"Cliosophic" Elssays 
 
 I . THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION 
 OF I860 
 
 By JOHN W. APPEL, A.M. 
 
 2. BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EVE OF THE REBELLION 
 
 By W. U. HENSEL, A. M. 
 
 3. ABRAHAM LINCOLN-The Problem. 
 The Man. The SMution. 
 By GEO. W. RICHARDS. D. D. 
 
 LANCASTER. PA. 
 MCMVni 
 
 \ 
 
"CLIOSOPHIC" ESSAYS. 
 

 
 >Vu, 
 
 1 1 1^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Cliosophic Society is a social and literary organiza- 
 tion of Lancaster, Pa., founded in 1879. It is limited to 
 about one hundred persons in number, representing some 
 two score families, who entertain it at their convenience. 
 The meetings are held fortnightly, from November to May. 
 A topic for discussion— historical, literary or scientific— is 
 generally selected for the winter, and at each meeting a 
 paper, about an hour in length, is read upon some phase 
 of the general subject; and a free discussion follows. The 
 Society has consistently adhered to its original plan, and 
 its vitality and the increasing interest manifested in its 
 proceedings are a subject of constant satisfaction to its 
 founders and its members generally. 
 
 For 1907-8 the subject of study has been American 
 History after the Compromise of 1850. In the course of 
 this series, three papers were read which seemed to many 
 who heard them to be so closely inter-related and to have 
 such merit as to be worth preservation. Though most of 
 the work of the Society has remained unpublished, many 
 of the papers produced have been of exceptional worth 
 as monographs on historical subjects, literary and art criti- 
 cism and scientific or religious study. The essays here 
 published together, and having some unity of theme, will 
 help to illustrate the character of the Society's work, and 
 may form a slight contribution to the voluminous but ever- 
 increasing History of the Civil War Period. 
 
The Political Revolution of 1 860 
 
 An Essay 
 
 Read Before 
 
 The Cliosophic Society, Lancaster, Pa. 
 November 15, 1907 
 
 By 
 
 John W. Appel 
 
 ' Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy, 
 Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the present only. 
 The Past is also stored in thee." 
 
 — Whitman. 
 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 MCMVIII 
 
The Political Revolution of 1 860.' 
 
 The middle of the last century marks the beginning of 
 a new era in the history of our country. The States 
 had been formed into a Union, but had not yet become a 
 Nation. The principles of individual freedom and terri- 
 torial expansion, as advocated by Thomas Jefferson, had 
 held full sway for half a century and had borne rich fruit- 
 age. John Marshall had defined the boundaries and set 
 the limitations of constitutional povvers. Jackson had 
 throttled nullification in its incipiency. Whig and Demo- 
 crat had made a brilliant record for their country ; but they 
 had reached the acme of their career and the old order was 
 changing, yielding place to new. Webster and Clay and 
 Calhoun had reached the summit of their fame, and a new 
 coterie of patriots v^as being trained for the gigantic con- 
 flict which lay dormant in the womb of the future. The 
 old era ended with the administration of President Buch- 
 anan and the new one began with the political revolution 
 of 1860, which made Abraham Lincoln president. 
 
 The causes which led to this revolution of political par- 
 ties grew mainly out of the slavery question. With the 
 history of that question is inwoven the record of the down- 
 fall of the old Democratic party and the rise of the Repub- 
 lican party. 
 
 ♦Abstract of the opening essay of The Cliosophic Society for the season 1907-08. 
 
4 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 The conflict commenced with the beginning of the gov- 
 ernment and increased in intensity until it reached its 
 culmination in the greatest civil war of history. The 
 stream which at its source showed only a few ripples as it 
 flowed placidly along, became a raging torrent which no 
 power could stem. 
 
 The first compromise on the slavery question dates back 
 to the formation of the Union. The terms of the compro- 
 mise were that the slave trade should be permitted to con- 
 tinue for twenty years ; that three-fifths of the slaves should 
 be counted in the apportionment of representatives in Con- 
 gress; and that fugitive slaves should be returned to their 
 owners. It was only by making these concessions that it 
 was possible to agree to a Union of the States. 
 
 The next conflict occurred when Missouri applied for 
 admission as a slave State into the Union. The South 
 became defiant in its demands for the extension of the 
 slave power, vrhile the North took a determined stand 
 against it. The conflict for a time seemed most serious, 
 and was only finally allayed by the famous Missouri Com- 
 promise of 1820. This act admitted Missouri as a slave 
 State, but with the provision that slavery should forever 
 be prohibited north of 36° 31' in all the territory acquired 
 from France by the Louisiana purchase. 
 
 The act forms a landmark in the history of the slave 
 question. As we view the situation now, in the light of 
 subsequent history, it is plain that at that time already 
 forces were at work that presaged the terrible conflict 
 of after years. The South demanded the admission of 
 Missouri as a slave State into the Union as a matter of right 
 under the Constitution, while the North strenuously opposed 
 it. 
 
 The cotton industry became an important element in 
 the controversy and added an economical, industrial and 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. O 
 
 social phase to the question. It had given to the South 
 untold wealth, and being a product of slave labor entirely, 
 it demanded the extension of slavery as a necessary social 
 and commercial institution. The discussion became most 
 bitter. The North became arrayed against the South, 
 and the great statesmen of revolutionary days viewed the 
 situation with consternation and alarm. 
 
 Henry Clay denied the constitutional power of Congress 
 to impose conditions on newly-organized States in any way 
 limiting their sovereign rights. Talmadge, of New York, 
 spoke of slavery as "this monstrous scourge of the human 
 race fraught with dire calamities to us as individuals and 
 to our nation." William Pinkney's speech in the Senate 
 was a brilliant effort. Clay thought it a " display of aston- 
 ishing eloquence." His argument was based upon the 
 doctrine of the sovereignty of the States. John Randolph 
 denounced the compromise as a "dirty bargain," and 
 called the Northern members who voted for it "dough 
 faces." 
 
 "This momentous question," wrote Jefferson, from 
 Monticello, "like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and 
 filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell 
 of the Union." "The words civil war and disunion," -wTote 
 Clay, "are uttered without emotion." 
 
 The compromise was a Southern measure; but while it 
 gave the South a slave State, it conceded the principle that 
 Congress had power to prohibit slavery in the territories, 
 which was a victory for the North. But peace was only 
 temporary, for sectional animosities were aroused which 
 were destined in the future to clash in the momentous 
 conflict of 1860. 
 
 When Texas and Oregon applied for admission to the 
 Union, a very wide-spread agitation arose out of the discus- 
 sion of an amendment to a bill providing for an appropria- 
 
6 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF LS60. 
 
 tion of $3,000,000, to be employed in negotiating a treaty 
 with Mexico. The bill had in view the acquisition of a 
 large amount of territory belonging to Mexico. David 
 Wilmot, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania, 
 proposed the amendment. 
 
 He asserted the necessity of the war, and avowed himself 
 in favor of the acquisition of New Mexico and California; 
 but he offered an amendment which declared it to be an 
 express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of 
 any territory from Mexico, that neither slavery nor in- 
 voluntary servitude should ever exist therein. This amend- 
 ment, known as the famoUs "Wilmot Proviso," "absorbed 
 the attention of Congress for a longer time than the Mis- 
 souri Compromise; it produced a wider and deeper excite- 
 ment in the country and threatened a more serious danger 
 to the peace and integrity of the Union. The consecration 
 of the territory of the United States to freedom became 
 from that day a rallying cry for every State of anti-slavery 
 sentiment, and afforded the ground on which the battle of 
 the giants was to be waged and possibly decided. It 
 proved a sword which cleft asunder political associations 
 that had been close and intimate for a lifetime." 
 
 Mr. Webster voted for the proviso, but said that he could 
 see little of the future, and that little gave him no satisfac- 
 tion: "All I can scan is contention, strife and agitation. 
 The future is full of difficulties and full of danger. We 
 appear to be rushing on perils headlong and with our eyes 
 all open." 
 
 The Wilmot proviso did not become a law, but it formed 
 another landmark in the movement towards the final crisis. 
 
 The next important act in the drama was the compro- 
 mises of 1850, which arose out of the admission of California 
 into the Union. Was this land of gold to be a free State or 
 a slave State, was the question. The discovery of gold 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 7 
 
 within her borders had made the territory famous through- 
 out the world and had attracted thither a motley crowd 
 of emigrants, "the seekers of El Dorado, Argonauts in 
 search of the golden fleece." In the constitution that was 
 adopted slavery was forever prohibited in the State. This, 
 in a sense, was more important than the daily discoveries 
 of new gold fields. When Congress met and the admis- 
 sion of the State into the Union came up for consideration, 
 the political excitement eclipsed the gold excitement. The 
 preponderating sentiment in the North was that the State 
 should remain free territory; while the sentiment in the 
 South was equally strong against any congressional legis- 
 lation that should interfere with their supposed right of 
 taking their slaves into the new territory. As Mr. Rhodes 
 tersely expresses it: "A population of thirteen millions 
 demanded that the common possession should be dedicated 
 to freedom; while a population of eight millions demanded 
 the privilege of devoting it to slavery." 
 
 When the question came up in the Senate, it called forth 
 a most memorable debate, in which Webster, Clay and 
 Calhoun were the chief actors. It was the last scene these 
 giants were to play upon the political stage. Clay believed 
 that the Union was in danger, and felt that he was the man 
 beyond all others to save it. As a basis of compromise, 
 he offered a series of resolutions providing for the admis- 
 sion of California as a free State; that territorial govern- 
 ment should be established without restriction as to slavery ; 
 that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District 
 of Columbia; that more effective provision should be made 
 for the rendition of fugitive slaves, etc. There was some- 
 thing sadly pathetic in the way in which these heroic figures 
 of former years pleaded in the sunset of life for the preser- 
 vation of the Union. "Henry Clay was in his seventy-third 
 year, and age and ill health served to remind him that the 
 
8 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 sands of his earthly career were almost run." He called his 
 theme "The Awful Subject." He desired to present the 
 olive branch to both parties of the distracted and at the 
 present moment unhappy country. On the general sub- 
 ject, his leaning was more to the Northern than the South- 
 ern side of the controversy; but on the subject of fugitive 
 slaves, he took extreme Southern ground. Calhoun follov/ed 
 Clay. It was his last formal speech. "Long battle with 
 disease had wasted his frame, but, swathed in flannels, he 
 crawled to the Senate Chamber to utter his last words of 
 warning to the North, and to make his last appeal for what 
 he considered justice to his own beloved South." His speech 
 was read by Senator Mason. He admitted that universal 
 discontent pervaded the South. Its "great and primary 
 cause is that the equilibrium between the two sections has 
 been destroyed;" the gradual yet steady assumption of 
 greater powers by federal government at the expense of 
 the rights of the States had proved an inestimable injury 
 to the South. It is undeniable that the Union is in danger. 
 How can it be saved? The North must give us equal right 
 in the acquired territory; she must return our fugitive 
 slaves; she must cease the agitation of the slave question, 
 and she must consent to an amendment to the Constitu- 
 tion which will restore to the South in substance the power 
 she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium 
 between the two sections was destroyed by the action of 
 the government. The admission of California will be the 
 test question. 
 
 Webster followed in his celebrated 7th of March speech. 
 He said: "I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts 
 man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. It is 
 not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agita- 
 tions, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers to 
 our institutions and government. The imprisoned winds 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 9 
 
 are let loose. The East, the North and the stormy South 
 combine to throw the v^'hole sea into commotion, to toss 
 its billows to the skies, and to disclose its profoundest 
 depths. I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. 
 Hear me for my cause. At the time the Constitution was 
 adopted, there v*'as no diversity of opinion between the 
 North and the South upon the subject of slavery. It will 
 be found that both parties of the country held it equally 
 an evil, a moral and political evil. A difference of opinion 
 showed itself, the North growing strong against slavery, the 
 South in its support," etc. In reply to Calhoun, on the 
 question of equilibrium, he said that the general lead in 
 the politics of the country had been a Southern lead. He 
 declared that from the formation of the Union to that hour, 
 the South had monopolized three-fourths of the honors 
 and emoluments under the Federal government. He said 
 he would not put in the bill any Wilmot Proviso for the 
 mere purpose of a taunt or reproach. "I will not do a 
 thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings of others, or 
 that does discredit to my own understanding." On the 
 question of fugitive slaves, he thought the complaints of 
 the South were just, and the North had lacked in her duty. 
 " Sir, he who sees these States now revolving in harmony 
 around a common center, and expects them to quit their 
 places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next 
 hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, 
 and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without 
 causing the wreck of the universe. Instead of speaking of 
 the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling 
 in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those 
 ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come 
 out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty 
 and union. Never did there devolve on any generation of 
 men higher trusts than now devolve upon us for the preser- 
 
10 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 vation of this Constitution, and the harmony and peace of 
 all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our 
 generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that 
 golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple 
 the people of all the States to this Constitution for all 
 ages to come." 
 
 The speech, while it was admired for its eloquence, was 
 a great disappointment to the people of the North. Web- 
 ster was denounced as a traitor. Horace Mann said : " Web- 
 ster is a fallen star; Lucifer descending from heaven." 
 Theodore Parker said : " I know no deed in American history 
 done by a son of New England to which I can compare this 
 but the act of Benedict Arnold." Whittier, in song, 
 mourned for the fallen statesman: 
 
 So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn 
 
 Which once he wore! 
 The glory from his gray hairs gone 
 
 Forevermore ! 
 
 O, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 
 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age, 
 
 Falls back in night. 
 
 Of all we loved and honored, naught 
 
 Save power remains — 
 A fallen angel's pride of thought, 
 
 Still strong in chains. 
 
 All else is gone! from those great eyes 
 
 The soul has fled: 
 When faith is lost, when honor dies 
 
 The man is dead! 
 
 Emerson called him a man of the past, not a man of 
 faith and hope. By many his speech was regarded as a 
 bid for the presidency. In the light of subsequent history, 
 public sentiment has changed in regard to Webster's posi- 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 11 
 
 tion. His dislike of slavery was strong, but his love for 
 the Union was stronger, and he believed that the " crusade 
 against slavery had arrived at a point where its further 
 prosecution was hurtful to the Union." 
 
 George F. Hoar, of Plymouth, August 1, 1889, said of 
 him : " Webster's great argument was behind every bayonet 
 and was carried home with every cannon shot in the war 
 which saved the Union." 
 
 Mr. Seward followed Webster. He said the public senti- 
 ment of the North would not support the enforcement of 
 the fugitive slave act. "Has any government ever suc- 
 ceeded in changing the moral convictions of its subjects by 
 force? We hold no arbitrary authority over anything. 
 The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitu- 
 tion devotes the domain (the territories) to union, to justice, 
 to defence, to welfare and to liberty. But there is a higher 
 law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority 
 over the domain and devotes it to the same noble purposes. 
 The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the com- 
 mon heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the 
 Creator of the universe. We are his stewards and must so 
 discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable 
 degree their happiness. I feel assured that slavery must 
 give way, that emancipation is inevitable and is near. 
 You cannot roll back the tide of social progress, you must 
 be content with what you have. There will be no disunion 
 and no secession." He closed with an appeal for the 
 maintenance of the Union. 
 
 We quote freely from these famous speeches (perhaps 
 too freely for such a paper as this) in order to show that 
 the issues that were tearing asunder the North and the 
 South centered in slavery and the limitations of federal 
 power. 
 
 The compromise was passed finally and received the 
 approval of the president. 
 
12 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860, 
 
 The success of the compromise was largely due to the 
 support of the Northern Democrats and the Southern 
 Whigs; but there commenced to appear evidences of the 
 breaking up of the old parties. 
 
 "Preachers in their pulpits, in synods and in various 
 meetings pronounced against the Fugitive Slave Act as 
 being in conflict with the law of God. Negroes took alarm 
 b}^ thousands and fled to Canada, the North assisting them 
 in their flight." 
 
 Charles Sumner, in the next Congress, presented a 
 memorial from the Society of Friends, asking for the 
 repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. He made a memorable 
 speech in presenting it, asserting that the literature of the 
 land condemned slavery, and it was abhorred by the out- 
 spoken, unequivocal head of the country at the time the 
 Constitution was adopted. 
 
 The Fugitive Slave Law was perhaps the most obnoxious 
 part of the compromises, for as it came to be applied, it 
 brought the people of the North face to face mth concrete 
 cases of hardship, which excited their sympathies. Whit- 
 tier offered up thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law, for it 
 gave occasion for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which Choate 
 boasted would make two million abolitionists. 
 
 When Mr. Pierce was elected president, he made an ap- 
 peal for the Union, holding that the compromise measures 
 of 1850 were strictly constitutional and should be unhesi- 
 tatingly carried into effect; and the people as a whole were 
 inclined to give him their support. But just as the dreams 
 of the great compromises of 1850 seemed to be about to be 
 realized, like a thunder clap from a blue sky, there was 
 introduced in Congress a measure which set the entire coun- 
 try aflame and ultimately led to political revolution. 
 
 Stephen A. Douglas was the author of the measure 
 which he introduced when the bill for the organization of 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1S60. 13 
 
 the territory of Nebraska came before Congress, and which 
 proposed to leave to the inhabitants of Nebraska the 
 decision as to whether or not they should have slavery, 
 thereby virtually repealing the provisions of the Missouri 
 Compromise. It affirmed that the restrictions of the 
 Missouri Compromise were superseded by the principles 
 of the legislation of 1850, and were declared inoperative. 
 
 "The Independent Democrats in Congress issued an ap- 
 peal to the people of the United States, arraigning the bill 
 as a gross violation of a sacred pledge, as a criminal be- 
 trayal of precious rights. One journalist wTote that if the 
 politicians of Washington have any doubt about the public 
 opinion, let them put their ears to the ground, and "they 
 will hear the roar of the tide coming in." 
 
 When the measure came up for consideration, Mr. Doug- 
 las made a somewhat violent and abusive, though able and 
 ingenious speech in its favor. He contended that in the 
 various preceding acts of compromise the principle estab- 
 lished was: 
 
 "Congressional non-intervention as to slavery; that the 
 people of the territories were to be allowed to do as they 
 pleased on the question, subject only to the provisions of 
 the Constitution. We all know," he said, "that the ob- 
 ject of the compromise measures of 1850 was to establish 
 certain great principles Vv'hich would avoid the slavery 
 agitation in all time to come. Was it our object simply to 
 provide for a temporary evil? Was that the object for 
 which the eminent and venerable senator from Kentucky 
 (Clay) came here and sacrificed even his last energies upon 
 the altar of his country? Was that the object for which 
 Webster, Clay and Cass, and all the patriots of that day 
 struggled so long and so strenuously? Was it merely the 
 affliction of a temporary expedient in agreeing to stand by 
 past and dead legislation that the Baltimore platform 
 
14 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 pledged us to sustain the compromise of 1850? Was it the 
 understanding of the Whig party when they adopted the 
 compromise measures of 1850 as an article of political 
 faith that they were only agreeing to that which was past, 
 and had no reference to the future? By no means. In 
 the legislation of 1850 a principle was adopted — the prin- 
 ciple of Congressional non-interference with slavery. The 
 legal efTect of this bill is neither to legislate slavery into 
 these territories nor out of them, but to let the people do 
 as they please. If they wish slavery, they have a right to 
 it. If they do not want it, they will not have it, and you 
 should not force it upon them." Thus Douglas proclaimed 
 his famous doctrine of popular sovereignty. 
 
 In reply to Douglas, Mr. Chase made a speech against the 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill and took a place in the foremost 
 rank of anti-slavery statesmen. He appealed to the 
 senators to reject the bill, as it was a violation of the plighted 
 faith and solemn sompact which our fathers made, and 
 which we, their sons, are bound by every sacred tie of obli- 
 gation sacredly to maintain. Wade, Seward and Sumner 
 made speeches against the bill. Sumner spoke to the 
 cultivated people of Massachusetts. He said the country 
 is directly summoned to consider face to face a cause which 
 is connected with all that is divine in religion, with all that 
 is pure and noble in morals, with all that is truly practical 
 and constitutional in politics. To every man in the land 
 it saj^s, with clear, penetrating voice, "Are you for free- 
 dom or are 5''ou for slavery"? 
 
 Edward Everett also made a speech against the bill in 
 the Senate. "The storm that is rising," wrote Seward, 
 "is such a one as this country has never yet seen." When 
 the bill came before the Senate to be voted on, Douglas 
 rose, a half hour before midnight, to close the debate. 
 Always a splendid fighter, says Mr. Rhodes, he seemed 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1S60. 15 
 
 this night Uke a gladiator who contended against great 
 odds; for, while he was backed by thirty-seven senators, 
 among his fourteen opponents were the ablest men of the 
 Senate, and their arguments must be answered if he ex- 
 pected to ride out the storm which had been raised against 
 him. Never in the United States, in the arena of debate, 
 had a bad cause been more splendidly advocated; never 
 more effectively was the worst made to appear the better 
 reason. We are contending, he said, for the great funda- 
 mental principle of popular sovereignty, and as the Mis- 
 souri restriction is inconsistent with that principle, it ought 
 to be abrogated. The bill does equal and exact justice to 
 the whole Union, and every part of it ; it violates the rights 
 of no state or territory, but places each on a perfect equal- 
 ity, and leaves the people thereof to the free enjoyment 
 of all their rights under the Constitution. The "Little 
 Giant," as he was called, spoke until daybreak and the 
 crowd remained to hear his last words. The bill v/as passed 
 by a vote of thirty-seven to fourteen. Douglas boasted of 
 the triumph of his doctrine of popular sovereignty. 
 
 Chase said: "They celebrate a present victory, but the 
 echoes they awake will not rest until slavery itself shall 
 die." 
 
 Mr. Rhodes says the speech of Douglas was an epoch- 
 making event in the decade of 1850-60. 
 
 The bill finally passed the House of Representatives by 
 a vote of 113 yeas to 100 nays, was approved by the presi- 
 dent and became the law of the land. More than forty 
 Democratic Representatives of the North voted against 
 the repeal. 
 
 The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, followed by 
 the Dred Scott decision, a few years later, forms the high- 
 water mark of the aggressions of slavery. It let loose the 
 furies of agitation throughout the land, and stirred up, in 
 
]6 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 the worst forms of bitterness, strife, anger, heart-burning 
 and hatred. In the judgment of the North, it was a great 
 conspiracy against human freedom. In the South, it was 
 viewed as an honest effort to recover rights of which they 
 had been unjustly deprived. No previous excitement 
 bore any comparison with that which spread over the 
 North after the bill became a law. It produced, says 
 Mr. Blaine, almost a frenzy of wrath on the part of thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands in both the old parties who 
 had never before taken part in anti-slavery agitation. The 
 New York Independent teemed with articles, and Henry 
 Ward Beecher thundered with eloquence against the act. 
 Lincoln, in his autobiograph}^, says : " I was losing interest 
 in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
 aroused me again." Greeley said Pierce and Douglas had 
 made more abolitionists in three months than Garrison 
 and Phillips could have made in half a century. Emerson 
 said: "The Fugitive Slave Law did much to unglue the 
 eyes of men, and now the Nebraska bill leaves us staring." 
 
 The Kansas-Nebraska Act was perhaps the most mo- 
 mentous that passed Congress prior to the outbreak of the 
 Civil War. It sealed the doom of the Whig party. It 
 made the Furtive Slave Law a dead letter in the North; 
 it alienated the Germans from, and led to the downfall of, 
 the Democratic party; and it caused the formation of the 
 Republican party. The measure was uncalled for and 
 can only be accounted for by the overpowering ambition 
 of its author. 
 
 While the Act was under consideration, a meeting was 
 held at Ripon, Wisconsin, which recommended the organi- 
 zation of a new party, under the name Republican. Later, 
 on July 6, 1854, another meeting was held at Jackson, 
 Michigan, which declared slavery to be a great moral, 
 social and political evil, and demanded the repeal of the 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 17 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave Law, and 
 the aboHtion of slavery in the District of Columbia; and a 
 ticket was nominated. 
 
 Shortly after the passage of the Act, thirty members of 
 the House of Congress met and decided that it was neces- 
 sary to form a new party, under the name of Republican. 
 Greeley, Wade, Sumner and other influential men fell in 
 with the movement. 
 
 The first Republican National Convention met in Phila- 
 delphia, June 17, 1856, and in its ranks were all shades of 
 anti-slavery opinions, the aboHtionists, the Free Soilers, the 
 Democrats who had supported the Wilmot Proviso, and the 
 Whigs who had followed Sevv'ard. 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens advocated the nomination of Judge 
 McLean of the Supreme Court as a candidate for the presi- 
 dency, and made an address in regard to which Mr. Wash- 
 bourne said : "I never heard a man speak v/ith more feeling 
 or in more persuasive accent." Mr. Rhodes says that one 
 great objection to McLean was that he was on the Supreme 
 Court bench, and a feeling prevailed that judges of the 
 higher courts lowered themselves and their courts when 
 they entered into a contest for the presidency. Mr. Blaine 
 says, however, that Judge McLean was old and the Re- 
 publican party was young. He belonged to the past, the 
 party was looking to the future. It demanded a more er.er- 
 getic and attractive candidate, and John C. Fremont was 
 chosen on the first ballot. The convention declared that 
 slavery should by positive law be excluded from the terri- 
 tories. 
 
 On the second day of June, 1856, the Democratic National 
 Convention met at Cincinnati and nominated James Buch- 
 anan for president, and adopted a platform resolving that 
 " The American Democracy recognize and adopt the princi- 
 ples contained in the organic laws establishing the terri- 
 
18 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 tories of Nebraska and Kansas as embodying the only 
 sound and safe solution of the slavery question." The 
 issue Yvas clearly defined. 
 
 " Never in our history, and probably never in the history 
 of the world, had a more pure, more disinterested and more 
 intelligent body of men banded together for a noble political 
 object than those who now enrolled themselves under the 
 Republican banner. The clergymen, the professors in the 
 colleges, the men devoted to literature and science, and 
 teachers, were for the most part Republicans. Silliman, of 
 Yale, Felton, of Harvard, Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, 
 George William Curtis, N. P. Willis and Washington Irving 
 strenuously advocated the Republican cause." The New 
 York Independent said: "Vote as you pray, pray as you 
 vote." 
 
 Longfellov/ wrote to Sumner that one reason why he did 
 not want to go to Europe was on account of losing his vote 
 in the autumn. The contest in Pennsylvania was very 
 warm. It is said $150,000 was sent into the State for the 
 slave-holding States. August Belmont contributed $50,- 
 000 and Wall Street put into Forney's hands $100,000 more 
 for the campaign. Mr. Dana wrote before the election: 
 "The election in Pennsylvania will go by from 30,000 to 
 40,000 majority against Buchanan. The tide is rising with 
 a rush, as it does in the Bay of Fundy; and you will hear 
 an awful squealing among hogs and jackasses when they 
 come to ch"own." Buchanan's majority in Pennsylvania 
 was less than 3,000, out of 423,000 votes. 
 
 The Republicans were defeated, but their magnificent 
 contest made them feel as though they had won the battle. 
 The Democrats were surprised by the large popular vote 
 against them. Mr. Blaine, speaking of the result, said: 
 "The distinct and avowed marshalling of a solid North 
 against a sohd South had begun and the result of the 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 19 
 
 presidential election of 1856 settled nothing except that a 
 mightier struggle was in the future;" while Whittier sang: 
 
 "If months have well-nigh won the field, 
 What may not four years do!" 
 
 Soon after President Buchanan's inauguration, the 
 Supreme Court delivered its famous decision in the Dred 
 Scott case, in which it declared that the act of Congress pro- 
 hibiting slavery in the territories north of 36°30' was un- 
 constitutional and void. The repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise was approved by the highest judicial tribunal. 
 Not only was the appeal approved, its re-enactment was 
 forbidden. The decision only rendered the contest more 
 intense and bitter. It was received throughout the North 
 with scorn and indignation. It entered at once into the 
 political discussions of the people and remained there until 
 it was remanded to the arbitrament of war. Mr. Sumner 
 said that Taney would be hooted down the pages of history, 
 and that an emancipated country would fix upon his name 
 the stigma it deserved. Mr. Wilson denounced the decision 
 as "the greatest crime in the judicial annals of the Re- 
 public, and declared it to be the abhorrence, the scoff, the 
 jeer of the patriotic hearts of America." 
 
 It was at this juncture in the genetic development of the 
 forces that wrought the revolution of '60, that there emerged 
 from the body of the people a man of prophetic vision, 
 of homely phrase but heroic mould, upon whose broad 
 shoulders the burdens of the nation were destined to be 
 cast in the most acute crisis of its history, who defined the 
 issue in language that was almost scriptural in truth 
 and simplicity. 
 
 In opening the senatorial contest in Illinois, he said: 
 "I believe this government cannot endure permanently 
 half slave, half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but 
 
20 THE- POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860 
 
 I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
 one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery 
 will arrest the farther spread of it, and place it where the 
 public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
 of absolute extinction, or its advocates will push it forward 
 till it shall become alike lav/ful in all the States, old as well 
 as new, North as well as South." Born and bred in the 
 wilderness, a rough child of nature, untutored in the schools, 
 this strangely marked man of destiny, against the advice 
 of his intimate friends, thus boldly and plainly proclaimed 
 the handwriting of fate as no other had as yet done. Pos- 
 sessed of a keen moral sense, loving truth for the truth's 
 sake, he exposed the fallacy of his opponent's position 
 that it v/as a matter of indifference whether slavery vras 
 voted up or dovm; and by propounding a series of ques- 
 tions to him, forced him to shov/ his hand in a v.'ay that 
 meant choosing between the North and the South. Mr. 
 Douglas won the contest by a majority of eight in the 
 Legislature, while his opponent received a plurality of 
 4,000 in the popular vote. He won the victory in the 
 State, but it proved his destruction in the wider field of 
 national politics. It was the beginning of the end of 
 Democratic harmony. Even at the risk of destroying the 
 Democratic party, the Southern leaders resolved to punish 
 Douglas for betraying their cause. With this end in view, 
 accordingly, in session following the debate the Democratic 
 senators laid down a series of resolutions, declaring that 
 neither Congress nor a territorial Legislature possessed the 
 power to impair the right of any citizen of the United 
 States to take his slave property into the common terri- 
 tories and there hold and enjoy the same, and if the terri- 
 torial government should fail to provide adequate protec- 
 tion to the rights of the slave holder, it would be the duty 
 of Congress to supply such deficiency. To this extreme 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 21 
 
 position the Northern Democrats could not subscribe. 
 They felt that if they wished to remain in the ranks of the 
 Democracy they would be compelled to trample on the 
 principles and surrender the prejudices of a lifetime. "The 
 situation was a cause of deep regret to the Northern Demo- 
 crats, by whom the traditions of Jefferson and Madison and 
 Jackson were devoutedly treasured. That a party whose 
 history was inwoven with the glory of the Republic should 
 now come to its end in a quarrel over the status of the 
 negro, in a region where his labor was not wanted, was, 
 to many of its members, as incomprehensible as it was 
 sorrowful and exasperating. They protested, but could 
 not prevent. Anger was aroused and men refused to listen 
 to reason. They were borne along ; they knew not whither 
 or by what force. Time might have restored the party to 
 harmony, but at the very height of the factional contest, 
 the representatives of both sections were hurried forward 
 to the National Convention of 1860, with principles sub- 
 ordinated to passion, with judgment displaced by a desire 
 for revenge." The storm clouds commenced to thicken 
 and serious men everywhere began to realize the gravity 
 of the situation. 
 
 The National Convention of the Democratic party met 
 at Charleston, in April, 1860. The Southern members 
 demanded an explicit assertion of the right of citizens to 
 settle in the territories with their slaves, and of the duty 
 of the Federal government to protect slavery in the terri- 
 tories, and wherever else its constitutional authority ex- 
 tended. To this extreme position the Northern Democrats 
 were vigorously opposed. There was a split in the con- 
 vention and seven Southern States withdrew and organized 
 a separate assemblage. Unable to come to an agreement, 
 the convention adjourned, to meet in Baltimore on the 18th 
 of June. When this convention reassembled, it divided and 
 
22 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 the Southern delegation nominated John C. Breckenridge 
 for president, while the Northern convention nominated 
 Stephen A. Douglas. 
 
 On the 9th of May, 1S60, a party, calling themselves the 
 Constitutional Union Party, met at Baltimore and nomi- 
 nated John Bell, of Tennessee, for president and Edward 
 Everett, of Massachusetts, for vice-president. The plat- 
 form was "The Constitution of the Country and the Union 
 of the States, and the Enforcement of the Laws." 
 
 After the Charleston Convention, Jefferson Davis said 
 in the Senate: "We claim protection for slavery, first, 
 because it is right; second, because it is the duty of the 
 general government. What right has Congress to abdi- 
 cate any power conferred upon it as trustees of the States? 
 But we make you no threats, we only give you a warning." 
 
 In conversation shortly after adjournment, Alexander 
 Stephens said: "Men will be cutting one another's throats 
 in a little while. In less than twelve months we shall be in 
 a war, and that the bloodiest in history. Men seem to be 
 utterly blinded to the future. What is to become of us 
 then? God only knows. The Union will certainly be 
 disrupted." 
 
 On May 16, 1860, the Republicans met in National Con- 
 vention in Chicago. It was a representative meeting of 
 the active and able men of both the old parties in the North 
 who came together on the one absorbing issue of the hour. 
 They thought alike on the one subject of putting a stop to 
 the extension of slavery. George Ashman, of Massachu- 
 setts, was elected permanent chairman. Thaddeus Stevens 
 and Andrew H. Reeder were delegates from Pennsylvania. 
 Mr. Seward, of New York, was placed in nomination by his 
 life-long friend, Mr. Thurlow Weed. His cause was advo- 
 cated by the eloquent tongue of William M. Evarts. He 
 pleaded for the Republic, for the party that would save it, 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 23 
 
 for the great statesmen who had founded the party and 
 knew where and how to lead it. " It is said that the great 
 career of Mr. Seward was never so illumined as by the 
 brilliant painting of Mr. Evarts." 
 
 Mr. Greeley, Andrew G. Curtin and Alexander K. Mc- 
 Clure were among those who opposed the nomination of 
 Mr. Seward. 
 
 The delegates from Illinois presented the name of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. Lincoln himself was present and John 
 Hanks marched in among the crowd in the Wigwam, bear- 
 ing on his shoulders the two historic rails on which was 
 inscribed: "From a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and 
 John Hanks in the Sagamon bottom in the year 1830." 
 
 On the first ballot, Mr. Seward received 173^ votes, Mr. 
 Lincoln, 102; Mr. Cameron, 50^; Mr. Chase, 49; Mr. Bates, 
 48; scattering, 42. On the second ballot, Mr. Seward re- 
 ceived 184^; Mr. Lincoln, 181; and the rest 99^. On the 
 third ballot, Mr. Seward had 180, while Mr. Lincoln had 
 23L2"- As soon as Mr. Evarts could obtain the floor, he 
 moved to make the nomination unanimous, which was 
 promptly and enthusiasticalh^ done. The nomination was 
 followed by great rejoicing throughout the North and 
 West. 
 
 The platform denounced the dogma that the Constitu- 
 tion carried slavery into the territories, declared the demo- 
 cratic doctrine and popular sovereignty a deception and a 
 fraud, branded the recent re-opening of the African slave 
 trade as a crime against humanity and a burning shame 
 to our country and age. 
 
 "In the four presidential tickets in the field, every shade 
 of political opinion was represented. Mr. Lincoln was in 
 favor of prohibiting the extension of slavery by law; Mr. 
 Breckenridge was in favor of protecting its extension by 
 law; Mr. Douglas desired to evade it and advocated the 
 
24 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 doctrine of non-intervention, and Mr. Bell desired to lead 
 the people away from every issue except the abstract one 
 of preserving the Union." 
 
 The canvass was most strenuous. The torch-bearers of 
 literature, Holmes, Whittier, Bryant, Curtis and Lowell 
 ardently espoused the cause of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lowell 
 said: "We believe this election is a turning point in our 
 history. We have only two parties in the field — those who 
 favor the extension of slavery and those who oppose it. It 
 is in a moral aversion of slavery as a great \\Tong that the 
 chief strength of the Republican party lies." Henry Ward 
 Beecher and Dr. Chapin delivered political speeches from 
 their pulpits on Sunday evening before the election. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln gained steadily as the campaign progressed, 
 and on the popular vote received 1,857,610, being 930,170 
 votes less than all his opponents combined. There was 
 great joy throughout the North over the victory. Mr. 
 Longfellow vsTote in his diary: "Lincoln is elected; over- 
 whelming majorities in New York and Pennsylvania. This 
 is a great victory. It is the redemption of the country. 
 Freedom is triumphant." 
 
 Mr. Motley said: "I rejoice at last in the triumph of 
 freedom over slavery more than I can express. Thank 
 God it can no longer be said that the common law of my 
 country is slavery, and that the American flag carries 
 slavery with it wherever it goes." 
 
 Thus was achieved the political revolution of 1860. The 
 Republican party won a notable victory in the battle of 
 the ballots, and the Democratic party, which had dominated 
 the country for half a century, suffered a most signal defeat. 
 The long political struggle, reaching far back, almost to 
 the beginnings of the government, was over; and for the 
 first time in the history of the country, the South was de- 
 feated in a presidential election where an issue alTecting the 
 slavery question was involved. 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 25 
 
 As we have endeavored to shov/, the revolution was the 
 culmination of a struggle v/hich was inherent in the Con- 
 stitution of the government. Every time the clash came 
 it seemed to grow more violent ; and although it was settled 
 from time to time by conciliation and compromise, it was 
 evident that the issues which were becoming more and 
 more clearly defined, would eventually have to be squarely 
 met and decided. 
 
 The conflict was dimly foreshadowed as early as when 
 the Constitution itself was framed and adopted. It appeared 
 in the discussions over the Louisiana question of 1812, in 
 the admission of Missouri and the annexation of Texas. 
 In the compromises of 1850 it threatened the destruction 
 of the Union; and in the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise and the Kansas struggles and in the Dred Scott de- 
 cision it was precipitated to final settlement. It was these 
 events, as Mr. Blaine well says, " that led often slowly, but 
 always with directness, to the political revolution of 1860." 
 
 The contest was irrepressible and inevitable. It is some- 
 times maintained that if it had not been for the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise the conflict might have been 
 avoided; and that those vrho precipitated that measure 
 must be held responsible for the dire consequences that 
 followed. This is only partially true. The men who 
 forced that measure through no doubt hastened the con- 
 flict, for it led the North to lose all faith in compromises 
 and to become fixed in the conviction that the house divided 
 against itself could not stand and that the Republic half 
 slave, half free, could not endure. But the event was only 
 an incident in the movement, it was not the ultimate cause. 
 Two irreconcilable forces were at work in the life of the 
 people, and the political events which brought the agita- 
 tion to the surface only indicated the hidden volcanic 
 fires underneath. Mr. Seward correctly defined the situa- 
 
26 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 
 
 tion v/hen he said, in his speech at Rochester, October 25, 
 1858: "It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and 
 enduring forces and it means that the United States must 
 and will, sooner or later, become either a slave-holding 
 nation or entirely a free-labor nation." 
 
 Although industrial, sociological and religious problems 
 were involved in it, the immediate occasion of the conflict, 
 no doubt, was slavery. As Mr. Rhodes put it: " Two causes 
 operated in the formation of the Republican party — the 
 cause of the slave and the political power of the slave 
 oligachy." On this question, men on both sides no doubt 
 were at fault. It must be admitted that there was much 
 that was reprehensible in the extreme radicalism of the 
 North; but the brunt of responsibility for the disasters 
 that followed the conflict must be borne by the South, on 
 account of its unwarranted aggressions on the slavery 
 question. The North was aggressive in the way of agita- 
 tion and resistance, but it never passed an act interfering 
 with the right of the South to their property in slaves. 
 Mr. Buchanan admits this when he says, in his fourth 
 annual message, December 3, 1860: "It is a remarkable 
 fact in our history that, notwithstanding the repeated 
 efforts of the anti-slavery party, no single act has every 
 passed Congress, unless we may possibly except the Mis- 
 souri Compromise, impairing in the slightest degree the right 
 of the South to their property in slaves," etc. 
 
 But beneath the slavery and industrial question, and as 
 a part of the cause of the conflict, especially as the issues 
 became crystallized in the Civil War, was the broader ques- 
 tion of States' Rights and Federal Authority. With the 
 election of Abraham Lincoln began the era of strong gov- 
 ernment, of Federal authority as over against State sov- 
 ereignty. This question was involved in the slavery ques- 
 tion from the beginning and went hand in hand with it. It 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 27 
 
 was discussed in the speeches of Davis and Calhoun and 
 Clay and Seward and Sumner and Webster, who made it 
 the climax of his celebrated speech agamst Hayne.^^ _ 
 
 Mr Buchanan, in his inaugural address, said: 1 clesiie 
 to state at the commencement of my administration that 
 long experience and observation have convinced me that 
 a strict construction of the powers of the government is 
 the only true, as well as the only safe, theory of the Con- 
 stitution. The Federal Constitution is a grant from the 
 States to Congress of certain specific powers," etc. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, after his election, said: "Having never 
 been States, either in substance or in name, outside ot the 
 Union, whence this magical omnipotence of states rights. 
 Much is said about the sovereignty of the States but the 
 word even is not in the National Constitution. The btates 
 have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal 
 status. This relative matter of national power and states 
 right, as a principle, is no other than the principle of gen- 
 erality and locality," etc. ^ . x. i i +u , 
 
 The rio-ht of a State to secede and to resist Federal authoi- 
 ity had been an open question and was stoutly maintained 
 by eminent men in the North as well as by the leading 
 men in the South. When Abraham Lincoln assumed the 
 reins of government, while he arrayed himself against 
 slaverv as a great moral and political wrong, he set his face 
 sternly against secession and disunion, and proclaimed that 
 the Union must and should be preserved. He was opposed 
 to slavery, but he was more opposed to secession, ihe 
 preservation of the Union to him was the paramount con- 
 cern. The slavery question fired the minds of the people 
 often to white heat in the political contest of 1860; but the 
 moment Sumter was fired on, the main cry that went up 
 from the North was for the preservation of the Umon. 
 " Down with rebellion! " " Down with secession! were m 
 
28 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF I860. 
 
 the clarion call to arms. Many patriotic men in the North, 
 who had little sympathy with the anti-slavery agitation, 
 shouldered their muskets and went forth to fight for the 
 Union. They would have scorned to have been told that 
 they were fighting for the cause of the negro. Mr. Sumner 
 and Mr. Schurz and many of Mr. Lincoln's friends and 
 advisers were constantly urging him to come forth posi- 
 tively with a message proclaiming to the world that the 
 cause of the war was slavery, and that the government was 
 waging a war for the freedom of the slaves. 
 
 Mr. Schurz was particularly insistent upon Mr. Lincoln 
 doing this, as he states in his recent "Reminiscences," 
 believing that such an announcement would enlist Eng- 
 land and the nations of Europe in the cause of the North; 
 but Mr. Lincoln persistently refused to take such a step, 
 believing that the cause of the Union was deeper than the 
 cause of slavery, and knowing that such action on his part 
 would create dissension among patriotic men of the North. 
 Herein Mr. Lincoln showed deeper foresight and greater 
 political wisdom than the coterie of great men who sur- 
 rounded him. He was maligned and slandered and tra- 
 duced and sneered at by scholars and statesmen who 
 believed themselves to be his superiors; but he towered 
 above them all and stands justified before the bar of history 
 for the position he took. He believed in strong govern- 
 ment and, in his determination to save the Union and to 
 crush rebellion, he assumed povv^ers on the part of the 
 Federal government as over against the States that had 
 never before been exercised. He was berated in this regard 
 as much as President Roosevelt is to-day. Vallandingham 
 called him ^'The Csesar of the American Republic." Wen- 
 dell Phillips said of him that he was "A more unlimited 
 despot than the world knows this side of China;" and 
 Senator Grimes spoke of going to see the president as an 
 
THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. 29 
 
 " attempt to approach the footstool of the power enthroned 
 at the other end of the avenue." 
 
 The seeds of the new Democracy, as it now exists under 
 the masterful sway of President Roosevelt, were sown in 
 the Revolution of 1860. It was a fortunate circumstance 
 that this issue was in a sense veiled under cover of the 
 slavery question, which appealed to the emotions and moral 
 sense; for, stripped of the moral issue, it is a question 
 whether the plea for the perpetual Union of the States 
 would have triumphed. 
 
 The moral side of the question appealed especially to the 
 people of the nation and enlisted the best talent in every 
 sphere of life in its behalf. It touched poetry and song 
 and art and literature, as well as politics. But whether 
 we regard the high moral or the deep political principle 
 involved, no more brilliant galaxy of statesmen, orators, 
 poets, preachers, editors, professors and thinkers of all 
 classes were ever enlisted in any political cause. They Vv-ere 
 high-minded, conscientious men, ready to yield up their 
 lives in the cause they espoused. Their patriotic zeal can 
 never be forgotten. 
 
 "Till the mountains are worn out and the rivers forget 
 to flow, till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, 
 and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall 
 their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are 
 inscribed upon the book of national remembrance." — 
 Beecher. 
 
 The struggle was a costly one, in blood and treasure, but 
 the results achieved were worth all it cost. The virtue and 
 the purity as well as the permanency of the Union hung 
 in the balance. It seems to be the way of the world that 
 birth always involves death in some form or other ; as Whit- 
 tier says: 
 
 "Before the joy of peace must come 
 The pains of purifying." 
 
30 THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1S60 
 
 And it was necessary that the old order should die in order 
 that the new one might live. The nation, as over against 
 the Confederacy, was in its birth throes. The nation has 
 had two births; first, its birth to Union, under Washington 
 and Hamilton; second, its birth to liberty and national 
 unity under Lincoln. It was a great thing to purge the 
 nation of slavery; but it was a greater thing to weld the 
 States into a nation and to make us one people. The 
 Revolution of 1860 accomplished both: It abolished slavery; 
 but it at the same time crushed forever the doctrine of the 
 right of secession, expanded the idea of National Sovereignty, 
 and inscribed upon the national ensign, in characters that 
 can never be effaced, that sentiment, clear to every true 
 American heart: 
 
 "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and 
 Inseparable." 
 
Buchanan's Administration 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Eve of the Rebellion 
 
 A Paper Read 
 
 before 
 
 The Cliosophic Society 
 
 Lancaster, Pa., January 24, 1 908 
 
 by 
 
 W. U. Hensel 
 
 It is Easy to be Wise After the Event. 
 
 LANCASTER. PA. 
 
 MCMVIII 
 
Buchanan's Adminstration on the 
 Eve of the Rebellion. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Members of the Cliosophic Society and 
 Guests : 
 
 We have so far progressed with the development and dis- 
 cussion of the topic for the present CHo season as to easily 
 recognize and fully appreciate its comprehensive character. 
 A half century of history, during a period so pregnant with 
 great events, testing the very unity of our nation and the 
 endurance of its institutions, under changes of the most 
 revolutionary character, has been made the subject of 
 many thousands of volumes of historical narration and 
 philosophic discussion. In contemplating even the outside 
 of them, one is at some loss to determine whether the tele- 
 scopic or the microscopic system of investigation is the 
 more satisfactory treatment for the purposes of this So- 
 ciety's entertainment— not to say its instruction— whether 
 the spectacular contemplation of the panorama or the 
 perhaps more tedious study of the miniature is nearer to 
 your tastes and more conformable to your temper. 
 
 Howbeit no considerable figure in the period of political 
 stress and storm which marked the agitation of the slavery 
 issue and collateral questions can be fairly treated, as to 
 the events of his life, the relation to his times and contem- 
 poraries, his place in the final judgment of history and in 
 the last analysis of patriotic character and motive, within 
 the limits of a sixty-minute paper. 
 
 For myself, I incline, from the observation and experience 
 of many years, to the opinion that the range of our studies 
 should be narrowed and focussed, and the subject of a single 
 
4 Buchanan's administration 
 
 winter could be better comprehended and more satisfac- 
 torily handled within a short space of time; that they 
 should center in the life and influence of some single con- 
 spicuous historical personage, the works, if not the work of 
 a great creative genius, or revolve about one epoch in the 
 life of our own or the history of some other nation. 
 
 For many reasons I shall confine my treatment of Mr. 
 Buchanan's public career and his attitude toward public 
 questions to that closing period of his administration and 
 of his official life which intervened the election and inaugu- 
 ration of his successor; only contrasting his executive aims 
 and acts with those of Mr. Lincoln at the outset of the 
 latter's term, when the conditions were most nearly cor- 
 responding. 
 
 I shall assume that the main events of his life are familiar 
 to any Lancaster audience— his pre-eminent ability as a 
 lawyer, his long experience and signal services in the many 
 places of public trust he held; his unsullied private char- 
 acter and unquestioned personal integrity; his almost con- 
 tinuous discharge of high official duties through the many 
 years in which he rose from the rank of State legislator, 
 through service as representative, diplomat, senator, secre- 
 tary of state and ambassador, to the highest office under 
 our government— advancing to the place by those grada- 
 tions of experience, once familiar and common, but known 
 no longer in our political system; since now— for better or 
 for worse— canned statesmanship, like condensed food and 
 preserved music, are furnished to order, on short notice 
 and ready for immediate use— accepted generally for the 
 gaudiness of the label rather than on the merits of the 
 contents. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in "Man versus The State," observes 
 that "unquestionably among monstrous beliefs one of the 
 most monstrous is that while for a simple handicraft such 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 5 
 
 as shoemaking a long apprenticeship is needful, the sole 
 thing which needs no apprenticeship is making a nation's 
 laws." Mr. Buchanan was not made president by reason 
 of any such popular or party delusion. In reaching that 
 place he only came to his own. 
 
 Moreover, had he realized his sincere belief that the 
 notable decision of the Supreme Court upon the slavery 
 question, which was almost contemporaneous with his 
 inauguration, would have been accepted by people and 
 politicians as the decisive judgment of the supreme federal 
 tribunal, upon the question of then greatest federal and 
 popular concern, it may easily be conceived his administra- 
 tion and himself would have gone down to history as iden- 
 tified with one of the most notable executive terms since 
 the beginning of the government. Mr. Bryce, the most 
 far-sighted and fair-minded foreign critic of our institutions, 
 and Mr. Rhodes, probably the most accurate historian of 
 the period he treats, agree that our material progress during 
 1850-60 was greater than that of any preceding decade; 
 and the American gives' many illustrations of the tremen- 
 dous advances in the intellectual, social and moral state of 
 the people of that time. 
 
 Again, had success attended the earnest efforts of those 
 who so strenuously sought to avert war in 1861; had the 
 vigorously pressed Crittenden measures of compromise 
 been adopted and accepted ; or had Virginia's effort to save 
 the Union — accepted by twenty-one states who composed 
 the Peace Congress, presided over by one who had been 
 President of the Republic — had this or any like movement 
 prevailed, the Buchanan administration would have been 
 signalized as marking at once the most awful crisis and the 
 safest deliverance in all our internal historj^* and the sunset 
 of his political life would have been irradiated with the 
 "gold and glory of a perfect day." 
 
6 BUCHANAN S ADMINISTRATION 
 
 THE VERDICT OF HISTORY. 
 
 As it happened, I only record what is the overwhelming 
 and apparently fixed conclusion of by far the greater num- 
 ber of the historic writers of this period, that his adminis- 
 tration was inglorious and feeble, that it failed where it 
 ought to have succeeded, and that this was largely due to 
 the weakness of the executive head, if not to his actual 
 lack of patriotism. 
 
 I believe it is the sincere belief of a great majority of 
 even the intelligent people of this country who have hon- 
 estly tried to study its history, that Mr. Buchanan, as 
 president, at the outbreak of the secession movement, 
 was a weak, timid, old man; who had gained his place by 
 the favor of, if not through the bargain with, an arrogant, 
 unscrupulous, slaveholding oligarchy of the South; that he 
 was an accessory after, if not before, the fact, to the plot 
 of a partisan majority of the Supreme Court to withhold 
 the Dred Scott decision until after his election and then 
 make it cover a point not vital to it, for unscrupulous 
 political purposes; that he was the tool of crafty Southern 
 leaders, who used him and his cabinet to bring to successful 
 issue long predetermined plans to break up the Union; 
 that in the development of these, he permitted, if he did 
 not connive at, the weakening, scattering and disintegrat- 
 ing of the armed forces of federal power on land and sea, 
 the distribution throughout the Southern States of great 
 and disproportionate quantities of muskets, rifles and 
 cannon, so that the impending Confederacy might have a 
 long start on the Union forces in physical preparation for 
 armed conflict; that he obstructed Congress in its efforts 
 to avert rebellion and war, or to properly, promptly and 
 eiTectively meet it when declared ; that he drooped the col- 
 ors of presidential dignity when he treated the envoys of 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 7 
 
 defiant rebellion with a consideration due only to foreign 
 ambassadors; that he parleyed over the re-inforcement of 
 federal forces in government forts until the Confederates 
 could rally enough troops to capture them; that he repu- 
 diated the right to assert some existing constitutional ex- 
 ecutive power to levy war against a rebellious state govern- 
 ment or the people of a rebellious commonvv'ealth ; and that 
 when he quit the office, March 4, 1861, he was succeeded by 
 a firm, resolute, patriotic successor, whose policies, methods 
 and executive acts, in striking contrast with, and immediate 
 reversal of, Mr. Buchanan's, asserted the proper presidential 
 prerogative, antagonized rebels, roused patriotism, re- 
 inforced forts, inspired Congress, raised armies, established 
 national credit, waged war; and, with a combination of 
 Jefferson's statesmanship, Jackson's courage, Washington's 
 patriotism, Hamilton's skill and Webster's enthusiasm, 
 after four years of civil war, the expenditure of ten billions 
 of treasure and the loss of a half million human lives, ac- 
 complished what Mr. Buchanan could have done bloodlessly 
 and economically had he not been a dotard or a traitor! 
 
 I cannot reasonably quarrel with the young student who, 
 off-hand, accepts these conclusions; nor with a younger 
 generation, who find it more convenient — even though 
 more unjust — to adopt than to dispute or dislodge them. 
 
 Although nowadays we pay only one or two cents for a 
 morning or evening newspaper, we are unreasonable enough 
 to expect that what is printed therein, so far as it purports 
 to be news and a narration of facts, has been gathered at 
 the expense of its readers and patrons, with some regard 
 for truth and accuracy. None of us has the time or the 
 money to verify the same. Nevertheless, as we so often 
 find that what is published regarding the things of which 
 we have some knowledge is grossly inaccurate, unreliable 
 and untruthful, we would also find, had we the means to 
 
8 Buchanan's administration 
 
 test it, a vast deal of what passes for " a brief abstract and 
 chronicle of the time" to be merely the "baseless fabric 
 of a vision." So if the touchstone of historical truth be 
 applied to much that the history makers have set down 
 as established fact or invincible opinion, it will be found 
 to be unsupported by testimony and unsustainable by fair 
 argument. 
 
 MR. BUCHANAN'S CRITICS. 
 
 Thus in the elaborate and voluminous Albert Bushnell 
 Hart series, "The American Nation," Prof. Smith, in the 
 volume on "Parties and Slavery," dismisses Buchanan with 
 the curt criticism: "No president has a record of more 
 hopeless ill success." Chadwick, in his "Causes of the Civil 
 War," in the same series, speaks of him as a weak "old 
 man," surrounded by traitorous counsellors and afraid to 
 do the duty which was plain before him. 
 
 Schouler, in his five-volume history of the United States 
 of America, "Under the Constitution," vrhich period he 
 seems to think begins with the Revolution and ends with 
 the Civil War, complains that in 1860-1 the country lacked 
 an executive who made "a bold and manly stand," "a free 
 avowal that the Union must be preserved and the laws of 
 the land obeyed." This he blithely declares "would have 
 relieved the gloom and despondency which was already 
 gathering in business circles," etc.; and he dismisses the 
 subject by re-echoing what he calls "the spontaneous cry 
 of conscience Democrats": "Oh! for an hour of Jackson." 
 In the language of the street, however, he "gives himself 
 away" by confessing that the weak point in our system is 
 that which kept the government's resources sequestered for 
 four months "after the people had declared their will, in 
 control of an administration and Congress defeated at the 
 polls." As a historian, he makes nothing by trying to 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 9 
 
 shift the blame for the forwardness of the Confederate 
 cause from Buchanan to Congress; for he should have known, 
 if he is a true historian, that the Congress which met one 
 month after Lincoln's election was a Republican Congress, 
 organized and controlled by the political opposition to 
 Mr. Buchanan, and from December 3, 1860, when it met, 
 until March 4, 1861, when it expired, it never passed an act 
 nor did a deed in support of Buchanan's efforts to avert 
 war or to suppress the incipient rebellion. And though the 
 next Congress, elected in 1860, and overwhelmingly Re- 
 publican, could have been called into extra session March 
 5, 1861, no effort was made by the incoming Republican 
 administration to assemble it until July 4, 1861 — nearly 
 three months after the flag had been fired upon. 
 
 Mr. Rhodes, who makes a resolute and in the main as 
 successful an effort to be fair as anyone with his strong 
 bias can be, clings to the view that Buchanan was "lame 
 and apologetic" and by his executive headship so far domi- 
 nated Dix, Black, Stanton and Holt, of his Cabinet, as to 
 prevent a policy of "vigorous defense prompted by strong 
 patriotic and national sentiments." John A. Logan, who 
 of course is entitled to no rank as a historian or political 
 philosopher, but whose opinion is significant because (Saul- 
 of-Tarsus-like) he was converted over night from a pro- 
 slavery Democrat to a red-mouthed Republican, and was 
 seriously considered — by himself at least — as a presidential 
 possibility, speaks of the Buchanan outfit, in his "Great 
 Conspiracy," as "an imbecile administration, which stood 
 with dejected mien and folded hands helplessly awaiting 
 the coming catastrophe." Gen. Benj. F. Butler, who had 
 voted fifty-seven times for Jefferson Davis as the fit Demo- 
 cratic nominee for president of the United States, has re- 
 called in "his book" how the question of secession could 
 have been settled and "life and treasure incalculable" saved 
 
10 Buchanan's administration 
 
 had Buchanan accepted his advice and arrested the Seces- 
 sion Commissioners for treason. As Mr. Buchanan's suc- 
 cessor had the benefit of Gen, Butler's services, , civil and 
 military, and as all political parties had his help at one 
 time, and his opposition at another, it probably may not 
 be quite fair to quote him as authority on any side of any 
 question. 
 
 Mr. Blaine, v.'ho possesses some of the consistent qualities 
 of a genuine historical critic, even of politics, considers that 
 Mr. Buchanan lacked will, fortitude and moral courage; 
 and professes to believe that if he had possessed "the un- 
 conquerable vv'ill of Jackson or the stubborn courage 
 of Taylor he could have changed the history of the 
 revolt against the Union." John Sherman recalls in his 
 "Recollections" with manifest self-satisfaction that he 
 wrote, in December, 1860, "Treason sits in the councils 
 and timidity controls the executive power;" and, comment- 
 ing in 1895, on Mr. Buchanan's attitude, he characterizes 
 it as "feebleness, vacillation and dishonor." Schurz de- 
 nounces him as "the most miserable presidential figure in 
 American history." Mr. Elson, whose work is probably 
 the best of all the single-volume histories, calls him "a 
 weak and vacillating president." 
 
 Noah Brooks, in his life of Lincoln, stigmatizes his prede- 
 cessor as cowardly, senile and vacillating, because he did 
 not stamp out secession and reinforce Fort Sumter. John 
 T. Morse, who has carefully excluded Buchanan from his 
 "American Statesman Series," though it comprises many 
 men of much inferior rank, arraigns him bitterly in the 
 life of Lincoln, which he himself wrote ; and yet page after 
 page of it discredits his own estimate. 
 
 I could multiply these citations almost without limit. 
 Let it suffice to recall that Horace Greely, the very rankest 
 of disunionists, in his "Recollections," finds it impossible 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 11 
 
 to reconcile Mr. Buchanan's conduct at the initial stages of 
 the rebellion with any other hypothesis than that of " secret 
 pledges made by him, or for him, to the Southern leaders, 
 when he was an aspirant to the presidency, that fettered 
 and paralyzed him when they perverted the power enjoyed 
 by them, as members of his cabinet, to the disruption and 
 overthrow of the Union." 
 
 AN UNJUST JUDGMENT. 
 
 I recall these opinions and I cite this very general judg- 
 ment of contemporary history for the purpose of demon- 
 strating that they are unhistorical, unjudicial, untrue, un- 
 just and cruel. The subject affords fresh illustration of 
 how easily Error and Falsehood can outrun Justice and 
 Truth in a short race. A very brief examination into the 
 facts of the case will, on the other hand, demonstrate how 
 simple it is for those who earnestly desire and honestly 
 strive to get at the truth to ascertain and grasp it. 
 
 From the same authorities whose opinions I have quoted 
 I reach and undertake to sustain certain conclusions of fact 
 which utterly subvert, undermine and reverse these false 
 and mistaken judgments. From their own admissions it 
 is manifest that Mr. Buchanan was no more of a disunionist 
 than Mr. Lincoln, and not nearly so much of one as Seward, 
 Greely, Beecher or Wendell Phillips; that the doctrine of 
 secession, the right of a State to withdraw from the Federal 
 Union, was not solely indigenous to the South; that the 
 views of the Buchanan administration on the constitutional 
 right of the executive to coerce a seceding state, or to make 
 war on its people, were exactly those then held by sulostan- 
 tially all the great lawyers, judges and statesmen of the 
 country, including Abraham Lincoln; that there was no 
 spoliation of the public treasury, no apportionment of the 
 federal military equipment, nor dispersion of the navy in 
 
^^ Buchanan's administration 
 
 the interest of any particular section; that in his efforts to 
 maintain peace and prevent dismemberment of the Union 
 Mr. Buchanan^ was more aggressive, positive and definite 
 than was Mr. Lincoln at the time ; that his Secretary of State 
 during the time the secession movement was organizino-' 
 was more courageous and determined than Mr. Lincoln'^s 
 premier, even after rebellion became far more defiant and 
 threatening; that the attitude of Lincoln's administration 
 toward the Confederate agents of peace was more concilia- 
 tory than Buchanan's; that in his efforts to preserve peace 
 and effect a compromise, Mr. Buchanan had the encoura-e- 
 ment and support of an overwhelming majority of the 
 Northern people, and was hearkening to the almost unani- 
 mous voice of those who represented their great moral and 
 material interests; that no act of his liastened or encoura-ed 
 the outbreak of hostilities, and that nothing he might have 
 done, and left undone, could have checked, prevented or 
 suppressed the rebellion and the ensuing war; that Mr 
 Lincoln's utterances against force, invasion of Southern 
 territory and resort to arms, from the time of his election 
 until his inauguration, were much more emphatic for peace 
 and concihation than Mr. Buchanan's; that a Republican 
 ilouse of Representatives and Congress, as a whole, during 
 that period, did nothing, and did not offer to do anything 
 to justify or support the president in assuming any other 
 attitude toward the South or its rebellion than he assumed 
 —in short, that Mr. Buchanan did no less than Mr. Lincoln 
 would or could have done in his place during those four 
 months, and Mr. Lincoln did, dared and said nothing be- 
 fore, at and immediately after his inauguration to show he 
 was not in full accord and sympathy with the policies of 
 the Buchanan administration. 
 
 As to the general proposition of acknowledging the right 
 of secession or the policy of disunion, there is not to\e 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 13 
 
 found a line or letter in any document Mr. Buchanan ever 
 wrote, or in any speech he ever uttered, to justify such an 
 aspersion. While extremists North and South concurred 
 in this view, he never entertained nor countenanced it. 
 He was a Jackson Democrat from start to finish, and went 
 the whole length of that warrior-statesman in antagonism 
 to Calhoun's doctrine of nullification — which must not be 
 confounded with secession. Some of the most eminent 
 representatives of Southern sentiment, like Jefferson 
 Davis, who believed in the right of secession, disputed 
 nullification; and others — like Alexander H. Stephens and 
 John B. Floyd — who conceded the right of secession, had 
 consistently demonstrated the political and economic folly 
 of its exercise. Howell Cobb, in his canvass for Governor 
 of Georgia, had made an able and powerful argument 
 against the right of secession; and Mr. Buchanan himself 
 records that this was the principal reason he selected Cobb 
 for a seat in his cabinet. 
 
 On the other hand, there can be no mistake about the 
 strong sentiment of the Abolitionists and the New Eng- 
 landers generally, of such advanced leaders as Josiah Quincy, 
 and John Quincy Adams, in their time, and of Horace Greely, 
 William H. Seward, Henry Ward Beecher, William Lloyd 
 Garrison and Wendell Phillips, of a later day, that secession 
 was right and disunion was desirable. 
 
 It was in Massachusetts, not in Alabama; by the Aboli- 
 tionists, not the Democrats ; led by Garrison, not by Davis, 
 Toombs or Yancey — that the Constitution of the United 
 States was publicly biu-ned; the few hisses and wrathful 
 exclamations that the deed drew forth were overborne by 
 a thousand shouts of "Amen." It is an indisputable his- 
 torical fact that when the extreme anti-slavery Northerners 
 felt the constitutional contract and the final judicial con- 
 struction of it warranted not only the existence of human 
 
14 Buchanan's administration 
 
 slavery, but its extension into the territories; that the en- 
 forcement of the Fugitive Slave Law was a duty imposed 
 upon the States and on their people, and that there was no 
 legal escape from these logical conclusions, they were quite 
 ready to declare the Federal Constitution a "league with 
 death, and a covenant with hell;" to "half mast the starry 
 flag, tear down the flaunting lie;" and to submit to a dis- 
 solution of the compact of the States. It is reasonable to 
 suppose that had the law been, or had it been construed to 
 be, otherwise, the Southern extremists would have been 
 just as disloyal and refractory, for it is as true of the right- 
 eous as of the rogues that they ne'er feel the halter draw, 
 "with good opinion of the law." 
 
 It is quite true, the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions 
 of 1798 and 1799 declared the rights of States to nullify 
 Federal statutes; but the Federalists, in opposing the an- 
 nexation of Louisiana and the war of 1812, and the Hart- 
 ford Convention of 1814, proclaimed the right of secession 
 in even more defiant terms; and down until the thunder of 
 hostile cannon shook the land, the great body of Northern 
 Abolitionists believed in the political preaching of Jedidiah 
 Morse, that New England should get out of the Lhiion to 
 get rid of slavery. 
 
 On the other hand, John C. Ropes, v/hose "Story of the 
 Civil War" is probably the fairest and keenest of like 
 dimensions yet written, says not a word dropped from 
 Buchanan's lips to encourage the Southern hope "that the 
 North would consent to a peaceable dissolution of the 
 Union;" "nor did he ever yield an iota on the point of the 
 abstract right of the Federal Government to maintain its 
 hold on all the Southern forts." 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 15 
 
 ALL SECTIONS OPPOSED TO WAR. 
 
 None the less, the great mass of the people, North and 
 South, were neither for disunion nor for war. They were 
 favorable to almost any compromise on the slavery ques- 
 tion that would preserve peace and union ; and Mr. Lincoln, 
 long after the war began, expressed the popular notion 
 when he said that if he could save the Union by destroying 
 slavery he would destroy it, but that if he could save the 
 Union by continuing slavery he was for its continuance. 
 His inaugural pledged him to enforce the fugitive slave law. 
 
 I am not now concerned to inquire whether this view 
 was sagacious or ethical, humane or even statesmanlike. 
 My proposition is that in the winter of 1860 and 1861 it 
 was the view of the great majority of the Northern people; 
 that Mr. Lincoln reflected and espoused it as fully and sin- 
 cerely, and expressed it as freely and unmistakably, as Mr. 
 Buchanan; and that it is a shallow, false and wicked judg- 
 ment which reprobates the one as cov\-ardly and senile and 
 praises the other as brave and sensible for cherishing the 
 same notions, even though they were erroneous. 
 
 I hasten to the support of my second proposition, that 
 they concurred in their views as to what was then dis- 
 cussed as the right and policy of "coercion." The expiring 
 Thirty-sixth Congress met less than a month after Lincoln's 
 election. That House was in full control of the Republicans, 
 and they had elected the next Congress. Within three 
 months they would be in complete power. " Mr. Buchanan 
 has been chiefly denounced for the tone of his annual 
 message to that Congress. Not a blow had been struck; 
 no State had passed an ordinance of secession; the North 
 did not believe the South would secede; the South did not 
 believe the North would fight. The discussion was as yet 
 only academic. 
 
16 Buchanan's administration 
 
 Nevertheless, the New York "Tribune," whose editor 
 was the most potential force in nominating and electing 
 Mr. Lincoln, and which newspaper was " the most powerful 
 organ of its party," declared three days after his election: 
 "If the cotton States shall decide that they can do better 
 out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in 
 peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, 
 hut it exists nevertheless. * * * We shall resist all 
 coercive measures." These views were reiterated from 
 day to day. They were re-echoed by the Albany " Evening 
 Journal," edited by Thurlow Weed, the nearest friend of 
 Mr. Seward. Henry Ward Beecher, in his famous Boston 
 speech, declared, about the same time, "I hold it will be 
 an advantage for the South to go off." Gen. Scott, who had 
 been a Whig candidate for president, who was the Com- 
 manding General of the Army, and who later became one 
 of Mr. Buchanan's severest critics, in his famous "Views," 
 of October, 1860, had said: "To save time, the right of 
 secession may be conceded." In March, 1861, when he was 
 most intimate with Secretary Seward, and was discouraging 
 the relief of Sumter, he urged the North to say to the seced- 
 ing States, "Wayward Sisters, go in peace." 
 
 If Mr. Lincoln antagonized these notions, he at least made 
 no serious sound nor sign. He was the rising sun ; Buchanan 
 was an evening star; and any views a retiring president 
 might have had to express would have been cold and feeble 
 rays by contrast with the bursting effulgence of the great 
 orb of day. If the clarion call to battle was to be then 
 sounded, it ought to have emanated from Springfield; if 
 there was a demand for a Jackson, he should have ridden, 
 like "Young Lochinvar," "out of the West." 
 
 Nevertheless, while the leaders of Mr. Lincoln's party, 
 and the chieftains of his campaign, were thus proclaiming 
 the right of disunion and encouraging the South to secede, 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 17 
 
 Mr. Buchanan declared in his message that grave danger 
 threatened the country against which he had long sounded 
 warnings; he prayed God to preserve the Constitution and 
 the Union throughout all generations; with courteous re- 
 gard for his successor, he proclaimed that he had been 
 fairly and constitutionally elected, and that his success 
 justified no revolution; he recognized guarantees that Mr. 
 Lincoln "would not attempt violation of any clear con- 
 stitutional right." He stated the doctrine of secession 
 and denounced it as " wholly inconsistent with the history 
 as well as the character of the Constitution," and cited 
 Jackson and Madison, Southern statesmen, to contravene 
 it. With fine touches of eloquence, he said: 
 
 "This government, therefore, is a great and powerful 
 government, invested with all the attributes of sovereignty 
 over the special subjects to which its authority extends. 
 Its framers never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds 
 of its own destruction, nor were they at its creation guilty 
 of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution. It 
 was not intended by its framers to be 'the baseless fabric 
 of a vision,' which, at the touch of the enchanter, would 
 vanish into thin air, but a substantial and mighty fabric, 
 capable of resisting the slow decay of time, and of defying 
 the storms of ages." 
 Again he said: 
 
 "The fact is, that our Union rests upon public opinion, 
 and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed 
 in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the people, 
 it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of 
 preserving it by conciliation ; but the sword was not placed 
 in their hand to preserve it by force. 
 
 " But may I be permitted solemnly to invoke my country- 
 men to pause and deliberate, before they determine to de- 
 stroy this, the grandest temple which has ever been dedi- 
 
18 Buchanan's administration 
 
 cated to human freedom since the world began. It has 
 been consecrated by the blood of our fathers, by the glories 
 of the past and by the hopes of the future. The Union has 
 already made us the most prosperous, and ere long will, 
 if preserved, render us the most powerful nation on the face 
 of the earth. In every foreign region of the globe the title 
 of American citizen is held in the highest respect, and when 
 pronounced in a foreign land, it causes the hearts of our 
 countrymen to swell with honest pride. Surely, when we 
 reach the brink of the yawning abyss, we shall recoil with 
 horror from the last fatal plunge. 
 
 "By such a dread catastrophe, the hopes of the friends 
 of freedom throughout the world would be destroyed, and 
 a long night of leaden despotism would enshroud the nations. 
 Our example for more than eighty years would not only be 
 lost, but it would be quoted as conclusive proof that man 
 is unfit for self-government." 
 
 I might quote many like passages throbbing with the 
 loftiest patriotism. Certainly no man can recall them 
 without feeling that the touching and oft-quoted sentiments 
 of Mr. Lincoln's inaugural reached no higher plane of 
 patriotic sentiment and touched no deeper chord of popular 
 feeling. George Ticknor Curtis, a Yankee of Yankees, who 
 had argued the Dred Scott case for the slave, declares: 
 "After a long familiarity with our constitutional literature, 
 I know of no document vv^hich, within the same compass, 
 states so clearly and accurately what I regard as the true 
 theory of our Constitution as this message of President 
 Buchanan. Had I the power to change it, I v»"ould not 
 alter a word." It may be said that Mr. Curtis was the paid 
 biographer of Mr. Buchanan ; but he was also the biographer 
 of Mr. Webster, and he had a reputation as a constitutional 
 lawyer that he would not risk for any paltry reward of 
 political literature. 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 
 
 19 
 
 NEITHER TIMID NOR WEAK. 
 
 Meantime, as conditions changed, the situation became 
 more alarming. States seceded. Congressmen withdrew and 
 cabinet ministers w^ho sympathized with secession quit or 
 were forced out of his cabinet, but Mr. Buchanan only per- 
 sisted and became correspondingly more emphatic in his 
 acts and utterances. There was, however, no reversion nor 
 inconsistency in the executive position— neither tnmdity 
 nor show of M-eakness. In his special message of January 
 8, 1861, he repeated his conviction that "no State has a 
 right by its own act to secede from the Union or throw off 
 its Federal obligations at pleasure." While he declared, 
 in almost the same terms that ]\Ir. Lincoln adopted— months 
 later and when the rebellion was far more advanced— that 
 he "had no right to make aggressive war upon any State," 
 he declared, on the other hand, in words that his successor, 
 sixty days later, almost identically appropriated, "The right 
 and duty to use military force defensively against those who 
 resist the Federal officers in the execution of their legal 
 functions, and against those who assail the property of the 
 Federal Government, is clear and undeniable." Lawyer 
 and statesman as he was, he knew the limitations upon the 
 executive, and what were the constitutional prerogatives 
 of the legislative branch of government. He had taken a 
 solemn o^ath to regard both these, and he was liable to 
 impeachment and subject to disgrace if he dicl not. He 
 declared Congress, which was in session, to be "the only 
 tribunal under Providence possessing the power to meet 
 the existing emergency." He said : " To them, exclusively, 
 belongs the power to declare war, or to authorize the em- 
 ployment of military force in all cases contemplated by the 
 Constitution; and they alone possess the power to remove 
 grievances which might lead to war, and to secure peace 
 
20 Buchanan's administration 
 
 and union to this distracted country. On them, and on 
 them alone, rests the responsibihty." 
 
 In his views and in his manner of expressing them, the 
 president not only had the advice and cordial approval of 
 his Attorney-General, Jeremiah S. Black — to whom Rhodes 
 gives unstinted praise for purity, patriotism, statesman- 
 ship and legal learning — but what is far more to our present 
 purpose, all that Buchanan then said and all he did had the 
 legal, cordial and unqualified support of three other mem- 
 bers of his cabinet, who subsequently became most illus- 
 trious leaders of the Republican party, Edwin M. Stanton, 
 the great War Secretary — the erection of a statue to him 
 has just been recommended by Secretary Taft; Joseph Holt, 
 to whom, after eminent service, Lincoln offered the Attor- 
 ney Generalship; John A. Dix, later a Major General, Re- 
 publican Governor of New York and Ambassador to France 
 -^and yet best remembered because, as a Democrat, and 
 from his seat in Buchanan's cabinet, he sent out that thrill- 
 ing message, "If any man hauls down the American flag, 
 shoot him on the spot." Judge Holt is on record as testi- 
 fying that Mr. Buchanan's official labors ought to be 
 crowned by the glory that belongs " to an enlightened states- 
 manship and unsullied patriotism." 
 
 Not only did they all accept, approve and stand by their 
 chief's public declarations, but they remained in his confi- 
 dence and trusting him until he took his seat beside Mr. 
 Lincoln in the carriage which bore them to the ceremony 
 of transferring the presidency. It is inconceivable that 
 these eminent loyalists and high-minded gentlemen could 
 have stayed in his political household if he was the base 
 and timid creature whom partisan historians have pictured 
 and pilloried. Whether he dominated them or subjected 
 himself to their guidance, it is an indecent judgment that 
 stigmatizes the administration of which they were all 
 members as "weak" or "disloyal." 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 21 
 
 Meantime, what answer was Congress, with a RepubUcan 
 House of Representatives, making to the executive alarms 
 and appeals? For three months, to the last day of his 
 administration, that body remained in session; and Buch- 
 anan exhausted all power he had over its successor by call- 
 ing an extra session of the Senate, to meet March 5, 1861. 
 While the outgoing Congress repudiated all proposals of 
 compromise to prevent civil war, it took no measures what- 
 ever to retain the cotton or the border States within the 
 Union. It heard of one State seceding after another, and 
 witnessed the withdrawal of member after member of 
 Congress. The senators who had listened with "cold 
 neutrality" to Jefferson Davis's vindictive attacks upon 
 Mr. Buchanan, for denying the right o£ secession, sobbed 
 with personal sympathy when Mr. Davis delivered his 
 famous and pathetic speech of withdrawal from association 
 with his colleagues. That even then this most conspicuous 
 of Southern leaders was not without hope of a peaceful 
 reconciliation is attested by a touching domestic annal, 
 recorded by Mrs. Davis: "Inexpressibly sad he left the 
 Senate chamber with faint hope; and that night I heard 
 the oft-reiterated prayer: 'May God have us in His holy 
 keeping, and grant that before it is too late peaceful coun- 
 sels may prevail.'" 
 
 AN INACTIVE CONGRESS. 
 
 It makes nothing against Mr. Buchanan's policy to 
 undertake to justify the inaction of Congress by the tre- 
 mendous political and popular efforts then making in 
 every quarter to effect a compromise and avert war ; or by 
 the very general belief that any aggression by Congress 
 would fan into conflagration a flame, otherwise soon to 
 flicker out. Certainly if the only branch of government to 
 which are entrusted the raising of money, the equipment 
 
22 Buchanan's administration 
 
 of armies and the declaration and carrying on of war re- 
 mained inert, after repeated warnings, no right nor power 
 existed in the president to supplant or even supplement it. 
 All the more was this the case in view of the fact that a 
 new executive was so soon to be inaugurated and a new 
 Congress quahfied. 
 
 It must also be remembered that although the Federal 
 statutes then gave the executive power to call forth the 
 militia to suppress insurrections against a State Govern- 
 ment, no such power existed to suppress insurrections 
 against the Federal Government. This omission was per- 
 mitted to exist until after the end of Mr. Buchanan's term ; 
 its grant to Lincoln, by the Act of July 29, 1861, was evi- 
 dence of the necessity for it. Every request for like power 
 to President Buchanan was ignored; and even after forts 
 and mints had been seized, and the aggressions begun 
 which he always declared would justify defensive warfare, 
 a bill to give the president power to call out militia or accept 
 volunteers to protect and recover military forts, magazines, 
 arsenals and other property belonging to the United States 
 was withdrawn the same day it was reported — killed as soon 
 as it saw light. Four bills in all to furnish the president 
 with military means to provide for the collection of duties 
 at Southern ports of entry were introduced and not one of 
 them was passed. 
 
 Nor let it be forgotten that when President Jackson 
 grappled with nullification, a patriotic Congress gave him 
 the "Compromise Act" and "Force Bill", which enabled 
 him to act with vigor and success. These powers expired 
 by limitation in 1834, and what had been given to Jackson 
 then was persistently denied to his loyal follower in the 
 executive chair in 1861. A striking contrast of legislative 
 support to the executive is afforded by the alacrity with 
 which Congress strengthened Madison's hands, in 1812; 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 23 
 
 likewise the wild rush with which a later Congress led, if 
 it did not drive, McKinley to war with Spain. 
 
 In the face of these historical facts, what a pitiful sub- 
 terfuge to lay the blame of the war or the earlier successes 
 of the Confederacy to the deliberate dispersion of the army 
 and nav}'', the surrender of forts and stores and the plunder 
 of the arsenals — with connivance of the Federal adminis- 
 tration! I pause with little patience to refute these well- 
 worn lies. Any student or inquirer who really wants to 
 get at the truth can easily reach the head- waters ; though it 
 is certainly discouraging to see how recklessly the falsehood 
 persists. Mr. Buchanan effectually refuted it in his book, 
 published in 1865; Judge Black apparently stamped the 
 life out of it in his unanswerable letters to Henry Wilson; 
 as early as 1861, a Republican committee of a Republican 
 House, organized to convict ex-Secretary Floyd, the very 
 head and front of this offending, reported the case not 
 made out, its chairman expressed the opinion that the 
 charges were founded in "rumor, speculation and misap- 
 prehension." The facts were that of the useful muskets 
 distributed by the Government in 1860, the Northern 
 States received three times as many as the Southern ; of the 
 rifles, there were divided in all between six Southern States 
 scarcely enough in the aggregate for half a regiment. Two 
 years before Lincoln was elected the Government had con- 
 demned as worthless and unserviceable 500,000 muskets — 
 and after nobody could be induced to buy them at any 
 price, less than one-third of these condemned weapons were 
 shipped to Southern arsenals, in order to make room in 
 Northern storehouses for useful and effective arms. As 
 their recoil was worse than their discharge, the North 
 would have been lucky had the Confederates got the whole 
 of them. The story of the cannon surreptitiously shipped 
 from Pittsburg to Galveston is best answered by a resolu- 
 
24 Buchanan's administration 
 
 tion of the Northern City's Councils, officially thanking 
 Buchanan, Black and Holt for preventing any such ship- 
 ment. Mr. Rhodes, after careful investigation of the 
 whole story, unhestiatingly accepts the refutation of these 
 long-lived canards. Gen. Samuel W. Crawford, one of the 
 few who were in Fort Sumter when the flag went down, 
 and again when it was hauled up, in his "Genesis of the 
 Civil War," also demonstrates their falsity. 
 
 The idea that the naval arm of the government's power 
 was disarranged to favor secession has not the slightest 
 historic foundation. The head of that department was a 
 New England Unionist, Isaac Toucey. He was a man of 
 utmost loyalty and highest integrity. Every attempt by 
 official investigation failed to discredit him. He fully sat- 
 isfied a hostile Senate Committee that at the outbreak of 
 Secession our squadrons at foreign stations were feeble; 
 they had not been augmented in proportion to the increase 
 of our commerce ; none of them could have been diminished 
 without sacrificing its safety and the interests and safety 
 of those engaged in it. While the nation was praying and 
 protesting that war might be averted, to have recalled our 
 foreign squadrons certainly would have been "lunatic 
 rashness;" and it would only have helped to "make 
 trouble," without contributing to its suppression or relief. 
 
 One of the most frequent of the reckless accusations 
 against Mr. Buchanan is that when the Federal office-holders 
 in the seceding States abandoned their places, he did not 
 promptly fill them. He repeatedly demonstrated to Con- 
 gress that he could get no other citizens of these States 
 to take the offices and discharge their duties; but, as Mr. 
 Rhodes frankly points out, when he named for Collector 
 of Charleston, Peter Mclntire, of Pennsylvania, an emi- 
 nently fit man, of high courage and decision of character, 
 the Senate never acted on the nomination ; and, in brief, no 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 25 
 
 Congressional aid whatever was extended to the president 
 in any effort to avert war, effect compromise, defend the 
 government property, re-take miUtary stations or fill the 
 abandoned posts of civil duty. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 But if the action— or rather, the non-action — of Congress 
 justified the attitude and conduct of the administration in 
 those days of doubt, how immeasurably more was it the 
 reflection of and backed by the overwhelming voice of the 
 people, all over the North, and manifested in so many and 
 various forms? 
 
 While the venerable Crittenden was so strenuously urging 
 upon Congress the adoption of his compromise measures, 
 the country waited patiently to see if Mr. Seward — destined 
 to sit at Mr. Lincoln's right hand — was to unite the genius 
 of Clay for compromise with the enthusiasm of Webster for 
 the Union. The radical Republicans of the North, and the 
 fire-eating Secessionists of the South, were alike disappoint- 
 ed, and no authoritative voice from the new administration 
 commanded attention or following. 
 
 John Sherman says: "At this time the pubhc mind in 
 the North was decidedly in favor of concessions to the 
 South. The Democrats of the North would have agreed 
 to any proposition to secure peace and the Union, and the 
 Republicans would have acquiesced in the Crittenden 
 compromise or in any measure approved by Lincoln and 
 Seward." 
 
 Had the incoming Lincoln administration then declared 
 for compromise, there would have been no war. Had it 
 declared for effective and aggressive measures of coercion, 
 it would only have hastened the outbreak of hostilities at 
 a time when the country was even less prepared for and 
 more averse to it than when Sumter was fired upon. How- 
 
26 Buchanan's administration 
 
 ever, the oracle was dumb — and nothing that can be said 
 in denunciation of Buchanan's vacillation and uncertainty 
 cannot be said with far more truth and more force of Mr. 
 Lincoln, of those who had been his chief supporters and of 
 those who were about to become his Cabinet Council. 
 
 Another illustration of the preponderating public desire 
 — North and South — to avert war is found in the response 
 which answered Virginia's call for a Peace Congress. 
 Twenty-one States sent commissioners to assemble on the 
 same day that only six of the Cotton States met to form 
 the Southern Confederacy. The Peace Congress was made 
 up of men of "character, ability and distinction." One of 
 the Pennsylvania delegates was our own late townsman, 
 Hon. Thomas E. Franklin. An eminent lawyer, a man of 
 property, lineage and high social position, a churchman 
 and a Republican in politics, he was a fine type of the best 
 citizenship of that day. The ''plan of adjustment" this 
 conference agreed upon was not accepted vv^ith favor by 
 Congress. I do not refer to it in approval, but only to 
 further illustrate the earnest, organized, official efforts 
 making for peace. For a president to have arrested or 
 disturbed them by precipitate call to arms would have been 
 met with overwhelming rebuke and indignation; it could 
 only have weakened the Union cause and invigorated the 
 aggressions of the Disunionists. Absolute proof of this 
 contention is afforded by the contemporary expressions of 
 popular opinion, and by the utterances not only of Mr. 
 Lincoln, on his way from his Illinois home to the White 
 House, but from the lips of men who already were, or were 
 to become, pillars of his administration and party. Gen. 
 Daniel E. Sicldes, who is the only living member of that 
 memorable House of 1860-1, and who became a Union hero 
 and a Republican martyr — threatened that the secession 
 of the Southern States would be followed by New York 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 27 
 
 City; Gen. Dix concurred; Senator Simon Cameron — Lin- 
 coln's first Secretary of War — was desirous of saving the 
 Union and preserving peace "at the sacrifice not only of 
 feeling, but of principle." 
 
 All reliable authorities agree that up to, and for a con- 
 siderable time after, the end of Mr. Buchanan's term, a 
 large majority of the people of the North, and a very con- 
 siderable portion of the South, were earnestly for peace — 
 at almost any price. Tumultuous popular assemblies all 
 over the North loudly voiced this demand. In the Re- 
 publican city of Philadelphia, in Independence Hall, where 
 American freedom was born. Bishop Potter blessing the 
 gathering and the cause, and Mayor Henry presiding, elo- 
 quent orators of all parties were cheered to the echo when 
 they pleaded and declared in town meeting for a policy of 
 forbearance and protection to the slaveholders in their 
 constitutional rights. In the city of Boston, head and 
 heart of New England, Faneuil Hall, "the cradle of liberty," 
 rocked with the surging oratory of like appeals. In the 
 very recently published life — almost an autobiography — 
 of William Pitt Fessenden, it is recorded that "in all the 
 great cities, especially among public men, it was hoped that 
 a compromise would be effected. * * * Republican 
 who favored a vigorous policy, seemed temporarily out of 
 favor. Conciliation was the popular term. Mr. Lincoln 
 believed that gentleness and a conciliatory attitude would 
 prevent secession." 
 
 It is true that the voice of Senator "Zach" Chandler 
 sounded discordant above the prevailing placidity; but his 
 sanguinary expressions that "without a little blood-letting 
 this Union will not be worth a rush" — like the gory demand 
 of a Southern bravado that "we must sprinkle blood in 
 their faces" — was generally regarded as incendiary and 
 fratricidal — if not impious. Even the fierce and fiery 
 
28 Buchanan's administration 
 
 John A. Logan testifies that he " believed in exhausting all 
 peaceable means before a resort to arms." 
 
 FOR PEACE AT ANY PRICE. 
 
 Appleton's Annual Encyclopaedia for 1861 estimates that 
 of four million voters for president, over three million 
 would have approved such a peaceable settlement of the 
 difficulties as might have been satisfactory to all the South- 
 ern States whose complaints were founded upon questions 
 connected with slavery. " The voice of the people of the 
 country at that time," this authority says, "was overwhelm- 
 ingly in favor of conciliation, forbearance and compro- 
 mise." 
 
 Thurlow Weed, the confidential adviser of Seward, urged 
 concession and a constitutional convention. The New 
 York "Herald" deprecated coercion and declared each 
 State had the right to break the tie of the Confederacy and 
 to repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion. 
 
 Nor did this prevailing condition of popular sentiment 
 terminate with Mr. Buchanan's retirement. Mr. Morse 
 admits that during all the three months in which his con- 
 duct has been so savagely criticised, one-half the people of 
 the South were opposed to division; in the North every- 
 where v/ords of compromise and secession were spoken; 
 coercion was mentioned only to be denounced. Had the 
 executive, he concedes, "asserted the right and duty of 
 forcible coercion, he would not have found at his back the 
 indispensable force, moral and physical, of the people." 
 For over a month of the Lincoln administration this state 
 of popular feeling continued, and up to the very time of 
 firing on Fort Sumter, he says " the almost universal feeling 
 of the people at the North, so far as it could be discerned, 
 was compromising, conciliatory and strongly opposed to 
 any act of war." 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 29 
 
 As late as April 5, 1861, Gen. Robert Anderson wrote, 
 in a private letter, that he must take upon himself all the 
 blame for the government not sending him relief. Had he 
 demanded re-inforcements, he says he knows President 
 Buchanan's Secretary of War would have dispatched them 
 at all hazards ; but he says he knew the coming of additional 
 troops would inaugurate civil war; and his policy, he de- 
 clares, was to keep still and preserve peace. 
 
 Because, then, "a little fire" ultimately kindled "a great 
 matter," shall one be denounced as "timid" or "traitor- 
 ous" because he strove to quench the spark, or refused to 
 blow it into ravaging flame? 
 
 Surely it is not necessary to show that during all this 
 period, and even later, Mr. Lincoln was in full accord with 
 the policy of his predecessor and his own party; that he 
 was alike submissive to and controlled by the manifest 
 popular will of the Union-loving and peace-seeking part of 
 the country. Neither one moved more slowly toward war 
 than the other; and no faster in accelerating the outbreak 
 of hostilities. 
 
 But to clinch a proposition which I earnestly maintain 
 has been nailed fast, let us swiftly follow Mr. Lincoln's tour 
 eastward. He said at one place— and I challenge you to 
 find it more strongly stated in any of Mr. Buchanan's 
 utterances— " The marching of an army into South Caro- 
 lina without the consent of her people, and with hostile 
 intent toward them, would be invasion; and it would be 
 coercion, also, if the South Carolinians were forced to 
 submit." 
 
 Remembering the declarations of himself and his party's 
 platform against the lawless "invasion" of any State, what 
 less or more could these words mean to the South than its 
 people inferred from any declaration Mr. Buchanan had 
 made? 
 
30 Buchanan's administration 
 
 At Columbus, Mr. Lincoln expressed much less solicitude 
 about the future than President Buchanan was exhibiting. 
 He said : " Nobody is suffering anything * * * all we want 
 is time, patience and a reliance on that God who has never 
 forsaken His people." At Pittsburg he declared there was 
 " no crisis but an artificial one," and predicted that if people 
 only kept cool, the trouble would come to an end. In Phila- 
 delphia he assumed a decidedly anti-war tone : " There need 
 be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I 
 am not in favor of such a course; * * * there will be no 
 bloodshed unless it be forced upon the government, and 
 then it will be compelled to act in self-defense." "The crisis, 
 the panic, the anxiety of the country at this time is artificial." 
 At Harrisburg, when the speaker of welcome tendered him 
 military support from Pennsylvania, Lincoln rebuked him, 
 and said : " It is not with any pleasure that I contemplate the 
 possibility that a necessity may arise in this country for the 
 use of the mihtary arm." 
 
 In none of these is heard the voice of the " Son of Thun- 
 der" — at no time the iron ring of the "Rough Ptider's" 
 hoofs. It is true, he said, ''the right of a State to secede 
 is not an open or debatable question," but Mr. Buchanan 
 had said exactly this to Congress and the country two 
 months earlier. The concluding words of the Lincoln in- 
 augural are classic in the literature of eloquence; but in 
 parallel passages with extracts already quoted from Mr. 
 Buchanan's message, these latter may challenge comparison 
 for sound law, lofty patriotism and even for rich rhetoric. 
 
 MR» LINCOLN'S EARLY ATTITUDE. 
 
 The incoming president reiterated the pledge of his plat- 
 form that each separate state had a right to control its own do- 
 mestic institutions ; he denounced the lawless invasion of the 
 soil of any State or Territory by armed force as the gravest of 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 31 
 
 crimes. He gave his full adherence to the fugitive slave 
 law and its enforcement, as guaranteed by the constitution. 
 Strictly in accord with the policy and declarations of Mr. 
 Buchanan, he promised there should be no bloodshed or 
 violence unless forced upon the National authority; that 
 Federal property would be protected and the Federal reve- 
 nues collected, but, beyond what might be necessary for 
 this, he declared there would be "no invasion, no using of 
 force against or among the people anywhere." To the 
 criticism that Mr. Buchanan had not filled the vacant 
 Federal offices in the South, Mr. Lincoln then made an 
 answer, that ought to be conclusive now : " While the strict 
 legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the ex- 
 ercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irri- 
 tating, and so nearly impracticable withal, I deem it better 
 for the time to forego for the time the uses of such offices." 
 Mr. Elson admits that this was a plain avowal that he 
 would follow Buchanan's policy for the time in his attitude 
 toward Secession. 
 
 The only significant act of the Congress just deceased 
 had been to adopt a constitutional amendment practically 
 making it impossible to ever abolish or interfere with slav- 
 ery. Mr. Lincoln went out of his way to say not only that 
 that was already implied constitutional law, but he set his 
 personal stamp of approval upon it by saying, " I have no 
 objections to its being made express and irrevocable." 
 And yet for signing the measure which the noble Lincoln 
 thus approved, the despised Buchanan is denounced by 
 many so-called historians of the present day as a dough- 
 faced dotard and a double-dyed dastard! 
 
 Surely when Thersites plays the role of Herodotus and 
 Plutarch, Clio must hide her face in shame. 
 
 Old Richard W. Thompson, as garrulous as most men 
 must be who boast and write "Recollections of Sixteen 
 
32 Buchanan's administration 
 
 Presidents," sees in Buchanan's peace policy an imitation 
 of Nero fiddling while Rome burned; but Mr. Lincoln's 
 similar temporizing is to the same dim eyes due only to 
 "the promptings of his own generous nature" and the hope 
 that his appeal to the reason and patriotism of the Seces- 
 sionists would not be unavailing. 
 
 Is it any wonder Sir Robert Walpole said: "Anything 
 but history for history must be false!" 
 
 It is often said that when Mr. Lincoln raised the flag 
 over Independence Hall a new star glittered in the field; 
 but the act admitting the thirty-fourth State was approved 
 by Mr. Buchanan; and "bleeding Kansas" — so long the 
 spoil of contending foes — alternately outraged like the 
 Sabine matrons and slashed like the stainless daughter of 
 Virginius — now quite recovered from her wounds and woes, 
 without a furrow on her forehead or a ruffle on her raiment, 
 quietly glided into the sisterhood of States at the pen 
 stroke of a Democratic executive. 
 
 But if Mr. Lincoln was no advance upon Mr. Buchanan 
 in aggressiveness and indicated no departure from his policy 
 in the inaugural, how much more bloodthirsty and bellig- 
 erent was his attitude during the month or more that passed 
 before rebel guns boomed across the placid waters of Charles- 
 ton harbor? 
 
 At the risk of having to tire your patience and confront 
 melting ice cream and cooling coffee, for the sake of too 
 tardy justice to a man long dead — and very dead — I beg 
 you hear briefly the story of those five weeks ; and remember 
 how much further and with what long leaps Rebellion had 
 advanced. 
 
 The most notable cabinet appointments were, of course, 
 the Secretaries of State and of War. We have already seen 
 how much further Seward was willing to go in surrender of 
 the Union than Buchanan ; and surely it was not so serious 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 33 
 
 a strain upon Cameron to "sacrifice principle" for policy — 
 for in this respect he and Buchanan furnished life-long 
 illustrations of opposing ideas of public duty and political 
 propriety. 
 
 Nicolay and Hay give their subject credit for "infinite 
 tact" in dealing with Mr. Seward; but is it permissible to 
 find treason, cowardice and timidity in Mr. Buchanan's 
 dalliance with incipient secession in the closet and yet 
 praise the attitude of Seward and Lincoln in temporizing 
 with full-armed Rebellion in the open? 
 
 John Sherman admits that the first forty days of the 
 Lincoln administration was the darkest hour in the history 
 of the United States. He declares that it was "a time of 
 humiliation, timidity and feebleness." Sumner deprecated 
 Lincoln's "deplorable hesitancy." Six weeks after his 
 inauguration, Stanton wrote to Buchanan that there was 
 a strong feeling of distrust in the candor and sincerity of 
 Lincoln personally and of his cabinet. Emerson, with 
 rare literary skill, condones the president's perplexities 
 because "the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tor- 
 nado." 
 
 It is to the discredit of our political system — no par- 
 ticular reproach to Mr. Lincoln — that for months the chief 
 concern of his administration was the distribution of the 
 offices to clamorous partisans, rather than the distribution 
 of troops to suppress the rebellion. The demands upon his 
 time and the solicitation of his supporters were not to 
 avert war, save the Union or suppress the rebels, but to 
 lavishly ladle out patronage. Not only do Stanton, Schurz 
 and Seward testify to this, but Mr. Lincoln himself said: 
 "I seem like one sitting in a palace, assigning apartments 
 to importunate applicants, while the structure is on fire 
 and Ukely soon to perish." 
 
 With this disaster in prospect, we find, as late as March 
 
34 Buchanan's administration 
 
 12th, five of his cabinet ministers voting against provision- 
 ing Fort Sumter — and onlj'^ one for it. Mr, Lincoln let them 
 determine his course. And yet Buchanan was "weak" 
 and his cabinet a "nest of traitors," because they had 
 not relieved and supported Major Anderson! As late as 
 July 16, 1861, Stanton wrote to Buchanan: "Your adminis- 
 tration's policy, in reference to both Sumter and Pickens, 
 is fully vindicated by the course of the present administra- 
 tion for forty days after the inauguration of Lincoln." 
 
 Mr. Buchanan has been hounded from Dan to Beersheba, 
 because three months earlier he had, with courtesy and 
 dignity, accorded a single interview to the Commissioners 
 from South Carolina. Before the year 1860 closed, he 
 had peremptorily rejected their demands for the with- 
 drawal of Federal troops from Charleston harbor; he had 
 firmly declared to them his purpose to defend Fort Sumter 
 by all the means in his power against hostile attacks from 
 whatever quarter they might proceed ; and a few days later, 
 when they replied disrespectfully, he declined to receive 
 their communication or to ever again see or negotiate 
 with them. Later, through his Secretary of War, he 
 warned South Carolina of the fearful responsibility it took 
 if its authorities assaulted Sumter, and by periling the 
 lives of " the handful of brave and loyal men shut up within 
 its walls," "plunged our common country into the horrors 
 of civil war." 
 
 And yet long after Jefferson Davis had been elected 
 president of the Confederacy; and while its Congress was 
 formulating plans to organize an army and navy; when 
 State after State had wheeled into the secession column. 
 Confederate Commissioners to the Lincoln administration 
 came with confidence to Washington; though they were 
 not formally received, they were in close touch with Seward ; 
 they remained long enough to get his assurances that the 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 
 
 35 
 
 evacuation of Fort Sumter was the arranged policy of the 
 new administration. Mr. Morse is forced to admit that 
 even later Mr. Lincoln gave the Confederates assurances 
 that " no provisioning or re-inforcement should be attempted 
 without warning"— and it will be remembered that the 
 assault only began after he gave such notice. Secretary 
 Seward was even then writing to Mr. Charles Francis Adams, 
 our minister to England, the hopelessness of carrying on a 
 civil war; and so distant seemed the danger of it, that 
 Massachusetts, under the lead of her great war governor, 
 John A. Andrew, as late as April 11, after havmg made 
 military preparations for three months, practically dis- 
 armed the Commonwealth. 
 
 About the same time, Wendell Phillips declared the Gult 
 States had a right to a separate government and defiantly 
 said: "You cannot go through Massachusetts and recruit 
 men to bombard Charleston or New Orleans." 
 
 Even when Montgomery Blair— the only Jackson Demo- 
 crat in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet— urged that Fort Sumter be 
 relieved without reference to Pickens or any other Federal 
 possession-and warned his chief that South Carolina 
 would strike a blow at National authority from which it 
 would take "years of bloody strife" to recover— Mr. Lin- 
 coln, with at least as great "timidity" and "indecision" as 
 ever Mr. Buchanan had shown, sided with and acted upon 
 the contrary advice of Seward, Chase and Cameron. 
 
 On April 13, the most Mr. Lincoln would say to the Vir- 
 ginia Commissioners was that he might repossess himself 
 of the public property and suspend the mail service in the 
 States then in defiant rebellion against the nation. He 
 substantially repeated this in his subsequent message to 
 Congress, which, be it noted, he did not assemble for four 
 
 months. . , c • xu- i 
 
 And yet Mr. Blaine, who at times tries to be tair, thinks 
 
36 Buchanan's administration 
 
 if Buchanan had had Jackson's hickory will and Taylor's 
 stubborn courage, history would have been changed. It is 
 a little difficult to see why Lincoln could not have called 
 these martial "spirits from the vasty deep" as easily as 
 Buchanan; they would just as likely have come at one sum- 
 mons as the other — as readily in the balmy April spring 
 days, when rebellion's crop was high in the stalk, as in the 
 cheerless December time, when its roots were yet locked 
 in winter's clutch. 
 
 JUDGE BLACX ON MR. BUCHANAN. 
 
 Not to prolong my share in the argument — which we 
 shall soon see has another side — nor to multiply illustrations 
 from a copious, if not inexhaustible, fountain of authori- 
 ties, I quote and adopt a summary of Mr. Buchanan's 
 character and conduct from a source so much more authori- 
 tative and by a pen so much more skillful than mnne, that 
 no paraphrase could fail to mar it: 
 
 "The proofs of his great ability and his eminent public 
 services are found on every page of his country's history, 
 from 1820 to 1861, During all that long period he steadily, 
 faithfully and powerfully sustained the principles of free 
 constitutional government. This nation never had a truer 
 friend, nor its laws a defender who would more cheerfully 
 have given his life to save them from violation. No man 
 was ever slandered so brutally. His life was literally 
 lied away. In the last months of his administration he 
 devoted all the energies of his mind and body to the great 
 duty of saving the Union, if possible, from dissolution and 
 civil war. He knew all the dangers to which it was exposed, 
 and it would, therefore, be vain to say that he was not 
 alarmed for his country; but he showed no sign of un- 
 manly fear on his own account. He met all his vast re- 
 sponsibilities as fairly as any chief magistrate we ever 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 37 
 
 had. In no case did he shrink from or attempt to evade 
 them. The accusation of timidity and indecision is most 
 preposterous. His faults were all of another kind ; his reso- 
 lutions once formed v/ere generally immovable to a degree 
 that bordered on obstinacy. On every matter of great 
 importance he deliberated cautiously, and sometimes tried 
 the patience of his friends by refusing to act until he had 
 made up an opinion which he could Uve and die by. These 
 characteristics explain the fact that his whole political life, 
 from the time he entered Congress until he retired from 
 the presidency — all his acts, speeches and papers — have 
 a consistency which belongs to those of no other American 
 statesman. He never found it necessary to cross his own 
 path or go back upon his pledges." 
 
 I have touched upon a single epoch of his public life — 
 a brief three months of his official career — albeit, upon 
 another and more fitting occasion I should not shrink from 
 the task of maintaining the proposition with which, in 
 1883, his biographer concluded his work: "He was the 
 most eminent statesman yet given by this great Common- 
 wealth to the service of the country since the Constitution 
 was established." I re-affirm this, after twenty-five years, 
 notwithstanding Senator Penrose is a hopeful candidate 
 for re-election; Senator Knox is even a less hopeless candi- 
 date for president, and the sculptor has nearly finished the 
 heroic statue of Senator Quay, which is soon to add splendor 
 to an already too splendid State capitol. 
 
 At the further risk of being tiresome and irrelevant, I 
 must ask you to listen to a postscript. I have little faith 
 in reported death-bed experiences. Dr. Osier has said that 
 hundreds of recorded and reported cases, studied particu- 
 larly with reference to modes of death and the sensation of 
 dying, have satisfied medical science that the educated man 
 at least dies usually "wondering, but uncertain, generally 
 
38 Buchanan's administration 
 
 unconscious and unconcerned;" and that the Preacher was 
 right: "As the one dieth so dieth the other." And yet, 
 somehow, fanciful as it may be, I like to think that the 
 righteous man will realize the confidence of the Psalmist, 
 "I will lay me down in peace." 
 
 From the time he left the presidency, Mr. Buchanan 
 lived here among us. Many of the people of this town 
 were no kinder to him than the historians have been, and 
 quite as unjust. He outlived the storm of war, but while 
 it raged, no unpatriotic sentiment ever fell from his lips or 
 pen. In the fall of 1861, he wrote a public letter, appealing 
 to a "loyal and powerful people" to sustain "a war made 
 inevitable by the Confederate assault," calling for "brave 
 and patriotic volunteers," and declaring that it was no 
 time for peace propositions, but only for "prompt, ener- 
 getic and united action" to support the president "with all 
 the men and the means at the command of the country 
 in a vigorous and successful prosecution of the war." He 
 maintained that attitude until it ended. During its contin- 
 uance, lest the publication might embarrass his successors, 
 he withheld the defense and vindication which he was eager 
 to print in 1861. 
 
 The progress of events and the revolutionary changes 
 they wrought in our governmental system, if they inspired 
 no public regrets, certainly suggested to him no private 
 remorse. October 21, 1865, he writes: 
 
 "I pursued a settled, consistent line of policy from the 
 beginning to the end, and, on reviewing my past conduct, 
 I do not recollect a single important measure which I should 
 desire to recall, even it this were in my power. Under this 
 conviction, I have enjoyed a tranquil and cheerful mind, 
 notwithstanding the abuse I have received, in full confi- 
 dence that my countrymen would eventually do justice." 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION 39 
 
 For this he may long wait; the judgment of his own con- 
 science, I am sure, never tarried nor faltered. 
 
 A DEVOUT MAN.* 
 
 Mr. Buchanan, from his youth up, was a devout man. 
 Born of positively pious parentage, the Scriptures were his 
 "horn-book" and private prayer his daily habit. One of 
 his most contemptuous — I almost wrote contemptible — 
 critics flippantly complains that he once asked for time 
 to take with him, to closet conference with his God, a vex- 
 atious pubUc question. His fastidious horror of being 
 made conspicuous long withheld him from making open 
 profession of his faith. The late Rev. Dr. John W. Nevin 
 was his spiritual adviser; they had long and solemn confer- 
 ences on theology. Dr. Nevin says "horse vespertinse" 
 they might be called — held, as they were mostly, in the 
 autumnal twilight, on, what seemed to be for both engaged 
 in them, "the utmost verge of time." His spiritual adviser 
 has recorded that Mr. Buchanan " felt himself to be on the 
 borders of the eternal world, and was fully awake to the 
 dread issues of the life to come. But with all this, his spirit 
 abode in quiet confidence and peace, and the ground of his 
 trust throughout was the mercy of God through the right- 
 eousness of Jesus Christ. There was nothing like enthusi- 
 asm, of course, in his experience; the general nature of the 
 man made that impossible. His religion showed itself 
 rather in the form of fixed trust in God, thankfulness for 
 His past mercy and general resignation to His holy will." 
 Dr. Nevin's own counsel influenced his determination to 
 associate with the Church of his ancestors. 
 
 In the early forenoon of a September Sabbath, 1865, in 
 
 ♦Adapted from "A Pennsylvania Presbyterian President," by the Author, 
 Lancaster, Pa., 1907. 
 
40 Buchanan's administration 
 
 the rather gloomy basement of the Presbyterian Church, 
 in Lancaster, five persons only being present, this singularly 
 pure-minded man — now old and "broken with the storms 
 of state" — with a career behind him such as none in the 
 city of his home has ever had before or since, came, even as 
 a little child, and the modest minute of the proceedings 
 runs thus: 
 
 "Hon. James Buchanan, after being examined on his 
 experimental evidence of piety, was admitted to the Com- 
 munion and fellowship of this Church." 
 
 An hour later, the same Lord's Day, in the sight of a then 
 not numerous congregation, he who had risen from the 
 humble home at "Stony Batter" to the first seat in the 
 land, who had shone resplendent at foreign courts and 
 had stood unabashed in the presence of earthly monarchs, 
 with bowed head and before all the people, answered the 
 soul-searching questions in terms that sealed him to the 
 church on earth. 
 
 As he received from the sanctified hands of his humble 
 townsman that first communion of the broken and bleeding 
 elements, I doubt not that he, far more than any else of 
 them, recognized and realized that no principle of consti- 
 tutional government he had ever argued, as counsellor or 
 Congressman, was so vital as the question he then decided. 
 No pageant he had ever witnessed as ambassador was so 
 splendid as that simple ritual. No treaty he had ever 
 negotiated vv'as so far-reaching as that solemn compact 
 with his Maker. No mandate he had ever issued as chief 
 executive was so tremendous in its personal importance to 
 him as the message he that day sent to the throne of the 
 living God. 
 
 For nearly three years he v/orshiped and communed in 
 this church; and when the end came, he fell away into a 
 gentle sleep, from which he barely woke to whisper the 
 
ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION > 41 
 
 short Christian pra5^er, "0! Lord, God Almighty, as Thou 
 wilt." He had lived as a patriot should hve; and he died 
 as a Christian statesman should die. 
 
 "Altogether, it was a death-bed experience full of tran- 
 quil light and peace, the calm evening sunset of a long life, 
 which seemed to be itself but the brightening promise of a 
 new and far better life beyond the grave." 
 
 And so he "passed to where, beyond these voices, there 
 is peace." 
 
Abraham Lincoln 
 
 An Essay 
 
 Read Before 
 
 The Cliosophic Society, Lancaster, Pa., February 7, 1908 
 
 By 
 George W. Richards, D. D. 
 
 PE0PE8S0R OP CHURCH HISTORY IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 OP THE REPORMED CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 AT LANCASTER, PA. 
 
 "To link my name with something that will redound 
 to the interesU of my fellow men. that is all I desire to 
 live for." 
 
 LANCASTER. PA. 
 MCMVIII 
 
Abraham Lincoln 
 
 The general familiarity with the subject, the massiveness 
 of the material and the traditional time-limits of this occa- 
 sion make difficult a comprehensive treatment of the life 
 and work of America's great emancipator. It will be con- 
 ceded, however, that a man assumes national proportions 
 by virtue of the magnitude of the problem with which he 
 wrestles, the quality of character which he develops and 
 the service which he renders his age. We shall, therefore, 
 confine ourselves to a consideration of three points: the 
 Problem, the Man and the Solution. 
 
 L THE PROBLEM. 
 
 The problem was no less a task than the preservation of 
 the Union. It had world-wide bearings. It involved the 
 destiny of the West. Democracy itself was hanging in the 
 balances. The man who could quell an incipient rebellion, 
 harmonize discordant elements, and " preserve, defend and 
 protect the Government" would win for himself a perma- 
 nent place among the immortals of history. 
 
 The tendencies of disunion were found in the peculiar 
 conditions of the colonial period. The thirteen colonies, 
 which gradually crystallized out of the mass of pioneers 
 on the Atlantic border, v/ere both divided and united by 
 geographical, national, social and religious barriers and 
 bonds. They were far enough apart to become, under cer- 
 
4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 tain circumstances, squabbling republics, after the manner 
 of ancient Greece or mediaeval Italy. They were sufficiently 
 attached to one another to become successively a League 
 of Friendship, a Confederation of States and an organic 
 and indissoluble Union. The realization of one or the other 
 of these possibilities depended on the uncertain actions of men 
 and on the logic of events. Men of keen insight into the 
 history of nations and in close touch with their age, had 
 decidedly adverse convictions about a union of the American 
 colonies. Joseph Tucker, the Dean of Gloucester, said: 
 " As to the future grandeur of America and its being a rising 
 empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical, 
 it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever 
 Avas conceived even by writers of romance. The natural 
 antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their 
 difference of government, habitudes and manners, indicate 
 that they will have no center of union and no common in- 
 terests." Frederick the Great agreed with the English 
 Dean, and argued that the mere extent of the country, 
 from Maine to Georgia, would suffice, either to break up the 
 Union or to make a monarchy necessary. Washington 
 himself was disturbed by these prophecies of evil, and 
 secretly had his misgivings. It is clear that at best a union 
 of states had to be effected by a process of growth rather 
 than by a political fiat. 
 
 A brief survey of the territory and of the genius of the 
 colonies brings to light the centrifugal and centripetal 
 factors and forces. The variety of climate and soil, the 
 irregularities in the coast line, the slope of the mountains 
 and the course of the rivers were a natural basis for the 
 sections known as the New England, Middle and Southern 
 States, with the differentiated life and interests of their 
 inhabitants. The diversity of social and religious tenden- 
 cies appears in the constituent nationalities and creeds. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 5 
 
 The Latin, Celt and Teuton contributed their portions to the 
 embryonic nation. The dominant element was English, 
 strongly influenced by a vigorous minority of Scotch-Irish, 
 Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French and Swiss. They repre- 
 sented every type of modern Christianity — the Pilgrim and 
 the Puritan, the Anglican and the Catholic, the Baptist and 
 the Quaker, the Lutheran and the Reformed, the Moravian 
 and the Methodist. In those days national and religious 
 distinctions were taken far more seriously than at present. 
 They provoked antagonisms which not infrequently re- 
 sulted in violence and blood. The selectmen of Boston 
 ordered the Scotch-Irish to leave the tov/n. The Quakers 
 regarded with suspicion a people who turned to the Book 
 of Joshua for an Indian policy. The Germans were treated 
 with contempt by the English. Free Massachusetts pointed 
 the finger of scorn at slave-holding South Carolina. So 
 different was the social and political organization of the 
 colonies, that a stiff and stubborn pride in their respective 
 institutions became an impassable wall of separation. The 
 people were jealous of their territorial rights. Bitter feuds 
 sprang up on account of boundary lines. The difficulties 
 of travel, the lack of a common literature, the isolation of 
 communities thinly scattered from Maine to Georgia, lent 
 themselves to the petty and contemptible antipathies of 
 the early settlers. 
 
 In spite of these differences, there were points of contact 
 and bonds of fellowship which held the colonies together. 
 The territory which divided, also united, them. The racial 
 unity was stronger than national diversity. The religious 
 differences were surface lines. Unity of faith and purpose 
 was found in the center and depth of the American churches. 
 The hardships of a wilderness, the necessities of life, the 
 presence of a common foe prowling in the forests, the recog- 
 nition of the authority of a mother country, the spread of 
 
b ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 the Great Awakening, the rise of eminent native Americans 
 who belonged to no colony and were the pride of all, the 
 general uprising against foreign oppression, fostered the 
 spirit of unity or "the will-to-be-one" in the people. 
 
 Still the creation of an indissoluble union from a chaos 
 of colonies was the task of a centuiy. In their groping 
 after federation, before the Revolution of 76, the colonies 
 at most yielded only what was absolutely necessary for 
 cooperation. Every suggestion of a complete fusion was 
 rejected with decisive and ever-increasing emphasis. The 
 individualism, which developed in the clearing of forests, 
 the breaking of ground, and the building of towns, was 
 naturally suspicious of a central government. This spirit 
 of independence was equally strong in Rhode Island and in 
 Virginia, in men like Samuel Adams and Richard Henry 
 Lee. Even after the Revolution the continuance of the 
 Confederation seemed by no means assured. The Consti- 
 tutional Convention of 1787 was confronted by almost in- 
 superable obstacles. It v/as divided into a number of 
 parties. Some were made up of individuals, others of 
 States. Some wanted a federal government much like the 
 one they had during the war; others did not want a con- 
 federacy at all. Some stood for a strong central authority, 
 and others guarded the sovereignty of the state. The 
 Southern States were against the Northern, the commercial 
 States against the agricultural, the great States against the 
 small. To meet the difficulties, three different constitu- 
 tional drafts were submitted. The first is known as the 
 Virginia plan, by Randolph ; the second, the South Carolina 
 plan, by Charles Pinckney; and the third, the New Jersey 
 plan, by Patterson. In the course of the debate feeling ran 
 high and threats of leaving the convention were frequent. 
 Some of the delegates went home in disgust and others 
 offered concessions in vain. A constitution could be adopted 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7 
 
 only by the policy of compromise. The little States allowed 
 proportional representation to the great States. The free 
 States gave representation to the negro in the slave State, 
 counting a negro three-fifths of a white man. The agricul- 
 tural and commercial States were conciliated by mutually 
 satisfactory regulations of the slave trade and of commerce. 
 
 The ratification by the States was delayed by lukewarm- 
 ness and stubborn resistance. Malcontents held popular 
 meetings and stirred up disaffection and strife. North 
 Carolina held out against the Constitution for two years, 
 and Rhode Island had to be coerced into submission by 
 threats. Two political parties arose, the Federalists and 
 the Anti-Federalists, each one standing for a definite con- 
 ception of the authority of the central government over 
 the States. The Union Avas thus created but not completed. 
 The policy of compromise concealed for a time the tension 
 between its several sections, but compromise did not solve 
 the latent difficulties. The question which disturbed na- 
 tional politics for generations to come was that of State 
 Rights. Was the new instrument of government a Con- 
 stitution of the United States or of the States united? 
 Upon the answer to this question depends the right of 
 nullification or of secession when States are dissatisfied 
 with an act of the national government, or the right of the 
 government to coerce rebellious States into submission to 
 the Union. At the opening of the nineteenth century few 
 statesmen, North or South, would have been bold enough to 
 have gainsaid the prerogative of a State to secede. A half 
 a century later the scales turned and secession was consid- 
 ered a crime against the Constitution. 
 
 The occasion for the assertion of the doctrine of State 
 Rights came more than once in the early history of the 
 Republic. When the Alien and Sedition Laws were passed 
 the Legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky officially pro- 
 
8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 claimed this prerogative. It was not a theory confined to the 
 South alone. It was held by all the States and was affirmed 
 without reserve when the well-being of one or more was 
 imperilled. With the success of the Anti-Federalists, in 
 1801, the struggle with England seriously embarrassed the 
 industrial interests of the North, especially of New England. 
 Then the Federalists became champions of State Rights 
 and put into their political platforms the identical resolu- 
 tions of Virginia and Kentucky. 
 
 But the great cause for division was temporarily veiled 
 by circumlocutory phrases in the Constitution itself. It 
 was the special interest of the slave holders in the Southern 
 States. Slavery furnished the motive for the logical de- 
 velopment of state sovereignty and for the translation of 
 the theory into practice. There was historical philosophy 
 as well as popular poetry in the third stanza of Whittier's 
 Battle Hymn: 
 
 "What gives the wheat field blades of steel? 
 What points the rebel cannon? 
 What sets the grinding rabble's heel 
 On the old star spangled pennon? 
 What breaks the oath of the men of the South? 
 What whets the knife of the Union's life? 
 Hark to the answer, Slavery!" 
 
 Lincoln, in his first inaugural, reiterates this sentiment 
 in plain prose : " One section of our country believes slavery 
 is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes 
 it wrong, and ought not to be extended — the only substan- 
 tial dispute." 
 
 Two aspects of the question of slavery must be consid- 
 ered for the imderstanding of its full significance. The first 
 is its introduction, location and firm hold on a portion of 
 our territory. The second is the rise and spread of anti- 
 slavery sentiment, with its various shades of view and its 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 divers forms of organization. When the Dutch man-of-war 
 sailed into the harbor of Jamestown, in 1619, with twenty 
 African slaves on board, there appeared a cloud on the 
 American horizon not bigger than a man's hand but por- 
 tending an inevitable storm. Slavery was then a fact and 
 a force in the New World. The apple of discord was cast. 
 The institution spread rapidly over the South. The climate, 
 soil, plantations, and social ideals favored its growth. The 
 geographical, social and religious conditions of the Middle 
 and Northern States were, to say the least, not conducive 
 to its perpetuity. The Western pioneers, largely under the 
 influence of Northern ideas, were averse to it and did not 
 find it profitable. To summarize: the power of custom, the 
 grip of an inherited social order, the invention of the cotton 
 gin, the deep-rooted pride of the Southern aristocracy, 
 which could brook no opposition and resented every form 
 of dictation, the stinging moral censures of Northern abo- 
 litionists, and the pecuniary advantages accruing from 
 slavery united in making it an indispensable necessity to 
 the Southern man. 
 
 In colonial days slavery was not justified on moral 
 grounds. The institution was regarded unmoral and in- 
 human. Men of the North and the South spoke against 
 the iniquitous practice. In 1700 Judge Samuel Sewall 
 issued the first public denunciation of slavery in a pamphlet. 
 In 1688 the Mennonites of Germantown drew up the first 
 petition against it. George Mason of Virginia said: "Slav- 
 ery discourages arts and manufactures." Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, 
 made it one of the chief articles of indictment against 
 George III., that he "prostituted his negative for suppress- 
 ing every legitimate attempt to prohibit or to restrain this 
 execrable traffic." In 1787 he wrote: "Indeed, I tremble 
 for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His 
 justice cannot sleep forever." 
 
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth century, all the States 
 north of Maryland had put slavery out of existence. After 
 the national government was organized numerous petitions 
 were submitted to Congress seeking its restriction or aboli- 
 tion. Congress, however, declared that it had no power 
 to interfere with slavery or the treatment of slaves within 
 the States. The war of pamphlets began. With the open- 
 ing of the nineteenth century, all the paraphernalia of the 
 later anti-slavery movement were in use — societies, peti- 
 tions, laws, and deliberate violations of laws. The abo- 
 lition sentiment was nurtured and spread by ceaseless 
 agitation. At first it divided the South against itself, and 
 the North against itself. Then South and North were 
 divided against each other. Old parties were split and 
 new parties were formed. This process of division, segre- 
 gation and consolidation is clearly discernible in the salient 
 acts and movements of the nation from the Revolution to 
 the Rebellion. 
 
 The admission of new States into the Union intensified 
 sectional feeling. The South realized that the maintenance 
 of the balance of power in Congress was the safeguard of 
 slavery. Its perpetuity depended on its extension into 
 new territory. The creation of States out of the vast 
 region beyond the Mississippi was bound to disturb the 
 time-honored equilibrium. The Missouri Compromise was 
 a temporary political armistice, but agitation against 
 slavery could not be restrained by statutes. Public senti- 
 ment eludes and laughs at legislatures. The American 
 Colonization Society of 1816 and the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society of 1833 were well-meant palliatives but not cures 
 for the disease. Garrison took the advanced ground of 
 immediate abolition throughout the United States, because 
 slavery was morally wrong and, therefore, ought not to be 
 tolerated anywhere. The ethical aspect of the question 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 11 
 
 appealed more and more to the people. Feeling became so 
 intense on both sides, North and South, that threats of 
 secession were heard in Massachusetts as well as in South 
 Carolina. When, in 1845, Garrison proposed that New 
 England should withdraw from the Union unless slavery 
 was abolished, he was applauded to the echo. Calhoun 
 demanded that the balance of power must be restored in 
 the House or the Union must be dissolved. The political 
 heroes of a passing era once more came from retirement to 
 guide the storm-tossed Ship of State and pour the oil of 
 compromise on the angry sea. They cried, "peace," but 
 there was no peace. Seward, Sumner and Chase struck a 
 new note and heralded the dawn of a new period. The 
 "irrepressible conflict" was at hand. Free-soil Whigs and 
 free-soil Democrats organized and acted with grim deter- 
 mination. The deceptive peac^e of the compromise of 1850 
 was rudely disturbed by a quick succession of significant 
 events — the announcement of the doctrine of Popular 
 Sovereignty, the Dred Scott Decision, the Lecompten Con- 
 stitution, John Brown's Raid and the election of the Repub- 
 lican candidate for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The exigencies of the hour, no less than the gradual con- 
 summation of a political and moral process, required the 
 pursuance of a new policy in the treatment of the central 
 national question. The Union was created and preserved 
 up to this time by compromise. Never was there an ordi- 
 nance passed, from 1787 to 1850, v/hich squarely faced the 
 issue and consistently expressed the convictions, either of 
 the pro-slavery or of the anti-slavery men. Circumspect 
 statesmen felt it their paramount mission to maintain at 
 any cost cordial relations between the North and the South. 
 But under the cover of expediency there grew up individu- 
 als and societies who represented logical and ethical con- 
 sistency. They spoke in unvarnished terms and blew a 
 
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 trumpet of no uncertain sound. On the one side, it must be 
 abolition or war; on the other, slavery or secession. The 
 champion of uncalculating consistency, who rose above the 
 puritanical radicalism and political moderatism of the 
 North as well as the aristocratic pride and sectional arro- 
 gance of the South and represented no single party but stood 
 for all the people, came from the fresh, vigorous, homely 
 and untutored West. The prophet of the new order an- 
 nounced his message in the Springfield, 111., Convention of 
 1858, Yv'hen he said : " 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 dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I 
 do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
 one thing, or all the other." When Lincoln read these 
 words to a coterie of advisers before he spoke them on the 
 following day, they were thrown into consternation. De- 
 feat was sure to follow such an untimely and immoderate 
 utterance. But he calmly replied: "I should rather be 
 defeated with this expression in the speech than be vic- 
 torious without it." He lost the senatorship but he gained 
 the presidency. The man of the hour had come into 
 national politics. 
 
 Let us briefly summarize the results of history. They, 
 indeed, fail to comprehend the gravity of the situation which 
 confronted Buchanan and Lincoln whose vision is limited 
 by the sixth decade of the century, and who contend that 
 the problem could have been solved by a single decisive 
 stroke. The controversy, which threatened to drench the 
 land with fraternal blood, was the outcome of economic and 
 moral })rocesses extending over more than a century. For 
 a time the different sections of the new Republic felt the 
 pulses of growth and expansion and were bound together 
 by the enthusiasm of youth and the sense of a community 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 nf interests The political honors were being equitably 
 Itlutt^between'the North and the ^o^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 in,, statesmen who p anned nominations and directea eiec 
 tifnfby cicis and correspondence. The Southern s tates- 
 rlen in the beginning were warm supporters o( national 
 rxnansiora moderat^ tariff, and a diversification of indus- 
 trtes But in the course of a few decades they discovered 
 to their sorrow that they were the heirs of a social system 
 wh ch bar ed them from the great change and growth 
 :h ch shaped the rising nation. The South foo^J^"^^ 
 fixed order. It passionately resisted change. Slavery s» 
 crvstall zed the classes and the customs of the South, that 
 it was wholly incapable of adjusting itself to the mdustria 
 revoMfon which was transforming and unifying the East 
 and th West. The population of the country grew, in the 
 decade from 1830 to 1840, from thirteen to seventeen m.l- 
 Uons and the immigration trebled. But the population of 
 the South increased scarcely at all. The winmug of the 
 West changed the aspect of tlie national question. From 
 Us borders' came the Jacksonian Democracy protestag 
 alinst the traditional rule of an aristocracy of New Eng 
 knders and Southerners. Coming to a consciousness of 
 fown resources, the West felt that in "s ^-ds was^^th^^^ 
 balance of power in national elections. The t ree souers 
 and the Anti-slavery men multiplied - geometrical pro^ 
 tression The Mississippi Valley was rapidly fi led up with 
 StSrTand enriched by the products of a fertde soil and a 
 variety of industries which sprang up in a night. In these 
 regions slavery had a precarious existence. Even the 
 
 Se SoXr'ner, coming "^*°.*« ^^f.^VrKvC 
 up his social and political traditions, I'beratedh.s slaves, 
 and was absorbed by the new environment ^J^!^^^^^ 
 ktic and irreconcilable forms of pohtical life gradually grew 
 up under the protection of one constitution and government. 
 
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 A house so divided against itself could not stand. The 
 hidden dualism became the fontal source of secret prejudice 
 and open conflict. Now it came to light in the nullification 
 of tariff laws, and then in the threats of secession and in 
 the war of the Rebellion. Time did not heal the breach. 
 The tender offices of the greatest statesmen failed. The 
 issues of the conflict became clearer and more difficult to 
 settle. The hour arrived when an appeal had to be taken 
 from the House, the Judiciary and the popular assembly 
 to the field of battle, and judgment had to be written in 
 blood. No iron- willed Jackson could have held in leash 
 the Dogs of War, nor could legislative action have averted 
 the terrific storm. %'-pi j 
 
 IL THE MAN, 
 
 P'lWe shall now consider the man into whose hands the 
 government was entrusted. In response to a request for 
 the facts of his early life, Mr. Lincoln replied: "It can aU 
 be condensed into a single sentence and that sentence you 
 will find in Gray's Elegy, 'The short and simple annals of 
 the poor.'" The line of his paternal ancestors extends 
 from Kentucky through Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Eng- 
 land, to Norfolk county, England. Quaker and Puritan 
 blood flowed in his veins, a fact which his father, Thomas, 
 indignantly resented. For six generations the Lincolns 
 were pioneers in the settlement of new countries. They 
 shared the fortunes and misfortunes of the wilderness. 
 His mother, Nancy Hanks, was the natural child of a Vir- 
 ginia planter, a woman of strong mind whose memory her 
 son loved to honor. To her he traced whatever mental 
 power he inherited. His father was shiftless and ignorant. 
 He usually failed where everybody succeeded. True to 
 the migratory instinct of his tribe, he moved successively 
 from Kentucky to Indiana and from Indiana to Illinois, 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15 
 
 seeking rest and finding none. When the family reached 
 the banks of the Sangammon, Abraham had passed his 
 twenty-first birthday. 
 
 His scholastic education was limited to four months of 
 instruction by unlettered masters in log school houses. 
 Though he was not taught in the schools, he nevertheless 
 learned letters. His thirst for knowledge was irrepressible. 
 Neither his poverty nor his illiterate surroundings could 
 prevent his mental gro^^i-h. His library consisted chiefly 
 of borrowed books, and their number is easily told. His 
 biographers find traces in his youth of ^sop's Fables, Rob- 
 inson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, a history of the United 
 States, two lives of Washington (the one by Weems, the 
 other by Ramsay), the Lives of Clay and of Franklin and a 
 copy of Shakespeare's Plays and of Burns' Poems. He 
 knew his Bible well and in early manhood mastered Euclid. 
 He was an intensive rather than extensive reader, a man 
 of one book. His mathematical problems and his early 
 compositions he inscribed on a wooden shovel by the hearth, 
 and shaved off the scrawls with a draw-knife to repeat the 
 performance. At an early age he wrote verse and satirical 
 prose, but the productions were coarse and " too indecent 
 for publication." 
 
 He was trained chiefly in the rough surroundings of the 
 frontier community. From childhood he was compelled to 
 struggle for life. He was never industrious and the neigh- 
 bors called him lazy. He took delight in lounging, telling 
 stories, talking politics, reading books, attending parties 
 and making speeches. He changed his occupation fre- 
 quently. He did the odd jobs that came his way: slaught- 
 ered hogs at thirty-one cents a day, cleared forests, split 
 rails, conducted a flat boat to New Orleans, managed a 
 store, acted as postmaster, commanded a company of sol- 
 diers, was assistant surveyor and served in the State Legis- 
 
16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 lature. After his admission to the bar at Springfield he 
 won an enviable reputation as a lawyer, but he loved poli- 
 tics better than law. He stumped the state for Harrison 
 and Tyler, debated with Douglas and was elected to Con- 
 gress in 1846. These are the salient facts of his life before 
 he became a presidential possibility. 
 
 By nature and training he had great physical strength 
 and endurance. He was tall, six feet three and one-half 
 inches in His stockings, brawny, large-boned and awkward, 
 "the largest and strongest of them all." The prodigious 
 feats which legend ascribes to him would adorn the histories 
 of Samson and Milo. He never lost his almost childlike 
 pride in the height of his stature. Mr. Sherman relates, in 
 his Memoirs, how he first met Mr. Lincoln the evening after 
 his arrival in Washington, in 1861. "When introduced to 
 him," says Mr. Sherman, "he took my hands in both of 
 his, drew himself up to his full height and looking at me 
 steadily, said: 'You're John Sherman. Well, I'm taller 
 than you. Let's measure.' Thereupon we stood back to 
 back and someone present announced that he was two 
 inches taller than I. This was correct." He could not 
 well conceal his contempt for short men. When he met 
 the undersized Verraonter, Douglas, in 1844, he sneeringly 
 said he was the "least man" he had ever seen. He broke 
 the solemnity of the Hampton Roads Conference by passing 
 a comment on the size of Alexander Stephens. The little 
 Southern commissioner, eighty pounds in weight, protected 
 his frail body against the mid-winter cold with a profusion 
 of overcoats and wraps. In the warm cabin of the steamer 
 River Queen he pulled off layer after layer. When he 
 finally emerged, Lincoln said, in an undertone, to the 
 Secretary of State: "Seward, that is the largest shucking 
 for so small a nubbin that I ever saw." The time came 
 when his gigantic body served him in good stead for bearing 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 17 
 
 the bui'dens of a distracted nation, which rested so heavily 
 upon him. 
 
 Intellectually and morally he showed no evidence of ex- 
 traordinary genius; still he cultivated the basal virtues of 
 true manhood. He was honest, sober, sympathetic, thought- 
 ful, generous and soundly ambitious. In each stage of his 
 life he showed capacity for leadership and proved himself 
 master of his environment. He was in a measure the 
 creature of circumstances, but he was far more the creator 
 of new conditions. He kept in close touch with the people 
 en masse. First, with the villagers in the frontiers; then, 
 the citizens of Illinois; and finally, the nation itself. He 
 passed in his lifetime through all the grades of American 
 civilization— from the open-faced cabin to the cottage, 
 from the cottage to the mansion ; from homespun to broad- 
 cloth, from the grocery store to the Legislature, from the 
 debating society to the political platform, from the bar to 
 the White House. He became, in a sense, the first typical 
 American, a child of the West. His strength increased with 
 the magnitude of the task which was before him. His latent 
 capacity seemed inexhaustible. He was not a scholar, but 
 he had wisdom. He lacked the graces of polite society, 
 but he was a gentleman. He was genial, affable and 
 jovial; still he was reserved, cautious and secretive — "a 
 sceptered hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own origi- 
 nality." He was guileless in exterior habit; still he was 
 sagacious and diplomatic. He was deferential and ever 
 ready to listen and to learn, but formed his own conclu- 
 sions and was immovable after he reached a decision. In 
 finance he failed and in love he hardly succeeded. In 
 maturer years he developed an unusual power for the 
 analysis and penetration of a subject. He grasped the 
 core of an argument and stated it concisely and clearly. 
 Mr. Whitney says: "In clearness and facility of statement 
 
18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 he was like Webster or Jefferson; in remorseless logic, like 
 Calhoun or John Quincy Adams; in fiery and impetuous 
 denunciation, like Clay or Blaine; yet he excelled them all 
 in simplicity and terseness." 
 
 He leaned by nature toward the true and the good. He 
 was an Israelite without guile. He i-evolted from cruelty 
 and craft. He never drank liquor nor smoked tobacco. 
 His temperance speeches are still on record. He was the 
 defender of the abused and the distressed. He was a poor 
 advocate of a bad cause. He keenly felt the injustice of 
 slavery. While he was in New Orleans, he witnessed the 
 sale of a mulatto girl. He remarked to a friend by his side: 
 " If I ever get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." 
 His highest ambition, to quote his own language, was " to 
 connect my name with the events of my day and generation, 
 and so impress myself upon them as to link my name with 
 something that will redound to the interests of my fellow- 
 men. That is all I desire to live for." 
 
 He was an apostle of the " square deal" and " of fair play." 
 He did the right as he saw the right. His vision was not al- 
 ways clear, but his purpose was good. The secret of his life 
 is found in the homely title which the townsmen of New 
 Salem gave him in his youth — "honest Abe." He was 
 forever honest, whether he clerked in a store, wrestled in 
 the ring, argued with Douglas, or administered the affairs 
 of a nation. Neither friend nor foe questioned his sincerity. 
 True, Douglas was more brilliant as an orator, but when he 
 sat down, men said, "is he honest?" When Lincoln fin- 
 ished his argument, men cried, "he is honest!" That con- 
 viction grew upon his countrymen, exalted him to the 
 highest office in the gift of the nation, and won for him the 
 affection of a distressed and scattered people in the darkest 
 days of the Republic. He never lost faith in the people. 
 Mr. Bancroft says: " As a child, in a dark night, on a rugged 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 
 
 way, clutches hold of the hand of its father for guidance 
 and support, he clung fast to the hand of the people and 
 moved calmly through the gloom." Such mutual confidence 
 of leader and followers inspireei and throbbed in the na- 
 tional slogan, "We are coming. Father Abraham, three 
 himdred thousand strong!" 
 
 Lincoln was never a churchman. In his youth he was 
 tainted with skepticism. At the age of twenty-five he 
 wrote an extended essay against Christianity with a view 
 to its publication. He was then under the influence of 
 Thomas Paine. A friend, who acted more wisely than he 
 knew, took the manuscript from the author's hand and 
 cast it into the fire. There was a time when he doubted the 
 inspiration of the Bible and the divinity of Christ. When 
 his intermittent spells of melancholy settled upon him and 
 wrapped him in impenetrable gloom, he questioned even 
 the existence of a personal God and of a future life. But 
 he was always serious, reverent and tolerant. He highly 
 respected the religious convictions of others. Tertullian 
 would have classed him with those who are "naturally 
 Christian." His pubhc writings, addresses, and state 
 papers not only sparkle with scriptural allusions, but reveal 
 a marked change, in mature manhood, in his attitude to- 
 ward eternal realities. He then had firm faith in God, in 
 Providence, in a moral order, in prayer and in the ultimate 
 victory of truth and righteousness. In his letter of accept- 
 ance of the first presidential nomination, he implores the 
 "assistance of Divine Providence." In his inaugural ad- 
 dresses, in his messages to Congress and in his proclama- 
 tions of national thanksgivings, times without number he 
 recognizes the power, the wisdom, the mercy and the jus- 
 tice of God. A man of his breadth of sincerity, however, 
 was naturally repelled by the sectarianism and bigotry 
 which aflflicted the churches of his day. He once said: 
 
20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 "When any church will inscribe over its altar as its own 
 qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed 
 statement of the substance of both law and gospel, 'Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all 
 thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thy- 
 self,' that church will I join with all my heart and all my 
 soul." 
 
 Until 1856, when Lincoln was forty-seven years of age, 
 neither his personal attainments nor his official position 
 indicated the necessary qualifications for national leader- 
 ship. He was a lawyer, indeed, of more than local repute. 
 He had won fame as a stump speaker and political debater. 
 In his single term in Congress he never rose above a respect- 
 able mediocrity. When the Republican party was organ- 
 ized, in 1856, he lived in comparative obscurity and was 
 overshadowed by men whose names were household words 
 from coast to coast — Seward and Sumner, Fremont and 
 Chase, Banks and Bissell. But in the Bloomington Con- 
 vention he sprang into unexpected prominence and hence- 
 forth moved with rapid strides toward the high goal. He 
 outdid the great Nebraskan Commoner himself by deliver- 
 ing a speech which held his hearers in breathless attention 
 and inspired enthusiasm which found vent in exclamations, 
 cheers and applause. Reporters dropped their pencils and 
 forgot their note-books, but the sentiments which he uttered 
 never perished from the memory of his audience. Illinois 
 awakened to the fact that it had reared a big giant as well 
 as a "little giant." The latent powers of Lincoln's mind 
 were aroused to action and his face was set toward Wash- 
 ington. The newspapers announced him as a presidential 
 possibility. At the Philadelphia Convention in June he 
 polled 110 votes as a nominee for the vice-presidency. He 
 was then chosen by the Republicans of his state as the 
 most formidable candidate for the United States senator- 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 21 
 
 ship against the Star of the Democracy, Stephen A. Douglas. 
 In seven joint debates Lincoln proved himself a master of 
 the Constitution, a safe exponent of Republicanism, and a 
 foeman worthy of the steel of the most brilliant statesman 
 of the West, if not of the country. Without Douglas, Lin- 
 coln might have died unhonored and unsung. The "little 
 giant" became a stepping stone to higher things; for, while 
 he was arguing with Douglas before the people of Illinois, 
 he was, in his own words, "playing for larger game." He 
 made statements which at the time the public was not 
 ready to receive. Douglas was elected to the senatorship, 
 but Lincoln advanced a step toward the White House. 
 
 He had now become sufficiently great to attract the 
 attention of the Young Men's Republican Association of 
 Brooklyn, which invited him to deliver an address in Plym- 
 outh Church. The coveted, and still dreaded, privilege of 
 standing before a metropolitan audience had come. He 
 delivered his famous Cooper-Union speech. Notwithstand- 
 ing his brand new suit of ready-made clothes, with panta- 
 loons and coat sleeves cut too short and wrinkled and 
 creased by several days' pressure in a handbag, Lincoln 
 captivated the social and political lions of the metropolis. 
 The aftermath in the Athenaeum Club is described as fol- 
 lows: "Lincoln was the hero of the hour. There was no 
 formality, but there was indeed 'a feast of reason and a 
 flow of soul,' which lasted till the 'wee sma' hours.' Mr. 
 Lincoln was perfectly at home. He 'tauld his queerest 
 stories,' and the solemn walls of the club had never echoed 
 to such hilarity. When the party broke up and tAvo gentle- 
 men escorted Lincoln to the Astor House, everyone was 
 pleased with himself and with all mankind." He made a 
 torn' through New England and won the admiration of the 
 fastidious East. The Professor of Rhetoric of Yale College 
 heard his speech at New Haven and analyzed its fine rhetoric 
 and powerful logic before his class the next day. 
 
22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 When the Chicago Convention met, Lincoln was no 
 longer a dark horse but a candidate who loomed up so 
 prominently that Seward might well fear him above every 
 other rival. All the political machinery of such occasions 
 was set in motion and his nomination was achieved not 
 " without adroit and astute political skill and management." 
 On the third ballot the long cherished presidential aspira- 
 tions of the idol of the Empire State were blasted, and by 
 formal motion of Mr. Evarts, Abraham Lincoln was unani- 
 mously nominated for the presidency of the United States 
 by the Republican party. 
 
 In the election of November 6, 1860, the people ratified 
 the choice of the Chicago Convention, and on December 
 5th, 180 electoral votes for Lincoln gave him a majority of 
 57 votes over Breckenridge, Bell and Douglas. 
 
 It was one thing, however, to carry a popular election 
 and win the presidency; another thing to reconcile and 
 reward his rivals; to crystallize the strength of the loyal 
 States, to suppress an unprecedented secession which was 
 rapidly sweeping the nation into war, and to steer clear of 
 the enthusiasm of friends and the apathy of foes. The 
 wisdom of his election had to be vindicated by the achieve- 
 ments of his administration. 
 
 IIL THE SOLUTION. 
 
 Never did a president take the oath of office with greater 
 difficulties before him, and with less means at his command 
 to cope with them. Six States were in open secession, 
 taking steps to organize an independent confederacy and 
 gathering their forces for war. His predecessor, rightly or 
 wrongly, was charged with indecision and treasonable sym, 
 pathy with the Southern conspirators. The president- 
 himself, was not an experienced statesman and lacked the 
 confidence of even the Republican leaders. The four par- 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 23 
 
 ties in the campaign had spread the spirit of division over 
 the land and increased sectional jealousy and dissension. 
 The people, in the enjoyment of long years of peace, had 
 forgotten the arts of war. From an empty treasury re- 
 sources were to be drawn beyond precedent in the history 
 of finance. The trees were still in the forests and the iron 
 in the earth with which a navy was to be built. The regu- 
 lar army v/as a mere handful of men stationed on the fron- 
 tiers. Experienced conmianders deserted to the Southern 
 cause, and undisciplined officers were to transform a mob 
 into an army in a month. The public opinion of Europe 
 was skeptical or hostile. The North was honeycombed 
 with secessionists as the South was with Unionists. The 
 Ship of State was drifting, and, like Cardinal Newman, 
 when he was fog-bound on the Mediterranean, men looked 
 
 for the 
 
 "Kindly Light amid the encircling gloom." 
 
 The question was, not how to make war, but how to preserve 
 peace. It was not a time for precipitate action, but for 
 cautious deliberation and patient forbearance. The par- 
 tisan, wise fifty years after the event, complacently outlines 
 an invincible policy and in the solitude of his comfortable 
 library, with the ringlets of a delicious Havana circling 
 peacably above his head, puts his foot on the viper of 
 secession, turns on his heel, and lo! the rebellion is crushed 
 and the Union saved forever. "Was not the South in se- 
 cession?" he cries. "Did not the governors of the 
 seceded States send military forces to demand the surrender 
 of the feebly-garrisoned federal forts v;ithin their domains? 
 Did they not take possession of arsenals, custom houses, 
 mints and other public buildings and property of the 
 United States?" History answers "yes." But neither the 
 North nor the South was prepared for a declaration of war 
 before every expedient of peace was exhausted. So long 
 
24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 had Southern threats of disunion served as a party menace, 
 that they ceased to terrify the North. Even the recent 
 more formal poHcies of Southern legislatures and conven- 
 tions appeared as spectacular manifestations to extort 
 compromise and concession from Northern voters. The 
 people of both sides not only hoped, but believed, that 
 again, as so often before, the quarrel could be allayed by 
 compromise. To this end both the House and the Senate 
 appointed committees to devise measures of reconciliation 
 and peace. But the seven plans before the one, and the 
 forty before the other failed to obtain the assent of the ma- 
 jority. For the same purpose a peace convention, com- 
 posed of delegates sent by the governors of fourteen States 
 of the Union, sat in the city of Washington from February 
 4th to February 27th, but the convention adjourned with- 
 out reaching practicable conclusions. Chapters of history 
 were made almost daily. The issue stood out in bolder 
 relief and in sharper antithesis week after week. Southern 
 senators and representatives gradually withdrew from their 
 seats in Congress. The secessionists, on February 4th 
 organized a provisional Congress; on February 8th formed 
 a provisional government known as the Confederate States 
 of America; and on March 11th adopted a permanent con- 
 stitution. Men hoped against hope that peace might be 
 restored, but their dearest hopes were blasted and their 
 worst fears realized. 
 
 At this juncture, neither Lincoln nor his advisors, either 
 before or after the inauguration, could have had a clearly- 
 defined and irreversible plan of action. The condition of 
 affairs was too intricate and too greatly dependent upon 
 incalculable and uncontrollable contingencies even for the 
 most far-sighted statesman to have been able to move in 
 a straight line and to see the end from the beginning. In 
 the interim from his election to the bombardment of Fort 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25 
 
 Sumter, the attitude of Lincoln was one of prudent reserve. 
 He was equally great in his determination to stand and 
 wait and in his decision to advance and act. The spirit of 
 his first inaugural is tolerant and irenic, yet firm and reso- 
 lute. He assures "the Southern States that by the acces- 
 sion of a Republican administration, their property and 
 their peace and personal security are not to be endangered." 
 He declares that he " has no purpose, directly or indirectly, 
 to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
 where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so 
 and I have no inclination to do so." He reiterates the 
 resolution of the Republican platform, "that the mainten- 
 ance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially 
 the right of each State to order and control its own domestic 
 institutions, according to its own judgment exclusively, 
 is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection 
 and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we de- 
 nounce the lawless invasion of armed force of the soil of 
 any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as 
 among the gravest crimes." He emphatically affirms, how- 
 ever, that " no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully 
 get out of the Union," and announces in unmistakable 
 language his purpose to preserve the Union intact. But he 
 adds: "In doing this there must be no bloodshed and vio- 
 lence, and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the 
 national authority." 
 
 In the conclusion of his address he pleads for peace. 
 " My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon 
 this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking 
 time. If it were admitted that you, who are dissatisfied, 
 hold the right side in the dispute, there is no single good 
 reason for precipitate action. Indulgence, patriotism, 
 Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never 
 yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to ad- 
 just in the best way all our present difficulties." 
 
26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Further quotations are unnecessary to show that Lin- 
 coln did not breathe defiance or thrust the mailed fist into 
 the faces of the secessionists. His purpose was to exhaust 
 "all peaceable measures before a resort to any stronger 
 ones." But he was, at the same time, irrevocably pledged 
 "to hold, occupy and possess the property and places be- 
 longing to the government, and to collect the duties and 
 imposts." He solemnly declared "that to the extent of 
 my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself ex- 
 pressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be 
 faithfully executed in all the States." War or no war, 
 these declarations could not be retracted. Men of the 
 South, who heard the inaugural, caught its martial under- 
 tone. On March 5th, Mr. L. Q. Washington wrote from 
 the capital to the Confederate Secretary of War: "I was 
 present last evening at a consultation of Southern gentle- 
 men, at which Messrs. Crawford, Garnett, Pryor, De Jar- 
 nette of Virginia, and Wigfall of Texas were present. We 
 all put the same construction on the inaugural, which we 
 carefully went over together. We agreed that it was Lin- 
 coln's purpose at once to attempt the collection of the 
 revenues, to reinforce and hold Fort Sumter and Pickens, 
 and to retake the other places. He is a man of will and 
 firmness." 
 
 His deliberate action and the evidences of his independ- 
 ent leadership appear in the conduct of the transactions 
 relating to Fort Sumter. Major Anderson reported that 
 his provisions would be exhausted in a few weeks, and re- 
 quested a force of not less than 20,000 good and well- 
 disciplined men to relieve him. Remembering that there 
 were only 17,113 officers and men in the regular army and 
 that these were scattered in small detachments along the 
 western frontiers, it is clear that the request of Anderson 
 could not be granted. The administration was in a sore 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 27 
 
 dilemma. Lieutenant-General Scott, after consultation 
 with the officers of the army and the navy, reported that 
 "evacuation seems almost inevitable, and in this view our 
 distinguished chief engineer concurs." The cabinet, with 
 the exception of Postmaster-General Blair, agreed with the 
 experts of the army. But after Lincoln's promise "to 
 hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging 
 to the government," the abandonment of Sumter would 
 be utterly ruinous. "At home it would discourage the 
 friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries and go far 
 to ensure to the latter recognition abroad," With a keen 
 sense of his predicament, Lincoln said: "When Anderson 
 goes out of Fort Sumter, I shall have to go out of the White 
 House." Since reinforcement was an absolute impossibil- 
 ity, the alternative of starving or withdrawal of the gar- 
 rison presented itself. When the provisioning of Fort Sum- 
 ter was proposed, only three of the cabinet were favorable. 
 Seward was inflexible in his opposition. Lincoln, however, 
 announced that "he must send bread to Anderson." In 
 spite of positive protests from high authority, he ordered 
 the despatch of a relief expedition, but not without due 
 notice to the governor of South Carolina. The assurance 
 wa? given that if the attempted relief would not be resisted, 
 "no effort to throw in men, arms or ammunition" would be 
 attempted until further notice or in case of attack. Even 
 at this stage he did not play the aggressor toward the 
 secessionists, but acted on the defensive. In his special 
 message of July 4, 1861, he does not leave us in doubt on 
 this point, when he tells us that he "sought only to hold 
 the public places and property not already wrested from 
 the government and to collect the revenues, relying for the 
 rest on time, discussion and the ballot box." 
 
 Far be it from us to presume to measure swords with the 
 brilHant essayist of the last Cliosophic. He would be rash, 
 
28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 indeed, who would rush into the Hsts to try his strength 
 with one whose blade is so keen and whose stroke so true. 
 It is only as a victim of circumstances, from which we would 
 fain run away, but by which we are inextricably entangled, 
 that we venture to consider the relation between the policy 
 of Buchanan and of Lincoln before the attack on Sumter. 
 Who could fail to admire the chivalrous gallantry of our 
 distinguished townsman when he cited the notable his- 
 torians of America and found them arrayed against him 
 like a wall of adamant? We have found, however, another 
 son of Pennsylvania who has championed the cause of the 
 ill-fated Buchanan. He was never in political sympathy 
 with him, nor did any personal affection warp his judg- 
 ment. Mr. A. K. McClure, thirty years after Buchanan's 
 retirement, wrote: "It will surprise many at this day when 
 I say that Abraham Lincoln took up the reins of govern- 
 ment just where James Buchanan left them, and continued 
 precisely the same policy toward the South that Buchanan 
 had inaugurated, until the Southern leaders committed 
 the suicidal act of firing on Fort Sumter." 
 
 To do justice to this view we must not forget the epoch- 
 making effect of the assault on Anderson. It clarified the 
 vision of our statesmen and changed the whole problem in 
 the North and the South. Then, too, a comparison between 
 antipodal men like Buchanan and Lincoln is almost im- 
 possible without doing injustice to both. Their parentage, 
 early training, intellectual and social characteristics, politi- 
 cal allegiance and official experience were as far apart as 
 the East is from the West. In the critical period before the 
 election and the inauguration of Lincoln days were years 
 and months decades. No one can tell what Buchanan 
 would have done two months later ; or Lincoln, three months 
 earlier. The former, however, has put himself on record, 
 in a letter to Mr. Baker, April 26, 1861, saying: "The 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 29 
 
 attack on Fort Sumter was an outrageous act. The authori- 
 ties of Charleston were several times warned by my admin- 
 istration that such an attack would be civil war and would 
 be treated as such. If it had been made in my time, it 
 should have been treated as such." This ex post facto 
 utterance is confirmed by his much condemned answer to 
 the South Carolina commissioners. He declined to rein- 
 force the forts in Charleston harbor, " relying on the honor 
 of South Carolinians that they will not be assaulted while 
 they remain in their present condition." He assumed, also, 
 that he, as president, had no power to take action ; that the 
 whole dispute was to be submitted to Congress. But he 
 said in unequivocal language, "if South Carolina should 
 take any of these forts, she will then become the assailant 
 in war against the United States." 
 
 The two presidents agreed in pursuing a policy intended 
 to preserve peace rather than to precipitate war. On ac- 
 count of the insufficiency of the army and navy, both 
 considered an attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter futile. 
 Lincoln, however, determined to jyrovision it. Both still 
 believed that the Union could be preserved intact and the 
 breach could be healed by peaceable measures. Both, 
 accordingly, showed long-sufferance toward a rebellious 
 people, which was born not of traitorous sympathy nor 
 of cowardly indecision, but of a magnanimous determina- 
 tion to save the South from the consequence of her blind 
 folly, and the whole nation from the horrors of an interne- 
 cine war. 
 
 The truth of history and justice to two distinguished 
 men require a statement not only of points of agreement, 
 but, also, of points of difference. As men, they must be 
 placed under two incomparable categories. Buchanan, 
 leaving office, enfeebled by age and distracted by ruthless 
 criticisms, belonged to a passing era. Lincoln, entering 
 
30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 ofRce in the matmity of manhood and borne up by tha^ 
 enthusiasm of a party lately come into power, belonged to 
 a new order. Buchanan was a loyal Democrat, Lincoln 
 a Whig and a Republican. Buchanan not only stood for 
 non-interference with slavery where it was, but for its 
 right to go where it was not. Lincoln disclaimed any in- 
 tention to abolish slavery, but he was unalterably opposed 
 to its extension into new territory. Buchanan was in sym- 
 pathy with the doctrine of State Rights, the Lecompton 
 Constitution and the Dred Scott Decision. Lincoln won 
 his presidential spurs in waging unremitting war against 
 these measures. Buchanan was not an avowed opponent 
 of slavery. Lincoln considered it a necessary evil and 
 hoped for its extirpation. Buchanan was elected before 
 secession by a solid South; Lincoln was elected by an 
 almost solid North and inaugurated after secession. Buch- 
 anan was the victim of a treacherous cabinet ; Lincoln chose 
 his advisors in full view of the situation. Buchanan had 
 to meet secession in its incipiency with a nation perplexed 
 and dumfounded; Lincoln came into office after the Con- 
 federate States had formed a provisional government and 
 sentiment was rapidly crystallizing on both sides. Buch- 
 anan received the South Carolina Commissioners and held 
 that the initiative for the settlement of the trouble was 
 vested m Congress and not in the executive. Lincoln, 
 warned by Buchanan's experience, ignored the commis- 
 sioners of the Confederacy and affirmed his right to defend 
 and protect the government. Buchanan denied the right 
 of states to secede, but also of the Federal government to 
 coerce; Lincoln denied the right to secede and claimed the 
 constitutional right to coerce. 
 
 Long after these statements are torn to shreds in the 
 disoaSiioQ of the coming hour, the question as to what 
 both should have done will remain an insoluble crux for 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 31 
 
 the statesmen, the military officers and the historians for 
 generations to come. 
 
 The second stage of Lincoln's administration opened 
 with the firing on Fort Sumter — the shot which "echoed 
 around the world" and "brought all the free States to their 
 feet as one man." The time for patient forbearance and 
 peaceable adjustment had expired. For Lincoln there 
 could be but one policy, and that was the successful prose- 
 cution and speedy termination of the war and the restora- 
 tion 'of the Union. Happily for the unification of the 
 North, he kept inviolate his promise to his dissatisfied 
 countrymen in the inaugural, that "the government would 
 not assail them, and that there could be no conflict v/ithout 
 being themselves the aggressors." The secessionists, blind 
 to their own interests, became the "assailants of the gov- 
 ernment, and forced upon the country the distinct issues, 
 * immediate dissolution or blood.'" In the words of Emer- 
 son the attack on Fort Sumter "crystallized the North 
 into a unit and the hope of mankind was saved." Party 
 limits were abolished. Mr. Douglas, supported by a mil- 
 lion voters, voluntarily intervievvred the president and 
 pledged his support of the administration. Ancient feuds 
 and bitter prejudices were forgotten under the impulse of 
 a new enthusiasm and in the presence of a common danger. 
 
 The declaration of war was attended by problems in- 
 numerable. An empty treasury had to be replenished. 
 Neither the army nor the navy was prepared for efficient 
 service. New officers had to be appointed and stationed. 
 The neutrality of foreign powers had to be maintained, if 
 their sympathy could not be won. The border States had 
 to be concilliated and kept loyal to the government. The 
 depressing effects of disastrous defeats had to be counter- 
 acted. The slow progress of the war chilled the first out- 
 burst of enthusiasm and cries were heard from North and 
 
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 South for a cessation of hostilities. The president was the 
 target of caustic criticisms, from domineering and dis- 
 affected members of his cabinet, arrogant miUtary officers, 
 a hostile minority in Congress, omniscient editors of metro- 
 politan papers and partisan demagogues. But Lincoln 
 attained heroic proportions in his treatment of Northern 
 opposition and Southern rebellion. He took immediate 
 and vigorous steps to meet the situation. His call for 75,- 
 000 militia and an extra session of Congress; his proclama- 
 tion of a blockade of Southern ports, and a demand for 42,- 
 000 volunteers, with an increase in the regular army and 
 in the naval forces, all followed in rapid succession in less 
 than twenty days after Anderson capitulated. Men like 
 Seward, Chase, Stanton and McClellan, who were firmly 
 convinced that they were the agents of Providence for 
 such a time as this to save the country from a well-meaning 
 but incapable Executive, were quickly disillusioned and 
 did obeisance to one who towered above them all. The 
 different schemes of terminating the war, either by recog- 
 nizing the insurgent States as an independent confederacy, 
 or by granting a temporary truce for subsequent negotia- 
 tions, or by restoring them to the Union with compromis- 
 ing concessions, were not for a moment considered by the 
 Executive. His undaunted spirit inspired the second reso- 
 lution of the Republican platform of 1864: "Resolved, 
 That we approve the determination of the government of 
 the United States not to compromise with rebels or to 
 offer them any terms of peace, except such as may be 
 based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility 
 and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and 
 laws of the United States." 
 
 He could not be coerced by reckless radicals, restrained 
 by timid conservatives, or disarmed by nerveless moderat- 
 ists. With an almost overwhelming sense of responsibility, 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 
 
 with a heart-rending sympathy for his bleeding countrymen, 
 with malice toward none and with charity for all, with a 
 firm conviction of the righteousness of his cause and with 
 an unfaltering trust in the truth and justice of the Almighty 
 Ruler of the nations, he was guided in word and deed by 
 the dictates of his reason and conscience. He was not 
 an agent of his cabinet or the servant of his party, but 
 the ruler of a divided nation, whose sole purpose was the 
 healing of divisions and the restoration of peace and pros- 
 perity. His practically unanimous nomination for a second 
 term and sweeping victory at the polls, were not only a 
 splendid vindication of his statesmanship, but a magnifi- 
 cent expression of supreme confidence in his matchless 
 manhood by the American people. 
 
 Even the want of time will not permit us to omit the 
 consideration of the consummate act of his life, by which 
 more than by any other his name will be remembered for- 
 ever — the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln was theo- 
 retically and morally an inveterate foe of slavery. His 
 whole nature instinctively revolted from it. The practice 
 of involuntary servitude he could not reconcile with his 
 conception of Divine Justice, human equality and demo- 
 cratic government, but as a broadminded and farseeing 
 statesman he was no advocate of immediate and arbitrary 
 abolition. The responsibility of the existence of slavery 
 he did not lay upon the South alone, but upon the whole 
 country. In his annual message, December 1, 1862, he 
 pleads for compensated emancipation on the ground that 
 in a certain sense " the liberation of slaves is the destruction 
 of property — property acquired by descent or by purchase, 
 the same as any other property." Then he generously dis- 
 tributes the burden of responsibility. "It is no less true," 
 he says, "for having been so often said that the people of 
 the South are not more responsible for the original intro- 
 
34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 duction of this property than are the people of the North, 
 and when it is remembered how unhesitatingly we all use 
 cotton and sugar and share the profits of dealing in them, 
 it may not be quite safe to say that the South had been 
 more responsible than the North for its continuance. If, 
 then, for a common object this property is to be sacrificed, 
 is it not just that it will be done at a common charge?" 
 Neither the Republican party nor its successful candidate 
 dreamed of interference, directly or indirectly, with the 
 institution of slavery in the States where it existed. In the 
 political platform and in public utterances care was taken 
 to distinguish Republicanism from abolitionism. While 
 Lincoln more than once declared that slavery was the 
 cause of the war, he none the less resented the imputation 
 of the opposition, that war was waged to free the slaves. 
 According to Mr. Davis, " the South did not fight for slavery 
 but for equality." It is equally true that the North did 
 not fight against slavery but against secession and for the 
 Union. In reply to the anti-slavery zealots, among whom 
 was the impatient editor of the New York Tribune, Lincoln 
 clearly defines his position: "My paramount object in this 
 struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or 
 to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without 
 freeing the slave, I would do it, and, if I could save it by 
 freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it 
 by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do 
 it. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do 
 because I beHeve it helps to save the Union, and what I 
 forbear I forbear because I do not believe it would help to 
 save the Union." 
 
 Emancipation was forced upon the president, as com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army and navy, by the necessities 
 of war. In a short time the Federal camps were filled with 
 forsaken and fugitive slaves. What was to be done with 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 35 
 
 them? The Government could neither return them to 
 their masters nor keep them in bondage. The insurrec- 
 tionists were encouraged and comforted in the hope that 
 the border slave States, still loj^al to the Union, would 
 eventually cast their lot with the Confederacy and turn the 
 tide of war in its favor. The ardent abolitionists impa- 
 tiently urged liberation, while loyal and good men of all 
 parties strenuously opposed such an extremity. 
 
 The scope of vision, the sense of justice, the subordina- 
 tion of personal vievv's to the general welfare, the self-restraint 
 and firm resolution of Lincoln, never stood out in bolder 
 relief than in the solution of this momentous question. 
 He studied and pondered the whole subject long and well. 
 He guarded himself against the importunities of enthusiasts 
 and was heedless of the fears and warnings of the oppor- 
 tunists. At last he was convinced that the hour had come 
 and he resolved on liberation. He was not primarily actu- 
 ated by moral motives but by military policy. Emancipa- 
 tion was a war measure. Still he moved cautiously and 
 with a view of winning rather than alienating the slave 
 holders. He pleads in vain for compensated emancipation. 
 He peremptorily revoked General Hunter's unauthorized 
 order of military emancipation. He signed the bill abolish- 
 ing slavery in the District of Columbia. He authorized the 
 employment of contrabands in the army. He prepared a 
 draft of a preliminary emancipation proclamation, giving 
 due notice to all the States, whether in or out of the Union, 
 that they might obtain the benefits of compensation. Only 
 tvv'o members of his cabinet approved this measure. But 
 with the impressive tone of a father addressing his son, he 
 told them that he had not called them together for advice 
 on issuing the proclamation. That matter was decided. 
 But he desired their criticism and suggestions on the form 
 of the document. Accepting the recommendation of Mr. 
 
36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Seward, that the pubHcation of it should be postponed 
 until it would be supported by military success, he patiently 
 waited for reports from the field. The fulness of time was 
 at hand when the victory of Antietam revived the drooping 
 courage of the North. After a second conference with the 
 cabinet and a few slight modifications, the preliminary 
 proclamation was announced, September 2, 1862. The die 
 was cast. The Confederate States gave no sign of repent- 
 ance and spurned the generous offer of compensation. 
 True to his announcement, on January 1, 1863, he signed 
 the final edict of freedom and the shackles fell from 4,000,- 
 000 bondmen forever. The decisive vote of the people in 
 the next election, the series of successful battles under the 
 leadership of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, and the rapid 
 disintegration of the Confederacy, not only ratified the 
 proclamation but enabled the Thirty-eighth Congress to 
 make it a part of the organic law of the land, as inscribed in 
 the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution. 
 
 Perhaps the crowning act of his life, the full bloom of his 
 generous, unresenting, pardoning and philanthropic soul, 
 was a tentative message addressed to Congress, recommend- 
 ing that the slave States be offered a compensation of four 
 hundred millions of dollars, upon condition that all rebel- 
 lion should cease before April 1, 1865. Then the backbone 
 of the rebellion had been broken. When men were thirsting 
 for vengeance on a defeated foe; when they were about to 
 lay stripes deep and long on the bare back of a rebellious 
 people; then Lincoln had "charity for all and malice to- 
 ward none." The cabinet, however, to a man disapproved 
 the plan. With an expression of surprise and sorrow, 
 coming like a cloud over his face, he folded and laid away 
 the paper, and with a deep sign he added: "You are all 
 opposed to me and I will not send the message." His 
 lenient policy was rejected. The war was fought to the 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 37 
 
 bitter end. The plans for the reconstruction of the im- 
 poverished, distracted, humihated and embittered South, 
 which were ripening in his mind, were defeated by the 
 assassin's hand. When Lincoln fell, the rebellious States 
 lost their most faithful friend — a friend who groaned and 
 agonized in his soul because of their apostasy, and travailed 
 and prayed for their return to the government of their 
 fathers. When Lincoln fell, the great genius of American 
 democracy breathed his last and one of the most distin- 
 guished sons of the race passed into the realm of the im- 
 mortals. When the stricken chief lay cold in death, the 
 leonine Stanton, who had borne with him the burdens of 
 war, spoke the judgment of history: "There lies the most 
 perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen." 
 
 He solved the problem which baffled American states- 
 men for a century. He transformed the Declaration of 
 Independence from a political theory to a national fact. 
 He exalted the Constitution as the supreme and inexorable 
 law of an indissoluble Union. He convinced the super- 
 cilious and skeptical monarchies of the world that govern- 
 ment of the people, by the people and for the people shall 
 not perish from the earth. He broke the bonds of slavery 
 and preserved the integrity of the nation. 
 
 We have traced his life from the cabin in the Western 
 forests to the executive mansion at Washington, from the 
 first sentence scribbled on a shovel by the hearth to the 
 second inaugural, from the abolition sentiment uttered 
 before the auction block in New Orleans to the Thirteenth 
 Amendment. We have watched the successive steps in 
 his career and read nearly all his recorded words, observed 
 his treatment of men, friends and foes, and traced his ad- 
 ministration of affairs in the dark days of the war until he 
 died a martyr to the cause for which he lived. We have a 
 feeling akin to that of the traveler who stands for the first 
 
38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 time before a towering peak of Switzerland. As his eye 
 follows the outline of the monarch of the plain from base to 
 summit, and his soul is lifted from the ephemeral to the 
 eternal, he forgets the common clay, the flinty rock and the 
 barren sides in the contemplation of the massive grandeur 
 of the cloud-capped peak. Lincoln stands before us against 
 a background of the vast and dim unknown, of the earth 
 earthy yet with the glow of heaven on his brow, defying 
 analysis, classification and interpretation — an incomparable 
 and solitary personality. 
 
 When the fields of a nation were tinged with blood, when 
 the demons of war stalked with hellish glee over the ruins 
 of blooming gardens, golden harvests and thriving hamlets, 
 and the cry of the widow and orphan filled the land, when 
 victory was in his grasp and the plaudits of an exalted 
 people were breaking forth — then Lincoln reveals the 
 secret of his life in the words of his great second inaugural : 
 "Fondly we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty 
 scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills 
 that it continue until all the wealth built by the bonds- 
 man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil, shall 
 be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
 shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 
 three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The 
 judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 
 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
 ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 
 strive to finish the work we are in — to bind up a nation's 
 wounds and care for him who shall have borne the battle, 
 and for his widoAv and his orphans; to do all which may 
 achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among om'- 
 selves and with all nations." Did ever Jewish prophet or 
 Christian apostle, ancient father or modern reformer, utter 
 a sublimer faith in Divine Providence and plead with a 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 39 
 
 tenderer love for Christian charity? But the feeble accents 
 of sober prose must yield to the keener vision, the finer 
 touch and the subtler tones of the poetic muse, to give due 
 honor to America's great emancipator: 
 
 "When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
 Gathering and darkening as it hurried on, 
 She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
 To make a man to meet the mighty need. 
 She took the tried clay of the common road — 
 Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth, 
 Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy, 
 Tempered the heap with touch of mortal tears; 
 Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
 
 The color of the ground was in him, the red earth, 
 
 The tang and odor of the primal things — 
 
 The rectitude and patience of the rocks; 
 
 The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; 
 
 The courage of the bird that dares the sea; 
 
 The justice of the rain that loves all leaves ; 
 
 The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; 
 
 The loving kindness of the wayside well; 
 
 The tolerance and equity of light 
 
 That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 
 
 As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 
 
 To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 
 
 That shoulders out the sky. 
 
 And so he came. 
 From prairie cabin up to Capitol, 
 One fair ideal led our chieftain on, 
 Forever more he burned to do his deed 
 With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. 
 He built the rail pile as he built the State, 
 Pouring his splendid strength through evei\v blow. 
 The conscience of him testing every stroke, 
 To make his deed the measure of a man. 
 
 So came the Captain with the mighty heart ; 
 
 And when the step of earthquake shook the house, 
 
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Wresting the rafters from their ancient hold, 
 He held the ridgepole up and spiked again 
 The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
 Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
 Held on through blame and faltered not at praise- 
 And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
 As when a kingly cedar, green with boughs, 
 Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, 
 And leaves a lonesome place against the sky." 
 
 — ^Markham. 
 
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