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Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Sinitli T). ^tkiiin, Opera House, Streator. Illinois, FHl.niar.v 12, l!l(l!», 
 at iiivitatfoii of (i, A K, Woinan's Relief ('oips. S|iaiiisli-Anieriean 
 Veterans, and the Daughters of the Anierieaii Kevolut ion. 
 
 Mrs. President, and :My Fellow Citizens: 
 
 I came to Streator at the invitation of many patriotic socie- 
 ties, including the Daughters of the American Revolution, an 
 aristocratic society, the aristocracy of blood-relationship to men 
 who had performed heroic deeds — true American aristocracy — the 
 only aristocracy in this land of liberty and equal opportunity. 
 
 The Sons of the American Revolution is a like patriotic and 
 aristocratic society. I came near being an aristocrat myself. 
 When my friend, Major General George Crook, commanded the 
 Department of the Lakes, with headquarters at Chicago, he wrote 
 me that his grand-father was a soldier in the American Revolu- 
 tionary War, and he knew that my grand-father was, and he 
 thought we should organize a Society of the Sons of the Revolu- 
 tion. I visited him, and we talked the matter over; I conducted 
 considerable correspondence, and we called a meeting in Chicago 
 to organize, and some young fellow, who really knew more about 
 the matter than General Crook or myself, raised the point that 
 no one could join who did not have the written certificate from 
 the Secretary of War that his ancestor had been a soldier in 
 the American Revolutionary War. "Well," said General Crook, 
 "that rules me out; I know that my grand-father was a soldier 
 in the Revolutionary W^ar, but I do not know his name, and I 
 have not, and cannot obtain such a certificate." I was ruled 
 out for the same reason. We had called the meeting, and we 
 were both ruled out. 
 
 Some years later I visited Council Bluffs, Iowa, and a pioneer 
 merchant of that city, J. B. Atkins, took me out to ride, and 
 we had not gone far when he said, "Was your father's name 
 Adna Stanley Atkins?" "Yes," I replied. "And his oldest 
 daughter's name was Cynthia?" "Yes," I said, and he continued, 
 "Well, your father and my father were brothers." Then I said, 
 "Perhaps you know who your grand-father was?" "Of course 
 I do," he said, and he told me, and I wrote the name down, and 
 when I returned to Freeport I wrote to the Secretary of War, 
 and soon received a certificate of his service in the American 
 Revolution. I may be an aristocrat some day. 
 
 But I came here to talk about Abraham Lincoln, born one 
 hundred years ago, in almost as humble circumstances as the 
 child of Judea, among the poor whites of Kentucky on whom 
 the black bondsmen looked down in pity, and who rose from 
 that humble beginning to become the foremost man in all the 
 world in the century in which he lived. Today his fame fills all 
 the world, and the world is better because he lived. 
 
 In 1816, when seven years old, with his father's family he 
 removed to Spencer County, Indiana, and aided in building a 
 
log house to live in, and clearing and fencing a small patch of 
 land for raising crops. His boyhood life in Indiana was un- 
 eventful, best told, as he himself said, "In the short and 
 simple annals of the poor." He had few books, and very lit- 
 tle schooling, but he was an omnivorous reader, borrowing and 
 reading by the light of burning shavings in a friendly cooper- 
 shop all the books he could, even the statutes of Indiana, and 
 owning a few. In one of his books he wrote: 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen. 
 He will be good, but God knows when." 
 
 In another of his books he wrote, as his historian tells us. as 
 if he was ambitious to become a great man: 
 
 "Good boys who to their books apply, 
 Wiirbe great men by and by." 
 
 In 1830," when 21 years old, he came to Illinois, barefooted 
 and driving a yoke of oxen. It is said that many years afterward 
 while making a speech some one in the audience cried out, "Abe, 
 is it true that you came to Illinois barefooted and driving a yoke 
 of oxen?" Mr. Lincoln looked over the audience carefully, and 
 replied, "I believe there is at least a dozen men in this audience 
 by whom I could prove that to be true, any one of whom is more 
 respectable than the man who asked that question." He was 
 always absolutely honest in all things, honest in his actions, and 
 honest in his thoughts. It is related that he had borrowed a 
 book, "Weem's Life of Washington," and by some accident the 
 book had become wet, and ruined, when he worked four days to 
 pay for it, and it became his own, and he read it, and re-read it, 
 until Washington became his hero, whose life was to him an 
 inspiration and example. It was fortunate for him that he be- 
 came the owner of that book, and really fortunate for him that 
 he had so few books to read, for the few that he had he com- 
 pletely mastered. 
 
 In 1831, in his twenty-second year, he went to New Orleans 
 as a hand on a flatboat, receiving as his pay eight dollars per 
 month ; low wages, but I have worked for less, a whole year for 
 thirty dollars, two dollars and fifty cents per month. It was 
 hard work, but the life of a flatboatman on the Mississippi in 
 those early days was full of adventure. At New Orleans, with 
 his companions, he visited a slave market where a mulatto girl 
 was being sold at auction. He could not stand it long, and said, 
 "Come boys, let us get away from here — if I .ever get a chance I 
 will hit that thing hard." To all appearances, a poor boy work- 
 ing for low wages on a flatboat. no chance to hit slavery would 
 ever come to him. But long years afterward the chance did 
 come, and he forgot not his vow — he did hit that thing hard. 
 
 He returned to New Salem in Sangamon County and clerked 
 in a store, where his absolute honesty received a demonstration — . 
 in selling tea he had received pay for two ounces too much, 
 which he discovered when his customer was gone, and locking 
 up the store, he walked many miles to return the money. No 
 wonder he so early acquired the nick-name of "Honest Abe." 
 
With modesty he lived up to it all his life long, and it will cling 
 to his memory while time shall last. 
 
 He was strong. "It is splendid to have a giant's strength; it 
 is unmanly to use it like a giant." He never did. But the Clarj 
 Grove boys thought they could down him, and they matched Jack 
 Armstrong against him; neither could down the other; Jack 
 Armstrong attempted to take an unfair advantage, when young 
 Lincoln "put his foot down firmly," and seizing the bully by the 
 throat, he choked him until he plead for mercy. Even Jack Arm- 
 strong declared that Lincoln did right, and all the Clary Grove 
 boys were his friends. 
 
 In 1832 came the Blackhawk Indian War, and a company 
 was organized at New Salem. Of course Abraham Lincoln en- 
 listed. When it came to electing a Captain the men gathered 
 around the man they wanted for Captain, and the large majority 
 gathered around young Lincoln. It was his f^rst great victory, 
 and he himself declared that it gave him more pleasure than 
 anything that had occurred in his life before. Captain Lincoln 
 was not much of a military man, and did not quickly learn the 
 proper commands to give to his company. One day when his 
 company was marching company front, the company came to a 
 fence and a gate, and not remembering the command to give to 
 make the company march "endwise." he sang out "This company 
 is disbanded for two minutes, when it will assemble in line on 
 the other side of the fence." During the Civil War I was talking 
 to General Steadman, South of Triune, when Col. Jim Brownlow, 
 son of the famous Parson Brownlow, Colonel of the First Ten- 
 nessee Cavalry, reported to General Steadman for orders, when 
 General Steadman said "Deploy your regiment and hold the 
 enemy." Col. Jim took off his hat, scratched his head, and said: 
 "Well, General, I don't know exactly what you mean by deploy; 
 but if you mean to scatter out and fight, we can do that." "Yes," 
 said Steadman, and Col. Jim rode away at a gallop, and I heard 
 
 him yelling. "Boys scatter out there and give the rebels ." 
 
 You may guess what it was that Colonel Jim Brownlow wanted 
 his boys to give the rebels. 
 
 And when the term of Capt. Lincoln's enlistment had ex- 
 pired, and his company was mustered out, Abraham Lincoln en- 
 listed as a private in another company, remaining in the service 
 until the war was ended in victory at Bad Axe. Think of that, 
 think of Captain Lincoln enlisting as a private soldier, and re- 
 maining until "the work he was engaged in" came to an end in 
 victory. 
 
 Then he returned to New Salem, and became a storekeeper. 
 One day he bought of an immigrant a barrel of trash, and for a 
 long time his purchase remained unexamined, when he turned 
 the contents on the floor, and found an old copy of Blackstone's 
 Commentaries. What a mine of knowledge it was for young Lin- 
 coln, who already knew almost by heart the statutes of Indiana. 
 No wonder he became a great lawyer. I think that my old friend 
 Walter Reeves sitting here on the platform, who has managed 
 
some way in gaining the reputation of being himself a pretty 
 good sort of a lawyer, would be willing to certify: "The man who 
 knows Blackstone by heart cannot help being a great lawyer." 
 
 In 1834 he ran for the legislature, and was defeated. Noth- 
 ing daunted by defeat he ran again for the legislature and was 
 elected. Attending the legislature at Vandalia he met Stephen 
 A. Douglas, and they became rivals, and the rivalry continued 
 during all the years. He moved to Springfield, resolved to prac- 
 tice law. He was in desperate poverty, but his wants were few 
 and simple, and his friends supplied them. He had been post- 
 master at New Salem, and about two years after he removed to 
 Springfield a postofRce inspector was inquiring for him, and his 
 friends feared there might be trouble, and offered him assist- 
 ance, but he said, "That's all right;" and when the postoffice in- 
 spector found him, he took a package out of his trunk, carefully 
 tied up, and it contained about $34 in the very coins he had re- 
 ceived, the exact amount due the government. In his utmost 
 need it never ocurred to Mr. Lincoln that he might use any mon- 
 ey that was not his own. He continued in the Legislature, and 
 was a member of the "long nine" that succeeded in having the 
 capital of Illinois removed from Vandalia to Springfield. That 
 was his great object, and he was willing to make all sorts of 
 trades, and vote for anything that would give a vote for the re- 
 moval of the capital, even for the internal improvement scheme 
 that nearly bankrupted and ruined the State. There is only one 
 notable and praiseworthy act in his legislative career, his joining 
 with Dan Stone in a protest against a pro-slavery resolution, 
 showing that he could never sanction slavery. He never forgot 
 his experience at New Orleans. 
 
 For many years his life was uneventful. He traveled the 
 circuit as a country lawyer, telling stories at the village taverns. 
 He was not a handsome man. Tall, rawboned, awkward, dressed 
 in clothes that rarely fitted him, he was a long ways from being 
 good-looking. While traveling from one court to another, alone 
 in his old buggy, he met on a high bridge across a stream an- 
 other man, who halted Mr. Lincoln, and getting out of his wagon, 
 pulled out a double-barrelled shotgun, when Lincoln asked him 
 what he was going to do. "Well," said the the stranger, "I have 
 made a vow that if I ever met a man that was homelier than I 
 was I would kill him." Lincoln looked him over, and said, 
 "Stranger, you may shoot." After Mr. Lincoln became President 
 a woman went to him to plead for the life of her boy who had 
 been condemned to be shot for sleeping on his post, and she 
 was successful of course, for Mr. Lincoln could never resist an 
 appeal like that for mercy, and when she left the White House, 
 tears streaming down her cheeks, she said, "They told me he was 
 a homely man, but I think he is the handsomest man I ever saw." 
 My father, to console me, I suppose, for my want of good looks, 
 often said to me, "Handsome is that handsome does." Judged 
 by that apothegm Mr. Lincoln was a handsome man. He was 
 melancholy at times, but he was generally full of fun. General 
 
Shields, a gallant soldier, wounded in the Mexican War, succeed- 
 ed Sydney Breese as Senator from Illinois, and the wags said 
 "The ball that entered Shields' breast, instead of him, killed 
 Breese." Shields was a pompous little fellow, and Mr. Lincoln 
 had been poking fun at him in letters published in the Spring- 
 field papers, purporting to come from the "lost townships," and 
 Shields challenged him to a duel, and Lincoln accepted, and as 
 the challenged party chose broadswords with a high plank be- 
 tween the combatants, where little Shields with such a weapon 
 could not reach Mr. Lincoln, and the whole thing ended ill a 
 broad farce. He traded horses one evening, "unsight, unseen," 
 as the boys say, the parties to be at the east side of the State 
 house at 9 a. m. th.e following morning, each bringing his 
 "horse;" his opponent was on hand early with a sorry specimen 
 of a "horse," but promptly at 9 o'clock came Abe Lincoln with 
 a wooden saw-horse on his shoulder, and amid great merriment 
 it was acknowledged that Abe Lincoln had the best of it in that 
 horse trade. 
 
 He was uniformly successful in his law suits, for the excel- 
 lent reason that he never would act as attorney in any case unless 
 his client was clearly in the right. That was a good way to 
 obtain a reputation as a successful lawyer, and it was a good 
 way to practice law as an honest man. Lincoln was honest in 
 his law practice, and honest in everything he did — honest with 
 all the world, and honest with himself in all his thoughts. 
 
 In 1S44 :\Ir. Lincoln was defeated for Congress, but he was 
 elected in 184 6, serving one term only, and because of his anti- 
 slavery sentiments he opposed the Mexican War waged for the 
 extension of slavery. No man can oppose a popular war, and 
 remain in political life, and apparently Mr. Lincoln had given up 
 politics for good, and devoted himself to the practice of law. 
 His rival. Judge Douglas, was the most popular and successful 
 politician in America, winning every position he sought, and 
 was a United States Senator from Illinois. 
 
 In 1854 occurred the most important event in the political 
 history of this country, a new departure on the slavery question, 
 that drove Mr. Lincoln again into politics. He had no influence 
 in bringing about that event, but with the clear vision of a seer, 
 he saw its mighty import. Slavery had been the bone of con- 
 tention from the beginning. Although the American people, 
 South as well as North, with equal valor, had fought to a success- 
 ful issue, the American Revolutionary war, on the Declaration 
 of American Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the 
 enforced slavery of black people was an actual fact, and when it 
 became necessary, after the close of the Revolutionary war, to 
 adopt a written constitution for the new Nation, it was found 
 that no permanent strong government could be adopted without 
 compromises on the slavery question. True it is that during the 
 progress of the Revolutionary war, George Rogers Clark, under 
 the direction of Patrick Henry, the Governor of the Colony of 
 Virginia, had conquered the Illinois country, in one of the most 
 
brilliant military campaigns in history, as fascinating as one of 
 the stories of Aladin's lamp — I wish I had time to dwell upon 
 it — adding to Virginia all the country west of the Allegheny 
 mountains, north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, out ot 
 which five of the most populous and wealthy States of the Union 
 have since been formed, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and 
 Michigan, and with a magnanimity unparalleled in all the history. 
 of the world, Virginia ceded that vast empire to the general gov- 
 ernment, two years before the adoption of the Constitution of 
 the United States, in 1787, by the Northwest Ordinance, drafted 
 by Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of American Inde- 
 pendence, and by that ordinance slavery was forever excluded 
 from all that country, from the soil upon which we are now liv- 
 ing, where this beautiful city is now located. To my mind the 
 passage of that law, in 17 87, indicated the trend of thought in 
 the minds of the fathers of the Republic in favor of liberty, for 
 it covered all of the territory then belonging to the general gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 But later, when the written constitution of the Republic 
 was formulated, the most wonderful written constitution in all 
 the world's history, referred to by Mr. Gladstone, England's 
 greatest statesman, as "the epitome of human wisdom in the 
 science of human government," it was found absolutely neces- 
 sary to compromise with slavery, and three compromises were 
 placed in the Constitution: 1st, the African slave trade was 
 continued for twenty years — think of that, for twenty years the 
 Southern States continued to import black people from Africa 
 and hold them in perpetual bondage; 2nd, three-fifths of the 
 black people of the South were counted for representation in 
 Congress — five black persons — slaves — were counted the equal of 
 three white free men — in other words, the South had- repre- 
 sentation in Congress for its property in human beings; and 3d, 
 slaves escaping from their masters were given up on claim. All 
 of those compromises of the Constitution were faithfully observ- 
 ed. The African slave trade was continued for twenty years; 
 three-fifths of the slaves were counted for representation in Con- 
 gress, and the Fugitive Slave Law was enforced. > - 
 
 The slavery question would not down. In iMfe Louisiana 
 was purchased by Thomas Jefferson, then President of the Unit- 
 ed States, from Napoleon Bonaparte for fifteen millions of dol- 
 lars, giving the United States a vast empire west of the Missis- 
 sippi; I have not time to dwell upon that wonderful transaction 
 between two of the most remarkable men in the world, Napoleon 
 Bonaparte compelled to sell, for he was preparing for his last 
 great battle of Waterloo, where he was overthrown by Welling- 
 ton, England's Iron Duke, and Thomas Jefferson, the country 
 lawyer of Virginia, who had drafted the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and who added to 
 his fame by the Louisiana purchase. Mof^ years later, in 1820, 
 Missouri, west of the Mississippi, a part/of the Louisiana pur- 
 chase, applied for admission to the Union as a State, with a slave 
 
 v.i£2-y>f. '•;-(. X^' 
 
state Constitution. Tliere was great opposition, but again a com- 
 promise with slavery, and at the instance of Jesse B. Thomas, 
 United States Senator from Illinois — it is curious to note the 
 prominent part of Illinois in the early history and final settle- 
 ment of the slavery question^ — Missouri was admitted with slav- 
 ery, while the compromise was that slavery was to be forever ex- 
 cluded in the new territory north of 36-30, the south line of the 
 new state, again all the territory then belonging to the general gov- 
 ernment. That compromise appeared to settle the question of 
 slavery in the territory north of that line. Now mark well, in 
 1854, Stephen A. Douglas, United States Senator from Illinois, 
 Chairman of the Committee on Territories, introduced a bill to 
 organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The bill, like 
 all bills for the erection of new territories, contained no pro- 
 vision for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; but the bill, 
 at the instance of Senators Dixon, of Kentucky, and Atchison, of 
 Missouri, was recommitted to the Committee on Territories, and 
 nineteen days afterward was again introduced by Senator Doug- 
 las with a clause repealing the Missouri compromise of 1820, 
 and adding what Thomas Hart Benton called "a stump speech 
 in the belly of the bill," "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 per- 
 fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
 their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
 States." 
 
 That was a new departure in the politics of this Nation. 
 The policy of the fathers of the Republic, as shown in the North- 
 west Ordinance of 1787, to exclude slavery from the new terri- 
 tories, and again in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, exclud- 
 ing slavery from the new Territories north of the south line of 
 that State, was reversed and repealed, and the new Territories 
 from which slavery was excluded by a law of Congress, were 
 opened up to slavery. The South, dominating the Democratic 
 party, made that new departure a part of the Democratic creed, 
 and it was on that state of facts that Abraham Lincoln came 
 back into political life. He saw, more clearly than any other man 
 in America, the aim and ultimate object of the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise. It took complete possession of him — it 
 permeated every fiber of his nature — for he did care whether 
 slavery was voted up or voted down — he loved liberty, not only 
 for himself, but for all the world; for all men, without regard to 
 color; he was satisfied while the policy of the fathers prevailed, 
 while the public mind rested securely in the belief that "slavery 
 was in the course of ultimate extinction," but he was aroused to 
 action when that policy was reversed, and slavery extension be- 
 came the paramount political question. The entire country 
 w^as aroused as never before in all ils history. In October, 1854, 
 Senator Douglas returned to Illinois to defend before the people 
 his course in repealing the Missouri Compromise, and Abraham 
 Lincoln "camped upon his trail," the one public man in the great 
 
Northwest who was thoroughly aroused to action. Senator 
 Douglas spoke for three hours October 3, in Springfield at the 
 State Fair, and the next day, October 4, Mr. Lincoln answered 
 him, and Douglas on the following day, October 5, replied to 
 Lincoln. On October 12, Mr. Lincoln spoke in Peoria, a long and 
 able speech in which he said, "No man is good enough to govern 
 another man without that man's consent. I say this is the leading 
 principle, the sheet anchor of American Republicanism." All 
 men know it now. Mr. Lincoln was nominated and elected a 
 member of the Illinois Legislature, but to his surprise, and the 
 surprise of almost everyone, it was found that the Illinois 
 Legislature would have an anti-Nebraska majority, and could 
 elect a United States Senator on joint ballot, and Mr. Lincoln 
 resigned as a member of the Legislature and became a candi- 
 date for Senator, receiving the caucus nomination; but the anti- 
 Nebraska majority in the Legislature was composed of those 
 who had been Whigs and Democrats, and four Democrats wou4d 
 not vote for Lincoln because he had been a Whig, and Mr. Lin- 
 coln withdrew from the contest in favor of Lyman Trumbull. 
 No more generous action was ever taken by a public man in 
 American politics; he was willing to subordinate himself to the 
 triumph of the principle he advocated. When it was all over, 
 when Mr. Trumbull was elected Senator, and Mr. Lincoln was in 
 the office of the Secretary of State, some one said, "Well, Abe; 
 how do you feel?" He replied, "When I was a boy I went 
 bare-foot; one day I stubbed my toe; I was too big to cry, and 
 it hurt too bad to laugh." It was a homely answer, but told the 
 whole story. 
 
 Lincoln was more than ever in politics; he discussed it 
 everywhere he went on the circuit practicing law. At one place 
 he met Judge T. Lysle Dickey; they occupied a room together at 
 the village hotel, with two beds in it, and they discussed the 
 question until Dickey went to sleep, but when he woke up 
 Lincoln was sitting up in bed, and, as if continuing the conver- 
 sation said, "Dickey I tell you this country cannot exist half 
 slave and half free," and Dickey replied, "Oh, Lincoln, go to 
 sleep." But sleeping or waking Mr. Lincoln could not shake off 
 his interest in the mighty problem that confronted the country. 
 In one of his speeches he declared, "A house divided against it- 
 self 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 ex- 
 pect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all 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 shall become alike lawful 
 in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South." 
 
 There was no Republican party in Illinois, no party machin- 
 ery provided for calling conventions and making nominations, 
 and on February 22, 1856, the anti-Nebraska editors of Illinois 
 
met at Decatur, and with no other authority than good common 
 sense, appointed the first Illinois Republican State Central Com- 
 mittee that called the first Republican State Convention at Bloom- 
 ington May 2, 185 6, that nominated Congressman William H. 
 Bissell for Governor, a gallant soldier of the Mexican War, the 
 first Republican nominated and elected Governor of Illinois. Mr. 
 Lincoln was urged to become a candidate for Governor of Illinois, 
 but he declined because he thought that Bissell, who had been a 
 Democrat, could poll more votes than an old Whig. Mr. Lincoln 
 was at that Convention and there made what is known as "Lin- 
 coln's Lost Speech" for the reporters were so carried away with 
 it that they forgot to report it; he argued against the threat of 
 disunion made by the South, and all remembered his closing 
 words, "We will say to the Southern Disunionists, we won't go 
 out of the Union, and you shan't." Mr. Lincoln never departed 
 from that statement made at Bloomington on May 2, 18.56. 
 
 In that campaign of 185 6 the Republican party nominated 
 its first candidate for President, John Charles Fremont, and the 
 Democrats nominated James Buchanan, and although in Illinois 
 the Republicans elected Bissell the first Republican Governor, 
 the electoral vote of Illinois was given to Buchanan, and he was 
 elected President by a tremendous majority. The repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise had been submitted to the people at a 
 presidential election, and apparently the people had given it their 
 approval by the election of the Democratic candidate. The lovers 
 of liberty were deeply depressed, while the advocates of slavery 
 extension were correspondingly elated. 
 
 Now again mark well. The election occurred in November 
 185 6. In his annual message to Congress on the first Monday of 
 December, 1856, President Pierce demanded that the people 
 should respect the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, as if he was expecting some extraordinary decision from 
 that court, and it followed almost immediately in the Dred Scott 
 case. 
 
 The facts were simple. They arose here in Illinois. Dred 
 Scott, a negro slave, was brought by his master in Missouri to 
 Rock Island in Illinois, in 1834, and for two years was held as 
 a slave at Rock Island, here upon the soil of Illinois, forty-seven 
 years after the adoption of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, 
 that threw its protecting shield of freedom over the soil of this 
 State, and sixteen years after the adoption of the Free State Con- 
 stitution of Illinois; and then Dred Scott was taken back to ]Mis- 
 souri, and he brought suit in the United States court for his free- 
 dom, and that suit was appealed to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, and that court decided: 
 
 "Every citizen has a right to take with him into the terri- 
 tory any article of property which the Constitution of the United 
 States recognizes as property. 
 
 "The Constitution of the United States recognizes slaves as 
 property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. 
 And Congress cannot exercise any more authority over property 
 
of that description than it may constitutionally exercise over 
 property of any other kind. 
 
 "The Act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the 
 United States from taking with him slaves when he removed to 
 the Territory in question to reside, (The North West Ordinance 
 of 1787), is an exercise of authority over private property which 
 is not warranted in the Constitution, and the removal of the 
 plaintiff, by his owner, gave him no title to Freedom." 
 
 Judge Roger B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the United 
 States who delivered the opinion of the court, said, "No tribunal 
 acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be 
 legislative, executive or judicial, can exclude slavery from any 
 State or Territory where the Constitution of the United States is 
 supreme." The slave power had become aggressive. The Su- 
 preme Court had declared the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and 
 the Missouri Compromise of 182 0, and the free State Constitution 
 of Illinois, so far as it related to slavery, null and void. Hence- 
 forth slavery went everywhere that the Constitution of the United 
 States was supreme, into all of the Territories, and into all of the 
 States as well, if that decision of the Supreme Court was to be- 
 come the rule of the political action of the people of this country. 
 Robert Toombs, of Georgia, was well within the meaning of that 
 decision when he declared his purpose to call the roll of his 
 slaves in the shadow of the Bunker Hill monument. 
 
 It was on this state of historic facts that the joint debates 
 between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place in 
 1858. Slavery extension was the principal subject debated, and, 
 all too briefly, I have endeavored to state the legal status of that 
 question. Some of you remember it well; some of you have for- 
 gotten it; most of the voters of today have never heard of it. 
 
 I attended but one of those joint debates, the one at Free- 
 port, August 27, 18.5 8, fifty years ago. Mr. Lincoln arrived in 
 Freeport about nine o'clock in the morning of that day, on the 
 train from Mendota, and went to his room in the Brewster House. 
 I visited his room soon after his arrival. It was crowded with 
 people calling on Mr. Lincoln. The question being discussed at 
 the time when I entered the room was the solemn manner of Mr. 
 Lincoln in the first joint debate held at Ottawa; nearly everyone 
 present insisted that Mr. Lincoln should- change his solemn meth- 
 od of debate, should tell stories, as Tom Corwin, of Ohio, did, 
 and "catch the crowd." Mr. Lincoln listened with infinite pa- 
 tience and good nature to all that anyone had to say on that ques- 
 tion,, not entering into the argument himself; after a while, 
 when the conversation appeared to be exhausted, Mr. Lincoln 
 said, "There is another matter to which I wish to invite your at- 
 tention," and he took from his breast coat pocket slips of paper 
 on which were written in p encil the questions that Mr. Lincoln 
 proposed to ask Mr. Douglas in the joint debate in the afternoon. 
 The reading of those questions was greeted by all present, so far 
 as I could judge, with a storm of opposition, especially the sec- 
 ond question, which was: 
 
"Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful 
 way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude 
 slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Con- 
 stitution?" 
 
 The room was crowded, many distinguished people were 
 present, among whom I remember Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, 
 then a Member of Congress from that district; Owen Lovejoy, of 
 the Princeton district; Hon. Norman B. Judd, of Chicago; Hon. 
 Horatio C. Burchard, who was afterward elected a Member of 
 Congress to succeed Mr. Washburne, who was sent by General 
 Grant as Minister to France; Col. James O. Churchill, now re- 
 siding in St. Louis; Colonel J. W. Shaffer, afterward chief United 
 States quartermaster in New Orleans, and many more, for people 
 were constantly coming and going, the door all the time wide 
 open; it was in no sense a formal conference of leading Repub- 
 licans as to the course Mr. Lincoln should pursue; it was entirely 
 an informal conversation that appeared to have come about by 
 accident, all present, so far as I can now remember, protested 
 stoutly against the i)olicy of asking that second question; all 
 agreeing that Senator Douglas would answer, that under his doc- 
 trine of "popular sovereignty" by "unfriendly legislation" the 
 people of a United States Territory could exclude slavery, and 
 that he would "catch the crowd," for the supporters of Judge 
 Douglas in Illinois, generally speaking, were anti-slavery in sen- 
 timent; they did not believe that the people of any new Territory 
 would curse the soil with slavery of their own free will; all pre- 
 dicted that Judge Douglas would so answer, and defeat Mr. Lin- 
 coln as a candidate for Senator from Hlinois; again Mr. Lincoln 
 listened with infinite patience and good humor to all that any- 
 one had to say against the policy of his asking that second ques- 
 tion; after a while, Mr. Lincoln slowly said: "Well, now, as to 
 your first proposition, that I shall change my line of argument 
 and tell stories, I won't do it; the matter is altogether too 
 solemn, and I won't do it; tliat is settled. Now, as to the sec- 
 ond proposition; I don't know how Mr. Douglas wnll answer; if 
 he answers that a Territory cannot exclude slavery, I w'ill beat 
 him; but if he answers as you say he will, and as I believe he 
 will, he may beat me for Senator, but he will never be President." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, like Napoleon, was willing to listen to the ad- 
 vice of any one, of everybody, but like Napoleon, he followed his 
 own opinion in the end. He had as fully as any man could have 
 the courage of his individual convictions, and he always followed 
 them with fidelity to the end, no matter what the cost. He ap- 
 peared to be entirely clear in his own mind; nothing that any- 
 one had said against the policy of his asking that question 
 changed in any way his own personal conviction; by asking that 
 question he impaled Judge Douglas on the horns of a dilemma; 
 put him into a hole from which there was no possible escape; 
 for, answer as he would, whatever way he chose, he must an- 
 tagonize his supporters in Illinois and lose the Senatorship, or he 
 must antagonize the people of the South, who depended upon the 
 
decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case to carry 
 slavery into all the territories, there being according to that de- 
 cision, no power on earth that could exclude slavery from any 
 Territory, that court having decided that Congress acted ille- 
 gally when it passed the Northwest Ordinance of 17 87, and the 
 Missouri Compromise of 1820. The superior skill of Mr. Lincoln 
 as a debater put Mr. Douglas into that hole. 
 
 In the afternoon when the debate took place, Mr. Lincoln, 
 against the protest of all his friends, following his own clear 
 conviction, did ask that question of Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Doug- 
 las did answer, as everybody said he would answer, just as Mr. 
 Lincoln believed that he would answer, that the people of a 
 Territory could, in a lawful manner, by "unfriendly legislation," 
 exclude slavery, and Mr. Douglas pleased his friends and sup- 
 porters in Illinois, and did "catch the crowd" and he did beat 
 Mr. Lincoln as a candidate for Senator from Illinois. But that 
 answer made by Mr. Douglas on the afternoon of August 2 7, 
 1858, in Freeport, to Mr. Lincoln's question, so offended the peo- 
 ple of the South that they instantly denounced Judge Douglas as 
 a traitor to the South, and it made his nomination for President 
 by a united Democratic party impossible, as Mr. Lincoln had 
 predicted, and as was abundantly demonstrated two years later 
 at the national Democratic Convention in Charleston, South 
 Carolina, when that convention split upon the question of the 
 nomination of Judge Douglas as the Democratic candidate for 
 President. Mr. Lincoln had a clearer vision than any of his 
 supporters in Illinois. He was hunting bigger game than the 
 senatorship from this State. He gave up the senatorship to win 
 the Presidency. His asking that question of Mr. Douglas made 
 it impossible that Mr. Douglas should reach the Presidency, and 
 it made Mr. Lincoln so well known throughout the country that 
 he himself was nominated and elected President. It is a wonder- 
 ful chapter in the political history of this country, full of inter- 
 est to those who were living at that time, and of intense inter- 
 est to those who first hear that history related. 
 
 Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were both re- 
 markable men; Douglas a Democrat, Lincoln a Whig; Douglas 
 born in Vermont, Lincoln in Kentucky; both were poor, both 
 came to Illinois when young men; Douglas well educated, Lin- 
 coln with no education; both were lawyers that early became 
 political rivals, one as eager as the other for office and populari- 
 ty among the people; Douglas meeting with remarkable success 
 in his political ambitions, a member of the legislature. Secretary 
 of State, Judge of the Supreme Court, and United States Sena- 
 tor; Lincoln, only one term in Congress, and many disappoint- 
 ments; yet at Freeport, August 2 7, 1858, by his clear vision 
 and superior intellectual ability as a debater, I\Ir. Lincoln passed 
 his rival and went onward to the Presidency, the goal of political 
 ambition, which Mr. Douglas never reached. 
 
 On February 27, 1860, Mr. Lincoln made his remarkable 
 speech at Cooper Institute, New York, in which he told no stories. 
 
but captured his hearers by his sound and logical reasoning, and 
 challenged the attention of the entire country, as the "new 
 statesman who had come out of the West," and he closed that 
 speech with these ringing words: "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." 
 
 On May 9, 1860, the Illinois Republican Convention at 
 Decatur elected delegates to the Republican National Convention 
 instructed for Mr. Lincoln. Rails that Mr. Lincoln had made 
 were brought into the convention, and gave him the nickname of 
 the "Rail Siilitter." On May, 16, 1860, Mr. Lincoln was nominated 
 for President by the Republican National Convention at Chicago. I 
 was present at that convention, not as a delegate, but as a visitor. 
 Some people thought that William H. Seward, of New York, 
 would be nominated. It was the first time a special building had 
 been provided, called a "wig-wam," for the meetings of the Re- 
 publican National Convention. There were no tickets of admis- 
 sion — seats for the delegates and alternates were the only seats 
 reserved. Mr. Seward's friends had come from New York in great 
 force, several hundred, with a fine band of forty pieces, but 
 while they paraded the streets with fine music the friends of the 
 Illinois "Rail Splitter" had crowded the "wig-wam" full, so that 
 the friends of Mr. Seward when they came to the convention 
 building could not get in, and had to be content to do their shout- 
 ing for Seward on the outside. 
 
 When Mr. Lincoln was nominated the Illinois boys shouted 
 with joy until the rafters of the "wig-wam" shook. His nomina- 
 tion was ratified by the people of Illinois with great enthusiasm; 
 when Stephen A.Douglas was told of Lincoln's nomination, he said, 
 "There will not be a tar barrel left in Illinois," and there was not, 
 for bonfires lighted up the sky from the Wisconsin line to Cairo. 
 Mr. Lincoln was not there. He remained quietly at his modest 
 home in Springfield, as unpretending as he always was, so true 
 to his individual convictions that when the committee of distin- 
 guished Republicans visited Springfield to formally notify him of 
 his nomination, he would not himself, or permit his friends, to 
 regale them with anything but cold water. His temperance prin- 
 ciples were illustrated -in his daily life. Douglas took the stump. 
 Lincoln followed the best traditions of the Republic and remained 
 quietly at his home in Springfield. Personal abuse was heaped 
 upon him, but he made no reply. 
 
 When the votes were counted it was found that Abraham 
 Lincoln was fairly elected President of the United States accord- 
 ing to all the forms of law. Then the conspirators of the South, 
 the leading politicians of that section instantly, without waiting 
 for Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, organized rebellion. John B. 
 Floyd, Buchanan's Secretary of War, as if anticipating the thing 
 that happened, emptied every arsenal in the North and filled every 
 arsenal in the South, with arms and ammunition, and they were 
 instantly seized, and long before Mr. Lincoln was Inaugurated, 
 the South was an armed camp. Timid people feared disunion. 
 
and called on Mr. Lincoln for some quieting statement. He gave 
 none. His private secretary, Mr. John G. Nicolay sent out a 
 printed circular letter saying that Mr. Lincoln's views were al- 
 ready well known. To William Pitt Kellogg, E. B. Washburne, 
 Henry J. Raymond, and others, Mr. Lincoln himself wrote to say, 
 "entertain no compromise on the question of the extension of 
 slavery." On that question he was as steady as the shining stars. 
 
 He prepared his Inaugural address, and had it printed in 
 Springfield, and while he made verbal changes, there was no 
 change of principle made in it. 
 
 On February 11, 1861, he left his home in Springfield to go 
 to Washington. History does not contain an account of a sadder 
 parting, and no man ever made a more pathetic speech than his 
 farewell to his neighbors and friends at the Alton depot in Spring- 
 field, placing his dependence upon Almighty God, and asking their 
 prayers. 
 
 His journey to Washington was an ovation. He made many 
 speeches, but he made no apologies for having been elected. His 
 life was threatened, but he arrived in Washington safely and was 
 inaugurated President March 4, 1861. 
 
 His inaugural address contained no bravado — it was firm 
 as adamant — full of pleadings with his misguided fellow-citizens, 
 to whom he said, "You can have no war without being yourselves 
 the aggressors. The government will not assail you. You have 
 no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I 
 shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend 
 it. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. 
 Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
 affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every 
 battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone 
 all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union 
 when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
 of our nature." 
 
 As he read his address, so dispassionate, so full of charity, 
 so devoid of malice, who do you think it was who stood there by 
 his side holding his hat? It was United States Senator Stephen 
 A. Douglas, of Illinois. They were political rivals, but they were 
 not personal enemies. 
 
 And when Mr. Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand three 
 months volunteers I enlisted in the army, andwent with my com- 
 pany to SpringfieM. and between Decatur and Springfield our 
 train was sidetracked to give a clear right of way to a special 
 train bearing Senator Douglas to Springfield from Indianapolis, 
 where he had spoken the evening before, and when his train went 
 by, our train followed, and at the Wabash depot in Springfield, 
 when we were filing out of the cars, someone on horseback told 
 us to wait until Senator Douglas came from his hotel to make us 
 a speech, and he soon came, and standing up in his open carriage 
 he welcomed us to the capital of the State, bid us God speed in 
 the serious work in which we were about to engage, and then the 
 Senator said: "The time has come when there can be but two 
 
parties in this country, a party of patriots, and a party of 
 traitors." I tell you, my fellow-citizens, my hat went high in 
 air for Stephen A. Douglas. I did not agree with him in politics, 
 but I did honor his splendid loyalty to his country. He was as 
 loyal as was Mr. Lincoln. Better still, the Douglas Democrats of 
 Illinois, yes, the Douglas Democrats throughout all the loyal 
 North, were as loyal as their loyal leader. A few weeks later, at 
 the age of only forty-seven, the great Senator died, leaving a shin- 
 ing record of loyalty to his country. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was master of himself, holding steadily to 
 his own clear convictions, and he was the "Master of ?ilen." With 
 patience infinite, with courage sublime, he waited for the South 
 to fire the first shot at the old flag, and when the guns of the 
 Southern people fired ui)on Sumter, he called for volunteers. 
 When Seward wrote hint that the administration was without a 
 policy and tendered his services to lead the administration, he 
 quietly called his attention to his inaugural address, and told 
 him plainly if that policy was to be changed he would do it him- 
 self. When Simon Cameron, his first Secretary of War, proved 
 inefficient, he sent him as Minister to Russia, and appointed Stan- 
 ton, who had neglected him so cruelly as an associate counsel in 
 a great law suit at Cincinnati. He arose above jealousy, and when 
 Stanton, in a passion, tore uj) an order he had sent him, he laugh- 
 ed, and waited until Stanton had time to cool olT, and then, 
 quietly repeated the order, and Stanton obeyed it, for he had met 
 his master. When Fremont, and Hunter issued proclamations 
 freeing the slaves, he annulled them without hesitation, and an- 
 nounced that he reserved that policy to himself alone. When he 
 resolved upon that step he prepared his proclamation, and told his 
 cabinet that the policy was fixed; they could not change that; but 
 they might comment on its wording, and the time for its issue. 
 W^hen Greely demanded a policy looking to peace negotiations, he 
 appointed Greely as peace commissioner, and turned the laugh 
 upon the great editor. He removed McClellan when the time 
 had fully come. When a great committee waited upon him to have 
 Grant dismissed, falsely saying he was a drunkard, he completely 
 squelched the committee by declaring that if he could find out 
 the brand of whiskey Grant used he would send a barrel to every 
 one of his Generals. When a pompous Englishman found Lin- 
 coln blacking his own boots, and told him no gentleman in Eng- 
 land did that, he squelched him completely by instantly inquiring 
 "Whose boots does he black?" When an old friend said to him, 
 "Well, Abe, this thing of being President is not what is it crack- 
 ed up to be," he said, "No, I sometimes feel like the Irishman 
 who was ridden on a rail, and remarked 'if it wasn't for the honor 
 of the thing, I would rather have walked.' " When the lines were 
 forming for battle, and a rabbit scurried to the rear, a major said 
 "Go it cottontail; if it was not for my honor I would be with you." 
 When badgered by a committee telling him how to conduct the 
 war, he said, "If Blondin was carrying your treasure on a tight 
 rope across Nissgara river would you badger him by yelling. 
 
Blondin, lean a little more to the South? or, Blondln, lean a little 
 more to the North? or would you keep still until Blondin was 
 across?" When questioned as to his re-election he declared that 
 it "was no time to trade horses in the middle of the stream." 
 Homely ways, that the people understood, of hitting the nail on 
 the head every time/ When seranaded after his second election 
 he declared, "So long as I have been here, I have never willingly 
 planted a thorn in any man's breast." He went to the Gettysburg 
 battlefield and spoke a few sentences in language as simple as 
 was used by St. Paul in his sermon on Mars Hill, and it attracted 
 the attention of the world as a masterpiece of oratory, and is to- 
 day repeated in every school in America. And when Grant, the 
 greatest General of the Century came to the East with Sheridan, 
 and Sherman and Thomas commanded in the West, all acting on 
 a common plan, the Southern Confederacy was crushed, and when 
 Richmond was evacuated Lincoln visited that city, on foot and al- 
 most alone, and hunted up the home of General Pickett, who had 
 fought so bravSly in the Confederate Army at Gettysburg, and 
 knocking at the door, a woman opened it, and he inquired, "Is 
 this George Pickett's home?" The woman answered, "Yes, and I 
 am George Pickett's wife, and this is his baby," and he said, "I 
 am Abraham Lincoln," and she exclaimed, "What, President Lin- 
 coln," and he said, "No, Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend." 
 The foremost man in all the world was simply Abraham Lincoln. 
 What a load was lifted from his shoulders when the end of the 
 war came in complete victory, with slavery forever dead — how 
 bright the future appeared to him — how happy he was! He said 
 to his wife, "Mary, we have had a hard time of it since we came 
 to Washington; but the war is over, and with God's blessing we 
 may hope for four years of peace and happiness, and then we will 
 go back to niinois, and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We 
 have laid by some money, and during this term we will try and 
 save up more, but we shall not have enough to support us. We 
 will go back to Illinois, and I will open a law office in Spring- 
 field or Chicago, and at least do enough to help give us a liveli- 
 hood." How simple, how like the great man he was. Little did 
 he suspect that he would so soon pass from earth. On the even- 
 ing of April 14, 18 6.5, at Ford's Theatre in the City of Washing- 
 ton, an assassin sent a bullet into his brain. He never spoke 
 again. Sometimes I almost despair of the Republic. Three Presi- 
 dents, all of whom I knew, for I knew Garfield while he was Chief 
 of Staff of the Army of the Cumberland, and McKinley before he 
 was elected to Congress, have met death by assassination. Why 
 the Good Lord God Almighty permitted it, I do not understand. 
 God's ways are not our ways. We dare not criticise. We must 
 submit. His great War Secretary Stanton standing by his bed- 
 side when his spirit took its flight, said, "Now he belongs to the 
 ages." "Name his name once more — Abraham Lincoln — then 
 leave it in undying glory forever shining on in history." 
 
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