I SHALL be forced to omit much that happened during the interval between
the election of Buchanan and the campaign of 1858, for the reason that
it would not only swell this work to undue proportions, but be a mere
repetition of what has been better told by other writers. It is
proper to note in passing, however, that Mr. Lincoln's reputation as a
political speaker was no longer bounded by the border lines of Illinois.
It had passed beyond the Wabash, the Ohio, and the Mississippi rivers,
and while his pronounced stand on the slavery question had increased the
circle of his admirers in the North it provoked a proportionate amount
of execration in the South. He could not help the feeling that he was
now the leading Republican in his State, and he was therefore more or
less jealous of his prerogative. Formidable in debate, plain in
speech, without pretence of literary acquirements, he was none the less
self-reliant. He already envied the ascendancy and domination Douglas
exercised over his followers, and felt keenly the slight given him by
others of his own faith whom he conceived were disposed to prevent his
attaining the leadership of his party. I remember early in 1858 of his
coming into the office one morning and speaking in very dejected terms
of the treatment he was receiving at the hands of Horace Greeley. "I
think Greeley," he complained, "is not doing me right. His conduct, I
believe, savors a little of injustice. I am a true Republican and have
been tried already in the hottest part of the anti-slavery fight, and
yet I find him taking up Douglas, a veritable dodger,--once a tool of
the South, now its enemy,--and pushing him to the front. He forgets that
when he does that he pulls me down at the same time. I fear Greeley's
attitude will damage me with Sumner, Seward, Wilson, Phillips, and other
friends in the East." This was said with so much of mingled sadness and
earnestness that I was deeply impressed. Lincoln was gloomy and restless
the entire day. Greeley's letters were driving the enthusiasm out of
him.*
* Greeley's letters were very pointed and sometimes savage.
Here is one; "I have not proposed to instruct the
Republicans of Illinois in their political duties, and I
doubt very much that even so much as is implied in your
letter can be fairly deduced from anything I have written.
Now let me make one prediction. If you run a candidate [for
Congress] against Harris and he is able to canvass he will
beat you badly. He is more of a man at heart and morally
than Douglas, and has gone into this fight with more
earnestness and less calculation. Of the whole Douglas party
he is the truest and best. I never spoke a dozen words with
him in my life, having met him but once, but if I lived in
his district I should vote for him. As I have never spoken
of him in my paper, and suppose I never shall, I take the
liberty to say this much to you. Now paddle your own dug-
out!
"Yours,
"Horace Greeley."
He seemed unwilling to attend to any business, and finally, just before
noon, left the office, going over to the United States Court room to
play a game of chess with Judge Treat, and did not return again that
day. I pondered a good deal over Lincoln's dejection, and that night,
after weighing the matter well in mind, resolved to go to the eastern
States myself and endeavor to sound some of the great men there. The
next day, on apprising Lincoln of my determination, he questioned its
propriety. Our relations, he insisted, were so intimate that a wrong
construction might be put upon the movement. I listened carefully to
him, but as I had never been beyond the Alleghanies I packed my valise
and went, notwithstanding his objections. I had been in correspondence
on my own account with Greeley, Seward, Sumner, Phillips, and others for
several years, had kept them informed of the feelings of our people and
the political campaigns in their various stages, but had never met any
of them save Greeley. I enjoyed heartily the journey and the varied
sights and scenes that attended it. Aside from my mission, the trip was
a great success. The magnificent buildings, the display of wealth in the
large cities and prosperous manufacturing towns, broadened the views of
one whose vision had never extended beyond the limits of the Illinois
prairies. In Washington I saw and dined with Trumbull, who went over the
situation with me. Trumbull had written to Lincoln shortly before* that
he thought it "useless to speculate upon the further course of Douglas
or the effect it is to have in Illinois or other States. He himself does
not know where he is going or where he will come out."
* Letter, December 25, 1857, MS.
At my interview with Trumbull, however, he directed me to assure Mr.
Lincoln that Douglas did not mean to join the Republican party, however
great the breach between himself and the administration might be. "We
Republicans here," he said exultingly in another letter to Lincoln, "are
in good spirits, and are standing back to let the fight go on between
Douglas and his former associates. Lincoln will lose nothing by this
if he can keep the attention of our Illinois people from being diverted
from the great and vital question of the day to the minor and temporary
issues which are now being discussed."*
* Letter, December 27,1857, MS.
In Washington I saw also Seward, Wilson, and others of equal prominence.
Douglas was confined to his house by illness, but on receiving my
card he directed me to be shown up to his room. We had a pleasant
and interesting interview. Of course the conversation soon turned on
Lincoln. In answer to an inquiry regarding the latter I remarked that
Lincoln was pursuing the even tenor of his way. "He is not in anybody's
way," I contended, "not even in yours, Judge Douglas." He was sitting up
in a chair smoking a cigar. Between puffs he responded that neither was
he in the way of Lincoln or any one else, and did not intend to invite
conflict. He conceived that he had achieved what he had set out to do,
and hence did not feel that his course need put him in opposition to
Mr. Lincoln or his party. "Give Mr. Lincoln my regards," he said, rather
warmly, "when you return, and tell him I have crossed the river and
burned my boat." Leaving Washington, my next point was New York, where
I met the editor of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, Horace Greeley,
Henry Ward Beecher, and others. I had a long talk with Greeley, who,
I noticed, leaned towards Douglas. I found, however, he was not at all
hostile to Lincoln.
I presented the latter's case in the best phase I knew how, but while
I drew but little from him, I left feeling that he hadn't been entirely
won over. He introduced me to Beecher, who, as everybody else did,
inquired after Lincoln and through me sent him words of encouragement
and praise.*
* Lincoln's greatest fear was that Douglas might be taken up
by the Republicans. Senator Seward, when I met him in
Washington, assured me there was no danger of it, insisting
that the Republicans nor any one else could place any
reliance on a man so slippery as Douglas.
From New York I went to Boston, and from the latter place I wrote
Lincoln a letter which happily I found not long since in a bundle of
Lincoln's letters, and which I insert here, believing it affords a
better reflex of the situation at the time than anything I might see fit
to say now. Here it is:
"Revere House,
"Boston, Mass., March 24, 1858.
"Friend Lincoln.
"I am in this city of notions, and am well--very well indeed. I wrote
you a hasty letter from Washington some days ago, since which time I
have been in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and now here. I saw
Greeley, and so far as any of our conversation is interesting to you
I will relate. And we talked, say twenty minutes. He evidently wants
Douglas sustained and sent back to the Senate. He did not say so in so
many words, yet his feelings are with Douglas. I know it from the spirit
and drift of his conversation. He talked bitterly--somewhat so--against
the papers in Illinois, and said they were fools. I asked him this
question, 'Greeley, do you want to see a third party organized, or do
you want Douglas to ride to power through the North, which he has so
much abused and betrayed? and to which he replied, 'Let the future
alone; it will all come right. Douglas is a brave man. Forget the past
and sustain the _righteous_' Good God, _righteous_, eh!
"Since I have landed in Boston I have seen much that was entertaining
and interesting. This morning I was introduced to Governor Banks. He and
I had a conversation about Republicanism and especially about Douglas.
He asked me this question, 'You will sustain Douglas in Illinois, wont
you?' and to which I said 'No, never!' He affected to be much
surprised, and so the matter dropped and turned on Republicanism, or in
general--Lincoln. Greeley's and other sheets that laud Douglas, Harris,
et al., want them sustained, and will try to do it. Several persons have
asked me the same question which Banks asked, and evidently they get
their cue, ideas, or what not from Greeley, Seward, et al. By-the-bye,
Greeley remarked to me this, 'The Republican standard is too high; we
want something practical.'
"This may not be interesting to you, but, however it may be, it is my
duty to state what is going on, so that you may head it off--counteract
it in some way. I hope it can be done. The Northern men are cold to
me--somewhat repellent.
"Your friend,
"W. H. Herndon."
On my return home I had encouraging news to relate. I told Lincoln of
the favorable mention I had heard of him by Phillips, Sumner, Seward,
Garrison, Beecher, and Greeley. I brought with me additional sermons
and lectures by Theodore Parker, who was warm in his commendation of
Lincoln. One of these was a lecture on "The Effect of Slavery on the
American People," which was delivered in the Music Hall in Boston, and
which I gave to Lincoln, who read and returned it. He liked especially
the following expression, which he marked with a pencil, and which he
in substance afterwards used in his Gettysburg address: "Democracy is
direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all
the people."
Meanwhile, passing by other events which have become interwoven in the
history of the land, we reach April, 1858, at which time the Democratic
State convention met and, besides nominating candidates for State
offices, endorsed Mr. Douglas' services in the Senate, thereby virtually
renominating him for that exalted office. In the very nature of things
Lincoln was the man already chosen in the hearts of the Republicans
of Illinois for the same office, and therefore with singular
appropriateness they passed, with great unanimity, at their convention
in Springfield on the 16th of June, the characteristic resolution: "That
Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States
Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr.
Douglas' term of office." There was of course no surprise in this for
Mr. Lincoln. He had been all along led to expect it, and with that
in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in
acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred on him. This speech
he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested
themselves, putting them into that miscellaneous and convenient
receptacle, his hat. As the convention drew near he copied the whole
on connected sheets, carefully revising every line and sentence, and
fastened them together, for reference during the delivery of the speech,
and for publication. The former precaution, however, was unnecessary,
for he had studied and read over what he had written so long and
carefully that he was able to deliver it without the least hesitation or
difficulty. A few days before the convention, when he was at work on the
speech, I remember that Jesse K. Dubois,* who was Auditor of State, came
into the office and, seeing Lincoln busily writing, inquired what he was
doing or what he was writing.
* "After the convention Lincoln met me on the street and
said, 'Dubois, I can tell you now what I was doing the other
day when you came into my office. I was writing that speech,
and I knew if I read the passage about the "house divided
against itself" to you, you would ask me to change or modify
it, and that I was determined not to do. I had willed it so,
and was willing if necessary to perish with it."--Statement
of Jesse K. Dubois, MS.
Lincoln answered gruffly, "It's something you may see or hear some time,
but I'll not let you see it now." I myself knew what he was writing,
but having asked neither my opinion nor that of anyone else, I did not
venture to offer any suggestions. After he had finished the final draft
of the speech, he locked the office door, drew the curtain across the
glass panel in the door, and read it to me. At the end of each paragraph
he would halt and wait for my comments. I remember what I said after
hearing the first paragraph, wherein occurs the celebrated figure of the
house divided against itself: "It is true, but is it wise or politic
to say so?" He responded: "That expression is a truth of all human
experience, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand,' and 'he
that runs may read.' The proposition also is true, and has been for six
thousand years. I want to use some universally known figure expressed in
simple language as universally well-known, that may strike home to the
minds of men in order to raise them up to the peril of the times. I do
not believe I would be right in changing or omitting it. I would rather
be defeated with this expression in the speech, and uphold and discuss
it before the people, than be victorious without it." This was not the
first time Lincoln had endorsed the dogma that our Government could not
long endure part slave and part free. He had incorporated it in a speech
at Bloomington in 1856, but in obedience to the emphatic protest
of Judge T. Lyle Dickey and others, who conceived the idea that
its "delivery would make Abolitionists of all the North and slavery
propagandists of all the South, and thereby precipitate a struggle which
might end in disunion," he consented to suspend its repetition,
but only for that campaign.* Now, however, the situation had changed
somewhat. There had been a shifting of scenes, so to speak. The
Republican party had gained some in strength and more in moral
effectiveness and force. Nothing could keep back in Lincoln any longer,
sentiments of right and truth, and he prepared to give the fullest
expression to both in all future contests.
* "After the meeting was over Mr. Lincoln and I returned to
the Pike House, where we occupied the same room. Immediately
on reaching the room I said to him, 'What in God's name
could induce you to promulgate such an opinion?' He replied
familiarly, 'Upon my soul, Dickey, I think it is true.' I
reasoned to show it was not a correct opinion. He argued
strenuously that the opinion was a sound one. At length I
said, 'Suppose you are right, that our Government cannot
last part free and part slave, what good is to be
accomplished by inculcating that opinion (or truth, if you
please) in the minds of the people?' After some minutes
reflection he rose and approached me, extending his right
hand to take mine, and said, 'From respect for your
judgment, Dickey, I'll promise you I won't teach the
doctrine again during this campaign.'"--Letter, T. Lyle
Dickey, MS., December 8, 1866.
[Illustration: Hall of Representatives, State House, Springfield 090]
Before delivering his speech he invited a dozen or so of his friends
over to the library of the State House, where he read and submitted
it to them. After the reading he asked each man for his opinion. Some
condemned and not one endorsed it. One man, more forcible than elegant,
characterized it as a "d------d fool utterance", another said the doctrine
was "ahead of its time" and still another contended that it would drive
away a good many voters fresh from the Democratic ranks. Each man
attacked it in his criticism. I was the last to respond. Although the
doctrine announced was rather rank, yet it suited my views, and I said,
"Lincoln, deliver that speech as read and it will make you President."
At the time I hardly realized the force of my prophecy. Having patiently
listened to these various criticisms from his friends--all of which
with a single exception were adverse--he rose from his chair, and after
alluding to the careful study and intense thought he had given the
question, he answered all their objections substantially as follows:
"Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come
when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I
should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the
truth--let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right." The next
day, the 17th, the speech was delivered just as we had heard it read.
Up to this time Seward had held sway over the North by his "higher-law"
sentiments, but the "house-divided-against-itself" speech by Lincoln in
my opinion drove the nail into Seward's political coffin.*
* If any student of oratorical history, after reading
Lincoln's speech on this occasion, will refer to Webster's
reply to Hayne in the Senate, he will be struck with the
similarity in figure and thought in the opening lines of
both speeches. In fact, it may not be amiss to note that, in
this instance, Webster's effort was carefully read by
Lincoln and served in part as his model.
Lincoln had now created in reality a more profound impression than he or
his friends anticipated. Many Republicans deprecated the advanced ground
he had taken, the more so as the Democrats rejoiced that it afforded
them an issue clear and well-defined. Numbers of his friends distant
from Springfield, on reading his speech, wrote him censorious letters;
and one well-informed co-worker* predicted his defeat, charging it to
the first ten lines of the speech.
* Leonard Swett.
These complaints, coming apparently from every quarter, Lincoln bore
with great patience. To one complainant who followed him into his office
he said proudly, "If I had to draw a pen across my record, and erase my
whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what
I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it
to the world unerased." Meanwhile Douglas had returned from Washington
to his home in Chicago. Here he rested for a few days until his friends
and co-workers had arranged the details of a public reception on the
9th of July, when he delivered from the balcony of the Tremont House a
speech intended as an answer to the one made by Lincoln in Springfield.
Lincoln was present at this reception, but took no part in it. The
next day, however, he replied. Both speeches were delivered at the
same place. Leaving Chicago, Douglas passed on down to Bloomington and
Springfield, where he spoke on the 16th and 17th of July respectively.
On the evening of the latter day Lincoln responded again in a most
effective and convincing effort. The contest now took on a different
phase. Lincoln's Republican friends urged him to draw Douglas into a
joint debate, and he accordingly sent him a challenge on the 24th
of July. It is not necessary, I suppose, to reproduce here the
correspondence that passed between these great leaders. On the 30th
Douglas finally accepted the proposition to "divide time, and address
the same audiences," naming seven different places, one in each
Congressional district, outside of Chicago and Springfield, for joint
meetings.*
* Among the items of preparation on Lincoln's part hitherto
withheld is the following letter, which explains itself:
[Illustration: Letter to Campbell 095]
"Springfield, June 28, 1858.
"A. Campbell, Esq.
"My Dear Sir:--In 1856 you gave me authority to draw on you
for any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars. I see
clearly that such a privilege would be more available now
than it was then. I am aware that times are tighter now than
they were then. Please write me at all events, and whether
you can now do anything or not I shall continue grateful for
the past.
"Yours very truly,
"A. Lincoln."
* The following recent letter from Mr. Campbell is not
without interest:
La Salle, Ill., Dec. 12th, 1888.
"Jesse W. Weik, Esq.
"My Dear Sir:--I gave Mr. Lincoln some money in the office
of Lincoln & Herndon in Springfield in 1856, but I do not
remember the exact amount. It was, however, between two and
three hundred dollars. I never had Mr. Lincoln's obligation
for the payment of any money. I never kept any account of
nor charged my memory with any money I gave him. It was
given to defray his personal expenses and otherwise promote
the interest of a cause which I sincerely believed to be for
the public good, and without the thought or expectation of a
dollar of it ever being returned. From what I knew and
learned of his careful habits in money matters in the
campaign of 1856 I am entirely confident that every dollar
and dime I ever gave was carefully and faithfully applied to
the uses and purposes for which it was given.
"Sincerely yours,
"A. Campbell."
The places and dates were, Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, August 27;
Jonesboro, September 15; Charleston, September 18; Galesburg, October 7;
Quincy, October 13; and Alton, October 15. "I agree to your suggestion,"
wrote Douglas, "that we shall alternately open and close the discussion.
I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can reply, occupying an hour and
a half, and I will then follow for half an hour. At Freeport you shall
open the discussion and speak one hour, I will follow for an hour and a
half, and you can then reply for half an hour. We will alternate in like
manner in each successive place." To this arrangement Lincoln on the
31st gave his consent, "although," he wrote, "by the terms as you
propose you take four openings and closes to my three."
History furnishes few characters whose lives and careers were so nearly
parallel as those of Lincoln and Douglas. They met for the first time at
the Legislature in Vandalia in 1834, where Lincoln was a member of the
House of Representatives and Douglas was in the lobby. The next year
Douglas was also a member. In 1839 both were admitted to practice in
the Supreme Court of Illinois on the same day.* In 1841 both courted
the same young lady. In 1846 both represented Illinois in Congress at
Washington, the one in the upper and the other in the lower House.
In 1858 they were opposing candidates for United States Senator; and
finally, to complete the remarkable counterpart, both were candidates
for the Presidency in 1860. While it is true that their ambitions ran
in parallel lines, yet they were exceedingly unlike in all other
particulars.
* December 3d.
Douglas was short,--something over five feet high,--heavy set, with a
large head, broad shoulders, deep chest, and striking features. He was
polite and affable, but fearless. He had that unique trait, magnetism,
fully developed in his nature, and that attracted a host of friends
and readily made him a popular idol. He had had extensive experience in
debate, and had been trained by contact for years with the great minds
and orators in Congress. He was full of political history, well
informed on general topics, eloquent almost to the point of brilliancy,
self-confident to the point of arrogance, and a dangerous competitor in
every respect. What he lacked in ingenuity he made up in strategy, and
if in debate he could not tear down the structure of his opponent's
argument by a direct and violent attack, he was by no means reluctant
to resort to a strained restatement of the latter's position or to the
extravagance of ridicule. Lincoln knew his man thoroughly and well.*
* An erroneous impression has grown up in recent years
concerning Douglas's ability and standing as a lawyer. One
of the latest biographies of Lincoln credits him with many
of the artifices of the "shyster." This is not only unfair,
but decidedly untrue. I always found Douglas at the bar to
be a broad, fair, and liberal-minded man. Although not a
thorough student of the law his large fund of good common-
sense kept him in the front rank. He was equally generous
and courteous, and he never stooped to gain a case. I know
that Lincoln entertained the same view of him. It was only
in politics that Douglas demonstrated any want of
inflexibility and rectitude, and then only did Lincoln
manifest a lack of faith in his morals.
He had often met Douglas on the stump; was familiar with his tactics,
and though fully aware of his "want of fixed political morals," was not
averse to measuring swords with the elastic and flexible "Little Giant."
Lincoln himself was constructed on an entirely different foundation. His
base was plain common sense, direct statement, and the inflexibility of
logic. In physical make-up he was cold--at least not magnetic--and
made no effort to dazzle people by his bearing. He cared nothing for
a following, and though he had often before struggled for a political
prize, yet in his efforts he never had strained his well-known spirit of
fairness or open love of the truth. He analyzed everything, laid every
statement bare, and by dint of his broad reasoning powers and
manliness of admission inspired his hearers with deep conviction of his
earnestness and honesty. Douglas may have electrified the crowds with
his eloquence or charmed them with his majestic bearing and dexterity in
debate, but as each man, after the meetings were over and the applause
had died away, went to his home, his head rang with Lincoln's logic and
appeal to manhood.
A brief description of Mr. Lincoln's appearance on the stump and of his
manner when speaking may not be without interest. When standing erect
he was six feet four inches high. He was lean in flesh and ungainly in
figure. Aside from the sad, pained look due to habitual melancholy, his
face had no characteristic or fixed expression. He was thin through the
chest, and hence slightly stoop-shouldered. When he arose to address
courts, juries, or crowds of people, his body inclined forward to a
slight degree. At first he was very awkward, and it seemed a real labor
to adjust himself to his surroundings. He struggled for a time under a
feeling of apparent diffidence and sensitiveness, and these only added
to his awkwardness. I have often seen and sympathized with Mr. Lincoln
during these moments. When he began speaking, his voice was shrill,
piping, and unpleasant. His manner, his attitude, his dark, yellow
face, wrinkled and dry, his oddity of pose, his diffident
movements--everything seemed to be against him, but only for a short
time. After having arisen, he generally placed his hands behind him, the
back of his left hand in the palm of his right, the thumb and fingers
of his right hand clasped around the left arm at the wrist. For a few
moments he played the combination of awkwardness, sensitiveness, and
diffidence. As he proceeded he became somewhat animated, and to keep in
harmony with his growing warmth his hands relaxed their grasp and fell
to his side. Presently he clasped them in front of him, interlocking his
fingers, one thumb meanwhile chasing another. His speech now requiring
more emphatic utterance, his fingers unlocked and his hands fell apart.
His left arm was thrown behind, the back of his hand resting against
his body, his right hand seeking his side. By this time he had gained
sufficient composure, and his real speech began. He did not gesticulate
as much with his hands as with his head. He used the latter frequently,
throwing it with vim this way and that. This movement was a significant
one when he sought to enforce his statement. It sometimes came with
a quick jerk, as if throwing off electric sparks into combustible
material. He never sawed the air nor rent space into tatters and rags
as some orators do. He never acted for stage effect. He was cool,
considerate, reflective--in time self-possessed and self-reliant.
His style was clear, terse, and compact. In argument he was logical,
demonstrative, and fair. He was careless of his dress, and his clothes,
instead of fitting neatly as did the garments of Douglas on the latter's
well-rounded form, hung loosely on his giant frame. As he moved along
in his speech he became freer and less uneasy in his movements; to
that extent he was graceful. He had a perfect naturalness, a strong
individuality; and to that extent he was dignified. He despised glitter,
show, set forms, and shams. He spoke with effectiveness and to move the
judgment as well as the emotions of men. There was a world of meaning
and emphasis in the long, bony finger of his right hand as he dotted
the ideas on the minds of his hearers. Sometimes, to express joy or
pleasure, he would raise both hands at an angle of about fifty degrees,
the palms upward, as if desirous of embracing the spirit of that which
he loved. If the sentiment was one of detestation--denunciation of
slavery, for example--both arms, thrown upward and fists clenched, swept
through the air, and he expressed an execration that was truly sublime.
This was one of his most effective gestures, and signified most vividly
a fixed determination to drag down the object of his hatred and trample
it in the dust. He always stood squarely on his feet, toe even with toe;
that is, he never put one foot before the other. He neither touched nor
leaned on anything for support. He made but few changes in his positions
and attitudes. He never ranted, never walked backward and forward on
the platform. To ease his arms he frequently caught hold, with his left
hand, of the lapel of his coat, keeping his thumb upright and leaving
his right hand free to gesticulate. The designer of the monument
recently erected in Chicago has happily caught him in just this
attitude. As he proceeded with his speech the exercise of his vocal
organs altered somewhat the tone of his voice. It lost in a measure its
former acute and shrilling pitch, and mellowed into a more harmonious
and pleasant sound. His form expanded, and, notwithstanding the sunken
breast, he rose up a splendid and imposing figure. In his defence of
the Declaration of Independence--his greatest inspiration--he was
tremendous in the directness of his utterances; he rose to impassioned
eloquence, unsurpassed by Patrick Henry, Mirabeau, or Vergniaud, as his
soul was inspired with the thought of human right and Divine justice.*
His little gray eyes flashed in a face aglow with the fire of his
profound thoughts; and his uneasy movements and diffident manner sunk
themselves beneath the wave of righteous indignation that came sweeping
over him. Such was Lincoln the orator.
* Horace White, who was present and reported the speech for
his paper, the Chicago Tribune. Letter, June 9, 1865, MS.
We can somewhat appreciate the feeling with which Douglas, aggressive
and fearless though he was, welcomed a contest with such a man as
Lincoln. Four years before, in a joint debate with him, he had asked
for a cessation of forensic hostilities, conceding that his opponent
of rail-splitting fame had given him "more trouble than all the United
States Senate together." Now he was brought face to face with him
again.*
* "Douglas and I, for the first time this canvass, crossed
swords here yesterday. The fire flew some, and I am glad to
know I am yet alive."--Lincoln to J. O. Cunningham, Ottawa,
Ill., August 22, 1858, MS.
It is unnecessary and not in keeping with the purpose of this work to
reproduce here the speeches made by either Lincoln or Douglas in their
justly renowned debate. Briefly stated, Lincoln's position was announced
in his opening speech at Springfield: "'A house divided against itself
cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not
expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all the one thing or the other. Either the opponents
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it
becomes alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as
well as South." The position of Douglas on the question of slavery was
one of indifference. He advocated with all his power the doctrine of
"Popular Sovereignty," a proposition, as quaintly put by Lincoln, which
meant that, "if one man chooses to enslave another, no third man has a
right to object." At the last joint discussion in Alton, Lincoln, after
reflecting on the patriotism of any man who was so indifferent to the
wrong of slavery that he cared not whether it was voted up or down,
closed his speech with this stirring summary: "That [slavery] is the
real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when
these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It
is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and
wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue
to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle, in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says: 'You work and toil
and earn bread, and I eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men
as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle."
It is unnecessary, I presume, to insert here the seven questions which
Douglas propounded to Lincoln at their first meeting at Ottawa, nor the
historic four which Lincoln asked at Freeport. It only remains to say
that in answering Lincoln at
Freeport, Douglas accomplished his own political downfall. He was
swept entirely away from his former foundation, and even the glory of a
subsequent election to the Senate never restored him to it.
During the canvass Mr. Lincoln, in addition to the seven meetings
with Douglas, filled thirty-one appointments made by the State
Central Committee, besides speaking at many other times and places not
previously advertised. In his trips to and fro over the State, between
meetings, he would stop at Springfield sometimes, to consult with his
friends or to post himself up on questions that occurred during the
canvass. He kept me busy hunting up old speeches and gathering facts and
statistics at the State library. I made liberal clippings bearing in any
way on the questions of the hour from every newspaper I happened to see,
and kept him supplied with them; and on one or two occasions, in answer
to letters and telegrams, I sent books forward to him. He had a little
leather bound book, fastened in front with a clasp, in which he and I
both kept inserting newspaper slips and newspaper comments until the
canvass opened. In arranging for the joint meetings and managing the
crowds Douglas enjoyed one great advantage. He had been United
States Senator for several years, and had influential friends holding
comfortable government offices all over the State. These men were on
hand at every meeting, losing no opportunity to applaud lustily all the
points Douglas made and to lionize him in every conceivable way. The
ingeniously contrived display of their enthusiasm had a marked effect
on certain crowds--a fact of which Lincoln frequently complained to
his friends. One who accompanied him during the canvass* relates this:
"Lincoln and I were at the Centralia agricultural fair the day after the
debate at Jonesboro. Night came on and we were tired, having been on
the fair grounds all day. We were to go north on the Illinois Central
railroad. The train was due at midnight, and the depot was full of
people. I managed to get a chair for Lincoln in the office of the
superintendent of the railroad, but small politicians would intrude so
that he could scarcely get a moment's sleep. The train came and was
filled instantly. I got a seat near the door for Lincoln and myself.
He was worn out, and had to meet Douglas the next day at Charleston. An
empty car, called a saloon car, was hitched on to the rear of the
train and locked up. I asked the conductor, who knew Lincoln and myself
well,--we were both attorneys of the road,--if Lincoln could not ride
in that car; that he was exhausted and needed rest; but the conductor
refused. I afterwards got him in by a stratagem. At the same time George
B. McClellan in person was taking Douglas around in a special car and
special train; and that was the unjust treatment Lincoln got from
the Illinois Central railroad. Every interest of that road and every
employee was against Lincoln and for Douglas."
* Henry C. Whitney, MS., July 21, 1865.
The heat and dust and bonfires of the campaign at last came to an end.
The election took place on the second of November, and while Lincoln
received of the popular vote a majority of over four thousand, yet the
returns from the legislative districts foreshadowed his defeat. In fact,
when the Senatorial election took place in the Legislature, Douglas
received fifty-four and Lincoln forty-six votes--one of the results of
the lamentable apportionment law then in operation.*
* Horace Greeley was one of the most vigilant men during the
debate. He wrote to Lincoln and me many letters which I
still retain. In a letter to me during the campaign, October
6, he says with reference to Douglas: "In his present
position I could not of course support him, but he need not
have been in this position had the Republicans of Illinois
been as wise and far-seeing as they are earnest and true....
but seeing things are as they are, I do not wish to be
quoted as authority for making trouble and division among
our friends." Soon after hearing of the result of November
election he again writes: "I advise you privately that Mr.
Douglas would be the strongest candidate that the Democratic
party could present for President; but they will not present
him. The old leaders wouldn't endorse it. As he is doomed to
be slaughtered at Charleston it is good policy to fatten him
meantime. He will cut up the better at killing time." An
inquiry for his preference as to Presidential timber
elicited this response, December 4th. "As to President, my
present judgment is Edward Bates, with John M. Read for
Vice; but I am willing to go anything that looks strong. I
don't wish to load the team heavier than it will pull
through. As to Douglas, he is like the man's boy who (he
said) 'didn't weigh so much as he expected, and he always
knew he wouldn't.' I never thought him very sound coin; but
I didn't think it best to beat him on the back of his anti-
Lecompton fight, and I am still of that opinion."
The letters of Lincoln at this period are the best evidence of his
feelings now obtainable, and of how he accepted his defeat. To Henry
Asbury, a friend who had written him a cheerful letter admonishing him
not to give up the battle, he responded;
"Springfield, November 19, 1858.
"Mr. Henry Asbury,
"My Dear Sir:--Yours of the 13th was received some days ago. The fight
must go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the
end of one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be
supported in the late contest both as the best means to break down and
to uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can keep these antagonistic
elements in harmony long. Another explosion will soon come.
"Yours truly,
"A. Lincoln."
To another friend* on the same day he writes:
* Dr. Henry.
"I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and
durable questions of the age which I could have had in no other way; and
though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I have
made some marks which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am
gone." Before passing to later events in Mr. Lincoln's life it is proper
to include in this chapter, as a specimen of his oratory at this time,
his eloquent reference to the Declaration of Independence found in a
speech delivered at Beardstown, August 12, and not at Lewiston five days
later, as many biographers have it. Aside from its concise reasoning,
the sublime thought it suggests entitles it to rank beside that great
masterpiece, his Gettysburg address. After alluding to the suppression
by the Fathers of the Republic of the slave trade, he says: "These by
their representatives in old Independence Hall said to the whole race of
men: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.' This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the
universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of
the justice of the Creator to his creatures--yes, gentlemen, to all
his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened
belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into
the world to be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows.
They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they
reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a
beacon to guide their children, and their children's children, and
the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise
statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed
tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that
when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should
set up the doctrine that none but rich men, none but white men, or
none but Anglo-Saxon white men were entitled to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the
Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which
their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the
humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land;
so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great
principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.
"Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with
the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have
listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and
mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined
to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable
rights enumerated by our chart of liberty: let me entreat you to come
back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of
the Revolution. Think nothing of me; take no thought for the political
fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the
Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if
you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat
me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While
pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated
in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I
charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's
success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But
do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity--the Declaration of
American Independence."
One of the newspaper men* who heard this majestic oration wrote me as
follows:
* Horace White, MS., May 17, 1865.
"The apostrophe to the Declaration of Independence to which you refer
was written by myself from a vivid recollection of Mr. Lincoln's speech
at Beardstown, August 12, 1858. On the day following the delivery of the
speech, as Mr. Lincoln and I were proceeding by steamer from Beardstown
to Havana, I said to him that I had been greatly impressed by his
concluding remarks of the day previous, and that if he would write them
out for me I felt confident their publication would be highly beneficial
to our cause as well as honorable to his own fame. He replied that he
had but a faint recollection of any portion of the speech; that, like
all his campaign speeches, it was necessarily extemporaneous; and that
its good or bad effect depended upon the inspiration of the moment.
He added that I had probably overestimated the value of the remarks
referred to. In reply to my question whether he had any objection to my
writing them out from memory and putting them in the form of a verbatim
report, he said, 'None at all.' I accordingly did so. I felt confident
then and I feel equally assured now that I transcribed the peroration
with absolute fidelity as to ideas and commendable fidelity as to
language. I certainly aimed to reproduce his exact words, and my
recollection of the passage as spoken was very clear. After I had
finished writing I read it to Mr. Lincoln. When I had finished the
reading he said, 'Well, those are my views, and if I said anything on
the subject I must have said substantially that, but not nearly so well
as that is said.' I remember this remark quite distinctly, and if the
old steamer _Editor_ is still in existence I could show the place
where we were sitting. Having secured his assent to the publication I
forwarded it to our paper, but inasmuch as my report of the Beardstown
meeting had been already mailed I incorporated the remarks on the
Declaration of Independence in my letter from Lewiston two or three days
subsequently.... I do not remember ever having related these facts before,
although they have often recurred to me as I have seen the peroration
resuscitated again and again, and published (with good effect, I trust)
in the newspapers of this country and England."