JNCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/setmypeoplefreenOOIill 
 
SET MY 
 PEOPLE FREE 
 
l^ll4AC<f0w 
 
SET MY 
 PEOPLE FREE 
 
 A Negro's Life of Lincoln 
 
 By 
 WILLIAM E. LILLY 
 
 [9 
 
 FARRAR & RINEHART 
 
 INCORPORATED 
 
 ON MURRAY HILL NEW YORK 
 
COPYRIGHT, I932, BY WILLIAM E. LILLY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 BY THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
f 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 PREFACE 
 
 It has been but one full life span since the tragedy 
 at Ford's Theatre brought to an end the work of one 
 of the strangest men who ever gave great service to 
 humanity. In the years since his death, the men he left 
 behind have more and more grasped the assurance that 
 in the passing of Abraham Lincoln, America lost the 
 greatest of her sons. There may be much debate as to 
 which should be ranked second, third, or fourth, but it 
 is unquestionable that to this man most of his fellows 
 look as the first of Americans. 
 
 And yet, when the political campaign of i860 came 
 to an end with the election of Abraham Lincoln, though 
 by a minority of the votes cast, there were few among 
 serious thinking patriots of the country that did not look 
 with heavy anxiety to the future. At the most fearful 
 crisis of its history, many believed it had chosen an inex- 
 perienced or unprepared man, if not, indeed, a mere 
 shifty politician to guide it through the perilous days 
 ahead. Some thought with regret of the experienced 
 statesman, William H. Seward, defeated but a few 
 months earlier at the party convention; others, of the 
 tried statesman, Stephen A. Douglas, beaten for the 
 Presidency. 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 In the difference of opinion between the men of that 
 day and the men of our own, it is easy to see how vast 
 has been the ascent of the fame of Lincoln. But fame is 
 not always a fixed or stable quantity, and there are 
 those who ask if the ascent thus attained is a definite 
 quantity and one that is likely to be maintained ? How, 
 then, will it be with Abraham Lincoln? 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century the writer has 
 been intensely interested in the strange being who came 
 so opportunely — 
 
 "Up from prairie cabin to the capitol." 
 
 This interest may have been accented by, but certainly 
 was not primarily due to the fact that the writer himself 
 belonged to the racial group of four million, transformed 
 as by some stupendous miracle from the status of beasts 
 of the field, as the victims of chattel slavery, to that of 
 human beings, and with a qualified citizenship in the 
 most democratic government of the time. The fame of 
 Lincoln was a thing unique, and amply sufficed to sustain 
 such an interest, based as it was, not on military triumphs, 
 nor on religious zeal, nor as the founder of a nation or 
 dynasty, the more usual sources of enduring fame. For 
 interest in such a man no direct benefaction was needed, 
 nor did one need to know that it was this man's signature 
 that gave validity to the Emancipation Proclamation. It 
 was enough that each succeeding year saw a constantly 
 swelling tide of literature devoted to informing the world 
 what manner of man was this. 
 
 Much of that literature the writer has read with avidity, 
 and he remembers with pleasure the pages of Herndon 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 and Raymond, the State Papers, Miss Tarbell and Dr. 
 Barton, Sandburg and Beveridge, the Nicolay-Hay Life, 
 and the compilers of the debates with Douglas, as well 
 as the perennial output of magazine and newspaper arti- 
 cles. And always he became more impressed with the 
 verity of the phrase so often met with in descriptions of 
 Lincoln: "A strange man." 
 
 Of late years I have hoped more and more that some 
 bold venturer would come forth with something more 
 definitive, with some word that might let us feel that we 
 understood the man, no longer strange; the man who 
 serious and sorrowful, yet constantly laughed and joked, 
 and in either mood excited the compassion of these who 
 came in touch with him. With some word, too, that 
 might enable us to know how Time will deal with the 
 fame of the man Lincoln. 
 
 Some may ask, how can one with the blood of the 
 freed people in his veins, doubt the greatness of the man 
 who gave that freedom? The answer is, that the ques- 
 tion is not asked in any spirit of doubt, but rather with 
 the idea of here and there, in the review of the eventful 
 life of Lincoln, directing attention to, and stressing cer- 
 tain phases that do not appear hitherto to have been suffi- 
 ciently noticed, and thereby adding possibly, another stone 
 to the structure. The writer asks no greater honor. 
 
 In coming days it may not suffice to say that this man 
 gave a measure of freedom to four million people. This 
 and more might be equally said of the Czar, Alexander II, 
 who two years before President Lincoln had attached 
 his signature to the Emancipation Proclamation, signed 
 a paper giving a measure of freedom to more than 
 twenty million serfs. Like Lincoln, too, he died by the 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 hand of an assassin. The figure of the Czar who emanci- 
 pated the serfs has become dim and dimmer with the 
 passing years, the figure of the President who emanci- 
 pated the blacks has become more vivid and dynamic. 
 And yet, believing that the fame of such a man is secure 
 and firmly placed, and "far above our poor power to add 
 or detract," we have still ventured to offer the following 
 pages in the hope of giving an added clarity to the gen- 
 eral conception of the character and achievements of 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
SET MY 
 PEOPLE FREE 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 T 
 
 HE rapid rise of a man who but two years earlier 
 was comparatively unknown to the nation, to the high- 
 est office in its gift, the tremendous achievements of his 
 administration, the vast power he wielded with sanity, 
 moderation and humanity, all point to a striking and 
 unusual character. It is in the ordinary course of things, 
 then, that closely following Abraham Lincoln's death, 
 and ever since, there have been many conjectures as to 
 the source of the powers displayed by him. Remember- 
 ing the humble and illiterate parents and the unfavor- 
 able and depressing conditions of his early childhood, 
 there were some who felt that such magnificent powers 
 must have come from another source. 
 
 The ancients used to derive the lineage of their great 
 ones directly from the gods. We smile cynically at this, 
 but notwithstanding take a course somewhat similar at 
 times, and even less logical. We insist that those to 
 whom we ascribe greatness, and upon whom we some- 
 times thrust greatness, must trace their lineage to others 
 who have had greatness ascribed to them, or possibly 
 thrust upon them. And it appears that the connection 
 does not have to be immediate or direct, but that some 
 ordinary or mediocre personages may come between the 
 
4 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 great ones. Thus our moderns may be fully satisfied 
 that a man may have a valid claim to greatness if his 
 great-grandfather had some such claim, even though the 
 intervening links may have been most ordinary. It is 
 seen, then, by this theory, that ordinary or mediocre folk 
 may readily come from the great, but that the great 
 may not come from the ordinary or mediocre. 
 
 Following this line of reasoning, there were those 
 who were willing to question the regularity of the pa- 
 ternity of Lincoln, if only they could satisfactorily locate 
 the source of his greatness. Herndon, for twenty years 
 his law partner, relates that after Lincoln had attained 
 some prominence in the world, persons who knew both 
 himself and his father were constantly pointing to the 
 lack of resemblance between the two. The old gentle- 
 man was not only devoid of energy and shiftless, but 
 dull. And these persons were unable to account for 
 the source of the son's ambition and his intellectual 
 superiority over other men. 
 
 What is actually known of Lincoln's ancestry, is, that 
 his paternal grandfather was killed by Indians soon after 
 he had reached Kentucky from Virginia; that he left 
 three sons, Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas, the youngest, 
 at that time but six years of age. It was he who became 
 the father of Abraham Lincoln. He is described as being 
 five feet, ten inches in height, and weighing one hundred 
 and ninety-five pounds. He is said to have had a liking 
 for jokes, a thing noticeable in his son, and seems to have 
 had no liking for steady labor, although he was a com- 
 petent carpenter, according to the standards of his com- 
 munity. Herndon describes the mother, Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln, as "above the ordinary height in stature, weighed 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 5 
 
 about 130 pounds, was slenderly built and had much the 
 appearance of one inclined to consumption. Her skin 
 was dark, hair dark brown; eyes grey and small; fore- 
 head prominent and face small and angular, with k a 
 marked expression of melancholy." Mr. Lincoln once 
 remarked that his higher intellectual qualities came from 
 his mother, who was understood to be the illegitimate 
 child of a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter. At 
 another time he derived his power of analysis, his logic, 
 his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities 
 that distinguished him from the other members of the 
 Hanks family, from this farmer or planter. 
 
 There is reason to believe that in the chemistry of 
 high talent and genius there are yet many things to be 
 discovered. Perhaps it is as logical to derive the genius 
 of Abraham Lincoln from the humble, unlettered and 
 uncultured Thomas Lincoln, as from the well-bred 
 farmer or planter, who appears to have left the mother 
 of his child to the uncertain mercies of an indifferent 
 world. Certainly, the records seem to leave no reason 
 for doubt as to the regularity of the paternity of the 
 Emancipator. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 A 
 
 CHILD came into the world February 12, 1809, 
 in Hardin County, Kentucky, amid conditions hard and 
 inhospitable to a degree unusual even in a wild and un- 
 settled frontier land. It is probable that there were few, 
 even of the slave children, born at that period whose 
 chances of life and the pursuit of happiness were much 
 inferior to that of the babe born to Thomas Lincoln and 
 his wife, Nancy. These were noticeably poor even in a 
 group that was often contemptuously referred to as "poor 
 whites." A loosely constructed, one-room cabin of logs 
 without flooring, and with chimney of clay bound sticks 
 climbing but part of the way up the outer end of the struc- 
 ture, gave scant protection to the babe and its parents for 
 the first three years of its life. From this cabin the babe 
 was taken to another, equally wretched, eight miles away, 
 there to live the next four years of its life. 
 
 Then came an event, of no significance at the time, but 
 in the light of later years of tremendous importance to the 
 nation of which this babe was a part. The Lincoln fam- 
 ily migrated to Indiana. The distance traveled in miles 
 was not great. But in the more important measure of 
 human ideas, the child had gone from the frontiers of one 
 world to the frontiers of another. It had gone from a 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 7 
 
 land where the idea of slavery for some men prevailed, to 
 a land where the idea of freedom for all men prevailed. 
 From a land where, as the eloquent De Tocqueville said, 
 "labor is confounded with slavery," to a land where "it is 
 identified with prosperity and improvement." How vast 
 was the gain for freedom in this seemingly insignificant 
 event, only the passing of nearly a half century was to dis- 
 close. Then the man imbued with ideas of freedom that 
 prevailed in the land in which he grew up, was the great- 
 est individual force in overthrowing the idea of slavery 
 that prevailed in the land where he was born. 
 
 The two-year period that followed the advent of the 
 Lincolns on the soil of Indiana was filled with adversities 
 so severe as to shake the courage even of those long inured 
 to adversities. The fortunes of Abraham Lincoln, both as 
 child and adult, were to pass through many valleys of 
 darkness, but this first period north of the Ohio was the 
 one most filled with shadows. Ordinary comforts of life, 
 frequently found even at the outposts of civilization, were 
 entirely missing. Only the bare necessities were there, 
 and these in meager quantity. Here where the great river 
 separated the two ideas of Freedom and Slavery, that were 
 later to lead to "an irrepressible conflict," it is likely that 
 grim hunger stalked always not far behind him who was 
 to be the outstanding leader of that conflict. The lean, 
 gaunt face, the bony limbs so noticeable in Lincoln, may 
 have been the result of the long privation and under nour- 
 ishment of those terrible years. 
 
 The practical mind of the boy Abe, once caused him, 
 after hearing his father's words of blessing over a meal 
 consisting only of roasted potatoes, to exclaim, in logical 
 
8 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 if somewhat irreverent protest; "Dad, I call these mighty 
 poor blessings." 
 
 Here the child spent his first year in the North, some 
 sixteen miles from the river in a hut more wretched than 
 any of the others. It was fourteen feet square, of small 
 unhewn logs on three sides only, without a floor and with 
 no need for doors or windows. From here the family 
 moved to a better structure nearby, of hewn logs, with 
 windows and doors, but with only the packed earth for 
 flooring. That year the mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, 
 died, leaving the boy Abe, then nine, and a sister two 
 years older. After two years Thomas Lincoln married 
 again. The step-mother, a source from which has some- 
 times come much unhappiness for children, was to be a 
 mother in the fullest sense of the word. With her ar- 
 rival the world of the Lincolns took on a brighter hue. 
 In the place of dry leaves or corn husks, there was a 
 feather bed. Chairs and furniture stood on the new floor 
 that was soon put in the house, the first in the ten years 
 of the boy's life. 
 
 Sympathy, love and wise guidance, the best heritage of 
 childhood, were given in full measure by this step-mother 
 who loved the boy Abe, even as she loved her own son, 
 and who was loved by him even as he loved his own 
 mother. In this new and friendlier world was developed 
 that patience, perseverance and kindly courage, that was 
 later to supply the place of a total lack of systematic 
 school-training. Few of the great men who so often owe 
 much to their mothers, have owed as much as did Abra- 
 ham Lincoln to his step-mother, Sarah Bush Johnston 
 Lincoln. 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 A 
 
 WRITER speaks of the early Lincoln as "reading, 
 incessantly and forever reading." Certainly his early 
 absorption in books gave him the reputation of being 
 strange. Any healthy young man giving his spare time 
 to sitting or lying around with a book in his hand, would 
 in that community have been so considered. We cannot 
 wonder then that a cousin thought "there's something 
 peculiar about Abe." Some thought him lazy, but more 
 noticed that his jobs were well done and that there were 
 few men in the section who could keep pace in the work 
 of the field or forest with the lanky boy. Doubtless the 
 boy's natural bent for argument and his love for talk 
 did at times disrupt the regular swing of the field work. 
 But when Abe Lincoln drew the other workers around 
 him, whether to tell one of his inimitable yarns or to 
 inform them of some new discovery in the vast wonder- 
 land of books, it was not indolence but energy of mind 
 staying for the time energy of body. 
 
 The boy at an early age gained more than average 
 skill as a scribe, and was soon a kind of community letter 
 writer for the neighbors. Doubtless, some of Lincoln's 
 later facility and clarity of expression may have been 
 acquired through this practice of translating the clouded 
 
10 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 ideas of these rustics into intelligible language. At six- 
 teen he was operating a ferry over the Ohio as part of 
 his work as farm laborer. Two years later he built a 
 boat and operated for himself. Soon he desired to 
 become a pilot, but not being of age was dissuaded by 
 a friend. 
 
 The knowledge thus gained of the river was to lead 
 to results profoundly influencing all his later life. 
 Shortly after, young Lincoln is afloat on the Ohio and 
 then on the Mississippi for a thousand miles to the South. 
 Two years later he is again voyaging on the great river 
 over which float the raw products of the new western 
 lands, on to where New Orleans, mistress of an exotic 
 civilization, strides across both banks of the river as it 
 makes ready to hurl itself into the waters of the gulf. 
 
 Strange sights he sees there, and one that drives the 
 iron into his soul. Born in a slave state, he had yet 
 seen nothing of slavery. Hardin county, Kentucky, 
 though several thousand miles in area at the time of 
 the departure of the Lincolns for Indiana, contained less 
 than four hundred slaves. But in New Orleans lie sees 
 the thing face to face. Men beaten and scourged, women 
 sold from the auction block with babes in their arms. 
 For the fault of being black. And white men and white 
 women with souls reduced to the level of animals of 
 prey, that they might wring their bread from the sweat 
 of other men's faces while they talk of liberty and the 
 land of the free. 
 
 In this same year of 1831, another young man who 
 also had come into the world on the 12th day of Febru- 
 ary, 1809, but on the eastern shores of the Atlantic, set 
 forth on his Odyssey. "Abe" Lincoln, aboard the small 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 11 
 
 flat boat which he and two kinsmen had built from 
 timber which they themselves cut, began his voyage with 
 the utter absence of training and culture, characteristic 
 of the American "poor white" of that day. Charles Dar- 
 win began his voyage aboard the Ship Beagle, summing 
 up in his person a thousand years of the culture of the 
 upper class British. Neither the lack of training of the 
 one nor the overtraining of the other, sufficed to stifle the 
 soul of a genius, which each possessed. 
 
 Each discovered on his voyage the beginning of a 
 mighty principle, a principle so mighty that it was to 
 dominate all the after life of both. Charles Darwin de- 
 veloping his principle through a period of thirty years, 
 gave to the world the Law of Evolution. Abraham Lin- 
 coln, developing his principle, through a period of thirty- 
 two years, gave to his nation — "A new birth of freedom." 
 
 It was of course but the germ of this principle that 
 came into being at New Orleans, and probably this was 
 not fixed in the consciousness of Young Lincoln, until 
 many years later. But there is reason to believe that more 
 than any other, this was the vitalizing force which was 
 slowly to transform the young man whom we see at New 
 Orleans, wretchedly poor, untrained, awkward, into the 
 Lincoln of mature age, in all this American land, the 
 most powerful adversary of a theory, not only brutally 
 vicious, but inconsistent with every principle and tradi- 
 tion of that "government conceived in liberty and ded- 
 icated to the proposition that all men are created equal," 
 which it threatened either to debauch or destroy. 
 
 But before this fortunate transformation should be 
 wrought, much water was to pass down the Great River 
 into the gulf, and many and mighty events were to come 
 
12 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 drifting down the relentless currents of time. Young 
 Lincoln after one month in New Orleans was to return 
 by steamboat with his friends to the North. His fertile 
 and reflective mind had doubtless gained much from the 
 stay in that city. Such a mind could not fail to be excited 
 at recalling that here, Americans, largely rustics like him- 
 self, had again, and finally, stopped armed British ad- 
 vances on this continent. Possibly too, he had learned 
 that among these Americans were many "persons of 
 color," as they were called, or Negroes, whose woes had 
 daily moved him to indignation; that the material aid 
 and warlike valor of these colored Americans in the 
 achievement of that victory had been publicly acknowl- 
 edged by the leader of the American hosts. Another 
 strange man, the most dramatic figure in American an- 
 nals, and one who brought to his battle against the British 
 a resentment more real than that of the Carthaginian, 
 sworn at the altar to undying hatred. For had not An- 
 drew Jackson from boyhood carried the scar brutally in- 
 flicted by one of their officers? 
 
 The Lincoln family had moved to Illinois a year earlier, 
 and "Abe" left the boat at St. Louis on his return, making 
 the rest of the journey to New Salem, Illinois, his new 
 home, on foot. Already young Lincoln was a notable 
 figure in the life of the village. The inexhaustible stock 
 of humorous stories which he had brought from Indiana, 
 and which he told with such art as to give them an added 
 humor, at once gained him a favored place with the 
 villagers. To this was added an unfailing good humor, 
 a range of book knowledge impressive in such a village, 
 and a keenness for argument unmatched therein. But 
 more impressive still to the men of the village, was the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 13 
 
 fact that it soon developed that young Lincoln, at this 
 time weighing two hundred pounds, was probably the 
 strongest man and certainly the best wrestler in all that 
 section. And it is likely that at the age of twenty-two 
 years, the future President, himself, discovered a greater 
 pleasure in these muscular triumphs than he ever did 
 in those later years when the legal and political triumphs 
 of Abraham Lincoln were bringing to him the praise of 
 both his state and nation. 
 
 An important factor in Lincoln's rapid advance in the 
 esteem of the village was his association with Denton 
 OfTut. He met this man soon after reaching Illinois, and 
 it was for him that the trip to New Orleans was made. 
 Very different was this fellow from the average stolid 
 villager. He had imagination and buoyancy, and close 
 ally to these, an extreme of the venturesome. "A be- 
 liever in the pots at the rainbow's end," as pictured by 
 the vivid Sandburg. There was a shrewdness, too, in his 
 estimates of men, as we may surmise from his quick 
 recognition of the ability of the tall, uncouth, poorly 
 dressed young stranger, whose manner as well as appear- 
 ance suggested the thought of "loafer" to some of the 
 villagers. When we now think of this aloofness, there 
 is a certain irony in remembering that the very name of 
 New Salem would be lost, had it not been that this tall, 
 uncouth, poorly dressed stranger tarried for a few years 
 within its limits. 
 
 Off ut was ungrudging in praise of the merit he at once 
 saw and such merit as the slow villagers were themselves 
 able to see, he enhanced, others less obvious he lavishly 
 proclaimed. Small wonder then, that he who had lately 
 
14 SET MY PEOPLE FREE * 
 
 entered the village as merely "floating driftwood" was 
 soon thereafter almost a celebrity. 
 
 Planning a store for the village, Offut ordered a stock 
 of goods from Beardstown. Lincoln was employed as 
 clerk, but a delay in the arrival of the store stock gave 
 him the time to serve as clerk to the village election 
 board, and after that to pilot a flatboat as far as Beards- 
 town for a family moving to Texas. Returning by foot 
 to New Salem he began his duties as clerk. Offut' s 
 volubility as to his clerk's wrestling prowess soon brought 
 a test. At Clary's Grove, a nearby settlement, was a 
 group of husky young fellows noted for their readiness 
 in deciding any and all questions on the age old basis 
 of superiority of might. On this basis the group appear 
 to have several times argued impressively against certain 
 of the New Salem folk. "Bill" Clary doubted the accu- 
 racy of Offut's claims to the extent of ten dollars. This 
 amount, large for the time and place, was strong proof 
 of the force of their respective opinions. The day of the 
 test came on. Against Jack Armstrong, the Clary's Grove 
 champion, Lincoln justified his employer's opinion. 
 What is more strange, the Clary's Grove boys restrained 
 their usual ardent disapproval of any mishap to one of 
 their group. Such disapproval in times past had fre- 
 quently been registered in the smashed faces of their 
 opponents. 
 
 Jack Armstrong knew how to meet defeat without 
 resentment, and instead of enmity a lifelong friendship 
 followed. The victor became the proprietary hero of the 
 Clary's Grove boys. They believed, too, with Offut, that 
 "his clerk could outrun, throw down, or whip, any man 
 in Sangamon County," and for years after they consti- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 15 
 
 tuted themselves a kind of rustic Praetorian Guard, ready 
 to advance the fortunes of their hero on any and every 
 field. 
 
 Twenty-six years later, Abraham Lincoln, one of the 
 best known lawyers of Illinois and a national figure in 
 the political arena, postponed other legal engagements, 
 forgot for the time his absorbing interest in tremendous 
 issues that were hurrying the nation into the civil war, 
 hastened to Beardstown, Illinois, and there successfully 
 defended "Buff" William Armstrong, charged with 
 murder. There was no fee for his services, for the de- 
 fendant, on trial for his life, was the son of Jack Arm- 
 strong, recently dead. 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 c 
 
 HILDHOOD with its proverbial pleasures belied 
 by hard experience, was gone. If it had fallen short in 
 gifts of pleasure, much had been given in experience that 
 was substantial preparation for the work of manhood. 
 Thirty years later when leaders, wise in all the wisdom 
 of the schools and skilled with the skill of long appren- 
 ticeship in statecraft, were baffled and impotent before 
 the problem of a nation in the course of disintegration, 
 it was a statesmanship based on this preparation that led 
 the way to saving the nation. 
 
 For this man there had been no clear line marking 
 the limit between childhood and manhood. For him 
 the hard struggle for existence, generally assumed as 
 belonging only to manhood, had begun not long after 
 he began his conscious existence. In this early school of 
 cold realities Lincoln had discovered the universal motive 
 of self-interest back of the actions of men, whether of 
 to-day, yesterday, or to-morrow. His mind had not been 
 taxed with memorizing maxims of idealistic human con- 
 duct, told only to children. The knowledge of men thus 
 acquired, he never forgot. In that school of early ex- 
 perience, too, he learned self-control. 
 
 No man ever stood at the head of a nation, who had 
 
 16 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 17 
 
 such mastery of his temper. Somehow, too, a keener 
 sensitiveness to pain and suffering had been given him 
 than to other men. On such a foundation was built a 
 wisdom that was to suffice through all the storms of 
 later years. 
 
 Whether it was because "he realized the deficiencies 
 of his early education" or that he merely held to his early 
 acquired habit of reading, Offut's clerk found time be- 
 tween customers for the thing he most liked. He was 
 soon thrown in contact with Mentor Graham, teacher 
 of the village school, and at his suggestion began to 
 study with some idea of system. Included in this was a 
 grammar which he secured after a walk of several miles. 
 
 Herndon has given us a description of the clerk 
 "stretched at full length on the counter, his head propped 
 up on a stack of calico prints, or in the shade of some 
 inviting tree." The same writer says "he now and then 
 turned with great relaxation to the more agreeable study 
 of mathematics," and that he might have often been 
 seen "lying face downward, stretched out over six feet 
 of grass, figuring out on scraps of paper some problem 
 given for solution by a quizzical store lounger." 
 
 Every store in that day carried a general stock of 
 merchandise ranging from dress goods and shoes for 
 women to hardware and "hard liquor" for men. Nat- 
 urally, the store became a kind of social center where all 
 the news of the village found circulation, as well as a 
 forum where ideas, new and old, were debated with suffi- 
 cient vigor to atone for any lack of skill. Happy days 
 were these for Offut's clerk, genial, accommodating, 
 highly social. Here he had work that was not too labori- 
 ous, and that brought him in contact with many people. 
 
18 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 And, too, that left him time for books, more and more 
 books. These were the two things he cared most for, 
 people and books. 
 
 Probably no period in the eventful life of Abraham 
 Lincoln offered so much contentment as the few months 
 when he was clerk for Offut. But alas! these happy 
 days were soon to end. Offut's dreams of quick profits 
 on his many ventures did not materialize with such speed 
 as did the demands on his many obligations. And it so 
 happened, in the early part of the year of 1832, that 
 there was a financial crash in the village of New Salem. 
 
 Nor was this the only failure that fell to New Salem 
 in that period of financial stress. And the other was 
 more hurtful by far to the future of the village. The 
 navigability of the Sangamon river was a weighty argu- 
 ment urged by New Salem folk on prospective citizens 
 when pointing to the future greatness of their town. 
 In the spring of 1832, the steamboat Talisman, under 
 Captain Bogue, put out from Cincinnati loaded with 
 merchandise on a voyage that was to be a demonstration 
 of the matter. Early in April the boat was on the cir- 
 cuitous channel of the Sangamon which, swollen by the 
 melting snows of early spring, made all well with the 
 demonstration. Great was the joy at New Salem and 
 Springfield. A rapidly receding river, however, soon 
 brought the impressive celebrations to a gloomy end. It 
 was necessary to secure two special pilots to extricate the 
 Talisman from the uncertain currents of the Sangamon. 
 Lincoln, as one of these, received forty dollars for getting 
 the boat as far as Beardstown. The navigability of the 
 river long remained an open question. Without a job 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 19 
 
 and on foot, but with forty dollars, then an impressive 
 sum, in his pockets, again he arrived in New Salem. 
 
 An eventful year was this of 1832. Lincoln, clerk and 
 pilot, is yet to play another role. Not long does he float 
 as driftwood in the current of men without jobs. He is 
 now to learn something of the grim business of war. 
 Happy for him were this the only war he should know. 
 
 Financial troubles are now forgotten in New Salem. 
 For have not Black Hawk and his five hundred Indian 
 warriors turned the heads of their horses from west to 
 east? And now they have crossed the Mississippi and 
 are on the soil of Illinois. The Governor calls for 
 volunteers. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 W, 
 
 HEN the men of Sangamon county assembled to 
 answer the call of their Governor for volunteers, Abra- 
 ham Lincoln had been in Illinois two years and in that 
 county one year. It should not be forgotten, too, that 
 he had come there conspicuously poor, arriving at New 
 Salem without other property than a scant supply of 
 ill-fitting, home-made clothes. In fact, his one posses- 
 sion with a selling value was the strength of his muscles. 
 Nor had he either military experience or inclination. 
 
 This was the man that the men of Sangamon chose 
 as their captain. In after years men were often to give 
 this man that high acknowledgment of their trust and 
 approval which Americans express by their ballots. Yet 
 it is doubtful if in any of the political campaigns, most 
 of them deliberately planned, he ever received so spon- 
 taneous a recognition of the confidence which he inspired 
 in his fellows. Here was a triumph that was in no sense 
 due to planning or preparation, but rather to a recogni- 
 tion of the man's capacity for leadership, and the fact 
 that men saw in him a strength not seen in other men. 
 There was about this man something that inspired in the 
 masses of his fellows a confidence that was to carry him 
 far in after days. 
 
 20 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 21 
 
 The Clary's Grove boys, always enthusiastic for a fight, 
 and, in accord with their sectional antipathies, the more 
 where Indians were concerned, naturally formed a fair 
 quota of the Sangamon county company. Doubtless 
 their profuse admiration for Lincoln directed attention 
 to him and counted strongly in his election as captain. 
 What to them was the little matter of a few years dif- 
 ference in the period of residence? What that he was 
 as poor as the poorest ? Was he not a good fellow, and 
 the best wrestler, the best runner, and the best "rough 
 and tumble" fighter they had seen ? And it appears that 
 they did not even intend to see any better. For when 
 a fellow named Thompson, from another company, 
 toppled their man in a match, and with his friends left 
 with about everything the Clary's Grove boys had in 
 the way of portable property, due to betting, they were 
 restrained from a free-for-all fight only on the urgent 
 appeal of the defeated Lincoln. The boys were left 
 much poorer in tangible wealth, but still expressing great 
 confidence that their man would have won had the other 
 fellow "wrestled fair." Lincoln himself saw nothing 
 unfair about the match unless it was, as he said, "the 
 other fellow had the strength of a grisly bear." 
 
 In the reflective mind of the young captain there was 
 none of the ready belligerency of his men, nor yet any 
 of that mob ferocity which under such circumstances is 
 so often generated by numbers rather than reason. Nor 
 was there any of those grandiose dreams common to men 
 of his age suddenly raised to leadership. Doubtless with 
 his thoughts already directed to a political career, and 
 with Andrew Jackson, blunt soldier, the strongest polit- 
 ical figure of that day, he saw the possible advantages of 
 
22 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 a soldier's record, since men so strangely worship their 
 destroyers rather than their benefactors. However, close 
 thinker that he was, the whole venture appeared little 
 more than a jaunt which in the absence of a job might 
 be well worth taking. 
 
 Almost invariably his references to this war were of a 
 humorous nature, and many of his most laughable 
 stories were concerned with his experiences. He tells 
 in one how he had his company marching in wide 
 platoon formation, when he saw a fence with an open 
 but narrow gate-way. Near and nearer they came to 
 that fence, but he could think of no command that would 
 turn his company "endwise" and permit it to get through 
 that narrow gate-way. The fence is but a few feet ahead 
 when the captain, with a flash of that genius that comes 
 from necessity, sharply ordered: "Halt! This company 
 will break ranks for two minutes, and then form on the 
 other side of the fence." 
 
 For Sangamon county men the war was without 
 notable event. In fact, they failed even to get sight of 
 hostile reds. Once, however, some of the men dragged 
 in an old Indian, and the newer white Americans, in a 
 frenzy of patriotic ferocity against the older red Ameri- 
 can, were then and there about to slay him. Thus would 
 the new white American make clear his title to lands 
 held by him and his for less than a generation, against 
 the old red American who had trod this land for a 
 thousand years. The old man, endeavoring to prove his 
 friendly status, produced a letter from an American offi- 
 cer commending this Indian as friendly to the whites. 
 The last estate of the old man was worse than the first, 
 since the highly suspicious, if somewhat stupid soldiers 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 23 
 
 then took him for a spy. His end was not far off when 
 their tall captain arrived and at the risk of personal 
 violence to himself forced the men to release their prey. 
 
 The war ended with their only achievement the near 
 murder of this ancient Indian, and for their captain that 
 he had saved the old red man. Our knowledge of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln makes us certain that this was a happier 
 accomplishment for him than ever would have been 
 any bloody victory over the tribesmen. A strange war- 
 rior, indeed, was this. For him, no conqueror's dream 
 could hide the cruelties of war. 
 
 Young Captain Lincoln, his company having, with 
 the end of the war in sight, been mustered out, remained 
 in the army a short time as a private until that end was 
 an actuality. This enlistment clearly indicates that his 
 prior rank of captain had not weakened the inherent 
 democracy of the man. Too, it sufficiently refutes an 
 intimation that he had entered the war to give greater 
 weight to his recently announced political aspiration for 
 election to the State Legislature. Political expediency 
 would have dictated an early return at the mustering 
 out of his company, in order to better canvass the county. 
 
 He now arrived at Springfield but a short time before 
 the election. On March 9, 1832, Lincoln had issued a 
 circular addressed To the People of Sangamon County, 
 announcing his candidacy and with it an argument on 
 such questions as appeared likely to aid his election. In 
 it he stressed public education as the "most important 
 subject before the people." This was well known ground, 
 for his own scant schooling was not to be forgot and 
 he meant to see that others would be better prepared than 
 he had been. He closed his argument with an appeal 
 
24 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 to those in the lower walks of life and the independent 
 voters of the county, and promised that if elected "he 
 would be unremitting in his efforts to compensate them." 
 There is a touch of sadness in the closing lines of the cir- 
 cular in which he says: "But if the good people in their 
 wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have 
 been too familiar with disappointments to be very much 
 chagrined." Coming from a young man of twenty-three 
 years, to whom the vista of mature life is just opening, 
 such a statement discovers a poignant melancholy already 
 woven into the mental fabric of Abraham Lincoln. It 
 is the more odd, then, that some of his closest intimates 
 and some of his wisest biographers, including Herndon, 
 are found trying to account for the melancholy of the 
 man by facts arising many years after the passing of 
 his youth and early manhood. 
 
 In his first speech at the village of Pappsville near 
 Springfield, after the not unusual general fight in which 
 to save a friend he had to take a decisive part, one who 
 was present recalled many years after that Lincoln an- 
 nounced himself to the crowd as "humble Abraham 
 Lincoln" and after the usual bit of humor that was an 
 expected part of a speech in that section, briefly pro- 
 claimed his support of a national bank, for an internal 
 improvement system, and a high protective tariff. He 
 brought the speech to a speedy end with the statement; 
 "These are my sentiments and political principles. If 
 elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same." 
 
 Long afterward a master debater and orator stood 
 before a vast assembly in New York City. Twenty-eight 
 years of time separated the two events and a thousand 
 miles of space the two places. And between the two 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 25 
 
 audiences and communities, how vast the difference in 
 numbers; and in wealth and culture — how shall we mea- 
 sure the degree? And in the first instance, the speaker 
 sought only the office of member of the Legislature, 
 while in the second he sought the highest office the nation 
 could confer. But to those who have thoughtfully read 
 the speech at Cooper Institute, with its exhaustive and 
 irrefutable argument against slavery as a permanent prin- 
 ciple of American government, the outstanding fact, 
 more noticeable than any of these, is the tremendous 
 growth of the man who was the central figure of the 
 two events, 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 Judge Stephen t. log an with whom Lincoln 
 
 was later associated, heard him speak at Springfield in 
 this campaign and observed "that he made a very sensible 
 speech." That he had novelty and peculiarity in present- 
 ing his ideas; he had individuality, despite the fact that 
 "he was tall, gawky, rough looking, and his pantaloons 
 did not meet his shoes by six inches." 
 
 His first campaign for political office ended in defeat. 
 When the vote was finally counted it was seen that Lin- 
 coln was seventh of the twelve candidates, and only the 
 first four were entitled to the office. Many times in after 
 years was this man to appeal to the people for their ap- 
 probation, and on each occasion the people were to an- 
 swer in his favor. It is true that he was defeated for the 
 United States Senatorship, but it was by the adverse vote 
 of the State Senate after he had won the popular vote 
 in the general election. 
 
 Probably, the most remarkable thing about this election 
 was not that he lost, for under the surrounding conditions 
 that was to be expected. But that a man who had been 
 in the State and district only two years; a man who was 
 not only property-less, but known to be extremely poor; 
 a man who was dependent on his daily unskilled labor 
 
 26 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 27 
 
 for even the Spartan fare to which he had accustomed 
 himself; that such a man should, out of the 208 votes 
 cast in New Salem, receive all but three, was unusual 
 indeed. 
 
 Some have accounted for this by the fact that Lincoln 
 had advocated certain local improvements; but as there 
 were eleven other men in the contest, and doubtless a 
 number of these went just as far along this line as he, it 
 is unlikely that such was the true explanation of this 
 near unanimous vote. It is likely, of course, that local 
 sentiment for the home candidate counted in his favor, 
 as it generally does. Doubtless, too, the redoubtable 
 Clary's Grove Boys with their enthusiasm ready to back 
 their hero to the limit of their physical force, gave weight 
 to his candidacy. But the true explanation was the per- 
 sonal popularity of the man. He had more than the physi- 
 cal strength of his fellows, and yet they found in him 
 nothing of the bully, and having greater cleverness of 
 tongue than the others, never used it to their humiliation. 
 A man, too, who had an unfailing geniality, a ready jest 
 and an apt; and, in accord with their likes, an often risque 
 story which went far in cheering their daily walk 
 through the dull commonplaces of village life. 
 
 Such a defeat had in it much of the nature of a victory. 
 It left little or nothing of depression, perhaps it added 
 confidence in his own powers; possibly the encourage- 
 ment of this campaign of defeat permanently fixed his 
 ambitions along the line of politics. Certain it is that 
 from this period he was always frankly and directly a 
 seeker after public office. As persistent, whenever cir- 
 cumstances gave promise of success, as any of our present- 
 day politicians. Indeed, he differed from these in little, 
 
28 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 unless it be that in his constant quest for office the aim 
 for money was never a primary motive. Not again would 
 his ambition be satisfied with the rewards offered by 
 common labor. Here was a man whose sinews were 
 molded for a mightier work than would ever fall to 
 the lot of an ordinary laborer. 
 
 Yet, defeated, without money and without a job, his 
 future, at least as seen through other eyes, must have 
 appeared somewhat gloomy. With William Berry, a 
 young man, venturesome but given to drink, he bought 
 the store of James and Rowan Herndon, kinsman of 
 the man who was later his law partner. Neither of the 
 partners possessed any money, but the Herndons had 
 enough faith in them, or possibly enough lack of faith 
 in the prospects of the store to make them willing to 
 accept the promissory notes of the young men in the 
 place of the uncertain future of the store. A short time 
 after, the stock of a second and third store was added to 
 their merchandise. In each case the owner had become 
 discouraged with the outlook. For beginners, in a field 
 so hazardous, the two partners had high courage. 
 
 The venture did not long stem the tide of ill-success 
 which had been the common lot of merchants in the 
 New Salem field. Something more was needed than 
 courage and the spirit of venture. Neither of the partners 
 displayed any aptitude for such business. If Berry had 
 ever possessed such, his fondness for the liquor which 
 was a necessary part of the store stock soon extinguished 
 it. The other member of the firm, while a non-drinker, 
 was probably not much more capable as a merchant. He 
 never possessed the talent peculiar to the merchant, and in 
 what may be termed the money instinct he seems always 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 29 
 
 to have been deficient. In his acts and calculations it 
 was rarely a primary motive. 
 
 Aside from this, Lincoln's absorption in books, how- 
 ever laudable otherwise, distracted his mind from the 
 demands of the store as much as the liquor stock dis- 
 tracted Berry's. The result, failure, was inevitable. Fore- 
 seeing and attempting to avoid the effects of this, the 
 partners sold the store to two brothers on the usual basis 
 of promissory notes. This was in the spring of 1833, but 
 before the payment became due the store had failed and 
 the latest purchasers gone to parts unknown. Berry's 
 death, following soon, was attributed by some to excessive 
 drink. Of the bold venture, only the debts of more than 
 $1100 remained for Lincoln. The surviving partner made 
 no effort to evade the payment of the obligations thus left 
 to him, although he might have avoided at least a part of 
 them with no discredit to himself. Herndon tells us "he 
 was a long time meeting these claims, even as late as 1848 
 sending to me from Washington portions of his salary 
 as Congressman, to be applied on the unpaid remnant of 
 the Berry and Lincoln indebtedness — but in time he ex- 
 tinguished it all, even to the last penny." 
 
 Defeated in politics and insolvent in business in a period 
 of less than a year, his prospects might well appear to be 
 going down rather than up the scale of prosperity. But 
 along with these liabilities were certain assets in the way 
 of loyalties of friends lately acquired but in after days of 
 great service. Rarely has any man had the benefit of 
 such loyal and timely friendships, and rarely has any man 
 so well deserved them. Among them were teachers, 
 lawyers, laborers, preachers, doctors, merchants, tavern 
 keepers, and Jack Kelso, whose character has come down 
 
30 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 to us as queer or even worthless. A drinking man, given 
 to much fishing and hunting, but to no working. This 
 man forbore to enter the scramble for wealth and the 
 things his fellows thought worth while. Rather he chose 
 to take for his own the vast riches of the language he 
 spoke, to spend his time revelling in the beauties of 
 Shakespeare and Burns and Byron. 
 
 Plainly a strange man, and so that other strange man, 
 Abraham Lincoln, with something of the soul of the 
 poet, was drawn to him. And many were the days they 
 spent together, and new meanings found in the rhythmic 
 lines of the bards, and new and far horizons stretched 
 out before his eyes. And may it not be that in the meas- 
 ured swing of the loftier utterances of Lincoln, there 
 comes down to us something of the spirit of the errant 
 Jack Kelso? 
 
 But the business of existence made constant demands 
 on him. That he might eat and sleep beneath a roof he 
 now did any such tasks as the section offered, farm work, 
 rail splitting, and occasionally helped a young merchant, 
 A. Y. Ellis, to operate a store. Then in May, 1833, his 
 friends managed to get him appointed as postmaster of 
 New Salem, the first official position he ever held. While 
 there was no fixed salary and the pay was in proportion 
 to the small business handled at the office, it did some- 
 thing to help him through a difficult period, and he gave 
 highly satisfactory service for the three years he remained 
 in the village. 
 
 His necessities still drove him to such odd jobs as he 
 could get, but eventually friends secured for him an ap- 
 pointment as assistant to the county surveyor, John Cal- 
 houn, and with the fees from these two places Lincoln 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 31 
 
 was probably for the first time on a level in earnings 
 with his fellows. This man Calhoun was a New Eng- 
 lander and a Democrat, but he readily agreed to allow 
 Lincoln full freedom in the expression of his political 
 opinions, displaying thereby a liberality as noticeable as 
 was the courage displayed by the young man of twenty- 
 four years, who, despite his desperate financial condition, 
 could still contend for freedom of political action. He 
 had been fortunate enough to secure Blackstone's com- 
 mentaries, and at once began the serious study of law, 
 to which already some casual thought had been given. 
 It was not long before he was actually taking part in 
 small cases before the village Justice of the Peace. Bev- 
 eridge tells us that "he began to practice in embryonic 
 fashion before Bowling Green, who was enormously fat, 
 weighing three hundred pounds and given to mirth. 
 Green would shake with laughter at Lincoln's droll 
 humor. Six feet four inches, his long bony finger pointed 
 at the rotund Justice, clad only in shirt and trousers held 
 by one linen suspender, he would reason with immense 
 dignity and then convulse the squire with some ludicrous 
 tale." 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 T 
 
 HE extent and variety of Lincoln's reading from 
 the period when he began clerking in New Salem is a 
 thing for astonishment. These might well be called his 
 university days. Most of his spare time was spent in 
 reading, and it was a common thing to see him walking 
 along the street absorbed in his book. Those not informed 
 of this period might well be excused for assuming as so 
 many have done, that he was, if not a man of small 
 learning, certainly not noticeable for the same. His 
 absence of school training was generally known, and 
 by his frequent reference to it became better known. 
 A careless accent in these earlier days tended to confirm 
 this belief in his lack of learning. And perhaps his 
 carelessness as to dress, tending to give an appearance of 
 the uncouth, fixed the belief more firmly, at least in 
 the minds of the superficial. The man himself with his 
 odd but keen sense of humor, and with a lack of that 
 kind of pride which exults in mere show, probably got 
 no little amusement out of this error. Occasionally some 
 antagonist with an assumption of superiority arising from 
 this mistake was sharply discomfited by Lincoln's gen- 
 erally kindly but at times biting sarcasm. 
 
 There were a few men in the village of New Salem 
 
 32 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 33 
 
 of fairly wide reading, some of whom were familiar with 
 the cultural revolution of Europe in the last half of the 
 eighteenth century. It is a tribute to young Lincoln 
 that he was soon on terms of intimacy with them and 
 on even more intimate terms with their books. Always 
 a new book appealed to him as some new world calling 
 for exploration. It is something of a paradox that the 
 man whose largest claim to fame is based on having 
 saved a great nation from ruin, found at this time his 
 largest interest in works that had for their chief theme 
 the causes that underlay the slow decay or sudden catas- 
 trophe which had in past ages taken other great nations 
 down to ruin. Among the works studied by Lincoln at 
 this time were Rollin's ancient monarchies, Volney's 
 ruins, and Gibbon's decline and fall of the roman 
 
 EMPIRE. 
 
 This last remains the noblest historical work in the 
 English language. That a man should have been thought 
 unlearned who had delved so deeply in works such as 
 these, seems somewhat preposterous. It is a kind of 
 deference paid to the fixed mental roadways along which 
 the schoolmen travel in herds. And yet a score of uni- 
 versities might not have revealed to Lincoln the profound 
 lessons that he found in the pages of these books, nor 
 would a hundred such have discovered for him such 
 incomparable teachers. 
 
 Lincoln had been singularly fortunate in his books, 
 and possibly even more fortunate in another avenue of 
 preparation for that day when the last measure of prepa- 
 ration was to be sorely needed. He came to maturity in 
 a section where every store was a forum in which was 
 debated in all its phases the fateful question on the right- 
 
34 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 ful solution of which a nation was to be or not to be. 
 Nowhere else in the land was slavery debated more 
 vigorously than in Illinois, holding as it did within its 
 limits numerous partisans of every phase of the question 
 and under conditions that made for full freedom of 
 discussion. 
 
 Soon his wide reading brought him in touch with the 
 opinions of two men, each of whom had wrought mightily 
 in the affairs of their fellows. Thomas Paine, whose 
 book common sense, had in the darkest days of the 
 Revolution earned him the lasting gratitude of Americans 
 from George Washington down to the lowest man in the 
 rank and file, had some twenty years later written the 
 age of reason which had done as much to lastingly 
 irritate this same rank and file. Lincoln, however, found 
 pleasure and much interest in the book. Soon there- 
 after he read some works of Voltaire. The militant 
 English deist who in the years of peril had fought for 
 freedom in America against England, and who in the 
 greater years of peril had fought for political and religious 
 freedom in France against Europe, was thus joined with 
 the great Frenchman who had spent a large part of his 
 life in exile because of his never ceasing struggle for 
 freedom of ideas in his native land, and who for a gen- 
 eration had dominated Europe by sheer force of intellect. 
 
 Remembering that one of these men had by the force 
 of his pen closed the ranks of wavering Americans when 
 panic and apathy threatened to end the fight for freedom, 
 and that the war of the other against the brutalities and 
 extravagances of the governmental and social systems of 
 France had more than any other single force brought on 
 the French Revolution, is it surprising that the two exer- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 35 
 
 cised a profound influence on this son of the American 
 backwoods? The immediate result was that he, too, 
 dared pen his argument against orthodox beliefs, a vastly 
 more serious temerity in democratic America with its 
 theories of free speech than in monarchical Europe with 
 its idea of restricted rights. A friend destroyed the 
 paper and thereby saved to Lincoln his popularity, the 
 sole capital on which he was to take the earlier steps of 
 that long journey to the Presidency. Lincoln and Amer- 
 ica owed a tremendous debt to that far-seeing friend. 
 
 Now, if there are still those who are curious to know 
 why it was that a man who was not inclined to scoff, 
 but was in fact highly religious, never united with any 
 church, it is altogether likely that the answer is to be 
 found here in the influence of Thomas Paine and Fran- 
 cois Marie Arouet, whom the world knows as Voltaire. 
 And, too, if it should be discovered that in the noblest 
 of Lincoln's eloquence, the frequent references to a power 
 above that of mortals are addressed only to the first 
 member of the Christian Trinity, again the underlying 
 cause is likely to be the deism of Thomas Paine and the 
 rationalism of Voltaire. 
 
 A strange lapse is this for one who all his life had been 
 surrounded by folk, who as the final test of salvation held 
 to a literal belief in the Bible from its first to its last 
 miracle and to the eternal burning in the fires of hell of 
 apparently the largest part of their fellows. What an in- 
 congruity is this ? On the extreme rusticity of the back- 
 woods of the American frontier is found grafted the 
 tenets of the English prophet of deism, joined with the 
 final conclusions of the favorite philosopher of the boule- 
 vards of Paris. 
 
36 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 From the union of such diverse elements, a man 
 already strange became more strange. It is these things 
 that make us understand how Herndon, who knew 
 Lincoln for nearly thirty years and most of the time 
 intimately as his law-partner and friend, could say in 
 the end: "I never fully knew or understood him." Cer- 
 tainly, however, here was no untrained, uninformed 
 man. Uncertainties might yet remain in the chain of 
 his knowledge, crudities of language might creep in for 
 awhile, but in the matter of fitness for the labors of a 
 future day he had that competency that comes from pains- 
 taking and timely preparation. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 A 
 
 NOTHER election approaches and Lincoln is 
 again a candidate. This time he has more confidence 
 and there is less uncertainty in his manner. He has 
 learned many things in the two years following his 
 first effort for the place. He is now familiar with the 
 principles of the leading political parties, and with the 
 deeds of the foremost political leaders of the day. He 
 had been a regular reader of several of the leading papers, 
 including the Sangamon Journal, of Springfield; Louis- 
 ville Journal, St. Louis Republican and the Cincinnati 
 Gazette, and as he reads with special interest all political 
 matters, he is probably as well posted as any other candi- 
 date in the field, whether in general knowledge or 
 ability to present his political views. Even in the mere 
 matter of appearance and dress it is a stronger man who 
 seeks to be a member of the legislature in 1834 than 
 in 1832. 
 
 As postmaster of New Salem the returns in money 
 had, as was expected in a town of that size, been small, 
 but the opportunity it had given to enlarge the number 
 of his acquaintances had been large. Needless to say, 
 knowing the man, it had not been neglected. Others 
 before him had been content merely to hand out the 
 
 37 
 
38 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 mail to those who came for it. This postmaster did not 
 hesitate to make deliveries of neighborhood mail at all 
 times when on trips that took him near any of the 
 patrons. As a surveyor, too, he came in touch with new 
 people in all parts of the county. On these trips his wide 
 knowledge of public questions and public men, gained 
 from his close newspaper reading, his seemingly in- 
 exhaustible supply of humorous stories and inimitable 
 manner of telling them, his uniform good nature, gave 
 him a strong hold on these new acquaintances and gen- 
 erally ended in strong friendships. His unusual readi- 
 ness to help another in distress and willingness to go to 
 unusual limits in doing so, drew men to him. It is 
 a noticeable thing that rarely did any friend of Abraham 
 Lincoln's cease to be his friend. 
 
 In the dark days that were to come, when so many 
 other things were being dissolved: friendships between 
 man and man and loyalty between men and state, when 
 the nation itself appeared in the course of dissolution, he 
 who had been this man's friend on either side of the 
 question which was breaking all other ties, remained his 
 friend. Even though that other happened to be the next 
 in office to Jefferson Davis himself, Alexander H. 
 Stephens, or some general in open arms, as George 
 Pickett in the front ranks of the Confederate forces at 
 Gettysburg. 
 
 It is a matter of particular interest that Lincoln now 
 announced himself as favorable to the principles of the 
 Whig party. This is somewhat surprising, since the 
 Democratic party was undoubtedly the party of the 
 majority in that section and held within its ranks most 
 of the socially elect, many of whom were southern men 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 39 
 
 from Kentucky and Tennessee. Strong pro-slavery men 
 they were. John G. Nicolay who knew the section well 
 has observed: "It showed some moral courage and cer- 
 tainly an absence of the shuffling policies of the f airweather 
 politician that Lincoln in his obscure and penniless youth 
 at the very beginning of his career took such a course." 
 
 A native of Kentucky himself, young, ambitious and 
 popular, it seems natural that he should have aligned 
 himself with this group and on the side of the majority 
 with its brighter prospects. If then he chose rather "to 
 oppose a furiously hostile and intolerant majority" and 
 to take his stand with a party "long doomed to defeat," 
 is it not worthwhile to try to ascertain the underlying 
 cause? It is true there is no authoritative source from 
 which this information may be had, but there is much 
 reason for inferring that the answer may be found in 
 the question of slavery. 
 
 While none of the great political parties had made 
 a definite issue of the slavery question, and while sec- 
 tional lines had little to do with party affiliations, and, 
 further, all shades of opinion as to slavery were found in 
 every great party, it was the Democratic party that leaned 
 most definitely toward pro-slavery ideas and the Whig 
 party that gave most promise of opposition to it. Having 
 these facts in mind we need only to recall that four 
 years earlier a young man, very poor and limited in learn- 
 ing, had as a hired man on a flat boat worked his way 
 to New Orleans; that he had there first seen the realities 
 of slavery, had visited the slave market, had there seen a 
 woman being sold to the highest bidder with the inci- 
 dental brutalities connected with such barbarism. Recall, 
 too, the exclamation of disgust wrung from him as he 
 
40 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 left the place: "Come on, boys, let's get away from here. 
 If I ever get a chance to strike that thing, by God, I'll 
 strike it hard!" 
 
 With most of his now large number of acquaintances 
 it was enough to let them know that he was a candidate 
 to have the assurance of their votes. His campaigning, 
 therefore, had in it more handshaking and less formal 
 speechmaking. Occasionally, however, there were 
 strangers to whom arguments must be made, a matter 
 of no difficulty to him now. Sometimes, too, there were 
 the old feats of strength, for men always have been, 
 perhaps always will be, impressed with such. Once, 
 being introduced to some field hands at work harvesting 
 wheat, he accepted as a challenge the statement made by 
 some of them that they believed in a man who knew 
 how to work. "Taking a cradle and handling it with 
 ease and remarkable speed he soon distanced those who 
 undertook to follow him." 
 
 In August the election came on. The final count 
 showed that he had received next to the highest vote. 
 His friend John T. Stuart received the lowest vote of 
 the four men elected. It is said that in his efforts to help 
 Lincoln he neglected his own interests and came near 
 being defeated. 
 
 That he might "make a decent appearance in the leg- 
 islature, Lincoln had to borrow money to buy suitable 
 clothing." Coleman Smoot, another one of his friends, 
 advanced him two hundred dollars for this, which was 
 returned in due time. 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 L 
 
 rINCOLN displayed much activity from the very 
 beginning of his term in the Legislature, and was not 
 long in establishing himself as one of the leaders of that 
 body which then sat at Vandalia. This was no small 
 attainment for a man of twenty-six years. 
 
 From the work of the Legislature he returned to New 
 Salem in 1835, there to become a party to an event which 
 some are convinced was the supreme tragedy of a life 
 that others regard as little less than one long tragedy. 
 Though twenty-six years of age, he had passed through 
 the most emotional period of life and the period most 
 susceptible to the attractions of the female sex, without 
 having been noticeably touched by such influence. 
 
 Soon after arriving in New Salem he had become ac- 
 quainted with James Rutledge and his family, the wife 
 and nine children. The third child, Ann, appears to 
 have been highly attractive, well endowed with beauty, 
 quickness of mind and talent in the arts of homemaking. 
 Already the attention of the young men of the village was 
 drawn toward her. Soon it was seen that John McNeil, 
 a young merchant, blessed with looks and a financial 
 talent that had enabled him to become worth more than 
 $10,000, in three or four years, was Anne's favored suitor. 
 
 41 
 
42 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 It became known, probably in the early part of 1832, 
 that they were engaged, though no date had been fixed 
 for the consummation of their vows. 
 
 Other facts are less clear, but it appears that shortly 
 after the engagement became public McNeil made known 
 to Ann that his real name was McNamar, which informa- 
 tion he likewise gave to Lincoln who had drawn some 
 land conveyances for him. He explained that his father 
 had failed in business in their eastern home and was 
 being harassed by creditors; the son desired to avoid 
 possible financial entanglements from that source and 
 in doing so had gotten out of touch with his family, 
 though only with the desire to get himself on a sound 
 financial basis. Having done this in the summer, Mc- 
 Namar made known to Ann that he was going East for 
 his parents and on his early return the wedding would 
 take place. To this she agreed and looked cheerfully 
 to the future. There were the usual letters between lov- 
 ers for a short time following McNamar's departure. 
 Then the intervals between the letters of the departed 
 became longer and longer. It was explained that he had 
 been severely ill, part of the time unconscious with fever, 
 but his later recovery did not alter the condition. Fin-* 
 ally the letters ceased altogether, though not before they 
 had lost the fire so characteristic of the letters of lovers. 
 
 Doubtless the village tongues wagged at a faster rate, 
 and with the tendency to cruelty so general to small com- 
 munities in such matters. This continued for probably 
 two years, one of the most difficult situations that can 
 face a young woman, but the girl was hopeful and 
 possessed of high courage. Lincoln had been a roomer 
 at the inn kept by the Rutledges in the early days of 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 43 
 
 the courtship. He had always been conspicuous more 
 by a hesitation amounting to bashfulness, rather than by 
 anything like gallantry in his attitude toward young 
 women; and poorly dressed and ill-favored with looks 
 as he then was, it is unlikely that he was among the 
 suitors of Ann Rutledge. Certainly nothing was known 
 of any love affair between the two until on the very eve 
 of the tragedy so soon to ensue. 
 
 James Short lived near the Rutledge family after Rut- 
 ledge had given up innkeeping at New Salem and moved 
 to a farm owned by McNamar. The mother of Ann 
 worked for Short at times and possibly Ann herself. 
 Neither mother nor daughter ever made any mention 
 to him of any love affair with Lincoln, whose close friend 
 he was and for whom he had done many acts of kind- 
 ness. Nor did Lincoln himself, a frequent visitor at the 
 Short farm, ever give any indication of being in love 
 with Ann. Apparently, no one looked upon him as any- 
 thing more than a friend of the Rutledge family, the 
 head of which had been one of the first to encourage 
 his political ambition. 
 
 All the more strange then are the things that soon came 
 to pass. In the early summer of 1835 the young woman 
 took to her bed with a serious illness. Whether her 
 illness was due to the long period of hopeless waiting, 
 with its sorrow suppressed with so much difficulty from 
 the prying eyes of the villagers, we do not know; nor 
 whether there was an inner conflict in which the girl 
 was harried with the claims of two men, one long absent, 
 yet holding her plighted word, the other present, silent 
 and patient, and to whom she could always turn with 
 unfailing assurance of sympathy. Nor do we know if 
 
44 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 some more prosaic cause such as typhoid fever may not 
 have been the cause of her illness. Each of these has 
 been mentioned. But we do know that after weeks of 
 suffering the young woman repeatedly called for two 
 men, her favorite brother and Abraham Lincoln. When 
 Lincoln came the two were left together for an hour 
 or more. Those who saw him when he left declare that 
 there was in his face a look of tragic distress. A few 
 days later and Ann Rutledge died. 
 
 The death of the young woman left Lincoln so ob- 
 viously overwhelmed with despair that his friends were 
 seriously concerned with fear that his mind might col- 
 lapse. Already with a strong tendency to melancholy, 
 there appeared to be much danger of self-destruction. 
 If we are puzzled at the many reports that have come 
 down to us, showing a rugged young giant of remark- 
 able physical power as completely undone by the loss of 
 a loved one as some romantic girl, we must recall that 
 these reports are too well vouched for to be entirely set 
 aside, and remember that this was indeed a strange 
 man. 
 
 Herndon relates: "If when we read what the many 
 credible persons who knew him at the time tell us, we do 
 not conclude that he was deranged, we must admit that 
 he walked on that sharp and narrow line which divides 
 sanity from insanity." To one friend he complained 
 that the thought "that the snows and rains fall upon her 
 grave, filled him with indescribable grief." His condi- 
 tion finally became so alarming that on the advice of 
 these friends he gave up his regular pursuits and went 
 to the home of Bowling Green, his old friend, in the 
 country. There, tenderly watched by Nancy Green, the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 45 
 
 wife, his mind gradually caught up again the scattered 
 interests of life and the zest of other days, and after 
 some weeks he was again back among his fellows. But 
 many among them believed that the joy of life known 
 to other men, left him in these dark days never to return. 
 And that the deep troubled eyes which men in after 
 days so often noticed and remembered came from the 
 agony of soul which followed the untimely passing of 
 Ann Rutledge. 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 H 
 
 IS work as legislator becoming greater with his 
 greater experience, his law studies assiduously pursued 
 along with his labors as surveyor, now kept him closely 
 occupied. And well it was that this was so, since his mind 
 was thus forcibly withdrawn from the gloomy contempla- 
 tion of the recent tragedy. At this time there was a great 
 amount of speculation in certain communities as to land 
 values, and so rapid was the increase in the price of land 
 in some sections that much farm land was surveyed and 
 laid out in town lots. The added fees thus received, with 
 the salary as member of the Legislature, with occasional 
 amounts received for small legal services brought his earn- 
 ings up to the point where his fellows were beginning 
 to bestow on him that special respect which is given only 
 to those who achieve prosperity. 
 
 No more congenial work had ever fallen to the lot of 
 Lincoln than that which was his in the Legislature. Here 
 he was in contact with the ablest men in the new State, 
 some of them of real ability and most of them of great 
 ambition, not a few of whom would grave their names 
 deep in the records of Illinois. And the names of some 
 would spread far beyond state lines and become a part of 
 the nation's achievements. 
 
 46 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 47 
 
 With the end of the legislative term not far off, it is 
 not surprising, then, that he again announced himself as 
 a candidate. As in his first attempt four years earlier, he 
 now issued a notice to the voters, but this time there is 
 none of the obvious lack of confidence and hesitancy that 
 characterized the other. And with the added confidence 
 there were propositions more clearly stated and of greater 
 practicability. He had not reached the preciseness of 
 statement that he was later to attain, but this notice was 
 not below the average of its kind at the time and place. 
 The notice in the form of a letter to a newspaper runs 
 as follows: 
 
 "New Salem, June 13, 1836. 
 
 "To the Editor of The Journal: 
 
 "In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication 
 over the signature of 'Many Voters' in which the candi- 
 dates who are announced in the Journal are called upon 
 to 'show their hands.' Agreed. Here's mine: 
 
 "I go for all sharing in the privileges of the govern- 
 ment who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I 
 go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who 
 pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females). 
 
 "If elected I shall consider the whole people of San- 
 gamon my constituents, as well those that oppose, as 
 those that support me. 
 
 "While acting as their Representative, I shall be gov- 
 erned by their will on all subjects upon which I have the 
 means of knowing what their will is; and upon others, 
 I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best 
 advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for 
 distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands to 
 
48 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the several States to enable our State, in common with 
 others, to dig canals and construct railroads without bor- 
 rowing money and paying the interest on it. 
 
 "If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote 
 for Hugh L. White, for President. 
 
 "Very respectfully, 
 
 "A. Lincoln." 
 
 As yet the question of slavery had not reached the sur- 
 face of things political in this section, and neither Lincoln 
 nor any other candidate makes any mention of it. Not 
 long, however, will this question remain obscured by 
 lighter issues. Already there are violent rumblings and 
 earth tremors, politically speaking, in bleak New Eng- 
 land, where slavery has not taken and will not take root. 
 Has not a mob in Boston but a year earlier laid violent 
 hands on a man by the name of Garrison, and by so do- 
 ing brought to his aid another who in his capacity to 
 make the world hear what crimes are being committed 
 in the name of liberty, is the equal of Garrison himself? 
 Twin flames of freedom, William Lloyd Garrison and 
 Wendell Phillips, and mighty is the conflagration which 
 they and the earnest and uncompromising souls who be- 
 lieved with them, are so soon to light in the so-called 
 Land of the Free. Verily, can it be said of them that not 
 before or since has this American land seen such a spirit 
 of disinterested devotion to an ideal. 
 
 It will be noticed that Lincoln's letter does touch on one 
 far reaching question, one which like that of slavery will 
 be much discussed in after days, and like that, too, in its 
 final adjustment will take its place as a part of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. The question of woman 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 49 
 
 suffrage had not risen to the status of a problem at that 
 day. Nowhere was there any large or organized demand 
 by women for the vote. Among men the vast majority 
 had hardly even considered it, and then merely as an 
 academic social question. Certainly, its advocacy gave no 
 promise of added votes to the candidate, and so it may 
 be concluded that strong conviction alone could have 
 induced the mention of it. He was but twenty-seven 
 years of age and, mayhap, the tragic memory of Ann 
 Rutledge gave him the desire to sponsor remedial legisla- 
 tion for the women of the land from which she had so 
 lately forever departed. We may measure here how far 
 he was in advance of the thought of his time by recalling 
 that this proposition which involved no great clash of 
 interests, individual or public, as did slavery, and which 
 likewise contained no economic threat against any group 
 or section, would not become a part of the law of the land 
 until after the passing of more than eighty years, and a 
 half century after the overthrow of slavery. 
 
 Lincoln closed one of his speeches in this campaign 
 with a stinging sarcasm aimed at George Forquer, a man 
 of prominence and a lawyer who had shortly before quit 
 the Whig party for the Democratic, and at near the same 
 time had been appointed to a remunerative office. This 
 man who had just completed the finest residence in 
 Springfield, with a lightning rod attached thereto, the 
 first in the section, in a speech with Lincoln present had 
 sharply disparaged his candidacy. Mr. Lincoln, replying, 
 said among other things: "I desire to live, and I desire 
 place and distinction; but I would rather die now than 
 like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would change 
 my politics for an office worth $3000 a year, and then feel 
 
50 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 compelled to erect a lightning rod to protect a guilty 
 conscience from an offended God." Forquer and others 
 saw that the man who could summon such ready sarcasm 
 to his aid was at all times a dangerous opponent. 
 
 It was no surprise that Lincoln was again elected, nor 
 yet, of the nine men elected, including the two Senators, 
 that he received the highest vote; but it was a surprise 
 that the Whigs defeated the Democrats for the first time 
 in Sangamon County. He was a recognized force in this 
 new Legislature before which was the question of nam- 
 ing a state capital. That Springfield was chosen was in 
 no small way due to the activity of Lincoln. Also it was 
 due to him as much as to most of the leaders of the Leg- 
 islature, more sanguine and ambitious of their State's 
 early rise to wealth and greatness than possessed of far 
 seeing financial wisdom, that the State was saddled with 
 an indebtedness for internal improvements so immense that 
 for many years the question of repudiation was a serious 
 issue with the taxpayers. Some have ascribed his failure 
 to foresee the disastrous results of this legislation by 
 which twelve million dollars were voted, to his lack of 
 money sense. The conclusion does not appear weighty 
 when we remember that this legislation had behind it 
 most of the leaders of the Legislature as well as the great 
 majority of the rank and file of members, many of whom 
 showed no little talent in managing their private interests. 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 I HERE were more than a hundred members in this 
 Legislature, not one of whom was born in the State for 
 which he was now to formulate laws. Illinois had at that 
 time no fixed policy to which its legislative body might 
 adhere, but each of these men brought to this body some 
 part of the State from which he had come. Kentucky 
 had a larger quota than any other, but there were few 
 that did not have some one of its sons there at the capital 
 in Vandalia. An open forum was this, before which all 
 the varying arguments that could be drawn from the 
 institution of slavery could be presented with a boldness 
 not always feasible in the older States. 
 
 In this Legislature sat Stephen A. Douglas for the first 
 time, and it was not long before he had presented a res- 
 olution and bill for the creation of a new county, which 
 was opposed among others, but more conspicuously, by 
 Abraham Lincoln. So began the personal conflict be- 
 tween the two, probably the longest and certainly the 
 most constant and far reaching in American annals. Few 
 questions came before this Legislature that did not find 
 them actively battling on opposite sides. Ambitious they 
 both were, which the more we may not say, though it is 
 certain that Stephen A. Douglas was more ready to pay 
 
 51 
 
52 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 any price that ambition might demand for the ends he 
 aspired to attain than Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Despite the importance of the question of internal im- 
 provements and that of locating a new capital, national 
 politics was soon furnishing the dominant issues before 
 this Legislature. But six years before William Lloyd Gar- 
 rison had established the Liberator and in that first issue 
 had declared: i will be heard. Never had prom- 
 ise been more completely fulfilled. The tribune of the 
 slaves was now being heard to the farthest ends of Amer- 
 ica. Men might cry peace, peace, southern States might 
 furiously villify and northern States deplore and censure, 
 but this man and the increasing number of fearless souls 
 who saw with him, with voice and pen, kept holding the 
 ghastly crime of slavery before the eyes of the perpetrators, 
 and before a condemning civilized world. 
 
 The Virginia Legislature passes resolutions, condemn- 
 ing the abolitionists and warning other States. Kentucky 
 does likewise. Alabama and Mississippi add their sterner 
 warnings to a North already alarmed at possible deficits in 
 the region of the pocketbook through trade losses. These 
 southern States are now issuing what is practically an 
 ultimatum that the northern States pass laws restraining 
 the abolitionists. They would strike down this devoted 
 group though they strike down the Constitution at the 
 same time. Profits must be maintained whatever else 
 may hap. Connecticut replies, approving the justice of 
 the slave-holding States, but thinks it unnecessary to 
 enact laws restrictive of the press, and adds cryptically: 
 "Truth and Justice have nothing to fear from a free press 
 in an enlightened community." A marvelous conception 
 is this of truth and justice hand in hand with chattel 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 53 
 
 slavery, and in an enlightened community. A New Eng- 
 land State in the nineteenth century, hands down a con- 
 ception of truth, justice and enlightenment on a level with 
 the ideas of the first ages of civilization. If it appear 
 that here is some strange inconsistency, then we need only 
 recall the vast mill towns of that section with their thou- 
 sand fold looms for the manufacturing of cotton cloth. 
 New York also spoke soothingly to the South, and other 
 States. 
 
 Now there is a resolution before our Illinois Legislature. 
 It strongly condemns the abolitionists, bewails the hurt 
 they are doing to the slaves. Strange solicitude is this. It 
 was adopted January 20, 1837, by a vote of 77 to 6. Lin- 
 coln and five others have seen fit to vote against it. Their 
 reasons are not set forth. Six weeks later a resolution of 
 protest signed by Dan Stone and A. Lincoln is spread on 
 the journal of the House. It proceeds as follows: "We 
 believe the institution of slavery is founded both on in- 
 justice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abo- 
 lition doctrines tends to increase rather than to abate its 
 evils." This resolution, brief in verbiage but compre- 
 hensive in scope, differs from the abolitionists as to the 
 possible result of their efforts, but has no condemnation 
 for them; and if it does not condemn the slaveholders 
 in person, it is a complete indictment of the system of 
 slavery based both on morals and sound policy. Others, 
 whether in high place or low, whether President of this 
 American land or some humble laborer, might grope un- 
 certainly during the next twenty-three years for a fixed 
 policy with which to face the terrific storms of passion 
 that were to sweep over the nation. This young man 
 barely twenty-eight, had announced the base on which he 
 
54 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 pitched his battle against that monstrous iniquity, and 
 so firm was this base that never after did he need to 
 change or shift his position. 
 
 This resolution of protest has an especial interest for 
 us of a later day because it sets forth the ground upon 
 which was to be waged slowly but effectively, for more 
 than a quarter of a century, the struggle that was to end 
 in the destruction of chattel slavery. As an important 
 state paper it has been strangely overlooked, both by the 
 historians and the hundreds of Lincoln biographers. This 
 is the more strange since the man who has been recog- 
 nized as the foremost of Americans adhered to its terms 
 with singular fidelity, not only in the days of his ob- 
 scurity when he was still striving for recognition in Illi- 
 nois, but in that later day when the word of Abraham 
 Lincoln carried beyond the bounds of that State and even 
 to the farthest ends of America. Both in word and action 
 all his after life in politics and statecraft was in accord 
 with this resolution, set out in his twenty-eighth year. 
 Whether we consider it as far-seeing calculation or un- 
 varying consistency, it is probable that the like has not 
 been witnessed either before or since in American annals. 
 
 Whether Dan Stone, a lawyer already well known in 
 his district and profession, or Abraham Lincoln, still a 
 mere student in that profession, drew the resolution, we 
 do not know. But we do know that it outlined the course 
 of action that was to be followed by the latter with regard 
 to the paramount issue that confronted the American 
 people through all the days that saw the rise of Lincoln 
 from the place of member of the Legislature to that which 
 saw him as President of the United States. 
 
 This will be readily seen by an examination of the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 55 
 
 three paragraphs of the resolution devoted to declaring 
 the views of the two bold signers of the paper. The 
 paper is divided into five paragraphs containing less than 
 a hundred and fifty words. The first, we have already 
 seen. The second declares "that Congress under the 
 Constitution, has no power to interfere with the institution 
 of slavery in the existing States." There was nothing new 
 or startling in this pronouncement. It was in accord with 
 the settled opinion of the day and questioned only by 
 the more extreme abolitionists. 
 
 The third paragraph asserts, "that Congress has the 
 power under the Constitution to regulate slavery in the 
 District of Columbia, but that it ought not to be exer- 
 cised unless at the request of the people of the District of 
 Columbia." Here in this proposition that resolution has 
 reached dangerously controversial ground, and has taken 
 square issue with the resolution sent as an ultimatum by 
 the Legislature of Alabama to the various northern 
 States. It constituted in settled fact the field on which 
 was to be waged a hundred civic battles in the various 
 State legislatures, the Congress of the United States, and 
 in all the courts of the land, even to the final court of 
 appeals, in the vain effort to find a solution for a prob- 
 lem that had no solution save that which would be finally 
 found on a hundred battle fields. 
 
 The first paragraph had declared slavery to be founded 
 on injustice and bad policy, and might seem to some the 
 bolder pronouncement. It is likely, however, that the 
 abler pro-slavery men gave it little heed except as an 
 academic altruism. But they saw at once that this third 
 proposition dangerously menaced the whole slave sys- 
 tem, the oldest American institution and the one they 
 
56 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 prized above all other things American. And so no 
 protestation, however vehement, that slavery in the exist- 
 ing States would not be molested, could give them a feel- 
 ing of security. For the right to regulate slavery in the ter- 
 ritories carried with it the right to regulate all future 
 States, and the right to regulate the thing out of exist- 
 ence. It is not strange then that most of the maneuvers 
 of the opposing parties from that day to the final appeal 
 to arms was spent on this proposition. 
 
 The mighty speech of Lincoln, twenty-three years later 
 at Cooper Union in New York, was but an exhaustive 
 elaboration of this power under the Constitution to regu- 
 late slavery in the District of Columbia, to which went 
 the natural sequence of regulating it in other territories. 
 That speech did much to make him President. 
 
 The institution of chattel slavery which had called forth 
 these resolutions from the South and the North, was in 
 fact the earliest distinctively American institution. No- 
 toriously brutal, monstrously cruel, it had a stability 
 which only long years could give to a thing so obviously 
 violative of every principle of morals, and abortive ac- 
 cording to every system of economics. An institution 
 possessing such basic weakness might seem to offer but 
 feeble resistance to any determined opposition, but two 
 hundred years of existence will give a sanctity to wrong 
 and error almost as surely as to right and truth. Chattel 
 slavery had been established more than one hundred and 
 fifty years before the Constitution, and it was not without 
 some basis of reason that most southerners and not a few 
 persons elsewhere believed this older American institution 
 likely to survive that later one which we know as the 
 Constitution of the United States. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 57 
 
 There was another factor, too, more tangible and 
 doubtless, to the superficial, appearing even more pow- 
 erful than this element of time, which tended to the per- 
 petuation of chattel slavery. This was the support of the 
 dominant class, made up of slaveholders, small but pow- 
 erful beyond all proportion to its numbers. More and 
 more the wealth and prestige of families in the South had 
 come to be fixed in terms of slaves. And more and more 
 all other forms of wealth in these States tended to be- 
 come negligible. For more than twenty years prior to 
 the Civil War it is likely that the dominant class of large 
 slaveholders had constituted less than one-tenth of the 
 white population. While here and there would be found 
 a small farmer with one or two slaves, there was substan- 
 tially no great middle class composed of artisans, mechan- 
 ics, shopkeepers and the like. The southern scheme of 
 government increasingly contemplated only the large 
 slaveholders and their black slaves. The other and largest 
 part of the white population, wretchedly poor because 
 shut out from all the avenues for acquiring wealth, and 
 becoming poorer; and densely ignorant, because of the 
 utter lack of schools wherein to acquire learning, fitted 
 less and less into the system foisted upon them by the 
 dominant group. In this system there were no high 
 points, no substantial merits. 
 
 Everywhere, there was one vast level of exploitation, 
 both of blacks and whites, differing only as to degree. 
 Perhaps the whole situation will be clearer if it be pointed 
 out that in this southern land there were two gigantic 
 systems of slavery: one was a chattel slavery for the 4,000,- 
 000 blacks, the other a political and economic slavery for 
 nearly the same number of whites. Nowhere in all the 
 
58 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 civilized world of that day or perhaps in any day, has 
 so small a proportion of a population exercised such over- 
 whelming power in a far spread government based on the 
 mechanics of democracy; and nowhere has such power 
 been so unconscionably abused. Under the forms of a 
 republic and amid a general cant about democracy, the 
 most oppressive oligarchy of modern times had been 
 established. 
 
 After two hundred years, voices of protest began to be 
 heard on behalf of the blacks of this double slave system. 
 In time they found their tribunes, and the Gracchi at 
 Rome two thousand years earlier fought no braver fight 
 than these. They, too, had their martyrs. Daily the civ- 
 ilized world was told what crimes were being done in 
 this American land, while the perpetrators prated loudly 
 of freedom. A strange and monstrous freedom was this, 
 the freedom to enslave their fellow men. But for this 
 class of submerged whites, no voice was lifted up. The 
 masses of the North knew not of its existence. This 
 people was never pointed out to the travelers from the 
 outer world. Its voice was stifled as completely as that 
 of the black slaves. It had no part in the halls of justice, 
 and it was too illiterate to build up a literature of protest. 
 Among the ruling class there was none sufficiently hu- 
 mane and touched with the fire of genius to make the 
 world hear of its terrible wrongs, as has happened from 
 time to time for the alleviation of the wretched of Eu- 
 rope, and as happened for the suffering blacks of their 
 own land. All that passed to the outer world concern- 
 ing them was couched in the terms of hate and contempt 
 that animated the ruling class, which hated them in pro- 
 portion as it wronged them. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 59 
 
 Left to itself, its welfare of no interest to the ruling 
 group, this class sank to lower and lower levels of debase- 
 ment. With no clear realization of the cause of their 
 constantly increasing ills, they yet hated the ruling group 
 only less than they hated the blacks. The reason for this 
 latter hate is not so readily discovered. Perhaps, as Lord 
 Bryce has suggested, bereft of all the usual sources that 
 give men pride, they were the more proud of the color 
 of their skin. And perhaps the black slaves, noting their 
 wretchedness and aping the masters, made an open dis- 
 play of something like contempt for these "poor whites," 
 which was returned many fold by a class that probably 
 found little in life save the things to be hated. 
 
 Meanwhile, the common oppressors of both blacks and 
 whites, answering the many charges being launched by 
 northern abolitionists, assiduously pictured to the outer 
 world the felicity and contentment which they claimed 
 to be the general lot of the folk of their region, whether 
 free white, or slave black. Occasionally their bolder ora- 
 tors went further and strove to prove, even, that the lot 
 of their black slaves was easier than that of the white com- 
 mon laborers of the North and other lands. Several of 
 the southern senators appeared before northern audiences 
 with the somewhat startling argument that chattel slavery 
 was both economically and morally superior as a system 
 to free labor. Senator Robert Toombs, of Georgia, told 
 an audience in Boston that "the fourteen States of the 
 South held ten millions of inhabitants, rich, powerful, edu- 
 cated, refined, prosperous and happy." There was no 
 limit to the mendacity of the slave-holding oligarchy. 
 
 Occasionally a visitor from the North or other lands, 
 lavishly dined and entertained, went forth proclaiming 
 
60 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the generosity of his hosts and the lavishness of southern 
 hospitality — and some, even of the happy slaves, they 
 whose unrequited toil enabled others to play the part of 
 the generous and hospitable. 
 
 Few made mention of the two-thirds of the white pop- 
 ulation, poor, ignorant, miserable and wretched beyond 
 all possible pretense on the part of the ruling class. There 
 is another southerner at this time who, less optimistic 
 than Toombs, bitterly mentions this group as "miserable 
 nondescript combers of the soil, scratching the land here 
 and there for subsistence, living from hand to mouth, or 
 trespassing along the borders of the possessions of the 
 large proprietors." Oddly enough, he was yet an earnest 
 exponent of the slave system, and his remedy for the bale- 
 ful condition he had mentioned was the restoration of the 
 slave trade with Africa thus giving the South cheaper 
 and more slaves. Southern statesmanship, by some 
 thought to be superior, was never at a lower ebb. 
 
 Seldom, however, did any word pass to the outer world 
 concerning this submerged class of whites, and then, 
 couched only in the terms of hate and contempt that ani- 
 mated the ruling class. This hatred has passed through 
 all the intervening years down to our own day to mislead 
 some, otherwise highly endowed. The late Albert J. Bev- 
 eridge has adopted and helped to perpetuate this libel of 
 the oppressor against the oppressed, and has discovered 
 nothing in the poverty and wretchedness of these people 
 save their own incapacity. After describing the felicity 
 of the dominant class he goes on to tell of the "lowest 
 strata, made up of white people steeped in poverty, as a 
 class, shiftless, unmoral, without social standing, and de- 
 void of a wish for advancement # # # their most notice- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 61 
 
 able characteristic was indolence # * # not attached to the 
 soil and at intervals moving from place to place without 
 apparent reason." Verily, the terrible hatred of the slave- 
 holder has come down to the third and fourth generation 
 in slander against those whom it had irremediably 
 wronged. 
 
 Lord Bryce, more profound and experienced in state- 
 craft, discloses not only the symptoms, the effects, but the 
 underlying causes as well. "The second order consists 
 of those who used to be called the Mean Whites. Then- 
 condition strengthens the impression of half civilization 
 which the rural districts of the South produce upon the 
 traveler. # # # While slavery lasted, these whites were, 
 in the planting States, a wholly wretched, because eco- 
 nomically superfluous class. There was no room while 
 the system of large slave-worked properties made the cul- 
 tivation of small farms hopeless, and the existence of a 
 thriving free peasantry impossible. The planters disliked 
 these whites and kept them off their estates as much as 
 possible; the slaves despised them, and called them 'poor 
 white trash.' In South Carolina and the Gulf States, they 
 picked up a wretched livelihood by raising some vegetables 
 near their huts, and killing the wild creatures of the 
 woods, while a few hung around the great houses to look 
 out for a stray job. Shiftless, ignorant, improvident, with 
 no aims in the present nor hopes for the future, citizens 
 in nothing but the possession of votes, they were a stand- 
 ing reproach to the system that produced them, and the 
 most convincing proof of its economic as well as moral 
 failure." 
 
 Shall we wonder, then, that when at a later day the 
 responsibilities of government finally fall into such un- 
 
62 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 trained hands, the result is failure? Are we surprised 
 that minds accustomed for generations to being the butt 
 of every abuse and mistreatment that the insolence and 
 contempt of an inconsiderate and incompetent ruling 
 class could devise, should at such a day fail readily to 
 grasp the ends .and subtleties of statesmanship ? Could 
 minds, habituated in the past only to hatred, envy and 
 like futilities, possess a proper discernment of the equities 
 and humanities that must have a large place in any effi- 
 cient and durable government? 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 A 
 
 ,N EVENTFUL session was this which came to an 
 end March 6, 1837. With the exception of a brief special 
 session in July, it brought to an end the term for which 
 Lincoln had been elected. There is reason to believe that 
 he found the Legislature a congenial place, and as one 
 of the outstanding leaders of the body he probably derived 
 added satisfaction from an office already highly satisfac- 
 tory. Certainly it was but a short time before he was 
 again campaigning for reelection. 
 
 The extra session of the Legislature had been called by 
 the Governor to devise some remedy for the stringent 
 financial situation that threatened to become a nation- 
 wide disaster, and inevitably to engulf many Illinois banks 
 in the general ruin. Already the Bank of the United 
 States, and New York and Philadelphia banks, had 
 stopped specie payments. This was the same Legislature 
 which in its enthusiasm for internal improvements had 
 at an early session saddled the State with an enormous 
 bonded indebtedness. It is hardly surprising that it pro- 
 duced nothing in the way of a remedy; rather, it pro- 
 ceeded to enlarge on some of its earlier schemes 
 and thereby aggravated the situation. 
 
 Lincoln was one of the members of the financial com- 
 es 
 
64 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 mittee of the Legislature, and appears to have aspired to 
 a place in history similar to that of DeWitt Clinton of 
 New York. Subsequent events made it clear that it was 
 easier to formulate plans for internal improvements than 
 to find the money for their payment. The final result 
 was the collapse of the scheme, and however famous 
 Lincoln was afterwards to become, his fame had in it 
 nothing that suggests the man who did so much to make 
 the Erie Canal a reality. 
 
 Whether the failure of these ambitious projects was due 
 to inherent weaknesses in the plans thus devised by Lin- 
 coln and his associates in the Legislature, or whether it 
 came from the nation-wide financial panic that swept the 
 land at this time, it is not easy to say; but it is certain that 
 the tax burdened citizens of the State placed the blame 
 on the legislators who had put through the scheme, and 
 for many years this was an important question in re- 
 curring political campaigns. 
 
 In the month of March of this year of 1837, tne name 
 of Abraham Lincoln was added to the list of those who 
 were members of the legal profession of his state. Very 
 soon thereafter he took his departure, doubtless with 
 pangs of regret, from the little village of which he had 
 been an important part during all the years of his early 
 manhood. Here at New Salem he had been received 
 kindly. Here he had been given the most loyal godspeed 
 on the long journey to a goal more glorious than either he 
 or any of the friendly and admiring villagers ever dreamed 
 of. He now went to the more populous town of Spring- 
 field, newly selected capital of the State, and largely by 
 his efforts. It held at the time near two thousand pop- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 65 
 
 ulation, and was the county seat of Sangamon with a 
 population of close to 20,000, being one of the most pop- 
 ulous counties of the State. 
 
 John T. Stuart, whom Lincoln had known since the 
 Black Hawk War, and who had befriended him from 
 time to time, was one of the best known lawyers of the 
 place. He had advised and loaned Lincoln books in the 
 course of his studies, and now took him in as a partner. 
 
 Lincoln's entry into Springfield on a borrowed horse, 
 with less than ten dollars in his pockets and more than 
 one thousand dollars in debt, was far from auspicious. 
 Joshua Speed, for the rest of his life one of his most inti- 
 mate friends, thus tells the story of that occasion and their 
 first meeting. "He came into my store, set his saddle bags 
 on the counter, and inquired what the furniture for a 
 single bedstead would cost. I took slate and pencil, made 
 a calculation, and found that the sum for furniture com- 
 plete would amount to seventeen dollars in all. Said he: 
 'It is probably cheap enough but I want to say that, cheap 
 as it is, I have not the money to buy. But if you will 
 credit me until Xmas, and my experiment here as a law- 
 yer is a success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that I 
 will probably never pay you at all.' The tone of his voice 
 was so melancholy that I felt for him. I looked up at him 
 and thought then, as I think now, that I never saw so 
 gloomy and melancholy a face in my life. I said to him, 
 'So small a debt seems to affect you so deeply, I think I 
 can suggest a plan by which you will be able to attain 
 your end without incurring any debt. I have a very 
 large room and a very large double bed in it, which you 
 are perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose.' 
 
66 
 
 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 'Where is your room?' he asked. 'Upstairs/ said I, point- 
 ing to the stairs leading from the store to my room. 
 Without saying a word he took his saddle bag on his 
 arm, went up stairs, set them on the floor, came down 
 again, and with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles, 
 exclaimed: 'Well, Speed, I'm moved.'" 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 I HE diligent and unremitting research of Herndon 
 has enabled the world to see Lincoln in another affair of 
 the heart. Fortunately it has none of the tragic elements 
 that characterized the story of Ann Rutledge. Where 
 that episode touched the very depths of despair this 
 reached the height of the ridiculous. This resulted by 
 reason of Lincoln's inability to gauge the workings of a 
 woman's mind. In fact there is reason to believe that if 
 there have been a few men who have been more pro- 
 foundly capable in judging the mental processes of men, 
 there have likewise been few men who have been more 
 profoundly incapable in judging the mental processes of 
 women. Men generally avoid what they feel they do not 
 understand. Lincoln, when a clerk, evaded as far as able 
 serving the women patrons of the store. He doubtless 
 had a friendly feeling for them, but he also had a feeling 
 of awe and discomfort when in their presence. 
 
 He had met Miss Mary Owens while she was on a 
 visit to her sister, Mrs. Abel, and appears to have very 
 quickly become interested in the young woman, whom 
 report makes highly attractive both physically and men- 
 tally. It is obvious, however, from a certain self-restraint 
 and lack of the ardour that characterizes the letters writ- 
 
 67 
 
68 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 ten to the young lady, that Lincoln was not sufficiently 
 convinced of his own warmth of feeling to induce any 
 such emotion in one not already strongly disposed in his 
 favor. Two of three letters, written to her are interesting 
 in displaying the uncertain mood of the young man who 
 argues rationally, but with an entire absence of the fer- 
 vor usually considered more convincing to the female 
 mind, that he desires her affections and would have her 
 for wife; and at the same time sets forth a further argu- 
 ment that it would be a serious error for her to accept his 
 marriage proposition, and at no time expresses his love 
 in terms definite and positive. Total failure to under- 
 stand the subject matter. But while young Lincoln con- 
 vinces himself that his logic has stormed the seat of the 
 young woman's affections, she, herself, is calmly rational- 
 izing the Lincoln mood and his general attitude toward 
 women, and decides, as she later announced, that "Mr. 
 Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up 
 the chain of woman's happiness." Microscopically clear 
 was her view of the subject matter. 
 
 This second failure in love, if so it be, is followed by 
 no profound melancholy; there is no occasion for the so- 
 licitude of friends. The only reaction is a letter, this time 
 to another woman, narrating the history of this love epi- 
 sode, so frank and boisterously humorous that it has been 
 a bit shocking to some of the more gallant biographers. 
 
 One letter to Mary Owens, written from Springfield, 
 May 7, 1837, reads: 
 
 "Friend Mary: 
 
 "I have commenced two letters to send you before this, 
 both of which displeased me before I got half done, and 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 69 
 
 so I tore them up. The first I wasn't serious enough, and 
 the second was on the other extreme. I shall send this, 
 turn out as it may. 
 
 "This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull 
 business after all — at least it is so to me. I am quite as 
 lonesome here as (I) ever was anywhere in my life. I 
 have been spoken to by but one woman since I've been 
 here, and should not have been by her if she could have 
 avoided it. I've never been to church yet, and probably 
 shall not be soon. I stay away because I am conscious I 
 should not know how to behave myself. I am often 
 thinking of what we said of your coming to live at 
 Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied. 
 There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, 
 which it would be your doom to see without sharing in 
 it. You would have to be poor without the means of 
 hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that 
 patiently ? Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, 
 should anyone ever do so, it is my intention to do all in 
 my power to make her happy and contented, and there is 
 nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy 
 than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much hap- 
 pier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no 
 signs of discontent in you. 
 
 "What you have said to me may have been in jest or 
 I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be for- 
 gotten; if otherwise I much wish you would think seri- 
 ously before you decide. For my part I have already de- 
 cided. What I have said I will most positively abide by, 
 provided you wish it. My opinion is you had better not 
 do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and 
 it may be more severe than you imagine. I know you are 
 
70 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 capable of thinking correctly on any subject; and if you 
 deliberate maturely upon this before you decide then I 
 am willing to abide your decision. 
 
 "You must write me a good long letter after you get 
 this. You have nothing else to do, and though it might 
 not seem interesting to you after you have written it, it 
 would be a good deal of company in this busy wilderness. 
 Tell your sister I don't want to hear any more about 
 selling out and moving. That gives me the hypo when- 
 ever I think of it. 
 
 "Yours, Etc. 
 
 "Lincoln." 
 
 This was followed by another letter, August 16, 1837. 
 
 "Friend Mary: 
 
 "You will no doubt think it rather strange that I should 
 write you a letter on the same day on which we parted; 
 and I can only account for it by supposing that seeing 
 you lately makes me think of you more than usual, while 
 at our late meeting we had but few expressions of 
 thought. You must know that I cannot see you or think 
 of you with entire indifference; and yet it may be that 
 you are mistaken in regard to what my real feelings to- 
 wards you are. If I knew you were not, I should not 
 trouble you with this letter. Perhaps any other man 
 would know enough without further information, but I 
 consider it my peculiar right to plead ignorance and your 
 bounden duty to allow the plea. 
 
 "I want in all cases to do right; and most particularly 
 so in all cases with women. I want, at this particular 
 time, more than anything else, to do right with you, and 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 71 
 
 if I knew it would be doing right, as I rather suspect it 
 would, to let you alone, I would do it. And for the 
 purpose of making the matter as plain as possible, I now 
 say, that you can now drop the subject, dismiss your 
 thoughts (if you ever had any) from me forever, and 
 leave this letter unanswered, without calling forth one 
 accusing murmur from me. And I will even go farther, 
 and say, that if it will add anything to your comfort or 
 peace of mind to do so, it is my sincere wish that you 
 should. Do not understand by this that I wish to cut 
 your acquaintance. I mean no such thing. What I do 
 wish is that our further acquaintance shall depend upon 
 yourself. If such further acquaintance would contribute 
 nothing to your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. 
 If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now 
 willing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on 
 the other hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you 
 faster if I can be convinced that it will in any considerable 
 degree add to your happiness. This, indeed, is the whole 
 question with me. Nothing would make me more miser- 
 able, nothing more happy, than to know you were so. 
 
 "If it suits you best to not answer this — farewell — a long 
 life and a merry one attend you. But if you conclude to 
 write back, speak as plainly as I do. There can be neither 
 harm nor danger in saying to me anything you think, 
 just in the manner you think it. 
 
 "My respects to your sister. 
 
 "Your friend, 
 
 "Lincoln." 
 
 A third letter to Mrs. O. H. Browning gives the history 
 of his failure. 
 
72 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 "Springfield, April i, 1838. 
 "Dear Madam: 
 
 "Without apologizing for being egotistical, I shall make 
 the history of so much of my life as has elapsed since I 
 saw you, the subject of this letter. And, by the way, I 
 now discover that, in order to give an intelligible account 
 of the things I have done and suffered since I saw you, I 
 shall necessarily have to relate some that happened before. 
 
 "It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married 
 lady of my acquaintance and who was a great friend of 
 mine, being about to pay a visit to her father and other 
 relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed to me that on 
 her return she would bring a sister of hers with her on 
 condition that I would engage to become her brother-in- 
 law with all convenient despatch. I, of course, accepted 
 the proposal, for you know I could not have done other- 
 wise, had I really been averse to it; but privately, be- 
 tween you and me I was most confoundedly well pleased 
 with the project. I had seen the said sister some three 
 years before, thought her intelligent and agreeable, and 
 saw no good objection in plodding life through hand in 
 hand with her. Time passed on, the lady took her jour- 
 ney, and in due time returned, sister in company sure 
 enough. This astonished me a little; for it appeared to 
 me that her coming so readily showed that she was a 
 trifle too willing; but, on reflection, it occurred to me 
 that she might have been prevailed on by her married sis- 
 ter to come, without anything concerning me ever having 
 been mentioned to her; and so I concluded that, if no 
 other objection presented itself, I would consent to waive 
 this. All this occurred to me on hearing of her arrival 
 in the neighborhood; for, be it remembered, I had not 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 73 
 
 yet seen her, except about three years previous, as above 
 mentioned. In a few days we had an interview; and, 
 although I had seen her before, she did not look as my 
 imagination had pictured her. I knew she was over- 
 size, but she now appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I 
 knew she was called an 'old maid,' and I felt no doubt of 
 the truth of at least half of the appellation; but now, 
 when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid thinking 
 of my mother; and this, not from withered features, for 
 her skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into 
 wrinkles, but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten ap- 
 pearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran 
 in my head that nothing could have commenced at the 
 size of infancy and reached her present bulk in less than 
 thirty-five or forty years; and, in short, I was not at all 
 pleased with her. But what could I do ? I had told her 
 sister I would take her for better or for worse; and I made 
 a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to 
 my word, especially if others had been induced to act on 
 it, which in this case I had no doubt they had; for I was 
 now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would 
 have her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent 
 on holding me to my bargain. 'Well,' thought I, 'I have 
 said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it shall 
 not be my fault if I fail to do it.' At once I determined 
 to consider her my wife ; and this done, all my powers of 
 discovery were put to work in search of perfections in her 
 which might be fairly set off against her defects. I tried 
 to imagine her handsome, which, but for her unfortunate 
 corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of this, no woman 
 that I have ever seen had a finer face. I also tried to 
 convince myself that the mind was much more to be 
 
74 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 valued than the person; and in this she was not inferior, 
 as I could discover, to any with whom I had been ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 "Shortly after this, without coming to any positive un- 
 derstanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, when and 
 where you first saw me. During my stay there I had let- 
 ters from her which did not change my opinion of either 
 her intellect or intention, but on the contrary confirmed 
 it in both. 
 
 "All this while, although I was fixed, 'firm as the surge- 
 repelling rock/ in my resolution, I found I was continually 
 repenting the rashness which had led me to make it. 
 Through life, I have been in no bondage, either real or 
 imaginary, from the thraldom of which I so much desired 
 to be free. After my return home, I saw nothing to change 
 my opinions of her in any particular. She was the same, 
 and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how I 
 might get along through life after my contemplated 
 change of circumstances should have taken place, and how 
 I might procrastinate the evil day for a time, which I 
 really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than an Irishman 
 does the halter. 
 
 "After all my suffering upon this deeply interesting 
 subject, here I am, wholly, unexpectedly, completely, out 
 of the 'scrape'; and now I want to know if you can guess 
 how I got out of it — out, clear, in every sense of the 
 term; no violation of word, honor, or conscience. I don't 
 believe you can guess, and so I might as well tell you at 
 once. As the lawyer says, it was done in the manner fol- 
 lowing, to-wit: After I had delayed the matter as long 
 as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the way, had 
 brought me round into the last fall), I concluded I might 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 75 
 
 as well bring it to a consummation without further delay; 
 and so I mustered my resolution, and made the proposal 
 to her direct; but, shocking to relate, she answered No. 
 At first I supposed she did it through an affectation of 
 modesty, which I thought but ill became her under the 
 peculiar circumstances of her case; but on my renewal 
 of the charge, I found she repelled it with greater firm- 
 ness than before. I tried it again and again, but with 
 the same success, or rather with the same want of success. 
 
 "I finally was forced to givq it up; at which I very 
 unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond en- 
 durance. I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred 
 different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the 
 reflection that I had been too stupid to discover her inten- 
 tions, and at the same time never doubting that I under- 
 stood them perfectly; and also that she, whom I had 
 taught myself to believe nobody else would have, had 
 actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness. And 
 to cap the whole, I then for the first time began to sus- 
 pect that I was really a little in love with her. But let it 
 all go. I'll try and outlive it. Others have been made 
 fools of by the girls; but this can never with truth be 
 said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made 
 a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion 
 never again to think of marrying, and for this reason: I 
 can never be satisfied with any one who would be block- 
 head enough to have me. 
 
 "When you receive this, write me a long yarn about 
 something to amuse me. Give my respects to Mr. Brown- 
 ing. 
 
 "Your sincere friend, 
 
 "A. Lincoln." 
 
76 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Taken together these three letters present an extraordi- 
 narily vivid view of the character of this strange man. 
 There is a close intermingling of the serious and the 
 comic, with facets here and there reflecting the most 
 delicate shades of consideration for the feelings of others; 
 while others, surcharged with the sense of the humorous, 
 light up shades and reserves that custom has considered 
 inviolable. Above all there is a frankness and blunt hon- 
 esty that would not often be found in such matters. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 |N St. Louis in the year 1836, there was a mob. This 
 mob killed a colored man. Why seek the reason for the 
 deed? There is little reason in things done by mobs. 
 Possibly this man was a murderer; anyway, he had been 
 so called. The deed of this particular mob is recalled, not 
 that it had in itself any features very different from mobs 
 before or since that day, but because by certain intertwin- 
 ings of men and circumstances it had something to do 
 with making a great man what he was, and in so doing 
 exerted an influence on the subsequent history of the na- 
 tion that was his and theirs, and which the members of 
 this mob had disgraced. 
 
 At this time in St. Louis there was a newspaper known 
 as the Observer. The editor was Elijah P. Lovejoy, an 
 ordained minister. No ordinary minister was this man, 
 satisfied to found a system of morals and fix a basis of 
 righteousness for his fellows in discussion, sometimes 
 stereotyped and sometimes abstruse, of the reported acts 
 and sayings of Jewish people who existed from nineteen 
 hundred to five thousand years ago. No, this preacher 
 chose to discuss the things said and done by the men of 
 his own day. And so it came to pass that he began to 
 talk and write more and more of the wrongs of chattel 
 
 77 
 
78 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 slavery. At first his discussion of the matter was so mod- 
 erate in its suggestions that no one was warranted in con- 
 sidering him as an Abolitionist. In the main he thought 
 that colonization would tend to remedy the thing, and 
 that soon or late some method of gradual emancipation 
 could be devised to end it. To which, George Washing- 
 ton, himself, or Thomas Jefferson, or any of the galaxy 
 of Virginians or other southern great men, as well as the 
 men of the North, might readily have assented. But the 
 sons of such fathers had followed after other lights, and 
 no longer was it safe to proclaim in the nation these fath- 
 ers had "brought forth on this continent" that which 
 these fathers, themselves, had proclaimed. And so it 
 came to pass that shortly after the killing of the man 
 by the mob in St. Louis, the office and printing press of 
 the Observer was wrecked, because the editor had dared 
 to make unfavorable mention of the mob and its actions 
 as follows: "In Charlestown it burns convents over the 
 head of defenceless women; in Baltimore, it desecrates 
 the Sabbath; in Vicksburg it hangs up gamblers, three or 
 four in a row; and in St. Louis, it forces a man, a hard- 
 ened wretch certainly, and one that deserved to die, — it 
 forces him from beneath the aegis of our constitution and 
 laws, and hurries him to the stake and burns him alive." 
 Later, Lovejoy moved his press and fixtures to the town 
 of Alton, some twenty miles north of St. Louis, on the 
 eastern side of the Mississippi river, in Illinois. There, 
 in a northern State he might well suppose that he was 
 free to discuss the institution of slavery according to his 
 own convictions. But this was not to be. The repressive 
 hands of the slave holders did not stop at the border line 
 between North and South, and his printing press was 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 79 
 
 hurled down the precipitous cliffs on which the town is 
 built into the waters of the river below. Consultations 
 followed and an apparent compromise was entered into, 
 and the paper resumed business as the Alton Observer. 
 Despite the former warnings and continuous threats 
 against his life, Lovejoy, the preacher, could not or would 
 not restrict the discussions of his paper to the reported 
 sayings of Jewish people, twenty or fifty centuries dead, 
 but continued to discuss the men of his own day, their 
 sayings and their deeds. 
 
 In St. Louis, in the allotted course of time, a grand 
 jury was summoned and had laid before it all the facts 
 connected with the burning to death of a colored man by 
 a mob some months earlier. And the editor of the Alton 
 Observer still convinced that it was his duty to discuss 
 the men of his day and their deeds, made mention of 
 this grand jury, and particularly of the strange instruc- 
 tion given it by the presiding judge, whose name was 
 Lawless. In this instruction Judge Lawless said, among 
 other things: "If on the other hand the destruction of 
 the murderer of Hammond, was the act, as I have said, 
 of the many, — of the multitude, in the ordinary sense 
 of these words — not the act of numerable and ascertain- 
 able malefactors, but of congregated thousands, seized 
 upon and impelled by that mysterious, metaphysical, and 
 almost electric frenzy, which in all ages and nations, has 
 hurried on the infuriated multitude, to deeds of death 
 and destruction, then I say, act not at all in the matter; 
 the case then transcends your jurisdiction — it is beyond 
 the reach of human law." 
 
 It need hardly be said, that under such an instruction 
 no indictments were returned against any members of 
 
80 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the mob. But there was soon after another wrecking of 
 the printing place of the Alton Observer by a mob that 
 had good reason to believe from the instruction men- 
 tioned, that what they could not legally do as individuals, 
 they might do with impunity as a mob. Another press 
 was installed and the paper continued its fight for hu- 
 manity to the last. And then, on November 7, 1837, 
 another mob assembled — the monstrous things breed fast 
 under such law as given by Judge Lawless — and it shot 
 to death Love joy, gentle, humane, unselfish, and to the 
 last, brave and determined. 
 
 Lovejoy was dead, but the spirit that had urged him 
 on despite the menace of desperate enemies, was not dead 
 and would not die. Doubtless h: left none braver among 
 the living to carry on the struggle against the mounting 
 power of the slaveholders of the South, bent on removing 
 the barriers that confined slavery to that section. There 
 were others, however, ready to go forward in the path 
 he had trod, some with all his fervor and recklessness of 
 danger, and others having in mind the dangers that beset 
 the situation. In Illinois where he had paid the full 
 measure of devotion, there was one of these, a young man, 
 devoid of any violence of spirit, in no sense one of the 
 militants called abolitionists; and yet, already, in the depth 
 of his comprehension of the evils of the slave system and 
 in the amplitude of the plans he had even then begun to 
 formulate for the struggle ahead, this young man was 
 weighing heavily in the contest that was to put his State 
 in the vanguard of the friends of freedom, and ultimately 
 was to exert the force of many Lovejoys. The influence 
 of Elijah P. Lovejoy over young Lincoln is easily shown 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 81 
 
 in one of the seemingly insignificant happenings that was 
 a part of the life of Springfield at this time. 
 
 Lincoln had soon acquired a definite place in the town, 
 and in so far as his very limited means would permit had 
 considerable weight. The larger part of the town popu- 
 lation was of southern origin, many of these from Ken- 
 tucky and Tennessee. Many of these families desired to 
 carry on the traditions of the aristocracy of the South, and 
 some had the means to sustain such traditions. To these, 
 Lincoln, the "poor white," must have appeared a ques- 
 tionable figure. Possibly, back in the old home State they 
 would have rudely repulsed any advance he might have 
 made. Certain it was, however, that here in Illinois he 
 was soon a recognized leader among the young men of 
 the town. There was a literary and debating club in 
 which he was one of the leading spirits. It held its meet- 
 ings at any office that was conveniently offered, or at 
 Joshua Speed's room. There was also The Young Men's 
 Lyceum, "a body which contained and commanded the 
 culture and talent of the place." Its meetings were public 
 and reflected great credit on the community. It attests 
 the increasing ability of Lincoln that here, too, he was 
 soon one of the most noted figures. 
 
 Before this body on January 27, 1837, several months 
 after the mob already noticed, and while Love joy was 
 still giving his editorial condemnation of it, Lincoln de- 
 livered an address that is highly significant in a number 
 of respects. This address was delivered some weeks be- 
 fore he and Dan Stone had presented their resolutions to 
 the Legislature, declaring "slavery to be founded on both 
 injustice and bad policy." The ideas advanced therein 
 appear to have come either from direct contemplation of 
 
82 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 certain mob atrocities then widely prevalent over the 
 country, or from a close following of the arguments of 
 Love joy, or probably both. 
 
 His reflective mind, with its tendency to delve to the 
 ultimate of things, saw in these mob outbreaks a matter 
 more serious than mere sporadic violations of rights of 
 person and property, however serious these things neces- 
 sarily were. In its style, and in the occasional extrava- 
 gance of statement, it is a far call between this address of the 
 youthful Lincoln and that of the addresses of the mature 
 man. But in its earnest seriousness and tracing to their 
 last results, the evils pointed out, it was a noteworthy 
 effort and one which heightened the respect which he 
 had already secured from his fellows in his new home. 
 If we consider the substance of this address and add to it 
 the resolutions already mentioned, but which were not 
 presented until several weeks after the delivery of the ad- 
 dress, it may be seen from a study of the after life of the 
 man, that they constituted a kind of declaration of princi- 
 ples, articles of faith, and constitution, by which his future 
 course of action was guided. For this reason and that it 
 may give a clearer idea of the changes that later developed 
 in his oratorical style, the address in larger part is here 
 presented. 
 
 It was entitled "The Perpetuation of Our Political In- 
 stitutions," and proceeds as follows: 
 
 "In the great journal of things happening under the 
 sun, we, the American people find our account running 
 under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. 
 We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest 
 portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility 
 of soil and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 83 
 
 the government of a system of political institutions con- 
 ducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious 
 liberty than any of which the history of former times 
 tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence 
 found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental 
 blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement of them; 
 they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave 
 and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of 
 ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they per- 
 formed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves 
 us, of this goodly land, and to uprear on its hills and its 
 valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights. Tis 
 ours only, to transmit these — the former unprofaned by 
 the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse 
 of time and untorn by usurpation — to the latest genera- 
 tion that fate shall permit the world to know. This task 
 of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves and duty 
 to our posterity, and love to our species in general, all 
 imperatively require us faithfully to perform. 
 
 "How shall we perform it? At what point shall we 
 expect the approach of danger ? By what means shall we 
 fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic 
 military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow ? 
 Never ! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa, com- 
 bined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own ex- 
 cepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a 
 commander, could not by force take a drink from the 
 Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a 
 thousand years. At what point then is the approach of 
 danger to be expected? I answer, if it is ever to reach 
 us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from 
 abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be 
 
84 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must 
 live through all time or die by suicide." 
 
 Speaking then of mob outrages, he said: "It will be 
 tedious as well as useless to recount the horrors of all of 
 them. Those happening in the State of Mississippi and at 
 St. Louis are perhaps the most dangerous in example and 
 revolting to humanity. In the Mississippi case, they first 
 commenced by hanging the regular gamblers — a set of 
 men certainly not following for a livelihood a very useful 
 or honest occupation, but one which, so far from being 
 forbidden by the laws, was actually licensed by an act of 
 the Legislature passed but a single year before. Next, 
 Negroes suspected of conspiring to raise an insurrection 
 were caught up and hanged in all parts of the State; 
 then, white men supposed to be leagued with the Ne- 
 groes; and finally, strangers from neighboring states, go- 
 ing thither on business, were in many instances subjected 
 to the same fate. Thus went on this process of hanging, 
 from gamblers to Negroes, from Negroes to white citi- 
 zens; and from these to strangers, till dead men were seen 
 literally dangling from the boughs of trees upon every 
 roadside, and in numbers that were almost sufficient to 
 rival the native Spanish moss of the country as a drapery 
 of the forest. 
 
 "When men take it into their heads today to hang 
 gamblers or burn murderers, they should recollect that in 
 the confusion usually attending such transactions they 
 will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither 
 a gambler nor a murderer as one who is, and that, acting 
 upon the example they set, the mob of tomorrow may, 
 and probably will, hang or burn, some of them by the 
 very same mistake. And not only so, the innocent, those 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 85 
 
 who have ever set their faces against violations of law in 
 every shape, alike with the guilty fall victims to the rav- 
 ages of the mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, 
 till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and 
 property of individuals are trodden down and disre- 
 garded. 
 
 "Turn then to the horror striking scene at St. Louis, 
 a single victim only, was sacrificed there. This story is 
 very short, and is the most highly tragic of anything in 
 its length that has ever been witnessed in real life. A 
 mulatto man by the name of Mcintosh was seized in the 
 street, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, 
 and actually burned to death; and all within a single hour 
 from the time he had been a freeman attending to his 
 own business and at peace with the world. Such are the 
 effects of mob law, and such are the scenes becoming 
 more and more frequent in this land, so lately famed for 
 its love of law and order, and the stories of which have 
 now grown too familiar to attract anything more than an 
 idle remark. 
 
 "Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocratic spirit 
 which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the 
 strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of 
 those constituted like ours, may be effectually broken 
 down and destroyed — I mean, the attachment of the peo- 
 ple. Whenever this effect shall be produced amongst us; 
 whenever the vicious portion of the population shall be 
 permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, 
 and burn churches and ravage and rob provision-stores, 
 throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors and hang 
 and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with im- 
 punity, depend upon it this government cannot last." 
 
86 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Surely, a noticeable speech is this for a young man, or 
 any man; and in its fulness of grasp of the dangers fore- 
 seen, one that might have done credit to one long ex- 
 perienced in statecraft. It is not difficult to see in several 
 parts of the address that the things that moved the soul 
 of Elijah P. Lovejoy, had likewise touched the soul of 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The campaign of 1838 went through to a successful end 
 and Lincoln continued to be, and with an added weight, 
 among the important men of this Legislature. This is 
 attested to some extent by the fact that the Whig party 
 put him forward as their candidate for Speaker of the 
 body. He received the party strength of thirty-eight 
 votes, but the Democratic was still the majority party and 
 elected William L. D. Ewing with a vote of forty-three. 
 Lincoln was again a member of the finance committee. 
 He was also a member of the committee on counties. 
 
 It was now becoming obvious to all that the noble vision 
 of a network of railroads and waterways, which the en- 
 thusiasm of the preceding Legislature had conjured up, 
 was like some rare mirage fading into nothingness at the 
 very point where realization was promised. Many years 
 were yet to pass before the far corners of the State were 
 to be joined in easy and advantageous commerce. The 
 bonds voted with such confident assurance found no pur- 
 chasers, and with no money forthcoming to pay for the 
 various improvements the enthusiasm that had urged 
 everybody on soon began to wane and in a short time the 
 project became little more than an unpleasant memory, 
 which rarely came up for discussion except for the purpose 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 87 
 
 of attempting to fix the blame. As, however, the great 
 majority of the members had been in favor of the legisla- 
 tion, the blame was so generally distributed as to prevent 
 it hurting anyone. 
 
 Lincoln appears to have taken his share with no at- 
 tempt at evading the responsibility and is said to have 
 remarked that "he guessed he was no financier." His re- 
 election was welcomed as a kind of vindication from any 
 charge of wrong doing. But it came as the result of a 
 harder fought campaign than either of the others. 
 
 His partner, John T. Stuart, was elected to Congress at 
 the same time. Stephen A. Douglas was his opponent in 
 a campaign that was waged with such bitterness that the 
 candidates came to blows at one time. Large was the 
 belligerency, if small the proportions and few the inches 
 of this young man Douglas who is so long to stand athwart 
 the pathway of Lincoln. Audacity, he has; decision, he 
 has; persistence he has. His is a genius that matures 
 early. Though four years younger than Lincoln, his dar- 
 ing will carry him to the heights earlier. Nor will the 
 defeat sustained in this campaign long retard him. More 
 and more often he and Lincoln fire verbal broadsides at 
 each other. Seldom has an opponent done so much to 
 develop an opponent as Douglas unwittingly did for Lin- 
 coln. 
 
 Physically, few men differed more. Abraham Lincoln 
 stood above most of the tall men around him; Stephen A. 
 Douglas stood below most of the short men around him. 
 And it is probable that they differed as much in man- 
 ners, methods and temperament, and in all things mental 
 as they did physically. Warm of impulse, and very fa- 
 
88 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 miliar was Douglas. Herndon describes him when walk- 
 ing with a friend as inclined to "throw an arm around 
 him," but adds that there was something in Lincoln 
 which forbade this kind of familiarity and he did not 
 indulge in it himself. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 |N THIS thirtieth year the pathway of a third woman 
 deeply paralleled his own. Lincoln was again awake to 
 the feminine influence, and again there were violent 
 mental perturbations. A Mary Todd who had made a 
 visit to Springfield in 1837, na d returned in 1839. No 
 ordinary young woman of what was then the back 
 yard of America was she. At that time, in her twenty- 
 first year, Mary Todd appears to have combined in her 
 character an unusual degree of pride and ambition, of 
 energy and decisiveness, even for one descended from a 
 most aristocratic Kentucky family. She had received 
 more than the average training considered requisite for 
 women whose lot had been placed in the upper and easier 
 levels of the social plane. Whatever the schools of that 
 day had to offer in what was demanded for the ranks 
 of the polished and cultured, this young woman pos- 
 sessed. Indeed, in the light of our knowledge of her 
 subsequent life as the wife of Abraham Lincoln, it is 
 easy to believe that not a little of the irritations that fell 
 to her lot and to her distinguished husband, resulted 
 from the tenacity with which she clung to the teachings 
 of her early days in Kentucky, and her utter inability 
 to conceive of any other medium of conduct for those 
 with whom she was allied. 
 
 89 
 
90 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 David Hume has left an observation concerning "the 
 curiosity entertained by all civilized nations of inquiring 
 into the exploits and adventures of their ancestors." A 
 similar tendency is discovered in the conduct of indi- 
 viduals and smaller groups, who would deduce from 
 merits or excellencies, either real or fancied, belonging 
 to their ancestors, similar traits in themselves. 
 
 Mary Todd, coming within the favored group, has 
 on this account been given an over-conspicuous place as 
 a historic figure. Examined more directly and critically, 
 it would be difficult to allot her any historic place aside 
 from that which has preserved to posterity the names of 
 a number of other persons and places that had some 
 associations with the career of him whose fame has no 
 connection with ancestry worship, and who without such 
 support stands pre-eminently the foremost of America's 
 sons. This man exists forever in the world of men be- 
 cause he reflects credit on his fellows, rather than because 
 they reflect credit on him. How much more exalted is 
 such glory than that found in the reflection of ancestors, 
 and, too, in a land where even the farthest tracing of 
 these must appear without significance compared with 
 the older groupings of Europe, and but as yesterday be- 
 side some of the records that might be found among the 
 Chinese. 
 
 Fate sometimes exhibits grim bits of humor, and such 
 it must have been that drew Abraham Lincoln toward 
 Mary Todd. Possibly, the so-called law of opposites had 
 something to do with it. Certainly, Lincoln, the "poor 
 white" and, according to the dominant ideas of the day, 
 the uneducated and uncultured, was soon the favored 
 suitor of Mary Todd, the aristocrat, brought up in the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 91 
 
 fastidious niceties of the drawing rooms of Europe under 
 the watchful eyes of a French instructress. The man 
 whose serious attitude toward life and whose dark mel- 
 ancholy could not be disguised even by extravagant orgies 
 of humorous story-telling, was following in the train 
 of one whose first thought was the frivols of the fashion- 
 able. He was the considerate, the kindly, the tolerant; 
 she was the sarcastic, the stinging, the impatient, and 
 intolerant. The sight of slavery, even of the lowly alien, 
 cut him to the soul; the sight of freedom save among 
 her ease loving companions, aroused in her only regrets 
 for the servile attendance of the slaves of her homeland. 
 He was profound, she was superficial. Even physically 
 the differences continued; he was tall and lank, she was 
 short and stout. Herndon has tersely said: "In her fig- 
 ure and physical proportions, in education, and bearing, 
 temperament, history — in everything, she was the exact 
 reverse of Lincoln." 
 
 From the first all save themselves recognized the utter 
 incompatibility, the total lack of harmony in their widely 
 variant temperaments. It appears, too, that Lincoln with 
 his deeper and more exact reasoning powers, after his 
 first enthusiasms over the showy and superficially bril- 
 liant young woman, with her ready alertness of mind 
 and sharpness of tongue, saw the dangers ahead. But 
 by that time in her positive and assured manner she had 
 placed him in the position of an accepted suitor. 
 
 With this realization becoming clearer, again he 
 planned to break the threatening chains of matrimony, 
 as he had planned three years earlier with Mary Owens. 
 But this young woman knew her own mind even as that 
 other had known hers; and whereas the aims of that other 
 
92 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 made his plans ludicrously unnecessary, the aims of this 
 made them entirely futile. Her vanity was fed upon 
 dreams of pomp and place and power. Though scorning 
 his somewhat lower-class manners and despising his 
 lowly kindred, she readily saw that his was a growing 
 popularity and the likelihood that he would go far in 
 the world of men. Besides, there was a certain aloofness, 
 a strangeness about this man. Stephen A. Douglas did 
 the things that men usually do with decidedly more 
 cleverness, but this man did not generally do the things 
 that men usually do. Such qualities go far in sustain- 
 ing the interest already excited in the young woman's 
 mind, and if the result is not real love it is something so 
 near to it that it may easily pass for the same. And so 
 it was she chose to hold him and, though patrician in all 
 else, it was she who would stoop to continue the alliance 
 to its consummation. She would do this despite the 
 difficulties made by the man himself. One of his great- 
 est biographers, Miss Tarbell, has astutely summed these 
 up in the following lines: 
 
 "Careless of forms, indifferent to society, thoughtless 
 and inattentive, he frequently failed to accompany her 
 to the merry-makings which she wanted to attend, and 
 she naturally enough resented his neglect, interpreting it 
 as a purposed slight. Sometimes in revenge she went 
 with Douglas or some other escort who offered. Re- 
 proaches and tears and misunderstandings followed. If 
 the lovers made up it was only to fall out again. At last 
 Lincoln become convinced that they were incompatible 
 and resolved that he must break the engagement. But 
 the knowledge that the girl loved him took away his 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 93 
 
 courage. He felt that he must not draw back and he 
 became profoundly miserable." 
 
 How to accomplish this was no easy matter, but he 
 finally bethought himself of breaking relations by means 
 of a letter. Herndon thus tells the outcome of his effort: 
 "One evening Lincoln came into our store and called for 
 his warm friend Speed. Together they walked back to 
 the fireplace, where Lincoln drawing from his pocket 
 a letter, asked Speed to read it. The letter, relates Speed, 
 was addressed to Mary Todd, and in it he made a plain 
 statement of his feelings, telling her that he had thought 
 the matter over calmly and with great deliberation, and 
 now felt that he did not love her sufficiently to warrant 
 her in marrying him. This letter he desired me to de- 
 liver. Upon my declining to do so he threatened to 
 entrust it to some other person's hand. I reminded him 
 that the moment he placed the letter in Miss Todd's hand 
 she would have the advantage over him. Words are 
 forgotten,' I said, 'misunderstood, unnoticed in private 
 conversation, but once put your words in writing and 
 they stand a living and eternal monument against you.' 
 Thereupon, I threw the unfortunate letter in the fire. 
 'Now' I continued, 'If you have the courage of manhood, 
 go see Mary Todd yourself; tell her if you do not love 
 her, the facts, and that you will not marry her, be care- 
 ful not to say too much, and then leave at your earliest 
 opportunity.' Thus admonished, he buttoned his coat 
 and with a rather determined look started out to perform 
 the serious duty for which I had just given him explicit 
 directions. That night Speed did not go upstairs to bed 
 with us, but — under the pretense of wanting to read, 
 remained in the store below. He was waiting for Lin- 
 
94 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 coin's return. Ten o'clock passed, and still the interview 
 with Miss Todd had not ended. At length, shortly after 
 eleven, he came stalking in. Speed was satisfied from 
 the length of Lincoln's stay that his directions had not 
 been followed. 'Well, Old Fellow, did you do as I told 
 you and you promised?' were Speed's first words. 'Yes, 
 I did,' responded Lincoln, thoughtfully, 'and when I 
 told Mary that I did not love her, she burst into tears 
 and almost springing from her chair and wringing her 
 hands as if in agony, said something about the deceiver 
 being himself deceived.' Then he stopped. 'What else 
 did you say?' inquired Speed drawing the facts from 
 him. 'To tell you the truth, Speed, it was too much for 
 me, I found the tears trickling down my own cheeks, I 
 caught her in my arms and kissed her.' 'And that's how 
 you broke your engagement,' sneered Speed. 'You not 
 only acted the fool, but your conduct was tantamount 
 to a renewal of the engagement and in decency you can- 
 not back down now.' 'Well,' drawled Lincoln, 'If I'm in 
 again, so be it, it's done and I shall abide by it.' " 
 
 It is not difficult to see that Lincoln had made no great 
 advance in knowledge of the other sex since his ludicrous 
 failure to gauge the intentions of Miss Owens three years 
 earlier. He recognized now that the die had been cast, 
 and whatever his apprehensions moved on toward what 
 seemed would be an orthodox ending in matters of the 
 kind. But the end was not yet, and before that end was 
 to be the tongues of the town of Springfield were to wag 
 in awe-struck wonder at the unorthodox conduct of a 
 lowly descended swain who had offended in the last 
 measure a young woman of the aristocracy who delighted 
 in tracing her ancestry back through the centuries, thus 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 95 
 
 giving indubitable proof of the fact that she was a person 
 of consequence. 
 
 Three sisters, each in the upper social levels of Spring- 
 field, doubtless saw with trepidation the impending de- 
 scent of the younger member of the family into the un- 
 certain currents of the commonalty below, and doubtless 
 there was the dread, known only to the woman of fash- 
 ion at an oncoming social breach. The likelihood is that 
 each offered the wisdom so usual to the mature woman 
 in matters of this kind and advised with all the tact neces- 
 sary in approaching a young lady, headstrong beyond 
 the average, at the point of her affections. One of these, 
 Mrs. Edwards, wife of Ninian Edwards, one of the most 
 prominent men of Springfield, in a statement made 
 shortly after the death of Lincoln, and perhaps softened 
 by the fulness of the glory that was then his, but tem- 
 pered by her obvious superior class feeling, has given 
 us her idea of the man and woman in the case. "I have 
 often happened in the room where they were sitting," 
 she relates, "and Mary invariably led the conversation, 
 Mr. Lincoln would sit at her side and listen. He scarcely 
 said a word, but gazed on her as if irresistibly drawn 
 toward her by some superior and unseen power. He 
 could not maintain himself in a continued conversation 
 with a lady reared as Mary was. He was not educated 
 and equipped mentally to make himself either interest- 
 ing or attractive to ladies. He was a good, honest, and 
 sincere young man whose rugged and manly qualities I 
 admired, but to me he somehow seemed ill-constituted by 
 nature and education to please such a woman as my sister. 
 Mary was quick, gay, and in the social world somewhat 
 brilliant. She loved show and power, and was the most 
 
96 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 ambitious woman I ever knew. Although Mr. Lincoln 
 seemed attached to Mary, and fascinated by her wit and 
 sagacity, yet I soon began to doubt whether they could al- 
 ways be so congenial. In a short time I told Mary my 
 impression that they were not suited, or as some persons 
 who believe matches are made in heaven would say, not 
 intended for each other." Here is something of humor, 
 however unintentional. Lincoln, with a background of 
 Blackstone, Lincoln, the lawyer and student of Voltaire 
 and Volney, Gibbons and Paine, Shakespeare and Burns, 
 Lincoln the prominent member of the Legislature, over- 
 shadowed in this lady's opinion by her young sister just 
 out of a boarding school. 
 
 Perhaps the height of the illogical is arguing the logical 
 in affairs of the heart. Anyway, the companionship of 
 the lady of high social levels and the man of levels farther 
 down in the social plane went on without abatement, 
 regardless of the opinion of the sister with her maturer 
 wisdom. And despite, too, a diversion due to attention 
 paid the young lady by no less a personage than Stephen 
 A. Douglas, younger but wiser than Lincoln in matters 
 feminine. Perhaps, biological impulses decided the issue 
 in favor of the man who was very tall and against the 
 man who was very short, with a lady herself short; at 
 least no better reason is given by those who mention the 
 affair. 
 
 From that time the developments as told by Herndon, 
 follow: "The time fixed for the marriage was the first 
 day of January, 1841. Careful preparations for the happy 
 occasion were made at the Edwards mansion. The house 
 underwent the customary renovation; the furniture was 
 properly arranged, the rooms neatly decorated, the sup- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 97 
 
 per prepared, and the guests invited. The latter as- 
 sembled on the evening in question, and awaited in 
 expectant pleasure the interesting ceremony of marriage. 
 The bride bedecked in veil and silken gown, and ner- 
 vously toying with the flowers in her hair, sat in the 
 adjoining room. Nothing was lacking but the groom. 
 For some strange reason he had been delayed. An hour 
 passed, and the guests as well as the bride became rest- 
 less. But they were all doomed to disappointment. An- 
 other hour passed; messengers were sent out over town, 
 and each returning with the same report, it became 
 apparent that Lincoln, the principal in this little drama, 
 had purposely failed to appear! The bride, in grief, dis- 
 appeared to her room; the wedding supper was left un- 
 touched; the guests quietly and wonderingly withdrew; 
 the lights in the Edwards mansion were blown out, and 
 darkness settled over all for the night. What the feel- 
 ings of a lady as sensitive, passionate, and proud as Miss 
 Todd were we can only imagine — no one can ever de- 
 scribe them. By daybreak, after persistent search, Lin- 
 coln's friends found him. Restless, gloomy, miserable, 
 desperate, he seemed an object of pity. His friends, 
 Speed among the number, fearing a tragic termination, 
 watched him closely in their rooms day and night. 
 "Knives and razors, and every instrument that could be 
 used for self-destruction were removed from his reach." 
 Mrs. Edwards did not hesitate to regard him as insane, 
 and of course her sister Mary shared in that view. But 
 the case was hardly so desperate. His condition began 
 to improve after a few weeks, and a letter written to his 
 partner Stuart, January 23, 1841, three weeks after the 
 scene at Edwards' house, reveals more perfectly how he 
 
98 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 felt. He says: "I am now the most miserable man liv- 
 ing. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole 
 human family, there would not be one cheerful face on 
 earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I 
 awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is 
 impossible. I must die or be better, as it appears to me. 
 ... I fear I shall be unable to attend to any business 
 here, and a change of scene might help me. If I could 
 be myself I would rather remain at home with Judge 
 Logan. I can write no more." 
 
 Notwithstanding the hue and cry raised by those who 
 resent this recital, a close investigation in the light of all 
 the facts now at hand leads to the belief that it contains 
 more truth than can be drawn from any other original 
 source. Whatever exceptions may be urged or errors 
 asserted, practically all his biographers reprint the nar- 
 rative in full. It may be that it contains some errors of 
 detail; the bride may not have worn a veil, she may not 
 have worn a silk gown, or was not "nervously toying 
 with the flowers in her hair." Certainly the main argu- 
 ment of the narrative is not rebutted by such exceptions. 
 There seems no reason whatever to doubt that on the 
 night when these two were to be married, the prospective 
 bridegroom became panic stricken, overwhelmed prob- 
 ably at the uncertain prospect of future happiness, and at 
 the last moment absented himself from, and utterly 
 ruined what was to have been an event memorable in 
 the social calendar of Springfield, but which became the 
 more memorable because of the failure of the promised 
 ceremony. 
 
 Also, it appears that thereafter Lincoln suffered a long 
 period of melancholia, more intense than any since the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 99 
 
 death of Ann Rutledge. It may be that there were 
 serious thoughts of suicide, as some of his friends feared. 
 All this is well within the range of the logical, if we re- 
 member how terribly serious it was at that time to have 
 heaped so awful a measure of humiliation on a lady of 
 the most exalted station in the social world. Doubtless 
 the wrong was aggravated somewhat, coming as it did 
 at the hands of one whose lot was cast in the outer dark- 
 ness of the commonalty. 
 
 The lady's closet female relatives appear to have 
 promptly agreed that Lincoln was crazy. Only such a 
 contingency could account for such ineptitude, such in- 
 ability to recognize the advantages of such an alliance. 
 Conclusions of this kind were considerably overdrawn, as 
 has been demonstrated by several methodical investi- 
 gators. Herndon, too, was certainly in error in saying 
 that Lincoln absented himself from the Legislature then 
 in session. Miss Tarbell, Dr. Barton, and others, make 
 this clear by an examination of the roll call of the ses- 
 sion, which shows that the recreant bridegroom was 
 actually present in the Legislature on the second day of 
 January, 1841, the very day after his panicky retreat from 
 the confines of the altar. The third was on Sunday, and 
 though he was not shown present on Monday the fourth, 
 he was there "every legislative day until the thirteenth. 
 He was absent from the thirteenth to the eighteenth." 
 He was present on the nineteenth and absent on the 
 twentieth, "but present again on the twenty-first and 
 every day thereafter until the end of the session, March 
 first." In fact, in both January and the following month 
 Lincoln had better than the average of attendance in the 
 Legislature. It is true that during this period he wrote 
 
100 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 many sad letters that indicated the depths of despair, but 
 it is noted that he was able to attend to legislative busi- 
 ness. It is shown that on the very day when he com- 
 posed one of the saddest of these, sent to his law partner, 
 John Stuart, describing himself as mentioned above, as 
 "the most miserable man living," he made a speech to 
 the legislative body. 
 
 From his earliest days in New Salem he had met with 
 the friendliest attitude on the part of the villagers, both 
 men and women. Through all his stay in the village he 
 had retained that friendship, thus early gained. He had 
 come to Springfield with the prestige acquired by having 
 been perhaps the most potent figure of the group that 
 swung the Legislature into selecting that town as the 
 capital, and so had the good graces of the townfolk from 
 the beginning. This friendship, too, he had retained 
 and augmented, until now. Then too, Lincoln was a 
 highly social man, and needed and enjoyed friendships 
 probably more than most strong men. For the first time 
 a peculiarly sensitive mind was being made to feel the 
 deep sting of mass hostility, bitter and personal, and the 
 more hurtful, coming as it did from those who were 
 once his friends. Already his soul was heavy with the 
 thought of a cruel wrong done to a woman and so the 
 oppressive weight of the thing struck with a more crush- 
 ing force. It is not to be wondered, then, that he began 
 to feel that a change of scene might help him. 
 
 In view of the rather insistent skepticism which has in 
 some instances sought to question and invalidate the re- 
 citals of Herndon, and which is probably due to the 
 average person's demand that a hero always wear his 
 halo, it may be permissible to add a bit of corroborative 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 101 
 
 testimony. It is taken from one who is bitterly hostile 
 and who aimed to discredit Herndon's account, which 
 was construed as a libel on a kinswoman. Miss Tarbell's 
 industry in bringing out the obscure facts of this incident 
 in the life of Lincoln has called forth a statement from 
 Mrs. B. T. Edwards, who was the wife of Benjamin Ed- 
 wards, brother of Ninian Edwards, with whom Miss 
 Todd lived and who had married her sister. This lady 
 is approved by Miss Tarbell as of "the most perfect re- 
 finement and trustworthiness." Mrs. Edwards proceeds 
 with the vigor of intense dislike to deny and show disap- 
 proval of the Herndon statement, but it is readily seen 
 that the denial concerns the more unimportant details 
 rather than the substantial facts of his assertions. She 
 says: "I am impatient to tell you that all he says about 
 this wedding — the time for which was fixed for the first 
 day of January, is a fabrication. He has drawn largely 
 from his imagination in describing something that never 
 took place." Then she adds this definite and highly 
 illuminating statement: "I know the engagement be- 
 tween Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd was interrupted for 
 a time and it was rumored among her young friends that 
 Mr. Edwards had opposed it. But I am sure there had 
 been no date fixed for any wedding; that is, no prepa- 
 rations had ever been made until the day Mr. Lincoln 
 met Mr. Edwards on the street and told him that he and 
 Mary were going to be married that evening. Upon 
 inquiry Mr. Lincoln said they would be married in the 
 Episcopal Church, to which Mr. Edwards replied, "No; 
 Mary is my ward and must be married at my house." 
 And then the lady proceeds: "If I remember rightly, 
 the wedding guests were few, not more than thirty; and 
 
102 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 it seems to me all are gone now but Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. 
 Levering and myself, for it was not much more than a 
 family gathering; only two or three of Miss Todd's 
 young friends were present. The entertainment was 
 simple but in beautiful taste, but the bride had neither 
 veil nor flowers in her hair with which to toy nervously. 
 There had been no elaborate trousseau for the bride of 
 the future President of the United States, nor even a 
 handsome wedding gown; nor was it a gay wedding." 
 
 It will be easily discovered that most of this angry 
 protest tends to support rather than refute the statements 
 of Herndon. Remembering the general desire of folk 
 that their kith and kin play heroic roles, it is in the line of 
 the usual to expect here a note of resentment on the part 
 of those allied to the lady of the drama; and, too, there 
 will be a certain parading of mock gallantry on the part 
 of some for the benefit of those likely to be impressed 
 by it. In addition, the great army of ardent hero-wor- 
 shippers will demand that the hero of the drama be 
 portrayed only in heroic parts. From such soil has 
 sprung much of the criticism hurled at the devoted Hern- 
 don for his revealing narrative, and occasionally a will- 
 ingness to ascribe it to some flimsy or fantastic motive, 
 such as enmity to the lady or treachery to a friend dead, 
 where there had been only loyalty to him living. 
 
 The sequel to the happenings of that evening came on 
 slowly. Some twenty-two months later, James H. Ma- 
 theney, a very close friend, was accosted by Lincoln. It 
 was the afternoon of the fourth day of November, 1842. 
 "Jim," he said, "I shall have to marry that girl." "Lin- 
 coln looked and acted as if he were going to the slaugh- 
 ter," Matheney, his best man, commented. A similar 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 103 
 
 indication is seen a short time before the wedding, when 
 Speed Butler, son of Lincoln's friend and with whom 
 he roomed, noticing the extra care with which Lincoln 
 was dressing asked with childish curiosity, "where he 
 was going," and received the somewhat startling and 
 laconic answer: "To hell, I suppose." 
 
 Plainly, the man was again seized with fear; but either 
 his love, however wavering, or a high sense of fairness 
 had finally brought him to the altar. Abraham Lincoln 
 and Mary Todd were man and wife. 
 
 Rev. Charles Dresser, in the gorgeous robes prescribed 
 for such occasions, solemnly recited the impressive Epis- 
 copal marriage service. He passed the ring to the groom 
 to place on the bride's finger. The latter proceeded to 
 do this, at the same time repeating after the clergyman 
 the declaration of the ritual: "With this ring I thee endow 
 with all my goods and chattels, lands and tenements." 
 In the intense silence the words carried clear and strong 
 to all parts of the room. Almost immediately there was 
 heard another voice in whispered but excited comment. 
 Justice Thomas C. Brown, of the Supreme Court had 
 served many years in that exalted station but had never 
 before attended such a service. Suddenly recalling that 
 the Illinois law endowed the wife with the goods of her 
 husband and hearing a lawyer repeat the legally needless 
 terms, he had been unable to restrain himself, and so all 
 those present heard his exclamation: "God Almighty! 
 Lincoln, the Statute fixes all that." The sudden injec- 
 tion of this note of the ridiculous where before there had 
 been only profound solemnity came near to disrupting 
 the ceremony. Rev. Dresser, himself, found it difficult 
 to restrain his tendency to laughter. 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 |N 1842, with his fourth term in the Legislature com- 
 ing to an end, Lincoln made it known that he would no 
 longer seek to retain that honor. No definite reason was 
 assigned, but there is reason to believe he concluded that 
 any further stay in that body would conduce little to his 
 political advancement. At this time, too, Lincoln's repu- 
 tation was such that he could command considerable 
 support for places of more importance. A year earlier 
 he had been mentioned among others for the governor- 
 ship. It does not appear that he encouraged this move, 
 for even then he seems to have fixed his ambition on a 
 seat in Congress. Between him and the place he de- 
 sired, however, there were obstacles more difficult to sur- 
 mount than any he had met in his legislative career. 
 
 This ambition to enter Congress is said to have caused 
 friction between Lincoln and Judge Logan, with whom 
 he was then associated. He had joined Logan in the 
 spring of 184 1 after John T. Stuart had entered Con- 
 gress. There was little similarity between the two men. 
 Logan was studious, methodical, and highly technical; 
 Lincoln would hardly have been considered either of 
 these, looked at merely as a lawyer. The fact that 
 Logan, older, more experienced, and with the qualities 
 
 104 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 105 
 
 mentioned, chose him for associate, makes it clear that 
 Lincoln was not without special abilities that gave prom- 
 ise of worthwhile achievement in his chosen field of law. 
 Already he had, perhaps always had, an aptness for stat- 
 ing a proposition in a manner that appealed to a jury. 
 It may be that his constant practice of story telling put 
 him in closer touch with men in groups and made him 
 better able to judge what would appeal to them. It hap- 
 pened, however, that Judge Logan had an ambition to 
 sit in Congress, and that with his greater experience and 
 fuller training he believed the junior partner should have 
 given him the right of way. Lincoln's ambition for the 
 place was too strong for any such generosity. Possibly 
 relations between the two became somewhat unpleasant. 
 Certain it is that he is found taking another partner in 
 1843 shortly after the close of his service in the State 
 Legislature. William H. Herndon, the man who then 
 became his partner and remained as such to the end of 
 his days, tells of the beginning of the partnership. "That 
 two such aspiring politicians, each striving to attain the 
 same prize, should not dwell harmoniously together in 
 the same office is not strange. Indeed, we may reason- 
 ably credit the story that they considered themselves 
 rivals, and that numerous acrimonious passages took 
 place between them. I was not surprised, therefore one 
 morning, to see Mr. Lincoln come rushing up into my 
 quarters and with more or less agitation tell me he had 
 determined to sever the partnership with Logan. I con- 
 fess I was surprised when he invited me to become his 
 partner. I was young in the practice and was painfully 
 aware of my want of ability and experience; but when he 
 remarked in his earnest, honest way, 'Billy, I can trust 
 
106 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 you, if you can trust me,' I felt relieved, and accepted 
 the generous proposal. It has always been a matter of 
 pride with me that during our long partnership, con- 
 tinuing on until it was dissolved by the bullet of the 
 assassin Booth, we never had any personal controversy 
 or disagreement. I never stood in his way for political 
 honors or office, and I believe we understood each other 
 perfectly. In after years, when he became more promi- 
 nent, and our practice grew to respectable proportions, 
 other ambitious practitioners undertook to supplant me 
 in the partnership. One of the latter, more zealous than 
 wise, charged that I was in a certain way weakening the 
 influence of the firm. I am flattered to know that Lin- 
 coln turned on this last named individual with the retort, 
 'I know my own business, I reckon. I know Billy Hern- 
 don better than anybody, and even if what you say of 
 him is true I intend to stick by him.' " 
 
 Few partnerships have been so entirely harmonious, 
 so free from unpleasant features, and especially where 
 continued over so long a period. Also few partnerships 
 have produced results so entirely satisfactory to the 
 parties concerned as that which brought Abraham Lin- 
 coln and young Herndon together. As a rule it is the 
 younger man who expects to, and who does derive most 
 benefit from a partnership of this kind. As seen in the 
 light of after years and events the association of Lincoln 
 and Herndon gave more to the older. As a rule, too, 
 it is the man of smaller talent that receives the stronger 
 mental stimulus where such contacts are established. 
 The reverse appears to have followed in this instance. 
 No one would claim that Herndon was the stronger of 
 the two forces thus brought together, and Herndon him- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 107 
 
 self, would have been the last to have advanced such a 
 claim; but weighing closely the effects produced by each 
 upon the other, there is much reason to believe it was 
 Lincoln, the greater force, that was most strongly 
 influenced. 
 
 Any deviation of the rules mentioned may be accounted 
 for by the varying elements that entered into the make- 
 up of the two men. Lincoln was always a seeker after 
 knowledge in a broad way, arriving at fixed conclusions 
 rarely, except after exhaustive analysis. His mind had a 
 wide range of speculation for any subject that came 
 before it. Such a mind does not reach the stage of assur- 
 ance as quickly as that other type that has in it less of 
 breadth, less of the exhaustive, but more of the vivid. 
 This type, with a lesser range of speculation, is more 
 quickly and strongly convinced. The swing of the pen- 
 dulum in them is less extended, and there is less room 
 for doubts and uncertainties. Herndon had such a mind, 
 and with it high enthusiasms. He held few half-beliefs. 
 He could believe until he felt in his "very bones," and 
 of his beliefs none was stronger than that of the wrong- 
 ness of slavery and the righteousness of the fight against 
 it. He believed strongly, too, that his partner was an 
 unusual man and likely to mount high in the world. 
 Probably he early connected the two beliefs and saw in 
 Lincoln the victor in the fight to end the former. Cer- 
 tain it is that the younger man is seen constantly watch- 
 ing over and promoting the desires of the older, and 
 with somewhat the care of a parent. Always in the 
 twenty years of their association he is planning the ad- 
 vancement of Lincoln and the overthrow of slavery. 
 
 Wherever in this land a book was written, a speech 
 
108 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 made, or a magazine or newspaper article brought forth 
 that tended to verify the proclamation of the fathers 
 of the republic "that all men are created equal," it was 
 Herndon who examined it carefully, and if there was 
 force in the argument he saw that it came to Mr. Lin- 
 coln's eyes. It was he who followed the movement, 
 inaugurated in Britain a generation earlier by Wilber- 
 force, to its final success in the British West Indies, mak- 
 ing the air of those islands as incapable of sustaining 
 slavery as Lord Mansfield had found that of the mother 
 country to be more than a half century earlier. And 
 whatever lesson or argument could be drawn from that 
 movement was brought to the attention of the senior 
 partner. To his already intimate knowledge of the 
 subject, was added that of the statecraft of Britain. 
 
 Lincoln's every move was seen and noted, whether 
 mental or physical; even to how he stood in speaking, 
 how he placed his feet in walking, and how he ate an 
 apple. No such careful observation of one man by an- 
 other has been seen since the day when James Boswell 
 observed Samuel Johnson and his idiosyncrasies. But 
 in Herndon there was nothing whatever of the syco- 
 phant; rather, there was something of a creator. In 
 the making of the man Abraham Lincoln, one of the 
 large individual factors was the man William H. Hern- 
 don. This young man loved great men but was in no 
 wise awed by them. It took such a man to write Theo- 
 dore Parker, eight years his senior and one of the giants 
 of that day: "Quit reading and writing, if you can, and 
 go off on a spree." 
 
 More noticeable than any temporary strain on the 
 friendship of Lincoln and Logan over their clashing 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 109 
 
 ambitions, was the fact that Lincoln and two other men, 
 all ambitious for the same honor, went through a strenu- 
 ous campaign without any loss of friendship. Both 
 Edward D. Baker and John J. Hardin sought the nomi- 
 nation on the Whig side for the election of 1844. The 
 convention of the Whigs in Sangamon county selected 
 Baker with a long residence there, over Lincoln, who 
 was made one of the delegates to the general conven- 
 tion. Lincoln was thus placed in the position of having 
 to fight to put his rival over. He saw something of the 
 humor of the thing and in a letter to Speed told him: 
 "We had a meeting of the Whigs of the County here 
 on the last Monday, to appoint delegates to a district 
 Convention; and Baker beat me, and got the delegation 
 to go for him. The meeting in spite of my attempt to 
 decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so that in 
 getting Baker the nomination, I shall be fixed a good 
 deal like a fellow who is made groomsman to a man that 
 has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear gal !" 
 
 Baker, victorious over Lincoln, was yet denied the prize 
 he sought, for it was Hardin who received the nomina- 
 tion in the district convention held at the town of Pekin. 
 Here with Lincoln strongly supporting the man who 
 had won the indorsement of Sangamon county from 
 him, the first ballot had resulted in a tie vote of fifteen 
 each for Hardin and Baker, but at that moment, another 
 delegate arrived, a close friend of Baker, but from a 
 county that had instructed him for Hardin. After he 
 had explained this to Baker and his intention to abide 
 by his instructions, the latter replied: "You are right, 
 there is no other way." Baker then withdrew his can- 
 didacy and Hardin was nominated by acclamation. 
 
110 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Lincoln supported him energetically in the campaign 
 which followed. 
 
 The hard fight left the friendship of the three men 
 unshaken, but Lincoln had felt keenly the defeat he had 
 received in his own county of Sangamon. In a letter 
 to a friend in Menard county, he writes a letter explain- 
 ing the result. "It is truly gratifying to me to learn that 
 while the people of Sangamon have cast me off, my 
 old friends of Menard, who have known me longest 
 and best, stick to me. It would astonish if not amuse 
 the older citizens to learn that I (a stranger, friendless, 
 uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat-boat at 
 ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the 
 candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family dis- 
 tinction. Yet, so, chiefly, it was. There was, too, the 
 strangest combination of church influence against me. 
 Baker is a Campbellite, and therefore as I suppose, with 
 few exceptions, got all that church. My wife has some 
 relations in the Presbyterian churches and some with the 
 Episcopalian churches, and therefore, wherever it would 
 tell, I was set down as either the one or the other, while 
 it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought 
 to go for me, because I belonged to no church, was sus- 
 pected of being a deist, and had talked about fighting a 
 duel. With all these things Baker, of course, had noth- 
 ing to do; nor do I complain of them. As to his own 
 church going for him I think that was right enough; and 
 as to the influences I have spoken of in the other, though 
 they were very strong, it would be grossly untrue and 
 unjust to charge that they acted upon them in a body, 
 or were very near so. I only mean that those influences 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 111 
 
 levied a tax of considerable per cent and throughout the 
 religious controversy." 
 
 Lincoln's first effort to enter the legislative body of his 
 State had resulted in failure and his first effort to enter 
 the legislative body of his nation had ended in failure. 
 But if it was little more than a youth, and with small 
 preparation, who sought the first place, it was a man, 
 and with a profound knowledge of political craft, who 
 sought the other. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 I HE campaign of 1844 found Mr. Lincoln enthusi- 
 astically on the side of Henry Clay for President. This 
 meant of course, that with the other Whigs he was op- 
 posed to the admission of Texas as a member of the 
 Union. This opposition was based almost wholly on 
 the opposition to slavery, which the greater part of the 
 party believed would be extended into that state in the 
 event of its admission. The party was not unreservedly 
 committed to an anti-slavery platform, but it went 
 further in its opposition to the extension of slavery than 
 any major party had yet done. 
 
 Clay was a slave holder, but like most of the fathers 
 of the Republic he believed slavery to be an evil and 
 one that ultimately must be gotten rid of. Though Clay 
 was the most admired of the American statesmen, the 
 popular feeling was so strongly bent in favor of the ad- 
 mission of the new State and so strongly against Mexico 
 in its futile attempts to crush its rebellious colony, that 
 even the popularity of Clay was not sufficient to give 
 victory to his party. By the closest of popular votes, 
 the election had gone to the Democrats. Lincoln had 
 been one of the electors for the Whigs and had delivered 
 many speeches in the campaign, a number of them in 
 
 112 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 113 
 
 his old home section of Indiana where he met many of 
 his boyhood acquaintances. 
 
 In that campaign the slavery question came to the 
 front as one of the leading issues, in spite of the efforts 
 of many of the leaders of the older political parties to 
 keep so dangerous an issue in the background. The 
 Whig leaders, reluctant to stand definitely against the 
 slave system, because they realized it would make an end 
 of the party in the southern States, found themselves con- 
 fronted by a kind of insurrection in the North which 
 took the form of the Liberty party, frankly dedicated to 
 securing freedom for the slaves. James G. Birney, who 
 had freed his own slaves in Alabama as an earnest of his 
 own strong convictions, was chosen as its candidate. He 
 received a comparatively small vote, as is likely to be the 
 case with any new party under the American system, 
 lacking both thorough organization as well as patronage; 
 but, as is not often the case, the new party received 
 enough votes in certain crucial states to defeat Clay, the 
 most popular American statesman. So it was that James 
 K. Polk, comparatively little known as compared with 
 Clay, came to the Presidential office not long before held 
 by his fellow-townsman, Andrew Jackson, of Nashville, 
 Tennessee. It was obvious that the anti-slavery sentiment 
 was now a thing to be reckoned with. 
 
 In his own State in the northern section, Lincoln had 
 seen a considerable number of followers of this party, 
 and it became more necessary for him to make his own 
 views on slavery clear to this group, for in the campaign 
 for Congress the issue came up from time to time. This 
 he did in a letter to Williamson Durley, in which he ques- 
 
114 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 tioned the wisdom of the Liberty party's attitude in the 
 last campaign. 
 
 "When I saw you at home," Lincoln began, "it was 
 agreed that I should write to you and your brother Madi- 
 son. Until I then saw you I was not aware of your being 
 what is generally called an Abolitionist, or, as you call 
 yourself, a Liberty man, though I well knew there were 
 many such in your country. 
 
 "I was glad to hear that you intended to attempt to 
 bring about, at the next election in Putnam, a union of 
 the Whigs proper and such of the Liberty men as are 
 Whigs in principle on all questions save only that of 
 slavery. So far as I can perceive, by such union neither 
 party need yield anything on the point in difference be- 
 tween them. If the Whig abolitionists of New York 
 had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be 
 President, Whig principles in the ascendant, and Texas 
 not annexed; whereas, by the division, all that either had 
 at stake in the contest was lost. And, indeed, it was 
 extremely probable, before hand, that such would be the 
 result. As I always understood, the Liberty men depre- 
 cated the annexation of Texas extremely; and this being 
 so, why they should refuse to cast their votes (so) as to 
 prevent it, even to me seemed wonderful. What was 
 their process of reasoning, I can only judge from what 
 a single one of them told me. It was this: 'We are 
 not to do evil that good may come.' This general propo- 
 sition is doubtless correct; but did it apply? If by your 
 votes you could have prevented the extension, etc., of 
 slavery, would it not have been good, and not evil, so 
 to have used your votes, even though it involved the 
 casting of them for a slave-holder ? By the fruit the tree 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 115 
 
 is to be known. An evil tree cannot bring forth good 
 fruit. If the fruit of electing Mr. Clay would have been 
 to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of 
 electing have been evil? 
 
 "But I will not argue further. I perhaps ought to say 
 that individually I never was much interested in the 
 Texas question. I never could see much good to come 
 of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free 
 republican people on our own model. On the other 
 hand, I never could very clearly see how the annexation 
 would augment the evil of slavery. It always seemed to 
 me that slaves would be taken there in about equal num- 
 bers, with or without annexation. And if more were 
 taken because of annexation, still there would be just 
 so many the fewer left where they were taken from. 
 It is possibly true, to some extent, that, with annexation, 
 some slaves may be sent to Texas and continued in slavery 
 that otherwise might have been liberated. To whatever 
 extent this may be true, I think annexation an evil. I 
 hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free States, 
 due to the Union of the States, and perhaps to liberty 
 itself (paradox though it may seem), to let the slavery 
 of the other States alone; while, on the other hand, I 
 hold it to be equally clear that we should never know- 
 ingly lend ourselves, directly or indirectly, to prevent 
 that slavery from dying a natural death — to find new 
 places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in 
 the old. Of course I am not now considering what 
 would be our duty in cases of insurrection among the 
 slaves. To recur to the Texas question, I understand 
 the Liberty men to have viewed annexation as a much 
 greater evil than ever I did; and I would like to con- 
 
116 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 vince you, if I could, that they could have prevented it, 
 without violation of principle, if they had chosen." 
 
 There appears to have been some understanding be- 
 tween Hardin, Baker and Lincoln, with possibly Logan 
 included, that each would content himself with one 
 term in Congress. It was easier to make such an agree- 
 ment than to live up to it on the part of the successful 
 man, as was later experienced by Hardin with the end of 
 his term in sight, as well as by Lincoln at a similar 
 period, for each desired much to continue in the office. 
 However, Hardin and Baker having reached the goal, 
 and the end of the former's term being in sight, Lincoln 
 was soon actively seeking support for the place. Such a 
 situation would have precipitated enmity between men 
 of ordinary type; but though each sought by all honor- 
 able means to promote his own interests there was no 
 break in their friendship, and finally Hardin conceded 
 the nomination to Lincoln, who at once launched 
 strongly into the campaign. 
 
 In the meantime, Peter Cartwright, a widely known 
 Methodist preacher and evangelist, had received the 
 nomination for the Democratic party. That campaign 
 was long and hard fought. The Democratic candidate 
 was especially noted for the physical energy with which 
 he thundered forth his denunciations of the ungodly. 
 He had but little less patience with the self-contained 
 conservatives in the pulpit and church than he had for 
 those whom he denounced as hell-bound sinners. Lis- 
 tening to the prayer of a church officer one day that had 
 in it much more of the rational than of fervor, he is said 
 to have exclaimed: "Brother, three prayers like the one 
 you have just prayed, would freeze hell over." 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 117 
 
 There is a story that during this campaign Lincoln 
 happened one evening to be in a town where Cartwright 
 was holding a meeting and went in to hear the sermon. 
 As was commonly done at that day, Cartwright near the 
 close of the service called upon the Christians in the 
 audience to stand; after this he called for those who 
 desired to be saved and go to heaven to stand. Lincoln 
 stood on neither occasion. The story goes on that the 
 preacher, addressing himself directly to the obstinate one, 
 proceeded: "I have asked those who expected to go to 
 heaven, to rise, I will now ask those who expect to go 
 to hell to rise." There was deep silence, but with the 
 eyes of the congregation fixed on him, Lincoln kept his 
 seat. At this Cartwright said: "I see Mr. Lincoln in this 
 audience and as he has not chosen to answer any of the 
 questions asked, I should now like to ask him where 
 does he expect to go?" Lincoln slowly arose and in a 
 hesitant manner, said: "I had not expected to participate 
 in the service here this evening otherwise than to lend 
 my presence, but since it is insisted that I tell Mr. Cart- 
 wright my expectations, I will yield to the demand and 
 let him know that I am expecting in the near future to 
 go to Congress." It is said that the meeting closed 
 shortly thereafter. 
 
 Cartwright had honesty of purpose in a high degreej 
 and in this the two opponents were strikingly similar, 
 In two other respects these men held like views. Both 
 were strongly opposed to slavery and both were strongly 
 opposed to drinking. Here all similarities ended, and 
 even here their widely divergent temperaments made 
 their attitudes toward the two things they both hated, 
 very different. With Cartwright there were no shadings 
 
118 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 blending between right and wrong in his fellows. What 
 he saw he saw vividly and sometimes violently. The 
 things he condemned he condemned strongly and posi- 
 tively. For Lincoln, there was good and bad, or bad and 
 good in all men. He rarely saw the one entirely detached 
 from the other, and so it was he was never able to con- 
 demn violently even the worst of men. It would be 
 difficult to think of any other historic figure possessed of 
 so vast a tolerance and so large a charity for the frailties 
 of his fellows. 
 
 In the ensuing campaign the old charges, that Lincoln 
 belonged to the aristocracy, that he was a deist, that he 
 had engaged in a duel, and that he had asserted that 
 drunkards were as good as any other people, were re- 
 peated with much frequency. That first charge appears 
 to have caused him serious worry, for it cut him deeply 
 to think that the friends of the old days there at New 
 Salem, the unswerving loyalties of the "Clary's Grove 
 Boys" should be cooled or lost because of any fancied 
 preference on his part for the aristocratic folk he had 
 become allied with by reason of his marriage. Perhaps 
 Lincoln prized the friendship of these "Boys," as they 
 always remained to him, more than that of any group 
 anywhere. It was they that had been with him, regard- 
 less of where he fought, or with whom, like the Old 
 Guard of the great Corsican. To Matheney, one of 
 them, and best man at his wedding, he said with deep 
 emotion that he was anything but proud and aristocratic. 
 "Why Jim, I am now and always shall be the same Abe 
 Lincoln I was when you first saw me." 
 
 The election showed that the friends of the old days 
 were still his friends and not to be alienated by the reck- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 119 
 
 less gossip of those who had never known, and perhaps 
 could not know, Abe Lincoln. He was elected by a 
 large majority. Perhaps his election to the office gave 
 him less pleasure than this new assurance that his friends 
 had not cast him off. To Speed he now writes: "Being 
 elected to Congress, though I am grateful to our friends 
 for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I 
 expected." 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 A 
 
 RRIVING at Washington in November, 1847, Lin- 
 coln found men there little different from what they 
 were in Springfield, little different from what he would 
 have found them in New York, or London; perhaps 
 but little different from what he might have found, had 
 it been his privilege some twenty centuries earlier to see 
 them, at Rome or Athens. He knew men, knew how 
 they delight in changing all things around them, but 
 will not change themselves. 
 
 These men listened to his quaint stories, some of them 
 of a kind not told around women or children, with the 
 same obvious pleasure as other men had listened to them 
 back in Illinois. 
 
 "I soon learned to know and admire Lincoln," says 
 Dr. Busey in his personal reminiscences and recollec- 
 tions, "for his simple and unostentatious manners, kind- 
 heartedness, and amusing jokes, anecdotes, and witticisms. 
 When about to tell an anecdote during a meal he would 
 lay down his knife and fork, place his elbows upon the 
 table, rest his face between his hands, and begin with 
 the words, That reminds me,' and proceed. Everybody 
 prepared for the explosion sure to follow. I recall with 
 vivid pleasure the scene of merriment at the dinner after 
 
 120 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 121 
 
 his first speech in the House of Representatives, occa- 
 sioned by the descriptions, by himself and others of the 
 congressional mess, of the uproar in the House during 
 its delivery. 
 
 "Congressman Lincoln was always neatly but very 
 plainly dressed, very simple and approachable in man- 
 ner, and unpretentious. He attended to his business, 
 going promptly to the House and remaining till the ses- 
 sion adjourned, and appeared to be familiar with the 
 progress of legislation." 
 
 Because this man knew that men do not change and 
 do not like other men who affect to change, he went on 
 his way just as he had done in the old days back on the 
 prairies of his home State. And men there in Washing- 
 ton seeing that this man was himself and did not care 
 to be any other than himself, liked him the more, just 
 as the other men had done back there in the West. So 
 it was that whether they saw him at his boarding club 
 or mess, or at his bowling alley near by, they found a 
 pleasure in him, and he in them. He in no wise departed 
 from his life-long habit, of what has sometimes been 
 thought the custom of Americans of that day and really 
 was the practice of some of "plain living and high think- 
 ing." An example of a phase of this characteristic is 
 seen in a story related by one of his friends, who says 
 that after getting some books at the library one day in 
 such number that they made an unwieldy bundle, he 
 drew a bandanna handkerchief from his pocket, knotted 
 it around the books, swung the bundle on one end of a 
 stick, balanced the stick over his shoulder with one hand 
 and with the books at the other, proceeded on his 
 
122 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 way home, and a few days later returned them in the 
 same manner. 
 
 The war with Mexico had raged one and a half years, 
 when Abraham Lincoln took his seat, December 6, 1847, 
 as a member of the lower house of Congress. He realized 
 that this was a highly popular war. The wild enthusi- 
 asm of the men of his home state to enlist with three 
 times as many presenting themselves as could be received, 
 made this clear. He saw his friend and generous political 
 opponent, Edward D. Baker, march away at the head 
 of his regiment. Another friend, and equally generous, 
 John J. Hardin, left the chair, which Lincoln was to fill, 
 in the House of Representatives and marched on to the 
 Rio Grande, where he fell at the head of his regiment. 
 
 Lincoln had entered Congress, persuaded both by his 
 own observation and close analysis of the surrounding 
 circumstances, as well as by the tenets of his party, that 
 his nation was engaged in an unwarranted war. The 
 uniform success of the United States armies in no-wise 
 altered his viewpoint. Their gallantry and steadfastness 
 might in victory after victory and continual advancing 
 into the heart of a hostile country, wring whatever of 
 glory might be found, but the Whigs found little satis- 
 faction in a gallantry that would result in strengthening 
 the slave oligarchies of the South, already so strong as 
 to be a continual menace to other sections of the country. 
 
 Convinced that the war was unjust in its beginning 
 and unrighteous in the end for which it was designed, 
 Lincoln only eighteen days after taking his seat arose 
 and presented to the body certain resolutions which be- 
 came known as the "Spot Resolutions." These resolu- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 123 
 
 tions, cleverly and adroitly formulated, were designed 
 to let the nation know that the war with Mexico had been 
 brought about, not by an invasion of American territory 
 by the armies of Mexico, but by the machinations of 
 President Polk and his advisers. 
 
 There have been men who believed that Lincoln be- 
 longed to the group of politicians who carefully gauge 
 and follow the fitful gusts of the popular will, rather 
 than to the statesmen who ponder and weigh and analyze 
 far reaching and beneficent principles, and who at the 
 risk of their political lives rise or fall with their beliefs. 
 In every age the two types have been seen, as well as the 
 various shades that range between these two. Nor can 
 we wonder at the rarity of those who stand by their 
 policies in the face of hostile public sentiment, remem- 
 bering how often the rewards these men most desire 
 depend on the approval of this same public sentiment, so 
 ready to veer from clamorous approval to clamorous 
 execration. When Lincoln, then, stood up and im- 
 peached the justice of this war, which he knew to be 
 highly popular and most especially so among the men 
 of his own State, he was displaying a bravery rarer by 
 far than that of either of his friends, Hardin or Baker. 
 He had met the supreme test with which self-governing 
 people sometimes confront their leaders, that of trying 
 to halt the stampede of a war-maddened nation. 
 
 On January 12, 1848, he supported his resolutions with 
 a speech which by its convincing clearness and cogency 
 gained him as much respect among the members of the 
 House as it gained him disapproval by the men of his 
 State. For in Illinois this war with its accumulated vic- 
 tories and no major defeats, with its horrors mostly too 
 
124 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 far away to be clearly seen, and with its likelihood of 
 enlargement of the national domain, retained its popu- 
 lar hold on the people. No political party in the nation, 
 no man hoping for political preferment, could oppose 
 it and thrive. The Whigs, while convinced that the war 
 was wrongfully precipitated by the President, were yet 
 constrained to vote whatever supplies were asked by the 
 government, since all political groups were equally rep- 
 resented at the front and few were the men of promi- 
 nence who did not have friends or kinsmen there. The 
 son of Henry Clay, who by the swing of a few votes 
 would have defeated Polk and averted the war, died on 
 the field of battle, as likewise did the son of Daniel Web- 
 ster, who strongly opposed the war. 
 
 In his speech, urging the resolutions, Lincoln said, 
 among other things : "To show their relevancy, I propose 
 to state my understanding of the true rule for ascertain- 
 ing the boundary between Texas and Mexico. It is that 
 wherever Texas was exercising jurisdiction was hers; and 
 wherever Mexico was exercising jurisdiction was hers; 
 and that whatever separated the actual exercise of juris- 
 diction of the one from that of the other was the true 
 boundary between them. If, as is probably true, Texas 
 was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the 
 Nueces and Mexico was exercising jurisdiction along 
 the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, then neither river 
 was the boundary, but the uninhabited country between 
 the two was. The extent of our territory in that region 
 depended not on any treaty fixed boundary (for no 
 treaty had attempted it), but on revolution." He fol- 
 lowed this with a statement that became strangely 
 applicable to the condition that confronted him when, as 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 125 
 
 President-elect, he pleaded with the South thirteen years 
 later to remain loyal to the Union. The statement in 
 question appeared to give validity to the contention of 
 the South that it had the right to secede. Setting out 
 a general principle for cases such as that in which Texas 
 had separated from Mexico, he said: "Any people any- 
 where, being inclined and having the power, have the 
 right to rise up and shake off the existing government 
 and form a new one that suits them better. This is a 
 most valuable and most sacred right — a right which we 
 hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this 
 right confined to cases in which the whole people of an 
 existing government may choose to exercise it. Any 
 portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize and 
 make their own, of so much of the territory as they 
 inhabit." 
 
 It was easy for southern leaders, in 1861, to present 
 this general principle as favorable to the South's claim 
 of the right to secede from the Union. And especially 
 was this so after the fall of Fort Sumter. But the force 
 of their argument was somewhat weakened by the fact 
 that in the general principle thus laid down by Mr. Lin- 
 coln, the right to revolutionize was made contingent on 
 the power to sustain it. At the end of four years they 
 found this element wanting. 
 
 This speech, developed with mathematical precision, 
 went on to a somewhat oratorical finish, tending to show 
 that President Polk, against the advice of its commander, 
 ordered the American army across the Nueces and the 
 uninhabited country between, to the bank of the Rio 
 Grande, into a well established Mexican settlement over 
 which the American government had never asserted 
 
126 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 sovereignty and where there was a collision with Mex- 
 ican soldiers. This new member of Congress had at 
 once become a man to be reckoned with, a man who 
 from that time demanded attention. There are speeches 
 that do not admit of effective answer. Such a speech was 
 this. The President gave it the wisest answer possible 
 under such conditions; the answer of silence. Less wise 
 than he, the men back home in Illinois, did not follow 
 his example. Soon Lincoln heard of their answers to his 
 speech. One of the most ambitious of these was one 
 from Herndon, who on this question differed from 
 Lincoln. 
 
 A close examination of these resolutions inquiring 
 into the cause of this war, and of the speech made in 
 their support, as well as a letter written to Herndon in 
 defense of his action, demonstrates Lincoln's acute 
 powers of analysis which enabled him to isolate and 
 clarify even the more latent weaknesses of an abstract 
 proposition, and at the same time to throw on them so 
 strong a light of reason as to destroy them. It is not diffi- 
 cult to see why such a man was recognized as a danger- 
 ous opponent in debate, and why so able and vigorous a 
 debater as Douglas endeavored to avoid him. 
 
 In his letter to Herndon, Lincoln wrote as follows: 
 
 "Dear William: 
 
 "Your letter of the 29th of January was received 
 last night, being exclusively a constitutional argu- 
 ment, I wish to submit some reflections upon it in 
 the same spirit of kindness that I know actuates you. 
 Let me first state what I understand to be your posi- 
 tion. It is that if it becomes necessary to repel in- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 127 
 
 vasion the President may without violation of the 
 Constitution cross the line and invade the territory 
 of another country, and that whether such neces- 
 sity exists in any given case, the President is the 
 sole judge. 
 
 "Before going further consider well whether this 
 is or is not your position. If it is, it is a position 
 that neither the President, himself, nor any friend 
 of his, so far as I know, has ever taken. Their only 
 positions are — first, that the soil was ours when the 
 hostilities commenced; and second, whether it was 
 rightfully ours or not, Congress had annexed it, 
 and the President for that reason was bound to 
 defend it; both of which are clearly proved to be 
 false, in fact as you can prove your house is mine. 
 The soil was not ours and Congress did not annex 
 or attempt to annex it. But to return to your posi- 
 tion. Allow the President to invade a neighboring 
 nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel 
 an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever 
 he may choose to say he deems it necessary for 
 such purpose, and you allow him to make war at 
 pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to 
 his power in this respect after having given him so 
 much as you propose. If today he should choose 
 to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to 
 prevent the British from invading us, how could 
 you stop him. You may say to him, 'I see no 
 probability of the British invading us;' but he will 
 say to you, 'Be silent: I see it, if you don't.' 
 
 "The provision of the Constitution giving the 
 war-making power to Congress was dictated as I 
 
128 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 understand it, by the following reasons: kings had 
 always been involving and impoverishing their 
 people in wars, pretending generally if not always, 
 that the good of the people was the object. This our 
 convention understood to be the most oppressive 
 of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so 
 frame the Constitution that no man should hold the 
 power of bringing this oppression upon us. But 
 your view destroys the whole matter and places our 
 President where kings have always stood. 
 "Write soon again, 
 
 "A. Lincoln." 
 
 The men who, here and there, have believed that this 
 man was merely, a "shifty, insincere politician, incom- 
 petent as an executive, and a vulgar, indecent boor, as a 
 man," lifted by high fortune to the seats of the mighty, 
 there to pass on to posterity the Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion, have given too little thought to the whole back- 
 ground of the man. Had they done this they would have 
 assuredly discovered many acts that suggested unmistak- 
 ably the inner greatness of him who is proclaimed 
 through all the world today. He did not succeed in 
 stopping the war stampede, and it went on to a vic- 
 torious close on July 4, 1848. No human being could 
 have done this; but he displayed a courage and skill and 
 determination that must have caused consternation even 
 in the White House. Certainly one sees in his deeds there 
 promise of the greatness that later was to carry his name 
 to the farthest ends of time. 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 A 
 
 ,N ACT to abolish slavery in the District of Co- 
 lumbia, presented to Congress by Abraham Lincoln on 
 January 16, 1849, had in it much sequence and more 
 prophecy. It constituted the highest act of service made 
 by him during his term in Congress. Recalling the pro- 
 ceedings of the Illinois Legislature nearly twelve years 
 earlier, it is remembered that a resolution was adopted 
 by that body on March 3, 1837, declaring the right of 
 property in slaves sacred to the slave-holding States, and 
 that the "General Government cannot abolish slavery in 
 the District of Columbia without a manifest breach of 
 good faith." There were other declarations, but these two 
 stand out clearest and indicate most as to the thought of 
 the members of that Legislature. Lincoln, at that time 
 just past twenty-eight years, had with five others voted 
 against the resolution. 
 
 That vote must have been given serious consideration on 
 his part, for, ambitious as he undoubtedly was for polit- 
 ical advancement, he could hardly forget that the district 
 which sent him to the Legislature was largely made up 
 of southerners who if not slave-holders themselves, were 
 thus allied by blood and sympathy with that group. But 
 whatever his ambitions were, and however he jeopardized 
 
 129 
 
130 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 his future, he voted against the slaveholders. Knowing 
 the hesitancy of the average politician, whether of today 
 or yesterday, to take any step that may irritate the greater 
 part of his constituency, it might be expected that the 
 matter would end with his vote against the resolution. 
 But it will be recalled that some six weeks after the pas- 
 sage of that resolution, another resolution was presented. 
 This resolution differed much from the first. In fact it 
 was a protest against that other, and declared among 
 other things for the undersigned, that "they believe the 
 institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and 
 bad policy." And to this the signers added: "They be- 
 lieve that the Congress of the United States has the power 
 under the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District 
 of Columbia," etc. This resolution, recklessly courageous 
 considering both the time and place, even if there had 
 been no nurseling ambitions that might reach maturity 
 only through the approbation of the constituents he was 
 thus flaunting, indicates clearly the depth of Abraham 
 Lincoln's conviction that slavery was founded both on 
 injustice and bad policy. 
 
 That was the first of three great outstanding acts against 
 slavery, forming a mighty trinity connecting the three 
 periods of the manhood of Lincoln, and however much 
 applause the world has given to the third of these acts, 
 and however tremendous the results that followed the 
 Emancipation Proclamation, there is much reason to feel 
 that in true moral grandeur it is this first of the trinity 
 of acts that ranks highest. 
 
 The act to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia 
 was a carefully drawn measure with features that were 
 expected to draw votes from all sections of the country. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 131 
 
 It was introduced following a debate full of bitterness 
 over another bill for the freeing of the slaves of the Dis- 
 trict, more sweeping in its tenor and less calculated to 
 command sufficient votes to be enacted into law. It is 
 likely that the hatreds generated in the debates on this 
 first bill made it impossible to carry through the second, 
 despite the provisions that it had been hoped would re- 
 ceive favorable consideration even from the slave-holding 
 group. After designating classes that were not thereafter 
 to be held in slavery in the District, which included slaves 
 not already owned by residents, and unborn children, the 
 bill went on to permit those coming into the District in 
 an official character to bring and retain their domestic 
 servants, without being controlled by the pending measure, 
 and then provided that children born to slave mothers 
 after January i, 1850, should be held for service as appren- 
 tices to a specified age, during which suitable support and 
 education was to be provided them. 
 
 It appears that Lincoln had studied closely the measures 
 that had been presented in Great Britain and other lands 
 for abolishing slavery in their dominions, and provision 
 was made as in them for compensating the owners of 
 the slaves. Here was a measure broad enough to have 
 given reasonable satisfaction to all, and that offered a 
 sound basis for eliminating the brutal system from all 
 the land; but the irritated slave-holders would hear of no 
 plans that contemplated making a truth of certain tradi- 
 tions as to liberty and equality that had in the first period 
 of the nation been highly popular. So was rendered fu- 
 tile the peaceful efforts of a man always inclined to peace 
 to solve a problem that was to confront him at another 
 
132 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 day, when he would be compelled in its solution to have 
 recourse to the method of blood and iron. 
 
 There are still many who believe that the man who 
 was nominated for the office of President at the perilous 
 period of i860 was an obscure politician of only local 
 renown, but who had served obscurely a term in Congress. 
 This belief is entirely lacking in truth. Lincoln at the 
 time he was elected to Congress was among the most 
 prominent men of his State and his reputation as a 
 man of ability, and as a speaker of great force and per- 
 suasiveness, was extended beyond State lines from the 
 day of his defense of his "Spot Resolutions." As the only 
 Whig from Illinois in Congress, he naturally was given 
 high consideration and more than the average of ap- 
 pointments on committees. He was a delegate to the 
 Whig national convention held at Philadelphia in July 
 of 1848, where he strongly urged the nomination of Gen- 
 eral Zachary Taylor. While he had in the past supported 
 Henry Clay, it was his belief at this time that a soldier 
 was the only man who could carry the Whigs to victory. 
 He was highly optimistic at Taylor's nomination and re- 
 turned to Washington confident that his party would win 
 an overwhelming triumph. As usual following a party 
 convention there was much campaigning, and most of 
 the members were thinking and acting on the basis of 
 party advantage. 
 
 The Democratic party had chosen for its nominee, 
 Lewis Cass, who had participated in the Black Hawk 
 War, as well as in the War of 18 12, and some of the more 
 ardent members of his party in their effort to match the 
 achievements of the Whig candidate rather overstressed 
 his prestige as a soldier, while at the same time claiming 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 133 
 
 a superiority because of his broad civil experience. Among 
 the Whigs there was yet some resentment at the choice 
 of Taylor as the head of their party, since they knew he 
 had given little attention to party principles. These men 
 were not willing to justify the choice of the party on the 
 grounds of expediency. 
 
 It was partly in answer to the doubts raised as to Tay- 
 lor's party principles that Lincoln on July 27, 1848, took 
 the floor and delighted the House with one of his typical 
 stump speeches, but with even more than the usual of 
 his inimitable drollery. In it he recalled his own ex- 
 periences in the Black Hawk War, not for self-glorifica- 
 tion but to show the more comical features of it, and by 
 comparison and analogy to disparage the importance the 
 Democrats attached to Cass' part in that conflict. In part, 
 he said: 
 
 "By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know that I am a 
 military hero? Yes sir; in the days of the Black Hawk 
 War I fought, bled and came away. Speaking of General 
 Cass' career reminds me of my own. I was not at Still- 
 man's defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to 
 Hull's surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon 
 afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, 
 for I had none to break; but I bent a musket pretty badly 
 on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword the idea is he 
 broke it in desperation. I bent the musket by accident. 
 If General Cass went in advance of me in picking huckle 
 berries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon wild 
 onions. If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more 
 than I did; but I had a good many bloody struggles with 
 the mosquitoes, and although I never fainted from loss 
 of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry. Mr. 
 
134 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our 
 Democratic friends may suppose there is of black-cockade 
 federalism about me, and therefore they take me up as 
 their candidate for the Presidency, I protest they shall not 
 make fun of me, as they have of General Cass, by at- 
 tempting to write me into a military hero." 
 
 Aside from this raillery there was much serious if par- 
 tisan argument in this speech, and it was obvious to the 
 members that here was a political speaker of the highest 
 skill. The campaign was now well under way, and 
 naturally a man thus accomplished received many invita- 
 tions to address the people in the interest of his party. 
 He made several speeches in New England in the month 
 of September, where he made clear his position on the 
 question of slavery, in which the people of that section, 
 excited by the constant and eloquent efforts of Phillips 
 and Garrison, were intensely interested. While in the 
 East he met many men of more than local fame, and 
 listened to speeches made by several of the famous sons 
 of New England. At a meeting in Boston, Lincoln spoke 
 on the same platform with William H. Seward and talked 
 at length with him after the meeting. On the day fol- 
 lowing this speech Lincoln started for home, probably 
 well satisfied with his trip. Back in Illinois he made his 
 first speech in Chicago, urging the election of General 
 Taylor, and made many speeches throughout the State. 
 
 Home at last, he became fully aware of the disaffection 
 among his former followers, due to his opposition to the 
 Mexican war. Naturally he would have been pleased had 
 he found sentiment favorable to his continuance in Con- 
 gress, but it was evident that he had lost some of the 
 hold he once had on these home folk. Besides, in seek- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 135 
 
 ing the place he had agreed, as had Baker and Harding 
 before him, to a one term rotation; being unwilling to 
 repudiate this, he made no effort to secure the nomina- 
 tion, which went to Judge Stephen T. Logan, who was 
 defeated in the general election. 
 
 At the same election, General Taylor was chosen as 
 President. Because of Lincoln's prominence and activ- 
 ity it was confidently expected that some substantial rec- 
 ognition would be given him. The place of Commissioner 
 of the General Land Office was looked upon as the most 
 desirable open to him; but a number of his friends were 
 seeking it, and though it appears that by timely and vig- 
 orous effort he might have had it, he did not make the 
 effort until it became evident that his friends could not 
 succeed, and so he lost the place and, incidentally, one of 
 the friends, who believed that Lincoln's belated effort had 
 worked to hurt that friend's chance. 
 
 There is some reason to believe that Lincoln regarded 
 his political career ended by his course as to the Mexican 
 War and that he now decided to do what he had never 
 done before — put all of his energy into the practice of 
 law. Up to this time he probably considered law, aside 
 from being a method of attaining his daily bread, merely 
 as a means to an end, and that end was political prefer- 
 ment. Convinced now that his hopes of political prestige 
 so long held, "were such stuff as dreams are made on," 
 he threw himself more fully into the law probably than 
 ever before. He remained the senior member of the firm 
 of Lincoln and Herndon, and the junior member had 
 worked steadily to retain the general business of the firm, 
 and with sufficient success to report on Lincoln's return: 
 "Our practice was as extensive as that of any other firm 
 
136 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 at the bar." Lincoln, Herndon adds, "realized that much 
 of this was due to my efforts, and on his return, he there- 
 fore suggested that he had no right to share in the busi- 
 ness and profits which I had made. I responded that, as 
 he had aided me and given me prominence when I was 
 young and needed it, I could afford now to be grateful if 
 not generous. I therefore recommended a continuation 
 of the partnership, and we went on as before. I could 
 notice a difference in Lincoln's movement as a lawyer 
 from this time forward. He had begun to realize a cer- 
 tain lack of discipline — a want of mental training and 
 method. Ten years had wrought some change in the law, 
 and more in the lawyers, of Illinois. The conviction had 
 settled in the minds of the people that the pyrotechnics 
 of court room and stump oratory did not necessarily imply 
 extensive or profound ability in the lawyer who resorted 
 to it. The courts were becoming graver and more learned, 
 and the lawyer was learning as a preliminary and indis- 
 pensable condition to success that he must be a close rea- 
 soner, besides having at command a broad knowledge of 
 the principles on which the statutory law is constructed. 
 There was of course the same riding on circuit as before, 
 but the courts had improved in tone and morals, and 
 there was less laxity — at least it appeared so to Lincoln. 
 Political defeat had wrought a marked effect on him. It 
 went below the skin and made a changed man of him. 
 He was not soured at his seeming political decline, but 
 still he determined to eschew politics from that time for- 
 ward and devote himself entirely to the law. And now 
 he began to make up for time lost in politics by studying 
 the law in earnest. No man had greater power of appli- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 137 
 
 cation than he. Once fixing his mind on any subject, 
 nothing could interfere with or disturb him. 
 
 "Frequently I would go out on the circuit with him. 
 We, usually, at the little country inns occupied the same 
 bed. In most cases the beds were too short for him, and 
 his feet would hang over the floor-board, thus exposing a 
 limited expanse of shin bone. Placing a candle on a chair 
 at the head of the bed, he would read and study for hours. 
 I have known him to study in this position till two o'clock 
 in the morning. Meanwhile, I and others who chanced to 
 occupy the same room would be safely and soundly 
 asleep. On the circuit in this way he studied Euclid until 
 he could with ease demonstrate all the propositions in 
 the six books. How he could maintain his mental equi- 
 librium or concentrate his thoughts on an abstract mathe- 
 matical proposition, while Davis, Logan, Swett, Edwards, 
 and I so industriously and volubly filled the air with our 
 interminable snoring was a problem none of us could 
 ever solve. I was on the circuit with Lincoln probably 
 one-fourth of the time. The remainder of my time was 
 spent in Springfield looking after the business there, but 
 I know that life on the circuit was a gay one. It was rich 
 with incidents, and afforded the nomadic lawyers ample 
 relaxation from all the irksome toil that fell to their lot. 
 Lincoln loved it. I suppose it would be a fair estimate 
 to state that he spent over half the year following Judges 
 Treat and Davis around on the circuit. On Saturdays the 
 court and attorneys, if within a reasonable distance, would 
 usually start for their homes. Some went for a fresh 
 supply of clothing, but the greater number went simply 
 to spend a day of rest with their families. The only ex- 
 ception was Lincoln, who usually spent his Sundays with 
 
138 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the loungers at the country tavern, and only went home 
 at the end of the circuit or term of court." 
 
 "At first," relates one of his colleagues on the circuit, 
 "we wondered at it, but soon learned to account for his 
 strange disinclination to go home. Lincoln himself never 
 had much to say about home, and we never felt free to 
 comment on it. Most of us had pleasant, inviting homes, 
 and as we struck out for them I'm sure each one of us 
 down in our hearts had a mingled feeling of pity and 
 sympathy for him." 
 
 Mention is here made of the home life of Lincoln, of 
 which much has been said and about which there has 
 been no little controversy, some of which has tended al- 
 most to the fantastic. Here, since there are no new and 
 original sources of information, there must be a careful 
 choosing among the various narratives to present one that 
 adjusts itself best to the information at hand. Herndon, 
 as usual, has been the source of most of this information 
 to which there has been violent dissent. There seems to 
 be no reason to question that the home life of the Lincolns 
 was not entirely what would be considered as ideal, if not 
 in fact sometimes approaching general unhappiness. As 
 for the cause of this we are left to form conclusions which 
 best satisfy each separate individual. It may be that too 
 much consideration of the difference in background and 
 difference in training of the parties to this marriage has 
 tended to a conclusion that there was much more unhap- 
 piness resulting therefrom than was really the case. And 
 it may be that this marriage had in it no more of the 
 unsatisfactory than the average, where there is no great 
 difference in the cultural background of the parties. It 
 is certainly not to be understood that all was unsatisfac- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 139 
 
 tory in the Lincoln marital affairs; in fact, in some im- 
 portant respects there appears to have been much satis- 
 faction. Few people who are highly ambitious live to 
 see their highest ambitions fully satisfied. Mrs. Lincoln, 
 who has been constantly referred to as extremely am- 
 bitious, so much so that she is said to have, even in her 
 courtships, subordinated any preferences based on impulse 
 or natural affection, lived to see her highest ambition 
 realized, that of being the wife of a President. This wish 
 she is said to have repeatedly expressed as a young woman. 
 She is generally considered as having been an astute judge 
 of men and their ability. As artist here, she must have 
 discovered a profound pleasure in the superiority of the 
 man she had chosen and in the constantly increasing rec- 
 ognition of it. Aside from these possibly superficial con- 
 siderations, there must have been an abiding comfort in 
 association with a man who at the same time was blessed 
 with a temper such as has been seen in few men in any 
 period, in any level of life, or in any land, and free even 
 from the little cruelties and brutalities which are likely 
 to be found in the best of men. 
 
 Loving power and prominence as she did there must 
 have been immense pleasure in seeing her husband elected 
 to Congress within four years of their marriage. Among 
 the many pictures of her, not always drawn with a friendly 
 brush, we take the following from Herndon: "When oc- 
 casionally she came down to our office, it seemed to me 
 then, that she was inordinately proud of her tall and 
 ungainly husband. She saw in him bright prospects 
 ahead, and his every move was watched by her with the 
 closest interest. If to other persons he seemed homely, 
 to her he was the embodiment of noble manhood, and 
 
140 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 each succeeding day impressed upon her the wisdom of 
 her choice of Lincoln over Douglas — if in reality she ever 
 seriously accepted the latter's attentions. 'Mr. Lincoln 
 may not be as handsome a figure,' she said one day in the 
 office during her husband's absence, when the conversa- 
 tion turned on Douglas, 'but the people are perhaps not 
 aware that his heart is as large as his arms are long.' " 
 
 Children came to her, four sons, and any mother would 
 have found a continuous pleasure in the uniform kind- 
 ness of the father to her sons, a kindness amounting al- 
 most to open indulgence. Decidedly, there is no occa- 
 sion that anyone proffer pity to Mary Todd Lincoln 
 because of her marriage to Abraham Lincoln. Whatever 
 sympathy is to be extended should be given because of 
 the heavy blows which fate struck repeatedly against her. 
 Of the four sons three were to be taken by death between 
 childhood and youth. At the very summit of his glorious 
 career her husband was struck down before her eyes. For 
 him, just ahead, was peace after so much turmoil and 
 war. Just ahead for her, was comfort, happiness, prestige, 
 and even the little envies of her world; this too, a solace 
 to her proud soul. 
 
 But what of the other party to this union into which 
 had entered so many discordant elements ? What did it 
 bring to the man who had dreaded so much to enter into 
 it ? The answer to this question may be given with less 
 assurance than in the case of the woman partner to this 
 union for this man had in his make-up much more of 
 the enigmatic. Looked at through the lens of idealism, 
 the prospect disclosed more presents of gloom than cheer. 
 The frequent and violent fits of temper displayed by Mrs. 
 Lincoln must have somewhat limited the periods of hap- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 141 
 
 piness and satisfaction that are not entirely excluded 
 from even more ill-assorted marriages. For any of the 
 vast majority of men, with their quick resentments, their 
 desire for retaliation and their natural cruelties, these 
 temper explosions would have made this union well nigh 
 intolerable to both parties to it, and would have left in 
 it no thought of satisfaction or happiness. But Lincoln 
 differed so much from the average of men, he possessed 
 such vast tolerance, such kindliness, and with these a cer- 
 tain stoicism, that he may have endured these lapses of 
 Mrs. Lincoln with less difficulty than could another under 
 such conditions. This stoicism, which made him the last 
 to complain when out on the circuit about the poor food, 
 uncomfortable beds and badly kept rooms, gave him a 
 hardihood to face with less distress the ills that confronted 
 him in his own household. Looked at, then, through the 
 lens of commonplace experience, it may be that Lincoln 
 managed to extract from apparently very untoward con- 
 ditions some measure of satisfaction. 
 
 His wife had that kind of intelligence that gave her 
 an interest in the world of men, which doubtless offered 
 a basis of companionship in a case where the man had 
 little interest in the world of women. She was capable, 
 too, in the management of the home. Here she de- 
 manded and received the fullest responsibility. The ex- 
 tent of this is shown where, in the absence of Lincoln, the 
 wife had alterations made, changing the home from a 
 story and a half to a full two-story building. Lincoln on 
 his return is said to have walked past the place a number 
 of times, and then waggishly asked of a passer whether 
 that was the home of Abraham Lincoln; and being so in- 
 formed, he walked in, knocked heavily at the door, where 
 
142 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 he was met by an irate and scolding mistress of the house, 
 for Mrs. Lincoln had observed his prank from behind the 
 curtains, as one report has it. While otherwise, Mrs. Lin- 
 coln was capable in home management, her frequent 
 explosions of temper made it difficult for her to retain 
 servants for long periods. One of these who made a 
 longer stay of it than the rest discloses the secret of it in 
 the fact that Lincoln pleaded with her and added a dollar 
 a week to her wages, but with the injunction that the 
 transaction was to be kept from the knowledge of the 
 mistress of the house. Herndon tells that "frequently, 
 after tempestuous scenes between the mistress and her 
 servant, Lincoln, at the first opportunity would place his 
 hand upon the latter's shoulder with the admonition, 
 'Mary, keep up your courage.' " 
 
 Another case is thus related by Herndon: "A man once 
 called at the house to learn why Mrs. Lincoln had so 
 unceremoniously discharged his niece from her employ. 
 Mrs. Lincoln met him at the door, and being somewhat 
 wrought up, gave vent to her feelings, resorting to such 
 violent gestures and emphatic language that the man was 
 glad to beat a hasty retreat. He at once started out to 
 find Lincoln, determined to exact from him proper sat- 
 isfaction for his wife's action. Lincoln was entertaining 
 a crowd in a store at the time. The man, still laboring 
 under some agitation, called him to the door and made 
 the demand. Lincoln listened for a moment to his story. 
 'My friend,' he interrupted, 'I regret to hear this, but let 
 me ask you in all candor, can't you endure for a few 
 moments what I have had as my daily portion for the 
 last fifteen years?' The words were spoken so mourn- 
 fully and with such a look of distress that the man was 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 143 
 
 completely disarmed. It was a case that appealed to his 
 feelings. Grasping the unfortunate husband's hand, he 
 expressed in no uncertain terms his sympathy, and even 
 apologized for having approached him. He said no more 
 about the infuriated wife and Lincoln afterward had no 
 better friend in Springfield." 
 
 The same writer has added: "Mr. Lincoln never had a 
 confidant, and therefore never unbosomed himself to 
 others. He never spoke of his trials to me or, so far as 
 I knew, to any of his friends. It was a great burden to 
 carry, but he bore it sadly enough and without a murmur. 
 I could always realize when he was in distress, without 
 being told. He was not exactly an early riser, that is he 
 never usually appeared at the office till about nine o'clock 
 in the morning. I usually preceded him an hour. Some- 
 times however, he would come down as early as seven 
 o'clock — in fact, on one occasion I remember he came 
 down before daylight. If, on arriving at the office, I found 
 him in, I knew instantly that a breeze had sprung up over 
 the domestic sea, and that the waters were troubled. He 
 would either be lying on the lounge, looking skyward, or 
 doubled up in a chair with his feet resting on the sill of 
 a back window. He would not look up on my entering, 
 and only answered my 'Good morning,' with a grunt. 
 I at once busied myself with pen and paper, or ran 
 through the leaves of some book; but the evidence of 
 his melancholy and distress was so plain, and his silence 
 so significant, that I would grow restless myself, and 
 finding some excuse to go to the courthouse or elsewhere, 
 would leave the room. 
 
 "The door of the office opening into a narrow hallway 
 was half glass, with a curtain on it working on brass rings 
 
144 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 strung on a wire. As I passed out on these occasions I 
 would draw the curtain across the glass, and before I 
 reached the bottom of the stairs I could hear the key turn 
 in the lock, and Lincoln was alone in his gloom. An 
 hour in the clerk's office at the courthouse, an hour longer 
 in a neighboring store having passed, I would return. By 
 this time either a client had dropped in and Lincoln was 
 propounding the law, or else the cloud of despondency 
 had passed away, and he was busy in the recital of an 
 Indiana story to whistle off the recollection of the morn- 
 ing's gloom. Noon having arrived, I would depart home- 
 ward for my dinner. Returning within an hour, I would 
 find him still in the office — although his house stood 
 but a few squares away, — lunching on a slice of cheese 
 and a handful of crackers which in my absence he had 
 brought up from the store below. Separating for the day 
 at five or six o'clock in the evening, I would still leave 
 him behind, either sitting on a box at the foot of the 
 stairway, entertaining a few loungers, or killing time in 
 the same way at the court-house steps. A light in the 
 office after dark attested his presence there till late along 
 in the night, when, after all the world had gone to sleep, 
 the tall form of the man destined to be the nation's Presi- 
 dent, could have been seen strolling along in the shadows 
 of the trees and buildings, and quietly slipping in through 
 the door of a modest frame house, which it pleased the 
 world, in a conventional way, to call his home." 
 
 Mrs. Ninian Edwards, the sister of Mrs. Lincoln, tells 
 the following of a visit to Washington and how much it 
 affected Lincoln when she made known the early date of 
 her departure: "When I announced my intention of 
 leaving Washington he was much affected at the news of 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 145 
 
 my departure. We were strolling through the White 
 House grounds, when he begged me with tears in his eyes 
 to remain longer. 'You have such strong control over 
 Mary,' he contended, 'that when troubles come you can 
 console me/ The picture of the man's despair never 
 faded from my vision. Long after my return to Spring- 
 field, on reverting to the sad separation, my heart ached 
 because I was unable in my feeble way to lighten his 
 burden." 
 
 The direct reference to Mrs. Lincoln here would seem 
 to indicate that not a little of the President's despair had 
 its cause in the eccentricities of his wife. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 L/URING this period of his highest legal activity and 
 greatest resistance to the appeals of politics, Lincoln was 
 engaged in a number of law cases which have some special 
 claim to our notice. Of these, that of the Illinois Central 
 Railroad Company vs. the County of McLean, and George 
 Parke, etc., is of first importance in a number of respects, 
 among which is the monetary stakes, which were certainly 
 immense. 
 
 The Illinois Central Railroad, projected as the pioneer 
 artery of transportation between the North and South, 
 binding together and intermingling the products of the 
 regions of the Great Lakes and those of the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, had met with the heartiest approval and support on 
 the part of the State of Illinois and in its charter had been 
 given generous land grants as well as immunity from 
 taxation by the Legislature, along with other rights to 
 public lands through the act of Congress. In return for 
 this the railroad agreed to pay the State an amount equal 
 to seven per centum of its gross income. It was but a 
 short time before certain counties questioned the right 
 of the Legislature to thus give immunity against their 
 taxing rights. McLean county, in 1853, ordered an as- 
 sessment laid on the property of the road and soon after 
 
 146 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 147 
 
 the Sheriff, George Parke, was ordered to levy this tax. 
 It was then that the railroad brought its bill in chancery, 
 asking that McLean county and George Parke be en- 
 joined and restrained from collecting the tax. This bill 
 was dismissed, and the railroad having lost the first move, 
 through its counsel, M. Brayman, J. F. Joy and A. Lin- 
 coln, took its appeal to the Supreme Court. The first 
 two were regular counsel for the railroad, and the firm 
 of Lincoln and Herndon had been specially retained in 
 the case. The only question involved was "whether the 
 property and franchises attempted to be taxed by the de- 
 fendants, or any part of them, is, in law, liable to County 
 taxation." The Supreme Court reversed the decree of 
 the lower court. 
 
 It is almost conclusive of Lincoln's high rating 
 among the lawyers of this State, that he was chosen to 
 represent the corporation in a matter so vital to its future 
 welfare. The immediate outcome of his relation to the 
 case is not as clear and certain as the case itself. It ap- 
 pears that shortly after the decision, Lincoln presented 
 his bill to the company at its office in Chicago for $2,000. 
 As to the reply of the official to whom it was presented, 
 there are varying accounts, the more plausible one being 
 that in declining to pay it, he remarked : "Why sir, this is 
 as much as Daniel Webster, himself, would have charged." 
 Lincoln made no argument with him, but withdrew his 
 bill and left. It is established that the official in question 
 was not George B. McClellan, afterward General at the 
 head of the United States armies under President Lincoln, 
 as has been sometimes reported. Discussing the railroad's 
 refusal to pay the bill with some of his friends of the 
 circuit, they advised that he had been too modest in his 
 
148 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 charge and that he raise the amount to $5,000 and sue 
 for the same, which was done. When the case was called 
 the attorney for the railroad had not arrived and judg- 
 ment was given in the full amount. On his arrival later 
 in the day Lincoln consented to have the case re-heard and 
 introduced the statement of six other lawyers that the 
 bill was reasonable and just and again was given judg- 
 ment in full amount of the claim, which was paid by the 
 railroad some weeks later. 
 
 There were a number of other railroads, too, among 
 his clients as well as certain insurance companies. It is 
 seen that he represents the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad 
 Company, for which he filed an appearance and confessed 
 judgment in the amount of $312,133.35 on March 4, 1856, 
 in the United States Court at Springfield, and that he 
 represented the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Railroad. 
 Such cases establish his high rating as a lawyer far better 
 than any mere enumeration of the proportion of decisions 
 for and against him, which method has been presented 
 exhaustively by an eminent authority on Lincoln. Law- 
 yers themselves would probably smile broadly at this man- 
 ner of attesting their skill and fitness, and defer judgment 
 in the absence of clear information on the actual objectives 
 sought to be attained by the parties to each lawsuit. They 
 know that the complaining party may bring his suit for 
 $10,000, and at the same time be willing to adjust that suit 
 for $1,000. They know, too, that the defending party 
 in a suit for that same amount, while denying any lia- 
 bility whatever, might gladly accept a judgment for five 
 thousand dollars. It is only when these things are known 
 that the laurels of victory can be rightly awarded in law- 
 suits. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 149 
 
 It is not to be understood that Lincoln's practice was 
 confined only to the large corporations or the very rich, 
 for that certainly was not the case, and he doubtless rep- 
 resented a larger proportion of the rank and file of the 
 citizenship than many of his associates on the circuit and 
 at Springfield. The very number of the cases of Lincoln 
 and Herndon give some indication of this. Paul M. Angle 
 shows that at the convening of court on March 20, 1855, 
 forty-four cases of Lincoln and Herndon were called, and 
 it is known that he made a wider circuit of counties than 
 the other lawyers. 
 
 Among his more noted cases was that of Hurd vs. the 
 Rock Island Railroad Bridge, better known as the "Eme 
 Afton Case," in the United States District Court at Chi- 
 cago, before Judge McLean, in 1857. This case arose 
 when the steamboat Eme Afton collided with the rail- 
 road bridge. The boat took fire and was completely de- 
 stroyed, while the bridge was considerably damaged. 
 The accident brought two great commercial and indus- 
 trial forces into conflict. One, the older, was made up of 
 those interested in the immense commerce borne up the 
 Mississippi and its tributaries, the other, and newer, made 
 up of those who were awakened to the realization of the 
 vast commerce that would move between the older States 
 of the East and the newer States that were rapidly coming 
 into existence in the extensive land areas west of the Mis- 
 sissippi. This current of commerce had until this time 
 been pent up, abruptly checked, and retarded, at the banks 
 of the Father of Waters; but with the opening of the new 
 bridge it had rushed over the river with a mighty torrent 
 that in the eleven months from September 8, 1856, to 
 
150 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 August 8, 1857, mounted to 12,586 freight cars and 74,179 
 passengers. 
 
 In these cross currents of the commerce of the nation 
 was unfolded another tale of two cities; their hopes of 
 greatness and their fears of rivals. St. Louis, long the 
 mistress of the upper waters of the Mississippi, including 
 the Missouri, saw in the new bridge an effort to make 
 Chicago, already rapidly taking its place as a large and 
 important city, the first city of the vast inland of America. 
 The merchants of St. Louis were ready to back any argu- 
 ment that would end the flow of transportation that was 
 going with rapidly increasing current over this bridge. 
 Those who backed the railroad saw its tremendous ad- 
 vantage to Chicago, and, too, saw in this bridge the fore- 
 runner of scores of others that would make Chicago one 
 of the great cities of the world. In the view of the St. 
 Louis group the bridge was a menace to the mighty river 
 traffic and should be prohibited by law; and the wreck of 
 this boat was the final proof. From the Chicago view- 
 point, as argued by Lincoln, those who would use the 
 bridge for transportation east and west had the same rights 
 as those who used the river for transportation north and 
 south. It was even by inference suggested that the boat- 
 men had by their carelessness if not by more deliberate 
 means brought about the wreck and injury to the bridge 
 at the sacrifice of the boat. Had there not been bonfires 
 and great rejoicing at St. Louis and all along the river, 
 when it was learned that the bridge was wrecked ? Lin- 
 coln's contention that the commerce east and west was as 
 rightful over the bridge as the commerce north and south 
 down the river, prevailed to the extent that the jury was 
 not able to agree that the railroad company was liable for 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 151 
 
 the damage done to the boat; nor was the right of trans- 
 portation to roll in increasing volume to and from the 
 west ever afterward seriously questioned. 
 
 The "Reaper Case" as it was called, tried in the United 
 States District Court at Cincinnati in 1855, has been given 
 much notice, not because of any noteworthy part Lincoln 
 took in it, but because of some of the incidents that were 
 connected with it. In this suit Cyrus H. McCormick 
 brought action against John M. Manny and Company of 
 Rockford, Illinois. He claimed that Manny had violated 
 certain patents which he, McCormick, had obtained in the 
 manufacture of reaping machines, which at the time he 
 was turning out at an immense rate and with enormous 
 profit. The Manny Company entering the same field had 
 likewise secured patents and was manufacturing reaping 
 machines on a large scale and to this extent reducing 
 the profits of McCormick. If the latter's claim was valid, 
 he held the exclusive right for the making of this ma- 
 chinery which was fast enabling the American farmer 
 to make two blades of grass grow where only one had 
 grown before, and in redoubling his output to redouble 
 the McCormick profits. The exclusive right to supply 
 this vast market carried with it the certainty of amassing 
 fortunes such as had hardly been dreamed of. Here was 
 a declaration of war that marked a new era. McCormick 
 asked the court to restrain Manny from the further man- 
 ufacture of these machines, and for the sum of four hun- 
 dred thousand dollars for those which had already been 
 manufactured and sold in violation of the rights thus 
 claimed. 
 
 The vast amount of money involved meant of course 
 the retaining of the most effective lawyers that were to 
 
152 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 be found. From such litigants, the lawyer whose skill 
 might open up this avenue of gold might ask without 
 fear of refusal the price for his services. McCormick was 
 represented by E. N. Dickerson and Reverdy Johnson, the 
 first with a high knowledge of the mechanical principles 
 connected with the machines to be considered, the other 
 noted as one of the most brilliant lawyers of his day. 
 Manny was represented by George Harding, Edwin M. 
 Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. It is known that Hard- 
 ing was retained by reason of his close acquaintance with 
 the mechanics involved in the suit, but there is no such 
 certainty as to the other counsel in the case. To match 
 the brilliance of Reverdy Johnson was no easy problem, 
 and it would seem that the answer to it had been left 
 open until the last moment. 
 
 The result was unfortunate in that it brought about a 
 long standing feeling of irritation between two men, — 
 both highly able and both highly ambitious, and who at 
 a future day would be called upon to unite their high 
 ability not merely to curb somewhat the already enor- 
 mous acquisitions of an importunate seeker after gold, 
 but to turn back treason, at high tide threatening the de- 
 struction of their nation. 
 
 This unity of effort the brusque and domineering Stan- 
 ton might have rendered impossible, save for the infinite 
 tact and the patience of Lincoln. The two men had little 
 in common save a hatred of slavery, and even here there 
 was a difference in degree that made them seem unlike. 
 Stanton, like the Carthaginian Hannibal, had been sworn 
 to his cause by his father in early childhood and with him 
 it was a consuming fire; while with Lincoln there was 
 the same steady patience and faith with which he ap- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 153 
 
 proached most of the great questions that confronted the 
 nation. Lincoln's powers were of slow growth, develop- 
 ing by impulse from within. Stanton had come to early 
 maturity and had actually begun to practice law before 
 he was of age. He held strong opinions where he held 
 any opinions. His orthodox ideas of dress were violated 
 when he had his first glimpse of the long, angular Lin- 
 coln, loose of joint, loose of clothes and heavy of boot, 
 and with his usual outspokenness made some careless re- 
 mark which perhaps was as variously reported to Lincoln 
 as it has been to posterity. The fact that Stanton was 
 chosen to make the argument against Reverdy Johnson 
 would have probably been sufficient to depress Lincoln, 
 even had no insult been added to injury, if there was an 
 injury. It is understood that there had been no definite 
 assurance as to the various parts the attorneys in the case 
 were to take. And when there was an objection by the 
 opposition to more than two speeches from the Manny 
 side and it became a question of Stanton or Lincoln, Hard- 
 ing, well acquainted with Stanton's ability and friendly 
 to him, decided in that gentleman's favor. It is likely 
 that Lincoln had the manuscript of his speech in his 
 pocket, as has often been said, just as it is likely that 
 Stanton had his available; that was a part of the employ- 
 ment of each and for which they were paid. But what- 
 ever the smaller facts may have been, there is no doubt 
 that Lincoln was a much disappointed man at the lack 
 of consideration shown him, the lack of opportunity ac- 
 corded him, or possibly both. He left Cincinnati with 
 apparently no consoling thought save the fact that he was 
 in possession of a two-thousand-dollar fee. Remember- 
 ing the usual mildness of the temper of Lincoln and his 
 
154 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 strong mastery over his emotions in the face of disappoint- 
 ments and irritations, there is something of the comic in 
 his gloomy retreat from Cincinnati. Always he attached 
 a feeling of resentment, even to the city itself. Back in 
 the office at Springfield, he talked of the case speaking 
 of Judge McLean as "an old granny." And to show the 
 feebleness of his powers of observation, while admitting 
 he had considerable vigor of mind, added: "If you were 
 to point your finger at him and a darning needle at the 
 same time, he never would know which was the sharper." 
 Incidentally, McCormick lost the suit. 
 
 In the United States District Court at Springfield, April 
 17, 1856, Angle's research shows Lincoln in two suits 
 which are noticeable because of the amounts involved. 
 He represents the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, 
 the defendant; heard without a jury, the court finds the 
 railroad indebted to Henry Hotchkiss in the sum of $50,- 
 000, with damages at $1,496.65. In the other, brought by 
 Brown Bros. & Co., the debt was placed by the court at 
 $252,145, and the damages at $5,379.03. 
 
 While few lawyers were so generally kindly and tol- 
 erant with opposing parties and witnesses, he could, when 
 aroused, be very "hurtful in denunciation." Herndon 
 tells that when he attacked meanness, fraud or vice, he 
 was powerful, merciless in his castigation. Speaking of 
 the Wright case, which they brought to compel a pension 
 agent to refund a portion of a fee he had withheld from 
 the widow of a Revolutionary soldier, he shows that after 
 hearing the story of the old woman, crippled and bent 
 with age, Lincoln was stirred up and walked over to the 
 agent's office and made a demand for the return of the 
 money, but without success. Then suit was brought. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 155 
 
 "The day before the trial I hunted up for Lincoln, at his 
 request, a history of the Revolutionary War, of which he 
 had read a good portion. He told me to remain during 
 the trial until I had heard his address to the jury. Tor/ 
 said he, 'I am going to skin Wright, and get that money 
 back.' The only witness we introduced was the old lady, 
 who through her tears told her story. In his speech to 
 the jury, Lincoln recounted the causes leading to the out- 
 break of the revolutionary struggle, and then drew a 
 vivid picture of the hardships at Valley Forge, describing 
 with minuteness the men, barefooted and with bleeding 
 feet, creeping over the ice. As he reached that point of 
 his speech wherein he narrated the hardened action of the 
 defendant in fleecing the old woman of her pension, his 
 eyes flashed and, throwing aside his handkerchief, which 
 he held in his right hand, he fairly launched into him. 
 His speech for the next five or ten minutes justified the 
 declaration of Judge Davis, that he was 'hurtful in de- 
 nunciation and merciless in castigation.' There was no 
 rule of court to restrain him in his argument, and I never, 
 either on the stump or on other occasions in court, saw 
 him so wrought up. He brought his speech to a close, 
 saying, The soldier has gone to rest, and now, crippled, 
 blinded and broken, his widow comes to you and to me, 
 gentlemen of the jury, to right her wrongs. She was not 
 always thus. She was once a beautiful young woman. 
 Her step was as elastic, her face as fair and her voice as 
 sweet as any that sang in the mountains of old Virginia. 
 But now she is poor and defenceless. Out here on the 
 prairies of Illinois, many hundreds of miles from the scenes 
 of her childhood, she appeals to us, who enjoy the priv- 
 ileges achieved for us by the patriots of the Revolution, 
 
156 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 for our sympathetic aid and manly protection. All I ask 
 is, shall we befriend her.' The speech made the desired 
 impression on the jury. Half of them were in tears, while 
 the defendant sat in the court room, drawn up and writhing 
 under the fire of Lincoln's fierce invective. The jury re- 
 turned a verdict in our favor for every cent we demanded. 
 When the judgment was paid, we remitted the proceeds 
 to her and made no charge for our services." 
 
 On the 21 st day of August, 1857, a man was struck two 
 violent blows on his head, one in the front and the other 
 in the back. The man died a few days later from the 
 effects of these blows. He was a young man, rough, 
 boisterous, and addicted to strong drink. His name was 
 James Preston Metzker. In the usual course of events 
 the violated law began to operate in the matter and two 
 men were arrested and charged with the grave crime of 
 murder. One of these men was James H. Norris and 
 the other, William "Duff" Armstrong. These men, like 
 the man who had been killed, were young, rough, bois- 
 terous, and addicted to liquor. It was charged that Nor- 
 ris and Armstrong at a place near Virgin's Grove, in 
 Mason County, had inflicted mortal wounds upon the 
 said James Preston Metzker and that from these wounds 
 he died. 
 
 Because at the time of this killing a camp-meeting was 
 being held at Virgin's Grove, and thereby much religious 
 fervor had been aroused, it may be that there was much 
 more resentment, and it may be that there was an added 
 resentment because the place where the killing occurred 
 was a place where liquor was being publicly sold as near 
 to this camp-meeting as the law permitted, that is, one 
 mile. Certainly there was much feeling aroused, and time 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 157 
 
 and place, are sometimes highly potent in such matters. 
 
 Other influences too, were to enter into the usual course 
 of the Law's procedure at this point. And most power- 
 ful among these influences were to be one man's mem- 
 ories. Old, certainly, they were; half forgotten, mayhaps, 
 they were: but now awakened, strange to say, all the more 
 powerful, they were. These memories carried back over 
 all the vicissitudes of a quarter of a century, when two 
 young men matched their powerful muscles in wrestling 
 there at New Salem, surrounded by a crowd of partisans, 
 and urged on by two older men, one of whom, Bill Clary, 
 of Clary's Grove, had bet the other, Denton Offut, the 
 village merchant, that his man, Jack Armstrong, was a 
 "better man" than Offut's man, Abe Lincoln. And there 
 were other memories. Memories of how a few years 
 later, this same Jack Armstrong and wife, Hannah, at 
 the darkest period of the life of Abraham Lincoln, when 
 the "Bludgeonings of chance," taking from him the only 
 woman who had ever possessed his soul, and well-nigh 
 his very reason as well, had nursed him back to life and 
 the normal man's longing for life, though it may be 
 doubted if they succeeded, quite, in giving him back the 
 normal man's capacity for passionate love of woman. 
 This had been buried there in the grave of Ann Rutledge. 
 
 In the ordinary course of the Law's procedure, some 
 weeks later, the man James H. Norris, was tried before 
 a jury of twelve men, sitting according to the manner and 
 forms handed down to us through half a thousand years. 
 The trial came to an end when these twelve men, after 
 having heard other men who had been at the scene of the 
 killing of Metzker tell their stories as to what had taken 
 place at the time, and had heard much argument by 
 
158 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 other men called lawyers as to what these stories meant, 
 and had been instructed by the judge as to what this 
 thing called the Law, meant, of which they had heard so 
 much during the trial, left the room to consider together 
 the meaning of the whole matter; and then, a short time 
 thereafter returned to the court room, and one of their 
 number read from a sheet of paper these momentous 
 words, "We the jury find the defendant James H. Norris, 
 guilty." Shortly after the arrest of "Duff" Armstrong, as 
 he was called, his father, Jack Armstrong, had died. 
 With almost his last breath he had told his wife, Han- 
 nah, "Sell everything you have and clear 'Duff.' " First 
 of all, the wife had taken his body back to the old home, 
 from which they had moved to Mason County, and there 
 she had laid it in the old cemetery where lay also, the 
 body of Ann Rutledge. Then she employed two local 
 lawyers, who, realizing the bitter feeling that had been 
 aroused by the killing of Metzker, secured a change of 
 venue for Armstrong which caused the trial to take place 
 in another county. Soon after she went to Springfield 
 and asked the aid of Abraham Lincoln in saving her boy." 
 Needless to say, this aid was promised. 
 
 In the usual course of the Law's procedure, some months 
 after the conviction of the man, Norris, twelve other men, 
 according to the same venerable forms, sanctioned by five 
 hundred years of usage, sat at Beardstown to decide the 
 fate of William "Duff " Armstrong. Mr. Lincoln had ar- 
 rived the night before the trial. He had kept in touch 
 with the other lawyers in the case and was familiar with 
 the evidence as it had been brought out in the case of 
 Norris. This fore-knowledge of the evidence that was 
 to be given was a strong asset, but to this case Lincoln 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 159 
 
 brought one of much more weight, his memories. A 
 thousand biographers have told their stories about this 
 trial and the methods employed by Mr. Lincoln. They 
 have told how he cross-examined the most important wit- 
 ness for the prosecution, a fellow by the name of Allen. 
 This was the man who was relied upon to establish the 
 identity of "Duff" Armstrong as the man who struck 
 Metzker in the front of the head. He said that he was 
 able to recognize Armstrong because the moon was shin- 
 ing brightly, and on further questioning, said the moon 
 was high up in the heavens. They have applauded his 
 sagacity in bringing before the jury an old almanac of 
 the same period as the killing and showing thereby that 
 the moon was not at the point testified to by the witness 
 but was so low in the heavens that it could not have been 
 shining on the spot of the killing as he had said. And 
 some, too, have thought the thing the more sagacious be- 
 cause they have heard that the almanac produced was not 
 of the identical period, but of another, in which the moon 
 phase in question fitted better the purpose of the lawyer, 
 in confuting the witness. Such doubts have been defi- 
 nitely set at rest, for thorough research has established the 
 accuracy of the almanac rather than the witness. This 
 research, however, had hardly been needed for the whole 
 past of the man Lincoln was there to assure that he would 
 not have employed so shallow a trick. And had he been 
 willing to employ such questionable means, yet would he 
 have been too shrewd to forget that the attorney for the 
 prosecution would follow him in an argument for an 
 hour or more, and before that would have probably veri- 
 fied the moon phases in some one of the many almanacs, 
 which were to be found in almost every house at that 
 
160 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 day, and so been prepared to demonstrate the falsity of 
 so flimsy a forgery. 
 
 But it was not the shattering of the testimony of this 
 witness on this point that gave a different result to the 
 trial of Armstrong than that of Norris. That result came 
 about because Abraham Lincoln, at that time the fore- 
 most man in the State of Illinois save only the one ex- 
 ception of Stephen A. Douglas, chose to draw from the 
 inner recesses of his soul and lay before this jury the mem- 
 ories that had been buried therein for half a lifetime. 
 As has been related by the prosecuting attorney in the 
 case, J. Henry Shaw, "He told the jury of his once being 
 a poor, friendless boy; that Armstrong's parents took him 
 into their home, fed and clothed him and gave him a 
 home. There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. The 
 sight of his tall quivering frame, and the particulars of 
 the story he so pathetically told, moved the jury to tears, 
 and they forgot the guilt of the defendant in their ad- 
 miration of the advocate. It was the most touching scene 
 I ever witnessed." 
 
 The prosecuting attorney believed Armstrong guilty but 
 no evidence he could present to that jury would stand 
 against memories such as those which Abraham Lincoln 
 engraved into their very souls. And so, according to those 
 old forms of the law, this jury, having heard all from wit- 
 nesses and all from lawyers and all from the judge, filed 
 out of the room for a time, just as had that other jury in 
 the trial of James Norris, but on its return the foreman 
 read in a clear strong voice that carried to all parts of the 
 room, "We the jury find the defendant, William 'Duff 
 Armstrong, not guilty." 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 |F FOR several years following his retirement from Con- 
 gress, Lincoln delved more assiduously into law than had 
 been his wont, it is not to be understood that in thus 
 applying himself he had ceased to have an interest in 
 things political. It may be doubted, indeed, whether he 
 could have accomplished this divorce from politics even 
 had he so desired. His was what might be termed a po- 
 litical mind. He loved and was interested in his fellows, 
 singly and in mass, and so must have an abiding interest 
 in whatever concerned them and their relations to each 
 other. 
 
 It is probable that he had not yet solved the problem 
 of his own course of action on the question that was di- 
 viding the land in twain. In his mind there was no abid- 
 ing conviction of where lay the ultimate of right and 
 wrong, at least as to the methods to be pursued. The less 
 complex minds around him might quickly make their 
 decisions on one phase or other of this matter of slavery. 
 Lincoln himself had probably come to no decision other 
 than that announced in his resolution with Dan Stone, 
 given to the Illinois Legislature fifteen years earlier, "that 
 the institution of slavery was founded on both injustice 
 and bad policy," to which was added the assertion that 
 
 161 
 
162 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Congress had the power to abolish slavery in the District 
 of Columbia. The very fullness of his investigations made 
 for slower conclusions than most of his fellows, and the 
 more impetuous of them became impatient with his con- 
 servatism in the midst of what was fast developing into a 
 veritable maelstrom of passion. 
 
 At this period Herndon, an ardent Abolitionist, says: 
 "I used to warn Lincoln against his apparent conserva- 
 tism when the needs of the hour were so great;" but his 
 only answer would be: "Billy, you're too rampant and 
 spontaneous." Thus humorously did the senior partner 
 reprove the junior. Always, the older man has a paternal 
 attitude toward the younger, who to him is William or 
 Billy, according to whether the humor is serious or light; 
 or when spoken of to others, Herndon or Bill Herndon. 
 But to the younger man the senior partner is always Mr. 
 Lincoln. Continuing, Herndon adds: "I was in corre- 
 spondence with Sumner, Greeley, Phillips, and Garrison, 
 and was thus thoroughly imbued with all the rancor 
 drawn from such strong anti-slavery sources. I adhered 
 to Lincoln, relying on the final outcome of his sense of 
 justice and right. Every time a good speech on the great 
 issue was made I sent for it. Hence you could find on my 
 table the latest utterances of Giddings, Phillips, Sumner, 
 Seward, and one whom I considered grander than all the 
 others — Theodore Parker. Lincoln and I took such papers 
 as the Chicago Tribune, New York Tribune, Anti-Slavery 
 Standard, Emancipator, and National Era. On the other 
 side of the question we took the Charleston Mercury and 
 the Richmond Enquirer. I also bought a book called 
 sociology, written by one Fitzhugh, which defended and 
 justified slavery in every conceivable way. In addition I 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 163 
 
 purchased all the leading histories of the slavery move- 
 ment, and other works which treated on that subject. 
 Lincoln himself never bought many books, but he and I 
 both read those I have named. After reading them we 
 would discuss the questions they touched upon and the 
 ideas they suggested, from our different points of view. 
 I was never conscious of having made much of an im- 
 pression on Mr. Lincoln, nor do I believe I ever changed 
 his views. I will go further and say, that, from the pro- 
 found nature of his conclusions and the labored method 
 by which he arrived at them, no man is entitled to the 
 credit of having changed or greatly modified them. I 
 remember once, after having read one of Theodore Park- 
 er's sermons on slavery, saying to Mr. Lincoln substan- 
 tially this: *I have always noticed that ill-gotten wealth 
 does no man any good. This is as true of nations as in- 
 dividuals. I believe that all the ill-gotten gain wrenched 
 by us from the negro through his enslavement will even- 
 tually be taken from us, and we will be set back where we 
 began.' Lincoln thought my prophecy rather direful. He 
 doubted seriously if either of us would live to see the 
 righting of so great a wrong; but years after, when writing 
 his second Inaugural Address, he endorsed the idea. 
 Clothing it in the most beautiful language, he says: 'Yet 
 if God wills that it (the war) continue till all the wealth 
 piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of 
 unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of 
 blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn 
 by 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." ' " 
 However much more deliberation Lincoln displayed 
 
164 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 than those around him, these swiftly changing eddies in 
 the main currents of the political thought of the nation 
 were closely followed by him and probably more accur- 
 ately evaluated than by those others. From a statement 
 of John T. Stuart it is seen that as early as 1850 he had 
 reached the point of decision. Stuart tells that as he and 
 Lincoln were returning from court in Tazewell county 
 in 1850, and were nearing the little town of Dillon, they 
 engaged in a discussion of the political situation. "As we 
 were coming down the hill, I said, 'Lincoln, the time is 
 coming when we shall all have to be Abolitionists or Dem- 
 ocrats/ He thought a moment and then answered, rue- 
 fully and emphatically, 'When that time comes my mind 
 is made up, for I believe the slavery question can never be 
 successfully compromised.' " 
 
 There seems no reason to believe that at this early period 
 he had definitely outlined his own plans, save in the event 
 of being forced to take one of the alternatives mentioned. 
 He was still groping for a stronger lamp to light his path- 
 way of action. Those others urged on by their passionate 
 impulses need no such, but he must have the sanction of 
 reason for his support, and so he continued to seek for 
 an answer to this problem. The violence of the agitation 
 at this period of 1850 had at least fixed his opinion against 
 any compromise that would admit slavery into the terri- 
 tories and by that route into the new States as they en- 
 tered the great national sisterhood composing the nation. 
 
 Already men in high places were talking without any 
 lowering of voices of secession and disunion. California 
 was at this time asking that she be admitted to the sister- 
 hood of States. But in the constitution that she had 
 adopted, at the very head of the Bill of Rights, appeared 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 165 
 
 this clause: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, un- 
 less for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in 
 this State." And because of this clause those inside the 
 national structure argued so fiercely that the new appli- 
 cant could hardly get attention. Alexander Stephens, who 
 had been his friend while Lincoln was in Congress, writes, 
 December 5, 1849: "I find the feeling among the southern 
 members for a dissolution of the Union — if the anti-slavery 
 (measures) should be pressed to extremity — is becoming 
 much more general than at first. Men are now begin- 
 ning to talk of it seriously, who twelve months ago, hardly 
 permitted themselves to think of it." Von Hoist records: 
 "Toombs, — according to his own assurances, was de- 
 termined to maintain the struggle against the measure, 
 even to the disruption of the Union." The same writer 
 quotes Stephens, in order to resist the anti-slavery party, 
 as "ready to go to all extremes with Toombs." Lincoln, 
 Stephens and Toombs had but two years earlier been mem- 
 bers of the "Young Indians," militant Whigs who fought 
 in brotherhood in the ranks of that party and for the 
 same candidate. Now, two of that three were ready to 
 end the existence of the nation whose head they had been 
 so largely instrumental in choosing. At this same session 
 Duer, of New York, had called Meade, of Virginia, a liar 
 for even denying that he was in favor of a dismemberment 
 of the Union. By their attitude, two of the three former 
 friends were doing much to bring the third out of the 
 mists of uncertainty into the clear light of decision. 
 
 The bill by which California came into the Union as a 
 free State was a most complicated piece of legislation that 
 gave little reason for belief that a cure had been found 
 for the violent controversy that had raged over the slave 
 
166 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 question. Certainly, no great national principle had been 
 announced or settled by it. For a brief period it allayed 
 the violence of feeling aroused on issues that were in part 
 temporary. Because of the number of these, Thomas H. 
 Benton had in sarcasm termed it the "Omnibus Bill" and 
 the aptness of the term has kept it so. 
 
 Besides the admission of California as a free State, it 
 had provided for the formation of territorial governments 
 in Utah and New Mexico, though with silence as to the 
 question of slavery. There was a provision also for the 
 adjustment of the boundary line between Texas and New 
 Mexico, in which Benton charged that Texas had gained 
 some seventy thousand square miles of land at the ex- 
 pense of the territory, which was of course just so much 
 more land gained for the extension of slavery. To make 
 more sure of the support of the Texans, the measure pro- 
 vided for the appropriation by Congress of several million 
 dollars for the payment of certain vexatious debts of that 
 State. Aside from these, the bill prohibited the slave trade 
 in the District of Columbia, long a source of irritation. 
 This was aggravated because large numbers of these slaves 
 were corralled in an old livery stable in full view of the 
 Capitol and there held for the buyers who came from the 
 States of the far South and purchased large numbers for 
 delivery in the cotton areas of that section. 
 
 Last and more important than any of these, not even 
 excepting the admission of California, was a stringent Fu- 
 gitive Slave Law. This the South had long demanded, 
 and now got enough satisfaction out of to enable it to 
 forget for a time the admission of the new free State. 
 The results, however, were far from satisfactory, and 
 actually dangerously hurtful. In the light of after events 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 167 
 
 it is clearly seen that this law, urged entirely to satisfy 
 the slaveholders, in the end worked most largely to their 
 undoing. Everywhere in the North bitter resentment 
 followed attempts at its enforcement. While statesmen 
 and serious thinkers of the North, including Lincoln, 
 might readily agree that as long as the law of the land 
 gave one human being the right to hold another human 
 being as property, the law should protect that right, the 
 enforcement of such a law was an entirely different prop- 
 osition. However sound the technical basis of such a 
 law might be, when its enforcement ran headlong counter 
 to human nature it simply piled one bad law on top of 
 another and rendered each the more intolerable. 
 
 For the first time some of the horrors and inhumanities 
 of the slave system were brought immediately home to 
 the masses of the northern people, heretofore too busy 
 with their daily tasks to take more than a casual interest 
 in the question. Now, the most ordinary impulse of hu- 
 man nature might, in any northern city, hamlet, or the 
 open country, be the occasion for branding one a crim- 
 inal. The deepest dictates of the human heart, the max- 
 ims of five thousand years of civilization, and the very 
 essence of Christianity, must now be set aside. The story 
 of the good Samaritan must be forgot. The acts which 
 had through all the ages approved one noble, were now 
 evoked to brand one a felon. A direction given a way- 
 farer, a cup of water to the thirsty, might be the decisive 
 evidence to secure the conviction for crime. A year of 
 this Fugitive Slave Law did more to arouse the North 
 against the institution of slavery than ten years of the 
 efTorts of the abolitionists. For the first time the whole 
 northern people were awakened to this monstrous anom- 
 
168 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 aly fixed in the body politic of a land that called itself 
 free. 
 
 Now at last was the great heart of the North made 
 ready by trial to hear a new gospel of freedom. Not in 
 the cold words of constitutions, but in a gospel made up 
 of burning tears and heart sobs. A prophetess now came 
 unto Israel. Ancient Israel had seen these in the old days, 
 but never one who spoke like this woman. Daughter of 
 a preacher, sister of a preacher, and wife of a preacher 
 was this woman. The first, Lyman Beecher, the second, 
 Henry Ward Beecher, the third, Calvin E. Stowe. But 
 neither the father, nor brother, nor husband, would ever 
 deliver a sermon like that in which Harriet Beecher Stowe 
 poured forth her very soul in uncle tom's cabin. 
 
 Cavilers ever since that day in 1852 in which this 
 epochal book came from the press, have sought to invali- 
 date its message. Often they mention improbabilities, and 
 always for the purpose of defending those who committed 
 the wrong of slavery, rather than shielding those who 
 suffered the wrong of slavery. A strange perversion is 
 this. These cavilers forget the substantial truth told by 
 the whole book because they find something that appears 
 improbable to them in an occasional line. This book so 
 tremendously influenced the people of that day because it 
 told so fully the truth about the subject it discussed, and 
 about which no one else had dared to tell the full truth. 
 
 There were, and ever since have been others oversensi- 
 tive lest some fancied kindlier features of the worst slave 
 system that ever cursed the earth should be overlooked. 
 Constantly they talk of loyalties of slaves to their masters. 
 And some of these, against the open efforts of his mature 
 life, would have us believe that Abraham Lincoln took 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 169 
 
 little or no interest in the wrongs of slavery, save when 
 the country was on the eve of dissolution and war. So 
 brilliant an authority as the late Albert Beveridge asserted 
 that after expressing his opposition to slavery in the reso- 
 lution in the Illinois Legislature in 1837, Lincoln did not 
 interest himself in the question for some twenty years. 
 The same authority shows astonishment at the loyalty 
 which kept the slaves from rising against their masters 
 during the war. The work of Albert Shaw, whose con- 
 clusions generally exhibit keen insight, shows the same 
 tendency to error here. He speaks of the slaves who 
 "were so bound by their sense of domestic attachment and 
 loyalty to the superior class, upon whom they were de- 
 pendent, that when the final test of war came they proved 
 themselves the most devoted Southerners of any class 
 whatever, in view of the facts and motives that might have 
 provoked them to insurrection." 
 
 There is a natural feeling of reluctance in saying any 
 word that would deprive a people, already deprived of 
 so much, of tributes so fine as these, paid by the two 
 brilliant gentlemen and by others less brilliant. But it 
 is a dubious merit that is thus ascribed to them, and far 
 inferior to the actual merit that should be allowed; that 
 of native, common sense, which made the unschooled, un- 
 lettered men of color realize the folly of attempting an 
 uprising (if any ever thought of it) when they were pro- 
 hibited by the harshest of laws from the possession of any 
 form of weapons; prohibited from assembling together 
 even in small numbers ; deprived even of the right to have 
 religious instruction in groups, except under supervision 
 of the masters; and prohibited from going from place 
 to place unless in possession of a pass. Remembering these 
 
170 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 conditions, and that writing was unknown to them (it 
 being a crime even for the master to teach such), so that 
 there was no means of communication except by word 
 of mouth, and further that they had no vestige of organ- 
 ization, one marvels at the strange misapprehension that 
 leads to such conclusions about a loyalty in not doing 
 what even these untutored folk could well see could not 
 be done. 
 
 Possibly this misconception of things is due to the fail- 
 ure to understand that slavery in the South was a different 
 thing from the slavery of the ancients, where often, "the 
 slave by birth was of equal dignity with his master," his 
 servile condition being the result of the fortunes of war, 
 and not infrequently "all classes were then upon a level 
 in point of taste, sentiment and instruction." Nor was 
 it like that in Hayti where the master class was very small, 
 the country densely wooded with but few roads, and, of 
 vastly more significance, where there was practically no 
 central authority backed by effectual armed force. 
 
 Lincoln had given the subject much thought and, wiser 
 by far than any of these gentlemen, saw nothing remark- 
 able as to loyalty in these slaves, but only the practical 
 impossibility of successfully accomplishing an uprising. 
 And with the largest tolerance and fullest patience ever 
 seen in an active man of affairs, there is yet a difficulty in 
 restraining his sarcasm when referring to those who saw 
 so little of bad and so much of good in the institution of 
 slavery. "For although volume upon volume has been 
 written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never 
 heard of a man who wishes to take the good of it, by 
 being a slave." 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 
 I HE Democratic party had not been able to harmonize 
 entirely its discordant northern and southern adherents 
 but had much less of disorganization than the Whigs. 
 When the election of November, 1852, came on, they 
 secured an overwhelming victory, and Franklin Pierce 
 received the electoral vote of all the States except Massa- 
 chusetts, Kentucky, Tennessee and Vermont. With this 
 success and with a man for President whose opinions fitted 
 with their wishes for the enlargement of the slave limits, 
 the pro-slave group lost no time pushing forward a pro- 
 gram in line with their ideas. The outcome of the Cali- 
 fornia fight was forgot, except that part like the Fugitive 
 Slave Law which they had so much desired. 
 
 The next test of strength between the principles of free- 
 dom and slavery, so long in open opposition, and now 
 engaged in a life and death struggle, was to come over 
 the broad level lands lying west of the slave State of 
 Missouri and the free State of Iowa, known as Nebraska, 
 of which Kansas was a part. 
 
 In view of the recent elevation of Mr. Pierce, in a large 
 measure, doubtless, because of views agreeable to the con- 
 trolling group of the South, it is not surprising that 
 Stephen A. Douglas, full of ambition and willing to pay 
 
 171 
 
172 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the price for its gratification, capable and vigorous, should 
 seek to place himself in a favorable position for that honor 
 at the next election. And how better could this be ac- 
 complished than by a stroke which more than anything 
 else would ingratiate him to the powerful slave-holding 
 group ? 
 
 The Missouri Compromise, by which Henry Clay had 
 stayed the earliest of the serious threats against the Union, 
 in 1821, had allowed the admission of Missouri as a slave 
 State, while further providing that all territory west and 
 north of the southern boundary "should be forever free." 
 It had thus formed a gigantic barrier shutting the rising 
 tides of the slave population within, or nearly so, its orig- 
 inal habitat, where it would be left as the founders of the 
 Republic had expected it in the course of ultimate extinc- 
 tion. The result was not, however, as they had expected, 
 and not as those who had put through this compromise 
 expected. With the proposed admission of each new 
 State there was a renewed outbreak over the question of 
 whether such State should allow slavery within its lim- 
 its, and with the trend of population toward the north- 
 west, always this great barrier, the Missouri Compromise, 
 stood marking the limits beyond which slavery could not 
 go. After the admission of California as a free State, the 
 pro-slave group became doubly anxious to see that others 
 admitted should have no bar against their favorite form of 
 property. They were willing to pay any price that might 
 be demanded by the ambition of the bold political adven- 
 turer, if only this barrier might be removed that was 
 crowding slavery more and more within its narrow lim- 
 its. There were few among the first rank of northern 
 statesmen who did not at one time or another have the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 173 
 
 tempting prize of southern support for the Presidency 
 dangled before their eyes. And not a few of them at 
 different times made sharp shifts in their political atti- 
 tudes that were ascribed to this temptation. 
 
 With the election of Franklin Pierce, the force of this 
 temptation became the stronger as its effectiveness became 
 more obvious. With Henry Clay dead, and no longer 
 there to guard his most cherished accomplishment, the 
 possibility of changing the old order of things appeared 
 more probable. It is not surprising then that Douglas, 
 chairman of the Committee on Territories, should attempt 
 some such solution of the problem as would leave him 
 in the good graces of the slave-holding group at the 
 election of 1856. As chairman, he introduced a bill pro- 
 viding for a territorial government for Nebraska and 
 Kansas which was quickly amended by providing for 
 the separation of the two. This was due to the wishes of 
 the slave-holding group, who saw more likelihood of 
 carrying slavery into Kansas alone than into the larger 
 area contained in the two sections, since that territory 
 was immediately west of Missouri and in the same latitude 
 as Kentucky and Virginia. 
 
 The new territories were in the area which the Mis- 
 souri Compromise declared to be "forever free," but the 
 Nebraska-Kansas bill contained a provision leaving it to 
 the settlers to decide the question of slavery according to 
 their own wishes. This of course, was contrary to the 
 Missouri Compromise, but those who opposed the bill, 
 including Lincoln, charged that the matter was made even 
 worse by a later alteration in the proposed act which omit- 
 ted a former provision by which any constitution adopted 
 should be submitted to the people. This bill became a 
 
174 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 law, May 30, 1854. Douglas had thus accomplished the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and thereby had well 
 earned the gratitude of the slaveholders. But whatever 
 satisfaction he got from this source was greatly marred by 
 the violent censure that came from his own and other 
 northern States, and there is no doubt that Douglas was 
 seriously alarmed at the hostile demonstrations in his own 
 State. 
 
 It may not have been seen either by Douglas or any 
 others at the time, but the most serious threat against the 
 future ambitions of Douglas was the renewed activity of 
 Lincoln in political affairs. This latter had seen in the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill with its repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise, a danger that called every friend of freedom to 
 increased watchfulness and effort. No longer was there 
 any uncertainty in Lincoln's mind as to his own course 
 of action, and no longer was there any uncertainty in his 
 course of action. The warfare between the two men, ex- 
 tending back for nearly twenty years, constant, personal 
 and political, now became intensified. Behind the ordi- 
 nary courtesies which each observed toward the other, there 
 was little in the relations of these two distinguished citizens 
 of the same small city except hostilities. There is wonder 
 if behind the quarter of a century of these hostilities, with 
 hardly a truce, there was not something more than a mere 
 clash of ambitions or temperaments. There are no facts 
 by which this question can be answered; all that is known 
 is that between the two there was a conflict as irrepressible 
 as that which separated the political principles for which 
 each stood. 
 
 Following the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
 there was a veritable storm of condemnation for those 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 175 
 
 who had promoted it with the most of this aimed at 
 Douglas, its chief proponent. Not the least of this storm 
 area was found in Illinois. While the Senator did not 
 return until September, the opposing forces in the State 
 were busily engaged in uniting all who opposed the ex- 
 tension of slavery in a solid front against him. The co- 
 alescing of these various, hitherto discordant elements, 
 which was seen not only in Illinois but in most of the 
 other northern States, meant the earlier demise of the 
 Whig party, which would soon pass from the stage of 
 American politics. 
 
 He found condemnation everywhere. The abolitionists 
 had become much more numerous as well as more bitter 
 as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. There was a revolt 
 in his own party, and both in the newspapers and on the 
 platform his opponents were using every possible argu- 
 ment that would apply against slavery to destroy him. 
 Whatever the South might think, here at home there was 
 nothing whatever of the Roman Consul returning for 
 his triumphal entry. Doubtless he had been the largest 
 factor in putting through the Congress this most funda- 
 mental change in American legislation seen in more than 
 thirty years, but whatever applause followed this mo- 
 mentous accomplishment came from southern and not 
 northern States. In these latter there was only grave ap- 
 prehension or strong denunciation. 
 
 At Chicago where Douglas made his first speech he had 
 an accompaniment of hisses and hooting. He was kept 
 busy for some weeks conferring with and explaining his 
 position to his friends. The construction he placed on 
 his act and the results to be expected from this bill, drew 
 many of his friends back to him. But there were others 
 
176 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 who could never again look upon him with confidence. 
 Now for the first time his enemies were showing a united 
 front. Abolitionists, Whigs and Anti-Nebraska Demo- 
 crats were being molded into one battle organization. 
 More significant than this was the fact that all these 
 diverse elements turned to one man for leadership, and 
 that man was his enemy of twenty years. With him there 
 could be no adjustment of differences. When Douglas 
 made his next speech in defense of his action on the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill at Springfield, Lincoln was called 
 upon to make a reply which he did the following eve- 
 ning. It is here then that we have an earlier edition of 
 the debates so long to be remembered between these men. 
 If contemporary mention is a trustworthy guide, the lau- 
 rels of this debate belong to Lincoln rather than to the 
 famous Senator. On October 16, 1854, Lincoln at Peoria 
 again attacked the legislation fathered by Douglas. There 
 is no fuller and franker contribution of clear reasoning 
 on the various phases of slavery in America to be found 
 than this. It is a long speech, some sixty pages, and its 
 delivery took about three hours. Some of the things he 
 said that day follow: 
 
 "I do not propose to question the patriotism or to assail 
 the motives of any man or class of men, but rather to 
 confine myself strictly to the naked merits of the ques- 
 tion." Having thus opened up he proceeded to show 
 slavery as a "monstrous injustice," and proceeded to ex- 
 plain that he had no prejudice against the southern people 
 and did not consider them different from other people, 
 adding: "We know that some southern men do free their 
 slaves, go north and become tiptop Abolitionists, while 
 some northern ones go south and become most cruel slave- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 177 
 
 masters. When southern people tell us they are no more 
 responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I 
 acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution 
 exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of in any 
 satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the say- 
 ing. I surely will not blame them for not doing what 
 I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power 
 were given me, I should not know what to do as to the 
 existing institution. My first great impulse would be to 
 free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia to their own 
 native land. But a moment's reflection would convince 
 me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there 
 may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is 
 impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they 
 would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not 
 surplus shipping and surplus money enough to carry them 
 there in many times ten days. What then ? Free them all, 
 and keep them among us as underlings ? Is it quite cer- 
 tain that this betters their condition? I think I would 
 not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not 
 clear enough for me to denounce people upon. 
 
 "What next? Free them and make them politically 
 and socially our equals? My own feelings would not 
 admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those 
 of the great mass of the whites will not. Whether this 
 feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not 
 the sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A uni- 
 versal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be 
 safely disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. 
 It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation 
 might be adopted, but for their tardiness in this I will not 
 undertake to judge our brethren in the South." 
 
178 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 The speaker then went on to show the repulsiveness 
 of slavery by showing that all who made a business of 
 bartering and selling Negroes were regarded with re- 
 pulsion, and goes on to describe their methods and the 
 results that follow: "He watches your necessities and 
 crawls up to buy your slave, at a speculating price. If 
 you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, 
 you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. 
 Your children must not play with his; they may rollick 
 freely with the little Negroes, but not with the slave deal- 
 er's children. If you are obliged to deal with him, you 
 try to get through the job without so much as touching 
 him, instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact." 
 Lincoln may not be describing the feeling of the whole 
 slaveholding group, but he is showing his own horror 
 and contempt for the slave-dealer. 
 
 Douglas, with his adroitness of mind and boldness of 
 deception had talked much of "the sacred right of self- 
 government." So the speaker goes on to say that this right 
 depended on whether or not the Negro was to be con- 
 sidered as a man. "If he is not a man, in that case he who 
 is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what 
 he pleases with him. But if the Negro is a man, is it not 
 to that extent a total destruction of self-government to 
 say that he too shall not govern himself? When the 
 white man governs himself, that is self government; but 
 when he governs himself and also governs another man, 
 that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If 
 the Negro is a man, why, then, my ancient faith teaches 
 me that 'All men are created equal,' and that there can 
 be no moral right in connection with one man's making 
 a slave of another. What I do say is that no man is good 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 179 
 
 enough to govern another man without that other's con- 
 sent." 
 
 As to supplying a remedy, he said, first of all: "The 
 Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the sake 
 of the Union, it ought to be restored. We ought to elect 
 a House of Representatives which will vote its restora- 
 tion." Pointing to the decline in American citizenship, 
 he said, with touching solemnity: "Little by little, but 
 steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giv- 
 ing up the old for the new faith. Nearly eighty years 
 ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; 
 but now from that beginning we have run down to the 
 other declaration that for some men to enslave others is 
 a 'sacred right of self-government.' These principles can- 
 not stand together. They are as opposite as God and 
 Mammon; whoever holds to the one, must despise the 
 other." He ended this speech in which he had held his 
 audience for three hours with this caution, which in view 
 of some of the desperate arguments of the slave orators 
 that the lot of the slaves of the South was better than the 
 workingmen of the North, was not so far-fetched: "Is 
 there no danger to liberty itself in discarding the earliest 
 practice and first precept of our ancient faith? In our 
 greed-chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware 
 lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's 
 charter of freedom." 
 
 So talked Lincoln, concerning slavery; talked inti- 
 mately, directly, and without evasion. Only a man who 
 had given it profound thought could have talked as he 
 talked, and only a man who had been in close contact 
 with the thing itself or with men who had known it 
 first hand, could have talked as he talked. 
 
180 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 It is to be remembered that this Peoria speech is almost 
 the same speech that Lincoln made at Springfield follow- 
 ing Senator Douglas. Of that speech which was not re- 
 corded, Herndon has given this enthusiastic account: "I 
 frequently wrote the editorials in the Springfield Journal, 
 the editor, Simeon Francis, giving to Lincoln and to me 
 the utmost liberty in that direction. Occasionally Lincoln 
 would write out matter for publication, but I believe I 
 availed myself of the privilege oftener than he. The edi- 
 torial in the issue containing the speeches of Lincoln and 
 Douglas on this occasion was my own, and while in de- 
 scription it may seem rather strongly imbued with youth- 
 ful enthusiasm, yet on reading it in maturer years I am 
 still inclined to believe it reasonably faithful to the facts 
 and the situation. The anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lin- 
 coln/ says the article, 'was the profoundest in our opinion 
 that he has made in his whole life. He felt upon his 
 soul the truths burn which he uttered, and all present 
 felt that he was true to his own soul. His feelings once 
 or twice swelled within, and came near stifling utterance. 
 He quivered with emotion. The whole house was as still 
 as death. He attacked the Nebraska bill with unusual 
 warmth and energy; and all felt that a man of strength 
 was its enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he could 
 by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful, and 
 the house approved the glorious triumph of truth by loud 
 and continued huzzas. Women waved their white hand- 
 kerchiefs in token of woman's silent but heartfelt assent. 
 Douglas felt the sting; the animal within him was roused 
 because he frequently interrupted Mr. Lincoln. His 
 friends felt that he was crushed by Lincoln's powerful 
 argument, manly logic, and illustrations from nature 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 181 
 
 around us. The Nebraska bill was shivered, and like a 
 tree of the forest was torn and rent asunder by the hot 
 bolts of truth. Mr. Lincoln exhibited Douglas in all the 
 attitudes he could be placed, in a friendly debate. He 
 exhibited the bill in all its aspects to show its humbuggery 
 and falsehood, and, when thus torn to rags, cut into slips, 
 held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn 
 and mockery was visible upon the face of the crowd and 
 upon the lips of their most eloquent speaker. At the con- 
 clusion of this speech every man and child felt that it was 
 unanswerable. He took the heart captive and broke like a 
 sun over the understanding.'" 
 
 None could doubt this man's hatred of the institution 
 of slavery and the different groups in Illinois that opposed 
 its spread appear to have from that time recognized him 
 as the foremost champion of their views. Nor was it long 
 before in the nation at large he would be given front 
 rank among those who saw in this anomaly a menace to 
 the continued existence of the Union. 
 
 One result of this resentment against the measure just 
 enacted was seen in the contest for United States Senator, 
 into which Mr. Lincoln entered with his old time zest, 
 although he had already been nominated for the State 
 Legislature and was elected. The term of General James 
 K. Shields was now near its end and the possibility of 
 winning the place appeared good. With both the old 
 parties seriously threatened with disruption, the chances 
 for a new man to fill the place were high and not a 
 few were making strong efforts to get it. Lincoln led 
 in the first ballots, receiving at one time as high as 
 forty-five votes, five short of the number needed to give 
 a majority. On the ninth ballot, Governor Joel A. Mat- 
 
182 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 teson to whom the Shields votes had been transferred 
 received forty-seven ballots, while Lyman Trumbull, 
 friend of Lincoln and who had been gaining while 
 Lincoln's vote receded, received thirty-five. Trumbull 
 was one of the group of younger Democrats who had 
 rebelled against Douglas over the Kansas-Nebraska issue, 
 while Matteson was favored by those who thought with 
 Douglas. Seeing the likelihood that another Senator 
 favorable to the pro-slavery group was about to be se- 
 lected, Lincoln quickly induced his friends to swing their 
 votes and on the next ballot Trumbull won the nom- 
 ination with fifty-one votes to forty-seven for Matteson. 
 Considerable bitterness of feeling resulted, since Trumbull 
 was regarded as a traitor to his party, but the result of 
 this election made it clear that the issue drawn on the 
 slave question was now to be given more weight than 
 mere party labels. Among the charges following this 
 switch of Lincoln's votes, was that a bargain had been 
 entered into between him and Trumbull. This was evi- 
 dently due to the feeling then existing that there could 
 be no crossing of party lines to give aid to political 
 opponents. It was not yet realized that men were now 
 fronted with a political question that weighed heavier 
 than any party shibboleth. The party group that failed 
 to realize this was doomed to extinction. On this ques- 
 tion Lincoln's mind was made up. "The day of com- 
 promise has passed," as he said. "These two great ideas 
 have been kept apart only by the most artful means. 
 They are like two wild beasts in sight of each other, 
 but chained and held apart. Some day these deadly 
 antagonists will one or the other break their bonds, and 
 then the question will be settled." He said to his old 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 183 
 
 friend Joseph Gillespie, speaking of slavery: "It is the 
 most glittering, ostentatious, and displaying property in 
 the world, and now, if a young man goes courting, the 
 only inquiry is how many Negroes he or his lady-love 
 owns. The love for slave property is swallowing up 
 every other mercenary possession. Slavery is a great and 
 crying injustice, an enormous national crime." 
 
 In a letter to Elihu Washburne, written the day fol- 
 lowing the election he talks of his defeat thus: "I regret 
 my defeat moderately, but am not nervous about it. I 
 could have headed off every combination, and been elected 
 had it not been for Matteson's double game, and his de- 
 feat gives me more pleasure than my own gives me 
 pain. On the whole it is perhaps well for our general 
 cause that Trumbull is elected." 
 
 Almost prophetic is the last part of this statement. 
 Had he been elected Senator at that time, it seems wholly 
 unlikely that his role on the stage of the nation's history 
 would have been equally heroic. And without that 
 heroic role, a nation's glory might have been a nation's 
 shame. 
 
 An incident occurring shortly after this election shows 
 Lincoln facing one of the every-day possibilities of the 
 slave system. Herndon tells that, "Some time after the 
 election of Trumbull a young Negro, the son of a colored 
 woman in Springfield known as Polly, went from his 
 home to St. Louis and there hired as a hand on a lower 
 Mississippi boat, — for what special service, I do not recol- 
 lect, — arriving in New Orleans without what were known 
 as free papers. Though born free he was subjected to 
 the tyranny of the 'black code,' all the more stringent 
 because of the recent utterances of the Abolitionists in 
 
184 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the North, and was kept in prison until his boat had 
 left. Then, as no one was especially interested in him, 
 he was forgotten. After a certain length of time estab- 
 lished by law, he would inevitably have been sold into 
 slavery to defray prison expenses had not Lincoln and I 
 interposed our aid. The mother came to us with the 
 story of the wrong done her son and induced us to inter- 
 fere in her behalf. We went first to see the Governor 
 of Illinois, who, after patient and thorough examination 
 of the law, responded that he had no right or power 
 to interfere. Recourse was then had to the Governor of 
 Louisiana, who responded in like manner. We were 
 sorely perplexed. A second interview with the Governor 
 of Illinois resulting in nothing favorable, Lincoln rose 
 from his chair, hat in hand, and exclaimed with some 
 emphasis: 'By God, Governor, I'll make the ground in 
 this country too hot for the foot of a slave, whether you 
 have the legal power to secure the release of this boy or 
 not.' Having exhausted all legal means to recover the 
 Negro we dropped our relations as lawyers to the case. 
 Lincoln drew up a subscription-list, which I circulated, 
 collecting funds enough to purchase the young man's 
 liberty. The money we sent to Col. A. P. Fields, a friend 
 of ours in New Orleans, who applied it as directed, and 
 it restored the prisoner to his overjoyed mother." 
 
 On August 24, 1855, there is a letter to his old friend, 
 Joshua F. Speed, and replying to some argument of Speed, 
 who is a slave-holder, he says: "I confess I hate to see 
 the poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried 
 back to their unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep 
 quiet. In 1841, you and I had a rather tedious low-water 
 trip on the steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 185 
 
 may remember as well as I do, that from Louisville to 
 the mouth of the Ohio there were on board ten or a 
 dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight 
 was a continued torment to me; and I see something like 
 it every time I touch the Ohio or any slave border. It 
 is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in 
 a thing which has, and continually exerts the power of 
 making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate 
 how much the great body of the northern people do 
 crucify their feelings in order to maintain their loyalty 
 to the Constitution and the Union. I do oppose the 
 extension of slavery, because my judgment and feeling 
 so prompt me; and I am under no obligations to the 
 contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ we 
 must." 
 
 Thus does this man show how deeply had been graven 
 in his mind this tragedy which he saw some fourteen 
 years before. This is the second time he has written 
 about the thing. How sensitive to pain is his soul! 
 Doubtless many others were there in full view of this 
 same scene that still is seared indelibly on his brain. But 
 being there and having eyes, they saw not; and being 
 there and having ears, they heard not. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
 
 L 
 
 r INCOLN began his political career as a Whig and 
 he had been a consistent party man. Early in the year 
 of 1856, it became so evident that this party could not 
 adjust itself to the conditions brought about by the ques- 
 tion of slavery, that it was necessary for him to make a 
 new political adjustment. It was obvious that the Whig 
 party was fast approaching a stage of utter desuetude and 
 that its partisans must seek some other bark if they would 
 navigate the political sea. 
 
 Herndon, his buoyant young partner, steeped with the 
 virus of abolitionism, as he was, but strong in the belief 
 that the older member of the firm was destined for great 
 things, appears to have been instrumental in finding this 
 bark on which they were to sail future political waters. 
 That he chose another than the Abolitionist party as the 
 most serviceable for transporting the high destiny of his 
 chosen chieftain, clearly demonstrates his keen political 
 acumen. This young man had in a higher degree than 
 Lincoln the faculty of quick decision. That on this occa- 
 sion he led in the direction he did, instead of toward 
 the abolitionists, may indicate that he gave more weight 
 toward finding a fit vessel for his partner's political ambi- 
 tions than merely satisfying his own inclinations. 
 
 186 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 187 
 
 He relates that "finding himself drifting about with 
 the disorganized elements that floated together after the 
 angry political waters had subsided, it became apparent 
 to Lincoln that if he expected to figure as a leader he 
 must take a stand himself. Mere hatred of slavery and 
 opposition to the injustice of the Kansas-Nebraska legis- 
 lation were not all that was required of him. He must 
 be a Democrat, Abolitionist, Know-Nothing or Repub- 
 lican, or float forever about in the great political sea with- 
 out compass, rudder or sail. At length he declared 
 himself. Believing the times were ripe for more ad- 
 vanced movements, in the spring of 1856 I drew up a 
 paper for friends of freedom to sign, calling a county 
 convention in Springfield to select delegates for the forth- 
 coming Republican state convention in Bloomington. The 
 paper was freely circulated, and generously signed. Lin- 
 coln was absent at the time; and, believing I knew what 
 his feelings and judgment on the vital questions of the 
 hour were, I took the liberty to sign his name to the 
 call. The whole was then published in the Springfield 
 Journal. No sooner had it appeared than John T. Stuart, 
 who, with others, was endeavoring to retard Lincoln in 
 his advanced movements, rushed into our office, and ex- 
 citedly asked 'if Lincoln had signed that Abolition call 
 in the Journal?' I answered in the negative, adding that 
 I had signed his name myself. To the question, 'Did 
 Lincoln authorize you to sign it?' I returned an em- 
 phatic 'No.' 'Then,' exclaimed the startled and indignant 
 Smart, 'you have ruined him.' But I was by no means 
 alarmed at what others deemed hasty and inconsiderate 
 action. I thought I understood Lincoln thoroughly, but 
 in order to vindicate myself if assailed, I immediately 
 
188 SET MY PEOPLE FREE' 
 
 sat down, after Stuart had rushed out of the office, and 
 wrote Lincoln, who was then in Tazewell county, at- 
 tending court, a brief account of what I had done and 
 how much stir it was creating in the ranks of his con- 
 servative friends. If he approved or disapproved my 
 course, I asked him to write or telegraph me at once. 
 In a brief time came his answer: 'All right. Go ahead. 
 Will meet you radicals and all.' Stuart subsided, and 
 the conservative spirits who hovered around Springfield 
 no longer held control of the political fortunes of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln." 
 
 This was a period when the public feeling was tense 
 in the last degree over the bloody conflicts between slavery 
 and anti-slavery men in Kansas, where this question had 
 brought on actual civil war in which was seen on a 
 smaller scale that which ere long would fall to the nation 
 itself. Elsewhere there were ominous threats and as- 
 saults; even in the Senate of the United States Charles 
 Sumner had been brutally beaten, and here in Lincoln's 
 home state, Paul Selby, a newspaper man had been seri- 
 ously wounded. The call for a state convention had been 
 issued as already stated, to meet at Bloomington, May 29, 
 1856. This call had been directed to all who were op- 
 posed to the extension of slavery. This broad foundation 
 would admit all the varied elements that were opposed 
 to slavery. There at Bloomington was John M. Palmer, a 
 former Democrat, alienated by Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska 
 Act, and Lyman Trumbull, whom we have seen 
 elected Senator by the aid of Lincoln. Owen Lovejoy, 
 Abolitionist, was there, bravely carrying on with fierce 
 zeal the work for which his brother, Elijah, gentler by 
 far than he, had given his life. There too, was Colonel 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 189 
 
 William H. Bissell, he who had answered the challenge 
 of Jefferson Davis by accepting and choosing the weapons, 
 "muskets loaded with ball and buck shot." Whereat 
 there was no duel, for even this dangerous near-pastime 
 of the southern gentlemen of that day could be made 
 too dangerous. Others were there who had before been 
 reputable Whigs or Democrats or Abolitionists. From 
 all parties and shades of parties they had come, but each 
 actuated by a righteous hatred of slavery. Of course 
 there were many able speakers present and not a few 
 of the speeches made there at Bloomington were notable. 
 But the one speech that fixed itself in the minds of all 
 was the speech made by Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 By a strange prank of fortune there is no record of 
 this speech which was made before a large audience in 
 which there were many reporters, some of whom were 
 adepts at shorthand, still a new art in the west, and who 
 were there to report that speech. Too, there were many 
 lawyers in the audience many of them in favorable posi- 
 tions, and among the younger ones several who made 
 a practice of taking close notes in matters of this kind. 
 Herndon was there, but after a few minutes became too 
 absorbed in what was being said to record it as was 
 his usual practice. 
 
 Joseph Medill was there for the purpose of reporting 
 the convention and, of course, the important speeches. 
 Of this one he states : "It was my journalistic duty, though 
 a delegate to the convention, to make a 'long hand' 
 report of the speeches delivered, for the Chicago Tribune. 
 I did make a few paragraphs of what Lincoln said in 
 the first eight or ten minutes, but I became so absorbed 
 in his magnetic oratory that I forgot myself and ceased 
 
190 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 to take notes; and joined with the convention in cheering 
 and stamping and clapping to the end of his speech. 
 I well remember that after Lincoln sat down and calm 
 had succeeded the tempest, I walked out of a sort of 
 hypnotic trance, and then thought of my report for the 
 Tribune. There was nothing written but an abbreviated 
 introduction. It was some sort of satisfaction to find 
 that I had not been 'scooped/ as all the newspaper men 
 present had been equally carried away by the excitement 
 caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report 
 or sketch of the speech." 
 
 Then he described the scene and his impressions gen- 
 erally: "Mr. Emery, a 'free-state' man just from 'bleeding 
 Kansas,' told of the 'border ruffian' raids from Missouri 
 upon the free-state settlers in Kansas; the burnings, rob- 
 beries, and murders they were then committing; and 
 asked for help to repel them. When he finished, Lincoln 
 was vociferously called for from all parts of Major's large 
 hall. He came forward and took the platform beside the 
 presiding officer. At first his voice was shrill and hesi- 
 tating. There was a curious introspective look in his 
 eyes, which lasted for a few moments. Then his voice 
 began to move steadily and smoothly forward, and the 
 modulations were under perfect control from thence- 
 forward to the finish. He warmed up as he went on, 
 and spoke more rapidly; he looked a foot taller as he 
 straightened himself to his full height, and his eyes flashed 
 fire; his countenance became wrapped in intense emotion; 
 he rushed along like a thunderstorm. He prophesied 
 war as the outcome of these aggressions, and poured forth 
 hot denunciations upon the slave power. The convention 
 was kept in an uproar, applauding and cheering and 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 191 
 
 stamping; and this reacted on the speaker, and gave him 
 a tongue of fire. The thrilling scene in that old Bloom- 
 ington hall forty years ago arises in my mind as vividly 
 as the day after its enactment. 
 
 "There stood Lincoln in the forefront, erect, tall, and 
 majestic in appearance, hurling thunderbolts at the foes 
 of freedom, while the great convention roared its en- 
 dorsement! I never witnessed such a scene before or 
 since. As he described the aims and aggressions of the 
 unappeasable slaveholders and the servility of their north- 
 ern allies as illustrated by the perfidious repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise two years previously, and their 
 grasping after rich prairies of Kansas and Nebraska, to 
 blight them with slavery and to deprive free labor of 
 this rich inheritance, and exhorted the friends of freedom 
 to resist them to the death, the convention went fairly 
 wild. It paralleled or exceeded the scene in the Revolu- 
 tionary Virginia convention of eighty-one years before, 
 when Patrick Henry invoked death if liberty could not 
 be preserved, and said, 'After all we must fight.' Strange, 
 too, that this same man received death a few years after- 
 wards while conferring freedom on the slave race and 
 preserving the American Union from dismemberment." 
 
 Henry C. Whitney, one of the lawyers of the circuit 
 with Lincoln and a close friend, who appears to have 
 been with him very frequently for some weeks prior to 
 the Bloomington convention, had thus gained some 
 knowledge of the general argument of the speech before 
 its delivery, and added to this knowledge by making 
 some notes during the course of its delivery. On this 
 basis when it was found that Mr. Lincoln had not put 
 his speech in writing, Whitney, after going over the 
 
192 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 question as to what the speech contained with others who 
 heard it, later reconstructed it with probably sufficient 
 accuracy to let its general features be seen and the argu- 
 ment known. 
 
 It is highly improbable that this restoration has given 
 us the speech in its entirety, either of verbiage or thought, 
 but there can be no doubt as to the tremendous effect 
 of the speech. For those who heard it, Abraham Lincoln 
 became at once the man of the hour. Of the many 
 distinguished men there gathered, he was from that time 
 the man pre-eminent. From that day the new Republican 
 party was fully launched in the State of Illinois and 
 under leadership that was not henceforth to be questioned. 
 
 In after years Lincoln was to make a number of speeches 
 which among all civilized peoples would receive the ap- 
 plause of those most able to gauge merit in such matters; 
 some of these speeches have been ranked with the su- 
 preme masterpieces of eloquence, taken from every age 
 and every land, ancient and modern; many of those who 
 were there at Bloomington lived to hear these later and 
 lauded masterpieces. But among those who were thus 
 fortunate there were some who, conceding every excel- 
 lence to his later speeches, continued to maintain that 
 the greatest speech ever delivered by Abraham Lincoln, 
 was that made at Bloomington, sometimes called the 
 'Lost Speech.' 
 
 Some parts of this speech as recalled by Mr. Whitney 
 are here given: "We come — we are here assembled to- 
 gether — to protest as well as we can against a great 
 wrong, and to take measures, as well as we now can, to 
 make that wrong right; to place the nation, as far as 
 it may be possible now, as it was before the repeal of 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 193 
 
 the Missouri Compromise; and the plain way to do this 
 is to restore the Compromise, and to demand and deter- 
 mine that Kansas shall be free! While we affirm, and 
 reaffirm, if necessary, our devotions to the principles of 
 the Declaration of Independence, let our practical work 
 here be limited to the above. We know that there is 
 not a perfect agreement of sentiment here on the public 
 questions which might be rightfully considered in this 
 convention, and that the indignation which we all must 
 feel cannot be helped; but all of us must give up some- 
 thing for the good of the cause. There is one desire 
 which is uppermost in the mind, one wish common to 
 us all — to which no dissent will be made; and I counsel 
 you earnestly to bury all resentment, to sink all personal 
 feeling, make all things work to a common purpose in 
 which we are united and agreed about, and which all 
 present will agree is absolutely necessary — which must 
 be done by any rightful mode if there be such. Slavery 
 must be kept out of Kansas! The test — the pinch — is 
 right there. If we lose Kansas to freedom, an example 
 will be set which will prove fatal to freedom in the end. 
 We, therefore, in the language of the Bible, must 'lay 
 the axe to the root of the tree.' Temporizing will not 
 do longer; now is the time for decision — for firm, per- 
 sistent, resolute action. 
 
 "We have made a good beginning here today. As our 
 Methodist friends would say: 'I feel it is good to be here.' 
 While extremists may find some fault with the mod- 
 eration of our platform, they should remember that 'the 
 battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the 
 swift.' In grave emergencies, moderation is generally 
 safer than radicalism; and as this struggle is likely to be 
 
194 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 long and earnest, we must not, by our action, repel any 
 who are in sympathy with us in the main, but rather 
 win all that we can to our standard. We must not belittle 
 nor overlook the facts of our condition — that we are new 
 and comparatively weak, while our enemies are en- 
 trenched and relatively strong. They have the adminis- 
 tration and the political power; and, right or wrong, at 
 present they have the numbers. Our friends who urge 
 an appeal to arms with so much force and eloquence, 
 should recollect that the government is arrayed against 
 us, and that the numbers are now arrayed against us 
 as well; or, to state it nearer to the truth, they are not 
 yet expressly and affirmatively for us; and we should repel 
 friends rather than gain them by anything savoring of 
 revolutionary methods. As it now stands, we must ap- 
 peal to the sober sense and patriotism of the people. We 
 will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by 
 calmness and moderation; we will grow strong by the 
 violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless 
 truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be 
 in the majority after a while, and then the revolution 
 which we will accomplish will be none the less radical 
 from being the result of pacific measures. The battle 
 of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery is 
 a violation of the eternal right. We have temporized 
 with it from the necessities of our condition, but as sure 
 as God reigns and school children read, that black foul 
 
 LIE CAN NEVER BE CONSECRATED INTO GOd's HALLOWED 
 
 truth! 
 
 "I will not say that we may not sooner or later be 
 compelled to meet force by force; but the time has not 
 yet come, and if we are true to ourselves, may never come. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 195 
 
 Do not mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. 
 Therefore, let the legions of slavery use bullets; but let 
 us wait patiently till November, and fire ballots at them 
 in return; and by that peaceful policy, I believe we shall 
 ultimately win. . . . The Union is undergoing a fearful 
 strain; but it is a stout old ship, and has weathered many 
 a hard blow, and 'the stars in their courses,' aye, an 
 invisible power, greater than the puny efforts of men, 
 will fight for us. But we ourselves must not decline the 
 burden of responsibility, nor take counsel of unworthy 
 passions. Whatever duty urges us to do or to omit, must 
 be done or omitted; and the recklessness with which our 
 adversaries break the laws, or counsel their violation, 
 should afford no example for us. Therefore, let us re- 
 vere the Declaration of Independence; let us continue to 
 obey the Constitution and the laws; let us keep step to 
 the music of the Union. Let us draw a cordon, so to 
 speak, around the slave States, and the hateful institution, 
 like a reptile poisoning itself, will perish by its own 
 infamy. (Applause.) 
 
 "But we cannot free men if this is, by our national 
 choice, to be a land of slavery. Those who deny freedom 
 to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under 
 the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it. (Loud 
 applause.) 
 
 "The conclusion of all is, that we must restore the 
 Missouri Compromise. We must highly resolve that Kan- 
 sas must be free! (Great applause.) We must reinstate 
 the birthday promise of the Republic; we must reaffirm 
 the Declaration of Independence; we must make good in 
 essence as well as in form Madison's avowal that 'the 
 word slave ought not to appear in the Constitution'; and 
 
196 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 we must even go further, and decree that only local law, 
 and not that time-honored instrument, shall shelter a 
 slave-holder. We must make this a land of liberty in 
 fact, as it is in name. But in seeking to attain these 
 results — so indispensable if the liberty which is our pride, 
 and boast shall endure — we will be loyal to the Consti- 
 tution and to the 'flag of our Union,' and no matter what 
 our grievance — even though Kansas shall come in as a 
 slave State; and no matter what their's — even if we shall 
 restore the Compromise — we will say to the southern 
 
 DISUNIONISTS, WE WON'T GET OUT OF THE UNION AND YOU 
 
 shan't!!! (This was the climax; the audience rose to its 
 feet en masse, applauded, stamped, waved handkerchiefs, 
 threw hats in the air, and ran riot for several minutes. 
 The arch-enchanter who wrought this transformation 
 looked, meanwhile, like the personification of political 
 justice.) 
 
 "But let us, meanwhile, appeal to the sense and patriot- 
 ism of the people, and not to their prejudices; let us 
 spread the floods of enthusiasm here aroused all over 
 these vast prairies, so suggestive of freedom. Let us com- 
 mence by electing the gallant soldier Governor (Colonel) 
 Bissell, who stood for the honor of our State alike on 
 the plains and amidst the chaparral of Mexico and on 
 the floor of Congress, while he defied the southern Hot- 
 spur; and that will have a greater moral effect than all 
 the border ruffians can accomplish in all their raids on 
 Kansas. There is both a power and a magic in popular 
 opinion. To that let us now appeal; and while, in all 
 probability, no resort to force will be needed, our mod- 
 eration and forbearance will stand us in good stead when 
 if ever we must make an appeal to battle and to the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 197 
 
 god of hosts!!" (Immense applause and a rush for the 
 orator.) 
 
 It will be noticed that in the reported version of this 
 speech at Bloomington there are several direct references 
 to war as the ultimate outcome of slavery in America. 
 Such conclusions were being frequently voiced in the 
 South by the foremost men, but among the statesmen 
 of the North such thoughts were still being left unspoken. 
 The more thoughtful men in that section felt that the 
 very mention of the dread possibility of war was in its 
 tendency an incitement to war. A man, then, and es- 
 pecially one in high esteem with the people was apt to 
 be regarded as dangerous and irresponsible, who made 
 mention of the harsh word which even the more stupid 
 saw as describing that which was now something more 
 than an early possibility. There is reason to believe, then, 
 that here in these unusually frank allusions to the possi- 
 bilities of appeal to armed force, is seen the reason for 
 the loss of this speech, or as some have intimated, its 
 suppression. Mr. Medill on this possibility has said: 
 
 "My belief is, that after Mr. Lincoln cooled down, he 
 was rather pleased that his speech had not been reported, 
 as it was too radical in expression on the slavery question 
 for the digestion of central and southern Illinois at that 
 time, and that he preferred to let it stand as a remem- 
 brance in the minds of his audience. But be that as it 
 may, the effect of it was such on his hearers that he 
 bounded to the leadership of the new Republican party 
 of Illinois, and no man afterwards ever thought of dis- 
 puting that position with him. On that occasion he 
 planted the seed which germinated into a Presidential 
 candidacy and that gave him the nomination over Seward 
 
198 
 
 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 at the Chicago convention in i860, which placed him in 
 the Presidential chair, there to complete his predestined 
 work o£ destroying slavery and making freedom uni- 
 versal, but yielding his life as a sacrifice for the glorious 
 deeds." 
 
 A few weeks later the Republican party opened its 
 convention in Philadelphia. The result of the balloting 
 there gave John C. Fremont the nomination for President, 
 and William L. Dayton for vice-President. Among those 
 mentioned for this latter office was Abraham Lincoln. 
 Now is it seen that this man's fame has spread beyond 
 the boundaries of Illinois. 
 
 Two weeks earlier the Democratic convention had sat 
 at Cincinnati. There the balloting had been very spirited 
 and the prize of the nomination for President had been 
 given to James Buchanan. President Pierce, had been 
 beaten, despite his large patronage, and Stephen A. 
 Douglas, had been beaten, despite his immense popularity 
 with the South, because of his activity in the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise. The failure of these two had 
 resulted from their close connection with the Kansas- 
 Nebraska Act. The Whig party, waning but with past 
 prestige and still with sufficient following to be a factor 
 in any national question had nominated Millard Fillmore, 
 ex-President. Buchanan was elected. The new Repub- 
 lican party had made a strong race and had carried 
 enough States to make it certain that slavery was now 
 to be taken as an institution with an uncertain future. 
 The Democratic party, with the full support of the pro- 
 slavery group, had won the election, but by a minority 
 vote. With the exception of Pennsylvania, Illinois and 
 Indiana all the northern States had been carried by the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 199 
 
 new party. In Illinois, too, the slaveholding group won 
 only with a minority vote. What Lincoln had anxiously 
 anticipated came to pass, the voters had scattered their 
 votes between the two candidates who represented the 
 opposition to slavery and thereby both had lost. Of the 
 vote cast, Buchanan received 105,344, Fremont, 96,180 
 and Fillmore, 37,451. Now was it seen everywhere in 
 the land that the opposition to slavery was threatening 
 to take control of the Republic. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 r RESIDENT BUCHANAN'S first official utterance 
 was one in which he felicitated the nation that by the 
 application of a simple rule, "the will of the majority 
 shall govern the settlement of the question of domestic 
 slavery in the Territories." Then he quoted from the 
 legislation repealing the Missouri Compromise that part 
 which had been characterized by Senator Benton as a 
 "stump speech injected into the belly of the act," and 
 which said "Congress is not to legislate slavery in any 
 Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to 
 leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regu- 
 late their domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
 only to the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 How often did the men of that day who trafficked in 
 slaves dictate to their agents the words free, and freedom, 
 and liberty. As the new President viewed it, "the people 
 having proclaimed their will, the tempest at once sub- 
 sided." Verily, this prophet sees but darkly into the 
 future, for soon will there be such tempests as this west- 
 ern continent never saw. He who was blind had been 
 called upon to lead the blind. And yet this man, Bu- 
 chanan, had all the knowledge that long years of varied 
 and extended experience could supply. It is to be doubted 
 
 200 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 201 
 
 if any man who ever sat as President brought to the 
 office so wide an experience in statecraft. 
 
 Some three days after the prophet had thus spoken, 
 the Sanhedrin, itself, the Supreme Court of the United 
 States speaks. And though in this case of Dred Scott vs. 
 John F. A. Sandford, it speaks in a tongue unknown to 
 the Fathers of the Republic, it speaks with final authority. 
 For some three years this court has had this case before 
 it and now at last makes known its conclusions. These 
 conclusions are set forth to the extent of some hundred 
 pages. One is not supposed to have opinions after the 
 oracle has spoken, and so from that day to this the books, 
 whether in the schools or otherwise, have had little to 
 say that might be worthwhile by reason of frankness con- 
 cerning the conclusions announced at that time. At this 
 distant day it may be permissible to speak above a whisper 
 concerning the findings made by the court in the case 
 mentioned. 
 
 It is not a little strange that so much time and study 
 was given to the Declaration of Independence by the 
 venerable judges. One would have thought that in find- 
 ing a defence for a man who desired to deprive another 
 of his freedom, that would be the last document to call 
 in aid. And yet that is just what the subtile judges of 
 the highest court in the land accomplished by a certain 
 legal legerdemain. Jefferson, who had put the very es- 
 sence of his being into the Declaration of Independence, 
 would never have known the thing that the Chief Justice 
 of the United States construed it to be. All the noble 
 idealism that had made this historic document possibly 
 the longest step upward toward the heights of freedom, 
 was entirely expunged from it by the casuistry and pro- 
 
202 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 digious verbosity of the aged Roger B. Taney. The high- 
 est judicial authority of a nation that had started its career 
 proclaiming to the world the words freedom and equality, 
 had sunk to the role of an attorney for one who would 
 enslave his fellow, and to accomplish this had construed 
 the immortal document written by Jefferson as a mere 
 slaveholder's title paper. 
 
 Now, indeed, were the lights of liberty gone out, and 
 the utter darkness of slavery was over all this American 
 land. In the Senate, Stephen A. Douglas had extin- 
 guished one; in the White House, James Buchanan had 
 extinguished one; and now Taney, with a veritable deluge 
 of words, extinguished the other and last by making the 
 Declaration of Independence, mightiest challenge to tyr- 
 anny ever uttered in the world, a mere claim of privilege 
 for a little group and its kind. No greater sacrilege 
 had been perpetrated in any land or in any age in the 
 name of justice. 
 
 A State may, like an individual, have its exalted and 
 its base periods. There may be some question as to 
 whether America reached her highest moral point at an 
 earlier or a later period; but certain it is this decision 
 handed down by Justice Taney marks exactly the lowest 
 moral level ever reached by the government of the United 
 States of America. For the first time the three depart- 
 ments of the government, the legislative, the executive 
 and the judicial are seen in equal obloquy. 
 
 This case had commenced on November 2, 1853, when 
 Dred Scott's attorney, R. F. Field, filed in the clerk's 
 office of the Circuit Court of the United States for the 
 District of Missouri, his declaration against the defendant, 
 John F. A. Sandford. Under the ancient legal form of 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 203 
 
 trespass, it was told to the court in the quaint verbiage 
 handed down through centuries of English legal proce- 
 dure, that Dred Scott "complained of the wrong" done 
 him by Sandford, in restraining him as a slave and in 
 restraining his wife and children as slaves, and fixed his 
 damages at two thousand five hundred dollars on this 
 account, and "for other wrongs then and there done him 
 by the said John F. A. Sandford," five hundred dollars, 
 making his suit for three thousand dollars damage. 
 
 It was shown in the course of the case that Scott had 
 been a slave at St. Louis, and that he had been taken 
 to Rock Island in Illinois; that he had married during 
 his residence of four years at that place, and that two 
 children had been born of the marriage, one in Illinois 
 and the other after his return to Missouri. Scott's claim 
 to freedom was based on the fact that his master had 
 taken him into a free State and there established a per- 
 manent residence. In that day this was generally con- 
 sidered as giving a ground for claiming freedom, the 
 immediate precedent for which had been a case in which 
 a slave from the Barbadoes Island taken to England, had 
 been adjudged free by Justice Lord Mansfield. This case 
 of Somerset had considerable weight in the American 
 States up to this time, though it was tried in 1770. 
 
 Chief Justice Taney, refusing to recognize the analogy 
 of this and the Somerset case, or to indicate that he had 
 ever heard of the same, plunged deeply into the intent 
 that had been in the minds of the Fathers of the Republic 
 when they had evolved the Declaration of Independence 
 and the Constitution of the United States. Basing his 
 findings, not on the language which they put into these 
 instruments, but rather on their language largely con- 
 
204 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 strued by certain of their actions, he decided that they 
 could not have had black or colored men in mind when 
 in the one instrument there was mention of "certain un- 
 alienable rights and that among these, are life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness." Four people were sent back 
 into slavery and for the reason, as the court tells the 
 world, that Dred Scott could not bring a suit in the courts 
 because he was not, as he announced himself in his dec- 
 laration against Sandford, a citizen of Missouri. In the 
 view of Justice Taney, the men who had spoken in the 
 Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of 
 the United States, had not meant him to be a citizen, 
 regardless of what they had asserted in their famous docu- 
 ments. And further, for some like reason, and because 
 of certain, apparently to him, sacred clauses in the Con- 
 stitution as to property rights, the court declared that 
 Congress had no right to prohibit slavery anywhere in 
 the United States; at least that was the effect of the 
 opinion handed down. 
 
 It was clear then in the mind of Justice Taney that 
 Scott could never have obtained his freedom, nor that 
 of his wife, nor that of his children, by residence of any 
 period, in a free State. This was so, though all men 
 for more than thirty-seven years had believed that that 
 State had been reserved for freemen, and that it had been 
 specifically declared to be "forever free." To other men 
 who had made some study of the case and the surround- 
 ing circumstances, this reasoning was never satisfactorily 
 clear. The only thing which appeared clear to them 
 was that the slave oligarchy was at last definitely pos- 
 sessed of the courts, along with the Congress and the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 205 
 
 Presidency of the United States. Among the men who 
 tended to this belief, was Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Within a period now of six years, the slaveholding 
 group had won four great victories: The Fugitive Slave 
 Act, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas- 
 Nebraska Act, and this Dred Scott case. And yet these 
 victories had been so dearly bought that had they seen 
 the full consequences it may be doubted if there had been 
 any elation whatever. They were the kind of victories 
 that tend to ruin the victors more surely than they do 
 the vanquished; victories like that of Bonaparte at Boro- 
 dino, or Marlborough at Malplaquet, or like that which 
 caused Pyrrhus after Asculum to remark: "Another such 
 victory, and we are lost." 
 
 Lincoln, who had long believed that some adjustment 
 of this question might be found in compromise that 
 would allow for a gradual emancipation, probably did 
 not cease entirely to hope for such a solution until this 
 decision of Judge Taney's. From that day he began to 
 believe that the nation was headed toward an armed con- 
 flict. It was about this time that he laconically flayed 
 the title to slave ownership with this legalistic observa- 
 tion: "It is singular that the courts would hold that a 
 man never lost his right to his property that had been 
 stolen from him, but that he instantly lost his right to 
 himself if he was stolen." 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
 
 w. 
 
 HILE Lincoln had failed in the attempt to succeed 
 to the senatorial office that had been held by James K. 
 Shields, he had by no means thrown aside the thought. 
 With the extraordinary show of strength made by the 
 newly organized Republican party in Illinois, he readily 
 sees that with his predominant place in that party he is 
 in a favorable position to attain that office. It is no 
 difficult matter to get the party nomination, for no one 
 questions his leadership here in Illinois and there is but 
 one obstacle between him and the place. But as that 
 obstacle happens to be Stephen A. Douglas, who is near 
 the close of his second term, it can be seen that Lincoln's 
 desire will not be easily attained. 
 
 There are some conditions that make the chances better 
 for the man who aspires for the place, for the Buchanan 
 administration is much incensed at Douglas since the 
 latter's blunt refusal to march with the administration 
 forces in the late Lecompton Constitution matter. The 
 Union, organ of the administration, is daily printing col- 
 umn articles there at Washington to show why the Demo- 
 crats in Illinois should not support Douglas, and is urging 
 them to give their support to Judge Sydney Breese. 
 
 For Douglas there has been no formal nomination. 
 
 206 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 207 
 
 What need is there for these little formalities ? Does he 
 not always speak of "my party" when referring to De- 
 mocracy in Illinois ? However, no longer do the Senator's 
 recommendations pass current at the White House. Here 
 in Illinois, the postmasters and other Federal function- 
 aries are in a dreadful plight, since it is exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to worship these two masters — Buchanan, President 
 of the United States and giver of all good things, and 
 Stephen A. Douglas, who before these evil days had been 
 the chief priest at that shrine. So it happens that Douglas 
 goes forth to battle for his toga with Democratic enemies 
 in his rear, headed by the President himself, and with 
 Republican enemies in front and at their head Abraham 
 Lincoln, and with him Senator Lyman Trumbull. These 
 two are opponents that even Douglas must respect. Some 
 say they are the best debaters in the Republican party, 
 with the possible exception of Seward. 
 
 Starting from the year 1834, the paths of Abraham 
 Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas had wound onward 
 and upward, if not in parallel lines at least so close to- 
 gether and for so long a time as to become a thing ex- 
 traordinary, and probably not to be seen again in the his- 
 tory of the American nation. At that time both were 
 young men, Douglas, just at the age of manhood, and 
 Lincoln but four years older. Neither were helped nor 
 possibly hindered with capital, other than high spirit, 
 largeness of mental capacity, keen common sense, and 
 tireless ambition. 
 
 Then they met at Vandalia, at that time the State Capi- 
 tal. Lincoln was there to take his seat as member of the 
 Legislature, for the first time, and Douglas, planning the 
 same objective, would attain it two years later. The goals 
 
208 
 
 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 sought after by the two men were so often similar, if not 
 the same, it might be assumed that the two had much 
 in kind. This however was far from accurate. They 
 were both, however, habitual office seekers. 
 
 Lincoln with, the earlier start had chosen the Whig 
 party. This was not the thing that could have been ex- 
 pected, since even at that early day it was the Democratic 
 party that was more largely allied with the aims of the 
 men of the South, and Lincoln was by birth one of these. 
 Then too, the community in which he commenced his 
 political career was largely Democratic, and most of his 
 friends. Aside from this, that party was not only in power 
 but had at its head at Washington a man who was the 
 idol of the masses and of the youthful, a man of destiny. 
 Andrew Jackson, himself one of the masses, high of spirit 
 and high of ambition, would have, it seems, drawn 
 a young man of these same masses, who if poor, was yet 
 possessed of high spirit and high ambition. Lincoln chose 
 the Whig, the weaker of the two parties, and the one 
 that was opposed by most of his friends. There are no 
 definite facts to give us light, but there is much reason 
 to feel that he arrayed himself with the party that was 
 less strongly allied with slavery. 
 
 Douglas, with a like inconsistency when looked at with 
 regard to his place of birth, chose the Democratic party, 
 though he was a native of Vermont. Looked at from 
 other viewpoints his choice was easily explicable. It is 
 natural that a young man, frankly and aggressively am- 
 bitious, should ally himself in beginning his political ca- 
 reer with a party that was best able to push him ahead. 
 Supported by the stronger political party, Douglas forged 
 ahead with greater rapidity. He became the favored son 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 209 
 
 of the party, and with his own native brilliance enhanced 
 by each new prize won, he was in the closing years of 
 his second senatorial term the most powerful figure in 
 either house of Congress, if not in the entire nation* 
 Some strength that had been lost to him and his party 
 in his own State and the North generally, as the result 
 of his support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
 had been won back by his refusal to back the so-called 
 Lecompton Constitution, by which it was hoped to get 
 Kansas into the sisterhood of States without the formality 
 of having the question referred to the vote of the people 
 of the territory. This refusal had been given despite the 
 urging of the President, and with a curtness that left 
 Buchanan strongly disposed against him. He had missed 
 the Presidential nomination in both 1852 and 1856, but 
 by no wide margin. Like Clay and Webster, however, 
 he had lost little else, and retained the vast power that his 
 ready eloquence, his energy and aggressiveness had 
 brought to him; to which should be added an almost 
 intuitive knowledge of the things that please the masses 
 of men, coupled with a willingness to do the things that 
 would so please them, even to the point of forgetting the 
 consistencies. This man knew the price to be paid for a 
 satisfied ambition, and was not disposed to refuse to pay it. 
 The Republican party held its nominating convention 
 in June, 1856, and named Abraham Lincoln for the place 
 of Senator. He delivered a notable speech, in fact one 
 of the most notable that he had yet made. He analyzed 
 and held up to the convention the errors and fallacies of 
 the court in rendering the decision on Dred Scott. But 
 first he had made use of a certain ancient phrase, taken 
 from Holy Writ, one that was a part of the consciousness 
 
210 
 
 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 of the nation. This was done to set forth clearly, so that 
 every one might understand, just where the nation was 
 heading. The speech in the main was simply a powerful 
 argument against the reasoning of the court, but because 
 of the phrase used and the fact that the phrase men- 
 tioned set forth more clearly and fixed so deeply in the 
 minds of the people, the conditions that fronted the Re- 
 public, it has ever since been known as the "House Di- 
 vided Against Itself Speech." 
 
 Then he went on to intimate almost to the point of 
 directly charging that between ex-President Pierce, Sena- 
 tor Douglas, Chief Justice Taney, and President Bu- 
 chanan, there had been a common purpose to enact pre- 
 arranged Congressional legislation, court-sanctioned and 
 executively approved, for the purpose of putting an end 
 to the agitation over the slave question. And under his 
 skillful massing of the evidence presented, this conclusion 
 of his looked to be easily warranted. The opening par- 
 agraphs of that speech follow: 
 
 "If we could first know where we are, and whither we 
 are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how 
 to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy 
 was initiated with the avowed object and confident prom- 
 ise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the op- 
 eration of that policy, that agitation has not only not 
 ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it 
 will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I 
 believe this government cannot endure permanently half 
 slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
 solved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect 
 it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 211 
 
 or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will ar- 
 rest the further spread of it, and place it where the public 
 mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
 ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward 
 till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as 
 well as new, North as well as South. 
 
 "Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 
 
 "Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that 
 now almost complete legal combination — piece of ma- 
 chinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doc- 
 trine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not 
 only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how 
 well adapted; but also let him study the history of its 
 construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, 
 to trace the evidences of design and concert of action 
 among its chief architects, from the beginning. 
 
 "The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from 
 more than half the States by State constitutions, and from 
 most of the national territory by congressional prohibi- 
 tion. Four days later commenced the struggle which 
 ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This 
 opened all the national territory to slavery and was the 
 first point gained." 
 
 The nomination given Lincoln, as had been expected 
 by the leaders of the Republican party in Illinois, had 
 neither been expected nor approved by the leaders of the 
 Republican party in the East. Many, like Horace Gree- 
 ley, believed that Douglas would have been the wiser 
 choice of the party, despite his unsympathetic past on the 
 slavery question. They felt now, since he had refused 
 to sponsor the Lecompton Constitution, which was framed 
 for the purpose of assuring Kansas to the pro-slavery 
 
212 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 group, such a service merited commendation on the part 
 of the North, and that with the added support thus to be 
 given and his heavy following among the Democrats, he 
 could be made certain of victory and thus aid in putting 
 a check to the forward movement of slavery. Possibly this 
 was soundly reasoned, but the Republicans outside of Illi- 
 nois plainly had more confidence in the Senator than did 
 the men who had known him more intimately. Many 
 of these had the same feeling that had caused Herndon to 
 exclaim when on a visit to the East, he had been advised 
 by Horace Greeley with regard to supporting Douglas: 
 "Forget the past, sustain the righteous," — "Good God, 
 righteous, eh!" 
 
 Douglas reached Illinois in July. Thanks to his stand 
 in the Lecompton matter and his bold independence in 
 his dealings with President Buchanan subsequent to this, 
 it was a far different return from that of four years earlier 
 when he was even jeered and hooted when speaking in 
 Chicago. In his first speech delivered after his return 
 at this time, the Senator at once launched into the many 
 fallacies that he discovered in the speech delivered by 
 Lincoln a month earlier. While never discourteous to 
 Lincoln, who was present on the platform, the Senator 
 charged with much force that by his speech he was array- 
 ing the North against the South and the South against 
 the North, or as he put it: "In other words Mr. Lincoln 
 advocates boldly and clearly a war of the sections, a war 
 of the North against the South, of the free States against 
 the slave States — a war of extermination — to be continued 
 relentlessly until the one or the other shall be subdued, 
 and all the States shall become either free or become 
 slave." It was a powerful argument and displayed with 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 213 
 
 clearness the clanger to be apprehended by such ideas as 
 had been advanced by Lincoln at the time of his nomi- 
 nation. 
 
 A week after the Chicago speech there was another at 
 Bloomington in which Douglas gave further notice to 
 the "House Divided Against Itself." Again Lincoln was 
 present. The following day there was another speech of 
 similar tenor at Springfield. The Senator kept pointing 
 his guns at the speech of Lincoln. To him, that "House 
 Divided Against Itself" in no wise applied to the United 
 States, and Lincoln had done a dangerous thing in ad- 
 vancing such a proposition. Lincoln had not been present 
 that day, but many of his friends had. That night he re- 
 plied. Already there had begun between these two an- 
 tagonists a new battle that would make all the others look 
 like a play of children, and which the men of after years 
 would call epochal. 
 
 Seven days after replying to Douglas in Springfield, 
 Lincoln sent a formal challenge asking that the Senator 
 meet him in a series of debates throughout Illinois. Fol- 
 lowing some negotiations as to the details, a few days later 
 Senator Douglas notified Lincoln that he designated the 
 places and times for their joint discussion, as follows: 
 Ottawa, La Salle County, August 21; Freeport, Stephen- 
 son County, August 27; Jonesboro, Union County, Sep- 
 tember 15; Charleston, Coles County September 18; Gales- 
 burg, Knox County, October 7; Quincy, Adams County, 
 October 13; Alton, Madison County, October 15. He 
 agreed that they should alternately open and close the 
 discussion. Each was given one hour when opening the 
 argument one and a half hours when replying, and a 
 half hour for closing. 
 
214 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 It is needed to recall at this time that the position of 
 Douglas was much superior to that of Lincoln. The lat- 
 ter was only a private citizen who had served one term in 
 Congress. Douglas had been a member of the State Su- 
 preme Court, a member of Congress, and was now closing 
 his second term as Senator with a brilliance second to 
 no man in that distinguished body; his political prestige 
 probably surpassed any man in the nation, regardless of 
 party. Recalling this, it is easier to realize the high cour- 
 age of the man and his supreme confidence in himself. 
 It would have been easy enough for the Senator, and with 
 no loss of prestige, to have disregarded or declined the 
 challenge from one who had no claim to his own high 
 station. There was little for him to gain in such a con- 
 test, and in such a situation there is always much that 
 may be lost. It is added proof of his courage that he 
 was fully aware of the great skill of Lincoln in argu- 
 mentation. Had he not himself said four years earlier 
 that Lincoln gave him more trouble than any man in 
 Congress ? 
 
 In Ottawa, Illinois, about eighty-five miles from Chi- 
 cago, there was great excitement on August 21, 1858. 
 Most of the seven thousand inhabitants were in the streets 
 and on the roads that very hot day. There were many 
 whose faces were strange to Ottawa; probably there were 
 more of these than of the natives. Both natives and 
 strangers, moved by a common impulse, made their way 
 toward an open square in which there was a newly erected 
 platform. Soon there was such a jam of humanity 
 around this platform that only the efforts of a strong 
 man could make a way from the outer edges of that 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 215 
 
 crowd to the platform. It had taken near a half hour's 
 time to clear a way to the platform for two men, one some 
 six inches taller than the average of the crowd and the 
 other six inches shorter. 
 
 The shorter man began speaking, and the most spec- 
 tacular battle between two men whose battles had ex- 
 tended over twenty years had begun. Stephen A. Doug- 
 las, with his heavy booming voice spoke for one hour. 
 Abraham Lincoln, in his high pitched almost tenor voice 
 then spoke for one and a half hours. At five o'clock when 
 Mr. Lincoln ended his speech, the crowd after two and 
 a half hours in the hot sun was still sturdily holding its 
 place, and it was not until shortly after five-thirty when 
 the heavy voice of Senator Douglas ceased after a half 
 hour's closing argument that it melted slowly away. 
 
 Soon there was only darkness and empty space, and 
 profound silence, where before there was the intense light 
 of the summer sun, and densely packed humanity, and 
 wild cheering. And out on the roads that had been seen 
 dust enveloped, in the last rays of the sun, gleamed here 
 and there, vying with the fire-flies, lanterns that lighted 
 the way for vehicles bearing to their homes some of the 
 rustic multitude that had stood four and five hours that 
 day, and thus lightly paid to hear Lincoln and Douglas 
 in the first of their seven joint debates, the most momen- 
 tous that had taken place in the annals of America. And 
 if we go far beyond the American land and the American 
 annals, we may still find no debates so freighted with the 
 possibilities of good and ill for mankind as those between 
 these two men. 
 
 The Ottawa debate was followed by the other six, the 
 final one delivered at Alton. These had been rightly de- 
 
216 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 clared by the Louisville Democrat to be the ablest and 
 most important that had ever taken place. They were 
 the first ever reported in full for American newspapers. 
 
 How did the two compare in these debates ? It is cer- 
 tainly not easy to discover from the highly biased press 
 of that day. But from the few sources available not thus 
 vitiated, it appears that there were few men of intelli- 
 gence, whose judgments had not been warped by par- 
 tisanism, who did not come to realize in the course of 
 these debates that Douglas, despite his larger reputation, 
 had met an opponent who had as much fertility of re- 
 source as himself, and perhaps a greater depth of com- 
 prehension. Douglas had more of boldness and more of 
 oratorical form. Lincoln, more of a certain subtle sar- 
 casm and calm self possession. Both had full confidence 
 in their own powers and there was little to choose be- 
 tween them. 
 
 One of the notable features of the debates was that of 
 questions propounded to each other. These were so 
 framed as to develop party weaknesses or personal incon- 
 sistencies. Douglas began this form of attack in the 
 opening debate at Ottawa by asking some half dozen. 
 Lincoln in the next debate at Freeport, propounded four 
 such questions. One of the questions thus asked was re- 
 garded by many of his friends as highly impolitic. He 
 persisted in having the Senator give an answer to this 
 question: "Can the people of any United States Terri- 
 tory, in any lawful way, against the wishes of any cit- 
 izen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits 
 prior to the formation of a State Constitution?" 
 
 This was no new question in that day when close tests 
 were being frequently devised to keep pace with the fre- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 217 
 
 quent shifts of importuned and embarrassed statesmen. 
 It had been asked many times. Answered in the affirm- 
 ative, it placated the men of the North and irritated those 
 of the South. Answered in the negative, it placated the 
 men of the South and irritated those of the North. The 
 friends of Lincoln were convinced that the opportunistic 
 Douglas, making his appeal to the men of a northern 
 State, would make the answer that was calculated to bring 
 the result he sought, and so win additional strength. 
 They therefore begged that he refrain from putting this 
 question, but in vain. That he deliberately sacrificed the 
 Senatorship to attain the Presidency as some have claimed, 
 seems altogether improbable. Lincoln was no visionary, 
 and had a close knowledge of the uncertainties of poli- 
 tics, and would not have taken a certain loss in the hope 
 of an uncertain and improbable gain postponed for two 
 years after date. It is probable that he asked the question, 
 knowing that in Illinois, where there were enough pro- 
 slave sympathizers to count in any election, it would serve 
 its purpose no matter how answered; the shift of a few 
 thousand votes might easily make the difference between 
 success and failure in the election. 
 
 Douglas did not answer the question directly, but what 
 he said amounted to an affirmative answer; and doubtless 
 that answer in connection with the position he had taken 
 on the Lecompton matter weighed heavily against him 
 and possibly cost him the Presidency two years later. 
 
 The campaign went on with increased bitterness, and 
 three days before the election there is a letter from Hern- 
 don to Theodore Parker, the New England theologian, 
 that gives some idea of how far this bitterness had gone, 
 as well as something as to the rancour that prevailed in 
 
218 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the State against the Irish people. The letter reads as 
 follows: 
 
 "Springfield, Illinois, October 30th. 
 
 "Friend: — Today is Saturday and in a little while Mr. 
 Lincoln opens on our square, close to the state house on 
 the great and vital and dominant issues of the day and 
 age. We feel, as usual, full of enthusiasm and hope, and 
 there is nothing which can well defeat us but the ele- 
 ments, and the wandering, roving, robbing Irish who 
 have flooded over the State. This charge is no humbug 
 cry: it is a real and solid and terrible reality, looking us 
 right in the face with its thumb on its nose. We, through- 
 out the States have this question before us: What shall we 
 do ? Shall we tamely submit to the Irish, or shall we rise 
 and cut their throats ? If blood is shed in Illinois to main- 
 tain the purity of the ballot-box, and the rights of the 
 popular will, do not be at all surprised. We are roused 
 and fired to fury. My feelings are ideas to some extent 
 and therefore cool — I try to persuade both parties to keep 
 calm and cool, if possible; but let me say to you, that 
 there is great and imminent danger of a general and ter- 
 rible row, and if it commences, woe be to the Irish— poor 
 fellows ! 
 
 "You know my position now, and let me state to you 
 that I am amidst the knowing ones, clubs, county commit- 
 tees and state committees, leaders, sagacious men, etc., and 
 from all places and persons comes up this intelligence. 
 All is well. I myself fear and am scolded because I can- 
 not feel as I should — as others do. My intuition — brute 
 forecast, if you will — my bones, tell me that all is not 
 safe; yet I hope for the best. How are you — are you up 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 219 
 
 and walking about? Quit reading and writing, if you 
 can, and go off on a spree. 
 
 "Your friend, 
 
 "W. H. Herndon." 
 
 On Tuesday, November 3, 1858, men in every part of 
 Illinois made their way to the polling places and there 
 registered their will. They said who should represent 
 them in the United States Senate for the succeeding six 
 years. Voting, however, was not direcdy for the candi- 
 date for that place, but for members of the Legislature 
 which in that day elected the Senators. When the votes 
 were counted it was seen that while Lincoln had received 
 the largest popular vote, the Douglas men had won the 
 Legislature and with it the prize of United States Sen- 
 ator. Douglas was triumphant in the hardest fight of his 
 career. 
 
 While he had lost the fight which had been so hard 
 fought, Lincoln had gained a nation wide reputation, and 
 many who saw in this Senatorial fight only an outpost 
 engagement of the great decisive battle which was to fol- 
 low two years later, saw also in him the leader who would 
 bring that battle to a glorious end. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
 
 /\BRAHAM LINCOLN had become a national 
 character. By defeat he had achieved a recognition of 
 his genius for public discussion that knew no state limits. 
 In his defeat for Senator he had aroused a nation-wide 
 admiration. But being a man of limited means, his long 
 absence from his law business had caused him an appreci- 
 able loss of income and had drawn so heavily on his lim- 
 ited reserves that he had considerable difficulty in meet- 
 ing certain campaign expenses. But he had no thought 
 of abandoning the struggle that had thus far been ad- 
 vanced by men who loved freedom and hated slavery. His 
 attitude in this is shown in the following letter: 
 
 "Springfield, November 19, 1858. 
 
 "Mr. Henry Asbury. 
 
 "Dear Sir: — Yours of the 13th was received some days 
 ago. The fight must go on. The cause of civil liberty 
 must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one 
 hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be sup- 
 ported in the late contest both as the best means to break 
 
 down and to uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can 
 
 220 
 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 221 
 
 keep these two antagonistic elements in harmony long. 
 Another explosion will come soon. 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "A. Lincoln." 
 
 In December, 1859, he visited Kansas, where he made 
 speeches at Atchison, Leavenworth and other towns. Al- 
 ready, there is occasional mention of the name of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln for President. At first he rather discouraged 
 the idea when it was broached directly to him. Some- 
 times this is done by a play of humor, at others doubts 
 are expressed as to his capacity to fill the place. It is easy 
 to understand that these represent only the man's unwill- 
 ingness to appear over-anxious or too ambitious for the 
 highest honor in the gift of the nation, but they have 
 been quoted often by some who appear to feel that Lin- 
 coln was in doubt as to his ability to fill the place. There 
 is no reason to give such a view any weight, for the known 
 facts make it clear that he not only did not have any 
 hesitancy as to his own ability to fill the high office but 
 took steps that were calculated to enable him to attain 
 it. From the time when it appeared that he was being 
 seriously given weight as a Presidential possibility, Lincoln 
 is shown to have adopted any honorable means that ap- 
 peared likely to promote his candidacy. 
 
 It is well known that both Lincoln and Herndon had 
 open access to the columns of the Illinois State Journal, 
 and it is certain that Simeon Francis, its owner and edi- 
 tor, constantly stood for such policies as would advance 
 the chances of Lincoln. It is known that when the large 
 German population of the United States, and particularly 
 of Illinois, was affronted because of the adoption in Mass- 
 
222 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 achusetts of a constitutional amendment requiring of 
 foreign born citizens a seven years residence as a quali- 
 fication for voting, the Journal was alert in printing Lin- 
 coln's disavowment of the measure. Lincoln had given 
 a letter setting this forth to Dr. Theodore Canisius, a 
 prominent German of Springfield and the editor of a 
 recently started German language paper. In his letter, 
 dated May 17, 1859, Lincoln had said in part: 
 
 "As I understand the Massachusetts provision, I am 
 against its adoption in Illinois, or in any other place where 
 I have the right to oppose it. Understanding the spirit of 
 our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am 
 opposed to whatever tends to degrade them. I have 
 some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed con- 
 dition of the Negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent 
 if I should favor any project for curtailing the existing 
 rights of white men, even though born in different lands 
 and speaking different languages from myself." 
 
 In a short accompanying letter, Dr. Canisius had said: 
 
 "This letter of one of the gallant champions of our 
 state is in accordance with the views of the whole Ger- 
 man population, supporting the Republican party, and 
 also with the views of the entire German-Republican 
 press." 
 
 Plainly, Lincoln did not mean to let the irritations of 
 the people of Massachusetts impair his popularity with 
 the large German population in Illinois, practically all 
 of whom were affiliated with the Republican party. Dr. 
 Barton has related some further facts along this line, tend- 
 ing to show Mr. Lincoln's far-seeing thoughtfulness in 
 advancing his presidential aspirations. 
 
 The following facts, however, the public did not know, 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 223 
 
 and they are of interest and importance. Doctor Canisius 
 was in financial straits. He owed his landlord, John 
 Burkhardt, for rent and perhaps also for money advanced. 
 Burkhardt had acquired, under chattel mortgage or other- 
 wise, a title to the property of the newspaper. Lincoln 
 through Canisius purchased Burkhardt's title and became 
 the owner of the Staais-Anzeiger. The transaction oc- 
 curred immediately after the incident of Lincoln's letter 
 to Canisius, which was evoked by an inquiry from a com- 
 mittee of German citizens in Springfield. 
 
 Lincoln had learned the value of the press. He was a 
 constant contributor to the columns of the Journal, many 
 of his contributions appearing as editorials. The plan 
 for the propagation of his nomination was in a large sense 
 a plan to use the newspapers of Illinois. Lincoln knew 
 that while the Chicago Tribune and many of the down 
 state papers were committed to him, the chief German 
 paper in Illinois, the Chicago Staats-Zeitung, was for Sew- 
 ard. He knew that it would advance his interests if a 
 well-edited German newspaper could be depended upon 
 to stand for the Republican party first, and in due time 
 announce itself for Lincoln. 
 
 On May 30, 1859, a contract wholly in Lincoln's hand- 
 writing, was drawn up by Lincoln and signed by himself 
 and Theodore Canisius. In the agreement it was stated 
 that the type and other equipment were the property of 
 Lincoln, by virtue of Lincoln's purchase of the same from 
 Burkhardt. Canisius was granted the free use of this 
 property for the publication of a German newspaper, 
 which was strongly to support the Republican party, Lin- 
 coln, as owner, was authorized to take possession and dis- 
 possess Canisius. It was stipulated also that the paper, 
 
224 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 while published in German, should carry occasional ar- 
 ticles in English. The contract was written on the two 
 sides of a single sheet of legal cap, and the second page 
 was only partly filled. On December 6, i860, a month 
 after Lincoln's election as President, he wrote a supple- 
 mentary endorsement, filling the blank space. Therein 
 he certified that Doctor Theodore Canisius had faithfully 
 fulfilled the obligations of the contract and satisfied all 
 financial claims of Lincoln, who therefore, for a valid con- 
 sideration, conveyed the type, paper and good will to 
 Canisius. 
 
 Not only was Lincoln working wisely and energetically 
 to secure the nomination for Mmself , but men elsewhere 
 and circumstances directly and indirectly conduced to 
 that end. That tide, which had been mentioned as a part 
 of the affairs of men, was flowing strongly in his aid. 
 Among the men who contributed somewhat to the end 
 was his chief opponent, Mr. Seward. This, of course, was 
 an indirect and unconscious contribution. Mr. Seward 
 had frankly told an audience in New York of an "irre- 
 pressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces," 
 and had further said, "it means that the United States 
 must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a 
 slave-holding nation or entirely a free labor nation." 
 Men, who believed this probably as fully as himself, held 
 the thing to be unspeakable, if not unthinkable. And 
 they began from that time to fear that the leading candi- 
 date for the nomination by the Republican Party was too 
 radical for that party's success. This may appear strange 
 indeed, when it is recalled that some four months earlier, 
 Lincoln, too, had had something to say to the people of 
 Illinois that sounds remarkably like the things Mr. Seward 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 225 
 
 had just said. It was on June 16, 1858, that he had told 
 his audience at the convention in Springfield: "A house 
 divided against itself can not stand. I believe this gov- 
 ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half 
 free." 
 
 This contribution of Seward's became the more decisive 
 because of the actions of another man who had no 
 thought of contributing to the nomination of this man or 
 that man, but who longed mightily to break the chains 
 that bound some four millions of black men. This man, 
 John Brown had lived through the average span of life 
 before bursting portentously on the stage of national 
 affairs. The Fugitive Slave Law had been in its way a 
 triumph for the slave-holders, but in the light of after 
 events it is seen to have been the costliest of triumphs, 
 because it was one of the large factors that led to the 
 production of one of those epoch-making books which 
 change the current of human affairs. The Kansas-Ne- 
 braska Act had been another triumph for the slave-hold- 
 ing group ; but it, too, had been dearly bought, for in the 
 end it had made John Brown, as we now know him. 
 
 This man was of the stock of the Puritans, a descendant 
 on his father's side from one of the men of the May- 
 flower, and his father's father had been among the sol- 
 diers of the revolution. On the mother's side he came 
 from a man who sought a haven in this western conti- 
 nent from Amsterdam, Holland. His mother's father, 
 too, had been among the men of the Revolutionary War. 
 Brown, himself, had grown up in the rough school of 
 the frontier life of that day. His father had moved to 
 Ohio when the son was five. Possibly many adversities 
 gave to Brown much of the austerity, the taciturnity, the 
 
226 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 sternness, that was so characteristic of the man. But how- 
 ever austere and taciturn, and whatever of sternness there 
 was in his make-up, beneath the cold exterior there was 
 a warmth of sympathy for human suffering and human 
 wrongs. With increasing age, he learned more and more 
 from escaped slaves, making their way to Canada through 
 the aid of sympathetic white men and women, so sys- 
 tematically contrived and accomplished that it had ever 
 since been called the Underground Railroad. 
 
 With the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act he heard 
 more often stories showing the determination of the slave 
 dealers to force their cruel traffic into all its broad areas. 
 Then, too, there were stories of men who had gone there, 
 some merely to gain a measure of its fertile acres and 
 others in the further hope of securing the land for free- 
 dom, but who had been bullied and beaten and sometimes 
 killed by slaveholders. 
 
 Five of his sons chose to dare the dangers of settling in 
 that land. Soon they were writing back to their father 
 and telling of the hardships of life in Kansas, and above 
 all other needs they called for guns. And now the father 
 at the age of fifty-five, an age when many men have be- 
 come little but memories of their past selves, turns his 
 face to distant horizons. With him went his youngest 
 son, a lad of eighteen, and a son-in-law. Seeking to ease 
 the heavy sorrow of parting, he said to his wife and the 
 remaining members of his family: "If it is so painful for 
 us to part with the hope of meeting again, how must it 
 be with the poor slaves, who have no hope ?" 
 
 After some sixty days the little party was at the end of 
 the dreary overland trip. It was then October, and the 
 winter was not far off. That first winter in Kansas was 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 227 
 
 the hardest he had seen outside of two or three in the 
 Adirondack mountains where he had made his home for 
 many years. But here there were horrors unknown back 
 in his mountain home; insufficient food, sickness, no med- 
 icines, lack of fit clothing and shelter. 
 
 Far worse than any of these was the deadly, hard hatred 
 of men. Not the Indian whom he had so often heard 
 termed savage; of these there were not a few, but from 
 them he received no hurt. No, it was men of his own 
 kith and kin who came from the South, of the same land 
 of which he came from the North, and which they both 
 were pleased to call their native land. These men hated 
 him and his and were ready to kill, because they under- 
 stood that he and his were come to Kansas to interfere 
 with the liberty, claimed by these men of the South, to 
 enslave some other men and women and children whose 
 skins happened to be dark. 
 
 With two groups of men holding such divergent ideas, 
 war was the necessary and early sequence. Both sides 
 killed their opponents with much of the freedom that 
 characterizes the licensed killing of orthodox war. John 
 Brown was one of the outstanding leaders. As such, he at 
 times commanded harsh and possibly cruel measures. 
 What leader in war has not done this, and who shall 
 judge his necessity? For commanding that five of the 
 enemy be shot, whose participation in numerous killings 
 has not been seriously denied, he has been called a mur- 
 derer by his enemies and deprecated by his friends. But 
 others have known that with these vast prairie lands of 
 Kansas on fire with the hatred of the slaveholders, it was 
 necessary that there be fire with which to meet that fire. 
 These believe that when the terror of the methods of 
 
228 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the pro-slavery men became unbearable, it was as Dr. 
 William E. Barton has said: "Then rose old John Brown 
 of Ossawatomie. He had no theory that slavery was to 
 be dealt with tenderly. Much that he did is open to de- 
 bate, and has been and will be hotly debated. But this 
 he did that needed to be done: he made the doctrine of 
 squatter sovereignty a two-edged sword, whose keener 
 edge was turned to the throat of the slave-holding power. 
 For a time there was civil war in Kansas. The term 
 'Bleeding Kansas' was used in Congress and throughout 
 the nation. Not all the blood was shed on one side. The 
 Emigrant Aid Societies organized in New England were 
 as determined as the 'Border Ruffians' of Missouri." 
 
 The day came when the tide of pro-slavery sentiment 
 began to fall back from the firmly resisting state lines of 
 Kansas. And for this beneficent fact there is no larger 
 single cause than this man John Brown. But for him it 
 was not enough that there was to be peace in Kansas; it 
 was not enough that there was to be freedom in Kansas. 
 For him wherever there was a state of slavery there was 
 a state of war; and he was eternally a soldier in that war. 
 There was now a price on his head; the governor of Kansas 
 offered three thousand dollars reward, and the President 
 of the United States two hundred and fifty dollars reward 
 for this old man. He remained in Kansas for a few 
 months more and then made his way to the East. But 
 he had not for one moment forgotten that there was still 
 war in the land so long as there was still slavery in the 
 land. With Kansas assured to freedom, he was now 
 enabled to undertake a new crusade. 
 
 About the details of this new crusade all was mystery, 
 but chosen men were permitted to know that a new and 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 229 
 
 greater blow was to be struck for freedom. He had left 
 Kansas finally in 1858. In New England he went from 
 place to place and while there was no sounding of trum- 
 pets, thanks to the price that was on his head, he preached 
 his crusade as zealously as ever Peter the Hermit urging 
 Europe on to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 Mysteriously he had come and gone from New Eng- 
 land. One night, cool with the coolness of mid October, 
 in the densely wooded mountains where Virginia and 
 Maryland and West Virginia came together, John Brown 
 gathered about him twenty-one younger men, black and 
 white and fully armed, and proceeded toward Harper's 
 Ferry, near six miles away. In the early morning the 
 United States arsenal located there, was captured. The 
 news spread rapidly in all directions. In a few hours the 
 little band was penned up and the following morning 
 were captured by a detachment of Federal troops. Two 
 of the old man's sons and eight of his men were killed, 
 and seven of his men were wounded. 
 
 There was wild excitement for weeks after the raid of 
 John Brown. The whole South was in a furor. It was 
 only natural that all who had spoken against slavery 
 should now be suspected as parties to the plot. There 
 was the usual form of a trial which is seen when a whole 
 community is set against a man. In fact it was a mere 
 passing of a judgment. Whatever dignity there may be 
 in the orderly processes of the courts is lost in such cases. 
 In the fierce hysteria of the crowd demanding its victim, 
 there is something animal like — nay, wolf like. There 
 was no touch of the high or noble except that presented 
 by the old man, who, hardly recovered from his wounds, 
 bravely and serenely faced the men who would decree 
 
230 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 no other than death for him and his; who argued calmly 
 and firmly with them, pointing to the terrible wrong 
 they were committing by slavery, but who asked no 
 favor and who on the second day of December, 1859, with 
 never a regret, passed into the long night of eternity. 
 
 John Brown had done his work well. But that which 
 he had done best in life was the manner in which he 
 parted from life. Here and there, in the far corners of 
 time and space, have been men who accomplished this 
 terribly commonplace but at the same time terribly ven- 
 turesome act of dying in such manner that ever-more 
 their fellows have remembered them rather more for how 
 they died than how they lived. Upon these, their fellows 
 have conferred the guerdon of nobility with more as- 
 surance than any other. So was it with John Brown. 
 The gibbet had made him a martyr. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
 
 ^^/NE day in October, 1859, Lincoln had come into his 
 office with a letter with which he was highly pleased. The 
 letter was from the Plymouth Church of Brooklyn, at 
 that time the most famous in the land, with Henry Ward 
 Beecher at its head. The committee of a lecture bureau 
 of the church had written to invite Lincoln to deliver 
 a lecture at that church. 
 
 If the notice of other men is ever a sufficient basis for 
 pride, then Lincoln had the most ample basis for any 
 pride or pleasure that resulted from that invitation. Cer- 
 tainly, it was a most unusual thing. If in the year of 
 1859, some church in Chicago or St. Louis had invited 
 some eastern man of note to deliver an address, there 
 would have been no particular occasion for pride or 
 pleasure, because the thing would have been too much in 
 the way of the expected. But this was a reversal of the 
 natural course of things, and by that fact enough to draw 
 especial attention to any man. In that day much that 
 was worth while might have been readily conceded to 
 the west, but for culture men looked to the east. Verily 
 in the America of that day men still looked for the wise 
 men to come out of the east. However that was, of the 
 three lectures provided for that season the first was by 
 
 231 
 
 
232 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Montgomery Blair, of a noted Missouri family, whose 
 relations with Lincoln would soon be that of a member 
 of his cabinet; the second was by Cassius M. Clay of Ken- 
 tucky, already well known as an orator, who also would 
 become a part of the Lincoln administration as Minister 
 to Russia; and for the third and final lecture the call had 
 come to Lincoln. 
 
 After conferring with his friends he had stipulated 
 that his address should be of a political nature, and at once 
 set about preparing it. Naturally the preparation for this 
 speech was on a more thorough scale than any other he 
 had made. He saw, as did all his friends and some of 
 his enemies, that this was his crucial test. He was now 
 carrying the war for the nomination into the land of the 
 enemy. What some of the papers of his own State were 
 saying as to his eligibility to the Presidency meant some- 
 thing, but the successful issue of this invasion would mean 
 vastly more. In his delving for material with which to 
 build his argument, he stopped nowhere short of the bed- 
 rock of fact. The situation demanded the strongest ef- 
 fort of a strong man, and such he gave. But however 
 arduous had been his work of preparation, when the day 
 came for his departure, it is easy to believe as his partner 
 has asserted: "We had many misgivings — and he not a 
 few himself — of his success in the great Metropolis." 
 
 There had been some change in the plans as originally 
 laid down. Possibly this was brought about by Lincoln's 
 stipulation that the address should be political; possibly 
 the excitement resulting from the raid and execution of 
 John Brown was the underlying cause. Lincoln had not 
 received notice of, or at least had not understood the 
 nature of these changes, until after arriving in New York. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 233 
 
 It was necessary, therefore, for him to make some changes 
 in his draft of the speech. The change in plans placed 
 the speech making at Cooper Institute and under the 
 auspices of the Young Men's Republican Union of New 
 York. The change was fortunate and gave an added im- 
 portance to the affair. The hall was larger and there is 
 reason to believe that the crowd was more representative. 
 Arriving in the city on Saturday there was time to make 
 the necessary changes in his speech which was to be de- 
 livered Monday, February 27, i860. On Sunday he heard 
 a sermon by Henry Ward Beecher and learned something 
 of the reasons for the change in places. Monday night 
 came and Abraham Lincoln stood before the most crit- 
 ical and distinguished audience he had ever faced. He 
 was introduced to the audience by the editor of one of 
 the great metropolitan papers, a poet and man of letters, 
 William Cullen Bryant. 
 
 Among the younger men of the press was Noah Brooks. 
 He had heard Lincoln in the West. He had been im- 
 pressed, but tonight Brooks is among those of little faith, 
 and says to himself: "Old Fellow, you won't do; it's all 
 very well for the Wild West, but this will never go down 
 in New York." Brooks was expecting one of the stump 
 speeches, interspersed with jokes and witticisms. That 
 speech never came, but of the one that was delivered 
 Brooks had difficulty in finding words of fit praise, but 
 was sure that "no man had ever made such an impression 
 on his first appeal to a New York audience." 
 
 The doubting Brooks was not the only one who had 
 difficulty in finding appropriate words of praise. The ed- 
 itor himself, Greeley, as prodigal in praise as his reporter, 
 had said: "Since the days of Clay and Webster, no one 
 
234 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 had spoken to a larger assembly of the intellect and men- 
 tal culture of our city." But the Tribune, most powerful 
 of America's journals, gave but a part of the chorus of 
 praise. Four morning papers gave the speech in full, and 
 it was reprinted in pamphlet form. 
 
 In connection with this address at Cooper Institute, 
 Joseph Medill has told how Lincoln had visited the Chicago 
 Tribune before the trip to New York, and had asked him 
 and Charles Ray, editor, to look over the manuscript of 
 his speech and submit to him any notes as to changes of 
 verbiage they thought desirable. Medill adds, describing 
 their methods and the result: "One read slowly while the 
 other listened attentively, and the reading was frequently 
 interrupted to consider suggested improvements of dic- 
 tion, the insertion of synonyms, or points to render the 
 text smoother or stronger, as it seemed to us. Thus we 
 toiled for some hours, till the revision was completed to 
 our satisfaction, and we returned to the office early next 
 morning to re-examine our work before Lincoln would 
 call for the revised and improved manuscript. When he 
 came in we handed him our numerous notes with ref- 
 erence places carefully marked on the margins of the 
 pages where each emendation was to be inserted. We 
 turned over the address to him with a self-satisfied feel- 
 ing that we had considerably bettered the document, and 
 enabled it to pass the critical ordeal more triumphantly 
 than otherwise it would. Lincoln thanked us cordially 
 for our trouble, glanced at our notes, told us a funny story 
 or two of which the circumstances reminded him, and 
 took his leave." 
 
 A few days before his leaving for the Cooper Institute 
 address, the Chicago Tribune had printed an editorial 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 235 
 
 declaring for Lincoln for President. Naturally then, 
 Medill and Ray were elated when the New York papers 
 arrived at their office filled with Lincoln's speech and the 
 words of praise which all carried. For both there was 
 the added pleasure of having had some part in putting 
 the final touches on the now famous speech. Medill 
 adds: "Ray and I plunged eagerly into the report, feeling 
 quite satisfied with the successful effect of the polish we 
 had applied to the address. We both got done reading 
 at the same time. With a sickly sort of a smile, Dr. Ray 
 looked at me and remarked, 'Medill, Old Abe must have 
 lost out of the window of the car all our precious notes, 
 for I don't find a trace of one of them in his published 
 talk here.' I tried to laugh and said, This must have 
 been one of his waggish jokes.' " 
 
 Now the most powerful paper of Illinois was ardently 
 supporting him for the Presidency, as well as a majority 
 of the other papers of the State. Added to this the papers 
 of the largest city of the country were giving Lincoln 
 serious consideration as a candidate; indeed, after Seward 
 they were giving him more consideration than any other 
 candidate. With the applause of the men of New York 
 echoed through the whole land by their press, serious con- 
 sideration in all sections had to be given to the claims of 
 this man. These could no longer be waived aside with 
 talk of "a smart country politician." 
 
 Lincoln had gone from New York City to Rhode 
 Island, where on the evening following his speech at 
 Cooper Institute he addressed an impressive crowd at 
 Providence. From there he went to New Hampshire, 
 and spoke at Concord and Manchester. In the afternoon 
 speech at Concord he had been referred to as the next 
 
236 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 President of the United States. Surely the invasion of the 
 east is bearing rich returns. There were a dozen or more 
 speeches in New England, and then a visit to his son 
 Robert who was studying at Exeter Academy. 
 
 The impression made in New England added to the 
 reputation gained in New York, and when he returned 
 to Springfield, while there were no crowds awaiting him, 
 it was somewhat in the role of a conqueror. Naturally 
 his friends were jubilant and there were many congrat- 
 ulations. He had spoken in seven States within five 
 months, and this as a result of his personal appeal only. 
 There could be no doubt that such a man was a national 
 figure. Here in his home State the movement to make 
 him President was already well under way, but with little 
 in the matter of organized effort. As early as the fall of 
 1858, soon after the defeat for Senator, the Democrat, of 
 Chicago, Congressman Wentworth's paper, had men- 
 tioned Lincoln as a desirable candidate for Governor or 
 the Presidential office. In the next few months a number 
 of the country papers of the State definitely proposed 
 his name for the place. 
 
 Jesse W. Fell, Republican State committeeman, appears 
 to have been the first to broach the subject directly to 
 Lincoln. On Fell's first approach, Lincoln displayed the 
 hesitancy natural in such a situation. Sometime later he 
 gave Fell the sketch of his life which was asked of him. 
 In it he said: "My parents were both born in Virginia, of 
 undistinguished families — Second families, perhaps I 
 should say." Here is a modesty not often seen. That he 
 was now clearly committed to the race for the Presidency 
 is made certain by a letter to Norman B. Judd, member 
 of the National Committee of the Republican party, in 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 237 
 
 which he said: "I am not in a position where it would 
 hurt much for me not to be nominated on the national 
 ticket, but I am where it would hurt some for me not to 
 get the Illinois delegates. Can you help me a little in 
 your end of the vineyard ?" 
 
 Perhaps the earliest concerted effort of his friends oc- 
 curred early in i860, when a number of them met in the 
 office of O. M. Hatch, Secretary of State. Herndon men- 
 tions among others present, Norman B. Judd, chairman 
 of the Republican State Central Committee, Ebenezer 
 Peek and Jackson Grimshaw, along with others of equal 
 prominence in the party. Grimshaw relates: "We all 
 expressed a personal preference for Mr. Lincoln, as the 
 Illinois candidate for Presidency and asked him if his 
 name might be used at once in connection with the nom- 
 ination and election. With his characteristic modesty he 
 doubted whether he could get the nomination even if he 
 wished it, and asked until the next morning to answer us 
 whether his name might be announced. Late the next 
 day he authorized us, if we thought proper to do so, to 
 place him in the field." To the question from Mr. Grim- 
 shaw, whether if the nomination for President could not 
 be obtained, he would accept the post of Vice President, 
 he answered that he would not; that his name having been 
 used for the office of President, he would not permit it 
 to be used for any other office, however honorable it might 
 be." 
 
 It is clear that Lincoln knew what he wanted, and had 
 the confidence to make the fight for that and that alone. 
 The fact that Norman B. Judd so managed things that 
 the National Republican convention met at Chicago in 
 May, i860, went far in aiding Lincoln in securing the 
 
238 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 prize he asked for. The Illinois State convention met at 
 Decatur just a week prior to the National convention at 
 Chicago. Here, too, the tides in the affairs of men were 
 moving decidedly in favor of Lincoln. He had been in 
 doubt as to the propriety of attending, but decided to do 
 so, and came into the convention hall after the session 
 had commenced and was given a place on the platform. 
 
 It was not long after his arrival until there occurred one 
 of those strange incidents by which men are swayed by 
 elements in their make-up that have little or no relation 
 to reason; elements that for a time give the lie to all 
 thought of the mercenary and selfish as the underlying 
 motive in their actions. Richard }. Oglesby, an ardent 
 friend of Lincoln's, had heard reports of his rail-splitting 
 days and conceived the idea that among men, so many 
 of whom were near to the soil, it might add some strength 
 to the Lincoln movement to have it made clear that the 
 well-known lawyer had seen harder days. Becoming ac- 
 quainted with John Hanks, who had split rails with him, 
 it was arranged between them to bring the rail-splitting 
 days of their favorite dramatically to the attention of the 
 convention. 
 
 Shortly after Lincoln's arrival, Oglesby moved the chair- 
 man that leave be given a Democratic friend to appear 
 before the body. This privilege being secured, a minute 
 later from the far end of the hall a group was seen headed 
 by John Hanks, until this time a Democrat, bringing two 
 weather worn rails with flags and a banner with this 
 announcement: "Abraham Lincoln, the Rail Candidate 
 for President in i860. Two rails from a lot of 3,000 made 
 in 1830 by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln — whose 
 father was the first pioneer of Macon County." There 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 239 
 
 was a momentary silence, and then a wild burst of ap- 
 plause. Then there were shouts for the candidate. Some- 
 what surprised, he faced Hanks and his rail bearing com- 
 mittee. To cries from every part of the hall of "Lincoln! 
 Lincoln!" he replied: "Gentlemen of the convention, I 
 cannot say that I split these rails, but I have split a great 
 many just as good." Again there were waves of applause. 
 Later amid the wildest enthusiasm the convention in- 
 structed its delegates to vote as a unit for the rail-splitter 
 candidate at the forthcoming National convention, now 
 less than a week off. The hopes of the Seward men so 
 long sustained by a numerous following in the northern 
 part of the State were now at an end. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 
 
 V^NE week after the State convention, a much larger 
 convention with a much larger prize to offer, convened 
 in Chicago. On that day of May, i860, men from the 
 near and the far corners of the nation were to be seen 
 tramping the monotonously level streets of Chicago in 
 numbers such as that city had never before known. There 
 had been excursion rates on all the railroads and strangers 
 had simply poured into the city to the number some said 
 of 40,000. Somehow men realized that they were facing 
 a memorable event, something tremendous, something 
 that was not merely the quadrennial ceremony by which 
 political parties sought to put their partisans in control of 
 the government of the United States. 
 
 The center of gravity for all these strangers, as well as 
 for the great mass of those who recognized Chicago as 
 home, was a very large, squat frame structure near the 
 center of the business of the fast growing city. There 
 was nothing of the beautiful about this building, and not 
 anything imposing, unless it be the somewhat extended 
 area it covered of 180 by 100 feet, of which there was 
 much boasting by the natives. It was too new to pos- 
 sess a history, and came into being merely as an incident 
 connected with a historic event. This building was known 
 
 240 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 241 
 
 as the Wigwam and was built for the purpose of 
 housing the convention. For several days before the date 
 announced for the opening of the convention the streets 
 had become more and more crowded. At the corners, 
 and frequently in between, were crowds of excited, ges- 
 ticulating men asserting very knowingly the merits of 
 this or that candidate. Here and there numerous parades 
 wound their way through streets heavily covered with 
 dust. Many of the men were enthusiastically yelling the 
 names of their particular Presidential favorites. It was 
 noticed that among the paraders the Lincoln men ap- 
 peared as numerous as the Seward men, although these 
 latter showed to a better advantage, due to a somewhat 
 military precision and on certain occasions to a large 
 brass band which had come with the New York delega- 
 tion of about two thousand. 
 
 Most of the visitors had come to the city either hoping 
 or fearing that Seward was to be nominated. Probably 
 their first intimation of the strength of Lincoln was in 
 the enthusiasm they saw among the rank and file of men 
 in the streets. Local pride was counting heavily for him. 
 Still, there were few who gave much attention to poli- 
 tics who did not feel that Seward would win the nomi- 
 nation. The opposition to him rarely exhibited more than 
 a hope that something might turn up that would dash the 
 hopes of Seward and favor the men they preferred. It 
 was Seward against the field. 
 
 At noon on Wednesday, May 16, i860, this building 
 held some ten thousand souls when the Republican Na- 
 tional convention was called to order, and around it were 
 as many more. In the building were near a thousand 
 newspaper men. Edwin D. Morgan, Governor of New 
 
242 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 York and Chairman of the National Republican Com- 
 mittee announced the convention as ready for business. 
 David Wilmot, whose provisos tacked onto so much of 
 the legislation of the Polk administration had received 
 the support of candidate Lincoln, was then introduced as 
 the temporary Chairman. George Ashmun who had 
 long been eminent among the Whig leaders in Congress 
 but who had joined the newer Republican party, was 
 elected permanent Chairman. This man had been in 
 Congress when Lincoln was there, and had joined him in 
 harassing President Polk's administration for the manner 
 in which the Mexican War had been brought about. 
 
 Certain routine matters having been disposed of, the 
 next matter of large importance was the adoption of a 
 party platform, as the declaration of party principles had 
 already come to be known. There had been no difficulty 
 in working this out by the committee assigned for that 
 purpose, but when presented to the body of the Conven- 
 tion there was a short discussion over one of its clauses. 
 This was due to an allusion in the platform to the Dec- 
 laration of Independence. Joshua Giddings, of Ohio, 
 moved an amendment setting forth the allusion in the 
 very words of the immortal document: "That all men are 
 created equal, that they arq endowed by their Creator 
 with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The amendment 
 carried. His amendment was consistent with the past 
 of Joshua Giddings. It was he who had asked for a Con- 
 gressional investigation when the Negro servant at the 
 house where the congressman boarded, had been seized 
 and sold to the far South after having paid most of the 
 price for which he had been promised his freedom. 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 243 
 
 After the adoption of the platform the selection of the 
 party nominee was the next important business. At the 
 end of the second day, the "wise men" of the party were 
 still convinced, probably a bit more convinced, that the 
 great prize would be awarded to Seward. At this time 
 there had been no success in the movement to unite the 
 opposition to Seward on one man. Horace Greeley and 
 some others had worked hard to accomplish this in favor 
 of Edward Bates, of Missouri, whom they regarded as the 
 man who could draw the largest votes in certain of the 
 western States. At the Tremont House, headquarters of 
 the Lincoln forces, Judge David Davis, Norman D. Judd, 
 Jesse Dubois, Leonard Swett, Richard Oglesby, Judge 
 Stephen T. Logan and many other friends, were attempt- 
 ing to unite this same opposition on Lincoln. In the 
 evening of Thursday, Greeley saw no hope of defeating 
 Seward and telegraphed his paper to that effect. Thurlow 
 Weed, commander-in-chief of the Seward forces, saw 
 nothing but victory ahead. He appeared to dominate the 
 convention. But the Lincoln leaders kept hopefully on. 
 They had no Weed at their head with authority to make 
 such engagements as would bring results, but they prom- 
 ised with as much assurance as Weed himself. Thus they 
 secured Indiana and then Pennsylvania, after the delegates 
 of that State shall have given a complimentary vote to 
 the native son, Simon Cameron. Lincoln had been tele- 
 graphed, asking his consent to make certain agreements, 
 and had sent this answer: "I authorize no bargains and 
 will be bound by none." And his friends more intent on 
 making a President than obeying the orders of a friend 
 and candidate, had proceeded to promise whatever was 
 asked of them. 
 
244 
 
 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 On the following day, it was not long developing that 
 even "wise men" cannot always forecast what other men 
 will do. With all other intervening business disposed of 
 by the convention, and with victory assured, as they be- 
 lieved, the Seward group that morning had staged for 
 the city an immense parade headed by their great band, 
 the most imposing that had been seen in the West. 
 
 It is possible that this parade, intended almost as a tri- 
 umphal affair may have had some little to do with the 
 result of the balloting that followed in the convention 
 hall. It is altogether probable that some who took part 
 in that parade in honor of their favored man for the 
 nomination, might have otherwise been earlier at the 
 Wigwam and by that fact secured admission. It is shown 
 that the possibility was recognized by the Lincoln forces. 
 This was accomplished by Ward Hill Lamon, who though 
 much younger had long been one of the closest intimates 
 of Lincoln. Lamon had secured such large numbers of 
 admission tickets for the session of Friday, that it had 
 taken a great part of Thursday night to get them duly 
 signed. This accomplished, however, he had seen to it 
 that the Lincoln followers were to be on hand at the ear- 
 liest hour for admission to the scene of the great struggle. 
 They obeyed orders and entered the Wigwam at an early 
 hour in such numbers as to shut out all late comers; and 
 once there they missed no opportunity of exerting what- 
 ever power may be generated by enthusiastic approval. 
 On that last day of the convention there was never a doubt 
 as to which of the candidates was the favorite with the 
 unofficial masses in the building. 
 
 At ten o'clock the convention was called to order. 
 There was the usual prayer, wherein Mr. Albert Shaw 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 245 
 
 in his highly notable contribution to the literature of this 
 period, tells us the clergyman thus invoked the Deity in 
 bringing his supplication to an end: "We entreat thee, 
 that at some future but not distant day, the evils which 
 now infest the body politic shall not only have been ar- 
 rested in their progress but wholly eradicated from the 
 system, and may the pen of the historian trace an intimate 
 connection between that glorious consummation and the 
 transactions of this convention. Oh Lord, our God, Thou 
 art in Heaven and we on earth, therefore should our words 
 be few. Our prayer is now before Thee. Wilt Thou 
 hear, accept and answer it, for the sake of our Redeemer!" 
 Not long would the process of eradication be postponed, 
 and intimate indeed would be the connection between that 
 convention and "that glorious consummation" asked by 
 the preacher. 
 
 There were no nominating speeches at that period, and 
 having gained the chairman's attention and it being de- 
 clared that nominations were in order, William H. Evarts, 
 of New York, proceeded: "I take the liberty to name as 
 a candidate to be nominated by this convention for the 
 office of President of the United States, William H. Sew- 
 ard." He was quickly followed by Norman D. Judd, 
 who said: "I desire, on behalf of the delegation for Illi- 
 nois, to put in nomination as a candidate for President of 
 the United States, Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois." In 
 quick succession, William L. Dayton of New Jersey, 
 Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Salmon P. Chase, of 
 Ohio, Edward Bates, of Missouri, were placed in nomi- 
 nation. After that there were some brief speeches second- 
 ing the nominations presented. 
 
 Now the balloting begins, and the various state dele- 
 
246 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 gations are answering the call with the number of votes 
 they are casting and for whom. When the roll has been 
 exhausted, it is known that Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, 
 Georgia, Louisiana, Missisippi, North Carolina, South Car- 
 olina and Tennessee have taken no part in the convention. 
 An ominous thing is this. It is Secession's first step. 
 
 The total vote of the convention is 465. The first ballot 
 gives Seward 173% votes, Lincoln 102, Simon Cameron 
 5054, Salmon P. Chase 40; most of the balance of the 
 votes are divided between Dayton, McLean and Collamer. 
 Amid the most intense excitement the chairman of the 
 convention announces that no candidate has secured a 
 majority of the vote cast, and soon thereafter the count 
 begins on the second ballot. On the announcement of 
 the count it is seen that Seward has gained eleven votes 
 and now totals iS^Y 2 votes. This is something; but it is 
 also seen that Lincoln has gained seventy-nine votes and 
 now has 181 votes. This is well nigh everything, as is 
 seen on the third ballot which immediately followed when 
 the opposition to Seward shifts in mass to Lincoln, bring- 
 ing his total vote to 23 i l / 2 , only one and a half short of 
 the required 233. At this time, before the official an- 
 nouncement of the result of the ballot, Carter, of the 
 Ohio delegation, made himself heard above the clamor 
 and announced a change of five votes of that delegation 
 from Chase to Lincoln. This was followed by a general 
 shift of the vote cast for other candidates to the Illinois 
 man including at last the 180 votes cast for Seward, whose 
 floor leader, Evarts, moved to make the nomination 
 unanimous. 
 
 Pandemonium such as has rarely been seen, even in 
 these conventions where pandemonium is the expected 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 247 
 
 result, followed quickly the announcement of Lincoln's 
 nomination. A salvo of one hundred guns from the roof 
 of the nearby Tremont House, headquarters of the Lin- 
 coln forces, answered the boom of the cannon that had 
 announced the result from the top of the Wigwam. Even 
 this was almost lost in the continuous applause that came 
 from the thirty thousand men clustered about the Wig- 
 wam. There could be no further business following the 
 emotional madness of this multitude, and the convention 
 adjourned until five o'clock. 
 
 At that hour the delegates returned, somewhat ex- 
 hausted and somewhat devoid of enthusiasms. The re- 
 maining business was quickly disposed of. Hannibal 
 Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for the office of Vice- 
 President on the second ballot. The convention was now 
 at an end. Verily, not before, and not since has a polit- 
 ical convention accomplished so happily the work set 
 before it. And surely not before and not since has any 
 such body had problems so weighty depending on the 
 soundness of its judgments. Fortunate was it indeed for 
 Americans that in the paramount question before this 
 convention, the matter of a candidate, judgment was as 
 it was. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 
 
 I HE days that passed between November 6, i860, and 
 March 4, 1861, brought about much that was to try the soul 
 of James Buchanan, President of the United States, and 
 much that was to test the patience of Abraham Lincoln, 
 President-elect of the United States. Swift was the se- 
 quence of events following the decision made by the 
 American people on that election day. Ominous threats 
 of a dissolution of the government heard occasionally be- 
 fore the election, were now the regular order of things. 
 The general talk of secession by men in high confidence 
 with the southern people, began to take the form of action. 
 Even prior to the election such talk and threats were 
 so open as to cause the aged Winfield Scott, highest mili- 
 tary officer of the nation, to give them special notice. In 
 a letter addressed to President Buchanan and to John B. 
 Floyd, Secretary of War, on October 29, i860, he expressed 
 apprehensions for the safety of the forts located in the 
 South. He suggested that they at once be prepared for 
 emergencies. Perhaps the patriotic mind of the General 
 who had brought the war with Mexico to a victorious end, 
 could not conceive of active disloyalty by men highly 
 placed in the government. But not long would the old 
 soldier, himself a Virginian, be permitted to hold the 
 
 248 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 249 
 
 virtue of his fellows in such high esteem. His suggestions 
 were thwarted by the active opposition of the war secre- 
 tary, also a Virginian. Through the same agency vast 
 quantities of war material were shifted from northern 
 armories to the various arsenals of the South. It appears 
 that by one order in that year of i860, one hundred and 
 fifty thousand rifles were transferred from the North to 
 the South. All these movements were so contrived as to 
 leave the government he had sworn to serve, disarmed 
 and impotent before those who ere long would be march- 
 ing against it as open enemies. It would be hard to find 
 another instance in which indecision, incapacity and dis- 
 loyalty so completely combined to welcome and aid insur- 
 rection in attempting to destroy a sovereign government. 
 Never were the ends of proposed insurrection more fa- 
 vorably served by those who should have extirpated it. 
 
 President Buchanan discovered immediately after the 
 election of Lincoln that his Cabinet had split along sec- 
 tional lines into two almost equal and hostile groups. 
 Gen. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, Secretry of State; Isaac 
 Toucey, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; Jeremiah 
 Black, of Pennsylvania, Attorney General; and Joseph 
 Holt of Kentucky, Postmaster General, formed one group ; 
 Howell Cobb of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; John 
 B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; and Jacob 
 Thompson, Secretary of the Interior, formed the other. 
 Of the two groups it was the latter, southern and pro- 
 slavery, that had decisiveness and cohesion, where in the 
 northern group there was only indecision, confusion and 
 lack of cohesion. 
 
 Something of this is seen in President Buchanan's mes- 
 sage to Congress a month after the election. In it the 
 
250 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 President declared that "no State had a right to secede," 
 but in the same document disclaimed all right to prevent 
 such action. This was in accord with the opinion given 
 by the Attorney General, a Pennsylvanian like the Presi- 
 dent. As neither of these two eminent statesmen be- 
 longed to the large non-resisting Quaker group of their 
 State, it seems strange that their political philosophy 
 should conceive the idea of a political entity that was 
 entirely devoid of defense against attacks from its own 
 creatures. 
 
 President Buchanan had been bold even to belligerency 
 with other nations, but no President was ever so timid 
 before his own. The new Governor of South Carolina 
 had called a State convention for December 17, i860. 
 Within three days it had passed an ordinance "dissolving 
 the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and 
 other States under the name of United States of America." 
 Four days later South Carolina was proclaimed to be a 
 "separate, sovereign, free and independent State." How 
 easy it was for these men of the South to find precedents 
 for the things they desired to do. And yet the President 
 of the United States and his chief law officer were utterly 
 unable to find the precedent laid down by Andrew Jack- 
 son less than thirty years before. 
 
 In Springfield only the largest degree of patience en- 
 abled Lincoln to possess his soul while such things were 
 being done and left undone at Washington. With only 
 the will, and neither the authority nor the power to act, 
 Lincoln could do nothing but sit by and watch the nation 
 fall apart, a house divided against itself. 
 
 There were other troubles, too, that threatened to break 
 even the strong constitution of this man. There was 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 251 
 
 a veritable flood of office seekers who had to be given at 
 least some personal notice. These of course accompany 
 every election, but at that day no party machinery had 
 been devised to relieve the party head of this burden. 
 There is reason to believe that these importunate fellows 
 came nearer exhausting the patience of Lincoln than any 
 other thing connected with his tenure of office. Closely 
 connected with this was the matter of those who wanted 
 to give advice on appointments to be made and policies 
 to be pursued. Many old friends felt the natural urge to 
 make suggestions as to policies and appointments, and 
 some of them felt aggrieved that their suggestions had 
 been ignored. 
 
 The choice of a Cabinet gave not a little trouble, though 
 probably less in proportion to its importance than some 
 lesser offices. The fact that Lincoln in his march toward 
 the Presidency had been always considerate toward op- 
 ponents, left it easier to approach them. This he did with 
 such sincere graciousness that even where there was no 
 desire for office these men felt the force of his plea that 
 it was their duty to serve. It is probable that men who 
 had been seriously considered for the Presidency would 
 have really preferred in the first days of keen disappoint- 
 ment following the convention to have remained out of 
 the Cabinet. Certainly a number of Seward's friends 
 urged him to a course showing his resentment, but he 
 and the others gave way before Lincoln's earnest expres- 
 sion of need for their aid. 
 
 He was therefore able to bring to his Cabinet the strong- 
 est men who had sought the office that he had won. The 
 fact that Seward and Chase were joined with him added 
 greatly to the public confidence. And Bates, too, helped 
 
252 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 much in the border States. Even Cameron brought an 
 important following, although his selection met with bit- 
 ter opposition. The Cabinet as finally selected, consisted 
 of William H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State; 
 Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; 
 Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; 
 Montgomery Blair of Maryland, Postmaster-General; 
 Gideon Wells, of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy; 
 Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior, and 
 Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General. Lincoln 
 had sought and found the strongest men in the country 
 for the tremendous work that lay ahead. The fact that 
 some of them, until that convention in Chicago had de- 
 creed its will, had loomed larger in the public mind than 
 himself did not deter him from seeking their service; 
 the further fact that some of these men possessed a self 
 esteem that led them to feel that the man chosen as Chief 
 Executive could be regarded as secondary in an admin- 
 istration that contained themselves, did not bar them from 
 membership in his Cabinet. 
 
 A lesser man under similar conditions would likely 
 have felt himself somewhat overshadowed by the names 
 he had gathered around him. Those who have been 
 misled by the apologetic and deprecatory remarks fre- 
 quently indulged in by Lincoln concerning his own abil- 
 ity, may discover the true conditions in this willingness 
 to stand beside the ablest men to be found with no thought 
 of being dwarfed by the comparison. There is reason to 
 believe that the man not only held no personal jealousies 
 of these other men, but that he discovered no reason why 
 he should entertain such jealousies. Doubtless, Abraham 
 Lincoln possessed a measure of humility such as is found 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 253 
 
 rarely, even in men of the most limited capacity; and 
 just as doubtless he possessed a confidence in his own 
 capacity that is rarely found even in men of the highest 
 achievement. And so it is that he did not often ask the 
 advice of others and even less often took such. Yes, the 
 man had humility, but that humility was related to the 
 Almighty. Humility such as his might give an added 
 deference to his treatment of other men, but it took away 
 not one jot of his confidence in himself. 
 
 Herndon stated that "no man ever asked less aid than 
 he; his confidence in his own ability to meet the require- 
 ments of every hour was so marked that his friends never 
 thought of tendering their aid, and therefore no one could 
 share his responsibilities." 
 
 More and more there were worries because of the things 
 left undone by the confused and distracted man who sat 
 as President in Washington. Counted with him, of 
 course, was that portion of his Cabinet whose understand- 
 ing of their oaths of office and duty to the government 
 they had sworn to serve and support, was obscured by 
 their stronger desire to assure success for the march of 
 insurrection already under full headway in the South. 
 There were worries, too, by reason of the things that were 
 being done by those who held views somewhat in com- 
 mon with his own, men who sincerely desired to avoid 
 a break-up of the Union. It was the old need of having 
 to be saved from one's friends. 
 
 The Crittenden Compromise, presented to the Senate 
 by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, was of this class. It 
 proposed a Constitutional amendment of six articles. The 
 first, seemed to offer something of substance to the anti- 
 slavery people of the North, for it resurrected that part 
 
254 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 of the Missouri Compromise that had prohibited slavery 
 north of 36 ° 30'. All the rest of the intended compro- 
 mise appeared to have been written by one so unnerved 
 by the insistent demand of the dominant element of the 
 South for immediate secession, that he saw nothing but 
 the necessity of conceding all that had ever been asked 
 in past days by the extremists of the slavery group. Sena- 
 tor Trumbull, and others in close touch with Lincoln, by 
 the opposition to the measure indicated his desire for its 
 defeat. 
 
 The Crittenden Compromise was an attempt to carry 
 on the work of Henry Clay by finding some middle course 
 that would be acceptable to the greater portion of both 
 the slave-holding as well as the greater portion of those 
 opposed to slavery. It was not, however, a middle course, 
 for its effect would have been little more than to concede 
 to the South more than was ever before demanded by 
 the South, and more than was ever proffered by the North. 
 
 A proposition so one-sided in its sectional leanings 
 would never have been advanced except in the general 
 fear that gripped so many, a fear that a stampede of 
 southern States was about to take place. Ten years earlier 
 such a proposition could never have been given serious 
 consideration by a statesman. One from the South would 
 not have expected compliance with so great a demand, 
 and one from the North would not have even entertained 
 such a proposition, knowing that it would be political 
 suicide. Probably the most interesting of the six articles 
 is the last which makes the proposed changes in the Con- 
 stitution unchangeable. Observation of the rapid shifts 
 of public opinion as were then taking place on a vast scale 
 and with such rapidity as had never before been seen, 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 255 
 
 should have made the fallacy of such proposals obvious. 
 On all sides old landmarks of statecraft were being swept 
 away, and yet the venerable Kentuckian assumed to intro- 
 duce what has always failed, a perpetual law. And what 
 was more futile still, this perpetual law was to be the 
 main support of a wrong principle, always an unstable 
 thing. It was to perpetuate slavery. It is true that Lin- 
 coln discussed some such proposition with Thurlow 
 Weed, but it is clear that he meant merely to have dem- 
 onstrated its impracticability, for he proposed unanimous 
 support knowing there could be no such. 
 
 There were many reasons why Lincoln should desire 
 the defeat of such a proposal. All his life he had been 
 opposed to slavery, but recognized that it was in accord 
 with the Constitution to the extent that it existed in the 
 original slave States. To this extent he was willing to 
 abide by the Constitution, but this did not mean that he 
 was to give up the hope and belief along with the men 
 who framed the Constitution, that ultimately slavery would 
 be brought to an end. Senator Crittenden's Compromise 
 was in fact a proposed guaranty that slavery should never 
 become extinct. It was doubtless some relief to Lincoln 
 that the special committee to whom it was referred dis- 
 covered so much disagreement among its members, and 
 that its meetings dragged on from the twenty-first day 
 of December, the day after the South Carolina ordinance 
 of secession, at a slower rate than the march of insurrec- 
 tion in the South. As a result a number of the committee 
 found it necessary to withdraw, because of acts of secession 
 withdrawing their States. The Compromise was kept 
 before the Senate until the day before Lincoln's inaugura- 
 tion. 
 
256 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 Another ambitious effort to save the Union came from 
 Virginia. The Legislature of that State passed resolutions 
 inviting all the States to appoint commissioners to a peace 
 conference. This conference was held at Washington 
 and presided over by ex-President John Tyler. There 
 were a total of one hundred and thirty-three members 
 from twenty-one states. A committee consisting of one 
 from each State was appointed, to "report what they may 
 deem right, necessary, and proper, to restore harmony 
 and preserve the Union." On the fifteenth of February 
 there was a vote on certain resolutions by this commit- 
 tee. These and other resolutions reported from this com- 
 mittee were somewhat similar to certain parts of the Crit- 
 tenden Compromise. After being indorsed by the peace 
 conference these resolutions were communicated to the 
 Senate and referred to a committee from that body con- 
 sisting of Senators Crittenden, Bigler, Thomson, Seward 
 and Trumbull. The resolutions were voted on just before 
 the Crittenden Compromise and were rejected by a vote 
 of 34 to 3. The Compromise was then defeated by a close 
 vote of 20 to 19. Lincoln's intimate friend, Lyman Trum- 
 bull, voted against the measure, and Stephen A. Douglas, 
 his historic political enemy, voted for it, still in opposition 
 to the man who had now won the decisive battle and 
 the Presidency in their warfare of a quarter of a century. 
 Some other proposals went the same way and were lost 
 in the final rush of business accompanying the close of 
 Congress. All the efforts to avert the break-up of the 
 government came to nothing despite the sincerity of those 
 who made them. 
 
 It is thought that Lincoln opposed these efforts at com- 
 promise with the secessionists, because he tended to be- 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 257 
 
 lieve in the earlier stages that the South would not carry 
 its movement to the extent of separating from the other 
 States, but were intent only on securing the fullest ad- 
 vantage of the threat. In holding this view in the earlier 
 days, he did not conceive the farthest limit of inaction, 
 amounting almost to acquiescence, that became the policy 
 of Mr. Buchanan, the extreme feebleness of whose efforts 
 to check the secession movement undoubtedly gave it an 
 added momentum. 
 
 He finally realized the full limit of the movement, but 
 yet did not see fit to change his opposition to the com- 
 promises offered. His views were not set forth for the 
 public but there were occasional statements to his inti- 
 mates that made his attitude clear. It is known that 
 he advised against Illinois sending representatives to the 
 peace conference. He felt that such action might be 
 taken to indicate something of his own policy in advance 
 of his taking the oath of office. At that time, too, he 
 had come to believe that the South was in no mood to 
 accept any compromise that did not require of the North 
 the sacrificing of fundamental principles. A weak man 
 may sacrifice any principle and a strong man may sacri- 
 fice anything but a principle. Lincoln was not only a 
 strong man, but was by his very nature, with its heavy 
 touch of the fatalistic, incapable of compromise, not only 
 of a principle but of anything save that which he might 
 concede without a compromise. 
 
 There were threats that he would never be inaugurated, 
 and he did not want to have it believed that he accepted 
 any of these compromises to insure that event; nor did 
 he wish to give any added sense of power to the men 
 who were threatening to break up the government. The 
 
258 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 remark is ascribed to him: "He would rather be hanged 
 by the neck till he was dead on the steps of the Capitol 
 than buy or beg a peaceful inauguration." On the ques- 
 tion of slavery he was willing to go as far as the Con- 
 stitution but no further. He had now come to believe 
 that the conflict could not be avoided, and he was ready 
 to take the full responsibility for its outcome. It was at 
 this time that he stated: "The tug has got to come; and 
 better now than at any time hereafter." There is another 
 statement ascribed to him, and as related there is much 
 reason to believe it, in which Dr. Jayne tells of Lincoln 
 saying to Herndon: "Billy, I hope there will be no trouble; 
 but I will make the South a graveyard rather than see a 
 slavery gospel triumph, or successful secession destroy the 
 Union." On this question, his first principle, Andrew 
 Jackson could not be more uncompromising. The thought 
 of war with all its hurt to humanity must have cut deeply 
 into his sensitive soul, but it was less terrible to him than 
 the compromising of principle. 
 
 For so sensitive a man, probably the thing that gave 
 him most pain at this time was the criticism, brutally 
 cruel, that came to him from those who were friends to 
 freedom. Demanding that assurance be given of a quick 
 end to the thing they hated, and receiving no such assur- 
 ance, the abolitionists were often as merciless in their 
 criticism as the secessionists. That the man faced the 
 heaviest problems that ever confronted an American Pres- 
 ident in no wise deterred them from abuse without limit. 
 Wendell Phillips, born an aristocrat, but for these last 
 twenty-five years, with Garrison, the highest of the priests 
 of freedom and equality, is so wrought up that he forgets 
 his acquired status and reverts to that of his birth. He 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 259 
 
 refers to the man who is to fill the chair of Washington 
 as "this huckster." 
 
 With none of the fiery impulsiveness that made some 
 of these men ready to strike down the thing, regardless 
 of all other results, Lincoln's determination to destroy 
 slavery was probably more fixed than theirs. His prac- 
 tical mind, however, made him instinctively know that 
 men possessed of great riches would never give it up 
 because of some moral argument. He had no thought 
 of destroying the Union over slavery, and he had no 
 thought of allowing the South to go its way with its 
 wealth of slaves. In both these propositions he found 
 himself differing with many of the extreme abolitionists 
 like Garrison and Phillips. Strange as it may seem, these 
 with many of their group who had been so prodigal of 
 words that certainly helped bring on the storm, now, 
 when the first rude gusts of secession blew heavily from 
 the South, were ready that the South should go its way. 
 Phillips talked flippantly, of speeding the "parting guest"; 
 Greeley, at first would have "let the erring sisters depart 
 in peace." Whittier, the Quaker, true to the peaceful 
 tenets of his group, would do likewise. Had these men 
 their way, slavery would have continued indefinitely for 
 nine-tenths of the colored people. In bidding the "erring 
 sisters go their way in peace" these abolitionists would 
 have gotten rid of slavery in the Union, but left it firmly 
 fixed where practically all the slaves were; that is in the 
 seceding States. But the man in Springfield, knowing 
 this, thought always of ending a great wrong, and not 
 merely of getting it out of his and their house. Fortu- 
 nately for millions of colored people his wiser counsel 
 prevailed, though at the cost of the most destructive war 
 
260 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 ever seen on the western continent. For him, then, there 
 could be no flippancies of speech; for him there could be 
 no replies to angry and misunderstanding men, whether 
 of the North or of the South. His every word and sen- 
 tence was to be weighed and its effects calculated before 
 uttered. 
 
 To better understand the heavy obstacles confronting 
 Lincoln, it should be recalled that the final alignment 
 of States did not come about until after his inauguration. 
 There was no certainty as to what would be the relative 
 strength of the parties to the great conflict. The southern 
 States renounced the Union separately: South Carolina, 
 first, December 20, i860; followed by Mississippi, Ala- 
 bama, Georgia and Louisiana, all prior to Mr. Lincoln's 
 inauguration, March 4, 1861. Virginia seceded in April; 
 Arkansas and North Carolina in May, and finally, Ten- 
 nessee in June. Missouri and Kentucky never seceded 
 but were always in dispute, and had representatives in 
 both the Congress of the United States and that of the 
 Confederate States. 
 
 With such conditions it can be seen that for Lincoln 
 an ill-considered address might swing some State or sec- 
 tion into the ranks of the enemy. Such considerations 
 had to be regarded with the North, too, where the sup- 
 port that was to be so urgently needed could be strongly 
 or feebly granted. Nor was his own State free from this 
 danger. Many of the southern counties were much dis- 
 affected. In one of these the President ordered the courts 
 adjourned to curb the seditious agitation, and the hostile 
 judge made this entry in the docket: "Closed by order 
 of Lincoln's Hessians." Such was the balance of forces 
 that an untimely statement might mean a difference of 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 261 
 
 a number of army corps in the death grapple between 
 freedom and slavery, and on the strength of one army 
 corps the result might depend. 
 
 These days, some of weary waiting, many of them long 
 extended like evil dreams, were finally at an end. On 
 the evening of February 10, 1861, a man was roping and 
 tying trunks in some rooms of the Chenery House, Spring- 
 field, Illinois. After securely tying he labeled them "A. 
 Lincoln, Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C." It was 
 Abraham Lincoln, President-elect, by the votes of his 
 fellows. Democracy for this man was no mere political 
 concept. For him there was no thought of having some 
 other do the thing that he himself, had the strength, 
 skill, and time to do. Well might the aristocrats of the 
 Southland insurge at the thought of a man who held 
 their ideas of the fitness of things so utterly at nought. 
 
 On the following day the heavy grey clouds hung low, 
 and through the misty drizzle the horizon was never far 
 away. But at the railway station in Springfield were 
 some thousand men, women, and children come to wish 
 a last good bye to the man who had so long been one 
 of them and so near to all of them. Some hurried hand- 
 grasps of farewell there were; some eyes were heavily 
 charged with tear drops as the grey clouds above were 
 heavily charged with rain drops. The warning bell of 
 the train, and Lincoln and his wife, and their three sons, 
 entered the train with a delegation of friends. 
 
 There was a few minutes' delay and Mr. Lincoln came 
 to the rear platform of the car. Slowly, and in a voice 
 that almost sobbed with the heavy sorrow of leaving, he 
 said: "Friends: no one who has never been placed in a 
 like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor 
 
262 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. For more 
 than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and 
 during all that time I have received nothing but kindness 
 at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth until 
 now I am an old man. Here the most sacred ties of 
 earth were assumed. Here all my children were born; 
 and here one of them lies buried. To you, dear friends, 
 I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange, 
 checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To- 
 day I leave you. I go to assume a task more difficult than 
 that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great 
 God who assisted him shall be with and aid me, I must 
 fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm 
 that directed and protected him shall guide and support 
 me I shall not fail — I shall succeed. Let us all pray that 
 the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To 
 him I commend you all. Permit me to ask that with 
 equal sincerity and faith you will invoke his wisdom and 
 guidance for me. With these words I must leave you, 
 for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must 
 now bid you an affectionate farewell.' , 
 
 There was a ringing of bells and the train moved on 
 with increasing speed. It was the last view that most 
 of them were to have of the man they loved so well. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTY 
 
 I HE journey begun by Lincoln had an added purpose 
 to that of simply leaving Springfield and reaching Wash- 
 ington. He was not going directly to Washington. He 
 was to make an almost leisurely journey through the 
 heart of the North. He started his journey with the 
 floods of insurrection still rising in the South, with sedi- 
 tion rampant in the border States, and with confusion 
 and fear gripping the heart of the North. 
 
 There were numerous stops, and at most of them 
 speeches. These were necessarily brief and purposely 
 avoided any close discussion of the grave conditions that 
 existed in the South. There was an attempt at buoyancy 
 that gave affront to some of the editors like James Gordon 
 Bennett, of the New York Herald, who seemingly ex- 
 pected Lincoln to announce the plans by which national 
 harmony was to be restored. No such announcement 
 came, and Bennett was bitter in his reflections. 
 
 At Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, Lincoln par- 
 ticipated in raising the national flag with an added star 
 representing Kansas, now entering the Union as a free 
 State. There were to be some further ceremonies before 
 the end of the journey at Washington, but at Harrisburg 
 there was a change of plans and Lincoln went directly 
 
 263 
 
264 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 to the Capitol. The change was made on the advice of 
 a number of his friends and supporters, who had learned 
 that there was a plan for his assassination. This was to 
 be brought about while he was passing through Balti- 
 more, the hour of his arrival being known to the con- 
 spirators. General Scott and Mr. Seward had learned of 
 the plot at near the same time through different sources. 
 The latter had sent his son, F. W. Seward, with a letter 
 explaining the conditions supposed to exist and advising 
 the President-elect to come directly to Washington. For 
 some time,, even before the journey had started, there 
 had been vague rumors of such a conspiracy. At Cin- 
 cinnati it was said that a hand grenade had been found 
 secreted in one of the cars, and on the Toledo and Western 
 Railroad, it was said, an attempt had been made to derail 
 the train. Both Norman B. Judd and Ward H. Lamon, 
 intimate friends accompanying Lincoln, advised the 
 change of plans. Judd had employed Allen Pinkerton, 
 later to become the most famous of American detectives, 
 to trace down any such plots and the latter reported to 
 Lincoln directly that such a plot existed. Lincoln, while 
 doubting the accuracy of the reports, took the advice of 
 his friends and proceeded directly to Washington, arriving 
 there several hours ahead of the schedule time of his 
 special train. Only Ward Lamon and Allen Pinkerton 
 accompanied him on this last part of the journey. 
 
 For eight days he had an opportunity to become ac- 
 quainted with the sentiments of men in high official posi- 
 tion, expressed with the directness that goes with face 
 to face talks. President Buchanan and the Cabinet, much 
 changed by the departure of several of its members who 
 had cast their lot with the Confederacy, received him 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 265 
 
 cordially. The two houses of Congress were visited where 
 he received from most either friendly or courteous treat- 
 ment. There was a word with the ancient Chief-Justice, 
 Roger B. Taney, now nearly eighty-four years of age, but 
 whose keen mind had forgot none of the numerous stric- 
 tures put on him by the man in his presence. To this 
 old man, indirectly, Lincoln owed much. Indeed, it may 
 be doubted if he owed as much to any of his friends 
 as he owed to Stephen A. Douglas, an enemy, and to 
 Taney, who as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had 
 rendered the decision in the Dred Scott case. Their errors 
 had been the steps by which he had climbed the ladder 
 of fame. Douglas called on him and his oldest political 
 enemy was received as his newest friend. And such they 
 could now be, for at last the two men had found a ques- 
 tion on which they fully agreed. The two great sons of 
 Illinois now prepared to join in a common cause. The 
 Union must be preserved. 
 
 A day comes, such a day as is seen in Washington at 
 four year periods. The streets are filled with people; for 
 several days ahead the hotels, boarding houses and dwell- 
 ings with a spare room are crowded. Usually the weather 
 is bad, very bad. On this day it is only ordinarily bad. 
 Always, there is an obvious excitement, and usually a 
 high degree of enthusiasm. On all sides there are sol- 
 diers marching full-armed. And on that day their faces 
 have a stern seriousness which has not been seen on other 
 similar days. 
 
 Strange and ominous rumors have been afloat for weeks. 
 These rumors have to do with this day and its chief event. 
 It has been repeatedly said that the inauguration of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln will never occur. Some weeks earlier, Gen- 
 
266 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 eral Winfield Scott, replying to an inquiry as to these 
 rumors, has sent this message: "Present my compliments 
 to Mr. Lincoln, and tell him I expect him to come to 
 Washington as soon as he is ready. Say to him that I'll 
 look after those Maryland and Virginia rangers myself; 
 I'll plant cannon at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue 
 and if any of them show their heads or raise a finger 
 I'll blow them to hell." On this day the old man was 
 ready to keep his word. The day passed without 
 disturbance. 
 
 At the Willard Hotel, Lincoln, rising early performs 
 certain duties preliminary to assuming office. At noon 
 in an open barouche comes James Buchanan, President 
 of the United States, perhaps much relieved at the thought 
 of dropping burdens such as no predecessor has ever had 
 to bear. He enters Lincoln's room and soon returns with 
 him, and seated together the two proceed to the Capitol, 
 between lines of soldiers and the vast throngs which fill 
 the streets. 
 
 On the east front of the great structure, the corner 
 stone of which had been laid by George Washington, a 
 platform has been extended from the steps leading to 
 the eastern portico, where seats have been provided for 
 officials and distinguished guests. Through a specially 
 built wooden tunnel the President and President-elect 
 make their way into the Senate chamber. The Senators 
 have prolonged their session through the night until day- 
 light, considering a new amendment to the Constitution 
 that some believe will avert the crisis confronting the 
 nation. That amendment would specifically confer on 
 the slave States the right to hold their slaves without 
 interference from any source. If it passes it will be the 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 267 
 
 Thirteenth Amendment. It is near four years from that 
 day when Congress does agree on a Thirteenth Amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, passed under the administration 
 of the man who is to take the oath of office this day, 
 declaring "that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
 except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall 
 have been duly convicted shall exist in the United States, 
 or any place subject to their jurisdiction." 
 
 Preliminaries are at an end and Lincoln is about to 
 begin his address. His face, oddly altered by a newly 
 grown beard, is the focus of every eye of this great and 
 curious assembly. Then follows a moment's hesitation, 
 he seeks a place for his hat. A man steps forward and 
 takes it. But why notice so ordinary courtesy ? The man 
 who has taken Abraham Lincoln's hat is Senator Stephen 
 A. Douglas. This man takes no half steps. The world 
 knows he has fought against Lincoln; it shall now know 
 that he fights for him. 
 
 Silence. And now a high-pitched voice is heard, a 
 voice that seemingly is weak, but yet carries to the farthest 
 reaches of that vast gathering. It is the voice of Abraham 
 Lincoln, son of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, dead since his 
 early childhood; son of humble Thomas Lincoln, dead 
 these many years; son, too, we may add of Sarah Bush 
 Lincoln, step-mother, so near and dear to him, who loves 
 him as her own and who waits back there in Illinois. 
 He pleads with those who would rend the bonds that 
 join these States as a nation. He implores them not to 
 do this thing. It is to the South he makes his plea. 
 
 To us today his argument is wholly convincing. 
 Through all this argument there is no word of reproach, 
 no tone of harshness, no touch of ill-will. Always, there 
 
268 SET MY PEOPLE FREE 
 
 is patience and tolerance and kindliness. And yet, no- 
 where is there any readiness to sacrifice the beliefs that 
 lie back of his whole life. He would not take from the 
 slaveholder any right given him by the Constitution. But 
 he would not agree that slavery should pass beyond the 
 boundaries of those States where the Constitution had 
 permitted it to exist. And for this, though the words 
 uttered that day ring on for a thousand years, the South 
 has no ears to hear; and though they sound to the depths 
 of the hearts of the vast throng that hears, the hearts of 
 the South are hardened and will not heed. 
 
 The high-pitched voice has become somewhat softer, 
 almost it is musically persuasive as the closing words are 
 said; "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
 and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
 The government will not assail you. You can have no 
 conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You 
 have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the govern- 
 ment, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, 
 protect and defend it. 
 
 "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
 We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
 strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The 
 mystic chords of memory stretching from every battle- 
 field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
 stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
 of the Union when again touched by the better angels 
 of our nature." 
 
 The voice ceases, almost it is a sigh of sadness. Now 
 appears the thin form of the man who has been Chief 
 Justice of the United States for twenty-five years. His 
 ascetic face is the more ascetic above his sombre judicial 
 
SET MY PEOPLE FREE 269 
 
 gown. The last act of the mighty drama in which he 
 who was the humblest citizen of the lost village of New 
 Salem becomes the first citizen of the nation, takes place. 
 The oath has been administered by Roger Brook Taney. 
 A few minutes more and Abraham Lincoln, President 
 of the United States, rides back through Pennsylvania 
 Avenue to the White House. 
 
 The story is at an end. The history of the man, now 
 largely becomes the history of the nation. A day comes 
 when his mighty work is near to completion; when there 
 is yet some little period of twilight ahead, wherein he 
 may find rest from his great labor, and surcease from 
 his heavy sorrow. And then by the hand of a mind-warped 
 felon, swiftly falls the night and darkness. 
 
 Duncan is in his grave; 
 After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; 
 Treason has done his worst: 
 
 Nor steel, nor poison, 
 Malice domestic, foreign levy, 
 
 Nothing can touch him further.