3/ The Ik/ Joshua /(a/gh. %/^ K/^ tWS t.^ K/- LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY presented by Chuck Hand W. ■>v'Y> M^A 'x:r V t 7^ O H C 7 < > HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM THE TWO MARTYRED PRESIDENTS OE THE UNITED STATES. % IBonk fnr ISiggn* IJo^s. BY IHE Rev. JOSHUA HAIGH. CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, Castle St., City Rd., E.C. ; And 66, Paternoster Row, E.C. 1893. MORRISON AND GIBB, I'RINTERS, EDINBURGH. 172.7 Lt^'i ///U/<^c^^AJ /tbOvv CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE The proper vStiidy of Mankind. — Two are better than one. — -Nicknames, . . . . . .9-12 CHAPTER I. Birth and Early Training. Home in tlie West End and the Far West. — Develop- ment. — Mothers the Main Instrument. — Means made use of: the Bible. — Facilities for Knowledfre. — Practical Wisdom in the shape of Proverbs, . , . 13-24 CHAPTER IT. The Lower Rounds. Personal Endeavour. ^ Observation and Rencction. — Manual Toil. — Done with their Might, . . . 25-32 5 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Still Climbing. PAGE Moral Exercise. — Right versus Might. — Right governing Might. — Mental Culture. — Energy and Persistence. — Native Obscurity broken, 33-41 CHAPTER IV. The Higher Rounds. Lawyer et Professor. — Thoroughly Honest. — Capturing Young Men. — Preaching. — Beckoned higher and made President, . . . . . . . 42 57 CHAPTER V. In that Fierce Light. Attaining and maintaining a Position. — Detestation of Jobbery. — The Man I have to live with. — Another Martyr, 58-61 CHAPTER VI. Which Fiercer grows. Southern Secession. — Lincoln's Conciliation. — The War inevitable through the Attack on Fort Sumter, . 62-65 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Bur EVER snows the Man, PAGE Lines of Lincoln's Policy.— Position made difficult by his hatred of Slavery and the provocations of the Slave- party.— Further embarrassed by Slavery-sympathisers in England.— Still cheered ox\..— Emancipation !~T\iQ Rebellion crushed, 66-83 CONCLUSION. The Cause of Humanity the Cause of God.— Stepping- stones of Difficulties.— Slavery under the British Flag. —To the Greed of others.— To Baseness in themselves. — Personal Freedom necessary to the Emancipation of others.— The Glorious End, 84-95 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. INTRODUCTION. M am a man, and nothing that is human is foreign to me.' — Terence. JHERE is an old but profoundly true line which says 'The proper study of mankind is Man.'' Other studies may be pursued — suns, serpents, rocks, rivers, moons, monkeys, satellites, stalac- tites : but they are uncongenial. Man is our fellow. His common nature and his kindred sphere make him one with us, and in his struggles and triumphs we may read and antici- pate our own. I o HO.YES T ABE AND BRO THER JIM. But why two men, and of all men, Americans, Yankees — men of brag and bunkum, who believe thoroughly in the aphorism : ' The man who in this world would rise Must either bust or advertise ' ? Wouldn't one have been sufficient, and couldn't he have been found at home? No doubt. But the further the field the wider the view, and in matters requiring emphasis and confirmation two are always better than one. At the entrance to one of our great rivers there are two lighthouses, one near the water's edge, the other on a rock behind. They are so placed, however, that when a vessel is right opposite the river's mouth, and may with safety attempt to enter, the two lights fall into one line, and the fact of their falling into one line is an indication to the captain that he may attempt to enter. And, similarly, if the lessons taught by the life of Abraham Lincoln are repeated in the life of James Abram Garfield, and if the lessons taught by the life of James Abram Garfield are anticipated in the life of Abraham Lincoln, — in other words, if the two lives in their great moral teaching coincide, — it is powerful IX TROD UC TION. 1 1 confirmation of the truth of that teaching, and may inspire a measure of confidence in learning the same that we could not otherwise have. One more preliminary thought. ' Honest Abe' and 'Brother Jim' are sobriquets, or nick- names, given to the individuals whom they respectively designate when boys, but which had so much of truth in them that they outlived the feeling that first gave rise to them, and clung to the men in later life. I have linked them together in the title of my book, not because I believe in nicknames, or am anxious to en- courage the feeling that often gives rise to them, but because in these cases they hit off the cJiaractcristics of the incji. Abraham Lincoln had a large development of conscientiousness — a strict sense of truth and right and justice and honour — and may well therefore be called ' Honest' James Abram Garfield had a large endowment of sympathy — a deep and tender feeling towards his fellows, especially those of them who were struggling and oppressed, and may well therefore be called ' Brother,' It was these characteristics in them that made the men the uncompromising foes of 12 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. slavery. Abraham Lincoln opposed the foul thing, because he believed it to be unfair, unjust, and emphatically dishonest, for one man to hold property in another. James Abram Garfield opposed it, because he recognised in every man a brother, and cherished a brother's feeling towards him. And if we remember these things, despite the false or foolish feeling that often gives rise to nicknames, we may retain the present, and hail our heroes as Honest Abe and Brother Jim. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND EARLY TRAINING. ' Train up a child in the way he should go. ' — Proverbs xxii. 6. 'The mind follows the mother.' — Translation of Latin Maxim. iWAY in a wild, desolate kind of place in the old slave State of Kentucky, in the year of our Lord 1809, Honest Abe was born ; and twenty-two years later, in a similar place in the State of Ohio, Brother Jim first saw the light. Their surroundings were not sumptuous. On the contrary, they were bleak, bare, and unpromising — so much so, that if the boys at their advent could have taken them in, and have had the opportunity of saying yea or nay in reference to entering upon them, I can quite imagine they would have said ;/«;// with 13 14 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM, a tone and an emphasis that would have daunted all gainsayers. No house of stone, with plate-glass windows and mediaeval or modern adornments, reared W-k^^t^i-' BIRTHPLACE OF LINCOLN. itself over their heads. No bed of down, hung with chintz and lace or draped with damask and cretojnie, gave repose to their fair and delicate forms. No carpet from Axminster or Brussels yielded to the pressure of the servant's foot as she announced that the Rev. Augustus BIRTH AND EARLY TRAINING. 15 Wigruff had called, or that Mrs. and the Misses Blazonby were waiting in the carriage to know how the mother and child were doine. No spoon of silver or mug plated with gold, the costly gifts of rich and devoted godmothers, opened their lips to daintily-prepared nourish- ment. No nursery of the fairy-land type, bedight and even made gorgeous with dolls' houses, Chinese lanterns, and illustrations of Jack the Giant Killer, Humpty-Dumpty, and half-a-dozen other different heroes, taught their young ideas how to shoot. The reverse of all that. Their home was a log hut, a rude en- closure of wood, twenty feet by eighteen, with a loft half-way across — very much like the ha}- lofts of modern cow-houses — and which served as a separate bedroom. Their utensils were of the rudest — three-legged stools for chairs ; long poles, with slabs, for bedsteads ; sacks of hay, straw, husks, and dried leaves for mattresses ; Dutch ovens for fire-places; and plates and knives and forks of wood : while their food and clothing were of the coarsest and scantiest. This, however, is an age of development — a period of physical, social, and intellectual i6 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. advancement : and when we are told, on con- siderable scientific authority, that the grandfather of the present noble Archbishop of Canterbury, some generations back, was a monkey up a tree ; and that the great-grandfather of that * Grand Old Man ' who now holds the reins of English government, a little further back, was a grave old frog haranguing a parliament of frogs on the muddy banks of a pre-Adamic pond ; we are not surprised at anything in that line — not even when we read that Honest Abe and Brother Jim, who first saw the light in log huts, one of which was windowless, floorless, doorless, the other of which had large holes in the side covered with greased paper for windows — not even when we read that they ended their lives in the White House, the superb residence of the Chief Magistrate of the United States of America. The main influence in this unwonted mental and moral development was that of the respect- ive mothers. ' What France wants,' said the great Napoleon, when some one complained of the decadence of the national life, ' is mothers ; ' and most great and good men have been singu- JMlll: : !3 o a ►J s BIRTH AND EARLY TRAINING. 19 larly favoured in this respect. That was the case with our heroes. Nancy Hanks, who became the wife of Thomas Lincohi, and Sally Johnson, who became his second wife, and Eliza Ballou, who became the wife of Abram Garfield, were women with heads on their shoulders, and — something in them. ' Mother, mother ! ' said a boy, bursting in upon the quiet of the house, rubbing his eyes and blubbering, 'all the lads say what a big head I've got.' ' Never mind, lad,' said the mother, intending to console him, ' tha's got iioivt in it! That was not the case with these women, though. They had not only heads on their shoulders, but something in them ; and that something they used in the training of their children. Their great aim in this regard was to develop character from luithin tJiem — to make them intelligent, energetic, and good. In pursuance of this object they read the Bible to them regularly. It was the constant practice of Eliza Garfield, whose husband died when Jim was only eighteen months old, to read four chapters each week-day of the week to her children ; and if no pioneer preacher came that way on the Sunday, she sought to 20 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. make the day bright and blessed by reciting the stories of Cain and Abel, Joseph and his brethren, David and Goliath, Daniel in the den of lions, and the ' Holy Child Jesus ; ' whilst Nancy Lincoln kindled the sentiment of liberty in the soul of young Abe — a sentiment that afterwards flamed up in the famous edict for negro emancipation — by reading and re-reading, expounding and emphasising, the story of Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. The women also gave their children all the facilities which their limited means and out-of- the-way situation could afford for acquiring knowledge. These were not great. The whole term of Lincoln's schooling did not cover twelve months, though he is said to have drained four teachers dry. And Garfield's term was not much longer. But when you teach a boy the three R's — reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic — you put into his hand the key of all knowledge. There is no limit to the possibility of his subsequent attainments, save that which is imposed by his own capacity. Moreover, Widow Garfield sought to instil into the minds of her c\v\\d.x&r\ practical wisdom, GARFIELU'S MOTHER. 21 BIR TH A ND EA RL J ' TRA INING. 1 3 in homoeopathic doses, in the shape of proverbs — wisdom which, she believed, would stand them in good stead in the great crises of their lives. One of her proverbs was, WJiere tJieres a will there^s a way. ' What does that mean, mother?' said Jim. 'Why, it means this, my boy, that if you make up your mind to do a thing, although it may be difficult and well-nigh impossible, you will generally succeed. Your resolute mind will be both drill and powder blasting the hardest rock.' Gocl helps the vian that helps Jiiniself, was another. 'What does that mean, mother?' ' Why, it means that when you have done the best you can for yourself, God will help you as He helped the Israelites when they had come to the Red Sea, and could get no further.' ' But does God ever help a man in anything but being religious?' ' Certainly; He helps him in every- thing — running his farm, writing his book, managing his business — everything that is not sinful ; and He helps that man most who does the best he can for himself.' An ounce of pluck is zvorih a pojtnd of luck, was another. ' What does that mean ? ' ' Why, 24 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. it means that, instead of mooning about, in the hope that something will turn up, it's far better to go to work and turn something up. The stubborn glebe will yield thee weeds for naught, but it wall only give thee bread in so far as thou dost compel it.' In these ways did the mothers Lincoln and Garfield lay deep and broad and strong, in the mental and moral being of their boys, the foundations of a godly character. CHAPTER II. THE LOWER ROUNDS. 'Work fur the good ihat is nighest.' —Rev. IV. M. riuishon, LL.D. I'^^^AVOURING conditions and stimulating influences cannot supersede personal cndeavo2ir. We have machinery for most things : ' Propelling boats, Driving mills, Winnowing oats, Settling bills ;' but I never jet heard of a machine for putting the multipHcation table into a lad when he was asleep, or for drilling a boy, in the arms of Morpheus, in the Rule of Three, the Latin de- clensions, the dates of history, or the Tonic Sol- fa system. These things, if mastered at all, 25 26 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. must be mastered by personal endeavour, by the application and diligence of the pupil. Such application and diligence Lincoln and Garfield gave. Soon as Lincoln had learned to read, he devoured his father's library, com- mitting two-thirds of the volumes to memory. This was perhaps not so prodigious a feat after all, for the library only contained three volumes — the Bible, the Catechism, and Dibworth's Spelling Book. Garfield did much the same with his mother's library, which consisted of the Bible, the English Reader, and Davy Crockett's Almanack. In the absence of a wider literary sphere, however, these boys did what every boy in America and England would do well to do, viz. cultivated their poivers of observation and reflection. One day, soon after he had learned to read, Jim came across this sentence in a book, ' The rain came down upon the roof Immediately after reading it, he paused, looked grave, and then, with all the enthusiasm of a discoverer, exclaimed, ' Why, I've seen the rain do that myself, mother ! ' — an exclamation which shows that he had begun to observe and reflect. THE LOWER ROUNDS. 27 He had observed, for he had seen the rain come down upon the roof; and he had reflected, for he had turned it over in his mind to such an extent, that when he saw a description of it in a book he at once recognised it as such. Young men, would you be substances in the world and not shadows, voices and not echoes, perennial fountains and not extemporised cisterns ? keep your eyes open, keep your ears open, and brighten yonr brains by thinking. Many discoveries have been made ; but quite as many remain to be made, and I don't see why you shouldn't have a hand in making them. Ireland, for instance, needs uniting to England — not imperially but geographically, by means of a tunnel under the sea. Then England will need uniting to the Continent ; and after that the Continent to America. What an immense advantage it would be if business men could leave their homes in England on a Monday morning, run over or rather under to America, transact their business there, and get back to iheir wives and families on Saturday evening ! What a saving of time and money ! And why 28 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. not? There would be no cozv on that line, the great bugbear that frightened some of the Members of Parliament when George Stephen- son put before them his scheme for a line between Manchester and Liverpool ; nor any zvaysidc station to stop at. Everything would be plain sailing, so far as going under the sea could be called sailing. Then, again, mothers who cannot leave their homes, and invalids who are confined to their rooms, need the ministrations of religion — the sermon, the lecture, the service of song. Why not lay such ministrations on to their houses by means of some telephonic arrangement, just as you lay the gas and water on — to be turned on and off at will ? There's a sphere for your energy, my friend, and your ambition too. Gird up the loins of your mind, and address yourself to it. And remember me when it goeth well with thee ! When you have made your fortune, and the world is ringing with your fame, just give an extra sixpence to the ' Worn-out Ministers' Fund,' in memory of a poor Methodist preacher who had these ideas, but who was precluded from using them by the law which THE LOWER ROUNDS. 29 enacts that no Methodist preacher shall enter into business ! Seriously, though, whether you are born to be great discoverers or no, if you will only observe and reflect — keep your eyes open upon what is going on, and ask yourselves, 'What does it mean, and how may it be utilised and improved ? — the process will give to your words and actions an originality, freshness, and force which will make you men of poivcr, respectable and re- spected, wherever you may move. It is difficult to say at what period these youths began manual toil. They seem to have lent a hand and made themselves useful almost from the time of toddling off. At any rate, on or about the eighth anniversary of their birthday, each was chopping wood, milking cows, shelling corn, and 'choring' about generally. And they continued their handicraft till they were twenty- four or twenty-five. Not always in the same line. Sometimes they were farmers, at other times carpenters ; sometimes black-salters, at other times boatmen ; sometimes store-keepers, at other times surveyors ; but in one form or another working men — men who earned their 30 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. bread by the sweat of their brow — till they were some time past their majority. Let no one sneer at that. In the present economy working men are necessary. Boots will get down at the heels and need mending ; clothes will wear out and need renewing ; houses will sink into decay and need repairing ; and breakfast and dinner times will come and need providing for. Working men are the sineivs of the State ! And what their hand found to do these workingf men did zvith their might. They did not labour under the vitiating thought, born too often of an overweening conceit, that manual toil was beneath them, and to engage in it a degradation to them. On the contrary, they believed that all toil, providing it to be honest, is honourable, and they had a manly pride in doing it. This feeling led to success — immediate and, I believe, ultimate. When Jim was twelve years old, he was set to run his mother's farm. He had previously assisted his brother Thomas in this work; but Thomas went away, and the whole responsibility devolved upon him. This developed all the energy and manliness of his THE LOWER ROUNDS. 31 nature, and it wasn't long before the neighbours said to his mother, ' Your boy farmer is pretty lively, Mrs. Garfield ; his farm looks as well as GARFIELD WHEN A BOY. that of any of us.' Soon after, he went to work for a carpenter at planing boards. During the first day he planed a hundred, and at the end of the day, as he stood with great beads of 32 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. perspiration on his brow, had the satisfaction of hearing the carpenter say, ' They are well done.' Some time after, when he was attending the Chester Seminary, and working in the vacation to furnish himself with funds, he applied to a farmer for some mowing to do. ' Can you mow well ? ' said the farmer. ' You can tell by trying me,' said Jim. He did try him, and was so satisfied with him, that at the close of the day — understanding he was about to be a preacher — he said, ' If one of these days you prcacJi as well as you mow, I shall certainly want to hear you.' And Abe did his rail-splitting, hog-killing, corn-shelling, and store-keeping with such thoroughness and satisfaction, that he commanded a man's wages when quite a boy, and earned the commendation of all for whom he toiled. Young men, doiit despise the duty that lies nearest to yon. Get above the false pride, the radical littleness and vulgarness of mind, which would lead you to scorn the lower rounds of the ladder. To the majority of us, who are born at the bottom, they are the only means of rising. CHAPTER III. STILL CLIMBING. ' Patient continuance in well-doing.' — Ro?nans ii, 7. )HE manual toil of Lincoln and Garfield was educational in other respects than the development of their energy. It served to exercise, and by exercising strengthen, their moral faculties. When Garfield was fifteen years old he left home, and hired himself out as mule-driver on the tow-path of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal. This brought him into contact with a set of rough, brutal, whisky- drinking, whisky-loving men — men who had altogether more regard for the bottle than the Bible, and whose every prayer was an oath. So far was he from being corrupted by these men, 3 34 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. however, he was even enabled to correct, and in some degree elevate them. ^ Jakes, Jakes, ivJiat makes yo2i sivear so awfully?' said he to a fellow who had been pouring out a volley of oaths one day; *it certainly don't improve your conversation, and makes one think of Pandemonium.' ' Don't know,' said Jakes ; ' s'pose it helps to get some of yer bad stuff out.' 'Then, if that's the case,' said Jim, 'it ought to have been all out long since ; for you have sworn enough to empty yourself times over. Instead of emptying, though, I rather think it helps to fill ye — the bad stuff in you growing by the cultivation you give it.' ' WJiafs the row, captain ? ' said he to the commander of the canal boat, as they came up to one of the locks along with another boat, and when he saw the men springing to the tow-path in a most excited manner. ' Only a fight,' said the captain. ' A fight ? ' said Jim ; ' but what about ? ' ' Why, as to who goes through the lock first' ' But who came up to the lock first ? ' STILL CLIMBING. 35 ' S'pose they did,' said the captain ; ' but we shall get it, for our men are stronger than theirs.' ' But is that RIGHT ? ' said Jim, drawing his body up to its full height, and opposing himself like a wall of brass to the bare idea of brutal might triumphing. The question stirred some latent elements of conscience in the captain. He at once and imperatively recalled his men ; and the boat that had the right went through the lock first. ' Give it him, give it him ; pound Jiim, pound him,' said a number of men to Jim one day, when he had thrown a hot-headed Irishman, who had plunged at him like a bull for accident- ally knocking off his hat. ' No,' said Jim ; ' he is in my power, and I wouldn't lift a finger against him.' Then, turning to the Irishman, he said, ' Had enough. Murphy ? You can get up as soon as you say that you have.' ' Enough,' said Murphy. Thereupon the two arose, when Jim went up to him, and, holding out his hand, said, ' I'm sorry I knocked off your hat, Murphy ; it was 36 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. a pure accident. I hope you'll shake hands and be friends.' The two did shake hands, and were firm friends ever after. Might governed by right ! Power under the dominion of love ! Ah, Widow Garfield had not toiled in vain ! Fourteen years before, as he lay a-dying in a log hut in the Western Reserve, her husband had said to her, ' Eliza, I have planted four tender saplings in these woods, and I must now leave you to take care of them.' And she had taken care of them — not only of their bodies, but of their souls ; not only of their minds, but of their morals. And here was the fruit. Her youngest son, a boy of sixteen years old, not only holds his own in truth and right and justice and honour against a set of brutal blackguards, but actually influences them for good. That was an achievement of which the angels might have been proud. And Abe's conscientiousness and uprightness were equally tested and strengthened by the scenes and associations of his manual toil. But while these youths were diligent in their STILL CLLMBING. V handicraft, and were deriving physical and even moral benefit therefrom, they were not neglecting the cultivation of their minds. Some girls e7td their education at school ; and it is said that some boys are foolish enough to imitate them, LINCOLN DEFENDING THE RED INDIAN. for they speak of the last school they attend as the one at which they ' finish.' That was not the case with these boys, though. Not a tithe, nor even a hundredth part of the information they eventually became possessed of, did they acquire at school. On the contrary, often after 38 HONES T ABE AND BRO THER JIM. a hard day of physical effort, and when many of their companions were sleeping, they were working — working to gain another round in the difficult ladder of knowledge. ' Abc^ AIh\ put out that light and roll into bed,' said Green Taylor, one of Lincoln's sleeping companions, ' I want to go to sleep.' 'Nonsense !' said Abe in his coolest manner; ' what's a sleep to the History of the United States ? ' * Then if you don't blow it out, I will,' said the exasperated youth. 'You will?' said Abe tantalisingly. 'I'd like to see you. Perhaps you can manage it from where you lie ; you seem to have " blow " enough in you ' — a sally that took all the wind out of Taylor's sails, and left Abe in undisturbed possession of the next half-hour. ' What ! studying grammar still, Abe ? ' said another companion, who wanted him out for a run. 'What's your little game?' ' To find out the kind of noun I am — common or uncommon.' ' Oh, I can soon tell you : you're an uncommon one, and an uncommonly uncommon one too.' STILL CLIMBING. 39 ' Then, if that's the case, I must prove it by my uncommon diligence.' ' Why won't you conic out for a rttn, Abe ? ' said another youth, who had been teasing him for half-an-hour. 'Because I mean to walk to Springfield and back to-morrow.' ' To Springfield and back ! Why, that's forty- four miles.' ' Yes ! ' ' What are you going to Springfield and back for?' ' Look in at seven o'clock to-morrow night, and I'll tell you.' The youth did look in at seven o'clock, and found that Abe had been to Springfield and back, had brought back with him four large volumes of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Lazvs of England, and had actually read forty- four pages of the first volume on his way back. Ah, that's the stuff of zv Inch men are made — a firm-set will, a rock-built will, an invincible will— a will that opposes itself to all the tempta- tions to ease and self-indulgence, as the iron- 40 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. bound coast opposes itself to the incursions of the sea ! Garfield was equally diligent with Lincoln in cultivating his mind. Soon as he had acquired the rudiments of knowledge, he determined to conserve and augment them by keeping a school. A committee man of Ledge, a neighbouring district, heard of this, and applied to him to keep theirs. At the same time he warned him that the scholars were ' a regular set of barbarians,' that they had already driven out two masters ; and that, if he undertook it, he would probably have to stand over them with a cane, and thrash them all round. This was not a tempting prospect, and Garfield consulted his Uncle Boynton before accepting it. ' A tough piece of work, lad,' said his uncle ; ' a tough piece of work ! You see the boys know you, and have always known you, as//;// Garfield, and they will probably try to take advantage of you on that account. But if you can enter the school as //;;/ Garfield and leave it as Mr. Garfield, having quelled the turbulent spirits, it will be a regular triumph.' He did enter the school as 'Jim' Garfield, and he did STILL CLIMBING. 41 leave it as ' Mr.' Garfield, having quelled the turbulent spirits ; and he did it all, not by- physical force, but moral suasion and the superior character of his mental endowments. Thus — by buying up odds and ends and fragments and scraps of time, by often reading far into the night and even till the early morn, and by wearing the coarsest clothes that they might have money wherewith to purchase books — did these youths break the spell and entangle- ment of their native obscurity ; and on their thirtieth birthday, each found himself on the high road to fame — one being a leading laivycr in the city of Springfield, in the State of Ohio, the other being professor of ancient languages and literature in the Eclectic Institute of Hiram in the same famous State. CHAPTER IV. THE HIGHER ROUNDS. ' The path of duty is the way to glory : He that walks it, only thirsting For the right, and learns to deaden Love of self, before his journey closes He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which outredden All vohiptuous garden roses. ' The path of duly is the way to glory : He that, ever following her commands, On with toil of heart and knees and hands, Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward, and prevail'd. Shall find the toppling crags of duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands. To which our God Himself is moon and sun.' — Tennyson. lawyer, a lawyer ! ' says one who shares the conventional prejudice against the class, and who believes that no good thing 42 PORTRAIT OF LINXOLN. 43 THE HIGHER ROUNDS. 45 can come out of this professional Nazareth — ' that's disappointing. After all this talk about mental and moral development, we expected something superb — a minister at least, perhaps something better ; and now to turn off with a lawyer — one who cudgels his brains to cheat his fellows, and who, if he swallow half-a-sovereign, can never, even under the pressure of the stomach- pump, be made to disgorge more than three- and-fourpence of it — disappointing ! ' But there can be good lawyers as well as good ministers ; and the fact that perhaps they are not over- plentiful is a reason — and a powerful reason too — why Honest Abe and men of kindred spirits should join their ranks. At any rate, Honest Abe did]o\x\. their ranks, and, I believe, retained his honesty therein. ' Mr. Lincoln, I want you to undertake my case,' said a gentleman, stepping into his office and accosting him one day. ' Be pleased to state it,' said Lincoln. So the man began. He hadn't proceeded far, however, before Lincoln interrupted him, saying, 'Excuse me, sir, I'm sorry to interrupt you ; but I'm bound to tell you I cannot undertake your case. I already 46 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. perceive from your own statement of it that you are in the wrong.' ' But that's no business of yours,' said the man, 'providing you get jolly well paid for it.' ' Indeed, but it is my business. I never knowingly undertake to defend a wrong case.' ' But at any rate you can make bother for the other party.' ' No doubt I could ; in fact, I have no doubt if I undertook your case I could win it for you — i.e. I could extort five hundred dollars from a poor widow who has a large family dependent on her, and put it into your pocket. But I zvon't do zt—not for any money ! And here I tender you a piece of advice gratuitously. You seem to be a smart, capable, clever kind of man : go to work and mm five hundred dollars honestly, instead of trying to extort it from somebody else.' That was noble, and it was the uniform principle on which Lincoln transacted his legal business, Garfield, in his professor's chair at Hiram, was a 7Han of poiver. He had long cultivated those elements of character which were calcu- THE HIGHER ROUNDS. 47 lated to give him a commanding influence over his fellows, and here he had every opportunity of exercising them. One of his strong points — a point on which he prided himself — was his penetration, his deep insight into human nature — a penetration, an insight, which he used with marvellous effect. It is said that there are different ways of managing the ordinary donkey, the four-legged one, but that one of them is better than another. You may belabour or beguile it. You may stand over it with a stout stick, and beat it most unmercifully ; in which case, in all pro- bability, the animal will simply straddle its legs, throw back its ears, and stand stock-still. Or you may mount its back, and at the end of a long pole dangle a few inches before its nose a rich, ripe, toothsome-looking, savoury-smelling carrot ; in which case, in all probability, it will bear you whithersoever you will. And just so is it with the extraordinary donkey, the two-legged one. You may lure and lead where you cannot drive. Garfield knew this, and was often on the luring tack. Take one instance. 48 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. Scene. — The President's Study at the Hiram Institute. Time. — Late in the afternoon of a hot day in June. Dramatis Persona. — The President himself, and a Mr. Crawford — a big, burly-looking AYestern Reserve farmer. Gm'field. Good evening, Mr. Crawford. I'm glad to see you. I wanted to have a little talk with you about Henry. I hope you intend him to return for the autumn term ? Fanner {very deliberately and with a strong nasal accent). Wal, ez to thet, Mr. Garfield, I reckon not. I giss I can't afford to sin' him any more. He's got eddicashon enuf fer a farmer already, and I notice thet wen they gits too much, they sorter gits lazy loike. Yer eddicated farmer's no good, Mr. Garfield. He's a reg'lar humbug. Garfield. Indeed ; I'm sorry to hear you say that, Mr. Crawford. I know that Henry has been considerable expense to you, but I had hoped he might come back for the autumn term, and thus be in a position to do something to- wards repaying you. Farmer {zuith a puzzled look). Indeed — repayin' me ! Wat du you mean, Mr. Garfield? Garfield. Well, you see, by the time the autumn term is through, the winter will be upon PORTRAIT OF GARFIELD. THE HIGHER ROUNDS. 51 us. Now, Henry could not work on the farm in the winter ; but if he came back for the autumn term, he might take a school and earn some money for you. Farmer {looking very viucJi as though a neiv light had datvned upon him). Ah ! thet's a horse of anither colour, Mr. Garfield. Wal, the lad wants to come bad enuf ; T giss I'll hev to lit him. [^Exit farmer — persuading himself tliat he has clone a generous thing in consenting to Henry's return ; but having really been beguiled by Garfield, who, under- standing his covetous nature, had dangled dexterously before his eyes the rich, ripe, golden carrot. And in this way Garfield captured many a young man — captured him from the grinding avarice of his father, from the uncongenial calling to which that avarice would have doomed him, and from the life of obscurity, and perhaps positive misery, that would have been the result. At Hiram, too, Garfield devoted himself to the work of prcacJiing. Ten years before, when mule-driver on the tow-path of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, he had a narrow escape from being drowned. He fell into the water one night. It was pitchy dark. No one saw him ; 52 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. no one heard him. When he had come up for the second, and was about to go down for the third, and — as we commonly say — the last time, he threw out one of his hands, which by accident, as it seemed, came into contact with a rope. One of the ends of the rope was lying on the deck of the vessel. It was lying loose, however, so that, when Garfield began pulling at it, it began to come away. Just before it had come av/ay entirely, however, and by the merest accident again, as it seemed, a kink in the rope caught in a crack in the side of the boat, and held, and hand over hand he drew himself out. It seemed almost miraculous, and Garfield was powerfully impressed by it. Shortly afterwards, he had a severe attack of acfue, which drove him to his home. While there, under the kindly, gentle influence of his Christian mother, he gave his heart to God, and became a decided and earnest CHRISTIAN ; and ever after it was his delight, as he had oppor- tunity, to ' Tell to those around What a dear Saviour he had found ; To point to Christ's atoning blood, And cry, "Behold the way to God!"' THE HIGHER ROUNDS. 53 Garfield was perfectly contented with his position at Hiram. He wrote to a friend soon after attaining it : 'I have now reached the height of my ambition, and here would I live and die.' God ordained it otherwise, however. Just then the slavery question was to the fore in the States, and the whole Union was agitated by it. Advocates for and against the foul thing were stumping the land and stirring up the minds of the people. Garfield was against it — against it both by training and conviction. As a boy he had read in his mother's Bible, in a log hut in the Western Reserve, ' And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.' As a youth he had read in the religious poets : ' Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit nature's claim ; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.' And he believed these things — believed them with a depth and intensity of conviction that would not suffer him to rest when he heard the rights of the negro questioned. His utterances in defence of the netTro brought 54 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. him into the political arena. The Anti-Slavery party saw that in him they had a man of power, a ' great gift of God ; ' and they determined to use him. They therefore elected him to the State Senate in i860, to the United States Congress in 1862 ; and, eighteen years after — having served his country in peace and war, by pen and sword — he found himself at the top of the social ladder, and was proclaimed President of the Great Republic ! ■Lincoln's case was somewhat different. He was, both by choice and circumstance, much more of a politician than Garfield. As a boy he had read the lives of Washington and Henry Clay — Washington, the founder and first pre- sident of the great Republic, and Henry Clay, one of its brightest ornaments. As a youth he had both ' spouted ' and written politics — spouted them among his companions, and written them in a local organ. And he even suffered himself to be nominated for the State Senate before he had fixed his profession, and when there was little likelihood of his being elected. Not that he was self-seeking or meanly 2 o O z X < O X X > X THE HIGHER ROUNDS. 57 ambitious. He was not. But he had a natural love for politics — a love almost amounting to a passion ; and such ability as God had given him he determined to consecrate to his country along political lines. He was therefore elected to the State Senate in 1834, to the United States Congress in 1846; and, sixteen years after — having established a reputation for thoroughness, integrity, good judgment, and sound sense, such as has seldom been equalled — a reputation which even the stress and strain of a great rebellion could not impair — he was beckoned higher ; and the FORTUNES OF FORTY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, WITH THE DESTINY OF A GREAT AND GROWING REPUBLIC, WERE PLACED IN HIS HANDS. The chrysalides have cracked into shining wings ! The inner impulse of native w^orth has burst the bar of circumstance ! And Honest Abe and Brother Jim, than whom few have started life more humbly or obscurely, have ' Mounted up from high to higher, Till now, on Fortune's crowning slope, They stand, a lofty people's hope. The centre of a -eWorld's desire ! ' ■ ^rmsmmm smm^ CHAPTER V. IN THAT FIERCE LIGHT. O polished perturbation ! golden care ! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide, To many a watchful night ! ' — Shakespeare. ' What is a king? A man condemned to bear The public burthen of a nation's care.' — Prior. Q^ DTljT's one thing to go up, another to keep up ; (^ one thing to attain a position, another to maintain it. The rocket goes up — grandly, gloriously, and with a flourish and demonstra- tion that almost seem to extinguish the stars. But it comes down again — with a blackness and degradation that are in perfect contrast. And just ?o is it with some men. They are thrown to the front by a combination of circumstances, and all eyes are fixed upon them. But it is IN THA T FIERCE LIGHT. 59 onl}' to see them disappear — shamefully, ignominiously. That was not the case with these men, though. They were as great in prominence as in obscurity, in the sunshine as in the shade, on the lofty and responsible heights of power as in the quiet and secluded valleys beneath. They had so many and such sterling qualities — qualities of brain and of body, of mind and of heart — that they could scarcely be wzjplaced, and pro- minence and position only gave them scope and occasion. The term of Garfield's presidency was brief, only four months ; but quite long enough to attest his competency. One of the great curses of American political life, a curse which had clung to it for years, and deeply degraded it, was its Jobbery — its subordination of great public ends to objects of personal ambition. Men who were not conspicuous for their ability, but who were bold and unscrupulous, could often work their way into positions of prominence by rendering themselves useful and almost neces- sary to others. Garfield saw this, and deter- mined to aim a blow at it. His own election 6o HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. had been independent of such influences, and on the night of his return for the State Senate he could fearlessly declare, ' It has been the plan of my life to follow my convictions of right, at whatever personal cost. While not unmindful of the approbation of others, I have been anxious, above all things else, to secure the approbation of myself. I have to live with myself — eat, drink, lie down and sleep, and I shall eventually have to die with myself: if, therefore, I would have peace of mind, I must have the approval of my own conscience.' And was this the time to abandon the lofty plan, when it might be most influential for good ? Nay, nay ! That would have been to undo the work of a lifetime in one short hour. Garfield knew this. In selecting his Cabinet, therefore, he subordinated personal and party to great public ends, and called those men — and those men only — who, he believed, would serve the public good. This gave great dissatisfaction, especially to the place-hunters ; and one of these, Charles James Guiteau — a lawyer of French extraction practising in Chicago — was so moved by his IN THA T FIERCE LIGHT. 6i dissatisfaction as to vent it through the chambers of the revolver. He shot the brave man ; and God had another Martyr!— a martyr to con- science as opposed to convenience, to principle as opposed to mere policy ! V. . MA4,Amci^- TOMB OF GARFIELD. CHAPTER VI. WHICH FIERCER GROWS. ' A monarch's crown, Golden in show, is but a crown of thorns, Brings clangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights.' — Milton. ' Oh, unhappy state of kings ! ' ris well the robe of majesty is gay. Or who would put it on ? A crown ! what is it ? It is to bear the miseries of a people ! To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents. And sink beneath a load of splendid care ! To have your best success ascribed to fortune, And fortune's failures all ascribed to you ! ' — Hannah More. ^HE term of Lincoln's presidency was longer than that of Garfield, and so important that it may be said to mark an era — and a very important one too— not only in the history 62 WHICH FIERCER GROWS. 63 of the United States, but in the history of a subject race. For, long before his election, the South — slave-owning and slavery-loving — had had a pre- ponderating — not to say controlling — influence in the Legislature, and the Supreme Court had done little but register Southern decrees. Now, however, it seemed as though that influence were about to be checked. Not that Lincoln had given pledge, or even sign, that he would check it. On the contrary, he had declared before his election that, if elected, he should feel bound to recognise slavery where it existed, to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law where it was in force, and to abstain from officially interfering with that, as with any other acknow- ledged and important State institution. But these traffickers in flesh and blood were not satisfied with this. They had been accus- tomed to have their own way so long and to such an extent, that the bare idea of havine a man at the head of afiairs who did not sym- pathise with their ' darling institution,' enraged them ; and before his inauguration in spring they seceded— ^x\^n\y withdrew from the Union, 64 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. founding another Republic on the basis of slavery. Lincoln did all he could to conciliate them. He thought that secession might be the effect of a momentary irritation, which time and a little patient kindliness on his part would allay. He therefore announced that if South Carolina, which had headed the secession, did not obstruct the collection of port revenues, or break any other Federal law, she would not be out of the Union, and there would be no trouble. But South Carolina did obstruct the collection of port revenues ; and more than that — on April 1 2th, 1861, that memorable April 12th — she opened fire on Fort Sumter, one of the Federal forts, where the commandant had concentrated his troops. That was the gage of battle. Pre- ventible before, the bloody thing was inevitable now. And so it came to pass that ' with hatred in their breasts, and the weapons of murder in their hands, the two brothers stood face to face.' Into the details of that terrible four-years' fratricidal strife — a strife the like of which few nations have known, and none may ever wish to WHICH FIERCER GROWS. 65 know — I shall not enter here. They may be read in a dozen histories. What I want is to fix your attention on Lincoln — Lincoln who of all men had weight and responsibility therein. CHAPTER VII. BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. ' We come to know Best what men are in their worst jeopardies.' — Daniel. ' If thou canst plan a noble deed, And never flag till it succeed, Though in the strife thy heart should bleed ; Whatever obstacles control, Thine hour will come — go on, true soul ! Thou'It win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal.' — Mackay. ' Out from the land of bondage 'tis decreed our slaves shall go, And signs to us are offered, as before to old Pharaoh ; If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore, Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges art of gore, ' — Lowell. ^INCOLN entered upon that terrible strife with three great convictions : — (i) That it was his duty, as President, to inaijitain the Union ; m BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. 67 (2) That, if possible, he ought to maintain the Union without interfering ivith State rights ; but (3) That its maintenance was so important, that, if necessary, State rights must be made to give ivay before it. And are not these convictions right ? I am not a lawyer, nor even a politician ; but I trust I am not absolutely blind in matters of moral colouring, and it certainly seems to me that they are. Take the first — the duty of the President to maintain the Union. Who can doubt that ? He was not the President of South Carolina, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, or any separate seceding State. He was the President of the Union — the thirty-four States that had con- sented together, and collectively formed the great Republic ; and for him to have stood by and seen the Union disintegrated, by State after State withdrawing therefrom, would have been an act of treason in high places — base, perfidious, damning in the extreme ! Take the second — the duty of the President, if possible, to maintain tne Union without 68 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. interfering with State rights. That cannot be doubted, as against Lincoln. It was, if anything, LINCOLN IN A COUNCIL OF WAR. favourable to the slave-party. At any rate, it was in the direction of conciliation. BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. 69 Take the third — the duty of the President to maintain the Union, even if he had to interfere with State rights in so doing. That, it seems to me, cannot be doubted either. If the whole be greater than a part, if the Union be above the State, and if, as our Saviour teaches, the body is more than one of its members, then it is right, it must be right, \.o puncture an offending member — to interfere with its rights, even though it be its right to hold slaves, rather than that the whole body politic should be cast into the hell of disintegration. These were the convictions along the lines of which Lincoln projected his policy, and to which, throughout the whole of that four-years' terrible struggle, he faithfully adhered. He announced at the outset that his object was to save the Union. ' If there be those,' said he, ' who would not save the Union unless they can save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they can destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. I am President of the United States, and I conceive it to be my first duty not to ht faithless to my trust' 70 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. For three years he struggled to save the Union, zvithout interfering with State rights. This, we may well believe, was a hard task. He hated slavery with a perfect hatred — so perfect, that if his body had been gunpowder, he would willingly have bequeathed it to blow up the foul thing. Had he not read of the horrors of ' the middle passage,' as it was called — the passage from Africa to America ; where human beings, with souls in their bodies, were crowded together like so much cargo — crowded in a sitting posture, with their knees pressed close against their breasts — and crowded so closely that they could not stir, could scarcely breathe, and where many of them died of sheer suffocation ? Had he not read, too, of the outrages of slave- owners — how they frequently lopped off the ears, cut off the fingers, chopped off the toes, and burnt the initials of their names into the cheeks of their human property ; and how they acknowledged these outrages in the public prints, as a means of identification, when that human property had run away ? Had he not read, further, of the degradation of QP o H U < ►J H 71 BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. iz feeling 2iV[\ov\g the slave-owners — how they would frequently beget children of their female property that they might sell them into slavery ; and how they would continue to do this, when the poor pretext of human passion had died down within them, and there was no other motive for it than the ' despicable love of gain ? ' And had he not read once again of the shield and enconragevient which the laiv gave to these ruffians, whilst it afforded next to no protection to the slave ? Did he not know that, in many of the States, the law expressly protected the master in the use of the cow-hide and the whip ; that in the State of South Carolina it pro- vided that any one might kill an escaped slave who refused to surrender, without any accusation or impeachment of crime ; and that in every State it warranted a justice of the peace in arresting a coloured man whom he met in the streets, laying him in irons, putting him in prison and advertising him ; and although the man might have earned his freedom by some signal act of devotion, if no one claimed him, in a given time it warranted the dignitary in selling him to defray the expenses of his arrest ? 74 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. And did he not know that the law which dealt thus liberally with the master, denied ejitirely the rights of the slave, especially his right to hold property ? Had he not read of the famous Mississippi case, in which a planter, out of pure gratitude, married a negress who had nursed him through a long and virulent disease, had a large family by her, and upon his death bequeathed his estates to her and her children ; but in which the law came in and said, ' This will is a fraud upon slavery — coloured people cannot hold property ; on the contrary, they themselves are property;' and in which it decreed that the estates must pass to the deceased man's brother, while the wife and children must pass into slavery? Lincoln knew all these things — knew them too well ; and the measure of his knowledge of these things was the measure of his difficulty in holding hands off slavery. Moreover, the conduct of the slave-party was aggravating in the extreme. A leading Southern newspaper spoke of ' that abominable and hellish doctrine of Abolition, repugnant alike to God and reason ; ' while a writer in the same paper BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. 75 demanded, ' Shall Abe Lincoln, the Abolitionist, be permitted to set foot on Southern soil ? ' replying, ' Never ! I, as one of thirty thousand, will volunteer to butcher the villain.' A member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina warned all Abolitionists that, if ever chance should throw them into their way, they would receive a felon's death. Vigilance com- mittee's were established all over the South, and rewards were publicly offered for the heads of known or suspected Abolitionists ; while the government of South Carolina recommended the summary execution, without even the benefit of a clergyman, of all holding anti- slavery views. And these were not empty threats. Tarring, feathering, arresting, imprisoning, flogging, maiming, and even worse outrages, were common. The Rev. James Lovejoy, an Abolitionist of Alton, Illinois, was shot dead in his office ; seven Abolitionists were hanged in one day at Talla- hatchie, Mississippi ; and it was declared that if Dr. Channing — the great champion of the rights of man as man — were to enter South Carolina, even though he did it with a body- 76 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. guard of twenty thousand, he would never come out aHve. Still, notwithstanding his hatred of slavery, and the provocations of the slave-party, Lincoln was so anxious not to give the latter the slightest pretext for secession, that for three years he struggled to restrain himself in regard to the former. Towards the end of that time, however, it became fully apparent that he ought to restrain himself no longer. Blow after blow, stroke after stroke, had descended on the guilty land ; and each one, as it fell, seemed, like one of the plagues of Egypt, to say, 'Let my people go.' Big Bethel said, * Let my people go.' Bull Run said, ' Let my people go.' Gettysburg said, ' Let my people go.' And all, taken together, made a chorus of demand louder, and more imperative, than the multiplied plagues of Egypt, ' Let my people go ! ' The South, in its heads and representatives — Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens — ■ said, ' You daren't let them go; you shan't let them go. The negro is not the equal of the white man. Slavery, subjugation to the superior LINCOLN AND HIS SON READING THE BIBLE. 77 BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. 79 race, is his natural and normal condition. And on this obvious physical and moral truth we take our stand, and defy you to let them go.' 'The Toryism, official Whiggism, and half- hearted Liberalism of England,' represented by that powerful but occasionally crusty curmud- geon, Thomas Carlyle, said, ' You oughtn't to let them go ; you mustn't let them go ; it would be iinrigJiteous to let them go ; ' and straightway unfolded its parable thus : Peter and Paul met together one day — Peter repre- senting the North, Paul representing the South. Peter. Paul, you unaccountable scoundrel, I find that you hire your servants for life, and not by the month as I do ; you are going straight to hell. Paid. Never mind, Peter ! That's my look- out. You hire your servants by the month or year, as may suit you best, and get away to heaven ; but leave me to my own method. Peter. No, I won't; V\\ beat your brains out! ' And,' added Carlyle, ' has been trying dread- 8o HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. fully ever since, but has not yet been able to manage it,' — one of the most complete cases of begging the question and blinding the eyes with dust that I ever read. Did Carlyle forget, when he wrote that parable, that the negro had never been hired at all ; but that he had been stolen — basely stolen, nefariously stolen, sinfully stolen from his African home; and that for two hundred and fifty years the primal rights of manhood — the right to dispose of himself and his property as he saw fit — had been denied him ? Did he forget, too, that to insult had been added injury, in beating, branding, cutting, wounding, lashing, lacerating, and a multitude of cruelties, such as break the spirits of those who are subject to them ? And did he forget once again that the North did not begin the war, but the South ; and that the North had been driven into it in sheer defence of the Union ? How, there- fore, could he speak of Peter beating Paul's brains out, because of a different system of hire f But whilst slave-owners in America and slavery - sympathisers in England sought to embarrass the action of Lincoln by their time- BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. 8i serving and mercenary counsels, there were not wanting those, on both sides the Atlantic, who cheered hhn on in the path of emancipation. 'Take me where I can see the battle,' said a wounded soldier at the siege of Quebec ; ' if I cannot fight, I can cheer those who are fighting.' ' Cheer him, cheer him ! ' said a man in a crowd round a burning house, when he saw one of the firemen trying to rescue a child, but somewhat daunted by the flames ; and a lofty ringing cheer went up which so enheartened the man that he made another attempt, and suc- ceeded. And so Lincoln was enheartened in his lofty but difficult emprise. Among Americans who cheered him on we find Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, James Russell Lowell, Wendell Phillips ; and last, but not least, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose work — Uncle Tom's Cabin — 'the most successful and epoch-making romance ever written' — exercised such a powerful influence on both sides of the Atlantic. And among Englishmen we find a vast body of working men — thousands of whom, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire, 6 82 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. suffered severely, almost excruciatingly, but bravely — headed by Richard Cobden and John Bright. These all took up the Bible refrain, and cried, ' Let My people go,' and again, ' Let My people go,' and again, like the replication of thunder in the mountains, 'Let My People go!' And Lincoln did let them go. By successive Acts of Congress, culminating in the Act of February ist, 1865, and as a military expedient intended to crush a condition of armed rebellion, he Knocked the Fetters from off Four Million Slaves, and sent them forth free men ! Shortly after God smiled upon the Northern arms ; the tide of battle turned ; Richmond was evacuated ; and the rebellion crushed. Abraham Lincoln secured his object. He ' shot the rapids ' of that stormy political period without sinking the ship of State. In order to do this, however, he had to take God on board — God Who had plans and purposes respecting a BUT EVER SHOWS THE MAN. 83 subject race. Man proposed, but God disposed. In and through all there was a divine purpose running — lofty, humane, glorious ! ' Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea ! Jehovah hath triumphed ! His people are free ! ' CONCLUSION. 'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on.' ^Jubilee Melody. ' Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.' — Longfellow, ' The heroic example of other days is in great part the source of the courage of each generation ; and men walk up com- posedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the brave that were.' — Helps. 'Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good and evil side ; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right. And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light.' — Lowell. 84 CONCLUSION. 8s "Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden them to sin.' — Lowell. n Tj^T ONEST Abe and Brother Jim are dead. <^}^^ But the cause of Humanity — that cause for which they Hved and laid down their lives — lives, and lives, I believe, in a loftier, grander, more hopeful condition because of their self-sacrificing toil. And now what I want is, that you young people should take hold of that cause. In its loftiest and best form, it is the cause of GOD. There is a story told of Abou Ben Adhem — how that one night, when pray- ing, an angel appeared to him, writing in a book. ' What is it you write? ' said Abou. ' The names of those who love God.' ' And is mine among them ? ' ' Nay.' Whereupon Abou bowed his head and wept. Presently, recovering himself, he raised his head saying, ' If I be not among those who love God, please write me down as one %vho loves his 86 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. fellow-vien! The angel did this and departed. Next night it reappeared, ' And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd ; And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.' Yes ! the cause of Humanity is the cause of God, and ' He's true to God who's true to man— wherever wrong is done, To the humblest and the weakest 'neath the all-beholding sun.' Take up that cause, young men, and make it your own. The task may be difficult. You may be poor and have your bread to win, or obscure and have your position to make. But the struggle for these, if rightly conducted, will fit you for higher struggles and nobler ends. Comparative poverty is wholesome. 'It is tzvice bless'd ' — blessing him who is the subject of it, and those whom he may influence. There is a story current of two children of two houses, each of whom wished to be at the top of a flight of stairs. The father of the first took the little thing in his strong arms, and without the slightest difficulty bore it thither. The other CONCLUSION. 87 father was wiser. He suffered his child to cHmb. Slowly, patiently, step by step, did the boy toil up the stairs. Every now and again he slipped and had a little fall ; but the father stood by, and took care that he did not fall too far or hurt him- self too much ; and by and by he reached the top. "What was the result .'' The child who had been carried to the top knew nothing of the difficulty of getting there ; he did not appreciate his position, and he very speedily came neck- break down ; whereas the child who had toiled there knew that every step had cost him a struggle and a fear : he did appreciate his position, and he 7iever lost it. That is a story, but it has been enacted in real life many a time. Some fathers have toiled and sweat, and almost died, to achieve position for their children. The children, knowing little of the difficulty, have not appreciated the position, and have either lost it or been ruined by it. It's a perilous thing for a boy to have the impression that his father is very rich, that nothing depends upon his own exertions, but that he may give himself up to unlimited enjoyment. Work, hard work — the sweat of the brain or the sweat of the 88 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. brow — may be a means of grace to you young men. And it may bless others through you. ^The moral qualities of thoroughness, manli- ness, integrity, and righteousness — qualities which LINCOLN CHOPPING WOOD. stood the great Republic in such good stead at the time of the rebellion — were tested and strengthened in our heroes by the scenes and associations of their manual toil. As a lad, Lincoln did a great deal of tree - felling, rail- CONCLUSION. 89 splitting, and wood-cutting generally ; and with reference to this it has been facetiously remarked, that his knowledge of the different grains in the wood enabled him to polish the ebony case of the negroes bcautifnlly. There is more than a play upon words in that ; there is a solid substratum of truth. And yonr effort to win bread and secure a position may be so conducted as to develop character — character which may fit j'ou for higher service and extensive usefulness ! There are no slaves in England — of the American type. There are slaves, though : men who are tied and bound by the greed of their fellows, and others who are in bondage to their baser selves. Slavery to the greed of others is seen in connection with the three great U s — land, labour, liquor. Man came from the land, lives on the land, and in the end goes to the land. He would therefore seem to have a natural and indefeasible right in it. And yet in England — a country of a population of over twenty million souls — more than half the land is in the hands of less than a thousand people ; and limitations and restrictions are imposed upon its transfer — 90 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. not natural, but artificial— which make that transfer exceedingly difficult. Labour, too, is necessary to enable us to ap- propriate the productions of the soil— to plough the field and scatter the good seed on the land, and to disinter the mineral wealth of the earth. Till recently, however, it received but scant recognition of its service. A better day has dawned ; but further improvement would be an advantage. Perhaps we ought not seriously to interfere with the great natural law of demand and supply. But when avarice steps in and tries to wrest the law— takes advantage of the necessities of the poor to ' grind their faces,' and coin gold out of their very life - blood — there ought to be a public opinion sufficiently enlightened and strong to cry. Halt ! If you cannot give a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, you are either incompetent or mean ; in which case you are unfit to be an employer of labour in this last decade of the nineteenth Christian century. The liquor question likewise needs looking to. Man has not only a right in the soil and a claim to its products, he has an interest in the CONCLUSION. 91 State and a claim on its protection. When the State, though, instead of prohibiting the traffic in folly and wickedness, practically encourages it — arms the men who engage in it with the authority of law — in lieu of protecting, it persecutes its children. The presence of so many licensed houses in our midst is a simple infliction. The State has no more right — natural or moral — to authorise public-houses and dancing-saloons, with their manifest en- couragements to wine and lust, than it has to bring a desolating army over the land. These monopolies and iniquities, which enrich the few at the expense and by the deep de- gradation of the many, must all be dealt with — effectually dealt with — ere it can be said ' There are no slaves in England ; ' and when the time for dealing with them comes, you young men must be ready, — yea, you must Jielp to bring abont the time ! Don't be deterred by a false notion o'i allegiance. 'Are you pledged to craven silence? Oh, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars you from the least of human-kind — 92 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. That makes you cringe and temporise, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast ! Though you break your father's promise, you have nobler duties first ; The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed ; Man is more than Constitutions ; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while you are doubly false to God. You owe allegiance to the State ; but deeper, truer, more To the sympathies that God hath set within your spirit's core ; — Your country claims your fealty ; I grant it so, but then Before Man made you citizens, great Nature made you Men.' Still ' the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the SoUL ; ' and, ere slavery cease from beneath the British flag, men must be freed as well from the baseness of themselves as from the greed of their fellows. This base- ness takes various forms — love of the wine-cup, of the pleasures of sense, of the lusts of the flesh, and of sinful indulgence generally. But what- ever its form, it is characterised by one thing, viz. subordination of the lozver to the higher, the better to the worse. CONCLUSION. 93 ' It tumbles nature heel o'er head, and yelling with the yelling street, Sets the feet above the brain, and swears the brain is in the feet.' It is abnormal, unnatural, monstrous. Fight it! That you may do this effectually, however, you must first be free yourselves. The cry for American freedom came not from the ' blacks ' but the • whites.' The blacks — poor creatures! — bowed by centuries of oppression, had ceased to cry. They were enslaved mentally as well as bodily ; and, left to themselves, they would have been in bondage to-day. It was ' the mean whites ' as they were called by a mis- judging selfishness — men who knew the joy of liberty — who raised the cry, rent the air with it, repeated and re-repeated it, and who, when occasion was ripe, struck for and secured the great boon. And if yoii would free your fellows )'ou must taste the sweets of liberty. This ' joy of the Lord' will be your ' streiigtJi' Come to Jesus, then! — to Him who is the TRUTH as well as the Way and the Life, and whose ' Truth shall make yow free! Then throw yourselves into the great struggle. 94 HONEST ABE AND BROTHER JIM. In the evening of the day on which the Ordinance of Secession was passed at South Carolina, ' a number of young men went to the churchyard, formed a circle round the grave of Mr. Calhoun — the great advocate of Southern privilege — and vowed to devote their lives, fortune, and honour to the independence of South Carolina' — really to the continued en- slavement of the ' blacks! Yours is nobler work — to emancipate and not enslave. With like determination, around the cross of Him who came ' to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,' give yourselves to this work. The struggle may be arduous. The forces arrayed against you — drink, lust, gambling, greed, and that close-clinging carnality that 'is enmity against God ' — are undoubtedly formidable. But they that be with you are more than they that be with them. Forward, then ! ' Onward, while a wrong remains To be conquered by the right — While oppression lifts a finger To affront us by his might — While an error clouds the reason, Or a sorrow gnaws the heart, Or a slave awaits his freedom — Action is the wise man's part.' CONCLUSION. 95 Thus shall you help to bring about the time — long prayed for and devoutly to be desired — when not in England alone, but everywhere ; not in a merely physical, but in a transcendently higher sense, the sons of men shall stand up /// Christ redeemed, regenerated, and Disenthralled ! FlNlS.l^ MOKKISON AND GIUB, I'RINTEUS, liDINCUKGII. JOY OF HER HOME SERIES. Small ci-o-wn Zvo, Illustrated, cloth, gilt lettered, price gd. each. Honest Abe and Brother Jim: The two Martyred Presidents of the United States. By Rev. Joshua Haigh. Miss Dornwell's Domestic. By Sara Moorland. Tom o' Jack's Lad. A Lancashire Story of the Days of John Wesley. The Joy of Her Home. By L. ]. TOMLINSOX. A-Fa : The Story of a Slave Girl in China. Only a Ball. By Jennie Perrett. Little Jim, a Young Christian Hero. By Rev. John Clegg. Leaves from a Mission House in India. Joe Webster's Mistake. Sketches from My Schoolroom. The Story of an Apprenticeship. Broken. l!y Einan. Open Flowers, and Other Stories. By Mrs. Havcraft. Uncle Ray's Choice, and Other Stories. By Jennie Chappell. Village Chimes, and Other Stories. Short Sermons for Little People. By Rev. T. Champness. Mona Bell; or, Faithful over a Few Things. Down and Up, and Other Stories. By Oliver Pacis. Clerk or Carpenter? A Story for Boys. By Harriett Boultwood. By R. F. By R. F. By R. F. Next Door Neighbours. Hardy. Annals of Fairfield. Hardy. Two Little Wanderers. Hardy. Children of the Bible. Old Testa- ment. By R. F. Hardy. Pictures of Early Methodists for theVoung. By Ellen E. Gregory. Mary Ashton: A True Story of Eighty Years Ago. Margaret AUerton. By A. M. Work.man. The Boys of Northcote. Dick's Troubles. By Ruth Elliott. John's Teachers. By Lillie ]\Iont- fort. Ragged Jim's Last Song, and Other Ballads. Nora Grayson's Dream. Dots and Gwinnie. Johnnie's Work, and How He did It. Little Sally. By MinaE. Goulding. Minnie Neilson's Summer Holi- days. Pages from a Little Girl's Life. Rosa's Christmas Invitations. By Lillie Montfort. The Wonderful Lamp, and Other Stories. By Ruth Elliott. The Wreck of the 'Maria' Mail Boat. London: CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, Castle St., City Road, E.G. And 66, Paternoster Row, E.C. riiii* v^ <^ v^: ■X^ :.^X