living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of
the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning
of the last half of the present century), declare that in his
understanding any proper division of local from Federal authority,
or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to
control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. To those who now
so declare, I give, not only "our fathers who framed the
government under which we live," but with them all other living
men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to
search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a
single man agreeing with them.
Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood.
I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever
our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of
current experience--to reject all progress, all improvement. What
I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of
our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so
conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great
authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most
surely not in a case, whereof we ourselves declare they understood
the question better than we.
If any part of the audience came with the expectation of hearing the
rhetorical fire-works of a Western stump-speaker of the "half-horse,
half-alligator" variety, they met novelty of an unlooked for kind. In
Lincoln's entire address he neither introduced an anecdote nor essayed
a witticism; and the first half of it does not contain even an
illustrative figure or a poetical fancy. It was the quiet, searching
exposition of the historian, and the terse, compact reasoning of the
statesman, about an abstract principle of legislation, in language
well-nigh as restrained and colorless as he would have employed in
arguing a case before a court. Yet such was the apt choice of words,
the easy precision of sentences, the simple strength of propositions,
the fairness of every point he assumed, and the force of every
conclusion he drew, that his listeners followed him with the interest
and delight a child feels in its easy mastery of a plain sum in
arithmetic.
With the sympathy and confidence of his audience thus enlisted,
Lincoln next took up the more prominent topics in popular thought, and
by words of kindly admonition and protest addressed to the people of
the South, showed how impatiently, unreasonably, and unjustly they
were charging the Republican party with sectionalism, with radicalism,
with revolutionary purpose, with the John Brown raid, and kindred
political offenses, not only in the absence of any acts to justify
such charges, but even in the face of its emphatic and constant
denials and disavowals. The illustration with which he concluded this
branch of his theme could not well be surpassed in argumentative
force.
But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In
that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then
you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us!
That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters
through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and
then you will be a murderer!" To be sure what the robber demanded
of me--my money--was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it;
but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat
of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction
to the Union to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in
principle.
But the most impressive, as well as the most valuable, feature of
Lincoln's address was its concluding portion, where, in advice
directed especially to Republicans, he pointed out in dispassionate
but earnest language that the real, underlying conflict was in the
difference of moral conviction between the sections as to the inherent
right or wrong of slavery, and in view of which he defined the proper
duty of the free-States.
A few words now [said he] to Republicans. It is exceedingly
desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at
peace and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our
part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing
through passion and ill temper. Even though the Southern people
will not so much, as listen to us, let us calmly consider their
demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty,
we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the
subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine,
if we can, what will satisfy them.
Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
complaints against us the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them
if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we
never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
denunciation.
The question recurs. What will satisfy them? Simply this: We must
not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that
we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy
task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very
beginning; of our organization, but with no success. In all our
platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to
let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them.
Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have never
detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.
These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong,
and join them in calling it right. And this must be done
thoroughly--done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be
tolerated; we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator
Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced,
suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made
in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest
and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must
pull down our free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must
be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery before they
will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this
way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do
nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do
let them alone--have never disturbed them; so that, after all, it
is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to
accuse us of doing until we cease saying.
I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
overthrow of our free-State constitutions. Yet those constitutions
declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do
all other sayings against it, and when all these other sayings
shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions
will be demanded and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is
nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the whole of this
just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they
can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding,
as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating,
they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as
a legal right and a social blessing.
Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground, save our
conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and
should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot
justly object to its nationality--its universality! if it is
wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension--its
enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought
slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they
thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it
wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole
controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame
for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but thinking it
wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with
their view and against our own! In view of our moral, social, and
political responsibilities, can we do this?
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising
from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our
votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national
Territories, and to overrun us here in the free-States? If our
sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty,
fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those
sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied
and belabored, contrivances such as groping for some middle ground
between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who
should be neither a living man nor a dead man, such as a policy of
"don't care," on a question about which all true men do care, such
as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to
Disunionists; reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the
sinners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to
Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo
what Washington did.
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to
the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. 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.
[Sidenote] "New York Tribune," February 28, 1860.
The smiles, the laughter, the outburst of applause which greeted and
emphasized the speaker's telling points, showed Mr. Lincoln that his
arguments met ready acceptance. The next morning the four leading New
York dailies printed the speech in full, and bore warm testimony to
its merit and effect. "Mr. Lincoln is one of nature's orators," said
the "Tribune," "using his rare powers solely to elucidate and
convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify
as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this
speech; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the
mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage
frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were
prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such
an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."
[Illustration: CALEB CUSHING.]
[Sidenote] Pamphlet edition with notes and preface by Charles C. Nott
and Cephas Brainerd, September, 1860.
A pamphlet reprint was at once announced by the same paper; and later,
in the Presidential campaign, a more careful edition was prepared and
circulated, to which were added copious notes by two members of the
committee under whose auspices the address was delivered. Their
comment, printed in the preface, is worth quoting as showing its
literary value under critical analysis. "No one who has not actually
attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research
and historical labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier
politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets,
and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of
statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one
who has not traveled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy
of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which
Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of 'the fathers' on the
general question of slavery, to present the single question which he
discusses. From the first line to the last, from his premises to his
conclusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which no
logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full, without the
affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually
accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, simple sentence of
plain Anglo-Saxon words, contains a chapter of history that, in some
instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and which must have cost
the author months of investigation to acquire."
From New York Lincoln went to fill other engagements to speak at
several places in New England, where he met the same enthusiastic
popular reception and left the same marked impression, especially upon
his more critical and learned hearers. They found no little surprise
in the fact that a Western politician, springing from the class of
unlettered frontiersmen, could not only mold plain strong words into
fresh and attractive phraseology, but maintain a clear, sustained,
convincing argument, equal in force and style to the best examples in
their college text-books.