Kii'en-d m Uii; post-oftire at Sprliiffif^ld. Olilo, as xpi'onil-class inall niaitei- ^3Ce5C8»»3C8»M»»»X^C8»»5C8»»5^»»»^C8»»3C^^ A REMARKABLE BOOK. The Life of Washington And Farm and Fireside one year, sent, post=paid, to any address ....For Sixty Cents THIS Life of George Washington, by Washington Ii-ving, the prince of American authors, is the grandest biography ever written of any man. It is more interesting and thriUing than a novel, yet it is facts, and not fancies. It is a true life of the "Father of Our Country,'' as a boy, surveyor, Indian fighter and soldier; also as a Virginia planter, a lover, friend, neighbor, citizen, and the first President of the United States. A THREE-DOLlvAR BOOK. Heretofore the Life of Washington has sold for from $3.00 to $10.00, l)ut our Life of Wftshington is more valuable that' thiit sold insti>res for Three Dollars, because ours is profusely illustrated with oxf^ellent 'Mij^ravings. depictina: stirring battle scenes with the British, ;ilso with the Indians, nnd exhibitions of bravery and coura^fe, portraits of generals, pir-turesof forts and headquarters, and other iateresting scenes, there being OVER 100 THRiLI^IING PICTURES. As each page in the book is double the size of ordinary book- pages, this volume is equal to a BOOK OF OVER 700 PAGES of the usual size. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money refunded. ADDRESS ALL ORDERS TO The Crowell & Kirkpatrick Co. PUBLISHERS, 5PRINQF1ELD, OHIO. Q (SEK OTHKR INSIDE COVKR PAGK.) g '• •^' v^ (1857.) LIFE OF Abraham Lincoln Being a Biography of His Life from His Birth to His Assassination; also a Record of His Ancestors, and a Collection of Anecdotes Attributed to Lincoln. "His is the gentlest memory of our nation." BY CLIFTON M. NICHOLS. IliliUSTRflTEO. PUBLISHED BY THE CROWELL & KIRKPATRICK CO., Springfield. Ohio. Copyright, 1896, by MAST, CROWELL & KIRKPATRICK. Springfield. Ohio. ^1?).7U2> B \J5\i ^^^ LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. CHAPTER I. PIONEER DAYS OF LINCOLN'S ANCESTORS IN KENTUCKY. NEAR the point where the states of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky meet there is a wonderful gateway in the mountains, which was discovered in 1748, by Thomas Walker, and named Cumberland Gap, in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, prime minister to King George of England. He reported that it opened into a beautiful region inhabited by Indians and wild animals. From this gap north to where the waterways which form the Ohio river break through the mountains the rugged and towering Alleghenies present an almost impassable wall between Virginia and the country west. This barrier helped to protect the inhabitants against the warrior bands of western Indians, and for a time confined the march of the settler to the Shenandoah valley. Daniel Boone had heard of the discovery of an opening in the mountains not far from his home, and thirsted for exploration of the unknown solitudes beyond, through which only Indians roamed. He was one of the elder sons of Squire Boone, who had come from Pennsylvania and settled in Wilkes county, North Carolina, on the Yadkin river. From his youth Daniel had shown a special fondness for hunting. Before he was ten years old he could shoot a deer while it was upon the run, and while yet a lad made long trips from home alone and was never lost. He was a born woodsman. He had the cunning and eye of an Indian, and could determine the points of the compass by the stars, like a mariner. In 1769, this intrepid hunter, in company with three companions, passed through Cumberland Gap into the wild territory west of the mountains, •on a hunting and exploring expedition. As they advanced, the country and attractions improved. They traveled through vast reaches of somber forest, penetrating far into the interior. Boone and one of his companions were captured by the Indians, but made their escape. When they returned to their camp, the other two men had disappeared, and were never heard of again. Boone remained so long away from home that his younger brother, accompanied by a friend, came in search of him. Instead of returning, he sent his brother back for powder and bullets. 6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, After being absent nearly a year, Boone* returned home, with a glowing- account of the vastness and fertility of the new territory. He reported a country that abounded in possihilities for the settler. It was not rocky and mountainous. Streams were numerous and wild game was abundant. He organized and led forward a band of fifty hunters and trappers into the wilder- ness, and others soon followed. They built a rude fort, calling it Boonesbor- ough. They were typical hunters and adventurers, with rifles on their shoulders and knives in their belts — the picket-line going on before the march of civili- zation. At last the Revolutionary war was over. Peace relieved the restraint on the onward march of the pioneer, and the hunters' stories of a boundless country. DANIEL BOONE ESCAPES FEOM THE INDIANS. renowned for soil and climate, across the mountains started an emigration fever. The rush of settlers from the Shenandoah valley counties of Virginia assumed striking proportions. Large groups of families from a single neighborhood banded themselves together for protection against the Indians while on the *The Lincoln and Boone families were intimately associated for several generations. Tn the will of Mordecai Lincoln, recorded in the registry office at Philadelphia, dated 1735, George Boone, his " loving friend and neighbor," was made a trustee to assist in caring for the property. Squire Boone, the father of Daniel, was one of the appraisers. One of the numerous Abraham Lincolns was married to Anna Boone, a first cousin of Daniel Boone, July 10, 1760. It is thought that Abraham Lincoln, the president's grandfather, first became acquainted with Mary Shipley, whom he afterward married, while visiting the Boones on the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. It is known that intercourse between the families was kept up after they moved from Berks county, Pennsylvania. ABKAHAM LINCOLN. journey. Their destination and route had been determined by Daniel Boone, for he and his father were known throughout the valley. He recommended the central and northern part of Kentucky for a location, which they reached by following his trail through the Cumberland Gap. They went in the usual back- woods manner, on horseback, the clothing and household goods being carried on pack-horses. Herds and flocks were driven along. Occasionally a party had tents; usually they slept in the open air. They carried a small stock of pro- visions, including about thirty pounds of meal for each person. There was no meat, unless game was shot. The journey required from two to three weeks. The trail was bad, especially •where it climbed between , >).,„,. the gloomy walls of Cumber- land Gap. Even when un- disturbed by prowling bauds of red marauders, the trip was accompanied by much fatigue and exposure. After traveling for many miles through dense forests, they came to the locality for which they had started. Here the emigrant train began to scatter. The heads of families would select a piece of ground and begin a pioneer's life, with an ax in one hand and a firebrand in the other — the evidence that the advance-guard of civili- zation had arrived. A spot for a home was selected, generally near a spring or a stream, and father and sons set to work felling trees to build a cabin. All settlers' cabins were alike — an oblong room, built of rough logs, with a door in one side and a fireplace in one end; the roof consisted of rafters made from poles covered with clapboards; the cracks between the logs were stopped up with clay; usually there were no windows or floors. When more room was needed, the space between the rafters was made into a loft, reached by climbing up pegs in the wall. The furniture of the pioneer's cabin was such as he could make from split boards with a few crude tools. They cooked by the open fire. Bread was baked by heating flat stones; or perhaps they were the possessors of a Dutch oven, an iron vessel about the size of a skillet, only twice as deep, BOONE'S OLD TRAIL THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS. OS < -t-H a hi X tr* O OS 6- > o CO Pi 25 O o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 9 with short legs and a lid. To bake, they placed it on the hearth and heaped live coals over it. Buffalo robes were their main bedding, and most of their clothing was made from the skins of animals. After the cabin was built, all hands set to work clearing ground for a crop. Trees were chopped down, the logs rolled in heaps, the brush piled on top, and burned. The early settler's life was rough and monotonous; his surroundings were dreary; his cabin was destitute of the most common comforts; the blackened stumps and dead trees stood thick in his small field; neighbors were far apart; wild animals prowled around at night; and the settlers lived in mortal dread of the Indians, who were now thoroughly aroused against the white man for taking possession of their hunting-grounds, and were ever skulking around for a chance to take a scalp. Such was the common lot of the early settlers in Kentucky, among whom were Abraham and Mary Shipley Lincoln, grandparents of President Lincoln. A SHENANDOAH VALLEY SCENE. IN VIRGINIA. Eh CO ;>■ < o is; a. 10 CHAPTER II. LINEAGE. IN 1782, Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of President Lincoln,* with his wife and five children, three sons and two daughters, left Rockingham county, Virginia, in the Shenandoah valley, with a party of emigrants, for Kentucky. They all rode horseback, and followed Daniel Boone's trail through Cumber- land Gap. They suffered all the hardships and mishaps usual to such a trip. They slept on the ground, were delayed by floods and harassed by Indians. Finally they reached Bear Grass Fort, in Mercer county, about fifty miles from what is now the city of Louisville. A farm of five hundred acres on Licking creek was selected. Here in the dense forest he cleared a few acres of ground, built a little log cabin, and became a pioneer settler on the western frontier. For generations past the Lincolns had been among those who kept on the crest of the wave of western settlement. They were typical pioneers, and marched along with those who pushed the frontier westward in the teeth of the forces of the wilderness. They conquered and transformed it. It was fighting work, only to be undertaken by these strong, brave, fearless men, who were familiar with woodcraft and knew how to find food and shelter in the forests — men who could outwit the Indian and endure the extremes of fatigue and exposure. They were uneducated; they lacked refinement; they were harsh, sturdy, courageous, tenacious, self-reliant, industrious men, faithful to their friends and dangerous to their enemies. One day in the year 1784, while Abraham Lincoln was working in the clear- ing near his cabin with his three boys — Mordecai, ten years old; Josiah, eight, ^President Lincoln knew very little about his ancestry. In a letter written in 1848, he said: *' My grandfather went from Rockingham county, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1782, and two years afterward was killed by the Indians. We have a vague tradition that my grandfather went from Pennsylvania to Virginia; that he was a Quaker; further than that I have never heard anything." Eager genealogists claim that they have since established his line back to the landing of the Lincolns from England, in 1638. In the records there is a similarity of Christian names; as Mordecai, Abraham, Thomas, Isaac, John and Jacob, but these same, names are repeatedly found in the history of other families. We are told that President Lincoln's great-great-great-grandfather was one Mordecai Lincoln, who lived in Berks county, Pennsyl- vania, and died about 17:35; that his great-great-grandfather was one John Lincoln, who emigrated to Rockingham county, Virginia; that his great-grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, had four brothers— John, Thomas, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham and his brother Thomas emigrated to Kentucky; Isaac to Tennessee; John and Jacob remained in Virginia. The latter was a lieutenant in the war of the Revolution, and took part in the siege of Yorktown. There is little doubt that it was on account of his intimate friendship with the famous Daniel Boone that President Lincoln's grandfather emigrated to Kentucky. 11 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. and Thomas, six — a bullet fired by an Indian pierced his heart. Mordecai, startled by the shot, saw his father fall, and running to the cabin, seized the loaded rifle^ rushed to one of the loopholes cut through the logs of the cabin, and awaited the approach of the savage. Josiah fled for the fort to give an alarm; the Indian came up to take little Thomas Lincoln and carry him away. Suddenly the crack of a rifle was heard, and the savage fell dead, shot by Mordecai. Such was the tragedy in the life of Mary Shipley Lincoln, the grandmother of the sixteenth president of the United States. Soon after the death of her husband the widow moved to Washington county^ near the town of Springfield, where she lived until her death. No schools had yet been established, and her children grew to manhood and womanhood MORDECAI AVENGES THE MURDEB OF HIS FATHER. without the opportunity of securing an education. Both of the girls married, and spent their lives in that section of the country. Under the law of entail in Kentucky the eldest son inherited the estate of his father, and so Mordecai came into possession of his father's property. Mordecai and Josiah Lincoln remained in Washington county, and became the heads of good-sized families. They were intelligent, well-to-do men, and owned slaves. Mordecai took part in the Indian wars; he hated Indians bitterly ever after the murder of his father, and to the day of his death never lost an opportunity of shooting them down. A most remarkable and almost inexplicable fact is that to Thomas Lincoln was "reserved the honor of an illustrious paternity." Thomas was about five feet ten inches in height, weighed about two hundred pounds, had dark brown eyes, ABRAHAM LIKCOLN. 13 dark skin and black hair. He was always poor and indolent. He was a man of great strength, but slow of movement. When he really tried he could accom- plish a great deal at whatever he turned his hand, but he usually lacked the energy and perseverance necessary to make a success of his undertaking. He was a man of good intentions in all things and honest in all his dealings. He was a peaceful, law-abiding citizen, except when aroused to anger, and then he became a dangerous antagonist. He was of a nomadic disposition. One year he wandered ofE to his uncle's, on the confines of Tennessee. At another time he turned up in Breckinridge county. Finally, in 1806, at the age of twenty- eight, he drifted to Hardin county, and worked at the carpenter's trade in the shop of Joseph Hanks. While there he married his employer's niece, Nancy Hanks. He then endeavored to set up for himself, but failed. He essayed farming at various times in Kentucky, Indiana and Hlinois, but ill luck followed him. When he worked at the carpenter's trade at all, he preferred to make common benches, cupboards and bureaus. He was never a steady hand, but confined himself to doing odd jobs. He could neither read nor write until his wife taught him the letters of the alphabet, so he could spell his way slowly through the Bible, and knew how to write his name, which was the end of his attainments in this line. He was good-natured and fond of telling jokes, about the only trait he transmitted to his illustrious son. In politics he was a Democrat — a Jackson Democrat. In religion he was nothing at times and a member of various denominations by turns. It is believed, however, that he died in the faith of a Campbellite. Very little is known of Nancy Hanks, the mother of President Lincoln. It seems that she was torn in Virginia, in 1783; that her mother's given name was Lucy, and after she married Henry Sparrow the child did not remain long under her stepfather's roof, but went to live with her Aunt Betsy, who had married Thomas Sparrow. They had no children of their own. Besides Nancy, they took to raise her cousin, Dennis Hanks. Little Nancv became so identified with Thomas and Betsy Sparrow that a great many supposed that she was their child, and she was called Nancy Sparrow by her playmates. They were the only parents she ever knew, and she must have called them by names appropriate to A CUPBOARD MADE BY THOMAS LINCOLN, 14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. that relationship. They took her with them to Mercer county, Kentucky. They reared her to womanhood, followed her to Indiana, died of the same disease at about the same time, and were buried close beside her. Nancy Hanks was a beautiful girl, of pleasing manners and keen intellect. She was slender and symmetrical, above the ordinary height in stature, and had the appearance of one inclined to consumption. She was a brunette, with dark hair, soft hazel eyes, and had a high, intellectual-looking forehead. While in ROCK SPRING. Oue of the picturesque and romantic scenes of the Lincoln homestead on Nolin's creek, in Kentucky, is Rock Spring. In summer especially this is one of the most beautiful spots imaginable, and to its pleasing scenery is added the practical advantage of a never-failing supply of the finest quality of limestone water, for which central Kentucky is justly farnous. Virginia she attended school and received other advantages which placed her on a higher intellectual plane than most of those around her. She always wore a marked melancholy expression, which fixed itself upon the memory of every- one who ever saw or knew her, and though her life was seemingly beclouded by a spirit of sadness, she was in disposition amiable and generally cheerful; these ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 15 traits she transmitted to her son. Her ancestors were probably English, who emigrated to America in the early days. Under favorable environments she likely would have become an accomplished and talented woman. Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, parents of Abraham Lincoln, were married on June 12, 1806, near Beachland, Washington county, Kentucky, by the Rev. Jesse Head, a Methodist minister. Thomas was twenty-eight years of age and his wife twenty-three. They began married life in wretched, poverty, in a dreary cabin about fourteen feet square, in Elizabethtown. Here, in the spring of 1807, their daughter, Sarah, was born. Thomas Lincoln soon wearied of Elizabethtown and carpenter-work. He thought he could do better as a farmer, and removed to a piece of land in La Rue county, three miles from Hodgensville, on the south fork of Nolin's creek. The land was poor and the landscape desolate. They took up their abode in a miserable cabin, which stood on a little knoll. Near by, a spring of excellent water gushed from beneath the rock, and was called " Rock Spring." 16 CHAPTER III. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD IN KENTUCKY. ON February 12, 1809, a babe was born in a log cabin, located on Nolin's creek, in La Rue county, Kentucky, which was then a new and almost wild country. No doctors attended his birth. Only a few unskilled women were there to offer their willing services in caring for the mother. There was no fine linen ready in which to wrap the baby boy. His father was away from home. There was no food in the house, and had it not been for the kindness of neigh- bors he would have perished. But he was a child of destiny, and grew and waxed strong. They gave him his grandfather's name, Abraham — Abraham Lincoln! What a strange mingling of mirth and tears, of tragic and grotesque, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of the man; while through all and over all an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all the shadow of a tragic end. The cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born on that cold winter's night was a forlorn hovel with one door and no window. There were great chinks in the wall, through which the sun, rain and wind came driving in at pleasure. At night the stars were plainly visible, shining through cracks in the roof. The room was cold and bare, as it had scarcely anything in it that could be called furniture, and no floor except the beaten ground. In one end was a wide fireplace. It did not look as though a tender, new-born babe could live, much less grow and thrive, in such an uncomfortable place as this poor hut. Here the mother gathered her infant son in her arms; here she went about her daily tasks, much of which was a routine of drudgery, getting something for her family to eat and wear. All of the cooking was done on the hearth, before the open fire. The food was simple, usually corn-bread and bacon or game. She had not sufficient strength, energy or health to make the most of life in a poor man's cabin. She craved better things — books, friends and the comforts of life. Frequently her husband would be gone for several days or weeks on hunting or boating trips, or at work at his trade, leaving her and the children alone. At night they could hear the snarl of the wolf, the cry of the panther and the hoot of the owl. From the door no human habitation could be seen, no familiar neighbors passed and repassed, for there were no roads. The children were a great comfort to her in this lonely place, their prattle was the sweetest of music 17 18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN to her. At dusk she took them on her lap and told them stories and sang them to sleep, when she tucked them away in their bed of leaves, covered with buffalo-robes. As they grew older, she taught them their A-B-C's and how ta read and spell and write. Sarah and little Abe were always glad to see summer- time come, for then they could play out of doors, gather wild flowers, and carry little gourds of water for their mother from Rock Spring. No school of any kind had ever been opened near Thomas Jiincoln's home until Zachariah Riney, a wandering Roman Catholic priest, happened along, in the year 1813. He engaged an empty cabin, and sent word to the settlers that he would teach spelling and reading to all who would pay him. Although the Lincolns were very poor, it is a credit to the parents that Sarah and little Abe were found in the school. Logs split in two and turned flat side upward answered for benches, and the pupils included children and adults. The teacher ^ , ^ i^. 1 ---««.«%i ^^t^. pi ^ »,--.., .;-v. -<■« f^' Kis£i;f'' ^^fflHMMMtaL^^™ £? - ^ ^i^^mm 1 1 IP s !!Sffl** #s ^S r">E>:.;S'fS ii^^ ^^"si i -.«RK?~ -smi ^M ' %?:|iiiSs§«;: ife; JSfeS . *5v ■ **„«>• ^i| mM ^^^ ^^ Bi^ sg^g h. 1 ^^ ■n THE ALLEGED BIRTHPLACE OF LINCOLN. The Lincoln family occupied the cabin on Nolin's creek for a period of four years after Abraham's birth, when they removed to the eastern end of the county. The farm on which Abraham was born passed into the hands of other and more energetic owners. The humble cabin was torn down, and the materials used in its construction were utilized otherwise, and ultimately destroyed in the inanner common to the section and period. A more pretentious residence was erected on the site, but it, too, was built of logs. At a later period the farm again changed proprietors, and this second house was also torn down„ The new owner built his residence at a different point. The logs used in the vacated dwelling were sold to a neighbor, and a portion of them remain at the present time in a dwelling occujjied by Mr. John A. Daven- port, and located about a mile from the old Lincoln homestead. For years after this the site of Abraham Lincoln's first home was cultivated in common with the surrounding land, and was marked only by a small mound, and a pear-tree, rugged, gnarled and sturdy, growing thereon. In 1895, the farm was purchased by New York speculators, who at once began its improvement with a view to its sale to the United States government for use as a national park. Many visitors suppose the cabin illustrated above to be the original Lincoln cabin, and certain recent Lincoln biographers give credence to the idea that it is. This, however, is a mistake. The present cabin is only a clever imitation of the original, built on the same plan, and with logs obtained from a very old, decaying house on an adjoining farm. knew nothing outside of spelling and reading, and not much of these. The only book used was a speller, of which there were only a few copies. It was a great surprise to the teacher when he found that little Abe, only five years old, was far in advance of any of the children of his age, and even of many ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 of the older pupils.. Abe (that is what all his playmates called him) was tall of his age, and slender, had dark hair, gray eyes, and was of a quiet disposition. His sister, who was two years older, was large of her age, but not tall. She was a pretty child, with dark hair and gray eyes, and was very modest in the presence A VIEW OF THE OLD THOMAS LINCOLN FARM IN KENTUCKY, WHERE ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS BORN. (From a recent photograph.) of strangers. With tattered speller, and lunch of corn-bread, she and Abe tramped through thg woods to school the few weeks it kept open. The church preceded the school-house in pioneer settlements. In Hodgens- ville, which consisted of a primitive mill and a few scattered cabins, the public- 20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. spirited had erected a log building, but had failed to provide glass for the windows. Occasionally a preacher came to the rude meeting-house, when the people flocked in from miles around, coming on foot or horseback. They did not all come for the purpose of hearing the religious services or to exhibit their clothing, but to see one another and exchange news, and hear what was going on in the world outside Hodgensville. Mrs. Lincoln was a devout woman, attending church services whenever she could. David Elkin, a traveling Baptist minister, was a special friend to the Lincolns, and took quite a fancy to Thomas Lincoln's boy. Thomas Lincoln had made no headway in paying for his farm; in fact, no terms were easy enough for him. He gave it up, and on September 12, 1813,, A SCENE ON THE ROLLING FORK. bargained with a Mr. Slater for two hundred and thirty-eight acres. The terms were that he was to pay one hundred and eighty pounds, all deferred payments, which were never met. This land was situated about six miles from Hodgens- ville, on Knob creek, a very clear stream which empties into Rolling Fork two miles above the present site of New Haven. The farm was somewhat hilly, well timbered, and had some rich little valleys, of which Thomas Lincoln suc- ceeded in getting six acres under cultivation. The cabin which he built here was even worse than the one they had left, if that were possible. While here, Abraham entered his second school, which lasted about three months. His teacher was Caleb Hazel. He could teach reading and writing in an indifferent way, and a little arithmetic. The school was located four miles from the Lincoln ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 21 farm, and the Lincoln children had to tramp the entire distance. It was about this time that Dennis Hanks initiated Abraham into the mysteries of fishing. One day he and a companion named Gollaher were out on a little excursion, and while Abe was attempting to "coon" across a stream on a sycamore log, he lost his hold and fell into the water, and was saved only by the utmost exertions of Gollaher. Hunting ground-hogs was another favorite sport of the boys. As time wore on, Thomas Lincoln became dissatisfied, and being a wanderer by natural inclination, he longed for a change. He was gaining neither riches nor credit, and attributed his luck to the country where he lived. He felt ill at ease and cramped in the presence of his more prosperous neighbors. He listened to the stories of the fertility and cheapness of the land in the new state of Indiana, across the Ohio river, and believed them. So he resolved to pull up stakes and locate once more in the wilderness. Among the many things which he had attempted was flatboating, and had been hired to make a few trips to New Orleans. When he concluded to make the removal to Indiana, he built a rude boat and loaded most of his scanty store of property and tools, and sold the rest for four hundred gallons of whisky. In those days whisky was a common article of commerce, and passed for so much coin in buying and selling. He started down Rolling Fork, then down Salt river, and reached the Ohio river without any mishaps, but here his boat capsized. He fished up whatever tools and property he could, and most of the whisky, and started on his way, finally landing at Thompson's Ferry, two and a half miles west of Troy, in Perry county, Indiana. Here he sold the boat, and put the property in the hands of a Mr. Posey, a settler living near. He then started out to find a location, and decided upon a spot sixteen miles distant, afterward returning to his family in Kentucky, walking the entire distance. 'A < O ;?; I— I 33 hH n GO [^ CO pi H H 22 CHAPTER IV. BOYHOOD IN INDIANA. THOMAS LINCOLN and family moved from Kentucky to Indiana in the fall of 1816. Before they left, Mrs. Lincoln and the two children visited the grave of her third child, a boy, who died in infancy. The trip to Indiana was a hard journey, as there were no roads or bridges. They made the trip on horseback, borrowing two horses for the occasion. Besides their scanty bed and clothing, they carried with them a few cooking-utensils, including a Dutch oven and lid, a skillet and lid, and some tinware. They camped out on the way, and depended mostly upon game for subsistence. After reaching Mr. Posey's house, Thomas Lincoln hired a wagon, into which he loaded his tools, the whisky, his 'few goods, his wife and children, and plunged into the forest. There were no roads or foot-paths, and many times a passageway had to be cut before they could proceed farther. At length they arrived at the spot which he had selected between Prairie and Pigeon creeks, and which has since become famous as the Lincoln farm. Lincoln was a ''squatter," and did not enter his claim until October 15, 1817. This part of the country was covered with thick forests of deciduous trees — poplar, oak, walnut, elm, beech and sugar. The land was fertile, the grazing excellent, and there was an immense amount of mast on the ground for hogs. Lincoln selected a beautiful site on an elevation for his home. The selection was wise, except that no running water was near, and they had to use that which collected in holes when it rained, until a well was dug.- Here -Thomas Lincoln built a temporary shelter called "a half-face camp," which is a shed built of poles and open on one side. It was as cold as outdoors, and not fit for a stable. They lived here all winter and until the next fall before he had the cabin com- pleted. This cabin had neitlier floor nor window, and the doorway had to be closed by hanging skins of animals over it. It seems that Lincoln was too lazy to use his skill as a carpenter to improve his home, for the furniture was cruder than the house. The bed consisted of two poles, with one end of each stuck in between the logs in one corner of the cabin, while the corner of the bed 'where the poles crossed rested in a crotch of a forked stick sunk into the earthen floor. On these were thrown some rough boards, and on the boards a lot of leaves covered with skins and any old clothing they had. The table was a similar 24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. affair, and three-legged stools answered for chairs. They had a few pewter and tin dishes, and if they had knives or forks, it is unknown. Abraham slept on a bed of leaves in the loft, reached by climbing on pegs in the wall. In the fall of 1817 Thomas and Betsy Sparrow followed their adopted daughter to Indiana, and took up their abode in the old "half -face camp," which was about one hundred and fifty feet from the cabin. They brought with them their adopted son, Dennis Hanks, a cousin of Mrs. Lincoln's. For two years they continued to live along in the old way. Lincoln did not like farming, and did not succeed in getting very much of his land under cultivation. He raised a small crop of corn and vegetables, and this, with the game, which was abundant, supplied the table. LINCOLN'S INDIANA HOJIE. Milk-sickness broke out in the Pigeon creek region in the summer of 1818. It was a terrible disease, common to new countries. It is supposed that it was contracted by cattle and sheep feeding on a poisonous weed, which grew in wild pasture-lands. ' It swept off the cattle which gave the milk, and the people who drank it. Among those who were attacked by it were Thomas and Betsy Spar- row ^nd Mrs. Thomas Lincoln. The Sparrows were then removed from the "half-faced" camp to the Lincoln cabin, which was very little better. Many of the neighbors had already died of the disease, and Thomas Lincoln had made all of their coffins out of green lumber cut with a whip-saw. Toward fall the Sparrows and Mrs. Lincoln grew w^orse. The nearest doctor was at Yellow ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25 Banks, Kentucky, thirty miles away, but they could not send for him, as they had no money with which to pay him. In the first part of October the Spar- rows died. A day or so after, on October 5, 1815, Nancy Hanks Lincoln rested from her troubles, at the age of thirty-five years. Her husband sawed the lum- ber and made her rough cofl&n with his own hands. Arnold describes the funeral thus: "The country burying-ground where she was laid, half a mile southeast from their log cabin home, had been selected perhaps by herself, and was situated on the top of a forest-covered hill. There, beneath the dark shade of the woods, and under a majestic sycamore, they dug the grave of the mother of Abraham THE LINCOLN FARM IN INDIANA. (From a recent photograpli.) Lincoln. The funeral ceremonies were very plain and simple, but solemn withal^ for nowhere does death seem so deeply impressive as in such a solitude. At the time no clergyman could be found in or near the settlement to perform the usual religious rites. David Elkin, a traveling preacher whom the family had known in Kentucky, came, but not until some months afterward, traveling many miles on horseback through the wild forest to reach their residence; and then the family, with a few friends and neighbors, gathered in the open air under the great sycamore beneath which they had laid the mother's remains. A funeral sermon was preached, hymns were sung, and such rude but sin- cere and impressive services were held as are usual among the pioneers of the frontier." 26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. f Mrs. Lii^oln's grave never had a stone, not even a head-board, to mark it, and the exact spot is unknown. Two or three children belonging to a neigh- bor. Levy Hall and wife, and the Sparrows, were buried near the grave. For years the graves remained uncared for. They were crumbled in and sunken and covered with bushes and wild vines. In 1879, Mr. P. E. Studebaker, of South Bend, Indiana, erected a stone over the graves, and a few of the leading citizens of Rockport, Indiana, built an irOn railing around it. The THE GRAVE OF NANCY HANKS LINCOLN. inscription on the stone runs: "Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Mother of President Lincoln, Died Oct. 5, A. D. 1818, Aged 35 years. Erected by a friend of her martyred son, 1879." The next year was a sorry and dreary one for the children in their cold and cheerless cabin. Sarah, now twelve years old, was housekeeper, and cooked what little they had to eat. Abe and Dennis were good-natured boys, and did what they could to pass away the long evenings and stormy days. In good weather the boys were busy getting up wood, doing the chores and hunting. Taking ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 27 game with trap and rifle was a necessary occupation, as they needed the meat for food; and about their only source of income during the winter was from the sale of furs. Thirteen months after the death of his first wife, Thomas Lincoln returned to Elizabethtown in search of another. He immediately called on Sarah Bush Johnston, whom he had courted before he married Nancy Hanks. Sarah mar- ried Daniel Johnston soon after Lincoln married Nancy. Johnston died in 1814, leaving three children — John, Sarah and Matilda — dependent on his wife, Sarah Bush was called a proud body when a girl, as she was very neat and tidy in her personal appearance, and was particular in the selection of her company. She " wanted to be somebody and have something.'' She was a woman of great energy, good sense, industrious and saving, and knew how to manage children. Mrs. John- ston agreed to marry Thomas Lincoln as soon as she could pay her debts. They were paid that day, and the couple were married the next morn- ing, leaving for Indiana soon after. Mrs. Johnston was well supplied with furniture, clothing and household goods, and it required her brother's big wagon and a four-horse team to transport them to Indiana. Among the goods was a bureau that cost forty dollars. Thomas Lincoln thought it extravagance, and wanted her to turn it into cash, which she flatly refused to do. When Mrs. Johnston, now Mrs. Lincoln^ arrived at her new home, she was astonished beyond measure at the contrast between the glowing representations which her husband had made to her before leaving Kentucky and the real poverty and meanness of the place. She had evidently been given to understand that the bridegroom had abandoned his Ken- tucky ways, and was now a prosperous Indiana farmer. However, she made the best of a bad bargain, and immediately set to work making the place more com- fortable and respectable. She had her husband put down a floor, hang windows and doors, and use his skill with tools to make improvements in the cabin. It SARAH BUSH LINCOLN. 28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. *■ was a strange experience for Sarah and Abe to sleep in warm beds, and to eat with knives and forks and have something warm and clean to wear. It was only a short time after the new mother came to the home until everything had changed. She had taken a fancy to Abe as a child in Kentucky, and now she '^ ■^^f^^mmVmSM^m^, 38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. • 39 Baton Rouge, while the boat was tied up to the shore in the dead hours of the night, and Abe and Allen were fast asleep in the bed, they were startled by foot- steps on board. They knew instantly that it was a gang of negroes come to rob and perhaps murder them. Allen, thinking to frighten the negroes, called out, " Bring the guns, Lincoln, and shoot them! " Abe came without the guns, but he fell among the negroes with a huge bludgeon and belabored them most cruelly, following them onto the bank. They rushed back to their boat and hastily put out into the stream. It is said that Lincoln received a scar in this tussle which he carried with him to his grave. It was on this trip that he saw the workings of slavery for the first time. The sight of New Orleans was like a wonderful panorama to his eyes, for never before had he seen wealth, beauty, fashion and culture. He returned home with new and larger ideas and stronger opinions of right and injustice. One day, while standing on the bank of the river, two passengers came up and asked to be taken to the steamer coming up the river. Abe agreed to take them out, and did so, and when he had them and their luggage on the boat, they threw him a silver half dollar each. One day, while the Cabinet was assembled in the White House, Mr. Lincoln related the incident to Seward, his secretary of state, and said: "1 could scarcely believe my eyes. You may think it was a very little thing, but it was the most important instant of my life. I could scarcely believe that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day. The world seemed wider and fairer to me, and I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time." Reverting to his school-days, it is related that the boy Lincoln would take up compo-^ition- writing on his own account, without being obliged to do so by the teacher. He first wrote short sentences against " Cruelty to Animals," which he presently enlarged into a regular composition. He was very much annoyed and pained by the conduct of the boys, who were in the habit of catching terrapins and putting coals of fire on their backs. One of the most touching relics in the large Lincoln collection at Springfield, Illinois, is an old copy-book, in which, at the age of fourteen, Lincoln had taught himself some proficiency in writing and ciphering. Scratched in his boyish hand on the first page may be seen these lines: ' Tis Abraham Lincoln holds the pen, He will be good, but God knows when ! At seventeen Lincoln wrote a clear, neat, legible hand, was quick at figures, and able to solve any ordinary arithmetical problem. One of his biographers describes Lincoln's manuscript, "Exercises in Arithmetic," dated 1826, and says it would not be easy to find scholars of even our high schools in these days, or any school of boys of the same age, who could turn out a better written specimen of this sort of work, including a good knowledge of figures. This was about the period when the boy became interested in the theory of surveying. He pursued the study at odd hours which he stole from sleep or from the recreations usually considered essential to the health and hnppiness of 3'onth. THE TEIP TO NEW ORLEANS. -YOUNG LINCOLN AS A "BOW-HANI). ■il) CHAPTER VI. THE LINCOLNS EMIGRATE TO ILLINOIS. THE "milk-sickness" was still prevalent in Indiana, and for this and other reasons a letter received from John Hanks, formerly of Elizabethtown, Ken- tucky, then of Decatur, Illinois, speaking of the vast reaches of prairie in his state, the richness of the soil, the winding rivers and creeks, and the Leautiful groves of oak, maple and elm, met with a ready reception in the elder Lincoln's mind. Hanks promised that if Thomas Lincoln would come to Illinois he would Sielect a quarter-section of land for him and have the logs cut for a cabin. Immi- gration had already set in, largely, to Illinois from Kentucky. One of the step- daughters had married Levi Hall and the other Dennis Hanks, and all were willing to go. Abe's sister had married Aaron Grigsby, and in two years died. There were no dear friends to be left behind. Abe was now of age, but ready to cast his lot in with the rest. It was a long and tedious journey, but by early spring, in the year 1830, they could reach the end. They passed • through snow, sleet, rain, mud and chilling winds; the rivers were filled with ice or overflovvin:^ their banks; they usually slept at night in their wagons. The father received the hearty co-operation of his stalwart son, who drove the team of four yoke of oxen, swung the ax to split rails to build a temporary shelter, and when the wagon sank in the mire, he put his shoulder to the wheel. A little dog accompanied them, and the tenderness of Abe's heart is shown by the fact that one day when the dog was unwittingly left behind, howling, on the farther side of a stream, Abraham Lincoln had not the heart to leave it. Bare- footed, he jumped into the water, crossed the stream, took the dog in his arras, and waded back with him, very much to the satisfaction of Abraham, and certainly very much to the delight of the dog. At the spot near Decatur where Thomas Lincoln settled were found the logs which John Hanks had promised, ready for the new house, and Abraham Lincoln, "wearing a jean jacket, shrunken buckskin trousers, a coonskin cap, and driving an ox-team," became a citizen of Illinois. He was plivsically and mentally equipped for pioneer work. His first desire was to obtain a new and decent suit of clothes, but as he had no money, he was glad to arrange with Nancy Miller to make him a pair of trousers, he to split four hundred fence-rails for each yard of cloth — fourteen hundred rails in all. It was three miles from his 41 42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN". father's cabin to her wood-lot, where he made the forest ring with the sound of his ax. Abraham had helped his father plow fifteen acres of land, and split enouj-h rails to fence it, and he then helped to plow fifty acres for another settler. Abraham now being over twenty-one, there was no one to restrain him from leaving home. He had been faithful to his parents, and there were no ties that bound him to his old associates, unless it was his good stepmother. He was free^ and could go and do what he pleased, and attempt those things which were nearest his heart; but where he would find them, or how he would secure them, was a problem unsolved. Hlinois, now an empire with a commercial capital of over four million people, had in 1830 a little over fifty thousand inhabitants. Judge Arnold tells -\ f *• i^^^-*^"" f i v; i 4 ''iW/^^; -^ \'^- hi*'' iVy 111 GRAVEYARD WHERE SARAH GRIG8BY IS BURIED. (Her grave is marked by the stone under flag.) US that the Indian word from which the name of the state was derived was "Dlini," signifying the ''Land of full-grown men." Thomas Lincoln moved at least three times in search of a location, and finally settled 0)1 Goosenest Prairie, in Coles county, near Farmington, where he died, in 1851, at the ripe old age of seventy-three. He had mortgaged his little farm of forty acres for two hundred dollars, but Abraham had paid the debt and taken a deed of the land, which contained the clause, " With a reservation of a life estate therein to them or the survivor of them." As soon as Abraham got up a little in the world, he began to send his stepmother money, and continued to do so until his own death. Sarah Bush Lincoln died April 10, 1869. It was in April, 1830, that Lincoln left home for good. He did not go far, but sought work in the neighborhood among the settlers. Rail-splitting seemed to be the favorite kind of work. In March. 1881. he was fortunate in meeting a 'nmi LINCOLN CROSSING THE STKEAM WITH THE DOG. LINCOLN'S FIRST ILLINOIS HOME. 43 44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. singular character known as Denton Offutt, of Springfield. Offutt was enter- prising and aggressive, full of spirits in more senses than one, and kept things moving along the line of the Sangamon. This man, who was at that time buy- ing produce for the New Orleans market, employed Lincoln, Jolm Hanks and John Johnston to make a trip to New Orleans. They went down the Sangamon to Jamestown, and walked to Springfield. It was but two years since Lincoln had made the trip for Mr. Gentry, of Gentry ville, Indiana, with Gentry's son Allen, and therefore he knew something of the river, and of the great city near its mouth. Offutt agreed to pay the three young men fifty cents a day each, and sixty dollars for the trip, besides boarding them. He agreed to have the boat ready fcr THE THOMAS LINCOLN CABIN, IN COLES COUNTY, ILLINOIS. them at Judy's Ferry, five miles from Springfield, but after they had rowed down the Sangamon to Springfield, they found Offutt exercising his social qualities with the guests of the Buckhorn tavern, and increasing at a lively rate the profits of the bar. But there was no boat. A bont was the first requisite for the trip, and Offutt finally employed the boys to build one. Abraham was to have charge of its construction, and he was well qualified for the task. Trees on the government reservation, for which they had to pay nothing, were cut down, and the ax, the saw, the chisel and the auger were used in the work. Abraham, the "boss," did the cooking. Two giants of the forest were hewed into timbers for the sides of the boat, to- which the planks for the bottom, which had been sawed out at Kirkpatrick's ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 sawmill, near by, were stoutly pinned, and the S(ams were calked and then pitched. It was a strong boat. Lincoln had had experience in building boats with his father, and knew just what to do and how to do it. The launching was a great affair. Offutt came out from Springfield with a laige party and an ample supply of whisky, to give the boat and its builders a send-off. It was a sort of bipartizan mass-meeting, but there was one prevailing spirit, that born of rye and corn. Speeches were made in the best of feeling, some in favor of Andrew Jackson and some in favor of Henry Clay. Abraham Lincoln, the cook, told a number of funny stories, and it is recorded that they were not of too refined a character to suit the taste of his audience. A sleight-of-hand performer was present, and among other tricks performed, he fried some eggs in Lincoln's hat. Judge Hern- don says, as explanatory to the delay in passing up the hat for the exper- iment, Lincoln drolly observed: "It was out of respect for the eggs, not care for my hat." The boat was loaded with pork and beef in barrels, pork on foot, and corn. April 19, 1831, the boat and its load left Sangamon, and floated down the river toward New Salem, a town destined to be for awhile the scene of Lincoln's activ- ities. A Mr. Ratledge, Mr. Coffin states, "had built a dam at a bend in the river and erected a mill on the western bank. The boat, instead of gliding over the dam, hung fast npon it. It was necessarily a pon- derous affair in itself, and was heavily loaded. Lincoln was the man to discover a way out of the difficulty. Some of the barrels of pork and beef at the bow, "the forward end," as Mr. Coffin writes, were taken on shore. The boat, as a result of insufficient calking, was partly filled with water. Lincoln bored a hole, with a large auger, in the bottom of the end projecting over the dam, and the water ran out. Then the hole was plugged, the barrels near the stern rolled up in front, and the boat was i THE GRAVE OF THOMAS LINCOLN. 46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. floated successfully over the c^ani, reloaded, and went on its way. The people of New Salem were gathered on the banks, and recognized, with deep interest, the skill of the captain of the boat. A board sail which Lincoln had put up, for lack of canvas, excited much amusement at New Salem, Beardstown, Alton, St. Louis and other points on the route. Offutt had purchased an additional number of pigs at Blue Bank, to put on board. Squire Godbey, of whom he bought them, and the three men undertook to drive them on board, but they refused to be driven. Lincoln had iheir eye- lids sewed together, but that did not make the undertaking a bit more practi- cable. Finally, they were taken up, one by one, and carried on the boat. Lincoln then cut the threads from the eyes of the pigs, and the party proceeded on the journey. DOWN THE SANGAMON. CHAPTER VII. LINCOLN'S SECOND VISIT TO NEW ORLEANS. IN this season of the year the trip down the majestic Mississippi, as she passes each day into a warmer atmosphere, is especially interesting, and Lincoln was daily learning more of life, and of the breadth and grandeur of the country over the destinies of which, thirty years afterward, he was to preside. Memphis, Vicksburg and Natchez were passed, after short stops at each, and Lincoln was again at a city which, in his eyes and in those of his companions, was a great metropolis. He saw the old sights and some new ones, and what he saw not only added to his knowledge of men and things, but stimulated his moral and humane impulses. He had seen slaves in Kentucky when he was a small boy, and occasionally one in Illinois, nominally — by virtue of the Ordinance of 1787^-a free state. But now, in his strolls about various portions of the city, he saw slaves from Kentucky and Tennessee, marching along on their way to sugar-cane and cottcn plantations, and he finally came to a slave auction. Here men and women were sold from the block. His interest and his latent geherous sympathies were touched by this sad, extraordinary sight. Human beings were treated like cattle, only worse. Comely maidens, sensitive, apprehensive, trembling, stood upon the block and were brutally handled by men who intended purchasing, and by others who merely wished to gratify their brutal tastes and propensities. The women and girls were pinched, coarsely questioned, made the objects of sport, their mouths opened and examined; and they were driven about to show whether they were sound in foot and limb, and then sold to men of whom they could know nothing and from whom they could only expect the worst. Hus- bands, wives and children wept as they were separated, in most instances never to meet in this world again. What a spectacle was this in the American republic, the land of freedom, in which the Declaration of Independence had been adopted a little over half a century before! It is not strange that Abraham Lincoln's heart was profoundly stirred and that the hot iron of this terrible wrong went into his soul. Just what Lincoln said on this occasion is not definitely known, as different versions are given, and some biographers deny that he said anything. But as to what he meant it is not difficult to guess. One of his biographers (Coffin) states that he 48 ABRAHAM LIN"COLN. said, with "quivering lips and soul on fire," to John Hanks: "John, if I ever get a chance to hit that institution, TU hit it hard, by the Eternal God!" If he didn't say it, he ought to have done so. It is undoubtedly true that he felt it; and Judge Herndon says that Lincoln told him that he said it. The apparent profanity can be easily excused when the provocation is borne in mind. This was no doubt a crucial period in Lincoln's life. It gave him something to think about for long years, and when he came on the field of action, not long after- ward, when the institution of slavery became a political problem, he felt that he had personal knowledge and had had a vivid experience as to its true nature. LINCOLN AS A FLATBOATMAN. The produce was disposed of at satisfactory prices. Offutt hfidgone down to New Orleans to attend to the selling, and he, Lincoln, Hanks and Johnston boarded a steamboat and started up the river. Judge Arnold quotes Lincoln's companions on the trip homeward as attempting to describe his indignation and grief. They said, "His heart bled; ... he was mad, thoughtful, abstracted, sad and depressed." Lincoln had been among pfople who were believers in premonitions and supernatural appearances all his life, and he once declared to his friends that he was "from boyhood superstitious." He said to the judge that "the near approach of the important events of his life were indicated by a presentiment or a strange dream, or in some other mysterious way it was impressed upon him that something important was to occur." ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 49 There is an old tradition that on this visit to New Orleans he and his com- panion, John Hanks, visited an old fortune-teller — a voodoo negress. Tradition says that ''during the interview she became very much excited, and after various predictions exclaimed: 'You will be president, and all the negroes will be free.' That the old voodoo negress should have foretold that the visitor would be president is not at all incredible. She doubtless told this to many aspiring lads, but the prophecy of the freedom of the slaves lacks confirmation." The boat stopped at St. Louis, Offutt remaining to purchase goods for the *■ store" he was to establish at New Salem, and his companions continuing their journey on foot across the country to Farnington, where Thomas Lincoln was SLAVE QUAr.TEIiS IN I.dl" l:>l A N A. indulging in his marked propensity by putting up a new house. This time it was a two-roomed structure. It was also made of hewed logs, and Abraham remained here a month, giving his father efficient help. On an appointed day Abraham was to meet OfEutt at New Salem, but while he was tarrying at Farmington his large dimensions attracted attention, and a certain Daniel Needham. the "champion wrestler of Coles county," began to resent the invasion of his territory by this big-limbed interloper. Needham had placed all of his muscular neighbors on their backs at one time or another, and was not slow to talk or to fight. Lincoln received from him a special challenge, and rpadily accepted it, and time and place were agreed upon. At AA^abash Point 50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. the battle came off, and Needham, after a brief struggle, was placed on the ground, flat on his back. Greatly chagrined, the defeated athlete demanded another trial, which was readily granted, with a like result. On the day appointed, Lincoln became a citizen of New Salem. He was to be a clerk in Offutt's new store. He was now in a new atmosphere and in new surroundings, and was to attempt to carry on a new business. Lincoln hnd CLEARING NEW GUOIND IN riOXEER DAYS, paddled down the river in a canoe and landed at Rutledge's mill. Offutt was there to welcome him and escort him to New Salem, then a prosperous village^ located on a bluff a hundred feet high, and surrounded by an expanse of fertile fields and pastures. The Sangamon river skirted the base of the bluff, and presented a fine view from the summit. North of the town was the old mill over the dam of which Lincoln had taken his flatboat. Of the surrounding country Judge ABKAHaM LINCOLN. 51 Herndon writes: '^The country in almost every direction is diversified hy alter- nate stretches of hills and level lands, with streams between each, struggling to reach the river. The hills are bearded with timber — oak, hickory, walnut, ash and elm. Below them are stretches of rich alluvial bottom land, and the eye ranges over a vast expanse of foliage, the monotony of which is relieved by the alternating swells and depressions of the landscape. Between peak and peak, through its bed of limestone, sand and clay, sometimes kissing the feet of one blafi and then hugging the other, rolls the Sangamon river." Fine scenery often influences for good an impressionable and appreciative young person. NEW SALEM STREET. The site of New Salem, laid out in 1828, is now a desert. In 1836, it is said to have had twenty houses and one hundred inhabitants. ''How it vanished." one writer observes, "like a mist in the morning, to what distant place its inhabitants dispersed, and what became of the abodes they left behind, shall be questions for the local historian." One of these inhabitants, only twenty-eight years afterward, became an honored occupant of the White House. Lincoln was nominally Offutt's clerk, but he had a few days of leisure before the goods arrived from St. Louis, which time he employed in making the acquain- 52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. tance of as many of the people as possible, lu the interval the annual election came around. A Mr. Graham was clerk, but his assistant was absent, and it was necessary to find a man to fill his place. Lincoln, a "tall young man," had already concentrated on himself the attention of the people of the town, and Mr. Graham easily discovered him. Asking him if he could write, he modestly replied, "I can make a few rabbit-tracks." His rabbit-tracks proving to be leg- ible and even graceful, he was employed. The voters soon discovered that the new assistant clerk was honest and fair, and performed his duties satisfactorily^ and when, the work done, he began to " entertain them with stories," they dis- covered that their town had made a valuable personal and social acquisition. LINCOLN STUDIES UNDER DIFFICULTIES. During this interval an incident occurred that gave Lincoln something to do. One of the citizens, a Dr. Nelson, decided to remove to Texas with his family and goods, and employed Lincoln to take him to Beardstown, where he could take a steamboat for St. Louis. The family and their household furniture and other articles were put on a flatboat and floated down the Sangamon to the Illinois river. The water was low, but the journey was safely accomplished. Now began Lincoln's life as a "storekeeper." On the eighth of July, Offutt received permission from the county authorities to "retail merchandise at New Salem." The value of the goods was put at one thousand dollars — a large sum,, in those days, in a small town. A man worth ten thousand dollars cut as large ABKAHAM LINCOLN. la a figure as a man of the present day who assumes to be worth half a million. The building was a little log house. Dry- goods and groceries composed the stock, and doubtless there were other articles not included in these terms. Any- thing the people were thought likely to buy was kept, and sold when called for. Lincoln commenced business as a merchant, but he was not a business man,, neither by nature nor training, and never became one. At this period he found something much more attractive to him than the selling of goods, or of receiving money for them. It was Samuel Kirkham's „^ SS«:' OLD MILL AT NEW SALEM. English grammar, printed in Cincinnati, by N. and G. Guilford, in 1828. Gray- headed men of the present day do not recall this work with very pleasant recollec- tions, but Lincoln found it exceedingly interesting — so much so that he may have neglected the little business which came straggling into the store. But he gave the book a thorough study, and he could soon repeat the rules and suggestions, word for word, and knew how to apply them. He learned how to construct sentences clearly and in understandable English. To this may be credited the fact that nobody who ever listened to Abraham Lincoln in later days failed to understand what he said or what he meant. To an aoquaintnnce (Mentor Gra- u ABRAHAM LINCOLN". ham) he was indebted for the knowledge of the book, and he walked several miles to the house of a man named Vaner to obtain it. Lincoln had periods in which there was nothing for him to do, and was therefore in circumstances that made laziness almost inevitable. Had people come to him for goods, they would have found him willing to sell them. He sold all that he could, doubtless. The store soon became the social center of the village. If the people did not care (or were unable) to buy goods, they liked to go where they could talk with their neighbors and listen to stories. These Lin- coln gave them in abundance, and of a rare sort. Afterward Lincoln obtained a text-book on mathematics, and made good use of it. He never took a book in hand that he did not master. As much, however, as Lin- coln lacked business training and the tact one requires to sell goods, his integrity was unquestioned. He watched the interest of his customers as much as that of his employer; he neglected neither. He early acquired the title of "Honest Abe," and many anecdotes are told of his square dealings. If he made a mistake in reckon- ing or in weighing, he was quick to rectify it. One day he found that a woman had paid him six and a quarter cents more than was due, and when the store was closed for the night, he hastened to cor- rect the mistake, although she lived two miles away. There were some rough peo- ple in the neighborhood. One of them used profane and vile language in the presence of some women, and Lincoln showed his gentlemanly instincts and true gallantry by resenting the affront. Herndon, in his "Life of Abraham Lincoln," gives the following account of the aifair: "'Do not use such language,' said Lincoln. "'Who are you? I will swear when and where I please. I can lick you,' said the fellow. "' When the ladies are gone I will let you have a chance to do so.' "The ladies departed, and the man dared Lincoln to touch him. Suddenly he found himself lying flat upon his back, with blows falling upon him like the strokes of a hammer." ANDKEW JACKSON, PRESIDENT 1829-37 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55 About eight miles from New Sdlem was a little place called Clary's Grove. The young meu of that neighborhood had become, by their pugnacity and prowess, a "power in the land." They were muscular and aggressive. They were greatly addicted to larks, and were not at all particular as to the depredations they committed. Judge Herndon, who had a cousin living at New Salem, and who ''knew personally" many of the "boys," describes them as follows: "They were friendly and good-natured; they could trench a pond, dig a bog, build a house; they could pray or fight, make a village or create a state. They LAST RUTLEDGE MILL, ON THE FOIXnATlnN OF THE MILL OF WHICH LINCOLN HAD CHARGE. would do almost anything for sport or fun, love or necessity. Though rude and rough, though life's forces ran over the edge of the bowl, foaming and sparkling in pure deviltry for deviltry's sake, yet place before them a poor man who needed their aid, a lame or sick man, a defenseless woman, a widow or an orphaned child, they melted into sympathy and charity at once. They gave all they had, and willingly toiled or played cards for more. Though there never was under the sun a more generous parcel of rowdies, a stranger's introduction to them was likely to be the most unpleasant part of his acquaintance with them." 56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Denton Offutt was very proud of Lincoln, and was not at all reserved in his language when boasting of Abe's merits. He declared — was it with a prophet's prescience? — that he was "the smartest man in the United States,'' and pro- claimed far and wide that Lincoln could ''lift more, throw farther, run faster, jump higher and wrestle better than any man in Sangamon county!" There were a number of Armstrongs at Clary's Grove, and they were the chief among the " terrors" of the locality. They are said to have ridden through the neighbor- hood at night, w4iooping and swearing and frightening women and children. Hearing of Offutt's boasting, the boys were aroused, and determined to humble this new rival in the esteem of their fellow-citizens. They had no doubt that they could easily dispose of him, and one of the gang declared that Jack Arm- strong would put Offutt's clerk on his back in a twinkling; but Lincoln's employer Slid that Lincoln would use Armstrong to wipe his feet on. Bill Clary then offered to bet that Jack was the better fellow, and Offutt took it, Lincoln con- senting to a friendly wrestle. The match was arranged, and when the day arrived, there was much local excitement, and a large audience. The contest began — it was a severe struggle. None of Armstrong's usual devices seemed to work, and "Armstrong soon discovered that he had met his match. Neither could for some time throw the other, and Armstrong, convinced of this, tried a foul." This aroused Lincoln's anger, and a bystander says: "Lincoln no sooner realized the game of his antagonist than, furious with indignation, he caught him by the throat, and holding him out at arm's length, shook him like a child." Arm- strong's friends rallied to his aid, but Lincoln held his own, and a little more, and an era of good feeling was soon organized. Even Jack Armstrong himeelf declared that Lincoln was "the best fellow whoever broke into the camp." That day the championship was transferred to Abraham Lincoln. He was the "best man" of the neighborhood, but in addition to being the champion, he was also a peacemaker. The Armstrongs became stout and lifelong friends of Lincoln, who had by his show of pluck and strength become immensely popular. Much as Lincoln had learned from Kirkham, he had something to learn as to the sort of literature a practical knowledge of grammar could produce. Mr. George D. Prentice's Louisville Journal came regularly to the local postmaster, who was, almost as a matter of course, one of Lincoln's many friends, and to whom he was indebted for the reading of this fine, strong public journal, as famous then as Mr. Henry Watterson's Courier-Journal is now for clear English and a masterly treatment of current problems. Not only did Lincoln learn from this newspaper the news of the day, but he was greatly instructed by its bright, strong and able editorinls. Lincoln took much interest in local affairs. He was, as a matter of course, familiar with the important political and economical issues of the day involved in what were called internal improvements, the making of roads, canals, etc., by the general government as a means of developing the resources of the country. Lincoln favored this policy, much discussed at the time, and as a man of public spirit, he at once began to try to make a local application of the principle. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 57 The 6 iiigaiuon river, he thought, might be navigated. Much interest was man- ifested. aaJ it was not long before Lincoln became the representative and cham- pion oc clie idea. Indeed, he made several little speeches in favor of it. The Sang J. n m had been navigated up to this time only by canoes, tiatboats and rafts Tha.e )Cd, when Captain Vincent Bogue, of Springfield, in the spring of 1832, went ') Cincinnati to buy a steamboat, with which he proposed to navigate the Sang I iijd and to connect Springlield and New Salem with tide-water, the people PIONEERS MAKING CLAPBOARDS. went wild. The steamer '^ Talisman" was purchased at Cincinnati and was started on its way down the Ohio; then steamed up the Mississippi and the Illinois to the vicinity of Alton, and thence up the Sangamon to the point in that stream nearest Springfield. New Salem was a small town, but at once it was accepted as a fact that it had a great future. Certainly it had "great expectations." Captain Bogue had inflated views as to the success of his enterprise, and at once made great promises. The round trip to Cincinnati and St. Louis was to be made once a week, and the 58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. * merchints of Springfield advertised new goods "direct from the East, per steamer Talisman." Mails were also to be received once a week by steamer. All the land in the neighborhood of Springfield, New Salem and other towns on the river was platted and cut up into town lots. Many of the people seemed (to themselves) to be already rich. At Captain Bogue's suggestion, a number of men — Lincoln among them — went down from New Salem, with long-handled axes, to a point near Beardstown, to meet the boat as she entered the mouth of the Sangamon, and to cut away the branches on either side, so that she could pass on up the stream. Judge Herndon writes that he "and other boys on horseback followed the boat, riding along the river^s bank as far as Bogue's mill, where she tied up; there we went aboard, and, lost in boyish wonder, feasted our eyes on the splendor of her interior decoration." Great excitement was created all along the route. Few of the people had ever seen a steamboat. All Springfield was aroused, and materialized in full force at the landing. The people had been organizing themselves for the red-letter day in the history of the town. A grand reception awaited the captain and his crew, and the captain (not Captain Bogue) was prepared to make the most of an opportunity that never came to him again. A reception and a dance at the court-house were given to him and his men, and a gaudily attired woman whom he announced as "his wife." But the captain and his "wife" were both soon under the influence of ardent spirits, and Springfield's cultivated and refined ladies very naturally took offense and withdrew. Society was shocked to learn, the next day, that the woman was no wife, but an adventuress who had been picked up on the way to Springfield. The Talisman remained a week at the landing, and the water in the river lowering, it was thought best to steam on down the several rivers to St. Louis. Much difficulty was encountered at various points, but Abraham Lincoln and Judge Herndon's brother were on deck and piloted her down to Beardstown. She then steamed down the Mississippi to St. Louis, where she caught fire at the warf and was burned to the water's edge. That was the last of the navigation of the Sangamon by steamboats, except in theory. Canoes, skiffs and flatboats have had no rivals there since that time. CHAPTER VIII. THE BLACK HAWK WAR. WE now come to an historical event of some importance — the breaking out, and the prosecution to its conclusion, of what is called the Black Hawk war. If it did nobody else any good, it was of benefit to Abraham Liucoln, as it opened to him an opportunity to do something for his country, but especially for himself. Denton OfEutt, his old employer, had failed and removed elsewhere. Subsequent events showed that he became a resident of Baltimore, and pre- sented to the public a scheme for taming wild horses by whispering in their ears. Captain Bogue's Talisman bubble bursted, leaving Lincoln disappointed and adrift. In April, 1832, the people were startled by the appearance of a circular, which was scattered everywhere. It was an address to and a call upon the militia of the northwestern portion of the state, from Governor Reynolds, to rendezvous within a week at Beaidstown, to repel an invasion by ihe Sac and other Indians, led by the famous Black Hawk. This gieat chief had formerly occupied the northwestern portion of the state, but on June 30, 1831, had solemnly promised Governor Reynolds and General Gaines, of the United Siates army, that none of his tribe should ever cross the Mississippi "to their usual place of residence, nor to any part of their old hunting-grounds east of the Mis- sissippi, without permission of the president of the United States or the governor of the state of Illinois." The land formerly owned by the Indians was in 1804 sold to the United States-government, but "with the provision that the Indians should hunt and raise corn there until it was surveyed and sold to settlers." Black Hawk resisted the encroachments of the squatters, who had proved, like many another pioneer community of whites, to be the aggressors. But the whites, although the line agreed upon was fifty miles to the eastward, persisted ill eyading both the letter and spirit of the agreement, and Black Hawk, aggrieved, .exasperated and broken-hearted, announced a theory that has been exploited by latter-day theorists. "My reason teaches me," Black Hawk wrote^ "that land cannot he sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon and cultivate, as far as it is necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right to the soil; but if they voluntarily leave, then any other people have a right to settle upon it. Nothing con be sold hut such things as can be carried away." 59 60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Black Hawk had been known throughout the territory as an able and aggres- sive warrior, and as one who had sympathized and co-operated with the enemies of the country, especially the British. Here, however, he was justified in feeling that he had been wronged. He had not been allowed to plant Lis corn on the lands set aside to him for that purpose, and it is not strange that he was persuaded by another famous Indian (White Cloud, the prophet) to invade the Rock river country in 1831, and try to drive back the squatters. But he was driven back, and his wrongs were not righted. At this time he signed a formal treaty never to return east of the Mississippi. Now Black Hawk, in his old age — at sixty-seven — became, in turn, the aggressor. He regretted that he had ''touched the goose-quill" to the treaty. Bad counsels of White Cloud '' and his disciple Neapope," a promise of '•guns, ammunition and provif-ions" from the British, his own treachery and obstinacy, and the hope of suc- cess, inspired him to trample upon treaties and to make another trial. On April 6, 1832, he crossed the Mississippi with about five hundred braves and his squaws and childien, and advanced to Prophetstown, thirty- five miles up Rock river. It was ten days afterward that Governor Rey- nolds' proclamation and call for the services of the militia to assemble within a week at Beardstowii, on the Illinois river, was issued. Lincoln, with nothing to do, and anxious to do something, dropped a personal canvass which he was then making in the interest of his own candidacy for a seat in the Illinois Legislature, and was one of the first to volunteer. A company was promptly raised, and by the twenty-second of April the men were at Beardstown. Lincoln's personal campaign had here a little variation, but was really con- tinued. He had worked for awhile, some time before, in a sawmill for a man named William Kirkpatrick, who had broken faith with him in a business trans- action. Kirkpatrick pressed to the front and announced himself as a candidate for the captaincy. Lincoln, who had what politicians now call a "knife in his boot-leg," also announced himself as a candidate. His accounts with Kirkpat- rick were squared by the result of the canvass. He took one position and Kirk- patrick another, the adherents of ea^ch gathering around their favorite — three fourths of the men around Lincoln, much to his surprise, as he afterward declared. BLACK HAWK. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 61 The men of the country proved to be a lot of very independent citizens, each "with ideas and a will of his own. Each man also had a '"uniform" of his own, but all knew how to handle and operate a gun. Coonskin caps and buckskin breeches were the prevailing style. But the captain and his men were without -any sort of military knowledge, and both were forced to acquire such knowledge by attempts at drilling. Which was the more awkward, the "squad" or the com- mander, it would have been difficult to decide. In one of Lincoln's earliest mil- itary problems was involved the process of getting his company "endwise" throuo-h a gate. Finally he shouted, "This company is dismissed for two min- utes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate!" Lincoln was one of the first of his company to be arraigned for unmilitary conduct. Contrary to the rules he fired, a gun "within the limits," and had his sword taken from him. The next infringement of rules was by the men, who stole a quantity of liquor, drank it, and became unfit for duty, strag- gling out of the ranks the next day, and not getting together again until late at night. For allowing this lawlessness the captain was condemned to wear a wooden sword for two days. These were merely interesting but trivial incidents of the campaign. Lincoln was at the very first popular with his men, although one of them told him to " go to the devil," and he was daily showing qualities that in- creased their respect and admiration. One day a poor old Indian came into the camp with a paper of safe conduct from General Lewis Cass in his possession. The members of the company were greatly exasperated by late Indian barbarities, among them the horrible murder of a number of women and children, and were about to kill Inm ; they affected to believe that the safe-conduct paper was a forgery, and approached the old savage with muskets cocked to shoot him, when Lincoln rushed forward, struck up the weapons with his hands, and standing in front of the victim, declared to the Indian that he should not be killed. It was with great difficulty that the men could be kept from their purpose, but the courage and firmness of Lincoln thwarted them. Lincoln's fame as a wrestler was somewhat diminished in this campaign. A man named Thompson (as Judge Herndon relates), a soldier from Union county, mam,ged to throw him twice in succession. Lincoln's men declared that Thomp- GOVERNOR JOHN EEYNOLDS. 62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. son had been unfair, that he had been guilty of ''foul tactics," and that Lincoln's defeat was due to a ''dog fall." Lincoln, however, showed his true character by declaring that Thompson had acted fairly. William L. Wilson stated to Judge Herndon that in this campaign he wrestled with Lincoln, '" two best in three,"^ and "'ditched" him. Lincoln was not satisfied, and the two tried a foot-race for a. five-dollar bill, Wilson coming out ahead. Naturally, under the circumstances, food was scarce, and the men learned the military art of " subsisting on the country," in which there was very little to subsist. One day a dove was caught and an unlimited amount of very weak soup was made. Chickens as tough as the hardy pioneers were found about the deserted cabins of the squatters, and roasted and devoured. They supple- mented fresh pork nicely, and the voracious appetites of the men, whetted by their exposure and hard- ships, made their fare delicious. On the twenty-seventh of April, sixteen hundred men were organized into regiments and moved to the seat of the war. The weather was severe, and mud abounded in the roads. But the men were hardy and muscular, and made light of the unfavorable conditions. Passing Yellow Banks, on the Mississippi, they reached Dixon, on Rock river, on the twelfth of Ma}^ and here, as Miss Tarbell states, "occurred the first bloodshed of the war." From Miss TarbelTs book we have a graphic account of Major Stillman's campaign and treachery: "A body of about three hundred and forty rangers, not of the regular army, under Major Stillman, asked to go ahead as scouts, to look for a body of Indians, under Black Hawk, rumored to be about twelve miles away. The permission wa& given, and on the night of May 14, 1832, Stillman and his men went into camp. Black Hawk heard of their presence. By this time the poor old chief had discovered that the promises of aid from the Indian tribes and the British were false, and, dismayed, had resolved to recross the Mississippi." K he had been unmolested at this time, the famous Black Hawk war would have ceased without the shedding of a drop of blood. Miss Tarbell's narrative proceeds as follows: "When he heard that the whites were near, he sent three l9raves with a white flag to ask for a parley, and permission to descend the river. ELIJAH ILES. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 63 Behind them he sent five men to watch proceedings. Stillman's rangers were in camp when the bearers of the flag of truce appeared. The men were many of them half drunk, and wlien they saw the Indian truce-bearers, they rushed out in a wild mob and ran them into camp. Then catching sight of the five spies, they started after them, killing two. The three who reached Black Hawk reported that the truce-bearers had been killed, as well as their two compaaiions. Furious at this violation of faith, Black Hawk 'raised a yell,' and declared to the forty braves — all he had with him — that they must have revenge." That Black Hawk's attack was vigorous and deadly does not need to be said. Stillman and his men were in search of the Indians, and they found them, to their sorrow. To Black Hawk's surprise, the rangers turned in dismay. and put their legs to the best possible use, distancing the Indians, and never stopped run- ning until they reached Dixon, twelve miles away, at midnight. Among the men whom Captain Lincoln met in this campaign were Lieuten- ant-colonel Zachary Taylor, Lieutenant Jefl'erson Davis, and Lieutenant Robert Anderson, of the United States army. Judge Arnold, in his "Life of Abraham Lincoln," relates that Lincoln and Anderson did not meet ngain until some time in 1861. After Anderson had evacuated Fort Sumter, on visiting Washington, he called at the White House to pay his respects to the pres- ident. Lincoln expressed his thanks to Anderson for his conduct at Fort Sumter, and then said: " Major, do you remember of ever meeting me before?" "No, Mr. President, I have no recollection of ever having had that pleasure." "My memory is better than yours," said Lincoln; "you mustered me into the service of the United States in 1832, at Dixon's Ferry, in the Black Hawk war." When a member of Congress, Mr. Lincoln, in one of his speeches in reply to extravagant claims of heroism set up for General Lewis Cass, then a candidate for the presidency against General Zachary Taylor, said: "By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know of my military heroism? 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 Stillman's defeat, but I was about as near to it as Cass was to Hull's surrender, and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite certain that I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion." An incident of much interest occurred during this campaign which showed the stamina of Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterward president of the United States. The volunteers were exasperated at the way in which the war was carried on, and wishing to go home, held a mass-meeting, and passed fiery resolutions, in which they declared that they would npt pass over the state line in pursuit of the MAJOR IlULKiiT AiSLiEliSON. 64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. enemy. Taylor listened to them quietly, and then addressed them, good-naturedly but shrewdly, as follows: "I feel that all gentlemen here are my equals; in reality. I am persuaded that many of them will, in a few years, be my superiors, and perhaps, in the capacity of members of Congress, arbiters of the fortunes and reputation of humble servants of the republic, like myself. I expect then to obey them as interpreters of the will of the people; and the best proof that I will obey them is now to observe the order of those whoui the people have already put in the place of BLACK HAWK WAR RELICS. authority to which many gentlemen around me justly aspire. In plain English, gentlemen and fellow-citizens, the word has been passed on to me from Wash- ington to follow Black Hawk and to take you with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the flatboats drawn up on the shore, and here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up behind you on the prairie.'" The time of service of Lincoln's men had expired, and as their campaign had been one of much hardship and suffering, they were anxious to return to their homes. They were finally disbanded, and returned to New Salem and other ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 65 pliices whence they came. Lincoln, however, and a companion named Harrison decided to remain, and both re-enlisted as privates, in Captain Elijah Iles^ ''Independent Spy Battalion.'' The men were mounted, had no camp duties to perform, and had regular rations; therefore, Lincoln was much better provided for as a private than he had been as captain of his old company. The Black Hawk war was now rapidly approaching its close. But Black Hawk was desperate, and was devastating the country and murdering the set- tlers. The people were panic-stricken, and most of the settlements were aban- doned. An old niinois woman says, "We often left our bread dough unbaked to rush to the Indian fort near by." As all able-bodied men had volunteered, crops were necessarily neglected. One of America's great poets and journalists William CuUen Bryant, who visited his poet brother, Mr. John H. Bryant, in the year 1832, wrote home as fol- lows: "Every few miles on our way we fell in with bodies of Hlinois militia proceeding to the American camp, or saw where they had encamped for the night. They generally stationed them- selves near a stream or a spring in the edge of a wood, and turned out their horses to graze on the prairie. Their way was barked or girdled, and the roads through the uninhabited country were as- much beaten and as dusty as the highways on New York island. Some of the settlers complained that they made war upon the pigs and chickens. They were a hard-looking set of men, unkempt and unshaved, wearing shirts of dark calico, and sometimes calico capotes." The army soon afterward marched up Rock river in pursuit of Black Hawk and his braves. The "rangers" were employed as scouts and spies. They pro- ceeded with a brigade to the northwest. The nearest Lincoln ever came to a fight was when he was in the vicinity of the skirmish at Kellogg's Grove. The rangers arrived at the spot after the engagement and helped bury the five men who were killed. Lincoln told Noah Brooks, one of his biographers, that he "remembered just how those men looked as we rode up the little hill where their camp was. The red light of the morning sun was streaming upon them as they lay, heads toward us, on the ground. And every man had a round, red spot on the top of his head about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his UILLIAM G. GREEN. "William G. Green was a clerk in Offntt's store with Lincoln. He also saw Lincoln bore the hole in the bottom of the boat and take it over Rntledge's mill-dam. Mr. Green died in 1894, a wealthy man. 66 ABRAHAM LINCOLJs'. scalp. It was frightful, but it was grotesque; and the red sunlight seemed to paint everything all over." Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid picture, and added, somewhat irrelevantly, '* I remember that one man had on buckskin breeches." The troops soon passed northward into what was then known as a part of the territory of Michigan, but is now the state of Wisconsin, and the month of July was devoted to following the Indians through forests and swamps. Black Hawk was disappointed, disheartened and nearly exhausted, and when finally encountered at Bad Ax, was an easy prey. At the last battle of the war, at Bad- Ax, he was captured and the larger number of his braves massacred. The war was at last over. Lincoln and the other volunteers were mustered out by Lieu- tenant Robert Anderson (afterward famous as Major Robert Anderson, the hero of Fort Sumter), and wended their way homeward. As further showing the generous qualities of Lincoln, and in the line of explaining one of the sources of his popularity, we quote from D. W. Bartlett's "Life and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln,'' published in 1860, a statement of his efficient service to his neighbors in the "Great Snow" of 1830-31: "The deep snow which occurred in 1830-31 was one of the chief troubles endured by the early settlers of central and southern Illinois. Its consequences lasted through several years. The people were illy prepared to meet it, as the weather had been mild and pleasant — unprecedentedly so up to Christmas — when* a snow-storm set in which lasted two days, something never before known even among the traditions of the Indians, and never approached in the weather of any winter since. The pioneers who came into the state (then a territory) in 1800 . . . say the average depth of snow was never, previous to 1830, more than knee-deep to an ordinary man, while it was breast-high all that winter. . . . It became crusted over, so as, in some cases, to bear teams. Cattle and horses perished, the winter wheat was killed, the meager stock of provisions ran out, and during the three months' continuance of the snow, ice and continuous cold weather the most wealthy settlers came near starving, while some of the poorer ones actually did. It was in the midst of such scenes that Abraham Lincoln attained his majority, and commenced his career of bold and manly indepen- dence. . . . Communication between house and house was often entirely obstructed for teams, so that the young and strong men had to do all the travel- ing on foot; carrying from one neighbor what of his store he could spare to another, and bringing back in return something of his store sorely needed. Men living five, ten, twenty and thirty miles apart were called 'neighbors' then. Young Lincoln was always ready to perform these acts of humanity, and was foremost in the counsels of the settlers when their troubles seemed gathering like a thick cloud about them." CHAPTER IX. LINCOLN" AS POSTMASTER, SURVEYOR AND POLITICIAN. LINCOLN'S military service had increased his already great popularity at New Salem, and he was ready to resume his campaign as a politician and a candidate for legislative honors. A. Y. Ellis describes his personal appearance at this time as follows: '' He wore a mixed jean coat, claw-hammer style, short in the sleeves and bob-tailed; in fact, it was so short in the tail that he could not sit on it; flax and tow linen pantaloons and a straw hat. I think he wore a vest, but do not remember how it looked; he wore pot-metal boots." He had announced himself as a candidate previous to enlisting, and it was only ten days before the election was to take place. He made his first speech at Pappsville. Judge Herndon describes the occasion as follows: "His maiden effort on the stump was on the occasion of a public sale at Pappsville, a village eleven miles west of Springfield. After the sale was over and speech-making [by the several candidates, for no nominating conventions were held in tho5-e days, and the race was open to all] had begun, a fight, 'a general fight,' as one of the bystanders relates, ensued, and Lincoln, noticing one of his friends about to succumb to the energetic attack of an infuriated ruffian, interposed to prevent it. He did so most effectually. Hastily descending from the rude platform, he edged his way through the crowd, and seizing the bully by the neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him, by means of his strength and long arms, as one wit- ness stoutly insists, 'twelve feet away.' Returning to the stand, and throwing aside his hat, he inaugurated his campaign with the following brief but per- tinent declaration: "Fellow-citizens, I presume you all know who T am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of the national bank; I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments; if elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same." The election occurred at the appointed time. There were twelve candidates in the field, and although Lincoln received the nearly unanimous vote of New Salem and Clary's Grove — Democrats as well as Whigs — he failed to receive enough to elect him. 67 68 AHKAHAM LINCOLN. He had at this time some further experience in commercial life. He and a fellow named Berry bought out a grocery, and after a number of changes and repeated losses, gave up the business. Lincoln told stories at one end of the store and Berry drank whisky at the other end. Neither of the partners had much, if any, business capacity. Reuben Radford decided to become a competitor with Lincoln & Berry at this time, but he had not considered the cost of rivalry with the favorite of the Clary's Grove boys. One night Radford left his store in charge of a younger brother, and this, it seems, was the night of one of the Clary's Grove boys' periodical larks. According to instructions, the young man gave the members of the party two drinks each and refused a third, whereupon the boys went to the barrel and helped themselves until all were drunk, and then commenced shouting and dancing and proceeded to demolish the concern. What remained of his stock was sold to Lincoln & Berry. Trade was dull that winter. The farmers had very little produce to sell, and conse- quently could not purchase many goods. Berry the while was drinking whisky and Lin- coln was talking and musing over politics. Finally the store was sold to Trent Broth- ers. They had no money, but gave their notes. Lincoln & Berry had given their notes, so all the transactions were pretty much on notes. Berry became a drunken sot. Lin- coln was again adrift in the world. His funds were ex- hausted, and he was heavily in debt, which indebtedness was not finally liquidated until Lincoln sent portions of his salary home from Washington, when he was in Congress, to Judge Herndon, to make the final payments. On May 7, 1833, Lincoln was appointed postmaster at New Salem. The office was afterward discontinued, and there was a balance of sixteen or eighteen dollars due the government. This was overlooked by the Post-ofiice Department, and was not called for until some years afterward, Lincoln having removed to Springfield. During the interval he had been in debt continuously, and, as usual, poor. One day an agent of the department called on Dr. Henry, with whom Lincoln at that time kept his law-office. Knowing Lincoln's poverty. Dr. Henry offered to lend him the amount, but Lincoln asked the agent to be seated while he went over to his trunk at the boarding-house. He soon returned with an old blue sock, with a quantity of old silver and copper coin tied up in it, and counted the coin, and handed over to the agent the exact amount to a cent in the LINCOLN & BERRY'S STORE. (Rear view, from a recent photograph.) ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 69 very identical bits which had been received by him from the people of New Salem. The surveyor John Calhoun, although a Democrat, appointed Lincoln his assistant in the portion of the county in which he lived; he accepted, bought a compass and chain, '' studied Flint and Gibson a little [Bartlett], and went at it." Calhoun was an educated and courteous gentleman, with some knowledge of human nature, and recognized the sterling qualities of his assistant. Calhoun was an accurate engineer, and was employed to plot and lay out new towns and villages. Lincoln, therefore, learned much, and the man who has been called the savior of his country became, as his predecessor, the father of his country, Oeorge Washington, had been, a good surveyor. He began to earn small amounts of money, was very frugal, but was still in financial straits, with his indebted- ness hanging over him. He was, however, gradually reducing the debt. The people of the country should know what hardships and discouragements he endured. " In 1834," says Judge Arnold, "an impatient creditor seized his horse, saddle, bridle and surveying instruments, and sold them under execution." A LINCOLN'S SURVEYING INSTRUMENTS. friend in need — let us honor his name — Bowling Greene, was the bidder, and restored to Lincoln his property, waiting Lincoln's convenience for payment. Lincoln appreciated the kindness so much that at Mr. Greene's grave, in the year 1842, he tried in vain to deliver a funeral oration over his remains. Judge Arnold says: ''When he rose to speak his voice was choked with emotion." It was Lincoln's ambition to become a lawyer as well as a politician and a statesman. He had been reading Blackstone for some time, and was afterward given the range of the library of John T. Stuart, one of his old comrades in the Black Hawk war. Stuart lived in Springfield, and Lincoln would walk from New Salem, fourteen miles distant, to Springfield to exchange one book for another, and would often master thirty or forty pages of the new book on his way home. At New Salem he would sit under a tree, in warm weather, and *' barefooted," while reading his books. Occasionally he would pursue his read- ing of Blackstone or Chitty on the top of a wood-pile. Every interval of leisure would be promptly and fully utilized, if it were no more than five minutes in duration. There was not much time at this period for exercising his story- telling propensities. 70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lincoln soon after bought an old form-book, and acquired enough knowledge and proficiency to enable him to "draw up deeds, contracts and mortgages, and began to figure as a pettifogger before the justice of the peace," seldom making any charge for his services. He read other than law-books, studying natural philosophy and other scientific branches. He had also read historical books, having mastered Rollin and Gibbon. Novels of a fair sort also attracted his attention. It is a noticeable fact that at this period he read newspapers thoroughly. The Sangamon Journal^ the Louisville Journal^ the St. Louis Republican^ and the old Cincinnati Gazette, then as now, with its ''Commercial" attachment, a very strong paper, and at that time edited by the famous and popular "Charley" Hammond, were perused regularly, until he knew all that was in them. Story-telling, however, was not entirely neglected. His reading embraced a wide range of funny sketches, all of which he learned by rote, thus adding to his personal store. He improved as a reciter and retailer of the stories he had read and heard, and as the reciter of tales of his own invention, and he had ready and eager auditors. Judge Herndon relates that as a mimic Lin- coln was unequaled. An old neighbor said: "His laugh was striking. Such awk- .ward gestures belonged to no other man. They at- tracted universal attention, from the old and sedate down to the school-boy. Then in a few moments he was as calm and thoughtful as a judge on the bench, and as ready to give advice on the most important matters; fun and gravity grew on him alike." Lincoln at this time fell very deeply in love with a beautiful young girl — Ann Rutledge, a daughter of James Rutledge, one of the founders of New Salem, and havinsr the blood of a Revolutionarv soldier in his veins. She is described as " being a blonde, with golden hair, lips as red as a cherry, a cheek like a wild rose, with blue eyes, and as sweet and gentle in manners and temper as attractive in person." This young lady was all the more interesting for having suffered already in a love affair, a long account of which is given by Lincoln's old partner. Judge Herndon. She and a worthy young man — John McNeil, who had not long before come to New Salem from an eastern state — became very deeply attached to each other. McNeil's partner in a store, Samuel Hill, also becane BUWLING GREENES HOUSE. This cabin was located half a mile north of New Salem, where it still stands, used for an old stai^le. Lincoln began studying law while a boarder in this cabin. He was stretched out on the floor reading when he first met " Dick " Yates, then a college student home on a vacation, and who afterward became the great war governor. ABE AH AM LINCOLX. 71 attached to the young' beauty, but his suit was not favorably regarded, and he good-naturedly retired from the contest, having been rejected. McNeil prospered, and finally decided to return to New York state and bring his parents to New Salem. He then told Ann, to whom he had become engaged, that his real name was McNamar, and that he had changed it so that his relatives would not dis- cover him until he had made enough money to support them. This caused a chano-e in the sentiment at New Salem, and Ann's friends tried to convince her that McNeil had committed a crime in his earlier days and had deserted her. The women of the community did much to destroy her faith in her lover. At last Ann was convinced, at least in part, and at this point "the ungainly Lincoln" became her suitor, and was evidently smitten through and through. The Rutledges and all the people of New Salem were his friends and wished him success. The regard was finally found to be mutual, and Lincoln found courage to propose, but Ann asked him to wait until she had written to her old lover, asking him to release her. The answer was one of those letters that never came. Ann at last consented to become Lincoln's wife. To one of her brothers she said that when Lincoln's studies were completed she was to marry him. But her per- plexity was not altogether removed, and finally her health was under- mined and she was stricken down with fever. Her strength slowly passed away, and it was soon certain that she must die. She sent for her lover to come to her bedside. The two were alone in their supreme mutual sorrow. The poor girl soon died, in August, 1835. She used to sing very sweetly to her lover, and the last song she sang to him commenced: Vain man, thy fond pursuits forbear; Repent, thy end is nigh ; Death at the farthest can't be far, Oh, think before thou die ! Lincoln was terribly distressed— almost heart-broken and crazed. The death of his mother had given him his greatest grief as a boy; the death of his affianced gave him the greatest grief of his young manhood. It was his old friend Bowling Greene who came to his rescue and '^ ministered to a mind diseased." It is due to McNeil (or McNamar) to say that, after Ann's death, he returned with parents, brother and sister, thus showing his good faith. It may be mentioned here that a year afterward Lincoln began to pay atten- tion to Miss Mary S. Owens, a Kentucky girl, who was making, in 1836, a second LINCOLN'S AX. USED WHILE AT NEW SALEM. 72 ABRAHAM LINCOLX. visit to New Salem. She had made some impression on him when she first came to the town, in 1833. L. M. Greene describes her as follows: "She was tall and portly, had large, blue eyes, and the finest trimmings I ever saw. She was jovial, social, loved wit and humor, had a liberal education, and was considered wealthy. None of the poets, or romance-writers have ever given us a picture of a heroine so beautiful as a good description of Miss Owens in 1836 would be." It seemed that each was attracted to the other, but it became evident that neither was GRAVE OF ANN RUTLEDGE. really in love. One of his letters to Miss Owens is a very singular epistle. It is certa!inly not very ardent. He, after the fashion of the lawyer, presents the matter very cautiously, and pleads his own cause; then presents her side of the case, advises her not " to do it," and agrees to abide by her decision. Miss Owens, like other young women, liked an ardent lover, and although she respected Lincoln, rejected him. She was afterward married, and became the mother of five children. Two sons served in the Confederate army. CHA.PTER X LINCOLN AS A LEGISLATOK AND PUBLIC SPEAKER, IN 1834, Lincoln, then twenty-five years of age, was again a candidate for the Legislature, and was elected, receiving a larger number of votes than any other man on either ticket. John T. Stuart, his Black Hawk war comrade, was also elected. Lincoln is spoken of by Judge Arnold as "the most popular man in Sangamon county." He was now a well-informed man. It could be safely said of him that he was self-educated. He knew much that the current literature of the day, the classics, school text-books and newspapers, contained. He was well up on all the political questions. Judge Arnold says:- "He knew the Bible by heart. There was nOt a clergyman to be found so familiar with it as he. Scarcely a speech or paper prepared by him, from this time to his death, but contains apt allusions and striking illustrations from the sacred book. He could repeat all the poems of Burns, and was familiar with Shakspere. In arithmetic, surveying and the rudiments of other branches of mathematics he was perfectly at home. He had mastered Blackstone, Kent and the elementary law-books. He had considerable knowledge of physics and mechanics. He showed how much better it is to know thoroughly a few books than to know many superficially. Such had been his education. He was manly, just, gentle, truthful and honest. In conduct, kind and generous; so modest, so considerate of others, so unselfish, that everyone liked him and wished him success. True, he was homely, awk- ward and diffident, but he was, in fact, strictly a gentleman." A remarkable young man, this, at twenty-five. The writer of the foregoing was a careful man, who had the habit of weighing his words and of speaking with judicial fairness. Lincoln was always a student, and at all times made the best possible use of his opportunities, which from this time w^ere constantly increasing. He remained, as a matter of course, at Vandalia, the state capital, during his first term in the Legislature, and there met a cultivated class of men and women. He had here, also, a wider range of literature within his reach. During this first year of his experience as a legislator he listened attentively, thought much, but said little, and was a close student of public affairs. It was in Lincoln's canvass for a second term, in 1836, that he began to be famous throughout a large portion of the state. He first spoke at Springfield 73 74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. during this campaign. A meeting was advertised to be held in the court-house, at which candidates of opposing parties were to speak. This gave men of spirit and capacity a fine opportunity to show the stuff of which they were made. George Forquer was one of the most prominent citizens; he had been a Whig, but became a Democrat, possibly for the reason that by means of the change he secured the position of government land register, from President Andrew Jack- son. He had the largest and finest house in the city, and there was a new aiid striking appendage to it, called a lightning-rod! The meeting was very large. Seven Whig and seven Dem- ocratic candidates spoke, and Lincoln closed the discussion. A Kentuckian (Joshua F. Spee.d), who had heard Henry Clay and other distinguished Kentucky orators, stood near Lincoln, and states that he "never heard a more effective speaker; . . . the crowd seemed to be swayed by him as he pleased." What occurred during the closing portion of this meeting must be given in full, from Judge Arnold's book: "Forquer, although not a candidate, then asked to be heard for the Democrats, in reply to Lincoln. He was a good speaker, and well known throughout the county. His special task that day was to attack and ridicule the young countryman from Salem. Turning to Lincoln, who stood within a few feet of him, he said: 'This young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry that the task devolves upon me.' He then proceeded, in a very overbearing way, and with an assumption of great superiority, to attack Lincoln and his speech. He was fluent and ready with the rough sarcasm of the stump, and he went on to ridicule the person, dress and arguments of Lincoln with so much success that Lincoln's friends feared that he would be embarrassed and overthrown." The Clary's Grove boys were present, and were restrained with difficulty from "getting up a fight" in behalf of their favorite, they and all his friends feeling that the attack was ungenerous and unmanly. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 75 We quote the sequel, as follows: "Lincoln, however, stood calm, but his flashing eye and pale cheek indicated his indignation. As soon as Forquer had closed, he took the stand, and first answered his opponent's arguments fully and triumphantly. So impressive were his words and manner that a hearer [Joshua F. Speed] believes that he can remember to this day and repeat some of the expressions. Among other things he said: "The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that "this young man," alluding to me, "must be taken down." I am not so young in y-ears as I am in the tricks and the trades of a politician, but,' said he, pointing to Forquer, 'live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics, and with the chano^e receive an ofiice worth three thousand dollars a year, and then,' continued he, 'feel obliged to erect a lightning- rod over my house, to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!'" Forquer was silenced and squelched. Lincoln had several other encounters with distinguished Democrats, with similar re- sults. "In this campaign," says Judge Arnold, " the rep- utation of Lincoln as -a speaker was established, and ever afterward he was recog- nized as one of the great orators of the state." Sangamon county had at this session two senators and seven members of the house, each one over six feet in height; they were called "the long nine." One of his Sangamon associates was Edward D. Baker, afterward a representative in Congress, then a member of the United States Senate, then a general in the field, dying at the engagement of Ball's Bluff. In the house was a young man from Vermont, Stephen Arnold Douglas, whom he first met at this period. There were also in the house James Shields, John A. Logan, John A. McClernand and others who afterward became famous. It should be stated here that in this canvass, as in that previous to it, Lincoln received the highest vote of any man on the ticket. He was a JAMES SHIELDS. 76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. leader in the movement which resulted in removing the capital of the state from Vandalia to Springfield. It was at this period that he made the important and prophetic declaration of principles, "I go for all sharing the privileges of the government 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." This was in 1836. Now, sixty years afterward, in many states women are allowed to vote. In 1836-.7 Lincoln supported a measure for opening a great ship-can'al from Lake Michigan, at Chicago, to the Illinois river. Now, sixty years later, such a canal is very near completion. At this time Lincoln be- gan to wield his powerful personal and political influ- ence against the aggressions of slavery. In 1820, as the result of an agreement be- tween parties in Congress, Missouri was admitted to the Union without restriction as to slavery, but the act pro- hibited slavery thereafter, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the territory north of 36° 30^ north latitude. This agreement was called the Mis>ouri Compromise, and it was part of a series of measures which created a sort of temporary fool's paradise called "an era of good feeling." It was evanescent; the con- troversy concerning slavery was not settled, but, on the other hand, increased in fury. Public sentiment at this time in Illinois was largely pro-slavery. The Legislature was nearly unanimous, as the result showed, in favor of slavery, and resolutions violently denou.ijcing "abolitionists" and all persons who desired to abolish slavery and made efforts in that direction, or to restrict slavery, were whirled through the L'^gislature by an overwhelming vote. At this time there was a "black code," by which it was attempted to legalize, severity and cruelty to negroes. Abraham Lincoln, thinking himself to be alone, stood up against the resolutions, but finally found one other member who had sufficient principle and nerve to stand with him. This seemed to be a JOHN A. LOGAN. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 77 turDing-point in Abraham Lincoln's career. His conduct on this occasion was courageous and manl3\ Lincoln and Dan Stone, representatives from Sangamon county, made this protest, dated March 3, 1837, taken from the House Journal of the niinois Legislature, 1836-37; pp. 817, 818: "The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread on the journals-, to wit: '• Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned have protested against the passage of the same. "" They believe that the in- stitution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad pol- icy, but that the promulga- tion of abolition doctrine tends rather to increase than to abate its evils. " They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the Con- stitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different states. " They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that that pow- er ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of the people of the District." This utterance was con- servative, and it represented the views of a great many men who were opposed to slavery, and especially to its extension, but, conserva- tive and liberal as it was, it required great courage and stamina to present such a paper, under such circumstances, in a legislature whose members were moved by partizan bias and prejudice, and not by reason. Lincoln was still a citizen of New Salem, and was also still a poor man. His salary as a member of the Legislature, beyond what was required -to meet his board bills, was used to decrease his indebtedness. On his way home he had one of his periods of great depression. His associates in the Sangamon and Morgan county delegations were in high spirits over his and their success in getting the WILLIAM BUTLER. 78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. capital removed to Springfield. But Lincoln, in his own words, was more con- cerned on the question as to how he should get capital for himself. William Butler, a warm and strong friend, asked him what he "intended to do for a liv- ing," and he replied that he would like to leave New Salem, make his home in Springfield and study law. Butler, who, with the other citizens, appreciated the services he had rendered to Sangamon people, promptly told him that he could make his (Butler's) house his home as long as he pleased. He afterward accepted the hospitality, paying little attention to board bills. STATE-HOUSE, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. At Springfield he was honored by a reception and a banquet, at which the following sentiment was given and unanimously and heartily approved: "He [Lincoln] has fulfilled the expectation of his friends and disappointed the hopes of his enemies." Of these, however, he had very few. In 1837,- Lincoln was twenty-eight years of age. He had come in contact with the ablest men of the state, and was conscious of his growing power and influence. It is true that he wished to be a lawyer, but lawyers abounded then as now, and, so far as he knew, the custom that might come to him would be a ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 plant of slow growth. He had made the acquaintance and, very naturally, gained the friendship of Joshua Speed, who was a merchant, and kept what was called a "general store." Lincoln had brought his satchel, containing wearing-apparel and a few books, from New Salem, and threw it on the counter of Speed's store, in Springfield. Judge Herndon records the following colloquy that ensued: Said Lincoln, "I want to get a room, and must have a bedstead and some bedding. How much will I have to pay?" Mr. Speed took up his slate and jotted down the items — the cost of the bed- stead, bedtick, sheets, blankets, wash-basin and towels. "Seventeen dollars," said the storekeeper. LINCOLN'S LAW-OFFICE AT THE TIME OF HIS NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT. "I have no doubt it is cheap," replied Lincoln, "but I haven't the money to pay for the articles. If you could trust me until Christmas, and if I succeed in my experiment of being a lawyer, I will pay you then; if I fail, probably I shall never be able to pay you." Mr. Speed had never seen him so dejected, but instantly solved the problem. " I can fix things better than that," said he. " I have a large room and a double bed up-stairs, and you are welcome to occupy the room and share the bed with me." Taking his entire possessions, a satchel, or "saddle-bags," and two law-books, he took the bag and books up-stairs, and declared to Speed, with a radiant face, "I'm moved." 80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. His old friend and compatriot, John T. Stuart, solved another problem for him by offering him a partnership, and the firm of Stuart & Lincoln was formed. In 1838, Mr. Lincoln was for the third time elected to the Legislature, and received the Whig nomination for the speakership, being defeated by one vote. In 1840, he was returned to the Legislature for the fourth time. This was a period of great excitement throughout the country. An attempt had been made in 1828 to procure the passage of an amendment to the Constitution which would make Illinois a slave state. Free discussion of the slavery question was interfered with by mobs in many cities of the North, noticeably and very strangely in Boston. But public sentiment was influenced by merchants who sold goods in large quantities to southern customers. An attempt, happily futile, was made to hang William Lloyd Garrison, editor of Tlie Liberator, at Boston, for his bold denunciations of slavery. But now the matter came nearer home. ' Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, a plain-spoken. God-fearing man, of standing and a.bility, who was publishing a weekly religious paper at St. Louis, denounced the killing of a negro, who had, it is true, committed a horrible crime, but who had not had the benefit of a trial. Unfortunately, this sort of thing has not entirely passed away. North or South. Lovejoy showed how far he was in advance of his time, and how manly and true-hearted he was by denouncing, in strong teims, but in language that was true and fitting, the crime that had been committed, and a mob at once organized, entered his place, destroyed his types and threw his press into the river. Lovejoy then removed to Alton, in Illinois, a free state, at least by law and the provisions of the Constitution, and naturally hoped to be unmolested, but on receipt of press and types from Cincinnati, they were also destroyed by a mob. Lovejoy was of the stuff of which heroes were made. He therefore ordered another press and outfit of types. "It is our purpose," announced Lovejoy in behalf of his friends, to the mayor and other citizens, "to protect our property," and as he and his friends assembled with guns in hand, in the evening, the mayor nobly said to him, "You are acting in accordance with the law." The mob came, as expected, and fired into the building, and the firing was returned by Lovejoy's friends, and one of the men who made the assault was killed and another wounded. An attempt was then made to ascend to the top of the building and burn the roof. Lovejoy and others bravely stepped out on the street, and were about to fire at those on the ladder, when he was himself shot and mortally wounded. Then and there fell and died one of the greatest and bra>vest of America's martyrs to the freedom of speech and of the press. At Cincinnati, Gamaliel Bailey, Jr., the publisher of an anti-slavery paper — a courteous gentleman, a fair and good-tempered controversialist, but as firm as a rock in behalf of great principles — was mobbed in much the same way, but without the loss of his life. Afterward he removed to Washington, and com- menced the publication of The National Era, in which, in 1850, appeared the several chapters of that immortal book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," from the pen of Harriet Beecher Stowe. ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 81 The murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy did not frighten the opponents of slavery. Throughout the North fiery and righteous indignation moved in great waves, from city to city, and from commonwealth to commonwealth. The name of Lovejoy, a martyr to liberty, as well as to the freedom of the press, was honored and glorified. The mob that struck down Lovejoy had aimed an effective blow at the foundation of their own pet but ungodly "peculiar institution." From the very commencement of anti-slavery agitation no one event had so fired the hearts of the people, and to so great an extent made the institution of slavery universally odious, for thp time, throughout the North, as this assassination of Love- joy. Mass-meetings were held in hundreds of towns, and orators, with a theme that aroused them to the depths of their natures, spoke with unwonted eloquence and with electric effect. It is not difficult to say, if we had no histories at all of the times, Avhat Abraham Lincoln thought of the mur- der of the St. Louis negro and of this murderous and dam- nable assault on Lovejoy. He was a man who loved justice and loved liberty. This was " in 1838, when Lincoln was twenty-nine years old. This was his first great opportu- nity. The young men of Springfield had already formed a lyceum for the dis- cussion of public problems — and that relating to the aggressions of human slavery, and the crimes committed in its name, was a problem that was actually blazing in all portions of the northern states. But Alton was near Springfield. Lincoln and his fellow-townsmen had often been there. The discussions of the lyceum were held in Mr. Speed's store, in the light and heat of one of the already old-fashioned large fireplaces, with the hickory back-log, and those who constituted the audience sat on boxes, nail-kegs, etc. It seems to be a remarkable fact that two young men who were afterward among America's greatest orators and statesmen — certainly in the time in which they lived — should be members of and prominent debaters in this lyceum; and it HARHIET BEECHER STOWE. 82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. seems a still more remarkable fact that one of these, Douglas, from Vermont, should take the side of the pro-slavery element, and that the native Kentuckian, Lincoln, should side with the enemies of slavery. There were no two brighter men of their age in the country at this time. Each acknowledged the other to be a foeman worthy of his steel. Differing politically, they were warm personal friends. Both had been in the Illinois Legislature together, and when the St. Louis and Alton murders came to be the topic of discussion, it proved to-be one that brought out their best work. Speed's store soon was too small to accommo- date the gatherings, and they were held in the First Presbyterian church. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. The discussions at Springfield, reported to some extent in the Sangamon Journal., had been heard of at Alton. The fame of Lincoln as a public speaker had reached that town long before, and now Lincoln was invited to Alton to deliver an address; and if Lincoln had not delivered in his subsequent career so many utterances that have become a part of the written history of his country, this utterance, made at Alton, would have been considered, at this day and hence- forth, as wonderfully significant. The title of his address was, "The Perpet- uation of Our Political Institutions." The very title was prophetic, as delivered over twenty years before the time when he stood up as the chief of those Amer- ABRAHAM LINCOLST, 83 icans who were the friends of the country's unity and integrity, on which prin- ciples were based its perpetuity. Let us read very carefully some portions of this address: "In the great journal of things happening under the sun, the American people find our account running under date of the nineteenth century of. the Christian era. We find ourselves in 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 the government of a system of political insti- tutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us. We find ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the ■acquirement or the es- tablishment of them; they are a legacy be- queathed to us by a once hardy, brave and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of ancestors. "Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to pos- sess themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to rear upon its hills and in its valleys a polit- ical edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis •ours only to transmit these, the former unprofaned by the foot of the invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time. This our duty to ourselves and to our posterity, and love for our species in general, imperatively require us to perform. "How,^then, 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 across the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treas- xire of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte HENRY CLAY. 84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 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 ever reaches us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide. . . . "There is even now something of ill omen among us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to sub- stitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice. This dispo- sition is awfully fearful in any community, and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny." This is a most fitting prelude. Here spoke a man who, a great orator, was already showing qualities of great statesmanship, and now speaks the orator, statesman and prophet: "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. Many great and good, men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing but a seat in Con- gress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the brood of the eagle. What! Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar or a Napoleon? Never! "Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unex- plored. It does not add story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction, and, if possible, will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving free men. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed with the loftiest genius, coupled with ambi- tion sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate the design. " Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as will- ingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet that opportunity being passed, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he-would sit down boldly to the task of pulling down. Here, then, is a probable case, highly dangerous, and such a one as could not have well existed heretofore." Alluding to our Revolutionary ancestors, Mr. Lincoln says: " In history we hope they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read. But even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its ABRAHAM LINCOLN". 85 scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testimonies to its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received in the midst of the very scenes related; a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read, no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what the invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done — the level- ing of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely PARTICIPANTS WHO FORMED A LIVING HISTORY. trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more." Herein is expressed reverence for law, a comprehension of the elements of a true and laudable ambition and the foresight of a truly great man. For several years after the Black Hawk war Mr. Lincoln retained his military title, and was usually addressed as "Captain Lincoln," but this in time was discontinued. His first law partnership, extending from 1837 to 1841, was with an officer with whom he became acquainted in that war, Major John T. Stuart, who testifies that Lincoln was exceedingly popular among the soldiers, because of his excellent care of his men, his unfailing good nature, and his ability to tell S6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. more stories, and better ones, than any man in the service. His great physical strength also increased this popularity. It is recorded that when Mr. Lincoln first began to " ride the circuit," as it was called in those days, meaning the tours which prominent local lawyers were accustomed to make along with the circuit judge, he was too poor to own a horse, and was compelled to borrow from his friends. But in due time he became the proprietor of a steed, which he fed and groomed with his own hands, and man- ifested strong attachment for. On this animal he would set out from home to be gone for weeks together, with no other baggage than a pair of saddle-bags ■containing a change of linen, and an old cotton umbrella for shelter from sun or rain. After a time he attained the dignity of a one-horse buggy, which he generally used when the weather was threatening. He was a great favorite among lawyers and landlords, as with everybody else. Still, he was one of those gentle, uncomplaining men whom those servants of the public who keep hotels would generally put off with the most indifferent accommodations. Another lawyer, who knew him well, says that Lincoln was never seated next the landlord at a crowded table, and never got the best cut from the roast. Lincoln once remarked to a friend that he never felt his own unworthiness so much as when face to face with a hotel clerk or waiter. He was often obliged, in a crowded tavern, to share his accommodations for the night with some other unfortunate. This circuit-riding involved all sorts of adventures. Hard fare at miserable taverns, sleeping on the floor and fording streams were accepted almost as a matter of course, and often turned into sources of frolic and fun. In fording swollen streams, it was quite customary to send Lincoln forward as a pioneer. His extremely long legs enabled him, by taking off his boots and stockings and rolling up his trousers, to test the depth of the stream, find the most shallow water, and thus pilot the party comfortably through the current. CHAPTER XL LINCOLN AS A LAWYER. MR. LINCOLN was at this time riding the circuit as an attorney. He was at all times a most interesting person. He and Speed boarded with William Butler, one of his stanchest friends, and afterward treasurer of the state of niinois. It is related that on one occasion Lincoln, Speed and John J. Hardin, with a number of other lawyers, were on their return from court at Christiansburg, when Lincoln was suddenly missed'. '' Where is Lincoln? " Mr. Speed asked. "Oh," replied Mr. Hardin, "when I saw him last he had caught two young birds, which the wind had blown out of their nest, and he was hunting the nest to put them back." In a short time Lincoln came up, having found the nest and replaced the young birds in it. The party laughed at him, but he said: "I could not have slept if I had tiot restored those little birds to their mother." The United States courts were held in Springfield. John McLean, afterward famous as a justice of the Supreme Court, was the circuit judge, and Lincoln's associates at the bar included such men as John T. Stuart (his partner), Stephen T. Logan, Edward D. Baker, Ninian W. Edwards, and Josiah Limbon, of Spring- field; Stephen Arnold Douglas, Lyman Trumbull, afterward United States sen- ators; 0. H. Browning, afterward senator and member of the Cabinet; William H. Bissell, afterward governor; David Davis, afterward governor, justice of the Supreme Court, senator and vice-president of the United States; Justin Butter- field, the ablest lawyer of Chicago, and other men afterward distinguished. Court-houses of a pretentious character were built of boards, but the greater number were built of logs. The furniture was very rude, as were the manners of the men who frequented them. The peculiarly American habit of elevating the heels higher than the head here prevailed. The lawyers were very free yet good-natured in their attitude to each other and their habits. They rode on horseback from one county-seat to another, with law-books, extra shirts, hair- brushes, etc., in their saddle-bags. Civilization had hardly achieved a shoe-brush at that period, in that region. Judge Arnold states that "sometimes two or three lawyers would unite and travel in a buggy, and the poorer and younger ones not seldom walked. But a horse was not an unusual fee, and in those days, -n «8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. when horse-thieves, as clients, were but too common, it was not long before a joung man of ability found himself well mounted." In 1840, Lincoln was again elected to the Legislature, and at this term he had as his colleague John Calhoun. He was again a candidate for speaker. Having been elected four times to as many biennial terms of the Legislature, he declined again to be a candidate. In the census of the United States for 1840 it was shown that there were slaves in Illinois. Although it was nominally a free state, they had been brought across the river from Kentucky. A case came to Mr. Lincoln which greatly excited his sympathy. A Mr. Crowell sold his slave girl (Nancy) to a Mr. Bailey, who gave his note, which was not paid when due, and Mr. Crowell brought suit. Lincoln, then thirty- two years of age, gave his services in behalf of the slave woman, who was the real party to the suit. Prob- ably this was his first case in the Supreme Court. Stephen T. Logan, afterward to become his law partner, and subsequently a judge, was attor- ney on the other side. "May it please the court," said Lincoln, "the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory, would give Nancy her freedom. The constitu- tion of the state prohibits the hold- ing of slaves; she cannot, therefore, be held as a slave; she cannot be sold as a slave; a note given for the sale of a slave in a free state can have no value; neither Crowell nor Bailey can hold Nancy — she is entitled to freedom, and Crowell is not entitled to the money which Bailey promised to pay him." The court promptly decided in his favor, and that decision put an end to the holding of slaves in Illinois. In one of Lincoln's law-cases at this period a colt was used as a witness. The dispute was between two men as to the ownership of the colt. Lincoln suggested that the mares should be brought to the vicinity of the court-house and that the colt should be allowed to choose between them. The colt whinnied for his mother; there was an answering whinny from one of the mares, and that answered the question. The court decided in favor of Lincoln. In this year Mr. Lincoln supported William Henry Harrison, of North Bend, near Cincinnati, Ohio, for the presidency. General Harrison was born, as was STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 8& Lincoln, in a log cabin, and having defeated the Indians in a well-fought battle at Tippecanoe, Indiana, he became popularly known as " Old Tippecanoe." The campaign was remarkable and unprecedented in its popular demonstration. Log cabins were erected everywhere, as they were half a century later, when Benjamin Harrison, the general's grandson, was a candidate for the same office, and was elected. Pine and ash liberty-poles were erected by the Whigs, the friends of Harrison, and hickory poles were put up by the Demecrats, who had renominated Van Buren. Canoes were made out of logs and given prominent places in the processions. "Tom Corwin, the Wagon-boy," was a candidate for governor in Ohio, and Abraham Lincoln, who already ranked with Corwin as a wit and orator^ easily lead the columns of the Whigs in Illinois. He was in demand everywhere for political addresses, and went whenever and wherever possible. The charges against Van Buren, in this campaign, must be acknowledged as trivial. Too many gold spoons and too much rich furniture had been purchased for the White House. The campaign poet blossomed out in full, and Whig songs were sung with a will in every neighborhood. Campaign papers were printed at political centers and distributed in large numbers. In this year Horace Greeley, of New York, first became known by the remarkable little newspaper, called The Log Cabin, which he published, and which gained at once a remarkably large circulation. Its editorials, written in clear^ concise and plain but very forcible English, were the strongest journalistic utterances of that campaign. Lincoln discovered Greeley, and the two had much to do with each other in after years. Van Buren was defeated by Harrison by a large vote. Two years afterward Van Buren, who was a very affable and congenial gentleman, met Lincoln. Mr. Van Buren and Ex-Secretary of the Navy Paulding, while on a western tour, stopped at Rochester, near Springfield, one night, and Judge Peck, a Democrat, Mr. Lincoln and others called on the ex-president to pay their respects. Lincoln got to telling his best stories in the best manner, and Judge Peck said that he never spent a more joyous night. Mr. Van Buren did his part in telling stories, giving incidents of the leading members of the New York bar, back to the days of Hamilton and Burr. Mr. Van Buren stated afterward that the only draw- FIRST COURT-HOUSE AT DKCATUU, ILLINOIS. 90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. back to liis enjoyment on this occasion was that his sides were sore for a week thereafter from laughing at Lincoln's stories. While Lincoln was at the White House, John, Martin Van Buren's gifted and witty son, called upon him, and the president related to him the occasion when he had met his father in Illinois. In 1839, Lincoln made a courageous speech in the hall of the Illinois House of Representatives. His early friend John Calhoun, the former surveyor, was a fellow-member and a Democrat. A series of debates was decided upon. Douglas, Lambourn and others spoke for the Democrats, and Lincoln, Edward D. Baker and Browning spoke for the Whigs. Lambourn taunted the Whigs with the hopeless- ness of their struggle, to which Lincoln replied: "Address that argument to cowards and knaves. With the free and the brave it will effect nothing. It may be true; if it must, let it. Many free countries have lost their liberties, and ours may lose hers, but if it shall, let it be my proudest pluriie, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her.'' Mr. Lincoln declared that he would never bow to the denunciation and persecution of his opponents, and then said: "Here before heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause of the land of my life, my liberty and my love. . . . The cause approved of our judgment and our liearts, in disaster, in chains, in death, we never faltered in defending.'' On February 22, 1842, he delivered before the Washingtonian Temperance Society, at Springfield, an address upon temperance, in which he said: "When the victory shall be complete, when there shall be neither slave nor a drunkard on the earth, how proud the title of that land which may claim to be the birth- place and cradle of those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory." Judge Arnold, in the following, describes an important period in Lincoln's life: "Wishing to devote his time exclusively to his profession, he did not, as had already been stated, seek, in 1840, re-election to the Legislature. He had been WILLIAM HENEY HARRISON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 91 associated as partner with one of the most prominent lawyers at the capital of the state, and he himself was leader of his party, and altogether the most pop- ular man in central Illinois. In August, 1837, Stuart, his partner, was elected to Congress over Stephen A. Douglas, after one of the severest contests which ever occurred in the state. The district then extended from Springfield to Chicago, and embracid nearly all the northern part of Illinois. Stuart was re-elected in 1839. Their partnership terminated on April 14, 1841, and on the same day Lincoln entered into a new partnership with Judge Stephen T. Logan^ one of the ablest and most successful lawyers of the state, and at that time univer- sally recognized as at the head of the bar at the capital." Lincoln was the candidate for Congress at the time of the presidential election in 1840. Colonel Coffin describes an incident in the campaign of that year, from Judge Herndon's account, as follows : "Edward Dickinson Baker was born in London, England. He was two years younger than Abraham Lincoln, arid came to America early in life. He made Springfield his home. He was a young lawyer, and, like Lincoln, an ardent Whig. His voice was musical. He could play the piano, sing songs and write poetry. He was an earnest advocate for the election of Harrison as president, and made a speech in the court-house to a great crowd. Many who gathered to hear him were Democrats. They were rough men; chewed tobacco, drank whisky, and became angry at what Baker was saying. "The office of Stuart & Lincoln was over the court-room. A trap-door for ventilation, above the platform of the court-room, opened into their office. Lincoln, desiring to hear what Baker was saying, lifted the door, stretched him- self upon the floor, and looked down upon the swaying crowd. Baker was talk- ing about the stealings of the Democratic officials in the land-offices. "'Wherever there is a land-office there you will find a Democratic newspjiper defending its corruptions,' said Baker. MARTIN VAN BUREN. 92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "'Pull him down! Put him out! It's a lie!' was the cry from a fellow'in the crowd whose brother was editor of a Democratic paper. There was a rush for the platform. Great was the astonishment of the crowd at seeing a pair of long legs dangle from the scuttle, and then the body, shoulders and head of Abraham Lincoln, who let himself down to the platform.' He lifted his hand, but the fellows did not heed his gesture. Then they saw him grasp a stoneware water-pitcher and heard him say, 'Hold on, gentlemen! This is a free country — a land for free speeches. Mr. Baker has a right to speak; let him be heard. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this platform if I can prevent it.' Baker made his speech without further molestation." / L CHAPTER XII. LINCOLN'S LOVE AFFAIR AND MARRIAGE. AT about this time Lincoln again had time and inclination to resume love- making. Miss Mary Todd, of Kentucky, was this time the young lady who attracted his attention. She was the daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd, and grandniece of John Todd, who, in company with General George Rogers Clark, in 1778, was present at the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, Indiana, and who was appointed by Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia, "county lieutenant, or commandant, of the county of Illinois, in the state of Virginia." He was the founder of the state, and was killed at the battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky, in 1782. Miss Todd came to Springfield in 1839, to visit her sister, the wife of the Hon. Ninian W. Edwards. She was at this time twenty-one years of age. Her mother died when Mary was very young, and she had been taught in a boarding- school at Lexington. She is described by Judge Arnold as "intelligent and bright, full of life and animation, with ready wit and quick at repartee and satire. Her eyes were grayish blue, her hair abundant and dark brown in color. ■She was a brunette, with a rosy tinge in her cheeks, of medium height, and form rather full and round." She was at once received in what really were the best families, and soon showed herself worthy to move in the highest social circles. She had at an «arly period become acquainted, very naturally, with a large number of educated young men, most of them lawyers or in some way prominently connected with public affairs. Both the young men and the young women of the town were greatly interested in politics, and not a few of them were ambitious. This was true of the Lexington belle who had so recently made her advent in Springfield. She had her eyes quite wide open, and gave these young men a close inspection. Mr. Lincoln was the most famous member of the group. He was at this time serving his last term in the Legislature; he was one of the best orators and stump-speakers in the state of Illinois. And socially, too, he was very prom- inent. An old resident says that "every lady wanted to get near Lincoln, to hear him talk." An old gentleman told Judge Arnold that when dining one day at the same table with Miss. Todd and Lincoln, he said to her after dinner, half in jest and half in. earnest: "Mary, I have heard that you have said you want to marry a man who will be president. If so, Abe Lincoln is your man." 94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lincoln had been introduced to Miss Todd by Mr. Speed, a friend of both. The young lady especially interested him, as she was a personal friend of his great exemplar, Henry Clay. But he was attracted, also, by her personal beauty and her sprightliness. He had not forgotten Ann Rutledge, whom he had ten- derly loved and to whose memory he was loyal, but, nevertheless, he and Miss Todd evidently grew more and more attached to each other daily. It is to her credit that in spite of his awkwardness she recognized bis sterling qualities, and had glimpses, perhaps, of his future illustrious career. Miss Todd was an ardent lover, while Lincoln had the deliberation of a lawyer as well as the heart of a man. Lincoln and Miss Todd were at last engaged, and' a day in January, 1841, was fixed for the wedding, to be celebrated at the house of Judge Edwards. Elaborate preparations were made, and the expectant bride was radiant and happy, but Mr. Lincoln, most unfortunately, was attacked by one of his periods of deep depression — of doubt, anxiety and fear. It ' seemed to him that he did not love the girl well enough to marry her, and he remained away. The disappointment, sorrow and mortificatipn of Miss Todd could not adequately be expressed. Mr. Speed sought his friend, and found him, " pale^ haggard and in the deepest melancholy." To Hon. John T. Stuart Mr. Lincoln wrote these sentences: "I am the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be a 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." Lincoln's true and loyal friend, Joshua F. Speed, who had closed his business in Springfield and was about to return to Louisville, persuaded the young man to accompany him. There he was graciously and affectionately greeted by the mother of Mr. Speed, one of those noble Christian women whose radiant lives witness the truth of the religion they represent. Mr. Speed tried in vain to MRS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 95 arouse Lincoln to make an effort to overcome the weight of his sorrow. It remained for Mr. Speed's mother to lead him to the Great Comforter who offers help to all who come to him. Lincoln was deeply impressed and strongly influ- enced by this good woman. Lucy Gilman Speed was as warm-hearted as she was refined. She was a delight and comfort to all who knew her. Above all, she was a devoted, loving and very intelligent Christian woman, of a deep and broad spiritual nature, and was capable of leading this brilliant and intellectual man, who was often in doubt, into the clear, warm, bright, invigorating and vivifying atmosphere of Christian knowledge and experience. Mrs. Speed gave Mr. Lincoln an Oxford Bible, which he retained and read all his life. From the Speed residence Lincoln, greatly and strongly comforted, took passage on a steamer, with "new hopes and ambitions," on his way to Springfield. On his way he had another opportunity to observe some of the bar- barous customs due to the toleration of slavery. "A fine example was pre- sented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of condition upon human hap- piness. A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky, and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together; a small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this was fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from the others, so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trout-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, and many of them from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery, where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless than anywhere else; and yet amid all these distress- ing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy people on board. One, whose offense for which he was sold AN EARLY POKTKAIT OF LINCOLN. 96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. was an overfondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually, and others danced, sang, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true it is that 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' or, in other words, that he renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while he permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable." On his return, Lincoln applied himself to the law, and continued his practice with great vigor. To all appearances the memory of his engagement to Mary Todd did not disturb him. The pain of separation was over, their paths leading in different directions, and the whole thing was a matter of the past. And so might it have ever remained but for the intervention of Mrs. Simeon Francis. She was a leader in society, and an admirer of Mary Todd's. Her husband, who was editor of the Sangamon Journal^ was warmly attached to Lincoln. Lincoln HOUSE WHERE LINCOLN WAS MARRIED. AND WHERE MRS. LINCOLN DIED. was a frequent contributor, and practically controlled the editorial columns of the Journal. Mrs. Francis took it upon herself to bring about a reconciliation between Lincoln and Miss Todd. She arranged for a gathering at her house, inviting them, and both attended, neither suspecting the other's presence until the hostess brought them together, with the request, ''Be friends again," thereby- renewing the courtship. At first their meetings were secret at the home of their good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Francis. Miss Todd's sister was not aware of the reconciliation for several weeks afterward. It was a time of great financial depression; the state was heavily in debt from great expenditure in internal improvements, and James Shields, the auditor of state, who was thought to have overstepped his duties in collecting taxes, was bitterly denounced. Shields was from Tyrone, Ireland. He was quite prom- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97 inent and popular in social circles, and was proud and high-spirited. Miss Todd, who was a keen observer, thought Shields a good mark for shafts of ridicule, especially as he appeared to be somewhat vain. She therefore wrote a series of satirical papers for the Sangamon Journal, entitled "Aunt Rebecca, or the Lost Township." Judge Herndon describes the affair as follows: "It was written from '.Lost Township,' a place not found on any map. The writer was a widow, and signed herself 'Rebecca.' The widow gave an account of a visit to her neighbor, whom she found very angry. ' What is the matter, Jeff?' she asked. 'I'm mad Aunt'Becca! I've been tug- ging ever since harvest, get- ting out wheat and hauling it to the river to raise state bank paper enough to pay my tax this year and a little school debt I owe; and now, just as I've got it, here I open this infernal Extra Register [Democratic news- paper], expecting to find it full of Glorious Democratic Victories and High Com'd Cocks, when, lo and behold ! I find a set of fellows, calling themselves officers of the state, have forbidden the tax collectors and school com- missioners to receive any more state paper at all; so here it is, dead on my hands.' "The widow went on to tell how her neighbor used some bad words. 'Don't swear so,' she said, in expos- tulation, to Jeff; 'you know I belong to the meetin', and swearing hurts my feelings.' '"Beg pardon. Aunt 'Becca, but I do say that it is enough to make one swear, to have to pay taxes in silver for nothing only that Ford may get his $2,000, Shields his $2,400, and Carpenter his $1,600 a year, and all without danger of loss from state paper.'" Shields, like most vain men, was very sensitive to ridicule, and sought the editor of the paper, demanding the name of the author, which demand was refused. The editor, knowing something of the relations between Lincoln and HORACE GT^EELEY. (Foumler uf tbe New Vi)ik Tribune.) 98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Miss Todd, advised him of the circumstances, whereupon Lincoln assumed the authorship, and was challenged by Shields to meet him on the "field of honor.'' Meanwhile Miss Todd increased Mr. Shields' ire by writing another letter to the paper, in which she said: "I hear the way of these fire-eaters is to give the challenged party the choice of weapons, which being the case, I'll tell you in confidence that I never fight with anything but broom-sticks, or hot water, or a shovelful of coals, the former of which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be objectionable to him." Lincoln accepted the challenge, and seleqted broad- swords as the weapons. Mutual friends attempted to bring about a peaceful termination of what seemed likely to be a tragedy. Judge Herndon gives the closing of this affair, as follows: "The laws of Illinois prohibited duelling, and he [Lincoln] demanded that the meeting should be outside the state. Shields undoubt- edly knew that Lincoln was opposed to fighting a duel — that his moral sense would revolt at the thought, and that he would not be likely to break the law by fighting in the state. Possibly he thought Lincoln would make an humble apology. Shields was brave but foolish, and would not listen to overtures for explanation. It was arranged that the meeting should be in Missouri, oppo- site Alton. They proceeded to the place selected, but friends interfered, and there was no duel. There is little doubt that the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled hickory logs could have cleft the skull of his antagonist, but he had no such inten- tion. He repeatedly said to the friends of Shields that in writing the first article he had no thought of anything personal. The auditor's vanity had been sorely wounded by the second letter, in regard to which Lincoln could not make any explanation except that he had had no hand in writing it. The affair set all Springfield to laughing at Shields, but it detracted from the happiness of Lincoln. By accepting the challenge he had violated his sense of right and outraged his CALEB B. SMITH. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99 better nature. He would gladly have blotted it from memory. It was ever a regret." Oil November 4, 1842, the wedding, so unhappily postponed, was held, under most happy auspices. The officiating clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Dresser, used the Episcopal church service for marriage. Lincoln placed the ring upon the bride's finger, and said, '' With this ring I now thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.'' Judge Thomas C. Browne, who was present, and had a pre- eminently legal mind, exclaimed, "Good gracious, Lincoln! the statute fixes all that." Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln took rooms in the Globe tavern, at Springfield, about two hundred yards southwest of the old state-house. They were pleasantly situated, paying four dollars a week for board and rooms. Ostentatious or ex- pensive display was never to Lincoln's taste, nor did his pro- fessional earnings to the last permit such. He never cared to become a rich man. The fee which he re- ceived in the McCor- mick reaper case amounted to $2,000, including the largest retainer ever paid him —$500. It is believed this was the largest he ever received, ex- cepting one that was paid him by the Illinois Central railroad. These two sums came to him many years later than the period to which we have now come, and undoubtedly helped him to tide over personal and family expenses in the period immediately preced- ing and daring his celebrated debates with Douglas. If a client did not pay, Lincoln did not believe in suing for the fee. When a fee was paid him his custom was to divide the money into two equal parts, put one part into his pocket, and the other into an envelop labeled ^'Herndon's share." Judge Stephen T. Logan was Mr. Lincoln's law partner from April, 1841, to September, 1843, at which latter date the firm of "Lincoln & Herndon" came into .existence, and continued to the time of Mr. Lincoln's rleath. Mr. Gibson W. Harris, Ions: in business in Cincinnati, but later of Volusia county. Florida, was for two years or more a law student in Abraham Lincoln's ZACHARY TAYLOR, POPULAR HERO OF THE MEXICAN WAR. 100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. office in Springfield. In a personal letter to the writer of these paragraphs he furnishes the following interesting and characteristic reminiscences: "A crack- brained attorney who lived in Springfield, supported mainly, as I understood, by the other lawyers of the place, became indebted in the sum of two dollars and fifty cents to a wealthy citizen of the county, a recent comer. The creditor, failing after repeated efforts to collect the amount due him, came to Mr. Lincoln and asked him to bring suit. Mr. Lincoln explained the man's condition and circumstances, and advised his client to let the matter rest; but the creditor's temper was up, and he insisted on having suit brought. Again Mr. Lincoln urged him to let the matter drop, adding, 'You can make nothing out of him, and it will cost you a good deal more than the debt to bring suit.' The creditor was still determined to have his way, and threatened to seek some other attorney who would be more willing to take charge of the matter than Mr. Lincoln appeared to be. Lincoln then said, 'Well, if you are determined that suit shall be brought, 1 will bring it; but my charge will be ten dollars.' The money was paid him, and peremptory orders were given that the suit be brought that day. After the client's departure Mr. Lincoln went out of the office, returning in' about an hour with an amused look on his face. I asked what pleased him, and he replied, 'I brought suit against , and then hunted him up, told him what I had done, handed him half of the ten dollars, and we went over to the squire's office. He con- fessed judgment and paid the bill.' Mr. Lincoln added that he didn't see any other way to make things satisfactory for his client as well as the other parties." WINFIELD SCOTT, POPULAR HERO OF THE MEXICAN WAR. CHAPTER XIII. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS. THE partnership between Judge Logan and Mr. Lincoln was dissolved Septem- ber 20, 1843, and on the same day Mr. Lincoln associated himself with a promising young lawyer named William H. Herndon, one of the ablest and most interesting of his biographers. Mr. Herndon was an out-and-out abolitionist, in full sympathy with William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and other old abolitionist agitators, and anti-slavery jiewspapers and pamphlets were plentiful in Lincoln's office. % . Mr. Lincoln at that time thought tlj^inmediate abolishing of slavery was ndt practical — the institution being recognized by the Constitution and existing in one half the states composing the Union. The abolitionists denounced the Constitution and the tFnion. Mr. Lincoln could not go so far as that; he had long been a champion of the Constitution and of the Union. In 1844, Mr. Lincoln bought of Rev. Nathan Dresser a roomy "frame" house, quite cozy and comfortable, in which he lived until he went to Washington to occupy the White House. In 1839, Mr. Lincoln's old comrade and partner, Hon. John T. Stewart, had been elected to Congress, defeating Stephen A. Douglas. In 1842, Lincoln, Edward D. Baker and John J. Hardin, all personal friends, were congressional candidates. Baker carried the delegation from Sangamon county, and Lincoln, one of the delegates, was instructed to vote for him, which he did gracefully, saying to his friends, "I shall be fixed a good deal like the fellow who is made groomsman to the man who cut him out and is marrying his girl." Hardin, how- ever, was nominated and elected. In 1843, Baker was nominated and elected, and in 1846 Lincoln was elected. Lincoln's opponent was the famous old Methodist pioneer preacher, Peter Cartwright, but Lincoln received a vote niuch exceeding his party strength. In this campaign Mr. Lincoln's friends raised two hundred dollars toward paying his campaign expenses, and he returned one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and twenty-five cents, stating that his only expense was seventy-five cents. In 1847, he was in the house at Washington; there he met the great men of that day. Among them were Robert C. Winthrop, John Quincy Adams and Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana; Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee; Alexander H. 101 102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Stephens, Howell Cobb, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, and Barnwell Rhett, of South Carolina. In the other house, the Senate, were Stephen A. Douglas, recently elected from Illinois; Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts; John F. Hale, of New Hampshire; John A. Dix, of New York; Lewis Cass, of Michigan; Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri; John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, and Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. At Washington he saw gangs of slaves marching away from the prison to be sold in southern markets, and when a member from New York introduced a resolution prohibiting the slave trade in the District of Columbia, Mr. Lincoln fa- vored it. He asserted further that he would make free all children born after January 1, 1850, and if owners of slaves were willing to part from them, he would have the government purchase their freedom; but at once bitter opposition appeared on the part of the southern members. Mr. Lincoln was the only Whig representing Hlinois, the' six other members being Democrats. In 1844, Mr. Lincoln had made many speeches in be- half of Henry Clay, the Whig candidate for the presidency. One of these he made at Pigeon creek, Indiana, his old home. His neighbors of former days gathered around him and listened in surprise and delight to the eloquence of the man whom they had known as a hoj. The election of James K. Polk over his favorite, Henry Clay, was a great blow to Lincoln personally. He afterward embraced an opportunity to see and hear his idol, and get some comfort and consolation from his personal presence. Clay was to deliver an address on the "Gradual Emancipation of the Slaves," at Lexington. This town was Mr. Lincoln's old home, and he decided to go and hear the address, and, if possible, meet Mr. Clay. He went into the hall and listened, but with a feeling of great disappointment. Mr. Clay was there, but not the great orator. There was no fire in the eye, no WENDELL PHILLIPS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 103 miisic iu the speech. The address was a tame affair, as was the personal greeting when Mr. Lincoln made himself known. Mr. Clay was courteous, but cold. He may never have heard of the man in his presence who was to secure, without solicitation, the prize which he for many years had unsuccessfully sought. Lincoln was disenchanted; his ideal was shattered. One reason why Clay had never reached the goal of his ambition had become apparent. Two men who were radically different had met at Lexington on this occasion. Both had com- menced life as poor boys, and in the state of Kentucky; both had fought their way to high honors; both were great orators. Clay had a great name at home and abroad; Lincoln's fame was mainly confined to his own and neighboring LINCOLN'S HOME IN SPRINGFIELD. ILLINOIS, FROM 1844 TO 1861. states. But Clay was cool and dignified, while Lincoln was cordial and hearty. Clay's hand was bloodless and frosty, with no vigorous grip in it; Lincoln's was warm, and its clasp was expressive of kindliness and sympathy. Mr, Lincoln did more than occupy his seat and respond at roll-call, notwith- standing he was a new member, from a region that was then called "the West." The Mexican war was in progress. The object of this war, expressed in plain English, was to increase, through the enlargement of the limits of the state of Texas, a greater breadth of territory to be utilized by slave-owners. Mr. Lincoln was at heart opposed to slavery; he desired that, as soon as possible, the District of Columbia should be made free. He was opposed to the addition of 104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. territory to the United States simply for the purpose of dividing it into new slave states, and thereby giving the institution greater power for harm in the councils of the nation than they already possessed. He did not build wiser than he knew, in his time, but much wiser than the mass of the people who were his contem- poraries knew. The question of slavery as connected with the war with Mexico was quite intricate. He was a patriot, and at the same time was a representative of the caruse of human freedom. He voted for men and money to carry on the war. He honored the brave men who responded to the call of their country. His old friend Hardin, who had rep- resented his own district in Congress, fell at Buena Vista. Yet Mr. Lincoln, who had been faithful as a patriot, could not be persuaded or forced to admit or vote to the effect that the war had been righteously begun by President Polk. '' But,'' said Mr. Lincoln afterward, in his joint debate with Stephen A. Douglj^^, replying to the char^ of Douglas that he had tlrj^en the ^art of the comii||»n enemy, ''' whenever they B^ked for any money, or land warrants, or any- thing ,:io pay the soldiers there, during all that time I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please as to whether that was consis- tent. Such is the truth, and the judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether mistaken." During this session of Congress Mr. Lincoln introduced what his opponents called the "Spot" resolutions, their purpose being to ridicule him. Nevertheless they were very much annoyed and worried by them. They gave President Polk a great deal of worry and trouble. He had tried to convey, in his message, the impression that the Mexicans were the aggressors, and that the war was under- PETER CARTWRIGllT. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. J 05 taken to repel invasion and to avenge the shedding of the "blood of our fellow- citizens on our own soil." No president, before nor since, was ever so peculiarly or trenchantly arraigned as on this occasion. The resolutions are given in full below: ''Resolved by the House of Representatives, That the President of the United States be respectfully requested to inform this House — " 1st. Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution. "2d. Whether that spot is or is not within the terri- tory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary government of Mexico. "3d. Whether that spot is or is not within a settle- ment of people, which set- tlement has existed ever since long before the Texas revolu- tion, and until its inhabitants fled before the approach of the United States army. "4th. Whether that set- tlement is or is not isolated from any and all other set- tlements by the Gulf and the Rio Grande on the south and west, and by wide unin- habited regions on the north and east. '5th. Whether the peo- ple of that settlement, or a majority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted themselves to the government or laws of Texas or of the United States, by con- sent or by compulsion, either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or pay- ing tax, or serving on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any other way. "6th. Whether the people of that settlement did or did not flee from the approach of the United States army, leaving unprotected their homes and their growing crops, before the blood was shed, as in the messages stated; and whether the first blood so shed was or was not shed within the inclosure of one of the people who had thus fled from it. JAMES K. POLK. 100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "7th. Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed, as in his messages declared, were or were not, at that time, armed officers and soldiers, sent into that settle- ment by the military order of the President, through the Secretary of War. "8th. Whether the military force of the United States was or was not so sent into that settlement after General Taylor had more than once intimated to the War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement was necessary to the defense or protection of Texas." Action on these resolutions was never taken, but they did their work. On January 12, 1S48, Mr. Lincoln commented on them in a speech, in which, as Henry J. Raymond says, "he discussed, in his homely and forcible manner, the absurdities aud contradictions of Mr. Polk's message, and exposed its weakness." Let us hope that Henry Clay, a man of integrity, as eminent for patriotism as for his matchless oratory, lived long enough to discover the sort and style of man Abraham Lincoln was. Mr. Lincoln was still the friend of internal improvements, and made a speech in Congress advocating and defending the system they represented. row. *:•*'•'•'. w- - ^^'•H' v-rr^a-i-t- — — , CHAPTER XIV. THE TAYLOR-CASS CAMPAIGN— FREE SOIL AGITATION. ■♦- IN 1848, Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was the Democratic candidate for the pres- idency in opposition to General Zacharj Taylor, who was heartily supported by Mr. Lincoln. The friends of General Cass made much of and exploited his military services during the campaign. Mr. Lincoln knew something about their character, and had investigated Cass' accounts with the treasury. These accounts Lincoln alluded to in detail (July 28, 1848), and then said: "I have introduced General Cass' accounts here chiefly to show the wonder- ful physical capacities of the man. They show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same time, but he often did it in several places many hundred miles apart at the same time. And as to eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a day here in Washington, nearly $5 worth a day, besides partly on the road between the two places. And then there is an important discovery in his example — the act of being paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it. Here- after, if anj nice young man shall owe a bill which he cannot pay in any other way, he can just board it out. We have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay and starving to death; the like of that would never happen to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, and he would stand stock-still midway between them and eat them loth at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some, too. at the same time. By all means, make him president, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously, if — if — there is any left after he shall have helped himself." In the campaign in behalf of Taylor and against Cass, Mr. Lincoln made a speech in which he said: "But in my hurry I was very near closing on the subject of military coat-tails before T was done with it. There is one entire article of the sort I have not discussed yet; I mean the military tail you Democrats are now engaged in dove- tailing onto the great Michigander. Yes, sir, all his biographers (and they are legion) have him in hand, tying him to a military tail, like so many mischievous boys tying a dog to a bladder of beans. True, the material they have is very limited but they drive at it might and main. He invaded Canada without ' 107 108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. resistance, and he ontvaded it without pursuit. As he did both under orders, I suppose there was to him credit in neither of them: but they are made to con- stitute a large part of the tail. He was volunteer aid to General Harrison on the day of the battle of the Thames, and as you said in 1840 that Harrison was pick- ing whortleberries, two miles off, while the battle was fought, I suppose it is a just conclusion with you to say Cass was aiding Harrison to pick whortleberries. This is about all, except the mooted question of the broken sword. Some authors say he broke it; some say he threw it away, and some others, who ought to know, say nothing about it. Perhaps it would be a fair historical compromise to say, if he did not break it, he did not do anything else with it." President Taylor offered to make Lincoln governor of the territory of Oregon, but he declined the honor. His opposition in Congress to the Mexican war made him temporarily unpopular in his district, and prevented his re- election. He took the ground that the Mexican war was unnecessarily and unconsti- tutionally commenced by the president. Of a speech made by Alex- ander H. Stephens, in Con- gress, Mr. Lincoln wrote to William Herndon, as fol- lows:' "I just take up my pen to say that Mr. Stephens,. of Georgia, a little, slim, pale- faced, consumptive man, with a voice like Logan, has just concluded the very best speech of an hour's length I ever heard. My old, withered, dry eyes are full of tears yet!" Lincoln's, letters to Herndon, who was his law partner in Springfield, Hlinois, while in Congress or out on the circuit, and even while president, are invaluable in judging Lincoln's character. This same Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the southern confederacy, writing, seventeen years after Lincoln's death, and recalling their service together in Congress, from 1847 to 1849, says: "I knew Mr. Lincoln well and intimately, and we were both ardent supporters of General Taylor for president in 1848. Mr. Lincoln, Toombs, Preston, myself and others formed the first congressional Taylor club, known as 'The Young Indians,' and organized the Taylor move- ment, which resulted in his nomination. .• . . ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 109 "Mr. Lincoln was careful as to his manners, awkward in his speech, but ■was possessed of a very strong, clear, vigorous mind. ... He always attracted and riveted the attention of the House when he spoke. His manner of speech as well as thought was original. He had no model. He was a man of strong convictions, and what Carlyle would have called an earnest man. He abounded in. anecdote. He illustrated everything he was talking about by an anecdote, always exceedingly apt and pointed, and socially he always kept his company in a roar of laughter." Daring the Taylor-Cass campaign Mr. Lincoln made his first visit to the East, speaking at New York and Boston, and attracting much attention. He made a notable address at Worcester, Massachusetts. On his way home he con- ceived a device for raising steamboats in low water, which he patented. At the second session of Congress, Mr. Lincoln introduced a bill looking to the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, but it was ultimately laid on the table, and remained there. The introduction and advocacy of the bill covers, however, a significant and honorable leaf in his public record. In 1849, Mr. Lincoln resumed the practice of law in Springfield. The year 1849 will be forever memorable in the annals of the country. In the year before, James W. Marshall was digging a mill-race for John A. Sutter, in Califor- nia, Some " yellow stuff " was discovered by Marshall in a shovelful of dirt. That "yellow stuff" was to produce a commercial and financial revolution Marshall took a lot of this yellow stuff to the small collection of houses called San Francisco, and showed it to Isaac Humphrey, who had been a miner of precious metals in Georgia. Said Humphrey, ^' If is gold." There w^ere no telegraph lines or railways across the continent at that time, although it had long been predicted that a railroad would be built. The news of the discovery of gold, however, traveled as rapidly as steamships could carry it. It went down to the Isthmus, was then taken overland from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence by water to New York. It was then spread in the newspapers to all portions of the country. Many of the "forty-niners" are still living, and some of them are hale and hearty. They rushed to the new El Dorado in great numbers, if traveling by steamboat and on foot or mule-back can be called rushing. The steamers were crowded with emigrants, and soon the gold region was swarming with them. Those of the common miners first in the field were making hundreds of dollars a day, which was something extraordinary and unprecedented. By February, 1850, more than 8,000 miners, from all portions of the United States, were in the field, and seventy ships were being made ready for California trips. Western men made the overland trip, across the plains, through the mountains, on foot or in wagons. Hundreds of thousands of dol- lars were in store in San Francisco. More than 400 vessels were floating in the bay, and the population of this city was put at 20,000. From these small beginnings grew and developed an empire on the Pacific coast. Of the host of hardy, enterprising men who flocked to her from the East and from foreign lands, in 1849 and afterward, many returned, som"e of them rich and 110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. some very poor, wuile a large number remained, to dig farther for gold or to cul- tivate the soil. But with the founding of this new empire there arose new and important political issues. Should this tract of California, a slice of Old Mexico, become free soil and a land of free men and not of slaves? It is true that the line of latitude of 36'' 30' — the line of that Missouri Compromise — decided this and set apart the territory to freedom, but imaginary lines, even when fixed by law and by the consent of all parties, were no bar to pro-slavery presumption. In 1846, when President Polk asked for $2,000,000 as a basis for the nego- tiation of peace, David Wilmot, representative in Congress from Pennsylvania, had moved what is known as the Wilmot Proviso, which declared that it should be a con- dition to the acquisition of any territory from Mexico " that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should ever exist in any part thereof, except for crime, whereof the party should be duly convicted." At two different times this com- promise was adopted in the House, but rejected in the Senate. An appropriation of $3,000,000 was finally passed without the proviso, but the proposed measure had made David Wilmot famous as a champion of free soil. The principles of the Wilmot Proviso formed the foundation of a new political movement. CHAPTER XV. SENATOR DOUGLAS AND THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL, FROM 1849 to 1854 Mr. Lincoln was engaged in the work of his profession as a lawyer. Zachary Taylor was inaugurated president March 4, 1849, having been elected not only by a plurality, but by a majority, of the vote of the Electoral College, although some southerners had voted against him because he had not come out squarely in favor of the extension of slavery. On the third of June, General B. Riley, military governor of California, issued a call for a convention of the people of California, to form a state constitution. This convention was held, and adopted a constitution, by the terms of which slavery was expressly prohibited. President Taylor presented the constitution to Congress, and the representatives of the new state, all Democrats, stood knocking at the door for admission to the Union for many weary months. Had Congress been faithful to the Missouri Compromise, California would have been admitted at once. A matter of such great political importance could not fail to be of intense interest to Mr. Lincoln, and to ultimately draw him from his law-books and practice into the political arena. On June 3, 1849, Senator Henry Clay submitted the basis of a new com- promise, which seemed to him to be necessary to the solution of the present difficulty, and his proposition had the support of the greatest statesmen of the day. Mr. Clay's "Compromise of 1850" had this for its first resolution: "That California, with suitable boundaries, ought, upon her application, to be admitted as one of the states of this Union, without the imposition by Con- gress of any restriction in respect to the exclusion or introduction of slavery within those boundaries." The resolution declared that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that it tvas expedient to prohibit the slave trade within the District, and that "more effectual provision ought to be made by law, accord- ing to the requirement of the Constitution, for the restitufion and delirery of persotis bound to service or labor, in any state, who may escape into any other state or territory in the Union.'''' After much discussion. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Dlinois, reported a bill, March 25, 1850, for the admission of California into the Union, and also one to establish territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico. On the eighth of May following. Senator Henry Clay, from a special 112 ABKAHAM LIISTCOLN. committee, presented and recommended a series of "bases" for a "geneial com- promise." This report was similar to the resolutions already alluded to as hav- ing been introduced by Mr. Clay; but it provided, also, for ''the establishment of territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah, without tlie Wilmot Pro- viso,'' and prohibited the slave trade, but did not abolish slavery, in the District of Columbia. Finally, in August, the Senate passed a bill providing for the admission of Californig; as a state without slavery, and on the admission of New Mexico and Utah as territories without restriction, and these, and other bills suggested by Mr. Clay in his compromise, passed both Houses and became laws. On January 23, 1854, Senator Douglas surprised both his friends and oppo- nents by presenting a bill for the admission of two tracts lying between parallels 36° 30' on the south, and 43° 30' on the north as territories, one to be called Kansas and •the other Nebraska, the. bill providing that "«// questions pertaining to slavery in the territories, and in the neiv states to he formed ih.eYeivova., he left to the pt^ople residing therein^ Mr. Douglas afterward moved an amendment, stat- ing that it wars the true intent and meaning of the act "not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject to the Constitution of the United States." This represented the political doctrine of "squatter sovereignty" that was so frequently and earnestly exploited by Mr. Douglas, and so vehemently attacked by Mr. Lincoln, in debates whir-h followed. Indeed, this action by Douglas struck Lincoln with amazement. His bill, in becoming a law, repealed the very Missouri Compromise which Douglas had declared "to be sacred," and a law which "no human hand should destroy." A law for the recovery of fugitive slaves from free territory, passed in 1850, had been the means of causing universal excitement and commotion throughout EDWAKD D. BAKER. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 118 ^;he North. The law was but a twin to the coinprouii.se measure adopted the same year. The efforts of slawholders to capture their slaves created great indignation everywhere that an attempt was made to enforce it. Unnecessary brutality was frequently shown by the slave-catchers, and the sympathies of the people in the North were aroused in l)ehalf of the fugitives. In many instances popular feeling and excitement were at the highest pitch. The slave-catchers continued their work during the period reaching from 1850 to the breakino- out of the rebellion. In some instances, the pursuers and capturers ■of slaves were themselves -arrested for kidnapping, and were glad to relinquish their •claims to secure their own freedom. Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, was president, in 1854:, when Douglas' Kansas- Nebraska Bill was passed, and he was in full sympathy with the distin- guished senator. This bill passed the Sen- ate March 3, 1854. It is a singular fact that Sam Houston, the man who had been the leader in achieving the independence of Texas, and who represented that state in the Senate, voted against the bill, and in the closing portion of his speech used the language given below. Pointing to the eagle, he said: "Yon proud symbol howell cobb. above your head remains enshrouded in black, as if deploring the misfortune that has fallen upon us, and as a fearful omen of the future calamities which await our nation in the event that this bill becomes a law." Here spoke another prophet! In the House of Representatives, the venerable statesman. Thomas H. Ben- ton, of Missouri, at this time a member of the House, most vigorously opposed the passage of the bill. Mr. Benton, although living in a slave state, was indig- nant at the "violation of the compact," foreseeing very clearly, as did Senator Houston, the danger that would follow. But the bill passed the House May 8, 114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1854, and it was a foregone conclusion that Pierce would sign it and make it a law. The friends of slavery, and especially of slavery extension, were in trans- ports of delight. Cannon were fired from Capitol Hill, and demonstrations of rejoicing were made in various portions of the South, The friends of freedom everywhere felt that a great wrong and outrage had been committed. Douglas was denounced in all portions of the North as a betrayer of a sacred trust, and the charge was freely made that the presidential bee buzzing in his ears had drawn his attention from the peculiar political enormity of his conduct. He had been the leader in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as he had previously been one of the loudest in its praise; consequently, his apparent sacrifice of principle was supposed to have for its object the promotion of his own political aspirations. There was at once organized by the slaveholders a scheme to colonize and occupy the southern portion of this territory, called Kansas, for the purpose of making it a slave state. But the friends of freedom, fully awake to the impor- tance of the crisis, determined that it should be free. Armed bodies of slaveholders crossed the line of Missouri, and proceeded to make settlements; but what were called "free-state" men were also on the march. There were two lines of emigrants, from the two sections of the country. The free-state emigrants took farming tools, Bibles, hymn-books, and Sharp's rifles, for which they afterward found good use. John Brown, who soon became known as Ossawatomie Brown, and afterward attempted to create a revolution, which should free the slaves, at Harper's Ferry, and was hanged, at Charleston, Virginia, December 2, 1859, was one of the leaders. Charles Robinson, afterward gov- ernor, and Messrs. Pomeroy and Lane, afterward generals, were prominent in the movement. The whole country was in a state of excitement. The new emigrants had the sympathy of millions behind them. They were sustained by the money as well as the moral support of the great commonwealths north of Mason and Dixon's line. A national society was formed in Massachusetts to aid the free-state men, and Abraham Lincoln was a member of the executive committee. Through- out the greater portion of this period Mr. Lincoln had been engaged assiduously in the practise of his profession, but he was now called from his retirement to take a most prominent part in the great events which were to bring about a revolutionary change in the political and moral conditions of the country. CHAPTER XVI. Lincoln's most famous law-cases. IN the meantime, Mr. Liacoln had been developing his legal talents and spreading his fame as one of the ablest lawyers in the West. In a reaper patent case, tried in Cincinnati in 1857, between Cyrus McCormick- and Mr. Manny, McCormick employed the famous Reverdy Johnson, of Baltimore, and Manny had secured the services of George Harding, of Philadelphia, and Abraham Lincoln. Afterward Manny employed Edwin M. Stanton, of Steubenville, Ohio. Lincoln had prepared himself with great care, as usual, and was ready for his task. Judge John McLean presided. Manny's three attorneys met to consult as to the management of the case. Judge Herndon describes this episode as follows: "Only two of them could be heard by the court. Mr. Harding, by mutual consent, was to present the mechanical features of the invention. Who should present the legal points, Lincoln or Stanton? By custom it was Lincoln's right. He was prepared; Stanton was not. 'You will speak, of course,' said Stanton. 'No, you,' the courteous reply. 'I will,' the answer, and Mr. Stanton abruptly and discourteously left the room. He had taken a great dislike to Lincoln, who overheard him in an adjoining room say to a friend, 'Where did such a lank creature come from? His linen duster is blotched on his back with perspiration and dust, so that you might use it for a map of the continent.'" This was the lirst meeting of two great men, afterward to be ver}' closely united in the service of their country. Lincoln felt the indignity, but history shows very plainly that he never bore any malice toward the great war secretary of 1861. One of the most notable of Lincoln's law-cases was that in which he defended William D. Armstrong, charged with murder. The case was one which was watched during its progress with intense interest, and it had a most dramatic ending. The defendant was the son of Jack and Hannah Armstrong. The father was dead, but Hannah, who had been very motherly and helpful to Lincoln during his life at New Salem, was still living, and asked Lincoln to defend him. Young Armstrong had been a wild lad, and was often in bad company. One night, in company with a lot of other wild fellows, he went to a camp-meeting. Rowdies tried to disturb and break up the meeting, and a row ensued in which a man was killed. It was charged that Armstrong was the murderer, and he was 115 116 ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. placed in prison. Lincoln responded as follows to Hannah Armstrong's request for legal advice and aid: SiMUXGFiELD, ILLINOIS, September 18—. Dear Mrs. Armstrong: — I have just heard of your deep affliction, and the arrest of your son for murder. I can hardly believe that he can be guilty of the crime alleged against him. It docs not seem possible. I am anxious that he should have a fair trial, at any rate; and gratitude for your long-continued kindness to me in adverse circumstances prompts me to otter my humble services gratuitously in his behalf. It will afford me an opportunity to requite, in a small degree, the favors I received at your hand, and that of . your lamented husband, when your roof afforded me grateful shelter, without money and without price. Yours truly, Abraham Linx'OLn. The case came on for trial in 1858, only two years be- fore Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, and it was exploited very widely in the campaign. A man by the name of Morris was arrested with him. convicted, and sent to the penitentiary. Judge Arnold says: '"The evidence against Bill was very strong. Indeed, the case for the defense looked hopeless. Several witnesses swore positively to his guilt. The strongest ev- idence was that of a man who swore that at eleven o'clock at night he saw Arm- strong strike the deceased on the head; that the moon was shining brightly and was nearly full, and that its position in the sky was just about that of the sun at ten o'clock in the morning, and that by it he saw Armstrong give the mortal blow. This was fatal, unless the effect could be broken by contradiction or impeachment. Lincoln qui^ly looked up an alma- nac, and found that, at the time this, the principal witness, declared the moon to have been shining with full light, there was no moon at all. There were some contradictory statements made by other witnesses, but on the whole the case seemed almost hopeless. Mr. Lincoln made the closing argument. 'At first,' says Mr. Walker, one of the counsel associated with him, 'he spoke slowly and ROBERT TOOMBS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 117 carefully, reviewed the testimony, and pointed out its contradictions, discrep- ancies and impossibilities. When he had thus prepared the way, he called for the almanac, and showed that, at the hour at which the principal witness swore he had seen, by the light of the full moon, the mortal blow given, there was no moon at all.' ■ "This was the climax of the argument, and, of course, utterly disposed of the principal witness. But it was Lincoln's eloquence which saved Bill Armstrong. His closing appeal must have been irresistible. His associate says: 'The last fifteen minutes of his speech was as eloquent as lever heard. . . . The jury sat as if entranced, and when he was through, found relief in a gush of tears.' One of the prosecuting attorneys says: 'He took the jury by storm. . . . There were tears in Lincoln's eyes while he spoke, but they were genuine. ... I have said an hundred times that it was Lincoln's speech that saved that criminal from the gallows.' . . . The jury in this case knew, and loved Lincoln, and they could not resist him. He told the anxious mother^ 'Your son will be cleared before sundown.' When Lincoln closed, and while the state's attorney was attempting to reply, she left the court-room, and 'went down to Thompson's pasture,' where, all alone, she remained awaiting the result. Her anxiety may be imagined, but before the sun went down that day, Lincoln's messenger brought to her the joyful tidings, 'Bill is free. Your son is cleared.' For all of this Lincoln would accept nothing but thanks." Another biographer, M. Louise Putnam, says: "The jury retired, and at the expiration of half an hour returned with the verdict, 'Not guilty.' "The poor widow dropped into the arms of her son, who, tenderly supporting . her, told her to behold him free and innocent. Then crying out, 'Where is Mr. Lincoln?' he rushed across the court-room and grasped his deliverer's hand with- out uttering a word; his emotion was so great he could not speak. Mr. Lincoln pointed to the west, and said, 'It is not yet sundown, and ijon arc free.'' ''"' Mr. G. W. Harris, from whose personal letter we have previously quoted (page 100), says: '"Under no circumstances would he, as an attorney, take a case he knew to be wrong. Every possible means was used to get at the truth before he would undertake a case. More cases, by his advice, were settled with- out trial than he carried into the courts; and that, too, without charge. WHien, on one occasion, I suggested he ought to make a charge in such cases, he laugh- ingly answered, 'They wouldn't want to pay me. They don't think I have earned a fee unless I take the case into court, and make a speech or two.' When trivial cases were brought to him, such as would most probably be carried no farther than a magistrate's office, and he could not induce a settlement with- out a trial, he would generally refer them to some young attorney, for whom he would speak a good word at the same time. He was ever kind and courteous to these young beginners when he was the opposing counsel. He had a happy knack of setting them at their ease and encouraging them. The consequence was,- he was the favorite of all who came in contact with him. When his 118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. heart was iu a case he was a powerful advocate. I have heard more than one attorney say that it was little use to expect a favorable verdict iu auy case where Liucoln was opposing counsel, as his simple statements of the facts had more weight with the jury than those of the witnesses. '•As a student (if such a term could be applied to Mr. Lincoln), one who did not know him might have called him indolent. He would pick up a book and run rapidly over the pages, pausing here and there. At the end of an hour — never, as I remember, more than two or three hours — he would close the book, stretch himself out on the office lounge, and then, with hands under his head and eyes shut, would digest the mental food he had just taken. Once, in dis- cussing the probabilities of his nomination for Congress, I remarked that there was so much unfairness, if not downright trickery, used that it appeared to me almost useless to seek a nomination without resort to similar means. His reply was: 'I want to be nominated; I would like to go to Congress; but if 1 cannot do so by fair means, I prefer to stay at home.' He was nominated, and in the following fall was elected by a majority over three times as large as the district had ever before given." Mr. Lincoln always regarded himself as the friend and protector of unfor- tunate clients, and such he would never press for pay for his services. A client named Cogdal was unfortunate in business, and gave a note in settlement of legal fees. Soon afterward he met with an accident by which he lost a hand. Meeting Mr. Lincoln some time after on the steps of the state-house, the kind lawyer asked him how he was getting along. "Badly enough," replied Mr. Cogdal; "I am both broken up in business and crippled." Then he added, "I have been thinking about that note of yours." Mr. Lincoln, who had probably known all about Mr. Cogdal's troubles, and had prepared himself for the meet- ing, took out his pocket-book, and saying, with a laugh, "Well, you needn't think any more about it," handed him the note. Mr. Cogdal protesting, Mr. Lincoln said, "Even if you had the money, I would not take it," and hurried away. Mr. Lincoln was once associate counsel for a defendant in a murder case. He listened to the testimony given by witness after witness against his client, until his honest heart could stand it no longer; then, turning to his associate, he said: "The man is guilty; you defend him — I can't," and when his associate secured a verdict of acquittal, Lincoln refused to share the fee to the extent of one cent. Mr. Lincoln would never advise clients into unwise or unjust lawsuits, always preferring to refuse a retainer rather than be a party to a case which did not commend itself to his sense of justice. CHAPTER XVII. BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY— THE STRUGGLE IN KANSAS. NATHANIEL P. BANKS, of Massachusetts, a friend of free soil, was chosen speaker of the national House of Representatives in 1855, over Aiken, of South Carolina. The revolution of public sentiment was still in progress in the North. The course of the Democrats in Congress had alienated many distin- guished men of the party, among them Martin Van Buren and his witty and eloquent son, John. The seceders in New York state were known as barn-burners, and they first materialized in a convention held at Buffalo — which convention, however, was really national in its scope. The friends of freedom began to call themselves Republicans, and the Republican party was born February 22, 1856. It was a notable and most enthusiastic gathering. On May 29th, in the same year, a convention composed of the representatives of the people of Hlinois, who were opposed to the extension of slavery, was held at Bloomington, and here, Judge Arnold declares, "the Republican party was organized." The conven- tion was composed of both Democrats and Whigs — partizans who had never acted together before. The members of the committee on resolutions were unable to agree, and the representative man of Hlinois, Abraham Lincoln, was sent for Judge Arnold says: "He [Lincoln] suggested that all could unite on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and hostility to the extension of slavery. 'Let us,' said he, 'in building our new party, make our corner-stone the Declaration of Independence — let us build on this rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us." The problem was mastered, and the convention adopted the fol- lowing: ''Resolved, That we hold, in accordance with the opinions and practices of all the great statesmen of all parties for tbe first sixty years of the administration of the government, that, under the Constitution, Congress possesses full power to prohibit slavery in the territories; and that while we will maintain all consti- tutional rights of the South, we also hold that justice, humanity, the principles of freedom, as expressed in our Declaration of Independence and our national Constitution, and the purity and perpetuity of our government require that that power should be exerted to prevent the extension of slavery into territories h*^^*"- tofore free. 119 120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "Thus \vas organized the party which, against the potent influence of Doug- las, revolutionized the state of Illinois, and elected Lincoln to the presidency, Lincoln's speech to this convention has rarely been equaled. 'Never,' says one of the delegates, 'was an audience more completely electrified by human eloquence. Again aad again during the delivery the audience sprang. to their feet, and by long-continued cheers, expressed how deeply the speaker had roused them. It fused the mass of incongruous elements into harmony and union. "Delegates were appointed to the national convention, which was to meet in Philadelphia, to nominate candidates for president and vice-president." In June, 1856, the first nominating convention of the Republican party was held at Philadelphia. John C. Fremont was named for the presidency, and William L. Dayton for the vice- presidency. Abraham Lin- coln's Bloomington 'plank" was accepted as the chief portion of the platform adopted, and it became apparent that, as Lincoln was already the leader of the new party in the Northwest, he was to become the leader of the free-soil sentiment throughout the nation. The Democrats met at Cincinnati on the second of June, and on the sixteenth ballot nominated James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, for the presidency, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for the vice-presidency. The convention refused to nominate the aspiring Douglas, but it "indorsed the compromise measures of 1850 and Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill." The Whigs of the South and certain conservative Whigs of the North, who were popularly called the "Silver Grays," nominated Millard Fillmore for the presidency. There was now a clear understanding of the great political issue of the day, and a hard-fought campaign followed. At one time it seemed likely that Fre- mont and Dayton would be elected. Abraham Lincoln was constantly speaking, R. BAKXWELL RHETT. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 121 and with great effect, but finally Buchanan managed to carry the doubtful states of Pennsylvania and Indiana, and the contest was virtually ended. Buchanan was elected, receiving in the electoral college 172 votes, Fremont receiving 114, and Fillmore those to which Maryland was entitled. Meanwhile the struggle in Kansas continued. The pro-slavery men had formed at Lecompton a constitution which was designed to make of Kansas a slave state. The free-soil advocates adopted a free-state constitution at Topeka. This was submitted to the people and adopted. Thus was the issue clearly defined; the friends of the two constitutions came into collision, and in Kansas the civil war was virtually begun. In 1856, Congress appointed an investigating committee, of which John Sher- man, of Ohio, was a member. This committee did thorough and exhaustive work^ and finally reported that ''every election held under the auspi€es of the United States officials had been controlled, not by actual settlers, but by non-residents from Missouri, and that every officer in the territory owed his election to these non-residents." Meanwhile the free-state officers had been arrested, and the free-state legisla- tion dispersed by "the regular army of the United States, acting under orders of the president. It was thus that Kansas was to be brought into the Union as a slave state." [Herndon.] Buchanan, very naturally, sent a message to Congress, December 9, 1857, asking that body to admit Kansas, with its fraudulent slave-state constitution. The personal friends of Stephen A. Douglas were surprised and glad to see him at once announce his condemnation of the proposal. One of his ablest and most commendable speeches was made on this occasion. " Why," said he, "force this constitution down the throats of the people in opposition to their wishes, and in violation of our pledges? . . . The people want a fair vote, and will never be satisfied without it. . . . If it is to be forced upon the people, under a submission that is a mockery and an insult, I will resist it to the last." Buchanan remonstrated with Mr. Douglas, and proceeded to warn him of personal consequences. Recalling the fact that the senator had always been in admirer of General Jackson, Buchanan, the time-server, said: "You are an ambitious man, Mr. Douglas, and there is a brilliant future for you, if you retain the confidence of the Democratic party; if you oppose it, let me remind you of the fate of those who in former times rebelled against it. Remember the fate of Senators Rives and Talmadge, who opposed General Jackson, when he removed the government deposits from the United States bank. Beware of their fate, Mr. Douglas." " Mr. President," said Douglas, " General Jackson is dead. Good-morning, sir!" The celebrated decision in the Dred Scott case was most important, and had great influence on public sentiment. The decision was made by the Supreme Court early in Mr. Buchanan's administration. Dred Scott had been one of the slaves of Dr. Emerson, of Missouri, a United States army surgeon. Emerson moved first to Rock Island, Illinois, and then to 122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Fort Snelling, Minnesota, at which latter place, in 1836, Scott was married to a negro woman whom Emerson had bought. After the birth of two children all the family were taken back to St. Louis and sold. Dred brought suit for his freedom, and after the Circuit and Supreme Courts of Missouri had heard the •case, it was, in May, 1854, appealed to the United States Suj)feme Court. The decision read by Chief-justice Taney held that "negroes, whether free or slaves, were not citizens of the United States, and could not become such hy any process known to the Constitution;'''' that under the laws of the United States ''a negro could neither sue nor be sued, and therefore the court had no jurisdiction oyer Dred Scott's cause;" that "a slave was to be regarded in the light of a personal chat- tel, and might be removed from place to place by his owner as any other piece of property;" that "the Con- stitution gave to every slave- holder the right of removing to or through any state or territory with his slaves, and of returning at his will with them to a state where slavery was recognized by law; and that therefore the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the compromise measures of 1850 were unconstitutional and void." Judge Taney did not an- nounce this decision because he wished to of his own accord, but he was pursued and hounded on by the cham- pions of slavery until it seemed to him that he was forced to it. Retiring to his home after the act, he fell on the neck of his black body-servant, and declared that he was a ruined man. Six of the associate justices — Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Campbell and Catron — concurred, but Judges McLean and Curtis dissented. The president had hoped that this would allay the excitement, but it had a contrary effect. The South affected satisfaction, but the free-soil party became exasperated, and the passage of personal liberty bills resulted in several of the antislavery states. By means of the enactment of these measures the efforts of the slave-catchers JOHN BROWN. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 123 were often thwarted — conspicuously so in the noted Oberlin-Wellington case, in Ohio, where a slave was taken from a sheriff and spirited away. It is true that Professor Peck, J. M. Fitch, Simeon Bushnell and others were kept in jail in Cleveland for months, and tried for their ''crime," but they were finally released by the prosecutor, under state law. John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, October 16, 1859, was the next excitement for the slave states. The details of the daring attempt, its failure and the trial, condemnation and execution of John Brown and six of his JAMES BUCHANAN. companions, are incidents too well and widely known to justify recapitulation here. This affair, and the rapid growth of the Free-Soil party in Kansas, while widening the breach between North and South, threw into the nineteenth pres- idential election campaign of 1860 the apple of discord destined to precipitate the clash of awns. A United States senator was to be chosen in Illinois, in 1854, to take the place of Senator Shields. Lincoln took a prominent part in the campaign. Douglas was the champion of "popular," or "squatter," sovereignty. Lincoln 124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN". met Douglas on two occasions before the people. The first time was at a meet- ing of the state fair, at Springfield, on October 4th. Lincoln had great vantage- ground, Douglas having proved recreant to his former principles, so solemnly announced by him. He said: "My distinguished friend says it is an insult to the emigrants of Kansas and Nebraska to suppose that they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this kind because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and answered. I admit that the emigrant of Kansas and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, hvt I deinj his right to govern any other person ttithout that person's coiisent." The two oppo- nents met again in Peoria. When the Legislature con- vened, Lincoln gave way to Lyman Trumbull, who was elected senator. Early in June, 1857, Douglas made his famous speech in Springfield, in which he declared that he meant to sustain all the acts of what was called the Lecompton convention, even though a pro-slavery consti- tution should be formed. He further expressed his approval of the Dred Scott decision in this same speech. Lincoln replied to him at Springfield two weeks later. He defended the course of action which the Republicans of Kansas had adopted in behalf of free territory. This was but a sort of prelude to the famous senatorial contest between Douglas and Lincoln the next year. The measure known as the English Bill was made a law April 30, 1858. Douglas' term was on the eve of expiring, and he returned to Hlinois, after the adjournment of Congress. He had come in open contact with the adminis- tration through his course on the Lecompton Bill, and had really made himself quite popular with the Republicans of Hlmois, some of whom w^ere inclined to think it would not be wise to oppose his re-election. But they knew that he was in no sense a Republican, and that he had declared he "did not care whether slavery CHIEF-JUSTICE TANEY. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 125 was voted down or not." Abraham Lincoln was nominated as a candidate for Douglas' place in the Senate, June 17, 1858. Mr. Douglas had already been indorsed and "virtually renominated" by the Democratic state convention. Lincoln delivered his first speech in Chicago, July 9th, and Douglas said of it that it was "well prepared and carefully written." We quote from the first paragraph of a speech made by Lincoln at Si)ringfield, as follows: "If we could first know" where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to 'do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that INTERIOR OF SENATE CHAMBER. 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 fpermanentJy half slave and half free." . After several speeches had been made by each gentleman, Lincoln addressed a letter to Douglas challenging him to a series of debates during the campaign. The challenge was accepted, and arrangements were made by which Douglas vas to have four opening and closing speeches to Lincoln's three, Lincoln not objecting to the disparity. Most persons have forgotten or never knew that Mr. Lincoln had once before been a candidate for the United States Senate in the early weeks of 1855. The 126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Senate chamber had long been the goal of his ambition. The situation in the Illinois Legislature was at that period a peculiar one. The Democrats then as for years before and years later, idolizing Stephen A. Douglas, were in a minority in the legislature. The miijority consisted of old-line Whigs, rein- forced by quite a number of anti-Nebraska Democrats. Mr. Lincoln was the nominee of the former, but a clique of anti-Nebraska Democrats held out with what was considered unreasonable obstinacy against his election. In this dilemma Mr. Lincoln was consulted, and with the unselfishness that always character- ized his life, he said, unhesitatingly, "You had better drop me and vote for Mr. Trumbull." This hard alternative greatly grieved the Whigs, and particularly Mr. Lincoln's many personal friends, but they accepted his advice. The result was that Lyman Trumbull, the veteran jurist who died only in 1896, became the successor in the Senate of General James Shields, for the term beginning March 4, 1855. Providence had reserved the defeated candidate for a yet greater destiny. ^ - CHAPTER XVIII. THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES. AT Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, was commenced one of the most remark- able political debates ever known. There were actual intellectual giants in those days. Stephen A. Douglas, a Vermonter, who had risen rapidly into a large degree of fame since he had become a citizen of. Illinois, was one of those giants, and Abraham Lincoln was another. The Ordinance of 1787, the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and the English Bill, so framed as to deceive and defraud the people of Kansas, who decided, nevertheless, to make theirs a free state, were frequently touched in the discus- sion. Not only were the two men great, but they discussed great vital principles, in the discussion. Seven joint debates were held — at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy and Alton. Mr. Douglas rode about from place to place in a special saloon-car, furnished by the general superintendent of the road, George B. McClellan, afterward a prominent Union general, and Democratic candidate for the presidency. Mr. Lincoln and his famous saddle-bags went from place to place in an ordinary car. There was firing of cannon, music by bands, great processions, and immense audiences at each of these meetings. Henry J. Raymond, the famous editor of the New York Times, epitomizes in his book on Lincoln the matter of the first debate, as follows: "In the first of these joint debates, which took place at Ottawa, Mr. Douglas again rung the changes upon the introductory passage of Mr. Lincoln's Spring- field speech, 'A house divided against itself,' etc. Mr. Lincoln reiterated his assertion, and defended it in effect, as he did in his speech at Springfield. Then he took up the charge he had previously made, of the existence of a conspiracy io extend slavery over the northern states, and pressed it home, citing as proof a speech which Mr. Douglas himself had made on the Lecompton Bill, in which he had substantially made the same charge against Buchanan and others. He then showed again that all that was necessary for the accomplishment of the scheme was a decision of the Supreme Court to the effect that no state could exclude slavery, as the court had already decided that no territory could exclude it, and the acquiescence of the people in such a decision; and he told his hearers that DouMas was doing all in his power to bring about such acquiescence in ° 127 128 ABRAHAM LIJVCOLN. advance, by declaring that tlie'' true position was, not to care whether slavery 'was voted down or up,' and by announcing himself in favor of the Dred Scott decision, not because it was right, but because a decision of the court is to him a 'Thus saith the Lord,' and thus committing himself to the next decision just as firmly as; to this." The next, meeting was to be held at Freeport, and as Mr. Douglas in the Ottawa debate had asked Mr. Lincoln several questions, which he had promptly answered, Lincoln prepared four questions to be asked of Douglas at Freeport. The third question was: " If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that states cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a code of political action?" "Douglas," said Lincoln^s friends, " will reply by affirm- ing this decision as an abstract principle, but deny- ing its political application." " If he does that he can never be president," said Lin- coln. " That is not your look- out; you are after the sen- atorship." "No, gentlemen; I am killing larger game. The battle of 1860 is ivortli a hun- dred of this." Douglas evaded the ques- tion. The senator had stated that he did not care whether slavery was voted into or out of the territories; that the negro was not /«'s equal: the Declaration of Independence was not intended to include the negro. Mr. Lincoln replied to these propositions, at Freeport, as follows: " The men who signed the Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the universe. This was their lofty and wise and noble under- CHARLES SUMNER. One of America's greatest orators and nneonipromising antislavery advocates. He was born lsil,and died 1S74. ~W^yt^.w^ ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 129 standing of the justice of the Creator to his creatures— yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightejied belief, nothing stamped with the.divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of posterity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, none but white men, or none but Anglo- Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence, and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began; so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built. ''Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you ha-ve listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me; take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may "do anything with me you choose if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is noth- ing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immor- tal emblem of humanity — the Declaration of American Independence." Mr. Lincoln had a majority of four thousand in the popular vote of the state, but the legislative districts had been so unfairly constructed that Douglas received a majority of the ballots in the Legislature. The debates, howevfr, attracted universal attention throughout the country and brought Mr. Lincoln to the front as an able and eloquent champion of free-soil principles. In 1859, the Democrats of Ohio, having nominated their candidate for gov- ernor, Mr. Douglas, as the champion of "popular sovereignty" was invited to take part in the canvass, with great expectations as to the results on the part of the Democracy. Naturally, the Republicans at once asked Lincoln to come to the state, and he promptly responded, making two remarkable speeches (he could have made no other kind at that time), one at Columbus, the other at Cincinnati. 130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Mr. Douglas had had printed in Harper's Magazine an elaborate and carefully prepared article, explaining his views on the principles of which he was the chief representative. This was a golden opportunity for Mr. Lincoln, and at Colum- bus he made mince-meat of Mr. Douglas' elaborate essay. Mr. Lincoln tersely described what Judge Douglas' proposed popular sovereignty really was. He said: "It is, as a principle, no other than that if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object. Applied to the government as he means to apply it, it is this: If, in a new territory into which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of mak- ing their homes, they choose to exclude slavery from their limits or establish it there, however one or the other may afpect the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons who are afterward to inhabit that territory, or the other members of the families of communities of which they are but incipient members, or the general head of the family of states, as parent of all — however their action may affect one or the other of these, there is no power or right to interfere. That is Douglas' popular sov- ereignty applied. He has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty. His explanations explanatory of explanations explained are interminable." Mr. Lincoln proceeded to say, " Did you €ver, five years ago, hear of anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the Declaration of National Independence; that it did not mean negroes at all; and when 'all men' were spoken of, negroes were not included?" Mr. Lincoln at Cincinnati addressed largely the Kentuckians, his old neigh- bors, and after advising them to nominate Mr. Douglas as their candidate for the presidency at the approaching Charleston convention, showed them how, by so doing, they would the more surely protect their cherished institution of slavery. JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. Familiarly known as the " Pathfinder." He was born 1813, and was the first Republican candidate for president. ABBAHAM LINCOLN. 131 The Ohio Republican state committee was so well pleased with Mr. Lincoln's speeches that it requested permission to publish in a pamphlet pr book the verbatim report of the debate between Mr. Douglas and himself in Illinois, of which they printed a very large edition and distributed it widely as a campaign document. In December, 1859, by invitation, Lincoln visited Kansas, as the great champion of the freedom of their territory. He spoke at Atchison, Troy, Leav- enworth and other towns near the border. In February, 1860, he was invited to speak in New York, and at Cooper Insti- tute, on the evening of February 27, 1860, he made one of the grandest of all his public utterances, exciting by his strong points and his eloquence an enthusiasm tint was tremendous in its manifestations. It was accepted at once as the most y I ,-. THE WIGWA5I WHERE LINCOLN WAS NOMINATED FOR TRESIDKNT. important contribution to the solution of the immensely important current political problems of the day that had been uttered, and reported as it was, in the New York Tribune (Horace Greeley's paper) and other New York journals, it had a wide circulation throughout the United States, and did much to create public opinion in the exciting times which were to follow. Subsequently, Mr. Lincoln spoke in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, creating great enthusiasm everywhere, and talk of his becoming a candidate for the presidency seemed to be spontaneous. A good many New- Yorkers and others desired the nomination of William Henry Seward for the presidency, and were so considerate (!) as to consent that Mr. Lincoln might have the second place on the ticket. 132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. What were Mr. Lincoln's pecuniary circumstances at this time? To an Illinois acquaintance, whom he met at the Astor House, in New York, he said: *' I have the cottage at Springfield, and about three thousand dollars in money. If they make me vice-president with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand dollars, and that is as much as anij man ought to iranf.'''' At New York, in company with a friend, he went to visit the Five Points Mission, and addressed the children. After having spoken, the superintendent, Mr. Pease, asked his name. He courteously replied, '' It is Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois." CHAPTER XIX. THE CHICAGO CONVENTION AND CAMPAIGN OF 1860. LINCOLN, who had received a respectable number of votes for the presidential nomination in the convention at Philadelphia, which nominated Fremont and Dayton, was now prominently mentioned by the people East and West as an available candidate for the Republican nomination in 1860. A prominent and formidable opponent was Mr. Seward, the man who advanced the doctrine that there was a higher law, even, than the Constitution of the United States — the law of the Supreme Being. Mr. Seward was a man of great popularity, of •decided ability as a public man and a statesman, besides having had long experience as a politician. He had been twice elected governor of the state of New York. The Republicans of Illinois gathered in state convention at Decatur, on May 9 and 10, 1860, and determined to present Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the presidency at the national Republican convention, called to meet at Chicago on the sixteenth. At this Decatur convention, Lincoln's cousin, John Hanks, brought in " two historical rails," as Judge Herndon writes, of a lot "which both had made in the Sangamon bottom, and which served the double purpose of electrifying the Illinois people and kindling the fire of enthusiasm that was destined to sweep over the nation." Judge Herndon quotes one ardent delegate as saying: " These rails were to represent the issue in the coming contest between labor free and labor slave; between democracy and aristocracy; little did I think of the mighty consequences of this little incident; little did I think that the tall and angular and bony rail-splitter who stood in girlish diffidence, bowing with awkward grace, would fill the chair once filled by Washington, and that his name would echo in chants of praise along the corridors of all coming times." By this time the whole North had come to recognize in Mr. Lincoln those qualities of which statesmen are made, and his name was heard everywhere in discussions as to the most available man to lead the Republican party to victory. Mr. Seward, however, a man of wider experience, was the favorite candidate in certain portions of the East. One of Mr. Lincoln's old friends, David Davis, afterward senator and a member of the Supreme Court, engaged rooms in the Tremont House, Chicago, to be used as the Lincoln headquarters during the convention. An immense wooden structure •was erected on the lake front, opposite the site on which the Auditorium now i.« 134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. stands — that great hall in which President Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of President William H. Harrison, was nominated in 1888. This structure was called "The Wigwam," audit has gone into history by that name. Great crowds of p ^ople from all portions of the East, North and West were gathered in Chicago on this occasion. The convention opened May 16th. There were 465 delegates, and a large attendance of politicians from all parts of the country. Salmon P. Chase, Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Bates, of Missouri, as well as Mr. Seward and Mr. Lincoln, were named as candi- dates, but it was soon evident that either Seward or Lincoln would be the chosen one. Judge Wilmot, author of that famous free-soil measure, the Wilmot Proviso, was made temporary chairman, and George Ashmun, of Mass- achusetts, permanent chair- man. On the seventeenth the committee on resolutions re- ported a platform, which was received with greatenthusiasm and unanimously adopted. Mr. Seward, to whom we must award additional praise, was a man of great patriotism and ability, and was thought to be the man who would receive the honor of the nomination. A motion was made to nominate on the seventeenth, but an adjournment was taken until morning. During the night there were new developments. The Republicans of Illinois turned out in large numbers and rent the air with their shouts for Lincoln. Mr. Seward's adher- ents marched the streets with flags and bands of music, and were enthusiastic for their candidate. The air was filled with music. The balloting was reached the next day. The first ballot gave Mr. Seward 173-|. to 102 for Lincoln, with quite a number of "scattering" votes. On the second LINCOLN IN lfi61. Until after Lincoln's nomination for tlie presidency he never wore a beard. The portrait above was talien in Springfield about three months later, in January, 1861, just before his departure for Washington. It was one of the first and best showing him with a beard. It is an old- fashioned wet plate, and is well preserved. When a por- trait was to be painted for the Illinois slate-house, all the various pictures of the martyred president were spread out before the committee of old friends and neighbors, and this sitting was chosen for a model of the painting. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 135 'ballot the chairman of the Vermont delegation, which delegation had given -a divided vote on the first ballot, announced that "Vermont gave her ten votes for the young giant of the West, Abraham Lincoln/' On the second ballot Mr. •Seward had 184^ votes, Mr. Lincoln 181; and on the third ballot Mr. Lincoln received 230 votes, being within one and one half of a majority. The vote was not announced, but so many everywhere had kept the count of the ballot that it was known throughout the convention at once. Mr. David K. Cartter, of Ohio, rose and announced a change in the vote of the Ohio delegation of four votes in iavor of Lincoln, and at once the convention burst out in 3, state of the wildest excite- ment. Instantly cannons blazed and roared, bands played, banners waved, and the excited Republicans of Illinois and Chicago shouted themselves hoarse; while the telegraph instruments •clicked the glad news to all portions of the country. When the convention set- tled down again, other states •changed their votes in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and it was announced as the result of the third ballot that Abra- ham Lincoln, of Illinois, had received 354 votes out of 465, and that he was nom- inated by the Republican party for the office of pres- ident of the United States. The nomination was then, on the motion of William H. Evarts, of New York, made unanimous, and the conven- tion took a recess until the afternoon, when it completed its work by nominating Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, for the vice-presidency. Mr. Lincoln was at his proper place— at home— at this time. Let us give Mr. Raymond's significant paragraph describing what occurred at Springfield: "He [Mr. Lincoln] had been in the telegraph-office during the casting of the iirst and second ballots, but then left and went over to the office of the State Journal, where he was sitting conversing with friends while the third ballot was HANNIBAL HAMMN, OF MAINE. Vice-president \vitl> Lincoln the tirst term. He was born 1809, and died 1891. »«-■'■* rA't 136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. being taken. In a few moments came across the wires the announcement of the result. The superintendent of the telegraph company, who was present, wrote on a scrap of paper, 'Mr. Lincoln, you are nominated on the third ballot,' and a boy ran with the message to Mr. Lincoln. He looked at it in silence amid the shouts of those around him; then rising and putting it in his pocket, he said quietly, 'There's a little woman down at our house would like to hear this; I'll go down and tell her.' " Mr. Raymond relates that, "Tall Judge Kelly, of Pennsylvania, who was one of the committee to advise Mr. Lincoln of his nomination, and who is himself a great many feet high, had meanwhile been eying Mr. Lincoln's lofty form with AN UVATIUN FROM NEIUHBORS, AFTER THE NOJIINATING CUNVENTIUN. a mixture of admiration and possibly jealousy; this had not escaped Mr. Lin- coln, and as he shook hands with the judge he inquired, "What is your height?" "'Six feet three. What is yours, Mr. Lincoln?' '"Six feet four.' "'Then,' said the judge, 'Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for years my heart has been aching for a president that I could look up to, and I've found him at last in the land where we thought there were none but "little" giants.' " The presidential campaign that followed was the most remarkable that had been conducted in the country since the time that William Henry Harrison was ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 the Whig candidate for the presidency in 1840, twenty years before. The enthusiasm throughout the North was spontaneous and overwhelming. Abraham Lincoln had come to be regarded as the man of all others to represent the principles and bear the standard of the new party. The popular demonstrations everywhere were enthusiastic and decidedly original. The whole North was organized into companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, etc., and the members of these organizations were known far and wide as '" Wide-Awakes." They were uniformed with oil capes and glazed caps, and they turned out with full ranks of old and middle-aged men, youth and boys, at all public demonstrations. They parad- ed with bands of martial music, sang songs and shouted for the "rail-splitter of Illi- nois." No man of that period had gained so strong a hold on the hearts of the people. The magic words, "Old Abe" and " Honest Old Abe" were on thousands of banners. The significant fact with regard to all these demonstra- tions, remembered with great interest by millions of men still living, is that they were representative of a great prin- ciple, involving the freedom of individuals, of common- wealths, and of the nation. John G. Whittier, Wil- liam Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, Henry W. Longfellow, and other Amer- ican poets, had written stir- ring lines against slavery, and Mrs. Stowe's immortal work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," written years before, had produced a powerful influence against the "peculiar institution " of the South. Then there was the brave work of the martyr John Brown, of Ossawatomie, a native of Connecticut, afterward a resident of North Elba, New York, where a monument now stands to his memory. He had fired, at Harper's Ferry, a shot in behalf of the freedom of the slaves that was heard in every slave cabin in the world. He died on the scaffold six months before the Chicago convention was held. At the Democratic convention, held at Charleston, South Carolina, in April, 1860, Stephen A. Douglas was in the lead as a presidential candidate. The con- EDWARD EVERETT. 138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ventioti took a recess until the eighteenth of June to reassemble at Baltimore,, and Douglas was finally nominated for the presidency of the United States, jind Herschell B. Johnson, of Georgia, was named for the vice-presidency. So Lincoln and Douglas were again in the field against each other. Oq the twenty-eighth of June, also at Baltimore, southern Democrats who had seceded at Charleston convened, and nominated as their candidate John C Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for the presidency and Joseph Lane for the vice- presidency. Previous to this, however, in May, the Constitutional Union National Convention was held, and the principal plank in its platform adopted declared that "it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principles other than the constitution of the country, the union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws." John Bell, of Tennessee, was the can- didate for the presidency, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, was named for the vice-presidency. With four national tickets in the field, representing as many conflicting principles and sectional interests, it is no wonder that the campaign of 1860 was one of the most exciting in the history of the country. It is quite true that some of the Republican politicians were disappointed and chagrined. Statesmen who had had a national reputation before Lincoln had become a prominent figure in political affairs felt that their "claims" had been slighted. But the people were more than satisfied. The election was held on the sixth of November; the result showed a popular vote for Lincoln of 1,857,610; for Douglas, 1,365,976; for Breckinridge. 847,953; and for Bell, 590,631. In the electoral college Lincoln received 180 votes^ Breckinridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12. CHAPTER XX. FROM SPRINGFIELD TO AVASHINGTON. FINALLY, February 11, 1861, Mr. Lincoln left Springfield for Washington. It may be that Mr. Douglas was traveling about the country at this time in George B. McClellan's magnificent saloon-car, but Mr. Lincoln was not riding about on horseback with saddle-bags from one part of the country to another,, nor in a common railway coach. A special train had been provided, and a man of the name of Wood (recommended to Mr. Lincoln by Mr. Seward) had been placed in charge of the party, which was composed of the president-elect, his wife, his sons, Robert, William and Thomas, his brother-in-law. Dr. W. S. Wallace, David Davis, Norman B. Judd, Elmer Ellsworth (who was afterward killed at Alexandria, Virginia), and the president's two secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. Colonel Sumner, of the United States army, was also in the car, and Governor Yates, Judge 0. H. Browning and others were of the party. Before leaving the station, Lincoln addressed his old neighbors and friends, as follows: "Friends, no one who has never been placed in like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness T 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 am. All the checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. To-day I leave you; I go to assume a task more difficult than that of Washington, and unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with and aid me, I must fail; but if the same Almighty arm shall guide and support me, I shall not fail, I shall sur^ceed. . Let us all pray that the God of our fathers will not forsake us now. To him I commend you all. Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will invoke his guidance for me. With this, friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell." The trip from Springfield to Washington was much like a "royal progress." It is doubtful, however, whether any king on a tour about his country nmong his people was ever greeted with such enthusiastic and loyal receptions. Multi- tudes of people gathered at all places where the train .stopped, and brief addresses were made from time to time. . ^{iiijrc • 139 -^ 140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. At Pittsburgh he advised deliberation, and begged the American people to keep their temper on both sides of the line. In front of Independence Hall, he assured his listeners that "under his administration there would be no blood- shed until it was forced upon the government, and then it would be compelled to act in self-defense." A little iacident illustrative of Mr. Lincoln's sympathy with children may not be out of place here. In the beautiful village of Westfield, Chautauqua county, New York, lived little Grace Bedell. During the campaign she saw a portrait of THE DEPOT AT Sl'K 1 NGFt ELD. II.LIMiI.n, KEBKL AKV U, l»bl. Mr. Lincoln, for whom she felt the love and reverence that was common in Republican families, and his smooth, homely face rather disappointed her. She said to her mother: "I think, mother, that Mr. Lincoln would look better if he wore whiskers, and I mean to write and tell him so." The mother gave her permission. Grace's father was a Republican; her two brothers Democrats. Grace wrote at once to the ''Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., Springfield, Illinois," in which she told him how old she was, and where she lived; that she was a Republican; that she thought he would make a good president, but would look better if he would ABRAHAM LlJfCOLN. 141 let his whiskers grow. If he would do so she would try to coax her brothers to vote for him. She thought the rail fence around the picture of his cabin was very pretty. '' If you have not time to answer my letter, will you allow your little y hi to reply for you?" Mr. Lincoln was much pleased with the letter, and decided to answer it, which he did at once, as follows: Miss Grace Bedell. Springfield, Illinois, October 19, 1860. My Dear Little i»/«ss;— Your- very agreeable letter of tlie lifteeuth is received. I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have three sons; one seventeen, one nine and one seven years of age. They, with their mother, con- stitute my whole family. As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I should be- gin it now? Your very sincere well-wisher, A. Lincoln. When on the journey to Washington, Mr. Lincoln's train stopped at Westfield. He recollected his little cor- respondent, and spoke of her to ex-Lieutenant-governor George W. Patterson, who called out and asked if Grace Bedell was present. There was a large, surging mass of people gathered about the train, but Grace . was discovered at a distance; the crowd opened a pathway to the coach, and she came, timidly but gladly, to the president-elect, who told her that she might see that he had allowed his whiskers to grow at her request. Then, reaching out his long arms, he drew her up to him and kissed her. The act drew an enthusiastic demonstration of approval from the multitude. Grace is now, in 1896, a married lady, living in Kansas, and the wife of a banker. Her present name is Grace Bedell Billings. Great precaution was used in Mr. Lincoln's passage from Harrisburg, Pennsyl- vania, to Washington, and many accounts, differing in their statements, have been printed. Threats had been made that Mr. Lincoln, on his way to Washington, GRACE BEDELL BILLINGS. I 142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. should never pass through Baltimore. Mr. Herndon says, in his '' Life of Lincoln,'' that '-it was reported and believed that conspiracies had been formed to attack the train and blow it up with explosives, or in some equally effective way dispose of the president-elect. Mr. Seward and others were so deeply impressed by the reports that Allen Pinkerton, a noted detective of Chicago, was employed to investigate the reports and ferret out the conspiracy, if any existed. This shrewd detective opened on office as a stock-broker, and, with his assistants, the most noted of whom was a woman, was soon in possession of inside information. A change of plans and trains at Harrisburg was due to his management and advice. Mr. Lincoln had advised General Scott of the threats of violence on the' inauguration day. The veteran commander was lying propped up in his bed by pillows, and weak and trembling from physical debility, his feelings were very much wrought up by Mr. Lincoln's communication. Adjutant -gen eral Thomas Mather called upon Mr. Scott in Lincoln's behalf, and was addressed by Scott as follows: " General Mather, present my compliments to Mr. Lin- coln when you return to Springfield, and tell him I expect him to come on to Washington as soon as he is ready; say to him that I will look after those Maryland and Virginia rangers myself; I will plant cannon at both ends of Pennsylvania avenue, and if any of them show their heads or raise a finger, ril blow them to hell." Only the members of the party knew when Mr. Lincoln left Harris- burg, or when he arrived at Washing- ton. The secessionists of Baltimore were utterly thwarted, and long after his train had passed on its way to Washington were doubtless brooding over their fiendish conspiracy. Mr, Lincoln arrived at Washington a few days before the fourth of March, and took quarters at Willard's hotel, then and now a famous hostelry. On the morning of March 4, 1861, he rode to the Capitol in a barouche with President Buchanan. The oath of office was administered by the venerable Chief-justice Taney, and he was at last president of our great republic. Mr. Buchanan accompanied him to the White House, and here the retiring chief magistrate bade him farewell, bespeaking for him a peaceful, prosperous and successful adminis- tration. His inaugural address, delivered immediately after taking the oath, could have been, under the circumstances and on as supreme occasion as this, nothing less than remarkable. The closing paragraphs are as follows: '^e LINCOLN'S NIGHT TRIP FROM HARRISBURG TQ WASHINGTON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 143 ''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 government, 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 cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Sublime and beautiful prophecy ! How much was to occur before it was finally fulfilled! LINCOLN ENTERS WASHINGTON. FEBRUARY 2.'?, 181,1. Judge Isaac N. Arnold says that on New-Year's day, 1861, Senator Douglas made this statement at Washington: "The cotton states are making an effort to draw the border states into their scheme of secession, and I am but too fearful they will succeed. If they do, there will be the most fearful civil war ever known." Pausing a moment, he looked like one inspired, while he proceeded, "Virginia, over yonder across the Potomac," pointing toward Arlington, "will become a charnel-house, but in the end the Union will triumph. They will try to get possession of this Capitol to give them prestige abroad; but in that effort they will never succeed; the North will rise en masse to defend it, but Washington will become a city of hospitals; the churches will be used for the sick and wounded. This house, the Minnesota block, will be devoted to that purpose." Before the end of the war this prediction was literally fulfilled. Nearly all of 144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the churches were used for the wounded, and the Minnesota block, and the very room in which this remark was made, became the Douglas hospital. President Lincoln appointed his Cabinet as follows: William H. Seward, secretary of state; Simon Cameron, secretary of war; Salmon P. Chase, secre- tary of the treasury; Gideon Wells, secretary of the navy; Caleb B. Smith, secretary of the interior; Montgomery Blair, postmaster-general; Edward Bates, attorney-general. | I What men were these! Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase, of Ohio, were among the ablest, most intellectual statesmen of their day. They were sterling patriots. They were both ambitious, and possibly somewhat jealous of Mr. Lincoln, wliom they believed, in their inmost hearts, was inferior to them. Certainly both were polished gentlemen. Seward was affable; Chase was of a most commanding presence. Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, was also a man of power, as was Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania. Montgomery Blair was a patriot from a slave state. LINCOLN KNTEKKD THh; WHITE HOU.SK MARCH 4. l!3, when President Lincoln visited the army in the field. It is from a negative taken by Brady and Gardner, for the government. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. is,;{ journalist of his time, wrote the president as follows: "I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country longs for peace, shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood," etc. Mr. Greeley asked the president to consent to negotiations looking toward the ending of the war. In response, the president announced his willingness to negotirite with commissions authorized by Jefferson Davis to negotiate. July 20, 1864, Greeley crossed into Canada to confer with refugee rebels at Niagara. He bore with him this paper from the president: "To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the in- tegrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war with the United States, will be received and con- sidered by the executive govern- ment of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms and other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways." To this Jefferson Davis re- plied, " IVe are not fighting for slavery: we are fighting for inde- pendence.'''' Mr. Lincoln atnd Mr. Seward met Alexander H. Stephens Feb- ruary 3, 1865, on the River Queer, at Fortress Monroe. Stephens was enveloped in overcoats and shawls, and had the appearance of a fair-sized man. He begun to take off one wrapping after another, until the small, shriveled old man stood before them. Lincoln quietly said to Seward. ''This is the largest shucking for so small a nubbin that T ever saw." R. M. T. Hunter was with Mr. Stephens. Lincoln had a friendly conference, but presented his ultimatum — that the one and only condition of peace was that Confederates "must cease their resistance." In the fall of 1864 and the winter of 1865, Grant was pressing in upon and around the center of the Confederacy, Petersburg and Richmond, and pounding away with ponderous blows. A mine was exploded under one of the Petersburg forts, July 30th, but with little influence in favor of the Federals. KDWIN M. STANTON. > K 5 a o a (3 ^« O M OS o O t, S 2 o CHAPTER XXIX. FALL OF RICHMOND AND SURRENDER OF LEE. GRANT gained a substantial victory at Five Forks, April 1, 1865, capturing- 6,000 men. This was one of a series of conflicts. On the second he made a general assault upon and captured Petersburg, and on the night of that day Lee and his army, and the members of the Confederate government, evacuated Petersburg. The rebel soldiers set the warehouses of their old capital on fire, and large portions of the city were consumed. Grant took possession of Richmond April 3d. Lincoln immediately went to the front, going up in a man-of-war to the landing called Rocketts, about a mile below the city, accompanied by his young son, "Tad," and Admiral Porter, and went to the city in a boat. The sailors who accompanied him, armed with carbines, composed his only military guard. He walked up the streets toward General Weitzel's headquarters, in the house occupied but two days before by Jefferson Davis, who took French leave before the surrender. The news of his arrival spread as he walked, and from all sides the colored people came running together, with cries of intense exultation, to greet their deliverer. A writer in the Atlantic Montlihj describes the scene as follows: "They gathered around the president, ran ahead, hovered upon the flanks of the little company, and hung like a dark cloud upon the rear. Men, women and children joined the constantly increasing throng. They came from all the by-streets, running in breathless haste, shouting and hallooing, and dancing with delight. The men threw up their hats, the women waved their bonnets and handkerchiefs, clapped their hands, and sang, "Glory to God! glory, glory I'"^ rendering all the praise to God, who had heard their wailings in the past, their moanings for wives, husbands, children and friends sold out of their sight, had given them freedom, and after long years of waiting, had permitted them thus unexpectedly to behold the face of their great benefactor. " I thank you, dear Jesus, that I behold President Linkum!'' was the exclama- tion of a woman who stood upon the threshold of her humble home, and with streaming eyes and clasped hands gave thanks aloud to the savior of men. "Another, more demonstrative in her joy, was jumping and striking her hands with all her might, crying, "Bless de Lord! Bless de Lord! Bless de Lord!" as if there could be no end to her thanksgiving. 185 186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. " The air rang with a tumultuous chorus of voices. The street became almost impassable on account of the increasing multitude, till soldiers were summoned to clear the way. " The walk was long, and the president halted a moment to rest. ' May the good Lord bless you, President Linkum! ' said an old negro, removing his hat and bowing, with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. The president removed his own hat, and bowed in silence; but it was a bow which upset the forms, laws, customs and ceremonies of centuries. It was a death-shock to chivalry and a •s:a m0. HOUSE IN WHICH GENERAL LEE SURRENDERED TO GENERAL GRANT. Ks5^% mortal wound to caste. Recognize a nigger! Faugh! A woman in an adjoining house beheld it, and turned from the scene in unspeakable disgust." Lee was followed at once by our troops, and after a series of great battles — each forming an important chapter in the history of the war — was surrounded. He finally surrendered at Appomatox Court House, on April 9, 1865. Grant and Lee met in the parlor of William McLean's house, where, in a memorable inter- view, the terms of surrender were agreed upon. The spontaneous and universal rejoicings of the people of the country at this complete overthrow of the rebellion we'e such ns bad never been witnessed before ABRAHAM LIJSCOLN. Ibl on any continent. Men laughed, cried, shouted, and shook hands with each other; there were parades by day, and at night America was illuminated by discharges of fireworks, and thousands of flaming torch-light processions. The war was over. Peace stretched her white wings over our beloved land. William T. Sherman's great march "from Atlanta to the sea" ended at Raleigh, April 13th, and here, thirteen days after his arrival, he received the sur- render of General Joseph E. Johnston. Both Lee and Johnston were treated with consideration and magnanimity. Jefferson Davis was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, May 10th, by General Wilson's cavalry. He was conveyed to Fortress Monroe. He was taken to Richmond, tried on a charge of treason, released on bail, and finally dismissed. Friday, April 14th, the anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter in 1861, was selected by the president as the day when General Robert Anderson should raise the American flag upon the same fort. Lincoln's humanity and magnan- imity were never more conspicuously shown than at this period. There was no vengeance in his heart to be exploded upon the men who had arrayed themselves in armies against the government. The hate of the conspirators, however, had not passed away; there were rumors of plots in various parts of the country and Canada, and many warnings were sent to the president, who had forebodings of disaster. ^ Mr. Lincoln sent a message by Mr. Colfax, April 14th, to the miners in the Rocky mountains, and in the regions bounded by the Pacific ocean, in which he assayed to stimulate their operations, and said: "Now that the rebellion is overthrown, and we know pretty nearly the amount of our national debt, the more gold and silver we mine, we make the payment of that debt so much easier." "Now," said he, speaking with more emphasis, "I am going to encour- age that in every possible way. We shall have hundreds of thousands of dis- banded soldiers, and many have feared that their return home in such great numbers might paralyze industry by furnishing, suddenly, a greater supply of labor than there will be demand for. I am going to try to attract them to the hidden wealth of our mountain ranges, where there is room enough for all. Immigration, which even the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundreds of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point them to the gold and silver that wait for them in the West. Tell the miners for me that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the nation ; and," said he, his eye kindling with enthusiasm, "we shall prove, in a very few years, that we are indeed the treasury of the world." Here spoke the political economist, the philanthropist, the statesman and the prophet. 188 CHAPTER XXX. THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. AT this time the friends of the Union cause were in transports of delight. Earnest, devout thanksgivings were on every tongue, flaring forth from every heart. Banners were in every breeze. Bonfires blazed on every street. Never were a people at such a height of exultation and rejoicing. On the afternoon of April 14th, the president, with Mrs. Lincoln, drove about the city of Washington, and were received everywhere with affectionate greetings. At a meeting of the Cabinet that day, he had said, "I have no desire to kill or hang the Confederates." To his wife he said, '' When these four years are over, Mary, we will go back to Illinois, and I will again be a country lawyer. God has been very good to us." On the night of that same day he attended Ford's theater, and occupied a box. He was accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln, Major H. R. Rathbone and Miss Clara W. Harris. The play for that evening was the "American Cousin." The party was greeted with great applause from the people, who came to witness a comedy, but who saw the most terrible of tragedies. The orchestra played " Hail to the Chief." The president was pleased, and acknowledged the courtesy. The curtain rose upon the second scene in the last act. Laura Keene, personating "Mrs. Montchessington," was saying to "Asa Trenchard:" "You don't understand good society. That alone can excuse the impertinence of which you are guilty." "I guess 1 know enough to turn you inside out," was the reply of Trenchard. Just here there was the report of a pistol, and the laughter of the audience turned to demonstrations of alarm. At fifteen minutes after ten, John Wilkes Booth, an actor by profession, passed along the passage behind the spectators in the dress-circle, showed a card to the president's messenger, and stood for two or three minutes, looking down upon .the stage and the orchestra below. He then entered the vestibule of the president's box, closed the door behind him, and fastened it by bracing a short plank against it from the wall, so that it could not be opened from the outside. He then drew a small silver-mounted Derringer pistol, which he carried in his right hand, holding along, double-edged dagger in his left. All in the box were intent upon the proceedings upon the stage; but 189 190 ABRAHAM LIJS'COLN. President Lincoln was leaning forward, holding aside the curtain of the box with his left hand, and looking, with his head slightly turned toward the audience. Booth stepped within the inner door into the box, directly behind the president, and holding the pistol just over the back of the chair in which he sat, shot him through the back of the head. Mr. Lincoln bent slightly forward, with his eyes closed, but in every other respect his attitude remained unchanged. -Major Rathbone, turning his eyes from the stage, saw a man standing between him and the president. He instantly sprang toward him and seized him; but Booth wrested himself from his grasp, and dropping the pistol, struck at him with the dagger, inflicting a severe wound upon his left arm near the shoulder. Booth then rushed to the front of the box and shouted, '■'Sic semper tyrannis!" put his hand upon the railing in front of the box, and leaped over it upon the stage below. As he went over, his spur caught in the flag which draped the front, and he fell; but recovering himself im- mediately, he rose, bran- dished the dagger, and facing the audience, shouted, "T/«e South is avenged!" The assassin escaped into- Virginia, and found a tempo- rary refuge among the rebel sympathizers of lower Mary- land. He was afterward caught and shot to death by one of the soldiers that were sent in pursuit of him. An attempt was made to assas- sinate Mr. Seward, secretary of state, at the same time, but without success. The president was borne to a small house across the street, Mrs. Lincoln, dazed and wild with grief, fol- lowing him. At a little past seven o'clock in the morning Abraham Lincoln died, with inexpressible peace upon his face. " Now he belongs to the ages," said Secretary Stanton. From the most extravagant demonstrations of rejoicing and triumph, the people of the entire North, with many in the border states, and many in the territory of the late Confederacy, were plunged into grief, and almost into despair. Never was there such a transition from the most transporting joy to the profoundest sorrow as was experienced by the American people the next day, on the The private box in Ford's tlieater, Washington, where President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, April 14, 1865. i ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 191 memorable fifteenth of April, 1865, when the news of the assassination of their beloved president was sent by telegraph and cable to all parts of the civilized world. The whole people were stricken with a sorrow that was too great for tears. People gathered in the streets of great cities and small villages, and were wrino-ino- their own hands, in their great brief, instead of joyously shaking hands with each other, as they had so recently done over great and final victories. But one such scene had ever been known in history. That was when, nearly three hundred years before, in the sixteenth century, the fiendish assassin Balthazar Gerard, the proto- type of John Wilkes Booth, shot to death William the Silent, t'he father and re- deemer of the noble, liberty- loving people of Holland. On that occasion, says John Lothrop Motley, "the little children of Holland shf^d tears" over the strik- ing: down of the liberator of the Dutch people. The Hol- landers were lovers of liberty ; they had passed through a <3rael and prolonged crisis, and suffered beyond the pow- er of pen to describe, but at last the power of the despot was broken, and Holland and the Dutch people enjoyed freedom of person and of religious belief. The grief of the American people over the smiting down of the great liberator of the nine- teenth century was like that of the Hollanders, only on an immensely larger scale. The feeling of the people of the United States at this time, broken-hearted as they were at the loss of their president, was, possibly, more intense than the feelings of the Hollanders. Abraham Lincoln, and the people who so loved him, had not striven and suffered in behalf of their own freedom, but of the freedom of an enslaved and despised race. H ever there was a cause that was approved in heaven; if ever a cause that received the active interposition of Divine Providence, it was the cause of national unity and human freedom, which was DOW triumphant. HOUSE IN WHICH PRESIDENT LINCOLN DIED. A I,!Nf"oL\. A. LINCOLN. THE CHAIR IN WHICH PRESIDENT LINCOLN SAT WHEN ASSASSINATED. 192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 193 Mr. Lincoln was, as we said in the beginning of this book, of all others a man of the people. His tender but strong heart was always full of sympathy for each and all. All classes, from the richest to the poorest of the poor, BUST OF THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT. received his courteous attention, and in occasions of sorrow, his most sympa- thetic feeling and efficient help. It is not strange that in very many instances his pity overcame his prudence, but in no instance was it to anybody's real injury. 194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Not only were the skies thick with the smoke of battle, but schemes to thwart his great purpose, and plots to destroy his best efforts, had constantly to be contended against. Men of patriotism and purity of purpose; men who estimated him and loved him, and whose services were of great value, mercilessly criticized LINCOLN MONUMENT. AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. "HiMe sleeps the aposlle of huniau liberty." his course; loyal but impatient patriots hounded him on to public acts against his better judgment, but his patience was God-like; he had a purpose clearly formed; he seemed to see long in advance the very strokes that would break the rebellion and restore peace to the country. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 195 There was one Counselor who never failed him, and to whom he often went for comfort and wisdom. He promised the Almighty that if he would give him a victory he would publicly issue his proclamation, and give freedom to the slaves. To this we may well believe the response was given, and immediately the pledge was fulfilled. No man was ever more viciously abused by apparent friends, or by secret or open foes. The "father of his country" was assailed with great bitterness repeatedly during his beneficent career. The best men the world has ever known have been those who have suffered the meanest and most venomous attacks. Mr. Lincoln replied to few or none of these. He was so faithful and constant in the discharge of his supremely important duties that he felt it would be a waste of time to attempt to undertake his own vindication. He well knew that history would do him justice. Now, at last, an appreciation of his greatness and his goodness and of the inestimable service he had rendered his country and its people was universally felt to the bottom of the hearts of the common people. The passage of his mortal remains from Washington through various cities to Springfield, Hlinois, has gone into the history of the country. Again the fountains of the great depths of sorrow were opened. Everywhere along the route the funeral train was met by crowds of people with demonstrations of deepest mourning. Now monuments stand in various cities of the Union to the memory of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator, and many streets and avenues are named in his honor. One noble monument stands at Chicago, where Mr. Lincoln was first nominated for the presidency, and another stands at his old home in Springfield, Hlinois. Countless were the eulogies and tributes to the grandeur of character and momentous achievements of the martyred president. Some of the most striking came from over the sea — from England, France, Germany and other parts of Europe. In the following department of this biography will be found extracts from specimen sermons and addresses that rank among the highest flights of American oratory. We close this chapter with some passages from an oration by the polished, deep-thinking Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The president stood before us a man of the people. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed the sea, had never been spoiled by English insular- ity or French dissipation; a quiet, native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboatman, a captain in the Black Hawk war, a country lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Hlinois — on such modest foundations the broad structure of his fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place. "A plain man of the people, extraordinary fortune attended him. He offered no shining qualities at the first encounter; he did not offend by superiority. He had a face and manner which disarmed suspicion, which inspired confidence, which confirmed good-will. He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of daty, which it was very easy for him to obey. Then he had what 196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. farmers call a long head; was excellent in working out the sum for himself; in arguing his case, and convincing you fairly and firmly. Then it turned out that he was a great worker; had prodigious faculty of performance; worked easily. A good worker is so rare; everybody has some disabling quality. In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial; one by bad health, one by conceit or by love of pleasure, or by lethargy, or by a hasty temper — each has some disqualifying fault that throws him out of the career. But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor, and liked nothing so well. " Then he had a vast good nature, which made him tolerant and accessible to all; fair-minded, leaning to the claim of the petitioner; affable, and not sensible of the affliction which the innumerable visits, paid to him when president, would have brought to any one else. And how this good nature became a noble humanity, in many a tragic case which the events of the war brought to him, every one will remember; and with what increasing tenderness he dealt, when a whole race was thrown on his compassion. The poor negro said of him, on an impressive occasion, 'Massa Linkum am everywhere.' ''Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular talk, in which he delighted, and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank of society; to take off the edge of the severest decisions; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion, and to catch, with true instinct, the temper of every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and insanity. He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. "It cannot be said there is any exaggeration of his worth. If ever a man was fairly tested, he was. There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. The times have allowed no state secrets; the nation has been in such a ferment, such multitudes had to be trusted, that no secret could be kept. Every door was ajar, and we knew all that befell. Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind of the war. Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair- weather sailor; the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years — four years of battle days — his endurance, his fertility of resource, his mag- nanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood an heroic figure in the center of an heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them; slow with their slow- ness, quickening his march to theirs; the true representative of this continent; an entirely public man; father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue." CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION. IT is thirty years since the close of the war. We are at last a united people. The term " rebel" has passed away, and is only used in honest records of the past, and without malice. Our American nation has for its individual con- stituents a united, patriotic and loyal people. No men when they meet greet each other's faces or shake each other's hands with more heartiness and deeper feelings of good will than the gray-headed soldiers of the Union and of the Confederate armies. Men of both armies meet under the " stars and stripes " at the graves of the dead on Memorial day. There are no more graceful or hearty tributes to the high character and the great work of Abraham Lincoln than appear in the utterances on the platform of a former Confederate general, John B. Gordon, of Georgia, and the former editor of the Chattanooga Rebel, Henry Watterson. There is now no North, no South. Near the battle-fields of the late civil war iron furnaces and cotton factories have been erected by men from New England, Ohio and other northern states, and the Jium of new indus- tries fills the ambient air of a new and redeemed South. Mason and Dixon's line has been efficiently and forever abolished. There are Democratic governors in northern states; there are Republican governors in southern states; and whenever people of the different sections of the country meet, there are demonstrations of unity, patriotism, brotherly affection and peace. Abraham Lincoln was the greatest man of his time. He had his faults and defects, but who cares to dwell on them? What were the elements of his great- ness? He could see farther into the pregnant future than any man of his day. He had the largest heart and the broadest sympathies of any man known at the time when he lived. His patience and forbearance were Christ-like. He had a wonderfully keen intellect, instant in its workings, and seemingly incapable of mistakes. He was a great statesman. In the emancipation of the slaves was involved the problem of ages. He was urged by strong and great men to issue the Emancipation Proclamation long before he did. He was urged by equally strong and great men to delay its issue. He therefore stood alone, and was forced to act for himself, and results show that he acted not a day too soon nor a day too late. He had a keen and comprehensive military mind. Hp had been a student of the military records of the past. He gave his 197 198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. greatest generals pre-eminently practical and effective suggestions. He was the greatest orator of his age, if great oratory means the utterance of great thoughts and announcement of great principles, in a manner that most moves and changes men, and that secures for them a permanent place in the annals of a nation, and of the world. The greatness of the theme paralyzes the pen. All patriots and all friends of their race, in all countries and climes, uncover their heads as they recall the memory of ABRAHAM LINCOLN! THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. i THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. THE VALUE OF EDUCATION. (Address at New Salem, Illinois, March 9, 1835, when a candidate for the Legislature.) Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance; even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the Scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves. For my part, I desire to see the time when education, by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and integrity, shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period. Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed. I am young, a,nd unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county; and, if elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointment to be very much chagrined. 201 202 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. SPEECH ON THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. (Delivered at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857.J The chief-justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man's bondage to the new countries was prohibited; but now Congress decides that it will not con- tinue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro uni- versal and eternal, it is assailed and sneered at, and constructed and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him; Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry. THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE. ( Address before the Washingtonian Temperance Society, Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842.) The cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold abstract theory to a living, breathing, active and powerful chieftain going forth "conquering and to conquer." The citadels of his great adversary are daily being stormed and dis- mantled; his temples and altars, where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been performed, and where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, are daily desecrated and deserted. The trump of the conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land, and calling millions to his standard at a blast. When one who has long been known as a victim of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears before his neighbors "clothed in his right mind," a redeemed specimen of l-ong-lost humanity, and stands up with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever; of his once naked and starving children, now clad ind fed comfortably; of a wife, long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness and a renewed affection; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done — how simple his language! There is a logic and eloquence in it that few with human feelings can resist. It is an old and true maxim that " a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart; which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judg- THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 203 ment of the justice of your cause, if, indeed, that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart, and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than hurcu- lean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to pen- etrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Of our political revolution of '76 we are all justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. But with all these glorious results, past, present and to come, it had its evils, too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire; and long, long after, the orphans' cry and the widows' wail continued to break the sad silence that ensued. These are the price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings it brought. Turn now to the temperance resolution. In it we shall find a stronger bond- age broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed — in it more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping. By it, none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest; even the dram-maker and dram-seller will have glided into other occu- pations so gradually as never to have felt the change, and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness. And what a noble ally this, to the cause of political freedom; with such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty! Happy day when, all appetite controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subjugated, mind — all-conquering mind — shall live and move, the monarch of the world! Glorious consummation! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all hail! And when the victory shall be complete — when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on earth — how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and cradle of both those resolutions that shall have ended in that victory! How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted, and nurtured to maturity, both the political and moral freedom of their species! This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washing- ton — we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name on earth — long since the mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the. name, and, in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it shininsr on. 204 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. HOPELESS PEACEFUL EMANCIPATION OF THE SLAVE. (Letter to Hon. George Robertson, Lexington, Kentucky, August 15, 1855.) So far as peaceful voluntary emancipation is concerned, the condition of the negro slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of a free mind, is now as fixed and hopeless of change for the better as that of the lost souls of the finally impenitent. The autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his sub- jects free republicans, sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves. Our political problem now is, Can we as a nation continue together perma- nently, forever, half slave and half free? The problem is too mighty for me. May God in his mercy superintend the solution! "I SWEAR ETERNAL FIDELITY TO THE JUST CAUSE." • (Speech at Springfield, Illinois, during the Harrison presidential campaign, 1840.) Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing. I cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will. The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we believe to be just. It shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before heaven, and in the face of the world, / swear eternal fidelity to the just cause^ as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love; and who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so; we have the proud consolation of say- ing to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and, adorned of our hearts in disaster, in chains, in death, we never faltered in defending. ^S"-^' r. THE CABINET-ROOM AT THE WHITE HOUSE. THE ARLINGTON HOUSE. 205 206 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. REDEMPTION OF THE AFRICAN RACE. (Eulogy on the life and character of Henry Clay, Springfield, Illinois, July 16, 1852.) This suggestion of the possible ultimate redemption of the African race and African continent was made twenty-five years ago. Every succeeding year has added strength to the hope of its realization. May it indeed be realized! Pharaoh's country was cursed with plagues, and his hosts drowned in the Red sea for striving to retain a captive people who had already served them more than four hundred years. May like disaster never befall us! If, as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall, by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and at the same time restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland, with bright prospects for the future, and this, too, so gradually that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will, indeed, be a glorious consummation. And if to such a consummation the efforts of Mr. Clay shall have contributed, it will be what he most ardently wished; and none of his labors will have been more valuable to his country and his kind. THE INJUSTICE OF SLAVERY. (Speech at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854.) This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself ; I hate it because it deprives our republic of an example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free iustitutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sin- cerity; and especially because it forces so many really good men among our- selves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. The doctrine of self-government is right — absolutely and eternally right — but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or, perhaps, I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is not, or is, 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-govern- ment — that is despotism. What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 207 The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs hitn by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for him- self. Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government; that, and that only, is self-government. Slavery is founded in the selfishuess of man's nature — opposition to it, in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise — repeal all compromise — and repeal the Declaration of Independence — repeal all past history — still you cannot repeal human nature. I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principles of the Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people— a sad evidence that, feel- ing prosperity, we forget right — that liberty as a principle we have ceased to revere. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near 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 cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon. Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit,, if not in the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right" back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of "necessity." Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace. Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South — let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it forever worthy of saving. We shall have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free, happy people, the world over, shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest generations. "THOSE WHO DENY FREEDOM TO OTHERS." (Letter to the Republicans of Boston, April, 1859.) This is a world of compensation, and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for them- selves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. 208 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL." (Speech at the Republican banquet, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1856, after the presidential campaign.) Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much. Public opinion, on any subject, always has a ''central idea," from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That '' central idea" in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, " the equality of man." And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as a matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men. Let everyone who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past con- test he has done only what he thought best — let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus, let bygones be bygones; let party differences as nothing be, and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old "central ideas" of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare that " all states as states are equal," nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that " all men are created equal." "THE ONE RETROGRADE INSTITUTION IN AMERICA." « ( Reply to Stephen A. Douglas, on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Springfield, Illinois, October 4, 1854.) Be not deceived. The spirit of the Revolution and the spirit of Nebraska are antipodes; and the former is being rapidly displaced by the latter. Shall we make no effort to arrest this? Already the liberal party throughout the world expresses the apprehension " that the one retrograde institution in America is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw." This is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it, to disparage it? Is there no •danger to liberty itself in discarding the earliest practice and first precept of our ancient faith? In our greedy haste to make profit of the negro, let us beware lest we cancel and rend in pieces even the white man's character of freedom. My distinguished friend Douglas says it is an insult to the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska to suppose they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this kind because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and answered. I admit the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to govern him- self, but I deny his right io govern any other person without that person's consent. . THOUGHXa AND SAYINGS OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 209 "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND." (The following speech, afterward severely criticized by many of the author's own friends, was delivered hy Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois, June 17, 1858, at the close of the Republican state convention which nominated him for the United States Senate.) If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In 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 dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states — old as well as new, North as well as South. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to and conducted by its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work — who do care for the result. The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come. "THIS NATION CANNOT LIVE ON INJUSTICE." (Remarks defending his speech, June 17, 1858, "A House Divided Against Itself," etc.) Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered; and if it must be that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth — die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice. ''A house divided against itself cannot stand," I say again and again. "WISEST THING I EVER DID." (Reply to friends at Bloomington, Illinois, in regard to the " House Divided " speech.) You may think that speech was a mistake; but I have never believed it was, and you will see the day when you will consider it the wisest thing I ever did. THE WHITE HOUSE. APKIL 14. 1865. /^^^^^^^ LINCOLN'S OLD HOME, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, MAY 16, 1865. 210 THOUGHTS- AND SAYINGS OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 211 THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS JOINT DEBATE. (First joiut debate, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858.) I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the state where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I agree with Judge Douglas: he [the negro] is not my equal in many respects — certainly not in color; perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread — without the leave of anybody else — which his own hand earns, he is nuj equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong, wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska — and wrong in its prospective prin- ciple; allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined to take it. I have no prejudice against the southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. . When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. 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. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed. (Second joint debate, Freeport, Illinois, August 27, 1858.) Answers to the seven questions propounded by Mr. Douglas: I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave states into the Union. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new state into the Union, with such a constitution as the people of that state may see fit to make. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the different states. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States territories. 212 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I am nob generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves. (Third joint debate, Jonesboro, Illinois, September 15, 1858,) I say, in the way our fathers originally left the slavery question, the institu- tion was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it ivas in the course of ultimate extinction. I say, when this govern- ment was first established, it was the policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new territories of the United States, where it had not existed. All I have asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the fathers of our government originally placed it. I have no doubt that it would become extinct for all time to come, if we but readopt the policy of the fathers by restricting it to the limits it has already covered — restricting it from the new territories. (Fourth joint debate, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858.) I have always wanted to deal with everyone I meet candidly and honestly. If I have made any assertion not warranted by facts, and it is pointed out to me,. I will withdraw it cheerfully. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was introduced four years and a half ago, and if the agitation is ever to come to an end, we may say we are four years and a half nearer the end. So, too, we can say we are four years and a half nearer the end of the world; and we can just as clearly see the end of the world as we can see the end of this agitation. If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in the earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I say, then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst us but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it, no way but to keep it out of our new territories — to restrict it forever to the old states where it now exists. Then the public mind ivill rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. (Fifth joint debate, Galesburg, Illinois, October 7, 1858.) And now it only remains for me to say that I think it is a very grave question for the people of this Union to consider whether, in view of the fact that this slavery question has been the only one that has ever endangered our republican institutions — the only one that has ever threatened or menaced a dissolution of the Union, that has ever disturbed us in such a way as to make us fear for the perpetuity of our liberty — in view of these facts, I think it is an exceedingly interesting and important question for this people to consider — whether we shall engage in the policy of acquiring additional territory, discarding altogether from our consideration while obtaining new territory the question how it may affect us in regard to this, the only endangering element to our liberties and national greatness. THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 213 (Sixth joint debate, Quincy, Illinois, October 13, 1858.) We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is the opinion of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That controversy neces- sarily springs from differences of opinion, and if we can learn exactly — can reduce to the lowest elements — what that difference of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the different systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than the difference between the men who think slavery a wrong and those who do not think it wrong. We think it is a wrong, not confining itself merely to the persons or to the states where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that, in the run of time, there may be some promise of an end to it, (Seventh and last joint debate, Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858.) It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that if a necessity is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which we found our- selves when we established this government. We had slaves among us; we could not get our Constitution unless we per- mitted them to remain in slavery; we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more; and having by necessity submitted to that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let the charter remain as a standard. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal; equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all men were then actually enjoying that quality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They m^^ant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spread- ing and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere. 214 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. There, again, are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion — sentiments which have been put in print and read wherever anybody cared to know what so humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard to it. MESSAGE TO HIS DYING FATHER. (Letter to his brother-iu-law, John Johnston, January 12, ISol.) I sincerely hope father may yet recover his health; but, at all events, tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good and merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads; and he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. Say to him, if we could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant; but that, if it be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with the loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them. DISADVANTAGES THE REPUBLICANS LABOR UNDER. (Speech at Springfield, Illinois, July 17, 1858.) Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as a certainty, at no distant day, to be the president of the United States. They have seen, in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-ofiices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans la-bor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the standard-bearer in behalf of the Repub- licans. I was made so merely because there had to be some one so placed, I being nowise preferable to any other one of the twenty-five — perhaps a hundred — we have in the Republican ranks. Then, I say, I wish it to be distinctly understood and borne in mind that we have to fight this battle without many — perhaps without any — of the external aids which are brought to bear against us. So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can be fairly done to bring about the right result. LINCOLN'S OFFICE CHAIR. TABLE AND SADDLE-BAGS. WHILE A LAWYER. VIEW OF THE REAR PARLOR Ut THE OLD LINCOLN HOMESTEAD. (From a recent photograph.) 215 216 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. NATURAL RIGHTS OF THE NEGRO. ( Speech delivered at Columbus, Ohio, September, 1859. ) I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two which in my judgment will probably forbid their ever living together upon the footing of per- fect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a differ- ence, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the right to eat the bread — without leave of anybody else — which his own hands earn, he is my equals and the equal of Judge Douglas^ and the equal of every living man. KINDLY FEELING FOR HIS OPPONENTS. (Speech at Ciuciunati, Ohio, September, 1859, addressed particularly to Kentuckians.) I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson and Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way to interfere with your institution; to abide by all and every com- promise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to the original prop- osition, to treat you so far as degenerated men (if we have degenerated) may, according to the examples of those noble fathers — Washington, Jefferson and Madison. We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and treat you accordingly. We mean to marry your girls when we have a chance — the white ones, I mean — and I have the honor to inform you that I once did have a chance in that way. The good old maxims of the Bible are applicable to human affairs, and in this, as in other things, we may say here that he who is not for us is against us; he who gathereth not with us scattereth. I should be glad to have some of the many good and able and noble men of the South to place themselves where we can confer upon them the high honor of an election upon one or the other end of our ticket. It would do my soul good to do that thing. It would enable us to teach them that inasmuch as we elect one of their number to carry out our principles, we are free from the charge that we mean more than we say. THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 217 EXTRACTS FROM FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861.. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the southern states that by the occasion of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you, I do but quote from one of those speeches, when I declared that " I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists." I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a president under our national Constitution. During that period, fifteen different and very distin- guished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difiiculties. I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and the Constitution, the union of these states is perpetual. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present difiEerences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the Norths or on your side of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal — the American people. VIEWS REGARDING A PROTECTIVE TARIFF. (Letter to Dr. Edward Wallace, October 11, 1859.) 1 believe if we could have a moderate, carefully adjusted protective tariff, so- far acquiesced in as not to be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles, changes and uncertainties, it would be better for us. THE HUMBLEST OF ALL THE PRESIDENTS. (Speech to the Legislature, Albany, New York, February 18, 1861.) It is true that while I hold myself, without mock modesty, the humblest of all the individuals who have ever been elected president of the United States, 1 yet have a more difiicult task to perform than any one of them has ever encountered. .218 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY. (Reply to the president of the convention, at the homestead, Springfield, Illinois, May 19, 1860.) I tender to you, and through you to the Republican national convention, and all the people represented in it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me, which you now formally announce. Deeply, and even painfully, sensible of the great responsibility which is inseparable from this high honor — a responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon some one of the far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose distinguished names were before the convention, I shall, by your leave, consider more fully the resolutions of the convention, denominated the platform, and, without any unnecessary or unreasonable delay, respond to you, Mr. Chairman, in writing, not doubting that the platform will be found satisfactory, and the nomination gratefully accepted. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. The following autobiography was written by Mr. Lincoln's own hand, at the request of J. W. Fell, of Springfield, Illinois, December 20, 1859. In the note which accompanied it the writer says: "Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. "I was born February 12, 1809» in Hardin county, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families, second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams county, and others in Mason county, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham county, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks count}^ Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families — such as Enoch, Levi, Mor- decai, Solomon, Abraham and the like. " My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and grew up literally without any education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the state came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond * readin', writin', and cipherin' ' to the rule of three. I£ a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of * THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 21& course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. '^I was raised to farm work, at which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one 1 came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon county. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard county, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a captain of volunteers — a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went into the campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I have ever been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. During the legis- lative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practise it. In 1846, I was elected to the lower house of Congress. Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practised law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig elec- toral ticket, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known. "If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said T am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes — no other marks or brands recollected." WOULD NOT BUY THE NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY. To a party who wished to be empowered to negotiate reward for promises of influence in the Chicago convention, 18G0, Mr. Lincoln replied: "No, gentlemen; I have not asked the nomination, and I will not now buy it with pledges. If I am nominated and elected, I shall not go into the presidency as the tool of this man or that man, or as the property of any factor or clique." THE PLEDGE WITH COLD WATER. (Remarks to the committee that notified him, at his home, May, 1860, of his nomination.) Gentlemen, we must pledge our mutual health in this most healthy beverage which God has given man. It is the only beverage I have ever used or allowed in my family, and I cannot conscientiously depart from it on the present occasion^ It is pure Adam's ale from the well. I The above is a picture of the tools and the men who broke into the Lincoln monument, on the night of November 7, 1876. They succeeded in getting the lead casket containing Lincoln's body out of the sarcophagus, and while waiting for a wagon to cotne and haul the body away, they were frighten'ed away by the officers, who had notice that an attempt would be made to steal the body that night. LINCOLN'S HOKSE. This horse was ridden and driven by Mr. Lincoln for seven years. Just before he left for Washington, 1861, he sold him for $75. The horse was traded around, and was finally purchased by a drayman. When the news of the assassination of the president cume, the man on the right went immediately and purchased the horse from the drayman for $75. He put him on exhibition, and the first day took in $80, and before the horse died, the ninn is said to have made •over $25,000 showing him about the country. 220 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 221 DEFENDS THE SECRETARY OF WAR, (Remarks at a war meeting, Washington, August 6, 1862.) General McClellan has sometimes asked for things that the secretary of war did not give him. General McClellan is not to blame for asking what he wanted and needed, and the secretary of war is not to Ulame for not giving when he had none to give. And I say here, as far as I know, the secretary of war has with- held no one thing at any time in my power to give him. I have no accusation against him. I believe he is a brave and able man, and I stand here, as justice requires me to do, to take upon myself what has been charged on the secretary of war, as withholding from him. "ALL HONOR TO JEFFERSON." (Letter, April 6, 186L) All honor to Jefferson; to a man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression! HIS "EARLY HLSTORY." (Reply to a gentleman who asked for a sketch of his life.) My early history is perfectly characterized by a single line of Gray's " Elegy," The short and simple annals of the poor. "WE SHALL TRY TO DO OUR DUTY." (Speech at Leavenworth, Kansas, spring of 1860.) If we shall constitutionally elect a president, it will be our duty to see that you also submit. Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a state. We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So, if we constitutionally elect a president, and, therefore, you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. We hope and believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render such extreme measure necessary. . 222 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BROTHERS." (Rejoicing over the November election, Spriiigtield, Illinois, November 20, 1860, at a political meeting.) I rejoice with you in the success which has so far attended the Republican cause, yet in all our rejoicing let us neither express nor cherish any hard feelings toward any citizen who by his vote differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling. LABOR THE SUPERIOR OF CAPITAL. " (Message to Congress, Decemljer 3, 1861.) Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any rights, nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, pro- ducing mutual benefits. "LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT." (Speech at Cooper Institute, February 27, I860.) I defy any one to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare that, in his under- standing, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal government to control as to slavery in the Federal territories. To those who now so declare, I give, not only "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," but witH them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience, to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that if we could sup- plant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we. Let all who believe that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live " understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now, speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 22ii It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill-temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them, if in our deliberate view of our duty we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation. But can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national territories, and to overrun us here in these free states? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances where- with we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of *' don't care" on a question about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invo- cations to Washington imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and to undo what Washington did. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the ■end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO GENERAL GRANT. (Letter to General Grant, July 13, 1863.) I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I write to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicks- burg, I thought you should do what you finally did — march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks; and when you turned northward, east of Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and 1 was wrong. k 224 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. '•AS LIKELY TO CAPTURE THE 'MAN IN THE MOON.'" (Dispatch to General Thomas, at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1863.) Forces now beyond Carlisle to be joined by regiments still at Harrisburg, and the united force again to join Pierce somewhere, and the whole to move down the Cumberland valley, will, in my unprofessional opinion, be quite as likely to capture the "man in the moon" as any part of Lee's army. "BEWARE OF RASHNESS." (To General Hooker, in giving him command of the Army of the Potomac.) And now, beware of rashness, beware of rashness, but, with energy and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories. READING THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION TO HIS CABINET. (Remarks at the meeting, September 22, 1862.) Gentlemen, I have, as you are aware, thought a great deal about the relation of this war to slavery, and you all remember that several weeks ago I read to you an order that I had prepared upon the subject, which, on account of objec- tions made by some of you, was not issued. Ever since then my mind has been much occupied with this subject, and I have thought all along that the time for acting on it might probably come. I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for myself. This I say without intending anything but respect for any one of you. But I already know the views of each on this question. They have been heretofore expressed, and I have considered them as thoroughly and carefully as I can. What I have written is that which my reflections have determined me to say. If there is any- thing in the expressions I use, or in any minor matter, which any one of you think had best be changed, I shall be glad to receive your suggestions. One other observation I will make. I know very well that many others might, in this matter as in others, do better than I can; and if I was satisfied that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any one of them than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which he .could be put in my place, he should have it. I would gladly yield to him. But though I believe I have not so much of the confidence of the people as I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any other person has more; and, however this may be, there is no way in which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take. INTERIOR OF MEMORIAL HALL. (Lincoln Monument, Springfield, III.) Some of the most interesting objects are arranged in the foreground. On the left is seen a bnst of the martyred president, and a cast of the hand that wrote the Emancipation Proclama- tion. On the right is a stone taken from a fragment of a wall built about twenty-four hundred years ago, during the reign of Servius Tullius, its sixth king, around tlie city of Rome, Italy. The inscription on it reads: "To Abraham Lincoln, president for the second time of the American republic, citizens of Rome present this stone, from the wall of Servius Tullius, by which the memory of each of those brave asserters of liberty may be associated. Anno, 1865." The old chair in front of the column contains a seat of liickory bark, ]>ut in l)y Mr. Lincoln in 1834. The surveying instruments were owned and used by him from 1832 until 1837. The powder-horn was worn liy his grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, as a Revolutionary soldier from Virginia. He was killed by an Indian while wearing it, in Kentucky, in 1782. The framed pieces hanging about the marble walls are chiefly made up from aliout one thousand such sent to Mrs. Lincoln after the death of her husband, and contain expressions of sympathy and condolence. 225 I 226 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH DAY IN THE ARMY AND NAVY. (General Orders, November 15, 1862.) The importance for man and beast o£ the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best senti- ments of a Christian people, and a due regard for the divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. "At this time of public distress" — adopting the words of Wash- ington in 1776 — "men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the father of his country after the Declara- tion of Independence indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and sho.uld ever be defended: " The general hopes and trusts that every officer and man iviU endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier def eliding the dearest rights and liberties of his country." "PRESERVE THE UNION AND LIBERTY." (In response to an address of welcome by Governor O. P. Morton, Indianapolis, February 11, 1861.) In all trying positions in which I shall be placed, and, doubtless, I shall be placed in many such, my reliance will be placed upon you and the people of the United States; and I wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is your business, and not mine, that if the union of these states and the liberties of this people shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time. It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty for yourselves, and not for me. ANNOUNCES HIMSELF AS A CANDIDATE. (Letter to the Sangamon Journal, Springfield, Illinois, June 13, 1836.) I go for all sharing the privileges of the government 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). While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests, whether elected or not. THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 227 STORY-TELLING WAS A RELIEF. (To a congressman who objected to the president telling a story when he had important business to present.) You cannot be more anxious than I am constantly; and I say to you now, that if it were not for this occasional vent, I should die. WOULD LEAVE IT TO THE WORLD UNERASED. When Dr. Long said to his friend, " Well, Lincoln, that foolish speech will kill you — will defeat you for all offices for all time to come,'' referring to the "House Divided" speech, Mr. Lincoln replied: " If I had to draw a pen across and erase my whole life from existence, and I had one poor gift or choice left, as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech, and leave it to the world unerased." LETTER, OCTOBER 8, 1862. I sincerely wish war was an easier and pleasanter business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays. "MY PARAMOUNT OBJECT IS TO SAVE THE UNION." (Reply to an editorial of complaint in the New York Tribune, by Horace Greeley, August 19, 1862.) My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause. HIS VOW BEFORE GOD, (Remarks to Secretary Salmon P. Chase.) I made a solemn vow before God that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania I would crown t*he result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves. 228 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. GOD BLESS THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. (Speech at a ladies' fair for the benefit of the soldiers, Washington, March 16, 1864.) I appear to say but a word. This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldiers. For it has been said, "All that a man hath will he give for his life," and, while all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then, is due the soldiers. In this extraordinary war extraordinary developments have manifested them- selves such as have not been seen in former wars; and among these manifes- tations nothing has been more remarkable than these fairs for the relief of suffering soldiers and their families, and the chief agents in these fairs are the women of America! I am not accustomed to the use of language of eulogy; I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during the war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America! " NOT ONE WORD OF IT WILL I EVER RECALL." (Remarks to some friends concerning the Emancipation Proclamation, New-Year's evening, 1863.) The signature looks a little tremulous, for my hand was tired, but my res- olution was firm. I told them in September, if they did not return to their allegiance, and cease murdering our soldiers, I would strike at this pillar of their strength. .And now the promise shall be kept, and not one word of it will I ever recall. LAST VISIT TO HIS LAW-OFFICE. (Conversation with his law partner, William H. Herndon, before leaving for Washington, 1861.) I love the people here, Billy, and owe them all that I am. If God spares my life to the end, I shall come back among you and spend the remnant of my days. WOULD WILLINGLY EXCHANGE PLACES WITH THE SOLDIER. (To Hon. Schuyler Colfax, upon receiving bad news from the army.) How willingly would I exchange places to-day with the soldier who sleeps on the ground in the Army of the Potomac! THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 229 IN DISPENSING PATRONAGE THE DISABLED SOLDIER TO HAVE THE PREFERENCE. (Letter to the postmaster-general, July 27, 1863.) Yesterday little indorsements of mine went to you in two cases of post- masterships, sought for widows whose husbands have fallen in the battles of this war. These cases, occurring on the same day, brought me to reflect more attentively than what I had before done as to what is fairly due from us here in the dispen- sing of patronage toward the men who, by fighting our battles, bear the chief burden of saving our country. My conclusion is that, other claims and qualifications being equal, they have the right, and this is especially applicable to the disabled soldier and the deceased soldier's family. PARDON FOR A DESERTER. (Remarks to Hon. Schuyler Colfax, who asked for a respite.) Some of our generals complain that I impair discipline and subordination in the army by my pardons and respites, but it makes me rested, after a day's hard work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life; and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name makes him and his family. "ALREADY TOO MANY WEEPING WIDOWS." < feet from east to west, 119)^ feet from north to south, and 100 feet high. The total cost is about $230,000, to May 1, 1888. All the statuary is orange-colored bronze. The whole monument was designed by Larkin G. Mead; the statuary was modeled in plaster by him in Florence, Italy, and cast by the Ames Manufacturing Company, of Chicopee, Massachu- setts. The statue of Lincoln and Coat of Arms were first placed on the monument; the statue was unveiled and the monument dedicated October 15, 1874. The Infantry and Naval Groups were put on in September, 1877, the Artillery Group, April 13, 1882, and the Cavalry Group, March 13, 1883. The principal front of the monument is on the south side, the statue of Lincoln being on that side of the obelisk, over Memorial Hall. Presuming that the reader will, in imagination, ascend with me one Of the four flights of steps leading to the terrace, and, beginning at the southeast corner, we will study for a short time the Cavalry Group, move along to the northeast corner and study the Naval Group, at the northwest corner the Artillery Group, and at the southwest corner the Infantry Group. On the east side are three tablets, upon which are the letters U. S. A. To the right of that, and beginning with Virginia, we find the abbreviations of the original thirteen states in the order they were settled as colonies, ending with Georgia. Next comes Vermont, the first state admitted after the Union was perfected, the states fol- lowing in the order they were admitted, ending with Nebraska on the east, thus forming the ■cordon of thirty-seven states, composing the United States of America when the monument was erected. There have been eight new states admitted since the monument was built, thus beginning a new century of states, with Colorado under Virginia, continuing around with North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. We will now take a position on the terrace immediately over the door leading to Memorial Hall. We are in the presence of the grandest and most imposing object-lessons of patriotism «ver expressed by inert matter. The statue of President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, takes its position over all. The Infantry is assigned to the post of honor, the advance on the right. The Cavalry, second in honor and efficiency, takes the advance on the left. The Artillery is placed in the rear on the right. The Navy, in the rear on the left, acts independently or co-operates with all, as the good of the service and the wisdom of the commander-in-chief dictates. Let us give the combination a brief study, beginning with the Coat of Arms, which we see is modified by the olive branch of peace. President Lincoln having tendered the same to the southern people, with whom he plead in the most pathetic terms, in his first inaugural address, not to begin the war. The response, all the world knows, was the bombardment of Fort Sumter, thus trampling the olive branch under foot, leaving no alterna- tive to the nation but cruel, bloody war, which raged until the government, represented by the American eagle in the Coat of Arms, severed the chains of slavery. In a larger sense, the artist says that the president, standing above the Coat of Arms, treats it as a pedestal, emble- matic of the Constitution of the United States, and with the Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery and Navy marshaled around him, wields all for holding the states together in a perpetual bond of union, without which he could never hope to effect the great enemy of human freedom. The grand climax is indicated by President Lincoln, with his left hand holding out as a golden scepter the Emancipation Proclamation, while in his right he holds the pen with which he has just written it. The right hand is resting on another badge of aiithority, the American flag, thrown over the fasces. At the foot of the fasces lies a wreath of laurel, with which to crown the president as the victor over slavery and rebellion. 231 232 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. REMARKS TO NEGROES IN THE STREETS OF RICHMOND. The president walked through the streets of Richmond — without a guard except a few seamen — in company with his son "Tad," and Admiral Porter, on April 4, 1865, the day following the evacuation of the city. Colored people gathered about him on every side, eager to see and thank their liberator. Mr. Lincoln addressed the following remarks to one of these gatherings: " My poor friends, you are free — free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more. Liberty is your birth- right. God gave it to you as he gave it to others, and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years. "But you must try to deserve this priceless boon. Let the world see that you merit it, and are able to maintain it by your good works. Don't let your joy carry you into excesses; learn the laws, and obey them. Obey God's command- ments, and thank him for giving you liberty, for to him you owe all things. There, now, let me pass on; I have but little time to spare. I want to see the Capitol, and must return at once to Washington to secure to you that liberty which you seem to prize so highly." "WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL." (Second inaugural address, March 4, 1865.) Fellow-countrymen, at this second appearing to take the oath of the pres- idential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgents' agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war— seeking to dissolve the Union and divide its effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. The prayer of both could not be answered — those of neither have not been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto the world THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 233 because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bonds- man'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 with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ''The judg- ments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none^ with charity for all., with firmness in the right, as God gives us ,to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. NEGROES KNEEL AT THE PRESIDENT'S FEET. While the president was walking through the streets of Richmond, Virginia, April 4, 1865, some negroes knelt at his feet and thanked him for their freedom. The president replied, in his characteristic way, as follows: "Don't kneel to me — that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy; I am but God's humble instrument; but you may rest assured that as long as I live no one shall put a shackle on your limbs, and you shall have all the rights which God has given to every other free citizen of this republic." SECOND NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY. (Response to an address by George W. Dennison, president of the national Republican con- vention at Baltimoi-e, notifying Mr. Lincoln of. his nomination. The committee met at the White House on June 9, 1864.) I will neither conceal my gratification nor restrain the expression of my gratitude, that the Union people throughout this country, in the continued effort to save and advance the nation, have deemed me not unworthy to remain in my present position. a a, o u B 60 C o as o H Pi H •ji O !K 0) *i -u *> is *J -w a: H- 1 rj S -i? ., r: y _ ^ r ® O a. z E .S w ^ ^ 05 ^ O 0! 53 C« rt ^ '2 ■" 5 a s- rt 5 >--5-H c^c.g! d "SC'SSc^js^i.sS ^ Q.SZ C ^ r- S " 'C'"' 03-^ s ceC:— a " © c ai c -^^ S rt =5 .S E£ « ,Si ^ ^ '" c3 ' -^ >.x. ® s « '=-1 +3 JJ .J- ~ o a: -*- oj 5 s g a- a o aj 03 ~ ^ t +^ ^-5 5fS) tK -C CO a m P >■. V a; !« M , te tu fe -o "^ ^ ?: O CD S =* "J • a>. 01 tr. 33 J3 ~ .«-k^t- "_ ©-S— c5 •agca3SC = =«2:g O^O .J3£^a3 2 ; 03 ®-3 t^'o'^ ™5 !c ;z; .J o-T- 03 '^ o*^ es .«c84i: ^ _. S cj g ^_. ^^ tB fi "* =* 1^5=?!-a31BlH , 03 -w^ 03 O) U 03 iH Q,-« O =3 ;n eS Hi^g=c^:S^^^ o ® 5 .g THOUGH;rS AND SAYINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 235 ANSWER TO AN APPLICATION FOR PARDON. The following reply was made by Mr. Lincoln to an application for the pardon of a soldier who had shown himself very brave in war, and had been severely wounded, but afterward deserted: "Did you say he was once badly wounded? Then, as the Scriptures say that in the shedding of blood is the remission of sins, I guess we'll have to let him off this time." HAPPIEST DAY OF THE FOUR YEARS. The following remarks were made by the president to Admiral David D. Porter, while on board the flagship Malvern, on the James river, in front of Rich- mond, the day the city surrendered: " Thank God that I have lived to see this! It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years, and now the nightmare is gone. I want to see Richmond," MR. LINCOLN SEEKS RELAXATION. Seeking relaxation from the engrossing cares which confronted him night and day, Mr. Lincoln remarked to Schuyler Colfax, as he went to the theater one evening after receiving intelligence of what he regarded as reverses to the army of General Grant in the wilderness: " People may think strange of it, but I must have some relief from this terrible anxiety, or it will kill me." , REGARDING HIS SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. (Letter to Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865.) Everyone likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and on the recent inaugural address. I expect the latter to wear as well as, perhaps better than, anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of pur- pose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as whatever of humil- iation there is in it falls most heavily on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it. 236 THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF ABEAHAM LINCOLN. "HOLD OX WITH A BULLDOG GRIP." (Dispatch to General Grant, August 17, 1864.) I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip. NOT SCARED ABOUT HIMSELF. Reply to Schuyler Colfax, when told how uneasy all had been at his going to Richmond: " Why, if any one else had been president and had gone to Richmond, I would have been alarmed; but I was not scared about myself a bit." LAST WRITTEN WORDS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Given to Mr. Ashmun as the President and Mrs. Lincoln were leaving the White House, a few minutes before eight o'clock, on the evening of April 14,1865: "Allow Mr. Ashmun and friend to come to see me at 9 o'clock A. m., to-morrow, April 15, 1865." REMARKS TO HIS WIFE ON THE FATAL DAY. Remarks made by the president to his wife while they were out driving in an open carriage on the afternoon of April 14, 1865, when Mrs. Lincoln said: "You almost startle me by your cheerfulness.") And well I may feel so, Mary, for I consider this day the war has come to a close. We must both be more cheerful in the future; between the war and the loss of our darling Willie we have been very miserable. LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (Remarks on April 11, 1865, to a gathering at the White House on the fall of Richmond.) We meet this evening not in. sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the prin- cipal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked; their honors must not be parceled out with others. I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting the good news to you; but no part of the honor, for plan or execution, is mine. To General Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, all belongs. SERMON ON THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. BY HENRY AVARD BEECHER, APRIL 23, 1865. EVEN he who now sleeps has, by this event, been clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to. Now his simple and mighty words will be gathered like those of Washington, and your children and your children's children shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in the party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well ; I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. Men will, as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which in vanquishing him has made him a martyr and a conqueror ; I swear you, by the memory of this martyr, to hate slav- ery with an unappeasable hatred. Men will admire and imitate his unmoved firmness, his inflexible conscience for the right ; and yet his gentleness, as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances of this country shake out of its place ; I swear you to an emulation of his justice, his moderation and his mercy. You I can comfort ; but how can I speak to that twilight million to whom his name Avas as the name of an angel of God ? There will be wailing in places which no ministers shall be able to reach. When, in hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout the South, the dusky children, who looked upon him as that Moses whom God sent before them to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn that he has fallen, who shall comfort them? Oh, thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, the long wronged, and grieved! And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and states are his pall-bearers, and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression. Dead— dead— dead— he yet speak- eth ! Is Washington dead ? Is Hampden dead ? Is David dead ? Is any man dead that ever was fit to live ? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the Infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome ! Your sorrows, O people, are his peace ! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here, God makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on, thou victor ! 237 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. FROM THE ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION, JULY 21, 1865. LIFE may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate ; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her. To front a lie in arms and not to yield. This shows, niethiuks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds. Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth. Fed from within with all the strength he needs. Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head. Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan. Repeating us by rote : For him her Old World moulds aside she threw. And, choosing sweet clay from the bi'east Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be. Not lured by any cheat of birth. But by his clear-grained human worth, 238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 239 And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! Tliey knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed raind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind : Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all humankind, Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. Nothing of Europe here. Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface And thwart her genial will ; Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not ; it were too late ; And some iunative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait. Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he : He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide. Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes ; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. New birth of our new soil, the first American. — James Russell Lowell. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL was bora iu Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819. His father was the Rev. Charles Lowell, and was a direct descendant of English settlers. After graduating from Harvard (1838), he entered law. In 1841, "A Year's Life," his first volume of poems, was given to the public. In 1844, he was married to Maria White. The well-known " Bigelow Papers" made Mr. Lowell's name widely known; they appeared in the Boston Courier in 1846-8. In 1845, "The Vision of Sir Launfal " was issued. It is one of the grandest poems in the English language; the beautiful portrayal of a right gospel pervades it from beginning to end. He succeeded Longfellow as professor of belles-lettres at Harvard in 1855. He was a constant contrib- utor to leading magazines, especially to the Atlantic Monthly. From 1863-72 he was one of the editors of Tlie North American Heview. He was appointed minister to Spain by President Hayes, in 1877, and, in 1880, was transferred to Loudon. He loved England almost as his own America, and was greatly admired and beloved by the English people. Oxford honored him with D.C.L., and Cambridge by making him an LL.D. His death occurred August 1, 1891. 240 ORATION ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN. BY HON. WILLIAM MCKINLEY. (Later President of the United States.) IT requires the most gracious pages in the world's history to record what one American achieved. The story of this simple life is the story of a plain, honest, manly citizen, true patriot and profound statesman, who, believing with all the strength of his mighty soul in the institutions of his country, won, because of them, the highest place in its government, then fell a precious sacrifice to the Union he held so dear, which Providence had spared his life long enough to save. We meet to do honor to this immortal hero, Abraham Lincoln, whose achievements have heightened human aspirations and broadened the field of opportunity to the races of men. . . What were the traits of character which made Abraham Lincoln prophet and master, without a rival, in the greatest crisis in our history? What gave him such mighty power? To me the answer is simple: Lincoln had sublime faith in the people. He walked with and among them. He recognized the importance and power of an enlightened public sentiment and was guided by it. Even amid the vicissitudes of war he concealed little from public view and inspection. In all he did he invited, rather than evaded, exam- ination and criticism. He submitted his plans and purposes, as far as practi- cable, to public consideration with perfect frankness and sincerity. There was such homely simplicity in his character that it could not be hedged in by pomp of place, nor the ceremonials of high official s-tation. He was so accessible to the public that he seemed to take the whole people into his confidence. Here, perhaps, was one secret of his power. The people never lost their confi- dence in him, however much they unconsciously added to his personal discom- fort and trials. His patience was almost superhuman, and who will say that he was mistaken in his treatment of the thousands who thronged continually about him? More than once when reproached for permitting visitors to crowd upon him he asked, in pained surprise, " Why, what harm does this confidence in men do me? I get only good and inspiration from it." Horace Greeley once said: "I doubt whether man, woman or child, white or black, bond or free, virtuous or vicious, ever accosted or reached forth a hand to Abraham Lincoln and detected in his countenance or manner any repugnance or 241 242 ORATION ON LINCOLN. shrinking from the profEered contact, any assumption of superiority, or betrayal of disdain," Frederick Douglass, the orator and patriot, is credited with saying, ''Mr. Lincoln is the only white man with whom I have ever talked, or in whose pres- ence I have ever been, who did not, consciously or unconsciously, betray to me that he recognized my color." George Bancroft, the historian, alluding to this characteristic, which was never so conspicuously manifested as during the darker hours of the war, beauti- fully illustrated it in these memorable words: "As a child in a dark night, on a rugged way, catches hold of the hand of its father for guidance and support, Lincoln clung fast to the hand of the people and moved calmly through the gloom." . . . Among the statesmen of America, Lincoln is the true democrat, and, Franklin perhaps excepted, the first great one. He had no illustrious ancestry, no inherited place or wealth, and none of the prestige, power, training or culture which were assured to the gentry or landed classes of our own colonial times. Nor did Lincoln believe that these classes, respectable and patriotic however they might be, should, as a matter of abstract right, have the controlling influence in our government. Instead, he believed in the all-pervading power of public opinion. Lincoln had little or no instruction in the common school, but, as the eminent Dr. Cuyler has said, he was graduated from " the grand college of free labor, whose works were the flatboat, the farm and the backwoods lawyer's ofiice." He had a broad comprehension of the central idea of popular govern- ment. The Declaration of Independence was his handbook; time and again he expressed his belief in freedom and equality. July 1, 1854, he wrote: " Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of the equal rights of men. Ours began by affirming those rights. They said, 'Some men are too ignorant and vicious to share in government.' 'Possibly so,' said we, 'and by your system you would always keep them ignorant and vicious. We propose to give all a chance, and we expect the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better and happier together.' We made the experiment, and the fruit is before us. Look at it, thinlc of it! Look at it in its aggregate grandeur, extent of country, and numbers of population." Lincoln believed in the uplifting influences of free government, and that by giving all a chance we could get higher average results for the people than where governments are exclusive and opportunities are limited to the few. No American ever did so much as he to enlarge these opportunities, or tear down the barriers which exclude a free participation in them. . . . Lincoln was essentially a man of peace. He inherited from his Quaker fore- fathers an intense opposition to war. During his brief service in Congress he found occasion more than once to express it. He opposed the Mexican war from principle, but voted men and supplies after hostilities actually began. In one of his speeches in the House, he characterized military glory as " that rainbow that rises in showers of blood — that serpent that charms but to destroy." When he ORATION ON LINCOLN. . 243 became responsible for the welfare of the country, he was none the less earnest for peace. He felt that even in the most righteous cause war is a fearful thing, and he was actuated by the feeling that it ought not to be begun except as a last resort, and then only after it had been precipitated by the enemies of the country. He said, in Philadelphia, February 22, 1861: '' There is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it is forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it. In the selection of his Cabinet, he at once showed his greatness and magnan- imity. His principal rivals for the presidential nomination were invited to seats in his council chamber. No one but a great man, conscious of his own strength, would have done this. It was soon perceived that his greatness was in no sense obscured by the presence of the distinguished men who sat about him. The most gifted statesmen of the country — Seward, Chase, Cameron, Stanton, Blair, Bates, Welles, Fessenden and Dennison, some of whom had been leaders in the Senate of the United States — composed that historic Cabinet, and the man who had been sneered at as "the rail-splitter" suffered nothing by such association and comparison. He was a leader in fact as well as name. Magnanimity was one of Lincoln's most striking traits. Patriotism moved him at every step. At the beginning of the war he placed at the head of three most important military departments three of his political opponents — Patterson, Butler and McClellan. He did not propose to make it a partizan war. He sought by every means in his power to enlist all who were patriots. In his message of July 4, 1861, he stated his purpose in these words: " I desire to preserve the government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it. On the side of the Union it is a struggle to maintain in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men, lift artificial burdens from all shoulders, and clear the paths of laudable pursuits for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. This is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend." Many people were impatient at Lincoln's conservatism. He gave the South every chance possible. He pleaded with them with an earnestness that was pathetic. He recognized that the South was not alone to blame for the existence of slavery, but that the sin was a national one. He sought to impress upon the South that he would not use his office as president to take away from them any constitutional right, great or small. In his first inaugural he addressed the men of the South as well as the North as his "countrymen," one and all, and, with an outburst of indescribable tender- ness, exclaimed: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies." And then in those wondrously sweet and touching words which even yet thrill the heart, he said: "Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- £o '^ 9-S t— 1 £ 3 - ''^ c r- a % ■^ 3 (C -U !« ^^^■|i tc CS ^^^■■l a> 'C '?,'^ a a> 4-> 02 •Sfl -1^ ^^•F^ S S -73 a o i| s ^i ^ "So o ^1^ ^ feicd ., s s o ! eJ 1 o m >- Hk^ ^ SI - ^ ' Bll ^ S<:i - ^^^ f^ •— o ^^ ■*!, oj a. M <-M J -wc •+i a> ® j3 a^ -u -- .- -CO JS COO ■w cc» •^ »— 1 fe 1/ .. ■^ ceco . •■ >■ t-H *J ? t ■— C u cS-2 * 2|^ ■ +3 c^j- ^tc fl •; ~ (D ego ^ J - -1 h-t IH ►>, ^- aj tC be r— H«|_I 1 .5 S-o i '« Q^bSl•-i a. O^ '-i ^ s Oi '-' '^ -4J 4 ■"■■3 SR ! "^ a; <3> i S «= ^-O C; 33 « IB 1 S =« ^, P-- ■ 2 ^^^ - **^ o s'^S e -J2 .J3 III ":; 1 1 .— "-— ^ IK " G S-' OJ 2 — a.J3 r ^ -M "^ -Bg ■ i.- 1 ^ -^' a g ; ^ >>":^ ' o ^^^ ; S 1 <; n-.Ji*' < 1 1 , S CM H SE . , ^8B 244 ORATION ON" LINCOLN. 24.5 field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." But his words were unheeded. The mighty war came, with its dreadful train. Knowing no wrong, he dreaded no evil for himself. He had done all he could to- save the country by peaceful means. He had entreated and expostulated, now he would do and dare. He had, in words of solemn import, warned the men of the South. He had appealed to their patriotism by the sacred memories of the battle-fields of the Revolution, on which the patriot blood of their ancestors had been so bravely shed, not to break up the Union. Yet all in vain. " Both parties deprecated war, but one would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came." Lincoln did all he could to avert it, but there was no hesitation on his part when the sword of rebellion flashed from its scabbard. He was from that moment until the close of his life unceasingly devoted and consecrated to the great pur- pose of saving the Union. All other matters he regarded as trivial, and every movement, of whatever character, whether important or unimportant of itself, was bent to that end. The world now regards with wonder the infinite patience, gentleness and kindness with which he bore the terrible burden of that four years' struggle. Humane, forgiving and long-suffering himself, he was always especially tender and considerate of the poor, and in his treatment of them was full of those " kind little acts which are of the same blood as great and holy deeds." As Charles Sumner so well said, "With him as president the idea of republican institutions, where no place is too high for the humblest, was perpetually man- ifest, so that his simple presence was a proclamation of the equality of all men." During the whole of the struggle he was a tower of strength to the Union. Whether in defeat or victory, he kept right on, dismayed at nothing, and never to be diverted from the pathway of duty. Always cool and determined, all learned to gain renewed courage, calmness and wisdom from him, and to lean upon his strong arm for support. The proud designation, " Father of his country," was not more appropriately bestowed upon Washington than the affectionate title, "Father Abraham," was given to Lincoln by the soldiers and loyal people of the North. The crowning glory of Lincoln's administration, and the greatest executive act in American history, was his immortal proclamation of emancipation. Per- haps more clearly than any one else Lincoln had realized years before he was called to the presidency that the country could not continue half slave and half free. He declared it before Seward proclaimed the " irrepressible conflict." The contest between freedom and slavery was inevitable; it was written in the stars. The nation must be either all slave or all free. Lincoln with almost supernatural prescience saw it. His prophetic vision is manifested through all his utterances; notably in the great debate between himself and Douglas. To him was given. 246 ORATION ON LINCOLN. the duty aud responsibility of making that great classic of liberty, the Declara- tion of Independence, no longer an empty promise, but a glorious fulfillment. Many long and thorny steps were to be taken before this great act of justice could be performed. Patience and forbearance had to be exercised. It had to be demonstrated that the Union could be saved in no other way. Lincoln, much as he abhorred slavery, felt that his chief duty was to save the Union, under the Constitution and within the Constitution. He did not assume the duties of his great ofiice with the purpose of abolishing slavery, nor changing the Constitu- tion, but as a servant of the Constitution and the laws of the country then existing. In a speech delivered in Ohio in 1859, he said: "The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would overthrow the Constitution." This was the principle which governed him, and which he applied in his official conduct when he reached the presidency. We now know that he had emancipation constantly in his mind's eye for nearly two years after his first inauguration. It is true he said at the start, " I believe I have no lawful right to interfere with slavery where it now exists, and have no intention of doing so;" and that the public had little reason to think he was meditating general emanci- pation until he issued his preliminary proclamation, September 22, 1862. Just a month before, exactly, he had written to the editor of the New York Tribune : "My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." The difference in his thought and purpose about "the divine institution" is very apparent in these two expressions. Both were made in absolute honor and sincerity. Public sentiment had undergone a great change, and Lincoln, valiant defender of the Constitution that he was, and faithful tribune of the people that he always was, changed with the people. The war had brought them and himi to a nearer realization of our absolute dependence upon a higher power, and had quickened his conceptions of duty more acutely than the public could realize, The purposes of God, working through the ages, were, perhaps, more clearly revealed to him than any other. Besides, it was as he himself once said, " It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones." He was naturally " antislavery," and the determination^ he formed, when as a young man he witnessed an auction in the slave-shambles in New Orleans, never forsook him. It is recorded how his soul burned with indignation, and that he then exclaimed, "If I ever get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard!" He "hit it hard" when as a member of the Illinois Legislature he protested that "the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy." He "hit it hard" when as a member of Congress he " voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good ORATION ON LINCOLN. 247 as forty times." He '' hit it hard" when he stumped his state against the Kansas- Nebraska Bill, and on the direct issue carried Illinois in favor of the restriction of slavery by a majority of 4,414 votes. He " hit it hard " when he approved the law abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, an antislavery measure that he had voted for in Congress. He " hit it hard " when he signed the acts abolishing slavery in all the territories and for the repeal of the fugitive-slave law. But it still remained for him to strike slavery its death-blow. He did that in his glorious proclamation 'of freedom. . . . ' - < In all the long years of slavery agitation, unlike any of the other anti- slavery leaders, Lincoln always carried the people with him. In 1854, Illinois cast loose from her old Democratic moorings and followed his leadership in a most emphatic protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In 1858, the people of Illinois indorsed his opposition to the aggressions of slavery, in a state usually Democratic, even against so popular a leader as the "Little Giant." In 1860, the whole country indorsed his position on slavery, even when the people were continually harangued that his election meant the dissolution of the Union. During the war the people advanced with him step by step to its final overthrow. Indeed, in the election of 1864 the people not only indorsed emancipation, but went far toward recognizing the political equality of the negro. They heartily justified the president in having enlisted colored soldiers to fight side by side with the white man in the noble cause of union and liberty. Aye, they did more. They indorsed his position on another and vastly more important phase of the race problem. They approved his course as president in reorganizing the govern- ment of Louisiana, and a hostile press did not fail to call attention to the fact that this meant eventually negro suffrage in that state. Perhaps, however, it was not known then that Lincoln had written the new free-state governor, March 13, 1864: "Now you are about to have a convention, which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest for your private con- sideration whether some of the colored people may not be let in — as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom." Lincoln had that happy, peculiar habit which few public men have attained, of looking away from the deceptive and misleading influences about him — and none are more deceptive than those of public life in our capitals— straight into the hearts of the people. He could not be deceived by the self-interested host of eager counselors who sought to enforce their own particular views upon him as the voice of the country. He chose to determine for himself what the people were thinking about and wanting him to do, and no man ever lived who was a more accurate judge of their opinions and wishes. The battle of Gettysburg turned the scale of the war in favor of the Union, and it has always seemed to me most fortunate that Lincoln declared for emancipation before rather than after that decisive contest. A later proclamation H CO pa ta I— ( o O ►7- ^ ^