i lass [look PRESENTED BY THE LIFE OP ABEAHAM LINCOLN, BY J: G. HOLLAND, MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. SPEINGFIELD, MASS.: PUBLISHED BY GUKDON BILL. 1866. AGENTS WANTED. Energetic men, of good address, arc wanted in all parts of the United States and Canada, to act as agents for the Life of Abraham Lin- coln, by Dr. J. G. Holland; History of tue Civil War in America, by Rev. J. S. C. Abbott; Life of Washington, by Hon. J. T. Ileadley ; and other popular works, which are sold only by subscription. Persons wishing an agency, can obtain full particulars by applying at the office of the subscriber, or addressing by mail, GUHDON BILL, Springfield, Mass. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. HOLLAND'S LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, COMPRISING A FULL AMD COMPLETE SISTOMY OF HIS EVENTFUL LIFE, WITH incidents of his earlt history, his career as a lawyer and politician, his advancement to the presidency of the united states and commander-in-chief of the army and navy through the most trying period of its history, TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OP THE TRAGICAL AND MOURNFUL SCENES Connected with the Close of his Noble and Eventful Life. By Dr. J. G. HOLLAND, The widely known and favorite author of the "Timothy Titcomb" Letters, "Bitter Sweet," " Gold Foil," &c, &c. The author's aim will be to describe as graphically as may be the private and public life of the humble citizen, the successful lawyer, the pure politician, the far-sighted Christian statesman, the efficient philanthropist, and the honored Chief Magistrate. The people desire a biography which shall narrate to them with a measurable degree of symmetry and completeness, the story of a life which has been intimately associated with their own and changed the course of American history through all coming time. Such a narrative as this it will be the author's aim to give-one that shall be sufficiently full in detail without being prolix, and circumstantial without being dull. The work will be published in a handsome Octavo volume of about five hundred and fifty pages, on fine paper, printed from electrotype plates, and will be embellished by an elegant Portrait of Mr. Lincoln, with a finely engraved view of his residence in Springfield, Illinois, and other Steel engravings. The work will also be issued in the German Language at the same price of the Eng- lish edition. THE HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA, COMPRISING A FULL AND IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OP THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE REBELLION, OP TIIE VARIOUS NAVAL ANI> MILITAKY ENGAGJE3IENTS OF THE Heroic Deeds performed by Annies and Individuals, AND OP TOUCHING: SCENES IN THE FIELD, THE CAMP, THE He "ITAL AND THE CABIN. By J. S. C. ABBOTT, Author of the "Life of Napoleon," "History of the French Revolution," "Mcmarchs of Continental Europe," &c. ILLUSTRATED WITH DIAGRAMS AND NUMEROUS STEEL ENGRAVINGS, OF BATTLE SCENES AND PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN, BY THE BEST ARTISTS. Ilf TWO VOLUMES. ex^rlssly forlr work- tflU^ ^TT ed ° n , Stee1 ' b ? the bes * Artists, J^^^nbepnW^^ language as well as in the English. THE ILLUSTRATED LIFE OF WASHINGTON WITH . VIVID PEN-PAINTINGS OF BATTLES AND INCIDENTS, TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF THE HEROES AND SOLDIERS OF REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. By Hon. J. T. HEADLEY, Author of "Washington and his G ^^ s ^|poleon and his Marshals," "Sacred TOGETHER WITH AN INTERESTING, ACCOUNT OF MOUJVT VEHJVOJV AS IT IS By BENSON J. LOSSLNG. Tho whole embellished with numerous Steel and Wood Engravings, and a splendid Colored Lithographic View of Mount Vernon and Washington's Tomb. of T the fac?s U and in^n? C - aV t °v, y °v l ) m % °i over 500 P a S. e9 embraces a brilliant narration try--Geor£ wthinifon tn^fh''^ "£.*£•** remarl ^ble man, and Father of his Co, m- Comwisha m.fpi ' £ "' , t ?" ethe 1 l w ' t . h ]"s connection with the Revolutionary War, Ac Purn P a m ?KhfreseVchl 1 of P M * n T V nform;Uio , n > delived from the P«P er * <* Genera When everv h HrftZlT °. f , Mr " Lossin g.-mformation embraced in no other book. aroused towards the m IrJ'if e " ,h "? las , t,c gratitude, and public feeling is thoroughly ^^^&^r^^z^^^^ the demand " s every day PREFACE. I have undertaken to write a biography of Abraham Lin- coln for the people ; and, although they will be certain to learn what I have accomplished and what I have failed to accom- plish in the book, I cannot consent to pass it into their hands without a statement of what I have aimed to do, and what I have not aimed to do, in its preparation. I am moved to this, partly by my wish that they may not be disappointed in the character of the effort, and partly by my desire that, in making up their judgment upon the work, they may have some refer- ence to my intentions. First, then, I have not aimed to write a History of the Re- bellion. Second, I have not aimed to write a political or a military history of Mr. Lincoln's administration. Third, I have not aimed to present any considerable number of Mr. Lincoln's letters, speeches and state-papers. Fourth, I have not attempted to disguise or conceal my own personal partial- ity for Mr. Lincoln, and my thorough sympathy with the political principles to which his life was devoted. Though 6 PREFACE. unconscious of any partiality for a party, capable of blinding my vision or distorting my judgment, I am aware that, at this early day, when opinions are still sharply divided upon the same questions concerning principles, policies and men, which prevailed during Mr. Lincoln's active political life, it is impos- sible to utter any judgment which will not have a bearing up- on the party politics of the time. Thus, the only alternative of writing according to personal partialities and personal con- victions, has been writing without any partialities, and with- out any convictions. I have chosen to be a man, rather than a machine ; and, if this shall subject me to the charge of writ- ing in the interest of a party, I must take what comes of it. I have tried to paint the character of Mr. Lincoln, and to sketch his life, clinging closely to his side ; giving attention to cotemporaneous history no further than it has seemed necessary to reveal his connection with public events ; and re-producing his letters, speeches and state-papers to no greater extent than they were deemed requisite to illustrate his personal character, to throw light upon specially interesting phases of his private life and public career, to exhibit the style and scope of his genius, and to expose his social, political and religious senti- ments and opinions. In pursuing this course, I have been « obliged to leave large masses of interesting material behind me, and to condense into the briefest space what the more general historian will dwell upon in detail. From much of the history of Mr. Lincoln's public life, to which his future biographers will have access, I have been excluded. The records and other evidences of his intimate r K E F A C E . 7 connection with all the events of the war for the presi rvation of American nationality, are in the archives of the War 1). - partment; and they arc there retained, only to be rev when the present generation shall have passed away. Th< Life of Washington, even though it was written by a Mar- shall, with the abundant access tc unpublished document? which his position enabled him to command, or which it « the policy of the government to afford him, waited half a century for Irving, to give it symmetry and completeness. The humbler biographers of Mr. Lincoln, though they satisfy an immediate want, and gather much which would otherwisr be forever lost, can hardly hope to be more than tributaries to that better and completer biography which the next, or some succeeding generation, will be sure to produce and possess. I have no opportunity, except that which this page affords me, to acknowledge my indebtedness to those who have as- sisted me in the collection of unpublished materials for this volume. I have been indebted specially to William II. Hern- don, Esq., of Springfield, Illinois, for many years Mr. Lincoln's law partner, who has manifested, from the first, the kin interest in my book; to New T ton Bateinan, Esq., Superintend- ent of Public Instruction in Illinois; to James Q. Howard. Esq., United States Consul at St. John, iS T ew Brunswick: to Hon. John D. Defrecs, Superintendent of Public Printing in Washington; tp Hon. Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts : to Horace White, Esq., of the Chicago Tribune ; to IT. F. Linder, Esq., of Chicago; to J. F. Speed, Esq., of Louisville, Ken 8 PREFACE. tucky; to Judge S. T. Logan, Hon. Jesse K. Dubois, Rev. A. Hale, and Hon. Erastus Wright, old neighbors and friends of Air. Lincoln in Illinois; to Rev. J. T. Duryea, of NeAv York; and George H. Stuart, Esq., of Philadelphia. To these, and to the unnamed but not forgotten friends who have aided me, I return my hearty thanks. Putnam's "Record of the Rebellion" has proved itself an inexhaustible fountain of valuable and interesting facts ; and I have been much indebted to McPherson's History of the Re- bellion, the best arranged and most complete collection of pub- lic documents relating to the war that has been published. I have freely consulted the campaign biographies of Messrs. Scripps, Raymond, and Barrett, to the excellence of which I bear cheerful testimony. Among other books that have been useful to me, are Nichols' "Story of the Great March,' 1 Coggeshall's " Journeys of Abraham Lincoln," Schalk/s "Campaigns of 1862 and 1863," and Halsted's "Caucuses of 1860." Carpenter's "Reminiscences," published in the New York Independent, and an article by Noah Brooks in Harp- er's Magazine, have furnished me also with some very inter- estino; materials. Hoping that the volume will be as pleasant, instructive and inspiring in the reading as it has been in the writing, I present it to my indulgent friends, the American people. J. G. H. Springfield, Mass., November, 1865. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND CIIILDHOOD. Birth— Daniel Boone and the Pioneers of Kentucky— Abraham Lincoln, the Grand- father of the President— His Kemoval to Kentucky, and Death— His Brothers and S n S — Probable Origin of the Lincolns— Thomas Lincoln, the Father of the Presi- dent—His Marriage— His Children— The Mother of the President— Early Education of Abraham Lincoln— His Schoolmasters— Zaehariah Riney— Caleb Hazel— Reli Habits of the People— Parson Elkin— Slavery in Kentucky— Defective Land-titles —Removal of Thomas Lincoln to Indiana, 17 CHAPTER II. TOUTH. Lincoln's early Industry— His Schools— Simplicity of Border Life— Death of his Mother —Her Funeral Sermon— Her Influence upon his Character— His early Practice of Writing— His Books— Anecdote illustrating his Honesty— His Father's second Mar- riage—Anecdote illustrating Mr. Lincoln's Humanity— He builds a Boat— A Fact for°the Psychologist— He takes charge of a Flat-boat for New Orleans— His Con- test with seven Negroes— He sells the Boat and Cargo, and returns on foot— His Mental Development — His Moral Character, S7 CHAPTER III. EARLY MANHOOD. Marriages in Thomas Lincoln's Family— Marriage and Death of Abraham's Sister- Removal of Thomas Lincoln to Illinois— Difficulties of the Journey— Abraham as- sists in building a Log House and insplitting Rails— He leaves Home— Works for hire, Chopping Wood and Farming— Anecdote— Thomas Lincoln removes to Coles County— His death— Abraham goes to New Orleans with a Cargo of Swine— He is employed in a Store at New Salem— Anecdotes illustrating his Honesty— His Pun- ishment of a Bully— His Adventure with the "Clary's Grove Boys"— He studio-. English Grammar— Attends Debating Clubs— Anecdote— His Employer fails, ami the Store is closed— Mr. Lincoln is called "Honest Abe," MS 10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE BLACK HAWK WAR. Black Hawk — His Treachery— Governor Reynolds calls for Volunteers— Lincoln enlists — He is chosen Captain— His Popularity with the Soldiers— Forced Marches — "Stillman's Defeat'' — Flight of the Indians — Volunteers Discharged — Lincoln re- enlists— Capture of Black Hawk— Lincoln's Speech on General Cass— Mr. Lincoln becomes a Candidate for the Legislature— He is Defeated — Purchases a Store, but fails in Business— Is appointed Postmaster — Anecdote illustrating his Honesty— He becomes a Surveyor, , 48 CHAPTER V. CHARACTER OF MR. LINCOLN ON ENTERING PUBLIC LIFE. Mr. Lincoln was a Self-made Man — Loyal to his Convictions — Marked and Peculiar — Anecdotes — He was Respected and Loved — A Man of Practical Expedients — Anec- dote — Mr. Lincoln was a Religious Man — His Faith in Divine Providence — His Log- ical and Reasoning Powers— He was Child-like, SS ♦ CHAPTER VI. MR. LINCOLN IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. Mr. Lincoln contemplates the Study of Law— He begins to make Speeches— Elected to the Legislature in 1834 — Commences the Study of Law— Goes on foot to the Capi- tal—Returns to the Study of Law and to Surveying— Re-elected to the Legislature in 1836— Speech at Springfield— The "Long Nine"— Distinguished Men in the Leg- islature — Change of the State Capital — Mr. Lincoln's first meeting with Stephen A. Douglas — Pro-slavery Resolutions adopted — Protest of Abraham Lincoln and Dan Stone — Anecdote, V4 CHAPTER VII. MR. LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. Mr. Lincoln becomes a Law-partner of Major Stuart, and removes to Springfield — Re- elected to the Legislature in 1838— Political Parties in Illinois— Mr. Lincoln's Stone? — The Member from Wabash County— "Riding the Circuit" in Illinois— Mr. Lin. coin's Ability as a Lawyer— His Regard for Justice— Mr. Lincoln and the Pig— His Power as an Advocate — His "Colt Case" in the Coles Circuit Court — His Exception- able Stories— His Regard for Poor Relatives, 72 CHAPTER VIII. mr. Lincoln's marriage. — the clay campaign. Mr. Lincoln Re-eiected to the Legislature in 1840— Strange Incident in his Life— He Accepts a Challenge to a Duel— Forms a Law-partnership with Judge Logan— His Marriage— His private Letters— His Loyalty to Party— Anecdote illustrating his Generosity— Political Contest of 1844 — Mr. Lincoln a Candidate for Presidential Elector— He Canvasses the State— Defeat of Mr. Clay— Mr. Lincoln visits him at Ashland— Anecdotes illustrating Mr. Lincoln's Courage— Anecdote illustrating his strong Party Feeling, 8? CHAPTER IX. MR. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS. THE MEXICAN WAR. Mr, Lincoln nominated for Congress in 1846— He "Stumps" his District— Elected by a large Majority— His fitness for the Position— The old Whig Party and the Mexii - War— Mr. Lincoln's Resolutions— Mr. Hudson's Resolution— Mr. Lincoln's Speech, January 12th, 1848— Defense of the Postmaster-general— Mr. Lincoln a member of TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 the Whip; Convention of 1S4S— Advocates the nomination of General Taylor— Speech in Congress on the Candidates for the Presidency— Correspondence with the Whig Lenders in Illinois— Speeches during the Canvass— Second Session of the Thirtieth Congress— Mr. Lincoln's Position on the Slavery Question— He seeks for the Posi- tion of Commissioner of the General Land Office, but fails, .99 CHAPTER X. RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE. REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. Mr. Lincoln returns to the Practice of his Profession— His Affection for his Children— His Absent-mindedness— He Studies Euclid— His Mechanical Skill— Anecdotes il- lustrating his Practice of Law— Opinions of Judge Caton, Judge Breese, Judge Drummond, and Judge Davis— Mr. Lincoln's Eulogy on Henry Clay— Admission of California as a Free State— "Compromise Measures" of 1S50— Election of Mr. Pierce to the Presidency— Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and Passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Bill— Judge Douglas and Popular Sovereignty— Meeting of Douglas and Lincoln at Springfield— At Peoria— Extract from Mr. Lincoln's Speech at Peoria— Overthrow of the Democratic Party in Illinois— Election of Mr. Trumbull to the United States Senate, 1-44 CHAPTER XI. ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Affairs in Kansas— Border Ruffians— Letter of Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Speed— State of the Slavery Question— Mr. Lincoln attends a State Convention at Bloomington— Repub- lican Party organized in Illinois— Mr. Lincoln's Speech at the Convention— Mr. Lin- coln a Candidate for the Vice-presidency at the National Republican Convention of 1S56— Speech at Charleston, Illinois— Speech of Mr. Douglas at Springfield— Mr. Lincoln's Reply— The Lecompton Constitution— Position of Mr. Douglas, . . . 144 CHAPTER XII. CONTEST FOR THE SENATORSHIP. Sketch of the previous History of Stephen A. Douglas— Mr. Lincoln's Opinion of hum- Mr. Douglas opposes the Leeompton Constitution— Democratic State Convention- Eastern Republicans favor Mr. Douglas' Re-election— Views of the Republican Party in Illinois— Republican State Convention— Resolution on the Dred Scott De- cision and the Power of Congress over the Territories— Mr. Lincoln Nominated for United States Senator— His Speech before the Convention— Speech of Mr. Douglas at Chicago— His Misrepresentations of Mr. Lincoln— Hrs Views on the Dred Scott Decision— Mr. Lincoln's Reply— Illustrations of his Tact and Wit, 154 CHAPTER XIII. CONTEST FOR THE SENATORSHIP. Mr. Lincoln proposes to Mr. Douglas a Joint Canvass of the State— Mr. Douglas de- clines, but proposes Joint Debates in seven Districts— Mr. Lincoln commences his Canvass of the State— His Reply to Douglas' Charge of Falsehood— Meeting of Douglas and Lincoln at Ottawa— Mr. Douglas' Charges, and Mr. Lincoln's Replies- Extract from Mr Lincoln's Speech— Their Meeting at Freeport— Lincoln's Reply to the Questions of Douglas— His Questions to Douglas— Answers of Douglas, and Lincoln's Rejoinder— Triumph o" Mr. Lincoln in the Popular Estimation— Objects of Mr. Lincoln in the Campaign— Mr. Douglas Re-elected Senator by the Legisla- ture, 179 12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PREMONITIONS OF THE PRESIDENCY. Mr. Lincoln in the Winter of 185S-9 delivers a Lecture on the History of Inventions— His Popularity at the West — Letter to Dr. Canisius on Naturalization and Fusion — Reception by the State Convention at Decatur— The Presentation of the Rails from Macon County — Mr. Lincoln's Visit to Kansas — Extract from his Speech at Leaven- worth— He Visits Ohio— Speaks at Columbus and Cincinnati— Extract from his Speech at Cincinnati — Popular Sovereignty Doctrine of Mr. Douglas — Mr. Lincoln Visits New York — Speaks at Cooper Institute — William C. Bryant presides at the Meeting— Great Ability and Research displayed in the Speech— Extracts— Mr. Lin- coln Visits the Five Points Mission — Goes to Connecticut, and speaks at Hartford, New Haven, Meriden, &c. — His great Success as a Speaker — Anecdote related by Rev. J. P. Gulliver — Mr. Lincoln Visits his Son at Cambridge, and returns to Illi- nois, IDS CHAPTER XV. PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTIONS OF 1860. — MR. LINCOLN'S NOMINATION. State of the Country in 1860 — Southern Leaders Preparing for Secession — Knights of the Golden Circle— Church and Press at the South— Cobb and Floyd— Opinions at the North — Democratic Convention at Charleston — Mr. Yancey and the " Fire-eaters " — Division of the Convention— Both Factions Adjourn without making Nominations — National Constitutional Union Convention at Baltimore — Bell and Everett nominated — Breckinridge nominated by the Fire-eaters, and Douglas by the regular Deim i Convention — Mr. Lincoln's Story — Republican Convention at Chicago — Prominent Candidates forthe Nomination — The Party Platform — Balloting for President — Nom- ination of Lincoln — Enthusiasm of the Convention and of the Spectators — Disap- pointment of Mr. Seward's friends — Reception of the News at Springfield — The Committee of the Convention visit Mr. Lincoln — Speech of Mr. Ashmun, the Chair- man — Reply of Mr. Lincoln — His Letter Accepting the Nomination, 210 CHAPTER XVI. THE CAMPAIGN. — MR. LINCOLN'S ELECTION. Mr. Lincoln visited by Multitudes of People— Anecdotes — The Prospect for the Future —Mr. Lincoln's Views of the Duties of Christians and Ministers — His Conversation with Mr. Bateman — His Religious Faith and Convictions — Apparent Contradictions in Character — The Election of Mr. Lincoln Regarded as Certain — Course of the South- ern Leaders— Silence of Mr. Lincoln during the Campaign — Election of Mr. Lincoln — Popular Rejoicing at the North, and Exasperation at the South — Feeling of the Republican Party — Effect upon Mr. Lincoln — An Optical Illusion— Visit to Chicago — Anecdotes illustrating Mr. Lincoln's Love of Children — "Cabinet-making" — Mr. Lincoln's Views, 232 CHAPTER XVII. mr. Lincoln's journey to Washington. Enormity of the Rebellion— Floyd— Black— Buchanan— Secession of several States- Forts and Arsenals seized — Position of Mr. Stanton and Mr. Holt — Attempts to con- ciliate the South— Condition of the Country— Mr. Lincoln leaves Springfield for Washington— His Farewell Speech— His Speech at Indianapolis— Journey to Cin- cinnati—Speeches at Cincinnati— Reception at Columbus— At Pittsburg— At Cleve- land—At Buffalo— At Albany— At Poughkeepsie— At New York— At Trenton— At Philadelphia — Plot against the President's Life — His Speech at Independence Ha'l —Reception at Harrisburg— Journey to Washington, 240 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER XVIII. THE INAUGURATION. — OPENING OP THE WAR. The Procession— Reception of the Pre: ident by the Peopl< — The Inaugural Address — Cabinet Appointments— Rebel Sympathize] in Office- Mr. Lincoln's pacific Policy — Arrival of Rebel Commissioners in Washington— Surrender of Fort Sumter- I ■ i the North— Proclamati in of the President- Response of Massachusetts— At- tack upon the Troops in Baltimore— Proclamation declaring a Blockade of Rebel Ports — Position of Virginia— Secession of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas— Response to the Call of thePresident at the North and West — Mr. Doug- las's Visit to Mr. Lincoln — His Devotion to the Country — Speeches in Illinois — His Sickness and Death, 277 CHAPTER XIX. • FIRST SUMMER OF THE WAR. Important Military Operations— Washington Relieved from Danger— Fortress Monroe Reinforced— The Government Works at Harper's Perry Blown Up and Abandoned — Occupation of Cairo— Rebel Congress assembled at Montgomery— Message of President Davis— President Lincoln's Call for additional Troops— Affairs in Missouri —General Butler's "Contraband" Order— Battle of Big Bethel— Death of Colonel Ellsworth— Battle of Bull Run— Agreement between Buckner and McClellan — Po- sition of the Government in reference to Slavery— The State of Western Virginia Organized — Battles of Laurel Hill and Rich Mountain — Special Session of Congress — Message of the President — The Majority of Congress sustain the Government — Mr. Crittenden's Resolution— Effect of the President's Inaugural and Message— Ap- pointment of General McClellan to the Command of the Army of the Potomac, 305 CHAPTER XX. FOREIGN RELATIONS. FREMONT IN MISSOURI. Results of the Bull Run Battle — Foreign Relations — Seward's Instructions to Minister Adams— To our Ministers at other European Courts— Belligerent Rights of Rebels recognized by England and' France— Sympathy of England with the Rebellion — J. C. Fremont appointed Major-general — Battle of Wilson's Creek— Condition of Mis- souri — Fremont's Proclamation— Lincoln's Letter to Fremont — Modification of Fre- mont's Proclamation— Letter of Hon. Joseph Holt— General Fremont and Colonel Blair— Charges against Fremont— General Grant occupies Paducah, Kentucky— Sur- render of Colonel Mulligan— General Fremont takes the Field— He is superseded by General Hunter— General McClellan and the Army of the Potomac— General Butler captures the Hatteras Forts— Munson's Hill occupied by the Rebels— Battle of Ball's Bluff— Resignation of General Scott— Visit of the President and Cabinet to General Scott— Appointment of General McClellan to the Chief Command- Victory at Port Royal— Victories of General Grant in Missouri and General Nelson in Kentucky— Instructions to General Butler on the subject of Slavery, .... 324 CHAPTER XXT. THE TRENT AFFAIR. THE GOVERNMENT AND SLAVERY. Capture of Mason and Slide]] by Captain Wilkes— Difficulties with England— Letter of Mr. Seward— Release of Mason and Slidell— Session of Congress— Message of the President— The Question of Slavery— Mr. Lincoln's Regard for the Constitution and the Laws— He Recommends Gradual Emancipation— Conference with Members of Congress from the Border States— Address of the President— The Confiscation Act —Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia— Letter of Mr. Greeley— Reply of the President— Mr. Cameron's Resignation— Appointment of Mr. Stanton— Mr. Lin- coln's Story, 330 14 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXII. CAMPAIGNS OF 1862. General McClellan and the Army of the Potomac— Blockade of the Potomac— Order of the President for a grand Movement of the Armies of the Union — Order to the Army of the Potomac — General McClellan advises a different Plan from that pro- posed in the President's Order — Mr. Lincoln's Reply to McClellan — McClellan's Plan Adopted — Evacuation of Manassas— Orders of the President — Organization of Army Corps— Blenker's Division ordered to join Fremont — Banks to attack Jack- son — McDowell's Corps retained for the Defense of Washington — McClellan at York- town — McClellan complains of the Inadequacy of his Force — Correspondence be- tween McClellan and the Authorities at Washington — General Franklin's Division sent to General McClellan — Evacuation of Yorktown — Battle of Williamsburgh — Battle at West Point — Correspondence on the Subject of Army Corps— Mr Lincoln's "Little Story" — Capture of Norfolk — McClellan still Clamorous for Reinforcements — Defeat of Banks— Defeat of the Rebels at Hanover Court-House — Battle of Fair Oaks — Further Correspondence— The "Seven Days' Fight," and Retreat to James River — McClellan's Advice to the Government — The President at Harrison's Land- ing — The Army of the Potomac returns to Alexandria— Failure of McClellan to Re- inforce General Pope— The Rebels cross the Potomac— General McClellan appointed to the Command of the Army in Virginia — Battles of South Mountain and Antietam — General McClellan ordered to pursue the Rebels — Stuart's Raid — President's Let- ter to General McClellan — The Army across the Potomac— McClellan relieved of his Command — His Character— General Burnside appointed to the Command— Defeat at Fredericksburg— Capture of Roanoke Island — New Orleans surrendered to Gen- eral Butler— Military Affairs at the West, 35S CHAPTER XXm. PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION. Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation in pursuance of the Confiscation Act— Fernando Wood's Letters, advising Negotiation with the Rebels— The President's Replies— BIr. Lin- coln's Letter to Mr. Hodges — Mr. Carpenter's Account of the Emancipation Procla- mation—Cabinet Meeting— Opinions of Messrs. Chase, Blair and Seward— Mr. Bout- well's Account — The Preliminary Proclamation issued— Its Reception by the People General McClellan's Order to the Army— The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1st, 1S63— Proclamation suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus— Criticisms upon it— Circular Letter of the President on Sabbath-breaking in the Army— Letter to Governor Shepley, . 38 7 CHAPTER XXIV. SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS. — THE DRAFT. — CAM- PAIGNS of 1863. Colonization Schemes of the President— Compensated Emancipation recommended— Bill for Enrolling and Drafting the Militia— Financial Measures of Congress— Opin- ions of the President— Western Virginia admitted to the Union— Representatives from Louisiana admitted to Congress— Peace Agitations— Course of Vallandigham of Ohio— His Arrest by General Burnside— Decision of Judge Leavitt— Vallandig- ham's Trial and Sentence— Sentence modified by the President— Letter of Gov- ernor Seymour— Vallandigham nominated for Governor by the Democratic Con- vention of Ohio— The Committee of the Convention visit the President— The Pres- ident's Reply to their Letter— Resolutions of the Albany Meeting— The President's Reply— Universal Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus— The Draft— Riots in New York— Course of Governor Seymour— Action of the President— Elections of 1863— Letter from the Working Men of Manchester, England— The President's Reply— Mr. Lincoln's Letter to J. C. Conkling— Military Events of tha Year— Battle TABLE OF CONTENTS. 15 of Chancellorsvillc— Lee's Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania— General Meade succeeds General Hooker in Command— Battle of Gettysburg— The President's Dispatch— Dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery— Speech of the President— Sur- render of Vicksburg and Port Hudson— Mr. Lincoln's Letter to General Grant — Rosecrans' Campaign in Tennessee— General Grant defeats Bragg, and drives Long- street from Tennessee— The President's Thanksgiving Proclamations— Difficulty among Union Men in Missouri— Mr. Lincoln's Opinion, 405 CHAPTER XXV. PRIVATE LIFE AT THE WHITE HOUSE. Mr. Lincoln at the White House— His Relations to the Members of the Cabinet — His Health— His Love of Music— His Sympathy with the Soldiers— Anecdotes— His Charity for Human Weakness — His Severity towards Deliberate and Mercenary Crimes — Anecdotes— Mr. Lincoln's Religious Character— Death of his Son— Anec- dotes illustrating his Religious Character — His Interest in the Christian Commis- sion — Anecdotes — Visit of Two Hundred Members of the Christian Commission — Remarks of Mr. Stuart, and the President's Reply — Mr. Lincoln's Interview with Rev. J. T. Duryea — His Interest in the Efforts of Religious Men — His Habits at the White House — Narrative of a Lady who urged him to establish Military Hospitals in the Northern States — Injurious effects of Excessive Labor, Anxiety, and Loss of Sleep — Visits of Representatives of various Churches and Public Bodies — His Melancholy— Anecdotes— His Character, 429 CHAPTER XXVI. SESSION OF CONGRESS, 1863-4. — SANITARY FAIRS. The President's Message — Proclamation of Amnesty — Supplementary and Explanatory Proclamation of March 24, 1864 — Failure of the Bill establishing a Bureau of Freed- men's Affairs, and of the Constitutional Amendment Abolishing Slavery — Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law — Debate in the House of Representatives on the Expulsion of Long and Harris — Case of General F. P. Blair — U. S. Grant appointed Lieutenant- general— Sanitary Fair at Baltimore— At Philadelphia— At the Patent-office in Wash- ington — Visits and Speeches of the President— Order in reference to the Treatment of Colored Soldiers— Speech of the President on the Subject, 457 CHAPTER XXVH. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1864. — RE-ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN. Presidential Election of 18G4— State of the Country— Chase— Fremont— Convention at Cleveland— J. C. Fremont nominated for President— His Reasons for Accepting the Nomination— Withdrawal of his Name— Meeting m New York in Honor of Gen- eral Grant— Baltimore Convention— Platform— Mr. Lincoln nominated for President —His Speech accepting the Nomination— Letter to the Committee of the Conven- tion—Case of Arguelles— Congressional Plan of Reconstruction— The President's Proclamation— Manifesto of Senators Wade and Davis — Peace Negotiations — Mr. Greeley's Letters — Mr. Lincoln's Replies — Mr. Greeley at Niagara Falls — Consulta- tions with Clay and IToleombe — The President's Letter to H. J. Raymond — Demo- cratic Convention at Chicago — The Platform— McClellan and Pendleton Nominated — Vallandighatri — Mr. Blair Retires from the Cabinet — Mr. Dennison appointed in his Place — Mr. Lincoln's Speech on the Adoption of a Free Constitution in Mary- land—Protest against the Tennessee Test Oath— The President's Reply — Call for 500,000 Men— President Lincoln Re-elected— His Letter to Mrs. Bixby, 467 16 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVIII. MILITARY EVENTS OF 1864. — RE-INAUGURATION OP MR. LINCOLN. Military Operations of 1864 — General Smith's Expedition from Memphis— Kilpatriek's Raid — The Red River Expedition — Surrender of Fort Pillow— Battles of the Wil- derness—General Butler at City Point — Siege of Petersburg— Sherman's Campaign in Georgia— Capture of Atlanta — Sherman's March for the Coast — Capture of Sa- vannah — General Thomas defeats Hood in Tennessee — Sheridan defeats Early :n the Shenandoah Valley — Rout of Price in Missouri — Changes in the Cabinet — Death of Chief-Justice Taney, and Appointment of Mr. Chase— Message of the President — Passage by Congress of the Amendment to the Constitution abolishing Slavery — Call for 300,000 Men— Peace Conference in Hampton Roads— Mr. Lincoln's "Story" — Close of President Lincoln's First Term — His Re-Inauguration— His Inaugural Address — Resignation of Secretary Fessenden— Appointment of Mr. MeCulloeh— Proclamation to Deserters — The Draft, 4.9'i CHAPTER XXIX. MILITARY EVENTS OE 1865. — CLOSE OF THE WAR. Sherman's March— Occupation of Columbia— Evacuation of Charleston — Battles of Averysboro and Bentonville— Occupation of Goldsboro— The President at City Point — Advance of the Army of the Potomac — Defeat of General Lee — Evacuation of Rich- mond—Its occupation by General Weitzel— Surrender of General Lee— The Pres- ident and the Kittens — The President visits Richmond — His Interview with Judge Campbell— Negotiations of General Sherman — Surrender of General.Johnston— End of the Rebellion — Joy of the People — Popularity of the President — His Speech at the White House, 506 CHAPTER XXX. THE ASSASSINATION. Position of President Lincoln before the World— Plots for his Assassination— Letter of Mr. Seward — The President's Interview with Speaker Colfax — His attendance at Ford's Theater— Enthusiasm of the People on his Arrival— J. Wilkes Booth— His Arrangements for the Assassination— Perpetration of the Deed— Escape of Booth- Death of the President— Attack upon Mr. Seward and his Son— Profound Grief of the Nation— Funeral Services at Washington— Departure of the Funeral Train for Springfield— Ceremonies at Baltimore— At Harrisburg— At Philadelphia— At New York— At Albany— At Buffalo— At Cleveland— At Columbus— At Chicago— Funeral Services at Springfield — Foreign Expressions of Sympathy with the Nation, and with Mr. Lincoln's Family — Mr. Johnson succeeds to the Presidency — Large Re- wards offered for the apprehension of the Murderer— He is traced to his Hiding- place and Killed— Capture and Trial of his Associates— Closing Tribute to the Char- acter and Administration of Abraham Lincoln, 515 ¥1 . ^ LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. -CHAPTER I. The early life of Abraham Lincoln was a hard and humble backwoods and border life. As a boy and as a young man, he was not fond of wild sports and exciting adventures. It is doubtless true that the earlier years of many of his neigh- bors and companions would be more engaging to the pen of the biographer and the imagination of the reader, than his. His later career, his noble character, his association with the grandest and most important events of American history, have alone, or mainly, given significance and interest to his youth- ful experiences of hardship, the humble processes of his edu- cation, and his early struggles with the rough forces of nature among which he was born. The tree which rose so high, and spread its leaves so broadly, and bore such golden fruit, and then fell before the blast because it was so heavy and so high, has left its roots upturned into the same light that glorifies its branches, and discovered and made divine the soil from which it drew its nutriment. When Mr. Lincoln Avas nominated for the presidency of the United States in 18G0, it became desirable that a sketch of his life should be prepared and widely distributed ; but, upon being applied to for materials for this sketch, by the gentle- man who had undertaken to produce it,* he seemed oppressed *J. L. Scripps, Esq., of Chicago. 18 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. with a sense of their tameness and lowliness, and the convic- tion that they could not be of the slightest interest to the American people. " My early history," said he, " is perfectly characterized by a single line of Gray's Elegy : 'The short and simple annals of the poor.'" His judgment then was measurably just ; but events have set it aside, and endowed the humble details that seemed to him so common-place and mean, with a profound and tender in- terest. Abraham Lincoln was born in that part of Hardin County, Kentucky, now embraced by the lines of the recently formed county of Larue, on the 12th of February, 1809. A region more remarkably picturesque was at that time hardly to be found in all the neAvly-opened country of the West. Variegated and rolling in its surface, about two-thirds of it timbered and fertile, the remainder composed of barrens, sup- porting only black-jacks and post-oaks, and spreading into plains, or rising into knolls or knobs, and watered by beauti- ful and abundant streams, it was as attractive to the eye of the lover of nature as to the enterprise of the agriculturist and the passion of the hunter. Some of the knobs rising out of the barrens reach a considerable elevation, and are digni- fied by the name of mountains. "Shiny Mountain" is one of the most lovely of these, giving a view of the whole valley of the Nolin. A still larger knob is the " Blue Ball," from whose summit one may see, on a fair morning, the fog rising from the Ohio Elver, twenty miles away. In a rude log cabin, planted among these scenes, the sub- ject of this biography opened his eyes. The cabin was situ- ated on or near Nolin Creek, about a mile and a half from Hodgenville, the present county seat of Larue County. Here he spent the first year or two of his childhood, when he re- moved to a cabin on Knob Creek, on the road from Bardstown, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee ; at a point three and a half miles south or southwest of Atherton's Ferry, (on the Rolling Fork,) and six miles from Hodgenville. It was in LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 these two homes* that he spent the first seven years of his life ; but before saying anything of those years, it will be best. to tell how his parents found their way into the wilderness, and to record what is known of his family history. In 1709, Daniel Boone, at the head of a small and hardy party of adventurers, set out from his home on the Yadkin River, in South Carolina, to explore that part of Virginia which he then knew as " The Country of Kentucky." After participating in the most daring and dangerous adventures, and suffering almost incredible hardships, he returned, abund- antly rewarded with peltry, in 1771. Two years after this, he undertook to remove his family to the region which had entirely captivated his imagination ; but it was not until 1775 that his purpose was accomplished. This brave and widely- renowned pioneer, with those who accompanied him and those who were attracted to the region by the reports which he had carried back to the Eastern settlements, lived a life of constant exposure to Indian warfare ; but danger seemed only to sharp- en the spirit of adventure, and to attract rather than repel immigration. Among those for whom "The Country of Kentucky" had its savage charms was Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the President, then living in Rockingham County, Virginia. Why he should have left the beautiful and fertile valley of the Shenandoah for the savage wilds West of him cannot be known, but he only repeated the mystery of pioneer life — the greed for something newer and wilder and more danger- ous than that which surrounded him. His removal to Ken- tucky took place about 1780. Of the journey, we have no l-ecord ; but we know that at that date it must have been one of great hardship, as he was accompanied by a young and tender family. The spot upon which he built is not known, *Mf. Lincoln, in the manuscript record of Ms life dictated to J. G. Nicolay, makes mention of but one home in Kentucky. Scripps' me- moir, also gathered from Mr. Lincoln's lips, is silent on the subject; but Barrett's Campaign Life of Lincoln gives the statement circumstantially, and is probably correct. 20 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. though it is believed to have been somewhere on Floyd's Creek, in what is now Bullitt County. Hardly more of his history is preserved than that which relates to his death. In 1784, while at work in the field, at a distance from his cabin, he was stealthily approached by an Indian, and shot dead. The care of five helpless children was, by this murder, thrown upon his widow. She subsequently removed to a place now embraced within the limits of Washington County, and there she reared, in such rude ways as necessity pre- scribed, her little brood. Three of these children, sons, were named in the order of their birth, Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas. The two daughters were named respectively Mary and Nancy. Mordecai remained in Kentucky until late in life, but a short time before his death, removed to Hancock County, Illinois, where several of his descendants still reside. Josiah, the second son, removed while a young man to what is now Harrison County, Indiana. Thomas, the third son, was the father of Abraham Lincoln, the illustrious subject of this biography. Mary Lincoln was married to Ralph Crume, and Nancy to William Brumfield. The descendants of these women still reside in Kentucky. All these children were probably born in Virginia, — Thomas, in 1778, — so that he was only about two years old when his father emigrated. Tracing the family still further, we find that Abraham, the emigrant, had four brothers : Isaac, Jacob, John and Thomas. The descendants of Jacob and John are supposed to be still in Virginia. Isaac emigrated to the region Avhere Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee unite, and his descendants are there. Thomas went to Kentucky, probably later than his brother Abraham, where he lived many years, and where he died. His descendants went to Missouri. Further back than this it is difficult to go. The most that is known, is, that the Lincolns of Eockingham County, Vir- ginia, came, previous to 1752, from Berks County, Pennsyl- vania. Where the Lincolns of Berks County came from, no record has disclosed. They are believed to have been Quakers, but whether they were an original importation from Old Eng- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'. 21 land, under tlic auspices of William Penn, or a pioneer off- shoot from the Lincolns of New England, does not appear. There is the strongest presumptive evidence that the Penn- sylvania and New England Lincolns were identical in their family blood. The argument for this identity rests mainly ui>i>n the coincidences which the Christian names of the two families present. Three Lincolns who came from Hingham, in England, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, between 1633 and 1637, bore the Christian name of Thomas. Anoth- er bore the name of Samuel, and he had three sons: Daniel, Mordecai and Thomas. Mordecai was the father of Morde- cai, who was born in 1686. He was also the father of Abra- ham, born in 1689. About 1750, there were two Mordecai Lincolns in the town of Taunton.* Here we have the three names : Mordecai, Thomas and Abraham, in frequent and fa- miliar family use. Passing to the Pennsylvania family, we find that among the taxable inhabitants of Exeter, Berks County, Pennsylvania, there were, soon after 1752, Mordecai and Abraham Lincoln ; that Thomas Lincoln was living in Reading as early as 1757, and that Abraham Lincoln, of Berks County, was in various public offices in the state from 1782 to 1790.f It has already been seen that these names have been per- petuated among the later generations of the Pennsylvania Lincolns, and that the three names — Abraham, Mordecai and Thomas — were all embraced in the family out of which the President sprang. The argument thus based upon the identity of favorite family names (and one of those quite an unusual name,) is very strong in establishing identity of blood, though, of course, it is not entirely conclusive. It is sufficient, certainly, in the absence of a reliable record, to make the theory plausible which transfers a Quaker from the unfriendly soil of Massachusetts to the paradise of Quakers in Pennsylvania. It is highly probable that an exceptional *Rev. Elias Nason's Eulogy before the X. E. Historic-Geneological Society, at Boston, May 3, 186f). fRupp's History of Berks and Lebanon Counties, Pennsylvania. 22 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'. Quaker among the Massachusetts Puritan family went, with other New Englanders, to Berks County in Pennsylvania, and that the blood which has given to New England a considera- ble number of most honorable names, has given to the nation one of the noblest that adorn its annals. Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, was made, by the early death of his father and the straitened circumstances of his mother, a wandering, laboring, ignorant boy. He grew up without any education. He really never learned anything of letters except those which composed his own name. This he could write clumsily, but legibly, and this he did write without any knowledge of the names and powers of the letters which composed it. While a lad not fully grown, he passed a year as a hired field hand on Wataga, a branch of the Ilolston River, in the employ of his Uncle Isaac. "With- out money or the opportunity to acquire it, all the early years of his life were passed in labor for others, at such wages as lie could command, or in hunting the game with which the re- gion abounded. It was not until he had reached his twenty- eighth year that he found it practicable to settle in life, and make for himself a home. He married Nancy Hanks, in 180G. She was born in Virginia, and was probably a relative of one of the early immigrants into Kentucky. He took her to the humble cabin he had prepared for her, already alluded to as the birth-place of the President, and within the first few years of her married life, she bore him three children. The first was a daughter named Sarah, who married when a child, and died many years ago, leaving no issue. The third was a son, (Thomas,) who died in Infancy. The second was Abraham, who, born into the humblest abode, under the humblest circum- stances, raised himself by the force of native gifts of heart and brain, and by the culture and power achieved by his own will and industry, under the blessing of a Providence which he always recognized, to sit in the highest place in the land, and to preside over the destinies of thirty millions of people. From such materials as are readily accessible, let us paint a picture of the little family. Thomas Lincoln, the father, LIFE OF ABRAHAM LTXCOI/N*. 23 was a well built, sinewy man, about five feet ten and a half inches high, dressed in the humble garb which his poverty compelled and the rude art of the time and locality produced. Though a rover by habit and native tastes, he was not a man of enterprise. He was a good-natured man, a man of un- doubted integrity, but inefficient in making his way in the world, and improvident of the slender means at his command. He was a man, however, whom everybody loved, and who held the warm affection of his eminent son throughout his life. He attributed much of his hard fortune to his lack of education, and in one thing, at least, showed himself more wisely provident than the majority of his neighbors. He de- termined, at any possible sacrifice, to give his children the best education that the schools of the locality afforded. Mrs. Lincoln, the mother, was evidently a woman out of place among those primitive surrounding.-. She was five feet, five inches high, a slender, pale, sad and sensitive woman, with much in her nature that was truly heroic, and much that shrank from the rude life around her. A great man never drew his infant life from a purer or more womanly bosom than her own ; and Mr. Lincoln always looked back to her with an unspeakable affection. Long after her sensitive heart and weary hands had crumbled into dust, and had climbed to life again in forest flowers, he said to a friend, with tears in his eyes : " All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother — blessings on her memory ! " Here was the home and here were its occupants, all hum- ble, all miserably poor ; yet it was a home of love and of virtue. Both father and nfother were religious persons, and sought at the earliest moment to impress the minds of their children with religious truth. The mother, though not a ready writer, could read. Books were scarce, but occasion- ally an estray was caught and eagerly devoured. Abraham and his sister often sat at her feet to hear of scenes and deeds that roused their young imaginations, and fed their hungry minds. Schools in Kentucky were, in those days, scarce and very 24 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. poor. Nothing more than instruction in the rudiments of education was attempted. Zachariah Einey was Abraham's first teacher. Einey was a Catholic, and though the Protest- ant children in his charge were commanded, or permitted, to retire when any of his peculiar religious ceremonies or exer- cises were in progress, Mr. Lincoln always entertained a pleasant and grateful memory of him. He began his attend- ance upon Mr. Biney's school when he was in his seventh year, but could hardly have continued it beyond a period of two or three months. His next teacher was Caleb Hazel, a line young man, whose school he attended for about three months. The boy was diligent, and actually learned to write an intelligible letter during this period. If the schools of the region were rude and irregular, its religious institutions were still more so. Public religious worship was observed in the neighborhood only at long inter- vals, and then under the charge of roving preachers, who, ranging over immense tracts of territory, and living on their horses and in the huts of the settlers, called the people to- gether under trees or cabin-roofs, and spoke to them simply of the great truths of Christianity. The preachers themselves were peculiar persons, made so by the peculiarity of their cir- cumstances and pursuits. Por many years, Abraham Lincoln never saw a church ; but he heard Parson Elkin preach. At intervals of several months, the good parson held meetings in the neighborhood. He was a Baptist, and Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were members of that communion. Abraham's first ideas of public speech were gathered from the simple ad- dresses of this humble and devoted itinerant, and the boy gave evidence afterwards, as we shall see, that he remembered him with interest and affection. When inefficient men become very uncomfortable, they arc quite likely to try emigration as a remedy. A good deal of what is called " the pioneer spirit " is simply a spirit of shift- less discontent. Possibly there was something of this spirit in Thomas Lincoln. It is true, at least, that when Abraham was about seven years old, his father became possessed with LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25 the desire to sell his little home, and remove to another, in some fairer wilderness. It is probable, also, that he did not like to rear his children in Kentucky, lie had been wise enough to appreciate the advantages of education to his chil- dren, and it is quite likely that he shrank from seeing them grow up in a community cursed with slavery. The state having outgrown, with marvelous rapidity, its ruder condi- tions, and become populous and powerful, was already the home of an institution which branded labor with disgrace, and made the position of the poor whites a hopeless one. lie could see nothing in the future, for himself or his boy, but labor by the side of the negro, and degradation in his pres- ence and companionship. Mr. Lincoln himself never attributed his father's desire to remove from Kentucky to his dislike of slavery, as a principal motive. Kentucky, more than most of the new states, was cursed with defective land-titles. Daniel Boone himself, with hundreds of others wdio had shared with him the dangers of pioneer life, was dispossessed of nearly all his lands, after hav- ing lived upon them for years, and rendered them very valu- able by improvements. It was mainly to this difficulty, of o-cttino- a valid title to land, that Abraham Lincoln attributed his father's desire and determination to remove to another state. Thomas Lincoln found a purchaser, at last, for his home. He bartered it away for ten barrels of whisky and twenty dollars in money, the whole representing the sum of three hundred dollars, his price for the place.* After building i: flat-boat and launching it upon the Rolling Fork, he loaded it with his stock of whisky, ami all the heavier household Avares of which he was possessed, pushed off alone, and floated safely down to the Ohio River. Here he met with an accident — a wreck, indeed. The flat-boat was upset, and two-thirds of his whisky and many of his housekeeping utensils and farming and other tools were lost. Meeting with assistance, his boat ♦William M. Thayer's "Pioneer Boy," a singularly faithful statement of the early experiences of Abraham Lincoln. 20 LIFE OS ABRAHAM LINCOLN. was righted, and everything saved that it -was found practica- ble to gather from the bottom of the river. Landing at Thompson's Ferry, he procured carriage for his goods about eighteen miles into Spencer County, Indiana, where, in almost an unbroken wilderness, he determined to settle. Leaving his goods in. the care of a settler, he returned to Thompson's Ferry, and then, on foot, took as nearly as possible a bee-line for home, where he arrived in due time. It was probably during the absence of the father on his preliminary trip that the mother paid her last tribute of affection to the little one she had buried, by visiting its grave, in company with her living boy — an incident which he remembered with tender interest. This voyage was made in the autumn of 1816, when Abra- ham was in his eighth year, and it was followed by me im- mediate removal of the whole family. The journey to the new home was made overland, upon three horses which carried in packs the bedding, wardrobe and all the lighter effects of the family. The humble cavalcade occupied seven days in the journey. At the end of it, the emigrants met with neighborly assistance in the erection of a dwelling, and were soon housed and ready to begin life anew. It must not be inferred from the character of the material which Mr. Lincoln received, in principal, as the payment for his little homestead in Kentucky, and transferred to his new home in Indiana, that he was addicted to the vice of strong drink. In those days, alcoholic liquors were in general use among the settlers, not only as a beverage, but as a remedial agent in the treatment of the diseases peculiar to the new set- tlements of the West. The same liquors were used with the same freedom among all classes at the East, at that date, with- out a thought of evil. Mr. Lincoln supposed he was receiv- ing a commodity which would be of great value to him in the new regions of Indiana, where distillation had not been at- tempted ; and he doubtless found a ready market for the frac- tion of the cargo which he had saved from the river. CHAPTER II. The point at which the Lincoln family settled in Indiana was not far from the present town of Gentryville. The cam- paign biographers of Abraham attribute to him some valuable service with the ax, both in building the cabin and in clear- ing the forest around it ; but, at the age of seven, he could hardly have rendered much assistance in these offices. We are told that he had an ax ; and there is no doubt that he learned at an early age to use it effectually. Indeed, his muscles were formed and hardened by this exercise, continued through all the years of his young manhood. It has already been stated that he had no taste for the sports of the forest ; but he made an early shot, with a result that must have sur- prised him and his. family. While yet a child, lie saw through a crack in the cabin a flock of wild turkeys, feeding. He ventured to take down his father's rifle, and, firing through the crack, killed one of them. This was the largest game upon which he ever pulled trigger, his brilliant success having no power to excite in him the passion for hunting. Among the most untoward circumstances, Thomas Lincoln embraced every opportunity to give Abraham an education. At different periods, all of them brief, he attended the neigh- borhood schools that were opened to him. Andrew Crawford taught one of these, a Mr. Sweeney another, and Azel W. Dorsey another, the last of whom lived to see his humble pupil a man of eminence, and to congratulate him upon his elevation. One year, however, would cover all the time spent 2S LIFE OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. by him with his two Kentucky teachers, and the three whose schools lie attended in Indiana ; and all the school education of his life was embraced by the limits of this one year. It is very difficult for any one bred in the older communi- ties of the country to appreciate the extreme humility of border life, the meagerness and meanness of its household appoint- ments, and the paucity of its stimulants to mental growth and social development. The bed in which the elder Lincolns, and, on very cold nights, the little Lincolns, slept, during their first years in Indiana, was one whose rudeness will give a key to the kind of life which they lived there. The head and one side of the bedstead were formed by an angle of the cabin itself. The bed-post standing out into the room was a single crotch, cut from the forest. Laid upon this crotch were the ends of two hickory sticks, whose other extremities were mor- ticed into the logs, the two sides of the cabin and the two rails embracing a quadrilateral space of the required dimensions. This was bridged by slats " rived " from the forest log, and on the slats was laid a sack filled with dried leaves. This was, in reality, the bed of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln ; and into it, when the skins hung at the cabin doorway did not keep out the cold, Abraham and his sister crept for the warmth which their still ruder couch upon the ground denied them. The lot of the little family, already sadly dark, was rendered inexpressibly gloomy at an early day by an event which made a profound impression upon the mind of the boy — an impres- sion that probably never wore away during all the eventful years that followed. His delicate mother bent to the dust under the burden of life which circumstances had imposed upon her. A quick consumption seized her, and her life went out in the flashing fevers of her disease. The boy and his sister were orphans, and the humble home in the wilderness was desolate. Her death occurred in 1818, scarcely two years after her removal to Indiana, and when Abraham was in his tenth year. They laid her to rest under the trees near the cabin, and, sitting on her grave, the little boy wept his irre- parable loss. There were probably none but the simplest LIFE OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. . 29 ceremonies at her burial, and neither father nor son was content to part with her without a formal Christian tribute to her worth and memory. Both thought of the good Parson El kin whom they had left in Kentucky; and Abraham's skill in writing was brought into use in addressing to him a message. His imperfect penmanship had been acquired partly in the schools he had attended, and partly by practice in the sand and on the barks of trees — on anything and with any instru- ment by which letters might be formed. Several months after Mrs. Lincoln died, Abraham wrote a letter to Parson Elkin, informing him of his mother's death, and begging him to come to Indiana, and preach her funeral sermon. It was a great favor that he thus asked of the poor preacher. It would require him to ride on horseback nearly a hundred miles through the wilderness ; and it is something to be remembered to the humble itinerant's honor that he was willing to pay this tribute of respect to the woman who had so thoroughly honored him and his sacred office. He replied to Abraham's invitation, that he woidd preach the sermon on a certain future Sunday, and gave him liberty to notify the neighbors of the promised service. As the appointed day approached, notice was given to the whole neighborhood, embracing every family within twenty miles. Neighbor carried the notice to neighbor. It Avas scat- tered from every little school. There was probably not a family that did not receive intelligence of the anxiously antic- ipated event. On a bright Sabbath morning, the settlers of the region started for the cabin of the Lincolns ; and, as they gathered in, they presented a picture worthy the pencil of the worthiest painter. Some came in carts of the rudest construction, their wheels consisting of sections of the huge boles of forest trees, and every other member the product of the ax and auger; some came on horseback, two or three upon a horse ; others came in wagons drawn by oxen, and still others came on foot. Two hundred persons in all Averc assembled when Parson Elkin came out from the Lincoln cabin, accompanied by the little SO • LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. family, and proceeded to the tree under which the precious dust of a -wile and mother was buried. The congregation, seated upon stumps and logs around the grave, received the preacher and the mourning family in a silence broken only by the songs of birds, and the murmur of insects, or the creaking cart of some late comer. Taking his stand at the foot of the grave, Parson Elkin lifted his voice in prayer and sacred song, and then preached a sermon. The occasion, the eager faces around him, and all the sweet influences of the morning, inspired him with an unusual fluency and fervor; and the flickering sunlight, as it glanced through the wind-parted leaves, caught many a tear upon the bronzed cheeks of his auditors, Avhile father and son were overcome by the revival of their great grief. He spoke of the precious Christian Avoman who had gone with the warm praise which she deserved, and held her up as an example of true womanhood. Those who knew the tender and reverent spirit of Abraham Lincoln later in life, will not doubt that he returned to his cabin-home deeply impressed by all that he had heard. It was the rounding up for him of the influences of a Christian mother's life and teachings. It recalled her sweet and patient example, her assiduous efforts to inspire him with pure and noble motives, her simple instructions in divine truth, her de- voted love for him, and the motherly offices she had rendered him during all his tender years. His character was planted in this Christian mother's life. Its roots were fed by this Chris- tian mother's love ; and those who have wondered at the truth- fulness and earnestness of his mature character, have only to re- member that the tree Avas true to the soil from which it sprang. Abraham, at an early day, became a reader. Every book upon which he could lay his hands he read. He became a Avriter also. 'The majority of the settlers around him AA r ere entirely illiterate, and Avhen it became known that Mr. Lin- coln's boy could Avrite, his seiwices Avere in frequent request by them in sending epistolary messages to their friends. In the composition of these letters his early habits of putting the thoughts of others as Avell as his OAvn into language Avere LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Si formed. The exercise was, indeed, as good as a school to him ; for there is no better discipline, for any mind, than that of giving definite expression to thought in language. Much of his subsequent power as a writer and speaker was undoubt- edly traceable to this early discipline. The books which Abraham had the early privilege of read- ing were the Bible, much of which he could repeat, iEsop's Fables, all of which he could repeat, Pilgrim's Progress, Weans' Life of Washington, and a Life of ilenry Clay which his mother had managed to purchase for him. Subsequently he read the Life of Franklin and Ramsay's Life of Wash- ington. In these books, read and re-read, he found meat for his hungry mind. The Holy Bible, ^Esop and John Bun- van : — could three better books have been chosen for him from the richest library? For those who have witnessed the dissipating effects of many books upon the minds of modern children it is not hard to believe that Abraham's poverty of books was the wealth of his life. These three books did much to perfect that which his mother's teachings had begun, and to form a character which for quaint simplicity, earnestness, truthfulness and purity has never been surpassed among the historic personages of the world. The Life of Washington, while it gave to him a lofty example of patriotism, incidentally conveyed to his mind a general knowledge of American his- tory ; and the Life of ilenry Clay spoke to him of a living man who had risen to political and professional eminence from cii'cumstances almost as humble as his own. The latter book undoubtedly did much to excite his taste for politics, to kindle his ambition, and to make him a warm admirer and partizan of Ilenry Clay. Abraham must have been very young when he read Weems' Life of Washington, and we catch a glimpse of his precocity in the thoughts which it excited, as revealed by himself in a speech made to the New Jersey Senate, while on his way to Washington to assume the duties of the Presi- dency. Alluding to his early reading of this book, he says : " I remember all the accounts there given of the battle fields and struggles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed 32 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here ;it Trenton, New Jersey. * * * I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that those men struggled for '." Even at this age, he was not only an interested reader of the story, but a stu- dent of motives. Ramsay's Life of Washington was borrowed from his teach- er, Andrew Crawford, and an anecdote connected with it illus- trates Abraham's conscientiousness and characteristic honesty. The borrowed book was left unguardedly in an open window. A shower coming on, it was wet and nearly ruined. Abraham carried it to Mr. Crawford in great grief and alarm, and, after explaining the accident, offered to pay for the book in labor. Mr. Crawford accepted the proposal, and the lad "pulled fod- der" three days to pay, not for the damages, but for the book itself, which thus became one of his own literary treasures. In the autumn or early winter of 1819, somewhat more than a year after the death of Airs. Lincoln, Abraham passed into the care of a step-mother. His father married and brought to his home. in Indiana, Mrs. Sally Johnston, of Elizabcthtown, Kentucky, undoubtedly one of his old acquaintances. She brought with her three children, the fruit of her previous marriage ; but she faithfully fulfilled her assumed maternal duties to Thomas Lincoln's children. The two families grew up in harmony together, and the many kind offices' which she performed for Abraham were gratefully returned then and in after years by him. She still survives, having seen her young charge rise to be her own ruler, and the ruler of the nation, and to fall amid expressions of grief from the whole civilized world. As Abraham grew up, he became increasingly helpful in all the work of the farm, often going out to labor by the day for hire. Abundant evidence exists that he was regarded by the neighbors as being remarkable, in many respects, above the lads of his own age, with whom he associated. In physical strength and sundry athletic feats, he was the master of them all. Never quarrelsome or disposed to make an unpleasant show LIFE OF ABRAHAM I. CCLN. of his prowess, lie was ready to help all who were in need of help, to do their errands, write their letters, and lighten their burdens. An instance of his practical humanity at this early period of his life may be recorded. One evening, while returning from a "raising" in his wide neighborhood, with a number of companions, he discovered a straying horse, with saddle and bridle upon him. The horse was recognized as belonging to a man who was accustomed to excess in drink, and it was sus- pected at once that the owner was not far off. A short search only was necessary to confirm the suspicions of the young men. The poor drunkard was found in a perfectly helpless condition, upon the chilly ground. Abraham's companions urged the cowardly policy of leaving him to his fate, but young Lincoln would not hear to the proposition. At his request, the miserable sot was lifted to his shoulders, and he actually carried him eighty rods to the nearest house, fending word to his father that he should not be back that night, with the reason for his absence, he attended and nursed the man until the morning, and had the pleasure of believing that he had saved his life. That Abraham Lincoln was entirely content with the hum- drum life he was living* or the prospects which it presented to him, is not probable. He had caught glimpses of a life of greater dignity and significance. Echoes from the great: centers of civilization had reached his ears. When he was eighteen years old he conceived the project of building a little boat, and taking the produce of the Lincoln farm down the river to a market. He had learned the use of tools, and pos- sessed considerable mechanical talent, as will appear in some other acts of his life. Of the voyage and its results we have no knowledge, but an incident occurred before starting which he related in later life to his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, that made a very marked and pleasant impression upon his memory. As he stood at the landing, a steamer approached, coming down the river. At the same time two passengers came to the river's bank who wished to be taken out to the 34 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'. packet with their luggage. Looking among the boats at the landing, they singled out Abraham's, and asked him to scull them to the steamer. This he did, and after seeing them and their trunks on board, he had the pleasure of receiving upon the bottom of his boat, before he shoved off, a silver half dol- lar from each of his passengers. " I could scarcely believe my eyes," said Mr. Lincoln, in telling the story. " You may think it was a very little thing," continued he, " but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely believe that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day. The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time." A little incident occurred during these hard years in Indiana which illustrates the straits to which the settlers were subjected. At one time Abraham was obliged to take his grist upon the back of his father's horse, and go fifty miles to get it ground. The miU itself was very rude, and driven by horse-power. The customers were obliged to wait their turn, without refer- ence to their distance from home, and then use their own horses to propel the machinery. On one occasion, Abraham, having arrived at his turn, fastened his mare to the lever, and was following her closely upon her rounds, when, urging her with a switch, and " clucking " to her in the usual way, he received a kick from her which prostrated him, and made him insensible. With the first instant of returning consciousness, he finished the cluck, which he had commenced when he re- ceived the kick, (a fact for the psychologist) and with the next he probably thought about getting home, where he arrived at last, battered, but ready for further service. At the age of nineteen, Abraham made his second essay in navigation, and this time caught something more than a glimpse of the great world in which he was destined to play so import- ant a part. A trading neighbor applied to him to take charge of a flat-boat and its cargo, and, in company with his own son, to take it to the sugar plantations near New Orleans. The entire business of the trip was placed In Abraham's hands. The fact tells its own story touching the young man's reputa- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. <^'> tion for capacity and integrity. He had never made the trip, knew nothing of the journey, was unaccustomed to business transactions, had never been much upon the river; hut his tact, ability and honesty were so far trusted that the trader was willing to risk his cargo and his son in his care.. The delight with which the youth swung loose from the shore upon his clumsy craft, with the prospect of a ride of eighteen hundred miles before him, and a vision of the great world of which he had read and thought so much, may In- imagined. At this time, he had become a very tall and pow- erful young man. He had reached the remarkable height of six feet and four inches, a length of trunk and limb remarkable even among the tall race of pioneers to which he belonged. The incidents of a trip like this were not likely to be ex- citing but there were many social chats with settlers and hunters along the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi, and there was much hailing of similar craft afloat. Arriving at a sugar plantation somewhere between Natchez and New Orleans, the boat was pulled in, and tied to the shore for purposes of trade ; and here an incident occurred which was sufficiently exciting, and one which, in the memory of recent events, reads some- what strangely. Here seven negroes attacked the life of the future liberator of their race, and it is not improbable that some of them have lived to be emancipated by his proclamation, Nio-ht had fallen, and the two tired voyagers had lain down upon their hard bed for sleep. Hearing a noise on shore, Abraham shouted: "Who's there?" The" noise continuing, and no voice replying, lie sprang to his feet, and saw seven negroes, evidently bent on plunder. Abraham guessed the errand at once, and seizing a hand-spike, rushed toward them, and knocked one into the water the moment that he touched the boat. The second, third and fourth who leaped on board were served in the same rough way. Seeing that they were not likely to make headway in their thieving enterprise, the remainder turned to flee. Abraham and his companion grow- ing excited and warm with their work, leaped on shore, and followed them. Both were too swift of foot for the negroes, 36 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. an d all of them received a severe pounding. They returned to their boat jusl as the others escaped from the water, but the latter fled into the darkness as fast as their feet could carry them. Abraham and his fellow in the fight were both injured, but not disabled. Not being armed, and unwilling to wait until the negroes had received reinforcement?, they cut adrift, and floating down a mile or two, tied up to the bank again, and watched and waited for the morning. The trip was brought at length to a successful end. The cargo, or "load," as they called it, was all disposed of for money, the boat itself sold for lumber, and the young men retraced the passage, partly, at least, on shore and on foot, occupying several weeks in the difficult and tedious journey. Working thus for others, receiving only the humblest wages in return, reading every book upon which he could lay his hand, pursuing various studies in the intervals of toil with special attention to arithmetic, discharging his filial duties at home and upon his father's farm, picking up bits of informa- tion from neighbors and new-comers, growing in wisdom and practical sagacity, and achieving a place in the good will and respect of all with whom he came in contact, the thirteen years of his life in Indiana wore away. With a constitution as firm and flexible as whip-cord, he had arrived at his majority. The most that could be said of his education was that he could "read, writs and cipher." lie knew nothing of English grammar. He could not read a sentence in any tongue but his own ; but all that he knew, he knew thoroughly. It had all been assimilated, and was a part not only of his inalienable is but of himself. While acquiring, he had learned to construct, organize, express. There was no part of his knowledge that was not an clement of his practical power. He had not been made by any artificial process ; he had grown. Holding within himself the germ of a great life, he had reached out his roots like the trees among which he was reared, and drawn into himself such nutriment as the soil afforded. His individuality was developed and nurtured by the process. He had become a i . r God's pattern, and not a machine LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 37 after man's pattern ; lie was a child of Nature and not a I of art. And this was the secret of all his subscquenl intel- lectual successes. He succeeded because he had himself and all his resources completely in hand ; for he was not, and never became an educated man, in the common meaning of that phrase. lie could train all his force upon any point, and it mattered little whether the direction was an accustomed one or otherwise. It was a happy thing- for the young man that, living among the roughest of rough men, many of whom were addicted to coarse vices, he never acquired a vice. There was no taint upon his moral character. jS t o stimulant ever entered his lips, no profanity ever came forth from them, which defiled the man. Loving and telling a story better than any one around him, except his father, from whom he inherited the taste and talent, a great talker and a warm lover of social intercoi good-natured under all circumstances, his honesty and truth- fulness well known and thoroughly believed in, he was as popular throughout all the region where he lived as he became afterward throughout the nation. CHAPTER III. THOMAS "LINCOLN had raised his little family; and the children of his wife were also grown to woman's and man's estate. There had indeed been three weddings in the family. Sarah Lincoln, the daughter, was married to Aaron Grigsby, a young man living in the vicinity, and two of Mrs. Lincoln's daughters had left the Lincoln cabin for new homes. The sister of Abraham had been married but a year, however, when she died, and thus a new grief was inflicted upon the sensitive heart of her brother. Her marriage occurred in 1822 ; and as she was born in 1808, she could have been only fourteen years old when she became a wife. It is not remark- able that the child found an early grave. During the last two years of their residence in Indiana, a general discontent had seized upon the family concerning their location. The region at that day was an unhealthy one, and there could be no progress in agricultural pursuits without a great outlay of labor in clearing away the heavy timber which burdened all the fertile soil. At the same time, reports were rife of the superior qualities of the prairie lands of Illinois. There, by the sides of the water-courses, and in the edges of the timber, were almost illimitable farms that called for nothing but the plough and hoe to make them immediately productive. Dennis Hanks, a relative of the first Mrs. Lincoln, was sent to the new region to rcconnoiter, and returned with a glowing account of the new country. It is probable that if Thomas Lincoln had been alone lie would have remained at the old -esshf for SolZa T [.lEJEAMJLlTlL©^! 1'.', IN ILLINOIS. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. SO homo, Imt there was young life to be taken into the account. The new sons-in-law of Airs. Lincoln, as well as Abraham, were doubtless averse to repeating the severe experiences of the father, and with fresh life and enterprise desired a new and more inviting field of operations. Mr. Lincoln sold out his squatter's claim in Indiana, and, on the first of March, 1830, less than a month after Abraham had completed his twenty-first year, he started for the land of promise in company with his family and the sons-in-law and two daughters of his wife. Their journey was difficult and tedious in the extreme. They found the rivers swollen by the. spring rains, and through such mud as only the rich soil of the West can produce, the ox-teams dragged the wagons, loaded with the entire personal effects of the emigrants. One of these teams was driven by Abraham. Taking a north- westerly course, they struck diagonally across the southern part of Indiana, making toward the central portion of Illinois. After a journey of two hundred miles, which they made in fifteen days, they entered Macon County in that state, and there halted. The elder Lincoln selected a spot on the north side of the Sangamon River, at the junction of the timber land and prairie, about ten miles westerly of Decatur. Here, Abraham assisted his father in building a log cabin, and in getting the family into a condition for comfortable life. The cabin, which still stands, was made of hewed timber, and near it were built a smoke-house and stable. All the tools they had to work with were a common ax, a broad ax, a hand- saw, and a " drawer knife." The doors and floor were made of ] umcheons and the gable ends of the structure boarded up with plank " rived " by Abraham's hand out of oak timber. The nails used — and they were very few — were all brought from their old home in Indiana. When the cabin and out- buildings were completed, Abraham set to work and helped to split rails enough to fence in a lot of ten acres, and /built the fence. After breaking up the piece of inclosed prairie, and seeing it planted with corn, he, turned over the new home to his father, and announced his intention to seek or make his 40 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. own fortune. He did not leave the region immediately, how- ever, but worked Tor hire among the neighboring formers, picking up enough to keep himself clothed, and looking for better chances. It is remembered that during this time he broke up fifty acres of prairie with four yoke of oxen, and that he spent most of the winter following in splitting rails and chopping wood. No one seems to know who Mr. Lincoln worked for during this first summer, but a little incident in the pastoral labors of Kev. A. Hale of Springfield, Illinois, will perhaps indicate his employer. There seems to be no room for the incident afterwards in his life, and it is undoubtedly associated with his first summer in Illinois. Mr. Hale, in May, 18G1, went out about seven miles from his home to visit a sick lady, and found there a Mrs. Brown who had come in as a neighbor. Mr. Lincoln's name having been mentioned, Mrs. Brown said: "Well, I remember Mr. Linken. He worked with my old man thirty-four year ago, and made a crap. "We lived on the same farm where we live now, and he worked all the season, and made a crap of corn, and the next winter they hauled the crap all the way to Galena, and sold it for two dollars and a halt a bushel. At that time there was no public houses, and travelers were obliged to stay at any house along the road that could take them in. One evening a right smart looking man rode up to the fence, and asked my old man it he could get to stay over night. ' Well,' said Mr. Brown, ' we can feed your crittur, and give you something to eat, but we can 't lodge you unless you can sleep on the same bed with the hired man.' The man hesitated, and asked ' Where is he ? ' ' Well,' said Mr. Brown, ' you can come and see him.' So the man got down from his crittur, and Mr. Brown took him around to where, in the shade of the house, Mr. Lincoln lay his full length on the ground, with an open book before him. ' There,' said Mr. Brown, pointing at him, ' lie is.' The stranger looked at him a minute, and Bald, ' Well, I think he '11 do,' and he staid and slept with the President of the United States." There are some mistakes in this story. Mr. Lincoln worked LIL'E OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 41 for Mr. Taylor, who owned the farm, and boarded with Mr. Brown. There is an evident mistake in the date of the incident, for it puts Mr. Lincoln into Illinois three years or more before he removed from Indiana. Of the fact that he worked a summer, or part of a summer, on this farm, there is no doubt; and it is strongly probable that it was the first sum- mer he .spent in Illinois. The expectation of the family to find a more healthy location than the one they had left was sadly disappointed. In the autumn of that year, all were afflicted with fever and ague. This was a new enemy, and they were much discouraged ; but no steps for relief or removal could be taken then. They determined, however, to leave the county at the first oppor- tunity. In the meantime, the winter descended, and it proved to be the severest season that had been known in the new state. It is still remembered for the enormous amount of snow that fell. In the following spring, the father left the Sangamon for a better locality in Coles County, where he lived lono* enouo-h to see his son one of the foremost men of the new state, to receive from him many testimonials of filial affection, and to complete his seventy-third year. He died on the 17th day of January, 1851. A man who used to work with Abraham occasionally dur- ing his first year in Illinois,* says that at that time lie was the roughest looking person he ever saw. He was tall, angular and ungainly, and wore trousers made of flax and tow, cut tight at the ankle, and out at both knees. He was known to be very poor, but he was a welcome guest in every house in the neighborhood. This informant speaks of splitting rails with Abraham, and reveals some interesting facts concerning wages. Money was a commodity never reckoned upon. Abraham split rails to get clothing, and he made a bargain with Mrs. Nancy Miller to split four hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans, dyed with white walnut bark, that would be necessary to make him a pair of trousers. In these days he used to walk five, six and seven miles to his work. *Gco:^c. Cluse. 42 LIFE OF ABRAIIAM LINCOLN. He left home before his father removed to Coles County, but he did not cut entirely loose from the family until this removal. Then lie was ready fur any opening- to business, and it soon came. During the winter of the deep snow, one Denton Offutt, a trader, who belonged in Lexington, Kentucky, ap- plied to him, Julm D. Johnston, his stepmother's son, and John Hanks, a relative of his own mother, to take a flat-boat to New Orleans. Abraham had already made the trip, and was regarded as a desirable man for the service. A bargain was made, and the three men agreed to join Offutt at Springfield, the present capital of the state, as soon as the snow should be gone. The snow melted about the first of March, but the accumulation had been so great that the low country was heavily flooded. Finding they could not make the journey on foot, they purchased a large canoe, and proceeded along the Sangamon River in it. They found Offutt at Springfield, but learned that he had failed to buy a boat at BeardstoAvn, as he had expected. As all were disappointed, they finally settled upon an arrangement by which young Lincoln, Hanks and Johnston were to build a boat on Sangamon River, at Sangamon toAvn, about seven miles north-west of Springfield. For this work they were to receive twelve dollars a month each. When the boat was finished, (and every plank of it was sawed by hand with a whip-saw,) it was launched on the Sangamon, and floated to a point below" New Salem, in Menard (then Sangamon) County, where a drove of hogs was to be taken on board. At this time, the hogs of the region ran wild, as they do now in portions of the border states. Some of them were savage, and all, after the manner of swine, were difficult to manage. They had, however, been gathered and penned, but not an inch could they be made to move toward the boat. All the ordinary resources were exhausted in the attempts to get them on board. There was but one alternative, and this Abraham adopted. He actually carried them on board, one by one. His long arms' and great strength enabled him to grasp them as in a vise, and to transfer them rapidly from the shore to the boat. They then took the boat LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 43 to New Orleans substantially on the original contract, though Hanks, finding that he would be obliged to be absent from his family longer than he expected, left the boat at St. Louis, and came back. The voyage was successfully accomplished, and so great was the satisfaction of Lincoln's employer, that he immediately proposed to him a different and higher grade of employment. Qffott had a store at New Salem, and a mill. These he pro- posed to place in Abraham's care. His previous clerks, during his long absences, had not only cheated him, but, by their insolence and dissipated habits, had driven away his customers. OfTutt met Lincoln on the previous winter an entire stranger, but, during a brief intercourse, he had become impressed with his capacity and honesty. So Abraham became a clerk in a pioneer " store." He had not many personal graces to exhibit there, but he at once became a center of attraction. Offutt's old customers came back, new ones were acquired, and all the business of the store was well performed. It was while performing the duties of this new position that several incidents occurred which illustrated the young man's characteristics. He could not rest for an instant under the consciousness that he had, even unwittingly, defrauded any- body. On one occasion he sold a woman a little bill of goods amounting in value, by the reckoning, to two dollars and six and a quarter cents. He received the money, and the woman went away. On adding the items of the bill again, to make himself sure of correctness, he found that he had taken six and a quarter cents too much. It was night, and closing and locking the store, he started out on foot, a distance of two or three miles, for the house of his defrauded customer, and delivering over to her the sum whose possession had so much troubled him, went home satisfied. On another occasion, just as he was closing the store for the night, a woman entered, and asked for half a pound of tea. The tea was weighed out and paid for, and the store was left for the night. The next morning, Abraham entered to begin* the duties of the day, when he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He 44 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLX. saw at once that lie had made a mistake, and, shutting the store, he took a long walk before bf< to deliver the remainder of the tea. These are very humble incidents, but they illustrate the man's perfect conscientiousness — his sen- sitive honesty — better perhaps than they would if they were of greater moment. Another incident occurred in this store which illustrates other traits of his character. While showing goods to two or three women, a bully came in and began to talk in an offen- sive manner, using much profanity, and evidently wishing to provoke a quarrel. Lincoln leaned over the counter, and begged him, as ladies were present, not to indulge in such talk. The bully retorted that the opportunity had come for which he had long sought, and he would like to see the man who could hinder him from saying anything he might choose to say. Lincoln, still cool, told him that if he would wait until the ladies retired, he would hear what he had to say, and give him any satisfaction he desired. As soon as the women were gone, the man became furious. Lincoln heard his boasts and his abuse for a time, and finding that he was not to be put off without a fight, said — "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I may as well whip you as any other man." This was just what the bully had been seeking, he said, so out of doors they went, and Lincoln made short work with him. He threw him upon the ground, held him there as if he had been a child, and gathering some " smart-weed " which grew upon the spot, rubbed it into his face and eyes, until the fellow bellowed with pain. Lincoln did all this without a particle of anger, and when the job was finished, went imme- diately for water, washed his victim's face, and did everything he could to alleviate his distress. The upshot of the matter was that the man became his fast and life-long friend, and was a better man from that day. It was impossible then, and it always remained impossible, for Lincoln to cherish resentment or revenge There lived at this time, in and around New Salem, a band of rollicking fellows or, more properly, roystering rowdies, LITE OF ABRAHAM LINC< 45 known as "The Clary's Grove Boy?." The special tie that united them was physical courage and prowess. r l hese fel- lows, although they embraced in their number many men who have since become respectable and influential, were wild and rough beyond toleration in any community not made up like that which produced them. They pretended to be "regula- tors,''' and were the terror of all who did not acknowledge their rule; and their mode of securing allegiance was by flog- ging every man who failed to acknowledge it. They took it upon themselves to try the mettle of every new comer, and to learn the sort of stuff he was made of. Some one of their number was appointed to fight, wrestle, or run a foot-race, with each incoming stranger. Of course, Abraham Lincoln was obliged to pass the ordeal. Perceiving that he was a man who would not easily be floored, they selected their champion, Jack Armstrong, and imposed upon him the task of laying Lincoln upon his back. There is no evidence that Lincoln was an unwilling party in the sport, for it was what he had always been accustomed to. The bout was entered upon, but Armstrong soon discovered that he had met with more than his match. The "Boys" were looking on, and, seeing that their champion was likely to get the worst of it, did after the manner of such irrespon- sible bands. They gathered around Lincoln, struck and dis- abled him, and then Armstrong, by " legging " him, got him down. Most men would have been indignant, not to say furiously ano-rv, under such foul treatment as this : but if Lincoln was either, he did not. show it. Getting up in perfect <- >od humor, he fell to laughing over his discomfiture, and joking about it. They had all calculated upon making him angry, and then they intended, with the amiable spirit which characterized the " Clary's Grove Boys," to give him a terrible drubbing. They were disappointed, and, in their admiration of him, immedi- ately invited him to become one of the company. Strange as it may seem, this was the turning point, apparently, in Lin- coln's life, a fact which will appear as our narrative progresses. 4G LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. It was while young Lincoln was engaged in the duties of Offutt's store that lie commenced the study of English gram- mar. There was not a text-book to be obtained in the neighborhood, but hearing that there was a copy of Kirkhain's grammar in the possession of a person seven or eight miles distant, he walked to his house and succeeded in borrowing it. L. M. Green, a lawyer of Petersburg, in -Menard County, says that every time he visited New Salem, at this period, Lincoln took him out upon a hill, and asked him to explain some point in Kirkham that had given him trouble. After having mastered the book, he remarked to a friend, that if that was what they called a science, he thought he could " subdue another." Mr. Green says that Mr. Lincoln's talk at this time showed that he was beginning to think of a great life, and a great destiny. Lincoln said to him, on one occasion, that all his family seemed to have good sense, but, somehow, none had ever become distinguished. He thought that per- haps he might become so. He had talked, he said, with men who had the reputation of being great men, but he could not see that they differed much from others. During this year, he was also much engaged with debating clubs, often walking six or seven miles to attend them. One of these clubs held its meetings at an old store-house in New Salem, and the first speech young Lincoln ever made was made there. He used to call the exercise " practicing polemics." As these clubs were composed principally of men of no education whatever, some of their " polemics " are remembered as the most laugh- able of farces. His favorite newspaper, at this time, was the Louisville Journal, a paper which he received regularly by mail, and paid for during a number of years when he had not money enough to dress decently. He liked its politics, and was particularly delighted with its wit and humor, of which he had the keenest appreciation. When out of the store, he was always busy in the pursuit of knowledge. One gentle- man who met him during this period, says that the first time he saw him he was lying on a trundle-bed, covered with books and papers, and rocking a cradle with his foot. Of the LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 47 amount of uncovered space; between the extremities of his trousers and the top of his socks which this informant ob- served, there shall be no mention. The whole scene, however, was entirely characteristic — Lincoln reading and studying, and at the same time helping his landlady by quieting her child. During the year that Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's store, that gentleman, whose business was somewhat widely and unwisely spread about the country, ceased to prosper in his finances, and finally failed. The store was shut up, the mill was closed, and Abraham Lincoln was out of business. The year had been one of great advances, in many respects. He had made new and valuable acquaintances, read many books, mastered the grammar of his own tongue, won multitudes of friends, and become ready for a step still further in advance. Those who could appreciate brains respected him, and those whose highest ideas of a man related to his muscles were de- voted to him. Every one trusted him. It was while he was performing the duties of the store that he acquired the sou- briquet " Honest Abe " — a characterization that he never dis- honored, and an abbreviation that he never outgrew\ He was judge, arbitrator, referee, umpire, authority, in all disputes, games and matches of man-flesh and horse-flesh ; a pacificator in all quarrels ; every body's friend ; the best natured, the most sensible, the best informed, the most modest and unas- suming, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best young fellow in all New Salem and the region round about. CHAPTER IV. Durixg the year that Lincoln was in the employ of Offutt, a series of Indian difficulties were in progress in the state. Black Hawk, a celebrated chief of the Sacs, a tribe that by the terms of a treaty entered into near the beginning of the century, were permanently removed to the western bank of the Mississippi, came down the river with three hundred of his own warriors, and a few allies from the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies, accompanied also by his women and children, and crossed to the eastern side with the avowed intention of taking possession of the old hunting grounds of the nation on the Rock River. As he was committing numerous outrages on the way, General Gaines, commanding the United States forces in that quarter, immediately marched a few comp of regulars to Eoek Islam he took up his position. Governor Reynolds seconded his efforts by sending to him several hundred volunteers, recruited in the northern and cen- tral portions of the state. Black Hawk, not being able to meet the force thus assembled, retreated, and, on receiving from General Gaines a threat to cross the river and ci. him on his own ground, sued for peace, and reaffirmed all the terms of the old treaty which confined him to the western shore of the Mississippi. The - f proved treacherous again, and showed in the spring of lf : ;J2 that his treaty was simply an expedient for gaining time, and raising a larger force. He gathered his warriors in large numbers, and crossed the river with the LIFE OF ABRATTAM LINCOLN. 49 intention, as he openly declared, of ascending the Rock River to the territory of the Winnebajjoes, anions whom he doubt- less hoped to receive reinforcements. Warned back by Gen- eral Atkinson, then commanding the United States troops on Rock Island, he returned a defiant message, and kept on. In this threatening aspect of affairs, Governor Reynolds issued a call for volunteers, and among the companies that immediately responded was one from Menard County. Many of the vol- unteers were from New Salem and Clary's Grove, and Lincoln, being out of business, was the first to enlist. The company being full, they held a meeting at Richland for the election of officers; and now the influence of the Clary's Grove Boys was felt. Lincoln had completely won their hearts, and they told him that he must be their captain. It was an office that he did not aspire to, and one for which he felt that he had no special fitness ; but he consented to be a candidate. There was but one other candidate for the office, (a Mr. Kirkpat- rick,) and he was one of the most influential men in the county. Previously, Kirkpatriek had been an employer of Lincoln, and was so overbearing in his treatment of the young man that the latter left him. The simple mode of electing their captain, adopted by the company, was by placing the candidates apart, and telling the men to go and stand with the one they preferred. Lincoln and his competitor took their positions, and then the word was given. At least three out of every four went to Lincoln at once. When it was seen by those who had ranged them- selves with the other candidate that Lincoln was the choice of the majority of the company, they left their places, one by one, and came over to the successful side, until Lincoln's op- ponent in the friendly strife was left standing almost alone. " I felt badly to see him cut so," says a witness of the scene. Here was an opportunity for revenge. The humble laborer was his employer's captain, but the opportunity was never- improved. Mr. Lincoln frequently confessed that no subse- quent success of his life had given him half the satisfaction that this election did. He had achieved public recognition ; 4 hO LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. and to one so humbly bred the distinction was inexpressibly delightful. Captain Lincoln's company and several others formed in the vicinity, were ordered to rendezvous at Beardstown, on the Illinois River, and here for the first time lie met the Hon. John T. Stuart, a gentleman who was destined to have an important influence upon his life. Stuart was a lawyer by profession, and commanded one of the Sangamon County com- panies. Captain Stuart was soon afterwards elected Major of a spy battalion, formed from some of 'these companies, and had the best opportunities to observe the merits of Captain Lincoln. He testifies that Lincoln Avas exceedingly popular among the soldiers, in consequence of his excellent care of the men in his command, his never-failing good nature, and his ability to tell more stories and better ones than any man in the service. He was popular also among these hardy men on account of his great physical strength. Wrestling was an evcry-day amusement, in which athletic game Lincoln had but one superior in the army. One Thompson was Lincoln's superior in " science," and vanquished everybody rather by superior skill than by superior muscular power. On the 27th of April, the force at Beardstown moved. A few days of severe marching took the troops to the mouth of Rock River. It was there arranged with General Atkinson that they should proceed up the river to Prophetstown, where they were to await the arrival of the regulars. General Whiteside, in command of the volunteers, disregarding the arrangement for some reason, burnt the Prophet's village, and advanced up the stream forty miles further, to Dixon's Ferry. These marches were severe ; but to men bred as Captain Lin- coln had been, they were but the repetition of every-day hardships, under more exciting motives. Before arriving at Dixon's Ferry, the army halted, and leaving behind their baggage-wagons, made a forced march upon the place. Arriving there, scouting parties were sent out to ascertain the position of the enemy. At this time they were joined by two battalions of mounted volunteers from LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 51 the region of Peoria, who, having a taste for a little fighting on their own responsibility, had rashly engaged Black I lawk, ami had been chased in disorder from the field of their boyish adventure, leaving eleven of their number behind them dead, — an event which has passed into history with the title of "Still- man's Defeat." They came to General Whiteside panic- stricken, and a council of war was immediately held which resulted in the determination to march at once to the scene of the disaster. A battle seemed imminent, but the wily sav- ages had anticipated the movement, and not one was found. They had pushed further up the river, and broken up into predatory and foraging bands, "one of which pounced upon a settlement near Ottowa, murdered fifteen persons, and carried two young women away captive. General Whiteside, finding the enemy escaped, buried the dead of the day before, returned to camp, and was soon joined by General Atkinson with his troops and supplies. The twenty-four hundred men thus brought together made a force sufficiently large to annihilate Black Hawk's army, if they could have brought the cunning warrior to a fight, but this was impossible. Here a new trouble arose. The troops had volunteered for a limited period, and, as their time had nearly expired, and they were surfeited with hardship without glory, they clamored to be discharged, and Governor Reynolds yield- ed to their demands. The danger still continuing, he issued another call for volunteers. Captain Lincoln was ;. nong those who had not had enough of the war. He had vcAmteered for a purpose, and he did not intend to leave the scrvi. e until the purpose was accomplished. The Governor, in addition to his general call for volunteers, asked for the formation cC a volunteer regiment from those just discharged. General Whiteside himself immediately re-enlisted as a private, as did also Captain Lincoln. Then followed a whole month of march- ing and maneuvering, without satisfactory results. There was some fighting near Galena, and a skirmish at Burr-Oak Grove, but there was not enough of excitement and success to keep the restless spirits of the volunteers contented, and many of 52 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". them deserted. Indeed, the force became reduced to one-half of its original numbers. Lincoln, however, remained true to his obligations, although it was not his good fortune to par- ticipate in the engagements which brought the war to a speedy close. The Indians were overtaken at last by a force under General Henry. The pursuit had led them to the Wisconsin River, and here the Indians were found in full retreat. They were charged upon, and driven in great confusion. Sixty- eight Indians Avere killed, a large number wounded, and at last, just as the savages Avere crossing the Mississippi, the battle of Bad- Ax Avas fought, which resulted in the capture of Black HaAvk himself, with nearly all his Avarriors. The Black HaAvk Avar Avas not a very remarkable affair. It made no military reputations, but it Avas noteAvorthy in the single fact that the tAvo simplest, homeliest and truest men eno;a2;ed in it afterAvard became Presidents of the United States, \iz : General ( then Colonel ) Zachary Taylor, and Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln neA r er spoke of it as anything more than an interesting episode in his life, except upon one occasion Avhen he used it as an instrument for turning the military pretensions of another into ridicule. The friends of General Cass, AA'hen that gentleman Avas a candidate for the presidency, endeaA r ored to endoAv him Avith a military reputa- tion. Mr. Lincoln, at that time a representative in Congress, delivered a speech before the House, which, in its allusions to General Cass, Avas exquisitely sarcastic and irresistibly humor- ous. "By the Avay, Mr. Speaker," said Mr. Lincoln, "do you know I am a military hero ? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk Avar, I fought, bled and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career reminds me of my own. I Avas not at Stillman's Defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull's surrender ; and like him I saAV the place A r ery soon afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my SAVord, for I had none to break ; but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. * * * If General Cass Avent in advance of me in picking Avhortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in chai'ges upon the wild onions. If he saAV any live, fighting Indians, LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 53 it -was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody strugglej with the mosquitoes; and although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry." Mr. Lincoln then went on to say that if he should ever turn dem- ocrat, and be taken up as a candidate for the presidency by the democratic party, he hoped they would not make fun of him by attempting to make of him a military hero. He lived to see himself the candidate of another party, and witnessed a decided disposition on the part of his campaign biographers to make a little political capital for him out of his connection' with the Black Hawk Avar — an attempt which must have ap- pealed to his quick sense of the ludicrous, as well as recalled the speech from which an extract has been quoted. The soldiers from Sangamon County arrived home just ten days before the state election, and Mr. Lincoln was immedi- ately applied to for permission to place his name among the candidates for the legislature. He was then but twenty-three years old, had but just emerged from obscurity, and had been but a short time a resident of the county. The application was a great surprise to him. Indeed, aside from the evidence of personal and neighborhood friendship which it afforded him, the surprise could hardly have been a pleasant one, for his political convictions had placed him among those who were in almost a hopeless minority. Party feeling ran high between the friends of General Jackson and Henry Clay, but the friends of Mr. Clay had little power. Illinois was strongly democratic and for many years remained so. His opponents in the canvass were well known men, and had shown them- selves and made their speeches throughout the county; yet in Mr. Lincoln's own precinct he was voted for alike by po- litical friend and foe. The official vote of the New Salem precinct, as shown by the poll-book in the clerk's office at Springfield, was, at this time, for Congress • Jonathan H. Pugh 179, Joseph Duncan 97 ; while the vote for Abraham Lincoln for the legislature was 277, or one more than the ao-- gregate for both the candidates for Congress. This vote was undoubtedly the result of the personal popularity acquired by 54 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lincoln during his brief military campaign. All his soldiers voted for him, and worked for his election wherever they had influence. But he was defeated on the general vote, and im- mediately looked about to find what there was for him to do. It is interesting to recall the fact that at this time he seriousl} r took into consideration the project of learning the blacksmith's trade. He was without means, and felt the im- mediate necessity of undertaking some business that would give him bread. It was while he was entertaining this project that an event occurred which, in his undetermined state of mind, seemed to open a way to success in another quarter. A man named Reuben Radford, the keeper of a small store in the village of New Salem, had somehow incurred the dis- pleasure of the Clary's Grove Boys, who had exercised their " regulating " prerogatives by irregularly breaking in his windows. William G. Greene, a friend of young Lincoln, riding by Radford's store soon afterward, was hailed by him, and told that he intended to sell out. Mr. Greene went into the store, and, looking around, offered him at random four hundred dollars for his stock. The offer was immediately accepted. Lincoln happening in the next day, and being familiar with the value of the goods, Mr. Greene proposed to him to take an inventory of the stock, and see what sort of a bargain he had made. This he did, and it was found that the sroods were worth six hundred dollars. Lincoln then made him an offer of a hundred and twenty-five dollars for his bar- gain, with the proposition that he and a man named Berry, as his partner, should take his (Greene's) place in the notes given to Radford. Mr. Greene agreed to the arrangement, but Radford declined it, except on condition that Greene would be their security, and this he at last assented to. Berry proved to be a dissipated, trifling man, and the busi- ness soon became a wreck. Mr. Greene was obliged to go in and help Lincoln close it up, and not only do this but pay Radford's notes. ' All that young Lincoln Avon from the store was some very valuable experience, and the burden of a debt to Greene which, in his conversations with the latter, he LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55 always spoke of as " the national debt." But this national debt, unlike the majority of those which bear the title, was paid to the utmost farthing in after years. Six years after- wards, Mr. Greene, who knew nothing of the law in such cases, and had not troubled himself to inquire about it, and who had, in the meantime, removed to Tennessee, received notice from Mr. Lincoln that he was ready to pay him what he had paid for Berry — he, Lincoln, being legally bound to pay the liabilities of his partner. About this time Mr. Lincoln Avas appointed postmaster by President Jackson. The office was too insignificant to be considered politically, and it was given to the young man because eve. ybody liked him, and because he was the only man willing to take it who could make out the returns. He was exceedingly pleased with the appointment, because it gave him a chance to read every newspaper that was taken in the vicin- ity. He had never been able to get half the neAvspapers he wanted before, and the office gave him the prospect of a con- stant feast. Not wishing to be tied to the office, as it yielded him no revenue that would reward him for the confinement, lie made a post-office of his hat. Whenever he went out, the letters were placed in his hat. When an anxious looker for a letter found the postmaster, he had found his office ; and the public officer, taking off his hat, looked over his mail wherever the public might find him. He kept the office until it was discontinued, or removed to Petersburgh. One of the most beautiful exhibitions of Mr. Lincoln's Hind honesty occurred in connection with the settlement of his accounts with the post-office department, several years after- wards. It was after he had become a lawyer, and had been a legislator. He had passed through a period of great poverty, had acquired his education in the law in the midst of many perplexities, inconveniences and haxxlships, and had met with temptations, such as few men could resist, to make a tempo- rary use of any money he might have in his hands. One day, seated in the law office of his partner, the agent of the post- office department entered, and inquired if Abraham Lincoln 56 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. was within. Mr. Lincoln responded to his name, and was informed that the agent had called to collect a balance due the department since the discontinuance of the New Salem office. A shade of perplexity passed over Mr. Lincoln's face, which did not escape the notice of friends who were present. One of them said at once : " Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let us help you." He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, asked the agent how much the amount of his debt was. The sum was named, and then Mr. Lincoln opened the trunk, pulled out a little package of coin wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the exact sum, amounting to something more than seventeen dollars. After the agent had left the room, he remarked quietly that he never used any man's money but his own. .although this sum had been in his hands during all these years, he had never regarded it as available, even for any temporary purpose of his own. The store having " winked out," to use his own expression, he was ready for something else, and it came from an unex- pected quarter. John Calhoun, a resident of Springfield, and since notorious as President of the Lecompton Constitu- tional Convention, in Kansas, was the surveyor of Sangamon County. The constant influx of immigrants made his office a busy one, and, looking around for assistance, he fixed upon Lincoln, and deputed to him all his work in the immediate vicinity of New Salem. Lincoln had not the slightest knowl- edge of surveying, and but the slenderest acquaintance with the science upon which it was based. He would be obliged to fit himself for his work in the shortest possible time, and he did. Mr. Calhoun lent him a copy of Flint and Gibson, and after a brief period of study, he procured a compass and chain (the old settlers say that his first chain was a grape-vine,) and went at his work. The work procured bread, and, what seemed quite as essential to him, books ; for during all these months he was a close student, and a constant reader. Mr. Lincoln surveyed the present town of Petersburgh, and much of the adjacent territory. He pursued this business steadily LIFE OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 57 for a year or more, and with such suecess that the accuracy of his surveys has never been called in question. One inter- ruption must have occurred in his Avork, though it was brief. His compass and chain were attached and sold to pay a debt of Berry's, for which he was surety, but they were bought by a man named James Short, who immediately gave them back to liim. CHAPTER V. PIititerto the life of our subject has run in a single stream. His history thus far has related to his private career — to his birth, education, growth of mind and character, and personal strangles. Before entering upon that period of his life through which we arc to trace a double current, a private and a public one, it will be proper to inquire what kind of a man he had become. ]S T o man ever lived, probably, who was more a self-made man than Abraham Lincoln. Not a circumstance of his life favored the development which he had reached. He was self-moved to study under the most discouraging conditions. He had few teachers, few books, and no intellectual compan- ions. His father could neither read nor write. His mother died when he was a child. He had none of those personal attractions which would naturally enlist the sympathies and assistance of any refined men and women with whom he must occasionally have come in contact. He was miserably poor, and was compelled to labor among poor people to win his daily bread. There was not an influence around him except that left upon him by his " angel mother," which did not tend rather to drag him down than lift him up. He was not en- dowed with a hopeful temperament. He had no force of self- esteem — no faith in himself that buoyed him up amid the contempt of the proud and prosperous. He was altogether a humble man — humble in condition, and humble in spirit. Yet, bv the love of that which was 61 He was a man of practical expedients. lie always found some way to get out of difficulties, whether moral or mechan- ical, and was equally ingenious in his expedients for escaping or surmounting each variety. Governor Yates, in a speech at Springfield, before a meeting at which William G. Greene presided, quoted Mr. Greene as having said that the first time lie ever saw Lincoln he was "in the Sangamon River, with his trousers rolled up five feet more or less, trying to pilot a flat-boat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part, and let it run out." Barring a little western extravagance in the statement of a measurement, the incident is truly recorded ; and it illustrates more forcibly than words can describe the man's ingenuity in the quick in- vention of moral expedients, then and afterwards. His life had been a life of expedients. He had always been engaged in making the best of bad conditions and untoward circum- stances, and in meeting and mastering emergencies. Among those who did not understand him, he had the credit or the discredit, of being a cunning man ; but cunning was not at all an element of his nature or character. He was simply in- o-cnious ; he was wonderfully ingenious ; but he was not cunning. Cunning is, or tries to be, far-sighted; ingenuity disposes of occasions. Cunning contrives plots; ingenuity dissolves them. Cunning sets traps; ingenuity evades them. Cunning envelops its victims in difficulties; ingenuity helps them out of them. Cunning is the offspring of selfishness ; ingenuity is the child or companion of practical wisdom. He took his boat safely over a great many mill-dams during his life, but always by an expedient. He was a religious man. The fact may be stated without any reservation — with only an explanation. He believed in God, and in his personal supervision of the affairs of men. He believed himself to be under his control and guidance. He believed in the power and ultimate triumph of the right, tlumigh his belief in God. This unwavering faith in a Divine 62 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Providence began at his mother's knee, and ran like r. thread of ""old through all the inner experiences of his life. His constant sense of human duty was one of the forms by which his faith manifested itself. His conscience took a broader grasp than the simple apprehension of right and wrong. He recognized an immediate relation between God and himself, in all the actions and passions of his life. He was not pro- fessedly a Christian — that is, he subscribed to no creed, — joined no organization of Christian disciples. He spoke little then, perhaps less than he did afterward, and always sparingly, of his religious belief and experiences; but that he had a deep religious life, sometimes imbued with superstition, there is no doubt. We cuess at a mountain of marble bv the out- cropping ledges that hide their whiteness among the ferns. At this period .of his life he had not exhibited in any form that has been preserved, those logical and reasoning powers that so greatly distinguished him during his subsequent public career. The little clubs at and around Xew Salem where he "practiced polemics" kept no records, and have published no reports. The long talks in Offutt's .store, on the flat-boat, on the farm and by the cabin fireside have not been preserved; but there is no doubt that the germ of the power was within him, and that the peculiarity of his education developed it into the remarkable and unique faculty which did much to distinguish him among the men of his generation. He had been from a child, in the habit of putting his thoughts into lan^uao-e. He wrote much, and to this fact is doubtless owin£ his clearness in statement. He could state with great exact- ness any fact within the range of his knowledge. His knowl- edge was not great, nor his vocabulary rich, but he coidd state the details of one by the use of the other with a precision that Daniel Webster never surpassed. He was a childlike man. No public man of modern days has been fortunate enough to carry into his manhood so much of the directness, truthfulness and simplicity of childhood as distinguished him. He was exactly what he seemed. He was not awkward for a purpose, but becauso he could not help LIFE OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 63 it. He did not dress shabbily to win votes, or excite comment, but partly because he was too poor to dress well, and partly because he had no love for dress, or taste in its arrangement. He was not honest because he thought honesty was "the best policy," but because honesty was with him "the natural way of living." With a modest estimate of his own powers, and a still humbler one of his acquisitions, he never assumed to be more or other than he was. A lie in any form seemed impos- sible to him. He could neither speak one nor act one, and in the lio-ht of this fact all the words and acts of his life are to be judged. If this brief statement of his qualities and powers represents a wonderfully perfect character — so strangely pure and noble that it seems like the sketch of an enthusiast, it is not the writer's fault. Its materials are drawn from the lips of old friends who speak of him with tears — who loved him then as if he were their brothei-, and who worship his memory with a fond idolatry. It is drawn from such humble materials as composed his early history. He loved all, was kind to all, was without a vice of appetite or passion, was honest, was truthful, was simple, was unselfish, was religious, was intelli- gent and self-helpful, was all that a good man could desire in a son ready to enter life. AVe shall see how such a man with such a character entered life, and passed through it. CHAPTER VI. Several of the old acquaintances of Mr. Lincoln speak of his having studied law, or having begun the study of law, previous to 1834. He had doubtless thought of it, and had made it a subject of consideration among his friends. "W ith a vao-ue project of doing this at some time, he had bought a copy of Blackstone at an auction in Springfield, and had looked it over. This fact was enough to furnish a basis for the story ; but by his own statement he did not begin the study of his profession until after he had been a member of the legislature. Two years had passed away since his unsuccessful attempt to be elected a representative of Sangamon County. In the meantime, he had become known more widely. His duties as surveyor had brought him into contact with people in other localities. He had become a political speaker, and, although rather rough and slow and argumentative, was very popular. He had made a few speeches on the condition that the friends who persuaded him to try the experiment " would not laugh at him." They agreed to the condition, and found no occa- sion to depart from it. In 1834, he became a^ain a candidate for the legislature, and was elected by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, whose name has been mentioned as an officer in the Black Hawk war, and whose acquaintance Lin- coln made at Beardstown, was also elected. Major Stuart had already conceived the highest opinion of the young man, LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 65 and seeing much of him during the canvass for the election, privately advised him to study law. Stuart was himself en- gaged in a large and lucrative legal practice at Springfield. Lincoln said he was poor — that he had no money to buy books, or to live where books might be borrowed and used. Major Stuart offered to lend him all he needed, and he decided to take the kind lawyer's advice, and accept his offer. At the close of the canvass which resulted in his election, he walked to Springfield, borrowed " a load " of books of Stuart, and took them home wjth him to New Salem. Here he began the study of law in good earnest, though with no preceptor. He studied while he had bread, and then started out on a surveying tour, to win the money that would buy more. One who remembers his habits during this period says that he went, day after day, for weeks, and sat under an oak tree on a hill near New Salem and read, moving around to keep in the shade, as the sun moved. He was so much absorbed that some people thought and said that he was crazy. Not unfre- quently he met and passed his best friends without noticing them. The truth was that he had found the pursuit of his life, and had become very much in earnest. During Lincoln's campaign, he possessed and rode a horse, to procure which he had quite likely sold his compass and chain, for, as soon as the canvass had closed, he sold a horse, and bought these instruments indispensable to him in the only pursuit by which he could make his living. "When the time for the assembling of the legislature approached, Lincoln dropped his law books, shouldered his pack, and, on foot, trudged to Vandalia, then the capital of the state, about a hundred miles, to make his entrance into public life. His personal appearance at this time must have been some- thing of an improvement upon former days. A gentleman now living in Chicago, then a resident of Coles County,* met him at that time, or very soon afterwards, and says that he was dressed in plain mixed jeans, his coat being of the surtout fashion, which, at that day, and in that part of the country, *U. F. Linder, Esq. 5 66 LIFE OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. was a very reputable dress. He speaks of him, also, as being then extremely modest and retiring. Colonel Jesse K. Dubois, (one of the Sangamon County delegation,) and Lincoln were the two youngest men in the House. During this session, Mr. Lincoln said very little, but learned much. As he was a novice in legislation, he left the talking to older and wiser men. James Semple, afterwards United States Senator, was elected speaker, and by him Lincoln was assigned to the second place on the committee on public accounts and expenditures. The subject of controlling interest before the legislature has no special interest in connection with Mr. Lincoln's life. The state was new, and very imperfectly developed. A plan of internal improvements was in agitation, special reference being had to a loan for the benefit of the Illinois and Michigan Canal Company, which had been incorporated in 1825. The loan bill was not carried at this session, though it was at a subse- quent one. Lincoln was constantly in his place, and faithful in the performance of all the duties that were devolved upon him. When the session closed, he walked home as he came, and resumed his law and his surveying. The canvass of 1836, which resulted in his re-election to the legislature, was an unusually exciting one, and resulted in the choice of a House which has probably never been equaled in any state, in the whole history of the country, for its num- ber of remarkable men. As early as June 13th, of that year, we find a letter in the Sangamon Journal, addressed by Mr. Lincoln to the editor, beginning as follows: "In your paper of last Saturday, I see a communication over the signa- ture of 'Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are announced in the Journal, are called upon to ' show their hands.' Agreed. Here 's mine." He then goes on in his characteristic way to "show his hand," which was that sub- stantially of the new whig party. It was during this canvass that he made the most striking speech he had ever uttered, and one that established his reputation as a first-class political debater. It has been spoken of, by some writers, as the first speech he ever made ; but this is a mistake. The opposing LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 67 candidates had mot at Springfield, as is the custom in the western states, fur a public discussion of the questions involved in the canvass ; and a large number of citizens had gathered in the Court House to hear the speeches. Niniaa W. Edwards, then a whig, led off, and was followed by Dr. Early, a sharp debater and a representative man among the democrats. Early bore down very heavily upon Edwards — so much so that the latter wanted the opportunity for an im- mediate rejoinder, but Lincoln took his turn upon the platform. Embarrassed at first, and speaking slowly, he began to lay down and fix his propositions. His auditors followed him with breathless attention, and saw him inclose his adversary in a wall of fact, and then weave over him a network of de- ductions so logically tight in all its meshes, that there was no escape for the victim. He forgot himself entirely, as he grew warm at his work. His audience applauded, and with rid- icule and wit he riddled the man whom he had made helpless. Men who remember the speech allude particularly to the transformation which it wrought in Mr. Lincoln's appearance. The homely man was majestic, the plain, good-natured face was full of expression, the long, bent figure was straight as an arrow, and the kind and dreamy eyes flashed with the fire of true inspiration. His reputation was made, and from that day to the day of his death, he was recognized in Illinois as one of the most powerful orators in the state. The Sangamon County delegation, consisting of nine rep- resentatives, was so remarkable for the physical altitude of its members that they were known as "The Long Nine." Not a man of the number was Jess than six feet high, and Lincoln was the tallest of the nine, as he was the leading man intel- lectually, in and out of the House. Among those who com- posed the House, were General John A. McClernand, after- wards a member of Congress, Jesse K. Dubois, afterwards auditor of the state; James Semple, the speaker of this and the previous House, and subsequently United States Senator ; Robert Smith, afterwards member of Congress ; John Hogan, at present a member of Congress from St. Louis ; General 63 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. James Shields, afterwards United States Senator; John De- ment, who lias since been treasurer of the state; Stephen A. Douglas, -whose subsequent public career is familiar to all ; Newton Cloud, president of the convention which framed the present state constitution of Illinois ; John J. Hardin, who fell at Buena Vista; John Moore, afterwards Lieutenant Gov- ernor of the state; William A. Richardson, subsequently United States Senator, and William McMurtny, who has since been Lieutenant Governor of the state. This list does not embrace all who had then, or who have since been distin- guished, but it is large enough to show that Lincoln was, during the term of this legislature, thrown into association and often into antagonism with the brightest men of the new state. It is enough, with this fact in mind, to say that he was by them and by the people regarded as one of the leading men in the House. The principal measure with this legislature was the adoption of a general system of public improvements. It was a great object with the special friends of this measure to secure the co-operation and support of the two senators and nine repre- sentatives from Sangamon County, but they firmly refused to support the measure, unless the removal of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield was made a part of the proposed sys- tem. So the measure for this removal passed through its various stages in company with the internal improvement bill, and both were enacted on the same day. The measure which thus changed the location of the capital of the state to Spring- field, brought great popularity to the members from Sangamon, at least in their own home, and especially to Mr. Lincoln, who was put forward on all occasions to do the important work in securing it. When it is remembered that he had achieved his position before the people and among the leading men of the state at the early age of twenty-seven, it must be admitted that the disadvantages under which he had labored had not hindered him from doing what the best educated and most favored would have been proud to do. It was at this session that Mr. Lincoln met Stephen A. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 69 Douglas for the first time. Mr. Douglas was then only twenty-three years old, and was the youngest man in the House. Mr. Lincoln, in speaking of the fact subsequently, said that Douglas was then "the least man he ever saw." Pie was not only very short but very slender. The two vouno- men, who eonnneneed their intellectual and political sparring during the session, could hardly have foreseen the struo-o-le in which they were to engage in after years — a struo-o-le which foreshadowed and even laid the basis of an epoch in the national history, and in the history of freedom and progress throughout the world. This session of the legislature was notable for its connec- tion with the beginning of Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery history. It was at Vandalia, at this time, that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas marked out the course in which they were to walk — one to disappointment and a grave of unsatisfied hopes and baffled ambitions, the other to the realization of his highest dreams of achievement and renown, and a martyrdom that crowns his memory with an undying glory. Illinois contained many immigrants from the border slave states. Its territory was joined to two of them ; and there was a strong desire to live in harmony with neighbors quick to anger and resentment, and sensitive touching their "pecu- liar institution." The prevailing sentiment in the state was in favor of slavery, or in favor of slaveholders in the exercise of their legal and constitutional rights. There were, in fact, a few hundred slaves living in the state at that time, as appears by the census tables, but by what law is not apparent. The democratic party was unanimously pro-slavery, and whatever there may have been of anti-slavery sentiment among the whigs was practically of little account. The abolitionist was hated and despised by both parties alike, and the whigs deprecated and disowned the title with indignation. There was doubtless some anti-slavery sentiment among the whigs, but it was weak and timid. Both parties were strong in their professed regard for the Constitution, and neither party doubted that the Constitution protected the institution of American Slavery. 70 ' LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The agitation of the slavery question was just beginning to create uneasiness among slaveholders and politicians ; and dur- ing the winter the subject was broached in the legislature. Resolutions were introduced of an extreme pro-slavery char- acter, and the attempt was made to fix the stigma of aboli- tionism upon all who did not indorse them. They were carried through by the large democratic majority, and the opposition to them was weak in numbers and weaker still in its positions. We can judge something of its weakness when we learn that only tAvo men among all the whig members were found willing to subscribe to a protest against these resolutions. Abraham Lincoln and Dan Stone, " representatives from the County of Sangamon," entered upon the Journal of the House their reasons for refusing to vote for these offensive resolutions, and they were the only men in the state who had the manliness to do it. The points of the protest were these : that while " the Congress of the United States has no power under the Con- stitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different states," and that while " the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils," still, the " institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy," and Congress " has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia." The latter proposition was qualified by the statement that this power " ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District." Certainly this protest was a moderate one, and we may judge by it something of the character of the resolutions which compelled its utterance. "We may judge something also of the low grade of anti-slavery sentiment in the whig party at that time, when only two men could be found to sign so moderate and guarded a document as this. Still, the refusal to sign may have been a matter of policy, for which a good reason could be given. It was something, however, for two men to stand out, and protest that slavery was a moral and political evil, over which Congress had power upon the national territory. It was the beginning of Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery record, and modest and moderate as it LIFE OF ABRAHAM LIKUOLX. 71 was, and much as Mr. Lincoln afterwards accomplished for the abolition of slavery, ho never became more extreme in his views than the words of this protest indicate. lie never ceased to believe that Congress had no power under the Constitution to interfere with slavery in the different states. lie never thought worse of slavery than that it was founded in injustice and bad policy. He never changed his belief touching the power of Congress over the institution of slavery in territory under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. This little protest, entered into with his brother rep- resentative, Dan Stone, was the outline of the platform upon which he stood, and fought out the great anti-slavery battle whose trophies were four million freedmen, and a nation re- deemed to justice and humanity. In the meantime, Mr. Lincoln had made no money. He had walked his hundred miles to Vandalia in 1836, as he did ; in 1834, and when the session closed he walked home again. A gentleman in Menard County remembers meeting him and a detachment of " The Long Nine " on their way home. They were all mounted except Lincoln, who had thus far kept up with them on foot. If he had money, he was hoarding it for more important purposes than that of saving leg-weariness and leather. The weather was raw, and Lincoln's clothing was none of the warmest. Complaining of being cold to one of his companions, this irreverent member of "The Long Nine " told his future President that it was no wonder he was cold — "there was so much of him on the ground." None of the party appreciated this homely joke at the expense of his feet (they were doubtless able to bear it) more thoroughly than Lincoln himself. We can imagine the cross-fires of wit and humor by which the way was enlivened during tins' cold and tedious journey. The scene was certainly a rude one, and seems more like a dream than a reality, when we remem- ber that it occurred less than thirty years ago, in a state which now contains hardly less than a million and a half of people and three thousand uiilos of railway. CHAPTER VII. TlTE time had come with Mr. Lincoln for translation to a new sphere of life. By the scantiest means he had wrested from the hardest circumstances a development of his charac- teristic powers. He had acquired the rudiments of an Eng- lish education. He had read several text books of the natural sciences, with special attention to geology, in the facts and laws of which he had become particularly intelligent. He had read law as well as he could without the assistance of preceptors. He had attended a few sessions of the courts held near him, and had become somewhat familiar with the practical application of legal processes. He had, from the most discouraging beginnings, grown to be a notable political debater. He had had experience in legislation, had received public recognition as a man of mark and power, had been ac- cepted as one of the leaders of an intelligent and morally in- fluential political party, and had fairly outgrown the humble conditions by which his life had hitherto been surrounded. At this time he received from his Springfield friend, Major Stuart, a proposition to become his partner in the practice of the law. Mr. Lincoln's influence in securing the transfer of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield had already given him a favorable introduction to the people of the city ; and on the 15th of April, 1837, he took up his abode there. He went to his new home with great self-distrust and with many mis- givings concerning his future; but Springfield became his permanent home. He had been admitted to the bar during the LIFE OF ARRATIAM LINCOLN. 73 autumn of 183G, and went to his work with the ambition to be something, and the determination to do something. It must have been with something of regret that he turned his baek upon New Salem, for he left behind him a town full of friends, who had watched his progress with the friendliest interest, aided him when he needed aid, and appreciated him. He left behind him all the stepping-stones by which he had mounted to the elevation he had reached — the old store-house where he had been a successful clerk, the old store-house where he had been an unsuccessful principal, the scenes of his wrestling-matches and foot-races, the lounging-places where he had sat and told stories with a post-office in his hat, the rough audience-rooms in which he had " practiced polem- ics," the places where he had had his rough encounters with the Clary's Grove Boys, and, last, the old oak tree whose shadow he had followed to keep his law text out of the sun. But these things could have touched him but little when placed by the side of a few cabin homes, presided over by noble women who, with womanly instinct, had detected the manliness of his nature, and had given him a home " for his company," as they kindly said, when he needed one in charity. He never forgot these women, and occasion afterward came to show the constancy of his gratitude and the faithfulness of his friendship. Arriving in Springfield he became a member of the family of Hon. William Butler, afterward treasurer of the state, and here came under influences which, to a man bred as he had been, were of the most desirable character. Mr. Lincoln's business connection with Mr. Stuart must have been broken and brief, for he was still a member of the legislature, which was summoned to a special session on the July following his removal to Springfield, and Mr. Stuart, himself, was soon afterwards elected to, and took his scat in, Congress. Still, the connection was one of advantage to the young lawyer. Mr. Stuart's willingness to receive him as a partner was an indorsement of his powers and acquisitions that must have helped him to make a start in professional life. This life the people of Springfield, who gratefully remembered 74 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. his services to them in the legislature, would not permit him to pursue without interruption. They kept him upon the leg- islative ticket in 1838, and he was re-elected. On the assem- blin« r of this legislature, Mr. Lincoln was at once recognized to be the foremost man on the whig side of the house, and was brought forward, without any dissent, as their candidate for speaker. The strength of this legislature was pretty evenly divided between the two parties. A great change, indeed, had occurred in the state. The financial crash of 1837 had prostrated industry and trade, and the people had, either justly or unjustly, held the dominant party responsible for the disas- ters from which they had suffered. Anti-slavery agitation had been voted down in Congress by the friends of Mr. Van Buren, who came into the presidential office during the previous year. All papers relating to slavery were, by solemn resolution of Congress, laid on the table without being debated, read, printed or referred. "With financial ruin in the country, and a o-ag-law in Congress, the democratic party had a heavier load than it could carry. This was felt in Illinois, where the old democratic majority was very nearly destroyed. Colonel "W. L. D. Ewing was the candidate of the democrats for speaker, in opposition to Mr. Lincoln, and was at last elected by a majority of one vote. Mr. Lincoln took a prominent part in all the debates of the session. Some of them were political, and were intended to have a bearing upon the next presidential election, and especially upon the politics of the state ; but the most of them related to local and ephemeral affairs which will be of no interest to the general reader. Allusion has already been made to Mr. Lincoln's ingenuity — his quickness at expedients. One of his modes of getting rid of troublesome friends, as well as troublesome enemies, was by telling a story. . He began these tactics early in life, and he grew to be wonderfully adept in them. If a man broached a subject which he did not wish to discuss, he told a story which changed the direction of the conversation. If he was called upon to answer a question, he answered it by tell- ing a story. He had a story for everything — something had LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 75 occurred at some place where he used to live, that illustrated every possible phase of every possible subject with which he might have Connection. His faculty of finding or making a story to match every event in his history, and every event to which he bore any relation, was really marvelous. That he made, or adapted, some of his stories, there is no question. It is beyond belief that those which entered his mind left it no richer than they came. It is not to be supposed that he spent any time in elaborating them, but by some law of association every event that occurred suggested some story, and, almost by an involuntary process, his mind harmonized their discord- ant points, and the story was pronounced "pat," because it was made so before it was uttered. Every truth, or combi- nation of truths, seemed immediately to clothe itself in a form of life, where he kept it for reference. His mind was full of stories ; and the great facts of his life and history on entering his mind seemed to take up their abode in these stories, and if the srarment did not fit them it was so modified that it did. A good instance of the execution which he sometimes ef- fected with a story occurred in the legislature. There was a troublesome member from Wabash County, who gloried par- ticularly in being a " strict consti'uctionist." He found some- thing " unconstitutional " in every measure that was brought forward for discussion. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and was quite apt, after giving every measure a heavy pounding, to advocate its reference to this committee. No amount of sober argument could floor the member from "Wabash. At last, he came to be considered a man to be si- lenced, and Mr. Lincoln was resorted to for an expedient by which this object might be accomplished. Pie soon afterwards honoi'ed the draft thus made upon him. A measure was brought forward in which Mr. Lincoln's constituents were interested, when the member from Wabash rose and dis- charged all his batteries upon its unconstitutional points. Mr. Lincoln then took the floor, and, with the quizzical ex- pression of features Avhich he could assume at will, and a mirthful twinkle in his gray eyes, said : " Mr. Speaker, the 7G LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. attack of the member from Wabash on the constitutionality of this measure reminds me of an old friend of mine. lie ; s a peculiar looking old fellow, with shaggy, overhanging eye- brows, and a pair of spectacles under them. (Everybody turned to the member from Wabash, and recognized a personal description.) One morning just after the old man got up, he imagined, on looking out of his door, that he saw rather a lively squirrel on a tree near his house. So he took doAvn his rifle, and fired at the squirrel, but the squirrel paid no atten- tion to the shot. He loaded and fired again, and again, until, at the thirteenth shot, he set down his gun impatiently, and said to his boy, who was looking on, 'Boy, there 's something wrong about this rifle.' 'Rifle's all right, I knoAV 'tis,' re- sponded the boy, 'but where 's your squirrel?' 'Don't you see him, humped up about half way up the tree?' inquired the old man, peering over his spectacles, and getting mystified. 'No, I don't,' responded the boy ; and then turning and look- ing into his father's face, he exclaimed, ' I see your squirrel ! , You 've been firing at a louse on your eyebrow ! ' ' The story needed neither application nor explanation. The House was in convulsions of laughter ; for Mr. Lincoln's skill in telling a story was not inferior to his appreciation of its points and his power of adapting them to the case in hand. It killed off the member from Wabash, who was very careful afterwards not to provoke any allusion to his "eyebrows." A man who practiced law in Illinois in the earlier years of the state " rode the circuit," a proceeding of which the older communities of the East know nothing. The state of Illinois, for instance, is divided into a number of districts, each com- posed of a number of counties, of which a single judge, ap- pointed or elected, as the case may be, for that purpose, makes the circuit, holding courts at each county seat. Railroads being scarce, the earlier circuit judges made their trips from county to county on horseback, or in a gig ; and, as lawyers were not located in each county, all the prominent lawyers living within the limits of the circuit made the tour of the circuit with the judge. After the business of one county was LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 77 finished, llic judge and all the Lawyers mounted their horses or their gigs and pushed on to the next county-scat, and so repeated the process until the whole circuit was compassed ; and this is what is known in the western states as " riding the circuit." Mr. Lincoln rode the circuit ; and it was upon these long and tedious trips that he established his reputation as one of the best lawyers in Illinois, and, in some respects, the superior of any lawyer in the state. It is doubtful whether he was ever regarded by his professional brethren as a well-read law- yer. Toward the latter part of his life, he had, by his own powers of generalization and deduction, become versed in the principles of law, and was coming to be recognized by the best lawyers as their peer ; but his education was too defective at the first to make him anything better than what is called *.* a case lawyer." He studied his cases with great thorough- ness, and was so uniformly successful in them that the people regarded him as having no equal. He had been engaged in practice but a short time when he was found habitually on one side or the other of every important case in the circuit. The writer remembers an instance in which many years ago, before he had risen to political eminence, he was pointed out to a stranger, by a citizen of Springfield, as " Abe Lincoln, the first lawyer of Illinois." He certainly enjoyed great reputation among the people. Mr. Lincoln was a very weak lawyer when engaged by the weak side. This side he never took, if, by careful investiga- tion of the case, he could avoid it. If a man went to him with the proposal to institute a suit, he examined carefully the man's grounds for the action. If these were good, he entered upon the case, and prosecuted it faithfully to the end. If the o-rounds were not good he would have nothing to do with the case. He invariably advised the applicant to dismiss the matter, telling him frankly that he had no case, and ought not to prosecute. Sometimes he was deceived. Sometimes he discovered, in the middle of a trial, by the revelation of a witness, that his client had lied to him. After the moment 78 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. that he was convinced that justice was opposed to him and his client, lie lost all his enthusiasm and all his courage. In- deed, he lost all interest in the case. His efforts for his client after that moment were simply mechanical, for he would not lie for any man, or strive to make the worse appear the better reason for any man. He had a genuine interest in the estab- lishment of justice between man and man. As a citizen, as a lover of good order, as a man who believed in truth and jus- tice, he was, by every instinct of his nature, opposed to the success of villainy and the triumph of wrong, and he would not sell himself to purposes of injustice and immorality. He repeatedly refused to take fees on the wrong side of a case. When his clients had practiced gross deception upon him, he forsook their cases in mid-passage ; and he always refused to accept fees of those whom he advised not to prosecute. On one occasion, while engaged upon an important case, he dis- covered that he was on the wrong side. His associate in the case was immediately informed that he (Lincoln) would not make the plea. The associate made it, and the case, much to the surprise of Lincoln, was decided for his client. Perfectly convinced that his client was wrong, he would not receive one cent of the fee of nine hundred dollars which he paid. It is not wonderful that one who knew him well spoke of him as "perversely honest." This "riding the circuit" was, in those early days, a pecu- liar business, and tended to develop peculiar traits of charac- ter. The lonn- passages from court-house to court-house, the stopping at cabins by the way to eat, or sleep, or feed the horse, the evenings at the country taverns, the expedients re- sorted to to secure amusement, the petty, mean and shameful cases that abounded, must have tended to make it a strange business, and not altogether a pleasant one. These long pas- sages while riding the circuit were seasons of reflection with Mr. Lincoln. An amusing incident occurred in connection with one of these journeys, which gives a pleasant glimpse into the good lawyer's heart. He was riding by a deep slough, in which, to his exceeding pain, he saw a pig strug- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 £rlin£f, and with such faint efforts that it was evident that lie could not extricate himself from the mud. Mr. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud which enveloped him, and then looked at some new clothes with which he had but a short time before enveloped himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig, he rode on, but he could not get rid of the vision of the poor brute, and, at last, after riding two miles, he turned back, de- termined to rescue the animal at the expense of his new clothes. Arrived at the spot, he tied his horse, and coolly went to work to build of old rails a passage to the bottom of the hole. Descending on these rails, he seized the pig and dragged him out, but not without serious damage to the clothes he wore. Washing his hands in the nearest brook, and wiping them on the grass, he mounted his gig and rode along. He then fell to examining the motive that sent him back to the release of the pig. At the first thought, it seemed to be pure benevo- lence, but, at length, he came to the conclusion that it was selfishness, for he certainly went to the pig's relief in order (as he said to the friend to whom he related the incident,) to "take a pain out of his own mind." This is certainly a new view of the nature of sympathy, and one which it will be well for the casuist to examine. While Mr. Lincoln was not regarded by his professional associates as profoundly versed in the principles of law, he was looked upon by them as a very remarkable advocate. No man in Illinois had such power before a jury as he. This was a fact universally admitted. The elements of his power as an advocate were perfect lucidity of statement, gi-eat fair- ness in the treatment of both sides of a case, and the skill to conduct a common mind along the chain of his logic to Lis own conclusion. In presenting a case to a jury, he invariably pre- sented both sides of it. After he had done this, there was really little more to be said, for he could state the points of his opponent better generally than his opponent could state them for himself. The man who followed him usually found himself handling that which Mr. Lincoln had already reduced to chaff. There was really no trick about this. In the first 80 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. «place lie would not take a case in which he did not believe he was on the side of justice. Believing that the right was with him, he felt that he could afford to give to the opposing coun- sel everything that he could claim, and still have material enough left for carrying his verdicts. His fairness was not only apparent but real, and the juries he addressed knew it to be so. He would stand before a jury and yield point after point that nearly every other lawyer would dispute under the same circumstances, so that, sometimes, his clients trembled with apprehension ; and then, after he had given his opponent all he had claimed, and more than he had dared to claim, he would state his own side of the case with such power and clearness that that which had seemed strong against him was reduced to weakness, that which had seemed to be sound wa9 proved to be specious, and that which had the appearance of being conclusive against him was plainly seen to be corrobo- rative of his own positions on the question to be decided. Every juror was made to feel that Mr. Lincoln was an abso- lute aid to him in arriving at an intelligent and impartial ver- dict. The cunning lawyers thought that Mr. Lincoln was very cunning in all this — thought that his fairness was only apparent and assumed for a purpose — but it has already been stated that cunning was not an element of his nature. He had no interest in the establishment of anything but justice, and injustice, even if it favored him, could give him no satis- faction. The testimony of the lawyers who were obliged to try cases with him is that he was "a hard man to meet." Coming from the people, and being perfectly familiar with the modes of thought and mental capacity of the men who o-enerally composed his juries, he knew all their difficulties, knew just what language to address to them, what illustrations to use, and how to bring his arguments to bear upon their minds. This point is Avell illustrated by the details of a case in the Coles Circuit Court. The controversy was about a colt, in which thirty-four wit- nesses swore that they had known the colt from its falling, and that it was the property of the plaintiff, while thirty swore LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 81 that they had known the colt from its falling, and that it was the property of the defendant. It may be stated, at starting, that these witnesses wore all honest, and that the mistake grew out of the exact resemblances which two colts bore to each other. One circumstance was proven by all the wit- nesses, or nearly all of them, viz : that the two claimants of the colt agreed to meet on a certain day with the two marcs which were respectively claimed to be the dams of the colt, and permit the colt to decide which of the two he belonged to. The meeting occurred according to agreement, and, as it was a singular case and excited a good deal of popular in- terest, there were probably a hundred men assembled on their horses and mares, from far and near. Now the colt really belonged to the defendant in the case. It had strayed away mid fallen into company with the plaintiff's horses. The plain- tiff's colt had, at the same time, strayed away, and had not returned, and was not to be found. The moment the two mares were brought upon the ground, the defendant's mare and the colt gave signs of recognition. The colt went to its dam, and would not leave her. They fondled each other ; and, although the plaintiff brought his mare between them, and tried in various ways to divert the colt's attention, the colt would not be separated from its dam. It then followed her home, a distance of eight or ten miles, and, when within a mile or two of the stables, took a short cut to them in ad- vance of its dam. The plaintiff had sued to recover the colt thus gone back to its owner. In The presentation of this case to the jury, there were thirty-four witnesses "on the side of the plaintiff, while the de- fendant had, on his side, only thirty witnesses : but he had on his side the colt itself and its dam — thirty-four men against thirty men and two brutes. Here was a case that was to be decided by the preponderance of evidence. All the witnesses were equally positive, and equally credible. Mr. Lincoln was on the side of the defendant, and contended that the voice of nature in the mare and colt ought to outweigh the testimony of a hundred men. The jury were all farmers, and all illiter- 6 82 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ate men, and he took great pains to make them understand what was meant by the "preponderance of evidence." He said that in a civil suit, absolute certainty, or such certainty as would be required to convict a man of crime, was not es- sential. They must decide the case according to the impres- sion which the evidence had produced upon their minds, and, if they felt puzzled at all, he would give them a test by which they could bring themselves to a just conclusion. "Now," said he, "if you were going to bet on this case, on which side would you be willing to risk a picayune? That side on which you would be willing to bet a picayune, is the side on which rests the preponderance of evidence in your minds. It is possible that you may not be right, but that is not the ques- tion. The question is as to where the preponderance of evi- dence lies, and you can judge exactly where it lies in your minds, by deciding as to which side you would be willing to bet on." The jury understood this. There was no mystification about it. They had got hold of a test by which they could render an intelligent verdict. Mr. Lincoln saw into their minds, and knew exactly what they needed ; and the moment they received it, he knew that his case was safe, as a quick verdict for the defendant proved it to be. In nothing con- nected with this case was the ingenuity of Mr. Lincoln more evident, perhaps, than in the insignificance of the sum which he placed in risk by the hypothetical wager. It was not a hundred dollars, or a thousand dollars, or even a dollar. but the smallest silver coin, to show to them that the verdict should go with the preponderance of evidence, even if the preponderance should be only a hair's weight. If it was the habit of Mr. Lincoln to present both sides of his cases to the jury, it was, of course, his habit to study both sides with equal thoroughness. He was called slow in arriv- ing at the points of a case. It is probably true that his mirid was not one of the quickest in the processes of investigation. He certainly exercised great care in coming to his conclusions. It was then, in the days of his legal practice, his habit to LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 83 argue against himself, and it always remained the habit of his life. He took special interest in the investigation of every point that could be made against him and his positions. This habit made his processes of investigation slower than those of other men, while the limited range of his le Clay, and it is possible that lie needed the influence of this* visit to restore a healthy tone to his feelings, and to teach him that the person whom his imagination had transformed into a demigod was only a man, possessing the full measure of weak- nesses common to men. In 1846, Mr. Lincoln learned that Mr. Clay had agreed to deliver a speech at Lexington, Ken- tucky, in favor of gradual emancipation. He had never seen the great Kentuckian, and this event seemed to give him an excuse for breaking away from his business, and satisfying his curiosity to look his demigod in the face, and hear the music of his eloquence. He accordingly went to Lexington, and arrived there in time to attend the meeting. On returning to his home from this visit, he did not attempt to disguise his disappointment. The speech itself was written and read. It lacked entirely the spontaneity and fire which Mr. Lincoln had anticipated, and was not eloquent at all. At the close of the meeting Mr. Lincoln secured an introduction to the great orator, and as Mr. Clay knew what a friend to him Mr. Lincoln had been, he invited his admirer and partisan to Ashland. Xo invitation could have delighted Mr. Lincoln more, but the result of his private interview with Mr. Clay was no more satisfactory than that which followed the speech. Those who have known both men, will not wonder' at this, for two men could hardly be more unlike in their motives and man- ners than the two thus brought together. One was a proud man; the other was a humble man. One was princely in his bearing; the other was lowly. One was distant and digni- fied ; the other was as simple and teachable as a child. One received the deference of men as his due ; the other received it with an uncomfortable sense of his unworthiness. A friend of Air. Lincoln, who had a long conversation with him after his return from Ashland, found that his old enthusi- asm w T as gone. Mr. Lincoln said that though Mr. Clay was most polished in his manners, and very hospitable, he be- trayed a consciousness of superiority that none could mistake. He felt that Mr. Clay did not regard him, or any other person in his presence, as, in any sense, on an equality with him. In 96 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. short, he thought that Mr. Clay was overbearing and domi- neerino", and that, while he was apparently kind, it was in that magnificent and patronizing way which made a sensitive man uncomfortable. It is quite possible that Mr. Lincoln needed to experience this disappointment, and to be taught this lesson. It was, perhaps, the only instance in his life in which he had given his whole heart to a man without knowing him, or been carried away by his imagination into an unbounded zeal on behalf of a personal stranger. It made him more cautious in the be- stowal of his love. He was, certainly, from that time forward, more careful to look on all sides of a man, and on all sides of a subject, before yielding to cither his devotion, than ever be- fore. If he became slow in moving, it vms because he saw more than his own side of every case and question, and recog- nized, in advance, such obstacles as would be certain to impede his progress. Much has been said of Mr. Lincoln's kindness, and mam- suppose that he was not brave — that his patient and universal love of men was inconsistent with those sterner qualities which are necessary to make, not only a true hero, but a true man. An incident occurred during the Clay campaign which shows how ill-founded this estimate of Mr. Lincoln is. On the occa- sion of a great mass convention at Springfield, U. F. Linder, Esq., now a resident of Chicago, and a man of rare eloquence, made a speech which seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of the assemblage to the highest pitch. The speech was very offen- sive to some of the democrats who were present — who, indeed, proposed to make a personal matter of it. Mr. Linder being railed out again, in the course of the meeting, was considered in personal danger, if he should attempt to respond. At this juncture, Me. Lincoln and Colonel Baker took their places by his side, and, Avhen he finished, conducted him to his hotel. The ruffians knew both men, and prudently refrained from in- terfering with them. On a previous occasion, Mr. Lincoln had protected the person of Colonel Baker himself. Baker was speaking in a court-house, which had once been a store • LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97 house, and, on making- some remarks that were offensive to certain political rowdies in the crowd, they cried: "take him off' the stand." Immediate confusion ensued, and there was an attempt to carry the demand into execution. Directly over the speaker's head was an old scuttle, at which it ap- peared Mr. Lincoln had been listening to the speech. In an instant, Mr. Lincoln's feet came through the scuttle, followed by his tall and sinewy frame, and he was standing by Colonel Baker's side. He raised his hand, and the assembly subsided immediately into silence. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, "let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guarantied. Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it." The suddenness of his appearance, his perfect calmness and fairness, and the knowl- edge that he would do what lie had promised to do, quieted all disturbance, and the speaker concluded his remarks with- out difficulty. Mr. Lincoln has already been spoken of as a strong party man, and his thorough devotion to his party, on some occa- sions, though very rarely, led him into hasty expressions and hasty actions, quite out of harmony w r ith his usual self-poise and good nature. A scene occurred in the room occupied by Mr. Lincoln and his particular friend, Judge Davis, at Paris, on one occasion, which illustrates this. There was present, as a visitor, a young lawyer of the name of Constable, a gen- tleman of fine abilities, and at present a judge of the circuit court. Mr. Constable was a whig, but had probably been disappointed in some of his political aspirations, and did not feel that the party had treated him fairly. He was in the habit of speaking disparagingly of the policy of the party in the treatment of its own friends, and particularly of its young men, especially when he found whig leaders to listen to him. On this occasion he charged the party with being "old fogy- issh," and indifferent to rising men, while the democratic party was lauded for the contrast which it presented in this partie- 7 98 like tiY a:;i:a;iam mncolx. ular. Mr. Lincoln felt the charge as keenly as if it had heen a personal one. Indeed, his own experience disproved the whole statement. Constable went on, and charged the whig party with ingratitude and neglect in his own case. Mr. Lin- coln stood with his coat off, shaving himself before his glass. lie had heard the charges without saying a word, but when Mr. Constable alluded to himself, as having been badly treated, he turned fiercely upon him, and said, " Mr. Constable, I un- derstand you perfectly, and have noticed for some time back that you have been slowly and cautiously picking your way over to the democratic party." Both men were angry, and it required the efforts of all the others present to keep them from fio-htino-. Mr. Lincoln seemed for a time, as one of the spec- tators of the scene remarks, to be " terribly willing." Such instances as this have been very rare in Mr. Lincoln's life, and the fact that he was susceptible to the influence of such motives renders his notorious equanimity of temper all the more cred- itable to him. The matter was adjusted between him and Mr. Constable, and, not long afterwards, the latter justified Mr. Lincoln's interpretation of his motives, and was numbered among the democrats. CHAPTER IX. Ttte political biographers of Mr. Lincoln have stated that in 1840 lie was "induced to accept" the nomination for Congress from the Sangamon district. It has already been seen that he had aspirations for this place ; and it is quite as well to adopt Mr. Lincoln's own frankness and directness, and say that the representatives of his wishes secured the nomination for him. As a party man, he had well earned any honor in the power of his party to bestow. As a man and a politician, his char- acter was so sound and so truly noble that his nomination and election to Congress would be quite as honorable to his dis- trict as to him. Having received the nomination, Mr. Lincoln did after the manner of Western nominees and "stumped" his district. He had abundant material for discussion. During the winter of 1845, Texas was admitted to the Union, and the war with Mexico was commenced. The tariff of 1842, constructed in accordance with the policy of the whig party, had been re- pealed. The country had a foreign war on its hands — a war which the whigs believed to have been unnecessarily begun, and unjustifiably carried on. It had received into the Union a new member in the interest of slavery. It had been greatly disturbed in its industrial interests by the subversion of the protective policy. The issues between the two parties then in the political field were positive and well defined. Mr. Lin- coln's position on all the principal points at issue was that of 100 LIFE OF ABRAIIAM LINCOLN. the whig party, and the party had no reason to be ashamed of its western champion. The eminent popularity of Mr. Lincoln in his own district was shown by the majority he received over that which it had given to Mr. Clay. Although he had made Mr. Clay's cause his own, and had advocated his election with an enthusiasm which no personal object could have excited in him, he re- ceived in his district a majority of one thousand live hundred and eleven votes to the nine hundred and fourteen majority which the district had given Mr. Clay in 1844. He undoubt- edly was supported by more than the strength of his party, for his majority was unprecedented in the district, and has since had no parallel. It was not reached, on a much larger vote, by General Taylor in 1848. There is no question that this remarkable majority was the result of the popular faith in Mr. Lincoln's earnestness, conscientiousness and integrity. He took his seat in the thirtieth Congress, December 6th, 1847, and was from the first entirely at home. He was no novice in politics or legislation. To the latter he had served a thorough apprenticeship in the Illinois legislature. To the study and discussion of the former, he had devoted perhaps the severest efiWts of his life. He understood every phase of the great questions which agitated Congress and divided the people. Unlike many politicians who engage in the harangues of a political canvass, he had made him sell the master of the subjects he discussed. He had been a debater, and not a de- claimer. He had entertained a deeper interest in questions of public concern than he had felt in his own election ; and he was at once recognized as the peer of his associates in the House. He derived considerable prominence from the fact that he was the only whig member from Illinois, a fact almost entirely due to his own presence and influence in the district which elected him. It is noticeable here that Stephen A. Douglas took his seat in the Senate of the United States during this same session. They met first as representatives in the Illinois legislature. Mr. Douglas was the younger, the more adroit, the swifter in LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 101 a political race. He had had with him the large democratic majority of the stale, and had moulded it to his purposes. He had taken a step — perhaps many steps — in advance of Mr. Lincoln; but it seemed destined that the tallest man in the House and the shortest man in the Senate should keep in sight of each other, until the time should come when they should stand out before their own state and the country as the cham- pions respectively of the antagonistic principles and policieu which divided the American people. It is interesting, at the close of a great rebellion, undertaken on behalf of slavery, to look back to this Congress, and see how, in the interests and associations of the old whig party, those men worked in harmony who have since been, or who, if they had lived would have been, so widely separated in feeling and action. John Quincy Adams voted on most ques- tions with Robert Toombs ; George Ashmun, afterwards pres- ident of the convention that nominated Mr. Lincoln for the presidency, with Alexander H. Stephens, afterwards vice- president of the Southern Confederacy ; Jacob Collamer with Thomas Butler King, and Samuel F. Vinton with Henry W. Milliard. History must record that the Mexican war was undertaken in the interest of human slavery; yet, touching the questions arising out of this war, and questions directly associated with or bearing upon it, these men of the old whig partv acted together. The slaveholder then yielded to party what he has since denied to patriotism, and patriotism aban- doned a party which held out to it a constant temptation to complicity with slavery. Mr. Polk, at that time the President of the United States, was evidently anxious to justify the war which he had com- menced against Mexico, and to vindicate his own action before the American people, if not before his own judgment and con- science. His messages to Congress were burdened with this effort ; and Mr. Lincoln had hardly become wonted to his seat when he made an unsuccessful effort to bring the President to a statement of facts, upon which Congress and the country might either verify or falsify his broad and general asseverations. On 102 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. the twenty-second of December, he introduced a series of res- olutions* which, had they been adopted, would have given the President an opportunity to furnish the grounds of his allega- tions, and set himself right before the nation. These resolu- tions are remarkable for their definite statement of the points actually at issue between the administration and the whig party ; but they found no advocates among Air. Polk's friends. Laid over under the rule, they were not called up again by Mr. Lincoln himself, but they formed the thesis of a speech de- livered by him on the following twelfth of January, in which he fully expressed his views on the whole subject. The opposition in this Congress were placed in a very diffi- cult and perplexing position. They hated the war ; they be- * Whereas, The President of the United States, in his message of May 11, 1846, has declared that "the Mexican Government not only re- fused to receive him [the envoy of the United States,] or listen to his propositions, but, after a long continued series of menaces, has at last invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our fellow citizens on our own soil:" And again, in his message of December S, 1846, that "We had ample cause of war against Mexico long before the breaking out of hostilities; but even then we forbore to take redress into our own hands until Mexico herself became the aggressor, by invading our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our citizens:" And yet again, in his message of December 7, 1847, that " The Mex- ican Government refused even to hear the terms of adjustment which he [our minister of peace] was authorized to propose, and finally, under wholly unjustifiable pretexts, involved the two countries in war, by in- vading the territory of the State of Texas, striking the first blow, and shedding the blood of our citizens on our own soil:" and, Whereas, This House is desirous to obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which, go to establish whether the particular spot on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was or was not at that time "our own soil:" therefore, Resolved h>; the House of Representatives, That the President of the- United States be respectfully requested to inform tin's house — 1st. Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution. 2d. Whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 103 lievcd it to have been unnecessarily begun by the act of the United States, and not by th ' .Mexico ; they were accused of being treacherous to the cause and honor of the country because they opposed the war in which the country was engaged ; they felt obliged to vote supplies to the army because it would have been inhuman to do otherwise, yet this act was seized upon by the President to show that hid position touching the war was sustained by them.; they felt compelled to condemn the commander-in-chief of the armies, sitting in the White House, and to vote thanks to the generals who had successfully executed his orders in the field. Men picked their way through these difficulties according to the wisdom given to them. The opposition usually voted together, though there was more or less of division on minor points and matters of policy. 3d. Whether that spot is or is not within a settlement of people, which settlement has existed ever since long before the Texas revolu- tion, and until its inhabitants fled before the approach of the United States army. 4th. Whether that settlement is or is not isolated from any and all other settlements by the Gulf and the Rio Grande on the south and west, and by wide uninhabited regions on the north and east. 5th. Whether the people of that settlement, or a majority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted themselves to the government or laws of Texas or of the United States, by consent or by compulsion, either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying tax, or serv- ing on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any other way. 6th. Whether the people of that .settlement did or did not flee from the approach of the United States army, leaving unprotected their homes and their growing crops, before the blood was shed, as in the mes- sages stated; and whether the first blood, so .shed, was or was not shed within the inclosure of one of the people who had thus fled from it. 7th. Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed, as in his messages declared, were or were not, at that time, armed officers and soldiers, sent into that settlement by the military order of the President, through the Secretary of War. 8th. Whether the military force of the United States was or was not so sent into that settlement after General Taylor had more than once intimated to the War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement was necessary to the defense or protection of Texas. 104 JJi'i; OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Mr. Hudson of Massachus< tts introduced aresolution which covered essentially the question of abandoning the Avar — of restoring everything to the old status. Mr. Lincoln voted to lay this resolution on the table, and, when it came up for adoption, voted against it. The writer finds no record of the reasons for these votes. Whatever they may have been, they seemed good to him ; <*ad he took pains a few days afterward to show that they could not have grown out of any friendship to the war. Indeed, on the very day which saw these votes recorded, he had an opportunity to vote that the war " was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States," in company with nearly all the whig members of the House, southern no less than northern. The same men voted thanks to General Taylor for his brilliant achievements in the war. The speech of Mr. Lincoln on the twelfth of January, in committee of the whole House, was thoroughly characteristic of the author. Simple, direct, exact in its comprehension of the points at issue, without a superfluous word or sentence, aa closely logical as if it were the work of a professor of dialec- tics, it was the ecpial if not the superior of any speech deliv- ered during the session. Mr. Lincoln spoke as follows: "Mr. Chairman: Some, if not all, of the gentlemen on the other side of the House, who have addressed the committee Avithin the last two days, haA'e spoken rather complainingly, if I have rightly under- stood them, of the vote given a Aveek or ten days ago, declaring that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally com- menced by the President. I admit that such a \ r otc should not be given in mere party Avantonness, and that the one given is justly censurable, if it have no other or better foundation. I am one of those who joined in that vote ; and did so under my best impression of the truth of the case. Hoav I got this impression, and Iioav it may possibly be removed, I Avill noAV try to sIioav. When the Avar began, it Avas my opinion that all those who, because of knowing too little, or because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously approve the conduct of the President (in the beginning of it), should, nevertheless, as good citizens and pat- riots, remain silent on that point, at least till the Avar should be ended Some leading Democrats, including ex-President Van Buren,have taken LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 105 this same view, as T understand them; and 1 Ih red to it, and acted upon it. until since 1 took my seal h I bh ak I should still ad- here to it, were it not that the Pre ends will not allow it to be so. Besides the continual effort of the President to argue every silent vote given for supplies into an indorsement of the justice and wisdom of his conduct: besides that singularly candid paragraph in his late message, in which he tells us thai I with great una- nimity (only two in the Senate and fourteen in the House dissenting) had declared that 'by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that Government and the United when the same journals that informed him of this, also informed him that, when that declaration stood disconnected from the question of supplies, sixty- seven in the House, and not fourteen, merely, voted against it; besides this open attempt to prove by telling the truth, what he could not prove by telling the whole truth, demanding of all who will not submit to bo misrepresented, in justice to themselves, to speak out; besides all this, bne of my colleagues [Mr. Richardson], at a very early day in the ses- sion, brought in a set of resolutions, expressly indorsing the original justice of the war on the part of the President. Upon these resolu- tions, when they shall be put on their passage, I shall be compelled to vote ; so that I can not be silent if I would. Seeing this, I went about preparing myself to give the vote understandingly, when it should come. I carefully examined the President's messages, to ascertain what he himself had said and proved upon the point. The result of this examin- ation was to make the impression, that, taking for true all the Presi- dent states as facts, he falls far short of proving his justification; and that the President would have gone further with his proof, if it had not been for the small matter that the truth would not permit him. Under the impression thus made I gave the vote before mentioned. I propose now to give, concisely, the process of the examination I made, and how I reached the conclusion I did. " The President, in his first message of May, IS 40, declares that the soil was ours on which hostilities were commenced by Mexico ; and lie repeats that declaration, almost in the same language, in each successive annual message — thus showing that he esteems that point a highly essential one. In the importance of that point I entirely agree with the President. To my judgment, it is the v upon which he should be justified or condemned. In his message of December, 1846, it seems to have occm^red to him, as is certainly true, that title, owner- ship to soil, or anything else, is not a simple fact, but is a conclusion following one or more simple facts ; and that it was incumbent upon him to present the facts from which he concluded the soil was ours ou which the first blood of the war was shed. " Accordingly, a little below the middle of page twelve, in the mes- 106 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Bage last referred to, he enters upon that task ; forming an issue and introducing testimony, extending the whole to a little below the middle of page fourteen- Now, I propose to try to show that the whole of this — issue and evidence — is, from beginning to end, the sheerest decep- tion. The issue, as he presents it, is in these words : ' But there are those who, conceding all this to be true, assume the ground that the true western boundary of Texas is the Nueces, instead of the Rio Grande; and that, therefore, in marching our ai*my to the east bank of the latter river, we passed the Texan line, and invaded the territory of Mexico.' Now, this issue is made up of two affirmatives and no nega- tive. The main deception of it is, that it assumes as true that one rivei or the other is necessarily the boundary, and cheats the superficial thinker entirely out of the idea that possibly the boundary is somewhere between the two, and not actually at either. A further deception is, that it will let in evidence which a true issue would exclude. A true issue, made by the President, would be about as follows ; ' I say the soil teas ours on which the first blood was shed; there are those who say it was not.' "I now proceed to examine the President's evidence, as applicable to such an issue. When that evidence is analyzed, it is all included in the following propositions : " 1. That the Rio Grande was the western boundary of Louisiana, as we purchased it of France in 1803. "12. That the Republic of Texas always claimed the Rio Grande as her western boundary. " 3. That by various acts, she had claimed it on paper. "4. That Santa Anna, in his treaty with Texas, recognized the Rio Grande as her boundary. "5. That Texas before, and the United States after, annexation, had exercised jurisdiction beyond the Nueces, between the two rivers. " 0. That our Congress understood the boundary of Texas to extend beyond the Nueces. " Now for each of these in its turn : " His first item is, that the Rio Grande was the western boundary of Louisiana, as we purchased it of France in 1803; and, seeming to expect this to be disputed, he argues over the amount of nearly a page to prove it true; at the end of which, he lets us know that, by the treaty of 1819, we sold to Spain the whole country, from the Rio Grande eastward to the Sabine. Now, admitting for the present, that the Rio Grande was the boundary of Louisiana, what, under heaven, had that to do with the present boundary between us and Mexico? How. Mr. Chairman, the line that once divided your land from mine can still be the boundary between us after I have sold my land to you, Ls, to me, beyond all comprehension. And how any man, with an honest LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 107 purpose only of proving the truth, could ever have thought of intro- ducing such a fact to prove such an issue, is equally incomprehensible. T!ie outrage upon common right, oi our own what we have once sold, merely because it was ours bejbn we sold it, is only equaled by the outrage on common sense of any attempt to justify it. "The President's next piece of evidence is, that 'The Republic of Texas always claimed this river (Rio Gr. I boundary.' That is not true, in fact. Texas has claimed it, but she has not always claimed it. There is, at least, one distinguished exception. Her State • Constitution — the p t solemn and well-considered act — that which may, without impropriety, be called her last will and testament, revoking all others — makes no such claim. But suppose she had always claimed it. Has not Mexico always claimed the contrary? So that there is but claim against claim, leaving nothing proved until we get back of the claims, and find which has the better found " Though not in the order in which the President presents his evi- dence, I now consider that class of his statements, which are, in sub- stance, nothing more than that Texas has by various acts of her Con- vention and Congress, claimed the Rio Grande as her boundary — on paper. I mean here what he says about the fixing of the Rio Grande as her boundary, in her old Constitution (not her State Constitution,) about forming congressional districts, counties, etc. Now, all this is but naked claim; and what I have already said about claims is strictly ap- plicable to this. If I should claim your land by word of mouth, that certainly would not make it mine ; and if I were to claim it by a deed which I had made myself, and with which you had nothing to do, the claim would be quite the same in substance, or rather in utter noth- ingness. "I next consider the President's statement that Santa Anna, in his treaty with Texas, recognized the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Texas. Besides the position so often taken that Santa Anna, while a prisoner of war — a captive — could not bind Mexico by a treaty, which I diem conclusive; besides this, I wish to say something in relation to this treaty, so called by the President, with Santa Anna. If any man would like to be amused by a sight at that little thing, which the Presi- dent calls by that big name, he can have it by turning to Niles' Register, volume 50, page 336. And if any one should suppose that Niles' Reg- ister is a curious repository of so mighty a document as a solemn treaty between nations, I can only say that I learned, to a tolerable degree of certainty, by inquiry at the State Department, that the President him- self never saw it anywhere else. By the way, I believe I should not err if I were to declare, that during the first ten years of the existence of that document, it was never by anybody called a treaty; that it was never so called till the President, in his extremity, attempted, by so 108 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. calling it, to wring something from it in justification of himself in con- nection with the Mexican war. It has none of the distinguishing fea- tures of a treaty. It does not call itself a treaty. Santa Anna does not therein assume to bind Mexico ; he assumes only to act as President, Commander-in-chief of the Mexican army and navy; stipulates that the then present hostilities should cease, and that he would not himself take up arms, nor influence the Mexican people to take up arms against Texas, during the existence of the war of independence. He did not recognize the independence of Texas; he did not assume to put an end to the war, but clearly indicated his expectation of its continuance ; he did not say one word about boundary, and most probably never thought of it. It is stipulated therein that the Mexican forces should evacuate the terri- tory of Texas, passing to the other side of the Rio Grande; and in another article it is stipulated, that to prevent collisions between the armies, the Texan army should not approach nearer than within five leagues ■ — of what is not said — but clearly, from the object stated, it is of the Rio Grande. Now, if this is a treaty recognizing the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas, it contains the singular feature of stipulating that Texas shall not go within five leagues of her own boundary. "Next comes the evidence of Texas before annexation, and the United States afterward, exercising jurisdiction beyond the Nueces, and between the two rivers. This actual exercise of jurisdiction is the very class or quality of evidence we want. It is excellent so far as it goes; but does it go far enough? He tells us it went beyond the Nueces, but he does not tell us it went to the Rio Grande. He tells us jurisdiction was exercised between the two rivers, but he does not tell us it was ex- ercised over all the territory between them. Some simple-minded peo- ple think it possible to cross one river and go beyond it, without going all the way to the next ; that jurisdiction may be exercised between two rivers without covering all the country between them. I know a man, not very unlike myself who exercises jurisdiction over a piece of land between the Wabash and the Mississippi ; and yet so far is this from being all there is between those rivers, that it is just one hundred and fifty-two feet long by fifty wide, and no part of it much within a hund- red miles of either. He has a neighbor between him and the Missis- sippi — that is, just across the street, in that direction — whom, I am sure, he could neither persuade nor force to give up his habitation; but which, nevertheless, he could certainly annex, if it were to be done, by merely standing on his own side of the street and claiming it, or even sitting down and writing a deed for it. " But next, the President tells us, the Congress of the United States understood the State of Texas they admitted into the Union to extend beyond the Nueces. Well, I suppose they did — I certainly so understand it — but how far beyond ? That Congress did not understand it to ex- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 109 tend clear to the Rio Grande, is quite certain by the fact of their joint resolutions for admission expressly leaving all questions of boundary to future adjustment. And, it may be added, that Texas herself is proved to have had the same understanding of it that our Congress had, by the fact of the exact conformity of her new Constitution to those resolu- tions. " I am now through the whole of the President's evidence ; and it ia a singular fact, that if any one should declare the President sent the army into the midst of a settlement of Mexican people, who had never submitted, by consent or by force to the authority of Texas or of the United States, and that there, and thereby, the first blood of the war was shed, there is not one word in all the President has said which would cither admit or deny the declaration. In this strange omission chiefly consists the deception of the President's evidence— an omission which, it does seem to me, could scarcely have occurred but by design. My way of living leads me to be about the courts of justice : and there I have some times seen a good lawyer, struggling for his client's neck, in a desperate case, employing every artifice to work round, befog, and cover up with many words some position pressed upon him by the prosecution, which he dared not admit, and yet andd not deny. Party bias may help to make it appear so ; but, with all the allowance I can make for such bias, it still does appear to me that just such, and from just such neces- sity, are the President's struggles in this case. " Some time after my colleague (Mr. Richardson) introduced the resolutions I have mentioned, I introduced a preamble, resolution, and interrogatories, intended to draw the President out, if possible, on this hitherto untrodden ground. To show their relevancy, I propose to state my understanding of the true rule for ascertaining the boundary be- tween Texas and Mexico. It is, that xchercver Texas was exercising ju- risdiction was hers ; and wherever Mexico was exercising jurisdiction was hers ; and that whatever separated the actual exercise of jurisdic- tion of the one from that of the other, was the true boundary between them. if. as is probably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, then neither river Avas the boundary, but the uninhabited country between the two was. The extent of our territory in that region depended not on any treaty- fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it), but on revolution. Any people a-nywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize, 110 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws ; but to break up both, and make new ones. As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 1803. and 6old it to Spain in 1S19, according to the President's statement. After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution, by obtaining the actum, willing or unwilling submission of the people, so far the country Avas hers, and no further. " Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very best evidence as to whether Texas had actually carried her revolution to the place where the hostilities of the present war commenced, let the President answer the interrogatories I proposed, as before mentioned, or some other simi- lar ones. Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with fads, and not with arguments. Let him remember lie sits where Washington sat: and, so remembering, let him answer as Washington would answer. As a nation shouh} not, and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation. And if, so an- swering, he can show that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed — that it was not within an inhabited country, or, if within such, that the inhabitants had submitted themselves to the civil author- ity of Texas, or of the United States, and that the same is true of the site of Fort Brown — then I am with him for his justification. In that case, I shall be most happy to reverse the vote I gave the other day. .1 have a selfish motive for desiring that the President may do this , 1 ex- pect to give some votes, in connection with the war, which, without his so doing, will be of doubtful propriety, in my own judgment, but which will be free from the doubt, if he does so. But if he can nut or trill not do this — if, on any pretense, or no pretense, he shall refuse or omit it — then I shall be fully convinced, of what 1 more than suspect already, that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong : that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to heaven against him ; that he ordered General Taylor into the midst of a peaceful Mexi- can settlement, purposely to bring on a war; that originally having some strong motive — what I will not stop now to give my opinion concern- ing — to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory — that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood — that serpent's eye that charms to destroy — he plunged into it, and has swept on "and on, till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself he knows not LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Ill where. How like the half insane mumbling of a fever dream is the whole war part of the late mes age ! At one time telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever that we can get but territory; at another, show- ing us how we can support the war by levying contributions on Mexico. At one time hrging the national honor, the security of the future, tho prevention of foreign interference, and even the good of Mexico herself, as among the objects of the war; at another, telling us that, 'to reject indemnity by refusing to accept a cession of territory, would be to abandon all our just demands, and to wage the war, bearing all its ex- penses, without, a purpose or definite object.' So, then, the national honor, security of the future, and everything but territorial indemnity, may he considered the no purposes and indefinite objects of the war! But hav- ing it now settled that territorial indemnity is the only object, we are urged to seize, by legislation here, all that he was content to take a few months ago, and the whole province of Lower California to boot, and to still carry on the war — to take all we are fighting for, and still fight on Again, the President is resolved, under all circumstances, to have full territorial indemnity for the-expenses of the war; but he forgets to tell us how we are to get the excess after those expenses shall have sur- passed the value of the whole of the Mexican territory. So, again, he insists that the separate national existence of Mexico shall be main- tained ; but he does not tell us how this can be done after we shall have taken all her territory. Lest the questions I here suggest be considered speculative merely, let me be indulged a moment in trying to show they are not. "The war has gone on some twenty months, for the expenses of which, together with an inconsiderable old score, the President now claims about one half of the Mexican territory, and that by far the better half, so far as concerns our ability to make anything out of it. It is comparatively uninhabited; so that we could establish land offices in it, and raise some money in that way. -But the other half is already inhabited, as I understand it, tolerably densely for the nature of the country ; and all its lands, or all that are valuable, already appropriated ar, private property. How, then, are we to make anything out of these lands with this incumbrance on them, or how remove the incumbrance? I suppose no one will say we should kill the people, or drive them out, or make slaves of them, or even confiscate their property? How, then, can we make much out of this part of the territory? If the prosecution of the war has, in expenses, already equaled the better half of the country, how long its future prosecution will be in equaling the less valuable half is not a speculative but a practical question, pressing closely upon us , and yet it is a question which the President seems never to have thought of. "As to the mode of terminating the war and securing peace, the 112 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. President is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the en- emy's country; and, after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half despairing tone, and tells us, that 'with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes, by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to obtain a satisfactory peace.' Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the Mexican people to desert the counsels of their own leaders, and, trusting in our protection, to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace, telling us that 'this may become the only mode of obtaining such a peace. But soon he falls into doubt of this too, and then drops back on to the already half-abandoned ground of 'more vigorous prosecution/ All this shows that the President is in no wise satisfied with his own po- sitions. First, he takes up one, and, in attempting to argue us into it, he argues himself out of it; then seizes another, and goes through the same process; and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease. " Again, it is a singular omission in this message, that it nowhere in- timates when the President expects the war to terminate. At its begin- ning, General Scott was, by this same President, driven into disfavor, if not disgrace, for intimating that peace could not be conquered in less than three or four months. But now at the end of about twenty months, during which time our arms have given us the most splendid successes — every department, and every part, land and water, officers and privates, regulars and volunteers, doing all that men could do, and hundreds of things which it had ever before been thought that men could not do; after all this, this same President gives us a long message without showing us that, as to the end, he has himself even an imaginary conception. As I have before said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably-perplexed men. God grant he may be able to show that there is not something about his.conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity." With this speech on record, it is strange that the genuine literary abilities of the man were so long and so persistently ignored by literary people. There were men who voted for him for the presidency more than twelve years afterwards — twelve years of culture and development to him — who were surprised to find his messages grammatically constructed, and LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 113 who suspected the intervention of a secretary whenever any touch of elegance appeared in his writings. Mr. Lincoln had a position on the Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads, and, from the knowledge in his possession, felt called upon a few days previous to the speech on the war to expose a difficulty between the Postmaster-general and a transportation company, anxious to get the "Great Southern Mail" contract, and to get a better contract than the depart- ment had offered. The matter had excited some interest in Congress, and Mr. Lincoln showed a faithful study of the facts of the case in his speech and his freedom from any party feeling in the matter, by supporting the position of the Post- master-general. On the 1st of June, 1848, the National Whig Convention met at Philadelphia to nominate a candidate for the presidency, and Mr. Lincoln was among its members. Mr. Polk, by his war with Mexico, had been engaged, much against his incli- nations, in manufacturing available if not able candidates for his own place, two of whom afterwards achieved it. General Taylor had become a hero. The brilliancy of his victories and the modesty of his dispatches had awakened in his behalf the enthusiastic admiration of the American people, without distinction of party. He was claimed by the whigs as a member of that party, and regarded by them as the one man in the Union by whose popularity they might hope to win the power they coveted. The majority would doubtless have pre- ferred Mr. Clay, but Mr. Clay had been their candidate, and had been beaten. Mr. Lincoln would have been glad to sup- port Mr. Clay, it is not doubted, but he shared in the feeling of the majority concerning his " availability/' It is possible that his visit to Mr. Clay, and its unsatisfactory results, already alluded to, had somewhat blunted his devotion and subdued his enthusiasm on behalf of the great chieftain. Certain it is that he was among those who believed that General Taylor and not Mr. Clay should be the nominee of his party. Congress had continued its session into the summer, either for purposes of business, or with the design to control the 8 114 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. nominating conventions, and do something to direct the cam- paign , and when the nominations were made it did according to its custom, and immediately commenced the campaign in a series of speeches About two months after General Taylor was nominated, (July twenty-seventh,) Mr. Lincoln secured the floor, and made a speech concerning the points at issue between the two parties, and the merits of the respective candidates, General Cass having received the nomination of the democratic party. It was a telling, trenchant talk, rather than a speech — more like one of his stump orations in Illinois than like his previous efforts in the House. As a campaign harangue, touching the salient features of the principal ques- tions in debate, and revealing the weak points of one candidate and the strong points of the other, it could not have been im- proved. Considered as a part of the business which he was sent to Washington to perform, it was execrable. He did what others did, and what his partisan supporters expected him to do ; but his own sense of propriety must have suggest- ed to him, or ought to have suggested to him if it did not, the indecency of the practice of president-making in Congress. In the light of subsequent events, the speech contains some passages that are very curious and suggestive. In revealing the position and policy of General Taylor in 1848, he was unconsciously marking out his own in 1860 and 1864. Gen- eral Taylor, in a letter to Mr. Allison, had said, "upon the subject of the tariff, the currency, the improvement of our great highways, rivers, lakes and harbors, the will of the people, as expressed through their representatives in Congress, ought to be respected and carried out by the executive." Mr. Lincoln, in remarking upon this, said: "The people say to General Taylor, 'if you are elected, shall we have a national bank ? ' He answers, ' Your will, gentlemen, not mine.' 'What about the tariff?' 'Say yourselves.' 'Shall our riv- ers and harbors be improved?' ' Just as you please. If you desire a bank, an alteration of the tariff, internal improve- ments, any or all, I will not hinder you ; if you do not desire them, I will not attempt to force them on you. Send up your LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 115 members of Qbngress from the various districts, with opinions according to your own, and if they are for these measures, or any of them, I shall have nothing to oppose; if they arc not for them, I shall not, by any appliances whatever, attempt to dragoon them into their adoption.'" From this point Mr. Lincoln went on to show in what respect a president is a representative of the people. He said: "In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he is a representative of the people. He is elected by them as Congress is. But can he, in the na- ture of things, know the wants of the people as Avell as three hundred other men coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a Congress?" There is much in this exposition of General Taylor's posi- tion to remind us of that upon which the speaker himself subsequently stood, when invested with the powers of the chief magistracy. Mr. Lincoln's dissection of General Cass' position upon the questions of the canvass, was effected with characteristic neat- ness and thoroughness. Alluding to the subject of internal improvements Mr. Lincoln said, "My internal improvement colleague (Mr. Wentworth) stated on this floor the other day that he was satisfied Cass was for improvements because that he had voted for all the bills that he (AVentworth) had. So far, so good. But Mr. Polk vetoed some of these very bills; the Baltimore Convention passed a set of resolutions anion o- other things approving these vetoes, and Cass declares in his letter accepting the nomination that he has carefully read these resolutions, and that he adheres to them as firmly as he ap- proves them cordially. In other words, General Cass voted for the bills, and thinks the President did right to veto them ; and his friends here are amiable enough to consider him as being one side or the other, just as one or the other may correspond with their own respective inclinations. My col- league admits that the platform declares against the constitu- tionality of a general system of improvements, and that Gen- eral Cass indorses the platform, but he still thinks General Cass is in favor of some sort of improvements. "Well, what 116 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". arc tlicy? As he is against general objects, those he is for must be particular and local. Now this is taking the subject precisely by the wrang end. Particularity — expending the money of the -whole people for an object which will benefit only a portion of them — is the greatest real objection to im- provements, and has been so held by General Jackson, Mr. Polk, and all others, I believe, till now." Certainly this was a very logical exposition of General Cass on internal improve- ments; and the charge of double dealing or gross inconsist- ency which it involved was unansAverable. Mr. Lincoln tried his powers of ridicule on General Cass on this occasion. One of his palpable hits has already been quoted in connection with the history of Mr. Lincoln's par- ticipation in the Black Hawk war, in which he draws a par- allel between his own bloodless experiences and those of the democratic candidate. Quoting extracts to show how General Cass had vacillated in his action on the "Wilmot Proviso, he added, " These extracts show that in 1846 General Cass was for the Proviso at once, that in March, 1847, he was still for it, but not just then ; and that in December he was against it altogether. This is a true index to the whole man. "When the question was raised in 1846, he was in a blustering hurry to take ground for it, * * * but soon he began to see glimpses of the great democratic ox-gad waving in his face, and to hear indistinctly, a voice saying, ' back ! back, sir ! back a little!' lie shakes his head, and bats his eyes, and blunders back to his position of March, 1847 ; but still the gad waves, and the voice grows more distinct and sharper still — 'back, sir ! back, I say ! further back ! ' and back he goes to the ]K>sition of December, 1847 ; at which the gad is still, and the voice soothingly says — ' so ! stand still at that ! ' ' The homely illustration, culled from his early experiences, was certainly forcible, if not elegant. In this political canvass, the whigs found themselves nearly as much perplexed in the treatment of the Mexican war as they had been in Congi'ess. They had selected as their can- didate a man whose reputation had been made by the success- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 117 fill prosecution of ;i Avar which they had opposed. They were charged, of course, with inconsistency by their oppo- nents, and were placed in the awkward position of being obliged to draw nice distinctions. It is possible that they de- served the embarrassment from which they suffered. General Taylor had, beyond dispute, been nominated because he was a military hero, and not because he had any natural or ac- quired fitness for the presidency. The war had made him ; and the whigs had seized upon this product of the Avar as an instrument by which they might acquire power. Mr. Lincoln alluded to this in his speech, but showed that while the whigs had believed the Avar to be unnecessarily and unconstitution- ally begun, they had voted supplies, and sent their men. "Through suffering and death," said he, "by disease and in battle, they have endured, and fought, and fallen with you. Clay and Webster each gave a son, never to be returned. From the state of my own residence, besides other worthy but less knoAvn whig names, avc sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker and Hardin ; they all fought, and one fell, and in the fall of that one Ave lost our best Avhig man. Nor Avere the whigs few in numbers, or laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, Avhere each man's hard task was to beat back five foes, or die him- self, of the five high officers avIio perished, four Avere whigs." With an allusion to the distinction betAveen the cause of the President in beginning the Avar, and the cause of the country after it Avas begun, Mr. Lincoln closed his speech. During the time these presidential discussions Avere o-oinor on in Congress, Mr. Lincoln Avas in close communication with the Avhig leaders in Illinois, laying out the Avork of the can- vass, and trying to convert the active men of the party to his OAvn ideas of sound policy in the conduct of the campaign. Indeed, he began this Avork before General Taylor AA r as nomi- nated, under the evident conviction that he would be the can- didate, and the strong desire that he should be. As early in the year as February tAventieth, he Avrote a letter to U. F. Linder, a prominent whig orator of Illinois, on this subject. 113 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. It betrays the perplexity to which more than one allusion has been made, of the whigs at the time. Mr. Lineoln says, in this letter, " In law, it is good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you cannot. Reflect on this well before you proceed. The application I mean to make of this rule is that you should simply go for General Taylor, because you can take some democrats and lose no whigs ; but if you go also for Mr. Polk, on the origin and mode of prosecuting the war, you will still take some democrats, but you will lose more whigs, so that, in the sum of the operation, you will be loser. This is, at least, my opin- ion ; and if you will look around, 1 doubt if you do not dis- cover such to be the fact among your own neighbors. Fur- ther than this : by justifying Mr. Polk's mode of prosecuting the war, you put yourself in opposition to General Taylor himself, for we all know he has declared for, and, in fact, originated, the defensive line policy." In this letter, Mr. Lincoln talks like a politician (and he was one of the most acute that the country ever produced,) to a politician. It looks as if he were handling grave ques- tions of state with reference only to party ends ; but the letter does not represent him wholly. In a subsequent note to the same friend, in answer to the question whether " it would not be just as easy to elect General Taylor without opposing the war, as by opposing it," he replies: "the locofocos here will not let the whigs be silent, * * * so that they are compelled to speak, and their only option is whether they will, when they speak, tell the truth, or tell a foul, villainous and bloody falsehood." In this declaration, the politician sinks, and the man rises, and seems to be what he really is — honest and conscientious On the fourteenth day of August, the first session of the Thirtieth Congress came to a close, and the members went home to continue and complete the campaign which they had inaugurated at Washington. The session had been one of strong excitements, particular interest attaching to every im- portant debate in consequence of its bearing upon the question LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 119 of the presidency. Mr. Lincoln had discharged his duties well — ably and conscientiously, at least. He found to his re- gret that he had not entirely pleased his constituents in his course on the questions connected with the war. It is probable that he could have secured a renomination had he himself been willing to risk the result. That a man with his desire for public life would willingly retire from ( longress at the end of a single term of service is not probable; and while it has been said that he peremptorily refused to be again considered a candidate, on account of his desire to engage more exclusively in the duties of his profession, it is not credible that this was his only motive.* Indeed, there is evidence that he sought another office, in consequence of the fact that his professional business had suffered so severely by his absence that he would have been glad to quit it altogether. lie was in no hurry to return to it, certainly, for at the close of the session, he visited New England, and made a number of very effective campaign speeches, and then went home, and devoted his time to the canvass for the election of General Taylor until he had the satisfaction of witnessing the triumph of his candidate, and the national success of the party to whose fortunes he had been so long and so warmly devoted. In his own district, Mr. Lincoln helped to give General Taylor a majority nearly equal to that by which he had been elected to Congress. The general result of the election brought to him great satisfaction. It justified his own judgment touch- ing the candidate's availability, and promised a return to the policy which he believed essential to the welfare of the country. But little time was left between the close of the canvass and the commencement of the second session, so that Mr. Lincoln had no more than sufficient space for the transaction of his personal business at home, before he was obliged to take his departure again for Washington. The second session of this Congress was comparatively a * Mr. Scripps, in his campaign biography, says that his refusal to be again a candidate, Avas in accordance with an understanding with the leading whigs of his district before his election. 120 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. quiet one. Several months had elapsed since the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had ratified peace between the United States and Mexico, the presidential campaign had transpired, and the national political caldron had ceased to boil. Mr. Lincoln carried into this session the anti-slavery record of an anti-slavery whig. He had voted forty-two times for the Wilmot Proviso, had stood firmly by John Quincy Adams and Joshua R. Giddings on the right of petition, and, was recognized as a man who would do as much in opposition to slavery as his constitutional obligations would permit him to do. Early in the session, Mr. Gott of New York introduced a resolution instructing the Committee on the District of Co- ts lumbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave trade in the Dis- trict. The language of the preamble upon which the l-esolu- tion was based was very strong, and doubtless seemed to Mr. Lincoln unnecessarily offensive ; and we find him voting with the pro-slavery men of the House to lay it on the table, and subsequently voting against its adoption. He had probably been maturin" > a measure which he intended should cover the same ground, in another way, and on the sixteenth of January he introduced a substitute for this resolution, which had been carried along under a motion to reconsider. It provided that no person not within the District, and no person thereafter born within the District, should be held to slavery within the District, or held to slavery without its limits, while it provided that those holding slaves in the slave states might bring them in and take them out again, when visiting the District on public business. It also provided for the emancipation of all the slaves legally held within the District, at the will of their masters, who could claim their full value at the hands of the government, and that the act itself should be subject to the approval of the voters of the District. The bill had also a provision, " that the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits," should be " empowered and required to provide active and efficient means to arrest and deliver up to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into said District." LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 121 If any evidence were needed to establish the fact that Mr. Lincoln regarded slaves as property under the Constitution, this bill would seem to furnish ;dl that is desired. If he did not SO regard them, this bill convicts him of* friendliness rather than enmity to slavery. If he did not so regard them, his whole record relating to slavery was a record of duplicity. Mr. Lincoln's character as an anti-slavery man can have no consistency on any basis except that of his firm belief that slaves were recognized as property under the' Constitution of the United States; and those who impute to him the opposite opinion, or action based upon the opposite opinion, inflict a wrong upon his memory.* He recognized slaves as property not only in Congress, but on the stump and even in his busi- ness. He was once employed by General Mattcson of Bour- bon County, Kentucky, who had brought five or six negroes into Coles County, Illinois, and worked them on a farm for two or three years, to get them out of the hands of the civil authorities, which had interfered to keep him from taking them back to Kentucky. Judge Wilson and Judge Treat, both of the Supreme Court, sat on the case, and decided against the claim of the slaveholder, as presented by Mr. Lincoln. It is remembered that he made a very poor plea, and exercised a good deal of research in presenting the authorities for and against, and that all his sympathies were on the side of the slaves, but such a man as Mr. Lincoln would never have con- sented to act on this case if he had not believed that slaves were recognized as property by the Constitution. It is true that in a speech delivered afterwards, during the famous Doug- las campaign, he denied the statement made by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision, that " the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitu- tion;" but 1 there was to him, and there is in fact, a great dif- ference between a distinct and express affirmation, and a real though it may be qnly a tacit recognition of property in a slave. Slavery was to him legally right and morally wrong. *" His vote is recorded against the pretence that slaves were property under the Constitution." — Charles Sumner's Eulogy at Boston, June 1, 1865. 12J LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. He was equally loyal to the Constitution and loving to his kind; and when the time came which gave him the privilege of striking off the fetters of the slave, in order to preserve his country and its Constitution, he did it, and counted the act the crowning one of his life. Mr. Lincoln did not bring his hill forward without consul- tation. Mr. Seaton, of the National Intelligencer, is under- stood to have been most in his confidence ; and Mr. Lincoln said, on presenting his bill to the House, that he was author- ized to say that, of about fifteen of the leading citizens of the District to whom the proposition had been submitted, there was not one who did not give it his approval. A substitute for the bill was moved, and finally the whole subject was given up, and left to take its place among the unfinished business of the Congress. The reason for this is reported to have been Mr. Seaton's withdrawal from .the support of the plan ; and Mr. Seaton's withdrawal from the support of the plan is said to have been owing to the visits and expostulations of members of Congress from the slave states. Mr. Lincoln could hope to do nothing without the approval of the voters of the District, and to secure this approval he must secure the support of the National Intelligencer. That taken from his scheme, he took no further interest in pursuing it. Mr. Lincoln had other occasions, during the session, to re- cord his votes against slavery, in his own moderate way — al- ways moved by his humanity and his love of that which was morally right, and withheld and controlled by his obligations to the Constitution and the law, as he apprehended those ob- ligations. The fourth of March brought his Congressional career to a close. While he had maintained a most respectable position in the House, there is no reason to believe that he made any great impression upon legislation, or upon the mind of the country. His highest honors were to be won in another field, for which his two years in the House were in part a prepara- tion. After his return to Springfield, he found his practice dissipated. He saw that he should be obliged to begin again. LIFE 01' ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 123 Business, for the time, had taken new channels, as it never fails to do in like eases. The charms of the old life in Wash- ington came back to him, and he was ready to take an office. lie had a fancy that he would like to be Commissioner of the General Land Office, and Mr. Defrees, now the superintendent of public printing at Washington, and then the editor of the Indiana State Journal, wrote an extended article,' urging his appointment, and published it in that newspaper. The effort miscarried, very much to Mr. Lincoln's and the country's ad- vantage ; and Mr. Butterfield of Illinois secured the coveted place. The unsuccessful application for this appointment was subsequently a theme of much merriment between Mr. Lin- coln and his friends. CHAPTER X. On returning to his home, Mr. Lincoln entered upon the duties of his profession, and devoted himself to them through a series of years, less disturbed by diversions into state and national politics than he had been during any previous period of his business life. It was to him a time of rest, of reading, of social happiness and of professional prosperity. He was already a father, and took an almost unbounded pleasure in his children.* Their sweet young natures were to him a perpetual source of delight. He was never impatient with their petulance and restlessness, loved always to be with them, and took them into his heart with a fondness which was un- speakable. It was a fondness so tender and profound as to blind him to their imperfections, and to expel from him every particle of sternness in his management of them. It must be said that he had very little of Avhat is called parental govern- ment. The most that he could say to any little rebel in his household was, "you break my heart, when you act like this ; " and the loving eyes and affectionate voice and sincere expres- *Mr. Lincoln had fonr children, all sons, viz: Robert Todd, Edwards, who died in infancy, William, who died in Washington during Mr. Lin- coln's presidency, and Thomas. The oldest and youngest survive. The latter became the pet of the White House, and is known to the country as " Tad." This nickname was conferred by his father who, while Thomas was an infant in arms, and without a name, playfully called him " Tadpole." This was abbreviated to the pet name which he will probably never outlive. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 125 sion of pain were usually enough to bring the culprit to hia senses and his obedience. A young man bred in Springfield speaks of a vision that has clung to his memory very vividly, of Mr. Lincoln as he appeared in those days. I lis way to school led by the lawyer's door. On almost any fair summer morning, he could find Mr. Lincoln on the sidewalk, in front of his house, drawing a child backward and forward, in a child's gig. Without hat or coat, and wearing a pair of rough shoes, his hands behind him holding to the tongue of the gig, and his tall form bent forward to aecommodate himself to the service, he paced up and down the walk, forgetful of every- thing around him, and intent only on some subject that ab- sorbed his mind. The young man says he remembers won- dering, in his boyish way, how so rough and plain a man should happen to live in so respectable a house. The habit of mental absorption — absent mintledness, as it is called — was common with him always, but particularly during the formative periods of his life. The New Salem people, it will be remembered, thought him crazy, because he passed his best friends in the street without seeing them. At the table, in his own family, he often sat down without knowing or real- izing where he was, and ate his food mechanically. When he "came to himself," it was a trick with him to break the silence by the quotation of some verse of poetry from a favor- ite author. It relieved the awkwardness of " the situation," served as a blind to the thoughts which had possessed him, and started conversation in a channel that led as far as possi- ble from the subject that he had set aside. Mr. Lincoln's lack of early advantages and the limited character of his education were constant subjects of regret with him. His intercourse with members of Congress and with the cultivated society of Washington had, without doubt, made him feel his deficiencies more keenly than ever before. There is no doubt that his successes were a constant surprise to him. lie felt that his acquisitions were very humble, and that the estimate which the public placed upon him was, in some respects, a blind and mistaken one. It was at this period 12G LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. that he undertook to improve himself somewhat by attention to mathematics, and actually mastered the first six books of Euclid. In speaking of" this new acquisition to a friend, he said that, in debates, he had frequently heard the word "dem- onstration" used, and he determined to ascertain for himself what it meant. After his mastery of geometry, he had no further uncertainty on the subject. Allusion has been made to Mr. Lincoln's mechanical genius. That he had enough of this to make him a good mechanics, there is no doubt. "With such rude tools as were at his com- mand he had made cabins and flat-boats ; and after his mind had become absorbed in public and professional affairs he often recurred to his mechanical dreams for amusement. One of his dreams took form, and he endeavored to make a practical matter of it. He had had experience in the early navigation of the "Western rivers. One of the most serious hinderances to this navigation was low "water, and the lodgment of the various craft on the shifting shoals and bars with which these rivers abound. lie undertook to contrive an apparatus which, folded to the hull of a boat like a bellows, might be inflated on occasion, and, by its levity, lift it over any obstruction upon which it might rest. On this contrivance, illustrated by a model whittled out by himself, and now preserved in the patent office at "Washington, he secured letters patent ; but it is certain that the navigation of the "Western rivers was not revolution- ized by it. Mr. Lincoln never made his profession lucrative to himself. It was very difficult for him to charge a heavy fee to anybody, and still more difficult for him to charge his friends anything at all for professional services. To a poor client, he was quite as apt to give money as to take it from him. He never en- couraged the spirit of litigation. Henry McIIcnry, one of his old clients, says that he went to Mr. Lincoln with a case to pros- ecute, and that Mr. Lincoln refused to have anything to do with it, because he was not strictly in the right. " You can give the other party a great deal of trouble," said the lawyer, " and perhaps beat him, but you had better let the suit alone." LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 127 Mr. Lincoln had on hand a ease for this same gentleman for three years, and took it through three courts to the Supreme Court, and charged him for his services only seventy-five dol- lars His wants were nor large. He had no expensive vices, took no delight in fine clothing, and had no strong desire to accumulate money. Indeed, alter all his years of practice, wind: closed only with his election to the presidency, he had accumulated, as the sum total of all his gold and goods, only the estimated value of sixteen thousand dollars. Some incidents illustrating his practice, and the motives which controlled him in it, may with propriety be stated here, although they are not all of them associated with this period of his life. An old woman of seventy-five years, the widow of a revolutionary pensioner, came tottering into his office one day, and, taking a seat, told him that a certain pension agent had charged her the exorbitant fee of two hundred dollars for collecting her claim. Mr. Lincoki was satisfied by her repre- sentations that she had been swindled, and finding that she was not a resident of the town, and that she was poor, gave her money, and set about the work of procuring restitution. He immediately entered suit against the agent to recover a portion of his ill-gotten money. The suit was entirely suc- cessful, and Mr. Lincoln's address to the jury before which the case was tried is remembered to have been peculiarly touching in its allusions to the poverty of the widow, and the patriotism of the husband ■ she had sacrificed to secure the nation's independence. He had the gratification of paying back to her a hundred dollars, and sending her home rejoicing. One afternoon an old negro woman came into the office of Lincoln & Herndon,* and told the story of her trouble, to which both lawyers listened. It appeared that she and her offspring were born slaves in Kentucky, and that her owner, one Hinkle, had brought the whole family into Illinois, and given them their freedom. Her son had gone down the Mississippi as a waiter or deck hand, on a steamboat. Arriv- * William II. Herndon, who became Mr. Lincoln's partner after ho dissolved his association with Judge Logan. 128 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ino- at New Orleans, he had imprudently gone ashore, and had been snatched up by the police, in accordance with the law then in force concerning free negroes from other states, and thrown into confinement. Subsequently, he was brought out and tried. Of course he was fined, and, the boat having left, he was sold, or was in immediate danger of being sold, to pay his fine and the expenses. Mr. Lincoln was very much moved, and requested Mr. Herndon to go over to the State House, and inquire of Governor Bissell if there was not something that he could do to obtain possession of the negro. Mr. Herndon made the inquiry, and returned with the report that the Governor regretted to say that he had no legal or constitutional right to do anything in the premises. Mr. Lincoln rose to his feet in great excitement, and exclaimed, " By the Almighty, I '11 have that negro back soon, or I "11 have a twenty years' agitation in Illinois, until the Governor does have a legal and constitutional right to do something in the premises." He was saved from the latter alternative — at least in the direct form which he proposed. The lawyers sent money to a New Orleans correspondent — money of their OAvn — who procured the negro, and returned him to his mother. Mr. Lincoln's early athletic struggle with Jack Armstrong, the representative man of the " Clary's Grove Boys," will be remembered. From the moment of this struggle, which Jack agreed to call " a drawn battle," in consequence of his own foul play, they became strong friends. Jack would fight for Mr. Lincoln at any time, and would never hear him spoken against. Indeed, there were times when young Lincoln made Jack's cabin his home, and here Mrs. Armstrong, a most womanly person, learned to respect the rising man. There was no service to which she did not make her guest abund- antly welcome, and he never ceased to feel the tenderest grat- itude for her kindness. At length, her husband died, and she became dependent upon her sons. The oldest of these, while in attendance upon a camp-meeting, found himself involved in a melee, which resulted in the death of a young man ; and young Armstrong was charged by one of his associates with LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 129 striking the fatal blow. lie was arrested, examined, and im- prisoned to await his trial. The public mind was in a blaze of excitement, and interested parties fed the flame. Mr. Lin- coln knew nothing of the merits of this case, that is certain. He only knew that his old friend Mrs. Armstrong was in son' trouble; and he sat down at once, and volunteered by letter to defend her son. His first act was to procure the postpone- ment and a change of the place of the trial. There was too much fever in the minds of the immediate public to permit of fair treatment. When the trial came on, the case looked very hopeless to all but Mr. Lincoln, who had assured himself that the young man was not guilty. The evidence on behalf of the state being all in, and looking like a solid and consistent mass of testimony against the prisoner, Mr. Lincoln undertook the task of analyzing and destroying it, which he did in a manner that surprised every one. The principal witness test- ified that " by the aid of the brightly shining moon, he saw the prisoner inflict the death blow with a slung shot." Mr. Lincoln proved by the almanac that there was no moon shining at the time. The mass of testimony against the prisoner melted away, until "not guilty" was the verdict of every man present in the crowded court-room. There is, of course, no record of the plea made on this occasion, but it is remembered as one in which Mr. Lincoln made an appeal to the sympathies of the jury which quite surpassed his usual efforts of the kind, and melted all to tears. The jury were out but half an hour, when they returned with their verdict of "not guilty." The widow fainted in the arms of her son, who divided his atten- tion between his services to her and his thanks to his deliverer. And thus the kind woman who eared for the poor young man, and showed herself a mother to him in his need, received the life of a son, saved from a cruel conspiracy, as her reward, from the hand of her grateful beneficiary. The lawyers of Springfield, particularly those who had political aspirations, were afraid to undertake the defense of any one who had been engaged in helping off fugitive slaves. It was a very unpopular business in those days and in that lo- 9 130 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. cality; and few felt that they could afford to engage in it. One who needed such aid went to Edward D. Baker, and was refused defense distinctly and frankly, on the ground that, as a political man, he could not afford it. The man ap- plied to an ardent anti-slavery friend for advice. He spoke of Mr. Lincoln, and said, " He 's not afraid of an unpopular case. When I go for a lawyer to defend an arrested fugitive slave, other lawyers will refuse me, but if Mr. Lincoln is at home, he will always take my case." A sheep-grower sold a number of sheep at a stipulated av- erage price. When he delivered the animals, he delivered many lambs, or sheep too young to come fairly within the terms of the contract. He was sued for damages by the injured party, and Mr. Lincoln was his attorney. At the trial, the facts as to the character of the sheep delivered were proved, and several witnesses testified as to the usage by which all under a certain age were regarded as lambs, and of inferior value. Mr. Lincoln, on comprehending the facts, at once changed his line of effort, and confined himself to ascertaining the real number of inferior sheep delivered. On addressing the jury, he said that from the facts proved they must give a verdict against his client, and he only asked their scrutiny as to the actual damage suffered. In another case, Mr. Lincoln was conducting a suit against a railroad company. Judgment having been given in his fa- vor, and the court being about to allow the amount claimed by him, deducting a proved and allowed offset, he rose and stated that his opponents had not proved all that was justly due them in offset ; and proceeded to state and allow a further sum against his client, which the court allowed in its judg- ment. His desire for the establishment of exact justice always overcame his own selfish love of victory, as well as his partial- ity for his clients' feelings and interests. These incidents sufficiently illustrate the humane feelings and thorough honesty which Mr. Lincoln carried into the practice of his profession, and, as allusion has already been made to the high estimate placed by the people upon his ability as a LIFE OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 131 lawyer, it will be proper to record here the high opinion of his professional merits entertained by the most eminent represen- tatives of the bar of Illinois. His death in 1865 was, in ac- cordance with usage, made the subject of notice by the various courts of the state. The Supreme Court in session at Ottawa, received a series of resolutions from the bar, which were placed upon its records. Ex-Judge Caton, in presenting them, said, " He (Mr. Lincoln) understood the relations of things, and hence his deductions were rarely wrong, from any given state of facts. So he applied the principles of law to the transactions of men with great clearness and precision. He was a close reasoner. He reasoned by analogy, and enforced his views by apt illustration. His mode of speaking was gen- erally of a plain and unimpassioned character, and yet, he was the author of some of the most beautiful and eloquent passages in our lansniasce, which, if collected, would form a valuable contribution to American literature. The most punctilious honor ever marked his professional and private life." Judge Breese, in responding to the resolutions and the re- marks of Judge Caton, was still more outspoken in his high opinion of Mr. Lincoln, as a lawyer. " For my single self," he said, " I have for a quarter of a century regarded Mr. Lincoln as the finest lawyer I ever knew, and of a professional bearing so high-toned and honorable as justly, and without derogating from the claims of others, entitling him to be pre- sented to the profession as a model well worthy of the closest imitation.'-' Judge Thomas Drummond of Chicago, repre- senting the bar of that city, said, " I have no hesitation in saying that he was one of the ablest lawyers I have ever known." In addition, he said, " no intelligent man who ever watched Mr. Lincoln through a hard-contested case at the bar, questioned his great ability." Judge Drummond's pic- ture of Mr. Lincoln at the bar, and his mode of speech and action is so graphic and so just that it deserves to be quoted : " With a voice by no means pleasant, and, indeed, when excited, in its shrill tones, sometimes almost disagreeable ; without any of the personal graces of the orator; without much in the outward man indicating supe- 132 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. riority of intellect ; without great quickness of perception — still, his mind was so vigorous, his comprehension so exact and clear, and his judgment so sure, that he easily mastered the intricacies of his profession, and became one of the ablest reasoners and most impressive speakers at our bar. With a probity of character known of all, with an intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness of statement which was itself an argument, with uncommon power and felicity of illustration, — often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind, — and with that sincerity and earn- estness of manner which carried conviction, he was, perhaps, one of the most successfid jury lawyers we have ever had in the state. He always tried a case fairly and houcstly. He never intentionally misrepresented the evidence of a witness or the argument of an opponent. He met both squarely, and, if he could not explain the one or answer the other, substantially admitted it. He never misstated the law according to his own intelligent view of it." These tributes to the professional excellence of Mr. Lincoln, by those best qualified to judge it, is all the more significant from the fact that it was rendered by those who, throughout his whole career, were opposed to him politically — by demo- crats and conservatives. Judge David Davis, of Bloomington, Illinois, a strong personal friend of Mr. Lincoln, in responding to resolutions presented by the bar of Indianapolis, said that " in all the elements that constitute the great lawyer, he (Mr. Lincoln) had few equals. He was great both at Nisi Prius and before an appellate tribunal. He seized the strong points of a case, and presented them with clearness and great compactness. A vein of humor never deserted him, and he was always able to chain the attention of court and jury when the cause was the most uninteresting, by the appropriateness of his anecdotes." It was during this period of Mr. Lincoln's life that he was called upon to pronounce a eulogy upon Henry Clay. The death of this eminent statesman occurred in 1852, and the citizens of Springfield thought of no man so competent to do his memory justice as he who had through so many years been devoted to his interests and his political .principles. The eulogy was pronounced in the State House, and was listened to by a large audience. The discourse, as it was printed in the city newspapers of the day, was by no means a remarka- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 133 blc one. It is remembered as a very dull one at its delivery, and was so regarded by Mr. Lincoln himself, who complained that lie lacked the imagination necessary lor a performance of that character. It is possible that the effect upon his mind of the old visit to Ashland was not entirely obliterated; for Mr. Lincoln was quite accustomed to find expression for any admiration that was really within him. The closing words of the eulogy, though hortatory in form, were prophetic in fact, and, in the light of subsequent events, have a touching in- terest. " Such a man," said he, " the times have demanded, and such in the Providence of God was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that in future national emergencies he will not fail to provide us the instru- ments of safety and security." That Divine Providence which he so confidently trusted then, trusted him as the instru- ment for executing its own designs, in the greatest of national emergencies. It is not to be supposed that during these years of quiet pro- fessional life Mr. Lincoln was entirely indifferent to the course of political affairs. Great national events were in progress, which must have impressed him profoundly. The slave states, conscious that power was departing from them, were desperate in their efforts and fruitful in their expedients to retain it. On the 9th of September, 1850, the free state of California was admitted to the Union. There was a double bitterness in this measure to those interested in the perpetuation of the influence of slavery in national affairs. The state was formed from territory on which the South had hoped to extend the area of their institution — which had been Avon from Mexico for that special purpose ; and there was no slave state in read- iness to be admitted with it, in accordance with southern policy and congressional usage. As an offset to this accession to the power of the free states, a series of concessions were exacted of them which excited great discontent among the people. The compromise measures of 1850, as they were called, did not satisfy either section. The South did not see in them the 134 LIFE OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN. security they desired, and the North felt itself wronged and humiliated by them. Yet there was among the people of both sections a strong desire for peace. They had become weary with agitation, and readily fell in with the action of the two national conventions, which, in 1852, accepted these measures as a final settlement of the points of difference between the two sections of the country. It is easy, in looking back, to see how wretched a basis these measures furnished for peace between freedom and slavery ; but the best men and the most; patriotic men of the time found nothing better. How far Mr. Lincoln shared in the desire that these meas- ures should be the final settlement of the slavery question in the country, or believed it possible that they could be, is not known. Although he consented to stand on the Scott elect- oral ticket in 1852, he does not seem to have gone into the canvass with his characteristic earnestness. His party had committed him, in advance, to silence on the subject of slavery ; ancbit was quite possible that he was willing to see how much could be done towards stifling what seemed to be a fruitless agitation. He made but few speeches, and these few made little impression. The defeat of General Scott and the election of General Pierce was in accordance with the popular expect- ation. Mr. Lincoln had not been diverted from his profes- sional pursuits by the campaign, and for two years thereafter he found nothing in politics to call him from his business. In 1854, a new political era opened. Events occurred of immeasurable influence upon the country; and an agitation of the slavery question was begun which was destined not to cease until slavery itself should be destroyed. Disregarding the pledges of peace and harmony, the party in the interest of slavery effected in Congress the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 — a compromise which was intended to shut slavery forever out of the north r west ; and a bill organ- izing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was enacted, which left them free to choose whether they would have slavery as an institution or not. The intention, without doubt, was to force slavery upon those territories — to make LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 135 it impossible for them ever to become free states — as the sub- sequent exhibitions of "border ruffianism" in Kansas suffi- ciently testified. This great political iniquity aroused Mr. Lincoln as he had never before been aroused. It was at this time that he fully comprehended the fact that there was to be no peace on the slavery question until either freedom or slavery should triumph. He knew slavery to be wrong. He had al- ways known and felt it to be so. He knew that lie regarded the institution as the fathers of the republic had regarded it; but a new doctrine had been put forward. Slavery was right. Slavery was entitled to equal consideration with freedom. Slavery claimed the privilege of going wherever, into the national domain, it might choose to go. Slavery claimed .na- tional protection everywhere. Instead of remaining content- edly within the territory it occupied under the protection of the Constitution, it sought to extend itself indefinitely — to nationalize itself. Judge Douglas of Illinois was the responsible author of what was called the Kansas-Nebraska bill — a bill which he based upon what he was pleased to denominate " popular sover- eignty " — the right of the people of a territory to choose their own institutions ; and between Judge Douglas and Mr. Lin- coln was destined to be fought "the battle of the giants" on the questions that grew out of this great political crime. Mr. Lincoln's indignation was an index to the popular feeling all over the North. The men who, in good faith, had acqui- esced in the compromise measures, though with great reluctance and only for the sake of peace — who had compelled themselves to silence by biting their lips — who had been forced into si- • lence by their love. of the Union whose existence the slave power had threatened — saw that they had been over-reached and foully wronged. Mr. Douglas, on his return to his constituents, was met by a storm of indignation, so that when he first undertook to speak in vindication of himself he was not permitted to do so. He found that he had committed a great political blunder, even if he failed to comprehend the fact that he had been 136 LIFE OF ABRAHAM .LINCOLN. guilty of a criminal breach of faith. The first exhibition? of popular rage naturally passed away, so that the city which refused to hear him speak, now honors his dust as that of a great and powerful and famous man ; but the city and the state have discarded his political principles; and the party which once honored him with so much confidence, remembers with regret — possibly with bitterness — that he was mainly responsi- ble for its overthrow. Mr. Douglas, without doubt, foresaw what was coming, as the result of his political misdeeds, but he tried to avert the popular judgment. He spoke in various places in the state, but with little effect. Congress had ad- journed early in August. His attempt to speak in Chicago wa^made on the first of September, and early in October, on the occasion of the State Fair, he found himself at Springfield. The Fair had brought together a large number of represen- tative men, from all parts of the state, many of whom had come for the purposes of political reunion and consultation. There was a great deal of political speaking, but the chief in- terest of the occasion centered in a discussion between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas. It had been many years since these two men had found themselves pitted against each other in debate, and during nearly all these years, Mr. Douglas had been in public life. He was a man known to the whole nation. He was the recognized leader of his party in Illinois, notwith- standing the fact that his course had driven many from his support. His experience in deb-ate, his easy audacity and assurance, his great ability, his strong will, his unconquerable ambition, and his untiring industry, made him a most formid- able antagonist. To say that his unlimited self-confidence, which not unfrequently made him arrogant and overbearing — at least, in appearance — assisted him in the work which he had before him, would be to insult the independent common sense of the people he addressed. Mr. Douglas entered into an exposition and defense of his principles and policy with the bearing of a man who had already conquered. His long and uninterrupted success had made him restive under inquisition, impatient of dispute, and defiant of opposition. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 On the day following the speech of Mr. Douglas, Mr. Lin- coln, who had listened to him, replied, and Mr. Douglas was amonff his auditors. The speech delivered on this occasion was one of the most powerful and eloquenl efforts of his life. Mr. Lincoln began by saying that he wished to present noth- ing to the people but the truth, to which they were certainly entitled, and that, if Judge Douglas should detect him in saying anything untrue, he (Judge Douglas) would correct him. Mr. Douglas took license from this remark to interrupt him constantly, with the most unimportant questions, and in such a way as to show Mr. Lincoln that his only motiye was to break him down. Finally, the speaker lost his patience, and said, " Gentlemen, I cannot afford to spend my time in quibbles. I take the responsibility of asserting the truth myself, relieving Judge Douglas from the necessity of his impertinent corrections." From this point, he was permitted to proceed uninterruptedly, until a speech occupying three hours and ten minutes was concluded. No report of this speech was made, and no judgment can be formed of it, ex- cept such as can be made up from the cotemporary newspaper accounts, the recollections of those who heard it, and its effect upon the politics of the state. The enthusiasm of the party press was unbounded, and was manifestly genuine. The Kansas-Nebraska bill Avas the subject of debate ; and his ex- posure of its fallacies and iniquities was declared to be over- whelming. His whole heart was in his words. The Spring- field Journal, in describing the speech and the occasion, says : " He quivered with feeling and emotion. The whole house was as still as death. He attacked the bill with unusual warmth and energy, and all felt that a man of strength was its enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he could by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful ; and the house approved the glorious triumph of truth by loud and long- continued huzzas. Women waved their white handkerchiefs in token of woman's silent but heartfelt consent. * * * Mr. Lincoln exhibited Douglas in all the attitudes he could be placed in in a friendly debate. He exhibited the bill in all its 138 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. aspects, to show its humbuggery and falsehoods, and when thus torn to rags, cut into slips, held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn was visible upon the face oi the crowd and upon the lips of the most eloquent speaker." The editor, in concluding his account, says: "At the conclusion of the speech, every man felt that it was unanswerable — that no human power could overthrow it, or trample it under foot. The long and repeated applause evinced the feelings of the crowd, and gave token of universal assent to Lincoln's whole argument ; and every mind present did homage to the man who took captive the heart, and broke like a sun over the understanding.'* The account of this speech in the Chicago Press and Trib- une was not less enthusiastic in its praise, than the journal just quoted. After stating that, within the limits of a news- paper article, it would be impossible to give an idea of the strength of Mr. Lincoln's argument, and that it was by far the ablest effort of the campaign, he quotes the following pas- sage directly from the speech, as remarkable in its power upon the audience: "My distinguished friend says it is an insult to the emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to suppose they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this kind because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and answered. I admit that the emi- grant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, but (the speaker rising to his full night,) I deny his right to govern any other jwson without that person's consenty That touched the very marrow of the matter, and revealed the whole difference between him and Douglas. The crowd understood it. They saw through the iniquity of "popular sovereignty," and the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the applause which fol- lowed showed their appreciation of the clearness and thorough- ness with which the speaker had exposed it. When Mr. Lincoln concluded his speech, Mr. Douglas hastily took the stand, and said that he had been abused, "though in a perfectly courteous manner." He spoke until the adjournment of the meeting for supper, but touched only LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. lo9 slightly upon the great questions which Mr. Lincoln had handled with so much power. That he felt his effort to be a failure, & evident from subsequent events soon to be recounted. Before closing, he insisted on his right to resume his speech in the evening, but when evening came he did not resume, and did not choose to resume. The speech was never concluded. The next meeting between the two party champions took place at Peoria, though not by pre-arrangement. Mr. Lin- coln followed Mr. Douglas to Peoria, and challenged him there, as he had done at Springfield. At Peoria, Mr. Lin- coln's triumph was even more marked than at Springfield, for his antagonist had lost something of his assurance. He was a wounded and weakened man, indeed. He had become conscious that he was not invulnerable. He had been a wit- ness of Mr. Lincoln's power over the people ; and it is quite possible that his faith in his own position had been shaken. It was noticed at Peoria that his manner was much modified, and that he betrayed a lack of confidence in himself, not at all usual with him. Here, as at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln oc- cupied more than three hours in the delivery of his speech, and it came down upon Mr. Douglas so crushingly that the doughty debater did not even undertake to reply to it. It is to be remembered that Mr. Lincoln, in his political speeches, resorted to none of the tricks common among what are called stump speakers. He was thoroughly in earnest and always closely argumentative. If he told stories, it was not to amuse a crowd, but to illustrate a point. The real questions at issue engaged his entire attention, and he never undertook to raise a false issue or to dodge a real one. Indeed, he seemed incapable of the tricks so often resorted to for the discomfiture of an opponent. Fortunately, the Peoria speech was reported, and Ave have an opportunity of forming an intelligent judg- ment of its character and its power. One passage will suffice to illustrate both. Mr. Douglas had urged that the people of Illinois had no interest in the question of slavery in the terri- tories — that it concerned only the people of the territories. This was in accordance with his own feeling, when he declared 140 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. that he did not care whether slavery was " voted up or voted down" in Kansas. Mr. Lincoln opposed this on the broad ground of humanity and the terms of the declaration of" in- dependence ; hut to bring the matter more directly home, and to show that the people of Illinois had a practical interest in the question of slavery in the territories, he said: " By the Constitution, each state has two senators — each has a num- ber of representatives in proportion to the number of its people, and each has a number of presidential electors, equal to the whole number of its representatives and senators together. But in ascertaining the number of the people for the purpose, five slaves are counted as being equal to three Avhites. The slaves do not vote ; they are only counted, and so used as to swell the influence of the Avhite people's votes. The practical effect of this is more aptly shown by a comparison of the states of South Carolina and Maine. South Carolina has six representatives and so has Maine ; South Carolina has eight presidential electors and so has Maine. This is precise equality so far; and of course they are equal* in senators, each having two. Thus, in the control of the gov- ernment, they are equals precisely. But how are they in the number of their white" people? Maine has 5S1,813, while South Carolina has 274,567. Maine has twice as many as South Carolina, and 32,679 over. Thus each white man in South Carolina is more than the double of any man in Maine. This is all because South Carolina, besides her free people, has 387,984 slaves. The South Carolinian has precisely the same advantage over the white man in every other free state as well as in Maine. He is more than the double of any one of us. The same advantage, but not to the same extent, is held by all the citizens of the slave states over those of the free ; and it is an absolute truth, without an exception, that there is no voter in any slave state but who has more legal power in the government than any voter in any free state. There is no instance of exact equality ; and the disadvantage is against us the whole chapter through. This principle, in the aggregate, gives the slave states in the present Congress twenty additional representatives — being Beven more than the whole majority by which they passed the Nebraska bill. " Now all this is manifestly unfair ; yet I do not mention it to complain of it, in so far as it is already settled. It is in the Constitution, and I do not for that cause, or any other cause, propose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the Constitution. I stand to it fairly, fully and firmly. But when I am told that I must leave it altogether to other people to say whether new partners are to be bred up and brought into the firm, on the same degrading terms against me, I respectfully demur. I insist LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 141 that whether T si '1 be a whole man or only the half of one in compari- son with others is a question in which I am somewhat concerned; and one which no other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me. If I am wrong in this — if it really be a sacred right of self-government in the man who shall go to Nebraska to decide whether he will be the equal of me or the double of me, then, after he shall have exercised that right, and thereby shall have reduced mc to a still smaller fraction of a man than I already am, I should like for some gentleman deeply skilled in the mystery of ' sacred rights,' to provide himself with a microscope, and peep aboutoand find out if he can what has become of my ' sacred rights.' They will surely be too small for detection by the naked eye. "Finally, 1 insist that if there is anything that it is the duty of tho whole people to never intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think, as I do, that the extension of shivery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit the question, and with it, the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on temporary self-interest!" Mr. Douglas might well excuse himself from any attempt to answer this argument, or escape from its inevitable logic, for it was unanswerable. It was naturally the wisli of Mr. Lincoln to continue these discussions in other parts of the state. He felt that a revolu- tion of public opinion was in progress — that parties were breaking up, and that lie had his opponent at a disadvantage. But Mr. Douglas had had enough for this time. He wished to withdraw his forces before they were destroyed. He had had a heavy skirmish, and been worsted. He shrank from a continuance of the fight. The great and decisive battle was to come. At the close of the debate, the two combatants held a con- ference, the result uf which has been variously reported. One authority* states that Mr. Douglas sent for Mr. Lincoln, and told him that if he would speak no more during the cam- paign, -he (Douglas) would go home and remain silent during the same period, and that this arrangement was agreed upon and its terms fulfilled. That there was a conference on the subject sought by Mr. Douglas, there is no doubt; and there •William II. Herndon, Mr. Lincoln's partner. 142 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. is no doubt that Mr. Lincoln promised not to challenge him again to debate during the canvass, but abundant evidence ex- ists that Mr. Lincoln did not leave the field at all, but spoke in various parts of the state. Owing very materially to Mr. Lincoln's efforts, a political revolution swept the state. The old stronghold of the demo- cratic party fell before the onslaughts made upon it, and, for the first time since the democratic party was organized, the legislature of Illinois was in the hands of the opposition. Politics were in a transitional, not to say chaotic state. The opposition was made up of whigs, Americans, and anti-Ne- braska democrats. Among the men elected was Mr. Lincoln himself, who had been put in nomination while absent, by his friends in the county. As has already been stated, he ^resigned before taking his seat. His election was effected without consultation with him, and entirely against his wishes. The excitement attending the election of this legislature did not die out with the election, for the new body had the re- sponsibility of electing a United States senator. The old whigs elected had not relinquished the hope that, by some means, their party, which had in reality been broken up by the southern whigs in Congress going over to the democrats O © © © on the vote for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, would again be united, while the anti-Nebraska democrats declined © 7 to go over to the whigs, supposing that, by clinging together, they could force the regular democracy of the state to come upon their ground. Here were two strongly antagonistic interests that were in some way to be harmonized, in order to beat the nominee of the great body of the democrats who still acknowledged the lead of Judge Douglas. The anti-Ne- braska democrats refused to go into a nominating caucus with the whigs, and three candidates were placed in the field. Mr. Lincoln was the nominee of the whigs, Lyman Trumbull of the anti-Nebraska democrats, and General James Shields of the democrats of the Douglas school. After a number of undecisive ballots in the legislature, the democrats having dropped their candidate and adopted Governor Joel A. Mat- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 143 teson — a gentleman who had not committed himself to cither side of the great question — it became possible for the sup- porters of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull to elect one of those gentlemen, by a union of their forces. That Mr. Lin- coln was ambitious for the honors of this high office there is no question, but he had seen Governor Matteson come within three votes of an election, and perceived that there was actual danger of his triumph. At this juncture, he begged his friends to leave him, and go for Mr. Trumbull. They yielded to his urgent entreaties, though it is said that strong men among them actually wept when they consented to do so. The consequence was the election of Mr. Trumbull, to the great astonishment of the democrats, who did not believe it possible for the opposition to unite. Their triumph was due simply to the magnanimity of Mr. Lincoln and his devotion to principle. He had no reproaches for those anti-Nebraska democrats who had refused to £0 for him, although hi$ argu- ments had done more than those of any other man to give them their power, and he cared far more for the triumph of political truth and honor than for his own elevation. Mr. Lincoln never had reason to regret his self-sacrifice, for, upon the organization of the republican party, all the opposition par- ties found themselves together, and Mr. Lincoln became their foremost man. CHAPTER XI. The legitimate fruit of the Kansas-Nebraska bill had already begun to manifest itself in Kansas. Emigrants from the eastern states and from the north-west began to pour into the territory ; and those who had intended that it should become a slave state saw that their scheme was in danger. Mr. Douglas may not have cared whether slavery was " voted up or voted down" in Kansas, but slaveholders themselves showed a strong preference for voting it up, and not only for voting it up, but of backing up their votes by any requisite amount of violence. An organization in Platte Countv, Mis- souri, declared its readiness, when called upon by the citizens of Kansas, to assist in removing any and all emigrants who go there under the auspices of any of the " Emigrant Aid Soci- eties;" which societies, by the way, were supposed to be or- ganizations operating in the free state interest. This was in July, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill having been passed during the previous May. One B. F. String-fellow was the secretary of the organization, and a fortnight later he intro- duced, at a meeting of the society, resolutions declaring in favor of extending slavery into Kansas. Almon H. Reeder was appointed Governor, and arrived in the territory during the following October. At two elections, held within the .succeeding six months, the polls were entirely controlled by ruffians from the Missouri side of the border, and those dis- turbances were fully inaugurated which illustrated the des- perate desire of slavery to extend its territory and its power, LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 145 the hypocrisy of Mr. Douglas and his friends in the declara- tion that the people of the territory should be perfectly free to choose and form their institutions, and the shameful sub- serviency of the government at Washington to the interests of the barbarous institution. This much of the history of Kansas, in order to a perfect appreciation of a private letter of Mr. Lincoln to his Kentucky friend, Mr. Speed: " Springfield, August 24, 1855. " Dear Speed : — You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the twenty-second of JNIay, I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far, there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you yield that right — very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your right:? and my obligations under the Constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil ; but I bite my lip, and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a tedious, low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on board ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me, and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exer- cises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appre- ciate how much the great body of the people of the North do crucifv their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. " I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feelings so prompt me ; and I am under no obligations to the contrary. If, for this, you and I must differ, differ we must. You say if you were President you would send an army, and hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections ; still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave state, she must be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave state unfairly — that is, by the very means for which you would hang men? Must she still be admitted, or 10 148 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. the Union dissolved ? That will be the phase of the question when it first becomes a practical one.* " In your assumption that there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see you and I would differ about the Ne- braska law. I look upon that enactment not as a law, but as a violence, from the beginning. It was conceived in violence, passed in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the destruction of the Missouri Com- promise under the Constitution was nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violent disregard of the known will of their constituents. It is maintained in violence, because the elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is openly disregarded. " You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing that law ; and I say the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was in- tended from the first, else, why does no Nebraska man express aston- ishment or condemnation ? Poor Reeder has been the only man who has been silly enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he has been bravely undeceived. " That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with it, will ask to be admitted into the Union, I take to be an already settled question, and so settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle of law ever held by any court, North or South, every negro taken to Kansas is free ; and in utter disregard of this — in the spirit of violence merely — that beautiful legislature gravely passes a law to hang men who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is the substance and real object of the law. If, like Haman, they should hang upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate. " In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the restoration of the Mis- souri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a territory ; and when, by all these foul means it seeks to come into the Union as a slave state, I shall oppose it. I am very loth, in any case, to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired or located in good faith ; but I do not admit that good faith in taking a negro to Kansas, to be held in slavery, is a possibility with any man. Any man who has sense enough to be the controller of his own property, has too much sense to misun- derstand the outrageous character of the whole Nebraska business. " But I digress. In my opposition to the admission of Kansas, I shall have some company; but we may be beaten. If we are, I shall not, on that account, attempt to dissolve the Union. I think it probable, how- *This confident prediction was made two years before the Lecompton Constitution was framed. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 147 over, that we shall be beaten. Standing as a unit among yourselves, you can, directly, and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day— as you could on an open proposition (o establish monarchy. Get hold of some man in the North whose position and ability are such that he can make the support of your measure— whatever it may be— a dem- ocratic party necessity, and the thing is done. "Apropos of this, let me tell you an anecdote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska bill in January. In February, afterwards, there was a called session of the Illinois legislature. Of the one hundred members comprising the two branches of that body, about seventy were democrats. The latter held a caucus in which the Nebraska bill was talked of, if not formally discussed. Tt was thereby discovered that just three, and no more, were in favor of the measure. In a day or two, Douglas' orders came on to have resolutions passed, approving the bill, and they were passed by large majorities ! ! ) The truth of this is vouched for by a bolting democratic member. The masses, too, democratic as well as whig, were even more unanimous against it, but as soon as the party necessity of supporting it became apparent, the way the democracy began to see the wisdom and justice of it was perfectly astonishing. " You say if Kansas fairly votes herself a free state, as a Christian you will rather rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do not doubt their candor. But they never vote that way. Although, in a private letter or conversation you will express your preference that Kansas shall be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected, from any district, or any slave state. You think Stringfejlow & Co. ought to be hung; and yet you will vote for the exact type and representation of Stringfellow. The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small and de- tested class among you, and yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the masters of your own negroes. " You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point, I think I am a whig; but others say there are no whigs, and that I am an abo- litionist. When I was in Washington, I voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times, and I never heard of any attempt to unwhig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery. I an^not a Know-Nothing,— that is certain. How could I be V How can any one who abhors the oppression of the negroes be in favor of de- grading classes of white people ? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it « all men are created equal except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to that, I should prefer emigrating to some 148 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. " Your friend forever, "A. Lincoln." This letter, written with perfect freedom to an old personal friend attached to the interests of slavery in a slave state, gives with wonderful clearness the state of the slavery ques- tion at the time, and Mr. Lincoln's own views and feelings. Events justified the writer's judgment, and verified his pre- dictions. Mr. Lincoln still considered himself a whig. The name was one he loved, and the old party associations were very precious to him. But he was passing through the weaning process, and was realizing more and more, with the passage of every month, that there could be no resuscitation of the dead or dying organization. The interests of slavery had severed from it forever that portion that had made it a pow- erful national party. It could not extend itself an inch south of Mason's and Dixon's line. The slavery question was the great question. Opposition to the extension and encroach- ments of slavery was sectional, and any party which exer- cised this opposition, however broad its views might be, was necessarily sectional. Mr. Lincoln's logical mind soon dis- covered this, and accordingly we find him, May 29th, 1856, attending a convention at Bloomington, of those who were opposed to the democratic party. Here, and with Mr. Lin- coln's powerful assistance, the republican party of Illinois was organized, a platform adopted, a state ticket nominated, and delegates were appointed to the National Republican Conven- tion in Philadelphia, which was to be held on the seventeenth of the following month. ,, There is no doubt that, from the date of this meeting, he felt himself more a free man in politics than ever before. His hatred of slavery had been constantly growing, and now he was the member of a party whose avowed purpose it was to resist the extension of slavery, and to shut it up in the ter- ritory where it held its only rights under the Constitution. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 149 The speech which he made on this occasion was one of distin- guished power and eloquence. Mr. iScripps, in the little sketch of his life to which an allusion has already beenTnade in this volume, says: "Never was an audience more com- pletely electrified by human eloquence. Again and again during the progress of its delivery, they sprang to their feet and upon the benches, and testified by long continued shouts and the waving of hats, how deeply the speaker had wrought upon their minds and hearts. It fused the mass of hitherto incongruous elements into perfect homogeneity, and from that day to the present they have worked together in harmonious and fraternal union. Mr. Lincoln was now regarded, not only by the republicans of Illinois, but by all the western states, as their- first man. Accordingly they presented his name to the national conven- tion as their candidate for the vice-presidency. On the in- formal ballot, he received one hundred and ten votes to two hundred and fifty-nine for Mr. Dayton. This, of course, de- cided the matter against him, but the vote was a compliment- ary one, and was Mr. Lincoln's formal introduction to the nation. Mr. Lincoln labored with his accustomed zeal during; the campaign for Fremont and Dayton, the republican nomi- nees, and had the pleasure, at the end of the canvass, of find- ing the state revolutionized. Colonel William H. Bissell, the opposition candidate for Governor, was elected by a notable majority, although there were men enough who were not aware that the whig party was dead to give the electoral vote to Mr. Buchanan, through their support of Mr. Fillmore. A little incident occurred during the campaign that illus- trated Mr. Lincoln's readiness in turning a political point. He was making a speech at Charleston, Coles County, when a voice called out, " Mr. Lincoln, is it true that you entered this state barefoot, driving a yoke of oxen?" Mr. Lincoln paused for full half a minute, as if considering whether he should notice such cruel impertinence, and then said that he thought he could prove the fact by at least a dozen men in the crowd, any one of whom was more respectable than his 150 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOHjT. questioner. But the question seemed to inspire him, and he went on to show what free institutions had done for himself, and to exhibit the evils of slavery to the white man wherever it existed, and asked if it was not natural that he should hate slavery, and agitate against it. "Yes," said he, "we will speak for freedom and against slavery, as long as the Consti- tution of our country guarantees free speech, until everywhere on this wide land, the sun shall shine and the rain shall fall and the wind shall blow upon no man who goes forth to unre- quited toil." From this time to the close of his life, he was almost en- tirely absorbed by political affairs. He still took charge of important cases in court, and practiced his profession at inter- vals ; but he was regarded as a political man, and had many responsibilities thrown upon him by the new organization. During the summer succeeding the presidential canvass, and after Mr. Buchanan had taken his seat, Mr. Douglas was in- vited by the grand jury of the United States District Court for Southern Illinois, to deliver a speech at Springfield when the court was in session. In that speech, the senator showed the progress he had made in his departure from the doctrines of the fathers, by announcing that the framers of the Declara- tion of Independence, when they asserted that " all men are created equal," only meant to say that "British subjects on this continent were equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain." Mr. Lincoln was invited by a large num- ber of citizens to reply to this speech, and did so. After showing in his own quiet and ingenious way the absurdity of this assumption of Judge Douglas, telling his auditors that, as they were preparing to celebrate the Fourth of July, and would read the Declaration, he would like to have them read it in Judge Douglas' way, viz : "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all British subjects who were on this conti- nent eighty-one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects born and then residing in Great Britain," — he said: " And now I appeal to all — to democrats as well as others : are you really willing that the Declaration shall thus be frittered LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 151 away? — thus loft no more, at most, than an interesting memo- rial of the dead past? — thus shorn of it s vitality and its prac- tical value, and lcii without the germ or even the suggestion of the inalienable rights of man in it?" Thou Mr. Lineolu added his opinion as to what the authors of the Declaration intended; and it has probably never boon stated with a more catholic spirit, or in choicer terms : "I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men; but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable dii ness in what respects they did consider all men equal — equal in ci inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit oi piness. This they said and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to de- clare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fi circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all and revered by all ; con- stantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never per- fectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spread- ing and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere." The project of making Kansas a slave state was in full progress. The event which Mr. Lincoln had so distinct! v prophesied — the formation of a pro-slavery constitution by unfair moans and alien agents — was in full view; and tho who were interested in it did their best to prepare the minds of the people for it. Political morality seemed at its lowest ebb. A whole party was bowing to the behests of slavery, and those who wore opposed to the institution and the pow< r born of it had become stupefied in the presence of its bold assumptions and rapid advances. People had ceased to bo surprised at any of its claims, and any exhibition of its spirit and policy. If Mr. Buchanan had any conscientious scruples, they were easily overborne, and he lent himself to the schemes of the plotters. A pre-slavery legislature was elected mainly 152 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. by non-residents, at an election in which the free state men, who numbered three-fourths of the entire population, refused to participate, on account of illegality. This legislature, meeting at Lecompton, passed an act providing for the election of a convention to form a state constitution, preparatory to askino- an admission into the Union. In the clection'of this convention, the free state men took no part, on the ground that the legislature which ordered it had no legal authority. About two thousand votes w r ere cast, while the legal voters in the territory numbered more than ten thousand. The Le- compton Convention framed, of course, a pro-slavery consti- tution. It is not necessary to recount the means by w T hich this constitution w T as subsequently overthrown, and one pro- hibiting slavery substituted in its place. It is sufficient for the present purpose to state that upon the promulgation of the constitution formed at Lecompton, Robert J. Walker, then Governor of Kansas, went immediately to Washington to re- monstrate against its adoption by Congress, and that before he could reach the capitol it had received the approval of the President. These facts have place here to give the basis of the political relations between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas; for they were approaching their great struggle. The senatorial term of Mr. Douo-las was drawing to a close, and he wished to be indorsed by the people of Illinois, and returned to the Senate. The events of the previous year had shown him that a great polit- ical revolution was in progress, and that his seat was actually in danger. He saw what w T as going on in Kansas, and knew that the iniquities in progress there would be laid at his door. It was he who, in a time of peace, had opened the flood-gates of ao-itation. It was he who had given to the slave-power what it had not asked for, but could not consistently refuse. It was he who had gratuitously offered the slave-power the privilege of making territory forever set apart to freedom its own, if it could. He had divided his own party in his own state, and was losing his confidence as to his own political future. That he knew just what was coming in Kansas, and LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 153 knew what the effect would be upon himself, is evident in the speech he made at Springfield, from Mr. Lincoln's reply to which a passage lias already been quoted. In this he under- took to shift to the shoulders of the republican party the bur- den he felt to be pressing upon his own. Speaking- of Kansas, he said: "The law under which her delegates are about to be elected is believed to be just and fair in all its objects and pro- visions. * * * If any portion of the inhabitants, acting under the advice of political leaders in distant states, shall choose to absent themselves from the [tolls, and withhold their votes with the view of leaving the free state democrats in the minority, and thus securing a pro-slavery constitution in opposition to the wishes of a majority of the people living under it, let the responsibility rest on those who, for partisan purposes, will sac- rifice the principles they profess to cherish and promote. Upon them and upon the political party for whose benefit and under the direction of whose leaders they act, let the blame be visited of fastening upon the people of a new state institutions repug- nant to their feelino-s and in violation of their wishes." In a subsequent passage of this same speech, he amplifies these points, and both passages show that he knew the nature of the constitution that would be framed, knew that the free state men would not vote at all because they believed the movement was an illegal one, and knew that he and his party would be held responsible for the outrage. It is further to be said that, by his words, on this occasion, he fully com- mitted himself, in advance, to whatever the Lecompton Con- vention might do. "The present election law in Kansas is acknowledged to be fair and just," he says. "Kansas is about to speak for herself," he declares. By these words alone, he was morally committed to whatever might be the conclusions of the convention. This is to be remembered, for Mr. Doug- las soon found that he could not shift the burden of the Kan- sas iniquity upon the opposition, and that his only hope of a re-election to the senate depended upon his taking issue with the administration on this very case, and becoming the cham- pion of the anti-Lee ompton men. CHAPTER XII. One of the most remarkable passages in Mr. Lincoln's history was his contest with Senator Douglas, in 1858, for the seat in the United States Senate which was soon to be vacated by the expiration of the term for which the latter was elected. Frequent allusion has been made to this already; but before proceeding to its description something further should be said of Mr. Douglas himself. Mr. Douglas was but little more than twenty years of age when, in 1833, he entered Illinois. He was poor — penniless, indeed. The first money he earned in the state was as the clerk of an auction sale. His next essay was in teaching school. He began to practice law during the second year, and at the age of twenty-two was elected Attorney General of the state. He resigned this office in 1835, and was elected a member of the legislature. .It was here that he and Abra- ham Lincoln met for the first time. In 1837, before he was twenty-five years old, he received the democratic nomination for Congress, and was only beaten by a majority of five votes. In 1840, he was appointed secretary of the state of Illinois, and in 1813 he was elected to Congress, and re-elected in 1844 and 1846. Before he took his seat under the last elec- tion, he was elected to the United States Senate ; and his second term of service in this august body was about expiring at the present point of this history. The career of Mr. Douglas had been one of almost unin- terrupted political success. He was the recognized leader of LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 155 the democratic party of Illinois, and had been known and felt as a positive power in national legislation. He had very de- cided opinions upon all the great questions passed upon by Congress, and, though not unfrequently at variance with the administrations he had himself assisted to place in power, his influence was great in whatever direction he might choose to exert it. He accomplished much in establishing and nourish- ing the prosperity of Illinois. No man did so much as Mr. Douglas for securing those magnificent grants of land which contributed to the development of his adopted state. To the material interests of Illinois, and the preservation of the power of the democratic party in that state, he was thoroughly de- voted ; and that party honored him with its entire confidence and almost unquestioning support. He was their first man; and they bestowed upon him, during his life, more honor than they ever gave to any other man living on their territory. Mr. Lincoln had watched this man, with admiration for his tact and respect for his power with the people. He had seen him winning the highest honors in their gift, and, if he did not envy him, it was not because he was not ambitious. It was because nothing so mean as envy could have place in him. That he regarded Mr. Douglas as an unscrupulous man in the use of means for securing his ambitious ends, there is no doubt; and although he would have refused honor and ofhVe on the terms on which Mr. Douglas received them, he was much impressed by the dignities with which the Senator was invested, and felt that the power he held was a precious, aye, a priceless, possession. From the original manuscript of one of Mr. Lincoln's speeches, these words are transferred to this biography : "Twenty-two years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then — he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were both ambitious, — I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure — a flat failure; with him, it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not un- known even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the 156 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. high eminence he has reached. So reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that, eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." This extract touches the points of similarity between the two men, and their points of difference. Mr. Lincoln was far from insensible to the honors of Mr. Douglas' position; but he would not have them at the price Mr. Douglas had paid for them. The oppressed of his species had not shared with Mr. Douglas in his elevation. The slave had had none of his consideration; and he was in league with the slave's oppres- sor. It would not have been pleasant to Mr. Lincoln to wear the honors of Mr. Douglas, if, with them, he had been obliged to carry the responsibility of extending or giving latitude and lease to an institution which made chattels of men. Mr. Douglas looked upon slavery either with indifference or ap- proval. He had publicly said that he did not care whether slavery was "voted up or voted down" in the territories. Mr. Lincoln regarded slavery as a great moral, social and political wrong. Here was the vital difference between the two, recognized as such by Mr. Lincoln himself. After the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution in Kan- sas, Mr. Douglas having foreseen its character, and having virtually committed himself to it in advance — having, indeed, undertaken to make the republican party morally responsible for its existence and adoption, a change seems to have come over his opinions. Before he departed for Washington, to attend the session of 1857 and 1858, it was whispered that he was about to break with the administration on the Lecompton business. It is always pleasant to give men credit for the best motives ; and those under which he acted may have been the best. To oppose that constitution was certainly not in- consistent with his pet doctrine "popular sovereignty" when taken by itself, for nothing was more easily demonstrable than the fact that that constitution was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas — that it was in no sense an expression of their will. While this is true, it is proper to remember that LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 157 Mr. Douglas was shrewd enough to see that he could not carry the burden of the Lecompton Constitution through the canvass for the senatorial prize, then imminent. The outrage was too flagrant to he ignored, and the facts too notorious to be disputed. He was also shrewd enough to see that his op- position to the Lecompton fraud would take from the republi- can party some of its best capital, and greatly distract the opposition in their efforts to defeat him. During that session of Congress Mr. Douglas fought a gal- lant and manly fight against the administration on the Le- compton question, and, on that question, voted and labored with the republicans. It was a bold step. Without Mr. Douglas, it is easy to see that the Lecompton Constitution would have been impossible. He voluntarily threw open the territory to this outrage. Then he tried to kill his own legiti- mate child. He forsook the men whom he had led into the great iniquity. The republicans were grateful for his aid, and were naturally drawn to him in sympathy because, for his efforts on behalf of justice in Kansas, he had incurred the enmity of Mr. Buchanan, who was regarded as a most willing tool in the hands of the slave power. The democratic state convention of Illinois assembled on the 21st of April, 1858, and endorsed Mr. Douglas in his position as an anti-Lecompton man. They placed a state ticket in the field, and engineered the canvass with such skill and vigor that the administration, through its office-holders, could make no headway against them. The power of Mr. Douglas over the politicians and masses in his own state, was never better illustrated than during this campaign, when all the patronage of the federal government could do nothing to defeat him. Before the close of the session, Mr. Douglas went home to look after his interests, and to prepare for the great campaign of his life. A large number of republicans in the eastern states who had not known Mr. Douglas at home, and who had Avitnessed his bold and gallant fight with the administration and the slave- power in the senate, expressed the wish that their friends in 158 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Illinois might find it in the line of their duty to aid in return- ing him to the senate. The republicans of Illinois, however, felt that they knew the man better, and that their duty did not lie in that direction at all. They urged that Mr. Douglas did not agree with them in a single point of doctrine — that he had differed with the administration merely on a question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was the act and deed of the people of Kansas. They averred that he adhered to the outrageous decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case — that a negro cannot sue in a United States court, and that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the territories — and that they dared not trust Mr. Douglas. To this it was re- plied that Mr. Douglas was coming over to the republican party as fast as he could carry his followers with him, and that his extraordinary hold upon the masses of the democratic party at the North would enable him to bring to the republican ranks a reinforcement which would prove irresistible at the approaching presidential election. The rejoinder of the Illi- nois republicans was that the probability of any sincere change of faith in Mr. Douglas was too remote and uncertain to war- rant them in abandoning an organization which had been formed to advance a great and just cause, and which, once dissolved, could not be re-formed in time to render efficient service in the election of 1860. Quite a controversy grew: out of the differences between the Illinois republicans and their eastern advisers, and no small degree of bitterness wa»* engendered. The party in Illinois was nearly a unit in its views, but the controversy had undoubtedly the influence to loosen the hold of the organization upon some of its members. The effect was temporary, however, for the issues of the cam- paign were so thoroughly discussed, and the discussions them- selves were so generally listened to, or read in the journals of the day, that it is doubtful whether Mr. Douglas gained any appreciable advantage from the controversy, or the sym- pathy of republicans in other states. The republican state convention met at Springfield on the sixteenth of June, nearly two months after the assembling of LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 159 the democratic convention. Aside from the senatorial ques- tion, there was but little interest in the proceedings. For state officers, only a treasurer and a superintendent of public instruction were to be nominated, and, besides these officers, only the members of a legislature were to he elected. Nearly six hundred delegates were present in the convention, and they, with their alternates, completed a round thousand of earnest men, gathered from all parts of the state. The fifth resolution adopted on this occasion covers the grand issue made with Judge Douglas. " That while we deprecate all interference on the part of political organizations with the judiciary, if such action is limited to its appro- priate sphere, yet we cannot refrain from expressing our condemnation of the principles and tendencies of the extra-judicial opinions of a ma- jority of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the matter of Dred Scott, wherein the political heresy is put forth that the federal constitution extends slavery into all the territories of the Re- public, and so maintains it that neither Congress nor the people through the territorial legislature can by law abolish it. We hold that Congress possesses sovereign power over the territories, and has the right to govern and control them whilst they remain in a territorial condition, and that it is the duty of the general government to protect the terri- tories from the curse of slavery, and to preserve the public domain for the occupation of free men and free labor; and we declare that no power on earth can carry and maintain slavery in the states against the will of their people and the provisions of their constitutions and laws; and we fully indorse the recent decision of the Supreme Court of our own state, which declares that property in persons is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of Illinois, and that all persons within its juris- diction are presumed to be free, and that slavery, where it exists, is a municipal regulation, without any extra-territorial operation." If there were men in the convention who had at first been affected by the representations of the republicans in the east- ern states, the action of the democratic convention which met in April had restored their determination to stand by their party and its candidates. That convention had denounced the republicans, had indorsed the old democratic platform of the party adopted at Cincinnati in national convention, and, while it approved the course of Senator Douglas, failed to lo'O LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. say one word in condemnation of the course and principles, or, rather, lack of principles, of Mr. Buchanan and his ad- ministration. The republican convention had hardly assem- bled before it was discovered that there was entire unanimity for Mr. Lincoln, as their nominee in opposition to Mr. Douglas. When a banner from Chicago was borne into the convention, inscribed with the words — " Cook County for Abraham Lin- coln " — the whole convention rose to its feet, and gave three cheers for the candidate whom it was proposed to place in the field in opposition to the champion of " popular sovereignty." That the convention was embarrassed and doubtful as to re- sults, there is no question. Mr. Douglas had the sympathy of many republicans abroad, he had attacked a hated adminis- tration with great vigor and persistence, he had the enmity of that administration, and, in the state, he had the advantage of an unjust apportionment of legislative districts, by which not less than ninety-three thousand people were virtually dis- franchised.* Though it was not according to the wish of many of the members of the convention to make a formal nomination for the senate, yet, as Mr. Douglas had already declared that it was the intention to use Mr. Lincoln's narrie during the canvass, and to adopt another name in the legisla- ture, the following resolution was brought forward, and unani- mously adopted : "That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States Senator, to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas' term of office." The anxiety of the convention to see and hear their chosen man and champion was intense ; and frequent calls were made for him during the day. That Mr. Lincoln expected the nomination, and had prepared himself for it, is evident. It was announced at length that he Avould address the members of the convention at the State House in the evening. During the day, he was busy in giving the finishing touches to his speech, which had been prepared with unusual care, every * Scripps, p. 24. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1G1 sentence having been carefully weighed. lie had put into it what he believed to be the real issues of the campaign, and had laid out in it the ground upon which he proposed to stand, and fight his battles. Before going to the hall, he entered his law office, where Mr. Herndon, his partner, was sitting, and turned the key against all intrusion. Taking out his manu- script, he read to Mr. Herndon the first paragraph of his speech, and asked him for his opinion of it. Mr. Herndon replied that it was all true, but he doubted whether it was good policy to give it utterance at that time. "That makes no difference," responded Mr. Lincoln. "It is the truth, and the nation is entitled to it." Then, alluding to a quotation which he had made from the Bible — "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said that he wished to give an illus- tration familiar to all, "that he who reads may run." "The proposition is true," said Mr. Lincoln, "and has been true for six thousand years, and I will deliver it as it is written." At eight o'clock, the hall of the House of Representatives was tilled to its utmost capacity, and when Mr. Lincoln ap- peared he was received with the most tumultuous applause. The speech which he made on that occasion is so full of mean- ing, so fraught with prophecy, so keen in its analysis, so irre- sistible in its logic, so profoundly intelligent concerning the politics of the time, and, withal, so condensed in the expression of every part, that no proper idea can be given of it through any description or abbreviation. It must be given entire. Mr. Lincoln said: " If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In rny opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure perma- nently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- solved — 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. Either 11 162 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new — North as well as South. " Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? " Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery, so to speak — com- pounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also, let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of action among its chief architects, from the be- ginning. " The new year of 1S54 found slavery excluded from more than half the states by State Constitutions, and from most of the national terri- tory by Congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained. " But, so far, Congress only had acted ; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for more. " This necessity had not been overlooked ; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of ' squatter sovereignty,' otherwise called ' sacred right of self-government,' which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this : That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows : ' It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom ; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of ' squatter sovereignty,' and ' sacred right of self-government.' ' But,' said opposition members, ' let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the territory may exclude slavery.' ' Not we,' said the friends of the measure ; and down they voted the amendment. " While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law case involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then into a ter- ritory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN [63 for a long time in each, was passing through the United States Circuit Court Cor the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the Baine month of May, 1854. The ne- gro's nam.' was ' Dred Scott, 1 which name now designates the decision finally made in the ease. Before the then next presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United States, but the decision of it -was deferred until after the elec- tion. Still, before the election. Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits ,- and the latter answers: ' That is a question for the Supreme Court.' "The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorse- ment, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again ; did not announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming president in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. " The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new president, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained! •• At length a squabble springs up between the president and the au- thor of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind— the principle for which he declares he has suf- fered so much, and is ready to sutler to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doc- trine. Under the Dred Scott decision squatter sovereignty squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding — like the 1G4 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. mould at the foundry, served through one blast and fell back into loose sand — helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make their own constitution — upon which he and the republicans have never differed- " The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas' 'care not' policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are : "First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any state, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision" of the United States Constitution, which declares that ' The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privi- leges and immunities of citizens in the several states.' " Secondly, That ' subject to the Constitution of the United States,' neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude slavery from any United States territory. This point is made in order that individ- ual men may fill up the territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the future. " Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free state, makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave state the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for awhile, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free state of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free state. " Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion, at least northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are ; and par- tially, also, whither we are tending. " It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when tliey were transpiring. The people were to be left ' perfectly free,' ' subject only to the Constitution.' What the Constitution had to do with it, out- siders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 165 niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward conic in, and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down'.-' Plainly enough now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was-Jhe court decision held upV Why even a senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the presidential election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged the perfectly free argument upon which the elec- tion was to be carried. Why the out-going president's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a re-argument V Why the incom- ing president's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the president and others ? •• We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see tliey exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mor- tices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in — in such a case, Ave find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. "It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a .stale as well as territory, were to be left 'perfectly free,' 'subject only to the Constitution.' Why mention a state ? They were legisla- ting for territories, and not for or about states. Certainly the people of a state are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of a territory and the people of a state therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opin- ions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial legisla- ture to exclude slavery from any United States territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a state, or the people of a state, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; 166 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. i but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a state to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a territory, into the Ne- braska bill; — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a state over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion, his exact language is, ' except in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the state is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction.' In what cases the power of the states is so restrained by the United States Constitution, is left an open question, precisely as the same question as to the restraint on the power of the territories was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see rilled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a stale to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of 'care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up,' shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made. " Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the states. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably com- ing, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their state free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave state. To meet and overthroAv the • power of that dynasty, is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it ? " There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty ; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But ' a living dog is better than a dead lion.' Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and tooth- less one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas democratic newspaper LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1G7 thinks Douglas' superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? lie has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it ? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest ? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property ; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade — how can he refuse that trade in that ' property ' shall be ' perfectly free '—unless he does it as a protection to the home production ? And as the home pro- ducers will probably not ask the protection, he Avill be wholly without a ground of opposition. " Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday— that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change of which he himself has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas' position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offens- ive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on prin- ciple so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not now with us— he does not pretend to be — he does not promise ever to be. " Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work— who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. AVe did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud and pampered enemy Did we brave all then, to falter now?— now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail— if we stand firm, we shall not fad. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come." The members of the convention carried away with them something to think about. There had been in Mr. Lincoln's speech no appeals to their partisan prejudices, no tricks to catch applause. He had appeared before them as an earnest, 168 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. patriotic man, intent only on discussing, in the gravest and most candid manner, the most interesting and momentous po- litical questions. On the ninth of July, Mr. Douglas made a speech in Chi- cago. The reception he received was a magnificent one — one which might well have filled him with the Gratification which he did not attempt to conceal — which, indeed, he took repeated occasion to express. In this speech he alluded to his efforts to crush the Lecompton fraud, and claimed that the republicans who had fought by his side had indorsed his popular sover- eignty doctrine — the right of the people of a territory to form their own institutions. He then took up the action of the republican convention at Springfield, and spoke at length of Mr. Lincoln and his speech. Of Mr. Lincoln, he said: "I take great pleasure in saving 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 of personalities." He then read from the opening paragraph of Mr. Lincoln's speech the words : " A house divided against itself cannot stand. I be- lieve this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it to cease to be divided. It Avill become all one tiling or all the other." The unfairness of his comments upon this simple statement of a conviction may be gathered from the construction which he put upon it in the words — "Mr. Lincoln advocates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of the free states against the slave states, a war of ex- termination, to be continued relentlessly, until the one or the other shall be subdued, and all the states shall either become free or become slave." Mr. Lincoln foresaw the approaching struggle between freedom and slavery and its inevitable result. He did not be- LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1G9 licve a dissolution of the Union possible, but lie knew that freedom and slavery were irreconcilable enemies. lie knew that slavery must die, or become national. He saw the de- termination of its friends to make it national, and he believed that this attempt would succeed, or that, failing of success, it woidd end in the universal abolition of slavery. Events have entirely justified his most philosophical view of the subject. The next point that Mr. Douglas endeavored to make was as illegitimate as his previous one, viz : that Mr. Lincoln de- sired to reduce the states to a dead uniformity of interests and institutions, contrary to the theory and policy of the fathers of the republic. In order to do this, he Avas of course obliged to ignore the fact that Mr. Lincoln had alluded to but one in- stitution, and that, in its nature antagonistic with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and to recognize slavery as having the same legitimate basis with the other institutions of the country. Having construed Mr. Lincoln's position unfairly, he logically drove to the unjust conclusion that when the uniformity should be attained which Mr. Lincoln desired, the government would have "converted these thirty-two sov- ereign, independent states, into one consolidated empire, with the uniformity of disposition reigning triumphant throughout the length and breadth of the land." He next took up Mr. Lincoln's criticism of the Dred Scott decision, and, by his treatment of it, fully vindicated the ac- tion of the Illinois republicans in their refusal to support him in accordance with the wishes of their eastern friends. Xo republican could consistently support a man who supported that iniquitous and barbarous decision. If it is said that his course on this question would have been changed by their support, the case is still worse, for no man Avhose course could be changed by such considerations would be worthy of the support of any party. " I am opposed to this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Douglas, "by which he proposes to take an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court of the L T nited States upon this high constitutional question, to a re- publican caucus sitting in the country. * * * I respect the 170 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. decisions of that august tribunal; I shall always bow in def- erence to them. * * * I will sustain the judicial tribunals and constituted authorities, in all matters Avithin the pale of their jurisdiction, as defined by the Constitution." Mr. Douglas did not see fit to allude in this speech to Mr. Lincoln's charge that the Dred Scott decision was a part of that building framed so cunningly by " Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James," in which was to be conserved the power of making slavery universal. Mr. Douglas went farther than simply to indorse the Dred Scott decision, and to declare his intention to sustain it. " I am equally free," said he, " to say that the reason assigned by Mr. Lincoln for resisting the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case does not, in itself, meet my approba- tion. * * * He says it is wrong, because it deprives the negro of the benefit of that clause of the Constitution which says that the citizens of one state shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several states ; in other words, he thinks it wrong because it deprives the negro of the privileges, immunities and rights of citizenship which pertain, accoixling to that decision, only to the white man. I am free to say to you that, in my opinion, this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made for the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine. It is also true that a negro, an Indian, or any other man of infe- rior race to a white man should be permitted to enjoy, and humanity requires that he should have, all the rights, privi- leges and immunities which he is capable of exercising, con- sistent with the safety of society." What these rights should be, was only legitimately to be determined by the states them- selves, in Mr. Douglas' opinion. Illinois had decided for herself what the black man's rights were in Illinois, and New York and Maine had decided for themselves. By inference, Kentucky had a right to say her negroes should be slaves, Illinois that her negroes should not vote, New York that her negroes might vote when qualified by property, and Maine that the negro was equal at the polls to the white man. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 171 These were the main points that Mr. Douglas made in his Chicago speech. Mr. Lincoln sat near him, on the platform, and heard the Avhole of it. Here, as elsewhere during the campaign which succeeded, he manifested his wonderful jrood nature under misrepresentation. There were incidents of this campaign which no man cast in the common mould could have passed through without yielding to the severest passions of indignation and anger. He was belied, abused, misrepre- sented ; but he never betrayed a moment's irritation. That lie smarted with a sense of wrong, there is abundant evidence ; but he was never moved to a single act of resentment. Mr. Lincoln had taken the speech all in, and, on the follow- ing evening, it was announced that he would reply to it. The greeting which he received when he took the stand was quite as enthusiastic as that which Mr. Douglas had met on the previous evening. He was introduced to the audience by Mr. C. L. Wilson of Chicago, and ay hen he came forward, there was such a storm of long-continued applause that he was obliged to extend his hand in deprecation, before he could secure the silence necessary for proceeding. After disposing of some minor matters, he took up the points of Mr. Douglas' speech and treated them fully. Touching the comments upon his OAvn declaration — " a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this gOA'ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free," &c, he said: " I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government has en- dured eighty-two years, half slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably Avell acquainted with the history of the country, and I know that it has endured eighty-tAvo years, half slave and half free. I believe — and that is what I meant to allude to there — I believe it has endured, because during all that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska bill, the public mind did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. That Avas what gave us the rest that we had through that period of eighty-two years ; at least, so I believe. I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist — I have been an old line whig — I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Ne- braska bill began. I always believed that everybody was against it, and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. 172 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. " The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the people to believe so ; and such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself, else -why did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go into the new territory, where it had not already gone V Why declare that within twenty years the African slave trade, by which slaves are sup- plied, might be cut off by Congress ? "Why were all these acts ? I might enumerate more of these acts — but enough. What were they but a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution V And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has quoted from — -when I say that I think the opponents of slavery will resist the farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, I only mean to say that they will place it where the founders of this Government orig- inally placed it. " I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free states to enter into the slave states, and inter- fere with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always ; Judge Douglas has heard me say it — if not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times ; and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If, by any means, I have ever used language which could fairly be so construed (as, however, I believe I never have), I now cor- rect it." The next point touched upon was Judge Douglas' charge that Mr. Lincoln was in favor of reducing the institutions of all the states to uniformity: " Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general consolidation of all the local institutions of the various states. I will attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, if I can, how on earth it could be that any man could draw such an inference from any- thing I said. I have said, very many times, in Judge Douglas' hearing, that no man believed more than I in the principle of self-government; that it lies at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from be- ginning to end. I have denied that his use of that term applies properly. But for the thing itself, I deny that any man has ever .gone ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, whatever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it. I think that I have said it in your hearing — that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 173 himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights — that each community, as a state, has a right to do exactly as it [(leases with all the concerns within that state that interferes with the right of no other state, and that the general govern- ment, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times. I have said as illustrations, that 1 do not believe in the right of Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of Indi- ana, the oyster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things over and over again, and I repeat them here as my sentiments. "How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to see slavery put where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favor of Illinois going over and interfering with the cranberry laws of Indiana? What can authorize him to draw any such inference ? I suppose there might be one thing that at Least enabled him to draw such an inference that would not be true with me or many others, that is, because he look's upon all this matter of slavery as an exceedingly little thing — this matter of keeping one-sixth of the population of the whole nation in a state of oppression and tyranny unequaled in the world. He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing — only equal to the question of the cranberry laws of Indiana — as something having no moral question in it — as something on a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with cattle, or plant it with tobacco — so little and so small a thing, that he concludes, if I could desire that if anything should be done to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little things in the Union. Now, it so happens — and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake — that the Judge thinks thus ; and it so happens that there is a vast portion of the American people that do not look upon that matter as being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil; they can prove it such by the writings of those who gave us the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it, not as an evil merely confining itself to the states where it is situated; and while we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in the states where it exists we have no right to interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution ; we are by both duty and in- clination to stick by that Constitution, in all its letter and spirit, from beginning to end. " So much then as to my disposition — my wish — to have all the state legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated government, and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the states by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here, we must make sugar-cane grow here 174 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. too, and we must make those which grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this nonsense — for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue with me on a question of establishing uniformity in the domes- tic regulations of the states." Concerning the Drcd Scott decision he said : " I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition to the Dred Scott decision, but I should be allowed to state the nature of that opposition, and I ask your indulgence while I do so. What is fairly im- plied by the term Judge Douglas has used, 'resistance to the decision?' I do not resist it. If I wanted to take Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfering with property, and that terrible difficulty that Judge Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property would arise. But I am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refus- ing to obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should. " That is what I would do. Judge Douglas said last night, that before the decision he might advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the decision when it was made ; but after it was made he would abide by it until it was reversed. Just so ! "We let this prop- erty abide by the decision, but we will try to reverse that decision. We will try to put it where Judge Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably. " What are the uses of decisions of courts V They have two uses. As rules of property they have two uses. First — they decide upon the question before the court. They decide in this case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists that. Not only that, but they say to every- body else, that persons standing just as Dred Scott stands, is as he is. That is, they say that when a question comes up upon another person, it will be so decided again, unless the court decides in another way, unless the court overrules its decision. Well, we mean to do what we can to have the court decide the other way. That is one thing we mean to try to do. . " The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this decision, is a degree of sacredness that has never been before thrown around any other decision. I have never heard of such a thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, or that good lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, have been made by that very court before. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 175 It is the first of its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a new wonder of the world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts — allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances — and no decision made on any question — the first instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable circum- stances—thus placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as settled law. But Judge Douglas will have it that all hands must take this extraordinary decision, made under these extraordinary cir- cumstances, and give their vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it and obey it in every possible sense. Circumstances alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember the case of that same Su- preme Court, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a national bank was constitutional? I ask, if somebody does not re- member that a national bank was declared to be constitutional? Such is the truth, whether it be remembered or not. The bank charter ran out, and a re-charter was granted by Congress. That re-charter was laid before General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when he denied the constitutionality of the bank that the Supreme Court had decided it was constitutional; and General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a co-ordinate branch of the Government, the members of which had sworn to support the Constitution — that each member had sworn to support that Constitu- tion as he understood it. I will venture here to say, that I have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of General Jackson for that act. What has now become of all his tirade about 'resistance to the Su- preme Court?'" There were some passages In this speech which illustrated Mr. Lincoln's readiness in " putting things " to the common apprehension. After having said that the much vaunted " popular sovereignty " which Mr. Douglas had put forth as his own invention was something which, when properly de- fined, the republicans had always accepted and acted upon, and that it came, not from Judge Douglas, but from the Declaration of Independence, which states that governments derive their just powers "from the consent of the governed," he alluded to the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution in Congress. He said that the republicans took ground ao-ainst the Lecompton Constitution long before Judge Douglas did, and that he held in his hand a speech in which he urged the 176 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. same reason against Douglas the year before that he (Doug- las) was urging now. He went on : " A little more, now, as to this matter of popular sovereignty and the Lecompton Constitution. The Lecompton Constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated. The defeat of it was a good thing, or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a good thing, and so do I, and we agree in that. Who defeated it ? " A voice — ' Judge Douglas.' " Mr. Lincoln — Yes, he furnished himself, and, if you suppose he fur- nished the other democrats that went with him, he furnished three votes, while the republicans furnished twenty. That is what he did to defeat it. In the House of Representatives he and his friends furnished some twenty votes and the republicans ninety odd. Now who was it that did the work ? " A voice — ' Douglas.' " Mr. Lincoln — Why, yes, Douglas did it. To be sure he did. Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The republicans could not have done it without Judge Douglas. Could he have done it with- out them? Which could have come the nearest to doing it without the other?" The following point was so neatly made that it drew from the house three hearty cheers: " We were often — more than once at least — in the course of Judge Douglas' speech last night, reminded that this government was made for white men — that he believed it was made for white men. Well, that is putting it into a shape in which no one wants to deny it ; but the Judge then goes into his passion for drawing inferences that are not warranted. I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need not have her for either, but, as God made us separate, we can leave one another alone, and do one another much good thereby. There are white men enough to marry all the white women, and enough black men to marry all the black women, and in God's name let them be so married. The Judge regales us with the terrible enormities that take place by the mixture of races ; that the inferior race bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if we do not let them get together in the territo- ries they won't mix there." And thus was opened the grand senatorial campaign of 1858. Mr. Douglas had not been present at Mr. Lincoln's LIFE OT ABBATTATVf LINCOLN". 1.7 speech, a fact which Mr. Lincoln regretted, and he soon took measures to secure his attendance. In the meantime, the campaign went on. Mr. Douglas spoke a week later at Bloomington, making much, as usual, of his doctrine of pop- ular sovereignty, and of his rebellion against the administra- • tion on the Lecompton question. Mr. Lincoln's original Springfield speech came in for comment, particularly the two points which he criticised at Chicago. Mr. Lincoln was present on this occasion also, determined to find out the exact ground of his antagonist, that he might he able to meet him in the struggle which he had determined upon. On the day following his Bloomington speech, Mr. Douglas spoke at Springfield, as did also Mr. Lincoln, though not at the same meeting. Mr. Lincoln, in opening his speech, alluded to the disadvantages which the republicans of the state labored under in the unjust apportionment of the legislative districts, and particularly in the disparity that existed between the reputation and prospects of the senatorial candidates of the two parties. All the anxious politicians of the party of Mr. Douglas had been looking upon him as certain, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. "They have seen," he said, "in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, charge- ships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out, in wonderful luxuriance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries and receptions, beyond what, even in the days of his highest prosperity, they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out." The main body of the speech was devoted to the questions at issue between him and Jud^e Douglas, and does not contain matter of special interest beyond 12 178 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. what lie had previously uttered upon the same points. He closed by reiterating the charge made in his speech of June seventeenth that Mr. Douglas was a party to the conspiracy for deceiving the people with the idea that the settlers of a territory could exclude slavery from their limits if they should choose to do so, and, at the same time, rendering it im- possible for them to do so through the standing veto of the Dred Scott decision. The charge was a grave one, but Mr. Douglas had ignored it. Since it was made, he had not alluded to it at all. " On his own tacit admission," said Mr. Lincoln, "I renew the charge." CHAPTER XIII. Mr. Lincoln wanted closer work than Mr. Douglas had given him. lie desired to address the same audiences with his antagonist, and to show to those whom he addressed the fallacy of his reasoning and the groundlessness of his charges. Accordingly, on the twenty-fourth of July, he dispatched the following note : — "Hox. S. A. Douglas — My Dear Sir: Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the present canvass ? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement. " Your obedient servant, A. Lixcolx." To this Mr. Douglas replied, stating that recent events had interposed difficulties in the way of such an arrangement. In connection with the State Central Committee at Springfield, he had made a series of appointments extending over nearly the whole period that remained before the election, and the people of the various localities had been notified of the times and places of the meetings. The candidates for Congress, the legislature and other offices would desire to speak at these meetings, and thus all the time would be occupied. Then he proceeded to give, as a further reason for his refusal, that it was intended to bring out another candidate for United States senator, to divide the democratic vote for the benefit of Mr. Lincoln, and that he (the third candidate) would also claim a 180 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. chance in the joint debates, so that he (said third candidate) and Mr. Lincoln would have the opening and closing speech in every instance. While, therefore, he declined the general invitation, he declared himself ready to make an arrangement for seven joint debates in the congressional districts respect- ively where they had not already spoken, and at the follow- ing places, viz: Freeport, Ottawa, Galesburg, Qnincy, Alton, Jonesboro and Charleston. This letter was published in the Chicago Times, and read there by Mr. Lincoln before he re- ceived the autograph by mail. To this letter Mr. Lincoln responded, denying, of course, the foolish charge of intended unfairness in bringing in a third candidate to divide the time to the disadvantage of Mr. Doug- las, and agreeing to speak in the seven places mentioned. There is other matter in these letters* which thoroughly discovers the characteristics of the two writers, but it must be left behind. Mr. Douglas replied to this second letter of Mr. Lincoln, designating the time and places of the debate as they follow : Ottawa, LaSalle County, August 21st, 1S58; Freeport, Stephenson County, August 27th; Jonesboro, Union County, September 15th; Charleston, Coles County, September ISth ; Galesburg, Knox County, October 7th; Quincy, Adams County, October 13th; Alton, Madison County, October loth. The terms proposed in this letter and accepted in a subse- quent note by Mr. Lincoln, were, that at Ottawa, Mr. Doug- las should speak an hour, then Mr. Lincoln an hour and a half, Mr. Douglas having the closing speech of half an hour. At the next place, Mr. Lincoln should open and close in the same way, and so on, alternately, to the conclusion of the ar- rangement. As about three weeks intervened between the date of this agreement for joint debates and the first appointment, both parties engaged zealously in their independent work. Mr. * Political debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, (Follett, Foster & Co.,) pages 64 and Co. LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 181 Lincoln began his canvass at Beardstown, the spot where, twenty-five years before, he had taken his military company for rendezvous before starting out for the Black Hawk war. After making a speech here, he went up the Illinois River to Havana and Bath in -Mason County, to Lewistown and Can- ton in Fulton County, and to Peoria and Henry in Marshall County, making speeches at each place, and attracting im- mense audiences. Mr. Douglas was equally busy, and equally fortunate in attracting the people to listen to his utterances upon the great questions of the day. At Clinton, in DeWitt County, he found it no longer possible to pass in silence the charge of Mr. Lincoln that he had "left a niche in the Ne- braska bill to receive the Dred Scott decision," which declared in effect, that a territorial legislature could not abolish slavery. Mr. Douglas here stated that his self-respect alone prevented him from calling this charge a falsehood. Subsequently, at Beardstown, he broke over his restraints, and called it " an infamous lie." To this Mr. Lincoln responded on a subse- quent occasion as follows : " I say to you, gentlemen, that it would be more to the purpose for Judge Douglas to say that he did not repeal the Missouri compromise; that he did not make slavery possible where it was impossible before ; that he did not leave a niche in the Nebraska bill for the Dred Scott decision to rest in ; that he did not vote down a clause giving the peo- ple the right to exclude slavery if they wanted to; that he did not refuse to give his individual opinion whether a territorial legislature could ex- clude slavery; that he did not make a report to the senate in which he said that the rights of the people in this regard were held in abeyance, and could not be immediately exercised; that he did not make a hasty indorsement of the Dred Scott decision over at Springfield ; that he does not now indorse that decision ; that that decision does not take away from the territorial legislature the power to exclude slavery; and that he did not in the original Nebraska bill so couple the words ' state' and ' territory ' together that what the Supreme Court has done in forcing open all the territories for slavery, it may yet do in forcing open all the states; — I say it would be vastly more to the point, for Judge Douglas to say he did not do some of these things, did not forge some of these links of overwhelming testimony, than to go to vociferating about the country that possibly he may be obbged to hint that somebody is a bar." 182 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The first meeting of the series agreed upon was held at Ottawa according to appointment. A concourse of citizens estimated at twelve thousand had assembled. Mr. Douglas had the opening speech, and in this speech he resorted to an expedient for placing Mr. Lincoln on the defensive which was cither very weak, or very wicked. He made a charge against Mr. Lincoln which, if he knew it to be false, was foul, and which, if he did not knoAv to be true, w r as most impolitic. He charged that Mr. Lincoln, on the part of the whigs, and Mr. Trumbull, on the part of the democrats, entered into an ar- rangement in 1854, for the dissolution of the two parties, and the fusing of both in the republican party, for the purpose of giving Lincoln Shields' place in the Senate, and Trumbull, his (Douglas') own. Furthermore, that the parties met at Springfield in October of that year, and, in convention of their friends, laid down a platform of the principles upon which the new party was constructed. He then proceeded to read what he called "the most important and material resolutions of the abolition platform." What these resolutions were, will appear in Mr. Lincoln's replies to the questions which Mr. Douglas based upon them. His object in asking these questions was, as he said, in order that when he should " trot him (Lincoln) down " to lower Egypt (southern Illinois) he might put the same questions to him there. The hearty reception which the audience gave to the prin- ciples of this platform as he pronounced them, did not please Mr. Douglas. He wished to see whether they would " bear transplanting from Ottawa to Jonesboro." "I have a right," said Mi*. Douglas, "to an answer, for I quote from the plat- form of the republican party, made by himself (Lincoln) and others at the time that party was formed, and the bargain made by Mr. Lincoln to dissolve and kill the old whig party, and transfer its members, bound hand and foot, to the abolition party, under the direction of Giddings and Fred Douglass." Mr. Douglas went on then to comment on Mr. Lincoln's Springfield speech, which had come to be known as "the house-divided-against-itself speech," and slid, as usual, into LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 183 his talk about the inferiority of the negro. Speaking of Mr. Lincoln and the " abolition orators," he said, " he and they maintain that negro equality is guarantied by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independ- ence. If they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and, hence, his brother; but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever." And here it may be said, because it will be impossible to describe with particularity all the speeches of the campaign, that the staple of the speeches of Mr. Douglas, as well as those of Mr. Lincoln, related to a very few points, which may be summed up in a brace of paragraphs. Mr. Douglas did not believe in natural negro equality, and did believe that every state had the right to say just what rights she would confer upon the negro ; that the people of every territory had a right to decide as to what their institu- tions should be, whil6 he bowed, at the same time, to the Drcd Scott decision, which declared that they had no right to abolish slavery ; and that the country could endure half slave and half free as well for all coming time as it had for the pre- vious eighty years, while slavery itself, to him, was a matter of indifference — an institution which might be "voted up or voted down," without any appeal to his preferences. On the other hand, Mr. Lincoln placed himself on the broad ground of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and are by heaven endowed with certain inalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- piness. He recognized the negro as a man, coming within the broad sw r eep of this Declaration. He believed thoroughly in Mr. Douglas' doctrine of popular sovereignty, without the Dred Scott qualification, which was a direct denial of the sovereignty ; but he believed the abrogation of the Missouri compromise, which Mr. Douglas himself had effected, an un- speakable wrong, a foul breach of faith, by which it was ren- 184 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. tiered possible for the people of a territory to choose slavery, and by which the forcing of slavery upon them was rendered practicable. Furthermore, he saw in that " piece of machin- ery," made up of congressional legislation, Supreme Court decisions and executive and party connivance, an attempt to nationalize and perpetuate slavery, which he felt must logically ultimate in that result, or end in universal emancipation. Slavery, he believed, had lived by the side of freedom, and in partnership with it, simply because freedom had regarded itself as eternal, while it had regarded slavery as ephemeral. Thus the fathers regarded and treated slavery. They had curtailed its territory. They had forbidden the importation of slaves. All their arrangements looked to an early end of slavery ; and Mr. Lincoln quoted the champions of slavery to sustain his views on this point. "When the policy of the gov- ernment changed, and it was proposed to nationalize slavery and make it perpetual — to confer upon it the same rights with freedom — nay, to make it impossible for freedom to abolish it — then he foresaw a conflict which could only end by its utter overthrow, or its universal prevalence. He did not be- lieve the house would fall ; he did believe that it would cease to be divided. The seven joint debates rang their changes on these points, as they were held and maintained by the debaters. Mr. Douglas did not seem to be as fertile in thought and expres- sion as his antagonist. He was more given to diversions, to the ordinary clap-trap of campaign speaking, to appeals to preju- dices, to the springing of false issues, to quibbles and tricks. Mr. Lincoln, on the contrary, was in thorough earnest, and stuck with manly tenacity to the great questions he had in hand. He stripped every objectionable proposition and every specious argument of the disguises in which the ingenious lanrmao-e of Mr. Douglas had clothed them, and refused to be led away, by a hair's breadth, from the real, naked issues of the campaign. In replying to Judge Douglas at Ottawa, he simply said that the story of his bargain with Mr. Trumbull was not' LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 185 true, and that ho was so far from having had anything to do with the convention to which the Senator had alluded that he was attending court, off in Tazewell County, when it was held. That was all there was of Mr. Douglas' charges. They had not an inch of truth to stand upon ; and it was discovered immediately after the debate that the resolutions which Mr. Douglas had quoted had not been passed in Springfield at all, by any convention, and that, although they had been uttered by a local convention in the town of Aurora, they were, for the purposes used, and under the circumstances, essentially a forgery, for which Mr. Douglas or his friends were guiltily responsible. The charge that Mr. Lincoln was in the conven- tion, that he made a bargain with Mr. Trumbull, that he was responsible for a certain set of anti-slavery resolutions, and that the resolutions which he read were passed by the conven- tion that was held at Springfield, was false in every particular. Did Mr. Douglas know it to be so ? Perhaps the only reply that it is proper to make to this question is that he ought to have known it to be so. In Mr. Lincoln's reply, he quoted from his Peoria speech made in 1854, to which allusion has been made in this history, to show his exact position on the subject of slavery in the states where it existed. He said in that speech that he had no prejudice against the southern people. They were just what Ave should be under their circumstances. " If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up." He understood how difficult it was to get rid of slavery, and he did not blame them for not doing what he should not know how to do himself. He acknowledged his constitutional obligations, and went so far as to say that he would be willing to give them a law for reclaiming fugitives, provided a law could be made which would not be more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. This, notwithstanding he hated slavery for the monstrous injustice of slavery itself, and for its disgrace to democratic institutions. But all these facts had no effect upon 186 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. his mind when he came to consider the question of extending slavery over territory now free. There was no more excuse, in his opinion, for permitting slavery to go into free territory, than for reviving the African slave-trade by law. " The law which forbids the bringing a slave from Africa," said Mr. Lincoln, " and that which has so long forbidden the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished, on any moral principle." The principal point urged against Judge Douglas in this speech touched his devotion to Supreme Court decis- ions. A decision of this Court was to him a " Thus saith the Lord." There was no appeal from it; and the next decision of this same Court, whatever it might be, was indorsed in advance. It is simply for the Supreme Court to say that no state under the Constitution can exclude slavery, and he must bow to the decision, just as when it says no territory can thus exclude it. Mr. Lincoln closed his remarks on this point by an argumentum ad hominem, equally characteristic and clever : " The next decision, as much as this, will be a Thus saith the Lord. There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not believe in the binding force of decisions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often heard him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court pronouncing a national bank constitutional. He says I did not hear him say so He denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he ought to know better than I, but I will make no question about this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell him though, ciiat he now claims to stand on the Cin- cinnati platform, which affirms that Congress cannot charter a national bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that Congress can charter a bank. And I remind him of another piece of history on the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois history, be- longing to a time when the large party to which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, be- cause they had decided that a Governor could not remove a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story in Ford's History of Illinois; and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of adding five new Judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting down on that very bench as one of the fire new Judgesto break LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 187 doion (he four old ones. It was in this way precisely that he got his title of Judge. Now, when the Judge tells me thai men appointed condi- tionally to sit as members of a court, will have to be catechised before- hand upon some subject, 1 say,'You know, Judge; you have tried it.' When he says a court of this kind will lose the confidence of all men, will In' prostituted and disgraced by such a proceeding, I say, 'You know best, Judge; you have been through the mill.' But I cannot shake Judge Douglas' teeth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (1 mean no disrespect,) that will hang on when he has once gut his teeth fixed; you may ctit off a leg, or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decis- ions — I may cut off limb after limb of his public record, and strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the court — yet I cannot divert him from it. lie hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to all other decis- ions of the same court." At the close of the half hour which Mr. Douglas employed in his reply to Mr. Lincoln, the latter Avas literally borne away upon the shoulders of his friends, in a frenzy of enthu- siasm, a fact to which Mr. Douglas made playful allusion a feAv days afterwards, in the statement that Mr. Lincoln was so much frightened that he had to be taken from the stand, and was laid up for seven days. Mr. Lincoln was too simple, too much in earnest, and too sensitive, to take this badinage gracefully. He really supposed there might be persons who would believe it, as appeared in a subsequent speech, in which he made it a matter of complaint. At the Freeport meeting, Mr. Lincoln had the opening speech, and commenced by answering the interrogatories which Mr. Douglas had addressed to him at Ottawa, based upon the declarations of the Aurora resolutions. Mr. Douglas asked him if he stood pledged now to the same details of policy that he did in 1854 — details which he drew from the resolutions he had read ; and to his questions Mr. Lincoln made these replies, seriatim : that he was not then, and never had been pledged to the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law ; 188 LIFE OP ABRAHAM LINCOLX. that lie was not then, and had never been, pledged against the admission of any more slave states ; that he did not stand pledged against the admission of a new state into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that state may see fit to make ; that he did not stand pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ; that he did not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the dif- ferent states ; and that he teas pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States territories. After saying that he had replied in terms to the Judge, and that he was not " pledged " to any of these principles or measures, he further said that he would not hang upon the form of the questions, but utter what he did think on all the subjects involved in them. He believed the southern people wero entitled, under the Constitution, to a congressional fugitive slave law ; said that he should be very sorry to see any more slave states applying for admission to the Union, and declared that he would not only be glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia, but he believed that Congress had the constitutional power to abolish it there. Having answered Mr. Douglas' questions — these and the re- mainder — in accordance with opinions with which the reader is already familiar, he was ready to turn questioner, and give the Judge something to do, in the same line of effort. He had already consulted with his friends concerning the matter, and, in his conversation on the subject, had dropped an ex- pression which showed that he was looking beyond the sena- torial contest for the grand results of the discussion. In Mr. Lincoln's view the principal point of debate was Mr. Douglas' doctrine of popular sovereignty, in connection with the Dred Scott decision — the two things in his judgment being in direct antagonism, and being, in reality, a shameful fraud. This an- tagonism Mr. Lincoln proposed to present in the form of inter- rogatories, but his friends remonstrated. " If you put that question to him," they said, " he will perceive that an answer, giving practical force and effect to the Dred Scott decision in the territories-, inevitably loses him the battle ; and he will LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 189 therefore reply by offering the decision as an abstract princi- ple, bnt denying its practical application." "But," said Mr. Lincoln, " it* he does that, he can never be President." His friends replied, " that is not your lookout ; you are after the senatorship." " No, gentlemen," said he, " I am killing larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."* Whether Mr. Lincoln then expected to be the republican candidate for the presidency in 1860, there are no means of judging; but that he intended the discussion to damage Mr. Douglas' presidential prospects there is no doubt. So Mr. Lincoln put his questions, which, in their order, were as they follow : "1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a state constitution, and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite number of inhabit- ants according to the English bill — some ninety-three thousand — will you pote to admit them? "2. 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 ? "3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that states cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting and following such decision, as a rule of po- litical action? "4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?" To the first question Mr. Douglas replied that he held it a sound rule, of universal application, to require a territory to contain the requisite population for a member of Congress, before it is admitted as a state into the Union; but it having been decided by Congress that Kansas had population enough for a slave state, he held that she had enough for a free state. His answer to the second question was in brief, this: "It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter de- cide, as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under the Constitution, the people have * Scripps, p. 28. 190 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. the lawful means to introduce it, or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day, or an hour, anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations. Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst." The third question he answered by stating that a decision of the Supreme Court that states could not exclude slavery from their limits, would "be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench would ever descend to." The thing in his view was simply impossible. This left the real question unanswered. Mr. Lincoln had not asked him whether the Supreme Court would or could make such a decision, but had inquired what he would do in the event that it should. To the fourth interrogatory he replied, "Whenever it becomes necessary, in our growth and progress, to acquire more terri- tory, I am in favor of it, without reference to the question of slavery ; and when Ave have acquired it I will leave the people free to do as they please — either to make it slave or free terri- tory as they prefer." To the answer to the second question Mr. Lincoln re- sponded by charging Mr. Douglas with changing his ground ; and referred to the record to prove his charge. He referred to the inquiry made by Judge Trumbull of Judge Douglas in the United States Senate, on this very point, when the former asked the latter whether the people of a territory had the lawful power to exclude slavery, prior to the formation of a constitution. The Judge's reply then was that it was a ques- tion to be decided by the Supreme Court. The question has been decided by the Supreme Court, and now the Judge, by saying that the people can exclude slavery if they choose, virtually says that it is not a question for the Supreme Court but a question for the people. The proposition that " slavery cannot exist a day or an hour without local police regulations " is historically false, even in the case of Dred Scott himself, who was held in Minnesota territory not only without police LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 101 regulations, but in the teeth of Congressional legislation, sup- posed to be valid at the time. The absurdity of adhering to the Drcd Scott decision and maintaining popular sovereignty at the same time, he put into a single sentence in a subsequent speech, made in Ohio — a sentence which contained the whole argument. It was declaring, he said, "no less than that a thing may lawfully be driven away from a place where it has a lawful right to be." It is impossible to follow to their conclusion this series of debates in the pages of this volume. Enough has been writ- ten to reveal the ground of the two antagonists, the merits of the questions they discussed and their modes of conducting debate. Into the side questions which sprang up on every fresh occasion, and which were connected with persons and local politics, it is not possible, and, perhaps, not desirable, to follow the debaters. They kept their appointments, and ful- filled the terms of their arrangement. They attracted to them immense crowds, wherever they appeared; and the whole nation looked on with an intense interest. There has never been a local canvass since the formation of the govern- ment which so attracted the attention of the politicians of other states as this. It was the key note of the coming pres- idential campaign. It was a thorough presentation of the issues upon which the next national battle was to be fought. The eyes of all the eastern states were turned to the west where young republicanism and old democracy were estab- lishing the dividing lines of the two parties, and preparing the ground for the great struggle soon to be begun. To say that Mr. Lincoln was the victor in this contest, mor- ally and intellectually, is simply to record the judgment of the world. To say that he was victor in every way before the people of Illinois, it needs only to be recorded that he received a majority in the popular vote over Mr. Douglas of four thousand eighty-five. There is this to be said, however, in connection with these statements. Whatever the advantages of Mr. Douglas may have been, Mr. Lincoln had the great advantage of belonging to a new and aggressive party, which 192 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. had started freshly in the strife for power, and had not been corrupted by power. It had not lived long enough to depart from the principles of truth and justice in which it had its birth. Standing on the ground that slavery was wrong and that its perpetuation would be a calamity, and its diffusion through new territory a crime, Mr. Lincoln not only felt, but knew, that he was right. This made him strong. Mr. Douglas was looking for the presidency, and knew that if he should ever reach and grasp the prize before him, he must do it through the aid of the slaveholding states. He knew that he could only secure this support by a certain degree of friendliness, or an entire indifference, to slavery. He intended to ride into power on the back of popular sovereignty, giving at least nominal equality to slavery and freedom in the terri- tories, while, at the same time, endorsing the decision of the Supreme Court as to what the exact rights of slavery were, under the Constitution. His policy was not only that of the democratic party of Illinois, but essentially that of the whole North. He boasted of this on one occasion, upon which Mr. Lincoln retorted the charge of sectionalism. Mr. Douglas had been obliged to defer so much to the spirit of freedom and to the rights of free labor in the territories — had been obliged for fear of defeat to go so far from the original path he had marked out for himself— that Mr. Lincoln called his attention to the fact that his speeches would not pass current south of the Ohio so readily as they had formerly done. "Whatever maybe the result of this ephemeral contest be- tween Judge Douglas and myself," said he, " I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill of ' sectionalism,' which he has been thrusting down the throats of republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own throat." It was undoubt- edly the grand aim of Mr. Lincoln, throughout the whole series of debates, to drive Mr. Douglas into such an open declaration for slavery as to secure his defeat for the senatorial office, or, failing in that, to compel him to such declarations on behalf of freedom as would spoil him as a southern candi- date for the presidency. "The battle of 1860 is worth a LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 193 hundred of this," Mr. Lincoln had said to his friends before the Freeport debate. He saw further than they. He was "killing larger game'' than the senatorship, and he certainly did kill, or assist in killing, Judge Douglas, as a southern candidate for the presidency. These debates of these two champions, respectively of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of party policy, were published entire as a campaign document in the republican interest, when Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, without a word of comment, the people being left to form their own conclusions as to the merits of the contro- versy, and the relative ability of the men whom it represented. It is in vain to look for any better presentation of the prin- ciples of the republican party, or a better definition of the issues which divided it from the democratic party of the time, than are to be found in these speeches of Mr. Lincoln. They cover the whole ground. They are clear, sound, logical, pow- erful and exhaustive; and, in connection with two or three speeches made afterwards in Ohio and New York, form the chief material on which his reputation as an oi'ator and a de- bater must rest. The man who shall write the story of the great rebellion on behalf of human slavery must go back to these masterly speeches of an Illinois lawyer to find the clear- est and most complete statement of those differences between the power of slavery and the spirit of freedom — the policy of slavery and the policy of freedom — which ended, after expend- itures of uncounted treasure and unmeasured blood, in the final overthrow of the accursed institution. Mr. Lincoln was beaten in his contest for the seat of Mr. Douglas in the Senate, in consequence of the unfair appor- tionment of the legislative districts. When it came to a bal- lot in the legislature, it was found that there were fourteen democrats to eleven republicans in the Senate, and forty dem- ocrats to thirty-five republicans in the House. This re-instated Mr. Douglas ; and the champion of the republican party was defeated after a contest fought by him with wonderful power and persistence, with unfailing fairness, good nature and mag- 13 L94 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. nanimity, and with a skill rarely if ever surpassed. He had visited every part of the state, made about sixty speeches, been received by the people everywhere with unbounded en- thusiasm, had grown strong with every day's exercise, was conscious that he had worsted his antagonist in the intellectual struggle, and, when defeat came, he could not have been oth- erwise than disappointed. On being asked by a friend how he felt when the returns came in that insured Lis defeat, he replied that he felt, he supposed, very much like the stripling who had bruised his toe — " too badly to laugh and too big to cry." But the battle of 1860 was indeed worth a hundred of that, and to it, events will swiftly lead us. CHAPTER XIY. The winter of 1858 and 1859 found Mr. Lincoln tit leisure. His absorption in political pursuits had materially interfered with his professional business, although he retained all that he had the disposition to attend to. At this point occurred one of those strange diversions that were so characteristic of the man. He sat down and wrote, in the form of a lecture, a comprehensive history of inventions, beginning with the handiwork in brass and iron of Tubal Cain, and ending with the latest products of inventive art. This lecture he delivered at Springfield, and, in a single instance, in another city, but there the public delivery of it ceased. Whether he undertook this to detach his mind from subjects which had held it so long, or whether he did it to be able to meet the invitations that came to him from many quarters to address the winter lyceums, does not appear. The effort does not seem to have been a satisfactory one to himself, and it is easy to see that it was not likely to be particularly attractive to the lecture-going public. Reading lectures and delivering stump speeches are very different styles of effort ; and the most effective political orators often surprise themselves as much as they do their aud- iences by their dryness and dreariness upon the platform of the lecturer. The facts of the matter are principally interest- ing as showing the natural drift of Mr. Lincoln's mind when diverted from professional and political pursuits. This diversion was only temporary. Mr.' Lincoln had be- come a political man. Whatever may have been his inclina- 196 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. tions at this time, he felt that he was in the hands of the party to which he had just given the ripest and best efforts of his life. He was a representative man, and was already regarded by the great masses of the new party at the West as their best man for the next presidential campaign. His senatorial contest had done much to make his name known to the poli- ticians of the nation. Political men everywhere had read his masterly debates with Senator Douglas, and had given him his position among the best politicians and most notable political orators of the time. While this is true, it is also true that east of the Alleghanies he was not much known among the people. He had not been much in public office ; and his field of action and influence was so distant that they had heard but little about him. If they had been told that within two years Abraham Lincoln would be elected president of the United States, three out of every four would have inquired who Abraham Lincoln was. At the West all was different. Ev- erybody knew "Old Abe." He was the people's friend — the man of the people — the champion of freedom and free labor — the man who had beaten the "little giant" in the pop- ular vote of the democratic state .of Illinois. His peculiari- ties were as well known to the people of the West as if he had been the member of every man's family. To look upon him was to look upon a lion. To shake hands with him or to hear him speak, was a great privilege — a subject of self-grat- ulation or neighborly boasting. On the 17th of May, 1859, we find Mr. Lincoln answering a letter addressed to him by Dr. Theodor Canisius, a Ger- man citizen of Illinois, who, with an eye to the future, inquired concerning Mr. Lincoln's views of the constitutional provision recently adopted in Massachusetts, in relation to naturalized citizens, and whether he opposed or favored a fusion of the republicans and other opposition elements in the approaching campaign of 1860. Mr. Lincoln replied that, while he had no right to advise the sovereign and independent state of Massachusetts, concerning her policy, he would say that so far as he understood the provision she had consummated, he LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 197 was against its adoption in Illinois, and in every other place where he had aright to oppose it. "As I understand the spirit of our institutions," said Mr. Lincoln, "it is designed to promote the elevation of men. I am, therefore, hostile to anything that tends to their debasement. It is well known that I deplore the depressed condition of the blacks, and it would, therefore, be very inconsistent for me to look with approval upon any measure that infringes upon the inalienable rights of white men, whether or not they are born in another land, or speak a different language from our own." As to the inquiry touching the fusion of all the opposition elements, he was in favor of it, if it could be done on republican princi- ples, and upon no other condition. "A fusion upon any other platform," the letter proceeds, " would be as insane as unprin- cipled. It would thereby lose the whole North, while the common enemy would still have the support of the entire South. The question in relation to men is different. There are good and patriotic men and able statesmen in the South whom I would willingly support, if they would place them- selves on republican ground ; but I shall oppose the lowering of the republican standard even by a hair's breadth." It is to be remembered in this connection that Massachusetts was a representative republican state, and, regarding the igno- rant foreign population, particularly of the eastern states, as holding the balance of power between the democratic and republican parties, which it never failed to exercise in the in- terest of the former and in the support of African slavery, had instituted measures which rendered naturalization a more difficult process. This embarrassed the republicans of the "West, who were associated with a large and generally intelli- gent German population, with leanings toward the republican party rather than to the democratic. Hence this letter to Mr. Lincoln and his reply, which latter undoubtedly had its office in shaping public opinion, and in bringing the foreign popula- tion of the West into hearty sympathy with Mr. Lincoln himself. It was during this year that the movement for making Mr. 198 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lincoln the republican candidate for the presidency took form. He was present as a spectator at the Illinois state republican convention held at Decatur on the tenth of May. When he entered the hall, he was greeted with such enthusiasm as few defeated men are favored with. There was no mistaking- the hi cell honor and warm affection in which the audience held him, and no doubting the fact that they regarded that which was nominally his defeat as a great triumph, whose fruits would not long be delayed. He had hardly taken his seat when Governor Oglesby of Decatur announced that an old / democrat of Macon County desired to make a contribution to the convention. The offer being at once accepted, two old fence-rails were borne into the convention, gaudily decorated, and bearing the' inscription: "Abraham Lincoln, the rail candidate for the presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of three thousand, made in 1830, by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln — whose father was the first pioneer of Macon County." The effect of this upon an audience already excited can be imagined by those only who have been familiar with the effect of similar melo-dramatic incidents under similar circumstan- ces. The cheers were prolonged for fifteen minutes, or until the strength of the enthusiastic assembly was exhausted. Mr. Lincoln was called upon to explain the matter of the rails, which he did, repeating the story already in the reader's possession — the story of his first work in Illinois, when he helped to build a cabin for his father, and to fence in a field of corn. It is the misfortune of great men who are candidates for office, that appeals must be made by them, or on their behalf, to the groundlings. j^ was a