WHILE Lincoln in a certain sense was buried in the law from the time his
career in Congress closed till, to use his own words, "the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise aroused him again," yet he was a careful student of
his times and kept abreast of the many and varied movements in politics.
He was generally on the Whig electoral tickets, and made himself heard
during each successive canvas,* but he seemed to have lost that zealous
interest in politics which characterized his earlier days. He plodded
on unaware of, and seemingly without ambition for, the great distinction
that lay in store for him.
* In the campaign of 1852, when Pierce was the Democratic
candidate for President, Douglas made speeches for him in
almost every State in the Union. His "key-note" was sounded
at Richmond, Va. Lincoln, whose reputation was limited by
the boundaries of Illinois, was invited by the Scott Club of
Springfield to answer it, but his soul and heart were not in
the undertaking. He had not yet been awakened, and,
considering it entire, the speech was a poor effort. Another
has truthfully said of it, "If it was distinguished by one
quality above another it was by its attempts at humor, and
all those attempts were strained and affected, as well as
very coarse. He displayed a jealous and petulant temper from
the first to the last, wholly beneath the dignity of the
occasion and the importance of the topic. Considered as a
whole it may be said that none of his public performances
was more unworthy of its really noble author than this one.
The closing paragraph will serve as a fair sample of the
entire speech: "Let us stand by our candidate [Gen. Scott]
as faithfully as he has always stood by our country, and I
much doubt if we do not perceive a slight abatement of Judge
Douglas's confidence in Providence as well as the people. I
suspect that confidence is not more firmly fixed with the
Judge than it was with the old woman whose horse ran away
with her in a buggy. She said she trusted in Providence till
the 'britchen' broke, and then she didn't know what on
'airth' to do. The chance is the Judge will see the
'britchen' broke, and then he can at his leisure bewail the
fate of Locofocoism as the victim of misplaced confidence."
John T. Stuart relates* that, as he and Lincoln were returning from the
court in Tazewell county in 1850, and were nearing the little town of
Dillon, they engaged in a discussion of the political situation.
* Statement, J. T. S., MS., July 21, 1865.
"As we were coming down the hill," are Stuart's words, "I said,
'Lincoln, the time is coming when we shall have to be all either
Abolitionists or Democrats.' He thought a moment and then answered,
ruefully and emphatically, 'When that time comes my mind is made up, for
I believe the slavery question can never be successfully compromised.'
I responded with equal emphasis, 'My mind is made up too.'" Thus it was
with Lincoln. But he was too slow to suit the impetuous demand of
the few pronounced Abolitionists whom he met in his daily walks. The
sentiment of the majority in Springfield tended in the other direction,
and, thus environed, Lincoln lay down like the sleeping lion. The future
would yet arouse him. At that time I was an ardent Abolitionist in
sentiment. I used to warn Lincoln against his apparent conservatism
when the needs of the hour were so great; but his only answer would be,
'Billy, you're too rampant and spontaneous.' I was in correspondence
with Sumner, Greeley, Phillips, and Garrison, and was thus thoroughly
imbued with all the rancor drawn from such strong anti-slavery sources.
I adhered to Lincoln, relying on the final outcome of his sense of
justice and right. Every time a good speech on the great issue was made
I sent for it. Hence you could find on my table the latest utterances
of Giddings, Phillips, Sumner, Seward, and one whom I considered grander
than all the others--Theodore Parker. Lincoln and I took such papers
as the _Chicago Tribune, New York Tribune, Anti-Slavery Standard,
Emancipator, and National Era_. On the other side of the question we
took the _Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer_. I also bought
a book called "Sociology," written by one Fitzhugh, which defended and
justified slavery in every conceivable way. In addition I purchased all
the leading histories of the slavery movement, and other works which
treated on that subject. Lincoln himself never bought many books, but he
and I both read those I have named. After reading them we would discuss
the questions they touched upon and the ideas they suggested, from our
different points of view. I was never conscious of having made much of
an impression on Mr. Lincoln, nor do I believe I ever changed his
views. I will go further and say, that, from the profound nature of his
conclusions and the labored method by which he arrived at them, no man
is entitled to the credit of having either changed or greatly modified
them. I remember once, after having read one of Theodore Parker's
sermons on slavery, saying to Mr. Lincoln substantially this: "I have
always noticed that ill-gotten wealth does no man any good. This is as
true of nations as individuals. I believe that all the ill-gotten gain
wrenched by us from the negro through his enslavement will eventually be
taken from us, and we will be set back where we began." Lincoln thought
my prophecy rather direful. He doubted seriously if either of us would
live to see the righting of so great a wrong; but years after, when
writing his second Inaugural address, he endorsed the idea. Clothing it
in the most beautiful language, he says: "Yet if God wills that it [ the
war ] continue till all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop
of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword,
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" The passage
in May, 1854, of the Kansas-Nebraska bill swept out of sight the
Missouri Compromise and the Compromise measures of 1850. This bill,
designed and carried through by Douglas, was regarded by him as the
masterpiece of all his varied achievements in legislation. It served to
prove more clearly than anything he had ever before done his flexibility
and want of political conscience. Although in years gone before he had
invoked the vengeance of Heaven on the ruthless hand that should dare to
disturb the sanctity of the compact of 1821, yet now he was the arrogant
and audacious leader in the very work he had so heartily condemned. When
we consider the bill and the unfortunate results which followed it in
the border States we are irresistibly led to conclude that it was, all
things considered, a great public wrong and a most lamentable piece of
political jugglery. The stump speech which Thomas H. Benton charged that
Douglas had "injected into the belly of the bill" contains all there was
of Popular Sovereignty--"It being the true intent and meaning of this
act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State nor to exclude
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only
to the Constitution of the United States," an argument which, using
Lincoln's words, "amounts to this: That if any one man chooses to
enslave another no third man shall be allowed to object." The widespread
feeling the passage of this law aroused everywhere over the Union is
a matter of general history. It stirred up in New England the latent
hostility to the aggression of slavery; it stimulated to extraordinary
endeavors the derided Abolitionists, arming them with new weapons; it
sounded the death-knell of the gallant old Whig party; it drove together
strange, discordant elements in readiness to fight a common enemy; it
brought to the forefront a leader in the person of Lincoln.
The revolt of Cook, Judd, and Palmer, all young and progressive,
from the Democratic majority in the Legislature was the first sign of
discontent in Illinois. The rude and partly hostile reception of
Douglas, on his arrival in Chicago, did not in any degree tend to
allay the feeling of disapproval so general in its manifestation. The
warriors, young and old, removed their armor from the walls, and began
preparations for the impending conflict. Lincoln had made a few speeches
in aid of Scott during the campaign of 1852, but they were efforts
entirely unworthy of the man. Now, however, a live issue was presented
to him. No one realized this sooner than he. In the office discussions
he grew bolder in his utterances. He insisted that the social and
political difference between slavery and freedom was becoming more
marked; that one must overcome the other; and that postponing the
struggle between them would only make it the more deadly in the end.
"The day of compromise," he still contended, "has passed. These two
great ideas have been kept apart only by the most artful means. They are
like two wild beasts in sight of each other, but chained and held apart.
Some day these deadly antagonists will one or the other break their
bonds, and then the question will be settled." In a conversation with
a fellow-lawyer* he said of slavery: "It is the most glittering,
ostentatious, and displaying property in the world, and now, if a
young man goes courting, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or his
lady-love owns. The love for slave property is swallowing up every
other mercenary possession. Slavery is a great and crying injustice--an
enormous national crime." At another time he made the observation that
it was "singular that the courts would hold that a man never lost
his right to his property that had been stolen from him, but that he
instantly lost his right to himself if he was stolen." It is useless to
add more evidence--for it could be piled mountain high--showing that at
the very outset Mr. Lincoln was sound to the core on the injustice and
crime of human slavery.
* Joseph Gillespie, MS. letter, June 9,'66.
After a brief rest at his home in Chicago Mr. Douglas betook himself to
the country, and in October, during the week of the State Fair, we
find him in Springfield. On Tuesday he made a speech in the State House
which, in view of the hostile attitude of some of his own party
friends, was a labored defense of his position. It was full of ingenious
sophistry and skilful argument. An unprecedented concourse of people had
gathered from all parts of the State, and Douglas, fresh from the halls
of Congress, was the lion of the hour. On the following day Mr. Lincoln,
as the champion of the opponents of Popular Sovereignty, was selected
to represent those who disagreed with the new legislation, and to answer
Douglas. His speech encouraged his friends no less than it startled his
enemies. At this time I was zealously interested in the new movement,
and not less so in Lincoln. I frequently wrote the editorials in the
Springfield _Journal_ the editor, Simeon Francis, giving to Lincoln and
to me the utmost liberty in that direction. Occasionally Lincoln would
write out matter for publication, but I believe I availed myself of the
privilege oftener than he. The editorial in the issue containing the
speeches of Lincoln and Douglas on this occasion was my own, and
while in description it may seem rather strongly imbued with youthful
enthusiasm, yet on reading it in maturer years I am still inclined to
believe it reasonably faithful to the facts and the situation. "The
anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln," says the article, "was the
profoundest in our opinion that he has made in his whole life. He felt
upon his soul the truths burn which he uttered, and all present felt
that he was true to his own soul. His feelings once or twice swelled
within, and came near stifling utterance. He quivered with emotion. The
whole house was as still as death. He attacked the Nebraska bill with
unusual warmth and energy; and all felt that a man of strength was its
enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he could by strong and manly
efforts. He was most successful, and the house approved the glorious
triumph of truth by loud and continued huzzas. Women waved their white
handkerchiefs in token of woman's silent but heartfelt assent. Douglas
felt the sting; the animal within him was roused because he frequently
interrupted Mr. Lincoln. His friends felt that he was crushed by
Lincoln's powerful argument, manly logic, and illustrations from nature
around us. The Nebraska bill was shivered, and like a tree of the
forest was torn and rent asunder by the hot bolts of truth. Mr. Lincoln
exhibited Douglas in all the attitudes he could be placed, in a friendly
debate. He exhibited the bill in all its aspects to show its humbuggery
and falsehood, and, when thus torn to rags, cut into slips, held up to
the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn and mockery was visible upon
the face of the crowd and upon the lips of their most eloquent speaker.
At the conclusion of this speech every man and child felt that it was
unanswerable. He took the heart captive and broke like a sun over the
understanding."
Anent the subject of editorial writing it may not be inappropriate to
relate that Lincoln and I both kept on furnishing political matter of
many varieties for the Springfield _Journal_ until 1860. Many of the
editorials that I wrote were intended directly or indirectly to promote
the interest of Lincoln. I wrote one on the advisability of annexing
Cuba to the United States, taking the rather advanced ground that
slavery would be abolished in Cuba before it would in this country--a
position which aroused no little controversy with other papers. One
little incident occurs to me in this connection which may not be without
interest to newspaper men. A newspaper had been started in Springfield
called the _Conservative_, which, it was believed, was being run in the
interest of the Democratic party. While pretending to support Fillmore
it was kept alive by Buchanan men and other kindred spirits, who were
somewhat pro-slavery in their views. The thing was damaging Lincoln and
the friends of freedom more than an avowed Democratic paper could. The
editor, an easy, good-natured fellow, simply placed in charge to execute
the will of those who gave the paper its financial backing, was a
good friend of mine, and by means of this friendship I was always well
informed of matters in the _Conservative_ editorial room. One day I read
in the Richmond _Enquirer_ an article endorsing slavery, and arguing
that from principle the enslavement of either whites or blacks was
justifiable and right. I showed it to Lincoln, who remarked that it was
"rather rank doctrine for Northern Democrats to endorse. I should like
to see," he said, with emphasis, "some of these Illinois newspapers
champion that." I told him if he would only wait and keep his own
counsel I would have a pro-slavery organ in Springfield publish that
very article. He doubted it, but when I told him how it was to be
done he laughed and said, "Go in." I cut the slip out and succeeded in
getting it in the paper named. Of course it was a trick, but it acted
admirably. Its appearance in the new organ, although without comment,
almost ruined that valuable journal, and my good-natured friend the
editor was nearly overcome by the denunciation of those who were
responsible for the organ's existence. My connection, and Lincoln's
too,--for he endorsed the trick,--with the publication of the condemned
article was eventually discovered, and we were thereafter effectually
prevented from getting another line in the paper. The anti-slavery
people quoted the article as having been endorsed by a Democratic
newspaper in Springfield, and Lincoln himself used it with telling
effect. He joined in the popular denunciation, expressing great
astonishment that such a sentiment could find lodgment in any paper
in Illinois, although he knew full well how the whole thing had been
carried through.
During the remainder of the State-Fair week, speeches were made by Lyman
Trumbull, Sidney Breese, E. D. Taylor, and John Calhoun, none of which
unfortunately have been preserved. Among those who mingled in the
crowd and listened to them was Owen Lovejoy, a radical, fiery, brave,
fanatical man, it may be, but one full of the virus of Abolitionism. I
had been thoroughly inoculated with the latter myself, and so had
many others, who helped to swell the throng. The Nebraska movement had
kindled anew the old zeal, and inspired us with renewed confidence
to begin the crusade. As many of us as could, assembled together to
organize for the campaign before us. As soon therefore as Lincoln
finished his speech in the hall of the House of Representatives,
Lovejoy, moving forward from the crowd, announced a meeting in the same
place that evening of all the friends of Freedom. That of course meant
the Abolitionists with whom I had been in conference all the day. Their
plan had been to induce Mr. Lincoln to speak for them at their meeting.
Strong as I was in the faith, yet I doubted the propriety of Lincoln's
taking any stand yet. As I viewed it, he was ambitious to climb to the
United States Senate, and on grounds of policy it would not do for him
to occupy at that time such advanced ground as we were taking. On the
other hand, it was equally as dangerous to refuse a speech for the
Abolitionists. I did not know how he felt on the subject, but on
learning that Lovejoy intended to approach him with an invitation,
I hunted up Lincoln and urged him to avoid meeting the enthusiastic
champion of Abolitionism. "Go home at once," I said. "Take Bob with you
and drive somewhere into the country and stay till this thing is over."
Whether my admonition and reasoning moved him or not I do not know,
but it only remains to state that under pretence of having business in
Tazewell county he drove out of town in his buggy, and did not return
till the apostles of Abolitionism had separated and gone to their
homes.* I have always believed this little arrangement--it would dignify
it too much to call it a plan--saved Lincoln. If he had endorsed the
resolutions passed at the meeting, or spoken simply in favor of freedom
that night, he would have been identified with all the rancor and
extremes of Abolitionism. If, on the contrary, he had been invited
to join them, and then had refused to take a position as advanced as
theirs, he would have lost their support. In either event he was in
great danger; and so he who was aspiring to succeed his old rival, James
Shields, in the United States Senate was forced to avoid the issue by
driving hastily in his one horse buggy to the court in Tazewell county.
A singular coincidence suggests itself in the fact that, twelve years
before, James Shields and a friend drove hastily in the same direction,
and destined for the same point, to force Lincoln to take issue in
another and entirely different matter.
* See Lincoln's Speech, Joint Debate, Ottawa, Ills., Aug.
20, 1858.
By request of party friends Lincoln was induced to follow after Douglas
and, at the various places where the latter had appointments to speak,
reply to him. On the 16th of October they met at Peoria, where Douglas
enjoyed the advantages of an "open and close." Lincoln made an effective
speech, which he wrote out and furnished to the Sangamon _Journal_ for
publication, and which can be found among his public utterances. His
party friends in Springfield and elsewhere, who had urged him to push
after Douglas till he cried, "enough," were surprised a few days after
the Peoria debate to find him at home, with the information that by an
agreement with the latter they were both to return home and speak no
more during the campaign. Judge of his astonishment a few days later to
find that his rival, instead of going direct to his home in Chicago,
had stopped at Princeton and violated his express agreement by making
a speech there! Lincoln was much displeased at this action of Douglas,
which tended to convince him that the latter was really a man devoid of
fixed political morals. I remember his explanation in our office made to
me, William Butler, William Jayne, Ben. F. Irwin, and other friends, to
account for his early withdrawal from the stump. After the Peoria debate
Douglas approached him and flattered him by saying that he was giving
him more trouble on the territorial and slavery questions than all the
United States Senate, and he therefore proposed to him that both should
abandon the field and return to their homes. Now Lincoln could never
refuse a polite request--one in which no principle was involved. I have
heard him say, "It's a fortunate thing I wasn't born a woman, for
I cannot refuse anything, it seems." He therefore consented to the
cessation of debate proposed by Douglas, and the next day both went
to the town of Lacon, where they had been billed for speeches.
Their agreement was kept from their friends, and both declined to
speak--Douglas, on the ground of hoarseness, and Lincoln gallantly
refusing to take advantage of "Judge Douglas's indisposition." Here they
separated, Lincoln going directly home, and Douglas, as before related,
stopping at Princeton and colliding in debate with Owen Lovejoy. Upon
being charged afterwards with his breach of agreement Douglas responded
that Lovejoy "bantered and badgered" him so persistently he could not
gracefully resist the encounter. The whole thing thoroughly displeased
Lincoln.*
* In a letter from Princeton, Ill., March 15, 1866, John H.
Bryant, brother of the poet William Cullen Bryant, writes:
"I have succeeded in finding an old file of our Princeton
papers, from which I learn that Mr. Douglas spoke here on
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 1854. This fixes the date. I recollect
that he staid at Tiskilwa, six miles south of this, the
night before, and a number of our Democrats went down the
next morning and escorted him to this place. Douglas spoke
first one half-hour and was answered by Lovejoy one half-
hour, when Douglas talked till dark, giving no opportunity
for reply.
"Yours truly,
"John H. Bryant."
During this campaign Lincoln was nominated and elected to the
Legislature. This was done in the face of his unwillingness and over his
protest. On the ticket with him was Judge Logan. Both were elected by
a majority of about 600 votes. Lincoln, being ambitious to reach the
United States Senate, and warmly encouraged in his aspirations by his
wife, resigned his seat in the Legislature in order that he might the
more easily be elected to succeed his old rival James Shields, who was
then one of the senators from Illinois. His canvass for that exalted
office was marked by his characteristic activity and vigilance. During
the anxious moments that intervened between the general election and
the assembling of the Legislature he slept, like Napoleon, with one eye
open. While attending court at Clinton on the 11th of November, a few
days after the election, he wrote to a party friend in the town
of Paris: "I have a suspicion that a Whig has been elected to the
Legislature from Edgar. If this is not so, why then, '_nix cum arous_;
but if it is so, then could you not make a mark with him for me for U.
S. Senator? I really have some chance. Please write me at Springfield
giving me the names, post-offices, and political positions of
your Representative and Senator, whoever they may be. Let this be
confidential.'"
That man who thinks Lincoln calmly sat down and gathered his robes about
him, waiting for the people to call him, has a very erroneous knowledge
of Lincoln. He was always calculating, and always planning ahead. His
ambition was a little engine that knew no rest. The vicissitudes of a
political campaign brought into play all his tact and management and
developed to its fullest extent his latent industry. In common with
other politicians he never overlooked a newspaper man who had it in his
power to say a good or bad thing of him. The press of that day was not
so powerful an institution as now, but ambitious politicians courted the
favor of a newspaper man with as much zeal as the same class of men have
done in later days. I remember a letter Lincoln once wrote to the editor
of an obscure little country newspaper in southern Illinois in which he
warms up to him in the following style.* "Friend Harding: I have been
reading your paper for three or four years and have paid you nothing
for it." He then encloses ten dollars and admonishes the editor with
innocent complacency: "Put it into your pocket, saying nothing further
about it." Very soon thereafter, he prepared an article on political
matters and sent it to the rural journalist, requesting its publication
in the editorial columns of his "valued paper," but the latter, having
followed Lincoln's directions and stowed the ten dollars away in
his pocket, and alive to the importance of his journal's influence,
declined, "because," he said, "I long ago made it a rule to publish
nothing as editorial matter not written by myself." Lincoln read the
editor's answer to me. Although the laugh was on Lincoln he enjoyed the
joke heartily. "That editor," he said, "has a rather lofty but proper
conception of true journalism."
Meanwhile the Legislature had convened and the Senatorial question came
on for solution. The history of this contest is generally understood,
and the world has repeatedly been told how Lincoln was led to expect the
place and would have won but for the apostasy of the five anti-Nebraska
men of Democratic antecedents who clung to and finally forced the
election of Lyman Trumbull. The student of history in after years will
be taught to revere the name of Lincoln for his exceeding magnanimity
in inducing his friends to abandon him at the critical period and save
Trumbull, while he himself disappeared beneath the waves of defeat.*
* "After a number of ballots--Judd of Cook, Cook of La
Salle, Palmer of Macoupin, and Allen and Baker of Madison
voting for Trumbull--I asked Mr. Lincoln what he would
advise us to do. He answered, 'Go for Trumbull by all
means.' We understood the case to be that Shields was to be
run by the Democrats at first and then to be dropped, and
Joel A. Matteson put up; and it was calculated that certain
of our men who had been elected on the 'Free Soil' issue
would vote for him after they had acted with us long enough
to satisfy their consciences and constituents. Our object
was to force an election before they got through with their
programme. We were savagely opposed to Matteson, and so was
Mr. Lincoln, who said that if we did not drop in and unite
upon Trumbull the five men above-named would go for Matteson
and elect him, which would be an everlasting disgrace to the
State. We reluctantly complied; went to Trumbull and elected
him. I remember that Judge S. T. Logan gave up Lincoln with
great reluctance. He begged hard to try him on one or two
ballots more, but Mr. Lincoln urged us not to risk it
longer. I never saw the latter more earnest and decided. He
congratulated Trumbull warmly, although of course greatly
disappointed and mortified at his own want of success."--
Joseph Gillespie, letter, September 19, 1866, MS.
[Illustration: Lyman Trumbull 066]
This frustration of Lincoln's ambition had a marked effect on his
political views. It was plain to him now that the "irrepressible
conflict" was not far ahead. With the strengthening of his faith in a
just cause so long held in abeyance he became more defiant each day. But
in the very nature of things he dared not be as bold and outspoken as
I. With him every word and sentence had to be weighed and its effects
calculated, before being uttered: but with me that operation had to be
reversed if done at all. An incident that occurred about this time will
show how his views were broadening. Some time after the election of
Trumbull a young negro, the son of a colored woman in Springfield known
as Polly, went from his home to St. Louis and there hired as a hand on
a lower Mississippi boat,--for what special service, I do not
recollect,--arriving in New Orleans without what were known as free
papers. Though born free he was subjected to the tyranny of the "black
code," all the more stringent because of the recent utterances of the
Abolitionists in the North, and was kept in prison until his boat
had left. Then, as no one was especially interested in him, he was
forgotten. After a certain length of time established by law, he would
inevitably have been sold into slavery to defray prison expenses had not
Lincoln and I interposed our aid. The mother came to us with the story
of the wrong done her son and induced us to interfere in her behalf.
We went first to see the Governor of Illinois, who, after patient and
thorough examination of the law, responded that he had no right or power
to interfere. Recourse was then had to the Governor of Louisiana, who
responded in like manner. We were sorely perplexed. A second interview
with the Governor of Illinois resulting in nothing favorable Lincoln
rose from his chair, hat in hand, and exclaimed with some emphasis: "By
God, Governor, I'll make the ground in this country too hot for the foot
of a slave, whether you have the legal power to secure the release of
this boy or not." Having exhausted all legal means to recover the
negro we dropped our relation as lawyers to the case. Lincoln drew up
a subscription-list, which I circulated, collecting funds enough to
purchase the young man's liberty. The money we sent to Col. A. P.
Fields, a friend of ours in New Orleans, who applied it as directed, and
it restored the prisoner to his overjoyed mother.
The political history of the country, commencing in 1854 and continuing
till the outbreak of the Rebellion, furnishes the student a constant
succession of stirring and sometimes bloody scenes. No sooner had
Lincoln emerged from the Senatorial contest in February, 1855, and
absorbed himself in the law, than the outrages on the borders of
Missouri and Kansas began to arrest public attention. The stories of
raids, election frauds, murders, and other crimes were moving eastward
with marked rapidity. These outbursts of frontier lawlessness, led and
sanctioned by the avowed pro-slavery element, were not only stirring up
the Abolitionists to fever heat, but touching the hearts of humanity
in general. In Illinois an association was formed to aid the cause
of "Free-Soil" men in Kansas. In the meetings of these bands the
Abolitionists of course took the most prominent part. At Springfield
we were energetic, vigilant, almost revolutionary. We recommended the
employment of any means, however desperate, to promote and defend the
cause of freedom. At one of these meetings Lincoln was called on for
a speech. He responded to the request, counselling moderation and less
bitterness in dealing with the situation before us. We were belligerent
in tone, and clearly out of patience with the Government. Lincoln
opposed the notion of coercive measures with the possibility of
resulting bloodshed, advising us to eschew resort to the bullet. "You
can better succeed," he declared, "with the ballot. You can peaceably
then redeem the Government and preserve the liberties of mankind
through your votes and voice and moral influence.... Let there be peace.
Revolutionize through the ballot box, and restore the Government once
more to the affections and hearts of men by making it express, as it was
intended to do, the highest spirit of justice and liberty. Your attempt,
if there be such, to resist the laws of Kansas by force is criminal and
wicked; and all your feeble attempts will be follies and end in
bringing sorrow on your heads and ruin the cause you would freely die to
preserve!" These judicious words of counsel, while they reduced somewhat
our ardor and our desperation, only placed before us in their real
colors the grave features of the situation. We raised a neat sum of
money, Lincoln showing his sincerity by joining in the subscription, and
forwarded it to our friends in Kansas.
The Whig party, having accomplished its mission in the political world,
was now on the eve of a great break-up. Lincoln realized this and,
though proverbially slow in his movements, prepared to find a firm
footing when the great rush of waters should come and the maddening
freshet sweep former landmarks out of sight. Of the strongest
significance in this connection is a letter written by him at this
juncture to an old friend in Kentucky, who called to his attention
their differences of views on the wrong of slavery. Speaking of his
observation of the treatment of the slaves, he says: "I confess I hate
to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to
their unrequited toils; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841 you
and I had rather a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville
to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville
to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on board ten or a dozen slaves
shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me;
and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio or any slave
border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in
a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me
miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of
the Northern people do crucify their feelings in order to maintain their
loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. I do oppose the extension of
slavery because my judgment and feeling so prompt me; and I am under no
obligations to the contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ
we must."
Finding himself drifting about with the disorganized elements that
floated together after the angry political waters had subsided, it
became apparent to Lincoln that if he expected to figure as a leader he
must take a stand himself. Mere hatred of slavery and opposition to
the injustice of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation were not all that were
required of him. He must be a Democrat, Know-Nothing, Abolitionist, or
Republican, or forever float about in the great political sea without
compass, rudder, or sail. At length he declared himself. Believing the
times were ripe for more advanced movements, in the spring of 1856 I
drew up a paper for the friends of freedom to sign, calling a county
convention in Springfield to select delegates for the forthcoming
Republican State convention in Bloomington. The paper was freely
circulated and generously signed. Lincoln was absent at the time and,
believing I knew what his "feeling and judgment" on the vital questions
of the hour were, I took the liberty to sign his name to the call. The
whole was then published in the Springfield _Journal_. No sooner had
it appeared than John T. Stuart, who, with others, was endeavoring to
retard Lincoln in his advanced movements, rushed into the office and
excitedly asked if "Lincoln had signed that Abolition call in the
Journal?" I answered in the negative, adding that I had signed his
name myself. To the question, "Did Lincoln authorize you to sign it?" I
returned an emphatic "No." "Then," exclaimed the startled and indignant
Stuart, "you have ruined him." But I was by no means alarmed at what
others deemed inconsiderate and hasty action. I thought I understood
Lincoln thoroughly, but in order to vindicate myself if assailed I
immediately sat down, after Stuart had rushed out of the office, and
wrote Lincoln, who was then in Tazewell County attending court, a brief
account of what I had done and how much stir it was creating in the
ranks of his conservative friends. If he approved or disapproved my
course I asked him to write or telegraph me at once. In a brief time
came his answer: "All right; go ahead. Will meet you--radicals and
all." Stuart subsided, and the conservative spirits who hovered around
Springfield no longer held control of the political fortunes of Abraham
Lincoln.
The Republican party came into existence in Illinois as a party at
Bloomington, May 29, 1856. The State convention of all opponents of
anti-Nebraska legislation, referred to in a foregoing paragraph, had
been set for that day. Judd, Yates, Trumbull, Swett, and Davis were
there; so also was Lovejoy, who, like Otis of colonial fame, was a flame
of fire. The firm of Lincoln and Herndon was represented by both members
in person. The gallant William H. Bissell, who had ridden at the head of
the Second Illinois Regiment at the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican
war, was nominated as governor. The convention adopted a platform
ringing with strong anti-Nebraska sentiments, and then and there gave
the Republican party its official christening. The business of the
convention being over, Mr. Lincoln, in response to repeated calls, came
forward and delivered a speech of such earnestness and power that no one
who heard it will ever forget the effect it produced. In referring to
this speech some years ago I used the following rather graphic language:
"I have heard or read all of Mr. Lincoln's great speeches, and I give
it as my opinion that the Bloomington speech was the grand effort of his
life. Heretofore he had simply argued the slavery question on grounds
of policy,--the statesman's grounds,--never reaching the question of
the radical and the eternal right. Now he was newly baptized and freshly
born; he had the fervor of a new convert; the smothered flame broke
out; enthusiasm unusual to him blazed up; his eyes were aglow with an
inspiration; he felt justice; his heart was alive to the right; his
sympathies, remarkably deep for him, burst forth, and he stood before
the throne of the eternal Right. His speech was full of fire and energy
and force; it was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm; it was
justice, equity, truth, and right set ablaze by the divine fires of a
soul maddened by the wrong; it was hard, heavy, knotty, gnarly, backed
with wrath. I attempted for about fifteen minutes as was usual with me
then to take notes, but at the end of that time I threw pen and paper
away and lived only in the inspiration of the hour. If Mr. Lincoln was
six feet, four inches high usually, at Bloomington that day he was seven
feet, and inspired at that. From that day to the day of his death he
stood firm in the right. He felt his great cross, had his great idea,
nursed it, kept it, taught it to others, in his fidelity bore witness
of it to his death, and finally sealed it with his precious blood." The
foregoing paragraph, used by me in a lecture in 1866, may to the
average reader seem somewhat vivid in description, besides inclining to
extravagance in imagery, yet although more than twenty years have passed
since it was written I have never seen the need of altering a single
sentence. I still adhere to the substantial truthfulness of the scene
as described. Unfortunately Lincoln's speech was never written out nor
printed, and we are obliged to depend for its reproduction upon personal
recollection.
The Bloomington convention and the part Lincoln took in it met no such
hearty response in Springfield as we hoped would follow. It fell flat,
and in Lincoln's case drove from him many persons who had heretofore
been his warm political friends. A few days after our return we
announced a meeting at the court-house to ratify the action of the
Bloomington convention. After the usual efforts to draw a crowd,
however, only three persons had temerity enough to attend. They were
Lincoln, the writer, and a courageous man named John Pain. Lincoln, in
answer to the "deafening calls" for a speech, responded that the meeting
was larger than he _knew_ it would be, and that while he knew that he
himself and his partner would attend he was not sure anyone else would,
and yet another man had been found brave enough to come out. "While all
seems dead," he exhorted, "the age itself is not. It liveth as sure as
our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the
world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful, and now let us adjourn and
appeal to the people."
Not only in Springfield but everywhere else the founders of the
Republican party--the apostles of freedom--went out to battle for the
righteousness of their cause. Lincoln, having as usual been named as one
of the Presidential electors, canvassed the State, making in all about
fifty speeches. He was in demand everywhere. I have before me a package
of letters addressed to him, inviting him to speak at almost every
county seat in the State. Yates wanted him to go to one section of the
State, Washburne to another, and Trumbull still another; while every
cross-roads politician and legislative aspirant wanted him "down in our
country, where we need your help." Joshua R. Giddings wrote him words of
encouragement. "You may start," said the valiant old Abolitionist in
a letter from Peoria,* "on the one great issue of restoring Kansas and
Nebraska to freedom, or rather of restoring the Missouri Compromise, and
in this State no power on earth can withstand you on that issue." The
demand for Lincoln was not confined to his own State. Indiana sent for
him, Wisconsin also, while Norman B. Judd and Ebenezer Peck, who were
stumping Iowa, sent for him to come there.
* J. R. Giddings, MS. letter, Sept. 18, 1855.
A town committee invited him to come during "our Equestrian Fair on the
9th, 10th, and 11th," evidently anticipating a three days' siege. An
enthusiastic officer in a neighboring town urges him: "Come to our
place, because in you do our people place more confidence than in any
other man. Men who do not read want the story told as you only can tell
it. Others may make fine speeches, but it would not be 'Lincoln said
so in his speech.'" A jubilant friend in Chicago writes: "Push on the
column of freedom. Give the Buck Africans plenty to do in Egypt. The
hour of our redemption draweth nigh. We are coming to Springfield
with 20,000 majority!" A postmaster, acting under the courage of his
convictions, implores him to visit his neighborhood. "The Democrats
here," he insists, "are dyed in the wool. Thunder and lightning would
not change their political complexion. I am postmaster here," he adds,
confidentially, "for which reason I must ask you to keep this private,
for if old Frank [President Pierce] were to hear of my support of
Fremont I would get my walking papers sure enough." A settlement of
Germans in southern Indiana asked to hear him; and the president of
a college, in an invitation to address the students under his charge,
characterizes him as "one providentially raised up for a time like this,
and even should defeat come in the contest, it would be some consolation
to remember we had Hector for a leader."
And thus it was everywhere. Lincoln's importance in the conduct of the
campaign was apparent to all, and his canvass was characterized by his
usual vigor and effectiveness. He was especially noted for his attempt
to break down the strength of Fillmore, who was nominated as a third
party candidate and was expected to divide the Republican vote. He tried
to wean away Fillmore's adherents by an adroit and ingenious
letter* sent to those suspected of the latter's support, and marked
confidential, in which he strove to show that in clinging to their
candidate they were really aiding the election of Buchanan. But the
effort proved unavailing, for in spite of all his arguments and appeals
a large number of the Fillmore men clung tenaciously to their leader,
resulting in Buchanan's election. The vote in Illinois stood, Buchanan
105,344, Fremont 96,180, and Fillmore 37,451. At the same time Bissell
was elected governor by a majority of 4729 over W. A. Richardson,
Democrat. After the heat and burden of the day Lincoln returned home,
bearing with him more and greater laurels than ever. The signs of the
times indicated, and the result of the canvass demonstrated, that he and
he alone was powerful enough to meet the redoubtable Little Giant in a
greater conflict yet to follow.
* One of these letters which Lincoln wrote to counteract the
Fillmore movement is still in my possession. As it is more
or less characteristic I copy it entire:
"Springfield, September 8,1856.
"Harrison Maltby, Esq.
"Dear Sir:
"I understand you are a Fillmore man. Let me prove to you
that every vote withheld from Fremont and given to Fillmore
in this State actually lessens Fillmore's chance of being
President.
"Suppose Buchanan gets all the slave States and Pennsylvania
and any other one State besides; then he is elected, no
matter who gets all the rest. But suppose Fillmore gets the
two slave States of Maryland and Kentucky, then Buchanan is
not elected; Fillmore goes into the House of Representatives
and may be made President by a compromise. But suppose again
Fillmore's friends throw away a few thousand votes on him in
Indiana and Illinois; it will inevitably give these States
to Buchanan, which will more than compensate him for the
loss of Maryland and Kentucky; it will elect him, and leave
Fillmore no chance in the House of Representatives or out of
it.
"This is as plain as adding up the weight of three small
hogs. As Mr. Fillmore has no possible chance to carry
Illinois for himself it is plainly to his interest to let
Fremont take it and thus keep it out of the hands of
Buchanan. Be not deceived. Buchanan is the hard horse to
beat in this race. Let him have Illinois, and nothing can
beat him; and he will get Illinois if men persist in
throwing away votes upon Mr. Fillmore. Does some one
persuade you that Mr. Fillmore can carry Illinois? Nonsense!
There are over seventy newspapers in Illinois opposing
Buchanan, only three or four of which support Mr. Fillmore,
all the rest going for Fremont. Are not these newspapers a
fair index of the proportion of the votes? If not, tell me
why.
"Again, of these three or four Fillmore newspapers, two at
least are supported in part by the Buchanan men, as I
understand. Do not they know where the shoe pinches? They
know the Fillmore movement helps them, and therefore they
help it.
"Do think these things over and then act according to your
judgment.
"Yours very truly,
"A. LINCOLN." [Confidential.]