Class _i:i^^/ 
 
 Rook S/^y 
 
 GopyiightN°_C' 
 
 COPYKIGHT DEPO: 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION IN 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 L. <:NT0N J. SNIDER 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 210 PINE STREET 
 
 (For sale by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, Ills.) 
 
L4 5^l 
 
 
 J 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 
 Two Copies Kecetved 
 
 COPY >.' 
 
 CW XXc. No. 
 
 C 
 V 
 
 Copyright by D. J. Snider, 1908. 
 
 Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 
 215 Pine St., St. Louis 
 
 BecktolC & Co., Binders 
 210 Pine St., St. Louis 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction page 
 
 Meaning of Lincoln's Life ... 5-12 
 
 Part First 
 Lincoln's Apprenticeship .... 13-257 
 
 Chapter First. 
 
 Lincoln's Youth . . ... 20- 91 
 
 Chapter Second. 
 
 Drifting ... 92-200 
 
 Chapter Third. 
 
 Getting Anchored 201-257 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV cox TENTS. 
 
 Part Second. page 
 
 Lincoln's National Call .... 258-515 
 
 Chapter First. 
 From State to Nation .... 269-305 
 
 Chapter Second. 
 Lincoln's Subsidence 306-356 
 
 Chapter Third. 
 The National Choice 357-5 L5 
 
 Part Third. 
 Lincoln, the Nation's Executive. 516-575 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 introduction: 
 
 President-elect Lincoln, while on his journey to 
 the Capital for the purpose of being installed in the 
 highest office of the Nation, felt prompted by the 
 locality to make certain biographic remarks in an 
 address before the Senate of New Jersey, at Tren- 
 ton, a few days preceding his inauguration. These 
 remarks show the formative power of biography 
 over a human career, notably over that of Lincoln, 
 and hint suggestively, even if unconsciously, the 
 lines upon which his life is to be constructed by 
 the biographer. Preluding what is to follow by 
 these words of Lincoln, we shall emphasize his 
 salient thoughts. Let us then, first of all, hear 
 him speak. 
 
 (5) 
 
6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "May I be pardoned, if, upon this occasion, I 
 mention that away back in ray childhood, the 
 earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold 
 of a small book, such a one as few of the younger 
 members have ever seen — Weems' Life of Wash- 
 ington. I remember all the accounts there given 
 of the battle-fields and struggles for the liberties 
 of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my 
 imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Tren- 
 ton, New Jersey. . . . You all know, for you have 
 been boys, how these early impressions last longer 
 than any others. I recollect thinking then, boy 
 even though I was, that there must have been 
 something more than common that these men strug- 
 gled for. I am exceedingly anxious that that 
 thing, that something even more them national in- 
 dependence, that something that held out a great 
 'promise to all the people of the world to all time to 
 come — I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, 
 the Constitution and the liberties of the people 
 shall be perpetuated in accordance with the origi- 
 nal idea for which that struggle was made, and I 
 shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an hum- 
 ble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of 
 this, his almost chosen People, for perpetuating the 
 object of that great struggle." 
 
 Thus Lincoln in sight of his mighty task, gives 
 expression to the thoughts which well out of his 
 heart in presence of the historic associations clus- 
 tering around the New Jersey Capital. The chief 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 interest is that the speaker calls up Washington 
 moving from the hour of his sorest trial forward to one 
 of his greatest triumphs, and instinctively couples 
 that time with the present. An epoch is dawning 
 equal in magnitude to that of the Revolution, if 
 not more colossal; very naturally Lincoln conjoins 
 himself with Washington, and becomes aware of 
 himself as the pilot to a new era, though with 
 deep foreboding, as he looks out from Trenton upon 
 the coming crisis. 
 
 Nor should we omit to note those fleeting pro- 
 phetic intimations, those fitful flashes of foresight 
 and insight into the Supreme Order, of which Lin- 
 coln in his high moments was capable, and which 
 break forth through detached phrases from the 
 hidden depths of his agitated soul. He is conscious 
 that something is at stake " even more than na- 
 tional independence", which was the purpose of 
 the old Revolution. He glimpses the far-extending, 
 globe-encircling significance of the contest, involv- 
 ing in its result " a great promise to ah the people 
 of the world to all time to come": surely a vast 
 outlook, world-historical in the widest sense. And 
 the biographer must try to stretch his own soul 
 to the vision of that promise seen by Lincoln, and 
 to give to it some kind of utterance. Moreover 
 Lincoln's great happiness is in feeling himself to be 
 "an instrument in the hands of the Almighty" as 
 well as an instrument in the hands " of this His 
 almost chosen People", to bring about the grand 
 
8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 coming consummation of the ages. It may be per- 
 mitted to draw forth into clearer oiitHne from the 
 shadowy twihght in which they float, these pro- 
 phetic premonitions of Lincoln. We behold liim 
 forecasting his highest function, and placing him- 
 self between the People (or Folk-Soul) on this side, 
 and on that side the Almighty revealing Himself 
 as the World-Spirit in the historic occurrences of 
 Time. Thus he is truly an instrument of both 
 these Powers, the one here below and the other 
 there above ; a mediator we may name him between 
 the Folk-Soul and the World-Spirit, both of which 
 he, Abraham Lincoln, is born to harmonize, after 
 they have produced just about the loudest and shrill- 
 est dissonance of the century, if not of all history. 
 So he speaks, not with the strictness of a logical 
 formula but with the glinnnering outline of a far- 
 off forecast, discoursing first of that Power more 
 than national, in supereminent sway over all the 
 people of the world to all time to come, then of 
 himself as instrument of it, who is to bring it down 
 and realize it in this his almost chosen People, also 
 an elemental Power in the enduring world-histor- 
 ical act. Now it is these two Powers which will 
 move through the life of Lincoln, and will be by 
 him interwoven, and indeed unified, making him 
 truly the Great Man of his nation and epoch. To 
 each of them we give its own name, that they be 
 distinctly marked off and specially designated. In 
 the People, from whom Lincoln springs, to whom 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 he appeals, and for whom he acts, is working a 
 character, an instinct, a Soul — we shall often call 
 it the Folk-Soul. The almighty, providential 
 Power, whom Lincoln often invokes under one 
 name or other, who has his hand on human events, 
 and directs them to his end, we shall name the 
 world-historical Spirit, or simply the World-Spirit. 
 This last is "something more than common", 
 "more than national", yet employing the particu- 
 lar nation at a given time as its upbearer and 
 realizer for fulfilling a given stage of the supreme 
 end of the World's History. Moreover between 
 these two Powers there is a certain immediate re- 
 lation, as when we hear it said that in a great 
 crisis Public Opinion (the Folk-Soul) bears directly 
 the impress of the Genius of the Age (the World- 
 Spirit) . In such a case, however, the Folk needs 
 a leader in word and action, voicing its dumb as- 
 piration and bringing it to realize in deeds the 
 decree of the supernal Power whose potency it 
 feels and whose end it carries out. Such a leader 
 for our Nation in its pivotal crisis was Lincoln, 
 mediating, as we designate the relation, this par- 
 ticular American Folk-Soul of ours, with the uni- 
 versal World-Spirit, the Prime Mover in and over 
 all History. 
 
 Another fact should be taken out of the forego- 
 ing bit of a speech and dwelt upon with due atten- 
 tion : Lincoln had read during his early youth in 
 the frontier cabin of his parents the life of George 
 
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Washington by M. L. Weems, who, we learn from 
 the title-page, was "formerly rector of Mount 
 Vernon parish", where was located the well-known 
 residence of the Father of his Country, That book 
 had gone deep into Lincoln's soul and had stayed 
 with him through life, not only furnishing an ideal 
 of manhood and moulding his character, but also 
 showing him the way to reach the popular heart. 
 For Weems was a story-teller, an anecdotist, yea 
 a myth-maker, or at least a myth-gatherer, weav- 
 ing around the name of Washington many a won- 
 derful legend. Such for instance, was the marvel- 
 ous dream of Washington's mother (with interpre- 
 tation by Weems), and the hero's providential 
 escapes from his foes, the Indians and the British, 
 the whole being garnished with apt allusions to 
 Scripture and even to Homer. In the same book is 
 found the most popular of all American folk-tales,, 
 the story of the Little Hatchet with its moral cli- 
 max: "Father, I can't tell a lie". This story, 
 Weems says, was taken down from the lips of "an 
 excellent lady ", of old the depository and trans- 
 mitter of folk-lore. Deeply educative was the 
 book for the almost schoolless boy reading in the 
 night by the fire of a back-log; even then he was 
 getting ready for his task, and he now recognizes 
 the fact, as he looks rearward into his past, una- 
 voidably connecting himself with Washington, 
 wherein most of his countrymen have since fol- 
 lowed him. It is true that there is a striking dif- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 ference between the high-toned, well-educated, 
 dignified Virginia gentleman and the awkward, 
 self-made backwoodsman of the North-West. The 
 one represented the Right of Revolution and suc- 
 ceeded ; the other represented the Wrong of Revo- 
 lution and succeeded. The career of the first led 
 primarily to separation and won it; the career of 
 the second led primarily to union and won it. Still 
 both sprang from the same Virginia, though at dif- 
 ferent removes ; the one may be called the son and 
 the other the grandson of the Old Commonwealth. 
 The triumphant end of Washington's war was 
 Yorktown^ the triumphant end of Lincoln's war 
 was- Appomattox, both places being in the same 
 general locality of the same State, Virginia. 
 
 Rector Weems thus heroizes Washington for his 
 People and writes a unique book, though running 
 somewhat in the Plutarchian mythologic vein and 
 breaking out into dramatic dialogue upon tempt- 
 ing occasions. Such a biography is at present 
 hardly possible, perchance not desirable, though 
 to our forefathers it had unquestionably its mes- 
 sage. Lincoln drew from it deep joys and deeper 
 training of the spirit. His own life was enwreathed, 
 particularly while he was President, in masses of 
 fable ever sprouting afresh from the Folk-Soul, he 
 being himself the People's own fabulist. This the 
 biographer cannot neglect, though with it must be 
 given the profounder significance of Lincoln's 
 career, truly world-historical. 
 
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Another utterance may be cited, concordant 
 with the foregoing statement, showing to whom 
 Lincohi's thoughts reverted as he beheld and 
 brooded over the coming trials of his country. His 
 fellow-citizens of Springfield assembled for a part- 
 ing salutation when he set out to assume his Presi- 
 dential duties, with the cloud of Civil War already 
 darkening the Southern horizon. He bade them 
 farewell, breathing a sigh of premonition and giv- 
 ing a glimpse of that great man of the past in 
 whose presence he seemed to live during those try- 
 ing days: "I now leave, not knowing when or 
 whether ever I may return, ivith a task before me 
 greater than tluxt which rested upon Washington." 
 
pact jfirst. 
 
 When it began to be foreshadowed ' about 1859- 
 60 that Abraham Lincohi was the coming man of 
 the supreme national emergency, a great desire 
 was felt to know how he got to be. Even to his 
 friends the lines of his early life ran back into a cloud 
 which he seemed unwilling to disperse. Two 
 little bits of autobiography were wrung from him 
 by the necessities of the approaching campaign. 
 From the first we take the following extract which 
 gives a glimpse of his early opportunities for 
 
 (13) 
 
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 education in the backwoods of Indiana. (Works 
 of Lincoln, by Nicolay & Hay, I, p. 596.) 
 
 'There were some schools so-called, but no 
 qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 
 reading writing and ciphering to the rule of three. 
 If a straggler supposed to understand Latin 
 happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was 
 looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely 
 nothing to excite ambition for education." Still 
 we shall see that Lincoln learned from these 
 frontier teachers the elements and the educative 
 instrumentalities of all culture. He thus had the 
 chance of making further progress by means of 
 the printed page, though "I have not been to 
 school since. The little advance I now have upon 
 this store of education, I have picked up from time 
 to time under the pressure of necessity." Somewhat 
 too disparaging is the tone of these confessions, as 
 Lincoln contrasted himself with Seward and other 
 college-bred men in public life. But he had oppor- 
 tunities for training which they had not, and 
 which are by no means to be omitted from any 
 complete account of his life's discipline for his 
 mighty task. 
 
 In the other bit of autobiography (Works, 
 I, p. 639), written in the third person, for use during 
 the campaign of 1860, he returns to the defects of 
 his early education: "Abraham now thinks that 
 the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount 
 to one year. He was never in a college or academy 
 
LINCOLN'S APPRENTICESHIP. 15 
 
 as a student, and never inside a college or academy 
 building till since he had a law license. What he 
 has in the way of education, he has picked up. 
 After he was twenty-three he studied English 
 Grammar — imperfectly of course, but so as to 
 speak and write as he now does. He studied and 
 nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since he 
 was a member of Congress," that is, after he was 
 forty years old. Through these simple modest 
 paragraphs peeps out the unquenchable aspiration 
 of the man; he educates himself and graduates 
 from a school of which he is the only man of his 
 time who holds or can hold a diploma. Now that 
 school with its curriculum is just what our reader, 
 we hope, wishes to hear about in this book of ours. 
 Still another precious autobiographic morsel 
 concerning Lincoln we can catch up from the first 
 pages of his Bos well, Hcrndon. Just after the 
 Chicago Convention of 1860, a reporter by the 
 name of Scripps, called upon him for some details 
 of his life. Lincoln at first shrank from the idea, 
 exclaiming, "Why, Scripps, it is a great piece of 
 folly to make anything out of me or my early life. 
 It can all be condensed into a single sentence, and 
 that sentence you will find in Gray's Elegy, 
 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 That's my life, and that is all that you or anyone 
 else can make of it." 
 And yet the life of Lincoln before ISGO has 
 
16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 become that part of him which tho People love 
 to hang over and ponder upon in a kind of in- 
 satiable wonder. More than any other recorded 
 career it reveals the possibilities of the American 
 man rising from the humblest to the highest 
 position in the land. How did he do it? The 
 reader clutches and caresses every little fact try- 
 ing to coax out of it some brief whisper of the 
 lurking secret. Lincoln's education certainly 
 flowed not in the ordinary channels made by the 
 stream of transmitted culture. Still he had an 
 education unique of its kind and preparing him 
 supremely for his world-historical function. Now 
 this education of Lincoln, being quite different 
 from what is usually included under that term and 
 reaching considerably beyond the usual school-age, 
 we shall designate specially as his Aj^prcnticeship, 
 which indeed covers the first thirty-three years of 
 his life, from his birth till his marriage. And this 
 considerable stretch of human existence has like- 
 wise its lesser turns and tides, which the biog- 
 rapher should not fail to trace in passing. 
 
 Lincoln the apprentice, therefore, we are to 
 follow in the present period, tracking him as far 
 as possible along the main lines of his spirit's early 
 flowering. We are to behold in it a time of pre- 
 liminary training for his work ; we can hardly leave 
 out of view whither he is going, and under what 
 guidance. Easy enough is it ordinarily to tell to 
 what school, college, university this or that dis- 
 
LINCOLN'S APPRENTICESHIP. 17 
 
 tinguished man went, what he studied and who 
 were his teachers, in the beaten road of academic 
 discipline. But all this becomes just the difficult 
 thing to speak out and even to find in the case of 
 Lincoln, who has and even makes his own curric- 
 ulum while he goes along. He creates his college 
 course as he lives, and the biographer must create 
 it after 'him from the little and few fragments which 
 have been fished out of his youth's fountain of 
 oblivion. His chief instruction does not take place 
 in a building devoted to education; Lincoln's 
 school-house is the world, more particularly his 
 institutional environment, which he is to absorb 
 more completely and to become acquainted with 
 more intimately than any other man of his time. 
 The People was his instructor, and he learned the 
 lesson so well that he in the end became the in- 
 structor of the People. 
 
 We may say, then, that during the first period of 
 his life Lincoln was the apprentice of the Folk- 
 Soul, especially as the latter manifested itself in 
 the Northwestern portion of the United States. 
 Primarily he is of it, one with it, pulsing respon- 
 sively to all its throbs; an embryo we may regard 
 him, not yet consciously born of his institutional 
 mother, even if lustily struggling for birth and the 
 light of Heaven. During all these years, a full 
 generation indeed, young Lincoln is but a germinal 
 unit, an atom of the vast protoplasmic mass called 
 the Multitude, from which, through the discipline 
 
18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 of life, he is to differentiate himself and rise up to 
 true individuality. This concentrates into one 
 burning point the People, who thus in their Great 
 Man can see themselves by their own light. Through 
 such individuals a Nation, if it can produce them, 
 need never die, being able to re-constitute and to 
 re-make itself in the pinch of destiny 
 
 The apprentice Lincoln — so we may name him 
 for the nonce — we are now to see in the workshop 
 or school of the Folk-Soul, learning its ways, how 
 it looks at things, and particularly how it deals 
 with its own institutions. He has to get widely 
 and well acquainted with his own around him — 
 the hardest branch in the curriculum of life. More- 
 over he has not merely to commune deeply with 
 the Folk-Soul, but he must learn to talk to it in its 
 own dialect. Thus it understands him when he 
 speaks to it, and it responds to him, often with a 
 tremendous acclaim. On the other hand he under- 
 stands it, probably better than any other American 
 has ever succeeded in doing. Still all this he has to 
 learn, and this is the theme of his Apprenticeship, 
 Anecdote, fable, law, politics, even love are some 
 of the elements surging through the long discipline, 
 often chaotic in outer appearance, but inwardly 
 attuned to one harmonious end, if our ear can be 
 brought to catch the music. 
 
 Here, however, we shall just hint what the 
 future is fully to reveal. This Apprenticeship is not 
 the finality of the man, but is only the means, 
 
LINCOLN'S APPRENTICESHIP. 19 
 
 the road leading him forward to his supreme voca- 
 tion. As he himself declared, he is "the instru- 
 ment" in the hands of the Almighty and of the 
 People to fulfil the grand behest of the Ages. Still 
 he has to have preparation and a good deal of it. 
 This Apprenticeship is, accordingly, but a part or 
 stage of the total Lincoln. Nevertheless it has 
 its own process and its own law governing its some- 
 what diversified and scattered occurrences. These 
 are what we shall have to study, seeking to put 
 them into some kind of inner relation and order, 
 which brings to light their psychical movement, and 
 thus reveals the soul itself in its unfolding. This 
 Apprenticeship, we may say in advance, will show 
 Lincoln in three stages or chapters of his spirit's 
 evolution towards its supreme end: first, his 
 youth with its schooling at home under the paternal 
 roof, then his going forth and experiencing the 
 world in a time of drifting, finally his getting 
 established in State, Community and Family, or 
 his becoming institutionalized. With this last 
 phase his Apprenticeship is rounded out to fullness, 
 and the Apprentice passes on to the next great 
 sweep of his life's occurrences driving forward 
 towards his goal. 
 
CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 Xtncoln'0 IJoutb* 
 
 The boundary of Lincoln's youthful period we 
 may draw through the year when he becomes of 
 age, and quits parental guidance for the direct ex- 
 perience of the world. He reaches a new individ- 
 uality, being now his own master; a kind of second 
 birth it is, bringing him into another, yet inde- 
 pendent life. From babyhood to manhood we 
 conceive Lincoln's youth to range, dropping upon 
 his path many an important lesson which he will 
 never forget. In his tenth year the tenderest tie 
 of his young existence was snapped in twain by 
 the death of his mother, which stamped or helped 
 to stamp upon his soft heart and even upon his 
 face lines of an undying sorrow. 
 
 Accordingly Lincoln, till he was twenty-one years 
 old, remained at home, and received the domestic 
 training of his father's family. It was a shifting 
 unsettled household, yet had an inner life over 
 which the two women, the mother and the step- 
 mother, successively presidetl, giving to it in the 
 humblest surroundings a real nobility of character 
 and depth of feeling. This training of the home 
 through his two mothers developed and purified 
 Lincoln's emotional life, so that his native human 
 sympathy was always one of his mightiest powers. 
 To be sure he was originally gifted with a great re- 
 (20) 
 
CHAPTER FIRST— LLXCOLX'S YOUTH. 21 
 
 sponsive heart, which nevertheless might have 
 been dwarfed or perverted had it not been un- 
 folded and ennobled by the maternal instinct 
 moulding the child-soul in the home. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was born February 12th, 1809, 
 three miles from the little town of Hodgensville, 
 in a locality which was then included in Hardin 
 County, Kentucky, but which now belongs to La 
 Rue County. His .parents were named Thomas 
 and Nancy Lincoln, whose social position was that 
 of the poor class of Southerners. The son de- 
 clared in a brief sketch of himself (in 1859) that 
 "my parents were both born in Virginia, of un- 
 distinguished families — second families perhaps I 
 should say." Wherein we feel the unspoken con- 
 trast with the first families of Virginia, so famous, 
 to which his people did not belong. 
 
 We have already seen how Lincoln shrank from 
 his own biography in his response to reporter 
 Scripps just after his nomination for the Presi- 
 dency. Of course he could not and did not appre- 
 ciate the import of his own life up to 1860, when he 
 made the before cited statements about himself. 
 And he was then seemingly correct in his judgment. 
 The succeeding five years are to bring out the man 
 and to set him down in the very focus of the World's 
 History, which will throw a search-light into every 
 little nook of his previous humble existence. Those 
 last years of his were the realization of what lay 
 in him, and revealed him equal to the mightiest 
 
22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 crisis of the age. So mankind must find out how 
 he came to be what he was, and will persist in pry- 
 ing into every dark corner of his earlier days to see 
 if it can not discover the clew of his genesis. That 
 inquisitive reporter of 18G0 was but the brief pre- 
 lude of a long line of biographers running down 
 into the present and shooting out many a bud for 
 the future. 
 
 A word may be inserted here upon the scope of 
 the present work, which does not attempt to add 
 new details of Lincoln's life, but tiD order and inter- 
 pret old facts, those already well-known and col- 
 lected by numerous investigators.- Nor is there 
 intended a critique of the extensive Lincoln 
 Hterature, though such a work would be timely, if 
 done by the right hand in the right way. Within 
 all the outer occurrences of his life we seek to see 
 and to utter the spiritual or psychical evolution of 
 Lincoln unfolding in and through the institutions 
 of his land, which he not only maintained but also 
 transformed, thereby putting them in line with 
 the movement of the World's History. 
 
 It is well known that Lincoln often reflected 
 upon, yea, brooded over the mystery of his origin 
 and destiny. He seemed unable to account for 
 himself from his parentage, and refused to give 
 any detailed report of his early life. Still the chief 
 facts of it have been hunted up and garnered in 
 print by diligent inquirers. Along the track of 
 his youthful days he left a luminous record m tlie 
 
ANCESTRAL. 23 
 
 memories of living men with whom he was asso- 
 ciated, and who have been sought out in their 
 obscure haunts hke hidden treasures, that they 
 might yield a few nuggets of golden information 
 concerning Abraham Lincoln. Likewise his re- 
 mote kindred have been exhumed, if not from 
 their graves, at least from old buried records, in 
 order that the line of his descent may be traced, 
 perchance to discover the secret of his genius. For 
 the deep necessity of the time is to see the great 
 man and the great event evolving out of their 
 germ, this present century of ours being truly the 
 century of Evolution. 
 
 So it belongs in the present biographic theme 
 to follow carefully the youthful steps of Lincoln in 
 his first period of Apprenticeship to the Folk- 
 Soul, and to keep meantime in view the task for 
 which he is under training, possibly with an occa- 
 sional glimpse of the Power which has set him such 
 a task and is constraining him to such an Appren- 
 ticeship. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ancestral, 
 
 It is stated that the American ancestral chain 
 of Lincoln starts about 1G38 with the coming of 
 Samuel Lincoln to Hingham, Massachusetts, from 
 Norwich, England, some eighteen years after the 
 landing of the Pilgrims. At this date the mother- 
 country was getting into deeper and deeper trouble 
 
24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 with her king, and many of her sons, foreseeing 
 the civil conflict, were looking towards America as 
 a refuge from oppression and as a bulwark for the 
 maintenance of their political and religious liberty. 
 What directly caused the emigration of Samuel 
 Lincoln is not known; but we may feel a throb of 
 the movement of the time in the prohibition of 
 1637, in which the Puritans were forbidden by the 
 government to lea^T England, so great was their 
 flight to the New World. Still they continued to 
 escape to the })romised land in the West regardless 
 of the prohibition. 
 
 If the first American progenitor of Abraham 
 Lincoln was a fugitive from his native country for 
 the sake of greater liberty (a matter probable but 
 not verified), we find a later ancestor separating 
 from his New England home and settling in Penn- 
 sylvania, Berks County, probably for a similar 
 reason. We read that these early Lincolns were 
 Quakers, and there seems to have been a second 
 hegira to the paradise of William Penn and Quaker- 
 dom. It is well known that the Puritans did not 
 tolerate any heresy (except their own), and that 
 they persecuted the heretical Quakers, who, as men 
 of peace, naturally took to flight. Still a branch 
 of the Lincoln family remained in Massachusetts, 
 and one of its eminent members met there our 
 historic Abraham Lincoln in 1848, over two 
 hundred years after the landing of their supposedly 
 common ancestor. 
 
ANCESTRAL. 25 
 
 The next step in this ancestral march of descent 
 and of migration was taken from Pennsylvania to 
 Virginia, to which State a John Lincoln moved 
 about 1750 and settled in Rockingham County. 
 Here the Revolutionary War overtook the family; 
 one of the sons of John Lincoln, Isaac by name, 
 enlisted, and was a lieutenant in a Virginia regi- 
 ment at the surrender of Yorktown. Four other 
 sons are known by name, but they seem to have 
 held themselves aloof from the great issue of the 
 age, probably in accord with their Quaker faith. 
 Moreover, their look was turned westward, they 
 were by nature pioneers, and had to take another 
 flight from civilization to the woods. The quiet 
 idyllic life of the solitar}^ Quaker settlement on the 
 remote border of their advancing race seems to 
 have been their ideal. At any rate the family in 
 its manifold offshoots throughout the Southern 
 and Western States, never furnished any public 
 men of note, with the one colossal exception, 
 though the Massachusetts branch produced a. 
 number of distinguished citizens. 
 
 Still this dip of the family into Virginia's in- 
 stitutional life was an important event of its history. 
 The migratory stream at that time was turning 
 southward, as it later bent back northward when 
 the slavery question began to make itself felt. In 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, Virginia was 
 altogether the largest, richest, and most influential 
 of the American Commonwealths. Its population 
 
26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 then was nearly as great as that of New York and 
 Massachusetts combined; the chief seaport on the 
 Atlantic coast was Norfolk, though Charleston 
 might dispute the claim. Boston and New York 
 lagged to the rear. Also .in Mrginia at that time 
 were the statesmen of the rising nation, the 
 moulders of its institutions. How that Common- 
 wealth ever brought forth so many and such 
 excellent public-men is still a problem which no 
 historian of \'irginia has yet solved or even fully 
 presented. And this suggests her limitation; she 
 seems unable to write the history she herself has 
 made; her practical gift has far surpassed her 
 reflective. Very different is New England, which 
 has the moral, self-examining, critical spirit rather 
 than the institutional, and has produced a wonder- 
 ful stream of preachers, writers and talkers — an 
 output by no means to be neglected, even if its 
 character be somewhat provincial. 
 
 Here it must not fail to be noted that Virginia 
 then was the main center from which rayed out 
 the new States of the Union. She had or claimed 
 the vast territory lying to the North-west, to the 
 West directly, and in part to the South-west, till 
 the Mississippi. Thus she was in area by far the 
 largest of the Old Thirteen. Truly she possessed 
 not only the domain but the ability to be the State- 
 builder for the future. This was in fact just her 
 supreme function, deeply in accord with her 
 institutional character. Really she was the only 
 
ANCESTRAL. 27 
 
 one of the old Commonwealths that had such a 
 transcendent gift in good working order, as is 
 shown by the Constitution of the United States, 
 which was substantially her product. Still the 
 other Commonwealths participated in her excel- 
 lence, and recognized her position. So it comes 
 that the stream of migration already mentioned 
 flowed from the north into Virginia and then passed 
 on to the young States after a baptism, short or long, 
 in her spirit. Thus she radiated new States to- 
 wards all points of the Western land of promise. 
 
 Of this great movement of the people, the Lincoln 
 family was but one example, one small trunk of 
 pioneers, though very fruitful, shooting branches 
 into North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, 
 lUinois, in general all around the horizon of the 
 West. The curious fact has been brought to light 
 that another Quaker family, the Boones, intertwine 
 with the Lincolns in their migrations, the members 
 of each branch frequently intermarrying on the 
 way. Both started from Pennsylvania, Berks 
 County, and spread southward and westward, till 
 Daniel Boone, the most famous of all pioneers, and 
 deemed the typical one, left a long trail of adven- 
 tures reaching from Mrginia, through Tennessee 
 and Kentucky, into Missouri, where he died. Him 
 the old Greek would have heroized into a Hercules. 
 Taking up again our thread of the migratory 
 Lincolns, we note that the next act is the passing 
 of one of them from Virginia (Rockingham County) 
 
28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST, 
 
 into Kentucky (Jefferson County). The name of 
 this Lincoln was Abraham, a name common in the 
 family with other Hebrew names of the Old and 
 New Testaments — by the light of which fact we 
 may cast a glimpse into the chief and perhaps only 
 book which the household possessed or read. This 
 Abraham Lincoln arrived at his new home about 
 1780, turning away from the British invasion of 
 his State and following the stream of emigrants 
 which poured over the Alleghenies, or floated down 
 the Ohio River in great family boats towards the 
 new West. Already in 1780 Louisville is said to 
 have had several hundred people, and in 1784 
 Kentucky's population was estimated at 30,000. 
 Ohio was not yet much sought, its time came later, 
 after that of Kentucky. 
 
 This Abraham Lincoln was our Abraham's 
 paternal grandfather, who owned an extensive 
 estate, and seemingly brought with him from 
 Virginia the ambition to be of the landed gentry. 
 His life came to an untimely close by an Indian's 
 bullet. His three sons were saved, only one of 
 whom can we take up hereafter into this ancestral 
 line, which has been throwing off Lincolns into 
 obscurity for nearly a century and a half. 
 
 Let the reader, however, note with due emphasis 
 that migratory dip of people from the North into 
 Virginia, ere they pass on in their movement to 
 the West. About this time Virginia was at her 
 greatest, being the representative of an idea which 
 
ANCESTRAL. 29 
 
 must be deemed not only national but world- 
 historical. More than any other of the old com- 
 monwealths, she shows herself to be the mother of 
 States as well as of Presidents; she is verily the 
 State-producing State before the Federal Union, 
 which indeed derives that gift from her both in 
 principle and in act. And another matter must 
 not be forgotten. Virginia's greatest men of this 
 period were hostile to slavery and sought to make 
 her a Free-State, and actually did make her pro- 
 duce Free-States, as we see by her act of ceding the 
 North Western Territory in 1783, as well as by the 
 ordinance of 1787. Still she also produced Slave- 
 States, and her dualism was imparted to the then 
 formed Union. 
 
 Now it is this dualism of the Union as Free- 
 State producing and as Slave-State producing, 
 which our Abraham Lincoln, whom we may deem 
 Virginia's grandson, will grapple with and over- 
 come. Such is indeed the deepest thought of his 
 career, which he seemed to inherit from the great 
 men of Virginia contemporary with his grand- 
 parents. Under his leadership the New States of 
 the West which Virginia made free, will sweep 
 back nearly a century later, and take the chief 
 part in making her free, and thus realizing her own 
 original idea of the State as creative of Free States 
 — an idea which specially animated the earlier 
 career of Jefferson. 
 
30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln. 
 
 Such was the name of the third son of grand- 
 father Abraham Lincohi. As a httle boy Thomas 
 saw his parent slain, and then saw the slayer slain 
 in turn by his eldest brother called Mordecai. The 
 bloody feud between the Indian and the white man 
 thus weaves its crimson strand into the ancestral 
 line of the Lincolns. The story is told of the little 
 fellow standing beside his father's dead body in 
 great danger of the tomahawk till the shot from 
 his brother's rifle brought down the red assassin. 
 The tragedy of the frontier is a part of our Abraham 
 Lincoln's inheritance, and we shall see him later 
 responding at once to a call for soldiers in the 
 Black Hawk War against the Indians of the North- 
 west. As late as 1854, in a letter, Lincoln alluded 
 to the fate of his grandfather as ''the legend more 
 strongly than all others impressed upon my mind 
 and memory." 
 
 Thomas Lincoln seems to have had no share in 
 the paternal estate, of which the chief heir was the 
 eldest son, according to the aristocratic law of 
 primogeniture. The boy was left to shift for him- 
 self, and he became shiftless. His people allowed 
 him to grow up in ignorance; it is said that his 
 first wife taught him to write his name in an 
 awkward scribble. Though he did not receive 
 any of his family's property, he did inherit its 
 
THOMAS LINCOLN. 31 
 
 migratory spirit, which in him took the form of a 
 rover flitting about from place to place. The 
 settling down into one spot seemed to be wdiat un- 
 settled him. He learned a trade, that of carpenter, 
 though his life was mostly passed upon a farm, or 
 rather a number of farms in Kentucky, Indiana 
 and Illinois. He died in 1851, but he lived long 
 enough to see the tirst eminence of his son as lawyer 
 and Congressman. 
 
 It should be said, however, that Thomas Lincoln 
 was not a bad man. He seems to have been quite 
 free from the excesses of the backw^oodsman. He 
 was not a drunkard, though he would take his turn 
 at the bottle. He was religious, but the borderer 
 demanded in his religion a strong stimulant, 
 worship was to intoxicate him like a dram of 
 whiskey. The chief indictment against him is 
 that he not only gave no encouragement to his 
 boy's strong aspiration, but rather suppressed it, 
 wishing to keep his progeny in his own narrow, 
 hopeless life of ignorance and poverty. Strangely 
 after the mother it was a step-mother that nursed 
 the ambition of the boy, appreciating his talent 
 from the start, and giving him opportunities for 
 study. Thomas Lincoln certainly showed that 
 peculiar paralysis which has been so often remarked 
 in the poor whites of the South, and which seemed 
 to attack specially the younger sons of the gentility, 
 who were too well-born to work and too poor to be 
 idle. 
 
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 It is recorded that Thomas Lincoln, after having 
 wooed without success Miss SalHe Bush, a young 
 lady of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, married in 1806 
 Miss Nancy Hanks, the future mother of the 
 historic Abraham Lincoln, in whose destiny both 
 these women have been interwoven, both being 
 thereby crowned with an immortal renown. Recent 
 investigation claims to show that man and wife 
 were first cousins, and that they were of a higher 
 class in the community than has been generally 
 supposed, than even their own son, Lincoln him- 
 self, supposed. Still we have to think that both 
 parties belonged to the humbler class of the South, 
 though the wife was the superior of the husband in 
 education, in ability, and in aspiration. Her 
 genealogy has been traced, and her first American 
 ancestor, of English origin, settled in Plymouth, 
 Massachusetts in 1699. Thence her family passed 
 to Pennsylvania, as it belonged to the Quaker 
 communion; next it is heard of in Virginia, from 
 which it flowed with the great stream of migration 
 into Kentucky. Thus the forefathers' march of 
 the Hankscs runs strikingly parallel to that of the 
 Lincolns, though wholly independent till the two 
 come together in Virginia and then in Central 
 Kentucky, where they intermingle and intermarry 
 producing at last our Lincoln. 
 
 So we conceive these two ancestral hues, the 
 Lincolns and the Hankses, starting back in Old 
 England apart in time and place, flowing over 
 
THOMAS LINCOLN. 33 
 
 the ocean to New England, and then sweeping out 
 of the old States of the North into \'irginia, whence 
 they both pass westward to the new, to the derived 
 States of the Union. These, however, were only- 
 typical instances of a great popular movement 
 seeking to find its way to the future seat of the 
 Nation. A voiceless instinct led them on, turning 
 them not directly to and across the Ohio River, 
 but first into Virginia to take a course of that 
 institutional training which prepared them to be 
 State-builders for the new Union. This migratory 
 tide started many years before the Revolutionary 
 War, and continued many years after it, lasting, 
 perhaps a century or more, till Virginia decisively 
 and finally refused to emancipate herself from the 
 black curse, which emancipation all her early and 
 greatest sons advocated. Then she turned its 
 defender, its chief exponent and supporter. That 
 was the time when she ceased to bear free institu- 
 tions and Great Men, ceased to be the mother of 
 States and of Presidents, and became the mother of 
 slaves for the cotton plantations of the extreme 
 South. Not reproachfully but regretfully do we 
 set down the record which has in it one of the most 
 striking lessons to be found in the histoiy of the 
 whole country. Already we have groped for the 
 cause of Virginia's fertility in Great Men, but now 
 there rises the equally suggestive question why 
 she lost her grandly creative power, passing into 
 a spell of decadence, which culminated in a revolt 
 
34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 from the Union, of which she was the intellectual 
 parent, and in an alienation from those Free-States 
 of the West which she had once mothered with such 
 loving foresight. It would seem that her institu- 
 tional spirit and her leadership migrated with the 
 progressive migration westward, when she made 
 "the great refusal . " 
 
 Let us, however, return to our young married 
 couple, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, who have 
 started out in hfe at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, 
 with their first housekeeping. Of their early days 
 we catch hardly any suggestive glimpse unless it 
 be that picture of the young wife teaching her 
 rather unambitious husband to scrawl his name. 
 It has been handed down that he worked fitfully 
 at his trade, that of a carpenter, but he readily 
 could turn his hand to other kinds of labor. He 
 lived in a log cabin, as did the majority of his 
 fellow-townsmen at that period, and was inclined 
 to take life easy, seeking no job but letting it come 
 to him in its own good time. He soon felt that he 
 must change his locality, and we find him after a 
 couple of years on a little farm in Hardin County, 
 Kentucky. The soil was poor, the husbandman 
 thriftless; the result was that the young family sank 
 down into a more forlorn condition than ever 
 before. Here in the very night of hope a male 
 child was born, February 12th, 1809. This child 
 was our Abraham Lincoln. We may well think 
 that the mother, from the deep depression super- 
 
THE NEW MIGRATION. 35 
 
 induced by her environment, stamped upon her 
 offspring as her fadeless birthmark that constitu- 
 tional melancholy which everybody saw in his 
 features and felt in his character. 
 
 III. 
 The New Migration. 
 
 With the appearance of this infant coming into 
 the world, if not in a manger, at least under almost 
 as lowly circumstances, the light of the present 
 biography has risen, to be followed till its setting. 
 The boy's first playmate was his little sister, nearly 
 two years older than himself, who was born during 
 the stay at Elizabethtown. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln, like the true rover, soon felt that 
 prosperity was not where he was, but somewhere 
 else, and must now be chased down for good. 
 When his boy was about four years old, the father 
 moved to another farm some fifteen miles distant, 
 where fortune was again wooed. But success 
 attended him in the new venture just as little as in 
 the old ones, and for the same reason. Nomadic 
 Tom Lincoln belongs really nowhere, and so he 
 cannot find out where he belongs. 
 
 An important step may be chronicled during the 
 stay at this farm. The boy Abraham, with his 
 sister was sent to his first school. He has himself 
 transmitted the names of his two earliest teachers, 
 Zachariah Riney and Caleb Hazel.. Only names 
 
36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 they are to us now, dim ghosts of wandering 
 pedagogues on the frontier, but from these itin- 
 erant masters young Lincoln first began the rudi- 
 ments of the famous three disciphnes — reading, 
 with possibly a little writing and ciphering. This 
 started him so that he could help himself, and 
 tradition states that he was a very capable learner 
 at this early time. It has also been handed down 
 that his mother taught him what she knew and 
 encouraged him, telling him the stories of the 
 Bible as well as the transmitted folk-tales of her 
 people. With good reason she seems to have 
 turned her teaching ambition from her husband to 
 her son. 
 
 Having failed on his second farm also, Thomas 
 Lincoln began to think of leaving Kentucky. He 
 had heard of the fertile and untaken territory 
 across the Ohio River in the State of Indiana. As 
 to his motives in making the change, we may cite 
 his son's statement: "This removal was partly 
 on account of slavery, but chiefly on account of the 
 difficulty in land titles in Kentucky." Lincoln 
 gave this account of his father in 1860, after his 
 nomination for the Presidency, to be used in a 
 campaign fife of himself. Hence the allusion to 
 slavery is probably made as prominent as the truth 
 permitted. The difficulty in land titles seems to 
 have been this : Thomas Lincoln bought his farms 
 on credit, giving promissory notes, secured by deeds 
 of trust. The notes fell due and were not paid ; the 
 
THE NEW MIGRATION. 37 
 
 land reverted to the original owner and Thomas 
 Lincoln had to vacate the premises. Such was 
 "the difficulty in land titles," present not only in 
 Kentucky but everywhere. The son could not 
 well give any detailed explanation in a campaign 
 document, and so passed it over with a small 
 euphemism. 
 
 The second cause assigned, that of slavery, has 
 been sometimes emphasized beyonds its merits. 
 Easy-going Tom Lincoln never exercised his 
 rather sluggish brain much with the abhorrence 
 of slavery. Still we are to see that it had an in- 
 fluence upon his movements, even if such influence 
 was mainly unconscious. Kentucky had received 
 that early stream of migration from Mrginia, and 
 had become pretty well settled while the States 
 across the Ohio River were as yet largely un- 
 touched. But with the growth of population slav- 
 ery had grown, having now become "the peculiar 
 institution," and was producing its well-known 
 effects in begetting Classism and in degrading 
 free labor. The result was that the white working 
 man began to flee the State and to cross the Ohio 
 River to a non-slaveholding territory, decreed 
 such by the famous ordinance of 1787. Thus we 
 find the Lincolns and the Hankscs, with many 
 others, making a new turn in their long line of 
 migration, and passing northward into the Free- 
 States of Indiana and Illinois. For two genera- 
 tions thej^ had lived in Slave-States, and had been 
 
38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 largely transformed into the poor white Southerner, 
 illiterate and shiftless. There can be no doubt that 
 slavery produced an unhoping lethargy in the 
 white laborer, who, if any ambition was left in him, 
 would cjuit the State, or if he stayed, would drop 
 into a lower and more hopeless condition of life. 
 Thus Thomas Lincoln was carried by a great tide 
 of migration more than by his conscious purpose, 
 though he deserves credit that he did not stay 
 where he and his family were liable to sink deeper 
 down into the social slough. Slavery may be 
 deemed chiefly the cause of his departure, even 
 though he was not fully aware of the fact, since he 
 moved with the stream. 
 
 So it came about that Thomas Lincoln, m the 
 fall of 1816, was making preparation to go to 
 Indiana. His procedure was unique. On a small 
 neighboring run he built a flat-boat, loading it 
 with his tools and with a cargo of four hundred 
 gallons of whiskey, in which he saw a speculation 
 based on the thirst of the Hoosiers. He floated 
 down the run into a larger creek w^hich bore him 
 into the Ohio River, in whose surly waters his 
 rickety craft upset, his whole cargo plunging into 
 the stream. He fished out his tools and a part ot 
 the whiskey, fixed up his boat, and started again 
 down the turbid current. At last he brought to, 
 and pushed sixteen miles inland where he picked out 
 a piece of primeval forest, and bought it from the 
 Land Office at Vincennes. Then he trudged back 
 
THE NEW MIGRATION. 39 
 
 home to Kentucky and fetched his wife and 
 children, with household effects. But he took this 
 time a wagon, avoiding evidently the fiat-boat. 
 At last he reached his new home on Little Pidgeon 
 Creek in Spencer County, Indiana. Thus the 
 Lincoln-Hanks line of migration has come north- 
 ward into a Free-State — a little event which is 
 destined to have a world-historical consequence. 
 This line we have seen originally moving out of 
 the North and making a long detour through 
 Virginia and Kentucky, wherein, however, they 
 were but drops in a great migratory current. It 
 should be added, as a significant mark of the time 
 and of the men, that both the brothers of Thomas 
 Lincoln crossed the Ohio River out of the Slave- 
 State into a Free-State — the one having gone 
 before him into Indiana, and the other, the eldest 
 and the heir of the house, having passed after him, 
 into Illinois. 
 
 Again let us ponder the epoch-making fact that 
 Abraham Lincoln as a child was borne in that vast 
 swirl of migration which once swept from the North 
 into the more genial climate of the South, where 
 it dashed upon an obstacle, slavciy, which seemed 
 at first weak, if not vanishing, but which gradually 
 became stronger and firmer till it at last deflected 
 that migratory current, or a large part of it, around 
 towards the North again, into the new States of 
 the West. Slavery in the Revolutionary Period 
 was regarded as moribund, but it took a new lease 
 
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 of life, being galvanized chiefly by the invention of 
 Whitney's cotton-gin (1793). Slavery and its 
 profits increased enormously, but immigration de- 
 creased; indeed, the ever-renewing human current 
 turned away, quitting the South, to which it once 
 mainly flowed, and bearing in its bosom North- 
 ward young Abraham Lincoln, destined to be its 
 greatest product and supreme representative. 
 
 The spirit in this migratory separation from the 
 South indicates at least dissatisfaction with the 
 new trend there towards slavery. The Folk-Soul 
 shows itself to be seeking the Free-State, and to be 
 productive of the Free-State as its political institu- 
 tion. This instinct, quite unconscious, lay in the 
 movement to which Abraham Lincoln belonged, 
 and in which he participated. Here we may 
 catch an early glimpse of the Folk-Soul which he 
 is finally to voice and to organize into a party 
 whose conscious and expressed aim is to make the 
 Union productive of Free States only. So we see 
 that Lincoln simply uttered what had long been 
 engendering and throbbing in the Folk-Soul of the 
 West. 
 
 We may well empahsize again that these immi- 
 grants, having taken the Virginia dip, bore with 
 them through all their wanderings her strong sense 
 of institutions, as well as her deepest political 
 principle, which may be designated as the State- 
 producing State. Of this principle they were to 
 become the propagators in peace as well as the 
 
THE INDIANA HOME. 41 
 
 vindicators in war. But on the other hand we 
 must also take note that they turned away from 
 Virginia as productive of Slave-States, notably in 
 case of Kentucky, often called the child of Mrginia. 
 Hence we see them wheeling out of Kentucky 
 into the North-west, in which Mrginia had shown 
 her other side, namely as productive of Free-States, 
 and which accordingly corresponded with their 
 own institutional character, fostered if not de- 
 rived from the great creative period of Virginia and 
 her statesmen. This was indeed the very soul 
 of the North-w^est, being that which created it and 
 remained its innermost nature. The Folk-Soul 
 we call it, of which Lincoln became first the in- 
 stinctive bearer, then the voice, and finally the 
 instrument of its realization. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Indiana Home. 
 
 In the midst of the primeval forest Thomas Lin- 
 coln began to build a shelter for his family during 
 the inclement season which was at hand. This 
 shelter was a cabin of unhewn logs, fourteen feet 
 square, enclosed on three sides, the fourth side be- 
 ing left open and serving for door and windows. 
 It had no floor, and very little rude furniture; it 
 was not called a house but a camp, " a half-face 
 cam.p " in the dialect the backwoods. It resembled 
 a built cave rather, and the family had a taste of 
 
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST 
 
 the primoruial cave-life of their remote ancestors. 
 Thus Thomas Lincoln is getting back to his origin, 
 and with his family is living over again an early- 
 chapter in the life of his race, strangely carrying 
 out some modern ideas of education. 
 
 We must keep our eye upon young Abraham 
 who, now in his eighth year, entered upon this 
 new phase of his discipline. The physical environ- 
 ment was here quite different from that which he 
 had experienced in Kentucky. Around him on all 
 sides stood the dense forest which had its own in- 
 habitants — bear, deer, turkey, and smaller animals. 
 Nature revealed herself to him in her wild, exuber- 
 ant mood, being far more productive here than in 
 the poorer soil of the Kentucky farm. The boy 
 became a pioneer, an axe was put into his hands 
 and he began with his parents the struggle for ex- 
 istence on the border of civilization. Since its first 
 settlement for two hundred years, America had 
 reared a hardy and unique race of pioneers ; Abra- 
 ham Lincoln is also to pass through this stage of 
 his country's development, repeating the luck and 
 lot of his own ancestors, and the experience will 
 leave its mark upon him to the last. 
 
 During a whole year the Lincoln family held 
 their fortress, "the half-face camp", against the 
 assaults of wind and rain, of snow and ice, thus 
 maintaining its own amid all the weather caprices 
 of winter and summer. Then a new cabin was 
 ready, enclosed now on its fourth side, fully eigh- 
 
THE INDIANA HOME. 43 
 
 teen feet square, and built of hewn logs, think of 
 it! Surely, careless Tom Lincoln is getting stylish 
 if not extravagant. The old building, "the half- 
 face camp ", is handed over to a new batch of emi- 
 grants, relatives leaving Kentucky, atoms swim- 
 ming in that migratory stream over the Ohio and 
 dropping down in the Free-States of the North- 
 West. Very striking is the fact that Kentucky at 
 this time seems quite fully settled and overflowing, 
 while just across the river in Indiana are the back- 
 woods. 
 
 It was indeed a straitened existence. Not much 
 money was in circulation, trade fell back largely 
 upon primitive barter. We hear that coon-skins 
 passed for money, and that hams of the hog and 
 deer were a legal tender. To get food was not so 
 difficult, the neighboring woods furnished free meat 
 for the human animal now growing more and more 
 carnivorous. Abraham Lincoln reports that he shot 
 a wild turkey through the chink of the cabin. The 
 ground was cleared of its trees, and some grain was 
 sown — enough for corn-dodgers and pone and hom- 
 iny all the week, and for wheat cakes once a week, of 
 Sunday mornings. As to clothing, the household 
 could and often did furnish it from the fleece of 
 wool, especially the linsey-wolsey shirt; deer skins 
 were cut and sewed into a kind of rude shoe or moc- 
 casin, as well as pantaloons; the winter overcoat 
 of fur was robbed from the bear, and the coon fur- 
 nished the head-gear for nothing. 
 
44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 Behold then that hfe of the young pioneer truly 
 self-sufficing, independent. The three great op- 
 pressors of man, food, raiment and shelter, are 
 met by the man himself single-handed, and van- 
 quished without calling to his aid the Social Sys- 
 tem, the Economic Order. He builds his own 
 house without the architect, makes his own cloth- 
 ing without the tailor, gets his own food directly 
 from Nature — surely an individual sufficient unto 
 himself. The whole social process, now become so 
 vast and intricate, is performed in that little cabin 
 of the frontiersman, by himself and his family. 
 No doubt it is the germinal process of civilization, 
 which here the youthful Abraham has practically 
 to appropriate in its primal simplicity and com- 
 pleteness. 
 
 And now let us picture our boy seizing hold of a 
 peg fastened in the logs of the cabin wall; there is 
 a row of these pegs running up to a kind of loft 
 where is a pile of corn-shucks and leaves. This is 
 the boy's bed, quite like that of the animals out- 
 side in the woods. Covered with skins if it be cold 
 weather, he takes his rest. When the time comes 
 he skips down the pegs out of his nest and starts 
 the morning blaze in the fire-place, by whose light 
 he can often be seen taking furtive glances into 
 a book which he cautiously draws from its hiding 
 place in a chink, encouraged by his mother and 
 perchance screened by her lest the irate father 
 might interfere with the boy's studies. 
 
THE INDIANA HOME. 45 
 
 Such was the natural primitive Hfe of the Lin- 
 coln family when a new enemy appeared. The 
 demon of disease swooped down upon the little 
 settlement and carried off many victims, not spar- 
 ing the cattle. It was called the milk-sickness, 
 and soon had in its clutches the mother of the 
 household, Nancy Lincoln. There was no physician 
 within thirty-five miles. The poor woman died 
 and was buried in the most humble fashion by 
 her husband, who made a rude cofhn out of green 
 timber. The report runs that the son, still a boy, 
 obtained a minister to perform the burial ceremo- 
 nies over the grave of his mother some months 
 afterward. 
 
 This occurred in 1818. A year of motherlessness 
 for the two children followed in that log cabin, 
 during which the sister, then eleven years old, 
 must have in part filled the missing place of the 
 mother. 
 
 So vanishes from the stage of life Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln, mother of Abraham Lincoln, deathless 
 through the fame of her son, who seems hardly to 
 have recognized her. As he was in his tenth year 
 when she passed away, she must have nursed his 
 earliest aspiration, and have directed his primal 
 bent toward the acquisition of knowledge. Even 
 her own husband, quite indifferent to learning, she 
 taught to write his name, as tradition says; how 
 much more effort would she naturally lavish upon 
 her boy who certainly responded to her eagerness. 
 
46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 She imparted to him his first acquaintance with 
 the Bible, instilling into him its precepts; also the 
 tales of the Western People she tokl him with bits 
 of family history during its great migration, of 
 which record the woman is usually the depository 
 and propagator. Lincoln was first spiritually 
 shaped by his own mother during his childhood of 
 nine years and more; yet he seemingly never ap- 
 preciated fully the fact when he spoke of his early 
 life. Time, however, has been doing justice to 
 her part in the formation of her son, and even to 
 her name, which has been clouded. Sympathetic 
 hearts have found her lonely grave and fittingly 
 marked its site, rescuing it from oblivion. Open- 
 ing her weary eyes in that rude cabin for a final 
 look at her husband and children; especially, one 
 thinks, resting her last glance upon her boy, the 
 mother of Lincoln turns her face to the wall and 
 passes beyond. 
 
 Like many a man born outside the common run 
 of mortality, Lincoln brooded over his origin, and 
 sometimes threw out wondering doubts as to 
 whence he came. He differed much from all the 
 Hankses whom he had ever known, and even more 
 from his father Lincoln, shiftless, ignorant, unas- 
 piring, with no limit-transcending impulse or 
 capacity. That was and still is the mystery of his 
 genius, for it is genius which breaks down the law 
 of inheritance. Genius refuses to be derived from 
 parents, or to be transmitted to children; it seems 
 
THE INDIANA HOME. 47 
 
 to drop down from supernal sources upon this one 
 individual and then to take its flight beyond with 
 the cessation of life. In the line of descent Genius 
 has no father and leaves no son : a fact which seems 
 to have worried v Lincoln and to have called up 
 many a dubious speculation^ in regard to himself, 
 conscious as he was of the divine gift. Now what- 
 ever may be the case in Heaven, on earth the son 
 of the divine father is not usually divine, but 
 drops back into the terrestrial line of his grand- 
 father. Property, disease, the Particular can be 
 inherited, but not the Universal, which somehow 
 insists upon selecting its own heir, quite apart from 
 the ancestral strain, which may at most color 
 in spots the God's presence. So- we behold the 
 epiphany of Genius on our planet, wondering 
 whence it comes and whither it goes; hardly more 
 do we know than this, that the Great Man does get 
 incarnated about the right moment, and if he be 
 of a reflective bent, he will have many musings 
 over his own incarnation. 
 
 Biographer Herndon has repeatedly touched 
 upon this tendency of Lincoln to peer into the 
 abysses of his own being, which involved him in 
 questionings and speculations, and even doubts 
 about his parentage. To our mind it was his 
 genius seeking to fathom the mystery of its own 
 origin, which is quite unfathomable as to its finite 
 appearance in Time. Ground, cause, even evolu- 
 tion seem to break down in trying to catch and 
 
48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 circumscribe Genius in its descent into this indi- 
 vidual just here and now. Lincoln, therefore, 
 found it hard to account for himself on the spot, 
 but the Future will unfold him and his work 
 more and more, and that will be his true explana- 
 tion. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Step-Mother. 
 
 About a year after his wife's death, widower 
 Thomas Lincoln seems to be brushing up a little, 
 he is getting to pay some attention to his personal 
 appearance. There is no perceptible cause for this 
 change in the neighborhood of Little Pidgeon 
 Creek. Having saved some money, one day he 
 put on his best, and set out for Elizabethtown, 
 Kentucky, the place where he spent some time as 
 a young man learning his carpenter's trade. There 
 is little doubt, though the record has not been 
 handed down, that'on arriving he took the shortest 
 road to the house of Mrs. Sallie Bush Johnston, 
 now a widow, but whom as a young lady he had 
 never forgotten. For, according to a tradition of 
 the gossips of the town, he had been rejected by 
 her in the days of their freedom. Set it down to 
 the credit of Thomas Lincoln (for he needs it) that 
 the spark of true love never died out in his bosom, 
 but began to flicker and sputter, and finally to 
 blaze up in the solitary life of his cabin. At last it 
 impels him to take the aforesaid journey. 
 
THE STEP-MOTHER. 49 
 
 It is declared that Miss Sallie Bush and her 
 family belonged to the better class of people, to 
 the ''quality" of that Kentucky town. Our worthy 
 reporter Herndon cites the statement of one of her 
 neighbors evidently at first hand: ''Life among 
 the Hankses and Lincolns was a long ways below 
 life among the Bushes." These words have a 
 smack of that class-pride which, proper enough in 
 its limits, in its excess became the bane of Ken- 
 tucky and of the whole South, and is usually re- 
 garded as one of the effects of " the peculiar insti- 
 tution." The hardy pioneers of the Common- 
 wealth had little of it, but already it was at work 
 in Kentucky during the second decade of the nine- 
 teenth century, and in Virginia long before. The 
 white non-slaveholding laborer felt and heard the 
 contempt (perceptible slightly in the foregoing 
 citation), picked up his belongings and quit the 
 State for the north side of the Ohio river, where 
 population, wealth and general development 
 rapidly outstripped the new, though older slave 
 States to the South. 
 
 After a brief wooing Mrs. Johnston yielded. At 
 first she is said to have hesitated, having three 
 children on her hands from her first marriage and 
 owing some debts which she wished to pay off 
 first. Sly Thomas, getting a list of these debts, 
 slips away and pays them the same evening. They 
 could not have been large, seemingl}'- not much 
 more than an excuse to stave ofT the importunate 
 
50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 suitor. But the transaction showed Lincoln's love, 
 and when he shook the receipts in her face, she 
 gave her hand in return, and the license was issued 
 next morning. The marriage took place, whereat 
 all the tongues of the town were set to wagging in 
 a common refrain: Widow Johnston has married 
 beneath her station. But she soon packed her 
 household articles in a wagon and was speeding up 
 the road for Indiana. 
 
 What was it won the woman's heart? She loves 
 his love rather than the man himself. She had a 
 touch of aristocratic pride, and yet she descended 
 to poor, unthrifty Tom Lincoln whom she knew 
 well. Some have supposed that he deceived her 
 by painting his Indiana prospects in too glowing 
 colors. But she is not known to have manifested 
 any great disappointment in that respect. It is 
 the old story: the woman is taken by the man 
 whose devotion conquers her, though she knows 
 him to be of small account. So we may for a 
 moment look at Thomas Lincoln as the hero of a 
 sunny little idyl. And there is no doubt that in 
 this woman he won the greatest prize of his life. 
 The moment she stepped into that cheerless cabin 
 of his, it began to be transfigured. She required 
 the husband to show his devotion in a new way. 
 Under her command he changes the dirt floor of 
 his abode into one made of wood, and then he 
 adds the hitherto missing doors and windows. She 
 brought a quantity of good furniture and bedding; 
 
THE STEP-MOTHER. 51 
 
 notably "a walnut bureau valued at fifty dol- 
 lars," probably an heirloom. She washed and 
 dressed up her two step-children, and their nest of 
 leaves and corn husks was changed for a comfort- 
 able feather bed. Even the husband seemed to 
 modify his character for the better under that 
 fresh inspiration of the renovated household. So a 
 woman, in her way heroic, comes into the life of 
 young Abraham Lincoln, now in his eleventh year. 
 Her difficulties were not small: among others two 
 sets of children, boys and girls on each side, were 
 growing up in that one-roomed cabin. There was 
 a good opportunity for quarreling, also for mixing 
 too freely. The evidence shows that the mother 
 was aware of both dangers and guarded against 
 them with success. 
 
 The great fact now before us is that such a 
 woman takes charge of the boy Abraham Lincoln, 
 and becomes his second mother at a time when he 
 needed a strong will to protect him in his striving. 
 And the story must not be left untold that Sallie 
 Bush after her first marriage remained on friendly 
 terms with the Lincolns, and that she took a 
 special liking to little Abe, bringing him to the 
 store of Mr. Helm (who tells the tale) in Elizabeth- 
 town for tidbits, and showing her fondness in vari- 
 ous ways. All this must have occurred before 
 the boy was past seven years old, and before the 
 Lincolns had moved to Indiana. Already she may 
 have divined his genius, and felt her deep relation 
 
52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 to that boy, deeper than any relation she had or 
 could have to her own children. And that may 
 have been the stronger though hidden motive to 
 her surprising marriage. For time will prove that 
 Abraham Lincoln was her soul's child by a tie 
 more profound and coercive than consanguinity. 
 She herself late in life thought so and said so amid 
 tears for her martyred son, who, she foreboded, 
 would never return alive from the Presidency. She 
 was accustomed to declare that " my mind and 
 Abe's ran together." Let Thomas Lincoln have 
 the credit that he chose such a woman, who could 
 love his love in spite of the man. But the interest 
 of all time to come centers upon the part she had 
 in the training of his boy, as she furnished the 
 very sunlight in which his youth flowered. 
 
 It is evident that the step-mother was far more 
 active, aggressive, ambitious for appearance, 
 through her higher standard of living, than the 
 real mother, who comes before us as a jmtient, 
 passive, much-enduring soul. She seems to take 
 what comes, to accept her husband as he is with- 
 out trying to transform him except in the one 
 early instance of teaching him to write his name. 
 Resignation was apparently her character and her 
 religion. Emotion seems to have been her salient 
 trait, which also went over into her boy. But now 
 a very different sort of woman enters the too easy- 
 going household, a woman of will, not however 
 without kindness or sympathy. Under her train- 
 
THE STEP-MOTHER. 53 
 
 ing the youthful Abraham henceforth comes, seem- 
 ingly at the right moment. She will impart to 
 him purpose, strength, a new ideal of living. 
 
 So we conceive the shares of the two mothers in 
 the boy's development. They were not only dif- 
 ferent but antipathetic; the step-mother showed 
 not only her diverse nature, but her class prejudice 
 against the mother. This is the one doubt which 
 we have to record against the second Mrs. -Thomas 
 Lincoln. We have to think that she influenced 
 her step-son in his strange attitude toward his 
 own mother, really a disregard for her memory. 
 
 Without expanding further this dark but 
 delicate point, let us pass to the bright side of the 
 present relation, which reveals Mrs. Thomas 
 Lincoln as the paragon of her kind. She belies 
 all the proverbs, fairy-tales, and folk-lore of the 
 ages which take delight in besmirching the step- 
 mother. Difficult, indeed, is her task, and eveiy 
 neighbor seems bent on making it more difficult. 
 With such an accumulated burden on her hands 
 she often fails, probably in the majority of cases. 
 But the step-mother of Abraham Lincoln must be 
 pronounced the great exception, under the most 
 trying circumstances. She it was who nursed his 
 genius when it most needed such care. Will she 
 had, and a very strong one; this is what chiefly 
 looks out in that face of hers which we see pictured 
 in the books on Lincoln. Yet hers was a will 
 tempered with duty, especially to that one member 
 
54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 of ner household, whose greatness she certainly 
 forefelt. And his gratitude and recognition were 
 unstinted. But that tender heart of his with its 
 boundless sympathy, which lay even deeper than 
 will, was the priceless gift of his mother, Nancy 
 Hanks Lincoln. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lincoln's Schooling, 
 
 What inference shall we draw from Lincoln's 
 slender means for getting even an elementary 
 education? Have opportunities really become 
 too great, so that they are undermining the self- 
 reliance of our youth? Such statements we hear 
 now and then. But we have to think that Lincoln 
 was Lincoln in spite of the defects of his scholar- 
 ship. He would have been the same and have 
 done his work if he had possessed more or even less 
 learning. His Apprenticeship would have con- 
 tinued, till it had completed itself, if not this year 
 then the next, or the next after that. The quantity 
 of erudition is important, but not all-important. 
 Geilius can make a little do, even if it has not much 
 besides itself. Still it has to be unfolded, and has 
 to have its favorable environment, which was not 
 wanting in the case of Lincoln. 
 
 He has handed down the names of his early 
 teachers in the two brief sketches of liis life written 
 by himself. Already we have mentionel his first 
 schooling in Kentucky. What he acquired there 
 
LIXCOLX'S SCHOOLIXG. 55 
 
 is unknown; but it is likely that he, a bright boy 
 in his seventh and eighth year, learned to read, 
 and obtained a little start in figures and in writing, 
 being assisted by his mother, who was likely to 
 keep his lessons alive after arriving in the woods 
 on Little Pidgeon Creek, Indiana. 
 
 Not till he was ten years old did he go to his next 
 school, the first one for him in his new home, 
 kept by a teacher of the name of Dorsey. Four 
 years more passed before he could get to another 
 itinerant master, Andrew Crawford, who in addi- 
 tion to the customary branches, gave to those 
 backwoods children lessons in good manners, not 
 without insight into their needs. Lincoln was now 
 fourteen years old, and made the most of his oppor- 
 tunities, getting probably the longest and best 
 spell of his schooling. Three years later he started 
 to go to Master Swaney's, but he had to walk over 
 four miles, and he soon stopped or was stopped by 
 his father, who wanted him for work, and who 
 thought that so much learning was unnecessary, 
 as he had gotten along without it. Or it might 
 positively ruin the boy, for young Abraham had 
 had already gained the double reputation of being 
 both lazy and a student. 
 
 In fact, to obtain what education he had, a con- 
 tinual struggle had been going on in the household, 
 the step-mother always protecting and encouraging 
 her step-son, whom she soon regarded as her 
 Heaven-sent ward. Since she lived till 1869, and 
 
56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 was visited and questionea oy investigators, she 
 has left on record some suggestive glimpses into 
 the early life of the Lincolns in Indiana, particu- 
 larly as regards the schooling of young Abraham. 
 
 Says she: "I induced my husband to permit 
 Abe to study at home as well as at school. At 
 first he was not easily reconciled to it, but finally 
 he too seemed willing to encourage him to a 
 certain extent." That is, the wife in that noisy 
 unstudious household is gently but firmly asserting 
 herself in favor of the studious child, though but 
 her step-son, in whom she saw such talent and 
 aspiration. Then she continues: ''Abe was a 
 dutiful son to me always, and we took particular 
 pains not to disturb him — would let him read on 
 and on till he quit of his own accord." She com- 
 manded quiet to the domestic uproar made by 
 four other children and several grown people 
 usually, so that the only person of hope among 
 them might get his lesson and prepare himself for 
 his work. 
 
 Another precious bit from the same source has 
 been preserved, expressing the deep sympathy, the 
 concordance of soul between the two: "Abe was 
 a good boy and I can say what scarcely one woman 
 — a mother — can say in a thousand: Abe never 
 gave me a cross word or look, and never refused in 
 fact or appearance, to do anything I requested 
 him. I never gave .him a cross word in my life." 
 She felt him to be her son, her spiritual child: 
 
LINCOLN'S SCHOOLING. 57 
 
 "His mind and mine — what little I had — seemed 
 to run together." There is no doubt that she 
 regarded it her chief vocation to be mother to that 
 boy, who was hers by a deeper tie than blood. 
 Far more than her own son and her other children 
 was this step-son hers, though she touches the fact 
 tenderly: "I had a son John who was raised with 
 Abe. Both were good bays; but I must say, both 
 being dead now, that Abe was the best boy I ever 
 saw, or expect to see." So the mother looks back 
 at her two boys living still in the Little Pidgeon 
 Creek home; she judges both in the most affec- 
 tionate way, but decides absolutely in favor of 
 her step-son. The truth is, John Johnston, her 
 son, was a good-natured, good-for-nothing ne'er- 
 do-weel, who, during his life gave trouble enough 
 to his mother and to Lincoln through his ineradi- 
 cable vagrancy. "You are not lazy and still you 
 are an idler," says Lincoln in a keen and kind 
 letter to him, proposing an excellent recipe for the 
 trouble {Works, I., p. 164). 
 
 In this connection may be cited those deep- 
 toned utterances gushing spotancously from the 
 mother's heart, whose preservation we owe to 
 Herndon. "I did not want Abe to run for Presi- 
 dent, and did not want to see him elected. I was 
 afraid that something would happen to him. 
 And when he came down to see me after he was 
 elected President, I still felt, and my heart told me, 
 that something would befall him, and that I should 
 
58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 never see him again." Not many passages in 
 literature well up from sources so deep and pure 
 as that. And it may be added that Lincoln him- 
 self had the same ever-lurking premonition of his 
 fate. 
 
 Clear it is without the strong will of that sym- 
 pathetic step-mother standing guard for him, 
 Lincoln would never have had the chance to go to 
 school on Little Pidgeon Creek, and no opportunity 
 for study at home. He was now a robust youth 
 and could do a good deal of heavy work, from 
 which his father could draw some profit. But 
 the step-mother, clearly the will-power of the 
 family, interfered in behalf of his education. We 
 have to think that the real mother, with her 
 passive emotional character, could have hardly 
 shielded him against the opposition. She was 
 given him when he was a little child, before his 
 labor counted for anything. But it was the step- 
 mother who bestowed upon him his teens for 
 study, really the most fruitful time for acquisition. 
 
 Lincoln deeply recognized the sterling character 
 of his step-mother, and knew her place in the evolu- 
 tion of his career. Of his father he did not and 
 could not have a high opinion. Nor could any 
 great affection spring from paternal treatment 
 which rose to the point of giving a knock-down to 
 the boy, if report can be credited. So uncongenial 
 a diversity in temperament, in talent, in aspiration, 
 seems to have excited at times in Lincoln those 
 
LINCOLN'S SCHOOLING. 59 
 
 vague questionings in regard to his origin, with 
 which he often played as a mental toy. But the 
 stranger fact is that Abraham Lincoln was the 
 spiritual son of his step-mother, whose school was 
 far better for him, and more deeply influential 
 than all his other schooling. 
 
 We must also observe the fact that his step- 
 mother was not only his protectress in the home, 
 and exemplar in character, but directly his teacher, 
 his critic, his first sympathetic audience. Herein 
 again she has left a naive but very touching record : 
 "Frec^uently," says she, "he had no paper to write 
 his pieces down on. Then he would put them 
 with chalk on a board or plank, sometimes only 
 making a few signs of what he intended to write. 
 When he got paper, he would copy them, alwaijs 
 bringing them to me and reading them. He would 
 ask my opinion of what he had read,'^ wliich was 
 his own composition, and for which he desired 
 some appreciative listener and judge. Thus she 
 encouraged him to train himself in the written 
 word, nursing his genius in that lowly cabin with 
 love and recognition. This was altogether his 
 best school, opening in his home when he was 
 eleven years old and closing at twenty-one. Thus 
 the supreme fact of Abraham Lincoln's youth was 
 his apprenticeship to his step-mother, lasting a 
 good ten years, during the formative and mentally 
 acquisitive time of life. Here he began to win 
 through practice that literary sense which speaks 
 
60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 directly to the hearts of the people, and in which 
 he stands without a rival. For we can now see 
 that the words of Abraham Lincoln are destined 
 to be read and pored over far more than those of 
 any other American writer by the people, not 
 merely of his own land, but of all lands. He has 
 voiced the Folk-Soul at the most critical turn of 
 its evolution hitherto recorded in History. Ad- 
 dressing his early words to that responsive step- 
 mother in that otherwise unappreciative environ- 
 ment, and winning her applause, he is getting ready 
 to speak to his vaster audience, that of his Nation, 
 and finally that of the Ages. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Printed Page. 
 
 Lincoln is credited with saying that "he had 
 read through every book he had ever heard of in 
 that country for a circuit of fifty miles." This 
 innocent boast, even if exaggerated, expresses a 
 fact which the biographic interpreter of Lincoln's 
 career must throw into a strong and steady light. 
 It illustrates strikingly his eagerness to get hold 
 of the wisdom of the past stored in and handed 
 down to him by the Printed Page. Many other 
 anecdotes corroborative of the same over-mastering 
 impulse are recorded concerning him, and set forth 
 his omnivorous appetite for reading books. 
 
 Few youths have ever shown so strong an innate 
 
THE PRINTED PAGE. 61 
 
 delight in devouring print, especially under such 
 adverse circumstances, as did Lincoln. Books 
 were his University in which he took a unique 
 course, truly universal. Very different is the 
 satiety which at present is apt to come upon the 
 boy struggling distractedly through the deluge of 
 typography, which pours upon him from every 
 direction. But Lincoln had to hunt for the book 
 he read, and often he made considerable journeys 
 to borrow it for a brief time. It was a real treasure 
 when he obtained it, and a privilege to peruse its 
 contents. He came to have a love for the Printed 
 Page, and was drawn to it irresistibly as the source 
 of light to his career, as the very beacon of the 
 past illuminating his way to the future. 
 
 He pursued his bent obstinately in spite of a good 
 deal of jealousy and disparagement manifested in 
 his own household. Said a relative, Dennis Hanks, 
 to an interviewer: " Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy 
 man. He was always reading, scribbling, cipher- 
 ing, writing poetry and the like," which Dennis 
 deemed rank idleness. Always intellectually active 
 the youth was, in spite of sneers at his laziness 
 from everybody except his step-mother. Quite a 
 little course of study he was taking, all to himself, 
 blazing his way as he went along. Bodily activity 
 alone was appreciated in that community of 
 farmers, who knew muscular work, but not mental. 
 
 Not much oral instruction did he ever receive, 
 his knowledge came not through the ear but 
 
62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 through the sight absorbing the Printed Page. 
 Thus he would become his own teacher and drill 
 himself in what was for him the best. Here 
 again we may listen to the report of the observant 
 step-mother: "When he came across a passage 
 that struck him, he would write it down on boards 
 if he had no paper, and keeplt there till he did get 
 paper. Then he would re-write it, look at it, 
 repeat it. He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap- 
 book, in which he put down all things and thus 
 preserved them " for review, comparison, repeti- 
 tion. Thus the Printed Page is appointed Abra- 
 ham Lincoln's Professor, very capable indeed, 
 being able to impart to him the best thoughts of 
 the best men of all ages. Let us also note the 
 educative value involved in this process. Not 
 simply ear-minded, but also eye-minded he be- 
 comes, and from the immediate transitory voice 
 of an instructor he rises to the lasting word of the 
 Printed Page, which act is both a great training 
 in itself and gives the chief means for all other 
 training. Plainly Lincoln is making his own 
 University and is Head Tutor to himself. It is 
 well known that many persons who can read print, 
 find difficulty in getting its meaning till this be 
 voiced to them. They are not truly masters of 
 the Printed Page, and cannot use it fully. In 
 contrast with such persons stands Lincoln who 
 seemed to have a native lordship over the Printed 
 Page, and an inborn love of it, easily making 
 
THE PRINTED PAGE. 63 
 
 it unlock its treasures to him already in the back- 
 woods. 
 
 This matter once understood, it can be no sur- 
 prise to learn that his appetite for reading books 
 was insatiable. Only thus could he break out of 
 his narrow life at Little Pidgeon Creek, and com- 
 mune with the great world everywhere and at all 
 times. Unanimous is the recorded opinion of all 
 who knew him that he was a genius limit-trans- 
 cending, and only through the Printed Page could 
 he reach beyond his cooped-up environment. Let 
 us copy a homely but very striking picture of him 
 while engaged in this phase of his career, originally 
 drawn by a fellow-laborer: "When Abe and I 
 returned to the house from work, he would go to 
 the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn bread, sit 
 down, take a book, cock up his legs as high as his 
 head and read. We grubbed, plowed, mowed and 
 worked together bare-footed in the field," This 
 attitude of repose somewhat modified remained 
 his favorite one for reading and meditation during 
 life. It was the image of concentration, his long 
 limbs were compelled to send their blood brain- 
 ward, and his body made no demands, being fully 
 relaxed into a total lack of all dignity. 
 
 Unceasing was his effort to win the treasures of 
 the Printed Page: "Whenever Abe had a chance 
 in the field while at work or at the house, he would 
 stop and read". So says one witness of these early 
 days; another declares: "He lost no time at home, 
 
64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 and when he was not at work he was at his books", 
 of which he seems to have always commanded a 
 small supply. The boy could not stop : "He kept 
 up his studies on Sunday and carried his books 
 with him to work so that he might read when he 
 rested from labor". Going home from his task in 
 the field, he would sit on the rail fence, draw out 
 his book and begin to read, not being able to wait 
 till he reached the house, or thinking, if he did, 
 that old Tom would have a scene with him about 
 book-learning. In that position he was once ob- 
 served by two men passing, when one of them ut- 
 tered the prophecy of his future greatness, which 
 has been more than verified, as he sat "on the top 
 of an old-fashioned stake and rider worm fence" 
 utterly oblivious of their approach through absorp- 
 tion in a book. 
 
 Old-time country people, however, deemed this 
 mental industry of Lincoln to be a makeshift for 
 getting rid of work. That was the theory of the 
 father who, however, was strongly counteracted by 
 the opposite view of the step-mother. Young Lin- 
 coln was unfavorably contrasted with his sister 
 Sally: "She was more industrious than Abe", re- 
 ports one of their common acquaintances. But 
 the richest statement comes from a neighboring 
 farmer: "He worked for me but was always read- 
 ing and thinking. / used to get mad at him for it. 
 I say he was awfully lazy. He would laugh and 
 talk, crack jokes and tell stories all the time; didn't 
 
THE PRINTED PAGE. 65 
 
 love work half as much as his pay". So speaks 
 through the reporter old John Romine, the surly 
 agriculturist, in whose words we still feel the heat 
 of many a scolding and squabble through the long 
 intervening years. But he probably never tackled 
 physically young Abraham, an athlete whose 
 strength was bruited about the neighborhood as 
 equal to that of three ordinary men. There is no 
 doubt, too, that Lincoln did a fair day's task, 
 being able to strike a heavier blow with a maul, 
 and make an axe bite deeper into a tree than any 
 known man of that region. But the surly agricul- 
 turist, with an eye to tliiift, wanted him to do 
 more, and to stop his "reading and thinking" — and 
 so sends this amusing growl down time. 
 
 This intense longing to probe the secrets of the 
 Printed Page as the very tahsman of his destiny 
 may well have begun decidedly in his tenth year 
 when he received his second great lift in educa- 
 tion at the school of Master Dorsey. All this was 
 confirmed and intensified with Master Crawford, 
 when he was fourteen years old and more ready to 
 receive everything that his teacher had to give. 
 He was the best speller in that country, and at the 
 spelling matches, whichever side chose him, was 
 deemed to have won already without any further 
 contest. He also learned to write a good hand, 
 characteristically clear and definite. Both his 
 spelling and his chirography, acquired at this time, 
 
66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST 
 
 he retained to the last, familiar now to millions 
 and destined to be so to milliards. 
 
 The pedagogue will not fail to be interested in 
 the training which comes from spelling as the 
 analysis of the word into its sounds, each of which 
 has its visible sign. The teacher with spelling- 
 book in hand voices the seen word which the 
 speller transmutes into its elements, letter by let- 
 ter, and syllable by syllable. Lincoln is said to 
 have had the habit of reading aloud to himself. 
 He wished to hear the thought voiced as well as 
 to see it printed — to hear it as well as to eye it. 
 Primordially man is a listener rather than a reader. 
 Lincoln, like many people, was both. Spelling is 
 the connective between the spoken word and the 
 printed word, and trains the mind to pass easily 
 from one to the other. Lincoln's mastery of the 
 Printed Page was furthered by his early excellence 
 in spelling. 
 
 Another tendency in Lincoln, and one very im- 
 portant for his education, was that of reproducing 
 in writing whatever took hold of him strongly. 
 He made copious extracts in his copy-book and 
 repeated the passages. He carried with him a 
 piece of chalk for writing and ciphering on any flat 
 surface he might come upon, such as boards and 
 hewn logs. The cabin home was covered with his 
 scribblings. Nor did he stop with the departure of 
 sunlight. A favorite position in the evening was 
 to lie on his stomach before the fireplace and with 
 
THE PRINTED PAGE. 67 
 
 a piece of charcoal to cipher upon a broad wooden 
 shovel. When dawn would begin to peep through 
 a chink in his loft, he would get up and start to 
 reading, copying, or perchance composing. These 
 attempts at composition should be noted, espe- 
 cially as they were voluntary, and indicated his 
 spontaneous bent toward a literary utterance. He 
 wrote little essays, made chronicles upon local 
 events in scriptural style and scribbled doggrels. 
 He imitated all fonns of expression within his 
 reach : he would thump the table and preach a 
 sermon from a text in the Bible after the manner 
 of the preacher ; he would make a political speech, 
 and actually wrote an article on temperance which 
 was published in a newspaper. Notable is it that 
 as a boy he composed an essay on his life-long 
 theme, the Union and Constitution, of which a 
 local lawyer, not otherwise famous, declared: 
 "The world can't beat it", and procured its pub- 
 hcation. 
 
 Thus our young Abraham has beheld himself 
 reproducing the marvelous Printed Page — not only 
 reading it when made by others but actually 
 making it himself. So far did his mastery of it 
 proceed there in the backwoods, that he began to 
 be creative of it by his own native power, and 
 doubtless to glimpse its place in his training. 
 
68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Folk-Books. 
 
 Having made real to ourselves the youthful Lin- 
 coln's wonderful mastery of the Printed Page, we 
 next inquire about what he read. What were the 
 books and their general character which exerted a 
 formative power upon him at this period? The 
 answer may be given: chiefly the Folk-Books of the 
 race. These nourished his growing spirit, and also 
 gave him a form of expression for reaching the 
 Folk-Soul, wherein lay his supreme vocation as 
 well as his unique power. 
 
 Lincoln's library was largely borrowed. It 
 would seem that he never owned such a common 
 text-book as an arithmetic; at least his step- 
 mother declared in response to an inquirer that 
 she could not recollect that he ever possessed one 
 in his own right. But every man, woman and 
 child in the neighborhood would loan a book to 
 the kind-hearted, aspiring boy whom all loved 
 and admired. Still Lincoln 'must at last have 
 gotten together a few books of his own. There is 
 a story about his becoming the owner of Weems' 
 Ldfe of Washington. He had borrowed it from a 
 churlish old neighbor, afterward satirized as Blue 
 Nose Crawford, and was reading it when one night 
 a storm came up and the rain beat in through a 
 chink of the Lincoln cabin, damaging the covers of 
 the book. The owner put his loss at seventy-five 
 
FOLK-BOOKS. 69 
 
 cents, which Lincoln, having no money, had to 
 pay him in work, being required to pull fodder 
 three days for the costs. We may suppose that 
 he then owned the book (though our record does 
 not expressly say so), and perused it many times 
 with boyish delight in its hero. Those three fod- 
 der-pulling days turned out the most profitable of 
 Lincoln's youth, giving him the printed portraiture 
 which shaped for him his American ideal. This 
 book had been adopted by the People of that time 
 as their Life of Washington, veritably a Folk- 
 Book, with its commingling of fact, fable, anec- 
 dote, overcanopied with providential guidance and 
 preservation of the Hero. Already we have alluded 
 to it as an influence in Lincoln's career (see Intro- 
 duction), who noticed it upon a public occasion. 
 Also we may say that this book helped to make 
 him acquainted with the American Folk-Soul, of 
 which he was then an unconscious atom, but of 
 which he was to become the guide and the utter- 
 ance in the sorest trial it ever yet has undergone. 
 As all Peoples have regarded their heroes as semi- 
 divine, so Lincoln took the popular view of Wash- 
 ington, looking back to him as a kind of demi-god. 
 And when his own great world-historical task 
 dawned upon him, he could not help coupling it 
 with that of Washington, which had been so im- 
 pressively set forth to his youthful imagination in 
 the Folk-Book of Pastor Weems. We observe that 
 most of our biographers of Lincoln speak very 
 
70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 apologetically of this Folk-Book and of Lincoln's 
 devotion to it; but we cannot help saying to them 
 and to ourself: Make, scribbler, your life of 
 Lincoln equal in influence to the work of Weems, 
 and, having the Hero, write a new American Folk- 
 Book, if you can. 
 
 Another text-book in this School of the People, 
 which he read often and committed to memory, 
 apparently owning a copy, was JEsop's Fables. The 
 animal world in the midst of which the youth was 
 placed, both tame and wild products of farm and 
 forest, was made to convey lessons of homely wis- 
 dom and morality to the popular mind. The old 
 Greek fabulist had the power of making the beasts 
 of the field and the birds of the air talk to one an- 
 other and to man, with whom they were so closely 
 associated. ^Esop also spoke to the Folk-Soul of 
 his own time and of all time, and we can see Lincoln 
 listening to him and catching his trick, his manner, 
 and appropriating it for coming use in addressing 
 that same Folk-Soul. 
 
 Here we cite a striking instance of Lincoln play- 
 ing JEsop to Grant, who has just been appointed 
 Lieutenant-General, and is not to repeat M'Clellan 
 in command of the army of the Potomac. The 
 President began fabling: "At one time there was 
 a great war among the animals, and one side had 
 great difficulty in getting a commander who had 
 sufficient confidence in himself. Finally they found 
 a monkey by the name of Jocko, who said that he 
 
FOLK-BOOKS. 71 
 
 thought he could command their army if his tail 
 could be made a little longer. So they got more 
 tail and spliced it on to his caudal appendage. He 
 looked at it admiringly and then thought he ought 
 to have a little more still. This was added, and 
 again he called for more. The splicing process was 
 repeated many times, until they had coiled Jocko's 
 tail all around the room, filling all the space. Still 
 he called for more tail, and, there being no other 
 place to coil it, they began wrapping it around his 
 shoulders. He continued calling for more, and they 
 kept on winding the additional tail about him until 
 its weight broke him down." 
 
 Grant saw the point, so he declares, and left the 
 president with the determination not to play the 
 part of tail-encumbered Jocko. (The foregoing 
 fable has been declared to be an adaptation from 
 Orpheus C. Kerr.) 
 
 Another of Lincoln's Folk-Books was Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim's Progress, which opened to him a new 
 literary form highly popular and cognate with the 
 fable, that of the allegory. There is no doubt that 
 its content also appealed to him powerfully, since it 
 reflects the conflicts of the inner life which was so 
 much cultivated by Lincoln's early Quaker ances- 
 tiy. He showed through his whole career a per- 
 vasive moral consciousness, which, even if native to 
 the man, was nourished by reading this old Puritan 
 Folk-Book, truly a teacher of the people. Lincoln 
 was by nature a symbolist in the wide sense of the 
 
72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 term, uttering himself in a variety of symbols — 
 metaphor, anecdote, story, fable, allegory — all of 
 which he used more or less dexterously, with an in- 
 ner purpose or meaning in the outer form. This 
 is what he meant by requiring a nub (as he called it) 
 to a story, which was not to be merely a running 
 narrative, idealess, pointless, nubless. Bunyan's 
 allegory is very transparent, and its charm is that 
 it runs double so easily that the humblest mind 
 gets the nub to it from the start. 
 
 Another Anglo-Saxon Folk-Book of a very dif- 
 ferent strain from that of Bunyan, fell into young 
 Lincoln's hands, the well-known Robinson Crusoe. 
 Here is the story of the adventurous pioneer, who 
 is cast on a solitary island, and has to draw out of 
 himself and re-make his whole social and institu- 
 tional world. To be sure the hero brings it along 
 within himself, but he has to get it outside. In the 
 very process of such a life Lincoln was placed on 
 the frontier of Indiana, to be sure not wholly alone. 
 Still he could not help seeing Robinson Crusoe en- 
 acted before him, while he was himself a partici- 
 pant. The book made him conscious of an import- 
 ant phase of his existence there in the woods, and 
 thus educated him to know his environment and 
 himself in it. Crusoe is a glorification of the self- 
 reliant, self-sufficing individual, and hence ap- 
 peals mightily to the American backwoodsman as 
 self-helper and institution-maker. Interesting is 
 the fact that some educators have introduced it 
 
FOLK-BOOKS. 73 
 
 into the schools of the people, making it a center or 
 core of correlation for other branches. Well, 
 Lincoln had it first in his school, in which he was 
 both the teacher and the taught. 
 
 In this list of Folk-Books accessible to young 
 Lincoln we should by no means omit the Bible 
 which is in itself a whole literature endowed with 
 a unique power over the people. We know — for 
 it still exists — ^that in Thomas Lincoln's cabin was 
 a copy of this greatest of Folk-Books performing 
 its peculiar function to the English race, especially 
 to the hardy pioneers of this race in America, who 
 were through it baptized and re-baptized in the 
 God-consciousness of that old Semitic stock. 
 Abraham Lincoln's own given-name was taken 
 from one of its chief worthies, also a pioneer, and 
 had descended through a line of ancestral Lincolns. 
 His grandfather Abraham had two brothers called 
 Igaac and Jacob, which hints the strong Hebraiz- 
 ing spirit started by the Reformation and continued 
 by the Puritans in Old and New England whence it 
 migrated with the emigrants to the backwoods. 
 
 There has been no little controversy over the re- 
 ligious views of Lincoln. It can not be gainsaid 
 that scriptural allusions and citations run through 
 his entire works. The Christian dogmas seem not 
 to have taken hold of him so strongly, but the God- 
 consciousness as set forth in the Old Testament was 
 never wanting to him, and its power over him in- 
 creased to the end of his life. It reaches its cul- 
 
74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 mination in his last Inaugural spoken a few weeks 
 before his death. The strong Hebrew tinge in this 
 document, and the citations from' scripture con- 
 tained in it, carry us back to. his youth when that 
 Folk-Book must have been the chief element of his 
 culture, — lisped first at his mother's knee and then 
 rehearsed in his Indiana home. The main theme 
 of his last Inaugural is God and God's justice 
 uttered with the rapture and rhythm of the old 
 Hebrew prophet: "Yet if God wills that it (the 
 war) continue until all the wealth piled by the 
 bondman's two hundred and fifty years of un- 
 requited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of 
 blood drawn with lash shall be paid by another 
 drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
 years ago, so still it must be said: ' The judgments 
 of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' " 
 
 Thus Lincoln's youthful reading lay in the line 
 of the great Folk-Books which have been hallowed 
 by the people for ages. This was the early litera- 
 ture which trained his way of thinking and expres- 
 sion, and also stored his mind with no small amount 
 of popular lore. We may call it the literature of 
 the Folk-Soul in which Lincoln so deeply partici- 
 pated, and through which he reached far back into 
 the spiritual unfolding of the race. For we see on 
 this list a Semitic, a Greek, an Anglo-Saxon, and 
 specially a Puritan Folk-Book — a kind of summa- 
 tion of the popular culture of the Occidental world. 
 
 It would seem that Lincoln had his living ex- 
 
FOLK-BOOKS 75 
 
 emplar and instructor in the art of story-telling. 
 Tradition has handed down the name of John 
 Baldwin, the Village Blacksmith of Gentryville, 
 as the champion story-teller of the settlement. 
 Little Abe would "slip off to his shop and sit and 
 listen to him by the hour/' with a childish delight 
 in the art which touched his deepest chord, and 
 which he would then practice on others, till finally 
 he began to enter the lists with the blacksmith 
 himself. From the stock then laid up he is said to 
 have drawn in the Presidential Mansion, so that 
 "statesmen, plenipotentiaries, and famous com- 
 manders have many times made the White House 
 ring with their laughter over the quaint tales of 
 John Baldwin, the blacksmith." (Lamon.) 
 
 But it was not Lincoln's ambition nor his des- 
 tiny to make a Folk-Book. Anecdote, story, joke- 
 cracking and yarn-spinning were but a means of 
 bringing a great principle and a great duty home 
 to the people, that they fulfil their world-historical 
 purpose. Of course the youth Lincoln was uncon- 
 scious of any such motive, as were also the people 
 of that time. Still it lay implicitly in the Folk- 
 Soul of the West already, as we have seen in tracing 
 the secret impelling cause of their migration from 
 South to North, from the Slave-State to the Free- 
 State, in which our Abraham Lincoln profoundly 
 participated. 
 
 What, then, has Lincoln to say ultimately to 
 his people? He must speak what lies deepest in 
 
76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 him, and that is institutional. The American 
 State or the Federal Union is getting ready for a 
 great change in its polity; it is under training to 
 pass from its dualism of being and producing two 
 antagonistic kinds of States, slave and free, to the 
 unity of being and producing one kind only, and 
 that the Free State. In this mighty institutional 
 transition lurks the very soul of Lincoln, who is 
 destined to be its supreme representative and 
 protagonist. For such a task he is also to be trained 
 even in these youthful days on Little Pidgcon 
 Creek, and the strange fact comes to light that a 
 book drops down upon him, as it were, just about 
 when he is mature enough to begin to understand 
 its theme. This book we may call a Book of 
 Institutions, by way of contrast with the before- 
 mentioned Folk-Books, these being after all but 
 an instrument of utterance for Lincoln's institu- 
 tional spirit, which is the deepest fact of him, of his 
 people, and of his age. This fact with its cor- 
 responding Printed Page, is what must next be 
 considered. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Book of Institutions. 
 
 So now, in the course of Lincoln's youthful 
 apprenticeship, another book falls into his hands, 
 very different from the Folk-Books just set forth. 
 He is to learn the political institutions of his coun- 
 try and to master their expression, which is not 
 
THE BOOK OF INSTITUTIONS, 77 
 
 symbolic but legal. The people of the United States 
 have to understand the law, and in a degree to talk 
 its speech, for they are the lawmakers who are to 
 govern themselves through their institutions. 
 This is one of the most unique things of the coun- 
 try. The American Folk-Soul is and has to be 
 legal-minded, for it must vote on legislation and 
 even may have to remake its Constitution, which 
 it once made. This legal-mindedness Lincoln 
 must also begin to acquire in his early years, if he 
 is going to participate fully in the popular conscious- 
 ness. In order to bring this new strain of the 
 American Folk-Soul home to himself through the 
 Printed Page, he borrowed from friendly Mr. 
 David Turnham of Gentryville, a book which prob- 
 ably gave him his bent in life, and started him 
 toward his true vocation. So important is this 
 book for marking an epochal turn in Lincoln, that 
 we shall transcribe its title-page entire, which is 
 also a kind of table of contents. 
 
 "T/ie Revised Laws of Indiana, adopted and en- 
 acted by the General Assembly at their eighth 
 session. To which are prefixed the Declaration 
 of Independence, the Constitution of the United 
 States, the Constitution of the State of Indiana, 
 and sundry other documents connected with the 
 Political History of the Territory and State of In- 
 diana. Arranged and published by authority of 
 the General Assembly, Corydon, 1824." Besides 
 the documents mentioned the book contained the 
 
78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 Act of Virginia in 1783 conveying the North-West- 
 ern Territory to the United States,, and the Ordi- 
 nance of 1787 prohibiting slavery in the same Ter- 
 ritory. 
 
 Rightly this may be called an Institutional Folk- 
 Book of the North-West, which every State might 
 make and print, but which no people ever before 
 had or could have, in the World's History. Lincoln 
 in his eighteenth year gets it, starts to studying it 
 and discussing it with intelligent friends. He 
 learns the distinctive character of his Nation from 
 this peculiar Folk-Book, very different from those 
 European Folk-Books which have been already 
 considered, and which have certainly trained him 
 to popular utterance and have given him many a 
 help for attaining his supreme end. Still they are 
 not that end nor do they have it as their content. 
 
 We have thus seen Lincoln's preparation for 
 getting acquainted with the Folk-Soul and for 
 talking its language. Already he has tested him- 
 self by little addresses to crowds with story, anec- 
 dote, humor; he has likewise made some brief 
 stump-speeches, in these days. A newspajoer 
 from Louisville was furnished to him by a friend, 
 and he devoured that, which brought him into di- 
 rect connection with the political questions of the 
 day. In 1828 he was an ardent politician at an 
 election of Andrew Jackson. A history of the 
 United States is also set down as one of the books 
 of his little library. 
 
THE BOOK OF INSTITUTIONS. 79 
 
 In 1820 occurred the great struggle on the ques- 
 tion of slavery going into the territories. The 
 whole country was in commotion, the Union was 
 threatened. The agitation was specially strong in 
 the West, which was most deeply concerned. Lin- 
 coln, though a boy of only eleven, must have heard 
 a good deal of it, and in his young brooding soul 
 have pondered the two sides. Certainly he then 
 became fully aware of the great issue between slav- 
 ery and anti-slavery, which was likewise to be the 
 great issue of his life. The Missouri Compromise 
 settled the excitement for many years, but it broke 
 out again furiously during Lincoln's mature age, 
 and gave him the key-note of his career. But the 
 conflict between the expansion and the restriction 
 of slavery he must have heard already in 1820, 
 and have obtained some dim premonition of what 
 it all meant. In Lincoln's part of Indiana, the 
 South-Western, near Kentucky, there were some 
 slaves at this time, (the census of 1820 gives 192 
 slaves for the whole State). Thus the question 
 was a practical one which everybody discussed and 
 took sides upon. The Indiana Supreme Court in 
 1821 decided against slavery and ended the ques- 
 tion. We can see that Lincoln's boyhood was 
 passed in the presence of much disputation about 
 the legal and moral aspects of slavery. Especially 
 was the spread of it to new territory a much-mooted 
 problem. 
 
 When some eight years later Lincoln got hold 
 
80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 of the before-mentioned Revised Laws of Indiana 
 with the precious collection of national documents 
 therein contained, he was able to take a new and 
 ^deeper grasp of the great coming task of his people 
 and of himself. He was drinking at the sources. 
 Let us briefly summarize these documents, and 
 their main contents. (1) The Declaration of 
 Independence — the first great assertion of national- 
 ity on the part of the American People together 
 with the grounds of separation from the mother 
 country; (2) The Constitution of the United 
 States — the organization of the Union, the greatest 
 political document the world has yet seen ; (3) The 
 Constitution of the State of Indiana — the. organ- 
 ization of the single State of the Union, as de- 
 rived, wherein the Federal Constitution is seen to 
 be State-producing; (4) The Ordinance of 1787, con- 
 taining the clause prohibiting slavery in the North- 
 Western Territory, ever memorable for its conse- 
 quences, as wei] as for the use that Lincoln made of 
 it in his speeches. The same clause has in it the 
 first Fugitive Slave law, which grants the right of 
 reclaiming fugitives "from whom labor or service 
 is lawfully claimed in any one of the original 
 States" — which has also a great history before it, 
 as well as much to do with Lincoln'ac future-; (5) 
 The statutes of Indiana or the laws made by the 
 Legislature under the Constitution of the State — 
 in studying which he will begin to- grow into his 
 vocation of lawyer nnd its peculiar terminology. 
 
THE BOOK OF INSTITUTIONS. 81 
 
 In that Book of Institutions was also con- 
 tained Virginia's cession in 1783 of the North- 
 Western territories, which were to be formed into 
 new States, one being Indiana. In this act of 
 cession lay much — nothing less than that the 
 Union is to be State-producing. The Constitution 
 was not yet in existence, and the Federal Union 
 was not yet formed; still this deepest spirit of it 
 was at work, being chiefly derived from Virginia, 
 who, however, transfers her State-producing power 
 to the General Government, then the Confedera- 
 tion. Lincoln had personally the same derivation, 
 and had also its political instinct which made him 
 completely one and harmonious with the derived 
 Free-States of the North-West. 
 
 It has been transmitted by the testimony of 
 several people that Lincoln read this new Institu- 
 tional Folk-Book with great zest and industry, 
 and was in the habit of repeating and explaining its 
 contents. It must have taken him a good while to 
 master it, for it was clothed in wholly different 
 speech from the other Folk-Books which he knew. 
 He had to master its legal nomenclature, and 
 doubtless put many a question about it to its 
 owner, Mr. Davitl Turnham of Gentiyville. The 
 hardest book he had ever read, but he persists, for 
 that is one of his earliest and strongest traits. 
 "When a mere child, I used to get irritated," says 
 he, "when anybody talked to me in a way I could 
 not understand. I do not think I ever got angry 
 
82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 at anything else in my life." He would chafe in 
 wrath at the limit of ignorance, and proceed to 
 surmomit it like the stormer of a fortress. We may 
 well suppose that this new book called forth many 
 a fit of noble indignation. Mighty was the provo- 
 cation of what he did not know, and the seemingly 
 impossible charmed and enraged him, the limit- 
 transcending youth. 
 
 It is manifest that Lincoln was led by this law- 
 book into a new world. He passed from the fable, 
 parable, allegory, the realm of poetry and the sym- 
 bol, into the dry abstractions of the law; he was 
 appropriating the garment of Justice whose lan- 
 guage his task was to learn. Doubtless he felt or 
 soon began to feel the life beneath all these colorless 
 forms — a training in pure intelligence — though 
 plumped down into it seemingly by chance, all of 
 a sudden. It gave direction to his life, to his career, 
 not immediately but after some years. Already 
 at that time he expressed to a lawyer from whom 
 he borrowed legal works to read at home, a desire 
 to study law, but said that his parents were so 
 poor that they must have the fruits of his labor. 
 This early aspiration will be fulfilled when his dis- 
 cipline for such a task is completed. 
 
 There is little doubt that Lincoln during this 
 period begins to get a glimpse of what he is to be at 
 some time in the future. Already he makes 
 political speeches to the boys. He wrote a compo- 
 sition on the American Government, "calling at- 
 
THE BOOK OF INSTITUTIONS. 83 
 
 tention to the necessity of preserving the Union and 
 perpetuating the Constitution," a strange early- 
 prelude of his latest deed. He attended lawsuits 
 before the local justice-of-the-peace, and often 
 walked to the county-seat to see the larger trials 
 in the court-room, and k) hear the lawyer ad- 
 dress with eloquence the gentlemen of the jury. 
 So he beholds what he is to be hereafter, and pre- 
 enacts his own vocation in a small way. 
 
 Out of the Institutional Folk-Book he could and 
 probably did acquire a complete view of the system 
 of the American government, which is there given 
 in original documents. How the Union works, 
 how the Single-State works, its relation to and 
 origin from the Union, as well as its own sphere of 
 government, may be drawn from the compilation. 
 The youth gets acquainted with the political insti- 
 tutions of his country in the original forms which 
 create them and keep them going, of course through 
 the people. Already he has had some experience 
 of them, he knows of elections, stump-speaking and 
 of laws. In 1828 when he was nineteen years old, 
 there was a Presidential campaign and much dis- 
 cussion, in which constitutional questions were 
 handled. Thus Lincoln could see those bare ideal 
 forms of law take on life and action, exemplifying 
 what he had learned. 
 
 Moreover he sees by the campaign and its 
 speeches that it is just these abstract principles 
 which must be explained to the People, who cannot 
 
84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST, 
 
 SO readily grasp such intricate legal formulas. 
 Here comes-in the use of what he has elsewhere 
 learned — anecdote, fable, parable, humorous illus- 
 tration. The institutional world must be brought 
 home to the Folk-Soul that the latter perpetually 
 recreate and keep alive and active the former, and 
 thus preserve freedom. The People must indeed be 
 governed, but that government must be its own 
 through Law and Constitution, both of which it 
 ultimately makes. Now Lincoln was in every 
 fibre of his being an institutional man, which trait 
 may well have started to grow into his character 
 consciously with the study of the foregoing Book 
 of Institutions. 
 
 The early germinal Lincoln has been well out- 
 lined by one of his boyish comrades: "When he 
 (Lincoln) appeared in company, the boys would 
 cluster around him to hear him talk. Lincoln was 
 figurative in his speech, talks and conversation. 
 He argued much from analogy and explained 
 things hard for us to understand by stories, tales, 
 figures. He would almost always point his lesson 
 or idea by some story that was plain and near 
 us, that we might instantly see the force and 
 bearing of what he said." Thus we behold Lincoln 
 as a boy explaining the difficult idea which he had 
 gained, to his little group of people, truly the 
 embryo of the great and greatest Lincoln when he 
 reached the height of interpreting and thereby 
 mediating the AVorld-Spirit with the Folk-Soul. 
 
THE BOOK OF INSTITUTIONS. 85 
 
 Of this supreme function of his we shall have much 
 to say hereafter; at present we are to watch his 
 preparation. In explaining dry points of law to 
 his comrades, he was on the way to address the 
 gentlemen of the jury, over whom his power in a 
 ,good cause became irresistible. Still further, he 
 had to make clear to the greatest of all juries, the 
 people, the nature of the Dred Scott decision, and 
 to win a favorable judgment — wherein he had a 
 unique success. 
 
 Lincoln has corroborated this character of him- 
 self in a reminiscence of his boyhood. The mighty 
 impulse we see driving him ; he must know and then 
 be able to tell what he knows— two very different 
 things by the way, and often wholly disjoined. 
 He declares that "I could not sleep, when I got 
 on hunt for an idea, until I had caught it," that is, 
 until he had made it his own in knowledge. 
 But that is not all: "When I thought I had got it 
 I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and 
 over," — this repetition is noteworthy, being pro- 
 foundly educational. And still further, his dis- 
 satisfaction continued "until I had put it in lan- 
 guage plain enough for any boy I knew to compre- 
 hend." He must impart what he has won by 
 thought, bringing it down to the level of his audi- 
 ence. Moreover "this was a kind of passion with 
 me," as a boy "and it has stuck by me" as a 
 man, "for I am never easy now when I am hand- 
 ling a thought till I have bounded it" on all .silc?, 
 
86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 thus making it definite and clear not only to my- 
 self, but also to my audience. 
 
 Ardently, passionately, Lincoln we behold in his 
 youth educating himself for his supreme future 
 vocation. In this self-education we should note 
 the three things upon which he puts stress: Ac- 
 quisition of the idea, its expression, and then its 
 impartation. He is not simply to get and form- 
 ulate it for himself, but he is specially to study 
 how he can convey it to others, in general to the 
 people. 
 
 Thus young Lincoln already at Gentryville 
 begins to be dipped into the deepest spiritual cur- 
 rent of his coming life through this Book of Insti- 
 tutions. He starts to learn "the What" of his 
 message, and even of his destin}^ ; we may conceive 
 that "the How" he is likewise appropriating 
 through the popular Folk-Books. But, as before 
 stated, it is not his call to produce a new Folk- 
 Book, but to employ the old ones for his and their 
 supreme institutional purpose, which is really 
 what created them far back in the ages ever toil- 
 ing to realize and to express some idea. So Lincoln 
 uses them or their literary art to express his idea 
 and that of his age to the people in their own native 
 soul-form and dialect. 
 
 It is clear, then, that Lincoln is taking an exten- 
 sive and profound course of instruction in that best 
 of all American schools — the High School of the 
 People. What he is learning there, we have sought 
 
ANOTHER MIGRATION. 87 
 
 to bring to the surface, till we see the general sweep 
 of the curriculum, even if many details lie buried 
 in oblivion. A unique character he has already 
 shown under his circumstances. All the boys of 
 Gentry ville, of Indiana, and of the entire West 
 had the same opportunity to go to school to the 
 Folk-Soul, and to receive her deepest lessons. But 
 Lincoln was the single youth who saw and seized 
 fully the chance — that is just his mystery, his 
 genius. Born of the humblest parentage, reared in 
 obscurity and poverty, why just he? The same 
 question comes up concerning every Great Man 
 who stands at the turning-point of an epoch, and 
 changes, or seems *to change, the course of History. 
 Having thus noticed Lincoln's High School and 
 the main text-books used by him in its training, we 
 are brought to a fresh transition in liis life; we may 
 deem it a change of schools from Indiana to 
 Illinois — he having still to serve his Apprenticeship 
 to the Folk-Soul, though in a wholly new way and 
 with new results. 
 
 X. 
 
 Another Migration. 
 
 "Up and be off, farther westward!" So we may 
 conceive the old Aryan ancestor to have said count- 
 less generations agone somewhere in the Asiatic 
 Highland ere he started on his long Occidental 
 journey round the globe, not yet accomplished by 
 his descendants who have been repeating his act 
 
88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 ever since. One of these descendants, Thomas 
 Lincoln, feels this primeval migratory instinct of 
 his race and one day resolves to quit Indiana 
 and move toward the Mississippi. Various grounds 
 of dissatisfaction have been given for this change 
 of abode, which grounds are to be allowed their due 
 weight; but the deepest ground was that roving 
 Tom Lincoln felt that he had already been too long 
 confined to one spot and must move on again, this 
 time to another Free-State, Illinois. 
 
 It is to be noted that this removal was North- 
 westward, passing still further from a Slave-State, 
 and apparently following the instinct of the main 
 American migration of the time. The center of 
 population was moving Northward from its former 
 Southern sweep, and also Westward from the 
 Old Thirteen of the Atlantic coast. Our Abraham 
 Lincoln, having just attained his majority is to go 
 through the ancestral experience of his family, 
 which has been on the wing across the continent, 
 though with numerous deflections, ever since fore- 
 father Samuel Lincoln set out from Norwich, 
 England, quite two centuries before this last de- 
 parture. And it may be added that this migra- 
 tory line of the Lincolns is but a single strand of a 
 vast human flight in the same general direction, 
 whereof something has been already said. Young 
 Lincoln, therefore, becomes an unconscious par- 
 ticipant in a far-reaching racial movement through 
 his present experience. 
 
ANOTHER MIGRATION. 89 
 
 Fourteen years the family of Thomas Lincohi 
 had resided in Indiana under pinched conditions. 
 The children had grown up, there seemed small 
 prospect for them in that part of the country, whose 
 soil turned out scanty and infertile, and whose 
 climate was unhealthy. The conclusion was reached 
 that there must be a going forth to a richer land, 
 of which they had heard in Illinois through a rela- 
 tive who lived in the valley of the Sangamon. A 
 cedar which is said to be still standing on the site 
 of Lincoln's home, was planted at his departure in 
 his honor by his old friends. Once afterward, in 
 the campaign of 1844, he revisited it, hunted up aU 
 the old spots of sacred memory, and even broke out 
 into verse — which was a habit of his in his early 
 days. 
 
 So it befalls that in March, 1830, the Lincoln 
 family starts through the spring mud for its new 
 destination, in big movers' wagons with ox teams. 
 Thirteen persons compose the company. It is 
 said that Lincoln invested his cash — thirty dol- 
 lars — in small merchandise which he peddled along 
 the road, doubling his investment. So not quite 
 penniless could he have been when he reached 
 the Sangamon, having some sixty dollars. Let 
 the fact be duly recorded, since Lincoln in after 
 life had the name of being unthrifty and careless 
 as regards money. It seems that the movers passed 
 through old Mncennes, where the young inquisitive 
 fellow for the first time saw a printing-press. Ten 
 
90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 miles west of the town of Decatur the company- 
 halted and prepared the new home, a log cabin, 
 and put in their first crop. To fence the ground 
 Lincoln assisted in making some rails, which after- 
 ward became famous and gave him the title of Rail- 
 Splitter. 
 
 And now let us call up the central figure of this 
 migrating group. A tall raw-boned youth is driv- 
 ing a yoke of oxen which toils laboriously through 
 the muddy roads of the Illinois prairie and traverses 
 the high waters of swollen streams, to the tune of 
 gee-haw. And when he reaches the cabin of a 
 frontiersman, he stops and displays his articles for 
 sale, saying: You ought to have a button for 
 your pantaloons instead of that thorn stuck through 
 your suspenders; aye, you have no needle and 
 thread to sew the button on, here they are; upon 
 this table spread out for us so hospitably, I observe 
 a lack of knives and forks — I have some good ones, 
 cheap. So he must have chaffered along the way 
 in order to gain his hundred per cent out of his 
 money. But when night comes on, and the com- 
 pany is gathered round the blazing hearth of some 
 farm-house together with its inmates, then the 
 Artesian well of stories, jokes, humor would begin 
 to bubble, spout and play out of the mouth of the 
 long-legged ox-driver, and last till bed-time, to the 
 unforgettable delight of that household, some of 
 whom thirty years later might remember their 
 
ANOTHER MIGRATION. 91 
 
 visitor when he was chosen President of the United 
 States, toward which goal he is now marching. 
 
 After a journey of a fortnight, the Lincolns 
 reach safely their destination, where soon our 
 Abraham, being of age and having done his duty to 
 his parents separates from the family, and starts 
 upon a new stage of his career which is to be set 
 forth in a new chapter. 
 
CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Brifttng. 
 
 We now come to a period in Lincoln's life, which 
 shows him cutting loose from the anchor of his 
 parental home and grappling in multitudinous 
 ways with his new environing world. To him 
 may be applied his own picturesque metaphor 
 drawn from his river experience: "I am a piece 
 of floating driftwood." This period embraces six 
 or seven years, the better part of his twenties, say 
 from 1830 to 1836-7. He was dissatisfied with his 
 former life and with the outlook which his father's 
 family gave him. From that he must separate at 
 all hazards, if he intends to be anything. The 
 parting, especially from his step-mother, was pain- 
 ful; in fact he hung around her neighborhood for 
 nearly a year after he had declared his indepen- 
 dence. His material outfit seems to have been 
 the rude suit of clothes on his body and this was in 
 such a condition that it had to be renewed at once. 
 Accordingly we hear that one of the first labors 
 of the free man was to earn a pair of pantaloons 
 to be made of butternut jeans, for every yard of 
 which he had to split four hundred rails. So we 
 can imagine herculean Abraham Lincoln with 
 axe biting deeper into the trees of the forest and 
 with maul coming down upon the wedge in 
 (92) 
 
CHAPTER SECOND — DRIFTING. 93 
 
 huger whirls and heavier thuds than ever be- 
 fore, being propelled by the new necessity as well 
 as by the new consciousness of freedom which tells 
 him that henceforth he is his own man. 
 
 Such is the record, which doubtless gives us a 
 glimpse of the rail-splitter Lincoln at this time. 
 Still we cannot well conceive of him as utterly 
 moneyless, for what has become of those sixty 
 dollars, half of which he made by peddling small 
 merchandise on the way from Indiana? Hardly 
 has he let it all slip through his fingers, even if he 
 has been generous to his parents, helping them to 
 make a fresh start in their Illinois home. 
 
 Here then begins a new (the second) stage of 
 what we have called Lincoln's Apprenticeship, in 
 which he is indentured to the world, or more par- 
 ticularly to the Folk-Soul as it manifested itself 
 among the pioneers of IlHnois. Already he had 
 thought of breaking loose from the narrowness of 
 his father's cabin and life in Indiana, when he was 
 nineteen years old. But a friend whom he con- 
 sulted advised the contrary, and exhorted him to 
 stay with his parents, as duty demanded, till he had 
 attained his majority. Now, however, he is twenty- 
 one, his service is finished and he feels not only the 
 right but the necessity of setting forth upon a new 
 career, which is his own, and which brings him out 
 as a distinct, separate, self-sufficing individual. 
 
 Separation, then, he is making from the first 
 anchorage of life, the Family, in which he has been 
 
94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 reared. This act determines the character of the 
 whole present period : hence we may call it separa- 
 tive. Having quit the stabihty of one kind of 
 life, he cannot acquire at once the stability of an- 
 other kind. He tries his hand at many sorts of 
 occupations, he becomes a Jack-at-all-trades, 
 seeking to find his center, and groping after his 
 true vocation. He drifts down the little stream 
 of life to which he has come with many a struggle 
 and gyration, truly a "piece of floating driftwood" 
 in the turbid waters of his own Sangamon at high 
 flood, as they whirl him on to the Illinois, to the 
 Mississippi, to the Ocean, which he is destined to 
 reach through a tortuous channel full of picturesque 
 surprises. 
 
 And yet with this outer fluctuation and ever- 
 renewed unsettling, Lincoln clings with dogged 
 pertinacity to the inner thread of his destiny, 
 which we have already seen spinning. He still 
 continued to read with a world-consuming thirst 
 all the books he could borrow as well as those which 
 he had brought along. He practiced pubhc speak- 
 ing with the trees of the forest as his auditors, 
 among whom also stood his fellow rail-splitter, 
 John Hanks. The latter tells how a candidate 
 came into their locality and made a speech. "It 
 was a bad one," declares our voucher, having 
 become a critic of speech-making as well as of rail- 
 splitting, "and I said Abe could beat it. I turned 
 down a box and Abe made his speech, his subject 
 
CHAPTER SECOND — DRIFTING. 95 
 
 being the Navigation of the Sangamon River." 
 The result was "Abe beat him to death" on that 
 burning topic, "The Navigation of the Sangamon 
 River," the most im])ortant poUtical question of 
 the age to the settlers living along its shores. Nor 
 must we forget to note that the same John Hanks, 
 some thirty years later, brought two of these rails 
 into the Convention at Decatur which put Abraham 
 Lincoln directly into the Presidential race. Of 
 all the rails ever split, they are most worthy of 
 being named world-historical. 
 
 Amid the many goings and comings of Lincoln 
 during this period^ there is one spot about which 
 he hovers : the village of New Salem wooing if not 
 wedding the Sangamon. This village had its own 
 peculiar life, which was very brief, but typical 
 of much in the West. It lasted only about a decade 
 of years, but Lincoln has given it a fadeless, rosy- 
 cheeked immortality. The Sangamon river also 
 flows incessantly through this period of Lincoln's 
 life; the stream seems to have wrought a charm 
 upon him, he gets to believing in its great destiny as 
 if coupled with his own. If we could transport our- 
 selves back into the Greek mythical world, we might 
 conceive the youth Abraham Lincoln in love with 
 the fair river-nymph, Sangamona, yellow-tressed 
 like the Greek goddess, whom he pursued for years 
 with her flowing locks. But she always ran through 
 his grasp, till at last she fleeted out of his view 
 forever. At present a navigable Sangamon seems 
 
96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 some far-off fabulous creature, interesting chiefly 
 because she had the power of throwing a spell of 
 blinding fascination for years over Lincoln, and 
 of being the chief instrument of sending him to his 
 first Legislature and thus starting him on his 
 political career. But he saw his river-nymph 
 dwindle away to a ghost, and with her e vanishment 
 went hand in hand her own village, New Salem. 
 Thereupon Lincoln has to cjuit his shadowy quest 
 and give up both — wherewith this period of his 
 biography comes to an end. 
 
 Lincoln is, then, serving a part of his Ap- 
 prenticeship at New Salem, an important, even if 
 a wayward and scattered part in appearance. 
 A new phase of the American Folk-Soul he gets 
 acquainted with here, and takes many a lesson of 
 it needful for his future task. He passes from the 
 isolated farm house to the community, which 
 gives him a higher degree of human association. 
 On the one hand he, having separated from the 
 united or more concentrated life of the Family, 
 is thrown back upon his individuality pure and 
 simple, which finds its unity within, and thence 
 combines anew with his fellow-man. It is thus a 
 kind of fresh birth into that Folk-Soul which it is 
 his first function to know through and through, 
 in all its moods and depths, in its strong as well as in 
 its weak traits, what it can be brought to do and 
 what it refuses to do. For Lincoln has first to 
 fathom it, and to sound its deepest aspiration and 
 
CHAPTER SECOND — DRIFTING. 97 
 
 power, then he is to instil into it its great world- 
 historical duty which also he has to start to learn 
 in this Apprenticeship of his. 
 
 New Salem recalls the Homeric village located 
 on the frontier of European civilization in time 
 and place, and pictured eternally in the Odyssey, 
 with its singing story-teller, with its kingly man 
 and chieftain in war and in games, with its public 
 speakers and its fair women, above all, with its 
 supereminent hero. So New Salem is a village 
 on the frontier of American civilization, having a 
 kind of epical idyllic hero, our Lincoln, who repre- 
 sents quite all its lordlier phases as athlete, myth- 
 maker, captain in war against the barbarians, and 
 law-maker for the people. A little idyllic epos, 
 therefore, spins itself out along this entire New 
 Salem period of Lincoln, interwoven with a deeply 
 colored love-tale, whose tragic outcome seems to 
 forebode that of the town, if not that of the hero 
 himself. 
 
 It is curious how completely this unfamed por- 
 tion of Lincoln's life has come down to us. It 
 impressed itself strongly upon the memories of the 
 villagers, who have told it to numerous biographic 
 explorers with many a little variation attuned to 
 the one key-note of hcroizing their sole genius. In 
 the small community, young Lincoln stands forth 
 strongly individualized ; indeed we deem this to be 
 just that time when he was winning his individual- 
 ity. He is not here lost in the vast crowd of a 
 
 7 
 
98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 great city, but is a kind of dominant figure, known 
 and recognized by every person in the place, which 
 is the bridge for the transition from his rural and 
 domestic to his communal and political life. 
 
 Deep is the correspondence in character during 
 this period between Lincoln and New Salem, be- 
 tween the yillage and its hero. Both are waifs, 
 riding buoyantly on the stream of Time for a few 
 years, and linked together by a common sympathy 
 and bent of nature. Both are "pieces of floating 
 driftwood," on the devious Sangamon till the 
 village begins to sink out of sight when Lincoln, 
 having served his time, dexterously jumps off, 
 and passes to the new and rising town of that region. 
 He is compelled to give up New Salem and his 
 water-nymph Sangamona, who has turned out a 
 delusive, insubstantial shadow. With this trans- 
 ition to S])ringfield the New Salem idyl and New 
 Salem itself draw to a close. 
 
 Lincoln when in the Presidential chair once said 
 that he loved to think back upon his New Salem 
 period. It was indeed his -idyllic time of life, 
 rainbowed with hope and poetry, yet shot through 
 and through with dark clouds of failings and fail- 
 ures ending in downright tragedy. For New Salem 
 was blighted in the very hey-day of its youthful 
 bloom, and Lincoln's first and strongest passion 
 after a time of happy inflorescence, was smitten 
 by fate like New Salem itself, and wound up in a 
 crushing tragedy, a real tragedy of love, which 
 
DENTOX OFFUT. 99 
 
 deepened the melancholy lines already stamped 
 upon his features and his soul. Still his limit- 
 transcending genius whispered to him its behest 
 and he rose up transfigured from the tragic blow to 
 a new career. 
 
 I. 
 
 Denton Offut. 
 
 Lincoln is still hovering about the parental 
 neighborhood, not exactly at home, nor quite 
 away from home, being unable as yet to have the 
 umbilical cord severed which ties him so strongly 
 to his Family. But that is what must be done 
 and done at once, say the Powers who preside over 
 his destiny, dictating not only the one physical 
 birth of the man but directing every new turn in 
 his spiritual genesis. 
 
 Accordingly the person has appeared just at the 
 appointed time who is to perform for Lincoln an 
 act of liberation, giving him the opportunity to 
 move forward a considerable curve in his orbit. 
 The name of this person is Denton Offut, the West- 
 ern adventurer taking the shape of a business man. 
 He believed primarily in the Sangamon river and 
 its future importance, extending his operations 
 along it for many miles, as if he owned it. A jolly 
 fellow with enormous quantities of brag at his dis- 
 posal, particularly when the man became fluid by 
 a sufficient admixture of strong drink; he would 
 turn loose his tongue and his imagination at the 
 
100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 world-embracing outlook of the Sangamon. This 
 was the man who put his spell upon Lincoln for a 
 couple of years. John Hanks, whom we have 
 already seen as Lincoln's fellow rail-splitter, brought 
 him one day to Offut and introduced him, Offut's 
 scheme was to hire these men to go to New Orleans 
 with a boat-load of stock and provisions, thus 
 connecting the Sangamon with the rest of the globe. 
 The bargain was struck, brief preparation was 
 made by the twain, fare-well was said to all 
 concerned, when they sprang into a canoe not far 
 from their cabin doors, and floated down stream 
 to Jamestown, seemingly the port of Springfield. 
 To the latter they had to go by land in order to 
 meet Offut. 
 
 After some search they found him at the town 
 tavern called the Buckhorn, where he had a good 
 opportunity to loosen his tongue and to let it pour 
 out its treasures before congenial listeners. This 
 was in March 183 L Springfield was not yet the 
 capital of the State, but hardly more than a fron- 
 tier settlement, into which now steps, seemingly 
 for the first time, the person who has caused it 
 to be named in the remotest parts of the earth, 
 and to be made a center of pilgrimage of the mul- 
 titude to the tomb of one who may be deemed 
 more than any other man of the historic past the 
 People's Hero. 
 
 It turned out that Offut had been so occupied 
 with his duties at the Buckhorn that he had pro- 
 
DENTON OFFUT. 101 
 
 vided no boat for the trip. So the ardent naviga- 
 tors had first to make their own craft, which was 
 easily accomphshed by these deft backwoodsmen, 
 handy with edged tools, particularly with the 
 axe. Lincoln, it may be here interpolated, always 
 showed a taste for mechanics and decided ingenuity 
 in devising mechanical appliances. In a month 
 the boat was ready and launched; laden w4th bar- 
 rel-pork, corn, and live hogs, it was swung out 
 into the roaring Sangamon, the classic stream, and 
 started to keep company with those turbid waters 
 sweeping Gulfward. But behold! a mill-dam 
 interrupts the stream at Rutledge's mill. New 
 Salem; the boat is stranded on it, and hangs over 
 the edge of it for twenty-four hours, with bow 
 high in air, and stern clipping water. What is to 
 be done? Unload the hogs and corn into another 
 boat borrowed for the occasion; then bore a hole 
 through the bottom at the front, roll the barrels of 
 pork forward, whereat the craft tilts, the water 
 within it runs out of the auger-hole and over the 
 dam she slides in safety. Stopping the hole in the 
 bottom, and bailing out the water our heroic navi- 
 gators start on their journey, if not round the 
 whole globe, at least round cjuite a perceptible 
 segment of it. 
 
 It is agreed that the central figure of the incident 
 at Rutledge's dam was Lincoln. His ingenuity 
 took control in the jiinch of the crisis, even to the 
 boring of the auger-hole, the culminating act. He 
 
102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 shows himself the man for the emergency. Small 
 indeed is the occurrence, yet typical; behold him 
 some thirty years after this, on another far larger 
 boat, nothing less than the Ship of State which is 
 dashing about, with an utterly helpless helmsman, 
 on the angry rapids toward the plunge of Niagara. 
 Lincoln getting aboard seizes the helm, and directs 
 the mighty hitherto drifting craft and shoots the 
 cataract safely — the only man, seemingly among 
 millions, who was able to do the job. Thus we 
 may be permitted to link together the small and 
 the great in the life of the Hero, the little incident 
 in its little way pre-figuring the vast deed of the 
 future. 
 
 But dropping these far-off soul-stretching fore- 
 casts and coming down to an immediate look be- 
 fore us, we may see the whole village of New Salem 
 gazing from the hill-side at the stranded boat, 
 with many a vociferation from the men, who scream 
 out from the point of safety what was to be done. 
 But when the crisis is met successfully, liincoln is 
 a famous man in that community; indeed Offut 
 is there on the bank singing his praises, and de- 
 claring that now the problem of the navigation 
 of the Sangamon is solved, the right man having 
 appeared. We shall build a new kind of steam 
 boat, says he, with rollers for shoals and dams, 
 with runners for ice, and chiefly w^e shall make 
 Lincoln captain, and then, ''by thunder, she'd 
 have to go." So that village choiring with 
 
DENTON OFFUT. 103 
 
 its hundred voices in unison, sings that day the 
 lofty praises of Abraham Lincoln, and will not soon 
 forget him. On his side let it be noted he will 
 not forget New Salem. And let it be imagined 
 that among the crowd looking at the sight from 
 the hillside must have stood Ann Rutledge, the 
 fair heroine of the New Salem idyl, who witnessed 
 the first dramatic appearance of the village hero, 
 doubtless with a heart beating admiration at his 
 deed of skill and courage. 
 
 The little craft soon passed into the Illinois out of 
 the Sangamon and thence into the Mississippi, float- 
 ing by many towns and cities, and meeting many 
 sorts of boats. At last the boatmen reached New 
 Orleans, sold their cargo, viewed the sights of the 
 city. Here Lincoln saw the worst horrors of slav- 
 ery, which was far milder in his native Kentucky. 
 With his own eyes he beheld ''negroes in chains 
 — whipped and scourged." In his wanderings he 
 ran on a slave-auction; a comely mulatto girl was 
 on the block, being pinched and felt and otherwise 
 tested by the bidders. At the repulsive sight 
 Lincoln is repcrted to have shown great indigna- 
 tion, and to have dropped the prophetic words : "If 
 I ever get a chance to hit that thing (slavery), I'll 
 hit it hard." So Lincoln ought to have said, even 
 if he did not, for the striking incident has been 
 shown to be uncertain, as if fabled after the great 
 event to which it has a covert allusion. 
 
 The navigator came back by steamboat and 
 
104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 landed at St. Louis. They crossed to Edwards- 
 ville, thence Lincoln with his step-brother who 
 had been along, set out on foot for the new home 
 of his father, who had moved again, quitting the 
 valley of the Sangamon on account of another 
 sickness, chills and fever. The son found the par- 
 ents located on Goose Neck prairie, Coles County, 
 a few miles from Charleston, the county seat. His 
 stay was not long, not more than a month ; he felt 
 he must persist in his separation from the parental 
 hearth already begun the year before. He struck 
 out for the upper Sangamon again, and apparently 
 in some kind of a boat once more drifted down 
 stream into New Salem, where, as he puts it in 
 his second autobiography, "Abraham stopped 
 indefinitely, and for the first time, as it were, by 
 himself," apart from all former relatives, friends, 
 and associates. As individual he now asserts 
 himself, quite alone and ready to work his own pas- 
 sage through the world. "This was in July 1831," 
 as Lincoln dates it, and acids that "here he rapidly 
 made acquaintances and friends," a wholly new 
 set of them, and quite different from those whom 
 he had previously known. So is marked a new 
 step or stage in his Apprenticeship. 
 
 We may conceive that Lincoln was drawn to 
 New Salem by a curiosity to see again the scene 
 of his famous exploit, and to get acquainted with 
 the inhabitants, who had witnessed and applauded 
 his triumph from the hill-side, and who, therefore, 
 
NEW SALEM. 105 
 
 already recognized him as somewhat of a hero. 
 Why should he not have the best start in life just 
 at that point? But there was another ground 
 which if not so ideal, was more practical: Offut, 
 the persistent trumpeter of his glory, had offered 
 him a good position. Let the autobiography 
 again speak: "He (Offut) conceived a liking for 
 Abraham, and believing he could turn him to ac- 
 count, contracted with him to act as clerk for him 
 on his return from New Orleans in charge of a 
 store and mill at New Salem." 
 
 So Lincoln, having broken loose from home and 
 described a considerable circle on land and water 
 during the year, settles down in the river village 
 which he is to make memorable by his stay. 
 
 II. 
 
 New Salem. 
 
 Already we have made the name of New Salem 
 familiar to our reader, to whom now must be given 
 a somewhat more explicit account of it. A small 
 place with never more than one hundred souls 
 in it, yet with an earth-girdling ambition; it 
 dreamed of a greatness never to be fulfilled, as it 
 lay on its bluff in the sunshine, elevated about 
 thirty yards above the general level of the land 
 around. At its feet rolled the Sangamon, the 
 deceitful little stream upon which it built its vast 
 ho}K's. It was founded not more than two years 
 
106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST 
 
 before Lincoln's arrival and its life lasts not long 
 after his departure. Still it had at its best a 
 thriving, throbbing existence. A brisk trade it 
 drove with the surrounding country, having four 
 stores, two mills and a tavern. Two spiritual 
 guides are set down among its people, a preacher 
 of wdiom we do not hear much, and a school- 
 master, famous through Lincoln, A small quota 
 of artisans had their shops about the village, which 
 had something original in its simple communal 
 Hfe on the border- of civilization. This communal 
 life is what Lincoln is to experience, being the new 
 fact upon which he comes in his career. More- 
 over he is to take his part in the rise and the fall 
 of the place and to turn out in his way its leading 
 man. New Salem w^e may regard as Lincoln's 
 symbol for this period of his life, reflecting the trend 
 of his spirit in its character. Lincoln's designation 
 of himself as "a piece of floating drift-wood" 
 could also be applied to New Salem, Jiis com- 
 munal environment. 
 
 Offut's goods were slow in arriving, and Lincoln 
 spent his time chiefly in lounging about town, 
 making himself known and getting to know the 
 people. Also he turned his hand to odd jobs that 
 came along. His first was that of clerk at an 
 election. Here he had an opportunity to try his 
 story-telling gift on the small knots of voters who 
 loitered round the polling place. Tradition has 
 handed down his success as well as some of his 
 
XEW SALEM. 107 
 
 stories. The result of the election for him was 
 that he won the position of chief fabulist and yarn- 
 spinner of the place, the public poet we may deem 
 him, like the bard of the old Homeric village. Such 
 was his chief office in New Salem, and nobody ever 
 supplanted him. 
 
 But at last Offut opens his store and Lincoln is 
 his clerk. For success in business the combina- 
 tion cannot be pronounced a happy one. Offut 
 was a swaggering, good-hearted fellow, too fond of 
 the bottle and of boon companions at the tavern; 
 Lincoln was untrained to business and given more 
 to jesting and story-telling than to selling merchan- 
 dise at a profit. Lincoln's own report of the matter 
 runs: "In less than a year Offut's business was 
 failing — had almost failed — when the Black Hawk 
 war broke out." Let it be stated here that Lincoln 
 in almost ascetic contrast with his surroundings, 
 did not drink or smoke or squirt tobacco juice; 
 still he could get intoxicated on a good joke or 
 story of his own, and treat the crowd to a horse- 
 laugh, in which they would all join with a rustic 
 sincerity. That was chiefly what was going on 
 at Offut's new store, the village's place of enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 New Salem had a good deal of the mushroom in 
 its character, and Offut with his business was a 
 kind of pre-figurement of its destiny. There was 
 an uncertain element about it, something unreal, 
 grotesque, indicated in basing its existence upon 
 
108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 the navigation of the Sangamon, Offut is a fan- 
 tastic figure, and Lincoln is not without the same 
 trait. Both he and the village take delight in 
 humorous grotesquery, and both are in themselves 
 grotesques, to a degree. Both are drifting together 
 in a sea of fantasticalities at this time; we shall 
 see this town sink, and Lincoln come to anchor 
 after a flight from it. How often did he change 
 his vocation at New Salem and tliink of other 
 changes which he never made ! 
 
 And a deeper, yet concordant fact must be noted. 
 Profoundly it lay in the character of the village to 
 show a skeptical tendency; in its very scanty list 
 of books we hear of Paine, Voltaire and Volney. 
 Lincoln partook of this trait also, which long left 
 its mark upon him. Mentally adrift were the 
 time, the place and the man — that was a part of 
 his present Apprenticeship. He passes through a 
 negative stage which questions and perchance 
 denies the ancient foundations of belief. We may 
 well call New Salem a negative town, and hence it 
 vanished through its own inner dialectic. A kind 
 of grotesque inferno it is then for Lincoln, who 
 has to go through it and then rise out of it. Old 
 Peter Cartwright, the frontier circuit-rider of 
 Methodism, would call it a nest of infidels; in his 
 later political campaign for Congress, when he ran 
 against Lincoln, he did not fail to make the most 
 of the latter's religious shortcomings. An un- 
 settled existence the village led, internally and ex- 
 
NEW SALEM. 109 
 
 ternally, mentally and physically. This skeptical 
 spirit Lincoln reflected, had to reflect, in a piece of 
 writing, in a long essay or book against the leading 
 tenets of Christianity, which, it is said, he in- 
 tended to print. He carried it around with him, 
 took it to the store and discussed it with friends, 
 one of whom (named Samuel Hill, his employer) 
 snatched the manuscript and thrust it into the 
 stove,' where it was soon reduced to smoke and 
 cinders, never to be resuscitated by its author. 
 Thus was his negation negated, out of which fact 
 he might have learned more than he ever did from 
 the writings of the French skeptics, whose negation 
 was also furiously negated in the flames of the 
 French Revolution. And skeptical, negative New 
 Salem itself will burn up, like Lincoln's book, 
 not indeed in a sudden conflagration, but in a very 
 rapid fire kindled by old Father Time himself. 
 And our Lincoln, badly scotched but not inciner- 
 ated, we shall behold fleeing this new Hell-fire, 
 in which he ought now to get some faith. 
 
 Still New Salem, w^e must not forget, had its 
 positive side which exerted an abiding influence 
 upon Lincoln. In it he made an easy transition 
 from farm-life to town-life, and thereby participated 
 in a new institution of which he became an inde- 
 pendent member through himself as individual. 
 The Family had hitherto controlled him, absorbed 
 him as it were, telling him what to do and taking 
 the proceeds. From this intimate domestic bond 
 
110 ABRA HA M LIN COL Y—PA R T FIRS T. 
 
 New Salem severs him, and compels him to asso- 
 ciate himself anew, in his own right ^and through 
 his own activity. He is trained to make himself 
 valid individually in a community not too large 
 nor too small, which is itself in a formative stage 
 along with everybody in it. We have to consider 
 then, that New Salem represents a landing-place 
 in Lincoln's development into freedom. He be- 
 comes a self-controlled atom which associates itself 
 with others like it in a free communal life, he 
 being able to make himself the leader, the first 
 person of the place, really "the big buck of the 
 lick," as he once called himself in a different 
 situation. 
 
 Through his New Salem experience Lincoln has 
 tested himself with many yet not with too many, 
 and has come to know himself to be the best man 
 not only in brawn but in brain. The village 
 Hercules triumphs in might, and also in mind. He 
 reaches a consciousness of his true Self to the 
 point of a strong belief in his own destiny. Mod- 
 esty, yes; but equally a decided self-appreciation 
 and self-reliance, foi- his fellow- villagers reflect his 
 own worth back to him at every meeting. 
 
 New Salem, just through its negative character 
 helps to separate Lincoln from the indifferent level 
 of the multitude. We see him beginning his rise 
 out of the protoplasmic mass of the Folk, and be- 
 coming one of its leaders, who first gets to be 
 conscious of himself and then to be conscious of it 
 
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER. Ill 
 
 in its supreme though unconscious end, who learns 
 to converse with it in its own speech and to shape 
 in words its quite chaotic instincts which well up 
 from the deepest sources. From this mass he has 
 to separate and yet be of it, sharing its soul, speak- 
 ing its tongue and finally voicing to it its own 
 world-historical purpose. 
 
 The Sangamon dries up, and New Salem with it; 
 the village never grows old but dies in its very 
 efflorescence, fading away like and almost with 
 blooming Ann Rutledge, Lincoln's earliest and 
 fairest flower of love. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Village Schoolmaster. 
 
 Intellectually the most important man in New 
 Salem for Lincoln was the village schoolmaster, 
 who knew somewhat more than Lincoln did, and 
 seems to have been ever ready to impart his knowl- 
 edge. We have already seen these pioneer 
 teachers following the frontier settlements and 
 weaving their influence into the career of Lincoln. 
 The present one was evidently the most influential 
 of all, though Lincoln appears never to have gone 
 to school to him directly. Still he was the guide 
 and the instructor of the youth in a number of 
 branches for several years. Very striking and 
 suggestive is that name of his, though seemingly 
 accidental ; "he was truly a Mentor to our young 
 Abraham eagerly seeking knowledge. Again the 
 
112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 old Greek poet is recalled, from whom this very 
 name has come down to New Salem, and has 
 interlinked the ancient with the modern. So in 
 our Homeric town on the Sangamon the sage 
 Mentor again appears, whose form Pallas Athena, 
 the Goddess of Wisdom assumes, speaking the 
 words of hope to our youthful Telemachus, antl 
 giving him wise counsel as well as weighty instruc- 
 tion. Ithacan Mentor, divinely voiced, has be- 
 come the American schoolmaster in this little 
 Lincolniad, and the latter may also hear betimes 
 a celestial whisper, even if he cannot now see an 
 actual epiphany of the Olympians. 
 
 The name of Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster 
 at New Salem, cannot be left out of Lincoln's 
 biography. The two had first met and had found 
 each other out on election day. Graham saw a 
 tall raw-boned young fellow hanging about the 
 polls and telling stories. The schoolmaster being 
 the clerk, needed help, and felt the impulse to call 
 the stranger, propounding to him the cjuestion: 
 "Can you write?" Lincoln humorously drawled 
 out: "I can make a few rabbit tracks." Graham 
 knew that he had discovered his man and at once 
 inducted him into office. He did its duties accept- 
 ably and filled up the gaps of time with his yarns. 
 
 Evidently a bond of friendship thenceforth was 
 established between the two ; the schoolmaster had 
 time to measure the capacity of the youth and to 
 feel his aspiration. Lincoln through his writing 
 
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER. 113 
 
 and speaking hatl grown conscious of a deficiency 
 in his training; it is possible that in some Httle 
 incident the schoolmaster may have brought it 
 to his notice. At any rate he became aware that 
 speech is organized and has its laws, of which he 
 was ignorant. These, then, he must learn if he is 
 ever going to be a writer or speaker. It dawns 
 upon him that his next serious study must be 
 Grammar, which he had never taken in his school- 
 days; he seems hardly to have known of it then. 
 He consulted Graham, who encouraged him 
 heartily, particularly "if you are going before 
 the public." The strange fact comes out that the 
 schoolmaster had no Grammar, that there was 
 none in New Salem. Still he knew of one belong- 
 ing to a man six miles from the village. Lincoln 
 at once set out for the place on foot and succeeded 
 in borrowing the book. It was a copy of Samuel 
 Kirkham's English Grammar, well known through- 
 out the West in early days, now quite supplanted 
 and hurled down into the huge limbo of departed 
 text-books. The copy used by Lincoln is still in 
 existence, with some of his writing upon it. But 
 what a boon to him ! His heart must have leaped 
 with new hope as he read upon the title-page 
 the promises, for the work will reveal to him not 
 only the Parts of Speech but also "a new system- 
 atick order of parsing," and likewise "a new 
 system of punctuation and exercises in false 
 syntax," all of which is designed "for the use of 
 
 8 
 
114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 schools and private learners " like himself. It 
 is declared that he studied the book incessantly 
 till he mastered it, and even committed to memory- 
 its contents, with its numerous quotations of sage 
 maxims and of poetry. 
 
 A significant step in his culture we must deem 
 it when he became acquainted with the structure 
 of the language which he had before used instinc- 
 tively, getting conscious of what he had always 
 done unconsciously, and thereby becoming able 
 to handle the weapon which hitherto had rather 
 handled him. Lincoln was ready not only to 
 understand but to appreciate Grammar, which 
 too often is foisted prematurely upon young minds, 
 to their confusion and disgust. But Lincoln, now 
 twenty-two years old, saw through it, absorbed and 
 assimilated it with great avidity; as is reported by 
 one who must have known the fact, namely, his 
 bed-fellow who had to hold the book and hear 
 him repeat the contents. Whenever he could not 
 pull through a tlifficulty. Schoolmaster Graham 
 was called upon and helped him out. Pleasant 
 it must have been to the teacher to see the chaos 
 of speech gradually getting ordered and slowly 
 transforming itself into a linguistic cosmos in the 
 mind of that uncouth lad of mighty aspiration. 
 
 And let it be noted that among the pupils of 
 Master Graham's School was Ann Rutledge, the 
 budding flower of this little Homeric world. She 
 must have seen Lincoln there, and known his 
 
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER. 115 
 
 talent as well as his tireless pursuit of culture. 
 This desire she, too, possessed, and it must have 
 been already a common bond of sympathy. That 
 very copy of Kirkham's Grammar, still extant, 
 which he studied so thoroughly and of which he 
 became the owner, he afterwards gave to Ann 
 Rutledge, who evidently wished to master it too, 
 and so be on a par with him. Through her it has 
 descended in her family as an inherited treasure. 
 Upon its title page we read in Lincoln's hand- 
 writing: Ann M. Rutledge is now learning Gram- 
 mar. Such is the simple inscription, but under- 
 neath it with its attendant circumstances we may 
 read that these two souls are beginning to have 
 a common hope and purpose, a union of hearts 
 fortified by a union of intellects, out of which can 
 spring the deepest happiness of life, or its tragedy. 
 Nor can we help recalling once more in the pre- 
 sent conjuncture that other Mentor who lived thou- 
 sands of years ago in sunny Ithaca, and in whose 
 shape the Goddess Pallas Athena appears before an- 
 other struggling youth and speaks to him the word 
 of wisdom — the brave Telemachus. He also is to 
 set out on a new stage of his education, being 
 dircctetl to proceed to the sage Nestor that he may 
 hear about his father Ulysses and learn lore from 
 ancestral example. So our new Mentor voicing 
 the command of the Goddess on the banks of the 
 Sangamon exclaims to the aspiring youth there: 
 Study Grammar. And this youth, our Abraham 
 
116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 Lincoln, hears the word and recognizes it to be 
 the voice of the Goddess of Wisdom, and at once 
 prepares to obey, for his heart is ready to hsten 
 to the divine behest. But Telemachus is to get his 
 education from the mouth of the wise old man, as 
 there was no printed page then, and withal no 
 Grammar. 
 
 So we are led by the name to couple the two 
 Mentors, the ancient and the modern, the one at 
 Greek Ithaca, close to the Gods, and the other at 
 American New Salem, rather remote from divinity, 
 each of them being alike the chosen vehicle of the 
 word of wisdom for two aspiring youths at the 
 turning-point of destiny. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Village Hercules. 
 
 And now an Homeric contest is to take place in 
 our Homeric village, which has, first of all, to dis- 
 cover its athletic hero. This is bound to be none 
 other than our strong-boned, huge-handed, over- 
 topping Abe Lincoln. Ever memorable is the 
 exploit of Hercules in his fight with Antaeus, the 
 violent, gigantic son of Mother Earth, who always 
 imparted to him renewed strength when his feet 
 touched her terrene body. At last Hercules lifted 
 him up and held him high in the air, crushing him 
 to death while separated from his might-giving 
 ftiother. So the hero of New Salem, Abe Lincoln, 
 
THE VILLAGE HERCULES. 117 
 
 will wrestle with a modern earth-son, hight Jack 
 Armstrong, head bully of Clary's Grove; long the 
 combat lasts, for Jack always lights on his feet 
 again, after every powerful twist and whirl, till 
 at last Abe grapples him by the throat and hoists 
 him aloft, "shaking him hke a rag," says our 
 worthy reporter, Herndon, who, if not actually 
 present, heard the famous exploit often recounted 
 by the villagers. 
 
 Repeatedly the physical strength and athletic 
 feats of Lincoln have been celebrated in the pre- 
 ceding years; already in Indiana echoes of his 
 prowess have come down, perpetuated and prob- 
 ably magnified by his future renown. But at 
 present in New Salem the new-comer must vindi- 
 cate his position in a new way; he must show him- 
 self the best man of the baihwick. It is true the 
 best man in the frontier dialect did not get his 
 superlative from moral excellence, but from 
 physical. Again we think of the pioneer Greek 
 age, when the same hnguistic fact confronts us: the 
 good man means the strong man, and virtue {arete) 
 itself is martial rather than moral. Moreover, 
 Offut, uncjuestionably the most enterprising head 
 and the windiest mouth in the place, was seeking 
 to develop the latent gifts of Lincoln, in whom 
 he thorouglily believed. He goes boasting around 
 the village that his long-legged awkward clerk 
 "can outrun, whip, or throw down any man in the 
 County of Sangamon." This was taken as a 
 
118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 challenge to the entire community to bring out 
 its "best man," and settle where the crown of 
 glory belonged by the tug of actual conflict. An 
 Olympic contest is thus preparing for the villages 
 of New Salem and vicinity. 
 
 A few miles distant from New Salem stood a 
 belt of timber, called Clary's Grove, which harbored 
 a set of young bloods of the frontier type, pug- 
 nacious,- of terrible name, yet not wholly depraved 
 or malicious, often showing a charity to the poor 
 and a gallantry to the fair, which recalls Robin 
 Hood and his chivalrous foresters. They had 
 their leader, their "best man," named Jack Arm- 
 strong, whose primacy in this domain of sluggery 
 was accepted by the whole adjacent country. The 
 fame of the newly-arrived athlete was bruited 
 about everywhere by the grand gasconader, Offut. 
 The result was a challenge, backed by a stake of 
 ten dollars, the proposition being that "Jack 
 Armstrong was a better man than Abe Lincoln." 
 
 All the village and all the vicinity assembled 
 to witness this new Olympic contest, not now on 
 the sunny banks of Greek Alplieus, but not far 
 from the rippling Sangamon of muddy fame. It is 
 reported that the whole proceeding was very dis- 
 tasteful to Lincoln with his Quaker strain; but his 
 friends had compromised him and themselves, a 
 back-down could not be thought of, and so he 
 sailed in. The climax seems to have been when 
 the tall Hercules in a final supreme effort, picked 
 
THE VILLAGE HERCULES. 119 
 
 up his antagonist as if another Antseus, held him 
 out at arm's length and shook him ''like a rag." 
 That was the triumphant end of the conflict, and 
 we suppose that the assembled multitude tore 
 their throats and the circumambient air with 
 acclamations for the victor, while defeated bully- 
 dom slunk off to its lair out of sight at Clary's 
 Grove, wiser and seemingly repentant through the 
 castigation. For Hsten! "Jack Armstrong, his 
 wife Hannah, and all the other. Armstrongs" show 
 ever afterwards warm friendship for Lincoln, who 
 in his turn would ''rock Hannah's babies" while 
 on a visit, and she would "fox his pantaloons" oft 
 broken in spots. And in later times when a lawyer 
 at Springfield, Lincoln saved "one member of the 
 family from the gallows" through his legal skill, 
 though the fellow probably ought to have been 
 hung. Thus the two grand protagonists of New 
 Salem and Clary's Grove conquer a lasting peace 
 between themselves and seemingly between their 
 neighborhoods. 
 
 And now in addition to being chief fabler and 
 yarn-spinner of the place, our Lincoln has added 
 another large sprig of laurel to his wreath of glory ; 
 he is acclaimed "the best man in town." A 
 modern Olympic victor on the banks of the San- 
 gamon we have to deem him, worthy of a high- 
 soaring Pindaric hymn, but alack-a-day! there is 
 no Pindar to sing it to New Salem and to all pos- 
 terity. And our village Hercules of the back- 
 
120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 woods is not the fair-proportioned statuesque 
 shape of Hellenic mould, but rather a grotesque 
 figure doing grotesque things in a kind of grotesque 
 world. This trait of his we must now grasp and 
 take along with us to the end; a strand of strange 
 grotesquery, not easy to adjust, runs through his 
 whole life. Who can forget the man in his and 
 the nation's sorest trial turning to grotesque humor 
 for disburdening his oppressed heart, making 
 mouths at destiny in her bitterest spite? In 
 classic Homer even Zeus the Highest has his 
 grotesque moods, particularly when he teases his 
 very teasable spouse Juno. And Shakespeare, on 
 the very top of his highest tragedy has the fool 
 slip in as if to mock Fate at its uttermost. Lincoln, 
 laden with the great purpose of his People and 
 gifted with the deep moral earnestness of his time 
 cannot help weaving through the Divine Order a 
 thread of grotesquery to make it complete. 
 
 But let us return to our youthful hero marching 
 back from Clary's Grove to New Salem along the 
 two miles' stretch of road amid a tumultuous crowd 
 of whooping friends, who in a grand procession are 
 bringing the new Olympic victor to his abode. 
 This was probably at the present time the village 
 hostelry called Rutledge Tavern, named after and 
 for a while kept by Ann Rutledge's father. The 
 maiden must also be imagined there in her own 
 home, taking many an admiring peep at the scene 
 and its heroic central figure. For the Iliad of Troy 
 
THE VILLAGE HERCULES. 121 
 
 town and also that of New Salem cannot be without 
 its fair Helen. Let her then flit for a brief moment 
 before our eyes in this little epical Lincolniad, pre- 
 luding a short faint note of some deeper destiny 
 hereafter. 
 
 The village of New Salem, all unconscious of its 
 poetic power, frequently re-enacts Homeric ex- 
 ploits in a kind of serio-comic vein, though wholly 
 naive in what it is doing. That perfectly natural 
 grotesquery, so quaint and subtle, imparts an 
 unafTected mock-heroic tinge to all its activities. 
 Hardly would this communal trait be worth 
 noticing, had it not passed over into Lincoln, in 
 whom it was embodied and concentrated, and whose 
 character and utterance it colored to the end of his 
 days, even in the presence of the dignitaries of 
 the nation and of the earth on high occasions of 
 state in the White House, whereat the lofty-toned 
 gentlemen of the Atlantic coast and elsewhere were 
 often shocked. 
 
 But now comes the supreme Homeric exploit, 
 truly epical in its reach. In the olden time each 
 little Greek community heard the call to arms 
 against the Asiatic Trojans, and sent its con- 
 tingent of warriors unfler its village hero to fight 
 the barbarous foe. The summons to bloody war 
 is now to be heard in New Salem also, volunteers 
 will respond under the leadership of its strong 
 man, Abraham Lincoln, and march out against 
 the red-skinned barbarians, the American Indians. 
 
122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 But this Troy war is not to restore beautiful Helen, 
 nor does it last ten years, though it has its woes 
 and its hero. But let us devote its own canto to 
 this new little Iliad, whose theme is the Black 
 Hawk War, chiefly famed at the present time 
 for its New Salem Achilles. 
 
 V._ 
 
 The Black Hawk War. 
 
 In 1832 when the Black Hawk war broke out, 
 Abraham Lincoln was twenty-three years old, 
 being already recognized as the peculiarly gifted 
 young-man of the village. He was specially re- 
 ceptive of this new experience of war, small enough, 
 but leaving a strong impression upon him, and be- 
 coming truly a part of his Apprenticeship. It 
 was made by him into a kind of romantic back- 
 ground for his story-telling during a long time. 
 Sixteen years later when he was a Congressman at 
 Washington, he won eminence by his stories and 
 those pertaining to the Black Hawk war were 
 singled out as the best. That event, so stimulat- 
 ing to. his young creative soul, he clustered over 
 and over in masses of fable and romance, 
 ever sprouting afresh with new turns from his 
 myth-making fancy. The people of Lincoln's 
 territory had been deeply stirred and indeed fright- 
 ened by the occurrence, and responded with heart- 
 felt interest to tales and novelettes born of its 
 
THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 123 
 
 adventures. In this matter also we see Lincoln 
 voicing the Folk-Soul, and fabling for it in its own 
 form of utterance. 
 
 Nor should we omit to notice in this connection 
 a speech of Lincoln's in the National House of 
 Representatives, July 28th, 1848 (Works I, p. 142), 
 in which he assumes the mock-heroic attitude to- 
 ward his own exploits in the Black Hawk war, by 
 way of chaffing General Cass, whom, as their can- 
 didate for President, the Democrats would pedestal 
 as a military hero alongside General Taylor, the 
 Whig canchdate and victor of Buena Vista. Lin- 
 coln being a Whig, breaks out into the following 
 fantastic strain of burlesquery: 
 
 "By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am 
 a military hero? Yes, Sir; in the days of the Black 
 Hawk war I fought, bled and came away. Speak- 
 ing of General Cass's career reminds me of my own. 
 I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was about as 
 near it as Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like 
 him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is 
 quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had 
 none to break ; but I bent a musket pretty badly on 
 one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea is 
 that he broke it in desperation; I bent the musket 
 by accident. If General Cass went in advance of 
 me in picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed 
 him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw 
 any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did; 
 but I had a good many bloody struggles with the 
 
124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 mosquitoes, and although I never fainted from loss 
 of blootl, I can truly say I was often very hungry." 
 Such was Lincoln's humorous echo of his heroic 
 achievements in the Black Hawk war long after- 
 ward. But let us go back to New Salem and watch 
 the beginning of this episode. It had become 
 manifest that Offut was failing in business and 
 must soon close. Lincoln was already looking for 
 some other occupation; it is a mark of his self-re- 
 liance as well as of his self-appreciation that the 
 raw young fellow announced himself a candidate 
 for the State Legislature early in March, 1832, 
 and issued an address to the people of Sangamon 
 County, feeling himself duly prepared to talk 
 grammatically, which most of the members could 
 not do. Evidently Offut has performed his func- 
 tion in the life of Lincoln, having separated him 
 from home, and given him an opportunity for a 
 new stage of experience in the village of New Salem. 
 In this Apprenticeship of Lincoln, Denton Offut 
 therefore has his little niche, and is endowed with 
 an inconspicuous immortality through his help 
 of and faith in Abraham Lincoln, to whom he has 
 given quite a little push forward in reaching that 
 great goal which we all now see, but he then could 
 not. Offut soon disappears without leaving a 
 trace, investigation since conducted has failed to 
 find whither he went from New Salem. Enough; 
 he has performed his part in the world's history, 
 and also in this biography. 
 
THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 125 
 
 But listen! what is this piece of newest news? 
 A horseman comes riding into town one of these 
 April days (1832), and brings a call to arms. 
 The Indians under their chief, the much-feared 
 Black Hawk, are on the war-path, have crossed the 
 Mississippi into Illinois, and have invaded the 
 Rock River country in the Northern part of the 
 State. The Governor has issued a call for volun- 
 teers and whisked it towards every point of the 
 compass by trusty messengers, one of whom gal- 
 lops through New Salem scattering hand-bills. 
 Lincoln quits the store, stops his electioneering, 
 and enlists. A company is formed and he is chosen 
 captain. 
 
 This election Lincoln always deemed a bright 
 feather in his cap of glory, and he never failed to 
 point to it, the occasion offering. In both his short 
 autobiographic sketches he mentions it with a 
 distinct cachinnation of delight. In the first and 
 briefest he writes: "Then came the Black Hawk 
 war; and I was elected a captain of volunteers — 
 a success which gave me more pleasure than any 
 I have had since," (written in 1859). The second 
 and longest account speaks of the same event in 
 the third person: "Abraham joined a volunteer 
 company, and to his own surprise was elected 
 captain of it. He says he has not since had any 
 success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. 
 He went to the campaign, served near three months, 
 met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, 
 
126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 but was in no battle," (written in 1860, before 
 his election to the Presidency). Well may he take 
 pleasure in this vote of confidence from his fellow- 
 citizens, probably the first truly appreciative one 
 in his life. A considerable body of grown men have 
 selected him as their leader, in what seems an im- 
 portant emergency. A little prelude we may enjoy 
 in it of far-off mighty events which are soon to 
 take up their march in History, when again Lincoln 
 will be elected Captain. 
 
 So our Abraham at the head of his little band 
 steps forth proud and tall as the leading warrior 
 of New Salem, and our Illinois village on the fron- 
 tier again insists on imitating Homer or parodying 
 him in dead earnest, without knowing a word about 
 him. For now under its local Hero or Strong Man 
 it sends forth its contingent to "the bloody bridge 
 of war" to fight against the Trojans and King 
 Priam, who have re-appeared on the Western con- 
 tinent along the banks of the Mississippi in the 
 form of American savages and their chieftain 
 Black Hawk, though the latter have indeed not 
 stolen Helen or anything, but rather have "been 
 stolen from by these valorous Greeks of the Oc- 
 cident. 
 
 An earnest passing glance we may cast upon the 
 Indian who has shown himself wholly unable to 
 counteract or to assimilate the ever-encroaching 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization. Black Hawk with true 
 insight touches the ground of his people's decline: 
 
THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 127 
 
 "My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold— 
 nothing can be sold but such things as can be 
 carried away." Still the Indians had sold their 
 lands, hardly knowing what they had done. In- 
 dividual ownershi}) of the soil lay beyond their 
 horizon. In the words of Black Hawk: "The 
 Great Spirit gave it (the soil) to his children to live 
 upon and to cultivate," not to traffic in it as a piece 
 of movable property. "If they voluntarily leave 
 it, then any other people have the right to settle 
 upon it," thinks the Indian confined to the idea of 
 his primitive Village Community, out of which he 
 is totally unable to pass. It is the conflict of two 
 institutional worlds, the outgoing and the incom- 
 ing, there taking place along the border land. 
 Lincoln has a part in this conflict, siding of course 
 with his own race's civilization. How could he 
 help it? For the struggle between the red man 
 and the white man is not merely a physical tussle, 
 but a contest between two institutions, of which 
 each colliding party is the bearer. The deepest 
 fact of man is that world of institutions lying in 
 his soul, out of which world he can no more take a 
 leap than out of his skin. So Lincoln amid his 
 other experiences gets a taste of that long Ameri- 
 can struggle on the frontier between what is usu- 
 ally called barbarism and civilization — a struggle 
 which has already lasted more than two hundred 
 years, and in which his ancestors have participated 
 for generations. He could hardly help thinking 
 
128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 of his grandfather, also an Abraham Lincoln, who 
 migrating to Kentucky as a pioneer, was slain by 
 an Indian in ambush. 
 
 Moreover our Abraham Lincoln now gets quite 
 a little dip into military life, of which he is to have 
 so large an experience in the future. To be sure 
 there was no field for grand strategy in that petty 
 hurly-burly of redskins and backwoodsmen on the 
 border. But there had to be drill and military 
 routine, since the West-Pointer was there and in 
 command. In this regard it is interesting to note 
 that Lincoln gets to know somewhat of the United 
 States army officers — a class of men with whom he 
 will have much to do hereafter in many notable 
 ways. Colonel Zachary Taylor was there with im- 
 portant duties, one of which was to quell a mutiny 
 of rebellious volunteers in face of the enemy; him 
 Lincoln afterwards supported for the Presidency. 
 Lieutenant Albert Sidney Johnston was there, after- 
 wards General in the Southern Confederacy who fell 
 mortally wounded at Shiloh, battling against troops 
 under the command of that obscure Illinois Captain, 
 Abraham Lincoln, when he had risen to be Com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United 
 States. A young Lieutenant of Artillery was there, 
 Robert Anderson, to whom it was allotted to open 
 the Civil War at Fort Sumter under that same 
 "Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the 
 United States," whom he had mustered out of 
 military service some twenty-nine years before 
 
THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 129 
 
 that event. A most significant commentary on 
 American Institutions is all this, with their unsur- 
 passed power of bringing the right man to the front, 
 though of the humblest birth, against the social 
 privileges and prejudices of rank and wealth. 
 Nor can we help noting the number of Southern men 
 in the list of army officers at this time, headed by 
 Scott and Taylor. This fact will have its por- 
 tentous significance for Lincoln and the Nation 
 in 1861. Already it had been observed that the 
 South largely furnished the officers of the United 
 States army, while the North furnished largely, 
 though not wholly, the rank-and-file. This may 
 well be deemed a phase of the sj^lit already setting 
 in between the aristocratic and the democratic 
 elements of the land. And may we not bring out 
 into the light the typi-cal fact that Lincoln, chosen 
 here by his people in a very small way, but here- 
 after to be chosen in a large and the largest way, 
 now first appears among an unchosen but perma- 
 nent officialdom, and gets the experience of the 
 most undemocratic yet a necessary part of the 
 American government. Such experience will be- 
 stead him well in his supreme emergency. 
 
 And now let us listen to another and even 
 more surprising report about one of these young 
 Army-Lieutenants, also of Southern birth, affable, 
 of fine aristocratic bearing, and very talented, 
 who, it is declared, mustered into the service of 
 the United States Abraham Lincoln and his 
 
130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 rather democratic company for the Black Hawk 
 war: 
 
 ''Then a tall, gawky, slab-sided, homely young 
 man, dressed in a suit of blue jeans, presented him- 
 self as captain of a company of recruits, and was 
 sworn in by Jefferson Davis." (Life of Davis by 
 his wife. Vol. I, p. 132, — written of course after 
 the Civil War). 
 
 It would seem, then, that the first oath taken by 
 Lincoln to support the Constitution of the United 
 States was administered to him by Jefferson Davis, 
 future President of the Southern Confederacy, who 
 had taken the same oath. Which of the two kept it 
 best is a question upon which History has had a 
 good deal to say, and upon which it is destined to 
 say a good deal more. But imagine "tall, gawky, 
 slab-sided, homely" Abraham Lincoln holding up 
 that enormous hand of his to the dapper, well- 
 groomed, aristocratic Jefferson Davis out there in 
 the backwoods of Illinois, and then take a glimpse 
 into the seeds of time and see how they grow. 
 Might Davis, as he looked upon that awful hand 
 held higher than his head and backed by long, 
 swinging, scythe-like arms of Destiny, have had 
 some far-off presentiment that it would come 
 down upon him heavily one day for failure to ob- 
 serve that very oath which he was then administer- 
 ing? Davis with his friends, as the world knows, 
 will maintain that he is within his right and oath 
 when he tries to break up the Union and its Consti- 
 
THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 131 
 
 tution, to which he has sworn allegiance; let us 
 not argue with him ; still the Big Hand will descend 
 like Fate and crush his Idea, but not him for- 
 tunately, for who is not glad that he lived to tell 
 the tale of his deeds in his own way, to his heart's 
 content? And let us add that Lincoln would be 
 the first to excuse, yea to laugh at the above-cited 
 words, rather disparaging in tone but not untrue 
 literally, of the amiable biographer who so fore-* 
 ibly expresses her aristocratic contempt for the 
 colossal antagonist of her husband. 
 
 Let it now be added that the foregoing incident 
 is not capable of documentary proof, though prob- 
 able. The muster-roll of Lincoln's company is 
 not on file at the Adjutant-General's office where 
 it ought to be. Moreover the record shows that 
 Jefferson Davis had a furlough from March '26th, 
 to August 18th, 1832, which covers the time of 
 Lincoln's service. Hence the doubt as to their 
 meeting. But according to the evidence of Davis 
 himself confirmed by many volunteers of the Black 
 Hawk campaign who saw him and recollect him, 
 he must have been there, doubtless hastening back 
 to service when the war broke out. This is not only 
 probable, but a young Lieutenant could hardly 
 do otherwise; not only he but his fellow-officers 
 and also his own soldiers in the ranks would say 
 that it was no time "to be absent on furlough." 
 Mrs. Davis doubtless reports the recollection of 
 her husband. So we can say: not directly prov- 
 
132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 able but probable is the unique scene of towering 
 Abraham Lincoln holding up his gigantic hand to 
 and perchance over Jefferson Davis to take the oath 
 of allegiance to the Government of the United 
 States. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Candidate Lincoln. 
 
 It has been already stated that Lincoln had 
 announced himself as a candidate for representa- 
 tive in the Illinois Legislature when his election- 
 eering was suddenly interrupted by the Black Hawk 
 war. Moreover he had issued "an Address to the 
 People of Sangamon County" in order to make 
 known ''my sentiments in regard to local affairs/' 
 national affairs, such as tarifT and bank, being 
 omitted. This manifesto is interesting from several 
 points of view. In style it is carefully written, 
 and on the whole well worded, even if a little stiff 
 for Lincoln, for there is not a joke in it, nor a streak 
 of humor to our perception ; no anecdote, no story, 
 only one little mental grimace. This is not the 
 mimic Lincoln of the country-store, of the street- 
 corner, of the stump ; he feels that he must now be 
 dignified and formal like other empty-pated figure- 
 heads who are running for the Legislature. The 
 piece was probably corrected in grammar and style 
 by the schoolmaster, Mentor Graham; McNamar, 
 the betrothed of Ann Rutledge, claimed likewise 
 to have had a hand in correcting it. Upon its com- 
 
CANDIDATE LINCOLN. 133 
 
 position as the first-born writ of his pohtical career 
 the young author must have spent a good deal of 
 labor; also he could not help reading it with a cer- 
 tain delight to all his friends, who of course admired 
 it. At their urgent request, no doubt, to which 
 he bashfully but joyfully yielded, it was printed 
 in the forn:i of a hand-bill and scattered over San- 
 gamon County, with no small expectations of its 
 powerful effect upon the voters. 
 
 As with this candidacy the political life of Lin- 
 coln opens, so with this Address he begins to use 
 the Printed Page to further his political purpose. 
 Already in Indiana it is said that some of his juve- 
 nile articles had been published in newspapers. 
 But the road on which he now starts he never aban- 
 dons till death itself halts him. This product is 
 properly his first appeal to the Folk-Soul to make 
 him « their lawgiver, their representative, their 
 mediator. As yet the field is small, and the issue 
 not so important, but the one will widen till it em- 
 braces the whole country, and the other will grow 
 till it becomes not only national but world-histor- 
 ical. 
 
 What, then, were the main points of this first 
 Address? As before said it purposely avoids na- 
 tional topics, and confines itself to local questions. 
 (1) He dwells particularly upon the need of inter- 
 communication, and hence puts great stress upon 
 internal improvements of which the supreme 
 example is the Sangamon. This river will open a 
 
134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 connection with the Illinois, with the Mississippi, 
 with the Gulf, with the Ocean, with the World. 
 Such was the grand outlook which Lincoln unrolls 
 to the New Salemites, who voted for him almost 
 to a man, without regard to party. Lincoln gives 
 soberly the details how the channel can be cleared 
 of drift, straightened by a little digging, deepened 
 by a little dredging — and then we have a navigable 
 stream just for a small appropriation. Still the 
 whole scheme was chimerical, there was not enough 
 water falling from Heaven into the valley of the 
 Sangamon to float any regular traffic. Though 
 New Salem voted it up, the county as a whole 
 voted it down. (2) The Address grapples with 
 another popular question — the limitation of the 
 rate of interest. The farmers were oppressed by 
 usurers and were crying for relief by means of legis- 
 lation — a very old remedial method. Now Lincoln 
 knew that any legal restraint upon interest would 
 simply increase the burden to those who most 
 needed help. And yet he favors a law which will 
 work both ways : it is to be evaded in extreme cases, 
 but otherwise is to be enforced. Thus our fledg- 
 ling of a legislator will enact a lav; wherein "means 
 can always be found to cheat the law," and yet to 
 execute it also. So our Lincoln in his legislative 
 capacity proposes to ride two horses at once run- 
 ning in opposite directions'. Let him be beaten 
 at the polls, decree the Powers, and set him to 
 studying the law before he starts to making it, for, 
 
CANDIDATE LINCOLN. 135 
 
 to say the least, his ignorance of it is fundamental. 
 We may note, however, that this patent reversible 
 gimcrack of a law which is made to turn itself in- 
 side out and still to go on working, drops away 
 from Lincoln's career henceforth. (3) The Ad- 
 dress says a good word for education "as the most 
 important subject which we as a people can be 
 engaged in." One thinks that he sought to give 
 the coming generation a better chance than he 
 ever had. His chief argument is noteworthy, in 
 view of his own past, urging 'Hhat every man may 
 be enabled to read the histories of his own and other 
 countries, by which he may duly appreciate the 
 value of our free institutions," whose safety, indeed, 
 depends upon the Printed Page, nor does he omit 
 the advantage of ''all being able to read the Scrip- 
 tures for themselves," though this is put second 
 in line. (4) There is a personal touch in the final 
 paragraph which declares his highest ambition to be 
 "that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, 
 by rendering myself worthy of their esteem." 
 Certainly this gives a little glimpse into Lincoln's 
 earliest aspiration, though "I was born and have 
 ever remained in the most humble walks of life." 
 That is Lincoln, the rise from the very bottom 
 to the highest summit of the nation and of the age. 
 Then a last word of resignation: "But if the good 
 people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in 
 the background, I have been too familiar with dis- 
 appointments to be much chagrined." As we 
 
136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 understand him, he rather forbodes defeat, still 
 he is going to take his first pkmge into the Ocean 
 of the People, the vast protoplasmic mass, in which 
 his real work lies, and which he is to inform with 
 its supreme world-historical purpose. (The whole 
 Address is given in Lincoln's Works, by Nicolay 
 and Hay, being the first printed piece of his com- 
 position) . 
 
 So our modern Homeric hero returns from his 
 exploits in the Black Hawk war and asks his fel- 
 low-citizens to elect him Captain in an entirely 
 new vocation. He wishes to start in his civil 
 career, which is really the one of his heart, and 
 which will give him his life-task. He will in time 
 get to be commander-in-chief, military indeed, 
 but, what is much more significant, supra-mili- 
 tary, commanding war itself, if need be, against 
 war, and winning rather the most positive victory 
 of the age. So it befell that Lincoln, after his dis- 
 charge from military service on the border against 
 the barbarians, returned directly to peaceful, 
 idyllic New Salem, now the lodestone of his career 
 for a number of reasons public and private, being 
 acclaimed the hero of the village by a new deed of 
 fame with its fresh sprig of laurel. He reached 
 the much desired spot in August, 1832, having 
 been absent since his enlistment in the preceding 
 April. This was his three months' service and 
 may have vaguely suggested the period of his first 
 call for volunteers in 18G1. He renewed his can- 
 
CANDIDATE LINCOLN. 137 
 
 diclacy for the Legislature already announced, and 
 his captaincy in the Black Hawk war must have 
 been a stirring item in his electioneering capital. 
 
 In connection with Lincoln's candidacy we have 
 to chronicle a new and very exhilarating event in 
 the life of New Salem which helped raise the delu- 
 sion of a navigable Sangamon to the boiling point 
 of delirium. The incident occurred a little while 
 before the outbreak of the Black Hawk war, and 
 Lincoln took part in the excitement, proclaiming 
 as his chief political tenet the improvement of the 
 Sangamon, to the unstinted applause of his fellow- 
 villagers. And behold ! what is this which appears 
 to them gathered on their bluff and peering down 
 the river? In the early spring of 1832 they see an 
 actual steamboat pufnng up the stream at liigh 
 flood to New Salem, and then pushing on to a land- 
 ing near Springfield, The latter place gave a 
 grand reception and ball at the court house to the 
 bold sailors who had brought the vessel all the way 
 from Cincinnati. The Taluman, for such was its 
 magical name, evoked great excitement along the 
 Sangamon Valley, and had the power of putting 
 the inhabitants under a spell of blinding enchant- 
 ment, causing them to lose, if not their eye-sight, 
 at least their mind-sight. In a week the high 
 waters were running out and the boat had to 
 hurry down stream, reaching the Illinois river with 
 great difficulty, chiefly through the dexterity of its 
 two pilots, one of whom was Lincoln. It too had 
 
138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 trouble at Rutledge's dam like the flat-boat. He 
 had also assisted in bringing it up stream, so that 
 he was becoming well acquainted with the channel 
 of the Sangamon — ^knowledge which he will soon 
 bring into play. Indeed he had already studied 
 the stream with care, as we see by his first political 
 document, already considered. 
 
 Let the outcome of the election be stated as far 
 as it interests us: Candidate Lincoln is defeated. 
 In both his autobiographic notices he declares 
 with just pride that this was the only time he was 
 ever beaten by the people. His further declara- 
 tion runs: "His own precinct, however, casting 
 its votes, 277 for him and 7 against him," evidenced 
 his popularity at New Salem, and especially that 
 of his cause, the improvement of the Sangamon. 
 But the rest of the county thought otherwise, for 
 the Sangamon could not wash every man's farm, 
 nor float a steamboat to every village. Moreover 
 it was a Presidential year (1832) in which a straight 
 ticket is usually voted by both parties. Lincoln 
 had become a Henry Clay Whig, though he seems 
 to have been a Jackson man or (boy) in 1828. Hence 
 he says with pardonable self-gratulation : "the pre- 
 cinct the autumn afterward gave a majority of 
 115 to General Jackson over Mr. Clay." 
 
 On the whole this judgment of the People in 
 defeating Lincoln this time will have to be affirmed. 
 That double-acting, reversible law of usury was a 
 poor recommendation for a legislator. The San- 
 
THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 139 
 
 gamon cannot be made a navigable stream, improve 
 it as we may, on account of a primary deficiency of 
 the fluid which floats vessels, even if it has floated 
 Lincoln into New Salem, its greatest act of naviga- 
 tion. " Go back, go back to your studies, especially 
 to the study of the law," cries the Genius presiding 
 over his destiny, "and I shall whirl down to you 
 out of the Heavens, an unexpected book, nothing 
 less than the greatest preparatory law-book ever 
 written, thi'ough which you can begin to get your- 
 self ready for your coming vocation." Lincoln 
 could not help obeying as the pressure of stern 
 necessity lay upon him; but let our reader weigh 
 the miraculous message, awaiting, with some ex- 
 pectancy and possibly with no little dubitation, 
 the fulfilment of its promise, wliich is now to be 
 recounted. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Book of the Law. 
 
 A new Book which we may call theBook of the 
 Law, is in these days delivered into the hands of 
 Abraham Lincoln, not exactly by the Supreme 
 Giver in person, as long ago happened to the old 
 Hebrew legislator on Mount Sinai, but in a way 
 which we may call Chance, if we like, or if we are 
 religiously inclined, Providence. Let it not be 
 forgotten that Lincoln has often been hailed the 
 new Moses by people strongly imbued with the 
 Old Testament, chiefly for his leadership of the 
 
140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 black race out of their bondage, and also of the white 
 race to a higher freedom. And a chief hand he 
 certainly took in bringing forth a new Law and 
 transformed Constitution for his country. 
 
 Some four years and more have passed since the 
 Book of Institutions dropped into his Indiana hfe, 
 making an epoch in his development. But that 
 Book, we must suppose, he had to leave behind 
 with its owner when he migrated to Illinois. Since 
 then he has seemingly done very little legal reading, 
 so deeply occupied has be been with his river- 
 nymph, Sangamona, with the alarms of war, with 
 the game of politics, with the ups and downs of 
 that feverish settlement, New Salem. One gift 
 of his, indeed, that of story-telling, has been al- 
 ways in demand, and has largely absorbed his 
 mind's activity, since the response to it was imme- 
 diate, intoxicating, triumphant. But really his 
 art was not the end but a means, existing not 
 for its own sake, but to be an instrument of his 
 deeper destiny. So he must be turned back into 
 the serious purpose of life, which was that he be- 
 come the leader of his people to a new institutional 
 Hberty. A little too much drifting freedom he 
 has enjoyed in that drifting community of New 
 Salem. Indeed in a number of ways, econom- 
 ically, politically, yea, intellectually, he has almost 
 drifted to zero, to downright negation, which is 
 finding its expression in his skepticism. But upon 
 such a world-view falls now a peculiar experience 
 
THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 141 
 
 which suggests somewhat of a supernal Prevision 
 over him. And at least so much can be declared: 
 a new Book is brought to him, the complement, 
 yea, the fulfilment of that Book of Institutions 
 which he has been compelled to leave behind in 
 Indiana. 
 
 Some few months after his political defeat, 
 probably during the summer of 1833, a man in a 
 covered wagon with family and household effects 
 drove up in front of Lincoln's store and begged 
 him to buy an old barrel full of trumpery for which 
 he had no room in his straitened vehicle. He never 
 said what it contained, and Lincoln, in kindness of 
 heart, bought it, paying him, "I think, half a dollar 
 for it." The man who was apparently moving to 
 the West, at once vanished with his wagon into 
 vacuity, having fulfilled in his passage through 
 New Salem his considerable part in determining 
 the career of Abraham Lincoln. For when the bar- 
 rel was turned upside down and emptied on the 
 floor some days afterwards, at the bottom of all 
 the rubbish came forth a complete edition of Black- 
 stone's Commentaries, just the book of all others 
 needful for his next step at that time. A most 
 valuable and unexpected prize had been secreted 
 in that old barrel, and brought to New Salem by 
 some unknown hand, and delivered to Lincoln in 
 person — what shall we say to it? A fortunate 
 accident men would call it now, having little faith 
 in the Gods; but may it please the reader to look 
 
142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST, 
 
 back again at old Homer (as already we have 
 glimpsed old Moses), who would surely say that 
 such an occurrence came from above, being the 
 work of Pallas Athena, who in the guise of a stran- 
 ger appeared to the man in the wagon with the 
 mysterious barrel, and constrained him by divine 
 command to dispose of it at the store in the vil- 
 lage for fifty cents. Thus the Goddess is seen to 
 be always looking out for her special ward, Tele- 
 machus Lincoln, and now provides for him at the 
 right moment the right kind of Printed Page in 
 the slack days of New Salem. 
 
 Lincoln himself knew well the value of the prize 
 he had drawn in this strange lottery of the Gods, 
 providential enough to rouse a ground-swell of 
 that superstition which the illuminated biog- 
 rapher has so often traced somewhat con- 
 descendingly in his character. Still the reporter of 
 the foregoing occurrence has not told these inner 
 and deeper surges of Lincoln's soul seldom break- 
 ing out to the surface in speech, but has preserved 
 his own statement of the mighty outward impact 
 which he received from the new-found book: "I 
 began to read those famous works, and I had 
 plenty of time, for during the long sunmier days, 
 when the farmers were busy with their crops, my 
 customers were few and far between. The more I 
 read, the more intensely interested I became. 
 Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly 
 absorbed. I read until I devoured them." Truly 
 
THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 143 
 
 it is the right book fallen as it were out of the skies 
 at the right moment ; it is as a whole appropriated, 
 internalized, made an integral element of his in- 
 tellectual equipment for the future, he having 
 plenty of leisure just now for the task. 
 
 And yet Blackstone's Commentaries is not such 
 an easy book to master. It reads not Hke the 
 newspaper or novel, and there is a good deal of it. 
 But we see that Lincoln was prepared. We 
 recollect how he read the Revised Statutes of Indi- 
 ana back on Little Pidgeon Creek, and the import- 
 ant political and legal documents therewith pub- 
 lished. Such was his introduction to the law and 
 its peculiar nomenclature. That book however, 
 was confined to the United States and their Ameri- 
 can origins. But in Blackstone he reaches back to 
 their remoter source in English law and history — a 
 vast widening of his horizon. He now has come 
 to the well-head of his country's Institutions, and 
 drinks of it with intense delight. For Lincoln had 
 a genetic mind, truly creative on its political side; 
 in Blackstone he could feed his creativity witness- 
 ing and re-creating in thought the birth and devel- 
 opment of the institutional world that lay about 
 him. Perchance he could see the original fountain 
 of those Indiana Statutes, for they were all made 
 by men trained in Blackstone and the English 
 Law. Surely a divinely sent gift .of Pallas Athena, 
 be it given at Ithaca or at New Salem, we may 
 deem this Book of the Law. 
 
144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 And let us behold Lincoln absorbed in his Black- 
 stone, lying on the village green during the hot 
 days of summer in the shade of a tree, not far from 
 his store, this being allowed to take care of itself, 
 which it can easily do, having almost no custom. 
 Upon his back he often reposes with his bare feet 
 stuck up the trunk of the tree, his favorite atti- 
 tude for concentration. Reports an observer: 
 "His tow-linen pantaloons I thought about five 
 inches too short in the legs, and fre(iuently he had 
 but one suspender, no vest or coat. He wore a 
 calico shirt," and on his head, when he arose, was 
 slouched "a straw hat, old style, without any 
 band." Very unconventional and regardless of 
 the outer world must our Lincoln have been while 
 immersed in the study of his new Book of the Law. 
 He would read and recite to himself while walk- 
 ing to and from Springfield, out of the Printed 
 Page before him ; when darkness came on, he would 
 go to the cooper!s shop, the friendly owner having 
 given permission to make a fire with the refuse 
 shavings, by whose light he would read "far into 
 the night." Amid his duties he would seize his 
 book if leisure came to him, were it only "five min- 
 utes' time." 
 
 The strange epiphany of this Book of the Law 
 dropping directly upon Lincoln's path, evidently 
 threw a mighty influence over him, recalling in a 
 kind of atlmonition, and emphasizing vivitlly the 
 goal of his career, so that he starts out afresh toward 
 
LINCOLN IN BUSINESS. 145 
 
 it, with an ever-renewing zest and tireless industiy. 
 In one direction at least he begins to get settled 
 in that unsettled New Salem. 
 
 (The preceding account is derived from the St. 
 Louis artist, Mr. A. J. Conant, to whom Lincoln 
 told the story, while sitting for his portrait in 1860. 
 See Miss Tarbell's Life of Lincoln, I, p. 93. It 
 should be added that there is another report, ac- 
 cording to which Lincoln borrowed his Blackstone 
 from the lawyer of a neighboring town. Indeed 
 two borrowings of the work from two different 
 men, each of a different town, have become cur- 
 rent in the Folk-Lore about the early Lincoln in 
 Illinois, ever getting more diversified and diver- 
 gent). 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Lincoln in Business. 
 
 Indeed! Now it may be predicted that our 
 "piece of floating driftwood," having drifted into 
 business, will get anchored at last, or will make of 
 it a drifting business and float soon into bankruptcy, 
 particularly in that village, itself adrift. Still 
 another shifting part, then, Lincoln has to play 
 during these variegated years, 1832-1, in addition 
 to those parts already mentioned — boat-man, clerk, 
 athlete, soldier, fabulist and the rest ; it is said that 
 he even went back to rail-splitting for a while dur- 
 ing this time. But now he is to become a merchant 
 without money, a capitalist without capital, and 
 
146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN —PART FIRST. 
 
 live another chapter in his Book of Experience al- 
 ready getting bulky. 
 
 Lincohi's political defeat was probably the best 
 thing for him at the time; he was not yet ready to 
 go to the State Legislature, so the presiding Powers 
 turned him back to study and greater maturity. 
 Yet he must find something to do, having no occu- 
 pation and no work after the election. He evi- 
 dently liked clerking in a store for its many oppor- 
 tunities of seeing people, of practising his gifts of 
 discussion and story-telling, and specially for the 
 leisure it gave him to contmue his reading. But 
 there was no appreciative Offut to hire him in any 
 one of the four stores of the place. It was suggested 
 that he become a blacksmith, for which nature had 
 fitted him ))y his great strength and by the wide 
 swing of his arms for wielding the sledge hammer. 
 But it has been handed down that Lincoln did not 
 take kindly to hard labor ; an old farmer said he was 
 no hand to pitch into work "like killing snakes;" 
 he preferred to be inwardly occupied. The country 
 store as the center of the village is his true place; 
 in a store he must be and so at last he succeeds in 
 buying one by simply giving his promissoiy note. 
 Since he eould not be clerk, he was going to be pro- 
 prietor. 
 
 Thus, however, he ventures upon a new and 
 treacherous sea, that of indebtedness, of which he 
 is to have many a bitter experience. But it was so 
 easy at the start to get things without paying for 
 
LINCOLN IN BUSINESS. 147 
 
 them, he being quite unconscious of the clay of 
 reckoning. So easy was it that he buys two other 
 stores on crecUt, whose owners wished to get rid of 
 them — not a good sign of the town's prosperity 
 or of his coming success. A partner too, he picks 
 up, by the name of Berry, who had no good name 
 in the community, being a dissipated and riotous 
 young fellow. The firm of Lincoln & Berry had 
 acciuired a considerable stock of liquors of which 
 the junior partner was the chief salesman and best 
 customer. Lincoln, very temperate in his habits, 
 never tasting strong drink or even using tobacco, 
 not only found leisure but created it for his studies, 
 at the expense of strict attention to business. 
 He scoured the ncighJDorhood for books, and got 
 hold of a Rollin and a Gibbon, which he read while 
 with Berry. If he mastered those two works, he 
 certainly gained no contemptible outfit in Ancient 
 History. The great states and the great person- 
 ages of Greece and Rome had at least been intro- 
 duced to him. We may query whether the skep- 
 tical tendency which he showed about this time 
 was fed by Gibbon's famous chapters against 
 Christianity. To Gibbon may be added the 
 other great disbelievers of the Eighteenth Century : 
 the Frenchmen Voltaire and Volney, and the 
 American Tom Paine, writings of all of whom are 
 declared to have fallen into Lincoln's hands at this 
 time, and to have been the subject of discussions 
 at the store and tavern, Lincoln, of course, tak- 
 
148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 ing part, and even writing the book already alluded 
 to. 
 
 We have to infer that he was not a good store- 
 keeper. The establishment evidently fell in twain, 
 the drinking department being presided over by 
 Berry, and the story-telling department conducted 
 by Lincoln. The latter, however, was always 
 grasping after something to be learned. So we 
 must set down that in these days Lincoln had 
 plenty of time to go a-fishing with Jack Kelso, 
 an incessant spouter of Burns and Shakespeare, 
 for whose beauties he had a genuine appreciation. 
 Otherwise Jack is reported to have been a shiftless 
 vagabond, living by little odd-jobs, and chiefly 
 by sponging on the charitable, notably on Lincoln. 
 But he is the man who has come down to us as hav- 
 ing inducted Lincoln into a new poetic world quite 
 different from anything which he had previously 
 known. Particularly Shakespeare will remain a 
 companion of Lincoln for many years. Thus our 
 apprentice seems to be taking quite a course in 
 History and Literature while store-keeping. Novels 
 too he read with delight, having a decided relish for 
 fiction. Newspapers were also within his reach, 
 and the politician devoured them with avidity. 
 Desultory indeed is such a training, but it has the 
 considerable advantage of not being foisted upon 
 the student, who in the present case makes his 
 college course as he goes along, selecting his 
 materials, scanty enough, from his environment. 
 
LINCOLN IN BUSINESS. 149 
 
 But how many youths would be equal to such a 
 taek? 
 
 Behold, a new but small business comes to him ; 
 he is made Postmaster of New Salem, May 7th, 
 1833, presenting the marvel of a Whig holding 
 office under Democratic Andrew Jackson. The 
 mail came irregularl}', but it averaged once a week, 
 and it is stated that ''he carried the office around 
 in his hat," whicli remained his personal receptacle 
 for letters and papers through life. There is little 
 doubt that Lincoln took the office for the sake of 
 the opportunity it gave him of reading the current 
 news and literature of the day. He had, it seems, 
 the permission, or perchance the privilege of 
 perusing the printed matter, newspapers, and maga- 
 zines, which came through the mails. We must 
 recollect the political excitement of this time: 
 nullification in South Carolina, and her conflict 
 with President Andrew Jackson; great speeches 
 in the Senate by Webster and Calhoun, oratorical 
 protagonists of Union and Disunion; the contro- 
 versy over the National Bank; the discussion of 
 the tariff question. So we may see Postmaster 
 Abraham Lincoln when the mail has arrived, care- 
 fully removing the wrapper from every newspaper, 
 which he reads and then puts back into its wrapper, 
 depositing it in his Post Office Hat for delivery to 
 its subscriber who may live miles in the country. 
 So too, he treats the less frequent magazine, and 
 perchance the stray paper-covered novel whose 
 
150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 leaves he will kindly cut for its owner. Truly 
 Lincoln is swallow^ing his whole environment, all 
 its knowledge, all its vocations, all its institutions; 
 if not the cosmic egg, at least the New Salem 
 one he will suck dry, no doubt to the neglect of 
 that spirit-confining business of his. One gap in 
 New Salem as well as in Lincoln, must be marked: 
 we hear of little or no music in their existence, ex- 
 cept the sweet voice of Aim Rutledge who was a 
 soulful singer of ballads and hymns. But where 
 is the village fiddler with his jigs, reels, hornpipes, 
 from the "Devil's Dream" to "Rory O'Moore"? 
 It is said that Lincoln found one at Vandalia when 
 he went there as representative, and was charmed 
 by his art. Even this musician has been hunted 
 up and has handed in his report from w^hich we 
 snip a shred: "I would take the fiddle with me 
 when I went over to visit him (Lincoln, in his 
 quarters at Vandalia) and when he grew weary of 
 telling stories, he would ask me to give him a tune, 
 which I never refused to do." 
 
 Lincoln meanwhile has quite abandoned the 
 store to Berry, who drank himself to death in the 
 business, as he died not long after. The stock of 
 groceries had run low and was sold on credit to 
 two brothers, both scamps, who soon absconded. 
 The result of Lincoln's mercantile career was a pile 
 of debts with no money to pay them ; all the accu- 
 mulated obligations of the business for tv\'o 3Tars 
 fell to his share in the end. Thus a heavy burden 
 
LINCOLN IN BUSINESS. 151 
 
 was put upon him at his economic start in life and 
 worried him for many years before it was paid, for 
 he assumed all the liabilities. He was in the habit 
 of comparing it with the State debt, for Illinois 
 made a wild venture not dissimilar to that of Lin- 
 coln in New Salem, who will help the whole State 
 do what he did, by his vote in the Legislature — 
 favoring the so-called public improvements, such as 
 the improvement of the Sangamon. 
 
 But that is a little ahead of our narrative. At 
 present we are to see that rock of Tantalus, in the 
 shape of an ever-threatening debt, which Lincoln 
 has gotten suspended over his head for a consider- 
 able part of his life-time and which seems always 
 ready to fall down crushingly upon him and his — 
 the fateful outcome of his venture in merchantry at 
 New Salem. Says his partner, Herndon: ''Even 
 as late as 1848 he sent to me from Washington por- 
 tions of his salary as Congressman to be applied on 
 the unpaid remnant, of the Berry & Lincoln in- 
 debtedness," — that is, fifteen years afterward, and 
 it still ran on — "but in time he extinguished it all, 
 even to the last penny." Penitential rock of 
 Tantalus hung in mid air by Zeus over the mortal 
 victim for his transgression the old Greek poet 
 Pindar fabled in his mythical world, and sang a 
 strain applicable to Lincoln and any other Tantalus 
 overcanopied with debt: "Therefore shall he 
 be forsaken of all joy, and be made a wanderer 
 from happiness." 
 
152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 Once indeed a piece of that suspended Tantalus 
 rock broke loose, fell down with a crash and smote 
 him to the earth for a time, in the shape of one of 
 those promissory notes which came due and was 
 not paid. Lincoln's horse, saddle and bridle, and 
 worst of all, his surveying instruments, by which 
 he was slowly earning his economic freedom, were 
 levied upon, seized by the constable and exposed 
 for sale to the highest bidder. But kind-hearted 
 Uncle Jimmy Short, a farmer of Sand Ridge, hear- 
 ing of the trouble and feeling the impulse to be a 
 small Providence, hastened to the rescue, and bought 
 back all the articles at the sale for 120 dollars, 
 and then restored them to the owner. But many 
 such beetling crags still hang over Lincoln's head, 
 minatory; well may a snake-like 'anxiety keep 
 crawling over him, lest the next tim.e such a provi- 
 dential interference in his behalf may not take 
 place. Let it be added that Lincoln when Presi- 
 dent rewarded his benefactor with a small office, 
 which the latter filled, we hope, without detri- 
 ment to the public service, 
 
 IX 
 
 The Two Calhouns. 
 
 In this same eventful year, 1833, two gentlemen 
 by the name of Calhoun, became interwoven with 
 the course of Lincoln's life. Each of them also 
 was called John Calhoun, indeed each of them has 
 
THE TWO CALHOUN S. 153 
 
 come down to posterity designated as John C. Cal- 
 houn. The one was a Southerner and belonged to 
 South Carolina, as all the world knows; the other 
 was a Northerner, in fact a New Englander who 
 had migrated to Springfield, IlHnois. Both, how- 
 ever, were Democrats, and took a political turn 
 quite opposite to that of Lincoln. 
 
 First we shall cast a glance at what John Cald- 
 well Calhoun of South Carolina was doing. On 
 January 22, 1833, two days after the introduction 
 of Jackson's Force Bill, the following resolutions 
 were offered by Calhoun in the Senate of the 
 United States : 
 
 (1) "Eesolved that the people of the sev- 
 eral States comprising these United States are 
 united as parties to a Constitutional Compact, to 
 which each State acceded as a separate Sovereign 
 community." 
 
 Here is the assertion that the Union is a Com- 
 pact between the Single-States, and that each 
 Single-State as sovereign took part in the Compact 
 and acceded to the same Now it is this view of 
 the Union which Lincoln, we may suppose, begins 
 already in 1833 to grapple with in thought, and 
 which he is at last to meet by argument and 
 then by force in 1861, 
 
 (2) ''Resolved that the .people of the several 
 States . . . delegated to the General Govern- 
 ment certain definite })owcrs . , . and that the 
 same Government is not made the final judge of 
 
154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 the powers delegated to it . . . but each State 
 has the right to judge for itself, as well of the in- 
 fraction as of the mode and measure of redress." 
 
 There is another Resolution to the same general 
 effect, but these two (somewhat abbreviated as 
 they stand here) tell the national wrestle of the 
 time, and show the idea which was discussed in 
 all the newspapers, and on the street-corners and 
 in the village-stores of every nook of the land. 
 The Folk-Soul is struggling over the question 
 which may be thus stated : Which has the primacy 
 in our form of Government: the Single-State or 
 the Union? Clearly the doctrine of Calhoun as- 
 serts the primacy of the Single-State, which has 
 the right of initiative in withdrawing from the 
 Union, or the right of Secession. 
 
 Now the curious fact comes to the surface that 
 it is just this problem which Lincoln will be called 
 upon to deal with when he enters the Presidency 
 twenty-eight years later. The chief burden of his 
 first Inaugural (1861) is the Primacy of the Union: 
 "No State of its own mere notion can lawfully get 
 out of the Union." One may be permitted to 
 think that he must have deeply pondered the 
 subject when the air was resounding all over the 
 land with the words of Calhoun: "each State has 
 the right to judge for itself" in disregard of the 
 General Government, even of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States. 
 
 It should be added that the ground of South 
 
THE TWO CALHOUN S. 155 
 
 Carolina's Nullification in 1832 was economical, her 
 dislike of the tariff. But the ground of her Se- 
 cession in 18G0 was based openly on the support 
 of Slavery. Disunion has thus in the intervening 
 time allied itself to another principle, in order 
 that both be destroyed together, chiefly through Lin- 
 coln. In answer to the foregoing Resolutions, 
 Daniel Webster entered the Senatorial arena 
 against Calhoun with a speech, which, report de- 
 clares, was consulted by Lincoln in the preparation 
 of his first Inaugural. There is little doubt, then, 
 than John Caldwell Calhoun was a prominent 
 factor in Lincoln's early political training, chiefly, 
 by way of determent. Clay's Compromise TarifT 
 of 1833 caused the South Carolina trouble to sub- 
 side, but Lincoln never forgot the lesson. And on 
 the other hand the South never forgot Calhoun's 
 teachings. Thus the two sides of the Civil War 
 may be seen emerging dimly before the mind of 
 Lincoln in 1833 and indeed before the Nation 
 itself. 
 
 Well may the reader imagine our Lincoln choos- 
 ing his seat in some quiet nook and ''cocking up 
 his legs higherthanhis head," after which prepara- 
 toiy act he takes off his hat, more lucky for him 
 than the wishing-cap of Fortunatus, and picks out 
 of it the newspaper from some large city contain- 
 ing in full the speeches of Calhoun and Webster 
 upon the burning question of the hour. Uncon- 
 sciously they open up before him a sudden vista 
 
156 4.BRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 of his own future, like a burst of sunlight through 
 the intervening clouds. We may see him taking 
 his side in the conflict and forming his first resolu- 
 tion then, though much is still to evolve in him 
 and in the Folk-Soul. But that wonderful Post 
 Office Hat of his — we have found its place also in 
 his Apprenticeship. Still there is no money in it, 
 and none can be shaken out of it by the deftest 
 magician — and Lincoln has reached the point at 
 , which he must have a little money. 
 
 And now we pass to the second Calhoun who is 
 also a politician and a great disputant upon his 
 party's policies ; his field, however, is not the Sen- 
 ate of the United States, but the streets and stores 
 of Springfield, IlUnois, with spouting excursions 
 into Sangamon County, which, being strongly 
 Democratic, has elected him its surveyor. He had 
 heard of Lincoln, and for some reason, was 
 prompted to appoint him, though a Whig, as his 
 deputy. He sent a messenger to New Salem, who 
 found Lincoln in the woods not far off splitting 
 rails — in which he was a greater adept than in 
 keeping store. He accepted the position, as there 
 seemed to be some much-needed money in it, un- 
 der condition of not sacrificing his political views 
 or their expression. Also time was allowed him for 
 learning the business, as he did not know survey- 
 ing. 
 
 Thus it befell in the year 1833 that a new public 
 office dropped into Lincoln's lap (not into his hat 
 
THE TWO CALHOUNS. 157 
 
 this time) quits unexpectedly, that of assistant to 
 John Calhoun, the county surveyor, who had an 
 excess of business at this juncture. Calhoun is de- 
 clared to have been a Yankee and seems to have 
 been no relative of the South Carolinian of the 
 same name, who, as we have seen, was making a 
 great stir in the nation this very year through the 
 Nullification excitement. Our Illinois Calhoun 
 had been bred to the law, but took to school- 
 mastering in early Springfield, by preference it is 
 said, in which vocation he showed a peculiar ex- 
 cellence. He was an esteemed citizen, and held 
 public offices of trust, having been not only sur- 
 veyor of the county but also mayor of the town. 
 Herndon gives a warm eulogy of him based on 
 personal acquaintance, putting a high estimate 
 both on his character and ability. He cites also 
 Lincoln's view of the man: "I have heard Lincoln 
 say that Calhoun gave him more trouble in his 
 debates than Douglas ever did, because he was 
 more captivating in his manner and a more learned 
 man than Douglas." So far Herndon, who, how- 
 ever, says nothing here of Calhoun's later Kansas 
 career, which he must have known, but like a 
 good lawyer, quietly passes over as not altogether 
 favorable to his client's side. But tliis other side 
 must not be wholly left out. 
 
 Some twenty-five years later we find this same 
 John Calhoun in Kansas as surveyor-general of the 
 Territory, then in the deepest throes of its struggle 
 
158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 with the slave-power. From surveying he passed 
 into politics, and has come down to us not only 
 as hostile to the freedom of Kansas but as the 
 perpetrator of some of the worst partisan frauds 
 on record. A Committee of the Legislature, get- 
 ting on track of his fraudulent returns found them 
 secreted in a candle-box under a wood-pile at Le- 
 compton near Calhoun's office. It was shown that 
 a forged list of 379 votes had been substituted for 
 the original memorandum of only 43 votes, for the 
 benefit of the pro-slavery candidates. From this 
 incident the wrathful Kansans re-baptized him as 
 John Candlehox Calhoun, under which name he 
 seems destined to fill his little place in History. 
 They caused his arrest, but he was liberated 
 by pro-slavery Judge Cato on habeas corpus, after 
 which he took a bee-line for Missouri and thence 
 to Washington — not to Springfield, where his 
 former assistant surveyor Lincoln was preparing 
 to challenge Douglas and to take his first great 
 stride toward the Presidency. 
 
 Calhoun was also presiding officer of the fraud- 
 ulent Convention which concocted the political 
 imposture known as the Lecompton Constitution, 
 which gave the people of Kansas so much trouble, 
 and which he seems to have largely devised him- 
 self apart from the Convention. Still the Lecomp- 
 ton Constitution of Calhoun was supported and 
 probably instigated by the Buchanan Administra- 
 tion at Washington. Bad work is this for our 
 
THE TWO CALHOUN S. 159 
 
 Yankee schoolmaster. Then it would seem that 
 Calhoun tried to bribe the Kansas Governor, 
 Walker, to the support of his Constitution by the 
 offer of the Presidency of the United States, which 
 he somehow held in the hollow of his hand. But 
 note the fact that on the 2nd day of February, 
 1858, President Buchanan transmits to Congress 
 the Lecompton Constitution "received from J. Cal- 
 houn Esq. duly certified by liimself," recommend- 
 ing that Kansas be adniittod as a Slave State 
 under it. 
 
 But be it said to his credit that he befriended 
 Lincoln at a critical moment and enabled him to 
 earn some money when it was sorely needed, after 
 his total business collapse at New Salem. The 
 kind act was surprising when we hear that a Dem- 
 ocrat bestowed a political office upon an avowed 
 Whig who insisted upon maintaining his freedom 
 of opinion. Still more surprising does Calhoun's 
 procedure seem when we learn that Lincoln had 
 no preparation in surveying, and had to start 
 studying it with Mentor Graham, the New Salem 
 schoolmaster. Calhoun seems to have provided 
 him with a text-book on surveying, Flint & Gib- 
 son's, and to have waited for him to get ready. 
 Tradition has it that in six weeks' time Lincoln 
 had fairly mastered the subject, and reported for 
 duty, having nearly killed himself meanwhile with 
 studying. 
 
 So two John C. Calhouns, John Caldwell and 
 
160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 John Candlebox, one local, and the other national, 
 get spun into Lincoln's life-thread about 1833. 
 Each of them plays his peculiar part in bolstering 
 a doomed political order, to which Lincoln mainly 
 gives the final blow. Each in his separate sphere 
 had a common attitude; each took his stand 
 against the movement of the age. Each had his 
 little tussle with the World-Spirit, and of course 
 got thrown. In contrast to both Calhouns, Lin- 
 coln was not only harmonious with his time's deep- 
 est aspirations, but became its grand representa- 
 tive and realizer, of course when the pivotal 
 moment came long afterwards. 
 
 Far better had it been for John Candlebox Cal- 
 houn, had he remained a blameless and fameless 
 pedagogue in Springfield, and won the admiration 
 of grateful pupils like Herndon, who calls him "a 
 typical gentleman — brave, intellectual, self-pos- 
 sessed and cultivated. As an instructor he was 
 the popular one of his day and age. I attended 
 the school he taught when I was a boy .... 
 Lincoln, I know respected and admired him." 
 But ambition or adventure or what not led him in 
 a fateful moment to Kansas where he has won a 
 strange historic immortality, as if his were the 
 name of a very devil who sought to overthrow the 
 freedom of Kansas through a fraud resembling 
 that of the Father of Lies. The result is that 
 to-day the average Kansan, having still the ten- 
 dency to fight afresh the old battles along with 
 
THE TWO CALHOUNS. 161 
 
 John Brown's soul marching on, would stand 
 ready at any minute to tackle the ghost of John 
 Candlebox Calhoun, and with a volley of execra- 
 tion to give it a blow, in memory at least, which 
 would hurl it down to Dante's Inferno amid the 
 spirits forever damned, landing it in the big Bulge 
 or infernal Circle of sinners fraudulent. 
 
 But the biographer, having duly noticed his 
 Kansas career, will prefer to spend the last remi- 
 niscence upon him as the benefactor of Lincoln at 
 a very trying moment. For the poor youth, hav- 
 ing failed in business, being overwhelmed with 
 debt, and having no remunerative calling, and 
 worried by duns and demands upon him from his 
 poverty-stricken parents, obtains through Cal- 
 houn, not then Candlebox, the best-paying subor- 
 dinate position in Sangamon County probably, for 
 he receives three dollars a day, which was almost 
 equal to the pay of the Governor of the State of 
 Illinois, whose salary at this time was one thousand 
 dollars a year. So too we can understand biog- 
 rapher Herndon warmly interceding with History 
 to spare his Springfield Calhoun and forgetting 
 to say anything about the Kansas Candlebox 
 Calhoun, though the latter of the two did by 
 far the more famous deed, which rose for a little 
 while into national importance, and made him a 
 small speck or rather a blotch on the page of 
 
 History. 
 
 11 
 
162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 X. 
 
 The New Salem Solon. 
 
 And now Lincoln, having done many Greek 
 parts of a lesser heroic cast in our modern Homeric 
 village, will grapple for and actually reach the 
 highest — that of Lawgiver, re-enacting again in his 
 way great men of old, to be sure without knowing 
 it. Nor will he make laws now directly for the 
 one small community or for the city-state of 
 antique pattern, as did Solon, Lycurgus, Demonax 
 and the other ancient Lawgivers; the single com- 
 munity is not now separate and autonomous, but 
 conjoined into a larger poHtical totahty (the State) 
 and this again into a still larger (the Federal 
 Union) — an institutional order unknown to the old 
 Hellenic world. Lincoln is chosen to sit in a body 
 of lawmakers from every part of Illinois, and he is 
 to legislate for the whole State and not merely for 
 his little village; thus he begins to rise out of the 
 Community into the Commonwealth, yea, out of 
 the Commonwealth he is to expand into the 
 Nation, starting from that small transitoiy dot 
 called New Salem. Such an outlook we may trace 
 in him, when he goes forth as legislator to Vanda- 
 lia, Capital of the State, really a great stride on 
 his road to Washington, which road is the inner 
 connecting line of his whole career. 
 
 The pertinacity with which Lincoln seeks dur- 
 ing his whole New Salem period to be a law-maker 
 
THE NEW SALEM SOLON. 163 
 
 or member of the law-making body, is one of his 
 sahent traits. We have ab'eady seen how that in 
 the earhest days of the earhest spring month, 
 March, 1832, he announced himself as a candidate 
 for the Illinois House of Representatives. His first 
 glimpse of the town and people was gotten from 
 his flat-boat lodged there on the dam in the pre- 
 ceding April. Hardly six months had passed since 
 he, returning from his flat-boat trip, had located 
 in the village as Offut's clerk. Very rapid promo- 
 tion was that, even for a popular youth. A con- 
 siderable amount of self-confidence, yea, of self- 
 esteem, shows itself in such a bold attempt, which 
 indeed reveals a settled strain of his character. 
 His vocation, which was to deal with the Law, and 
 with the State, was already lustily throbbing 
 within him and pushing him to action. 
 
 He obtained his first impulse in this direction 
 while a boy in Indiana, by hearing pohtical 
 speeches, which usually turned on some legal or 
 constitutional question, by attending law-suits be- 
 fore the squire as well as the judge, and chiefly by 
 studying the Revised Laws of Indiana, with the 
 appended documents — the Book of Institutions 
 whose significance in the development of Lincoln 
 has been already noted. Little opportunity in 
 Illinois does he seem to have had as yet for realiz- 
 ing his soul's aspiration, till in 1832 it suddenly 
 burst forth in his candidacy. Naturally he was 
 then beaten; but at the next opportunity, which 
 
164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 has now come, he proposed to try again for the 
 same prize. 
 
 Accordingly, in the year 1834, the time for a 
 new election of Legislators has arrived, and Lin- 
 coln again offers himself as candidate. He is now 
 better acquainted, his surveyorship has brought 
 » him in contact with the People and made his char- 
 acter known. Moreover, he is much better pre- 
 pared; in his Blacks tone he has conned the under- 
 lying principles of Anglo-Saxon legislation, and 
 studied the evolution of institutions. Now he 
 seeks to take a practical step forward in order to 
 realize his theoretical knowledge. He drives an 
 active canvass, in which he makes speeches, tells 
 stories, and even shows his physical superiority in 
 wrestling, lifting weights and cradling grain. He 
 was reaching out for the Folk-Soul everywhere and 
 found it. He was elected this time by a handsome 
 majority — ''by the highest vote cast for any can- 
 didate," says one account which, however, is con- 
 tested. But one thing is certain: we shall never 
 hear again of anything in his legislative proposals 
 like that double-acting, reversible law of usury, 
 capable of being enforced or violated according to 
 the necessities of justice, which law he had pro- 
 posed in his Address two years before. Let us 
 think that to some purpose he has been reading 
 his Blackstone. 
 
 It was during this canvass of 1834 that another 
 pivotal opportunity came to him, that of studying 
 
THE NEW SALEM SOLON. 165 
 
 law. The yoice of the Goddess this time spoke 
 through Major John T. Stuart, fellow-candidate 
 now and once fellow-soldier in the Black Hawk 
 War, also a Springfield lawyer in good practice. 
 Lincoln, in autobiographic third person, speaks of 
 him thus: "During the canvass in a private con- 
 versation he encouraged Abraham to study law. 
 After the election he (Abraham) borrowed books of 
 Stuart, took them home with him, and went at it 
 in good earnest. He studied with nobody ; mixed 
 in the surveying to pay board and clothing 
 bills." In one sense Lincoln had been study- 
 ing law a good while. The law-books alluded to 
 in the foregoing account could not have included 
 Blackstone, which he had alreiidy studied, but 
 were the more professional works, as Chitty's 
 Pleadings, Greenleaf's Evidence and Storey's Equity, 
 all of which he recommended later to a young man 
 aspiring to become a lawyer. Lincoln had already 
 mastered a book of legal forms so that he could 
 draw up deeds, contracts, and various legal instru- 
 ments, for which work he was soon in demand at 
 New Salem as well as for practicing before the 
 local squire. 
 
 Outside of his duties as legislator and surveyor 
 the study of the law must have been his chief occu- 
 pation for the two following years (1834-6). Says 
 he of himself, "When the Legislature met, the law- 
 books were dropped, but were taken up again at 
 the end of the session." As sm'veyor he was far 
 
166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 more successful than as a store-keeper, though he 
 had to deal with the most sensitive and the most 
 grasping part of the Anglo-Saxon character, 
 namely its love or rather greed for land. When 
 metes and bounds had to be re-adjusted and corners 
 placed anew, (the early United States surveys were 
 often very careless) the old farmer who lost a 
 speck of soil would get fighting-mad, deeming the 
 whole transaction an attempt to steal his land. 
 Our Quaker Hercules could meet him in the tug of 
 war, if need be; but Lincoln had a reconcihng 
 spirit, and everybody felt his justice. Through 
 him such altercations ended in peace rather than a 
 fight or an ugly stake-and-rider devil's fence, sign 
 of bitter feud between adjoining land-owners. So 
 great was his success in this ticklish business, and 
 so general the belief in his fairness that the country 
 districts of Sangamon County, though Democratic, 
 rolled up a heavy vote in favor of the Whig can- 
 didate for the Legislature from New Salem. 
 
 Accordingly with a new suit of clothes, for buy- 
 ing which he had to borrow the money, Lincoln 
 sets out late in 1834 for the Capitol at Vandalia, 
 town of the Vandals, we may suppose by its name. 
 He is not prominent as a member, he is learning, 
 the Legislature is for him a school, a stage of his 
 Apprenticeship. He becomes trained to parlia- 
 mentary usage. He gets acquainted with the po- 
 litical leaders from every part of the State. He 
 sees the governmental machine working at its 
 
THE NEW SALEM SOLON. 167 
 
 center with its threefold powers — legislative, exec- 
 utive, judicial. Constitutional questions he hears 
 discussed by able lawyers. In fine he beholds 
 what he had hitherto only known theoretically, 
 become the practical working fact before his eyes; 
 what he once read in his Indiana book of Statutes, 
 he sees taking on the reality of government. 
 
 At Vandalia for amusement he would have a 
 story-tehing bee of good fablers, in which he natur- 
 ally took the chief part and which would increase 
 his stock, as he is reported to have noted down all 
 the best stories which he heard. Then Major 
 Walker, the cat-gut virtuoso, would appear with 
 his fiddle, and give the company a tune, a rural 
 sample of his art not pitched too high for his 
 listeners, which would set their feet to stamping 
 time, and perchance to a shuffle round the floor. 
 But amid all this boisterous sport one cannot help 
 peeping into the depths of Lincoln's heart and 
 glimpsing the agitation there at this date. Well 
 might he whis})er inwardly at the sweet sounds of 
 his musical visitor a line of Shakespeare's lover 
 voicing his own deepest emotion: "If music be 
 the food of love, play on!" For Lincoln had 
 brought to Vandalia this year the deepest passion 
 of his life, surging around a fair image which 
 could never have been absent from his thoughts. 
 
 And then behold! another figure appears at 
 Vandalia during Lincoln's first session — never 
 loved by him; his life's competitor and counter- 
 
168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 part, verily his antitype outside and inside, phys- 
 ically and mentally. For the first time Stephen 
 A. Douglas comes into Lincoln's horizon, never 
 wholly to pass out of it till he passes beyond. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas (I). 
 
 The first blow in the long and at times desper- 
 ate political battle between the Big and Little 
 Giant, as the twain came to be called in Illinois, 
 was struck by Lincoln as member of the Legisla- 
 ture at Vandalia in 1835. He cast his vote against 
 Douglas, who was seeking the office of State's at- 
 torney of his judicial district, whom the Legisla- 
 ture was empow^ered to elect. Douglas, then only 
 twenty-two years old, who had but recently come 
 into the State, and more recently still had been 
 admitted to the bar, was seeking his first public 
 office, and possessed already the valuable gift of 
 blowing his own horn. For he, with hardly a 
 year's experience of the law to his credit, was 
 elected over his rival, John J. Hardin, a capable 
 and experienced lawyer, and moreover, a popular 
 man, who afterwards* fell in the Mexican War. 
 Of course politics had much to do with the elec- 
 tion, as Hardin was a Whig and Douglas a Demo- 
 crat appealing to a Democratic Legislature. Still 
 the affair shows the early skill of Douglas in politi- 
 cal manipulation, for he had to meet in competi- 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS {1). 169 
 
 tion old war-horses of his own party. The selec- 
 tion, however, caused a good deal of unfavorable 
 comment, especially among the Judiciary. An old 
 judge (reported by Sheahan in his Life of Douglas), 
 exclaimed indignantly: "What business has such 
 a stripling with such an office? He is no lawyer 
 and has no law-books." Still it is agreed that 
 Douglas vindicated himself in his position, for 
 surely he was not wanting in capacity for the 
 task. 
 
 So Douglas opens his public career against the 
 vote of Lincoln, who saw him active in the lobby, 
 which already constituted the third House (un- 
 legal if not illegal), of America's dual legislative 
 system. The question comes up: if that third 
 House always is and has to be, why not legalize 
 it? At any rate, Lincoln and Douglas have now 
 sighted each other, possiljly measured each other 
 just a httle. Anyhow, the report has come down 
 that Lincoln declared Douglas to be ''the least 
 man I have ever seen." Certainly the statement 
 is ambiguous, and probably has such ambiguity 
 as its point, hinting remotely a correspondence 
 between the physical and mental stature of the 
 small man, with an unconscious preference on part 
 of the speaker of his own tallness, of which it is 
 known that Lincoln was proud all his days. Anti- 
 pathetic at first glance we must deem them not 
 only in politics but in character, with a wholly 
 different moral substructure for the edifice of life. 
 
170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 Moreover, they already represent two opposite 
 tendencies of their State, yea, of their time; these 
 two tendencies, now just starting, will grow and 
 widen till they bring the Nation into self-collision. 
 
 Douglas was born in Vermont, and in early 
 years worked at the trade of cabinet-maker; still 
 he had the good Yankee primary schooling, and 
 succeeded in obtaining a classical education. His 
 life had been one of struggle, and he may be called 
 a self-made man like Lincoln, though by no means 
 to the degree or in the manner of Lincoln. Their 
 striking polarity of character is seen in the fact 
 that the born Southerner becomes the adversary 
 of slavery, while the born Yankee becomes, if not 
 the warm defender, at least the apologist of 
 slavery. Douglas was four years younger than 
 his rival and matured rapidly, far outstripping 
 in his earlier career Lincoln, who was a slow 
 grower but solid, and will overtake his fleet com- 
 petitor in the final stretch for the goal which they 
 both have in common. 
 
 The two grand protagonists to whom so nmch 
 of the future belongs, have now entered the public 
 arena, eyeing each other for the first time — did 
 they have any presentiment of the peculiar lot 
 which was to link them together as opposites for a 
 quarter of a century in a mutual relation ever re- 
 pellent, till that last scene on the steps of the Na- 
 tional Capitol? There is a remarkable evolution 
 in this double movement of Lincoln and Douglas 
 
ANX RUTLEDGE. 171 
 
 whose main stages we shall try to indicate as we 
 proceed in our narrative. But Lincoln has now 
 delivered his first blow against Douglas^not per- 
 sonal indeed, but partisan — -which blow, however, 
 does not prevent the youthful contestant from 
 carrying off the prize in the present case and often 
 hereafter. 
 
 Very little thought probably did Lincoln give to 
 this matter or even to other weightier legislative 
 matters at the present time; a far deeper, 
 more intense problem, with which his heart was 
 overflowing, awaited him at New Salem, whither 
 he hastened as soon as the session closed, with 
 hope and joy radiantly wreathing all his fancies 
 during the whole journey, we must imagine, but 
 at the same time with dark premonitions shooting 
 up from the depths of his naturally foreboding 
 soul cloud-wracks through the sunlit horizon of 
 love. 
 
 XIL 
 
 Ann Rutledge. 
 
 Said President-elect Lincoln to a New Salem 
 friend, who was calling on him before his depar- 
 ture for Washington, and who was led by the con- 
 versation to ask him point-blank: "Lincoln, did 
 you love Ann Rutledge?" 
 
 "It is true, true, indeed I did. I have loved 
 the name of Rutledge to this day .... I 
 
172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 did honestly and truly love the girl, and think 
 often, often, of her now." (Lamon). 
 
 Thus emphatically, after the lapse of a full 
 quarter of a century, does Lincoln express his 
 ever-present memory of Ann Rutledge, who had 
 the power of exciting in him an undying love, 
 which colored his whole being and hence forms 
 an important chapter in his life. Her early 
 evanishmcnt took a poetic form with him, and 
 found utterance in some verses (not his own) which 
 are usually entitled "Immortality," but which put 
 their whole stress upon the transitoriness of all 
 things human, preluding the pensive strain with 
 
 "Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
 Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
 A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave. 
 He passeth from life to his rest in the grave." 
 
 As late as March, 1864, he repeated at the 
 White House with strong* feeling the poem, which 
 was for him a mournful reminder of Ann Rut- 
 ledge, an ever-singiitg dirge of the soul over the 
 vanished loved one, with the melancholy note of 
 which his deepest emotions became concordant 
 till the end of his days. Thus Lincoln reveals an 
 immortal love, which will attune all the other 
 throbbings of his heart, however profound and 
 intense. 
 
 But now let us go back and pick up the young 
 man as he returns from his legislative career at 
 Vandalia, with a consciousness of having taken his 
 
ANN RUTLEDGE. 173 
 
 fii-st considerable step in public life. He has won 
 a position which is an earnest of something 
 greater. A regard for himself he can now have 
 as never before; he can deem himself right worthy 
 of somewhat, be it what it may. 
 
 There is no doubt also that he brought back 
 another emotion hitherto hidden in his heart — love. 
 He had long secretly folt the tender passion for a 
 young lady we have already titled the fairest 
 flower in the village. Hitherto her betrothal to 
 another who seemed to have deserted her, and 
 Lincoln's own lack of equal position and pos- 
 sibly of self-estimation, had deterred him from 
 pressing his suit. But all the obstacles seemed to 
 get themselves slowly out of the way, and some 
 time in the spring of 1835, while the birds were 
 singing and the flowers were springing on the 
 banks of the full-flowing Sangamon, these two 
 young hearts, long beating with and for each 
 other, were joined together in the sacred promise 
 of eternal fidelity. 
 
 Ann Rutledge was the daughter of the first cit- 
 izen of the New Salem and one of its founders. 
 James Rutledge, her father, was born in South 
 Carolina, where his family had been distinguished 
 in the early history of the country, especially dur- 
 ing and just after the Revolution. The name of 
 one ancestor, Edward Rutledge, is affixed to the Dec- 
 laration of Independence; another was one of the 
 first judges of the Supreme Court of the United 
 
174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 States. A great historic name was brought into 
 the small town on the Sangamon, and it can be 
 well understood that the family in the Far West 
 did not neglect their genealogy. A certain pride 
 as well as traditional feeling of superiority inbred 
 in the Southerner, was not wanting even in the 
 log-cabin tavern of New Salem, with its four 
 rooms, numerous children, besides the guests. 
 
 James Rutledge had migi'ated from his native 
 State northward to Kentucky, where he stayed 
 many years, and where his daughter Ann was 
 born January 7th, 1813. For such has been the 
 interest in Lincoln's love-idyl that the exact date 
 has been dug up by the eager explorer. But the 
 father was not satisfied with Kentucky, and so 
 he crossed the Ohio River into Illinois and reached 
 the site of New Salem in 1829. He was a man of 
 hospitality, yet with an eye to business, keeping a 
 store and a mill in the village — two important 
 centers of its life. Somewhat strangely we read 
 that he kept the town tavern, not the natural oc- 
 cupation for a hospitable man. It is not known 
 why he quit South Carolina and then Kentucky, 
 and never stopped in his migration till he reached 
 the central belt of a Free State. But his migra- 
 tory act was typical of what was taking place in 
 the 20's, 30's and 40's, indicating a movement 
 from the old Slave States to the new Slave States, 
 and thence to the new Free States of the North- 
 West. It is substantially the line of Lincoln's 
 
ANN RUT LEDGE. 175 
 
 own ancestral migration, as already given (p. 27, 
 35). The main ground of these migrations was 
 some questioning of the servile institution, and 
 followed strongly the slavery agitation connected 
 with the Missouri Compromise and the development 
 of the cotton culture. It grew plain that the 
 South would not throw off slavery through her 
 own initiative; the line between Free States and 
 Slave States became fixed, as Mason and Dixon's, 
 though previously fluctuating. James Rutledge 
 belonged to this great migration from the South 
 to the North, whatever may have been his political 
 sentiments. We may note, however, that in 
 the Revolutionary period John Rutledge was a 
 strong opponent of slavery (seeMcCrady's excellent 
 History of South Carolina for this period). 
 
 Much evidence has been gathered that Ann 
 Rutledge was' the favorite belle of New Salem. 
 Herndon, who knew her, declares that she was 
 "a beautiful girl, and by her winning ways 
 attached people to her so firmly that she soon be- 
 came the most popular young lady of the Village." 
 Another observer affirms that her intellect was 
 "philosophic" as well as ''briUiant." For the favor 
 of the young lady there was considerable rivalry 
 among the young gallants of New Salem, when 
 finally the prize was won by a suitor who went 
 under the name of McNeil, seemingly about 1830 
 or 1831. This was not far from the time when 
 Lincoln came drifting down the Sangamon into 
 
176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 New Salem (in 1831), being remembered by the 
 people, and probably by Ann, too, for his exploit 
 in bringing the flat-boat over her father's mill- 
 dam. 
 
 Just when the undercurrent of love began to be 
 powerful in Lincoln's heart, cannot be told. He 
 and Ann must have been often thrown together in 
 that small spot. Lincoln boarded at her father's 
 tavern in 1832, and then he saw much of her in 
 her domestic life, thus becoming well acquainted 
 with her character. Also, she went to school to 
 Mentor Graham, the center of light in the town, 
 with whom Lincoln had much to do, as we have 
 already seen. In the Rutledge family there were 
 probably traditions of classic culture. We hear 
 that Ann and her brother went away to an 
 academy in Jacksonville, for studying some 
 branches out of the range of the village school- 
 master. James Rutledge, the father, seems to 
 have organized a Literary Club at New Salem, of 
 which he was President, and before which Lin- 
 coln made a speech that pleased Papa Rutledge 
 much, for he talked about it at home to his 
 wife, probably in Ann's presence (Lamon). 
 
 But is it still possible to reach down to the 
 common bond which kept bringing together young 
 Lincoln and Ann Rutledge? The two had selected 
 each other, overcoming inner opposition in spite 
 of obstacles. Their love blossomed in their com- 
 mon aspiration for a higher culture. They 
 
ANN RUT LEDGE. 177 
 
 alone of that whole community longed to rise 
 above the low intellectual plane of the average 
 New Salemite. We have to think that Ann's love 
 for McNeil (or McNamar) was not destroyed, but 
 divided — being shared unconsciously perhaps at 
 first by another. And here lies her heart's con- 
 flict, which ends in her tragedy — the conflict of 
 two loves coupled with two ever-clashing duties. 
 McNeil had shown himself an excellent business 
 man, having in three years gained a half interest 
 in the store w^here he began as a clerk, and hav- 
 ing purchased a fine farm besides. Therein he far 
 outstripped Lincoln. Being from the East, he had 
 a good elementary education, which Lincoln had 
 not. But he seems to have been- prosaic, all for 
 business, esteeming the West for what he could 
 make out of it by way of hard cash. 
 
 Then there was the class obstacle, so strongly 
 emphasized in Southern society. Lincoln belonged 
 to the poor whites, to the second families; Ann 
 was of aristocratic lineage — decidedly of the First 
 Families. He did not fail to hear of the great 
 Rutledges in that log-cabin of a tavern; the De- 
 claration of Independence he had already conned 
 with its names as a boy at Gentryvillc, in the 
 Indiana Book of Institutions. The genealogical 
 tree was that part of botany chiefly cultivated 
 in the old States, South and North. In the West 
 it was inclined to wither after the first genera- 
 tion, to which the elder Rutledge still belonged. 
 
 12 
 
178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 Ann, his young daughter, probably had her waver- 
 ings on this point also. 
 
 And now the other side of the story enters — 
 the prolonged and unexplained absence of her 
 betrothed. McNeil's name was really McNamar; 
 he had changed it for reasons which, as given 
 by him, seem rather whimsical. This fact he 
 had confided to his lady-love, who afterwards 
 told the secret and thereby caused much gossip 
 and conjecture in the village. McNeil, in the 
 spring of 1834, resolved to go East, saying he 
 wished to see his parents, and .bring them to the 
 West. Then occurred the absence, interrupted 
 by letters to Ann at long intervals. His conduct 
 became the talk of the town, whose favorite lit- 
 tle heroine was involved. Some of the views were 
 bitter, he was branded as an adventurer, jail-bird, 
 deceiver. But many who did not share this 
 harsh opinion, regarded it as a case of cooled love. 
 Ann herself thought so, and evidently Lincoln 
 also, only too glad to slip into the vacant shoes. 
 We must not forget that the engagement had 
 already lasted three years, if not longer. In the 
 meantime the ungainly youth had been rising 
 till he was the man of the future in the place, 
 and everybody could see it and ratified it by their 
 votes. 
 
 Now it was at this opportune time when Lin- 
 coln stepped in and began to press his suit. 
 McNeil had been absent a year in the spring of 
 
ANN RUT LEDGE. 179 
 
 1835. Lincoln had come home from his legisla- 
 tive career, and was the rising star. The engage- 
 ment followed; but marriage was again deferred 
 till Lincoln could complete his legal training, and 
 Ann could take a course of study at the Jack- 
 sonville Academy. Two spiritually kindred souls 
 we behold, united in the aspiration for higher de- 
 velopment. Here we have the intellectual bond, 
 twinned with the emotional one, which at last 
 brought the two together and bound them in- 
 dissolubly, and which had long been secretly pull- 
 ing their heart-strings. And it was this new 
 preference which slowly for years had been loosen- 
 ing the one knot and tieing the other, till at 
 last the sacred pledge has joined the twain. 
 
 But such was the nature of Ann Rutledge that 
 she could not make the transition from one love 
 to the other; both nestled in her heart and tore 
 it asunder like two wild beasts. The re-action 
 came with an overwhelming intensity; conscience 
 would upbraid her, fidelity scorned her, while she 
 was dashed to and fro in resurgences to her old 
 love and to her new. She fell sick, grew worse, 
 Lincoln was sent for and stayed an hour at the 
 side of the dying bride, who soon after passed 
 away, August 25th, 1835. She was buried in the 
 old Concord graveyard near New Salem, which 
 afterward fell into neglect; but in 1890 her re- 
 mains were transferred to the new Oakland cem- 
 etery, where a stone marked simply Ann Rut- 
 
180 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 ledge peers above the greensward. Thither tender 
 souls have begun to make pilgrimages as they go 
 to Verona for the sake of seeing the house of 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 The effect of the blow upon Lincoln brought 
 him into a state verging toward insanity. He was 
 sent by his friends to a secluded home in the 
 country, where he was sympathetically cared for 
 by Mr. Bowling Greene and wife, who succeeded in 
 bringing him back to a fair condition of mental 
 health. It is stated that when Greene died in 
 1842, Lincoln was selected to deliver a funeral 
 oration, but could not come to utterance owing to 
 his emotion rising from past memories. This was 
 seven years later, and the year of Lincoln's mar- 
 riage with Miss Todd. He said to a friend that 
 the thought that ''the snows and rains fall upon 
 her grave fills him with indescribable grief." 
 And the memory of her went with him seemingly 
 to the end; long afterwards we have already heard 
 him say: "I think often, often of her now." 
 
 So we have the part of Lincoln as lover with tragic 
 intensity. Evidently that love had been of long, 
 persistent, ever-increasing growth, even if secreted 
 till the golden opportunity bloomed. But its 
 crushing might brings with it a corresponding 
 discipline. He has gradually to get control of 
 that volcanic emotional nature of his, which 
 surges through him as if it would undermine his 
 reason. Lincoln endures the awful strain and 
 
ANN RUT LEDGE. 181 
 
 comes forth a purified soul from the Discipline of 
 Love, but he carries the mark with him all his life, 
 a tendency to reminiscent sorrow over his loss. 
 What did it do for him? At least compelled him 
 to the inner mastery of Fate. The deepest sep- 
 aration of life is experienced, immort.ality is 
 awakened in him — the thought of futurity and the 
 return of the beloved in another existence. 
 
 Still that poem round which his deepest emo- 
 tions so persistently clung, celebrates mortality 
 rather than immortality, the evanescent rather 
 than the eternal in man, who in view of his utterly 
 fleeting appearance here on earth should not exalt 
 himself. This is the last verse: 
 
 *"Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, 
 From the blossom of health to the palenss of death, 
 From the gilded saloon to the bier and the sliroud ; 
 Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" 
 
 And yet amid all these transitory outer shows 
 of mortality, there is one thing that persists and 
 is immortal — love. That is the secret contrast 
 which lies in these verses for Lincoln, recalling and 
 gratifying through their utterance the deepest and 
 most lasting emotion of his life. Something of the 
 same strain breathes in that strangely premonitory 
 hymn which Lincoln asked Ann to sing for 
 him during her illness, while she still could sing: 
 
 "Vain man, thy fond pursuits forbear!" 
 
 This sounds not very encouraging to her lover 
 on the outside, but it must have touched that 
 
182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 deepest layer of emotion in his nature which felt 
 in the fair vanishing shape before him the tie 
 which is eternal. This hymn was one "for which 
 Lincoln always expressed a great preference, and 
 it was likewise the last thing she ever sung " (note 
 in Hcrndon I., p. 129, last edition). 
 
 But what about the other lover, McNamar? He 
 came to New Salem with his Eastern family of rel- 
 atives, two months after the death of Ann Rut- 
 ledge. As far as known, he showed no signs of 
 deep sorrow; within a year he took a wife. It has 
 been handed down that he met at the post-office 
 sorrowing Lincoln, and made the remark that the 
 latter "seemed desolate and sorely distressed" — 
 which was apparently not his own case. There is 
 no mystery in his conduct, as some have thought; 
 his love had waned, and there is every reason to 
 believe that he would not have married Ann Rut- 
 ledge if she had lived. 
 
 Lincoln seems never to have cared for the young 
 women in his early environment. His step-sister 
 was of marriageable age, lived with him, and the 
 mother was probably willing, yet the Love-God 
 did not turn that way, though a young fellow of 
 the early twenties has a natural bent toward the 
 tender passion. Pubescent years seem to have 
 run without the cast of a single arrow. Ann Rut- 
 ledge appears to have been his first and probably 
 his last love. The later Mrs. Lincoln must have 
 known somewhat of the matter, and this may 
 
ANN RUT LEDGE. , 183 
 
 be taken as a partial justification of certain phases 
 of her behavior. Some expression from Lincohi's 
 own Hps, rumor of the old affair, the gossipy 
 tongue of a neighbor, stirred a temper naturally 
 irritable. Lincoln at New Salem often went to 
 Ann Rutledge's resting-place and wept. He once 
 said "My heart is buried there," and there it seems 
 to have stayed. 
 
 Certain writers on Lincoln have maintained that 
 it was the death of Ann Rutledge which wove the 
 dark thread of melancholy through his soul. 
 Hardh^ ; that thread was spun by Clotho herself at 
 his birth from his mother's own temperament. 
 Then this hereditary trait was nursed by the nar- 
 row, cribbed, imprisoning environment of his 
 youth, for Lincoln was born an aspiring, limit- 
 transcending genius, if there ever was one; but like 
 Ariel, he was pegged 
 
 "Into a cloven pine; within which rift 
 Imprisoned, thou didst painfully remain 
 A dozen years ; where thou didst vent thy groans 
 As fast as mill-wheels strike." 
 
 So too Lincoln in his way; still he had found his 
 relief, not through a magician Prospero but 
 through himself, strangely mocking his own Ariel's 
 groans by his humor and grotesquery, which never 
 deserted him afterwards. Still when this tragedy 
 of Love overtook him, there had to be a new and 
 deeper adjustment of the spirit to meet the lower- 
 ing Fates of existence. That })rofoun(l and ever- 
 
184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST 
 
 bubbling reservoir of emotion, one of his supreme 
 endowments, burst up into a boiling maelstrom of 
 sorrow, which for a time swirled around within 
 itself and became madness, threatening to con- 
 tinue such for life in its wild agitation. But he won 
 the power within himself of turning the sharp 
 corner back to hope and sanity, and thus became 
 the Fate-compeller over the most fateful element 
 of his own nature — his emotions, certainly the 
 most dangerous part of the human fabric if not 
 duly ordered and controlled. In the very hardest 
 test Lincoln gained the mastery and kept it, not 
 without mighty resurgences from that inner reser- 
 voir which once overflowed for a brief period his 
 reason. 
 
 The deepest turn of his life he revealed to the 
 New Salem friend already cited, the one who paid 
 him a visit twenty-five years afterward and pro- 
 pounded to him heart-searching interrogations, one 
 of which has been already noted. Here follows 
 another with his answer: 
 
 "Abe, it is true that you ran a little wild about 
 the matter?" 
 
 ''I did really. / ran off the track. I loved the 
 girl dearly. She was a handsome girl; would have 
 made a good, loving wife." 
 
 And still, though he "ran off the track" in his 
 desperate collision with Fate, he got on again, and 
 mastered the antagonist. For here he is, Presi- 
 dent-elect of the United States, and rather the 
 
ANN RUT LEDGE. 185 
 
 sanest man of his time, perchance just through 
 that mastery and its soul-trying discipline. This 
 now advances to its supreme gift, imparting not 
 merely a stoical, negative suppression of emotion, 
 but a new positive transfigured endowment of 
 spirit. 
 
 The individual Ann Rutledge is gone, indeed, 
 forever, but the love remains and will not depart. 
 What is to be done with it? Eradicated it cannot 
 be, unless by tearing out the heart itself by the 
 roots. But it can be transformed, or rather trans- 
 figured, and thus in a manner be preserved ever 
 active and beneficent. From the individual it 
 can be elevated into universality, and thereby not 
 only save the man but give him a new birth, a 
 spiritual palingenesis. The problem with Abra- 
 ham Lincoln now is: Can I transfigure the love 
 of this individual Ann Rutledge, forever vanished 
 as individual, into an universal love for humanity, 
 ever-present and undying? Can I rise even 
 through emotion from the one to the all? Verily 
 he can and does ; indeed the terrible ordeal has 
 just this providential purpose: he must come to 
 feel and perchance to see that the painful Disci- 
 pline of Love is not to destroy it but to eternize it 
 by transfiguring it into the personality, and thus 
 making it the inner luminary which shines through 
 character and deeds. 
 
 Here we behold, if not the original germ, at 
 least the grand flowering of that deepest and all- 
 
186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 pervasive trait of Lincoln, which we may exalt as 
 his universal love. Though called to administer 
 a national discipline, as severe as his own personal 
 discipline ever was, he did it not in hate and re- 
 venge, as everybody now recognizes. In his last 
 Inaugural, toward the close of a bloody and furi- 
 ous Civil War only a few weeks before his own 
 evanishment, he reaches the highest and purest 
 note of this most perfect sirain of his character. 
 Let us read it again, for it stands alone among all 
 State papers, and is unique in Literature: ''With 
 malice toward none, with charity for all; with 
 firmness in the right as God gives us to see the 
 right, let us strive to finish the work we are in ; to 
 bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who 
 shall have borne the battle and for his widow and 
 his orphan — to do all which may achieve and 
 cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves 
 and with all nations." 
 
 Such is the note of universal Love in this 
 noblest verse of our American Bible, uttered amid 
 the clash of arms to the Folk-Soul which has given 
 to it a mighty, a universal response as expressive 
 of its highest self — a response which keeps rolling 
 louder and more harmonious as it echoes down 
 Time. The fact is observable that this trait of 
 Lincoln, his universal Love, has become at pres- 
 ent the chief theme of anecdote, reminiscence, 
 story, novel, and other literary utterance pertain- 
 ing to him, directly or remotely. His kindness, 
 
MARY OWENS. 187 
 
 forgiveness, tender-heartedness — his "charity for 
 all" — with instances repeating themselves thou- 
 sandfold, seems to be selected as the typical qual- 
 ity of his soul, always being brought up to the 
 light, and celebrated anew in quite every form of 
 human expression. 
 
 And indeed that theme — love of the individual 
 transfigured and made universal — has always been 
 a favorite with the greatest masters in Literature. 
 We can find it in Shakespeare, who thus endows 
 particularly a number of his female characters; 
 we can find it in Goethe, and above all, in Dante, 
 who transfigures his love of Beatrice after her 
 death, so that she becomes a symbol of Divine Love 
 itself, which draws him upward to the celestial 
 city. The medieval Italian poet is very different 
 from the modern American statesman ; still it may 
 be said that Ann Rutlcdge was Lincoln's Beatrice. 
 Both men married after their fiery Discipline of 
 Love through death, and had children; but that 
 fi^'st Love was the eternal one, and conducted 
 them both into the universal life of the heart, 
 whose inspiration in Lincoln's case we may catch 
 at its ever-living source in his simple confession : 
 "I think often, often of her now." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Mary Owens. 
 What! another woman in line, and that, too, 
 so soon ! Yes, now we have to give a leap, earth- 
 
188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST 
 
 defying, to the other side of our universal Lin- 
 coln^a leap impossible to many and straining in 
 every joint the few who can make it. The be- 
 holder of Lincoln's Hfe-drama is whisked with 
 dizzying celerity from his Tragedy of Love to its 
 grotesque antithesis, to his Comedy of Love., Yet, 
 just that is our lot in trying not only to see but 
 to be Lincoln vicariously in this biographic jour- 
 ney. 
 
 Accordingly beside the foregoing tragic phase 
 of Lincoln's Hfe, we must place the comic coun- 
 terpart, which followed not long after. It may 
 be said that the two occurrences so conjoined pro- 
 duce a shocking dissonance in the reader. But 
 the reader must learn to know Lincoln with all 
 his jars, jolts and contradictions, not a few of 
 which will be found among the deepest and sub- 
 tlest, not only of his but of human nature. 
 
 Already it has been said that there is a per- 
 vasive grotesque element in Lincoln, which we 
 have not only to acknowledge but to fathom. 
 Physically there was something of the grotesque 
 in him, and mentally even more. From now on 
 he seems to have relieved the burden of his spirit 
 in the caricature of his own ills. Very deep and 
 strong ran the current of his emotional nature, 
 and will tear him to shreds, unless he can meet 
 its ravages by some counteractive power. That 
 inner gnawing gloom can he somehow turn back 
 upon itself and make it gnaw itself to death 
 
MARY OWENS. 189 
 
 instead of him? Destroyer it is indeed; can it 
 not be whirled about and be forced to destroy 
 itself? Lincoln's mastery of the tragedy of fini- 
 tude is now slowly won: he makes it finite to 
 itself and thus ends it. His own inner Furies of ,• 
 Feeling would have eaten him up, unless he could 
 have turned them upon one another. Thus they 
 showed themselves as self-undoing, absurd, comic. 
 Enormous strength of the spirit this indeed re- 
 quired — here is probably his greatest strength. At 
 Fortune he not only made mouths, but made her 
 make mouths at herself. Even Love, getting 
 vengeful and demonic, is forced by him to play 
 the part of a clown instead of an all-powerful 
 deity. This is not merely light-hearted indiffer- 
 ence which feels little and cares less, not steeled 
 stoicism which lets Fate strike on in pure defi- 
 ance. Rather is Fate made to undo itself in its 
 own blow; its own stroke is deftly changed to the 
 counterstroke upon its own head. Fate itself be- 
 comes fated in Lincoln's humor and is laughed out 
 of the world for the time being. All finitude Lincoln^ 
 turned to a grotesque and made it show its limits, 
 even its lie; he, being finite, became grotesque 
 along with finitude, and thus transcended it, re- 
 vealing his universal nature. Even suffering is a 
 destroying fiend, a negative power; why should it 
 not somehow be served up to itself, if not directly, 
 then indirectly by the mind? 
 
 Dante's Inferno is, of all human portrayals, the 
 
190 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 fullest of suffering and of grotesquery, strange and 
 horrible as the combination may seem. Sin is 
 shown as self-undoing, and so at bottom grotesque, 
 even through the fires of Hell. And Homer, the 
 great type of classicism, cannot help making his 
 Zeus grotesque, especially when the divine mood 
 is negative and minatory. And that battle of 
 Gods, of all-powerful Gods fighting each other, is 
 a grotesque, and certainly Homeric for that reason, 
 in spite of the head-shaking critics. And in Shakes- 
 peare comedy is always trailing upon the heels 
 of tragedy; mark the fool in Lear, the grave-dig- 
 ger in Hamlet, the drunken porter in Macbeth. So 
 we shall find Lincoln ; after the heart-rending, tragic 
 pathos of Ann Rutledge follows the comedy of 
 Mary Owens. The latter indeed seems to have 
 felt the true situation, with her woman's in- 
 stinct; so she responded to her suitor with a 
 smart backstroke of his own humor. 
 
 Mary Owens was born in Kentucky, September 
 29th, 1808, and so was a little older than Lin- 
 coln. She was well educated, of polished man- 
 ners, of a wealthy and high-toned family. It is 
 noteworthy that all three of Lincoln's sweethearts 
 including his wife, were aristocratic Kentucky 
 girls, then as now famous for their beauty, ca- 
 prices, and accomplishments. Mary Owens visited 
 her married sister, who lived near New Salem, 
 first in 1833, when she met Lincoln without any 
 pronounced result on either side. She returned 
 
MARY OWENS. 191 
 
 in 1836, when Lincoln was the great man of the 
 village. Then began the serio-comic interlude 
 in which she furnished the coquetry and Lin- 
 coln the grotesquery. 
 
 We may take as the overture to this merry 
 war a passage from Lincoln's letter describing the 
 event after it was over. Merry war we name it, 
 for it can hardly be called serious, though both 
 parties get their fingers burnt a little— not much — 
 by playing with fire. But to the letter: "A mar- 
 ried lady of my acquaintance and who was a great 
 friend of mine, being about to pay a visit to her 
 father and other relatives residing in Kentucky, 
 proposed to me that on her return she would 
 bring a sister of hers with her, on condition that 
 I would engage to become her brother-in-law 
 with all convenient dispatch. I of course accepted 
 the proposal, for you know I could not have done 
 otherwise had I really been averse to it." He 
 adds, however, that "I was most confoundedly 
 well pleased with the project." 
 
 Here is the start in banter, Lincoln being 
 "not averse" to the trial. A brief glance of the 
 woman as natural match-maker does not fail to 
 peep out in this "great friend of mine," and this 
 same woman knew well what an emotional earth- 
 quake Lincoln had just passed through. Moreover 
 he had seen "the said sister some three years be- 
 fore," with interest, apparently, but without feel- 
 ing any bolt from the Love-God. Now think 
 
192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 what Lincoln had experienced in those three 
 years! He had risen to be the first man of the 
 village with the flattering possibility of a future 
 career. But what is far more pertinent to the 
 present situation, he had on life's stage enacted 
 the most passionate tragedy of love. How could 
 he have the heart to suppress all that in a year! 
 A.h, that is Lincoln again. The comic side of Love 
 he has to play as a relief from its destroying tragic 
 intensity. 
 
 It is evident that Lincoln felt fascinated by 
 Miss Owens when seen, but when she was out of 
 sight he reacted strongly. In her presence she 
 might make him forget, or see in her the other; 
 but when he was left to himself the other as image 
 came back overpoweringly. In this mood we 
 have two letters from him to his "Dear Mary." 
 The first is certainly not encouraging. "I am 
 afraid you would not be satisfied" with my pov- 
 erty at Springfield. "My opinion is you had 
 better not do it," namely, accept my proposal 
 offered you personally. Certainly that is no love- 
 letter with its rainbow of hopes; "You have not 
 been accustomed to hardships," which you are 
 certain to have in living with me. What other 
 conclusion speaks out of these words but this: 
 Therefore reject me. A second letter after a visit 
 is even more dissuasive. The first sentence runs: 
 "You will no doubt think it rather strange that I 
 should write you a letter on the same day on which 
 
MARY OWENS. 193 
 
 we parted." It is strange and the reason is that "at 
 our last meeting we had but few expressions of 
 thoughts." In her presence he could not come to 
 utterance, but he must now express "what my real 
 feehngs toward you are." He tells her that she 
 can, if she so Welshes, "leave this letter unanswered 
 without accusing murmur from me." And he 
 goes so far as to say that "it is my sincere wish 
 that you should," if it will add "anything to your 
 peace of mind." And in the last paragraph of 
 the same letter he repeats: "If it suits you best 
 not to answer this — farewell." In reply he gets 
 just what he wants — ^No. The relief was instan- 
 taneous and great, for it gave origin to a wild, 
 whimsical effervescence of grotesquery, which is 
 reflected in a letter to another lady about the oc- 
 currence. 
 
 This letter is known in Lincoln literature as the 
 Browning letter (it was addressed to an intimate 
 lady-friend, Mrs. 0. H. Browning), and has been 
 an irremovable stumbling-block in the way of 
 some of Lincoln's admirers. Biographer Lamon 
 wished to withhold it if "the act could be decently 
 reconciled to the conscience of a biographer." He 
 was shocked by "its grotesque humor," and others 
 have echoed his plaints. Lincoln was a good, yea 
 a famous speller, but it seems that he set off the 
 general tomfoolery of this letter by a "defective 
 orthography." There is no doubt that he gives 
 himself up to a fit of broad caricature as he looks 
 
 13 
 
194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 back at the whole affair. It was not the genuine 
 article at all, and well does he know the fact. It 
 was a false, delusive phantom of love on the part 
 of both, and hence ridiculous, self-annulling, comic. 
 A little comedy of love one may deem the action, 
 at whose conclusion nobody perishes, or even gets 
 seriously hurt, though Lincoln confesses that "I 
 very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost 
 beyond endurance !" Still he had sought all along 
 "how I might procrastinate the evil day." But 
 when that "evil day" did come, it brought an 
 answer just the opposite of what he expected. 
 Long afterwards Miss Owens gave a superb sum- 
 mary of the situation: "I thought Mr. Lincoln 
 deficient in those little links which make up the 
 chain of woman's happiness." Such a hstless, 
 insipid lover was just no lover at all, and so she 
 gives him back his own when they reach the 
 parting of the ways. 
 
 Lincoln does not spare himself in the same let- 
 ter: "I most emphatically in this instance made 
 a fool of myself." He thinks of never marrying, 
 because "I can never be satisfied with anyone 
 who would be blockhead enough to have me." 
 In his portraiture of Miss Owens, he distorts her 
 features to caricature, making her "a fair match 
 for Falstaff," fat, toothless, weather-beaten, aged 
 (she was a few months older than Lincoln, and 
 certainly was more beautiful). Of course these 
 expressions were used in a private letter, which 
 
THE PASSING OF NEW SALEM. 195 
 
 he took as a vehicle for blowing off his native 
 grotesquery. This was an inherent part of the 
 total man, the reverse side of him and also of his 
 world. 
 
 Thus in the drama of life Lincoln has played 
 the two parts of Love, the tragic and the comic, 
 or the serious and the humorous — parts opposite, 
 indeed, yet forming one totality of personal ex- 
 perience, as well as of the amatory theme itself. 
 Therewith his many-colored career at New Salem 
 draws to a close in a shocking outburst of gro- 
 tesquery, but deeply concordant with, and explana- 
 tory of his whole nature. And our variegated vil- 
 lage of New Salem, itself a grotesque, begins also 
 to wind up its brief panorama of existence, hav- 
 ing furnished an harmonious setting for the most 
 unique and diversified stage in the Apprenticeship 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Passing of New Salem. 
 
 Very closely identified were the young village 
 and the young man, the communal and the per- 
 sonal characters. New Salem and Lincoln. Verily 
 they grew in strong correspondence ; they were for 
 a period symmetrical counterparts, with lives 
 deeply intertwined. Man unfolds in and with his 
 community, his institution; and the community 
 pivots upon its great individual, often rising and 
 falling with him in the stages of his career. Lin- 
 
196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 coin spiritually moves out of New Salem, and what 
 has it to do but to die, its soul having departed 
 and its function being accomplished? That de- 
 clining village, in co-operation with his own short- 
 comings, had brought him failure, had in fact 
 thrown him back for a time to his beginning as 
 rail-splitter. When notice comes to him that he 
 can be appointed assistant surveyor of Sangamon 
 County, the bearer of the message finds him no 
 longer in New Salem, but in the woods working 
 at his old employment of making rails. Thus he 
 has been whisked back quite to his lUinois start- 
 ing-point. But of a sudden and very unexpect- 
 edly the messenger of the Gods (we may again 
 say) having taken the form of a well-known neigh- 
 bor. Pollard Simmons by name, appears to him 
 beside a prostrate oak, and catches his arm in the 
 very act of uplifting a huge maul, and exclaims: 
 Stop, Lincoln, the Gods have other work for 
 thee. Then the messenger announces their de- 
 cree, and Lincoln obeys, recognizing the divine 
 call which has dropped down* upon him so sud- 
 denly, at his lowest depression there in the woods. 
 His activity is no longer to be confined to a petty 
 village but is to extend over the whole county of 
 Sangamon, with whose people he is henceforth to 
 come into contact. His surveyorship is the tran- 
 sition out of New Salem to a larger field ; the some- 
 what narrow communal life is to be transcended, 
 and Lincoln will become acquainted with a new 
 
THE PASSING OF NEW SALEM. 197 
 
 and wider range of the Folk-Soul, which it is his 
 destiny at last to know and to represent in its en- 
 tirety. Thus through the kind and opportune help 
 of John Calhoun, surveyor of Sangamon County, 
 Lincoln is brought to take an important step toward 
 the goal of his career, breaking out of his New 
 Salem environment, and rescued from sinking back 
 into his earlier pinched existence on a farm. 
 
 But what about New Salem itself? It slowly 
 drifts towards its fate in extinction. As a piece 
 of driftwood, it has no staying power, never had; 
 in deepest accord with its drifting, insubstantial 
 character, it must pass and cease to be. Negative 
 we have called it, so what has it to do but to van- 
 ish? Strangely it drifts with the stream and is 
 transformed into another and different community. 
 The town of Petersburg, which is soon to be laid 
 out, is two miles down the Sangamon from New 
 Salem, which now seems to float off from its hil- 
 lock, navigating for a little distance the turbid 
 current which has otherwise shown itself not veiy 
 navigable. We may see the village giving up its 
 very anchor of hope, which was the navigability 
 of the Sangamon, and flinging itself down from its 
 perch into the roaring waters of its loved river- 
 nymph, who has proved so faithless to her early 
 promise. Disappearing in the waves for a while, 
 it crawls out on the bank, but metamorphosed into 
 the town of Petersburg. 
 
 It was in the year 1836 that Lincoln, in his ca- 
 
198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 pacity of surveyor, was called upon to plan, to lay 
 out in lots and streets, in fine, to bring into vis- 
 ible existence the successor of his own New Salem. 
 He had already resolved to leave the latter, hav- 
 ing nearly finished his law-course, and intending 
 to make Springfield his home. One can have lit- 
 tle doubt that he felt the coming evanishment of 
 the village. There was always in it sometliing of 
 the uncertain, transitory, or drifting, as we have 
 so often termed it. Our interest in it springs from 
 the fact that Lincoln during these years had the 
 same general trait. And now his call is to put an 
 end to his own and the village's time of drifting. 
 After some weeks of labor the new town of Peters- 
 burg is born through the surveyor's skill, is baptized 
 with a name, and starts off in the world, still to- 
 day regarding Lincoln affectionately as its god- 
 father. 
 
 There was enough in the situation to give rise 
 to sombre reflections in the mind of Lincoln prone 
 to melancholy. Of course none of these reflections 
 have come down, very few of them were probably 
 ever spoken, still he must have been aware, even if 
 dimly, that he was leaving behind himself one 
 stage of his Apprenticeship, and entering upon 
 another. New Salem he felt to be a part of him- 
 self — a part which is now to disappear forever. 
 Could he help thinking of Ann Rutledge whom the 
 same lot of earthly evanishment had befallen, 
 foreshadowing in a kind of human symbol the fate 
 
THE PASSING OF NEW SALEM. 199 
 
 of the village, and perchance more remotely of 
 liimself? New Salem was gradually deserted, be- 
 coming a communiial graveyard from wliich even 
 the houses have now vanished. 
 
 Petersburg, the new town, continues, and will 
 continue to exist; still it has not, nor is it likely to 
 have the fame of that dead village. New Salem, 
 which bloomed so suddenly but lived hardly a de- 
 cade. Its brief life, however, is immortally inter- 
 twined with Lincoln; it seemed to arise and to, 
 exist in order to give him a certain necessary 
 part of his training for his work. Then its ground 
 for living departed, and it drifted down stream out 
 of sight, having furnished in its own career a small 
 sympathetic world for unfolding an important 
 stage of Lincoln's career. 
 
 To our mind there is a poetic strand in the rise, 
 bloom and decHne of New Salem; in fact, the 
 whole village passes before us as a kind of poem 
 in action, of which Lincoln is the hero, who fills 
 all its leading parts with a certain heroic suprem- 
 acy. Small, verily, is the field, so small that 
 the deeds often take a mock-heroic tinge ; still they 
 are real and call forth the latent gifts of their 
 youthful doer. We have often named it an Ho- 
 meric village, as it has the poetic power of sug- 
 gesting, and even re-enacting phases of old Homer's 
 world. Little epical turns mark often its doings, 
 which move around a central figure, as in ancient 
 Greek legend. Lincoln as fabulist, as athlete, as 
 
200 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART FIRST. 
 
 captain in war, as lawgiver, we have seen center- 
 ing his people about liim, and making himself the 
 representative and also the voice of the Folk-Soul 
 in that little community, but large enough for Ms 
 present talent. At the same time he is taking 
 quite a course in self-education through the Printed 
 Page, truly his University in the right sense, for 
 it universalizes him, carrying him far beyond the 
 narrow bounds of his village. Then comes the 
 peculiar finale^ still poetic in an actual tragedy and 
 comedy, which give, not the one homogeneous side, 
 but the two wholly heterogeneous, indeed, oppo- 
 site sides of Lincoln and of Pluman Nature, which 
 are so difficult to synthesize into one character. 
 Yet, how else can the man be complete — a whole 
 and not merely a half? 
 
 But now Lincoln, having played all his village 
 parts, is done with New Salem, and New Salem is 
 done with itself. Hardly again will it be his lot 
 to breathe such a sunny idyllic atmosphere, and to 
 build out of life's stray shreds such a completely 
 rounded poem, which, indeed, he never sang, not 
 having the gift of music, but nevertheless acted to 
 the end. Two exits, then, we have at this point: 
 exit Lincoln from New Salem, and exit New Salem 
 itself. What next? Behold: the two pieces of 
 floating driftwood come to anchorage. 
 
OHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 (Betttna HncboreD. 
 
 Lincoln's transition from New Salem was not 
 the work of a day. We can trace him slowly and 
 doubtless painfully severing the tie for more than 
 a year. In the fall of 1836 he was licensed to 
 practice law, which he had been directly studying 
 for some two years, and indirectly much longer. 
 His enrolment as a member of the bar at Springfield 
 took place in March, 1837, after his return from 
 Vandalia, where he had played the distinguished 
 part of capital-mover. This honor he shared with 
 the rest of the ''Long Nine," upon whom ban- 
 quets and toasts were showered for their deed, 
 heroic in the eyes of Springfield. 
 
 Still the entrance of Lincoln into Springfield as 
 a permanent resielent and famous legislator was 
 not in the form of a triumph. His first appear- 
 ance has been recorded by Joshua F. Speed, to 
 whose store his good genius led him straightway. 
 The account of Speed runs: "He had ridden into 
 town on a borrowed horse with no earthly prop- 
 erty save a pair of saddle-bags containing a few 
 clothes." Lincoln wished to buy some bedding, 
 which cost seventeen dollars. But he could not 
 pay it, and asked for credit till Christmas, saying 
 that if his experiment as a lawyer was a success, 
 
 (201) 
 
202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 he could pay then. But he added: "If I fail in 
 this I do not know that I can ever pay you." 
 With these words the cloud descended, which, one 
 thinks, may have hovered over him all the way 
 from New Salem. ''I never saw a sadder face," 
 says Speed, who grew sympathetic, and made on 
 the spot the extraordinary offer to the ungainly 
 stranger: ''I have a double bed up stairs which 
 you are perfectly welcome to share with me." 
 Lincoln grasped his saddle-bags, climbed to the 
 room, and set them down on the floor. Descend- 
 ing soon with radiant countenance he exclaimed 
 to his benefactor: "Well, Speed, I'm moved." 
 
 Surely the Gods have not deserted Lincoln, nor 
 Speed. It is a memorable act of kindness whose 
 consequences weave themselves into the lives of 
 both men, yea, into coming history. That home- 
 less stranger is really on his way to the Presidency 
 when he enters Speed's store at Springfield and 
 is given shelter. Never will he forget that un- 
 paralleled act of hospitality, which has renclered 
 the doer, and even doer's family, immortal. 
 
 Lincoln is now located, having made one of the 
 important transitions of his life, which in its out- 
 ward environment may be stated as the transition 
 from New Salem to Springfield. His survey orship 
 was a kind of bridge for him between these two 
 places. As already indicated, New Salem was a 
 sinking town, it had a rather fast life, too fast to 
 endure. A hope-raiser and a hope-dasher it was; 
 
CHAPTER THIRD — GETTING ANCHORED. 203 
 
 Lincoln had run through its whole gamut of up 
 and down, and now he has to jump or sink with 
 it, for it refuses to drift longer, but is surely going 
 to the bottom. The great fact of Lincoln's transi- 
 tion to Springfield is that he gets anchored, first 
 anchoring it as the permanent Capital of the 
 State. This he will not leave till he starts many 
 years later for the Capital of the Nation, to which 
 he will likewise give a new and far firmer anchorage. 
 
 Springfield was at this time a thriving town of 
 some fifteen hundred people, who, for the most 
 part, had come from the South, mainly from Ken- 
 tucky. Thus it was an outgrowth of that great 
 Southern migration into the North-West, which 
 has been already set forth as a deep, though often 
 unconscious reaction from slavery. Lincoln be- 
 longed to that same migration, and found himself in 
 congenial company. But Springfield had been a 
 center of attraction for the more wealthy and aris- 
 tocratic class of Southerners, while he in origin 
 at least reckoned himself among the poor whites. 
 Especially the Kentucky patriciate was well rep- 
 resented and socially dominated the town. Still 
 the ability and worth of Lincoln, chief capital- 
 mover, were at once recognized. 
 
 Lincoln has, accordingly, gotten out of a float- 
 ing into an anchored community, and thus has 
 something to tie to, namely, the primal commu- 
 nal institution. This we may well deem the first 
 requisite of a settled life. Then he has concen- 
 
204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 trated himself upon a single vocation, the law, 
 toward which he has long been drifting, through 
 all sorts of sinuosities ; at last he is centered pro- 
 fessionally. How many different callings did he 
 not pursue at New Salem, trying to anchor his 
 economic existence! He soon drops surveying 
 even, being able to make a living at law; nor do 
 his legislative duties seem to weigh him down when 
 he gets to the Capital, though he is elected twice 
 afterwards. Now he becomes definitely political, 
 a Henry Clay Whig, having moulted completely 
 his Jackson Democracy, of which he still bore 
 traces in New Salem. But in the Presidential cam- 
 paign of 1836, he had wholly shed his Democratic 
 snake-skin and left it behind. Moreover, he be- 
 came a very deft organizer of State politics, a skill 
 which he will use to good purpose hereafter. 
 
 A chief element in the culture of Lincoln during 
 this part of his Springfield period was society. 
 Really he entered a new social class, the aforesaid 
 Kentucky patriciate, composed of the lawyers, 
 officials, professionals generally, to whom must be 
 added the leading business men, notably his 
 friend Speed. The town was also full of Kentucky 
 ladies, married and unmarried, well bred and 
 socially agreeable, and beautiful of course. The 
 gawky farmer-boy and the rude New Salem 
 athlete and story-teller is going to get some 
 polish, or is at least to see refined manners. 
 Parties, balls, social visits now take up a portion 
 
CHAPTER THIRD — GETTING ANCHORED. 205 
 
 of Lincoln's time, and give him their training, 
 while he still can absorb it; there is no doubt 
 that society was attractive to him, even if he 
 never became a stunning beau of the exquisite 
 type. This experience was also a part of his Ap- 
 prenticeship: moreover he came to understand 
 Kentucky well in and through Springfield, which 
 knowledge will perform its great service in his 
 skillful treatment of that State during the Civil 
 War. As he left Kentucky when a mere child, he 
 could not know much about it; he became ac- 
 quainted with it in Springfield, especially with 
 the character of its ruling class. 
 
 One asks what literature did Lincoln study 
 during these years? He probably did not neglect 
 the Printed Page to which he had shown hitherto 
 such devotion; but he paid more attention to 
 human intercourse and less to books. As he is at 
 the center, he gets to know the political leaders 
 of the State through whom the Folk-Soul is 
 reached, as well as the strings of partisan net- 
 work always radiating out from the Capital. Or- 
 atory he had already cultivated, but political 
 organization he now studied and became an ex- 
 pert. Lincoln got to know the politician, where 
 strong and where weak; he grew naturally to 
 be one himself, or rather the leader of them 
 in his State, till he mounted above them, yet 
 through them, to the Nation. He was well 
 aware that the politician has his place in 
 
206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 our system of political parties, being the chief 
 means of reaching and organizing the scattered 
 masses of the People. So Lincoln had his ap- 
 prenticeship to wire-pulling, and to touching the 
 salient motives of men who were to be his instru- 
 ments. Sitting at the center of the State cobweb, 
 he learned how to move its fine filaments extend- 
 ing to the circumference. The politician, though 
 in disfavor, has to be, but he ought to be con- 
 trolled, and not permitted to become an end 
 unto himself. We shall often see Lincoln em- 
 ploying him but subordinating him to the su- 
 preme end of the Nation, yea of the World's 
 History. This the master could not have done 
 without knowing his servant to the bottom, with- 
 out his having been such a servant once himself 
 in the time of his Apprenticeship. 
 
 The present period of Lincoln's life lasts, as we 
 conceive it, till his marriage in 1842, which is his 
 final anchoring in the Family, now his own, and 
 not his father's. It thus runs some six years, or 
 nearly so, quite as long as his stay at New Salem. 
 But the latter is far better known, and can be fol- 
 lowed in considerably greater detail. The reason 
 seems to be that Lincoln, when he went to Spring- 
 field, no longer lived such an open communal life; 
 his law practice did not bring him so much in con- 
 tact with all the people ; his political activity was 
 more secretive, being devoted rather to manage- 
 ment than to personal electioneering. But chiefly 
 
CHAPTER THIRD — GETTING ANCHORED. 207 
 
 his social ambition changed; without giving up 
 wholly his popular bent, he became strongly at- 
 tached to Springfield's select patriciate, chiefly 
 Kentuckian, which furnished so many of his 
 warmest friends and supporters. This attach- 
 ment he will carry with him into the Presi- 
 dency, Lincoln's social aspiration would seem to 
 shine through this further fact : the heroines of his 
 three chief love-affairs belonged to the class above 
 that in which placed himself, indeed all three of 
 them were blue-blooded Kentucky girls, as already 
 noted. 
 
 How different these six years from the preced- 
 ing six! The central figure drops into the back- 
 ground, and Lincoln's manifold heroship, so prom- 
 inent in the village, seems quite snuffed out in the 
 Capital. But with it vanished also that little 
 poetical world of which he was the chief incarna- 
 tion, and of whose pivotal deeds he stood forth as 
 the leader. Not the small community now but the 
 whole State is present in its officials, whose great- 
 ness naturally overtopped the hero of diminutive 
 New Salem. But Lincoln must move into the 
 larger field and strive for its possession also, 
 though he has to pass through a time of eclipse 
 during this new stage of his Apprenticeship. The 
 routine of a humdrum profession he has to learn 
 and follow instead of the varied kaleidoscopic turns 
 and changes of "& piece of floating driftwood." From 
 poetry he must come down, down to prose, which 
 
208 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 has also its right of existence, particularly in Illi- 
 nois, with its dead level of prairie. To the reader 
 short must be these six years, though they were 
 probably long to Lincoln. 
 
 Still he remains story-teller, wherever he is; 
 even a champion he becomes, not in bloody war 
 against the barbarians, but in a bloodless duel, 
 transcendently serio-comic. Then he gets mar- 
 ried. Of these unhcroic years we shall patch 
 together a few of the more significant details which 
 have risen to the surface in detached bits. 
 
 I. 
 
 Legislative. 
 
 The second term of Lincoln in the Illinois Leg- 
 islature was the most active and important of his 
 four terms. He met with leading men from every 
 part of the State and formed their acquaintance; 
 also, he took their measurement, which he care- 
 fully stored up in his mind for future use. In the 
 previous session (1834-6) he was more the quiet 
 student, watching Public Opinion as it crystallized 
 itself into law through the legislative departmant 
 of the government — the peculiar process of the 
 American Folk-Soul, which must first get a con- 
 viction and then make it legal. But what moves 
 the Folk-Soul to such conviction antedating the 
 work of legislation? That is a very significant 
 question which will occupy Lincoln later, especially 
 
LEGISLATIVE. 209 
 
 in his debate with Douglas. For instance in re- 
 gard to slavery, the People came to have a certain 
 strong conviction, of which Lincoln rose to be first 
 the expounder and then the realizer, even through 
 war. But whence originates that conviction, 
 which enters the popular mass and kneads the 
 same as its protoplasmic material ere making itself 
 the principle of government? To catch a glimpse 
 of its supernal source we have to ascend the 
 heights of Universal History, of which the given 
 People or Nation is one stage or epoch, 'participat- 
 ing just through such conviction in the world- 
 historical movement of the Ages. Now Lincoln, 
 we may repeat, is preparing in this Apprenticeship 
 of his to be the mediator between these two Powers 
 which we have already designated as the Folk-Soul 
 and the World-Spirit. 
 
 At present, however, we are to see Lincoln in 
 one of his earlier stages of development: from the 
 limited communal life of New Salem he is passing 
 into a knowledge of his State through his legisla- 
 tive experience. In 1837 Illinois felt a prodigious 
 desire for expansion, which expressed itself in the 
 demand for internal improvements at the expense 
 of the public treasury. There was to be a network 
 of canals intersecting and connecting all parts of 
 the State; with surprise we hear of a scheme for 
 conjoining the Illinois river with Lake Michigan by 
 a canal — a work now in process of fulfilment. A 
 system of railroads was also planned — especially 
 
 14 
 
210 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 one was to bisect the State from East to West, 
 running from Danville to Quincy. Nor was the 
 improvement of the rivers forgotten, though the 
 Sangamon fared badly. In fact, Lincoln himself, 
 quitting New Salem, seems also to have quite 
 abandoned his yellow-tressed water-nymph, who 
 had exerted in former years such a fascinating 
 power over his love and his imagination. Typical 
 of his changed spirit is the fact that the Sangamon 
 no longer flows through his life. 
 
 Still we might say that the former dream of the 
 little community has expanded to be the dream of 
 the whole State of Illinois, which becomes as full 
 of chimerical projects as was ever New Salem. 
 Lincoln as its representative seems to have carried 
 its fever .with him to the Capital at Vandalia, 
 where it spread to the entire legislative body, 
 which, under the influence of the epidemic, made 
 enactments which can only be called delirious. At 
 last the crisis of the malady came, and it was a 
 crisis — that of 1837, well-known for its virulence 
 in our financial history. The whole people shared 
 the delusion, and their representatives simply en- 
 acted the popular craze into law. Very expensive 
 was the debauch ; from it the Statp contracted a 
 debt which took a good while to pay. Herein the 
 affair resembled the New Salem debt of Lincoln, 
 who also had had his speculative fever some years 
 before, and who often jocosely compared his stand- 
 ing obligation to the national debt. Curious is it 
 
LEGISLATIVE. 211 
 
 to note that all Illinois passed through the stage of 
 fancy-fed New Salem with its navigable Sangamon 
 and paid the penalty, as did also Lincoln^ whose 
 career we are following in its corresponding envi- 
 ronment. But the village perished of the malady 
 while the State recovered, and Lincoln escaped by 
 flight, carrying with him his burden of indebted- 
 ness for many years. 
 
 The chief personal feat, however, of Lincoln at 
 this Legislature, was his share in getting the Capi- 
 tal moved from Vandalia to Springfield. Nine 
 members were chosen from Sangamon County, all 
 of them strong men in mind and tall in stature; 
 hence they became known as the ''long nine." It 
 is acknowledged that Lincoln was their leader, and 
 had afterwards the name of being the capital- 
 mover from friends and enemies. He made 
 Springfield the Capital of the State, and then went 
 there to live permanently, taking his place at the 
 center. The way in which he performed this ex- 
 ploit has been frequently the subject of animad- 
 version. He is supposed to have done it chiefly 
 by trading votes : You vote for my scheme and 
 I'll vote for yours; you want the new canal or the 
 new railroad to come to your place; I'll help you 
 with my vote and with my tongue, if need be, if 
 you'll help me with yours. As there was a vast 
 material just then for making such bargains 
 through the many schemes for Public Improve- 
 ments, Lincoln evidently used it for his end. That 
 
212 ABRAHAM LIXCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 is the character of the politician everywhere and 
 everywhen, and the statesman cannot escape it, 
 looking out always for his quid pro quo. 
 
 Nor must we fail to observe a little parenthetic 
 clause in his appeal to his electors, written from 
 New Salem under the date of June 13th, 1836: 
 "I go for admitting all whites to the right of 
 suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means 
 excluding females)." Here bursts out a stunning 
 idea with a kind of detonation — one of his last 
 New Salem explosions. Never afterwards did he 
 pick up again that idea, which probably burnt his 
 fingers a little in the handling. At any rate in 
 Springfield he grew dumb, as far as the record 
 goes, upon Woman's Suffrage. Why? Hard to 
 tell; but with this single shot of his life at such 
 game, we may conceive him turning away to the 
 great coming question of the age, that of Slav- 
 ery, upon which he levels in this Legislature 
 his first thunderous broadside. 
 
 11. 
 
 Anti-Slavery Protest. 
 
 A pivotal act in his career Lincoln deemed his 
 earliest anti-slavery document, which was entered 
 upon the Illinois House Journal of March 3rd, 
 1837, in the form of a Protest against certain Res- 
 olutions passed by the Legislature. In his auto- 
 biographic sketch of 18G0 he gives the document 
 
anti-slavery protest. 213 
 
 in full, with the statement that it "defined his po- 
 sition on the slavery question; and so far as it 
 goes, it was then the same that it is now." The 
 following is the text of the protest, an undoubted 
 composition of Lincoln, now 27 years old: 
 
 "Resolutions on the subject of domestic slav- 
 ery having passed both branches of the General 
 Assembly at its present session, the under- 
 signed hereby protest against the passage of the 
 same. 
 
 "They believe that the institution of slavery is 
 founded both on injustice and bad policy, but that 
 the promulgation of Abolition doctrines tends 
 rather to increase than abate its evils. 
 
 "They believe that the Congress of the United 
 States has no power under the Constitution to in- 
 terfere with the institution of slavery in the differ- 
 ent States. 
 
 "They believe that the Congress of the United 
 States has the power under the Constitution to 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but 
 that the power ought not to be exercised unless at 
 the request of the people of the District. 
 
 'The difference between these opinions and 
 those contained in the above resolutions is their 
 reason for entering this Protest. 
 
 Dan Stone, 
 A. Lincoln, 
 Representatives from the 
 
 County of Sangamon." 
 
214 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART FIRST. 
 
 Such is the Protest, evidently composed by 
 Lincohi and throwing a search-Hght forward 
 through his whole future career to the end. The 
 document is drawn with such care and the limits 
 are observed with such nicety that he never had 
 to ex]5lain it away or apologize for it afterwards. 
 It bears testimony that he already saw the lines 
 along which the great coming battle was to be 
 fought victoriously. Possibly he already dreamed, 
 for Lincoln was ambitious, that he might be the 
 leader. 
 
 We see laid down, accordingly, in the foregoing 
 statement "so far as it goes," the lines of Lincoln's 
 future attitude toward slavery, which Congress 
 cannot interfere with where it already exists, but 
 which Congress can abolish in the District of Co- 
 lumbia with the consent of its people. When he 
 gets to Washington as representative, Lincoln will 
 try his hand at this last business without success. 
 The omission is striking : not a word about keeping 
 slavery out of the Territories, the burning question 
 of a later time. The fact is that this question v/as 
 supposed to be settled so effectively ])y the Mis- 
 souri Compromise that it was not worth the mc:i- 
 tion. But when that Compromise is repealed in 
 1854, the territorial problem breaks out with new 
 violence, and Lincoln takes from it his final trend 
 which lands him in the Presidency. 
 
 Still the strong declaration is to be noted that 
 "the institution of slavery is founded both on in- 
 
ANTI'SLAVERY PROTEST. 215 
 
 justice and bad policy", is both a moral and an eco- 
 nomic evil. In spite of his moral reprobation of 
 it, Lincoln recognized its legal and constitutional 
 right, and hence was not an abolitionist, and even 
 deprecated abolitionism pure and simple. In this 
 document we see that he already maintains that 
 the opposition to slavery must be institutional, 
 preserving Law and Constitution. At the same 
 time we feel in it already the truth of one of his 
 Presidential utterances: ''I am naturally anti- 
 slavery." In a little speech to an Indiana regi- 
 ment he declares: "I have always thought that 
 all men should be free. . . . Whenever I hear 
 anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse 
 to see it tried on him personally." Give him back 
 his own, let him taste the consequences of his 
 principle — that is universal justice. The moral 
 spirit in Lincoln was very strong; just as strong 
 was his institutional spirit. Yet slavery has intro- 
 duced the bitterest conflict between the two — be- 
 tween the moral and the institutional; which of 
 the two must go to the wall? The exclusively 
 moral man cri(\s: Down with your institutions 
 since they support slavery; the exclusively institu- 
 tional man cries: Down with your fanatical mo- 
 rality which assails vested rights in Law and Con- 
 stitution. Lincoln already sees and feels the acrid 
 dualism which is to grow more and more disunit- 
 ing and separative till it rends the American 
 Folk-Soul in twain — which separation it is to be 
 
216 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 the peculiar work of Lincoln to overcome. Sig- 
 nificant is it, therefore, to trace the presence of 
 these two colliding elements in this earliest anti- 
 slavery document of the Great Emancipator, who 
 has at last to wipe out the source of the ever- 
 harassing dualism and thus bring an inner peace to 
 the hitherto self-conflicting Folk-Soul. 
 
 One other name, that of Dan Stone, stands with 
 Lincoln on the document, and is thereby eternized. 
 No other members of that Legislature were will- 
 ing to attach their signatures. Let it be noted 
 that Lincoln has now begun to hear the AYorld- 
 Spirit, and even to voice it in a way; Dan Stone 
 also heard it possibly, affixed his sign-manual to 
 this early utterance of it, and then sank clown for- 
 ever into the sea of oblivion, in thought-stirring 
 contrast to Lincoln. Why was the one individual 
 chosen, and the other quite dismissed? Let that 
 be the secret of the Powers who have the matter 
 in hand; the scribe, looking backward, can only 
 set down the fact in a reflective mood. 
 
 But who of all those legislative members whose 
 names are not signed to Lincoln's protest is the 
 coming man on the other side of the burning ques- 
 tion? In the ranks of the opposition yonder 
 stands a stout, low-statured, rotund, rubicund 
 youth, only 23 years old, who has been elected 
 from Morgan County to this Legislature of 1836; 
 he is the destined antagonist of Lincoln for a quar- 
 ter of a century, who wages with him a contest 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (2). 217 
 
 which we may conceive as starting here and last- 
 ing till Lincoln is elected over him to be President 
 of the United States. That is young Stephen A. 
 Douglas, already noticed, but now to be looked at 
 again. 
 
 III. 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas (2). 
 
 Douglas, as member of the Legislature of 1836-8, 
 had participated in the delirium of Public Im- 
 provements, which left such a load of debt upon 
 Illinois and intensified the financial crisis of 1837. 
 Lincoln also had assisted in blowing that colossal 
 bubble, having become an adept in a small way at 
 New Salem. Here is a point in which both were 
 at one, and likewise were in agreement with the 
 People. A statement of Lincoln has come down 
 that his great ambition was to be called the De- 
 Witt Clinton of Illinois. But when the day of 
 reckoning came with its sledge-hammer hand, Lin- 
 coln did not propose repudiation either in his own 
 case or in that of the State. He began probably 
 now to receive his lasting title of honor, being 
 famed as Honest Abe from the mouth of the Peo- 
 ple. By way of contrast popular rumor has pre- 
 served a saying of Douglas in a stump-speech per- 
 taining to the debt: "Illinois ought to be honest 
 if she never paid a cent." In this double-working 
 oracle we may catch a gleam of a trait of Douglas 
 as politician; he would dodge an issue, and even 
 
218 A BRA HA M LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 ride two horses if necessary. Still we hold that 
 Douglas was an institutional man in the deepest 
 of him, even if he would play cuttle-fish when his 
 enemies pursued him hotly (so Lincoln compared 
 him), and would ink the waters about himself with 
 his words so that nobody could tell quite where he 
 stood. 
 
 But now out of j^he thousands in Ihinois, out of 
 the millions in the United States, have been sifted 
 two men who are standing face to face in the same 
 deliberative body at the little dot called Vandalia, 
 and begin their antagonistic, yea, their antipathetic 
 careers. From this germinal point they will un- 
 fold until they stand face to face before the thou- 
 sands in Illinois, and then before the millions in 
 the United States. These arc the pair of Olympian 
 wrestlers in whom the grand struggle of the time 
 is to become incorporate, and of whom one must 
 finally fling the other to the earth, showing himself 
 the single towering victor in the mighty contest of 
 the age. Many share with him the fame and 
 honor, but he is the one altogether superemincnt. 
 
 The point at which the two careers may be best 
 seen starting out on their divergent lines through 
 the future, is the passage of the before-men- 
 tioned Resolutions, against which Lincoln made 
 his Protest. Douglas supported them, and may 
 indeed have had a hand in ]3reparing them, for 
 they strike his ever-recurring political key-note: 
 Stop agitating this slavery cjuestion. They cannot 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (S). 219 
 
 be called pro-slavery nor anti-slavery; but they do 
 indicate a moral indifference to the great problem 
 of the time. Thus they seem quite hke Douglas, 
 whose famous later statement was in regard to 
 Kansas: Doji't care—"l don't care whether it 
 (slavery) is voted up or down." In support of 
 these Resolutions we may see Douglas taking his 
 first step in his doctrine of indifference, a small 
 step indeed, yet a step. 
 
 The Protest of Lincoln differs from the Resolu- 
 tions very little except in one striking particular, 
 which asserts the belief "that the institution of 
 slavery is founded both on injustice and bad 
 pohcy." Thus the moral element is voiced in 
 Lincoln's Protest, which was suppressed in the 
 Resolutions, though these presented the institu- 
 tional element, which, however, was not denied 
 but re-asserted in the document of Lincoln. Sla- 
 very is both a wrong and a curse — that must be 
 proclaimed even while granting its constitutional 
 rights. The logic here implies that the Constitu- 
 tion contains a wrong. which ought to be elimi- 
 nated with time; that elimination is indeed Lin- 
 coln's supreme coming task, now barely glimpsed, 
 but unfolding more and more into light with the 
 passing years. 
 
 Douglas, adhering formally to transmitted insti- 
 tutions, will dam out the rising moral conviction, 
 which Lincoln will not only preserve but make 
 institutional. Herein we behold their first polit- 
 
220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 ical differentiation, behold their divergent careers 
 raying out from the common center at Van- 
 dalia in 1837, till they embrace the State and the 
 Nation. At present we can see that this rising 
 moral conviction was the first faint irradiation of 
 the approaching sun-up of the Age, the barely felt 
 impress of the World-Spirit upon the Folk-Soul, 
 which Lincoln already feels and starts to uttering. 
 But Douglas has no such incipient stirring of the 
 conscience from supernal sources, as far as can 
 now be observed ; still, let it not be forgotten, he 
 was an institutional man, and therein kept himself 
 attuned to his people for a long time, and dis- 
 tanced Lincoln. At last, however, he smote their 
 moral conviction in the face and lost largely his 
 popular hold. But we must recollect that in the 
 last act of his life he showed his basic institutional 
 character when Union and Constitution were as- 
 sailed, and came to the aid of his life-long antag- 
 onist in their support. 
 
 So we are to grasp the original point in which 
 Lincoln and Douglas are at one, and to which they 
 will come back after a varied and circuitous de- 
 flection of a fourth of a century. Antitypes 
 they are indeed in their moral natures; but insti- 
 tutionally they rest upon the same basis of Union 
 and Constitution. In fact this is also the differ- 
 ence between the before-mentioned Resolutions 
 and Lincoln's Protest, which have also their same- 
 ness. 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (2). 221 
 
 We have already noted that Lincoln moved 
 from New Salem to Springfield after the close of 
 the session of the Legislature in the spring of 
 1837. But who is this other rosy young gentleman 
 coming to live at the new Capital about the same 
 time? It is Stephen A. Douglas, the hitherto un- 
 conscious competitor of Lincoln ; but now their ri- 
 valry is to become conscious, being confined for a 
 goodly time to a small locality. Each will get to 
 know the other as his other, as his antitype, yet 
 bound up with him in a sort of inseparable oppo- 
 sition. The two greatest luminaries of Illinois 
 now rise together and start to whirling about each 
 other in a common orbit and toward the same 
 goal, yet always antithetic and mutually repel- 
 lent. Their very entrance into Springfield shows 
 the typical contrast. Jolly, round, rubicund 
 Douglas brings a public office along in his hand, 
 always lucky; while lean, sallow, hollow-cheeked 
 Lincoln brings a pair of saddle-bags equally lean 
 and wrinkled with himself, riding on a bor- 
 rowed horse, "with the saddest face I ever saw," 
 hardly knowing where to lay his head till kind- 
 hearted Speed shares with him his own bed. 
 
 During four years, till Douglas leaves Springfield 
 in IS-ll, the two antagonists meet at every charac- 
 teristic point and strike fire. In the same profes- 
 sion they tilt ; both are politicians but of opposite 
 parties ; both are 3^oung fellows in society ; finally 
 both seek the favor of the same woman. It must 
 
222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 be deemed one of the chief experiences of Lincoln 
 in this Springfield epoch that he comes to know 
 his other human half as man, or his anti-self , invis- 
 ible active or counteractive incarnation. In about 
 every important relation of life he runs upon and 
 clashes with his counterpart, his antithetic double, 
 not as ghost by any means, but in living, victo- 
 rious energy. 
 
 Still these are the two coming Great Men of the 
 State and Nation, and will approve themselves 
 such. They are both of the North- West and rep- 
 resent its dualism, its growing struggle between 
 the moral and institutional elements, each of which 
 has been roused into activity through the question 
 of slavery. The statesmen of the Atlantic coast 
 may be more learned, polished, yea grammatical; 
 but it is the North-West which takes the chief 
 part in restoring the Union and saving the Nation, 
 furnishing the leaders, both civil and military. Is 
 there any reason for this fact in the logic of his- 
 tory? We believe that there is — but more on this 
 theme hereafter. 
 
 Returning to the play of counterparts at Spring- 
 field, some of their main points of emulation and 
 of collision may be specially noticed. They came 
 from Vandalia leaders of their respective parties. 
 Whig and Democratic ; but this leadership they 
 must have shared with other older men in the 
 service. Douglas entered Springfield with a fresh 
 political appointment — that of Register of Lands; 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (2) 223 
 
 yet in a few months he was nominated as candidate 
 for Congress by his party. The Whigs selected as 
 their nominee John T. Stuart, Lincohi's law- 
 partner. 
 
 (a) Thus arose their first political tournament 
 before the people, Lincoln ardently supporting his 
 friend and partner against Douglas. Stuart was 
 elected, but by so narrow a margin that a contest 
 was threatened. Douglas, however, gave it up. 
 An extract froin a letter of Lincoln to Stuart, 
 while the latter was at Washington in 1839, gives 
 a glimpse of Lincoln's view of Douglas: "A report 
 is in circulation that he (Douglas) has abandoned 
 the idea of going to Washington, though the .re- 
 port does not come in a very authentic form. . 
 . . You know that if we had heard Douglas say 
 that he had abandoned the contest, it would not 
 be very authentic." To the last Lincoln was in- 
 clined to discount the strict veracity of his rival 
 in political utterances. 
 
 (b) Next we may place their oratorical emula- 
 tion^ which culminated in a double set of partisan 
 speeches before a Springfield audience, four to a 
 side. Of course Lincoln and Douglas were two of 
 the contestants. We have still Lincoln's some- 
 what lengthy speech on the occasion. Of its de- 
 tails we need not say much, except to note the 
 fact that he, now conscious of his real foe, directs 
 his main battery against Douglas. Discussions 
 between them and others on street-corners and in 
 
224 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 stores were common before an interested crowd of 
 spectators. Sometimes words were follow^ed by 
 blows, as the following citation (Works I., p. 40) 
 from one of Lincoln's letters indicates: "Yester- 
 day Douglas, having chosen to consider himself 
 insulted by something in the Journal, undertook 
 to cane Francis (the editor) in the street. Francis 
 caught him by the hair and jammed him back 
 against a market-cart, where the matter ended by 
 Francis being pulled away from him. The whole 
 affair was so ludicrous that Francis and everybody 
 else (Douglas excepted) have been laughing about 
 it ever since." So reports the rival; but take 
 care, Lincoln, your turn will come next in far more 
 ridiculous affair, in a serio-comic sham-cluel. 
 
 (r) We catch a few indications that there was 
 also considerable social rivalry between the two 
 contestants. It has been noticed that quite a 
 sprinkling of the Kentucky patriciate had settled 
 in Springfield, and that Lincoln devoted himself a 
 good deal to their society. Douglas, though a 
 Yankee, was not behindhand in the favor of the 
 ladies ; indeed, when the two were dressed up and 
 at "the cotillion party," the contrast m ist have 
 been peculiarly striking. It is said that Lincoln 
 preferred the society of men, and would slip off 
 from the dance to a group of listeners, to whom 
 he would begin telling stories. This was indeed 
 his field, in which he was conscious of his superi- 
 ority. Douglas certainly looked better than his 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (£). 225 
 
 rival in the parlor and ball-room, for this reason, 
 if for none other, that garments could not be made 
 to fit Lincoln, with his spindle shanks and long 
 lopping arms, ending in enormous feet and hands. 
 So Douglas was a far more perfect clothes-horse 
 than Lincoln, and won the game in stylish appear- 
 ance — an important point with the ladies. 
 
 (d) The summit of this personal rivalry in 
 Springfield was reached when they both became 
 suitors for the love of the same woman. Miss 
 Mary Tocld had already, it seems, become Lin- 
 coln's betrothed when Douglas appeared on the 
 scene, determined to cut his rival out. The couple 
 "promenaded the streets, arm-in-arm, frequently 
 passing Lincoln," who proposed to throw up the 
 affair, but did not then succeed. The result was 
 that the young lady took sick with a double love, 
 her case being similar to that of Ann Rutledgc. It 
 so happened that her brother-in-law was her physi- 
 cian, who, having gotten out of her the secret 
 cause of her illnes, went to Douglas and begged 
 him to desist, "which he did with great reluc- 
 tance" (Herndon). 
 
 It may be here noted that Douglas and Miss 
 Todd, later Mrs. Lincoln, had striking points of sim- 
 ilarity, physically and mentally. Both were stout- 
 statured, rotund in shape and general contour, 
 and ruddy. Both were brilliant of mind, showy, 
 and seemingly of like temperaments. Both formed 
 a striking contrast to Lincoln in spirit and ex- 
 
 15 
 
226 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST, 
 
 ternally. Why did they not unite in wedlock? 
 Rumor has it that Mrs. Lincoln once told a 
 friend that "she loved Douglas, and but for her 
 promise to marry Lincoln, would have accepted 
 him." Be that' as it may, she takes, of her two 
 rivals, not her likeness but rather her opposite — 
 the Love-God being notoriously a contrary little 
 imp anyhow. It seems to have been the strange 
 fate of Lincoln that he wooed and wedded a kind 
 of female Douglas, his feminine antitype. Heavens ! 
 what will become of him, and of her, too! 
 
 But in 1841 Douglas quits Springfield, no doubt 
 to the great relief of Lincoln, who could not help 
 seeing that in worldly success and promotion his 
 rival outstripped him. Douglas was advanced to 
 a new and higher position, that of Supreme Judge 
 of the State for the district of Quincy, to which 
 he moved. He had been the chief cause of 
 abolishing the old Judiciary by legislative enactment 
 — against which high-handed act Lincoln with his 
 partisan friends made another protest in the Legis- 
 lature — and then the abolisher received one of the 
 vacancies which he had made, one of the new 
 Judgeships. From this office Douglas obtained 
 his title of Judge, which Lincoln usually gave, him 
 instead of that of Senator in their later debates, 
 possibly with a spice of irony in such a designa- 
 tion. 
 
 In this Springfield rivalry lasting four years, 
 the two grand protagonists of the coming era find 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (2). 227 
 
 each other out ns to ability and character. They 
 become conscious of their rivahy, which at last 
 reaches down to the deepest fact of the age, and 
 drives them to take sides as leaders of the two oppos- 
 ing principles which are slowly engaging in a 
 death-grapple throughout the Nation. This mu- 
 tual self- awareness, won at Springfield, was an im- 
 portant node in the careers of both; each has 
 selected the other as the foremost champion in op- 
 position to himself in the race for the ultimate 
 prize, which dimly hovers in the distance before 
 both. Indeed what bright American boy has not 
 been told that he might be President? Lincoln 
 and Douglas were both exceedingly ambitious, and 
 their ambition was political, which could end only 
 in the one supreme goal. Each gets clarified, 
 through a quadrennial competition on one small 
 spot, about himself and about his rival; each 
 comes to know the other as antitypal in spirit and 
 antagonistic in aim. This long personal contact, 
 with its reciprocal rivalry, must be emphasized as 
 very significant for both, since it never takes place 
 again; it is a foreshadowing and indeed a prepa- 
 ration through intimate personal knowledge for 
 the distant contest when is to be settled which of 
 the two is to have his principle and indeed his 
 character regnant in the Nation as an ever-living 
 exemplar and ideal. 
 
 The struggle between Lincoln and Douglas was 
 long, serious, and strenuous, pertaining to the 
 
228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 weightiest matters in the life of the individual and 
 of the Nation. But now rises again a kind of carica- 
 ture of it along Lincoln's pathway; another gro- 
 tesque begins its sportive counterplay in which he 
 takes a hand, almost in spite of himself, for how 
 can he help it? Upon the Springfield stage there 
 enters a comic character, or easily capable of 
 being made such; with him Lincoln gets en- 
 tangled in a comic conflict, and is made to enact 
 his part in a new comedy, not now of Love but 
 of Honor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Lincoln in a Due!. 
 
 Of course it was not a real duel winding up in 
 bloodshed, but a sort of acted travesty on the 
 genuine thing ; very threatening at first, it blew off 
 in bluster. Lincoln has been blamed for his share, 
 and he felt much mortified when it was over. 
 Still, nature had to assert itself, and Lincoln was 
 double-natured, being endowed equally with a sigh 
 and a laugh as counterbreaths of the one soul. 
 Very serious and deep-lying was his emulation of 
 Stephen A. Douglas, whose strong, sober talent he 
 had to meet with a corresponding one of his own; 
 but a burlesque was his encounter with James 
 Shields, who was himself a burlesque and easily 
 made Lincoln bubble over with l^urlesquery by a 
 kind of reactionary sympathy. So another comic 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 229 
 
 interlude weaves itself into the many-colored 
 texture of Lincoln's Apprenticeship. 
 
 As the result of a recent Democratic victory, a 
 new auditor of the State appeared at Springfield 
 and took possession of his office. This was James 
 Shields, born in Tyrone County, Ireland, and gifted 
 with all the brilliancy, fight and folly of his race. 
 His character and talent were transcendently 
 Celtic, which the Saxon finds so hard to under- 
 stand and to deal with, not only over the sea but 
 also here in America. Shields had the native sud- 
 den coruscation of his people, if not in word, at least 
 in deed; but he had little staying power. His in- 
 itiative was his best, flashing suddenly with daz- 
 zling splendor, and then going out in darkness. 
 He was chosen Senator of the United States at 
 three different times, not once to succeed himself 
 in the same State, but from three different States 
 — Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri, Never has the 
 thing been done before or since ; such a feat could 
 only be performed by the typical Irishman at his 
 best — ^truly a wonder-working magician able to 
 conjure up about himself Senatorial strokes of 
 lightning, three of them, from wholly separate 
 places. That ability no Anglo-Saxon ever possessed. 
 Shields showed the same talent in his military 
 career. In the Mexican War he was appointed 
 outright a Brigadier-General, to the great surprise 
 of all who knew him; and then to their still 
 greater surprise he came back a military hero of 
 
230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 the first water, having received a wound, with 
 many another poor fameless fellow, in a sudden 
 dash at Cerro Gordo. In the Civil War the man 
 whose blood his Honor now clamors for, repeats 
 the act of making him Brigadier-General, though 
 Lincoln probably cracked many a joke about that 
 former unfathomable appointment. And Shields 
 is said to have won at the battle of Winchester 
 the only victory ever gained over Stonewall Jack- 
 son, though his laurels here have been contested. 
 
 So Shields, as a high State official, enters the 
 circle of Springfield's best society. He was an 
 ardent partisan, ardent in everything. It is said 
 that he undertook to play a very effusive social 
 part to the staid Kentucky patriciate, who began 
 to ridicule him. To this was added the unfortu- 
 nate habit of not only shaking but of squeezing the 
 tender hands of the young ladies to w^hom he 
 might be introduced. Such at least is the infer- 
 ence to be drawn from the repeated allusions in 
 the letters which afterwards came out in print. 
 Then Shields could not suppress in polite society 
 a certain amount of self-glorification, due of 
 course to his transcendent abilities and to his 
 famous exploits. 
 
 Into this harmless ridicule an unpopular meas- 
 ure, in which Shields participated, put a sharp 
 sting. He with other State officers refused by 
 a published order to receive for taxes the bills of 
 the State Banks, wdiich had become much depre- 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 231 
 
 ciated in the crisis of 1837. Large quantities of 
 this paper were held by Democratic farmers of 
 the State, who had elected these very officials and 
 who began to murmur discontent on all sides. 
 The "Whigs, largely in the minority in the State as 
 a whole, saw their opportunity and egged on the 
 quarrel, hoping thereby to lay up a good stock 
 of political capital for their own future use. 
 Through one cunning device or other they endeav- 
 ored to widen the breach, now gaping ominously, 
 between the Democratic voter and his officers. 
 
 Lincoln saw the humor of the situation, always 
 tempting to that one side of his nature before 
 mentioned, and, as a good Whig, resolved to add 
 his mite to help forward the cause. In this mood 
 he wrote a rollicking burlesque of a letter ad- 
 dressed to "Dear Mr. Printer" from the Lost 
 Townships, dated August 27th, 1842, and ascribed 
 to "Aunt Becca," a country widow who wants to 
 "know in your next paper whether this Shields is 
 a Whig or Democrat?"' The satire is first directed 
 against the Democratic party, and then concen- 
 trates upon Shields, who is designated in the letter 
 by an irate Democrat as "a fool and liar," for 
 which epithets the reasons are given. But the cul- 
 mination is a farcical picture of Shields at a 
 Springfield party and his behavior toward the 
 young ladies, speaking with "a most exquisite 
 contortion of his face," and indulging in that awful 
 hand-squeezing of the fair ones lasting "about a 
 
232 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 quarter of an hour." The letter from the Lost 
 Toionships was printed in a local newspaper and 
 became at once the talk of the town. 
 
 It should be here noted that this production of 
 Lincoln is written in the Western dialect and dia- 
 logue, with the corresponding local grammar and 
 spelling. It is one of the earlier instances of a 
 literary form which has developed enormously 
 since Lincoln's httle skit. On this side it is a 
 kind of prophecy of the modern dialect novel and 
 novelette, which seem to be exploring and exploit- 
 ing every corner of the country. Lincoln loved 
 this sort of fiction, which apparently culminated 
 for him in the letters of Petroleum V. Nasby from 
 the "Confederate X Roads" — (compare his letter 
 from the ''Lost Townships"). 
 
 ''Dana," asked Lincoln some thirty-two years 
 after the present time, "have you ever read any of 
 the writings of Petroleum V. Nasby?" Dana 
 was a literary man, able writer of leading ed- 
 itorials, but in those days Assistant Secretary of 
 War (18G4). He replied to the President's ciues- 
 tion: "No, sir; I have only looked at some of 
 them and they seemed to me quite funny." Dana 
 evidently appreciates but does not sympathize 
 with Nasby; Stanton, Secretary of War, also pres- 
 ent, neither appreciates nor sympathizes, and so 
 does not understand one full side of Lincoln's 
 nature. The three men were gathered to scan the 
 returns of the Presidential election of 1864, which 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 233 
 
 were coming in by telegraph. There is no doubt 
 that Lincohi was deeply anxious about the result 
 of that election, nor was he then without solicitude 
 for Grant in \' irginia. But during a little- lull in 
 the returns, he breaks out: "Well, let me read 
 you a specimen"; then he pulled out a thin, yellow- 
 covered pamphlet from his breast-pocket and 
 began reading. The rest can be told in the words 
 of Mr. Dana: 
 
 "Mr. Stanton viewed this proceeding with great 
 impatience, as I could see, but Mr. Lincoln paid 
 no attention to that. He would read a page or 
 storj^, pause to con a new election telegram, and 
 then open the book and go ahead with a new pas- 
 sage. Finally Mr. Chase came in and presently 
 Mr. Whitelaw Reid, and then the reading was in- 
 terrupted. Mr. Stanton went to the door and 
 beckoned me into the next room. I shall never 
 forget the fire of his indignation at what seemed 
 to him to be mere nonsense. He could not under- 
 stand, apparently, that it was by the relief which 
 these jests afforded to the strain of the mind 
 under which Lincoln had been so long living, and 
 to the natural gloom of a desponding tempera- 
 ment — this was Mr. Lincoln's prevailing charac- 
 teristic — that the safety and sanity of his intelli- 
 gence was maintained and preserved." 
 
 Such was ]\Ir. Charles A. Dana's view of the 
 foregoing side of Lincoln 's character, in our opin- 
 ion the correct Aicw, gained by a very competent 
 
234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 judge through daily intercourse with the President 
 for a considerable time under the most trying cir- 
 cumstances. Only one qualification we would like 
 to make: Desponding gloom was not Lincoln's 
 prevailing characteristic, for it did not prevail with 
 him, he always overcame it in the end, yea, was 
 always overcoming it, transforming it into hope, 
 faith, o])timism. Read his writings, look into his 
 actions; he never despaired morally of the extinc- 
 tion of slavery, nor institutionally of the preserva- 
 tion of Union and Constitution. At the same 
 time melancholy was a dark, ever-present, surging 
 undercurrent in his soul, a temperamental inherit- 
 ance, which he had to ba.ttle with incessantly and 
 put down. Have we not seen him doing so al- 
 ready? Indeed, from this inner war and its vic- 
 tory flowed his main strength for the great outer 
 war which raged about him with so many harass- 
 ing fluctuations. Blue devils and black were al- 
 ways clutching him, but he whirled them down 
 into their own gloomy Inferno, showing undoubt- 
 edly many external signs of the conflict, among 
 these, doubtless, the reading of Nasby. The gates 
 of Hell, to apply to him one of his scriptural allu- 
 sions, could not prevail against him. Dana's 
 suggestion, however, that Nasby's humor was one 
 of Lincoln's ways of relieving his overburdened 
 spirit holds good, and is generally recognized at 
 the present time. The further hint, that his sanity 
 was preserved through such a safety-valve for his 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 235 
 
 volcanic emotional upheavals, is also worthy of 
 the best thought of the student of Lincoln, and 
 receives no little confirmation from certain experi- 
 ences of Lincoln's earlier life, as already narrated. 
 Picking up again the letter from the Lost Town- 
 ships, we find that it was not the end of the litera- 
 ture on this subject. The fountain having been 
 tapped, two young ladies, friends of Lincoln, pro- 
 duced a little spirt on their own account, still in 
 dialect and dialogue. In this second letter (not 
 by Lincoln, recollect), the country widow offers, 
 for the sake of peace, to marry Shields, whose 
 fighting ambition is also burlesqued; indeed, he is 
 half dared to a duel in the mockery of these two 
 irresponsible maidens. Then, again, that rich 
 theme of hand-squeezing is introduced, of course, 
 being mentioned no less than four times in the 
 brief epistle. We infer from the repeated stress 
 upon the matter that these two young ladies must 
 have carried their hands in a sling at least three 
 days after their first encounter with the gallant 
 Irishman. Finally comes the third effusion by the 
 same authoresses, who now drop prose and take 
 to poetry, to rhymed couplets of the Popian style, 
 possibly suggested by the Dunciad, celebrating the 
 marriage : 
 
 " Rebecca the widow has gained Erin's son." 
 
 The two young ladies who have unwittingly 
 done an historic deed by having a hand in getting 
 Lincoln into this scrape, are not nameless to the 
 
236 ABnAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 biot>;rai)hor. Miss Todd (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) 
 and Miss Jaync (afterwards Mrs. Lyman Trumbull) 
 are handed down to fame as the rollicking, bur- 
 lesquing young ladies who dared scoff at Shields 
 as duelist, and thus, it would seem, brought the 
 duel to a head. (There is a question about the 
 authorship of these letters. All three have been 
 supposed to be the work of I\Iiss Todd. But Lin- 
 coln in his apology acknowledgcvs the first only and 
 disclaims the others. Liternal evidence points 
 decidedly in the same dirix'tion). 
 
 All tli(3 town began to titter at Shields, and to 
 repeat the funny points of the letters, interspersed 
 with fresh anecdotes and malicious witticisms, to 
 which Shields' roaring gave new zest. He could 
 not ai)i)ear on the street without being the center 
 of grinning faces. It was a situation that the hot 
 Irishman would meet by fight — fight the general 
 guffaw, or at least the source of it, which Shields 
 soon found to be Lincoln. Retraction or blootl is 
 the alternative which he j)ret;?ents. Lincoln refuses 
 to retract under a menace, and under such an 
 "assumption of facts." V^arious attempts at re- 
 conciliation failed, and both parties proceeded to 
 the field of honor, which was on a desert island in 
 the Mississippi, not far from Alton, to which 
 nobody was permitted to go except the parties 
 concerned. 
 
 Lincoln, as the challenged party, had the right 
 to select the weapons, and he chose cavalry broad- 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 237 
 
 swords of the largest size, well adapted to his 
 great strength and the wide sweep of his arm. 
 Most suggestive is the; second of his prehminaries, 
 which runs as follows : A strong plank is to be 
 fixed "between us, which neither is to pass his foot 
 over upon the forfeit of his life." (The seconds, 
 seemingly, are to shoot the violator on the spot). 
 Then each has a line which he is not to pass, else 
 it will be deemed a surrender of the fight. 
 
 Let us omit all the outside details, which are 
 voluminous enough, and see if we cannot probe 
 at once to the very crisis of the affair, its turning- 
 point from war to peace. In our judgment this is 
 found in the words of a spectator which Miss Tar- 
 bell (Life of Lincoln I., p. 288) has preserved and 
 which we shall quote: 'T watched Lincoln closely 
 while he sat on his log awaiting the signal to 
 fight. His face was grave and serious. . . . 
 Presently he reached over and picked up one of 
 the swords, which he drew from its scabbard. 
 Then he felt along the edge of the weapon with 
 his thumb, like a barber feels the edge of a razor, 
 raised himself up to his full height, stretched out 
 his long arms and clipped oE a twig from above 
 his head with th(! sword. There was not another 
 man of us who could have reached anywhere near 
 that twig." 
 
 Such was, we have to think, the pivotal act of 
 the duel, whereby it was whisked about from fight 
 to friendship. For short Shields, "who could 
 
238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 walk under Lincoln's arm," must have seen that 
 long, outstretched sword of Destiny clipping off 
 the twig above with some foreboding of what it 
 meant; his associates must have seen it, too, as a 
 kind of prognostication of approaching Fate. 
 There is little doubt that Lincoln, sitting on his 
 log with "face grave and serious," evidently think- 
 ing and watching, seized the right psychologic 
 moment and enacted a brief prelude by way of 
 forewarning, which whispers afar something like 
 this : Do you see how I can reach out and tap 
 you at any point without you grazing me in re- 
 turn? 
 
 At any rate, the duel came suddenly to an end. 
 Shields was pacified, of course, through the inter- 
 vention of friends, and Lincoln did not need any 
 pacifying. Both the duelists returned across the 
 river to Alton on the same boat, chatting together 
 in a free-and-easy manner. Report has it that a 
 crimson garment was seen lying in the boat by the 
 neck-craning crowd on shore with a horrible shud- 
 der; but when lifted up the bloody face-cloth was 
 found to be a red shirt spread over a log. It is 
 not told who worked that scheme as a finale bur- 
 lesquing the whole duel, or more probably, spun 
 a fitting yarn for the epilogue of the comedy. 
 
 So Lincoln has played another grotesque part 
 in life, this time on the field of Honor. Veiy 
 unwilling was his act, and remained a repugnant 
 memory. Herndon reports him once saying: "I 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 239 
 
 did not intend to hurt Shields unless I did so 
 clearly in self-defence." Very possible seems liis 
 assertion: "I could have split him from the crown 
 of his head to the end of his backbone." That is 
 just what he intended probably to impress upon 
 Shields at the pivotal moment by the clipping of 
 the twig overhead with his sword. But why did 
 conscientious, Quaker-strained Lincoln accept such 
 a challenge? We must deem him influenced by 
 the Kentucky patriciate with whom he associated, 
 and who, like the South generally, accepted the 
 code in the last resort. He could not escape his 
 environment, which would not let him back down 
 at the ruffles of a little Hibernian fighting-cock. 
 Verily his grotesquery has now found its limit in a 
 peck of trouble. It is curious that political ene- 
 mies never used this duel against him in later 
 years, excepting possibly old Peter Cartright. 
 Why did not Douglas, who must have known all 
 about it, dilate upon the fact, particularly at Free- 
 port, before an audience composed largely of duel- 
 hating New Englanders? Possibly he feared Lin- 
 coln's boomerang, for Douglas was also a pug- 
 nacious little rooster, and had been in many a 
 scrimmage. During the Presidential election noth- 
 ing seems to have been heard of the awful charge 
 that Lincoln had offered to fight a duel but never 
 fought it. 
 
 And now from this one case dueling spreads 
 out and becomes epidemic in Springfield. Shields, 
 
240 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART FIRST. 
 
 having started on his war-dance with many a 
 lyrical saltation and exaltation, sends a second 
 challenge to a new offender who offers to fight "at 
 to-morrow's sunrise in Bob Allen's meadow with 
 rifles at one hundred yards' distance" — but no 
 shot again. Then the seconds to Lincoln and 
 Shields get embroiled in the quarrel of their prin- 
 cipals, and prepare for a bloody encounter, which 
 ends in a long and desperate paper-war without" 
 anybody getting hurt. Says Lincoln in a letter to 
 his friend Speed: "You have learned of my duel 
 with Shields, and I have now to inform you that 
 the dueling business still rages in this city. . . 
 Meanwhile the town is in a ferment and a street- 
 fight somewhat anticipated." Truly grotesquery, 
 like the laugh, is catching, and once started, goes 
 through the whole community. And it is not with- 
 out danger to the patient, who at least feels morti- 
 fied after having to play the part of universal fool 
 before the public. Let Shields, if he wishes, act 
 out his Irish bulls and utter them, too, as one may 
 hear even in his challenge, which threatens the 
 doing of terrible deeds, "which no one will regret 
 more than myself." In fact. Shields, in his brilliant 
 contradictions and grandiose absurdities, seems an 
 incarnate Irish bull on the rampage, always run- 
 ning the imminent danger of breaking its neck, yet 
 always lighting safely on its feet again. A unique 
 and fascinating talent it was, which lured Lincoln 
 unconsciously into a kind of competition in gro- 
 
LINCOLN IN A DUEL. 241 
 
 tesquery, in which he was quite as comic as 
 Shields, though in a different way. So great and 
 keen was his self-ridicule in the matter that he 
 could not bear to have it recalled, according to 
 Herndon; apparently he could not stand his own 
 inner laugh at his grotesque action. 
 
 But what about the two young ladies who had 
 in their frolic given- the last stroke toward bringing 
 on the duel, even if Lincoln had first set it in mo- 
 tion? One may be permitted to guess that they 
 were in a tearfully repentant state of mind during 
 these days, and made good resolutions to hold in 
 check hereafter their dangerous literary gift. Great 
 must have been their relief when both the duelists 
 returned to Springfield, the one unhurt and the 
 other placated. But now rises to the surface a 
 new strand of Lincoln's Destiny, hitherto present 
 but concealed: Love is seen unfolding fleetly 
 out of this affair of Honor. Miss Todd had been 
 betrothed to Lincoln, but an estrangement had set 
 in, whose clouds had begun slightly to clear away, 
 when down upon them drope this duel in which 
 both have a part. Unwittingly she had helped to 
 get the man whom she loved into what seemed a 
 great danger. But now it is past, and the torrent 
 of emotion rushes rapidl}' to its goal . In a littte 
 more than a month after the duel, Abraham Lin- 
 coln and Mary Todd were completely reconciled, 
 re-engaged, and united in marriage. 
 
242 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 V. 
 
 Lincoln's Marriage. 
 
 It would seem, then, that Lincoln was in the 
 process of being whirled rapidly into matrimony- 
 through the duel with Shields, which, however, 
 was not directly about the young lady at all. 
 Women have been a prolific source of duels among 
 men; but Lincoln himself did not know that the 
 real and lasting prize of the contest was a wife. 
 This was the serious and life-long outcome, which 
 undoubtedly had other c.o-operating conditions 
 beside the duel. There had been already an en- 
 gagement, then a breach, but finally a re-engage- 
 ment, followed speedily by a wedding. 
 
 It is recorded that on November 4th, 1842, 
 Lincoln was married to Mary Todd, and thus en- 
 tered upon a new phase of life, we may say, of in- 
 stitutional life. For the Family, that intimate and 
 permanent union of one man and one woman, of 
 which the supreme end is to preserve and perpet- 
 uate humanity itself in an institutional way, opens 
 quite another world to its members. It settles 
 the individual hitherto drifting, and holds him 
 fast to an inner aim, and usually to an outer 
 locality. Lincoln now casts anchor in the sea of 
 life and roves no more, though he floats a good 
 deal about to the length of his tether. 
 
 In fact, we may well deem his marriage to be 
 the conclusion of what we call his Apprenticeship. 
 
LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE. 243 
 
 He is now thirty-three years old and more; he has 
 been going to school and taking a varied course; 
 he has gained no little knowledge of the culture of 
 the past, to be sure in a very informal and miac- 
 ademic way. He has won his profession, and got- 
 ten it well in hand, so that it will give him and 
 his a fair living. But the greatest thing w^hich he 
 has gotten is to know the People and their speech. 
 Indeed, his whole life up to this time may be 
 deemed a communing with the Folk-Soul, and the 
 learning how to voice the same. He has become 
 able to speak to the People or to make it speak 
 to itself through him, to render it aware of its own 
 deepest instinct and purpose. 
 
 But if one school lets out, another takes in, 
 and the discipline of life goes on. His first Period 
 ends in marjiage, home, children; but also his sec- 
 ond Period begins, which is to bear him beyond 
 his community, beyond his State, to his Nation, 
 whose new destiny he is to incorporate with his 
 own. But more oj this in a later and better con- 
 nection; at present we must touch upon the de- 
 tails of his nuptials. 
 
 Mary Todd, who becomes so deeply inwoven 
 with Lincoln's life as spouse, was born in Lexing- 
 ton, chief city of Kentucky's famous Blue Grass 
 Region, December 13th, 1818, being thus more 
 than nine years younger than Lincoln, and nearly 
 24 years old at her marriage. She came of the 
 bluest blood of the old Kentucky patriciate, and 
 
244 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 it is said that branches of her genealogical tree 
 could be traced back to the sixth century. She 
 was well educated, brilliant in conversation, witty, 
 but also gifted with a sharp tongue. She came 
 to Springfield in 1839 to live with a married sister, 
 and of course was received in the first society, 
 which was composed almost wholly of the Ken- 
 tucky aristocracy. 
 
 Lincoln became acquainted with her and was 
 fascinated by her brilliant qualities. Not only 
 that, but we have the right to think that he had 
 his secret admiration for that long ancestral 
 line which he himself did not possess — he born a 
 poor white of the South, yet gifted with unique 
 talent and mounting ambition. Note again those 
 high-born Kentucky girls whom Lincoln wooed in 
 his checkered career of courtship — that certainly 
 shows the direction of his look and of his aspira- 
 tion. He evidently was going to marry above his 
 class, plebeian that he was socially and politically. 
 He became engaged to Miss Todd in 1840, though 
 her Springfield relatives shook their heads omin- 
 ously at the match. ''Not suited to each other by 
 birth and education," ran the whisper of the aris- 
 tocratic Kentucky women who knew both, and 
 who were friendly to both. 
 
 The result was. a broken engagement, seemingly 
 on "that fatal first of January, 1841." The truth 
 seems to be that neither was marrying for love, 
 pure and simple, but with an ulterior end. The 
 
LINCOiy'S MARRIAGE. 245 
 
 woman is declared to have been veiy ambitious, 
 and once remarked that she was going to have a 
 President for husband. There is httle doubt that 
 the native talent of Lincoln was generally recog- 
 nized in Springfield at that time; then he was the 
 popular 3'oung fellow in town. Mar}^ Todd had 
 an insight into his ability antl character, and 
 wedded Jiis possible greatness ; and of the two it 
 looks as if she came the nearest to having some 
 love for its own sake — a streak of the genuine 
 article, amid all the caprices of the spoilt child. 
 As far as is known she had never had a serious 
 case of love, unless a snapshot of it in her brief 
 philandering with Douglas. 
 
 Herein lies a difference, perhaps the basic one, 
 between her and Lincoln. With him love had 
 bloomed once in all its fullness and glory. Over 
 and over again he has left on record what must 
 be deemed intimations that Ann Rutledge was 
 his only love. The fact was generally known, and 
 must have come to the ears of Mary Todd. Her 
 own cousin and intimate companion has given 
 this account of the matter which seems to us the 
 best: Lincoln "may have doubted whether he 
 was responding as fully as a manly, generous na- 
 ture should to such affection as he knew my 
 cousin (Miss Todd) was ready to bestow upon him. 
 And this because it had not the overmastering 
 depth of an early love. This everybody here 
 knows." 
 
246 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 Such is indeed the pith of the trouble: Lincoln 
 had once given his heart away and no longer had 
 it to give. That "overmastering depth of an 
 early love" is an allusion to Ann Rutledge. about 
 which matter ''everybody here knows." The 
 inner collision became so intense in Lincoln that 
 he fell sick, mentally side, and according to his 
 Boswell, reached quite the point of insanity. The 
 la Iter's statement, however, is stoutly denied that 
 on the first of January, 1841, the wedding was 
 set, the bride was ready, the guests were assem- 
 bled, but Lincoln failed to appear, having gone 
 stark mad. So far probably matters did not pro- 
 ceed, but the engagement was broken, and Lincoln 
 was plunged into a deep fit of melancholia, which 
 threatened to end in suicide. 
 
 The similarity of Lincoln's present mental con- 
 dition to that after the death of Ann Rutledge is 
 striking. He has had a relapse to his former sor- 
 row through his breach with Miss Todd on "the 
 fatal first of January, 1841." It is indeed a sep- 
 aration wdiich sympathetically brings up that fii'st 
 separation through death. Li a letter written 
 shortly afterwards (January 23rd, 1841), we have 
 Lincohi's description of himself: "I am now the 
 most miserable man living. If what I feel were 
 distributed equally to the whole human family, 
 there would not be one cheerful face on the 
 earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I can:i(U 
 tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain 
 
LINCOLN'S MARRLiGE. 247 
 
 as I am is impossible; I must die or be better" 
 (Works I., p, 45). This last sentence sounds like 
 a threat of suicide. ■■ 
 
 Again that emotional volcano which lay al- 
 ways smouldering in Lincoln 's nature is having a 
 violent eruption. But his former experience has 
 taught him to be Fate-compeller over that most 
 perilous part of himself — his feelings. And in 
 these days the record shows that he went about 
 his own business and that of the Legislature, of 
 which he was a member. Intense self-suppres- 
 sion he must have exercised, and at the end of 
 the session he obtains relief by a visit to Kentucky 
 with his friend Speed, who there falls in love him- 
 self, becomes engaged, and passes through a spell 
 of melancholia similar to that of Lincoln. One 
 may think that Speed must have caught it from 
 his deep sympathy with his suffering friend. At 
 any rate Lincoln is called upon to give in turn 
 consolation for the mental malady under which he 
 himself has been bowed down; in relieving another 
 he obtains relief. Suffice it to say that Speed and 
 his dark-eyed Fanny ^^■cre married in February, 
 1842, and the husband, fully restored from his 
 gloom, declares in a letter to Lincoln that "I am 
 far happier than I ever expected to be." Let 
 him, therefore, be dismissed from the hospital, 
 with that dangerous sympathy of his, all of which 
 can now go out in harmless caresses toward his 
 wife. But Lincoln has no such vent for his emo- 
 
248 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 tions, and hence we hear of relapses to gloom on 
 account of ''the never-absent idea that there 
 is one still unhappy whom I have contributed 
 to make so. That still kills my soul. I cannot 
 but reproach myself for even wishing to be happy 
 while she is otherwise." 
 
 In these words (written more than a year after 
 the rupture of his engagement) we catch a glimpse 
 of the bitter conflict still raging in Lincoln's breast. 
 He is aware that he has received a love which he 
 cannot requite, that he has roused an emotion for 
 which there is in his power no true return. "That 
 still kills my soul," and keeps calling up reproaches 
 "for even wishing to be happy." Truly he has 
 become more conscious than ever, just through 
 this experience, that he bears in his heart an im- 
 mortal love for another, who has vanished. Still 
 after some five years this new attachment crosses 
 his path, very different in kind, still an attach- 
 ment, which, however, he feels to be relatively a 
 terrestrial, mortal affair. AVhat is his duty? In 
 the pain of the struggle we have already heard 
 him calling himself "the most miserable man 
 living." 
 
 Tender-hearted Speed, a genius in sympathy 
 who responded so deeply to Lincoln's conflict at 
 Springfield, and helped to heal his lacerated spirit 
 by consolation, carries the echoes of his friend's 
 conflict with him to Kentucky and falls into a 
 similar state himself. So Lincoln writes to him: 
 
LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE. 249 
 
 "I know what the painful point with you is at all 
 times when you are unhappy : it is an apprehen- 
 sion that you do not love her (your Fanny) as you 
 should." Verily this is Lincoln's own trouble 
 which Speed has so often had to soothe with his 
 allaying power of sympathy. Now Lincoln's turn 
 has come to perform the same priestly office for 
 his suffering friend, which he does in another letter 
 pointing out ''indubitable evidence of your undy- 
 ing affection for her" in the crushing anxiety of 
 the lover on account of a little fit of illness she 
 had. So Lincoln pronounces his anxious friend to 
 have shown the ultimate test, ''undying affection," 
 concerning which the latter had been in a dark 
 spell of doubt, which he soon gets over, winding 
 up the matter by marriage, as already reported. 
 
 But how about Lincoln? In the same letter he 
 gives a brief, quite sulphurous glare of his torment : 
 "You know the Hell I have suffered on this point, 
 and how tender I am upon it." He too has an 
 "undying affection" which has collided evidently 
 with his betrothal and broken it, precipitating the 
 poor sinner into "the Hell I have suffered." But 
 he is seemingly mastering his demonic emotions, 
 and slowly asserting himself anew as Fate-com- 
 peller. So we rejoice at this gleam of sunshine 
 shooting through the clouds in the same letter: 
 "I have been quite clear of the hypo since you left, 
 even better than I was along in the fall," espe- 
 cially so (we may add) since I have been adminis- 
 
250 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 tering the remedial consolation for my own mal-" 
 ady to you, my friend, which malady, I imagine, 
 I must have imparted to you through your sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 So we catch in these two years (1841-2) more of 
 the inner soul-life of Lincoln than is visible at any 
 other time. Through the preservation of a few 
 letters in which he opens his heart both for re- 
 ceiving and giving sympathy, we see in brief 
 flashes what is going on there. He is working 
 through a new and peculiar conflict of Love, hav- 
 ing his own soul as the arena for both sides whose 
 shock of battle shakes, even if it does not over- 
 turn, the throne of reason. But we can also see 
 him slowly emerging from the dark chaos of his 
 emotional war as Fate-compel ler again, in a faint 
 crepuscular promise of coming victory. 
 
 But behold! another of those nodal interven- 
 tions in the affairs of men which upheave revolu- 
 tions and evoke new epochs in life. Down plumps 
 the Shields duel upon Lincoln while he is engaged 
 in compelling the Fates of Feeling and winning a 
 rational mastery of himself. At once there breaks 
 up a fresh overbearing swirl of the undercurrents 
 of the soul. The duel with all its concomitants 
 and echoes in other duels and in manifold reports 
 and publications, fills full of excitements the 
 months of September-October, 1842, and produces 
 an unceasing public din. But the real, though hid- 
 den noiseless fact of it for us is that Lincoln, in the 
 
LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE. 251 
 
 process of dueling, is also in the process of getting 
 married. Mary Todd, having unconsciously gotten 
 Lincoln into this dangerous scrape, could not have 
 been without a strong access of anxiety and re- 
 morse, which had the power of rousing afresh her 
 suppressed love, for it seems to be agreed that she 
 loved Lincoln and had chosen him against the ad- 
 vice of her relatives. This choice of hers Lincoln 
 knew, for we have heard him reproach himself for 
 having contributed to make one loving human 
 heart unhappy: "That still kills my soul." To 
 be sure before the duel there had been a partial 
 reconciliation, or rather an acceptance on the part 
 of both of their separated lot; they had even 
 friendly meetings at the house of a common ac- 
 quaintance, editor Francis, where the letters 
 which gave rise to the challenge of Shields were 
 concocted. But we have to think that the duel 
 itself, with its attendant emotions breaking over 
 all restraints, was what brought about the sudden 
 re-engagement, and the equally sudden marriage. 
 What now of the future of this most important 
 step? Not much need be added; already we have 
 given certain prognosticating lines of what is to 
 come, in the character of the woman, we hope 
 with gentleness, yet with justice. One more trait, 
 now to be developed fully in the Hfe of the family, 
 has to be given to the picture : she was not lovely 
 in her love toward the loved one. A great mis- 
 fortune, to our mind, in any woman is it when 
 
252 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 her very love undoes itself by becoming more ex- 
 acting, querulous, sharp-tongued the stronger it is. 
 In its very power it seems to turn to a kind of 
 hate. Unlovely in her love, or liable to get so — 
 such is the supreme fatality in this woman's na- 
 ture. Abraham Lincoln is to be tested in the fire 
 of that kind of a discipline henceforth to the end 
 of his life. 
 
 But how about Lincoln himself in this new rela- 
 tion? He brings to it a different sort of allegiance, 
 which could hardly help provoking in the woman 
 a kind of immortal jealousy as her counterstroke 
 to his immortal love for another. This other love 
 of his she knew well, in fact, "this everybody here 
 knows," as her own cousin and associate declared. 
 So Lincoln's heart in his domestic relation was the 
 abode of two Loves, not always internally harmo- 
 nious — Love as an ever-welling passion and Love 
 as a reflective obligation. Love as ideal and Love 
 as real; or, we may .call them Love the beautiful 
 and Love the dutiful. Both he possessed within 
 himself in ever-present activity, often with discord 
 enough. Then between the man and wife were 
 striking contrasts sufficient under a little tiff to 
 set the soul ajar — contrasts in birth, education, 
 temperament, physique, even in politics, for Mrs. 
 Lincoln is said by Hcrndon to have been decidedly 
 pro-slavery in sentiment, the result of her South- 
 ern breeding. That certainly would not comj)ort 
 with Lincoln's deepest spirit or with his politi- 
 
LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE. 253 
 
 cal career, or with his supreme world-historical 
 task. 
 
 Thus Lincoln has a new Fate-compelling ordeal 
 put upon him, life-long, ever-recurring. The 
 alternative must have presented itself: Shall I 
 requite, paying back like for like, and thus end 
 in the divorce court; or shall I transfigure this 
 relation also, elevating it into Love universal? 
 There is no doubt that Lincoln fled often from 
 his real to his ideal affection as his relief from 
 domestic discord, passing through the vale of 
 gloom on the way. But he always came out of 
 it again into the serene atmosphere of his own 
 highest nature, being driven to transcend the bit- 
 ter reality. This lesson he had already learned by 
 his former terrible experience in the evanishment 
 of the first loved one. It was the strange lot of 
 Mary Lincoln to keep ever alive Ann Rutledge in 
 the bosom of her husband. She drove him to 
 take refuge from her temper and conduct in the 
 memory of his ideal woman, who awoke in him 
 universal Love. The wife was not a Fate-com- 
 peller; she did not make her husband forget in 
 her and in her home the lost one, but rather 
 forced him to bring back the image of the past 
 love in an ever-renewing transfiguration. Cer- 
 tainly toward her he had to be always exercising 
 his forgiveness, his charity, his tender-heartedness, 
 which thus became his habit toward all, his uni- 
 versal Love as ever-present character. In tliis 
 
254 ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PART FIRST. 
 
 way she has an abiding place in his training, in 
 this Apprenticeship, whose varied phases we are 
 seeking to grasp. 
 
 Still, before parting from her we must, in jus- 
 tice, recall that Lincoln did not bring to her "the 
 over-mastering depth of an early love," he laid 
 not on her altar a whole heart's unreserved sacri- 
 fice. She was second and remained second, and 
 alas ! through her own deed she kept herself sec- 
 ond, being unable to transcend the limit which 
 her own fatal temper put upon her, unable in her 
 woman's way also to transfigure Love. That the 
 man on his side did, and won the reward. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Retrospective. 
 
 Truly a stormy courtship Lincon has experienced 
 at Springfield — what with Douglas, what with 
 Shields, what with the young lady, what with 
 himself. But at last he has gotten to port and is 
 anchored for life, not without breakers often run- 
 ning high into the harbor and dashing the fastened 
 vessel around within the length of its rope which 
 is often sorely tested. So we have come to the 
 end of one considerable cycle of Lincoln's life when 
 another begins. Or, we may say that the novel, 
 after many ups and downs of the hero, many sun- 
 bursts and eclipses of love, has wound up in mar- 
 riage, the time-honored conclusion of the ro- 
 
RETROSPECTIVE. 255 
 
 mance. But behold! if the one novel ends, just in 
 that end another begins with its fresh batch of 
 problems, adventures, sunlit radiances and hapless 
 tears. Truly in this as in so many other cases 
 the end is also the beginning. 
 
 Indeed, the career of Lincoln at Springfield, or 
 at least this part of it, seems to assume the form 
 of the novel as its expression. A novel of Love 
 Lincoln has now acted out in many of its details; 
 a better novel it is, as we think, and certainly 
 more lasting, than any of those old thin fictions 
 of Mrs. Lee Hentz which he used to devour. We 
 have often noted that Lincoln delighted in fable 
 story, apologue, generally in fictional expression; 
 in fact, it was this gift which got him into his 
 trouble with Shields, through that bright skit of a 
 "Letter from the Lost Townships," of course a 
 written fiction, which, however, had the power of 
 making itself the pivot of an acted fiction, if the 
 name be allowed, of much larger proportions. 
 Thus Lincoln's own little novelette of the country 
 widow gets dangerously complicated with his big 
 fiesh-and-blood novel at Springfield, of which he 
 is the unwilling hero, both in its comic and its 
 serious parts, for it must have both if he is the 
 central figure. A novelistic form, then, Lincoln's 
 career takes at this period, moving into it and 
 with it naturally, altogether spontaneously, as if 
 it were the native garment of the man's soul-life 
 just now. 
 
 Very different was the idyl of New Salem from 
 
256 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART FIRST. 
 
 this novel of Springfield. The locality, the social 
 environment, gives the artistic atmosphere in 
 which the individual is placed and acts his part. 
 Lincoln, the central character whom we are fol- 
 lowing and seeking to utter, passes from one to 
 the other internally as well as externally. The 
 idyllic life of New Salem he experiences to the 
 full and then quits, has to quit, and to move on 
 into the novelistic life of Springfield with its far 
 more highly developed society. From tliis point 
 of view we may conceive him as passing through 
 a line of literary forms with their corresponding 
 contents of living experience. Hardly can we 
 Homerize Springfield as we did New Salem; it will 
 not let us, being in a different social stage and 
 demanding a different utterance of itself. Yet 
 each has its hero, yea, the same hero; each its 
 conflict of love, each, too, a certain grotesque 
 coloring, even in the tragedy of it. But enough! 
 the idyl has ended, and the novel has ended, at 
 least in this part. 
 
 And still further, Lincoln's Apprenticeship has 
 ended, or what we regard as such in this bio- 
 graphic exposition. In the main he has been 
 going to school to the Folk-Soul of the North- 
 West, whose speech, whose ways of thinking, in 
 general, whose spirit he has come to know; we 
 may add, whose deepest unconscious aspiration 
 he has learned to feel, indeed, to forefeel. To be . 
 sure he will have a time of estrangement from 
 the Folk-Soul, whence results a better acquaint- 
 
RETROSPECTIVE. 257 
 
 ance with it, followed by a new and final recon- 
 ciliation. All this lies in the future, and need not 
 be further unfolded here. 
 
 Such^ in a wide sense, has been Lincoln's edu- 
 cation. Could its place have been taken by a 
 College or University? The question has been 
 often discussed whether an academic training 
 would have been an advantage or a drawback to 
 Lincoln for his work. Professors, College Presi- 
 dents and University Chancelors will naturally 
 look at the matter from one side; men of affairs 
 will, on the whole, be likely to lean to the other 
 side. The pith of the solution must penetrate to 
 the nature of academic life w^ith its peculiar dis- 
 cipline. Does it have a tendency to produce a 
 separation, and indeed an alienation from the 
 popular way of thinking, from full sympathy with 
 the Folk-Soul? If the Hall of Learning is in- 
 tended to withdraw the individual from his ordi- 
 nary social environment and to put him into a 
 new and different world, then its method of edu- 
 cation is just opposite to that of Lincoln, whose 
 Apprenticeship is directly to the People, whom he 
 must learn to know to the bottom, and who are, 
 therefore, his main course of study. The way he 
 took was, doubtless, the best way for training 
 him to his task; possibly it was not the only way, 
 though this may be questioned. Still it is highly 
 probable that no school would have wrecked Lin- 
 coln's career, not even a University. 
 
part Seconb^ 
 
 In general the great fact of this Part Second 
 now before us is that Lincoln rises to the Nation, 
 participates in the soul of the Nation, and finally 
 becomes the voice of the Nation and its chosen 
 leader. He separates from the Single-State to 
 which his political career has been hitherto con- 
 fined, and moves forward into the United-States 
 as a whole, grasping and formulating its problem. 
 From the Folk-Soul not only of Illinois but of the 
 Union-born Free-States of the North- West he has 
 (258) 
 
LINCOLN'S NATIONAL CALL. 259 
 
 next to pass to the Folk-Soul of the total Nation 
 and get acquainted with it also, for it is what he 
 has ultimately to deal with and to lead into its 
 new Order. His Apprenticeship to his own im- 
 mediate State and Section he has fairly served 
 and it is now to be transcended ; he knows his 
 people well and can speak to them in their own 
 dialect, and moreover has begun to feel in ad- 
 vance, if not to see, the place of the North- 
 Western Folk-Soul in the coming evolution of the 
 Nation, 
 
 Of course this separation from his own does not 
 mean that he leaves them behind ; he is not going 
 to quit his State and the free North-West. On 
 the contrary he will take them along with him to 
 the national Capital and install them in it, or at 
 least their deepest principle. Lincoln as their rep- 
 resentative will indeed make them over into the 
 Nation, but the unique fact of his career is that 
 he will make the Nation over into them in its ap- 
 proaching transformation. The full development 
 of this process belongs to the future of the pres- 
 ent biograph}^ ; here, however, we may throw out 
 a faint glimpse of it beforehand in the statement 
 that all the States, free and slave, are to become, 
 transcendently through Lincoln, both Union-born 
 and free, such as are already the States of the 
 North-West, through their very birth. 
 
 The sweep of this Second Part of Lincoln's life 
 we put under the rubric of his National Call, or 
 
260 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Vocation, which deserves a word of explanation. 
 He hears an inner call to go to Washington and 
 there to make himself national, after having served 
 his time in the Legislature of his State. Such a 
 man the Nation also calls, for it needs him and 
 must test him at the Capital. This testing Lin- 
 coln undergoes with results hereafter to be told. 
 But the deepest fact of his National Call is that 
 he becomes the Nation's voice and calls it to the 
 supreme world-historical task of the Age. Already 
 in the debate with Douglas he has risen to be na- 
 tional and utters the great impending duty. Fi- 
 nally the Nation calls him to be its leader in the 
 crisis of its existence and elects him its President. 
 Therewith enters a new period of his life. 
 
 Lincoln thus rises in the present Period out of 
 the "State to the Nation ; but when he gets to the 
 head of the political organism he has a great 
 fresh experience. The United-States he finds, if 
 not quite disunited, yet deeply rifted and going 
 toward disunion. Reaching the Capital at Wash- 
 ington, he realizes that this Nation is double and 
 separative — a fact which he knew from a distance 
 at Springfield, but which he there did not and 
 could not realize. Slave-States and Free-States 
 are the two contradictory elements composing this 
 Union — the oil and water of our political compo- 
 sition. Moreover in number the two kinds of 
 States are about equal, and seek to remain equal 
 as regards the admission of new States. Thus a 
 
LINCOLN'S NATIONAL CALL. 261 
 
 line of division runs through the Union from East 
 to West, and insists strongly upon continuing 
 itself to the Pacific in the new territory won by 
 the Mexican War. 
 
 At this point the time's searching struggle 
 probes down to the deepest fact of the Federal 
 Union, namely, that it is productive of new States 
 and thus perpetually self-creative. Hitherto it has 
 produced both Slave-States and Free-States, 
 double births of black and white. Shall this two- 
 fold and contradictory generation go on? That is 
 really the national problem into which Lincoln 
 plumps down when he alights in Washington as 
 representative. The South is saying that the 
 Double Nation in its pivotal function as State- 
 producing is not to be changed, else the Slave- 
 States will dissolve the Union and go ahead alone. 
 The two sections are bickering over the new lands 
 gotten from Mexico; which kind of States shall 
 they be when they enter the Union? Shall 
 the Union be Slave-State producing, or Free-State 
 producing, or both? It is evident that the prob- 
 lem reaches down to a transformation of the Union 
 from its hitnerto dualistic character. 
 
 Moreover this is just the problem which Lincoln 
 is to work over and settle within himself during 
 the present Period of his life. Li general, we 
 have already seen his theoretic opposition to sla- 
 very, notably in his legislative Protest of 1837. 
 Bat the subject has now become overwhelmingly 
 
262 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 practical, and Lincoln in Congress begins to deal 
 with it as the fundamental question of the Nation. 
 He there takes his stand that the Federal 
 Union should be productive of Free-States. Such 
 is the meaning of his many votes for the Wilmot 
 Proviso. This we may deem the political instinct 
 which he bears out of the Free-States of the 
 North-West. In their case and in their case alone 
 the Union has been Free-State producing, and 
 this their birth-mark Lincoln carries with him to 
 Washington impressed on his own soul. And we 
 may add, this is what he is to nationalize in his 
 career; chiefly through him is the Nation to be- 
 come Free-State producing only, and thus to wipe 
 out its ever-conflicting dualism. 
 
 Let us note, then, the striking difference at the 
 present time between the North-West and the Na- 
 tion as a whole. The one is united, composed 
 of free homcogeneous States born of the Union; 
 but the other is divided, double, composed of 
 heterogeneous States, free and slave. The ideal 
 United-States, which is to go forth and make 
 itself real, transforming the old Union into its 
 image, lies in the North-West, and Lincoln is its 
 typical man or hero, who chiefly works the grand 
 transformation. 
 
 But not yet ; he is to pass through his prepara- 
 tory discipline. He first becomes as dualistic as 
 the Nation, in becoming national; if he votes for 
 the Wilmot Proviso, he also votes for a party 
 
LINCOLN'S NATIONAL CALL. 263 
 
 which ignores it, and against a party which recog- 
 nizes it. In consequence of such a scission in 
 thought and conduct, he passes into a pecuHar 
 eclipse and time of subsidence, till he emerges at 
 the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Then 
 he ascends into a new epoch in which he becomes 
 the voice of the Age, proclaiming that this Nation 
 shall henceforth produce only Free-States. Such 
 is his Message to his People, in which he, national- 
 izing himself anew, rises into the realm of the 
 World's History, 
 
 Accordingly Lincoln, mounting to the Nation, 
 finds it to be double, and this doubleness he ac- 
 cepts throughout what we call his Second Period. 
 He realizes that it was born double, and that it 
 was established double in the Constitution, which 
 he does not propose to overthrow or even to alter. 
 Still he has different attitudes toward this fact 
 during the present Period — three main attitudes, 
 as we see them. First he becomes aware of the 
 national dualism through his Congressional career, 
 and appropriates it, making it, so to speak, his 
 own dualism as a national man. So he accepts 
 through compromise the Federal Union not only 
 as actually double but as creatively double, 
 though with a deep inner protest, which ham- 
 strings him politically and for a time drives out of 
 politics into an eclipse. Finally, at the Repeal of 
 the Missouri. Compromise, he takes his third atti- 
 tude toward the Double Nation, that it, though 
 
264 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 it be double, both slave and free, must produce 
 singly, begetting hereafter only Free-States. Dur- 
 ing these eighteen years (his Second Period), he 
 will show an evolution through the foregoing three 
 different stages or attitudes. 
 
 Moreover, he attains during this Period his 
 pivotal conviction that the Double Nation cannot 
 continue such, but must move out of its dualism 
 into unity. A famous saying of his runs: "It will 
 become all one thing, or all the other," all slave, 
 or all free. The half-and-half time is drawing to 
 a close: "This Nation cannot endure half-"felave 
 and half-free." Still we are to consider that Lin- 
 coln during this entire Second Period accepts the 
 Double Nation as intrenched in Law and Consti- 
 tution. He holds, however, that that its genera- 
 tive power as State-creating can be made single 
 constitutionally, and the 'increase of Slave-States 
 thus be stopped. But he does not intend to touch 
 the already existent Slave-States. So, between 
 his conviction and his action there is a gap st'll ; 
 though he believes that this Nation cannot con- 
 tinue half-and-half, he is unable now to help it, 
 during the present Period. But the World-Spirit 
 has for once gotten in a hurry, and soon whirls 
 Lincoln, its supreme protagonist, at first against his 
 will, into a conflict in which he will realize to the 
 full his prophetic maxim that this Nation must be- 
 come all one thing or all the other. And he finally 
 succeeds in making it all one thing — all Free-States. 
 
LINCOLN'S NATIONAL CALL. 265 
 
 Looking back again to the previous Part, to 
 the Apprenticeship, we see that it is preparatory, 
 putting its main stress upon the How, while the 
 present Part is to emphasize the What. Having 
 fairly learned how to reach the Folk-Soul, Lincoln 
 must next tell it what it has to do. To be sure 
 it already feels the message of the time, but it 
 must be made conscious of it, and accept it as its 
 own. Instinctively it bears the impress of the 
 Age, of the World-Spirit, but that dumb instinct 
 must be elevated into clear knowledge through 
 the voice of the mediating orator, who speaks to 
 the People the behest of Civilization. Such an 
 epochal Talker Lincoln is to become in the present 
 Period, especially toward the last of it in his de- 
 bate with Douglas. His call is to the Nation that 
 it put itself in line with Universal History, obey- 
 ing the injunction of the World-Spirit. So he 
 makes the People aware of its true vocation; in- 
 deed, the People becomes self-aware through the 
 voice of its Great Man, who tells to it its own 
 deepest purpose and aspiration, even if previously 
 quite unconscious of the same. 
 
 Lito the national vortex of struggle Lincoln is 
 to be drawn and whirled around during the pres- 
 ent Period, discovering in his experience the piv- 
 otal difference between his own State along with 
 the North-West and the United States as a whole. 
 Accordingly the reader is now to make a vicarious 
 pilgrimage of evolution through the Period of the 
 
266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 dual Lincoln and the dual Nation. At the same 
 time he must not neglect to observe that each is 
 moving toward unity through the other — the man 
 through the Nation and the Nation through the 
 man. Each overcomes its dualism through the 
 other; the leader is primordially inspired by the 
 Folk-Soul to a new Union, and then he leads the 
 Folk-Soul to make that Union institutional, 
 whereby he gives to it an enduring reality. 
 
 And in this preparatory outlook let us not fail 
 to direct the eye upon that other great political 
 character, complementary to Lincoln, yet anti- 
 thetic physically and spiritually. Somehow they 
 cannot be wholly sundered in that ultimate view 
 which rises to universality. Opposites they do in- 
 deed remain, but still they are halves of a larger 
 whole, and unfold with each other in a kind of 
 symmetrical contradiction. Accompanying Lin- 
 coln as the shadow of his other Self, or his op- 
 posing genius, and circling with him through this 
 entire Period to its last point of time, moves his 
 antitype Douglas, as if both belonged together 
 like the obverse and reverse sides or incarnations 
 of one greater spirit — greater than either and em- 
 bracing both. The representative counterparts of 
 the one supreme movement of the Nation, they 
 seem inseparably twinned, yet diametrically polar- 
 ized. Very deep runs the synthesis in these two 
 antitheses. To the eye of History, Lincoln cannot 
 do without Douglas, nor can Douglas do without 
 
LINCOLN'S NATIONAL CALL. 267 
 
 Lincoln. It is really Douglas who, all unconscious, 
 gives to Lincoln his supreme opportunity to be- 
 come national, yea, world-historical through the 
 Repeal of the Missouri Compromise; and it is 
 really Lincoln who, all unconscious, gives to 
 Douglas his supreme opportunity to do his great- 
 est national deed in support of Union and Con- 
 stitution. Joined in a bond of reciprocal opposi- 
 tion, each circles his orbit in the one vaster pro- 
 cess of the Nation till they both at last come to- 
 gether and interlock in their single basic love of 
 country. 
 
 So we can well title Lincoln and Douglas after 
 an antique conception the Dioscuri of this pres- 
 ent Period, the twin sons of Zeus the Highest, 
 though born of a mortal mother; not indeed are 
 they divinely twinned from birth in an immortal 
 love, like those old fabled twins of the God, but 
 they live mutually repellent and oppugnant in 
 character and even in stature — not sympathetic 
 brothers in joint heroic toils but deeply antipa- 
 thetic in strifeful combats. And yet these mutu- 
 ally battling Dioscuri of the Prairie, begotten 
 spiritually of the same supernal parent, haol far 
 down in their hearts an undying common love 
 of their parental land and of its chief institution, 
 the Union. That love, tested by fire, will at last 
 reveal itself as deeper and stronger than their 
 hostility and fuse them together in one supreme 
 purpose. 
 
268 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 It may be here added that in the organization 
 of the present biography of Lincoln, we shall be- 
 hold these coming eighteen years (his Second 
 Period) falling naturally into three sexennial por- 
 tions or Epochs, each of which has its own mean- 
 ing and process, as well as its function in his total 
 life. To each, therefore, a chapter will be sep- 
 arately marked off and assigned. 
 
CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 from State to IRatlon. 
 
 Lincoln is, therefore, to be nationalized, passing 
 from the Capital at Springfield to the Capital at 
 Washington, rising from the Single-State to the 
 United-States. It is an experience which practic- 
 ally renders him national; he as Representative 
 has to make laws for the whole Nation. He has 
 to move out of the bounds of his special locality 
 and hold in view the entire country. Already he 
 has been legislator for one State, now he is to be 
 legislator for all the States. Thus he is brought 
 into direct contact with the national problem of 
 the time and gets acquainted with the men who 
 are working at it from various points of view and 
 from different parts of the land. 
 
 Illinois is a product of the Union as State-maker, 
 in and through which Union Illinois as State par- 
 ticipates in the making of new States. Now the 
 pivotal question of the time is going to turn upon 
 this national act of State-making, or the produc- 
 tion of new States out of acquired territories. Ill- 
 inois by herself cannot produce a new State, only 
 the Union can, to whose genetic power she, how- 
 ever, contributes through her Congressional repre- 
 sentatives. Abraham Lincoln as a member of the 
 Lower House from Illinois will have considerable 
 
 (269) 
 
270 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 experience with this matter of the creation of new 
 States out of the territorial domain of the Union. 
 In fact it is to be seen that he now strikes the fun- 
 damental and enduring key note of his political 
 career: the Union as State-producing must pro- 
 duce only Free-States. 
 
 Lincoln, however, does not at once sweep for- 
 ward to his prize. He has to make three trials 
 for his party's nomination, but on the third trial 
 he wins and is elected. He serves only one term 
 when he retires, and his Congressional period 
 comes to an end never to be resumed. He will 
 indeed return to Washington a dozen years after- 
 ward, but as President. In 1849 when he quits 
 Congress and goes back home to his State and its 
 Cai^tal, he has passed through a distinct epoch of 
 his life, during which his chief ambition has been 
 to make himself national. But he is remanded 
 to his starting-point and seemingly has to begin 
 over again. 
 
 Some six or seven years (1842-1849) we put into 
 this epoch, which rounds out within itself one 
 phase of Lincoln's experience. It is a curious fact 
 that during these same years Douglas is traveling the 
 same road to the Capital, he also is nationalizing 
 himself by moving from the State to the Nation. 
 But Douglas far outruns Lincoln in the race, hav- 
 ing become Representative and finally Senator in 
 just the foregoing stretch of time. When Lincoln 
 enters the Lower House, Douglas enters the Upper. 
 
HOPE DEFERRED. 27 1 
 
 Indeed Lincoln seems to be turned back, while 
 Douglas seems to be pushing onward. Both are 
 moving, each in his own orbit, toward a common 
 goal, the highest gift of the American People; 
 wliich will gain it? 
 
 At present Lincoln is to be seen becoming na- 
 tional; thus he gets aware of the Nation as dual 
 and falls into the dualism himself. He will try to 
 take up both sides, but really drops into their 
 contradiction. In this way the national rift of 
 the time finds its reflection in his career and also 
 in his soul. 
 
 So Lincoln, having advanced from State to Na- 
 tion, is, at the end of his Congressional term, 
 whirled back from Nation to State. Thus we ob- 
 serve a little cycle of life rounded out into a kind 
 of completeness. But he returns to his starting- 
 point a very different man; now he has the na- 
 tional dualism in his soul which becomes the silent 
 and quite unseen arena of the two conflicting 
 sides till the time brings his liberation. But first 
 we must follow his slow ascent to the national 
 fountain-head — the tedious struggle of a full sex- 
 ennium. 
 
 I. 
 
 Hope Deferred. 
 
 Lincoln, having served four terms in the Illinois 
 Legislature, deemed that he had done his (kity to 
 his State. He refused re-election, and set about 
 
272 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 taking the next important step in the line of pro- 
 motion. He did not wish to be Governor, though 
 his name was mentioned for the position. He 
 must advance out of lUinois to the national 
 center. His ambition was to be Congressman, and 
 in 1842 he opened his canvas. The Springfield 
 district was composed of a number of counties, 
 and there was no lack of able candidates. Lin- 
 coln was not successful, indeed he had to take a 
 double dose of defeat. Not only did he not get 
 the nomination of his own party, but he was 
 beaten in his own County of Sangamon by Edwin 
 D. Baker, who fell at Ball's Bluff in the Civil 
 War. Still Baker did not get the nomination, but 
 the prize came to John J. Hardin, who perished at 
 the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. 
 Lincoln, however, was one of the delegates of San- 
 gamon to the nominating convention, with in- 
 structions to support Baker, so that he compared 
 himself to "a fellow who is made groomsman to a 
 man that has cut him out, and is marrying his 
 own dear gal." 
 
 The most interesting point in connection with 
 this candidacy is Lincoln's view of the social and 
 religious influences which swamped him in Sanga- 
 mon. He was defamed as an aristocrat, an in- 
 fidel, and a duelist. In a letter which gives the 
 reasons why ''the people of Sangamon have cast 
 me off," he declares: "It would astonish if 
 not amuse the older citizens to learn that I 
 
HOPE DEFERRED. 273 
 
 (a strange, friendless, uneducated boy working on 
 a flat-boat at ten dollars a month) have been put 
 down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and 
 aristocratic family distinction." Already we have 
 noted that Lincoln on going to Springfield asso- 
 ciated chiefly with the Kentucky patriciate; here 
 is a political echo of it, quite to his surprise. 
 Still his old friends of New Salem and the Clary 
 Grove boys clung to him, even if he "had married 
 into the aristocracy. This, by the way, was the 
 year of his marriage. Lincoln speculates curiously 
 upon "the strangest combination of church influ- 
 ence against me. Baker is a Campbeflite and 
 therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got 
 all that church." So Lincoln seeks to fathom 
 why ''the people of Sangamon have cast me off," 
 evidently a stunning blow to him, or several of 
 them, which seem to have beaten down upon him 
 from different unsuspected directions. Religion 
 appears to have largely entered the contest, since 
 "it was everywhere contended that no Christian 
 ought to go for me, because I belonged to no 
 church, was suspected of being a deist, and had 
 talked about fighting a duel." That was indeed 
 the bitter pill in the whole transaction: the de- 
 fection of his own home to his interest. 
 
 The result is, that Lincoln has to wait a while 
 before he can make that much-desired journey to 
 the centre of the Nation. And to tell the truth 
 he can afford the delay, smce the time has no very 
 
 18 
 
274 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 important issue, certainly not Lincoln's great 
 issue. 
 
 In 1842, the question of slavery extension 
 was quiescent, and Tyler's administration had no 
 hold upon any party or upon the people. But in 
 1844 the proposed annexation of Texas roused a 
 new political interest, which culminated in the de- 
 feat of Henry Clay for President, of whom Lincoln 
 had become an ardent supporter and admirer. 
 
 Lincoln was a lukewarm opponent of annexa- 
 tion; for that matter, Clay was too, and in his fa- 
 mous letters during the campaign of 1844, shifted 
 from side to side. Lincoln declared: "I perhaps 
 ought to say that individually I never was much 
 interested in the Texas question. I never could 
 see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch 
 as they were already a free republican people on 
 our own model. On the other hand, I never could 
 very clearly see how the annexation would aug- 
 ment the evil of slavery. It always seemed to 
 me that slaves would be taken there in about 
 equal numbers with or without annexation." Lin- 
 coln holds that the addition of Texas, which, as an 
 independent Republic, was already a Slave-State, 
 would not increase the influence of slavery. On 
 this point he differed widely from the strong anti- 
 slavery men of the North, who maintained with 
 truth that the annexation of Texas added much to 
 the political power of slavery in the LTnion. Al- 
 ready we see the race between North and South 
 
HOPE DEFERRED. 275 
 
 for the winning of new States, which meant the 
 supremacy of one section over the other, or at 
 least their equihbrium. 
 
 The popular sentiment as a whole, even in the 
 North, favored the acquisition of Texas. If the 
 American Union is to be productive of States as its 
 supreme function, then it must have territory on 
 which it can realize its own highest nature. The 
 claim of Mexico to Texas was that of might 
 greater than Spain, the previous claim of Spain 
 was that of might greater than the Indians, who 
 in turn were invaders, having driven out antece- 
 dent inhabitants. Bands of Americans had gone 
 into Texas and wrenched the country from Mexico, 
 and, moreover, had founded a State after the 
 American pattern, which had asserted for years its 
 right of existence. Annexation touched profoundly 
 a responsive chord in the American Folk-Soul, 
 which felt in it the State-creating acji. Both Lin- 
 coln and Clay responded to the same feeling, in 
 spite of their opposition. 
 
 To be sure there was a note of discord in this 
 matter, inasmuch as the new State was to be a 
 Slave-State. A party had already risen in the 
 North which was determined that the Union 
 should produce no more Slave States. At this 
 point Lincoln's opposition comes in, and he gets 
 his persistent theme : slavery must be kept out of 
 the territories. The Union must indeed be State- 
 producing, but must produce Free-States only. 
 
276 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 The Nation might be united upon the acquisition 
 of territory, but it would certainly be deeply 
 divided if such territory were handed over to 
 slavery. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Mexican War. 
 
 During the last days of December, 1846, Con- 
 gress admitted Texas as a Slave-State. Previously 
 it had been an independent government with its 
 own law and constitution, and the question has 
 been often propounded. Did the United States 
 annex Texas, or Texas the United States? Prac- 
 tically, however, Texas was a product of the 
 American Union; Americans had settled it as a 
 territory, wrenched it from Mexico, and organized 
 it as a State after the American pattern. Its 
 anomaly was that the hardy pioneers had seized 
 upon a land r^ot belonging to the Federal Union, 
 and had shown their State-making capacity in an 
 entirely independent fashion, without the super- 
 vision of the central government. Thus the story 
 of Texas has a peculiar character different from 
 that of any other State; in this regard it remains 
 a Lone Star in the Union. 
 
 As was expected, the act of the United States 
 produced war with Mexico. General Zachary 
 Taylor was ordered to the Rio Grande where he 
 took up a position opposite to Matamoras. On 
 May Sth, 1840, was fought the battle of Palo 
 
THE MEXICAN WAR. 277 
 
 Alto, and the next day that of Resaca de la 
 Palma, both of them American victories which 
 thrilled the country and overbore opposition to 
 the War, except in New England. Taylor's victo- 
 rious career continued, culminating in the battle 
 of Buena Vista (February 23d, 1847), in which he 
 defeated a Mexican force under Santa Anna four 
 or five times larger than his own. He became 
 at once a popular hero, and was soon put in 
 line for the Presidency by the Whig party, which 
 on the whole had opposed the war, but soon got 
 ready to reap its political fruits, even through its 
 own self-negation. 
 
 Quite as successful was the campaign of General 
 Scott terminating in the capture of the City of 
 Mexico (September 14th, 1847), after which he 
 was soon displaced by the Democratic administra- 
 tion, doubtless out of jealousy of the Whig com- 
 mander. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was 
 signed February 2nd, 1848, by which Mexico ac- 
 cepted the Rio Grande as boundary, and ceded 
 Upper California, which embraced a large territory 
 equivalent to more than ten States of the size of 
 Ohio. This new territory was again to be the 
 apple of discord between the Slave-States and the 
 Free-States. Already in 1846 the possibility of 
 acquisition of territory from Mexico had called 
 forth the Wilmot proviso, "that neither slavery 
 nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist therein. ' ' 
 This little sentence becomes for many years the 
 
278 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 pivot of political discussion between the North 
 and South. It is a declaration that the Federal 
 Union shall be henceforth productive of Free- 
 States only; Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced 
 it, but its author is said to have been BrinkerhofT 
 of Ohio 
 
 Now in this same year of 1846 Lincoln was 
 first elected to Congress. He had been a Clay 
 elector for Illinois in 1844, and became a well- 
 known campaign orator throughout the State. He 
 paid a visit to his former home in Indiana near 
 Gentryville in 1844, where he made a speech to an 
 audience composed largely of his old neighbors, 
 whom he had quit some fourteen years before. 
 The occasion also inspired a batch of verses which 
 have been preserved. The memories of his youth 
 brought back the old habit of ihyming, which was 
 one of his boyish knacks. It seems that he wrote 
 four "cantos" of which he sent a couple to a po- 
 etical friend nearly two years after they were 
 written. The popular ballad was evidently his 
 model, and he has a number of pretty poetic fan- 
 cies, in spite of some mistakes in grammar and 
 some limping measures — certainly not worse than 
 his popular prototype. The tone of the two 
 printed ballads is sad, and in one of the accompa- 
 nying letters is an allusion to his favorite poem, 
 usually called "Immortality," of which he says: 
 *T am not the author. I would give all I am 
 worth and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a 
 
THE MEXICAN WAR. 279 
 
 piece as I think that is. Neither do I know who 
 is the author." Certainly Lincoln must have had 
 some poetic ambition, if he would have given so 
 much to be the author of this lyric. He goes on : 
 "I met it in a straggling form in a newspaper last 
 summer (1845) and I remember to have seen it 
 once before about fifteen years ago," which would 
 throw his first acquaintance with it back to the 
 year 1831, when he first arrived at New Salem. 
 There is no doubt that the poem became deeply 
 interwoven in Lincoln 's soul with the evanishment 
 of Ann Rutledge, and was for him the utterance of 
 an eternal love, which he seemed to recall and 
 breathe in through its pensive strain. 
 
 Worthy of notice is it, therefore, that we now 
 catch the most distinct glimpse of Lincoln as seek- 
 ing to master creatively another literary form of 
 the People. For the ballad at its purest fount 
 wells out of the popular heart anonymously, be- 
 ing an immediate, spontaneous utterance of the 
 Folk-Soul itself, like the true legend, yea, hke lan- 
 guage also. The name of no individual as author 
 is stamped upon the mythology of a people, though 
 a great poet like Homer transforms, and indeed 
 organizes it, and many later singers and artists 
 draw for their use from this primordial well-head 
 of the Folk's expression. Significant is it, there- 
 fore, to see Lincoln actually balladizing, and turn- 
 ing up to the sunlight a new vein harmonious with 
 his fabling. For both ballad and fable are twin 
 
280 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART S CJND. 
 
 utterances of the Folk-Soul which it is Lincoln's 
 supreme literary function to voice, laden, however, 
 with the new and far mightier content of the- 
 Nation and the Age. 
 
 Furthermore, it may be here added that Lincoln 
 as fabuHst, deals not in the traditional fancies of 
 old Greek legend. Quite nothing do we hear 
 from his mouth about the classic nymphs of the 
 brooks, of the trees, and of the hills; nor could he 
 make the Olympian Gods grind in his literary 
 Pantheon ; the whole Greek mythical world was 
 alien to him, though he must have been running 
 his nose perpetually against it in his reading of 
 poetry and oratory. What is more surprising, we 
 catch next to nothing of the transmitted stream of 
 Teutonic folk-lore in Lincoln's fabling, though in 
 this stream he and his ancestral line must have 
 been dipped for untold generations. One might 
 think that the neighboring forest with which Lin- 
 coln lived in sympathetic communion during his 
 entire youth, would have started in him, or at 
 least re-vivified the old Germanic folk-tale, such 
 as we see in Grimm, with its fairies, elves, witches, 
 and magic spells. Little or nothing of the sort do 
 we find in Lincoln's stories; the supernatural 
 Powers of the European Mythus he seems to turn 
 from, in spite of a native tendency to foreboding 
 and even to superstition, as he confesses. His 
 fabling rests upon the new consciousness of the 
 American backwoodsman, who recognizes no im- 
 
THE MEXICAN WAR. 281 
 
 passable line between himself and the forest, for 
 he cuts it clown and converts it into his own home. 
 Moreover, he, as freeman, determines the institu- 
 tional world which determines him, makes the law 
 which he obeys, and thus is truly self-determined. 
 Hence he introduces no mighty monarch or beau- 
 tiful princess coming from fairyland or from a far- 
 off outside realm, to give him golden gifts which 
 are properly his own, or to bring to him that jus- 
 tice which he is to bring to himself, of course 
 through his own self-created institutions. So it 
 befalls that Lincoln having to appeal to the Folk- 
 Soul in its own speech, suggests by the way a new 
 folk-lore, though this of course is not elaborated, 
 and he is largely unconscious of his own pro- 
 cedure. His fabling, if true to his environing re- 
 ality, cannot be of nature determining man 
 through its play of mythical forms, such as we 
 behold in European story, but of man determin- 
 ing nature by his axe and plow, and in general by 
 his mind, for that is the fact before him, and even 
 this fact rests upon a still deeper foundation, 
 namely, that of a free institutional world. 
 
 Accordingly Lincoln's story-telling, especially in 
 the form which it takes, reaches down to a very 
 deep layer of American consciousness and of his 
 own. Folk-lore, transmitted by the poet, sage, 
 fabulist from generation to generation, is the first 
 teacher of the People. Moreover, it is in a condi- 
 tion of continual transformation, for it must be 
 
282 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 wrought over again and again to image the ever- 
 changing, social evohition of the Folk-Soul. Pro- 
 foundly significant of the new institutional order 
 in America is the fact that Lincoln, as fabulist 
 to his People, eschewed the shapes of external au- 
 thority, which are the dominating powers of the 
 European Mythus, ancient and modern, Northern 
 and Southern. 
 
 All this seems far enough away from the Mexi- 
 can War with which we started. But we should 
 never forget the bubbling fountain of fable 
 which Lincoln carried around in his heart, quite 
 ready to send forth a little jet of itself if rightly 
 touched, and which gushed up spontaneously from 
 the deepest depths of his being. 
 
 III. 
 
 Lincoln as Congressnnan. 
 
 The Democratic opponent of Lincoln in his race 
 for Congress was a famous Methodist preacher, 
 Peter Cartwright, who, born in Tennessee, had 
 moved as a young man from Kentucky to Illinois, 
 in order to live in a Free-State. Thus he be- 
 longed, like Lincoln, to that great migration from 
 the South into the North- West, for the purpose of 
 getting away from slavery. A certain rude, mag- 
 netic power liiy in the man, which produced as- 
 tonishing effects at the revivals and camp-meet- 
 ings of the backwoodsmen. Cartwright seems to 
 
LINCOLN AS CONGRESSMAN. 283 
 
 have made religion the chief issue with Lincoln, 
 who was again held up as an infidel, as a duelist, 
 and as an aristocrat. His superior fitness for the 
 position, however, was so apparent that he was 
 elected by a large majority. 
 
 Lincoln has now climbed to a very important 
 rung in the ladder of his ambition ; he is at last to 
 pass from the State to the Nation, from Spring- 
 field to Washington. Still he finds a deep discord 
 in his situation; he in common with the Whigs 
 opposed the Mexican war, yet he felt compelled to 
 urge its vigorous prosecution in a public meeting 
 at Springfield. His Whig friends had rushed pell- 
 mell into the struggle which to him was of doubt- 
 ful right. In the Illinois delegation to Congress 
 he was the only Whig. He began to feel out of 
 joint with the time, and especially with the people 
 of his State. Of this lack of harmony between 
 himself antl the Folk-Soul we catch a slight echo 
 in a letter to his friend Speed: "Being elected to 
 Congress, though I am grateful to our friends for 
 having done it, has not pleased me as much as I 
 expected." He gets in advance a whiff of that 
 dissonance which he is certain to meet at the Cap- 
 ital of the Nation. 
 
 A year had still to pass between his election 
 and the time when it was necessary for him to 
 start for the national Capital. During that year 
 took place the most brilliant victories of the Mex- 
 ican War — the battle of Buena Vista and General 
 
284 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Scott's triumphant march from Vera Cruz to the 
 city of Mexico. Lincohi looking at that dazzling 
 military pageant far off in a Southern land, and 
 observing the intoxication of his own people, 
 might well have his presentiments in regard to his 
 political future. He, in his heart an opponent of 
 the war, felt with every victory the inner and 
 deepening clash between himself and the Folk- 
 Soul, so that he was really no longer its represen- 
 tative even in his own district. And as the situa- 
 tion already was, he stood forth the solitary Whig 
 in Congress from Illinois. No wonder that the 
 election ''has not pleased me as much as I ex- 
 pected." Hitherto the popular heart and his 
 heart have had one pulsation together, but now 
 they begin to beat differently, yea, antagonistically. 
 Still that separation is just what now must take 
 place, for through it Lincoln gets to be himself 
 within himself, wins his true independent individ- 
 uality. After this estrangement he will return to 
 the Folk-Soul, not to be absorbed into it again as 
 one of its protoplasmic atoms, but capable of being 
 its leader. 
 
 Lincoln set out for Washington in November, 
 1847. Thirteen years and some montlis later he 
 will again take his departure from Springfield for 
 the Capital of the Nation under very different cir- 
 cumstances. That rift which is already beginning 
 and which he feels, is to widen into open disunion 
 and war. In the boarding club, "Mrs. Spriggs's 
 
LINCOLN AS CONGRESSMAN. 285 
 
 mess," where Lincoln lived while at Washington, 
 was Joshua Giddings of Ohio, the rankest aboli- 
 tionist in Congress, and also some southern mem- 
 bers. Fiery disputation over the slavery question 
 sprang up which, it is said, Lincoln would calm 
 and turn into a laugh by one of his funny stories. 
 Still at the dinner-table he had to witness the 
 bitter controversy of the time, in which he could 
 not help participating. The separation in his own 
 party also he must have felt, since Robert Toombs 
 and Alexander H. Stephens, both of them ardent 
 pro-slavery members from Georgia, were Whig 
 leaders, very hostile to the Wilmot proviso, for 
 which Lincoln repeatedly gave his vote. What 
 could better call up in his soul the great national 
 dualism of which he was to get the full experience 
 at the Capital? 
 
 At this session of the House the Whigs had a 
 slight majority, enough to elect Robert C. Win- 
 throp as speaker, who was able to unite both 
 wings, Southern and Northern. On the whole the 
 Whig party was opposed to the Mexican War, but 
 its majority had to vote supplies for the army, 
 always with a kind of protest. There is no doubt 
 that Lincoln braced up to greater opposition at 
 Washington than at Springfield. In fact it is de- 
 clared that he had resolved in Illinois to say as 
 little as possible about the war during his Con- 
 gressional career. He knew that the people of his 
 State strongly favored it — a fact ever present to 
 
286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 him as the soHtary Whig Representative of Illinois. 
 But when he found that his party had the ma- 
 jority in the House, he changed, he began to take 
 the color of his environment. He voted for the 
 resolution of Ashmun of Massachusetts that the 
 war had been unnecessarily and unconstitutionally 
 begun by the President. This was a slap in the 
 face of his constituency, and brought a protest 
 even from his partner and friend, Herndon, who 
 declared to him frankly that he was committing 
 poHtical suicide and destroying his own party. 
 But Lincoln did not stop with voting for another 
 member's resolutions; he drew up and offered a 
 set of his own December 22, 1847. These have 
 been nicknamed the "Spot Resolutions," since 
 they call upon the President, Democratic Polk, to 
 describe ''the particular spot on which the blood 
 of our citizens was shed," repeating the word 
 "spot" three times with a special emphasis. The 
 implication was that the President and not Mexico 
 was the aggressor, and that the war was unjust. 
 
 There is no doubt that in these transactions Lin- 
 coln has broken with the Folk-Soul of his State, 
 and in fact of the North-West. The acquisition 
 of territory for the creation of new States was felt 
 to be a necessity by the People. The claim of 
 Mexico and of Spain before her was weak, and 
 could not stand against the right of the settlers 
 who had conquered the territory. Lincoln has set 
 himself indirectly against the State-making in- 
 
LINCOLN AS CONGRESSMAN. 287 
 
 stinct of the American Folk-Soul, and is certain 
 to get the backstroke of his act. When he left 
 Springfield, there had been already talk of his re- 
 nomination, but after his first session in Congress 
 no such outlook was mentioned. 
 
 Secretly underneath Lincoln's opposition lay the 
 fact that the new territorial acquisitions were to 
 be made into Slave-States. At present, however, 
 his hostility runs counter to any possession of the 
 lands bounded by the Rio Grande. Such a limi- 
 tation was felt to be a suppression of the national 
 spirit, which the People were certain to resent. 
 Clearly Lincoln's Congressional action in the Con- 
 gress of 18-17-8 has whelmed him into a deep con- 
 flict with his own constituency. The discord, 
 however, belongs to the time, to the party, to the 
 Nation, and will never cease till slavery itself be 
 aboHshed. 
 
 In his new position Lincoln did not let his su- 
 preme gift of story-telling rust from disuse. Says 
 a listener: "By New Year's (1848) he was recog- 
 nized as the champion story-teher of the Capitol." 
 He would tilt back his chair, stretch out his long 
 legs (it is not reported that he "cocked them up" 
 in Washington as he did in New Salem), and open 
 with his ever-recurring prelude, "That reminds 
 me" of something that occurred down in Egypt 
 (Southern Illinois) or during the Black Hawk War. 
 This picture of him at the table has also been 
 handed down: "When about to tell an anecdote 
 
288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 during a meal, he would lay down his knife and 
 fork, place his elbows on the table, rest his face 
 between his hands" and strike up his unfailing 
 overture, "That reminds me." It is also said that 
 "he never told a story twice," but seemed to have 
 an inexhaustible stock laid up in due order and 
 ready to go off at the least touch. The bowling 
 alley was also a favorite place of his, and would 
 attract a crowd of men to see him and hear him ; 
 he was a very awkward bowler, and could easily 
 push this awkwardness to the point of bodily gro- 
 tesquery, accompanied with a fitting joke or story, 
 "some of which were very broad." 
 
 But underneath all this extravagant humor, 
 which at times reached the point of buffoonry, the 
 conflict of the age was entering Lincoln's soul and 
 cleaving it into two contradictory parts, which 
 imaged the nation, and which he had to harmon- 
 ize within, ere he could restore them to unity 
 without. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Campaign of 1848. 
 
 During Lincoln's first Congressional term there 
 was a good deal of President-making. Candidates 
 were to be nominated, and the question buzzed in 
 Washington, particularly about the halls of the 
 Capitol, Who is the coming man? With the 
 Whigs, their great leaders and orators, Clay and 
 Webster, were clearly impossibilities. The Mexi- 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 289 
 
 can War had thrown them out of harmony with 
 the People as a whole. Moreover, the Whig party 
 had opposed the war, but could ride into office 
 only on the wave of the war's popularity. Under 
 such circumstances it soon began to be perceived 
 that General Zachary Taylor was the most avail- 
 able candidate in the field. He was the popular 
 hero of the triumph over Mexico, and one of the 
 ardent advocates for his nomination instead of 
 Clay, who had sulked during the war, was our 
 Abraham Lincoln, who had denounced it as unjust 
 and unconstitutional. 
 
 June 7th, 1848, the Whig Convention assembled 
 at Philadelphia, and on the fourth ballot the hero of 
 Buena Vista was nominated. There was no plat- 
 form, no declaration of principles; an attempt to 
 introduce the Wilmot Proviso in regard to the 
 new territories was not allowed to come to a vote. 
 The burning question of the time was smothered 
 without giving forth a single spark. Never did a 
 political party so completely stultify itself. The 
 Whiggery of Taylor was very dubious, but that 
 made no difference; Whiggery itself was dubious, 
 particularly dubious of itself. He was not bound 
 by any platform. Anyhow, the party was going 
 to vote for the hero of a war whose injustice and 
 unconstitutionality it had often, and even passion- 
 ately, affirmed. The victory of such a party 
 means its death ; it votes for its own negation. 
 
 The interest for us at present is that Lincoln, 
 
 .19 
 
290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 through his ardent support of the Whig party in 
 its nomination of Taylor, gets embroiled in all its 
 contradictions, and begins to explain them away 
 for himself and for others. He makes a speech in 
 the House of Representatives (July 27th, 1848, see 
 Works, I., p. 135), which gives a very significant 
 picture of the Lincoln of that pivotal moment. 
 He had voted more than forty times for the Wil- 
 mot Proviso ; it was really the cardinal doctrine of 
 his political faith, and bore in itself the basic prin- 
 ciple of his whole future career. Why should it, 
 above all things, be suppressed by his pa.rty? And 
 a candidate chosen whose opinion about it is at 
 least unknown? But let us hear Lincoln himself : 
 "I admit I do not certainly know what he (Taylor) 
 would do on the Wilmot Proviso. I am a North- 
 ern man, or rather a Western Free-State man, 
 with a constituency I believe to be, and with per- 
 sonal feelings I know to be, against" the extension 
 of slavery. As such, and with what information I 
 have, I hope and believe that General Taylor, if 
 elected, would not veto the Proviso. But I do 
 not know it. But if I knew he would, I still 
 would vote for him," not only against Cass but 
 against Van Buren, the nominee of the Free- 
 Soilers, whose platform strongly affirms the princi- 
 ple of the Proviso. There is no doubt that Lincoln 
 felt the inner dissonance of his position. Through 
 the labored explanations of his speech runs an un- 
 dercurrent of his soul's protest, which he seeks to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 291 
 
 divert by making fun of Cass. Lincoln has fol- 
 lowed his party, into the deepest discord with him- 
 self, and with his true destiny. He has been 
 brought face to face with his party's political sui- 
 cide, and his own, t(>o, of which act he seems not 
 fully conscious. But it will lay him on the shelf 
 for many a long year, till he recovers and wakes 
 up a new man. 
 
 In the same speech Lincoln undertakes to allay 
 another very real discord: ''As General Taylor is 
 the hero of the Mexican war," how can he be 
 consistently supported by "the Whigs who have 
 always opposed the war?" It is a troublesome 
 matter without question, but Lincoln grapples 
 with it, drawing the "distinction between the cause 
 of the President, who started the war, and the 
 cause of the country after it was begun." But 
 now that it is over, the Whigs do not think of 
 restitution, but rush headlong to pluck the chief 
 fruit of what they branded as injustice and a vio- 
 lation of the Constitution. Truly Lincoln has 
 been whelmed by his party into a state of inner 
 scission and self-contradiction, of which he is as 
 yet only partially aware, but upon which he will 
 be given time to ruminate a good deal. 
 
 At Washington Lincoln associated with Southern 
 Whigs, some of them men of great ability, such 
 as Toombs and Stephens of Georgia. Their bent 
 was toward slavery extension, in bitter hostility 
 to the Wilmot Proviso. Lincoln formed a politi- 
 
292 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 cal club with them and co-operated in hushing 
 the anti-slavery protest in the party, really voting 
 down his own votes, forty and more, for the Pro- 
 viso. We doubt if this gave him much peace of 
 mind. Rather did it make him twinge the more 
 restlessly at his self-contradictory conduct. 
 
 After the close of the session of Congress, Lin- 
 coln goes campaigning Northward, where he gets 
 into another atmosphere, and in consequence ex- 
 periences another political twist wrenching his 
 soul. New England was strongly anti-slavery, 
 and mainly Whig, but seemed to be making up its 
 mind between Taylor and Van Buren. At Wor- 
 cester Lincoln spoke: he dwelt upon the restriction 
 of slavery, and argued that Taylor and the Whigs, 
 who were silent upon the subject, were more to 
 be trusted than Van Buren and the Free-Soilers, 
 who made the Wilmot Proviso the main plank of 
 their platform. Still Lincoln would have hardly 
 risked such a speech at Washington before his 
 W^hig club, composed of Toombs, Stephens, Pres- 
 ton, and other Southerners. Again, he could not 
 help feehng the dissonance in his conduct, as well 
 as in his party and in the Nation. He is begin- 
 ning to get conscious of his own double attitude, 
 and of the coming struggle so carefully hushed by 
 both Whigs and Democrats in 1848. He heard 
 Seward speak in Boston, and is reported to have 
 said privately: "Governor Seward, I have been 
 thinking about what you said in your speech. I 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 184S. 293 
 
 reckon you are right. We have got to deal with 
 this slavery question, and got to give much more 
 attention to it hereafter than we have been 
 doing." 
 
 Surely the chief issue of the Age cannot be 
 silenced, and Lincoln begins to feel his own and 
 his party's discordant attitude. From the East 
 he goes back to Illinois, where he makes speeches 
 for Taylor, who is elected by a handsome ma- 
 jority. He returns to his Congressional duties 
 and serves out the rest of his term, toned down 
 considerably in- his activity. One measure he 
 seeks to bring about : the abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia. In this, however, he 
 is foiled at the time and has to wait till he be- 
 comes President. On March 4th, 1849, Lincoln's 
 Congressional career ends with the inauguration of 
 the Whig President. What can he do but go 
 home to work over and out of the soul-harassing 
 dualism into which he has been precipitated? He 
 has indeed made himself national; he has verily 
 taken up the Double Nation into himself, but like- 
 wise it has taken up him into itself, and trans- 
 formed him into its own contradiction, which it, 
 too, is to work over and out of in the coming 
 years. Both the man and the Nation are thus 
 seen to have their problem, similar, yet separate; 
 each is to set about its solution apart on diverg- 
 ing lines in the next epoch, till finally they will 
 come together again under new conditions. 
 
294 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 And now we have reached the point at which 
 we are looking about for Lincohi's other Self or 
 antitype, the doughty Douglas, who has been at 
 Washington during this whole epoch, in the daz- 
 zling perihelion of their common orbit, flying ever 
 toward the central luminary, while Lincoln has 
 been rushing to his remotest aphelion, where he is 
 destined to wander long years in a kind of peni- 
 tential obscuration. But no despair! he, too, 
 will slowly whirl about and sweep Sunward. 
 
 V. 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas (3). 
 
 So we bring before the eye again our national 
 Dioscuri, moving together as extremes to each 
 other, in a sort of antipodal conjunction. Let not 
 this fact of a common basic substrate be forgot- 
 ten in their diverse courses, for it must unite them 
 at last. But during the present epoch (1842-9) 
 their apartness is verily the striking point in their 
 comparison. Douglas is at one with the Double 
 Nation, whose dualism has so deeply gone into 
 Lincoln and rendered him discordant with it and 
 himself. Douglas is in tune with the Folk-Soul 
 of his State, and has plucked its highest honors; 
 but how about our Lincoln? Still both are coun- 
 terparts and are seen reaching out from the same 
 State to the same goal — the National Capital ; each 
 seeks to become lawmaker to the whole Nation. 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (S) 295 
 
 And underneath the ambition of both lurks a still 
 greater prize, the greatest of all, the Presidency. 
 Each has in his heart the dream of every Ameri- 
 can public-man, yea, of every American boy, who 
 has in him the possibility of reaching the top of 
 the political ladder. Lincoln and Douglas have 
 both become national in their activity, having 
 risen from the State to the Nation — so much they 
 have done in common during this epoch. 
 
 The second striking fact in the comparison of 
 their careers at the present time is that Douglas 
 has dashed out far in advance of Lincoln. He 
 had entered the National House of Representatives 
 in 1843, and had been chosen again in 1845. Lin- 
 coln had failed both these times to get the nomi- 
 nation in the Springfield district for the same posi- 
 tion. At last, after two failures, he won the prize 
 and went to the opening of Congress in 1847, 
 where he saw Douglas taking his leave of the 
 Lower House for the Upper. Thus they were not 
 brought face to face in their contest, as they had 
 been in the Illinois House of Representatives in 
 1836. Their lines did not cross, though leading 
 in their same general direction; they seem never 
 to have associated in Washington, though they 
 had long known each other. 
 
 But just behold the Gods pouring down upon 
 the head of Douglas their bounties in that coi)ious 
 year 1847! First of all the Legislature of Illinois 
 elects him its Senator, and Lincoln, entering the 
 
296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Capitol, could behold his younger rival winging 
 ever upward, far ahead of him in fame and honor. 
 Then Douglas was at once appointed Chairman of 
 the Senatorial Committee on Territories — really 
 the most important chairmanshi}) of Congress. 
 In the House he had already held the same posi- 
 tion, in which he had made himself the great au- 
 thority upon, as well as the Congressional super- 
 visor over, the vast area of the North-Western 
 territory out of which a dozen new States could 
 in time be made. It shows unquestioned insight 
 that Douglas seized upon the pivotal function of 
 the Union as State-producing for his special 
 sphere of activity in the National Legislature, 
 since he thus placed himself at the center of the 
 Nation's History for the coming twelve years. 
 And let us not forget the crown of all these 
 earthly blessings — his marriage with a fair lady of 
 the South, wealthy and of high social position. 
 And this, too, was showered down upon him from 
 that cornucopia of a year 1847. It should also 
 be added that during these same months many a 
 whisper among his friends suggested him as a 
 candidate for the coming Presidency, though he 
 was only thirty-four years old. But next year 
 (1848) by the time of the Presidential election, he 
 will be thirty-five, the age required by the Con- 
 stitution for the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. 
 
 A significant act of Douglas occurred in con- 
 nection with his marriage to Miss Martin, the 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (3) 297 
 
 mentioned Southern lady, in 1847. The day after 
 the celebration of the nuptials, his father-in-law 
 handed him a deed of a plantation stocked with 
 slaves in Mississippi. Douglas at once declined 
 the present and returned the deed, stating that 
 he was a Northern man by birth, education, and 
 residence, and that he expected to remain such; 
 moreover, that he was ignorant of that descrip- 
 tion of property, and would have to decline the 
 responsibility of taking care of it. But he added 
 that he was no abolitionist, and had no sympathy 
 with their wild and ultra views. Afterwards the 
 grandfather left the estate to the children of Mrs. 
 and Mr. Douglas. The latter once in the Senate 
 declared, in replying to an attack: "I was unwill- 
 ing to assume responsibilities wliich I was inca- 
 pable of fulfilling." 
 
 Always the question will come up: Did Douglas 
 assign his true motive in this statement? We be- 
 lieve that he did not personally like to be a slave- 
 holder; he was a born New-Englander and was an 
 Illinoisan by adoption; so much of the Northern 
 spirit he shared. But if any other man wished to 
 hold slaves, he had nothing to say in moral repro- 
 bation; and if the Southerners wished to make 
 Slave States, he could look on and say, as he did 
 later: •''! don't care." Undoubtedly he saw it 
 would be a drawback to his political prospects in 
 Illijiois, if he was known to be a slave-owner in 
 Mississippi, and that motive must have co-oper- 
 
298 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 ated in making him so keenly sensitive to the 
 dangerous responsibihty of such property. Still, 
 we must think that Douglas, otherwise quite in- 
 different, was personally averse to owning a human 
 being. And this the Southerners knew, and hence 
 they always distrusted him. The act just men- 
 tioned, generally known as it was, must have 
 been offensive to the slaveholder. Douglas openly 
 declined his company, refusing directly to be one 
 of the great and powerful Southern oligarchy, which 
 never forgave him, in spite of his services. This 
 we shall see when the test came in three successive 
 Democratic Conventions which nominated can- 
 didates for the Presidency. Douglas remained 
 unpopular with the Southern wing of Democrats, 
 who did not fail to take some other Northern man 
 as their true friend or tool. This may well be 
 deemed the secret breach of Douglas with the 
 Southern President-makers of the coming decade, 
 a breach which he will try in vain to heal, till at 
 last he grows defiant and sphts his party. 
 
 In the year 1847, accordingly, Lincoln, as he en- 
 tered Washington, could have seen his lucky anti- 
 type in a state of superb efflorescence. For 
 Douglas then took his seat in the Senate from 
 their common Illinois, so far ahead was he, though 
 four years younger; also, his wonderful flowering 
 seemed to find fit expression in his leading to the 
 altar a blooming bride, wealthy, cultivated, of the 
 inner social circle at the Capital. But we must 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (5) 299 
 
 mark at the same time the fatal counter-stroke in 
 the happy prospect : Douglas offends at the most 
 sensitive point the ruling spirits of the South, of 
 his Party, and of the Nation. Unconsciously he 
 breaches his own Destiny in the very moment of 
 its seeming triumph. Never will he be President 
 now in spite of the most flattering prospects ; the 
 Southern Warwicks will not accept him but will 
 slaughter him in Convention after Convention, 
 making the way finally for one Lincoln. 
 
 Still Douglas is on the topmost wave of honor 
 and political success, when Lincoln leaves Wash- 
 ington in 1849, in a discord with himself and with 
 his people. The Springfield district had elected a 
 Democratic representative to succeed him, having 
 discarded his old Whig friend. Judge Logan, who 
 was the nominee. This result was openly attrib- 
 uted to Lincoln's course on the Mexican War. 
 Lincoln, therefore, feels that he goes back to a 
 constituency which has rejected him. He em- 
 braced at first the idea of taking office under the 
 Taylor administration; he thought of accepting 
 the governorship of Oregon territory, but his wife 
 objected; he applied to be the Commissioner of the 
 General Land Office, but failed. He was thrust 
 back into his old Springfield vocation of a practis- 
 ing lawyer, and had in a manner to start anew. 
 Douglas kept in harmony with the Folk-Soul of 
 the" State; Lincoln was out of tune with it, and 
 had to win it over again. 
 
300 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Lincoln must then bide his time. Issues are 
 arising which will completely reverse their pres- 
 ent conditions; in 1854, Douglas will experience 
 the angry hostility of the Folk-Soul for his repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise, while Lincoln will 
 rise to the surface once more concordant with his 
 people. This will, indeed, constitute a new epoch 
 in the life of Lincoln, yea, in the life of both these 
 antagonists. But at present Douglas is completely 
 triumphant, and stays at the Capital, always ad- 
 vancing in honor and influence, while Lincoln is 
 remanded back by the Presiding Powers over his 
 destiny to his State for what we can now see to 
 be a new training. 
 
 Casting another look at Lincoln's fortune-nursed 
 antagonist, that antitypal Douglas, we observe 
 once more that he rises to a prominent place in 
 the Senate during these two years (1847-9), and 
 becomes the Chairman of the Committee on Ter- 
 ritories, at that time altogether the most influen- 
 tial position in the Senate, or rather in the legisla- 
 tive branch of the Government. For the grand 
 coming problem of the Nation pivots just upon 
 these Territories: Shall they be Slave-States or 
 Free-States? Or, more deeply stated: Shall this 
 Nation be generative of Slave-States or Free- 
 States? Thus Douglas has planted himself at the 
 very heart of the Nation's historic future; yea, at 
 the turn of a node in the World's History. So we 
 take a look at him, of course, with admiration, as 
 
THE DOUBLE LINCOLN, 301 
 
 he mounts up and perches himself on the highest 
 pinnacle of his hitherto ever-mounting career. 
 
 But what about Lincoln? See him in a thick 
 cloud of native gloom, turning down the road 
 from Washington back to Springfield, after his two 
 years of Congressional experience, completely dis- 
 credited by the people of his own section (the 
 North-West), of his own State, and even of his 
 Representative District. What is to become of 
 him? 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Double Lincoln. 
 
 The Double Nation has now certainly produced 
 the Double Lincoln through his biennial experience 
 at the Capital. He is, indeed, nationalized, having 
 appropriated to the full within himself the 
 national dualism. From that former inner one- 
 ness and harmony with the Folk-Soul of his Sec- 
 tion, State, and District, he has been whelmed 
 into the vortex and raging contradiction of an un- 
 united Union, which is sweeping more and more 
 toward complete Disunion. Yet just this is what 
 he has to take up into his soul now, and to work 
 it and himself over into a new unity. Truly a 
 time of severance, of discord, of negation, has 
 come into his life — a deep breach with himself, 
 with his People; yea, with the World-Spirit. 
 
 1. He has acted in opposition to the Folk-Soul 
 as regards the acquisition of the territory which 
 
302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 extends Southward to the Rio Grande and East- 
 ward to the Pacific. He has pleaded the law of 
 nations in favor of Mexico, who wrested this ter- 
 ritory from Spain, who wrested it from the In- 
 dians, who wrested it from the mound-builders 
 (probably), who wrested it from God knows whom 
 (probably). The logic of this law of nations is 
 that the strongest nation takes the prize, accord- 
 ing Mexico's own deed and that of the rest. But 
 there is a higher logic, we think and hope, than 
 that of mere violence. Civilization demands of 
 all peoples, savage or otherwise. What are you 
 doing with that piece of God's earth entrusted to 
 your stewardship? Are you making the most of 
 it for yourself and for all the rest? If not, you 
 must be brought to the account. So is now say- 
 ing the Genitis of CiviHzation or the World-Spirit, 
 which Lincoln, biased by party, does not at pres- 
 ent hear, but will hear. 
 
 2. Lincoln votes for the Wilmot Proviso, whose 
 essence is that the Union is to be henceforth Free- 
 State producing. But at the same time he votes 
 for a political Party which smothers this very 
 principle in its Convention. Deeply inconsistent 
 with himself he has become, and really subversive 
 of his own destiny. He is still too much of a 
 Whig partisan to vote for Van Buren, a Demo- 
 crat, against whom he had fought two Presidential 
 campaigns. Yc>t Van Buren with his platform is 
 the open supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, Lin- 
 
THE DOUBLE LINCOLN. 303 
 
 coin's pivotal principle and the beacon of his 
 future career. He has, therefore, to slough off the 
 encumbering snake-skin of party — which he slowly 
 proceeds to do, when the old snake itself dies and 
 leaves him free. 
 
 3. Lincoln's visit to New England during the 
 campaign of 1848, was significant to him in sev- 
 eral ways. He became more decidedly conscious 
 of the Double Nation and of his Double Self thai? 
 ever before. From the dominating pro-slavery 
 atmosphere of Washington he suddenly ran into a 
 strong whiff of anti-slaveryism. He felt the 
 change and emphasized in his speech the Wilmot 
 Proviso and General Taylor's probable leaning to- 
 ward Free-Stateism, though the General was a 
 born Southerner and a large slaveholder. Then 
 he turned his ridicule against the Free-Soilers, 
 whose doctrine was chiefly the Wilmot Proviso. 
 We hold that Lincoln felt the deep inner disso- 
 nance of his own argument, which he sought to 
 drown in his grotesquery. Then, Lincoln, what 
 would your friends of the Whig Club at Washing- 
 ton, Stephens, Toombs, Preston, say to your pres- 
 ent anti-slavery turn? Do you not feel the two- 
 facedness in your Whiggery, and what is more, in 
 yourself? And can honest Abe long stand that? 
 And far more profoundly than ever do you not 
 feel the doubleness in the Nation? 
 
 In fact, just this doubleness of himself and of 
 his Nation is his problem, and furnishes his com- 
 
304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART SECOND. 
 
 ing task. He is to undo both, first that within, 
 then that without. But he must become aware of 
 his own and the Nation's duahsm, ere he can per- 
 form his work. His transition from South to 
 North, from Washington to New England, has 
 deepened to the bottom his consciousness, both of 
 his personal and of the political situation. 
 
 4. In his visit to New England Lincoln caught 
 a glimpse of another very significant fact: Anti- 
 slavery disunionism existed there in no small 
 energy, and shook hands with the pro-slavery dis- 
 unionism of the South. He began to realize fully 
 the difference between his own Free-States of the 
 North-West and the Free-States of the North- 
 East, both being alike in their freedom. But the 
 one group sprang of the Union, the other not; the 
 one was American-born, the other European-born, 
 and each showed distinctly its birth-mark ; the one 
 was national through origin, the other through 
 agreement or compact; the one loved as its own 
 very mother the Union, the other had no such 
 mother to love. Lincoln felt this difi"erence be- 
 tween the two groups of Free-States in affection 
 for the Union, and he is destined to have more 
 experience of the fact at a later time. Already 
 in Congress we have heard him discriminate him- 
 self: "I am a Northern man, or rather a Western 
 Free-State man" — the North having both West- 
 ern and Eastern Free-State men, one set quite 
 distinct from the other. How Lincoln will union- 
 
THE DOUBLE LINCOLN. 305 
 
 ize the old Free-States of the North-East, for 
 they, too, need it, belongs to a later chapter. 
 
 But now we are to see Lincoln passing back 
 from the Nation to the State, and quite sinking 
 out of sight for a time, rent asunder and paralyzed 
 by his inner conflict. Meanwhile Douglas, who 
 has no such conflict within or without, mounts to 
 his highest splendor and becomes the central polit- 
 ical luminary of the country. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Xincoln'0 Subetbence. 
 
 So we designate a peculiar epoch of Lincoln's 
 life, the six years succeeding his Congressional 
 career. He reached the center of the Nation at 
 the Capital, and there he came upon the deep 
 scission of the time, in which he participated but 
 which he did not and could not then solve. ''Go 
 back, go back to thy Springfield" home," cry the 
 Powers, "and labor at the mighty problem in the 
 stillness of the night; for we have yet work for 
 thee." So Lincoln went home and began anew 
 the practice of his profession outwardly, but in- 
 wardly there is little doubt that he had many 
 meditations upon the meaning of his surprisingly 
 discordant experience at Washington. 
 
 Lincoln marks significantly this time of political 
 Subsidence in both his little autobiographies. In 
 the first he says: ''From 1849 to 1854, both inclu- 
 sive, I practised law more assiduously than ever 
 before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally 
 on the Whig electoral tickets making active can- 
 vasses, I was losing interest in politics when the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me 
 again." Which means that his Whiggism was 
 vanishing and the political attitude of his party 
 was losing its hold on him. Li his second sketch 
 (306) 
 
CHAPTER SECOND— LINCOLN'S SUBSIDENCE. 307 
 
 of himself he reiterates substantially the foregoing 
 statements, emphasizing that ''in 1854 his pro- 
 fession had almost superseded the thought of poli- 
 tics in his mind when the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise aroused him as he had never been 
 before." Then he comes to the surface again and 
 starts on a new phase of his career, most import- 
 ant of all. 
 
 From his subsidence in 1849 till his emergence 
 in 1854-5, extends the present epoch of Lincoln's 
 life. We have to ask what was he doing these 
 six years? Undoubtedly he was engaged in the 
 practice of the law, but at the same time he was 
 undergoing a profound inner revolution. Mentally 
 he was occupied as never before. But the difhi- 
 culty is that he has left almost no record of this 
 time. Some of his anecdotes while he traveled the 
 circuit have been preserved, but they were hardly 
 more than his outer diversion, his relief from the 
 pressing thoughts within. When he comes into 
 the White House, we shall often witness him em- 
 ploying them, not only for expression, but as the 
 safety-valve of his soul's tense emotions. Lincoln 
 was forty years old when he left Congress, being 
 in the very bloom of his intellectual power, which 
 he is undoubtedly exercising, even though in 
 secret. If we look through his Collected Works 
 for passing glimpses into his inner life during these 
 years, we are surprised at the meagreness of the 
 printed output. Perhaps the most important 
 
308 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 document is his eulogy of Henry Clay, delivered 
 July 16th, 1852. During the Presidential cam- 
 paign of 1852, he confesses that he did little can- 
 vassing for his candidate, Scott. Some scattered 
 fragments on government, on slavery, on law, 
 show his efforts at thinking fundamentally on these 
 topics. Thus his outer life as historic almost dis- 
 appears, having little or no record, not being in- 
 volved practically in the political events of the 
 time, though these must have influenced him. 
 
 Still we catch now and then a glimpse of what 
 he was thinking about, perchance of his deepest 
 pivotal thought. He repeatedly said that the re- 
 peal of ihe Missouri Compromise was, for him, the 
 mighty shock of a new birth. The ever-recurring 
 Kansas troubles kept the subject alive in his own 
 soul and in that of the people. It is reported that 
 on his circuit at this time he, to a great extent, 
 dropped his story-telling, and was always discuss- 
 ing with his legal friends the problem which had 
 so ominously dawned upon the whole country. 
 He would not dismiss it by day or night. Here 
 is a suggestive bit which comes from a legal asso- 
 ciate, Judge Dickey, who was attending court 
 with Lincoln and several friends at the height of 
 the excitement over the Kansas-Nebraska bill: 
 
 One evening several persons, including himself 
 (Judge Dickey) and Lincoln, waxed hot over the 
 question of the day. The Judge, being strongly 
 conservative, asserted that slavery could not be 
 
CHAPTER SECOND— LINCOLN'S^ SUBSIDENCE. 309 
 
 assailed in the States where it was established, as 
 it was recognized by the Constitution. Lincoln 
 maintained the ultimate extinction of slavery, and 
 seemed to see the beginning of such an outcome 
 in the repeal of Missouri Compromise. ''After a 
 while," continues the Judge, "we went up stairs 
 to bed. There were two beds in the room, and I 
 recollect that Lincoln sat up in his night shirt on 
 the edge of the bed, arguing the point with me. 
 At last we went to sleep. Early in the morning 
 I woke up and there was Lincoln half sitting up 
 in bed. 'Dickey,' he said, 'this Nation cannot 
 exist half slave and half free.' '0, Lincoln,' said 
 I, 'go to sleep.' " (Miss Tarbell's Lincoln I, 288). 
 
 This exceedingly significant and picturesque an- 
 ecdote seems to be the first authentic record of 
 Lincoln's famous dictum, which really contains 
 the pith of his whole career and achievement: 
 this Nation cannot exist half slave and half free. 
 Nor should we fail to note the contrast between 
 him and the legal-minded Judge, his companion, 
 who regards the Constitution as the unalterable 
 grand finality, though it provides for its own 
 change, and who, typical of many thousands, 
 refuses to hear the call of the age, bidding his 
 agitated associate "go to sleep," while he seem- 
 ingly turns over and takes another nap. 
 
 But Lincoln does not go to sleep after such a 
 mighty wrestle of the spirit; he will never go to 
 sleep again upon this question till death overtakes 
 
310 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 him with its last sleep, and till he has not only ut- 
 tered but made real that "this Nation cannot ex- 
 ist half slave and half free." Truly Lincoln has 
 now heard the voice of the time, and is becoming 
 its mouthpiece. The approaching great act of the 
 World's History he has glimpsed and briefly form- 
 ulated, as yet only in private "discussion. We may, 
 indeed, say that he has risen to a vision of the 
 World-Spirit, and has received its decree, of whose 
 fulfilment he is to be the chief instrument. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Lincoln, especially 
 in 1854-5, keeps brooding deeply over the political 
 outcome. He began even to think himself an 
 Abolitionist — a name which he had always 
 eschewed. He saw that the conflict could not 
 end without the Nation becoming all one or the 
 other, all slave or all free. In a private letter 
 (August, 1855), he declares: "Our political prob- 
 lem is: Can we, as a Nation, continue together 
 permanently, forever, half slave and half free?" 
 So he rc-iterates what he deems the pivotal ques- 
 tion of the time, and implies his conclusion pri- 
 vately. It is said that Lincoln proposed to de- 
 clare in a public speech his new view, but was 
 dissuaded by the advice of friends. At last the 
 time came when he could be no longer deterred, 
 when the real issue must be openly proclaimed. 
 June 16th, 1858, in a speech delivered at the 
 close of the Republican Convention which nomi- 
 nated him as candidate for Senator against 
 
CHAPTER SECOND— LINCOLN'S SUBSIDENCE. 311 
 
 Douglas, he made his famous statement that "a 
 house divided against itself cannot stand," to 
 which he added that this government cannot en- 
 dure permanently half slave and half free. Such 
 was his overture to the epoch-making campaign 
 between himself and Douglas. Long had he rumi- 
 nated upon the thought, discussing it among 
 friends and withholding its public expression for 
 some three years. 
 
 This conclusion he drew from the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise. Again and again has the 
 wall between freedom and slavery been put up by 
 the old set of statesmen, but now it has been torn 
 down, and, to tell the truth, neither side, neither 
 South nor North, will allow it to be erected anew. 
 Over the line each section cries out to the other: 
 No restriction upon me. Slavery insists upon 
 going into the territories, freedom insists upon 
 keeping it out. And that is not all; each side is 
 getting ready to fight; in fact, they grapple al- 
 ready during 1855 in Kansas, and start the over- 
 ture of the Ten Years' War, which Lincoln felt 
 was approaching, though he did not expect it to 
 come with such a sudden and mighty crash. 
 
 So we conceive the main fact of Lincoln's epoch 
 of Subsidence, lying at the center of his active life, 
 and making a sort of subterranean channel be- 
 tween the before and the after of his career. A 
 long and silent incubation between his fortieth and 
 forty-sixth years, we may well deem it a preuara- 
 
312 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 tion for his coming task, a working himself free 
 of the inner dissonance which he took home from 
 Congress, where he voted for the Wihiiot Proviso, 
 but supported a pohtical party which suppressed 
 its principle. But when he discerns the inner 
 voice proclaiming, this country cannot exist Judf 
 slave and half free, he has heard the call of the 
 World-Spirit, and his world-historical career has 
 begun to dawn. 
 
 During this sunken time of life, along with his 
 introspection and questionings, Lincoln gave much 
 effort to mending his defective education. His 
 association with leading men at Washington 
 caused him to feel his lack of knowledge. Among 
 the few items for his Congressional biography he 
 sets down: "Education defective." But partic- 
 ularly his visit to Massachusetts and the East 
 showed him his scholastic shortcomings, which he 
 resolved to remedy. Famous has become his 
 study of Euclid while upon the circuit. Literature 
 also he delved into more seriously than ever; 
 Shakespeare's dramas were read and pondered in 
 their entirety, though he had known extracts 
 from them since his boyhood. The School Read- 
 ers of the time, notably Lindley Murray's, which 
 Lincoln knew and praised highly, had passages 
 from Shakespeare. Herndon observes that he 
 studied law more seriously than ever before. A 
 general inner reconstruction he evidently under- 
 
CHAPTER SECOND— LINCOLN'S SUBSIDENCE. 313 
 
 took, being thrown back violently upon his own 
 limitations from the Washington experience. 
 
 It is, also to be observed that he found his chief 
 pleasure in traveling the circuit from county to 
 county. The communion with the Folk-Soul was 
 his delight; moreover, he was mending the breach 
 between it and himself, caused by his attitude in 
 Congress toward the Mexican War, He watched 
 its response to the political movements of the 
 time; especially did he feel its pulse in regard to 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, when he 
 found himself in harmony with it again, after a 
 long separation. Indeed, one of the main func- 
 tions of this long Subsidence was to work an inner 
 restoration of himself to the People, in which 
 labor his great rival Douglas unconsciously came 
 to his assistance. 
 
 And that fortune-wreathed antitype of his, the 
 well-rounded rubicund Douglas, must be noticed 
 by way of necessary counterpart, verily the transi- 
 tional Statesman bridging the old into the new, 
 and always going up while Lincoln seems going or 
 quite gone down, till the hour strikes for the sud- 
 den turn in the careers of both. Again, we con- 
 ceive of them as the antipodal Dioscuri of the 
 age, twinned in celestial genius and planted as op- 
 posites on a common territorial sphere, so that 
 while the one sinks in the sundown, the other 
 mounts seemingly irradiated in an eternal sunrise. 
 But let us look again at them after the sexennial 
 
314 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 revolution of an epoch: the one is seen slowly 
 climbing above the horizon in a new radiance, 
 while the other on his side begins his downward 
 course to his luminous setting. 
 
 As the deepest strain of Lincoln's character 
 was political, and as he was the coming states- 
 man of a great historic period, we have specially 
 to look at the political events of this, his sunken 
 sexennium, and to scan their influence upon him, 
 as far as possible. The Nation was moving to- 
 ward the crisis when it would have to get rid of 
 its distracting, self-destroying dualism, and Lin- 
 coln was moving with it, till he became its voice 
 in the new epoch. Still, during these six years 
 the double nationality made a tremendous effort 
 to stay double peacefully, and to instill such 
 doubleness into the People as the prime sentiment 
 of patriotism. Every good American citizen was 
 exhorted to be as dual as his Nation — so say in 
 substance both platforms, Whig and Democratic, 
 in the Presidential election of 1852. But that 
 simply could not be; the human soul must at 
 last come to unity with itself, in order to be itself. 
 Then another decree was getting louder, sterner, 
 and more imperious in the Folk-Soul, the decree 
 that its dualism, both individually and nationally, 
 must be eliminated. A voice mightier than that 
 of the Nation began to be heard, commanding 
 it to unify itself and thus to put itself in line 
 with the movement of the World's History, which 
 
COMPROMISE OF 1850. 315 
 
 through its own development was requiring a 
 federated Union of States in the American Occi- 
 dent, and not a disunited Dyarchy. 
 
 But our present task is to observe the dual 
 Nation seeking to keep itself dual, and to watch 
 the reflection thereof in Lincoln's unfolding. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Compromise of 1850. 
 
 In the Congress succeeding that to which Lin- 
 coln belonged, the slavery question broke out 
 with greater fury than ever before. The South 
 had set its heart upon making the lands acquired 
 from Mexico into Slave States, to counterbalance 
 the extensive territory of the Louisiana Purchase 
 in the North- West, destined to become Free States 
 by the Missouri Compromise. On the other hand 
 the North, quite irrespective of political parties, 
 had about made up its mind that no more 
 Slave States should be formed out of the public 
 domain anywhere. The cleavage between the 
 two sections seemed to be widening, with not a 
 few dire threats on both sides. The one American 
 Folk-Soul had indeed become twain with a divided 
 purpose, yea, with a divided conscience. 
 
 It was at this point that Mr. Clay came forward 
 with his attempt to heal the breach by a new 
 compromise. In a way he belonged to both sides; 
 he was a Southern man with Northern con vie- 
 
316 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 tions, and his State lay, as it were, intermediate 
 between North and South. The dualism of the 
 Nation seemed to embody itself in him through 
 the fact that he was an anti-slavery slaveholder. 
 Clay had taken part in the Missouri Compromise 
 of 1820, though he was not its author, as has been 
 sometimes stated. He appeared again in the Sen- 
 ate for the last act of his career, yea, for the last 
 act of the compromising period of American states- 
 manship, which recognized and sought to harmon- 
 ize the inner dualism of the Nation. Lincoln in 
 his Springfield home, ruminating on the same 
 problem followed Clay, who had always been his 
 pattern and Whig ideal. 
 
 The pivot upon which the main trouble turned 
 found its expression chiefly in the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso, which Lincoln had so often voted for during 
 his Congressional term. The South had come to 
 hate it, while the North had largely adopted it, 
 and made it a test of fidelity. The Wilmot Pro- 
 viso implied the moral wrong of the slaveholder 
 and the curse of slavery on the land; it had be- 
 come, therefore, exceedingly distasteful even to 
 the moderate men of the South, who were united 
 against it as against nothing else. On the other 
 hand the Northerner, who was hostile to slavery, 
 with unflagging zeal supported it as the very 
 touchstone of his principle. 
 
 This main bone of contention Clay omitted and 
 had to omit from his Compromise. Such action 
 
COMPROMISE OF 1850. 317 
 
 lost him the support of the more radical anti-sla- 
 very Congressmen, but drew to him strong con- 
 servative support, which pulled his measure 
 through. Practically it was favorable to the 
 Free-State men, since it provided for the admis- 
 sion of California with her constitution prohibit- 
 ing slavery, and for the organization of the terri- 
 tories of New Mexico and Utah, just as they were, 
 under the Mexican law which, unless set aside, se- 
 cured their freedom. But no Wilmot Proviso, 
 that reddest of red rags to the Southern bull, 
 was allowed. The result was many Southerners 
 supported the Compromise, though the extremists 
 of their section were hostile to it from the start, 
 joining hands with the Northern extremists in op- 
 position. Seward and Jefferson Davis, the su- 
 preme anti-slavery and pro-slavery protagonists, 
 could be seen voting on the same side of the 
 question. The outcome was regarded as a pretty 
 fair division of the Mexican spoils between the 
 two sections. The South had gotten Texas with 
 the possibility of four more Slave-States while 
 the North had practically secured the rest of the 
 territory, though there was some uncertaintj'' 
 about New Mexico. The general nature of the 
 Compromise is well illustrated in the provision 
 pertaining to the District of Columbia: the slave 
 trade was abolished in its limits, but not slavery. 
 The Missouri Compromise line was not a deter- 
 mining element in the bill as passed, though it 
 
318 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 rose to the surface often during the discus- 
 sions. 
 
 Such was the main matter, the territorial ad- 
 justment, which was in general acceptable to the 
 country. The Compromise of 1850 still recognized 
 the dual character of the Nation as half slave and 
 half free. Moreover it practically affirmed that 
 each section was productive of new States of its 
 own kind. The Union as genetic remained still 
 double — both Slave-State producing and Free- 
 State producing. The Wilmot Proviso had sought 
 to deprive the Southern half of its self-creating 
 power by excluding slavery from all the territo- 
 ries. On the other hand the Southern extremists 
 had maintained, with Calhoun and Jefferson 
 Davis, that the common domain of the country 
 should be open to slavery. There is no doubt, 
 however, that the People as a whole embracing 
 the moderates both Northern and Southern, found 
 its consciousness reflected in the Compromise. 
 Webster and Clay, the two greatest statesmen of 
 the old school, upheld it and thus revealed the 
 same dual character to be their own. 
 
 In the light of the future we have to think that 
 the movement of History, the spirit of Civilization, 
 or what we have called the World-Spirit, had 
 issued already a different decree from that of the 
 Compromise of 1850. The clock of the Ages was 
 already striking the deepest note of the time 
 which proclaimed that this Nation cannot con- 
 tinue half slave and half free. But the Folk-Soul 
 
COMPROMISE OF 1S50. 319 
 
 is not yet ready to respond to the behest of the 
 World-Spirit. And Lincohi whose chief function 
 is to be the voice of the coining era, is not yet 
 ready, has not yet recovered from his Congres- 
 sional dissonance. He with his forty votes and 
 more for the Wilmot Proviso, accepts the Com- 
 promise which totally ignores it and asserts essen- 
 tially the dualism of the Nation. 
 
 But we are not yet done with the present act. 
 The extreme South was very clamorous for a 
 vigorous Fugitive Slave Law, and got it from 
 Clay. The peculiarity of this provision was that 
 it assailed the moral conviction of the North, and 
 brought up in every human soul of that section 
 the question: Shall I obey Conscience or this Law, 
 or even the Constitution? A whole people, of 
 whom a large majority believed that slavery was 
 wrong, were practically compelled to be slave- 
 catchers for Southern masters. It may be 
 affirmed that this jiart of the Compromise was re- 
 pugnant to the Northern Folk-Soul, and began to 
 make it think of wiping out the cause of such a 
 deep contradiction within itself. ''This Nation 
 cannot endure half slave and half free" was the 
 doctrine preached with a mighty outlay of passion 
 by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Thus the Com- 
 promise helped undo itself, yea it intensified in 
 many a soul the very malady which it was pur- 
 posed to cure. It rifted more deeply the already 
 deep dualism between North and South. In the 
 
320 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Northern Folk-Soul it produced a peculiar in- 
 tense scission: it set the moral and institutional 
 elements of man to warring against each otlier, 
 inwardly and outwardly . Still for the time being 
 a majority in the North, like Lincoln, accepted 
 the Compromise of 1850 for its undoubted ad- 
 vantages. But the execution of the Fugitive 
 Slave Act often made the best spirits quiver 
 through and through, as if undergoing a painful 
 surgical operation, in the grinding clash between 
 the two obediences, here to Conscience there to 
 Law. 
 
 Douglas took an important part in constructing 
 and passing the Compromise measures of LSoO. 
 He was chairman of the Committee on Territories 
 and really was the author of the territorial part of 
 the Compromise. It should be observed that he 
 voted repeatedly during this session for the Wil- 
 mot Proviso. But he openly declared that he did 
 this not from his own conviction, but in obedience 
 to instructions from the legislature of his State. 
 Says he during the discussion of the Compromise: 
 "I have always held that the people have a right 
 to settle these questions as they choose [for ex- 
 ample, slavery], not only when they come into 
 the Union as a State, but that they should he per- 
 mitted to do so while a Territory J' Here is the 
 dogma of Popular Sovereignty, which is to play 
 such an important part hereafter in the careers of 
 Douglas and Lincoln. 
 
PRESIDEXriAL ELECTION OF 1S52. 321 
 
 The old 'statesmanship which sought to keep 
 the Union double, but to keep its clashing halves 
 concordant by compromise, wins a triumph again 
 in 1850, but the last one. Douglas, the transi- 
 tional statesman from the old to the new, helps 
 make it and defends it when made, but mark well 
 and look out for his blow four years hence! Lin- 
 coln, has settled down at his Springfield home in a 
 political eclipse almost total, languidly accepting 
 the double masterpiece of his antitype Douglas 
 and of his prototype Clay. 
 
 II. 
 
 Presidential Election of 1852. 
 
 While Lincoln lay in the deep shadow of his 
 Subsidence, there came upon him and upon the 
 country a new election for the Presidency in 
 1852. On the whole the agitation of the slavery 
 question had been quieted by the Compromise of 
 1850, though in the North the Fugitive Slave Law 
 roused strong opposition when it was attempted 
 to be enforced. It kept stirring up the conscience 
 of the individual against the law of the land, and 
 many were the efforts to harmonize the discor- 
 dant twain. Shouts came from both political 
 parties to the soul writhing in the conflict of two 
 duties: Stop being agitated! With the blade en- 
 tering the most sensitive part of man's nature, 
 there must not be even a wince. 
 
 21 
 
322 ABRAHAM LINCOLX—PABT SECOXD. 
 
 The Democratic Convention nominated Franklin 
 Pierce, a so-called dark horse from New Hamp- 
 shire, when the old famous war-horses — Cass, 
 Marcy, and Buchanan — could not win the prize, 
 and the young steed, S. A. Douglas, only thirty- 
 nine years old, but full of mettle, was whisked to 
 one side. The unknown man again triumphed 
 over the well-known statesmen of the party, and 
 his record could be no burden. The platform was 
 mainly a declaration of adherence to the Compro- 
 mise of the last Congress, "the act for reclaiming 
 fugitives from service or labor included" — which 
 act also is irrepealable. Moreover, "the Demo- 
 cratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, 
 in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the 
 slavery question." There is no doubt that this 
 platform reflected the more c^uiet feeling of the 
 country at that time; the future condition of the 
 Territories was settled by the two Compromises of 
 1820 and 1850, and most of the anti-slavery 
 democrats deemed that they must painfully en- 
 dure as part of the bargain, the execution of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law. The characteristic of the 
 Convention was the inner harmony of the party 
 with itself and with the prevailing tendency of 
 the whole people in both sections. The Double 
 Nation was affirmed again strongly, indeed pas- 
 sionately, and the Union was proclaimed as dual in 
 its very nature. The Democratic party now suc- 
 ceeded in making itself the representative of this 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIOX OF 1852. 323 
 
 national spirit, and started its campaign with an 
 outlook upon victory. 
 
 The Whig Convention nominated again a hero 
 of the Mexican War, General Winfickl Scott, 
 practicing the same political stratagem which had 
 been so successful in the cases of Taylor and also 
 of Harrison. But the circumstances were much 
 changed. The platform accepted the recent Com- 
 promise, and therein was like the Democratic; 
 also, the Fugitive Slave Law was to be enforced 
 and the slavery agitation was deprecated. Each 
 party thus had quite the same principles. The 
 difficulty lay in the candidate, Scott, who was sup- 
 posed to have anti-slavery leanings and to be un- 
 der the influence of Seward, who did not accept 
 the Fugitive Slave Law as the political finality, 
 but favored its repeal or modification. The result 
 was the Southern pro-slavery Whigs began to 
 bolt the ticket ; probably the two ablest were the 
 Georgians, Toombs and Stephens, both of whom 
 refused to support Scott on account of his Free- 
 soil associations. On the other hand not a few 
 Northern anti-slavery Whigs were estranged be- 
 caise the platform had smothered the protest 
 against the Fugitive Slave Act. The outcome 
 was that a third candidate appeared in the field, 
 Hale of New Hampshire, on an anti-slavery plat- 
 form, which attracted many Whigs in the North. 
 
 Plainly the Whig party was going to pieces in 
 both directions. Northward and Southward. The 
 
324 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 candidate antl the platform represented two oppo- 
 site tendencies, and could not be welded together 
 by any kind of political solder. The lurking dual- 
 ism of the Nation showed itself in this rift of the 
 Whig organization. The Fugitive Slave Act was 
 really the wedge which shivered the old party. 
 The right of Conscience would assert itself against 
 the Right of the formal Law, and the great Com- 
 promise itself was compromised. In comparison 
 with the Whig dissolution very striking was the 
 Democratic unity, which could have no scission be- 
 tween candidate and platform, since Pierce's [)erson- 
 ality had almost no history, and counted for quite 
 nothing or anything. He vanished in the platform 
 which voiced harmoniously the general attitude 
 of the Folk-Soul at that time. The result was an 
 overwhelming Democratic victory, which showed 
 the People closing its eyes to its own inner rend- 
 ing dualism, and saying that this Nation must 
 continue to exist half slave and half free. But 
 this is just the Nation of which the other Power, 
 called here the World-Spirit, has said: it shall not 
 so continue to exist. Which of the two Powers, 
 think ye, is the mightier? 
 
 Lincoln was one of the Whig electors for Illinois, 
 and did some canvassing, though less than usual, 
 since he confesses to a feeling of helplessness for 
 the cause . He certainly was not at one with him- 
 self, nor with the people of his State, upon whose 
 topmost wave he could behold his rival Douglas 
 
PRESIDEXTIAL ELECTION OF 1852. 325 
 
 swimming buoyed with boundless hope. Lincoln 
 went to })ieces with his old party in 1852, and 
 sank down after the election into the darkest 
 night of his long political obscuration. 
 
 During this campaign of 1852 (July 16th) he 
 delivered a eulogy upon the death" of Henry Clay, 
 recently deceased . As a whole it is not a strong 
 performance. The peculiarly striking thing about 
 it is its omission; there is no account of Clay's 
 most recent and perhaps most notable political 
 service in the Compromise of 1850. Only one 
 faint allusion to it can be detected in Lincoln's 
 own words, and one other allusion in a cited pas- 
 sage from a newspaper. He spends most of his 
 time upon the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and 
 Clay's view of negro colonization. The fact seems 
 to be that Lincoln was lukewarm over the Com- 
 promise of 1850, though he accepted it as a dis- 
 agreeable necessity. 
 
 In the Democratic campaign of 1852 Douglas 
 was doubtless at his best. It is said that he 
 spoke for Pierce "in twenty-eight States out of 
 the thirty-one." The fact is that Douglas and 
 his leading theme were now in accord with the 
 Folk-Soul. This theme was that the Union 
 must remain double, and must continue to produce 
 two kinds of States. Douglas had a chief part in 
 framing the Compromise of 1850, though it went 
 under the great name of Clay. Lincoln had ac- 
 cepted that Compromise, and also the Whig plat- 
 
326 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 form of 1852 which re-affirmed it. Douglas had 
 in a way absorbed him, and still he attempted to 
 speak against Douglas when there was really no 
 political issue between them. But the personal 
 issue remained between the two antitypes, and 
 this phase of their long rivalry had its special 
 manifestion, in which we behold Lincoln sallying 
 forth to the combat, as it were without weapons, 
 and gloriously defeating himself. Douglas had 
 made a famous campaign speech at Richmond, 
 Va., which was published in the newspapers 
 throughout the country. Lincoln replied to it at 
 Springfield before the Scott Club. It is agreed by 
 Lincoln's warmest friends and biographers (Lamon 
 and Herndon) that the speech was a fizzle, yea 
 worse, much worse than a mere fizzle. 
 
 It was worse for it showed Lincoln 's downright 
 jealousy of his fortunate rival. He speaks of ''old 
 times when Judge Douglas was not so much 
 greater man than all the rest of us as he is now," 
 and when "I used to hear and try to answer many 
 of his speeches," for instance in the Harrison cam- 
 paign twelve years ago. So Lincoln will try now, 
 as this present speech of Douglas is not "marked 
 by any greater ability" than the old ones, and has 
 "the same species of shirks and quirks." Really, 
 however, there is no issue of principle between 
 the rivals. In fact Lincoln now directly indorses 
 the speech of Douglas at Chicago in 1850 defend- 
 ing the Compromise of that year. So what can 
 
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1852. 327 
 
 he say? He drops down to buffoonery and to 
 petty cavilings which open a surprising gUmpse 
 into Lincohi's heart toward his great competitor. 
 It can be said that this speech may be taken to 
 mark the deepest point of descent in Lincohi's 
 Subsidence, while Douglas at the same time 
 reaches, if not his greatest fame, at least the most 
 fortunate part of his career in a happy unity with 
 his people. 
 
 Perhaps some jealousy may be excusable in the 
 intense rivalry between the two competitors. But 
 they were not now thrown together personally, 
 and Lincoln would have shown the nobler char- 
 acter by an appreciation of his rival's command- 
 ing qualities. In this regard the fact must now be 
 duly stated : Douglas appreciated Lincoln better 
 than Lincoln appreciated Douglas. The one in- 
 justice of which Lincoln could be capable was in- 
 justice toward Douglas, who, however, did not fail 
 upon occasion to recognize the worth of Lincoln. 
 We hope and we believe that Lincoln renounced 
 much of his prejudice against Douglas at their last 
 interview in the White House, when the latter vol- 
 untarily went to his life-long antagonist after the 
 firing on Fort Sumter, and offered his great influ- 
 ence and his life, as it turned out, for their now 
 common cause. 
 
 But if we have now touched the lowest dip of 
 Lincoln's sexennial Subsidence, and on the other 
 side have gazed at the highest dazzling arc of 
 
328 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 Douglas's fortune, both occurring somewhere 
 about 1852, we may next watch with wonder- 
 ment the sudden shift of their destinies two years 
 later. Our twinned Dioscuri of the Prairie have 
 begun to change positions; behold Lincoln start- 
 ing to ascend and Douglas to descend. Tell 
 us, ye Powers, what prodigious convulsion, what 
 cosmical disturbance produced such a quick dis- 
 placement, or rather mutual reversal in the careers 
 of our two Giants, verily the sons of Zeus. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Repeal of 1854. 
 
 An oft-cited statement of Lincoln runs: "I was 
 losing interest in politics when the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise roused me again." The dec- 
 laration suggests his awakening from his long 
 period of hibernation, the beginning of his rise 
 from his Subsidence. In fact the Folk-Soul itself 
 in the North sprang up from its sleep, and with it 
 rose Lincoln as its leader. He was now one with 
 it again and soon took his place in the front line 
 of its coming political battle. 
 
 Moreover the cause of this volcanic upheaval 
 was his life-long rival and antitype, Douglas. Of a 
 sudden their situations in regard to the people of 
 Illinois and of the North-West were changed. 
 Douglas had hitherto been the favorite of fortune, 
 the popular darling ; Lincoln had been out of ac- 
 
THE REPEAL OF 1854. 329 
 
 cord with the Folk-Soul, and politically submerged. 
 All at once by his own act Douglas was over- 
 whelmed with an Oceanic wave of unpopularity, 
 and the first man to meet him in serious contest 
 on the soil of their common State was Lincoln, 
 voicing the outraged Folk-Soul in its wrath at the 
 abrogation of the time-honored Missouri Compro- 
 mise, If Lincoln for his Congressional conduct 
 during the Mexican AVar had sunk out of sight 
 under the People's disapproval, Douglas had now 
 to meet a popular maelstrom agitated from its 
 depths by passion. 
 
 Through the Missouri Compromise of 1820, 
 slavery had been prohibited by Congress north of 
 the latitudinal line of 36 degrees and 30 minutes. 
 The territory then vaguely called Nebraska, was 
 thus devoted to the making of Free States, and 
 was ten times larger than New York. It was evi- 
 dent that equality in number between the North- 
 ern and Southern States was seriously threatened, 
 and the South was chafing a good deal under the 
 outlook. A new North was about to arise west 
 of the Mississippi, equal in area and population 
 to the already existent North, which was getting 
 restive under the South's control, and had shown a 
 decided hostility to slavery. The trend of migra- 
 tion had always been toward these new Free- 
 States of the North- West. The coming political 
 problem of the Southern leaders presented itself 
 thus: How can we wrench at least a part of this 
 
330 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 territory from freedom to slavery? The Missouri 
 Compromise stood in the way, and it must be 
 somehow circumvented or eliminated. 
 
 The man who undertook to remove this obstacle 
 was a Northerner, a born New-Englander, but 
 Senator from Illinois. Douglas prepared the bill, 
 and it was chiefly through his energy and stra- 
 tegic ability that it went through both Houses of 
 Congress and became the law of the land. Every- 
 body then asked, and the reader still asks, What 
 was the motive of Douglas? He claimed that the 
 Missouri Compromise had been already repealed by 
 the Compromise of 1850 in the clause pertaining 
 to New Mexico and Utah — which statement could 
 hardly be verified as a fact. He said he wished to 
 banish the slavery agitation from national politics ; 
 but his act certainly brought about the oppo- 
 site. Still he maintained that his object was to 
 establish a great principle, which he called Popular 
 Sovereignty. Really, however, his doctrine was a 
 blow at the Union as State-producing; Congress 
 was denied the power of training its own territorial 
 children for Statehood; especially was it prohibited 
 from acting on the main point whether the new 
 States shall be free or e-lave. Thus the Popular 
 Sovereignty of Douglas was a relapse to a kind of 
 political chaos, and was a denial of the essential 
 character of our government as the State-produc- 
 ing State. So Douglas proclaimed the non-inter- 
 ference of Congress in the very matter in which 
 
THE REPEAL OF 1S54. 331 
 
 it ought chiefly to interfere, if it be truly a Con- 
 gress of the United-States. 
 
 But the deepest underlying motive of Douglas 
 remains to be probed. He had his heart set upon 
 the Presidency. He could not get the nomination 
 without the help of the South. But the Southern 
 leaders always suspected him, as has been already 
 indicated ; not a few actions and statements of his 
 had been ambiguous ; they knew that he was ang- 
 ling for their support, yet was a man of too great 
 independence to be plastic in their hands. In 
 1852 he received only two votes from the South 
 in the nominating Convention. Hence it was be- 
 lieved at the time, and has been believed ever 
 since that the loading motive of Douglas in the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise was to win 
 Southern support for his Presidential aspirations. 
 
 As we look back at the Repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise through a vista of more than fifty 
 years, we can see that it has had results far be- 
 yond the mental range of its author, of its sup- 
 porters, and of its enemies. Really it assailed 
 and tore down the recognized wall of separation 
 which had been set up between the Slave-States 
 and the Free-States that were to be born there- 
 after. The enactment which chiefly settled the 
 new Nation as double, is repealed, and with it be- 
 gins the movement toward the complete oblitera- 
 tion of the national dualism. In about ten years' 
 time the work is done. The Repeal of the Mis- 
 
332 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 souri Compromise declares negatively that the 
 Union cannot remain double — cannot, continue 
 half slave and half free. Positively we may also 
 read in it, glancing backward by the light of His- 
 tory, that the Union must henceforth be Free- 
 State producing, for the agreement which practi- 
 cally made it bring forth a black and a white 
 twin is cancelled. 
 
 It is true that no such purpose lay directly in 
 the mind of Douglas, though at times he seems to 
 have faintly glimpsed such consequences lurking 
 in his act. Nor did the people, Northern or 
 Southern, see this deepest trend of the Repeal, 
 nor did Lincoln at first. But its world-historical 
 purpose all can now discern. The North nearly 
 unanimously opposed it, poured out unmeasured 
 obloquy upon its author, and even burned him in 
 effigy. And yet it was the very means by which 
 the North passed into the South and assimilated 
 the same to its own freedom. To do this was the 
 training of the North in the Kansas conflict. On 
 the other hand, the South favored the bill and 
 gave to it its chief support in Congress. The 
 Southern statesmen did not see that they were 
 throwing down their protecting bulwark against 
 the already stronger North and ever growing 
 stronger. Before the Repeal the Southerners 
 fought behind battlements, but after it they had 
 to come out and fight against superior numbers 
 in the open prairie. And this was done by their 
 
THE REPEAL OF 1S54. 333 
 
 own deed, seemingly in a kind of defiance. Never 
 did the irony of History mask itself so elusively 
 to both sides. The North was angered at their 
 greatest blessing, the South was rejoiced at their 
 greatest curse. The one execrated their benefac- 
 tor, Douglas, the other hymned praises to their 
 destroyer, Douglas. And this Douglas seemed 
 quite unconscious of the ultimate trend of his 
 deed. Unwitting instruments of the World-Spirit 
 they all now seem, bringing forth the new homo- 
 geneous Union in the place of the old double na- 
 tionality. 
 
 Was there any man on either side who possibly 
 felt some faint intimation of the far-off result? 
 The old Texan hero, Sam Houston, was the only 
 Southern Democratic Senator who voted against 
 the Repeal in the interest of the South, declaring 
 with a gleam of prophetic forecast: "It is the 
 worst thing for the South that has ever transpired 
 since the Union was formed." But he stood 
 almost, though not quite, alone in his Section, 
 Houston saw in the bill its undoubted negative 
 element against slavery. And on the other hand 
 did any Northern statesman catch the secret hand- 
 writing of destiny in the Repeal? Several of 
 them, according to reports which are later. Chase, 
 hearing the boom of cannon celebrating the victory 
 of Douglas, is recorded by his biographer as ex- 
 claiming on the steps of the Capital when going 
 home in the morning from the final vote: ''They 
 
334 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 celebrate a present victory, but the echoes they 
 awake will never rest until slavery itself shall 
 die." So this is the beginning of the end accord- 
 ing to Chase, who had shown himself the most de- 
 termined and ablest Senatorial opponent of the 
 Repeal. But if he saw in it the death of slavery, 
 why. did he not support it, abolitionist that he 
 was? Caught in the ironical sport of the World- 
 Spirit which makes him do the opposite of what 
 he is and sees, unto its end, and not his own. An 
 exultant prophecy is also reported from the lips of 
 Sumner: This bill ''annuls all past compromises 
 with slavery and makes all future compromises 
 impossible. Thus it puts freedom and slavery 
 face to face and bids them grapple. Who can 
 doubt the result?" Certainly not Sumner; still 
 he touched off all his superb rhetorical fireworks 
 against the measure, trying somehow to scare or 
 bedazzle the World-Spirit whose working he sees 
 and strikingly describes in the foregoing citation. 
 He calls it "the worst bill" in its immetliate re- 
 sults, but in the long run ''the best bill on which 
 Congress ever acted." Why not support it then? 
 But he speaks and votes against "the best bill" 
 for the anti-slavery cause, thus dashing water on 
 his own brilliant pyrotechnic display, or rather 
 showing that it is at last a mere display of his 
 own virtuosity. But let the reader not forget 
 Sumner's words above quoted : they announce very 
 impressively the coming historic fact. Seward 
 
THE REPEAL OF 1854. 335 
 
 likewise made a speech, which has a significance 
 in the same direction. His was the keenest mind 
 of the great oratorical trio of anti-slaveryism in 
 the Senate, and he could not help indulging in an 
 undertone of exultation that slavery had now 
 started to undo itself through its own friends. 
 Seemingly that subtle spirit of his was not averse 
 to seeing the bill pass, especially in the way it did 
 pass. One thinks, too, that his speech, which is 
 not a very strong one for him, was hamstrung by 
 his insight into the irony of the situation on both 
 sides, at which he cannot help having a furtive 
 chuckle, of course quite inaudible to the party 
 which he was supporting. But later he gave him- 
 self credit for a still deeper subtlety. What shall 
 we say to this claim of Seward recorded by 
 Montgomery Blair whom he told that "he was the 
 man who put Archy Dixon, the Whig Senator 
 from Kentucky in 1854, up to moving the Re- 
 peal of the Missouri Compromise as an amendment 
 to Douglas's first Kansas bill," which had no such 
 Repeal in it, and that "he had himself forced the 
 Repeal by that movement and had thus brought 
 to life the Republican party." So Seward claims 
 to have been the Zeus supreme over both sides, 
 and to have pulled the Olympian strings which 
 brought about their clash, to the final utter un- 
 doing of the South. And Seward makes liimself 
 a kind of Homer and sings a little Iliad for his 
 own heroship or rather godship — a colossal proph- 
 
336 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 ec}^ in retrospect, we cannot help thinking. Still 
 there is no doubt that Seward had at the time 
 a keener perception of the inner self-contradictory 
 dialectic of both parties in this measure than any 
 other statesman at Washington on either side. 
 Really just in that subtlety lay his unique talent, 
 to which he became at times the victim. So it 
 befell perhaps that he could afterwards portray 
 himself taking the place of the supereminent 
 World-Spirit and directing the whole business 
 with a providential design beforehand, not only 
 to the destruction but to the self-destruction of 
 slavery. 
 
 In the movement of present biography, ac- 
 cordingly, the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
 brings about a new Epoch, causing the emergence 
 of Lincoln from his long disciplme of political Sub- 
 sidence. He had felt himself remanded to pri- 
 vate life and personal obscurity. But at present 
 he rises with the mighty upheaval of the Folk- 
 Soul, and is soon its chosen voice, yea, its leading 
 organizer into a new party. Now he becomes 
 truly gigantic in fact as well as in form, having 
 gotten a cause in which he can fully exert his new 
 power won through his long inner discipline. The 
 feeling of jealousy toward his rival may not be 
 wholly extinguished, but it can be transformed 
 into a noble indignation against that rival's wrong- 
 ful deed. 
 
ARISE, OR BE FOREVER FALLEN. 337 
 
 IV. 
 
 Arise, or Be Forever Fallen. 
 
 Not the Devil was it now, calling to his lost 
 souls that lay prostrate on the burning lake (as 
 Milton tells us), but the good Genius of Lincoln 
 himself it was, who, reinforced indeed by the 
 mighty voice of the World-Spirit, thus spoke to 
 him, bidding him wake up and arise from his long 
 lethargic sexennium. Lethargic externally he 
 seemed in his silent broodings, but internally very 
 active he; yea, creative and re-creative of himself. 
 Such we hold to be his spiritual training in the 
 silent Netherworld through which he has now 
 passed, getting rid of his dualism, of his political 
 sin, analogous to that religious sin, the stages of 
 which Dante has described as his own in his pur- 
 gatorial journey. But, alas! Lincoln has left us 
 no description of his spiritual itinerary through 
 what we have called his Subsidence; hardly more 
 do we see of him than a plunge downward, head 
 foremost, as it were, in biting discord with himself; 
 then the long, long stay underneath, quite out of 
 sight internally, till his friends thought him lost 
 as a public man But now we again see him 
 cleaving his darkness and standing up glorified, as 
 he starts out a new man on his new career, with 
 that voice (we may suppose), ringing in his ears: 
 ''Arise, or be forever fallen." He has indeed 
 heard it, for he is ready to hear it, having had 
 
 22 
 
338 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 his long inner probation to that end ; moreover, 
 the time, too, is ready and* is calling for him and 
 his like to begin the new era in the Nation. 
 
 Repeatedly have we announced the fact that 
 Lincoln, after having taken the discipline of his 
 sunken sexennium, is to rise from his long Subsi- 
 dence, rise with the Folk-Soul and become its 
 leader and mouthpiece. Quite sudden was this 
 emergence, as the occasion of it came so unex- 
 pected. Lincoln has left a vigorous description of 
 the fact in a speech delivered in 1854, a few 
 months after the Repeal. Says he in reply to 
 some complaints of Douglas: ''He should remem- 
 ber that he took us by surprise, astounded us, by 
 this measure. We were thunderstruck and stunned ; 
 and we reeled and fell in utter confusion. But we 
 rose, each fighting, grasping whatever we could 
 first reach, a scythe, a pitchfork, a chopping axe, 
 or butcher's cleaver. We struck in the direction 
 of the sound, and we are rapidly closing in upon 
 him. He must not think to divert us from our 
 purpose by showing that our drill, our dress, and 
 our weapons are not entirely perfect and uniform." 
 
 Thus Lincoln in a striking image portrays the 
 maddened Folk-Soul, headed by himself on the 
 hunt after the arch repealer of the hallowed Com- 
 promise of 1820, as soon as the latter touched the 
 soil of Illinois. The population was chiefly agri- 
 cultural, and hence the angry farmer seized his 
 nearest implement, with which he was at work in 
 
ARISE, OR BE FOREVER FALLEN. 339 
 
 the fields, "a scythe, a pitchfork, a chopping axe," 
 and made a rush at the pubhc man whom he 
 deemed his betrayer. For that Folk-Soul, living 
 in a Free-State, believed in the same as its own 
 very essence, and moreover, believed that the 
 Union should be Free-State producing. There is 
 no doubt that Lincoln gives a truthful picture of 
 the indignation at Douglas in his own State and 
 throughout the North. When the Senator reaches 
 home from Congress he hears on all sides of him a 
 far-echoing multitudinous shout of wrath: here he 
 comes, the recreant! up and at him "with scythe, 
 pitchfork or chopping axe." Certainly a disor- 
 ganized shouting mass of ire it is now, but it will 
 soon get organized into a party, for it is acting 
 under a common principle in the form of impulse 
 which declares that no more Slave-States shall be 
 made out of the territories, that this Federal Union 
 shall hereafter produce Free-States only. 
 
 In the interest of this biography we are now to 
 follow Lincoln emerging from his eclipse and grad- 
 ually becoming the leader of the new principle and 
 its party. The decree of the World-Spirit we may 
 well deem it, for it is to make itself supremely 
 valid in the coming years. Lincoln hears this de- 
 cree and voices it to the people, who are indeed 
 ready, yea, are demanding it and calling for a 
 leader. At the call we may behold stepping forth 
 out of the shadow of his previous years and be- 
 gimiing his new career, the form of Abraham Lin- 
 
340 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 coin, whose first task is an herculean contest with 
 his old antagonist, Douglas. 
 
 Already before the arrival of Douglas, it seems, 
 Lincoln had started campaigning for his friend 
 Richard Yates who was running for Congress, and 
 had made strong anti-Nebraska speeches, which 
 had surprised pco})le by their earnestness. When 
 Douglas came into the State, he had his first ex- 
 perience with an angry constituency at Chicago, 
 where he was hooted from the platform. That 
 was in Northern Illinois, strongly anti-slavery and 
 bitterly an ti- Nebraska. He soon betook himself 
 to Springfield, his old home, where he spoke at 
 the State fair, which had drawn a vast concourse 
 of people. On the next day, October 4, 1854, 
 Lincoln answered him in a speech which has not 
 been preserved. But the two contestants now 
 step forth into the arena, and fight their first 
 pitched battle on the new issue, which is destined 
 to have a great history. Significant is it that 
 Lincoln now follows Douglas about from place to 
 place in order to reply to him before the people. 
 The sunken man has risen to the surface once 
 more and is selected for the coming task, energet- 
 ically pursuing and challenging to combat his 
 strong adversary. On October 16th they meet 
 again in an oratorical duel, this time at Peoria, 
 Lincoln making a speech which he- wrote out for 
 publication, and which must be regarded as an 
 
ARISE, OR BE FOREVER FALLEN. 341 
 
 authentic statement of his views at this time 
 (Lincoln's Works, I., p. 180-209). 
 
 Now this Peoria speech has a very important 
 biographical interest as being the first recorded 
 utterance of the new Lincoln after or even during 
 his emergence. For wh(^n he made it, he was not 
 yet fully emerged, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
 had been passed by Congress only a few months 
 before. All was yet in a seething, fermenting 
 stage; Lincoln himself was more or less in that 
 condition; he had yet to evolve somewhat, as well 
 as the whole country. Still he has certain dis- 
 tinct lines of thought which he has well elabo- 
 rated, and is full of the history of the subject and 
 its lesson. 
 
 His main proposition is that the Missouri Com- 
 promise ought to be restored. For the sake of the 
 Union it ought to be restored. We ought to elect 
 a House of Representatives which will vote for its 
 restoration. Very little prospect of such a retrac- 
 tion there was, since the Senate could not be 
 changed for years. The chief reason for the re- 
 peal of this repeal was that otherwise "we shall 
 have repudiated — discarded from the councils of 
 the Nation — the spirit of compromise; for who 
 after this, will ever trust in a national compromise? 
 That spirit of mutual concession — that spirit which 
 first gave us the Constitution, and has thrice saved 
 the Union — we shall have cast from us forever." 
 Lincoln does not apparently see that the day of com- 
 
342 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 promises with slavery is past, ended by the act of 
 slavery itself, and that the direct struggle between 
 the two sides is at hand. Lincoln has not yet 
 quite reached the insight that this Nation cannot 
 exist half-slave half-free, but he will soon reach it 
 and say it. The abolition of that Missouri Com- 
 promise means to the qjg of the World-spirit, the 
 abolition of slavery, but hardly yet to the eye of 
 Lincoln. He is still too much enmeshed in the 
 old order of statesmanship headed by Webster 
 and Clay, good for its time no doubt, but now 
 transcended forever. No more compromises, cries 
 the South and therein starts undoing itself, which 
 is just at present the supreme decree. Idyllic Lin- 
 coln repeats prayerfully in this speech: "Restore 
 the Compromise and vvhat then? We thereby re- 
 store the national faith, the national confidence, the 
 national feeling of brotherhood." Alack-a-day ! no 
 such paradisaical happiness is ever again possible 
 to this Nation till the deep-seated source itself of 
 all Compromise be reached and cleaned out for- 
 ever. And of that painful cleansing Lincoln is 
 destined to be the leader. 
 
 So our speech-maker at Peoria on that October 
 day proposes still to keep the dual Union, cause 
 of never-ending inner conflict and turmoil, to keep 
 it by compromise, as it has so long been kept. As 
 well might the children of Adam seek to. return 
 to Eden, from which they have been ex- 
 pelled. Lincoln shows his hatred of slavery in 
 
ARISE, OR BE FOREVER FALLEN. 343 
 
 this speech, and pricks many a sophistical bubble 
 cleverly blown by Douglas for vindicating himself 
 before the people. Evidence of historic study, as 
 well as a deep moral earnestness one finds in the 
 well-considered argument, which has also keen 
 logical thrusts along with bright metaphorical 
 sallies. But there is a total absence of story-tell- 
 ing, of grotesque humor, of the funning and fab- 
 ling, which were so prominent once and will be 
 again. What has thus sobered him? We can only 
 conjecture that his inner wrestle has been so in- 
 tense that it has for a time overlaid that strain of 
 his character. 
 
 Still in the tone of the speech there is heralded 
 a young hope, which elevates and illumines its 
 seriousness. Upon Lincoln has dawned a bright 
 auroral promise of a new career at the age of 
 forty-five years, in the very flowering of his highest 
 talent. And a cause has been given him into 
 whose advocacy he can pour forth the deepest 
 conviction both of his moral and institutional 
 nature. And let it not be forgotten! that adver- 
 sary and antitype of his, so long triumphant over 
 him, he can now clutch with the grip of Ophiu- 
 chus and hale the violator of what he deems the 
 right before the judgment-seat of the Folk-Soul, 
 yea of the Ages. 
 
344 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 V. 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas (4). 
 
 Lincoln, as we have shown, has gone back to the 
 Folk-Soul of his State, and indeed of his Section, 
 for a fresh dip in the original protoplasm of the 
 People, out of which the Great Man of the time is 
 to be formed, or perchance to be re-formed, if he 
 have suffered some obscuration, or some estrange- 
 ment from this fountain-head of his institutional 
 being. There Lincoln slowly gets a new adjust- 
 ment, traveling the circuit as a lawyer and mingling 
 with his legal associates as well as with the plain 
 folk, with whom again he comes into harmony. 
 Upon him and them a fresh conviction is dawning 
 with the movement of the time, verily the impress 
 of the Age's purpose, the stamp of the World- 
 Spirit taking an advanced stride toward its histor- 
 ical goal. So we conceive Lincoln performing his 
 fameless service to the presiding Powers over his 
 and his Nation's destiny. 
 
 Meanwhile his rival and counterpart Douglas is 
 swimming triumphant on the topmost wave of 
 fame and political influence. At the same time 
 we must note the drawback : there at Washington 
 he is losing touch with the Folk-Soul of his State 
 and Section — losing that which Lincoln is gaining. 
 This is the undercurrent or rather countercurrent 
 in the mighty onflowing stream of Douglas's pop- 
 ularity, certain to rise to the surface with the 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (4) 345 
 
 years. The atmosphere of the Capital was very 
 different from that of the North-West; the poht- 
 ical influence of the South dominated at Washing- 
 ton and also the social, both of which deeply 
 transformed the ambitious and susceptible Sen- 
 ator. His marriage with a Southern lady of 
 wealth and position had a tendency to make him 
 more formal and even aristocratic. Then there 
 was the spatial separation between him and his 
 constituency, to which he returned again and 
 again to give an account of himself, but which 
 showed a dissonance always increasing. We be- 
 lieve that the reason why Douglas lost hold of his 
 People lay chiefly in the legislative body of which 
 he was a member, indeed the most prominent and 
 forceful member. The Senate is farther removed 
 from the throbbings and aspirations of the Folk- 
 Soul than any other branch of the Government. 
 Indeed its organization is the antithesis of a pop- 
 ular institution, and its spirit has often shown 
 itself not only indifferent but antagonistic to the 
 People. As a body essentially aristocratic, it was 
 the great entrenched fortress of the South, and re- 
 mained quite inexpugnable by the rising con- 
 science of the North till the Southern Senators 
 ran off and left it in 1861. Now of this govern- 
 mental body Douglas became more and more the 
 ruling mind and the real incarnation, though of 
 course with strong and jealous opposition from 
 both North and South. But taking him all in all, 
 
346 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 he was the greatest Senator the country ever pro- 
 duced, greater than Webster though not so impos- 
 ing in stature or so classic in speech, greater than 
 Clay or Calhoun, and since his time we have not 
 looked upon his like again in the Senate. Still on 
 the other hand just here lay his limit, and his 
 very excellence became his bane; his supreme Sen- 
 atorial fitness unfitted him for the Presidency, and 
 his chief legislative deed undid him for chief Ex- 
 ecutive. Lincoln wanted to be Senator, but the 
 Powers forbade him decidedly, forbade him twice, 
 no doubt in the interest of himself and his Nation. 
 The Senate might have ruined him, producing a 
 second and deeper alienation from the Folk-Soul 
 than did the House of Representatives, which laid 
 him on the shelf for so many years. The great 
 Presidents have on the whole come directly from 
 the People, not through the Senate or Judiciary, 
 which are so different in function from the Pres- 
 idency. The Senate through its constitution is 
 quite inclined to streaks of domination, if not of 
 usurpation, to arbitrary and irresponsible conduct, 
 to jealousy of the other governmental powers, and 
 to defiance of public opinion. Corresponding to 
 these drawbacks undoubtedly are found important 
 virtues. Long tenure of office, the small and se- 
 lect number participating in the honor, and espe- 
 cially an election removed from the People have 
 the effect of separating the Senator from the Folk- 
 Soul. It was, therefore, not at all the place for 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (4). 347 
 
 Lincoln, whose supreme function was both to feel 
 and to sway the popular heart directly in the ap- 
 proaching crisis of the Nation. Douglas, there- 
 fore, through his long Washington experience had 
 gradually lost his intimate connection with his 
 People, and had violated their deepest political 
 instinct, which was to have a Nation productive 
 of Free-States only. On the other hand Lincoln 
 is completely harmonious with that instinct, now 
 that the disagreement caused by the Mexican War 
 is a thing of the past. 
 
 On two memorable occasions Douglas returned, 
 for the purpose of giving an account of his stew- 
 ardship, to his angry constituency. The first was 
 when he defended his work in the Compromise of 
 1850. The Common Council of Chicago had 
 passed a string of violent resolutions, one of which 
 practically declared for the nullification of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, and even of the Constitution, 
 chiefly on the ground that "the laws of God 
 should be held paramount to all human compacts 
 and statutes." The whole affair was preposter- 
 ous, indeed a downright comedy, whose theme 
 was in substance, "The Common Council of Chi- 
 cago as the expositor and defender of the Laws of 
 God." The very statement ought to have pro- 
 duced a horse-laugh even in that furious multi- 
 tude, and sent them all home in a fit of merri- 
 ment. Douglas met them, answered their ques- 
 tions, cowed them with his leonine aggressiveness, 
 
348 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 and actually drove them to adopt a set of resolu- 
 tions offered by himself and friendly to the Com- 
 promise, "without a dissenting voice." And the 
 Common Council the next evening "by a vote of 
 12 to 1" repealed its act of nullification in favor 
 of "the Laws of God," evidently quitting theology 
 for the more congenial field of ward politics. 
 
 It was an easy, but great and overwhelming 
 victory for Douglas. And there is no doubt that 
 he voiced the feeling of the people in regard to 
 the Compromise of 1850, much as they disHked the 
 Fugitive Slave Law. Moreover, they had no real 
 leader; Lincoln was in his Subsidence down at 
 Springfield, and he would have agreed with 
 Douglas in the main points, though with very 
 different sympathies. That Chicago crowd was a 
 foolish, disorganized, headless mass, which nullified 
 itself completely in the hands of Douglas. Still 
 there was something in it of which he might well 
 take heed. That Law of God, or Law of Con- 
 science, in its conflict with the Constitution was 
 striking deep roots in the Folk-Soul, as he might 
 infer, even from the comic interlude of the City 
 Council. In fact, he was led into a kind of theo- 
 logical disquisition himself by the following ques- 
 tion: "A gentleman here rose and inquired of Mr. 
 Douglas whether the clause in the Constitution 
 providing for the surrender of fugitive slaves was 
 not in violation of the law of God?" Douglas, re- 
 plying shiftily, plunges into a metaphysical disser- 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS U). 349 
 
 tation on divine and human law, which that crowd 
 certainly did not understand, and he probably did 
 not understand it himself. For he, seemingly 
 without knowing it, gives away his whole position. 
 He declares ''that there is a law paramount to all 
 human enactments," and that this law, "the law 
 of God, is intended to operate on our consciences, 
 and to insure the performance of our duties as 
 individuals and Christians." Seward with his 
 Higher Law, never did and never could ask for 
 more. Douglas goes on to state "that the divine 
 Law does not prescribe the form of government 
 under wliich we live," and so forth — all of which 
 does not help out, but tends "to ink the waters 
 like a cuttle-fish." But let us drop this matter 
 here with the observation that Douglas, so bril- 
 liantly successful in nullifying the nullification of 
 the Chicago Common Council, is not at home in 
 discussing or even in understanding the grand 
 conflict between Conscience and the Constitution, 
 which is rising with such might in the Northern 
 Folk-Soul, and of which this Chicago mob was a 
 real, but a wild, ugly, grotesque manifestation. 
 The deep moral questioning of the time lay out- 
 side of his horizon. 
 
 Through his unparalleled, and we think, deserved 
 success upon this occasion, Douglas would beheve 
 that he could meet and quell any uprising of the 
 people against him. This brings us to his second 
 memorable return to Chicago after his repeal of 
 
350 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 the Missouri Compromise in 1854. Again a mob 
 larger, angrier, and more implacable than the one 
 of 1850, received him and would not let him speak, 
 though he tried four hours (Sheahan says, from 8 
 P. M. to 12). Flags were at half-mast, church 
 bells tolled, hisses and groans were his welcome. 
 He gave up and left the city, hurrying off to 
 Democratic Egypt for consolation. Certainly this 
 was a great contrast to his former victory over 
 the Chicago mob, which now seemed of a different 
 mettle. The Common Council did not this time 
 make themselves the champions of "the Laws of 
 God," but their place was taken by a very differ- 
 ent set of men, the preachers, largely of New Eng- 
 land origin, who turned the city and the whole 
 North- West blue and sulphurous with the Hell- 
 fire of their damnation of Douglas. And literal 
 fire was used to burn him in hundreds of effigies, 
 by whose light he once said himself that he could 
 travel all the way from Illinois to the Atlantic. 
 But the present deep estrangement of his people 
 Douglas never fuUy overcame, even if afterwards, 
 through his attitude toward the Lecompton fraud, 
 he rose anew in the popular estimation. 
 
 Perhaps all this opposition to Douglas would in 
 time have bubbled off and have become quies- 
 cent. But now steps forth out of his obscurity a 
 leader of men, in deep sympathy with this new 
 indignation of the outraged Folk-Soul. Abraham 
 Lincoln starts to organizing these sudden elemental 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS (4). 351 
 
 forces into a permanent political party, and to give 
 voice to the people's antagonism against Douglas, 
 who has long been his personal antagonist and 
 antitype. But Lincoln is very careful to shun the 
 pitfalls of the former opponents of his wily foe. 
 He draws the lines of his new organization with 
 surpassing skill. He shuns the doctrine of the 
 Higher Law with its hostility to Enacted Law and 
 Constitution. He grants that slavery cannot be 
 touched where it is by the central government, and 
 that the South has a right to a Fugitive Slave 
 Law, much as he dislikes it personally. In gen- 
 eral, he makes his party completely institutional, 
 and thus draws to it and harmonizes with it the 
 Folk-Soul, which clings most fervently to its insti- 
 tutions. At the same time he builds a channel 
 through which the moral protest against slavery 
 can find a vent, and can finally realize itself even 
 in the Constitution. 
 
 Well may Douglas have said in these days that 
 Lincoln gave him more trouble than the whole 
 Senate of the United States with all its great anti- 
 slavery orators, including Chase, Sumner, Seward, 
 every one of whom was inclined to let their moral 
 indignation violate the institutional sense. Then 
 Douglas has not now before him the aristocratic 
 Senate, to whose character he had by long practice 
 completely assimilated himself, but he must address 
 the People of the North- West and meet in their 
 presence Lincoln, the greatest champion they ever 
 
352 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 had, who by long practice had assimilated himself 
 to them and had become their very voice. Doug- 
 las, therefore, in his turn, has to pass through a 
 time of estrangement from the Folk-Soul, though 
 it will be quite different from that out of which 
 Lincoln is just emerging. He will suffer no drop 
 into the unseen depths below, like a geologic fault 
 in the earth whose surface sometimes breaks and 
 sinks many fathoms down out of sight. No long 
 penitential subsidence will he wander thi'ough in 
 the night of his soul, the pugnacious Little Giant; 
 rather will he thrust himself, into the public eye 
 more than ever , valiantly fighting a losing battle 
 during his sexennial combat (1854-60), with a 
 tough heroic endurance. But he at last will end 
 (as we shall see) in peace and reconciliation, even 
 with his mortal antitype. 
 
 Lincoln knows well his own personal feeling 
 toward Douglas, that unworthy strain of jealousy 
 in his heart; he knows too that it must now be 
 kept under, or at least be used to tip with the fire 
 of its passion the arrows of justice that they burn 
 to their mark. Every great deed done by man 
 has its individual side, which is his interest or his 
 passion; but this must be subordinated to the 
 universal end, and thus become ennobled through 
 bringing about something far higher and worthier 
 than itself. Some such transformation we may 
 now observe in Lincoln. 
 
LINCOLN'S EMERGENCE. 353 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lincoln's Enaer^rence. 
 
 Already it has been observed that Lincoln in his 
 Peoria speech (October, 1854), had not yet fully 
 evolved. He did not yet fully see the bearing 
 of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise upon 
 the Nation or upon his own career. But when 
 perchance about a year later he is seen "half sit- 
 ting up in liis bed," seemingly after a night's 
 struggle, and is heard declaring, "this Nation can- 
 not exist half slave and half free," he has tran- 
 scended the hmitations of his Peoria speech, and 
 his emergence may be deemed complete. The Re- 
 peal of the Missouri Compromise need not now be 
 repealed; indeed it must stand as a great step 
 toward the goal beginning to hover distantly in 
 Lincoln's outlook. He finds lurking in that Re- 
 peal a foreshadowing of the obliteration of the 
 institutional difference between North and South. 
 It starts to wiping out Mason and Dixon's line 
 both literally and spiritually. It commences the 
 rapid stride toward Appomattox. Truly Lincoln 
 has now heard and begun to utter the decree of 
 the World-Spirit. 
 
 To be sure, in some of his later speeches he still 
 seems to favor the abrogation of the Repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise, using it chiefly to tilt 
 against Douglas, whose act he with his party op- 
 poses. The full bearing of that Repeal indeed 
 
 23 
 
354 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 nobody appears to have yet fathomed. We have 
 seen great Senators opposing it, while declaring it 
 to be the best thing that ever happened against 
 slaveiy . Lincoln also is at first caught in that subtle 
 irony of the World-Spirit, which is compelling the 
 hottest supporters of slavery to destroy it, and 
 the ablest opponents of slavery to fight for it, of 
 course unconsciously. But Lincoln will soon come 
 to see that the Repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise was, in its deepest though unintended scope, 
 the mightiest stride ever yet made toward the de- 
 struction of slavery. Through it alone could he 
 ever have been led to say that this Nation must 
 become all one thing or all the other, the wall of 
 separation being now broken down. Hence he 
 grows less insistent upon repealing the Repeal, 
 that is, up(>n setting up the dividing wall again. 
 Indeed after the Dred Scott decision that wall 
 could not well be replaced by any Congressional 
 action or compromise. It may be here added 
 that even Douglas, after three years or so, recog- 
 nizes the anti-slavery trend in his Repeal, and se- 
 cretly takes credit for it with certain Republicans. 
 But let us again cast a look upon Lincoln emerg- 
 ing from that long, dark, silent Subsidence, a sort 
 of unsung purgatorial journey through which he 
 has now passed. Let us recur once more to that 
 significant picture of him sitting up in his bed and 
 voicing his soul's sleepless wrestle. The image re- 
 
LINCOLN'S EMERGENCE. 355 
 
 calls the four greatest lines, in our judgment, of 
 modern poetry: 
 
 Wer nie sein Brod mit Thranen ass, 
 
 Wer nie die kiimmervoUen Nachte, 
 Auf seinem Bette weinend sass, 
 
 Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Maclite. 
 
 So says Goethe, poetizing how the human be- 
 ing comes to the knowledge of the Supernal Pow- 
 ers. Lincoln may not have shed tears like the 
 more sentimental German, but the conflict which 
 brings liim to a vision of the Divine Order is the 
 same. He is rising out of that sunless Subsidence 
 into the illumination of the coming sun-up, and 
 he hears the behest of the God of Light, and gives 
 to it an utterance. 
 
 Such, then, may be deemed Lincoln's emer- 
 gence, and its first pregnant expression. He is 
 passing out of that unspoken discipline of six 
 years, during which he has been undergoing an 
 inner transformation, as well as winning back the 
 Folk-Soul, whose estrangement from him has been 
 already recorded. Of a sudden the two come to- 
 gether and unite in a kind of lightning flash, 
 though both had been slowly unfolding toward 
 this new reconciliation, not to be dissolved again 
 at death, but rather to grow through and after 
 death. The two souls, that of the Folk and that 
 of Lincoln, are now joined in an immortal love, 
 the depth and intensity of which even increase as 
 the years keep receding from his mortal presence. 
 
356 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 And another peculiar conjunction may be wit- 
 nessed: Lincoln and Douglas again whirl to- 
 gether, but far more mightily in their antithetic 
 careers; not since they had their first early tourna- 
 ment at Springfield have they met in a direct per- 
 sonal contest. During thirteen years and more, 
 each has moved in his own separate orbit. Still 
 they are counterparts, and form the two living 
 sides of one total movement. They belong to- 
 gether, one cannot truly be without the other, and 
 History cannot do without cither. So behold 
 them once more revolving about each other with 
 an ever-increasing velocity, yet moving toward 
 their common goal. This makes a new epoch in 
 the life of Lincoln, and also in that of Douglas; 
 the Lincoln-Douglas sexennium it is now, in 
 which the long rivalry of the two protagonists has 
 to be definitely settled ; both appeal to their com- 
 mon State, and then to their common Nation, 
 which makes the choice between the Dioscuri of 
 the Prairie, and thus closes the contest. 
 
CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 ^be IRational Cboice, 
 
 So another epoch of some six years has arisen 
 (1855-1861) which presents the alternative to 
 the Folk-Soul, Lincoln or Douglas? Hitherto we 
 have seen the twain repeatedly conjoined in this 
 biography under the rubric "Lincoln and Douglas," 
 each on the whole pursuing his own way, yet 
 continually interrelated in a • kind of antithetic 
 movement. In the first epoch (1842-9) of the 
 present Period we have watched Lincoln losing 
 touch with the Folk-Soul of the State and Section, 
 and then being plunged into a time of obscura- 
 tion, during which he has slowly been restoring 
 the lost tie (1849-55) . Quite the reverse has been 
 the career of Douglas in these two epochs : the first 
 shows him in harmony with the Folk-Soul and 
 riding by means of its favor buoyantly to his high- 
 est position in the Senate of the United States; but 
 in the second epoch he can be observed moving 
 gradually toward his great breach with the Folk- 
 Soul of his State and Section, through his repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise. Thus the two antitypal 
 characters of the time show two antithetic move- 
 ments which we may imagine to curve around 
 opposed to each other in this way : while Lincoln 
 is going down, Douglas is mounting up, and then 
 
 (357) 
 
358 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 when Lincoln rises again, Douglas is sinking. Still 
 Douglas, on account of his lengthy Senatorial 
 tenure, is not remanded to the Folk-Soul, there to 
 do long penance in obscurity, till he becomes 
 transformed, as was the case with Lincoln. Doug- 
 las still can fight from his vantage-place in the 
 Senate, shaking his lion's mane with a grandiose 
 pugnacity, even against the irate People. But the 
 time will come when he has to appear before its 
 judgment-seat, there to face Lincoln as accuser. 
 
 Douglas did the greatest favor to Lincoln that 
 the latter ever received, though there was no such 
 intention and the act was unconscious. The re- 
 peal of the Missouri Compromise brought to the 
 front the question whether the Union shall hence- 
 forth produce Slave-States or Free-States. This 
 gave to Lincoln his true theme, and opened to 
 him the opportunity of becoming the Great Man 
 of his age. Already his persistent voting for the 
 Wilmot Proviso indicates his conviction that the 
 Nation must pi'oduce Free-States only ; but through 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise he is driven 
 to the conclusion that the Nation cannot continue 
 half slave and half free. We conceive Lincoln 
 standing behind that dividing wall quite paralyzed 
 through his acceptance of it as final, and indeed 
 insurmountable, till Douglas breaches it and act- 
 ually throws it down, aided enthusiastically by 
 the South. Then Lincoln rushes in, followed by 
 the North at first reluctantly, and sweeps onward 
 
CHAPTER THIRD— THE NATIONAL CHOICE 359 
 
 till he enfranchises not only the territories, but all 
 the Slave-States new and old. The first direct 
 breach leading to this event was made by Doug- 
 las, and made by him unwittingly, for Lincoln, 
 who could not have done it himself. Through 
 this same breach Douglas designed to march to 
 the Presidency, but through it without design 
 Lincoln was the man who marched to the Presi- 
 dency instead of Douglas. 
 
 In fact the deepest work of Douglas in this 
 part of his career is that of a divider of his own 
 people. He breaches the Democratic Convention 
 of 1852, causing such a violent rupfure between 
 the old and new set of leaders that the dark horse 
 called Franklin Pierce, has to be brought out. 
 Then the repeal of the Missouri Compromise has 
 certainly breached the masses of his party. Then 
 he breaches his own Democratic Administration 
 under Buchanan in the Kansas trouble. We shall 
 see that he will almost succeed in breaching his 
 Republican opponents, but he will be thwarted in 
 that act by Lincoln. Nor is this the end of his 
 breaching. He becomes a separator, a duahzer, 
 after being at first a compromiser, supporting 
 strongly the Compromises of 1820 and of 1850. 
 Thus he turns a destroyer of his own party, doubt- 
 less unintentionally. He undoes it, seeking its 
 headship, and prepares the way for Lincoln, who 
 ought to thank him, but does not, for he too can- 
 not fully comprehend the plan of the World-Spirit 
 
360 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 ill using Douglas to breach his own part}^ A 
 deeply negative strain runs through his career 
 during the present epoch of it, manifesting its 
 highest point in the negation of the Missouri Com- 
 promise. He practically wipes out the agreed line 
 of separation between North and South, and then 
 brings that separation into the Democracy, which 
 topples it down from its supremacy. Note again 
 the contrast: while Lincoln is unifying himself 
 out of his dualism, Douglas is dualizing himself 
 out of his former oneness. In general it may be 
 said that the World-Spirit now employs Douglas 
 as a mighty demonic energy of destruction inside 
 his own political organization, which is thus made 
 self-undoing. Meanwhile we can see Lincoln 
 going the other way, working to bring forth a new 
 positive order out of the break-up and wreckage 
 of parties. In this sexennial epoch we are to 
 behold the dualizer Douglas and the unionizer 
 Lincoln as counterparts in the one great move- 
 ment of the time, the negation of Douglas being 
 the condition of the affirmation of Lincoln. The 
 dual Nation, so strongly insisted upon by the 
 Little Giant is to be made over into the one Na- 
 tion by the Big Giant. Still it must not be for- 
 gotten that Douglas, amid all his breaches and 
 dualisms, did in the deepest of him cling to the 
 Federal Union as the ark of salvation; therein far 
 down at the bottom of their political being he and 
 Lincoln were one, and rested on the same ultimate 
 
CHAPTER THIRD— THE NATIONAL CHOICE. 361 
 
 foundation. Will anything in the future ever 
 bring that deepest common conviction, that one- 
 ness of the now antagonistic, yea antitypal twain, 
 to the surface, where it can be seen and even pro- 
 claimed? Yes, w^e may here foresay, taking a look 
 in advance; on that Sunday at Washington, when 
 news of the firing upon Sumter arrives, Douglas 
 will proceed to the White House and en'ist under 
 Lincoln, then commander-in-chief of the army and 
 navy of the United States — seemingly the first en- 
 listed man of the war. That is indeed the end of 
 their long rivalry ; they have reached down to the 
 institutional unity which was common to both 
 from the beginning, and which underlay their 
 deepest political differences. 
 
 The point in which they came together from op- 
 posite poles was the love of the Union. Their po- 
 larity showed itself in their diverse policies for 
 keeping the Union intact. Its dualism, its half- 
 and-halfncss must come to an end, says Lincoln; 
 that is what must endure to the last, says Doug- 
 las, who, however, never went so far as to favor 
 Calhoun's dyarchy, or scheme of two Presidents, 
 Northern and Southern, with a power of mutual 
 veto. Both, so antipathetic otherwise, loved the 
 Union; this must remaiu, though Lincoln wanted 
 it homogeneous as to freedom, but Douglas heter- 
 ogeneous. Upon this difference is their struggle, 
 till they both are brought to face the deeper con- 
 flict, that against the Union itself. 
 
362 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Thus we enter upon a third sexennium, not 
 pressing too rigidly its hmits in time. From Lin- 
 cobi emergent to Lincoln as President lies an 
 epoch of his life lasting six years about, and hav- 
 ing its own central fact or unity. This unity lies 
 in the continued contest of Lincoln against 
 Douglas as the originator, defender, and promulga- 
 tor, first of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
 and then of its correlative doctrine. Popular Sov- 
 ereignty. The combat started really when Lin- 
 coln first grappled his antagonist at the Spring- 
 field Fair, October 4th, 1854, and ended with his 
 election to the Presidencj^ over Douglas mainly, 
 and his inauguration at Washington March 4th, 
 1861, at which Douglas was present and courteously 
 held his hat — a very striking, and we think, sig- 
 nificant act, turning gently the long and bitter 
 contest into a kind of reconciliation, probably 
 more on the part of Douglas than of Lincoln. 
 
 The present is indeed the final desperate strug- 
 gle between the two political combatants, which 
 always had its personal substrate springing from 
 two opposite characters and two radically differ- 
 ent w^orld-views. Hence, we call them antitypes, 
 whose individual collision was at first local and 
 confined to their State, but rose gradually to be- 
 ing national, and finally w^orld-historical. We 
 have already noted far back in the legislature of 
 Illinois their original diversity, as well as the start- 
 ing-point of their double career. Neither probably 
 
CHAPTER THIRD— THE NATIONAL CHOICE. 363 
 
 ever lost sight of the other; each forefelt in the 
 other the lurking demon of his own negation. So, 
 like double suns, they circled about each other 
 mutually repellent, yet inseparable and moving in 
 a common political orbit. At first Douglas was 
 the great luminary and shone with a dazzling ra- 
 diance, while Lincoln passed spiritually into an 
 Qclipse, out of which he finally rose, surpassing, if 
 not absorbing, his rival. 
 
 We have seen Lincoln following Douglas from 
 place to place when the latter had returned home 
 from Washington in 1854, just after his great 
 deed of erasing the Missouri Compromise line. 
 Suddenly Lincoln quits the quest and goes back 
 to his law-office at Sj^ringfield. What is the mat- 
 ter? It is reported that after the Peoria encoun- 
 ter Douglas hunted him up and said to him flat- 
 teringly: "You are giving me more trouble in de- 
 bate than all the United States Senate; let us 
 both stop and go home." Lincoln agreed, being 
 through his feelings somewhat gullible; report says 
 that Douglas broke the agreement and spoke 
 afterw^ards at Princeton, Ills., being harried there 
 by the taunts of Owen Lovejoy. In consequence 
 of this violation of promise Lincoln felt himself 
 overreached, and lowered his opinion of Douglas, 
 previously not very high. In this connection 
 Hei'ndon cites a humorous but searching judgment 
 of Lincoln about his own weakness: ''It's a fortu- 
 nate thing I wasn't born a woman, for I cannot 
 
364 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 refuse anything, it seems." The power to say no 
 was not strongly developed in him, when he was 
 touched through his emotions; still we shall see 
 that he had an iron Will, when the emergency 
 called it out. Otherwise Feeling would often sur- 
 prise him and make him too yielding on what 
 seemed to him lesser matters. 
 
 In 1854 Lincoln was elected to the State Legis- 
 lature from old Sangamon, as he had been twenty 
 years before from New Salem. In that early 
 legislative experience of his, he had first met 
 Douglas, and it is probable that even then 
 they eyed each other in a kind of forefeeling of 
 their life's rivalry. Mighty and angry was the 
 rise of the Folk-Soul against its favorite Douglas, 
 and Lincoln was its foremost champion. He re- 
 signed his position in the local Legislature that he 
 might be a candidate for the National Senator- 
 ship. The brilliant prize of his highest ambition 
 floated alluringly before him. Illinois had chosen 
 in 1854 an anti-Nebraska Legislature, which was 
 to elect a Senator in place of Shields, Lincoln's old 
 fellow-duelist and a follower of Douglas. The po- 
 sition naturally belonged to Lincoln as the chief 
 leader of the new movement, and as the ablest an- 
 tagonist of the Little Giant. Thus their contest 
 would become national, being transferred to the 
 Senate of the United States. But Lincoln did 
 not win, though he had a much larger vote in the 
 legislature than any other anti-Nebraska candi- 
 
CHAPTER THIRD— THE NATIONAL CHOICE. 365 
 
 date. There were some members of the Demo- 
 cratic antecedents who would not support him, 
 an old Whig, so that he had in the end to throw 
 his influence to Trumbull, who was chosen. Four 
 years later he will meet with the same failure. 
 The spirit presiding over his destiny will keep him 
 out of the Senate, and with good reason. Lincoln 
 has another task than the legislative, and must be 
 held to his training. The Senate is a formal, 
 aristocratic body; Lincoln, on the contrary, was 
 informal and democratic. Of all the branches of 
 our government, the Senate is farthest removed 
 from the people, and is the least responsive to 
 the popular heart. The aristocratic South was 
 long intrenched in the Senate as its stronghold, 
 and proposed to hold it through new Slave States. 
 The struggle in Kansas went back to a struggle 
 for the possession of the Senate. Douglas had 
 lost touch with the people of his State and the 
 North through his long Senatorial career, Lincoln 
 is, accordingly, remanded by his good Genius, to 
 be sure against his will, to the people, from whom 
 he is not to separate. If he had gone to the 
 Senate in 1855, he would probably never have 
 been President. On the whole the instinct of the 
 Nation has been to keep its greatest Senators out 
 of the Presidency, notably Clay and Webster, also 
 Benton and Calhoun, and we may add Douglas 
 and Seward and Blaine. No, the Senate was not 
 the place for Lincoln, and we believe that he felt 
 
366 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 something of the kind after the contest was over. 
 He was to stay back and live with the Folk-Soul 
 till it was ready to bear him aloft directly to the 
 highest position in the land, that he be its leader 
 in its supreme crisis. The fact is, the Senate and 
 the Presidency have shown themselves more anti- 
 pathetic to each other than any of the rest of the 
 Constitutional offices. 
 
 What Lincoln had really to do next is seen m 
 what he set about doing after his defeat for the 
 Senate. Many discordant and otherwise hostile 
 elements had been suddenly dashed together in 
 opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise. Moreover they had won their first battle, 
 after which they began to show signs of going 
 asunder. Lincoln's immediate task was to keep 
 them together by organizing them into a new po- 
 litical party based on their common principle, and 
 to put himself at the head of it as mouthpiece and 
 leader. The newspapers must first be secured and 
 united ; a convention of the anti-Nebraska editors 
 of the State was called at Decatur, in whose work 
 Lincoln is known to have had a hand. On the 
 same day, February 22nd, 1856, a national con- 
 vention with a similar purpose was held at Pitts- 
 burg, which set in motion the Republican party 
 in the Nation. 
 
 The Decatur meeting called a convention to be 
 held at Bloomington May 29th, for the purpose of 
 nominating a State ticket and sending a delcga- 
 
CHAPTER THIRD— THE NATIONAL CHOICE. 367 
 
 tion to the first Republican National Convention 
 at Philadelphia, June 17th. The dissident ele- 
 ments of the young party were still imperfectly 
 welded together; the old divisions of Whig, Dem- 
 ocrat, Free-Soil still seamed through the Conven- 
 tion and antagonized its members. They had not 
 forgotten their ancient history. Who is the man 
 that can fuse them into harmony and unity 
 here and now? There was a call for Lincoln, a 
 spontaneous shout for the leader. He came for- 
 ward and made a speech whose effect was long re- 
 membered, for it smelted all the refractory ingredi- 
 ents of that Convention and rendered a united 
 Repubhcan party possible in Illinois. Moreover it 
 placed him at the head of the new organization of 
 his State, and on the line of march toward the 
 Presidency. It has been known as the lost speech 
 of Lincoln, as it was not reported in the news- 
 papers. 
 
 Accordingly we now start upon the third sexennial 
 epoch of Lincoln in this Second Period of some 
 eighteen to nineteen years — say from 1842 till 
 18G1 — during which his supreme personal task is 
 to make himself national. The whole time we see 
 him in training to be the leader and also the 
 teacher of the Folk-Soul in its long onerous world- 
 historical duty of bringing the dual Union to one- 
 ness, through freedom. He is the chosen man, 
 chosen first by himself and then by the World- 
 Spirit, to lead the Nation out of its old, ever-men- 
 
368 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 acing half-and-halfness into a true unity with 
 itself. So we mark three sexenniums in the pres- 
 ent Period of Lincoln's biography, each of which 
 has its own distinct movement of his spirit. First 
 he nationalizes himself immediately, passing 
 from Springfield to Washington ; but thereby he is 
 plunged into the national dualism, out of which he 
 has to unfold through a long submergence ; finally 
 he nationalizes himself again, but now unified out 
 of dualism, and proclaiming the unity of Nation as 
 Free-State producing only. Truly the Great Man 
 must unify himself before he can unify his People. 
 In this last sexennial epoch Lincoln will have 
 Douglas as his ever-present competitor who repre- 
 sents the Double Nation in the North, which is 
 called to choose between the two contestants and 
 their principles. Even Lincoln proposes to keep 
 the old Nation double, but not the new-born chil- 
 dren of it, the incoming States. But the outcome 
 is that both parties of the North and both North- 
 ern leaders, Lincoln and Douglas, are unified in the 
 presence of the deeper dualism, called Disunion, 
 which ominously rises to the surface in the South. 
 With this practical evanishment of the Northern 
 dualism, the hotly contested Lincoln-Douglas sex- 
 ennium closes, but at the same time opens upon 
 the greater national conflict. Now for the record 
 of the final grapple between the two mighty anti- 
 types, certainly the greatest characters of the po- 
 litical sort in the Nation. 
 
KANSAS. 369 
 
 I. 
 
 Kansas. 
 
 It happened during this time that the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise did not merely excite a 
 theoretical discussion about slavery, but it intro- 
 duced at once an intense, ever-irritating practical 
 problem. The Kansas territory being opened for 
 settlement, immigrants from the North began to 
 pour in with the design of making it a Free-State. 
 On the other hand armed bands came across from 
 the Missouri border for the purpose of seizing the 
 election machinery and through it forcing Kansas 
 into slavery by fraud and violence. A collision 
 between the two sides seemed certain already in 
 1854, and the prelude of the coming Civil War 
 began to be heard in Kansas. We may note that 
 Lincoln in his Peoria speech gave a striking de- 
 scription of the colliding elements already on the 
 ground at work, and then added a deep-toned 
 proj)hetic forecast of the conflict which was certain 
 to arise out of it and to involve the whole country : 
 
 "And really what is to be the result of this? 
 Each pai'ty within having numerous and deter- 
 mined backers without, is it not j^robable that the 
 contest will come to blows and bloodshed? Could 
 there be a more a])t invention to bring about col- 
 lision and violence on the slavery question than 
 this Nebraska project is? I do not charge or be- 
 lieve that such was intended by Congress ; but if 
 
 24 
 
370 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 they had literally formed a ring and placed cham- 
 pions within it to fight out tlie controversy, the 
 fight could not be more likely to come off than it 
 is, and if this fight should begin, is it likely to take 
 a very peaceful, Union-saving turn? Will not the 
 first drop of blood so shed be the real knell of the 
 Union?" 
 
 It must be recollected that this speech was de- 
 livered in October, 1854, barely four months after 
 the opening of the territory for settlement by the 
 proclamation of President Pierce. Already Kan- 
 sas had become the arena of contest and the 
 champions had entered the lists. Next month the 
 Missourians will cross the border and elect Whit- 
 field delegate to Congress (November, 1854) , with- 
 out opposition however. But the following spring 
 (March, 1855), the first invasion of Kansas takes 
 place from Missouri, for the purpose of choosing a 
 legislature. At this point resistance begins, and 
 the war opens, destined to spread from Kansas 
 over the whole land, and to last ten years. Very 
 suggestive is it to note this early foreboding of 
 Lincoln who seems to hear in the distance ''the 
 knell of the Union," but who is destined to be the 
 supreme leader and supereminent figure in the 
 preservation of the Union. 
 
 As already stated Lincoln proceeds to organize 
 the seething chaotic opposition of the Folk-Soul 
 to Douglas and his Nebraska policy and to solidify 
 it into a permanent party. Kansas helps him, or 
 
KANSAS. 371 
 
 rather the Missourians who, by renewed invasions, 
 keep the North in a continual whirl of agitation 
 and wrath. The excitement is not permitted by 
 the South to die out till the RepuJDlican party be 
 formed with its one basic principle: no more sla- 
 very in the territories. All of them must be free, 
 not alone Kansas, which, however, is the immediate 
 present goal. Of course this means that now a 
 great organization has arisen which declares that 
 the Union must hereafter produce Free-States 
 only. Thus the issue has become open, palpable, 
 direct, and is to be fought to a finish. 
 
 Such was in general the purpose and the theme 
 of Lincoln's "Lost Speech" (at Bloomington_. May 
 29th, 1856), which had such a hypnotic power upon 
 even the hardened reporters, that they forgot their 
 vocation and could not move a finger to write a 
 sentence. Still a few fragments of this most fa- 
 mous and seemingly most impassioned political 
 speech that Lincoln ever made, has been dug up 
 in recent years (see Miss Tarbell's Life of Lincoln, 
 II., p. 306). The upper note appears to have 
 been: Kansas must he free. Still this is not to be 
 done by violence but peaceably, by ballot and not 
 by bullet. The restoration of the Missouri Com- 
 promise is still mentioned by Lincoln, but it rather 
 falls into the background in view of the more 
 pressing question, the freedom of Kansas. He 
 however, feels that sooner or later we may have to 
 meet force by force, "but the time has not yet 
 
372 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 come" in the present year 1856. Strangely pre- 
 monitory is this gleam of what he will be called 
 to do in 18G1 ! Moreover in attaining these re- 
 sults we must be loyal to the Constitution and the 
 Union. Lincoln is not a revolutionist, but a thor- 
 oughly institutional man. Indeed he has a pre- 
 sentiment that he with his new party may be forced 
 to maintain the Union against the Southern Dis- 
 unionists who already are threatening its dissolu- 
 tion in case of the election of a Republican Presi- 
 dent. This brings him to what must be deemed 
 the climax of- his speech, which was seared upon 
 the memory of those present : "We will say to 
 the Southern disunionists: We won't go out of the 
 Union and you shan't." 
 
 Thus Lincoln makes himself the voice of the 
 Northern Folk-Soul, and prefigures in his words 
 the act of 1861 some five years before the fulfil- 
 ment. What he here declares, is to be accom- 
 plished in the deed ; he voices to the people in the 
 dialect of the people the decree of the World- 
 Spirit . We the North wont't go out of the Union 
 and you (the South) shan't. It is the grand pro- 
 hibition uttered years beforehand which has to be 
 enforced by arms. The effect of the words seemed 
 to work upon the hearers like an inspiration from 
 supernal sources. Lincoln prophesies what is to 
 be, and unconsciously places himself as the exec- 
 utor of the supreme behest: You shan't. 
 
 Many sporadic attempts had been made to form 
 
KANSAS. 373 
 
 a new party in opposition to the pro-slavery ten- 
 dencies of the Democracy. There has been no Ht- 
 tlc disputation about the place where the Republi- 
 can party started, and about the man who was its 
 true founder. Numerous centers of crystallization 
 may be pointed out during this anti-Nebraska pe- 
 riod in most of the Northern States. Victories 
 had been won and Illinois had sent an anti-Ne- 
 braska Senator to Washington, Trumbull. Still 
 the forces opposed to the compact, well-drilled 
 Democracy were an irregular militia, full of fight 
 but without much unity or discipline. Now, this 
 Convention at Bloomington (May 29th, 185G), 
 was the most important act of co-alescence in the 
 history of the Republican party, and this was 
 mainly the work of Lincoln. His speech fused the 
 recalcitrant self-repellent atoms and laid down 
 the lines upon which there could be an united ac- 
 tion in the future. He centered the opposition to 
 the one supreme point of keeping slavery- out of 
 the Territories. At the same time this opposition 
 must be in accord with Law and Constitution. 
 Only thus could it win the support of the anti- 
 slavery men of Southern birth, of whom Central 
 and Southern Illinois were full, Lincoln himself 
 being one of them and their greatest representa- 
 tive. 
 
 On this last point a significant citation from 
 Lincoln's ''Lost Speech" (as reported by Whitney) 
 may be given. After stating the fact that free- 
 
374 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 dom was preserved to Illinois in 1824 through the 
 strenuous efforts of Governor Coles, who was "a 
 native of Maryland and President Madison's pri- 
 vate secretary," Lincoln speaks of his own South- 
 ern associates: ''Palmer, Yates, Williams, Brown- 
 ing and some more in the Convention came from 
 Kentucky to Illinois (instead of going to Mis- 
 souri), not only to better their conditions, but to 
 get away from slavery. They have said so to me, 
 and it is understood among us Kentuckians that 
 we do not like it one bit." Here we catch a 
 glimpse of the underlying motive of that great 
 migration from the Slave-States to the North- 
 West, which had been going on so many years, 
 and of which Lincoln himself was an example. 
 And the further reflection presses to the front that 
 the Republican party, with its hostility to slavery 
 so carefully laid down on institutional lines, was 
 largely the work of Southerners, who had migrated 
 to the Free-States of the North-West. Of course 
 there was anti-slavery ism, strong, yea, rabid in 
 the old States of the North-East, but it had not 
 the same tendency to show an unfailing regard for 
 Union and Constitution, and could, never have 
 gained the battle for freedom. 
 
 The transition from the Anti- Nebraska up- 
 heaval, based mainly upon a negative, as we see in 
 ity name, to the Republican party, based upon an 
 affii'mative, as w^e see in its chief doctrine of ter- 
 ritorial freedom, seems to have been largely the 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN {1856) 375 
 
 work of Lincoln. Other distinguished men un- 
 doubtedly co-operated in Illinois and elsewhere, 
 and the new party was the outcome of a great 
 popular movement; still Lincoln stands pre-emi-> 
 nent as its organizer. And so solid was its or- 
 ganization that it resisted all the subtle efforts of 
 Douglas at a later time to breach it in Illinois, 
 though he had astonishing success in other States 
 than his own, particularly in the East. We have 
 to infer that the best leadership of the young party 
 showed itself in the West, and its 'eader there was 
 Lincoln. The Bloomington Convention of 1856, 
 with its "Lost Speech," is, therefore, a pivotal 
 event in the history of the party, which now is 
 planned and directed on lines that will ultimately 
 lead it to victory. We are to see that Lincoln 
 organized the political forces and formulated the 
 political doctrines which finally carried him into 
 the Presidency. It is not said that he was the 
 first to start them, for they bubbled up spon- 
 taneously almost everywhere in the North from 
 the depths of mightily agitated Folk-Soul. But 
 he had a chief hand in shaping them unto the ful- 
 filment of their end, and then took, or rather had 
 to take, the leadership. 
 
 11. 
 
 The Presidential Campaign (1856). 
 In the Democratic Convention of 1856, the strik- 
 ing fact is that the South rejects, has to reject, its 
 
376 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 two chief Northern supporters. Pierce, during his 
 Administration, had certainly manifested his 
 friendliness, if not his subserviency, to the South- 
 'erners; but his policy had lost him the North, and 
 he could not have been re-elected. Besides, he 
 had shown himself weak-willed — a defect which 
 the People despise in an Executive. But how 
 about Douglas who had certainly no lack of will- 
 power? He has to be rejected also by those for 
 whose sake he has sacrificed his popularity in his 
 own State and in the whole North. On the first 
 ballot he received only fourteen votes from his 
 Southern supporters. Very doubtful seemed his 
 election if nominated. And not a few Southerners 
 suspected him ; he had already emphasized strongly 
 the doctrine that the People of a territory must 
 determine whether they will have slavery or not — 
 a doctrine not agreeable to the extremists of the 
 South. Douglas could not help feeling the sting 
 of ingratitude when he saw that his very cham- 
 pionship of the Southrons and their cause, was 
 what made them throw him overboard, as unavail- 
 able in his own section. The stress being upon a 
 negative availability, the nomination fell to James 
 Buchanan of Pennsylvania, who had been out of 
 the country during the Kansas trouble, as minis- 
 ter to England. He had not taken sides, but the 
 South evidently knew their man, and took care 
 that they knew him. He had less will even than 
 Pierce; indeed, he must be pronounced the most 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN {1S56). 377 
 
 will-less Executive (really a contradiction in terms), 
 that ever occupied the Presidential chair. As a 
 counterpart to him the Republican Convention 
 nominated John C. Fremont, then an unknown 
 man as regards character or fitness for the position 
 of President. 
 
 As the candidates represented almost nothing 
 personally, the two platforms furnished the fight- 
 ing-ground for the campaign. It was thus a con- 
 flict of principles, each party had .to explain before 
 the people the reason of its existence. On the 
 whole the Democratic may be called a Douglas 
 platform, ro-affirming the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise and the non-interference of Congress 
 in the Territories. And the idea of Popular Sov- 
 ereignty seems to dominate the resolution which 
 declares that the People of all the Territories have 
 the right "to form a Constitution with or without 
 domestic slavery," and it is to be formed ''through 
 the legally and fairly expressed will of the actual 
 residents." But here rose the ambiguity: Douglas 
 and the Democratic Administration thought that 
 the Missourians, having seized the legal ma- 
 chinery, represented "the legally and fairly ex- 
 pressed will of the actual residents." But how- 
 ever interpreted in this matter, the platform as a 
 whole, maintained the Federal Union to be two- 
 fold still — Slave-State producing and Free-State 
 producing, as it undoubtedly had been in the past. 
 
 The essential thing in the Republican platform 
 
378 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 was the declaration that Congress could and ought 
 to prevent the spread of slavery into the Territo- 
 ries, all of which, and not merely Kansas, should 
 become Free-States. This is Kansas made univer- 
 sal, or at least national. Hence the campaign 
 slogan of the new party was, Freedom is national, 
 Slavery is sectional. To this was retorted with 
 effect that the new party, having practically no 
 existence in the South, was itself sectional. Thus 
 there came about the peculiar political cross-fire of 
 the two sides in which a sectional party main- 
 tained a national principle, and a national party 
 maintained a sectional principle. 
 
 Breaking out of this confounding sport of 
 phrases, we can see distinctly that the Republican 
 party now affirms for its basic doctrine that the 
 Federal Union, as genetic, must be henceforth 
 Free-State producing only. Undoubtedly this prin- 
 ciple had been often before enounced, especially 
 as a third-party doctrine; but now it is backed by 
 one of the two great political parties and has an 
 outlook upon realization. We may, therefore, 
 consider it a great new step in advance, really a 
 new view of the Union, compared with former 
 platforms of the two leading parties. That which 
 individuals and smaller political bodies had long 
 since uttered, at present gets organized in one of 
 the larger parties — an event truly epochal, just at 
 this time brought to the surface chiefly by the 
 Kansas conflict. Thus the Republican platform 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN (1856) 379 
 
 of 1856 has in it a progressive evolutionary ele- 
 ment; while, on the other hand, the Democratic 
 platform clings essentially to the old view of the 
 Union as dualistic, as productive of both Slave- 
 States and Free-States. 
 
 The Republican doctrine substantially takes 
 away the politically creative power of the South, 
 which is to produce no more States of its own kind. 
 The Southerners naturally regarded this doctrine 
 as assailing their equality in the Union, since it 
 deprived them of their participation in the produc- 
 tion of new States, which is really the deepest and 
 most unique activity of the American form of Gov- 
 ernment. Now it was this doctrine of restriction 
 put upon the South that forced it to the opposite 
 doctrine, which seeks to keep it State-producing, 
 as creative of at least its share of States. Hence, 
 the Southerners started to insist upon the protec- 
 tion of slaves as property in the Territories ; thus 
 slavery would have an equal, if not better chance 
 of making them Slave-States. It was at this point 
 that the South began to distrust Douglas for his 
 doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which allowed 
 the people to settle this question of State-produc- 
 tion. 
 
 Here too we may note that the Republican doc- 
 trine has its limitation . It did not touch the already 
 existent Slave-States, and seek to make them 
 Free-States. The Federal Union, if it is to be 
 universally Free-State producing, cannot stoj) with 
 
3S0 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 the Territories. And a true principle will render 
 itself universal — which result the war brought 
 about, making also the former Slave-States over 
 into Free-States. And this is what Lincoln saw 
 and asserted when he declared that this Nation 
 cannot remain half-and-half, but must become all 
 one thing or the other; freedom or slavery must 
 universalize itself, and Lincoln, as all now see, 
 was to be the chief instrument of such universal- 
 ization . 
 
 But this is not yet, though certainly on the 
 road. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate was 
 elected, getting 174 electoral votes to Fremont's 
 114, while the third candidate Fillmore won but 
 a single State, Maryland. Noteworthy is it that 
 the North went overwhelmingly with the Repub- 
 licans, the South even more overwhelmingly with 
 the Democrats. Very plainly does the election 
 show the breach in the Nation. Still the Nation 
 as a whole declares that it is double, yea cre- 
 atively double. So the South understands the 
 situation, and backed by another four years' ad- 
 ministration, proceeds anew to make a Slave-State 
 out of Kansas. The territorial troubles, quiescent 
 during the Presidential canvas, begin to flame 
 up again with fresh energy, undoubtedly insti- 
 gated from Washington. For the South cannot 
 surrender its fundamental right in the Union, 
 namely to produce States of its own kind. The 
 equality of the Sections is gone if the North alone 
 
THE DEED SCOTT DECISION. 381 
 
 possesses the reproductive power of the Nation. 
 This is really the struggle, now renewed with 
 fresh desperation. 
 
 At the same time, as a prelude of its revived 
 purpose, the South flings a bomb which had for a 
 while the effect of dazing the whole North, the 
 Chief-Justice of the United States in this case 
 being the individual bomb-thrower. Already the 
 legislative and executive Powers of Government 
 had been wielded against free Kansas; next the 
 third Power, the judicial, is brought to the front 
 to do its part to the same end. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Dred Scott Decision. 
 
 And now is delivered the third great blow of 
 the decade in favor of the Slave-power — the decis- 
 ion of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred 
 Scott — the other two blows being the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise antl the election of a 
 Democratic President. Again Lincoln will be 
 deeply aroused, and he will advance to meet 
 Douglas as the defender of Judge Taney. 
 
 Two days after the inauguration of Buchanan 
 the decision was rendered, which affirmed, among 
 other matters, that the Missouri Compromise of 
 1820 was unconstitutional. Congress having no 
 power to pass it, or indeed to prohibit slavery in 
 the Territories. Thus the chief doctrine of the 
 
382 ABRAHAM LIXCOLX—PART SECOXD. 
 
 Republican party was put under the ban of law 
 by the highest Tribunal of the land. Nay the 
 doctrine of Popular Sovereignty was undermined 
 by the decision, since the people of a Territory, 
 just as little as Congress, could keep slavery out 
 of the Territories. Still Douglas warmly sup- 
 ported the decision and attempted to reconcile it 
 with his peculiar doctrine, even putting on an air 
 of triumi)h. Again the Northern Folk-Soul feels 
 the stab and is roused to renewed anti-slavery ex- 
 citement. Douglas once more hastens home, and 
 at the Capital of Illinois makes a speech, not only 
 defending the decision, but also seeking to blacken 
 all who oppose it as law-breakers and revolution- 
 ists, as "enemies of the Constitution and of the 
 supremacy of the laws." In this way he hopes to 
 make the Republican party an illegal organiza- 
 tion, which should not only not be tolerated but 
 punished. 
 
 Of course such a challenge calls out his antag- 
 onist, Lincoln, who now comes to the front with a 
 speech (Springfield, June 2Gth, 1857), replying to 
 that of Douglas. Says he: "We think the Dred 
 Scott decision erroneous. We know the court 
 that made it has often overruled its own decis- 
 ions, and we shall do what we can to have it 
 overrule this." At the same time "we offer no 
 resistance to it. . . . Who resists it? Who 
 has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott 
 free, and resisted the authority of the master 
 
THE DEED SCOTT DECISION. 383 
 
 over him?" In all of which Lincoln shows him- 
 self the institutional man who does not permit his 
 moral indignation to turn him into a revolution- 
 ist. The Dred Scott decision ought to be re- 
 versed, but this must be done in a constitutional 
 way. 
 
 Douglas had tried in his speech to make it ap- 
 pear that all who questioned the correctness of the 
 decision, were resisting it by violence. At this 
 point Lincoln turns Douglas against Douglas by 
 showing that the latter had denounced the decis- 
 ion of the Supreme Court in favor of the United 
 States bank. "Again and again have I heard 
 Judge Douglas denounce that bank decision and 
 applaud General Jackson for disregarding it. It 
 w^ould be interesting for him to look over his re- 
 cent speech and see how exactly his fierce philip- 
 pics against us fall on his head." Here Lincoln 
 is truly dialetical, he makes Douglas undo Douglas, 
 and shows that the latter, judged by his present 
 standard, once "fought in the ranks of the enemies 
 of the Constitution," which is the reproach he tries 
 to fasten upon Lincoln and others. 
 
 With equal skill the speaker makes his antag- 
 onist fight himself, and- indeed annul himself in 
 regard to the argument upon amalgation. Per- 
 haps the most interesting paragraph of the speech 
 now is that he singles out Douglas as his future 
 competitor. "Three years and a half ago," says 
 he, "Judge Douglas brought forward his famous 
 
384 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Nebraska bill. The country was at once in a 
 blaze. . . Since then he has seen himself su- 
 perseded in a Presidential nomination . . . 
 and he has seen that rival constitutionally elected, 
 not by the strength of his friends but by the di- 
 vision of adversaries, being in a popular minority 
 of nearly four hundred thousand votes. He has 
 seen his chief aids in his own State, Shields and 
 Richardson, politically speaking, successively tried, 
 condemned, and executed, for an offense not their 
 own, but his. And noio he sees his own case stand- 
 ing next on the docket for trial.'" 
 
 Who is to be the prosecutor of Douglas in this 
 great political trial? Evidently Lincoln himself, 
 who now looks forward to it with a sort of tri- 
 umphant delight. The allusion is to the contest 
 for Senatorship which is to take place the coming 
 year, before the People as Supreme Judge. The 
 two life-long adversaries arc to be brought to- 
 gether in their pivotal contest, whose prize is loom- 
 ing up hazily in the distance as something far 
 greater than the Illinois Senatorship. Already 
 Lincoln has aligned his party in the State, and 
 put himself at its head ready for the charge. We 
 can almost see him in this speech flashing his 
 sword and shaking it defiantly at his antagonist. 
 He is now conscious that the Folk-Soul is with 
 him, and that he is its voice and its leader against 
 its favorite who has lost touch with it. 
 
 Douglas was well aware of the situation. The 
 
THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 385 
 
 astute politician could not help seeing which way 
 the wind was blowing, and casting about to catch 
 some of it in his own sails. Besides, he had his 
 deep, though secret grudge against the Southern 
 wing of his own party which had so ungratefully 
 thrown him overboard at Cincinnati. He must 
 also have seen by his visit to Illinois that the Dred 
 Scott decision was not going to destroy the Re- 
 publican party, but to nerve it to new and 
 stronger endeavor. The opportunity comes not 
 only for paying back an old score, but for adjust- 
 ing himself anew with the North, which he had so 
 deeply alienated. But that comes later. 
 
 It should be stated that Douglas in this Spring- 
 field speech, distinctly enounces that which was 
 afterward known as his Freeport doctrine, and 
 which is supposed to have lost him the South. He 
 had the very difficult task of reconciling his 
 Squatter Sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. 
 "A master's right to his slave in that Territory 
 (Kansas) continues in full force under the guaran- 
 tees of the Constitution, and cannot be divested 
 or alienated by an act of Congress;" still, in spite 
 of this "it necessarily remains a barren and worth- 
 less right unless sustained, protected, and enforced 
 by appropriate police regulations and local legisla- 
 tion prescribing adequate remedies for its viola- 
 tion." And such legislation "depends upon the 
 people of the Territory," and so it comes that 
 "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty is sus- 
 
 25 
 
386 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 tained and firmly established by this decision" of 
 Judge Taney, who undoubtedly intended just the 
 opposite. 
 
 Of course the true inference here is just the re- 
 verse of that which Douglas draws, and Lincoln 
 grips him in the retort that such a doctrine must 
 hold "that a thing may lawfully be driven away 
 from a place where it has a lawful right to be." 
 Douglas felt that he must keep the Anti-Nebraska 
 democrats in his fold if he ever wished to return 
 to the United States Senate. So he quiets their 
 apprehensions by telling them that the Dred Scott 
 decision is good law, but it can be easily circum- 
 vented by my little device known as Squatter 
 Sovereignty, which Lincoln calls a humbug. The 
 question will arise, Did Douglas believe his own 
 reasoning? Certainly he affirms a contradiction: 
 the right of the formal law to unquestioned obe- 
 dience and the right to make it inoperative and 
 null. So Douglas has primarily breached himself; 
 his own doctrine is dual, having a Northern and a 
 Southern side ; in Kansas it favors the Slave-State, 
 yet at the same time it gives a quick turn and 
 favors the Free-State. Surely Douglas has become 
 double like the Double Nation; his very conscious- 
 ness is twofold and contradictory. Thus he seems 
 a kind of embodied duplicity, havhig been assimi- 
 lated to that Janus-faced God of his. Squatter Sov- 
 ereignty. 
 
 By way of contrast we can sep Lincoln now at 
 
DEMOCRACY BREACHED. 387 
 
 one with himself, having risen out of his duahsm 
 through the long discipline of his Subsidence al- 
 ready portrayed. But Douglas has really breached 
 himself in his support of the Dred Scott decision; 
 behold Lincoln, his antitype, standing up at 
 Springfield and pointing out the fact to the people. 
 But Douglas cannot stop with this act, so here fol- 
 lows the next. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Democracy breached. 
 
 Who did it? Douglas. He had already caused 
 the great breach between the North and the South 
 by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; he now 
 breaches the Democratic party itself, hitherto 
 united, calling forth in it a Northern wing and a 
 Southern. Thus disunion has entered and split 
 the party of the Double Union, which means at 
 bottom national Disunion. 
 
 The occasion was again Kansas, upon which the 
 Administration and the South, encouraged by the 
 Dred Scott decision, resolved afresh to foist sla- 
 very against the will of the people. The Lecomp- 
 ton scheme was hatched for this purpose. Doug- 
 las saw his chance and declared his opposition 
 already at his home in Illinois. When he reached 
 Washington for the oj)ening of Congress in De- 
 cember, 1857, he went to the President, to whom 
 he declared that he should denounce the scheme 
 in the Senate. Buchanan in a fit of wrath rose 
 
3^8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 and said: ''Mr. Douglas, I desire you to remember 
 that no Democrat ever differed from an adminis- 
 tration of his own choice without being crushed. 
 Beware of the fate of Talhnadge and Rives." 
 Whereat Douglas also rose in opposition and re- 
 plied: "Mr. President, I wish you to remember 
 that General Jackson is dead." A piercing and 
 defiant response, with a sting in it too, which lay 
 in the contemptuous contrast between the weakest- 
 willed President that was ever in the White House, 
 and the strongest-willed one, yea sometimes head- 
 strong. On the 9th of December Douglas backed 
 up his words outside by an equally daring speech 
 in the Senate, in which speech he seems to see for 
 the first time the real situation in Kansas. Great 
 praise he won from the Republicans, especially 
 from the Eastern Press, which began to hail him 
 as the new leader. But Douglas still was Douglas 
 with his Popular Sovereignty and his non-inter- 
 vention of Congress. Says he: ''If Kansas wants 
 a Slave-State Constitution, she has a right to it; 
 if she wants a Free-State Constitution she has a 
 right to it ; it is none of my business wliich way 
 the slavery clause is decided. / care not whether 
 it is voted down or voted up." 
 
 The attitude taken in this last sentence was the 
 grand fatality of Douglas . On account of his in- 
 difference he became equally objectionable to the 
 men of conviction both in the North and the 
 South, to those who disbelieved in slavery as well 
 
DEMOCRACY BREACHED. 389 
 
 as to those who believed in it. And there were 
 many Douglas Democrats, especially in the 
 North, who did not relish such cynicism on the 
 great moral question of the age. Particularly in 
 Kansas would such an expression fall with a 
 shock, since at this time a majority of the fighting 
 Free-State men were Douglas Democrats. Imagine 
 their chill when they hear that what they care 
 most about, their leader docs not care about at 
 all. Really has not Douglas eliminated himself 
 from the grand struggle of the time? He does 
 not care whether this Federal Union shall be pro- 
 ductive of Free-States or Slave-States — the very 
 problem which Civilization or the World-Spirit has 
 called up for solution, and which is fermenting 
 deeply in the Folk-Soul. At this weakest spot in 
 Douglas Lincoln will not fail to thrust his spear 
 with telling effect before the assembled People in 
 the coming debate. 
 
 It is evident that three parties have begun to 
 appear and are putting themselves in shape for 
 the future. These we may set down as follows: 
 
 1. The Southern (Democratic) which says more 
 Slave-States ; the Nation must be Slave-State pro- 
 ducing also. 
 
 2. The Northern (Republican) which says no 
 more Slave-States ; the Nation must be Free-State 
 producing only. 
 
 3. Douglas (Democratic) which says the Nation 
 may be either, or rather should be neither ; let the 
 
390 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 people of the given territory settle the matter 
 among themselves, and let the Nation dismiss the 
 vexatious question. Thus Douglas tries to avoid 
 the world-historical issue of the age, or perchance 
 to circumvent the World-Spirit by a political de- 
 vice, the cunning fellow! Lincoln, on the con- 
 trary, will voice that World-Spirit to the yeomanry 
 of Illinois, so that the whole Nation will hear it, 
 in its judgment of Douglas. 
 
 It is evident that the Northern (Republican) 
 and the Southern (Democratic) parties have one 
 important tenet in common: both maintain the 
 central supervision of Congress over the territo- 
 ries. Douglas on the contrary would cut off all 
 intervention from the National Legislature; thus 
 he practically denies the Union to be State-pro- 
 ducing, and docs away with its genetic function, 
 really the deepest of all its functions. The scat- 
 tered settlers or squatters are supposed to be alone 
 capable of State-making, that is, of the supreme 
 governmental act, and not Congress, though this 
 is often imagined to be the collective political 
 wisdom of all the States. Against such an abdication 
 of national power and duty, both the anti-slavery 
 and the pro-slavery parties took decided position. 
 But with his device as a weapon Douglas has 
 breached his own party, the Democratic, into a 
 Northern and Southern half, truly a feat of gigan- 
 tic mightiness. 
 
 Let it be said, however, that this separation lay 
 
DEMOCRACY BREACHED. 391 
 
 deep in the party itself and also in the man him- 
 self. The Dcmocrac}^ of the Free-States could 
 hardly be called pro-slavery, and the time had 
 come when slaveiy was demanding a belief in itself 
 as morally right. It would no longer endure in- 
 difference even, but required a confession of faith 
 in its eternal justice and goodness from the party 
 which is supported. Herein lurked the possibility 
 of a breach between the Northern and Southern 
 Democracy. 
 
 And now the breacher appears with his doctrine 
 of ''Don't care." But the deeper fact is that this 
 breacher Douglas is himself breached by his own 
 principle of Popular Sovereignty, whose object is 
 to balk the very law which he says must be 
 obeyed . He decries any man who denounces the 
 Dred Scott decision as a revolutionist, but he tells 
 how to thwart it by his doctrine. Thus Douglas 
 is inwardly dual like his party; indeed he realizes 
 his own dualism in his party, and makes it, as it 
 were, an image of himself. Yea, the Nation shows 
 a similar scission, so that Douglas now is in a pro- 
 found sense the National representative of the 
 time. Herein Lincoln is again his other Self, his 
 antitype, who having made himself a unity within 
 out of dualism, is to make th^ Nation a unity, and 
 even is to unite Douglas, who is at last to be re- 
 deemed from his scission. 
 
 But not yet for several years. Douglas is still 
 in the height of his breaching period, and has not 
 
392 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 been halted; he is the very genius of division, 
 having divided North and South into two antago- 
 nistic halves of the whole Union by his repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise, and now he has divided 
 his own party, the De^iiocratic into a Northern 
 and Southern branch. But just se? the Titanic 
 audacity of the breachcr ! he has actually begun to 
 breach his opponents, the Republicans. Who can 
 stop him? 
 
 V. 
 Republicanism not breached. 
 
 It has been already noted that Douglas began to 
 break with his party on the issue of the Lccomp- 
 ton Constitution, and to vote with the Republi- 
 cans in favor of free Kansas during the Congres- 
 sional session of 1857-8. Pie even voted against 
 the English bill, a sort of hybrid Democratic meas- 
 lu'e which sought to purchase from the Kansans 
 their Free-State principle by an offer of immediate 
 Statehood and by a gift of land. This was the 
 supreme point of his open approach to Republi- 
 canism . And secretly he was at this time consult- 
 ing with the leading members of the Republican 
 party in Congress and winning them to his view. 
 His line of argument seems to have run in this 
 wise: "Do you not see the real effect of my Repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise? All the territories 
 south of that line are now open to freedom, not 
 .merely those north of it, like Kansas. The 
 
REPUBLICANISM XOT BREACHED 393 
 
 fact is, I am the true practical Republican, who 
 has really taken away from the Southerners the 
 lands which would otherwise have fallen to their 
 share. And many of them see it and are denounc- 
 mg me in the Senate. Still I must not quit my 
 party, but must stay in it and keep my followers 
 together; thus I can do more effectual service." 
 The argument was valid. Douglas had como to 
 see that the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
 was turning out just the opposite of what he and 
 its original supporters intended. He had began to 
 glimpse the irony of the World-Spirit of which he, 
 as well as the Repul^lican Senators, had hitherto 
 been the sport, being led to promote the reverse of 
 what they had at first purposed. For Douglas 
 and his pro-slavery supporters in the Repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise had done that which 
 undid them, and on the other hand the great anti- 
 slavery orators, Chase, Sumner, Seward had bit- 
 terly assailed and voted against the very act 
 which conferred the greatest boon upon them and 
 their party. Douglas now begins to see — he did 
 not see at the start — the peculiar contradictory 
 working of his own bill, as it turns out an anti- 
 slavery instead of a pro-slavery measure. More- 
 over he is going to take the credit for its secret 
 anti-slaveryism, having been shamefully cast off 
 by the Southerners in the Democratic Convention 
 of 1856, in spite of his blandishments and services. 
 So Douglas has the insight to catch the drift of 
 
394 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 the time, to feel the subtle irony of the World- 
 Spirit, in accord with which he must make a new 
 adjustment. 
 
 We cannot, however, believe that Douglas ever 
 intended to become a Republican. But in the 
 new turn of political events, he thought he saw a 
 way of attaching the Republicans or a part of 
 them, to the tail of his Presidential kite, as Lincoln 
 said. He knew that through the Democracy 
 united, he could never be chief magistrate. So he 
 has breached his own party; and if he can breach 
 the Republican party and get one portion of it, he 
 may be able to weld it to his Democratic frag- 
 ment and float on this new co-alition into the Pres- 
 idency, There can be little doubt that the su- 
 preme political aim of Douglas in 1858 was to 
 breach the Republican party. We have already 
 marked his peculiar demiurgic power of sundering 
 what lay opposed to him during this period. Can 
 he rend Republicanism as he has rent the Democ- 
 racy? This we shall find to be his deepest motive 
 in the great Debate with Lincoln in 1858; if he 
 can cleave atwain these new foes, he sees himself 
 riding triumphantly into the coming Senatorship, 
 and why not into the Presidency? 
 
 And the likelihood seems not remote, for see 
 what a spell the enchanter has cast upon the eyes 
 of champions hitherto most hostile to him and his 
 doctrine! The whole bottom of the Republican 
 party threatens to drop out, and a portion of it 
 
REPUBLICANISM NOT BREACHED. 395 
 
 does get seriously breached by the subtle arts of 
 the demonic breacher of political parties, Stephen 
 A. Douglas, now at the flower of his negative 
 might. In the East and in Congress a number of 
 influential Republicans thought of taking him up 
 as their leader, and of adopting his doctrine. 
 Prominent newspapers started to agitate in the 
 same direction. It was suggested that the Re- 
 publicans of Illinois help re-elect Douglas as Sen- 
 ator in 1858. Particularly Greeley in his New 
 York Tribune advocated this scheme, which meant 
 an abandonment of the Republican principle. 
 Seward probably leaned the same way for a time, 
 though the dexterous politician kept shy of any 
 public utterance. His supposed organ, the New 
 York Times, was, however, outspoken in favor of 
 the surrender. This was probably the most dan- 
 gerous moment in the entire existence of the Re- 
 publican party, which had fought the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise, had outlived the defeat of 
 1856, had risen up to new life under the stagger- 
 ing blow of the Dred Scott decision. Now the 
 arch-divider, Douglas, has gotten somehow inside 
 the organization and is preparing to divide it as 
 he has divided his own party recently, and has 
 divided his country into two antagonistic sections 
 by his deed of 1854. 
 
 Will he succeed? Just at this critical moment 
 steps forward Abraham Lincoln in the Convention 
 of Illinois Republicans assembled at Springfield 
 
396 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 and shouts No ! in commanding tones which soon 
 finc-l an echo throughout the North. In his speech 
 there made (June IGth, 1858), he exposes the vital 
 difference between Repubhcanism and Douglas- 
 ism. No ''don't care" pohcy for us here in this 
 State; and he winds up with a lofty exhortation: 
 "Our cause must then be intrusted to and con- 
 ducted by its own undoubted friends — those whose 
 hands are free and whose hearts are in the work, 
 who do care for the result." 
 
 His words were backed enthusiastically by the 
 Convention, which nominated him as the Republi- 
 can candidate for United States Senator in the 
 coming campaign against Douglas. In a number 
 of respects this act of Lincoln and of his faithful 
 supporters was epoch-making. It saved the party 
 from a split, for gradually the Easterners began 
 to see their own folly and to fall into line. Even 
 Greeley sullenly yielded, though it left him in a 
 sulk which he never got over during the rest of 
 Lincoln's career, not even during the latter's Pres- 
 idency. Indeed Greeley gave himself a l:ilow from 
 which he never afterwards fully recovered. But 
 the main fact is that this e];)isode transfers the 
 seat of authority in the Republican party to the 
 West, which, under Lincoln's leadership, had re- 
 fused to be cajoled into the Armida palace of 
 the subtle magician, there to be blown to 
 pieces. Lincoln, though unconscious probably of 
 any such purpose, had made himself the national 
 
REPUBLIC AX ISM NOT BREACHED. 397 
 
 leader, having vindicated the world-historical mis- 
 sion of the party, which the Eastern branch, or a 
 leading portion of it, was willing to sacrifice on 
 the plea of expediency. Lincoln reaffirms that the 
 Union must be Free-State producing only — wliich 
 Douglas opposed to the last. 
 
 And now the two Giants are lined up for the 
 conflict on the prairies of Illinois in the presence 
 of the people, who are to decide the issue which is 
 really their own. It should be noted that it takes 
 the form of a Presidential rather than a Senatorial 
 contest; both Lincoln and Douglas are practically 
 nominated beforehand by their respective parties; 
 the State Legislature will indeed do the choosing 
 of the Senator, but it will have hardly more free- 
 dom of choice than the Electoral College in choos- 
 ing the President. It is, therefore, a sort of pre- 
 liminary Presidential election even in form as well 
 as in significance; though confined to one State, it 
 is enacted before the whole United States, and is 
 felt eveiywhere to be a national matter. No other 
 Senatorial canvas in American History approaches 
 it in interest and importance, and no debate in the 
 Senate itself by the great orators of the old order 
 ever had such a weighty theme or such a far- 
 reaching purport. 
 
 So we behold our two life-long antitypes in the 
 bloom of their powers enter upon a fresh contest, 
 appealing to the Folk-Soul in personal presence, 
 and trying to win its sufTrage. Each is seeking 
 
398 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 the Senatorship as the immediate prize ; but really 
 each is striving to be the voice of the future, of 
 the Nation's destiny, of the World-Spirit. Which 
 will win that far higher guerdon whose bestowal 
 will elevate its recipient into that other Senate 
 composed of the supreme Great Men of Universal 
 History? The Folk-Soul is now called upon to 
 choose, not merely a Senator of the United States, 
 but a much more adequate and exalted represent- 
 ative of itself, nothing less than a mediator be- 
 tween itself and the World-Spirit. Lincoln again 
 loses the chance of going to Washington as law- 
 maker in the Upper House, but wins the loftier 
 position. And now let us turn to him and listen, 
 for he is about to speak the pivotal word of his 
 whole career, and indeed of his Age. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Prelude of the Lincolniad. 
 
 If it were possible in these days to sing an epos 
 with Lincoln as hero, it might well begin at 
 the iatter's contest with Douglas for the national 
 Senatorship of Illinois. The Muse, leaving to one 
 side all the less important preliminaries and prep- 
 arations, would then plunge into the thick of 
 things (m medias res), or rather would intone 
 the central struggle, typical, yea creative of those 
 which follow. Such a Lincolniad, having gotten 
 fairly under way, could not well stop till the 
 
PRELUDE OF THE LIN COIN I AD. 399 
 
 death of the hero. It would start, if not with a 
 famous quarrel, at least with a famous debate be- 
 tween the two leaders on the Northern side, as the 
 Iliad opens with a furious contest of speeches on 
 the Greek side between its two leaders, Achilles 
 and Agamemnon. But as before those divided 
 Greeks rises the far deeper problem of the capture 
 of Troy upon which they will be united, so be- 
 fore these debating Americans on the Prairie 
 comes the outlook upon a far deeper problem, 
 nothing less than the preservation of their na- 
 tional Union, in regard to which they will be 
 united. In both songs, however, American as well 
 as Greek, Helen will be finally restored, but only 
 after untold woes, in which many a soul is sent to 
 Hades, and the will of Zeus is accomplished. 
 
 The life of the modern Great Man, however, 
 calls for a literary vehicle different from the old 
 epos, though the main function of the latter was 
 also to set forth the pivotal deeds of the hero of 
 his People. But the Iliad is not a biography of 
 Achilles, even if its object be to give the weightiest 
 moment of his career, and to portray that 
 mighty inner change which makes him truly he- 
 roic, and concentrates into one brilliant action 
 lasting a few days the worth of his whole life. 
 Our biographic Lincolniad moves not that way, it 
 seeks to bring to light the long, dark, fameless 
 evolution of a career till it bursts forth into its 
 supreme deed, which is thus in a measure ac- 
 
400 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 counted for, being seen in its growth from germ to 
 bloom. To be sure, the old epos did not fail to 
 throw irregular glances back into the early life of 
 its hero, and the Iliad in one long scene intro- 
 duces Phoenix, primal pedagogue to the boy 
 Achilles, who is thereby briefly seen in his heroic 
 budding. 
 
 In the Lincolniad also, as here marked out, 
 there is a prelude or proem which is spoken by the 
 . hero himself, and which forecasts the entire action 
 to the close. It thus gleams with a golden poetic 
 vein of prophecy, which is not merely the fiction 
 of the poet telling in advance the course of fabled 
 adventures, but the man of the deed himself 
 voicing the next great reality of the World's His- 
 tory. To our mind this Prelude is the weightiest 
 word ever spoken by any American man, of what- 
 ever station; very brief it is, a single small para- 
 graph, but it is freighted with the burden of a 
 new^-born world. 
 
 Lincoln has now reached the point when he 
 must give utterance to the Idea which has been 
 fermenting so long in his soul. Already he has 
 often expressed it in private to his friends: This 
 Nation cannot exist half-slave and half-free. In 
 1856 it is reported that he proposed to proclaim 
 the doctrine in a speech at Bloomington, but was 
 dissuaded by his conservative friend, Judge 
 Dickey. But in 1858 he is the chosen leader of 
 his party, and he resolves to base his contest with 
 
PRELUDE OF THE LIXCOLXIAD. 401 
 
 Douglas upon what he deems the deepest pohtical 
 fact of the time. His opportunity comes when he 
 has to address the Convention which has nomi- 
 nated him for Senator against Douglas (June 
 IGth, 1885). Moreover, the first paragraph which 
 contains those memorable sentences already al- 
 luded to as the Prelude to the truly heroic part of 
 his career, shows Lincoln at his highest, when he 
 gives voice to the future and unconsciously out- 
 lines his own supreme vocation in the coming con- 
 flict. The whole paragraph may well be cited 
 (with some parenthetic comments), as the Prelude 
 to the Lincolniad now starting, if not to sing, at 
 least to speak in an exalted prophetic strain what 
 the Gods have decreed. 
 
 "Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: 
 If we could first know where we are and whither 
 ive are tending, we could better judge what to do 
 and how to do it. (The stress of the speech as a 
 whole is to indicate whither wc, the People, are 
 tending in the slavery question). We are now far 
 into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with 
 the avowed object and confident promise of put- 
 ting an end to slavery agitation (the policy of re- 
 pealing the Missouri Compromise). Under the 
 operation of that policy, that agitation has not 
 only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. 
 (Whither is it tending?) In my opinion it will not 
 cease till a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
 (A glimpse or presentiment, one thinks, of the 
 
 26 
 
402 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 approaching Civil War). 'A house divided against 
 itself cannot stand.' (This popular proverb has 
 given title to the speech, as it sums up the crisis). 
 
 I BELIEVE THIS GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENDURE 
 PERMANENTLY HALF-SLAVE AND HALF-FREE. (The 
 
 pointed application of the foregoing proverb to 
 the special case in hand. This piercing statement 
 of the political situation expressed the rising con- 
 viction of the North, and has since been adopted 
 by the People as its own very utterance of itself. 
 In this single sentence we may hear the World- 
 Spirit speaking through Abraham Lincoln to the 
 Folk-Soul, which is getting ready to accept it as 
 its own, and to carry it out, for there is in it an 
 implied command to overcome the division so that 
 the House may stand. For listen:) I do not ex- 
 pect 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 one thing or 
 all the other. (Thus under the bitter division of 
 the time Lincoln sees the trend toward unity, 
 toward the new Union which will eradicate the 
 acrid and ever-irritating dualism between Slave- 
 State and Free-State). 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 course of ultimate extinc- 
 tion; 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." 
 
PRELUDE OF THE LIXCOLXIAD. 403 
 
 Such is what we deem the Prekide of the Lin- 
 colniad, or of the Epos of Lincohi, not fabulous 
 by any moans but historic, enacted througli the 
 deed itself and recorded not in Plellenic Olympian 
 ideality, but in American terrestrial reality. Still 
 this Epos of the solid fact bears the impress of a 
 poetic whole, being preluded by a prophetic strain 
 which prefigures Lincoln's work in its full circuit, 
 till the assassin's bullet closes his career, and his 
 task of making this Nation "become all one 
 thing" and not the other thing, is practically com- 
 plete. The half-and-halfness of the old order 
 must end, and end in the right way; and when it 
 ends, Lincoln himself ends with it, and the Epos 
 concludes in the death of individual hero, alas! 
 but in the triumph of his cause, and in the ful- 
 filment of the prophetic Prelude 
 
 Certain curious facts concerning this epochal 
 speech have been handed down by Hemdon, who 
 was in the same office with Lincoln at this time. 
 He wrote it "on stray envelopes and scraps of 
 paper, as ideas suggested themselves, putting 
 them into that miscellaneous and convenient re- 
 ceptacle, 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 convenience during the delivery 
 of the speech and for publication." So we im- 
 agine our Lincoln walking the street with the 
 great problem of the time always seething in him; 
 
404 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 suddenly there bubbles up from the unseen depths 
 the right thought already clothed in its happiest 
 expression; he stops suddenly just there as if 
 halted by his own Genius, and claps his hand into 
 his pocket for an old letter or blank leaf of paper 
 on which he transcribes his inspiration, word for 
 word, as whispered directly f:-om the lips of the 
 Muse. Then behold him taking off that high- 
 crowned hat of his and depositing the precious 
 sentence safely within it, which, we recollect, was 
 formerly his Post Office at New Salem. Goethe 
 once wished for a leathern jerkin on which he 
 might inscribe any sudden verse sent down to him 
 from Parnassus, while he was moving about in 
 prosaic occupations. Of the two devices we would 
 vote for Lincoln's. 
 
 Far more significant is the record wdiich Hern- 
 don has handed down concerning the immediate 
 reception of the doctrine by Lincoln's Springfield 
 political associates. "Before delivering his speech, 
 he invited a dozen or so of his friends over to the 
 library of the State House, w^here he read and 
 submitted it to them. After the reading, he asked 
 each man for his opinion." Not one endorsed it 
 except Herndon himself, who, in a sudden burst 
 of prophetic exaltation, declared: "Lincoln, de- 
 liver that speech as read, and it will make you 
 President." So Herndon reports himself foretell- 
 ing — which report, of course, reaches the reader 
 some years after the marvelous fulfilment. There 
 
PRELUDE OF THE LINCOLXIAD. 405 
 
 can be no doubt, however, that Herndon strongly 
 backed Lincohi, who felt in his law-partner and 
 intimate companion a true part of himself, and 
 yet only a part. For Herndon, though of South- 
 ern extraction, was an abolitionist after the pat- 
 tern of Theodore Parker of Boston, and hence rep- 
 resented the moral opposition to slavery, very 
 intense but one-sided. On the other hand most 
 of the friends of Lincoln were conservative, and 
 put stress upon the institutional element. Now 
 Lincoln had, we hold, both sides in him, the moral 
 and institutional, and also their reconciliation, as 
 far as this was possible under the old political 
 order. But likewise he had both sides outside of 
 him, and around him in two sets of warm friends 
 and supporters, yet always clashing with each 
 other in his presence. Lincoln saw his political 
 problem incarnate before him in the conflict of 
 these two sets of his own followers. The whole 
 Republican party had the same inner conflict, and 
 would have fallen asunder unless the moral and 
 the institutional elements of the opposition to 
 slavery had been reconciled in a common princi- 
 ple, but above all, in a common leader, who knew 
 both elements well, and felt both deeply. Hern- 
 don had his decided place in Lincoln's develop- 
 ment as the ever-present moral protest of the time 
 against the black wrong, and did not fail to keep 
 this side of the question alive in the sympathetic 
 soul of his friend. 
 
406 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART SECOND. 
 
 Lincoln rising from liis seat, replies to his ob- 
 jecting counselors: ''Friends, this thing has been 
 retarded long enough.- The time has come when 
 these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is de- 
 creed 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." Recollect that the chief declaration is 
 that this dual Nation must now become single in 
 its State-producing power. Again says Lincoln 
 somewhat defiantly to a protesting friend: "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" (Herndon and Weik's Ldncoln, 
 pp. 65-70). 
 
 The essence of the speech is the Prelude, which 
 has the smiting trip-hammer sentences, whose blows 
 forged the shape of the future . Its similarity to 
 Seward's "irrepressible conflict" has been often re- 
 marked . Did either draw from the other? It so 
 happens that Seward's Rochester speech, from 
 which those words are taken, was delivered Oc- 
 tober 25th, 1S58, more than four months after the 
 preluding speech of Lincoln at Springfield . More- 
 over Seward was suspected of silently favoring 
 Douglasism for a while, till he rather suddenly 
 woke up from his reticence. x\t the time Sewar I 
 was a far more prominent man than Lincoln, 
 
PRELUDE OF THE LINCOLN I AD. 407 
 
 still, as a good politician and as a Presidential as- 
 pirant, he must have kept his ear open to the 
 breezes from the Western prairie, and they would 
 have borne to him in four months many echoes of 
 Lincoln's stirring Prelude. Then we must recol- 
 lect that the last of the seven joint debates between 
 Lincoln and Douglas, which resounded through the 
 whole nation, continually reverberating that Pre- 
 lude, took place on October 15th, ten days before 
 Seward's speech at Rochester. It is highly prob- 
 able that Seward not only knew well the declara- 
 tions of Lincoln's Prelude, but was roused from 
 his political stupor of Douglasism, which infected 
 New York and all the East, by the new national 
 prominence of Lincoln, who has suddenly become 
 a Presidential possibility. 
 
 So much for the Prelude to the Lincolniad which 
 has proved itself to have a world-historical import, 
 being the prophetic utterance of a great epoch. 
 The word of it seems to be marching forthright to 
 the deed with a dizzying swiftness ; in less than a 
 decade this nation is no longer half slave half free . 
 The prophecy is going to be fulfilled with far 
 greater rapidity than Lincoln at first could have 
 dreamed. And now let it be noted that the an- 
 titypal counterpart, Douglas, has also his Prelude 
 in due symmetry; the twinned Dioscuri of the 
 Prairie, though at opposite poles, cannot separate, 
 indeed cannot do without each other. But the 
 preluding strain of Douglas will have in it no 
 
408 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 deep-seeing, prophetic glance ; on the contrary he 
 will denounce Lincoln's words of foresight with no 
 little asperity, stoning the prophet with hard 
 accusations of fomenting ill feeling between North 
 and South, and even disunion. 
 
 Douglas reached his home in Chicago from 
 Washington, and made his opening speech on July 
 9th, 1858, not a month after Lincoln's nomination 
 for Senator, when the latter uttered his far- 
 reaching Prelude. In this speech Douglas shows 
 a complacent mood, a happy state of self-glorifica- 
 tion, and seems to forecast his coming triumph. 
 His first point is his great victory over his own 
 Democratic Administration, which tried to force 
 the Lecompton Constitution upon the people of 
 Kansas whether they wanted it or not — a com- 
 plete victory for Popular Sovereignty. But he 
 claims an equally great victory over the Republi- 
 cans in Congress since they voted for the Critten- 
 den-Montgomery bill, which permitted Kansas to de- 
 cide for itself whether it would have slavery or free- 
 dom. This bill, however, was rejected in the Sen- 
 ate, though it passed the House by the vote of 
 Republicans, who well knew that in this particu- 
 lar case the Kansans, having fought valiantly for 
 their freedom some three years, would at the least 
 chance vote as they fought. But Douglas thinks 
 that the Republicans have come, or will soon 
 come over to his side permanently, dropping their 
 principle of the exclusion of slavery from the terri- 
 
PRELUDE OF THE LIXCOLXIAD. 409 
 
 tories for his doctrine of Popular Sovereignty. 
 And there is no doubt that in the Eastern States 
 he is playing havoc, he is breaching the Repub- 
 hcan party. • Can he do it in Illinois? At this 
 pivotal moment Lincoln meets him, meets him in 
 the breach and begins the combat. 
 
 In this same preluding speech of his, Douglas 
 pays some attention to Lincoln personally, whom 
 the Republicans of Illinois have nominated to be 
 "my successor in the Senate." Courteously, but 
 somewhat condescendingly, if we catch his tone 
 aright, he pictures his antagonist: "I take great 
 pleasure in saying that I have known, personally 
 and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, 
 the worthy gentleman who has been nominated 
 for my place, and I will say that I regard him as 
 a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman, a good 
 citizen and an honorable opponent; and whatever 
 issue I may have with him will be of principle and 
 not involving personalities." This is all very gra- 
 cious, but the note will change before the debate 
 is over. 
 
 Douglas proceeds to tackle Lincoln's preluding 
 speech before the Republican Convention, which 
 he sees to be the pivotal utterance of the cam- 
 paign, calling it "a speech well prepared and care- 
 fully written." First Douglas assails the half-and- 
 half doctrine, which he deems a call to "a war of 
 sections, a war of the North against the South." 
 Then he pronounces strongly against Lincoln's 
 
410 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 view of the Dred Scott decision. Both these 
 points will be often reiterated in the coming 
 Debate, with keen retorts of the contestants. 
 
 But what a difference in the two Preludes! Lin- 
 coln's is a prophecy proclaiming the one homo- 
 geneous Nation of the future, prefiguring the 
 movement of the Age, voicing the very decree of 
 the World-Spirit. The Prelude of Douglas rises 
 to no such lofty outlook, but simply reaffirms the 
 old Double Nation, whose doom has been pro- 
 nounced in many ways, but in the most impressive 
 way by Douglas himself through his repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise. To be sure Douglas in 
 1854 did not intend any such Last Judgment of 
 the old order, nevertheless it lay deeply ensconced 
 in his pivotal act, and now behold it dragged 
 forth to light and uttered in smiting words by 
 Lincoln as the grand Prelude to his and the Na- 
 tion's coming World-historical deed. 
 
 But did Douglas remain wholly insensible to its 
 deep significance? Again and again he assailed 
 in the debate this Prelude, trying to divert it or 
 rather to pervert it to something else ; but he only 
 caused its repeated assertion by Lincoln with 
 fresh illustration and renewed energy. Did not 
 Douglas also secretly feel its power, as he sat there 
 on the stand near Lincoln re-iterating and enforcing 
 in exalted speech that preluding prophecy as the 
 very soul of the entire contest? We hold that he 
 could not altogether keep out of the magnetic 
 
PRELUDE OF THE UXCOLXIAD. 411 
 
 current of inspired conviction which animated the 
 speech and the form of his stalwart antagonist. 
 And then another and mightier phenomenon kept 
 recurring in the presence of Douglas. Standing 
 there on the prairie in the sun and looking up 
 into his face he witnessed the Folk-Soul itself 
 embodied in thousands and thousands, and 
 heard its tremendous response to Lincoln's 
 words, which it adopted as its own true ut- 
 terance then and there. Unforgetable must 
 that experience have been by the Little Giant, 
 for he could not help seeing the most unique 
 and transcendent fact of the whole campaign, if 
 not of the time. "What was that? He saw Lin- 
 coln in the very act of mediating the World-Spirit 
 with the Folk-Soul, and voicing the command of 
 the former to the latter, which thereby became 
 conscious of that command as its own deepest 
 purpose, and began to get ready to obey it at 
 any sacrifice. Douglas and his followers being 
 also present in the hidden but mighty stream, 
 could not help feeling the "irresistible Power" 
 which Lincoln had evoked, and which he also de- 
 scribed to his hearers already under its influence. 
 The Democratic opposition and its leader Douglas, 
 listening to the voice of Lincoln perchance un- 
 willingly, cannot avoid hearing the great new 
 behest of the Age, and they too quite uncon- 
 sciously, yea almost in spite of themselves, are 
 getting rea,dy to obey it at the call of this same 
 
412 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Lincoln, and even now are secretly aligning them- 
 selves under him for the other and mightier 
 conflict. 
 
 But that is not yet here, though on the way, 
 while the two Giants are at hand and have act- 
 ually begun their Nation-shaking encounter, which 
 must next be told. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Gigantomachia. 
 So in our modern prosaic day we are to witness 
 an actual Battle of Giants on the unelevated, 
 rather unpoetic prairie of Ilhnois. Two Giants, 
 the Little and the Big — so called in popular 
 phrase — are going to grapple with each other in an 
 Olympian v\Testle, not so much of brawn as of 
 brain. Strangely an old fable of the ages seems to 
 be new-born among an unmythical folk, and is to 
 be re-enacted with fresh life and in modern fash- 
 ion. Not now will the Giants war against the 
 Gods (as old Hesiod puts it) in the twilight of time; 
 the Gods are indeed dethroned, so that the Giants, 
 being two, have to fight each other for the divine 
 heritage. It is indeed a contest of endurance, yea 
 of physical endurance; but in its supreme scope 
 it is a contest of principles. Each of the Giants 
 is a voice calling to the People who are to choose 
 one of them as leader for the yet deeper and more 
 desperate struggle which is coming. The Folk- 
 Soul in the depths of its brooding may be con- 
 
GIGANTOMACHIA. 413 
 
 ceived as asking after each trial: Which of the 
 twain speaks to me the word of the age, of civiH- 
 zation, of Universal History — which is bringing 
 the message of the World-Spirit? The question 
 cannot be fully answered at once, not this year, nor 
 the next; but after two years' meditation the Folk- 
 Soul will be ready to say which of the two Illinois 
 Giants is its choice for leader. 
 
 Let it be noted at the start that Lincoln was 
 quite conscious of the vast audience which he was 
 addressing. Says he in the Quincy debate: "I 
 was aware when it was first agreed that Judge 
 Douglas and I were to have these seven joint dis- 
 cussions, that they were the successive acts of a 
 drama — perhaps I should say to be enacted not 
 merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the 
 face of a Nation, and to some extent by my rela- 
 tion to him and not from anything in myself, in 
 the face of the World." A drama he conceives it, 
 with two interlocutors playing the parts, which 
 have an interest and significance not only national 
 but world-historical. It is for this reason in the 
 main that he changes his style, largely leaving 
 out his anecdotal vein, his mimicry, his fantastic 
 humor. He was speaking more to readers than to 
 listeners; he knew that the vast majority of his 
 audience would quietly peruse the printed page 
 and weigh its propositions far beyond the peri- 
 phery of the spoken word, without the personal 
 charm of voice, manner, gesture. What he said 
 
414 ABRAHAM LIXCOLN—PART SECOND. 
 
 must stand the test of cold type and of colder rea- 
 son, a thousand miles away and more. He does 
 not propose, therefore, merely to entertain his 
 present hearers, and he will eliminate as far as 
 possible the local and transitory elements of the 
 contest, even if a good deal of the worthless slag 
 of the day's politics still lies imbedded among the 
 priceless gems of his oratory. 
 
 Lincoln is also aware of something stronger than 
 himself, which he simply voices, yea, stronger 
 than the People, whom it stirs up in a mighty agi- 
 tation, allowing no repose on the slavery ques- 
 tion. What is "that irresistible Power which, 
 for fifty years, has shaken the Government and 
 agitated the People," and which Douglas thinks 
 we can stop "by not talking about it?" But the 
 "Power irresistible" convulses to the center the 
 religious organization as well as the political; look 
 at the division in the churches on account of 
 slavery. It is verily "a mighty deep-seated Power 
 that somehow operates on the minds of men, ex- 
 citing and stirring them up in every avenue of 
 society." Mark that the People are in the clutch 
 of greater Power than themselves, which is giving 
 them no peace of mind. So Lincoln, catching a 
 glimpse of the World-Spirit, voices it to the Folk- 
 Soul in which it is instinctively working, and which 
 thus begins to become conscious of its new Workl- 
 historical vocation. Moreover, the People can 
 have no allayment from this awful fever of agita- 
 
GIGAXTOMACHIA. 415 
 
 tion till they can find repose in the belief of the 
 ultimate extinction of slavery. Such is Lincoln's 
 repeated statement of the remedy, which, however, 
 he thinks will be a good while in coming. And 
 there will be no war. Lincoln clearly discerns 
 "the irresistible Power," and sees its scope, but its 
 time and manner he does not foresee. Nor is it 
 necessary. The decree of the World-Spirit he cer- 
 tainly hears, and declares its irresistibility; place, 
 time, and circumstance cannot fail at its bidding. 
 We have already noted the irony of the World- 
 Spirit, when its opponents bring about the very 
 thing which they resist with all their might. Such 
 an ironical clement has been pointed out in the 
 Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which, forged 
 as a pro-slavery thunderbolt and ardently sup- 
 ported by the Southerners, turned out the greatest 
 anti-slavery measure that could be concocted. 
 Lincoln, in one of his best moods, gets a peep into 
 the irony inherent in the Popular Sovereignty of 
 Douglas, and then darts it with success into his 
 audience. After several good hits on the same 
 hne, he winds up: "I defy any man to make an 
 argument that will justify unfriendly legislation 
 [Douglas's scheme for nullifying that very Dred 
 Scott decision which he upholds] to deprive the 
 slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Ter- 
 ritory, that will not equally, in all its length, 
 breadth and thickness, furnish an argument for 
 nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law. Why, there is 
 
416 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 not such an Aholitionist in the nation as Douglas 
 after all." 
 
 These were the last words of Lincohi's last 
 speech in the joint debate with Douglas (at Alton, 
 October loth). It is very plain that he sees in 
 Douglas the unconscious instrument of the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, and chaffs him with telling humor 
 upon his contradictory attitude. There is no 
 doubt that Douglas feels the force of the thrust, 
 for he does not undertake to parry it except with 
 a little joke. He has been shown to be really the 
 groat nullifier of the Dred Scott decision through 
 his Popular Sovereignty. By the irony of the 
 World-Spirit he and his doctrine are made to do 
 the subtlest work of Abolitionism. He is a worse 
 enemy of Judge Taney than Lincoln, in spite of 
 his {protestations. Did he intend any such thing? 
 Certainly not at first ; but Douglas is by nature a 
 brcacher, a divider, a dualizer; such a character 
 primarily breaches itself. Now it is this inner 
 breach which Lincoln turns up to the light so 
 effectively. After the debate Douglas must have 
 understood himself much better; at least he must 
 have been made conscious of the doubleness of his 
 attitude.. 
 
 In fact, Douglas affirms the Double Nation as 
 the cardinal point of his political faith. "This 
 Republic can exist forever, divided into Free and 
 Slave States." This is directly opposite to Lin- 
 coln's doctrine, that the Nation cannot continue 
 
GIGANTOMACHIA. 417 
 
 to exist half slave and half free. There is no 
 doubt that the characters of the two men were 
 reflected in their doctrines. Douglas, we repeat, 
 was himself dual, being moulded by his long stay 
 at the Capital into an image of the Dual Union in 
 all its C(>ntradiction. But we have seen Lincoln 
 during his Subsidence working out of tlie national 
 -dualism into which he had been dipped through 
 his Congressional term at the Capftal. It must 
 not be forgotten, however, that both adversaries 
 are one in their devotion to the Union, though 
 each has a different way of making it perpetual. 
 The one says half-and-half ness forever; the other 
 says the contrary. Douglas says the great danger 
 to the Union is anti-slavery; Lincoln says it is 
 slavery. Still, let us mark the common institu- 
 tional substrate in both, for it will at last unite 
 even the antitypes. 
 
 If we look at the immediate purpose or motive 
 of the two contestants, we see, first of all, that 
 each was seeking to do to the other what the other 
 was seeking to do to him. Lincoln was trying to 
 keep Douglas from breaching the Republican party 
 and to widen the breach in the Democratic party; 
 while Douglas was skillfully exerting himself to 
 breach the Republicans and to hold together the 
 Democrats. Thus both endeavored to do the 
 same thing; to divide the enemy and not to let 
 the enemy divide him and his. The Republican 
 was the young party, still in a state of formation, 
 
 27 
 
418 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 which Douglas must somehow prevent ; the Demo- 
 cratic was the old party, rather in a state of disso- 
 lution, which Lincoln would encourage. But his 
 chief object was to thwart the great brcacherof par- 
 ties, Stephen A. Douglas, in the latter's present 
 attempt to cleave in twain the Republican party, 
 and to take a goodly share of it for himself. So 
 Lincoln now thrusts himself in between Douglas 
 and his object, at first tlogging his steps from place 
 to place, and then challenging him to a direct per- 
 sonal combat before the people. 
 
 It is this challenge which brings about the seven 
 joint debates, the seven personal combats of the 
 Gigantomachia. The report has come down that 
 Douglas did not wish to engage in it, and said so 
 privately. He was aware that he would make 
 Lincoln famous, declaring that "if he gets the best 
 of the debate — and I want to say he is the ablest 
 man the Republicans have got — I shall lose every- 
 thing and Lincoln will gain everything." Inter- 
 esting is this as another testimony to Douglas's 
 appreciation of Lincoln, who has been already 
 designated in public by him as "an amiable and 
 intelligent gentleman." But this private word 
 has no neutral tint; Douglas knew well the 
 strength of his adversary. The question comes up. 
 Did Lincoln have as true an appreciation of him? 
 Still Douglas could hardly refuse the challenge, 
 else the hard-fisted sons of the prairie would re- 
 gard him as backing out from the offer of a fair 
 
GIGANTOMACHIA. 419 
 
 fight. Then Douglas was naturally pugnacious 
 and rather liked a scrimmage, in which the little 
 fighting-cock would ruffle his feathers with an im- 
 posing audacity. Lincoln, Quaker-strained, did 
 not love contention, with one striking exception: 
 he did want to contend with Douglas. This is shown 
 by the way he followed Douglas around from 
 place to place, tackling the Little Giant as soon as 
 the latter touched the soil of Illinois. For Lin- 
 coln was at hand and sat on the platform when 
 Douglas, having reached home, made his preluding 
 speech in Chicago (July 9th, 1858). The next day 
 Lincoln answered it in the same city; he will not 
 permit Douglas even to start the breach of the 
 Republican party in Illinois without a hand-to- 
 hand fight at every point. So he follows Douglas 
 to Bloomington, and thence on to Springfield, 
 where the Little Giant speaks in the day time and 
 the Big Giant answers him the same evening (July 
 17th). Thus they keep getting closer to each 
 other. A week afterwards Lincoln sent his chal- 
 lenge for a joint debate, which opened at Ottawa 
 (August 21st). The otherwise peaceful Lincoln 
 has one foe with whom he will make no peace; 
 unrevenging generally he seems to have one ven- 
 geance; doubtless too he harbors in that kind- 
 hearted nature of his the one nook of jealousy. 
 
 This personal feeling spurred and intensified his 
 motive, but it was not, strictly speaking, his mo- 
 tive in the present debate. Lincoln sought to 
 
420 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 save the victorious party of the anti-slavery cause 
 from being disrupted by Douglas, who had already 
 made a very successful start in that enterprise, 
 as we have seen. To be sure Lincoln would have 
 liked the Senatorship, but that was uncertain, 
 very uncertain at the beginning of the canvas. 
 The prize of office he did not win, but the other 
 greater prize, "the bigger game" as he called it, he 
 won decidedly : he kept his party whole for future 
 service. The Presidency also may have hovered 
 before him, and it was suggested by friends; but be- 
 tween the two positions he preferred the Senator- 
 ship. The human mind usually works for a single 
 supreme object which we may call its motive; but 
 it has at the same time other, even if lesser mo- 
 tives. Ordinarily two motives have been assigned 
 to Lincoln in the present case: the Senatorship 
 and the Presidency. Let them both stand; but 
 we place above both the motive to prevent Doug- 
 las from dividing and thus destroying the new 
 Republican organization as the prime condition of 
 all future success over slavery. His whole plan of 
 attack is to discredit Douglas as an anti-slavery 
 leader, to breach the breacher's own doctrine, to 
 countermine the underminer. 
 
 To understand Lincoln at this time, we must 
 understand his leading motives in the order of 
 their influence. As already stated three stand out 
 prominently, and their gradation may be set down 
 as follows: 
 
GIGAXTOMACHIA. 421 
 
 1. To preserve the integrity of the Republican 
 organization against the attempted division of it 
 by Douglas. This was the chief object or motive 
 of Lincoln from now on till 1860. 
 
 2. Second in order of strength, but still very 
 powerful, was his wish for the Senatorship. But 
 this he had to sacrifice to a mightier Design. 
 
 3. Least was his desire for the Presidency, 
 though it was by no means absent. But he 
 shrank from the outlook upon its I'esponsibility, 
 with the South threatening disunion in case of the 
 election of a Republican President. He said he 
 was not fit for the office. Still this is just what 
 another Judge than himself thinks he is fit for, and 
 calls him. Lincoln hears the call, and, not with- 
 out some inner questioning, obeys a decree which 
 he must have felt to be imperative. After con- 
 siderable importunity from his friends, he finally 
 permits them to present his name to the Repub- 
 lican Convention. 
 
 As to the motives of Douglas, they seemingly 
 ran in inverse order to those of Lincoln. Twice if 
 not three times already Douglas had been a candi- 
 date for the Presidency before the National Con- 
 vention of his party. We have the right to think 
 that the chief magistracy was still the highest ob- 
 ject of his ambition. In fact this could not be 
 disguised. But as the winning of the Presi- 
 dency through his own party receded from his 
 grasp, he wished in the second place to be Senator 
 
422 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 again. Finally he hoped to make a division in the 
 opposing party, in order to accomplish his lofty 
 schemes. It was in this last purpose that he had 
 to meet Lincoln at every fighting point, who on 
 the whole foiled him of his prey. Besides its im- 
 portant matters, this debate contains a lot of 
 petty local and ephemeral stuff, which the reader 
 must learn to separate and to throw aside. A 
 great school for the people it is, who hear their 
 fundamental law, their Constitution, discussed by 
 the ablest exponents, and who are being prepared 
 for changing it when the time is ripe. 
 
 The battle of the Giants was really a prelimin- 
 ary contest for the Presidency, whatever may 
 have been the intentions of the combatants. Again 
 we behold that peculiar play of counterparts 
 which seemed to lurk in the destiny of these two 
 antitypal characters. Each was a winner and a 
 loser, but in opposite ways : Douglas won the im- 
 mediate but lost the final prize, while Lincoln lost 
 the immediate but won the final prize. It may be 
 said too that each would have rather had the 
 other's prize than his own; but they could not 
 exchange. That was indeed forbidden by a Power 
 over both, which has remanded each of the Giants 
 to his special, place for bringing forth its end in 
 the World's History. Such is verily the third 
 Giant, far mightier than the other two, who are 
 indeed but instruments in his colossal hand, and 
 are working harmoniously with him in their mu- 
 
THE BREACH ER BREACHED. 423 
 
 tiially antithetic careers. So the Little and the 
 Big Giants fight their battle to a finish on the 
 prairie with a vast outlay of the spoken word; 
 but over them the gathered people have caught 
 glimpses of the colossal form of the third Giant 
 directing the combats, allotting the victories and 
 then awarding the guerdons of the modern Gigan- 
 tomachia. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Breacher Breached. 
 
 Already in the first Debate at Ottawa, Douglas 
 began quizzing Lincoln, who answered his ques- 
 tions at the second place of meeting, Freeport. 
 Then Lincoln began in his turn quizzing Douglas, 
 and propounded four interrogatories, upon which 
 the essential principles of the contest pivoted. 
 Lincoln's plan of battle in these assaults upon his 
 cunning adversary was to prevent him from breach- 
 ing the Republican party, by making a breach 
 from several sides in the position of Douglas him- 
 self. The great breacher of parties was compelled 
 to swallow a dose of his own medicine, and a heavy 
 one too, which made him at times show show signs 
 of sickness. The result was that Douglas, having 
 at first taken the offensive, with no little flourish 
 of trumpets, was soon forced to the defensive 
 largely, which did not suit so well his native 
 pugnacity. The contradiction between the Dred 
 Scott decision and Popular Sovereignty was the 
 
424 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART SECOND. 
 
 gap in which Lincohi planted himself firmly, and 
 which he began to pry open wider and wider, with 
 crowbar and pick, till everybody saw thi-ough it, 
 in spite of Douglas's many shifty attempts to cover 
 it over, and to repel his assailant. 
 
 The most famous one of the four interrogatories 
 to which a fifth was afterwards added by Lincoln, 
 was the second, which ran thus: 
 
 '^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 Constitution?" 
 This presupposes the attitude of Douglas who 
 upheld the Dred Scott decision which affirmed that 
 neither Congress nor the loc^i legislature could 
 exclude slavery from the Territories. Such was 
 the supreme law of the land declared by its highest 
 court; now the problem is. How can Douglas, in 
 a Imofid way, get around the law to which he 
 acknowledges implicit obedience, blaming Lincoln 
 because the latter questions its constitutionality? 
 For in some way he must circumvent that decision 
 practically, if the people are going to exclude 
 slavery. 
 
 But let us hear the answer of Douglas: "In my 
 opinion the people of a Territory can, by lawful 
 means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to 
 the formation of a State Constitution. * * * 
 It matters not what the Supreme Court may here- 
 after decide as to the abstract question whether 
 
THE B RE AC HER BREACHED. 425 
 
 slavery may or may not go into a Territory under 
 the Constitution, the people have the right to 
 introduce it or exclude it as they please." Thus 
 Douglas makes a desperate straddle over the chasm 
 which Lincohi has caused to yawn between 
 Popular Sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. 
 He performs the extraordinary feat of showing how 
 to thwart the highest law lawfully. He tells how 
 the people of a Territory can disobey the Constitu- 
 tion constitutionally, which they ought always to 
 obey. Douglas tells also how this double self- 
 undoing act can be done. The Territory, through 
 "unfriendly legislation," can exclude slavery which 
 it has no power to exclude according to the Sup- 
 reme Court, though this Court is to be followed 
 without the least questioning. "Slavery cannot 
 exist an hour anywhere unless it is supported by 
 local police regulations," whose validity depends 
 on the territorial legislation which is thus para- 
 mount to Judge Taney's decision, which decision, 
 nevertheless, all legislators ought to obey uncon- 
 ditionally, in fact, are sworn to obey. 
 
 Such is the warring dualism in the position of 
 Douglas, or rather in the man himself, in his spirit. 
 For we cannot help thinking that he hokls his 
 doctrine to be true in all its doubleness. And this 
 must be grasped as the peculiar character of 
 Douglas at the present time : he has growii to be 
 a self-contradiction in his mental fibre, his very 
 conviction has become double as his doctrine; 
 
426 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 the breach is primarily within him, and must utter 
 itself, yea, reahze itself, outside of him. So we 
 name him during this epoch, the Breacher, the 
 cleaver of political parties, both of his own party 
 and of the opposite. There is no doubt that in this 
 inner self-division he deeply represents his time and 
 his nation. The Union itself we have already seen 
 to be twofold, self-conflicting, self-contradictory. 
 Douglas is, therefore, the typical character of the 
 decade between 1850-GO, truly its greatest states- 
 man. His doubleness, or we may say, his duplicity, 
 is not merely personal, but national. On the con- 
 trary there is a striking unity in Lincoln's character 
 and doctrine, though he too has had to pass through 
 his epoch of dualism, as we have already seen. And 
 in his personal unity he bears the type, yea, the 
 seed of the coming National unity, contrasting at 
 the deepest point with his great antitype, Douglas. 
 Now this breach not only in the doctrine but 
 also in the character of his advcrsaiy, Lincoln well 
 understood — he understood it all the better be- 
 cause he had passed through a similar state of 
 mind himself. But he had come out of it healed 
 and unified anew, and his experienced eye could 
 easily penetrate the dualism of Douglas as well 
 as that of the Nation. In fact, Douglas himself 
 both in his doctrine and in his very Ego, in his 
 consciousness, was a vivid example of Lincoln's 
 ''House divided against itself," and therein re- 
 sembled the dual Nation as it existed at that time. 
 
THE BEE AC HER BE EACH ED. 427 
 
 Hence Douglas, in fighting for his dual territorial 
 principle, was fighting for himself, yea, for his very 
 Self. And maintaining the permanence of the 
 dual Nation, he was maintaining his own perma- 
 nence. But the prophecy of Lincoln, "You can't 
 exist half,and half," holds good of Douglas himself 
 and of his doctrine, as well as of the Nation. 
 Lincoln's argument against Douglas might be 
 summarized, "You can't exist half Dred Scott and 
 half Popular Sovereignty." At this point es- 
 pecially, the whole Lincoln enters the half-and-half 
 Douglas and pries him open before the eyes of the 
 gazing Folk-Soul, exposing his doubleness, and 
 that of his doctrine, and it must be added, that of 
 the Nation. 
 
 But in spite of this triple layer of dualism in 
 Douglas, he nevertheless reaches down to unity 
 in the bed rock of his soul, which lies underneath 
 all his double tendencies. In this debate over and 
 over again he affirms the primacy of the Union. 
 One strong-hearted passage we may cite from his 
 Freeport speech: "Show me that it is my duty, 
 in order to save the Union, to do a particular act, 
 and I will do it if the Constitution does not prohibit 
 it. I am not for the dissolution of the Union under 
 any circumstances. I will pursue no course of 
 conduct that will give just cause for the dissolution 
 of the Union. The hope of the friends of freedom 
 throughout the world rests upon the perpetuity of 
 this Union." Douglas also feels that the Federal 
 
428 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART SECOND. 
 
 Union has not merely a national but a world- 
 historical mission. Therein he and Lincoln are 
 quite alike, and at this point they will come 
 together hereafter, when that deepest rift, Secession 
 makes its appearance. To be sm"e, Douglas, in 
 true accord with his present consciousness, holds 
 that the Union must still continue half-and-half, 
 as it has continued so long in the past. Herein is 
 the point at which he and Lincoln collide. 
 
 And now, in order to understand Douglas com- 
 pletely, we must reach down to the most obscure, 
 but probably the deepest breach in his soul, that 
 between his anti-slavery and pro-slavery strains. 
 A\liich was he — one or the other, neither or both? 
 Did not the great conflict of the Nation and the 
 Age reflect itself in some little nook of his con- 
 science underneath all his denunciation of aboli- 
 tionism and all his dislike of negro equality and all 
 his ambition to be President? We believe that it 
 did, even if with strong protest and suppression. 
 The moral question of the time lurks also in 
 Douglas, though seldom allowed it to rise into the 
 sunlight. Still it would escape now and then from 
 its silent inner prison, and make itself heard on 
 the outer air through his lips. Let us take this 
 confession from his Ottawa speech: "I do not 
 hold, because the negro is our inferior, that there- 
 fore he ought to be a slave. By no means can 
 such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. 
 On the contrary I hold that Humanity and Chris- 
 
THE BREACHER BREACHED. 42i) 
 
 tianity both require that the negro shall have and 
 enjoy every right, every privilege and every 
 immunity consistent with the safety of the society 
 in which he lives. On that point, I presume, there 
 can be no diversity of opinion.''' On that point, 
 then, Douglas declares his agreement with Lincoln 
 and the Republicans. In this passage he clearly 
 questions whether ''the negro ought to be a slave." 
 Such we may deem to be his own conscience in the 
 matter. But at once he draws the limit. Douglas 
 declares that the Virginian or Kentuckian has a 
 conscience as well as himself, and it permits slave- 
 holding, which thus becomes the Southerner's 
 right. Conscience is a purely individual matter, 
 making what is wi'ong in one })lace right in another. 
 " I hold that Illinois has a right to abolish and pro- 
 hibit slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky 
 has the same right to continue and protect slavery 
 that Illinois had to abolish it." The Ohio River 
 thus gets to be the demarcation between two wholly 
 contradictory rights. Ikit we are interested in find- 
 ing the real view of Douglas upon slavery. As he 
 lives in Illinois, what would his conscience say about 
 making it Slave-State? Says he, "We have settled 
 the slavery question as far as we are concerned; 
 we have prohibited it in Illinois forever; and in 
 doing so, I think we have done wisely, and there • 
 is no man in the State who would be more strenu- 
 ous in his opposition to the introduction of slavery 
 than I would." This is anti-slavery doctrine, and 
 
430 ABRAHAM LINCOLN^PART SECOND. 
 
 for Douglas rather decided. And we believe that 
 the foregoing statement gives a glimpse of his 
 inner personal conviction, usually not allowed to 
 peep out. But mark the hmit again! He will not 
 allow his Illinois conscience to cross the Mississippi 
 River into the State of Missouri; yea, he will not 
 even allow it to migrate into the Territory of 
 Kansas, and to affirm its own existence there in its 
 greatest struggle. I am anti-slavery for Illinois, 
 but for every coming new State, ''I don't care." 
 Such we may well deem the moral breach in the 
 very soul of Douglas. 
 
 Still we have to think that Douglas did not relish 
 slavery, and declined to be a slave-holder under 
 very tempting circumstances. So we interpret 
 his refusal of his father-in-law's present of a 
 Southern plantation with its slaves, even if a 
 political motive may also be assigned. (See pre- 
 ceding page 297). We have already expressed our 
 belief that it was this act which made him sus- 
 pected by the Southern oligarchy, and thus clouded 
 his Presidential outlook at the start, as far back as 
 1847. So Douglas had a little quiet nook of anti- 
 slavery conviction in h'is conscience, to which, we 
 believe, he kept faithful. Still it was remarkably 
 limited and unaggressive. If his neighbor chose 
 to be a slave-holder, he had nothing to say. His 
 conscience questioned whether a negro ought to be 
 a slave, but if somebody else made him a slave, his 
 conscience would never cry out against the act. 
 
THE BR E AC HER BREACHED. 431 
 
 And to a territory struggling to keep out slavery, 
 he could say, "I don't care." Lincoln repeatedly 
 challenges him to declare whether he thinks 
 slavery right or wTong, but cannot wring a direct 
 answer out of his silent conscience. Nevertheless, 
 Douglas indirectly lets enough drop to evidence 
 that for himself internally and even for his own 
 State, he is anti-slavery, but for the Nation and its 
 Territories he is not. He is half-and-half even in 
 his conscience as regards slavery, and honestly so, 
 we hold. This is the deep and at first implicit 
 moral breach in his soul which Lincoln digs up and 
 throws at him with startling effect. Thus Douglas 
 has an anti-slavery conviction within a given 
 boundary, within a kind of Mason and Dixon's 
 line, but outside of that line he has not, at least he 
 will not enforce it, will not affirm it, will not even 
 mention it unless compelled. Truly his conscience 
 has gotten double like the Nation itself, and thus 
 in a manner may be said to represent the Nation. 
 Lincoln, on the other hand, we must deem the 
 man with a unified conscience on this subject, 
 though he also has had to pass through a time of 
 dualism, which we have noted in his epoch of 
 Subsidence, and which has given him his deepest 
 experience. Douglas, listening to Lincoln's seven 
 speeches on the same stage, must have become 
 aware, partially at least, ot his own moral half-and- 
 halfness, of the contradiction In his own conscience. 
 And Douglas, hearhig the Folk-Soul there in his 
 
432 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 presence echo and re-echo back upon him in 
 Oceanic waves of applause Lincoln's words, could 
 not help feeling some faint intimation of the decree 
 of the World-Spirit, which Lincoln was voicing 
 in a kind of prophetic inspiration to the people, 
 as he re-iterated that you, this Nation, cannot 
 endure half slave and half free. And we may 
 conceive Douglas, usually quite prosaic but rapt 
 into a fantasy by the occasion, listening to an inner 
 voice, also prophetic, which whispers to him: 
 ''Douglas, this conscience of yours cannot endure 
 half free and half slave — free on this side, slave 
 over yonder; it must become all one thing." 
 
 Now this whispered forecast of Douglas con- 
 cerning Douglas, is it also marching towards 
 fulfilment? Is that inner divided house of his, 
 divided Hke the Nation, ever to become united, 
 united like the Nation? One thing is certain: 
 in the canvas of 1858, Douglas strongly, even 
 passionately affirms the Double Nation, and along 
 with this goes his own doubleness and self-contra- 
 diction, which Lincoln does not fail to make 
 apparent even to Douglas himself. \^ery deeply 
 has Lincoln breached him in his party, in his doc- 
 trine, and even in his own conscience, despite his 
 furious resistance. And as he is a man of brains, 
 he must be getting aware that in his own case as 
 well as that of the Nation, '' a House divided against 
 itself cannot stand." 
 
THE FREEPORT DOCTRINE. ^33 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Freeport Doctrine. 
 
 From these soul-stretching foresights and in- 
 sights pertaining to Douglas, we must come back 
 to a much-mooted historic question in reference to 
 his so-called Freeport doctrine. This was con- 
 tained in his answer to Lincoln's second interroga- 
 tory, both of which have been already quoted in 
 full length on a preceding page. In substance 
 Douglas declares that the people of a Territory can 
 legally exclude slavery, in spite of any 'decision of 
 the Supreme Court "on the abstract question 
 whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory 
 under the Constitution." 
 
 This Freeport answer of Douglas was picked up 
 by the newspapers and bruited all over the South 
 with hostile comment. The Administration perse- 
 cuted him and his supporters, using all its patron- 
 age to defeat his election. Still he held the rank- 
 and-file of his party in Illinois and in the North. 
 He had, therefore, to fight two armies, which other- 
 wise were totally opposite, as opposite as the two 
 causes of freedom and slavery. A valiant cham- 
 pion he showed himself with that wonderful power 
 of breaching his foes. The foregoing answer to 
 Lincoln's second question became known in history 
 as his Freeport doctrine, and is often supposed to 
 have gained him the Senatorship from Lincoln, but 
 to have lost him the Presidency to Lincoln. 
 
 28 
 
434 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Both these suppositions we believe to be incor- 
 rect. In the first place, Douglas was far stronger 
 with the people of Illinois when he opened the 
 campaign than when he closed it after a four 
 months' fight. There is little doubt that if the 
 election had been held on the 9th of July, when he 
 made his first speech at Chicago amid approval and 
 applause well-nigh universal, he would have car- 
 ried the State overwhelmingly. That which the 
 public then saw with an almost unanimous shout 
 of approbation was his course on the Lecompton 
 Constitution and the English bill, and Douglas did 
 not fail to keep this part of his record in the eye of 
 the people. But when he and Lincoln grappled, 
 he began to lose, and this loss continued till the 
 day of election, which gave Lincoln a slight ma- 
 jority, though Douglas became Senator. In fact, 
 just that was Lincoln's remarkable victory: he 
 unified and strengthened his party against the 
 grand breacher, Douglas, whose position he ef- 
 fectually breached in turn. 
 
 Still less correctly can it be said that Douglas 
 lost the Presidency through his Freeport doctrine 
 by causing the alienation of the South. The South 
 was already alienated from him, and had through 
 its leaders so said; as far as it was concerned, he 
 had already lost the Presidency, and both sides 
 recognized the fact. And Douglas had affirmed 
 the same doctrine repeatedly before he ever heard 
 that Freeport c|uestion of Lincoln. His first word 
 
THE FREEPORT DOCTRINE. 435 
 
 of reply is true: "Mr. Lincoln knew that I had 
 answered that question over and over again." 
 Of course Lincoln knew it, and knew it well, and 
 said so in a private letter of the time. But Lincoln 
 also knew that people did not yet understand the 
 contradiction between such a doctrine and the 
 Dred Scott decision which Douglas also supported. 
 The supreme motive of Lincoln in this second ques- 
 tion was to get the chance to breach Douglas and 
 to hold him up as breached before the whole world. 
 Particularly the wise men of the East, who had a 
 tendency to veer off to Douglasism, notably 
 Greeley, Wilson, Burlingame, and probably Sew- 
 ard for a time, might see the inherent nature of 
 what they were doing. Moreover this became the 
 ground-theme of Lincoln throughout all the rest 
 of the debates: namely, the self-devouring an- 
 tinomy between the two laws, that of the Supreme 
 Court and that of Popular Sovereignty with its 
 Territorial legislation. We repeat that the deepest 
 object of Lincoln was to show the breacher breached 
 — his two leading tenets being rent asvmder and 
 set against each other in their contradiction. 
 
 The prominence given by the South and the Ad- 
 ministration to the Freeport doctrine of Douglas 
 caused a number of stories to start and play about 
 Lincoln and his motives. It is said that his friends 
 at a private meeting tried to dissuade him from 
 presenting the question, crying in chorus: "If you 
 do, you will never be Senator." The ground for 
 
4.36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 such an inference seems to-day so flimsy that the 
 whole affair has been branded as fabulous. More, 
 over this meeting has aroused suspicion by being 
 reported at so many different places: at Dixon, 
 Mendota, Freeport, on a railroad train. Lincoln 
 probably did meet his friends in each locality that 
 he passed through, and sometimes he may have 
 read his questions, and somebody may have ob- 
 jected. Who blew the colossal bubble, inflating 
 some little meeting of local politicians with a vast 
 historical significance? Doubtless some news- 
 paper reporter full of self-importance who was 
 present; indications point to Joseph Medill, of 
 Chicago, as the magician who could make an ocean 
 of lather out of a pin-head of soap. 
 
 Lincoln's answer to some protester has become 
 historical, whatever be its origin: "I am after 
 larger game; the battle of 18G0 is worth a hundred 
 of this." The utterance is somewhat oracular, 
 and most writers have at once taken for granted 
 that Lincoln had already in mind the Presidency. 
 But his repeated later declaration was that he did 
 not deem himself fit to be President, and also that 
 he would rather have the Senatorship than the 
 Presidency. To our mind, the larger game to 
 which Lincoln covertly alludes is what has already 
 been given as his leading motive : to prevent Doug- 
 las from breaching the Republican forces, first in 
 Illinois and then in the Eastern States, where the 
 danger was greatest. The chief Republican lead- 
 
THE FREEPORT DOCTRINE. 437 
 
 ers in the East were either silent or had oi)enly 
 advised Lincohi and his friends to re-elect Douglas. 
 Here is what Lincoln thought of that policy : " Had 
 we followed the advice, there would now be no 
 Republican party in Illinois, and none to speak of 
 anywhere else." This was spoken the year after- 
 w^ards and gives a glimpse of Lincoln's deepest 
 motive in the campaign for Senatorship, even 
 though he strongly wished to be Senator, and must 
 at times have thought of the possibility of his be- 
 coming President of the United States. The three 
 stratified motives already indicated we must not 
 leave out of mind ; moreover, we should recall that 
 Lincoln was well aware not only of his vast seen 
 audience, but also of his far vaster unseen one, 
 embracing State and Nation, by means of the re- 
 ports in the newspapers; yea, it was, as he says, a 
 drama acted "to some extent in the face of the 
 World," and, it may be added, of the World's His- 
 tory. 
 
 Both Lincoln and Douglas early divined each 
 other's plan of battle. Already at Freeport each 
 amusingly charges the other with the design of 
 breaching the opposite party. Says Douglas: "I 
 know Mr. Lincoln's object: he wants to divide the 
 Democratic party in order that he may defeat me 
 and get to the Senate." Lincoln declares in his re- 
 joinder: 'Til tell you what the Judge is afraid of. 
 He is afraid we'll all pull together. This is what 
 alarms him more than anything else. For my 
 
438 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 part, I tlo liope that all of us, entertaining a com- 
 mon sentiment in opposition to what appears to 
 us a design to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, 
 will waive minor differences which either belong 
 to the dead past or the distant future, and all pull 
 together in this struggle." Douglas then has not 
 breached the Republican party in Illinois, what- 
 ever may have been his success in the East. Again 
 Lincoln says in the same debate: "His hope 
 rested on the idea of enlisting the great ' Black Re- 
 publican' party, and making it the tail of his new 
 kite." That was in Congress when he d^enounced 
 the Lecompton fraud and even voted against the 
 English bill. Now behold the change brought 
 about chiefly by Lincoln's breaching the breacher. 
 "But the Judge's eye is farther South now. Then 
 it was very peculiarly and decidedly North." Who 
 turned him around and made him face Southward 
 again, or perchance both ways in his double doc- 
 trine? That was the deed of the Big Giant, in 
 which he shows himself truly gigantic. 
 
 Such was Lincoln's famous second Freeport inter- 
 rogatory with the reply of Douglas, the latter caus- 
 ing such a thunderous detonation in the South 
 that many loud echoes rolled thence backward to 
 the North. One of these echoes was the factitious 
 importance, if not quite fictitious, of that meeting 
 of Lincoln's friends, urging him not to ask the 
 question. The truth is that certain conservative 
 friends of his were always opposing each step he 
 
THE FREEPORT DOCTRINE. 439 
 
 took in advance of them. How bitterly they con- 
 demned, according to Hcrndon and Lamon, his 
 grand Prelude concerning "the House divided 
 against itself!" He had learned to take his own 
 counsel, he must march to the front as leader, and 
 soon the rest would follow. Already the World- 
 Spirit was whispering to him its supreme behest, 
 and he could not listen to the petty cavils of small 
 politicians without defaulting his own destiny. 
 So in these days we behold Lincoln going straight 
 ahead and delivering his message, verijy world- 
 historical. 
 
 If the second interrogatory produced its chief 
 result in the South, the third one of the same Free- 
 port series was far more effective in the North. 
 In fact Lincoln evidently thought it the most im- 
 portant of all these questions, if we may judge 
 from the number of times in which he pressed it 
 directly upon his adversary or repeated its argu- 
 ment. Here it is: "If the Supreme Court of the 
 United States shall decide that States cannot ex- 
 clude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of 
 acquiescing in, adopting, and following such de- 
 cision as a rule of political action?" 
 
 The question gave Lincoln the opportunity to 
 drive home to his audience, both Republican and 
 Democratic: Are you ready to see Illinois made a 
 slave-State by a new Dred Scott decision? More- 
 over, Douglas does not directly answer the ques- 
 tion, declaring it to be absurd and an imputation 
 
440 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 upon the Supreme Court, and an attempt "to 
 destroy public confidence in the highest judicial 
 tribunal on earth." Still, his answer, if it means 
 anything, means his opposition to such a decision. 
 Really Douglas is again breached in his view of the 
 Supreme Court, by Lincoln, as he was before 
 breached in his Popular Sovereignty. Very im- 
 pressive rose Lincoln's eloquence upon this theme, 
 especially at Galesburg; he made the Folk-Soul 
 shiver at the outlook of slavery legalized in Illinois 
 by a fresh decree of Judge Taney. Not only 
 possible but probable was such a result, in case of 
 a Democratic Presidential victory; in fact, the 
 Dred Scott decision, as the first step, was far 
 harder to take than this second step would be. 
 
 Lincoln's party obtained a majority of nearly 
 4,000 over Douglas in a Northern State which had 
 voted for Buchanan two years before. The man 
 who could do that showed himself the available 
 candidate for the coming Presidency. Seward 
 certainly could not have done it. Lincoln had 
 prevented the breaching of his party, had rallied it 
 around himself, and had brought it to say in 
 thousandfold chorus with himself: This nation 
 cannot endure half slave and half free. Such was 
 his great victory, though he had lost the Senator- 
 ship through hold-over members of the State Legis- 
 lature, and through an unfair, or rather outgrown, 
 apportionment. Lincoln was aware that he had 
 delivered a great message. In a private letter he 
 
OUTSIDE THE STATE. 441 
 
 writes a few days after the election: ''I am glad I 
 made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the 
 great and durable question of the age, which I would 
 have had in no other way. * * * j believe I 
 have made some marks which will tell for the cause 
 of civil liberty long after I am gone." It may be 
 said that he has proclaimed the evangel of the 
 time, voicing the World-Spirit to the Folk-Soul. 
 He has uttered the culminating word of the Lincoln- 
 Douglas sexennium. From all directions echoes 
 begin to sound back to him of the great deed he 
 has done, with implorations for help. The cry is : 
 Come to us and repeat your Illinois work ; we have 
 the same diabolic malady here which you have cast 
 out there; come and help us, in the name of the 
 Lord ! So Lincoln has to buckle on his armor again 
 and set out on a much longer march, nothing less 
 than the circuit of the entire free North from East 
 to West. 
 
 X. 
 
 Outside the State. 
 
 Again Lincoln is to nationalize himself, but not 
 by going as Senator to the Capital. Once he went 
 thither as Representative, and was dualized 
 thereby so deeply that he sank down into his 
 long Subsidence. Then he, a supporter of the 
 Wilmot Proviso in favor of excluding slavery from 
 the territories, campaigned the North-Easterxi 
 States for the Whig party which tramjjled ui)oii 
 
442 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 the Proviso. But now he goes from the Ilhno;? 
 Capital to the same North-Easteni States a uni- 
 fied Abraham Lincohi, and with a unified party 
 back of him; yea it may be said, that he having 
 unified himself out of his own dualism, has done 
 the same for his party — the pivotal deed of uni- 
 fying it against the arch-breacher of parties, 
 Douglas. That was really the great and lasting 
 victory won by him in the Battle of the Giants 
 recently fought upon the prairies. 
 
 At once that deed began to be recognized in its 
 true bearing throughout the North, and in the 
 South too. A friend compared him to Byron, 
 who said that he awoke one morning and found 
 himself famous. The epochal man had arisen, 
 and the People began to see his outlines, and to 
 call for him everywhere. His doctrine in regard 
 to the restriction of slavery was not new; it hp.,d 
 been already embodied in the Republican plat- 
 form of 1856. But the real crisis was the scission 
 which Douglas was producing in the anti-slavery 
 ranks, especially of the East. And now steps 
 forth the man of the hour, out of the dark almost, 
 and puts himself right into the breach of the Ti- 
 tanic party-splitter in the latter's own home. 
 Douglas indeed gets back to the Senate, but Lin- 
 coln consolidates and unifies his party as never 
 before, carrying with him a greater number of his 
 State's voters than his opponent, though not quite 
 a majority of the total vote. 
 
OUTSIDE THE STATE. 443 
 
 Soon from every point of the horizon voices 
 begin to float into Lincohi's retirement at Spring- 
 field : Will you not help lis do in our State what 
 you have done in yours — Douglasism is breaching 
 the party here too. Out of the many calls Lin- 
 coln had to make a selection. Evidently with 
 design he chose four localities in which he mig'it 
 well think his presence to be most needed — two in 
 the new States (West) and two in the old (East). 
 These we may mention in chronological order, all 
 of these visits occurring in the period from autumn 
 1859 to spring 1860. 
 
 1 Ohio. Douglas had already made a speech in 
 Columbus a little while before the advent of Lin- 
 coln, who was ever ready to pursue his antagonist 
 over the whole country, as he did in Illinois. 
 Thus the contest was getting transferred beyond 
 the border of their State. Lincoln's speech at Co- 
 lumbus largely repeated his former arguments 
 against Douglas. But we see the chief design of 
 the orator in his warning to the Ohioans: ''the 
 most imminent danger that threatens that purpose," 
 namely the purpose of the Republican party in re- 
 stricting slavery "is that insidious Douglas Popular 
 Sovereignty. That is the miner and the sapper,^' 
 whose aim is to undermine and thus breach the Re- 
 publican organization. It seeks to do this primarily 
 by debauching public sentiment with an indiffer- 
 ence to slavery. Its principle is "that if one man 
 chooses to make a slave of the other man, neither 
 
444 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 that other man nor anybody else has a right to 
 object." Thus the Free-States are being made 
 ready for a universal slave code, and for the na- 
 tionalizing of slavery. Such is the effect of that 
 insidious "I don't care" of Douglas, ''the miner 
 and the sapper" of our party. Lincoln also takes 
 a tilt at the history of Popular Sovereignty as set 
 forth in the recent magazine article of Douglas — a 
 subject which he will investigate more fully for 
 his later Cooper Institute speech. Note too that 
 keen thrust into character: "He, Douglas, is so 
 put U]) by nature that a lash upon his back would 
 hurt him, but a lash upon anybody else's back 
 would not hurt him." 
 
 Interesting is the fact that Lincoln now gets in 
 Columbus a publisher for his speeches and those of 
 Douglas in the great Debate. The book was cir- 
 culated by the Republican Committee as a cam- 
 paign document for the fall elections, and three 
 large editions were sold directly to the public. 
 Already in Springfield Lincoln had sought to in- 
 duce a publisher to take hold of the work, but 
 without success. To-day, after half a century, it 
 has become a kind of political Folk-Book, speaking 
 as none other of the kind to the American People. 
 . The next day (September 17th) Lincoln went to 
 Cincinnati and there matle a speech. He gave it 
 a new turn by transforming it into an ironical 
 address to the Kentuckians across the Ohio river 
 in favor of Douglas. Somebody in the audience 
 
OUTSIDE THE STATE. 445 
 
 cried out: Speak to Ohio men and not to Ken- 
 tiickians. Really, however, he was speaking to 
 Ohio men and showing them in this indirect way 
 that Douglas was secretly supporting the Southern 
 view, here represented by Kentuckians, and that 
 these ought to favor him for the Presidency, as a 
 number of their leading men had urged his elec- 
 tion to the Scnatorship instead of Lincoln. The 
 ii'ony brings out strongly what Lincoln deemed 
 the insidious method of Douglas. 
 
 We see that Lincoln strives to keep the Repub- 
 lican party on institutional lines, and thus to 
 unite all anti-slavery men upon the one supreme 
 question. The Ohio Republican Convention had 
 called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, 
 which would ''utterly overwhelm us in Illinois 
 with the charge of enmity to the Constitution 
 itself," for it would alienate ''many good men 
 sincerely opposed to slavery," yet adhering to 
 the Constitution. Such a plank should by all 
 means "be kept out of our National Convention" 
 of 18G0, and it was. (Works I., pp. 53G, 537). 
 Then Kansas with all her Free-Stateism leans de- 
 cidedly to the Popular Sovereignty of Douglas 
 "who is the most dangerous enemy of liberty, be- 
 cause the most insidious one." So Lincoln is off 
 for Kafisas next, which needs some elevation of 
 its individual cause into a universal principle. 
 
 2 Kansas. The people whose conflict compelled 
 the birth of the Republican party, Lincoln must 
 
446 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 see and address. Having received an invitation, 
 he sets out for that still debatable land and makes 
 quite a little campaign through its towns in De- 
 cember, 1859. There was no election for public 
 officers at stake, as Kansas was still a territory. 
 But the strange fact that Kansas was a strong- 
 hold of Douglas Democracy lured Lincoln to that 
 epoch-turning borderland. For a majority of the 
 fighting Free-State men of Kansas had always 
 been and were undoubtedly still Democrats and 
 not Republicans. The Popular Sovereignty of 
 Douglas appealed mightily to these hard-fisted, 
 self-reliant frontiersmen. This fact which seems 
 so incredible at present, was known to Lincoln, 
 who ]Drobably said to himself on receiving the in- 
 vitation: ''There in that new country I think I 
 can do a little missionary work," and started off. 
 Moreover the rupture of Douglas with his own 
 National Administration had been on account of 
 free Kansas. Then he had recently voted against 
 the English bill with its attempt to bribe the 
 Kansans into accepting the Lccompton Constitu- 
 tion — an act of Doug'as very popular in Kansas 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 So Lincoln resolves to attack this newest fortress 
 of Douglasism. Primarily he would dwell upon 
 the Douglas doctrine of imhfference : 'T don't care 
 whether slavery is voted up or down in Kansas" — 
 so Douglas had said dozens of times. But these 
 hardy Free-State men, though Democrats, did 
 
OUTSIDE THE STATE. 447 
 
 care for just that before anything else in the 
 world, having risked their lives for years in de- 
 fense of Free-Stateism. And now before them 
 stood the man who had fought their battle in 
 Illinois against Douglas in person — and this man 
 did care and so did his party. There is little 
 doubt that many a Kansas Free-State Democrat 
 concluded to vote with the friends of his cause 
 henceforth. 
 
 Only a few random jottings of Lincoln's ad- 
 dresses in Kansas have been preserved. (See Lin- 
 coln's Works by Nicolay & Hay, I. 585). From 
 these we catch his theme: ''the insidious Douglas 
 popular sovereignty" which is undermining our 
 own party, and thus is getting rid of the sole op- 
 position to "a Congressional slave-code for the 
 Territories, and the revival of the African slave- 
 trade, and a second Dred Scott decision" making 
 slavery legal in every Free-State of the Union. 
 To be sure these last dangers are not yet immi- 
 nent, but when Douglasism has sapped the con- 
 viction that slavery is wrong, they will appear, 
 and there will be no organized party to resist 
 them. Such was the thought which in these days 
 Lincoln kept brooding over and repeating in his 
 speeches, with many a forewarning against the 
 dark and tlevious subterranean "sapper and 
 miner." 
 
 3. New York. Of course Lincoln must go to 
 the Old States of the North-East, chief seat of the 
 
448 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 Republican defection to Douglas, who had actu- 
 ally breached the anti-slavery party there, to the 
 serious injury of Lincoln in his battle with Douglas 
 for the Senatorship. Very gratifying was the in- 
 vitation from New York City to deliver a political 
 address, which took place at Cooper Institute, 
 February 27, 1860, and is often said to have been 
 the chief influence in getting Lincoln nominated 
 for the Presidency a few months later. 
 
 Naturally the argument of the speech is directed 
 against Douglas, who, in his recent trend, had 
 sought to show that "our Fathers when they 
 framcnl the Government under which we live, un- 
 derstood this question just as well, and even l^et- 
 ter, than we do now," and really were the first 
 upholders and ]3romulgators of Popular Sov- 
 ereignty. This argument was adjusted to the 
 East, where the Fathers ''once lived and did their 
 work, and where the old transmitted order had a 
 more powerful hold than in the West, which could 
 l^oast of no such history. Douglasism, instead of 
 originating with the Nicholson letter of General 
 Cass in 1848, was now claimed to be as old as the 
 Constitution itself, if not older, according to the 
 Harper Magazine article of Douglas. So the Little 
 Giant, hitherto the champion of the new States, 
 began to appeal to the conservative and tradi- 
 tional sentiment of the old States in favor of his 
 doctrine, and thus to widen the breach in the Re- 
 publican party. But again Lincoln meets him at 
 
OUTSIDE THE STATE. '449 
 
 his chosen point and overwhehiis him so com- 
 pletely that the Eastern rent begins then and there 
 to vanish, even Greeley's Tribune printing next 
 day Lincoln's speech in full and saying that "no 
 man ever before made such an impression on his 
 first appeal to a New York audience." Thus Lin- 
 coln unmasked that new historic pretence of 
 Douglas, and at the same time far surpassed him 
 in flattering indirectly the New Yorkers and East- 
 erners generally as the descendants of "the 
 Fathers" who had repeatedly sought through na- 
 tional legislation to keep slavery out of the terri- 
 tories. 
 
 The real underlying motive of Lincoln, however, 
 in going to New York, was not to make a speech 
 proving that "the Fathers" were Lincolnites in- 
 stead of Douglasites, but to heal that very serious 
 Eastern breach in the Republican party. We 
 read in his Kansas jottings: "Last year we Repub- 
 licans in Illinois were advised by numerous and 
 respectable outsiders to re-elect Douglas to the 
 Senate by our votes," and thereby "advance our 
 principles by supporting men who oppose our 
 principles." Such was the strong exhortation 
 coming to him out of the East. "Had we followed 
 the advice, there would he now no Repuhlican party 
 in Illinois, and none to speak of anywhere else." 
 Here Lincoln declares the real victory won in his 
 conflict with Douglas: the integrity of the Repub- 
 lican party. He continues: "True, Douglas is 
 
 29 
 
450 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 back in the Senate in spite of us, but we are clear 
 of him and his principles, and we are uncrippled 
 and ready to fight him and them straight along" 
 to the end. These statements are very important 
 as giving Lincoln's view of real stake in the Illinois 
 battle. In his Cincinnati speech he alluded to 
 the "three or four very distinguished men of the 
 most extreme anti-slavery views of any men in the 
 Republican party" who favored the re-election of 
 Douglas to the Senate, so wonderful was the 
 latter's "power of doing what would seem to be 
 impossible." The deepest fact of the Cooper In- 
 stitute speech was that Lincoln went to the East 
 and threw himself into the worst breach that 
 Douglas had made in the Republican party, com- 
 pletely triumphing over the insidious "sapper and 
 miner." His speech was great, but far greater 
 was his deed, for this was what showed his leader- 
 ship — a fact which began to dawn even upon the 
 "Wise Men of the East." 
 
 4. Neio England. From New York Lincoln 
 thought he would run over and see his boy Bob, 
 who was going to school at an Eastern acad- 
 emy. Wherever he went, the man who had 
 breached the breacher Douglas was called on for a 
 speech. What he said in most cases has not come 
 down, but there is no doul3t that he overflowed 
 with his dominating theme at this time — "that 
 insidious Douglas Popular Sovereignty." Still there 
 seems to have been in his remarks some slight ad- 
 
OUTSIDE THE STATE. 4.51 
 
 justment to the locality. New England did not 
 much need to be lectured to on Anti-slaveryism ; 
 her Unionism was her weak spot and had been 
 since the Embargo. But Lincoln's devotion to 
 the Union lay deeper than even his hostility to 
 slavery, as he afterwards showetl and said when 
 President. Some of his remarks while in Connect- 
 icut have been preserved (see Works, I., pp. 613- 
 631) ; it is evident that he took occasion to empha- 
 size that "John Brown was not a Republican." 
 In this way he could indirectly touch upon New 
 England's tendency to John-Brownism. Her most 
 famous literary men and philosophers had hero- 
 ized the old Puritan by his deed and death at Har- 
 per's Ferry, and in some instances had quite 
 deified him, regarding him as ''the new Christ." 
 That was not the view of Lincoln, whose war upon 
 slavery was to be in accord with Law and Consti- 
 tution. 
 
 So Lincoln goes the round of the Northern 
 States from the extreme East to the extreme 
 West, making himself truly a national man, even 
 if he was excluded from the South. His great ob- 
 ject was to preserve the integrity of his political 
 party in the rest of the Free-States as he had pre- 
 served it in Illinois, against Douglasism. Hence 
 he is seen chiefly counter-mining "the sapper and 
 miner," breaching the furious demonic breacher 
 of all political i)arties of the time, Douglas, who 
 cleft his own party in twain, and tried to cleave 
 
452 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 the Republican party. But he was met, halted, 
 and breached in turn by Lincoln, who has thus 
 shown himself the towering champion of tlie com- 
 ing issue before the whole country. And tlic tria^ 
 of this issue is not distant. When Lincoln reaches 
 home in Springfield, the Presidential year of 1860 
 is considerably advancetl; in a few months the 
 nominations of both parties for the chief magis- 
 tracy of the Nation must be made, and then 
 comes the most important and exciting canvas 
 ever witnessed in this country. Who are the men 
 supereminent as leaders? 
 
 XI. 
 
 Lincoln, Douglas, Seward. 
 
 These are the three men who at this time are 
 very generally spoken of as the national candidates 
 for the Presidency ; othcn- candidates apjjear rela- 
 tively local. The first noteworthy fact is that 
 they are all from the North, which seems at 
 ]3resent to be producing the greatest statesmen 
 What has brought about the marked change fron. 
 the beginning of the government when the South 
 furnished the leading public men, and ruled the 
 country? Nothing is more remarkable during the 
 Civil War than the inadequacy of Southern states- 
 manship and the excellence of Soutl>ern soldier 
 ship. This fact we must put together with the 
 
LINCOLN, DOUGLAS, SEWARD. 453 
 
 other fact that the greatest statesman of the 
 North, Lincohi, was a native Southerner, and 
 many of his most important advisers were either 
 born in the South or of Southern extraction. It 
 looks as if the old Virginia statesmanship had also 
 gone with the stream of migration into the free 
 North-West, especially after it became manifest 
 that emancipation had stopped its course south- 
 ward permanently at Mason and Dixon's line. In 
 fact one may well think that if Washington, Jef- 
 ferson and Marshall had been young men starting 
 in life about 1820-30, they would all, with their 
 well-known views on slaver}', have made a push for 
 one of the new Free-States north of the Ohio river, 
 as did thousands upon thousands of their fellow- 
 citizens from Maryland, Virginia and even North 
 Carolina. Lincoln's political genealogy goes back 
 to Virginia even more decisively than his physical 
 descent from grandfather Abraham Lincoln of 
 Rockingham county. But at j^resent there is no 
 Virginia statesman, no Southern statesman spoken 
 of for the Presidency; Lincoln is the only South- 
 erner who has any chance of nomination and 
 election, and the South is almost unanimous 
 against him, her greatest son since Washington. 
 That ought to have given her some food for reflec- 
 tion even in the hot passionate days of 1858-GO, 
 before his full supremacy had manifested itself. 
 The wonderful gift of Virginia political leadership 
 had migrated to the Western Free-States where it 
 
454 ABRAHAM LINCOLN^PART SECOND 
 
 had organized the North on institutional lines 
 agaiast the extension of slavery. 
 
 At the same time it should be observed that not 
 every portion of the North has been able to bi'ing 
 forth Presidents. In New England, Presidential 
 timber will not grow since the Civil War, doubt- 
 less for a good reason, or rather for two good rea- 
 sons, an external and internal. The Republican 
 party once tried to break this rule, to its cost. 
 Equally certain is it that no Presidential tree has 
 ever yet come from the vast aspiring forests west 
 of the Mississippi. The Democratic party has de- 
 fied this rule more than once, to its disaster. The 
 Slave-States saw their last Chief Magistrate disap- 
 pear at the death of Taylor, with the exception of 
 his Accidency, Andy Johnson. East of the Hud- 
 son, south of the Ohio, west of the Mississippi, a 
 President has not grown in the last fifty years. 
 New England and the South, not sympathetic on 
 many points, can heartily join in the common ex- 
 ecration of this peculiar political law, stronger 
 than any enactment, which excludes both from 
 the highest office in the land with more potency 
 than if they had been disfranchised by a clause of 
 the Constitution of the United States, for this can 
 be gotten at and repealed. The young West can 
 be more serene, for its chance is probably coming, 
 though not yet arrived by any means. The belt 
 of Presidential timber, accordingly, extends from 
 New York to Ohio, to which Indiana and Illinois 
 
LINCOLN, DOUGLAS SEWARD. 455 
 
 are to I30 added, skipping Pennsylvania, which 
 seems to have exhausted itself in producing James 
 Buchanan, the weakest Executive the country 
 ever had, so that it cannot even be persuaded to 
 cull another sample from that State. With the 
 coming of the new order, this new adjustment of 
 the sources of our Presidents takes place, giving 
 a complete monopoly of them to four States of 
 the Union, indeed almost to two of these States, 
 New York and Ohio. Meanwhile the rest of the 
 Commonwealths, forty and more, are standing 
 in a kind of ring around this political game, 
 looking at it and even sharing in it with wonder 
 at the secret machinery. 
 
 Now the foregoing Presidential see-saw between 
 the East and the West, between the Hudson and 
 the Mississippi, begins to show itself in 1858-GO, 
 when Lincoln and Douglas of Illinois, and Seward 
 of New York, loom up as the leading candidates 
 for the Presidency, with some mention of two Ohio 
 men, Chase and M'Lean. And that see-saw has 
 been going on ever since uj) to the present year 
 (1908). 
 
 The political contest between Douglas and Lin- 
 coln has been already dwelt upon : the one repre- 
 sents the perpetuity of the Dual Union (a contra- 
 diction in itself by the way), and the other repre- 
 sents that dualism overcome and harmonized into 
 a new unity and Union. But how about Seward, 
 belonging to the old Free-States of the North-East, 
 
456 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 and also an anti-slavery man and a Republican? 
 The fact must be confessed that Seward is as 
 deeply dualized as Douglas, though in a different 
 way. He has proclaimed the Higher Law of the 
 individual conscience as paramount to the Enacted 
 Law ; yet he is a member of the supreme law-mak- 
 ing body of the land, and has in such capacity 
 taken the oath to obey the Constitution of the 
 United States. Lincoln always kept clear of that 
 antinomy, though he knew it well. Again, Sew- 
 ard has entangled himself in a similar contradic- 
 tion over the Fugitive Slave Law, into which 
 clash Lincoln took great care not to fall. But the 
 most famous statement of Seward is the "irre- 
 pressible conflict" alluded to already; says he in 
 his Rochester speech, "the two systems of labor 
 are more than incongruous, they are incompati- 
 ble," and produce "an irrepressible conflict be- 
 tween opposing forces, and it means that the 
 United States must and will, sooner or later, be- 
 come either entirely a slave-holding nation or en- 
 tirely a free-labor nation." This is the same as 
 Lincoln's "it must become all one thing or all the 
 other." Very significant in grasping Seward's 
 character is his criticism of the great Compromises 
 (same s]:)eech): "It is the failure to apprehend 
 this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful 
 attempts at final compromise between the Slave- 
 States and the Free-States, and it is the existence 
 of this great fact that renders all such pretended 
 
LIXCOLX, DOUGLAS, SEWARD. 457 
 
 compromises when made, vain and ephemeral." 
 Such is Seward, the man of theory, and unques- 
 tionably he sees the truth with that keen dia^ 
 lectical intellect of his. But who could have be- 
 lieved that when it comes to the test of action, 
 Seward will turn out the greatest compromiser 
 known to American History? In 1860, after his 
 party's victory, he is ready to throw it away in a 
 compromise between the Slave-States and the 
 Free-States, between which he had declared all 
 compromise to be 'S'ain and ephemeral." Herein 
 Lincoln is again the corrective, who forbade ex- 
 plicitly any compromise on "the slavery question 
 as regards the territories. 
 
 Compared to the imicr unity of Lincoln, Seward 
 is deeply dual and self-contradictory; he, too, has 
 never had that pivotal personal experience of un- 
 folding out of the Double Nation, such as we saw 
 Lincoln getting in the time of his Subsidence. 
 This is one reason why we are inclined to think 
 that Seward's "irrepressible conflict" was really a 
 repetition, an Eastern echo of Lincoln's Prelude 
 spoken s(>veral months before. That utterance of 
 Seward could never have si)rung from the long but 
 character-making wrestle of the spirit through 
 which we have seen Lincoln passing in a kind of 
 Purgatorial discipline. Out of his soul's agony, 
 we have to think, rose his intense conviction that 
 this Nation can no longer (>xist as it has hitherto 
 existed — half-slave and half-free. Seward utterec 
 
458 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 the same principle, but it had never been wrought 
 over into the innermost fibre of his pohtical faith, 
 for he could abandon it too easily and compromise 
 it away too readily. Seward, the anti-slavery 
 orator, declaimed one thing; Seward, the practical 
 statesman, acted, or was ready to act, another 
 thing. That could not be said of Lincoln, concilia- 
 tory as he was on many points. 
 
 In the deepest sense, therefore, Lincoln was a 
 fitter man for the Presidency than Seward — a fact 
 which time will strikingly confirm. Seward, we 
 repeat, was as profoundly dual as Douglas, who^ 
 both in theory and practice, clung to the Double 
 Nation. But Seward in theory declared its coming 
 unity, while in practice he would perpetuate its 
 duality. To the Folk-Soul the problem roused by 
 the Fugitive Slave Law was: Shall I obey Con- 
 science or the Constitution? Seward's word was: 
 Obey Conscience, the Higher Law; but Seward's 
 deed was : Obey the Enacted Law and follow the 
 Constitution. Such a man cannot be the leader in 
 the grand crisis of the Nation, with that chasm 
 between his word and his deed ; he cannot be the 
 executor of the World-Spirit, whose decree, even 
 if he hears it, he is unable to carry out. Still 
 Seward is a very important man of the time. 
 With his learning, his long experience in public 
 life, his hold on a large following, his gift of 
 rhetorical utterance and his unusual dialectical 
 skill, he will be an indispensable instrument when 
 
LINCOLN, DOUGLAS, SEWARD. 459 
 
 guided by Lincoln, whose deficiencies are, on many 
 points, covered by Seward. 
 
 Such are the three towering individuahties of the 
 time, one of whom has to be leader in the ap- 
 proaching crisis. It is Lincoln who harmonizes 
 most completely within himself the moral and the 
 institutional elements in their bitter collision over 
 the slavery question. With Seward and Douglas 
 it is one or the other, though in opposite ways; 
 with Lincoln it is both, each concordant and co- 
 operant with the other. And the People must 
 have both these elements or perish; neither is to 
 suppress the other in its rightful sphere; both 
 belong to the one complete process of the individual 
 soul and of the Folk-Soul. Lincoln preserved and 
 harmonized, both the institutional and moral ele- 
 ments, as far as was possible in that time of their 
 strifeful antagonism. For this reason it may be 
 said that he reflected in his own soul the deepest 
 need and aspiration of the Folk-Soul, which did 
 not fail to take him as the best representative of 
 what was best in itself, when it had found him 
 out. He was, therefore, the synthesis of and over 
 both Seward and Douglas in the one supreme 
 matter of the time, though these two statesmen 
 possessed other great talents and accomplishments 
 to which Lincoln could not and did not lay any 
 claim. 
 
460 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Political Year I860. 
 
 Fuller of politics than any other year of our his- 
 tory was 1860. There was a very general pre- 
 sentiment of the coming conflict, and many people, 
 though by no means all, began to align themselves. 
 All over the South was heard the ominous cry: 
 If a Republican is elected President, we shall dis- 
 solve the Union. Necessarily the thinking men 
 in the North began asking themselves, What then? 
 But the answer was seldom forthcoming; the idea 
 of civil war was shocking, and the problem re- 
 mained unsolved. Still, the discjuieting question 
 was ever present, and kept the popular mind agi- 
 tated with surmises, and busied with interrogations 
 about matters of deepest national consequence. 
 
 For the deepest rift in the Nation, the dissolu- 
 tion of the Union, has actually begim to yawn the 
 whole length of Mason and Dixon's line, and the 
 people on both sides are ranged along the edges 
 looking into the dark abyss and trying in vain to 
 see the bottom. The Folk-Soul of the North has 
 finally concluded that there shall be no more Slave- 
 States; both Northern parties practically reach 
 that same end, though in different ways. But the 
 South is getting ready to refuse any such limitation 
 put upon her State-producing power and to vindi- 
 cate what she deems her right, even at the point of 
 the sword, if necessary. 
 
THE POLITICAL YRAR 1860. 461 
 
 Very important becomes the attitude of Douglas 
 in this conflict. He is the mediatorial element 
 between North and South, if there be any media- 
 tion possible. He would build a kind of bridge 
 over the gaping chasm between the two sections. 
 No moral objection to slavery stands in his path; 
 he would permit more Slave-States if the people 
 of the Territories voted that way; but if not, the 
 Free-State must come in. The Southerners, how- 
 ever, declare that their slave property must be 
 protected in the Territories like any other property, 
 by the national Congress or Judiciary; while the 
 Republicans maintain that slavery must be ex- 
 cluded from the Territories by Congressional 
 enactment. Both the extremes in the North and 
 in the South are at one in requiring the central 
 government at Washington to determine the ques- 
 tion, but Douglas hands it over to the people of 
 the Territories — which method satisfies neither of 
 the other parties. Both of these are agreed that 
 the Nation must be productive of Free-States or of 
 each sort; Douglas would evade this problem as 
 national, and make it local and territorial. But 
 the World-Spirit is calling for the decision from the 
 Nation, and he also will soon have to take one 
 side or the other, his own standpoint being swal- 
 lowed up in the deeper problem. 
 
 Which side will he take with his vast influence? 
 For it will have to be acknowledged that at this 
 moment Douglas wields a mightier personal influ- 
 
462 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 ence than any other man in America. One can 
 think that the great brcacher may })ossibly be 
 ready in the heat of conflict to carry his breach to 
 the final outcome in the chvision of the Nation 
 itself. But no! not the Union will he touch; at 
 that point he draws unswervingly the line. He 
 will breach a political party, his own and that of 
 his antagonists, if he can; but he will not breach 
 his country. He is, at "bottom, an institutional 
 man; this we have always seen and declared of 
 him from the beginning. And now he starts to 
 pass out of his breaching period; he will take his 
 last stand against the attempt of Jefferson Davis 
 and others to breach the Union. 
 
 The Democratic Convention, which was to nomi- 
 nate a candidate for the Presidency, met at Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina, April 23, 'i860, and began a 
 process of inner self-division which symbolized the 
 total Nation and prefigured what was soon to take 
 place in reality. A Douglas platform was adoi)ted 
 by a majority of the delegates, against the hot pro- 
 test of the Southern minority, whereupon the 
 whole tier of Cotton States, from South Carolina 
 to Texas, including Arkansas, seceded from the 
 Convention. But the nominee required two-thirds 
 of the delegates, and so many Douglas could not 
 obtain, though he had the decided majority. The 
 result was an adjournment to meet at Baltimore on 
 June 18th; but from this second convention there 
 was a second secession of Southern States, chiefly 
 
THE POLITICAL YEAR 1860. 463 
 
 the middle tier. The seceders from the Conven- 
 tion, who are to become the secessionists from the 
 Union, meet together and nominate their candi- 
 date, Breckinridge. Douglas is the nominee of 
 the regular Convention, though after a double 
 secession, which is not only a foreshadowing but 
 an actual pre-enactment of the course of these 
 Southern States after the election of Lincoln. 
 The lower tier will secede first, and then after 
 some months the second tier, with Virginia. 
 
 Thus Douglas has completely breached his own 
 political party, which we must regard as his su- 
 preme historical function in the transitional period 
 between 1850 and 1860. He was the most promi- 
 nent, yea, the greatest statesman of the decennium, 
 and his mighty negative act was the disruption of 
 his own, the slavery-supporting, party, from which 
 act flowed indirectly the Civil War, the reconstruc- 
 tion of the Union, with the elimination of slavery. 
 We have already noted this breaching trend of 
 Douglas in the national Democratic Convention of 
 1852. But it burst forth with all its power in the 
 Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and was con- 
 tinued till its final culmination in the national 
 Democratic Convention of 1860. 
 
 Let us now pass to his rival, Lincoln, who has 
 likewise become a candidate for the Presidency, 
 rather unwillingly, it would seem, or perchance 
 with an unwilling willingness. His statement in a 
 letter to Galloway (July 28, 1859) cannot be set 
 
464 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 down to mere modesty: "I must say I do not think 
 myself fit for the Presidency." Ah'cady far- 
 sighted men outside of Illinois had begun to see in 
 him the coming man. At a later date (December 
 9, 1859) in a letter to Judd he declares: "You 
 know I am pledged not to enter a struggle with 
 him [Senator Trumbull] for the seat in the Senate 
 now occupied by him ; and yet / would rather have 
 a full term in the Senate than in the Presidency." 
 Such was Lincoln's view of himself not six months 
 before his nomination to the Presidency. But the 
 Gods have repeatedly forbidden him the Senator- 
 ship, and again have blocked the way to that posi- 
 tion in the future. Only one road lies open to 
 him, and always seems to be getting more and 
 more free of obstacles. Friends from all (juarters 
 begin nudging him, saying: Enter, the track is 
 clear. Highly probable is the conjecture that he 
 had his inner struggle over the decision; but at 
 last he must have heard the imperative call to him- 
 self and to himself alone. 
 
 Looking backwards through nearly half a cen- 
 tury, we can see that no other choice was in reason 
 possible. Seward was his only important com- 
 petitor; but Seward had been already tried at the 
 pinch of his party's destiny, and had been found 
 walnting. In his own State, under his veiy eyes, 
 his political organization had been undermined by 
 Douglas, producing in it a more serious breach than 
 anywhere else in the country. New York City 
 
THE POLITICAL YEAR 1S60. 465 
 
 was the great center of Republican journalism, 
 which was honeycombed through and through with 
 Douglasism. Where was Seward while this was 
 going on? For a time at least he seemed to stand 
 paralyzed in doubtful silence. Who steps forward 
 into the breach at the decisive moment in Seward's 
 own State? That we have seen Lincoln doing, and 
 thus giving proof of his supreme leadership before 
 the whole country. 
 
 To his ability was added availability, very need- 
 ful for success, even if often accidental. This 
 phase of the problem narrowed itself down to the 
 question: "Who can carry the three uncertain 
 States which went for Buchanan in 1856 — Ilhnois, 
 Indiana, Pennsylvania? Not Seward, say their 
 delegates in unison, assembled at the Convention. 
 But Lincoln had won Illinois in 1858 against 
 Douglas, and he was now stronger than then. In- 
 diana would follow Illinois, and there was a good 
 chance for him in Pennsylvania. So it happened 
 this time that the man who had shown himself the 
 unquestioned leader of his party possessed also the 
 greatest availability. Only one result could fol- 
 low: Lincoln received the nomination for Presi- 
 dent on the third ballot from the Re[)ublican Con- 
 vention which assembled at Chicago, May IG, 1860. 
 
 A few paragraphs may be given to the campaign. 
 Lincoln stayed at home, made no speech, wrote no 
 public letters. When the news of the nomination 
 reached Springfield, he is reported to have broken 
 
 30 
 
466 ABRAHAM LIXCOLX—PART SECOXD. 
 
 loose from the crowd and to have started off home, 
 saying, "there is a httle woman down on Eighth 
 Street who will be glad to hear the news; you 
 must excuse me till I inform her." Tradition has 
 it that Mary Todd Lincoln as a young lady had 
 said she was going to marry a man who would be 
 President, and now her presentiment has made a 
 surprising stride toward fulfilment. But Lincoln's 
 dutiful remembrance of the ''little woman down on 
 Eighth Street" re-echoed over the land in the 
 newspapers of the time and won the hearts of the 
 gentle sex, who failed not to observe that good 
 point in a husband. And many a girl graduate of 
 the period cited the anecdote in her little essay at 
 the closing exercises of school during the summer 
 with adoring approval, and held it up as an exam- 
 ple to be followed by all men when married, young 
 as well as old. 
 
 Seward added to his laurels by a strong campaign 
 in favor of the rival who had carried off the prize 
 which he and his friends deemed his by virtue of 
 long and eminent service in the cause. Particu- 
 larly he spoke to the northern portion of the Free- 
 States, reaffirming the irrepressible conflict and 
 emphasizing the moral aspect of the struggle with 
 slavery. That theme suited the man and his 
 audience. The disappointment of his followers 
 he not only put down, but transformed it into en- 
 thusiasm for the candidate. True nobility of 
 character Seward showed, and this it was which 
 
THE POLITICAL YEAR 1860. 467 
 
 exalted and irradiated his speeches. The man be- 
 hind the words was their own shining commentary. 
 Seward was an astute poUtician, and probably he 
 felt that he could not have been elected if nomi- 
 nated. Certainly he had often heard such an 
 opinion from his undoubted friends. A poll of 
 Republican Congressmen taken about this time 
 showed that, in the judgment of nearly all of them, 
 Seward would not be successful. 
 
 But the service of Seward, though great, was 
 not the greatest act of the campaign as a whole — 
 this glory belongs to the personal canvas of Doug- 
 las. Seward's work after all was for his party, or 
 a wing of his party; but Douglas now distinctly 
 rose above party into the Nation. His all-domi- 
 nating theme became the Union, which he knew 
 was at stake. His own doctrine of Popular Sov- 
 ereignty he did not wholly drop, but he thrust it 
 into the background: "BeHeving that the Union 
 is in danger, I will make any personal sacrifice to 
 save it." He could still give a smart rap at the 
 ''Black Republicans," but the grand objective 
 point of his assault was Southern Secession, about 
 which ho was better informed than any other pub- 
 lic man in the North. At Baltimore, in which city 
 was fermenting a good deal of disunionism, he 
 boldly declared: "I tell you, nty fellow citizens, 
 I believe this Union is in danger. In my opinion 
 there is a mature plan to break up this Union. I 
 beUeve the election of a Black Republican to be 
 
468 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND, 
 
 the signal for that attempt, and that the leaders 
 of the scheme desire the election of Lincoln so as 
 to have an excuse for disunion." Douglas here 
 gives the fruit of his long intercourse at Washing- 
 ton with Southerners. Moreover he strikes the 
 key-note of his present campaign, yea, of his pres- 
 ent political character, which is no longer that of a 
 breacher, but is getting to be that of a preserver. 
 In this respect he is a new man and turns down a 
 new road. The transformation is striking; what 
 transformed him? To be sure, he was always an 
 institutional man; herein he and Lincoln were at 
 one from the beginning. But the time has brought 
 forth the question, not merely of a partisan tri- 
 umph, but the very crisis of his institutional world. 
 At once he enlists and opens his war for the Union, 
 barely a year before the actual war. He, the 
 greatest statesman of the past decade of transition, 
 feels and declares a new epoch to be dawning with 
 a new problem and mightier than any in the his- 
 tory of the government since its formation. 
 
 At once he moved Southward, for he is the only 
 man who, with such oj^inions, would there be tol- 
 erated. At Norfolk he was asked if the election of 
 Lincoln would justify the Southern States in 
 seceding from the Union. "Emphatically no," 
 responded Douglas with his leonine emphasis. 
 "The election of a man to the Presidency by the 
 American people in conformity with the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States would not justify any at- 
 
THE POLITICAL YEAR 1S60. 469 
 
 tempt at dissolving this glorious confcxlcracy." 
 Thus he took strong position against the right of 
 Secession in its hotbed. He acknowledged the 
 right of revolution for a just cause, but the election 
 of Lincoln furnished no such cause. But how 
 about that other Southern goblin, Coercion? Many 
 Union men in the South believed that a State, if it 
 once seceded, could not be coerced. Listen to 
 Douglas: ''I think the President, whoever he may 
 be, should treat all attempts to break up the 
 Union by resistance to its laws as Old Hickory 
 treated the nullifiers of 1832." Thus he has pro- 
 claimed to the Southern people quite prophetically 
 the consequences of their two favorite doctrines, 
 the right of Secession and the wrong of Coercion. 
 Probably he did not think he would change their 
 purpose, or rather the purpose of their leaders. 
 Really he was speaking to the million and more of 
 his own personal followers in the Northern and 
 Border States, and aligning them internally for 
 the coming conflict. That he felt to be his real 
 function: to unify the two Union parties against 
 disunion. Measureless abuse was poured upon 
 h'_m by the Southern press, and how small was the 
 credit he received from the Northern press! 
 Douglas declared early in the canvas that Lincoln 
 would be elected, but all the more he seemed to 
 feel his mission. The attempts at the fusion of 
 his party with the two other parties opposed to 
 Lincoln he did not encourage, he believed it could 
 
470 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 do no good. When he heard in Iowa how the 
 October States had voted, he said, "Lincoln is the 
 next President. I have no hope and no destiny 
 before me but to do my best to save the Union 
 from overthrow." At once he turned to the South 
 again with renewed exhortation and warning, and 
 the evening before the November election found 
 him at Mobile, having reached the extreme South- 
 ern line of secessive Cottonia. 
 
 The Presidential campaign of Douglas in 1860 is 
 his greatest public deed in a number of respects, 
 much greater, we think, than his debate with 
 Lincoln. He probably did not jjrpduce much 
 change in the South, which was no longer to be 
 diverted from its destructive course; but he prac- 
 tically united the North, which read his speeches 
 and his defiant answers to interrogating Secession- 
 ists. He aligned his own party upon the imj:)end- 
 ing question of the Laiion — a service which cannot 
 be too highly estimated in view of the darkening 
 future. But what about Douglas himself? He 
 begins to change, he has gotten a new theme xcvy 
 different from his Popular Sovereignty. His dec})- 
 est and best self, his institutional character, is 
 rising to the surface and asserting itself with all his 
 energy and daring, in the face of fierce opposition. 
 He tackles the mad spirit of a whole section of the 
 country with unparalleled courage, and speaks to 
 it an impressive warning against the way it seems 
 bent on going. Really it may now be said that 
 
THE POLITICAL YEAR 1860. 471 
 
 Douglas in his turn has become prophetic, bearing 
 a message of the future to the South, voicing the 
 decree of the AVorld-Spirit against any violation of 
 the Union. He utters to the Southern Hotspurs 
 a kind of apocalypse, prefiguring to them before- 
 hand the consequences of their coming deed. This 
 was Douglas at his highest. To be sure he said to 
 them many other things not so high, dropping 
 down at times to what seems now political clap- 
 trap. Still he delivered his message very impres- 
 sively, the only Northerner who could have done 
 it, and he manifested in his own person as well as 
 in word and action the adamantine resolution of 
 the united Northern Folk-Soul in case of secession. 
 In this campaign Southward there is no doubt 
 that Douglas rendered an inestimable service to 
 the future President, Lincoln, who seems never to 
 have appreciated it. Here comes to light again 
 that one limitation of Lincoln — he, the man of 
 justice and charity, if there ever was one, cannot 
 be charitable, cannot even be just to his great anti- 
 type, though the latter has, in the deepest and 
 most essential principle, come over to him and is 
 co-operating with him in his supreme work, that of 
 preserving the Union. For Douglas believed, 
 after the nominations of 1860, that Lincoln 
 would be elected President, and knew better 
 than Lincoln himself what would be the latter's 
 main task. Again we must repeat that Douglas 
 appreciated Lincoln better than Lincoln appre- 
 
472 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 ci'ated Douglas, particularly after their great de- 
 bate in Illinois. 
 
 In fact we have to think that the debate had its 
 secret effect upon Douglas, who was never after- 
 wards quite the same man, and became more and 
 more different from the former separative breacher 
 Douglas, rending asunder all political parties to 
 further his political ambition. Through the words 
 of Lincoln and still more through the mighty re- 
 sponse of the Folk-Soul to these words, Douglas 
 began to undergo an inner change, a kind of con- 
 version which, however, did not show itself in any 
 open renunciation of old doctrines, but in a new 
 attitude toward Lincoln. This became visible in 
 the Southern campaign of Douglas in 1860, when 
 he told the Southerners that they would not be 
 justified in seceding on account of Lincoln's elec- 
 tion. In a manner he pleads for Lincoln and for 
 the Union under him, the rightful President; such 
 is the meaning of his attitude generally more than 
 of his words. The dual Douglas is being trans- 
 formed inwardly, if not outwardly; he is not 
 Janus-faced on the subject of the Union, but takes 
 character from it and becomes himself unified 
 within. But it is not thereby said that he stops 
 talking his dualism, though this becomes more and 
 more external to his real self. As Lincoln had to 
 have his time of Subsidence for working out his 
 double condition, so Douglas is going through his 
 experience to the same end; he is getting unified 
 like Lincoln and indeed with Lincoln. 
 
THE LAST OF THE COMPROMISES. 473 
 
 The fact is that in 1860 Lincohi and Douglas, in 
 the deepest element of both of them, had come to- 
 gether. That was the institutional element. Moral- 
 ly they were still far apart. But the moral ques- 
 tion of the wrong of slavery had become, not 
 extinguished, but submerged in the preservation 
 of nationality. Which had come to the other? 
 Douglas moves to the support of Lincoln as the 
 Constitutional President. Their rivalry is for him 
 quite over. In this act Douglas is the great and 
 generous and patriotic soul. Lincoln still keeps 
 his distrust of that old dual Douglas, not recogniz- 
 ing the new transfigured man, whose change has 
 been brought about largely by himself. Ah! 
 Lincoln! History with a sigh has to record one 
 exception against thee: thou couldst renounce all 
 thy jealousies — except one; thou couldst forgive all 
 thy rivals — except one ; thou couldst love all thine 
 enemies — except one; thou couldst recognize all 
 thy friends— except one; and he, that excepted 
 one, is doing just now a greater service to thee and 
 thy cause than any other man has ever done or 
 could do. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Last of the Com promises. 
 
 Between the election of Lincoln and his inaugiu'a- 
 tion some four months intervened. The North had 
 won its victory fairly, constitutionally; the South 
 was unwilHng to submit. This Union shall pro- 
 
474 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 duce no more Slave-States, was the decree of the 
 Folk-Soul registered by its vote. But the defeated 
 party would somehow reverse the decree, and 
 perpetuate the double Union as productive of both 
 Slave-States and Free-States. As the South 
 threatens secession unless its wish be complied with, 
 and as some of her Commonwealths have actually 
 begun to secede, the old American method of Com- 
 promise will be resorted to again for the purpose 
 of averting the new disunion. These four months 
 may be characterized as the compromising interreg- 
 num, or inter-Presidential chaos. It is true that 
 Buchanan is still President; but an Executive 
 without Will in a time which calls more impera- 
 tively for Will than any other in our government's 
 history, is nearly the same as no Executive at all. 
 It is just this Will-less time which the Southern 
 extremists seize upon for carrying out their plans. 
 After two months of utter imbecility, Buchanan 
 allows the triumvirate — Black, Stanton and 
 Holt, to whom Dix is afterwards added — to make 
 some attempt to stay the process of dissolution. 
 
 Lincoln can only look on from Springfield and 
 see his coming difficulties increase day by day, 
 totally unable to interfere. He is, however, in- 
 voked from many quarters to give his assent to the 
 abandonment of the principle on which has been 
 won the pohtical victoiy of ISGO. Leading 
 Republicans, especially in the East, urge him to 
 compromise the Republican cause by giving up 
 
THE LAST OF THE COMPROMISES. 475 
 
 the exclusion of slavery from the Territories. The 
 New York press begins to waver, as it did in 1858 
 in regard to the Senatorial election. Seward is 
 uncertain, and Seward's friend, Weed, advocates 
 the surrender, at least till he pays a visit to Lincoln 
 at Springfield, who has again to bring into line the 
 Eastern branch of his own party. ''Compromise 
 is the American devil," once cried an anti-slavery 
 agitator. Certainly it now starts to showing 
 itself deviUsh, even if it once may have been an 
 angel of peace. 
 
 Lincoln naturally becomes, during these months, 
 the center around which swirl many currents of 
 compromise. He has one main answer to all efforts 
 at wrenching him from his position. Says he in a 
 letter to Kellogg, December 11th: "Entertain no 
 proposition for a compromise in regard to the 
 extension of slavery. The instant you do, they 
 have us under again; all our labor is lost, and 
 sooner or later must be done^ over. . . . The 
 tug has come, and better now than later." Two 
 days afterwards he writes to Washburne: "Pre- 
 vent, as far as possible, any of our friends from 
 demoralizing themselves and our cause by enter- 
 taining propositions for compromise of any sort 
 on slavery extension. There is no possible com- 
 promise upon it but which puts us under again, and 
 leaves all our work to do over again." Such were 
 his exhortations to two Congressmen of his State 
 who had written to him about the matter. He is 
 
476 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 set against a renewal of the Missouri line, whose 
 abrogation in 1854 he now recognizes to be a 
 great stage in the anti-slavery movement. He 
 will have nothing to do with Douglas's Popular 
 Sovereignty or Eli Thayer's modification of the 
 same. "Let either be done, and immediately 
 filibustering and extension of slavery recommences." 
 On other points which he deems of less importance, 
 he is willing to yield, such as the execution of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, the inter-State Slave Trade, 
 Slavery in the District of Columbia. But any 
 compromise which again opens the extension of 
 slavery into the Territories he regards as a base 
 surrender of the victory already won in a fair fight. 
 He will not Usten to such a proposition for a 
 moment. "On that point hold firm as with a 
 chain of steel." (See Lincoln's Works, Vol. I, for 
 letters and statements to this effect.) 
 
 As we look back to these seething and dizzying 
 days, we see that Lincoln kept his head amid 
 buffets of all sorts from friends and foes. He 
 asserted and re-asserted with fresh emphasis that 
 this Union must henceforth be Free-State pro- 
 ducing only. We begin to feel his Will, his tenacity 
 of purpose, which he is often hereafter to show. 
 He was requested again and again by prominent 
 men of the North and of the South to write a letter 
 which would set forth his policy. He declined, 
 referring his correspondents to his printed speeches 
 and to the Republican platform. At the same time 
 
* 
 
 THE LAST OF THE COMPROMISES. 477 
 
 he unswervingly affirmed the Union. In the East 
 the strong Unionists were inchned to be com- 
 promisers, while those opposed to compromise 
 (Hke Greeley and Beecher and other anti-slavery 
 men) were weak on the subject of the Union. 
 Lincoln had no such cleavage in himself, and would 
 not allow it in his party. With him it is the Union" 
 which must be pro*ductive of Free-States, and not 
 a dis-united Nation. The one Union, therefore, 
 holds the primacy in his view, and not the dual 
 Union, which the compromisers were always 
 seeking to preserve. Still loss did he favor dis- 
 union, to which many extreme anti-slaveiy men 
 were not averse. 
 
 Turning our eyes to Lincoln's antitype during 
 these four months, to Douglas, we find that the 
 opposition between the two old rivals is lessening, 
 though by no means obliterated. On the other 
 hand the strongest antithesis has developed be- 
 tween Douglas as unionist, and Jefferson Davis 
 as disunionist. Douglas never fails to strike the 
 fundamental note of Union with great emphasis 
 and power. Says he, speaking in the Senate, 
 January 3rd, 1861: "I hold the election of any 
 man, no matter who, by the American People 
 according to the Constitution furnishes no cause, 
 no justification for the dissolution of the Union. 
 . Secession is wrong, unlawful, uncon- 
 stitutional, criminal." Lincoln never piled up 
 such a mountain of damnatory expletives against 
 
478 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 secession. On this point Douglas reaches down to 
 the deepest consistency of his character, to that 
 underlying unity in his conviction which all the 
 other rifts of his political career never breached. 
 Here, too, he finds his original, elemental oneness 
 with Lincoln, whom he can defend in the same 
 speech, saying: ''I do not believe the rights of the 
 South will materially suffer under the administra- 
 tion of Mr. Lincoln." Surely such a statement 
 in such a place at such a time by such a man, was 
 not only just, but very generous. Would Lincoln 
 have shown the same height of generosity to his 
 Hfe-long antitypal competitor, the occasion offer- 
 ing? He did not, as far as is known, though one 
 thinks he might have taken the opportunity to do 
 so. Lincoln, tender-hearted, forgiving to all his 
 other enemies, even to the disunionists with arms 
 in their hands, could never quite get over his anti- 
 pathy to the unionist Douglas, even when the latter 
 was bearding the Southern Senators in his rival's 
 defence. 
 
 Still there existed the old political difference, 
 even if it was getting swallowed up in the deeper 
 common principle of the two antagonists. Douglas 
 did not pretend to have turned Republican during 
 these four months. On the contrary he adhered 
 to the old Dual Union, which he sought to preserve ; 
 and he still could give a right smart slap at Lin- 
 coln's Prelude of 'Hhe House divided against 
 itself," to which he attributed no small share of 
 
THE LAST OF THE COMPROMISES. 479 
 
 Southern apprehension which saw in that speech 
 "a fatal blow impending over them and over all 
 they hold dear on earth." So Douglas consistently 
 urged compromise, which Lincoln just as consis- 
 tently resisted. For Douglas would still keep the 
 Union productive of both Slave-States and Free- 
 States, while Lincoln continued to affirm the 
 Union as Free-State-producing only. Here, then, 
 was their previous difference of opinion as to the 
 nature of the Union ; but as to the existence of the 
 Union itself they were a unit. And to this last 
 issue events were rapidly whirling. 
 
 The spirit of compromise found expression in 
 many shapes, but its chief formulation was that of 
 Senator Crittenden, from Kentucky. The main 
 article of the Crittenden Compromise was the first, 
 which proposed as a constitutional amendment that 
 slavery should be prohibited north of the old Mis- 
 souri line, and that south of it "slavery is hereby 
 recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered 
 with by Congress, but shall be protected as property 
 by all the departments of the territorial govern- 
 ment during its continuance." When the terri- 
 tory north or south of the line becomes a State, 
 its constitution is to settle for it the question of 
 slavery. This is substantially a repeal of Douglas's 
 Repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1854, and a 
 restoration of the line of 1820. Can the clock of 
 the Ages be thus turned backward and made to 
 whirl forth a wholly new series of events? Ln- 
 
480 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND 
 
 possible; man cannot yet dictate to the World- 
 Spirit, upbraiding it: You have gone wholly 
 wrong in this last • historic generation; go back 
 and do your work over again in the right way. 
 
 Douglas supports the Crittenden Compromise, 
 thus undoing his own Repeal out of which has 
 evolved the Republican party, as he now sees. For 
 it was that Repeal which threw open to freedom all 
 the territories, Southern as well as Northern. Of 
 course, RepubUcans could not vote for the Critten- 
 den Compromise without cutting off their own heads. 
 And yet several of the most influential Republican 
 newspapers of the East, such as the Albany Evening 
 Journal (Weed), and the New York Times (Ray- 
 mond), begin to perform the famous feat of St. 
 Denys, walking and also talking with severed head 
 held in the hand. What about Seward? To this 
 day his attitude is an unsolved enigma. At first 
 he, with some of his nearest friends, seems to have 
 leaned towards the Crittenden Compromise, but he 
 was stiffened at least into silence when he became 
 aware of Lincoln's decided opposition. This silence 
 however, he broke in the Senate Chamber, January 
 12th, 1861, by a speech which aroused beforehand 
 great expectations. But he did not mention the 
 Crittenden Compromise, nor offer any of Ms own; 
 it was a neutral speech, so neutral that it quite 
 neutralized itself, and so compromising that it 
 could not brace up to the point of supporting any 
 Compromise. If it did not afRrm the Crittenden 
 
THE LAST OF THE COMPROMISES. 481 
 
 measure, it did not reject the same, and after its 
 deliveiy nobody could tell quite where Seward 
 stood, perhaps he could not tell himself. In him 
 Compromise seems to have worked itself out to a 
 kind of self-negation. For if a Presidental election 
 cannot fix a result, how can a compromise fix any- 
 thing? In fact, Compromise becomes the grand 
 unfixer, and so really unfixes itself, and seems to 
 have unfixed Seward completely. The people are 
 supposed to be the final arbiter at the polls, but if 
 you can unsettle their decree, government itself is 
 unsettled. The Crittenden Compromise in its 
 ultimate trend was the destruction of the Constitu- 
 tional rule of the majority. And if this be once 
 set aside, where is the end? Not a year will pass 
 before the minority will demand another com- 
 promise with the renewed menace of dissolving the 
 Union. Here, again, Lincoln hit the nail on the 
 head (in his letter to Hale, January 11th, 1861): 
 "If we surrender to those we have beaten, it is the 
 end of us, and of the Government. They will repeat 
 the experiment upon us ad lihitum. A year will 
 not pass till we shall have to take Cuba as the 
 condition upon which they will stay in the Union." 
 This lays bare the veiy process inherent in Com- 
 promise, and shows its negative, indeed self- 
 negative character. It can give no peace, least of 
 all to itself. It will be invoked again and again to 
 nullify the rule of the majority, which the South 
 now tackles as its greatest enemy. Lincoln still 
 
 31 
 
482 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 further declares that they, the Southerners, have 
 had a Constitution, and "Acts of Congress of their 
 own framing" for "over seventy years"; they 
 have indeed hitherto ruled the countiy, "and they 
 can never have a more shallow pretext for break- 
 ing up the government or extorting a compromise 
 than now." Such was his firm attitude towards 
 compromising the one essential principle, and 
 certainly his contrast with Seward is very striking. 
 In the Senate Committee of thirteen, to which 
 was referred the Crittenden Compromise, six 
 voted for it, seven against it — the latter embracing 
 five Republicans and two Southerners from the 
 Cotton States, Davis and Toombs. Yet these two 
 would have supported it if a majority of the Re- 
 publicans had voted that way. But the whole five, 
 including Seward, refused to accept the pivotal 
 article of Crittenden's measure. There is no 
 doubt that Davis and Toombs recognized the full 
 bearing of the Compromise in reference to the 
 Republican party, whose senators they would have 
 furtively chuckled to see undoing the Republican 
 victory of 1860. But probably a deeper hope lay 
 in the hearts of these two gifted and ambitious 
 Southerners of Cottonia: nothing less than the 
 destruction of majority rule through its own act. 
 For the Southern was already the minority party 
 in the nation, and was destined to become more so. 
 If the South could make the Constitutional 
 majority nullify itself through Compromise, that 
 
THE LAST OF THE COMPROMISES. 483 
 
 were better and more certain than secession. 
 Doubtless good papa Crittenden himself had no 
 such ultimate intention by his measure. But 
 Davis and Toombs saw in it the domination of the 
 Southern minority, or at least the power to neutral- 
 ize the Northern majority. Now of course the Re- 
 publicans must enter the trap, otherwise they will 
 not be caught. Hence that peculiar proviso of 
 Davis and Toombs : if the Republican Senators (or 
 the most of them), will vote for the Compromise, 
 we shall vote for it too; if not, we shall not. For 
 once in their lives Davis and Toombs are going to 
 vote with the Republicans anyhow, be it yes. or no. 
 It seems to have been Davis who concocted this 
 bright scheme; at least he introduced a rule that 
 no report of the Committee should be adopted 
 which was not supported by a majority of the 
 Repubhcan Senators. So the Crittenden Com- 
 promise failed in its birth-place, and could not be 
 resuscitated. In fact, no Congressional enactment 
 of it would have been valid after the Dred Scott 
 decision, which thus becomes the grand obstacle 
 to the very cause which it was intended to bolster. 
 It is often supposed that a Constitutional amend- 
 ment eml)odying the Crittenden Compromise would 
 have been adopted by the Northern people, if they 
 could have gotten a chance to vote upon it in time. 
 But events were not to be halted, and the rapid 
 progress of Secession soon rendered all Compromise 
 purposeless. The Double Union cannot be re- 
 
484 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 stored ; the alternative begins to appear before the 
 Folk-Soul: complete Disunion or complete Union. 
 To Lincoln more than to anybody else is due the 
 credit that the Nation did not compromise the 
 principle that it must be hereafter Free-State- 
 producing only. With this surrender would have 
 gone the original basic principle of the government, 
 the iiile of the majority constitutionally expressed. 
 There would have been little use for another Presi- 
 dential election. Popular government, if it had ac- 
 cepted the Crittenden Compromise, would logically 
 have voted its own death sentence. A deeper 
 conflict than that against slavery begins to appear. 
 Hitherto in the famous Compromises, the rule of 
 the majority had not been assailed, but had been 
 recognized by both sides, each of which had sought 
 to win it as the great boon. But now the rule of 
 the legal majority must be set aside, yea, must be 
 made to set itself aside. Really the minority will 
 dictate to the majority, and the very existence 
 of popular government is at stake. Compromise 
 having grappled with majority rule gets flung to 
 the earth after a hurly-burly contest under a 
 variety of shapes during these months. The last 
 of the Compromises seeking to keep the State- 
 producing Union doubly productive of States, 
 free and slave, never came to reality, though it 
 kept floating for months before the Folk-Soul as a 
 kind of delusive phantom, which was but the de- 
 parted ghost of the old order hovering with longing 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 485 
 
 and love over the scenes of its once throbbing life. 
 But it is high time that these ghostly performances 
 be laid, and that the unearthly dance of the spooks 
 which have so long been in possession of the 
 Capitol, be banned forever. And here comes 
 Lincoln, the new man bringing the new order, with 
 a paper in his pocket proclaiming the same, now 
 to be inaugurated as President of the United 
 States. Let us listen to his memorable document. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Lincoln's First Inaugural. 
 
 At last the four months' agonizing suspense be- 
 gins to draw to a close, and Lincoln starts out on 
 his journey from Springfield to Washington. This 
 journey was a continuous line of speeches, whose 
 chief object was to say nothing. Not a great suc- 
 cess nor a great failure was it, under the condi- 
 tions: to keep the mind always shut and the 
 mouth always open. Once indeed he did say that 
 he might have to put his foot down firmly, but he 
 immediately apologized for his indiscretion. Of 
 course there was a great deal of criticism on what 
 he said, and more yet on what he did not say, for 
 everybody expected a hint of his policy. Then 
 there was an clement of the grotesque in Lincoln 
 from start to finish — both conscious and uncon- 
 scious — and it did not fail him on this trip. As he 
 moved into the formal East, the Mephistopheles 
 
486 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 of the Press gloated over his shocking lack of dig- 
 nity with no little mockery. How different from 
 our previous two Eastern Presidents, the elegant 
 Yankee Franklin Pierce, dubbed the parlor Presi- 
 dent, and smooth-worded diplomatic James Buch- 
 anan of unfathomable tortuosity. And then just 
 think of it! The President-elect of the United 
 States wore black kid gloves in New York at the 
 opera on a festal night. "A simple Susan" from 
 the Western prairie in the Presidential chair! cries 
 the best-known Republican editor of New England, 
 utterly unable to penetrate beneath externals. Of 
 course the Southern newspaper triumphantly com- 
 pared Lincoln with the cultured and experienced 
 Jefferson Davis, President of the new Southern 
 Confederacy. Then that final serio-comic flight 
 in disguise through Baltimore to the Capital ! Let 
 the whole thing pass, for really it amounts to noth- 
 ing, as if Zeus or the World-Spirit was having a 
 little fun all to himself before proceeding to the 
 serious, yea tragic business at hand. 
 
 But omitting many preliminary incidents of 
 lesser interest, let us witness Lincoln on March 
 4th, 1861, in the act of passing into the Presi- 
 dency. He has reached the east portico of the 
 Capital where he is to take the oath of office ad- 
 ministered by Chief-Justice Taney, the author of 
 the Dred Scott decision, which, Lincoln declared 
 not long after its promulgation, must be reversed 
 in time by the Court itself or by the People. That 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 487 
 
 was not yet four years since. In a sense they 
 must be deemed antagonists, representing two 
 opposite political tendencies. The Dred Scott de- 
 cision has not been reversed openly, but a long 
 stride has been made in that direction. Antago- 
 nists they are, and some months later Taney will 
 directly tackle Lincoln in the Merryman case, per- 
 taining to the suspension of Habeas Corpus. But 
 Lincoln will meet triumphantly in deed and word 
 the Chief-Justice, who, with the narrowness of 
 the technical lawyer would assert one clause of 
 the Constitution, and let the whole Constitution 
 and the government back of it go to ruin, through 
 the hostility of its destroyers protected by the 
 Supreme Court. Taney, Jackson's appointee, grap- 
 ples with a President who has Jackson's will with- 
 out his willfulness, and the Jacksonian Chief- 
 Justice has to receive an application of the most 
 famous of Jackson's utterances, that the Nation's 
 Executive, as co-ordinate Power of the Govern- 
 ment, must execute the Constitution "as he under- 
 stands it." Still very gently, though very firmly 
 is the thing done, and the Chief-Justice is estopped 
 from using the Constitution to protect the de- 
 stroyers of the Constitution. There is, however, 
 not the least intention of interfering with the Su- 
 preme Court in its legitimate sphere, for Lincoln 
 is himself a lawyer and thoroughly institutional in 
 spirit. But the downwright weakness of the last 
 two Executives (Pierce and Buchanan), and the 
 
488 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 flat mediocrity of the whole line of post-Jacksonian 
 Presidents up to .Lincoln, had fostered in Taney, 
 who was Chief-Justice during this whole period 
 an exaggerated sense of his importance which the 
 life-tenure of his office did not diminish. The re- 
 sult was some tendency to usurpation, some bent 
 to take in hand political questions, which did not 
 belong to the judicial sphere. This tendency cul- 
 minated in the Dred Scott decision, which as one 
 Supreme Judge and perhaps the ablest (Curtis) de- 
 clared, lay outside the jurisdiction of Court. That 
 was also the opinion of Lincoln, who has, therefore, 
 to recover the full executive Power from the hanels 
 of Taney, or at least to prevent the possibility of 
 his interference with the Presidential function at 
 critical moments. This our new President does 
 effectually both in action and in argument (see his 
 Message to Congress July 4th, 1861). So Lincoln 
 has to assert his great office against the man who 
 may be called his judicial adversary, who now ad- 
 ministers to him the oath "to preserve, protect, 
 and defend the Constitution of the United States," 
 the whole of it, not merely a part of it; and we 
 may also hear Lincoln swear to Taney, "I will 
 faithfully execute the office of President of the 
 United States," the whole of it, not merely a part 
 of it. 
 
 Very prominent at the inauguration we must 
 note another man, entirely different from Taney, 
 yea the reverse of him, but still a lawyer — William 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 489 
 
 H. Seward. Taney represents the Formal Law, 
 to the last degree of formality; Seward has uttered 
 the Higher Law, quite divested of, if not hostile to 
 all Form. One thinks that in this respect the two 
 halves ought to be put together and made over 
 into a whole. In fact they are essentially synthe- 
 sized in Lincoln, whom we have already seen try- 
 ing to preserve Form and Spirit, even when these 
 get to fighting desperately, Seward has been, if 
 not quite the adversary, at least the rival of Lin- 
 coln in the same party. At present he is the 
 chosen Secretary of State, and head member of 
 the new cabinet. There is no doubt that Seward 
 deemed himself not only the right hand of the in- 
 coming President, but practically the President 
 himself. His private correspondence of this time 
 has been published, and it makes him appear to 
 himself the central power as well as the savior of 
 the country. To his mind the Presidency had 
 become divided like himself; there was indeed the 
 formal President Lincoln, but the Higher Presi- 
 dent was Seward. And his Section, the old North- 
 Eastern States, held the same opinion of his su- 
 premacy. The tall Illinois sucker might perform 
 the Presidential motions, but Seward was to pull 
 the strings. So Lincoln is yet to have quite a 
 little tussle with his own chief officer, who, how- 
 ever, in spite of his egotism, has the transcendent 
 merit of being able to learn his lesson, and who 
 will, after more experience, frankly declare of his 
 
490 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 superior: "The President is the best of us." And 
 Lincoln when he gets Seward duly placed will in 
 turn fully recognize his great Secretary and cling 
 to him against all opposition. So the new Presi- 
 dent at his inauguration has l^efore him those two 
 somewhat dislocated, yet opposite talents, Taney 
 and Seward, the excessive Formal Law and the 
 Higher Law; but he will be able to subordinate 
 both, and have them do their proper work, each 
 in his own sphere, toiling at his allotted task. 
 Characteristic is the > report that Taney once de- 
 clared at Washington, that he would refuse to ad- 
 minister the Constitutional oath to Seward, if the 
 latter were elected President. 
 
 It is important to observe that Lincoln in his 
 Inaugural does not fail to glance at the two col- 
 liding Laws, and perchance indirectly at their 
 representatives before him. The Higher Law had 
 been unfolded and promulgated chiefly in connec- 
 tion with the Fugitive Slave enactments. Lincoln 
 reads the clause of the Constitution which deals 
 with persons "held to service or labor in one State 
 and escaping into another," and which commands 
 their rendition. This Enacted Law must be 
 obeyed, especially by all who take an oath to sup- 
 port the Constitution, notwithstanding the Higher 
 Law . From Seward we may then imagine Lincoln 
 turning to Taney, in thought if not in look. Says 
 the Inaugural: ''If the policy of the Government 
 upon vital questions affecting the whole People is 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 491 
 
 to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Su- 
 preme Court, the instant they are made, the People 
 will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to 
 that extent practically resigned their Government 
 into the hands of that eminent tribunal." No 
 such judicial autocracy can be permitted in accord 
 with the Constitution itself. So much for these 
 two extremes, Taney and Seward, with their one- 
 sided, deeply colliding principles, who are now in 
 presence of their higher synthesis and master. 
 
 The key-note of the inaugural is the Primacy of 
 the Union, with the consequent denial of the right 
 of Secession, and the consequent affirmation of 
 the right of Coercion, even if this last is very 
 gently put. It is noteworthy as indicating the 
 drift of Lincoln's thought that he places together 
 the two opposite Higher Laws, the one in the 
 North which resists the Fugitive Slave clause of 
 the Constitution, and the one in the South which 
 resists the Slave Trade clause of the Constitution. 
 In both cases it is "the moral sense of the commu- 
 nity" which challenges the established Law. In 
 Massachusetts it is difficult legally to condemn th'e 
 slave, in South Carolina it is difficult legally to 
 condemn the slaver, though both be brought to 
 trial. Lincoln fails not to express his own moral 
 conviction against slavery, though he must execute 
 the Constitution as it stands. But at present the 
 conservation of the Union must be his supreme 
 object, everything else is subordinate. "No State 
 
492 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 of its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the 
 Union;" State caprice must be subjected to law; 
 "In view of the Constitution, the Union is un- 
 broken," in spite of all this secession. 
 
 But there is a third person present at this In- 
 augural more interesting and more important than 
 Seward or Taney or any other man in the Nation 
 except the President himself. That is Lincoln's 
 life-long antitype, Stephen A. Douglas, who has 
 taken a front scat on the stand just behind Lin- 
 coln as the latter reads to the assembled thous- 
 ands in a clear, firm, penetrating voice his ad- 
 dress. Typical was the position and attitude of 
 the Little Giant, who said to an acquaintance 
 that he intended to show "his determination to 
 stand by the new Administration in the perform- 
 ance of its first great duty to maintain the 
 Union." Upon this point it cannot be too often 
 repeated that he and Lincoln were at one from 
 the beginning. Douglas now advances openly to 
 the support of his old antagonist upon the over- 
 shadowing issue of the time, and brings with him- 
 self, if need be, a million of bayonets. And what 
 is more important, there comes in his train a 
 united North, to which he alone adds a majority 
 of the people of the Border Slave States. The 
 Presidential election of 1860 had shown the pro- 
 digious personal influence of Douglas, which was 
 probably greater than that of Lincoln at the time 
 of the Inaugural. 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 493 
 
 And now occurs an incident, trivial enough ex- 
 ternally, which impressed the thousands there 
 present, who saw it, which has struck the millions 
 who have since read it, and still read it, as some- 
 thing deeply symbolic of the two antitypes as well 
 as of the Nation and its coming destiny. Lincoln 
 rose to read his address, with cane and manuscript 
 in hand ; but he was at a loss where to place his 
 high silk hat, 'that original Post Office of his, every 
 available spot being occupied. As he looked help- 
 lessly around, Douglas sprang up and relieved him 
 of his encumbrance, remarking to a lady near by : 
 "If I can't be President, I can at least hold his 
 hat." It was indeed a very beautiful act of 
 courtesy, but in it Douglas also expressed his will- 
 ingness, yea, his eagerness io help the man who 
 had been hitherto his chief rival in the latter's 
 supreme emergency, which was also that of the 
 Nation. Such was the symbolic act of Douglas 
 at Lincoln's inauguration, as significant and as 
 eloquent in its way as the President's address, 
 which it reinforced mightily with its unspoken 
 message. 
 
 Nor should we fail to see that Lincoln's Inau- 
 gural has its relation to Douglas, even more de- 
 cisively than to Taney and Seward. In it we find 
 the former differences between Lincoln and 
 Douglas hardly mentioned, certainly not empha- 
 sized. The territorial question is passed over 
 with one or two non-partisan allusions. The con- 
 
494 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 flict of the Illinois Debate of 1858 is sunk in a far 
 deeper struggle, upon which both the former an- 
 tagonists are practically united. In fact, Lincoln 
 made changes in the first draft of his Inaugural 
 which would indicate that he had Douglas in 
 view. He wrote at Springfield: "Having been 
 elected on the Chicago platform, I hold myself 
 bound to follow the principles therein declared" 
 — the main principle of that })latform being the 
 Congressional exclusion of slavery from the Terri- 
 tories as against Douglas's Popular Sovereignty. 
 This partisan utterance Lincoln cut out at Wash- 
 ington, Seward suggesting it, and still more, the 
 new situation imperiously dictating it. Other 
 changes from the original draft (see it in Nicolay 
 and Hay's Life of Lincoln, Vol. HI.) point to the 
 same source of adjustment. For Lincoln realized 
 more than ever when he reached the Capital, the 
 pivotal position of Douglas, who wielded the 
 power of uniting or of separating the North. The 
 Inaugural, therefore, has little or nothing to which 
 Douglas could object. Indeed, it asserts the pre- 
 servation of the Double Union; it has not a word 
 about this Nation "becoming all one thing or all 
 the other." Even the Union is not affirmed to 
 be Free-State producing only. These two princi- 
 ples are not, however, abjured by Lincoln, but are 
 held in abeyance. For his great immediate prob- 
 lem is to unite the parties of the North against 
 secession, and to join to them the Unionists of 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 495 
 
 the Border Slave States. The Inaugural is skill- 
 fully adjusted to that end. The man whom he 
 has to win above all others is Douglas, who in 
 many ways has shown himself ready to be won. 
 He called upon Lincoln at the White House to 
 pay his respects to the new President., and there is 
 little doubt that he whispered in the ear of his 
 successful rival his support of every effort to main- 
 tain the Union. In fact there had probably been 
 some communication between them before inau- 
 guration day. At any rate the Inaugural seeks to 
 avoid giving any offence to Douglas and his fol- 
 lowers. In the Senate two days after its delivery 
 Douglas nobly declared: "It is a peace offering 
 rather than a war message." 
 
 Still it cannot be said that the two Giants were 
 as yet completely harnessed together into one 
 team. Both were indeed pulling for the Union, 
 but each was still inclined to reach the goal by a 
 somewhat different road. Douglas continued to 
 be openly for the Double Union, which he sought 
 to restore by peace. Hence on March 15th, he 
 offered a resolution in the Senate to withdraw the 
 United States troops from all forts in the seceded 
 States except Key West and Tortugas, which he 
 stUl deemed national. Says he: ''I proclaim 
 boldly the pohcy of those with whom I act; we are 
 for peace. . . . War is disunion; war is final, 
 eternal separation," So Douglas unquestionably 
 thought; and such seemed to him at that time the 
 
496 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 only road back to Union, even if the years will 
 prove him mistaken. In one way his policy was 
 correct : We, the Unionists, must not be the ag- 
 gressors, if we would unite the whole North and 
 divide the South. In the same speech (March 
 15th) he opposed the blockade of the Southern 
 ports as illegal and impolitic. Says he: "I cannot 
 consent that the President of the United States 
 may, at his discretion, blockade the ports of the 
 United States, or of any other country." Thus 
 he still shows a point of conflict with Lincoln. His 
 purpose is manifestly twofold; he would, on the 
 one hand, restore the old Union through peace, 
 but on the other especially, he would hold back 
 the Administration from precipitating the armed 
 collision by giving the first blow. In the former 
 case he did not, and, could not, succeed; in the 
 second, he succeeded, for the South soon commits 
 the pivotal act of aggression. 
 
 And now the reader has to ask : Did Lincoln on 
 his part appreciate the generous support given 
 him by his ancient rival, or did he still feel that 
 lurking suspicion of Douglas which had so long 
 hounded him like a curse? We have no statement 
 of Lincoln on this point; but we may take as an 
 indirect reflection of his feeling the view of his 
 two private secretaries in their biography of him: 
 "Recognizing his defeat, Douglas was by no means 
 conquered. Already in a Senate debate he had 
 opened his trenches to undermine and wreck Lin- 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL. 497 
 
 coin's Administration. Already he had set liis 
 subtle sophistry to demonstrate that the revenue 
 laws gave the Executive *no authority for co- 
 ercion. . . . His speech of the 15th of March 
 was only a new instance of his readiness to risk 
 his consistency and his fame for a plausible but 
 delusive move in party strategy." (Nicolay and 
 Hay's Life of Lincoln, Vol. 4, pp. 80, 82). The 
 language of this extract recalls Lincoln's designa- 
 tion of Douglas as "the sapper and miner." 
 
 We cannot help thinking that his old jealousy 
 still crops out in these words of men used to writing 
 down his dictations. But the attitude of Douglas 
 in his speech of March 15th, has, to the impartial 
 reader, a different motive from that here given. 
 He did not pretend to be a Republican, he was 
 still for the Dual Union restored through peace. 
 It is true that Douglas was a ''miner and sapper" 
 of all political parties as such, his own party in- 
 cluded ; but he never failed to draw the line at the 
 Union, which he would not breach. And even 
 now his deepest motive is to unite the North and 
 divide the South by holding the Administration 
 back from any act of aggression. Forbear, for- 
 bear, till the South strikes the first blow against 
 the Union, and we shall then all be of one mind — 
 that is the true explanation of Douglas, and con- 
 sistent with all his recent sayings and doings. He 
 is, accordingly, in the deepest of him, co-operating 
 with Lincoln and the Union, though he marches 
 
 32 
 
498 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 along his own road in consonance with his own 
 political principle. And it is well that he so 
 marches, for he, the masterful leader, is bringing 
 with him his own party in the Northern and Bor- 
 der States, and is thus uniting the forces of the 
 Union, 
 
 So we still have to declare that Lincoln has not 
 yet attained the full appreciation of the deepest 
 strain in the character of his life's incarnate coun- 
 terpart, of his other Self, of his antitype, Douglas. 
 Lincoln does not yet see that the time has brought 
 together the colliding opposites of a quarter of a 
 century in a deeper unity, has joined the two per- 
 sonal halves in a greater whole; Lincoln does not 
 yet see that himself and Douglas have at last 
 reached down to that common institutional sub- 
 strate in which they are both of one spirit. But 
 that is just what Douglas recognizes, proclaims 
 and reinforces in Lincoln, despite a difference of 
 policy. The universal love, which has been the 
 chief discipline of the inner life for Lincoln, cannot 
 quite become universal; the one exception will 
 rise to the surface after being consigned seemingly 
 again and again to the abysses of the soul's ob- 
 hvion. The spiritual problem of Lincoln is to de- 
 racinate that unworthy tormenting jealousy which 
 he has so long felt and still feels toward the rival 
 of a life-time, who is now in the deepest matter 
 his voluntary co-worker. Lincoln, can you not 
 requite Douglas's faith in you, repeatedly uttered 
 
THEIR LAST MEETING. 499 
 
 in word and deed, with an equal faith in him? To 
 be sure he has asked no such requital from 
 you, but has gone ahead in the support of you 
 for the sake of the common cause even under 
 your suspicion. Is it not time that you give back 
 a little of what you get, and clean out that one 
 nook of uncharitableness in your otherwise ten- 
 derly forgiving, unavenging heart? 
 
 But while we may conceive the interrogation 
 to be pending before Lincoln's conscience, the 
 rapid whirl of events has brought on the grand 
 opening act of the coming drama — the firing on 
 Fort Sumter. The Sguth has struck the first 
 blow, has done the first unequivocal deed of vio- 
 lence, and the Civil War has actually began. The 
 new situation is suddenly uncurtained ; what Doug- 
 las insisted upon waiting for, has come with a 
 rush; what Lincoln tried to prevent has happened 
 anyhow, by the decree of a mightier Giant than 
 either or both of the human Giants, mightier in- 
 deed than the Nation itself. The horologe of the 
 World's History is tolling a new epoch in the re- 
 verberation of the cannon over Charleston Harbor. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Their Last Meeting. 
 
 The five weeks between the Inaugural and the 
 attack on Sumter witnessed Lincoln's only time of 
 peace, and it was not very peaceful. Prepara- 
 
500 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 tions for war resounded from the Cotton States. 
 There were still many phantoms of Compromiso 
 floating about on the air, distracting the pub- 
 lic mind but utterly unreal and unrealizable. 
 Hardly more than spectres they were of the old 
 Double Union now giving up the ghost which 
 somehow still tarried on this side of Styx, and 
 kept bothering Lincoln a good deal and others 
 even more . But at the roar of the gunnery from 
 Sumter echoing through the land, they took flight 
 to Hades, there to be imprisoned forever, except 
 when they may be evoked to flit a momentary 
 shadow across the page 'of History. 
 
 During this time Lincoln had also a kind of do- 
 mestic struggle in getting control of his cabinet 
 which contained past competitors with him for 
 the Presidency, and possible future candidates 
 against him. Especially Seward and Chase were 
 prominent in this peculiar struggle. But Lincoln's 
 chief contest during these five weeks was with the 
 State of Virginia, mother of the Union and of 
 Presidents, now represented by her convention of 
 unionists, who were going to dictate to the Presi- 
 dent (3f the Union or turn disunionists. The Vir- 
 ginia consciousness has become painfully dual: 
 secession is wrong, but this wrong cannot be 
 righted without committing wrong. Nay more, if 
 the Nation dares right the wrong of secession, 
 Virginia herself will secede, will do the very act 
 which she declares to be wrong, and will join sim- 
 
THEIR LAST MEETING. 501 
 
 ilar wrong-doers whom she has condemned, and 
 even will lead other States into doing her wrong. 
 All this she may deem a sophistical juggle of 
 words; but the inexorable logic of History will 
 flay her for her deed more than any other State, 
 and leave her rent in twain forever — the lasting 
 realization of her dual conduct. Such is the his- 
 toric fact; does it not evidence che penalty of 
 her wrong imposeel by the Supreme Tribunal of 
 the World-Spirit? Lincoln, grandson of Virginia, 
 tried to rescue her from that awful mill of the 
 Gods, but she would not hear him, and so she was 
 ground almost into the dust of the grave, by the 
 outer conflict as well as by her own inner contra- 
 diction. 
 
 Lincoln has resolved to apply a little test to 
 that double-acting Virginia Convention which is 
 for the Union but against its maintenance, and 
 which has shown itself so completely devoid of 
 the old statesmanship of the Commonwealth. He 
 is going to "send bread to Anderson," who badly 
 needs it, having only ''pork and water" for ra- 
 tions. Let South Carolina, and Virginia too if 
 she will, construe that gentle act of humanity to 
 relieve a few starving soldiers in a time of peace 
 as an act of war, and open fire ; one thing is cer- 
 tain : the first shot will unite the North and divide 
 the South. Very dexterous and timely is this 
 plan of Lincoln; Virginia must quit her balanc- 
 ing between two opposite principles which has 
 
502 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 kept the whole Nation in a state of suspense and 
 paralysis. She must now decide whether her hate 
 of Coercion at the least is stronger than her love 
 of the Union at the largest. Another even deeper 
 question lies before her : Shall the rule of the ma- 
 jority or of the minority prevail in this Nation? 
 In his epoch-n:iaking Inaugural liincoln has not 
 failed to drive home this point: "the rule of a 
 minority as a permanent arrangement is wholly 
 inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority prin- 
 ciple, anarchy or despotism is all that is left." 
 Virginia shows that she will dictate to the ma- 
 jority or go out of the Union, and that is her 
 Unionism, wdiich, it is plain, must pass through a 
 complete regeneration . 
 
 Some 6,000 gallant South Carolinians opened 
 their batteries upon the breadless soldiers of Fort 
 Sumter, just 77 in number (exclusive of 51 non- 
 combatants, laborers and musicians) on the 12th 
 of April, 1861, and precipitated the Civil War. 
 Anderson, after a stout-hearted defense, capitu- 
 lated on the 13th with the honors of war; he and 
 his garrison sailed North the next day. Such Vv'as 
 the result of Lincoln's attempt to '\send bread to 
 Anderson" who had to make his fight on ''pork 
 and water." South Carolina possesses Fort Sum- 
 ter, the first blow has been struck, coercion in its 
 least possible form has been resisted by arms, the 
 alignment of both sides for battle at once takes 
 place. 
 
THEIR LAST MEETING. 503 
 
 The fall of Sumter was known in Washington 
 fully by Sunday, April tb.e 14th, and was read on 
 the same day throughout the country. Indigna- 
 tion from all parts began to roll in oceanic waves 
 toward the Capital as the center of power. The 
 cabinet met and Lincoln read to them his draft of 
 a proclamation which called 75,000 mihtia into 
 service for three months, and convened Congress 
 in extra session on the coming 4th of July. Excited 
 multitudes streamed into the White House to 
 hear what might be the word of the leader; tele- 
 grams began to pour in from the Northern States 
 with strong advice and stronger offers; Senators 
 and Representatives tarrying in Washington after 
 the adjournment of Congress pledged their con- 
 stituencies to the support of the Government. It 
 was known that one of those remaining behind in 
 the Capital ami watching closely the rapid whirl 
 of events was Stephen A. Douglas. Him above 
 all men Lincoln probably most desired to see just 
 then, but hardly dared openly to send for him. 
 Douglas, however, did not wait for the invitation; 
 through a friend he requested an interview with 
 Lincoln on that same Sunday evening at the Ex- 
 ecutive Mansion between seven and eight o'clock 
 P. M. At the appointed time Douglas appeared, 
 and Lincoln was ready also, having dismissed or 
 evaded the importunate throng of visitors. 
 
 It is recorded that they sat together in private 
 conversation for nearly two hours, no other per- 
 
504 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 son being present . Nothing of what they said has 
 been handed down, as far as we have been able to 
 find. Lincoln seems never to have talked about 
 it afterwards. We may well suppose that he, 
 first of all, submitted his proclamation to the keen 
 eye of Douglas for suggestion and approval. As 
 already said, the word of Douglas meant a united 
 North and a divided South, and Lincoln knew it ; 
 hence he rightly felt that before he sent forth 
 that war-call to the country, he must have on it 
 the stamp of Douglas. And he gets it. The 
 next morning along with the proclamation, the 
 newspapers gave the account of the Lincoln-Doug- 
 las interview, and the authorized statement of 
 Douglas that "he was prepared to sustain the 
 President in the exercise of all his Constitutional 
 functions to preserve the Union and maintain the 
 Government, and defend the Federal Capital," 
 ''though he was still unalterably opposed to the ad- 
 ministration on all its political issues," that is, on 
 the special objects of the Republican party in re- 
 gard to the Territories. Let it be noted that this 
 exception is really in favor of Lincoln and the 
 Union, for Douglas could hardly have made his 
 followers Republicans, at least not so suddenly, 
 but he could and did keep them firm Unionists, 
 and in so far supporters of the administration. 
 The fact is that since the inauguration, Lincoln 
 and Douglas were both pursuing the same end 
 though by different roads : to keep the peace in all 
 
THEIR LAST MEETING. 505 
 
 forbearance till the South breaks it first, to the eye 
 of the whole Nation. To be sure, distinguished 
 Southern writers since that time have maintained 
 that the bombardment of Sumter was not the first 
 aggressive act of the war, but resistance to the 
 previous aggression of the North, that it was 
 merely defensive, and so on, with varied subtle 
 argumentation. But the Nation as a whole did 
 not then, and does not still take that view, and it 
 was the Nation which practically had to decide 
 the matter. 
 
 So much, then, must have been agreed upon in 
 that interview between Douglas and Lincoln; but 
 anything else? Undoubtedly, though the manner 
 of it will probably remain forever unknown. Wo 
 may, therefore, be permitted to infer from their 
 subsequent action their conversation, imagining it 
 to culminate in a dramatic scene when the Little 
 Giant, impulsively generous, jumps up from his 
 seat, throws back that leonine head of his with its 
 massive shock of hair, and thus bursts out to his 
 life-long rival : 
 
 Douglas. Mr. President, I wish to enlist under 
 you, in obedience to that call. 
 
 Lincoln (rising). Then you will be my first en- 
 listed man in the war for the Union. 
 
 Douglas. That is just what I wish to be. I 
 am at your service. 
 
 Lincoln. Well, to confess to you my secret 
 thought, I have had you uppermost in my mind 
 
506 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 for weeks. You can do more for me than any- 
 other Hving man. 
 
 Douglas. What are your orders? 
 
 Lincoln. I have already thought of asking you 
 to go to our common North- West and unify its 
 people in one mass of living valor, which will 
 sweep clown the Mississippi, in case of necessity, 
 and keep its great Valley, the seat of the coming 
 Nation, in the Union. 
 
 Douglas. You outline my own purpose. I had 
 already intended to do something of that sort 
 myself. 
 
 Lincoln. Yes, I note that our minds at last 
 begin to run together. But I want to say that 
 you are the only man, in my opinion, who can do 
 that deed, the most important national deed to 
 be done just at present. 
 
 Douglas. Yes, I note that you begin at last to 
 find me out. But I must be off; I think we 
 understand each other now. Good-bye; in a few 
 days I shall start for my new task, which I shall 
 perform, if it kills me. 
 
 Lincoln. God speed you, the first enlisted man 
 in the cause of the Union, auGl I must add, the 
 greatest. With you I seem already to have won; 
 without you I would hardl}^ have tlared to start. 
 
 Bending a courteous nod of the head Douglas 
 springs out of the door into the night and soon 
 disappears in the surging multitude. This was the 
 last important meeting (Douglas seems to have 
 
LAST DEED AND DEATH OF DOUGLAS. 507 
 
 made a parting call a day or two later) of the two 
 great rivals, whose hitherto antipathetic lives have 
 now attained, through long and strong opposition, 
 that common bond of sympathy which underlay 
 both from the beginning. 
 
 Such, then, is the final outcome of our two anti- 
 types, whose contradictory careers we have fol- 
 lowed for more than a quarter of a century, till 
 th§y have reached and recognized their unity, 
 which is likewise the unity of their country. So 
 long has it taken them to find each other out. 
 One cannot help asking whether Lincoln, with his 
 innate tendency to brooding and melancholy, may 
 not have afterwards had some resurgences of 
 doubt and jealousy of his old competitor. That 
 single exception to his magnanimity, that excepted 
 Douglas, whose distrust had struck such deep roots 
 into Lincoln's character, . could probably not be 
 eradicated at once. But one fact stands out 
 strongly: Douglas was soon speeding westward 
 from the Capital on his new mission, which was also 
 destined to be the climax and the conclusion of 
 his life's work. 
 
 XVL 
 
 Last Deed and Death of Douglas. 
 
 Along his route everywhere it' soon became 
 known that Douglas was coming — now the out- 
 spoken defender of the Union under the call of the 
 newly elected President, whose most strongly sup- 
 
508 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 ported opponent he had been in the recent can- 
 vas. Thus he represented in person by his deed 
 the unity of political parties for the Union. A 
 word from such a source was intensely longed 
 after by the Folk-Soul wherever he went, for he 
 now voiced the united Nation better than any 
 other public man. 
 
 Very suggestive are his remarks at Bellair, 
 Ohio, April 22d: "The proposition now is to 
 separate these United States into little petty con- 
 federacies. First divide them into two; and then, 
 when either party gets beaten at the next election, 
 subdivide again : then, whenever one gets beaten 
 again, another subdivision .... and so it 
 will go on." This is the logic (or rather the dia- 
 lectic) of Secession; the separation, if allowed as a 
 principle, must continue indefinitely, seeking to 
 make itself universal. Lincoln had touched upon 
 the same thought in his Inaugural: 'Tf a minority 
 will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a 
 precedent which will in turn divide and ruin them; 
 for a minority of their own will secede from them 
 whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by 
 such minority. , . . All who cherish disunion 
 sentiments are being educated to the exact tem- 
 per of doing this. . . . Plainly the central 
 idea of secession is the essence of anarchy." Thus 
 Lincoln strikingly sets forth the inner dialectical 
 process of Secession, which is strongly affirmed 
 by Douglas in his foregoing speech: 'Tt is not a 
 
LAST DEED AND DEATH OF DOUGLAS. 509 
 
 question of union or disunion ; it is a question of 
 order, of the stability of Government, of the 
 peace of communities. The whole social system 
 is threatened with destruction and disruption." 
 There is no doubt that these words of Douglas 
 appealed mightily to the Folk-Soul of the North- 
 ern and Border States. He was a living example 
 of his own doctrine ; he had been beaten at the 
 polls in the recent election, and now he proclaims 
 acquiescence in the rule of the majority as the 
 very principle of republican government, and in- 
 deed of all peace and ordc^. Very striking is his 
 contrast with the other defeated candidates, both 
 Southerners, Bell and Breckinridge, who at last 
 became secessionists, preferring minority rule to 
 coercion, or to the maintenance of majority rule 
 in the Nation. Lincoln, the victorious candidate, 
 even though President, could not have produced 
 by any speech the overwhelming popular impres- 
 sion which Douglas now excited wherever he 
 went. For he still upheld that majority rule 
 which had turned him under, while Lincoln, up- 
 holding it, was felt to be also upholding his own 
 personal interest and victory. Prodigious was 
 the response of the whole People, not only to the 
 doctrine of Douglas (which was the same as that 
 of Lincoln), but also to his magnanimity as well 
 as to his unselfish patriotism. It is not too much 
 to say that Douglas now rises to the most glorious 
 period of his total career; his very defeat he turns 
 
510 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 into a triumph greater than that of his successful 
 opponent. 
 
 And so he continues his journey to the North- 
 West, the united folk of all parties eveiywhere 
 hugging his path and begging a word from that 
 heart which could show so much renunciation for 
 the good of the country. At Columbus he was 
 called out in the night by a regiment marching 
 to the front, for a kind of benediction. 
 When he reached Springfield he made before the 
 Illinois Legislature a speech, whose extraordinary 
 power and influence have been celebrated by a 
 reporter otherwise hostile to him, as follows: "It 
 was like a blast of thunder. I do not think that 
 it is possible for a human being to produce a more 
 prodigious effect with spoken words than he pro- 
 duced on those who were within the sound of his 
 voice. He was standing in the same place where 
 I had first heard Mr. Lincoln. . . . That 
 speech hushed the breath of treason in every cor- 
 ner of the State." (Horace White in Herndon & 
 Weik's Lincoln, II., pp. 126-7). But his reception 
 at Chicago, his home, was the most significant and 
 triumphant of all. A great multitude, made up 
 of every party, met him at the depot and escorted 
 him, like a conqueror, to the Wigwam where Lin- 
 coln had been nominated the year before. Ten 
 thousand people again filled it, shouting a unani- 
 mous welcome. He is now again in harmony with 
 the Folk-Soul of his State and of the North- West, 
 
LAST DEED AND DEATH OF DOUGLAS. 511 
 
 from which he has been ahenated so many years. 
 We have seen that since 1850, he has been re- 
 peatedly received in Chicago with most emphatic 
 signs of public disapproval. That was during his 
 breaching, separative period. But now he repre- 
 sents the united People more completely than 
 Lincoln as he steps upon the platform of the Wig- 
 wam, taking, as it were, Lincoln's place in Lin- 
 coln's own temple, and performing Lincoln's own 
 task of voicing the decree of the World-Spirit to 
 the Folk-Soul. That must be deemed the culmi- 
 nation of Douglas. 
 
 In his speech he summons all his leonine 
 strength and thunders: "There can be no neutrals 
 in this war: only patriots or traitors." So Douglas 
 places himself and all his followers on the battle- 
 line of the Union. This is Douglas at his most 
 colossal moment; but the act is breaking his 
 heart. There is a strain of bleeding sorrow gush- 
 ing up through his words in spite of his strong 
 self-suppression. He confesses that "it is a sad 
 task to discuss questions so fearful as civil war," 
 which he foretells to be "disastrous and bloody." 
 This was his last speech, May 1st, 1861. He took 
 to his bed, and in a brief time was dangerously 
 ill. His dying message to his boys at Georgetown 
 College was: "Tell them to obey the laws and 
 support the Constitution of the United States." 
 His last breath was an utterance of that institu- 
 tional spirit which we have always found under- 
 
512 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 lying his political conduct, however changeful and 
 negative. His death occurred June 3d, at -the age 
 of 48 years, producing a tragic impression of 
 gloom upon the Nation, which had followed so 
 intently the final act of his life. 
 
 Such is the end of what we have called the Lin- 
 coln-Douglas sexennium, during which these two 
 antitypal characters, both truly gigantic, have had 
 their long desperate contest upon the arena of 
 State and Nation. With this end also concludes 
 the second great Period of Lincoln's whole career, 
 in which he through many an up and down be- 
 comes the supreme national man of his time, 
 being chosen the Nation's Executive, its very 
 Will in the pinch of its greatest crisis. A drama 
 we may deem it with its twinned heroes ever cir- 
 cling about each other in a kind of antithetic 
 unity. The outcome is that the antitypes have at 
 last come together in a common fundamental ele- 
 ment of character which both instinctively have 
 possessed from the beginning as their deepest in- 
 stitutional endowment from their Nation. But 
 alack-a-day! one of them dies in the very act of 
 supreme reconciliation, which is called forth by 
 the danger of that Union with which both of them 
 were ingrown in the deepest of their being. The 
 close of Douglas bears in it a sublime pathos: his 
 highest deed of self-conquest and of harmonious 
 mediation with his People kills him, or at least 
 brings him face to face with his own individual 
 dissolution. 
 
LAST DEED AND DEATH OF DOUGLAS. 513 
 
 So we must do justice to Douglas, whom the 
 biographers of Lincoln generally have been in- 
 clined to disparage and to blacken, having ap- 
 parently absorbed somewhat of Lincoln's one 
 dominating i)rcjudice — that against his life-long 
 rival. But History must vindicate the persistent 
 institutional character of Douglas from the first to 
 the last of his career, even if he regarded political 
 parties as legitimate game for his personal ambi- 
 tion. But he never did play fast and loose with 
 the Union, to whose support he rallied with all 
 his strength in the crisis of its supreme danger. 
 And we have to repeat that Douglas, especially 
 after the great Debate, appreciated Lincoln better 
 than Lincoln appreciated Douglas. Lincoln had 
 a more universally magnanimous character than 
 Douglas, still Douglas was more magnanimous to 
 Lincoln than Lincoln to Douglas. Lincoln was 
 more humane and more forgiving to all the world 
 than Douglas, but less forgiving to Douglas than 
 Douglas to him. And that common basic element 
 of devotion to the Union, which lay so deep in 
 both — Douglas recognized it more fully in Lincoln 
 than Lincoln ever recognized it in Douglas. 
 
 Still when all has been said, and both the 
 Giants, the little and the big, have been weighed 
 in the scales of justice and have impartially re- 
 ceived judgment, it will be acknowledged that 
 Lincoln was made of a purer clay and was cast in 
 a diviner mould than Douglas. He seemed to be- 
 
 33 
 
514 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART SECOND. 
 
 long to a different and higher order of humanity. 
 That sympathy with poor raortahty reaching down 
 to the humblest even of a different race, sponta- 
 neously pulsed upward like an Artesian well out of 
 Lincoln's heart, but hardly out. of Douglas's. Not 
 only no Slave-State shall be born hereafter of the 
 American Union, but no slave shall ever again 
 open his eyes on American soil — that was the 
 principle and the achievement of Lincoln, but not 
 of Douglas. The Genius of Civilization, the Spirit 
 of the Age took Lincoln as its bosom confidant 
 and communicated to him its secret decree for the 
 future; but it whispered no such lofty evangel to 
 Douglas, who, however, came at last to feel some- 
 thing of the sort through Lincoln. And the su- 
 preme test of the truly Great Man of any time or 
 clime, that of making himself the mediator be- 
 tween the World-Spirit and the Folk-Soul of his 
 Nation in its pivotal crisis, can be triumphantly 
 applied to Lincoln ; but to such high office Doug- 
 las can lay no supereminent claim except for a 
 time possibly on that last journey of his when he 
 bore to his people Lincoln's message, which had 
 also become deeply his own. 
 
 And yet in Lincoln we long to find one thing 
 which we cannot: some brief word of recognition 
 for liis rival's great deed of service and self-denial. 
 A little eulogy over the grave of Douglas would 
 have well befitted Lincoln's lips, but they are 
 silent. Still we cannot help thinking that out of 
 
LAST DEED AND DEATH OF DOUGLAS. 515 
 
 his generous heart in some self-communing moment 
 burst forth a repentant confession: "That man I 
 did not fully recognize; even in the final act of 
 him I was still afraid that he would breach the 
 Union, but he died defending it to his uttermost . 
 Gladly would I confess to him my mistake, but it 
 is too late; his last deed and death have brought 
 home to me my own shortcoming. Farewell, 
 my first enlisted man and the greatest — also the 
 first hero to die for the Union. Henceforth I must 
 go on without thee, quite alone." 
 
part ^birb. 
 
 We have now reached the last and briefest 
 Period of Lincoln, yet altogether the most event- 
 ful and best known. Hardly four years does it 
 continue, but it shows Lincoln's practical achieve- 
 ment, his true realization. He passes to the exe- 
 cution of what he has hitherto simply uttered and 
 formulated. So he is distinctively the Nation's 
 Executive, moving from word to deed. Taking 
 in the whole sweep of this quadrennium, we see 
 that he is to make actual his utterance: ''This 
 (516) 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S ENECUTIVE. 517 
 
 Nation cannot endure half slave and half free." 
 He indeed voiced the decree of the World-Spirit 
 in his far-reaching Prelude of the Lincolniad, as 
 we have elsewhere termed it; but now he has 
 been chosen to be the doer also, the executor of 
 that same decree. The Presidency means essenti- 
 ally Will, verily the Will of the whole People in- 
 corporate in one individual. Strange lot fallen 
 out. of the skies upon that country lawyer from 
 the North-West, quite without administrative ex- 
 perience of any kind ! Will, then, he is to mani- 
 fest in a supreme degree, institutional Will as 
 distinct from caprice or obstinacy; the central 
 Will of his immediate cabinet he is to show him- 
 self as well as of the remotest members of the 
 Nation. At the same time we must not leave out 
 of his psychical composition the realm of his Feel- 
 ing, that which is celebrated in hundreds of anec- 
 dotes under the names of Sympathy, Heart, Love. 
 Indeed, he had to guard against his emotional 
 nature, which might make him at times too 
 lenient, through Secretary Stanton, who was 
 naturally the opposite of Lincoln in this regard. 
 Just as great as his Feeling and his Will was his 
 Int(,"llect, embracing what is often called sagac- 
 ity, insight, genetic thought. Compared with 
 Seward, who was a man of erudition, of reflec- 
 tion, and of keen dialectical subtlety, Lincoln 
 must be deemed the positive thinker within his 
 range, which was political, being able to pene- 
 
518 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 trate with his mind the soul of the object under 
 consideration, to grasp and utter its creative es- 
 sence. 
 
 If the three basic activities of the Human Spirit 
 be Feehng, Will and Intellect, we have to say 
 that Lincoln manifested them all in a peculiarly 
 high degree of completeness. What a contrast 
 was he to the preceding will-less Executive! 
 Buchanan must be taken as the final embodirtient 
 of the old Double Union, its attempted equilib- 
 rium between the Free-States and the Slave- 
 States, its everlasting balancing and tetering be- 
 tween the two sides, which reached quite the 
 point of national paralysis, and in his case, of in- 
 dividual paralysis, of Will. It is not too much to 
 say that the Nation could see a picture of itself at 
 that time in the doubleness and vacillation of the 
 Chief Executive. And it will have to be added 
 that the last decade before 1861 of Southern 
 statesmanship under Northern Presidents had 
 brought the Nation to this stage of inner dualism 
 and will-lessness — almost to the point of letting 
 the Nation fall asunder of itself in peace. Now 
 it was at this point that Lincoln took hold and 
 began to re-unite the separating parts into a new 
 Whole, which is indeed his great work. We have 
 sought to trace him united within after having 
 had his time of dualism, and then ho is ready to 
 make his cardinal utterance that the Nation's 
 dualism must come to an end, as did his own. 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S ENECUTIVE. 519 
 
 As a divided Self, he never could have unified the 
 Nation. 
 
 Moreover Coercion, so hateful to the South, 
 means Will — the Union declares itself also to be 
 a Will, which is to be exerted and enforced 
 through the Chief Executive. But the doctrine of 
 the Southerners, even of the most of the Southern 
 Unionists, was that the Union had no Will and 
 had no right to assert itself against its destroyer 
 Disunion. Thus will-less James Buchanan was its 
 Presidential ideal. But Lincoln brings Will and a 
 united Will into that unwilled and disunited 
 Union, tmly a contradiction in terms. Hence he 
 affirms in his Inaugural the doctrine of Coercion, 
 or of the Union with a Will — he has to do so or 
 to drop back into a James Buchanan with a 
 dual, self-annulling Union. 
 
 In the psychology of Lincoln an interesting 
 point is to notice his use of the first personal pro- 
 noun in many of his documents, especially in the 
 later ones: "Must / shoot a simple-minded soldier- 
 boy who deserts, while / must not touch a hair 
 of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" 
 Really Lincoln here naively voices the Folk-Soul 
 as an Ego or Self, which is his own. Some politi- 
 cal opponents have tried to make Lincoln speak 
 like an absolutist after the pattern of Louis XIV 
 of France, when the latter said Vetat c'est moi. 
 But of the caprice of the tyrant no rulci' was ever 
 more free than Lincoln; his was an institutional 
 
520 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 spirit seeking to govern through Law and Consti- 
 tution, even when he says that ''measures other- 
 wise unconstitutional, might become lawful by 
 becoming indisj:)ensable to the preservation of the 
 Constitution through the preservation of the 
 Nation." That is, he might have to violate the 
 Constitution in part to save it as a whole (as in 
 the Merryman case). He recognized the Consti- 
 tution as supreme in its entirety, but he also 
 recognized that a clause of it might bo turned in 
 a political crisis against the existence of the total 
 instrument. He never said or imagined, "I am 
 the State" in the absolutistic sense; he never 
 deemed himself to be the source of the Constitu- 
 tion, but rather the Constitution to be the source 
 of himself as Executive, though he claimed the 
 right to interpret that Constitution in his own 
 sphere. Really his natural use of / in his public 
 utterances has its deep psychologic justification in 
 the man and his work, which the people felt and 
 accepted; his Ego or Self had to re-create and re- 
 establish that institutional world which threat- 
 ened to fall to pieces around him. 
 
 I. The supreme end of Lincoln during this 
 Period is to preserve the Union. This is the one 
 thing from which all his political conduct flows 
 and to which it returns. Undoubtedly other ends 
 play in, but they are inferior in his regard; in 
 fact they become means at last to the one great 
 object — Union. From this point of view we must 
 
LIXCOLX THE XATIOX'S EXECUTIVE. 521 
 
 estimate Lincoln's dealing with the slavery ques- 
 tion during the war, the purpose of which was not 
 the destruction of slavery but the preservation of 
 the Union. And such was the only institutional 
 way of carrying on the contest. This attitude, 
 however, began to divide his party into radicals 
 and conservatives, the first making the Union 
 subordinate to the slavery issue, the other making 
 the slavery issue subordinate to the Union. Of 
 course there were many shades of opinion between 
 these two wings. 
 
 Moreover, as an act of policy, this attitude of 
 Lincoln was very effective. It was the senthnent 
 of Unon by which he held in line the Border 
 States and the Douglas Democracy. A proclaimed 
 war against slavery directly would have divided 
 the North and united the South. And the radical 
 Republicans would have to follow Lincoln in the 
 end anyhow, for they could not well follow the 
 South. Thus Lincoln, by his pohcy of making 
 the Union the supreme end, practically kept 
 the North united and the South divided. 
 What Douglas so nobly helped to put into his 
 hand, he held to the last. The radical programme 
 would have brought failure, and have deserved it, 
 being really anti-institutional. 
 
 The best representative of the more radical wing 
 of the Republicans was Horace Greeley, who 
 through his Neio York Tribune could flood the 
 country with his discontent. He assumed in his 
 
522 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 newspaper to utter "the prayer of twenty mil- 
 lions" for immediate emancipation. Greeley com- 
 plains that your "timid counsels in such a crisis 
 are calculated to prove perilous and probably dis- 
 astrous," and that "you are unduly influenced by 
 the counsels, the representations, the menaces of 
 certain fossil politicians hailing from the Border 
 Slave States." So Greeley would produce a di- 
 vided North and and a united South. Important 
 is Greeley's declaration "that a large proportion 
 of our regular army officers, with many of the 
 volunteers, evince far more solicitude to uphold 
 slavery than to put down the Rebellion." Doubt- 
 less this sentence touches upon a very serious 
 troul)le in the Army of the Potomac in j)articular, 
 but certainly Lincoln did not create it, though he 
 had to deal with it as an existent fact. What 
 was that trouble, or malady perchance? Lincoln 
 himself recognized it, and tried to cure it, or at 
 least to control it in one way or the other, still it 
 baffled him quite to the last. 
 
 But in reference to his policy, Lincoln takes his 
 pen and answers Greeley in a brief letter which, 
 both as to its form and significance, must be 
 pronounced a masterpiece of its kind. Let the 
 reader note once more the use of the .personal 
 pronoun /, and the peculiar effect of it as a 
 matter of style. Again we hear the individual 
 Abraham Lincoln mightily voicing the Folk-Soul 
 as a whole against a petty snarling fragment of it 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 523 
 
 represented l^y Greeley. Here is the letter, with 
 the omission of a few sentences: ''I would save 
 the Union. I would save it the shortest way under 
 the Constitution. ... If I could save the Union 
 without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I 
 could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do 
 it; and if I could save it by freeing some and 
 leaving others alone, I would also do that. What 
 I do about slavery and the colored race, I do be- 
 cause I believe it helps saves the Union ; and what 
 I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it 
 would help save the Union. I shall do less when- 
 ever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, 
 and I shall do more whenever I believe doing 
 more will help the cause. ... I have here 
 stated my purpose according to my view of offi- 
 cial duty ; and I intend no modification of my oft- 
 expressed personal wish that all men everywhere 
 could be free." 
 
 This letter bears the date of August 22, 1862, 
 while the great resurgence of the Confederate 
 arms was rolling Northward, both in the East and 
 West and pushing the battle-line back to the Po- 
 tomac and Ohio rivers, with the threat of invading 
 the Free States and of making them the theater 
 of the war. Lincoln had already written his 
 Proclamation of Emancipation, but was waiting 
 for a favorable time to issue it to the public. He 
 says in this letter that he will use slavery as a 
 means for preserving the Union. Note that he 
 
524 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART THIRD. 
 
 discriminates between his personal wish "that all 
 men could be everywhere free," and his sworn 
 Constitutional duty — the sign of the institutional 
 man. Remarkable too is the composition of this 
 letter with its geometric order and precision of 
 sentences — antithetic and apothegmatic. But the 
 supreme fact of it is the Primacy of the Union, 
 now uttered against Northern extremists, and not 
 against Southern disunionists, as was the first In- 
 augural . 
 
 11. We are now led to inquire, what is this 
 Union which Jjincoln places so decidedly first in 
 importance? It means, of course, a reunited in- 
 stead of a divided nationality, one instead of two 
 or many. It is evident that the South is ready to 
 break up the old State and to make several States 
 out of it, while the North proposes to resist such 
 a separative tendency, and even to strengthen the 
 previous oneness. Thus two opposite phases of 
 political consciousness have arisen, the unitary 
 and the divisive, and are contending for mastery. 
 This is the fundamental fact of the time, whose 
 problem is calling impressively for solution. 
 
 The mind queries: cannot the end of human 
 government be attained as well by a cluster of 
 independent States as by a single federated State? 
 The South says yes, the North says no Who or 
 what is to decide? Both parties appeal to war, or 
 in religious speech, to the God of Battles, who is 
 conceived by both to be over both, or the su- 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 525 
 
 preme arbiter of the contest. Each is or claims to 
 be a Nation, and thus each recognizes and invokes 
 a common Power above the Nation as the World- 
 Judge who has at last to make the decision. 
 
 At once our thought proceeds to grapple this 
 highest Justiciary who holds appellate jurisdiction 
 over the Nations, all of them, and has held it 
 since the beginning of History, In this book of 
 ours we have sought to keep him in mind and 
 have endowed him with a special name, the World- 
 Spirit, to whose tribunal all national events are 
 ultimately referred for adjudication. Moreover, 
 he works through men, especially through the 
 Great Man of the Age, who becomes the mouth- 
 piece as well as the executor of these supreme be- 
 hests. Performing this function we have repeat- 
 edly noted Lincoln, And we have to add, for the 
 completion of the thought, that this World-Spirit 
 has an end in its judgment of Nations — which end 
 is to bring forth the supreme political institution, 
 the universal State, for making freedom actual. 
 According to this test each particular Nation is 
 judged and takes its place in the institutional ev- 
 olution of History. 
 
 And now the question arises: Which is the 
 higher principle, that of the North or of the South, 
 in the view of the World-Spirit? Which repre- 
 sents better the movement toward the universal 
 State with its actualized freedom? The South is 
 bringing forth a division of the one Federal Union 
 
526 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 into two or more governments of the same kind, 
 that is, rcpubhcan; the one repubUc hitherto is 
 to become many repubhcs, as in South America, 
 which therein reproduces the governmental multi- 
 phcity of Europe. Evidently, then, secession 
 means the relapse to the political form which 
 dominates European History, from the ancient 
 Greek City-State to the modern Nation-State. 
 Europe is now and always has been since its his- 
 toric beginning a Polyarchy, as we have elsewhere 
 named it (see our European History, p. 17, et 
 passim), a group of separate independent States, 
 always fighting or getting ready to fight one 
 another. The Federal Union as organized by the 
 Constitution distinctly overcame and transcended 
 the separative, mutually colliding stage of Poly- 
 archic Europe through its principle of federation, 
 which joins together the individual States, yet just 
 therein preserves and secures their separate 
 individuality. The American Union, from this 
 point of view, is the new and higher political norm 
 which the World-Spirit has evolved in unfolding 
 toward its end. The wx>ll-known American motto 
 is E pluribus unum, one made out of many, while 
 Europe is many made out of one, and this what 
 the South proposes to do through secession and 
 separation. 
 
 The Southern principle, therefore, runs counter 
 to the ongoing movem(>nt of the World's History; 
 it is a relapse to a preceding and less developed 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 527 
 
 political condition; it reverses the wheels of 
 progress and goes backward to an historic stage 
 wliich the Federal Union has transcended or at 
 least has begun to transcend . Of course there is 
 no intention here to disparage Europe, which cer- 
 tainly had a higher culture than any part of the 
 newly discovered Western Continent. Still we 
 affirm that its political system was an earlier form, 
 and really less developed in the sweep of universal 
 History, than the federal system of the United 
 States . We may divide the world-historical move- 
 ment up to date into three main ever-advancing 
 stages — Oriental, European, and Occidental or 
 American; Europe with its separative Polyarchy 
 is the second stage, while America with its Union 
 through federation is the third, and so far the last . 
 And now we are to see what all this has to do 
 with Lincoln. He 'has become the supreme repre- 
 sentative of this Federal Union in its most peril- 
 ous crisis, when it must take a step forward into a 
 new and higher form of itself, or must dro}) back- 
 ward into some phase of the European Polyarchy . 
 It is Lincoln more than any other leader who re- 
 establishes and transforms the American Federal 
 system when it had become decadent under the 
 later Southern statesmanship . It is he who makes 
 the old Double Union with its dualism of Free- 
 States and Slave-States into a single homogeneous 
 Union as to freedom. He will not permit Amer- 
 ica to be Europeanized politicall}', though all 
 
"528 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD 
 
 Americans recognize gratefully their European 
 origin. But they must advance to the possession 
 of their new historic heritage, which is not Poly- 
 arc hie, but Federative through a Constitution. 
 Europe is, indeed, a Polyarchy of monarchies 
 mainly, while the trend of the South was turned 
 toward a Polyarchy of republics, two or more. 
 The Southerners could not be called monarchists, 
 they were in their way, doubtless, as good repub- 
 licans as the Northerners : but that was not the 
 issue before the Tribunal of the World's History. 
 The issue was secession, separation. Polyarchy, 
 even though this might be a Polyarchy of repub- 
 lics. We may well think that the World-Spirit or 
 the presiding Genius over total History had laid 
 the burden of upholding and realizing its third 
 great stage upon the Unionists, whose supreme 
 representative and protagonist was Lincoln, who 
 must keep them from the grand relapse, free them 
 from slavery the separator, and finally transform 
 the Union itself. 
 
 Lincoln was, therefore, a world-historical char- 
 acter in the great sense, and thus we must grasp 
 him at his highest. lindoubtedly he was national, 
 intensely so, but Nations, especially in their 
 bloom, are the bearers and executors of the World- 
 Spirit. It is at this point that we may catch the 
 full meaning of Lincoln's stress upon the Union. 
 This was, indeed, of great economic advantage to 
 the people, and otherwise brought many blessings 
 
LIXCOLX THE XATIOX'S EXECUTIVE 529 
 
 in its train; still the summation of all its merits 
 and virtues lay in the fact that it was the culmi- 
 nation of universal History, so far as this has yet 
 unfolded. 
 
 It may be added that Greeley had no con- 
 sciousness of the world-historical place of the 
 Union, and hence he could not at all appreciate 
 the deepest motive of Lincoln, and indeed, of the 
 war itself. The two men united in a common 
 hostility to slavery, but Greeley had almost no 
 institutional sense, which was the saving attribute 
 of Lincoln. Over and over again during the war 
 the utterances of Greeley, though not consistent 
 always, could only be called those of an anti- 
 slavery disunionist, and thus showed a very deep 
 point of agreement with the pro-slavery disunion- 
 ist. Now Lincoln's great call was to vindicate 
 the Union, not merely as national but also as 
 world-liistorical; so he had to meet and put down 
 disunionism of both kinds, anti-slavery and pro- 
 slaveiy. Northern and Southern, Greeley and Jef- 
 ferson Davis. The former was chiefly accom- 
 plished by the word of Lincoln (witness the fore- 
 going letter), the latter by his deed. At the same 
 time he declared he would lay hands on slavery 
 as a means for preserving the Union — which was 
 also a kind of notice to the pro-slavery Unionists 
 of the Border States to get ready to take the step 
 with him. 
 
 in. The thoughtful reader will not fail to ask, 
 
 34 
 
530 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 How far was Lincoln conscious of his place in the 
 World's History? Not once but many times he 
 speaks of the Civil War as a struggle for the exist- 
 ence of popular Government universally. If a 
 minority can rise up and nullify the Will of the 
 People constitutionally expressed, that is the end 
 of their rule forever. And this loss is not merely 
 confined to America, but will be the failure of "a 
 great promise to all the people of the World to all 
 time to come" — a defeat not only national but also 
 world-historical. The same thought we hear in 
 the conclusion of the Gettysburg speech, "that 
 government of the People, by the People, for the 
 People, shall not perish from the earth." So Lin- 
 coln always appealed mightily to the Folk-Soul to 
 defend its inheritance of the ages, its institutional 
 freedom through the Union and Constitution, as a 
 boon for all coming time. And the response never 
 failed to rise at the call. 
 
 Still the People, the Nation, the Folk-Soul, was 
 but one side or element of the great historic proc- 
 ess of the time. What was the other? In this 
 connection may be cited a passage from the first 
 Inaugural: "In our present differences (between 
 North and South) is either party without faith of 
 being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Na- 
 tions with His eternal truth and justice, be on 
 your side of the North, or on yours of the South, 
 that truth and that justice will surely prevail by 
 the judgment of this great tribunal of the Ameri- 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. .531 
 
 can People." Here are first to be noted the two 
 elements: ''the Almighty Ruler of Nations" on this 
 part and "the American People" on the other. 
 Such is Lincoln's way of designating those two 
 principles or energies to which we have often 
 called attention in this book under the names of 
 World-Spirit and Folk-Soul. ' Moreover, there is 
 also in the extract a hint of the interaction be- 
 tween these two energies. "The Almighty Ruler 
 of Nations" is the ideal bearer of "eternal truth 
 and justice," which must be somehow realized and 
 made to prevail through the "tribunal of the 
 American People" in the present contest between 
 the North and the South. Or we may say, the 
 Spirit ruling the World's History, that is, the 
 World-Spirit with its universal end is to be medi- 
 ated with the Folk-Soul, whose supreme function 
 is to embody and to execute the decree of the 
 World-Spirit at a given historic epoch. 
 
 But who or what is to mediate these two ener- 
 gies? For "the Almighty Ruler of Nations" does 
 not in these days directly interfere even in those 
 affairs about which he is seemingly most deeply 
 concerned, but He employs some individual as 
 instrument or intermediary — we shall call him a 
 mediator. Now in the above extract Lincoln does 
 not explicitly speak of any such mediator, though 
 this be implied. But at other times not only was 
 such a mediator mentioned by him, but he recog- 
 nized himself to be- performing that mediatorial 
 
532 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 function. This comes out in a passage already 
 cited in another connection: "I shall be most 
 happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument 
 in the hands of the Almighty and of this his almost 
 chosen People." (see preceding, p. 6). Here are 
 designated the three elemental constituents which 
 go to make every great world-historical process — not 
 only this American one but all. 
 
 In this sense we may conceive Lincoln as a me- 
 diator, mediating the World-Spirit and the Folk- 
 Soul. He first represents the universal scope and 
 sweep of History marching through a vast and 
 variegated hurly-burly of events toward its goal, 
 which may be ideally conceived as the Federation 
 of Mankind. This World-Spirit is what the Great 
 Man of the given time must commune with and 
 realize in his own particular Nation, which he has 
 also to understand, knowing what it will do and 
 what it will not do . For the Nation also shares 
 instinctively in the movement of Age, and nuist 
 be ready to hear the word and to do the com- 
 mand of the mediator, who is indeed voicing 
 "the Almighty Ruler of Nations." 
 
 Lincoln, therefore, belongs not alone to his par- 
 ticular Nation, but to all, to the World 's History at 
 one of its epochal conjunctures. Moreover, he was 
 quite conscious of his world-historical vocation and 
 repeatedly expressed it after his manner. In the 
 main this manner of expression took a religious 
 form with him, rather than a scientific or philo- 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 5;]3 
 
 sophic. How does "the Almighty Ruler of Na- 
 tions" deal with his ''chosen People" in the grand 
 emergency? As this is largely the theme of the 
 Hebrew Bible, Lincoln seems to have consulted 
 it more than ever before, perhaps more than any 
 other book, during his occupancy of the White 
 House. Some have supposed that he underwent 
 a peculiar religious conversion, and several denom- 
 inations have claimed him as a proselyte. It may 
 be fairly said that he did become more religious 
 and biblical, but he belonged to no church. Ap- 
 parently he was averse to dogmatic religion; still 
 what may be called the God-consciousness was a 
 deeply active principle in him always, and seem- 
 ingly increased in influence to the end. 
 
 In fact the second Inaugural gives a very de- 
 cided religious view of the great conflict drawing 
 to a close; style and conception are scriptural, and 
 citations are taken directly from the Scriptures. 
 Suggestive is the contrast with the first Inaugural 
 which is legal and argumentative, rather secular 
 throughout, even if it recognizes passingly ''the 
 Almighty Ruler of Nations," who, however, be- 
 comes the all-dominating thought after a four 
 years' baptism of fire. Jefferson Davis was form- 
 ally a more religious man than Lincoln; he was 
 at church engaged in prayer for success when he 
 received news that he must quit Richmond with 
 all speed. Both sides appealed to the same ulti- 
 mate authority; as Lincoln says, "both read the 
 
534 ABRAHAM LIXCOLX—PART THIRD. 
 
 same Bible and pray to the same God, and each 
 invokes His aid against the other. It may seem 
 strange that any men should dare to ask a just 
 God's assistance in wringing their bread from the 
 sweat of other men's faces" — at this point Lincoln 
 stops himself, he will not judge though he has cer- 
 tainly implied judgment — really the judgment of 
 both sides which have received the terrible penalty 
 of their common guilt through the scourge of War. 
 The original guUty deed, the primal ' 'offense" 
 against a just God Lincoln now believes to be the 
 institution of slavery, and doubtless also the 
 Double Union, which is clearly doomed. Thus 
 Lincoln winds up the list of his weighty utterances 
 (he was assassinated a few days after the second 
 Inaugural) with a theodicy or a justification of 
 God in the Civil War, still addressed to the Folk- 
 Soul in its own religious dialect, which is derived 
 from the Hebrew Scriptures, since "both sides 
 read the same Bible," and are inoculated with its 
 language and its conceptions. 
 
 IV. The Federal Union, therefore, has a world- 
 historical function, which, however, it cannot ful- 
 fil without being deeply transformed. The old 
 Double Union of Slave-States and Free-States had 
 its career which made a Nation, but it could not 
 elevate this Nation to its true place in the Vv'orld's 
 History. Its tendency was to become more and 
 more divided, and slavery was the divider. From 
 this point of view we observe three main divi- 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 535 
 
 sio.iis: (1) Free and Slave Persons; (2) Free and 
 Slave States; (3) a Free and Slave Union, which 
 produced also both kinds of States, and conse- 
 quently both kinds of Persons. Hence, it was a 
 Union which had division within itself from the 
 start. Its separative character can be seen in its 
 three great compromises, all of which were new 
 props to keep it from going apart on the cleaving 
 line of slavery. The culmination was secession, 
 in which the rift became complete, and the Union 
 duahzed itself or was tending that way, when the 
 counter-movement began which centered in Lin- 
 coln as the Nation's Executive. 
 
 The grand turn from Disunion to the new Union 
 was the Civil War, which wiped out the three 
 foregoing differences between freedom and slavery 
 as to Persons, States, and the total Union. A 
 marvelous metamorphosis took place; can we find 
 the pattern after which it was modeled, or, per- 
 chance, the germ out of which it unfolded? Mark 
 the sweep of this transformation: it changes all 
 slaves into freemen, all Slave-States into Free- 
 States, and the Double Union into a Single one, 
 which is Free-State producing only. Such is the 
 undoing of separation, of secession, of the tendency 
 to European .Polyarchy. Still we inquire for the 
 germinal starting-point. 
 
 If we look into the character of the Union-born 
 Free-States of the North-West, we find all three 
 of the foregoing attributes belonging to them and 
 
536 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 to them alone of the Nation; they held no slaves, 
 they were Free-States, but especially in their case 
 the Union was Free-State producing. And all 
 this they were before the Civil War. And it must 
 be observed that Lincoln came from the North- 
 West and was endowed with its political con- 
 sciousness, which through him largely was to be 
 transferred to the whole Nation. It is legitimate, 
 therefore, to declare that the Union-produced 
 Free-State of the North- West furnished the origi- 
 nal and originating norm, according to which the 
 transformation of the entire Union was to take 
 place. 
 
 Let us illustrate this matter more fully. In the 
 Nation as a whole there are two important lines of 
 division: the North to South line separates the 
 old, primitive, colonial States which produced the 
 Union, from the new, derived. Union-born States 
 lying chiefly in the I\Iississippi Valley. On the 
 other hand the East to West line separates the 
 Free-States from the Slave-States, both new and 
 old. The result is, we have four different groups 
 of States, or quarterings of the entire country, 
 which we may specially designate (see our Ameri- 
 can Ten Years' War, p. 4^8), in the following 
 scheme : 
 
 1. East-Northern Group — Free States, belonging 
 to the Old Thirteen, producers of the Double 
 Union, and sharing in its double State-production. 
 This Group must be transformed by the new Union, 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 537 
 
 becoming thus Union-born antl freed of its double 
 State-production. 
 
 2. East-Southern Group — Slave-States, belonging 
 to the Old Thirteen, producers of the Double 
 Union, and sharing in its double State-productioiL 
 This Group must be transformed by the new 
 Union, becoming Free-States, and Union-bom, and 
 also productive of Free-States. 
 
 It will be recognized that both the foregoing 
 Groups belong to the old, Europe-born, colonial 
 Thirteen, which formed the Constitution and the 
 first Union, and made the latter double, both 
 slave and free, which doubleness was indeed their 
 own. Now it is this doubleness as well as the 
 double productivity of the earlier Union which 
 the new Order has to eliminate, both in the South 
 and North. Notable is the fact that the old free 
 East-Northern Group must also undergo a new 
 birth and be regenerated in their Unionism. These 
 States indeed helped make the original Union, and 
 hence they had a tendency to look upon it as 
 something which they could unmake at will, as a 
 kind of contract or revocable compact, though 
 Daniel Webster tried with all his might to argue 
 down this view. But their real reconstruction can 
 only come by a new birth through and into a 
 new Union, which is no longer double as they 
 first made it. So the East-Northern States, 
 though the originals, must be originated again, 
 and, though free, nuist be emancipated again, all 
 
538 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 of them undergoing a kind of palingenesis as to 
 the Union. Lincohi stands as the representative 
 of this work of unionizing afresh even the makers 
 of the Union, the Old Thirteen, Northern as well 
 as Southern. 
 
 We are, therefore, to see that the conscious- 
 ness of Union in the East-Northern Group is dif- 
 ferent from that of the West-Northern Group, 
 though both Groups are composed of Free-States 
 and are anti-slavery. They, as State-individuals, 
 had made the Union as a kind of agreement or 
 compact between such individuals, and hence 
 why could these not unmake the same if they 
 chose? It is pretty generally agreed that Dis- 
 union was first born and uttered in New England; 
 the first disunionist has been pointed out in a 
 Massachusetts representative. And the Hartford 
 Convention, in spite all elaborate explanations, 
 has never yet been fully explained away. The 
 old foreign-born Thirteen are to be re-born, the 
 whole of them, both Northern and Southern, 
 through and into a new Union, and thus become 
 Union-born, which fact produces for the first time 
 a true homogeneous Union. 
 
 3. W est-N ortheryi Group — Free-States, but origi- 
 nally born of the Union which in their case is, 
 accordingly, Free-State producing. This fact is 
 wljat makes them unique among the four Groups. 
 Mother Union has brought them forth as free 
 commonwealths, and them alone; such is their 
 
LINCOLX THE XATIOX'S EXECUTIVE. 539 
 
 original birthright of freedom, which they will in 
 time impart to all the other three Groups, fur- 
 nishing the prototype after which they are all to 
 be transformed. We have already heard Lincoln, 
 the West-Northern voice and representative, de- 
 clare that the Double Union, formed by the old 
 Thirteen, must come to an end. Also we have 
 seen him start by trying to exclude slavery from 
 the Territories, that is, by trying to take away the 
 double productivity of the old Double Union. His 
 election meant that the South should be practically 
 deprived of its genetic power, of its State-prot hie- 
 ing power; this probably more than anything 
 else drove it into rebellion, which, however, had 
 the result of destroying slavery in the States where 
 it already existed, that is, of making the Union 
 Free-State producing universally. Thus the W^est- 
 Northern political norm nationalizes itself com- 
 pletely, we may say, universalizes itself within its 
 sphere. 
 
 4. West-Southern Group — Slave-States, also born 
 of the Union, which in their case is, accordingly, 
 Slave-State producing. This Group divides within 
 itself during the Civil War; the upper tier (Ken- 
 tucky and Missouri) remained faithful to the 
 Union of which they were born, while the two 
 lower tiers, constituting seven States, seceded, but 
 were gradually overcome by the Northern army. 
 
 Such were the four Groups of States, two free 
 and two slave, each of them having a different 
 
540 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 relation to the old Union. But the time has ar- 
 rived when they all must be made over into Free- 
 States, and the Union must also be transformed 
 in accord with the West-Northern norm of its 
 own State creation. As the Union produced the 
 North-West free, so the North-West must go back 
 and reproduce the Union free. This is the grand 
 national turn, yea world-historical we may call it, 
 of which Lincoln was the pivot, the Great Man of 
 the Age, who first voiced the new decree of the 
 World-Spirit to the Folk-Soul and then took the 
 chief hand in carrying it into execution, as the 
 Nation's Executive. 
 
 V. And now must be recorded another historic 
 fact about this West-Northern Group : its soldiers 
 won the great positive victories for the Union dur- 
 ing the Civil War. The West-Northern army took 
 the offensive at the start, and largely kept it to 
 the end, till it practically overran and held ten of 
 the eleven seceded States. It swept down the 
 Mississippi to Vicksburg, then whirled eastward to 
 Chattanooga, to Savannah, then turned northward 
 toward Virginia. At last it surrounded Lee at 
 Richmond, not directly with entrenchments, as 
 these were held by the Army of the Potomac, but 
 with an effective cordon which cut off all further 
 supplies of men, munitions, and even provisions, . 
 from the Confederate Capital. The West-North- 
 ern Army was, therefore, mightily present at Ap- 
 pomattox, though not in body . It fact it was not 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 541 
 
 permitted to leave North Carolina where it was 
 compelled to stay practically unoccupied before 
 the far inferior force of General J. E. Johnston. 
 Upon this pivotal point the most important man 
 engaged in the transaction, Grant himself, has 
 borne witness. He is about to tell what he 
 strongly urged upon the President in a personal 
 interview at Petersburg, the next day after its 
 capture (Grant's Memoirs, II, p. 459). 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln knew that it had been arranged 
 for Sherman to join me at a fixed time to co-op- 
 erate in the destruction of Lee's army." This had 
 been the President's plan and order, which Grant 
 secretly changed. But when the first success had 
 been attained and Petersburg was taken, ''I no 
 longer had any object in concealing from the Pres- 
 ident all my movements and the objects I had in 
 view. ... I told him that I had been very 
 anxious to have the eastern armies vanquish their 
 old enemy who had so long resisted all their re- 
 peated and gallant attempts to subdue them or 
 drive them from the Capital." Here Grant ac- 
 knowledges the failure of the East-Northern army 
 in all its offensive campaigns, his own included, 
 perhaps unconsciously. He goes on: "The West- 
 ern armies had been in the main successful until 
 they had conquered all the territory from the 
 Mississippi River to the State of North Carolina 
 and were now almost ready to knock at the back- 
 door of Richmond, asking admittance. I said to 
 
542 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 him that if the Western armies should even be upon 
 the field, operating against Richmond and Lee, 
 the credit would be given them for the capture 
 by politicians and non-combatants from the sec- 
 tion of country which those troops hailed from." 
 We have to imagine liincoln's suppressed humor 
 at the statement having a little secret tilt all to 
 itself: Rather hard on me, General, who am a 
 compound of all three of these rather reprehensible 
 objects — a politician, a Westerner, and a non- 
 combatant. But Grant continues quite oblivious 
 of Lincoln' s quizzical smile: "It might lead to 
 disagreeable bickerings between members of Con- 
 gress of the East and those of the West in some of 
 their debates . Western members might be throw- 
 ing it up to members of the East that in the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion they were not able to cap- 
 ture an army. . . l^ut had to wait until the 
 Western armies had conquered all the territory 
 south and west of, them, and then come on and 
 help them capture the only army they had been 
 engaged with." One might query whether those 
 intrusive Westerners were not already "knocking 
 at the back door of Richmond," with Sherman in 
 North Carolina, with Thomas at Knoxville, and 
 with Stoneman making for Lynchburg . At any 
 rate "the Western armies should not be permitted 
 to be even upon the field." Still Grant was right, 
 he expressed the sensitiveness of the East-Northern 
 army under his command, a feeling of deep dissat- 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 543 
 
 isfaction with itself which it was well to remove as 
 far as possible before the end of the war. Such 
 was Grant's spoken motive, but he had another 
 unspoken one, at least not mentioned in his ac- 
 count. 
 
 Very little does Grant say about Lincoln in 
 this matter, simply reporting him to declare that 
 he ''had never thought of it before," and that 
 "he did not care where the aid came from, so 
 the work was done." He assented to Grant's 
 change of programme, which was to keep at a 
 distance "the Westerti armies," for these were cer- 
 tain to get the whole credit of capturing Lee if 
 they were even on the field. Here the student 
 of Lincoln has again to supply what that infin- 
 itely humorous and kindly spirit w^as thinking 
 about. For Lincoln must have at once penetrated 
 the unspoken motive of Grant, since it lay not 
 far from the surface, and, when he was again 
 alone, he could not help having a little voiceless 
 colloquy with himself: Yes, my dear General, I 
 hope you will at the very last tug be able to lead 
 that courageous and devoted East-Northern army' 
 to one positive victory, different from its two de- 
 fensive victories, Antietam and Gettysburg. I 
 have been trying to get that out of it for four 
 years, hitherto without success, whatever be the 
 cause. And you, personally. General, I hope you 
 will redeem yourself from the record of the bat- 
 tles of the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, the mine of 
 
544 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 Petersburg, and add a new surrender to those of 
 Fort Donelson and Vicksburg, completing the 
 triple crown of you;* triumphs. 
 
 The reader still to-day cannot help supplying 
 this unspoken motive to Grant's narrative, and 
 certainly Lincoln must have thought of it, since 
 it pertained to a matter which had given him 
 the greatest anxiety during the recent months. 
 Will Grant also fail with that East-Northern 
 army? Grant's military career, in fact his whole 
 life, consists of a succession of mighty ups and 
 downs, of colossal ascents and descents, having a 
 tendency to describe a series of huge parabolas, 
 winding up in that last rapid rise to Appomattox. 
 
 VI. Grant adds, after giving the cited account a 
 little comment of his own: ''I never expected any 
 such bickering as I have indicated, between the sol- 
 diers of the two sections," but only between politic- 
 ians and non-combatants (Memoirs, 11,461, written 
 probably about twenty years after the War). Yet 
 the returned "soldiers of the two sections," or rather 
 of the two armies, have certainly not failed to en- 
 gage in ''bickerings" or animated discussions, 
 which have sometimes reached the point of caus- 
 ing a loss of temper in one or both of the disput- 
 ants. In fact to-day the Western soldier, full of 
 the history of the conflict and its problems, can 
 hardly meet an Eastern veteran and get to know 
 him fairly well without asking him: 'Tell me, 
 comrade, what in your opinion was the matter 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 545 
 
 with the Army of the Potomac? It is the 
 greatest mystery of the War to my mind; I have 
 been putting that question or a similar one to its 
 veterans for more than forty years, and have re- 
 ceived a hundred different answers, besides those 
 contained in books, and I am still puzzled. For 
 instance I cannot make up my mind whether 
 McClcllan hypnotized the Army or the Army 
 hypnotized McClellan, who was a bold, aggressive 
 soldier, always ready to seize the initiative, up 
 to the time when he took command of it. And 
 the confession will have to be made that Grant 
 went with it into his deepest eclipse, even if he 
 emerged again. The soldiers of that Army were 
 certainly as brave, as devoted as those of the 
 West, and were better disciplined; and in the 
 ability to get on their legs again for a fresh fight 
 after defeat upon defeat they stand unparalleled 
 in history, I believe. But so much the more unac- 
 countable becomes their career; the psychology of 
 the Army of the Potomac remains to me the mys- 
 tery of the War." 
 
 In answer to the veteran dozens of reasons 
 might be and have been given, such as incompe- 
 tency of the commanding generals, incompetency 
 of the authorities" at Washington, bad strategy, 
 undue political interference, and so on through the 
 whole gamut of blame. Some and perhaps most 
 of these censures have their justice; still the prob- 
 lem seems unsolved and insoluble. But the interest 
 
 35 
 
546 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 for us now is that Lincoln had the burden of this 
 problem weighing him down for quite four years, 
 almost without rehef till the very last days of 
 his life. Whatever may have been to his mind 
 the source of the trouble, he kept silent about it. 
 Still, as he was a deep thinker, he could not help 
 having his view, which must at times have indi- 
 rectly escaped him in spite of his secrecy. So we 
 scrutinize his words and acts to see if we cannot 
 find a possible indication of his opinion. 
 
 In this connection we may cite some documents 
 which stop the reader rather startlingly, and 
 throw him into a long and deep meditation, when 
 he comes upon them in the Works of Lincoln 
 (Nicolay & Hay, II, p. 241), Lincoln had been 
 informed that an officer of the Army of the Po- 
 tomac, Major John J. Key, had been asked "Why 
 was not the rebel army bagged immediately after 
 the battle near Sharpsburg?" Whereupon Major 
 Key made the following reply: "That is not the 
 game. The object is that neither army shall get 
 much the advantage of the other, that both 
 shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, 
 when we will make a compromise and save 
 slavery," The President summoned the officer 
 into his immediate presence, the statement was 
 proved and indeed not denied by the officer, when 
 Lincoln endorsed upon it the following thunder- 
 bolt: "In my view it is wholly inadmissible for any 
 g(Mitleman holding a military commission from the 
 
LIXCOLX THE XATION'S EXECUTIVE. 547 
 
 United States to utter such sentiments as Major 
 Key is within proved to have -done. Therefore 
 let Major John J. Key be forthwith dismissed from 
 the miUtary service of the United States." This 
 seems, on the face of it, the harshest if not the 
 most arbitraiy act recorded of Lincoln. That he 
 should treat with such severity a few careless 
 words dropped at random in private conversation 
 and reported to him, is so contrary to his ordi- 
 nary kindly nature that he must have felt some 
 deep provocation, as well as some strong neces- 
 sity of making an example. Of course the dis- 
 missed officer sought to have the stigma removed 
 by being restored to his rank. His request calls 
 from Lincoln the following statement: 
 
 "I had been brought to fear that there was a 
 class of officers in the army, not very incon- 
 siderable in numbers, who were playing a game 
 to not beat the enemy when they could, on some 
 peculiar notion of saving the Union; and when 
 you were proved to me in your own presence 
 to have avowed yourself in favor of the game, and 
 did not attempt to controvert the proof, I dis- 
 missed you as an example and a warning to 
 that supposed class." 
 
 The date of Major Key's dismissal is September 
 27th, 1862, some ten days after the battle of An- 
 tietam, when McClellan with not far from 30,000 
 fresh troops had refused to pursue Lee, but had 
 let him escape with his booty across the Potomac. 
 
548 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 What was the matter? A profound cHstrust seized 
 the country, which felt the "game" alluded to 
 above. Greeley already had referred to it in his 
 letter previously cited. But chiefly upon Lincoln 
 crept a gnawing, never-ceasing anxiety in regard 
 to the defenders of the seat of Government. 
 There is no doubt that a deep-seated malady had 
 entered that organism known as the Army of the 
 Potomac. Lincoln's diagnosis of it is at least 
 suggested in his reason for the dismissal of Major 
 Key. Also in the same case he administered a 
 little dose of medicine for the cure of the disease. 
 Finally he had to strike at w^hat he and many 
 others deemed the head of the trouble; he re- 
 moved McClellan from command, to whom, how- 
 ever, the army remained devoted, and who was 
 and continued to be its ideal chief. After him it 
 evolved no general equal to him; in fact its 
 commanders seem to have been patterned after 
 him, lesser McClellans. Finally Lincoln in despair 
 placed over it a leader who had been deve-oj^ed in 
 the West. But did even Grant transform the 
 inner character of that army? Rather were there 
 not signs of its transforming him? 
 
 McClellan says in his book that, on hearing of 
 his removal, "many were in favor of my refusing 
 to obey the order and of marching on Washington 
 to take possession of the Government." These were 
 undoubtedly the people to whom Lincoln alludes 
 as "a class of officers in the army, not very incon- 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 549 
 
 siderable in numbers, who were playing a game" 
 lilie that mentioned by Major Key. Of course 
 this meant the subordination of the civil to the 
 military branch of Government. Such a con- 
 sciousness was deeply implanted in McClcllan, as 
 we see both by his words and actions, and he or- 
 ganized it into his army, which of course must 
 have been capable of taking such an impress. The 
 next year at Gettysburg a rumor ran through the 
 embattled ranks that McClellan had been recalled 
 and was in conmiand ; many a survivor of that 
 bloody conflict will tell how the soldiers felt their 
 ardor renewed at the thought of fighting under 
 their old commander. 
 
 It is evident that McClellan and his East-North- 
 ern Army were contending for the old Double 
 Union, which had to be restored, in their view, with 
 slavery. And therein they were not unlike the 
 States whence they came, the free Common- 
 wealths of the original Thirteen which had helped 
 to make the old Union double, both slave and 
 free. The new Union as Free-State producing, 
 was not theirs or their pohtical consciousness, 
 even if they may have voted for Lincoln. Cer- 
 tainly they had no principle or power in them for 
 conquering the South. If Lee, moving northward, 
 passed a certain line of division, he was beaten 
 back; if the East-Northern Army, moving south- 
 ward, passed what was practically that same line 
 of division, it was defeated. The bloody seesaw 
 
550 ABRAHAM LINCOLN—PART THIRD. 
 
 continued four years upon the same small piece of 
 territory between Washington and Richmond; 
 neither side could conquer the other, though each 
 could and did repel the other defensively. The 
 line of separation became fixed between the two 
 armies; the logic of the situation could only be 
 that the Union was dissolved, as far as they were 
 concerned. And as that was the object of the 
 secessionists, the victory belonged to the South. 
 
 History demands that these things be said now, 
 in spite of a certain sensitiveness not yet out- 
 grown, if we wish to grasp the real sweep and 
 meaning of our Civil War, doubtless the most im- 
 portant event of the century from the world- 
 historical viewpoint. To the Old North and to 
 the Old South the Union was something which 
 they had made and could again unmake, was an 
 agreement from which either could withdraw at 
 will; their two armies after much fighting had 
 practically proved the same proposition, and had 
 drawn in blood over and over again the line of 
 separation. But how about the new States of 
 the West? The Union in their case was something 
 which they had not made but which had made 
 them, and so could not be their compact, even if 
 it were a compact to the East. To them the 
 Union was politically genetic, was State-producing, 
 and not the product of States ; hence in the West 
 the Union took a different, yea, opposite character 
 to what it had in the East. Moreover, the West 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 551 
 
 showed its productive power in the matter of 
 leadership, both political and military. Leaving 
 out Lincoln as the exception of all exceptions, 
 there would seem to be something significant in 
 the fact that the four greatest generals of the 
 Northern cause were developed in and by the 
 Western Army — Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
 Thomas. Small power of evolving great captains 
 was shown by the Army of the Potomac, though 
 many trials were made, resulting in grand disas- 
 ters. The really creative principle of the whole 
 war, that the Union must be productive of the 
 Free-States, and hence productive of all instru- 
 mentalities for making them free — armies, gen- 
 erals, statesmen — seems decidedly to have had its 
 chief source of energy in the North- West. 
 
 We hold, therefore, that the difference between 
 the okl and the new Free-States, between the East 
 and the West, was reflected in their respective 
 armies, both as to character and career. The 
 Western troops, like their States, were Free-State 
 producing by their very origin; they, and they 
 alone, as events showed, could make, or rather re- 
 make, the Union like themselves. So it comes 
 that they did practically the offensive fighting of 
 the War; their function was to regenerate the 
 whole Nation, according to their origin or their 
 creative type, after first seizing the hostile portions 
 of it by military power. Li this deed, not only 
 national but world-historical, Lincoln was their 
 
552 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 leader and supreme representative. The Union 
 had made their States free, and now they were to re- 
 quite the act and make the Union free. At this 
 pivotal turn, truly a node of the World's History, 
 stands the colossal historic figure of Abraham Lin- 
 coln. 
 
 VII. The poHtical tendency of McClellan and 
 of his army had brought early and constantly 
 before Lincoln's mind the great danger of War to 
 the RepubHc. The successful General in the very 
 nature of his vocation could not help having 
 a bent toward overriding the civil power. Fre- 
 mont and Hunter, military commanders, had 
 dared usurp a function which could only belong 
 to the highest political authority, to the Presi- 
 dency itself, in issuing Emancipation Proclama- 
 tions. 
 
 Lincoln did not pretend to be deeply read in 
 European History, but he did know that its 
 greatest military heroes, Caesar, Cromwell, Na- 
 poleon, had overthrown the civil institutions of 
 their respective countries. The soldiery follow- 
 ing its idolized leader had always shown itself 
 ready to install him as ruler in disregard of the 
 Law. McClellan rather boasts that there was 
 such a spirit in his army, though he could hardly 
 be called a great victorious General. The or- 
 ganization and discipline of the American army 
 were derived from Europe, which, with one or 
 two exceptions, is or was a cluster of military 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 553 
 
 monarchies. The professional soldier must get to 
 be an absolutist both in commanding and obey- 
 ing. Still the necessity of a vast military es- 
 tablishment was upon the American Nation, and 
 could not be avoided. While employing it, can 
 we escape at the same time its supreme menace 
 to our free political government? There is no 
 doubt that Lincoln kept this problem vividly be- 
 fore himself always. He had to find a successful 
 General in order to win the victoiy, then he had 
 to guard against the backstroke of such a vic- 
 tory with such a General. Is Lincoln mighty 
 enough, after bringing the military arm to its 
 highest efficiency, to control it and not to be con- 
 trolled by it? Such is the severest personal test 
 to which the crisis is subjecting the President. 
 
 General Lee had been made almost if not quite 
 the military dictator of the Confederacy, and 
 taking as a pretext some reported words of Grant, 
 had proposed a military convention for adjusting 
 "the subject of controversy between the belliger- 
 ents." Thus the War was to be settled by the 
 two military chieftains at the head of their 
 respective armies, instead of the civil powers. 
 Grant did not reject these overtures, but sent 
 thorn to Washington, seemingly in order to get 
 instructions. The telegram was handed to Lin- 
 coln who at once wrote ' out the following order 
 and gave it to Stanton with the request to send 
 it to Grant: 
 
554 ABRAHAM LIN COLS— PART THIRD. 
 
 "The President directs me to say tliat he wishes 
 you to have no conference with General Lee un- 
 less it be for the capitulation of General Lee's 
 army, or on some minor or purely military matter. 
 He instructs me to say that you are not to 
 decide, discuss, or confer upon any political ques- 
 tions. Such questions the President holds in his 
 own hands, and will submit them to no military 
 conferences or conventions. Meanwhile you are 
 to press to the utmost your military advantages." 
 
 A very decided authoritative tone runs through 
 this order, which Lincoln must have felt to be 
 imperatively necessary. The subordination of the 
 miUtary to the political power in the Gov- 
 ernment could not be more firmly asserted. Lin- 
 coln did not suspect that Grant had any inten- 
 tion of usurping a function which did not belong 
 to him. Still Lincoln through his own experience 
 had good reason to be on his guard against 
 the unconscious tendency of the military profes- 
 sion. We would have gladly heard Grant's com- 
 ment on the foregoing order in his Memoirs, but 
 we cannot find that it is mentioned. It is dated 
 March 3rd; 1865, the day before the second inaug- 
 uration of Lincoln, and must be deemed a very 
 significant and timely utterance. And yet, in 
 spite of its emphatic words, Grant forgot it five 
 weeks later, when he wrote the terms of Lee's sur- 
 render at Appomattox. Unconsciously he exer- 
 cised the pardoning power which belonged to the 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 555 
 
 President, decreeing that "each officer and man 
 will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be 
 disturbed by United States authority so long as 
 they observe their parole." Quite forgotten was 
 Lincoln's incisive prohibition: "You will not de- 
 cide, discuss, or confer upon any political ques- 
 t'ons." Lincoln would probably have given as 
 good or even better terms; but he was the person 
 to give them: ''Such questions (political) the 
 President holds in his own hands." Grant in his 
 Memoirs is evidently defending himself against 
 later criticism in saying: "When I put my pen to 
 the paper, I did not know the first word I should 
 use in writing the terms." He never thought of 
 the political aspect of his agreement with Lee, he 
 did not have in mind his political subordination. 
 A still greater violation was committed by Sher- 
 man in his articles of capitulation for Johnston's 
 army, so that they had to be revoked, Grant 
 himself so declaring. But nobody can seriously 
 think that Grant or Sherman ever intended any 
 disregard of the supreme civil authority over 
 them; their personal attitude toward Lincoln was 
 one of atlmiration and love, very different from 
 that of McClcUan. The real point of the ar- 
 gument is that their infraction of the political 
 power was unconscious, unpurposed, a spontaneous 
 outburst of their military character and training; 
 but all the more it showed the native bent of mil- 
 itarism to forget civism. Now Lincoln during his 
 
556 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 whole term was kept aware of this tendency 
 through its repeated outbreaks in leading army 
 officers, but he was able to maintain and to trans- 
 mit the supremacy of the political government of 
 the country. 
 
 At any rate, after having militarized the whole 
 Nation for years, we escaped the military despo- 
 tism, and even the military dictatorship, which 
 European History had so often shown to be the 
 natural outcome of such a prolonged Civil War . 
 Indeed hundreds of prophecies were wafted 
 over to us from Europe, with the one burden: 
 Your Caesar is in training and will soon appear. 
 But he never came, though he would probably 
 have come in Europe with its system of military 
 monarchies. .A new stage of the World's History, 
 wholly different from the European, has arrived, 
 with a fresh historic message. The new Hero of 
 the People is not to be mihtary but civil— Lincoln. 
 Very characteristic is the fact that the chief heroic 
 figure in the greatest of wars could hardly be 
 called warlike — was a civilian, not a general. That 
 simply reverses European History, and indicates 
 an altogether different political order and a dif- 
 ferent political consciousness. 
 
 To be sure, we did not wholly escape from some 
 lesser manifestations of militarism in arbitrary ar- 
 rests, in suppressions of newspapers, in unneces- 
 sary interference with the civil process by depart- 
 ment connnanders of the Northern States. The 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 557 
 
 record shows that Lincoln disliked this tendency, 
 and counteracted it whenever possible. The Peo- 
 ple also were averse to it, though strongly sup- 
 porting the Government. Still the military power . 
 did enough to show its native character, and to 
 indicate the danger which it might bring upon our 
 kind of political institution. 
 
 VIII . Very necessary is it now to bring to a 
 close this account of Lincoln. In the present Period 
 he is the center of a vast swirl of events and per- 
 sons, all of them bearing some relation to him. 
 There can be no attempt here even to mention the 
 intricate movements, both political and military, 
 during the War. Lincoln's biography expands 
 almost into a biography of the Nation, whose Will 
 he becomes emphatically, realizing in action its 
 deepest instinct and aspiration. To be sure, he 
 still employs the word, speaking to the People 
 with a wonderful effect; Lincoln's addresses, 
 letters, messages, are the most important docu- 
 ments in the literature of War, intrinsically so and 
 not merely by virtue of their official authority. 
 Lincoln is still the voice of the World-Spirit to the 
 Folk-Soul; in fact he is more, he gets to be the 
 latter's schoolmaster, putting it under training till 
 it performs the supernal behest. Like ancient Per- 
 icles, he disciplines his people with his w^ord when 
 they are backward in stepping up to their task. 
 
 Often enough have we already declared that the 
 grand theme of Lincoln is the Federal Union. This 
 
558 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD 
 
 Union he will primarily preserve: not only will he 
 preserve it but also emancipate it by freeing it of 
 its great enemy which has always divided it; and 
 n Dt only will he emancipate it, but also transform 
 it from the old Double Union into the new One 
 Union, making the latter institutional. The half- 
 a:id-halfness he is to overcome completely, as well 
 negatively from the outside, as also positively 
 from the inside ; he will undo secession by the arm 
 of power, but the greater thing is, he will make it 
 undo itself. The seceded States have first to be 
 unionized, then they are to unionize themselves. 
 Three distinct stages of a great process we can see 
 in this matter: Preservation, Emancipation, aud 
 Reconstruction of the Union. This may well be 
 deemed the germinal process of Lincoln's achieve- 
 ment during the War. 
 
 1. Preservation of the Union. The first act of 
 Lincoln as the Nation's Executive is to preserve 
 the Union. He is to rouse and to fortify the con- 
 sciousness of the Union in its supremacy over the 
 single State. That is his first and immediate task, 
 whereby he consolidates all true Unionists, North- 
 ern and Southern. He keeps the upper tier of 
 Slave-States, and arms them in the cause. We 
 may well deem this the primal great political 
 act of Lincoln : he divides the South and unites 
 the North. 
 
 The doing of this work and the solidifying of it 
 so that it could not be uiid(nie, occuj)ied him chiefly 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 559 
 
 for a year to a year and a half (1861-2). The 
 Union which he sought to preserve, was the old 
 Double Union, which he had sworn to maintain, if 
 he could, with slavery. But maintain it he must, 
 if the necessity comes, without slavery. First, 
 however, he has to train the Folk-Soul, and per- 
 chance be trained himself, to the absolute primacy 
 of the Union, and with it the consequent right of 
 Coercion, 
 
 It is generally agreed that this first policy of 
 Lincoln won the Border Slave States and a large 
 portion of the Democrats of the North. If these 
 two elements had been alienated at the start, the 
 War could hardly have succeeded. Lincoln was a 
 son of Kentucky, and he kept it from following 
 ^^irginia, to which it was closely allied in blood, 
 in history and in institutions. At the same time 
 Lincoln never retracted his principle that there 
 should be no more Slave States made out of the 
 territories. And he doubtless still believed his 
 more sweeping proposition that the Union cannot 
 endure half slave and half free, though at present 
 his position and liis oath required him to say: "if 
 I could save the Union without freeing any slave, 
 I would do it." The anti-slavery people, partic- 
 ularly those of New England, needed a lesson in 
 unionism, which he gave them in his letter to 
 Greeley. On the other hand the pro-slavery 
 unionists of the Border States must also be 
 brought to assert the unconditional Primacv of 
 
560 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 the Union, which is heard in Lincohi's declara- 
 tion: ''if I could save the Union by freeing all oi 
 the slaves, I would do it." Thus he puts his anti- 
 slavery and his pro-slavery supporters under 
 training, which finally unites both sides, otherwise 
 so antagonistic, in a common purpose : Union is 
 first, the supreme end to be attained; slavery is 
 the means, it will be preserved or destroyed ac- 
 cording to necessity. To be sure, each side did 
 not fail to talk angrily, to protest and sometimes 
 to threaten; still they stayed and fought together 
 with Lincoln. 
 
 If the moral aspect were to be exclusively taken, 
 anti-slavery and pro-slavery could never have 
 agreed; each thought itself right morally, and the 
 other wrong, and perchance fanatical. Moreover 
 each side in its excess had a tendency to turn dis- 
 unionists; the Northern Garrisonians were openly 
 hostile to the Union, and regarded the Constitu- 
 tion as "an agreement with Hell and a covenant 
 with death." Lincoln, though undoubtedly anti- 
 slavery, suppressed this moral dualism and clung 
 to the Union, thus saving it and bringing all its 
 supporters for its sake to destroy slavery. Such 
 an education, however, requires time; but finally 
 the hour strikes and practically all unionists, 
 Northern and Southern, are brought to take the 
 next great step with the President. 
 
 2. Emancipation of the Union. And now Lin- 
 coln has reached the point of smiting slavery as -^s. 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 561 
 
 the source or cause of division in the Union since 
 its formation. He starts to unionizing the entire 
 country by destroying the original root of disun- 
 ion. He makes himself Free-State producing, the 
 Nation's Executive vindicates the Nation as a 
 whole. "I do order and declare that all persons 
 held as slaves within said designated States and 
 parts of States [now in rebellion] are and hence- 
 forth shall be free." Will we hear in this sentence, 
 the voice of the People in its one representative 
 Self. "The Executive Government of the United 
 States, including the military and naval authori- 
 ties thereof will recognize and maintain the free- 
 dom of said persons." From one point of view 
 Emancipation is a negative act, it destroys an al- 
 ready existent institutional order based on slavery. 
 But in the deeper aspect it destroys what had 
 shown itself destructive of the Union, which is 
 the supreme National object, as well as the new 
 purpose of the World's History. Emancipation, 
 then, is really a negation of a negative, and at 
 bottom is the destroyer of destruction. 
 
 President Lincoln declares that he issues the 
 Proclamation of Emancipation ''by virtue of the 
 power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the 
 army and navy of the United States," and that he 
 regards it "as a fit and necessary war measure" 
 for the suppression of rebellion. He does not base 
 his edict of freedom upon moral grounds, as the 
 wrongfulness of slavery ; he claims it to be ulti- 
 
 36 
 
562 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 mately a Constitutional act, done for the purpose 
 of saving the Constitution. 
 
 There is no doubt that Lincohi had given to the 
 subject a great deal of thought and had gradually 
 evolved into the method and the moment. He 
 must keep his ground of action institutional, 
 otherwise he would divide his supporters, many of 
 whom would not take part in a moral crusade 
 against slavery. And there was a still deeper 
 reason : as the grand purpose and end of the War 
 the idea of the Union must remain all-dominating 
 with its world-historical mission. Emancipation 
 is not to supplant the Union as the supreme object 
 of the contest, it must be strictly kept in its place 
 as means. This is a point which still should be 
 emphasized, if we may judge by recent histories 
 and biographies. Emancipation is not to be dis- 
 located from where Lincoln put it, being the sec- 
 ond grand act in bringing forth the new Union. 
 The first act, as simply preservative of the old 
 Double Union, had shown itself inadequate to 
 meet secession, which must next be deprived of its 
 enforced help through slaves. These are not only 
 to be freed, but when of suitable condition ''will 
 be received into the armed service of the United 
 States to garrison forts, positions, stations and 
 other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in 
 said service," The slave is suddenly transformed 
 into a freeman and a soldier fighting for the liberty 
 of his race. Later something of the kind was 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 563 
 
 proposetl on the part of the Confederates, who 
 were at first very bitter in their censure of the 
 Proclamation of Emancipation. 
 
 The date of the instrument is January 1st, 1863, 
 notice having been given a hundred days before. 
 Emancipation is primarily a negative act, we re- 
 peat; the fetters were struck from the slave by an 
 external blow, but that did not make him intern- 
 ally free. Its function was to smite the separator 
 of the Union, which was to be no longer slave and 
 free, no longer double. It was a military measure 
 to preserve the United-States united. Lincoln 
 was careful to put it into its true place as a nega- 
 tive violent act of war rendered necessary by the 
 emergency. 
 
 But now comes the more difficult problem. The 
 States in rebellion are struck down by war and by 
 emancipation; breathing still they lie not quite 
 dead, though not active and indeed not capable 
 of action in their present paralysis. How can they 
 be brought to perform their function again under 
 the new conditions? For if the Federal Union is 
 to be truly restored, they must be restored to 
 their normal life and political activity. In this 
 sphere lies Lincoln's third great effort during the 
 War. 
 
 3. Reconstruction of the Union. Under the date 
 of December 8th, 1863, we possess two documents 
 of Lincoln which outline his plan of restoring the 
 seceded States to their proper place in the Union. 
 
564 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 (See Lincoln's Works, Vol. II., p. 442 and p. 445). 
 The problem is, How can these States, undone 
 first by their own deed of secession and then by 
 the desolation of war, be made over again into 
 living members of the national organism? Lin- 
 coln's way was, in general, that the loyal citizens 
 should make the start, should hold a convention 
 which would repeal the act of secession, form a 
 new constitution, and abolish slavery. Above all, 
 let the question be passed over "whether the 
 seceded States, so-called, are in the Union or out 
 of it," which he brands as "a merely pernicious 
 abstraction," practically good for nothing, yet 
 with the power of stirring up boundless strife 
 among friends. 
 
 Lincoln held that a seceded State might be re- 
 constructed when one-tenth of its voters in 18G0 
 should take the requisite oath, whose form is care- 
 fully written out by him in the Proclamation of 
 December 8th, 1863, which bears the title, ''Pro- 
 clamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction." Lin- 
 coln held that no State could legally secede, and 
 thus break up the Union. If that were so, ''I am 
 not President, these gentlemen are not Congress." 
 On the other hand no State could constitutionally 
 be deprived of Statehood. Congress could not 
 abolish slavery in a State, such had been the oft- 
 repeated doctrine of the Republican party. Nor 
 could the President abolish slavery except as a 
 war measure, which, when peace came, might be 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S ENECUTIVE. .'5(35 
 
 set aside by the Courts. A State could abolish 
 slavery within its limits, but could also revoke 
 any such enactment. Lincoln saw that the only 
 way by which freedom could be made secure was 
 through a Constitutional Amendment. Hence he 
 was so urgent for its adoption. He lived to see it 
 passed by both Houses of Congress and sent to the 
 States, whose ratification of it he did not behold. 
 Still, the Thirteenth Amendment is the work of 
 Lincoln and the crown of his Constitutional labors. 
 Here it is: "Neither Slavery nor involuntary ser- 
 vitude, except as a punishment of crime, whereof 
 the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
 exist within the United States, or any place sub- 
 ject to their jurisdiction." 
 
 The wording of this Amendment is essentially 
 that of the Wilmot Proviso, for which Lincobi 
 voted so often during his Congressional career. 
 But the Wilmot Proviso applied only to the terri- 
 tories to be made into new States, whereas this 
 Amendment applies to the already existent Slave- 
 States, new and old. Thus that Proviso is com- 
 pletely nationalized, we may say, universalized. 
 But the words reach back much further, namely, 
 to the Ordinance of 1787, which declared in the 
 Sixth Section: "There shall be neither Slavery 
 nor involuntary servitude in said Territory [North- 
 western], otherwise than in the punishment of 
 crimes whereof the party shall have been duly 
 convicted." The Ordinance of the Continental 
 
566 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 Congress has started the pro(hiction of the West- 
 Northern Group of Free-States, which, accord- 
 ingly, began before the formation of the Consti- 
 tution and of the Union. What part, both 
 political and military, this Group took in the Civil 
 War, has been already briefly indicated. Signifi- 
 cant is the fact that the very words which are 
 used to make it free, are again used to make the 
 whole Union free. It may be added that these 
 words have been traced back to a report made 
 by Thomas Jefferson to the Continental Congress 
 in 1784, which report, however, was not then 
 adopted. Thus early we note the tendenc}^ of the 
 American People to be Free-State producing 
 through their government. 
 
 The Thirteenth Amendment has, therefore, be- 
 hind it a considerable evolution. Still we may 
 deem it Lincoln's own deed, and it is the culmina- 
 tion of his Reconstruction of the Union. It is the 
 finished side of which Emancipation is the start. 
 It completes the three great acts in the drama of 
 Lincoln as the Nation's Executive — Preservation, 
 Emancipation, Reconstruction. Moreover, it strik- 
 ingly fulfils Lincoln's prophecy: This Nation can- 
 not endure permanently half slave and half free. 
 Still further, it rounds out with a capstone the 
 whole life of Lincoln as the mediator of the World- 
 Spirit at a given stage of the World's History 
 with the American Folk-Soul, which has realized 
 more adequately through him, its reiJi'esentati\^e, 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 567 
 
 the Federated Union of States as distinct from 
 the European and Oriental forms of Government. 
 
 It should be added that Lincoln's Reconstruc- 
 tion of the Union met with much opposition. But 
 he clung '"to it till his death. He knew that each 
 seceded State must ultimately reconstruct itself, 
 and his object was to give it a chance as soon as 
 possible. The obstacles were mainly three: (1) 
 the hostility and indifference of the States them- 
 selves, though Lincoln kept urging them to act 
 quickly before external interference might delay or 
 thwart their new Statehood; (2) the military men 
 of the Union Army, believing in military govern- 
 ment in accord with their character, would govern 
 them by force like conquered European provinces 
 (read his strong admonitions to Generals Hurlbut 
 and Canby about the Louisiana State Government, 
 November and December, 1854). But the chief 
 obstacle (3) was the attitude of Congress, which 
 claimed the right of Reconstruction. Lincoln, ' 
 however, stood his ground and was stronger with 
 the People than Congress, which knew the fact 
 well. But after the death of Lincoln the new 
 President, Andrew Johnson, brought to the surface 
 all the latent conflicts of the time, and there fol- 
 lowed the shameful period of Reconstruction so- 
 called, which would probably have never been, had 
 Lincoln lived. Still his main work of restoration 
 was practically saved at last, after many years. 
 
 IX. The regeneration of the whole Union 
 
568 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 through the Civil War Lincohi began to impress 
 upon the People, especially after proclaiming 
 Emancipation. In his Gettysburg address we may 
 hear him talking to the Folk-Soul, and exhorting 
 it "that we here highly resolve that these dead 
 shall not have died in vain, that this Nation, 
 under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." 
 This hints that the old dual Nation nmst be 
 transformed and regenerated. Then follow the 
 words which have become the Nation's own 
 confession of faith: ''that Government of the 
 People, by the People, and for the People, shall 
 not perish from the earth," Thus the Folk-Soul 
 is reminded and becomes conscious through such 
 reminder, which is that it is fighting for a cause 
 not limited to the territory of the United States, 
 but belongs to the whole earth — a cause not only 
 national but world-historical. 
 
 The careful reader will note that in the fore- 
 going expression three things are stated, and that 
 there is indicated a triple process of thought: 
 (1) the People are to be governed, are to have a 
 Government over them; (2) they are to govern 
 themselves through such Government organized 
 by themselves ; (3) the end of such Government 
 is the good of People themselves as a whole. This 
 gives, of course very briefly, the psychical round of 
 American political consciousness, upon which alone 
 the American Government can be based, and of 
 which it is the supreme institutional manifestation. 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE 569 
 
 Lincoln was the man who made universally 
 current the expression "Government of the Peo- 
 ple, by the People, for the People," so that the 
 People themselves have appropriated it as a defi- 
 nition of their own political institution. But it 
 was uttered long before Lincoln spoke it at Gettys- 
 burg ; in fact he seems almost to cite it as something 
 well known. And it certainly was well known to 
 lawyers. For it is contained in a very famous 
 decision by the greatest of American Jurists, 
 Chief Justice Marshall, who uses (in McCulloch vs. 
 Maryland) the following statement: "It is the 
 Government of all; its powers are delegated by 
 all; it represents all and acts for all." Thfs has 
 the thought, though it is not so complete or so 
 concise as the expression of Lincoln ; still it has its 
 advantage of affirming the allncss or universality of 
 the Government, and of emphasizing the fact that 
 ours is a mediated or representative Government, 
 not a pure Democracy like ancient Athens. This 
 peculiar stress is highly characteristic of Marshall. 
 In the same decision the Chief Justice gives the 
 same thought a somewhat different turn: It is "a 
 Government of the People ; its powers are granted 
 by them, and are to be exercised on them and for 
 their benefit. " Lincoln, not only as a lawyer but 
 as a student of national politics, had in all prob- 
 ability read this decision which is deemed one of 
 Marshall's greatest. 
 
 Many years afterwarfl. Daniel Webster, who 
 
570 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 was an attorney in the preceding case of McCul- 
 loch vs. Maryland, employed in the Senate of the 
 United States a similar locution: ''It is, Sir, the 
 People's Government made for the People, made 
 by the People and answerable to the People." 
 This occurs in Webster's reply to Hayne, a speech 
 which Lincoln must have almost known by heart. 
 Herndon reports of Lincoln, while writing the 
 first Inaugural: ''He called for Webster's reply to 
 Hayne, a speech which he read when he lived at 
 New Salem, and which he always regarded as the 
 grandest specimen of American oratory." Possibly 
 he found this speech originally in one of the newspa- 
 pers of his Post-ofRce Hat. At any rate the expres- 
 sion under consideration must have become known 
 to Lincoln through Webster, whose fame scattered 
 it far and wide, making it familiar to all who 
 favored the supremacy of the Union against Nul- 
 lification and the doctrine of State Sovereignty. 
 In this earlier contest for the Union, Lincoln 
 deeply shared (see preceding pp. 152-6). 
 
 From Webster the expression was disseminated 
 in New England, where it became seemingly a 
 favorite with Theodore Parker. Herndon relates 
 (see Herndon and Weik's Lincoln, II, p. 65) that 
 on his return from the East, 'T brought with me 
 additional sermons and lectures by Theodore 
 Parker. One of these lectures was on The Effect 
 of Slavery on the American People, which I gave 
 to Lincoln who read and returned it. He liked 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 571 
 
 especially the following expression which he 
 marked with a pencil, and which he in sub- 
 stance afterwards used in his Gettysburg address: 
 'Democracy is direct self-government, over all 
 the People, for all the People, by all the People.'" 
 Here we have to say that Lincoln did not hold 
 that our Democracy was direct or immediate self- 
 government; he leaves that out of his Gettys- 
 burg address and all others. Ours is a mediated, 
 representative self-government — a fact which Mar- 
 shall's statement brings out strongly, as already 
 noted. In spite of Herndon, we have to think 
 that the expression had long been known to Lin- 
 coln, and to many other people. 
 
 Still Lincoln has made the expression an integral 
 part of the American consciousness, which uses 
 it as a kind of formula for defining itself polit- 
 ically, and thus becoming aware of itself as com- 
 pletely self-governing. Every school boy cons it 
 and commits it to memory. Great principles are 
 usually uttered long before they become popular, 
 and by a different man from the one who makes 
 them popular. Often the solitary thinker, sage, 
 poet, prophet, jurist throws out the maxim which 
 in time is to become epoch-making, being taken 
 up into the Folk-Soul and thereby truly realized. 
 At Gettysburg Lincoln seized the occasion or the 
 right psychologic moment to transform an old 
 floating expression into an eternal utterance of 
 the People for knowing itself. For the Folk-Soul 
 
572 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 also must become self-conscious in regard to its 
 own deepest character and destiny . We have al- 
 ready often noted Lincoln as its voice speaking to 
 it the behest of the World-Spirit at the given 
 time. The other famous statement of Lincoln 
 that the nation cannot endure half slave and 
 half free, had often been said in substance before 
 him. But no speaker ever brought it horae to the 
 People and caused them to make it a reality ex- 
 cept Lincoln. LTndoubtedly the time had to be 
 ready and the opportunity to be given; Civiliza- 
 tion, Progress, Providence, the World-Spirit, hav- 
 ing reached a stage in the movement toward its 
 goal, bids the epoch-making mandate which the 
 Great Man hears and voices to his People who are 
 to realize it in the world. 
 
 X. Lincoln was assassinated on the 14th of 
 April, 1865. The rebellion had been put down; 
 the work of reconstructing the Union Lincoln had 
 already begun, and had carried so far that it could 
 not be again undone, though it might be and was 
 retarded, and indeed for a time perverted. That 
 prophecy with which the Lincolniad proper starts 
 — "this Nation cannot endure permanently half 
 slave and half free" — has been fulfilled, chiefly 
 through Lincoln himself. And his entire biog- 
 raphy, when viewed in its total process, gives a 
 sense of completeness, even if the thread of life 
 was shorn off by a sudden act of violence. He 
 died, after having made himself harmonious with 
 
LINCOLN THE NATION'S EXECUTIVE. 573 
 
 the Folk-Soul and it harmonious with himself, 
 yea, after having made the disunited and warring 
 Folk-Soul harmonious with itself by casting out 
 its deepest dualism, into which, indeed, it was 
 born. Thus we may say that through Lincoln as 
 leader the Union and also the Constitution were 
 able to get rid of their hereditary curse. Great is 
 it for the individual to free himself of his ancestral 
 taint, but greater is it for the nation through its 
 Great Man to perform such an act of self-purification. 
 Looking back at the biographical career of Lin- 
 coln in its total sweep, we observe that his First 
 Period was his intimate life and acquaintance 
 with the People, his Apprenticeship to the Folk- 
 Soul, as we have named it; but in the Second 
 Period occurred his great alienation within and 
 without, which he had to overcome theoretically 
 in himself, in his People, and especially in his 
 antitype Douglas, as the representative of the 
 Double Nation — all of which brings him face to 
 face with the deepest separation of his time and 
 Nation, namely, Disunion. This is what he prac- 
 tically eliminates in his Third Period, reproducing 
 in the Nation his own inner harmony, and return- 
 ing to the primial unity of himself with the Folk- 
 Soul, which unity is not now immediate, but 
 mediated and restored after long and deep 
 estrangement. So we contemplate Lincoln's life 
 rounding itself out to its psychical completeness 
 and fulfilment. 
 
574 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— PART THIRD. 
 
 It should also be noted that from this point of 
 view Lincoln's life is an important illustration of 
 Universal Biography. In its way we may deem it 
 a typical career for the human being who thinks 
 and does great things, who is able to clothe his 
 thought and action in the mighty events of his 
 time. Lincoln's Biography reveals the inner 
 psychical movement of all Biography; his life 
 manifests the essential process of every completed 
 life. This is the process which the biographer 
 must bring out in his writ, and thus at least help 
 create the beginning of a cosmos in our present 
 biographical chaos. A science of Biography must 
 be possible as well as a science of History. In- 
 deed, Histoiy and Biography, though different and 
 even opposite, are symmetrical counterparts, and 
 at last belong together. History puts stress upon 
 the Nation and its evolution in events; Biography 
 puts stress upon the Man, and, as political, shows 
 him mediating the World-Spirit with the Nation 
 of his time. 
 
 So we conclude our little book, which, as we 
 conceive it, is not so much a literal Biography as 
 an exemplar and an interpretation in LTniversal 
 Biography. 
 
WORKS BY DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 210 Pine Street, St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 I. Commentary on the Literary Bibles, in 9 vols. 
 
 1. Shakespeare's Dramas, 3 vols. 
 
 Tragedies (new edition) . . $1.50 
 
 Comedies (new edition) . . 1.50 
 
 Histories (new edition) . . 1.50 
 
 2. Goethe's Faust. 
 
 First Part (new edition) . . 1.50 
 
 Second Part (new edition) . 1.50 
 
 3. Homer's Iliad (new edition) . 1.50 
 
 " Odyssey . . . 1.50 
 
 4. Dante's Inferno . . . .1.50 
 
 " Purgatory and Paradise . 1.50 
 
 II. Psychology. 
 
 1. Psychology and the Psychosis . 1.50 
 
 2. The Will and Its World . .1.50 
 
 3. Feeling 1.50 
 
 4. Social Institutions . . . 1.50 
 
 5. The State . . . .^ .1.50 
 
 6. Ancient European Philosophy . 1.50 
 
 7. Motlern European Pliilosophy . 1.50 
 S. Architecture .... 1.50 
 
 III. Kindergarden. 
 
 1. Commentary on Froebel's Mother 
 
 Play-Songs .... 
 
 2. The Psychology of Froebel's Play- 
 
 Gifts .... 
 
 3. The Life of Frederick Froebel 
 
 IV. Poems — in 5 vols. 
 
 Homer in Chios 
 Delphic Days 
 Agamemnon's Daughter 
 Prorsus Retrorsus 
 Johnny Appleseed's Rhyines 
 V. Miscellaneous. 
 
 1. A Walk in Hellas 
 
 2. The Freeburgers (a novel) 
 
 3. World's Fair Studies 
 
 4. Tour in Europe 
 
 5. Father of History — Herodotus 
 
 6. European History 
 
 7. The American Ten Years War 
 
 8. Abraham Lincoln 
 
 9. A Writer of Books 
 
 For sale by A. C. M'Clurg & Co., Booksellers, 
 Chicago, Ills., to whom the trade is referred. 
 
 1.25 
 
 1.25 
 1.25 
 
 1.00 
 1.00 
 1.00 
 1.00 
 1.25 
 
 1.25 
 1.25 
 1.25 
 1.50 
 1.50 
 1.50 
 1.50 
 1.50 
 1.50 
 
DEC 17 
 
9 6£Zl£Q UOO 
 
 ssayoNoodOAyvHan